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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11715 ***
+
+The Eyes of the World
+
+By Harold Bell Wright
+
+Author of "That Printer of Udells," "The Shepherd of the Hills,"
+"The Calling of Dan Matthews," "The Winning of Barbara Worth,"
+"Their Yesterdays," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+To Benjamin H. Pearson
+
+Student, Artist, Gentleman
+
+in appreciation of the friendship that began on the "Pipe-Line Trail," at
+the camp in the sycamores back of the old orchard, and among the higher
+peaks of the San Bernardinos; and because this story will always mean more
+to him than to any one else,--this book, with all good wishes, is
+
+Dedicated.
+
+H. B. W.
+
+"Tecolote Rancho,"
+April 13, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+                  "I have learned
+    To look on Nature not as in the hour
+    Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
+    The sad, still music of humanity,
+    Not harsh or grating, though of ample power
+    To chasten and subdue. And I have felt,
+    A presence that disturbs me with the joy
+    Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
+    Of something far more deeply interfused,
+    Whose dwelling is in the lights of setting suns,
+    And the round ocean and the living air,
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
+    A motion and a spirit that impels
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,
+    And rolls through all things.
+
+            Therefore am I still
+    A lover of the meadows and the woods
+    And mountains.........
+    ....... And this prayer I make,
+    Knowing that Nature never did betray
+    The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege
+    Through all the years of this one life, to lead
+    From joy to joy; for she can so inform
+    The mind that is within us--so impress
+    With quietness and beauty, and so feed
+    With lofty thoughts--that neither evil tongues,
+    Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
+    Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
+    The dreary intercourse of daily life,
+    Shalt e'er prevail against us, or disturb
+    Our cheerful faith."
+
+    William Wordsworth.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+      I. His Inheritance
+     II. The Woman With the Disfigured Face
+    III. The Famous Conrad Lagrange
+     IV. At the House on Fairlands Heights
+      V. The Mystery of the Rose Garden
+     VI. An Unknown Friend
+    VII. Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray
+   VIII. The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
+     IX. Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
+      X. A Cry in the Night
+     XI. Go Look in Your Mirror, You Fool
+    XII. First Fruits of His Shame
+   XIII. Myra Willard's Challenge
+    XIV. In the Mountains
+     XV. The Forest Ranger's Story
+    XVI. When the Canyon Gates Are Shut
+   XVII. Confessions in the Spring Glade
+  XVIII. Sibyl Andrés and the Butterflies
+    XIX. The Three Gifts and their Meanings
+     XX. Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning
+    XXI. The Last Climb
+   XXII. Shadows of Coming Events
+  XXIII. Outside the Canyon Gates Again
+   XXIV. James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake
+    XXV. On the Pipe-Line Trail
+   XXVI. I Want You Just as You Are
+  XXVII. The Answer
+ XXVIII. You're Ruined, My Boy
+   XXIX. The Hand Writing On The Wall
+    XXX. In the Same Hour
+   XXXI. As the World Sees
+  XXXII. The Mysterious Disappearance
+ XXXIII. Beginning the Search
+  XXXIV. The Tracks on Granite Peak
+   XXXV. A Hard Way
+  XXXVI. What Should He Do
+ XXXVII. The Man Was Insane
+XXXVIII. An Inevitable Conflict
+  XXXIX. The Better Way
+     XL. Facing the Truth
+    XLI. Marks of the Beast
+   XLII. Aaron King's Success
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations from Oil Paintings
+
+By
+
+F. Graham Cootes
+
+
+Sibyl
+
+A curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation
+
+"Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"
+
+Still she did not speak
+
+
+
+
+The Eyes of the World
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+His Inheritance
+
+
+
+It was winter--cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds and
+stinging wind.
+
+The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culture
+which has given to the history of our nation--to education, to religion,
+to the sciences, and to the arts--so many illustrious names.
+
+In the changing years, before the beginning of my story, the woman's
+immediate friends and associates had moved from the neighborhood to the
+newer and more fashionable districts of a younger generation. In that city
+of her father's there were few of her old companions left. There were
+fewer who remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and
+letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her
+home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to
+their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times,
+had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a
+passing day, had been hostess and friend.
+
+The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. Ruthlessly it had been
+stripped of its treasures of art and its proud luxuries. But, even in its
+naked necessities the room managed, still, to evidence the rare
+intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying tenant.
+
+The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, was marked by the
+death-gray. The eyes, deep in their hollows between the fleshless forehead
+and the prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were livid; the nose
+was sharp and pinched; the colorless cheeks were sunken; but the outlines
+were still delicately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. It was,
+still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen lips, only, was there a
+sign of life; and they trembled and fluttered in their effort to utter the
+words that an indomitable spirit gave them to speak.
+
+"To-day--to-day--he will--come." The voice was a thin, broken whisper; but
+colored, still, with pride and gladness.
+
+A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse turned quickly from the
+window. With soft, professional step, she crossed the room to bend over
+the bed. Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she spoke slowly,
+distinctly, with careful clearness; and, under the cool professionalism of
+her words, there was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam?"
+
+The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight through the suddenly opened
+doors of a sepulchre, the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes,
+clear and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a powerful
+personality. In their shadowy depths, she saw the last glowing embers of
+the vital fire gathered; carefully nursed and tended; kept alive by a will
+that was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a definite purpose.
+Dying, this woman _would_ not die--_could_ not die--until the end for
+which she willed to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of
+Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand--without life, she was
+holding Death at bay.
+
+It was magnificent, and the gentle face under the nurse's cap shone with
+appreciation and admiration as she smiled her sympathy and understanding.
+
+"My son--my son--will come--to-day." The voice was stronger, and, with the
+eyes, expressed a conviction--a certainty--with the faintest shadow of a
+question.
+
+The nurse looked at her watch. "The boat was due in New York, early this
+morning, madam."
+
+A step sounded in the hall outside. The nurse started, and turned quickly
+toward the door. But the woman said, "The doctor." And, again, the fire
+that burned in those sunken eyes was hidden wearily under their dark lids.
+
+The white-haired physician and the nurse, at the farther end of the room,
+spoke together in low tones. Said the physician,--incredulous,--"You say
+there is no change?"
+
+"None that I can detect," breathed the nurse. "It is wonderful!"
+
+"Her mind is clear?"
+
+"As though she were in perfect health."
+
+The doctor took the nurse's chart. For a moment, he studied it in silence.
+He gave it back with a gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered,
+"she should be in her grave by now! It's a miracle! But she has always
+been like that--" he continued, half to himself, looking with troubled
+admiration toward the bed at the other end of the room--"always."
+
+He went slowly forward to the chair that the nurse placed for him. Seating
+himself quietly beside his patient, and bending forward with intense
+interest, his fine old head bowed, he regarded with more than professional
+care the wasted face upon the pillow.
+
+The doctor remembered, too well, when those finely moulded features--now,
+so worn by sorrow, so marked by sickness, so ghastly in the hue of
+death--were rounded with young-woman health and tinted with rare
+loveliness. He recalled that day when he saw her a bride. He remembered
+the sweet, proud dignity of her young wifehood. He saw her, again, when
+her face shone with the glad triumph and the holy joy of motherhood.
+
+The old physician turned from his patient, to look with sorrowful eyes
+about the room that was to witness the end.
+
+Why was such a woman dying like this? Why was a life of such rich mental
+and spiritual endowments--of such wealth of true culture--coming to its
+close in such material poverty?
+
+The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was one of the few who
+understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.
+
+There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
+that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts to
+which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor knew that
+there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the world of
+books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to care for her. All
+that a human being could do for her, in those days of her life's tragedy,
+that one had done. Then--because he understood--he had gone away. Her own
+son did not know--could not, in his young manhood, have understood, if he
+had known--would not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would
+understand--perhaps.
+
+When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
+fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.
+
+At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
+gratitude.
+
+"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.
+
+The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her eyes came the gleam of
+that old time challenging spirit. "Well--Doctor George," she answered.
+Then,--"I--told you--I would not--go--until he came. I must--have my
+way--still--you see. He will--come--to-day He must come."
+
+"Yes, Mary," returned the doctor,--his fingers still on the thin wrist,
+and his eyes studying her face with professional keenness,--"yes, of
+course."
+
+"And George--you will not forget--your promise? You will--give me a few
+minutes--of strength--when he comes--so that I can tell him? I--I--must
+tell him myself--George. You--will do--this last thing--for me?"
+
+"Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. "Everything shall be as you
+wish--as I promised."
+
+"Thank you--George. Thank you--my dear--dear--old friend."
+
+The nurse--who had been standing at the window--stepped quickly to the
+table that held a few bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor looked
+at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she opened a small, flat,
+leather case. With his fingers still on his patient's wrist, the physician
+spoke a word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse placed a
+hypodermic needle in his hand.
+
+As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his assistant, a quick step
+sounded in the hall outside.
+
+The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes were fixed upon the door; her
+voice--stronger, now, with the strength of the powerful stimulant--rang
+out; "My boy--my boy--he is here! George, nurse, my boy is here!"
+
+The door opened. A young man of perhaps twenty-two years stood on the
+threshold.
+
+The most casual observer would have seen that he was a son of the dying
+woman. In the full flush of his young manhood's vigor, there was the same
+modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely turned nostrils, the same
+dark eyes under a breadth of forehead; while the determined chin and the
+well-squared jaw, together with a rather remarkable fineness of line,
+told of an inherited mental and spiritual strength and grace as charming
+as it is, in these days, rare. His dress was that of a gentleman of
+culture and social position. His very bearing evidenced that he had never
+been without means to gratify the legitimate tastes of a cultivated and
+refined intelligence.
+
+As he paused an instant in the open door to glance about that poverty
+stricken room, a look of bewildering amazement swept over his handsome
+face. He started to draw back--as if he had unintentionally entered the
+wrong apartment. Looking at the doctor, his lips parted as if to apologize
+for his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes met the eyes of the
+woman on the bed.
+
+With a cry of horror, he sprang forward;--"Mother! Mother!"
+
+As he knelt there by the bed, when the first moments of their meeting were
+past, he turned his face toward the doctor. From the physician his gaze
+went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's old friend. His eyes
+were burning with shame and sorrow--with pain and doubt and accusation.
+His low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded, "What does this
+mean? Why is my mother here like--like this?"--his eyes swept the bare
+room again.
+
+The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my boy. It is to tell you, that
+I have waited."
+
+At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly followed the physician from
+the room.
+
+It was not long. When she had finished, the false strength that had kept
+the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived to be
+her last duty, failed quickly.
+
+"You will--promise--you will?"
+
+"Yes, mother, yes."
+
+"Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I
+can--give you, my son."
+
+"O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before? Why did I not know!"
+The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and sorrow.
+
+She smiled. "It--was--all that I could do--for you--my son--the only
+way--I could--help. I do not--regret the cost. You will--not forget?"
+
+"Never, mother, never."
+
+"You promise--to--to regain that--which--your father--"
+
+Solemnly the answer came,--in an agony of devotion and love,--"I
+promise--yes, mother, I promise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and
+steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.
+
+He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed. He had
+set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his
+promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.
+
+How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry
+out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last
+to understand, is the story that I have to tell.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Woman with the Disfigured Face
+
+
+
+The Golden State Limited, with two laboring engines, was climbing the
+desert side of San Gorgonio Pass.
+
+Now San Gorgonio Pass--as all men should know--is one of the two eastern
+gateways to the beautiful heart of Southern California. It is, therefore,
+the gateway to the scenes of my story.
+
+As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren slope of the mountain, in
+its effort to lessen the heavy grade, the young man on the platform of the
+observation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, sun-filled
+haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, over the vast reaches of
+the Colorado Desert. Now and then, as the Express swung around the curves,
+he gained a view of the lonely, snow-piled peaks of the San Bernardinos;
+with old San Gorgonio, lifting above the pine-fringed ridges of the lower
+Galenas, shining, silvery white, against the blue. Again, on the southern
+side of the pass, he saw San Jacinto's crags and cliffs rising almost
+sheer from the right-of-way.
+
+But the man watching the ever-changing panorama of gorgeously colored and
+fantastically unreal landscape was not thinking of the scenes that, to
+him, were new and strange. His thoughts were far away. Among those
+mountains grouped about San Gorgonio, the real value of the inheritance he
+had received from his mother was to be tested. On the pine-fringed ridge
+of the Galenas, among those granite cliffs and jagged peaks, the mettle of
+his manhood was to be tried under a strain such as few men in this
+commonplace work-a-day old world are-subjected to. But the young man did
+not know this.
+
+On the long journey across the continent, he had paid little heed to the
+sights that so interested his fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers,
+themselves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had approached him
+casually, as the sometimes tedious hours passed, he had been quietly and
+courteously unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked
+disinclination to mingle with them, together with the undeniably
+distinguished appearance of the young man, only served to center the
+interest of the little world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him.
+Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own thoughts, he became the
+object of many idle conjectures.
+
+Among the passengers whose curious eyes were so often turned in his
+direction, there was one whose interest was always carefully veiled. She
+was a woman of evident rank and distinction in that world where rank and
+distinction are determined wholly by dollars and by such social position
+as dollars can buy. She was beautiful; but with that carefully studied,
+wholly self-conscious--one is tempted to say professional--beauty of her
+kind. Her full rounded, splendidly developed body was gowned to
+accentuate the alluring curves of her sex. With such skill was this
+deliberate appeal to the physical hidden under a cloak of a pretending
+modesty that its charm was the more effectively revealed. Her features
+were almost too perfect. She was too coldly sure of herself--too perfectly
+trained in the art of self-repression. For a woman as young as she
+evidently was, she seemed to know too much. The careful indifference of
+her countenance seemed to say, "I am too well schooled in life to make
+mistakes." She was traveling with two companions--a fluffy, fluttering,
+characterless shadow of womanhood, and a man--an invalid who seldom left
+the privacy of the drawing-room which he occupied.
+
+As the train neared the summit of the pass, the young man on the
+observation car platform looked at his watch. A few miles more and he
+would arrive at his destination. Rising to his feet, he drew a deep breath
+of the glorious, sun-filled air. With his back to the door, and looking
+away into the distance, he did not notice the woman who, stepping from the
+car at that moment, stood directly behind him, steadying herself by the
+brass railing in front of the window. To their idly observing fellow
+passengers, the woman, too, appeared interested in the distant landscape.
+She might have been looking at the only other occupant of the platform.
+The passengers, from where they sat, could not have told.
+
+As he stood there,--against the background of the primitive, many-colored
+landscape,--the young man might easily have attracted the attention of
+any one. He would have attracted attention in a crowd. Tall, with an
+athletic trimness of limb, a good breadth of shoulder, and a fine head
+poised with that natural, unconscious pride of the well-bred--he kept his
+feet on the unsteady platform of the car with that easy grace which marks
+only well-conditioned muscles, and is rarely seen save in those whose
+lives are sanely clean.
+
+The Express had entered the yards at the summit station, and was gradually
+lessening its speed. Just as the man turned to enter the car, the train
+came to a full stop, and the sudden jar threw him almost into the arms of
+the woman. For an instant, while he was struggling to regain his balance,
+he was so close to her that their garments touched. Indeed, he only
+prevented an actual collision by throwing his arm across her shoulder and
+catching the side of the car window against which she was leaning.
+
+In that moment, while his face was so close to hers that she might have
+felt his breath upon her cheek and he was involuntarily looking straight
+into her eyes, the man felt, queerly, that the woman was not shrinking
+from him. In fact, one less occupied with other thoughts might have
+construed her bold, open look, her slightly parted lips and flushed
+cheeks, as a welcome--quite as though she were in the habit of having
+handsome young men throw themselves into her arms.
+
+Then, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, he was saying, conventionally,
+"I beg your pardon. It was very stupid of me."
+
+As he spoke, a mask of cold indifference slipped over her face. Without
+deigning to notice his courteous apology, she looked away, and, moving to
+the railing of the platform, became ostensibly interested in the busy
+activity of the railroad yards.
+
+Had the woman--in that instant when his arm was over her shoulder and his
+eyes were looking into hers--smiled, the incident would have slipped
+quickly from his mind. As it was, the flash-like impression of the moment
+remained, and--
+
+Down the steep grade of the narrow San Timateo Canyon, on the coast side
+of the mountain pass, the Overland thundered on the last stretch of its
+long race to the western edge of the continent. And now, from the car
+windows, the passengers caught tantalizing glimpses of bright pastures
+with their herds of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch
+buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and eucalyptus trees. On the
+rounded shoulders and steep flanks of the foothills that form the sides of
+the canyon, the barley fields looked down upon the meadows; and, now and
+then, in the whirling landscape winding side canyons--beautiful with
+live-oak and laurel, with greasewood and sage--led the eye away toward the
+pine-fringed ridges of the Galenas while above, the higher snow-clad peaks
+and domes of the San Bernardinos still shone coldly against the blue.
+
+In the Pullman, there was a stir of awakening interest The travel-wearied
+passengers, laying aside books and magazines and cards, renewed
+conversations that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert part of
+the journey, had lagged painfully. Throughout the train, there was an air
+of eager expectancy; a bustling movement of preparation. The woman of the
+observation car platform had disappeared into her stateroom. The young man
+gathered his things together in readiness to leave the train at the next
+stop.
+
+In the flying pictures framed by the windows, the dairy pastures and
+meadows were being replaced by small vineyards and orchards; the canyon
+wall, on the northern side, became higher and steeper, shutting out the
+mountains in the distance and showing only a fringe of trees on the sharp
+rim; while against the gray and yellow and brown and green of the
+chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the silvery softness of the
+olive trees that border the arroyo at their feet.
+
+With a long, triumphant shriek, the flying overland train--from the lands
+of ice and snow--from barren deserts and lonely mountains--rushed from the
+narrow mouth of the canyon, and swept out into the beautiful San
+Bernardino Valley where the travelers were greeted by wide, green miles of
+orange and lemon and walnut and olive groves--by many acres of gardens and
+vineyards and orchards. Amid these groves and gardens, the towns and
+cities are set; their streets and buildings half hidden in wildernesses of
+eucalyptus and peppers and palms; while--towering above the loveliness of
+the valley and visible now from the sweeping lines of their foothills to
+the gleaming white of their lonely peaks--rises, in blue-veiled,
+cloud-flecked steeps and purple shaded canyons, the beauty and grandeur of
+the mountains.
+
+It was January. To those who had so recently left the winter lands, the
+Southern California scene--so richly colored with its many shades of
+living green, so warm in its golden sunlight--seemed a dream of fairyland.
+It was as though that break in the mountain wall had ushered them suddenly
+into another world--a world, strange, indeed, to eyes accustomed to snow
+and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds.
+
+Among the many little cities half concealed in the luxurious,
+semi-tropical verdure of the wide valley at the foot of the mountains,
+Fairlands--if you ask a citizen of that well-known mecca of the
+tourist--is easily the Queen. As for that! all our Southern California
+cities are set in wildernesses of beauty; all are in wide valleys; all are
+at the foot of the mountains; all are meccas for tourists; each one--if
+you ask a citizen--is the Queen. If you, perchance should question this
+fact--write for our advertising literature.
+
+Passengers on the Golden State Limited--as perhaps you know--do not go
+direct to Fairlands. They change at Fairlands Junction. The little city,
+itself, is set in the lap of the hills that form the southern side of the
+valley, some three miles from the main line. It is as though this
+particular "Queen" withdrew from the great highway traveled by the vulgar
+herd--in the proud aloofness of her superior clay, sufficient unto
+herself. The soil out of which Fairlands is made is much richer, it is
+said, than the common dirt of her sister cities less than fifteen miles
+distant. A difference of only a few feet in elevation seems, strangely, to
+give her a much more rarefied air. Her proudest boast is that she has a
+larger number of millionaires in proportion to her population than any
+other city in the land.
+
+It was these peculiar and well-known advantages of Fairlands that led the
+young man of my story to select it as the starting point of his worthy
+ambition. And Fairlands is a good place for one so richly endowed with an
+inheritance that cannot be expressed in dollars to try his strength. Given
+such a community, amid such surroundings, with a man like the young man of
+my story, and something may be depended upon to happen.
+
+While the travelers from the East, bound for Fairlands, were waiting at
+the Junction for the local train that would take them through the orange
+groves to their journey's end, the young man noticed the woman of the
+observation car platform with her two companions. And now, as he paced to
+and fro, enjoying the exercise after the days of confinement in the
+Pullman, he observed them with stimulated interest--they, too, were going
+to Fairlands.
+
+The man of the party, though certainly not old in years, was frightfully
+aged by dissipation and disease. The gross, sensual mouth with its
+loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes
+with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck
+and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a
+misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and,
+in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.
+
+As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big
+pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper,
+between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country,
+the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being
+worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy suggestion of
+womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected
+giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do
+hush! What will people think?" This last variation of his daughter's
+plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it
+furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly
+outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything
+at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing
+near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a
+little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's
+cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to
+be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or
+twice, as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes were turned in
+his direction.
+
+When the Fairlands train came in, the three found seats conveniently
+turned, near the forward end of the car. The young man, in passing,
+glanced down; and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the aisle,
+looked up full into his face.
+
+Again, as their eyes met, the man felt--as when they had stood so close
+together on the platform of the observation car--that she did not shrink
+from him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing about for a seat, he
+saw another face--a face, in its outlines, so like the one into which he
+had just looked, and yet so different--so far removed in its expression
+and meaning--that it fixed his attention instantly--compelling his
+interest.
+
+As this woman sat looking from the car window away toward the distant
+mountain peaks, the young man thought he had never seen a more perfect
+profile; nor a countenance that expressed such a beautiful blending of
+wistful longing, of patient fortitude, and saintly resignation. It was the
+face of a Madonna,--but a Madonna after the crucifixion,--pathetic in its
+lonely sorrow, inspiring in its spiritual strength, and holy in its purity
+and freedom from earthly passions.
+
+She was near his mother's age; and looking at her--as he moved down the
+aisle--his mother's face, as he had known it before their last meeting,
+came to him with startling vividness. For an instant, he paused, moved to
+take the chair beside her; but the next two seats were vacant, and he had
+no excuse for intruding. Arranging his grips, he quickly seated himself
+next to the window; and again, with eager interest, turned toward the
+woman in the chair ahead. Involuntarily, he started with astonishment and
+pity.
+
+The woman--still gazing from the window at the distant mountain peaks, and
+seemingly unconscious of her surroundings--presented now, to the man's
+shocked and compassionate gaze, the other side of her face. It was
+hideously disfigured by a great scar that--covering the entire cheek and
+neck--distorted the corner of the mouth, drew down the lower lid of the
+eye, and twisted her features into an ugly caricature. Even the ear, half
+hidden under the soft, gray-threaded hair, had not escaped, but was
+deformed by the same dreadful agent that had wrought such ruin to one of
+the loveliest countenances the man had ever looked upon.
+
+When the train stopped at Fairlands, and the passengers crowded into the
+aisle to make their way out, of the characters belonging to my story, the
+woman with the man and his daughter went first. Following them, a half
+car-length of people between, went the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+On the depot platform, as they moved toward the street, the young man
+still held his place near the woman who had so awakened his pitying
+interest. The three Overland passengers were met by a heavy-faced
+thick-necked man who escorted them to a luxurious touring car.
+
+The invalid and his daughter had entered the automobile when their escort,
+in turning toward the other member of the party, saw the woman with the
+disfigured face--who was now quite near. Instantly, he paused. And there
+was a smile of recognition on his somewhat coarse features as, lifting his
+hat, he bowed with--the young man fancied--condescending politeness. The
+woman standing by his side with her hand upon the door of the automobile,
+seeing her companion saluting some one, turned--and the next moment, the
+two women, whose features seemed so like--yet so unlike--were face to
+face.
+
+The young man saw the woman with the disfigured face stop short. For an
+instant, she stood as though dazed by an unexpected blow. Then, holding
+out her hands with a half-pleading, half-groping gesture, she staggered
+and would have fallen had he not stepped to her side.
+
+"Permit me, madam; you are ill."
+
+She neither spoke nor moved; but, with her eyes fixed upon the woman by
+the automobile, allowed him to support her--seemingly unconscious of his
+presence. And never before had the young man seen such anguish of spirit
+written in a human countenance.
+
+The one who had saluted her, advanced--as though to offer his services.
+But, as he moved toward her, she shrank back with a low--"No, no!" And
+such a look of horror and fear came into her eyes that the man by her side
+felt his muscles tense with indignation.
+
+Looking straight into the heavy face of the stranger, he said curtly, "I
+think you had better go on."
+
+With a careless shrug, the other turned and went back to the automobile,
+where he spoke in a low tone to his companions.
+
+The woman, who had been watching with a cold indifference, stepped into
+the car. The man took his seat by the chauffeur. As the big machine moved
+away, the woman with the disfigured face, again made as if to stretch
+forth her hands in a pleading gesture.
+
+The young man spoke pityingly; "May I assist you to a carriage, madam?"
+
+At his words, she looked up at him and--seeming to find in his face the
+strength she needed--answered in a low voice, "Thank you, sir; I am better
+now. I will he all right, presently, if you will put me on the car." She
+indicated a street-car that was just stopping at the crossing.
+
+"Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" he asked kindly, as he
+walked with her toward the car.
+
+"Yes,"--with a sad attempt to smile,--"yes, and I thank you very much,
+sir, for your gentle courtesy."
+
+He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood with bared head as she
+passed inside, and the conductor gave the signal.
+
+The incident had attracted little attention from the passengers who were
+hurrying from the train. Their minds were too intent upon other things to
+more than glance at this little ripple on the surface of life. Those who
+had chanced to notice the woman's agitation had seen, also, that she was
+being cared for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second thought.
+
+When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot platform,
+the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking about,
+questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes
+fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.
+
+Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
+unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so
+rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought was
+to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His long,
+thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From
+under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a
+curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe.
+At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.
+
+Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape
+the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman
+with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. He turned, now,
+upon the young man who had so kindly given her assistance.
+
+In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
+head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.
+
+Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon reaching
+the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.
+
+The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
+still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
+Setter at his feet.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+The Famous Conrad Lagrange
+
+
+
+When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room, where
+he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the evening meal.
+
+Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
+the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who had
+directed him to the hotel.
+
+That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and the
+Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the clerk's
+counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his
+skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to present
+the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.
+
+In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining
+tables; and the young man heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and
+commenting in an audible undertone, upon every dish that was served to
+him--swearing by all the heathen gods, known and unknown, that there was
+nothing fit to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the fact that
+there was no place else in the cursed town that served half so good, he
+would not touch a mouthful in the place. Then, to the other's secret
+amusement he fell to right heartily and made an astonishing meal of the
+really excellent viands he had so roundly vilified.
+
+Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar to the long veranda; intent
+upon enjoying the restful quiet of the evening after the tiresome days on
+the train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he had his cigar just
+nicely under way when the Irish Setter--with all the dignity of his royal
+blood--approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long silky ears,
+confidently upon the stranger's knee, the dog looked up into the man's
+face with an expression of hearty good-fellowship in his soft,
+golden-brown eyes that was irresistible.
+
+"Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fellow," and stroked the
+sleek head and neck, affectionately.
+
+A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The
+dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half
+pathetic, half humorous, and altogether cynical expression.
+
+The young man who had been so unresponsive to the advances of his fellow
+passengers, for some reason--unknown, probably, to himself--now took the
+initiative. "You have a fine dog here, sir," he said encouragingly.
+
+Without replying, the other turned away and in another moment returned
+with a chair; whereupon the dog, with slightly waving, feathery tail,
+transferred his attention to his master.
+
+Caressing the seal-brown head with a gentle hand, and apparently speaking
+to the soft eyes that looked up at him so understandingly, the man said,
+"If the human race was fit to associate with such dogs, the world would be
+a more comfortable place to live in." The deep voice that rumbled up from
+some unguessed depths of that sunken chest was remarkable in its
+suggestion of a virile power that the general appearance of the man seemed
+to deny. Facing his companion suddenly, he asked with a direct bluntness,
+"Are you not Aaron King--son of the Aaron King of New England political
+fame?"
+
+Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, the young man flushed.
+"Yes; my father was active in New England politics," he answered simply.
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Very well"--returned the other--"very well." He repeated the two words
+with a suggestive emphasis; his eyes--with that curious, baffling,
+questioning look--still fixed upon his companion's face.
+
+The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened.
+
+Looking away, the strange man added, with a softer note in his rough
+voice, "I thought I knew you, when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and
+I were boy and girl together. There is a little of her face in yours. If
+you have as much of her character, you are to be congratulated--and--so
+are the rest of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to the dog;
+who, still looking up at him, seemed to express with slow-waving tail, an
+understanding of thoughts that were only partly put into words.
+
+There was an impersonality in the man's personalities that made it
+impossible for the subject of his observations to take offense.
+
+Aaron King--when it was evident that the man had no thought of
+introducing himself--said, with the fine courtesy that seemed always to
+find expression in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, sir?"
+
+The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, answered, "Conrad
+Lagrange."
+
+The young man smiled. "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Lagrange.
+Surely, you are not the famous novelist of that name?"
+
+"And _why_, 'surely not'?" retorted the other, again turning his face
+quickly toward his companion. "Am I not distinguished enough in
+appearance? Do I look like the mob? True, I am a scrawny, humpbacked
+crooked-faced, scarecrow of a man--but what matters _that_, if I do not
+look like the mob? What is called fame is as scrawny and humpbacked and
+crooked-faced as my body--but what matters _that?_ Famous or infamous--to
+not look like the mob is the thing."
+
+It is impossible to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of
+sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked
+the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker
+turned from his human companion to a more worthy listener.
+
+When Aaron King could find no words to reply, the novelist shot another
+question at him, with startling suddenness. "Do you read my books?"
+
+The other began a halting answer to the effect that everybody read Conrad
+Lagrange's books. But the distinguished author interrupted; "Don't take
+the trouble to lie--out of politeness. I shall ask you to tell me about
+them and you will be in a hole."
+
+The young man laughed as he said, with straight-forward frankness, "I have
+read only one, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"The--ah--why--the one, you know--where the husband of one woman falls in
+love with the wife of another who is in love with the husband of some one
+else. Pshaw!--what is the title? I mean the one that created such a
+furore, you know."
+
+"Yes"--said the man, to his dog--"O yes, Czar--I am the famous Conrad
+Lagrange. I observe"--he added, turning to the other, with twinkling
+eyes--"I observe, Mr. King, that you really _do_ have a good bit of your
+mother's character. That you do not read my books is a recommendation that
+I, better than any one, know how to appreciate." The light of humor went
+from his face, suddenly, as it had come. Again he turned away; and his
+deep voice was gentle as he continued, "Your mother is a rare and
+beautiful spirit, sir. Knowing her regard for the true and genuine,--her
+love for the pure and beautiful,--I scarcely expected to find her son
+interested in the realism of _my_ fiction. I congratulate you, young
+man"--he paused; then added with indescribable bitterness--"that you have
+not read my books."
+
+For a few moments, Aaron King did not answer. At last, with quiet dignity,
+he said, "My mother was a remarkable woman, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+The other faced him quickly. "You say _was_? Do you mean--?"
+
+"My mother is dead, sir. I was called home from abroad by her illness."
+
+For a little, the older man sat looking into the gathering dusk. Then,
+deliberately, he refilled his brier pipe, and, rising, said to his dog,
+"Come, Czar--it's time to go."
+
+Without a word of parting to his human companion with the dog moving
+sedately by his side, he disappeared into the darkness of the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the next day, Aaron King--in the hotel dining-room, the lobby, and on
+the veranda--watched for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the
+little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the uncouth
+figure and the homely, world-worn face of the man whose unusual
+personality had so attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Conrad
+Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening before, the young man was
+smoking his after-dinner cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a
+whiff of pipe smoke announced the strange character's presence.
+
+Without taking a seat, the novelist said, "I always have a look at the
+mountains, at this time of the day, Mr. King--would you care to come?
+These mountains are the real thing, you know, and well worth
+seeing--particularly at this hour." There was a gentle softness in his
+deep voice, now--as unlike his usual speech as his physical appearance was
+unlike that of his younger companion.
+
+Aaron King arose quickly. "Thank you, Mr, Lagrange; I will go with
+pleasure."
+
+Accompanied by the dog, they followed the avenue, under the giant pepper
+trees that shut out the sky with their gnarled limbs and gracefully
+drooping branches, to the edge of the little city; where the view to the
+north and northeast was unobstructed by houses. Just where the street
+became a road, Conrad Lagrange--putting his hand upon his companion's
+arm--said in a low voice, "This is the place."
+
+Behind them, beautiful Fairlands lay, half lost, in its wilderness of
+trees and flowers. Immediately in the foreground, a large tract of
+unimproved land brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet.
+Beyond these acres--upon which there were no trees--the orange groves were
+massed in dark green blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows
+of palms; clumps of peppers; or tall, plume-like eucalyptus; to mark the
+roads and the ranch homes. Beyond this--and rising, seemingly, out of the
+groves--the San Bernardinos heaved their mighty masses into the sky. It
+was almost dark. The city's lamps were lighted. The outlines of grove and
+garden were fast being lost in the deepening dusk. The foothills, with the
+lower spurs and ridges of the mountains, were softly modeled in dark blue
+against the deeper purple of the canyons and gorges. Upon the cloudless
+sky that was lighted with clearest saffron, the lines of the higher crests
+were sharply drawn; while the lonely, snow-capped peaks,--ten thousand
+feet above the darkening valley below,--catching the last rays of the sun,
+glowed rose-pink--changing to salmon--deepening into mauve--as the light
+failed.
+
+Aaron King broke the silence by drawing a long breath--as one who could
+find no words to express his emotions.
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke sadly; "And to think that there are,--in this city
+of ten thousand,--probably, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety people
+who never see it."
+
+With a short laugh, the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch
+for my palette and brushes--though it's not at all my sort of thing."
+
+The other turned toward him quickly. "You are an artist?"
+
+"I had just completed my three years study abroad when mother's illness
+brought me home. I was fortunate enough to get one on the line, and they
+say--over there--that I had a good chance. I don't know how it will go
+here at home." There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
+
+"What do you do?"
+
+"Portraits."
+
+[Illustration: A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and
+wholly cynical interrogation]
+
+With his face again toward the mountains, the novelist said thoughtfully,
+"This West country will produce some mighty artists, Mr. King. By far the
+greater part of this land must remain, always, in its primitive
+naturalness. It will always be easier, here, than in the city crowded
+East, for a man to be himself. There is less of that spirit which is born
+of clubs and cliques and clans and schools--with their fine-spun
+theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely
+commissioned to sit in judgment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking,
+esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that
+loneliness out of which great art comes. The atmosphere of these mountains
+and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a
+clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others--and what, after
+all, _is_ a great artist, but one who greatly asserts himself?"
+
+The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr. Lagrange, your words recall
+to my mind a thought in one of mother's favorite books. She quoted from
+the volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it by heart, and,
+in turn, it became my favorite. Indeed, I think that, with mother's aid as
+an interpreter, it has had more influence upon my life than any other one
+book. This is the thought: 'To understand the message of the mountains; to
+love them for what they are; and, in terms of every-day life, to give
+expression to that understanding and love--is a mark of true greatness of
+soul.' I do not know the author. The book is anonymous."
+
+"I am the author of that book, sir," the strange man answered with simple
+dignity, "--or, rather,--I should say,--I _was_ the author," he added,
+with a burst of his bitter, sarcastic humor. "For God's sake don't betray
+me. I am, _now_, the _famous_ Conrad Lagrange, you understand. I have a
+_name_ to protect." His deep voice was shaken with feeling. His worn and
+rugged features twitched and worked with emotion.
+
+Aaron King listened in amazement to the words that were spoken by the
+famous novelist with such pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation.
+Not knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are working here, Mr.
+Lagrange?"
+
+"Working! Me? I don't _work_ anywhere. I am a literary scavenger. I haunt
+the intellectual slaughter pens, and live by the putrid offal that
+self-respecting writers reject. I glean the stinking materials for my
+stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. For the dollars they pay, I
+furnish my readers with those thrills that public decency forbids them to
+experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the purposes of mental
+prostitution. My books breed moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The
+unholy filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imaginations of my
+readers. I am an instigator of degrading immorality and unmentionable
+crimes. _Work_! No, young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing penance
+in this damned town. My rotten imaginings have proven too much--even for
+me--and the doctors sent me West to recuperate,"
+
+The artist could find no words that would answer. In silence, the two men
+turned away from the mountains, and started back along the avenue by which
+they had come.
+
+When they had walked some little distance, the young man said, "This is
+your first visit to Fairlands, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"I was here last year"--answered the other--"here and in the hills yonder.
+Have _you_ been much in the mountains?"
+
+"Not in California. This is my first trip to the West. I have seen
+something of the mountains, though, at tourist resorts--abroad."
+
+"Which means," commented the other, "that you have never seen them at
+all."
+
+Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right."
+
+"And you--?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing his companion. "What
+brought you to this community that thinks so much more of its millionaires
+than it does of its mountains? Have _you_ come to Fairlands to work?"
+
+"I hope to," answered the artist. "There are--there are reasons why I do
+not care to work, for the present, in the East. I confess it was because I
+understood that Fairlands offered exceptional opportunities for a portrait
+painter that I came here. To succeed in my work, you know, one must come
+in touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier to interest them
+when they are away from their homes--in some place like this--where their
+social duties and business cares are not so pressing."
+
+"There is no question of the material that Fairlands has to offer, Mr.
+King," returned the novelist, in his grim, sarcastic humor. "God! how I
+envy you!" he added, with a flash of earnest passion. "You are young--You
+are beginning your life work--You are looking forward to success--You--"
+
+"I _must_ succeed"--the painter interrupted impetuously--"I must."
+
+"Succeed in _what_? What do you mean by success?"
+
+"Surely, _you_ should understand what I mean by success," the younger man
+retorted. "You who have gained--"
+
+"Oh, yes; I forgot"--came the quick interruption--"I am the _famous_
+Conrad Lagrange. Of course, you, too, must succeed. You must become the
+_famous_ Aaron King. But perhaps you will tell me why you must, as you
+call it, succeed?"
+
+The artist hesitated before answering; then said with anxious earnestness,
+"I don't think I can explain Mr. Lagrange. My mother--" he paused.
+
+The older man stopped short, and, turning, stood for a little with his
+face towards the mountains where San Bernardino's pyramid-like peak was
+thrust among the stars. When he spoke, every bit of that bitter humor was
+gone from his deep voice. "I beg your pardon, Mr. King"--he said
+slowly--"I am as ugly and misshapen in spirit as in body."
+
+But when they had walked some way--again in silence--and were drawing near
+the hotel, the momentary change in his mood passed. In a tone of stinging
+sarcasm he said. "You are on the right road, Mr. King. You did well to
+come to Fairlands. It is quite evident that you have mastered the modern
+technic of your art. To acquire fame, you have only to paint pictures of
+fast women who have no morals at all--making them appear as innocent
+maidens, because they have the price to pay, and, in the eyes of the
+world, are of social importance. Put upon your canvases what the world
+will call portraits of distinguished citizens--making low-browed
+money--thugs to look like noble patriots, and bloody butchers of humanity
+like benevolent saints. You need give yourself no uneasiness about your
+success. It is easy. Get in with the right people; use your family name
+and your distinguished ancestors; pull a few judicious advertising wires;
+do a few artistic stunts; get yourself into the papers long and often, no
+matter how; make yourself a fad; become a pet of the social autocrats--and
+your fame is assured. And--you will be what I am."
+
+The young man, quietly ignoring the humor of the novelist's words, said
+protestingly, "But, surely, to portray human nature is legitimate art, Mr.
+Lagrange. Your great artists that the West is to produce will not
+necessarily be landscape painters or write essays upon nature, will they?"
+
+"To portray human nature is legitimate work for an artist, yes"--agreed
+the novelist--"but he must portray human nature _plus_. The forces that
+_shape_ human nature are the forces that must be felt in the picture and
+in the story. That these determining forces are so seldom seen by the eyes
+of the world, is the reason _for_ pictures and stories. The artist who
+fails to realize for his world the character-creating elements in the life
+which he essays to paint or write, fails, to just that degree, in being an
+artist; or is self-branded by his work as criminally careless, a charlatan
+or a liar. That one who, for a price, presents a picture or a story
+without regard for the influence of his production upon the characters of
+those who receive it, commits a crime for which human law provides no
+adequate punishment. Being the famous Conrad Lagrange, you understand, I
+have the right to say this. You will probably believe it, some day--if
+you do not now. That is, you will believe it if you have the soul and the
+intelligence of an artist--if you have not--it will not matter--and you
+will be happy in your success."
+
+As the novelist finished speaking, the two men arrived at the hotel steps,
+where they halted, with that indecision of chance acquaintances who have
+no plans beyond the passing moment, yet who, in mutual interest, would
+extend the time of their brief companionship. While they stood there, each
+hesitating to make the advance, a big touring car rolled up the driveway,
+and stopped under the full light of the veranda. Aaron King recognized the
+lady of the observation car platform, with her two traveling companions
+and the heavy-faced man who had met them at the depot. As the party
+greeted the novelist and he returned their salutation, the artist turned
+away to find again the chair, where, an hour before, the strange character
+who was to play so large a part in his life and work had found him. The
+dog, Czar, as if preferring the companionship of the artist to the company
+of those who were engaging his master's attention, followed the young man.
+
+From where he sat, the painter could see the tall, uncouth figure of the
+famous novelist standing beside the automobile, while the occupants of the
+car were, apparently, absorbingly interested in what he was saying. The
+beautiful face of the woman was brightly animated as she evidently took
+the lead in the conversation. The artist could see her laughing and
+shaking her head. Once, he even heard her speak the writer's name;
+whereupon, every lounger upon the veranda, within hearing, turned to
+observe the party with curious interest. Several times, the young man
+noted that she glanced in his direction, half inquiringly, with a
+suggestion of being pleased, as though she were glad to have seen him in
+company with her celebrated friend. Then the man who held so large a place
+in the eyes of the world drew back, lifting his hat; the automobile
+started forward; the party called, "Good night." The woman's voice rose
+clear--so that the spectators might easily understand--"Remember, Mr.
+Lagrange--I shall expect you Thursday--day after to-morrow."
+
+As Conrad Lagrange came up the hotel steps, the eyes of all were upon him;
+but he--apparently unconscious of the company--went straight to the
+artist; where, without a word, he dropped into the vacant chair by the
+young man's side, and began thoughtfully refilling his brier pipe.
+Flipping the match over the veranda railing, and expelling a prodigious
+cloud of smoke, the novelist said grimly, "And there--my fellow artist--go
+your masters. I trust you observed them with proper reverence. I would
+have introduced you, but I do not like to take the initiative in such
+outrages. That will come soon enough. The young should be permitted to
+enjoy their freedom while they may."
+
+Aaron King laughed. "Thank you for your consideration," he returned, "but
+I do not think I am in any immediate danger."
+
+"Which"--the other retorted dryly--"betrays either innocence, caution, or
+an unusual understanding of life. I am not, now, prepared to say whether
+you know too much or too little."
+
+"I confess to a degree of curiosity," said the artist. "I traveled in the
+same Pullman with three of the party. May I ask the names of your
+friends?"
+
+The other answered in his bitterest vein; "I have no friends, Mr. King--I
+have only admirers. As for their names"--he continued--"there is no reason
+why I should withhold either who they are or what they are. Besides, I
+observed that the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art' has her
+eye upon you, already. As I shall very soon be commanded to drag you to
+her 'Court,' it is well for you to be prepared."
+
+The young man laughed as the other paused to puff vigorously at his brier
+pipe.
+
+"That red-faced, bull-necked brute, is James Rutlidge, the son and heir of
+old Jim Rutlidge," continued the novelist. "Jim inherited a few odd
+millions from _his_ father, and killed himself spending them in
+unmentionable ways. The son is most worthily carrying out his father's
+mission, with bright prospects of exceeding his distinguished parent's
+fondest dreams. But, unfortunately, _he_ is hampered by lack of adequate
+capital--the bulk of the family wealth having gone with the old man."
+
+"Do you mean James Rutlidge--the great critic?" exclaimed Aaron King, with
+increased interest.
+
+"The same," answered the other, with his twisted smile. "I thought you
+would recognize his name. As an artist, you will undoubtedly have much to
+do with him. His friendship is one of the things that are vital to your
+success. Believe me, his power in modern art is a red-faced, bull-necked
+power that you will do well to recognize. Of his companions," he went on,
+"the horrible example is Edward J. Taine--friend and fellow martyr of
+James Rutlidge, Senior. Satan, perhaps, can explain how he has managed to
+outlive his partner. His home is in New York, but he has a big house on
+Fairlands Heights, with large orange groves in this district. He comes
+here winters for his health. He'll die before long. The effervescing young
+creature is his daughter, Louise--by his first wife. The 'Goddess'--who is
+not much older than his daughter--is the present Mrs. Taine."
+
+"His wife!"
+
+The artist's exclamation drew a sarcastic chuckle from the other. "I am
+prepared, now, to testify to your unworldly innocence of heart and mind,"
+he gibed. "And, pray, why not his wife? You see, she was the ward of old
+Rutlidge--a niece, it is said. Mrs. Rutlidge--as you have no doubt
+heard--killed herself. It was shortly after her death that Jim took this
+little one into his home. She and young Jim grew up together. What was
+more natural or fitting than that her guardian--when he was about to
+depart from this sad world where human flesh is not able to endure an
+unlimited amount of dissipation--should give the girl as a lively souvenir
+to his bosom friend and companion of his unmentionable deviltries? The
+transaction also enabled him, you understand, to draw upon the Taine
+millions; and so permitted him to finish his distinguished career with
+credit. You, with your artist's extravagant fancy, have, no doubt, been
+thinking of her as fashioned for _love_. I assure you _she_ knows better.
+The world in which she has been schooled has left her no hazy ideas as to
+what she was made for."
+
+"I have heard of the Taines," said the younger man, thoughtfully. "I
+suppose this is the same family. They are very prominent in the social
+world, and quite generous patrons of the arts?"
+
+"In the eyes of the world," said the novelist, "they are the noblest of
+our Nobility. They dwell in the rarefied atmosphere of millions. By the
+dollarless multitudes they are envied. They assume to be the cultured of
+the cultured. Patrons of the arts! Why, man, _they have autographed copies
+of all my books!_ They and their kind _feed_ me and my kind. They will
+feed you, sir, or by God you'll starve! But you need have no fear that the
+crust of genius will be your portion," he added meaningly. "As I
+remarked--the 'Goddess' has her eye upon you."
+
+"And why do you so distinguish the lady?" asked the artist, quietly
+amused--with just a hint of well-bred condescension. "Has Mrs. Taine such
+powerful influence in the world of art?"
+
+If Conrad Lagrange noticed his companion's manner he passed it by. "I
+perceive," he said, "that you are still somewhat lacking in the rudiments
+of your profession. The statement of faith adhered to by modern climbers
+on the ladder of fame--such as I have been, and you aspire to be--is that
+'Pull' wins. Our creed is 'Graft.' By 'Influence' we stand, by
+'Influence' we fall. It pleases Mrs. Taine to be, in the world of art, a
+lobbyist. She knows the insides of the inside rings and cliques and
+committees that say what is, and what is not, art; that declare who shall
+be, and who shall not be, artists. She has power with those who, in their
+might, grant position and place in the halls of fame; as their kinsmen in
+the political world pass the plums to those who court their favor. The
+great critics who thunder anathemas at the poor devils who are outside,
+eat out of her hand. Jim Rutlidge and his unholy crew are at her beck and
+call. Jim, you see, needing all he can get of the Taine millions, hopes to
+marry Louise. You can scarcely blame the young and beautiful Mrs. Taine
+for not being interested in her husband--who is going to die so soon. The
+poor girl must have some amusement, so she interests herself in art, don't
+you know. She gives more dinners to artists and critics; buys more
+pictures and causes more pictures to be bought; mothers more art-culture
+clubs; discovers more new and startling geniuses; in short, has a larger
+and better trained company of lions than any one else in the business. She
+deals in lions. It's her fad to collect them--same as others collect
+butterflies or postage stamps. She has one other fad that is less harmful
+and just as deceptive--a carefully nourished reputation for prudery. I
+sometimes think the Gods must laugh or choke. That woman would no more
+speak to you without a proper introduction than she would appear on the
+street without shoes or stockings. She has never been seen in an evening
+gown. Her beautiful shoulders have never been immodestly bared to the
+eyes of the world."
+
+The artist thought of that moment on the observation car platform.
+
+Presently, the novelist--refilling his pipe--said whimsically, "Some day,
+Mr. King, I shall write a true story. It shall be a novel of to-day, with
+characters drawn from life; and these characters, in my story, shall bear
+the names of the forces that have made them what they are and which they,
+in turn, have come to represent. I mean those forces that are so coloring
+and shaping the life and thought of this age."
+
+"That ought to be interesting," said the other, "but I am not quite sure
+that I understand."
+
+"Probably you don't. You have not been thinking much of these things. You
+have your eye upon Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. To
+illustrate--our bull-necked friend and illustrious critic, James Rutlidge,
+in my story, will be named 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one
+'Lust.' The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine,--boon companion of
+'Lust,'--is 'Materialism'."
+
+"Good!" laughed the artist. "I see; go on. Who is the daughter of
+'Materialism?'"
+
+"'Ragtime'," promptly returned the novelist, with a grin. "Who else could
+she be?"
+
+"And Mrs. Taine?" urged the other.
+
+The novelist responded quickly; "Why, the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm
+of 'Modern Art,' is 'The Age,' of course. Do you see? 'The Age' given over
+to 'Materialism' for base purposes by his companion, 'Lust.' And you----"
+he paused.
+
+"Go on," cried the young man, "who or what am I in your story?"
+
+"You, sir,"--answered Conrad Lagrange, seriously,--"in my story of modern
+life, represent Art. It remains to be seen whether 'The Age' will add you
+to her collection, or whether some other influence will intervene."
+
+"And you"--persisted the artist--"surely you are in the story."
+
+"I am very much in the story," the other answered. "My name is
+'Civilization.' My story will be published when I am dead. I have a
+reputation to sustain, you know."
+
+Aaron King was not laughing, now. Something, that lay deep hidden beneath
+the rude exterior of the man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some
+powerful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped the artist's
+mind--compelling him to search for hidden meanings in the novelist's
+fanciful suggestions.
+
+A few moments passed in silence before the young man said slowly, "I met a
+character, yesterday, Mr. Lagrange, that might be added to your cast."
+
+"There are several that will be added to my cast," the other answered
+dryly.
+
+To which the painter returned, "Did you notice that woman with the
+disfigured face, at the depot?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange looked at his companion, quickly. "Yes."
+
+"Do you know her?" questioned the artist.
+
+"No. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Only because she interested me, and because she seemed to know your
+friends--Mr. Rutlidge and Mrs. Taine."
+
+The novelist knocked the ashes from his pipe by tapping it on the veranda
+railing. The action seemed to express a peculiar mental effort; as though
+he were striving to recall something that had gone from his memory. "I saw
+what happened at the depot, of course," he said slowly. "I have seen the
+woman before. She lives here in Fairlands. Her name is Miss Willard. No
+one seems to know much about her. I can't get over the impression that I
+ought to know her--that I have met and known her somewhere years ago. Her
+manner, yesterday, at seeing Mrs. Taine, was certainly very strange." As
+if to free his mind from the unsuccessful effort to remember, he rose to
+his feet. "But why should she be added to the characters in my novel, Mr.
+King? What does she represent?"
+
+"Her name,"--said the artist,--"in your study of life, is suggested by her
+face--so beautiful on the one side--so distorted on the other--her name
+should be 'Symbol'."
+
+"There really is hope for you," returned the older man, with his quizzing
+smile. "Good night. Come, Czar." He passed into the hotel--the dog at his
+heels.
+
+It was two days later--Thursday--that Conrad Lagrange made his memorable
+visit to the Taines--memorable, in my story, because, at that time, Mrs.
+Taine gave such unmistakable evidence of her interest in Aaron King and
+his future.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+At the House on Fairlands Heights
+
+
+
+As my friend the social scientist would say; it is a phenomenon peculiar
+to urban life, that the social strata are more or less clearly defined
+geographically.
+
+That is,--in the English of everyday,--people of different classes live in
+different parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are given to
+the wholesale establishments, others to retail stores, and still others to
+the manufacturing plants; so there are the tenement districts, the slums,
+and the streets where may be found the homes of wealth and fashion.
+
+In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked by altitude. The city,
+lying in the lap of the hills and looking a little down upon the
+valley--plebeian business together with those who do the work of Fairlands
+occupies the lowest levels in the corporate limits. The heights are held
+by Fairlands' Pride. Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are
+graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most gratifying to observe
+how generally the citizens of this fortunate community aspire to higher
+things; and to note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is
+undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement which enables every one to
+look down upon his neighbor.
+
+The view from the winter home of the Taines was magnificent.
+
+From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine sat, that afternoon, one
+could have looked down upon all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done
+better than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical foliage
+that--save for the tower of the red-brick Y.M.C.A. building, the white,
+municipal flagstaff, and the steeples and belfries of the churches--hid
+the city, one might have looked up at the mountains. High, high, above the
+low levels occupied by the hill-climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift
+their heads in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest Fairlander
+of them all--looking down upon even the Taines themselves.
+
+But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared by the mountains. She
+sat by the window, indeed, but her eyes were upon the open pages of a
+book--a popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the governmental
+conscience was--and is still--permitted in print.
+
+The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. Taine was--in her
+opinion--almost as great in literature as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By
+those in authority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the unworthiness
+of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be one of the greatest writers of
+his generation. He is a realist--a modern of the moderns. His pen has
+never been debased by an inartistic and antiquated idealism. His claim to
+genius rests securely upon the fact that he has no ideals. He writes for
+that select circle of leaders who, like the Taines and the Rutlidges, are
+capable of appreciating his art. All of which means that he tells filthy
+stories in good English. That his stories are identical in material and
+motive with the vile yarns that are permitted only in the lowest class
+barber shops and in disreputable bar-rooms, in no way detracts from the
+admiring praise of his critics, the generosity of his publishers, or the
+appreciation of those for whom he writes.
+
+With tottering step and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the
+apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed,
+red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen,
+impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized
+him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his
+dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm.
+Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and
+tortured slave of the very devils of unholy passion that he had so often
+invoked to serve him. Repulsive as he was, he was an object to awaken the
+deepest pity.
+
+Mrs. Taine, looking up from her novel, watched him curiously--without
+moving or changing her attitude of luxurious repose--without speaking.
+Almost, one would have said, a shade of a smile was upon her too perfect
+features.
+
+When the man--who had dropped weak and exhausted into a chair--could
+speak, he glared at her in a pitiful rage, and, in his throaty whisper,
+said with a curse, "You seem to be amused."
+
+Still, she did not speak. A tantalizing smile broke over her face, and she
+stretched her beautiful body lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned
+animal stirs in sleek, physical contentment.
+
+Again, with curses, he said, "I'm glad you so enjoy my company. To be
+laughed at, even, is better than your damned indifference."
+
+"You misjudge me," she answered in a voice that, low and soft, was still
+richly colored by the wealth of vitality that found expression in her
+splendid body. "I am not at all indifferent to your condition--quite the
+contrary. I am intensely interested. As for the amusement you afford
+me--please consider--for three years I have amused you. Can you deny me my
+turn?"
+
+He laughed with a hideously mirthless chuckle as he returned with ghastly
+humor, "I have had the worth of my money. I advise you to make the most of
+your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant for you as I can, while
+I am with you, but, as you know, I am liable to leave you at any time,
+now."
+
+"Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I shall miss you so when
+you are gone."
+
+He glared at her while she laughed mockingly.
+
+"Where is everybody?" he asked. "The place is as lonely as a tomb."
+
+"Louise is out riding with Jim."
+
+"And what are you doing at home?" he demanded suspiciously.
+
+"Me? Oh I remained to care for you--to keep you from being lonely."
+
+"You lie. You are expecting some one."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Who is it this time?" he persisted.
+
+"Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she murmured.
+
+"Whom are you expecting?"
+
+"Dear me! how persistently you look for evil," she mocked. "You know
+perfectly well that, thanks to my tact, I am considered quite the model
+wife. You really should cultivate a more trusting disposition."
+
+Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he suffered she again
+watched him with that curious air of interest. When he could command his
+voice, he gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, and you know
+that I know. Am I so innocent that Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and
+Black Whitman, and as many more of their kind, can make love to you under
+my very nose without my knowing it? You take damned good care--posing as a
+prude with your fad about immodest dress--that the world sees nothing; but
+you have never troubled to hide it from me."
+
+Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And why should I trouble to
+hide anything from you?" she demanded. "Look at me"--she posed as if to
+exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her physical
+beauty--"Look at me; am I to waste all _this_ upon you? You tell me that
+you have had your money's worth--surely, the purchase price is mine to
+spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as your foul mind sees
+me, what right have you to object? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a
+stone at me? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have made for me
+but the horrible pleasure of watching you in the hell you have made for
+yourself? Be satisfied that the world does not see your shame--though
+it's from no consideration of you, but wholly for myself, that I am
+careful. As for my modesty--you know it is not a fad but a necessity."
+
+"That is just it"--he retorted--"it is the way you make a fad of a
+necessity! Forced to hide your shoulders, you make a virtue of
+concealment. You make capital of the very thing of which you are ashamed."
+
+"And is not that exactly what we all do?" she asked with brutal cynicism.
+"Do you not fear the eyes of the world as much as I? Be satisfied that I
+play the game of respectability with you--that I give the world no cause
+for talk. You may as well be," she finished with devilish frankness, "for
+you are past helping yourself in the matter."
+
+As she finished, a servant appeared to announce Mr. Conrad Lagrange; and
+the tall, uncouth figure of the novelist stood framed in the doorway; his
+sharp eyes regarding them with that peculiar, quizzing, baffling look.
+
+Edward Taine laughed with that horrid chuckle. "Howdy-do, Lagrange--glad
+to see you."
+
+Mrs. Taine went forward to greet the caller; saying as she gave him her
+hand, "You arrived just in time, Mr. Lagrange; Edward and I were
+discussing your latest book. We think it a masterpiece of realistic
+fiction. I'm sure it will add immensely to your fame. I hear it talked of
+everywhere as the most popular novel of the year. You wonderful man! How
+do you do it?"
+
+"I don't do it," answered Conrad Lagrange, looking straight into her
+eyes. "It does itself. My books are really true products of the age that
+reads them; and--to paraphrase a statesman who was himself a product of
+his age--for those who read my books they are just the kind of books that
+I would expect such people to read."
+
+Mrs. Taine looked at him with a curious, half-doubtful half-wistful
+expression; as though she glimpsed a hint of a meaning that did not appear
+upon the surface of his words. "You do say such--such--twisty things," she
+murmured. "I don't think I always understand what you mean; but when you
+look at me that way, I feel as though my maid had neglected to finish
+hooking me up."
+
+The novelist bowed in mock gallantry--a movement which made his ungainly
+form appear more grotesque than ever. "Indeed, madam, to my humble eyes,
+you are most beautifully and fittingly--ah--hooked up." He turned toward
+the invalid. "And how is the fortunate husband of the charming Mrs. Taine
+to-day?"
+
+"Fine, Lagrange, fine," said the man--a cough interrupting his words.
+"Really, I think that Gertrude is unduly alarmed about my condition. In
+this glorious climate, I feel like a three-year-old."
+
+"You _are_ looking quite like yourself," returned the novelist.
+
+"There's nothing at all the matter with me but a slight bronchial
+trouble," continued the other, coughing again. Then, to his
+wife--"Dearest, won't you ring, please; I'm sure it's time for my toddy;
+perhaps Mr. Lagrange will join me in a drink. What'll it be, Lagrange?"
+
+"Nothing, thanks, at this hour."
+
+"No? But you'll pardon me, I'm sure--Doctor's orders you know."
+
+A servant appeared. Mrs. Taine took the glass and carried it to her
+husband with her own hand, saying with tender solicitude, "Don't you
+think, dear, that you should lie down for a while? Mr. Lagrange will
+remain for dinner, you know. You must not tire yourself. I'm sure he will
+excuse you. I'll manage somehow to amuse him until Jim and Louise return."
+
+"I believe I will rest a little, Gertrude." He turned to the guest--"While
+there is nothing really wrong, you know, Lagrange, still it's best to be
+on the safe side."
+
+"By all means," said the novelist, heartily. "You should take care of
+yourself. Don't, I beg, permit me to detain you."
+
+Mrs. Taine, with careful tenderness, accompanied her husband to the door.
+When he had passed from the room, she faced the novelist, with--"Don't you
+think Edward is really very much worse, Mr. Lagrange? I keep up
+appearances, you know, but--" she paused with a charming air of perplexed
+and worried anxiety.
+
+"Your husband is certainly not a well man, madam--but you keep up
+appearances wonderfully. I really don't see how you manage it. But I
+suppose that for one of your nature it is natural."
+
+Again, she received his words with that look of doubtful
+understanding--as though sensing some meaning beneath the polite,
+commonplace surface. Then, as if to lead away from the subject--"You must
+really tell me what you think of our California home. I told you in New
+York, you remember, that I should ask you, the first thing. We were so
+sorry to have missed you last year. Please be frank. Isn't it beautiful?"
+
+"Very beautiful"--he answered--"exquisite taste--perfect harmony with
+modern art." His quizzing eyes twinkled, and a caricature of a smile
+distorted his face. "It fairly smells to heaven of the flesh pots."
+
+She laughed merrily. "The odor should not be unfamiliar to you," she
+retorted. "By all accounts, your royalties are making you immensely rich.
+How wonderful it must be to be famous--to know that the whole world is
+talking about you! And that reminds me--who is your distinguished looking
+friend at the hotel? I was dying to ask you, the other night, but didn't
+dare. I know he is somebody famous."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, studying her face, answered reluctantly, "No, he is not
+famous; but I fear he is going to be."
+
+"Another twisty saying," she retorted. "But I mean to have an answer, so
+you may as well speak plainly. Have you known him long? What is his name?
+And what is he--a writer?"
+
+"His name is Aaron King. His mother and I grew up in the same
+neighborhood. He is an artist."
+
+"How romantic! Do you mean that he belongs to that old family of New
+England Kings?"
+
+"He is the last of them. His father was Aaron King--a prominent lawyer
+and politician in his state."
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember! Wasn't there something whispered at the time of his
+death--some scandal that was hushed up--money stolen--or something? What
+was it? I can't think."
+
+"Whatever it was, Mrs. Taine, the son had nothing to do with it. Don't you
+think we might let the dead man stay safely buried?" There was an ominous
+glint in Conrad Lagrange's eyes.
+
+Mrs. Taine answered hurriedly, "Indeed, yes, Mr. Lagrange. You are right.
+And you shall bring Mr. King out to see me. If he is as nice as he looks,
+I promise you I will be very good to him. Perhaps I may even help him a
+little, through Jim, you know--bring him in touch with the right people
+and that sort of thing. What does he paint?"
+
+"Portraits." The novelist's tone was curt.
+
+"Then I am _sure_ I could do a great deal for him."
+
+"And I am sure you would do a great deal _to_ him," said Conrad Lagrange,
+bluntly.
+
+She laughed again. "And just what do you mean by that, Mr. Lagrange? I'm
+not sure whether it is complimentary or otherwise."
+
+"That depends upon what you consider complimentary," retorted the other.
+"As I told you--Aaron King is an artist."
+
+Again, she favored him with that look of doubtful understanding; shaking
+her head with mock sadness, and making a long sigh. "Another twister"--she
+said woefully--"just when we were getting along so beautifully, too.
+Won't you try again?"
+
+"In words of one syllable then--let him alone. He is, to-day, exactly
+where I was twenty years ago. For God's sake, let him alone. Play your
+game with those who are no loss to the world; or with those who, like me,
+are already lost. Let this man do his work. Don't make him what I am."
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear," she laughed, "and these are words of one syllable! You
+talk as though I were a dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour!"
+
+"You are," said the novelist, gruffly.
+
+"How nice. I'm all shivery with delight, already. You really _must_ bring
+him now, you see. You might as well, for, if you don't, I'll manage some
+other way when you are not around to protect him. You don't want to trust
+him to me unprotected, do you?"
+
+"No, and I won't," retorted Conrad Lagrange--which, though Mrs. Taine did
+not remark it, was also a twister.
+
+"But after all, perhaps he won't come," she said with mock anxiety.
+
+"Don't worry madam--he's just as much a fool as the rest of us."
+
+As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss Taine and her escort,
+James Rutlidge. Mrs. Taine had only time to shake a finger in playful
+warning at her companion, and to whisper, "Mind you bring your artist to
+me, or I'll get him when you're not looking; and listen, don't tell Jim
+about him; I must see what he is like, first."
+
+At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted the artist in his
+bitterest humor. "And how is the famous Aaron King, to-day? I trust that
+the greatest portrait painter of the age is well; that the hotel people
+have been properly attentive to the comfort of their illustrious guest?
+The world of art can ill afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any
+lack of the service that is due his greatness."
+
+The young man's face flushed at his companion's mocking tone; but he
+laughed. "I missed you at breakfast."
+
+"I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual debauch--it takes time
+to recover from a dinner with 'Materialism,' 'Sensual,' 'Ragtime' and 'The
+Age'," the other returned, the menu in his hand. "What slop are they
+offering to put in our troughs for this noon's feed?"
+
+Again, Aaron King laughed. But as the novelist, with characteristic
+comments and instructions to the waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist
+watched him as though waiting with interest his further remarks on the
+subject of his evening with the Taines.
+
+When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned again to his companion, and
+from under his scowling brows regarded him much as a withered scientist
+might regard an interesting insect under his glass. "Permit me to
+congratulate you," he said suggestively--as though the bug had succeeded
+in acting in some manner fully expected by the scientist but wholly
+disgusting to him.
+
+The artist colored again as he returned curiously, "Upon what?"
+
+"Upon the start you have made toward the goal you hope to reach."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mrs. Taine wants you."
+
+"You are pleased to be facetious." Under the eyes of his companion, Aaron
+King felt that his reply did not at all conceal his satisfaction.
+
+"I am pleased to be exact. I repeat--Mrs. Taine wants you. I am ordered by
+the reigning 'Goddess' of 'Modern Art'--'The Age'--to bring you into her
+'Court.' You have won favor in her sight. She finds you good to look at.
+She hopes to find you--as good as you look. If you do not disappoint her,
+your fame is assured."
+
+"Nonsense," said the artist, somewhat sharply; nettled by the obvious
+meaning and by the sneering sarcasm of the novelist's words and tone.
+
+To which the other returned suggestively, "It is precisely because you can
+say, 'nonsense,' when you know it is no nonsense at all, but the exact
+truth, that your chance for fame is so good, my friend."
+
+"And did some reigning 'Goddess' insure your success and fame?"
+
+The older man turned his peculiar, penetrating, baffling eyes full upon
+his companion's face, and in a voice full of cynical sadness answered,
+"Exactly so. I paid court to the powers that be. They gave me the reward I
+sought; and--they made me what I am."
+
+So it came about that Conrad Lagrange, in due time, introduced Aaron King
+to the house on Fairlands Heights. Or,--as the novelist put it,--he,
+"Civilization",--in obedience to the commands of her "Royal Highness",
+"The Age",--presented the artist at her "Majesty's Court"; that the young
+man might sue for the royal favor.
+
+It was, perhaps, a month after the presentation ceremony, that the painter
+made what--to him, at least--was an important announcement.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Mystery of the Rose Garden
+
+
+
+The acquaintance of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had developed rapidly
+into friendship.
+
+The man whom the world had chosen to place upon one of the highest
+pinnacles of its literary favor, and who--through some queer twist in his
+nature--was so lonely and embittered by his exaltation, seemed to find in
+the younger man who stood with the crowd at the foot of the ladder,
+something that marked him as different from his fellows.
+
+Whether it was the artist's mother; some sacredly hidden memories of
+Lagrange's past; or, perhaps, some fancied recognition of the artist's
+genius and its possibilities; the strange man gave no hint; but he
+constantly sought the company of Aaron King, with an openness that made
+his preference for the painter's society very evident. If he had said
+anything about it, at all, Conrad Lagrange, likely, would have accounted
+for his interest, upon the ground that his dog, Czar, found the
+companionship agreeable. Their friendship, meanwhile--in the eyes of the
+world--conferred a peculiar distinction upon the young man--a distinction
+not at all displeasing to the ambitious artist; and the value of which he,
+probably, overrated.
+
+To Aaron King--aside from the subtle flattery of the famous novelist's
+attention--there was in the personality of the odd character a something
+that appealed to him with peculiar strength. Perhaps it was that the man's
+words, so often sharp and stinging with bitter sarcasm, seemed always to
+carry a hidden meaning that gave, as it were, glimpses of another nature
+buried deeply beneath a wreck of ruined dreams and disappointing
+achievements. Or, it may have been that, under all the cruel,
+world-hardness of the thoughts expressed, the young man sensed an
+undertone of pathetic sadness. Or, again, perhaps, it was those rare
+moments, when--on some walk that carried them beyond the outskirts of the
+town, and brought the mountains into unobstructed view--the clouds of
+bitterness were lifted; and the man spoke with poetic feeling of the
+realities of life, and of the true glory and mission of the arts;
+counseling his friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it was
+rare and fine.
+
+It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange had introduced the young
+man at the house on Fairlands Heights. The hour was late. The
+painter--returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine home--found
+the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a deserted corner of the hotel
+veranda. Dropping into the chair that was placed as if it awaited his
+coming, the artist--with no word of greeting to the man--bent over the
+brown head that was thrust so insistently against his knee, as Czar, with
+gently waving tail, made him welcome. Looking affectionately into the
+brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, the young man answered in the
+language that all dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his
+scowling brows, regarded the two intently.
+
+"They were disappointed that you were not there," said the painter,
+presently. "Mrs. Taine, particularly, charged me to say that she will not
+forgive, until you do proper penance for your sin."
+
+"I had better company," retorted the other. "Czar and I went for a look at
+the mountains. I suppose you have noticed that Czar does not care for the
+Fairlands Heights crowd. He is very peculiar in his friendships--for a
+dog. His instincts are remarkable."
+
+At the sound of his name, Czar transferred his attentions, for a moment,
+to his master; then stretched himself in his accustomed place beside the
+novelist's chair.
+
+The artist laughed. "I did my best to invent an acceptable excuse for you;
+but she said it was no use--nothing short of your own personal prayers for
+mercy would do."
+
+"Humph; you should have reminded her that I purchased an indulgence some
+weeks ago."
+
+Again, the other laughed shortly. Watching him closely, Conrad Lagrange
+said, in his most sneering tones, "I trust, young man, that you are not
+failing to make good use of your opportunities. Let's see--dinner and the
+evening five times--afternoon calls as many--with motor trips to points of
+interest--and one theater party to Los Angeles--believe me; it is not
+often that struggling genius is so rewarded--before it has accomplished
+anything bad enough to merit such attention."
+
+"I _have_ been idling most shamefully, haven't I?" said the artist.
+
+"Idling!" rasped the other. "You have been the busiest hay-maker in the
+land. These scientific, intensive cultivation farmers of California are
+not in your class when it comes to utilizing the sunshine. Take my advice
+and continue your present activity without bothering yourself by any
+sentimental thoughts of your palette and brushes. The mere vulgar tools of
+your craft are of minor importance to one of your genius and opportunity."
+
+Then, in a half embarrassed manner, Aaron King made his announcement.
+"That may all be," he said, "but just the same, I am going to work."
+
+"I knew it"--returned the other, in mocking triumph--"I knew it the moment
+you came up the steps there. I could tell it by your walk; by the air with
+which you carried yourself; by your manner, your voice, your laugh--you
+fairly reek of prosperity and achievement--you are going to paint her
+portrait."
+
+"And why not?" retorted the young man, rather sharply, a trifle nettled by
+the other's tone.
+
+"Why not, indeed!" murmured the novelist. "Indeed, yes--by all means! It
+is so exactly the right thing to do that it is startling. You scale the
+heights of fame with such confident certainty in every move that it is
+positively uncanny to watch you."
+
+"If one's work is true, I fail to see why one should not take advantage
+of any influence that can contribute to his success," said the painter. "I
+assure you I am not so wealthy that I can afford to refuse such an
+attractive commission. You must admit that the beautiful Mrs. Taine is a
+subject worthy the brush of any artist; and I suppose it _is_ conceivable
+that I _might_ be ambitious to make a genuinely good job of it."
+
+The older man, as though touched by the evident sincerity of the artist's
+words, dropped his sneering tone and spoke earnestly; "The beautiful Mrs.
+Taine _is_ a subject worthy a master's brush, my friend. But take my word
+for it, if you paint her portrait _as a master would paint it_, you will
+sign your own death warrant--so far as your popularity and fame as an
+artist goes."
+
+"I don't believe it," declared Aaron King, flatly.
+
+"I know you don't. If you _did_, and still accepted the commission, you
+wouldn't be fit to associate with honest dogs like Czar, here."
+
+"But why"--persisted the artist--"why do you insist that my portrait of
+Mrs. Taine will be disastrous to my success, just to the degree that it is
+a work of genuine merit?"
+
+To which the novelist answered, cryptically, "If you have not the eyes to
+see the reason, it will matter little whether you know it or not. If you
+_do_ see the reason, and, still, produce a portrait that pleases your
+sitter, then you will have paid the price; you will receive your reward;
+and"--the speaker's tone grew sad and bitter--"you will be what I am."
+
+With this, he arose abruptly and, without another word, stalked into the
+hotel; the dog following with quiet dignity, at his heels.
+
+From the beginning of their acquaintance, almost, the novelist and the
+artist had dropped into the habit of taking their meals together. At
+breakfast, the next morning, Conrad Lagrange reopened the conversation he
+had so abruptly closed the night before. "I suppose," he said, "that you
+will set up a studio, and do the thing in proper style?"
+
+"Mrs. Taine told me of a place that is for rent, and that she thinks would
+be just the thing," returned the young man. "It is across the road from
+that big grove owned by Mr. Taine. I was wondering if you would care to
+walk out that way with me this morning and help me look it over."
+
+The older man's hearty acceptance of the invitation assured the artist of
+his genuine interest, and, an hour later--after Aaron King had interviewed
+the agent and secured the keys, with the privilege of inspecting the
+premises--the two set out together.
+
+They found the place on the eastern edge of the town; half-hidden by the
+orange groves that surrounded it on every side. The height of the palms
+that grew along the road in front, the pepper and eucalyptus trees that
+overshadowed the house, and the size of the orange-trees that shut in the
+little yard with walls of green, marked the place as having been
+established before the wealth of the far-away East discovered the peculiar
+charm of the Fairlands hills. The lawn, the walks, and the drive were
+unkempt and overgrown with weeds. The house itself,--a small cottage with
+a wide porch across the front and on the side to the west,--unpainted for
+many seasons, was tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful
+gray.
+
+But the artist and his friend, as they approached, exclaimed aloud at the
+beauty of the scene; for, as if rejoicing in their freedom from restraint,
+the roses had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as their own. Up
+every post of the porch they had climbed; over the porch roof, they spread
+their wealth of color; over the gables, screening the windows with
+graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and bloom; up to the ridge
+and over the cornice, to the roof of the house itself--even to the top of
+the chimney they had won their way--and there, as if in an ecstasy of
+wanton loveliness, flung, a spray of glorious, perfumed beauty high into
+the air.
+
+On the front porch, the men turned to look away over the gentle slope of
+the orange groves, on the other side of the road, to the towering peaks
+and high ridges of the mountains--gleaming cold and white in the winter of
+their altitude. To the northeast, San Bernardino reared his head in lonely
+majesty--looking directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwellers
+in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded by the higher ridges and
+peaks and canyons of the range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the
+skies--the ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, they viewed
+the mighty sweep of the main range to Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels,
+beyond, with San Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting their
+heads above their fellows. In the immediate landscape, no house or
+building was to be seen. The dark-green mass of the orange groves hid
+every work of man's building between them and the tawny foothills save the
+gable and chimney of a neighboring cottage on the west.
+
+"Listen"--said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone, moved as always by the
+grandeur and beauty of the scene--"listen! Don't you hear them calling?
+Don't you feel the mountains sending their message to these poor insects
+who squirm and wriggle in this bit of muck men call their world? God, man!
+if only we, in our work, would heed the message of the hills!"
+
+The novelist spoke with such intensity of feeling--with such bitter
+sadness and regret in his voice--that Aaron King could not reply.
+
+Turning, the artist unlocked the door, and they entered the cottage.
+
+They found the interior of the house well arranged, and not in bad repair.
+"Just the thing for a bachelor's housekeeping"--was the painter's
+verdict--"but for a studio--impossible," and there was a touch of regret
+in his voice.
+
+"Let's continue our exploration," said the novelist, hopefully. "There's a
+barn out there." And they went out of the house, and down the drive on the
+eastern side of the yard.
+
+Here, again, they saw the roses in full possession of the place--by man,
+deserted. From foundation to roof, the building--a small simple
+structure--was almost hidden under a mass of vines. There was one large
+room below; with a loft above. The stable was in the rear. Built,
+evidently, at a later date than the house, the building was in better
+repair. The walls, so hidden without by the roses, were well sided; the
+floors were well laid. The big, sliding, main door opened on the drive in
+front; between it and the corner, to the west, was a small door; and in
+the western end, a window.
+
+Looking curiously from this window, Conrad Lagrange uttered an
+exclamation, and hurried abruptly from the building. The artist followed.
+
+From the end of the barn, and extending, the full width of the building,
+to the west line of the yard, was a rose garden--such a garden as Aaron
+King had never seen. On three sides, the little plot was enclosed by a
+tall hedge of Ragged Robins; above the hedge, on the south and west, was
+the dark-green wall of the orange grove; on the north, the pepper and
+eucalyptus trees in the yard, and a view of the distant mountains; and on
+the east, the vine-hidden end of the barn. Against the southern
+wall,--and, so, directly opposite the trellised, vine-covered arch of the
+entrance,--a small, lattice bower, with a rustic table and seats within,
+was completely covered, as was the barn, by the magically woven tapestry
+of the flowers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the entrance they
+found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of the premises, the garden was in
+perfect order--the roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged and
+clean; with no weed or sign of untidiness or neglect anywhere.
+
+The two men had come upon the spot so suddenly--so unexpectedly--the
+contrast with the neglected grounds and buildings was so marked--that they
+looked at each other in silence. The little retreat--so lovely, so hidden
+by its own beauty from the world, so cared for by careful hands--seemed
+haunted by an invisible spirit. Very quietly,--almost reverently,--they
+moved about; talking in low tones, as though half expecting--they knew not
+what.
+
+"Some one loves this place," said the novelist, softly, when they stood,
+again, in the entrance.
+
+And the artist answered in the same hushed voice, "I wonder what it
+means?"
+
+When they were again in the barn, Aaron King became eagerly enthusiastic
+over the possibilities of the big room. "Some rightly toned burlap on the
+walls and ceiling,"--he pointed out,--"with floor covering and rugs in
+harmony; there"--rolling back the big door as he spoke--"your north light;
+some hangings and screens to hide the stairway to the loft, and the stable
+door; your entrance over here in the corner, nicely out of the way; and
+the window looking into the garden--it's great man, great!"
+
+"And," answered Conrad Lagrange, from where he stood in the big front
+door, "the mountains! Don't forget the mountains. The soft, steady, north
+light on your canvas, and a message from the mountains to your soul,
+through the same window, should make it a good place to work, Mr.
+Painter-man. I suppose over here"--he moved away from the window, and
+spoke in his mocking way--"over here, you will have a tea-table for the
+ladies of the circle elect--who will come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their
+admiration of the newly discovered genius, and to chatter their
+misunderstandings of his art. Of course, there will be a page in velvet
+and gold. By all means, get hold of an oriental kid of some kind--oriental
+junk is quite the rage this year. You should take advantage of every
+influence that can contribute to your success, you know. And, whatever you
+do, don't fail to consult the 'Goddess' about these essentials of your
+craft. Many a promising genius has been lost to fame, through inviting the
+wrong people to take tea in his studio. But"--he finished whimsically,
+looking from the window into the garden--"but what the devil do you
+suppose the spirit who lives out there will think about it all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days of the two following weeks were busy days for Aaron King. He
+leased the place in the orange groves, and set men to work making it
+habitable. The lawn and grounds were trimmed and put in order; the
+interior of the house was renovated by painter and paper-hanger; and the
+barn, under the artist's direction, was transformed into an ideal studio.
+There was a trip to Los Angeles--quite fortunately upon a day when Mrs.
+Taine must go to the city shopping--for rugs and hangings; and another
+trip to purchase the tools of the artist's craft. And, at last, there was
+a Chinese cook and housekeeper to find; with supplies for his kitchen. It
+was at Conrad Lagrange's suggestion, that, from the first, every one was
+given strict orders to keep out of the rose garden.
+
+Every day, the novelist--accompanied, always, by Czar--walked out that way
+to see how things were progressing; and often,--if he had not been too
+busy to notice,--Aaron King might have seen a look of wistfulness in the
+keen, baffling eyes of the famous man--so world-weary and sad. And, while
+he did not cease to mock and jeer and offer sarcastic advice to his
+younger friend, the touch of pathos--that, like a minor chord, was so
+often heard in his most caustic and cruel speeches--was more pronounced.
+As for Czar--he always returned to the hotel with evident reluctance; and
+managed to express, in his dog way, the thoughts his distinguished master
+would not put in words.
+
+Very often, too, the big touring car from the house on Fairlands Heights
+stopped in front of the cottage, while the occupants inspected the
+premises, and--with many exclamations of flattering praise, and a few
+suggestions--made manifest their interest.
+
+In time, it was finished and ready--from the big easel by the great, north
+window in the studio, to the white-jacketed Yee Kee in the kitchen. When
+the last workman was gone with his tools; and the two men, after looking
+about the place for an hour, were standing on the front porch; Conrad
+Lagrange said, "And the stage is set. The scene shifters are off. The
+audience is waiting. Ring up the curtain for the next act. Even Czar has
+looked upon everything and calls it good--heh Czar?"
+
+The dog went to him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into
+the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand.
+Still fondling the dog,--without looking at the artist,--the older man
+continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I
+suppose? Or, will we lunch together, once more?"
+
+Aaron King laughed--as a boy who has prepared a surprise, and has been
+struggling manfully to keep the secret until the proper moment should
+arrive. Placing his hand on the older man's shoulder, he answered
+meaningly, "I had planned that _we_ would move in the morning." At the
+other's puzzled expression he laughed again.
+
+"We?" said the novelist, facing his friend, quickly.
+
+"Come here," returned the other. "I must show you something you haven't
+seen."
+
+He led the way to a room that they had decided he would not need, and the
+door of which was locked. Taking a key from his pocket, he handed it to
+his friend.
+
+"What's this?" said the older man, looking foolishly at the key in his
+hand.
+
+"It's the key to that door," returned the other, with a gleeful chuckle.
+Then--"Unlock it."
+
+"Unlock it?"
+
+"Sure--that's what I gave you the key for."
+
+Conrad Lagrange obeyed. Through the open door, he saw, not the bare and
+empty room he supposed was there, but a bedroom--charmingly furnished,
+complete in every detail. Turning, he faced his companion silently,
+inquiringly--with a look that Aaron King had never before seen in those
+strange, baffling eyes.
+
+"It's yours"--said the artist, hastily--"if you care to come. You'll have
+a free hand here, you know; for I will be in the studio much of the time.
+Kee will cook the things you like. You and Czar can come and go as you
+will. There is the arbor in the rose garden, you know, and see here"--he
+stepped to the window--"I chose this room for you, because it looks out
+upon your mountains."
+
+The strange man stood at the window for, what seemed to the artist, a long
+time. Suddenly, he turned to say sharply, "Young man, why did you do
+this?"
+
+"Why"--stammered the other, disconcerted--"because I want you--because I
+thought you would like to come. I beg your pardon--if I have made a
+mistake--but surely, no harm has been done."
+
+"And you think you could stand living with me--for any length of time?"
+
+The' painter laughed with relief. "Oh, _that's_ it! I didn't know you had
+such a tender conscience. You scared me for a minute, I should think you
+would know by this time that you can't phase me with your wicked tongue."
+
+The novelist's face twisted into a grotesque smile. "I warn you--I will
+flay you and your friends just the same. You need it for the good of your
+soul."
+
+"As often and as hard as you like"--returned the other, heartily--"just so
+it's for the good of my soul. You will come?"
+
+"You will permit me to stand my share of the expense?"
+
+"Anything you like--if you will only come."
+
+The older man said gently,--for the first time calling the artist by his
+given name,--"Aaron, I believe that you are the only person in the world
+who would, really want me; and I _know_ that you are the only person in
+the world to whom I would be grateful for such an invitation."
+
+The artist was about to reply, when the big automobile stopped in front of
+the house. Czar, on the porch, gave a low growl of disapproval; and,
+through the open door, they saw Mr. Taine and his wife with James Rutlidge
+and Louise.
+
+The novelist said something, under his breath, that had a vicious
+sound--quite unlike his words of the moment before. Czar, in disgust,
+retreated to the shelter of Yee Kee's domain. With a laugh, the younger
+man went out to meet his friends.
+
+"Are you at home this afternoon, Sir Artist?" called Mrs. Taine, gaily, as
+he went down the walk.
+
+"I will always be at home to the right people," he answered, greeting the
+other members of the party.
+
+As they moved toward the house,--Mr. Taine choking and coughing, his
+daughter chattering and exclaiming, and James Rutlidge critically
+observing,--Mrs. Taine dropped a little back to Aaron King's side. "And
+are you really established, at last?" she asked eagerly; with a charming,
+confidential air.
+
+"We move to-morrow morning," he answered.
+
+"We?" she questioned.
+
+"Conrad Lagrange and I. He is going to live with me, you know."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+It is remarkable how much meaning a woman can crowd into that one small
+syllable; particularly, when she draws a little away from you as she
+speaks it.
+
+"Why," he murmured apologetically, "don't you approve?"
+
+Mrs. Taine's beautiful eyebrows went up inquiringly--"And why should I
+either approve or disapprove?"
+
+The young man was saved by the arrival of his guests at the porch steps,
+and by the appearance of Conrad Lagrange, in the doorway.
+
+"How delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Taine, heartily; as she, in turn, greeted
+the famous novelist. "Mr. King was just telling me that you were going to
+share this dear little place with him. I quite envy you both."
+
+The others had passed into the house.
+
+"You are sometimes guilty of saying twisty things yourself, aren't you?"
+returned the man; and, as he spoke, his remarkable eyes were fixed upon
+her as though reading her innermost thoughts.
+
+She flushed under his meaning gaze, but carried it off gaily with--"Oh
+dear! I wonder if my maid has hooked me up properly, this time?"
+
+They left Mr. Taine in an easy chair, with a bottle of his favorite
+whisky; and went over the place--from the arbor in the rose garden to Yee
+Kee's pantry--Mr. Rutlidge, critically and authoritatively approving;
+Louise, effervescing the same sugary nothings at every step; Mrs. Taine,
+with a pretty air of proprietorship; Conrad Lagrange, thoughtfully
+watching; and Aaron King, himself, irresponsibly gay and boyishly proud as
+he exhibited his achievements.
+
+In the studio, Mrs. Taine--standing before the big easel--demanded to
+know of the artist, when he would begin her portrait--she was so
+interested, so eager to begin--how soon could she come? Louise assumed a
+worshipful attitude, and, gazing at the young man with reverent eyes,
+waited breathlessly. James Rutlidge drew near, condescendingly attentive,
+to the center of attraction. Conrad Lagrange turned his back.
+
+"Really," murmured the painter, "I hope you will not be too impatient,
+Mrs. Taine, I fear I cannot be ready for some time yet. I suppose I must
+confess to being over-sensitive to my environment; for it is a fact that
+my working mood does not come upon me readily amid strange surroundings.
+When I have become acclimated, as it were, I will be ready for you."
+
+"How wonderful!" breathed Louise.
+
+"Quite right," agreed Mr. Rutlidge.
+
+"Whenever you are ready," said Mrs. Taine, submissively.
+
+When their friends from the Heights were gone, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down, as he said with cutting sarcasm, "You did that very
+nicely. Over-sensitive to your environment, hell! If you _are_ a bit fine
+strung, you have no business to make a _show_ of it. It's a weakness, not
+a virtue. And the man who makes capital out of any man's weakness,--even
+of his own,--is either a criminal or a fool or both."
+
+Then they went back to the hotel for dinner.
+
+The next morning, the artist and the novelist moved from the hotel, to
+establish themselves in the little house in the orange groves--the
+little house with its unobstructed view of the mountains, and with its
+rose garden, so mysteriously tended.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+An Unknown Friend
+
+
+
+When Yee Kee announced lunch, the artist, the novelist, and the dog were
+settled in their new home. In the afternoon, the painter spent an hour
+or two fussing over portfolios of old sketches, in his studio; while
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar lounged on the front porch.
+
+Once, the dog rose quietly, and, walking sedately to the edge of the
+porch toward the west, stood for some minutes gazing intently into the
+dark green mass of the orange grave. At last, as if concluding that
+whatever it was it was all right, he went calmly back to his place
+beside the novelist's chair.
+
+"Do you know,"--said the artist, as they sat on the porch that evening,
+with their after-dinner pipes,--"I believe this old place is haunted."
+
+"If it isn't, it ought to be," answered the other, contentedly--playing
+with Czar's silky ears. "A good ghost would fit in nicely here, wouldn't
+it--or he, or she. Its spookship would travel far to find a more
+delightful place for spooking in, and--providing, of course, she were a
+perfectly respectable hant--what a charming addition to our family he
+would make. When it was weary of moping and mowing and sobbing and
+wailing and gibbering, she could curl up at the foot of your bed and
+sleep; as Czar, here, curls up and sleeps at the foot of mine. A good
+ghost, you know--if he becomes really attached to you--is as constant
+and faithful and affectionate and companionable as a good dog."
+
+"B-r-r-r," said the artist. And Czar turned to look at him,
+questioningly.
+
+"All the same"--the painter continued--"when I was out there in the
+studio, I could feel some one watching me--you know the feeling."
+
+Conrad Lagrange returned mockingly, "I trust your over-sensitive, artistic
+temperament is not to be so influenced by our ghostly visitor that you
+will be unfitted for your work."
+
+The other laughed. Then he said seriously, "Joking aside, Lagrange, I feel
+a presentiment--I can't put it into words--but--I feel that I _am_ going
+to begin the real work of my life right here. I"--he hesitated--"it seems
+to me that I can sense some influence that I can't define--it's the
+mystery of the rose garden, perhaps," he finished with another short
+laugh.
+
+The man, who, in the eyes of the world, had won so large a measure of the
+success that his friend desired; and whose life was so embittered by the
+things for which he was envied by many; made no reply other than his slow,
+twisted smile.
+
+Silently, they watched the purple shadows of the mountains deepen; and saw
+the outlines of the tawny foothills grow vague and dim, until they were
+lost in the dusky monotone of the evening. The last faint tint of sunset
+color went from the sky back of the San Gabriels; while, close to the
+mountain peaks and ridges, the stars came out. The rows and the contour of
+the orange groves could no longer be distinguished the forms of the nearby
+trees were lost--the rich, lustrous green of their foliage brushed out
+with the dull black of the night; while the twinkling lights of the
+distant towns and hamlets, in the valley below, shone as sparkling jewels
+on the inky, velvet robe that, fold on fold, lay over the landscape.
+
+When the two had smoked in silence, for some time, the artist said slowly,
+"You knew my mother very well, did you not, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"We were children together, Aaron." As he spoke, the man's deep voice was
+gentle, as always, when the young man's mother was mentioned.
+
+Again, for a little, neither spoke. As they sat looking away to the
+mountains, each seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Yet each felt that
+the other, to a degree, understood what he, himself, was thinking.
+
+Once more, the artist broke the silence,--facing his mother's friend with
+quiet resolution,--as though he felt himself forced to speak but knew not
+exactly how to begin. "Did you know her well--after--after my father's
+death--and while I was abroad?"
+
+The other bowed his head--"Yes."
+
+"Very well?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+As if at loss for words, Aaron King still hesitated. "Mr. Lagrange," he
+said, at last, "there are some things about--about mother--that I would
+like to tell you--that I think she would want me to tell you, under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Yes," said Conrad Lagrange, gently.
+
+"Well,--to begin,--you know, perhaps, how much mother and I have always
+been--" his fine voice broke and the older man bowed his head; but, with a
+slight lift of his determined chin, the painter went on calmly--"to each
+other. After father's death, until I was seventeen, we were never
+separated. She was my only teacher. Then I went away to school, seeing her
+only during my vacations, which we always spent, together in the country.
+Three years ago, I went abroad to finish my study. I did not see her again
+until--until I was called home."
+
+"I know," came in low tones from the other.
+
+"But, sir, while it seemed necessary that I should be away from
+home,--that we should be separated,--all through this period, we exchanged
+almost daily letters; planning for the future, and looking forward to the
+time when we could, again, be together."
+
+"I know, Aaron. It was very unusual--and very beautiful."
+
+"When we were together, before I went away, I was a mere lad," continued
+the artist. "I knew in a general way that father had been a successful
+lawyer, and quite prominent in politics; and--because there was no change
+in our manner of living after his death, and there seemed to be always
+money for whatever we wanted, I suppose--I assumed, thoughtlessly, that
+there would always be plenty. During the years while I was at school,
+there was never, in any way, the slightest hint in mother's letters that
+would lead me to question the abundance of her resources. When they called
+me home,--" his voice broke, "--I found my mother dying--almost in
+poverty--our home stripped of the art treasures she loved--her own room,
+even, empty of everything save the barest necessities." In bitter sorrow
+and shame, the young man buried his face in his hands.
+
+The novelist, his gaunt features twitching with the emotion that even his
+long schooling in the tragedies of life could not suppress, waited
+silently.
+
+When the artist had regained, in a measure, his self-control, he
+continued,--and every word came from him in shame and humiliation,--"Before
+she died, she told me about--my father. In the settlement of his affairs,
+at the time of his death, it appeared that he had taken advantage of the
+confidence of certain clients and had betrayed his trust; appropriating
+large sums to his own interests. He had even taken advantage of mother's
+influence in certain circles, and, relying upon her unquestioning faith
+in his integrity, had made her an unconscious instrument in furthering
+his schemes."
+
+Conrad Lagrange made as if to speak, but checked himself and waited for
+the other to continue.
+
+Aaron King went on; "Out of regard for my mother, the matter was kept as
+quiet as possible. The one who suffered the heaviest loss was able to
+protect her--in a measure. All the others were fully reimbursed. But
+mother--it would have been easier for her if she had died then. She
+withdrew from her friends and from the life she loved--she denied herself
+to all who sought her and devoted her life to me. Above all, she planned
+to keep me in ignorance of the truth until I should be equipped to win the
+place in the world that she coveted for me. It was for that, she sent me
+away, and kept me from home. As the demands for my educational expenses
+grew naturally heavier, she supplemented the slender resources, left in
+the final settlement of my father's estate, by sacrificing the treasures
+of her home, and by giving up the luxuries to which she had been
+accustomed from childhood. She even provided for me after her death--not
+wealth, but a comfortable amount, sufficient to support me in good
+circumstances until I can gain recognition and an income from my work."
+
+Under the lash of his memories, the young man sprang to his feet.
+
+"In God's name, Lagrange, why did not some one tell me? I did not know--I
+did not know--I thought--O mother, mother, mother--why did you do it? Why
+was I not told? All these years I have lived a selfish fool, and
+you--you--I would have given up everything--I would have worked in a
+ditch, rather than accept this."
+
+The deep, quiet voice of Conrad Lagrange broke the stillness that followed
+the storm of the artist's passionate words. "And that is the answer,
+Aaron. She knew, too well, that you would not have accepted her sacrifice,
+if you had known. That is why she kept the secret until you had finished
+your education. She forbade her friends--she forbade me to interfere. And
+don't you see that she was right? Don't you see it? We would have done her
+the greatest injustice if we had, against her will, deprived her of this
+privilege. Her splendid pride, her high sense of honor, her nobility of
+spirit demanded the sacrifice. It was her right. God forgive me--I tried
+to make her see it otherwise--but she knew best. She always knew best,
+Aaron. Her only hope of regaining for you that self-respect and that
+position in life to which you--by right of birth and natural
+endowment--are entitled, was in you. The name which she had given to you
+could be restored to honor by you only. To train and equip you for your
+work, and to enable you, unhampered by need, to gain your footing, was the
+determined passion of her life. Her sacrifice, her suffering to that end,
+was the only restitution she could make to you for that which your father
+had squandered. Her proud spirit, her fine intelligence, her mother love
+for you, demanded it."
+
+"I know," returned the artist. "She told me before she died. She made me
+understand. She said that it was my inheritance. She asked for my promise
+that I would be true to her purpose. Her last words were an expression of
+her confidence that I would not disappoint her--that I would win a place
+and name that would wipe out the shame of my father's dishonor. And I
+will, Lagrange, I must. Mother--mother shall not be disappointed--she
+shall not be disappointed."
+
+"No,"--said the older man, so softly that the other, torn by the passion
+of his own thoughts, did not hear,--"No, Aaron, your mother will not be
+disappointed."
+
+For a time longer they sat in silence. Then the young man said, "I wish I
+knew the name of my mother's friend--the one who suffered the heaviest
+loss through my father, and who so generously protected her in the crisis.
+I would like to thank him, at least. I begged her to tell me, but she
+would not. She said he would not want me to know--that for me to attempt
+to reimburse him would, to his mind, rob him of his real reward."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, his head bowed, spoke quietly to the dog at his feet.
+Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle on his master's knee and looked up into
+the homely, world-worn face. Gently, the strange man--so lonely and
+embittered in the fame that he had won--at a price--stroked the brown
+head. "Your mother knew best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at
+his companion. "You must believe that she knew best. Her beautiful spirit
+could not lead her astray. She was right in this, also. Your sentiment
+does you honor, but you must respect her wish. Whoever the man was--she
+had reasons, I am sure, for feeling as she did--that it would be better
+for you not to know. It was some one, perhaps, whose influence upon you,
+she had cause to fear."
+
+"It was very strange," returned the artist, hesitatingly. "Perhaps I ought
+not to say it. But I felt that, as you suggest, she feared for me to know.
+She seemed to want to tell me, but did not, for _my_ sake. It was very
+strange."
+
+Conrad Lagrange made no reply.
+
+"I wanted you to know about mother,"--continued the artist,--"because I
+would like you to understand why--why I must succeed in my work."
+
+The older man smiled to himself, in the dusk. "I have always known why
+you must succeed, Aaron," he returned. "I have never questioned your
+motives. I question only your understanding of success. I question--if you
+will pardon me--your understanding of your mother's wish for you."
+
+Then, in one of those rare momentary moods, when he seemed to reveal to
+his young friend his real nature that lay so deeply hidden from the world,
+he added, "You are right, Aaron. This place _is_ haunted--haunted by the
+spirit of the mountains, yonder--haunted by the spirit of the rose garden,
+out there. The silent strength of the hills, and the loveliness of the
+garden will attend you in your studio, as you work. I do not wonder that
+you feel a presentiment that your artistic future is to be shaped here;
+for between these influences and the other influences that will be brought
+to bear upon you, you will be forced to decide. May the God of all true
+art and artists help you to make no mistake. Listen!"
+
+As though in answer to the solemn words of the man who spoke from the
+fullness of a life-long experience and from the depths of a life-old love,
+a strain of music came from out the fragrant darkness. Somewhere, hidden
+in the depths of the orange grove, the soul of a true musician was seeking
+expression in the tones of a violin.
+
+Softly, sadly, with poignant clearness, the music lifted into the
+night--low and pleadingly at first; then stronger and more vibrant with
+feeling, as though sweetly insistent in its call; swelling next in volume
+and passion, as though in warning of some threatening evil; ringing with
+loving fear; sobbing, wailing, moaning, in anguish; clearly, gloriously,
+triumphant, at last; then sinking into solemn, reverent
+benediction--losing itself, finally, in the darkness, even as it had come.
+
+The two men, so fashioned by nature to receive such music, listened with
+emotions they could not have put into words. For the moment, the music to
+them was the voice of the guarding, calling, warning spirit of the
+mountains that, in their calm, majestic strength, were so far removed from
+the petty passions and longings of the baser world at their feet--it was
+the voice of the loving intimacy, the sweet purity, and the sacred beauty
+of the spirit of the garden. It was as though the things of which Conrad
+Lagrange had just spoken so reverently had cried aloud to them, out of the
+night, in confirmation of his words.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray
+
+
+
+Aaron King seemed loth to begin his work on the portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+Day after day, without apparent reason, he put it off--spending the hours
+in wandering aimlessly about the place, idling on the porch, or doing
+nothing in his studio. He would start from the house to the building at
+the end of the rose garden, as though moved by some clearly defined
+purpose--and then, for an hour or more, would dawdle among the things of
+his craft, with irresolute mind--turning over his sketches and drawings
+with uncertain hands, as though searching for something he knew was not
+there; toying with his paints and brushes; or sitting before his empty
+easel, looking away through the big window to the distant mountains. He
+seemed incapable of fixing his mind upon the task to which he attached so
+much importance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he begged her to be
+patient; and she, with pretended awe of the moods of genius, waited.
+
+Conrad Lagrange jeered and mocked, offered sneering advice or sarcastic
+compliment; and, under it all, was keenly watchful and sympathetic--
+understanding better than the artist himself, perhaps, the secret of the
+painter's hesitation. Every day,--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in
+the afternoon or evening unseen musician, in the orange grove wrought
+for them melodie that, whether grave or gay, always carried, somehow,
+the feeling that had so moved them in the mysterious darkness of
+that first evening.
+
+They knew, now, of course, that the musician lived in the neighboring
+house--the gable and chimney of which was just visible above the
+orange-trees. But that was all. Obedient to some whimsical impulse that
+prompted them both, and was born, no doubt, of the circumstance and mood
+of that first evening, they did not seek to learn more. They
+feared--though they did not say it--that to learn the identity of the
+musician would rob them of the peculiar pleasure they found in the music,
+itself. So they spoke always of their unknown neighbor in a fanciful vein,
+as in like humor they spoke of the spirit that Aaron King still insisted
+haunted the place, or as they alluded to the mystery of the carefully
+tended rose garden.
+
+When the artist could put it off no longer, a day was finally set when
+Mrs. Taine was to come for the beginning of her portrait. The appointed
+hour found the artist in his studio. A canvas stood ready upon the easel;
+palette, colors and brushes were at hand. The painter was standing at the
+big, north window, looking up away to the mountains--the mountains that
+the novelist said called so insistently. Suddenly, he turned his head to
+listen. Sweetly clear and low, through the green wall of the orange-trees,
+came the music of that hidden violin.
+
+As he stood there,--with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to
+the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,--Aaron King
+knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare
+moments--that come, all unexpectedly--when, with prophetic vision, one
+sees clearly the end of the course he pursues and the destiny that waits
+him at its completion. As clearly, too, he saw the other way, and knew the
+meaning of the vision. But seldom is the strength given to man, in such
+moments, to choose for himself. Though he may see the other way clearly,
+his feet cling to the path he has elected to follow; nor will he, unless
+some one takes him by the hand saying, "Come," turn aside.
+
+A voice, not at all in harmony with the music, broke upon the artist's
+consciousness. He turned to see Mrs. Taine standing expectantly in the
+open door. "Hush!" said the painter, still under the spell of that moment
+so big with possibilities. "Listen,"--with a gesture, he checked her
+advance,--"listen."
+
+A look of haughty surprise flashed over the woman's too perfect features.
+Then, as her ear caught the tones of the violin, she half turned--but only
+for a moment.
+
+"Very clever, isn't it," she said as she came forward "It must be old
+Professor Becker. He lives somewhere around here, I understand. They say
+he is very good."
+
+The artist looked at her for an instant, in amazement Then, as his normal
+mind asserted itself, he burst into an embarrassed laugh.
+
+At her look of puzzled inquiry, he said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine.
+I did not realize how harshly I greeted you. The fact is I--I was
+dreaming"--he turned suggestively toward the canvas upon the easel. "You
+see I was expecting you--I was thinking--then the music
+came--and--well--when you actually appeared in the flesh, I did not for
+the moment realize that it was really you."
+
+"How charming of you!" she returned. "To be made the subject of an
+artist's dream--really it is quite the nicest compliment I have ever
+received. Tell me, do you like me in this?" she slipped the wrap she wore
+from her shoulders, and stood before him, gowned in the simple, gray dress
+of a Quaker Maid. Deliberately, she turned her beautiful self about for
+his critical inspection. Moving to and fro, sitting, half-reclining,
+standing--in various graceful poses she invited, challenged, dared, his
+closest attention--professional attention, of course--to every curve and
+detail.
+
+In spite of its simplicity of color and line, the gown still bore the
+unmistakable stamp of the wearer's world. The severity of line was subtly
+made to emphasize the voluptuousness of the body that was covered but not
+hidden. The quiet color was made to accentuate the flesh the dress
+concealed only to reveal. The very lack of ornament but served to center
+the attention upon the charms that so loudly professed to scorn them. It
+was worldliness speaking in the quiet voice of religion. It was vulgarity
+advertising itself in terms of good taste. She had made modesty the
+handmaiden of blatant immodesty, and the daring impudence of it all
+fairly stunned the painter.
+
+"Oh dear!" she said, watching his face, "I fear you don't like it, at
+all--and I thought it such a beautiful little gown. You told me to wear
+whatever I pleased, you know."
+
+"It _is_ a beautiful gown," he said--then added impulsively, "and you are
+beautiful in it. You would be beautiful in anything."
+
+She shook her head; favoring him with an understanding smile. "You say
+that to please me. I can see that you don't like me this way."
+
+"But I do," he insisted. "I like you that way, immensely. I was a bit
+surprised, that's all. You see, I thought, of course, that you would
+select an evening gown of some sort--something, you know, that would fit
+your social position--your place in the world. In this costume, the beauty
+of your shoulders--"
+
+Lowering her eyes as if embarrassed, she said coldly, "The beauty of my
+shoulders is not for the public. I have never worn--I will not wear--one
+of those dreadful, immodest gowns."
+
+Aaron King was bewildered. Suddenly, he remembered what Conrad Lagrange
+had said about her fad. But after so frankly exhibiting herself before
+him, dressed as she was in a gown that was deliberately planned to
+advertise her physical charms, to be particular about baring her shoulders
+in a conventional costume--! It was quite too much.
+
+"Again, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine," he managed to say. "I did not
+know. Under the circumstances, this is exactly the thing. Your portrait,
+in what is so frankly a costume assumed for the purpose, takes us out of
+the dilemma very nicely, indeed."
+
+"Why, that's exactly what I thought," she returned eagerly. "And this is
+so in keeping with my real tastes--don't you see? A real portrait--I mean
+a serious work of art, you know--should always be something more than a
+mere likeness, should it not? Don't you think that to be genuinely good, a
+portrait must reveal the spirit and character--must portray the soul, as
+well as the features? I _do_ so want this to be a truly great picture--for
+your sake." Her manner seemed to say that she was doing it all for him. "I
+have never permitted any one to paint my portrait before, you know," she
+added meaningly.
+
+"You are very kind, Mrs. Taine," he returned gravely. "Believe me, I do
+appreciate this opportunity I shall do my best to express my appreciation
+here"--he indicated the canvas on the easel.
+
+When his sitter was posed to his liking, and the artist, with a few bold,
+sweeping, strokes of the charcoal had roughed out his subject on the
+canvas, and was bending over his color-box--he said, casually, to put her
+at ease, "You came alone this afternoon, did you?"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed! I brought Louise with me. I shall always bring her, or
+some one. One cannot be too careful, you know," she added with simulated
+artlessness.
+
+The painter, studying her face, replied mechanically "No indeed."
+
+As he turned back to his canvas, Mrs. Taine continued, "I left her in the
+house, with a box of chocolates and a novel. I felt that you would rather
+we were alone."
+
+"Please don't look down," said the artist. "I want your eyes about
+here"--he indicated a picture on the wall, a little back and to the left
+of where he stood at the easel.
+
+After this, there was silence in the studio, for a little while. Mrs.
+Taine obediently kept the pose; her eyes upon the point the artist had
+indicated; but--as the man, himself, was almost directly in her line of
+vision--it was easy for her to watch him at his work, when his eyes were
+on his canvas or palette. The arrangement was admirable in that it
+relieved the tedium of the hour for the sitter; and gave her face an
+expression of animated interest that, truthfully fixed upon the canvas,
+should insure the fame and future of any painter.
+
+It would be quite too much to say that Aaron King became absorbed in his
+occupation. Thorough master of the tools of his craft, and of his own
+technic, as well; he was interested in the mere exercising of his skill,
+but he in no sense lost himself in his work. Two or three times, Mrs.
+Taine saw him glance quickly over his shoulder, as though expecting some
+one. Once, for quite a moment, he deliberately turned from his easel to
+stand at the window, looking up at the distant mountain peaks. Several
+times, he seemed to be listening.
+
+"May I talk?" she said at last.
+
+"Why, certainly," he returned. "I want you to feel perfectly at ease. You
+must be altogether at home here. Just let yourself go--say what you like,
+with no conventional restraints whatever--consider me a mechanical
+something that is no more than an article of furniture--be as thoroughly
+yourself as if alone in your own room."
+
+"How funny," she said musingly.
+
+"Not at all"--he returned--"just a matter of business."
+
+"But it _would_ be funny if I were to take you at your word," she replied;
+suddenly breaking the pose and meeting his gaze squarely. "Is it--is it
+quite necessary for the mechanical something to look at me like that?"
+
+"I said that you were to _consider_ me as an article of furniture. I
+didn't say that I _felt_ like a table or chair."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Don't look down; keep the pose, please," came somewhat sharply from the
+man at the easel, as though he were mentally taking himself in hand.
+
+After that, she watched him with increasing interest and, when he turned
+his head in that listening attitude, a curious, resentful light came into
+her eyes.
+
+Presently, she asked abruptly, "What is it that you hear?"
+
+"I thought I heard music," he answered, coloring slightly and turning to
+his work with suddenly absorbing interest.
+
+"The violin that so enchanted you when I came to break the spell?" she
+persisted playfully--though the light in her eyes was not a playful light.
+
+"Yes," he answered shortly; stepping back and shading his eyes with his
+hand for a careful look at his canvas.
+
+"And don't you know who it is?"
+
+"You said it was an old professor somebody."
+
+"That was my _first_ guess," she retorted. "Was I right?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But it comes from that little box of a house, next door, doesn't it?"
+
+"Evidently," the artist answered. Then, laying aside his palette and
+brushes he said abruptly, "That is all for to-day; thank you."
+
+"Oh, so soon!" she exclaimed; and the regret in her voice was very
+pleasing to the man who was decidedly not a mechanical something.
+
+She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But the artist, with a quick
+motion, drew a curtain across the canvas, to hide his work; while he
+checked her with--"Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it until I say
+you may."
+
+"How mean of you," she protested; charmingly submissive. Then,
+eagerly--"And do you want me to-morrow? You do, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, please--at the same hour."
+
+When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hidden under her wrap, Mrs.
+Taine stood, for a moment, looking thoughtfully about the studio; while
+the artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the automobile. "I
+am going to love this room," she said slowly; and, for the first time, her
+voice was genuinely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone that
+made him regard her wonderingly.
+
+She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when you are famous--when you are
+a great artist and all the great and famous people go to you to have their
+portraits painted--will you remember poor me, I wonder?"
+
+"Am I really going to be famous?" he returned doubtfully. "Are you so sure
+that this picture will mean success?"
+
+"Of course I am sure--I _know_. You want to succeed don't you?"
+
+Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering. Then, with
+a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had
+never before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to succeed! I--I must
+succeed. I tell you I _must_."
+
+And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, "And you
+shall--you shall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling
+moodily at his pipe.
+
+"Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as he stood looking down
+upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.
+
+"All over," replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar's
+muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand. "Where did you fly to?"
+
+The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly anywhere to escape being
+entertained by that Ragtime' piece of human nonentity--Louise Taine. I
+saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his pipe as he spoke. "And
+how did the work go?"
+
+"All right," replied the painter, indifferently.
+
+The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then,
+striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the
+cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 'Her Majesty' was
+royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine
+linen; as befits the dignity of her state?"
+
+The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely,
+"I suppose you have got to know, damn you! I'm painting her as a Quaker
+Maiden."
+
+Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst
+of the artist. Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse
+that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his
+scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and
+understanding "You poor fellow! It must be hell." Then, as his keen mind
+grasped the full significance of the artist's words, he murmured
+meditatively, "The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker
+gray--Shades of the giants who used to be! What an opportunity--if you
+only had the nerve to do it."
+
+The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace
+up and down the porch. "Don't, Lagrange, don't! I can't stand it, just
+now."
+
+"All right." said the other, heartily, "I won't." Rising, he put his hand
+on his friend's shoulder. "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before
+Yee Kee calls us to dinner."
+
+In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of something white lying in
+the well-kept path. With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It
+was a dainty square of lace--a handkerchief--with an exquisitely
+embroidered "S" in the corner.
+
+The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
+
+
+
+Aaron King was putting the last touches to his portrait of the woman
+who--Conrad Lagrange said--was the personification of the age.
+
+From that evening when the young man told his friend the story of his
+mother's sacrifice, their friendship had become like that friendship which
+passeth the love of women. While the novelist, true to his promise, did
+not cease to flay his younger companion--for the good of the artist's
+soul--those moments when his gentler moods ruled his speech were, perhaps,
+more frequent; and the artist was more and more learning to appreciate the
+rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intellectual brilliancy,
+and the keenness of mental vision that distinguished the man whose life
+was so embittered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts.
+
+The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture while the work was in
+progress. He said, bluntly, that he preferred to run no risk of
+interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be
+quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was
+accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The
+artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased
+to be left to himself with this particular picture.
+
+Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to accompany his friend,
+occasionally, to the house on Fairlands Heights; where the painter
+continued to spend much of his time. When Mrs. Taine made mocking
+references to the novelist's promise not to leave the artist unprotected
+to her tender mercies, he always answered with some--as she said--twisty
+saying; to the effect that the present situation in no way lessened his
+determination to save the young man from the influences that would
+accomplish the ruin of his genius. "If"--he always added--"if he is worth
+saving; which remains to be seen." Always, at the Taine home, they met
+James Rutlidge. Frequently the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage
+in the orange grove.
+
+Under the skillful management of Rutlidge,--at the request of Mrs.
+Taine,--the newspapers were already busy with the name and work of Aaron
+King. True, the critic had never seen the artist's work; but,
+never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout the country often
+mentioned the high order of the painter's genius. There were little
+stories of his study and success abroad; tactful references to his
+aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his romantic life with the
+famous novelist in the orange groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his
+California studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was at work
+upon a portrait of the well-known social leader, Mrs. Taine--this being
+the first portrait ever painted of that famous beauty. That the picture
+would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the unanimous verdict of
+all who had been permitted to see the marvelous creation by this rare
+genius whose work was so little known in this country.
+
+Said Conrad Lagrange--"It is all so easy."
+
+Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen the woman of the
+disfigured face; and the novelist still tried in vain to fix her in his
+memory. Every day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring orange
+grove, the music of that unseen violin. They spoke, often, in playful
+mood, of the spirit that haunted the place; but they made no effort to
+solve the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. They knew that
+whoever cared for the roses worked there only in the early morning hours;
+and they carefully avoided going into the yard back of the house until
+after breakfast. They felt that an investigation might rob them of the
+peculiar humor of their fancy--a fancy that was to them, both, such a
+pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange-trees and roses such an
+added charm.
+
+But the other member of the trio of friends was not so reticent. Czar had
+formed an--to his most proper dogship--unusual habit. Frequently, when the
+three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he would rise suddenly
+from his place beside his master's chair, and walking sedately to the side
+of the porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, would stand
+listening attentively; then, without so much as a "by-your-leave," he
+would leap to the ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of the
+house. Later, he would come sedately back; greeting each, in turn, with
+that insistent thrust his soft muzzle against a knee; and assuring them,
+in the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, that his mission had
+been a most proper one, and that they might trust him to make no foolish
+mistakes that would mar the peace and harmony of their little household.
+The men never failed to agree with him that it was all right. In fact, so
+fully did they trust him that they never even stepped to the corner of the
+porch to see where he went; nor would they leave their chairs until he had
+returned.
+
+Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the studio,--being always careful
+that Louise accompanied her as far as the house,--Conrad Lagrange
+vanished. The man swore by all the strange and wonderful gods he knew--and
+they were many--that he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing
+young female devotee of the Arts--lest the mountains in their wrath should
+fall upon him.
+
+But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last sitting, the
+novelist--engaged in interesting talk with the artist--forgot.
+
+"You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as the big automobile
+stopped at the gate.
+
+"I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, with no profane intent
+but with meaning quite literal; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the
+kitchen--nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee.
+
+"What's matte'," inquired the Chinaman, putting his head in at the
+living-room door; his almond eyes as wide as they could go, with an
+expression of celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. Catching
+sight of the automobile, his oriental features wrinkled into a yellow grin
+of understanding; "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, she come.
+He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', him all time gone, too; him no like
+lagtime--all same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in turn,
+vanished.
+
+"You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the
+studio.
+
+Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him--standing close,
+her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her
+sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively
+downcast. "And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?"
+she asked in a low tone.
+
+"Surely not"--he returned calmly--"you are coming to-morrow, with the
+others, aren't you?" Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were
+invited for the next day, to view the portrait.
+
+"Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed the wrap she wore, and
+threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize
+what these hours have meant to me--how could you? You do not live in my
+world. Your world is--is so different You do not know--you do not know."
+With a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world that I live in is
+hell; and this--this--oh, it has been heavenly!"
+
+Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with
+outstretched arms--it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a
+surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.
+For the moment he forgot his work--he forgot everything--he was conscious
+only of the woman who stood before him. But even as the light of triumph
+blazed up in the woman's eyes, the man halted,--drew back; and his face
+was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the
+gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. It
+was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,--from their calm
+heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser
+tragedies,--watched over him. "Don't you think we had better proceed with
+our work?" he said calmly.
+
+The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger which she turned away to
+hide. Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and,
+as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas,
+she watched him now. Since that first day, when she had questioned him
+about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject,
+although--as was inevitable under the circumstances--their intimacy had
+grown. But not once had he turned from his work in that listening
+attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one,
+without her noting it. And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment,
+which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his
+easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.
+
+Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the
+music ceased. Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the
+quite casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes,"--he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,--"we
+have never tried to make her acquaintance."
+
+The woman caught him up quickly; "To make _her_ acquaintance? Why do you
+say, '_her_,' if you do not know who it is?"
+
+The artist was confused. "Did I say, _her_?" he questioned, his face
+flushed with embarrassment. "It was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad
+Lagrange nor I know anything about our neighbor."
+
+She laughed ironically. "And you _could_ know so easily."
+
+"I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We prefer to accept the music
+as it comes to us--impersonally--for what it is--not for whoever makes
+it." He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful to him, under
+the circumstances of the moment.
+
+But the woman persisted. "Well, _I_ know who it is. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"No. I do not care to know. I am not interested in the musician."
+
+"Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted.
+
+"Please take the pose," returned Aaron King professionally. Mrs. Taine,
+wisely, for the time, dropped the subject; contenting herself with a
+meaning laugh.
+
+The artist silently gave all his attention to the nearly finished
+portrait. He was not painting, now, with full brush and swift sure
+strokes,--as had been his way when building up his picture,--but worked
+with occasional deft touches here and there; drawing back from the canvas
+often, to study it intently, his eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to
+the sitter's face and back again to the portrait; then stepping forward
+quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw an instant later for another
+long and searching study. Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside
+his palette and brushes; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with a smile, held out
+his hand. "Come," he said, "tell me if I have done well or ill."
+
+"It is finished?" she cried. "I may see it?"
+
+"It is all that I can do"--he answered--"come." He led her to the easel,
+where they stood side by side before his work.
+
+The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, was a portrait of Mrs.
+Taine--yet not a portrait. Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of
+tone and line, it betrayed in every careful detail--in every mark of the
+brush--the thoughtful, painstaking care--the thorough knowledge and highly
+trained skill of an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic.
+But--if one might say so--the painting was more a picture than a portrait.
+The face upon the canvas was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the
+features were her features; but it was also the face of a sweetly modest
+Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too well cared for face of the beautiful
+woman of the world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a natural
+unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had watched the artist with such
+certain knowledge of life and with the boldness born of that knowledge
+were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of innocent maidenhood.
+The very coloring and the arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to
+express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors and of fashionable
+hair-dressers, but the instinctive care of womanliness. The costume that,
+when worn by the woman, expressed so fully her true character; in the
+picture, became the emblem of a pure and deeply religious spirit.
+
+Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, placing her hand upon
+his arm, exclaimed in delight, "Oh, is it true? Am I really so beautiful?"
+
+The artist laughed. "You like it?"
+
+"Like it? How could I help liking it? It is lovely."
+
+"I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would please you."
+
+"And you"--she asked, with eager eyes--"are you satisfied with it? Does it
+seem good to you?"
+
+"Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is never satisfied. I know
+the work is good--in a way. But it is very far from what it should be, I
+fear. I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my opportunity."
+He spoke with a shade of sadness.
+
+Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch his arm, as she answered
+eagerly, "Ah, but no one else will say that. No one else will dare. It
+will be the sensation of the year--I tell you. Just you wait until Jim
+Rutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung for exhibition, and he tells the
+world about it. Everybody worth while will be coming to you then. And I--I
+will remember these hours with you, and be glad that I could help--even
+so little. Will you remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the picture
+is finished?"
+
+"And are you not glad?" he returned meaningly.
+
+They had both forgotten the painting before them. They did not see it.
+They each saw only the other.
+
+"No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. "People would very soon be
+talking if I should come here, alone--now that the picture is finished."
+
+"I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fairlands soon, for the
+summer," he returned slowly.
+
+"O listen,"--she cried with quick eagerness--"we are going to Lake
+Silence. What's to hinder your coming too? Everybody goes there, you know.
+Won't you come?"
+
+"But would it be altogether safe?" He reflected doubtfully.
+
+"Why, of course,--Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim,--we are all going
+together--don't you see? I don't believe you want to go," she pouted. "I
+believe you want to forget."
+
+Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in her words and voice, the
+touch of her hand on his arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept
+the man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her hand, and his
+words came with reckless heat. "You know that I will not forget you. You
+know that I could not, if I would. Do you think that I have been so
+engrossed with my brushes and canvas that I have been unconscious of you?
+What is that painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do you think
+that because I must turn myself into a machine to make a photograph of
+your beauty, I am insensible to its charm? I am not a machine. I am a man;
+as you are a woman; and I--"
+
+She checked him suddenly--stepping aside with a quick movement, and the
+words, "Hush, some one is coming."
+
+The artist, too, heard voices, just without the door.
+
+Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward her wrap. Aaron King,
+going to his easel, drew the velvet curtain to hide the picture.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
+
+
+
+Certainly, when Conrad Lagrange fled so precipitately from Louise Taine,
+that afternoon, he had no thought that the trivial incident was to mark
+the beginning of a new era in his life; or that it would work out in the
+life of his dearest friend such far reaching results. His only purpose was
+to escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, young creature who
+believed herself so interested in art and letters, and who succeeded so
+admirably in expressing the spirit of her environment and training.
+
+With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself in the rose garden;
+finding a seat on the ground, in an angle of the studio wall and the
+Ragged Robin hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would be least
+likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approving of his master's action,
+stretched himself comfortably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited
+further developments.
+
+Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. Taine, come from the
+house and enter the studio. For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable
+fear that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so often moved
+him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the garden. But the moment passed, and the
+novelist,--mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance,--with a
+chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and opened his book. Scarcely
+had he found his place in the pages, however, when he was again
+interrupted--this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's violin.
+Putting his book aside, the man reclining in the shelter of the roses,
+with half-closed eyes, yielded himself to the fancy of the spirit that
+called from the depths of the fragrant orange grove.
+
+The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of the studio above his
+head dropped their lovely petals down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of
+the afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining leaves and branches,
+played over the bewildering riot of color. Here and there, golden-bodied
+bees and velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like duties.
+Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated on motionless wings and a
+lonely crow laid his course toward the distant mountain peaks that
+gleamed, silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower ridges and
+the tawny yellow of their foothills. The air was saturated with the
+fragrance of the rose and orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees,
+and with the thousand other perfumes of a California spring.
+
+The music ceased. The man waited--hoping that it would begin again. But it
+did not; and he was about to take up his book, once more, when Czar arose,
+stretched himself, stood for a moment in a picturesque, listening
+attitude, then trotted off among the roses; leaving the novelist with an
+odd feeling of uneasy expectancy--half resolved to stay, half determined
+to go. The thought of Louise in the house decided him, and he kept his
+place, hidden as he was, in the corner--a whimsical smile hovering over
+his world-lined features as though, after all, he felt himself entering
+upon some enjoyable adventure.
+
+Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the other end of the
+garden, a low murmuring voice. As it came nearer, the man's smile grew
+more pronounced It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear and full in
+its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen speaker was talking to the novelist's
+dog. The smile on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he
+whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what he has been up to!"
+Rising quietly to his knees, he peered through the flower-laden bushes.
+
+A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was moving about the
+garden--bending over the roses, and talking in low tones to Czar, who--to
+his hidden master--appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his gentle
+companion's intimacy. The novelist--old in the study of character and
+trained by his long years of observation and experience in the world of
+artificiality--was fascinated by the loveliness of the scene.
+
+Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of white, with a modestly
+low-cut square at the throat, and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just
+below the elbow--her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved here and
+there, had all the charm of girlish grace with the fuller beauty of
+ripening womanhood. As she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the
+dog, in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every motion, was
+instinct with that strength and health that is seldom seen among those who
+wear the shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face,--warmly
+tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm fleshed and clear,--in its
+unconscious naturalness and in its winsome purity was like the flowers she
+stooped to kiss.
+
+As he watched, the man noticed--with a smile of understanding--that she
+kept rather to the side of the garden toward the house; where the artist,
+at his easel by the big, north light, could not see her through the small
+window in the end of the room; and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she
+would not be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she paused to
+listen, as if for any chance approaching step--appearing, to the fancy of
+the man, as some creature from another world--poised lightly, ready to
+vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon,--after a cautious,
+hesitating, listening look about,--she slipped, swift footed as a fawn,
+across the garden, and--followed by the dog--disappeared into the latticed
+rose-covered arbor against the southern wall.
+
+With a chuckle to himself, Conrad Lagrange crept quietly along the hedge
+to the door of her retreat.
+
+When she saw him there, she gave a little cry and started as though to
+escape. But the novelist, smiling barred her way; while Czar, joyfully
+greeting his master, turned from the man to the girl and back to the man
+again, as if, by dividing his attention equally between the two, he was
+bent upon assuring each that the other was a friend of the right sort.
+There was no mistaking the facts that the dog was introducing them, and
+that he was as proud of his new acquaintance as he was pleased to present
+his older and more intimate companion.
+
+A sunny smile broke over the girl's winsome face, as she caught the
+meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," she said, "are you his master?" Her
+manner was as natural and unrestrained as a child's--her voice, musically
+sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the speech of noisy, crowded cities
+or shrill chattering crowds.
+
+"I am his most faithful and humble subject," returned the man,
+whimsically.
+
+She was studying his face openly, while her own countenance--unschooled to
+hide emotions, untrained to deceive--frankly betrayed each passing thought
+and mood. The daintily turned chin, sensitive lips, delicate nostrils, and
+large, blue eyes,--with that wide, unafraid look of a child that has never
+been taught to fear,--revealed a spirit fine and rare; while the low,
+broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft brown hair,--that, arranged
+deftly in some simple fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every
+wayward breath of air,--gave the added charm of strength and purpose. The
+man, seeing these things and knowing--as few men ever know--their value,
+waited her verdict.
+
+It came with a smile and a pretty fancy, as though she caught the mood of
+the novelist's reply. "He has told me so much about you--how kind you are
+to him, and how he loves you. I hope you don't mind that he and I have
+learned to be good friends. Won't you tell me his name? I have tried
+everything, but nothing seems to fit. To call such a royal fellow,
+'doggie', doesn't do at all, does it?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange laughed--and it was the laugh of a Conrad Lagrange unknown
+to the world. "No," he said with mock seriousness, "'doggie,' doesn't do
+at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. That is"--he added,
+giving full rein to his droll humor--"I gave it to him for a name. He has
+made it his title. He did that, you know, so I would always remember that
+he is my superior."
+
+She laughed--low, full-throated and clear--as a girl who has not sadly
+learned that she is a woman, laughs. Then she fell to caressing the dog
+and calling him by name; while Czar--in his efforts to express his delight
+and satisfaction--was as nearly undignified as it was possible for him to
+be.
+
+As he watched them, the rugged, world-worn features of the famous novelist
+were lighted with an expression that transformed them.
+
+"And I suppose," she said,--still responding to the novelist's playful
+mood,--"that Czar told you I was trespassing in your garden. Of course it
+was his duty to tell. I hope he told you, also, that I do not steal your
+roses."
+
+The man shook his head, and his sharp, green-gray eyes were twinkling
+merrily, now--as a boy in the spirit of some amusing venture. "Oh, no!
+Czar said nothing at all about trespassers. He did tell me, though, about
+a wonderful creature that comes every day to visit the garden. A nymph, he
+thought it was--a beautiful Oread from away up there among the silver
+peaks and purple canyons--or, perhaps, a lovely Dryad from among the oaks
+and pines. I felt quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread;
+because he said that she comes to gather colors from the roses, and that
+every morning and every evening she uses these colors to tint the highest
+peaks and crests of her mountains--making them so beautiful that mortals
+would always begin and end each day by looking up at them. Of course, the
+moment I saw, you I knew who you were."
+
+Unaffectedly pleased as a child at his quaint fancy, she answered merrily,
+"And so you hid among the roses to trap me, I suppose."
+
+"Indeed, I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I was forced to fly from a
+wicked Flibbertigibbet who seeks to torment me. I barely escaped with my
+life, and came into the garden to hide and recover from my fright. Then I
+heard the most wonderful music and guessed that you must be somewhere
+around. Then Czar, who had come with me to hide from the Flibbertigibbet
+in the house, left me. I looked to see where he had gone, and so I saw,
+sure enough, that it was you. All my life, you know, I have wanted to
+catch a real nymph; but never could. So when you came into the arbor, I
+couldn't resist trying again. And, now, here we are--with Czar to say it
+is all right."
+
+At his fanciful words, she laughed again, and her cheeks flushed with
+pleasure. Then, with grave sweetness, she said, "Won't you sit down,
+please, and let me explain seriously?"
+
+"I suppose you must pretend to be like the rest of us," he returned with
+an air of resignation, "but all the same, Czar and I know you are not."
+
+When they were seated, she said simply, "My name is Sibyl Andres. This
+place used to be my home. My mother planted this garden with her own
+hands. Many of these roses were brought from our home in the mountains,
+where I was born, and where I lived with father and mother until five
+years ago. I feel, still, as though the old place in the hills were my
+real home, and every summer, when nearly every one goes away from
+Fairlands and there is nothing for me to do, Myra Willard and I go up
+there, for as long as we can. You see, I teach music and play in the
+churches. Miss Willard taught me. She and mother are the only teachers I
+have ever had. After father's death, mother and Myra and I lived here for
+two years; then mother died, and Myra and I moved to that little house
+over there, because we could not afford to keep this place. But the man
+who bought it gave me permission to care for the garden; so I come almost
+every day--through that little gate in the corner of the hedge, there--to
+tend the roses. Since you men moved in, though, I come, mostly, in the
+morning--early--before you are up. I only slip in, sometimes, for a few
+minutes, in the afternoon--when I think it will be safe. You see, being
+strangers, I--I feared you would think me bold--if I--if I asked to come.
+So many people really wouldn't understand, you know."
+
+Conrad Lagrange's deep voice was very gentle as he said, "Mr. King and I
+have known, all the time, that we had no real claim upon this garden,
+Miss Andrés." Then, with his whimsical smile, he added, "You see, we felt,
+from the very first, that it was haunted by a lovely spirit that would
+vanish utterly if we intruded. That is why we have been so careful. We did
+not want to frighten you away. And besides, you know, Czar told us that it
+was all right!"
+
+The blue eyes shone through a bright mist as she answered the man's kindly
+words. "You _are_ good, Mr. Lagrange. And all the time it was really _you_
+of whom I was so afraid."
+
+"Why me, more than my friend?" he asked, regarding her thoughtfully.
+
+She colored a little under his searching gaze, but answered with that
+childlike frankness that was so much a part of her winsome charm, "Why,
+because your friend is an _artist_--I thought _he_ would be sure to
+understand. I knew, of course, that you were the famous author; everybody
+talks about your living here." She seemed to think that her words
+explained.
+
+"You mean that you were afraid of me because I am famous?" he asked
+doubtfully.
+
+"Oh no," she answered, "not because you are famous. I mean--I was not
+afraid of your _fame_," she smiled.
+
+"And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must tell me at once--do you
+read my books?" He waited, as though much depended upon her answer.
+
+The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, unafraid look as she
+answered sadly, "No, sir. I have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music.
+They hurt me, somehow, all over."
+
+Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased
+delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and
+humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew
+it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you
+were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep
+conviction verified.
+
+"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know
+that an author _could_ be so different from the things he writes about."
+Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that
+spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you
+talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books
+like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with
+pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"
+
+"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful
+humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you
+and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.
+
+She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I
+like secrets."
+
+He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really
+Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when
+I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or
+when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am
+in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who
+wrote them."
+
+Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you
+_couldn't_ be _that_ kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be
+here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"
+
+"No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with our secret. Your name
+is not really Sibyl Andrés, you know--any more than you really live over
+there in that little house. Your real home is in the mountains--just as
+you said--you _really_ live among the glowing peaks, under the dark pines,
+on the ridges, and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only come
+down here to the Fairlands folk with a message from your mountains--and
+_we_ call your message music. Your name is--"
+
+She was leaning forward, her face glowing with eagerness. "What is my
+name?"
+
+"What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. "That's it, 'Nature'."
+
+"And you? Who are you when you are not--when you are not in that other
+world?"
+
+"Me? Oh, my real name is 'Civilization'. Can't you guess why?"
+
+She shook her head. "Tell me."
+
+"Because,--in spite of all that the world that reads my books can
+give,--poor old 'Civilization' cannot be happy without the message that
+'Nature' brings from her mountains."
+
+"And you, too, love the mountains and--and this garden, and my music?" she
+asked half doubtingly. "You are not pretending that too--just to amuse
+me?"
+
+"No, I am not pretending that," he said.
+
+"Then why--how can you do the--the other thing? I can't understand."
+
+"Of course, you can't understand--how could you? You are 'Nature' and
+'Nature' must often be puzzled by the things that 'Civilization' does."
+
+"Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm glad you like my music,
+anyway."
+
+"And so am I glad--that I _can_ like it. That's the only thing that saves
+me."
+
+"And your friend, the artist,--does he like my mountain music, do you
+think?"
+
+"Very much. He needs it too."
+
+"I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he would like it, and that it
+would help him. It was really for him that I have played."
+
+"You played for him?"
+
+"Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, I did not know about
+you--then. I thought you were altogether the man who wrote those
+books--and so I _could_ not play for you. That is--I mean--you
+understand--I could not play--" again she seemed to search for a word, and
+finding it, smiled--"I could not play _myself_ for you. But I thought that
+because he was an _artist_ he would understand; and that if I _could_ make
+the music tell him of the mountains it would, perhaps, help him a little
+to make his work beautiful and right--do you see?"
+
+"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might have known that it was for
+_him_ that you brought your message from the hills. But poor old
+'Civilization' is frightfully stupid sometimes, you know."
+
+Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the arbor, and parting the
+screen of vines a little, said to him, "Look here!"
+
+Standing beside her, Conrad Lagrange, through the window in the end of the
+studio next the garden, saw Aaron King at his easel; the artist's position
+in the light of the big, north window being in a direct line between the
+two openings and the arbor. Mrs. Taine was sitting too far out of line to
+be seen.
+
+The girl laughed gleefully. "Do you see him at his work? At first, I only
+hid here to find what kind of people were going to live in my old home.
+But when he was making our old barn into a studio, and I heard who you
+both were, I came because I love to watch him; as I try to make the music
+I think he would love to hear."
+
+The novelist studied her intently. She was so artless--so unaffected by
+the conventions of the world--in a word, so natural in expressing her
+thoughts, that the man who had given the best years of his life to feed
+the vicious, grossly sensual and bestial imaginations of his readers was
+deeply moved. He was puzzled what to say. At last, he murmured haltingly,
+"You like the artist, then?"
+
+Her eyes were full of curious laughter as she answered, "Why, what a funny
+question--when I have never even talked with him. How _could_ I like any
+one I have never known?"
+
+"But you make your music for him; and you come here to watch him?"
+
+"Oh, but that is for the work he is doing; that is for his pictures." She
+turned to look through the tiny opening in the arbor. "How I wish I could
+see inside that beautiful room. I know it must be beautiful. Once, when
+you were all gone, I tried to steal in; but, of course, he keeps it
+locked."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the man, suddenly--prompted by her
+confession to resume his playful mood.
+
+"What?" she asked eagerly, in a like spirit of fun.
+
+"First," he answered, half teasingly, "I must know if you could, now, make
+your music for me as well as for him."
+
+"For the you that loves the mountains and the garden I'm sure I could,"
+she answered promptly.
+
+"Well then, if you will promise to do that--if you will promise not to
+play _yourself_ for just him alone but for me too--I'll fix it so that you
+can go into the studio yonder."
+
+"Oh, I will always play for you, too, anyway--now that I know you."
+
+"Of course," he said, "we could just walk up to the door, and I could
+introduce you; but that would not be proper for _us_ would it?"
+
+She shook her head positively, "I wouldn't like to do that. He would think
+I was intruding, I am sure."
+
+"Well then, we will do it this way--the first day that Mr. King and I are
+both away, and Tee Kee is gone, too; I'll slip out here and leave a letter
+and a key on your gate. The letter will tell you just the time when we go,
+and when we will return--so you will know whether it is safe for you or
+not, and how long you can stay. Only"--he became very serious--"only, you
+must promise one thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you won't look at the picture on the easel."
+
+"But why must I promise that?"
+
+"Because that picture will not be finished for a long time yet, and you
+must not look at it until I say it is ready. Mr. King wouldn't like you to
+see that picture, I am sure. In fact, he doesn't like for any one to see
+the picture he is working on just now."
+
+"How funny," she said, with a puzzled look. "What is he painting it for? I
+like for people to hear my music."
+
+The man answered before he thought--"But I don't like people to read my
+books."
+
+She shrank back, with troubled eyes, "Oh! is he--is he _that_ kind of an
+artist?"
+
+"No, no, no!" exclaimed the novelist, hastily. "You must not think that. I
+did not mean you to think that. If he was _that_ kind of an artist, I
+wouldn't let you go into the studio at all. Mr. King is a good man--the
+best man I have ever known. He is my friend because he knows the secret
+about me that you know. He does not read my books. He would not read one
+of them for anything. It is only that this picture is not finished. When
+it is finished, he will not care who sees it."
+
+"I'm glad," she said. "You frightened me, for a minute--I understand,
+now."
+
+"And you promise not to look at the picture on the easel?"
+
+She nodded,--"Of course. And when I come out I'll lock the door and put
+the key back on the gate again; and no one but you and I will ever know."
+
+"No one but you and I will know," he answered.
+
+As he spoke, Czar, who had been lying quietly in the doorway of the arbor,
+rose quickly to his feet, with a low growl.
+
+The girl, peering through the screen on the side toward the house, uttered
+an exclamation of fear and drew back, turning to her companion
+appealingly. "O please, please don't let that man find me here."
+
+Conrad Lagrauge looked and saw James Rutlidge coming down the path toward
+the arched entrance to the garden, which was directly across from the
+arbor.
+
+"Stop him, please stop him," whispered the girl, her hand upon his arm.
+
+"Stay here until I get him out of sight," said the novelist quickly. "I
+won't let him come into the garden. When we are gone, you can make your
+escape. Don't forget the music for me, and the key at the gate."
+
+He spoke to Czar, and with the dog obediently at heel went forward to meet
+Mr. Rutlidge, who had called for Mrs. Taine and Louise.
+
+But all the while that Conrad Lagrange was talking to the man, and leading
+him toward the door of the studio, he was wondering--why that look of fear
+upon the face of the girl in the garden? What had Sibyl Andrés to do with
+James Rutlidge?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+A Cry in the Night
+
+
+
+As Conrad Lagrange and Mr. Rutlidge entered the studio, Aaron King turned
+from the easel, where he had drawn the velvet curtain to hide the finished
+portrait. Mrs. Taine was standing at the other side of the room, wrap in
+hand, calmly waiting, ready to go. The artist greeted Mr. Rutlidge
+cordially, while the woman triumphantly announced the completion of her
+portrait.
+
+"Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man," said Rutlidge, addressing
+the artist familiarly. "It is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it
+this afternoon?"
+
+"Thanks,"--returned the artist,--"you are all coming to-morrow, at three,
+you know. I would rather not show it to-day. It is a little late for the
+best light; and I would like for _you_ to see it under the most favorable
+conditions possible."
+
+The critic was visibly flattered by the painter's manner and by his
+well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "Quite right"--he said
+approvingly--"quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist--"These
+painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last
+touch or two before _I_ come around." He laughed pompously at his own
+words--the others joining.
+
+When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, the artist said hurriedly
+to his friend, "Come on, let's get it over." He led the way back to the
+studio.
+
+"I thought the light was too bad," said the older man, quizzingly, as they
+entered the big room.
+
+"It's good enough for _your_ needs," retorted the painter savagely. "You
+could see all you want by candle-light." He jerked the curtain angrily
+aside, and--without a glance at the canvas--walked away to stand at the
+window looking out upon the rose garden--waiting for the flood of the
+novelist's scorn to overwhelm him. At last, when no sound broke the quiet
+of the room, he turned--to find himself alone.
+
+Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait on the easel, had slipped
+quietly out of the building.
+
+The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, meditatively smoking his
+pipe on the front porch, with Czar lying at his feet.
+
+"Well," said the painter, curiously,--anxious, as he had said, to have it
+over,--"why the deuce don't you _say_ something?"
+
+The novelist answered slowly, "My vocabulary is too limited, for one
+reason, and"--he looked thoughtfully down at Czar--"I prefer to wait until
+you have finished the portrait."
+
+"It _is_ finished," returned the artist desperately. "I swear I'll never
+touch a brush to the damned thing again."
+
+The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; "Listen to him,
+Czar--listen to the poor devil of a painter-man."
+
+The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master's knee, looked up
+into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, "If he was only
+a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert
+ourselves, so we could, couldn't we?" Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in
+dignified approval. His master continued, "But when a fellow can do a
+crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his
+work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into
+existence, it's best for outsiders to keep quite still. Your poor old
+master knows whereof he speaks, doesn't he, dog? That he does!"
+
+"And is that all you have to say on the subject?" demanded the artist, as
+though for some reason he was disappointed at his friend's reticence.
+
+"I _might_ add a word of advice," said the other.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
+you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
+Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
+automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
+accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
+prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
+novelist, they went at once to the studio.
+
+The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
+fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
+of admiration, even _before_ the portrait was revealed. As though the
+painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
+"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
+accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
+glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
+whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
+display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
+a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
+inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.
+
+Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embarrassed attention to an
+appreciation that had the appearance, at least, of a more enduring value.
+Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her husband, she
+asked,--in a voice that was tremulous with loving care and anxiety to
+please,--"Do you like it, dear?"
+
+"It is magnificent, splendid, perfect!" This effort to give his praise of
+the artist's work the appearance of substantial reality cost the wretched
+product of lust and luxury a fit of coughing that racked his burnt-out
+body almost to its last feeble hold upon the world of flesh and, with a
+force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that
+neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again
+speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,--while grasping the
+painter's hand in effusive cordiality,--"My dear fellow, I congratulate
+you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is
+exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have
+done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character of Mrs. Taine." And
+then, to his wife,--"Dearest, I am glad for you, and proud. It is as
+worthy of you as paint and canvas could be." He turned to Conrad Lagrange
+who was an interested observer of the scene--"Am I not right, Lagrange?"
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Taine,--quite right. As you say, the portrait is most
+worthy the beauty and character of the charming subject."
+
+Another paroxysm of coughing mercifully prevented the poor creature's
+reply.
+
+With one accord, the little group turned, now, to James Rutlidge--the
+dreaded authority and arbiter of artistic destinies. That distinguished
+expert, while the others were speaking, had been listening intently;
+ostensibly, the while, he examined the picture with a show of trained
+skill that, it seemed, could not fail to detect unerringly those more
+subtle values and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden from
+the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, they watched the process by
+which professional criticism finds its verdict. That is, they _thought_
+they were watching the process. In reality, the method is more subtle than
+they knew.
+
+While the great critic moved back and forth in front of the easel; drew
+away from or bent over to closely scrutinize the canvas; shifted the easel
+a hair breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; hummed and muttered
+to himself abstractedly; cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem";
+squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head thrown back, or turned
+in every side angle his fat neck would permit: peered through his
+half-closed fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over and under
+his open hand or a paper held to shut out portions of the painting;--the
+others _thought_ they saw him expertly weighing the evidence for and
+against the merit of the work. In _reality_ it was his _ears_ and not his
+_eyes_ that helped the critic to his final decision--a decision which was
+delivered, at last, with a convincing air of ponderous finality. Indeed it
+was a judgment from which there could be no appeal, for it expressed
+exactly the views of those for whose benefit it was rendered. Then, in a
+manner subtly insinuating himself into the fellowship of the famous, he,
+too, turned to Conrad Lagrange with a scholarly; "Do you not agree, sir?"
+
+The novelist answered with slow impressiveness; "The picture, undoubtedly,
+fully merits the appreciation and praise you have given it. I have already
+congratulated Mr. King--who was kind enough to show me his work before you
+arrived."
+
+After this, Yee Kee appeared upon the scene, and tea was served in the
+studio--a fitting ceremony to the launching of another genius.
+
+"By the way, Mr. Lagrange," said Mrs. Taine, quite casually,--when, under
+the influence of the mildly stimulating beverage, the talk had assumed a
+more frivolous vein,--"Who is your talented neighbor that so charms Mr.
+King with the music of a violin?"
+
+The novelist, as he turned toward the speaker, shot a quick glance at the
+Artist. Nor did those keen, baffling eyes fail to note that, at the
+question, James Rutlidge had paused in the middle of a sentence. "That is
+one of the mysteries of our romantic surroundings madam," said Conrad
+Lagrange, easily.
+
+"And a very charming mystery it seems to be," returned the woman. "It has
+been quite affecting to watch its influence upon Mr. King."
+
+The artist laughed. "I admit that I found the music, in combination with
+the beauty I have so feebly tried to out upon canvas, very stimulating."
+
+A flash of angry color swept into the perfect cheeks of Mrs. Taine, as she
+retorted with meaning; "You are as flattering in your speech as you are
+with your brush. I assure you I do not consider myself in your unknown
+musician's class."
+
+The small eyes of James Rutlidge were fixed inquiringly upon the speakers,
+while his heavy face betrayed--to the watchful novelist--an interest he
+could not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional merit?" he asked with
+an attempt at indifference.
+
+Louise Taine--sensing that the performances of the unnamed violinist had
+been acceptable to Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King--the two representatives
+of the world to which she aspired--could not let the opportunity slip. She
+fairly deluged them with the spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise
+of the musician--employing, hit or miss, every musical term that popped
+into her vacuous head.
+
+"Indeed,"--said the critic,--"I seem to have missed a treat." Then,
+directly to the artist,--"And you say the violinist is wholly unknown to
+you?"
+
+"Wholly," returned the painter, shortly.
+
+Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understanding and disbelief flit for
+an instant over the heavy face of James Rutlidge.
+
+When the automobile, at last, was departing with the artist's guests; the
+two friends stood for a moment watching it up the road to the west, toward
+town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. Taine lean forward to speak
+to the chauffeur while James Rutlidge, who was in the front seat, turned
+and shook his head as though in protest. The woman appeared to insist. The
+machine slowed down, as though the chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the
+outcome of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neighboring house,
+Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and the automobile turned suddenly in
+toward the curb and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared in the
+depths of the orange grove.
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each other, for a moment, in
+questioning silence. The artist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he
+said.
+
+But the novelist--as they went toward the house--cursed Mrs. Taine, James
+Rutlidge, and all their kin and kind, with a vehement earnestness that
+startled his companion--familiar as the latter was with his friend's
+peculiar talent in the art of vigorous expression.
+
+After dinner, that evening, the painter and the novelist sat on the
+porch--as their custom was--to watch the day go out of the sky and the
+night come over valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest
+peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twinkling lights of the towns
+of men. At that hour, too, it was the custom, now, for the violinist
+hidden in the orange grove, to make the music they both so loved.
+
+In the music, that night, there was a feeling that, to them, was new--a
+vague, uncertain, halting undertone that was born, they felt, of fear. It
+stirred them to question and to wonder. Without apparent cause or reason,
+they each oddly connected the troubled tone in the music with the stopping
+of the automobile from Fairlands Heights, that afternoon, at the gate of
+the little house next door--the artist, because of Mrs. Taine's insistent
+inquiry about the, to him, unknown musician;--Conrad Lagrange, because of
+the manner of the girl in the garden when James Rutlidge appeared and
+because of the critic's interest when they had spoken of the violinist in
+the studio. But neither expressed his thought to the other.
+
+Presently, the music ceased, and they sat for an hour, perhaps, in
+silence--as close friends may do--exchanging only now and then a word.
+
+Suddenly, they were startled by a cry. In the still darkness of the night,
+from the mysterious depths of the orange grove, the sound came with such a
+shock that the two men, for the moment, held their places,
+motionless--questioning each other sharply--"What was that?" "Did you
+hear?"--as though they doubted, almost, their own ears.
+
+The cry came again; this time, undoubtedly, from that neighboring house to
+the west. It was unmistakably the cry of a woman--a woman in fear and
+pain.
+
+They leaped to their feet.
+
+Again the cry came from the black depths of the orange grove--shuddering,
+horrible--in an agony of fear.
+
+The two men sprang from the porch, and, through the darkness that in the
+orange grove was like a black wall, ran toward the spot from which the
+sound came--the dog at their heels.
+
+Breathless, they broke into the little yard in front of the tiny box-like
+house. Lights shone in the windows. All seemed peaceful and still. Czar
+betrayed no uneasiness. Going to the front door, they knocked.
+
+There was no answer save the sound of some one moving inside.
+
+Again, the artist knocked vigorously.
+
+The door opened, and a woman stood on the threshold.
+
+Standing a little to one side, the men saw her features clearly, in the
+light from the room. It was the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+Conrad Lagrange was first to command himself. "I beg your pardon, madam.
+We live in the house next door. We thought we heard a cry of distress. May
+we offer our assistance in any way? Is there anything we can do?"
+
+"Thank you, sir, you are very kind,"--returned the woman, in a low
+voice,--"but it is nothing. There is nothing you can do."
+
+And the voice of Sibyl Andrés, who stood farther back in the room, where
+the artist from his position could not see her, added, "It was good of you
+to come, Mr. Lagrange; but it is really nothing. We are so sorry you were
+disturbed."
+
+"Not at all," returned the men, as the woman of the disfigured face drew
+back from the door. "Good night."
+
+"Good night," came from within the house, and the door was shut.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Go Look In Your Mirror, You Fool
+
+
+
+As the Taine automobile left Aaron King and his friend, that afternoon,
+Mrs. Taine spoke to the chauffeur; "You may stop a moment, at the next
+house, Henry."
+
+If she had fired a gun, James Rutlidge could not have turned with a more
+startled suddenness.
+
+"What in thunder do you want there?" he demanded shortly.
+
+"I want to stop," she returned calmly.
+
+"But I must get down town, at once," he protested. "I have already lost
+the best part of the afternoon."
+
+"Your business seems to have become important very suddenly," she
+observed, sarcastically.
+
+"I have something to do besides making calls with you," he retorted. "Go
+on, Henry."
+
+Mrs. Taine spoke sharply; "Really, Jim, you are going too far. Henry, turn
+in at the house." The machine moved toward the curb and stopped. As she
+stepped from the car, she added, "I will only be a minute, Jim."
+
+Rutlidge growled an inarticulate curse.
+
+"What deviltry do you suppose she is up to now," rasped Mr. Taine.
+
+Which brought from his daughter the usual protest,--"O, papa, don't,"
+
+As Mrs. Taine approached the house, Sibyl Andrés--busy among the flowers
+that bordered the walk--heard the woman's step, and stood quietly waiting
+her. Mrs. Taine's face was perfect in its expression of cordial interest,
+with just enough--but not too much--of a conscious, well-bred superiority.
+The girl's countenance was lighted by an expression of childlike surprise
+and wonder. What had brought this well-known leader in the social world
+from Fairlands Heights to the poor, little house in the orange grove, so
+far down the hill?
+
+"Good afternoon," said the caller. "You are Miss Andrés, are you not?"
+
+"Yes," returned the girl, with a smile. "Won't you come in? I will call
+Miss Willard."
+
+"Oh, thank you, no. I have only a moment. My friends are waiting. I am
+Mrs. Taine."
+
+"Yes, I know. I have often seen you passing."
+
+The other turned abruptly. "What beautiful flowers."
+
+"Aren't they lovely," agreed Sibyl, with frank pleasure at the visitor's
+appreciation. "Let me give you a bunch." Swiftly she gathered a generous
+armful.
+
+Mrs. Taine protested, but the girl presented her offering with such grace
+and winsomeness that the other could not refuse. As she received the gift,
+the perfect features of the woman of the world were colored by a blush
+that even she could not control. "I understand, Miss Andrés," she said,
+"that you are an accomplished violinist."
+
+"I teach and play in Park Church," was the simple answer.
+
+"I have never happened to hear you, myself,"--said Mrs. Taine
+smoothly,--"but my friends who live next door--Mr. Lagrange and Mr.
+King--have told me about you."
+
+"Oh!" The girl's voice was vaguely troubled, while the other, watching,
+saw the blush that colored her warmly tinted cheeks.
+
+"It is good of you to play for them," continued the woman from Fairlands
+Heights, casually. "You must enjoy the society of such famous men, very
+much. There are a great many people, you know, who would envy you your
+friendship with them."
+
+The girl replied quickly, "O, but you are mistaken. I am not acquainted
+with them, at all; that is--not with Mr. King--I have never spoken to
+him--and I only met Mr. Lagrange, for a few minutes, by accident."
+
+"Indeed! But I am forgetting the purpose of my call, and my friends will
+become impatient. Do you ever play for private entertainments, Miss
+Andrés?--for--say a dinner, or a reception, you know?"
+
+"I would be very glad for such an engagement, Mrs. Taine. I must earn what
+I can with my music, and there are not enough pupils to occupy all my
+time. But perhaps you should hear me play, first. I will get my violin."
+
+Mrs. Taine checked her, "Oh, no, indeed. It is quite unnecessary, my
+dear. The opinion of your distinguished neighbors is quite enough. I shall
+keep you in mind for some future occasion. I just wished to learn if you
+would accept such an engagement. Good-by. Thanks--so much--for your
+flowers."
+
+She was upon the point of turning away, when a low cry from the nearby
+porch startled them both. Turning, they saw the woman with the disfigured
+face, standing in the doorway; an expression of mingled wonder, love, and
+supplication upon her hideously marred features. As they looked, she
+started toward them,--impulsively stretching out her arms, as though the
+gesture was an involuntary expression of some deep emotion,--then checked
+herself, suddenly as though in doubt.
+
+Sibyl Andrés uttered an exclamation. "Why, Myra! what is it, dear?"
+
+Mrs. Taine turned away with a gesture of horror, saying to the girl in a
+low, hurried voice, "Dear me, how dreadful! I really must be going."
+
+As she went down the flower-bordered path towards the street, the woman on
+the porch, again, stretched out her arms appealingly. Then, as Sibyl
+reached her side, the poor creature clasped the girl in a close embrace,
+and burst into bitter tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the return of the Taines and James Rutlidge to the house on Fairlands
+Heights, Mrs. Taine retired immediately to her own luxuriously appointed
+apartments.
+
+At dinner, a maid brought to the household word that her mistress was
+suffering from a severe headache and would not be down and begged that she
+might not be disturbed during the evening.
+
+Alone in her room, Mrs. Taine--her headache being wholly
+conventional--gave herself unreservedly to the thoughts that she could
+not, under the eyes of others, entertain without restraint. She was seated
+at a window that looked down upon the carefully graded levels of the
+envying Fairlanders and across the wide sweep of the valley below to the
+mountains which, from that lofty point of vantage, could be seen from the
+base of their lowest foothills to the crests of their highest peaks. But
+the woman who lived on the Heights of Fairlands saw neither the homes of
+their neighbors, the busy valley below, nor the mountains that lifted so
+far above them all. Her thoughts were centered upon what, to her, was more
+than these.
+
+When night was gathering over the scene, her maid entered softly. Mrs.
+Taine dismissed the woman with a word, telling her not to return until she
+rang. Leaving the window, after drawing the shades close, she paced the
+now lighted room, in troubled uneasiness of mind. Here and there, she
+paused to touch or handle some familiar object--a photograph in a silver
+frame, a book on the carved table, the trifles on her open desk, or an
+ornamental vase on the mantle--then moved restlessly away to continue her
+aimless exercise. When the silence was rudely broken by the sound of a
+knock at her door, she stood still--a look of anger marring the
+well-schooled beauty of her features.
+
+The knock was repeated.
+
+With an exclamation of impatient annoyance, she crossed the room, and
+flung open the door.
+
+Without leave or apology, her husband entered; and, as he did so, was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing that sent him reeling, gasping and
+breathless, to the nearest chair.
+
+Mrs. Taine stood watching her husband coldly, with a curious, speculative
+expression on her face that she made no attempt to hide. When his torture
+was abated--for the time--leaving him exhausted and trembling with
+weakness, she said coldly, "Well, what do you want? What are you doing
+here?"
+
+The man lifted his pallid, haggard face and, with a yellow, claw-like hand
+wiped the beads of clammy sweat from his forehead; while his deep-sunken
+eyes leered at her with an insane light.
+
+The woman was at no pains to conceal her disgust. In her voice there was
+no hint of pity. "Didn't Marie tell you that I wished to be alone?"
+
+"Of course," he jeered in his rasping whisper, "that's why I came." He
+gave a hideous resemblance to a laugh, which ended in a cough--and, again,
+he drew his skinny, shaking hand across his damp forehead "That's the time
+that a man should visit his wife, isn't it? When she is alone. Or"--he
+grinned mockingly--"when she wishes to be?"
+
+She regarded him with open scorn and loathing. "You unclean beast! Will
+you take yourself out of my room?"
+
+He gazed at her, as a malevolent devil might gloat over a soul delivered
+up for torture. "Not until I choose to go, my dear."
+
+[Illustration: "Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"]
+
+Suddenly changing her manner, she smiled with deliberate, mocking humor.
+While he watched, she moved leisurely to a deep, many-cushioned couch;
+and, arranging the pillows, reclined among them in the careless
+abandonment of voluptuous ease and physical content. Openly,
+ostentatiously, she exhibited herself to his burning gaze in various
+graceful poses--lifting her arms above her head to adjust a cushion more
+to her liking; turning and stretching her beautiful body; moving her limbs
+with sinuous enjoyment--as disregardful of his presence as though she were
+alone. At last she spoke in cool, even, colorless tones; "Perhaps you will
+tell me what you want?"
+
+The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensuality shook with
+inarticulate rage. Choking and coughing he writhed in his chair--his
+emaciated limbs twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in
+perspiration his claw-like hands opening and closing; his bloodless lips
+curled back from his yellow teeth, in a horrid grin of impotent fury. And
+all the while she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, smile. It
+was as though the malevolent devil and the tortured soul had suddenly
+changed places.
+
+When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his rasping whisper, with
+curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort
+with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then,
+among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the
+other, was maddening.
+
+"If this is all you came for,"--she said, easily,--"might have spared
+yourself the effort--don't you think?"
+
+Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I came to tell you that
+your intimacy with that damned painter must stop."
+
+Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in the cushions, clenched
+until her rings hurt. "Just what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked
+evenly.
+
+"You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I mean what intimacy with a
+man always means to a woman like you."
+
+"The only meaning that a creature of your foul mind can understand," she
+retorted smoothly. "If it were worth while to tell you the truth, I would
+say that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been as proper as--as
+when I am alone with you."
+
+The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells of coughing--choking,
+gasping, fighting for breath, his eyes blazing with hatred and lust,
+mingling his words with oaths and curses--he raged at her. "And do you
+think--that, because I am so nearly dead,--I do not resent what--I saw,
+to-day? Do you think--I am so far gone that I cannot--understand--your
+interest in this man,--after--watching you, together, all--the afternoon?
+Has there been any one--in his studio, except you two, when--he was
+painting you in that dress--which you--designed for his benefit? Oh, no,
+indeed,--you and your--genius could not be interrupted,--for the sake--of
+his art. His art! Great God!--was there ever such a damnable farce--since
+hell was invented? Art!--you--_you_--_you_!--" crazed with jealous fury,
+he pointed at her with his yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and
+struggled to raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the cords
+of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was distorted with the strain
+of his effort--"_You!_ painted as a--modest Quaker Maid,--with all the
+charm of innocence,--virtue, and religious piety in your face. _You!_ And
+that picture will be exhibited--and written about--as a work of _art!_
+You'll pull all the strings,--and use all your influence,--and the
+thing--will be received as a--masterpiece."
+
+"And," she added calmly, "you will write a check--and lie, as you did this
+afternoon."
+
+Without heeding her remark, he went on,--"You know the picture is
+worthless. He knows it,--Conrad Lagrange knows it,--Jim Rutlidge knows
+it,--the whole damned clique and gang of you know it, He's like all his
+kind,--a pretender,--a poser,--playing into the hands--of such women as
+you; to win social position--and wealth. And we and our kind--we pretend
+to believe--in such damned parasites,--and exalt them and what we--call
+their art,--and keep them in luxury, and buy their pictures;--because they
+prostitute--their talents to gratify our vanity. We know it's all a damned
+sham--and a pretense that if they were real artists,--with an honest
+workman's respect for their work,--they wouldn't--recognize us."
+
+"Don't forget to send him a check,"--she murmured--"you can't afford to
+neglect it, you know--think how people would talk."
+
+"Don't worry," he replied. "There'll be no talk. I'll send the genius his
+check--for making love--to my wife in the sacred name of art,--and I'll
+lie--about his picture with--the rest of you. But there will be--no more
+of your intimacy with him. You're my wife,--in spite of hell,--and from
+now on--I'll see--that you are true--to me. Your sickening pose--of
+modesty in dress shall be something--more than a pose. For the little time
+I have left,--I'll have--you to--myself or I'll kill you."
+
+His reference to her refusal to uncover her shoulders in public broke the
+woman's calm and aroused her to a cold fury. Springing to her feet, she
+stood over him as he sat huddled in his chair, exhausted by his effort.
+
+"What is your silly, idle threat beside the fact," she said with stinging
+scorn. "To have killed me, instead of making me your wife, would have been
+a kindness greater than you are capable of. You know how unspeakably vile
+you were when you bought me. You know how every hour of my life with you
+has been a torment to me. You should be grateful that I have helped you to
+live your lie--that I have played the game of respectability with
+you--that I am willing to play it a little while longer, until you lay
+down your hand for good, and release us both.
+
+"Suppose I _were_ what you think me? What right have _you_ to object to my
+pleasures? Have you--in all your life of idle, vicious, luxury--have you
+ever feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature? You know you
+have not. You have feared only the appearance of evil. To be as evil as
+you like so long as you can avoid the appearance of evil; that's the game
+you have taught me to play. That's the game we have played together.
+That's the game we and our kind insist the artists and writers shall help
+us play. That's the only game I know, and, by the rule of our game, so
+long as the world sees nothing, I shall do what pleases me.
+
+"You have had your day with me. You have had what you paid for. What right
+have you to deny me, now, an hour's forgetfulness? When I think of what I
+might have been, but for you, I wonder that I have cared to live, and I
+would not--except for the poor sport of torturing you.
+
+"You scoff at Mr. King's portrait of me because he has not painted me as I
+am! What would you have said if he _had_ painted me as I am? What would
+you say if Conrad Lagrange should write the truth about us and our kind,
+for his millions of readers? You sneer at me because I cannot uncover my
+shoulders in the conventional dress of my class, and so make a virtue of a
+necessity and deceive the world by a pretense of modesty. Go look in your
+mirror, you fool! Your right to sneer at me for my poor little pretense is
+denied you by every line of your repulsive countenance Now get out. I'm
+going to retire."
+
+And she rang for her maid.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+First Fruits of His Shame
+
+
+
+When the postman, in his little cart, stopped at the home of Aaron King
+and his friend, that day, it was Conrad Lagrange who received the mail.
+The artist was in his studio, and the novelist, knowing that the painter
+was not at work, went to him there with a letter.
+
+The portrait--still on the easel--was hidden by the velvet curtain.
+Sitting by a table that was littered with a confusion of sketches, books
+and papers, the young man was re-tying a package of old letters that he
+had, evidently, just been reading.
+
+As the novelist went to him, the artist said quietly,--indicating the
+package in his hand,--"From my mother. She wrote them during the last year
+of my study abroad." When the other did not reply, he continued
+thoughtfully, "Do you know, Lagrange, since my acquaintance with you, I
+find many things in these old letters that--at the time I received them--I
+did not, at all, appreciate. You seem to be helping me, somehow, to a
+better understanding of my mother's spirit and mind." He smiled.
+
+Presently, Conrad Lagrange, when he could trust himself to speak, said,
+"Your mother's mind and spirit, Aaron, were too fine and rare to be fully
+appreciated or understood except by one trained in the school of life,
+itself. When she wrote those letters, you were a student of mere
+craftsmanship. She, herself no doubt, recognized that you would not fully
+comprehend the things she wrote; but she put them down, out of the very
+fullness of her intellectual and spiritual wealth--trusting to your love
+to preserve the letters, and to the years to give you understanding."
+
+"Why," cried the artist, "those are almost her exact words--as I have just
+been reading them!"
+
+The other, smiling, continued quietly, "Your appreciation and
+understanding of your mother will continue to grow through all your life,
+Aaron. When you are old--as old as I am--you will still find in those
+letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths of greater value than you,
+now, can realize. But here--I have brought you your share of the
+afternoon's mail."
+
+When Aaron King opened the envelope that his friend laid on the table
+before him, he sat regarding its contents with an air of thoughtful
+meditation--lost to his surroundings.
+
+The novelist--who had gone to the window and was looking into the rose
+garden--turned to speak to his friend; but the other did not reply. Again,
+the man at the window addressed the painter; but still the younger man was
+silent. At this, Conrad Lagrange came back to the table; an expression of
+anxiety upon his face. "What is it, old man? What's the matter? No bad
+news, I hope?"
+
+Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, laughed shortly, and held
+out to his friend the letter he had just received. It was from Mr. Taine.
+Enclosed was the millionaire's check. The letter was a formal business
+note; the check was for an amount that drew a low whistle from the
+novelist's lips.
+
+"Rather higher pay than old brother Judas received for a somewhat similar
+service, isn't it," he commented, as he passed the letter and check back
+to the artist. Then, as he watched the younger man's face, he asked,
+"What's the matter, don't you like the flavor of these first fruits of
+your shame? I advise you to cultivate a taste for this sort of thing as
+quickly as possible--in your own defense."
+
+"Don't you think you are a little bit too hard on us all, Lagrange?" asked
+the artist, with a faint smile. "These people are satisfied. The picture
+pleases them."
+
+"Of course they are pleased," retorted the other. "You know your business.
+That's the trouble with you. That's the trouble with us all, these
+days--we painters and writers and musicians--we know our business too
+damned well. We have the mechanics of our crafts, the tricks of our
+trades, so well in hand that we make our books and pictures and music say
+what we please. We _use_ our art to gain our own vain ends instead of
+being driven _by_ our art to find adequate expression for some great truth
+that demands through us a hearing. You have said it all, my friend--you
+have summed up the whole situation in the present-day world of creative
+art--these people are satisfied. You have given them what they want,
+prostituting your art to do it. That's what I have been doing all these
+years--giving people what they want. For a price we cater to them--even as
+their tailors, and milliners, and barbers. And never again will the world
+have a truly great art or literature until men like us--in the divine
+selfishness of their, calling--demand, first and last, that they,
+_themselves_, be satisfied by the work of their hands."
+
+Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the curtain. Involuntarily, the
+painter went to stand by his side before the picture.
+
+"Look at it!" cried the novelist. "Look at it in the light of your own
+genius! Don't you see its power? Doesn't it tell you what you _could_ do,
+if you would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you couldn't feel a
+picture to be painted, it wouldn't matter. I'd let you ride to hell on
+your own palette, and be damned to you. But this thing shows a power that
+the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad because it is so good. Come
+here!" he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains.
+"There is an art like those mountains, my boy--lonely, apart from the
+world; remotely above the squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm
+strength and peace--an art to which men may look for inspiration and
+courage and hope. And there is an art that is like Fairlands--petty and
+shallow and mean--with only the fictitious value that its devotees assume,
+but never, actually, realize. Listen, Aaron, don't continue to misread
+your mother's letters. Don't misunderstand her as thinking that the place
+she coveted for you is a place within the power of these people to give.
+Come with me into the mountains, yonder. Come, and let us see if, in those
+hills of God, you cannot find yourself."
+
+When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, for a little, without
+reply--irresolute, before his picture--the check in his hand. At last,
+still without speaking, he went back to the table, where he wrote briefly
+his reply to Mr. Taine. When he had finished, he handed his letter to the
+older man, who read:
+
+   Dear Sir:
+
+   In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your check in payment
+   for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I appreciate your generosity, but
+   cannot, now, accept it.
+
+   I find, upon further consideration, that the portrait does not fully
+   satisfy me. I shall, therefore, keep the canvas until I can, with the
+   consent of my own mind, put my signature upon it.
+
+   Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of course, I cannot accept
+   payment for an unfinished work.
+
+   In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start to the mountains, for an
+   outing. Trusting that you and your family will enjoy the season at Lake
+   Silence I am, with kind regards,
+
+   Yours sincerely, Aaron King.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, the two men talked over their proposed trip, and laid their
+plans to start without delay As Conrad Lagrange put it--they would lose
+themselves in the hills; with no definite destination in view; and no set
+date for their return. Also, he stipulated that they should travel
+light--with only a pack burro to carry their supplies--and that they
+should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more
+unfrequented trails. The novelist's acquaintance with the country into
+which they would go, and his experience in woodcraft--gained upon many
+like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved--would make a guide
+unnecessary. It would be a new experience for Aaron King; and, as the
+novelist talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy for the trip; while
+the distant mountains, themselves, seemed to call him--inviting him to
+learn the secret of their calm strength and the spirit of their lofty
+peace. The following day, they would spend in town; purchasing an outfit
+of the necessary equipment and supplies, securing a burro, and attending
+to numerous odds and ends of business preparatory to their indefinite
+absence.
+
+It so happened, the next day, that Yee Kee,--who was to care for the place
+during their weeks of absence had matters of importance to himself, that
+demanded his attention in town. When his masters informed him that they
+would not be home for lunch, he took advantage of the opportunity and
+asked for the day.
+
+Thus it came about that Conrad Lagrange--in the spirit of a boy bent upon
+some secret adventure--stole out into the rose garden, that morning, to
+leave the promised letter and key at the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+Myra Willard's Challenge
+
+
+
+Since her meeting with Conrad Lagrange in the rose garden, Sibyl Andrés
+had looked, every day, for that promised letter. She found it early in the
+afternoon. It was a quaint letter--written in the spirit of their
+meeting--telling her the probable time of her neighbor's return; warning
+her, in fear of some fanciful horror, to beware of the picture on the
+easel; and wishing her joy of the adventure. With the note, was a key.
+
+A few minutes later, the girl unlocked the door of the studio, and entered
+the building that had once been so familiar to her, but was now, in its
+interior, so transformed. Slowly, she pushed the door to, behind her. As
+though half frightened at her own daring, she stood quite still, looking
+about. In the atmosphere of that somewhat richly furnished apartment;
+poised timidly as if for ready flight; she seemed, indeed, the spirit that
+the novelist--in playful fancy--insisted that she was. Her cheeks were
+glowing with color; her eyes were bright with the excitement of her
+innocent adventure, and with her genuine admiration and appreciation of
+the beautiful room.
+
+Presently,--growing bolder,--she began moving about the
+studio--light-footed and graceful as a wild thing from her own mountain
+home, and, indeed, with much the air of a gentle creature of the woods
+that had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely interested in the
+things she found, she gradually forgot her timidity, and gave herself to
+the enjoyment of her surroundings, with the freedom and abandon of a
+child. From picture to picture, she went, with wide, eager eyes. She
+turned over the sketches in the big portfolios that were so invitingly
+open; looked with awe upon the brushes stuck in the big Chinese jar--upon
+the palettes, and at the tubes of color; flitting to the window that
+looked out upon her garden, and back to the great, north light with its
+view of the distant mountains; and again and again, paused to stand with
+her hands clasped behind her, in front of the big easel with its canvas
+hidden under the velvet curtain. Then she must try the chairs, the
+oriental couch, and even the stool--where she had seen the artist sitting,
+sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him from the arbor; and
+last--in a pretty make believe--she tried the seat on the model throne, as
+though posing herself, for her portrait.
+
+Suddenly, with a startled cry, she sprang to her feet; then shrank back,
+white and trembling--her big eyes fixed with pleading fear upon the man
+who stood in the open doorway, regarding her with a curious, triumphant
+smile. It was James Rutlidge.
+
+Sibyl, occupied with her childlike delight, had failed to hear the
+automobile when it stopped in front of the house. Finding no one in the
+house the man had gone on to the studio, where--with the assurance of an
+intimate acquaintance--he had pushed open the door that was standing ajar.
+
+At the girl's frightened manner, the man laughed. Closing the door, he
+said, with an insinuating sneer, "You were not expecting me, it seems."
+
+His words aroused Sibyl from her momentary weakness. Rising, she said
+calmly, "I was not expecting any one, Mr. Rutlidge."
+
+Again he laughed--with unpleasant meaning. "You certainly look to be very
+much at home." He moved confidently to the easel stool and, seating
+himself continued with a leering smile, "What's the matter with my taking
+the artist's place for a little while--at least, until he comes?"
+
+The girl was too innocent to understand his assumption but her pure mind
+could not fail to sense the evil in his words.
+
+"I had permission to come here this afternoon," she said--her voice
+trembling a little with the fear that she did not understand. "Won't you
+go, please? Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Lagrange are at home."
+
+"I do not doubt your having permission to come here," he returned, with
+meaning stress upon the word, "permission". "I see you even carry a key to
+this really delightful room." He motioned with his head toward the door
+where he had seen the key in the lock, as she had left it.
+
+At this, she grasped a hint of the man's thought and, for an instant, drew
+hack in shame. Then, suddenly with a burst of indignant anger, she took a
+step toward him, demanding clearly; "Are you saying that I am in the
+habit of coming here to meet Mr. King?"
+
+He laughed mockingly. "Really, my dear, no one, seeing you, now, could
+blame the man for giving you a key to this place where he is popularly
+supposed to be undisturbed. Mr. King is neither such a virtuous saint, nor
+so engrossed in his art, as to resent the companionship of such a vision
+of loveliness--simply because it comes in the form of good flesh and
+blood. Why be angry with me?"
+
+Her cheeks were crimson as she said, again, "Will you go?"
+
+"Not until you have settled the terms of peace," he answered with that
+leering smile. "Fortune has favored me, this afternoon, and I mean to
+profit by it."
+
+For an instant, she looked at him--frightened and dismayed. Suddenly, with
+the flash-like quickness that was a part of her physical inheritance from
+her mountain life, she darted past him; eluding his effort to detain
+her--and was out of the building.
+
+With an oath, the man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, ran after
+her. Outside the door of the studio, he caught a glimpse of her white
+dress as she disappeared into the rose garden. In the garden, he saw her
+as she slipped through the little gate in the far corner of the hedge,
+into the orange grove. Recklessly he followed. Among the trees, he
+glimpsed, again, the white flash of her skirts, and dashed forward. At the
+farther edge of the grove that walled in the little yard where Sibyl
+lived, he saw her standing by the kitchen door. But between the girl and
+that last row of close-set trees, waiting his coming, stood the woman with
+the disfigured face.
+
+Rutlidge paused--angry with himself for so foolishly yielding to the
+impulse of his passion.
+
+Myra Willard went toward him fearlessly--her fine eyes blazing with
+righteous indignation. "What are you trying to do, James Rutlidge?" she
+demanded--and her words were bold and clear.
+
+The man was silent.
+
+"You are evidently a worthy son of your father," the woman
+continued--every clear-cut word biting into his consciousness with
+stinging scorn. "He, in his day, did all he knew to turn this world into a
+hell for those who were unfortunate enough to please his vile fancy. You,
+I see, are following faithfully his footsteps. I know you, and the creed
+of your kind--as I knew your father before you. No girl of innocent beauty
+is safe from you. Your unclean mind is as incapable of believing in
+virtue, as you are helpless in the grip of your own insane lust."
+
+The man was stung to fury by her cutting words. "Take your ugly face out
+of my sight," he said brutally.
+
+Fearlessly, she drew a step nearer. "It is because I am a woman that I
+have this ugly face, James Rutlidge." She touched her disfigured
+cheek--"These scars are the marks of the beast that rules you, sir, body
+and soul. Leave this place, or, as there is a God, I'll tell a tale that
+will forbid you ever showing your own evil countenance in public, again."
+
+Something in her eyes and in her manner, as she spoke, caused the
+man--beside himself with rage, as he was--to draw back. Some mysterious
+force that made itself felt in her bold words told him that hers was no
+idle threat. A moment they stood face to face, in the edge of the shadowy
+orange grove--the man of the world, prominent in circles of art and
+culture; and the woman whose natural loveliness was so distorted into a
+hideous mask of ugliness. With a short, derisive laugh, James Rutlidge
+turned and walked away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were returning from town. As they neared
+their home, they saw one of the Taine automobiles in front of the house.
+"Company," said the artist with a smile--thinking of his letter to the
+millionaire.
+
+"It's Rutlidge," said the novelist--noting the absence of the chauffeur.
+
+They were turning in at the entrance, when Czar--who had dashed ahead as
+if to investigate--halted, suddenly, with a low growl of disapproval.
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange, with his twisted grin. "It's Senior
+'Sensual' all right. Look at Czar; he knows the beast is around. Go fetch
+him, Czar."
+
+With an angry bark, the dog disappeared around the corner of the porch.
+The two men, following, were met by Rutlidge who had made his way back
+through the grove and the rose garden from the house next door. The dog,
+with muttering growls, was sniffing suspiciously at his heels.
+
+"Czar," said his master, suggestively. With a meaning glance, the dog
+reluctantly ceased his embarrassing attentions and went to see if
+everything was all right about the premises.
+
+In answer to their greeting and the quite natural question if he had been
+waiting long, Rutlidge answered with a laugh. "Oh, no--I have been amusing
+myself by prowling around your place. Snug quarters you have here; really,
+I never quite appreciated their charm, before."
+
+They seated themselves on the porch. Conrad Lagrange--thinking of Sibyl
+Andrés and that letter which he had left on the gate--from under his
+brows, watched their caller closely; the while he filled with painstaking
+care his brier pipe.
+
+"We like it," returned the artist.
+
+"I should think so--I'd be sorry to leave it if I were you. Mr. Taine
+tells me you are going to the mountains."
+
+"We're not giving up this place, though," replied Aaron King. "Yee Kee
+stays to take care of things until our return."
+
+"Oh, I see. I generally go into the mountains, myself for a little hunt
+when the deer season opens. It may be that I will run across you
+somewhere. By the way--you haven't met your musical neighbor yet, have
+you?"
+
+The novelist gave particular attention to his pipe which did not seem to
+be behaving properly.
+
+The artist answered shortly, "No."
+
+"I'd certainly make her acquaintance, if I were you," said Rutlidge, with
+his suggestive smile. "She is a dream. A delightful little retreat--that
+studio of yours."
+
+The painter, puzzled by the man's words and by his insinuating air,
+returned coldly, "It does very well for a work-shop."
+
+The other laughed meaningly; "Yes, oh yes--a great little work-shop. I
+suppose you--ah--do not fear to trust your _art treasures_ to the
+Chinaman, during your absence?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange--certain, now, that the man had seen Sibyl Andrés either
+entering or leaving the studio--said abruptly, "You need give yourself no
+concern for Mr. King's studio, Rutlidge. I can assure you that the
+treasures there will be well protected."
+
+James Rutlidge understood the warning conveyed in the novelist's words
+that, to Aaron King, revealed nothing.
+
+"Really," said the painter to their caller, "you are not uneasy for the
+safety of Mrs. Taine's portrait, are you, old man? If you are, of
+course--"
+
+"Damn Mrs. Taine's portrait!" ejaculated the man, rising hurriedly. "You
+know what I mean. It's all right, of course. I must be going. Hope you
+have a good outing and come back to find all your art treasures safe." He
+laughed coarsely, as he went down the walk.
+
+When the automobile was gone, the artist turned to his friend. "Now what
+in thunder did he mean by that? What's the matter with him? Do you suppose
+they imagine that there is anything wrong because I wouldn't turn over the
+picture?"
+
+"He is an unclean beast, Aaron," the novelist answered shortly. "His
+father was the worst I ever knew, and he's like him. Forget him. Here
+comes the delivery boy with our stuff. Let's overhaul the outfit. I hope
+they'll get here with that burro, before dark. Where'll we put him, in the
+studio, heh?"
+
+"Look here,"--said the artist a few minutes later, returning from a visit
+to the studio for something,--"this is what was the matter with Rutlidge.
+And you did it, old man. This is your key."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the other in confusion taking the key.
+
+"Why, I found the studio door wide open, with your key in the lock. You
+must have been out there, just before we left this morning, and forgot to
+shut the door. Rutlidge probably noticed it when he was prowling about the
+place, and was trying to roast me for my carelessness."
+
+Conrad Lagrange stared stupidly at the key in his hand. "Well I _am_
+damned," he muttered. Then added, in savage and--as it seemed to the
+artist--exaggerated wrath, "I'm a stupid, blundering, irresponsible old
+fool." Nor was he consoled when the painter innocently assured him that no
+harm had resulted from his carelessness.
+
+That night, as the two men sat on the porch, watching the last of the
+light on the mountain tops, they heard again the cry of fear and pain that
+came from the little house hidden in the depths of the orange grove.
+Wonderingly they listened. Once more it came--filled with shuddering
+terror.
+
+When the sound was not repeated, Conrad Lagrange thoughtfully knocked the
+ashes from his pipe. "Poor soul," he said. "Those scars did more than
+disfigure her beautiful face. I'll wager there's a sad story there, Aaron.
+It's strange how I am haunted by the impression that I ought to know her.
+But I can't make it come clear. Heigho,"--he added a moment later as if to
+free his mind from unpleasant thoughts,--"I'll be glad when we are safely
+up in the hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though we're
+getting away just in the nick of time. My back hair and the pricking of my
+thumbs warn me that your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up
+some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee has a plentiful supply
+of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, if they get too busy while we are gone."
+
+Aaron King laughed quietly in the dusk, as he returned "And I have a
+presentiment that those precious members of our household are preparing to
+accompany us to the hills. I feel in my bones that something is going to
+happen up there"--he pointed to the distant mountains, then added--"to me,
+at least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself good-by--if you know
+what I mean. I hope that donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he
+is, that he'll listen to reason and be content with his escorts of flesh
+and blood."
+
+As he finished speaking, the quiet of the evening was broken by a lusty,
+"Hee-haw, hee-haw," in front of the house.
+
+"There, I told you so!" ejaculated the painter.
+
+Laughing, the two men followed Czar down the walk, in the dark, to
+receive the shaggy, long-eared companion for their wanderings.
+
+As many a man has done--Aaron King had spoken, in jest, more truth than he
+knew.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+In The Mountains
+
+
+
+In the gray of the early morning, hours before the dwellers on Fairlands
+Heights thought of leaving their beds, Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange made
+ready for their going.
+
+The burro, Croesus--so named by the novelist because, as the famous writer
+explained, "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was an
+ass"--was to be entrusted with all the available worldly possessions of
+the little party. An arrangement--the more experienced man carefully
+pointed out--that, considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was
+quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange,
+himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place--adjusting the saddle with
+careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top,
+and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly
+tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the
+uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their
+march, also, would place Croesus first; which position--the novelist,
+again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight--is held by all who
+value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As he
+watched his friend, the artist felt that, indeed, he was about to go far
+from the ways of life that he had always known.
+
+When all was ready, the two men--dressed in flannels, corduroys, and
+high-laced, mountain boots--called good-by to Yee Kee, respectfully
+invited Croesus to proceed, and set out--with Czar, the fourth member of
+the party, flying here and there in such a whirlwind of good spirits that
+not a shred of his usual dignity was left. The sun was still below the
+mountain's crest, though the higher points were gilded with its light,
+when they turned their backs upon the city made by men, and set their
+faces toward the hills that bore in every ridge and peak and cliff and
+crag and canyon the signature of God.
+
+As Conrad Lagrange said--they might have hired a wagon, or even an
+automobile, to take them and their goods to some mountain ranch where they
+would have had no trouble in securing a burro for their wanderings A team
+would have made the trip by noon. A machine would have set them down in
+Clear Creek Canyon before the sun could climb high enough to look over the
+canyon walls. "But that"--explained the novelist, as they trudged
+leisurely along between rows of palms that bordered the orange groves on
+either side of their road, and sensed the mystery that marks the birth of
+a new day--"but that is not a proper way to go to the mountains.
+
+"The mountains"--he continued, with his eyes upon the distant
+heights--"are not seen by those who would visit them with a rattle and
+clatter and rush and roar--as one would visit the cities of men. They are
+to be seen only by those who have the grace to go quietly; who have the
+understanding to go thoughtfully; the heart to go lovingly; and the spirit
+to go worshipfully. They are to be approached, not in the manner of one
+going to a horse-race, or a circus, but in the mood of one about to enter
+a great cathedral; or, indeed, of one seeking admittance to the very
+throne-room of God. When going to the mountains, one should take time to
+feel them drawing near. They are never intimate with those who hurry. Mere
+sight-seers seldom see much of anything. If possible,"--insisted the
+speaker, smiling gravely upon his companion,--"one should always spend, at
+least, a full day in the approach. Before entering the immediate presence
+of the hills, one should first view them from a distance, seeing them from
+base to peak--in the glory of the day's beginning, as they watch the world
+awake; in the majesty of full noon, as they maintain their calm above the
+turmoil of the day's doing; and in the glory of the sun's departure, as it
+lights last their crests and peaks. And then, after such a day, one should
+sleep, one night, at their feet."
+
+The artist listened with delight, as he always did when his friend spoke
+in those rare moods that revealed a nature so unknown to the world that
+had made him famous. When the novelist finished, the young man said
+gently, "And your words, my friend, are almost a direct quotation from
+that anonymous book which my mother so loved."
+
+"Perhaps they are, Aaron"--admitted Conrad Lagrange--"perhaps they are."
+
+So it was that they spent that day--in leisure approach--the patient
+Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry
+sprite, playing here and there. Several times they stopped to rest beside
+the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or
+weeds. Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every
+step.
+
+Their road led always upward, with a gradual, easy grade; and by noon they
+had left the cultivated section of the lower valley for the higher,
+untilled lands. The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the lighter
+shining tints of the lemon groves, with the rich, satiny-gray tones of the
+olive-trees, were replaced now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and
+browns of the chaparral. The air was no longer heavy with the perfume of
+roses and orange-blossoms, but came to their nostrils laden with the
+pungent odors of yerba santa and greasewood and sage. Looking back, they
+could see the valley--marked off by its roads into many squares of green,
+and dotted here and there by small towns and cities--stretching away
+toward the western ocean until it was lost in a gray-blue haze out of
+which the distant San Gabriels, beyond Cajon Pass, lifted into the clear
+sky above, like the shore-line of dreamland rising out of a dream sea.
+Before them, the San Bernardinos drew ever nearer and more
+intimate--silently inviting them; patiently, with a world old patience,
+bidding them come; in the majestic humbleness of their lofty spirit,
+offering themselves and the wealth of their teaching.
+
+So they came, in the late afternoon, to that spot where the road for the
+first time crosses the alder and cottonwood bordered stream that, before
+it reaches the valley, is drawn from its natural course by the irrigation
+flumes and pipes.
+
+The sound of the mountain waters leaping down their granite-bouldered way
+reached the men while they were yet some distance. Croesus pointed his
+long ears forward in burro anticipation--his experience telling him that
+the day's work was about to end. Czar was already ranging along the side
+of the creek--sending a colony of squirrels scampering to the tree tops,
+and a bevy of quail whirring to the chaparral in frightened flight. The
+artist greeted the waters with a schoolboy shout of gladness. Conrad
+Lagrange, with the smile and the voice of a man miraculously recreated,
+said quietly, "This is the place where we stop for the night."
+
+Their camp was a simple matter. Croesus asked nothing but to be released
+from his burden--being quite capable of caring for himself. A wash in the
+clear, cold water of the brook; a simple meal, prepared by Conrad Lagrange
+over a small fire made of sticks gathered by the artist; their tarpaulin
+and blankets spread within sound of the music of the stream; a watching of
+the sun's glorious going down; a quiet pipe in the hush of the mysterious
+twilight; a "good night" in the soft darkness, when the myriad stars
+looked down upon the dull red glow of their camp-fire embers; with the
+guarding spirit of the mighty hills to give them peace--and they lay down
+to sleep at the mountain's feet.
+
+There is no sleeping late in the morning when one sleeps in the open,
+under the stars. After breakfast, the artist received another lesson in
+packing, and they moved on toward the world that already seemed to dwarf
+that other world which they had left, by one day's walking, so far below.
+A heavy fog, rolling in from the ocean in the night, submerged the valley
+in its dull, gray depths--leaving to the eye no view but the view of the
+mountains before them, and forcing upon the artist's mind the weird
+impression that the life he had always known was a fantastically unreal
+dream.
+
+And now,--as they approached,--the frowning entrance of Clear Creek Canyon
+grew more and more clearly defined. The higher peaks appeared to draw back
+and hide themselves behind the foothills, which--as the men came closer
+under their immediate slopes and walls--seemed to grow magically in height
+and bulk. A little before noon, they were in the rocky vestibule of the
+canyon. On either hand, the walls rose almost sheer, while their road,
+now, was but a narrow shelf under the overhanging cliffs, below which the
+white waters of the stream--cold from the snows so far above--tumbled
+impetuously over the boulders that obstructed their way--filling the
+hall-like gorge with tumultuous melody. Soon, the canyon narrowed to less
+than a stone's throw in width. The walls grew more grim and forbidding in
+their rocky nearness. And then they came to that point where, on either
+side, great cliffs, projecting, form the massive, rugged portals of the
+mountain's gate.
+
+First seen, from a point where the road rounds a jutting corner on the
+extreme right, the projecting cliffs ahead appear as a blank wall of rock
+that forbids further progress. But, as the men moved forward,--the road
+swinging more toward the center of the gorge,--the cliffs seemed to draw
+apart, and, through the way thus opened, they saw the great canyon and the
+mountains beyond. It was as though a mighty, invisible hand rolled
+silently back those awful doors to give them entrance.
+
+Abruptly, upon the inner side of the narrow passage the canyon widens to
+many times the width of the outer vestibule; and the road, crossing the
+creek, curves to the left; so that, looking back as they went, the two men
+saw the mighty doors closing again, behind them--as they had opened to let
+them in. It was as though that spirit sentinel, guarding the treasures of
+the hills, had jealously barred the way, that no one else from the world
+of men might follow.
+
+Aaron King stopped. Drawing a deep breath, and removing his hat, he turned
+his face from that mountain wall, upward to the encircling pine-fringed
+ridges and towering peaks. He had, indeed, come far from the world that he
+had always known.
+
+Conrad Lagrange, smiling, watched his friend, but spoke no word.
+
+Clear Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow valley, some fifteen miles in length,
+and approaching a mile in its greatest width; lying between the main range
+of the San Bernardinos and the lower ridge of the Galenas. The lower end
+of the canyon is shut in by the sheer cliff walls, and by the rugged
+portals of the narrow entrance; the upper end is formed by the dividing
+ridge that separates the Clear Creek from the Cold Water country which
+opens out onto the Colorado Desert below San Gorgonio Pass and the peaks
+of the San Jacintos. Perhaps two miles above the entrance the canyon
+widens to its greatest width; and in this portion of the little
+valley,--which extends some five miles to where the walls again draw
+close,--located on the benches above the boulder-strewn wash of Clear
+Creek, are the homes of several mountain ranchers, and the Government
+Forest Ranger Station.
+
+At the Ranger Station, they stopped--Conrad Lagrange wishing to greet the
+mountaineer official, whom he had learned to know on his former trip. But
+the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his lonely trails, and they did not
+tarry.
+
+Just above the Station, they left the main road to follow the way that
+leads to the Morton Ranch in the mouth of Alder Canyon--a small side
+canyon leading steeply up to a low gap in the main range. Beyond Morton's,
+there is only a narrow trail. Three hundred yards above the ranch corral,
+where the road ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the
+mountaineer's home were lost to view. Except for the narrow winding path
+that they must follow single file, there was no sign of human life.
+
+For three weeks, they knew no roads other than those lonely, mountain
+trails. At times, they walked under dark pines where the ground was
+thickly carpeted with the dead, brown needles and the air was redolent
+with the odor of the majestic trees; or made their camps at night, feeding
+their blazing fires with the pitchy knots and cones. At other times, they
+found their way through thickets of manzanita and buckthorn, along the
+mountain's flank; or, winding zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made
+themselves at home under the slender, small-trunked alders; and added to
+the stores that Croesus packed, many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy
+torrent. Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or peak, where
+the pines were twisted and battered and torn by the warring elements, they
+looked far down upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world below;
+or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their fires; and, when the
+night was clear, saw, miles away and below, the thousands of twinkling
+star-like lights of the world they had left behind. Or, again, they halted
+in some forest and hill encircled glen; where the lush grass in the
+cienaga grew almost as high as Croesus' back, and the lilies even higher;
+and where, through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come down to
+drink at the beginning of some mountain stream. At last, their wanderings
+carried them close under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio--the loftiest
+of all the peaks. That night, they camped at timber-line and in the
+morning,--leaving Croesus and the outfit, while it was still dark,--made
+their way to the top, in time to see the sun come up from under the edge
+of the world.
+
+So they were received into the inner life of the mountains; so the spirit
+that dwells in that unmarred world whispered to them the secrets of its
+enduring strength and lofty peace.
+
+From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that leads down to upper Clear
+Creek--halting, one night, at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the
+falls. Then--leaving the Laurel trail--they climbed over a spur of the
+main range, and so down the steep wall of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern
+Creek. The next day, they made their way on down to the floor of the main
+canyon--five miles above the point where they had left it at the beginning
+of their wanderings.
+
+Crossing the canyon at the Clear Creek Power Company's intake, they took
+the company trail that follows the pipe-line along the southern wall. From
+the headwork to the reservoir two thousand feet above the power-house at
+the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, this trail is cut in the steep side of
+the Galena range--overhanging the narrow valley below--nine beautiful
+miles of it. At Oak Knoll,--where a Government trail for the Forest Ranger
+zigzags down from the pipe-line to the wagon road below,--they halted.
+
+Conrad Lagrange explained that there were three ways back to the world
+they had left, nearly a month before--the pipe-line trail to the reservoir
+and so down to the power-house and the Fairlands road; the Government
+trail from the pipe-line, over the Galenas to the valley on the other
+side; or, the Oak Knoll trail down to Clear Creek and out through the
+canyon gates--the way they had come.
+
+"But," objected Aaron King, lazily,--from where he lay under a live-oak on
+the mountainside, a few feet above the trail,--"either route presupposes
+our wish to return to Fairlands."
+
+The novelist laughed. "Listen to him, Czar,"--he said to the dog lying at
+his feet,--"listen to that painter-man. He doesn't want to go back to
+Fairlands any more than we do, does he?"
+
+Rising, Czar looked at his master a moment, with slow waving tail, then
+turned inquiringly toward the artist.
+
+"Well," said the young man, "what about it, old boy? Which trail shall we
+take? Or shall we take any of them?"
+
+With a prodigious yawn,--as though to indicate that he wearied of their
+foolish indecision,--Czar turned, with a low "woof," toward the fourth
+member of the company, who was browsing along the edge of the trail.
+Whenever Czar was in doubt as to the wants of his human companions he
+always barked at the burro.
+
+"He says, 'ask Croesus'," commented the artist.
+
+"Good!" cried the older man, with another laugh. "Let's put it up to the
+financier and let him choose."
+
+"Wait,"--said the artist, as the other turned toward the burro,--"don't be
+hasty--the occasion calls for solemn meditation and lofty discourse."
+
+"Your pardon,"--returned the novelist,--"'tis so. I will orate." Carefully
+selecting a pebble in readiness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the
+shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack is lighter by many
+meals than when first thou didst set out from that land where we did
+rescue thee from the hands of thy tormenting trader; but thy
+responsibilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom of thy choice,
+now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy chance, O illustrious ass, to
+recompense the world, this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious
+ancestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the way thy
+benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, Croesus, that thou dost choose
+wisely; or, by thy ears, we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the
+mountainside--a warning to thy kind."
+
+The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it
+was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus--with an indignant jerk of his
+head, and a flirt of his tail--started forward. At the fork of the trail,
+he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of
+accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and
+trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
+Laughing, the men followed--but far enough in the rear to permit their
+leader to choose his own way when they should reach the wagon road at the
+foot of the mountain wall. Without an instant's hesitation, Croesus turned
+down the road--quickening his pace, almost, into a trot.
+
+"By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like he knew where he was
+going."
+
+"He's taking you at your word," returned the artist. "Look at him go!
+Evidently, he's still under the inspiration of your oratory."
+
+The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gallop that caused the
+frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed on the outside of the pack, to rattle
+merrily. Splashing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark shadow of
+a thicket of alders and willows, where the road crosses a tiny rivulet
+that flows from a spring a hundred yards above. Climbing out of this
+gloomy hollow, the road turns sharply to the left, and the men hurried on
+to overtake their four-footed guide before he should be too long out of
+their sight. Just at the top of the little rise, before rounding the turn,
+they stopped. A few feet to the right of the road, with his nose at an
+old gate, stood Croesus. Nor would he heed Czar's bark commanding him to
+go on.
+
+On the other side of the fence, an old and long neglected apple orchard, a
+tumble-down log barn, and the wreck of a house with the fireplace and
+chimney standing stark and alone, told the story. The place was one of
+those old ranches, purchased by the Power Company for the water rights,
+and deserted by those who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient
+wagon tracks, overgrown with weeds, led somewhere around the edge of the
+orchard and were lost in the tangle of trees and brush on its lower side.
+
+The two men looked at each other in laughing surprise. The burro, turning
+his head, gazed at them over his shoulder, inquiringly, as much as to say,
+"Well, what's the matter now? Why don't you come along?"
+
+"When in doubt, ask Croesus," said the artist, gravely.
+
+Conrad Lagrange calmly opened the gate.
+
+Promptly, the burro trotted ahead. Following the ancient weed-grown
+tracks, he led them around the lower end of the orchard; crossed a little
+stream; and, turning again, climbed a gentle rise of open, grassy land
+behind the orchard; stopping at last, with an air of having accomplished
+his purpose, in a beautiful little grove of sycamore trees that bordered a
+small cienaga.
+
+Completely hidden by the old orchard from the road in front, and backed by
+the foot of the mountain spur that here forms the northern wall of the
+little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view of the encircling
+peaks and ridges. San Bernardino was almost above their heads. To the
+east, were the more rugged walls of the upper and narrower end of the
+canyon; in their front, the beautiful Oak Knoll, with the dark steeps and
+pine-fringed crest of the Galenas against the sky; while to the west, the
+blue peaks of the far San Gabriels showed above the lower spurs and
+foothills of the more immediate range. The foreground was filled in by the
+gentle slope leading down to the tiny stream at the edge of the old
+orchard and, a little to the left, by the cienaga--rich in the color of
+its tall marsh grass and reeds, gemmed with brilliant flowers of gold and
+scarlet, bordered by graceful willows, and screened from the eye of the
+chance traveler by the lattice of tangled orchard boughs.
+
+Seated in the shade of the sycamores on the little knoll, the two friends
+enjoyed the beauty of the scene, and the charming seclusion of the lovely
+retreat; while Croesus stood patiently, as though waiting to be rewarded
+for his virtue, by the removal of his pack. Even Czar refrained from
+charging here and there, and lay down contentedly at their feet, with an
+air of having reached at last the place they had been seeking.
+
+A few days later found them established in a comfortable camp; with tents
+and furniture and hammocks and books and the delighted Yee Kee to take
+care of them. It had been easy to secure permission from the neighboring
+rancher who leased the orchard from the Company. Conrad Lagrange, with
+the man and his big mountain wagon, had made a trip to town--returning the
+next day with Yee Kee and the outfit. He brought, also, things from the
+studio; for the artist declared that he would no longer be without the
+materials of his art.
+
+The first day after the camp was built, the artist--declaring that he
+would settle the question, at once, as to whether Yee Kee could cook a
+trout as skillfully as the novelist--took rod and flies, and--leaving the
+famous author in a hammock, with Czar lying near--set out up the canyon.
+For perhaps two miles, the painter followed the creek--taking here and
+there from clear pool or swirling eddy a fish for his creel, and pausing
+often, as he went, to enjoy--in artist fashion--the beauties of the ever
+changing landscape.
+
+The afternoon was almost gone when he finally turned back toward camp. He
+had been away, already longer than he intended; but still--as all
+fishermen will understand--he could not, on his way back down the stream,
+refrain from casting here and there over the pools that tempted him.
+
+The sun was touching the crest of the mountains when he had made but
+little more than half the distance of his return. He had just sent his fly
+skillfully over a deep pool in the shadow of a granite boulder, for what
+he determined must be his last cast, when, startlingly clear and sweet,
+came the tones of a violin.
+
+A master trout leaped. The hand of the unheeding fisherman felt the tug
+as the leader broke. Giving the victorious fish no thought, Aaron King
+slowly reeled in his line.
+
+There was no mistaking the pure, vibrant tones of the music to which the
+man listened with amazed delight. It was the music of the, to him, unknown
+violinist who lived hidden in the orange grove next door to his studio
+home in Fairlands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+The Forest Ranger's Story
+
+
+
+Perhaps the motive that, in Fairlands, had restrained the artist from
+seeking to know his neighbor was without force in the mountains. Perhaps
+it was that, in the unconventional freedom of the hills, the man obeyed
+more readily his impulse. Aaron King did not stop to question. As though
+in answer to the call of that spirit which spoke in the tones of the
+violin, he moved in the direction from which the music came.
+
+Climbing out of the bed of the stream to the bench that slopes hack--a
+quarter of a mile, perhaps--to the foot of the canyon wall, he found
+himself in an old road that, where it once crossed the creek, had been
+destroyed by the mountain floods. Wonderingly he followed the dimly marked
+track that led through the chaparral toward a thicket of cedars, from
+beyond which the music seemed to come. Where the road curved to find its
+way through the green barrier he paused--the musician, undoubtedly, now,
+was just beyond. Still acting upon the impulse of the moment, he
+cautiously parted the boughs and peered through into a little, open glade
+that was closed in on every side by the rank growth of the mountain
+vegetation, by the thicket of dark cedars and by tangled masses of wild
+rose-bushes. Opposite the spot where he stood, and half concealed by great
+sycamore trees, was a small, log house with a thread of blue smoke curling
+lazily from the chimney. The place was another of those old ranches that
+had been purchased by the Power Company and permitted to go back to the
+wilderness from which it had been won by some hardy settler. The little
+plot of open ground--well sodded with firm turf and short-cropped by
+roving cattle and deer--had evidently been, at one time, the front yard of
+the mountaineer's home. A little out from the porch, and in full view of
+the artist,--her graceful form outlined against the background of wild
+roses,--stood Sibyl Andrés with her violin.
+
+As the girl played,--her winsome face upturned to the mountain heights and
+her body, lightly poised, swaying with the movement of her arm as easily
+as a willow bough,--she appeared, to the man hidden in the cedars, as some
+beautiful spirit of the woods and hills--a spirit that would vanish
+instantly if he should step from his hiding place. He was so close that he
+could see her blue eyes, wide and unmindful of her surroundings; her lips,
+curved in an unconscious smile; and her cheeks, flushed with emotion under
+their warm brown tint--as she appeared to listen for the music that she,
+in turn,--seemingly with no effort of her will,--gave forth again in the
+tones of the instrument under her chin.
+
+Aaron King was moved by the beauty of the picture as he had never been
+stirred before. The peculiar charm of the music; the loveliness of the
+girl herself; the setting of the scene in the little glade with its wild
+roses, giant sycamores, dark cedars, and encircling mountain walls, all in
+the soft mystery of the twilight's beginning; and, withal, the
+unexpectedness of the vision--combined to make an impression upon the
+artist's mind that would endure for many years.
+
+Suddenly, as he watched, the music ceased. The girl lowered her violin,
+and, with a low laugh, said to some one on the porch--concealed from the
+painter by the trunk of a sycamore--"O Myra, I want to dance. I can't keep
+still. I'm so glad, glad to be home again--to see old 'San Berdo' and
+'Gray Back' and all the rest of them up there!" She stretched out her arms
+as if in answer to a welcome from the hills. Then, whirling quickly, she
+gave the violin to her companion on the porch. "Play, Myra; please, dear,
+play."
+
+At her word, the music of the violin began again--coming now, from behind
+the trunk of the sycamore. In the hands of the unseen musician, the
+instrument laughed and sang a song of joyous abandonment--of freedom and
+rejoicing--of happiness and love--while in perfect harmony with the spirit
+and the rhythm of the melody, the girl danced upon the firm, green carpet
+of grass. Here and there, to and fro, about the little glade shut in from
+the world by its walls of living green, she tripped and whirled in
+unstudied grace--lightly as if winged--unconscious as the wild creatures
+that play in the depths of the woods--wayward as the zephyr that trips
+along the mountainside.
+
+It was a spontaneous expression of her spiritual and physical exaltation
+and was as natural as the laughter in her voice or the flush upon her
+cheeks. It was a dance that was like no dance that Aaron King had ever
+seen.
+
+The artist--watching through the screen of cedar boughs beside the old
+wagon road and scarcely daring to breathe lest the beautiful vision should
+vanish--forgot his position--forgot what he was doing. Fascinated by the
+scene to which he had been led, so unexpectedly by the music he had so
+often heard while at work in his studio, he was unmindful of the rude part
+he was playing. He was brought suddenly to himself by a heavy hand upon
+his shoulder. As he straightened, the hand whirled him half around and he
+found himself looking into a face that was tanned and seamed by many years
+in the open.
+
+The man who had so unceremoniously commanded the artist's attention stood
+a little above six feet in height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but
+full-muscled build that so often marks the mountain bred. He wore no coat.
+At his hip, a heavy Colt revolver hung in its worn holster from a full,
+loosely buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest was the shield
+of the United States Forest Service. From under the brim of his slouch
+hat, he gazed at Aaron King questioningly--in angry disapproval.
+
+Instinctively, neither of the men spoke. A word would have been heard the
+other side of the cedars. With a gesture commanding the artist to follow,
+the Ranger quietly, withdrew along the wagon road toward the creek.
+
+When they were at a distance where their voices would not reach the girl
+in the glade, the Ranger said with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps
+you will tell me who you are and what you mean by spying upon a couple of
+women, like that."
+
+The other could not conceal his embarrassment. "I don't blame you for
+calling me to account," he said. "If it were me--if our positions were
+reversed I mean--I should kick you down into the creek there."
+
+The cold, blue eyes--that had been measuring the painter so
+shrewdly--twinkled with a hint of humor. "You _do_ look like a gentleman,
+you know," the officer said,--as if excusing himself for not following the
+artist's suggestion. "But, all the same, you must explain. Who are you?"
+
+"That part is easy, at least," returned the other. "Though the
+circumstance of our meeting _is_ a temptation to lie."
+
+"Which would do you no good, and might lead to unpleasant complications,"
+retorted the Ranger, sharply.
+
+The man under question, still embarrassed, laughed shortly, as he
+returned, "I really was not thinking of it seriously. My name is Aaron
+King. I am an artist. You are Mr. Oakley, I suppose."
+
+The officer nodded--beginning to smile. "Yes, I am Brian Oakley."
+
+The artist continued, "A month ago, Conrad Lagrange and I came into the
+mountains for an outing. We stopped at the Station, but there was no one
+at home. Most of the time, we have been just roaming around. Now, we are
+camped down there, back of that old apple orchard."
+
+The Ranger broke into a laugh. "Mrs. Oakley was visiting friends up the
+canyon, the day you came in; but Morton told me. I've crossed your trail a
+dozen times, and sighted you nearly as many; but I was always too busy to
+go to you. I knew Lagrange didn't need any attention, you see; so I just
+figured on meeting up with you somewhere by accident like--about meal
+time, mebbe." He laughed again. "The accident part worked out all right."
+He paused, still laughing--enjoying the artist's discomfiture; then ended
+with a curious--"What in thunder were you sneaking around in the brush
+like that for, anyway? Those women won't bite."
+
+Aaron King explained how he had heard the music while fishing; and how,
+following the sound, he had acted upon an impulse to catch a glimpse of
+the unknown musician before revealing himself; and then, in his interest,
+had forgotten that he was playing the part of a spy--until so rudely
+aroused by the hand of the Ranger.
+
+Brian Oakley chuckled; "If _I'd_ acted upon impulse when I first saw you
+peeking through those cedars, you would have been more surprised than you
+were. But while I was sneaking up on you I noticed your get-up--with your
+creel and rod--and figured how you might have come there. So I thought I
+would go a little slow."
+
+"And you wear rather heavy boots too," said the artist suggestively. Then,
+more at ease, he joined in the laugh at himself.
+
+"Catch any fish?" asked the Ranger--lifting the cover of the creel.
+"Whee!" as he saw the contents. "That's bully! And I'm hungry as a she
+wolf too! Been in the saddle since sunup without a bite. What do you say
+if I make that long deferred social call upon you and Lagrange this
+evening?"
+
+"I say, good! Mr. Oakley," returned the artist, heartily. "I guess you
+know what Lagrange will say."
+
+"You bet I do." He whistled--a low, birdlike note. In answer, a beautiful,
+chestnut saddle-horse came out of the chaparral, where it had not been
+seen by the painter. "We're going, Max," said the officer, in a
+matter-of-fact way. And, as the two men set out, the horse followed, with
+a business-like air that brought a word of admiring comment from the
+artist.
+
+That Aaron King had won the approval of the Ranger was evidenced by the
+mountaineer's inviting himself to supper the camp in the sycamores. The
+fact that the officer considerately told Conrad Lagrange only that he had
+met the artist with his creel full of trout, and so had been tempted to
+accompany him, won the enduring gratitude of the young man. Thus the
+circumstances of their meeting introduced each to the other, with
+recommendations of peculiar value, and marked the beginning of a genuine
+and lasting friendship. But, while, out of delicate regard for the
+artist's feelings, he refrained from relating the--to the young
+man--embarrassing incident, Brian Oakley could not resist making, at every
+opportunity, sly references to their meeting--for the painter's benefit
+and his own amusement. Thus it happened that, after supper, as they sat
+with their pipes, the talk turned upon Sibyl Andrés and the woman with the
+disfigured face.
+
+The Ranger, to tease the artist, had remarked casually,--after
+complimenting them upon the location of their camp,--"And you've got some
+mighty nice neighbors, less than a mile above too."
+
+"Neighbors!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange--in a tone that left no doubt as
+to his sentiment in the matter.
+
+The others laughed; while the officer said, "Oh, I know how _you_ feel!
+You think you don't want anybody poaching on your preserves. You're up
+here in the hills to get away from people, and all that. But you don't
+need to be uneasy. You won't even see these folks--unless you sneak up on
+them." He stole a look at the artist, and chuckled maliciously as the
+painter covertly shook his fist at him. "You may _hear_ them though."
+
+"Which would probably be as bad," retorted the novelist, gruffly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know!" returned the other. "You might be able to stand it. I
+don't reckon you would object to a little music now and then, would
+you?--_real_ music, I mean."
+
+"So our neighbors are musical, are they?" The novelist seemed slightly
+interested.
+
+"Sibyl Andrés is the most accomplished violinist I have ever heard," said
+the Ranger. "And I haven't always lived in these mountains, you know. As
+for Myra Willard--well--she taught Sibyl--though she doesn't pretend to
+equal her now."
+
+Conrad Lagrange was interested, now, in earnest He turned to the artist,
+eagerly--but with caution--"Do you suppose it could be our neighbors in
+the orange grove, Aaron?"
+
+Brian Oakley watched them with quiet amusement.
+
+"I know it is," returned the artist.
+
+"You know it is!" ejaculated the other.
+
+"Sure--I heard the violin this afternoon. While I was fishing," he added
+hastily, when the Ranger laughed.
+
+The novelist commented savagely, "Seems to me you're mighty careful about
+keeping your news to yourself!"
+
+This brought another burst of merriment from the mountaineer.
+
+When the two men had explained to the Ranger about the music in the orange
+grove, Conrad Lagrange related how they had first heard that cry in the
+night; and how, when they had gone to the neighboring house, they had seen
+the woman of the disfigured face standing in the doorway.
+
+"It was Miss Willard who cried out," said Brian Oakley, quietly. "She
+dreams, sometimes, of the accident--or whatever it was--that left her with
+those scars--at least, that's what I think it is. Certainly it's no
+ordinary dream that would make a woman cry like that. The first time I
+heard her--the first time that she ever did it, in fact--she and Sibyl
+were stopping over night at my house. It was three years ago. Jim Rutlidge
+had just come West, on his first trip, and was up in the hills on a hunt.
+He happened along about sundown, and when he stepped into the room and
+Myra saw him, I thought she would faint. He looked like some one she had
+known--she said. And that night she gave that horrible cry. Lord! but it
+threw a fright into me. My wife didn't get over being nervous, for a week.
+Myra explained that she had dreamed--but that's all she would say. I
+figured that being upset by Rutlidge's reminding her of some one she had
+known started her mind to going on the past--and then she dreamed of
+whatever it was that gave her those scars."
+
+"You have known Miss Willard a long time, haven't you, Brian?" asked
+Conrad Lagrange, with the freedom of an old comrade--for men may grow
+closer together in one short season in the mountains than in years of
+meeting daily in the city.
+
+"I've known her ever since she came into the hills. That was the year
+Sibyl was born. All that anybody knows is what has happened since. Sibyl's
+mother, even--a month before she died--told me that Myra's history, before
+she came to them, was as unknown to her as it was the day she stopped at
+their door."
+
+"I can't get over the feeling that I ought to know her--that I have seen
+her somewhere, years ago," said the novelist, by way of explaining his
+interest.
+
+"Then it was before she got those scars," returned the Ranger. "No one
+could ever forget her face as it is now."
+
+"At the same time," commented the artist, "the scars would prevent your
+identifying her if she received them after you had known her."
+
+"All the same," said Conrad Lagrange,--as though his mind was bothered by
+his inability to establish some incident in his memory,--"I'll place her
+yet. Do you mind, Brian, telling us what you _do_ know of her?"
+
+"Why, not at all," returned the officer. "The story is anybody's property.
+Its being so well known is probably the reason you didn't hear it when you
+were up here before.
+
+"Sibyl's father and mother were here in the mountains when I came. They
+lived up there at the old place where Myra and Sibyl are camping now, and
+I never expect to meet finer people--either in this world or the next. For
+twenty years I knew them intimately. Will Andrés was as true and square
+and white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good a woman as he was
+a man. They and my wife and I were more like brothers and sisters than
+most folks who are actually blood kin.
+
+"One day, along toward sundown, about a month before Sibyl was born, Nelly
+heard the dogs barking and went to see what was up. There stood Myra
+Willard at the gate--like she'd dropped out of the sky. Where she came
+from God only knows--except that she'd walked from some station on the
+railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course,
+Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted
+to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said,
+straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew,
+then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were
+against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying to get
+away from something. But the women--Nelly and my wife--somehow, believed
+in her, and--with the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of help
+hard to get--they carried the day. Well, sir, she made good. If twenty
+years acquaintance goes for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I
+don't care a damn what her history is.
+
+"We soon saw that she was educated and refined, and--as you can see for
+yourself--she must have been remarkably beautiful before she got so
+disfigured. When the baby was born, she just took the little one into her
+poor, broken heart like it had been her own, until Sibyl hardly knew which
+was her own mother. When the girl was old enough for school, Myra begged
+Will and Nelly to let her teach the child. She was always sending for
+books and it was about that time that she sent for a violin. The girl took
+to music like a bird. And--well--that's the way Sibyl was raised. She's
+got all the education that the best of them have--even to French and
+Italian and German--and she's missed some things that the schools teach
+outside of their text-books. She has a library--given to her mostly by
+Myra, a book at a time--that represents the best of the world's best
+writers. You know what her music is. But, hell!"--the Ranger interrupted
+himself with an apologetic laugh--"I'm supposed to be talking about Myra
+Willard. I don't know as I'm so far off, either, because what Sibyl
+is--aside from her natural inheritance from Will and Nelly--Myra has made
+her.
+
+"When Will was killed by those Mexican outlaws,--which is a story in
+itself,--Nelly sold the ranch to the Power Company, and bought an orange
+grove in Fairlands--which was the thing for her to do, as she and Myra
+could handle that sort of property, and the ranch had to go, anyway.
+Before Nelly died, she and I talked things over, and she put everything in
+Myra's hands, in trust for the girl. Later, Myra sold the grove and the
+house where you men live, now, and bought the little place next
+door--putting the rest of the money into gilt-edged securities in Sibyl's
+name; which insures the girl against want, for years to come. Sibyl helps
+out their income with her music. And that's the story, boys, except that
+they come up here into the mountains, every summer, to spend a month or so
+in the old home place."
+
+The Ranger rose to go.
+
+"But do you think it is safe for those women to stay up there alone?"
+asked Aaron King.
+
+Brian Oakley laughed. "Safe! You don't know Myra Willard! Sibyl, herself,
+can pick a squirrel out of the tallest pine in the mountains with her
+six-shooter. Will and I taught her all we knew, as she grew up. Besides,
+you see, I drop in every day or so, to see that they're all right." He
+laughed meaningly as he added,--to Conrad Lagrange for the artist's
+benefit,--"I'm going to tell them, though, that Sibyl must be careful how
+she goes dancing around these hills--now that she has such distinguished
+but irresponsible neighbors."
+
+He whistled--and the chestnut horse was at his side before the echo of
+their laughter died away.
+
+With a "so-long," the Ranger rode away into the night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+When the Canyon Gates Are Shut
+
+
+
+If Aaron King had questioned what it was that had held him in the cedar
+thicket until Brian Oakley's heavy hand broke the spell, he would probably
+have answered that it was his artistic appreciation of the beautiful
+scene. But--deep down in the man's inner consciousness--there was a still,
+small voice--declaring, with an insistency not to be denied, that--for
+him--there was a something in that picture that was not to be put into the
+vernacular of his profession.
+
+Had he acted without his habitual self-control, the day following the
+Ranger's visit, he would, again, have gone fishing--up Clear Creek--at
+least, to the pool where that master trout had broken his leader. But he
+did not. Instead, he roamed aimlessly about the vicinity of the
+camp--explored the sycamore grove; climbed a little way up the mountain
+spur, and down again; circled the cienaga; and so came, finally, to the
+ruins of the house and barn on the creek side of the orchard.
+
+Not far from the lonely fireplace with its naked chimney, a little, old
+gate of split palings, in an ancient tumble-down fence, under a great
+mistletoe-hung oak, at the top of a bank--attracted his careless
+attention. From the gate, he saw what once had been a path leading down
+the bank to a spring, where the tiny streamlet that crossed the road a
+hundred yards away, on its course to Clear Creek, began. Pushing open the
+gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning post, the artist went down
+the path, and found himself in a charming nook--shut in on every side by
+the forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew rank and dense.
+
+For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod was firm and
+smooth--with a gray granite boulder in the center of the little glade,
+and, here and there, wild rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of
+alder trees breaking through. From the higher branches of the alders that
+shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery-green leaves, hung--with many
+a graceful loop and knot--ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of
+virgin's-bower. Along the bank below the old fence, the wild blackberries
+disputed possession with the roses; while the little stream was mottled
+with the tender green of watercress and bordered with moss and fragrant
+mint. Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak
+Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the
+orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe
+oak shut out the view. Through the screen of alder and grape and willow
+and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of
+a cathedral window. The bright waters of the spring, softly held by the
+green sod, crept away under the living wall, without a sound; but the deep
+murmur of the distant, larger stream, reached the place like the low
+tones of some great organ. A few regularly placed stones, where once had
+stood the family spring-house; with the names, initials, hearts and dates
+carved upon the smooth bark of the alders--now grown over and almost
+obliterated--seemed to fill the spot with ghostly memories.
+
+All that afternoon, the artist remained in the little retreat. The next
+day, equipped with easel, canvas and paint-box, he went again to the
+glade--determined to make a picture of the charming scene.
+
+For a month, now, uninterrupted by the distractions of social obligations
+or the like, Aaron King had been subjected to influences that had aroused
+the creative passion of his artist soul to its highest pitch. With his
+genius clamoring for expression, he had denied himself the medium that was
+his natural language. Forbidding his friend to accompany him, he worked
+now in the spring glade with a delight--with an ecstasy--that he had
+seldom, before, felt. And Conrad Lagrange, wisely, was content to let him
+go uninterrupted.
+
+As the hours of each day passed, the artist became more and more engrossed
+with his art. His spirit sang with the joy of receiving the loveliness of
+the scene before him, of making it his own, and of giving it forth
+again--a literal part of himself. The memories suggested by the stones of
+the spring-house foundation and the old carvings on the trees; the
+sunlight, falling so softly into the hushed seclusion of the glade, as
+through the traceried windows of a church; and the deep organ-tones of the
+distant creek; all served to give to the spot the religious atmosphere of
+a sanctuary; while the artist's abandonment in his work was little short
+of devotion.
+
+It was the third afternoon, when the painter became conscious that he had
+been hearing for some time--he could not have said how long--a low-sung
+melody--so blending with the organ-tones of the mountain stream that it
+seemed to come out of the music of the tumbling waters.
+
+With his brush poised between palette and canvas, the artist
+paused,--turning his head to listen,--half inclined to the belief that his
+fancy was tricking him. But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody
+was growing more distinct; but still the voice was in perfect harmony with
+the deep-toned accompaniment of the distant creek.
+
+Then he saw her. Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green
+of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and
+blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines--in the
+flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadows--she
+appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew
+out of the organ-sound of the waters.
+
+To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter had placed his
+easel a little back from the grassy, open spot. Seated as he was, on a low
+camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed--even
+by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in
+the woods and hills. As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a
+basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that
+grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the
+foot of the sheltering bank. Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered
+the fruit of Nature's offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature's
+music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native
+haunts.
+
+The man kept very still. Presently, when the girl had moved so that he
+could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his
+work--but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.
+
+Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly--losing itself,
+again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come. For a
+while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture;
+but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there. At last,
+as if compelled, he abruptly turned his head--and looked straight into her
+face.
+
+The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his work, when first the girl
+caught sight of him, that she had scarcely been startled. When she had
+ceased her song, and he, still, had not looked around; drawn by her
+interest in the picture, she had softly approached until she was standing
+quite close. Her lips were slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her
+eyes were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she stood leaning
+forward, her basket on her arm. So interested was she in the painting,
+that she seemed to have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the
+least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly into her face.
+
+"It is beautiful," she said, as though in answer to his question. And no
+one--hearing her, and watching her face as she spoke--could have doubted
+her sincerity. "It is so true, so--so"--she searched for a word, and
+smiled in triumph when she found it--"so _right_--so beautifully right.
+It--it makes me feel as--as I feel when I am at church--and the organ
+plays soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the window, and
+some one reads those beautiful words, 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let
+all the earth keep silence before him'."
+
+"Why!" exclaimed the artist, "that is exactly what I wanted it to say.
+When I saw this place, and heard the waters over there, like a great
+organ; and saw how the sunshine falls through the trees; I felt as you
+say, and I am trying to paint the picture so that those who see it will
+feel that way too."
+
+Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understanding as she cried eagerly,
+"Oh, I know! I know! I'm like that with my music! When I look at the
+mountains sometimes--or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing,
+or the winds call--I--I get so full and so--so kind of choked up inside
+that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it--and then I take
+my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel. I never can
+though--not altogether. But _you_ have made your picture say what you
+feel. That's what makes it so right, isn't it? They said in Fairlands that
+you were a great artist, and I understand why, now. It must be wonderful
+to put what you see and feel into a picture like that--where nothing can
+ever change or spoil it."
+
+Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment. "Oh, but I'm not a great
+artist, you know. I am scarcely known at all."
+
+She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sincerely troubled. "And must
+one be _known_--to be great?" she asked. "Might not an artist be great and
+still be _unknown_? Or, might not one who was really very, very"--again
+she seemed to search for a word and as she found it, smiled--"very
+_small_, be known all over the world? The newspapers make some really bad
+people famous, sometimes, don't they? No, no, you are joking. You do not
+really think that being known to the world and greatness are the same."
+
+The man, studying her closely, saw that she was speaking her thoughts as
+openly as a child. Experimentally, he said, "If putting what you feel into
+your work is greatness, then _you_ are a great artist, for your music does
+make one feel as though it came from the mountains, themselves."
+
+She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, "Oh! do you like my music?
+I so wanted you to."
+
+It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard her music. It did not
+occur to him to explain. They, neither of them, thought to remember that
+they had not been introduced. They really should have pretended that they
+did not know each other.
+
+"Sometimes," she continued with winsome confidence, "I think, myself, that
+I am really a great violinist--and then, again,"--she added wistfully,--"I
+know that I am not. But I am sure that I wouldn't like to be famous, at
+all."
+
+He laughed. "Fame doesn't seem to matter so much, does it; when one is up
+here in the hills and the canyon gates are closed."
+
+She echoed his laughter with quick delight. "Did you see that? Did you see
+those great doors open to let you in, and then close again behind you as
+if to shut the world outside? But of course you would. Any one who could
+do that"--she pointed to the canvas--"would not fail to see the canyon
+gates." With her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more to
+forget the presence of the painter.
+
+Watching her face,--that betrayed her every passing thought and emotion as
+an untroubled pool mirrors the flowers that grow on its banks or the
+song-bird that pauses to drink,--the artist--to change her mood--said,
+"You _love_ the mountains, don't you?"
+
+She turned her face toward him, again, as she answered simply, "Yes, I
+love the mountains."
+
+"If you were a painter,"--he smiled,--"you would paint them, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I don't know that I would,"--she answered thoughtfully,--"but I would try
+to get the mountains into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you
+know what I mean?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you mean; and it is a beautiful
+thought. You wouldn't paint portraits, would you?"
+
+"I don't think I _could_," she answered. "It seems to me it would be so
+hard to get the mountains into a portrait of just anybody. An artist--a
+great artist, I mean--must make his picture right, mustn't he? And if his
+picture was a portrait of some one who wasn't very good, and he made it
+right; he wouldn't be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I would
+paint portraits--unless I could paint just the people who would want me to
+make my picture right."
+
+Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were spoken so artlessly; and
+he looked at her keenly. But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose
+other than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of the force with
+which her simple words had gone home.
+
+"You love the mountains, too, don't you?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am learning to love them more
+and more. But I fear I don't know them as well as you do."
+
+"I was born up here," she said, "and lived here until a few years ago. I
+think, sometimes, that the mountains almost talk to me."
+
+"I wonder if you would help me to know the mountains as you know them," he
+asked eagerly.
+
+She drew a little back from him, but did not answer.
+
+"We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. "I heard your violin,
+the other evening, when I was fishing up the creek, near where you live;
+and so I know it is you who live next door to us in the orange grove. Mr.
+Lagrange and I are camped just over there back of the orchard. May we not
+be friends? Won't you help me to know your mountains?"
+
+"I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told us that you and Mr.
+Lagrange were camped down here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man;
+Brian Oakley says that you are too--are you?"
+
+The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did not note the significance
+of her reference to the novelist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a
+very _bad_ man."
+
+A smile broke over her face--her mood changing as quickly as the sunlight
+breaks through a cloud. "I know you are not"--she said--"a _bad_ man
+wouldn't have wanted to paint this place as you have painted it."
+
+She turned to go.
+
+"But wait!" he cried, "you haven't told me--will you teach me to know your
+mountains as you know them?"
+
+"I'm sure I cannot say," she answered smiling, as she moved away.
+
+"But at least, we will meet again," he urged.
+
+She laughed gaily, "Why not? The mountains are for you as well as for me;
+and though the hills _are_ so big, the trails are narrow, and the passes
+very few."
+
+With another laugh, she slipped away--her brown dress, that, in the shifty
+lights under the thick foliage, so harmonized with the colors of bush and
+vine and tree and rock, being so quickly lost to the artist's eye that she
+seemed almost to vanish into the scene before him.
+
+But presently, from beyond the willow wall, he heard her voice
+again--singing to the accompaniment of the mountain stream. Softly, the
+melody died away in the distance--losing itself, at last, in the deeper
+organ-tones of the mountain waters.
+
+For some minutes, the artist stood listening--thinking he heard it still.
+
+Aaron King did not, that night, tell Conrad Lagrange of his adventure in
+the spring glade.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Confessions in the Spring Glade
+
+
+
+All the next day, while he worked upon his picture in the glade, Aaron
+King listened for that voice in the organ-like music of the distant
+waters. Many times, he turned to search the flickering light and shade of
+the undergrowth, behind him, for a glimpse of the girl's brown dress and
+winsome face.
+
+The next day she came.
+
+The artist had been looking long at a splash of sunlight that fell upon
+the gray granite boulder which was set in the green turf, and had turned
+to his canvas for--it seemed to him--only an instant. When he looked again
+at the boulder, she was standing there--had, apparently, been standing
+there for some time, waiting with smiling lips and laughing eyes for him
+to see her.
+
+A light creel hung by its webbed strap from her shoulder; in her hand, she
+carried a slender fly rod of good workmanship. Dressed in soft brown, with
+short skirts and high laced boots, and her wavy hair tucked under a wide,
+felt hat; with her blue eyes shining with fun, and her warmly tinted skin
+glowing with healthful exercise; she appeared--to the artist--more as some
+mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The
+manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no
+sound of her approach--no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen
+no movement among the bushes--no parting of the willows in the wall of
+green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the
+direction from which she had come.
+
+At first, he could scarce believe his eyes, and sat motionless in his
+surprise. Then her merry laugh rang out--breaking the spell.
+
+Springing from his seat, he went forward. "Are you a spirit?" he cried.
+"You must be something unreal, you know--the way you appear and disappear.
+The last time, you came out of the music of the waters, and went again the
+same way. To-day, you come out of the air, or the trees, or, perhaps, that
+gray boulder that is giving me such trouble."
+
+Laughing, she answered, "My father and Brian Oakley taught me. If you will
+watch the wild things in the woods, you can learn to do it too. I am no
+more a spirit than the cougar, when it stalks a rabbit in the chaparral;
+or a mink, as it slips among the rocks along the creek; or a fawn, when it
+crouches to hide in the underbrush."
+
+"You have been fishing?" he asked.
+
+She laughed mockingly, "You are _so_ observing! I think you might have
+taken _that_ for granted, and asked what luck."
+
+"I believe I might almost take that for granted too," he returned.
+
+"I took a few," she said carelessly. Then, with a charming air of
+authority--"And now, you must go back to your work. I shall vanish
+instantly, if you waste another moment's time because I am here."
+
+"But I want to talk," he protested. "I have been working hard since noon."
+
+"Of course you have," she retorted. "But presently the light will change
+again, and you won't be able to do any more to-day; so you must keep busy
+while you can."
+
+"And you won't vanish--if I go on with my work?" he asked doubtfully. She
+was smiling at him with such a mischievous air, that he feared, if he
+turned away, she would disappear.
+
+She laughed aloud; "Not if you work," she said. "But if you stop--I'm
+gone."
+
+As she spoke, she went toward his easel, and, resting her fly rod
+carefully against the trunk of a near-by alder, slipped the creel from her
+shoulder, placing the basket on the ground with her hat. Then, while the
+painter watched her, she stood silently looking at the picture. Presently,
+she faced him, and, with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why don't
+you work? How can you waste your time and this light, looking at me? I
+shall go, if you don't come back to your picture, this minute."
+
+With a laugh, he obeyed.
+
+For a moment, she watched him; then turned away; and he heard her moving
+about, down by the tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows.
+
+Once, he paused and turned to look in her direction "What are you up to,
+now?" he said.
+
+"I shall be up to leaving you,"--she retorted,--"if you look around,
+again."
+
+He promptly turned once more to his picture.
+
+Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her creel and rod, where
+she could see the picture under the artist's brush. "Does it bother, if I
+watch?" she asked softly.
+
+"No, indeed," he answered. "It helps--that is, it helps when it is _you_
+who watch." Which--to the painter's secret amazement--was a literal truth.
+The gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not come right,
+ceased to trouble him, now. Stimulated by her presence, he worked with a
+freedom and a sureness that was a delight.
+
+When he could not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she
+was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in
+the world are you doing?" he asked curiously.
+
+"You are not supposed to know that I am doing anything," she retorted.
+"You have been peeking again."
+
+"You were so still--I feared you had vanished," he laughed. "If you'll
+keep talking to me, I'll know you are there, and will be good."
+
+"Sure it won't bother?"
+
+"Sure," he answered.
+
+"Well, then, _you_ talk to me, and I'll answer."
+
+"I have a confession to make," he said, carefully studying the gray tones
+of the alder trunk beyond the gray boulder.
+
+"A confession?"
+
+"Yes, I want to get it over--so it won't bother me."
+
+"Something about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, that's what I am trying so hard to make you keep your eyes on your
+work for--because _I_ have to make a confession to _you_."
+
+"To me?"
+
+"Yes--don't look around, please."
+
+"But what under the sun can you have to confess to me?"
+
+"You started yours first," she answered. "Go on. Maybe it will make it
+easier for me."
+
+Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he told her how he had
+watched her from the cedar thicket. When he had finished,--and she was
+silent,--he thought that she was angry, and turned about--expecting to see
+her gathering up her things to go.
+
+She was struggling to suppress her laughter. At the look of surprise on
+his face, she burst forth in such a gale of merriment that the little
+glade was filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of himself,
+the painter joined.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "but that _is_ funny! I am glad, glad!"
+
+"Now, what do you mean by that?" he demanded.
+
+"Why--why--that's exactly what I was trying to get courage enough to
+confess to you!" she gasped. And then she told him how she had spied upon
+him from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his absence, she had
+visited his studio.
+
+"But how in the world did you get in? The place was always locked, when I
+was away."
+
+"Oh," she said quaintly, "there was a good genie who let me in through the
+keyhole. I didn't meddle with anything, you know--I just looked at the
+beautiful room where you work. And I didn't glance, even, at the picture
+on the easel. The genie told me you wouldn't like that. I would not have
+drawn the curtain anyway, even if I hadn't been told. At least, I don't
+_think_ I would--but perhaps I might--I can't always tell what I'm going
+to do, you know."
+
+Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio door open with Conrad
+Lagrange's key in the lock, and how the novelist had berated himself with
+such exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the thought of James
+Rutlidge's visit, that afternoon, and of his strange manner and
+insinuating remarks.
+
+"I think I know the name of your good genie," said the painter, facing the
+girl, seriously. "But tell me, did no one disturb you while you were in
+the studio?"
+
+Her cheeks colored painfully, and all the laughter was gone from her voice
+as she replied, "I didn't want you to know that part."
+
+"But I must know," he insisted gravely.
+
+"Yes," she said, "Mr. Rutlidge found me there; and I ran away through the
+garden. I don't like him. He frightens me. Please, is it necessary for us
+to talk about it any more? I had to make my confession of course, but must
+we talk about _that_ part?"
+
+"No," he answered, "we need not talk about it. It was necessary for me to
+know; but we will never mention that part, again. When we are back in the
+orange groves, you shall come to the rose garden and to the studio, as
+often as you like; your good genie and I will see to it that you are not
+disturbed--by any one."
+
+Her face brightened at his words. "And do you really like for me to make
+music for you--as Mr. Lagrange says you do?"
+
+"I can't begin to tell you how much I like it," he answered smiling.
+
+"And it doesn't bother you in your work?"
+
+"It helps me," he declared--thinking of that portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+
+"Oh, I am glad, glad!" she cried. "I wanted it to help. It was for that I
+played."
+
+"You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly.
+
+She nodded. "I thought it might--if I could get enough of the mountains
+into my music, you know."
+
+"And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. You see, I only dance when
+I must--when the music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When I--when
+I"--she searched for a word, then finished abruptly--"oh, I can't tell you
+about it--it's just something you feel--there are no words for it. When I
+first come to the mountains,--after living in Fairlands all winter,--I
+always dance--the mountains feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance
+in the moonlight--when it feels so soft and light and clean; or in the
+twilight--when it's so still, and the air is so--so full of the day that
+has come home to rest and sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the
+big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, under the sky, sings
+through the dark branches."
+
+"But don't you ever dance to please your friends?"
+
+"Oh, no--I don't dance to _please_ any one--only just when it's for
+myself--when nothing else will do--when I _must_. Of course, sometimes,
+Myra or Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me--but they don't matter,
+you know. They are so much a part of me that I don't mind."
+
+"I wonder if you will ever dance for me?"
+
+Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. How could I? You see, you
+are not like anybody that I have ever known."
+
+"But I saw you the other evening, you remember."
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had known, I wouldn't have
+danced."
+
+All the while--as she talked--her fingers had been busy with the slender,
+willow branches. "And now"--she said, abruptly changing the subject, and
+smiling as she spoke--"and now, you must turn back to your work."
+
+"But the light is not right," he protested.
+
+"Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she retorted. "Can't you
+pretend?"
+
+To humor her, he obeyed, laughing.
+
+"You may look, now," she said, a minute later.
+
+He turned to see her standing close beside him, holding out a charming
+little basket that she had woven of the green willows and decorated with
+moss and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp moss, and lightly
+covered with the cress, lay a half dozen fine rainbow trout.
+
+"How pretty!" he exclaimed. "So that is what you have been doing!"
+
+"They are for you," she said simply.
+
+"For me?" he cried.
+
+She nodded brightly; "For you and Mr. Lagrange. I know you like them
+because you said you were fishing when you heard my violin. And I thought
+that you wouldn't want to leave your picture, to fish for yourself, so I
+took them for you."
+
+The artist concealed his embarrassment with difficulty; and, while
+expressing his thanks and appreciation in rather formal words, studied her
+face keenly. But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous naturalness,
+an unaffected kindliness, and an innocent disregard of conventionalities,
+that would have disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than Aaron
+King.
+
+Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, and swung the empty
+creel over her shoulder. Then, putting on her hat, she picked up her rod.
+
+"Oh--are you going?" he said.
+
+"You have finished your work for to-day," she answered
+
+"But let me go with you, a little way."
+
+She shook her head. "No, I don't want you."
+
+"But you will come again?"
+
+"Perhaps--if you won't stop work--but I can't promise--you see I never
+know what I am going to do up here in the mountains," she answered
+whimsically. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the morning; or I
+might be here, waiting for you, when you come to paint."
+
+He was putting his things in the box--thinking he would persuade her to
+let him accompany her a little way; if she saw that he really would paint
+no more. When he bent over the box, she was speaking. "I hope you will,"
+he answered.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+He straightened up and looked around.
+
+She was gone.
+
+For some time, he stood searching the glade with his eyes, carefully;
+listening to catch a sound--a puzzled, baffled look upon his face. Taking
+his things, at last, he started up the little path. But before he reached
+the old gate, a low laugh caused him to whirl quickly about.
+
+There she stood, beside the spring--a teasing smile on her face. Before he
+could command himself, she danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and
+slipped away through the green willow wall. Another merry laugh came back
+to him and then--the silence of the little glade, and the sound of the
+distant waters.
+
+With the basket of fish in his hand, Aaron King went slowly to camp;
+where, when Conrad Lagrange saw what the artist carried so carefully,
+explanations were in order.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+Sibyl Andrés and the Butterflies
+
+
+
+On the following day, the artist was putting away his things, at the close
+of the afternoon's work, when the girl appeared.
+
+The long, slanting bars of sunshine and the deepening shadows marked the
+lateness of the hour. As he bent over his paint-box, the man was thinking
+with regret that she would not come--that, perhaps, she would never come.
+And at the thought that he might not see her again, an odd fear gripped
+his heart. His thoughts were interrupted by a low, musical laugh; and he
+sprang to his feet, to search the glade with careful eyes.
+
+"Come out," he cried, as though adjuring an invisible spirit. "I know you
+are here; come out."
+
+With another laugh, she stepped from behind the trunk of one of the
+largest trees, within a few feet of where he stood. As she went toward
+him, she carried in her outstretched hands a graceful basket, woven of
+sycamore leaves and ferns, and filled with the ripest sweetest
+blackberries. She did not speak as she held out her offering; but the man,
+looking into her laughing eyes, fancied that there was a meaning and a
+purpose in the gift that did not appear upon the surface of her simple
+action.
+
+Expressing his pleasure, as he received the dainty basket, he could not
+refrain from adding, "But why do you bring me things?"
+
+She answered with that wayward, mocking humor that so often seized her;
+"Because I like to. I told you that I always do what I like--up here in
+the mountains."
+
+"I hope you always will," he returned, "if your likes are all as delicious
+as this one."
+
+With the manner of a child playfully making a mystery yet anxious to have
+the secret discussed, she said, "I have one more gift to bring you, yet."
+
+"I knew you meant something by your presents," he cried. "It isn't just
+because you want me to have the things you bring."
+
+"Oh, yes it is," she retorted, laughing mischievously at his triumphant
+and expectant tone. "If I didn't want you to have the things I
+bring--why--I wouldn't bring them, would I?"
+
+"But that isn't all," he insisted. "Tell me--why do you say you have one
+_more_ gift to bring?"
+
+She shook her head with a delightful air of mystery "Not until I come
+again. When I come again, I will tell you."
+
+"And you will come to-morrow?"
+
+She laughed teasingly at his eagerness. "How can I tell?" she answered. "I
+do not know, myself, what I will do to-morrow--when I am up here in the
+mountains--when the canyon gates are shut and the world is left outside."
+Even as she spoke, her mood changed and the last words were uttered
+wistfully, as a captive spirit--that, by nature wild and free, was
+permitted, for a brief time only, to go beyond its prison walls--might
+have spoken.
+
+The artist--puzzled by her flash-like change of moods, and by her manner
+as she spoke of the world beyond the canyon gates--had no words to reply.
+As he stood there,--in that little glade where the light fell as in a
+quiet cathedral and the air trembled with the deep organ-tones of the
+distant waters--holding in his hands the basket of leaves and ferns with
+its wild fruit, and looking at the beautiful girl who had brought her
+offering with the naturalness of a child of the mountains and the air of a
+woodland spirit,--he again felt that the world he had always known was
+very far away.
+
+The girl, too, was silent--as though, by some subtle power, she knew his
+thoughts and did not wish to interrupt.
+
+So still were they, that a wild bird--darting through the screen of alder
+boughs--stopped to swing on a limb above their heads, with a burst of
+wild-wood melody. In the arroyo beyond the willow wall, a quail called his
+evening call, and was answered by his mate from the top of the bank under
+the mistletoe oak. A pair of gray squirrels crept down the gray trunks of
+the trees and slipped around the granite boulder to drink at the spring;
+then scampered away again--half in frolic, half in fright--as they caught
+sight of the man and the maid. As the squirrels disappeared, the girl
+laughed--a low laugh of fellowship with the creatures of the
+wilderness--in complete understanding of their humor. Then--as though
+following the path of a sunbeam--two gorgeously brown and yellow winged
+butterflies came flitting through the draperies of virgin's-bower, and
+floated in zigzag flight about the glade--now high among the alder boughs;
+now low over the tops of the roses and berry-bushes; down to the fragrant
+mint at the water's edge; and up again to the tops of the willows, as if
+to leave the glade; but only to return again to the vines that covered the
+bank, and to the flowers that, here and there, starred the grassy sward.
+
+"Oh!"--cried the girl impulsively, as the beautiful winged creatures
+disappeared at last,--"if people could only be like that! It's so hard to
+be yourself in the world. Everybody, there, seems trying to be something
+they are not. No one dares to be just themselves. Everything, up here, is
+so right--so true--so just what it is--and down there, everything tries so
+hard to be just what it is not. The world even _sees_ so crooked that it
+_can't_ believe when a thing is just what it is."
+
+While watching the butterflies, she had turned away from the artist and,
+in following their flight with her eyes, had taken a few light steps that
+brought her into the open, grassy center of the glade. With her face
+upturned to the opening in the foliage through which the butterflies had
+disappeared, she had spoken as if thinking aloud, rather than as
+addressing her companion.
+
+Before the artist could reply, the beautiful creatures came floating back
+as they had gone. With a low exclamation of delight, the girl watched them
+as they circled, now, above her head, in their aerial waltz among the
+sunbeams and leafy boughs. Then the man, watching, saw her--unheeding his
+presence--stretch her arms upward. For a moment she stood, lightly poised,
+and then, with her wide, shining eyes fixed upon those gorgeously winged
+spirits whirling in the fragrant air, with her lips parted in smiling
+delight, she danced upon the smooth turf of the glade--every step and
+movement in perfect harmony with the spirit of care-free abandonment that
+marked the movements of the butterflies that danced above her head.
+Unmindful of the watching man, as her dainty companions
+themselves,--forgetful of his presence,--she yielded to the impulse to
+express her emotions in free, rhythmic movement.
+
+Instinctively, Aaron King was silent--standing motionless, as if he feared
+to startle her into flight.
+
+Suddenly, as the girl danced--her eyes always upon her winged
+companions--the insects floated above the artist's head, and she became
+conscious of his presence. Her cheeks flushed and, laughing low,--as she
+danced, lightly as a spirit,--she impulsively stretched out her arms to
+him, in merry invitation--as though challenging him to join her.
+
+The gesture was as spontaneous and as innocent, in its freedom, as had
+been her offering of the gifts from mountain stream and bush. But the
+man--lured into forgetfulness of everything save the wild loveliness of
+the scene--started toward her. At his movement, a look of bewildered fear
+came into her face; but--too startled to control her movements on the
+instant, and as though impelled by some hidden power--she moved toward
+him--blindly, unconsciously--her eyes wide with that look of questioning
+fright. He had almost reached her when, as though by an effort of her
+will, she stopped and stood still--gazing into his face--trembling in
+every limb. Then, with a low cry, she sank down in a frightened, cowering,
+pleading attitude, and buried her crimson face in her hands.
+
+As though some unseen hand checked him, the man halted, and the girl's
+cheeks were not more crimson than his own.
+
+A moment he stood, then a step brought him to her side. Putting out his
+hand, he touched her upon the shoulder, and was about to speak. But at his
+touch, with another cry, she sprang to her feet and, whirling with the
+flash-like quickness of a wild thing, vanished into the undergrowth that
+walled in the glade.
+
+With a startled exclamation, the man tried to follow calling to her,
+reassuring her, begging her to come back. But there was no answer to his
+words; nor did he catch a glimpse of her; though once or twice he thought
+he heard her in swift flight up the canyon.
+
+All the way to the place where he had first seen her, he followed; but at
+the cedar thicket he stopped. For a long time, he stood there; while the
+twilight failed and the night came. Slowly,--in the soft darkness with
+bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed,--he went back down the canyon to
+the little glade, and to the camp.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+The Three Gifts and Their Meanings
+
+
+
+The next day, Aaron King--too distracted to paint--idled all the afternoon
+in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to
+camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude
+yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the
+charm of their intimacy--and he cursed himself--as many a man has
+cursed--for that momentary lack of self-control.
+
+But the following afternoon, as the artist worked,--bent upon quickly
+finishing his picture of the place that seemed now to reproach him with
+its sweet atmosphere of sacred purity,--he heard, as he had heard that
+first day, the low music of her voice blending with the music of the
+mountain stream. Scarce daring to move, he sat as though absorbed in his
+work--listening with all his heart, for some sound of her approach, other
+than the melody of her song that grew more and more distinct. At last, he
+knew that she was standing just the other side of the willows, beyond the
+little spring. He felt her hidden eyes upon him, but dared not look that
+way--feeling sure that if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would
+vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he made show of giving close
+attention to his work and waited.
+
+For some minutes, she remained concealed; singing low, as though to try
+him with temptation. Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised
+brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view
+beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's
+green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from
+the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.
+
+"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still
+holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him
+seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue
+eyes a troubled question.
+
+"I sought you all the way to your home," he said, gently, "but you would
+not let me come near."
+
+"I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her eyes but regarding him
+steadily with that questioning appeal.
+
+"I am sorry,"--he said,--"won't you forgive me? I will never frighten you
+so again. I did not mean to do it."
+
+"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I
+frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that
+you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I
+came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"
+
+The man could not answer.
+
+As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for
+granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him
+across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said
+with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts."
+Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box
+of colors.
+
+Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by
+the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the
+artist tried to thank her.
+
+"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You
+promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you
+came again."
+
+She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in
+her teasing mood.
+
+"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you
+know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."
+
+Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied, "But didn't you
+ask me again and again to help you to know the mountains as I know them?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "but you would not promise."
+
+"I did better than promise"--she returned--"I brought you, from the
+mountains themselves, their three greatest gifts."
+
+He shook his head, with the air of a backward schoolboy--"Won't you read
+the lesson?"
+
+"If you will work while I talk, I will," she answered--amused by the
+hopelessness of his manner and tone.
+
+Obediently, he took up his brushes, and turned toward his picture.
+
+Removing her hat, she seated herself on the ground, where she had woven
+the willow basket for the fish.
+
+After a moment's silence, she began--timidly, at first, then with
+increasing confidence as she found words to express her charming fancy.
+"First, you must know, that in all the wild life of the mountains there is
+no creature so strong--in proportion to its size and weight, I mean--as
+the trout that lives in the mountain streams. Its home is in the icy
+torrents that are fed by the snows of the highest peaks and canyons. It
+lives, literally, in the innermost heart and life of the hills. It seeks
+its food at the foot of the falls, where the water boils in fierce fury;
+where the current swirls and leaps among the boulders; and where the
+stream rushes with all its might down the rocky channels. With its
+muscles, fine as tempered steel, it forces its way against the strength of
+the stream--conquering even the fifty-foot downward pour of a cataract.
+Its strength is a silent strength. It has no voice other than the voice of
+its own beautiful self. And all its gleaming colors you may see, in the
+morning and in the evening, tinting the mighty heads and shoulders and
+sides of the hills themselves. And so, the first gift that I brought
+you--fresh from the mountain's heart--was the gift of the mountain's
+strength.
+
+"The second gift was gathered from bushes that were never planted by the
+hand of man. They grow as free and untamed as the rains that water them,
+and the earth that feeds them, and the sunshine that sweetens hem. In them
+is the flavor of mountain mists, and low hung clouds, and shining dew; the
+odor of moist leaf-mould, and unimpoverished soil; the pleasant tang of
+the sunshine; and the softer sweetness of the shady nooks where they grow.
+In the second gift, I brought you the purity, and the flavor of the
+mountains."
+
+"And to-day"--she finished simply--"to-day I have brought you the beauty
+of the hills."
+
+"You have brought me more than the strength and purity and beauty of the
+mountains," exclaimed the painter. "You have brought me their mystery."
+
+She looked at him questioningly.
+
+"In your own beautiful self," he continued sincerely "you have brought me
+the mystery of these hills. You are wonderful! I have never known any one
+like you."
+
+She was wholly unconscious of the compliment--if indeed, he meant it as
+such. "I suppose I must be different," she returned with just a touch, of
+sadness in her voice. "You see I have never been taught like other girls.
+I know nothing at all of the world where you live--except what Myra has
+told me." Then, as if to change the subject, she asked shyly, "Would you
+care for my music to-day?"
+
+He assented eagerly--thinking she meant to sing. But, rising, she crossed
+the glade, and disappeared behind the willows--returning, a moment later,
+with her violin.
+
+In answer to his exclamation of pleased surprise, she said smiling, "I
+brought my violin because I thought, if you would let me play, the music
+would perhaps help us both to forget what--what happened when I danced."
+
+Standing by the gray boulder, with her face up turned to the mountains,
+she placed the instrument under her chin and drew the bow softly across
+the strings.
+
+For an hour or more she played. Then, as Czar trotted sedately into the
+glade, she lowered her instrument and, with a smile, called merrily to
+Conrad Lagrange who, attracted by the music, was standing at the gate on
+the bank--from the artist's position invisible; "Come down, good
+genie,--come down! You have been watching there quite long enough. Come,
+instantly; or with my magic I'll turn you into a fantastic, dancing bug,
+such as those that straddle there upon the waters of the spring, or else
+into a fat pollywog that wiggles in the black ooze among the dead leaves
+and rotting bits of wood."
+
+With a quick movement, she tucked her violin under her chin and played a
+few measures of the worst sort of ragtime, in perfect imitation of a
+popular performer. The effect, following the music she had just been
+making, was grotesque and horrible.
+
+"Mercy, mercy!" cried the man at the gate. "I beg! I beg! Do not, I pray,
+good nymph, torture me with thy dreadful power. I swear that I will obey
+thy every wish and whim."
+
+Pointing with her bow--as with a wand--to the boulder, she sternly
+commanded, "Come, then, and sit here upon this rock; and give to me an
+account of all that thou hast done since I left thee in the rose garden or
+I will split thy ears and stretch thy soul upon a torture rack of hideous
+noise."
+
+She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The novelist came down the
+path, on a run, to seat himself upon the gray boulder.
+
+The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist and the girl paid no
+heed to his unseemly merriment.
+
+"Speak,"--she commanded, waving her wand,--"what hast thou done?"
+
+"Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms as I could procure, open
+for thee the treasure room of thy desire?" growled the man on the rock.
+
+"And still," she retorted, "when I made myself subject to those terms, and
+obediently looked not upon the hidden mystery--still the room of my
+desires became a trap betraying me into rude hands from which I narrowly
+escaped. And you--you fled the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much
+as by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wandered, irresponsible,
+among my hills. Did you not say that my home was under these glowing
+peaks, and in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you think that I
+would not find you here, and charm you again within reach of my power?"
+
+"And what is thy will, good spirit?"--he asked, humbly--"tell me thy will
+and it shall be done--if thou wilt but make music _only_ upon the
+instrument that is in thy hand."
+
+With a laugh, she ended the play, saying, "My will is that you and Mr.
+King come, to-morrow evening, for supper with Miss Willard and me. Brian
+Oakley and Mrs. Oakley will be there. I want you too."
+
+The men looked at each other in doubt.
+
+"Really, Miss Andrés," said the artist, "we--"
+
+The girl interrupted with one of her flash-like changes. "I have invited
+you. You _must_ come. I shall expect you." And before either of the men
+could speak again, she sprang lightly across the little stream, and
+disappeared through the willow wall.
+
+"Well, I'll be--" The novelist checked himself, solemnly--staring blankly
+at the spot where she had disappeared.
+
+The artist laughed.
+
+"What do you think of it?" demanded Conrad Lagrange, turning to his
+friend.
+
+Aaron King, packing up his things, answered, "I think we'd better go."
+
+Which opinion was concurred in by Brian Oakley who dropped in on them that
+evening.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning
+
+
+
+That same afternoon, while Sibyl Andrés was making music for Aaron King in
+the spring glade, Brian Oakley, on his way down the canyon, stopped at the
+old place where Myra Willard and the girl were living. Riding into the
+yard that was fenced only by the wild growth, he was greeted cordially by
+the woman with the disfigured face, who was seated on the porch.
+
+"Howdy, Myra," he called in return, as he swung from the saddle; and
+leaving the chestnut to roam at will, he went to the porch, his spurs
+clinking softly over the short, thick grass.
+
+"Where's Sibyl?" he asked, seating himself on the top step.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Oakley," the woman answered, smiling. "You
+really didn't expect me to, did you?"
+
+The Ranger laughed. "Did she take gun, basket, rod or violin? If I know
+whether she's gone shooting berrying, fishing or fiddling, it may give me
+a clue--or did she take all four?"
+
+The woman watched him closely. "She took only her violin. She went
+sometime after lunch--down the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly
+to see her, Mr. Oakley?"
+
+It was evident to the woman that the officer was relieved. "Oh, no; she
+wouldn't be going far with her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's
+all right anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she must be
+careful, for a while. There's an escaped convict ranging somewhere in my
+district. I received the word this morning, and have been up around Lone
+Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear Creek to see if I could start
+anything. I didn't find any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell
+Sibyl that I say she must not go out without her gun--that if I catch her
+wandering around unarmed, I'll pack her off back to civilization, pronto."
+
+"I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help her to remember. It
+would be better, I suppose, if she stayed at home; but that seems so
+impossible."
+
+"She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted the Ranger,
+confidently. "I'd back the girl against anything I ever met up with--when
+she has her artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors below called
+yet?"
+
+"No--at least, not while I have been at home. I have been berrying, two or
+three times. They might have come while I was out."
+
+"Has Sibyl met them yet?" came the next question.
+
+"She has not mentioned it, if she has."
+
+"H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley.
+
+The woman's love for the girl prompted her to quick suspicion of the
+Ranger's manner.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Oakley?" she asked. "Has the child been indiscreet? Has
+she done anything wrong? Has she been with those men?"
+
+"She has called upon one of them several times," returned Brian, smiling.
+"Mr. King is painting that little glade by the old spring at the foot of
+the bank, you know, and I guess she stumbled onto him. The place is one of
+her favorite spots. But bless your heart, Myra, there's no harm in it. It
+would be natural for her to get interested in any one making a picture of
+a place she loves as she does that old spring glade. She has spent days at
+a time there--ever since she was big enough to go that far from home."
+
+"It's strange that she has not mentioned it to me," said the
+woman--troubled in spite of the Ranger's reassuring words.
+
+The man directed his attention suddenly to his horse; "Max! You let
+Sibyl's roses alone." The animal turned his head questioningly toward his
+master. "Back!" said the Ranger, "back!" At his word, the chestnut
+promptly backed across the yard until the officer called, "That will do,"
+when he halted, and, with an impatient toss of his head, again looked
+toward the porch, inquiringly. "You are all right now," said the man.
+Whereupon the horse began contentedly cropping the grass.
+
+"I met Mr. King, accidentally, once, at the depot in Fairlands," continued
+the woman with the disfigured face. "He impressed me, then, as being a
+genuinely good man--a true gentleman. But, judging from his books, Conrad
+Lagrange is not a man I would wish Sibyl to meet. I have wondered at the
+artist's friendship with him."
+
+"I tell you, Myra, Lagrange is all right," said Brian Oakley, stoutly.
+"He's odd and eccentric and rough spoken sometimes; but he's not at all
+what you would think him from the stuff he writes. He's a true man at
+heart, and you needn't worry about Sibyl getting anything but good from an
+acquaintance with him. As for King--well--Conrad Lagrange vouches for him.
+If you knew Lagrange, you'd understand what that means. He and the young
+fellow's mother grew up together. He swears the lad is right; and, from
+what I've seen of him, I believe it. It doesn't follow, though, that you
+don't need to keep your eyes open. The girl is as innocent as a
+child--though she is a woman--and--well--accidents have happened, you
+know." As he spoke he glanced unconsciously at the scars that disfigured
+the naturally beautiful face of the woman.
+
+Myra Willard blushed as she answered sadly, "Yes, I know that accidents
+have happened. I will talk with Sibyl; and will you not speak to her too?
+She loves you so, and is always guided by your wishes. A little word or
+two from you would be an added safeguard."
+
+"Sure I'll talk to her," said the Ranger, heartily--rising and whistling
+to the chestnut. "But look here, Myra,"--he said, pausing with his foot in
+the stirrup,--"the girl must have her head, you know. We don't want to put
+her in the notion that every man in the world is a villain laying for a
+chance to do her harm. There _are_ clean fellows--a few--and it will do
+Sibyl good to meet that kind." He swung himself lightly into the saddle.
+
+The woman smiled; "Sibyl could not think that all men are evil, after
+knowing her father and you, Mr. Oakley."
+
+The Ranger laughed as he turned Max toward the opening in the cedar
+thicket. "Will was what God and Nelly made him, Myra; and I--if I'm fairly
+decent it's because Mary took me in hand in time. Men are mostly what you
+women make 'em, anyway, I reckon."
+
+"Don't forget that you and Mrs. Oakley are coming for supper to-morrow,"
+she called after him.
+
+"No danger of our forgetting that," he answered. "Adios!" And the chestnut
+loped easily out of the yard.
+
+Myra Willard kept her place on the porch until the sound of the horse's
+galloping feet died away down the canyon. But, as she listened to the
+vanishing sound of the Ranger's going, her eyes were looking far away--as
+though his words had aroused in her heart memories of days long past. When
+the last echo had lost itself in the thin mountain air, she went into the
+house.
+
+Standing before the small mirror that served--in the rude, almost
+camp-like furnishings of the house--for both herself and Sibyl, she
+studied the face reflected there--turning her head slowly, as if comparing
+the beautiful unmarked side with the other that was so hideously
+disfigured. For some time she stood there, unflinchingly giving herself to
+the torture of this contemplation of her ruined loveliness; drinking to
+its bitter dregs the sorrowful cup of her secret memories; until, as
+though she could bear no more, she drew back--her eyes wide with pain and
+horror, her marred features twisted grotesquely in an agony of mental
+suffering. With a pitiful moan she sank upon her knees in prayer.
+
+In the earnestness of her spirit--out of the deep devotion of her love--as
+she prayed God for wisdom to guide the girl entrusted to her care, she
+spoke aloud. "Let me not rob her, dear Christ, of love; but help me to
+help her love aright. Help me, that in my fear for her I do not turn her
+heart against her mate when he shall come. Help me, that I do not so fill
+her pure mind with doubt and distrust of all men that she will look for
+evil, only. Help me, that I do not teach her to associate love wholly with
+that which is base and untrue. Grant, O God, that her beautiful life may
+not be marred by a love that is unworthy."
+
+As the woman with the disfigured face rose from her knees, she heard the
+voice of Sibyl, who was coming up the old road toward the cedars--singing
+as she came.
+
+When Sibyl entered the house, a moment later, Myra Willard, still
+agitated, was bathing her face. The girl, seeing, checked the song upon
+her lips; and going to the woman who in everything but the ties of blood
+was mother to her, sought to discover the reason for her troubled manner,
+and tried to soothe her with loving words.
+
+The woman held the girl close in her arms and looked into the lovely,
+winsome face that was so unmarred by vicious thoughts of the world's
+teaching.
+
+"Dear child, do you not sometimes hate the sight of my ugliness?" she
+said. "It seems to me, you must."
+
+With her arms about her companion's neck, Sibyl pressed her pure, young
+lips to those disfiguring scars, in an impulsive kiss. "Foolish Myra," she
+cried, "you know I love you too well to see anything but your own
+beautiful self behind the scars. To me, your face is all like this"--and
+she softly kissed, in turn, the woman's unmarred cheek. "Whatever made the
+marks, I know that they are not dishonorable. So I never think of them at
+all, but see only the beautiful side--which is really you, you know."
+
+"No,"--answered Myra Willard, gently,--"my scars are not dishonorable. But
+the world does not see with your pure eyes, dear child. The world sees
+only the ugly, disfigured side of my face. It never looks at the other
+side. And listen, dear heart, so the world often sees dishonor where there
+is no dishonor It sees evil in many things where there is only good."
+
+"Yes," returned the girl, "but you have never taught me to see with the
+eyes of the world. So, to me, what the world sees, does not matter."
+
+"Pray that it may never matter, child," answered the woman with the
+disfigured face, earnestly.
+
+Then, as they went out to the porch, she asked, "Did you meet Mr. Oakley
+as you were coming home?"
+
+Sibyl laughed and colored with a confusion that was new to her, as she
+answered, "Yes, I did--and he scolded me."
+
+"About your going unarmed?"
+
+"No,--but he told me about that too. I don't see why, whenever a poor
+criminal escapes, he always comes into _our_ mountains. I don't like to
+'pack a gun'--unless I'm hunting. But Brian Oakley didn't scold me for
+that, though--he knows I always do as he says. He scolded because I hadn't
+told you about my going to see Mr. King, in the spring glade." She
+laughed, conscious of the color that was in her cheeks. "I told him it
+didn't matter whether I told you or not, because he always knows every
+single move I make, anyway."
+
+"Why _didn't_ you tell me, dear?" asked the woman. "You never kept
+anything from me, before--I'm sure."
+
+"Why dearest," the girl answered frankly, "I don't know, myself, why I
+didn't tell you"--which, Myra Willard knew, was the exact truth.
+
+Then Sibyl told her foster-mother everything about her acquaintance with
+the artist and Conrad Lagrange--from the time she first watched the
+painter, from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the novelist;
+until that afternoon, when she had invited them to supper, the next day.
+Only of her dancing before the artist, the girl did not tell.
+
+Later in the evening, Sibyl--saying that she would sing Myra to
+sleep--took her violin to the porch, outside the window; and in the dusk
+made soft music until the woman's troubled heart was calmed. When the moon
+came up from behind the Galenas, across the canyon, the girl tiptoed into
+the house, to bend over the sleeping woman, in tender solicitude. With
+that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, she stooped and
+softly kissed the disfigured face upon the pillow. At the touch, Myra
+Willard stirred uneasily; and the girl--careful to make no
+sound--withdrew.
+
+On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to play; but, instead,
+sat motionless--her face turned down the canyon--her eyes looking far
+away. Then, quickly, she put aside the instrument, and--as though with
+sudden yielding to some inner impulse--slipped out into the grassy yard.
+And there, in the moon's white light,--with only the mountains, the trees,
+and the flowers to see,--she danced, again, as she had danced before the
+artist in the glade--with her face turned down the canyon, and her arms
+outstretched, longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of the old
+orchard.
+
+Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard slept, came that shuddering,
+terror-stricken cry.
+
+The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. Kneeling, she put
+her strong young arms about the cowering, trembling form on the bed.
+"There, there, dear, it's all right."
+
+The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
+"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
+Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was _you_."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+The Last Climb
+
+
+
+That first visit of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange to the old home of
+Sibyl Andrés was the beginning of a delightful comradeship.
+
+Often, in the evening, the two men, with Czar, went to spend an hour in
+friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the canyon. Always, they were
+welcomed by Myra Willard with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly
+delighted to have them come. Always, they were invited with genuine
+hospitality to "come again." Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs.
+Oakley would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger would come riding
+into the yard before they left. At times, the canyon's mountain wall
+echoed the laughter of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played
+their fantastical game of words; or again, the older people would listen
+to the blending voices of the artist and the girl as, in the quiet hush of
+the evening, they sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on the
+violin; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned to the mountain tops,
+would make for her chosen friends the music of the hills.
+
+Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the camp in the sycamore
+grove--sometimes riding with the Ranger, sometimes alone; or they would
+hear her merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard as she
+passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, she would appear--equipped with
+rod or gun or basket--to frankly challenge Aaron King to some long ramble
+in the hills.
+
+So the days for the young man at the beginning of his life work, and for
+the young woman at the beginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the
+canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring Clear Creek, from the
+Ranger Station to the falls; in the quiet glades under the alders hung
+with virgin's-bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the
+mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, cedar-sheltered gulches,
+among tall brakes and lilies; or high up on the canyon walls under the
+dark and fragrant pines--over all the paths and trails familiar to her
+girlhood she led him--showing him every nook and glade and glen--teaching
+him to know, as he had asked, the mountains that she herself so loved.
+
+The time came, at last, when the two men must return to Fairlands. With
+Mr. and Mrs. Oakley they were spending the evening at Sibyl's home when
+Conrad Lagrange announced that they would leave the mountains, two days
+later.
+
+"Then,"--said the girl, impulsively,--"Mr. King and I are going for one
+last good-by climb to-morrow. Aren't we?" she concluded--turning to the
+artist.
+
+Aaron King laughed as he answered, "We certainly seem to be headed that
+way. Where are we going?"
+
+"We will start early and come back late"--she returned--"which really is
+all that any one ought to know about a climb that is just for the climb.
+And listen--no rod, no gun, no sketch-book. I'll fix a lunch."
+
+"Watch out for my convict," warned the Ranger. "He must be getting mighty
+hungry, by now."
+
+Early in the morning, they set out. Crossing the canyon, they climbed the
+Oak Knoll trail--down which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led by
+the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks before--to the pipe-line. Where
+the path from below leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks,
+on a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the mountain's shoulder,
+they paused for a look over the narrow valley that lay a thousand feet
+below. Across the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain
+torrent's way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling Clear Creek in its
+center, they could see the white dots that marked the camp back of the old
+orchard; and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the little opening
+with the cedar thicket and the giant sycamores that marked the spot where
+Sibyl was born.
+
+Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day when he and Conrad
+Lagrange, in a spirit of venturesome fun, had left the choice of trails to
+the burro. "Good, old Croesus!" he said smiling.
+
+She knew the story of how they had been guided to their camping place, and
+laughed in return, as she answered, "He's a dear old burro, is Croesus,
+and worthy of a better name."
+
+"Plutus would be better," suggested the artist.
+
+"Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian King?" she asked curiously.
+
+"Wasn't Plutus the giver of wealth?" he returned.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, and wasn't he forced by Zeus to distribute his gifts without regard
+to the characters of the recipients?"
+
+She laughed merrily. "Plutus or Croesus--I'm glad he chose the Oak Knoll
+trail."
+
+"And so am I," answered the man, earnestly.
+
+Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung--narrow thread-like
+path--high upon the mountain wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon
+below. At a point where the trail turns to round the inward curve of one
+of the small side canyons--where the pines grow dark and tall--some
+thoughtful hand had laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under
+the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below the little path.
+Here they stopped again and, while they loitered, filled a small canteen
+with the cold, clear water from the mountain's heart. Farther on, where
+the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve of the wall between two
+mountain spurs, they turned aside to follow the Government trail that
+leads to the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then down into
+the valley on the other side. At the gap where the Galena trail crosses
+the fire-break, they again turned aside to make their leisure way along
+the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a fold and curve and kink
+like a great ribbon on the thin top of the ridge. With every step, now,
+they were climbing. Midday found them standing by a huge rock at the edge
+of a clump of pines on one of the higher points of the western end of the
+range. Here they would have their lunch.
+
+As they sat in the lee of the great rock, with the wind that sweeps the
+mountain tops singing in the pines above their heads, they looked directly
+down upon the wide Galena Valley and far across to the spurs and slopes of
+the San Jacintos beyond. Sibyl's keen eyes--mountain-trained from
+childhood--marked a railway train crawling down the grade from San
+Gorgonio Pass toward the distant ocean. She tried in vain to point it out
+to her companion. But the city eyes of the man could not find the tiny
+speck in the vast landscape that lay within the range of their vision. The
+artist looked at his watch. The train was the Golden State Limited that
+had brought him from the far away East, a few months before.
+
+Aaron King remembered how, from the platform of the observation car, he
+had looked up at the mountains from which he now looked down. He
+remembered too, the woman into whose eyes he had, for the first time,
+looked that day. Turning his face to the west, he could distinguish under
+the haze of the distance the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands. Before three days had passed he would be in his studio home
+again. And the woman of the observation car platform--From distant
+Fairlands, the man turned his eyes to the winsome face of his girl comrade
+on the mountain top.
+
+"Please"--she said, meeting his serious gaze with a smile of frank
+fellowship--"please, what have I done?"
+
+Smiling, he answered gravely, "I don't exactly know--but you have done
+something."
+
+"You look so serious. I'm sure it must be pretty bad. Can't you think what
+it is?"
+
+He laughed. "I was thinking about down there"--he pointed into the haze of
+the distant valley to the west.
+
+"Don't," she returned, "let's think about up here"--she waved her hand
+toward the high crest of the San Bernardinos, and the mountain peaks about
+them.
+
+"Will you let me paint your portrait--when we get back to the orange
+groves?" he asked.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she returned. "Why do you want to paint me? I'm
+nobody, you know--but just me."
+
+"That's the reason I want to paint you," he answered.
+
+"What's the reason?"
+
+"Because you are you."
+
+"But a portrait of me would not help you on your road to fame," she
+retorted.
+
+He flinched. "Perhaps," he said, "that's partly why I want to do it."
+
+"Because it won't help you?"
+
+"Because it won't help me on the road to fame. You _will_ pose for me,
+won't you?"
+
+"I'm sure I cannot say"--she answered--"perhaps--please don't let's talk
+about it."
+
+"Why not?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Because"--she answered seriously--"we have been such good friends up here
+in the mountains; such--such comrades. Up here in the hills, with the
+canyon gates shut against the world that I don't know, you are like--like
+Brian Oakley--and like my father used to be--and down there"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Yes," he said, "and down there I will be what?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered wistfully, "but sometimes I can see you going
+on and on and on toward fame and the rewards it will bring you and you
+seem to get farther and farther and farther away from--from the mountains
+and our friendship; until you are so far away that I can't see you any
+more at all. I don't like to lose my mountain friends, you know."
+
+He smiled. "But no matter how famous I might become--no matter what fame
+might bring me--I could not forget you and your mountains."
+
+"I would not want you to remember me," she answered "if you were famous.
+That is--I mean"--she added hesitatingly--"if you were famous just because
+you _wanted_ to be. But I know you could never forget the mountains. And
+that would be the trouble; don't you see? If you _could_ forget, it would
+not matter. Ask Mr. Lagrange, he knows."
+
+For some time Aaron King sat, without speaking, looking about at the world
+that was so far from that other world--the world he had always known. The
+girl, too,--seeming to understand the thoughts that he himself, perhaps,
+could not have expressed,--was silent.
+
+Then he said slowly, "I don't think that I care for fame as I did before
+you taught me to know the mountains. It doesn't, somehow, now, seem to
+matter so much. It's the _work_ that really matters--after all--isn't it?"
+
+And Sibyl Andrés, smiling, answered, "Yes, it's the work that really
+matters. I'm sure that _must_ be so."
+
+In the afternoon, they went on, still following the fire-break, down to
+where it is intersected by the pipe-line a mile from the reservoir on the
+hill above the power-house; then back to Oak Knoll, again on the pipe-line
+trail all the way--a beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten walk.
+
+The sun was just touching the tops of the western mountains when they
+started down Oak Knoll. The canyon below, already, lay in the shadow. When
+they reached the foot of the trail, it was twilight. Across the road, by a
+small streamlet--a tributary to Clear Creek--a party of huntsmen were
+making ready to spend the night. The voices of the men came clearly
+through the gathering gloom. Under the trees, they could see the
+camp-fire's ruddy gleam. They did not notice the man who was standing,
+half hidden, in the bushes beside the road, near the spot where the trail
+opens into it. Silently, the man watched them as they turned up the road
+which they would follow a little way before crossing the canyon to Sibyl's
+home. Fifty yards farther on, they met Brian Oakley.
+
+"Howdy, you two," called the Ranger, cheerily--without stopping his horse.
+"Rather late to-night, ain't you?"
+
+"We'll be there by dark," called the artist And the Ranger passed on.
+
+At sound of the mountaineer's voice, the man in the bushes drew quickly
+back. The officer's trained eyes caught the movement in the brush, and he
+leaned forward in the saddle.
+
+A moment later, the man reappeared in the road, farther down, around the
+bend. As the Ranger approached, he was hailed by a boisterous, "Hello,
+Brian! better stop and have a bite."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Rutlidge?" came the officer's greeting, as he reined
+in his horse. "When did you land in the hills?"'
+
+"This afternoon," answered the other. "We're just making camp. Come and
+meet the fellows. You know some of them."
+
+"Thanks, not to-night,"--returned Brian Oakley,--"deer hunt, I suppose."
+
+"Yes--thought we would be in good time for the opening of the season. By
+the way, do you happen to know where Lagrange and that artist friend of
+his are camped?"
+
+"In that bunch of sycamores back of the old orchard down there," answered
+the Ranger, watching the man's face keenly. "I just passed Mr. King, up
+the road a piece."
+
+"That so? I didn't see him go by," returned the other. "I think I'll run
+over and say 'hello' to Lagrange in the morning. We are only going as far
+as Burnt Pine to-morrow, anyway."
+
+"Keep your eyes open for an escaped convict," said the officer, casually.
+"There's one ranging somewhere in here--came in about a month ago. He's
+likely to clean out your camp. So long."
+
+"Perhaps we'll take him in for you," laughed the other. "Good night." He
+turned toward the camp-fire under the trees, as the officer rode away.
+
+"Now what in hell did that fellow want to lie to me like that for," said
+Brian Oakley to himself. "He must have seen King and Sibyl as they came
+down the trail. Max, old boy, when a man lies deliberately, without any
+apparent reason, you want to watch him."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+Shadows of Coming Events
+
+
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were idling in their camp, after breakfast
+the next morning, when Czar turned his head, quickly, in a listening
+attitude. With a low growl that signified disapproval, he moved forward a
+step or two and stood stiffly erect, gazing toward the lower end of the
+orchard.
+
+"Some one coming, Czar?" asked the artist.
+
+The dog answered with another growl, while the hair on his neck bristled
+in anger.
+
+"Some one we don't like, heh!" commented the novelist. "Or"--he added as
+if musing upon the animal's instinct--"some one we ought not to like."
+
+A bark from Czar greeted James Rutlidge who at that moment appeared at the
+foot of the slope leading up to their camp.
+
+The two men--remembering the occasion of their visitor's last call at
+their home in Fairlands, when he had seen Sibyl in the studio--received
+the man with courtesy, but with little warmth. Czar continued to manifest
+his sentiments until rebuked by his master. The coolness of the reception,
+however, in no way disconcerted James Rutlidge; who, on his part, rather
+overdid his assumption of pleasure at meeting them again.
+
+Explaining that he had come with a party of friends on a hunting trip, he
+told them how he had met Brian Oakley, and so had learned of their camp
+hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, he said, had gone on
+up the canyon. They would stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he
+could easily join them before night. He could not think, he declared, of
+passing so near without greeting his friends.
+
+"You two certainly are expert when it comes to finding snug,
+out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, searching the camp and the
+immediate surroundings with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative
+eye. "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted place without ever
+dreaming that you were so ideally hidden back here."
+
+As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to rest upon a pair of gloves
+that Sibyl--the last time she had called--had carelessly left lying upon a
+stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp fashion, the rods and
+creels and guns were kept. The artist had intended to return the gloves
+the day before, together with a book of trout-flies which the girl had
+also forgotten; but, in his eagerness for the day's outing, he had gone
+off without them.
+
+The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to note that James Rutlidge had
+seen the telltale gloves. Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he
+asked abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after the health of
+Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise.
+
+The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed the heavy features of
+James Rutlidge, as he turned his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of
+the novelist was maddening.
+
+"The old boy is steadily going down," he said without feeling. "The
+doctors tell me that he can't last through the winter. It'll be a relief
+to everybody when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as
+always--remarkable how she keeps up appearances, considering her husband's
+serious condition. Louise is quite as usual. They will all be back in
+Fairlands in another month. They sent regards to you both--in case I
+should run across you."'
+
+The two men made the usual conventional replies, adding that they were
+returning to Fairlands the next day.
+
+"So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another meaning smile. "I don't
+see how you can think of leaving your really delightful retreat. I
+understand you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps though, they are
+also returning to the orange groves and roses."
+
+Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about to reply with vigor to
+the sneering words, when Conrad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look.
+Ignoring the reference to their neighbors, the novelist replied suavely
+that they felt they must return to civilization as some matters in
+connection with the new edition of his last novel demanded his attention,
+and the artist wished to get back to his studio and to his work.
+
+"Really," urged Rutlidge, mockingly, "you ought not to go down now. The
+deer season opens in two days. Why not join our party for a hunt? We would
+be delighted to have you."
+
+They were coolly thanking him for the invitation,--that, from the tone in
+which it was given, was so evidently not meant,--when Czar, with a joyful
+bark, dashed away through the grove. A moment, and a clear, girlish voice
+called from among the trees that bordered the cienaga, "Whoo-ee." It was
+the signal that Sibyl always gave when she approached their camp.
+
+James Rutlidge broke into a low laugh while Sibyl's friends looked at each
+other in angry consternation as the girl, following her hail and
+accompanied by the delighted dog, appeared in full view; her fishing-rod
+in hand, her creel swung over her shoulder.
+
+The girl's embarrassment, when, too late, she saw and recognized their
+visitor, was pitiful. As she came slowly forward, too confused to retreat,
+Rutlidge started to laugh again, but Aaron King, with an emphasis that
+checked the man's mirth, said in a low tone, "Stop that! Be careful!"
+
+As he spoke, the artist arose and with Conrad Lagrange went forward to
+greet Sibyl in--as nearly as they could--their customary manner.
+
+Formally, Rutlidge was presented to the girl; and, under the threatening
+eyes of the painter, greeted her with no hint of rudeness in his voice or
+manner; saying courteously, with a smile, "I have had the pleasure of Miss
+Andrés' acquaintance for--let me see--three years now, is it not?" he
+appealed to her directly.
+
+"It was three years ago that I first saw you, sir," she returned coolly.
+
+"It was my first trip into the mountains, I remember," said Rutlidge,
+easily. "I met you at Brian Oakley's home."
+
+Without replying, she turned to Aaron King appealingly. "I--I left my
+gloves and fly-book. I was going fishing and called to get them."
+
+The artist gave her the articles with a word of regret for having so
+carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her
+two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back
+up the canyon, in the direction from which she had come.
+
+When the girl had disappeared among the trees, James Rutlidge said, with
+his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so
+unexpectedly. I--"
+
+Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir."
+
+"No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in
+his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be
+going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure
+you wouldn't care to join us?"
+
+"Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from
+Aaron King and the novelist.
+
+"Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to
+be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport.
+Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful
+young woman, that Miss Andrés. Charming companion--either in the mountains
+or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later."
+
+When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language
+that perhaps it would be better not to put in print.
+
+"And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous
+to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to
+charges that are not put into words."
+
+"I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said
+Aaron King, savagely.
+
+"Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly,
+and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store
+your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright,
+is sure to come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Sibyl Andrés went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that
+morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous
+freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when,
+in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she
+still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever
+known.
+
+When she returned again up the canyon, all the brightness of her day was
+gone. Her heart was heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with a
+dread of some impending evil which she could not understand. At every
+sound in the mountain wild-wood, she started. Time and again, as if
+expecting pursuit, she looked over her shoulder--poised like a creature of
+the woods ready for instant panic-stricken flight. So, without pausing to
+cast for trout, or even to go down to the stream, she returned home; where
+Myra Willard, seeing her come so early and empty handed, wondered. But to
+the woman's question, the girl only answered that she had changed her
+mind--that, after recovering her gloves and fly-book at the camp of their
+friends, she had decided to come home. The woman with the disfigured face,
+knowing that Aaron King was leaving the hills the next day, thought that
+she understood the girl's mood, and wisely made no comment.
+
+The artist and Conrad Lagrange went to spend their last evening in the
+hills with their friends. Brian Oakley, too, dropped in. But neither of
+the three men mentioned the name of James Rutlidge in the presence of the
+women; while Sibyl was, apparently, again her own bright and happy
+self--carrying on a fanciful play of words with the novelist, singing with
+the artist, and making music for them all with her violin. But before the
+evening was over, Conrad Lagrange found an opportunity to tell the Ranger
+of the incident of the morning, and of the construction that James
+Rutlidge had evidently put upon Sibyl's call at the camp. Brian
+Oakley,--thinking of the night before, and how the man must have seen the
+artist and the girl coming down the Oak Knoll trail in the
+twilight,--swore softly under his breath.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+Outside the Canyon Gates Again
+
+
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange determined to go back from the mountains,
+the way they had come. Said the novelist, "It is as unseemly to rush
+pell-mell from an audience with the gods as it is to enter their presence
+irreverently."
+
+To which the artist answered, laughing, "Even criminals under sentence
+have, at least, the privilege of going to their prisons reluctantly."
+
+So they went down from the mountains, reverently and reluctantly.
+
+Yee Kee, with the more elaborate equipment of the camp, was sent on ahead
+by wagon. The two men, with Croesus packed for a one night halt, and Czar,
+would follow. When all was ready, and they could neither of them invent
+any more excuses for lingering, Conrad Lagrange gave the word to the burro
+and they set out--down the little slope of grassy land; across the tiny
+stream from the cienaga; around the lower end of the old orchard, by the
+ancient weed-grown road--even Czar went slowly, with low-hung head, as if
+regretful at leaving the mountains that he, too, in his dog way, loved.
+
+At the gate, Aaron King asked the novelist to go on, saying that he would
+soon overtake him. It was possible, he said, that he might have left
+something in the spring glade. He thought he had better make sure. Conrad
+Lagrange, assenting, went through the gate and down the road, with the
+four-footed members of the party; and Czar must have thought that there
+was something very funny about old Croesus that morning, from the way his
+master laughed; when they were safely around the first turn.
+
+There was, of course, no material thing in the spring glade that the
+artist wanted. _He_ knew that--quite as well as his laughing friend. Under
+the mistletoe oak, at the top of the bank, he paused, hesitating--as one
+will often pause when about to enter a sacred building. Softly, he pushed
+open the old gate, as he might have pushed open the door of a church.
+Slowly, reverently, he went down the path; baring his head as he went. He
+did not search for anything that he might have left. He simply stood for a
+few minutes under the gray-trunked alders that were so marked by the
+loving hands of long ago men and maidens--beside the mint bordered spring
+with the scattered stones of that old foundation--where, through the
+screen of boughs and vines and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell as through
+the traceries of a cathedral window, and the low, deep tones of the
+mountain waters came like the music of a great organ.
+
+It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, at that time, have told
+why, as he was leaving the hills, he had paused to visit once more the
+spot where Sibyl Andrés had brought to him her three gifts from the
+mountains--where, in her pure innocence, she had danced before him the
+dance of the mating butterflies--and where, with the music of her violin,
+she had saved their friendship from the perils that threatened it--lifting
+their intimate comradeship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels,
+even as she had shown him the trails that lead from the lower canyon to
+the summits and peaks of the encircling mountain walls. But when he
+rejoined his friend there was something in his face that prevented the
+novelist from making any comment in a laughing vein.
+
+As the two men passed outward through the canyon gates and, looking
+backward as they went, saw those mighty doors close silently behind them,
+the artist was moved by emotions that were strange and new to the man who,
+two months before, had watched those gates open to receive him. This, too,
+is true; as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the mountains; so this
+man, now, knew, yet still did not know, himself.
+
+Where the road crosses, for the last time, the tumbling stream from the
+heart of the hills, they halted; and for one night slept again at the foot
+of the mountains. The next day they arrived at their little home in the
+orange grove. To Aaron King, it seemed that they had been away for years.
+
+When the traces of their days upon the road had been removed, and they
+were garbed again in the conventional costume of the world; when their
+outfit had been put away, and a home found for patient Croesus; the artist
+went to his studio. The afternoon passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but
+Aaron King did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find him. Softly,
+the older man pushed open the studio door to see the painter sitting
+before the portrait of Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's
+letters in his hand.
+
+Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving the door ajar. Going to
+the corner of the house, he whistled low, and in answer, Czar come
+bounding to him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said the man,
+pointing toward the studio. "Go find Aaron."
+
+Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, and pushing open the
+door entered the room; followed a few moments later by his master.
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel was without a canvas. The
+portrait of Mrs. Taine was turned to the wall.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake
+
+
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends,
+at Sibyl Andrés' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last
+night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of
+one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.
+
+Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear. She
+only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She
+had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge,
+until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous
+in his persistent efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the
+impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of
+their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home;
+perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often
+warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to
+develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to
+one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was, the mountain girl who
+was so naturally unafraid, feared this man who, in his own world, was an
+acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest spiritual and moral
+significance.
+
+That night, she slept but little. With the morning, every nerve demanded
+action, action. She felt as though if she could not spend herself in
+physical exertion she would go mad. Taking her lunch, and telling her
+companion that she was going for a good, full day with the trout; she was
+starting off, when the woman called her back.
+
+"You have forgotten Mr. Oakley's warning, dear. You are not to go unarmed,
+you know."
+
+"Oh, bother that old convict, Brian Oakley is so worried about," cried the
+girl. "I don't like to carry a gun when I am fishing. It's only an extra
+load." But, never-the-less, as she spoke, she went back to the porch;
+where Myra Willard handed her a belt of cartridges, with a serviceable
+Colt revolver in the holster. There was no hint of awkwardness when the
+girl buckled the belt about her waist and settled the holster in its place
+at her hip.
+
+"You will be careful, won't you, dear," said the woman, earnestly.
+
+Lifting her face for another good-by kiss, the girl answered, "Of course,
+dear mother heart." Then, with a laugh--"I'll agree to shoot the first man
+I meet, and identify him afterwards--if it will make you easier in your
+mind. You won't worry, will you?"
+
+Myra Willard smiled. "Not a bit, child. I know how Brian Oakley loves you,
+and he says that he has no fear for you if you are armed. He takes great
+chances himself, that man, but he would send us back to Fairlands, in a
+minute, if he thought you were in any danger in your rambles."
+
+Beside the roaring Clear Creek, Sibyl seated self upon a great
+boulder--her rod and flies neglected--apparently unmindful of the purpose
+that had brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon the swirling
+pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, a thousand feet up on Oak
+Knoll, where she knew the pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made
+the momentous decision that had resulted in her comradeship with Aaron
+King. Following the canyon wall with her eyes--as though in her mind she
+walked the thread-like path--from Oak Knoll to the fire-break a mile from
+the reservoir; her gaze then traced the crest of the Galenas, resting
+finally upon that clump of pines high up on the point that was so clearly
+marked against the sky. Once, she laid aside her rod, and slipped the
+creel from her shoulder. But even as she set out, she hesitated and turned
+back; resolutely taking up her fishing-tackle again, as though, angry with
+herself for her state of mind, she was determined to indulge no longer her
+mood of indecision.
+
+But the fishing did not go well. To properly cast a trout-fly, one's
+thoughts must be upon the art. A preoccupied mind and wandering attention
+tends to a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of aggravating
+complications. Sibyl--usually so skillful at this most delicate of
+sports--was as inaccurate and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The
+many pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek held for her, now,
+memories more attractive, by far, than the wary trout they sheltered. The
+familiar spots she had known since childhood were haunted by a something
+that made them seem new and strange.
+
+At last,--thoroughly angry with her inability to control her mood, and
+half ashamed of the thoughts that forced themselves so insistently upon
+her; with her nerves and muscles craving the action that would bring the
+relief of physical weariness,--she determined to leave the more familiar
+ground, for the higher and less frequented waters of Fern Creek. Climbing
+out of the canyon, by the steep, almost stair-like trail on the San
+Bernardino side, she walked hard and fast to reach Lone Cabin by noon.
+But, before she had finished her lunch, she decided not to fish there,
+after all; but to go on, over the still harder trail to Burnt Pine on
+Laurel Creek, and, returning to the lower canyon by the Laurel trail, to
+work down Clear Creek on the way to her home, in the late afternoon and
+twilight.
+
+The trail up the almost precipitous wall of the gorge at Lone Cabin, and
+over the mountain spur to Laurel Creek, is one that calls for a clear head
+and a sure foot. It is not a path for the city bred to essay, save with
+the ready arm of a guide. But the hill-trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl
+Andrés gloried in the task. The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed the
+climb from which her city sisters would have drawn back in trembling fear.
+
+Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height to the top, she halted.
+Her ear had caught a slight noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled
+down the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded from the trail
+where she stood, into the depths below. For a few minutes, the girl, on
+the little, shelf-like path that was scarcely wider than the span of her
+two hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff itself; while,
+with her face turned upward, she searched with keen eyes the rim of the
+gorge; her free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver at her
+hip. Then she went on--not timidly, but neither carelessly; not in the
+least frightened, but still,--knowing that the spot was far from the more
+frequented paths,--with experienced care.
+
+As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she paused again, to search
+with careful eyes the vicinity of the trail that from this point leads for
+a little way down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by easier
+stages, around the shoulder and the flank of the mountain, to Burnt Pine
+Camp. When no living object met her eye, and she could hear no sound save
+the lonely wind in the pines and the faint murmur of the stream in the
+gorge below, she took the few steps that yet remained of the climb, and
+seated herself for a moment's well-earned rest. Some small animal, she
+told herself,--a squirrel or a wood-rat, perhaps,--frightened at her
+approach, and scurrying hastily to cover, had dislodged the pebbles with
+the slight noise that she had heard.
+
+From where she sat with her back against the trunk of a great pine, she
+could see--far below, and beyond the immediate spurs and shoulders of the
+range, on the farther side of the gorge out of which she had just
+come--the lower end of Clear Creek canyon, and, miles away, under the
+blue haze of the distance, the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands.
+
+Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange
+groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way
+back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as
+if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny,
+moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the
+wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort,
+as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were
+to come. Would the friendship born in the hills endure in the world beyond
+the canyon gates? Could it endure away from those scenes that had given it
+birth? Was it possible for a fellowship, established in the free
+atmosphere of the mountains, to live in the lower altitude of Fairlands?
+Sibyl Andrés,--as she sat there, alone in the hills she loved,--in her
+heart of hearts, answered her own questions, "No." But still she searched
+the years to come--even as her eyes so futilely searched the distant
+landscape beyond the mighty gates that seemed, now, to shut her in from
+that world to which Aaron King was returning.
+
+The girl was aroused from her abstraction by a sound behind her and a
+little to the left of the tree against which she was leaning. In a flash,
+she was on her feet.
+
+James Rutlidge stood a few steps away. He had been approaching her as she
+sat under the tree; but when she sprang to her feet and faced him, he
+halted. Lifting his hat, he greeted her with easy assurance; a confident,
+triumphant smile upon his heavy features.
+
+White-faced and trembling, the mountain girl--who a few moments before,
+had been so unafraid--stood shrinking before this cultured representative
+of the arts. Returning his salutation, she was starting hurriedly away
+down the trail, when he said, "Wait. Why be in such a hurry?"
+
+As if against her will, she paused. "It is growing late," she faltered; "I
+must go."
+
+He laughed. "I will go with you presently. Don't be afraid." Coming
+forward, with an air of making himself very much at home, he placed his
+rifle against the tree where she had been sitting. Then, as if to calm her
+fears, he continued, "I am camped at Burnt Pine, with a party of friends.
+I was up here looking for deer sign when I noticed you below, at the cabin
+there. I was just starting down to you, when I saw that you were going to
+come up; so I waited. Beautiful spot--this--don't you think?--so out of
+the way, too. Just the place for a quiet little visit."
+
+As the man spoke, he was eyeing her in a way that only served to confuse
+and frighten her the more. Murmuring some inaudible reply, she again
+started to go. But again he said, peremptorily, "Wait." And again, as if
+against her will, she paused. "If you have no scruples about wandering
+over the mountains alone with that artist fellow, I do not see why you
+should hesitate to favor me."
+
+The man's words were, undoubtedly, prompted by what he firmly believed to
+be the nature of the relation between the girl and Aaron King--a belief
+for which he had, to his mind, sufficient evidence. But Sibyl had no
+understanding of his meaning. In the innocence of her pure mind, the
+purport of his words was utterly lost. Her very fear of the man was not a
+reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a nature that had never
+felt the unclean touch of the world in which James Rutlidge habitually
+moved. It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her
+always so embarrassed in the man's presence. It was because she did not
+understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking
+her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.
+
+James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in
+which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of
+Sibyl Andrés. Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her
+relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence;
+he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail
+to understand.
+
+When she _did_ grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
+gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
+expression in scathing words of denunciation.
+
+The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
+there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
+That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
+had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
+scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
+vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
+flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
+passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
+her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
+a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.
+
+But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
+different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
+With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
+careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.
+
+James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar. In the blue eyes
+that looked at him, now, over the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no
+uncertainty of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the weapon with such
+ready swiftness, was as steady as though at target practice.
+Instinctively, the man half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield
+his face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he gasped, "put that
+down."
+
+In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that instant, than he had
+ever been before.
+
+Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still uplifted, he said again,
+"Put it down, I tell you. Don't you see I'm not going to touch you? You
+are crazy. You might kill me."
+
+Her words came cold and collected, expressing, together with her calm
+manner, perfect self-possession "If you can give any good reason why I
+should not kill you, I will let you go."
+
+The man was carefully drawing backward toward the tree against which he
+had placed his rifle.
+
+She watched him, with a disconcerting smile. "You may as well stop now,"
+she said, in those even, composed tones. "I shall fire, the moment you are
+within reach of your gun."
+
+He halted with a gesture of despair; his face livid with fear at her
+apparent indecision as to his fate.
+
+Presently, she spoke again. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill
+you--unless you force me to--which I assure you will not be at all
+difficult for you to do. Move down the trail until I tell you to stop."
+She indicated the direction, along the ridge of the mountain spur.
+
+He obeyed.
+
+"That will do," she said, when he was some twenty paces away.
+
+He stopped, turning to face her again.
+
+Picking up his Winchester, she skillfully and rapidly threw all of the
+shells out of the magazine. Then, covering him again with her own weapon,
+she went a few steps closer and threw the empty rifle at his feet. "Now,"
+she said, "put that gun over your left shoulder, and go on ahead of me
+down the trail. If you try to dodge or run, or if you change the position
+of your rifle, I'll kill you."
+
+"What are you going to do?" he asked.
+
+"I'm going to take you down to your camp at Burnt Pine."
+
+James Rutlidge, pale with rage and shame, stood still. "You may as well
+kill me," he said. "I will never go into camp, this way."
+
+"Don't be uneasy," she returned. "I am no more anxious for the world to
+know of this, than you are. Do as I say. When we come within sight of your
+camp, or if we meet any one, I will put up my gun and we will go on
+together. That's why I am permitting you to carry your rifle."
+
+So they went down the mountainside--the man with his empty rifle over his
+shoulder; the girl following, a few paces in the rear, with ready weapon.
+
+When they had come within sight of the camp, James Rutlidge said, "There's
+some one there."
+
+"I see," returned Sibyl, slipping her gun in its holster and stepping
+forward beside her companion. And there was a note of glad relief in her
+voice, for it was Brian Oakley who was bending over the camp-fire "Come,"
+she continued to her companion, "and act as though nothing had happened."
+
+The Ranger, on his way down from somewhere in the vicinity of San
+Gorgonio, had stopped at the hunters' camp for a belated dinner. Finding
+no one at home, he had started a fire, and had helped himself to coffee
+and bacon. He was just concluding his appropriated meal, when Sibyl and
+James Rutlidge arrived.
+
+In a few words, the girl explained to her friend, that she was on her way
+over the trail from Lone Cabin, and had accidentally met Mr. Rutlidge who
+had accompanied her as far as the camp. James Rutlidge had little to say
+beyond assuring the Ranger of his welcome; and very soon, the officer and
+the girl set out on their way down the Laurel trail to Clear Creek canyon.
+As they went, Sibyl's old friend asked not a few questions about her
+meeting with James Rutlidge; but the girl, walking ahead in the narrow
+trail, evaded him, and was glad that he could not see her face.
+
+Sibyl had spoken the literal truth when she said to Rutlidge, that she did
+not want any one to know of the incident. She felt ashamed and humiliated
+at the thought of telling even her father's old comrade and friend. She
+knew Brian Oakley too well to have any doubts as to what would happen if
+he knew how the man had approached her, and she shrank from the inevitable
+outcome. She wished only to forget the whole affair, and, as quickly as
+possible, turned the conversation into other and safer channels.
+
+The Ranger could not stop at the house with her, but must go on down the
+canyon, to the Station. So the girl returned to Myra Willard, alone; and,
+to the woman's surprise, for the second time, with an empty creel.
+
+Sibyl explained her failure to bring home a catch of trout, with the
+simple statement that she had not fished; and then--to her companion's
+amazement--burst into tears; begging to return at once to their little
+home in Fairlands.
+
+Myra Willard thought that she understood, better than the girl herself,
+why, for the first time in her life, Sibyl wished to leave the mountains.
+Perhaps the woman with the disfigured face was right.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+On the Pipe-Line Trail
+
+
+
+James Rutlidge spent the day following his experience with Sibyl Andrés,
+in camp. His companions very quickly felt his sullen, ugly mood, and left
+him to his own thoughts.
+
+The manner in which Sibyl received his advances had in no way changed the
+man's mind as to the nature of her relation to Aaron King. To one of James
+Rutlidge's type,--schooled in the intellectual moral and esthetic tenets
+of his class,--it was impossible to think of the companionship of the
+artist and the girl in any other light. If he had even considered the
+possibility of a clean, pure comradeship existing between them--under all
+the circumstances of their friendship as he had seen them in the studio,
+on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's camp--he would have answered
+himself that Aaron King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage
+of his opportunities. The humiliation of his pride, and his rage at being
+so ignominiously checked by the girl whom he had so long endeavored to
+win, served only to increase his desire for her. Sibyl's resolute spirit,
+and vigorous beauty, when aroused by him, together with her unexpected
+opposition to his advances, were as fuel to the flame of his passion.
+
+His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not improve his temper;
+and the next morning his friends were relieved to see him setting out
+alone, with rifle and field-glass and lunch. Ostensibly starting in the
+direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he doubled back, as soon as he
+was out of sight of camp, and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek
+canyon.
+
+It could not be said that the man had any definite purpose in mind. He was
+simply yielding in a purposeless way to his mood, which, for the time
+being, could find no other expression. The remote chance that some
+opportunity looking toward his desire might present itself, led him to
+seek the scenes where such an opportunity would be most likely to occur.
+
+Crossing the canyon above the Company Headwork he came into the pipe-line
+trail at a point a little back from the main wagon road and, an hour
+later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the Government trail leads
+down into the canyon below, and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had
+committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus. Here he left the trail,
+and climbed to a point on a spur of the mountain, from which he could see
+the path for some distance on either side and below, and from which his
+view of the narrow valley was unobstructed. Comfortably seated, with his
+back against a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon the
+little spot of open green--marked by the giant sycamores, the dark line of
+cedars, and the half hidden house--where he knew that Sibyl Andrés and
+Myra Willard were living.
+
+No sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon the scene that so
+interested him, than he uttered a low exclamation. The two women,
+surrounded by their luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the porch
+with Brian Oakley; waiting, evidently, for the wagon that was crossing the
+creek toward the house. It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that
+Sibyl Andrés and the woman with the disfigured face were returning to
+Fairlands.
+
+For some time, James Rutlidge sat watching, with absorbing interest, the
+unconscious people in the canyon below. Once, he turned for a brief glance
+at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, farther down the creek.
+The camp of Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there. Quickly he
+fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her friends. Presently,--as one will
+when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,--he lowered his
+hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in
+the landscape before him. At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on
+the near-by trail below. It was a pitiful figure--ill-kempt ragged,
+half-starved, haggard-faced.
+
+Creeping feebly along the lonely little path--without seeing the man on
+the mountainside above--crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful
+air--the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the
+trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.
+
+As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher on the rocks above
+involuntarily glanced toward the distant Forest Ranger; then back to
+the--as he rightly guessed--escaped convict.
+
+There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of a man like James Rutlidge
+when, however bad or dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels
+strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to help. Undoubtedly,
+James Rutlidge inherited from his father those tendencies that made him
+easily ruled by his baser passions. His character was as truly the
+legitimate product of the age, of the social environment, and of the
+thought that accepts such characters. What he might have been if better
+born, or if schooled in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual integrity,
+is an idle speculation. He was what his inheritance and his life had made
+him. He was not without impulses for good. The pitiful, hunted creature,
+creeping so wearily along the trail, awoke in this man of the accepted
+culture of his day a feeling of compassion, and aroused in him a desire to
+offer assistance. For the legal aspect of the case, James Rutlidge had all
+the indifference of his kind, who imbibe contempt for law with their
+mother's milk. For the moment he hesitated. Then, as the figure below
+passed from his sight, under the point of the spur, he slipped quietly
+down the mountainside, and, a few minutes later, met the convict face to
+face.
+
+At the leveled rifle and the sharp command, "Hands up," the poor fellow
+halted with a gesture of tragic despair. An instant they stood; then the
+hunted one turned impulsively toward the canyon that, here, lies almost a
+sheer thousand feet below.
+
+James Rutlidge spoke sharply. "Don't do that. I'm not an officer. I want
+to help you."
+
+The convict turned his hunted, fearful, starving face in doubtful
+bewilderment toward the speaker.
+
+The man with the gun continued, "I got the drop on you to prevent
+accidents--until I could explain--that's all." He lowered the rifle.
+
+The other went a staggering step forward. "You mean that?" he said in a
+harsh, incredulous whisper. "You--you're not playing with me?"
+
+"Why should I want to play with you?" returned the other, kindly. "Come,
+let's get off the trail. I have something to eat, up there." He led the
+way back to the place where he had left his lunch.
+
+Dropping down upon the ground, the starving man seized the offered food
+with an animal-like cry; feeding noisily, with the manner of a famished
+beast. The other watched with mingled pity and disgust.
+
+Presently, in stammering, halting phrases, but in words that showed no
+lack of education, the wretched creature attempted to apologize for his
+unseemly eagerness, and endeavored to thank his benefactor. "I suppose,
+sir, there is no use trying to deny my identity," he said, when James
+Rutlidge had again assured him of his kindly interest.
+
+"Not at all," agreed the other, "and, so far as I am concerned, there is
+no reason why you should."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that, sir?" questioned the convict.
+
+"I mean that I am not an officer and have no reason in the world for
+turning you over to them. I saw you coming along the trail down there
+and, of course, could not help noticing your condition and guessing who
+you were. To me, you are simply a poor devil who has gotten into a tight
+hole, and I want to help you out a bit, that's all."
+
+The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward the canyon below, as he
+answered, "I thank you, sir, but it would have been better if you had not.
+Your help has only put the end off for a few hours. They've got me shut
+in. I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get
+out. I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There
+was no mistaking his desperate purpose.
+
+James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail
+and the rocky depth below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he
+said invitingly.
+
+"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but
+I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late."
+
+While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly. As he had
+been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary
+assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more
+lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great
+a risk to his own convenience. The convict's hopeless condition, his
+despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all
+combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him. But while that truly
+benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister
+motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James
+Rutlidge's nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his
+by inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that
+had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could
+watch Sibyl Andrés, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.
+Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to
+a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation
+where a man like the one before him--wholly in his power as this man would
+be--might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose--the purpose that
+had brought about their meeting.
+
+Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I suppose the most of us
+are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get
+it. One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our
+wrong-doing. What if I should help you out--make it possible for you to
+live like other men who are safe from the law? What would you do if I were
+to help you to your freedom?"
+
+The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the
+sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.
+
+"You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?" asked Rutlidge.
+
+"Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water. I
+could live there a year if I had supplies."
+
+James Rutlidge considered. "I've got it!" he said at last. "Listen! There
+must be some peak, at the Cold Water end of this range, from which you can
+see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley."
+
+"Yes," the other answered eagerly.
+
+"And," continued Rutlidge, "there is a good 'auto' road up the Galena
+Valley. One could get, I should think, to a point within--say nine hours
+of your camp. Do you know anything about the heliograph?"
+
+"Yes," said the man, his face brightening. "That is, I understand the
+general principle--that it's a method of signaling by mirror flashes."
+
+"Good! This is my plan. I will meet you to-morrow on the Laurel Creek
+trail, where it turns off from the creek toward San Gorgonio. You know the
+spot?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on the divide between this
+canyon and the Cold Water, to some peak in the Galenas from which we can
+see Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can pick out some point
+at the upper end of Galena Valley, that we can both find later."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a night trip in the 'auto' to
+that point, with supplies. You will meet me there. The day before I make
+the trip, I'll signal you by mirror flashes that I am coming; and you will
+answer from the peak. We'll agree on the time of day and the signals
+to-morrow. When you have kept close, long enough for your beard and hair
+to grow out well, everybody will have given you up for dead or gone. Then
+I will take you down and give you a job in an orange grove. There's a
+little house there where you can live. You won't need to show yourself
+down-town and, in time, you will be forgotten. I'll bring you enough food
+to-morrow to last you until I can return to town and can get back on the
+first night trip."
+
+The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes later, after trying brokenly
+to express his gratitude, was a creature very different from the poor,
+frightened hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rutlidge had halted
+an hour before. What that man was to become, would depend almost wholly
+upon his benefactor.
+
+When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again took up his field-glass. The
+old home of Sibyl Andrés was deserted. While he had been talking with the
+convict, the girl and Myra Willard had started on their way back to
+Fairlands.
+
+With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the man slipped the glass
+into its case, and, with a long, slow look over the scene, set out on his
+way to rejoin his friends.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+I Want You Just as You Are
+
+
+
+The evening of that day after their return from the mountains, when Conrad
+Lagrange had found Aaron King so absorbed in his mother's letters, the
+artist continued in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The next morning, it
+was the same. Refusing every attempt of his friend to engage him in
+conversation, he answered only with absent-minded mono-syllables; until
+the novelist, declaring that the painter was fit company for neither beast
+nor man, left him alone; and went off somewhere with Czar.
+
+The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon in his studio, doing
+nothing of importance. That is, to a casual observer he would have
+_seemed_ to be doing nothing of importance. He did, however, place his
+picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. Taine, and then,
+for an hour or more, sat considering the two paintings. Then he turned the
+"Quaker Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in place on the
+easel. That was all.
+
+Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned to the
+studio--hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged his palette, paints, and
+brushes ready to his hand, indeed--but he, then, did nothing with them.
+Listlessly, without interest, he turned through his portfolios of
+sketches. Often, he looked away through the big, north window to the
+distant mountain tops. Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting
+before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, clear and sweet, from
+the depths of the orange grove, came the pure tones of Sibyl Andrés'
+violin.
+
+So soft and low was the music, at first, that the artist almost doubted
+that it was real, thinking--as he had thought that day when Sibyl came
+singing to the glade--that it was his fancy tricking him. When he and
+Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three days before, the girl and her
+companion had not expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks.
+But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. As the tones grew
+louder and more insistent, with a ringing note of gladness, he knew that
+the mountain girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language she
+loved best, was greeting her friends.
+
+But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that Aaron King gave the
+novelist no share in their neighbor's musical greeting. He received the
+message as if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes
+brightened; he stood erect, his face turned upward toward the mountain
+peaks in the distance; his lips curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he
+could see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment as she played,
+knowing his surprise. Once, he started impulsively toward the door, but
+paused, hesitating, and turned back. When the music ceased, he went to the
+open window that looked out into the rose garden, and watched expectantly.
+
+Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she came through the orange
+grove beyond the Ragged Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at
+the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full view.
+
+The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft
+brown,--made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,--with felt hat
+to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was dressed, now,
+as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was
+hiding from Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little back, with a
+low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder. Was that lovely creature
+there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills? The Sibyl Andrés he
+had known--in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb--was a
+winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This
+Sibyl Andrés, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall,
+and beautifully developed woman.
+
+Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and
+there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting;
+singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that
+enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of
+the wind that caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she
+belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and
+oaks of the mountains. The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood
+as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.
+
+Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture
+of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.
+
+"Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. "Hold the pose--please
+hold it! I want you just as you are!"
+
+The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his
+welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the
+polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did
+everything, gave herself to his mood.
+
+Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it across the studio, he
+cried out, again, "Don't move, please don't move!" and began working. He
+was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into
+the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was
+expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.
+"If I can get it! If I can only get it!" he exclaimed again and again,
+with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.
+
+All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all
+his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without
+conscious effort--obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful
+straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and
+harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so
+surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, as he was
+unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil,
+as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the
+roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.
+
+Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andrés came singing through the
+orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands
+outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting
+before his easel, palette and brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had
+worked that first day--with no thought for anything save for his picture.
+
+In the mornings, he walked with Conrad Lagrange or, sometimes, worked with
+Sibyl in the garden. Often, in the evening, the two men would visit the
+little house next door. Occasionally, the girl and the woman with the
+disfigured face would come to sit for a while on the front porch with
+their friends. Thus the neighborly friendship that began in the hills was
+continued in the orange groves. The comradeship between the two young
+people grew stronger, hour by hour, as the painter worked at his easel to
+express with canvas and color and brush the spirit of the girl whose
+character and life was so unmarred by the world.
+
+A11 through those days, when he was so absorbed in his work that he often
+failed to reply when she spoke to him, the girl manifested a helpful
+understanding of his mood that caused the painter to marvel. She seemed to
+know, instinctively, when he was baffled or perplexed by the annoying
+devils of "can't-get-at-it," that so delight to torment artist folk; just
+as she knew and rejoiced when the imps were routed and the soul of the man
+exulted with the sureness and freedom of his hand. He asked her, once,
+when they had finished for the day, how it was that she knew so well how
+the work was progressing, when she could not see the picture.
+
+She laughed merrily. "But I can see _you_; and I"--she hesitated with that
+trick, that he was learning to know so well, of searching for a word--"I
+just _feel_ what you are feeling. I suppose it's because my music is that
+way. Sometimes, it simply won't come right, at all, and I feel as though I
+never _could_ do it. Then, again, it seems to do itself; and I listen and
+wonder--just as if I had nothing to do with it."
+
+So that day came when the artist, drawing slowly back from his easel,
+stood so long gazing at his picture without touching it that the girl
+called to him, "What's the matter? Won't it come right?"
+
+Slowly he laid aside his palette and brushes. Standing at the open window,
+he looked at her--smiling but silent--as she held the pose.
+
+For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I not right?" she asked
+anxiously. Then, before he could answer--"Oh, have you finished? Is it all
+done?"
+
+Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have done all that I can do.
+Come."
+
+A moment later, she stood in the studio door.
+
+Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."
+
+"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.
+
+He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."
+
+"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."
+
+The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned
+curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have
+never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or
+condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be
+so modern."
+
+"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your
+work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just
+as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"
+
+"Why, that's the reason. I--I'm afraid to see myself as you see me."
+
+The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he answered seriously, "Miss
+Andrés, you, of all the people I have ever known, have the least cause to
+fear to look at your portrait for _that_ reason. Come."
+
+Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side before the picture.
+
+For some time, she looked at the beautiful work into which Aaron King had
+put the best of himself and of his genius. At last, turning full upon him,
+her eyes blue and shining, she said in a low tone, "O Mr. King, it is
+too--too--beautiful! It is so beautiful it--it--hurts. She seems to,
+to"--she searched for the word--"to belong to the roses, doesn't she? It
+makes you feel just as the rose garden makes you feel."
+
+He laughed with pleasure, "What a child of nature you are! You have
+forgotten that it is a portrait of yourself, haven't you?"
+
+She laughed with him. "I _had_ forgotten. It's so lovely!" Then she added
+wistfully, "Am I--am I really like that?--just a little?"
+
+"No," he answered. "But that is just a little, a very little, like you."
+
+She looked at him half doubtfully--sincerely unmindful of the compliment,
+in her consideration of its truth. Shaking her head, with a serious smile,
+she returned slowly, "I wish that I could be sure you are not mistaken."
+
+"You will permit me to exhibit the picture, will you?" he asked.
+
+"Why, yes! of course! You made it for people to see, didn't you? I don't
+believe any one could look at it seriously without having good thoughts,
+could they?"
+
+"I'm sure they could not," he answered. "But, you see, it's a portrait of
+you; and I thought you might not care for the--ah--" he finished with a
+smile--"shall I say fame?"
+
+"Oh! I did not think that you would tell any one that _I_ had anything to
+do with it. Is it necessary that my name should be mentioned?"
+
+"Not exactly necessary"--he admitted--"but few women, these days, would
+miss the opportunity."
+
+She shook her head, with a positive air. "No, no; you must exhibit it as a
+picture; not as a portrait of me. The portrait part is of no importance.
+It is what you have made your picture say, that will do good."
+
+"And what have I made it say?" he asked, curiously pleased.
+
+"Why it says that--that a woman should be beautiful as the roses are
+beautiful--without thinking too much about it, you know--just as a man
+should be strong without thinking too much about his strength, I mean."
+
+"Yes," he agreed, "it says that. But I want you to know that, whatever
+title it is exhibited under, it will always be, to me, a portrait--the
+truest I have ever painted."
+
+She flushed with genuine pleasure as she said brightly, "I like you for
+that. And now let's try it on Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard. You get
+him, and I'll run and bring her. Mind you don't let Mr. Lagrange in until
+I get back! I want to watch him when he first sees it."
+
+When the artist found Conrad Lagrange and told him that the picture was
+finished, the novelist, without comment, turned his attention to Czar.
+
+The painter, with an amused smile, asked, "Won't you come for a look at
+it, old man?"
+
+The other returned gruffly, "Thanks; but I don't think I care to risk it."
+
+The artist laughed. "But Miss Andrés wants you to come. She sent me to
+fetch you."
+
+Conrad Lagrange turned his peculiar, baffling eyes upon the young man.
+"Does _she_ like it?"
+
+"She seems to."
+
+"If she _seems_ to, she does," retorted the other, rising. "And that's
+different."
+
+When the novelist, with his three friends, stood before the easel, he was
+silent for so long that the girl said anxiously, "I--I thought you would
+like it, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+They saw the strange man's eyes fill with tears as he answered, in the
+gentle tones that always marked his words to her, "Like it? My dear child,
+how could I help liking it? It is you--you!" To the artist, he added, "It
+is great work, my boy, great! I--I wish your mother could have seen it. It
+is like her--as I knew her. You have done well." He turned, with gentle
+courtesy, to Myra Willard; "And you? What is your verdict, Miss Willard?"
+
+With her arm around the beautiful original of the portrait, the woman with
+the disfigured face answered, "I think, sir, that I, better than any one
+in all the world, know how good, how true, it is."
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke again to the artist, inquiringly; "You will exhibit
+it?"
+
+"Miss Andrés says that I may--but not as a portrait."
+
+The novelist could not conceal his pleasure at the answer. Presently, he
+said, "If it is not to be shown as a portrait, may I suggest a title?"
+
+"I was hoping you would!" exclaimed the painter.
+
+"And so was I," cried Sibyl, with delight. "What is it, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"Let it be exhibited as 'The Spirit of Nature--A Portrait'," answered
+Conrad Lagrange.
+
+As the novelist finished speaking, Yee Kee appeared in the doorway. "They
+come--big automobile. Whole lot people. Misse Taine, Miste' Lutlidge, sick
+man, whole lot--I come tell you."
+
+The artist spoke quickly,--"Stop them in the house, Kee; I'll be right
+in,"--and the Chinaman vanished.
+
+At Yee Kee's announcement, Myra Willard's face went white, and she gave a
+low cry.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said the girl, soothingly. "We can slip away through
+the garden--come."
+
+When Sibyl and the woman with the disfigured face were gone, Conrad
+Lagrange and Aaron King looked at each other, questioningly.
+
+Then the novelist said harshly,--pointing to the picture on the
+easel,--"You're not going to let that flock of buzzards feed on this, are
+you? I'll murder some one, sure as hell, if you do."
+
+"I don't think I could stand it, myself," said the artist, laughing
+grimly, as he drew the velvet curtain to hide the portrait.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+The Answer
+
+
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange entered the house to meet their
+callers from Fairlands Heights, the artist felt, oddly, that he was
+meeting a company of strangers.
+
+The carefully hidden, yet--to him--subtly revealed, warmth of Mrs. Taine's
+greeting embarrassed him with a momentary sense of shame. The frothing
+gush of Louise's inane ejaculations, and the coughing, choking, cursing of
+Mr. Taine,--whose feeble grip upon the flesh that had so betrayed him was,
+by now, so far loosed that he could scarcely walk alone,--set the painter
+struggling for words that would mean nothing--the only words that, under
+the circumstances, could serve. Aaron King was somewhat out of practise in
+the use of meaningless words, and the art of talking without saying
+anything is an art that requires constant exercise if one would not commit
+serious technical blunders. James Rutlidge's greeting was insolently
+familiar; as a man of certain mind greets--in public--a boon companion of
+his private and unmentionable adventures. Toward the great critic, the
+painter exercised a cool self-restraint that was at least commendable.
+
+While Aaron King, with James Rutlidge and Mr. Taine, with carefully
+assumed interest, was listening to Louise's effort to make a jumble of
+"ohs" and "ahs" and artistic sighs sound like a description of a sunset in
+the mountains, Mrs. Taine said quietly to Conrad Lagrange, "You certainly
+have taken excellent care of your protege, this summer. He looks
+splendidly fit."
+
+The novelist, watching the woman whose eyes, as she spoke, were upon the
+artist, answered, "You are pleased to flatter me, Mrs. Taine."
+
+She turned to him, with a knowing smile. "Perhaps I _am_ giving you more
+credit than is due. I understand Mr. King has not been in your care
+altogether. Shame on you, Mr. Lagrange! for a man of your age and
+experience to permit your charge to roam all over the country, alone and
+unprotected, with a picturesque mountain girl!--and that, after your
+warning to poor me!"
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled grimly. "I confess I thought of you in that
+connection several times."
+
+She eyed him doubtfully. "Oh, well," she said easily, "I suppose artists
+must amuse themselves, occasionally--the same as the rest of us."
+
+"I don't think that, '_amuse_' is exactly the word, Mrs. Taine," the other
+returned coldly.
+
+"No? Surely you don't meant to tell me that it is anything serious?"
+
+"I don't mean to tell you anything about it," he retorted rather sharply.
+
+She laughed. "You don't need to. Jim has already told me quite enough. Mr.
+King, himself, will tell me more."
+
+"Not unless he's a bigger fool than I think," growled the novelist.
+
+Again, she laughed into his face, mockingly. "You men are all more or less
+foolish when there's a woman in the case, aren't you?"
+
+To which, the other answered tartly, "If we were not, there would be no
+woman in the case."
+
+As Conrad Lagrange spoke, Louise, exhausted by her efforts to achieve that
+sunset in the mountains with her limited supply of adjectives, floundered
+hopelessly into the expressive silence of clasped hands and heaving breast
+and ecstatically upturned eyes. The artist, seizing the opportunity with
+the cunning of desperation, turned to Mrs. Taine, with some inane remark
+about the summers in California.
+
+Whatever it was that he said, Mrs. Taine agreed with him, heartily,
+adding, "And you, I suppose, have been making good use of your time? Or
+have you been simply storing up material and energy for this winter?"
+
+This brought Louise out of the depths of that sunset, with a flop. She was
+so sure that Mr. King had some inexpressibly wonderful work to show them.
+Couldn't they go at once to the equally inexpressibly beautiful studio, to
+see the inexpressibly lovely pictures that she was so inexpressibly sure
+he had been painting in the inexpressibly grand and beautiful and
+wonderfully lovely mountains?
+
+The painter assured them that he had no work for them to see; and Louise
+floundered again into the depths of inexpressible disappointment and
+despair.
+
+Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Aaron King found himself in his
+studio, alone with Mrs. Taine. He could not have told exactly how she
+managed it, or why. Perhaps, in sheer pity, she had rescued him from the
+floods of Louise's appreciation. Perhaps--she had some other reasons.
+There had been something said about her right to see her own picture, and
+then--there they were--with the others safely barred from intruding upon
+the premises sacred to art.
+
+When there was no longer need to fear the eyes of the world, Mrs. Taine
+was at no pains to hide the warmth of her feeling. With little reserve,
+she confessed herself in every look and tone and movement.
+
+"Are you really glad to see me, I wonder," she said invitingly. "All this
+summer, while I have been forced to endure the company of all sorts of
+stupid people, I have been thinking of you and your work. And, you see, I
+have come to you, the first possible moment after my return home."
+
+The man--being a man--could not remain wholly insensible to the alluring
+physical beauty of the splendid creature who stood so temptingly before
+him; but, to the honor of his kind, he could and did remain master of
+himself.
+
+The woman, true to her life training,--as James Rutlidge had been true to
+his schooling when he approached Sibyl Andrés in the mountains,--construed
+the artist's manner, not as a splendid self-control but as a careful
+policy. To her, and to her kind, the great issues of life are governed,
+not at all by principle, but by policy. It is not at all what one is, or
+what one may accomplish that matters; it is wholly what one may skillfully
+_appear_ to be, and what one may skillfully provoke the world to say,
+that is of vital importance. Turning from the painter to the easel, as if
+to find in his portrait of her the fuller expression of that which she
+believed he dared not yet put into words, she was about to draw aside the
+curtain; when Aaron King checked her quickly, with a smile that robbed his
+words of any rudeness.
+
+"Please don't touch that, Mrs. Taine. I am not yet ready to show it."
+
+As she turned from the easel to face him, he took her portrait from where
+it rested, face to the wall; and placed it upon another easel, saying,
+"Here is your picture."
+
+With the painting before her, she talked eagerly of her plans for the
+artist's future; how the picture was to be exhibited, and how, because it
+was her portrait, it would be praised and talked about by her friends who
+were leaders in the art circles. Frankly, she spoke of "pull" and
+"influence" and "scheme"; of "working" this and that "paper" for
+"write-ups"; of "handling" this or that "critic" and "writer"; of
+"reaching the committees"; of introducing the painter into the proper
+inside cliques, and clans; and of clever "advertising stunts" that would
+make him the most popular portrait painter of his day; insuring thus
+his--as she called it--fame.
+
+The man who had painted the picture of the spring glade, and who had so
+faithfully portrayed the truth and beauty of Sibyl Andrés as she stood
+among the roses, listened to this woman's plans for making his portrait of
+herself famous, with a feeling of embarrassment and shame.
+
+"Do you really think that the work merits such prominence as you say will
+be given it?" he asked doubtfully.
+
+She laughed knowingly, "Just wait until Jim Rutlidge's 'write-up' appears,
+and all the others follow his lead, and you'll see! The picture is clever
+enough--you know it as well as I. It is beautiful. It has everything that
+we women want in a portrait. I really don't know much about what you
+painters call art; but I know that when Jim and our friends get through
+with it, your picture will have every mark of a great masterpiece, and
+that you will be on the topmost wave of success."
+
+"And then what?" he asked.
+
+Again, she interpreted his words in the light of her own thoughts, and
+with little attempt to veil the fire that burned in her eyes, answered,
+"And then--I hope that you will not forget me."
+
+For a moment he returned her look; then a feeling of disgust and shame for
+her swept over him, and he again turned away, to stand gazing moodily out
+of the window that looked into the rose garden.
+
+"You seem to be disturbed and worried," she said, in a tone that implied a
+complete understanding of his mood, and a tacit acceptance of the things
+that he would say if it were not for the world.
+
+He laughed shortly--"I fear you will think me ungrateful for your
+kindness. Believe me, I am not."
+
+"I know you are not," she returned. "But don't think that you had better
+confess, just the same?"
+
+He answered wonderingly, "Confess?"
+
+"Yes." She shook her finger at him, in playful severity. "Oh, I know what
+you have been up to all summer--running wild with your mountain girl!
+Really, you ought to be more discreet."
+
+Aaron King's face burned as he stammered something about not knowing what
+she meant.
+
+She laughed gaily. "There, there, never mind--I forgive you--now that you
+are safely back in civilization again. I know you artists, and how you
+must have your periods of ah--relaxation--with rather more liberties than
+the common herd. Just so you are careful that the world doesn't know _too_
+much."
+
+At this frank revelation of her mind, the man stood amazed. For the
+construction she put upon his relation with the girl whose pure and gentle
+comradeship had led him to greater heights in his art than he had ever
+before attained, he could have driven this woman from the studio he felt
+that she profaned. But what could he say? He remembered Conrad Lagrange's
+counsel when James Rutlidge had seen the girl at their camp. What could he
+say that would not injure Sibyl Andrés? To cover his embarrassment, he
+forced a laugh and answered lightly, "Really, I am not good at
+confessions."
+
+"Nor I at playing the part of confessor," she laughed with him. "But, just
+the same, you might tell me what you think of yourself. Aren't you just a
+little ashamed?"
+
+The artist had moved to a position in front of her portrait; and, as he
+looked upon the painted lie, his answer came. "Rather let me tell you what
+I think of _you_, Mrs. Taine. And let me tell you in the language I know
+best. Let me put my answer to your charges here," he touched her portrait.
+
+Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange, himself.
+
+"I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put out by the turn his
+answer had taken.
+
+"I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to repaint your portrait. You
+remember, I wrote, when I returned Mr. Taine's generous check, that I was
+not altogether satisfied with it. Give me another chance."
+
+"You mean for me to come here again, to pose for you?--as I did before?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "just as you did before. I want to make a portrait
+worthy of you, as this is not. Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I
+cannot--" he hesitated then said deliberately--"what I _dare_ not put into
+words."
+
+The woman received his words as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared
+not, yet, openly express. She thought his request a clever ruse to renew
+their meetings in the privacy of his studio, and was, accordingly
+delighted.
+
+"Oh, that will be wonderful!--heavenly!" she cried, springing to her feet.
+"Can we begin at once? May I come to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "come to-morrow."
+
+"And may I wear the Quaker gown?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! I want you just as you were before--the same dress, the same
+pose. It is to be the same picture, you understand, only a better one--one
+more worthy of us, both. And now," he continued hurriedly "don't you
+think that we should return to the house?"
+
+"I suppose so," she answered regretfully--lingering.
+
+The artist was already opening the door.
+
+As they passed out, she placed her hand on his arm, and looked up into his
+face admiringly. "What a clever, clever man you are, to think of it! And
+what a story it will make for the papers--when my picture is shown--how
+you were not satisfied with the portrait and refused to let it go--and
+how, after keeping it in your studio for months, you repainted it, to
+satisfy your artistic conscience!"
+
+Aaron King smiled.
+
+The announcement in the house that the artist was to repaint Mrs. Taine's
+picture, provoked characteristic comment. Louise effervesced a frothy
+stream of bubbling exclamations. James Rutlidge gave a hearty, "By Jove,
+old man, you have nerve! If you can really improve on that canvas, you are
+a wonder." And Mr. Taine, under the watchful eye of his beautiful wife,
+responded with a husky whisper, "Quite right--my boy--quite right!
+Certainly--by all means--if you feel that way about it--" his consent and
+approval ending in a paroxysm of coughing that left him weak and
+breathless, and nearly eliminated him from the question, altogether.
+
+When the Fairlands Heights party had departed, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down.
+
+"Well,"--he growled harshly, in his most brutal tones,--"what is it? Is
+the dog returning to his vomit?--or is the prodigal turning his back on
+his hogs and his husks?"
+
+Aaron King smiled as he answered, "I think, rather, it's the case of the
+blind beggar who sat by the roadside, helpless, until a certain Great
+Physician passed that way."
+
+And Conrad Lagrange understood.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+You're Ruined, My Boy
+
+
+
+It was no light task to which Aaron King had set his hand. He did not
+doubt what it would cost him. Nor did Conrad Lagrange, as they talked
+together that evening, fail to point out clearly what it would mean to the
+artist, at the very beginning of his career, to fly thus rudely in the
+face of the providence that had chosen to serve him. The world's history
+of art and letters affords too many examples of men who, because they
+refused to pay court to the ruling cliques and circles of their little
+day, had seen the doors of recognition slammed in their faces; and who,
+even as they wrought their great works, had been forced to hear, as they
+toiled, the discordant yelpings of the self-appointed watchdogs of the
+halls of fame. Nor did the artist question the final outcome,--if only his
+work should be found worthy to endure,--for the world's history
+establishes, also, the truth--that he who labors for a higher wage than an
+approving paragraph in the daily paper, may, in spite of the condemnation
+of the pretending rulers, live in the life of his race, long after the
+names to which he refused to bow are lost in the dust of their self-raised
+thrones.
+
+The painter was driven to his course by that self-respect, without which,
+no man can sanely endure his own company; together with that reverence--I
+say it deliberately--that reverence for his art, without which, no worthy
+work is possible. He had come to understand that one may not prostitute
+his genius to the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reaping a
+prostitute's reward. The hideous ruin that Mr. Taine had, in himself,
+wrought by the criminal dissipation of his manhood's strength, and by the
+debasing of his physical appetites and passions, was to Aaron King, now, a
+token of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral ruin that alone can result
+from a debased and depraved dissipation of an artist's creative power. He
+saw clearly, now, that the influence his work must wield upon the lives of
+those who came within its reach, must be identical with the influence of
+Sibyl Andrés, who had so unconsciously opened his eyes to the true mission
+and glory of the arts, and thus had made his decision possible. In that
+hour when Mrs. Taine had revealed herself to him so clearly, following as
+it did so closely his days of work and the final completion of his
+portrait of the girl among the roses, he saw and felt the woman, not as
+one who could help him to the poor rewards of a temporary popularity, but
+as the spirit of an age that threatens the very life of art by seeking to
+destroy the vital truth and purpose of its existence. He felt that in
+painting the portrait of Mrs. Taine--as he had painted it--he had betrayed
+a trust; as truly as had his father who, for purely personal
+aggrandizement, had stolen the material wealth intrusted to him by his
+fellows. The young man understood, now, that, instead of fulfilling the
+purpose of his mother's sacrifice, and realizing for her her dying wish,
+as he had promised; the course he had entered upon would have thwarted the
+one and denied the other.
+
+The young man had answered the novelist truly, that it was a case of the
+blind beggar by the wayside. He might have carried the figure farther; for
+that same blind beggar, when his eyes had been opened, was persecuted by
+the very ones who had fed him in his infirmity. It is easier, sometimes,
+to receive blindly, than to give with eyes that see too clearly.
+
+When Mrs. Taine went to the artist, in the studio, the next day, she found
+him in the act of re-tying the package of his mother's letters. For nearly
+an hour, he had been reading them. For nearly an hour before that, he had
+been seated, motionless, before the picture that Conrad Lagrange had said
+was a portrait of the Spirit of Nature.
+
+When Mrs. Taine had slipped off her wrap, and stood before him gowned in
+the dress that so revealed the fleshly charms it pretended to hide, she
+indicated the letters in the artist's hands, with an insinuating laugh;
+while there was a glint of more than passing curiosity in her eyes. "Dear
+me," she said, "I hope I am not intruding upon the claims of some absent
+affinity."
+
+Aaron King gravely held out his hand with the package of letters, saying
+quietly, "They are from my mother."
+
+And the woman had sufficient grace to blush, for once, with unfeigned
+shame.
+
+When he had received her apologies, and, putting aside the letters, had
+succeeded in making her forget the incident, he said, "And now, if you are
+ready, shall we begin?"
+
+For some time the painter stood before the picture on his easel, without
+touching palette or brush, studying the face of the woman who posed for
+him. By a slight movement of her eyes, without turning her head, she could
+look him fairly in the face. Presently as he continued to gaze at her so
+intently, she laughed; and, with a little shrug of her shoulders and a
+pretense as of being cold, said, "When you look at me that way, I feel as
+though you had surprised me at my bath."
+
+The artist turned his attention instantly to his color-box. While setting
+his palette, with his eyes upon his task, he said deliberately, "'Venus
+Surprised at the Bath.' Do you know that you would make a lovely Venus?"
+
+With a low laugh, she returned, daringly. "Would you care to paint me as
+the Goddess of Love?"
+
+He, still, did not look at her; but answered, while, with deliberate care,
+he selected a few brushes from the Chinese jar near the easel, "Venus is
+always a very popular subject, you know."
+
+She did not speak for a moment or two; and the painter felt her watching
+him. As he turned to his canvas--still careful not to look in her
+direction--she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change the face so
+that no one would know it was I who posed."
+
+The man remembered her carefully acquired reputation for modesty, but held
+to his purpose, saying, as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as
+for that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." Then, suddenly,
+he turned his eyes upon her face, with a gaze so sharp and piercing that
+the blood slowly colored neck and cheek.
+
+But the painter did not wait for the blush. He had seen what he wanted and
+was at work--with the almost savage intensity that had marked his manner
+while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl Andrés.
+
+And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the portrait of the woman who
+Conrad Lagrange fancifully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to
+betray her real self--the self that was so commonly hidden from the world,
+under the mask of a pretended culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent
+refinement. He led her to talk of the world in which she lived--of the
+scandals and intrigues among those of her class who hold such enviable
+positions in life. He drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and
+religions of her kind. He encouraged her to talk of art--to give her
+understanding of the world of artists as she knew it, and to express her
+real opinions and tastes in pictures and books. He persuaded her to throw
+boldly aside the glittering, tinsel garb in which she walked before the
+world, and so to stand before him in all the hideous vulgarity, the
+intellectual poverty and the moral depravity of her naked self.
+
+At times, when, under his intense gaze, she drew the cloak of her
+pretenses hurriedly about her, he sat before his picture without touching
+the canvas, waiting; or, perhaps, he paced the floor; until, with
+skillful words, her fears were banished and she was again herself. Then,
+with quick eye and sure, ready hand, he wrought into the portrait upon the
+easel--so far as the power was given him--all that he saw in the face of
+the woman who--posing for him, secure in the belief that he was painting a
+lie--revealed her true nature, warped and distorted as it was by an age
+that, demanding realism in art, knows not what it demands. Always, when
+the sitting was finished, he drew the curtain to hide the picture;
+forbidding her to look at it until he said that it was finished.
+
+Much of the time, when he was not in the studio at work, the painter spent
+with Mrs. Taine and her friends, in the big touring car, and at the house
+on Fairlands Heights. But the artist did not, now, enter into the life of
+Fairlands' Pride for gain or for pleasure--he went for study--as a
+physician goes into the dissecting room. He justified himself by the old
+and familiar argument that it was for his art's sake.
+
+Sibyl Andrés, he seldom saw, except occasionally, in the early morning, in
+the rose garden. The girl knew what he was doing--that is, she knew that
+he was painting a portrait of Mrs. Taine--and so, with Myra Willard,
+avoided the place. But Conrad Lagrange now, made the neighboring house in
+the orange grove his place of refuge from Louise Taine, who always
+accompanied Mrs. Taine,--lest the world should talk,--but who never went
+as far as the studio.
+
+But often, as he worked, the artist heard the music of the mountain girl's
+violin; and he knew that she, in her own beautiful way, was trying to help
+him--as she would have said--to put the mountains into his work. Many
+times, he was conscious of the feeling that some one was watching him.
+Once, pausing at the garden end of the studio as he paced to and fro, he
+caught a glimpse of her as she slipped through the gate in the Ragged
+Robin hedge. And once, in the morning, after one of those afternoons when
+he had gone away with Mrs. Taine at the conclusion of the sitting, he
+found a note pinned to the velvet curtain that hid the canvas on his
+working easel. It was a quaint little missive; written in one of the
+girl's fanciful moods, with a reference to "Blue Beard," and the assurance
+that she had been strong and had not looked at the forbidden picture.
+
+As the work progressed, Mrs. Taine remarked, often, how the artist was
+changed. When painting that first picture, he had been so sure of himself.
+Working with careless ease, he had been suave and pleasant in his manner,
+with ready smile or laugh. Why, she questioned, was he, now, so grave and
+serious? Why did he pause so often, to sit staring at his canvas, or to
+pace the floor? Why did he seem to be so uncertain--to be questioning,
+searching, hesitating? The woman thought that she knew. Rejoicing in her
+fancied victory--all but won--she looked forward to the triumphant moment
+when this splendid man should be swept from his feet by the force of the
+passion she thought she saw him struggling to conceal. Meanwhile she
+tempted him by all the wiles she knew--inviting him with eyes and lips and
+graceful pose and meaning gesture.
+
+And Aaron King, with clear, untroubled eye seeing all; with cool brain
+understanding all; with steady, skillful hand, ruled supremely by his
+purpose, painted that which he saw and understood into his portrait of
+her.
+
+So they came to the last sitting. On the following evening, Mrs. Taine was
+giving a dinner at the house on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was
+to meet some people who would be--as she said--useful to him. Eastern
+people they were; from the accredited center of art and literature;
+members of the inner circle of the elect. They happened to be spending the
+season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to
+advance the painter's interests. It was very fortunate that her portrait
+was to be finished in time for them to see it.
+
+The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would not be necessary for
+her to come to the studio again, the picture was not yet finished, and he
+could not permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign the
+canvas.
+
+"But I may see it?" she asked, as he laid aside his palette and brushes,
+and announced that he was through.
+
+With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Not yet; please--not until I am
+ready."
+
+"Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting to one whose wish is
+law, "How mean of you! I know it is splendid! Are you satisfied? Is it
+better than the other? Is it like me?"
+
+"I am sure that it is much better than the other," he replied. "It is as
+like you as I can make it."
+
+"And is it as beautiful as the other?"
+
+"It is beautiful--as you are beautiful," he answered.
+
+"I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night--even if I haven't seen
+it. And so will Jim Rutlidge."
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange spent that evening at the little house next
+door. The next morning, the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch
+time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, the novelist went,
+again, to knock at the door.
+
+The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, "Come in, old man,
+come in and help me celebrate."
+
+Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, pale and worn, before his
+picture--his palette and brushes still in his hand.
+
+And such a picture!
+
+A moment, the novelist who knew--as few men know--the world that was
+revealed with such fidelity in that face upon the canvas, looked; then,
+with weird and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired artist and
+whirled him around the studio, in a triumphant dance.
+
+"You've done it! man--you've done it! It's all there; every rotten,
+stinking shred of it! Wow! but it's good--so damned good that it's almost
+inhuman. I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all the time--if
+only you could come alive. God, man! if _that_ could only be exhibited
+alongside the other! Look here!"
+
+He dragged the easel that held Sibyl Andrés' portrait to a place beside
+the one upon which the canvas just finished rested, and drew back the
+curtain. The effect was startling.
+
+"'The Spirit of Nature' and 'The Spirit of the Age'," said Conrad
+Lagrange, in a low tone.
+
+"But you're ruined, my boy," he added gleefully. "You're ruined. These
+canvases will never be exhibited Her own, she'll smash when she sees it;
+and you'll be artistically damned by the very gods she has invoked to
+bless you with fame and wealth. Lord, but I envy you! You have your chance
+now--a real chance to be worthy your mother's sacrifice.
+
+"Come on, let's get ready for the feast."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX
+
+The Hand Writing on the Wall
+
+
+
+It was November. Nearly a year had passed since that day when the young
+man on the Golden State Limited--with the inheritance he had received from
+his mother's dying lips, and with his solemn promise to her still fresh in
+his mind--looked into the eyes of the woman on the platform of the
+observation car. That same day, too, he first saw the woman with the
+disfigured face, and, for the first time, met the famous Conrad Lagrange.
+
+Aaron King was thinking of these things as he set out, that evening, with
+his friend, for the home of Mrs. Taine. He remarked to the novelist that
+the time seemed, to him, many years.
+
+"To me, Aaron," answered the strange man, "it has been the happiest
+and--if you would not misunderstand me--the most satisfying year of my
+life. And this"--he added, his deep voice betraying his emotion--"this has
+been the happiest day of the year. It is your independence day. I shall
+always celebrate it as such--I--I have no independence day of my own to
+celebrate, you know."
+
+Aaron King did not misunderstand.
+
+As the two men approached the big house on Fairlands Heights, they saw
+that modern palace, from concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze
+with many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the socially graded
+levels of Fairlands, it outshone them all; and, quite likely, the
+glittering display was mistaken by many dwellers in the valley below for a
+new constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, too, some lonely
+dweller, high up among the distant mountain peaks, looked down upon the
+sparkling bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the wide lap of
+the night, and smiled in quiet amusement that the earth children should
+attach such value to so fragile a toy.
+
+As they passed the massive, stone pillars of the entrance to the grounds,
+Conrad Lagrange said, "Really, Aaron, don't you feel a little ashamed of
+yourself?--coming here to-night, after the outrageous return you have made
+for the generous hospitality of these people? You know that if Mrs. Taine
+had seen what you have done to her portrait, you could force the pearly
+gates easier than you could break in here."
+
+The artist laughed. "To tell the truth, I don't feel exactly at home. But
+what the deuce can I do? After my intimacy with them, all these months, I
+can't assume that they are going to make my picture a reason for refusing
+to recognize me, can I? As I see it, they, not I, must take the
+initiative. I can't say: 'Well, I've told the truth about you, so throw me
+out'."
+
+The novelist grinned. "Thus it is when 'Art' becomes entangled with the
+family of 'Materialism.' It's hard to break away from the flesh-pots--even
+when you know you are on the road to the Promised Land. But don't
+worry--'The Age' will take the initiative fast enough when she sees your
+portrait of her. Wow! In the meantime, let's play their game to-night, and
+take what spoils the gods may send. There will be material here for
+pictures and stories a plenty." As they went up the wide steps and under
+the portal into the glare of the lights, and caught the sound of the
+voices within, he added under his breath, "Lord, man, but 'tis a pretty
+show!--if only things were called by their right names. That old
+Babylonian, Belshazzar, had nothing on us moderns after all, did he? Watch
+out for the writing upon the wall."
+
+When Aaron King and his companion entered the spacious rooms where the
+pride of Fairlands Heights and the eastern lions were assembled, a buzz of
+comment went round the glittering company. Aside from the fact that Mrs.
+Taine, with practised skill, had prepared the way for her protege, by
+subtly stimulating the curiosity of her guests--the appearance of the two
+men, alone, would have attracted their attention The artist, with his
+strong, splendidly proportioned, athletic body, and his handsome,
+clean-cut intellectual face--calmly sure of himself--with the air of one
+who knows that his veins are rich with the wealth of many generations of
+true culture and refinement; and the novelist--easily the most famous of
+his day--tall, emaciated, grotesquely stooped--with his homely face seamed
+and lined, world-worn and old, and his sharp eyes peering from under his
+craggy brows with that analyzing, cynical, half-pathetic half-humorous
+expression--certainly presented a contrast too striking to escape notice.
+
+For an instant, as comrades side by side upon a battle-field might do,
+they glanced over the scene. To the painter's eye, the assembled guests
+appeared as a glittering, shimmering, scintillating, cloud-like mass that,
+never still, stirred within itself, in slow, graceful restless
+motions--forming always, without purpose new combinations and groupings
+that were broken up, even as they were shaped, to be reformed; with the
+black spots and splashes of the men's conventional dress ever changing
+amid the brighter colors and textures of the women's gowns; the warm flesh
+tints of bare white arms and shoulders, gleaming here and there; and the
+flash and sparkle of jewels, threading the sheen of silks and the filmy
+softness of laces. Into the artist's mind--fresh from the tragic
+earnestness of his day's work, and still under the enduring spell of his
+weeks in the mountains--flashed a sentence from a good old book; "For what
+is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
+then vanisheth away."
+
+Then they were greeting, with conventional nothings their beautiful
+hostess; who, with a charming air of triumphant--but not too
+triumphant--proprietorship received them and passed them on, with a low
+spoken word to Aaron King; "I will take charge of you later."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, before they drifted apart, found opportunity to growl in
+his companion's ear; "A near-great musician--an actress of divorce court
+fame--an art critic, boon companion of our friend Rutlidge--two free-lance
+yellow journalists--a poet--with leading culture-club women of various
+brands, and a mob of mere fashion and wealth. The pickings should be
+good. Look at 'Materialism', over there."
+
+In a wheeled chair, attended by a servant in livery, a little apart from
+the center of the scene,--as though the pageant of life was about to move
+on without him,--but still, with desperate grip, holding his place in the
+picture, sat the genius of it all--the millionaire. The creature's wasted,
+skeleton-like limbs, were clothed grotesquely in conventional evening
+dress. His haggard, bestial face--repulsive with every mark of his wicked,
+licentious years--grinned with an insane determination to take the place
+that was his by right of his money bags; while his glazed and sunken eyes
+shone with fitful gleams, as he rallied the last of his vital forces, with
+a devilish defiance of the end that was so inevitably near.
+
+As Aaron King, in the splendid strength of his inheritance, went to pay
+his respects to the master of the house, that poor product of our age was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing, that shook him--gasping and
+choking--almost into unconsciousness. The ready attendant held out a glass
+of whisky, and he clutched the goblet with skinny hands that, in their
+trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the
+momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his
+yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered
+upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony,
+talon-like finger, the gleaming flash of a magnificent diamond.
+
+Mr. Taine greeted the artist with his husky whisper "Hello, old chap--glad
+to see you!" Peering into the laughing, chattering, glittering, throng he
+added, "Some beauties here to-night, heh? Gad! my boy, but I've seen the
+day I'd be out there among them! Ha, ha! Mrs. Taine, Louise, and Jim tried
+to shelve me--but I fooled 'em. Damn me, but I'm game for a good time yet!
+A little off my feed, and under the weather; but game, you understand,
+game as hell!" Then to the attendant--"Where's that whisky?" And, again,
+his yellow, claw-like hand--with that beautiful diamond, a gleaming point
+of pure, white light--lifted the glass to his grinning lips.
+
+When Mrs. Taine appeared to claim the artist, her husband--huddled in his
+chair, an unclean heap of all but decaying flesh--watched them go, with
+hidden, impotent rage.
+
+A few moments later, as Mrs. Taine and her charge were leaving one group
+of celebrities in search of another they encountered Conrad Lagrange.
+"What's this I see?" gibed the novelist, mockingly. "Is it 'Art being led
+by Beauty to the Judges and Executioners'? or, is it 'Beauty presenting an
+Artist to the Gods of Modern Art'?"
+
+"You had better be helping a good cause instead of making fun, Mr.
+Lagrange," the woman retorted. "You weren't always so famous yourself that
+you could afford to be indifferent, you know."
+
+Aaron King laughed as his friend replied, "Never fear, madam, never
+fear--I shall be on hand to assist at the obsequies."
+
+In the shifting of the groups and figures, when dinner was announced, the
+young man found himself, again, within reach of Conrad Lagrange; and the
+novelist whispered, with a grin, "Now for the flesh-pots in earnest. You
+will be really out of place in the next act, Aaron. Only we artists who
+have sold our souls have a right to the price of our shame. _You_ should
+dine upon a crust, you know. A genius without his crust, huh! A devil
+without his tail, or an ass without his long ears!"
+
+Most conspicuous in the brilliant throng assembled in that banquet hall,
+was the horrid figure of Mr. Taine who sat in his wheeled chair at the
+head of the table; his liveried attendant by his side. Frequently--as
+though compelled--eyes were turned toward that master of the feast, who
+was, himself, so far past feasting; and toward his beautiful young
+wife--the only woman in the room, whose shoulders and arms were not bare.
+
+At first, the talk moved somewhat heavily. Neighbor chattered nothings to
+neighbor in low tones. It was as though the foreboding presence of some
+grim, unbidden guest overshadowed the spirits of the company But gradually
+the scene became more animated The glitter of silver and crystal on the
+board; the sparkle of jewels and the wealth of shimmering colors that
+costumed the diners; with the strains of music that came from somewhere
+behind a floral screen that filled the air with fragrance; concealed, as
+it were, the hideous image of immorality which was the presiding genius of
+the feast. As the glare of a too bright light blinds the eyes to the ditch
+across one's path, so the brilliancy of their surroundings blinded the
+eyes of his guests to the meaning of that horrid figure in the seat of
+highest honor. But rich foods and rare wines soon loose the tongues that
+chatter the thoughts of those who do not think. As the glasses were filled
+and refilled again, the scene took color from the sparkling goblets.
+Voices were raised to a higher pitch. Shrill or boisterous laughter rang
+out, as jest and story went the rounds. It was Mrs. Taine, now, rather
+than her husband, who dominated the scene. With cheeks flushed and eyes
+bright she set the pace, nor permitted any laggards.
+
+Conrad Lagrange watched, cool and cynical--his worn face twisted into a
+mocking smile; his keen, baffling eyes, from under their scowling brows,
+seeing all, understanding all. Aaron King, weary with the work of the past
+days, endured--wishing it was over.
+
+The evening was well under way when Mrs. Taine held up her hand. In the
+silence, she said, "Listen! I have a real treat for you, to-night,
+friends. Listen!" As she spoke the last word, her eyes met the eyes of the
+artist, in mocking, challenging humor. He was wondering what she meant,
+when,--from behind that screen of flowers,--soft and low, poignantly sweet
+and thrilling in its purity of tone, came the music of the violin that he
+had learned to know so well.
+
+Instantly, the painter understood. Mrs. Taine had employed Sibyl Andrés to
+play for her guests that evening; thinking to tease the artist by
+presenting his mountain comrade in the guise of a hired servant. Why the
+girl had not told him, he did not know. Perhaps she had thought to enjoy
+his surprise. The effect of the girl's presence--or rather of her music,
+for she, herself, could not be seen--upon the artist was quite other than
+Mrs. Taine intended.
+
+Under the spell of the spirit that spoke in the violin, Aaron King was
+carried far from his glittering surroundings. Again, he stood where the
+bright waters of Clear Creek tumbled among the granite boulders, and where
+he had first moved to answer the call of that music of the hills. Again,
+he followed the old wagon road to the cedar thicket; and, in the little,
+grassy opening with its wild roses, its encircling wilderness growth, and
+its old log house under the sheltering sycamores, saw a beautiful girl
+dancing with the unconscious grace of a woodland sprite, her arms upheld
+in greeting to the mountains. Once again, he was painting in the sacred
+quiet of the spring glade where she had come to him with her three gifts;
+where, in maidenly innocence, she had danced the dance of the butterflies;
+and, later, with her music, had lifted their friendship to heights of
+purity as far above the comprehension of the company that listened to her
+now, as the mountain peaks among the stars that night were high above the
+house on Fairlands Heights.
+
+The music ceased. It was followed by the loud clapping of hands--with
+exclamations in high-pitched voices. "Who is it?" "Where did you find
+him?" "What's his name?"--for they judged, from Mrs. Taine's introductory
+words, that she expected them to show their appreciation.
+
+Mrs. Taine laughed, and, with her eyes mockingly upon the artist's face
+answered lightly, "Oh, she is a discovery of mine. She teaches music, and
+plays in one of the Fairlands churches."
+
+"You are a wonder," said one of the illustrious critics, admiringly. And
+lifting his glass, he cried, "Here's to our beautiful and talented
+hostess--the patron saint of all the arts--the friend of all true
+artists."
+
+In the quiet that followed the enthusiastic endorsement of the
+distinguished gentleman's words, another voice said, "If it's a girl,
+can't we see her?" "Yes, yes," came from several. "Please, Mrs. Taine,
+bring her out." "Have her play again." "Will she?"
+
+Mrs. Taine laughed. "Certainly, she will. That's what she's here for--to
+amuse you." And, again, as she spoke, her eyes met the eyes of Aaron King.
+
+At her signal, a servant left the room. A moment later, the mountain girl,
+dressed in simple white, with no jewel or ornament other than a rose in
+her soft, brown hair, stood before that company. Unconscious of the eyes
+that fed upon her loveliness; there was the faintest shadow of a smile
+upon her face as she met, in one swift glance, the artist's look; then,
+raising her violin, she made music for the revelers, at the will of Mrs.
+Taine. As she stood there in the modest naturalness of her winsome
+beauty--innocent and pure as the flowers that formed the screen behind
+her; hired to amuse the worthy friends and guests of that hideously
+repulsive devotee of lust and licentiousness who, from his wheeled chair,
+was glaring at her with eyes that burned insanely--she seemed, as indeed
+she was, a spirit from another world.
+
+James Rutlidge, his heavy features flushed with drink, was gazing at the
+girl with a look that betrayed his sensual passion. The face of Conrad
+Lagrange was dark and grim with scowling appreciation of the situation.
+Mrs. Taine was looking at the artist. And Aaron King, watching his girl
+comrade of the hills as she seemed to listen for the music which she in
+turn drew from the instrument, felt,--by the very force of the contrast
+between her and her surroundings he had never felt before, the power and
+charm of her personality--felt--and knew that Sibyl Andrés had come into
+his life to stay.
+
+In the flood of emotions that swept over him, and in the mental and
+spiritual exultation caused by her music and by her presence amid such
+scenes; it was given the painter to understand that she had, in truth,
+brought to him the strength, the purity, and the beauty of the hills; that
+she had, in truth, shown him the paths that lead to the mountain heights;
+that it was her unconscious influence and teaching that had made it
+impossible for him to prostitute his genius to win favor in the eyes of
+the world. He knew, now, that in those days when he had painted her
+portrait, as she stood with outstretched hands in the golden light among
+the roses, he had mixed his colors with the best love that a man may offer
+a woman. And he knew that the repainting of that false portrait of Mrs.
+Taine, with all that it would cost him, was his first offering to that
+love.
+
+The girl musician finished playing and slipped away. When they would have
+recalled her, Mrs. Taine--too well schooled to betray a hint of the
+emotions aroused by what she had just seen as she watched Aaron
+King--shook her head.
+
+At that instant, Mr. Taine rose to his feet, supporting himself by holding
+with shaking hands to the table. A hush, sudden as the hush of death, fell
+upon the company. The millionaire's attendant put out his hand to steady
+his master, and another servant stepped quickly forward. But the man who
+clung so tenaciously to his last bit of life, with a drunken strength in
+his dying limbs, shook them off, saying in a hoarse whisper, "Never mind!
+Never mind--you fools--can't you see I'm game!"
+
+In the quiet of the room, that a moment before rang with excited voices
+and shrill laughter, the man's husky, straining, whispered boast sounded
+like the mocking of some invisible, fiendish presence at the feast.
+
+Lifting a glass of whisky with that yellow, claw-like hand upon which the
+great diamond gleamed--a spot of flawless purity; with his repulsive
+features twisted into a grewsome ugliness by his straining effort to force
+his diseased vocal chords to make his words heard; the wretched creature
+said: "Here's to our girl musician. The prettiest--lassie that I--have
+seen for many a day--and I think I know a pretty girl--when I see one too.
+Who comes bright and fresh--from her mountains, to amuse us--and to add,
+to the beauty--and grace and wit and genius--that so distinguishes this
+company--the flavor and the freedom of her wild-wood home. Her music--is
+good, you'll all agree--" he paused to cough and to look inquiringly
+around, while every one nodded approval and smiled encouragingly. "Her
+music is good--but I--maintain that she, herself, is better. To me--her
+beauty is more pleasing to the eye--than--her fiddling can possibly--be to
+the ear!" Again he was forced to pause, while his guests, with hand and
+voice, applauded the clever words. Lifting the glass of whisky toward his
+lips that, by his effort to speak, were drawn back in a repulsive grin, he
+leered at the celebrities sitting nearest. "I suppose to-morrow--if we
+desire the company of these distinguished artists--we will have to
+follow--them to the mountains. I don't blame you, gentlemen--if I was
+not--ah--temporarily incapacitated--I would certainly--go for a little
+trip to the inspiring hills--myself. Even if I don't know--as much about
+_music_ and _art_ as some of you." Again his words were interrupted by
+that racking cough, the sound of which was lost in the applause that
+greeted his witticism. Lifting the glass once more, he continued, "So
+here's to our girl musician--who is her own--lovely self so much more
+attractive than any music--she can ever make." He drained the glass, and
+sank back into his chair, exhausted by his effort.
+
+Aaron King was on the point of springing to his feet, when Conrad Lagrange
+caught his eye with a warning look. Instantly, he remembered what the
+result would be if he should yield to his impulse. Wild with indignation,
+rage, and burning shame, he knew that to betray himself would be to invite
+a thousand sneering questions and insinuations to besmirch the name of
+the girl he loved.
+
+In the continued applause and laughter that followed the drinking of the
+millionaire's toast, the artist caught the admiring words, "Bully old
+sport." "Isn't he game?" "He has certainly traveled some pace in his day."
+"The girl is a beauty." "Let's have her in again." This last expression
+was so insistently echoed that Mrs. Taine--who, through it all, had been
+covertly watching Aaron King's face, and whose eyes were blazing now with
+something more than the effect of the wine she had been drinking--was
+forced to yield. A servant left the room, and, a moment later, reappeared,
+followed by Sibyl.
+
+The girl was greeted, now, by hearty applause which she, accepting as an
+expression of the company's appreciation of her music, received with
+smiling pleasure. The artist, his heart and soul aflame with his awakening
+love, fought for self-control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again,
+silently bade him wait.
+
+Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was stilled. Slowly, under
+the spell of the music that, to him, was a message from the mountain
+heights, Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. His twitching
+nerves became steady. He felt himself as it were, lifted out of and above
+the scene that a moment before had so stirred him to indignant anger. His
+brain worked with that clearness and precision which he had known while
+repainting Mrs. Taine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity; indignation to
+contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think how little the girl he loved
+needed his poor defense against the animalism that dominated the company
+she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room fixed upon her as she
+played, she was as far removed from those who had applauded the suggestive
+words of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their true
+comprehension.
+
+Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. As the flash of a
+search-light in the darkness of night brings out with startling clearness
+the details of the scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before
+him his picture. With trained eye and carefully acquired skill, he studied
+the scene; impressing upon his memory every detail--the rich appointments
+of the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver and crystal; the
+sparkling jewels and shimmering laces; the bare shoulders; the
+wine-flushed faces and feverish eyes; and, in the seat of honor, the
+disease-wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance of Mr. Taine
+who--almost unconscious with his exertion--was still feeding the last
+flickering flame of his lustful life with the vision of the girl whose
+beauty his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that
+company--expressing as it did the spirit of an age that is ruled by
+material wealth and dominated by the passions of the flesh--the center of
+every eye, yet, still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart from
+them all; standing in her simple dress of white against the background of
+flowers--the mountain girl with her violin--offering to them the highest,
+holiest, gift of the gods--her music. Upon the girl's lovely, winsome
+face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. Her wide, blue eyes, as she
+played, were pleading, questioning, half fearful--as though she sensed,
+instinctively the presence of the spirit she could not understand; and
+felt, in spite of the pretense of the applause that had greeted her, the
+rejection of her offering.
+
+Not only did the artist, in that moment of conception see his picture and
+feel the forces that were expressed by every character in the composition,
+but the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad Lagrange had
+uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Materialism."
+
+Sibyl Andrés finished her music, and quickly withdrew as if to escape the
+noisy applause. Amid the sound of the clapping hands and boisterous
+voices, Mr. Taine, summoning the last of his wasted strength, again
+struggled to his feet. With those claw-like hands he held to the table for
+support; while--shaking in every limb, his features twisted into a horrid,
+leering grin--he looked from face to face of the hushed and silent
+company; with glazed eyes in which the light that flickered so feebly was
+still the light of an impotent lust.
+
+Twice, the man essayed to speak, but could not. The room grew still as
+death. Then, suddenly--as they looked--he lifted that yellow, skinny hand,
+to his wrinkled, ape-like brow, and--partially loosing, thus, his
+supporting grip upon the table--fell back, in a ghastly heap of diseased
+flesh and fine raiment; in the midst of which blazed the great
+diamond--as though the cold, pure beauty of the inanimate stone triumphed
+in a life more vital than that of its wearer.
+
+His servants carried the unconscious master of the house from the room.
+Mrs. Taine, excusing herself, followed.
+
+In the confusion that ensued, the musicians, hidden behind the floral
+screen, struck up a lively air. Some of the guests made quiet preparations
+for leaving. A group of those men--famous in the world of art and
+letters--under the influence of the wine they had taken so freely, laughed
+loudly at some coarse jest. Others, thinking, perhaps,--if they could be
+said to think at all,--that their host's attack was not serious, renewed
+conversations and bravely attempted to restore a semblance of animation to
+the interrupted revelries.
+
+Aaron King worked his way to the side of Conrad Lagrange, "For God's sake,
+old man, let's get out of here."
+
+"I'll find Rutlidge or Louise or some one," returned the other, and
+disappeared.
+
+As the artist waited, through the open door of an adjoining room, he
+caught sight of Sibyl Andrés; who, with her violin-case in her hand, was
+about to leave. Obeying his impulse, he went to her.
+
+"What in the world are you doing here?" he said almost roughly--extending
+his hand to take the instrument she carried.
+
+She seemed a little bewildered by his manner, but smiled as she retained
+her violin. "I am here to earn my bread and butter, sir. What are you
+doing here?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to be rude."
+
+She laughed, then, with a troubled air--"But is it not right for me to be
+here? It is all right for me to play for these people, isn't it? Myra
+didn't want me to come, but we needed the money, and Mrs. Taine was so
+generous. I didn't tell you and Mr. Lagrange because I wanted the fun of
+surprising you." As he stood looking at her so gravely, she put out her
+hand impulsively to his arm. "What is it, oh, what is it? How have I done
+wrong?"
+
+"You have done no wrong, my dear girl," he answered "It is only that--"
+
+He was interrupted by the cold, clear voice of Mrs. Taine, who had entered
+the room, unnoticed by them. "I see you are going, Miss Andrés.
+Good-night. I will mail you a check to-morrow. Your music was very
+satisfactory. An automobile is waiting to take you home. Good night."
+
+Before Aaron King could speak, the girl was gone.
+
+"Mr. Lagrange and I were just about to go," said the artist, as the woman
+faced him. "I hope Mr. Taine has not suffered severely from the excitement
+of the evening?"
+
+The woman's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with feverish
+excitement. Going close to him, she said in a low, hurried tone, "No, no,
+you must not go. Mr. Taine is all right in his room. Every one else is
+having a good time. You must not go. Come, I have had no opportunity, at
+all, to have you to myself for a single moment. Come, I--"
+
+As she had interrupted Aaron King's reply to Sibyl Andrés, the cool,
+sarcastic tones of Conrad Lagrange's deep voice interrupted her. "Mrs.
+Taine, they are hunting for you all over the house. Your husband is
+calling for you. I'm sure that Mr. King will excuse you, under the
+circumstances."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX
+
+In the Same Hour
+
+
+
+In a splendid chamber, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that dollars
+could buy, and attended by liveried servants, Mr. Taine was dying.
+
+The physician who met Mrs. Taine at the door, answered her look of inquiry
+with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." Beside the bed, sat
+Louise, wringing her hands and moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without
+speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward.
+
+The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fingers upon the
+skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, Mr. Taine, your wife is here."
+
+In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the wrinkled brow, opened; the
+loosely hanging, sensual lips quivered.
+
+The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, Mr. Taine."
+
+A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed eyes. The doctor could
+have sworn that the lips were twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking
+smile. As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, from some
+unguessed depths of his being, the last remnant of his remaining strength,
+the man looked about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send the
+others away--everybody--but her."
+
+"O papa, papa!" exclaimed poor Louise, protestingly.
+
+"Never mind, daughter," came the whispered answer from the bed. "Try to be
+game, girl--game as your father. Take her away, Jim."
+
+As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus far stood like a statue,
+seemingly incapable of thought or feeling or movement, he said in a low
+tone, "I will be just outside the door, madam; easily within call."
+
+When only the woman was left in the room with her husband, the dying man
+spoke again; "Come here. Stand where I can see you."
+
+Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position near the foot of the bed.
+
+After a moment's silence, during which he seemed to be rallying the very
+last of his vital forces for the effort, he said, "Well--the game is
+played--out. You think--you're the winner. You're--wrong--damn you--you're
+wrong. I wasn't--so drunk to-night that--I couldn't see." His face twisted
+in a hideous, malicious grin. "You--love--that artist fellow.
+Your--interest in his art is--all rot. It's _him_ you want--and you--you
+have been thinking--you'd get him--with my money--the same as I got you.
+But you won't. You've--lost him already. I'm glad--you love him--damn
+glad--because--I know that after--what he's seen of me--even if he didn't
+love--that mountain--girl, he wouldn't wipe--his feet on you. You've
+tortured me--you've mocked--and sneered and laughed--at me--in my
+suffering--you fiend--and I've--tried my damnedest--to pay you back. What
+I couldn't do--the man you love--will--do for me. You'll suffer--now in
+earnest. You thought you'd be a--sure winner--as soon--as I was out
+of--the game. But you've lost--you've lost--you've lost! I saw your love
+for him--in your--face to-night--as I have seen--it every time--you two
+were together. I saw his love--for the girl--too--and I--saw--that
+you--saw it. I--I--wouldn't--wouldn't die--until I'd told you--that I
+knew." He paused to gather his strength for the last evil effort of his
+evil life.
+
+The woman--who had stood, frozen with horror, her eyes fixed upon the face
+of the dying man, as though under a dreadful spell--cowered before him,
+livid with fear. Cringing, helpless--as though before some infernal
+monster--she hid her face; while her husband, struggling for breath to
+make her hear, called her every foul name he could master--derided her
+with fiendish glee--mocked her, taunted her, cursed her--with words too
+vile to print. With an oath and a profane wish for her future upon his
+lips, the end came. The sensual mouth opened--the diseased wasted limbs
+shuddered--the insane light in the lust-worn eyes went out.
+
+With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon the floor beside the bed.
+
+From the lower part of the house came the faint sounds of the few
+remaining revelers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the house on Fairlands Heights
+that night, they walked quickly, as though eager to escape from the
+brilliantly lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some distance
+away. Then the novelist, checking his quick stride, pointed toward the
+shadowy bulk of the mountains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in
+solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky.
+
+"Well, boy," he said, "the mountains are still there. It's good to see
+them again, isn't it?"
+
+Reaching home, the older man bade his friend good night. But the artist,
+declaring that he was not yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar
+for company, to sit for a while on the porch.
+
+Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks,
+he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with
+Sibyl Andrés in the hills. Every incident of their friendship he
+recalled--every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she
+loved--reviewing every conversation--questioning searching, wondering,
+hoping, fearing.
+
+Later, he went out into the rose garden--her garden--where the air was
+fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care.
+In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her
+presence. Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses--to the little
+gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the
+vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot
+where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting,
+while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the
+secret of her loveliness. He remembered how he had felt her presence in
+those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the
+place was haunted. He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him,
+her music had always moved him--how her message from the hills had seemed
+to call to the best that was in him.
+
+So it was, that, as he recalled these things,--as he lived again the days
+of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life,
+how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his
+best needs,--he came to know the answer to his questions--to his doubts
+and fears and hopes. There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of
+hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his
+face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not
+deny him--that, when she was ready, she would come to him.
+
+In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life,
+profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his
+licentious will--and cursing--died; Aaron King--inspired by the character
+and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and
+dreaming of their comradeship that was to be--dedicated himself anew to
+the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which
+belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.
+
+But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andrés could
+come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best
+strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awakened love, as he
+dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days
+of his testing were so near at hand.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI
+
+As the World Sees
+
+
+
+It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from
+Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.
+
+Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the
+house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.
+
+There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He did not know where the
+artist was. He had gone off somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog.
+Perhaps they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not until dinner time.
+
+Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. King. She was going away,
+and must see him, if possible, before she left. She would come in, and, if
+Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write a little note,
+explaining--in case she should miss him. The Chinaman silently placed the
+writing material before her, and disappeared.
+
+Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced the floor restlessly,
+in nervous agitation. Her face, when she had thrown back the veil,
+appeared old and worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn look
+to the weary, downward droop of the lips. As she moved about the room,
+nervously fingering the books and trifles upon the table or the mantle,
+she seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the window to stand
+looking out as if hoping for the return of the artist. She went to the
+open door of his bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, her
+face betraying the agony of her mind.
+
+With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four o'clock, for the
+East--with the body of her husband. She could not go without seeing again
+the man whom, as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved--loved with the
+only love of which--because of her environment and life--she was capable.
+She still believed in her power over him whose passion she had besieged
+with all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which she had seen in
+his face as he had watched the girl musician the night of the dinner,
+filled her with fear. Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did
+not return, she seated herself at the table to put upon paper, as best she
+could, the things she had come to say.
+
+Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Calling the Chinaman, she
+asked for a key to the studio, explaining that she wished to see her
+picture. She still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter would
+not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her portrait, which she had not
+yet seen, she might find some evidence of the painter's passion for her.
+She had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon the canvas what he
+thought of her, nor could she fail to recall his manner and her
+interpretation of it as he had worked upon the picture.
+
+In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce daring to draw the
+curtain. But, calling up in her mind the emotions and thoughts of the
+hours she had spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made bold
+by her reestablished belief in his passion and by her convictions that
+were founded upon her own desires. Under the stimulating influence of her
+thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her eyes grew bright
+with the light of triumphant anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly
+drew aside the curtain.
+
+The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait of Sibyl Andrés.
+
+With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. Taine drew back from
+the canvas. Looking at the beautiful painting,--in which the artist had
+pictured, with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, the
+spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers among which she stood,--the
+woman was moved by many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappointment
+admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and anger swept over her.
+Blinded by bitter tears, with a choking sob, in an agony of remorse and
+shame, she turned away her face from the gaze of those pure eyes. Then, as
+the flame of her passion withered her shame, hot rage dried her tears, and
+she sprang forward with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the picture.
+But, even as she put forth her hand, she hesitated and drew back, afraid.
+As she stood thus in doubt--halting between her impulse and her fear--a
+sound at the door behind her drew her attention. She turned to face the
+beautiful original of the portrait Instantly the woman of the world had
+herself perfectly in hand.
+
+Sibyl Andrés drew back with an embarrassed, "I beg your pardon. I
+thought--" and would have fled.
+
+But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said quickly, "O how do you do,
+Miss Andrés; come in."
+
+She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and
+manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so
+expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched.
+Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose
+minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham
+emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words of sympathy.
+
+Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of condolence with a manner that
+was perfect in its semblance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet
+managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social distance that separated
+the widow of Mr. Taine from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if
+courageously determined not to dwell upon her bereavement, she said, "I
+was just looking, again, at Mr. King's picture--for which you posed. It is
+beautiful, isn't it? He told me that you were an exceptionally clever
+model--quite the best he has ever had."
+
+The girl--disarmed by her own genuine feeling of sympathy for the
+speaker--was troubled at something that seemed to lie beneath the kindly
+words of the experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she returned
+doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. Mr. Lagrange thinks, though,
+that it is really a splendid portrait."
+
+Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one might smile at a child.
+"Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is a famous novelist--but he really knows very
+little of pictures."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," returned Sibyl, simply. "But the picture is not
+to be shown as a portrait of me, at all."
+
+Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of course. Under the
+circumstances, you would scarcely expect it, would you?"
+
+Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the woman meant, answered
+doubtfully, "No. I--I did not wish it shown as my portrait."
+
+Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very earnest in her kindly
+interest; as if, moved out of the goodness of her heart, she stooped from
+her high place to advise and counsel one of her own sex, who was so wholly
+ignorant of the world. "I fear, my dear, that you know very little of
+artists and their methods."
+
+To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist before I met Mr. King,
+this summer, in the mountains."
+
+Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, with gentle solicitude,
+"May I tell you something for your own good, Miss Andrés?"
+
+"Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine."
+
+"An artist," said the older woman, carefully, with an air of positive
+knowledge, "must find the subjects for his pictures in life. As he goes
+about, he is constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures that
+are of interest to him--or, that may be used by him to make pictures
+of interest. The subjects--or, I should say, the people who pose for
+him--are nothing at all to the artist--aside from his picture, you
+see--no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. Often, they are
+professional models, whom he hires as one hires any sort of service,
+you know. Sometimes--" she paused as if hesitating, then continued
+gently--"sometimes they are people like yourself, who happen to appeal
+to his artistic fancy, and whom he can persuade to pose for him."
+
+The girl's face was white. She stared at the woman with pleading,
+frightened dismay. She made a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not.
+
+The older woman, watching her, continued, "Forgive me, dear child. I do
+not wish to hurt you. But Mr. King is _so_ careless. I told him he should
+be careful that you did not misunderstand his interest in you. But he
+laughed at me. He said that it was your _innocence_ that he wanted to
+paint, and cautioned me not to warn you until his picture was finished."
+She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the air of a critic.
+"He really _has_ caught it very well. Aaron--Mr. King is so good at that
+sort of thing. He never permits his models to know exactly what he is
+after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, unconsciously, the
+particular thing that he wishes to get into his picture."
+
+When the tortured girl had been given time to grasp the full import of her
+words, the woman said again,--turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a
+smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy between herself and the
+artist,--"Have you seen his portrait of me?"
+
+"No," faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to look at it. It has always
+been covered when I have been in the studio."
+
+Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was some reason, known only to
+herself and the painter, why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait.
+"And do you come to the studio often--alone as you came to-day?" she
+asked, still kindly, as though from her experience she was seeking to
+counsel the girl. "I mean--have you been coming since the picture for
+which you posed was finished?"
+
+The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrassment and shame as she
+answered, falteringly, "Yes."
+
+"You poor child! Really, I must scold Aaron for this. After my warning
+him, too, that people were talking about his intimacy with you in the
+mountains It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin himself, if he is not
+more careful." She seemed sincerely troubled over the situation.
+
+"I--I do not understand, Mrs. Taine," faltered Sibyl. "Do you mean that
+my--that Mr. King's friendship for me has harmed him? That I--that it is
+wrong for me to come here?"
+
+"Surely, Miss Andrés, you must understand what I mean."
+
+"No, I--I do not know. Tell me, please."
+
+Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, as if forced by her sense
+of duty, she spoke. "The truth is, my dear, that your being with Mr. King
+in the mountains--going to his camp as familiarly as you did, and spending
+so much time alone with him in the hills--and then your coming here so
+often, has led people to say unpleasant things."
+
+"But what do people say?" persisted Sibyl.
+
+The answer came with cruel deliberateness; "That you are not only Mr.
+King's model, but that you are his mistress as well."
+
+Sibyl Andrés shrank back from the woman as though she had received a blow
+in the face. Her cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a little cry,
+she buried her face in her hands.
+
+The kind voice of the older woman continued, "You see, dear, whether it is
+true or not, the effect is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world
+your relations to Mr. King are--are wrong, it is as bad as though it were
+actually true. I felt that I must tell you, child, not alone for your own
+good but for the sake of Mr. King and his work--for the sake of his
+position in the world. Frankly, if you continue to compromise him and his
+good name by coming like this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world
+may not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mistress or not, but
+people will not countenance his open association with her, even under the
+pretext that she is a model."
+
+As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. "Dear me, I really must
+be going. I have already spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss
+Andrés. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt you."
+
+The girl looked at her with the pain and terror filled eyes of some
+gentle wild creature that can not understand the cruelty of the trap that
+holds it fast. "Yes--yes, I--I suppose you know best. You must know more
+than I. I--thank you, Mrs. Taine. I--"
+
+When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andrés sat for a little while before her
+portrait; wondering, dumbly, at the happiness of that face upon the
+canvas. There were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned hot and
+dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she drew the curtain carefully to hide
+the picture, and started toward the door. She paused. Going to the easel
+that held the other picture, she laid her hand upon the curtain. Again,
+she paused. Aaron King had said that she must not look at that
+picture--Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not--why? She did not know
+why.
+
+Perhaps--if the mountain girl had drawn aside the curtain and had looked
+upon the face of Mrs. Taine as Aaron King had painted it--perhaps the rest
+of my story would not have happened.
+
+But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andrés
+held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long
+and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the
+door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her custom was.
+
+Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden to the little gate in
+the hedge, she disappeared in the orange grove.
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from a long walk, overtook Myra
+Willard, who was returning from town, just as the woman of the disfigured
+face arrived at the gate of the little house in the orange grove. For a
+moment, the three stood chatting--as neighbors will,--then the two men
+went on to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced their coming to
+Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them as they entered the living-room. Telling
+them of Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter that she had
+left for him.
+
+As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of his friend, read the
+closely written pages, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame.
+When he had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, without
+speaking, deliberately and methodically tore Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny
+fragments. Dropping the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted
+his hands together with a significant gesture and looked at his watch.
+"Her train left at four o'clock. It is now four-thirty."
+
+"For which," returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, "let us give thanks."
+
+As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, gave a low "woof" that
+signalized the approach of a friend.
+
+Looking through the open door, they saw Myra Willard coming hurriedly up
+the walk. They could see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went
+quicklv forward to meet her.
+
+Women of Myra Willard's strength of character--particularly those who have
+passed through the furnace of some terrible experience as she so
+evidently had--are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression of emotion.
+That she was alarmed and troubled was evident. Her face was white, her
+eyes were frightened and she trembled so that Aaron King helped her to a
+seat; but she told them clearly, with no unnecessary, hysterical
+exclamations, what had happened. Upon entering the house, after parting
+from the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she had found a letter
+from Sibyl. The girl was gone.
+
+As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad Lagrange who read it and
+gave it to the artist. It was a pitiful little note--rather vague--saying
+only that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that she had not meant
+to do wrong; asking her to tell Mr. King and the novelist good-by; and
+begging the artist's forgiveness that she had not understood.
+
+Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to the faces of his two
+friends, in consternation. "Do you understand this, Miss Willard?" he
+asked, when he could speak.
+
+The woman shook her head. "Only that something has happened to make the
+child think that her friendship with you has injured you; and that she has
+gone away for your sake. She--she thought so much of you, Mr. King."
+
+"And I--I love her, Miss Willard. I should have told you soon. I tell you
+now to reassure you. I love her."
+
+Aaron King made his declaration to his two friends with a simple dignity,
+but with a feeling that thrilled them with the force of his earnestness
+and the purity and strength of his passion.
+
+Conrad Lagrange--world-worn, scarred by his years of contact with the
+unclean, the vicious, and debasing passions of mankind--grasped the young
+man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his habitual reserve
+could not conceal. "I'm glad for you, Aaron"--he said, adding
+reverently--"as your mother would be glad."
+
+"I have known that you would tell me this, sometime Mr. King," said Myra
+Willard. "I knew it, I think, before you, yourself, realized; and I, too,
+am glad--glad for my girl, because I know what such a love will mean to
+her. But why--why has she gone like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl,
+my girl!" For a moment, the distracted woman was on the point of breaking
+down; but with an effort of her will, she controlled herself.
+
+"It's clear enough what has sent her away," growled Conrad Lagrange, with
+a warning glance to the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the
+notion that her friendship with Aaron has been causing talk. I think
+there's no doubt as to where she's gone."
+
+"You mean the mountains?" asked Myra Willard, quickly.
+
+"Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight to Brian Oakley. Think!
+Where else _would_ she go?"
+
+"She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from your neighbor up the road,
+hasn't she, Miss Willard?" asked Aaron King.
+
+"Yes. I'll run over there at once."
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them think anything unusual has
+happened. We'll go over to your house and wait for you there."
+
+Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. Sibyl had borrowed the
+horse; asking them if she might keep it until the next day. She did not
+say where she was going. She had left about four o'clock.
+
+"That will put her at Brian's by nine," said the novelist.
+
+"And I will arrive there about the same time," added Aaron King, eagerly.
+"It's now five-thirty. She has an hour's start; but I'll ride an hour
+harder."
+
+"With an automobile you could overtake her," said Myra Willard.
+
+"I know," returned the artist, "but if I take a horse, we can ride back
+together."
+
+He started through the grove, toward the other house, on a run.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII
+
+The Mysterious Disappearance
+
+
+
+By the time Aaron King had found a saddle-horse and was ready to start on
+his ride, it was six o'clock.
+
+Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl
+had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could
+scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after
+Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop
+somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized
+how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering
+his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then,
+telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and
+thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first
+plan.
+
+But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste
+because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his
+reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his
+mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely.
+Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the
+artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the
+limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they
+had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar
+and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the
+people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening
+meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs.
+Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched him out of sight, with
+wondering gaze. Those he met, turned their heads to look after him.
+
+Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with his horse's flying feet.
+The points along the way, where he and the famous novelist had stopped to
+rest, and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly to his mind
+all that those weeks in the mountains had brought to him. Backward from
+that day when he had for the first time set his face toward the hills, his
+mind traveled--almost from day to day--until he stood, again, in that
+impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his
+studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness
+and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andrés, he lived again that hour when
+his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when
+he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of
+her sacrifice--even unto poverty--that he might, unhampered, be fitted for
+his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn
+promise that the purpose and passion of his mother's years of sacrifice
+should, in him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he retraced the
+steps that had led to his understanding that only a true and noble art
+could ever make good that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the
+little passing day, alone; not by gaining the applause of the thoughtless
+crowd; not by winning the rewards bestowed by the self-appointed judges
+and patrons of the arts; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of
+himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or blame--by saying the
+thing that was given him to say, because it was given him to say--would he
+keep that which his mother had committed to him. As mile after mile of the
+distance that lay between him and the girl he loved was put behind him in
+his race to her side, it was given him to understand--as never
+before--how, first the friendship of the world-wearied man who had,
+himself, profaned his art; and then, the comradeship of that one whose
+life was so unspotted by the world; had helped him to a true and vital
+conception of his ministry of color and line and brush and canvas.
+
+It was twilight when the artist reached the spot where the road crosses
+the tumbling stream--the spot where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at
+the foot of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the creek, the
+man, without checking his pace, turned his head to look back upon the
+valley that, far below, was fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its
+weird and gloomy mystery,--with its hidden life revealed only by the
+sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns and cities,--it was suggestive,
+now, to his artist mind, of the life that had so nearly caught him in its
+glittering sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his eyes to the
+mountain peaks ahead that, still in the light of the western sun, glowed
+as though brushed with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish
+that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of pines, where he had sat
+with Sibyl Andrés that day when she had tried to make him see the train
+that had brought him to Fairlands.
+
+He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not realized his love for the
+girl, before they left the hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was
+born that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he was fishing;
+when he had watched her from the cedar thicket, as she made her music of
+the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself,
+had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him
+in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known,
+when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not
+come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the
+big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?
+
+It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the
+gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was
+forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at
+the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her
+girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that
+she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would
+tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his.
+And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the
+pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.
+
+It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees,
+the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate.
+Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The
+door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall
+form of Brian Oakley.
+
+"Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice."
+
+The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is
+left of me."
+
+"Aaron King, by all that's holy!" cried the Ranger, coming quickly down
+the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything
+wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of
+night?"
+
+Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he
+come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said
+mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's
+hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"
+
+Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."
+
+The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not
+been here to-day?"
+
+"She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive
+words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.
+
+Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder.
+"Come, old man, pull yourself together and let a little light in on this
+matter," he said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why did you expect to
+find Sibyl here?"
+
+When Aaron King had finished his story, the other said, still without
+excitement, "Come into the house. You're about all in. I heard Doctor
+Gordan's 'auto' going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. Their
+baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would have passed her. I'll
+throw the saddle on Max, and we'll run over there and see what he knows.
+But first, you've got to have a bite to eat."
+
+The young man protested but the Ranger said firmly, "You can eat while I
+saddle; come. I wish Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold
+meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her sister. I'll call you when
+I'm ready." He spoke the last word from the door as he went out.
+
+The artist tried to eat; but with little success. He was again mounted and
+ready to go when the Ranger rode up from the barn on the chestnut.
+
+When they reached the point where the road to Morton's ranch leaves the
+main canyon road, Brian Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went
+on up to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's and see the
+Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. Did you meet any one as you came
+up? I mean after you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the
+canyon?"
+
+"No," replied the other. "Why?"
+
+"A man on a horse passed the Station about seven o'clock, going down.
+Where did the Doctor pass you?"
+
+"He didn't pass me."
+
+"What?" said the Ranger, sharply.
+
+"No one passed me after I left Fairlands."
+
+"Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must have had a puncture or
+something, or he would have passed the Station before he did."
+
+It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the Morton ranch.
+
+"We don't want to start any excitement," said the officer, as they drew
+rein at the corral gate. "You stay here and I'll drop in--casual like."
+
+It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, that his companion was
+gone for hours. In reality, it was only a few minutes until the Ranger
+returned. He was walking quickly, and, springing into the saddle he
+started the chestnut off at a sharp lope.
+
+"The baby is better," he said. "Doctor was here this afternoon--started
+home about two o'clock. That 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon.
+Morton knew nothing of the man on horseback who went down. We'll cut
+across to Carleton's."
+
+Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside from the wagon road, to
+follow a narrow trail through the chaparral. To the artist, the little
+path in the darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein and
+followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quarters of an hour later, they
+came out into the main road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile
+and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind the orchard of the
+deserted place.
+
+It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was dark. Without
+dismounting, Brian Oakley called, "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer.
+Moving his horse close to the window of the room where he knew the rancher
+slept, the Ranger tapped on the sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you;
+it's Oakley."
+
+A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton asked, "What is it, Brian?
+What's up?"
+
+"Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night?"
+
+"Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down from their summer camp.
+What's the matter?"
+
+Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The rancher interrupted only
+to greet the artist with a "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made
+known the identity of his companion.
+
+When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher said, "I heard that 'auto'
+going up, and then heard it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You
+missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come on straight up here
+you'd a met it."
+
+"Did you see the man on horseback, going down, just before dusk?" asked
+the officer.
+
+"Yes, but not near enough to know him. You don't suppose Sibyl would go up
+to her old home do you, Brian?"
+
+"She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and I will ride up there, on
+the chance."
+
+"You'll stop in on your way back?" called the rancher, as the two horsemen
+moved away.
+
+"Sure," answered the Ranger.
+
+An hour later, they were back. They had found the old home under the giant
+sycamores, on the edge of the little clearing, dark and untenanted.
+
+Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the Carleton ranch-house.
+Down at the corral, the twinkling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and
+there. As the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern came rapidly
+up the hill. At the porch, they were met by Henry Carleton, his two sons,
+and a ranch hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, and of the
+lantern on the porch, listening to Brian Oakley's report, each held the
+bridle-reins of a saddle-horse.
+
+"I figured that the chance of her being up there was so mighty slim that
+we'd better be ready to ride when you got back," said the mountain
+ranchman. "What's your program, Brian?" Thus simply he put himself and his
+household in command of the Ranger.
+
+The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've got the fastest horse
+in the outfit. I want you to go down to the Power-House and find out if
+any one there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he explained to
+the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, that she came into the mountains.
+While I haven't a doubt but she did, we've got to know."
+
+Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger finished The officer turned
+to him again. "Find out what you can about that automobile and the man on
+horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get back." There was a sharp
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs, and the rider disappeared in the darkness of
+the night.
+
+The other members of the little party rode more leisurely down the canyon
+road to the Ranger Station. When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley
+said, "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a little note." He
+went into the house where, as they sat on the porch, they saw him through
+the window, his desk.
+
+The Ranger had finished his letter and with the sealed official envelope
+in his hand, appeared in the doorway when his messenger to the Power-House
+returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his horse up to the porch.
+"Good time, Jack," said the officer, quietly.
+
+The young man answered, "One of the company men saw Sibyl. He was coming
+up with a load of supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power-House
+just before dark. When he was opening the gate, the automobile went by. It
+was too dark to see how many were in the machine. They heard the 'auto' go
+down the canyon, again, later. No one noticed the man on horseback. Three
+Company men will be up here at daybreak."
+
+"Good boy," said Brian Oakley, again. And then, for a little, no sound
+save the soft clinking of bit or bridle-chain in the darkness broke the
+hush that fell over the little group. With faces turned toward their
+leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, the long official
+envelope in his hand. When he spoke, there was a ring in his voice that
+left in the minds of his companions no doubt as to his view of the
+seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply.
+
+The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. "Yes, sir."
+
+"You will ride to Fairlands. It's half past one, now. You should be back
+between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and
+bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know.
+You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at
+your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait."
+
+"Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished
+into the night.
+
+While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger
+spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your
+place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with
+breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place
+the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will
+likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."
+
+"Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the rancher as he mounted.
+"You know they'll be on the job."
+
+"You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the mountaineer rode away.
+Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the
+canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after
+sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into
+the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up
+Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley
+neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've
+found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."
+
+When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the
+artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more
+that can be done, until daylight."
+
+Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his
+hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon
+muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words
+that he was not tired.
+
+"You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of
+this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible,
+to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us.
+Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't
+sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."
+
+As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I
+knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in
+my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands
+before you did, unless it came over through the Galena Valley, from some
+town on the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way--which isn't likely. If it
+_did_ come from Fairlands, it must have waited somewhere along the road,
+to enter the canyon after dark. Do you think that any one else besides
+Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl started up here?"
+
+"I don't think so. The neighbor where she borrowed the horse didn't know
+where she was going."
+
+"Who saw her last?"
+
+"I think Mrs. Taine did."
+
+The artist had already told the Ranger about the possible meeting of Mrs.
+Taine and Sibyl in his studio.
+
+"Hu-m-m," said the other.
+
+"Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you know," said the artist.
+
+"Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said." The Ranger spoke casually. Then, as if
+dismissing the matter, he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll
+take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. As soon as it's
+light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out where that automobile went--and
+what for."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII
+
+Beginning the Search
+
+
+
+Aaron King lay with closed eyes, but not asleep. He was thinking,
+thinking, thinking In a weary circle, his tired brain went round and
+round, finding no place to stop. The man on horseback, the automobile,
+some accident that might have befallen the girl in her distraught state of
+mind--he could find no place in the weary treadmill of conjecture to rest.
+While it was still too dark to see, Brian Oakley called him. And the call
+was a relief.
+
+As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, "It'll be light enough
+to see, by the time we get above Carleton's. We know the automobile went
+that far anyway."
+
+At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, by the lights, that the
+mountaineer's family were already making ready for the gathering of the
+riders. A little beyond, they met two men from the Company Head-Work, on
+their way to the meeting place. Soon, in the gray, early morning light,
+the tracks of the automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed to
+the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine had stopped and,
+turning around, had started back down the canyon. With experienced care,
+Brian Oakley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity.
+
+Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give up hope of finding
+any positive signs pointing to the solution of the puzzle, the officer
+remounted, slowly. "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry and
+cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, that there are no clear
+signs at all. Come, we better get back to Carleton's, and start the boys
+out. When Milt returns from Fairlands he may know something."
+
+With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, summoned in the night by
+the Ranger's messengers, assembled at the ranch; every man armed and
+mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied to the trees in the
+yard, and along the fence in front, or standing with bridle-reins over
+their heads, the horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on their
+heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the mountain riders who had
+arrived first and had finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's
+word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with the later ones; and
+these, as fast as they finished their meal, made way for the new arrivals.
+There was no loud talk; no boisterous laughter; no uneasy restlessness.
+Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, these hardy mountaineers
+had answered Brian Oakley's call; and they placed themselves, now, under
+his command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excitement but with a
+purpose and spirit that would, if need be, hold them in their saddles
+until their horses dropped under them, and would, then, send them on,
+afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could be made to respond
+to their wills.
+
+
+
+
+There was scarce a man in that company, who did not know and love Sibyl
+Andrés, and who had not known and loved her parents. Many of them had
+ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andrés' death. When the officer
+and his companion appeared, they gathered round their leader with simple
+words of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word.
+
+Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, and assigned the
+territory to be covered by each. Three shots in quick succession, at
+intervals of two minutes, would signal that the search was finished. Two
+men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, after his messenger to the
+Sheriff had returned. At sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch
+for further orders. When the officer finished speaking, the little group
+of men turned to the horses, and, without the loss of a moment, were out
+of sight in the mountain wilderness.
+
+A half hour before he was due, young Carleton appeared with the Sheriff's
+answer to the Ranger's letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley,
+heartily. "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest yourself,
+and be ready for whatever comes next."
+
+He turned to those he had held to go with him; "All right, boys, let's
+ride. Sheriff will take care of the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron."
+
+All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger rode in the lead, bending
+low from his saddle, his gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he
+dismounted and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or to wait, at
+his word. When they came out on the pipe-line trail, he halted the party,
+and, on foot, went carefully over the ground either way from the point
+where they stood.
+
+"Boys," he said at last, "I have a hunch that there was a horse on this
+trail last night. It's been so blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I
+can't be sure. I held you two men because I know you are good trailers.
+Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, and see what you can find. It isn't
+necessary to say stay with it if you strike anything that even looks like
+it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the other way, and up the Galena
+trail to the fire-break."
+
+While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs in the little path, and
+the artist, with the others, was waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to
+that day when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under the oaks and, in
+a spirit of irresponsible fun, had committed themselves to the leadership
+of Croesus. To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free leisure,
+seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's fanciful oration to the burro,
+he thought grimly how unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of
+the great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly trivial
+incident. He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he
+had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on
+the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the
+canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome
+companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours
+that she had spent there with him?
+
+As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her,
+that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step
+of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the
+trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their
+canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the
+very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along
+the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his
+mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find
+her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The
+officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the
+way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He
+could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where
+was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse,
+leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They
+should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night. Last night!
+Was it only last night?
+
+Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break on the crest of the
+Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I don't think there's been anything over
+this way," he said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up there,
+for a look around."
+
+At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the clump of pines, where Aaron
+King and Sibyl Andrés had eaten their lunch.
+
+"We'll be here some time," said the Ranger. "Make yourself comfortable. I
+want to see if there's anything stirring down yonder."
+
+With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena Valley side of the
+range, through his powerful glass; commenting, now and then, when some
+object came in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat beside
+him.
+
+They had risen to go and the officer was returning his glass to its case
+on his saddle, when Aaron King--pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and
+hazy in the distant valley--said, "Look there!"
+
+The other turned his head to see a flash of light that winked through the
+dull, smoky veil, with startling clearness. He smiled and turned again to
+his saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the sun striking some
+bright object that happens to be at just the right angle to hit you with
+the reflection. A bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile
+shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. Come, we'll go back to
+the trail and follow the break the other way."
+
+In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, hard day, as Brian
+Oakley and Aaron King were starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their
+return to the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His quick eyes had
+caught the twinkling gleam of a light at Sibyl's old home, far below,
+across the canyon. The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his
+four-footed companion, was going down the steep trail at a pace that sent
+the gravel flying and forced the artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to
+cling desperately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger sent the
+chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as they crossed the rough
+boulder-strewn wash. Plunging through the tumbling water of the creek,
+the horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed along the old,
+weed-grown road, into the little clearing They were met by Czar with a
+bark of welcome. A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad Lagrange and
+Myra Willard.
+
+"But why don't you stay down at the ranch, Myra?" asked the Ranger, when
+he had told them that his day's work was without results.
+
+"Listen, Mr. Oakley," returned the woman with the disfigured face. "I know
+Sibyl too well not to understand the possibilities of her temperament.
+Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and cool and strong
+under ordinary circumstances, under peculiar mental stress such as I
+believe caused her to leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know
+nothing. The child may be wandering, alone--dazed and helpless under the
+shock of a cruel and malicious attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some
+terrible stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me as she did.
+If she _is_ alone, out here in the hills, there is a chance that--even in
+her distracted state of mind--she will find her way to her old home." The
+woman paused, and then, in the silence, added hesitatingly, "I--I may say
+that I know from experience the possibilities of which I speak."
+
+The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley said softly, "Myra, you've
+got more heart and more sense than all of us put together." To Conrad
+Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss Willard?"
+
+"Yes," answered the novelist, "I would be little good in the hills, at
+such work as you are doing, Brian. I will do what I can, here."
+
+When the Ranger and the artist were riding down the canyon to the ranch,
+the officer said, "There's a big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After
+all, she knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that she's got a
+fairly clear idea of what sent the child off like this. As it stands now,
+the girl may be just wandering around. If she _is_, the boys will pick her
+up before many hours. She may have met with some accident. If _that's_ it,
+we'll know before long. She may have been--I tell you, Aaron, it's that
+automobile acting the way it did that I can't get around."
+
+The searchers were all at the ranch when the two men arrived. No one had a
+word of encouragement to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no
+light on the mystery of the automobile. The two men who had followed the
+pipe-line trail had found nothing. A few times, they thought they had
+signs that a horse had been over the trail the night before, but there was
+no certainty; and after the pipe-line reached the floor of the canyon
+there was absolutely nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena
+Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horseman who had gone down the
+canyon the evening before. The man was known to all. He had been hunting,
+and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him.
+He had come, now, to help in the search.
+
+Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend
+the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for
+camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up
+the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.
+
+Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that
+could scarcely be called sleep.
+
+At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and
+fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a
+camp-fire's light, came in.
+
+All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of
+their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long
+after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly
+exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found
+alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.
+
+Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other
+side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been
+found. The animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. The saddle
+and the horse's sides were stained with dirt, as if the animal had fallen.
+The bridle-reins had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the
+saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; he might have fallen
+and left his rider lying senseless. In any case, they reasoned, the animal
+would scarcely have found his way over the Galena range after he had been
+left to wander at will.
+
+Brian Oakley decided to send the main company of riders over into the Pine
+Glen country, to continue the search there. He knew that the men who found
+the horse would follow the animal's track back as far as possible. He
+knew, also, that if the animal had been wandering several hours, as was
+likely, it would be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron
+King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange the
+result of the day's work.
+
+The artist's voice trembled as he told the general opinion of the
+mountaineers; but Myra Willard said, "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby
+will come back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she is not dead
+or--I would know it."
+
+In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told him the woman of the
+disfigured face had no ground for her belief, he was somehow helped, by
+her words, to hope.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV
+
+The Tracks on Granite Peak
+
+
+
+The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian
+Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger, himself,
+had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.
+
+When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the
+neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break
+on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of
+little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never
+been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion,
+steadily.
+
+"Is there nothing that I can do, Brian?" returned the young man,
+hopelessly. "God, man! I _must_ do something! I _must_, I tell you!"
+
+"Steady, old boy, steady," returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The
+first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If
+you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."
+
+Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right,
+Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of
+course."
+
+The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the
+day on that point, up there,"--he pointed to the clump of pines,--"with
+this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle.
+Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the
+country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he
+paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.
+
+The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"
+
+The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."
+
+Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"
+
+The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only
+recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, _nothing_, get away
+from me. I don't want _you_ to think. I want you to do the thing that will
+be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will _think_, that I
+hesitate to assign you to the position."
+
+The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face.
+Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I
+understand. You can depend upon me."
+
+"Good boy!" came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go
+to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find
+it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and
+then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will
+stay over at Pine Glen."
+
+Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb,
+Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried
+not to think.
+
+It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a
+long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light
+in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian
+Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the
+search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied,
+watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.
+
+Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity
+in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of
+the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he
+watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one
+flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause.
+For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot
+under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order:
+--- -- - - -- ---.
+
+At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain
+peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the
+Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another.
+With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but
+the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to
+see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to
+be the orange groves about Fairlands.
+
+Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do?
+What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing.
+Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every
+possibility, and letting nothing _nothing_, get away from me." Instantly,
+he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing could
+accomplish nothing.
+
+Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder beside the trail, where he
+was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock.
+Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward
+the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the
+fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.
+
+Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the
+saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head
+back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He
+knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home.
+Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and
+what was left of his lunch.
+
+There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through
+and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp
+thorns and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times,
+he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the
+ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing
+meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff,
+clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and
+projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush,
+found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from
+some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on
+one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always
+he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was
+torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body
+reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not
+stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made
+him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below
+the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when
+the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was
+gone.
+
+On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered
+material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the
+food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was
+bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that
+numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to
+and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a
+strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling
+lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad
+Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns
+among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble
+world. The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about
+the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the
+mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his
+head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his
+beat.
+
+In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of
+his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the
+canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.
+
+It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must
+be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was
+little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward
+the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt
+cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this
+precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the
+pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and
+hard.
+
+Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs.
+Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back
+and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost
+ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to
+think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of
+softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.
+
+Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was
+forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the
+direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then,
+as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and
+another and then--
+
+The man--worn by his physical exertion, and by his days of mental
+anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the
+broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a
+smaller, lighter foot.
+
+For a moment he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with
+grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense,
+quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear
+Creek, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.
+
+Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the
+novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of
+Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger
+expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the
+roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen
+neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the
+mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for
+one of his inexperience, the way along the crest of the Galenas was
+practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the
+trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head
+of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to
+Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the
+peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to
+find the artist.
+
+At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack
+Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and
+Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was
+agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at
+daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that
+night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should
+accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.
+
+Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack
+were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a
+messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile had been seen returning
+from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man
+in the car.
+
+"Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this,
+with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to
+Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of
+whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to
+trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left
+it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."
+
+A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in
+opposite directions.
+
+Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road
+branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House
+at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an
+automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine
+had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.
+
+A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped
+and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the
+head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward
+Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small
+store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were
+tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose
+to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on
+the trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a
+slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in
+Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the
+artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range,
+Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the
+supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV
+
+A Hard Way
+
+
+
+When Sibyl Andrés left the studio, after meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was
+dominated by one thought--that she must get away from the world that saw
+only evil in her friendship with Aaron King--a friendship that, to the
+mountain girl, was as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian
+Oakley.
+
+Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman with the disfigured
+face, only the worthy had been permitted to enter into the life of this
+child of the hills. Sibyl's character--mind and heart and body and
+soul--had been formed by the strength and purity of her mountain
+environment; by her association with her parents, with Myra Willard, and
+with her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental comradeship with
+the greatest spirits that music and literature have given to the world. As
+her physical strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain life,
+the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was the gift of those kindred
+spirits that are as mountains in the mental and spiritual life of the
+race.
+
+Love had come to Sibyl Andrés, not as it comes to those girls who, in the
+hot-house of passion we call civilization, are forced into premature and
+sickly bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come to her so
+gently, so naturally, so like the opening of a wild flower, that she had
+not yet understood that it was love. Even as her womanhood had come to
+fulfill her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life to fulfill her
+womanhood. She had chosen her mate with an unconscious obedience to the
+laws of life that was divinely reckless of the world.
+
+Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for
+Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet
+understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been
+tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his
+growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with
+that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of
+God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human
+lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity
+than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their
+children?
+
+The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in
+every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl
+Andrés possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of
+her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted
+the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as
+her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and
+sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had
+crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, frightened,
+dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, the girl turned in reluctant
+flight from the place that was, to her, because of her love, holy ground.
+
+It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mrs. Taine--the woman had
+spoken so kindly; had seemed so reluctant to speak at all; had appeared so
+to appreciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unimportant incidents,
+that, in the light of the worldly woman's words, could be twisted to
+evidence the truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon the
+girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with his work, instead of truly
+enjoying life with him, as she had thought, her friendship was to him a
+menace, a danger. She had believed--and the belief had brought her a
+strange happiness--that he had cared for her companionship. He had cared
+only to use her for his pictures--as he used his brushes. He had played
+with her--as she had seen him toy idly with a brush, while thinking over
+his work. He would throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as
+she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside.
+
+The woman who was still a child could not blame the artist--she was too
+loyal to what she had thought was their friendship; she was too unselfish
+in her yet unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could not blame
+him--only--only--she wished--oh how she wished--that she had understood.
+It would not have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood.
+
+In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her confused and
+bewildering thoughts, in all her suffering one thing was clear; she must
+get away from the world that could see only evil--she must go at once.
+Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any moment. She could not
+face them; now that she knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would
+leave a little note and Myra--dear Myra with her disfigured face--would
+understand.
+
+Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she dressed in her mountain
+costume. Still acting under her blind impulse to escape, she made no
+explanations to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In her desire
+to avoid coming face to face with any one, she even chose the more
+unfrequented streets through the orange groves. In her humiliation and
+shame, she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not until she had
+left the city far behind, and, in the soft dusk, drew near the mouth of
+the canyon, did she regain some measure of her self-control.
+
+As she was overtaking the Power Company's team and wagon of supplies, she
+turned in her saddle, for the first time, to look back. A mile away, on
+the road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving spot which she
+knew to be an automobile. One of the Company machines, she thought; and
+drew a breath of relief that Fairlands was so far away.
+
+It was quite dark as she entered the canyon; but, as she drew near, she
+could see against the sky, those great gates, opening silently,
+majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she
+rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks
+and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light
+of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was
+sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling
+Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and
+calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and,
+somehow, all would be well.
+
+The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to
+the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick
+ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw
+the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company
+machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor,
+to see some one of the mountain folk.
+
+As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and
+halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her
+horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal
+restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed
+that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until
+a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as
+though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them,
+and stopped; its engine still running.
+
+Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only
+their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very
+nicely."
+
+But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by
+the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped
+close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard
+above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.
+
+"It is Miss Andrés, is it not?" He spoke as though he was known to her;
+and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and
+feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his
+face, as she answered.
+
+Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's
+position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his
+powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's
+companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of the machine,
+had drawn close to the other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein.
+
+Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry out, a softly-rolled,
+silk handkerchief was thrust between her lips and skillfully tied in
+place. She struggled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of her
+captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. As he bound her hands,
+the man spoke reassuringly; "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you.
+I've got to do this; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do you no good
+to wear yourself out."
+
+Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the stranger was as gentle as
+the circumstances permitted him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at
+all; and, in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He seemed to
+be acting wholly against his will; as if driven by some power that
+rendered him, in fact, as helpless as his victim.
+
+The other man, still standing by the horse's head, spoke sharply; "All
+right there?"
+
+"All right, sir," gruffly answered the man who held Sibyl, and lifting the
+helpless girl gently in his arms he seated her carefully in the machine.
+An automobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar turned up to
+hide the handkerchief about her lips, and her hat was replaced by an
+"auto-cap," pulled low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the other
+man took the seat beside her; and the car moved forward.
+
+The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. Realizing the
+uselessness of any effort to escape, she wisely saved her strength;
+watchful to take quick advantage of any opportunity that might present
+itself. Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to release the
+bandage that prevented her from crying out. But the hands that had bound
+her had been too skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her
+companion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned collar and cap
+pulled low over "auto-glasses," the identity of the man driving the car
+was effectually hidden.
+
+Only when they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights
+through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her
+strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young
+voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her
+safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon
+run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as
+she was, the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she sank back in
+the seat, exhausted by her useless exertion.
+
+At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile stopped. The man who
+had been following on Sibyl's horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men
+worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets--as the girl guessed--on
+the animal. Presently, the one who had bound her, lifted her gently from
+the automobile "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her ear, as he
+carried her toward the horse. "It will do you no good." And the girl did
+not again resist, as he lifted her to the saddle.
+
+The driver of the car said something to his companion in a low tone, and
+Sibyl heard her captor answer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she
+were in her own home."
+
+Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only the reply; "Don't worry; I
+understand that. I'll go through with it. You've left me no chance to do
+anything else."
+
+Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the bridle-rein, the man who
+seemed to be under orders, led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the
+girl heard the automobile starting on its return. The sound died away in
+the distance. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sound of
+the man's hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the road.
+
+Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to the horse's shoulder,
+asked if she was comfortable. The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that
+gag," he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I dare not take
+chances." He turned abruptly away and they went on.
+
+Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a ray of hope. That no
+immediate danger threatened, she was assured. That the man was acting
+against his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend her efforts
+toward enlisting his sympathies,--to make it hard for him to carry out the
+purpose of whoever controlled him,--instead of antagonizing him by
+continued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, and so making it
+easier for him to do his master's bidding.
+
+Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they reached Burnt Pine,
+where the man removed the handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips.
+
+"Oh, thank you," she said quietly. "That is so much better."
+
+"I'm sorry that I had to do it," he returned, as he unbound her arms.
+"There, you may get down now, and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for
+you."
+
+The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to be free," she said.
+"But, really, I'm not a bit tired. Can't I help you with the pack?"
+
+"No," returned the other, gruffly, as though he understood her purpose and
+put himself on his guard. "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a
+long road ahead. You must rest."
+
+Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back against a tree.
+
+As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she said, "May I ask where
+you are taking me?"
+
+"It's a long road, Miss Andrés. We'll be there to-morrow night," he
+answered reluctantly.
+
+Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is--some one waiting for--for us, at
+the end of our journey?"
+
+The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "no, Miss Andrés; there'll he
+just you and me, for some time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear
+_me_."
+
+"I am not at all afraid of you," she returned gently. "But I am--" she
+hesitated--"I am sorry for you--that you have to do this."
+
+The man arose abruptly. "We must he going."
+
+For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to the Laurel Creek trail,
+toward San Gorgonio; then they turned aside to follow some unmarked way,
+known only to the man. When the first soft tints of the day shone in the
+sky behind the peaks and ridges, while Sibyl's friends were assembling at
+the Carleton Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was directing
+the day's search, the girl was following her guide in the wild depths of
+the mountain wilderness, miles from any trail. The country was strange to
+her, but she knew that they were making their way, far above the canyon
+rim, on the side of the San Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold
+Water country that opened into the great desert beyond.
+
+As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her companion a man of medium
+height, with powerful shoulders and arms; dressed in khaki, with mountain
+boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a powerful stride that told
+of almost tireless strength, the girl saw the familiar stock of a
+Winchester rifle. Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his face.
+It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but
+the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent.
+In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness,
+as though there were memories that could not be escaped.
+
+"We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss Andrés," he said
+gravely.
+
+"I'm so hungry," she answered, dismounting. "May I make the coffee?"
+
+He shook his head. "I'm sorry; but there must be no telltale smoke. The
+Ranger and his riders are out by now, as like as not."
+
+"You seem very familiar with the country," she said, moving easily toward
+the rifle which he had leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with
+the pack of supplies.
+
+"I am," he answered. "I have been forced to learn it thoroughly. By the
+way, Miss Andrés,"--he added, without turning his head, as he knelt on the
+ground to take food from the pack,--"that Winchester will do you no good.
+It is not loaded. I have the shells in my belt." He arose, facing her, and
+throwing open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five that hung in
+a shoulder holster under his left armpit. "This will serve in case quick
+action is needed, and it is always safely out of your reach, you see."
+
+The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," she said. "I might have
+known that you put the rifle within my reach to try me."
+
+"I thought it would save you needless disappointment to make things clear
+at once," he answered. "Breakfast is ready."
+
+The incident threw a strong light upon the character with which Sibyl had
+to deal. She realized, more than ever, that her only hope lay in so
+winning this man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn against
+whoever had forced him into his present position. The struggle was to be
+one of those silent battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are
+not seen but only felt, and where those who fight must often fight with
+smiling faces. The girl's part was to enlist her captor to fight for her,
+against himself. She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her object
+with caution. Eager to know who it was that ruled this man, and by what
+peculiar power a character so strong could be so subjected, she dared not
+ask. Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the
+mountain wilds, she watched and waited for some sign that her companion's
+mood would make it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she exercised
+all her womanly tact to lead him to forget his distasteful position, and
+so to make his uncongenial task as pleasant as possible.
+
+The girl did not realize how far her decision, in itself, aroused the
+admiring sympathy of her captor. Her coolness, self-possession, and
+bravery in meeting the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather
+than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, did more than she
+realized toward accomplishing her purpose.
+
+During that long forenoon, she sought to engage her guide in conversation,
+quite as though they were making a pleasure trip that was mutually
+agreeable. The man--as though he also desired his thoughts removed as far
+as might be from his real mission--responded readily, and succeeded in
+making himself a really interesting companion. Only once, did the girl
+venture to approach dangerous ground.
+
+"Really," she said, "I wish I knew your name. It seems so stupid not to
+know how to address you. Is that asking too much?"
+
+The man did not answer for some time, and the girl saw his face clouded
+with somber thought.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said gently. "I--I ought not to have asked."
+
+"My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andrés," he said deliberately. "But it is
+not the name by which I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is an
+honorable name, and I would like to hear it again--" he paused--"from
+you."
+
+Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston--believe me, I do
+appreciate your confidence, and--" she in turn hesitated--"and I will keep
+the trust."
+
+By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the Galenas, having come by an
+unmarked way, through the wild country around the head of Clear Creek
+Canyon.
+
+They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at his watch, took a small
+mirror from his pocket and stood gazing expectantly toward the distant
+valley where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, a flash of
+light appeared; then another and another. It was the signal that Aaron
+King had seen and to which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that
+first day of their search.
+
+With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak answered and the girl, watching
+and understanding that he was communicating with some one, saw his face
+grow dark with anger. She did not speak.
+
+They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the peak, when the man again
+stopped, saying, "You must dismount here, please."
+
+Removing the things from the saddle, he led the horse a little way down
+the Galena Valley side of the ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then,
+slapping the animal about the head with his open hand, he forced the horse
+to break the reins, and started him off toward the distant valley. Again,
+the girl understood and made no comment.
+
+Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her companion--his eyes
+avoiding hers in shame--said gruffly, "Come."
+
+Their way, now, led down from the higher levels of peak and ridge, into
+the canyons and gorges of the Cold Water country. There was no trail, but
+the man went forward as one entirely at home. At the head of a deep gorge,
+where their way seemed barred by the face of an impossible cliff that
+towered above their heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand,
+sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and faced the girl,
+enquiringly. "You have a good head, Miss Andrés?"
+
+Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. Marston," she answered.
+"You need not fear for me."
+
+Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, he led her, by a narrow
+ledge, across the face of the cliff; and then, by an easier path, down the
+opposite wall of the gorge.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at a little log cabin
+that was so hidden in the wild tangle of mountain growth at the bottom of
+the narrow canyon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred yards.
+
+The girl knew that they had reached the end of their journey. Nearly
+exhausted by the hours of physical exertion, and worn with the mental and
+nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that her companion spread
+for her upon the ground.
+
+"As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for you," he said,
+regarding her kindly. "Poor child, this has been a hard, hard, day for
+you. For me--"
+
+Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank him. For a moment he
+stood looking down at her. Then she saw his face grow black with rage,
+and, clenching his great fists, he turned away.
+
+While waiting for the darkness that would hide the smoke of the fire, the
+man gathered cedar boughs from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed
+in the cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built a fire in the
+rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, announced supper. The meal was
+really excellent; and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily;
+which won an admiring comment from her captor.
+
+The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to thank you, Miss Andrés,
+for making this day as easy for me as you have. We will be alone here,
+until Friday, at least; perhaps longer. There is a bar to the cabin door.
+You may rest here as safely as though you were in your own room. Good
+night."
+
+Before she could answer, he was gone.
+
+A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. "Mr. Marston," she
+called.
+
+"Yes, Miss Andrés," came, instantly, out of the darkness.
+
+"Please come into the cabin."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"It will be cold out there. Please come inside."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Andrés; but I will do very nicely. Bar the door and go to
+sleep."
+
+"But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know that you are
+comfortable."
+
+The man came to her and she saw him in the dim light of the fire, standing
+hat in hand. He spoke wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andrés, that you
+would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin with you?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in."
+
+But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And why are you not afraid?"
+he asked curiously.
+
+"Because," she answered, "I know that you are a gentleman."
+
+The man laughed harshly--such a laugh as Sibyl had never before heard. "A
+gentleman! This is the first time I have heard that word in connection
+with myself for many a year, Miss Andrés. You have little reason for using
+it--after what I have done to you--and am doing."
+
+"Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do what you are doing. You
+_are_ a gentleman, Mr. Marston.--Won't you please come in and sleep by the
+fire? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And you have had such a hard
+day."
+
+"God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andrés," the man said brokenly.
+"But I will not intrude upon your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he
+added savagely, "don't you see that I--I _can't?_ Bar your door, please,
+and let me play the part assigned to me. Your kindness to me, your
+confidence in me, is wasted."
+
+He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI
+
+What Should He Do
+
+
+
+The next morning, it was evident to Sibyl Andrés that the man who said his
+name was Henry Marston had not slept.
+
+All that day, she watched the battle--saw him fighting with himself. He
+kept apart from her, and spoke but little. When night came, as soon as
+supper was over, he again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in
+a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She could not understand;
+but she felt him fighting, fighting; and she knew that he fought for her.
+What was it? What terrible unseen force mastered this man,--compelled him
+to do its bidding,--even while he hated and loathed himself for
+submitting?
+
+Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless girl could only pray
+that her companion might be given strength.
+
+The following morning, at breakfast, he told her that he must go to
+Granite Peak to signal. His orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to
+go alone; but he would not. She might go with him, if she chose.
+
+Even this crumb of encouragement--that he would so far disobey his
+master--filled the girl's heart with hope. "I would love to go with you,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, I
+would rather stay."
+
+"You mean that you would rather be locked up in the cabin all day, than to
+make trouble for me?" he asked.
+
+"It wouldn't be so terrible," she answered, "and I would like to do
+something--something to--to show you that I appreciate your, kindness to
+me. There's nothing else I _can_ do, is there?"
+
+The man looked at her wonderingly. It was impossible to doubt her
+sincerity. And Sibyl, as she saw his face, knew that she had never before
+witnessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes that looked into
+hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, were the eyes of a soul in torment.
+Her own eyes filled with tears that she could not hide, and she turned
+away.
+
+At last he said slowly, "No, Miss Andrés, you shall not stay in the cabin
+to-day. Come; we must go on, or I shall be late."
+
+At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes from distant
+Fairlands--the flashes that Aaron King was watching, from the peak where
+they had sat together that day of their last climb. As the man answered
+the signals with his mirror, and the girl beside him watched, the artist
+was training his glass upon the spot where they stood; but, partially
+concealed as they were, the distance was too great.
+
+When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the message conveyed by the
+flashes of light, his face was terrible to see; and the girl, without
+asking, knew that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly fear gripped her
+heart; but she was strangely calm. On the way back to the cabin, the man
+scarcely spoke, but walked with bent head; and the girl felt him fighting,
+fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead with him, to demand that he tell
+her why he must do this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinctively
+that he must fight alone. So she watched and waited and prayed. As they
+were crossing the face of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man
+stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, stood looking
+moodily down into the depths below. Then they went on. That night, he did
+not leave the cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, but
+sat on one of the rude seats with which the little hut was furnished,
+gazing into the fire.
+
+The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss Andrés, I would like to
+ask your opinion in a matter that I cannot decide satisfactorily to
+myself."
+
+She took the seat on the other side of the rude fireplace.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Marston?"
+
+"I will put it in the form of a story," he answered. Then, after a wait of
+some minutes, as though he found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old
+story, Miss Andrés; a very common one, but with a difference. A young man,
+with every chance in the world to go right, went wrong. He was well-born.
+He was fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and
+considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the
+man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool--that's
+all--a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness.
+
+"A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is a big price for a young
+man to pay for being a fool, Miss Andrés. He was twenty-five when he went
+in--strong and vigorous, with a good mind; the prospects years of prison
+life--but that's not the story. I could not hope to make you understand
+what a thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a man of
+twenty-five. But, at least, you will not wonder that the man watched for
+an opportunity to escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten
+years,--ten years,--Miss Andrés, the man watched and prayed for a chance
+to escape. Then he got away.
+
+"He was never a criminal at heart, you must understand. He had no wish,
+now, to live a life of crime. He wished only to live a sane, orderly,
+useful, life of freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They could not
+take him, but they made it impossible for him to escape--he was
+starving--dying. He would not give himself up to the twenty years of hell
+that waited him. He did not want to die--but he would die rather than go
+back.
+
+"Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a man found him. The poor
+hunted devil of a convict aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the
+wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to furnish him with
+supplies, until it would be safe for him to leave his hiding place. He
+brought him food and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's prison
+pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were grown, and the prison manner
+and walk were, in some measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking
+that he had perished in the mountains, had given up looking for him; his
+benefactor gave him work--beautiful work in the orange groves--where he
+was safe and happy and useful and could feel himself a _man_.
+
+"Do you wonder, Miss Andrés, that the man was grateful? Do you wonder that
+he worshipped his benefactor--that he looked upon his friend as upon his
+savior?"
+
+"No," said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a beautiful thing to do--to
+help the poor fellow who wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man
+who had escaped, loved his friend."
+
+"But listen," said the other, "when the convict was beginning to feel
+safe; when he saw that he was out of danger; when he was living an
+honorable, happy life, instead of spending his days in the hell they call
+prison; when he was looking forward to years of happiness instead of to
+years of torment; then his benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and
+said, 'Unless you do what I tell you, now--unless you help me to something
+that I want, I will send you back to prison. Do as I say, and your life
+shall go on as it is--as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn you
+over to the officers, and you will go back to your hell for the remainder
+of your life.'
+
+"Do you wonder, Miss Andrés, that the convict obeyed his master?"
+
+The girl's face was white with despair, but she did not lose her
+self-control. She answered the man, thoughtfully--as though they were
+discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I think,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend upon what it was that the
+man wanted the convict to do. It seems to me that I can imagine the
+convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man
+wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his
+freedom. What was it the man wanted?"
+
+Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.
+
+The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.
+
+At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, "Freedom and
+a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only
+the memory of a good deed--which should the man choose, Miss Andrés?"
+
+"I think," she replied, "that you should tell me, plainly, what it was
+that the man wanted the convict to do."
+
+"I will go on with the story," said the other.
+
+"The convict's benefactor--or, perhaps I should say, master--loved a woman
+who refused to listen to him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very
+suddenly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hurried note, saying,
+only, that she was going away. By accident, the man found the note and saw
+his opportunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the
+mountains. He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no
+one would know what had become of her. He believed that she would marry
+him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone,
+because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she
+had gone with him. Their marriage would save her good name. He wanted the
+man whom he could send back to prison to help him.
+
+"The convict had known his benefactor's kindness of heart, you must
+remember, Miss Andrés. He knew that this man was able to give his wife
+everything that seems desirable in life--that thousands of women would
+have been glad to marry him. The man assured the convict that he desired
+only to make the girl his wife before all the world. He agreed that she
+should remain under the convict's protection until she _was_ his wife, and
+that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony." The man paused.
+
+When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do you wonder, Miss Andrés,
+that the convict obeyed his master?"
+
+"No," said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, Mr. Marston," she
+continued, hesitatingly, "what do you think the convict in your story
+would have done if the man had not--if he had not wanted to marry the
+girl?"
+
+"I know what he would have done in that case," the other answered with
+conviction. "He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would
+have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his
+freedom at such a price."
+
+The girl leaned forward, eagerly; "And suppose--suppose--that after the
+convict had done his master's bidding--suppose that after he had taken the
+girl away from her friends--suppose, then, the man would not marry her?"
+
+For a moment there was no sound in the little room, save the crackling of
+the fire in the fire-place, and the sound of a stick that had burned in
+two, falling in the ashes.
+
+"What would the convict do if the man would not marry the girl?" persisted
+Sibyl.
+
+Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge passing sentence; "If
+the man violated his word--if he lied to the convict--if his purpose
+toward the girl was anything less than an honorable marriage--if he
+refused to keep his promise after the convict had done his part--he would
+die, Miss Andrés. The convict would kill his benefactor--as surely as
+there is a just God who, alone, can say what is right and what is wrong."
+
+The girl uttered a low cry.
+
+The man did not seem to notice. "But the man will do as he promised, Miss
+Andrés. He wishes to make the girl his wife. He can give her all that
+women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In the eyes of the world,
+she would be envied by thousands. And the convict would gain freedom and
+the right to live an honorable life--the right to earn his bread by doing
+an honest man's work. Freedom and a life of honorable service, at the
+price; or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should he
+choose, Miss Andrés? The convict is past deciding for himself."
+
+The troubled answer came out of the honesty of the girl's heart; "Mr.
+Marston, I do not know."
+
+A moment, the man on the other side of the fireplace waited. Then, rising,
+he quietly left the cabin. The girl did not know that he was gone, until
+she heard the door close.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the wild Cold Water country,
+Sibyl Andrés sat before the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high,
+wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron King grimly walked his
+weary beat. In Clear Creek Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange
+waited, and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in the Galena
+Valley, an automobile from Fairlands stopped at the mouth of a canyon
+leading toward Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the night, a
+man strove to know right from wrong.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII
+
+The Man Was Insane
+
+
+
+Neither Sibyl Andrés nor her companion, the next morning, reopened their
+conversation of the night before. Each was preoccupied and silent, with
+troubled thoughts that might not be spoken.
+
+Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl saw the man listening, as though for
+a step on the mountainside above. She knew, without being told, that the
+convict was expecting his master. It was, perhaps, ten o'clock, when they
+heard a sound that told them some one was approaching.
+
+The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round of cartridges into the
+magazine; saying to the girl, "Go into the cabin and bar the door; quick,
+do as I say! Don't come out until I call you."
+
+She obeyed; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, disappeared in the
+heavy underbrush.
+
+A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the bushes and stepped into the
+little open space in front of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle
+under his arm.
+
+The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew as Henry Marston, with,
+"Hello, George, everything all right? Where is she?"
+
+"Miss Andrés is in the cabin. When I heard you coming, I asked her to go
+inside, and took cover in the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it
+was you."
+
+Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. But you needn't worry.
+Everything is as peaceful as a graveyard. They've found the horse, and
+they think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an accident while
+wandering around the hills in a state of mental aberration."
+
+"You left the supplies at the same old place, I suppose?" said the
+convict.
+
+"Yes, I brought what I could," Rutlidge indicated a pack which he had
+slipped from his shoulder as he was talking. "You better hike over there
+and bring in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will make it
+back by noon, to-morrow."
+
+The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word and trembled with fear.
+The convict spoke again.
+
+"What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge?"
+
+"Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until you get back. You must
+start at once. You say Miss Andrés is in the cabin?" He turned toward the
+door.
+
+But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. I have a word to say,
+before I go."
+
+"Well, out with it."
+
+"You are not going to forget your promise to me?"
+
+"Certainly not, George. You are safe."
+
+"I mean regarding Miss Andrés."
+
+"Oh, of course not! Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your wife."
+
+James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care of her until you get back.
+You need have no fear. You're not doubting my word, are you?"
+
+"If I doubted your word, I would take Miss Andrés with me," answered the
+convict, simply.
+
+James Rutlidge looked at him, curiously; "Oh, you would?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, too, that if you
+_should_ forget your promise--"
+
+"Well, what would you do if I should forget?"
+
+The answer came deliberately; "If you do not keep your promise I will kill
+you, Mr. Rutlidge."
+
+James Rutlidge did not reply.
+
+Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked.
+
+Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes?"
+
+"You may come out now, please, Miss Andrés."
+
+As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Thank you,
+Mr. Marston. I heard."
+
+"I meant you to hear," he returned in a whisper. "Do not be afraid." In a
+louder tone he continued. "I must go for supplies, Miss Andrés. I will be
+back to-morrow noon."
+
+He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and was gone.
+
+Sibyl Andrés faced James Rutlidge, without speaking. She was not afraid,
+now, as she had always been in his presence, until that day when he had so
+plainly declared himself to her and she met his advances with a gun. The
+convict's warning to the man who could send him back to prison for
+practically the remaining years of his life, had served its purpose in
+giving her courage. She did not believe that, for the present, Rutlidge
+would dare to do otherwise than heed the warning.
+
+[Illustration: Still she did not speak.]
+
+James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+"Really," he said, at last, "you do not seem at all glad to see me."
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"I am frightfully hungry"--he continued, with a short laugh, moving toward
+her as she stood in the door of the cabin--"I've been walking since
+midnight I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't even stop for
+breakfast."
+
+She stepped out, and moved away from the door.
+
+With another laugh, he entered the cabin.
+
+Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he went back to the girl
+who had seated herself on a log, at the farther side of the little
+clearing. "You seem fairly comfortable here," he said.
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He has been kind to you?"
+
+Still she did not speak.
+
+He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't keep this up, you know.
+Say what you have to say, and let's get it over."
+
+All the time, she had been regarding him intently--her wide, blue eyes
+filled with wondering pain. "How could you?" she said at last. "Oh, how
+could you do such a thing?"
+
+His face flushed. "I did it because you have driven me mad, I guess. From
+the first time I saw you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and
+again, in the last three years, to approach you; but you would have
+nothing to do with me. The more you spurned me, the more I wanted you.
+Then this man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with him. It made me
+wild. From that day when I met you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I
+have been ready for anything. I determined if I could not win you by fair
+means, I would take you in any way I could. When my opportunity came, I
+took advantage of it. I've got you. The story is already started that you
+were the painter's mistress, and that you have committed suicide. You
+shall stay here, a while, until the belief that you are dead has become a
+certainty; then you will go East with me."
+
+"But you cannot do a thing so horrible!" she exclaimed "I would tell my
+story to the first people we met."
+
+He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal meaning, "You do not seem to
+understand. You will be glad enough to keep the story a secret--when the
+time comes to go."
+
+Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only stammer, "How could
+you--oh how could you! Why, why--"
+
+"Why!" he echoed. Then, as he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with
+reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you!
+Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why!"
+
+He moved another step toward her, his face flushed with the insane passion
+that mastered him, his eyes burning with the reckless light of one past
+counting the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in terror.
+Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, thinking to shut and bar the
+door. She reached the door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While
+he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. Putting his
+shoulder to the door, the man easily forced it open against her lighter
+weight. As he crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest corner of
+the little room, and cowered, trembling--too shaken with horror to cry
+out. A moment he paused; then started toward her.
+
+At that instant, the convict burst through the underbrush into the little
+opening.
+
+Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang to the open door.
+
+The convict was breathing heavily from the exertion of a hard run.
+
+"What are you doing here?" demanded Rutlidge, sharply. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+"Some one is following my trail down from Granite Peak."
+
+"Well, what are you carrying that rifle for?" said Rutlidge, harshly, with
+an oath.
+
+"There may be others near enough to hear a shot," answered the convict.
+"Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is your part of the game--not mine. I did not
+agree to commit murder for you."
+
+"Where did you see him?"
+
+"A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where we turn off to go to the
+supply point."
+
+Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. "You stay here and take
+care of the girl--and see that she doesn't scream." With the last word he
+set out at a run.
+
+The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still crouched in the
+corner. The man's voice was imploring as he said, "Miss Andrés, Miss
+Andrés, what is the matter? Did he touch you? Tell me, did he harm you?"
+
+Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted her to her feet.
+"You--you came--just in time, Mr. Marston."
+
+An instant he stood there, then muttering something under his breath, he
+turned, caught up his rifle, and started toward the door.
+
+But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, "Mr. Marston, don't,
+don't leave me again."
+
+The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said solemnly "Miss Andrés, can
+you pray? I know you can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer he
+will surely hear you. Come with me. Come--and pray girl--pray for me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James
+Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that
+he, himself made to Sibyl. The man was insane--as Mr. Taine was insane--as
+Mrs. Taine was insane.
+
+What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to
+materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them
+ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their
+diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions
+with lascivious imaginings? Can a class--whatever its pretense to culture
+may be--can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts
+greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of
+which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?
+
+James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not
+tolerate purity of thought. It was literally impossible for him to think
+sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life.
+Education, culture, art, literature,--all that is commonly supposed to
+lift man above the level of the beasts,--are used by men and women of his
+kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to
+bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of
+reaching. In what he called his love for Sibyl Andrés, James Rutlidge was
+insane--but no more so than thousands of others. The methods of securing
+the objects of their desires vary--the motive that prompts is the
+same--the end sought is identical.
+
+As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid
+the cabin, the man's mind was in a whirl of emotions--rage at being
+interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one
+should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that
+the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger
+be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a
+maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following
+the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his
+search. The words of the convict rang in his ears. "This is your job. I
+did not agree to commit murder for you."
+
+Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy
+innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul--these are commonplaces in the
+insane philosophy of his kind. But to kill--to take a life
+deliberately--the thought was abhorrent to him. He was not educated to the
+thought of _taking_ life--he was trained to consider its _perversion_. The
+heroes in _his_ fiction did not _kill_ men--they _betrayed_ women. The
+heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers--they
+loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.
+
+But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andrés to be taken from him--to
+face the exposure that would inevitably follow--was impossible. If the man
+who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance--if he
+could be stopped. But how could he check him? What could he do? A
+rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.
+
+While these thoughts were seething in his hot brain, he was climbing
+rapidly toward the cliff at the head of the gorge, across which, he knew,
+the man who was following the tracks that led to the cabin below, must
+come.
+
+Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the face of that mighty
+wall of rock, less than a hundred feet to the other side, he stopped.
+There was no one in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet below the
+tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. Lifting his head, he looked
+carefully about, searching the mountainsides that slope steeply back from
+the rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the frowning cliff that
+towered a thousand feet above his head. He listened. He was thinking,
+thinking. The best of him and the worst of him struggled for supremacy.
+
+A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and beyond the other end of
+the ledge, caught his ear. With a quick step he moved behind a projecting
+corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVIII
+
+An Inevitable Conflict
+
+
+
+When Aaron King set out to follow the tracks he had found at Granite Peak,
+after his long, hard trip along the rugged crest of the Galenas, his
+weariness was forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, but with careful
+eyes and every sense keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he
+knew must lead him to Sibyl Andrés.
+
+He did not attempt to solve the problem of how the girl came there, nor
+did he pause to wonder about her companion. He did not even ask himself if
+Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing; knew nothing; was
+conscious of nothing; but the trail that led away into the depths of the
+mountain wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition; without
+food; unacquainted with the wild country into which he was going; reckless
+of danger to himself but with all possible care and caution for the sake
+of the girl he loved, he went on.
+
+Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the cabin was hidden, the trail,
+following the rim, soon led him to the ledge that lay across the face of
+the cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, he paused, to search
+the vicinity with careful eyes, then started to cross. As he set foot upon
+the ledge, a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop."
+
+At the word, Aaron King halted.
+
+A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from behind the rocks at the other
+end of the ledge. He was covering the artist with a rifle.
+
+In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The automobile, the mirror
+signals from Fairlands--it was all explained by the presence and by the
+menacing attitude of the man who barred his way. The artist's hand moved
+toward the weapon that hung at his hip.
+
+"Don't do that," said the man with the rifle. "I can't murder you in cold
+blood; but if you attempt to draw your gun, I'll fire."
+
+The other stood still.
+
+James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion; "Listen to me,
+King. It's useless for me to deny what brought me here. The trail you are
+following leads to Sibyl Andrés. You had her all summer. I've got her now.
+If you hadn't stumbled onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out
+of the country, and you would never have seen her again. I might have
+killed you before you saw me, but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the
+circumstances there is no possible compromise. I'll give you a fighting
+chance for your life and the girl. I'll take a fighting chance for my life
+and the girl. Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. We'll
+meet on the ledge there."
+
+James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will be remembered,--on
+the night of his death, boasted that he was game.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held
+his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its
+holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle
+behind the rock.
+
+Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats.
+For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed
+the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
+distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the
+man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their
+acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge
+had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the
+sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had
+strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first
+meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying
+that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist,
+in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.
+
+It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and
+characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other,
+each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately,
+they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the
+great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the
+bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills
+watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.
+
+As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
+warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers,
+they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier,
+but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut,
+muscular firmness.
+
+They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare
+handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs
+entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut
+nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of
+the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung
+over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and
+clenched teeth they wrestled.
+
+James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate
+effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King--worn by his days of
+anxiety, by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil over the
+mountains, without sufficient food or rest--felt his strength going.
+Slowly, the weight and endurance of the heavier man told against him.
+James Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze with savage
+triumph.
+
+They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing gasps, that told of the
+nearness of the finish. Slowly, Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to
+increase his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, was bearing
+the other downward and back.
+
+At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andrés reached the cliff. With a
+cry of horror, the girl stood as though turned to stone.
+
+Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the struggling men.
+
+With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In a low voice she called,
+"Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!"
+
+The two men on the ledge heard nothing--saw nothing.
+
+Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her companion heard. "Mr.
+Marston, Mr. Marston, it is Aaron King. I--I love him--I--love him."
+
+Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, the convict answered,
+"Pray, girl; pray, pray for me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle
+to his shoulder.
+
+Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body
+inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for
+the last triumphant effort.
+
+The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, was saying again,
+"Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed
+the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack of
+the rifle.
+
+James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For a fraction of a second,
+his form half straightened and he stood nearly erect; then, as a weed cut
+by the sharp scythe of a mower falls, he fell; his body whirling downward
+toward the trees and rocks below. The sound of the crashing branches
+mingled with the reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron
+King lay still.
+
+The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. Lifting the unconscious man
+in his arms, he carried him a little way down the mountain, toward the
+cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To Sibyl, who hung over the
+artist in an agony of loving fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right,
+presently, Miss Andrés. I'll fetch his coat and hat."
+
+Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead man's rifle, coat, and
+hat, and threw them over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the
+artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.
+
+"Listen, Miss Andrés," said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will
+be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his
+friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances.
+Good-by."
+
+From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked
+at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.
+
+Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for
+me?"
+
+A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like
+some hunted creature of the wilderness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIX
+
+The Better Way
+
+
+
+Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion
+of her woman heart, Sibyl Andrés bent over the unconscious object of her
+love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the
+sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven
+him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing
+was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes;
+she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her
+portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood
+and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.
+
+In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon
+the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her
+love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept
+away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile
+accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and
+the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened
+passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love
+him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant
+assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil
+seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.
+
+As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the
+girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him
+with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his
+hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron,
+Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped
+off her jacket and, placing it under his head, drew a little back.
+
+He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up at the dark pines that
+clothed the mountainsides. His lips moved and she heard her name; "Sibyl,
+Sibyl."
+
+She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing with color. "Yes, Mr.
+King."
+
+"Am I dreaming, again?" he said slowly, gazing at her as though struggling
+to command his senses.
+
+"No, Mr. King," she answered cheerily, "you are not dreaming."
+
+Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread of thought in a bewildering
+tangle of events, he went over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak
+where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make me see the Golden
+State Limited coming down from the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to
+watch for buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, then continued,
+"I saw flashes of light in Fairlands and on Granite Peak. I left a note
+for Brian and came over the range. I spent one night on the way. I found
+tracks on the peak. There were two, a man and a woman. I followed them to
+a ledge of rock at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the thread
+of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop me? Was there--was there a
+fight? Or is that part of my dream?"
+
+"No," she said softly, "that is not part of your dream."
+
+"And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I was going to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then where--" with quick energy he sat up and grasped her arm--"My God!
+Sibyl--Miss Andrés, did I, did I--" He could not finish the sentence, but
+sank back, overcome with emotion.
+
+The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice that rallied his
+mind and forced him to command himself.
+
+"Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember nothing more? You were
+struggling--your strength was going--can't you remember? You must, you
+must!"
+
+Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a rifle-shot?" he asked
+slowly. "It seems to me that something in my brain snapped, and everything
+went black. Was there a rifle-shot?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"And I did not--I did not--?"
+
+"No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would have killed you, but for
+the shot that you heard."
+
+"And Rutlidge is--?"
+
+"He is dead," she answered simply.
+
+"But who--?"
+
+Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that she had met Mrs.
+Taine in the studio until the convict had left her, a few minutes before.
+"And now," she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to the cabin.
+There is food there. You must be nearly starved. I will cook supper for
+you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."
+
+"But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must
+tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until
+I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you
+are ready to hear, now."
+
+She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you
+want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the
+man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff,
+understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."
+
+"And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell
+you?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial
+meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later,
+with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near
+the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that
+he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.
+
+Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut
+them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude
+little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were
+flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the
+night before, the convict had told that girl his story.
+
+Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the
+bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well,
+then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night,"
+she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice,
+he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland
+couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
+
+In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole
+quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood
+upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking
+toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and
+kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she
+crept back to her couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the
+faintly marked trail of the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the
+foot of the cliff. When the darkness came, the mountaineer ate a cold
+supper and, under a rude shelter quickly improvised by his skill in
+woodcraft, slept beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack
+Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his blanket under the
+pines. Somewhere in the night, the man who had saved Sibyl Andrés and
+Aaron King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted thing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their breakfast But so quietly did
+she move about her homely task that the artist did not awake. When the
+meal was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, declaring that
+he felt himself a new man. Breakfast over, they set out at once.
+
+When they came to the cliff at the head of the gulch, the girl halted and,
+shrinking back, covered her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the
+first time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. Gently, her
+companion led her across the ledge, and a little way back from the rim of
+the gorge on the other side.
+
+Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw Brian Oakley coming toward
+them. Laughing and crying, Sibyl ran to meet him; and the mountaineer, who
+had so many times looked death in the face, unafraid and unmoved, wept
+like a child as he held the girl in his arms.
+
+When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the events that led up to their
+meeting with the Ranger, and he in turn had told them how he had followed
+the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden supplies, had followed
+the trail of James Rutlidge from that point, the officer asked the girl
+several questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, while they,
+guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. Finally, he said, "Jack is due
+at Granite Peak, sometime about noon. He'll have his horse, and with Sibyl
+riding, we'll make it back down to the head of Clear Creek by dark. You
+young folks just wait for me here a little. I want to look around below
+there, a bit."
+
+As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to her feet and threw herself
+into his arms. "No, no, Brian Oakley, you shall not--you shall not do it!"
+
+Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into her pleading eyes,
+smilingly. "And what do you think I am going to do, girlie?"
+
+"You are going down there to pick up the trail of the man who saved
+Aaron--who saved me. But you shall not do it. I don't care if you are an
+officer, and he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do anything that
+might lead to his capture."
+
+"God bless you, child," answered Brian Oakley, "the only escaped convict I
+know anything about, this last year, according to my belief, died
+somewhere in the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my official
+reports on the matter."
+
+"And you're not going to find which way he went?"
+
+"Listen, Sibyl," said the Ranger gravely. "The disappearance of James
+Rutlidge, prominent as he was, will be heralded from one end of the world
+to the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. The search is sure
+to be carried into these hills, for that automobile trip in the night will
+not go unquestioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my suspicions.
+In a few days, the body will be safely past recognition, even should it be
+discovered through the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything
+durable being found to identify the man who fell over the cliff."
+
+When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, quietly, "It's a
+mighty good thing I went down. It wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We
+can forget it, now, with perfect safety. Remember"--he charged them
+impressively--"even to Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange, the story must be
+only that an unknown man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The man
+escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the Sheriff, or whoever can,
+solve the mystery of that automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance."
+
+A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack Carleton and, by dark, as
+Brian Oakley had said, were safely down to the head of Clear Creek; having
+come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier and shorter than the
+roundabout way followed by the convict and the girl.
+
+It was just past midnight when the three friends parted from young
+Carleton and crossed the canyon to Sibyl's old home.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XL
+
+Facing the Truth
+
+
+
+As Brian Oakley had predicted, the disappearance of James Rutlidge
+occupied columns in the newspapers, from coast to coast. In every article
+he was headlined as "A Distinguished Citizen;" "A Famous Critic;" "A
+Prominent Figure in the World of Art;" "One of the Greatest Living
+Authorities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Powerful Influence Upon
+the Artistic Production of the Age." The story of the unknown mountain
+girl's abduction and escape was a news item of a single day; but the
+disappearance of James Rutlidge kept the press busy for weeks. It may be
+dismissed here with the simple statement that the mystery has never been
+solved.
+
+Of the unknown man who had taken Sibyl away into the mountains, and who
+had escaped, the world has never heard. Of the convict who died but did
+not die in the hills, the world knows nothing. That is, the world knows
+nothing of the man in this connection. But Aaron and Sibyl, some years
+later, knew what became of Henry Marston--which does not, at all, belong
+to this story.
+
+Upon his return with Conrad Lagrange to their home in the orange groves,
+Aaron King plunged into his work with a purpose very different from the
+motive that had prompted him when first he took up his brushes in the
+studio that looked out upon the mountains and the rose garden.
+
+Day after day, as he gave himself to his great picture,--"The Feast of
+Materialism,"--he knew the joy of the worker who, in his art, surrenders
+himself to a noble purpose--a joy that is very different from the light,
+passing pleasure that comes from the mere exercise of technical skill. The
+artist did not, now, need to drive himself to his task, as the begging
+musician on the street corner forces himself to play to the passing crowd,
+for the pennies that are dropped in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by
+the conviction of a great truth, and by the realization of its woeful need
+in the world, to such adequate expression as his mastery of the tools of
+his craft would permit He was not, now, the slave of his technical
+knowledge; striving to produce a something that should be merely
+technically good. He was a master, compelling the medium of his art to
+serve him; as he, in turn, was compelled to serve the truth that had
+mastered him.
+
+Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an evening hour to the little
+house next door. Sometimes Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the
+studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came alone. But every day,
+as the artist worked, the music of her violin came to him, out of the
+orange grove, with its message from the hills. And the painter at his
+easel, reading aright the message, worked and waited; knowing surely that
+when she was ready she would come.
+
+Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron King, reading them--nearly
+always under the quizzing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was to
+bring the daily mail--carefully tore them into little pieces and dropped
+them into the waste basket, without comment.
+
+Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have you no thought for the
+day of judgment, young man? Do you not know that your sins will surely
+find you out?"
+
+The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, I believe."
+
+The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness is only hastening the
+end. If you don't answer those letters you will be forced, shortly, to
+meet the consequences face to face."
+
+"I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. "But I have my answer
+ready, you know."
+
+"You mean that portrait?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do the trick. But, believe
+me, there will be consequences!"
+
+The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big picture, when Mrs.
+Taine called, the day of her return to Fairlands.
+
+It was well on in the afternoon. Conrad Lagrange and Czar had started for
+a walk, but had gone, as usual, only as far as the neighboring house. Yee
+Kee, meeting Mrs. Taine at the door, explained, doubtfully, that the
+artist was at his work. He would go tell Mr. King that Mrs. Taine was
+here.
+
+"Never mind, Kee. I will tell him myself," she answered; and, before the
+Chinaman could protest, she was on her way to the studio.
+
+"Damn!" said the Celestial eloquently; and retired to his kitchen to
+ruminate upon the ways of "Mellican women."
+
+Mrs. Taine pushed open the door of the studio, so quietly, that the
+painter, standing at his easel and engrossed with his work, did not notice
+her presence. For several moments the woman stood watching him, paying no
+heed to the picture, seeing only the man. When he did not look around, she
+said, "Are you too busy to even _look_ at me?"
+
+With an exclamation, he faced her; then, as quickly, turned again; with
+hand outstretched to draw the easel curtain. But, as though obeying a
+second thought that came quickly upon the heels of the first impulse, he
+did not complete the movement. Instead, he laid his palette and brushes
+beside his color-box, and greeted her with, "How do you do, Mrs. Taine?
+When did you return to Fairlands? Is Miss Taine with you?"
+
+"Louise is abroad," she answered. "I--I preferred California. I arrived
+this afternoon." She went a step toward him. "You--you don't seem very
+glad to see me."
+
+The painter colored, but she continued impulsively, without waiting for
+his reply. "If you only knew all that I have been doing for you!--the
+wires I have pulled; the influences I have interested; the critics and
+newspaper men that I have talked to! Of course I couldn't do anything in a
+large public way, so soon after Mr. Taine's death, you know; but I have
+been busy, just the same, and everything is fixed. When our picture is
+exhibited next season, you will find yourself not only a famous painter,
+but a social success as well." She paused. When he still did not speak,
+she went on, with an air of troubled sadness; "I _do_ miss Jim's help
+though. Isn't it frightful the way he disappeared? Where do you suppose he
+is? I can't--I won't--believe that anything has happened to him. It's all
+just one of his schemes to get himself talked about. You'll see that he
+will appear again, safe and sound, when the papers stop filling their
+columns about him. I know Jim Rutlidge, too well."
+
+Aaron King thought of those bones, picked bare by the carrion birds, at
+the foot of the cliff. "It seems to be one of the mysteries of the day,"
+he said. "Commonplace enough, no doubt, if one only had the key to it."
+
+Mrs. Taine had evidently not been in Fairlands long enough to hear the
+story of Sibyl's disappearance--for which the artist mentally gave thanks.
+
+"I am glad for one thing," continued the woman, her mind intent upon the
+main purpose of her call. "Jim had already written a splendid criticism of
+your picture--before he went away--and I have it. All this newspaper talk
+about him will only help to attract attention to what he has said about
+_you._ They are saying such nice things of him and his devotion to art,
+you know--it is all bound to help you." She waited for his approval, and
+for some expression of his gratitude.
+
+"I fear, Mrs. Taine," he said slowly, "that you are making a mistake."
+
+She laughed nervously, and answered with forced gaiety. "Not me. I'm too
+old a hand at the game not to know just how far I dare or dare not go."
+
+"I do not mean that"--he returned--"I mean that I can not do my part. I
+fear you are mistaken in me."
+
+Again, she laughed. "What nonsense! I like for you to be modest, of
+course--that will be one of your greatest charms. But if you are worried
+about the quality of your work--forget it, my dear boy. Once I have made
+you the rage, no one will stop to think whether your pictures are good or
+bad. The art is not in what you do, but in how you get it before the
+world. Ask Conrad Lagrange if I am not right."
+
+"As to that," returned the artist, "Mr. Lagrange agrees with you,
+perfectly."
+
+"But what is this that you are doing now? Will it be ready for the
+exhibition too?" She looked past him, at the big canvas; and he, watching
+her curiously stepped aside.
+
+Parts of the picture were little more than sketched in, but still, line
+and color spoke with accusing truth the spirit of the company that had
+gathered at the banquet in the home on Fairlands Heights, the night of Mr.
+Taine's death. The figures were not portraits, it is true, but they
+expressed with striking fidelity, the lives and characters of those who
+had, that night, been assembled by Mrs. Taine to meet the artist. The
+figure in the picture, standing with uplifted glass and drunken pose at
+the head of the table--with bestial, lust-worn face, disease-shrunken
+limbs, and dying, licentious eyes fixed upon the beautiful girl
+musician--might easily have been Mr. Taine himself. The distinguished
+writers, and critics; the representatives of the social world and of
+wealth; Conrad Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. Taine
+with her pretense of modest dress that only emphasized her immodesty; and,
+in the midst of the unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the
+unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her violin, offering to them
+that which they were incapable of receiving--it was all there upon the
+canvas, as the artist had seen it that night. The picture cried aloud the
+intellectual degradation and the spiritual depravity of that class who,
+arrogating to themselves the authority of leaders in culture and art, by
+their approval and patronage of dangerous falsehood and sham in picture or
+story, make possible such characters as James Rutlidge.
+
+Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked at the picture on the easel,
+saw a look of doubt and uncertainty come over her face. Once, she turned
+toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, looked again at the
+canvas. She seemed perplexed and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of
+something in the picture that she did not rightly understand Then, as she
+looked, her eyes kindled with contemptuous scorn, and there was a
+pronounced sneer in her cold tones as she said, "Really, I don't believe I
+care for you to do this sort of thing." She laughed shortly. "It reminds
+one a little of that dinner at our house. Don't you think? It's the girl
+with the violin, I suppose."
+
+"There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine," said the artist, quietly.
+
+"No? Well, I think you'd better stick to your portraits. This is a great
+picture though," she admitted thoughtfully. "It, it grips you so. I can't
+seem to get away from it. I can see that it will create a sensation. But
+just the same, I don't like it. It's not nice, like your portrait of me.
+By the way"--and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to
+escape a distasteful subject--"do you remember that I have never seen my
+picture yet? Where do you keep it?"
+
+The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at
+work, "It is there, Mrs. Taine."
+
+"Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep it on the easel, still!"
+Playfully, she added, "Do you look at it often?--that you have it so
+handy?"
+
+"Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have looked at it
+frequently." He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was
+working upon the larger picture.
+
+"How nice of you," she answered "Please let me see it now. I remember when
+you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what
+you thought of me; have you? I wonder!"
+
+"I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine," he answered, and
+drew the curtain that hid the painting.
+
+As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King
+had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had
+seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though
+stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as
+though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really
+was.
+
+Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, "Is it--is it--true? Am
+I--am I _that_?"
+
+Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the girl he loved so nearly to a
+shameful end, and thinking of those bones at the foot of the cliff,
+answered justly; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that picture
+than in the things you said to Miss Andrés, here in this room, the day you
+left Fairlands."
+
+Her face went white with quick rage, but, controling herself, she said,
+"And where is the picture of your _mistress_? I should like to see it
+again, please."
+
+"Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because you are a woman, it is the
+only answer I can make to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as
+false as that portrait of you is true."
+
+Quickly he pushed another easel to a position beside the one that held
+Mrs. Taine's portrait, and drew the curtain.
+
+The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine--but only for a moment.
+A character that is the product of certain years of schooling in the
+thought and spirit of the class in which Mrs. Taine belonged, is not
+transformed by a single exhibition of painted truth. From the two
+portraits, the woman turned to the larger canvas. Then she faced the
+artist.
+
+"You fool!" she said with bitter rage. "O you fool! Do you think that you
+will ever be permitted to exhibit such trash as this?" she waved her hand
+to include the three paintings. "Do you think that I am going to drag
+you up the ladder of social position to fame and to wealth for such
+reward as that?" she singled out her own portrait. "Bah! you are
+impossible--impossible! I have been mad to think that I could make
+anything out of you. As for your idiotic claim that you have painted the
+truth--" She seized a large palette knife that lay with the artist's tools
+upon the table, and springing to her portrait, hacked and mutilated the
+canvas. The artist stood motionless making no effort to stop her. When the
+picture was utterly defaced she threw it at his feet. "_That_, for your
+truth, Mr. King!" With a quick motion, she turned toward the other
+portrait.
+
+But the artist, who had guessed her purpose, caught her hand. "That
+picture was yours, madam--this one is mine." There was a significant ring
+of triumph in his voice.
+
+Neither Aaron King nor Mrs. Taine had noticed three people who had entered
+the rose garden, from the orange grove, through the little gate in the
+corner of the hedge. Conrad Lagrange, Myra Willard and Sibyl were going to
+the studio; deliberately bent upon interrupting the artist at his work.
+They sometimes--as Conrad Lagrange put it--made, thus, a life-saving crew
+of three; dragging the painter to safety when the waves of inspiration
+were about to overwhelm him. Czar, of course, took an active part in these
+rescues.
+
+As the three friends approached the trellised arch that opened from the
+garden into the yard, a few feet from the studio door, the sound of Mrs.
+Taine's angry voice, came clearly through the open window.
+
+Conrad Lagrange stopped. "Evidently, Mr. King has company," he said,
+dryly.
+
+"It is Mrs. Taine, is it not?" asked Sibyl, quietly, recognizing the
+woman's voice.
+
+"Yes," answered the novelist.
+
+The woman with the disfigured face said hurriedly, "Come, Sibyl, we must
+go back. We will not disturb Mr. King, now, Mr. Lagrange. You two come
+over this evening." They saw her face white and frightened.
+
+"I believe I'll go back with you, if you don't mind," returned Conrad
+Lagrange, with his twisted grin; "I don't think I want any of that in
+there, either." To the dog who was moving toward the studio door, he
+added; "Here, Czar, you mustn't interrupt the lady. You're not in her
+class."
+
+They were moving away, when Mrs. Taine's voice came again, clearly and
+distinctly, through the window.
+
+"Oh, very well. I wish you joy of your possession. I promise you, though,
+that the world shall never hear of this portrait of your mistress. If you
+dare try to exhibit it, I shall see that the people to whom you must look
+for your patronage know how you found the original, an innocent, mountain
+girl, and brought her to your studio to live with you. Fairlands has
+already talked enough, but my influence has prevented it from going too
+far. You may be very sure that from now on I shall not exert myself to
+deny it."
+
+The artist's friends in the rose garden, again, stopped involuntarily.
+Sibyl uttered a low exclamation.
+
+Conrad Lagrange looked at Myra Willard. "I think," he said in a low tone,
+"that the time has come. Can you do it?"
+
+"Yes. I--I--must," returned the woman. She spoke to the girl, who, being a
+little in advance, had not heard the novelist's words, "Sibyl, dear, will
+you go on home, please? Mr, Lagrange will stay with me. I--I will join you
+presently."
+
+At a look from Conrad Lagrange, the girl obeyed.
+
+"Go with Sibyl, Czar," said the novelist; and the girl and the dog went
+quickly away through the garden.
+
+In the studio, Aaron King gazed at the angry woman in amazement. "Mrs.
+Taine," he said, with quiet dignity, "I must tell you that I hope to make
+Miss Andrés my wife."
+
+She laughed harshly. "And what has that to do with it?"
+
+"I thought that if you knew, it might help you to understand the
+situation," he answered simply.
+
+"I understand the situation, very well," she retorted, "but you do not
+appear to. The situation is this: I--I was interested in you--as an
+artist. I, because my position in the world enabled me to help you,
+commissioned you to paint my portrait. You are unknown, with no name, no
+place in the world. I could have given you success. I could have
+introduced you to the people that you must know if you are to succeed. My
+influence would insure you a favorable reception from those who make the
+reputations of men like you. I could have made you the rage. I could have
+made you famous. And now--"
+
+"Now," he said calmly, "you will exert your influence to hinder me in my
+work. Because I have not pleased you, you will use whatever power you have
+to ruin me. Is that what you mean, Mrs. Taine?"
+
+"You have made your choice. You must take the consequences," she replied
+coldly, and turned to leave the studio.
+
+In the doorway, stood the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+Conrad Lagrange stood near.
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+Marks of the Beast
+
+
+
+When Mrs. Taine would have passed out of the studio, the woman with the
+disfigured face said, "Wait madam, I must speak to you."
+
+Aaron King recalled that strange scene at the depot, the day of his
+arrival in Fairlands.
+
+"I have nothing to say to you"--returned Mrs. Taine, coldly--"stand aside
+please."
+
+But Conrad Lagrange quietly closed the door. "I think, Mrs. Taine," he
+remarked dryly, "than you will be interested in what Miss Willard has to
+say."
+
+"Oh, very well," returned the other, making the best of the situation.
+"Evidently, you heard what I just said to your protege."
+
+The novelist answered, "We did. Accept my compliments madam; you did it
+very nicely."
+
+"Thanks," she retorted, "I see you still play your role of protector. You
+might tell your charge whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable
+result of his--ah--artistic conscientiousness."
+
+"Mr. King knows that you are not. You have, indeed, put the situation
+rather mildly. It is a sad fact, but, never-the-less, a fact, that the
+noblest work is often forced to remain unrecognized and unknown to the
+world by the same methods that are used to exalt the unworthy. You
+undoubtedly have the power of which you boast, Mrs. Taine, but--"
+
+"But what?" she said triumphantly. "You think I will hesitate to use my
+influence?"
+
+"I _know_ you will not use it--in this case," came the unexpected answer.
+
+She laughed mockingly, "And why not? What will prevent?"
+
+"The one thing on earth, that you fear, madam"--answered Conrad
+Lagrange--"the eyes of the world."
+
+Aaron King listened, amazed.
+
+"I don't think I understand," said Mrs. Taine, coldly.
+
+"No? That is what Miss Willard proposes to explain," returned the
+novelist.
+
+She turned haughtily toward the woman with the disfigured face. "What can
+this poor creature say to anything I propose?"
+
+Myra Willard answered gently, sadly, "Have you no kindness, no sympathy at
+all, madam? Is there nothing but cruel selfishness in your heart?"
+
+"You are insolent," retorted the other, sharply. "Say what you have to say
+and be brief."
+
+Myra Willard drew close to the woman and looked long and searchingly into
+her face. The other returned her gaze with contemptuous indifference.
+
+"I have been sorry for you," said Myra Willard slowly. "I have not wished
+to speak. But I know what you said to Sibyl, here in the studio; and I
+overheard what you said to Mr. King, a few minutes ago. I cannot keep
+silent."
+
+"Proceed," said Mrs. Taine, shortly. "Say what you have to say, and be
+done with it."
+
+Myra Willard obeyed. "Mrs. Taine, twenty-six years ago, your guardian, the
+father of James Rutlidge won the love of a young girl. It does not matter
+who she was. She was beautiful and innocent That was her misfortune.
+Beauty and innocence often bring pain and sorrow, madam, in a world where
+there are too many men like Mr. Rutlidge, and his son. The girl thought
+the man--she did not know him by his real name--her lover. She thought
+that he became her husband. A baby was born to the girl who believed
+herself a wife; and the young mother was happy. For a short time, she was
+very happy.
+
+"Then, the awakening came. The girl mother was holding her baby to her
+breast, and singing, as happy mothers do, when a strange woman appeared in
+the open door of the room. She was a beautiful woman, richly dressed; but
+her face was distorted with passion. The young mother did not understand.
+She did not know, then, that the woman was Mrs. Rutlidge--the true wife of
+the father of her child. She knew that, afterward. The woman, in the
+doorway lifted her hand as though to throw something, and the mother,
+instinctively, bowed her head to shield her baby. Then something that
+burned like fire struck her face and neck. She screamed in agony, and
+fainted.
+
+"The rest of the story does not matter, I think. The injured mother was
+taken to the hospital. When she recovered, she learned that Mrs. Rutlidge
+was dead--a suicide. Later, Mr. Rutlidge took the baby to raise as his
+ward; telling the world that the child was the daughter of a relative who
+had died at its birth. You must understand that when the disfigured mother
+of the baby came to know the truth, she believed that it would be better
+for the little one if the facts of its birth were never known. The wealthy
+Mr. Rutlidge could give his ward every advantage of culture and social
+position. The child would grow to womanhood with no stain upon her name.
+Because she felt she owed her baby this, the only thing that she could
+give her, the mother consented and disappeared.
+
+"Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little of the acid that burned
+that mother's face fell upon the shoulder of her illegitimate baby."
+
+"God!" exclaimed the artist.
+
+Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine stood like a woman of stone.
+At the end, she gazed at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated
+with horror, while her hands moved to finger the buttons of her dress.
+Unconscious of what she was doing, as though under some strange spell,
+without removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred features she opened
+the waist of her dress and bared to them her right shoulder. It was marked
+by a broad scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her mother.
+
+Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the mother instinct. "My baby,
+my poor, poor girl!"
+
+The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an air of cold, unconquerable
+pride, the woman looked at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she
+swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
+why you have done this."
+
+Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, white and trembling. Aaron
+King stepped quickly to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her
+shoulder waited for the novelist to speak.
+
+"Miss Willard told you this story because I asked her to," said Conrad
+Lagrange. "I asked her to tell you because it gives me the power to
+protect the two people who are dearer to me than all the world."
+
+"Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered Mrs. Taine.
+
+"Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a reporter on a certain newspaper
+when the incidents just related occurred. I wrote the story for the press.
+In fact, it was the story that gave me my start in yellow journalism, from
+which I graduated the novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper
+game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of this story that you have
+just heard. Permit me to say, that I know how to write in the approved
+newspaper style, and to add that my name insures a wide hearing. Proceed
+to carry out your threats, and I promise you that I will give this
+attractive bit of news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper in
+the land. Can't you see the headlines? 'Startling Revelation,' 'The Secret
+of the Beautiful Mrs. Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social
+World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a Social Leader.' Do you
+understand, madam? Use your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr.
+King in his work; or fail to use your influence to contradict the lies
+you have already started about the character of Miss Andrés; and I will
+use the influence of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you before
+the eyes of the world for what you are."
+
+For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. Then, as she grasped the
+full significance of what he had said, she slowly bowed her head.
+
+Conrad Lagrange opened the door.
+
+As she went out, the woman with the disfigured face started forward,
+holding out her hands appealingly.
+
+Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly toward the big automobile
+that was waiting in front of the house.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XLII
+
+Aaron King's Success
+
+
+
+The winter months were past.
+
+Aaron King was sitting before his finished picture. The colors were still
+fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs in an honored place in one of
+the great galleries of the world. To the last careful touch, the artist
+had put into his painted message, the best he had to give. Back of every
+line and brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a worthy motive.
+For an hour, he had been sitting there, before the easel, brush and
+palette in hand, without touching the canvas. He could do no more.
+
+Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
+that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
+of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
+he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
+work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
+indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
+entered the studio; Czar at his heels.
+
+Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
+friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
+of the finished painting, now.
+
+"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"
+
+The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
+knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
+having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
+in his hand he read:
+
+"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
+otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
+distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
+the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
+indolent--slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of
+places--the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the
+wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers
+who pass him by. But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that
+lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere
+striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility
+conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I
+know--as you will some day come to understand--is not a blessing but a
+curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely; and which,
+if it be not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and poison the
+life of the race.
+
+"Because I would have your ambition, a safe and worthy ambition, Aaron, I
+ask that the supreme and final test of any work that comes from your hand
+may be this; that it satisfy you, yourself--that you may be not ashamed to
+sit down alone with your work, and thus to look it squarely in the face.
+Not critics, nor authorities, not popular opinion, not even law or
+religion, must be the court of final appeal when you are, by what you do,
+brought to bar; but by you, _yourself_, the judgment must be rendered. And
+this, too, is true, my son, by that judgment and that judgment alone, you
+will truly live or you will truly die."
+
+"And that"--said the novelist--so famous in the eyes of the world, so
+infamous in his own sight--"and that is what she tried to make me believe,
+when she and I were young together. But I would not. I would not accept
+it. I thought if I could win fame that she--" he checked himself suddenly.
+
+"But you have led me to accept it, old man," cried the artist heartily.
+"You have opened my eyes. You have helped me to understand my mother, as I
+never could have understood her, alone."
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted whimsically. "No doubt good
+may sometimes be accomplished by the presentation of a horrible example.
+But go on with your private exhibition. I'll not keep you longer. Come,
+Czar."
+
+In spite of the artist's protests, he left the studio.
+
+While the painter was putting away his letters, the novelist and the dog
+went through the rose garden and the orange grove, straight to the little
+house next door. They walked as though on a definite mission.
+
+Sibyl and Myra Willard were sitting on the porch.
+
+"Howdy, neighbor," called the girl, as the tall, ungainly form of the
+famous novelist appeared. "You seem to be the bearer of news. What is the
+latest word from the seat of war?"
+
+"It is finished," said Conrad Lagrange, returning Myra's gentle greeting,
+and accepting the chair that Sibyl offered.
+
+"The picture?" said the girl eagerly, a quick color flushing her cheeks.
+"Is the picture finished?"
+
+"Finished," returned the novelist. "I just left him mooning over it like a
+mother over a brand-new baby."
+
+They laughed together, and when, a moment later, the girl slipped into the
+house and did not return, the woman with the disfigured face and the
+famous novelist looked at each other with smiling eyes. When Czar, with
+sudden interest, started around the corner of the house, his master said
+suggestively, "Czar, you better stay here with the old folks."
+
+Passing through the house, and out of the kitchen door, Sibyl ran,
+lightly, through the orange grove, to the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge. A moment she paused, hesitating, then, stealing
+cautiously into the rose garden, she darted in quick flight to the shelter
+of the arbor; where she parted the screen of vines to gain a view of the
+studio.
+
+Between the big, north window and the window that opened into the garden,
+she saw the artist. She saw, too, the big canvas upon the easel. But Aaron
+King was not, now, looking at his work just finished. He was sitting
+before that other picture into which he had unconsciously painted, not
+only the truth that he saw in the winsome loveliness of the girl who posed
+for him with outstretshed hands among the roses, but his love for her as
+well.
+
+With a low laugh, Sibyl drew back. Swiftly, as she had reached the arbor,
+she crossed the garden, and a moment later, paused at the studio door.
+Again she hesitated--then, gently,--so gently that the artist, lost in his
+dreams, did not hear,--she opened the door. For a little, she stood
+watching him. Softly, she took a few steps toward him. The artist, as
+though sensing her presence, started and looked around.
+
+She was standing as she stood in the picture; her hands outstretched, a
+smile of welcome on her lips, the light of gladness in her eyes.
+
+As he rose from his chair before the easel, she went to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many days later, there was a quiet wedding, at Sibyl's old home in the
+hills. Besides the two young people and the clergyman, only Brian Oakley,
+Mrs. Oakley, Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard were present. These friends
+who had prepared the old place for the mating ones, after a simple dinner
+following the ceremony, returned down the canyon to the Station.
+
+Standing arm in arm, where the old road turns around the cedar thicket,
+and where the artist had first seen the girl, Sibyl and Aaron watched them
+go. From the other side of roaring Clear Creek, they turned to wave hats
+and handkerchiefs; the two in the shadow of the cedars answered; Czar
+barked joyful congratulations; and the wagon disappeared in the wilderness
+growth.
+
+Instead of turning back to the house behind them, the two, without
+speaking, as though obeying a common impulse, set out down the canyon.
+
+A little later they stood in the old spring glade, where the alders bore,
+still, in the smooth, gray bark of their trunks, the memories of long-ago
+lovers; where the light fell, slanting softly through the screen of leaf
+and branch and vine and virgin's-bower, upon the granite boulder and the
+cress-mottled waters of the spring, as through the window traceries of a
+vast and quiet cathedral; and where the distant roar of the mountain
+stream trembled in the air like the deep tones of some great organ.
+
+Sibyl, dressed in her brown, mountain costume, was sitting on the boulder,
+when the artist said softly, "Look!"
+
+Lifting her eyes, as he pointed, she saw two butterflies--it might almost
+have been the same two--with zigzag flight, through the opening in the
+draperies of virgin's-bower. With parted lips and flushed cheeks, the girl
+watched. Then--as the beautiful creatures, in their aerial waltz, whirled
+above her head--she rose, and lightly, gracefully,--almost as her winged
+companions,--accompanied them in their dance.
+
+The winged emblems of innocence and purity flitted away over the willow
+wall. The girl, with bright eyes and smiling lips--half laughing, half
+serious--looked toward her mate. He held out his arms and she went to him.
+
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Eyes of the World, by Harold Bell Wright
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11715 ***
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11715 ***</div>
+
+<div id="frontispiece">
+<div class="image" id="illus01"><p><img src="images/illus01.png" alt="Sibyl" /><br />
+Sibyl</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div id="tp">
+<h1 class="title">The Eyes of the World</h1>
+
+<h2 class="author">By Harold Bell Wright</h2>
+
+<h3>Author of "That Printer of Udells,"<br /> "The Shepherd of the Hills,"<br />
+"The Calling of Dan Matthews,"<br /> "The Winning of Barbara Worth,"<br />
+"Their Yesterdays," Etc.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div id="dedication">
+<h2>To Benjamin H. Pearson</h2>
+
+<h3>Student, Artist, Gentleman</h3>
+
+<p>in appreciation of the friendship that began on the "Pipe-Line Trail," at
+the camp in the sycamores back of the old orchard, and among the higher
+peaks of the San Bernardinos; and because this story will always mean more
+to him than to any one else,--this book, with all good wishes, is</p>
+
+<p>Dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>H. B. W.</p>
+
+<p>"Tecolote Rancho,"<br />
+April 13, 1914.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div id="epigraph">
+<blockquote class="poem"><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I have learned<br />
+    To look on Nature not as in the hour<br />
+    Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes<br />
+    The sad, still music of humanity,<br />
+    Not harsh or grating, though of ample power<br />
+    To chasten and subdue. And I have felt,<br />
+    A presence that disturbs me with the joy<br />
+    Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime<br />
+    Of something far more deeply interfused,<br />
+    Whose dwelling is in the lights of setting suns,<br />
+    And the round ocean and the living air,<br />
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.<br />
+    A motion and a spirit that impels<br />
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,<br />
+    And rolls through all things.</p>
+
+<p>    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Therefore am I still<br />
+    A lover of the meadows and the woods<br />
+    And mountains.........<br />
+    ....... And this prayer I make,<br />
+    Knowing that Nature never did betray<br />
+    The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege<br />
+    Through all the years of this one life, to lead<br />
+    From joy to joy; for she can so inform<br />
+    The mind that is within us--so impress<br />
+    With quietness and beauty, and so feed<br />
+    With lofty thoughts--that neither evil tongues,<br />
+    Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,<br />
+    Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all<br />
+    The dreary intercourse of daily life,<br />
+    Shalt e'er prevail against us, or disturb<br />
+    Our cheerful faith."</p>
+
+<p>    William Wordsworth.</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="toc">
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+
+<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman">
+ <li><a href="#ch01">His Inheritance</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch02">The Woman With the Disfigured Face</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch03">The Famous Conrad Lagrange</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch04">At the House on Fairlands Heights</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch05">The Mystery of the Rose Garden</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch06">An Unknown Friend</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch07">Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch08">The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch09">Conrad Lagrange's Adventure</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch10">A Cry in the Night</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch11">Go Look in Your Mirror, You Fool</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch12">First Fruits of His Shame</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch13">Myra Willard's Challenge</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch14">In the Mountains</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch15">The Forest Ranger's Story</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch16">When the Canyon Gates Are Shut</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch17">Confessions in the Spring Glade</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch18">Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the Butterflies</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch19">The Three Gifts and their Meanings</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch20">Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch21">The Last Climb</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch22">Shadows of Coming Events</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch23">Outside the Canyon Gates Again</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch24">James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch25">On the Pipe-Line Trail</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch26">I Want You Just as You Are</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch27">The Answer</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch28">You're Ruined, My Boy</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch29">The Hand Writing On The Wall</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch30">In the Same Hour</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch31">As the World Sees</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch32">The Mysterious Disappearance</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch33">Beginning the Search</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch34">The Tracks on Granite Peak</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch35">A Hard Way</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch36">What Should He Do</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch37">The Man Was Insane</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch38">An Inevitable Conflict</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch39">The Better Way</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch40">Facing the Truth</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch41">Marks of the Beast</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch42">Aaron King's Success</a></li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+
+<div id="illustrations">
+<h2>Illustrations from Oil Paintings</h2>
+
+<p class="byline">By</p>
+
+<h2 class="author">F. Graham Cootes</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="images/illus01.png">Sibyl</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="images/illus02.png">A curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="images/illus03.png">"Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="images/illus04.png">Still she did not speak</a></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h1 class="title">The Eyes of the World</h1>
+
+
+
+<div id="ch01" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter I</h2>
+
+<h3>His Inheritance</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>It was winter--cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds and
+stinging wind.</p>
+
+<p>The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culture
+which has given to the history of our nation--to education, to religion,
+to the sciences, and to the arts--so many illustrious names.</p>
+
+<p>In the changing years, before the beginning of my story, the woman's
+immediate friends and associates had moved from the neighborhood to the
+newer and more fashionable districts of a younger generation. In that city
+of her father's there were few of her old companions left. There were
+fewer who remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and
+letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her
+home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to
+their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times,
+had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a
+passing day, had been hostess and friend.</p>
+
+<p>The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. Ruthlessly it had been
+stripped of its treasures of art and its proud luxuries. But, even in its
+naked necessities the room managed, still, to evidence the rare
+intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying tenant.</p>
+
+<p>The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, was marked by the
+death-gray. The eyes, deep in their hollows between the fleshless forehead
+and the prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were livid; the nose
+was sharp and pinched; the colorless cheeks were sunken; but the outlines
+were still delicately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. It was,
+still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen lips, only, was there a
+sign of life; and they trembled and fluttered in their effort to utter the
+words that an indomitable spirit gave them to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day--to-day--he will--come." The voice was a thin, broken whisper; but
+colored, still, with pride and gladness.</p>
+
+<p>A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse turned quickly from the
+window. With soft, professional step, she crossed the room to bend over
+the bed. Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she spoke slowly,
+distinctly, with careful clearness; and, under the cool professionalism of
+her words, there was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight through the suddenly opened
+doors of a sepulchre, the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes,
+clear and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a powerful
+personality. In their shadowy depths, she saw the last glowing embers of
+the vital fire gathered; carefully nursed and tended; kept alive by a will
+that was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a definite purpose.
+Dying, this woman <i>would</i> not die--<i>could</i> not die--until the end for
+which she willed to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of
+Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand--without life, she was
+holding Death at bay.</p>
+
+<p>It was magnificent, and the gentle face under the nurse's cap shone with
+appreciation and admiration as she smiled her sympathy and understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"My son--my son--will come--to-day." The voice was stronger, and, with the
+eyes, expressed a conviction--a certainty--with the faintest shadow of a
+question.</p>
+
+<p>The nurse looked at her watch. "The boat was due in New York, early this
+morning, madam."</p>
+
+<p>A step sounded in the hall outside. The nurse started, and turned quickly
+toward the door. But the woman said, "The doctor." And, again, the fire
+that burned in those sunken eyes was hidden wearily under their dark lids.</p>
+
+<p>The white-haired physician and the nurse, at the farther end of the room,
+spoke together in low tones. Said the physician,--incredulous,--"You say
+there is no change?"</p>
+
+<p>"None that I can detect," breathed the nurse. "It is wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Her mind is clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"As though she were in perfect health."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor took the nurse's chart. For a moment, he studied it in silence.
+He gave it back with a gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered,
+"she should be in her grave by now! It's a miracle! But she has always
+been like that--" he continued, half to himself, looking with troubled
+admiration toward the bed at the other end of the room--"always."</p>
+
+<p>He went slowly forward to the chair that the nurse placed for him. Seating
+himself quietly beside his patient, and bending forward with intense
+interest, his fine old head bowed, he regarded with more than professional
+care the wasted face upon the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor remembered, too well, when those finely moulded features--now,
+so worn by sorrow, so marked by sickness, so ghastly in the hue of
+death--were rounded with young-woman health and tinted with rare
+loveliness. He recalled that day when he saw her a bride. He remembered
+the sweet, proud dignity of her young wifehood. He saw her, again, when
+her face shone with the glad triumph and the holy joy of motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>The old physician turned from his patient, to look with sorrowful eyes
+about the room that was to witness the end.</p>
+
+<p>Why was such a woman dying like this? Why was a life of such rich mental
+and spiritual endowments--of such wealth of true culture--coming to its
+close in such material poverty?</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was one of the few who
+understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
+that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts to
+which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor knew that
+there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the world of
+books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to care for her. All
+that a human being could do for her, in those days of her life's tragedy,
+that one had done. Then--because he understood--he had gone away. Her own
+son did not know--could not, in his young manhood, have understood, if he
+had known--would not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would
+understand--perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
+fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.</p>
+
+<p>At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.</p>
+
+<p>The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her eyes came the gleam of
+that old time challenging spirit. "Well--Doctor George," she answered.
+Then,--"I--told you--I would not--go--until he came. I must--have my
+way--still--you see. He will--come--to-day He must come."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mary," returned the doctor,--his fingers still on the thin wrist,
+and his eyes studying her face with professional keenness,--"yes, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"And George--you will not forget--your promise? You will--give me a few
+minutes--of strength--when he comes--so that I can tell him? I--I--must
+tell him myself--George. You--will do--this last thing--for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. "Everything shall be as you
+wish--as I promised."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you--George. Thank you--my dear--dear--old friend."</p>
+
+<p>The nurse--who had been standing at the window--stepped quickly to the
+table that held a few bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor looked
+at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she opened a small, flat,
+leather case. With his fingers still on his patient's wrist, the physician
+spoke a word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse placed a
+hypodermic needle in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his assistant, a quick step
+sounded in the hall outside.</p>
+
+<p>The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes were fixed upon the door; her
+voice--stronger, now, with the strength of the powerful stimulant--rang
+out; "My boy--my boy--he is here! George, nurse, my boy is here!"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened. A young man of perhaps twenty-two years stood on the
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The most casual observer would have seen that he was a son of the dying
+woman. In the full flush of his young manhood's vigor, there was the same
+modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely turned nostrils, the same
+dark eyes under a breadth of forehead; while the determined chin and the
+well-squared jaw, together with a rather remarkable fineness of line,
+told of an inherited mental and spiritual strength and grace as charming
+as it is, in these days, rare. His dress was that of a gentleman of
+culture and social position. His very bearing evidenced that he had never
+been without means to gratify the legitimate tastes of a cultivated and
+refined intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>As he paused an instant in the open door to glance about that poverty
+stricken room, a look of bewildering amazement swept over his handsome
+face. He started to draw back--as if he had unintentionally entered the
+wrong apartment. Looking at the doctor, his lips parted as if to apologize
+for his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes met the eyes of the
+woman on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of horror, he sprang forward;--"Mother! Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>As he knelt there by the bed, when the first moments of their meeting were
+past, he turned his face toward the doctor. From the physician his gaze
+went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's old friend. His eyes
+were burning with shame and sorrow--with pain and doubt and accusation.
+His low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded, "What does this
+mean? Why is my mother here like--like this?"--his eyes swept the bare
+room again.</p>
+
+<p>The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my boy. It is to tell you, that
+I have waited."</p>
+
+<p>At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly followed the physician from
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long. When she had finished, the false strength that had kept
+the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived to be
+her last duty, failed quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"You will--promise--you will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I
+can--give you, my son."</p>
+
+<p>"O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before? Why did I not know!"
+The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. "It--was--all that I could do--for you--my son--the only
+way--I could--help. I do not--regret the cost. You will--not forget?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, mother, never."</p>
+
+<p>"You promise--to--to regain that--which--your father--"</p>
+
+<p>Solemnly the answer came,--in an agony of devotion and love,--"I
+promise--yes, mother, I promise."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and
+steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.</p>
+
+<p>He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed. He had
+set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his
+promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.</p>
+
+<p>How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry
+out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last
+to understand, is the story that I have to tell.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch02" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter II</h2>
+
+<h3>The Woman with the Disfigured Face</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The Golden State Limited, with two laboring engines, was climbing the
+desert side of San Gorgonio Pass.</p>
+
+<p>Now San Gorgonio Pass--as all men should know--is one of the two eastern
+gateways to the beautiful heart of Southern California. It is, therefore,
+the gateway to the scenes of my story.</p>
+
+<p>As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren slope of the mountain, in
+its effort to lessen the heavy grade, the young man on the platform of the
+observation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, sun-filled
+haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, over the vast reaches of
+the Colorado Desert. Now and then, as the Express swung around the curves,
+he gained a view of the lonely, snow-piled peaks of the San Bernardinos;
+with old San Gorgonio, lifting above the pine-fringed ridges of the lower
+Galenas, shining, silvery white, against the blue. Again, on the southern
+side of the pass, he saw San Jacinto's crags and cliffs rising almost
+sheer from the right-of-way.</p>
+
+<p>But the man watching the ever-changing panorama of gorgeously colored and
+fantastically unreal landscape was not thinking of the scenes that, to
+him, were new and strange. His thoughts were far away. Among those
+mountains grouped about San Gorgonio, the real value of the inheritance he
+had received from his mother was to be tested. On the pine-fringed ridge
+of the Galenas, among those granite cliffs and jagged peaks, the mettle of
+his manhood was to be tried under a strain such as few men in this
+commonplace work-a-day old world are-subjected to. But the young man did
+not know this.</p>
+
+<p>On the long journey across the continent, he had paid little heed to the
+sights that so interested his fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers,
+themselves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had approached him
+casually, as the sometimes tedious hours passed, he had been quietly and
+courteously unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked
+disinclination to mingle with them, together with the undeniably
+distinguished appearance of the young man, only served to center the
+interest of the little world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him.
+Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own thoughts, he became the
+object of many idle conjectures.</p>
+
+<p>Among the passengers whose curious eyes were so often turned in his
+direction, there was one whose interest was always carefully veiled. She
+was a woman of evident rank and distinction in that world where rank and
+distinction are determined wholly by dollars and by such social position
+as dollars can buy. She was beautiful; but with that carefully studied,
+wholly self-conscious--one is tempted to say professional--beauty of her
+kind. Her full rounded, splendidly developed body was gowned to
+accentuate the alluring curves of her sex. With such skill was this
+deliberate appeal to the physical hidden under a cloak of a pretending
+modesty that its charm was the more effectively revealed. Her features
+were almost too perfect. She was too coldly sure of herself--too perfectly
+trained in the art of self-repression. For a woman as young as she
+evidently was, she seemed to know too much. The careful indifference of
+her countenance seemed to say, "I am too well schooled in life to make
+mistakes." She was traveling with two companions--a fluffy, fluttering,
+characterless shadow of womanhood, and a man--an invalid who seldom left
+the privacy of the drawing-room which he occupied.</p>
+
+<p>As the train neared the summit of the pass, the young man on the
+observation car platform looked at his watch. A few miles more and he
+would arrive at his destination. Rising to his feet, he drew a deep breath
+of the glorious, sun-filled air. With his back to the door, and looking
+away into the distance, he did not notice the woman who, stepping from the
+car at that moment, stood directly behind him, steadying herself by the
+brass railing in front of the window. To their idly observing fellow
+passengers, the woman, too, appeared interested in the distant landscape.
+She might have been looking at the only other occupant of the platform.
+The passengers, from where they sat, could not have told.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there,--against the background of the primitive, many-colored
+landscape,--the young man might easily have attracted the attention of
+any one. He would have attracted attention in a crowd. Tall, with an
+athletic trimness of limb, a good breadth of shoulder, and a fine head
+poised with that natural, unconscious pride of the well-bred--he kept his
+feet on the unsteady platform of the car with that easy grace which marks
+only well-conditioned muscles, and is rarely seen save in those whose
+lives are sanely clean.</p>
+
+<p>The Express had entered the yards at the summit station, and was gradually
+lessening its speed. Just as the man turned to enter the car, the train
+came to a full stop, and the sudden jar threw him almost into the arms of
+the woman. For an instant, while he was struggling to regain his balance,
+he was so close to her that their garments touched. Indeed, he only
+prevented an actual collision by throwing his arm across her shoulder and
+catching the side of the car window against which she was leaning.</p>
+
+<p>In that moment, while his face was so close to hers that she might have
+felt his breath upon her cheek and he was involuntarily looking straight
+into her eyes, the man felt, queerly, that the woman was not shrinking
+from him. In fact, one less occupied with other thoughts might have
+construed her bold, open look, her slightly parted lips and flushed
+cheeks, as a welcome--quite as though she were in the habit of having
+handsome young men throw themselves into her arms.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, he was saying, conventionally,
+"I beg your pardon. It was very stupid of me."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, a mask of cold indifference slipped over her face. Without
+deigning to notice his courteous apology, she looked away, and, moving to
+the railing of the platform, became ostensibly interested in the busy
+activity of the railroad yards.</p>
+
+<p>Had the woman--in that instant when his arm was over her shoulder and his
+eyes were looking into hers--smiled, the incident would have slipped
+quickly from his mind. As it was, the flash-like impression of the moment
+remained, and--</p>
+
+<p>Down the steep grade of the narrow San Timateo Canyon, on the coast side
+of the mountain pass, the Overland thundered on the last stretch of its
+long race to the western edge of the continent. And now, from the car
+windows, the passengers caught tantalizing glimpses of bright pastures
+with their herds of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch
+buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and eucalyptus trees. On the
+rounded shoulders and steep flanks of the foothills that form the sides of
+the canyon, the barley fields looked down upon the meadows; and, now and
+then, in the whirling landscape winding side canyons--beautiful with
+live-oak and laurel, with greasewood and sage--led the eye away toward the
+pine-fringed ridges of the Galenas while above, the higher snow-clad peaks
+and domes of the San Bernardinos still shone coldly against the blue.</p>
+
+<p>In the Pullman, there was a stir of awakening interest The travel-wearied
+passengers, laying aside books and magazines and cards, renewed
+conversations that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert part of
+the journey, had lagged painfully. Throughout the train, there was an air
+of eager expectancy; a bustling movement of preparation. The woman of the
+observation car platform had disappeared into her stateroom. The young man
+gathered his things together in readiness to leave the train at the next
+stop.</p>
+
+<p>In the flying pictures framed by the windows, the dairy pastures and
+meadows were being replaced by small vineyards and orchards; the canyon
+wall, on the northern side, became higher and steeper, shutting out the
+mountains in the distance and showing only a fringe of trees on the sharp
+rim; while against the gray and yellow and brown and green of the
+chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the silvery softness of the
+olive trees that border the arroyo at their feet.</p>
+
+<p>With a long, triumphant shriek, the flying overland train--from the lands
+of ice and snow--from barren deserts and lonely mountains--rushed from the
+narrow mouth of the canyon, and swept out into the beautiful San
+Bernardino Valley where the travelers were greeted by wide, green miles of
+orange and lemon and walnut and olive groves--by many acres of gardens and
+vineyards and orchards. Amid these groves and gardens, the towns and
+cities are set; their streets and buildings half hidden in wildernesses of
+eucalyptus and peppers and palms; while--towering above the loveliness of
+the valley and visible now from the sweeping lines of their foothills to
+the gleaming white of their lonely peaks--rises, in blue-veiled,
+cloud-flecked steeps and purple shaded canyons, the beauty and grandeur of
+the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>It was January. To those who had so recently left the winter lands, the
+Southern California scene--so richly colored with its many shades of
+living green, so warm in its golden sunlight--seemed a dream of fairyland.
+It was as though that break in the mountain wall had ushered them suddenly
+into another world--a world, strange, indeed, to eyes accustomed to snow
+and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Among the many little cities half concealed in the luxurious,
+semi-tropical verdure of the wide valley at the foot of the mountains,
+Fairlands--if you ask a citizen of that well-known mecca of the
+tourist--is easily the Queen. As for that! all our Southern California
+cities are set in wildernesses of beauty; all are in wide valleys; all are
+at the foot of the mountains; all are meccas for tourists; each one--if
+you ask a citizen--is the Queen. If you, perchance should question this
+fact--write for our advertising literature.</p>
+
+<p>Passengers on the Golden State Limited--as perhaps you know--do not go
+direct to Fairlands. They change at Fairlands Junction. The little city,
+itself, is set in the lap of the hills that form the southern side of the
+valley, some three miles from the main line. It is as though this
+particular "Queen" withdrew from the great highway traveled by the vulgar
+herd--in the proud aloofness of her superior clay, sufficient unto
+herself. The soil out of which Fairlands is made is much richer, it is
+said, than the common dirt of her sister cities less than fifteen miles
+distant. A difference of only a few feet in elevation seems, strangely, to
+give her a much more rarefied air. Her proudest boast is that she has a
+larger number of millionaires in proportion to her population than any
+other city in the land.</p>
+
+<p>It was these peculiar and well-known advantages of Fairlands that led the
+young man of my story to select it as the starting point of his worthy
+ambition. And Fairlands is a good place for one so richly endowed with an
+inheritance that cannot be expressed in dollars to try his strength. Given
+such a community, amid such surroundings, with a man like the young man of
+my story, and something may be depended upon to happen.</p>
+
+<p>While the travelers from the East, bound for Fairlands, were waiting at
+the Junction for the local train that would take them through the orange
+groves to their journey's end, the young man noticed the woman of the
+observation car platform with her two companions. And now, as he paced to
+and fro, enjoying the exercise after the days of confinement in the
+Pullman, he observed them with stimulated interest--they, too, were going
+to Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>The man of the party, though certainly not old in years, was frightfully
+aged by dissipation and disease. The gross, sensual mouth with its
+loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes
+with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck
+and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a
+misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and,
+in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.</p>
+
+<p>As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big
+pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper,
+between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country,
+the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being
+worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy suggestion of
+womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected
+giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do
+hush! What will people think?" This last variation of his daughter's
+plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it
+furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly
+outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything
+at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing
+near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a
+little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's
+cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to
+be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or
+twice, as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes were turned in
+his direction.</p>
+
+<p>When the Fairlands train came in, the three found seats conveniently
+turned, near the forward end of the car. The young man, in passing,
+glanced down; and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the aisle,
+looked up full into his face.</p>
+
+<p>Again, as their eyes met, the man felt--as when they had stood so close
+together on the platform of the observation car--that she did not shrink
+from him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing about for a seat, he
+saw another face--a face, in its outlines, so like the one into which he
+had just looked, and yet so different--so far removed in its expression
+and meaning--that it fixed his attention instantly--compelling his
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>As this woman sat looking from the car window away toward the distant
+mountain peaks, the young man thought he had never seen a more perfect
+profile; nor a countenance that expressed such a beautiful blending of
+wistful longing, of patient fortitude, and saintly resignation. It was the
+face of a Madonna,--but a Madonna after the crucifixion,--pathetic in its
+lonely sorrow, inspiring in its spiritual strength, and holy in its purity
+and freedom from earthly passions.</p>
+
+<p>She was near his mother's age; and looking at her--as he moved down the
+aisle--his mother's face, as he had known it before their last meeting,
+came to him with startling vividness. For an instant, he paused, moved to
+take the chair beside her; but the next two seats were vacant, and he had
+no excuse for intruding. Arranging his grips, he quickly seated himself
+next to the window; and again, with eager interest, turned toward the
+woman in the chair ahead. Involuntarily, he started with astonishment and
+pity.</p>
+
+<p>The woman--still gazing from the window at the distant mountain peaks, and
+seemingly unconscious of her surroundings--presented now, to the man's
+shocked and compassionate gaze, the other side of her face. It was
+hideously disfigured by a great scar that--covering the entire cheek and
+neck--distorted the corner of the mouth, drew down the lower lid of the
+eye, and twisted her features into an ugly caricature. Even the ear, half
+hidden under the soft, gray-threaded hair, had not escaped, but was
+deformed by the same dreadful agent that had wrought such ruin to one of
+the loveliest countenances the man had ever looked upon.</p>
+
+<p>When the train stopped at Fairlands, and the passengers crowded into the
+aisle to make their way out, of the characters belonging to my story, the
+woman with the man and his daughter went first. Following them, a half
+car-length of people between, went the woman with the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>On the depot platform, as they moved toward the street, the young man
+still held his place near the woman who had so awakened his pitying
+interest. The three Overland passengers were met by a heavy-faced
+thick-necked man who escorted them to a luxurious touring car.</p>
+
+<p>The invalid and his daughter had entered the automobile when their escort,
+in turning toward the other member of the party, saw the woman with the
+disfigured face--who was now quite near. Instantly, he paused. And there
+was a smile of recognition on his somewhat coarse features as, lifting his
+hat, he bowed with--the young man fancied--condescending politeness. The
+woman standing by his side with her hand upon the door of the automobile,
+seeing her companion saluting some one, turned--and the next moment, the
+two women, whose features seemed so like--yet so unlike--were face to
+face.</p>
+
+<p>The young man saw the woman with the disfigured face stop short. For an
+instant, she stood as though dazed by an unexpected blow. Then, holding
+out her hands with a half-pleading, half-groping gesture, she staggered
+and would have fallen had he not stepped to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me, madam; you are ill."</p>
+
+<p>She neither spoke nor moved; but, with her eyes fixed upon the woman by
+the automobile, allowed him to support her--seemingly unconscious of his
+presence. And never before had the young man seen such anguish of spirit
+written in a human countenance.</p>
+
+<p>The one who had saluted her, advanced--as though to offer his services.
+But, as he moved toward her, she shrank back with a low--"No, no!" And
+such a look of horror and fear came into her eyes that the man by her side
+felt his muscles tense with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>Looking straight into the heavy face of the stranger, he said curtly, "I
+think you had better go on."</p>
+
+<p>With a careless shrug, the other turned and went back to the automobile,
+where he spoke in a low tone to his companions.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, who had been watching with a cold indifference, stepped into
+the car. The man took his seat by the chauffeur. As the big machine moved
+away, the woman with the disfigured face, again made as if to stretch
+forth her hands in a pleading gesture.</p>
+
+<p>The young man spoke pityingly; "May I assist you to a carriage, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>At his words, she looked up at him and--seeming to find in his face the
+strength she needed--answered in a low voice, "Thank you, sir; I am better
+now. I will he all right, presently, if you will put me on the car." She
+indicated a street-car that was just stopping at the crossing.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" he asked kindly, as he
+walked with her toward the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,"--with a sad attempt to smile,--"yes, and I thank you very much,
+sir, for your gentle courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood with bared head as she
+passed inside, and the conductor gave the signal.</p>
+
+<p>The incident had attracted little attention from the passengers who were
+hurrying from the train. Their minds were too intent upon other things to
+more than glance at this little ripple on the surface of life. Those who
+had chanced to notice the woman's agitation had seen, also, that she was
+being cared for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second thought.</p>
+
+<p>When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot platform,
+the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking about,
+questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes
+fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.</p>
+
+<p>Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
+unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so
+rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought was
+to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His long,
+thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From
+under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a
+curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe.
+At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.</p>
+
+<p>Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape
+the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman
+with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. He turned, now,
+upon the young man who had so kindly given her assistance.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
+head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.</p>
+
+<p>Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon reaching
+the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.</p>
+
+<p>The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
+still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
+Setter at his feet.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch03" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter III</h2>
+
+<h3>The Famous Conrad Lagrange</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room, where
+he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
+the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who had
+directed him to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and the
+Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the clerk's
+counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his
+skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to present
+the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining
+tables; and the young man heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and
+commenting in an audible undertone, upon every dish that was served to
+him--swearing by all the heathen gods, known and unknown, that there was
+nothing fit to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the fact that
+there was no place else in the cursed town that served half so good, he
+would not touch a mouthful in the place. Then, to the other's secret
+amusement he fell to right heartily and made an astonishing meal of the
+really excellent viands he had so roundly vilified.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar to the long veranda; intent
+upon enjoying the restful quiet of the evening after the tiresome days on
+the train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he had his cigar just
+nicely under way when the Irish Setter--with all the dignity of his royal
+blood--approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long silky ears,
+confidently upon the stranger's knee, the dog looked up into the man's
+face with an expression of hearty good-fellowship in his soft,
+golden-brown eyes that was irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>"Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fellow," and stroked the
+sleek head and neck, affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The
+dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half
+pathetic, half humorous, and altogether cynical expression.</p>
+
+<p>The young man who had been so unresponsive to the advances of his fellow
+passengers, for some reason--unknown, probably, to himself--now took the
+initiative. "You have a fine dog here, sir," he said encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>Without replying, the other turned away and in another moment returned
+with a chair; whereupon the dog, with slightly waving, feathery tail,
+transferred his attention to his master.</p>
+
+<p>Caressing the seal-brown head with a gentle hand, and apparently speaking
+to the soft eyes that looked up at him so understandingly, the man said,
+"If the human race was fit to associate with such dogs, the world would be
+a more comfortable place to live in." The deep voice that rumbled up from
+some unguessed depths of that sunken chest was remarkable in its
+suggestion of a virile power that the general appearance of the man seemed
+to deny. Facing his companion suddenly, he asked with a direct bluntness,
+"Are you not Aaron King--son of the Aaron King of New England political
+fame?"</p>
+
+<p>Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, the young man flushed.
+"Yes; my father was active in New England politics," he answered simply.
+"Did you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well"--returned the other--"very well." He repeated the two words
+with a suggestive emphasis; his eyes--with that curious, baffling,
+questioning look--still fixed upon his companion's face.</p>
+
+<p>The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened.</p>
+
+<p>Looking away, the strange man added, with a softer note in his rough
+voice, "I thought I knew you, when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and
+I were boy and girl together. There is a little of her face in yours. If
+you have as much of her character, you are to be congratulated--and--so
+are the rest of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to the dog;
+who, still looking up at him, seemed to express with slow-waving tail, an
+understanding of thoughts that were only partly put into words.</p>
+
+<p>There was an impersonality in the man's personalities that made it
+impossible for the subject of his observations to take offense.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King--when it was evident that the man had no thought of
+introducing himself--said, with the fine courtesy that seemed always to
+find expression in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, answered, "Conrad
+Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>The young man smiled. "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Lagrange.
+Surely, you are not the famous novelist of that name?"</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>why</i>, 'surely not'?" retorted the other, again turning his face
+quickly toward his companion. "Am I not distinguished enough in
+appearance? Do I look like the mob? True, I am a scrawny, humpbacked
+crooked-faced, scarecrow of a man--but what matters <i>that</i>, if I do not
+look like the mob? What is called fame is as scrawny and humpbacked and
+crooked-faced as my body--but what matters <i>that?</i> Famous or infamous--to
+not look like the mob is the thing."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of
+sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked
+the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker
+turned from his human companion to a more worthy listener.</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King could find no words to reply, the novelist shot another
+question at him, with startling suddenness. "Do you read my books?"</p>
+
+<p>The other began a halting answer to the effect that everybody read Conrad
+Lagrange's books. But the distinguished author interrupted; "Don't take
+the trouble to lie--out of politeness. I shall ask you to tell me about
+them and you will be in a hole."</p>
+
+<p>The young man laughed as he said, with straight-forward frankness, "I have
+read only one, Mr. Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>"Which one?"</p>
+
+<p>"The--ah--why--the one, you know--where the husband of one woman falls in
+love with the wife of another who is in love with the husband of some one
+else. Pshaw!--what is the title? I mean the one that created such a
+furore, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"--said the man, to his dog--"O yes, Czar--I am the famous Conrad
+Lagrange. I observe"--he added, turning to the other, with twinkling
+eyes--"I observe, Mr. King, that you really <i>do</i> have a good bit of your
+mother's character. That you do not read my books is a recommendation that
+I, better than any one, know how to appreciate." The light of humor went
+from his face, suddenly, as it had come. Again he turned away; and his
+deep voice was gentle as he continued, "Your mother is a rare and
+beautiful spirit, sir. Knowing her regard for the true and genuine,--her
+love for the pure and beautiful,--I scarcely expected to find her son
+interested in the realism of <i>my</i> fiction. I congratulate you, young
+man"--he paused; then added with indescribable bitterness--"that you have
+not read my books."</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments, Aaron King did not answer. At last, with quiet dignity,
+he said, "My mother was a remarkable woman, Mr. Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>The other faced him quickly. "You say <i>was</i>? Do you mean--?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother is dead, sir. I was called home from abroad by her illness."</p>
+
+<p>For a little, the older man sat looking into the gathering dusk. Then,
+deliberately, he refilled his brier pipe, and, rising, said to his dog,
+"Come, Czar--it's time to go."</p>
+
+<p>Without a word of parting to his human companion with the dog moving
+sedately by his side, he disappeared into the darkness of the night.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All the next day, Aaron King--in the hotel dining-room, the lobby, and on
+the veranda--watched for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the
+little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the uncouth
+figure and the homely, world-worn face of the man whose unusual
+personality had so attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Conrad
+Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening before, the young man was
+smoking his after-dinner cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a
+whiff of pipe smoke announced the strange character's presence.</p>
+
+<p>Without taking a seat, the novelist said, "I always have a look at the
+mountains, at this time of the day, Mr. King--would you care to come?
+These mountains are the real thing, you know, and well worth
+seeing--particularly at this hour." There was a gentle softness in his
+deep voice, now--as unlike his usual speech as his physical appearance was
+unlike that of his younger companion.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King arose quickly. "Thank you, Mr, Lagrange; I will go with
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the dog, they followed the avenue, under the giant pepper
+trees that shut out the sky with their gnarled limbs and gracefully
+drooping branches, to the edge of the little city; where the view to the
+north and northeast was unobstructed by houses. Just where the street
+became a road, Conrad Lagrange--putting his hand upon his companion's
+arm--said in a low voice, "This is the place."</p>
+
+<p>Behind them, beautiful Fairlands lay, half lost, in its wilderness of
+trees and flowers. Immediately in the foreground, a large tract of
+unimproved land brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet.
+Beyond these acres--upon which there were no trees--the orange groves were
+massed in dark green blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows
+of palms; clumps of peppers; or tall, plume-like eucalyptus; to mark the
+roads and the ranch homes. Beyond this--and rising, seemingly, out of the
+groves--the San Bernardinos heaved their mighty masses into the sky. It
+was almost dark. The city's lamps were lighted. The outlines of grove and
+garden were fast being lost in the deepening dusk. The foothills, with the
+lower spurs and ridges of the mountains, were softly modeled in dark blue
+against the deeper purple of the canyons and gorges. Upon the cloudless
+sky that was lighted with clearest saffron, the lines of the higher crests
+were sharply drawn; while the lonely, snow-capped peaks,--ten thousand
+feet above the darkening valley below,--catching the last rays of the sun,
+glowed rose-pink--changing to salmon--deepening into mauve--as the light
+failed.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King broke the silence by drawing a long breath--as one who could
+find no words to express his emotions.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange spoke sadly; "And to think that there are,--in this city
+of ten thousand,--probably, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety people
+who never see it."</p>
+
+<p>With a short laugh, the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch
+for my palette and brushes--though it's not at all my sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>The other turned toward him quickly. "You are an artist?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had just completed my three years study abroad when mother's illness
+brought me home. I was fortunate enough to get one on the line, and they
+say--over there--that I had a good chance. I don't know how it will go
+here at home." There was a note of anxiety in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Portraits."</p>
+
+<div class="image" id="illus02"><p><img src="images/illus02.png" alt="A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and wholly cynical interrogation" /><br />
+A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and wholly cynical interrogation</p></div>
+
+<p>With his face again toward the mountains, the novelist said thoughtfully,
+"This West country will produce some mighty artists, Mr. King. By far the
+greater part of this land must remain, always, in its primitive
+naturalness. It will always be easier, here, than in the city crowded
+East, for a man to be himself. There is less of that spirit which is born
+of clubs and cliques and clans and schools--with their fine-spun
+theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely
+commissioned to sit in judgment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking,
+esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that
+loneliness out of which great art comes. The atmosphere of these mountains
+and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a
+clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others--and what, after
+all, <i>is</i> a great artist, but one who greatly asserts himself?"</p>
+
+<p>The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr. Lagrange, your words recall
+to my mind a thought in one of mother's favorite books. She quoted from
+the volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it by heart, and,
+in turn, it became my favorite. Indeed, I think that, with mother's aid as
+an interpreter, it has had more influence upon my life than any other one
+book. This is the thought: 'To understand the message of the mountains; to
+love them for what they are; and, in terms of every-day life, to give
+expression to that understanding and love--is a mark of true greatness of
+soul.' I do not know the author. The book is anonymous."</p>
+
+<p>"I am the author of that book, sir," the strange man answered with simple
+dignity, "--or, rather,--I should say,--I <i>was</i> the author," he added,
+with a burst of his bitter, sarcastic humor. "For God's sake don't betray
+me. I am, <i>now</i>, the <i>famous</i> Conrad Lagrange, you understand. I have a
+<i>name</i> to protect." His deep voice was shaken with feeling. His worn and
+rugged features twitched and worked with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King listened in amazement to the words that were spoken by the
+famous novelist with such pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation.
+Not knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are working here, Mr.
+Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Working! Me? I don't <i>work</i> anywhere. I am a literary scavenger. I haunt
+the intellectual slaughter pens, and live by the putrid offal that
+self-respecting writers reject. I glean the stinking materials for my
+stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. For the dollars they pay, I
+furnish my readers with those thrills that public decency forbids them to
+experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the purposes of mental
+prostitution. My books breed moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The
+unholy filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imaginations of my
+readers. I am an instigator of degrading immorality and unmentionable
+crimes. <i>Work</i>! No, young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing penance
+in this damned town. My rotten imaginings have proven too much--even for
+me--and the doctors sent me West to recuperate,"</p>
+
+<p>The artist could find no words that would answer. In silence, the two men
+turned away from the mountains, and started back along the avenue by which
+they had come.</p>
+
+<p>When they had walked some little distance, the young man said, "This is
+your first visit to Fairlands, Mr. Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was here last year"--answered the other--"here and in the hills yonder.
+Have <i>you</i> been much in the mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in California. This is my first trip to the West. I have seen
+something of the mountains, though, at tourist resorts--abroad."</p>
+
+<p>"Which means," commented the other, "that you have never seen them at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right."</p>
+
+<p>"And you--?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing his companion. "What
+brought you to this community that thinks so much more of its millionaires
+than it does of its mountains? Have <i>you</i> come to Fairlands to work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope to," answered the artist. "There are--there are reasons why I do
+not care to work, for the present, in the East. I confess it was because I
+understood that Fairlands offered exceptional opportunities for a portrait
+painter that I came here. To succeed in my work, you know, one must come
+in touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier to interest them
+when they are away from their homes--in some place like this--where their
+social duties and business cares are not so pressing."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no question of the material that Fairlands has to offer, Mr.
+King," returned the novelist, in his grim, sarcastic humor. "God! how I
+envy you!" he added, with a flash of earnest passion. "You are young--You
+are beginning your life work--You are looking forward to success--You--"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>must</i> succeed"--the painter interrupted impetuously--"I must."</p>
+
+<p>"Succeed in <i>what</i>? What do you mean by success?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, <i>you</i> should understand what I mean by success," the younger man
+retorted. "You who have gained--"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I forgot"--came the quick interruption--"I am the <i>famous</i>
+Conrad Lagrange. Of course, you, too, must succeed. You must become the
+<i>famous</i> Aaron King. But perhaps you will tell me why you must, as you
+call it, succeed?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist hesitated before answering; then said with anxious earnestness,
+"I don't think I can explain Mr. Lagrange. My mother--" he paused.</p>
+
+<p>The older man stopped short, and, turning, stood for a little with his
+face towards the mountains where San Bernardino's pyramid-like peak was
+thrust among the stars. When he spoke, every bit of that bitter humor was
+gone from his deep voice. "I beg your pardon, Mr. King"--he said
+slowly--"I am as ugly and misshapen in spirit as in body."</p>
+
+<p>But when they had walked some way--again in silence--and were drawing near
+the hotel, the momentary change in his mood passed. In a tone of stinging
+sarcasm he said. "You are on the right road, Mr. King. You did well to
+come to Fairlands. It is quite evident that you have mastered the modern
+technic of your art. To acquire fame, you have only to paint pictures of
+fast women who have no morals at all--making them appear as innocent
+maidens, because they have the price to pay, and, in the eyes of the
+world, are of social importance. Put upon your canvases what the world
+will call portraits of distinguished citizens--making low-browed
+money--thugs to look like noble patriots, and bloody butchers of humanity
+like benevolent saints. You need give yourself no uneasiness about your
+success. It is easy. Get in with the right people; use your family name
+and your distinguished ancestors; pull a few judicious advertising wires;
+do a few artistic stunts; get yourself into the papers long and often, no
+matter how; make yourself a fad; become a pet of the social autocrats--and
+your fame is assured. And--you will be what I am."</p>
+
+<p>The young man, quietly ignoring the humor of the novelist's words, said
+protestingly, "But, surely, to portray human nature is legitimate art, Mr.
+Lagrange. Your great artists that the West is to produce will not
+necessarily be landscape painters or write essays upon nature, will they?"</p>
+
+<p>"To portray human nature is legitimate work for an artist, yes"--agreed
+the novelist--"but he must portray human nature <i>plus</i>. The forces that
+<i>shape</i> human nature are the forces that must be felt in the picture and
+in the story. That these determining forces are so seldom seen by the eyes
+of the world, is the reason <i>for</i> pictures and stories. The artist who
+fails to realize for his world the character-creating elements in the life
+which he essays to paint or write, fails, to just that degree, in being an
+artist; or is self-branded by his work as criminally careless, a charlatan
+or a liar. That one who, for a price, presents a picture or a story
+without regard for the influence of his production upon the characters of
+those who receive it, commits a crime for which human law provides no
+adequate punishment. Being the famous Conrad Lagrange, you understand, I
+have the right to say this. You will probably believe it, some day--if
+you do not now. That is, you will believe it if you have the soul and the
+intelligence of an artist--if you have not--it will not matter--and you
+will be happy in your success."</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist finished speaking, the two men arrived at the hotel steps,
+where they halted, with that indecision of chance acquaintances who have
+no plans beyond the passing moment, yet who, in mutual interest, would
+extend the time of their brief companionship. While they stood there, each
+hesitating to make the advance, a big touring car rolled up the driveway,
+and stopped under the full light of the veranda. Aaron King recognized the
+lady of the observation car platform, with her two traveling companions
+and the heavy-faced man who had met them at the depot. As the party
+greeted the novelist and he returned their salutation, the artist turned
+away to find again the chair, where, an hour before, the strange character
+who was to play so large a part in his life and work had found him. The
+dog, Czar, as if preferring the companionship of the artist to the company
+of those who were engaging his master's attention, followed the young man.</p>
+
+<p>From where he sat, the painter could see the tall, uncouth figure of the
+famous novelist standing beside the automobile, while the occupants of the
+car were, apparently, absorbingly interested in what he was saying. The
+beautiful face of the woman was brightly animated as she evidently took
+the lead in the conversation. The artist could see her laughing and
+shaking her head. Once, he even heard her speak the writer's name;
+whereupon, every lounger upon the veranda, within hearing, turned to
+observe the party with curious interest. Several times, the young man
+noted that she glanced in his direction, half inquiringly, with a
+suggestion of being pleased, as though she were glad to have seen him in
+company with her celebrated friend. Then the man who held so large a place
+in the eyes of the world drew back, lifting his hat; the automobile
+started forward; the party called, "Good night." The woman's voice rose
+clear--so that the spectators might easily understand--"Remember, Mr.
+Lagrange--I shall expect you Thursday--day after to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad Lagrange came up the hotel steps, the eyes of all were upon him;
+but he--apparently unconscious of the company--went straight to the
+artist; where, without a word, he dropped into the vacant chair by the
+young man's side, and began thoughtfully refilling his brier pipe.
+Flipping the match over the veranda railing, and expelling a prodigious
+cloud of smoke, the novelist said grimly, "And there--my fellow artist--go
+your masters. I trust you observed them with proper reverence. I would
+have introduced you, but I do not like to take the initiative in such
+outrages. That will come soon enough. The young should be permitted to
+enjoy their freedom while they may."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed. "Thank you for your consideration," he returned, "but
+I do not think I am in any immediate danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Which"--the other retorted dryly--"betrays either innocence, caution, or
+an unusual understanding of life. I am not, now, prepared to say whether
+you know too much or too little."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess to a degree of curiosity," said the artist. "I traveled in the
+same Pullman with three of the party. May I ask the names of your
+friends?"</p>
+
+<p>The other answered in his bitterest vein; "I have no friends, Mr. King--I
+have only admirers. As for their names"--he continued--"there is no reason
+why I should withhold either who they are or what they are. Besides, I
+observed that the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art' has her
+eye upon you, already. As I shall very soon be commanded to drag you to
+her 'Court,' it is well for you to be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>The young man laughed as the other paused to puff vigorously at his brier
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"That red-faced, bull-necked brute, is James Rutlidge, the son and heir of
+old Jim Rutlidge," continued the novelist. "Jim inherited a few odd
+millions from <i>his</i> father, and killed himself spending them in
+unmentionable ways. The son is most worthily carrying out his father's
+mission, with bright prospects of exceeding his distinguished parent's
+fondest dreams. But, unfortunately, <i>he</i> is hampered by lack of adequate
+capital--the bulk of the family wealth having gone with the old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean James Rutlidge--the great critic?" exclaimed Aaron King, with
+increased interest.</p>
+
+<p>"The same," answered the other, with his twisted smile. "I thought you
+would recognize his name. As an artist, you will undoubtedly have much to
+do with him. His friendship is one of the things that are vital to your
+success. Believe me, his power in modern art is a red-faced, bull-necked
+power that you will do well to recognize. Of his companions," he went on,
+"the horrible example is Edward J. Taine--friend and fellow martyr of
+James Rutlidge, Senior. Satan, perhaps, can explain how he has managed to
+outlive his partner. His home is in New York, but he has a big house on
+Fairlands Heights, with large orange groves in this district. He comes
+here winters for his health. He'll die before long. The effervescing young
+creature is his daughter, Louise--by his first wife. The 'Goddess'--who is
+not much older than his daughter--is the present Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"His wife!"</p>
+
+<p>The artist's exclamation drew a sarcastic chuckle from the other. "I am
+prepared, now, to testify to your unworldly innocence of heart and mind,"
+he gibed. "And, pray, why not his wife? You see, she was the ward of old
+Rutlidge--a niece, it is said. Mrs. Rutlidge--as you have no doubt
+heard--killed herself. It was shortly after her death that Jim took this
+little one into his home. She and young Jim grew up together. What was
+more natural or fitting than that her guardian--when he was about to
+depart from this sad world where human flesh is not able to endure an
+unlimited amount of dissipation--should give the girl as a lively souvenir
+to his bosom friend and companion of his unmentionable deviltries? The
+transaction also enabled him, you understand, to draw upon the Taine
+millions; and so permitted him to finish his distinguished career with
+credit. You, with your artist's extravagant fancy, have, no doubt, been
+thinking of her as fashioned for <i>love</i>. I assure you <i>she</i> knows better.
+The world in which she has been schooled has left her no hazy ideas as to
+what she was made for."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of the Taines," said the younger man, thoughtfully. "I
+suppose this is the same family. They are very prominent in the social
+world, and quite generous patrons of the arts?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the eyes of the world," said the novelist, "they are the noblest of
+our Nobility. They dwell in the rarefied atmosphere of millions. By the
+dollarless multitudes they are envied. They assume to be the cultured of
+the cultured. Patrons of the arts! Why, man, <i>they have autographed copies
+of all my books!</i> They and their kind <i>feed</i> me and my kind. They will
+feed you, sir, or by God you'll starve! But you need have no fear that the
+crust of genius will be your portion," he added meaningly. "As I
+remarked--the 'Goddess' has her eye upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you so distinguish the lady?" asked the artist, quietly
+amused--with just a hint of well-bred condescension. "Has Mrs. Taine such
+powerful influence in the world of art?"</p>
+
+<p>If Conrad Lagrange noticed his companion's manner he passed it by. "I
+perceive," he said, "that you are still somewhat lacking in the rudiments
+of your profession. The statement of faith adhered to by modern climbers
+on the ladder of fame--such as I have been, and you aspire to be--is that
+'Pull' wins. Our creed is 'Graft.' By 'Influence' we stand, by
+'Influence' we fall. It pleases Mrs. Taine to be, in the world of art, a
+lobbyist. She knows the insides of the inside rings and cliques and
+committees that say what is, and what is not, art; that declare who shall
+be, and who shall not be, artists. She has power with those who, in their
+might, grant position and place in the halls of fame; as their kinsmen in
+the political world pass the plums to those who court their favor. The
+great critics who thunder anathemas at the poor devils who are outside,
+eat out of her hand. Jim Rutlidge and his unholy crew are at her beck and
+call. Jim, you see, needing all he can get of the Taine millions, hopes to
+marry Louise. You can scarcely blame the young and beautiful Mrs. Taine
+for not being interested in her husband--who is going to die so soon. The
+poor girl must have some amusement, so she interests herself in art, don't
+you know. She gives more dinners to artists and critics; buys more
+pictures and causes more pictures to be bought; mothers more art-culture
+clubs; discovers more new and startling geniuses; in short, has a larger
+and better trained company of lions than any one else in the business. She
+deals in lions. It's her fad to collect them--same as others collect
+butterflies or postage stamps. She has one other fad that is less harmful
+and just as deceptive--a carefully nourished reputation for prudery. I
+sometimes think the Gods must laugh or choke. That woman would no more
+speak to you without a proper introduction than she would appear on the
+street without shoes or stockings. She has never been seen in an evening
+gown. Her beautiful shoulders have never been immodestly bared to the
+eyes of the world."</p>
+
+<p>The artist thought of that moment on the observation car platform.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the novelist--refilling his pipe--said whimsically, "Some day,
+Mr. King, I shall write a true story. It shall be a novel of to-day, with
+characters drawn from life; and these characters, in my story, shall bear
+the names of the forces that have made them what they are and which they,
+in turn, have come to represent. I mean those forces that are so coloring
+and shaping the life and thought of this age."</p>
+
+<p>"That ought to be interesting," said the other, "but I am not quite sure
+that I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably you don't. You have not been thinking much of these things. You
+have your eye upon Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. To
+illustrate--our bull-necked friend and illustrious critic, James Rutlidge,
+in my story, will be named 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one
+'Lust.' The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine,--boon companion of
+'Lust,'--is 'Materialism'."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" laughed the artist. "I see; go on. Who is the daughter of
+'Materialism?'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ragtime'," promptly returned the novelist, with a grin. "Who else could
+she be?"</p>
+
+<p>"And Mrs. Taine?" urged the other.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist responded quickly; "Why, the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm
+of 'Modern Art,' is 'The Age,' of course. Do you see? 'The Age' given over
+to 'Materialism' for base purposes by his companion, 'Lust.' And you----"
+he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," cried the young man, "who or what am I in your story?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, sir,"--answered Conrad Lagrange, seriously,--"in my story of modern
+life, represent Art. It remains to be seen whether 'The Age' will add you
+to her collection, or whether some other influence will intervene."</p>
+
+<p>"And you"--persisted the artist--"surely you are in the story."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very much in the story," the other answered. "My name is
+'Civilization.' My story will be published when I am dead. I have a
+reputation to sustain, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was not laughing, now. Something, that lay deep hidden beneath
+the rude exterior of the man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some
+powerful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped the artist's
+mind--compelling him to search for hidden meanings in the novelist's
+fanciful suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments passed in silence before the young man said slowly, "I met a
+character, yesterday, Mr. Lagrange, that might be added to your cast."</p>
+
+<p>"There are several that will be added to my cast," the other answered
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>To which the painter returned, "Did you notice that woman with the
+disfigured face, at the depot?"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange looked at his companion, quickly. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know her?" questioned the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Why do you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only because she interested me, and because she seemed to know your
+friends--Mr. Rutlidge and Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist knocked the ashes from his pipe by tapping it on the veranda
+railing. The action seemed to express a peculiar mental effort; as though
+he were striving to recall something that had gone from his memory. "I saw
+what happened at the depot, of course," he said slowly. "I have seen the
+woman before. She lives here in Fairlands. Her name is Miss Willard. No
+one seems to know much about her. I can't get over the impression that I
+ought to know her--that I have met and known her somewhere years ago. Her
+manner, yesterday, at seeing Mrs. Taine, was certainly very strange." As
+if to free his mind from the unsuccessful effort to remember, he rose to
+his feet. "But why should she be added to the characters in my novel, Mr.
+King? What does she represent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her name,"--said the artist,--"in your study of life, is suggested by her
+face--so beautiful on the one side--so distorted on the other--her name
+should be 'Symbol'."</p>
+
+<p>"There really is hope for you," returned the older man, with his quizzing
+smile. "Good night. Come, Czar." He passed into the hotel--the dog at his
+heels.</p>
+
+<p>It was two days later--Thursday--that Conrad Lagrange made his memorable
+visit to the Taines--memorable, in my story, because, at that time, Mrs.
+Taine gave such unmistakable evidence of her interest in Aaron King and
+his future.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch04" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter IV</h2>
+
+<h3>At the House on Fairlands Heights</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As my friend the social scientist would say; it is a phenomenon peculiar
+to urban life, that the social strata are more or less clearly defined
+geographically.</p>
+
+<p>That is,--in the English of everyday,--people of different classes live in
+different parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are given to
+the wholesale establishments, others to retail stores, and still others to
+the manufacturing plants; so there are the tenement districts, the slums,
+and the streets where may be found the homes of wealth and fashion.</p>
+
+<p>In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked by altitude. The city,
+lying in the lap of the hills and looking a little down upon the
+valley--plebeian business together with those who do the work of Fairlands
+occupies the lowest levels in the corporate limits. The heights are held
+by Fairlands' Pride. Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are
+graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most gratifying to observe
+how generally the citizens of this fortunate community aspire to higher
+things; and to note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is
+undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement which enables every one to
+look down upon his neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>The view from the winter home of the Taines was magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine sat, that afternoon, one
+could have looked down upon all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done
+better than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical foliage
+that--save for the tower of the red-brick Y.M.C.A. building, the white,
+municipal flagstaff, and the steeples and belfries of the churches--hid
+the city, one might have looked up at the mountains. High, high, above the
+low levels occupied by the hill-climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift
+their heads in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest Fairlander
+of them all--looking down upon even the Taines themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared by the mountains. She
+sat by the window, indeed, but her eyes were upon the open pages of a
+book--a popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the governmental
+conscience was--and is still--permitted in print.</p>
+
+<p>The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. Taine was--in her
+opinion--almost as great in literature as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By
+those in authority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the unworthiness
+of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be one of the greatest writers of
+his generation. He is a realist--a modern of the moderns. His pen has
+never been debased by an inartistic and antiquated idealism. His claim to
+genius rests securely upon the fact that he has no ideals. He writes for
+that select circle of leaders who, like the Taines and the Rutlidges, are
+capable of appreciating his art. All of which means that he tells filthy
+stories in good English. That his stories are identical in material and
+motive with the vile yarns that are permitted only in the lowest class
+barber shops and in disreputable bar-rooms, in no way detracts from the
+admiring praise of his critics, the generosity of his publishers, or the
+appreciation of those for whom he writes.</p>
+
+<p>With tottering step and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the
+apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed,
+red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen,
+impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized
+him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his
+dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm.
+Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and
+tortured slave of the very devils of unholy passion that he had so often
+invoked to serve him. Repulsive as he was, he was an object to awaken the
+deepest pity.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, looking up from her novel, watched him curiously--without
+moving or changing her attitude of luxurious repose--without speaking.
+Almost, one would have said, a shade of a smile was upon her too perfect
+features.</p>
+
+<p>When the man--who had dropped weak and exhausted into a chair--could
+speak, he glared at her in a pitiful rage, and, in his throaty whisper,
+said with a curse, "You seem to be amused."</p>
+
+<p>Still, she did not speak. A tantalizing smile broke over her face, and she
+stretched her beautiful body lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned
+animal stirs in sleek, physical contentment.</p>
+
+<p>Again, with curses, he said, "I'm glad you so enjoy my company. To be
+laughed at, even, is better than your damned indifference."</p>
+
+<p>"You misjudge me," she answered in a voice that, low and soft, was still
+richly colored by the wealth of vitality that found expression in her
+splendid body. "I am not at all indifferent to your condition--quite the
+contrary. I am intensely interested. As for the amusement you afford
+me--please consider--for three years I have amused you. Can you deny me my
+turn?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed with a hideously mirthless chuckle as he returned with ghastly
+humor, "I have had the worth of my money. I advise you to make the most of
+your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant for you as I can, while
+I am with you, but, as you know, I am liable to leave you at any time,
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I shall miss you so when
+you are gone."</p>
+
+<p>He glared at her while she laughed mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is everybody?" he asked. "The place is as lonely as a tomb."</p>
+
+<p>"Louise is out riding with Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you doing at home?" he demanded suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Oh I remained to care for you--to keep you from being lonely."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie. You are expecting some one."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it this time?" he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Whom are you expecting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! how persistently you look for evil," she mocked. "You know
+perfectly well that, thanks to my tact, I am considered quite the model
+wife. You really should cultivate a more trusting disposition."</p>
+
+<p>Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he suffered she again
+watched him with that curious air of interest. When he could command his
+voice, he gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, and you know
+that I know. Am I so innocent that Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and
+Black Whitman, and as many more of their kind, can make love to you under
+my very nose without my knowing it? You take damned good care--posing as a
+prude with your fad about immodest dress--that the world sees nothing; but
+you have never troubled to hide it from me."</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And why should I trouble to
+hide anything from you?" she demanded. "Look at me"--she posed as if to
+exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her physical
+beauty--"Look at me; am I to waste all <i>this</i> upon you? You tell me that
+you have had your money's worth--surely, the purchase price is mine to
+spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as your foul mind sees
+me, what right have you to object? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a
+stone at me? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have made for me
+but the horrible pleasure of watching you in the hell you have made for
+yourself? Be satisfied that the world does not see your shame--though
+it's from no consideration of you, but wholly for myself, that I am
+careful. As for my modesty--you know it is not a fad but a necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just it"--he retorted--"it is the way you make a fad of a
+necessity! Forced to hide your shoulders, you make a virtue of
+concealment. You make capital of the very thing of which you are ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>"And is not that exactly what we all do?" she asked with brutal cynicism.
+"Do you not fear the eyes of the world as much as I? Be satisfied that I
+play the game of respectability with you--that I give the world no cause
+for talk. You may as well be," she finished with devilish frankness, "for
+you are past helping yourself in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>As she finished, a servant appeared to announce Mr. Conrad Lagrange; and
+the tall, uncouth figure of the novelist stood framed in the doorway; his
+sharp eyes regarding them with that peculiar, quizzing, baffling look.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Taine laughed with that horrid chuckle. "Howdy-do, Lagrange--glad
+to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine went forward to greet the caller; saying as she gave him her
+hand, "You arrived just in time, Mr. Lagrange; Edward and I were
+discussing your latest book. We think it a masterpiece of realistic
+fiction. I'm sure it will add immensely to your fame. I hear it talked of
+everywhere as the most popular novel of the year. You wonderful man! How
+do you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't do it," answered Conrad Lagrange, looking straight into her
+eyes. "It does itself. My books are really true products of the age that
+reads them; and--to paraphrase a statesman who was himself a product of
+his age--for those who read my books they are just the kind of books that
+I would expect such people to read."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine looked at him with a curious, half-doubtful half-wistful
+expression; as though she glimpsed a hint of a meaning that did not appear
+upon the surface of his words. "You do say such--such--twisty things," she
+murmured. "I don't think I always understand what you mean; but when you
+look at me that way, I feel as though my maid had neglected to finish
+hooking me up."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist bowed in mock gallantry--a movement which made his ungainly
+form appear more grotesque than ever. "Indeed, madam, to my humble eyes,
+you are most beautifully and fittingly--ah--hooked up." He turned toward
+the invalid. "And how is the fortunate husband of the charming Mrs. Taine
+to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine, Lagrange, fine," said the man--a cough interrupting his words.
+"Really, I think that Gertrude is unduly alarmed about my condition. In
+this glorious climate, I feel like a three-year-old."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> looking quite like yourself," returned the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing at all the matter with me but a slight bronchial
+trouble," continued the other, coughing again. Then, to his
+wife--"Dearest, won't you ring, please; I'm sure it's time for my toddy;
+perhaps Mr. Lagrange will join me in a drink. What'll it be, Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, thanks, at this hour."</p>
+
+<p>"No? But you'll pardon me, I'm sure--Doctor's orders you know."</p>
+
+<p>A servant appeared. Mrs. Taine took the glass and carried it to her
+husband with her own hand, saying with tender solicitude, "Don't you
+think, dear, that you should lie down for a while? Mr. Lagrange will
+remain for dinner, you know. You must not tire yourself. I'm sure he will
+excuse you. I'll manage somehow to amuse him until Jim and Louise return."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I will rest a little, Gertrude." He turned to the guest--"While
+there is nothing really wrong, you know, Lagrange, still it's best to be
+on the safe side."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," said the novelist, heartily. "You should take care of
+yourself. Don't, I beg, permit me to detain you."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, with careful tenderness, accompanied her husband to the door.
+When he had passed from the room, she faced the novelist, with--"Don't you
+think Edward is really very much worse, Mr. Lagrange? I keep up
+appearances, you know, but--" she paused with a charming air of perplexed
+and worried anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband is certainly not a well man, madam--but you keep up
+appearances wonderfully. I really don't see how you manage it. But I
+suppose that for one of your nature it is natural."</p>
+
+<p>Again, she received his words with that look of doubtful
+understanding--as though sensing some meaning beneath the polite,
+commonplace surface. Then, as if to lead away from the subject--"You must
+really tell me what you think of our California home. I told you in New
+York, you remember, that I should ask you, the first thing. We were so
+sorry to have missed you last year. Please be frank. Isn't it beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very beautiful"--he answered--"exquisite taste--perfect harmony with
+modern art." His quizzing eyes twinkled, and a caricature of a smile
+distorted his face. "It fairly smells to heaven of the flesh pots."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "The odor should not be unfamiliar to you," she
+retorted. "By all accounts, your royalties are making you immensely rich.
+How wonderful it must be to be famous--to know that the whole world is
+talking about you! And that reminds me--who is your distinguished looking
+friend at the hotel? I was dying to ask you, the other night, but didn't
+dare. I know he is somebody famous."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, studying her face, answered reluctantly, "No, he is not
+famous; but I fear he is going to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Another twisty saying," she retorted. "But I mean to have an answer, so
+you may as well speak plainly. Have you known him long? What is his name?
+And what is he--a writer?"</p>
+
+<p>"His name is Aaron King. His mother and I grew up in the same
+neighborhood. He is an artist."</p>
+
+<p>"How romantic! Do you mean that he belongs to that old family of New
+England Kings?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is the last of them. His father was Aaron King--a prominent lawyer
+and politician in his state."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I remember! Wasn't there something whispered at the time of his
+death--some scandal that was hushed up--money stolen--or something? What
+was it? I can't think."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever it was, Mrs. Taine, the son had nothing to do with it. Don't you
+think we might let the dead man stay safely buried?" There was an ominous
+glint in Conrad Lagrange's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine answered hurriedly, "Indeed, yes, Mr. Lagrange. You are right.
+And you shall bring Mr. King out to see me. If he is as nice as he looks,
+I promise you I will be very good to him. Perhaps I may even help him a
+little, through Jim, you know--bring him in touch with the right people
+and that sort of thing. What does he paint?"</p>
+
+<p>"Portraits." The novelist's tone was curt.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am <i>sure</i> I could do a great deal for him."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am sure you would do a great deal <i>to</i> him," said Conrad Lagrange,
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again. "And just what do you mean by that, Mr. Lagrange? I'm
+not sure whether it is complimentary or otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends upon what you consider complimentary," retorted the other.
+"As I told you--Aaron King is an artist."</p>
+
+<p>Again, she favored him with that look of doubtful understanding; shaking
+her head with mock sadness, and making a long sigh. "Another twister"--she
+said woefully--"just when we were getting along so beautifully, too.
+Won't you try again?"</p>
+
+<p>"In words of one syllable then--let him alone. He is, to-day, exactly
+where I was twenty years ago. For God's sake, let him alone. Play your
+game with those who are no loss to the world; or with those who, like me,
+are already lost. Let this man do his work. Don't make him what I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, oh dear," she laughed, "and these are words of one syllable! You
+talk as though I were a dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are," said the novelist, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice. I'm all shivery with delight, already. You really <i>must</i> bring
+him now, you see. You might as well, for, if you don't, I'll manage some
+other way when you are not around to protect him. You don't want to trust
+him to me unprotected, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and I won't," retorted Conrad Lagrange--which, though Mrs. Taine did
+not remark it, was also a twister.</p>
+
+<p>"But after all, perhaps he won't come," she said with mock anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry madam--he's just as much a fool as the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss Taine and her escort,
+James Rutlidge. Mrs. Taine had only time to shake a finger in playful
+warning at her companion, and to whisper, "Mind you bring your artist to
+me, or I'll get him when you're not looking; and listen, don't tell Jim
+about him; I must see what he is like, first."</p>
+
+<p>At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted the artist in his
+bitterest humor. "And how is the famous Aaron King, to-day? I trust that
+the greatest portrait painter of the age is well; that the hotel people
+have been properly attentive to the comfort of their illustrious guest?
+The world of art can ill afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any
+lack of the service that is due his greatness."</p>
+
+<p>The young man's face flushed at his companion's mocking tone; but he
+laughed. "I missed you at breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual debauch--it takes time
+to recover from a dinner with 'Materialism,' 'Sensual,' 'Ragtime' and 'The
+Age'," the other returned, the menu in his hand. "What slop are they
+offering to put in our troughs for this noon's feed?"</p>
+
+<p>Again, Aaron King laughed. But as the novelist, with characteristic
+comments and instructions to the waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist
+watched him as though waiting with interest his further remarks on the
+subject of his evening with the Taines.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned again to his companion, and
+from under his scowling brows regarded him much as a withered scientist
+might regard an interesting insect under his glass. "Permit me to
+congratulate you," he said suggestively--as though the bug had succeeded
+in acting in some manner fully expected by the scientist but wholly
+disgusting to him.</p>
+
+<p>The artist colored again as he returned curiously, "Upon what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon the start you have made toward the goal you hope to reach."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Taine wants you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are pleased to be facetious." Under the eyes of his companion, Aaron
+King felt that his reply did not at all conceal his satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"I am pleased to be exact. I repeat--Mrs. Taine wants you. I am ordered by
+the reigning 'Goddess' of 'Modern Art'--'The Age'--to bring you into her
+'Court.' You have won favor in her sight. She finds you good to look at.
+She hopes to find you--as good as you look. If you do not disappoint her,
+your fame is assured."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said the artist, somewhat sharply; nettled by the obvious
+meaning and by the sneering sarcasm of the novelist's words and tone.</p>
+
+<p>To which the other returned suggestively, "It is precisely because you can
+say, 'nonsense,' when you know it is no nonsense at all, but the exact
+truth, that your chance for fame is so good, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"And did some reigning 'Goddess' insure your success and fame?"</p>
+
+<p>The older man turned his peculiar, penetrating, baffling eyes full upon
+his companion's face, and in a voice full of cynical sadness answered,
+"Exactly so. I paid court to the powers that be. They gave me the reward I
+sought; and--they made me what I am."</p>
+
+<p>So it came about that Conrad Lagrange, in due time, introduced Aaron King
+to the house on Fairlands Heights. Or,--as the novelist put it,--he,
+"Civilization",--in obedience to the commands of her "Royal Highness",
+"The Age",--presented the artist at her "Majesty's Court"; that the young
+man might sue for the royal favor.</p>
+
+<p>It was, perhaps, a month after the presentation ceremony, that the painter
+made what--to him, at least--was an important announcement.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch05" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter V</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mystery of the Rose Garden</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The acquaintance of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had developed rapidly
+into friendship.</p>
+
+<p>The man whom the world had chosen to place upon one of the highest
+pinnacles of its literary favor, and who--through some queer twist in his
+nature--was so lonely and embittered by his exaltation, seemed to find in
+the younger man who stood with the crowd at the foot of the ladder,
+something that marked him as different from his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it was the artist's mother; some sacredly hidden memories of
+Lagrange's past; or, perhaps, some fancied recognition of the artist's
+genius and its possibilities; the strange man gave no hint; but he
+constantly sought the company of Aaron King, with an openness that made
+his preference for the painter's society very evident. If he had said
+anything about it, at all, Conrad Lagrange, likely, would have accounted
+for his interest, upon the ground that his dog, Czar, found the
+companionship agreeable. Their friendship, meanwhile--in the eyes of the
+world--conferred a peculiar distinction upon the young man--a distinction
+not at all displeasing to the ambitious artist; and the value of which he,
+probably, overrated.</p>
+
+<p>To Aaron King--aside from the subtle flattery of the famous novelist's
+attention--there was in the personality of the odd character a something
+that appealed to him with peculiar strength. Perhaps it was that the man's
+words, so often sharp and stinging with bitter sarcasm, seemed always to
+carry a hidden meaning that gave, as it were, glimpses of another nature
+buried deeply beneath a wreck of ruined dreams and disappointing
+achievements. Or, it may have been that, under all the cruel,
+world-hardness of the thoughts expressed, the young man sensed an
+undertone of pathetic sadness. Or, again, perhaps, it was those rare
+moments, when--on some walk that carried them beyond the outskirts of the
+town, and brought the mountains into unobstructed view--the clouds of
+bitterness were lifted; and the man spoke with poetic feeling of the
+realities of life, and of the true glory and mission of the arts;
+counseling his friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it was
+rare and fine.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange had introduced the young
+man at the house on Fairlands Heights. The hour was late. The
+painter--returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine home--found
+the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a deserted corner of the hotel
+veranda. Dropping into the chair that was placed as if it awaited his
+coming, the artist--with no word of greeting to the man--bent over the
+brown head that was thrust so insistently against his knee, as Czar, with
+gently waving tail, made him welcome. Looking affectionately into the
+brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, the young man answered in the
+language that all dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his
+scowling brows, regarded the two intently.</p>
+
+<p>"They were disappointed that you were not there," said the painter,
+presently. "Mrs. Taine, particularly, charged me to say that she will not
+forgive, until you do proper penance for your sin."</p>
+
+<p>"I had better company," retorted the other. "Czar and I went for a look at
+the mountains. I suppose you have noticed that Czar does not care for the
+Fairlands Heights crowd. He is very peculiar in his friendships--for a
+dog. His instincts are remarkable."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of his name, Czar transferred his attentions, for a moment,
+to his master; then stretched himself in his accustomed place beside the
+novelist's chair.</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "I did my best to invent an acceptable excuse for you;
+but she said it was no use--nothing short of your own personal prayers for
+mercy would do."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph; you should have reminded her that I purchased an indulgence some
+weeks ago."</p>
+
+<p>Again, the other laughed shortly. Watching him closely, Conrad Lagrange
+said, in his most sneering tones, "I trust, young man, that you are not
+failing to make good use of your opportunities. Let's see--dinner and the
+evening five times--afternoon calls as many--with motor trips to points of
+interest--and one theater party to Los Angeles--believe me; it is not
+often that struggling genius is so rewarded--before it has accomplished
+anything bad enough to merit such attention."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>have</i> been idling most shamefully, haven't I?" said the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Idling!" rasped the other. "You have been the busiest hay-maker in the
+land. These scientific, intensive cultivation farmers of California are
+not in your class when it comes to utilizing the sunshine. Take my advice
+and continue your present activity without bothering yourself by any
+sentimental thoughts of your palette and brushes. The mere vulgar tools of
+your craft are of minor importance to one of your genius and opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>Then, in a half embarrassed manner, Aaron King made his announcement.
+"That may all be," he said, "but just the same, I am going to work."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it"--returned the other, in mocking triumph--"I knew it the moment
+you came up the steps there. I could tell it by your walk; by the air with
+which you carried yourself; by your manner, your voice, your laugh--you
+fairly reek of prosperity and achievement--you are going to paint her
+portrait."</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" retorted the young man, rather sharply, a trifle nettled by
+the other's tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, indeed!" murmured the novelist. "Indeed, yes--by all means! It
+is so exactly the right thing to do that it is startling. You scale the
+heights of fame with such confident certainty in every move that it is
+positively uncanny to watch you."</p>
+
+<p>"If one's work is true, I fail to see why one should not take advantage
+of any influence that can contribute to his success," said the painter. "I
+assure you I am not so wealthy that I can afford to refuse such an
+attractive commission. You must admit that the beautiful Mrs. Taine is a
+subject worthy the brush of any artist; and I suppose it <i>is</i> conceivable
+that I <i>might</i> be ambitious to make a genuinely good job of it."</p>
+
+<p>The older man, as though touched by the evident sincerity of the artist's
+words, dropped his sneering tone and spoke earnestly; "The beautiful Mrs.
+Taine <i>is</i> a subject worthy a master's brush, my friend. But take my word
+for it, if you paint her portrait <i>as a master would paint it</i>, you will
+sign your own death warrant--so far as your popularity and fame as an
+artist goes."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it," declared Aaron King, flatly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you don't. If you <i>did</i>, and still accepted the commission, you
+wouldn't be fit to associate with honest dogs like Czar, here."</p>
+
+<p>"But why"--persisted the artist--"why do you insist that my portrait of
+Mrs. Taine will be disastrous to my success, just to the degree that it is
+a work of genuine merit?"</p>
+
+<p>To which the novelist answered, cryptically, "If you have not the eyes to
+see the reason, it will matter little whether you know it or not. If you
+<i>do</i> see the reason, and, still, produce a portrait that pleases your
+sitter, then you will have paid the price; you will receive your reward;
+and"--the speaker's tone grew sad and bitter--"you will be what I am."</p>
+
+<p>With this, he arose abruptly and, without another word, stalked into the
+hotel; the dog following with quiet dignity, at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>From the beginning of their acquaintance, almost, the novelist and the
+artist had dropped into the habit of taking their meals together. At
+breakfast, the next morning, Conrad Lagrange reopened the conversation he
+had so abruptly closed the night before. "I suppose," he said, "that you
+will set up a studio, and do the thing in proper style?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Taine told me of a place that is for rent, and that she thinks would
+be just the thing," returned the young man. "It is across the road from
+that big grove owned by Mr. Taine. I was wondering if you would care to
+walk out that way with me this morning and help me look it over."</p>
+
+<p>The older man's hearty acceptance of the invitation assured the artist of
+his genuine interest, and, an hour later--after Aaron King had interviewed
+the agent and secured the keys, with the privilege of inspecting the
+premises--the two set out together.</p>
+
+<p>They found the place on the eastern edge of the town; half-hidden by the
+orange groves that surrounded it on every side. The height of the palms
+that grew along the road in front, the pepper and eucalyptus trees that
+overshadowed the house, and the size of the orange-trees that shut in the
+little yard with walls of green, marked the place as having been
+established before the wealth of the far-away East discovered the peculiar
+charm of the Fairlands hills. The lawn, the walks, and the drive were
+unkempt and overgrown with weeds. The house itself,--a small cottage with
+a wide porch across the front and on the side to the west,--unpainted for
+many seasons, was tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful
+gray.</p>
+
+<p>But the artist and his friend, as they approached, exclaimed aloud at the
+beauty of the scene; for, as if rejoicing in their freedom from restraint,
+the roses had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as their own. Up
+every post of the porch they had climbed; over the porch roof, they spread
+their wealth of color; over the gables, screening the windows with
+graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and bloom; up to the ridge
+and over the cornice, to the roof of the house itself--even to the top of
+the chimney they had won their way--and there, as if in an ecstasy of
+wanton loveliness, flung, a spray of glorious, perfumed beauty high into
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>On the front porch, the men turned to look away over the gentle slope of
+the orange groves, on the other side of the road, to the towering peaks
+and high ridges of the mountains--gleaming cold and white in the winter of
+their altitude. To the northeast, San Bernardino reared his head in lonely
+majesty--looking directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwellers
+in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded by the higher ridges and
+peaks and canyons of the range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the
+skies--the ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, they viewed
+the mighty sweep of the main range to Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels,
+beyond, with San Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting their
+heads above their fellows. In the immediate landscape, no house or
+building was to be seen. The dark-green mass of the orange groves hid
+every work of man's building between them and the tawny foothills save the
+gable and chimney of a neighboring cottage on the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen"--said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone, moved as always by the
+grandeur and beauty of the scene--"listen! Don't you hear them calling?
+Don't you feel the mountains sending their message to these poor insects
+who squirm and wriggle in this bit of muck men call their world? God, man!
+if only we, in our work, would heed the message of the hills!"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist spoke with such intensity of feeling--with such bitter
+sadness and regret in his voice--that Aaron King could not reply.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, the artist unlocked the door, and they entered the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>They found the interior of the house well arranged, and not in bad repair.
+"Just the thing for a bachelor's housekeeping"--was the painter's
+verdict--"but for a studio--impossible," and there was a touch of regret
+in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's continue our exploration," said the novelist, hopefully. "There's a
+barn out there." And they went out of the house, and down the drive on the
+eastern side of the yard.</p>
+
+<p>Here, again, they saw the roses in full possession of the place--by man,
+deserted. From foundation to roof, the building--a small simple
+structure--was almost hidden under a mass of vines. There was one large
+room below; with a loft above. The stable was in the rear. Built,
+evidently, at a later date than the house, the building was in better
+repair. The walls, so hidden without by the roses, were well sided; the
+floors were well laid. The big, sliding, main door opened on the drive in
+front; between it and the corner, to the west, was a small door; and in
+the western end, a window.</p>
+
+<p>Looking curiously from this window, Conrad Lagrange uttered an
+exclamation, and hurried abruptly from the building. The artist followed.</p>
+
+<p>From the end of the barn, and extending, the full width of the building,
+to the west line of the yard, was a rose garden--such a garden as Aaron
+King had never seen. On three sides, the little plot was enclosed by a
+tall hedge of Ragged Robins; above the hedge, on the south and west, was
+the dark-green wall of the orange grove; on the north, the pepper and
+eucalyptus trees in the yard, and a view of the distant mountains; and on
+the east, the vine-hidden end of the barn. Against the southern
+wall,--and, so, directly opposite the trellised, vine-covered arch of the
+entrance,--a small, lattice bower, with a rustic table and seats within,
+was completely covered, as was the barn, by the magically woven tapestry
+of the flowers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the entrance they
+found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of the premises, the garden was in
+perfect order--the roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged and
+clean; with no weed or sign of untidiness or neglect anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The two men had come upon the spot so suddenly--so unexpectedly--the
+contrast with the neglected grounds and buildings was so marked--that they
+looked at each other in silence. The little retreat--so lovely, so hidden
+by its own beauty from the world, so cared for by careful hands--seemed
+haunted by an invisible spirit. Very quietly,--almost reverently,--they
+moved about; talking in low tones, as though half expecting--they knew not
+what.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one loves this place," said the novelist, softly, when they stood,
+again, in the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>And the artist answered in the same hushed voice, "I wonder what it
+means?"</p>
+
+<p>When they were again in the barn, Aaron King became eagerly enthusiastic
+over the possibilities of the big room. "Some rightly toned burlap on the
+walls and ceiling,"--he pointed out,--"with floor covering and rugs in
+harmony; there"--rolling back the big door as he spoke--"your north light;
+some hangings and screens to hide the stairway to the loft, and the stable
+door; your entrance over here in the corner, nicely out of the way; and
+the window looking into the garden--it's great man, great!"</p>
+
+<p>"And," answered Conrad Lagrange, from where he stood in the big front
+door, "the mountains! Don't forget the mountains. The soft, steady, north
+light on your canvas, and a message from the mountains to your soul,
+through the same window, should make it a good place to work, Mr.
+Painter-man. I suppose over here"--he moved away from the window, and
+spoke in his mocking way--"over here, you will have a tea-table for the
+ladies of the circle elect--who will come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their
+admiration of the newly discovered genius, and to chatter their
+misunderstandings of his art. Of course, there will be a page in velvet
+and gold. By all means, get hold of an oriental kid of some kind--oriental
+junk is quite the rage this year. You should take advantage of every
+influence that can contribute to your success, you know. And, whatever you
+do, don't fail to consult the 'Goddess' about these essentials of your
+craft. Many a promising genius has been lost to fame, through inviting the
+wrong people to take tea in his studio. But"--he finished whimsically,
+looking from the window into the garden--"but what the devil do you
+suppose the spirit who lives out there will think about it all."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The days of the two following weeks were busy days for Aaron King. He
+leased the place in the orange groves, and set men to work making it
+habitable. The lawn and grounds were trimmed and put in order; the
+interior of the house was renovated by painter and paper-hanger; and the
+barn, under the artist's direction, was transformed into an ideal studio.
+There was a trip to Los Angeles--quite fortunately upon a day when Mrs.
+Taine must go to the city shopping--for rugs and hangings; and another
+trip to purchase the tools of the artist's craft. And, at last, there was
+a Chinese cook and housekeeper to find; with supplies for his kitchen. It
+was at Conrad Lagrange's suggestion, that, from the first, every one was
+given strict orders to keep out of the rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>Every day, the novelist--accompanied, always, by Czar--walked out that way
+to see how things were progressing; and often,--if he had not been too
+busy to notice,--Aaron King might have seen a look of wistfulness in the
+keen, baffling eyes of the famous man--so world-weary and sad. And, while
+he did not cease to mock and jeer and offer sarcastic advice to his
+younger friend, the touch of pathos--that, like a minor chord, was so
+often heard in his most caustic and cruel speeches--was more pronounced.
+As for Czar--he always returned to the hotel with evident reluctance; and
+managed to express, in his dog way, the thoughts his distinguished master
+would not put in words.</p>
+
+<p>Very often, too, the big touring car from the house on Fairlands Heights
+stopped in front of the cottage, while the occupants inspected the
+premises, and--with many exclamations of flattering praise, and a few
+suggestions--made manifest their interest.</p>
+
+<p>In time, it was finished and ready--from the big easel by the great, north
+window in the studio, to the white-jacketed Yee Kee in the kitchen. When
+the last workman was gone with his tools; and the two men, after looking
+about the place for an hour, were standing on the front porch; Conrad
+Lagrange said, "And the stage is set. The scene shifters are off. The
+audience is waiting. Ring up the curtain for the next act. Even Czar has
+looked upon everything and calls it good--heh Czar?"</p>
+
+<p>The dog went to him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into
+the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand.
+Still fondling the dog,--without looking at the artist,--the older man
+continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I
+suppose? Or, will we lunch together, once more?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed--as a boy who has prepared a surprise, and has been
+struggling manfully to keep the secret until the proper moment should
+arrive. Placing his hand on the older man's shoulder, he answered
+meaningly, "I had planned that <i>we</i> would move in the morning." At the
+other's puzzled expression he laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"We?" said the novelist, facing his friend, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here," returned the other. "I must show you something you haven't
+seen."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way to a room that they had decided he would not need, and the
+door of which was locked. Taking a key from his pocket, he handed it to
+his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" said the older man, looking foolishly at the key in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the key to that door," returned the other, with a gleeful chuckle.
+Then--"Unlock it."</p>
+
+<p>"Unlock it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure--that's what I gave you the key for."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange obeyed. Through the open door, he saw, not the bare and
+empty room he supposed was there, but a bedroom--charmingly furnished,
+complete in every detail. Turning, he faced his companion silently,
+inquiringly--with a look that Aaron King had never before seen in those
+strange, baffling eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's yours"--said the artist, hastily--"if you care to come. You'll have
+a free hand here, you know; for I will be in the studio much of the time.
+Kee will cook the things you like. You and Czar can come and go as you
+will. There is the arbor in the rose garden, you know, and see here"--he
+stepped to the window--"I chose this room for you, because it looks out
+upon your mountains."</p>
+
+<p>The strange man stood at the window for, what seemed to the artist, a long
+time. Suddenly, he turned to say sharply, "Young man, why did you do
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why"--stammered the other, disconcerted--"because I want you--because I
+thought you would like to come. I beg your pardon--if I have made a
+mistake--but surely, no harm has been done."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think you could stand living with me--for any length of time?"</p>
+
+<p>The' painter laughed with relief. "Oh, <i>that's</i> it! I didn't know you had
+such a tender conscience. You scared me for a minute, I should think you
+would know by this time that you can't phase me with your wicked tongue."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist's face twisted into a grotesque smile. "I warn you--I will
+flay you and your friends just the same. You need it for the good of your
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"As often and as hard as you like"--returned the other, heartily--"just so
+it's for the good of my soul. You will come?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will permit me to stand my share of the expense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything you like--if you will only come."</p>
+
+<p>The older man said gently,--for the first time calling the artist by his
+given name,--"Aaron, I believe that you are the only person in the world
+who would, really want me; and I <i>know</i> that you are the only person in
+the world to whom I would be grateful for such an invitation."</p>
+
+<p>The artist was about to reply, when the big automobile stopped in front of
+the house. Czar, on the porch, gave a low growl of disapproval; and,
+through the open door, they saw Mr. Taine and his wife with James Rutlidge
+and Louise.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist said something, under his breath, that had a vicious
+sound--quite unlike his words of the moment before. Czar, in disgust,
+retreated to the shelter of Yee Kee's domain. With a laugh, the younger
+man went out to meet his friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you at home this afternoon, Sir Artist?" called Mrs. Taine, gaily, as
+he went down the walk.</p>
+
+<p>"I will always be at home to the right people," he answered, greeting the
+other members of the party.</p>
+
+<p>As they moved toward the house,--Mr. Taine choking and coughing, his
+daughter chattering and exclaiming, and James Rutlidge critically
+observing,--Mrs. Taine dropped a little back to Aaron King's side. "And
+are you really established, at last?" she asked eagerly; with a charming,
+confidential air.</p>
+
+<p>"We move to-morrow morning," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"We?" she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Conrad Lagrange and I. He is going to live with me, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable how much meaning a woman can crowd into that one small
+syllable; particularly, when she draws a little away from you as she
+speaks it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he murmured apologetically, "don't you approve?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine's beautiful eyebrows went up inquiringly--"And why should I
+either approve or disapprove?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man was saved by the arrival of his guests at the porch steps,
+and by the appearance of Conrad Lagrange, in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"How delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Taine, heartily; as she, in turn, greeted
+the famous novelist. "Mr. King was just telling me that you were going to
+share this dear little place with him. I quite envy you both."</p>
+
+<p>The others had passed into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sometimes guilty of saying twisty things yourself, aren't you?"
+returned the man; and, as he spoke, his remarkable eyes were fixed upon
+her as though reading her innermost thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed under his meaning gaze, but carried it off gaily with--"Oh
+dear! I wonder if my maid has hooked me up properly, this time?"</p>
+
+<p>They left Mr. Taine in an easy chair, with a bottle of his favorite
+whisky; and went over the place--from the arbor in the rose garden to Yee
+Kee's pantry--Mr. Rutlidge, critically and authoritatively approving;
+Louise, effervescing the same sugary nothings at every step; Mrs. Taine,
+with a pretty air of proprietorship; Conrad Lagrange, thoughtfully
+watching; and Aaron King, himself, irresponsibly gay and boyishly proud as
+he exhibited his achievements.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, Mrs. Taine--standing before the big easel--demanded to
+know of the artist, when he would begin her portrait--she was so
+interested, so eager to begin--how soon could she come? Louise assumed a
+worshipful attitude, and, gazing at the young man with reverent eyes,
+waited breathlessly. James Rutlidge drew near, condescendingly attentive,
+to the center of attraction. Conrad Lagrange turned his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," murmured the painter, "I hope you will not be too impatient,
+Mrs. Taine, I fear I cannot be ready for some time yet. I suppose I must
+confess to being over-sensitive to my environment; for it is a fact that
+my working mood does not come upon me readily amid strange surroundings.
+When I have become acclimated, as it were, I will be ready for you."</p>
+
+<p>"How wonderful!" breathed Louise.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," agreed Mr. Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever you are ready," said Mrs. Taine, submissively.</p>
+
+<p>When their friends from the Heights were gone, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down, as he said with cutting sarcasm, "You did that very
+nicely. Over-sensitive to your environment, hell! If you <i>are</i> a bit fine
+strung, you have no business to make a <i>show</i> of it. It's a weakness, not
+a virtue. And the man who makes capital out of any man's weakness,--even
+of his own,--is either a criminal or a fool or both."</p>
+
+<p>Then they went back to the hotel for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, the artist and the novelist moved from the hotel, to
+establish themselves in the little house in the orange groves--the
+little house with its unobstructed view of the mountains, and with its
+rose garden, so mysteriously tended.</p>
+
+</div>
+<div id="ch06" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter VI</h2>
+
+<h3>An Unknown Friend</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Yee Kee announced lunch, the artist, the novelist, and the dog were
+settled in their new home. In the afternoon, the painter spent an hour
+or two fussing over portfolios of old sketches, in his studio; while
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar lounged on the front porch.</p>
+
+<p>Once, the dog rose quietly, and, walking sedately to the edge of the
+porch toward the west, stood for some minutes gazing intently into the
+dark green mass of the orange grave. At last, as if concluding that
+whatever it was it was all right, he went calmly back to his place
+beside the novelist's chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know,"--said the artist, as they sat on the porch that evening,
+with their after-dinner pipes,--"I believe this old place is haunted."</p>
+
+<p>"If it isn't, it ought to be," answered the other, contentedly--playing
+with Czar's silky ears. "A good ghost would fit in nicely here, wouldn't
+it--or he, or she. Its spookship would travel far to find a more
+delightful place for spooking in, and--providing, of course, she were a
+perfectly respectable hant--what a charming addition to our family he
+would make. When it was weary of moping and mowing and sobbing and
+wailing and gibbering, she could curl up at the foot of your bed and
+sleep; as Czar, here, curls up and sleeps at the foot of mine. A good
+ghost, you know--if he becomes really attached to you--is as constant
+and faithful and affectionate and companionable as a good dog."</p>
+
+<p>"B-r-r-r," said the artist. And Czar turned to look at him,
+questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same"--the painter continued--"when I was out there in the
+studio, I could feel some one watching me--you know the feeling."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange returned mockingly, "I trust your over-sensitive, artistic
+temperament is not to be so influenced by our ghostly visitor that you
+will be unfitted for your work."</p>
+
+<p>The other laughed. Then he said seriously, "Joking aside, Lagrange, I feel
+a presentiment--I can't put it into words--but--I feel that I <i>am</i> going
+to begin the real work of my life right here. I"--he hesitated--"it seems
+to me that I can sense some influence that I can't define--it's the
+mystery of the rose garden, perhaps," he finished with another short
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The man, who, in the eyes of the world, had won so large a measure of the
+success that his friend desired; and whose life was so embittered by the
+things for which he was envied by many; made no reply other than his slow,
+twisted smile.</p>
+
+<p>Silently, they watched the purple shadows of the mountains deepen; and saw
+the outlines of the tawny foothills grow vague and dim, until they were
+lost in the dusky monotone of the evening. The last faint tint of sunset
+color went from the sky back of the San Gabriels; while, close to the
+mountain peaks and ridges, the stars came out. The rows and the contour of
+the orange groves could no longer be distinguished the forms of the nearby
+trees were lost--the rich, lustrous green of their foliage brushed out
+with the dull black of the night; while the twinkling lights of the
+distant towns and hamlets, in the valley below, shone as sparkling jewels
+on the inky, velvet robe that, fold on fold, lay over the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>When the two had smoked in silence, for some time, the artist said slowly,
+"You knew my mother very well, did you not, Mr. Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"We were children together, Aaron." As he spoke, the man's deep voice was
+gentle, as always, when the young man's mother was mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Again, for a little, neither spoke. As they sat looking away to the
+mountains, each seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Yet each felt that
+the other, to a degree, understood what he, himself, was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, the artist broke the silence,--facing his mother's friend with
+quiet resolution,--as though he felt himself forced to speak but knew not
+exactly how to begin. "Did you know her well--after--after my father's
+death--and while I was abroad?"</p>
+
+<p>The other bowed his head--"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well."</p>
+
+<p>As if at loss for words, Aaron King still hesitated. "Mr. Lagrange," he
+said, at last, "there are some things about--about mother--that I would
+like to tell you--that I think she would want me to tell you, under the
+circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Conrad Lagrange, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,--to begin,--you know, perhaps, how much mother and I have always
+been--" his fine voice broke and the older man bowed his head; but, with a
+slight lift of his determined chin, the painter went on calmly--"to each
+other. After father's death, until I was seventeen, we were never
+separated. She was my only teacher. Then I went away to school, seeing her
+only during my vacations, which we always spent, together in the country.
+Three years ago, I went abroad to finish my study. I did not see her again
+until--until I was called home."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," came in low tones from the other.</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir, while it seemed necessary that I should be away from
+home,--that we should be separated,--all through this period, we exchanged
+almost daily letters; planning for the future, and looking forward to the
+time when we could, again, be together."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Aaron. It was very unusual--and very beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"When we were together, before I went away, I was a mere lad," continued
+the artist. "I knew in a general way that father had been a successful
+lawyer, and quite prominent in politics; and--because there was no change
+in our manner of living after his death, and there seemed to be always
+money for whatever we wanted, I suppose--I assumed, thoughtlessly, that
+there would always be plenty. During the years while I was at school,
+there was never, in any way, the slightest hint in mother's letters that
+would lead me to question the abundance of her resources. When they called
+me home,--" his voice broke, "--I found my mother dying--almost in
+poverty--our home stripped of the art treasures she loved--her own room,
+even, empty of everything save the barest necessities." In bitter sorrow
+and shame, the young man buried his face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, his gaunt features twitching with the emotion that even his
+long schooling in the tragedies of life could not suppress, waited
+silently.</p>
+
+<p>When the artist had regained, in a measure, his self-control, he
+continued,--and every word came from him in shame and humiliation,--"Before
+she died, she told me about--my father. In the settlement of his affairs,
+at the time of his death, it appeared that he had taken advantage of the
+confidence of certain clients and had betrayed his trust; appropriating
+large sums to his own interests. He had even taken advantage of mother's
+influence in certain circles, and, relying upon her unquestioning faith
+in his integrity, had made her an unconscious instrument in furthering
+his schemes."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange made as if to speak, but checked himself and waited for
+the other to continue.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King went on; "Out of regard for my mother, the matter was kept as
+quiet as possible. The one who suffered the heaviest loss was able to
+protect her--in a measure. All the others were fully reimbursed. But
+mother--it would have been easier for her if she had died then. She
+withdrew from her friends and from the life she loved--she denied herself
+to all who sought her and devoted her life to me. Above all, she planned
+to keep me in ignorance of the truth until I should be equipped to win the
+place in the world that she coveted for me. It was for that, she sent me
+away, and kept me from home. As the demands for my educational expenses
+grew naturally heavier, she supplemented the slender resources, left in
+the final settlement of my father's estate, by sacrificing the treasures
+of her home, and by giving up the luxuries to which she had been
+accustomed from childhood. She even provided for me after her death--not
+wealth, but a comfortable amount, sufficient to support me in good
+circumstances until I can gain recognition and an income from my work."</p>
+
+<p>Under the lash of his memories, the young man sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name, Lagrange, why did not some one tell me? I did not know--I
+did not know--I thought--O mother, mother, mother--why did you do it? Why
+was I not told? All these years I have lived a selfish fool, and
+you--you--I would have given up everything--I would have worked in a
+ditch, rather than accept this."</p>
+
+<p>The deep, quiet voice of Conrad Lagrange broke the stillness that followed
+the storm of the artist's passionate words. "And that is the answer,
+Aaron. She knew, too well, that you would not have accepted her sacrifice,
+if you had known. That is why she kept the secret until you had finished
+your education. She forbade her friends--she forbade me to interfere. And
+don't you see that she was right? Don't you see it? We would have done her
+the greatest injustice if we had, against her will, deprived her of this
+privilege. Her splendid pride, her high sense of honor, her nobility of
+spirit demanded the sacrifice. It was her right. God forgive me--I tried
+to make her see it otherwise--but she knew best. She always knew best,
+Aaron. Her only hope of regaining for you that self-respect and that
+position in life to which you--by right of birth and natural
+endowment--are entitled, was in you. The name which she had given to you
+could be restored to honor by you only. To train and equip you for your
+work, and to enable you, unhampered by need, to gain your footing, was the
+determined passion of her life. Her sacrifice, her suffering to that end,
+was the only restitution she could make to you for that which your father
+had squandered. Her proud spirit, her fine intelligence, her mother love
+for you, demanded it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," returned the artist. "She told me before she died. She made me
+understand. She said that it was my inheritance. She asked for my promise
+that I would be true to her purpose. Her last words were an expression of
+her confidence that I would not disappoint her--that I would win a place
+and name that would wipe out the shame of my father's dishonor. And I
+will, Lagrange, I must. Mother--mother shall not be disappointed--she
+shall not be disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>"No,"--said the older man, so softly that the other, torn by the passion
+of his own thoughts, did not hear,--"No, Aaron, your mother will not be
+disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>For a time longer they sat in silence. Then the young man said, "I wish I
+knew the name of my mother's friend--the one who suffered the heaviest
+loss through my father, and who so generously protected her in the crisis.
+I would like to thank him, at least. I begged her to tell me, but she
+would not. She said he would not want me to know--that for me to attempt
+to reimburse him would, to his mind, rob him of his real reward."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, his head bowed, spoke quietly to the dog at his feet.
+Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle on his master's knee and looked up into
+the homely, world-worn face. Gently, the strange man--so lonely and
+embittered in the fame that he had won--at a price--stroked the brown
+head. "Your mother knew best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at
+his companion. "You must believe that she knew best. Her beautiful spirit
+could not lead her astray. She was right in this, also. Your sentiment
+does you honor, but you must respect her wish. Whoever the man was--she
+had reasons, I am sure, for feeling as she did--that it would be better
+for you not to know. It was some one, perhaps, whose influence upon you,
+she had cause to fear."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very strange," returned the artist, hesitatingly. "Perhaps I ought
+not to say it. But I felt that, as you suggest, she feared for me to know.
+She seemed to want to tell me, but did not, for <i>my</i> sake. It was very
+strange."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted you to know about mother,"--continued the artist,--"because I
+would like you to understand why--why I must succeed in my work."</p>
+
+<p>The older man smiled to himself, in the dusk. "I have always known why
+you must succeed, Aaron," he returned. "I have never questioned your
+motives. I question only your understanding of success. I question--if you
+will pardon me--your understanding of your mother's wish for you."</p>
+
+<p>Then, in one of those rare momentary moods, when he seemed to reveal to
+his young friend his real nature that lay so deeply hidden from the world,
+he added, "You are right, Aaron. This place <i>is</i> haunted--haunted by the
+spirit of the mountains, yonder--haunted by the spirit of the rose garden,
+out there. The silent strength of the hills, and the loveliness of the
+garden will attend you in your studio, as you work. I do not wonder that
+you feel a presentiment that your artistic future is to be shaped here;
+for between these influences and the other influences that will be brought
+to bear upon you, you will be forced to decide. May the God of all true
+art and artists help you to make no mistake. Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>As though in answer to the solemn words of the man who spoke from the
+fullness of a life-long experience and from the depths of a life-old love,
+a strain of music came from out the fragrant darkness. Somewhere, hidden
+in the depths of the orange grove, the soul of a true musician was seeking
+expression in the tones of a violin.</p>
+
+<p>Softly, sadly, with poignant clearness, the music lifted into the
+night--low and pleadingly at first; then stronger and more vibrant with
+feeling, as though sweetly insistent in its call; swelling next in volume
+and passion, as though in warning of some threatening evil; ringing with
+loving fear; sobbing, wailing, moaning, in anguish; clearly, gloriously,
+triumphant, at last; then sinking into solemn, reverent
+benediction--losing itself, finally, in the darkness, even as it had come.</p>
+
+<p>The two men, so fashioned by nature to receive such music, listened with
+emotions they could not have put into words. For the moment, the music to
+them was the voice of the guarding, calling, warning spirit of the
+mountains that, in their calm, majestic strength, were so far removed from
+the petty passions and longings of the baser world at their feet--it was
+the voice of the loving intimacy, the sweet purity, and the sacred beauty
+of the spirit of the garden. It was as though the things of which Conrad
+Lagrange had just spoken so reverently had cried aloud to them, out of the
+night, in confirmation of his words.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch07" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter VII</h2>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King seemed loth to begin his work on the portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+Day after day, without apparent reason, he put it off--spending the hours
+in wandering aimlessly about the place, idling on the porch, or doing
+nothing in his studio. He would start from the house to the building at
+the end of the rose garden, as though moved by some clearly defined
+purpose--and then, for an hour or more, would dawdle among the things of
+his craft, with irresolute mind--turning over his sketches and drawings
+with uncertain hands, as though searching for something he knew was not
+there; toying with his paints and brushes; or sitting before his empty
+easel, looking away through the big window to the distant mountains. He
+seemed incapable of fixing his mind upon the task to which he attached so
+much importance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he begged her to be
+patient; and she, with pretended awe of the moods of genius, waited.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange jeered and mocked, offered sneering advice or sarcastic
+compliment; and, under it all, was keenly watchful and sympathetic--
+understanding better than the artist himself, perhaps, the secret of the
+painter's hesitation. Every day,--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in
+the afternoon or evening unseen musician, in the orange grove wrought
+for them melodie that, whether grave or gay, always carried, somehow,
+the feeling that had so moved them in the mysterious darkness of
+that first evening.</p>
+
+<p>They knew, now, of course, that the musician lived in the neighboring
+house--the gable and chimney of which was just visible above the
+orange-trees. But that was all. Obedient to some whimsical impulse that
+prompted them both, and was born, no doubt, of the circumstance and mood
+of that first evening, they did not seek to learn more. They
+feared--though they did not say it--that to learn the identity of the
+musician would rob them of the peculiar pleasure they found in the music,
+itself. So they spoke always of their unknown neighbor in a fanciful vein,
+as in like humor they spoke of the spirit that Aaron King still insisted
+haunted the place, or as they alluded to the mystery of the carefully
+tended rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>When the artist could put it off no longer, a day was finally set when
+Mrs. Taine was to come for the beginning of her portrait. The appointed
+hour found the artist in his studio. A canvas stood ready upon the easel;
+palette, colors and brushes were at hand. The painter was standing at the
+big, north window, looking up away to the mountains--the mountains that
+the novelist said called so insistently. Suddenly, he turned his head to
+listen. Sweetly clear and low, through the green wall of the orange-trees,
+came the music of that hidden violin.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there,--with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to
+the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,--Aaron King
+knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare
+moments--that come, all unexpectedly--when, with prophetic vision, one
+sees clearly the end of the course he pursues and the destiny that waits
+him at its completion. As clearly, too, he saw the other way, and knew the
+meaning of the vision. But seldom is the strength given to man, in such
+moments, to choose for himself. Though he may see the other way clearly,
+his feet cling to the path he has elected to follow; nor will he, unless
+some one takes him by the hand saying, "Come," turn aside.</p>
+
+<p>A voice, not at all in harmony with the music, broke upon the artist's
+consciousness. He turned to see Mrs. Taine standing expectantly in the
+open door. "Hush!" said the painter, still under the spell of that moment
+so big with possibilities. "Listen,"--with a gesture, he checked her
+advance,--"listen."</p>
+
+<p>A look of haughty surprise flashed over the woman's too perfect features.
+Then, as her ear caught the tones of the violin, she half turned--but only
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Very clever, isn't it," she said as she came forward "It must be old
+Professor Becker. He lives somewhere around here, I understand. They say
+he is very good."</p>
+
+<p>The artist looked at her for an instant, in amazement Then, as his normal
+mind asserted itself, he burst into an embarrassed laugh.</p>
+
+<p>At her look of puzzled inquiry, he said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine.
+I did not realize how harshly I greeted you. The fact is I--I was
+dreaming"--he turned suggestively toward the canvas upon the easel. "You
+see I was expecting you--I was thinking--then the music
+came--and--well--when you actually appeared in the flesh, I did not for
+the moment realize that it was really you."</p>
+
+<p>"How charming of you!" she returned. "To be made the subject of an
+artist's dream--really it is quite the nicest compliment I have ever
+received. Tell me, do you like me in this?" she slipped the wrap she wore
+from her shoulders, and stood before him, gowned in the simple, gray dress
+of a Quaker Maid. Deliberately, she turned her beautiful self about for
+his critical inspection. Moving to and fro, sitting, half-reclining,
+standing--in various graceful poses she invited, challenged, dared, his
+closest attention--professional attention, of course--to every curve and
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of its simplicity of color and line, the gown still bore the
+unmistakable stamp of the wearer's world. The severity of line was subtly
+made to emphasize the voluptuousness of the body that was covered but not
+hidden. The quiet color was made to accentuate the flesh the dress
+concealed only to reveal. The very lack of ornament but served to center
+the attention upon the charms that so loudly professed to scorn them. It
+was worldliness speaking in the quiet voice of religion. It was vulgarity
+advertising itself in terms of good taste. She had made modesty the
+handmaiden of blatant immodesty, and the daring impudence of it all
+fairly stunned the painter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" she said, watching his face, "I fear you don't like it, at
+all--and I thought it such a beautiful little gown. You told me to wear
+whatever I pleased, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a beautiful gown," he said--then added impulsively, "and you are
+beautiful in it. You would be beautiful in anything."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head; favoring him with an understanding smile. "You say
+that to please me. I can see that you don't like me this way."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do," he insisted. "I like you that way, immensely. I was a bit
+surprised, that's all. You see, I thought, of course, that you would
+select an evening gown of some sort--something, you know, that would fit
+your social position--your place in the world. In this costume, the beauty
+of your shoulders--"</p>
+
+<p>Lowering her eyes as if embarrassed, she said coldly, "The beauty of my
+shoulders is not for the public. I have never worn--I will not wear--one
+of those dreadful, immodest gowns."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was bewildered. Suddenly, he remembered what Conrad Lagrange
+had said about her fad. But after so frankly exhibiting herself before
+him, dressed as she was in a gown that was deliberately planned to
+advertise her physical charms, to be particular about baring her shoulders
+in a conventional costume--! It was quite too much.</p>
+
+<p>"Again, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine," he managed to say. "I did not
+know. Under the circumstances, this is exactly the thing. Your portrait,
+in what is so frankly a costume assumed for the purpose, takes us out of
+the dilemma very nicely, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's exactly what I thought," she returned eagerly. "And this is
+so in keeping with my real tastes--don't you see? A real portrait--I mean
+a serious work of art, you know--should always be something more than a
+mere likeness, should it not? Don't you think that to be genuinely good, a
+portrait must reveal the spirit and character--must portray the soul, as
+well as the features? I <i>do</i> so want this to be a truly great picture--for
+your sake." Her manner seemed to say that she was doing it all for him. "I
+have never permitted any one to paint my portrait before, you know," she
+added meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, Mrs. Taine," he returned gravely. "Believe me, I do
+appreciate this opportunity I shall do my best to express my appreciation
+here"--he indicated the canvas on the easel.</p>
+
+<p>When his sitter was posed to his liking, and the artist, with a few bold,
+sweeping, strokes of the charcoal had roughed out his subject on the
+canvas, and was bending over his color-box--he said, casually, to put her
+at ease, "You came alone this afternoon, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, indeed! I brought Louise with me. I shall always bring her, or
+some one. One cannot be too careful, you know," she added with simulated
+artlessness.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, studying her face, replied mechanically "No indeed."</p>
+
+<p>As he turned back to his canvas, Mrs. Taine continued, "I left her in the
+house, with a box of chocolates and a novel. I felt that you would rather
+we were alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't look down," said the artist. "I want your eyes about
+here"--he indicated a picture on the wall, a little back and to the left
+of where he stood at the easel.</p>
+
+<p>After this, there was silence in the studio, for a little while. Mrs.
+Taine obediently kept the pose; her eyes upon the point the artist had
+indicated; but--as the man, himself, was almost directly in her line of
+vision--it was easy for her to watch him at his work, when his eyes were
+on his canvas or palette. The arrangement was admirable in that it
+relieved the tedium of the hour for the sitter; and gave her face an
+expression of animated interest that, truthfully fixed upon the canvas,
+should insure the fame and future of any painter.</p>
+
+<p>It would be quite too much to say that Aaron King became absorbed in his
+occupation. Thorough master of the tools of his craft, and of his own
+technic, as well; he was interested in the mere exercising of his skill,
+but he in no sense lost himself in his work. Two or three times, Mrs.
+Taine saw him glance quickly over his shoulder, as though expecting some
+one. Once, for quite a moment, he deliberately turned from his easel to
+stand at the window, looking up at the distant mountain peaks. Several
+times, he seemed to be listening.</p>
+
+<p>"May I talk?" she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly," he returned. "I want you to feel perfectly at ease. You
+must be altogether at home here. Just let yourself go--say what you like,
+with no conventional restraints whatever--consider me a mechanical
+something that is no more than an article of furniture--be as thoroughly
+yourself as if alone in your own room."</p>
+
+<p>"How funny," she said musingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all"--he returned--"just a matter of business."</p>
+
+<p>"But it <i>would</i> be funny if I were to take you at your word," she replied;
+suddenly breaking the pose and meeting his gaze squarely. "Is it--is it
+quite necessary for the mechanical something to look at me like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said that you were to <i>consider</i> me as an article of furniture. I
+didn't say that I <i>felt</i> like a table or chair."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look down; keep the pose, please," came somewhat sharply from the
+man at the easel, as though he were mentally taking himself in hand.</p>
+
+<p>After that, she watched him with increasing interest and, when he turned
+his head in that listening attitude, a curious, resentful light came into
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she asked abruptly, "What is it that you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard music," he answered, coloring slightly and turning to
+his work with suddenly absorbing interest.</p>
+
+<p>"The violin that so enchanted you when I came to break the spell?" she
+persisted playfully--though the light in her eyes was not a playful light.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered shortly; stepping back and shading his eyes with his
+hand for a careful look at his canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"And don't you know who it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"You said it was an old professor somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"That was my <i>first</i> guess," she retorted. "Was I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"But it comes from that little box of a house, next door, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," the artist answered. Then, laying aside his palette and
+brushes he said abruptly, "That is all for to-day; thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so soon!" she exclaimed; and the regret in her voice was very
+pleasing to the man who was decidedly not a mechanical something.</p>
+
+<p>She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But the artist, with a quick
+motion, drew a curtain across the canvas, to hide his work; while he
+checked her with--"Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it until I say
+you may."</p>
+
+<p>"How mean of you," she protested; charmingly submissive. Then,
+eagerly--"And do you want me to-morrow? You do, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please--at the same hour."</p>
+
+<p>When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hidden under her wrap, Mrs.
+Taine stood, for a moment, looking thoughtfully about the studio; while
+the artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the automobile. "I
+am going to love this room," she said slowly; and, for the first time, her
+voice was genuinely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone that
+made him regard her wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when you are famous--when you are
+a great artist and all the great and famous people go to you to have their
+portraits painted--will you remember poor me, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I really going to be famous?" he returned doubtfully. "Are you so sure
+that this picture will mean success?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am sure--I <i>know</i>. You want to succeed don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering. Then, with
+a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had
+never before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to succeed! I--I must
+succeed. I tell you I <i>must</i>."</p>
+
+<p>And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, "And you
+shall--you shall."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling
+moodily at his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as he stood looking down
+upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"All over," replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar's
+muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand. "Where did you fly to?"</p>
+
+<p>The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly anywhere to escape being
+entertained by that Ragtime' piece of human nonentity--Louise Taine. I
+saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his pipe as he spoke. "And
+how did the work go?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," replied the painter, indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then,
+striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the
+cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 'Her Majesty' was
+royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine
+linen; as befits the dignity of her state?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely,
+"I suppose you have got to know, damn you! I'm painting her as a Quaker
+Maiden."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst
+of the artist. Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse
+that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his
+scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and
+understanding "You poor fellow! It must be hell." Then, as his keen mind
+grasped the full significance of the artist's words, he murmured
+meditatively, "The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker
+gray--Shades of the giants who used to be! What an opportunity--if you
+only had the nerve to do it."</p>
+
+<p>The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace
+up and down the porch. "Don't, Lagrange, don't! I can't stand it, just
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"All right." said the other, heartily, "I won't." Rising, he put his hand
+on his friend's shoulder. "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before
+Yee Kee calls us to dinner."</p>
+
+<p>In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of something white lying in
+the well-kept path. With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It
+was a dainty square of lace--a handkerchief--with an exquisitely
+embroidered "S" in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning
+eyes.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch08" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King was putting the last touches to his portrait of the woman
+who--Conrad Lagrange said--was the personification of the age.</p>
+
+<p>From that evening when the young man told his friend the story of his
+mother's sacrifice, their friendship had become like that friendship which
+passeth the love of women. While the novelist, true to his promise, did
+not cease to flay his younger companion--for the good of the artist's
+soul--those moments when his gentler moods ruled his speech were, perhaps,
+more frequent; and the artist was more and more learning to appreciate the
+rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intellectual brilliancy,
+and the keenness of mental vision that distinguished the man whose life
+was so embittered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture while the work was in
+progress. He said, bluntly, that he preferred to run no risk of
+interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be
+quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was
+accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The
+artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased
+to be left to himself with this particular picture.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to accompany his friend,
+occasionally, to the house on Fairlands Heights; where the painter
+continued to spend much of his time. When Mrs. Taine made mocking
+references to the novelist's promise not to leave the artist unprotected
+to her tender mercies, he always answered with some--as she said--twisty
+saying; to the effect that the present situation in no way lessened his
+determination to save the young man from the influences that would
+accomplish the ruin of his genius. "If"--he always added--"if he is worth
+saving; which remains to be seen." Always, at the Taine home, they met
+James Rutlidge. Frequently the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage
+in the orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>Under the skillful management of Rutlidge,--at the request of Mrs.
+Taine,--the newspapers were already busy with the name and work of Aaron
+King. True, the critic had never seen the artist's work; but,
+never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout the country often
+mentioned the high order of the painter's genius. There were little
+stories of his study and success abroad; tactful references to his
+aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his romantic life with the
+famous novelist in the orange groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his
+California studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was at work
+upon a portrait of the well-known social leader, Mrs. Taine--this being
+the first portrait ever painted of that famous beauty. That the picture
+would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the unanimous verdict of
+all who had been permitted to see the marvelous creation by this rare
+genius whose work was so little known in this country.</p>
+
+<p>Said Conrad Lagrange--"It is all so easy."</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen the woman of the
+disfigured face; and the novelist still tried in vain to fix her in his
+memory. Every day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring orange
+grove, the music of that unseen violin. They spoke, often, in playful
+mood, of the spirit that haunted the place; but they made no effort to
+solve the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. They knew that
+whoever cared for the roses worked there only in the early morning hours;
+and they carefully avoided going into the yard back of the house until
+after breakfast. They felt that an investigation might rob them of the
+peculiar humor of their fancy--a fancy that was to them, both, such a
+pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange-trees and roses such an
+added charm.</p>
+
+<p>But the other member of the trio of friends was not so reticent. Czar had
+formed an--to his most proper dogship--unusual habit. Frequently, when the
+three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he would rise suddenly
+from his place beside his master's chair, and walking sedately to the side
+of the porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, would stand
+listening attentively; then, without so much as a "by-your-leave," he
+would leap to the ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of the
+house. Later, he would come sedately back; greeting each, in turn, with
+that insistent thrust his soft muzzle against a knee; and assuring them,
+in the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, that his mission had
+been a most proper one, and that they might trust him to make no foolish
+mistakes that would mar the peace and harmony of their little household.
+The men never failed to agree with him that it was all right. In fact, so
+fully did they trust him that they never even stepped to the corner of the
+porch to see where he went; nor would they leave their chairs until he had
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the studio,--being always careful
+that Louise accompanied her as far as the house,--Conrad Lagrange
+vanished. The man swore by all the strange and wonderful gods he knew--and
+they were many--that he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing
+young female devotee of the Arts--lest the mountains in their wrath should
+fall upon him.</p>
+
+<p>But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last sitting, the
+novelist--engaged in interesting talk with the artist--forgot.</p>
+
+<p>"You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as the big automobile
+stopped at the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, with no profane intent
+but with meaning quite literal; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the
+kitchen--nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee.</p>
+
+<p>"What's matte'," inquired the Chinaman, putting his head in at the
+living-room door; his almond eyes as wide as they could go, with an
+expression of celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. Catching
+sight of the automobile, his oriental features wrinkled into a yellow grin
+of understanding; "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, she come.
+He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', him all time gone, too; him no like
+lagtime--all same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in turn,
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him--standing close,
+her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her
+sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively
+downcast. "And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?"
+she asked in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not"--he returned calmly--"you are coming to-morrow, with the
+others, aren't you?" Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were
+invited for the next day, to view the portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed the wrap she wore, and
+threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize
+what these hours have meant to me--how could you? You do not live in my
+world. Your world is--is so different You do not know--you do not know."
+With a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world that I live in is
+hell; and this--this--oh, it has been heavenly!"</p>
+
+<p>Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with
+outstretched arms--it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a
+surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.
+For the moment he forgot his work--he forgot everything--he was conscious
+only of the woman who stood before him. But even as the light of triumph
+blazed up in the woman's eyes, the man halted,--drew back; and his face
+was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the
+gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. It
+was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,--from their calm
+heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser
+tragedies,--watched over him. "Don't you think we had better proceed with
+our work?" he said calmly.</p>
+
+<p>The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger which she turned away to
+hide. Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and,
+as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas,
+she watched him now. Since that first day, when she had questioned him
+about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject,
+although--as was inevitable under the circumstances--their intimacy had
+grown. But not once had he turned from his work in that listening
+attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one,
+without her noting it. And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment,
+which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his
+easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the
+music ceased. Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the
+quite casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,"--he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,--"we
+have never tried to make her acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The woman caught him up quickly; "To make <i>her</i> acquaintance? Why do you
+say, '<i>her</i>,' if you do not know who it is?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist was confused. "Did I say, <i>her</i>?" he questioned, his face
+flushed with embarrassment. "It was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad
+Lagrange nor I know anything about our neighbor."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed ironically. "And you <i>could</i> know so easily."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We prefer to accept the music
+as it comes to us--impersonally--for what it is--not for whoever makes
+it." He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful to him, under
+the circumstances of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>But the woman persisted. "Well, <i>I</i> know who it is. Shall I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I do not care to know. I am not interested in the musician."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Please take the pose," returned Aaron King professionally. Mrs. Taine,
+wisely, for the time, dropped the subject; contenting herself with a
+meaning laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The artist silently gave all his attention to the nearly finished
+portrait. He was not painting, now, with full brush and swift sure
+strokes,--as had been his way when building up his picture,--but worked
+with occasional deft touches here and there; drawing back from the canvas
+often, to study it intently, his eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to
+the sitter's face and back again to the portrait; then stepping forward
+quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw an instant later for another
+long and searching study. Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside
+his palette and brushes; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with a smile, held out
+his hand. "Come," he said, "tell me if I have done well or ill."</p>
+
+<p>"It is finished?" she cried. "I may see it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is all that I can do"--he answered--"come." He led her to the easel,
+where they stood side by side before his work.</p>
+
+<p>The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, was a portrait of Mrs.
+Taine--yet not a portrait. Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of
+tone and line, it betrayed in every careful detail--in every mark of the
+brush--the thoughtful, painstaking care--the thorough knowledge and highly
+trained skill of an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic.
+But--if one might say so--the painting was more a picture than a portrait.
+The face upon the canvas was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the
+features were her features; but it was also the face of a sweetly modest
+Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too well cared for face of the beautiful
+woman of the world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a natural
+unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had watched the artist with such
+certain knowledge of life and with the boldness born of that knowledge
+were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of innocent maidenhood.
+The very coloring and the arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to
+express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors and of fashionable
+hair-dressers, but the instinctive care of womanliness. The costume that,
+when worn by the woman, expressed so fully her true character; in the
+picture, became the emblem of a pure and deeply religious spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, placing her hand upon
+his arm, exclaimed in delight, "Oh, is it true? Am I really so beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "You like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like it? How could I help liking it? It is lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would please you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you"--she asked, with eager eyes--"are you satisfied with it? Does it
+seem good to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is never satisfied. I know
+the work is good--in a way. But it is very far from what it should be, I
+fear. I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my opportunity."
+He spoke with a shade of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch his arm, as she answered
+eagerly, "Ah, but no one else will say that. No one else will dare. It
+will be the sensation of the year--I tell you. Just you wait until Jim
+Rutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung for exhibition, and he tells the
+world about it. Everybody worth while will be coming to you then. And I--I
+will remember these hours with you, and be glad that I could help--even
+so little. Will you remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the picture
+is finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"And are you not glad?" he returned meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>They had both forgotten the painting before them. They did not see it.
+They each saw only the other.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. "People would very soon be
+talking if I should come here, alone--now that the picture is finished."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fairlands soon, for the
+summer," he returned slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"O listen,"--she cried with quick eagerness--"we are going to Lake
+Silence. What's to hinder your coming too? Everybody goes there, you know.
+Won't you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"But would it be altogether safe?" He reflected doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course,--Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim,--we are all going
+together--don't you see? I don't believe you want to go," she pouted. "I
+believe you want to forget."</p>
+
+<p>Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in her words and voice, the
+touch of her hand on his arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept
+the man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her hand, and his
+words came with reckless heat. "You know that I will not forget you. You
+know that I could not, if I would. Do you think that I have been so
+engrossed with my brushes and canvas that I have been unconscious of you?
+What is that painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do you think
+that because I must turn myself into a machine to make a photograph of
+your beauty, I am insensible to its charm? I am not a machine. I am a man;
+as you are a woman; and I--"</p>
+
+<p>She checked him suddenly--stepping aside with a quick movement, and the
+words, "Hush, some one is coming."</p>
+
+<p>The artist, too, heard voices, just without the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward her wrap. Aaron King,
+going to his easel, drew the velvet curtain to hide the picture.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch09" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter IX</h2>
+
+<h3>Conrad Lagrange's Adventure</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Certainly, when Conrad Lagrange fled so precipitately from Louise Taine,
+that afternoon, he had no thought that the trivial incident was to mark
+the beginning of a new era in his life; or that it would work out in the
+life of his dearest friend such far reaching results. His only purpose was
+to escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, young creature who
+believed herself so interested in art and letters, and who succeeded so
+admirably in expressing the spirit of her environment and training.</p>
+
+<p>With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself in the rose garden;
+finding a seat on the ground, in an angle of the studio wall and the
+Ragged Robin hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would be least
+likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approving of his master's action,
+stretched himself comfortably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited
+further developments.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. Taine, come from the
+house and enter the studio. For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable
+fear that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so often moved
+him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the garden. But the moment passed, and the
+novelist,--mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance,--with a
+chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and opened his book. Scarcely
+had he found his place in the pages, however, when he was again
+interrupted--this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's violin.
+Putting his book aside, the man reclining in the shelter of the roses,
+with half-closed eyes, yielded himself to the fancy of the spirit that
+called from the depths of the fragrant orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of the studio above his
+head dropped their lovely petals down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of
+the afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining leaves and branches,
+played over the bewildering riot of color. Here and there, golden-bodied
+bees and velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like duties.
+Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated on motionless wings and a
+lonely crow laid his course toward the distant mountain peaks that
+gleamed, silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower ridges and
+the tawny yellow of their foothills. The air was saturated with the
+fragrance of the rose and orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees,
+and with the thousand other perfumes of a California spring.</p>
+
+<p>The music ceased. The man waited--hoping that it would begin again. But it
+did not; and he was about to take up his book, once more, when Czar arose,
+stretched himself, stood for a moment in a picturesque, listening
+attitude, then trotted off among the roses; leaving the novelist with an
+odd feeling of uneasy expectancy--half resolved to stay, half determined
+to go. The thought of Louise in the house decided him, and he kept his
+place, hidden as he was, in the corner--a whimsical smile hovering over
+his world-lined features as though, after all, he felt himself entering
+upon some enjoyable adventure.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the other end of the
+garden, a low murmuring voice. As it came nearer, the man's smile grew
+more pronounced It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear and full in
+its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen speaker was talking to the novelist's
+dog. The smile on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he
+whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what he has been up to!"
+Rising quietly to his knees, he peered through the flower-laden bushes.</p>
+
+<p>A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was moving about the
+garden--bending over the roses, and talking in low tones to Czar, who--to
+his hidden master--appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his gentle
+companion's intimacy. The novelist--old in the study of character and
+trained by his long years of observation and experience in the world of
+artificiality--was fascinated by the loveliness of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of white, with a modestly
+low-cut square at the throat, and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just
+below the elbow--her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved here and
+there, had all the charm of girlish grace with the fuller beauty of
+ripening womanhood. As she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the
+dog, in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every motion, was
+instinct with that strength and health that is seldom seen among those who
+wear the shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face,--warmly
+tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm fleshed and clear,--in its
+unconscious naturalness and in its winsome purity was like the flowers she
+stooped to kiss.</p>
+
+<p>As he watched, the man noticed--with a smile of understanding--that she
+kept rather to the side of the garden toward the house; where the artist,
+at his easel by the big, north light, could not see her through the small
+window in the end of the room; and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she
+would not be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she paused to
+listen, as if for any chance approaching step--appearing, to the fancy of
+the man, as some creature from another world--poised lightly, ready to
+vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon,--after a cautious,
+hesitating, listening look about,--she slipped, swift footed as a fawn,
+across the garden, and--followed by the dog--disappeared into the latticed
+rose-covered arbor against the southern wall.</p>
+
+<p>With a chuckle to himself, Conrad Lagrange crept quietly along the hedge
+to the door of her retreat.</p>
+
+<p>When she saw him there, she gave a little cry and started as though to
+escape. But the novelist, smiling barred her way; while Czar, joyfully
+greeting his master, turned from the man to the girl and back to the man
+again, as if, by dividing his attention equally between the two, he was
+bent upon assuring each that the other was a friend of the right sort.
+There was no mistaking the facts that the dog was introducing them, and
+that he was as proud of his new acquaintance as he was pleased to present
+his older and more intimate companion.</p>
+
+<p>A sunny smile broke over the girl's winsome face, as she caught the
+meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," she said, "are you his master?" Her
+manner was as natural and unrestrained as a child's--her voice, musically
+sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the speech of noisy, crowded cities
+or shrill chattering crowds.</p>
+
+<p>"I am his most faithful and humble subject," returned the man,
+whimsically.</p>
+
+<p>She was studying his face openly, while her own countenance--unschooled to
+hide emotions, untrained to deceive--frankly betrayed each passing thought
+and mood. The daintily turned chin, sensitive lips, delicate nostrils, and
+large, blue eyes,--with that wide, unafraid look of a child that has never
+been taught to fear,--revealed a spirit fine and rare; while the low,
+broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft brown hair,--that, arranged
+deftly in some simple fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every
+wayward breath of air,--gave the added charm of strength and purpose. The
+man, seeing these things and knowing--as few men ever know--their value,
+waited her verdict.</p>
+
+<p>It came with a smile and a pretty fancy, as though she caught the mood of
+the novelist's reply. "He has told me so much about you--how kind you are
+to him, and how he loves you. I hope you don't mind that he and I have
+learned to be good friends. Won't you tell me his name? I have tried
+everything, but nothing seems to fit. To call such a royal fellow,
+'doggie', doesn't do at all, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange laughed--and it was the laugh of a Conrad Lagrange unknown
+to the world. "No," he said with mock seriousness, "'doggie,' doesn't do
+at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. That is"--he added,
+giving full rein to his droll humor--"I gave it to him for a name. He has
+made it his title. He did that, you know, so I would always remember that
+he is my superior."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed--low, full-throated and clear--as a girl who has not sadly
+learned that she is a woman, laughs. Then she fell to caressing the dog
+and calling him by name; while Czar--in his efforts to express his delight
+and satisfaction--was as nearly undignified as it was possible for him to
+be.</p>
+
+<p>As he watched them, the rugged, world-worn features of the famous novelist
+were lighted with an expression that transformed them.</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose," she said,--still responding to the novelist's playful
+mood,--"that Czar told you I was trespassing in your garden. Of course it
+was his duty to tell. I hope he told you, also, that I do not steal your
+roses."</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head, and his sharp, green-gray eyes were twinkling
+merrily, now--as a boy in the spirit of some amusing venture. "Oh, no!
+Czar said nothing at all about trespassers. He did tell me, though, about
+a wonderful creature that comes every day to visit the garden. A nymph, he
+thought it was--a beautiful Oread from away up there among the silver
+peaks and purple canyons--or, perhaps, a lovely Dryad from among the oaks
+and pines. I felt quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread;
+because he said that she comes to gather colors from the roses, and that
+every morning and every evening she uses these colors to tint the highest
+peaks and crests of her mountains--making them so beautiful that mortals
+would always begin and end each day by looking up at them. Of course, the
+moment I saw, you I knew who you were."</p>
+
+<p>Unaffectedly pleased as a child at his quaint fancy, she answered merrily,
+"And so you hid among the roses to trap me, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I was forced to fly from a
+wicked Flibbertigibbet who seeks to torment me. I barely escaped with my
+life, and came into the garden to hide and recover from my fright. Then I
+heard the most wonderful music and guessed that you must be somewhere
+around. Then Czar, who had come with me to hide from the Flibbertigibbet
+in the house, left me. I looked to see where he had gone, and so I saw,
+sure enough, that it was you. All my life, you know, I have wanted to
+catch a real nymph; but never could. So when you came into the arbor, I
+couldn't resist trying again. And, now, here we are--with Czar to say it
+is all right."</p>
+
+<p>At his fanciful words, she laughed again, and her cheeks flushed with
+pleasure. Then, with grave sweetness, she said, "Won't you sit down,
+please, and let me explain seriously?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you must pretend to be like the rest of us," he returned with
+an air of resignation, "but all the same, Czar and I know you are not."</p>
+
+<p>When they were seated, she said simply, "My name is Sibyl Andres. This
+place used to be my home. My mother planted this garden with her own
+hands. Many of these roses were brought from our home in the mountains,
+where I was born, and where I lived with father and mother until five
+years ago. I feel, still, as though the old place in the hills were my
+real home, and every summer, when nearly every one goes away from
+Fairlands and there is nothing for me to do, Myra Willard and I go up
+there, for as long as we can. You see, I teach music and play in the
+churches. Miss Willard taught me. She and mother are the only teachers I
+have ever had. After father's death, mother and Myra and I lived here for
+two years; then mother died, and Myra and I moved to that little house
+over there, because we could not afford to keep this place. But the man
+who bought it gave me permission to care for the garden; so I come almost
+every day--through that little gate in the corner of the hedge, there--to
+tend the roses. Since you men moved in, though, I come, mostly, in the
+morning--early--before you are up. I only slip in, sometimes, for a few
+minutes, in the afternoon--when I think it will be safe. You see, being
+strangers, I--I feared you would think me bold--if I--if I asked to come.
+So many people really wouldn't understand, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange's deep voice was very gentle as he said, "Mr. King and I
+have known, all the time, that we had no real claim upon this garden,
+Miss Andr&eacute;s." Then, with his whimsical smile, he added, "You see, we felt,
+from the very first, that it was haunted by a lovely spirit that would
+vanish utterly if we intruded. That is why we have been so careful. We did
+not want to frighten you away. And besides, you know, Czar told us that it
+was all right!"</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes shone through a bright mist as she answered the man's kindly
+words. "You <i>are</i> good, Mr. Lagrange. And all the time it was really <i>you</i>
+of whom I was so afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Why me, more than my friend?" he asked, regarding her thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>She colored a little under his searching gaze, but answered with that
+childlike frankness that was so much a part of her winsome charm, "Why,
+because your friend is an <i>artist</i>--I thought <i>he</i> would be sure to
+understand. I knew, of course, that you were the famous author; everybody
+talks about your living here." She seemed to think that her words
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you were afraid of me because I am famous?" he asked
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," she answered, "not because you are famous. I mean--I was not
+afraid of your <i>fame</i>," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must tell me at once--do you
+read my books?" He waited, as though much depended upon her answer.</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, unafraid look as she
+answered sadly, "No, sir. I have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music.
+They hurt me, somehow, all over."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased
+delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and
+humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew
+it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you
+were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep
+conviction verified.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know
+that an author <i>could</i> be so different from the things he writes about."
+Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that
+spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you
+talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books
+like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with
+pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful
+humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you
+and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I
+like secrets."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really
+Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when
+I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or
+when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am
+in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who
+wrote them."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you
+<i>couldn't</i> be <i>that</i> kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be
+here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with our secret. Your name
+is not really Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, you know--any more than you really live over
+there in that little house. Your real home is in the mountains--just as
+you said--you <i>really</i> live among the glowing peaks, under the dark pines,
+on the ridges, and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only come
+down here to the Fairlands folk with a message from your mountains--and
+<i>we</i> call your message music. Your name is--"</p>
+
+<p>She was leaning forward, her face glowing with eagerness. "What is my
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>"What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. "That's it, 'Nature'."</p>
+
+<p>"And you? Who are you when you are not--when you are not in that other
+world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Oh, my real name is 'Civilization'. Can't you guess why?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "Tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Because,--in spite of all that the world that reads my books can
+give,--poor old 'Civilization' cannot be happy without the message that
+'Nature' brings from her mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, too, love the mountains and--and this garden, and my music?" she
+asked half doubtingly. "You are not pretending that too--just to amuse
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not pretending that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why--how can you do the--the other thing? I can't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you can't understand--how could you? You are 'Nature' and
+'Nature' must often be puzzled by the things that 'Civilization' does."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm glad you like my music,
+anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I glad--that I <i>can</i> like it. That's the only thing that saves
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"And your friend, the artist,--does he like my mountain music, do you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much. He needs it too."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he would like it, and that it
+would help him. It was really for him that I have played."</p>
+
+<p>"You played for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, I did not know about
+you--then. I thought you were altogether the man who wrote those
+books--and so I <i>could</i> not play for you. That is--I mean--you
+understand--I could not play--" again she seemed to search for a word, and
+finding it, smiled--"I could not play <i>myself</i> for you. But I thought that
+because he was an <i>artist</i> he would understand; and that if I <i>could</i> make
+the music tell him of the mountains it would, perhaps, help him a little
+to make his work beautiful and right--do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might have known that it was for
+<i>him</i> that you brought your message from the hills. But poor old
+'Civilization' is frightfully stupid sometimes, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the arbor, and parting the
+screen of vines a little, said to him, "Look here!"</p>
+
+<p>Standing beside her, Conrad Lagrange, through the window in the end of the
+studio next the garden, saw Aaron King at his easel; the artist's position
+in the light of the big, north window being in a direct line between the
+two openings and the arbor. Mrs. Taine was sitting too far out of line to
+be seen.</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed gleefully. "Do you see him at his work? At first, I only
+hid here to find what kind of people were going to live in my old home.
+But when he was making our old barn into a studio, and I heard who you
+both were, I came because I love to watch him; as I try to make the music
+I think he would love to hear."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist studied her intently. She was so artless--so unaffected by
+the conventions of the world--in a word, so natural in expressing her
+thoughts, that the man who had given the best years of his life to feed
+the vicious, grossly sensual and bestial imaginations of his readers was
+deeply moved. He was puzzled what to say. At last, he murmured haltingly,
+"You like the artist, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were full of curious laughter as she answered, "Why, what a funny
+question--when I have never even talked with him. How <i>could</i> I like any
+one I have never known?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you make your music for him; and you come here to watch him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but that is for the work he is doing; that is for his pictures." She
+turned to look through the tiny opening in the arbor. "How I wish I could
+see inside that beautiful room. I know it must be beautiful. Once, when
+you were all gone, I tried to steal in; but, of course, he keeps it
+locked."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the man, suddenly--prompted by her
+confession to resume his playful mood.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" she asked eagerly, in a like spirit of fun.</p>
+
+<p>"First," he answered, half teasingly, "I must know if you could, now, make
+your music for me as well as for him."</p>
+
+<p>"For the you that loves the mountains and the garden I'm sure I could,"
+she answered promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, if you will promise to do that--if you will promise not to
+play <i>yourself</i> for just him alone but for me too--I'll fix it so that you
+can go into the studio yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I will always play for you, too, anyway--now that I know you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he said, "we could just walk up to the door, and I could
+introduce you; but that would not be proper for <i>us</i> would it?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head positively, "I wouldn't like to do that. He would think
+I was intruding, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, we will do it this way--the first day that Mr. King and I are
+both away, and Tee Kee is gone, too; I'll slip out here and leave a letter
+and a key on your gate. The letter will tell you just the time when we go,
+and when we will return--so you will know whether it is safe for you or
+not, and how long you can stay. Only"--he became very serious--"only, you
+must promise one thing."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you won't look at the picture on the easel."</p>
+
+<p>"But why must I promise that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because that picture will not be finished for a long time yet, and you
+must not look at it until I say it is ready. Mr. King wouldn't like you to
+see that picture, I am sure. In fact, he doesn't like for any one to see
+the picture he is working on just now."</p>
+
+<p>"How funny," she said, with a puzzled look. "What is he painting it for? I
+like for people to hear my music."</p>
+
+<p>The man answered before he thought--"But I don't like people to read my
+books."</p>
+
+<p>She shrank back, with troubled eyes, "Oh! is he--is he <i>that</i> kind of an
+artist?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" exclaimed the novelist, hastily. "You must not think that. I
+did not mean you to think that. If he was <i>that</i> kind of an artist, I
+wouldn't let you go into the studio at all. Mr. King is a good man--the
+best man I have ever known. He is my friend because he knows the secret
+about me that you know. He does not read my books. He would not read one
+of them for anything. It is only that this picture is not finished. When
+it is finished, he will not care who sees it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad," she said. "You frightened me, for a minute--I understand,
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"And you promise not to look at the picture on the easel?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded,--"Of course. And when I come out I'll lock the door and put
+the key back on the gate again; and no one but you and I will ever know."</p>
+
+<p>"No one but you and I will know," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Czar, who had been lying quietly in the doorway of the arbor,
+rose quickly to his feet, with a low growl.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, peering through the screen on the side toward the house, uttered
+an exclamation of fear and drew back, turning to her companion
+appealingly. "O please, please don't let that man find me here."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrauge looked and saw James Rutlidge coming down the path toward
+the arched entrance to the garden, which was directly across from the
+arbor.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop him, please stop him," whispered the girl, her hand upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here until I get him out of sight," said the novelist quickly. "I
+won't let him come into the garden. When we are gone, you can make your
+escape. Don't forget the music for me, and the key at the gate."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke to Czar, and with the dog obediently at heel went forward to meet
+Mr. Rutlidge, who had called for Mrs. Taine and Louise.</p>
+
+<p>But all the while that Conrad Lagrange was talking to the man, and leading
+him toward the door of the studio, he was wondering--why that look of fear
+upon the face of the girl in the garden? What had Sibyl Andr&eacute;s to do with
+James Rutlidge?</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch10" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter X</h2>
+
+<h3>A Cry in the Night</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As Conrad Lagrange and Mr. Rutlidge entered the studio, Aaron King turned
+from the easel, where he had drawn the velvet curtain to hide the finished
+portrait. Mrs. Taine was standing at the other side of the room, wrap in
+hand, calmly waiting, ready to go. The artist greeted Mr. Rutlidge
+cordially, while the woman triumphantly announced the completion of her
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man," said Rutlidge, addressing
+the artist familiarly. "It is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it
+this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks,"--returned the artist,--"you are all coming to-morrow, at three,
+you know. I would rather not show it to-day. It is a little late for the
+best light; and I would like for <i>you</i> to see it under the most favorable
+conditions possible."</p>
+
+<p>The critic was visibly flattered by the painter's manner and by his
+well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "Quite right"--he said
+approvingly--"quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist--"These
+painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last
+touch or two before <i>I</i> come around." He laughed pompously at his own
+words--the others joining.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, the artist said hurriedly
+to his friend, "Come on, let's get it over." He led the way back to the
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the light was too bad," said the older man, quizzingly, as they
+entered the big room.</p>
+
+<p>"It's good enough for <i>your</i> needs," retorted the painter savagely. "You
+could see all you want by candle-light." He jerked the curtain angrily
+aside, and--without a glance at the canvas--walked away to stand at the
+window looking out upon the rose garden--waiting for the flood of the
+novelist's scorn to overwhelm him. At last, when no sound broke the quiet
+of the room, he turned--to find himself alone.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait on the easel, had slipped
+quietly out of the building.</p>
+
+<p>The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, meditatively smoking his
+pipe on the front porch, with Czar lying at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the painter, curiously,--anxious, as he had said, to have it
+over,--"why the deuce don't you <i>say</i> something?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist answered slowly, "My vocabulary is too limited, for one
+reason, and"--he looked thoughtfully down at Czar--"I prefer to wait until
+you have finished the portrait."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> finished," returned the artist desperately. "I swear I'll never
+touch a brush to the damned thing again."</p>
+
+<p>The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; "Listen to him,
+Czar--listen to the poor devil of a painter-man."</p>
+
+<p>The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master's knee, looked up
+into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, "If he was only
+a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert
+ourselves, so we could, couldn't we?" Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in
+dignified approval. His master continued, "But when a fellow can do a
+crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his
+work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into
+existence, it's best for outsiders to keep quite still. Your poor old
+master knows whereof he speaks, doesn't he, dog? That he does!"</p>
+
+<p>"And is that all you have to say on the subject?" demanded the artist, as
+though for some reason he was disappointed at his friend's reticence.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>might</i> add a word of advice," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
+you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
+Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
+automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
+accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
+prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
+novelist, they went at once to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
+fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
+of admiration, even <i>before</i> the portrait was revealed. As though the
+painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
+"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
+accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
+glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
+whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
+display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
+a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
+inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embarrassed attention to an
+appreciation that had the appearance, at least, of a more enduring value.
+Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her husband, she
+asked,--in a voice that was tremulous with loving care and anxiety to
+please,--"Do you like it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is magnificent, splendid, perfect!" This effort to give his praise of
+the artist's work the appearance of substantial reality cost the wretched
+product of lust and luxury a fit of coughing that racked his burnt-out
+body almost to its last feeble hold upon the world of flesh and, with a
+force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that
+neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again
+speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,--while grasping the
+painter's hand in effusive cordiality,--"My dear fellow, I congratulate
+you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is
+exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have
+done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character of Mrs. Taine." And
+then, to his wife,--"Dearest, I am glad for you, and proud. It is as
+worthy of you as paint and canvas could be." He turned to Conrad Lagrange
+who was an interested observer of the scene--"Am I not right, Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right, Mr. Taine,--quite right. As you say, the portrait is most
+worthy the beauty and character of the charming subject."</p>
+
+<p>Another paroxysm of coughing mercifully prevented the poor creature's
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>With one accord, the little group turned, now, to James Rutlidge--the
+dreaded authority and arbiter of artistic destinies. That distinguished
+expert, while the others were speaking, had been listening intently;
+ostensibly, the while, he examined the picture with a show of trained
+skill that, it seemed, could not fail to detect unerringly those more
+subtle values and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden from
+the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, they watched the process by
+which professional criticism finds its verdict. That is, they <i>thought</i>
+they were watching the process. In reality, the method is more subtle than
+they knew.</p>
+
+<p>While the great critic moved back and forth in front of the easel; drew
+away from or bent over to closely scrutinize the canvas; shifted the easel
+a hair breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; hummed and muttered
+to himself abstractedly; cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem";
+squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head thrown back, or turned
+in every side angle his fat neck would permit: peered through his
+half-closed fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over and under
+his open hand or a paper held to shut out portions of the painting;--the
+others <i>thought</i> they saw him expertly weighing the evidence for and
+against the merit of the work. In <i>reality</i> it was his <i>ears</i> and not his
+<i>eyes</i> that helped the critic to his final decision--a decision which was
+delivered, at last, with a convincing air of ponderous finality. Indeed it
+was a judgment from which there could be no appeal, for it expressed
+exactly the views of those for whose benefit it was rendered. Then, in a
+manner subtly insinuating himself into the fellowship of the famous, he,
+too, turned to Conrad Lagrange with a scholarly; "Do you not agree, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist answered with slow impressiveness; "The picture, undoubtedly,
+fully merits the appreciation and praise you have given it. I have already
+congratulated Mr. King--who was kind enough to show me his work before you
+arrived."</p>
+
+<p>After this, Yee Kee appeared upon the scene, and tea was served in the
+studio--a fitting ceremony to the launching of another genius.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Mr. Lagrange," said Mrs. Taine, quite casually,--when, under
+the influence of the mildly stimulating beverage, the talk had assumed a
+more frivolous vein,--"Who is your talented neighbor that so charms Mr.
+King with the music of a violin?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, as he turned toward the speaker, shot a quick glance at the
+Artist. Nor did those keen, baffling eyes fail to note that, at the
+question, James Rutlidge had paused in the middle of a sentence. "That is
+one of the mysteries of our romantic surroundings madam," said Conrad
+Lagrange, easily.</p>
+
+<p>"And a very charming mystery it seems to be," returned the woman. "It has
+been quite affecting to watch its influence upon Mr. King."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "I admit that I found the music, in combination with
+the beauty I have so feebly tried to out upon canvas, very stimulating."</p>
+
+<p>A flash of angry color swept into the perfect cheeks of Mrs. Taine, as she
+retorted with meaning; "You are as flattering in your speech as you are
+with your brush. I assure you I do not consider myself in your unknown
+musician's class."</p>
+
+<p>The small eyes of James Rutlidge were fixed inquiringly upon the speakers,
+while his heavy face betrayed--to the watchful novelist--an interest he
+could not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional merit?" he asked with
+an attempt at indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Louise Taine--sensing that the performances of the unnamed violinist had
+been acceptable to Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King--the two representatives
+of the world to which she aspired--could not let the opportunity slip. She
+fairly deluged them with the spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise
+of the musician--employing, hit or miss, every musical term that popped
+into her vacuous head.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed,"--said the critic,--"I seem to have missed a treat." Then,
+directly to the artist,--"And you say the violinist is wholly unknown to
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wholly," returned the painter, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understanding and disbelief flit for
+an instant over the heavy face of James Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>When the automobile, at last, was departing with the artist's guests; the
+two friends stood for a moment watching it up the road to the west, toward
+town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. Taine lean forward to speak
+to the chauffeur while James Rutlidge, who was in the front seat, turned
+and shook his head as though in protest. The woman appeared to insist. The
+machine slowed down, as though 1he chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the
+outcome of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neighboring house,
+Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and the automobile turned suddenly in
+toward the curb and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared in the
+depths of the orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each other, for a moment, in
+questioning silence. The artist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>But the novelist--as they went toward the house--cursed Mrs. Taine, James
+Rutlidge, and all their kin and kind, with a vehement earnestness that
+startled his companion--familiar as the latter was with his friend's
+peculiar talent in the art of vigorous expression.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, that evening, the painter and the novelist sat on the
+porch--as their custom was--to watch the day go out of the sky and the
+night come over valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest
+peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twinkling lights of the towns
+of men. At that hour, too, it was the custom, now, for the violinist
+hidden in the orange grove, to make the music they both so loved.</p>
+
+<p>In the music, that night, there was a feeling that, to them, was new--a
+vague, uncertain, halting undertone that was born, they felt, of fear. It
+stirred them to question and to wonder. Without apparent cause or reason,
+they each oddly connected the troubled tone in the music with the stopping
+of the automobile from Fairlands Heights, that afternoon, at the gate of
+the little house next door--the artist, because of Mrs. Taine's insistent
+inquiry about the, to him, unknown musician;--Conrad Lagrange, because of
+the manner of the girl in the garden when James Rutlidge appeared and
+because of the critic's interest when they had spoken of the violinist in
+the studio. But neither expressed his thought to the other.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the music ceased, and they sat for an hour, perhaps, in
+silence--as close friends may do--exchanging only now and then a word.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, they were startled by a cry. In the still darkness of the night,
+from the mysterious depths of the orange grove, the sound came with such a
+shock that the two men, for the moment, held their places,
+motionless--questioning each other sharply--"What was that?" "Did you
+hear?"--as though they doubted, almost, their own ears.</p>
+
+<p>The cry came again; this time, undoubtedly, from that neighboring house to
+the west. It was unmistakably the cry of a woman--a woman in fear and
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>They leaped to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>Again the cry came from the black depths of the orange grove--shuddering,
+horrible--in an agony of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The two men sprang from the porch, and, through the darkness that in the
+orange grove was like a black wall, ran toward the spot from which the
+sound came--the dog at their heels.</p>
+
+<p>Breathless, they broke into the little yard in front of the tiny box-like
+house. Lights shone in the windows. All seemed peaceful and still. Czar
+betrayed no uneasiness. Going to the front door, they knocked.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer save the sound of some one moving inside.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the artist knocked vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and a woman stood on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Standing a little to one side, the men saw her features clearly, in the
+light from the room. It was the woman with the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange was first to command himself. "I beg your pardon, madam.
+We live in the house next door. We thought we heard a cry of distress. May
+we offer our assistance in any way? Is there anything we can do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir, you are very kind,"--returned the woman, in a low
+voice,--"but it is nothing. There is nothing you can do."</p>
+
+<p>And the voice of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, who stood farther back in the room, where
+the artist from his position could not see her, added, "It was good of you
+to come, Mr. Lagrange; but it is really nothing. We are so sorry you were
+disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," returned the men, as the woman of the disfigured face drew
+back from the door. "Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," came from within the house, and the door was shut.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch11" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XI</h2>
+
+<h3>Go Look In Your Mirror, You Fool</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As the Taine automobile left Aaron King and his friend, that afternoon,
+Mrs. Taine spoke to the chauffeur; "You may stop a moment, at the next
+house, Henry."</p>
+
+<p>If she had fired a gun, James Rutlidge could not have turned with a more
+startled suddenness.</p>
+
+<p>"What in thunder do you want there?" he demanded shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to stop," she returned calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must get down town, at once," he protested. "I have already lost
+the best part of the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Your business seems to have become important very suddenly," she
+observed, sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>"I have something to do besides making calls with you," he retorted. "Go
+on, Henry."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine spoke sharply; "Really, Jim, you are going too far. Henry, turn
+in at the house." The machine moved toward the curb and stopped. As she
+stepped from the car, she added, "I will only be a minute, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge growled an inarticulate curse.</p>
+
+<p>"What deviltry do you suppose she is up to now," rasped Mr. Taine.</p>
+
+<p>Which brought from his daughter the usual protest,--"O, papa, don't,"</p>
+
+<p>As Mrs. Taine approached the house, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s--busy among the flowers
+that bordered the walk--heard the woman's step, and stood quietly waiting
+her. Mrs. Taine's face was perfect in its expression of cordial interest,
+with just enough--but not too much--of a conscious, well-bred superiority.
+The girl's countenance was lighted by an expression of childlike surprise
+and wonder. What had brought this well-known leader in the social world
+from Fairlands Heights to the poor, little house in the orange grove, so
+far down the hill?</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon," said the caller. "You are Miss Andr&eacute;s, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned the girl, with a smile. "Won't you come in? I will call
+Miss Willard."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, no. I have only a moment. My friends are waiting. I am
+Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. I have often seen you passing."</p>
+
+<p>The other turned abruptly. "What beautiful flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't they lovely," agreed Sibyl, with frank pleasure at the visitor's
+appreciation. "Let me give you a bunch." Swiftly she gathered a generous
+armful.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine protested, but the girl presented her offering with such grace
+and winsomeness that the other could not refuse. As she received the gift,
+the perfect features of the woman of the world were colored by a blush
+that even she could not control. "I understand, Miss Andr&eacute;s," she said,
+"that you are an accomplished violinist."</p>
+
+<p>"I teach and play in Park Church," was the simple answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never happened to hear you, myself,"--said Mrs. Taine
+smoothly,--"but my friends who live next door--Mr. Lagrange and Mr.
+King--have told me about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" The girl's voice was vaguely troubled, while the other, watching,
+saw the blush that colored her warmly tinted cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"It is good of you to play for them," continued the woman from Fairlands
+Heights, casually. "You must enjoy the society of such famous men, very
+much. There are a great many people, you know, who would envy you your
+friendship with them."</p>
+
+<p>The girl replied quickly, "O, but you are mistaken. I am not acquainted
+with them, at all; that is--not with Mr. King--I have never spoken to
+him--and I only met Mr. Lagrange, for a few minutes, by accident."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! But I am forgetting the purpose of my call, and my friends will
+become impatient. Do you ever play for private entertainments, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s?--for--say a dinner, or a reception, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would be very glad for such an engagement, Mrs. Taine. I must earn what
+I can with my music, and there are not enough pupils to occupy all my
+time. But perhaps you should hear me play, first. I will get my violin."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine checked her, "Oh, no, indeed. It is quite unnecessary, my
+dear. The opinion of your distinguished neighbors is quite enough. I shall
+keep you in mind for some future occasion. I just wished to learn if you
+would accept such an engagement. Good-by. Thanks--so much--for your
+flowers."</p>
+
+<p>She was upon the point of turning away, when a low cry from the nearby
+porch startled them both. Turning, they saw the woman with the disfigured
+face, standing in the doorway; an expression of mingled wonder, love, and
+supplication upon her hideously marred features. As they looked, she
+started toward them,--impulsively stretching out her arms, as though the
+gesture was an involuntary expression of some deep emotion,--then checked
+herself, suddenly as though in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s uttered an exclamation. "Why, Myra! what is it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine turned away with a gesture of horror, saying to the girl in a
+low, hurried voice, "Dear me, how dreadful! I really must be going."</p>
+
+<p>As she went down the flower-bordered path towards the street, the woman on
+the porch, again, stretched out her arms appealingly. Then, as Sibyl
+reached her side, the poor creature clasped the girl in a close embrace,
+and burst into bitter tears.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Upon the return of the Taines and James Rutlidge to the house on Fairlands
+Heights, Mrs. Taine retired immediately to her own luxuriously appointed
+apartments.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner, a maid brought to the household word that her mistress was
+suffering from a severe headache and would not be down and begged that she
+might not be disturbed during the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Alone in her room, Mrs. Taine--her headache being wholly
+conventional--gave herself unreservedly to the thoughts that she could
+not, under the eyes of others, entertain without restraint. She was seated
+at a window that looked down upon the carefully graded levels of the
+envying Fairlanders and across the wide sweep of the valley below to the
+mountains which, from that lofty point of vantage, could be seen from the
+base of their lowest foothills to the crests of their highest peaks. But
+the woman who lived on the Heights of Fairlands saw neither the homes of
+their neighbors, the busy valley below, nor the mountains that lifted so
+far above them all. Her thoughts were centered upon what, to her, was more
+than these.</p>
+
+<p>When night was gathering over the scene, her maid entered softly. Mrs.
+Taine dismissed the woman with a word, telling her not to return until she
+rang. Leaving the window, after drawing the shades close, she paced the
+now lighted room, in troubled uneasiness of mind. Here and there, she
+paused to touch or handle some familiar object--a photograph in a silver
+frame, a book on the carved table, the trifles on her open desk, or an
+ornamental vase on the mantle--then moved restlessly away to continue her
+aimless exercise. When the silence was rudely broken by the sound of a
+knock at her door, she stood still--a look of anger marring the
+well-schooled beauty of her features.</p>
+
+<p>The knock was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation of impatient annoyance, she crossed the room, and
+flung open the door.</p>
+
+<p>Without leave or apology, her husband entered; and, as he did so, was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing that sent him reeling, gasping and
+breathless, to the nearest chair.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine stood watching her husband coldly, with a curious, speculative
+expression on her face that she made no attempt to hide. When his torture
+was abated--for the time--leaving him exhausted and trembling with
+weakness, she said coldly, "Well, what do you want? What are you doing
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>The man lifted his pallid, haggard face and, with a yellow, claw-like hand
+wiped the beads of clammy sweat from his forehead; while his deep-sunken
+eyes leered at her with an insane light.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was at no pains to conceal her disgust. In her voice there was
+no hint of pity. "Didn't Marie tell you that I wished to be alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he jeered in his rasping whisper, "that's why I came." He
+gave a hideous resemblance to a laugh, which ended in a cough--and, again,
+he drew his skinny, shaking hand across his damp forehead "That's the time
+that a man should visit his wife, isn't it? When she is alone. Or"--he
+grinned mockingly--"when she wishes to be?"</p>
+
+<p>She regarded him with open scorn and loathing. "You unclean beast! Will
+you take yourself out of my room?"</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at her, as a malevolent devil might gloat over a soul delivered
+up for torture. "Not until I choose to go, my dear."</p>
+
+<div class="image" id="illus03"><p><img src="images/illus03.png" alt="&quot;Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?&quot;" /><br />
+&quot;Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Suddenly changing her manner, she smiled with deliberate, mocking humor.
+While he watched, she moved leisurely to a deep, many-cushioned couch;
+and, arranging the pillows, reclined among them in the careless
+abandonment of voluptuous ease and physical content. Openly,
+ostentatiously, she exhibited herself to his burning gaze in various
+graceful poses--lifting her arms above her head to adjust a cushion more
+to her liking; turning and stretching her beautiful body; moving her limbs
+with sinuous enjoyment--as disregardful of his presence as though she were
+alone. At last she spoke in cool, even, colorless tones; "Perhaps you will
+tell me what you want?"</p>
+
+<p>The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensuality shook with
+inarticulate rage. Choking and coughing he writhed in his chair--his
+emaciated limbs twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in
+perspiration his claw-like hands opening and closing; his bloodless lips
+curled back from his yellow teeth, in a horrid grin of impotent fury. And
+all the while she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, smile. It
+was as though the malevolent devil and the tortured soul had suddenly
+changed places.</p>
+
+<p>When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his rasping whisper, with
+curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort
+with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then,
+among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the
+other, was maddening.</p>
+
+<p>"If this is all you came for,"--she said, easily,--"might have spared
+yourself the effort--don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I came to tell you that
+your intimacy with that damned painter must stop."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in the cushions, clenched
+until her rings hurt. "Just what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked
+evenly.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I mean what intimacy with a
+man always means to a woman like you."</p>
+
+<p>"The only meaning that a creature of your foul mind can understand," she
+retorted smoothly. "If it were worth while to tell you the truth, I would
+say that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been as proper as--as
+when I am alone with you."</p>
+
+<p>The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells of coughing--choking,
+gasping, fighting for breath, his eyes blazing with hatred and lust,
+mingling his words with oaths and curses--he raged at her. "And do you
+think--that, because I am so nearly dead,--I do not resent what--I saw,
+to-day? Do you think--I am so far gone that I cannot--understand--your
+interest in this man,--after--watching you, together, all--the afternoon?
+Has there been any one--in his studio, except you two, when--he was
+painting you in that dress--which you--designed for his benefit? Oh, no,
+indeed,--you and your--genius could not be interrupted,--for the sake--of
+his art. His art! Great God!--was there ever such a damnable farce--since
+hell was invented? Art!--you--<i>you</i>--<i>you</i>!--" crazed with jealous fury,
+he pointed at her with his yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and
+struggled to raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the cords
+of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was distorted with the strain
+of his effort--"<i>You!</i> painted as a--modest Quaker Maid,--with all the
+charm of innocence,--virtue, and religious piety in your face. <i>You!</i> And
+that picture will be exhibited--and written about--as a work of <i>art!</i>
+You'll pull all the strings,--and use all your influence,--and the
+thing--will be received as a--masterpiece."</p>
+
+<p>"And," she added calmly, "you will write a check--and lie, as you did this
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Without heeding her remark, he went on,--"You know the picture is
+worthless. He knows it,--Conrad Lagrange knows it,--Jim Rutlidge knows
+it,--the whole damned clique and gang of you know it, He's like all his
+kind,--a pretender,--a poser,--playing into the hands--of such women as
+you; to win social position--and wealth. And we and our kind--we pretend
+to believe--in such damned parasites,--and exalt them and what we--call
+their art,--and keep them in luxury, and buy their pictures;--because they
+prostitute--their talents to gratify our vanity. We know it's all a damned
+sham--and a pretense that if they were real artists,--with an honest
+workman's respect for their work,--they wouldn't--recognize us."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget to send him a check,"--she murmured--"you can't afford to
+neglect it, you know--think how people would talk."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry," he replied. "There'll be no talk. I'll send the genius his
+check--for making love--to my wife in the sacred name of art,--and I'll
+lie--about his picture with--the rest of you. But there will be--no more
+of your intimacy with him. You're my wife,--in spite of hell,--and from
+now on--I'll see--that you are true--to me. Your sickening pose--of
+modesty in dress shall be something--more than a pose. For the little time
+I have left,--I'll have--you to--myself or I'll kill you."</p>
+
+<p>His reference to her refusal to uncover her shoulders in public broke the
+woman's calm and aroused her to a cold fury. Springing to her feet, she
+stood over him as he sat huddled in his chair, exhausted by his effort.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your silly, idle threat beside the fact," she said with stinging
+scorn. "To have killed me, instead of making me your wife, would have been
+a kindness greater than you are capable of. You know how unspeakably vile
+you were when you bought me. You know how every hour of my life with you
+has been a torment to me. You should be grateful that I have helped you to
+live your lie--that I have played the game of respectability with
+you--that I am willing to play it a little while longer, until you lay
+down your hand for good, and release us both.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I <i>were</i> what you think me? What right have <i>you</i> to object to my
+pleasures? Have you--in all your life of idle, vicious, luxury--have you
+ever feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature? You know you
+have not. You have feared only the appearance of evil. To be as evil as
+you like so long as you can avoid the appearance of evil; that's the game
+you have taught me to play. That's the game we have played together.
+That's the game we and our kind insist the artists and writers shall help
+us play. That's the only game I know, and, by the rule of our game, so
+long as the world sees nothing, I shall do what pleases me.</p>
+
+<p>"You have had your day with me. You have had what you paid for. What right
+have you to deny me, now, an hour's forgetfulness? When I think of what I
+might have been, but for you, I wonder that I have cared to live, and I
+would not--except for the poor sport of torturing you.</p>
+
+<p>"You scoff at Mr. King's portrait of me because he has not painted me as I
+am! What would you have said if he <i>had</i> painted me as I am? What would
+you say if Conrad Lagrange should write the truth about us and our kind,
+for his millions of readers? You sneer at me because I cannot uncover my
+shoulders in the conventional dress of my class, and so make a virtue of a
+necessity and deceive the world by a pretense of modesty. Go look in your
+mirror, you fool! Your right to sneer at me for my poor little pretense is
+denied you by every line of your repulsive countenance Now get out. I'm
+going to retire."</p>
+
+<p>And she rang for her maid.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch12" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XII</h2>
+
+<h3>First Fruits of His Shame</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When the postman, in his little cart, stopped at the home of Aaron King
+and his friend, that day, it was Conrad Lagrange who received the mail.
+The artist was in his studio, and the novelist, knowing that the painter
+was not at work, went to him there with a letter.</p>
+
+<p>The portrait--still on the easel--was hidden by the velvet curtain.
+Sitting by a table that was littered with a confusion of sketches, books
+and papers, the young man was re-tying a package of old letters that he
+had, evidently, just been reading.</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist went to him, the artist said quietly,--indicating the
+package in his hand,--"From my mother. She wrote them during the last year
+of my study abroad." When the other did not reply, he continued
+thoughtfully, "Do you know, Lagrange, since my acquaintance with you, I
+find many things in these old letters that--at the time I received them--I
+did not, at all, appreciate. You seem to be helping me, somehow, to a
+better understanding of my mother's spirit and mind." He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, Conrad Lagrange, when he could trust himself to speak, said,
+"Your mother's mind and spirit, Aaron, were too fine and rare to be fully
+appreciated or understood except by one trained in the school of life,
+itself. When she wrote those letters, you were a student of mere
+craftsmanship. She, herself no doubt, recognized that you would not fully
+comprehend the things she wrote; but she put them down, out of the very
+fullness of her intellectual and spiritual wealth--trusting to your love
+to preserve the letters, and to the years to give you understanding."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," cried the artist, "those are almost her exact words--as I have just
+been reading them!"</p>
+
+<p>The other, smiling, continued quietly, "Your appreciation and
+understanding of your mother will continue to grow through all your life,
+Aaron. When you are old--as old as I am--you will still find in those
+letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths of greater value than you,
+now, can realize. But here--I have brought you your share of the
+afternoon's mail."</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King opened the envelope that his friend laid on the table
+before him, he sat regarding its contents with an air of thoughtful
+meditation--lost to his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist--who had gone to the window and was looking into the rose
+garden--turned to speak to his friend; but the other did not reply. Again,
+the man at the window addressed the painter; but still the younger man was
+silent. At this, Conrad Lagrange came back to the table; an expression of
+anxiety upon his face. "What is it, old man? What's the matter? No bad
+news, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, laughed shortly, and held
+out to his friend the letter he had just received. It was from Mr. Taine.
+Enclosed was the millionaire's check. The letter was a formal business
+note; the check was for an amount that drew a low whistle from the
+novelist's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather higher pay than old brother Judas received for a somewhat similar
+service, isn't it," he commented, as he passed the letter and check back
+to the artist. Then, as he watched the younger man's face, he asked,
+"What's the matter, don't you like the flavor of these first fruits of
+your shame? I advise you to cultivate a taste for this sort of thing as
+quickly as possible--in your own defense."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you are a little bit too hard on us all, Lagrange?" asked
+the artist, with a faint smile. "These people are satisfied. The picture
+pleases them."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they are pleased," retorted the other. "You know your business.
+That's the trouble with you. That's the trouble with us all, these
+days--we painters and writers and musicians--we know our business too
+damned well. We have the mechanics of our crafts, the tricks of our
+trades, so well in hand that we make our books and pictures and music say
+what we please. We <i>use</i> our art to gain our own vain ends instead of
+being driven <i>by</i> our art to find adequate expression for some great truth
+that demands through us a hearing. You have said it all, my friend--you
+have summed up the whole situation in the present-day world of creative
+art--these people are satisfied. You have given them what they want,
+prostituting your art to do it. That's what I have been doing all these
+years--giving people what they want. For a price we cater to them--even as
+their tailors, and milliners, and barbers. And never again will the world
+have a truly great art or literature until men like us--in the divine
+selfishness of their, calling--demand, first and last, that they,
+<i>themselves</i>, be satisfied by the work of their hands."</p>
+
+<p>Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the curtain. Involuntarily, the
+painter went to stand by his side before the picture.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at it!" cried the novelist. "Look at it in the light of your own
+genius! Don't you see its power? Doesn't it tell you what you <i>could</i> do,
+if you would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you couldn't feel a
+picture to be painted, it wouldn't matter. I'd let you ride to hell on
+your own palette, and be damned to you. But this thing shows a power that
+the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad because it is so good. Come
+here!" he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains.
+"There is an art like those mountains, my boy--lonely, apart from the
+world; remotely above the squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm
+strength and peace--an art to which men may look for inspiration and
+courage and hope. And there is an art that is like Fairlands--petty and
+shallow and mean--with only the fictitious value that its devotees assume,
+but never, actually, realize. Listen, Aaron, don't continue to misread
+your mother's letters. Don't misunderstand her as thinking that the place
+she coveted for you is a place within the power of these people to give.
+Come with me into the mountains, yonder. Come, and let us see if, in those
+hills of God, you cannot find yourself."</p>
+
+<p>When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, for a little, without
+reply--irresolute, before his picture--the check in his hand. At last,
+still without speaking, he went back to the table, where he wrote briefly
+his reply to Mr. Taine. When he had finished, he handed his letter to the
+older man, who read:</p>
+
+<p>   Dear Sir:</p>
+
+<p>   In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your check in payment
+   for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I appreciate your generosity, but
+   cannot, now, accept it.</p>
+
+<p>   I find, upon further consideration, that the portrait does not fully
+   satisfy me. I shall, therefore, keep the canvas until I can, with the
+   consent of my own mind, put my signature upon it.</p>
+
+<p>   Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of course, I cannot accept
+   payment for an unfinished work.</p>
+
+<p>   In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start to the mountains, for an
+   outing. Trusting that you and your family will enjoy the season at Lake
+   Silence I am, with kind regards,</p>
+
+<p>   Yours sincerely, Aaron King.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>That evening, the two men talked over their proposed trip, and laid their
+plans to start without delay As Conrad Lagrange put it--they would lose
+themselves in the hills; with no definite destination in view; and no set
+date for their return. Also, he stipulated that they should travel
+light--with only a pack burro to carry their supplies--and that they
+should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more
+unfrequented trails. The novelist's acquaintance with the country into
+which they would go, and his experience in woodcraft--gained upon many
+like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved--would make a guide
+unnecessary. It would be a new experience for Aaron King; and, as the
+novelist talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy for the trip; while
+the distant mountains, themselves, seemed to call him--inviting him to
+learn the secret of their calm strength and the spirit of their lofty
+peace. The following day, they would spend in town; purchasing an outfit
+of the necessary equipment and supplies, securing a burro, and attending
+to numerous odds and ends of business preparatory to their indefinite
+absence.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened, the next day, that Yee Kee,--who was to care for the place
+during their weeks of absence had matters of importance to himself, that
+demanded his attention in town. When his masters informed him that they
+would not be home for lunch, he took advantage of the opportunity and
+asked for the day.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it came about that Conrad Lagrange--in the spirit of a boy bent upon
+some secret adventure--stole out into the rose garden, that morning, to
+leave the promised letter and key at the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch13" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Myra Willard's Challenge</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Since her meeting with Conrad Lagrange in the rose garden, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s
+had looked, every day, for that promised letter. She found it early in the
+afternoon. It was a quaint letter--written in the spirit of their
+meeting--telling her the probable time of her neighbor's return; warning
+her, in fear of some fanciful horror, to beware of the picture on the
+easel; and wishing her joy of the adventure. With the note, was a key.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, the girl unlocked the door of the studio, and entered
+the building that had once been so familiar to her, but was now, in its
+interior, so transformed. Slowly, she pushed the door to, behind her. As
+though half frightened at her own daring, she stood quite still, looking
+about. In the atmosphere of that somewhat richly furnished apartment;
+poised timidly as if for ready flight; she seemed, indeed, the spirit that
+the novelist--in playful fancy--insisted that she was. Her cheeks were
+glowing with color; her eyes were bright with the excitement of her
+innocent adventure, and with her genuine admiration and appreciation of
+the beautiful room.</p>
+
+<p>Presently,--growing bolder,--she began moving about the
+studio--light-footed and graceful as a wild thing from her own mountain
+home, and, indeed, with much the air of a gentle creature of the woods
+that had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely interested in the
+things she found, she gradually forgot her timidity, and gave herself to
+the enjoyment of her surroundings, with the freedom and abandon of a
+child. From picture to picture, she went, with wide, eager eyes. She
+turned over the sketches in the big portfolios that were so invitingly
+open; looked with awe upon the brushes stuck in the big Chinese jar--upon
+the palettes, and at the tubes of color; flitting to the window that
+looked out upon her garden, and back to the great, north light with its
+view of the distant mountains; and again and again, paused to stand with
+her hands clasped behind her, in front of the big easel with its canvas
+hidden under the velvet curtain. Then she must try the chairs, the
+oriental couch, and even the stool--where she had seen the artist sitting,
+sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him from the arbor; and
+last--in a pretty make believe--she tried the seat on the model throne, as
+though posing herself, for her portrait.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, with a startled cry, she sprang to her feet; then shrank back,
+white and trembling--her big eyes fixed with pleading fear upon the man
+who stood in the open doorway, regarding her with a curious, triumphant
+smile. It was James Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl, occupied with her childlike delight, had failed to hear the
+automobile when it stopped in front of the house. Finding no one in the
+house the man had gone on to the studio, where--with the assurance of an
+intimate acquaintance--he had pushed open the door that was standing ajar.</p>
+
+<p>At the girl's frightened manner, the man laughed. Closing the door, he
+said, with an insinuating sneer, "You were not expecting me, it seems."</p>
+
+<p>His words aroused Sibyl from her momentary weakness. Rising, she said
+calmly, "I was not expecting any one, Mr. Rutlidge."</p>
+
+<p>Again he laughed--with unpleasant meaning. "You certainly look to be very
+much at home." He moved confidently to the easel stool and, seating
+himself continued with a leering smile, "What's the matter with my taking
+the artist's place for a little while--at least, until he comes?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl was too innocent to understand his assumption but her pure mind
+could not fail to sense the evil in his words.</p>
+
+<p>"I had permission to come here this afternoon," she said--her voice
+trembling a little with the fear that she did not understand. "Won't you
+go, please? Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Lagrange are at home."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt your having permission to come here," he returned, with
+meaning stress upon the word, "permission". "I see you even carry a key to
+this really delightful room." He motioned with his head toward the door
+where he had seen the key in the lock, as she had left it.</p>
+
+<p>At this, she grasped a hint of the man's thought and, for an instant, drew
+hack in shame. Then, suddenly with a burst of indignant anger, she took a
+step toward him, demanding clearly; "Are you saying that I am in the
+habit of coming here to meet Mr. King?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed mockingly. "Really, my dear, no one, seeing you, now, could
+blame the man for giving you a key to this place where he is popularly
+supposed to be undisturbed. Mr. King is neither such a virtuous saint, nor
+so engrossed in his art, as to resent the companionship of such a vision
+of loveliness--simply because it comes in the form of good flesh and
+blood. Why be angry with me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks were crimson as she said, again, "Will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not until you have settled the terms of peace," he answered with that
+leering smile. "Fortune has favored me, this afternoon, and I mean to
+profit by it."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, she looked at him--frightened and dismayed. Suddenly, with
+the flash-like quickness that was a part of her physical inheritance from
+her mountain life, she darted past him; eluding his effort to detain
+her--and was out of the building.</p>
+
+<p>With an oath, the man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, ran after
+her. Outside the door of the studio, he caught a glimpse of her white
+dress as she disappeared into the rose garden. In the garden, he saw her
+as she slipped through the little gate in the far corner of the hedge,
+into the orange grove. Recklessly he followed. Among the trees, he
+glimpsed, again, the white flash of her skirts, and dashed forward. At the
+farther edge of the grove that walled in the little yard where Sibyl
+lived, he saw her standing by the kitchen door. But between the girl and
+that last row of close-set trees, waiting his coming, stood the woman with
+the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge paused--angry with himself for so foolishly yielding to the
+impulse of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard went toward him fearlessly--her fine eyes blazing with
+righteous indignation. "What are you trying to do, James Rutlidge?" she
+demanded--and her words were bold and clear.</p>
+
+<p>The man was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You are evidently a worthy son of your father," the woman
+continued--every clear-cut word biting into his consciousness with
+stinging scorn. "He, in his day, did all he knew to turn this world into a
+hell for those who were unfortunate enough to please his vile fancy. You,
+I see, are following faithfully his footsteps. I know you, and the creed
+of your kind--as I knew your father before you. No girl of innocent beauty
+is safe from you. Your unclean mind is as incapable of believing in
+virtue, as you are helpless in the grip of your own insane lust."</p>
+
+<p>The man was stung to fury by her cutting words. "Take your ugly face out
+of my sight," he said brutally.</p>
+
+<p>Fearlessly, she drew a step nearer. "It is because I am a woman that I
+have this ugly face, James Rutlidge." She touched her disfigured
+cheek--"These scars are the marks of the beast that rules you, sir, body
+and soul. Leave this place, or, as there is a God, I'll tell a tale that
+will forbid you ever showing your own evil countenance in public, again."</p>
+
+<p>Something in her eyes and in her manner, as she spoke, caused the
+man--beside himself with rage, as he was--to draw back. Some mysterious
+force that made itself felt in her bold words told him that hers was no
+idle threat. A moment they stood face to face, in the edge of the shadowy
+orange grove--the man of the world, prominent in circles of art and
+culture; and the woman whose natural loveliness was so distorted into a
+hideous mask of ugliness. With a short, derisive laugh, James Rutlidge
+turned and walked away.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were returning from town. As they neared
+their home, they saw one of the Taine automobiles in front of the house.
+"Company," said the artist with a smile--thinking of his letter to the
+millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Rutlidge," said the novelist--noting the absence of the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>They were turning in at the entrance, when Czar--who had dashed ahead as
+if to investigate--halted, suddenly, with a low growl of disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange, with his twisted grin. "It's Senior
+'Sensual' all right. Look at Czar; he knows the beast is around. Go fetch
+him, Czar."</p>
+
+<p>With an angry bark, the dog disappeared around the corner of the porch.
+The two men, following, were met by Rutlidge who had made his way back
+through the grove and the rose garden from the house next door. The dog,
+with muttering growls, was sniffing suspiciously at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Czar," said his master, suggestively. With a meaning glance, the dog
+reluctantly ceased his embarrassing attentions and went to see if
+everything was all right about the premises.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to their greeting and the quite natural question if he had been
+waiting long, Rutlidge answered with a laugh. "Oh, no--I have been amusing
+myself by prowling around your place. Snug quarters you have here; really,
+I never quite appreciated their charm, before."</p>
+
+<p>They seated themselves on the porch. Conrad Lagrange--thinking of Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s and that letter which he had left on the gate--from under his
+brows, watched their caller closely; the while he filled with painstaking
+care his brier pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"We like it," returned the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so--I'd be sorry to leave it if I were you. Mr. Taine
+tells me you are going to the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"We're not giving up this place, though," replied Aaron King. "Yee Kee
+stays to take care of things until our return."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see. I generally go into the mountains, myself for a little hunt
+when the deer season opens. It may be that I will run across you
+somewhere. By the way--you haven't met your musical neighbor yet, have
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist gave particular attention to his pipe which did not seem to
+be behaving properly.</p>
+
+<p>The artist answered shortly, "No."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd certainly make her acquaintance, if I were you," said Rutlidge, with
+his suggestive smile. "She is a dream. A delightful little retreat--that
+studio of yours."</p>
+
+<p>The painter, puzzled by the man's words and by his insinuating air,
+returned coldly, "It does very well for a work-shop."</p>
+
+<p>The other laughed meaningly; "Yes, oh yes--a great little work-shop. I
+suppose you--ah--do not fear to trust your <i>art treasures</i> to the
+Chinaman, during your absence?"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange--certain, now, that the man had seen Sibyl Andr&eacute;s either
+entering or leaving the studio--said abruptly, "You need give yourself no
+concern for Mr. King's studio, Rutlidge. I can assure you that the
+treasures there will be well protected."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge understood the warning conveyed in the novelist's words
+that, to Aaron King, revealed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said the painter to their caller, "you are not uneasy for the
+safety of Mrs. Taine's portrait, are you, old man? If you are, of
+course--"</p>
+
+<p>"Damn Mrs. Taine's portrait!" ejaculated the man, rising hurriedly. "You
+know what I mean. It's all right, of course. I must be going. Hope you
+have a good outing and come back to find all your art treasures safe." He
+laughed coarsely, as he went down the walk.</p>
+
+<p>When the automobile was gone, the artist turned to his friend. "Now what
+in thunder did he mean by that? What's the matter with him? Do you suppose
+they imagine that there is anything wrong because I wouldn't turn over the
+picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is an unclean beast, Aaron," the novelist answered shortly. "His
+father was the worst I ever knew, and he's like him. Forget him. Here
+comes the delivery boy with our stuff. Let's overhaul the outfit. I hope
+they'll get here with that burro, before dark. Where'll we put him, in the
+studio, heh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look here,"--said the artist a few minutes later, returning from a visit
+to the studio for something,--"this is what was the matter with Rutlidge.
+And you did it, old man. This is your key."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked the other in confusion taking the key.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I found the studio door wide open, with your key in the lock. You
+must have been out there, just before we left this morning, and forgot to
+shut the door. Rutlidge probably noticed it when he was prowling about the
+place, and was trying to roast me for my carelessness."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange stared stupidly at the key in his hand. "Well I <i>am</i>
+damned," he muttered. Then added, in savage and--as it seemed to the
+artist--exaggerated wrath, "I'm a stupid, blundering, irresponsible old
+fool." Nor was he consoled when the painter innocently assured him that no
+harm had resulted from his carelessness.</p>
+
+<p>That night, as the two men sat on the porch, watching the last of the
+light on the mountain tops, they heard again the cry of fear and pain that
+came from the little house hidden in the depths of the orange grove.
+Wonderingly they listened. Once more it came--filled with shuddering
+terror.</p>
+
+<p>When the sound was not repeated, Conrad Lagrange thoughtfully knocked the
+ashes from his pipe. "Poor soul," he said. "Those scars did more than
+disfigure her beautiful face. I'll wager there's a sad story there, Aaron.
+It's strange how I am haunted by the impression that I ought to know her.
+But I can't make it come clear. Heigho,"--he added a moment later as if to
+free his mind from unpleasant thoughts,--"I'll be glad when we are safely
+up in the hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though we're
+getting away just in the nick of time. My back hair and the pricking of my
+thumbs warn me that your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up
+some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee has a plentiful supply
+of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, if they get too busy while we are gone."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed quietly in the dusk, as he returned "And I have a
+presentiment that those precious members of our household are preparing to
+accompany us to the hills. I feel in my bones that something is going to
+happen up there"--he pointed to the distant mountains, then added--"to me,
+at least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself good-by--if you know
+what I mean. I hope that donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he
+is, that he'll listen to reason and be content with his escorts of flesh
+and blood."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, the quiet of the evening was broken by a lusty,
+"Hee-haw, hee-haw," in front of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"There, I told you so!" ejaculated the painter.</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, the two men followed Czar down the walk, in the dark, to
+receive the shaggy, long-eared companion for their wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>As many a man has done--Aaron King had spoken, in jest, more truth than he
+knew.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch14" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>In The Mountains</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+In the gray of the early morning, hours before the dwellers on Fairlands
+Heights thought of leaving their beds, Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange made
+ready for their going.</p>
+
+<p>The burro, Croesus--so named by the novelist because, as the famous writer
+explained, "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was an
+ass"--was to be entrusted with all the available worldly possessions of
+the little party. An arrangement--the more experienced man carefully
+pointed out--that, considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was
+quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange,
+himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place--adjusting the saddle with
+careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top,
+and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly
+tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the
+uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their
+march, also, would place Croesus first; which position--the novelist,
+again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight--is held by all who
+value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As he
+watched his friend, the artist felt that, indeed, he was about to go far
+from the ways of life that he had always known.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, the two men--dressed in flannels, corduroys, and
+high-laced, mountain boots--called good-by to Yee Kee, respectfully
+invited Croesus to proceed, and set out--with Czar, the fourth member of
+the party, flying here and there in such a whirlwind of good spirits that
+not a shred of his usual dignity was left. The sun was still below the
+mountain's crest, though the higher points were gilded with its light,
+when they turned their backs upon the city made by men, and set their
+faces toward the hills that bore in every ridge and peak and cliff and
+crag and canyon the signature of God.</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad Lagrange said--they might have hired a wagon, or even an
+automobile, to take them and their goods to some mountain ranch where they
+would have had no trouble in securing a burro for their wanderings A team
+would have made the trip by noon. A machine would have set them down in
+Clear Creek Canyon before the sun could climb high enough to look over the
+canyon walls. "But that"--explained the novelist, as they trudged
+leisurely along between rows of palms that bordered the orange groves on
+either side of their road, and sensed the mystery that marks the birth of
+a new day--"but that is not a proper way to go to the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"The mountains"--he continued, with his eyes upon the distant
+heights--"are not seen by those who would visit them with a rattle and
+clatter and rush and roar--as one would visit the cities of men. They are
+to be seen only by those who have the grace to go quietly; who have the
+understanding to go thoughtfully; the heart to go lovingly; and the spirit
+to go worshipfully. They are to be approached, not in the manner of one
+going to a horse-race, or a circus, but in the mood of one about to enter
+a great cathedral; or, indeed, of one seeking admittance to the very
+throne-room of God. When going to the mountains, one should take time to
+feel them drawing near. They are never intimate with those who hurry. Mere
+sight-seers seldom see much of anything. If possible,"--insisted the
+speaker, smiling gravely upon his companion,--"one should always spend, at
+least, a full day in the approach. Before entering the immediate presence
+of the hills, one should first view them from a distance, seeing them from
+base to peak--in the glory of the day's beginning, as they watch the world
+awake; in the majesty of full noon, as they maintain their calm above the
+turmoil of the day's doing; and in the glory of the sun's departure, as it
+lights last their crests and peaks. And then, after such a day, one should
+sleep, one night, at their feet."</p>
+
+<p>The artist listened with delight, as he always did when his friend spoke
+in those rare moods that revealed a nature so unknown to the world that
+had made him famous. When the novelist finished, the young man said
+gently, "And your words, my friend, are almost a direct quotation from
+that anonymous book which my mother so loved."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they are, Aaron"--admitted Conrad Lagrange--"perhaps they are."</p>
+
+<p>So it was that they spent that day--in leisure approach--the patient
+Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry
+sprite, playing here and there. Several times they stopped to rest beside
+the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or
+weeds. Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every
+step.</p>
+
+<p>Their road led always upward, with a gradual, easy grade; and by noon they
+had left the cultivated section of the lower valley for the higher,
+untilled lands. The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the lighter
+shining tints of the lemon groves, with the rich, satiny-gray tones of the
+olive-trees, were replaced now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and
+browns of the chaparral. The air was no longer heavy with the perfume of
+roses and orange-blossoms, but came to their nostrils laden with the
+pungent odors of yerba santa and greasewood and sage. Looking back, they
+could see the valley--marked off by its roads into many squares of green,
+and dotted here and there by small towns and cities--stretching away
+toward the western ocean until it was lost in a gray-blue haze out of
+which the distant San Gabriels, beyond Cajon Pass, lifted into the clear
+sky above, like the shore-line of dreamland rising out of a dream sea.
+Before them, the San Bernardinos drew ever nearer and more
+intimate--silently inviting them; patiently, with a world old patience,
+bidding them come; in the majestic humbleness of their lofty spirit,
+offering themselves and the wealth of their teaching.</p>
+
+<p>So they came, in the late afternoon, to that spot where the road for the
+first time crosses the alder and cottonwood bordered stream that, before
+it reaches the valley, is drawn from its natural course by the irrigation
+flumes and pipes.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the mountain waters leaping down their granite-bouldered way
+reached the men while they were yet some distance. Croesus pointed his
+long ears forward in burro anticipation--his experience telling him that
+the day's work was about to end. Czar was already ranging along the side
+of the creek--sending a colony of squirrels scampering to the tree tops,
+and a bevy of quail whirring to the chaparral in frightened flight. The
+artist greeted the waters with a schoolboy shout of gladness. Conrad
+Lagrange, with the smile and the voice of a man miraculously recreated,
+said quietly, "This is the place where we stop for the night."</p>
+
+<p>Their camp was a simple matter. Croesus asked nothing but to be released
+from his burden--being quite capable of caring for himself. A wash in the
+clear, cold water of the brook; a simple meal, prepared by Conrad Lagrange
+over a small fire made of sticks gathered by the artist; their tarpaulin
+and blankets spread within sound of the music of the stream; a watching of
+the sun's glorious going down; a quiet pipe in the hush of the mysterious
+twilight; a "good night" in the soft darkness, when the myriad stars
+looked down upon the dull red glow of their camp-fire embers; with the
+guarding spirit of the mighty hills to give them peace--and they lay down
+to sleep at the mountain's feet.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sleeping late in the morning when one sleeps in the open,
+under the stars. After breakfast, the artist received another lesson in
+packing, and they moved on toward the world that already seemed to dwarf
+that other world which they had left, by one day's walking, so far below.
+A heavy fog, rolling in from the ocean in the night, submerged the valley
+in its dull, gray depths--leaving to the eye no view but the view of the
+mountains before them, and forcing upon the artist's mind the weird
+impression that the life he had always known was a fantastically unreal
+dream.</p>
+
+<p>And now,--as they approached,--the frowning entrance of Clear Creek Canyon
+grew more and more clearly defined. The higher peaks appeared to draw back
+and hide themselves behind the foothills, which--as the men came closer
+under their immediate slopes and walls--seemed to grow magically in height
+and bulk. A little before noon, they were in the rocky vestibule of the
+canyon. On either hand, the walls rose almost sheer, while their road,
+now, was but a narrow shelf under the overhanging cliffs, below which the
+white waters of the stream--cold from the snows so far above--tumbled
+impetuously over the boulders that obstructed their way--filling the
+hall-like gorge with tumultuous melody. Soon, the canyon narrowed to less
+than a stone's throw in width. The walls grew more grim and forbidding in
+their rocky nearness. And then they came to that point where, on either
+side, great cliffs, projecting, form the massive, rugged portals of the
+mountain's gate.</p>
+
+<p>First seen, from a point where the road rounds a jutting corner on the
+extreme right, the projecting cliffs ahead appear as a blank wall of rock
+that forbids further progress. But, as the men moved forward,--the road
+swinging more toward the center of the gorge,--the cliffs seemed to draw
+apart, and, through the way thus opened, they saw the great canyon and the
+mountains beyond. It was as though a mighty, invisible hand rolled
+silently back those awful doors to give them entrance.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly, upon the inner side of the narrow passage the canyon widens to
+many times the width of the outer vestibule; and the road, crossing the
+creek, curves to the left; so that, looking back as they went, the two men
+saw the mighty doors closing again, behind them--as they had opened to let
+them in. It was as though that spirit sentinel, guarding the treasures of
+the hills, had jealously barred the way, that no one else from the world
+of men might follow.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King stopped. Drawing a deep breath, and removing his hat, he turned
+his face from that mountain wall, upward to the encircling pine-fringed
+ridges and towering peaks. He had, indeed, come far from the world that he
+had always known.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, smiling, watched his friend, but spoke no word.</p>
+
+<p>Clear Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow valley, some fifteen miles in length,
+and approaching a mile in its greatest width; lying between the main range
+of the San Bernardinos and the lower ridge of the Galenas. The lower end
+of the canyon is shut in by the sheer cliff walls, and by the rugged
+portals of the narrow entrance; the upper end is formed by the dividing
+ridge that separates the Clear Creek from the Cold Water country which
+opens out onto the Colorado Desert below San Gorgonio Pass and the peaks
+of the San Jacintos. Perhaps two miles above the entrance the canyon
+widens to its greatest width; and in this portion of the little
+valley,--which extends some five miles to where the walls again draw
+close,--located on the benches above the boulder-strewn wash of Clear
+Creek, are the homes of several mountain ranchers, and the Government
+Forest Ranger Station.</p>
+
+<p>At the Ranger Station, they stopped--Conrad Lagrange wishing to greet the
+mountaineer official, whom he had learned to know on his former trip. But
+the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his lonely trails, and they did not
+tarry.</p>
+
+<p>Just above the Station, they left the main road to follow the way that
+leads to the Morton Ranch in the mouth of Alder Canyon--a small side
+canyon leading steeply up to a low gap in the main range. Beyond Morton's,
+there is only a narrow trail. Three hundred yards above the ranch corral,
+where the road ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the
+mountaineer's home were lost to view. Except for the narrow winding path
+that they must follow single file, there was no sign of human life.</p>
+
+<p>For three weeks, they knew no roads other than those lonely, mountain
+trails. At times, they walked under dark pines where the ground was
+thickly carpeted with the dead, brown needles and the air was redolent
+with the odor of the majestic trees; or made their camps at night, feeding
+their blazing fires with the pitchy knots and cones. At other times, they
+found their way through thickets of manzanita and buckthorn, along the
+mountain's flank; or, winding zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made
+themselves at home under the slender, small-trunked alders; and added to
+the stores that Croesus packed, many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy
+torrent. Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or peak, where
+the pines were twisted and battered and torn by the warring elements, they
+looked far down upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world below;
+or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their fires; and, when the
+night was clear, saw, miles away and below, the thousands of twinkling
+star-like lights of the world they had left behind. Or, again, they halted
+in some forest and hill encircled glen; where the lush grass in the
+cienaga grew almost as high as Croesus' back, and the lilies even higher;
+and where, through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come down to
+drink at the beginning of some mountain stream. At last, their wanderings
+carried them close under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio--the loftiest
+of all the peaks. That night, they camped at timber-line and in the
+morning,--leaving Croesus and the outfit, while it was still dark,--made
+their way to the top, in time to see the sun come up from under the edge
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>So they were received into the inner life of the mountains; so the spirit
+that dwells in that unmarred world whispered to them the secrets of its
+enduring strength and lofty peace.</p>
+
+<p>From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that leads down to upper Clear
+Creek--halting, one night, at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the
+falls. Then--leaving the Laurel trail--they climbed over a spur of the
+main range, and so down the steep wall of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern
+Creek. The next day, they made their way on down to the floor of the main
+canyon--five miles above the point where they had left it at the beginning
+of their wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the canyon at the Clear Creek Power Company's intake, they took
+the company trail that follows the pipe-line along the southern wall. From
+the headwork to the reservoir two thousand feet above the power-house at
+the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, this trail is cut in the steep side of
+the Galena range--overhanging the narrow valley below--nine beautiful
+miles of it. At Oak Knoll,--where a Government trail for the Forest Ranger
+zigzags down from the pipe-line to the wagon road below,--they halted.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange explained that there were three ways back to the world
+they had left, nearly a month before--the pipe-line trail to the reservoir
+and so down to the power-house and the Fairlands road; the Government
+trail from the pipe-line, over the Galenas to the valley on the other
+side; or, the Oak Knoll trail down to Clear Creek and out through the
+canyon gates--the way they had come.</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Aaron King, lazily,--from where he lay under a live-oak on
+the mountainside, a few feet above the trail,--"either route presupposes
+our wish to return to Fairlands."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist laughed. "Listen to him, Czar,"--he said to the dog lying at
+his feet,--"listen to that painter-man. He doesn't want to go back to
+Fairlands any more than we do, does he?"</p>
+
+<p>Rising, Czar looked at his master a moment, with slow waving tail, then
+turned inquiringly toward the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the young man, "what about it, old boy? Which trail shall we
+take? Or shall we take any of them?"</p>
+
+<p>With a prodigious yawn,--as though to indicate that he wearied of their
+foolish indecision,--Czar turned, with a low "woof," toward the fourth
+member of the company, who was browsing along the edge of the trail.
+Whenever Czar was in doubt as to the wants of his human companions he
+always barked at the burro.</p>
+
+<p>"He says, 'ask Croesus'," commented the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" cried the older man, with another laugh. "Let's put it up to the
+financier and let him choose."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait,"--said the artist, as the other turned toward the burro,--"don't be
+hasty--the occasion calls for solemn meditation and lofty discourse."</p>
+
+<p>"Your pardon,"--returned the novelist,--"'tis so. I will orate." Carefully
+selecting a pebble in readiness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the
+shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack is lighter by many
+meals than when first thou didst set out from that land where we did
+rescue thee from the hands of thy tormenting trader; but thy
+responsibilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom of thy choice,
+now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy chance, O illustrious ass, to
+recompense the world, this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious
+ancestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the way thy
+benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, Croesus, that thou dost choose
+wisely; or, by thy ears, we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the
+mountainside--a warning to thy kind."</p>
+
+<p>The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it
+was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus--with an indignant jerk of his
+head, and a flirt of his tail--started forward. At the fork of the trail,
+he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of
+accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and
+trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
+Laughing, the men followed--but far enough in the rear to permit their
+leader to choose his own way when they should reach the wagon road at the
+foot of the mountain wall. Without an instant's hesitation, Croesus turned
+down the road--quickening his pace, almost, into a trot.</p>
+
+<p>"By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like he knew where he was
+going."</p>
+
+<p>"He's taking you at your word," returned the artist. "Look at him go!
+Evidently, he's still under the inspiration of your oratory."</p>
+
+<p>The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gallop that caused the
+frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed on the outside of the pack, to rattle
+merrily. Splashing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark shadow of
+a thicket of alders and willows, where the road crosses a tiny rivulet
+that flows from a spring a hundred yards above. Climbing out of this
+gloomy hollow, the road turns sharply to the left, and the men hurried on
+to overtake their four-footed guide before he should be too long out of
+their sight. Just at the top of the little rise, before rounding the turn,
+they stopped. A few feet to the right of the road, with his nose at an
+old gate, stood Croesus. Nor would he heed Czar's bark commanding him to
+go on.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the fence, an old and long neglected apple orchard, a
+tumble-down log barn, and the wreck of a house with the fireplace and
+chimney standing stark and alone, told the story. The place was one of
+those old ranches, purchased by the Power Company for the water rights,
+and deserted by those who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient
+wagon tracks, overgrown with weeds, led somewhere around the edge of the
+orchard and were lost in the tangle of trees and brush on its lower side.</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at each other in laughing surprise. The burro, turning
+his head, gazed at them over his shoulder, inquiringly, as much as to say,
+"Well, what's the matter now? Why don't you come along?"</p>
+
+<p>"When in doubt, ask Croesus," said the artist, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange calmly opened the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Promptly, the burro trotted ahead. Following the ancient weed-grown
+tracks, he led them around the lower end of the orchard; crossed a little
+stream; and, turning again, climbed a gentle rise of open, grassy land
+behind the orchard; stopping at last, with an air of having accomplished
+his purpose, in a beautiful little grove of sycamore trees that bordered a
+small cienaga.</p>
+
+<p>Completely hidden by the old orchard from the road in front, and backed by
+the foot of the mountain spur that here forms the northern wall of the
+little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view of the encircling
+peaks and ridges. San Bernardino was almost above their heads. To the
+east, were the more rugged walls of the upper and narrower end of the
+canyon; in their front, the beautiful Oak Knoll, with the dark steeps and
+pine-fringed crest of the Galenas against the sky; while to the west, the
+blue peaks of the far San Gabriels showed above the lower spurs and
+foothills of the more immediate range. The foreground was filled in by the
+gentle slope leading down to the tiny stream at the edge of the old
+orchard and, a little to the left, by the cienaga--rich in the color of
+its tall marsh grass and reeds, gemmed with brilliant flowers of gold and
+scarlet, bordered by graceful willows, and screened from the eye of the
+chance traveler by the lattice of tangled orchard boughs.</p>
+
+<p>Seated in the shade of the sycamores on the little knoll, the two friends
+enjoyed the beauty of the scene, and the charming seclusion of the lovely
+retreat; while Croesus stood patiently, as though waiting to be rewarded
+for his virtue, by the removal of his pack. Even Czar refrained from
+charging here and there, and lay down contentedly at their feet, with an
+air of having reached at last the place they had been seeking.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later found them established in a comfortable camp; with tents
+and furniture and hammocks and books and the delighted Yee Kee to take
+care of them. It had been easy to secure permission from the neighboring
+rancher who leased the orchard from the Company. Conrad Lagrange, with
+the man and his big mountain wagon, had made a trip to town--returning the
+next day with Yee Kee and the outfit. He brought, also, things from the
+studio; for the artist declared that he would no longer be without the
+materials of his art.</p>
+
+<p>The first day after the camp was built, the artist--declaring that he
+would settle the question, at once, as to whether Yee Kee could cook a
+trout as skillfully as the novelist--took rod and flies, and--leaving the
+famous author in a hammock, with Czar lying near--set out up the canyon.
+For perhaps two miles, the painter followed the creek--taking here and
+there from clear pool or swirling eddy a fish for his creel, and pausing
+often, as he went, to enjoy--in artist fashion--the beauties of the ever
+changing landscape.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon was almost gone when he finally turned back toward camp. He
+had been away, already longer than he intended; but still--as all
+fishermen will understand--he could not, on his way back down the stream,
+refrain from casting here and there over the pools that tempted him.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was touching the crest of the mountains when he had made but
+little more than half the distance of his return. He had just sent his fly
+skillfully over a deep pool in the shadow of a granite boulder, for what
+he determined must be his last cast, when, startlingly clear and sweet,
+came the tones of a violin.</p>
+
+<p>A master trout leaped. The hand of the unheeding fisherman felt the tug
+as the leader broke. Giving the victorious fish no thought, Aaron King
+slowly reeled in his line.</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the pure, vibrant tones of the music to which the
+man listened with amazed delight. It was the music of the, to him, unknown
+violinist who lived hidden in the orange grove next door to his studio
+home in Fairlands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch15" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XV</h2>
+
+<h3>The Forest Ranger's Story</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Perhaps the motive that, in Fairlands, had restrained the artist from
+seeking to know his neighbor was without force in the mountains. Perhaps
+it was that, in the unconventional freedom of the hills, the man obeyed
+more readily his impulse. Aaron King did not stop to question. As though
+in answer to the call of that spirit which spoke in the tones of the
+violin, he moved in the direction from which the music came.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing out of the bed of the stream to the bench that slopes hack--a
+quarter of a mile, perhaps--to the foot of the canyon wall, he found
+himself in an old road that, where it once crossed the creek, had been
+destroyed by the mountain floods. Wonderingly he followed the dimly marked
+track that led through the chaparral toward a thicket of cedars, from
+beyond which the music seemed to come. Where the road curved to find its
+way through the green barrier he paused--the musician, undoubtedly, now,
+was just beyond. Still acting upon the impulse of the moment, he
+cautiously parted the boughs and peered through into a little, open glade
+that was closed in on every side by the rank growth of the mountain
+vegetation, by the thicket of dark cedars and by tangled masses of wild
+rose-bushes. Opposite the spot where he stood, and half concealed by great
+sycamore trees, was a small, log house with a thread of blue smoke curling
+lazily from the chimney. The place was another of those old ranches that
+had been purchased by the Power Company and permitted to go back to the
+wilderness from which it had been won by some hardy settler. The little
+plot of open ground--well sodded with firm turf and short-cropped by
+roving cattle and deer--had evidently been, at one time, the front yard of
+the mountaineer's home. A little out from the porch, and in full view of
+the artist,--her graceful form outlined against the background of wild
+roses,--stood Sibyl Andr&eacute;s with her violin.</p>
+
+<p>As the girl played,--her winsome face upturned to the mountain heights and
+her body, lightly poised, swaying with the movement of her arm as easily
+as a willow bough,--she appeared, to the man hidden in the cedars, as some
+beautiful spirit of the woods and hills--a spirit that would vanish
+instantly if he should step from his hiding place. He was so close that he
+could see her blue eyes, wide and unmindful of her surroundings; her lips,
+curved in an unconscious smile; and her cheeks, flushed with emotion under
+their warm brown tint--as she appeared to listen for the music that she,
+in turn,--seemingly with no effort of her will,--gave forth again in the
+tones of the instrument under her chin.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was moved by the beauty of the picture as he had never been
+stirred before. The peculiar charm of the music; the loveliness of the
+girl herself; the setting of the scene in the little glade with its wild
+roses, giant sycamores, dark cedars, and encircling mountain walls, all in
+the soft mystery of the twilight's beginning; and, withal, the
+unexpectedness of the vision--combined to make an impression upon the
+artist's mind that would endure for many years.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as he watched, the music ceased. The girl lowered her violin,
+and, with a low laugh, said to some one on the porch--concealed from the
+painter by the trunk of a sycamore--"O Myra, I want to dance. I can't keep
+still. I'm so glad, glad to be home again--to see old 'San Berdo' and
+'Gray Back' and all the rest of them up there!" She stretched out her arms
+as if in answer to a welcome from the hills. Then, whirling quickly, she
+gave the violin to her companion on the porch. "Play, Myra; please, dear,
+play."</p>
+
+<p>At her word, the music of the violin began again--coming now, from behind
+the trunk of the sycamore. In the hands of the unseen musician, the
+instrument laughed and sang a song of joyous abandonment--of freedom and
+rejoicing--of happiness and love--while in perfect harmony with the spirit
+and the rhythm of the melody, the girl danced upon the firm, green carpet
+of grass. Here and there, to and fro, about the little glade shut in from
+the world by its walls of living green, she tripped and whirled in
+unstudied grace--lightly as if winged--unconscious as the wild creatures
+that play in the depths of the woods--wayward as the zephyr that trips
+along the mountainside.</p>
+
+<p>It was a spontaneous expression of her spiritual and physical exaltation
+and was as natural as the laughter in her voice or the flush upon her
+cheeks. It was a dance that was like no dance that Aaron King had ever
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>The artist--watching through the screen of cedar boughs beside the old
+wagon road and scarcely daring to breathe lest the beautiful vision should
+vanish--forgot his position--forgot what he was doing. Fascinated by the
+scene to which he had been led, so unexpectedly by the music he had so
+often heard while at work in his studio, he was unmindful of the rude part
+he was playing. He was brought suddenly to himself by a heavy hand upon
+his shoulder. As he straightened, the hand whirled him half around and he
+found himself looking into a face that was tanned and seamed by many years
+in the open.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had so unceremoniously commanded the artist's attention stood
+a little above six feet in height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but
+full-muscled build that so often marks the mountain bred. He wore no coat.
+At his hip, a heavy Colt revolver hung in its worn holster from a full,
+loosely buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest was the shield
+of the United States Forest Service. From under the brim of his slouch
+hat, he gazed at Aaron King questioningly--in angry disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, neither of the men spoke. A word would have been heard the
+other side of the cedars. With a gesture commanding the artist to follow,
+the Ranger quietly, withdrew along the wagon road toward the creek.</p>
+
+<p>When they were at a distance where their voices would not reach the girl
+in the glade, the Ranger said with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps
+you will tell me who you are and what you mean by spying upon a couple of
+women, like that."</p>
+
+<p>The other could not conceal his embarrassment. "I don't blame you for
+calling me to account," he said. "If it were me--if our positions were
+reversed I mean--I should kick you down into the creek there."</p>
+
+<p>The cold, blue eyes--that had been measuring the painter so
+shrewdly--twinkled with a hint of humor. "You <i>do</i> look like a gentleman,
+you know," the officer said,--as if excusing himself for not following the
+artist's suggestion. "But, all the same, you must explain. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That part is easy, at least," returned the other. "Though the
+circumstance of our meeting <i>is</i> a temptation to lie."</p>
+
+<p>"Which would do you no good, and might lead to unpleasant complications,"
+retorted the Ranger, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>The man under question, still embarrassed, laughed shortly, as he
+returned, "I really was not thinking of it seriously. My name is Aaron
+King. I am an artist. You are Mr. Oakley, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>The officer nodded--beginning to smile. "Yes, I am Brian Oakley."</p>
+
+<p>The artist continued, "A month ago, Conrad Lagrange and I came into the
+mountains for an outing. We stopped at the Station, but there was no one
+at home. Most of the time, we have been just roaming around. Now, we are
+camped down there, back of that old apple orchard."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger broke into a laugh. "Mrs. Oakley was visiting friends up the
+canyon, the day you came in; but Morton told me. I've crossed your trail a
+dozen times, and sighted you nearly as many; but I was always too busy to
+go to you. I knew Lagrange didn't need any attention, you see; so I just
+figured on meeting up with you somewhere by accident like--about meal
+time, mebbe." He laughed again. "The accident part worked out all right."
+He paused, still laughing--enjoying the artist's discomfiture; then ended
+with a curious--"What in thunder were you sneaking around in the brush
+like that for, anyway? Those women won't bite."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King explained how he had heard the music while fishing; and how,
+following the sound, he had acted upon an impulse to catch a glimpse of
+the unknown musician before revealing himself; and then, in his interest,
+had forgotten that he was playing the part of a spy--until so rudely
+aroused by the hand of the Ranger.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley chuckled; "If <i>I'd</i> acted upon impulse when I first saw you
+peeking through those cedars, you would have been more surprised than you
+were. But while I was sneaking up on you I noticed your get-up--with your
+creel and rod--and figured how you might have come there. So I thought I
+would go a little slow."</p>
+
+<p>"And you wear rather heavy boots too," said the artist suggestively. Then,
+more at ease, he joined in the laugh at himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Catch any fish?" asked the Ranger--lifting the cover of the creel.
+"Whee!" as he saw the contents. "That's bully! And I'm hungry as a she
+wolf too! Been in the saddle since sunup without a bite. What do you say
+if I make that long deferred social call upon you and Lagrange this
+evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say, good! Mr. Oakley," returned the artist, heartily. "I guess you
+know what Lagrange will say."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I do." He whistled--a low, birdlike note. In answer, a beautiful,
+chestnut saddle-horse came out of the chaparral, where it had not been
+seen by the painter. "We're going, Max," said the officer, in a
+matter-of-fact way. And, as the two men set out, the horse followed, with
+a business-like air that brought a word of admiring comment from the
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>That Aaron King had won the approval of the Ranger was evidenced by the
+mountaineer's inviting himself to supper the camp in the sycamores. The
+fact that the officer considerately told Conrad Lagrange only that he had
+met the artist with his creel full of trout, and so had been tempted to
+accompany him, won the enduring gratitude of the young man. Thus the
+circumstances of their meeting introduced each to the other, with
+recommendations of peculiar value, and marked the beginning of a genuine
+and lasting friendship. But, while, out of delicate regard for the
+artist's feelings, he refrained from relating the--to the young
+man--embarrassing incident, Brian Oakley could not resist making, at every
+opportunity, sly references to their meeting--for the painter's benefit
+and his own amusement. Thus it happened that, after supper, as they sat
+with their pipes, the talk turned upon Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the woman with the
+disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger, to tease the artist, had remarked casually,--after
+complimenting them upon the location of their camp,--"And you've got some
+mighty nice neighbors, less than a mile above too."</p>
+
+<p>"Neighbors!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange--in a tone that left no doubt as
+to his sentiment in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The others laughed; while the officer said, "Oh, I know how <i>you</i> feel!
+You think you don't want anybody poaching on your preserves. You're up
+here in the hills to get away from people, and all that. But you don't
+need to be uneasy. You won't even see these folks--unless you sneak up on
+them." He stole a look at the artist, and chuckled maliciously as the
+painter covertly shook his fist at him. "You may <i>hear</i> them though."</p>
+
+<p>"Which would probably be as bad," retorted the novelist, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know!" returned the other. "You might be able to stand it. I
+don't reckon you would object to a little music now and then, would
+you?--<i>real</i> music, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"So our neighbors are musical, are they?" The novelist seemed slightly
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Sibyl Andr&eacute;s is the most accomplished violinist I have ever heard," said
+the Ranger. "And I haven't always lived in these mountains, you know. As
+for Myra Willard--well--she taught Sibyl--though she doesn't pretend to
+equal her now."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange was interested, now, in earnest He turned to the artist,
+eagerly--but with caution--"Do you suppose it could be our neighbors in
+the orange grove, Aaron?"</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley watched them with quiet amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is," returned the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"You know it is!" ejaculated the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure--I heard the violin this afternoon. While I was fishing," he added
+hastily, when the Ranger laughed.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist commented savagely, "Seems to me you're mighty careful about
+keeping your news to yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>This brought another burst of merriment from the mountaineer.</p>
+
+<p>When the two men had explained to the Ranger about the music in the orange
+grove, Conrad Lagrange related how they had first heard that cry in the
+night; and how, when they had gone to the neighboring house, they had seen
+the woman of the disfigured face standing in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"It was Miss Willard who cried out," said Brian Oakley, quietly. "She
+dreams, sometimes, of the accident--or whatever it was--that left her with
+those scars--at least, that's what I think it is. Certainly it's no
+ordinary dream that would make a woman cry like that. The first time I
+heard her--the first time that she ever did it, in fact--she and Sibyl
+were stopping over night at my house. It was three years ago. Jim Rutlidge
+had just come West, on his first trip, and was up in the hills on a hunt.
+He happened along about sundown, and when he stepped into the room and
+Myra saw him, I thought she would faint. He looked like some one she had
+known--she said. And that night she gave that horrible cry. Lord! but it
+threw a fright into me. My wife didn't get over being nervous, for a week.
+Myra explained that she had dreamed--but that's all she would say. I
+figured that being upset by Rutlidge's reminding her of some one she had
+known started her mind to going on the past--and then she dreamed of
+whatever it was that gave her those scars."</p>
+
+<p>"You have known Miss Willard a long time, haven't you, Brian?" asked
+Conrad Lagrange, with the freedom of an old comrade--for men may grow
+closer together in one short season in the mountains than in years of
+meeting daily in the city.</p>
+
+<p>"I've known her ever since she came into the hills. That was the year
+Sibyl was born. All that anybody knows is what has happened since. Sibyl's
+mother, even--a month before she died--told me that Myra's history, before
+she came to them, was as unknown to her as it was the day she stopped at
+their door."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't get over the feeling that I ought to know her--that I have seen
+her somewhere, years ago," said the novelist, by way of explaining his
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was before she got those scars," returned the Ranger. "No one
+could ever forget her face as it is now."</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time," commented the artist, "the scars would prevent your
+identifying her if she received them after you had known her."</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," said Conrad Lagrange,--as though his mind was bothered by
+his inability to establish some incident in his memory,--"I'll place her
+yet. Do you mind, Brian, telling us what you <i>do</i> know of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, not at all," returned the officer. "The story is anybody's property.
+Its being so well known is probably the reason you didn't hear it when you
+were up here before.</p>
+
+<p>"Sibyl's father and mother were here in the mountains when I came. They
+lived up there at the old place where Myra and Sibyl are camping now, and
+I never expect to meet finer people--either in this world or the next. For
+twenty years I knew them intimately. Will Andr&eacute;s was as true and square
+and white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good a woman as he was
+a man. They and my wife and I were more like brothers and sisters than
+most folks who are actually blood kin.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, along toward sundown, about a month before Sibyl was born, Nelly
+heard the dogs barking and went to see what was up. There stood Myra
+Willard at the gate--like she'd dropped out of the sky. Where she came
+from God only knows--except that she'd walked from some station on the
+railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course,
+Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted
+to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said,
+straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew,
+then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were
+against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying to get
+away from something. But the women--Nelly and my wife--somehow, believed
+in her, and--with the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of help
+hard to get--they carried the day. Well, sir, she made good. If twenty
+years acquaintance goes for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I
+don't care a damn what her history is.</p>
+
+<p>"We soon saw that she was educated and refined, and--as you can see for
+yourself--she must have been remarkably beautiful before she got so
+disfigured. When the baby was born, she just took the little one into her
+poor, broken heart like it had been her own, until Sibyl hardly knew which
+was her own mother. When the girl was old enough for school, Myra begged
+Will and Nelly to let her teach the child. She was always sending for
+books and it was about that time that she sent for a violin. The girl took
+to music like a bird. And--well--that's the way Sibyl was raised. She's
+got all the education that the best of them have--even to French and
+Italian and German--and she's missed some things that the schools teach
+outside of their text-books. She has a library--given to her mostly by
+Myra, a book at a time--that represents the best of the world's best
+writers. You know what her music is. But, hell!"--the Ranger interrupted
+himself with an apologetic laugh--"I'm supposed to be talking about Myra
+Willard. I don't know as I'm so far off, either, because what Sibyl
+is--aside from her natural inheritance from Will and Nelly--Myra has made
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"When Will was killed by those Mexican outlaws,--which is a story in
+itself,--Nelly sold the ranch to the Power Company, and bought an orange
+grove in Fairlands--which was the thing for her to do, as she and Myra
+could handle that sort of property, and the ranch had to go, anyway.
+Before Nelly died, she and I talked things over, and she put everything in
+Myra's hands, in trust for the girl. Later, Myra sold the grove and the
+house where you men live, now, and bought the little place next
+door--putting the rest of the money into gilt-edged securities in Sibyl's
+name; which insures the girl against want, for years to come. Sibyl helps
+out their income with her music. And that's the story, boys, except that
+they come up here into the mountains, every summer, to spend a month or so
+in the old home place."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"But do you think it is safe for those women to stay up there alone?"
+asked Aaron King.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley laughed. "Safe! You don't know Myra Willard! Sibyl, herself,
+can pick a squirrel out of the tallest pine in the mountains with her
+six-shooter. Will and I taught her all we knew, as she grew up. Besides,
+you see, I drop in every day or so, to see that they're all right." He
+laughed meaningly as he added,--to Conrad Lagrange for the artist's
+benefit,--"I'm going to tell them, though, that Sibyl must be careful how
+she goes dancing around these hills--now that she has such distinguished
+but irresponsible neighbors."</p>
+
+<p>He whistled--and the chestnut horse was at his side before the echo of
+their laughter died away.</p>
+
+<p>With a "so-long," the Ranger rode away into the night.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch16" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>When the Canyon Gates Are Shut</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+If Aaron King had questioned what it was that had held him in the cedar
+thicket until Brian Oakley's heavy hand broke the spell, he would probably
+have answered that it was his artistic appreciation of the beautiful
+scene. But--deep down in the man's inner consciousness--there was a still,
+small voice--declaring, with an insistency not to be denied, that--for
+him--there was a something in that picture that was not to be put into the
+vernacular of his profession.</p>
+
+<p>Had he acted without his habitual self-control, the day following the
+Ranger's visit, he would, again, have gone fishing--up Clear Creek--at
+least, to the pool where that master trout had broken his leader. But he
+did not. Instead, he roamed aimlessly about the vicinity of the
+camp--explored the sycamore grove; climbed a little way up the mountain
+spur, and down again; circled the cienaga; and so came, finally, to the
+ruins of the house and barn on the creek side of the orchard.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from the lonely fireplace with its naked chimney, a little, old
+gate of split palings, in an ancient tumble-down fence, under a great
+mistletoe-hung oak, at the top of a bank--attracted his careless
+attention. From the gate, he saw what once had been a path leading down
+the bank to a spring, where the tiny streamlet that crossed the road a
+hundred yards away, on its course to Clear Creek, began. Pushing open the
+gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning post, the artist went down
+the path, and found himself in a charming nook--shut in on every side by
+the forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew rank and dense.</p>
+
+<p>For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod was firm and
+smooth--with a gray granite boulder in the center of the little glade,
+and, here and there, wild rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of
+alder trees breaking through. From the higher branches of the alders that
+shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery-green leaves, hung--with many
+a graceful loop and knot--ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of
+virgin's-bower. Along the bank below the old fence, the wild blackberries
+disputed possession with the roses; while the little stream was mottled
+with the tender green of watercress and bordered with moss and fragrant
+mint. Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak
+Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the
+orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe
+oak shut out the view. Through the screen of alder and grape and willow
+and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of
+a cathedral window. The bright waters of the spring, softly held by the
+green sod, crept away under the living wall, without a sound; but the deep
+murmur of the distant, larger stream, reached the place like the low
+tones of some great organ. A few regularly placed stones, where once had
+stood the family spring-house; with the names, initials, hearts and dates
+carved upon the smooth bark of the alders--now grown over and almost
+obliterated--seemed to fill the spot with ghostly memories.</p>
+
+<p>All that afternoon, the artist remained in the little retreat. The next
+day, equipped with easel, canvas and paint-box, he went again to the
+glade--determined to make a picture of the charming scene.</p>
+
+<p>For a month, now, uninterrupted by the distractions of social obligations
+or the like, Aaron King had been subjected to influences that had aroused
+the creative passion of his artist soul to its highest pitch. With his
+genius clamoring for expression, he had denied himself the medium that was
+his natural language. Forbidding his friend to accompany him, he worked
+now in the spring glade with a delight--with an ecstasy--that he had
+seldom, before, felt. And Conrad Lagrange, wisely, was content to let him
+go uninterrupted.</p>
+
+<p>As the hours of each day passed, the artist became more and more engrossed
+with his art. His spirit sang with the joy of receiving the loveliness of
+the scene before him, of making it his own, and of giving it forth
+again--a literal part of himself. The memories suggested by the stones of
+the spring-house foundation and the old carvings on the trees; the
+sunlight, falling so softly into the hushed seclusion of the glade, as
+through the traceried windows of a church; and the deep organ-tones of the
+distant creek; all served to give to the spot the religious atmosphere of
+a sanctuary; while the artist's abandonment in his work was little short
+of devotion.</p>
+
+<p>It was the third afternoon, when the painter became conscious that he had
+been hearing for some time--he could not have said how long--a low-sung
+melody--so blending with the organ-tones of the mountain stream that it
+seemed to come out of the music of the tumbling waters.</p>
+
+<p>With his brush poised between palette and canvas, the artist
+paused,--turning his head to listen,--half inclined to the belief that his
+fancy was tricking him. But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody
+was growing more distinct; but still the voice was in perfect harmony with
+the deep-toned accompaniment of the distant creek.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw her. Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green
+of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and
+blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines--in the
+flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadows--she
+appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew
+out of the organ-sound of the waters.</p>
+
+<p>To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter had placed his
+easel a little back from the grassy, open spot. Seated as he was, on a low
+camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed--even
+by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in
+the woods and hills. As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a
+basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that
+grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the
+foot of the sheltering bank. Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered
+the fruit of Nature's offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature's
+music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native
+haunts.</p>
+
+<p>The man kept very still. Presently, when the girl had moved so that he
+could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his
+work--but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.</p>
+
+<p>Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly--losing itself,
+again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come. For a
+while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture;
+but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there. At last,
+as if compelled, he abruptly turned his head--and looked straight into her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his work, when first the girl
+caught sight of him, that she had scarcely been startled. When she had
+ceased her song, and he, still, had not looked around; drawn by her
+interest in the picture, she had softly approached until she was standing
+quite close. Her lips were slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her
+eyes were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she stood leaning
+forward, her basket on her arm. So interested was she in the painting,
+that she seemed to have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the
+least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly into her face.</p>
+
+<p>"It is beautiful," she said, as though in answer to his question. And no
+one--hearing her, and watching her face as she spoke--could have doubted
+her sincerity. "It is so true, so--so"--she searched for a word, and
+smiled in triumph when she found it--"so <i>right</i>--so beautifully right.
+It--it makes me feel as--as I feel when I am at church--and the organ
+plays soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the window, and
+some one reads those beautiful words, 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let
+all the earth keep silence before him'."</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" exclaimed the artist, "that is exactly what I wanted it to say.
+When I saw this place, and heard the waters over there, like a great
+organ; and saw how the sunshine falls through the trees; I felt as you
+say, and I am trying to paint the picture so that those who see it will
+feel that way too."</p>
+
+<p>Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understanding as she cried eagerly,
+"Oh, I know! I know! I'm like that with my music! When I look at the
+mountains sometimes--or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing,
+or the winds call--I--I get so full and so--so kind of choked up inside
+that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it--and then I take
+my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel. I never can
+though--not altogether. But <i>you</i> have made your picture say what you
+feel. That's what makes it so right, isn't it? They said in Fairlands that
+you were a great artist, and I understand why, now. It must be wonderful
+to put what you see and feel into a picture like that--where nothing can
+ever change or spoil it."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment. "Oh, but I'm not a great
+artist, you know. I am scarcely known at all."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sincerely troubled. "And must
+one be <i>known</i>--to be great?" she asked. "Might not an artist be great and
+still be <i>unknown</i>? Or, might not one who was really very, very"--again
+she seemed to search for a word and as she found it, smiled--"very
+<i>small</i>, be known all over the world? The newspapers make some really bad
+people famous, sometimes, don't they? No, no, you are joking. You do not
+really think that being known to the world and greatness are the same."</p>
+
+<p>The man, studying her closely, saw that she was speaking her thoughts as
+openly as a child. Experimentally, he said, "If putting what you feel into
+your work is greatness, then <i>you</i> are a great artist, for your music does
+make one feel as though it came from the mountains, themselves."</p>
+
+<p>She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, "Oh! do you like my music?
+I so wanted you to."</p>
+
+<p>It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard her music. It did not
+occur to him to explain. They, neither of them, thought to remember that
+they had not been introduced. They really should have pretended that they
+did not know each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," she continued with winsome confidence, "I think, myself, that
+I am really a great violinist--and then, again,"--she added wistfully,--"I
+know that I am not. But I am sure that I wouldn't like to be famous, at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Fame doesn't seem to matter so much, does it; when one is up
+here in the hills and the canyon gates are closed."</p>
+
+<p>She echoed his laughter with quick delight. "Did you see that? Did you see
+those great doors open to let you in, and then close again behind you as
+if to shut the world outside? But of course you would. Any one who could
+do that"--she pointed to the canvas--"would not fail to see the canyon
+gates." With her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more to
+forget the presence of the painter.</p>
+
+<p>Watching her face,--that betrayed her every passing thought and emotion as
+an untroubled pool mirrors the flowers that grow on its banks or the
+song-bird that pauses to drink,--the artist--to change her mood--said,
+"You <i>love</i> the mountains, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her face toward him, again, as she answered simply, "Yes, I
+love the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"If you were a painter,"--he smiled,--"you would paint them, wouldn't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I would,"--she answered thoughtfully,--"but I would try
+to get the mountains into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you
+know what I mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you mean; and it is a beautiful
+thought. You wouldn't paint portraits, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I <i>could</i>," she answered. "It seems to me it would be so
+hard to get the mountains into a portrait of just anybody. An artist--a
+great artist, I mean--must make his picture right, mustn't he? And if his
+picture was a portrait of some one who wasn't very good, and he made it
+right; he wouldn't be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I would
+paint portraits--unless I could paint just the people who would want me to
+make my picture right."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were spoken so artlessly; and
+he looked at her keenly. But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose
+other than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of the force with
+which her simple words had gone home.</p>
+
+<p>"You love the mountains, too, don't you?" she asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am learning to love them more
+and more. But I fear I don't know them as well as you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I was born up here," she said, "and lived here until a few years ago. I
+think, sometimes, that the mountains almost talk to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you would help me to know the mountains as you know them," he
+asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>She drew a little back from him, but did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. "I heard your violin,
+the other evening, when I was fishing up the creek, near where you live;
+and so I know it is you who live next door to us in the orange grove. Mr.
+Lagrange and I are camped just over there back of the orchard. May we not
+be friends? Won't you help me to know your mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told us that you and Mr.
+Lagrange were camped down here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man;
+Brian Oakley says that you are too--are you?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did not note the significance
+of her reference to the novelist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a
+very <i>bad</i> man."</p>
+
+<p>A smile broke over her face--her mood changing as quickly as the sunlight
+breaks through a cloud. "I know you are not"--she said--"a <i>bad</i> man
+wouldn't have wanted to paint this place as you have painted it."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>"But wait!" he cried, "you haven't told me--will you teach me to know your
+mountains as you know them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I cannot say," she answered smiling, as she moved away.</p>
+
+<p>"But at least, we will meet again," he urged.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily, "Why not? The mountains are for you as well as for me;
+and though the hills <i>are</i> so big, the trails are narrow, and the passes
+very few."</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh, she slipped away--her brown dress, that, in the shifty
+lights under the thick foliage, so harmonized with the colors of bush and
+vine and tree and rock, being so quickly lost to the artist's eye that she
+seemed almost to vanish into the scene before him.</p>
+
+<p>But presently, from beyond the willow wall, he heard her voice
+again--singing to the accompaniment of the mountain stream. Softly, the
+melody died away in the distance--losing itself, at last, in the deeper
+organ-tones of the mountain waters.</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes, the artist stood listening--thinking he heard it still.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King did not, that night, tell Conrad Lagrange of his adventure in
+the spring glade.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch17" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>Confessions in the Spring Glade</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+All the next day, while he worked upon his picture in the glade, Aaron
+King listened for that voice in the organ-like music of the distant
+waters. Many times, he turned to search the flickering light and shade of
+the undergrowth, behind him, for a glimpse of the girl's brown dress and
+winsome face.</p>
+
+<p>The next day she came.</p>
+
+<p>The artist had been looking long at a splash of sunlight that fell upon
+the gray granite boulder which was set in the green turf, and had turned
+to his canvas for--it seemed to him--only an instant. When he looked again
+at the boulder, she was standing there--had, apparently, been standing
+there for some time, waiting with smiling lips and laughing eyes for him
+to see her.</p>
+
+<p>A light creel hung by its webbed strap from her shoulder; in her hand, she
+carried a slender fly rod of good workmanship. Dressed in soft brown, with
+short skirts and high laced boots, and her wavy hair tucked under a wide,
+felt hat; with her blue eyes shining with fun, and her warmly tinted skin
+glowing with healthful exercise; she appeared--to the artist--more as some
+mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The
+manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no
+sound of her approach--no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen
+no movement among the bushes--no parting of the willows in the wall of
+green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the
+direction from which she had come.</p>
+
+<p>At first, he could scarce believe his eyes, and sat motionless in his
+surprise. Then her merry laugh rang out--breaking the spell.</p>
+
+<p>Springing from his seat, he went forward. "Are you a spirit?" he cried.
+"You must be something unreal, you know--the way you appear and disappear.
+The last time, you came out of the music of the waters, and went again the
+same way. To-day, you come out of the air, or the trees, or, perhaps, that
+gray boulder that is giving me such trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, she answered, "My father and Brian Oakley taught me. If you will
+watch the wild things in the woods, you can learn to do it too. I am no
+more a spirit than the cougar, when it stalks a rabbit in the chaparral;
+or a mink, as it slips among the rocks along the creek; or a fawn, when it
+crouches to hide in the underbrush."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been fishing?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed mockingly, "You are <i>so</i> observing! I think you might have
+taken <i>that</i> for granted, and asked what luck."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I might almost take that for granted too," he returned.</p>
+
+<p>"I took a few," she said carelessly. Then, with a charming air of
+authority--"And now, you must go back to your work. I shall vanish
+instantly, if you waste another moment's time because I am here."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to talk," he protested. "I have been working hard since noon."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you have," she retorted. "But presently the light will change
+again, and you won't be able to do any more to-day; so you must keep busy
+while you can."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't vanish--if I go on with my work?" he asked doubtfully. She
+was smiling at him with such a mischievous air, that he feared, if he
+turned away, she would disappear.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed aloud; "Not if you work," she said. "But if you stop--I'm
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she went toward his easel, and, resting her fly rod
+carefully against the trunk of a near-by alder, slipped the creel from her
+shoulder, placing the basket on the ground with her hat. Then, while the
+painter watched her, she stood silently looking at the picture. Presently,
+she faced him, and, with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why don't
+you work? How can you waste your time and this light, looking at me? I
+shall go, if you don't come back to your picture, this minute."</p>
+
+<p>With a laugh, he obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, she watched him; then turned away; and he heard her moving
+about, down by the tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows.</p>
+
+<p>Once, he paused and turned to look in her direction "What are you up to,
+now?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be up to leaving you,"--she retorted,--"if you look around,
+again."</p>
+
+<p>He promptly turned once more to his picture.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her creel and rod, where
+she could see the picture under the artist's brush. "Does it bother, if I
+watch?" she asked softly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," he answered. "It helps--that is, it helps when it is <i>you</i>
+who watch." Which--to the painter's secret amazement--was a literal truth.
+The gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not come right,
+ceased to trouble him, now. Stimulated by her presence, he worked with a
+freedom and a sureness that was a delight.</p>
+
+<p>When he could not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she
+was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in
+the world are you doing?" he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not supposed to know that I am doing anything," she retorted.
+"You have been peeking again."</p>
+
+<p>"You were so still--I feared you had vanished," he laughed. "If you'll
+keep talking to me, I'll know you are there, and will be good."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it won't bother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, <i>you</i> talk to me, and I'll answer."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a confession to make," he said, carefully studying the gray tones
+of the alder trunk beyond the gray boulder.</p>
+
+<p>"A confession?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I want to get it over--so it won't bother me."</p>
+
+<p>"Something about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's what I am trying so hard to make you keep your eyes on your
+work for--because <i>I</i> have to make a confession to <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"To me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes--don't look around, please."</p>
+
+<p>"But what under the sun can you have to confess to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You started yours first," she answered. "Go on. Maybe it will make it
+easier for me."</p>
+
+<p>Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he told her how he had
+watched her from the cedar thicket. When he had finished,--and she was
+silent,--he thought that she was angry, and turned about--expecting to see
+her gathering up her things to go.</p>
+
+<p>She was struggling to suppress her laughter. At the look of surprise on
+his face, she burst forth in such a gale of merriment that the little
+glade was filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of himself,
+the painter joined.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she cried, "but that <i>is</i> funny! I am glad, glad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what do you mean by that?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why--why--that's exactly what I was trying to get courage enough to
+confess to you!" she gasped. And then she told him how she had spied upon
+him from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his absence, she had
+visited his studio.</p>
+
+<p>"But how in the world did you get in? The place was always locked, when I
+was away."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said quaintly, "there was a good genie who let me in through the
+keyhole. I didn't meddle with anything, you know--I just looked at the
+beautiful room where you work. And I didn't glance, even, at the picture
+on the easel. The genie told me you wouldn't like that. I would not have
+drawn the curtain anyway, even if I hadn't been told. At least, I don't
+<i>think</i> I would--but perhaps I might--I can't always tell what I'm going
+to do, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio door open with Conrad
+Lagrange's key in the lock, and how the novelist had berated himself with
+such exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the thought of James
+Rutlidge's visit, that afternoon, and of his strange manner and
+insinuating remarks.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I know the name of your good genie," said the painter, facing the
+girl, seriously. "But tell me, did no one disturb you while you were in
+the studio?"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks colored painfully, and all the laughter was gone from her voice
+as she replied, "I didn't want you to know that part."</p>
+
+<p>"But I must know," he insisted gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, "Mr. Rutlidge found me there; and I ran away through the
+garden. I don't like him. He frightens me. Please, is it necessary for us
+to talk about it any more? I had to make my confession of course, but must
+we talk about <i>that</i> part?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered, "we need not talk about it. It was necessary for me to
+know; but we will never mention that part, again. When we are back in the
+orange groves, you shall come to the rose garden and to the studio, as
+often as you like; your good genie and I will see to it that you are not
+disturbed--by any one."</p>
+
+<p>Her face brightened at his words. "And do you really like for me to make
+music for you--as Mr. Lagrange says you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't begin to tell you how much I like it," he answered smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And it doesn't bother you in your work?"</p>
+
+<p>"It helps me," he declared--thinking of that portrait of Mrs. Taine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am glad, glad!" she cried. "I wanted it to help. It was for that I
+played."</p>
+
+<p>"You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. "I thought it might--if I could get enough of the mountains
+into my music, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. You see, I only dance when
+I must--when the music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When I--when
+I"--she searched for a word, then finished abruptly--"oh, I can't tell you
+about it--it's just something you feel--there are no words for it. When I
+first come to the mountains,--after living in Fairlands all winter,--I
+always dance--the mountains feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance
+in the moonlight--when it feels so soft and light and clean; or in the
+twilight--when it's so still, and the air is so--so full of the day that
+has come home to rest and sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the
+big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, under the sky, sings
+through the dark branches."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you ever dance to please your friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no--I don't dance to <i>please</i> any one--only just when it's for
+myself--when nothing else will do--when I <i>must</i>. Of course, sometimes,
+Myra or Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me--but they don't matter,
+you know. They are so much a part of me that I don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you will ever dance for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. How could I? You see, you
+are not like anybody that I have ever known."</p>
+
+<p>"But I saw you the other evening, you remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had known, I wouldn't have
+danced."</p>
+
+<p>All the while--as she talked--her fingers had been busy with the slender,
+willow branches. "And now"--she said, abruptly changing the subject, and
+smiling as she spoke--"and now, you must turn back to your work."</p>
+
+<p>"But the light is not right," he protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she retorted. "Can't you
+pretend?"</p>
+
+<p>To humor her, he obeyed, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"You may look, now," she said, a minute later.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to see her standing close beside him, holding out a charming
+little basket that she had woven of the green willows and decorated with
+moss and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp moss, and lightly
+covered with the cress, lay a half dozen fine rainbow trout.</p>
+
+<p>"How pretty!" he exclaimed. "So that is what you have been doing!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are for you," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>"For me?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded brightly; "For you and Mr. Lagrange. I know you like them
+because you said you were fishing when you heard my violin. And I thought
+that you wouldn't want to leave your picture, to fish for yourself, so I
+took them for you."</p>
+
+<p>The artist concealed his embarrassment with difficulty; and, while
+expressing his thanks and appreciation in rather formal words, studied her
+face keenly. But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous naturalness,
+an unaffected kindliness, and an innocent disregard of conventionalities,
+that would have disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than Aaron
+King.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, and swung the empty
+creel over her shoulder. Then, putting on her hat, she picked up her rod.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh--are you going?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You have finished your work for to-day," she answered</p>
+
+<p>"But let me go with you, a little way."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "No, I don't want you."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps--if you won't stop work--but I can't promise--you see I never
+know what I am going to do up here in the mountains," she answered
+whimsically. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the morning; or I
+might be here, waiting for you, when you come to paint."</p>
+
+<p>He was putting his things in the box--thinking he would persuade her to
+let him accompany her a little way; if she saw that he really would paint
+no more. When he bent over the box, she was speaking. "I hope you will,"
+he answered.</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>He straightened up and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>She was gone.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, he stood searching the glade with his eyes, carefully;
+listening to catch a sound--a puzzled, baffled look upon his face. Taking
+his things, at last, he started up the little path. But before he reached
+the old gate, a low laugh caused him to whirl quickly about.</p>
+
+<p>There she stood, beside the spring--a teasing smile on her face. Before he
+could command himself, she danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and
+slipped away through the green willow wall. Another merry laugh came back
+to him and then--the silence of the little glade, and the sound of the
+distant waters.</p>
+
+<p>With the basket of fish in his hand, Aaron King went slowly to camp;
+where, when Conrad Lagrange saw what the artist carried so carefully,
+explanations were in order.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch18" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the Butterflies</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+On the following day, the artist was putting away his things, at the close
+of the afternoon's work, when the girl appeared.</p>
+
+<p>The long, slanting bars of sunshine and the deepening shadows marked the
+lateness of the hour. As he bent over his paint-box, the man was thinking
+with regret that she would not come--that, perhaps, she would never come.
+And at the thought that he might not see her again, an odd fear gripped
+his heart. His thoughts were interrupted by a low, musical laugh; and he
+sprang to his feet, to search the glade with careful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out," he cried, as though adjuring an invisible spirit. "I know you
+are here; come out."</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh, she stepped from behind the trunk of one of the
+largest trees, within a few feet of where he stood. As she went toward
+him, she carried in her outstretched hands a graceful basket, woven of
+sycamore leaves and ferns, and filled with the ripest sweetest
+blackberries. She did not speak as she held out her offering; but the man,
+looking into her laughing eyes, fancied that there was a meaning and a
+purpose in the gift that did not appear upon the surface of her simple
+action.</p>
+
+<p>Expressing his pleasure, as he received the dainty basket, he could not
+refrain from adding, "But why do you bring me things?"</p>
+
+<p>She answered with that wayward, mocking humor that so often seized her;
+"Because I like to. I told you that I always do what I like--up here in
+the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you always will," he returned, "if your likes are all as delicious
+as this one."</p>
+
+<p>With the manner of a child playfully making a mystery yet anxious to have
+the secret discussed, she said, "I have one more gift to bring you, yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you meant something by your presents," he cried. "It isn't just
+because you want me to have the things you bring."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes it is," she retorted, laughing mischievously at his triumphant
+and expectant tone. "If I didn't want you to have the things I
+bring--why--I wouldn't bring them, would I?"</p>
+
+<p>"But that isn't all," he insisted. "Tell me--why do you say you have one
+<i>more</i> gift to bring?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head with a delightful air of mystery "Not until I come
+again. When I come again, I will tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will come to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed teasingly at his eagerness. "How can I tell?" she answered. "I
+do not know, myself, what I will do to-morrow--when I am up here in the
+mountains--when the canyon gates are shut and the world is left outside."
+Even as she spoke, her mood changed and the last words were uttered
+wistfully, as a captive spirit--that, by nature wild and free, was
+permitted, for a brief time only, to go beyond its prison walls--might
+have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>The artist--puzzled by her flash-like change of moods, and by her manner
+as she spoke of the world beyond the canyon gates--had no words to reply.
+As he stood there,--in that little glade where the light fell as in a
+quiet cathedral and the air trembled with the deep organ-tones of the
+distant waters--holding in his hands the basket of leaves and ferns with
+its wild fruit, and looking at the beautiful girl who had brought her
+offering with the naturalness of a child of the mountains and the air of a
+woodland spirit,--he again felt that the world he had always known was
+very far away.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, too, was silent--as though, by some subtle power, she knew his
+thoughts and did not wish to interrupt.</p>
+
+<p>So still were they, that a wild bird--darting through the screen of alder
+boughs--stopped to swing on a limb above their heads, with a burst of
+wild-wood melody. In the arroyo beyond the willow wall, a quail called his
+evening call, and was answered by his mate from the top of the bank under
+the mistletoe oak. A pair of gray squirrels crept down the gray trunks of
+the trees and slipped around the granite boulder to drink at the spring;
+then scampered away again--half in frolic, half in fright--as they caught
+sight of the man and the maid. As the squirrels disappeared, the girl
+laughed--a low laugh of fellowship with the creatures of the
+wilderness--in complete understanding of their humor. Then--as though
+following the path of a sunbeam--two gorgeously brown and yellow winged
+butterflies came flitting through the draperies of virgin's-bower, and
+floated in zigzag flight about the glade--now high among the alder boughs;
+now low over the tops of the roses and berry-bushes; down to the fragrant
+mint at the water's edge; and up again to the tops of the willows, as if
+to leave the glade; but only to return again to the vines that covered the
+bank, and to the flowers that, here and there, starred the grassy sward.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"--cried the girl impulsively, as the beautiful winged creatures
+disappeared at last,--"if people could only be like that! It's so hard to
+be yourself in the world. Everybody, there, seems trying to be something
+they are not. No one dares to be just themselves. Everything, up here, is
+so right--so true--so just what it is--and down there, everything tries so
+hard to be just what it is not. The world even <i>sees</i> so crooked that it
+<i>can't</i> believe when a thing is just what it is."</p>
+
+<p>While watching the butterflies, she had turned away from the artist and,
+in following their flight with her eyes, had taken a few light steps that
+brought her into the open, grassy center of the glade. With her face
+upturned to the opening in the foliage through which the butterflies had
+disappeared, she had spoken as if thinking aloud, rather than as
+addressing her companion.</p>
+
+<p>Before the artist could reply, the beautiful creatures came floating back
+as they had gone. With a low exclamation of delight, the girl watched them
+as they circled, now, above her head, in their aerial waltz among the
+sunbeams and leafy boughs. Then the man, watching, saw her--unheeding his
+presence--stretch her arms upward. For a moment she stood, lightly poised,
+and then, with her wide, shining eyes fixed upon those gorgeously winged
+spirits whirling in the fragrant air, with her lips parted in smiling
+delight, she danced upon the smooth turf of the glade--every step and
+movement in perfect harmony with the spirit of care-free abandonment that
+marked the movements of the butterflies that danced above her head.
+Unmindful of the watching man, as her dainty companions
+themselves,--forgetful of his presence,--she yielded to the impulse to
+express her emotions in free, rhythmic movement.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, Aaron King was silent--standing motionless, as if he feared
+to startle her into flight.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as the girl danced--her eyes always upon her winged
+companions--the insects floated above the artist's head, and she became
+conscious of his presence. Her cheeks flushed and, laughing low,--as she
+danced, lightly as a spirit,--she impulsively stretched out her arms to
+him, in merry invitation--as though challenging him to join her.</p>
+
+<p>The gesture was as spontaneous and as innocent, in its freedom, as had
+been her offering of the gifts from mountain stream and bush. But the
+man--lured into forgetfulness of everything save the wild loveliness of
+the scene--started toward her. At his movement, a look of bewildered fear
+came into her face; but--too startled to control her movements on the
+instant, and as though impelled by some hidden power--she moved toward
+him--blindly, unconsciously--her eyes wide with that look of questioning
+fright. He had almost reached her when, as though by an effort of her
+will, she stopped and stood still--gazing into his face--trembling in
+every limb. Then, with a low cry, she sank down in a frightened, cowering,
+pleading attitude, and buried her crimson face in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>As though some unseen hand checked him, the man halted, and the girl's
+cheeks were not more crimson than his own.</p>
+
+<p>A moment he stood, then a step brought him to her side. Putting out his
+hand, he touched her upon the shoulder, and was about to speak. But at his
+touch, with another cry, she sprang to her feet and, whirling with the
+flash-like quickness of a wild thing, vanished into the undergrowth that
+walled in the glade.</p>
+
+<p>With a startled exclamation, the man tried to follow calling to her,
+reassuring her, begging her to come back. But there was no answer to his
+words; nor did he catch a glimpse of her; though once or twice he thought
+he heard her in swift flight up the canyon.</p>
+
+<p>All the way to the place where he had first seen her, he followed; but at
+the cedar thicket he stopped. For a long time, he stood there; while the
+twilight failed and the night came. Slowly,--in the soft darkness with
+bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed,--he went back down the canyon to
+the little glade, and to the camp.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch19" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>The Three Gifts and Their Meanings</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The next day, Aaron King--too distracted to paint--idled all the afternoon
+in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to
+camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude
+yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the
+charm of their intimacy--and he cursed himself--as many a man has
+cursed--for that momentary lack of self-control.</p>
+
+<p>But the following afternoon, as the artist worked,--bent upon quickly
+finishing his picture of the place that seemed now to reproach him with
+its sweet atmosphere of sacred purity,--he heard, as he had heard that
+first day, the low music of her voice blending with the music of the
+mountain stream. Scarce daring to move, he sat as though absorbed in his
+work--listening with all his heart, for some sound of her approach, other
+than the melody of her song that grew more and more distinct. At last, he
+knew that she was standing just the other side of the willows, beyond the
+little spring. He felt her hidden eyes upon him, but dared not look that
+way--feeling sure that if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would
+vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he made show of giving close
+attention to his work and waited.</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes, she remained concealed; singing low, as though to try
+him with temptation. Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised
+brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view
+beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's
+green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from
+the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still
+holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him
+seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue
+eyes a troubled question.</p>
+
+<p>"I sought you all the way to your home," he said, gently, "but you would
+not let me come near."</p>
+
+<p>"I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her eyes but regarding him
+steadily with that questioning appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry,"--he said,--"won't you forgive me? I will never frighten you
+so again. I did not mean to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I
+frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that
+you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I
+came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"</p>
+
+<p>The man could not answer.</p>
+
+<p>As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for
+granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him
+across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said
+with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts."
+Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box
+of colors.</p>
+
+<p>Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by
+the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the
+artist tried to thank her.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You
+promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you
+came again."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in
+her teasing mood.</p>
+
+<p>"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you
+know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."</p>
+
+<p>Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied, "But didn't you
+ask me again and again to help you to know the mountains as I know them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "but you would not promise."</p>
+
+<p>"I did better than promise"--she returned--"I brought you, from the
+mountains themselves, their three greatest gifts."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, with the air of a backward schoolboy--"Won't you read
+the lesson?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you will work while I talk, I will," she answered--amused by the
+hopelessness of his manner and tone.</p>
+
+<p>Obediently, he took up his brushes, and turned toward his picture.</p>
+
+<p>Removing her hat, she seated herself on the ground, where she had woven
+the willow basket for the fish.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence, she began--timidly, at first, then with
+increasing confidence as she found words to express her charming fancy.
+"First, you must know, that in all the wild life of the mountains there is
+no creature so strong--in proportion to its size and weight, I mean--as
+the trout that lives in the mountain streams. Its home is in the icy
+torrents that are fed by the snows of the highest peaks and canyons. It
+lives, literally, in the innermost heart and life of the hills. It seeks
+its food at the foot of the falls, where the water boils in fierce fury;
+where the current swirls and leaps among the boulders; and where the
+stream rushes with all its might down the rocky channels. With its
+muscles, fine as tempered steel, it forces its way against the strength of
+the stream--conquering even the fifty-foot downward pour of a cataract.
+Its strength is a silent strength. It has no voice other than the voice of
+its own beautiful self. And all its gleaming colors you may see, in the
+morning and in the evening, tinting the mighty heads and shoulders and
+sides of the hills themselves. And so, the first gift that I brought
+you--fresh from the mountain's heart--was the gift of the mountain's
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>"The second gift was gathered from bushes that were never planted by the
+hand of man. They grow as free and untamed as the rains that water them,
+and the earth that feeds them, and the sunshine that sweetens hem. In them
+is the flavor of mountain mists, and low hung clouds, and shining dew; the
+odor of moist leaf-mould, and unimpoverished soil; the pleasant tang of
+the sunshine; and the softer sweetness of the shady nooks where they grow.
+In the second gift, I brought you the purity, and the flavor of the
+mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"And to-day"--she finished simply--"to-day I have brought you the beauty
+of the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"You have brought me more than the strength and purity and beauty of the
+mountains," exclaimed the painter. "You have brought me their mystery."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"In your own beautiful self," he continued sincerely "you have brought me
+the mystery of these hills. You are wonderful! I have never known any one
+like you."</p>
+
+<p>She was wholly unconscious of the compliment--if indeed, he meant it as
+such. "I suppose I must be different," she returned with just a touch, of
+sadness in her voice. "You see I have never been taught like other girls.
+I know nothing at all of the world where you live--except what Myra has
+told me." Then, as if to change the subject, she asked shyly, "Would you
+care for my music to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>He assented eagerly--thinking she meant to sing. But, rising, she crossed
+the glade, and disappeared behind the willows--returning, a moment later,
+with her violin.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to his exclamation of pleased surprise, she said smiling, "I
+brought my violin because I thought, if you would let me play, the music
+would perhaps help us both to forget what--what happened when I danced."</p>
+
+<p>Standing by the gray boulder, with her face up turned to the mountains,
+she placed the instrument under her chin and drew the bow softly across
+the strings.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour or more she played. Then, as Czar trotted sedately into the
+glade, she lowered her instrument and, with a smile, called merrily to
+Conrad Lagrange who, attracted by the music, was standing at the gate on
+the bank--from the artist's position invisible; "Come down, good
+genie,--come down! You have been watching there quite long enough. Come,
+instantly; or with my magic I'll turn you into a fantastic, dancing bug,
+such as those that straddle there upon the waters of the spring, or else
+into a fat pollywog that wiggles in the black ooze among the dead leaves
+and rotting bits of wood."</p>
+
+<p>With a quick movement, she tucked her violin under her chin and played a
+few measures of the worst sort of ragtime, in perfect imitation of a
+popular performer. The effect, following the music she had just been
+making, was grotesque and horrible.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy, mercy!" cried the man at the gate. "I beg! I beg! Do not, I pray,
+good nymph, torture me with thy dreadful power. I swear that I will obey
+thy every wish and whim."</p>
+
+<p>Pointing with her bow--as with a wand--to the boulder, she sternly
+commanded, "Come, then, and sit here upon this rock; and give to me an
+account of all that thou hast done since I left thee in the rose garden or
+I will split thy ears and stretch thy soul upon a torture rack of hideous
+noise."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The novelist came down the
+path, on a run, to seat himself upon the gray boulder.</p>
+
+<p>The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist and the girl paid no
+heed to his unseemly merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak,"--she commanded, waving her wand,--"what hast thou done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms as I could procure, open
+for thee the treasure room of thy desire?" growled the man on the rock.</p>
+
+<p>"And still," she retorted, "when I made myself subject to those terms, and
+obediently looked not upon the hidden mystery--still the room of my
+desires became a trap betraying me into rude hands from which I narrowly
+escaped. And you--you fled the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much
+as by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wandered, irresponsible,
+among my hills. Did you not say that my home was under these glowing
+peaks, and in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you think that I
+would not find you here, and charm you again within reach of my power?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what is thy will, good spirit?"--he asked, humbly--"tell me thy will
+and it shall be done--if thou wilt but make music <i>only</i> upon the
+instrument that is in thy hand."</p>
+
+<p>With a laugh, she ended the play, saying, "My will is that you and Mr.
+King come, to-morrow evening, for supper with Miss Willard and me. Brian
+Oakley and Mrs. Oakley will be there. I want you too."</p>
+
+<p>The men looked at each other in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Miss Andr&eacute;s," said the artist, "we--"</p>
+
+<p>The girl interrupted with one of her flash-like changes. "I have invited
+you. You <i>must</i> come. I shall expect you." And before either of the men
+could speak again, she sprang lightly across the little stream, and
+disappeared through the willow wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be--" The novelist checked himself, solemnly--staring blankly
+at the spot where she had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it?" demanded Conrad Lagrange, turning to his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, packing up his things, answered, "I think we'd better go."</p>
+
+<p>Which opinion was concurred in by Brian Oakley who dropped in on them that
+evening.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch20" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XX</h2>
+
+<h3>Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+That same afternoon, while Sibyl Andr&eacute;s was making music for Aaron King in
+the spring glade, Brian Oakley, on his way down the canyon, stopped at the
+old place where Myra Willard and the girl were living. Riding into the
+yard that was fenced only by the wild growth, he was greeted cordially by
+the woman with the disfigured face, who was seated on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, Myra," he called in return, as he swung from the saddle; and
+leaving the chestnut to roam at will, he went to the porch, his spurs
+clinking softly over the short, thick grass.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Sibyl?" he asked, seating himself on the top step.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Oakley," the woman answered, smiling. "You
+really didn't expect me to, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger laughed. "Did she take gun, basket, rod or violin? If I know
+whether she's gone shooting berrying, fishing or fiddling, it may give me
+a clue--or did she take all four?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman watched him closely. "She took only her violin. She went
+sometime after lunch--down the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly
+to see her, Mr. Oakley?"</p>
+
+<p>It was evident to the woman that the officer was relieved. "Oh, no; she
+wouldn't be going far with her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's
+all right anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she must be
+careful, for a while. There's an escaped convict ranging somewhere in my
+district. I received the word this morning, and have been up around Lone
+Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear Creek to see if I could start
+anything. I didn't find any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell
+Sibyl that I say she must not go out without her gun--that if I catch her
+wandering around unarmed, I'll pack her off back to civilization, pronto."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help her to remember. It
+would be better, I suppose, if she stayed at home; but that seems so
+impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted the Ranger,
+confidently. "I'd back the girl against anything I ever met up with--when
+she has her artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors below called
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No--at least, not while I have been at home. I have been berrying, two or
+three times. They might have come while I was out."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Sibyl met them yet?" came the next question.</p>
+
+<p>"She has not mentioned it, if she has."</p>
+
+<p>"H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>The woman's love for the girl prompted her to quick suspicion of the
+Ranger's manner.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mr. Oakley?" she asked. "Has the child been indiscreet? Has
+she done anything wrong? Has she been with those men?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has called upon one of them several times," returned Brian, smiling.
+"Mr. King is painting that little glade by the old spring at the foot of
+the bank, you know, and I guess she stumbled onto him. The place is one of
+her favorite spots. But bless your heart, Myra, there's no harm in it. It
+would be natural for her to get interested in any one making a picture of
+a place she loves as she does that old spring glade. She has spent days at
+a time there--ever since she was big enough to go that far from home."</p>
+
+<p>"It's strange that she has not mentioned it to me," said the
+woman--troubled in spite of the Ranger's reassuring words.</p>
+
+<p>The man directed his attention suddenly to his horse; "Max! You let
+Sibyl's roses alone." The animal turned his head questioningly toward his
+master. "Back!" said the Ranger, "back!" At his word, the chestnut
+promptly backed across the yard until the officer called, "That will do,"
+when he halted, and, with an impatient toss of his head, again looked
+toward the porch, inquiringly. "You are all right now," said the man.
+Whereupon the horse began contentedly cropping the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"I met Mr. King, accidentally, once, at the depot in Fairlands," continued
+the woman with the disfigured face. "He impressed me, then, as being a
+genuinely good man--a true gentleman. But, judging from his books, Conrad
+Lagrange is not a man I would wish Sibyl to meet. I have wondered at the
+artist's friendship with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Myra, Lagrange is all right," said Brian Oakley, stoutly.
+"He's odd and eccentric and rough spoken sometimes; but he's not at all
+what you would think him from the stuff he writes. He's a true man at
+heart, and you needn't worry about Sibyl getting anything but good from an
+acquaintance with him. As for King--well--Conrad Lagrange vouches for him.
+If you knew Lagrange, you'd understand what that means. He and the young
+fellow's mother grew up together. He swears the lad is right; and, from
+what I've seen of him, I believe it. It doesn't follow, though, that you
+don't need to keep your eyes open. The girl is as innocent as a
+child--though she is a woman--and--well--accidents have happened, you
+know." As he spoke he glanced unconsciously at the scars that disfigured
+the naturally beautiful face of the woman.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard blushed as she answered sadly, "Yes, I know that accidents
+have happened. I will talk with Sibyl; and will you not speak to her too?
+She loves you so, and is always guided by your wishes. A little word or
+two from you would be an added safeguard."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I'll talk to her," said the Ranger, heartily--rising and whistling
+to the chestnut. "But look here, Myra,"--he said, pausing with his foot in
+the stirrup,--"the girl must have her head, you know. We don't want to put
+her in the notion that every man in the world is a villain laying for a
+chance to do her harm. There <i>are</i> clean fellows--a few--and it will do
+Sibyl good to meet that kind." He swung himself lightly into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>The woman smiled; "Sibyl could not think that all men are evil, after
+knowing her father and you, Mr. Oakley."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger laughed as he turned Max toward the opening in the cedar
+thicket. "Will was what God and Nelly made him, Myra; and I--if I'm fairly
+decent it's because Mary took me in hand in time. Men are mostly what you
+women make 'em, anyway, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget that you and Mrs. Oakley are coming for supper to-morrow,"
+she called after him.</p>
+
+<p>"No danger of our forgetting that," he answered. "Adios!" And the chestnut
+loped easily out of the yard.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard kept her place on the porch until the sound of the horse's
+galloping feet died away down the canyon. But, as she listened to the
+vanishing sound of the Ranger's going, her eyes were looking far away--as
+though his words had aroused in her heart memories of days long past. When
+the last echo had lost itself in the thin mountain air, she went into the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Standing before the small mirror that served--in the rude, almost
+camp-like furnishings of the house--for both herself and Sibyl, she
+studied the face reflected there--turning her head slowly, as if comparing
+the beautiful unmarked side with the other that was so hideously
+disfigured. For some time she stood there, unflinchingly giving herself to
+the torture of this contemplation of her ruined loveliness; drinking to
+its bitter dregs the sorrowful cup of her secret memories; until, as
+though she could bear no more, she drew back--her eyes wide with pain and
+horror, her marred features twisted grotesquely in an agony of mental
+suffering. With a pitiful moan she sank upon her knees in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>In the earnestness of her spirit--out of the deep devotion of her love--as
+she prayed God for wisdom to guide the girl entrusted to her care, she
+spoke aloud. "Let me not rob her, dear Christ, of love; but help me to
+help her love aright. Help me, that in my fear for her I do not turn her
+heart against her mate when he shall come. Help me, that I do not so fill
+her pure mind with doubt and distrust of all men that she will look for
+evil, only. Help me, that I do not teach her to associate love wholly with
+that which is base and untrue. Grant, O God, that her beautiful life may
+not be marred by a love that is unworthy."</p>
+
+<p>As the woman with the disfigured face rose from her knees, she heard the
+voice of Sibyl, who was coming up the old road toward the cedars--singing
+as she came.</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl entered the house, a moment later, Myra Willard, still
+agitated, was bathing her face. The girl, seeing, checked the song upon
+her lips; and going to the woman who in everything but the ties of blood
+was mother to her, sought to discover the reason for her troubled manner,
+and tried to soothe her with loving words.</p>
+
+<p>The woman held the girl close in her arms and looked into the lovely,
+winsome face that was so unmarred by vicious thoughts of the world's
+teaching.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear child, do you not sometimes hate the sight of my ugliness?" she
+said. "It seems to me, you must."</p>
+
+<p>With her arms about her companion's neck, Sibyl pressed her pure, young
+lips to those disfiguring scars, in an impulsive kiss. "Foolish Myra," she
+cried, "you know I love you too well to see anything but your own
+beautiful self behind the scars. To me, your face is all like this"--and
+she softly kissed, in turn, the woman's unmarred cheek. "Whatever made the
+marks, I know that they are not dishonorable. So I never think of them at
+all, but see only the beautiful side--which is really you, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No,"--answered Myra Willard, gently,--"my scars are not dishonorable. But
+the world does not see with your pure eyes, dear child. The world sees
+only the ugly, disfigured side of my face. It never looks at the other
+side. And listen, dear heart, so the world often sees dishonor where there
+is no dishonor It sees evil in many things where there is only good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned the girl, "but you have never taught me to see with the
+eyes of the world. So, to me, what the world sees, does not matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray that it may never matter, child," answered the woman with the
+disfigured face, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as they went out to the porch, she asked, "Did you meet Mr. Oakley
+as you were coming home?"</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl laughed and colored with a confusion that was new to her, as she
+answered, "Yes, I did--and he scolded me."</p>
+
+<p>"About your going unarmed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,--but he told me about that too. I don't see why, whenever a poor
+criminal escapes, he always comes into <i>our</i> mountains. I don't like to
+'pack a gun'--unless I'm hunting. But Brian Oakley didn't scold me for
+that, though--he knows I always do as he says. He scolded because I hadn't
+told you about my going to see Mr. King, in the spring glade." She
+laughed, conscious of the color that was in her cheeks. "I told him it
+didn't matter whether I told you or not, because he always knows every
+single move I make, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Why <i>didn't</i> you tell me, dear?" asked the woman. "You never kept
+anything from me, before--I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Why dearest," the girl answered frankly, "I don't know, myself, why I
+didn't tell you"--which, Myra Willard knew, was the exact truth.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sibyl told her foster-mother everything about her acquaintance with
+the artist and Conrad Lagrange--from the time she first watched the
+painter, from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the novelist;
+until that afternoon, when she had invited them to supper, the next day.
+Only of her dancing before the artist, the girl did not tell.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the evening, Sibyl--saying that she would sing Myra to
+sleep--took her violin to the porch, outside the window; and in the dusk
+made soft music until the woman's troubled heart was calmed. When the moon
+came up from behind the Galenas, across the canyon, the girl tiptoed into
+the house, to bend over the sleeping woman, in tender solicitude. With
+that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, she stooped and
+softly kissed the disfigured face upon the pillow. At the touch, Myra
+Willard stirred uneasily; and the girl--careful to make no
+sound--withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to play; but, instead,
+sat motionless--her face turned down the canyon--her eyes looking far
+away. Then, quickly, she put aside the instrument, and--as though with
+sudden yielding to some inner impulse--slipped out into the grassy yard.
+And there, in the moon's white light,--with only the mountains, the trees,
+and the flowers to see,--she danced, again, as she had danced before the
+artist in the glade--with her face turned down the canyon, and her arms
+outstretched, longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of the old
+orchard.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard slept, came that shuddering,
+terror-stricken cry.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. Kneeling, she put
+her strong young arms about the cowering, trembling form on the bed.
+"There, there, dear, it's all right."</p>
+
+<p>The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
+"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
+Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was <i>you</i>."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch21" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>The Last Climb</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+That first visit of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange to the old home of
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s was the beginning of a delightful comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>Often, in the evening, the two men, with Czar, went to spend an hour in
+friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the canyon. Always, they were
+welcomed by Myra Willard with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly
+delighted to have them come. Always, they were invited with genuine
+hospitality to "come again." Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs.
+Oakley would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger would come riding
+into the yard before they left. At times, the canyon's mountain wall
+echoed the laughter of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played
+their fantastical game of words; or again, the older people would listen
+to the blending voices of the artist and the girl as, in the quiet hush of
+the evening, they sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on the
+violin; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned to the mountain tops,
+would make for her chosen friends the music of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the camp in the sycamore
+grove--sometimes riding with the Ranger, sometimes alone; or they would
+hear her merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard as she
+passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, she would appear--equipped with
+rod or gun or basket--to frankly challenge Aaron King to some long ramble
+in the hills.</p>
+
+<p>So the days for the young man at the beginning of his life work, and for
+the young woman at the beginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the
+canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring Clear Creek, from the
+Ranger Station to the falls; in the quiet glades under the alders hung
+with virgin's-bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the
+mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, cedar-sheltered gulches,
+among tall brakes and lilies; or high up on the canyon walls under the
+dark and fragrant pines--over all the paths and trails familiar to her
+girlhood she led him--showing him every nook and glade and glen--teaching
+him to know, as he had asked, the mountains that she herself so loved.</p>
+
+<p>The time came, at last, when the two men must return to Fairlands. With
+Mr. and Mrs. Oakley they were spending the evening at Sibyl's home when
+Conrad Lagrange announced that they would leave the mountains, two days
+later.</p>
+
+<p>"Then,"--said the girl, impulsively,--"Mr. King and I are going for one
+last good-by climb to-morrow. Aren't we?" she concluded--turning to the
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed as he answered, "We certainly seem to be headed that
+way. Where are we going?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will start early and come back late"--she returned--"which really is
+all that any one ought to know about a climb that is just for the climb.
+And listen--no rod, no gun, no sketch-book. I'll fix a lunch."</p>
+
+<p>"Watch out for my convict," warned the Ranger. "He must be getting mighty
+hungry, by now."</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning, they set out. Crossing the canyon, they climbed the
+Oak Knoll trail--down which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led by
+the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks before--to the pipe-line. Where
+the path from below leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks,
+on a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the mountain's shoulder,
+they paused for a look over the narrow valley that lay a thousand feet
+below. Across the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain
+torrent's way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling Clear Creek in its
+center, they could see the white dots that marked the camp back of the old
+orchard; and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the little opening
+with the cedar thicket and the giant sycamores that marked the spot where
+Sibyl was born.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day when he and Conrad
+Lagrange, in a spirit of venturesome fun, had left the choice of trails to
+the burro. "Good, old Croesus!" he said smiling.</p>
+
+<p>She knew the story of how they had been guided to their camping place, and
+laughed in return, as she answered, "He's a dear old burro, is Croesus,
+and worthy of a better name."</p>
+
+<p>"Plutus would be better," suggested the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian King?" she asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't Plutus the giver of wealth?" he returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and wasn't he forced by Zeus to distribute his gifts without regard
+to the characters of the recipients?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "Plutus or Croesus--I'm glad he chose the Oak Knoll
+trail."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I," answered the man, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung--narrow thread-like
+path--high upon the mountain wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon
+below. At a point where the trail turns to round the inward curve of one
+of the small side canyons--where the pines grow dark and tall--some
+thoughtful hand had laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under
+the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below the little path.
+Here they stopped again and, while they loitered, filled a small canteen
+with the cold, clear water from the mountain's heart. Farther on, where
+the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve of the wall between two
+mountain spurs, they turned aside to follow the Government trail that
+leads to the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then down into
+the valley on the other side. At the gap where the Galena trail crosses
+the fire-break, they again turned aside to make their leisure way along
+the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a fold and curve and kink
+like a great ribbon on the thin top of the ridge. With every step, now,
+they were climbing. Midday found them standing by a huge rock at the edge
+of a clump of pines on one of the higher points of the western end of the
+range. Here they would have their lunch.</p>
+
+<p>As they sat in the lee of the great rock, with the wind that sweeps the
+mountain tops singing in the pines above their heads, they looked directly
+down upon the wide Galena Valley and far across to the spurs and slopes of
+the San Jacintos beyond. Sibyl's keen eyes--mountain-trained from
+childhood--marked a railway train crawling down the grade from San
+Gorgonio Pass toward the distant ocean. She tried in vain to point it out
+to her companion. But the city eyes of the man could not find the tiny
+speck in the vast landscape that lay within the range of their vision. The
+artist looked at his watch. The train was the Golden State Limited that
+had brought him from the far away East, a few months before.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King remembered how, from the platform of the observation car, he
+had looked up at the mountains from which he now looked down. He
+remembered too, the woman into whose eyes he had, for the first time,
+looked that day. Turning his face to the west, he could distinguish under
+the haze of the distance the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands. Before three days had passed he would be in his studio home
+again. And the woman of the observation car platform--From distant
+Fairlands, the man turned his eyes to the winsome face of his girl comrade
+on the mountain top.</p>
+
+<p>"Please"--she said, meeting his serious gaze with a smile of frank
+fellowship--"please, what have I done?"</p>
+
+<p>Smiling, he answered gravely, "I don't exactly know--but you have done
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"You look so serious. I'm sure it must be pretty bad. Can't you think what
+it is?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "I was thinking about down there"--he pointed into the haze of
+the distant valley to the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she returned, "let's think about up here"--she waved her hand
+toward the high crest of the San Bernardinos, and the mountain peaks about
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let me paint your portrait--when we get back to the orange
+groves?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," she returned. "Why do you want to paint me? I'm
+nobody, you know--but just me."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the reason I want to paint you," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are you."</p>
+
+<p>"But a portrait of me would not help you on your road to fame," she
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p>He flinched. "Perhaps," he said, "that's partly why I want to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Because it won't help you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it won't help me on the road to fame. You <i>will</i> pose for me,
+won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I cannot say"--she answered--"perhaps--please don't let's talk
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Because"--she answered seriously--"we have been such good friends up here
+in the mountains; such--such comrades. Up here in the hills, with the
+canyon gates shut against the world that I don't know, you are like--like
+Brian Oakley--and like my father used to be--and down there"--she
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and down there I will be what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she answered wistfully, "but sometimes I can see you going
+on and on and on toward fame and the rewards it will bring you and you
+seem to get farther and farther and farther away from--from the mountains
+and our friendship; until you are so far away that I can't see you any
+more at all. I don't like to lose my mountain friends, you know."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "But no matter how famous I might become--no matter what fame
+might bring me--I could not forget you and your mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not want you to remember me," she answered "if you were famous.
+That is--I mean"--she added hesitatingly--"if you were famous just because
+you <i>wanted</i> to be. But I know you could never forget the mountains. And
+that would be the trouble; don't you see? If you <i>could</i> forget, it would
+not matter. Ask Mr. Lagrange, he knows."</p>
+
+<p>For some time Aaron King sat, without speaking, looking about at the world
+that was so far from that other world--the world he had always known. The
+girl, too,--seeming to understand the thoughts that he himself, perhaps,
+could not have expressed,--was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said slowly, "I don't think that I care for fame as I did before
+you taught me to know the mountains. It doesn't, somehow, now, seem to
+matter so much. It's the <i>work</i> that really matters--after all--isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>And Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, smiling, answered, "Yes, it's the work that really
+matters. I'm sure that <i>must</i> be so."</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, they went on, still following the fire-break, down to
+where it is intersected by the pipe-line a mile from the reservoir on the
+hill above the power-house; then back to Oak Knoll, again on the pipe-line
+trail all the way--a beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten walk.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was just touching the tops of the western mountains when they
+started down Oak Knoll. The canyon below, already, lay in the shadow. When
+they reached the foot of the trail, it was twilight. Across the road, by a
+small streamlet--a tributary to Clear Creek--a party of huntsmen were
+making ready to spend the night. The voices of the men came clearly
+through the gathering gloom. Under the trees, they could see the
+camp-fire's ruddy gleam. They did not notice the man who was standing,
+half hidden, in the bushes beside the road, near the spot where the trail
+opens into it. Silently, the man watched them as they turned up the road
+which they would follow a little way before crossing the canyon to Sibyl's
+home. Fifty yards farther on, they met Brian Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, you two," called the Ranger, cheerily--without stopping his horse.
+"Rather late to-night, ain't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be there by dark," called the artist And the Ranger passed on.</p>
+
+<p>At sound of the mountaineer's voice, the man in the bushes drew quickly
+back. The officer's trained eyes caught the movement in the brush, and he
+leaned forward in the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, the man reappeared in the road, farther down, around the
+bend. As the Ranger approached, he was hailed by a boisterous, "Hello,
+Brian! better stop and have a bite."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Rutlidge?" came the officer's greeting, as he reined
+in his horse. "When did you land in the hills?"'</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon," answered the other. "We're just making camp. Come and
+meet the fellows. You know some of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, not to-night,"--returned Brian Oakley,--"deer hunt, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes--thought we would be in good time for the opening of the season. By
+the way, do you happen to know where Lagrange and that artist friend of
+his are camped?"</p>
+
+<p>"In that bunch of sycamores back of the old orchard down there," answered
+the Ranger, watching the man's face keenly. "I just passed Mr. King, up
+the road a piece."</p>
+
+<p>"That so? I didn't see him go by," returned the other. "I think I'll run
+over and say 'hello' to Lagrange in the morning. We are only going as far
+as Burnt Pine to-morrow, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your eyes open for an escaped convict," said the officer, casually.
+"There's one ranging somewhere in here--came in about a month ago. He's
+likely to clean out your camp. So long."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we'll take him in for you," laughed the other. "Good night." He
+turned toward the camp-fire under the trees, as the officer rode away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what in hell did that fellow want to lie to me like that for," said
+Brian Oakley to himself. "He must have seen King and Sibyl as they came
+down the trail. Max, old boy, when a man lies deliberately, without any
+apparent reason, you want to watch him."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch22" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>Shadows of Coming Events</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were idling in their camp, after breakfast
+the next morning, when Czar turned his head, quickly, in a listening
+attitude. With a low growl that signified disapproval, he moved forward a
+step or two and stood stiffly erect, gazing toward the lower end of the
+orchard.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one coming, Czar?" asked the artist.</p>
+
+<p>The dog answered with another growl, while the hair on his neck bristled
+in anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one we don't like, heh!" commented the novelist. "Or"--he added as
+if musing upon the animal's instinct--"some one we ought not to like."</p>
+
+<p>A bark from Czar greeted James Rutlidge who at that moment appeared at the
+foot of the slope leading up to their camp.</p>
+
+<p>The two men--remembering the occasion of their visitor's last call at
+their home in Fairlands, when he had seen Sibyl in the studio--received
+the man with courtesy, but with little warmth. Czar continued to manifest
+his sentiments until rebuked by his master. The coolness of the reception,
+however, in no way disconcerted James Rutlidge; who, on his part, rather
+overdid his assumption of pleasure at meeting them again.</p>
+
+<p>Explaining that he had come with a party of friends on a hunting trip, he
+told them how he had met Brian Oakley, and so had learned of their camp
+hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, he said, had gone on
+up the canyon. They would stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he
+could easily join them before night. He could not think, he declared, of
+passing so near without greeting his friends.</p>
+
+<p>"You two certainly are expert when it comes to finding snug,
+out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, searching the camp and the
+immediate surroundings with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative
+eye. "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted place without ever
+dreaming that you were so ideally hidden back here."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to rest upon a pair of gloves
+that Sibyl--the last time she had called--had carelessly left lying upon a
+stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp fashion, the rods and
+creels and guns were kept. The artist had intended to return the gloves
+the day before, together with a book of trout-flies which the girl had
+also forgotten; but, in his eagerness for the day's outing, he had gone
+off without them.</p>
+
+<p>The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to note that James Rutlidge had
+seen the telltale gloves. Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he
+asked abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after the health of
+Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise.</p>
+
+<p>The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed the heavy features of
+James Rutlidge, as he turned his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of
+the novelist was maddening.</p>
+
+<p>"The old boy is steadily going down," he said without feeling. "The
+doctors tell me that he can't last through the winter. It'll be a relief
+to everybody when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as
+always--remarkable how she keeps up appearances, considering her husband's
+serious condition. Louise is quite as usual. They will all be back in
+Fairlands in another month. They sent regards to you both--in case I
+should run across you."'</p>
+
+<p>The two men made the usual conventional replies, adding that they were
+returning to Fairlands the next day.</p>
+
+<p>"So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another meaning smile. "I don't
+see how you can think of leaving your really delightful retreat. I
+understand you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps though, they are
+also returning to the orange groves and roses."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about to reply with vigor to
+the sneering words, when Conrad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look.
+Ignoring the reference to their neighbors, the novelist replied suavely
+that they felt they must return to civilization as some matters in
+connection with the new edition of his last novel demanded his attention,
+and the artist wished to get back to his studio and to his work.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," urged Rutlidge, mockingly, "you ought not to go down now. The
+deer season opens in two days. Why not join our party for a hunt? We would
+be delighted to have you."</p>
+
+<p>They were coolly thanking him for the invitation,--that, from the tone in
+which it was given, was so evidently not meant,--when Czar, with a joyful
+bark, dashed away through the grove. A moment, and a clear, girlish voice
+called from among the trees that bordered the cienaga, "Whoo-ee." It was
+the signal that Sibyl always gave when she approached their camp.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge broke into a low laugh while Sibyl's friends looked at each
+other in angry consternation as the girl, following her hail and
+accompanied by the delighted dog, appeared in full view; her fishing-rod
+in hand, her creel swung over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's embarrassment, when, too late, she saw and recognized their
+visitor, was pitiful. As she came slowly forward, too confused to retreat,
+Rutlidge started to laugh again, but Aaron King, with an emphasis that
+checked the man's mirth, said in a low tone, "Stop that! Be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, the artist arose and with Conrad Lagrange went forward to
+greet Sibyl in--as nearly as they could--their customary manner.</p>
+
+<p>Formally, Rutlidge was presented to the girl; and, under the threatening
+eyes of the painter, greeted her with no hint of rudeness in his voice or
+manner; saying courteously, with a smile, "I have had the pleasure of Miss
+Andr&eacute;s' acquaintance for--let me see--three years now, is it not?" he
+appealed to her directly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was three years ago that I first saw you, sir," she returned coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was my first trip into the mountains, I remember," said Rutlidge,
+easily. "I met you at Brian Oakley's home."</p>
+
+<p>Without replying, she turned to Aaron King appealingly. "I--I left my
+gloves and fly-book. I was going fishing and called to get them."</p>
+
+<p>The artist gave her the articles with a word of regret for having so
+carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her
+two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back
+up the canyon, in the direction from which she had come.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl had disappeared among the trees, James Rutlidge said, with
+his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so
+unexpectedly. I--"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in
+his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be
+going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure
+you wouldn't care to join us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from
+Aaron King and the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to
+be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport.
+Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful
+young woman, that Miss Andr&eacute;s. Charming companion--either in the mountains
+or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later."</p>
+
+<p>When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language
+that perhaps it would be better not to put in print.</p>
+
+<p>"And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous
+to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to
+charges that are not put into words."</p>
+
+<p>"I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said
+Aaron King, savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly,
+and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store
+your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright,
+is sure to come."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Sibyl Andr&eacute;s went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that
+morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous
+freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when,
+in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she
+still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever
+known.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned again up the canyon, all the brightness of her day was
+gone. Her heart was heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with a
+dread of some impending evil which she could not understand. At every
+sound in the mountain wild-wood, she started. Time and again, as if
+expecting pursuit, she looked over her shoulder--poised like a creature of
+the woods ready for instant panic-stricken flight. So, without pausing to
+cast for trout, or even to go down to the stream, she returned home; where
+Myra Willard, seeing her come so early and empty handed, wondered. But to
+the woman's question, the girl only answered that she had changed her
+mind--that, after recovering her gloves and fly-book at the camp of their
+friends, she had decided to come home. The woman with the disfigured face,
+knowing that Aaron King was leaving the hills the next day, thought that
+she understood the girl's mood, and wisely made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>The artist and Conrad Lagrange went to spend their last evening in the
+hills with their friends. Brian Oakley, too, dropped in. But neither of
+the three men mentioned the name of James Rutlidge in the presence of the
+women; while Sibyl was, apparently, again her own bright and happy
+self--carrying on a fanciful play of words with the novelist, singing with
+the artist, and making music for them all with her violin. But before the
+evening was over, Conrad Lagrange found an opportunity to tell the Ranger
+of the incident of the morning, and of the construction that James
+Rutlidge had evidently put upon Sibyl's call at the camp. Brian
+Oakley,--thinking of the night before, and how the man must have seen the
+artist and the girl coming down the Oak Knoll trail in the
+twilight,--swore softly under his breath.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch23" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Outside the Canyon Gates Again</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange determined to go back from the mountains,
+the way they had come. Said the novelist, "It is as unseemly to rush
+pell-mell from an audience with the gods as it is to enter their presence
+irreverently."</p>
+
+<p>To which the artist answered, laughing, "Even criminals under sentence
+have, at least, the privilege of going to their prisons reluctantly."</p>
+
+<p>So they went down from the mountains, reverently and reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>Yee Kee, with the more elaborate equipment of the camp, was sent on ahead
+by wagon. The two men, with Croesus packed for a one night halt, and Czar,
+would follow. When all was ready, and they could neither of them invent
+any more excuses for lingering, Conrad Lagrange gave the word to the burro
+and they set out--down the little slope of grassy land; across the tiny
+stream from the cienaga; around the lower end of the old orchard, by the
+ancient weed-grown road--even Czar went slowly, with low-hung head, as if
+regretful at leaving the mountains that he, too, in his dog way, loved.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate, Aaron King asked the novelist to go on, saying that he would
+soon overtake him. It was possible, he said, that he might have left
+something in the spring glade. He thought he had better make sure. Conrad
+Lagrange, assenting, went through the gate and down the road, with the
+four-footed members of the party; and Czar must have thought that there
+was something very funny about old Croesus that morning, from the way his
+master laughed; when they were safely around the first turn.</p>
+
+<p>There was, of course, no material thing in the spring glade that the
+artist wanted. <i>He</i> knew that--quite as well as his laughing friend. Under
+the mistletoe oak, at the top of the bank, he paused, hesitating--as one
+will often pause when about to enter a sacred building. Softly, he pushed
+open the old gate, as he might have pushed open the door of a church.
+Slowly, reverently, he went down the path; baring his head as he went. He
+did not search for anything that he might have left. He simply stood for a
+few minutes under the gray-trunked alders that were so marked by the
+loving hands of long ago men and maidens--beside the mint bordered spring
+with the scattered stones of that old foundation--where, through the
+screen of boughs and vines and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell as through
+the traceries of a cathedral window, and the low, deep tones of the
+mountain waters came like the music of a great organ.</p>
+
+<p>It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, at that time, have told
+why, as he was leaving the hills, he had paused to visit once more the
+spot where Sibyl Andr&eacute;s had brought to him her three gifts from the
+mountains--where, in her pure innocence, she had danced before him the
+dance of the mating butterflies--and where, with the music of her violin,
+she had saved their friendship from the perils that threatened it--lifting
+their intimate comradeship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels,
+even as she had shown him the trails that lead from the lower canyon to
+the summits and peaks of the encircling mountain walls. But when he
+rejoined his friend there was something in his face that prevented the
+novelist from making any comment in a laughing vein.</p>
+
+<p>As the two men passed outward through the canyon gates and, looking
+backward as they went, saw those mighty doors close silently behind them,
+the artist was moved by emotions that were strange and new to the man who,
+two months before, had watched those gates open to receive him. This, too,
+is true; as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the mountains; so this
+man, now, knew, yet still did not know, himself.</p>
+
+<p>Where the road crosses, for the last time, the tumbling stream from the
+heart of the hills, they halted; and for one night slept again at the foot
+of the mountains. The next day they arrived at their little home in the
+orange grove. To Aaron King, it seemed that they had been away for years.</p>
+
+<p>When the traces of their days upon the road had been removed, and they
+were garbed again in the conventional costume of the world; when their
+outfit had been put away, and a home found for patient Croesus; the artist
+went to his studio. The afternoon passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but
+Aaron King did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find him. Softly,
+the older man pushed open the studio door to see the painter sitting
+before the portrait of Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's
+letters in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving the door ajar. Going to
+the corner of the house, he whistled low, and in answer, Czar come
+bounding to him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said the man,
+pointing toward the studio. "Go find Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, and pushing open the
+door entered the room; followed a few moments later by his master.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel was without a canvas. The
+portrait of Mrs. Taine was turned to the wall.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch24" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends,
+at Sibyl Andr&eacute;s' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last
+night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of
+one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear. She
+only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She
+had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge,
+until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous
+in his persistent efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the
+impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of
+their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home;
+perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often
+warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to
+develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to
+one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was, the mountain girl who
+was so naturally unafraid, feared this man who, in his own world, was an
+acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest spiritual and moral
+significance.</p>
+
+<p>That night, she slept but little. With the morning, every nerve demanded
+action, action. She felt as though if she could not spend herself in
+physical exertion she would go mad. Taking her lunch, and telling her
+companion that she was going for a good, full day with the trout; she was
+starting off, when the woman called her back.</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgotten Mr. Oakley's warning, dear. You are not to go unarmed,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother that old convict, Brian Oakley is so worried about," cried the
+girl. "I don't like to carry a gun when I am fishing. It's only an extra
+load." But, never-the-less, as she spoke, she went back to the porch;
+where Myra Willard handed her a belt of cartridges, with a serviceable
+Colt revolver in the holster. There was no hint of awkwardness when the
+girl buckled the belt about her waist and settled the holster in its place
+at her hip.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be careful, won't you, dear," said the woman, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting her face for another good-by kiss, the girl answered, "Of course,
+dear mother heart." Then, with a laugh--"I'll agree to shoot the first man
+I meet, and identify him afterwards--if it will make you easier in your
+mind. You won't worry, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard smiled. "Not a bit, child. I know how Brian Oakley loves you,
+and he says that he has no fear for you if you are armed. He takes great
+chances himself, that man, but he would send us back to Fairlands, in a
+minute, if he thought you were in any danger in your rambles."</p>
+
+<p>Beside the roaring Clear Creek, Sibyl seated self upon a great
+boulder--her rod and flies neglected--apparently unmindful of the purpose
+that had brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon the swirling
+pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, a thousand feet up on Oak
+Knoll, where she knew the pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made
+the momentous decision that had resulted in her comradeship with Aaron
+King. Following the canyon wall with her eyes--as though in her mind she
+walked the thread-like path--from Oak Knoll to the fire-break a mile from
+the reservoir; her gaze then traced the crest of the Galenas, resting
+finally upon that clump of pines high up on the point that was so clearly
+marked against the sky. Once, she laid aside her rod, and slipped the
+creel from her shoulder. But even as she set out, she hesitated and turned
+back; resolutely taking up her fishing-tackle again, as though, angry with
+herself for her state of mind, she was determined to indulge no longer her
+mood of indecision.</p>
+
+<p>But the fishing did not go well. To properly cast a trout-fly, one's
+thoughts must be upon the art. A preoccupied mind and wandering attention
+tends to a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of aggravating
+complications. Sibyl--usually so skillful at this most delicate of
+sports--was as inaccurate and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The
+many pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek held for her, now,
+memories more attractive, by far, than the wary trout they sheltered. The
+familiar spots she had known since childhood were haunted by a something
+that made them seem new and strange.</p>
+
+<p>At last,--thoroughly angry with her inability to control her mood, and
+half ashamed of the thoughts that forced themselves so insistently upon
+her; with her nerves and muscles craving the action that would bring the
+relief of physical weariness,--she determined to leave the more familiar
+ground, for the higher and less frequented waters of Fern Creek. Climbing
+out of the canyon, by the steep, almost stair-like trail on the San
+Bernardino side, she walked hard and fast to reach Lone Cabin by noon.
+But, before she had finished her lunch, she decided not to fish there,
+after all; but to go on, over the still harder trail to Burnt Pine on
+Laurel Creek, and, returning to the lower canyon by the Laurel trail, to
+work down Clear Creek on the way to her home, in the late afternoon and
+twilight.</p>
+
+<p>The trail up the almost precipitous wall of the gorge at Lone Cabin, and
+over the mountain spur to Laurel Creek, is one that calls for a clear head
+and a sure foot. It is not a path for the city bred to essay, save with
+the ready arm of a guide. But the hill-trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s gloried in the task. The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed the
+climb from which her city sisters would have drawn back in trembling fear.</p>
+
+<p>Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height to the top, she halted.
+Her ear had caught a slight noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled
+down the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded from the trail
+where she stood, into the depths below. For a few minutes, the girl, on
+the little, shelf-like path that was scarcely wider than the span of her
+two hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff itself; while,
+with her face turned upward, she searched with keen eyes the rim of the
+gorge; her free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver at her
+hip. Then she went on--not timidly, but neither carelessly; not in the
+least frightened, but still,--knowing that the spot was far from the more
+frequented paths,--with experienced care.</p>
+
+<p>As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she paused again, to search
+with careful eyes the vicinity of the trail that from this point leads for
+a little way down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by easier
+stages, around the shoulder and the flank of the mountain, to Burnt Pine
+Camp. When no living object met her eye, and she could hear no sound save
+the lonely wind in the pines and the faint murmur of the stream in the
+gorge below, she took the few steps that yet remained of the climb, and
+seated herself for a moment's well-earned rest. Some small animal, she
+told herself,--a squirrel or a wood-rat, perhaps,--frightened at her
+approach, and scurrying hastily to cover, had dislodged the pebbles with
+the slight noise that she had heard.</p>
+
+<p>From where she sat with her back against the trunk of a great pine, she
+could see--far below, and beyond the immediate spurs and shoulders of the
+range, on the farther side of the gorge out of which she had just
+come--the lower end of Clear Creek canyon, and, miles away, under the
+blue haze of the distance, the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange
+groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way
+back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as
+if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny,
+moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the
+wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort,
+as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were
+to come. Would the friendship born in the hills endure in the world beyond
+the canyon gates? Could it endure away from those scenes that had given it
+birth? Was it possible for a fellowship, established in the free
+atmosphere of the mountains, to live in the lower altitude of Fairlands?
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s,--as she sat there, alone in the hills she loved,--in her
+heart of hearts, answered her own questions, "No." But still she searched
+the years to come--even as her eyes so futilely searched the distant
+landscape beyond the mighty gates that seemed, now, to shut her in from
+that world to which Aaron King was returning.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was aroused from her abstraction by a sound behind her and a
+little to the left of the tree against which she was leaning. In a flash,
+she was on her feet.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge stood a few steps away. He had been approaching her as she
+sat under the tree; but when she sprang to her feet and faced him, he
+halted. Lifting his hat, he greeted her with easy assurance; a confident,
+triumphant smile upon his heavy features.</p>
+
+<p>White-faced and trembling, the mountain girl--who a few moments before,
+had been so unafraid--stood shrinking before this cultured representative
+of the arts. Returning his salutation, she was starting hurriedly away
+down the trail, when he said, "Wait. Why be in such a hurry?"</p>
+
+<p>As if against her will, she paused. "It is growing late," she faltered; "I
+must go."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "I will go with you presently. Don't be afraid." Coming
+forward, with an air of making himself very much at home, he placed his
+rifle against the tree where she had been sitting. Then, as if to calm her
+fears, he continued, "I am camped at Burnt Pine, with a party of friends.
+I was up here looking for deer sign when I noticed you below, at the cabin
+there. I was just starting down to you, when I saw that you were going to
+come up; so I waited. Beautiful spot--this--don't you think?--so out of
+the way, too. Just the place for a quiet little visit."</p>
+
+<p>As the man spoke, he was eyeing her in a way that only served to confuse
+and frighten her the more. Murmuring some inaudible reply, she again
+started to go. But again he said, peremptorily, "Wait." And again, as if
+against her will, she paused. "If you have no scruples about wandering
+over the mountains alone with that artist fellow, I do not see why you
+should hesitate to favor me."</p>
+
+<p>The man's words were, undoubtedly, prompted by what he firmly believed to
+be the nature of the relation between the girl and Aaron King--a belief
+for which he had, to his mind, sufficient evidence. But Sibyl had no
+understanding of his meaning. In the innocence of her pure mind, the
+purport of his words was utterly lost. Her very fear of the man was not a
+reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a nature that had never
+felt the unclean touch of the world in which James Rutlidge habitually
+moved. It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her
+always so embarrassed in the man's presence. It was because she did not
+understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking
+her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in
+which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s. Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her
+relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence;
+he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail
+to understand.</p>
+
+<p>When she <i>did</i> grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
+gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
+expression in scathing words of denunciation.</p>
+
+<p>The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
+there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
+That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
+had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
+scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
+vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
+flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
+passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
+her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
+a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.</p>
+
+<p>But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
+different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
+With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
+careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar. In the blue eyes
+that looked at him, now, over the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no
+uncertainty of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the weapon with such
+ready swiftness, was as steady as though at target practice.
+Instinctively, the man half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield
+his face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he gasped, "put that
+down."</p>
+
+<p>In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that instant, than he had
+ever been before.</p>
+
+<p>Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still uplifted, he said again,
+"Put it down, I tell you. Don't you see I'm not going to touch you? You
+are crazy. You might kill me."</p>
+
+<p>Her words came cold and collected, expressing, together with her calm
+manner, perfect self-possession "If you can give any good reason why I
+should not kill you, I will let you go."</p>
+
+<p>The man was carefully drawing backward toward the tree against which he
+had placed his rifle.</p>
+
+<p>She watched him, with a disconcerting smile. "You may as well stop now,"
+she said, in those even, composed tones. "I shall fire, the moment you are
+within reach of your gun."</p>
+
+<p>He halted with a gesture of despair; his face livid with fear at her
+apparent indecision as to his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she spoke again. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill
+you--unless you force me to--which I assure you will not be at all
+difficult for you to do. Move down the trail until I tell you to stop."
+She indicated the direction, along the ridge of the mountain spur.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," she said, when he was some twenty paces away.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, turning to face her again.</p>
+
+<p>Picking up his Winchester, she skillfully and rapidly threw all of the
+shells out of the magazine. Then, covering him again with her own weapon,
+she went a few steps closer and threw the empty rifle at his feet. "Now,"
+she said, "put that gun over your left shoulder, and go on ahead of me
+down the trail. If you try to dodge or run, or if you change the position
+of your rifle, I'll kill you."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to take you down to your camp at Burnt Pine."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge, pale with rage and shame, stood still. "You may as well
+kill me," he said. "I will never go into camp, this way."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy," she returned. "I am no more anxious for the world to
+know of this, than you are. Do as I say. When we come within sight of your
+camp, or if we meet any one, I will put up my gun and we will go on
+together. That's why I am permitting you to carry your rifle."</p>
+
+<p>So they went down the mountainside--the man with his empty rifle over his
+shoulder; the girl following, a few paces in the rear, with ready weapon.</p>
+
+<p>When they had come within sight of the camp, James Rutlidge said, "There's
+some one there."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," returned Sibyl, slipping her gun in its holster and stepping
+forward beside her companion. And there was a note of glad relief in her
+voice, for it was Brian Oakley who was bending over the camp-fire "Come,"
+she continued to her companion, "and act as though nothing had happened."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger, on his way down from somewhere in the vicinity of San
+Gorgonio, had stopped at the hunters' camp for a belated dinner. Finding
+no one at home, he had started a fire, and had helped himself to coffee
+and bacon. He was just concluding his appropriated meal, when Sibyl and
+James Rutlidge arrived.</p>
+
+<p>In a few words, the girl explained to her friend, that she was on her way
+over the trail from Lone Cabin, and had accidentally met Mr. Rutlidge who
+had accompanied her as far as the camp. James Rutlidge had little to say
+beyond assuring the Ranger of his welcome; and very soon, the officer and
+the girl set out on their way down the Laurel trail to Clear Creek canyon.
+As they went, Sibyl's old friend asked not a few questions about her
+meeting with James Rutlidge; but the girl, walking ahead in the narrow
+trail, evaded him, and was glad that he could not see her face.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl had spoken the literal truth when she said to Rutlidge, that she did
+not want any one to know of the incident. She felt ashamed and humiliated
+at the thought of telling even her father's old comrade and friend. She
+knew Brian Oakley too well to have any doubts as to what would happen if
+he knew how the man had approached her, and she shrank from the inevitable
+outcome. She wished only to forget the whole affair, and, as quickly as
+possible, turned the conversation into other and safer channels.</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger could not stop at the house with her, but must go on down the
+canyon, to the Station. So the girl returned to Myra Willard, alone; and,
+to the woman's surprise, for the second time, with an empty creel.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl explained her failure to bring home a catch of trout, with the
+simple statement that she had not fished; and then--to her companion's
+amazement--burst into tears; begging to return at once to their little
+home in Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard thought that she understood, better than the girl herself,
+why, for the first time in her life, Sibyl wished to leave the mountains.
+Perhaps the woman with the disfigured face was right.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch25" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>On the Pipe-Line Trail</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+James Rutlidge spent the day following his experience with Sibyl Andr&eacute;s,
+in camp. His companions very quickly felt his sullen, ugly mood, and left
+him to his own thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The manner in which Sibyl received his advances had in no way changed the
+man's mind as to the nature of her relation to Aaron King. To one of James
+Rutlidge's type,--schooled in the intellectual moral and esthetic tenets
+of his class,--it was impossible to think of the companionship of the
+artist and the girl in any other light. If he had even considered the
+possibility of a clean, pure comradeship existing between them--under all
+the circumstances of their friendship as he had seen them in the studio,
+on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's camp--he would have answered
+himself that Aaron King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage
+of his opportunities. The humiliation of his pride, and his rage at being
+so ignominiously checked by the girl whom he had so long endeavored to
+win, served only to increase his desire for her. Sibyl's resolute spirit,
+and vigorous beauty, when aroused by him, together with her unexpected
+opposition to his advances, were as fuel to the flame of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not improve his temper;
+and the next morning his friends were relieved to see him setting out
+alone, with rifle and field-glass and lunch. Ostensibly starting in the
+direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he doubled back, as soon as he
+was out of sight of camp, and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek
+canyon.</p>
+
+<p>It could not be said that the man had any definite purpose in mind. He was
+simply yielding in a purposeless way to his mood, which, for the time
+being, could find no other expression. The remote chance that some
+opportunity looking toward his desire might present itself, led him to
+seek the scenes where such an opportunity would be most likely to occur.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the canyon above the Company Headwork he came into the pipe-line
+trail at a point a little back from the main wagon road and, an hour
+later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the Government trail leads
+down into the canyon below, and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had
+committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus. Here he left the trail,
+and climbed to a point on a spur of the mountain, from which he could see
+the path for some distance on either side and below, and from which his
+view of the narrow valley was unobstructed. Comfortably seated, with his
+back against a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon the
+little spot of open green--marked by the giant sycamores, the dark line of
+cedars, and the half hidden house--where he knew that Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and
+Myra Willard were living.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon the scene that so
+interested him, than he uttered a low exclamation. The two women,
+surrounded by their luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the porch
+with Brian Oakley; waiting, evidently, for the wagon that was crossing the
+creek toward the house. It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the woman with the disfigured face were returning to
+Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, James Rutlidge sat watching, with absorbing interest, the
+unconscious people in the canyon below. Once, he turned for a brief glance
+at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, farther down the creek.
+The camp of Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there. Quickly he
+fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her friends. Presently,--as one will
+when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,--he lowered his
+hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in
+the landscape before him. At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on
+the near-by trail below. It was a pitiful figure--ill-kempt ragged,
+half-starved, haggard-faced.</p>
+
+<p>Creeping feebly along the lonely little path--without seeing the man on
+the mountainside above--crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful
+air--the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the
+trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.</p>
+
+<p>As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher on the rocks above
+involuntarily glanced toward the distant Forest Ranger; then back to
+the--as he rightly guessed--escaped convict.</p>
+
+<p>There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of a man like James Rutlidge
+when, however bad or dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels
+strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to help. Undoubtedly,
+James Rutlidge inherited from his father those tendencies that made him
+easily ruled by his baser passions. His character was as truly the
+legitimate product of the age, of the social environment, and of the
+thought that accepts such characters. What he might have been if better
+born, or if schooled in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual integrity,
+is an idle speculation. He was what his inheritance and his life had made
+him. He was not without impulses for good. The pitiful, hunted creature,
+creeping so wearily along the trail, awoke in this man of the accepted
+culture of his day a feeling of compassion, and aroused in him a desire to
+offer assistance. For the legal aspect of the case, James Rutlidge had all
+the indifference of his kind, who imbibe contempt for law with their
+mother's milk. For the moment he hesitated. Then, as the figure below
+passed from his sight, under the point of the spur, he slipped quietly
+down the mountainside, and, a few minutes later, met the convict face to
+face.</p>
+
+<p>At the leveled rifle and the sharp command, "Hands up," the poor fellow
+halted with a gesture of tragic despair. An instant they stood; then the
+hunted one turned impulsively toward the canyon that, here, lies almost a
+sheer thousand feet below.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge spoke sharply. "Don't do that. I'm not an officer. I want
+to help you."</p>
+
+<p>The convict turned his hunted, fearful, starving face in doubtful
+bewilderment toward the speaker.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the gun continued, "I got the drop on you to prevent
+accidents--until I could explain--that's all." He lowered the rifle.</p>
+
+<p>The other went a staggering step forward. "You mean that?" he said in a
+harsh, incredulous whisper. "You--you're not playing with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I want to play with you?" returned the other, kindly. "Come,
+let's get off the trail. I have something to eat, up there." He led the
+way back to the place where he had left his lunch.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping down upon the ground, the starving man seized the offered food
+with an animal-like cry; feeding noisily, with the manner of a famished
+beast. The other watched with mingled pity and disgust.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, in stammering, halting phrases, but in words that showed no
+lack of education, the wretched creature attempted to apologize for his
+unseemly eagerness, and endeavored to thank his benefactor. "I suppose,
+sir, there is no use trying to deny my identity," he said, when James
+Rutlidge had again assured him of his kindly interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," agreed the other, "and, so far as I am concerned, there is
+no reason why you should."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what do you mean by that, sir?" questioned the convict.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I am not an officer and have no reason in the world for
+turning you over to them. I saw you coming along the trail down there
+and, of course, could not help noticing your condition and guessing who
+you were. To me, you are simply a poor devil who has gotten into a tight
+hole, and I want to help you out a bit, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward the canyon below, as he
+answered, "I thank you, sir, but it would have been better if you had not.
+Your help has only put the end off for a few hours. They've got me shut
+in. I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get
+out. I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There
+was no mistaking his desperate purpose.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail
+and the rocky depth below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he
+said invitingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but
+I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late."</p>
+
+<p>While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly. As he had
+been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary
+assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more
+lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great
+a risk to his own convenience. The convict's hopeless condition, his
+despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all
+combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him. But while that truly
+benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister
+motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James
+Rutlidge's nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his
+by inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that
+had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could
+watch Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.
+Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to
+a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation
+where a man like the one before him--wholly in his power as this man would
+be--might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose--the purpose that
+had brought about their meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I suppose the most of us
+are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get
+it. One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our
+wrong-doing. What if I should help you out--make it possible for you to
+live like other men who are safe from the law? What would you do if I were
+to help you to your freedom?"</p>
+
+<p>The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the
+sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?" asked Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water. I
+could live there a year if I had supplies."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge considered. "I've got it!" he said at last. "Listen! There
+must be some peak, at the Cold Water end of this range, from which you can
+see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the other answered eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued Rutlidge, "there is a good 'auto' road up the Galena
+Valley. One could get, I should think, to a point within--say nine hours
+of your camp. Do you know anything about the heliograph?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the man, his face brightening. "That is, I understand the
+general principle--that it's a method of signaling by mirror flashes."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! This is my plan. I will meet you to-morrow on the Laurel Creek
+trail, where it turns off from the creek toward San Gorgonio. You know the
+spot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on the divide between this
+canyon and the Cold Water, to some peak in the Galenas from which we can
+see Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can pick out some point
+at the upper end of Galena Valley, that we can both find later."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a night trip in the 'auto' to
+that point, with supplies. You will meet me there. The day before I make
+the trip, I'll signal you by mirror flashes that I am coming; and you will
+answer from the peak. We'll agree on the time of day and the signals
+to-morrow. When you have kept close, long enough for your beard and hair
+to grow out well, everybody will have given you up for dead or gone. Then
+I will take you down and give you a job in an orange grove. There's a
+little house there where you can live. You won't need to show yourself
+down-town and, in time, you will be forgotten. I'll bring you enough food
+to-morrow to last you until I can return to town and can get back on the
+first night trip."</p>
+
+<p>The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes later, after trying brokenly
+to express his gratitude, was a creature very different from the poor,
+frightened hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rutlidge had halted
+an hour before. What that man was to become, would depend almost wholly
+upon his benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again took up his field-glass. The
+old home of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s was deserted. While he had been talking with the
+convict, the girl and Myra Willard had started on their way back to
+Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the man slipped the glass
+into its case, and, with a long, slow look over the scene, set out on his
+way to rejoin his friends.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch26" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>I Want You Just as You Are</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The evening of that day after their return from the mountains, when Conrad
+Lagrange had found Aaron King so absorbed in his mother's letters, the
+artist continued in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The next morning, it
+was the same. Refusing every attempt of his friend to engage him in
+conversation, he answered only with absent-minded mono-syllables; until
+the novelist, declaring that the painter was fit company for neither beast
+nor man, left him alone; and went off somewhere with Czar.</p>
+
+<p>The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon in his studio, doing
+nothing of importance. That is, to a casual observer he would have
+<i>seemed</i> to be doing nothing of importance. He did, however, place his
+picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. Taine, and then,
+for an hour or more, sat considering the two paintings. Then he turned the
+"Quaker Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in place on the
+easel. That was all.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned to the
+studio--hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged his palette, paints, and
+brushes ready to his hand, indeed--but he, then, did nothing with them.
+Listlessly, without interest, he turned through his portfolios of
+sketches. Often, he looked away through the big, north window to the
+distant mountain tops. Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting
+before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, clear and sweet, from
+the depths of the orange grove, came the pure tones of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s'
+violin.</p>
+
+<p>So soft and low was the music, at first, that the artist almost doubted
+that it was real, thinking--as he had thought that day when Sibyl came
+singing to the glade--that it was his fancy tricking him. When he and
+Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three days before, the girl and her
+companion had not expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks.
+But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. As the tones grew
+louder and more insistent, with a ringing note of gladness, he knew that
+the mountain girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language she
+loved best, was greeting her friends.</p>
+
+<p>But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that Aaron King gave the
+novelist no share in their neighbor's musical greeting. He received the
+message as if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes
+brightened; he stood erect, his face turned upward toward the mountain
+peaks in the distance; his lips curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he
+could see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment as she played,
+knowing his surprise. Once, he started impulsively toward the door, but
+paused, hesitating, and turned back. When the music ceased, he went to the
+open window that looked out into the rose garden, and watched expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she came through the orange
+grove beyond the Ragged Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at
+the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full view.</p>
+
+<p>The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft
+brown,--made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,--with felt hat
+to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was dressed, now,
+as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was
+hiding from Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little back, with a
+low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder. Was that lovely creature
+there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills? The Sibyl Andr&eacute;s he
+had known--in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb--was a
+winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall,
+and beautifully developed woman.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and
+there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting;
+singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that
+enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of
+the wind that caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she
+belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and
+oaks of the mountains. The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood
+as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.</p>
+
+<p>Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture
+of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. "Hold the pose--please
+hold it! I want you just as you are!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his
+welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the
+polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did
+everything, gave herself to his mood.</p>
+
+<p>Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it across the studio, he
+cried out, again, "Don't move, please don't move!" and began working. He
+was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into
+the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was
+expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.
+"If I can get it! If I can only get it!" he exclaimed again and again,
+with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.</p>
+
+<p>All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all
+his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without
+conscious effort--obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful
+straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and
+harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so
+surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, as he was
+unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil,
+as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the
+roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s came singing through the
+orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands
+outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting
+before his easel, palette and brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had
+worked that first day--with no thought for anything save for his picture.</p>
+
+<p>In the mornings, he walked with Conrad Lagrange or, sometimes, worked with
+Sibyl in the garden. Often, in the evening, the two men would visit the
+little house next door. Occasionally, the girl and the woman with the
+disfigured face would come to sit for a while on the front porch with
+their friends. Thus the neighborly friendship that began in the hills was
+continued in the orange groves. The comradeship between the two young
+people grew stronger, hour by hour, as the painter worked at his easel to
+express with canvas and color and brush the spirit of the girl whose
+character and life was so unmarred by the world.</p>
+
+<p>A11 through those days, when he was so absorbed in his work that he often
+failed to reply when she spoke to him, the girl manifested a helpful
+understanding of his mood that caused the painter to marvel. She seemed to
+know, instinctively, when he was baffled or perplexed by the annoying
+devils of "can't-get-at-it," that so delight to torment artist folk; just
+as she knew and rejoiced when the imps were routed and the soul of the man
+exulted with the sureness and freedom of his hand. He asked her, once,
+when they had finished for the day, how it was that she knew so well how
+the work was progressing, when she could not see the picture.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "But I can see <i>you</i>; and I"--she hesitated with that
+trick, that he was learning to know so well, of searching for a word--"I
+just <i>feel</i> what you are feeling. I suppose it's because my music is that
+way. Sometimes, it simply won't come right, at all, and I feel as though I
+never <i>could</i> do it. Then, again, it seems to do itself; and I listen and
+wonder--just as if I had nothing to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>So that day came when the artist, drawing slowly back from his easel,
+stood so long gazing at his picture without touching it that the girl
+called to him, "What's the matter? Won't it come right?"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he laid aside his palette and brushes. Standing at the open window,
+he looked at her--smiling but silent--as she held the pose.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I not right?" she asked
+anxiously. Then, before he could answer--"Oh, have you finished? Is it all
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have done all that I can do.
+Come."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, she stood in the studio door.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."</p>
+
+<p>"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."</p>
+
+<p>The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned
+curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have
+never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or
+condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be
+so modern."</p>
+
+<p>"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your
+work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just
+as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's the reason. I--I'm afraid to see myself as you see me."</p>
+
+<p>The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he answered seriously, "Miss
+Andr&eacute;s, you, of all the people I have ever known, have the least cause to
+fear to look at your portrait for <i>that</i> reason. Come."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side before the picture.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, she looked at the beautiful work into which Aaron King had
+put the best of himself and of his genius. At last, turning full upon him,
+her eyes blue and shining, she said in a low tone, "O Mr. King, it is
+too--too--beautiful! It is so beautiful it--it--hurts. She seems to,
+to"--she searched for the word--"to belong to the roses, doesn't she? It
+makes you feel just as the rose garden makes you feel."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed with pleasure, "What a child of nature you are! You have
+forgotten that it is a portrait of yourself, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with him. "I <i>had</i> forgotten. It's so lovely!" Then she added
+wistfully, "Am I--am I really like that?--just a little?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered. "But that is just a little, a very little, like you."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him half doubtfully--sincerely unmindful of the compliment,
+in her consideration of its truth. Shaking her head, with a serious smile,
+she returned slowly, "I wish that I could be sure you are not mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"You will permit me to exhibit the picture, will you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes! of course! You made it for people to see, didn't you? I don't
+believe any one could look at it seriously without having good thoughts,
+could they?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure they could not," he answered. "But, you see, it's a portrait of
+you; and I thought you might not care for the--ah--" he finished with a
+smile--"shall I say fame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I did not think that you would tell any one that <i>I</i> had anything to
+do with it. Is it necessary that my name should be mentioned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly necessary"--he admitted--"but few women, these days, would
+miss the opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, with a positive air. "No, no; you must exhibit it as a
+picture; not as a portrait of me. The portrait part is of no importance.
+It is what you have made your picture say, that will do good."</p>
+
+<p>"And what have I made it say?" he asked, curiously pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"Why it says that--that a woman should be beautiful as the roses are
+beautiful--without thinking too much about it, you know--just as a man
+should be strong without thinking too much about his strength, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he agreed, "it says that. But I want you to know that, whatever
+title it is exhibited under, it will always be, to me, a portrait--the
+truest I have ever painted."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed with genuine pleasure as she said brightly, "I like you for
+that. And now let's try it on Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard. You get
+him, and I'll run and bring her. Mind you don't let Mr. Lagrange in until
+I get back! I want to watch him when he first sees it."</p>
+
+<p>When the artist found Conrad Lagrange and told him that the picture was
+finished, the novelist, without comment, turned his attention to Czar.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, with an amused smile, asked, "Won't you come for a look at
+it, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>The other returned gruffly, "Thanks; but I don't think I care to risk it."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "But Miss Andr&eacute;s wants you to come. She sent me to
+fetch you."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange turned his peculiar, baffling eyes upon the young man.
+"Does <i>she</i> like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"She seems to."</p>
+
+<p>"If she <i>seems</i> to, she does," retorted the other, rising. "And that's
+different."</p>
+
+<p>When the novelist, with his three friends, stood before the easel, he was
+silent for so long that the girl said anxiously, "I--I thought you would
+like it, Mr. Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>They saw the strange man's eyes fill with tears as he answered, in the
+gentle tones that always marked his words to her, "Like it? My dear child,
+how could I help liking it? It is you--you!" To the artist, he added, "It
+is great work, my boy, great! I--I wish your mother could have seen it. It
+is like her--as I knew her. You have done well." He turned, with gentle
+courtesy, to Myra Willard; "And you? What is your verdict, Miss Willard?"</p>
+
+<p>With her arm around the beautiful original of the portrait, the woman with
+the disfigured face answered, "I think, sir, that I, better than any one
+in all the world, know how good, how true, it is."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange spoke again to the artist, inquiringly; "You will exhibit
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Andr&eacute;s says that I may--but not as a portrait."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist could not conceal his pleasure at the answer. Presently, he
+said, "If it is not to be shown as a portrait, may I suggest a title?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was hoping you would!" exclaimed the painter.</p>
+
+<p>"And so was I," cried Sibyl, with delight. "What is it, Mr. Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let it be exhibited as 'The Spirit of Nature--A Portrait'," answered
+Conrad Lagrange.</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist finished speaking, Yee Kee appeared in the doorway. "They
+come--big automobile. Whole lot people. Misse Taine, Miste' Lutlidge, sick
+man, whole lot--I come tell you."</p>
+
+<p>The artist spoke quickly,--"Stop them in the house, Kee; I'll be right
+in,"--and the Chinaman vanished.</p>
+
+<p>At Yee Kee's announcement, Myra Willard's face went white, and she gave a
+low cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, dear," said the girl, soothingly. "We can slip away through
+the garden--come."</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl and the woman with the disfigured face were gone, Conrad
+Lagrange and Aaron King looked at each other, questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>Then the novelist said harshly,--pointing to the picture on the
+easel,--"You're not going to let that flock of buzzards feed on this, are
+you? I'll murder some one, sure as hell, if you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I could stand it, myself," said the artist, laughing
+grimly, as he drew the velvet curtain to hide the portrait.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch27" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Answer</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange entered the house to meet their
+callers from Fairlands Heights, the artist felt, oddly, that he was
+meeting a company of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>The carefully hidden, yet--to him--subtly revealed, warmth of Mrs. Taine's
+greeting embarrassed him with a momentary sense of shame. The frothing
+gush of Louise's inane ejaculations, and the coughing, choking, cursing of
+Mr. Taine,--whose feeble grip upon the flesh that had so betrayed him was,
+by now, so far loosed that he could scarcely walk alone,--set the painter
+struggling for words that would mean nothing--the only words that, under
+the circumstances, could serve. Aaron King was somewhat out of practise in
+the use of meaningless words, and the art of talking without saying
+anything is an art that requires constant exercise if one would not commit
+serious technical blunders. James Rutlidge's greeting was insolently
+familiar; as a man of certain mind greets--in public--a boon companion of
+his private and unmentionable adventures. Toward the great critic, the
+painter exercised a cool self-restraint that was at least commendable.</p>
+
+<p>While Aaron King, with James Rutlidge and Mr. Taine, with carefully
+assumed interest, was listening to Louise's effort to make a jumble of
+"ohs" and "ahs" and artistic sighs sound like a description of a sunset in
+the mountains, Mrs. Taine said quietly to Conrad Lagrange, "You certainly
+have taken excellent care of your protege, this summer. He looks
+splendidly fit."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, watching the woman whose eyes, as she spoke, were upon the
+artist, answered, "You are pleased to flatter me, Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to him, with a knowing smile. "Perhaps I <i>am</i> giving you more
+credit than is due. I understand Mr. King has not been in your care
+altogether. Shame on you, Mr. Lagrange! for a man of your age and
+experience to permit your charge to roam all over the country, alone and
+unprotected, with a picturesque mountain girl!--and that, after your
+warning to poor me!"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange smiled grimly. "I confess I thought of you in that
+connection several times."</p>
+
+<p>She eyed him doubtfully. "Oh, well," she said easily, "I suppose artists
+must amuse themselves, occasionally--the same as the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that, '<i>amuse</i>' is exactly the word, Mrs. Taine," the other
+returned coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? Surely you don't meant to tell me that it is anything serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean to tell you anything about it," he retorted rather sharply.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "You don't need to. Jim has already told me quite enough. Mr.
+King, himself, will tell me more."</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless he's a bigger fool than I think," growled the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she laughed into his face, mockingly. "You men are all more or less
+foolish when there's a woman in the case, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>To which, the other answered tartly, "If we were not, there would be no
+woman in the case."</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad Lagrange spoke, Louise, exhausted by her efforts to achieve that
+sunset in the mountains with her limited supply of adjectives, floundered
+hopelessly into the expressive silence of clasped hands and heaving breast
+and ecstatically upturned eyes. The artist, seizing the opportunity with
+the cunning of desperation, turned to Mrs. Taine, with some inane remark
+about the summers in California.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever it was that he said, Mrs. Taine agreed with him, heartily,
+adding, "And you, I suppose, have been making good use of your time? Or
+have you been simply storing up material and energy for this winter?"</p>
+
+<p>This brought Louise out of the depths of that sunset, with a flop. She was
+so sure that Mr. King had some inexpressibly wonderful work to show them.
+Couldn't they go at once to the equally inexpressibly beautiful studio, to
+see the inexpressibly lovely pictures that she was so inexpressibly sure
+he had been painting in the inexpressibly grand and beautiful and
+wonderfully lovely mountains?</p>
+
+<p>The painter assured them that he had no work for them to see; and Louise
+floundered again into the depths of inexpressible disappointment and
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Aaron King found himself in his
+studio, alone with Mrs. Taine. He could not have told exactly how she
+managed it, or why. Perhaps, in sheer pity, she had rescued him from the
+floods of Louise's appreciation. Perhaps--she had some other reasons.
+There had been something said about her right to see her own picture, and
+then--there they were--with the others safely barred from intruding upon
+the premises sacred to art.</p>
+
+<p>When there was no longer need to fear the eyes of the world, Mrs. Taine
+was at no pains to hide the warmth of her feeling. With little reserve,
+she confessed herself in every look and tone and movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really glad to see me, I wonder," she said invitingly. "All this
+summer, while I have been forced to endure the company of all sorts of
+stupid people, I have been thinking of you and your work. And, you see, I
+have come to you, the first possible moment after my return home."</p>
+
+<p>The man--being a man--could not remain wholly insensible to the alluring
+physical beauty of the splendid creature who stood so temptingly before
+him; but, to the honor of his kind, he could and did remain master of
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, true to her life training,--as James Rutlidge had been true to
+his schooling when he approached Sibyl Andr&eacute;s in the mountains,--construed
+the artist's manner, not as a splendid self-control but as a careful
+policy. To her, and to her kind, the great issues of life are governed,
+not at all by principle, but by policy. It is not at all what one is, or
+what one may accomplish that matters; it is wholly what one may skillfully
+<i>appear</i> to be, and what one may skillfully provoke the world to say,
+that is of vital importance. Turning from the painter to the easel, as if
+to find in his portrait of her the fuller expression of that which she
+believed he dared not yet put into words, she was about to draw aside the
+curtain; when Aaron King checked her quickly, with a smile that robbed his
+words of any rudeness.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't touch that, Mrs. Taine. I am not yet ready to show it."</p>
+
+<p>As she turned from the easel to face him, he took her portrait from where
+it rested, face to the wall; and placed it upon another easel, saying,
+"Here is your picture."</p>
+
+<p>With the painting before her, she talked eagerly of her plans for the
+artist's future; how the picture was to be exhibited, and how, because it
+was her portrait, it would be praised and talked about by her friends who
+were leaders in the art circles. Frankly, she spoke of "pull" and
+"influence" and "scheme"; of "working" this and that "paper" for
+"write-ups"; of "handling" this or that "critic" and "writer"; of
+"reaching the committees"; of introducing the painter into the proper
+inside cliques, and clans; and of clever "advertising stunts" that would
+make him the most popular portrait painter of his day; insuring thus
+his--as she called it--fame.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had painted the picture of the spring glade, and who had so
+faithfully portrayed the truth and beauty of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s as she stood
+among the roses, listened to this woman's plans for making his portrait of
+herself famous, with a feeling of embarrassment and shame.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think that the work merits such prominence as you say will
+be given it?" he asked doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed knowingly, "Just wait until Jim Rutlidge's 'write-up' appears,
+and all the others follow his lead, and you'll see! The picture is clever
+enough--you know it as well as I. It is beautiful. It has everything that
+we women want in a portrait. I really don't know much about what you
+painters call art; but I know that when Jim and our friends get through
+with it, your picture will have every mark of a great masterpiece, and
+that you will be on the topmost wave of success."</p>
+
+<p>"And then what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she interpreted his words in the light of her own thoughts, and
+with little attempt to veil the fire that burned in her eyes, answered,
+"And then--I hope that you will not forget me."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he returned her look; then a feeling of disgust and shame for
+her swept over him, and he again turned away, to stand gazing moodily out
+of the window that looked into the rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to be disturbed and worried," she said, in a tone that implied a
+complete understanding of his mood, and a tacit acceptance of the things
+that he would say if it were not for the world.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed shortly--"I fear you will think me ungrateful for your
+kindness. Believe me, I am not."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are not," she returned. "But don't think that you had better
+confess, just the same?"</p>
+
+<p>He answered wonderingly, "Confess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She shook her finger at him, in playful severity. "Oh, I know what
+you have been up to all summer--running wild with your mountain girl!
+Really, you ought to be more discreet."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's face burned as he stammered something about not knowing what
+she meant.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily. "There, there, never mind--I forgive you--now that you
+are safely back in civilization again. I know you artists, and how you
+must have your periods of ah--relaxation--with rather more liberties than
+the common herd. Just so you are careful that the world doesn't know <i>too</i>
+much."</p>
+
+<p>At this frank revelation of her mind, the man stood amazed. For the
+construction she put upon his relation with the girl whose pure and gentle
+comradeship had led him to greater heights in his art than he had ever
+before attained, he could have driven this woman from the studio he felt
+that she profaned. But what could he say? He remembered Conrad Lagrange's
+counsel when James Rutlidge had seen the girl at their camp. What could he
+say that would not injure Sibyl Andr&eacute;s? To cover his embarrassment, he
+forced a laugh and answered lightly, "Really, I am not good at
+confessions."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I at playing the part of confessor," she laughed with him. "But, just
+the same, you might tell me what you think of yourself. Aren't you just a
+little ashamed?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist had moved to a position in front of her portrait; and, as he
+looked upon the painted lie, his answer came. "Rather let me tell you what
+I think of <i>you</i>, Mrs. Taine. And let me tell you in the language I know
+best. Let me put my answer to your charges here," he touched her portrait.</p>
+
+<p>Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange, himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put out by the turn his
+answer had taken.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to repaint your portrait. You
+remember, I wrote, when I returned Mr. Taine's generous check, that I was
+not altogether satisfied with it. Give me another chance."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean for me to come here again, to pose for you?--as I did before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "just as you did before. I want to make a portrait
+worthy of you, as this is not. Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I
+cannot--" he hesitated then said deliberately--"what I <i>dare</i> not put into
+words."</p>
+
+<p>The woman received his words as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared
+not, yet, openly express. She thought his request a clever ruse to renew
+their meetings in the privacy of his studio, and was, accordingly
+delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that will be wonderful!--heavenly!" she cried, springing to her feet.
+"Can we begin at once? May I come to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "come to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"And may I wear the Quaker gown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed! I want you just as you were before--the same dress, the same
+pose. It is to be the same picture, you understand, only a better one--one
+more worthy of us, both. And now," he continued hurriedly "don't you
+think that we should return to the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," she answered regretfully--lingering.</p>
+
+<p>The artist was already opening the door.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed out, she placed her hand on his arm, and looked up into his
+face admiringly. "What a clever, clever man you are, to think of it! And
+what a story it will make for the papers--when my picture is shown--how
+you were not satisfied with the portrait and refused to let it go--and
+how, after keeping it in your studio for months, you repainted it, to
+satisfy your artistic conscience!"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King smiled.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement in the house that the artist was to repaint Mrs. Taine's
+picture, provoked characteristic comment. Louise effervesced a frothy
+stream of bubbling exclamations. James Rutlidge gave a hearty, "By Jove,
+old man, you have nerve! If you can really improve on that canvas, you are
+a wonder." And Mr. Taine, under the watchful eye of his beautiful wife,
+responded with a husky whisper, "Quite right--my boy--quite right!
+Certainly--by all means--if you feel that way about it--" his consent and
+approval ending in a paroxysm of coughing that left him weak and
+breathless, and nearly eliminated him from the question, altogether.</p>
+
+<p>When the Fairlands Heights party had departed, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,"--he growled harshly, in his most brutal tones,--"what is it? Is
+the dog returning to his vomit?--or is the prodigal turning his back on
+his hogs and his husks?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King smiled as he answered, "I think, rather, it's the case of the
+blind beggar who sat by the roadside, helpless, until a certain Great
+Physician passed that way."</p>
+
+<p>And Conrad Lagrange understood.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch28" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>You're Ruined, My Boy</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+It was no light task to which Aaron King had set his hand. He did not
+doubt what it would cost him. Nor did Conrad Lagrange, as they talked
+together that evening, fail to point out clearly what it would mean to the
+artist, at the very beginning of his career, to fly thus rudely in the
+face of the providence that had chosen to serve him. The world's history
+of art and letters affords too many examples of men who, because they
+refused to pay court to the ruling cliques and circles of their little
+day, had seen the doors of recognition slammed in their faces; and who,
+even as they wrought their great works, had been forced to hear, as they
+toiled, the discordant yelpings of the self-appointed watchdogs of the
+halls of fame. Nor did the artist question the final outcome,--if only his
+work should be found worthy to endure,--for the world's history
+establishes, also, the truth--that he who labors for a higher wage than an
+approving paragraph in the daily paper, may, in spite of the condemnation
+of the pretending rulers, live in the life of his race, long after the
+names to which he refused to bow are lost in the dust of their self-raised
+thrones.</p>
+
+<p>The painter was driven to his course by that self-respect, without which,
+no man can sanely endure his own company; together with that reverence--I
+say it deliberately--that reverence for his art, without which, no worthy
+work is possible. He had come to understand that one may not prostitute
+his genius to the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reaping a
+prostitute's reward. The hideous ruin that Mr. Taine had, in himself,
+wrought by the criminal dissipation of his manhood's strength, and by the
+debasing of his physical appetites and passions, was to Aaron King, now, a
+token of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral ruin that alone can result
+from a debased and depraved dissipation of an artist's creative power. He
+saw clearly, now, that the influence his work must wield upon the lives of
+those who came within its reach, must be identical with the influence of
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, who had so unconsciously opened his eyes to the true mission
+and glory of the arts, and thus had made his decision possible. In that
+hour when Mrs. Taine had revealed herself to him so clearly, following as
+it did so closely his days of work and the final completion of his
+portrait of the girl among the roses, he saw and felt the woman, not as
+one who could help him to the poor rewards of a temporary popularity, but
+as the spirit of an age that threatens the very life of art by seeking to
+destroy the vital truth and purpose of its existence. He felt that in
+painting the portrait of Mrs. Taine--as he had painted it--he had betrayed
+a trust; as truly as had his father who, for purely personal
+aggrandizement, had stolen the material wealth intrusted to him by his
+fellows. The young man understood, now, that, instead of fulfilling the
+purpose of his mother's sacrifice, and realizing for her her dying wish,
+as he had promised; the course he had entered upon would have thwarted the
+one and denied the other.</p>
+
+<p>The young man had answered the novelist truly, that it was a case of the
+blind beggar by the wayside. He might have carried the figure farther; for
+that same blind beggar, when his eyes had been opened, was persecuted by
+the very ones who had fed him in his infirmity. It is easier, sometimes,
+to receive blindly, than to give with eyes that see too clearly.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine went to the artist, in the studio, the next day, she found
+him in the act of re-tying the package of his mother's letters. For nearly
+an hour, he had been reading them. For nearly an hour before that, he had
+been seated, motionless, before the picture that Conrad Lagrange had said
+was a portrait of the Spirit of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine had slipped off her wrap, and stood before him gowned in
+the dress that so revealed the fleshly charms it pretended to hide, she
+indicated the letters in the artist's hands, with an insinuating laugh;
+while there was a glint of more than passing curiosity in her eyes. "Dear
+me," she said, "I hope I am not intruding upon the claims of some absent
+affinity."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King gravely held out his hand with the package of letters, saying
+quietly, "They are from my mother."</p>
+
+<p>And the woman had sufficient grace to blush, for once, with unfeigned
+shame.</p>
+
+<p>When he had received her apologies, and, putting aside the letters, had
+succeeded in making her forget the incident, he said, "And now, if you are
+ready, shall we begin?"</p>
+
+<p>For some time the painter stood before the picture on his easel, without
+touching palette or brush, studying the face of the woman who posed for
+him. By a slight movement of her eyes, without turning her head, she could
+look him fairly in the face. Presently as he continued to gaze at her so
+intently, she laughed; and, with a little shrug of her shoulders and a
+pretense as of being cold, said, "When you look at me that way, I feel as
+though you had surprised me at my bath."</p>
+
+<p>The artist turned his attention instantly to his color-box. While setting
+his palette, with his eyes upon his task, he said deliberately, "'Venus
+Surprised at the Bath.' Do you know that you would make a lovely Venus?"</p>
+
+<p>With a low laugh, she returned, daringly. "Would you care to paint me as
+the Goddess of Love?"</p>
+
+<p>He, still, did not look at her; but answered, while, with deliberate care,
+he selected a few brushes from the Chinese jar near the easel, "Venus is
+always a very popular subject, you know."</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak for a moment or two; and the painter felt her watching
+him. As he turned to his canvas--still careful not to look in her
+direction--she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change the face so
+that no one would know it was I who posed."</p>
+
+<p>The man remembered her carefully acquired reputation for modesty, but held
+to his purpose, saying, as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as
+for that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." Then, suddenly,
+he turned his eyes upon her face, with a gaze so sharp and piercing that
+the blood slowly colored neck and cheek.</p>
+
+<p>But the painter did not wait for the blush. He had seen what he wanted and
+was at work--with the almost savage intensity that had marked his manner
+while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the portrait of the woman who
+Conrad Lagrange fancifully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to
+betray her real self--the self that was so commonly hidden from the world,
+under the mask of a pretended culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent
+refinement. He led her to talk of the world in which she lived--of the
+scandals and intrigues among those of her class who hold such enviable
+positions in life. He drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and
+religions of her kind. He encouraged her to talk of art--to give her
+understanding of the world of artists as she knew it, and to express her
+real opinions and tastes in pictures and books. He persuaded her to throw
+boldly aside the glittering, tinsel garb in which she walked before the
+world, and so to stand before him in all the hideous vulgarity, the
+intellectual poverty and the moral depravity of her naked self.</p>
+
+<p>At times, when, under his intense gaze, she drew the cloak of her
+pretenses hurriedly about her, he sat before his picture without touching
+the canvas, waiting; or, perhaps, he paced the floor; until, with
+skillful words, her fears were banished and she was again herself. Then,
+with quick eye and sure, ready hand, he wrought into the portrait upon the
+easel--so far as the power was given him--all that he saw in the face of
+the woman who--posing for him, secure in the belief that he was painting a
+lie--revealed her true nature, warped and distorted as it was by an age
+that, demanding realism in art, knows not what it demands. Always, when
+the sitting was finished, he drew the curtain to hide the picture;
+forbidding her to look at it until he said that it was finished.</p>
+
+<p>Much of the time, when he was not in the studio at work, the painter spent
+with Mrs. Taine and her friends, in the big touring car, and at the house
+on Fairlands Heights. But the artist did not, now, enter into the life of
+Fairlands' Pride for gain or for pleasure--he went for study--as a
+physician goes into the dissecting room. He justified himself by the old
+and familiar argument that it was for his art's sake.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, he seldom saw, except occasionally, in the early morning, in
+the rose garden. The girl knew what he was doing--that is, she knew that
+he was painting a portrait of Mrs. Taine--and so, with Myra Willard,
+avoided the place. But Conrad Lagrange now, made the neighboring house in
+the orange grove his place of refuge from Louise Taine, who always
+accompanied Mrs. Taine,--lest the world should talk,--but who never went
+as far as the studio.</p>
+
+<p>But often, as he worked, the artist heard the music of the mountain girl's
+violin; and he knew that she, in her own beautiful way, was trying to help
+him--as she would have said--to put the mountains into his work. Many
+times, he was conscious of the feeling that some one was watching him.
+Once, pausing at the garden end of the studio as he paced to and fro, he
+caught a glimpse of her as she slipped through the gate in the Ragged
+Robin hedge. And once, in the morning, after one of those afternoons when
+he had gone away with Mrs. Taine at the conclusion of the sitting, he
+found a note pinned to the velvet curtain that hid the canvas on his
+working easel. It was a quaint little missive; written in one of the
+girl's fanciful moods, with a reference to "Blue Beard," and the assurance
+that she had been strong and had not looked at the forbidden picture.</p>
+
+<p>As the work progressed, Mrs. Taine remarked, often, how the artist was
+changed. When painting that first picture, he had been so sure of himself.
+Working with careless ease, he had been suave and pleasant in his manner,
+with ready smile or laugh. Why, she questioned, was he, now, so grave and
+serious? Why did he pause so often, to sit staring at his canvas, or to
+pace the floor? Why did he seem to be so uncertain--to be questioning,
+searching, hesitating? The woman thought that she knew. Rejoicing in her
+fancied victory--all but won--she looked forward to the triumphant moment
+when this splendid man should be swept from his feet by the force of the
+passion she thought she saw him struggling to conceal. Meanwhile she
+tempted him by all the wiles she knew--inviting him with eyes and lips and
+graceful pose and meaning gesture.</p>
+
+<p>And Aaron King, with clear, untroubled eye seeing all; with cool brain
+understanding all; with steady, skillful hand, ruled supremely by his
+purpose, painted that which he saw and understood into his portrait of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>So they came to the last sitting. On the following evening, Mrs. Taine was
+giving a dinner at the house on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was
+to meet some people who would be--as she said--useful to him. Eastern
+people they were; from the accredited center of art and literature;
+members of the inner circle of the elect. They happened to be spending the
+season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to
+advance the painter's interests. It was very fortunate that her portrait
+was to be finished in time for them to see it.</p>
+
+<p>The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would not be necessary for
+her to come to the studio again, the picture was not yet finished, and he
+could not permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign the
+canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"But I may see it?" she asked, as he laid aside his palette and brushes,
+and announced that he was through.</p>
+
+<p>With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Not yet; please--not until I am
+ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting to one whose wish is
+law, "How mean of you! I know it is splendid! Are you satisfied? Is it
+better than the other? Is it like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that it is much better than the other," he replied. "It is as
+like you as I can make it."</p>
+
+<p>"And is it as beautiful as the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is beautiful--as you are beautiful," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night--even if I haven't seen
+it. And so will Jim Rutlidge."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange spent that evening at the little house next
+door. The next morning, the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch
+time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, the novelist went,
+again, to knock at the door.</p>
+
+<p>The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, "Come in, old man,
+come in and help me celebrate."</p>
+
+<p>Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, pale and worn, before his
+picture--his palette and brushes still in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>And such a picture!</p>
+
+<p>A moment, the novelist who knew--as few men know--the world that was
+revealed with such fidelity in that face upon the canvas, looked; then,
+with weird and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired artist and
+whirled him around the studio, in a triumphant dance.</p>
+
+<p>"You've done it! man--you've done it! It's all there; every rotten,
+stinking shred of it! Wow! but it's good--so damned good that it's almost
+inhuman. I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all the time--if
+only you could come alive. God, man! if <i>that</i> could only be exhibited
+alongside the other! Look here!"</p>
+
+<p>He dragged the easel that held Sibyl Andr&eacute;s' portrait to a place beside
+the one upon which the canvas just finished rested, and drew back the
+curtain. The effect was startling.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Spirit of Nature' and 'The Spirit of the Age'," said Conrad
+Lagrange, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're ruined, my boy," he added gleefully. "You're ruined. These
+canvases will never be exhibited Her own, she'll smash when she sees it;
+and you'll be artistically damned by the very gods she has invoked to
+bless you with fame and wealth. Lord, but I envy you! You have your chance
+now--a real chance to be worthy your mother's sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, let's get ready for the feast."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch29" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>The Hand Writing on the Wall</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+It was November. Nearly a year had passed since that day when the young
+man on the Golden State Limited--with the inheritance he had received from
+his mother's dying lips, and with his solemn promise to her still fresh in
+his mind--looked into the eyes of the woman on the platform of the
+observation car. That same day, too, he first saw the woman with the
+disfigured face, and, for the first time, met the famous Conrad Lagrange.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was thinking of these things as he set out, that evening, with
+his friend, for the home of Mrs. Taine. He remarked to the novelist that
+the time seemed, to him, many years.</p>
+
+<p>"To me, Aaron," answered the strange man, "it has been the happiest
+and--if you would not misunderstand me--the most satisfying year of my
+life. And this"--he added, his deep voice betraying his emotion--"this has
+been the happiest day of the year. It is your independence day. I shall
+always celebrate it as such--I--I have no independence day of my own to
+celebrate, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King did not misunderstand.</p>
+
+<p>As the two men approached the big house on Fairlands Heights, they saw
+that modern palace, from concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze
+with many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the socially graded
+levels of Fairlands, it outshone them all; and, quite likely, the
+glittering display was mistaken by many dwellers in the valley below for a
+new constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, too, some lonely
+dweller, high up among the distant mountain peaks, looked down upon the
+sparkling bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the wide lap of
+the night, and smiled in quiet amusement that the earth children should
+attach such value to so fragile a toy.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed the massive, stone pillars of the entrance to the grounds,
+Conrad Lagrange said, "Really, Aaron, don't you feel a little ashamed of
+yourself?--coming here to-night, after the outrageous return you have made
+for the generous hospitality of these people? You know that if Mrs. Taine
+had seen what you have done to her portrait, you could force the pearly
+gates easier than you could break in here."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "To tell the truth, I don't feel exactly at home. But
+what the deuce can I do? After my intimacy with them, all these months, I
+can't assume that they are going to make my picture a reason for refusing
+to recognize me, can I? As I see it, they, not I, must take the
+initiative. I can't say: 'Well, I've told the truth about you, so throw me
+out'."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist grinned. "Thus it is when 'Art' becomes entangled with the
+family of 'Materialism.' It's hard to break away from the flesh-pots--even
+when you know you are on the road to the Promised Land. But don't
+worry--'The Age' will take the initiative fast enough when she sees your
+portrait of her. Wow! In the meantime, let's play their game to-night, and
+take what spoils the gods may send. There will be material here for
+pictures and stories a plenty." As they went up the wide steps and under
+the portal into the glare of the lights, and caught the sound of the
+voices within, he added under his breath, "Lord, man, but 'tis a pretty
+show!--if only things were called by their right names. That old
+Babylonian, Belshazzar, had nothing on us moderns after all, did he? Watch
+out for the writing upon the wall."</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King and his companion entered the spacious rooms where the
+pride of Fairlands Heights and the eastern lions were assembled, a buzz of
+comment went round the glittering company. Aside from the fact that Mrs.
+Taine, with practised skill, had prepared the way for her protege, by
+subtly stimulating the curiosity of her guests--the appearance of the two
+men, alone, would have attracted their attention The artist, with his
+strong, splendidly proportioned, athletic body, and his handsome,
+clean-cut intellectual face--calmly sure of himself--with the air of one
+who knows that his veins are rich with the wealth of many generations of
+true culture and refinement; and the novelist--easily the most famous of
+his day--tall, emaciated, grotesquely stooped--with his homely face seamed
+and lined, world-worn and old, and his sharp eyes peering from under his
+craggy brows with that analyzing, cynical, half-pathetic half-humorous
+expression--certainly presented a contrast too striking to escape notice.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, as comrades side by side upon a battle-field might do,
+they glanced over the scene. To the painter's eye, the assembled guests
+appeared as a glittering, shimmering, scintillating, cloud-like mass that,
+never still, stirred within itself, in slow, graceful restless
+motions--forming always, without purpose new combinations and groupings
+that were broken up, even as they were shaped, to be reformed; with the
+black spots and splashes of the men's conventional dress ever changing
+amid the brighter colors and textures of the women's gowns; the warm flesh
+tints of bare white arms and shoulders, gleaming here and there; and the
+flash and sparkle of jewels, threading the sheen of silks and the filmy
+softness of laces. Into the artist's mind--fresh from the tragic
+earnestness of his day's work, and still under the enduring spell of his
+weeks in the mountains--flashed a sentence from a good old book; "For what
+is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
+then vanisheth away."</p>
+
+<p>Then they were greeting, with conventional nothings their beautiful
+hostess; who, with a charming air of triumphant--but not too
+triumphant--proprietorship received them and passed them on, with a low
+spoken word to Aaron King; "I will take charge of you later."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, before they drifted apart, found opportunity to growl in
+his companion's ear; "A near-great musician--an actress of divorce court
+fame--an art critic, boon companion of our friend Rutlidge--two free-lance
+yellow journalists--a poet--with leading culture-club women of various
+brands, and a mob of mere fashion and wealth. The pickings should be
+good. Look at 'Materialism', over there."</p>
+
+<p>In a wheeled chair, attended by a servant in livery, a little apart from
+the center of the scene,--as though the pageant of life was about to move
+on without him,--but still, with desperate grip, holding his place in the
+picture, sat the genius of it all--the millionaire. The creature's wasted,
+skeleton-like limbs, were clothed grotesquely in conventional evening
+dress. His haggard, bestial face--repulsive with every mark of his wicked,
+licentious years--grinned with an insane determination to take the place
+that was his by right of his money bags; while his glazed and sunken eyes
+shone with fitful gleams, as he rallied the last of his vital forces, with
+a devilish defiance of the end that was so inevitably near.</p>
+
+<p>As Aaron King, in the splendid strength of his inheritance, went to pay
+his respects to the master of the house, that poor product of our age was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing, that shook him--gasping and
+choking--almost into unconsciousness. The ready attendant held out a glass
+of whisky, and he clutched the goblet with skinny hands that, in their
+trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the
+momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his
+yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered
+upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony,
+talon-like finger, the gleaming flash of a magnificent diamond.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taine greeted the artist with his husky whisper "Hello, old chap--glad
+to see you!" Peering into the laughing, chattering, glittering, throng he
+added, "Some beauties here to-night, heh? Gad! my boy, but I've seen the
+day I'd be out there among them! Ha, ha! Mrs. Taine, Louise, and Jim tried
+to shelve me--but I fooled 'em. Damn me, but I'm game for a good time yet!
+A little off my feed, and under the weather; but game, you understand,
+game as hell!" Then to the attendant--"Where's that whisky?" And, again,
+his yellow, claw-like hand--with that beautiful diamond, a gleaming point
+of pure, white light--lifted the glass to his grinning lips.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine appeared to claim the artist, her husband--huddled in his
+chair, an unclean heap of all but decaying flesh--watched them go, with
+hidden, impotent rage.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later, as Mrs. Taine and her charge were leaving one group
+of celebrities in search of another they encountered Conrad Lagrange.
+"What's this I see?" gibed the novelist, mockingly. "Is it 'Art being led
+by Beauty to the Judges and Executioners'? or, is it 'Beauty presenting an
+Artist to the Gods of Modern Art'?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had better be helping a good cause instead of making fun, Mr.
+Lagrange," the woman retorted. "You weren't always so famous yourself that
+you could afford to be indifferent, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed as his friend replied, "Never fear, madam, never
+fear--I shall be on hand to assist at the obsequies."</p>
+
+<p>In the shifting of the groups and figures, when dinner was announced, the
+young man found himself, again, within reach of Conrad Lagrange; and the
+novelist whispered, with a grin, "Now for the flesh-pots in earnest. You
+will be really out of place in the next act, Aaron. Only we artists who
+have sold our souls have a right to the price of our shame. <i>You</i> should
+dine upon a crust, you know. A genius without his crust, huh! A devil
+without his tail, or an ass without his long ears!"</p>
+
+<p>Most conspicuous in the brilliant throng assembled in that banquet hall,
+was the horrid figure of Mr. Taine who sat in his wheeled chair at the
+head of the table; his liveried attendant by his side. Frequently--as
+though compelled--eyes were turned toward that master of the feast, who
+was, himself, so far past feasting; and toward his beautiful young
+wife--the only woman in the room, whose shoulders and arms were not bare.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the talk moved somewhat heavily. Neighbor chattered nothings to
+neighbor in low tones. It was as though the foreboding presence of some
+grim, unbidden guest overshadowed the spirits of the company But gradually
+the scene became more animated The glitter of silver and crystal on the
+board; the sparkle of jewels and the wealth of shimmering colors that
+costumed the diners; with the strains of music that came from somewhere
+behind a floral screen that filled the air with fragrance; concealed, as
+it were, the hideous image of immorality which was the presiding genius of
+the feast. As the glare of a too bright light blinds the eyes to the ditch
+across one's path, so the brilliancy of their surroundings blinded the
+eyes of his guests to the meaning of that horrid figure in the seat of
+highest honor. But rich foods and rare wines soon loose the tongues that
+chatter the thoughts of those who do not think. As the glasses were filled
+and refilled again, the scene took color from the sparkling goblets.
+Voices were raised to a higher pitch. Shrill or boisterous laughter rang
+out, as jest and story went the rounds. It was Mrs. Taine, now, rather
+than her husband, who dominated the scene. With cheeks flushed and eyes
+bright she set the pace, nor permitted any laggards.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange watched, cool and cynical--his worn face twisted into a
+mocking smile; his keen, baffling eyes, from under their scowling brows,
+seeing all, understanding all. Aaron King, weary with the work of the past
+days, endured--wishing it was over.</p>
+
+<p>The evening was well under way when Mrs. Taine held up her hand. In the
+silence, she said, "Listen! I have a real treat for you, to-night,
+friends. Listen!" As she spoke the last word, her eyes met the eyes of the
+artist, in mocking, challenging humor. He was wondering what she meant,
+when,--from behind that screen of flowers,--soft and low, poignantly sweet
+and thrilling in its purity of tone, came the music of the violin that he
+had learned to know so well.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, the painter understood. Mrs. Taine had employed Sibyl Andr&eacute;s to
+play for her guests that evening; thinking to tease the artist by
+presenting his mountain comrade in the guise of a hired servant. Why the
+girl had not told him, he did not know. Perhaps she had thought to enjoy
+his surprise. The effect of the girl's presence--or rather of her music,
+for she, herself, could not be seen--upon the artist was quite other than
+Mrs. Taine intended.</p>
+
+<p>Under the spell of the spirit that spoke in the violin, Aaron King was
+carried far from his glittering surroundings. Again, he stood where the
+bright waters of Clear Creek tumbled among the granite boulders, and where
+he had first moved to answer the call of that music of the hills. Again,
+he followed the old wagon road to the cedar thicket; and, in the little,
+grassy opening with its wild roses, its encircling wilderness growth, and
+its old log house under the sheltering sycamores, saw a beautiful girl
+dancing with the unconscious grace of a woodland sprite, her arms upheld
+in greeting to the mountains. Once again, he was painting in the sacred
+quiet of the spring glade where she had come to him with her three gifts;
+where, in maidenly innocence, she had danced the dance of the butterflies;
+and, later, with her music, had lifted their friendship to heights of
+purity as far above the comprehension of the company that listened to her
+now, as the mountain peaks among the stars that night were high above the
+house on Fairlands Heights.</p>
+
+<p>The music ceased. It was followed by the loud clapping of hands--with
+exclamations in high-pitched voices. "Who is it?" "Where did you find
+him?" "What's his name?"--for they judged, from Mrs. Taine's introductory
+words, that she expected them to show their appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine laughed, and, with her eyes mockingly upon the artist's face
+answered lightly, "Oh, she is a discovery of mine. She teaches music, and
+plays in one of the Fairlands churches."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a wonder," said one of the illustrious critics, admiringly. And
+lifting his glass, he cried, "Here's to our beautiful and talented
+hostess--the patron saint of all the arts--the friend of all true
+artists."</p>
+
+<p>In the quiet that followed the enthusiastic endorsement of the
+distinguished gentleman's words, another voice said, "If it's a girl,
+can't we see her?" "Yes, yes," came from several. "Please, Mrs. Taine,
+bring her out." "Have her play again." "Will she?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine laughed. "Certainly, she will. That's what she's here for--to
+amuse you." And, again, as she spoke, her eyes met the eyes of Aaron King.</p>
+
+<p>At her signal, a servant left the room. A moment later, the mountain girl,
+dressed in simple white, with no jewel or ornament other than a rose in
+her soft, brown hair, stood before that company. Unconscious of the eyes
+that fed upon her loveliness; there was the faintest shadow of a smile
+upon her face as she met, in one swift glance, the artist's look; then,
+raising her violin, she made music for the revelers, at the will of Mrs.
+Taine. As she stood there in the modest naturalness of her winsome
+beauty--innocent and pure as the flowers that formed the screen behind
+her; hired to amuse the worthy friends and guests of that hideously
+repulsive devotee of lust and licentiousness who, from his wheeled chair,
+was glaring at her with eyes that burned insanely--she seemed, as indeed
+she was, a spirit from another world.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge, his heavy features flushed with drink, was gazing at the
+girl with a look that betrayed his sensual passion. The face of Conrad
+Lagrange was dark and grim with scowling appreciation of the situation.
+Mrs. Taine was looking at the artist. And Aaron King, watching his girl
+comrade of the hills as she seemed to listen for the music which she in
+turn drew from the instrument, felt,--by the very force of the contrast
+between her and her surroundings he had never felt before, the power and
+charm of her personality--felt--and knew that Sibyl Andr&eacute;s had come into
+his life to stay.</p>
+
+<p>In the flood of emotions that swept over him, and in the mental and
+spiritual exultation caused by her music and by her presence amid such
+scenes; it was given the painter to understand that she had, in truth,
+brought to him the strength, the purity, and the beauty of the hills; that
+she had, in truth, shown him the paths that lead to the mountain heights;
+that it was her unconscious influence and teaching that had made it
+impossible for him to prostitute his genius to win favor in the eyes of
+the world. He knew, now, that in those days when he had painted her
+portrait, as she stood with outstretched hands in the golden light among
+the roses, he had mixed his colors with the best love that a man may offer
+a woman. And he knew that the repainting of that false portrait of Mrs.
+Taine, with all that it would cost him, was his first offering to that
+love.</p>
+
+<p>The girl musician finished playing and slipped away. When they would have
+recalled her, Mrs. Taine--too well schooled to betray a hint of the
+emotions aroused by what she had just seen as she watched Aaron
+King--shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, Mr. Taine rose to his feet, supporting himself by holding
+with shaking hands to the table. A hush, sudden as the hush of death, fell
+upon the company. The millionaire's attendant put out his hand to steady
+his master, and another servant stepped quickly forward. But the man who
+clung so tenaciously to his last bit of life, with a drunken strength in
+his dying limbs, shook them off, saying in a hoarse whisper, "Never mind!
+Never mind--you fools--can't you see I'm game!"</p>
+
+<p>In the quiet of the room, that a moment before rang with excited voices
+and shrill laughter, the man's husky, straining, whispered boast sounded
+like the mocking of some invisible, fiendish presence at the feast.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting a glass of whisky with that yellow, claw-like hand upon which the
+great diamond gleamed--a spot of flawless purity; with his repulsive
+features twisted into a grewsome ugliness by his straining effort to force
+his diseased vocal chords to make his words heard; the wretched creature
+said: "Here's to our girl musician. The prettiest--lassie that I--have
+seen for many a day--and I think I know a pretty girl--when I see one too.
+Who comes bright and fresh--from her mountains, to amuse us--and to add,
+to the beauty--and grace and wit and genius--that so distinguishes this
+company--the flavor and the freedom of her wild-wood home. Her music--is
+good, you'll all agree--" he paused to cough and to look inquiringly
+around, while every one nodded approval and smiled encouragingly. "Her
+music is good--but I--maintain that she, herself, is better. To me--her
+beauty is more pleasing to the eye--than--her fiddling can possibly--be to
+the ear!" Again he was forced to pause, while his guests, with hand and
+voice, applauded the clever words. Lifting the glass of whisky toward his
+lips that, by his effort to speak, were drawn back in a repulsive grin, he
+leered at the celebrities sitting nearest. "I suppose to-morrow--if we
+desire the company of these distinguished artists--we will have to
+follow--them to the mountains. I don't blame you, gentlemen--if I was
+not--ah--temporarily incapacitated--I would certainly--go for a little
+trip to the inspiring hills--myself. Even if I don't know--as much about
+<i>music</i> and <i>art</i> as some of you." Again his words were interrupted by
+that racking cough, the sound of which was lost in the applause that
+greeted his witticism. Lifting the glass once more, he continued, "So
+here's to our girl musician--who is her own--lovely self so much more
+attractive than any music--she can ever make." He drained the glass, and
+sank back into his chair, exhausted by his effort.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was on the point of springing to his feet, when Conrad Lagrange
+caught his eye with a warning look. Instantly, he remembered what the
+result would be if he should yield to his impulse. Wild with indignation,
+rage, and burning shame, he knew that to betray himself would be to invite
+a thousand sneering questions and insinuations to besmirch the name of
+the girl he loved.</p>
+
+<p>In the continued applause and laughter that followed the drinking of the
+millionaire's toast, the artist caught the admiring words, "Bully old
+sport." "Isn't he game?" "He has certainly traveled some pace in his day."
+"The girl is a beauty." "Let's have her in again." This last expression
+was so insistently echoed that Mrs. Taine--who, through it all, had been
+covertly watching Aaron King's face, and whose eyes were blazing now with
+something more than the effect of the wine she had been drinking--was
+forced to yield. A servant left the room, and, a moment later, reappeared,
+followed by Sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was greeted, now, by hearty applause which she, accepting as an
+expression of the company's appreciation of her music, received with
+smiling pleasure. The artist, his heart and soul aflame with his awakening
+love, fought for self-control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again,
+silently bade him wait.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was stilled. Slowly, under
+the spell of the music that, to him, was a message from the mountain
+heights, Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. His twitching
+nerves became steady. He felt himself as it were, lifted out of and above
+the scene that a moment before had so stirred him to indignant anger. His
+brain worked with that clearness and precision which he had known while
+repainting Mrs. Taine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity; indignation to
+contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think how little the girl he loved
+needed his poor defense against the animalism that dominated the company
+she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room fixed upon her as she
+played, she was as far removed from those who had applauded the suggestive
+words of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their true
+comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. As the flash of a
+search-light in the darkness of night brings out with startling clearness
+the details of the scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before
+him his picture. With trained eye and carefully acquired skill, he studied
+the scene; impressing upon his memory every detail--the rich appointments
+of the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver and crystal; the
+sparkling jewels and shimmering laces; the bare shoulders; the
+wine-flushed faces and feverish eyes; and, in the seat of honor, the
+disease-wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance of Mr. Taine
+who--almost unconscious with his exertion--was still feeding the last
+flickering flame of his lustful life with the vision of the girl whose
+beauty his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that
+company--expressing as it did the spirit of an age that is ruled by
+material wealth and dominated by the passions of the flesh--the center of
+every eye, yet, still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart from
+them all; standing in her simple dress of white against the background of
+flowers--the mountain girl with her violin--offering to them the highest,
+holiest, gift of the gods--her music. Upon the girl's lovely, winsome
+face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. Her wide, blue eyes, as she
+played, were pleading, questioning, half fearful--as though she sensed,
+instinctively the presence of the spirit she could not understand; and
+felt, in spite of the pretense of the applause that had greeted her, the
+rejection of her offering.</p>
+
+<p>Not only did the artist, in that moment of conception see his picture and
+feel the forces that were expressed by every character in the composition,
+but the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad Lagrange had
+uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Materialism."</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s finished her music, and quickly withdrew as if to escape the
+noisy applause. Amid the sound of the clapping hands and boisterous
+voices, Mr. Taine, summoning the last of his wasted strength, again
+struggled to his feet. With those claw-like hands he held to the table for
+support; while--shaking in every limb, his features twisted into a horrid,
+leering grin--he looked from face to face of the hushed and silent
+company; with glazed eyes in which the light that flickered so feebly was
+still the light of an impotent lust.</p>
+
+<p>Twice, the man essayed to speak, but could not. The room grew still as
+death. Then, suddenly--as they looked--he lifted that yellow, skinny hand,
+to his wrinkled, ape-like brow, and--partially loosing, thus, his
+supporting grip upon the table--fell back, in a ghastly heap of diseased
+flesh and fine raiment; in the midst of which blazed the great
+diamond--as though the cold, pure beauty of the inanimate stone triumphed
+in a life more vital than that of its wearer.</p>
+
+<p>His servants carried the unconscious master of the house from the room.
+Mrs. Taine, excusing herself, followed.</p>
+
+<p>In the confusion that ensued, the musicians, hidden behind the floral
+screen, struck up a lively air. Some of the guests made quiet preparations
+for leaving. A group of those men--famous in the world of art and
+letters--under the influence of the wine they had taken so freely, laughed
+loudly at some coarse jest. Others, thinking, perhaps,--if they could be
+said to think at all,--that their host's attack was not serious, renewed
+conversations and bravely attempted to restore a semblance of animation to
+the interrupted revelries.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King worked his way to the side of Conrad Lagrange, "For God's sake,
+old man, let's get out of here."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find Rutlidge or Louise or some one," returned the other, and
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist waited, through the open door of an adjoining room, he
+caught sight of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s; who, with her violin-case in her hand, was
+about to leave. Obeying his impulse, he went to her.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world are you doing here?" he said almost roughly--extending
+his hand to take the instrument she carried.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed a little bewildered by his manner, but smiled as she retained
+her violin. "I am here to earn my bread and butter, sir. What are you
+doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to be rude."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, then, with a troubled air--"But is it not right for me to be
+here? It is all right for me to play for these people, isn't it? Myra
+didn't want me to come, but we needed the money, and Mrs. Taine was so
+generous. I didn't tell you and Mr. Lagrange because I wanted the fun of
+surprising you." As he stood looking at her so gravely, she put out her
+hand impulsively to his arm. "What is it, oh, what is it? How have I done
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have done no wrong, my dear girl," he answered "It is only that--"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by the cold, clear voice of Mrs. Taine, who had entered
+the room, unnoticed by them. "I see you are going, Miss Andr&eacute;s.
+Good-night. I will mail you a check to-morrow. Your music was very
+satisfactory. An automobile is waiting to take you home. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>Before Aaron King could speak, the girl was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lagrange and I were just about to go," said the artist, as the woman
+faced him. "I hope Mr. Taine has not suffered severely from the excitement
+of the evening?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with feverish
+excitement. Going close to him, she said in a low, hurried tone, "No, no,
+you must not go. Mr. Taine is all right in his room. Every one else is
+having a good time. You must not go. Come, I have had no opportunity, at
+all, to have you to myself for a single moment. Come, I--"</p>
+
+<p>As she had interrupted Aaron King's reply to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, the cool,
+sarcastic tones of Conrad Lagrange's deep voice interrupted her. "Mrs.
+Taine, they are hunting for you all over the house. Your husband is
+calling for you. I'm sure that Mr. King will excuse you, under the
+circumstances."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch30" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>In the Same Hour</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+In a splendid chamber, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that dollars
+could buy, and attended by liveried servants, Mr. Taine was dying.</p>
+
+<p>The physician who met Mrs. Taine at the door, answered her look of inquiry
+with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." Beside the bed, sat
+Louise, wringing her hands and moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without
+speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fingers upon the
+skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, Mr. Taine, your wife is here."</p>
+
+<p>In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the wrinkled brow, opened; the
+loosely hanging, sensual lips quivered.</p>
+
+<p>The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, Mr. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed eyes. The doctor could
+have sworn that the lips were twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking
+smile. As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, from some
+unguessed depths of his being, the last remnant of his remaining strength,
+the man looked about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send the
+others away--everybody--but her."</p>
+
+<p>"O papa, papa!" exclaimed poor Louise, protestingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, daughter," came the whispered answer from the bed. "Try to be
+game, girl--game as your father. Take her away, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus far stood like a statue,
+seemingly incapable of thought or feeling or movement, he said in a low
+tone, "I will be just outside the door, madam; easily within call."</p>
+
+<p>When only the woman was left in the room with her husband, the dying man
+spoke again; "Come here. Stand where I can see you."</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position near the foot of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence, during which he seemed to be rallying the very
+last of his vital forces for the effort, he said, "Well--the game is
+played--out. You think--you're the winner. You're--wrong--damn you--you're
+wrong. I wasn't--so drunk to-night that--I couldn't see." His face twisted
+in a hideous, malicious grin. "You--love--that artist fellow.
+Your--interest in his art is--all rot. It's <i>him</i> you want--and you--you
+have been thinking--you'd get him--with my money--the same as I got you.
+But you won't. You've--lost him already. I'm glad--you love him--damn
+glad--because--I know that after--what he's seen of me--even if he didn't
+love--that mountain--girl, he wouldn't wipe--his feet on you. You've
+tortured me--you've mocked--and sneered and laughed--at me--in my
+suffering--you fiend--and I've--tried my damnedest--to pay you back. What
+I couldn't do--the man you love--will--do for me. You'll suffer--now in
+earnest. You thought you'd be a--sure winner--as soon--as I was out
+of--the game. But you've lost--you've lost--you've lost! I saw your love
+for him--in your--face to-night--as I have seen--it every time--you two
+were together. I saw his love--for the girl--too--and I--saw--that
+you--saw it. I--I--wouldn't--wouldn't die--until I'd told you--that I
+knew." He paused to gather his strength for the last evil effort of his
+evil life.</p>
+
+<p>The woman--who had stood, frozen with horror, her eyes fixed upon the face
+of the dying man, as though under a dreadful spell--cowered before him,
+livid with fear. Cringing, helpless--as though before some infernal
+monster--she hid her face; while her husband, struggling for breath to
+make her hear, called her every foul name he could master--derided her
+with fiendish glee--mocked her, taunted her, cursed her--with words too
+vile to print. With an oath and a profane wish for her future upon his
+lips, the end came. The sensual mouth opened--the diseased wasted limbs
+shuddered--the insane light in the lust-worn eyes went out.</p>
+
+<p>With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon the floor beside the bed.</p>
+
+<p>From the lower part of the house came the faint sounds of the few
+remaining revelers.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the house on Fairlands Heights
+that night, they walked quickly, as though eager to escape from the
+brilliantly lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some distance
+away. Then the novelist, checking his quick stride, pointed toward the
+shadowy bulk of the mountains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in
+solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boy," he said, "the mountains are still there. It's good to see
+them again, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Reaching home, the older man bade his friend good night. But the artist,
+declaring that he was not yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar
+for company, to sit for a while on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks,
+he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s in the hills. Every incident of their friendship he
+recalled--every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she
+loved--reviewing every conversation--questioning searching, wondering,
+hoping, fearing.</p>
+
+<p>Later, he went out into the rose garden--her garden--where the air was
+fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care.
+In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her
+presence. Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses--to the little
+gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the
+vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot
+where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting,
+while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the
+secret of her loveliness. He remembered how he had felt her presence in
+those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the
+place was haunted. He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him,
+her music had always moved him--how her message from the hills had seemed
+to call to the best that was in him.</p>
+
+<p>So it was, that, as he recalled these things,--as he lived again the days
+of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life,
+how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his
+best needs,--he came to know the answer to his questions--to his doubts
+and fears and hopes. There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of
+hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his
+face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not
+deny him--that, when she was ready, she would come to him.</p>
+
+<p>In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life,
+profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his
+licentious will--and cursing--died; Aaron King--inspired by the character
+and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and
+dreaming of their comradeship that was to be--dedicated himself anew to
+the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which
+belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andr&eacute;s could
+come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best
+strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awakened love, as he
+dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days
+of his testing were so near at hand.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch31" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>As the World Sees</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from
+Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the
+house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He did not know where the
+artist was. He had gone off somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog.
+Perhaps they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not until dinner time.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. King. She was going away,
+and must see him, if possible, before she left. She would come in, and, if
+Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write a little note,
+explaining--in case she should miss him. The Chinaman silently placed the
+writing material before her, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced the floor restlessly,
+in nervous agitation. Her face, when she had thrown back the veil,
+appeared old and worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn look
+to the weary, downward droop of the lips. As she moved about the room,
+nervously fingering the books and trifles upon the table or the mantle,
+she seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the window to stand
+looking out as if hoping for the return of the artist. She went to the
+open door of his bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, her
+face betraying the agony of her mind.</p>
+
+<p>With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four o'clock, for the
+East--with the body of her husband. She could not go without seeing again
+the man whom, as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved--loved with the
+only love of which--because of her environment and life--she was capable.
+She still believed in her power over him whose passion she had besieged
+with all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which she had seen in
+his face as he had watched the girl musician the night of the dinner,
+filled her with fear. Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did
+not return, she seated herself at the table to put upon paper, as best she
+could, the things she had come to say.</p>
+
+<p>Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Calling the Chinaman, she
+asked for a key to the studio, explaining that she wished to see her
+picture. She still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter would
+not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her portrait, which she had not
+yet seen, she might find some evidence of the painter's passion for her.
+She had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon the canvas what he
+thought of her, nor could she fail to recall his manner and her
+interpretation of it as he had worked upon the picture.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce daring to draw the
+curtain. But, calling up in her mind the emotions and thoughts of the
+hours she had spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made bold
+by her reestablished belief in his passion and by her convictions that
+were founded upon her own desires. Under the stimulating influence of her
+thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her eyes grew bright
+with the light of triumphant anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly
+drew aside the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. Taine drew back from
+the canvas. Looking at the beautiful painting,--in which the artist had
+pictured, with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, the
+spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers among which she stood,--the
+woman was moved by many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappointment
+admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and anger swept over her.
+Blinded by bitter tears, with a choking sob, in an agony of remorse and
+shame, she turned away her face from the gaze of those pure eyes. Then, as
+the flame of her passion withered her shame, hot rage dried her tears, and
+she sprang forward with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the picture.
+But, even as she put forth her hand, she hesitated and drew back, afraid.
+As she stood thus in doubt--halting between her impulse and her fear--a
+sound at the door behind her drew her attention. She turned to face the
+beautiful original of the portrait Instantly the woman of the world had
+herself perfectly in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s drew back with an embarrassed, "I beg your pardon. I
+thought--" and would have fled.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said quickly, "O how do you do,
+Miss Andr&eacute;s; come in."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and
+manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so
+expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched.
+Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose
+minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham
+emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words of sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of condolence with a manner that
+was perfect in its semblance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet
+managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social distance that separated
+the widow of Mr. Taine from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if
+courageously determined not to dwell upon her bereavement, she said, "I
+was just looking, again, at Mr. King's picture--for which you posed. It is
+beautiful, isn't it? He told me that you were an exceptionally clever
+model--quite the best he has ever had."</p>
+
+<p>The girl--disarmed by her own genuine feeling of sympathy for the
+speaker--was troubled at something that seemed to lie beneath the kindly
+words of the experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she returned
+doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. Mr. Lagrange thinks, though,
+that it is really a splendid portrait."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one might smile at a child.
+"Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is a famous novelist--but he really knows very
+little of pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are right," returned Sibyl, simply. "But the picture is not
+to be shown as a portrait of me, at all."</p>
+
+<p>Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of course. Under the
+circumstances, you would scarcely expect it, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the woman meant, answered
+doubtfully, "No. I--I did not wish it shown as my portrait."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very earnest in her kindly
+interest; as if, moved out of the goodness of her heart, she stooped from
+her high place to advise and counsel one of her own sex, who was so wholly
+ignorant of the world. "I fear, my dear, that you know very little of
+artists and their methods."</p>
+
+<p>To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist before I met Mr. King,
+this summer, in the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, with gentle solicitude,
+"May I tell you something for your own good, Miss Andr&eacute;s?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"An artist," said the older woman, carefully, with an air of positive
+knowledge, "must find the subjects for his pictures in life. As he goes
+about, he is constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures that
+are of interest to him--or, that may be used by him to make pictures
+of interest. The subjects--or, I should say, the people who pose for
+him--are nothing at all to the artist--aside from his picture, you
+see--no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. Often, they are
+professional models, whom he hires as one hires any sort of service,
+you know. Sometimes--" she paused as if hesitating, then continued
+gently--"sometimes they are people like yourself, who happen to appeal
+to his artistic fancy, and whom he can persuade to pose for him."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face was white. She stared at the woman with pleading,
+frightened dismay. She made a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not.</p>
+
+<p>The older woman, watching her, continued, "Forgive me, dear child. I do
+not wish to hurt you. But Mr. King is <i>so</i> careless. I told him he should
+be careful that you did not misunderstand his interest in you. But he
+laughed at me. He said that it was your <i>innocence</i> that he wanted to
+paint, and cautioned me not to warn you until his picture was finished."
+She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the air of a critic.
+"He really <i>has</i> caught it very well. Aaron--Mr. King is so good at that
+sort of thing. He never permits his models to know exactly what he is
+after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, unconsciously, the
+particular thing that he wishes to get into his picture."</p>
+
+<p>When the tortured girl had been given time to grasp the full import of her
+words, the woman said again,--turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a
+smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy between herself and the
+artist,--"Have you seen his portrait of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to look at it. It has always
+been covered when I have been in the studio."</p>
+
+<p>Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was some reason, known only to
+herself and the painter, why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait.
+"And do you come to the studio often--alone as you came to-day?" she
+asked, still kindly, as though from her experience she was seeking to
+counsel the girl. "I mean--have you been coming since the picture for
+which you posed was finished?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrassment and shame as she
+answered, falteringly, "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor child! Really, I must scold Aaron for this. After my warning
+him, too, that people were talking about his intimacy with you in the
+mountains It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin himself, if he is not
+more careful." She seemed sincerely troubled over the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"I--I do not understand, Mrs. Taine," faltered Sibyl. "Do you mean that
+my--that Mr. King's friendship for me has harmed him? That I--that it is
+wrong for me to come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Miss Andr&eacute;s, you must understand what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I--I do not know. Tell me, please."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, as if forced by her sense
+of duty, she spoke. "The truth is, my dear, that your being with Mr. King
+in the mountains--going to his camp as familiarly as you did, and spending
+so much time alone with him in the hills--and then your coming here so
+often, has led people to say unpleasant things."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do people say?" persisted Sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>The answer came with cruel deliberateness; "That you are not only Mr.
+King's model, but that you are his mistress as well."</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s shrank back from the woman as though she had received a blow
+in the face. Her cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a little cry,
+she buried her face in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>The kind voice of the older woman continued, "You see, dear, whether it is
+true or not, the effect is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world
+your relations to Mr. King are--are wrong, it is as bad as though it were
+actually true. I felt that I must tell you, child, not alone for your own
+good but for the sake of Mr. King and his work--for the sake of his
+position in the world. Frankly, if you continue to compromise him and his
+good name by coming like this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world
+may not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mistress or not, but
+people will not countenance his open association with her, even under the
+pretext that she is a model."</p>
+
+<p>As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. "Dear me, I really must
+be going. I have already spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at her with the pain and terror filled eyes of some
+gentle wild creature that can not understand the cruelty of the trap that
+holds it fast. "Yes--yes, I--I suppose you know best. You must know more
+than I. I--thank you, Mrs. Taine. I--"</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s sat for a little while before her
+portrait; wondering, dumbly, at the happiness of that face upon the
+canvas. There were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned hot and
+dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she drew the curtain carefully to hide
+the picture, and started toward the door. She paused. Going to the easel
+that held the other picture, she laid her hand upon the curtain. Again,
+she paused. Aaron King had said that she must not look at that
+picture--Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not--why? She did not know
+why.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps--if the mountain girl had drawn aside the curtain and had looked
+upon the face of Mrs. Taine as Aaron King had painted it--perhaps the rest
+of my story would not have happened.</p>
+
+<p>But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s
+held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long
+and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the
+door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her custom was.</p>
+
+<p>Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden to the little gate in
+the hedge, she disappeared in the orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from a long walk, overtook Myra
+Willard, who was returning from town, just as the woman of the disfigured
+face arrived at the gate of the little house in the orange grove. For a
+moment, the three stood chatting--as neighbors will,--then the two men
+went on to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced their coming to
+Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them as they entered the living-room. Telling
+them of Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter that she had
+left for him.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of his friend, read the
+closely written pages, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame.
+When he had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, without
+speaking, deliberately and methodically tore Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny
+fragments. Dropping the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted
+his hands together with a significant gesture and looked at his watch.
+"Her train left at four o'clock. It is now four-thirty."</p>
+
+<p>"For which," returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, "let us give thanks."</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, gave a low "woof" that
+signalized the approach of a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Looking through the open door, they saw Myra Willard coming hurriedly up
+the walk. They could see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went
+quicklv forward to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>Women of Myra Willard's strength of character--particularly those who have
+passed through the furnace of some terrible experience as she so
+evidently had--are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression of emotion.
+That she was alarmed and troubled was evident. Her face was white, her
+eyes were frightened and she trembled so that Aaron King helped her to a
+seat; but she told them clearly, with no unnecessary, hysterical
+exclamations, what had happened. Upon entering the house, after parting
+from the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she had found a letter
+from Sibyl. The girl was gone.</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad Lagrange who read it and
+gave it to the artist. It was a pitiful little note--rather vague--saying
+only that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that she had not meant
+to do wrong; asking her to tell Mr. King and the novelist good-by; and
+begging the artist's forgiveness that she had not understood.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to the faces of his two
+friends, in consternation. "Do you understand this, Miss Willard?" he
+asked, when he could speak.</p>
+
+<p>The woman shook her head. "Only that something has happened to make the
+child think that her friendship with you has injured you; and that she has
+gone away for your sake. She--she thought so much of you, Mr. King."</p>
+
+<p>"And I--I love her, Miss Willard. I should have told you soon. I tell you
+now to reassure you. I love her."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King made his declaration to his two friends with a simple dignity,
+but with a feeling that thrilled them with the force of his earnestness
+and the purity and strength of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange--world-worn, scarred by his years of contact with the
+unclean, the vicious, and debasing passions of mankind--grasped the young
+man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his habitual reserve
+could not conceal. "I'm glad for you, Aaron"--he said, adding
+reverently--"as your mother would be glad."</p>
+
+<p>"I have known that you would tell me this, sometime Mr. King," said Myra
+Willard. "I knew it, I think, before you, yourself, realized; and I, too,
+am glad--glad for my girl, because I know what such a love will mean to
+her. But why--why has she gone like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl,
+my girl!" For a moment, the distracted woman was on the point of breaking
+down; but with an effort of her will, she controlled herself.</p>
+
+<p>"It's clear enough what has sent her away," growled Conrad Lagrange, with
+a warning glance to the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the
+notion that her friendship with Aaron has been causing talk. I think
+there's no doubt as to where she's gone."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the mountains?" asked Myra Willard, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight to Brian Oakley. Think!
+Where else <i>would</i> she go?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from your neighbor up the road,
+hasn't she, Miss Willard?" asked Aaron King.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'll run over there at once."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them think anything unusual has
+happened. We'll go over to your house and wait for you there."</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. Sibyl had borrowed the
+horse; asking them if she might keep it until the next day. She did not
+say where she was going. She had left about four o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"That will put her at Brian's by nine," said the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"And I will arrive there about the same time," added Aaron King, eagerly.
+"It's now five-thirty. She has an hour's start; but I'll ride an hour
+harder."</p>
+
+<p>"With an automobile you could overtake her," said Myra Willard.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," returned the artist, "but if I take a horse, we can ride back
+together."</p>
+
+<p>He started through the grove, toward the other house, on a run.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch32" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mysterious Disappearance</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+By the time Aaron King had found a saddle-horse and was ready to start on
+his ride, it was six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl
+had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could
+scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after
+Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop
+somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized
+how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering
+his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then,
+telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and
+thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first
+plan.</p>
+
+<p>But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste
+because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his
+reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his
+mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely.
+Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the
+artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the
+limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they
+had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar
+and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the
+people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening
+meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs.
+Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched him out of sight, with
+wondering gaze. Those he met, turned their heads to look after him.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with his horse's flying feet.
+The points along the way, where he and the famous novelist had stopped to
+rest, and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly to his mind
+all that those weeks in the mountains had brought to him. Backward from
+that day when he had for the first time set his face toward the hills, his
+mind traveled--almost from day to day--until he stood, again, in that
+impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his
+studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness
+and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, he lived again that hour when
+his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when
+he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of
+her sacrifice--even unto poverty--that he might, unhampered, be fitted for
+his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn
+promise that the purpose and passion of his mother's years of sacrifice
+should, in him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he retraced the
+steps that had led to his understanding that only a true and noble art
+could ever make good that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the
+little passing day, alone; not by gaining the applause of the thoughtless
+crowd; not by winning the rewards bestowed by the self-appointed judges
+and patrons of the arts; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of
+himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or blame--by saying the
+thing that was given him to say, because it was given him to say--would he
+keep that which his mother had committed to him. As mile after mile of the
+distance that lay between him and the girl he loved was put behind him in
+his race to her side, it was given him to understand--as never
+before--how, first the friendship of the world-wearied man who had,
+himself, profaned his art; and then, the comradeship of that one whose
+life was so unspotted by the world; had helped him to a true and vital
+conception of his ministry of color and line and brush and canvas.</p>
+
+<p>It was twilight when the artist reached the spot where the road crosses
+the tumbling stream--the spot where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at
+the foot of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the creek, the
+man, without checking his pace, turned his head to look back upon the
+valley that, far below, was fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its
+weird and gloomy mystery,--with its hidden life revealed only by the
+sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns and cities,--it was suggestive,
+now, to his artist mind, of the life that had so nearly caught him in its
+glittering sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his eyes to the
+mountain peaks ahead that, still in the light of the western sun, glowed
+as though brushed with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish
+that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of pines, where he had sat
+with Sibyl Andr&eacute;s that day when she had tried to make him see the train
+that had brought him to Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not realized his love for the
+girl, before they left the hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was
+born that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he was fishing;
+when he had watched her from the cedar thicket, as she made her music of
+the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself,
+had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him
+in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known,
+when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not
+come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the
+big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?</p>
+
+<p>It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the
+gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was
+forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at
+the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her
+girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that
+she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would
+tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his.
+And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the
+pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees,
+the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate.
+Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The
+door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall
+form of Brian Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is
+left of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Aaron King, by all that's holy!" cried the Ranger, coming quickly down
+the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything
+wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he
+come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said
+mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's
+hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not
+been here to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive
+words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder.
+"Come, old man, pull yourself together and let a little light in on this
+matter," he said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why did you expect to
+find Sibyl here?"</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King had finished his story, the other said, still without
+excitement, "Come into the house. You're about all in. I heard Doctor
+Gordan's 'auto' going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. Their
+baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would have passed her. I'll
+throw the saddle on Max, and we'll run over there and see what he knows.
+But first, you've got to have a bite to eat."</p>
+
+<p>The young man protested but the Ranger said firmly, "You can eat while I
+saddle; come. I wish Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold
+meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her sister. I'll call you when
+I'm ready." He spoke the last word from the door as he went out.</p>
+
+<p>The artist tried to eat; but with little success. He was again mounted and
+ready to go when the Ranger rode up from the barn on the chestnut.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the point where the road to Morton's ranch leaves the
+main canyon road, Brian Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went
+on up to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's and see the
+Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. Did you meet any one as you came
+up? I mean after you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the
+canyon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the other. "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"A man on a horse passed the Station about seven o'clock, going down.
+Where did the Doctor pass you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't pass me."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said the Ranger, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"No one passed me after I left Fairlands."</p>
+
+<p>"Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must have had a puncture or
+something, or he would have passed the Station before he did."</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the Morton ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want to start any excitement," said the officer, as they drew
+rein at the corral gate. "You stay here and I'll drop in--casual like."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, that his companion was
+gone for hours. In reality, it was only a few minutes until the Ranger
+returned. He was walking quickly, and, springing into the saddle he
+started the chestnut off at a sharp lope.</p>
+
+<p>"The baby is better," he said. "Doctor was here this afternoon--started
+home about two o'clock. That 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon.
+Morton knew nothing of the man on horseback who went down. We'll cut
+across to Carleton's."</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside from the wagon road, to
+follow a narrow trail through the chaparral. To the artist, the little
+path in the darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein and
+followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quarters of an hour later, they
+came out into the main road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile
+and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind the orchard of the
+deserted place.</p>
+
+<p>It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was dark. Without
+dismounting, Brian Oakley called, "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer.
+Moving his horse close to the window of the room where he knew the rancher
+slept, the Ranger tapped on the sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you;
+it's Oakley."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton asked, "What is it, Brian?
+What's up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down from their summer camp.
+What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The rancher interrupted only
+to greet the artist with a "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made
+known the identity of his companion.</p>
+
+<p>When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher said, "I heard that 'auto'
+going up, and then heard it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You
+missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come on straight up here
+you'd a met it."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the man on horseback, going down, just before dusk?" asked
+the officer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not near enough to know him. You don't suppose Sibyl would go up
+to her old home do you, Brian?"</p>
+
+<p>"She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and I will ride up there, on
+the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll stop in on your way back?" called the rancher, as the two horsemen
+moved away.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," answered the Ranger.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, they were back. They had found the old home under the giant
+sycamores, on the edge of the little clearing, dark and untenanted.</p>
+
+<p>Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the Carleton ranch-house.
+Down at the corral, the twinkling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and
+there. As the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern came rapidly
+up the hill. At the porch, they were met by Henry Carleton, his two sons,
+and a ranch hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, and of the
+lantern on the porch, listening to Brian Oakley's report, each held the
+bridle-reins of a saddle-horse.</p>
+
+<p>"I figured that the chance of her being up there was so mighty slim that
+we'd better be ready to ride when you got back," said the mountain
+ranchman. "What's your program, Brian?" Thus simply he put himself and his
+household in command of the Ranger.</p>
+
+<p>The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've got the fastest horse
+in the outfit. I want you to go down to the Power-House and find out if
+any one there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he explained to
+the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, that she came into the mountains.
+While I haven't a doubt but she did, we've got to know."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger finished The officer turned
+to him again. "Find out what you can about that automobile and the man on
+horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get back." There was a sharp
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs, and the rider disappeared in the darkness of
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>The other members of the little party rode more leisurely down the canyon
+road to the Ranger Station. When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley
+said, "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a little note." He
+went into the house where, as they sat on the porch, they saw him through
+the window, his desk.</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger had finished his letter and with the sealed official envelope
+in his hand, appeared in the doorway when his messenger to the Power-House
+returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his horse up to the porch.
+"Good time, Jack," said the officer, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The young man answered, "One of the company men saw Sibyl. He was coming
+up with a load of supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power-House
+just before dark. When he was opening the gate, the automobile went by. It
+was too dark to see how many were in the machine. They heard the 'auto' go
+down the canyon, again, later. No one noticed the man on horseback. Three
+Company men will be up here at daybreak."</p>
+
+<p>"Good boy," said Brian Oakley, again. And then, for a little, no sound
+save the soft clinking of bit or bridle-chain in the darkness broke the
+hush that fell over the little group. With faces turned toward their
+leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, the long official
+envelope in his hand. When he spoke, there was a ring in his voice that
+left in the minds of his companions no doubt as to his view of the
+seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. "Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You will ride to Fairlands. It's half past one, now. You should be back
+between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and
+bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know.
+You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at
+your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished
+into the night.</p>
+
+<p>While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger
+spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your
+place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with
+breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place
+the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will
+likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the rancher as he mounted.
+"You know they'll be on the job."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the mountaineer rode away.
+Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the
+canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after
+sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into
+the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up
+Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley
+neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've
+found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."</p>
+
+<p>When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the
+artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more
+that can be done, until daylight."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his
+hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon
+muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words
+that he was not tired.</p>
+
+<p>"You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of
+this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible,
+to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us.
+Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't
+sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."</p>
+
+<p>As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I
+knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in
+my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands
+before you did, unless it came over through the Galena Valley, from some
+town on the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way--which isn't likely. If it
+<i>did</i> come from Fairlands, it must have waited somewhere along the road,
+to enter the canyon after dark. Do you think that any one else besides
+Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl started up here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. The neighbor where she borrowed the horse didn't know
+where she was going."</p>
+
+<p>"Who saw her last?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mrs. Taine did."</p>
+
+<p>The artist had already told the Ranger about the possible meeting of Mrs.
+Taine and Sibyl in his studio.</p>
+
+<p>"Hu-m-m," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you know," said the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said." The Ranger spoke casually. Then, as if
+dismissing the matter, he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll
+take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. As soon as it's
+light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out where that automobile went--and
+what for."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch33" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Beginning the Search</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King lay with closed eyes, but not asleep. He was thinking,
+thinking, thinking In a weary circle, his tired brain went round and
+round, finding no place to stop. The man on horseback, the automobile,
+some accident that might have befallen the girl in her distraught state of
+mind--he could find no place in the weary treadmill of conjecture to rest.
+While it was still too dark to see, Brian Oakley called him. And the call
+was a relief.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, "It'll be light enough
+to see, by the time we get above Carleton's. We know the automobile went
+that far anyway."</p>
+
+<p>At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, by the lights, that the
+mountaineer's family were already making ready for the gathering of the
+riders. A little beyond, they met two men from the Company Head-Work, on
+their way to the meeting place. Soon, in the gray, early morning light,
+the tracks of the automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed to
+the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine had stopped and,
+turning around, had started back down the canyon. With experienced care,
+Brian Oakley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give up hope of finding
+any positive signs pointing to the solution of the puzzle, the officer
+remounted, slowly. "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry and
+cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, that there are no clear
+signs at all. Come, we better get back to Carleton's, and start the boys
+out. When Milt returns from Fairlands he may know something."</p>
+
+<p>With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, summoned in the night by
+the Ranger's messengers, assembled at the ranch; every man armed and
+mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied to the trees in the
+yard, and along the fence in front, or standing with bridle-reins over
+their heads, the horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on their
+heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the mountain riders who had
+arrived first and had finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's
+word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with the later ones; and
+these, as fast as they finished their meal, made way for the new arrivals.
+There was no loud talk; no boisterous laughter; no uneasy restlessness.
+Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, these hardy mountaineers
+had answered Brian Oakley's call; and they placed themselves, now, under
+his command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excitement but with a
+purpose and spirit that would, if need be, hold them in their saddles
+until their horses dropped under them, and would, then, send them on,
+afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could be made to respond
+to their wills.</p>
+
+<p>
+
+
+There was scarce a man in that company, who did not know and love Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s, and who had not known and loved her parents. Many of them had
+ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andr&eacute;s' death. When the officer
+and his companion appeared, they gathered round their leader with simple
+words of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, and assigned the
+territory to be covered by each. Three shots in quick succession, at
+intervals of two minutes, would signal that the search was finished. Two
+men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, after his messenger to the
+Sheriff had returned. At sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch
+for further orders. When the officer finished speaking, the little group
+of men turned to the horses, and, without the loss of a moment, were out
+of sight in the mountain wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>A half hour before he was due, young Carleton appeared with the Sheriff's
+answer to the Ranger's letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley,
+heartily. "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest yourself,
+and be ready for whatever comes next."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to those he had held to go with him; "All right, boys, let's
+ride. Sheriff will take care of the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger rode in the lead, bending
+low from his saddle, his gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he
+dismounted and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or to wait, at
+his word. When they came out on the pipe-line trail, he halted the party,
+and, on foot, went carefully over the ground either way from the point
+where they stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," he said at last, "I have a hunch that there was a horse on this
+trail last night. It's been so blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I
+can't be sure. I held you two men because I know you are good trailers.
+Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, and see what you can find. It isn't
+necessary to say stay with it if you strike anything that even looks like
+it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the other way, and up the Galena
+trail to the fire-break."</p>
+
+<p>While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs in the little path, and
+the artist, with the others, was waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to
+that day when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under the oaks and, in
+a spirit of irresponsible fun, had committed themselves to the leadership
+of Croesus. To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free leisure,
+seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's fanciful oration to the burro,
+he thought grimly how unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of
+the great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly trivial
+incident. He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he
+had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on
+the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the
+canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome
+companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours
+that she had spent there with him?</p>
+
+<p>As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her,
+that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step
+of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the
+trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their
+canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the
+very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along
+the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his
+mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find
+her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The
+officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the
+way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He
+could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where
+was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse,
+leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They
+should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night. Last night!
+Was it only last night?</p>
+
+<p>Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break on the crest of the
+Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I don't think there's been anything over
+this way," he said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up there,
+for a look around."</p>
+
+<p>At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the clump of pines, where Aaron
+King and Sibyl Andr&eacute;s had eaten their lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be here some time," said the Ranger. "Make yourself comfortable. I
+want to see if there's anything stirring down yonder."</p>
+
+<p>With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena Valley side of the
+range, through his powerful glass; commenting, now and then, when some
+object came in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>They had risen to go and the officer was returning his glass to its case
+on his saddle, when Aaron King--pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and
+hazy in the distant valley--said, "Look there!"</p>
+
+<p>The other turned his head to see a flash of light that winked through the
+dull, smoky veil, with startling clearness. He smiled and turned again to
+his saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the sun striking some
+bright object that happens to be at just the right angle to hit you with
+the reflection. A bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile
+shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. Come, we'll go back to
+the trail and follow the break the other way."</p>
+
+<p>In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, hard day, as Brian
+Oakley and Aaron King were starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their
+return to the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His quick eyes had
+caught the twinkling gleam of a light at Sibyl's old home, far below,
+across the canyon. The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his
+four-footed companion, was going down the steep trail at a pace that sent
+the gravel flying and forced the artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to
+cling desperately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger sent the
+chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as they crossed the rough
+boulder-strewn wash. Plunging through the tumbling water of the creek,
+the horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed along the old,
+weed-grown road, into the little clearing They were met by Czar with a
+bark of welcome. A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad Lagrange and
+Myra Willard.</p>
+
+<p>"But why don't you stay down at the ranch, Myra?" asked the Ranger, when
+he had told them that his day's work was without results.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Mr. Oakley," returned the woman with the disfigured face. "I know
+Sibyl too well not to understand the possibilities of her temperament.
+Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and cool and strong
+under ordinary circumstances, under peculiar mental stress such as I
+believe caused her to leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know
+nothing. The child may be wandering, alone--dazed and helpless under the
+shock of a cruel and malicious attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some
+terrible stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me as she did.
+If she <i>is</i> alone, out here in the hills, there is a chance that--even in
+her distracted state of mind--she will find her way to her old home." The
+woman paused, and then, in the silence, added hesitatingly, "I--I may say
+that I know from experience the possibilities of which I speak."</p>
+
+<p>The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley said softly, "Myra, you've
+got more heart and more sense than all of us put together." To Conrad
+Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss Willard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the novelist, "I would be little good in the hills, at
+such work as you are doing, Brian. I will do what I can, here."</p>
+
+<p>When the Ranger and the artist were riding down the canyon to the ranch,
+the officer said, "There's a big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After
+all, she knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that she's got a
+fairly clear idea of what sent the child off like this. As it stands now,
+the girl may be just wandering around. If she <i>is</i>, the boys will pick her
+up before many hours. She may have met with some accident. If <i>that's</i> it,
+we'll know before long. She may have been--I tell you, Aaron, it's that
+automobile acting the way it did that I can't get around."</p>
+
+<p>The searchers were all at the ranch when the two men arrived. No one had a
+word of encouragement to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no
+light on the mystery of the automobile. The two men who had followed the
+pipe-line trail had found nothing. A few times, they thought they had
+signs that a horse had been over the trail the night before, but there was
+no certainty; and after the pipe-line reached the floor of the canyon
+there was absolutely nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena
+Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horseman who had gone down the
+canyon the evening before. The man was known to all. He had been hunting,
+and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him.
+He had come, now, to help in the search.</p>
+
+<p>Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend
+the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for
+camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up
+the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that
+could scarcely be called sleep.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and
+fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a
+camp-fire's light, came in.</p>
+
+<p>All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of
+their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long
+after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly
+exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found
+alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other
+side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been
+found. The animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. The saddle
+and the horse's sides were stained with dirt, as if the animal had fallen.
+The bridle-reins had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the
+saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; he might have fallen
+and left his rider lying senseless. In any case, they reasoned, the animal
+would scarcely have found his way over the Galena range after he had been
+left to wander at will.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley decided to send the main company of riders over into the Pine
+Glen country, to continue the search there. He knew that the men who found
+the horse would follow the animal's track back as far as possible. He
+knew, also, that if the animal had been wandering several hours, as was
+likely, it would be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron
+King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange the
+result of the day's work.</p>
+
+<p>The artist's voice trembled as he told the general opinion of the
+mountaineers; but Myra Willard said, "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby
+will come back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she is not dead
+or--I would know it."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told him the woman of the
+disfigured face had no ground for her belief, he was somehow helped, by
+her words, to hope.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch34" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>The Tracks on Granite Peak</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian
+Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger, himself,
+had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.</p>
+
+<p>When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the
+neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break
+on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of
+little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never
+been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion,
+steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there nothing that I can do, Brian?" returned the young man,
+hopelessly. "God, man! I <i>must</i> do something! I <i>must</i>, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Steady, old boy, steady," returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The
+first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If
+you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."</p>
+
+<p>Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right,
+Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the
+day on that point, up there,"--he pointed to the clump of pines,--"with
+this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle.
+Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the
+country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he
+paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"</p>
+
+<p>The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only
+recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, <i>nothing</i>, get away
+from me. I don't want <i>you</i> to think. I want you to do the thing that will
+be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will <i>think</i>, that I
+hesitate to assign you to the position."</p>
+
+<p>The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face.
+Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I
+understand. You can depend upon me."</p>
+
+<p>"Good boy!" came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go
+to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find
+it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and
+then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will
+stay over at Pine Glen."</p>
+
+<p>Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb,
+Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried
+not to think.</p>
+
+<p>It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a
+long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light
+in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian
+Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the
+search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied,
+watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity
+in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of
+the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he
+watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one
+flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause.
+For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot
+under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order:
+--- -- - - -- ---.</p>
+
+<p>At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain
+peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the
+Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another.
+With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but
+the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to
+see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to
+be the orange groves about Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do?
+What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing.
+Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every
+possibility, and letting nothing <i>nothing</i>, get away from me." Instantly,
+he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing could
+accomplish nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder beside the trail, where he
+was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock.
+Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward
+the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the
+fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.</p>
+
+<p>Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the
+saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head
+back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He
+knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home.
+Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and
+what was left of his lunch.</p>
+
+<p>There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through
+and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp
+thorns and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times,
+he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the
+ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing
+meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff,
+clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and
+projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush,
+found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from
+some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on
+one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always
+he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was
+torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body
+reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not
+stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made
+him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below
+the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when
+the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered
+material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the
+food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was
+bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that
+numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to
+and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a
+strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling
+lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad
+Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns
+among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble
+world. The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about
+the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the
+mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his
+head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his
+beat.</p>
+
+<p>In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of
+his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the
+canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.</p>
+
+<p>It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must
+be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was
+little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward
+the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt
+cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this
+precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the
+pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs.
+Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back
+and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost
+ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to
+think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of
+softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was
+forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the
+direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then,
+as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and
+another and then--</p>
+
+<p>The man--worn by his physical exertion, and by his days of mental
+anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the
+broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a
+smaller, lighter foot.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with
+grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense,
+quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear
+Creek, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the
+novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of
+Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger
+expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the
+roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen
+neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the
+mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for
+one of his inexperience, the way along the crest of the Galenas was
+practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the
+trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head
+of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to
+Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the
+peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to
+find the artist.</p>
+
+<p>At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack
+Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and
+Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was
+agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at
+daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that
+night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should
+accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack
+were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a
+messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile had been seen returning
+from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man
+in the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this,
+with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to
+Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of
+whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to
+trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left
+it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."</p>
+
+<p>A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in
+opposite directions.</p>
+
+<p>Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road
+branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House
+at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an
+automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine
+had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.</p>
+
+<p>A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped
+and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the
+head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward
+Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small
+store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were
+tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose
+to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on
+the trail.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a
+slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in
+Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the
+artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range,
+Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the
+supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch35" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>A Hard Way</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Sibyl Andr&eacute;s left the studio, after meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was
+dominated by one thought--that she must get away from the world that saw
+only evil in her friendship with Aaron King--a friendship that, to the
+mountain girl, was as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian
+Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman with the disfigured
+face, only the worthy had been permitted to enter into the life of this
+child of the hills. Sibyl's character--mind and heart and body and
+soul--had been formed by the strength and purity of her mountain
+environment; by her association with her parents, with Myra Willard, and
+with her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental comradeship with
+the greatest spirits that music and literature have given to the world. As
+her physical strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain life,
+the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was the gift of those kindred
+spirits that are as mountains in the mental and spiritual life of the
+race.</p>
+
+<p>Love had come to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, not as it comes to those girls who, in the
+hot-house of passion we call civilization, are forced into premature and
+sickly bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come to her so
+gently, so naturally, so like the opening of a wild flower, that she had
+not yet understood that it was love. Even as her womanhood had come to
+fulfill her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life to fulfill her
+womanhood. She had chosen her mate with an unconscious obedience to the
+laws of life that was divinely reckless of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for
+Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet
+understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been
+tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his
+growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with
+that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of
+God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human
+lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity
+than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their
+children?</p>
+
+<p>The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in
+every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of
+her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted
+the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as
+her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and
+sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had
+crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, frightened,
+dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, the girl turned in reluctant
+flight from the place that was, to her, because of her love, holy ground.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mrs. Taine--the woman had
+spoken so kindly; had seemed so reluctant to speak at all; had appeared so
+to appreciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unimportant incidents,
+that, in the light of the worldly woman's words, could be twisted to
+evidence the truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon the
+girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with his work, instead of truly
+enjoying life with him, as she had thought, her friendship was to him a
+menace, a danger. She had believed--and the belief had brought her a
+strange happiness--that he had cared for her companionship. He had cared
+only to use her for his pictures--as he used his brushes. He had played
+with her--as she had seen him toy idly with a brush, while thinking over
+his work. He would throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as
+she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside.</p>
+
+<p>The woman who was still a child could not blame the artist--she was too
+loyal to what she had thought was their friendship; she was too unselfish
+in her yet unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could not blame
+him--only--only--she wished--oh how she wished--that she had understood.
+It would not have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood.</p>
+
+<p>In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her confused and
+bewildering thoughts, in all her suffering one thing was clear; she must
+get away from the world that could see only evil--she must go at once.
+Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any moment. She could not
+face them; now that she knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would
+leave a little note and Myra--dear Myra with her disfigured face--would
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she dressed in her mountain
+costume. Still acting under her blind impulse to escape, she made no
+explanations to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In her desire
+to avoid coming face to face with any one, she even chose the more
+unfrequented streets through the orange groves. In her humiliation and
+shame, she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not until she had
+left the city far behind, and, in the soft dusk, drew near the mouth of
+the canyon, did she regain some measure of her self-control.</p>
+
+<p>As she was overtaking the Power Company's team and wagon of supplies, she
+turned in her saddle, for the first time, to look back. A mile away, on
+the road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving spot which she
+knew to be an automobile. One of the Company machines, she thought; and
+drew a breath of relief that Fairlands was so far away.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite dark as she entered the canyon; but, as she drew near, she
+could see against the sky, those great gates, opening silently,
+majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she
+rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks
+and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light
+of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was
+sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling
+Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and
+calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and,
+somehow, all would be well.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to
+the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick
+ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw
+the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company
+machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor,
+to see some one of the mountain folk.</p>
+
+<p>As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and
+halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her
+horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal
+restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed
+that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until
+a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as
+though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them,
+and stopped; its engine still running.</p>
+
+<p>Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only
+their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very
+nicely."</p>
+
+<p>But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by
+the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped
+close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard
+above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Miss Andr&eacute;s, is it not?" He spoke as though he was known to her;
+and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and
+feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his
+face, as she answered.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's
+position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his
+powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's
+companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of the machine,
+had drawn close to the other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein.</p>
+
+<p>Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry out, a softly-rolled,
+silk handkerchief was thrust between her lips and skillfully tied in
+place. She struggled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of her
+captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. As he bound her hands,
+the man spoke reassuringly; "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you.
+I've got to do this; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do you no good
+to wear yourself out."</p>
+
+<p>Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the stranger was as gentle as
+the circumstances permitted him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at
+all; and, in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He seemed to
+be acting wholly against his will; as if driven by some power that
+rendered him, in fact, as helpless as his victim.</p>
+
+<p>The other man, still standing by the horse's head, spoke sharply; "All
+right there?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir," gruffly answered the man who held Sibyl, and lifting the
+helpless girl gently in his arms he seated her carefully in the machine.
+An automobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar turned up to
+hide the handkerchief about her lips, and her hat was replaced by an
+"auto-cap," pulled low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the other
+man took the seat beside her; and the car moved forward.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. Realizing the
+uselessness of any effort to escape, she wisely saved her strength;
+watchful to take quick advantage of any opportunity that might present
+itself. Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to release the
+bandage that prevented her from crying out. But the hands that had bound
+her had been too skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her
+companion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned collar and cap
+pulled low over "auto-glasses," the identity of the man driving the car
+was effectually hidden.</p>
+
+<p>Only when they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights
+through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her
+strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young
+voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her
+safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon
+run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as
+she was, the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she sank back in
+the seat, exhausted by her useless exertion.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile stopped. The man who
+had been following on Sibyl's horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men
+worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets--as the girl guessed--on
+the animal. Presently, the one who had bound her, lifted her gently from
+the automobile "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her ear, as he
+carried her toward the horse. "It will do you no good." And the girl did
+not again resist, as he lifted her to the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>The driver of the car said something to his companion in a low tone, and
+Sibyl heard her captor answer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she
+were in her own home."</p>
+
+<p>Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only the reply; "Don't worry; I
+understand that. I'll go through with it. You've left me no chance to do
+anything else."</p>
+
+<p>Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the bridle-rein, the man who
+seemed to be under orders, led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the
+girl heard the automobile starting on its return. The sound died away in
+the distance. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sound of
+the man's hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the road.</p>
+
+<p>Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to the horse's shoulder,
+asked if she was comfortable. The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that
+gag," he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I dare not take
+chances." He turned abruptly away and they went on.</p>
+
+<p>Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a ray of hope. That no
+immediate danger threatened, she was assured. That the man was acting
+against his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend her efforts
+toward enlisting his sympathies,--to make it hard for him to carry out the
+purpose of whoever controlled him,--instead of antagonizing him by
+continued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, and so making it
+easier for him to do his master's bidding.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they reached Burnt Pine,
+where the man removed the handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you," she said quietly. "That is so much better."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry that I had to do it," he returned, as he unbound her arms.
+"There, you may get down now, and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to be free," she said.
+"But, really, I'm not a bit tired. Can't I help you with the pack?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," returned the other, gruffly, as though he understood her purpose and
+put himself on his guard. "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a
+long road ahead. You must rest."</p>
+
+<p>Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back against a tree.</p>
+
+<p>As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she said, "May I ask where
+you are taking me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long road, Miss Andr&eacute;s. We'll be there to-morrow night," he
+answered reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is--some one waiting for--for us, at
+the end of our journey?"</p>
+
+<p>The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "no, Miss Andr&eacute;s; there'll he
+just you and me, for some time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear
+<i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at all afraid of you," she returned gently. "But I am--" she
+hesitated--"I am sorry for you--that you have to do this."</p>
+
+<p>The man arose abruptly. "We must he going."</p>
+
+<p>For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to the Laurel Creek trail,
+toward San Gorgonio; then they turned aside to follow some unmarked way,
+known only to the man. When the first soft tints of the day shone in the
+sky behind the peaks and ridges, while Sibyl's friends were assembling at
+the Carleton Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was directing
+the day's search, the girl was following her guide in the wild depths of
+the mountain wilderness, miles from any trail. The country was strange to
+her, but she knew that they were making their way, far above the canyon
+rim, on the side of the San Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold
+Water country that opened into the great desert beyond.</p>
+
+<p>As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her companion a man of medium
+height, with powerful shoulders and arms; dressed in khaki, with mountain
+boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a powerful stride that told
+of almost tireless strength, the girl saw the familiar stock of a
+Winchester rifle. Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his face.
+It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but
+the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent.
+In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness,
+as though there were memories that could not be escaped.</p>
+
+<p>"We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss Andr&eacute;s," he said
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so hungry," she answered, dismounting. "May I make the coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "I'm sorry; but there must be no telltale smoke. The
+Ranger and his riders are out by now, as like as not."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem very familiar with the country," she said, moving easily toward
+the rifle which he had leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with
+the pack of supplies.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," he answered. "I have been forced to learn it thoroughly. By the
+way, Miss Andr&eacute;s,"--he added, without turning his head, as he knelt on the
+ground to take food from the pack,--"that Winchester will do you no good.
+It is not loaded. I have the shells in my belt." He arose, facing her, and
+throwing open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five that hung in
+a shoulder holster under his left armpit. "This will serve in case quick
+action is needed, and it is always safely out of your reach, you see."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," she said. "I might have
+known that you put the rifle within my reach to try me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it would save you needless disappointment to make things clear
+at once," he answered. "Breakfast is ready."</p>
+
+<p>The incident threw a strong light upon the character with which Sibyl had
+to deal. She realized, more than ever, that her only hope lay in so
+winning this man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn against
+whoever had forced him into his present position. The struggle was to be
+one of those silent battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are
+not seen but only felt, and where those who fight must often fight with
+smiling faces. The girl's part was to enlist her captor to fight for her,
+against himself. She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her object
+with caution. Eager to know who it was that ruled this man, and by what
+peculiar power a character so strong could be so subjected, she dared not
+ask. Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the
+mountain wilds, she watched and waited for some sign that her companion's
+mood would make it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she exercised
+all her womanly tact to lead him to forget his distasteful position, and
+so to make his uncongenial task as pleasant as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not realize how far her decision, in itself, aroused the
+admiring sympathy of her captor. Her coolness, self-possession, and
+bravery in meeting the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather
+than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, did more than she
+realized toward accomplishing her purpose.</p>
+
+<p>During that long forenoon, she sought to engage her guide in conversation,
+quite as though they were making a pleasure trip that was mutually
+agreeable. The man--as though he also desired his thoughts removed as far
+as might be from his real mission--responded readily, and succeeded in
+making himself a really interesting companion. Only once, did the girl
+venture to approach dangerous ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," she said, "I wish I knew your name. It seems so stupid not to
+know how to address you. Is that asking too much?"</p>
+
+<p>The man did not answer for some time, and the girl saw his face clouded
+with somber thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," she said gently. "I--I ought not to have asked."</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andr&eacute;s," he said deliberately. "But it is
+not the name by which I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is an
+honorable name, and I would like to hear it again--" he paused--"from
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston--believe me, I do
+appreciate your confidence, and--" she in turn hesitated--"and I will keep
+the trust."</p>
+
+<p>By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the Galenas, having come by an
+unmarked way, through the wild country around the head of Clear Creek
+Canyon.</p>
+
+<p>They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at his watch, took a small
+mirror from his pocket and stood gazing expectantly toward the distant
+valley where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, a flash of
+light appeared; then another and another. It was the signal that Aaron
+King had seen and to which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that
+first day of their search.</p>
+
+<p>With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak answered and the girl, watching
+and understanding that he was communicating with some one, saw his face
+grow dark with anger. She did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the peak, when the man again
+stopped, saying, "You must dismount here, please."</p>
+
+<p>Removing the things from the saddle, he led the horse a little way down
+the Galena Valley side of the ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then,
+slapping the animal about the head with his open hand, he forced the horse
+to break the reins, and started him off toward the distant valley. Again,
+the girl understood and made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her companion--his eyes
+avoiding hers in shame--said gruffly, "Come."</p>
+
+<p>Their way, now, led down from the higher levels of peak and ridge, into
+the canyons and gorges of the Cold Water country. There was no trail, but
+the man went forward as one entirely at home. At the head of a deep gorge,
+where their way seemed barred by the face of an impossible cliff that
+towered above their heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand,
+sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and faced the girl,
+enquiringly. "You have a good head, Miss Andr&eacute;s?"</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. Marston," she answered.
+"You need not fear for me."</p>
+
+<p>Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, he led her, by a narrow
+ledge, across the face of the cliff; and then, by an easier path, down the
+opposite wall of the gorge.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at a little log cabin
+that was so hidden in the wild tangle of mountain growth at the bottom of
+the narrow canyon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred yards.</p>
+
+<p>The girl knew that they had reached the end of their journey. Nearly
+exhausted by the hours of physical exertion, and worn with the mental and
+nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that her companion spread
+for her upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for you," he said,
+regarding her kindly. "Poor child, this has been a hard, hard, day for
+you. For me--"</p>
+
+<p>Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank him. For a moment he
+stood looking down at her. Then she saw his face grow black with rage,
+and, clenching his great fists, he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>While waiting for the darkness that would hide the smoke of the fire, the
+man gathered cedar boughs from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed
+in the cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built a fire in the
+rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, announced supper. The meal was
+really excellent; and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily;
+which won an admiring comment from her captor.</p>
+
+<p>The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to thank you, Miss Andr&eacute;s,
+for making this day as easy for me as you have. We will be alone here,
+until Friday, at least; perhaps longer. There is a bar to the cabin door.
+You may rest here as safely as though you were in your own room. Good
+night."</p>
+
+<p>Before she could answer, he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. "Mr. Marston," she
+called.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss Andr&eacute;s," came, instantly, out of the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Please come into the cabin."</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be cold out there. Please come inside."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Miss Andr&eacute;s; but I will do very nicely. Bar the door and go to
+sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know that you are
+comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>The man came to her and she saw him in the dim light of the fire, standing
+hat in hand. He spoke wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andr&eacute;s, that you
+would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in."</p>
+
+<p>But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And why are you not afraid?"
+he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," she answered, "I know that you are a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>The man laughed harshly--such a laugh as Sibyl had never before heard. "A
+gentleman! This is the first time I have heard that word in connection
+with myself for many a year, Miss Andr&eacute;s. You have little reason for using
+it--after what I have done to you--and am doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do what you are doing. You
+<i>are</i> a gentleman, Mr. Marston.--Won't you please come in and sleep by the
+fire? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And you have had such a hard
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andr&eacute;s," the man said brokenly.
+"But I will not intrude upon your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he
+added savagely, "don't you see that I--I <i>can't?</i> Bar your door, please,
+and let me play the part assigned to me. Your kindness to me, your
+confidence in me, is wasted."</p>
+
+<p>He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the darkness.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch36" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>What Should He Do</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The next morning, it was evident to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s that the man who said his
+name was Henry Marston had not slept.</p>
+
+<p>All that day, she watched the battle--saw him fighting with himself. He
+kept apart from her, and spoke but little. When night came, as soon as
+supper was over, he again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in
+a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She could not understand;
+but she felt him fighting, fighting; and she knew that he fought for her.
+What was it? What terrible unseen force mastered this man,--compelled him
+to do its bidding,--even while he hated and loathed himself for
+submitting?</p>
+
+<p>Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless girl could only pray
+that her companion might be given strength.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning, at breakfast, he told her that he must go to
+Granite Peak to signal. His orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to
+go alone; but he would not. She might go with him, if she chose.</p>
+
+<p>Even this crumb of encouragement--that he would so far disobey his
+master--filled the girl's heart with hope. "I would love to go with you,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, I
+would rather stay."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you would rather be locked up in the cabin all day, than to
+make trouble for me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be so terrible," she answered, "and I would like to do
+something--something to--to show you that I appreciate your, kindness to
+me. There's nothing else I <i>can</i> do, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at her wonderingly. It was impossible to doubt her
+sincerity. And Sibyl, as she saw his face, knew that she had never before
+witnessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes that looked into
+hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, were the eyes of a soul in torment.
+Her own eyes filled with tears that she could not hide, and she turned
+away.</p>
+
+<p>At last he said slowly, "No, Miss Andr&eacute;s, you shall not stay in the cabin
+to-day. Come; we must go on, or I shall be late."</p>
+
+<p>At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes from distant
+Fairlands--the flashes that Aaron King was watching, from the peak where
+they had sat together that day of their last climb. As the man answered
+the signals with his mirror, and the girl beside him watched, the artist
+was training his glass upon the spot where they stood; but, partially
+concealed as they were, the distance was too great.</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the message conveyed by the
+flashes of light, his face was terrible to see; and the girl, without
+asking, knew that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly fear gripped her
+heart; but she was strangely calm. On the way back to the cabin, the man
+scarcely spoke, but walked with bent head; and the girl felt him fighting,
+fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead with him, to demand that he tell
+her why he must do this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinctively
+that he must fight alone. So she watched and waited and prayed. As they
+were crossing the face of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man
+stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, stood looking
+moodily down into the depths below. Then they went on. That night, he did
+not leave the cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, but
+sat on one of the rude seats with which the little hut was furnished,
+gazing into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss Andr&eacute;s, I would like to
+ask your opinion in a matter that I cannot decide satisfactorily to
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>She took the seat on the other side of the rude fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mr. Marston?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will put it in the form of a story," he answered. Then, after a wait of
+some minutes, as though he found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old
+story, Miss Andr&eacute;s; a very common one, but with a difference. A young man,
+with every chance in the world to go right, went wrong. He was well-born.
+He was fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and
+considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the
+man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool--that's
+all--a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness.</p>
+
+<p>"A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is a big price for a young
+man to pay for being a fool, Miss Andr&eacute;s. He was twenty-five when he went
+in--strong and vigorous, with a good mind; the prospects years of prison
+life--but that's not the story. I could not hope to make you understand
+what a thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a man of
+twenty-five. But, at least, you will not wonder that the man watched for
+an opportunity to escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten
+years,--ten years,--Miss Andr&eacute;s, the man watched and prayed for a chance
+to escape. Then he got away.</p>
+
+<p>"He was never a criminal at heart, you must understand. He had no wish,
+now, to live a life of crime. He wished only to live a sane, orderly,
+useful, life of freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They could not
+take him, but they made it impossible for him to escape--he was
+starving--dying. He would not give himself up to the twenty years of hell
+that waited him. He did not want to die--but he would die rather than go
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a man found him. The poor
+hunted devil of a convict aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the
+wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to furnish him with
+supplies, until it would be safe for him to leave his hiding place. He
+brought him food and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's prison
+pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were grown, and the prison manner
+and walk were, in some measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking
+that he had perished in the mountains, had given up looking for him; his
+benefactor gave him work--beautiful work in the orange groves--where he
+was safe and happy and useful and could feel himself a <i>man</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wonder, Miss Andr&eacute;s, that the man was grateful? Do you wonder that
+he worshipped his benefactor--that he looked upon his friend as upon his
+savior?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a beautiful thing to do--to
+help the poor fellow who wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man
+who had escaped, loved his friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But listen," said the other, "when the convict was beginning to feel
+safe; when he saw that he was out of danger; when he was living an
+honorable, happy life, instead of spending his days in the hell they call
+prison; when he was looking forward to years of happiness instead of to
+years of torment; then his benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and
+said, 'Unless you do what I tell you, now--unless you help me to something
+that I want, I will send you back to prison. Do as I say, and your life
+shall go on as it is--as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn you
+over to the officers, and you will go back to your hell for the remainder
+of your life.'</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wonder, Miss Andr&eacute;s, that the convict obeyed his master?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face was white with despair, but she did not lose her
+self-control. She answered the man, thoughtfully--as though they were
+discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I think,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend upon what it was that the
+man wanted the convict to do. It seems to me that I can imagine the
+convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man
+wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his
+freedom. What was it the man wanted?"</p>
+
+<p>Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.</p>
+
+<p>The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, "Freedom and
+a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only
+the memory of a good deed--which should the man choose, Miss Andr&eacute;s?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," she replied, "that you should tell me, plainly, what it was
+that the man wanted the convict to do."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go on with the story," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"The convict's benefactor--or, perhaps I should say, master--loved a woman
+who refused to listen to him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very
+suddenly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hurried note, saying,
+only, that she was going away. By accident, the man found the note and saw
+his opportunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the
+mountains. He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no
+one would know what had become of her. He believed that she would marry
+him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone,
+because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she
+had gone with him. Their marriage would save her good name. He wanted the
+man whom he could send back to prison to help him.</p>
+
+<p>"The convict had known his benefactor's kindness of heart, you must
+remember, Miss Andr&eacute;s. He knew that this man was able to give his wife
+everything that seems desirable in life--that thousands of women would
+have been glad to marry him. The man assured the convict that he desired
+only to make the girl his wife before all the world. He agreed that she
+should remain under the convict's protection until she <i>was</i> his wife, and
+that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony." The man paused.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do you wonder, Miss Andr&eacute;s,
+that the convict obeyed his master?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, Mr. Marston," she
+continued, hesitatingly, "what do you think the convict in your story
+would have done if the man had not--if he had not wanted to marry the
+girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know what he would have done in that case," the other answered with
+conviction. "He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would
+have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his
+freedom at such a price."</p>
+
+<p>The girl leaned forward, eagerly; "And suppose--suppose--that after the
+convict had done his master's bidding--suppose that after he had taken the
+girl away from her friends--suppose, then, the man would not marry her?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was no sound in the little room, save the crackling of
+the fire in the fire-place, and the sound of a stick that had burned in
+two, falling in the ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"What would the convict do if the man would not marry the girl?" persisted
+Sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge passing sentence; "If
+the man violated his word--if he lied to the convict--if his purpose
+toward the girl was anything less than an honorable marriage--if he
+refused to keep his promise after the convict had done his part--he would
+die, Miss Andr&eacute;s. The convict would kill his benefactor--as surely as
+there is a just God who, alone, can say what is right and what is wrong."</p>
+
+<p>The girl uttered a low cry.</p>
+
+<p>The man did not seem to notice. "But the man will do as he promised, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s. He wishes to make the girl his wife. He can give her all that
+women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In the eyes of the world,
+she would be envied by thousands. And the convict would gain freedom and
+the right to live an honorable life--the right to earn his bread by doing
+an honest man's work. Freedom and a life of honorable service, at the
+price; or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should he
+choose, Miss Andr&eacute;s? The convict is past deciding for himself."</p>
+
+<p>The troubled answer came out of the honesty of the girl's heart; "Mr.
+Marston, I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>A moment, the man on the other side of the fireplace waited. Then, rising,
+he quietly left the cabin. The girl did not know that he was gone, until
+she heard the door close.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the wild Cold Water country,
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s sat before the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high,
+wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron King grimly walked his
+weary beat. In Clear Creek Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange
+waited, and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in the Galena
+Valley, an automobile from Fairlands stopped at the mouth of a canyon
+leading toward Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the night, a
+man strove to know right from wrong.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch37" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Man Was Insane</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Neither Sibyl Andr&eacute;s nor her companion, the next morning, reopened their
+conversation of the night before. Each was preoccupied and silent, with
+troubled thoughts that might not be spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl saw the man listening, as though for
+a step on the mountainside above. She knew, without being told, that the
+convict was expecting his master. It was, perhaps, ten o'clock, when they
+heard a sound that told them some one was approaching.</p>
+
+<p>The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round of cartridges into the
+magazine; saying to the girl, "Go into the cabin and bar the door; quick,
+do as I say! Don't come out until I call you."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, disappeared in the
+heavy underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the bushes and stepped into the
+little open space in front of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle
+under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew as Henry Marston, with,
+"Hello, George, everything all right? Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Andr&eacute;s is in the cabin. When I heard you coming, I asked her to go
+inside, and took cover in the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it
+was you."</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. But you needn't worry.
+Everything is as peaceful as a graveyard. They've found the horse, and
+they think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an accident while
+wandering around the hills in a state of mental aberration."</p>
+
+<p>"You left the supplies at the same old place, I suppose?" said the
+convict.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I brought what I could," Rutlidge indicated a pack which he had
+slipped from his shoulder as he was talking. "You better hike over there
+and bring in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will make it
+back by noon, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word and trembled with fear.
+The convict spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until you get back. You must
+start at once. You say Miss Andr&eacute;s is in the cabin?" He turned toward the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. I have a word to say,
+before I go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, out with it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going to forget your promise to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, George. You are safe."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean regarding Miss Andr&eacute;s."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course not! Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your wife."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care of her until you get back.
+You need have no fear. You're not doubting my word, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I doubted your word, I would take Miss Andr&eacute;s with me," answered the
+convict, simply.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge looked at him, curiously; "Oh, you would?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, too, that if you
+<i>should</i> forget your promise--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what would you do if I should forget?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer came deliberately; "If you do not keep your promise I will kill
+you, Mr. Rutlidge."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may come out now, please, Miss Andr&eacute;s."</p>
+
+<p>As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Thank you,
+Mr. Marston. I heard."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant you to hear," he returned in a whisper. "Do not be afraid." In a
+louder tone he continued. "I must go for supplies, Miss Andr&eacute;s. I will be
+back to-morrow noon."</p>
+
+<p>He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s faced James Rutlidge, without speaking. She was not afraid,
+now, as she had always been in his presence, until that day when he had so
+plainly declared himself to her and she met his advances with a gun. The
+convict's warning to the man who could send him back to prison for
+practically the remaining years of his life, had served its purpose in
+giving her courage. She did not believe that, for the present, Rutlidge
+would dare to do otherwise than heed the warning.</p>
+
+<div class="image" id="illus04"><p><img src="images/illus04.png" alt="Still she did not speak." /><br />
+Still she did not speak.</p></div>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+"Really," he said, at last, "you do not seem at all glad to see me."</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I am frightfully hungry"--he continued, with a short laugh, moving toward
+her as she stood in the door of the cabin--"I've been walking since
+midnight I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't even stop for
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>She stepped out, and moved away from the door.</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh, he entered the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he went back to the girl
+who had seated herself on a log, at the farther side of the little
+clearing. "You seem fairly comfortable here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He has been kind to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Still she did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't keep this up, you know.
+Say what you have to say, and let's get it over."</p>
+
+<p>All the time, she had been regarding him intently--her wide, blue eyes
+filled with wondering pain. "How could you?" she said at last. "Oh, how
+could you do such a thing?"</p>
+
+<p>His face flushed. "I did it because you have driven me mad, I guess. From
+the first time I saw you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and
+again, in the last three years, to approach you; but you would have
+nothing to do with me. The more you spurned me, the more I wanted you.
+Then this man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with him. It made me
+wild. From that day when I met you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I
+have been ready for anything. I determined if I could not win you by fair
+means, I would take you in any way I could. When my opportunity came, I
+took advantage of it. I've got you. The story is already started that you
+were the painter's mistress, and that you have committed suicide. You
+shall stay here, a while, until the belief that you are dead has become a
+certainty; then you will go East with me."</p>
+
+<p>"But you cannot do a thing so horrible!" she exclaimed "I would tell my
+story to the first people we met."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal meaning, "You do not seem to
+understand. You will be glad enough to keep the story a secret--when the
+time comes to go."</p>
+
+<p>Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only stammer, "How could
+you--oh how could you! Why, why--"</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" he echoed. Then, as he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with
+reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you!
+Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why!"</p>
+
+<p>He moved another step toward her, his face flushed with the insane passion
+that mastered him, his eyes burning with the reckless light of one past
+counting the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in terror.
+Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, thinking to shut and bar the
+door. She reached the door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While
+he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. Putting his
+shoulder to the door, the man easily forced it open against her lighter
+weight. As he crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest corner of
+the little room, and cowered, trembling--too shaken with horror to cry
+out. A moment he paused; then started toward her.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, the convict burst through the underbrush into the little
+opening.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang to the open door.</p>
+
+<p>The convict was breathing heavily from the exertion of a hard run.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?" demanded Rutlidge, sharply. "What's the
+matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one is following my trail down from Granite Peak."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you carrying that rifle for?" said Rutlidge, harshly, with
+an oath.</p>
+
+<p>"There may be others near enough to hear a shot," answered the convict.
+"Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is your part of the game--not mine. I did not
+agree to commit murder for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where we turn off to go to the
+supply point."</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. "You stay here and take
+care of the girl--and see that she doesn't scream." With the last word he
+set out at a run.</p>
+
+<p>The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still crouched in the
+corner. The man's voice was imploring as he said, "Miss Andr&eacute;s, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s, what is the matter? Did he touch you? Tell me, did he harm you?"</p>
+
+<p>Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted her to her feet.
+"You--you came--just in time, Mr. Marston."</p>
+
+<p>An instant he stood there, then muttering something under his breath, he
+turned, caught up his rifle, and started toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, "Mr. Marston, don't,
+don't leave me again."</p>
+
+<p>The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said solemnly "Miss Andr&eacute;s, can
+you pray? I know you can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer he
+will surely hear you. Come with me. Come--and pray girl--pray for me."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James
+Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that
+he, himself made to Sibyl. The man was insane--as Mr. Taine was insane--as
+Mrs. Taine was insane.</p>
+
+<p>What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to
+materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them
+ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their
+diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions
+with lascivious imaginings? Can a class--whatever its pretense to culture
+may be--can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts
+greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of
+which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not
+tolerate purity of thought. It was literally impossible for him to think
+sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life.
+Education, culture, art, literature,--all that is commonly supposed to
+lift man above the level of the beasts,--are used by men and women of his
+kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to
+bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of
+reaching. In what he called his love for Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, James Rutlidge was
+insane--but no more so than thousands of others. The methods of securing
+the objects of their desires vary--the motive that prompts is the
+same--the end sought is identical.</p>
+
+<p>As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid
+the cabin, the man's mind was in a whirl of emotions--rage at being
+interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one
+should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that
+the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger
+be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a
+maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following
+the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his
+search. The words of the convict rang in his ears. "This is your job. I
+did not agree to commit murder for you."</p>
+
+<p>Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy
+innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul--these are commonplaces in the
+insane philosophy of his kind. But to kill--to take a life
+deliberately--the thought was abhorrent to him. He was not educated to the
+thought of <i>taking</i> life--he was trained to consider its <i>perversion</i>. The
+heroes in <i>his</i> fiction did not <i>kill</i> men--they <i>betrayed</i> women. The
+heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers--they
+loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.</p>
+
+<p>But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andr&eacute;s to be taken from him--to
+face the exposure that would inevitably follow--was impossible. If the man
+who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance--if he
+could be stopped. But how could he check him? What could he do? A
+rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.</p>
+
+<p>While these thoughts were seething in his hot brain, he was climbing
+rapidly toward the cliff at the head of the gorge, across which, he knew,
+the man who was following the tracks that led to the cabin below, must
+come.</p>
+
+<p>Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the face of that mighty
+wall of rock, less than a hundred feet to the other side, he stopped.
+There was no one in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet below the
+tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. Lifting his head, he looked
+carefully about, searching the mountainsides that slope steeply back from
+the rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the frowning cliff that
+towered a thousand feet above his head. He listened. He was thinking,
+thinking. The best of him and the worst of him struggled for supremacy.</p>
+
+<p>A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and beyond the other end of
+the ledge, caught his ear. With a quick step he moved behind a projecting
+corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch38" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>An Inevitable Conflict</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Aaron King set out to follow the tracks he had found at Granite Peak,
+after his long, hard trip along the rugged crest of the Galenas, his
+weariness was forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, but with careful
+eyes and every sense keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he
+knew must lead him to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>He did not attempt to solve the problem of how the girl came there, nor
+did he pause to wonder about her companion. He did not even ask himself if
+Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing; knew nothing; was
+conscious of nothing; but the trail that led away into the depths of the
+mountain wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition; without
+food; unacquainted with the wild country into which he was going; reckless
+of danger to himself but with all possible care and caution for the sake
+of the girl he loved, he went on.</p>
+
+<p>Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the cabin was hidden, the trail,
+following the rim, soon led him to the ledge that lay across the face of
+the cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, he paused, to search
+the vicinity with careful eyes, then started to cross. As he set foot upon
+the ledge, a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop."</p>
+
+<p>At the word, Aaron King halted.</p>
+
+<p>A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from behind the rocks at the other
+end of the ledge. He was covering the artist with a rifle.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The automobile, the mirror
+signals from Fairlands--it was all explained by the presence and by the
+menacing attitude of the man who barred his way. The artist's hand moved
+toward the weapon that hung at his hip.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do that," said the man with the rifle. "I can't murder you in cold
+blood; but if you attempt to draw your gun, I'll fire."</p>
+
+<p>The other stood still.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion; "Listen to me,
+King. It's useless for me to deny what brought me here. The trail you are
+following leads to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s. You had her all summer. I've got her now.
+If you hadn't stumbled onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out
+of the country, and you would never have seen her again. I might have
+killed you before you saw me, but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the
+circumstances there is no possible compromise. I'll give you a fighting
+chance for your life and the girl. I'll take a fighting chance for my life
+and the girl. Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. We'll
+meet on the ledge there."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will be remembered,--on
+the night of his death, boasted that he was game.</p>
+
+<p>Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held
+his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its
+holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle
+behind the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats.
+For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed
+the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
+distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the
+man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their
+acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge
+had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the
+sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had
+strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first
+meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying
+that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist,
+in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and
+characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other,
+each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately,
+they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the
+great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the
+bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills
+watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.</p>
+
+<p>As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
+warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers,
+they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier,
+but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut,
+muscular firmness.</p>
+
+<p>They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare
+handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs
+entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut
+nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of
+the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung
+over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and
+clenched teeth they wrestled.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate
+effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King--worn by his days of
+anxiety, by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil over the
+mountains, without sufficient food or rest--felt his strength going.
+Slowly, the weight and endurance of the heavier man told against him.
+James Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze with savage
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing gasps, that told of the
+nearness of the finish. Slowly, Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to
+increase his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, was bearing
+the other downward and back.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andr&eacute;s reached the cliff. With a
+cry of horror, the girl stood as though turned to stone.</p>
+
+<p>Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the struggling men.</p>
+
+<p>With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In a low voice she called,
+"Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!"</p>
+
+<p>The two men on the ledge heard nothing--saw nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her companion heard. "Mr.
+Marston, Mr. Marston, it is Aaron King. I--I love him--I--love him."</p>
+
+<p>Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, the convict answered,
+"Pray, girl; pray, pray for me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle
+to his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body
+inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for
+the last triumphant effort.</p>
+
+<p>The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, was saying again,
+"Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed
+the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack of
+the rifle.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For a fraction of a second,
+his form half straightened and he stood nearly erect; then, as a weed cut
+by the sharp scythe of a mower falls, he fell; his body whirling downward
+toward the trees and rocks below. The sound of the crashing branches
+mingled with the reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron
+King lay still.</p>
+
+<p>The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. Lifting the unconscious man
+in his arms, he carried him a little way down the mountain, toward the
+cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To Sibyl, who hung over the
+artist in an agony of loving fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right,
+presently, Miss Andr&eacute;s. I'll fetch his coat and hat."</p>
+
+<p>Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead man's rifle, coat, and
+hat, and threw them over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the
+artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Miss Andr&eacute;s," said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will
+be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his
+friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances.
+Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked
+at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like
+some hunted creature of the wilderness.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch39" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>The Better Way</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion
+of her woman heart, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s bent over the unconscious object of her
+love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the
+sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven
+him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing
+was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes;
+she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her
+portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood
+and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.</p>
+
+<p>In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon
+the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her
+love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept
+away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile
+accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and
+the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened
+passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love
+him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant
+assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil
+seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.</p>
+
+<p>As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the
+girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him
+with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his
+hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron,
+Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped
+off her jacket and, placing it under his head, drew a little back.</p>
+
+<p>He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up at the dark pines that
+clothed the mountainsides. His lips moved and she heard her name; "Sibyl,
+Sibyl."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing with color. "Yes, Mr.
+King."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I dreaming, again?" he said slowly, gazing at her as though struggling
+to command his senses.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. King," she answered cheerily, "you are not dreaming."</p>
+
+<p>Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread of thought in a bewildering
+tangle of events, he went over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak
+where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make me see the Golden
+State Limited coming down from the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to
+watch for buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, then continued,
+"I saw flashes of light in Fairlands and on Granite Peak. I left a note
+for Brian and came over the range. I spent one night on the way. I found
+tracks on the peak. There were two, a man and a woman. I followed them to
+a ledge of rock at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the thread
+of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop me? Was there--was there a
+fight? Or is that part of my dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said softly, "that is not part of your dream."</p>
+
+<p>"And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I was going to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then where--" with quick energy he sat up and grasped her arm--"My God!
+Sibyl--Miss Andr&eacute;s, did I, did I--" He could not finish the sentence, but
+sank back, overcome with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice that rallied his
+mind and forced him to command himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember nothing more? You were
+struggling--your strength was going--can't you remember? You must, you
+must!"</p>
+
+<p>Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a rifle-shot?" he asked
+slowly. "It seems to me that something in my brain snapped, and everything
+went black. Was there a rifle-shot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And I did not--I did not--?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would have killed you, but for
+the shot that you heard."</p>
+
+<p>"And Rutlidge is--?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead," she answered simply.</p>
+
+<p>"But who--?"</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that she had met Mrs.
+Taine in the studio until the convict had left her, a few minutes before.
+"And now," she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to the cabin.
+There is food there. You must be nearly starved. I will cook supper for
+you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."</p>
+
+<p>"But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must
+tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until
+I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you
+are ready to hear, now."</p>
+
+<p>She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you
+want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the
+man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff,
+understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell
+you?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial
+meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later,
+with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near
+the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that
+he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.</p>
+
+<p>Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut
+them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude
+little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were
+flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the
+night before, the convict had told that girl his story.</p>
+
+<p>Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the
+bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well,
+then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night,"
+she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice,
+he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland
+couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole
+quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood
+upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking
+toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and
+kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she
+crept back to her couch.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the
+faintly marked trail of the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the
+foot of the cliff. When the darkness came, the mountaineer ate a cold
+supper and, under a rude shelter quickly improvised by his skill in
+woodcraft, slept beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack
+Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his blanket under the
+pines. Somewhere in the night, the man who had saved Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and
+Aaron King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted thing.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their breakfast But so quietly did
+she move about her homely task that the artist did not awake. When the
+meal was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, declaring that
+he felt himself a new man. Breakfast over, they set out at once.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the cliff at the head of the gulch, the girl halted and,
+shrinking back, covered her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the
+first time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. Gently, her
+companion led her across the ledge, and a little way back from the rim of
+the gorge on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw Brian Oakley coming toward
+them. Laughing and crying, Sibyl ran to meet him; and the mountaineer, who
+had so many times looked death in the face, unafraid and unmoved, wept
+like a child as he held the girl in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the events that led up to their
+meeting with the Ranger, and he in turn had told them how he had followed
+the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden supplies, had followed
+the trail of James Rutlidge from that point, the officer asked the girl
+several questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, while they,
+guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. Finally, he said, "Jack is due
+at Granite Peak, sometime about noon. He'll have his horse, and with Sibyl
+riding, we'll make it back down to the head of Clear Creek by dark. You
+young folks just wait for me here a little. I want to look around below
+there, a bit."</p>
+
+<p>As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to her feet and threw herself
+into his arms. "No, no, Brian Oakley, you shall not--you shall not do it!"</p>
+
+<p>Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into her pleading eyes,
+smilingly. "And what do you think I am going to do, girlie?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going down there to pick up the trail of the man who saved
+Aaron--who saved me. But you shall not do it. I don't care if you are an
+officer, and he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do anything that
+might lead to his capture."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, child," answered Brian Oakley, "the only escaped convict I
+know anything about, this last year, according to my belief, died
+somewhere in the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my official
+reports on the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're not going to find which way he went?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Sibyl," said the Ranger gravely. "The disappearance of James
+Rutlidge, prominent as he was, will be heralded from one end of the world
+to the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. The search is sure
+to be carried into these hills, for that automobile trip in the night will
+not go unquestioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my suspicions.
+In a few days, the body will be safely past recognition, even should it be
+discovered through the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything
+durable being found to identify the man who fell over the cliff."</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, quietly, "It's a
+mighty good thing I went down. It wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We
+can forget it, now, with perfect safety. Remember"--he charged them
+impressively--"even to Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange, the story must be
+only that an unknown man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The man
+escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the Sheriff, or whoever can,
+solve the mystery of that automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance."</p>
+
+<p>A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack Carleton and, by dark, as
+Brian Oakley had said, were safely down to the head of Clear Creek; having
+come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier and shorter than the
+roundabout way followed by the convict and the girl.</p>
+
+<p>It was just past midnight when the three friends parted from young
+Carleton and crossed the canyon to Sibyl's old home.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch40" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XL</h2>
+
+<h3>Facing the Truth</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As Brian Oakley had predicted, the disappearance of James Rutlidge
+occupied columns in the newspapers, from coast to coast. In every article
+he was headlined as "A Distinguished Citizen;" "A Famous Critic;" "A
+Prominent Figure in the World of Art;" "One of the Greatest Living
+Authorities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Powerful Influence Upon
+the Artistic Production of the Age." The story of the unknown mountain
+girl's abduction and escape was a news item of a single day; but the
+disappearance of James Rutlidge kept the press busy for weeks. It may be
+dismissed here with the simple statement that the mystery has never been
+solved.</p>
+
+<p>Of the unknown man who had taken Sibyl away into the mountains, and who
+had escaped, the world has never heard. Of the convict who died but did
+not die in the hills, the world knows nothing. That is, the world knows
+nothing of the man in this connection. But Aaron and Sibyl, some years
+later, knew what became of Henry Marston--which does not, at all, belong
+to this story.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his return with Conrad Lagrange to their home in the orange groves,
+Aaron King plunged into his work with a purpose very different from the
+motive that had prompted him when first he took up his brushes in the
+studio that looked out upon the mountains and the rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, as he gave himself to his great picture,--"The Feast of
+Materialism,"--he knew the joy of the worker who, in his art, surrenders
+himself to a noble purpose--a joy that is very different from the light,
+passing pleasure that comes from the mere exercise of technical skill. The
+artist did not, now, need to drive himself to his task, as the begging
+musician on the street corner forces himself to play to the passing crowd,
+for the pennies that are dropped in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by
+the conviction of a great truth, and by the realization of its woeful need
+in the world, to such adequate expression as his mastery of the tools of
+his craft would permit He was not, now, the slave of his technical
+knowledge; striving to produce a something that should be merely
+technically good. He was a master, compelling the medium of his art to
+serve him; as he, in turn, was compelled to serve the truth that had
+mastered him.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an evening hour to the little
+house next door. Sometimes Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the
+studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came alone. But every day,
+as the artist worked, the music of her violin came to him, out of the
+orange grove, with its message from the hills. And the painter at his
+easel, reading aright the message, worked and waited; knowing surely that
+when she was ready she would come.</p>
+
+<p>Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron King, reading them--nearly
+always under the quizzing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was to
+bring the daily mail--carefully tore them into little pieces and dropped
+them into the waste basket, without comment.</p>
+
+<p>Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have you no thought for the
+day of judgment, young man? Do you not know that your sins will surely
+find you out?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness is only hastening the
+end. If you don't answer those letters you will be forced, shortly, to
+meet the consequences face to face."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. "But I have my answer
+ready, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that portrait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do the trick. But, believe
+me, there will be consequences!"</p>
+
+<p>The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big picture, when Mrs.
+Taine called, the day of her return to Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>It was well on in the afternoon. Conrad Lagrange and Czar had started for
+a walk, but had gone, as usual, only as far as the neighboring house. Yee
+Kee, meeting Mrs. Taine at the door, explained, doubtfully, that the
+artist was at his work. He would go tell Mr. King that Mrs. Taine was
+here.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Kee. I will tell him myself," she answered; and, before the
+Chinaman could protest, she was on her way to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn!" said the Celestial eloquently; and retired to his kitchen to
+ruminate upon the ways of "Mellican women."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine pushed open the door of the studio, so quietly, that the
+painter, standing at his easel and engrossed with his work, did not notice
+her presence. For several moments the woman stood watching him, paying no
+heed to the picture, seeing only the man. When he did not look around, she
+said, "Are you too busy to even <i>look</i> at me?"</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation, he faced her; then, as quickly, turned again; with
+hand outstretched to draw the easel curtain. But, as though obeying a
+second thought that came quickly upon the heels of the first impulse, he
+did not complete the movement. Instead, he laid his palette and brushes
+beside his color-box, and greeted her with, "How do you do, Mrs. Taine?
+When did you return to Fairlands? Is Miss Taine with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Louise is abroad," she answered. "I--I preferred California. I arrived
+this afternoon." She went a step toward him. "You--you don't seem very
+glad to see me."</p>
+
+<p>The painter colored, but she continued impulsively, without waiting for
+his reply. "If you only knew all that I have been doing for you!--the
+wires I have pulled; the influences I have interested; the critics and
+newspaper men that I have talked to! Of course I couldn't do anything in a
+large public way, so soon after Mr. Taine's death, you know; but I have
+been busy, just the same, and everything is fixed. When our picture is
+exhibited next season, you will find yourself not only a famous painter,
+but a social success as well." She paused. When he still did not speak,
+she went on, with an air of troubled sadness; "I <i>do</i> miss Jim's help
+though. Isn't it frightful the way he disappeared? Where do you suppose he
+is? I can't--I won't--believe that anything has happened to him. It's all
+just one of his schemes to get himself talked about. You'll see that he
+will appear again, safe and sound, when the papers stop filling their
+columns about him. I know Jim Rutlidge, too well."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King thought of those bones, picked bare by the carrion birds, at
+the foot of the cliff. "It seems to be one of the mysteries of the day,"
+he said. "Commonplace enough, no doubt, if one only had the key to it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine had evidently not been in Fairlands long enough to hear the
+story of Sibyl's disappearance--for which the artist mentally gave thanks.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad for one thing," continued the woman, her mind intent upon the
+main purpose of her call. "Jim had already written a splendid criticism of
+your picture--before he went away--and I have it. All this newspaper talk
+about him will only help to attract attention to what he has said about
+<i>you.</i> They are saying such nice things of him and his devotion to art,
+you know--it is all bound to help you." She waited for his approval, and
+for some expression of his gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear, Mrs. Taine," he said slowly, "that you are making a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed nervously, and answered with forced gaiety. "Not me. I'm too
+old a hand at the game not to know just how far I dare or dare not go."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean that"--he returned--"I mean that I can not do my part. I
+fear you are mistaken in me."</p>
+
+<p>Again, she laughed. "What nonsense! I like for you to be modest, of
+course--that will be one of your greatest charms. But if you are worried
+about the quality of your work--forget it, my dear boy. Once I have made
+you the rage, no one will stop to think whether your pictures are good or
+bad. The art is not in what you do, but in how you get it before the
+world. Ask Conrad Lagrange if I am not right."</p>
+
+<p>"As to that," returned the artist, "Mr. Lagrange agrees with you,
+perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is this that you are doing now? Will it be ready for the
+exhibition too?" She looked past him, at the big canvas; and he, watching
+her curiously stepped aside.</p>
+
+<p>Parts of the picture were little more than sketched in, but still, line
+and color spoke with accusing truth the spirit of the company that had
+gathered at the banquet in the home on Fairlands Heights, the night of Mr.
+Taine's death. The figures were not portraits, it is true, but they
+expressed with striking fidelity, the lives and characters of those who
+had, that night, been assembled by Mrs. Taine to meet the artist. The
+figure in the picture, standing with uplifted glass and drunken pose at
+the head of the table--with bestial, lust-worn face, disease-shrunken
+limbs, and dying, licentious eyes fixed upon the beautiful girl
+musician--might easily have been Mr. Taine himself. The distinguished
+writers, and critics; the representatives of the social world and of
+wealth; Conrad Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. Taine
+with her pretense of modest dress that only emphasized her immodesty; and,
+in the midst of the unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the
+unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her violin, offering to them
+that which they were incapable of receiving--it was all there upon the
+canvas, as the artist had seen it that night. The picture cried aloud the
+intellectual degradation and the spiritual depravity of that class who,
+arrogating to themselves the authority of leaders in culture and art, by
+their approval and patronage of dangerous falsehood and sham in picture or
+story, make possible such characters as James Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked at the picture on the easel,
+saw a look of doubt and uncertainty come over her face. Once, she turned
+toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, looked again at the
+canvas. She seemed perplexed and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of
+something in the picture that she did not rightly understand Then, as she
+looked, her eyes kindled with contemptuous scorn, and there was a
+pronounced sneer in her cold tones as she said, "Really, I don't believe I
+care for you to do this sort of thing." She laughed shortly. "It reminds
+one a little of that dinner at our house. Don't you think? It's the girl
+with the violin, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine," said the artist, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? Well, I think you'd better stick to your portraits. This is a great
+picture though," she admitted thoughtfully. "It, it grips you so. I can't
+seem to get away from it. I can see that it will create a sensation. But
+just the same, I don't like it. It's not nice, like your portrait of me.
+By the way"--and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to
+escape a distasteful subject--"do you remember that I have never seen my
+picture yet? Where do you keep it?"</p>
+
+<p>The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at
+work, "It is there, Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep it on the easel, still!"
+Playfully, she added, "Do you look at it often?--that you have it so
+handy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have looked at it
+frequently." He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was
+working upon the larger picture.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice of you," she answered "Please let me see it now. I remember when
+you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what
+you thought of me; have you? I wonder!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine," he answered, and
+drew the curtain that hid the painting.</p>
+
+<p>As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King
+had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had
+seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though
+stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as
+though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, "Is it--is it--true? Am
+I--am I <i>that</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the girl he loved so nearly to a
+shameful end, and thinking of those bones at the foot of the cliff,
+answered justly; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that picture
+than in the things you said to Miss Andr&eacute;s, here in this room, the day you
+left Fairlands."</p>
+
+<p>Her face went white with quick rage, but, controling herself, she said,
+"And where is the picture of your <i>mistress</i>? I should like to see it
+again, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because you are a woman, it is the
+only answer I can make to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as
+false as that portrait of you is true."</p>
+
+<p>Quickly he pushed another easel to a position beside the one that held
+Mrs. Taine's portrait, and drew the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine--but only for a moment.
+A character that is the product of certain years of schooling in the
+thought and spirit of the class in which Mrs. Taine belonged, is not
+transformed by a single exhibition of painted truth. From the two
+portraits, the woman turned to the larger canvas. Then she faced the
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>"You fool!" she said with bitter rage. "O you fool! Do you think that you
+will ever be permitted to exhibit such trash as this?" she waved her hand
+to include the three paintings. "Do you think that I am going to drag
+you up the ladder of social position to fame and to wealth for such
+reward as that?" she singled out her own portrait. "Bah! you are
+impossible--impossible! I have been mad to think that I could make
+anything out of you. As for your idiotic claim that you have painted the
+truth--" She seized a large palette knife that lay with the artist's tools
+upon the table, and springing to her portrait, hacked and mutilated the
+canvas. The artist stood motionless making no effort to stop her. When the
+picture was utterly defaced she threw it at his feet. "<i>That</i>, for your
+truth, Mr. King!" With a quick motion, she turned toward the other
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>But the artist, who had guessed her purpose, caught her hand. "That
+picture was yours, madam--this one is mine." There was a significant ring
+of triumph in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Aaron King nor Mrs. Taine had noticed three people who had entered
+the rose garden, from the orange grove, through the little gate in the
+corner of the hedge. Conrad Lagrange, Myra Willard and Sibyl were going to
+the studio; deliberately bent upon interrupting the artist at his work.
+They sometimes--as Conrad Lagrange put it--made, thus, a life-saving crew
+of three; dragging the painter to safety when the waves of inspiration
+were about to overwhelm him. Czar, of course, took an active part in these
+rescues.</p>
+
+<p>As the three friends approached the trellised arch that opened from the
+garden into the yard, a few feet from the studio door, the sound of Mrs.
+Taine's angry voice, came clearly through the open window.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange stopped. "Evidently, Mr. King has company," he said,
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Mrs. Taine, is it not?" asked Sibyl, quietly, recognizing the
+woman's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>The woman with the disfigured face said hurriedly, "Come, Sibyl, we must
+go back. We will not disturb Mr. King, now, Mr. Lagrange. You two come
+over this evening." They saw her face white and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'll go back with you, if you don't mind," returned Conrad
+Lagrange, with his twisted grin; "I don't think I want any of that in
+there, either." To the dog who was moving toward the studio door, he
+added; "Here, Czar, you mustn't interrupt the lady. You're not in her
+class."</p>
+
+<p>They were moving away, when Mrs. Taine's voice came again, clearly and
+distinctly, through the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well. I wish you joy of your possession. I promise you, though,
+that the world shall never hear of this portrait of your mistress. If you
+dare try to exhibit it, I shall see that the people to whom you must look
+for your patronage know how you found the original, an innocent, mountain
+girl, and brought her to your studio to live with you. Fairlands has
+already talked enough, but my influence has prevented it from going too
+far. You may be very sure that from now on I shall not exert myself to
+deny it."</p>
+
+<p>The artist's friends in the rose garden, again, stopped involuntarily.
+Sibyl uttered a low exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange looked at Myra Willard. "I think," he said in a low tone,
+"that the time has come. Can you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I--I--must," returned the woman. She spoke to the girl, who, being a
+little in advance, had not heard the novelist's words, "Sibyl, dear, will
+you go on home, please? Mr, Lagrange will stay with me. I--I will join you
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>At a look from Conrad Lagrange, the girl obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Go with Sibyl, Czar," said the novelist; and the girl and the dog went
+quickly away through the garden.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, Aaron King gazed at the angry woman in amazement. "Mrs.
+Taine," he said, with quiet dignity, "I must tell you that I hope to make
+Miss Andr&eacute;s my wife."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed harshly. "And what has that to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that if you knew, it might help you to understand the
+situation," he answered simply.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand the situation, very well," she retorted, "but you do not
+appear to. The situation is this: I--I was interested in you--as an
+artist. I, because my position in the world enabled me to help you,
+commissioned you to paint my portrait. You are unknown, with no name, no
+place in the world. I could have given you success. I could have
+introduced you to the people that you must know if you are to succeed. My
+influence would insure you a favorable reception from those who make the
+reputations of men like you. I could have made you the rage. I could have
+made you famous. And now--"</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said calmly, "you will exert your influence to hinder me in my
+work. Because I have not pleased you, you will use whatever power you have
+to ruin me. Is that what you mean, Mrs. Taine?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have made your choice. You must take the consequences," she replied
+coldly, and turned to leave the studio.</p>
+
+<p>In the doorway, stood the woman with the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange stood near.</p>
+
+
+<div id="ch41" class="chapter">
+<h3>XLI</h3>
+
+<h3>Marks of the Beast</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Mrs. Taine would have passed out of the studio, the woman with the
+disfigured face said, "Wait madam, I must speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King recalled that strange scene at the depot, the day of his
+arrival in Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say to you"--returned Mrs. Taine, coldly--"stand aside
+please."</p>
+
+<p>But Conrad Lagrange quietly closed the door. "I think, Mrs. Taine," he
+remarked dryly, "than you will be interested in what Miss Willard has to
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well," returned the other, making the best of the situation.
+"Evidently, you heard what I just said to your protege."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist answered, "We did. Accept my compliments madam; you did it
+very nicely."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," she retorted, "I see you still play your role of protector. You
+might tell your charge whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable
+result of his--ah--artistic conscientiousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. King knows that you are not. You have, indeed, put the situation
+rather mildly. It is a sad fact, but, never-the-less, a fact, that the
+noblest work is often forced to remain unrecognized and unknown to the
+world by the same methods that are used to exalt the unworthy. You
+undoubtedly have the power of which you boast, Mrs. Taine, but--"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" she said triumphantly. "You think I will hesitate to use my
+influence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> you will not use it--in this case," came the unexpected answer.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed mockingly, "And why not? What will prevent?"</p>
+
+<p>"The one thing on earth, that you fear, madam"--answered Conrad
+Lagrange--"the eyes of the world."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King listened, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I understand," said Mrs. Taine, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? That is what Miss Willard proposes to explain," returned the
+novelist.</p>
+
+<p>She turned haughtily toward the woman with the disfigured face. "What can
+this poor creature say to anything I propose?"</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard answered gently, sadly, "Have you no kindness, no sympathy at
+all, madam? Is there nothing but cruel selfishness in your heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are insolent," retorted the other, sharply. "Say what you have to say
+and be brief."</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard drew close to the woman and looked long and searchingly into
+her face. The other returned her gaze with contemptuous indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been sorry for you," said Myra Willard slowly. "I have not wished
+to speak. But I know what you said to Sibyl, here in the studio; and I
+overheard what you said to Mr. King, a few minutes ago. I cannot keep
+silent."</p>
+
+<p>"Proceed," said Mrs. Taine, shortly. "Say what you have to say, and be
+done with it."</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard obeyed. "Mrs. Taine, twenty-six years ago, your guardian, the
+father of James Rutlidge won the love of a young girl. It does not matter
+who she was. She was beautiful and innocent That was her misfortune.
+Beauty and innocence often bring pain and sorrow, madam, in a world where
+there are too many men like Mr. Rutlidge, and his son. The girl thought
+the man--she did not know him by his real name--her lover. She thought
+that he became her husband. A baby was born to the girl who believed
+herself a wife; and the young mother was happy. For a short time, she was
+very happy.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, the awakening came. The girl mother was holding her baby to her
+breast, and singing, as happy mothers do, when a strange woman appeared in
+the open door of the room. She was a beautiful woman, richly dressed; but
+her face was distorted with passion. The young mother did not understand.
+She did not know, then, that the woman was Mrs. Rutlidge--the true wife of
+the father of her child. She knew that, afterward. The woman, in the
+doorway lifted her hand as though to throw something, and the mother,
+instinctively, bowed her head to shield her baby. Then something that
+burned like fire struck her face and neck. She screamed in agony, and
+fainted.</p>
+
+<p>"The rest of the story does not matter, I think. The injured mother was
+taken to the hospital. When she recovered, she learned that Mrs. Rutlidge
+was dead--a suicide. Later, Mr. Rutlidge took the baby to raise as his
+ward; telling the world that the child was the daughter of a relative who
+had died at its birth. You must understand that when the disfigured mother
+of the baby came to know the truth, she believed that it would be better
+for the little one if the facts of its birth were never known. The wealthy
+Mr. Rutlidge could give his ward every advantage of culture and social
+position. The child would grow to womanhood with no stain upon her name.
+Because she felt she owed her baby this, the only thing that she could
+give her, the mother consented and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little of the acid that burned
+that mother's face fell upon the shoulder of her illegitimate baby."</p>
+
+<p>"God!" exclaimed the artist.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine stood like a woman of stone.
+At the end, she gazed at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated
+with horror, while her hands moved to finger the buttons of her dress.
+Unconscious of what she was doing, as though under some strange spell,
+without removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred features she opened
+the waist of her dress and bared to them her right shoulder. It was marked
+by a broad scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her mother.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the mother instinct. "My baby,
+my poor, poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an air of cold, unconquerable
+pride, the woman looked at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she
+swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
+why you have done this."</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, white and trembling. Aaron
+King stepped quickly to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her
+shoulder waited for the novelist to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Willard told you this story because I asked her to," said Conrad
+Lagrange. "I asked her to tell you because it gives me the power to
+protect the two people who are dearer to me than all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered Mrs. Taine.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a reporter on a certain newspaper
+when the incidents just related occurred. I wrote the story for the press.
+In fact, it was the story that gave me my start in yellow journalism, from
+which I graduated the novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper
+game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of this story that you have
+just heard. Permit me to say, that I know how to write in the approved
+newspaper style, and to add that my name insures a wide hearing. Proceed
+to carry out your threats, and I promise you that I will give this
+attractive bit of news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper in
+the land. Can't you see the headlines? 'Startling Revelation,' 'The Secret
+of the Beautiful Mrs. Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social
+World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a Social Leader.' Do you
+understand, madam? Use your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr.
+King in his work; or fail to use your influence to contradict the lies
+you have already started about the character of Miss Andr&eacute;s; and I will
+use the influence of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you before
+the eyes of the world for what you are."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. Then, as she grasped the
+full significance of what he had said, she slowly bowed her head.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>As she went out, the woman with the disfigured face started forward,
+holding out her hands appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly toward the big automobile
+that was waiting in front of the house.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch42" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XLII</h2>
+
+<h3>Aaron King's Success</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The winter months were past.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was sitting before his finished picture. The colors were still
+fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs in an honored place in one of
+the great galleries of the world. To the last careful touch, the artist
+had put into his painted message, the best he had to give. Back of every
+line and brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a worthy motive.
+For an hour, he had been sitting there, before the easel, brush and
+palette in hand, without touching the canvas. He could do no more.</p>
+
+<p>Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
+that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
+of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
+he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
+work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
+indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
+entered the studio; Czar at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
+friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
+of the finished painting, now.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
+knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
+having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
+in his hand he read:</p>
+
+<p>"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
+otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
+distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
+the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
+indolent--slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of
+places--the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the
+wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers
+who pass him by. But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that
+lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere
+striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility
+conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I
+know--as you will some day come to understand--is not a blessing but a
+curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely; and which,
+if it be not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and poison the
+life of the race.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I would have your ambition, a safe and worthy ambition, Aaron, I
+ask that the supreme and final test of any work that comes from your hand
+may be this; that it satisfy you, yourself--that you may be not ashamed to
+sit down alone with your work, and thus to look it squarely in the face.
+Not critics, nor authorities, not popular opinion, not even law or
+religion, must be the court of final appeal when you are, by what you do,
+brought to bar; but by you, <i>yourself</i>, the judgment must be rendered. And
+this, too, is true, my son, by that judgment and that judgment alone, you
+will truly live or you will truly die."</p>
+
+<p>"And that"--said the novelist--so famous in the eyes of the world, so
+infamous in his own sight--"and that is what she tried to make me believe,
+when she and I were young together. But I would not. I would not accept
+it. I thought if I could win fame that she--" he checked himself suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have led me to accept it, old man," cried the artist heartily.
+"You have opened my eyes. You have helped me to understand my mother, as I
+never could have understood her, alone."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted whimsically. "No doubt good
+may sometimes be accomplished by the presentation of a horrible example.
+But go on with your private exhibition. I'll not keep you longer. Come,
+Czar."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the artist's protests, he left the studio.</p>
+
+<p>While the painter was putting away his letters, the novelist and the dog
+went through the rose garden and the orange grove, straight to the little
+house next door. They walked as though on a definite mission.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl and Myra Willard were sitting on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, neighbor," called the girl, as the tall, ungainly form of the
+famous novelist appeared. "You seem to be the bearer of news. What is the
+latest word from the seat of war?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is finished," said Conrad Lagrange, returning Myra's gentle greeting,
+and accepting the chair that Sibyl offered.</p>
+
+<p>"The picture?" said the girl eagerly, a quick color flushing her cheeks.
+"Is the picture finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"Finished," returned the novelist. "I just left him mooning over it like a
+mother over a brand-new baby."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed together, and when, a moment later, the girl slipped into the
+house and did not return, the woman with the disfigured face and the
+famous novelist looked at each other with smiling eyes. When Czar, with
+sudden interest, started around the corner of the house, his master said
+suggestively, "Czar, you better stay here with the old folks."</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the house, and out of the kitchen door, Sibyl ran,
+lightly, through the orange grove, to the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge. A moment she paused, hesitating, then, stealing
+cautiously into the rose garden, she darted in quick flight to the shelter
+of the arbor; where she parted the screen of vines to gain a view of the
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>Between the big, north window and the window that opened into the garden,
+she saw the artist. She saw, too, the big canvas upon the easel. But Aaron
+King was not, now, looking at his work just finished. He was sitting
+before that other picture into which he had unconsciously painted, not
+only the truth that he saw in the winsome loveliness of the girl who posed
+for him with outstretshed hands among the roses, but his love for her as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>With a low laugh, Sibyl drew back. Swiftly, as she had reached the arbor,
+she crossed the garden, and a moment later, paused at the studio door.
+Again she hesitated--then, gently,--so gently that the artist, lost in his
+dreams, did not hear,--she opened the door. For a little, she stood
+watching him. Softly, she took a few steps toward him. The artist, as
+though sensing her presence, started and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing as she stood in the picture; her hands outstretched, a
+smile of welcome on her lips, the light of gladness in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As he rose from his chair before the easel, she went to him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Not many days later, there was a quiet wedding, at Sibyl's old home in the
+hills. Besides the two young people and the clergyman, only Brian Oakley,
+Mrs. Oakley, Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard were present. These friends
+who had prepared the old place for the mating ones, after a simple dinner
+following the ceremony, returned down the canyon to the Station.</p>
+
+<p>Standing arm in arm, where the old road turns around the cedar thicket,
+and where the artist had first seen the girl, Sibyl and Aaron watched them
+go. From the other side of roaring Clear Creek, they turned to wave hats
+and handkerchiefs; the two in the shadow of the cedars answered; Czar
+barked joyful congratulations; and the wagon disappeared in the wilderness
+growth.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of turning back to the house behind them, the two, without
+speaking, as though obeying a common impulse, set out down the canyon.</p>
+
+<p>A little later they stood in the old spring glade, where the alders bore,
+still, in the smooth, gray bark of their trunks, the memories of long-ago
+lovers; where the light fell, slanting softly through the screen of leaf
+and branch and vine and virgin's-bower, upon the granite boulder and the
+cress-mottled waters of the spring, as through the window traceries of a
+vast and quiet cathedral; and where the distant roar of the mountain
+stream trembled in the air like the deep tones of some great organ.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl, dressed in her brown, mountain costume, was sitting on the boulder,
+when the artist said softly, "Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Lifting her eyes, as he pointed, she saw two butterflies--it might almost
+have been the same two--with zigzag flight, through the opening in the
+draperies of virgin's-bower. With parted lips and flushed cheeks, the girl
+watched. Then--as the beautiful creatures, in their aerial waltz, whirled
+above her head--she rose, and lightly, gracefully,--almost as her winged
+companions,--accompanied them in their dance.</p>
+
+<p>The winged emblems of innocence and purity flitted away over the willow
+wall. The girl, with bright eyes and smiling lips--half laughing, half
+serious--looked toward her mate. He held out his arms and she went to him.</p>
+
+<h4>
+The End</h4>
+</div>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 11715 ***</div>
+</body>
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+
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #11715 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11715)
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of the World, by Harold Bell Wright
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Eyes of the World
+
+Author: Harold Bell Wright
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2004 [EBook #11715]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+The Eyes of the World
+
+By Harold Bell Wright
+
+Author of "That Printer of Udells," "The Shepherd of the Hills,"
+"The Calling of Dan Matthews," "The Winning of Barbara Worth,"
+"Their Yesterdays," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+To Benjamin H. Pearson
+
+Student, Artist, Gentleman
+
+in appreciation of the friendship that began on the "Pipe-Line Trail," at
+the camp in the sycamores back of the old orchard, and among the higher
+peaks of the San Bernardinos; and because this story will always mean more
+to him than to any one else,--this book, with all good wishes, is
+
+Dedicated.
+
+H. B. W.
+
+"Tecolote Rancho,"
+April 13, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+                  "I have learned
+    To look on Nature not as in the hour
+    Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
+    The sad, still music of humanity,
+    Not harsh or grating, though of ample power
+    To chasten and subdue. And I have felt,
+    A presence that disturbs me with the joy
+    Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
+    Of something far more deeply interfused,
+    Whose dwelling is in the lights of setting suns,
+    And the round ocean and the living air,
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
+    A motion and a spirit that impels
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,
+    And rolls through all things.
+
+            Therefore am I still
+    A lover of the meadows and the woods
+    And mountains.........
+    ....... And this prayer I make,
+    Knowing that Nature never did betray
+    The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege
+    Through all the years of this one life, to lead
+    From joy to joy; for she can so inform
+    The mind that is within us--so impress
+    With quietness and beauty, and so feed
+    With lofty thoughts--that neither evil tongues,
+    Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
+    Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
+    The dreary intercourse of daily life,
+    Shalt e'er prevail against us, or disturb
+    Our cheerful faith."
+
+    William Wordsworth.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+      I. His Inheritance
+     II. The Woman With the Disfigured Face
+    III. The Famous Conrad Lagrange
+     IV. At the House on Fairlands Heights
+      V. The Mystery of the Rose Garden
+     VI. An Unknown Friend
+    VII. Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray
+   VIII. The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
+     IX. Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
+      X. A Cry in the Night
+     XI. Go Look in Your Mirror, You Fool
+    XII. First Fruits of His Shame
+   XIII. Myra Willard's Challenge
+    XIV. In the Mountains
+     XV. The Forest Ranger's Story
+    XVI. When the Canyon Gates Are Shut
+   XVII. Confessions in the Spring Glade
+  XVIII. Sibyl Andrés and the Butterflies
+    XIX. The Three Gifts and their Meanings
+     XX. Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning
+    XXI. The Last Climb
+   XXII. Shadows of Coming Events
+  XXIII. Outside the Canyon Gates Again
+   XXIV. James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake
+    XXV. On the Pipe-Line Trail
+   XXVI. I Want You Just as You Are
+  XXVII. The Answer
+ XXVIII. You're Ruined, My Boy
+   XXIX. The Hand Writing On The Wall
+    XXX. In the Same Hour
+   XXXI. As the World Sees
+  XXXII. The Mysterious Disappearance
+ XXXIII. Beginning the Search
+  XXXIV. The Tracks on Granite Peak
+   XXXV. A Hard Way
+  XXXVI. What Should He Do
+ XXXVII. The Man Was Insane
+XXXVIII. An Inevitable Conflict
+  XXXIX. The Better Way
+     XL. Facing the Truth
+    XLI. Marks of the Beast
+   XLII. Aaron King's Success
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations from Oil Paintings
+
+By
+
+F. Graham Cootes
+
+
+Sibyl
+
+A curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation
+
+"Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"
+
+Still she did not speak
+
+
+
+
+The Eyes of the World
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+His Inheritance
+
+
+
+It was winter--cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds and
+stinging wind.
+
+The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culture
+which has given to the history of our nation--to education, to religion,
+to the sciences, and to the arts--so many illustrious names.
+
+In the changing years, before the beginning of my story, the woman's
+immediate friends and associates had moved from the neighborhood to the
+newer and more fashionable districts of a younger generation. In that city
+of her father's there were few of her old companions left. There were
+fewer who remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and
+letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her
+home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to
+their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times,
+had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a
+passing day, had been hostess and friend.
+
+The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. Ruthlessly it had been
+stripped of its treasures of art and its proud luxuries. But, even in its
+naked necessities the room managed, still, to evidence the rare
+intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying tenant.
+
+The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, was marked by the
+death-gray. The eyes, deep in their hollows between the fleshless forehead
+and the prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were livid; the nose
+was sharp and pinched; the colorless cheeks were sunken; but the outlines
+were still delicately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. It was,
+still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen lips, only, was there a
+sign of life; and they trembled and fluttered in their effort to utter the
+words that an indomitable spirit gave them to speak.
+
+"To-day--to-day--he will--come." The voice was a thin, broken whisper; but
+colored, still, with pride and gladness.
+
+A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse turned quickly from the
+window. With soft, professional step, she crossed the room to bend over
+the bed. Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she spoke slowly,
+distinctly, with careful clearness; and, under the cool professionalism of
+her words, there was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam?"
+
+The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight through the suddenly opened
+doors of a sepulchre, the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes,
+clear and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a powerful
+personality. In their shadowy depths, she saw the last glowing embers of
+the vital fire gathered; carefully nursed and tended; kept alive by a will
+that was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a definite purpose.
+Dying, this woman _would_ not die--_could_ not die--until the end for
+which she willed to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of
+Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand--without life, she was
+holding Death at bay.
+
+It was magnificent, and the gentle face under the nurse's cap shone with
+appreciation and admiration as she smiled her sympathy and understanding.
+
+"My son--my son--will come--to-day." The voice was stronger, and, with the
+eyes, expressed a conviction--a certainty--with the faintest shadow of a
+question.
+
+The nurse looked at her watch. "The boat was due in New York, early this
+morning, madam."
+
+A step sounded in the hall outside. The nurse started, and turned quickly
+toward the door. But the woman said, "The doctor." And, again, the fire
+that burned in those sunken eyes was hidden wearily under their dark lids.
+
+The white-haired physician and the nurse, at the farther end of the room,
+spoke together in low tones. Said the physician,--incredulous,--"You say
+there is no change?"
+
+"None that I can detect," breathed the nurse. "It is wonderful!"
+
+"Her mind is clear?"
+
+"As though she were in perfect health."
+
+The doctor took the nurse's chart. For a moment, he studied it in silence.
+He gave it back with a gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered,
+"she should be in her grave by now! It's a miracle! But she has always
+been like that--" he continued, half to himself, looking with troubled
+admiration toward the bed at the other end of the room--"always."
+
+He went slowly forward to the chair that the nurse placed for him. Seating
+himself quietly beside his patient, and bending forward with intense
+interest, his fine old head bowed, he regarded with more than professional
+care the wasted face upon the pillow.
+
+The doctor remembered, too well, when those finely moulded features--now,
+so worn by sorrow, so marked by sickness, so ghastly in the hue of
+death--were rounded with young-woman health and tinted with rare
+loveliness. He recalled that day when he saw her a bride. He remembered
+the sweet, proud dignity of her young wifehood. He saw her, again, when
+her face shone with the glad triumph and the holy joy of motherhood.
+
+The old physician turned from his patient, to look with sorrowful eyes
+about the room that was to witness the end.
+
+Why was such a woman dying like this? Why was a life of such rich mental
+and spiritual endowments--of such wealth of true culture--coming to its
+close in such material poverty?
+
+The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was one of the few who
+understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.
+
+There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
+that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts to
+which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor knew that
+there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the world of
+books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to care for her. All
+that a human being could do for her, in those days of her life's tragedy,
+that one had done. Then--because he understood--he had gone away. Her own
+son did not know--could not, in his young manhood, have understood, if he
+had known--would not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would
+understand--perhaps.
+
+When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
+fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.
+
+At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
+gratitude.
+
+"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.
+
+The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her eyes came the gleam of
+that old time challenging spirit. "Well--Doctor George," she answered.
+Then,--"I--told you--I would not--go--until he came. I must--have my
+way--still--you see. He will--come--to-day He must come."
+
+"Yes, Mary," returned the doctor,--his fingers still on the thin wrist,
+and his eyes studying her face with professional keenness,--"yes, of
+course."
+
+"And George--you will not forget--your promise? You will--give me a few
+minutes--of strength--when he comes--so that I can tell him? I--I--must
+tell him myself--George. You--will do--this last thing--for me?"
+
+"Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. "Everything shall be as you
+wish--as I promised."
+
+"Thank you--George. Thank you--my dear--dear--old friend."
+
+The nurse--who had been standing at the window--stepped quickly to the
+table that held a few bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor looked
+at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she opened a small, flat,
+leather case. With his fingers still on his patient's wrist, the physician
+spoke a word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse placed a
+hypodermic needle in his hand.
+
+As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his assistant, a quick step
+sounded in the hall outside.
+
+The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes were fixed upon the door; her
+voice--stronger, now, with the strength of the powerful stimulant--rang
+out; "My boy--my boy--he is here! George, nurse, my boy is here!"
+
+The door opened. A young man of perhaps twenty-two years stood on the
+threshold.
+
+The most casual observer would have seen that he was a son of the dying
+woman. In the full flush of his young manhood's vigor, there was the same
+modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely turned nostrils, the same
+dark eyes under a breadth of forehead; while the determined chin and the
+well-squared jaw, together with a rather remarkable fineness of line,
+told of an inherited mental and spiritual strength and grace as charming
+as it is, in these days, rare. His dress was that of a gentleman of
+culture and social position. His very bearing evidenced that he had never
+been without means to gratify the legitimate tastes of a cultivated and
+refined intelligence.
+
+As he paused an instant in the open door to glance about that poverty
+stricken room, a look of bewildering amazement swept over his handsome
+face. He started to draw back--as if he had unintentionally entered the
+wrong apartment. Looking at the doctor, his lips parted as if to apologize
+for his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes met the eyes of the
+woman on the bed.
+
+With a cry of horror, he sprang forward;--"Mother! Mother!"
+
+As he knelt there by the bed, when the first moments of their meeting were
+past, he turned his face toward the doctor. From the physician his gaze
+went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's old friend. His eyes
+were burning with shame and sorrow--with pain and doubt and accusation.
+His low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded, "What does this
+mean? Why is my mother here like--like this?"--his eyes swept the bare
+room again.
+
+The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my boy. It is to tell you, that
+I have waited."
+
+At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly followed the physician from
+the room.
+
+It was not long. When she had finished, the false strength that had kept
+the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived to be
+her last duty, failed quickly.
+
+"You will--promise--you will?"
+
+"Yes, mother, yes."
+
+"Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I
+can--give you, my son."
+
+"O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before? Why did I not know!"
+The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and sorrow.
+
+She smiled. "It--was--all that I could do--for you--my son--the only
+way--I could--help. I do not--regret the cost. You will--not forget?"
+
+"Never, mother, never."
+
+"You promise--to--to regain that--which--your father--"
+
+Solemnly the answer came,--in an agony of devotion and love,--"I
+promise--yes, mother, I promise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and
+steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.
+
+He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed. He had
+set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his
+promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.
+
+How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry
+out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last
+to understand, is the story that I have to tell.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Woman with the Disfigured Face
+
+
+
+The Golden State Limited, with two laboring engines, was climbing the
+desert side of San Gorgonio Pass.
+
+Now San Gorgonio Pass--as all men should know--is one of the two eastern
+gateways to the beautiful heart of Southern California. It is, therefore,
+the gateway to the scenes of my story.
+
+As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren slope of the mountain, in
+its effort to lessen the heavy grade, the young man on the platform of the
+observation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, sun-filled
+haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, over the vast reaches of
+the Colorado Desert. Now and then, as the Express swung around the curves,
+he gained a view of the lonely, snow-piled peaks of the San Bernardinos;
+with old San Gorgonio, lifting above the pine-fringed ridges of the lower
+Galenas, shining, silvery white, against the blue. Again, on the southern
+side of the pass, he saw San Jacinto's crags and cliffs rising almost
+sheer from the right-of-way.
+
+But the man watching the ever-changing panorama of gorgeously colored and
+fantastically unreal landscape was not thinking of the scenes that, to
+him, were new and strange. His thoughts were far away. Among those
+mountains grouped about San Gorgonio, the real value of the inheritance he
+had received from his mother was to be tested. On the pine-fringed ridge
+of the Galenas, among those granite cliffs and jagged peaks, the mettle of
+his manhood was to be tried under a strain such as few men in this
+commonplace work-a-day old world are-subjected to. But the young man did
+not know this.
+
+On the long journey across the continent, he had paid little heed to the
+sights that so interested his fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers,
+themselves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had approached him
+casually, as the sometimes tedious hours passed, he had been quietly and
+courteously unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked
+disinclination to mingle with them, together with the undeniably
+distinguished appearance of the young man, only served to center the
+interest of the little world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him.
+Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own thoughts, he became the
+object of many idle conjectures.
+
+Among the passengers whose curious eyes were so often turned in his
+direction, there was one whose interest was always carefully veiled. She
+was a woman of evident rank and distinction in that world where rank and
+distinction are determined wholly by dollars and by such social position
+as dollars can buy. She was beautiful; but with that carefully studied,
+wholly self-conscious--one is tempted to say professional--beauty of her
+kind. Her full rounded, splendidly developed body was gowned to
+accentuate the alluring curves of her sex. With such skill was this
+deliberate appeal to the physical hidden under a cloak of a pretending
+modesty that its charm was the more effectively revealed. Her features
+were almost too perfect. She was too coldly sure of herself--too perfectly
+trained in the art of self-repression. For a woman as young as she
+evidently was, she seemed to know too much. The careful indifference of
+her countenance seemed to say, "I am too well schooled in life to make
+mistakes." She was traveling with two companions--a fluffy, fluttering,
+characterless shadow of womanhood, and a man--an invalid who seldom left
+the privacy of the drawing-room which he occupied.
+
+As the train neared the summit of the pass, the young man on the
+observation car platform looked at his watch. A few miles more and he
+would arrive at his destination. Rising to his feet, he drew a deep breath
+of the glorious, sun-filled air. With his back to the door, and looking
+away into the distance, he did not notice the woman who, stepping from the
+car at that moment, stood directly behind him, steadying herself by the
+brass railing in front of the window. To their idly observing fellow
+passengers, the woman, too, appeared interested in the distant landscape.
+She might have been looking at the only other occupant of the platform.
+The passengers, from where they sat, could not have told.
+
+As he stood there,--against the background of the primitive, many-colored
+landscape,--the young man might easily have attracted the attention of
+any one. He would have attracted attention in a crowd. Tall, with an
+athletic trimness of limb, a good breadth of shoulder, and a fine head
+poised with that natural, unconscious pride of the well-bred--he kept his
+feet on the unsteady platform of the car with that easy grace which marks
+only well-conditioned muscles, and is rarely seen save in those whose
+lives are sanely clean.
+
+The Express had entered the yards at the summit station, and was gradually
+lessening its speed. Just as the man turned to enter the car, the train
+came to a full stop, and the sudden jar threw him almost into the arms of
+the woman. For an instant, while he was struggling to regain his balance,
+he was so close to her that their garments touched. Indeed, he only
+prevented an actual collision by throwing his arm across her shoulder and
+catching the side of the car window against which she was leaning.
+
+In that moment, while his face was so close to hers that she might have
+felt his breath upon her cheek and he was involuntarily looking straight
+into her eyes, the man felt, queerly, that the woman was not shrinking
+from him. In fact, one less occupied with other thoughts might have
+construed her bold, open look, her slightly parted lips and flushed
+cheeks, as a welcome--quite as though she were in the habit of having
+handsome young men throw themselves into her arms.
+
+Then, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, he was saying, conventionally,
+"I beg your pardon. It was very stupid of me."
+
+As he spoke, a mask of cold indifference slipped over her face. Without
+deigning to notice his courteous apology, she looked away, and, moving to
+the railing of the platform, became ostensibly interested in the busy
+activity of the railroad yards.
+
+Had the woman--in that instant when his arm was over her shoulder and his
+eyes were looking into hers--smiled, the incident would have slipped
+quickly from his mind. As it was, the flash-like impression of the moment
+remained, and--
+
+Down the steep grade of the narrow San Timateo Canyon, on the coast side
+of the mountain pass, the Overland thundered on the last stretch of its
+long race to the western edge of the continent. And now, from the car
+windows, the passengers caught tantalizing glimpses of bright pastures
+with their herds of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch
+buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and eucalyptus trees. On the
+rounded shoulders and steep flanks of the foothills that form the sides of
+the canyon, the barley fields looked down upon the meadows; and, now and
+then, in the whirling landscape winding side canyons--beautiful with
+live-oak and laurel, with greasewood and sage--led the eye away toward the
+pine-fringed ridges of the Galenas while above, the higher snow-clad peaks
+and domes of the San Bernardinos still shone coldly against the blue.
+
+In the Pullman, there was a stir of awakening interest The travel-wearied
+passengers, laying aside books and magazines and cards, renewed
+conversations that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert part of
+the journey, had lagged painfully. Throughout the train, there was an air
+of eager expectancy; a bustling movement of preparation. The woman of the
+observation car platform had disappeared into her stateroom. The young man
+gathered his things together in readiness to leave the train at the next
+stop.
+
+In the flying pictures framed by the windows, the dairy pastures and
+meadows were being replaced by small vineyards and orchards; the canyon
+wall, on the northern side, became higher and steeper, shutting out the
+mountains in the distance and showing only a fringe of trees on the sharp
+rim; while against the gray and yellow and brown and green of the
+chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the silvery softness of the
+olive trees that border the arroyo at their feet.
+
+With a long, triumphant shriek, the flying overland train--from the lands
+of ice and snow--from barren deserts and lonely mountains--rushed from the
+narrow mouth of the canyon, and swept out into the beautiful San
+Bernardino Valley where the travelers were greeted by wide, green miles of
+orange and lemon and walnut and olive groves--by many acres of gardens and
+vineyards and orchards. Amid these groves and gardens, the towns and
+cities are set; their streets and buildings half hidden in wildernesses of
+eucalyptus and peppers and palms; while--towering above the loveliness of
+the valley and visible now from the sweeping lines of their foothills to
+the gleaming white of their lonely peaks--rises, in blue-veiled,
+cloud-flecked steeps and purple shaded canyons, the beauty and grandeur of
+the mountains.
+
+It was January. To those who had so recently left the winter lands, the
+Southern California scene--so richly colored with its many shades of
+living green, so warm in its golden sunlight--seemed a dream of fairyland.
+It was as though that break in the mountain wall had ushered them suddenly
+into another world--a world, strange, indeed, to eyes accustomed to snow
+and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds.
+
+Among the many little cities half concealed in the luxurious,
+semi-tropical verdure of the wide valley at the foot of the mountains,
+Fairlands--if you ask a citizen of that well-known mecca of the
+tourist--is easily the Queen. As for that! all our Southern California
+cities are set in wildernesses of beauty; all are in wide valleys; all are
+at the foot of the mountains; all are meccas for tourists; each one--if
+you ask a citizen--is the Queen. If you, perchance should question this
+fact--write for our advertising literature.
+
+Passengers on the Golden State Limited--as perhaps you know--do not go
+direct to Fairlands. They change at Fairlands Junction. The little city,
+itself, is set in the lap of the hills that form the southern side of the
+valley, some three miles from the main line. It is as though this
+particular "Queen" withdrew from the great highway traveled by the vulgar
+herd--in the proud aloofness of her superior clay, sufficient unto
+herself. The soil out of which Fairlands is made is much richer, it is
+said, than the common dirt of her sister cities less than fifteen miles
+distant. A difference of only a few feet in elevation seems, strangely, to
+give her a much more rarefied air. Her proudest boast is that she has a
+larger number of millionaires in proportion to her population than any
+other city in the land.
+
+It was these peculiar and well-known advantages of Fairlands that led the
+young man of my story to select it as the starting point of his worthy
+ambition. And Fairlands is a good place for one so richly endowed with an
+inheritance that cannot be expressed in dollars to try his strength. Given
+such a community, amid such surroundings, with a man like the young man of
+my story, and something may be depended upon to happen.
+
+While the travelers from the East, bound for Fairlands, were waiting at
+the Junction for the local train that would take them through the orange
+groves to their journey's end, the young man noticed the woman of the
+observation car platform with her two companions. And now, as he paced to
+and fro, enjoying the exercise after the days of confinement in the
+Pullman, he observed them with stimulated interest--they, too, were going
+to Fairlands.
+
+The man of the party, though certainly not old in years, was frightfully
+aged by dissipation and disease. The gross, sensual mouth with its
+loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes
+with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck
+and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a
+misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and,
+in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.
+
+As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big
+pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper,
+between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country,
+the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being
+worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy suggestion of
+womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected
+giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do
+hush! What will people think?" This last variation of his daughter's
+plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it
+furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly
+outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything
+at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing
+near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a
+little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's
+cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to
+be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or
+twice, as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes were turned in
+his direction.
+
+When the Fairlands train came in, the three found seats conveniently
+turned, near the forward end of the car. The young man, in passing,
+glanced down; and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the aisle,
+looked up full into his face.
+
+Again, as their eyes met, the man felt--as when they had stood so close
+together on the platform of the observation car--that she did not shrink
+from him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing about for a seat, he
+saw another face--a face, in its outlines, so like the one into which he
+had just looked, and yet so different--so far removed in its expression
+and meaning--that it fixed his attention instantly--compelling his
+interest.
+
+As this woman sat looking from the car window away toward the distant
+mountain peaks, the young man thought he had never seen a more perfect
+profile; nor a countenance that expressed such a beautiful blending of
+wistful longing, of patient fortitude, and saintly resignation. It was the
+face of a Madonna,--but a Madonna after the crucifixion,--pathetic in its
+lonely sorrow, inspiring in its spiritual strength, and holy in its purity
+and freedom from earthly passions.
+
+She was near his mother's age; and looking at her--as he moved down the
+aisle--his mother's face, as he had known it before their last meeting,
+came to him with startling vividness. For an instant, he paused, moved to
+take the chair beside her; but the next two seats were vacant, and he had
+no excuse for intruding. Arranging his grips, he quickly seated himself
+next to the window; and again, with eager interest, turned toward the
+woman in the chair ahead. Involuntarily, he started with astonishment and
+pity.
+
+The woman--still gazing from the window at the distant mountain peaks, and
+seemingly unconscious of her surroundings--presented now, to the man's
+shocked and compassionate gaze, the other side of her face. It was
+hideously disfigured by a great scar that--covering the entire cheek and
+neck--distorted the corner of the mouth, drew down the lower lid of the
+eye, and twisted her features into an ugly caricature. Even the ear, half
+hidden under the soft, gray-threaded hair, had not escaped, but was
+deformed by the same dreadful agent that had wrought such ruin to one of
+the loveliest countenances the man had ever looked upon.
+
+When the train stopped at Fairlands, and the passengers crowded into the
+aisle to make their way out, of the characters belonging to my story, the
+woman with the man and his daughter went first. Following them, a half
+car-length of people between, went the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+On the depot platform, as they moved toward the street, the young man
+still held his place near the woman who had so awakened his pitying
+interest. The three Overland passengers were met by a heavy-faced
+thick-necked man who escorted them to a luxurious touring car.
+
+The invalid and his daughter had entered the automobile when their escort,
+in turning toward the other member of the party, saw the woman with the
+disfigured face--who was now quite near. Instantly, he paused. And there
+was a smile of recognition on his somewhat coarse features as, lifting his
+hat, he bowed with--the young man fancied--condescending politeness. The
+woman standing by his side with her hand upon the door of the automobile,
+seeing her companion saluting some one, turned--and the next moment, the
+two women, whose features seemed so like--yet so unlike--were face to
+face.
+
+The young man saw the woman with the disfigured face stop short. For an
+instant, she stood as though dazed by an unexpected blow. Then, holding
+out her hands with a half-pleading, half-groping gesture, she staggered
+and would have fallen had he not stepped to her side.
+
+"Permit me, madam; you are ill."
+
+She neither spoke nor moved; but, with her eyes fixed upon the woman by
+the automobile, allowed him to support her--seemingly unconscious of his
+presence. And never before had the young man seen such anguish of spirit
+written in a human countenance.
+
+The one who had saluted her, advanced--as though to offer his services.
+But, as he moved toward her, she shrank back with a low--"No, no!" And
+such a look of horror and fear came into her eyes that the man by her side
+felt his muscles tense with indignation.
+
+Looking straight into the heavy face of the stranger, he said curtly, "I
+think you had better go on."
+
+With a careless shrug, the other turned and went back to the automobile,
+where he spoke in a low tone to his companions.
+
+The woman, who had been watching with a cold indifference, stepped into
+the car. The man took his seat by the chauffeur. As the big machine moved
+away, the woman with the disfigured face, again made as if to stretch
+forth her hands in a pleading gesture.
+
+The young man spoke pityingly; "May I assist you to a carriage, madam?"
+
+At his words, she looked up at him and--seeming to find in his face the
+strength she needed--answered in a low voice, "Thank you, sir; I am better
+now. I will he all right, presently, if you will put me on the car." She
+indicated a street-car that was just stopping at the crossing.
+
+"Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" he asked kindly, as he
+walked with her toward the car.
+
+"Yes,"--with a sad attempt to smile,--"yes, and I thank you very much,
+sir, for your gentle courtesy."
+
+He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood with bared head as she
+passed inside, and the conductor gave the signal.
+
+The incident had attracted little attention from the passengers who were
+hurrying from the train. Their minds were too intent upon other things to
+more than glance at this little ripple on the surface of life. Those who
+had chanced to notice the woman's agitation had seen, also, that she was
+being cared for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second thought.
+
+When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot platform,
+the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking about,
+questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes
+fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.
+
+Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
+unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so
+rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought was
+to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His long,
+thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From
+under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a
+curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe.
+At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.
+
+Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape
+the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman
+with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. He turned, now,
+upon the young man who had so kindly given her assistance.
+
+In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
+head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.
+
+Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon reaching
+the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.
+
+The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
+still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
+Setter at his feet.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+The Famous Conrad Lagrange
+
+
+
+When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room, where
+he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the evening meal.
+
+Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
+the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who had
+directed him to the hotel.
+
+That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and the
+Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the clerk's
+counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his
+skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to present
+the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.
+
+In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining
+tables; and the young man heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and
+commenting in an audible undertone, upon every dish that was served to
+him--swearing by all the heathen gods, known and unknown, that there was
+nothing fit to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the fact that
+there was no place else in the cursed town that served half so good, he
+would not touch a mouthful in the place. Then, to the other's secret
+amusement he fell to right heartily and made an astonishing meal of the
+really excellent viands he had so roundly vilified.
+
+Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar to the long veranda; intent
+upon enjoying the restful quiet of the evening after the tiresome days on
+the train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he had his cigar just
+nicely under way when the Irish Setter--with all the dignity of his royal
+blood--approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long silky ears,
+confidently upon the stranger's knee, the dog looked up into the man's
+face with an expression of hearty good-fellowship in his soft,
+golden-brown eyes that was irresistible.
+
+"Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fellow," and stroked the
+sleek head and neck, affectionately.
+
+A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The
+dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half
+pathetic, half humorous, and altogether cynical expression.
+
+The young man who had been so unresponsive to the advances of his fellow
+passengers, for some reason--unknown, probably, to himself--now took the
+initiative. "You have a fine dog here, sir," he said encouragingly.
+
+Without replying, the other turned away and in another moment returned
+with a chair; whereupon the dog, with slightly waving, feathery tail,
+transferred his attention to his master.
+
+Caressing the seal-brown head with a gentle hand, and apparently speaking
+to the soft eyes that looked up at him so understandingly, the man said,
+"If the human race was fit to associate with such dogs, the world would be
+a more comfortable place to live in." The deep voice that rumbled up from
+some unguessed depths of that sunken chest was remarkable in its
+suggestion of a virile power that the general appearance of the man seemed
+to deny. Facing his companion suddenly, he asked with a direct bluntness,
+"Are you not Aaron King--son of the Aaron King of New England political
+fame?"
+
+Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, the young man flushed.
+"Yes; my father was active in New England politics," he answered simply.
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Very well"--returned the other--"very well." He repeated the two words
+with a suggestive emphasis; his eyes--with that curious, baffling,
+questioning look--still fixed upon his companion's face.
+
+The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened.
+
+Looking away, the strange man added, with a softer note in his rough
+voice, "I thought I knew you, when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and
+I were boy and girl together. There is a little of her face in yours. If
+you have as much of her character, you are to be congratulated--and--so
+are the rest of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to the dog;
+who, still looking up at him, seemed to express with slow-waving tail, an
+understanding of thoughts that were only partly put into words.
+
+There was an impersonality in the man's personalities that made it
+impossible for the subject of his observations to take offense.
+
+Aaron King--when it was evident that the man had no thought of
+introducing himself--said, with the fine courtesy that seemed always to
+find expression in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, sir?"
+
+The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, answered, "Conrad
+Lagrange."
+
+The young man smiled. "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Lagrange.
+Surely, you are not the famous novelist of that name?"
+
+"And _why_, 'surely not'?" retorted the other, again turning his face
+quickly toward his companion. "Am I not distinguished enough in
+appearance? Do I look like the mob? True, I am a scrawny, humpbacked
+crooked-faced, scarecrow of a man--but what matters _that_, if I do not
+look like the mob? What is called fame is as scrawny and humpbacked and
+crooked-faced as my body--but what matters _that?_ Famous or infamous--to
+not look like the mob is the thing."
+
+It is impossible to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of
+sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked
+the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker
+turned from his human companion to a more worthy listener.
+
+When Aaron King could find no words to reply, the novelist shot another
+question at him, with startling suddenness. "Do you read my books?"
+
+The other began a halting answer to the effect that everybody read Conrad
+Lagrange's books. But the distinguished author interrupted; "Don't take
+the trouble to lie--out of politeness. I shall ask you to tell me about
+them and you will be in a hole."
+
+The young man laughed as he said, with straight-forward frankness, "I have
+read only one, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"The--ah--why--the one, you know--where the husband of one woman falls in
+love with the wife of another who is in love with the husband of some one
+else. Pshaw!--what is the title? I mean the one that created such a
+furore, you know."
+
+"Yes"--said the man, to his dog--"O yes, Czar--I am the famous Conrad
+Lagrange. I observe"--he added, turning to the other, with twinkling
+eyes--"I observe, Mr. King, that you really _do_ have a good bit of your
+mother's character. That you do not read my books is a recommendation that
+I, better than any one, know how to appreciate." The light of humor went
+from his face, suddenly, as it had come. Again he turned away; and his
+deep voice was gentle as he continued, "Your mother is a rare and
+beautiful spirit, sir. Knowing her regard for the true and genuine,--her
+love for the pure and beautiful,--I scarcely expected to find her son
+interested in the realism of _my_ fiction. I congratulate you, young
+man"--he paused; then added with indescribable bitterness--"that you have
+not read my books."
+
+For a few moments, Aaron King did not answer. At last, with quiet dignity,
+he said, "My mother was a remarkable woman, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+The other faced him quickly. "You say _was_? Do you mean--?"
+
+"My mother is dead, sir. I was called home from abroad by her illness."
+
+For a little, the older man sat looking into the gathering dusk. Then,
+deliberately, he refilled his brier pipe, and, rising, said to his dog,
+"Come, Czar--it's time to go."
+
+Without a word of parting to his human companion with the dog moving
+sedately by his side, he disappeared into the darkness of the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the next day, Aaron King--in the hotel dining-room, the lobby, and on
+the veranda--watched for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the
+little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the uncouth
+figure and the homely, world-worn face of the man whose unusual
+personality had so attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Conrad
+Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening before, the young man was
+smoking his after-dinner cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a
+whiff of pipe smoke announced the strange character's presence.
+
+Without taking a seat, the novelist said, "I always have a look at the
+mountains, at this time of the day, Mr. King--would you care to come?
+These mountains are the real thing, you know, and well worth
+seeing--particularly at this hour." There was a gentle softness in his
+deep voice, now--as unlike his usual speech as his physical appearance was
+unlike that of his younger companion.
+
+Aaron King arose quickly. "Thank you, Mr, Lagrange; I will go with
+pleasure."
+
+Accompanied by the dog, they followed the avenue, under the giant pepper
+trees that shut out the sky with their gnarled limbs and gracefully
+drooping branches, to the edge of the little city; where the view to the
+north and northeast was unobstructed by houses. Just where the street
+became a road, Conrad Lagrange--putting his hand upon his companion's
+arm--said in a low voice, "This is the place."
+
+Behind them, beautiful Fairlands lay, half lost, in its wilderness of
+trees and flowers. Immediately in the foreground, a large tract of
+unimproved land brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet.
+Beyond these acres--upon which there were no trees--the orange groves were
+massed in dark green blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows
+of palms; clumps of peppers; or tall, plume-like eucalyptus; to mark the
+roads and the ranch homes. Beyond this--and rising, seemingly, out of the
+groves--the San Bernardinos heaved their mighty masses into the sky. It
+was almost dark. The city's lamps were lighted. The outlines of grove and
+garden were fast being lost in the deepening dusk. The foothills, with the
+lower spurs and ridges of the mountains, were softly modeled in dark blue
+against the deeper purple of the canyons and gorges. Upon the cloudless
+sky that was lighted with clearest saffron, the lines of the higher crests
+were sharply drawn; while the lonely, snow-capped peaks,--ten thousand
+feet above the darkening valley below,--catching the last rays of the sun,
+glowed rose-pink--changing to salmon--deepening into mauve--as the light
+failed.
+
+Aaron King broke the silence by drawing a long breath--as one who could
+find no words to express his emotions.
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke sadly; "And to think that there are,--in this city
+of ten thousand,--probably, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety people
+who never see it."
+
+With a short laugh, the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch
+for my palette and brushes--though it's not at all my sort of thing."
+
+The other turned toward him quickly. "You are an artist?"
+
+"I had just completed my three years study abroad when mother's illness
+brought me home. I was fortunate enough to get one on the line, and they
+say--over there--that I had a good chance. I don't know how it will go
+here at home." There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
+
+"What do you do?"
+
+"Portraits."
+
+[Illustration: A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and
+wholly cynical interrogation]
+
+With his face again toward the mountains, the novelist said thoughtfully,
+"This West country will produce some mighty artists, Mr. King. By far the
+greater part of this land must remain, always, in its primitive
+naturalness. It will always be easier, here, than in the city crowded
+East, for a man to be himself. There is less of that spirit which is born
+of clubs and cliques and clans and schools--with their fine-spun
+theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely
+commissioned to sit in judgment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking,
+esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that
+loneliness out of which great art comes. The atmosphere of these mountains
+and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a
+clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others--and what, after
+all, _is_ a great artist, but one who greatly asserts himself?"
+
+The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr. Lagrange, your words recall
+to my mind a thought in one of mother's favorite books. She quoted from
+the volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it by heart, and,
+in turn, it became my favorite. Indeed, I think that, with mother's aid as
+an interpreter, it has had more influence upon my life than any other one
+book. This is the thought: 'To understand the message of the mountains; to
+love them for what they are; and, in terms of every-day life, to give
+expression to that understanding and love--is a mark of true greatness of
+soul.' I do not know the author. The book is anonymous."
+
+"I am the author of that book, sir," the strange man answered with simple
+dignity, "--or, rather,--I should say,--I _was_ the author," he added,
+with a burst of his bitter, sarcastic humor. "For God's sake don't betray
+me. I am, _now_, the _famous_ Conrad Lagrange, you understand. I have a
+_name_ to protect." His deep voice was shaken with feeling. His worn and
+rugged features twitched and worked with emotion.
+
+Aaron King listened in amazement to the words that were spoken by the
+famous novelist with such pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation.
+Not knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are working here, Mr.
+Lagrange?"
+
+"Working! Me? I don't _work_ anywhere. I am a literary scavenger. I haunt
+the intellectual slaughter pens, and live by the putrid offal that
+self-respecting writers reject. I glean the stinking materials for my
+stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. For the dollars they pay, I
+furnish my readers with those thrills that public decency forbids them to
+experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the purposes of mental
+prostitution. My books breed moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The
+unholy filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imaginations of my
+readers. I am an instigator of degrading immorality and unmentionable
+crimes. _Work_! No, young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing penance
+in this damned town. My rotten imaginings have proven too much--even for
+me--and the doctors sent me West to recuperate,"
+
+The artist could find no words that would answer. In silence, the two men
+turned away from the mountains, and started back along the avenue by which
+they had come.
+
+When they had walked some little distance, the young man said, "This is
+your first visit to Fairlands, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"I was here last year"--answered the other--"here and in the hills yonder.
+Have _you_ been much in the mountains?"
+
+"Not in California. This is my first trip to the West. I have seen
+something of the mountains, though, at tourist resorts--abroad."
+
+"Which means," commented the other, "that you have never seen them at
+all."
+
+Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right."
+
+"And you--?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing his companion. "What
+brought you to this community that thinks so much more of its millionaires
+than it does of its mountains? Have _you_ come to Fairlands to work?"
+
+"I hope to," answered the artist. "There are--there are reasons why I do
+not care to work, for the present, in the East. I confess it was because I
+understood that Fairlands offered exceptional opportunities for a portrait
+painter that I came here. To succeed in my work, you know, one must come
+in touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier to interest them
+when they are away from their homes--in some place like this--where their
+social duties and business cares are not so pressing."
+
+"There is no question of the material that Fairlands has to offer, Mr.
+King," returned the novelist, in his grim, sarcastic humor. "God! how I
+envy you!" he added, with a flash of earnest passion. "You are young--You
+are beginning your life work--You are looking forward to success--You--"
+
+"I _must_ succeed"--the painter interrupted impetuously--"I must."
+
+"Succeed in _what_? What do you mean by success?"
+
+"Surely, _you_ should understand what I mean by success," the younger man
+retorted. "You who have gained--"
+
+"Oh, yes; I forgot"--came the quick interruption--"I am the _famous_
+Conrad Lagrange. Of course, you, too, must succeed. You must become the
+_famous_ Aaron King. But perhaps you will tell me why you must, as you
+call it, succeed?"
+
+The artist hesitated before answering; then said with anxious earnestness,
+"I don't think I can explain Mr. Lagrange. My mother--" he paused.
+
+The older man stopped short, and, turning, stood for a little with his
+face towards the mountains where San Bernardino's pyramid-like peak was
+thrust among the stars. When he spoke, every bit of that bitter humor was
+gone from his deep voice. "I beg your pardon, Mr. King"--he said
+slowly--"I am as ugly and misshapen in spirit as in body."
+
+But when they had walked some way--again in silence--and were drawing near
+the hotel, the momentary change in his mood passed. In a tone of stinging
+sarcasm he said. "You are on the right road, Mr. King. You did well to
+come to Fairlands. It is quite evident that you have mastered the modern
+technic of your art. To acquire fame, you have only to paint pictures of
+fast women who have no morals at all--making them appear as innocent
+maidens, because they have the price to pay, and, in the eyes of the
+world, are of social importance. Put upon your canvases what the world
+will call portraits of distinguished citizens--making low-browed
+money--thugs to look like noble patriots, and bloody butchers of humanity
+like benevolent saints. You need give yourself no uneasiness about your
+success. It is easy. Get in with the right people; use your family name
+and your distinguished ancestors; pull a few judicious advertising wires;
+do a few artistic stunts; get yourself into the papers long and often, no
+matter how; make yourself a fad; become a pet of the social autocrats--and
+your fame is assured. And--you will be what I am."
+
+The young man, quietly ignoring the humor of the novelist's words, said
+protestingly, "But, surely, to portray human nature is legitimate art, Mr.
+Lagrange. Your great artists that the West is to produce will not
+necessarily be landscape painters or write essays upon nature, will they?"
+
+"To portray human nature is legitimate work for an artist, yes"--agreed
+the novelist--"but he must portray human nature _plus_. The forces that
+_shape_ human nature are the forces that must be felt in the picture and
+in the story. That these determining forces are so seldom seen by the eyes
+of the world, is the reason _for_ pictures and stories. The artist who
+fails to realize for his world the character-creating elements in the life
+which he essays to paint or write, fails, to just that degree, in being an
+artist; or is self-branded by his work as criminally careless, a charlatan
+or a liar. That one who, for a price, presents a picture or a story
+without regard for the influence of his production upon the characters of
+those who receive it, commits a crime for which human law provides no
+adequate punishment. Being the famous Conrad Lagrange, you understand, I
+have the right to say this. You will probably believe it, some day--if
+you do not now. That is, you will believe it if you have the soul and the
+intelligence of an artist--if you have not--it will not matter--and you
+will be happy in your success."
+
+As the novelist finished speaking, the two men arrived at the hotel steps,
+where they halted, with that indecision of chance acquaintances who have
+no plans beyond the passing moment, yet who, in mutual interest, would
+extend the time of their brief companionship. While they stood there, each
+hesitating to make the advance, a big touring car rolled up the driveway,
+and stopped under the full light of the veranda. Aaron King recognized the
+lady of the observation car platform, with her two traveling companions
+and the heavy-faced man who had met them at the depot. As the party
+greeted the novelist and he returned their salutation, the artist turned
+away to find again the chair, where, an hour before, the strange character
+who was to play so large a part in his life and work had found him. The
+dog, Czar, as if preferring the companionship of the artist to the company
+of those who were engaging his master's attention, followed the young man.
+
+From where he sat, the painter could see the tall, uncouth figure of the
+famous novelist standing beside the automobile, while the occupants of the
+car were, apparently, absorbingly interested in what he was saying. The
+beautiful face of the woman was brightly animated as she evidently took
+the lead in the conversation. The artist could see her laughing and
+shaking her head. Once, he even heard her speak the writer's name;
+whereupon, every lounger upon the veranda, within hearing, turned to
+observe the party with curious interest. Several times, the young man
+noted that she glanced in his direction, half inquiringly, with a
+suggestion of being pleased, as though she were glad to have seen him in
+company with her celebrated friend. Then the man who held so large a place
+in the eyes of the world drew back, lifting his hat; the automobile
+started forward; the party called, "Good night." The woman's voice rose
+clear--so that the spectators might easily understand--"Remember, Mr.
+Lagrange--I shall expect you Thursday--day after to-morrow."
+
+As Conrad Lagrange came up the hotel steps, the eyes of all were upon him;
+but he--apparently unconscious of the company--went straight to the
+artist; where, without a word, he dropped into the vacant chair by the
+young man's side, and began thoughtfully refilling his brier pipe.
+Flipping the match over the veranda railing, and expelling a prodigious
+cloud of smoke, the novelist said grimly, "And there--my fellow artist--go
+your masters. I trust you observed them with proper reverence. I would
+have introduced you, but I do not like to take the initiative in such
+outrages. That will come soon enough. The young should be permitted to
+enjoy their freedom while they may."
+
+Aaron King laughed. "Thank you for your consideration," he returned, "but
+I do not think I am in any immediate danger."
+
+"Which"--the other retorted dryly--"betrays either innocence, caution, or
+an unusual understanding of life. I am not, now, prepared to say whether
+you know too much or too little."
+
+"I confess to a degree of curiosity," said the artist. "I traveled in the
+same Pullman with three of the party. May I ask the names of your
+friends?"
+
+The other answered in his bitterest vein; "I have no friends, Mr. King--I
+have only admirers. As for their names"--he continued--"there is no reason
+why I should withhold either who they are or what they are. Besides, I
+observed that the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art' has her
+eye upon you, already. As I shall very soon be commanded to drag you to
+her 'Court,' it is well for you to be prepared."
+
+The young man laughed as the other paused to puff vigorously at his brier
+pipe.
+
+"That red-faced, bull-necked brute, is James Rutlidge, the son and heir of
+old Jim Rutlidge," continued the novelist. "Jim inherited a few odd
+millions from _his_ father, and killed himself spending them in
+unmentionable ways. The son is most worthily carrying out his father's
+mission, with bright prospects of exceeding his distinguished parent's
+fondest dreams. But, unfortunately, _he_ is hampered by lack of adequate
+capital--the bulk of the family wealth having gone with the old man."
+
+"Do you mean James Rutlidge--the great critic?" exclaimed Aaron King, with
+increased interest.
+
+"The same," answered the other, with his twisted smile. "I thought you
+would recognize his name. As an artist, you will undoubtedly have much to
+do with him. His friendship is one of the things that are vital to your
+success. Believe me, his power in modern art is a red-faced, bull-necked
+power that you will do well to recognize. Of his companions," he went on,
+"the horrible example is Edward J. Taine--friend and fellow martyr of
+James Rutlidge, Senior. Satan, perhaps, can explain how he has managed to
+outlive his partner. His home is in New York, but he has a big house on
+Fairlands Heights, with large orange groves in this district. He comes
+here winters for his health. He'll die before long. The effervescing young
+creature is his daughter, Louise--by his first wife. The 'Goddess'--who is
+not much older than his daughter--is the present Mrs. Taine."
+
+"His wife!"
+
+The artist's exclamation drew a sarcastic chuckle from the other. "I am
+prepared, now, to testify to your unworldly innocence of heart and mind,"
+he gibed. "And, pray, why not his wife? You see, she was the ward of old
+Rutlidge--a niece, it is said. Mrs. Rutlidge--as you have no doubt
+heard--killed herself. It was shortly after her death that Jim took this
+little one into his home. She and young Jim grew up together. What was
+more natural or fitting than that her guardian--when he was about to
+depart from this sad world where human flesh is not able to endure an
+unlimited amount of dissipation--should give the girl as a lively souvenir
+to his bosom friend and companion of his unmentionable deviltries? The
+transaction also enabled him, you understand, to draw upon the Taine
+millions; and so permitted him to finish his distinguished career with
+credit. You, with your artist's extravagant fancy, have, no doubt, been
+thinking of her as fashioned for _love_. I assure you _she_ knows better.
+The world in which she has been schooled has left her no hazy ideas as to
+what she was made for."
+
+"I have heard of the Taines," said the younger man, thoughtfully. "I
+suppose this is the same family. They are very prominent in the social
+world, and quite generous patrons of the arts?"
+
+"In the eyes of the world," said the novelist, "they are the noblest of
+our Nobility. They dwell in the rarefied atmosphere of millions. By the
+dollarless multitudes they are envied. They assume to be the cultured of
+the cultured. Patrons of the arts! Why, man, _they have autographed copies
+of all my books!_ They and their kind _feed_ me and my kind. They will
+feed you, sir, or by God you'll starve! But you need have no fear that the
+crust of genius will be your portion," he added meaningly. "As I
+remarked--the 'Goddess' has her eye upon you."
+
+"And why do you so distinguish the lady?" asked the artist, quietly
+amused--with just a hint of well-bred condescension. "Has Mrs. Taine such
+powerful influence in the world of art?"
+
+If Conrad Lagrange noticed his companion's manner he passed it by. "I
+perceive," he said, "that you are still somewhat lacking in the rudiments
+of your profession. The statement of faith adhered to by modern climbers
+on the ladder of fame--such as I have been, and you aspire to be--is that
+'Pull' wins. Our creed is 'Graft.' By 'Influence' we stand, by
+'Influence' we fall. It pleases Mrs. Taine to be, in the world of art, a
+lobbyist. She knows the insides of the inside rings and cliques and
+committees that say what is, and what is not, art; that declare who shall
+be, and who shall not be, artists. She has power with those who, in their
+might, grant position and place in the halls of fame; as their kinsmen in
+the political world pass the plums to those who court their favor. The
+great critics who thunder anathemas at the poor devils who are outside,
+eat out of her hand. Jim Rutlidge and his unholy crew are at her beck and
+call. Jim, you see, needing all he can get of the Taine millions, hopes to
+marry Louise. You can scarcely blame the young and beautiful Mrs. Taine
+for not being interested in her husband--who is going to die so soon. The
+poor girl must have some amusement, so she interests herself in art, don't
+you know. She gives more dinners to artists and critics; buys more
+pictures and causes more pictures to be bought; mothers more art-culture
+clubs; discovers more new and startling geniuses; in short, has a larger
+and better trained company of lions than any one else in the business. She
+deals in lions. It's her fad to collect them--same as others collect
+butterflies or postage stamps. She has one other fad that is less harmful
+and just as deceptive--a carefully nourished reputation for prudery. I
+sometimes think the Gods must laugh or choke. That woman would no more
+speak to you without a proper introduction than she would appear on the
+street without shoes or stockings. She has never been seen in an evening
+gown. Her beautiful shoulders have never been immodestly bared to the
+eyes of the world."
+
+The artist thought of that moment on the observation car platform.
+
+Presently, the novelist--refilling his pipe--said whimsically, "Some day,
+Mr. King, I shall write a true story. It shall be a novel of to-day, with
+characters drawn from life; and these characters, in my story, shall bear
+the names of the forces that have made them what they are and which they,
+in turn, have come to represent. I mean those forces that are so coloring
+and shaping the life and thought of this age."
+
+"That ought to be interesting," said the other, "but I am not quite sure
+that I understand."
+
+"Probably you don't. You have not been thinking much of these things. You
+have your eye upon Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. To
+illustrate--our bull-necked friend and illustrious critic, James Rutlidge,
+in my story, will be named 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one
+'Lust.' The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine,--boon companion of
+'Lust,'--is 'Materialism'."
+
+"Good!" laughed the artist. "I see; go on. Who is the daughter of
+'Materialism?'"
+
+"'Ragtime'," promptly returned the novelist, with a grin. "Who else could
+she be?"
+
+"And Mrs. Taine?" urged the other.
+
+The novelist responded quickly; "Why, the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm
+of 'Modern Art,' is 'The Age,' of course. Do you see? 'The Age' given over
+to 'Materialism' for base purposes by his companion, 'Lust.' And you----"
+he paused.
+
+"Go on," cried the young man, "who or what am I in your story?"
+
+"You, sir,"--answered Conrad Lagrange, seriously,--"in my story of modern
+life, represent Art. It remains to be seen whether 'The Age' will add you
+to her collection, or whether some other influence will intervene."
+
+"And you"--persisted the artist--"surely you are in the story."
+
+"I am very much in the story," the other answered. "My name is
+'Civilization.' My story will be published when I am dead. I have a
+reputation to sustain, you know."
+
+Aaron King was not laughing, now. Something, that lay deep hidden beneath
+the rude exterior of the man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some
+powerful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped the artist's
+mind--compelling him to search for hidden meanings in the novelist's
+fanciful suggestions.
+
+A few moments passed in silence before the young man said slowly, "I met a
+character, yesterday, Mr. Lagrange, that might be added to your cast."
+
+"There are several that will be added to my cast," the other answered
+dryly.
+
+To which the painter returned, "Did you notice that woman with the
+disfigured face, at the depot?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange looked at his companion, quickly. "Yes."
+
+"Do you know her?" questioned the artist.
+
+"No. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Only because she interested me, and because she seemed to know your
+friends--Mr. Rutlidge and Mrs. Taine."
+
+The novelist knocked the ashes from his pipe by tapping it on the veranda
+railing. The action seemed to express a peculiar mental effort; as though
+he were striving to recall something that had gone from his memory. "I saw
+what happened at the depot, of course," he said slowly. "I have seen the
+woman before. She lives here in Fairlands. Her name is Miss Willard. No
+one seems to know much about her. I can't get over the impression that I
+ought to know her--that I have met and known her somewhere years ago. Her
+manner, yesterday, at seeing Mrs. Taine, was certainly very strange." As
+if to free his mind from the unsuccessful effort to remember, he rose to
+his feet. "But why should she be added to the characters in my novel, Mr.
+King? What does she represent?"
+
+"Her name,"--said the artist,--"in your study of life, is suggested by her
+face--so beautiful on the one side--so distorted on the other--her name
+should be 'Symbol'."
+
+"There really is hope for you," returned the older man, with his quizzing
+smile. "Good night. Come, Czar." He passed into the hotel--the dog at his
+heels.
+
+It was two days later--Thursday--that Conrad Lagrange made his memorable
+visit to the Taines--memorable, in my story, because, at that time, Mrs.
+Taine gave such unmistakable evidence of her interest in Aaron King and
+his future.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+At the House on Fairlands Heights
+
+
+
+As my friend the social scientist would say; it is a phenomenon peculiar
+to urban life, that the social strata are more or less clearly defined
+geographically.
+
+That is,--in the English of everyday,--people of different classes live in
+different parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are given to
+the wholesale establishments, others to retail stores, and still others to
+the manufacturing plants; so there are the tenement districts, the slums,
+and the streets where may be found the homes of wealth and fashion.
+
+In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked by altitude. The city,
+lying in the lap of the hills and looking a little down upon the
+valley--plebeian business together with those who do the work of Fairlands
+occupies the lowest levels in the corporate limits. The heights are held
+by Fairlands' Pride. Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are
+graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most gratifying to observe
+how generally the citizens of this fortunate community aspire to higher
+things; and to note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is
+undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement which enables every one to
+look down upon his neighbor.
+
+The view from the winter home of the Taines was magnificent.
+
+From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine sat, that afternoon, one
+could have looked down upon all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done
+better than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical foliage
+that--save for the tower of the red-brick Y.M.C.A. building, the white,
+municipal flagstaff, and the steeples and belfries of the churches--hid
+the city, one might have looked up at the mountains. High, high, above the
+low levels occupied by the hill-climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift
+their heads in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest Fairlander
+of them all--looking down upon even the Taines themselves.
+
+But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared by the mountains. She
+sat by the window, indeed, but her eyes were upon the open pages of a
+book--a popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the governmental
+conscience was--and is still--permitted in print.
+
+The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. Taine was--in her
+opinion--almost as great in literature as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By
+those in authority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the unworthiness
+of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be one of the greatest writers of
+his generation. He is a realist--a modern of the moderns. His pen has
+never been debased by an inartistic and antiquated idealism. His claim to
+genius rests securely upon the fact that he has no ideals. He writes for
+that select circle of leaders who, like the Taines and the Rutlidges, are
+capable of appreciating his art. All of which means that he tells filthy
+stories in good English. That his stories are identical in material and
+motive with the vile yarns that are permitted only in the lowest class
+barber shops and in disreputable bar-rooms, in no way detracts from the
+admiring praise of his critics, the generosity of his publishers, or the
+appreciation of those for whom he writes.
+
+With tottering step and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the
+apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed,
+red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen,
+impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized
+him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his
+dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm.
+Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and
+tortured slave of the very devils of unholy passion that he had so often
+invoked to serve him. Repulsive as he was, he was an object to awaken the
+deepest pity.
+
+Mrs. Taine, looking up from her novel, watched him curiously--without
+moving or changing her attitude of luxurious repose--without speaking.
+Almost, one would have said, a shade of a smile was upon her too perfect
+features.
+
+When the man--who had dropped weak and exhausted into a chair--could
+speak, he glared at her in a pitiful rage, and, in his throaty whisper,
+said with a curse, "You seem to be amused."
+
+Still, she did not speak. A tantalizing smile broke over her face, and she
+stretched her beautiful body lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned
+animal stirs in sleek, physical contentment.
+
+Again, with curses, he said, "I'm glad you so enjoy my company. To be
+laughed at, even, is better than your damned indifference."
+
+"You misjudge me," she answered in a voice that, low and soft, was still
+richly colored by the wealth of vitality that found expression in her
+splendid body. "I am not at all indifferent to your condition--quite the
+contrary. I am intensely interested. As for the amusement you afford
+me--please consider--for three years I have amused you. Can you deny me my
+turn?"
+
+He laughed with a hideously mirthless chuckle as he returned with ghastly
+humor, "I have had the worth of my money. I advise you to make the most of
+your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant for you as I can, while
+I am with you, but, as you know, I am liable to leave you at any time,
+now."
+
+"Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I shall miss you so when
+you are gone."
+
+He glared at her while she laughed mockingly.
+
+"Where is everybody?" he asked. "The place is as lonely as a tomb."
+
+"Louise is out riding with Jim."
+
+"And what are you doing at home?" he demanded suspiciously.
+
+"Me? Oh I remained to care for you--to keep you from being lonely."
+
+"You lie. You are expecting some one."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Who is it this time?" he persisted.
+
+"Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she murmured.
+
+"Whom are you expecting?"
+
+"Dear me! how persistently you look for evil," she mocked. "You know
+perfectly well that, thanks to my tact, I am considered quite the model
+wife. You really should cultivate a more trusting disposition."
+
+Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he suffered she again
+watched him with that curious air of interest. When he could command his
+voice, he gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, and you know
+that I know. Am I so innocent that Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and
+Black Whitman, and as many more of their kind, can make love to you under
+my very nose without my knowing it? You take damned good care--posing as a
+prude with your fad about immodest dress--that the world sees nothing; but
+you have never troubled to hide it from me."
+
+Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And why should I trouble to
+hide anything from you?" she demanded. "Look at me"--she posed as if to
+exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her physical
+beauty--"Look at me; am I to waste all _this_ upon you? You tell me that
+you have had your money's worth--surely, the purchase price is mine to
+spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as your foul mind sees
+me, what right have you to object? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a
+stone at me? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have made for me
+but the horrible pleasure of watching you in the hell you have made for
+yourself? Be satisfied that the world does not see your shame--though
+it's from no consideration of you, but wholly for myself, that I am
+careful. As for my modesty--you know it is not a fad but a necessity."
+
+"That is just it"--he retorted--"it is the way you make a fad of a
+necessity! Forced to hide your shoulders, you make a virtue of
+concealment. You make capital of the very thing of which you are ashamed."
+
+"And is not that exactly what we all do?" she asked with brutal cynicism.
+"Do you not fear the eyes of the world as much as I? Be satisfied that I
+play the game of respectability with you--that I give the world no cause
+for talk. You may as well be," she finished with devilish frankness, "for
+you are past helping yourself in the matter."
+
+As she finished, a servant appeared to announce Mr. Conrad Lagrange; and
+the tall, uncouth figure of the novelist stood framed in the doorway; his
+sharp eyes regarding them with that peculiar, quizzing, baffling look.
+
+Edward Taine laughed with that horrid chuckle. "Howdy-do, Lagrange--glad
+to see you."
+
+Mrs. Taine went forward to greet the caller; saying as she gave him her
+hand, "You arrived just in time, Mr. Lagrange; Edward and I were
+discussing your latest book. We think it a masterpiece of realistic
+fiction. I'm sure it will add immensely to your fame. I hear it talked of
+everywhere as the most popular novel of the year. You wonderful man! How
+do you do it?"
+
+"I don't do it," answered Conrad Lagrange, looking straight into her
+eyes. "It does itself. My books are really true products of the age that
+reads them; and--to paraphrase a statesman who was himself a product of
+his age--for those who read my books they are just the kind of books that
+I would expect such people to read."
+
+Mrs. Taine looked at him with a curious, half-doubtful half-wistful
+expression; as though she glimpsed a hint of a meaning that did not appear
+upon the surface of his words. "You do say such--such--twisty things," she
+murmured. "I don't think I always understand what you mean; but when you
+look at me that way, I feel as though my maid had neglected to finish
+hooking me up."
+
+The novelist bowed in mock gallantry--a movement which made his ungainly
+form appear more grotesque than ever. "Indeed, madam, to my humble eyes,
+you are most beautifully and fittingly--ah--hooked up." He turned toward
+the invalid. "And how is the fortunate husband of the charming Mrs. Taine
+to-day?"
+
+"Fine, Lagrange, fine," said the man--a cough interrupting his words.
+"Really, I think that Gertrude is unduly alarmed about my condition. In
+this glorious climate, I feel like a three-year-old."
+
+"You _are_ looking quite like yourself," returned the novelist.
+
+"There's nothing at all the matter with me but a slight bronchial
+trouble," continued the other, coughing again. Then, to his
+wife--"Dearest, won't you ring, please; I'm sure it's time for my toddy;
+perhaps Mr. Lagrange will join me in a drink. What'll it be, Lagrange?"
+
+"Nothing, thanks, at this hour."
+
+"No? But you'll pardon me, I'm sure--Doctor's orders you know."
+
+A servant appeared. Mrs. Taine took the glass and carried it to her
+husband with her own hand, saying with tender solicitude, "Don't you
+think, dear, that you should lie down for a while? Mr. Lagrange will
+remain for dinner, you know. You must not tire yourself. I'm sure he will
+excuse you. I'll manage somehow to amuse him until Jim and Louise return."
+
+"I believe I will rest a little, Gertrude." He turned to the guest--"While
+there is nothing really wrong, you know, Lagrange, still it's best to be
+on the safe side."
+
+"By all means," said the novelist, heartily. "You should take care of
+yourself. Don't, I beg, permit me to detain you."
+
+Mrs. Taine, with careful tenderness, accompanied her husband to the door.
+When he had passed from the room, she faced the novelist, with--"Don't you
+think Edward is really very much worse, Mr. Lagrange? I keep up
+appearances, you know, but--" she paused with a charming air of perplexed
+and worried anxiety.
+
+"Your husband is certainly not a well man, madam--but you keep up
+appearances wonderfully. I really don't see how you manage it. But I
+suppose that for one of your nature it is natural."
+
+Again, she received his words with that look of doubtful
+understanding--as though sensing some meaning beneath the polite,
+commonplace surface. Then, as if to lead away from the subject--"You must
+really tell me what you think of our California home. I told you in New
+York, you remember, that I should ask you, the first thing. We were so
+sorry to have missed you last year. Please be frank. Isn't it beautiful?"
+
+"Very beautiful"--he answered--"exquisite taste--perfect harmony with
+modern art." His quizzing eyes twinkled, and a caricature of a smile
+distorted his face. "It fairly smells to heaven of the flesh pots."
+
+She laughed merrily. "The odor should not be unfamiliar to you," she
+retorted. "By all accounts, your royalties are making you immensely rich.
+How wonderful it must be to be famous--to know that the whole world is
+talking about you! And that reminds me--who is your distinguished looking
+friend at the hotel? I was dying to ask you, the other night, but didn't
+dare. I know he is somebody famous."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, studying her face, answered reluctantly, "No, he is not
+famous; but I fear he is going to be."
+
+"Another twisty saying," she retorted. "But I mean to have an answer, so
+you may as well speak plainly. Have you known him long? What is his name?
+And what is he--a writer?"
+
+"His name is Aaron King. His mother and I grew up in the same
+neighborhood. He is an artist."
+
+"How romantic! Do you mean that he belongs to that old family of New
+England Kings?"
+
+"He is the last of them. His father was Aaron King--a prominent lawyer
+and politician in his state."
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember! Wasn't there something whispered at the time of his
+death--some scandal that was hushed up--money stolen--or something? What
+was it? I can't think."
+
+"Whatever it was, Mrs. Taine, the son had nothing to do with it. Don't you
+think we might let the dead man stay safely buried?" There was an ominous
+glint in Conrad Lagrange's eyes.
+
+Mrs. Taine answered hurriedly, "Indeed, yes, Mr. Lagrange. You are right.
+And you shall bring Mr. King out to see me. If he is as nice as he looks,
+I promise you I will be very good to him. Perhaps I may even help him a
+little, through Jim, you know--bring him in touch with the right people
+and that sort of thing. What does he paint?"
+
+"Portraits." The novelist's tone was curt.
+
+"Then I am _sure_ I could do a great deal for him."
+
+"And I am sure you would do a great deal _to_ him," said Conrad Lagrange,
+bluntly.
+
+She laughed again. "And just what do you mean by that, Mr. Lagrange? I'm
+not sure whether it is complimentary or otherwise."
+
+"That depends upon what you consider complimentary," retorted the other.
+"As I told you--Aaron King is an artist."
+
+Again, she favored him with that look of doubtful understanding; shaking
+her head with mock sadness, and making a long sigh. "Another twister"--she
+said woefully--"just when we were getting along so beautifully, too.
+Won't you try again?"
+
+"In words of one syllable then--let him alone. He is, to-day, exactly
+where I was twenty years ago. For God's sake, let him alone. Play your
+game with those who are no loss to the world; or with those who, like me,
+are already lost. Let this man do his work. Don't make him what I am."
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear," she laughed, "and these are words of one syllable! You
+talk as though I were a dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour!"
+
+"You are," said the novelist, gruffly.
+
+"How nice. I'm all shivery with delight, already. You really _must_ bring
+him now, you see. You might as well, for, if you don't, I'll manage some
+other way when you are not around to protect him. You don't want to trust
+him to me unprotected, do you?"
+
+"No, and I won't," retorted Conrad Lagrange--which, though Mrs. Taine did
+not remark it, was also a twister.
+
+"But after all, perhaps he won't come," she said with mock anxiety.
+
+"Don't worry madam--he's just as much a fool as the rest of us."
+
+As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss Taine and her escort,
+James Rutlidge. Mrs. Taine had only time to shake a finger in playful
+warning at her companion, and to whisper, "Mind you bring your artist to
+me, or I'll get him when you're not looking; and listen, don't tell Jim
+about him; I must see what he is like, first."
+
+At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted the artist in his
+bitterest humor. "And how is the famous Aaron King, to-day? I trust that
+the greatest portrait painter of the age is well; that the hotel people
+have been properly attentive to the comfort of their illustrious guest?
+The world of art can ill afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any
+lack of the service that is due his greatness."
+
+The young man's face flushed at his companion's mocking tone; but he
+laughed. "I missed you at breakfast."
+
+"I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual debauch--it takes time
+to recover from a dinner with 'Materialism,' 'Sensual,' 'Ragtime' and 'The
+Age'," the other returned, the menu in his hand. "What slop are they
+offering to put in our troughs for this noon's feed?"
+
+Again, Aaron King laughed. But as the novelist, with characteristic
+comments and instructions to the waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist
+watched him as though waiting with interest his further remarks on the
+subject of his evening with the Taines.
+
+When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned again to his companion, and
+from under his scowling brows regarded him much as a withered scientist
+might regard an interesting insect under his glass. "Permit me to
+congratulate you," he said suggestively--as though the bug had succeeded
+in acting in some manner fully expected by the scientist but wholly
+disgusting to him.
+
+The artist colored again as he returned curiously, "Upon what?"
+
+"Upon the start you have made toward the goal you hope to reach."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mrs. Taine wants you."
+
+"You are pleased to be facetious." Under the eyes of his companion, Aaron
+King felt that his reply did not at all conceal his satisfaction.
+
+"I am pleased to be exact. I repeat--Mrs. Taine wants you. I am ordered by
+the reigning 'Goddess' of 'Modern Art'--'The Age'--to bring you into her
+'Court.' You have won favor in her sight. She finds you good to look at.
+She hopes to find you--as good as you look. If you do not disappoint her,
+your fame is assured."
+
+"Nonsense," said the artist, somewhat sharply; nettled by the obvious
+meaning and by the sneering sarcasm of the novelist's words and tone.
+
+To which the other returned suggestively, "It is precisely because you can
+say, 'nonsense,' when you know it is no nonsense at all, but the exact
+truth, that your chance for fame is so good, my friend."
+
+"And did some reigning 'Goddess' insure your success and fame?"
+
+The older man turned his peculiar, penetrating, baffling eyes full upon
+his companion's face, and in a voice full of cynical sadness answered,
+"Exactly so. I paid court to the powers that be. They gave me the reward I
+sought; and--they made me what I am."
+
+So it came about that Conrad Lagrange, in due time, introduced Aaron King
+to the house on Fairlands Heights. Or,--as the novelist put it,--he,
+"Civilization",--in obedience to the commands of her "Royal Highness",
+"The Age",--presented the artist at her "Majesty's Court"; that the young
+man might sue for the royal favor.
+
+It was, perhaps, a month after the presentation ceremony, that the painter
+made what--to him, at least--was an important announcement.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Mystery of the Rose Garden
+
+
+
+The acquaintance of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had developed rapidly
+into friendship.
+
+The man whom the world had chosen to place upon one of the highest
+pinnacles of its literary favor, and who--through some queer twist in his
+nature--was so lonely and embittered by his exaltation, seemed to find in
+the younger man who stood with the crowd at the foot of the ladder,
+something that marked him as different from his fellows.
+
+Whether it was the artist's mother; some sacredly hidden memories of
+Lagrange's past; or, perhaps, some fancied recognition of the artist's
+genius and its possibilities; the strange man gave no hint; but he
+constantly sought the company of Aaron King, with an openness that made
+his preference for the painter's society very evident. If he had said
+anything about it, at all, Conrad Lagrange, likely, would have accounted
+for his interest, upon the ground that his dog, Czar, found the
+companionship agreeable. Their friendship, meanwhile--in the eyes of the
+world--conferred a peculiar distinction upon the young man--a distinction
+not at all displeasing to the ambitious artist; and the value of which he,
+probably, overrated.
+
+To Aaron King--aside from the subtle flattery of the famous novelist's
+attention--there was in the personality of the odd character a something
+that appealed to him with peculiar strength. Perhaps it was that the man's
+words, so often sharp and stinging with bitter sarcasm, seemed always to
+carry a hidden meaning that gave, as it were, glimpses of another nature
+buried deeply beneath a wreck of ruined dreams and disappointing
+achievements. Or, it may have been that, under all the cruel,
+world-hardness of the thoughts expressed, the young man sensed an
+undertone of pathetic sadness. Or, again, perhaps, it was those rare
+moments, when--on some walk that carried them beyond the outskirts of the
+town, and brought the mountains into unobstructed view--the clouds of
+bitterness were lifted; and the man spoke with poetic feeling of the
+realities of life, and of the true glory and mission of the arts;
+counseling his friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it was
+rare and fine.
+
+It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange had introduced the young
+man at the house on Fairlands Heights. The hour was late. The
+painter--returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine home--found
+the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a deserted corner of the hotel
+veranda. Dropping into the chair that was placed as if it awaited his
+coming, the artist--with no word of greeting to the man--bent over the
+brown head that was thrust so insistently against his knee, as Czar, with
+gently waving tail, made him welcome. Looking affectionately into the
+brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, the young man answered in the
+language that all dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his
+scowling brows, regarded the two intently.
+
+"They were disappointed that you were not there," said the painter,
+presently. "Mrs. Taine, particularly, charged me to say that she will not
+forgive, until you do proper penance for your sin."
+
+"I had better company," retorted the other. "Czar and I went for a look at
+the mountains. I suppose you have noticed that Czar does not care for the
+Fairlands Heights crowd. He is very peculiar in his friendships--for a
+dog. His instincts are remarkable."
+
+At the sound of his name, Czar transferred his attentions, for a moment,
+to his master; then stretched himself in his accustomed place beside the
+novelist's chair.
+
+The artist laughed. "I did my best to invent an acceptable excuse for you;
+but she said it was no use--nothing short of your own personal prayers for
+mercy would do."
+
+"Humph; you should have reminded her that I purchased an indulgence some
+weeks ago."
+
+Again, the other laughed shortly. Watching him closely, Conrad Lagrange
+said, in his most sneering tones, "I trust, young man, that you are not
+failing to make good use of your opportunities. Let's see--dinner and the
+evening five times--afternoon calls as many--with motor trips to points of
+interest--and one theater party to Los Angeles--believe me; it is not
+often that struggling genius is so rewarded--before it has accomplished
+anything bad enough to merit such attention."
+
+"I _have_ been idling most shamefully, haven't I?" said the artist.
+
+"Idling!" rasped the other. "You have been the busiest hay-maker in the
+land. These scientific, intensive cultivation farmers of California are
+not in your class when it comes to utilizing the sunshine. Take my advice
+and continue your present activity without bothering yourself by any
+sentimental thoughts of your palette and brushes. The mere vulgar tools of
+your craft are of minor importance to one of your genius and opportunity."
+
+Then, in a half embarrassed manner, Aaron King made his announcement.
+"That may all be," he said, "but just the same, I am going to work."
+
+"I knew it"--returned the other, in mocking triumph--"I knew it the moment
+you came up the steps there. I could tell it by your walk; by the air with
+which you carried yourself; by your manner, your voice, your laugh--you
+fairly reek of prosperity and achievement--you are going to paint her
+portrait."
+
+"And why not?" retorted the young man, rather sharply, a trifle nettled by
+the other's tone.
+
+"Why not, indeed!" murmured the novelist. "Indeed, yes--by all means! It
+is so exactly the right thing to do that it is startling. You scale the
+heights of fame with such confident certainty in every move that it is
+positively uncanny to watch you."
+
+"If one's work is true, I fail to see why one should not take advantage
+of any influence that can contribute to his success," said the painter. "I
+assure you I am not so wealthy that I can afford to refuse such an
+attractive commission. You must admit that the beautiful Mrs. Taine is a
+subject worthy the brush of any artist; and I suppose it _is_ conceivable
+that I _might_ be ambitious to make a genuinely good job of it."
+
+The older man, as though touched by the evident sincerity of the artist's
+words, dropped his sneering tone and spoke earnestly; "The beautiful Mrs.
+Taine _is_ a subject worthy a master's brush, my friend. But take my word
+for it, if you paint her portrait _as a master would paint it_, you will
+sign your own death warrant--so far as your popularity and fame as an
+artist goes."
+
+"I don't believe it," declared Aaron King, flatly.
+
+"I know you don't. If you _did_, and still accepted the commission, you
+wouldn't be fit to associate with honest dogs like Czar, here."
+
+"But why"--persisted the artist--"why do you insist that my portrait of
+Mrs. Taine will be disastrous to my success, just to the degree that it is
+a work of genuine merit?"
+
+To which the novelist answered, cryptically, "If you have not the eyes to
+see the reason, it will matter little whether you know it or not. If you
+_do_ see the reason, and, still, produce a portrait that pleases your
+sitter, then you will have paid the price; you will receive your reward;
+and"--the speaker's tone grew sad and bitter--"you will be what I am."
+
+With this, he arose abruptly and, without another word, stalked into the
+hotel; the dog following with quiet dignity, at his heels.
+
+From the beginning of their acquaintance, almost, the novelist and the
+artist had dropped into the habit of taking their meals together. At
+breakfast, the next morning, Conrad Lagrange reopened the conversation he
+had so abruptly closed the night before. "I suppose," he said, "that you
+will set up a studio, and do the thing in proper style?"
+
+"Mrs. Taine told me of a place that is for rent, and that she thinks would
+be just the thing," returned the young man. "It is across the road from
+that big grove owned by Mr. Taine. I was wondering if you would care to
+walk out that way with me this morning and help me look it over."
+
+The older man's hearty acceptance of the invitation assured the artist of
+his genuine interest, and, an hour later--after Aaron King had interviewed
+the agent and secured the keys, with the privilege of inspecting the
+premises--the two set out together.
+
+They found the place on the eastern edge of the town; half-hidden by the
+orange groves that surrounded it on every side. The height of the palms
+that grew along the road in front, the pepper and eucalyptus trees that
+overshadowed the house, and the size of the orange-trees that shut in the
+little yard with walls of green, marked the place as having been
+established before the wealth of the far-away East discovered the peculiar
+charm of the Fairlands hills. The lawn, the walks, and the drive were
+unkempt and overgrown with weeds. The house itself,--a small cottage with
+a wide porch across the front and on the side to the west,--unpainted for
+many seasons, was tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful
+gray.
+
+But the artist and his friend, as they approached, exclaimed aloud at the
+beauty of the scene; for, as if rejoicing in their freedom from restraint,
+the roses had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as their own. Up
+every post of the porch they had climbed; over the porch roof, they spread
+their wealth of color; over the gables, screening the windows with
+graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and bloom; up to the ridge
+and over the cornice, to the roof of the house itself--even to the top of
+the chimney they had won their way--and there, as if in an ecstasy of
+wanton loveliness, flung, a spray of glorious, perfumed beauty high into
+the air.
+
+On the front porch, the men turned to look away over the gentle slope of
+the orange groves, on the other side of the road, to the towering peaks
+and high ridges of the mountains--gleaming cold and white in the winter of
+their altitude. To the northeast, San Bernardino reared his head in lonely
+majesty--looking directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwellers
+in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded by the higher ridges and
+peaks and canyons of the range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the
+skies--the ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, they viewed
+the mighty sweep of the main range to Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels,
+beyond, with San Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting their
+heads above their fellows. In the immediate landscape, no house or
+building was to be seen. The dark-green mass of the orange groves hid
+every work of man's building between them and the tawny foothills save the
+gable and chimney of a neighboring cottage on the west.
+
+"Listen"--said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone, moved as always by the
+grandeur and beauty of the scene--"listen! Don't you hear them calling?
+Don't you feel the mountains sending their message to these poor insects
+who squirm and wriggle in this bit of muck men call their world? God, man!
+if only we, in our work, would heed the message of the hills!"
+
+The novelist spoke with such intensity of feeling--with such bitter
+sadness and regret in his voice--that Aaron King could not reply.
+
+Turning, the artist unlocked the door, and they entered the cottage.
+
+They found the interior of the house well arranged, and not in bad repair.
+"Just the thing for a bachelor's housekeeping"--was the painter's
+verdict--"but for a studio--impossible," and there was a touch of regret
+in his voice.
+
+"Let's continue our exploration," said the novelist, hopefully. "There's a
+barn out there." And they went out of the house, and down the drive on the
+eastern side of the yard.
+
+Here, again, they saw the roses in full possession of the place--by man,
+deserted. From foundation to roof, the building--a small simple
+structure--was almost hidden under a mass of vines. There was one large
+room below; with a loft above. The stable was in the rear. Built,
+evidently, at a later date than the house, the building was in better
+repair. The walls, so hidden without by the roses, were well sided; the
+floors were well laid. The big, sliding, main door opened on the drive in
+front; between it and the corner, to the west, was a small door; and in
+the western end, a window.
+
+Looking curiously from this window, Conrad Lagrange uttered an
+exclamation, and hurried abruptly from the building. The artist followed.
+
+From the end of the barn, and extending, the full width of the building,
+to the west line of the yard, was a rose garden--such a garden as Aaron
+King had never seen. On three sides, the little plot was enclosed by a
+tall hedge of Ragged Robins; above the hedge, on the south and west, was
+the dark-green wall of the orange grove; on the north, the pepper and
+eucalyptus trees in the yard, and a view of the distant mountains; and on
+the east, the vine-hidden end of the barn. Against the southern
+wall,--and, so, directly opposite the trellised, vine-covered arch of the
+entrance,--a small, lattice bower, with a rustic table and seats within,
+was completely covered, as was the barn, by the magically woven tapestry
+of the flowers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the entrance they
+found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of the premises, the garden was in
+perfect order--the roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged and
+clean; with no weed or sign of untidiness or neglect anywhere.
+
+The two men had come upon the spot so suddenly--so unexpectedly--the
+contrast with the neglected grounds and buildings was so marked--that they
+looked at each other in silence. The little retreat--so lovely, so hidden
+by its own beauty from the world, so cared for by careful hands--seemed
+haunted by an invisible spirit. Very quietly,--almost reverently,--they
+moved about; talking in low tones, as though half expecting--they knew not
+what.
+
+"Some one loves this place," said the novelist, softly, when they stood,
+again, in the entrance.
+
+And the artist answered in the same hushed voice, "I wonder what it
+means?"
+
+When they were again in the barn, Aaron King became eagerly enthusiastic
+over the possibilities of the big room. "Some rightly toned burlap on the
+walls and ceiling,"--he pointed out,--"with floor covering and rugs in
+harmony; there"--rolling back the big door as he spoke--"your north light;
+some hangings and screens to hide the stairway to the loft, and the stable
+door; your entrance over here in the corner, nicely out of the way; and
+the window looking into the garden--it's great man, great!"
+
+"And," answered Conrad Lagrange, from where he stood in the big front
+door, "the mountains! Don't forget the mountains. The soft, steady, north
+light on your canvas, and a message from the mountains to your soul,
+through the same window, should make it a good place to work, Mr.
+Painter-man. I suppose over here"--he moved away from the window, and
+spoke in his mocking way--"over here, you will have a tea-table for the
+ladies of the circle elect--who will come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their
+admiration of the newly discovered genius, and to chatter their
+misunderstandings of his art. Of course, there will be a page in velvet
+and gold. By all means, get hold of an oriental kid of some kind--oriental
+junk is quite the rage this year. You should take advantage of every
+influence that can contribute to your success, you know. And, whatever you
+do, don't fail to consult the 'Goddess' about these essentials of your
+craft. Many a promising genius has been lost to fame, through inviting the
+wrong people to take tea in his studio. But"--he finished whimsically,
+looking from the window into the garden--"but what the devil do you
+suppose the spirit who lives out there will think about it all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days of the two following weeks were busy days for Aaron King. He
+leased the place in the orange groves, and set men to work making it
+habitable. The lawn and grounds were trimmed and put in order; the
+interior of the house was renovated by painter and paper-hanger; and the
+barn, under the artist's direction, was transformed into an ideal studio.
+There was a trip to Los Angeles--quite fortunately upon a day when Mrs.
+Taine must go to the city shopping--for rugs and hangings; and another
+trip to purchase the tools of the artist's craft. And, at last, there was
+a Chinese cook and housekeeper to find; with supplies for his kitchen. It
+was at Conrad Lagrange's suggestion, that, from the first, every one was
+given strict orders to keep out of the rose garden.
+
+Every day, the novelist--accompanied, always, by Czar--walked out that way
+to see how things were progressing; and often,--if he had not been too
+busy to notice,--Aaron King might have seen a look of wistfulness in the
+keen, baffling eyes of the famous man--so world-weary and sad. And, while
+he did not cease to mock and jeer and offer sarcastic advice to his
+younger friend, the touch of pathos--that, like a minor chord, was so
+often heard in his most caustic and cruel speeches--was more pronounced.
+As for Czar--he always returned to the hotel with evident reluctance; and
+managed to express, in his dog way, the thoughts his distinguished master
+would not put in words.
+
+Very often, too, the big touring car from the house on Fairlands Heights
+stopped in front of the cottage, while the occupants inspected the
+premises, and--with many exclamations of flattering praise, and a few
+suggestions--made manifest their interest.
+
+In time, it was finished and ready--from the big easel by the great, north
+window in the studio, to the white-jacketed Yee Kee in the kitchen. When
+the last workman was gone with his tools; and the two men, after looking
+about the place for an hour, were standing on the front porch; Conrad
+Lagrange said, "And the stage is set. The scene shifters are off. The
+audience is waiting. Ring up the curtain for the next act. Even Czar has
+looked upon everything and calls it good--heh Czar?"
+
+The dog went to him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into
+the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand.
+Still fondling the dog,--without looking at the artist,--the older man
+continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I
+suppose? Or, will we lunch together, once more?"
+
+Aaron King laughed--as a boy who has prepared a surprise, and has been
+struggling manfully to keep the secret until the proper moment should
+arrive. Placing his hand on the older man's shoulder, he answered
+meaningly, "I had planned that _we_ would move in the morning." At the
+other's puzzled expression he laughed again.
+
+"We?" said the novelist, facing his friend, quickly.
+
+"Come here," returned the other. "I must show you something you haven't
+seen."
+
+He led the way to a room that they had decided he would not need, and the
+door of which was locked. Taking a key from his pocket, he handed it to
+his friend.
+
+"What's this?" said the older man, looking foolishly at the key in his
+hand.
+
+"It's the key to that door," returned the other, with a gleeful chuckle.
+Then--"Unlock it."
+
+"Unlock it?"
+
+"Sure--that's what I gave you the key for."
+
+Conrad Lagrange obeyed. Through the open door, he saw, not the bare and
+empty room he supposed was there, but a bedroom--charmingly furnished,
+complete in every detail. Turning, he faced his companion silently,
+inquiringly--with a look that Aaron King had never before seen in those
+strange, baffling eyes.
+
+"It's yours"--said the artist, hastily--"if you care to come. You'll have
+a free hand here, you know; for I will be in the studio much of the time.
+Kee will cook the things you like. You and Czar can come and go as you
+will. There is the arbor in the rose garden, you know, and see here"--he
+stepped to the window--"I chose this room for you, because it looks out
+upon your mountains."
+
+The strange man stood at the window for, what seemed to the artist, a long
+time. Suddenly, he turned to say sharply, "Young man, why did you do
+this?"
+
+"Why"--stammered the other, disconcerted--"because I want you--because I
+thought you would like to come. I beg your pardon--if I have made a
+mistake--but surely, no harm has been done."
+
+"And you think you could stand living with me--for any length of time?"
+
+The' painter laughed with relief. "Oh, _that's_ it! I didn't know you had
+such a tender conscience. You scared me for a minute, I should think you
+would know by this time that you can't phase me with your wicked tongue."
+
+The novelist's face twisted into a grotesque smile. "I warn you--I will
+flay you and your friends just the same. You need it for the good of your
+soul."
+
+"As often and as hard as you like"--returned the other, heartily--"just so
+it's for the good of my soul. You will come?"
+
+"You will permit me to stand my share of the expense?"
+
+"Anything you like--if you will only come."
+
+The older man said gently,--for the first time calling the artist by his
+given name,--"Aaron, I believe that you are the only person in the world
+who would, really want me; and I _know_ that you are the only person in
+the world to whom I would be grateful for such an invitation."
+
+The artist was about to reply, when the big automobile stopped in front of
+the house. Czar, on the porch, gave a low growl of disapproval; and,
+through the open door, they saw Mr. Taine and his wife with James Rutlidge
+and Louise.
+
+The novelist said something, under his breath, that had a vicious
+sound--quite unlike his words of the moment before. Czar, in disgust,
+retreated to the shelter of Yee Kee's domain. With a laugh, the younger
+man went out to meet his friends.
+
+"Are you at home this afternoon, Sir Artist?" called Mrs. Taine, gaily, as
+he went down the walk.
+
+"I will always be at home to the right people," he answered, greeting the
+other members of the party.
+
+As they moved toward the house,--Mr. Taine choking and coughing, his
+daughter chattering and exclaiming, and James Rutlidge critically
+observing,--Mrs. Taine dropped a little back to Aaron King's side. "And
+are you really established, at last?" she asked eagerly; with a charming,
+confidential air.
+
+"We move to-morrow morning," he answered.
+
+"We?" she questioned.
+
+"Conrad Lagrange and I. He is going to live with me, you know."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+It is remarkable how much meaning a woman can crowd into that one small
+syllable; particularly, when she draws a little away from you as she
+speaks it.
+
+"Why," he murmured apologetically, "don't you approve?"
+
+Mrs. Taine's beautiful eyebrows went up inquiringly--"And why should I
+either approve or disapprove?"
+
+The young man was saved by the arrival of his guests at the porch steps,
+and by the appearance of Conrad Lagrange, in the doorway.
+
+"How delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Taine, heartily; as she, in turn, greeted
+the famous novelist. "Mr. King was just telling me that you were going to
+share this dear little place with him. I quite envy you both."
+
+The others had passed into the house.
+
+"You are sometimes guilty of saying twisty things yourself, aren't you?"
+returned the man; and, as he spoke, his remarkable eyes were fixed upon
+her as though reading her innermost thoughts.
+
+She flushed under his meaning gaze, but carried it off gaily with--"Oh
+dear! I wonder if my maid has hooked me up properly, this time?"
+
+They left Mr. Taine in an easy chair, with a bottle of his favorite
+whisky; and went over the place--from the arbor in the rose garden to Yee
+Kee's pantry--Mr. Rutlidge, critically and authoritatively approving;
+Louise, effervescing the same sugary nothings at every step; Mrs. Taine,
+with a pretty air of proprietorship; Conrad Lagrange, thoughtfully
+watching; and Aaron King, himself, irresponsibly gay and boyishly proud as
+he exhibited his achievements.
+
+In the studio, Mrs. Taine--standing before the big easel--demanded to
+know of the artist, when he would begin her portrait--she was so
+interested, so eager to begin--how soon could she come? Louise assumed a
+worshipful attitude, and, gazing at the young man with reverent eyes,
+waited breathlessly. James Rutlidge drew near, condescendingly attentive,
+to the center of attraction. Conrad Lagrange turned his back.
+
+"Really," murmured the painter, "I hope you will not be too impatient,
+Mrs. Taine, I fear I cannot be ready for some time yet. I suppose I must
+confess to being over-sensitive to my environment; for it is a fact that
+my working mood does not come upon me readily amid strange surroundings.
+When I have become acclimated, as it were, I will be ready for you."
+
+"How wonderful!" breathed Louise.
+
+"Quite right," agreed Mr. Rutlidge.
+
+"Whenever you are ready," said Mrs. Taine, submissively.
+
+When their friends from the Heights were gone, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down, as he said with cutting sarcasm, "You did that very
+nicely. Over-sensitive to your environment, hell! If you _are_ a bit fine
+strung, you have no business to make a _show_ of it. It's a weakness, not
+a virtue. And the man who makes capital out of any man's weakness,--even
+of his own,--is either a criminal or a fool or both."
+
+Then they went back to the hotel for dinner.
+
+The next morning, the artist and the novelist moved from the hotel, to
+establish themselves in the little house in the orange groves--the
+little house with its unobstructed view of the mountains, and with its
+rose garden, so mysteriously tended.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+An Unknown Friend
+
+
+
+When Yee Kee announced lunch, the artist, the novelist, and the dog were
+settled in their new home. In the afternoon, the painter spent an hour
+or two fussing over portfolios of old sketches, in his studio; while
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar lounged on the front porch.
+
+Once, the dog rose quietly, and, walking sedately to the edge of the
+porch toward the west, stood for some minutes gazing intently into the
+dark green mass of the orange grave. At last, as if concluding that
+whatever it was it was all right, he went calmly back to his place
+beside the novelist's chair.
+
+"Do you know,"--said the artist, as they sat on the porch that evening,
+with their after-dinner pipes,--"I believe this old place is haunted."
+
+"If it isn't, it ought to be," answered the other, contentedly--playing
+with Czar's silky ears. "A good ghost would fit in nicely here, wouldn't
+it--or he, or she. Its spookship would travel far to find a more
+delightful place for spooking in, and--providing, of course, she were a
+perfectly respectable hant--what a charming addition to our family he
+would make. When it was weary of moping and mowing and sobbing and
+wailing and gibbering, she could curl up at the foot of your bed and
+sleep; as Czar, here, curls up and sleeps at the foot of mine. A good
+ghost, you know--if he becomes really attached to you--is as constant
+and faithful and affectionate and companionable as a good dog."
+
+"B-r-r-r," said the artist. And Czar turned to look at him,
+questioningly.
+
+"All the same"--the painter continued--"when I was out there in the
+studio, I could feel some one watching me--you know the feeling."
+
+Conrad Lagrange returned mockingly, "I trust your over-sensitive, artistic
+temperament is not to be so influenced by our ghostly visitor that you
+will be unfitted for your work."
+
+The other laughed. Then he said seriously, "Joking aside, Lagrange, I feel
+a presentiment--I can't put it into words--but--I feel that I _am_ going
+to begin the real work of my life right here. I"--he hesitated--"it seems
+to me that I can sense some influence that I can't define--it's the
+mystery of the rose garden, perhaps," he finished with another short
+laugh.
+
+The man, who, in the eyes of the world, had won so large a measure of the
+success that his friend desired; and whose life was so embittered by the
+things for which he was envied by many; made no reply other than his slow,
+twisted smile.
+
+Silently, they watched the purple shadows of the mountains deepen; and saw
+the outlines of the tawny foothills grow vague and dim, until they were
+lost in the dusky monotone of the evening. The last faint tint of sunset
+color went from the sky back of the San Gabriels; while, close to the
+mountain peaks and ridges, the stars came out. The rows and the contour of
+the orange groves could no longer be distinguished the forms of the nearby
+trees were lost--the rich, lustrous green of their foliage brushed out
+with the dull black of the night; while the twinkling lights of the
+distant towns and hamlets, in the valley below, shone as sparkling jewels
+on the inky, velvet robe that, fold on fold, lay over the landscape.
+
+When the two had smoked in silence, for some time, the artist said slowly,
+"You knew my mother very well, did you not, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"We were children together, Aaron." As he spoke, the man's deep voice was
+gentle, as always, when the young man's mother was mentioned.
+
+Again, for a little, neither spoke. As they sat looking away to the
+mountains, each seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Yet each felt that
+the other, to a degree, understood what he, himself, was thinking.
+
+Once more, the artist broke the silence,--facing his mother's friend with
+quiet resolution,--as though he felt himself forced to speak but knew not
+exactly how to begin. "Did you know her well--after--after my father's
+death--and while I was abroad?"
+
+The other bowed his head--"Yes."
+
+"Very well?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+As if at loss for words, Aaron King still hesitated. "Mr. Lagrange," he
+said, at last, "there are some things about--about mother--that I would
+like to tell you--that I think she would want me to tell you, under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Yes," said Conrad Lagrange, gently.
+
+"Well,--to begin,--you know, perhaps, how much mother and I have always
+been--" his fine voice broke and the older man bowed his head; but, with a
+slight lift of his determined chin, the painter went on calmly--"to each
+other. After father's death, until I was seventeen, we were never
+separated. She was my only teacher. Then I went away to school, seeing her
+only during my vacations, which we always spent, together in the country.
+Three years ago, I went abroad to finish my study. I did not see her again
+until--until I was called home."
+
+"I know," came in low tones from the other.
+
+"But, sir, while it seemed necessary that I should be away from
+home,--that we should be separated,--all through this period, we exchanged
+almost daily letters; planning for the future, and looking forward to the
+time when we could, again, be together."
+
+"I know, Aaron. It was very unusual--and very beautiful."
+
+"When we were together, before I went away, I was a mere lad," continued
+the artist. "I knew in a general way that father had been a successful
+lawyer, and quite prominent in politics; and--because there was no change
+in our manner of living after his death, and there seemed to be always
+money for whatever we wanted, I suppose--I assumed, thoughtlessly, that
+there would always be plenty. During the years while I was at school,
+there was never, in any way, the slightest hint in mother's letters that
+would lead me to question the abundance of her resources. When they called
+me home,--" his voice broke, "--I found my mother dying--almost in
+poverty--our home stripped of the art treasures she loved--her own room,
+even, empty of everything save the barest necessities." In bitter sorrow
+and shame, the young man buried his face in his hands.
+
+The novelist, his gaunt features twitching with the emotion that even his
+long schooling in the tragedies of life could not suppress, waited
+silently.
+
+When the artist had regained, in a measure, his self-control, he
+continued,--and every word came from him in shame and humiliation,--"Before
+she died, she told me about--my father. In the settlement of his affairs,
+at the time of his death, it appeared that he had taken advantage of the
+confidence of certain clients and had betrayed his trust; appropriating
+large sums to his own interests. He had even taken advantage of mother's
+influence in certain circles, and, relying upon her unquestioning faith
+in his integrity, had made her an unconscious instrument in furthering
+his schemes."
+
+Conrad Lagrange made as if to speak, but checked himself and waited for
+the other to continue.
+
+Aaron King went on; "Out of regard for my mother, the matter was kept as
+quiet as possible. The one who suffered the heaviest loss was able to
+protect her--in a measure. All the others were fully reimbursed. But
+mother--it would have been easier for her if she had died then. She
+withdrew from her friends and from the life she loved--she denied herself
+to all who sought her and devoted her life to me. Above all, she planned
+to keep me in ignorance of the truth until I should be equipped to win the
+place in the world that she coveted for me. It was for that, she sent me
+away, and kept me from home. As the demands for my educational expenses
+grew naturally heavier, she supplemented the slender resources, left in
+the final settlement of my father's estate, by sacrificing the treasures
+of her home, and by giving up the luxuries to which she had been
+accustomed from childhood. She even provided for me after her death--not
+wealth, but a comfortable amount, sufficient to support me in good
+circumstances until I can gain recognition and an income from my work."
+
+Under the lash of his memories, the young man sprang to his feet.
+
+"In God's name, Lagrange, why did not some one tell me? I did not know--I
+did not know--I thought--O mother, mother, mother--why did you do it? Why
+was I not told? All these years I have lived a selfish fool, and
+you--you--I would have given up everything--I would have worked in a
+ditch, rather than accept this."
+
+The deep, quiet voice of Conrad Lagrange broke the stillness that followed
+the storm of the artist's passionate words. "And that is the answer,
+Aaron. She knew, too well, that you would not have accepted her sacrifice,
+if you had known. That is why she kept the secret until you had finished
+your education. She forbade her friends--she forbade me to interfere. And
+don't you see that she was right? Don't you see it? We would have done her
+the greatest injustice if we had, against her will, deprived her of this
+privilege. Her splendid pride, her high sense of honor, her nobility of
+spirit demanded the sacrifice. It was her right. God forgive me--I tried
+to make her see it otherwise--but she knew best. She always knew best,
+Aaron. Her only hope of regaining for you that self-respect and that
+position in life to which you--by right of birth and natural
+endowment--are entitled, was in you. The name which she had given to you
+could be restored to honor by you only. To train and equip you for your
+work, and to enable you, unhampered by need, to gain your footing, was the
+determined passion of her life. Her sacrifice, her suffering to that end,
+was the only restitution she could make to you for that which your father
+had squandered. Her proud spirit, her fine intelligence, her mother love
+for you, demanded it."
+
+"I know," returned the artist. "She told me before she died. She made me
+understand. She said that it was my inheritance. She asked for my promise
+that I would be true to her purpose. Her last words were an expression of
+her confidence that I would not disappoint her--that I would win a place
+and name that would wipe out the shame of my father's dishonor. And I
+will, Lagrange, I must. Mother--mother shall not be disappointed--she
+shall not be disappointed."
+
+"No,"--said the older man, so softly that the other, torn by the passion
+of his own thoughts, did not hear,--"No, Aaron, your mother will not be
+disappointed."
+
+For a time longer they sat in silence. Then the young man said, "I wish I
+knew the name of my mother's friend--the one who suffered the heaviest
+loss through my father, and who so generously protected her in the crisis.
+I would like to thank him, at least. I begged her to tell me, but she
+would not. She said he would not want me to know--that for me to attempt
+to reimburse him would, to his mind, rob him of his real reward."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, his head bowed, spoke quietly to the dog at his feet.
+Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle on his master's knee and looked up into
+the homely, world-worn face. Gently, the strange man--so lonely and
+embittered in the fame that he had won--at a price--stroked the brown
+head. "Your mother knew best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at
+his companion. "You must believe that she knew best. Her beautiful spirit
+could not lead her astray. She was right in this, also. Your sentiment
+does you honor, but you must respect her wish. Whoever the man was--she
+had reasons, I am sure, for feeling as she did--that it would be better
+for you not to know. It was some one, perhaps, whose influence upon you,
+she had cause to fear."
+
+"It was very strange," returned the artist, hesitatingly. "Perhaps I ought
+not to say it. But I felt that, as you suggest, she feared for me to know.
+She seemed to want to tell me, but did not, for _my_ sake. It was very
+strange."
+
+Conrad Lagrange made no reply.
+
+"I wanted you to know about mother,"--continued the artist,--"because I
+would like you to understand why--why I must succeed in my work."
+
+The older man smiled to himself, in the dusk. "I have always known why
+you must succeed, Aaron," he returned. "I have never questioned your
+motives. I question only your understanding of success. I question--if you
+will pardon me--your understanding of your mother's wish for you."
+
+Then, in one of those rare momentary moods, when he seemed to reveal to
+his young friend his real nature that lay so deeply hidden from the world,
+he added, "You are right, Aaron. This place _is_ haunted--haunted by the
+spirit of the mountains, yonder--haunted by the spirit of the rose garden,
+out there. The silent strength of the hills, and the loveliness of the
+garden will attend you in your studio, as you work. I do not wonder that
+you feel a presentiment that your artistic future is to be shaped here;
+for between these influences and the other influences that will be brought
+to bear upon you, you will be forced to decide. May the God of all true
+art and artists help you to make no mistake. Listen!"
+
+As though in answer to the solemn words of the man who spoke from the
+fullness of a life-long experience and from the depths of a life-old love,
+a strain of music came from out the fragrant darkness. Somewhere, hidden
+in the depths of the orange grove, the soul of a true musician was seeking
+expression in the tones of a violin.
+
+Softly, sadly, with poignant clearness, the music lifted into the
+night--low and pleadingly at first; then stronger and more vibrant with
+feeling, as though sweetly insistent in its call; swelling next in volume
+and passion, as though in warning of some threatening evil; ringing with
+loving fear; sobbing, wailing, moaning, in anguish; clearly, gloriously,
+triumphant, at last; then sinking into solemn, reverent
+benediction--losing itself, finally, in the darkness, even as it had come.
+
+The two men, so fashioned by nature to receive such music, listened with
+emotions they could not have put into words. For the moment, the music to
+them was the voice of the guarding, calling, warning spirit of the
+mountains that, in their calm, majestic strength, were so far removed from
+the petty passions and longings of the baser world at their feet--it was
+the voice of the loving intimacy, the sweet purity, and the sacred beauty
+of the spirit of the garden. It was as though the things of which Conrad
+Lagrange had just spoken so reverently had cried aloud to them, out of the
+night, in confirmation of his words.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray
+
+
+
+Aaron King seemed loth to begin his work on the portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+Day after day, without apparent reason, he put it off--spending the hours
+in wandering aimlessly about the place, idling on the porch, or doing
+nothing in his studio. He would start from the house to the building at
+the end of the rose garden, as though moved by some clearly defined
+purpose--and then, for an hour or more, would dawdle among the things of
+his craft, with irresolute mind--turning over his sketches and drawings
+with uncertain hands, as though searching for something he knew was not
+there; toying with his paints and brushes; or sitting before his empty
+easel, looking away through the big window to the distant mountains. He
+seemed incapable of fixing his mind upon the task to which he attached so
+much importance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he begged her to be
+patient; and she, with pretended awe of the moods of genius, waited.
+
+Conrad Lagrange jeered and mocked, offered sneering advice or sarcastic
+compliment; and, under it all, was keenly watchful and sympathetic--
+understanding better than the artist himself, perhaps, the secret of the
+painter's hesitation. Every day,--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in
+the afternoon or evening unseen musician, in the orange grove wrought
+for them melodie that, whether grave or gay, always carried, somehow,
+the feeling that had so moved them in the mysterious darkness of
+that first evening.
+
+They knew, now, of course, that the musician lived in the neighboring
+house--the gable and chimney of which was just visible above the
+orange-trees. But that was all. Obedient to some whimsical impulse that
+prompted them both, and was born, no doubt, of the circumstance and mood
+of that first evening, they did not seek to learn more. They
+feared--though they did not say it--that to learn the identity of the
+musician would rob them of the peculiar pleasure they found in the music,
+itself. So they spoke always of their unknown neighbor in a fanciful vein,
+as in like humor they spoke of the spirit that Aaron King still insisted
+haunted the place, or as they alluded to the mystery of the carefully
+tended rose garden.
+
+When the artist could put it off no longer, a day was finally set when
+Mrs. Taine was to come for the beginning of her portrait. The appointed
+hour found the artist in his studio. A canvas stood ready upon the easel;
+palette, colors and brushes were at hand. The painter was standing at the
+big, north window, looking up away to the mountains--the mountains that
+the novelist said called so insistently. Suddenly, he turned his head to
+listen. Sweetly clear and low, through the green wall of the orange-trees,
+came the music of that hidden violin.
+
+As he stood there,--with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to
+the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,--Aaron King
+knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare
+moments--that come, all unexpectedly--when, with prophetic vision, one
+sees clearly the end of the course he pursues and the destiny that waits
+him at its completion. As clearly, too, he saw the other way, and knew the
+meaning of the vision. But seldom is the strength given to man, in such
+moments, to choose for himself. Though he may see the other way clearly,
+his feet cling to the path he has elected to follow; nor will he, unless
+some one takes him by the hand saying, "Come," turn aside.
+
+A voice, not at all in harmony with the music, broke upon the artist's
+consciousness. He turned to see Mrs. Taine standing expectantly in the
+open door. "Hush!" said the painter, still under the spell of that moment
+so big with possibilities. "Listen,"--with a gesture, he checked her
+advance,--"listen."
+
+A look of haughty surprise flashed over the woman's too perfect features.
+Then, as her ear caught the tones of the violin, she half turned--but only
+for a moment.
+
+"Very clever, isn't it," she said as she came forward "It must be old
+Professor Becker. He lives somewhere around here, I understand. They say
+he is very good."
+
+The artist looked at her for an instant, in amazement Then, as his normal
+mind asserted itself, he burst into an embarrassed laugh.
+
+At her look of puzzled inquiry, he said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine.
+I did not realize how harshly I greeted you. The fact is I--I was
+dreaming"--he turned suggestively toward the canvas upon the easel. "You
+see I was expecting you--I was thinking--then the music
+came--and--well--when you actually appeared in the flesh, I did not for
+the moment realize that it was really you."
+
+"How charming of you!" she returned. "To be made the subject of an
+artist's dream--really it is quite the nicest compliment I have ever
+received. Tell me, do you like me in this?" she slipped the wrap she wore
+from her shoulders, and stood before him, gowned in the simple, gray dress
+of a Quaker Maid. Deliberately, she turned her beautiful self about for
+his critical inspection. Moving to and fro, sitting, half-reclining,
+standing--in various graceful poses she invited, challenged, dared, his
+closest attention--professional attention, of course--to every curve and
+detail.
+
+In spite of its simplicity of color and line, the gown still bore the
+unmistakable stamp of the wearer's world. The severity of line was subtly
+made to emphasize the voluptuousness of the body that was covered but not
+hidden. The quiet color was made to accentuate the flesh the dress
+concealed only to reveal. The very lack of ornament but served to center
+the attention upon the charms that so loudly professed to scorn them. It
+was worldliness speaking in the quiet voice of religion. It was vulgarity
+advertising itself in terms of good taste. She had made modesty the
+handmaiden of blatant immodesty, and the daring impudence of it all
+fairly stunned the painter.
+
+"Oh dear!" she said, watching his face, "I fear you don't like it, at
+all--and I thought it such a beautiful little gown. You told me to wear
+whatever I pleased, you know."
+
+"It _is_ a beautiful gown," he said--then added impulsively, "and you are
+beautiful in it. You would be beautiful in anything."
+
+She shook her head; favoring him with an understanding smile. "You say
+that to please me. I can see that you don't like me this way."
+
+"But I do," he insisted. "I like you that way, immensely. I was a bit
+surprised, that's all. You see, I thought, of course, that you would
+select an evening gown of some sort--something, you know, that would fit
+your social position--your place in the world. In this costume, the beauty
+of your shoulders--"
+
+Lowering her eyes as if embarrassed, she said coldly, "The beauty of my
+shoulders is not for the public. I have never worn--I will not wear--one
+of those dreadful, immodest gowns."
+
+Aaron King was bewildered. Suddenly, he remembered what Conrad Lagrange
+had said about her fad. But after so frankly exhibiting herself before
+him, dressed as she was in a gown that was deliberately planned to
+advertise her physical charms, to be particular about baring her shoulders
+in a conventional costume--! It was quite too much.
+
+"Again, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine," he managed to say. "I did not
+know. Under the circumstances, this is exactly the thing. Your portrait,
+in what is so frankly a costume assumed for the purpose, takes us out of
+the dilemma very nicely, indeed."
+
+"Why, that's exactly what I thought," she returned eagerly. "And this is
+so in keeping with my real tastes--don't you see? A real portrait--I mean
+a serious work of art, you know--should always be something more than a
+mere likeness, should it not? Don't you think that to be genuinely good, a
+portrait must reveal the spirit and character--must portray the soul, as
+well as the features? I _do_ so want this to be a truly great picture--for
+your sake." Her manner seemed to say that she was doing it all for him. "I
+have never permitted any one to paint my portrait before, you know," she
+added meaningly.
+
+"You are very kind, Mrs. Taine," he returned gravely. "Believe me, I do
+appreciate this opportunity I shall do my best to express my appreciation
+here"--he indicated the canvas on the easel.
+
+When his sitter was posed to his liking, and the artist, with a few bold,
+sweeping, strokes of the charcoal had roughed out his subject on the
+canvas, and was bending over his color-box--he said, casually, to put her
+at ease, "You came alone this afternoon, did you?"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed! I brought Louise with me. I shall always bring her, or
+some one. One cannot be too careful, you know," she added with simulated
+artlessness.
+
+The painter, studying her face, replied mechanically "No indeed."
+
+As he turned back to his canvas, Mrs. Taine continued, "I left her in the
+house, with a box of chocolates and a novel. I felt that you would rather
+we were alone."
+
+"Please don't look down," said the artist. "I want your eyes about
+here"--he indicated a picture on the wall, a little back and to the left
+of where he stood at the easel.
+
+After this, there was silence in the studio, for a little while. Mrs.
+Taine obediently kept the pose; her eyes upon the point the artist had
+indicated; but--as the man, himself, was almost directly in her line of
+vision--it was easy for her to watch him at his work, when his eyes were
+on his canvas or palette. The arrangement was admirable in that it
+relieved the tedium of the hour for the sitter; and gave her face an
+expression of animated interest that, truthfully fixed upon the canvas,
+should insure the fame and future of any painter.
+
+It would be quite too much to say that Aaron King became absorbed in his
+occupation. Thorough master of the tools of his craft, and of his own
+technic, as well; he was interested in the mere exercising of his skill,
+but he in no sense lost himself in his work. Two or three times, Mrs.
+Taine saw him glance quickly over his shoulder, as though expecting some
+one. Once, for quite a moment, he deliberately turned from his easel to
+stand at the window, looking up at the distant mountain peaks. Several
+times, he seemed to be listening.
+
+"May I talk?" she said at last.
+
+"Why, certainly," he returned. "I want you to feel perfectly at ease. You
+must be altogether at home here. Just let yourself go--say what you like,
+with no conventional restraints whatever--consider me a mechanical
+something that is no more than an article of furniture--be as thoroughly
+yourself as if alone in your own room."
+
+"How funny," she said musingly.
+
+"Not at all"--he returned--"just a matter of business."
+
+"But it _would_ be funny if I were to take you at your word," she replied;
+suddenly breaking the pose and meeting his gaze squarely. "Is it--is it
+quite necessary for the mechanical something to look at me like that?"
+
+"I said that you were to _consider_ me as an article of furniture. I
+didn't say that I _felt_ like a table or chair."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Don't look down; keep the pose, please," came somewhat sharply from the
+man at the easel, as though he were mentally taking himself in hand.
+
+After that, she watched him with increasing interest and, when he turned
+his head in that listening attitude, a curious, resentful light came into
+her eyes.
+
+Presently, she asked abruptly, "What is it that you hear?"
+
+"I thought I heard music," he answered, coloring slightly and turning to
+his work with suddenly absorbing interest.
+
+"The violin that so enchanted you when I came to break the spell?" she
+persisted playfully--though the light in her eyes was not a playful light.
+
+"Yes," he answered shortly; stepping back and shading his eyes with his
+hand for a careful look at his canvas.
+
+"And don't you know who it is?"
+
+"You said it was an old professor somebody."
+
+"That was my _first_ guess," she retorted. "Was I right?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But it comes from that little box of a house, next door, doesn't it?"
+
+"Evidently," the artist answered. Then, laying aside his palette and
+brushes he said abruptly, "That is all for to-day; thank you."
+
+"Oh, so soon!" she exclaimed; and the regret in her voice was very
+pleasing to the man who was decidedly not a mechanical something.
+
+She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But the artist, with a quick
+motion, drew a curtain across the canvas, to hide his work; while he
+checked her with--"Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it until I say
+you may."
+
+"How mean of you," she protested; charmingly submissive. Then,
+eagerly--"And do you want me to-morrow? You do, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, please--at the same hour."
+
+When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hidden under her wrap, Mrs.
+Taine stood, for a moment, looking thoughtfully about the studio; while
+the artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the automobile. "I
+am going to love this room," she said slowly; and, for the first time, her
+voice was genuinely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone that
+made him regard her wonderingly.
+
+She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when you are famous--when you are
+a great artist and all the great and famous people go to you to have their
+portraits painted--will you remember poor me, I wonder?"
+
+"Am I really going to be famous?" he returned doubtfully. "Are you so sure
+that this picture will mean success?"
+
+"Of course I am sure--I _know_. You want to succeed don't you?"
+
+Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering. Then, with
+a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had
+never before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to succeed! I--I must
+succeed. I tell you I _must_."
+
+And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, "And you
+shall--you shall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling
+moodily at his pipe.
+
+"Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as he stood looking down
+upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.
+
+"All over," replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar's
+muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand. "Where did you fly to?"
+
+The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly anywhere to escape being
+entertained by that Ragtime' piece of human nonentity--Louise Taine. I
+saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his pipe as he spoke. "And
+how did the work go?"
+
+"All right," replied the painter, indifferently.
+
+The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then,
+striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the
+cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 'Her Majesty' was
+royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine
+linen; as befits the dignity of her state?"
+
+The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely,
+"I suppose you have got to know, damn you! I'm painting her as a Quaker
+Maiden."
+
+Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst
+of the artist. Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse
+that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his
+scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and
+understanding "You poor fellow! It must be hell." Then, as his keen mind
+grasped the full significance of the artist's words, he murmured
+meditatively, "The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker
+gray--Shades of the giants who used to be! What an opportunity--if you
+only had the nerve to do it."
+
+The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace
+up and down the porch. "Don't, Lagrange, don't! I can't stand it, just
+now."
+
+"All right." said the other, heartily, "I won't." Rising, he put his hand
+on his friend's shoulder. "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before
+Yee Kee calls us to dinner."
+
+In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of something white lying in
+the well-kept path. With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It
+was a dainty square of lace--a handkerchief--with an exquisitely
+embroidered "S" in the corner.
+
+The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
+
+
+
+Aaron King was putting the last touches to his portrait of the woman
+who--Conrad Lagrange said--was the personification of the age.
+
+From that evening when the young man told his friend the story of his
+mother's sacrifice, their friendship had become like that friendship which
+passeth the love of women. While the novelist, true to his promise, did
+not cease to flay his younger companion--for the good of the artist's
+soul--those moments when his gentler moods ruled his speech were, perhaps,
+more frequent; and the artist was more and more learning to appreciate the
+rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intellectual brilliancy,
+and the keenness of mental vision that distinguished the man whose life
+was so embittered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts.
+
+The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture while the work was in
+progress. He said, bluntly, that he preferred to run no risk of
+interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be
+quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was
+accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The
+artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased
+to be left to himself with this particular picture.
+
+Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to accompany his friend,
+occasionally, to the house on Fairlands Heights; where the painter
+continued to spend much of his time. When Mrs. Taine made mocking
+references to the novelist's promise not to leave the artist unprotected
+to her tender mercies, he always answered with some--as she said--twisty
+saying; to the effect that the present situation in no way lessened his
+determination to save the young man from the influences that would
+accomplish the ruin of his genius. "If"--he always added--"if he is worth
+saving; which remains to be seen." Always, at the Taine home, they met
+James Rutlidge. Frequently the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage
+in the orange grove.
+
+Under the skillful management of Rutlidge,--at the request of Mrs.
+Taine,--the newspapers were already busy with the name and work of Aaron
+King. True, the critic had never seen the artist's work; but,
+never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout the country often
+mentioned the high order of the painter's genius. There were little
+stories of his study and success abroad; tactful references to his
+aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his romantic life with the
+famous novelist in the orange groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his
+California studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was at work
+upon a portrait of the well-known social leader, Mrs. Taine--this being
+the first portrait ever painted of that famous beauty. That the picture
+would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the unanimous verdict of
+all who had been permitted to see the marvelous creation by this rare
+genius whose work was so little known in this country.
+
+Said Conrad Lagrange--"It is all so easy."
+
+Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen the woman of the
+disfigured face; and the novelist still tried in vain to fix her in his
+memory. Every day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring orange
+grove, the music of that unseen violin. They spoke, often, in playful
+mood, of the spirit that haunted the place; but they made no effort to
+solve the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. They knew that
+whoever cared for the roses worked there only in the early morning hours;
+and they carefully avoided going into the yard back of the house until
+after breakfast. They felt that an investigation might rob them of the
+peculiar humor of their fancy--a fancy that was to them, both, such a
+pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange-trees and roses such an
+added charm.
+
+But the other member of the trio of friends was not so reticent. Czar had
+formed an--to his most proper dogship--unusual habit. Frequently, when the
+three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he would rise suddenly
+from his place beside his master's chair, and walking sedately to the side
+of the porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, would stand
+listening attentively; then, without so much as a "by-your-leave," he
+would leap to the ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of the
+house. Later, he would come sedately back; greeting each, in turn, with
+that insistent thrust his soft muzzle against a knee; and assuring them,
+in the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, that his mission had
+been a most proper one, and that they might trust him to make no foolish
+mistakes that would mar the peace and harmony of their little household.
+The men never failed to agree with him that it was all right. In fact, so
+fully did they trust him that they never even stepped to the corner of the
+porch to see where he went; nor would they leave their chairs until he had
+returned.
+
+Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the studio,--being always careful
+that Louise accompanied her as far as the house,--Conrad Lagrange
+vanished. The man swore by all the strange and wonderful gods he knew--and
+they were many--that he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing
+young female devotee of the Arts--lest the mountains in their wrath should
+fall upon him.
+
+But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last sitting, the
+novelist--engaged in interesting talk with the artist--forgot.
+
+"You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as the big automobile
+stopped at the gate.
+
+"I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, with no profane intent
+but with meaning quite literal; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the
+kitchen--nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee.
+
+"What's matte'," inquired the Chinaman, putting his head in at the
+living-room door; his almond eyes as wide as they could go, with an
+expression of celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. Catching
+sight of the automobile, his oriental features wrinkled into a yellow grin
+of understanding; "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, she come.
+He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', him all time gone, too; him no like
+lagtime--all same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in turn,
+vanished.
+
+"You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the
+studio.
+
+Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him--standing close,
+her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her
+sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively
+downcast. "And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?"
+she asked in a low tone.
+
+"Surely not"--he returned calmly--"you are coming to-morrow, with the
+others, aren't you?" Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were
+invited for the next day, to view the portrait.
+
+"Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed the wrap she wore, and
+threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize
+what these hours have meant to me--how could you? You do not live in my
+world. Your world is--is so different You do not know--you do not know."
+With a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world that I live in is
+hell; and this--this--oh, it has been heavenly!"
+
+Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with
+outstretched arms--it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a
+surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.
+For the moment he forgot his work--he forgot everything--he was conscious
+only of the woman who stood before him. But even as the light of triumph
+blazed up in the woman's eyes, the man halted,--drew back; and his face
+was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the
+gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. It
+was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,--from their calm
+heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser
+tragedies,--watched over him. "Don't you think we had better proceed with
+our work?" he said calmly.
+
+The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger which she turned away to
+hide. Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and,
+as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas,
+she watched him now. Since that first day, when she had questioned him
+about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject,
+although--as was inevitable under the circumstances--their intimacy had
+grown. But not once had he turned from his work in that listening
+attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one,
+without her noting it. And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment,
+which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his
+easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.
+
+Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the
+music ceased. Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the
+quite casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes,"--he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,--"we
+have never tried to make her acquaintance."
+
+The woman caught him up quickly; "To make _her_ acquaintance? Why do you
+say, '_her_,' if you do not know who it is?"
+
+The artist was confused. "Did I say, _her_?" he questioned, his face
+flushed with embarrassment. "It was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad
+Lagrange nor I know anything about our neighbor."
+
+She laughed ironically. "And you _could_ know so easily."
+
+"I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We prefer to accept the music
+as it comes to us--impersonally--for what it is--not for whoever makes
+it." He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful to him, under
+the circumstances of the moment.
+
+But the woman persisted. "Well, _I_ know who it is. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"No. I do not care to know. I am not interested in the musician."
+
+"Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted.
+
+"Please take the pose," returned Aaron King professionally. Mrs. Taine,
+wisely, for the time, dropped the subject; contenting herself with a
+meaning laugh.
+
+The artist silently gave all his attention to the nearly finished
+portrait. He was not painting, now, with full brush and swift sure
+strokes,--as had been his way when building up his picture,--but worked
+with occasional deft touches here and there; drawing back from the canvas
+often, to study it intently, his eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to
+the sitter's face and back again to the portrait; then stepping forward
+quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw an instant later for another
+long and searching study. Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside
+his palette and brushes; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with a smile, held out
+his hand. "Come," he said, "tell me if I have done well or ill."
+
+"It is finished?" she cried. "I may see it?"
+
+"It is all that I can do"--he answered--"come." He led her to the easel,
+where they stood side by side before his work.
+
+The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, was a portrait of Mrs.
+Taine--yet not a portrait. Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of
+tone and line, it betrayed in every careful detail--in every mark of the
+brush--the thoughtful, painstaking care--the thorough knowledge and highly
+trained skill of an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic.
+But--if one might say so--the painting was more a picture than a portrait.
+The face upon the canvas was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the
+features were her features; but it was also the face of a sweetly modest
+Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too well cared for face of the beautiful
+woman of the world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a natural
+unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had watched the artist with such
+certain knowledge of life and with the boldness born of that knowledge
+were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of innocent maidenhood.
+The very coloring and the arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to
+express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors and of fashionable
+hair-dressers, but the instinctive care of womanliness. The costume that,
+when worn by the woman, expressed so fully her true character; in the
+picture, became the emblem of a pure and deeply religious spirit.
+
+Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, placing her hand upon
+his arm, exclaimed in delight, "Oh, is it true? Am I really so beautiful?"
+
+The artist laughed. "You like it?"
+
+"Like it? How could I help liking it? It is lovely."
+
+"I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would please you."
+
+"And you"--she asked, with eager eyes--"are you satisfied with it? Does it
+seem good to you?"
+
+"Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is never satisfied. I know
+the work is good--in a way. But it is very far from what it should be, I
+fear. I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my opportunity."
+He spoke with a shade of sadness.
+
+Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch his arm, as she answered
+eagerly, "Ah, but no one else will say that. No one else will dare. It
+will be the sensation of the year--I tell you. Just you wait until Jim
+Rutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung for exhibition, and he tells the
+world about it. Everybody worth while will be coming to you then. And I--I
+will remember these hours with you, and be glad that I could help--even
+so little. Will you remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the picture
+is finished?"
+
+"And are you not glad?" he returned meaningly.
+
+They had both forgotten the painting before them. They did not see it.
+They each saw only the other.
+
+"No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. "People would very soon be
+talking if I should come here, alone--now that the picture is finished."
+
+"I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fairlands soon, for the
+summer," he returned slowly.
+
+"O listen,"--she cried with quick eagerness--"we are going to Lake
+Silence. What's to hinder your coming too? Everybody goes there, you know.
+Won't you come?"
+
+"But would it be altogether safe?" He reflected doubtfully.
+
+"Why, of course,--Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim,--we are all going
+together--don't you see? I don't believe you want to go," she pouted. "I
+believe you want to forget."
+
+Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in her words and voice, the
+touch of her hand on his arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept
+the man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her hand, and his
+words came with reckless heat. "You know that I will not forget you. You
+know that I could not, if I would. Do you think that I have been so
+engrossed with my brushes and canvas that I have been unconscious of you?
+What is that painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do you think
+that because I must turn myself into a machine to make a photograph of
+your beauty, I am insensible to its charm? I am not a machine. I am a man;
+as you are a woman; and I--"
+
+She checked him suddenly--stepping aside with a quick movement, and the
+words, "Hush, some one is coming."
+
+The artist, too, heard voices, just without the door.
+
+Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward her wrap. Aaron King,
+going to his easel, drew the velvet curtain to hide the picture.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
+
+
+
+Certainly, when Conrad Lagrange fled so precipitately from Louise Taine,
+that afternoon, he had no thought that the trivial incident was to mark
+the beginning of a new era in his life; or that it would work out in the
+life of his dearest friend such far reaching results. His only purpose was
+to escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, young creature who
+believed herself so interested in art and letters, and who succeeded so
+admirably in expressing the spirit of her environment and training.
+
+With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself in the rose garden;
+finding a seat on the ground, in an angle of the studio wall and the
+Ragged Robin hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would be least
+likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approving of his master's action,
+stretched himself comfortably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited
+further developments.
+
+Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. Taine, come from the
+house and enter the studio. For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable
+fear that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so often moved
+him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the garden. But the moment passed, and the
+novelist,--mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance,--with a
+chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and opened his book. Scarcely
+had he found his place in the pages, however, when he was again
+interrupted--this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's violin.
+Putting his book aside, the man reclining in the shelter of the roses,
+with half-closed eyes, yielded himself to the fancy of the spirit that
+called from the depths of the fragrant orange grove.
+
+The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of the studio above his
+head dropped their lovely petals down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of
+the afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining leaves and branches,
+played over the bewildering riot of color. Here and there, golden-bodied
+bees and velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like duties.
+Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated on motionless wings and a
+lonely crow laid his course toward the distant mountain peaks that
+gleamed, silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower ridges and
+the tawny yellow of their foothills. The air was saturated with the
+fragrance of the rose and orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees,
+and with the thousand other perfumes of a California spring.
+
+The music ceased. The man waited--hoping that it would begin again. But it
+did not; and he was about to take up his book, once more, when Czar arose,
+stretched himself, stood for a moment in a picturesque, listening
+attitude, then trotted off among the roses; leaving the novelist with an
+odd feeling of uneasy expectancy--half resolved to stay, half determined
+to go. The thought of Louise in the house decided him, and he kept his
+place, hidden as he was, in the corner--a whimsical smile hovering over
+his world-lined features as though, after all, he felt himself entering
+upon some enjoyable adventure.
+
+Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the other end of the
+garden, a low murmuring voice. As it came nearer, the man's smile grew
+more pronounced It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear and full in
+its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen speaker was talking to the novelist's
+dog. The smile on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he
+whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what he has been up to!"
+Rising quietly to his knees, he peered through the flower-laden bushes.
+
+A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was moving about the
+garden--bending over the roses, and talking in low tones to Czar, who--to
+his hidden master--appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his gentle
+companion's intimacy. The novelist--old in the study of character and
+trained by his long years of observation and experience in the world of
+artificiality--was fascinated by the loveliness of the scene.
+
+Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of white, with a modestly
+low-cut square at the throat, and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just
+below the elbow--her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved here and
+there, had all the charm of girlish grace with the fuller beauty of
+ripening womanhood. As she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the
+dog, in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every motion, was
+instinct with that strength and health that is seldom seen among those who
+wear the shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face,--warmly
+tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm fleshed and clear,--in its
+unconscious naturalness and in its winsome purity was like the flowers she
+stooped to kiss.
+
+As he watched, the man noticed--with a smile of understanding--that she
+kept rather to the side of the garden toward the house; where the artist,
+at his easel by the big, north light, could not see her through the small
+window in the end of the room; and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she
+would not be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she paused to
+listen, as if for any chance approaching step--appearing, to the fancy of
+the man, as some creature from another world--poised lightly, ready to
+vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon,--after a cautious,
+hesitating, listening look about,--she slipped, swift footed as a fawn,
+across the garden, and--followed by the dog--disappeared into the latticed
+rose-covered arbor against the southern wall.
+
+With a chuckle to himself, Conrad Lagrange crept quietly along the hedge
+to the door of her retreat.
+
+When she saw him there, she gave a little cry and started as though to
+escape. But the novelist, smiling barred her way; while Czar, joyfully
+greeting his master, turned from the man to the girl and back to the man
+again, as if, by dividing his attention equally between the two, he was
+bent upon assuring each that the other was a friend of the right sort.
+There was no mistaking the facts that the dog was introducing them, and
+that he was as proud of his new acquaintance as he was pleased to present
+his older and more intimate companion.
+
+A sunny smile broke over the girl's winsome face, as she caught the
+meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," she said, "are you his master?" Her
+manner was as natural and unrestrained as a child's--her voice, musically
+sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the speech of noisy, crowded cities
+or shrill chattering crowds.
+
+"I am his most faithful and humble subject," returned the man,
+whimsically.
+
+She was studying his face openly, while her own countenance--unschooled to
+hide emotions, untrained to deceive--frankly betrayed each passing thought
+and mood. The daintily turned chin, sensitive lips, delicate nostrils, and
+large, blue eyes,--with that wide, unafraid look of a child that has never
+been taught to fear,--revealed a spirit fine and rare; while the low,
+broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft brown hair,--that, arranged
+deftly in some simple fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every
+wayward breath of air,--gave the added charm of strength and purpose. The
+man, seeing these things and knowing--as few men ever know--their value,
+waited her verdict.
+
+It came with a smile and a pretty fancy, as though she caught the mood of
+the novelist's reply. "He has told me so much about you--how kind you are
+to him, and how he loves you. I hope you don't mind that he and I have
+learned to be good friends. Won't you tell me his name? I have tried
+everything, but nothing seems to fit. To call such a royal fellow,
+'doggie', doesn't do at all, does it?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange laughed--and it was the laugh of a Conrad Lagrange unknown
+to the world. "No," he said with mock seriousness, "'doggie,' doesn't do
+at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. That is"--he added,
+giving full rein to his droll humor--"I gave it to him for a name. He has
+made it his title. He did that, you know, so I would always remember that
+he is my superior."
+
+She laughed--low, full-throated and clear--as a girl who has not sadly
+learned that she is a woman, laughs. Then she fell to caressing the dog
+and calling him by name; while Czar--in his efforts to express his delight
+and satisfaction--was as nearly undignified as it was possible for him to
+be.
+
+As he watched them, the rugged, world-worn features of the famous novelist
+were lighted with an expression that transformed them.
+
+"And I suppose," she said,--still responding to the novelist's playful
+mood,--"that Czar told you I was trespassing in your garden. Of course it
+was his duty to tell. I hope he told you, also, that I do not steal your
+roses."
+
+The man shook his head, and his sharp, green-gray eyes were twinkling
+merrily, now--as a boy in the spirit of some amusing venture. "Oh, no!
+Czar said nothing at all about trespassers. He did tell me, though, about
+a wonderful creature that comes every day to visit the garden. A nymph, he
+thought it was--a beautiful Oread from away up there among the silver
+peaks and purple canyons--or, perhaps, a lovely Dryad from among the oaks
+and pines. I felt quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread;
+because he said that she comes to gather colors from the roses, and that
+every morning and every evening she uses these colors to tint the highest
+peaks and crests of her mountains--making them so beautiful that mortals
+would always begin and end each day by looking up at them. Of course, the
+moment I saw, you I knew who you were."
+
+Unaffectedly pleased as a child at his quaint fancy, she answered merrily,
+"And so you hid among the roses to trap me, I suppose."
+
+"Indeed, I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I was forced to fly from a
+wicked Flibbertigibbet who seeks to torment me. I barely escaped with my
+life, and came into the garden to hide and recover from my fright. Then I
+heard the most wonderful music and guessed that you must be somewhere
+around. Then Czar, who had come with me to hide from the Flibbertigibbet
+in the house, left me. I looked to see where he had gone, and so I saw,
+sure enough, that it was you. All my life, you know, I have wanted to
+catch a real nymph; but never could. So when you came into the arbor, I
+couldn't resist trying again. And, now, here we are--with Czar to say it
+is all right."
+
+At his fanciful words, she laughed again, and her cheeks flushed with
+pleasure. Then, with grave sweetness, she said, "Won't you sit down,
+please, and let me explain seriously?"
+
+"I suppose you must pretend to be like the rest of us," he returned with
+an air of resignation, "but all the same, Czar and I know you are not."
+
+When they were seated, she said simply, "My name is Sibyl Andres. This
+place used to be my home. My mother planted this garden with her own
+hands. Many of these roses were brought from our home in the mountains,
+where I was born, and where I lived with father and mother until five
+years ago. I feel, still, as though the old place in the hills were my
+real home, and every summer, when nearly every one goes away from
+Fairlands and there is nothing for me to do, Myra Willard and I go up
+there, for as long as we can. You see, I teach music and play in the
+churches. Miss Willard taught me. She and mother are the only teachers I
+have ever had. After father's death, mother and Myra and I lived here for
+two years; then mother died, and Myra and I moved to that little house
+over there, because we could not afford to keep this place. But the man
+who bought it gave me permission to care for the garden; so I come almost
+every day--through that little gate in the corner of the hedge, there--to
+tend the roses. Since you men moved in, though, I come, mostly, in the
+morning--early--before you are up. I only slip in, sometimes, for a few
+minutes, in the afternoon--when I think it will be safe. You see, being
+strangers, I--I feared you would think me bold--if I--if I asked to come.
+So many people really wouldn't understand, you know."
+
+Conrad Lagrange's deep voice was very gentle as he said, "Mr. King and I
+have known, all the time, that we had no real claim upon this garden,
+Miss Andrés." Then, with his whimsical smile, he added, "You see, we felt,
+from the very first, that it was haunted by a lovely spirit that would
+vanish utterly if we intruded. That is why we have been so careful. We did
+not want to frighten you away. And besides, you know, Czar told us that it
+was all right!"
+
+The blue eyes shone through a bright mist as she answered the man's kindly
+words. "You _are_ good, Mr. Lagrange. And all the time it was really _you_
+of whom I was so afraid."
+
+"Why me, more than my friend?" he asked, regarding her thoughtfully.
+
+She colored a little under his searching gaze, but answered with that
+childlike frankness that was so much a part of her winsome charm, "Why,
+because your friend is an _artist_--I thought _he_ would be sure to
+understand. I knew, of course, that you were the famous author; everybody
+talks about your living here." She seemed to think that her words
+explained.
+
+"You mean that you were afraid of me because I am famous?" he asked
+doubtfully.
+
+"Oh no," she answered, "not because you are famous. I mean--I was not
+afraid of your _fame_," she smiled.
+
+"And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must tell me at once--do you
+read my books?" He waited, as though much depended upon her answer.
+
+The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, unafraid look as she
+answered sadly, "No, sir. I have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music.
+They hurt me, somehow, all over."
+
+Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased
+delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and
+humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew
+it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you
+were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep
+conviction verified.
+
+"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know
+that an author _could_ be so different from the things he writes about."
+Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that
+spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you
+talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books
+like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with
+pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"
+
+"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful
+humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you
+and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.
+
+She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I
+like secrets."
+
+He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really
+Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when
+I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or
+when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am
+in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who
+wrote them."
+
+Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you
+_couldn't_ be _that_ kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be
+here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"
+
+"No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with our secret. Your name
+is not really Sibyl Andrés, you know--any more than you really live over
+there in that little house. Your real home is in the mountains--just as
+you said--you _really_ live among the glowing peaks, under the dark pines,
+on the ridges, and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only come
+down here to the Fairlands folk with a message from your mountains--and
+_we_ call your message music. Your name is--"
+
+She was leaning forward, her face glowing with eagerness. "What is my
+name?"
+
+"What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. "That's it, 'Nature'."
+
+"And you? Who are you when you are not--when you are not in that other
+world?"
+
+"Me? Oh, my real name is 'Civilization'. Can't you guess why?"
+
+She shook her head. "Tell me."
+
+"Because,--in spite of all that the world that reads my books can
+give,--poor old 'Civilization' cannot be happy without the message that
+'Nature' brings from her mountains."
+
+"And you, too, love the mountains and--and this garden, and my music?" she
+asked half doubtingly. "You are not pretending that too--just to amuse
+me?"
+
+"No, I am not pretending that," he said.
+
+"Then why--how can you do the--the other thing? I can't understand."
+
+"Of course, you can't understand--how could you? You are 'Nature' and
+'Nature' must often be puzzled by the things that 'Civilization' does."
+
+"Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm glad you like my music,
+anyway."
+
+"And so am I glad--that I _can_ like it. That's the only thing that saves
+me."
+
+"And your friend, the artist,--does he like my mountain music, do you
+think?"
+
+"Very much. He needs it too."
+
+"I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he would like it, and that it
+would help him. It was really for him that I have played."
+
+"You played for him?"
+
+"Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, I did not know about
+you--then. I thought you were altogether the man who wrote those
+books--and so I _could_ not play for you. That is--I mean--you
+understand--I could not play--" again she seemed to search for a word, and
+finding it, smiled--"I could not play _myself_ for you. But I thought that
+because he was an _artist_ he would understand; and that if I _could_ make
+the music tell him of the mountains it would, perhaps, help him a little
+to make his work beautiful and right--do you see?"
+
+"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might have known that it was for
+_him_ that you brought your message from the hills. But poor old
+'Civilization' is frightfully stupid sometimes, you know."
+
+Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the arbor, and parting the
+screen of vines a little, said to him, "Look here!"
+
+Standing beside her, Conrad Lagrange, through the window in the end of the
+studio next the garden, saw Aaron King at his easel; the artist's position
+in the light of the big, north window being in a direct line between the
+two openings and the arbor. Mrs. Taine was sitting too far out of line to
+be seen.
+
+The girl laughed gleefully. "Do you see him at his work? At first, I only
+hid here to find what kind of people were going to live in my old home.
+But when he was making our old barn into a studio, and I heard who you
+both were, I came because I love to watch him; as I try to make the music
+I think he would love to hear."
+
+The novelist studied her intently. She was so artless--so unaffected by
+the conventions of the world--in a word, so natural in expressing her
+thoughts, that the man who had given the best years of his life to feed
+the vicious, grossly sensual and bestial imaginations of his readers was
+deeply moved. He was puzzled what to say. At last, he murmured haltingly,
+"You like the artist, then?"
+
+Her eyes were full of curious laughter as she answered, "Why, what a funny
+question--when I have never even talked with him. How _could_ I like any
+one I have never known?"
+
+"But you make your music for him; and you come here to watch him?"
+
+"Oh, but that is for the work he is doing; that is for his pictures." She
+turned to look through the tiny opening in the arbor. "How I wish I could
+see inside that beautiful room. I know it must be beautiful. Once, when
+you were all gone, I tried to steal in; but, of course, he keeps it
+locked."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the man, suddenly--prompted by her
+confession to resume his playful mood.
+
+"What?" she asked eagerly, in a like spirit of fun.
+
+"First," he answered, half teasingly, "I must know if you could, now, make
+your music for me as well as for him."
+
+"For the you that loves the mountains and the garden I'm sure I could,"
+she answered promptly.
+
+"Well then, if you will promise to do that--if you will promise not to
+play _yourself_ for just him alone but for me too--I'll fix it so that you
+can go into the studio yonder."
+
+"Oh, I will always play for you, too, anyway--now that I know you."
+
+"Of course," he said, "we could just walk up to the door, and I could
+introduce you; but that would not be proper for _us_ would it?"
+
+She shook her head positively, "I wouldn't like to do that. He would think
+I was intruding, I am sure."
+
+"Well then, we will do it this way--the first day that Mr. King and I are
+both away, and Tee Kee is gone, too; I'll slip out here and leave a letter
+and a key on your gate. The letter will tell you just the time when we go,
+and when we will return--so you will know whether it is safe for you or
+not, and how long you can stay. Only"--he became very serious--"only, you
+must promise one thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you won't look at the picture on the easel."
+
+"But why must I promise that?"
+
+"Because that picture will not be finished for a long time yet, and you
+must not look at it until I say it is ready. Mr. King wouldn't like you to
+see that picture, I am sure. In fact, he doesn't like for any one to see
+the picture he is working on just now."
+
+"How funny," she said, with a puzzled look. "What is he painting it for? I
+like for people to hear my music."
+
+The man answered before he thought--"But I don't like people to read my
+books."
+
+She shrank back, with troubled eyes, "Oh! is he--is he _that_ kind of an
+artist?"
+
+"No, no, no!" exclaimed the novelist, hastily. "You must not think that. I
+did not mean you to think that. If he was _that_ kind of an artist, I
+wouldn't let you go into the studio at all. Mr. King is a good man--the
+best man I have ever known. He is my friend because he knows the secret
+about me that you know. He does not read my books. He would not read one
+of them for anything. It is only that this picture is not finished. When
+it is finished, he will not care who sees it."
+
+"I'm glad," she said. "You frightened me, for a minute--I understand,
+now."
+
+"And you promise not to look at the picture on the easel?"
+
+She nodded,--"Of course. And when I come out I'll lock the door and put
+the key back on the gate again; and no one but you and I will ever know."
+
+"No one but you and I will know," he answered.
+
+As he spoke, Czar, who had been lying quietly in the doorway of the arbor,
+rose quickly to his feet, with a low growl.
+
+The girl, peering through the screen on the side toward the house, uttered
+an exclamation of fear and drew back, turning to her companion
+appealingly. "O please, please don't let that man find me here."
+
+Conrad Lagrauge looked and saw James Rutlidge coming down the path toward
+the arched entrance to the garden, which was directly across from the
+arbor.
+
+"Stop him, please stop him," whispered the girl, her hand upon his arm.
+
+"Stay here until I get him out of sight," said the novelist quickly. "I
+won't let him come into the garden. When we are gone, you can make your
+escape. Don't forget the music for me, and the key at the gate."
+
+He spoke to Czar, and with the dog obediently at heel went forward to meet
+Mr. Rutlidge, who had called for Mrs. Taine and Louise.
+
+But all the while that Conrad Lagrange was talking to the man, and leading
+him toward the door of the studio, he was wondering--why that look of fear
+upon the face of the girl in the garden? What had Sibyl Andrés to do with
+James Rutlidge?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+A Cry in the Night
+
+
+
+As Conrad Lagrange and Mr. Rutlidge entered the studio, Aaron King turned
+from the easel, where he had drawn the velvet curtain to hide the finished
+portrait. Mrs. Taine was standing at the other side of the room, wrap in
+hand, calmly waiting, ready to go. The artist greeted Mr. Rutlidge
+cordially, while the woman triumphantly announced the completion of her
+portrait.
+
+"Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man," said Rutlidge, addressing
+the artist familiarly. "It is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it
+this afternoon?"
+
+"Thanks,"--returned the artist,--"you are all coming to-morrow, at three,
+you know. I would rather not show it to-day. It is a little late for the
+best light; and I would like for _you_ to see it under the most favorable
+conditions possible."
+
+The critic was visibly flattered by the painter's manner and by his
+well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "Quite right"--he said
+approvingly--"quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist--"These
+painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last
+touch or two before _I_ come around." He laughed pompously at his own
+words--the others joining.
+
+When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, the artist said hurriedly
+to his friend, "Come on, let's get it over." He led the way back to the
+studio.
+
+"I thought the light was too bad," said the older man, quizzingly, as they
+entered the big room.
+
+"It's good enough for _your_ needs," retorted the painter savagely. "You
+could see all you want by candle-light." He jerked the curtain angrily
+aside, and--without a glance at the canvas--walked away to stand at the
+window looking out upon the rose garden--waiting for the flood of the
+novelist's scorn to overwhelm him. At last, when no sound broke the quiet
+of the room, he turned--to find himself alone.
+
+Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait on the easel, had slipped
+quietly out of the building.
+
+The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, meditatively smoking his
+pipe on the front porch, with Czar lying at his feet.
+
+"Well," said the painter, curiously,--anxious, as he had said, to have it
+over,--"why the deuce don't you _say_ something?"
+
+The novelist answered slowly, "My vocabulary is too limited, for one
+reason, and"--he looked thoughtfully down at Czar--"I prefer to wait until
+you have finished the portrait."
+
+"It _is_ finished," returned the artist desperately. "I swear I'll never
+touch a brush to the damned thing again."
+
+The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; "Listen to him,
+Czar--listen to the poor devil of a painter-man."
+
+The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master's knee, looked up
+into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, "If he was only
+a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert
+ourselves, so we could, couldn't we?" Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in
+dignified approval. His master continued, "But when a fellow can do a
+crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his
+work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into
+existence, it's best for outsiders to keep quite still. Your poor old
+master knows whereof he speaks, doesn't he, dog? That he does!"
+
+"And is that all you have to say on the subject?" demanded the artist, as
+though for some reason he was disappointed at his friend's reticence.
+
+"I _might_ add a word of advice," said the other.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
+you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
+Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
+automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
+accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
+prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
+novelist, they went at once to the studio.
+
+The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
+fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
+of admiration, even _before_ the portrait was revealed. As though the
+painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
+"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
+accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
+glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
+whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
+display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
+a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
+inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.
+
+Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embarrassed attention to an
+appreciation that had the appearance, at least, of a more enduring value.
+Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her husband, she
+asked,--in a voice that was tremulous with loving care and anxiety to
+please,--"Do you like it, dear?"
+
+"It is magnificent, splendid, perfect!" This effort to give his praise of
+the artist's work the appearance of substantial reality cost the wretched
+product of lust and luxury a fit of coughing that racked his burnt-out
+body almost to its last feeble hold upon the world of flesh and, with a
+force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that
+neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again
+speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,--while grasping the
+painter's hand in effusive cordiality,--"My dear fellow, I congratulate
+you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is
+exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have
+done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character of Mrs. Taine." And
+then, to his wife,--"Dearest, I am glad for you, and proud. It is as
+worthy of you as paint and canvas could be." He turned to Conrad Lagrange
+who was an interested observer of the scene--"Am I not right, Lagrange?"
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Taine,--quite right. As you say, the portrait is most
+worthy the beauty and character of the charming subject."
+
+Another paroxysm of coughing mercifully prevented the poor creature's
+reply.
+
+With one accord, the little group turned, now, to James Rutlidge--the
+dreaded authority and arbiter of artistic destinies. That distinguished
+expert, while the others were speaking, had been listening intently;
+ostensibly, the while, he examined the picture with a show of trained
+skill that, it seemed, could not fail to detect unerringly those more
+subtle values and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden from
+the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, they watched the process by
+which professional criticism finds its verdict. That is, they _thought_
+they were watching the process. In reality, the method is more subtle than
+they knew.
+
+While the great critic moved back and forth in front of the easel; drew
+away from or bent over to closely scrutinize the canvas; shifted the easel
+a hair breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; hummed and muttered
+to himself abstractedly; cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem";
+squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head thrown back, or turned
+in every side angle his fat neck would permit: peered through his
+half-closed fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over and under
+his open hand or a paper held to shut out portions of the painting;--the
+others _thought_ they saw him expertly weighing the evidence for and
+against the merit of the work. In _reality_ it was his _ears_ and not his
+_eyes_ that helped the critic to his final decision--a decision which was
+delivered, at last, with a convincing air of ponderous finality. Indeed it
+was a judgment from which there could be no appeal, for it expressed
+exactly the views of those for whose benefit it was rendered. Then, in a
+manner subtly insinuating himself into the fellowship of the famous, he,
+too, turned to Conrad Lagrange with a scholarly; "Do you not agree, sir?"
+
+The novelist answered with slow impressiveness; "The picture, undoubtedly,
+fully merits the appreciation and praise you have given it. I have already
+congratulated Mr. King--who was kind enough to show me his work before you
+arrived."
+
+After this, Yee Kee appeared upon the scene, and tea was served in the
+studio--a fitting ceremony to the launching of another genius.
+
+"By the way, Mr. Lagrange," said Mrs. Taine, quite casually,--when, under
+the influence of the mildly stimulating beverage, the talk had assumed a
+more frivolous vein,--"Who is your talented neighbor that so charms Mr.
+King with the music of a violin?"
+
+The novelist, as he turned toward the speaker, shot a quick glance at the
+Artist. Nor did those keen, baffling eyes fail to note that, at the
+question, James Rutlidge had paused in the middle of a sentence. "That is
+one of the mysteries of our romantic surroundings madam," said Conrad
+Lagrange, easily.
+
+"And a very charming mystery it seems to be," returned the woman. "It has
+been quite affecting to watch its influence upon Mr. King."
+
+The artist laughed. "I admit that I found the music, in combination with
+the beauty I have so feebly tried to out upon canvas, very stimulating."
+
+A flash of angry color swept into the perfect cheeks of Mrs. Taine, as she
+retorted with meaning; "You are as flattering in your speech as you are
+with your brush. I assure you I do not consider myself in your unknown
+musician's class."
+
+The small eyes of James Rutlidge were fixed inquiringly upon the speakers,
+while his heavy face betrayed--to the watchful novelist--an interest he
+could not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional merit?" he asked with
+an attempt at indifference.
+
+Louise Taine--sensing that the performances of the unnamed violinist had
+been acceptable to Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King--the two representatives
+of the world to which she aspired--could not let the opportunity slip. She
+fairly deluged them with the spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise
+of the musician--employing, hit or miss, every musical term that popped
+into her vacuous head.
+
+"Indeed,"--said the critic,--"I seem to have missed a treat." Then,
+directly to the artist,--"And you say the violinist is wholly unknown to
+you?"
+
+"Wholly," returned the painter, shortly.
+
+Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understanding and disbelief flit for
+an instant over the heavy face of James Rutlidge.
+
+When the automobile, at last, was departing with the artist's guests; the
+two friends stood for a moment watching it up the road to the west, toward
+town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. Taine lean forward to speak
+to the chauffeur while James Rutlidge, who was in the front seat, turned
+and shook his head as though in protest. The woman appeared to insist. The
+machine slowed down, as though the chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the
+outcome of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neighboring house,
+Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and the automobile turned suddenly in
+toward the curb and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared in the
+depths of the orange grove.
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each other, for a moment, in
+questioning silence. The artist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he
+said.
+
+But the novelist--as they went toward the house--cursed Mrs. Taine, James
+Rutlidge, and all their kin and kind, with a vehement earnestness that
+startled his companion--familiar as the latter was with his friend's
+peculiar talent in the art of vigorous expression.
+
+After dinner, that evening, the painter and the novelist sat on the
+porch--as their custom was--to watch the day go out of the sky and the
+night come over valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest
+peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twinkling lights of the towns
+of men. At that hour, too, it was the custom, now, for the violinist
+hidden in the orange grove, to make the music they both so loved.
+
+In the music, that night, there was a feeling that, to them, was new--a
+vague, uncertain, halting undertone that was born, they felt, of fear. It
+stirred them to question and to wonder. Without apparent cause or reason,
+they each oddly connected the troubled tone in the music with the stopping
+of the automobile from Fairlands Heights, that afternoon, at the gate of
+the little house next door--the artist, because of Mrs. Taine's insistent
+inquiry about the, to him, unknown musician;--Conrad Lagrange, because of
+the manner of the girl in the garden when James Rutlidge appeared and
+because of the critic's interest when they had spoken of the violinist in
+the studio. But neither expressed his thought to the other.
+
+Presently, the music ceased, and they sat for an hour, perhaps, in
+silence--as close friends may do--exchanging only now and then a word.
+
+Suddenly, they were startled by a cry. In the still darkness of the night,
+from the mysterious depths of the orange grove, the sound came with such a
+shock that the two men, for the moment, held their places,
+motionless--questioning each other sharply--"What was that?" "Did you
+hear?"--as though they doubted, almost, their own ears.
+
+The cry came again; this time, undoubtedly, from that neighboring house to
+the west. It was unmistakably the cry of a woman--a woman in fear and
+pain.
+
+They leaped to their feet.
+
+Again the cry came from the black depths of the orange grove--shuddering,
+horrible--in an agony of fear.
+
+The two men sprang from the porch, and, through the darkness that in the
+orange grove was like a black wall, ran toward the spot from which the
+sound came--the dog at their heels.
+
+Breathless, they broke into the little yard in front of the tiny box-like
+house. Lights shone in the windows. All seemed peaceful and still. Czar
+betrayed no uneasiness. Going to the front door, they knocked.
+
+There was no answer save the sound of some one moving inside.
+
+Again, the artist knocked vigorously.
+
+The door opened, and a woman stood on the threshold.
+
+Standing a little to one side, the men saw her features clearly, in the
+light from the room. It was the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+Conrad Lagrange was first to command himself. "I beg your pardon, madam.
+We live in the house next door. We thought we heard a cry of distress. May
+we offer our assistance in any way? Is there anything we can do?"
+
+"Thank you, sir, you are very kind,"--returned the woman, in a low
+voice,--"but it is nothing. There is nothing you can do."
+
+And the voice of Sibyl Andrés, who stood farther back in the room, where
+the artist from his position could not see her, added, "It was good of you
+to come, Mr. Lagrange; but it is really nothing. We are so sorry you were
+disturbed."
+
+"Not at all," returned the men, as the woman of the disfigured face drew
+back from the door. "Good night."
+
+"Good night," came from within the house, and the door was shut.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Go Look In Your Mirror, You Fool
+
+
+
+As the Taine automobile left Aaron King and his friend, that afternoon,
+Mrs. Taine spoke to the chauffeur; "You may stop a moment, at the next
+house, Henry."
+
+If she had fired a gun, James Rutlidge could not have turned with a more
+startled suddenness.
+
+"What in thunder do you want there?" he demanded shortly.
+
+"I want to stop," she returned calmly.
+
+"But I must get down town, at once," he protested. "I have already lost
+the best part of the afternoon."
+
+"Your business seems to have become important very suddenly," she
+observed, sarcastically.
+
+"I have something to do besides making calls with you," he retorted. "Go
+on, Henry."
+
+Mrs. Taine spoke sharply; "Really, Jim, you are going too far. Henry, turn
+in at the house." The machine moved toward the curb and stopped. As she
+stepped from the car, she added, "I will only be a minute, Jim."
+
+Rutlidge growled an inarticulate curse.
+
+"What deviltry do you suppose she is up to now," rasped Mr. Taine.
+
+Which brought from his daughter the usual protest,--"O, papa, don't,"
+
+As Mrs. Taine approached the house, Sibyl Andrés--busy among the flowers
+that bordered the walk--heard the woman's step, and stood quietly waiting
+her. Mrs. Taine's face was perfect in its expression of cordial interest,
+with just enough--but not too much--of a conscious, well-bred superiority.
+The girl's countenance was lighted by an expression of childlike surprise
+and wonder. What had brought this well-known leader in the social world
+from Fairlands Heights to the poor, little house in the orange grove, so
+far down the hill?
+
+"Good afternoon," said the caller. "You are Miss Andrés, are you not?"
+
+"Yes," returned the girl, with a smile. "Won't you come in? I will call
+Miss Willard."
+
+"Oh, thank you, no. I have only a moment. My friends are waiting. I am
+Mrs. Taine."
+
+"Yes, I know. I have often seen you passing."
+
+The other turned abruptly. "What beautiful flowers."
+
+"Aren't they lovely," agreed Sibyl, with frank pleasure at the visitor's
+appreciation. "Let me give you a bunch." Swiftly she gathered a generous
+armful.
+
+Mrs. Taine protested, but the girl presented her offering with such grace
+and winsomeness that the other could not refuse. As she received the gift,
+the perfect features of the woman of the world were colored by a blush
+that even she could not control. "I understand, Miss Andrés," she said,
+"that you are an accomplished violinist."
+
+"I teach and play in Park Church," was the simple answer.
+
+"I have never happened to hear you, myself,"--said Mrs. Taine
+smoothly,--"but my friends who live next door--Mr. Lagrange and Mr.
+King--have told me about you."
+
+"Oh!" The girl's voice was vaguely troubled, while the other, watching,
+saw the blush that colored her warmly tinted cheeks.
+
+"It is good of you to play for them," continued the woman from Fairlands
+Heights, casually. "You must enjoy the society of such famous men, very
+much. There are a great many people, you know, who would envy you your
+friendship with them."
+
+The girl replied quickly, "O, but you are mistaken. I am not acquainted
+with them, at all; that is--not with Mr. King--I have never spoken to
+him--and I only met Mr. Lagrange, for a few minutes, by accident."
+
+"Indeed! But I am forgetting the purpose of my call, and my friends will
+become impatient. Do you ever play for private entertainments, Miss
+Andrés?--for--say a dinner, or a reception, you know?"
+
+"I would be very glad for such an engagement, Mrs. Taine. I must earn what
+I can with my music, and there are not enough pupils to occupy all my
+time. But perhaps you should hear me play, first. I will get my violin."
+
+Mrs. Taine checked her, "Oh, no, indeed. It is quite unnecessary, my
+dear. The opinion of your distinguished neighbors is quite enough. I shall
+keep you in mind for some future occasion. I just wished to learn if you
+would accept such an engagement. Good-by. Thanks--so much--for your
+flowers."
+
+She was upon the point of turning away, when a low cry from the nearby
+porch startled them both. Turning, they saw the woman with the disfigured
+face, standing in the doorway; an expression of mingled wonder, love, and
+supplication upon her hideously marred features. As they looked, she
+started toward them,--impulsively stretching out her arms, as though the
+gesture was an involuntary expression of some deep emotion,--then checked
+herself, suddenly as though in doubt.
+
+Sibyl Andrés uttered an exclamation. "Why, Myra! what is it, dear?"
+
+Mrs. Taine turned away with a gesture of horror, saying to the girl in a
+low, hurried voice, "Dear me, how dreadful! I really must be going."
+
+As she went down the flower-bordered path towards the street, the woman on
+the porch, again, stretched out her arms appealingly. Then, as Sibyl
+reached her side, the poor creature clasped the girl in a close embrace,
+and burst into bitter tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the return of the Taines and James Rutlidge to the house on Fairlands
+Heights, Mrs. Taine retired immediately to her own luxuriously appointed
+apartments.
+
+At dinner, a maid brought to the household word that her mistress was
+suffering from a severe headache and would not be down and begged that she
+might not be disturbed during the evening.
+
+Alone in her room, Mrs. Taine--her headache being wholly
+conventional--gave herself unreservedly to the thoughts that she could
+not, under the eyes of others, entertain without restraint. She was seated
+at a window that looked down upon the carefully graded levels of the
+envying Fairlanders and across the wide sweep of the valley below to the
+mountains which, from that lofty point of vantage, could be seen from the
+base of their lowest foothills to the crests of their highest peaks. But
+the woman who lived on the Heights of Fairlands saw neither the homes of
+their neighbors, the busy valley below, nor the mountains that lifted so
+far above them all. Her thoughts were centered upon what, to her, was more
+than these.
+
+When night was gathering over the scene, her maid entered softly. Mrs.
+Taine dismissed the woman with a word, telling her not to return until she
+rang. Leaving the window, after drawing the shades close, she paced the
+now lighted room, in troubled uneasiness of mind. Here and there, she
+paused to touch or handle some familiar object--a photograph in a silver
+frame, a book on the carved table, the trifles on her open desk, or an
+ornamental vase on the mantle--then moved restlessly away to continue her
+aimless exercise. When the silence was rudely broken by the sound of a
+knock at her door, she stood still--a look of anger marring the
+well-schooled beauty of her features.
+
+The knock was repeated.
+
+With an exclamation of impatient annoyance, she crossed the room, and
+flung open the door.
+
+Without leave or apology, her husband entered; and, as he did so, was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing that sent him reeling, gasping and
+breathless, to the nearest chair.
+
+Mrs. Taine stood watching her husband coldly, with a curious, speculative
+expression on her face that she made no attempt to hide. When his torture
+was abated--for the time--leaving him exhausted and trembling with
+weakness, she said coldly, "Well, what do you want? What are you doing
+here?"
+
+The man lifted his pallid, haggard face and, with a yellow, claw-like hand
+wiped the beads of clammy sweat from his forehead; while his deep-sunken
+eyes leered at her with an insane light.
+
+The woman was at no pains to conceal her disgust. In her voice there was
+no hint of pity. "Didn't Marie tell you that I wished to be alone?"
+
+"Of course," he jeered in his rasping whisper, "that's why I came." He
+gave a hideous resemblance to a laugh, which ended in a cough--and, again,
+he drew his skinny, shaking hand across his damp forehead "That's the time
+that a man should visit his wife, isn't it? When she is alone. Or"--he
+grinned mockingly--"when she wishes to be?"
+
+She regarded him with open scorn and loathing. "You unclean beast! Will
+you take yourself out of my room?"
+
+He gazed at her, as a malevolent devil might gloat over a soul delivered
+up for torture. "Not until I choose to go, my dear."
+
+[Illustration: "Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"]
+
+Suddenly changing her manner, she smiled with deliberate, mocking humor.
+While he watched, she moved leisurely to a deep, many-cushioned couch;
+and, arranging the pillows, reclined among them in the careless
+abandonment of voluptuous ease and physical content. Openly,
+ostentatiously, she exhibited herself to his burning gaze in various
+graceful poses--lifting her arms above her head to adjust a cushion more
+to her liking; turning and stretching her beautiful body; moving her limbs
+with sinuous enjoyment--as disregardful of his presence as though she were
+alone. At last she spoke in cool, even, colorless tones; "Perhaps you will
+tell me what you want?"
+
+The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensuality shook with
+inarticulate rage. Choking and coughing he writhed in his chair--his
+emaciated limbs twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in
+perspiration his claw-like hands opening and closing; his bloodless lips
+curled back from his yellow teeth, in a horrid grin of impotent fury. And
+all the while she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, smile. It
+was as though the malevolent devil and the tortured soul had suddenly
+changed places.
+
+When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his rasping whisper, with
+curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort
+with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then,
+among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the
+other, was maddening.
+
+"If this is all you came for,"--she said, easily,--"might have spared
+yourself the effort--don't you think?"
+
+Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I came to tell you that
+your intimacy with that damned painter must stop."
+
+Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in the cushions, clenched
+until her rings hurt. "Just what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked
+evenly.
+
+"You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I mean what intimacy with a
+man always means to a woman like you."
+
+"The only meaning that a creature of your foul mind can understand," she
+retorted smoothly. "If it were worth while to tell you the truth, I would
+say that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been as proper as--as
+when I am alone with you."
+
+The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells of coughing--choking,
+gasping, fighting for breath, his eyes blazing with hatred and lust,
+mingling his words with oaths and curses--he raged at her. "And do you
+think--that, because I am so nearly dead,--I do not resent what--I saw,
+to-day? Do you think--I am so far gone that I cannot--understand--your
+interest in this man,--after--watching you, together, all--the afternoon?
+Has there been any one--in his studio, except you two, when--he was
+painting you in that dress--which you--designed for his benefit? Oh, no,
+indeed,--you and your--genius could not be interrupted,--for the sake--of
+his art. His art! Great God!--was there ever such a damnable farce--since
+hell was invented? Art!--you--_you_--_you_!--" crazed with jealous fury,
+he pointed at her with his yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and
+struggled to raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the cords
+of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was distorted with the strain
+of his effort--"_You!_ painted as a--modest Quaker Maid,--with all the
+charm of innocence,--virtue, and religious piety in your face. _You!_ And
+that picture will be exhibited--and written about--as a work of _art!_
+You'll pull all the strings,--and use all your influence,--and the
+thing--will be received as a--masterpiece."
+
+"And," she added calmly, "you will write a check--and lie, as you did this
+afternoon."
+
+Without heeding her remark, he went on,--"You know the picture is
+worthless. He knows it,--Conrad Lagrange knows it,--Jim Rutlidge knows
+it,--the whole damned clique and gang of you know it, He's like all his
+kind,--a pretender,--a poser,--playing into the hands--of such women as
+you; to win social position--and wealth. And we and our kind--we pretend
+to believe--in such damned parasites,--and exalt them and what we--call
+their art,--and keep them in luxury, and buy their pictures;--because they
+prostitute--their talents to gratify our vanity. We know it's all a damned
+sham--and a pretense that if they were real artists,--with an honest
+workman's respect for their work,--they wouldn't--recognize us."
+
+"Don't forget to send him a check,"--she murmured--"you can't afford to
+neglect it, you know--think how people would talk."
+
+"Don't worry," he replied. "There'll be no talk. I'll send the genius his
+check--for making love--to my wife in the sacred name of art,--and I'll
+lie--about his picture with--the rest of you. But there will be--no more
+of your intimacy with him. You're my wife,--in spite of hell,--and from
+now on--I'll see--that you are true--to me. Your sickening pose--of
+modesty in dress shall be something--more than a pose. For the little time
+I have left,--I'll have--you to--myself or I'll kill you."
+
+His reference to her refusal to uncover her shoulders in public broke the
+woman's calm and aroused her to a cold fury. Springing to her feet, she
+stood over him as he sat huddled in his chair, exhausted by his effort.
+
+"What is your silly, idle threat beside the fact," she said with stinging
+scorn. "To have killed me, instead of making me your wife, would have been
+a kindness greater than you are capable of. You know how unspeakably vile
+you were when you bought me. You know how every hour of my life with you
+has been a torment to me. You should be grateful that I have helped you to
+live your lie--that I have played the game of respectability with
+you--that I am willing to play it a little while longer, until you lay
+down your hand for good, and release us both.
+
+"Suppose I _were_ what you think me? What right have _you_ to object to my
+pleasures? Have you--in all your life of idle, vicious, luxury--have you
+ever feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature? You know you
+have not. You have feared only the appearance of evil. To be as evil as
+you like so long as you can avoid the appearance of evil; that's the game
+you have taught me to play. That's the game we have played together.
+That's the game we and our kind insist the artists and writers shall help
+us play. That's the only game I know, and, by the rule of our game, so
+long as the world sees nothing, I shall do what pleases me.
+
+"You have had your day with me. You have had what you paid for. What right
+have you to deny me, now, an hour's forgetfulness? When I think of what I
+might have been, but for you, I wonder that I have cared to live, and I
+would not--except for the poor sport of torturing you.
+
+"You scoff at Mr. King's portrait of me because he has not painted me as I
+am! What would you have said if he _had_ painted me as I am? What would
+you say if Conrad Lagrange should write the truth about us and our kind,
+for his millions of readers? You sneer at me because I cannot uncover my
+shoulders in the conventional dress of my class, and so make a virtue of a
+necessity and deceive the world by a pretense of modesty. Go look in your
+mirror, you fool! Your right to sneer at me for my poor little pretense is
+denied you by every line of your repulsive countenance Now get out. I'm
+going to retire."
+
+And she rang for her maid.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+First Fruits of His Shame
+
+
+
+When the postman, in his little cart, stopped at the home of Aaron King
+and his friend, that day, it was Conrad Lagrange who received the mail.
+The artist was in his studio, and the novelist, knowing that the painter
+was not at work, went to him there with a letter.
+
+The portrait--still on the easel--was hidden by the velvet curtain.
+Sitting by a table that was littered with a confusion of sketches, books
+and papers, the young man was re-tying a package of old letters that he
+had, evidently, just been reading.
+
+As the novelist went to him, the artist said quietly,--indicating the
+package in his hand,--"From my mother. She wrote them during the last year
+of my study abroad." When the other did not reply, he continued
+thoughtfully, "Do you know, Lagrange, since my acquaintance with you, I
+find many things in these old letters that--at the time I received them--I
+did not, at all, appreciate. You seem to be helping me, somehow, to a
+better understanding of my mother's spirit and mind." He smiled.
+
+Presently, Conrad Lagrange, when he could trust himself to speak, said,
+"Your mother's mind and spirit, Aaron, were too fine and rare to be fully
+appreciated or understood except by one trained in the school of life,
+itself. When she wrote those letters, you were a student of mere
+craftsmanship. She, herself no doubt, recognized that you would not fully
+comprehend the things she wrote; but she put them down, out of the very
+fullness of her intellectual and spiritual wealth--trusting to your love
+to preserve the letters, and to the years to give you understanding."
+
+"Why," cried the artist, "those are almost her exact words--as I have just
+been reading them!"
+
+The other, smiling, continued quietly, "Your appreciation and
+understanding of your mother will continue to grow through all your life,
+Aaron. When you are old--as old as I am--you will still find in those
+letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths of greater value than you,
+now, can realize. But here--I have brought you your share of the
+afternoon's mail."
+
+When Aaron King opened the envelope that his friend laid on the table
+before him, he sat regarding its contents with an air of thoughtful
+meditation--lost to his surroundings.
+
+The novelist--who had gone to the window and was looking into the rose
+garden--turned to speak to his friend; but the other did not reply. Again,
+the man at the window addressed the painter; but still the younger man was
+silent. At this, Conrad Lagrange came back to the table; an expression of
+anxiety upon his face. "What is it, old man? What's the matter? No bad
+news, I hope?"
+
+Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, laughed shortly, and held
+out to his friend the letter he had just received. It was from Mr. Taine.
+Enclosed was the millionaire's check. The letter was a formal business
+note; the check was for an amount that drew a low whistle from the
+novelist's lips.
+
+"Rather higher pay than old brother Judas received for a somewhat similar
+service, isn't it," he commented, as he passed the letter and check back
+to the artist. Then, as he watched the younger man's face, he asked,
+"What's the matter, don't you like the flavor of these first fruits of
+your shame? I advise you to cultivate a taste for this sort of thing as
+quickly as possible--in your own defense."
+
+"Don't you think you are a little bit too hard on us all, Lagrange?" asked
+the artist, with a faint smile. "These people are satisfied. The picture
+pleases them."
+
+"Of course they are pleased," retorted the other. "You know your business.
+That's the trouble with you. That's the trouble with us all, these
+days--we painters and writers and musicians--we know our business too
+damned well. We have the mechanics of our crafts, the tricks of our
+trades, so well in hand that we make our books and pictures and music say
+what we please. We _use_ our art to gain our own vain ends instead of
+being driven _by_ our art to find adequate expression for some great truth
+that demands through us a hearing. You have said it all, my friend--you
+have summed up the whole situation in the present-day world of creative
+art--these people are satisfied. You have given them what they want,
+prostituting your art to do it. That's what I have been doing all these
+years--giving people what they want. For a price we cater to them--even as
+their tailors, and milliners, and barbers. And never again will the world
+have a truly great art or literature until men like us--in the divine
+selfishness of their, calling--demand, first and last, that they,
+_themselves_, be satisfied by the work of their hands."
+
+Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the curtain. Involuntarily, the
+painter went to stand by his side before the picture.
+
+"Look at it!" cried the novelist. "Look at it in the light of your own
+genius! Don't you see its power? Doesn't it tell you what you _could_ do,
+if you would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you couldn't feel a
+picture to be painted, it wouldn't matter. I'd let you ride to hell on
+your own palette, and be damned to you. But this thing shows a power that
+the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad because it is so good. Come
+here!" he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains.
+"There is an art like those mountains, my boy--lonely, apart from the
+world; remotely above the squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm
+strength and peace--an art to which men may look for inspiration and
+courage and hope. And there is an art that is like Fairlands--petty and
+shallow and mean--with only the fictitious value that its devotees assume,
+but never, actually, realize. Listen, Aaron, don't continue to misread
+your mother's letters. Don't misunderstand her as thinking that the place
+she coveted for you is a place within the power of these people to give.
+Come with me into the mountains, yonder. Come, and let us see if, in those
+hills of God, you cannot find yourself."
+
+When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, for a little, without
+reply--irresolute, before his picture--the check in his hand. At last,
+still without speaking, he went back to the table, where he wrote briefly
+his reply to Mr. Taine. When he had finished, he handed his letter to the
+older man, who read:
+
+   Dear Sir:
+
+   In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your check in payment
+   for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I appreciate your generosity, but
+   cannot, now, accept it.
+
+   I find, upon further consideration, that the portrait does not fully
+   satisfy me. I shall, therefore, keep the canvas until I can, with the
+   consent of my own mind, put my signature upon it.
+
+   Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of course, I cannot accept
+   payment for an unfinished work.
+
+   In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start to the mountains, for an
+   outing. Trusting that you and your family will enjoy the season at Lake
+   Silence I am, with kind regards,
+
+   Yours sincerely, Aaron King.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, the two men talked over their proposed trip, and laid their
+plans to start without delay As Conrad Lagrange put it--they would lose
+themselves in the hills; with no definite destination in view; and no set
+date for their return. Also, he stipulated that they should travel
+light--with only a pack burro to carry their supplies--and that they
+should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more
+unfrequented trails. The novelist's acquaintance with the country into
+which they would go, and his experience in woodcraft--gained upon many
+like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved--would make a guide
+unnecessary. It would be a new experience for Aaron King; and, as the
+novelist talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy for the trip; while
+the distant mountains, themselves, seemed to call him--inviting him to
+learn the secret of their calm strength and the spirit of their lofty
+peace. The following day, they would spend in town; purchasing an outfit
+of the necessary equipment and supplies, securing a burro, and attending
+to numerous odds and ends of business preparatory to their indefinite
+absence.
+
+It so happened, the next day, that Yee Kee,--who was to care for the place
+during their weeks of absence had matters of importance to himself, that
+demanded his attention in town. When his masters informed him that they
+would not be home for lunch, he took advantage of the opportunity and
+asked for the day.
+
+Thus it came about that Conrad Lagrange--in the spirit of a boy bent upon
+some secret adventure--stole out into the rose garden, that morning, to
+leave the promised letter and key at the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+Myra Willard's Challenge
+
+
+
+Since her meeting with Conrad Lagrange in the rose garden, Sibyl Andrés
+had looked, every day, for that promised letter. She found it early in the
+afternoon. It was a quaint letter--written in the spirit of their
+meeting--telling her the probable time of her neighbor's return; warning
+her, in fear of some fanciful horror, to beware of the picture on the
+easel; and wishing her joy of the adventure. With the note, was a key.
+
+A few minutes later, the girl unlocked the door of the studio, and entered
+the building that had once been so familiar to her, but was now, in its
+interior, so transformed. Slowly, she pushed the door to, behind her. As
+though half frightened at her own daring, she stood quite still, looking
+about. In the atmosphere of that somewhat richly furnished apartment;
+poised timidly as if for ready flight; she seemed, indeed, the spirit that
+the novelist--in playful fancy--insisted that she was. Her cheeks were
+glowing with color; her eyes were bright with the excitement of her
+innocent adventure, and with her genuine admiration and appreciation of
+the beautiful room.
+
+Presently,--growing bolder,--she began moving about the
+studio--light-footed and graceful as a wild thing from her own mountain
+home, and, indeed, with much the air of a gentle creature of the woods
+that had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely interested in the
+things she found, she gradually forgot her timidity, and gave herself to
+the enjoyment of her surroundings, with the freedom and abandon of a
+child. From picture to picture, she went, with wide, eager eyes. She
+turned over the sketches in the big portfolios that were so invitingly
+open; looked with awe upon the brushes stuck in the big Chinese jar--upon
+the palettes, and at the tubes of color; flitting to the window that
+looked out upon her garden, and back to the great, north light with its
+view of the distant mountains; and again and again, paused to stand with
+her hands clasped behind her, in front of the big easel with its canvas
+hidden under the velvet curtain. Then she must try the chairs, the
+oriental couch, and even the stool--where she had seen the artist sitting,
+sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him from the arbor; and
+last--in a pretty make believe--she tried the seat on the model throne, as
+though posing herself, for her portrait.
+
+Suddenly, with a startled cry, she sprang to her feet; then shrank back,
+white and trembling--her big eyes fixed with pleading fear upon the man
+who stood in the open doorway, regarding her with a curious, triumphant
+smile. It was James Rutlidge.
+
+Sibyl, occupied with her childlike delight, had failed to hear the
+automobile when it stopped in front of the house. Finding no one in the
+house the man had gone on to the studio, where--with the assurance of an
+intimate acquaintance--he had pushed open the door that was standing ajar.
+
+At the girl's frightened manner, the man laughed. Closing the door, he
+said, with an insinuating sneer, "You were not expecting me, it seems."
+
+His words aroused Sibyl from her momentary weakness. Rising, she said
+calmly, "I was not expecting any one, Mr. Rutlidge."
+
+Again he laughed--with unpleasant meaning. "You certainly look to be very
+much at home." He moved confidently to the easel stool and, seating
+himself continued with a leering smile, "What's the matter with my taking
+the artist's place for a little while--at least, until he comes?"
+
+The girl was too innocent to understand his assumption but her pure mind
+could not fail to sense the evil in his words.
+
+"I had permission to come here this afternoon," she said--her voice
+trembling a little with the fear that she did not understand. "Won't you
+go, please? Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Lagrange are at home."
+
+"I do not doubt your having permission to come here," he returned, with
+meaning stress upon the word, "permission". "I see you even carry a key to
+this really delightful room." He motioned with his head toward the door
+where he had seen the key in the lock, as she had left it.
+
+At this, she grasped a hint of the man's thought and, for an instant, drew
+hack in shame. Then, suddenly with a burst of indignant anger, she took a
+step toward him, demanding clearly; "Are you saying that I am in the
+habit of coming here to meet Mr. King?"
+
+He laughed mockingly. "Really, my dear, no one, seeing you, now, could
+blame the man for giving you a key to this place where he is popularly
+supposed to be undisturbed. Mr. King is neither such a virtuous saint, nor
+so engrossed in his art, as to resent the companionship of such a vision
+of loveliness--simply because it comes in the form of good flesh and
+blood. Why be angry with me?"
+
+Her cheeks were crimson as she said, again, "Will you go?"
+
+"Not until you have settled the terms of peace," he answered with that
+leering smile. "Fortune has favored me, this afternoon, and I mean to
+profit by it."
+
+For an instant, she looked at him--frightened and dismayed. Suddenly, with
+the flash-like quickness that was a part of her physical inheritance from
+her mountain life, she darted past him; eluding his effort to detain
+her--and was out of the building.
+
+With an oath, the man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, ran after
+her. Outside the door of the studio, he caught a glimpse of her white
+dress as she disappeared into the rose garden. In the garden, he saw her
+as she slipped through the little gate in the far corner of the hedge,
+into the orange grove. Recklessly he followed. Among the trees, he
+glimpsed, again, the white flash of her skirts, and dashed forward. At the
+farther edge of the grove that walled in the little yard where Sibyl
+lived, he saw her standing by the kitchen door. But between the girl and
+that last row of close-set trees, waiting his coming, stood the woman with
+the disfigured face.
+
+Rutlidge paused--angry with himself for so foolishly yielding to the
+impulse of his passion.
+
+Myra Willard went toward him fearlessly--her fine eyes blazing with
+righteous indignation. "What are you trying to do, James Rutlidge?" she
+demanded--and her words were bold and clear.
+
+The man was silent.
+
+"You are evidently a worthy son of your father," the woman
+continued--every clear-cut word biting into his consciousness with
+stinging scorn. "He, in his day, did all he knew to turn this world into a
+hell for those who were unfortunate enough to please his vile fancy. You,
+I see, are following faithfully his footsteps. I know you, and the creed
+of your kind--as I knew your father before you. No girl of innocent beauty
+is safe from you. Your unclean mind is as incapable of believing in
+virtue, as you are helpless in the grip of your own insane lust."
+
+The man was stung to fury by her cutting words. "Take your ugly face out
+of my sight," he said brutally.
+
+Fearlessly, she drew a step nearer. "It is because I am a woman that I
+have this ugly face, James Rutlidge." She touched her disfigured
+cheek--"These scars are the marks of the beast that rules you, sir, body
+and soul. Leave this place, or, as there is a God, I'll tell a tale that
+will forbid you ever showing your own evil countenance in public, again."
+
+Something in her eyes and in her manner, as she spoke, caused the
+man--beside himself with rage, as he was--to draw back. Some mysterious
+force that made itself felt in her bold words told him that hers was no
+idle threat. A moment they stood face to face, in the edge of the shadowy
+orange grove--the man of the world, prominent in circles of art and
+culture; and the woman whose natural loveliness was so distorted into a
+hideous mask of ugliness. With a short, derisive laugh, James Rutlidge
+turned and walked away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were returning from town. As they neared
+their home, they saw one of the Taine automobiles in front of the house.
+"Company," said the artist with a smile--thinking of his letter to the
+millionaire.
+
+"It's Rutlidge," said the novelist--noting the absence of the chauffeur.
+
+They were turning in at the entrance, when Czar--who had dashed ahead as
+if to investigate--halted, suddenly, with a low growl of disapproval.
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange, with his twisted grin. "It's Senior
+'Sensual' all right. Look at Czar; he knows the beast is around. Go fetch
+him, Czar."
+
+With an angry bark, the dog disappeared around the corner of the porch.
+The two men, following, were met by Rutlidge who had made his way back
+through the grove and the rose garden from the house next door. The dog,
+with muttering growls, was sniffing suspiciously at his heels.
+
+"Czar," said his master, suggestively. With a meaning glance, the dog
+reluctantly ceased his embarrassing attentions and went to see if
+everything was all right about the premises.
+
+In answer to their greeting and the quite natural question if he had been
+waiting long, Rutlidge answered with a laugh. "Oh, no--I have been amusing
+myself by prowling around your place. Snug quarters you have here; really,
+I never quite appreciated their charm, before."
+
+They seated themselves on the porch. Conrad Lagrange--thinking of Sibyl
+Andrés and that letter which he had left on the gate--from under his
+brows, watched their caller closely; the while he filled with painstaking
+care his brier pipe.
+
+"We like it," returned the artist.
+
+"I should think so--I'd be sorry to leave it if I were you. Mr. Taine
+tells me you are going to the mountains."
+
+"We're not giving up this place, though," replied Aaron King. "Yee Kee
+stays to take care of things until our return."
+
+"Oh, I see. I generally go into the mountains, myself for a little hunt
+when the deer season opens. It may be that I will run across you
+somewhere. By the way--you haven't met your musical neighbor yet, have
+you?"
+
+The novelist gave particular attention to his pipe which did not seem to
+be behaving properly.
+
+The artist answered shortly, "No."
+
+"I'd certainly make her acquaintance, if I were you," said Rutlidge, with
+his suggestive smile. "She is a dream. A delightful little retreat--that
+studio of yours."
+
+The painter, puzzled by the man's words and by his insinuating air,
+returned coldly, "It does very well for a work-shop."
+
+The other laughed meaningly; "Yes, oh yes--a great little work-shop. I
+suppose you--ah--do not fear to trust your _art treasures_ to the
+Chinaman, during your absence?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange--certain, now, that the man had seen Sibyl Andrés either
+entering or leaving the studio--said abruptly, "You need give yourself no
+concern for Mr. King's studio, Rutlidge. I can assure you that the
+treasures there will be well protected."
+
+James Rutlidge understood the warning conveyed in the novelist's words
+that, to Aaron King, revealed nothing.
+
+"Really," said the painter to their caller, "you are not uneasy for the
+safety of Mrs. Taine's portrait, are you, old man? If you are, of
+course--"
+
+"Damn Mrs. Taine's portrait!" ejaculated the man, rising hurriedly. "You
+know what I mean. It's all right, of course. I must be going. Hope you
+have a good outing and come back to find all your art treasures safe." He
+laughed coarsely, as he went down the walk.
+
+When the automobile was gone, the artist turned to his friend. "Now what
+in thunder did he mean by that? What's the matter with him? Do you suppose
+they imagine that there is anything wrong because I wouldn't turn over the
+picture?"
+
+"He is an unclean beast, Aaron," the novelist answered shortly. "His
+father was the worst I ever knew, and he's like him. Forget him. Here
+comes the delivery boy with our stuff. Let's overhaul the outfit. I hope
+they'll get here with that burro, before dark. Where'll we put him, in the
+studio, heh?"
+
+"Look here,"--said the artist a few minutes later, returning from a visit
+to the studio for something,--"this is what was the matter with Rutlidge.
+And you did it, old man. This is your key."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the other in confusion taking the key.
+
+"Why, I found the studio door wide open, with your key in the lock. You
+must have been out there, just before we left this morning, and forgot to
+shut the door. Rutlidge probably noticed it when he was prowling about the
+place, and was trying to roast me for my carelessness."
+
+Conrad Lagrange stared stupidly at the key in his hand. "Well I _am_
+damned," he muttered. Then added, in savage and--as it seemed to the
+artist--exaggerated wrath, "I'm a stupid, blundering, irresponsible old
+fool." Nor was he consoled when the painter innocently assured him that no
+harm had resulted from his carelessness.
+
+That night, as the two men sat on the porch, watching the last of the
+light on the mountain tops, they heard again the cry of fear and pain that
+came from the little house hidden in the depths of the orange grove.
+Wonderingly they listened. Once more it came--filled with shuddering
+terror.
+
+When the sound was not repeated, Conrad Lagrange thoughtfully knocked the
+ashes from his pipe. "Poor soul," he said. "Those scars did more than
+disfigure her beautiful face. I'll wager there's a sad story there, Aaron.
+It's strange how I am haunted by the impression that I ought to know her.
+But I can't make it come clear. Heigho,"--he added a moment later as if to
+free his mind from unpleasant thoughts,--"I'll be glad when we are safely
+up in the hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though we're
+getting away just in the nick of time. My back hair and the pricking of my
+thumbs warn me that your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up
+some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee has a plentiful supply
+of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, if they get too busy while we are gone."
+
+Aaron King laughed quietly in the dusk, as he returned "And I have a
+presentiment that those precious members of our household are preparing to
+accompany us to the hills. I feel in my bones that something is going to
+happen up there"--he pointed to the distant mountains, then added--"to me,
+at least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself good-by--if you know
+what I mean. I hope that donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he
+is, that he'll listen to reason and be content with his escorts of flesh
+and blood."
+
+As he finished speaking, the quiet of the evening was broken by a lusty,
+"Hee-haw, hee-haw," in front of the house.
+
+"There, I told you so!" ejaculated the painter.
+
+Laughing, the two men followed Czar down the walk, in the dark, to
+receive the shaggy, long-eared companion for their wanderings.
+
+As many a man has done--Aaron King had spoken, in jest, more truth than he
+knew.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+In The Mountains
+
+
+
+In the gray of the early morning, hours before the dwellers on Fairlands
+Heights thought of leaving their beds, Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange made
+ready for their going.
+
+The burro, Croesus--so named by the novelist because, as the famous writer
+explained, "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was an
+ass"--was to be entrusted with all the available worldly possessions of
+the little party. An arrangement--the more experienced man carefully
+pointed out--that, considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was
+quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange,
+himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place--adjusting the saddle with
+careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top,
+and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly
+tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the
+uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their
+march, also, would place Croesus first; which position--the novelist,
+again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight--is held by all who
+value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As he
+watched his friend, the artist felt that, indeed, he was about to go far
+from the ways of life that he had always known.
+
+When all was ready, the two men--dressed in flannels, corduroys, and
+high-laced, mountain boots--called good-by to Yee Kee, respectfully
+invited Croesus to proceed, and set out--with Czar, the fourth member of
+the party, flying here and there in such a whirlwind of good spirits that
+not a shred of his usual dignity was left. The sun was still below the
+mountain's crest, though the higher points were gilded with its light,
+when they turned their backs upon the city made by men, and set their
+faces toward the hills that bore in every ridge and peak and cliff and
+crag and canyon the signature of God.
+
+As Conrad Lagrange said--they might have hired a wagon, or even an
+automobile, to take them and their goods to some mountain ranch where they
+would have had no trouble in securing a burro for their wanderings A team
+would have made the trip by noon. A machine would have set them down in
+Clear Creek Canyon before the sun could climb high enough to look over the
+canyon walls. "But that"--explained the novelist, as they trudged
+leisurely along between rows of palms that bordered the orange groves on
+either side of their road, and sensed the mystery that marks the birth of
+a new day--"but that is not a proper way to go to the mountains.
+
+"The mountains"--he continued, with his eyes upon the distant
+heights--"are not seen by those who would visit them with a rattle and
+clatter and rush and roar--as one would visit the cities of men. They are
+to be seen only by those who have the grace to go quietly; who have the
+understanding to go thoughtfully; the heart to go lovingly; and the spirit
+to go worshipfully. They are to be approached, not in the manner of one
+going to a horse-race, or a circus, but in the mood of one about to enter
+a great cathedral; or, indeed, of one seeking admittance to the very
+throne-room of God. When going to the mountains, one should take time to
+feel them drawing near. They are never intimate with those who hurry. Mere
+sight-seers seldom see much of anything. If possible,"--insisted the
+speaker, smiling gravely upon his companion,--"one should always spend, at
+least, a full day in the approach. Before entering the immediate presence
+of the hills, one should first view them from a distance, seeing them from
+base to peak--in the glory of the day's beginning, as they watch the world
+awake; in the majesty of full noon, as they maintain their calm above the
+turmoil of the day's doing; and in the glory of the sun's departure, as it
+lights last their crests and peaks. And then, after such a day, one should
+sleep, one night, at their feet."
+
+The artist listened with delight, as he always did when his friend spoke
+in those rare moods that revealed a nature so unknown to the world that
+had made him famous. When the novelist finished, the young man said
+gently, "And your words, my friend, are almost a direct quotation from
+that anonymous book which my mother so loved."
+
+"Perhaps they are, Aaron"--admitted Conrad Lagrange--"perhaps they are."
+
+So it was that they spent that day--in leisure approach--the patient
+Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry
+sprite, playing here and there. Several times they stopped to rest beside
+the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or
+weeds. Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every
+step.
+
+Their road led always upward, with a gradual, easy grade; and by noon they
+had left the cultivated section of the lower valley for the higher,
+untilled lands. The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the lighter
+shining tints of the lemon groves, with the rich, satiny-gray tones of the
+olive-trees, were replaced now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and
+browns of the chaparral. The air was no longer heavy with the perfume of
+roses and orange-blossoms, but came to their nostrils laden with the
+pungent odors of yerba santa and greasewood and sage. Looking back, they
+could see the valley--marked off by its roads into many squares of green,
+and dotted here and there by small towns and cities--stretching away
+toward the western ocean until it was lost in a gray-blue haze out of
+which the distant San Gabriels, beyond Cajon Pass, lifted into the clear
+sky above, like the shore-line of dreamland rising out of a dream sea.
+Before them, the San Bernardinos drew ever nearer and more
+intimate--silently inviting them; patiently, with a world old patience,
+bidding them come; in the majestic humbleness of their lofty spirit,
+offering themselves and the wealth of their teaching.
+
+So they came, in the late afternoon, to that spot where the road for the
+first time crosses the alder and cottonwood bordered stream that, before
+it reaches the valley, is drawn from its natural course by the irrigation
+flumes and pipes.
+
+The sound of the mountain waters leaping down their granite-bouldered way
+reached the men while they were yet some distance. Croesus pointed his
+long ears forward in burro anticipation--his experience telling him that
+the day's work was about to end. Czar was already ranging along the side
+of the creek--sending a colony of squirrels scampering to the tree tops,
+and a bevy of quail whirring to the chaparral in frightened flight. The
+artist greeted the waters with a schoolboy shout of gladness. Conrad
+Lagrange, with the smile and the voice of a man miraculously recreated,
+said quietly, "This is the place where we stop for the night."
+
+Their camp was a simple matter. Croesus asked nothing but to be released
+from his burden--being quite capable of caring for himself. A wash in the
+clear, cold water of the brook; a simple meal, prepared by Conrad Lagrange
+over a small fire made of sticks gathered by the artist; their tarpaulin
+and blankets spread within sound of the music of the stream; a watching of
+the sun's glorious going down; a quiet pipe in the hush of the mysterious
+twilight; a "good night" in the soft darkness, when the myriad stars
+looked down upon the dull red glow of their camp-fire embers; with the
+guarding spirit of the mighty hills to give them peace--and they lay down
+to sleep at the mountain's feet.
+
+There is no sleeping late in the morning when one sleeps in the open,
+under the stars. After breakfast, the artist received another lesson in
+packing, and they moved on toward the world that already seemed to dwarf
+that other world which they had left, by one day's walking, so far below.
+A heavy fog, rolling in from the ocean in the night, submerged the valley
+in its dull, gray depths--leaving to the eye no view but the view of the
+mountains before them, and forcing upon the artist's mind the weird
+impression that the life he had always known was a fantastically unreal
+dream.
+
+And now,--as they approached,--the frowning entrance of Clear Creek Canyon
+grew more and more clearly defined. The higher peaks appeared to draw back
+and hide themselves behind the foothills, which--as the men came closer
+under their immediate slopes and walls--seemed to grow magically in height
+and bulk. A little before noon, they were in the rocky vestibule of the
+canyon. On either hand, the walls rose almost sheer, while their road,
+now, was but a narrow shelf under the overhanging cliffs, below which the
+white waters of the stream--cold from the snows so far above--tumbled
+impetuously over the boulders that obstructed their way--filling the
+hall-like gorge with tumultuous melody. Soon, the canyon narrowed to less
+than a stone's throw in width. The walls grew more grim and forbidding in
+their rocky nearness. And then they came to that point where, on either
+side, great cliffs, projecting, form the massive, rugged portals of the
+mountain's gate.
+
+First seen, from a point where the road rounds a jutting corner on the
+extreme right, the projecting cliffs ahead appear as a blank wall of rock
+that forbids further progress. But, as the men moved forward,--the road
+swinging more toward the center of the gorge,--the cliffs seemed to draw
+apart, and, through the way thus opened, they saw the great canyon and the
+mountains beyond. It was as though a mighty, invisible hand rolled
+silently back those awful doors to give them entrance.
+
+Abruptly, upon the inner side of the narrow passage the canyon widens to
+many times the width of the outer vestibule; and the road, crossing the
+creek, curves to the left; so that, looking back as they went, the two men
+saw the mighty doors closing again, behind them--as they had opened to let
+them in. It was as though that spirit sentinel, guarding the treasures of
+the hills, had jealously barred the way, that no one else from the world
+of men might follow.
+
+Aaron King stopped. Drawing a deep breath, and removing his hat, he turned
+his face from that mountain wall, upward to the encircling pine-fringed
+ridges and towering peaks. He had, indeed, come far from the world that he
+had always known.
+
+Conrad Lagrange, smiling, watched his friend, but spoke no word.
+
+Clear Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow valley, some fifteen miles in length,
+and approaching a mile in its greatest width; lying between the main range
+of the San Bernardinos and the lower ridge of the Galenas. The lower end
+of the canyon is shut in by the sheer cliff walls, and by the rugged
+portals of the narrow entrance; the upper end is formed by the dividing
+ridge that separates the Clear Creek from the Cold Water country which
+opens out onto the Colorado Desert below San Gorgonio Pass and the peaks
+of the San Jacintos. Perhaps two miles above the entrance the canyon
+widens to its greatest width; and in this portion of the little
+valley,--which extends some five miles to where the walls again draw
+close,--located on the benches above the boulder-strewn wash of Clear
+Creek, are the homes of several mountain ranchers, and the Government
+Forest Ranger Station.
+
+At the Ranger Station, they stopped--Conrad Lagrange wishing to greet the
+mountaineer official, whom he had learned to know on his former trip. But
+the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his lonely trails, and they did not
+tarry.
+
+Just above the Station, they left the main road to follow the way that
+leads to the Morton Ranch in the mouth of Alder Canyon--a small side
+canyon leading steeply up to a low gap in the main range. Beyond Morton's,
+there is only a narrow trail. Three hundred yards above the ranch corral,
+where the road ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the
+mountaineer's home were lost to view. Except for the narrow winding path
+that they must follow single file, there was no sign of human life.
+
+For three weeks, they knew no roads other than those lonely, mountain
+trails. At times, they walked under dark pines where the ground was
+thickly carpeted with the dead, brown needles and the air was redolent
+with the odor of the majestic trees; or made their camps at night, feeding
+their blazing fires with the pitchy knots and cones. At other times, they
+found their way through thickets of manzanita and buckthorn, along the
+mountain's flank; or, winding zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made
+themselves at home under the slender, small-trunked alders; and added to
+the stores that Croesus packed, many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy
+torrent. Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or peak, where
+the pines were twisted and battered and torn by the warring elements, they
+looked far down upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world below;
+or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their fires; and, when the
+night was clear, saw, miles away and below, the thousands of twinkling
+star-like lights of the world they had left behind. Or, again, they halted
+in some forest and hill encircled glen; where the lush grass in the
+cienaga grew almost as high as Croesus' back, and the lilies even higher;
+and where, through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come down to
+drink at the beginning of some mountain stream. At last, their wanderings
+carried them close under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio--the loftiest
+of all the peaks. That night, they camped at timber-line and in the
+morning,--leaving Croesus and the outfit, while it was still dark,--made
+their way to the top, in time to see the sun come up from under the edge
+of the world.
+
+So they were received into the inner life of the mountains; so the spirit
+that dwells in that unmarred world whispered to them the secrets of its
+enduring strength and lofty peace.
+
+From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that leads down to upper Clear
+Creek--halting, one night, at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the
+falls. Then--leaving the Laurel trail--they climbed over a spur of the
+main range, and so down the steep wall of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern
+Creek. The next day, they made their way on down to the floor of the main
+canyon--five miles above the point where they had left it at the beginning
+of their wanderings.
+
+Crossing the canyon at the Clear Creek Power Company's intake, they took
+the company trail that follows the pipe-line along the southern wall. From
+the headwork to the reservoir two thousand feet above the power-house at
+the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, this trail is cut in the steep side of
+the Galena range--overhanging the narrow valley below--nine beautiful
+miles of it. At Oak Knoll,--where a Government trail for the Forest Ranger
+zigzags down from the pipe-line to the wagon road below,--they halted.
+
+Conrad Lagrange explained that there were three ways back to the world
+they had left, nearly a month before--the pipe-line trail to the reservoir
+and so down to the power-house and the Fairlands road; the Government
+trail from the pipe-line, over the Galenas to the valley on the other
+side; or, the Oak Knoll trail down to Clear Creek and out through the
+canyon gates--the way they had come.
+
+"But," objected Aaron King, lazily,--from where he lay under a live-oak on
+the mountainside, a few feet above the trail,--"either route presupposes
+our wish to return to Fairlands."
+
+The novelist laughed. "Listen to him, Czar,"--he said to the dog lying at
+his feet,--"listen to that painter-man. He doesn't want to go back to
+Fairlands any more than we do, does he?"
+
+Rising, Czar looked at his master a moment, with slow waving tail, then
+turned inquiringly toward the artist.
+
+"Well," said the young man, "what about it, old boy? Which trail shall we
+take? Or shall we take any of them?"
+
+With a prodigious yawn,--as though to indicate that he wearied of their
+foolish indecision,--Czar turned, with a low "woof," toward the fourth
+member of the company, who was browsing along the edge of the trail.
+Whenever Czar was in doubt as to the wants of his human companions he
+always barked at the burro.
+
+"He says, 'ask Croesus'," commented the artist.
+
+"Good!" cried the older man, with another laugh. "Let's put it up to the
+financier and let him choose."
+
+"Wait,"--said the artist, as the other turned toward the burro,--"don't be
+hasty--the occasion calls for solemn meditation and lofty discourse."
+
+"Your pardon,"--returned the novelist,--"'tis so. I will orate." Carefully
+selecting a pebble in readiness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the
+shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack is lighter by many
+meals than when first thou didst set out from that land where we did
+rescue thee from the hands of thy tormenting trader; but thy
+responsibilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom of thy choice,
+now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy chance, O illustrious ass, to
+recompense the world, this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious
+ancestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the way thy
+benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, Croesus, that thou dost choose
+wisely; or, by thy ears, we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the
+mountainside--a warning to thy kind."
+
+The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it
+was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus--with an indignant jerk of his
+head, and a flirt of his tail--started forward. At the fork of the trail,
+he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of
+accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and
+trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
+Laughing, the men followed--but far enough in the rear to permit their
+leader to choose his own way when they should reach the wagon road at the
+foot of the mountain wall. Without an instant's hesitation, Croesus turned
+down the road--quickening his pace, almost, into a trot.
+
+"By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like he knew where he was
+going."
+
+"He's taking you at your word," returned the artist. "Look at him go!
+Evidently, he's still under the inspiration of your oratory."
+
+The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gallop that caused the
+frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed on the outside of the pack, to rattle
+merrily. Splashing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark shadow of
+a thicket of alders and willows, where the road crosses a tiny rivulet
+that flows from a spring a hundred yards above. Climbing out of this
+gloomy hollow, the road turns sharply to the left, and the men hurried on
+to overtake their four-footed guide before he should be too long out of
+their sight. Just at the top of the little rise, before rounding the turn,
+they stopped. A few feet to the right of the road, with his nose at an
+old gate, stood Croesus. Nor would he heed Czar's bark commanding him to
+go on.
+
+On the other side of the fence, an old and long neglected apple orchard, a
+tumble-down log barn, and the wreck of a house with the fireplace and
+chimney standing stark and alone, told the story. The place was one of
+those old ranches, purchased by the Power Company for the water rights,
+and deserted by those who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient
+wagon tracks, overgrown with weeds, led somewhere around the edge of the
+orchard and were lost in the tangle of trees and brush on its lower side.
+
+The two men looked at each other in laughing surprise. The burro, turning
+his head, gazed at them over his shoulder, inquiringly, as much as to say,
+"Well, what's the matter now? Why don't you come along?"
+
+"When in doubt, ask Croesus," said the artist, gravely.
+
+Conrad Lagrange calmly opened the gate.
+
+Promptly, the burro trotted ahead. Following the ancient weed-grown
+tracks, he led them around the lower end of the orchard; crossed a little
+stream; and, turning again, climbed a gentle rise of open, grassy land
+behind the orchard; stopping at last, with an air of having accomplished
+his purpose, in a beautiful little grove of sycamore trees that bordered a
+small cienaga.
+
+Completely hidden by the old orchard from the road in front, and backed by
+the foot of the mountain spur that here forms the northern wall of the
+little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view of the encircling
+peaks and ridges. San Bernardino was almost above their heads. To the
+east, were the more rugged walls of the upper and narrower end of the
+canyon; in their front, the beautiful Oak Knoll, with the dark steeps and
+pine-fringed crest of the Galenas against the sky; while to the west, the
+blue peaks of the far San Gabriels showed above the lower spurs and
+foothills of the more immediate range. The foreground was filled in by the
+gentle slope leading down to the tiny stream at the edge of the old
+orchard and, a little to the left, by the cienaga--rich in the color of
+its tall marsh grass and reeds, gemmed with brilliant flowers of gold and
+scarlet, bordered by graceful willows, and screened from the eye of the
+chance traveler by the lattice of tangled orchard boughs.
+
+Seated in the shade of the sycamores on the little knoll, the two friends
+enjoyed the beauty of the scene, and the charming seclusion of the lovely
+retreat; while Croesus stood patiently, as though waiting to be rewarded
+for his virtue, by the removal of his pack. Even Czar refrained from
+charging here and there, and lay down contentedly at their feet, with an
+air of having reached at last the place they had been seeking.
+
+A few days later found them established in a comfortable camp; with tents
+and furniture and hammocks and books and the delighted Yee Kee to take
+care of them. It had been easy to secure permission from the neighboring
+rancher who leased the orchard from the Company. Conrad Lagrange, with
+the man and his big mountain wagon, had made a trip to town--returning the
+next day with Yee Kee and the outfit. He brought, also, things from the
+studio; for the artist declared that he would no longer be without the
+materials of his art.
+
+The first day after the camp was built, the artist--declaring that he
+would settle the question, at once, as to whether Yee Kee could cook a
+trout as skillfully as the novelist--took rod and flies, and--leaving the
+famous author in a hammock, with Czar lying near--set out up the canyon.
+For perhaps two miles, the painter followed the creek--taking here and
+there from clear pool or swirling eddy a fish for his creel, and pausing
+often, as he went, to enjoy--in artist fashion--the beauties of the ever
+changing landscape.
+
+The afternoon was almost gone when he finally turned back toward camp. He
+had been away, already longer than he intended; but still--as all
+fishermen will understand--he could not, on his way back down the stream,
+refrain from casting here and there over the pools that tempted him.
+
+The sun was touching the crest of the mountains when he had made but
+little more than half the distance of his return. He had just sent his fly
+skillfully over a deep pool in the shadow of a granite boulder, for what
+he determined must be his last cast, when, startlingly clear and sweet,
+came the tones of a violin.
+
+A master trout leaped. The hand of the unheeding fisherman felt the tug
+as the leader broke. Giving the victorious fish no thought, Aaron King
+slowly reeled in his line.
+
+There was no mistaking the pure, vibrant tones of the music to which the
+man listened with amazed delight. It was the music of the, to him, unknown
+violinist who lived hidden in the orange grove next door to his studio
+home in Fairlands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+The Forest Ranger's Story
+
+
+
+Perhaps the motive that, in Fairlands, had restrained the artist from
+seeking to know his neighbor was without force in the mountains. Perhaps
+it was that, in the unconventional freedom of the hills, the man obeyed
+more readily his impulse. Aaron King did not stop to question. As though
+in answer to the call of that spirit which spoke in the tones of the
+violin, he moved in the direction from which the music came.
+
+Climbing out of the bed of the stream to the bench that slopes hack--a
+quarter of a mile, perhaps--to the foot of the canyon wall, he found
+himself in an old road that, where it once crossed the creek, had been
+destroyed by the mountain floods. Wonderingly he followed the dimly marked
+track that led through the chaparral toward a thicket of cedars, from
+beyond which the music seemed to come. Where the road curved to find its
+way through the green barrier he paused--the musician, undoubtedly, now,
+was just beyond. Still acting upon the impulse of the moment, he
+cautiously parted the boughs and peered through into a little, open glade
+that was closed in on every side by the rank growth of the mountain
+vegetation, by the thicket of dark cedars and by tangled masses of wild
+rose-bushes. Opposite the spot where he stood, and half concealed by great
+sycamore trees, was a small, log house with a thread of blue smoke curling
+lazily from the chimney. The place was another of those old ranches that
+had been purchased by the Power Company and permitted to go back to the
+wilderness from which it had been won by some hardy settler. The little
+plot of open ground--well sodded with firm turf and short-cropped by
+roving cattle and deer--had evidently been, at one time, the front yard of
+the mountaineer's home. A little out from the porch, and in full view of
+the artist,--her graceful form outlined against the background of wild
+roses,--stood Sibyl Andrés with her violin.
+
+As the girl played,--her winsome face upturned to the mountain heights and
+her body, lightly poised, swaying with the movement of her arm as easily
+as a willow bough,--she appeared, to the man hidden in the cedars, as some
+beautiful spirit of the woods and hills--a spirit that would vanish
+instantly if he should step from his hiding place. He was so close that he
+could see her blue eyes, wide and unmindful of her surroundings; her lips,
+curved in an unconscious smile; and her cheeks, flushed with emotion under
+their warm brown tint--as she appeared to listen for the music that she,
+in turn,--seemingly with no effort of her will,--gave forth again in the
+tones of the instrument under her chin.
+
+Aaron King was moved by the beauty of the picture as he had never been
+stirred before. The peculiar charm of the music; the loveliness of the
+girl herself; the setting of the scene in the little glade with its wild
+roses, giant sycamores, dark cedars, and encircling mountain walls, all in
+the soft mystery of the twilight's beginning; and, withal, the
+unexpectedness of the vision--combined to make an impression upon the
+artist's mind that would endure for many years.
+
+Suddenly, as he watched, the music ceased. The girl lowered her violin,
+and, with a low laugh, said to some one on the porch--concealed from the
+painter by the trunk of a sycamore--"O Myra, I want to dance. I can't keep
+still. I'm so glad, glad to be home again--to see old 'San Berdo' and
+'Gray Back' and all the rest of them up there!" She stretched out her arms
+as if in answer to a welcome from the hills. Then, whirling quickly, she
+gave the violin to her companion on the porch. "Play, Myra; please, dear,
+play."
+
+At her word, the music of the violin began again--coming now, from behind
+the trunk of the sycamore. In the hands of the unseen musician, the
+instrument laughed and sang a song of joyous abandonment--of freedom and
+rejoicing--of happiness and love--while in perfect harmony with the spirit
+and the rhythm of the melody, the girl danced upon the firm, green carpet
+of grass. Here and there, to and fro, about the little glade shut in from
+the world by its walls of living green, she tripped and whirled in
+unstudied grace--lightly as if winged--unconscious as the wild creatures
+that play in the depths of the woods--wayward as the zephyr that trips
+along the mountainside.
+
+It was a spontaneous expression of her spiritual and physical exaltation
+and was as natural as the laughter in her voice or the flush upon her
+cheeks. It was a dance that was like no dance that Aaron King had ever
+seen.
+
+The artist--watching through the screen of cedar boughs beside the old
+wagon road and scarcely daring to breathe lest the beautiful vision should
+vanish--forgot his position--forgot what he was doing. Fascinated by the
+scene to which he had been led, so unexpectedly by the music he had so
+often heard while at work in his studio, he was unmindful of the rude part
+he was playing. He was brought suddenly to himself by a heavy hand upon
+his shoulder. As he straightened, the hand whirled him half around and he
+found himself looking into a face that was tanned and seamed by many years
+in the open.
+
+The man who had so unceremoniously commanded the artist's attention stood
+a little above six feet in height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but
+full-muscled build that so often marks the mountain bred. He wore no coat.
+At his hip, a heavy Colt revolver hung in its worn holster from a full,
+loosely buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest was the shield
+of the United States Forest Service. From under the brim of his slouch
+hat, he gazed at Aaron King questioningly--in angry disapproval.
+
+Instinctively, neither of the men spoke. A word would have been heard the
+other side of the cedars. With a gesture commanding the artist to follow,
+the Ranger quietly, withdrew along the wagon road toward the creek.
+
+When they were at a distance where their voices would not reach the girl
+in the glade, the Ranger said with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps
+you will tell me who you are and what you mean by spying upon a couple of
+women, like that."
+
+The other could not conceal his embarrassment. "I don't blame you for
+calling me to account," he said. "If it were me--if our positions were
+reversed I mean--I should kick you down into the creek there."
+
+The cold, blue eyes--that had been measuring the painter so
+shrewdly--twinkled with a hint of humor. "You _do_ look like a gentleman,
+you know," the officer said,--as if excusing himself for not following the
+artist's suggestion. "But, all the same, you must explain. Who are you?"
+
+"That part is easy, at least," returned the other. "Though the
+circumstance of our meeting _is_ a temptation to lie."
+
+"Which would do you no good, and might lead to unpleasant complications,"
+retorted the Ranger, sharply.
+
+The man under question, still embarrassed, laughed shortly, as he
+returned, "I really was not thinking of it seriously. My name is Aaron
+King. I am an artist. You are Mr. Oakley, I suppose."
+
+The officer nodded--beginning to smile. "Yes, I am Brian Oakley."
+
+The artist continued, "A month ago, Conrad Lagrange and I came into the
+mountains for an outing. We stopped at the Station, but there was no one
+at home. Most of the time, we have been just roaming around. Now, we are
+camped down there, back of that old apple orchard."
+
+The Ranger broke into a laugh. "Mrs. Oakley was visiting friends up the
+canyon, the day you came in; but Morton told me. I've crossed your trail a
+dozen times, and sighted you nearly as many; but I was always too busy to
+go to you. I knew Lagrange didn't need any attention, you see; so I just
+figured on meeting up with you somewhere by accident like--about meal
+time, mebbe." He laughed again. "The accident part worked out all right."
+He paused, still laughing--enjoying the artist's discomfiture; then ended
+with a curious--"What in thunder were you sneaking around in the brush
+like that for, anyway? Those women won't bite."
+
+Aaron King explained how he had heard the music while fishing; and how,
+following the sound, he had acted upon an impulse to catch a glimpse of
+the unknown musician before revealing himself; and then, in his interest,
+had forgotten that he was playing the part of a spy--until so rudely
+aroused by the hand of the Ranger.
+
+Brian Oakley chuckled; "If _I'd_ acted upon impulse when I first saw you
+peeking through those cedars, you would have been more surprised than you
+were. But while I was sneaking up on you I noticed your get-up--with your
+creel and rod--and figured how you might have come there. So I thought I
+would go a little slow."
+
+"And you wear rather heavy boots too," said the artist suggestively. Then,
+more at ease, he joined in the laugh at himself.
+
+"Catch any fish?" asked the Ranger--lifting the cover of the creel.
+"Whee!" as he saw the contents. "That's bully! And I'm hungry as a she
+wolf too! Been in the saddle since sunup without a bite. What do you say
+if I make that long deferred social call upon you and Lagrange this
+evening?"
+
+"I say, good! Mr. Oakley," returned the artist, heartily. "I guess you
+know what Lagrange will say."
+
+"You bet I do." He whistled--a low, birdlike note. In answer, a beautiful,
+chestnut saddle-horse came out of the chaparral, where it had not been
+seen by the painter. "We're going, Max," said the officer, in a
+matter-of-fact way. And, as the two men set out, the horse followed, with
+a business-like air that brought a word of admiring comment from the
+artist.
+
+That Aaron King had won the approval of the Ranger was evidenced by the
+mountaineer's inviting himself to supper the camp in the sycamores. The
+fact that the officer considerately told Conrad Lagrange only that he had
+met the artist with his creel full of trout, and so had been tempted to
+accompany him, won the enduring gratitude of the young man. Thus the
+circumstances of their meeting introduced each to the other, with
+recommendations of peculiar value, and marked the beginning of a genuine
+and lasting friendship. But, while, out of delicate regard for the
+artist's feelings, he refrained from relating the--to the young
+man--embarrassing incident, Brian Oakley could not resist making, at every
+opportunity, sly references to their meeting--for the painter's benefit
+and his own amusement. Thus it happened that, after supper, as they sat
+with their pipes, the talk turned upon Sibyl Andrés and the woman with the
+disfigured face.
+
+The Ranger, to tease the artist, had remarked casually,--after
+complimenting them upon the location of their camp,--"And you've got some
+mighty nice neighbors, less than a mile above too."
+
+"Neighbors!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange--in a tone that left no doubt as
+to his sentiment in the matter.
+
+The others laughed; while the officer said, "Oh, I know how _you_ feel!
+You think you don't want anybody poaching on your preserves. You're up
+here in the hills to get away from people, and all that. But you don't
+need to be uneasy. You won't even see these folks--unless you sneak up on
+them." He stole a look at the artist, and chuckled maliciously as the
+painter covertly shook his fist at him. "You may _hear_ them though."
+
+"Which would probably be as bad," retorted the novelist, gruffly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know!" returned the other. "You might be able to stand it. I
+don't reckon you would object to a little music now and then, would
+you?--_real_ music, I mean."
+
+"So our neighbors are musical, are they?" The novelist seemed slightly
+interested.
+
+"Sibyl Andrés is the most accomplished violinist I have ever heard," said
+the Ranger. "And I haven't always lived in these mountains, you know. As
+for Myra Willard--well--she taught Sibyl--though she doesn't pretend to
+equal her now."
+
+Conrad Lagrange was interested, now, in earnest He turned to the artist,
+eagerly--but with caution--"Do you suppose it could be our neighbors in
+the orange grove, Aaron?"
+
+Brian Oakley watched them with quiet amusement.
+
+"I know it is," returned the artist.
+
+"You know it is!" ejaculated the other.
+
+"Sure--I heard the violin this afternoon. While I was fishing," he added
+hastily, when the Ranger laughed.
+
+The novelist commented savagely, "Seems to me you're mighty careful about
+keeping your news to yourself!"
+
+This brought another burst of merriment from the mountaineer.
+
+When the two men had explained to the Ranger about the music in the orange
+grove, Conrad Lagrange related how they had first heard that cry in the
+night; and how, when they had gone to the neighboring house, they had seen
+the woman of the disfigured face standing in the doorway.
+
+"It was Miss Willard who cried out," said Brian Oakley, quietly. "She
+dreams, sometimes, of the accident--or whatever it was--that left her with
+those scars--at least, that's what I think it is. Certainly it's no
+ordinary dream that would make a woman cry like that. The first time I
+heard her--the first time that she ever did it, in fact--she and Sibyl
+were stopping over night at my house. It was three years ago. Jim Rutlidge
+had just come West, on his first trip, and was up in the hills on a hunt.
+He happened along about sundown, and when he stepped into the room and
+Myra saw him, I thought she would faint. He looked like some one she had
+known--she said. And that night she gave that horrible cry. Lord! but it
+threw a fright into me. My wife didn't get over being nervous, for a week.
+Myra explained that she had dreamed--but that's all she would say. I
+figured that being upset by Rutlidge's reminding her of some one she had
+known started her mind to going on the past--and then she dreamed of
+whatever it was that gave her those scars."
+
+"You have known Miss Willard a long time, haven't you, Brian?" asked
+Conrad Lagrange, with the freedom of an old comrade--for men may grow
+closer together in one short season in the mountains than in years of
+meeting daily in the city.
+
+"I've known her ever since she came into the hills. That was the year
+Sibyl was born. All that anybody knows is what has happened since. Sibyl's
+mother, even--a month before she died--told me that Myra's history, before
+she came to them, was as unknown to her as it was the day she stopped at
+their door."
+
+"I can't get over the feeling that I ought to know her--that I have seen
+her somewhere, years ago," said the novelist, by way of explaining his
+interest.
+
+"Then it was before she got those scars," returned the Ranger. "No one
+could ever forget her face as it is now."
+
+"At the same time," commented the artist, "the scars would prevent your
+identifying her if she received them after you had known her."
+
+"All the same," said Conrad Lagrange,--as though his mind was bothered by
+his inability to establish some incident in his memory,--"I'll place her
+yet. Do you mind, Brian, telling us what you _do_ know of her?"
+
+"Why, not at all," returned the officer. "The story is anybody's property.
+Its being so well known is probably the reason you didn't hear it when you
+were up here before.
+
+"Sibyl's father and mother were here in the mountains when I came. They
+lived up there at the old place where Myra and Sibyl are camping now, and
+I never expect to meet finer people--either in this world or the next. For
+twenty years I knew them intimately. Will Andrés was as true and square
+and white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good a woman as he was
+a man. They and my wife and I were more like brothers and sisters than
+most folks who are actually blood kin.
+
+"One day, along toward sundown, about a month before Sibyl was born, Nelly
+heard the dogs barking and went to see what was up. There stood Myra
+Willard at the gate--like she'd dropped out of the sky. Where she came
+from God only knows--except that she'd walked from some station on the
+railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course,
+Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted
+to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said,
+straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew,
+then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were
+against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying to get
+away from something. But the women--Nelly and my wife--somehow, believed
+in her, and--with the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of help
+hard to get--they carried the day. Well, sir, she made good. If twenty
+years acquaintance goes for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I
+don't care a damn what her history is.
+
+"We soon saw that she was educated and refined, and--as you can see for
+yourself--she must have been remarkably beautiful before she got so
+disfigured. When the baby was born, she just took the little one into her
+poor, broken heart like it had been her own, until Sibyl hardly knew which
+was her own mother. When the girl was old enough for school, Myra begged
+Will and Nelly to let her teach the child. She was always sending for
+books and it was about that time that she sent for a violin. The girl took
+to music like a bird. And--well--that's the way Sibyl was raised. She's
+got all the education that the best of them have--even to French and
+Italian and German--and she's missed some things that the schools teach
+outside of their text-books. She has a library--given to her mostly by
+Myra, a book at a time--that represents the best of the world's best
+writers. You know what her music is. But, hell!"--the Ranger interrupted
+himself with an apologetic laugh--"I'm supposed to be talking about Myra
+Willard. I don't know as I'm so far off, either, because what Sibyl
+is--aside from her natural inheritance from Will and Nelly--Myra has made
+her.
+
+"When Will was killed by those Mexican outlaws,--which is a story in
+itself,--Nelly sold the ranch to the Power Company, and bought an orange
+grove in Fairlands--which was the thing for her to do, as she and Myra
+could handle that sort of property, and the ranch had to go, anyway.
+Before Nelly died, she and I talked things over, and she put everything in
+Myra's hands, in trust for the girl. Later, Myra sold the grove and the
+house where you men live, now, and bought the little place next
+door--putting the rest of the money into gilt-edged securities in Sibyl's
+name; which insures the girl against want, for years to come. Sibyl helps
+out their income with her music. And that's the story, boys, except that
+they come up here into the mountains, every summer, to spend a month or so
+in the old home place."
+
+The Ranger rose to go.
+
+"But do you think it is safe for those women to stay up there alone?"
+asked Aaron King.
+
+Brian Oakley laughed. "Safe! You don't know Myra Willard! Sibyl, herself,
+can pick a squirrel out of the tallest pine in the mountains with her
+six-shooter. Will and I taught her all we knew, as she grew up. Besides,
+you see, I drop in every day or so, to see that they're all right." He
+laughed meaningly as he added,--to Conrad Lagrange for the artist's
+benefit,--"I'm going to tell them, though, that Sibyl must be careful how
+she goes dancing around these hills--now that she has such distinguished
+but irresponsible neighbors."
+
+He whistled--and the chestnut horse was at his side before the echo of
+their laughter died away.
+
+With a "so-long," the Ranger rode away into the night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+When the Canyon Gates Are Shut
+
+
+
+If Aaron King had questioned what it was that had held him in the cedar
+thicket until Brian Oakley's heavy hand broke the spell, he would probably
+have answered that it was his artistic appreciation of the beautiful
+scene. But--deep down in the man's inner consciousness--there was a still,
+small voice--declaring, with an insistency not to be denied, that--for
+him--there was a something in that picture that was not to be put into the
+vernacular of his profession.
+
+Had he acted without his habitual self-control, the day following the
+Ranger's visit, he would, again, have gone fishing--up Clear Creek--at
+least, to the pool where that master trout had broken his leader. But he
+did not. Instead, he roamed aimlessly about the vicinity of the
+camp--explored the sycamore grove; climbed a little way up the mountain
+spur, and down again; circled the cienaga; and so came, finally, to the
+ruins of the house and barn on the creek side of the orchard.
+
+Not far from the lonely fireplace with its naked chimney, a little, old
+gate of split palings, in an ancient tumble-down fence, under a great
+mistletoe-hung oak, at the top of a bank--attracted his careless
+attention. From the gate, he saw what once had been a path leading down
+the bank to a spring, where the tiny streamlet that crossed the road a
+hundred yards away, on its course to Clear Creek, began. Pushing open the
+gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning post, the artist went down
+the path, and found himself in a charming nook--shut in on every side by
+the forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew rank and dense.
+
+For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod was firm and
+smooth--with a gray granite boulder in the center of the little glade,
+and, here and there, wild rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of
+alder trees breaking through. From the higher branches of the alders that
+shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery-green leaves, hung--with many
+a graceful loop and knot--ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of
+virgin's-bower. Along the bank below the old fence, the wild blackberries
+disputed possession with the roses; while the little stream was mottled
+with the tender green of watercress and bordered with moss and fragrant
+mint. Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak
+Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the
+orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe
+oak shut out the view. Through the screen of alder and grape and willow
+and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of
+a cathedral window. The bright waters of the spring, softly held by the
+green sod, crept away under the living wall, without a sound; but the deep
+murmur of the distant, larger stream, reached the place like the low
+tones of some great organ. A few regularly placed stones, where once had
+stood the family spring-house; with the names, initials, hearts and dates
+carved upon the smooth bark of the alders--now grown over and almost
+obliterated--seemed to fill the spot with ghostly memories.
+
+All that afternoon, the artist remained in the little retreat. The next
+day, equipped with easel, canvas and paint-box, he went again to the
+glade--determined to make a picture of the charming scene.
+
+For a month, now, uninterrupted by the distractions of social obligations
+or the like, Aaron King had been subjected to influences that had aroused
+the creative passion of his artist soul to its highest pitch. With his
+genius clamoring for expression, he had denied himself the medium that was
+his natural language. Forbidding his friend to accompany him, he worked
+now in the spring glade with a delight--with an ecstasy--that he had
+seldom, before, felt. And Conrad Lagrange, wisely, was content to let him
+go uninterrupted.
+
+As the hours of each day passed, the artist became more and more engrossed
+with his art. His spirit sang with the joy of receiving the loveliness of
+the scene before him, of making it his own, and of giving it forth
+again--a literal part of himself. The memories suggested by the stones of
+the spring-house foundation and the old carvings on the trees; the
+sunlight, falling so softly into the hushed seclusion of the glade, as
+through the traceried windows of a church; and the deep organ-tones of the
+distant creek; all served to give to the spot the religious atmosphere of
+a sanctuary; while the artist's abandonment in his work was little short
+of devotion.
+
+It was the third afternoon, when the painter became conscious that he had
+been hearing for some time--he could not have said how long--a low-sung
+melody--so blending with the organ-tones of the mountain stream that it
+seemed to come out of the music of the tumbling waters.
+
+With his brush poised between palette and canvas, the artist
+paused,--turning his head to listen,--half inclined to the belief that his
+fancy was tricking him. But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody
+was growing more distinct; but still the voice was in perfect harmony with
+the deep-toned accompaniment of the distant creek.
+
+Then he saw her. Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green
+of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and
+blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines--in the
+flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadows--she
+appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew
+out of the organ-sound of the waters.
+
+To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter had placed his
+easel a little back from the grassy, open spot. Seated as he was, on a low
+camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed--even
+by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in
+the woods and hills. As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a
+basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that
+grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the
+foot of the sheltering bank. Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered
+the fruit of Nature's offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature's
+music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native
+haunts.
+
+The man kept very still. Presently, when the girl had moved so that he
+could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his
+work--but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.
+
+Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly--losing itself,
+again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come. For a
+while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture;
+but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there. At last,
+as if compelled, he abruptly turned his head--and looked straight into her
+face.
+
+The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his work, when first the girl
+caught sight of him, that she had scarcely been startled. When she had
+ceased her song, and he, still, had not looked around; drawn by her
+interest in the picture, she had softly approached until she was standing
+quite close. Her lips were slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her
+eyes were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she stood leaning
+forward, her basket on her arm. So interested was she in the painting,
+that she seemed to have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the
+least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly into her face.
+
+"It is beautiful," she said, as though in answer to his question. And no
+one--hearing her, and watching her face as she spoke--could have doubted
+her sincerity. "It is so true, so--so"--she searched for a word, and
+smiled in triumph when she found it--"so _right_--so beautifully right.
+It--it makes me feel as--as I feel when I am at church--and the organ
+plays soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the window, and
+some one reads those beautiful words, 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let
+all the earth keep silence before him'."
+
+"Why!" exclaimed the artist, "that is exactly what I wanted it to say.
+When I saw this place, and heard the waters over there, like a great
+organ; and saw how the sunshine falls through the trees; I felt as you
+say, and I am trying to paint the picture so that those who see it will
+feel that way too."
+
+Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understanding as she cried eagerly,
+"Oh, I know! I know! I'm like that with my music! When I look at the
+mountains sometimes--or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing,
+or the winds call--I--I get so full and so--so kind of choked up inside
+that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it--and then I take
+my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel. I never can
+though--not altogether. But _you_ have made your picture say what you
+feel. That's what makes it so right, isn't it? They said in Fairlands that
+you were a great artist, and I understand why, now. It must be wonderful
+to put what you see and feel into a picture like that--where nothing can
+ever change or spoil it."
+
+Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment. "Oh, but I'm not a great
+artist, you know. I am scarcely known at all."
+
+She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sincerely troubled. "And must
+one be _known_--to be great?" she asked. "Might not an artist be great and
+still be _unknown_? Or, might not one who was really very, very"--again
+she seemed to search for a word and as she found it, smiled--"very
+_small_, be known all over the world? The newspapers make some really bad
+people famous, sometimes, don't they? No, no, you are joking. You do not
+really think that being known to the world and greatness are the same."
+
+The man, studying her closely, saw that she was speaking her thoughts as
+openly as a child. Experimentally, he said, "If putting what you feel into
+your work is greatness, then _you_ are a great artist, for your music does
+make one feel as though it came from the mountains, themselves."
+
+She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, "Oh! do you like my music?
+I so wanted you to."
+
+It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard her music. It did not
+occur to him to explain. They, neither of them, thought to remember that
+they had not been introduced. They really should have pretended that they
+did not know each other.
+
+"Sometimes," she continued with winsome confidence, "I think, myself, that
+I am really a great violinist--and then, again,"--she added wistfully,--"I
+know that I am not. But I am sure that I wouldn't like to be famous, at
+all."
+
+He laughed. "Fame doesn't seem to matter so much, does it; when one is up
+here in the hills and the canyon gates are closed."
+
+She echoed his laughter with quick delight. "Did you see that? Did you see
+those great doors open to let you in, and then close again behind you as
+if to shut the world outside? But of course you would. Any one who could
+do that"--she pointed to the canvas--"would not fail to see the canyon
+gates." With her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more to
+forget the presence of the painter.
+
+Watching her face,--that betrayed her every passing thought and emotion as
+an untroubled pool mirrors the flowers that grow on its banks or the
+song-bird that pauses to drink,--the artist--to change her mood--said,
+"You _love_ the mountains, don't you?"
+
+She turned her face toward him, again, as she answered simply, "Yes, I
+love the mountains."
+
+"If you were a painter,"--he smiled,--"you would paint them, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I don't know that I would,"--she answered thoughtfully,--"but I would try
+to get the mountains into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you
+know what I mean?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you mean; and it is a beautiful
+thought. You wouldn't paint portraits, would you?"
+
+"I don't think I _could_," she answered. "It seems to me it would be so
+hard to get the mountains into a portrait of just anybody. An artist--a
+great artist, I mean--must make his picture right, mustn't he? And if his
+picture was a portrait of some one who wasn't very good, and he made it
+right; he wouldn't be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I would
+paint portraits--unless I could paint just the people who would want me to
+make my picture right."
+
+Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were spoken so artlessly; and
+he looked at her keenly. But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose
+other than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of the force with
+which her simple words had gone home.
+
+"You love the mountains, too, don't you?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am learning to love them more
+and more. But I fear I don't know them as well as you do."
+
+"I was born up here," she said, "and lived here until a few years ago. I
+think, sometimes, that the mountains almost talk to me."
+
+"I wonder if you would help me to know the mountains as you know them," he
+asked eagerly.
+
+She drew a little back from him, but did not answer.
+
+"We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. "I heard your violin,
+the other evening, when I was fishing up the creek, near where you live;
+and so I know it is you who live next door to us in the orange grove. Mr.
+Lagrange and I are camped just over there back of the orchard. May we not
+be friends? Won't you help me to know your mountains?"
+
+"I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told us that you and Mr.
+Lagrange were camped down here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man;
+Brian Oakley says that you are too--are you?"
+
+The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did not note the significance
+of her reference to the novelist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a
+very _bad_ man."
+
+A smile broke over her face--her mood changing as quickly as the sunlight
+breaks through a cloud. "I know you are not"--she said--"a _bad_ man
+wouldn't have wanted to paint this place as you have painted it."
+
+She turned to go.
+
+"But wait!" he cried, "you haven't told me--will you teach me to know your
+mountains as you know them?"
+
+"I'm sure I cannot say," she answered smiling, as she moved away.
+
+"But at least, we will meet again," he urged.
+
+She laughed gaily, "Why not? The mountains are for you as well as for me;
+and though the hills _are_ so big, the trails are narrow, and the passes
+very few."
+
+With another laugh, she slipped away--her brown dress, that, in the shifty
+lights under the thick foliage, so harmonized with the colors of bush and
+vine and tree and rock, being so quickly lost to the artist's eye that she
+seemed almost to vanish into the scene before him.
+
+But presently, from beyond the willow wall, he heard her voice
+again--singing to the accompaniment of the mountain stream. Softly, the
+melody died away in the distance--losing itself, at last, in the deeper
+organ-tones of the mountain waters.
+
+For some minutes, the artist stood listening--thinking he heard it still.
+
+Aaron King did not, that night, tell Conrad Lagrange of his adventure in
+the spring glade.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Confessions in the Spring Glade
+
+
+
+All the next day, while he worked upon his picture in the glade, Aaron
+King listened for that voice in the organ-like music of the distant
+waters. Many times, he turned to search the flickering light and shade of
+the undergrowth, behind him, for a glimpse of the girl's brown dress and
+winsome face.
+
+The next day she came.
+
+The artist had been looking long at a splash of sunlight that fell upon
+the gray granite boulder which was set in the green turf, and had turned
+to his canvas for--it seemed to him--only an instant. When he looked again
+at the boulder, she was standing there--had, apparently, been standing
+there for some time, waiting with smiling lips and laughing eyes for him
+to see her.
+
+A light creel hung by its webbed strap from her shoulder; in her hand, she
+carried a slender fly rod of good workmanship. Dressed in soft brown, with
+short skirts and high laced boots, and her wavy hair tucked under a wide,
+felt hat; with her blue eyes shining with fun, and her warmly tinted skin
+glowing with healthful exercise; she appeared--to the artist--more as some
+mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The
+manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no
+sound of her approach--no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen
+no movement among the bushes--no parting of the willows in the wall of
+green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the
+direction from which she had come.
+
+At first, he could scarce believe his eyes, and sat motionless in his
+surprise. Then her merry laugh rang out--breaking the spell.
+
+Springing from his seat, he went forward. "Are you a spirit?" he cried.
+"You must be something unreal, you know--the way you appear and disappear.
+The last time, you came out of the music of the waters, and went again the
+same way. To-day, you come out of the air, or the trees, or, perhaps, that
+gray boulder that is giving me such trouble."
+
+Laughing, she answered, "My father and Brian Oakley taught me. If you will
+watch the wild things in the woods, you can learn to do it too. I am no
+more a spirit than the cougar, when it stalks a rabbit in the chaparral;
+or a mink, as it slips among the rocks along the creek; or a fawn, when it
+crouches to hide in the underbrush."
+
+"You have been fishing?" he asked.
+
+She laughed mockingly, "You are _so_ observing! I think you might have
+taken _that_ for granted, and asked what luck."
+
+"I believe I might almost take that for granted too," he returned.
+
+"I took a few," she said carelessly. Then, with a charming air of
+authority--"And now, you must go back to your work. I shall vanish
+instantly, if you waste another moment's time because I am here."
+
+"But I want to talk," he protested. "I have been working hard since noon."
+
+"Of course you have," she retorted. "But presently the light will change
+again, and you won't be able to do any more to-day; so you must keep busy
+while you can."
+
+"And you won't vanish--if I go on with my work?" he asked doubtfully. She
+was smiling at him with such a mischievous air, that he feared, if he
+turned away, she would disappear.
+
+She laughed aloud; "Not if you work," she said. "But if you stop--I'm
+gone."
+
+As she spoke, she went toward his easel, and, resting her fly rod
+carefully against the trunk of a near-by alder, slipped the creel from her
+shoulder, placing the basket on the ground with her hat. Then, while the
+painter watched her, she stood silently looking at the picture. Presently,
+she faced him, and, with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why don't
+you work? How can you waste your time and this light, looking at me? I
+shall go, if you don't come back to your picture, this minute."
+
+With a laugh, he obeyed.
+
+For a moment, she watched him; then turned away; and he heard her moving
+about, down by the tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows.
+
+Once, he paused and turned to look in her direction "What are you up to,
+now?" he said.
+
+"I shall be up to leaving you,"--she retorted,--"if you look around,
+again."
+
+He promptly turned once more to his picture.
+
+Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her creel and rod, where
+she could see the picture under the artist's brush. "Does it bother, if I
+watch?" she asked softly.
+
+"No, indeed," he answered. "It helps--that is, it helps when it is _you_
+who watch." Which--to the painter's secret amazement--was a literal truth.
+The gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not come right,
+ceased to trouble him, now. Stimulated by her presence, he worked with a
+freedom and a sureness that was a delight.
+
+When he could not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she
+was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in
+the world are you doing?" he asked curiously.
+
+"You are not supposed to know that I am doing anything," she retorted.
+"You have been peeking again."
+
+"You were so still--I feared you had vanished," he laughed. "If you'll
+keep talking to me, I'll know you are there, and will be good."
+
+"Sure it won't bother?"
+
+"Sure," he answered.
+
+"Well, then, _you_ talk to me, and I'll answer."
+
+"I have a confession to make," he said, carefully studying the gray tones
+of the alder trunk beyond the gray boulder.
+
+"A confession?"
+
+"Yes, I want to get it over--so it won't bother me."
+
+"Something about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, that's what I am trying so hard to make you keep your eyes on your
+work for--because _I_ have to make a confession to _you_."
+
+"To me?"
+
+"Yes--don't look around, please."
+
+"But what under the sun can you have to confess to me?"
+
+"You started yours first," she answered. "Go on. Maybe it will make it
+easier for me."
+
+Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he told her how he had
+watched her from the cedar thicket. When he had finished,--and she was
+silent,--he thought that she was angry, and turned about--expecting to see
+her gathering up her things to go.
+
+She was struggling to suppress her laughter. At the look of surprise on
+his face, she burst forth in such a gale of merriment that the little
+glade was filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of himself,
+the painter joined.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "but that _is_ funny! I am glad, glad!"
+
+"Now, what do you mean by that?" he demanded.
+
+"Why--why--that's exactly what I was trying to get courage enough to
+confess to you!" she gasped. And then she told him how she had spied upon
+him from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his absence, she had
+visited his studio.
+
+"But how in the world did you get in? The place was always locked, when I
+was away."
+
+"Oh," she said quaintly, "there was a good genie who let me in through the
+keyhole. I didn't meddle with anything, you know--I just looked at the
+beautiful room where you work. And I didn't glance, even, at the picture
+on the easel. The genie told me you wouldn't like that. I would not have
+drawn the curtain anyway, even if I hadn't been told. At least, I don't
+_think_ I would--but perhaps I might--I can't always tell what I'm going
+to do, you know."
+
+Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio door open with Conrad
+Lagrange's key in the lock, and how the novelist had berated himself with
+such exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the thought of James
+Rutlidge's visit, that afternoon, and of his strange manner and
+insinuating remarks.
+
+"I think I know the name of your good genie," said the painter, facing the
+girl, seriously. "But tell me, did no one disturb you while you were in
+the studio?"
+
+Her cheeks colored painfully, and all the laughter was gone from her voice
+as she replied, "I didn't want you to know that part."
+
+"But I must know," he insisted gravely.
+
+"Yes," she said, "Mr. Rutlidge found me there; and I ran away through the
+garden. I don't like him. He frightens me. Please, is it necessary for us
+to talk about it any more? I had to make my confession of course, but must
+we talk about _that_ part?"
+
+"No," he answered, "we need not talk about it. It was necessary for me to
+know; but we will never mention that part, again. When we are back in the
+orange groves, you shall come to the rose garden and to the studio, as
+often as you like; your good genie and I will see to it that you are not
+disturbed--by any one."
+
+Her face brightened at his words. "And do you really like for me to make
+music for you--as Mr. Lagrange says you do?"
+
+"I can't begin to tell you how much I like it," he answered smiling.
+
+"And it doesn't bother you in your work?"
+
+"It helps me," he declared--thinking of that portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+
+"Oh, I am glad, glad!" she cried. "I wanted it to help. It was for that I
+played."
+
+"You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly.
+
+She nodded. "I thought it might--if I could get enough of the mountains
+into my music, you know."
+
+"And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. You see, I only dance when
+I must--when the music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When I--when
+I"--she searched for a word, then finished abruptly--"oh, I can't tell you
+about it--it's just something you feel--there are no words for it. When I
+first come to the mountains,--after living in Fairlands all winter,--I
+always dance--the mountains feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance
+in the moonlight--when it feels so soft and light and clean; or in the
+twilight--when it's so still, and the air is so--so full of the day that
+has come home to rest and sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the
+big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, under the sky, sings
+through the dark branches."
+
+"But don't you ever dance to please your friends?"
+
+"Oh, no--I don't dance to _please_ any one--only just when it's for
+myself--when nothing else will do--when I _must_. Of course, sometimes,
+Myra or Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me--but they don't matter,
+you know. They are so much a part of me that I don't mind."
+
+"I wonder if you will ever dance for me?"
+
+Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. How could I? You see, you
+are not like anybody that I have ever known."
+
+"But I saw you the other evening, you remember."
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had known, I wouldn't have
+danced."
+
+All the while--as she talked--her fingers had been busy with the slender,
+willow branches. "And now"--she said, abruptly changing the subject, and
+smiling as she spoke--"and now, you must turn back to your work."
+
+"But the light is not right," he protested.
+
+"Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she retorted. "Can't you
+pretend?"
+
+To humor her, he obeyed, laughing.
+
+"You may look, now," she said, a minute later.
+
+He turned to see her standing close beside him, holding out a charming
+little basket that she had woven of the green willows and decorated with
+moss and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp moss, and lightly
+covered with the cress, lay a half dozen fine rainbow trout.
+
+"How pretty!" he exclaimed. "So that is what you have been doing!"
+
+"They are for you," she said simply.
+
+"For me?" he cried.
+
+She nodded brightly; "For you and Mr. Lagrange. I know you like them
+because you said you were fishing when you heard my violin. And I thought
+that you wouldn't want to leave your picture, to fish for yourself, so I
+took them for you."
+
+The artist concealed his embarrassment with difficulty; and, while
+expressing his thanks and appreciation in rather formal words, studied her
+face keenly. But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous naturalness,
+an unaffected kindliness, and an innocent disregard of conventionalities,
+that would have disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than Aaron
+King.
+
+Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, and swung the empty
+creel over her shoulder. Then, putting on her hat, she picked up her rod.
+
+"Oh--are you going?" he said.
+
+"You have finished your work for to-day," she answered
+
+"But let me go with you, a little way."
+
+She shook her head. "No, I don't want you."
+
+"But you will come again?"
+
+"Perhaps--if you won't stop work--but I can't promise--you see I never
+know what I am going to do up here in the mountains," she answered
+whimsically. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the morning; or I
+might be here, waiting for you, when you come to paint."
+
+He was putting his things in the box--thinking he would persuade her to
+let him accompany her a little way; if she saw that he really would paint
+no more. When he bent over the box, she was speaking. "I hope you will,"
+he answered.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+He straightened up and looked around.
+
+She was gone.
+
+For some time, he stood searching the glade with his eyes, carefully;
+listening to catch a sound--a puzzled, baffled look upon his face. Taking
+his things, at last, he started up the little path. But before he reached
+the old gate, a low laugh caused him to whirl quickly about.
+
+There she stood, beside the spring--a teasing smile on her face. Before he
+could command himself, she danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and
+slipped away through the green willow wall. Another merry laugh came back
+to him and then--the silence of the little glade, and the sound of the
+distant waters.
+
+With the basket of fish in his hand, Aaron King went slowly to camp;
+where, when Conrad Lagrange saw what the artist carried so carefully,
+explanations were in order.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+Sibyl Andrés and the Butterflies
+
+
+
+On the following day, the artist was putting away his things, at the close
+of the afternoon's work, when the girl appeared.
+
+The long, slanting bars of sunshine and the deepening shadows marked the
+lateness of the hour. As he bent over his paint-box, the man was thinking
+with regret that she would not come--that, perhaps, she would never come.
+And at the thought that he might not see her again, an odd fear gripped
+his heart. His thoughts were interrupted by a low, musical laugh; and he
+sprang to his feet, to search the glade with careful eyes.
+
+"Come out," he cried, as though adjuring an invisible spirit. "I know you
+are here; come out."
+
+With another laugh, she stepped from behind the trunk of one of the
+largest trees, within a few feet of where he stood. As she went toward
+him, she carried in her outstretched hands a graceful basket, woven of
+sycamore leaves and ferns, and filled with the ripest sweetest
+blackberries. She did not speak as she held out her offering; but the man,
+looking into her laughing eyes, fancied that there was a meaning and a
+purpose in the gift that did not appear upon the surface of her simple
+action.
+
+Expressing his pleasure, as he received the dainty basket, he could not
+refrain from adding, "But why do you bring me things?"
+
+She answered with that wayward, mocking humor that so often seized her;
+"Because I like to. I told you that I always do what I like--up here in
+the mountains."
+
+"I hope you always will," he returned, "if your likes are all as delicious
+as this one."
+
+With the manner of a child playfully making a mystery yet anxious to have
+the secret discussed, she said, "I have one more gift to bring you, yet."
+
+"I knew you meant something by your presents," he cried. "It isn't just
+because you want me to have the things you bring."
+
+"Oh, yes it is," she retorted, laughing mischievously at his triumphant
+and expectant tone. "If I didn't want you to have the things I
+bring--why--I wouldn't bring them, would I?"
+
+"But that isn't all," he insisted. "Tell me--why do you say you have one
+_more_ gift to bring?"
+
+She shook her head with a delightful air of mystery "Not until I come
+again. When I come again, I will tell you."
+
+"And you will come to-morrow?"
+
+She laughed teasingly at his eagerness. "How can I tell?" she answered. "I
+do not know, myself, what I will do to-morrow--when I am up here in the
+mountains--when the canyon gates are shut and the world is left outside."
+Even as she spoke, her mood changed and the last words were uttered
+wistfully, as a captive spirit--that, by nature wild and free, was
+permitted, for a brief time only, to go beyond its prison walls--might
+have spoken.
+
+The artist--puzzled by her flash-like change of moods, and by her manner
+as she spoke of the world beyond the canyon gates--had no words to reply.
+As he stood there,--in that little glade where the light fell as in a
+quiet cathedral and the air trembled with the deep organ-tones of the
+distant waters--holding in his hands the basket of leaves and ferns with
+its wild fruit, and looking at the beautiful girl who had brought her
+offering with the naturalness of a child of the mountains and the air of a
+woodland spirit,--he again felt that the world he had always known was
+very far away.
+
+The girl, too, was silent--as though, by some subtle power, she knew his
+thoughts and did not wish to interrupt.
+
+So still were they, that a wild bird--darting through the screen of alder
+boughs--stopped to swing on a limb above their heads, with a burst of
+wild-wood melody. In the arroyo beyond the willow wall, a quail called his
+evening call, and was answered by his mate from the top of the bank under
+the mistletoe oak. A pair of gray squirrels crept down the gray trunks of
+the trees and slipped around the granite boulder to drink at the spring;
+then scampered away again--half in frolic, half in fright--as they caught
+sight of the man and the maid. As the squirrels disappeared, the girl
+laughed--a low laugh of fellowship with the creatures of the
+wilderness--in complete understanding of their humor. Then--as though
+following the path of a sunbeam--two gorgeously brown and yellow winged
+butterflies came flitting through the draperies of virgin's-bower, and
+floated in zigzag flight about the glade--now high among the alder boughs;
+now low over the tops of the roses and berry-bushes; down to the fragrant
+mint at the water's edge; and up again to the tops of the willows, as if
+to leave the glade; but only to return again to the vines that covered the
+bank, and to the flowers that, here and there, starred the grassy sward.
+
+"Oh!"--cried the girl impulsively, as the beautiful winged creatures
+disappeared at last,--"if people could only be like that! It's so hard to
+be yourself in the world. Everybody, there, seems trying to be something
+they are not. No one dares to be just themselves. Everything, up here, is
+so right--so true--so just what it is--and down there, everything tries so
+hard to be just what it is not. The world even _sees_ so crooked that it
+_can't_ believe when a thing is just what it is."
+
+While watching the butterflies, she had turned away from the artist and,
+in following their flight with her eyes, had taken a few light steps that
+brought her into the open, grassy center of the glade. With her face
+upturned to the opening in the foliage through which the butterflies had
+disappeared, she had spoken as if thinking aloud, rather than as
+addressing her companion.
+
+Before the artist could reply, the beautiful creatures came floating back
+as they had gone. With a low exclamation of delight, the girl watched them
+as they circled, now, above her head, in their aerial waltz among the
+sunbeams and leafy boughs. Then the man, watching, saw her--unheeding his
+presence--stretch her arms upward. For a moment she stood, lightly poised,
+and then, with her wide, shining eyes fixed upon those gorgeously winged
+spirits whirling in the fragrant air, with her lips parted in smiling
+delight, she danced upon the smooth turf of the glade--every step and
+movement in perfect harmony with the spirit of care-free abandonment that
+marked the movements of the butterflies that danced above her head.
+Unmindful of the watching man, as her dainty companions
+themselves,--forgetful of his presence,--she yielded to the impulse to
+express her emotions in free, rhythmic movement.
+
+Instinctively, Aaron King was silent--standing motionless, as if he feared
+to startle her into flight.
+
+Suddenly, as the girl danced--her eyes always upon her winged
+companions--the insects floated above the artist's head, and she became
+conscious of his presence. Her cheeks flushed and, laughing low,--as she
+danced, lightly as a spirit,--she impulsively stretched out her arms to
+him, in merry invitation--as though challenging him to join her.
+
+The gesture was as spontaneous and as innocent, in its freedom, as had
+been her offering of the gifts from mountain stream and bush. But the
+man--lured into forgetfulness of everything save the wild loveliness of
+the scene--started toward her. At his movement, a look of bewildered fear
+came into her face; but--too startled to control her movements on the
+instant, and as though impelled by some hidden power--she moved toward
+him--blindly, unconsciously--her eyes wide with that look of questioning
+fright. He had almost reached her when, as though by an effort of her
+will, she stopped and stood still--gazing into his face--trembling in
+every limb. Then, with a low cry, she sank down in a frightened, cowering,
+pleading attitude, and buried her crimson face in her hands.
+
+As though some unseen hand checked him, the man halted, and the girl's
+cheeks were not more crimson than his own.
+
+A moment he stood, then a step brought him to her side. Putting out his
+hand, he touched her upon the shoulder, and was about to speak. But at his
+touch, with another cry, she sprang to her feet and, whirling with the
+flash-like quickness of a wild thing, vanished into the undergrowth that
+walled in the glade.
+
+With a startled exclamation, the man tried to follow calling to her,
+reassuring her, begging her to come back. But there was no answer to his
+words; nor did he catch a glimpse of her; though once or twice he thought
+he heard her in swift flight up the canyon.
+
+All the way to the place where he had first seen her, he followed; but at
+the cedar thicket he stopped. For a long time, he stood there; while the
+twilight failed and the night came. Slowly,--in the soft darkness with
+bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed,--he went back down the canyon to
+the little glade, and to the camp.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+The Three Gifts and Their Meanings
+
+
+
+The next day, Aaron King--too distracted to paint--idled all the afternoon
+in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to
+camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude
+yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the
+charm of their intimacy--and he cursed himself--as many a man has
+cursed--for that momentary lack of self-control.
+
+But the following afternoon, as the artist worked,--bent upon quickly
+finishing his picture of the place that seemed now to reproach him with
+its sweet atmosphere of sacred purity,--he heard, as he had heard that
+first day, the low music of her voice blending with the music of the
+mountain stream. Scarce daring to move, he sat as though absorbed in his
+work--listening with all his heart, for some sound of her approach, other
+than the melody of her song that grew more and more distinct. At last, he
+knew that she was standing just the other side of the willows, beyond the
+little spring. He felt her hidden eyes upon him, but dared not look that
+way--feeling sure that if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would
+vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he made show of giving close
+attention to his work and waited.
+
+For some minutes, she remained concealed; singing low, as though to try
+him with temptation. Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised
+brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view
+beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's
+green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from
+the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.
+
+"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still
+holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him
+seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue
+eyes a troubled question.
+
+"I sought you all the way to your home," he said, gently, "but you would
+not let me come near."
+
+"I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her eyes but regarding him
+steadily with that questioning appeal.
+
+"I am sorry,"--he said,--"won't you forgive me? I will never frighten you
+so again. I did not mean to do it."
+
+"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I
+frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that
+you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I
+came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"
+
+The man could not answer.
+
+As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for
+granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him
+across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said
+with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts."
+Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box
+of colors.
+
+Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by
+the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the
+artist tried to thank her.
+
+"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You
+promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you
+came again."
+
+She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in
+her teasing mood.
+
+"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you
+know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."
+
+Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied, "But didn't you
+ask me again and again to help you to know the mountains as I know them?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "but you would not promise."
+
+"I did better than promise"--she returned--"I brought you, from the
+mountains themselves, their three greatest gifts."
+
+He shook his head, with the air of a backward schoolboy--"Won't you read
+the lesson?"
+
+"If you will work while I talk, I will," she answered--amused by the
+hopelessness of his manner and tone.
+
+Obediently, he took up his brushes, and turned toward his picture.
+
+Removing her hat, she seated herself on the ground, where she had woven
+the willow basket for the fish.
+
+After a moment's silence, she began--timidly, at first, then with
+increasing confidence as she found words to express her charming fancy.
+"First, you must know, that in all the wild life of the mountains there is
+no creature so strong--in proportion to its size and weight, I mean--as
+the trout that lives in the mountain streams. Its home is in the icy
+torrents that are fed by the snows of the highest peaks and canyons. It
+lives, literally, in the innermost heart and life of the hills. It seeks
+its food at the foot of the falls, where the water boils in fierce fury;
+where the current swirls and leaps among the boulders; and where the
+stream rushes with all its might down the rocky channels. With its
+muscles, fine as tempered steel, it forces its way against the strength of
+the stream--conquering even the fifty-foot downward pour of a cataract.
+Its strength is a silent strength. It has no voice other than the voice of
+its own beautiful self. And all its gleaming colors you may see, in the
+morning and in the evening, tinting the mighty heads and shoulders and
+sides of the hills themselves. And so, the first gift that I brought
+you--fresh from the mountain's heart--was the gift of the mountain's
+strength.
+
+"The second gift was gathered from bushes that were never planted by the
+hand of man. They grow as free and untamed as the rains that water them,
+and the earth that feeds them, and the sunshine that sweetens hem. In them
+is the flavor of mountain mists, and low hung clouds, and shining dew; the
+odor of moist leaf-mould, and unimpoverished soil; the pleasant tang of
+the sunshine; and the softer sweetness of the shady nooks where they grow.
+In the second gift, I brought you the purity, and the flavor of the
+mountains."
+
+"And to-day"--she finished simply--"to-day I have brought you the beauty
+of the hills."
+
+"You have brought me more than the strength and purity and beauty of the
+mountains," exclaimed the painter. "You have brought me their mystery."
+
+She looked at him questioningly.
+
+"In your own beautiful self," he continued sincerely "you have brought me
+the mystery of these hills. You are wonderful! I have never known any one
+like you."
+
+She was wholly unconscious of the compliment--if indeed, he meant it as
+such. "I suppose I must be different," she returned with just a touch, of
+sadness in her voice. "You see I have never been taught like other girls.
+I know nothing at all of the world where you live--except what Myra has
+told me." Then, as if to change the subject, she asked shyly, "Would you
+care for my music to-day?"
+
+He assented eagerly--thinking she meant to sing. But, rising, she crossed
+the glade, and disappeared behind the willows--returning, a moment later,
+with her violin.
+
+In answer to his exclamation of pleased surprise, she said smiling, "I
+brought my violin because I thought, if you would let me play, the music
+would perhaps help us both to forget what--what happened when I danced."
+
+Standing by the gray boulder, with her face up turned to the mountains,
+she placed the instrument under her chin and drew the bow softly across
+the strings.
+
+For an hour or more she played. Then, as Czar trotted sedately into the
+glade, she lowered her instrument and, with a smile, called merrily to
+Conrad Lagrange who, attracted by the music, was standing at the gate on
+the bank--from the artist's position invisible; "Come down, good
+genie,--come down! You have been watching there quite long enough. Come,
+instantly; or with my magic I'll turn you into a fantastic, dancing bug,
+such as those that straddle there upon the waters of the spring, or else
+into a fat pollywog that wiggles in the black ooze among the dead leaves
+and rotting bits of wood."
+
+With a quick movement, she tucked her violin under her chin and played a
+few measures of the worst sort of ragtime, in perfect imitation of a
+popular performer. The effect, following the music she had just been
+making, was grotesque and horrible.
+
+"Mercy, mercy!" cried the man at the gate. "I beg! I beg! Do not, I pray,
+good nymph, torture me with thy dreadful power. I swear that I will obey
+thy every wish and whim."
+
+Pointing with her bow--as with a wand--to the boulder, she sternly
+commanded, "Come, then, and sit here upon this rock; and give to me an
+account of all that thou hast done since I left thee in the rose garden or
+I will split thy ears and stretch thy soul upon a torture rack of hideous
+noise."
+
+She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The novelist came down the
+path, on a run, to seat himself upon the gray boulder.
+
+The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist and the girl paid no
+heed to his unseemly merriment.
+
+"Speak,"--she commanded, waving her wand,--"what hast thou done?"
+
+"Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms as I could procure, open
+for thee the treasure room of thy desire?" growled the man on the rock.
+
+"And still," she retorted, "when I made myself subject to those terms, and
+obediently looked not upon the hidden mystery--still the room of my
+desires became a trap betraying me into rude hands from which I narrowly
+escaped. And you--you fled the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much
+as by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wandered, irresponsible,
+among my hills. Did you not say that my home was under these glowing
+peaks, and in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you think that I
+would not find you here, and charm you again within reach of my power?"
+
+"And what is thy will, good spirit?"--he asked, humbly--"tell me thy will
+and it shall be done--if thou wilt but make music _only_ upon the
+instrument that is in thy hand."
+
+With a laugh, she ended the play, saying, "My will is that you and Mr.
+King come, to-morrow evening, for supper with Miss Willard and me. Brian
+Oakley and Mrs. Oakley will be there. I want you too."
+
+The men looked at each other in doubt.
+
+"Really, Miss Andrés," said the artist, "we--"
+
+The girl interrupted with one of her flash-like changes. "I have invited
+you. You _must_ come. I shall expect you." And before either of the men
+could speak again, she sprang lightly across the little stream, and
+disappeared through the willow wall.
+
+"Well, I'll be--" The novelist checked himself, solemnly--staring blankly
+at the spot where she had disappeared.
+
+The artist laughed.
+
+"What do you think of it?" demanded Conrad Lagrange, turning to his
+friend.
+
+Aaron King, packing up his things, answered, "I think we'd better go."
+
+Which opinion was concurred in by Brian Oakley who dropped in on them that
+evening.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning
+
+
+
+That same afternoon, while Sibyl Andrés was making music for Aaron King in
+the spring glade, Brian Oakley, on his way down the canyon, stopped at the
+old place where Myra Willard and the girl were living. Riding into the
+yard that was fenced only by the wild growth, he was greeted cordially by
+the woman with the disfigured face, who was seated on the porch.
+
+"Howdy, Myra," he called in return, as he swung from the saddle; and
+leaving the chestnut to roam at will, he went to the porch, his spurs
+clinking softly over the short, thick grass.
+
+"Where's Sibyl?" he asked, seating himself on the top step.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Oakley," the woman answered, smiling. "You
+really didn't expect me to, did you?"
+
+The Ranger laughed. "Did she take gun, basket, rod or violin? If I know
+whether she's gone shooting berrying, fishing or fiddling, it may give me
+a clue--or did she take all four?"
+
+The woman watched him closely. "She took only her violin. She went
+sometime after lunch--down the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly
+to see her, Mr. Oakley?"
+
+It was evident to the woman that the officer was relieved. "Oh, no; she
+wouldn't be going far with her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's
+all right anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she must be
+careful, for a while. There's an escaped convict ranging somewhere in my
+district. I received the word this morning, and have been up around Lone
+Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear Creek to see if I could start
+anything. I didn't find any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell
+Sibyl that I say she must not go out without her gun--that if I catch her
+wandering around unarmed, I'll pack her off back to civilization, pronto."
+
+"I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help her to remember. It
+would be better, I suppose, if she stayed at home; but that seems so
+impossible."
+
+"She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted the Ranger,
+confidently. "I'd back the girl against anything I ever met up with--when
+she has her artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors below called
+yet?"
+
+"No--at least, not while I have been at home. I have been berrying, two or
+three times. They might have come while I was out."
+
+"Has Sibyl met them yet?" came the next question.
+
+"She has not mentioned it, if she has."
+
+"H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley.
+
+The woman's love for the girl prompted her to quick suspicion of the
+Ranger's manner.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Oakley?" she asked. "Has the child been indiscreet? Has
+she done anything wrong? Has she been with those men?"
+
+"She has called upon one of them several times," returned Brian, smiling.
+"Mr. King is painting that little glade by the old spring at the foot of
+the bank, you know, and I guess she stumbled onto him. The place is one of
+her favorite spots. But bless your heart, Myra, there's no harm in it. It
+would be natural for her to get interested in any one making a picture of
+a place she loves as she does that old spring glade. She has spent days at
+a time there--ever since she was big enough to go that far from home."
+
+"It's strange that she has not mentioned it to me," said the
+woman--troubled in spite of the Ranger's reassuring words.
+
+The man directed his attention suddenly to his horse; "Max! You let
+Sibyl's roses alone." The animal turned his head questioningly toward his
+master. "Back!" said the Ranger, "back!" At his word, the chestnut
+promptly backed across the yard until the officer called, "That will do,"
+when he halted, and, with an impatient toss of his head, again looked
+toward the porch, inquiringly. "You are all right now," said the man.
+Whereupon the horse began contentedly cropping the grass.
+
+"I met Mr. King, accidentally, once, at the depot in Fairlands," continued
+the woman with the disfigured face. "He impressed me, then, as being a
+genuinely good man--a true gentleman. But, judging from his books, Conrad
+Lagrange is not a man I would wish Sibyl to meet. I have wondered at the
+artist's friendship with him."
+
+"I tell you, Myra, Lagrange is all right," said Brian Oakley, stoutly.
+"He's odd and eccentric and rough spoken sometimes; but he's not at all
+what you would think him from the stuff he writes. He's a true man at
+heart, and you needn't worry about Sibyl getting anything but good from an
+acquaintance with him. As for King--well--Conrad Lagrange vouches for him.
+If you knew Lagrange, you'd understand what that means. He and the young
+fellow's mother grew up together. He swears the lad is right; and, from
+what I've seen of him, I believe it. It doesn't follow, though, that you
+don't need to keep your eyes open. The girl is as innocent as a
+child--though she is a woman--and--well--accidents have happened, you
+know." As he spoke he glanced unconsciously at the scars that disfigured
+the naturally beautiful face of the woman.
+
+Myra Willard blushed as she answered sadly, "Yes, I know that accidents
+have happened. I will talk with Sibyl; and will you not speak to her too?
+She loves you so, and is always guided by your wishes. A little word or
+two from you would be an added safeguard."
+
+"Sure I'll talk to her," said the Ranger, heartily--rising and whistling
+to the chestnut. "But look here, Myra,"--he said, pausing with his foot in
+the stirrup,--"the girl must have her head, you know. We don't want to put
+her in the notion that every man in the world is a villain laying for a
+chance to do her harm. There _are_ clean fellows--a few--and it will do
+Sibyl good to meet that kind." He swung himself lightly into the saddle.
+
+The woman smiled; "Sibyl could not think that all men are evil, after
+knowing her father and you, Mr. Oakley."
+
+The Ranger laughed as he turned Max toward the opening in the cedar
+thicket. "Will was what God and Nelly made him, Myra; and I--if I'm fairly
+decent it's because Mary took me in hand in time. Men are mostly what you
+women make 'em, anyway, I reckon."
+
+"Don't forget that you and Mrs. Oakley are coming for supper to-morrow,"
+she called after him.
+
+"No danger of our forgetting that," he answered. "Adios!" And the chestnut
+loped easily out of the yard.
+
+Myra Willard kept her place on the porch until the sound of the horse's
+galloping feet died away down the canyon. But, as she listened to the
+vanishing sound of the Ranger's going, her eyes were looking far away--as
+though his words had aroused in her heart memories of days long past. When
+the last echo had lost itself in the thin mountain air, she went into the
+house.
+
+Standing before the small mirror that served--in the rude, almost
+camp-like furnishings of the house--for both herself and Sibyl, she
+studied the face reflected there--turning her head slowly, as if comparing
+the beautiful unmarked side with the other that was so hideously
+disfigured. For some time she stood there, unflinchingly giving herself to
+the torture of this contemplation of her ruined loveliness; drinking to
+its bitter dregs the sorrowful cup of her secret memories; until, as
+though she could bear no more, she drew back--her eyes wide with pain and
+horror, her marred features twisted grotesquely in an agony of mental
+suffering. With a pitiful moan she sank upon her knees in prayer.
+
+In the earnestness of her spirit--out of the deep devotion of her love--as
+she prayed God for wisdom to guide the girl entrusted to her care, she
+spoke aloud. "Let me not rob her, dear Christ, of love; but help me to
+help her love aright. Help me, that in my fear for her I do not turn her
+heart against her mate when he shall come. Help me, that I do not so fill
+her pure mind with doubt and distrust of all men that she will look for
+evil, only. Help me, that I do not teach her to associate love wholly with
+that which is base and untrue. Grant, O God, that her beautiful life may
+not be marred by a love that is unworthy."
+
+As the woman with the disfigured face rose from her knees, she heard the
+voice of Sibyl, who was coming up the old road toward the cedars--singing
+as she came.
+
+When Sibyl entered the house, a moment later, Myra Willard, still
+agitated, was bathing her face. The girl, seeing, checked the song upon
+her lips; and going to the woman who in everything but the ties of blood
+was mother to her, sought to discover the reason for her troubled manner,
+and tried to soothe her with loving words.
+
+The woman held the girl close in her arms and looked into the lovely,
+winsome face that was so unmarred by vicious thoughts of the world's
+teaching.
+
+"Dear child, do you not sometimes hate the sight of my ugliness?" she
+said. "It seems to me, you must."
+
+With her arms about her companion's neck, Sibyl pressed her pure, young
+lips to those disfiguring scars, in an impulsive kiss. "Foolish Myra," she
+cried, "you know I love you too well to see anything but your own
+beautiful self behind the scars. To me, your face is all like this"--and
+she softly kissed, in turn, the woman's unmarred cheek. "Whatever made the
+marks, I know that they are not dishonorable. So I never think of them at
+all, but see only the beautiful side--which is really you, you know."
+
+"No,"--answered Myra Willard, gently,--"my scars are not dishonorable. But
+the world does not see with your pure eyes, dear child. The world sees
+only the ugly, disfigured side of my face. It never looks at the other
+side. And listen, dear heart, so the world often sees dishonor where there
+is no dishonor It sees evil in many things where there is only good."
+
+"Yes," returned the girl, "but you have never taught me to see with the
+eyes of the world. So, to me, what the world sees, does not matter."
+
+"Pray that it may never matter, child," answered the woman with the
+disfigured face, earnestly.
+
+Then, as they went out to the porch, she asked, "Did you meet Mr. Oakley
+as you were coming home?"
+
+Sibyl laughed and colored with a confusion that was new to her, as she
+answered, "Yes, I did--and he scolded me."
+
+"About your going unarmed?"
+
+"No,--but he told me about that too. I don't see why, whenever a poor
+criminal escapes, he always comes into _our_ mountains. I don't like to
+'pack a gun'--unless I'm hunting. But Brian Oakley didn't scold me for
+that, though--he knows I always do as he says. He scolded because I hadn't
+told you about my going to see Mr. King, in the spring glade." She
+laughed, conscious of the color that was in her cheeks. "I told him it
+didn't matter whether I told you or not, because he always knows every
+single move I make, anyway."
+
+"Why _didn't_ you tell me, dear?" asked the woman. "You never kept
+anything from me, before--I'm sure."
+
+"Why dearest," the girl answered frankly, "I don't know, myself, why I
+didn't tell you"--which, Myra Willard knew, was the exact truth.
+
+Then Sibyl told her foster-mother everything about her acquaintance with
+the artist and Conrad Lagrange--from the time she first watched the
+painter, from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the novelist;
+until that afternoon, when she had invited them to supper, the next day.
+Only of her dancing before the artist, the girl did not tell.
+
+Later in the evening, Sibyl--saying that she would sing Myra to
+sleep--took her violin to the porch, outside the window; and in the dusk
+made soft music until the woman's troubled heart was calmed. When the moon
+came up from behind the Galenas, across the canyon, the girl tiptoed into
+the house, to bend over the sleeping woman, in tender solicitude. With
+that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, she stooped and
+softly kissed the disfigured face upon the pillow. At the touch, Myra
+Willard stirred uneasily; and the girl--careful to make no
+sound--withdrew.
+
+On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to play; but, instead,
+sat motionless--her face turned down the canyon--her eyes looking far
+away. Then, quickly, she put aside the instrument, and--as though with
+sudden yielding to some inner impulse--slipped out into the grassy yard.
+And there, in the moon's white light,--with only the mountains, the trees,
+and the flowers to see,--she danced, again, as she had danced before the
+artist in the glade--with her face turned down the canyon, and her arms
+outstretched, longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of the old
+orchard.
+
+Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard slept, came that shuddering,
+terror-stricken cry.
+
+The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. Kneeling, she put
+her strong young arms about the cowering, trembling form on the bed.
+"There, there, dear, it's all right."
+
+The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
+"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
+Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was _you_."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+The Last Climb
+
+
+
+That first visit of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange to the old home of
+Sibyl Andrés was the beginning of a delightful comradeship.
+
+Often, in the evening, the two men, with Czar, went to spend an hour in
+friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the canyon. Always, they were
+welcomed by Myra Willard with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly
+delighted to have them come. Always, they were invited with genuine
+hospitality to "come again." Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs.
+Oakley would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger would come riding
+into the yard before they left. At times, the canyon's mountain wall
+echoed the laughter of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played
+their fantastical game of words; or again, the older people would listen
+to the blending voices of the artist and the girl as, in the quiet hush of
+the evening, they sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on the
+violin; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned to the mountain tops,
+would make for her chosen friends the music of the hills.
+
+Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the camp in the sycamore
+grove--sometimes riding with the Ranger, sometimes alone; or they would
+hear her merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard as she
+passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, she would appear--equipped with
+rod or gun or basket--to frankly challenge Aaron King to some long ramble
+in the hills.
+
+So the days for the young man at the beginning of his life work, and for
+the young woman at the beginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the
+canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring Clear Creek, from the
+Ranger Station to the falls; in the quiet glades under the alders hung
+with virgin's-bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the
+mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, cedar-sheltered gulches,
+among tall brakes and lilies; or high up on the canyon walls under the
+dark and fragrant pines--over all the paths and trails familiar to her
+girlhood she led him--showing him every nook and glade and glen--teaching
+him to know, as he had asked, the mountains that she herself so loved.
+
+The time came, at last, when the two men must return to Fairlands. With
+Mr. and Mrs. Oakley they were spending the evening at Sibyl's home when
+Conrad Lagrange announced that they would leave the mountains, two days
+later.
+
+"Then,"--said the girl, impulsively,--"Mr. King and I are going for one
+last good-by climb to-morrow. Aren't we?" she concluded--turning to the
+artist.
+
+Aaron King laughed as he answered, "We certainly seem to be headed that
+way. Where are we going?"
+
+"We will start early and come back late"--she returned--"which really is
+all that any one ought to know about a climb that is just for the climb.
+And listen--no rod, no gun, no sketch-book. I'll fix a lunch."
+
+"Watch out for my convict," warned the Ranger. "He must be getting mighty
+hungry, by now."
+
+Early in the morning, they set out. Crossing the canyon, they climbed the
+Oak Knoll trail--down which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led by
+the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks before--to the pipe-line. Where
+the path from below leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks,
+on a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the mountain's shoulder,
+they paused for a look over the narrow valley that lay a thousand feet
+below. Across the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain
+torrent's way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling Clear Creek in its
+center, they could see the white dots that marked the camp back of the old
+orchard; and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the little opening
+with the cedar thicket and the giant sycamores that marked the spot where
+Sibyl was born.
+
+Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day when he and Conrad
+Lagrange, in a spirit of venturesome fun, had left the choice of trails to
+the burro. "Good, old Croesus!" he said smiling.
+
+She knew the story of how they had been guided to their camping place, and
+laughed in return, as she answered, "He's a dear old burro, is Croesus,
+and worthy of a better name."
+
+"Plutus would be better," suggested the artist.
+
+"Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian King?" she asked curiously.
+
+"Wasn't Plutus the giver of wealth?" he returned.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, and wasn't he forced by Zeus to distribute his gifts without regard
+to the characters of the recipients?"
+
+She laughed merrily. "Plutus or Croesus--I'm glad he chose the Oak Knoll
+trail."
+
+"And so am I," answered the man, earnestly.
+
+Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung--narrow thread-like
+path--high upon the mountain wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon
+below. At a point where the trail turns to round the inward curve of one
+of the small side canyons--where the pines grow dark and tall--some
+thoughtful hand had laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under
+the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below the little path.
+Here they stopped again and, while they loitered, filled a small canteen
+with the cold, clear water from the mountain's heart. Farther on, where
+the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve of the wall between two
+mountain spurs, they turned aside to follow the Government trail that
+leads to the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then down into
+the valley on the other side. At the gap where the Galena trail crosses
+the fire-break, they again turned aside to make their leisure way along
+the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a fold and curve and kink
+like a great ribbon on the thin top of the ridge. With every step, now,
+they were climbing. Midday found them standing by a huge rock at the edge
+of a clump of pines on one of the higher points of the western end of the
+range. Here they would have their lunch.
+
+As they sat in the lee of the great rock, with the wind that sweeps the
+mountain tops singing in the pines above their heads, they looked directly
+down upon the wide Galena Valley and far across to the spurs and slopes of
+the San Jacintos beyond. Sibyl's keen eyes--mountain-trained from
+childhood--marked a railway train crawling down the grade from San
+Gorgonio Pass toward the distant ocean. She tried in vain to point it out
+to her companion. But the city eyes of the man could not find the tiny
+speck in the vast landscape that lay within the range of their vision. The
+artist looked at his watch. The train was the Golden State Limited that
+had brought him from the far away East, a few months before.
+
+Aaron King remembered how, from the platform of the observation car, he
+had looked up at the mountains from which he now looked down. He
+remembered too, the woman into whose eyes he had, for the first time,
+looked that day. Turning his face to the west, he could distinguish under
+the haze of the distance the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands. Before three days had passed he would be in his studio home
+again. And the woman of the observation car platform--From distant
+Fairlands, the man turned his eyes to the winsome face of his girl comrade
+on the mountain top.
+
+"Please"--she said, meeting his serious gaze with a smile of frank
+fellowship--"please, what have I done?"
+
+Smiling, he answered gravely, "I don't exactly know--but you have done
+something."
+
+"You look so serious. I'm sure it must be pretty bad. Can't you think what
+it is?"
+
+He laughed. "I was thinking about down there"--he pointed into the haze of
+the distant valley to the west.
+
+"Don't," she returned, "let's think about up here"--she waved her hand
+toward the high crest of the San Bernardinos, and the mountain peaks about
+them.
+
+"Will you let me paint your portrait--when we get back to the orange
+groves?" he asked.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she returned. "Why do you want to paint me? I'm
+nobody, you know--but just me."
+
+"That's the reason I want to paint you," he answered.
+
+"What's the reason?"
+
+"Because you are you."
+
+"But a portrait of me would not help you on your road to fame," she
+retorted.
+
+He flinched. "Perhaps," he said, "that's partly why I want to do it."
+
+"Because it won't help you?"
+
+"Because it won't help me on the road to fame. You _will_ pose for me,
+won't you?"
+
+"I'm sure I cannot say"--she answered--"perhaps--please don't let's talk
+about it."
+
+"Why not?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Because"--she answered seriously--"we have been such good friends up here
+in the mountains; such--such comrades. Up here in the hills, with the
+canyon gates shut against the world that I don't know, you are like--like
+Brian Oakley--and like my father used to be--and down there"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Yes," he said, "and down there I will be what?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered wistfully, "but sometimes I can see you going
+on and on and on toward fame and the rewards it will bring you and you
+seem to get farther and farther and farther away from--from the mountains
+and our friendship; until you are so far away that I can't see you any
+more at all. I don't like to lose my mountain friends, you know."
+
+He smiled. "But no matter how famous I might become--no matter what fame
+might bring me--I could not forget you and your mountains."
+
+"I would not want you to remember me," she answered "if you were famous.
+That is--I mean"--she added hesitatingly--"if you were famous just because
+you _wanted_ to be. But I know you could never forget the mountains. And
+that would be the trouble; don't you see? If you _could_ forget, it would
+not matter. Ask Mr. Lagrange, he knows."
+
+For some time Aaron King sat, without speaking, looking about at the world
+that was so far from that other world--the world he had always known. The
+girl, too,--seeming to understand the thoughts that he himself, perhaps,
+could not have expressed,--was silent.
+
+Then he said slowly, "I don't think that I care for fame as I did before
+you taught me to know the mountains. It doesn't, somehow, now, seem to
+matter so much. It's the _work_ that really matters--after all--isn't it?"
+
+And Sibyl Andrés, smiling, answered, "Yes, it's the work that really
+matters. I'm sure that _must_ be so."
+
+In the afternoon, they went on, still following the fire-break, down to
+where it is intersected by the pipe-line a mile from the reservoir on the
+hill above the power-house; then back to Oak Knoll, again on the pipe-line
+trail all the way--a beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten walk.
+
+The sun was just touching the tops of the western mountains when they
+started down Oak Knoll. The canyon below, already, lay in the shadow. When
+they reached the foot of the trail, it was twilight. Across the road, by a
+small streamlet--a tributary to Clear Creek--a party of huntsmen were
+making ready to spend the night. The voices of the men came clearly
+through the gathering gloom. Under the trees, they could see the
+camp-fire's ruddy gleam. They did not notice the man who was standing,
+half hidden, in the bushes beside the road, near the spot where the trail
+opens into it. Silently, the man watched them as they turned up the road
+which they would follow a little way before crossing the canyon to Sibyl's
+home. Fifty yards farther on, they met Brian Oakley.
+
+"Howdy, you two," called the Ranger, cheerily--without stopping his horse.
+"Rather late to-night, ain't you?"
+
+"We'll be there by dark," called the artist And the Ranger passed on.
+
+At sound of the mountaineer's voice, the man in the bushes drew quickly
+back. The officer's trained eyes caught the movement in the brush, and he
+leaned forward in the saddle.
+
+A moment later, the man reappeared in the road, farther down, around the
+bend. As the Ranger approached, he was hailed by a boisterous, "Hello,
+Brian! better stop and have a bite."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Rutlidge?" came the officer's greeting, as he reined
+in his horse. "When did you land in the hills?"'
+
+"This afternoon," answered the other. "We're just making camp. Come and
+meet the fellows. You know some of them."
+
+"Thanks, not to-night,"--returned Brian Oakley,--"deer hunt, I suppose."
+
+"Yes--thought we would be in good time for the opening of the season. By
+the way, do you happen to know where Lagrange and that artist friend of
+his are camped?"
+
+"In that bunch of sycamores back of the old orchard down there," answered
+the Ranger, watching the man's face keenly. "I just passed Mr. King, up
+the road a piece."
+
+"That so? I didn't see him go by," returned the other. "I think I'll run
+over and say 'hello' to Lagrange in the morning. We are only going as far
+as Burnt Pine to-morrow, anyway."
+
+"Keep your eyes open for an escaped convict," said the officer, casually.
+"There's one ranging somewhere in here--came in about a month ago. He's
+likely to clean out your camp. So long."
+
+"Perhaps we'll take him in for you," laughed the other. "Good night." He
+turned toward the camp-fire under the trees, as the officer rode away.
+
+"Now what in hell did that fellow want to lie to me like that for," said
+Brian Oakley to himself. "He must have seen King and Sibyl as they came
+down the trail. Max, old boy, when a man lies deliberately, without any
+apparent reason, you want to watch him."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+Shadows of Coming Events
+
+
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were idling in their camp, after breakfast
+the next morning, when Czar turned his head, quickly, in a listening
+attitude. With a low growl that signified disapproval, he moved forward a
+step or two and stood stiffly erect, gazing toward the lower end of the
+orchard.
+
+"Some one coming, Czar?" asked the artist.
+
+The dog answered with another growl, while the hair on his neck bristled
+in anger.
+
+"Some one we don't like, heh!" commented the novelist. "Or"--he added as
+if musing upon the animal's instinct--"some one we ought not to like."
+
+A bark from Czar greeted James Rutlidge who at that moment appeared at the
+foot of the slope leading up to their camp.
+
+The two men--remembering the occasion of their visitor's last call at
+their home in Fairlands, when he had seen Sibyl in the studio--received
+the man with courtesy, but with little warmth. Czar continued to manifest
+his sentiments until rebuked by his master. The coolness of the reception,
+however, in no way disconcerted James Rutlidge; who, on his part, rather
+overdid his assumption of pleasure at meeting them again.
+
+Explaining that he had come with a party of friends on a hunting trip, he
+told them how he had met Brian Oakley, and so had learned of their camp
+hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, he said, had gone on
+up the canyon. They would stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he
+could easily join them before night. He could not think, he declared, of
+passing so near without greeting his friends.
+
+"You two certainly are expert when it comes to finding snug,
+out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, searching the camp and the
+immediate surroundings with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative
+eye. "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted place without ever
+dreaming that you were so ideally hidden back here."
+
+As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to rest upon a pair of gloves
+that Sibyl--the last time she had called--had carelessly left lying upon a
+stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp fashion, the rods and
+creels and guns were kept. The artist had intended to return the gloves
+the day before, together with a book of trout-flies which the girl had
+also forgotten; but, in his eagerness for the day's outing, he had gone
+off without them.
+
+The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to note that James Rutlidge had
+seen the telltale gloves. Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he
+asked abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after the health of
+Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise.
+
+The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed the heavy features of
+James Rutlidge, as he turned his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of
+the novelist was maddening.
+
+"The old boy is steadily going down," he said without feeling. "The
+doctors tell me that he can't last through the winter. It'll be a relief
+to everybody when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as
+always--remarkable how she keeps up appearances, considering her husband's
+serious condition. Louise is quite as usual. They will all be back in
+Fairlands in another month. They sent regards to you both--in case I
+should run across you."'
+
+The two men made the usual conventional replies, adding that they were
+returning to Fairlands the next day.
+
+"So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another meaning smile. "I don't
+see how you can think of leaving your really delightful retreat. I
+understand you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps though, they are
+also returning to the orange groves and roses."
+
+Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about to reply with vigor to
+the sneering words, when Conrad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look.
+Ignoring the reference to their neighbors, the novelist replied suavely
+that they felt they must return to civilization as some matters in
+connection with the new edition of his last novel demanded his attention,
+and the artist wished to get back to his studio and to his work.
+
+"Really," urged Rutlidge, mockingly, "you ought not to go down now. The
+deer season opens in two days. Why not join our party for a hunt? We would
+be delighted to have you."
+
+They were coolly thanking him for the invitation,--that, from the tone in
+which it was given, was so evidently not meant,--when Czar, with a joyful
+bark, dashed away through the grove. A moment, and a clear, girlish voice
+called from among the trees that bordered the cienaga, "Whoo-ee." It was
+the signal that Sibyl always gave when she approached their camp.
+
+James Rutlidge broke into a low laugh while Sibyl's friends looked at each
+other in angry consternation as the girl, following her hail and
+accompanied by the delighted dog, appeared in full view; her fishing-rod
+in hand, her creel swung over her shoulder.
+
+The girl's embarrassment, when, too late, she saw and recognized their
+visitor, was pitiful. As she came slowly forward, too confused to retreat,
+Rutlidge started to laugh again, but Aaron King, with an emphasis that
+checked the man's mirth, said in a low tone, "Stop that! Be careful!"
+
+As he spoke, the artist arose and with Conrad Lagrange went forward to
+greet Sibyl in--as nearly as they could--their customary manner.
+
+Formally, Rutlidge was presented to the girl; and, under the threatening
+eyes of the painter, greeted her with no hint of rudeness in his voice or
+manner; saying courteously, with a smile, "I have had the pleasure of Miss
+Andrés' acquaintance for--let me see--three years now, is it not?" he
+appealed to her directly.
+
+"It was three years ago that I first saw you, sir," she returned coolly.
+
+"It was my first trip into the mountains, I remember," said Rutlidge,
+easily. "I met you at Brian Oakley's home."
+
+Without replying, she turned to Aaron King appealingly. "I--I left my
+gloves and fly-book. I was going fishing and called to get them."
+
+The artist gave her the articles with a word of regret for having so
+carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her
+two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back
+up the canyon, in the direction from which she had come.
+
+When the girl had disappeared among the trees, James Rutlidge said, with
+his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so
+unexpectedly. I--"
+
+Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir."
+
+"No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in
+his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be
+going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure
+you wouldn't care to join us?"
+
+"Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from
+Aaron King and the novelist.
+
+"Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to
+be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport.
+Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful
+young woman, that Miss Andrés. Charming companion--either in the mountains
+or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later."
+
+When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language
+that perhaps it would be better not to put in print.
+
+"And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous
+to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to
+charges that are not put into words."
+
+"I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said
+Aaron King, savagely.
+
+"Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly,
+and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store
+your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright,
+is sure to come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Sibyl Andrés went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that
+morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous
+freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when,
+in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she
+still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever
+known.
+
+When she returned again up the canyon, all the brightness of her day was
+gone. Her heart was heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with a
+dread of some impending evil which she could not understand. At every
+sound in the mountain wild-wood, she started. Time and again, as if
+expecting pursuit, she looked over her shoulder--poised like a creature of
+the woods ready for instant panic-stricken flight. So, without pausing to
+cast for trout, or even to go down to the stream, she returned home; where
+Myra Willard, seeing her come so early and empty handed, wondered. But to
+the woman's question, the girl only answered that she had changed her
+mind--that, after recovering her gloves and fly-book at the camp of their
+friends, she had decided to come home. The woman with the disfigured face,
+knowing that Aaron King was leaving the hills the next day, thought that
+she understood the girl's mood, and wisely made no comment.
+
+The artist and Conrad Lagrange went to spend their last evening in the
+hills with their friends. Brian Oakley, too, dropped in. But neither of
+the three men mentioned the name of James Rutlidge in the presence of the
+women; while Sibyl was, apparently, again her own bright and happy
+self--carrying on a fanciful play of words with the novelist, singing with
+the artist, and making music for them all with her violin. But before the
+evening was over, Conrad Lagrange found an opportunity to tell the Ranger
+of the incident of the morning, and of the construction that James
+Rutlidge had evidently put upon Sibyl's call at the camp. Brian
+Oakley,--thinking of the night before, and how the man must have seen the
+artist and the girl coming down the Oak Knoll trail in the
+twilight,--swore softly under his breath.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+Outside the Canyon Gates Again
+
+
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange determined to go back from the mountains,
+the way they had come. Said the novelist, "It is as unseemly to rush
+pell-mell from an audience with the gods as it is to enter their presence
+irreverently."
+
+To which the artist answered, laughing, "Even criminals under sentence
+have, at least, the privilege of going to their prisons reluctantly."
+
+So they went down from the mountains, reverently and reluctantly.
+
+Yee Kee, with the more elaborate equipment of the camp, was sent on ahead
+by wagon. The two men, with Croesus packed for a one night halt, and Czar,
+would follow. When all was ready, and they could neither of them invent
+any more excuses for lingering, Conrad Lagrange gave the word to the burro
+and they set out--down the little slope of grassy land; across the tiny
+stream from the cienaga; around the lower end of the old orchard, by the
+ancient weed-grown road--even Czar went slowly, with low-hung head, as if
+regretful at leaving the mountains that he, too, in his dog way, loved.
+
+At the gate, Aaron King asked the novelist to go on, saying that he would
+soon overtake him. It was possible, he said, that he might have left
+something in the spring glade. He thought he had better make sure. Conrad
+Lagrange, assenting, went through the gate and down the road, with the
+four-footed members of the party; and Czar must have thought that there
+was something very funny about old Croesus that morning, from the way his
+master laughed; when they were safely around the first turn.
+
+There was, of course, no material thing in the spring glade that the
+artist wanted. _He_ knew that--quite as well as his laughing friend. Under
+the mistletoe oak, at the top of the bank, he paused, hesitating--as one
+will often pause when about to enter a sacred building. Softly, he pushed
+open the old gate, as he might have pushed open the door of a church.
+Slowly, reverently, he went down the path; baring his head as he went. He
+did not search for anything that he might have left. He simply stood for a
+few minutes under the gray-trunked alders that were so marked by the
+loving hands of long ago men and maidens--beside the mint bordered spring
+with the scattered stones of that old foundation--where, through the
+screen of boughs and vines and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell as through
+the traceries of a cathedral window, and the low, deep tones of the
+mountain waters came like the music of a great organ.
+
+It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, at that time, have told
+why, as he was leaving the hills, he had paused to visit once more the
+spot where Sibyl Andrés had brought to him her three gifts from the
+mountains--where, in her pure innocence, she had danced before him the
+dance of the mating butterflies--and where, with the music of her violin,
+she had saved their friendship from the perils that threatened it--lifting
+their intimate comradeship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels,
+even as she had shown him the trails that lead from the lower canyon to
+the summits and peaks of the encircling mountain walls. But when he
+rejoined his friend there was something in his face that prevented the
+novelist from making any comment in a laughing vein.
+
+As the two men passed outward through the canyon gates and, looking
+backward as they went, saw those mighty doors close silently behind them,
+the artist was moved by emotions that were strange and new to the man who,
+two months before, had watched those gates open to receive him. This, too,
+is true; as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the mountains; so this
+man, now, knew, yet still did not know, himself.
+
+Where the road crosses, for the last time, the tumbling stream from the
+heart of the hills, they halted; and for one night slept again at the foot
+of the mountains. The next day they arrived at their little home in the
+orange grove. To Aaron King, it seemed that they had been away for years.
+
+When the traces of their days upon the road had been removed, and they
+were garbed again in the conventional costume of the world; when their
+outfit had been put away, and a home found for patient Croesus; the artist
+went to his studio. The afternoon passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but
+Aaron King did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find him. Softly,
+the older man pushed open the studio door to see the painter sitting
+before the portrait of Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's
+letters in his hand.
+
+Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving the door ajar. Going to
+the corner of the house, he whistled low, and in answer, Czar come
+bounding to him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said the man,
+pointing toward the studio. "Go find Aaron."
+
+Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, and pushing open the
+door entered the room; followed a few moments later by his master.
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel was without a canvas. The
+portrait of Mrs. Taine was turned to the wall.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake
+
+
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends,
+at Sibyl Andrés' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last
+night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of
+one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.
+
+Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear. She
+only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She
+had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge,
+until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous
+in his persistent efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the
+impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of
+their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home;
+perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often
+warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to
+develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to
+one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was, the mountain girl who
+was so naturally unafraid, feared this man who, in his own world, was an
+acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest spiritual and moral
+significance.
+
+That night, she slept but little. With the morning, every nerve demanded
+action, action. She felt as though if she could not spend herself in
+physical exertion she would go mad. Taking her lunch, and telling her
+companion that she was going for a good, full day with the trout; she was
+starting off, when the woman called her back.
+
+"You have forgotten Mr. Oakley's warning, dear. You are not to go unarmed,
+you know."
+
+"Oh, bother that old convict, Brian Oakley is so worried about," cried the
+girl. "I don't like to carry a gun when I am fishing. It's only an extra
+load." But, never-the-less, as she spoke, she went back to the porch;
+where Myra Willard handed her a belt of cartridges, with a serviceable
+Colt revolver in the holster. There was no hint of awkwardness when the
+girl buckled the belt about her waist and settled the holster in its place
+at her hip.
+
+"You will be careful, won't you, dear," said the woman, earnestly.
+
+Lifting her face for another good-by kiss, the girl answered, "Of course,
+dear mother heart." Then, with a laugh--"I'll agree to shoot the first man
+I meet, and identify him afterwards--if it will make you easier in your
+mind. You won't worry, will you?"
+
+Myra Willard smiled. "Not a bit, child. I know how Brian Oakley loves you,
+and he says that he has no fear for you if you are armed. He takes great
+chances himself, that man, but he would send us back to Fairlands, in a
+minute, if he thought you were in any danger in your rambles."
+
+Beside the roaring Clear Creek, Sibyl seated self upon a great
+boulder--her rod and flies neglected--apparently unmindful of the purpose
+that had brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon the swirling
+pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, a thousand feet up on Oak
+Knoll, where she knew the pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made
+the momentous decision that had resulted in her comradeship with Aaron
+King. Following the canyon wall with her eyes--as though in her mind she
+walked the thread-like path--from Oak Knoll to the fire-break a mile from
+the reservoir; her gaze then traced the crest of the Galenas, resting
+finally upon that clump of pines high up on the point that was so clearly
+marked against the sky. Once, she laid aside her rod, and slipped the
+creel from her shoulder. But even as she set out, she hesitated and turned
+back; resolutely taking up her fishing-tackle again, as though, angry with
+herself for her state of mind, she was determined to indulge no longer her
+mood of indecision.
+
+But the fishing did not go well. To properly cast a trout-fly, one's
+thoughts must be upon the art. A preoccupied mind and wandering attention
+tends to a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of aggravating
+complications. Sibyl--usually so skillful at this most delicate of
+sports--was as inaccurate and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The
+many pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek held for her, now,
+memories more attractive, by far, than the wary trout they sheltered. The
+familiar spots she had known since childhood were haunted by a something
+that made them seem new and strange.
+
+At last,--thoroughly angry with her inability to control her mood, and
+half ashamed of the thoughts that forced themselves so insistently upon
+her; with her nerves and muscles craving the action that would bring the
+relief of physical weariness,--she determined to leave the more familiar
+ground, for the higher and less frequented waters of Fern Creek. Climbing
+out of the canyon, by the steep, almost stair-like trail on the San
+Bernardino side, she walked hard and fast to reach Lone Cabin by noon.
+But, before she had finished her lunch, she decided not to fish there,
+after all; but to go on, over the still harder trail to Burnt Pine on
+Laurel Creek, and, returning to the lower canyon by the Laurel trail, to
+work down Clear Creek on the way to her home, in the late afternoon and
+twilight.
+
+The trail up the almost precipitous wall of the gorge at Lone Cabin, and
+over the mountain spur to Laurel Creek, is one that calls for a clear head
+and a sure foot. It is not a path for the city bred to essay, save with
+the ready arm of a guide. But the hill-trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl
+Andrés gloried in the task. The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed the
+climb from which her city sisters would have drawn back in trembling fear.
+
+Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height to the top, she halted.
+Her ear had caught a slight noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled
+down the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded from the trail
+where she stood, into the depths below. For a few minutes, the girl, on
+the little, shelf-like path that was scarcely wider than the span of her
+two hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff itself; while,
+with her face turned upward, she searched with keen eyes the rim of the
+gorge; her free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver at her
+hip. Then she went on--not timidly, but neither carelessly; not in the
+least frightened, but still,--knowing that the spot was far from the more
+frequented paths,--with experienced care.
+
+As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she paused again, to search
+with careful eyes the vicinity of the trail that from this point leads for
+a little way down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by easier
+stages, around the shoulder and the flank of the mountain, to Burnt Pine
+Camp. When no living object met her eye, and she could hear no sound save
+the lonely wind in the pines and the faint murmur of the stream in the
+gorge below, she took the few steps that yet remained of the climb, and
+seated herself for a moment's well-earned rest. Some small animal, she
+told herself,--a squirrel or a wood-rat, perhaps,--frightened at her
+approach, and scurrying hastily to cover, had dislodged the pebbles with
+the slight noise that she had heard.
+
+From where she sat with her back against the trunk of a great pine, she
+could see--far below, and beyond the immediate spurs and shoulders of the
+range, on the farther side of the gorge out of which she had just
+come--the lower end of Clear Creek canyon, and, miles away, under the
+blue haze of the distance, the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands.
+
+Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange
+groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way
+back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as
+if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny,
+moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the
+wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort,
+as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were
+to come. Would the friendship born in the hills endure in the world beyond
+the canyon gates? Could it endure away from those scenes that had given it
+birth? Was it possible for a fellowship, established in the free
+atmosphere of the mountains, to live in the lower altitude of Fairlands?
+Sibyl Andrés,--as she sat there, alone in the hills she loved,--in her
+heart of hearts, answered her own questions, "No." But still she searched
+the years to come--even as her eyes so futilely searched the distant
+landscape beyond the mighty gates that seemed, now, to shut her in from
+that world to which Aaron King was returning.
+
+The girl was aroused from her abstraction by a sound behind her and a
+little to the left of the tree against which she was leaning. In a flash,
+she was on her feet.
+
+James Rutlidge stood a few steps away. He had been approaching her as she
+sat under the tree; but when she sprang to her feet and faced him, he
+halted. Lifting his hat, he greeted her with easy assurance; a confident,
+triumphant smile upon his heavy features.
+
+White-faced and trembling, the mountain girl--who a few moments before,
+had been so unafraid--stood shrinking before this cultured representative
+of the arts. Returning his salutation, she was starting hurriedly away
+down the trail, when he said, "Wait. Why be in such a hurry?"
+
+As if against her will, she paused. "It is growing late," she faltered; "I
+must go."
+
+He laughed. "I will go with you presently. Don't be afraid." Coming
+forward, with an air of making himself very much at home, he placed his
+rifle against the tree where she had been sitting. Then, as if to calm her
+fears, he continued, "I am camped at Burnt Pine, with a party of friends.
+I was up here looking for deer sign when I noticed you below, at the cabin
+there. I was just starting down to you, when I saw that you were going to
+come up; so I waited. Beautiful spot--this--don't you think?--so out of
+the way, too. Just the place for a quiet little visit."
+
+As the man spoke, he was eyeing her in a way that only served to confuse
+and frighten her the more. Murmuring some inaudible reply, she again
+started to go. But again he said, peremptorily, "Wait." And again, as if
+against her will, she paused. "If you have no scruples about wandering
+over the mountains alone with that artist fellow, I do not see why you
+should hesitate to favor me."
+
+The man's words were, undoubtedly, prompted by what he firmly believed to
+be the nature of the relation between the girl and Aaron King--a belief
+for which he had, to his mind, sufficient evidence. But Sibyl had no
+understanding of his meaning. In the innocence of her pure mind, the
+purport of his words was utterly lost. Her very fear of the man was not a
+reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a nature that had never
+felt the unclean touch of the world in which James Rutlidge habitually
+moved. It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her
+always so embarrassed in the man's presence. It was because she did not
+understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking
+her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.
+
+James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in
+which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of
+Sibyl Andrés. Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her
+relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence;
+he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail
+to understand.
+
+When she _did_ grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
+gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
+expression in scathing words of denunciation.
+
+The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
+there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
+That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
+had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
+scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
+vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
+flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
+passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
+her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
+a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.
+
+But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
+different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
+With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
+careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.
+
+James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar. In the blue eyes
+that looked at him, now, over the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no
+uncertainty of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the weapon with such
+ready swiftness, was as steady as though at target practice.
+Instinctively, the man half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield
+his face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he gasped, "put that
+down."
+
+In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that instant, than he had
+ever been before.
+
+Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still uplifted, he said again,
+"Put it down, I tell you. Don't you see I'm not going to touch you? You
+are crazy. You might kill me."
+
+Her words came cold and collected, expressing, together with her calm
+manner, perfect self-possession "If you can give any good reason why I
+should not kill you, I will let you go."
+
+The man was carefully drawing backward toward the tree against which he
+had placed his rifle.
+
+She watched him, with a disconcerting smile. "You may as well stop now,"
+she said, in those even, composed tones. "I shall fire, the moment you are
+within reach of your gun."
+
+He halted with a gesture of despair; his face livid with fear at her
+apparent indecision as to his fate.
+
+Presently, she spoke again. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill
+you--unless you force me to--which I assure you will not be at all
+difficult for you to do. Move down the trail until I tell you to stop."
+She indicated the direction, along the ridge of the mountain spur.
+
+He obeyed.
+
+"That will do," she said, when he was some twenty paces away.
+
+He stopped, turning to face her again.
+
+Picking up his Winchester, she skillfully and rapidly threw all of the
+shells out of the magazine. Then, covering him again with her own weapon,
+she went a few steps closer and threw the empty rifle at his feet. "Now,"
+she said, "put that gun over your left shoulder, and go on ahead of me
+down the trail. If you try to dodge or run, or if you change the position
+of your rifle, I'll kill you."
+
+"What are you going to do?" he asked.
+
+"I'm going to take you down to your camp at Burnt Pine."
+
+James Rutlidge, pale with rage and shame, stood still. "You may as well
+kill me," he said. "I will never go into camp, this way."
+
+"Don't be uneasy," she returned. "I am no more anxious for the world to
+know of this, than you are. Do as I say. When we come within sight of your
+camp, or if we meet any one, I will put up my gun and we will go on
+together. That's why I am permitting you to carry your rifle."
+
+So they went down the mountainside--the man with his empty rifle over his
+shoulder; the girl following, a few paces in the rear, with ready weapon.
+
+When they had come within sight of the camp, James Rutlidge said, "There's
+some one there."
+
+"I see," returned Sibyl, slipping her gun in its holster and stepping
+forward beside her companion. And there was a note of glad relief in her
+voice, for it was Brian Oakley who was bending over the camp-fire "Come,"
+she continued to her companion, "and act as though nothing had happened."
+
+The Ranger, on his way down from somewhere in the vicinity of San
+Gorgonio, had stopped at the hunters' camp for a belated dinner. Finding
+no one at home, he had started a fire, and had helped himself to coffee
+and bacon. He was just concluding his appropriated meal, when Sibyl and
+James Rutlidge arrived.
+
+In a few words, the girl explained to her friend, that she was on her way
+over the trail from Lone Cabin, and had accidentally met Mr. Rutlidge who
+had accompanied her as far as the camp. James Rutlidge had little to say
+beyond assuring the Ranger of his welcome; and very soon, the officer and
+the girl set out on their way down the Laurel trail to Clear Creek canyon.
+As they went, Sibyl's old friend asked not a few questions about her
+meeting with James Rutlidge; but the girl, walking ahead in the narrow
+trail, evaded him, and was glad that he could not see her face.
+
+Sibyl had spoken the literal truth when she said to Rutlidge, that she did
+not want any one to know of the incident. She felt ashamed and humiliated
+at the thought of telling even her father's old comrade and friend. She
+knew Brian Oakley too well to have any doubts as to what would happen if
+he knew how the man had approached her, and she shrank from the inevitable
+outcome. She wished only to forget the whole affair, and, as quickly as
+possible, turned the conversation into other and safer channels.
+
+The Ranger could not stop at the house with her, but must go on down the
+canyon, to the Station. So the girl returned to Myra Willard, alone; and,
+to the woman's surprise, for the second time, with an empty creel.
+
+Sibyl explained her failure to bring home a catch of trout, with the
+simple statement that she had not fished; and then--to her companion's
+amazement--burst into tears; begging to return at once to their little
+home in Fairlands.
+
+Myra Willard thought that she understood, better than the girl herself,
+why, for the first time in her life, Sibyl wished to leave the mountains.
+Perhaps the woman with the disfigured face was right.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+On the Pipe-Line Trail
+
+
+
+James Rutlidge spent the day following his experience with Sibyl Andrés,
+in camp. His companions very quickly felt his sullen, ugly mood, and left
+him to his own thoughts.
+
+The manner in which Sibyl received his advances had in no way changed the
+man's mind as to the nature of her relation to Aaron King. To one of James
+Rutlidge's type,--schooled in the intellectual moral and esthetic tenets
+of his class,--it was impossible to think of the companionship of the
+artist and the girl in any other light. If he had even considered the
+possibility of a clean, pure comradeship existing between them--under all
+the circumstances of their friendship as he had seen them in the studio,
+on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's camp--he would have answered
+himself that Aaron King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage
+of his opportunities. The humiliation of his pride, and his rage at being
+so ignominiously checked by the girl whom he had so long endeavored to
+win, served only to increase his desire for her. Sibyl's resolute spirit,
+and vigorous beauty, when aroused by him, together with her unexpected
+opposition to his advances, were as fuel to the flame of his passion.
+
+His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not improve his temper;
+and the next morning his friends were relieved to see him setting out
+alone, with rifle and field-glass and lunch. Ostensibly starting in the
+direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he doubled back, as soon as he
+was out of sight of camp, and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek
+canyon.
+
+It could not be said that the man had any definite purpose in mind. He was
+simply yielding in a purposeless way to his mood, which, for the time
+being, could find no other expression. The remote chance that some
+opportunity looking toward his desire might present itself, led him to
+seek the scenes where such an opportunity would be most likely to occur.
+
+Crossing the canyon above the Company Headwork he came into the pipe-line
+trail at a point a little back from the main wagon road and, an hour
+later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the Government trail leads
+down into the canyon below, and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had
+committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus. Here he left the trail,
+and climbed to a point on a spur of the mountain, from which he could see
+the path for some distance on either side and below, and from which his
+view of the narrow valley was unobstructed. Comfortably seated, with his
+back against a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon the
+little spot of open green--marked by the giant sycamores, the dark line of
+cedars, and the half hidden house--where he knew that Sibyl Andrés and
+Myra Willard were living.
+
+No sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon the scene that so
+interested him, than he uttered a low exclamation. The two women,
+surrounded by their luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the porch
+with Brian Oakley; waiting, evidently, for the wagon that was crossing the
+creek toward the house. It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that
+Sibyl Andrés and the woman with the disfigured face were returning to
+Fairlands.
+
+For some time, James Rutlidge sat watching, with absorbing interest, the
+unconscious people in the canyon below. Once, he turned for a brief glance
+at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, farther down the creek.
+The camp of Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there. Quickly he
+fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her friends. Presently,--as one will
+when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,--he lowered his
+hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in
+the landscape before him. At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on
+the near-by trail below. It was a pitiful figure--ill-kempt ragged,
+half-starved, haggard-faced.
+
+Creeping feebly along the lonely little path--without seeing the man on
+the mountainside above--crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful
+air--the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the
+trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.
+
+As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher on the rocks above
+involuntarily glanced toward the distant Forest Ranger; then back to
+the--as he rightly guessed--escaped convict.
+
+There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of a man like James Rutlidge
+when, however bad or dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels
+strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to help. Undoubtedly,
+James Rutlidge inherited from his father those tendencies that made him
+easily ruled by his baser passions. His character was as truly the
+legitimate product of the age, of the social environment, and of the
+thought that accepts such characters. What he might have been if better
+born, or if schooled in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual integrity,
+is an idle speculation. He was what his inheritance and his life had made
+him. He was not without impulses for good. The pitiful, hunted creature,
+creeping so wearily along the trail, awoke in this man of the accepted
+culture of his day a feeling of compassion, and aroused in him a desire to
+offer assistance. For the legal aspect of the case, James Rutlidge had all
+the indifference of his kind, who imbibe contempt for law with their
+mother's milk. For the moment he hesitated. Then, as the figure below
+passed from his sight, under the point of the spur, he slipped quietly
+down the mountainside, and, a few minutes later, met the convict face to
+face.
+
+At the leveled rifle and the sharp command, "Hands up," the poor fellow
+halted with a gesture of tragic despair. An instant they stood; then the
+hunted one turned impulsively toward the canyon that, here, lies almost a
+sheer thousand feet below.
+
+James Rutlidge spoke sharply. "Don't do that. I'm not an officer. I want
+to help you."
+
+The convict turned his hunted, fearful, starving face in doubtful
+bewilderment toward the speaker.
+
+The man with the gun continued, "I got the drop on you to prevent
+accidents--until I could explain--that's all." He lowered the rifle.
+
+The other went a staggering step forward. "You mean that?" he said in a
+harsh, incredulous whisper. "You--you're not playing with me?"
+
+"Why should I want to play with you?" returned the other, kindly. "Come,
+let's get off the trail. I have something to eat, up there." He led the
+way back to the place where he had left his lunch.
+
+Dropping down upon the ground, the starving man seized the offered food
+with an animal-like cry; feeding noisily, with the manner of a famished
+beast. The other watched with mingled pity and disgust.
+
+Presently, in stammering, halting phrases, but in words that showed no
+lack of education, the wretched creature attempted to apologize for his
+unseemly eagerness, and endeavored to thank his benefactor. "I suppose,
+sir, there is no use trying to deny my identity," he said, when James
+Rutlidge had again assured him of his kindly interest.
+
+"Not at all," agreed the other, "and, so far as I am concerned, there is
+no reason why you should."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that, sir?" questioned the convict.
+
+"I mean that I am not an officer and have no reason in the world for
+turning you over to them. I saw you coming along the trail down there
+and, of course, could not help noticing your condition and guessing who
+you were. To me, you are simply a poor devil who has gotten into a tight
+hole, and I want to help you out a bit, that's all."
+
+The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward the canyon below, as he
+answered, "I thank you, sir, but it would have been better if you had not.
+Your help has only put the end off for a few hours. They've got me shut
+in. I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get
+out. I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There
+was no mistaking his desperate purpose.
+
+James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail
+and the rocky depth below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he
+said invitingly.
+
+"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but
+I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late."
+
+While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly. As he had
+been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary
+assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more
+lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great
+a risk to his own convenience. The convict's hopeless condition, his
+despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all
+combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him. But while that truly
+benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister
+motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James
+Rutlidge's nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his
+by inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that
+had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could
+watch Sibyl Andrés, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.
+Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to
+a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation
+where a man like the one before him--wholly in his power as this man would
+be--might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose--the purpose that
+had brought about their meeting.
+
+Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I suppose the most of us
+are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get
+it. One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our
+wrong-doing. What if I should help you out--make it possible for you to
+live like other men who are safe from the law? What would you do if I were
+to help you to your freedom?"
+
+The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the
+sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.
+
+"You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?" asked Rutlidge.
+
+"Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water. I
+could live there a year if I had supplies."
+
+James Rutlidge considered. "I've got it!" he said at last. "Listen! There
+must be some peak, at the Cold Water end of this range, from which you can
+see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley."
+
+"Yes," the other answered eagerly.
+
+"And," continued Rutlidge, "there is a good 'auto' road up the Galena
+Valley. One could get, I should think, to a point within--say nine hours
+of your camp. Do you know anything about the heliograph?"
+
+"Yes," said the man, his face brightening. "That is, I understand the
+general principle--that it's a method of signaling by mirror flashes."
+
+"Good! This is my plan. I will meet you to-morrow on the Laurel Creek
+trail, where it turns off from the creek toward San Gorgonio. You know the
+spot?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on the divide between this
+canyon and the Cold Water, to some peak in the Galenas from which we can
+see Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can pick out some point
+at the upper end of Galena Valley, that we can both find later."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a night trip in the 'auto' to
+that point, with supplies. You will meet me there. The day before I make
+the trip, I'll signal you by mirror flashes that I am coming; and you will
+answer from the peak. We'll agree on the time of day and the signals
+to-morrow. When you have kept close, long enough for your beard and hair
+to grow out well, everybody will have given you up for dead or gone. Then
+I will take you down and give you a job in an orange grove. There's a
+little house there where you can live. You won't need to show yourself
+down-town and, in time, you will be forgotten. I'll bring you enough food
+to-morrow to last you until I can return to town and can get back on the
+first night trip."
+
+The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes later, after trying brokenly
+to express his gratitude, was a creature very different from the poor,
+frightened hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rutlidge had halted
+an hour before. What that man was to become, would depend almost wholly
+upon his benefactor.
+
+When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again took up his field-glass. The
+old home of Sibyl Andrés was deserted. While he had been talking with the
+convict, the girl and Myra Willard had started on their way back to
+Fairlands.
+
+With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the man slipped the glass
+into its case, and, with a long, slow look over the scene, set out on his
+way to rejoin his friends.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+I Want You Just as You Are
+
+
+
+The evening of that day after their return from the mountains, when Conrad
+Lagrange had found Aaron King so absorbed in his mother's letters, the
+artist continued in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The next morning, it
+was the same. Refusing every attempt of his friend to engage him in
+conversation, he answered only with absent-minded mono-syllables; until
+the novelist, declaring that the painter was fit company for neither beast
+nor man, left him alone; and went off somewhere with Czar.
+
+The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon in his studio, doing
+nothing of importance. That is, to a casual observer he would have
+_seemed_ to be doing nothing of importance. He did, however, place his
+picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. Taine, and then,
+for an hour or more, sat considering the two paintings. Then he turned the
+"Quaker Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in place on the
+easel. That was all.
+
+Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned to the
+studio--hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged his palette, paints, and
+brushes ready to his hand, indeed--but he, then, did nothing with them.
+Listlessly, without interest, he turned through his portfolios of
+sketches. Often, he looked away through the big, north window to the
+distant mountain tops. Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting
+before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, clear and sweet, from
+the depths of the orange grove, came the pure tones of Sibyl Andrés'
+violin.
+
+So soft and low was the music, at first, that the artist almost doubted
+that it was real, thinking--as he had thought that day when Sibyl came
+singing to the glade--that it was his fancy tricking him. When he and
+Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three days before, the girl and her
+companion had not expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks.
+But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. As the tones grew
+louder and more insistent, with a ringing note of gladness, he knew that
+the mountain girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language she
+loved best, was greeting her friends.
+
+But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that Aaron King gave the
+novelist no share in their neighbor's musical greeting. He received the
+message as if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes
+brightened; he stood erect, his face turned upward toward the mountain
+peaks in the distance; his lips curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he
+could see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment as she played,
+knowing his surprise. Once, he started impulsively toward the door, but
+paused, hesitating, and turned back. When the music ceased, he went to the
+open window that looked out into the rose garden, and watched expectantly.
+
+Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she came through the orange
+grove beyond the Ragged Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at
+the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full view.
+
+The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft
+brown,--made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,--with felt hat
+to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was dressed, now,
+as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was
+hiding from Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little back, with a
+low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder. Was that lovely creature
+there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills? The Sibyl Andrés he
+had known--in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb--was a
+winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This
+Sibyl Andrés, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall,
+and beautifully developed woman.
+
+Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and
+there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting;
+singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that
+enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of
+the wind that caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she
+belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and
+oaks of the mountains. The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood
+as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.
+
+Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture
+of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.
+
+"Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. "Hold the pose--please
+hold it! I want you just as you are!"
+
+The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his
+welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the
+polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did
+everything, gave herself to his mood.
+
+Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it across the studio, he
+cried out, again, "Don't move, please don't move!" and began working. He
+was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into
+the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was
+expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.
+"If I can get it! If I can only get it!" he exclaimed again and again,
+with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.
+
+All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all
+his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without
+conscious effort--obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful
+straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and
+harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so
+surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, as he was
+unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil,
+as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the
+roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.
+
+Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andrés came singing through the
+orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands
+outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting
+before his easel, palette and brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had
+worked that first day--with no thought for anything save for his picture.
+
+In the mornings, he walked with Conrad Lagrange or, sometimes, worked with
+Sibyl in the garden. Often, in the evening, the two men would visit the
+little house next door. Occasionally, the girl and the woman with the
+disfigured face would come to sit for a while on the front porch with
+their friends. Thus the neighborly friendship that began in the hills was
+continued in the orange groves. The comradeship between the two young
+people grew stronger, hour by hour, as the painter worked at his easel to
+express with canvas and color and brush the spirit of the girl whose
+character and life was so unmarred by the world.
+
+A11 through those days, when he was so absorbed in his work that he often
+failed to reply when she spoke to him, the girl manifested a helpful
+understanding of his mood that caused the painter to marvel. She seemed to
+know, instinctively, when he was baffled or perplexed by the annoying
+devils of "can't-get-at-it," that so delight to torment artist folk; just
+as she knew and rejoiced when the imps were routed and the soul of the man
+exulted with the sureness and freedom of his hand. He asked her, once,
+when they had finished for the day, how it was that she knew so well how
+the work was progressing, when she could not see the picture.
+
+She laughed merrily. "But I can see _you_; and I"--she hesitated with that
+trick, that he was learning to know so well, of searching for a word--"I
+just _feel_ what you are feeling. I suppose it's because my music is that
+way. Sometimes, it simply won't come right, at all, and I feel as though I
+never _could_ do it. Then, again, it seems to do itself; and I listen and
+wonder--just as if I had nothing to do with it."
+
+So that day came when the artist, drawing slowly back from his easel,
+stood so long gazing at his picture without touching it that the girl
+called to him, "What's the matter? Won't it come right?"
+
+Slowly he laid aside his palette and brushes. Standing at the open window,
+he looked at her--smiling but silent--as she held the pose.
+
+For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I not right?" she asked
+anxiously. Then, before he could answer--"Oh, have you finished? Is it all
+done?"
+
+Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have done all that I can do.
+Come."
+
+A moment later, she stood in the studio door.
+
+Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."
+
+"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.
+
+He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."
+
+"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."
+
+The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned
+curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have
+never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or
+condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be
+so modern."
+
+"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your
+work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just
+as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"
+
+"Why, that's the reason. I--I'm afraid to see myself as you see me."
+
+The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he answered seriously, "Miss
+Andrés, you, of all the people I have ever known, have the least cause to
+fear to look at your portrait for _that_ reason. Come."
+
+Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side before the picture.
+
+For some time, she looked at the beautiful work into which Aaron King had
+put the best of himself and of his genius. At last, turning full upon him,
+her eyes blue and shining, she said in a low tone, "O Mr. King, it is
+too--too--beautiful! It is so beautiful it--it--hurts. She seems to,
+to"--she searched for the word--"to belong to the roses, doesn't she? It
+makes you feel just as the rose garden makes you feel."
+
+He laughed with pleasure, "What a child of nature you are! You have
+forgotten that it is a portrait of yourself, haven't you?"
+
+She laughed with him. "I _had_ forgotten. It's so lovely!" Then she added
+wistfully, "Am I--am I really like that?--just a little?"
+
+"No," he answered. "But that is just a little, a very little, like you."
+
+She looked at him half doubtfully--sincerely unmindful of the compliment,
+in her consideration of its truth. Shaking her head, with a serious smile,
+she returned slowly, "I wish that I could be sure you are not mistaken."
+
+"You will permit me to exhibit the picture, will you?" he asked.
+
+"Why, yes! of course! You made it for people to see, didn't you? I don't
+believe any one could look at it seriously without having good thoughts,
+could they?"
+
+"I'm sure they could not," he answered. "But, you see, it's a portrait of
+you; and I thought you might not care for the--ah--" he finished with a
+smile--"shall I say fame?"
+
+"Oh! I did not think that you would tell any one that _I_ had anything to
+do with it. Is it necessary that my name should be mentioned?"
+
+"Not exactly necessary"--he admitted--"but few women, these days, would
+miss the opportunity."
+
+She shook her head, with a positive air. "No, no; you must exhibit it as a
+picture; not as a portrait of me. The portrait part is of no importance.
+It is what you have made your picture say, that will do good."
+
+"And what have I made it say?" he asked, curiously pleased.
+
+"Why it says that--that a woman should be beautiful as the roses are
+beautiful--without thinking too much about it, you know--just as a man
+should be strong without thinking too much about his strength, I mean."
+
+"Yes," he agreed, "it says that. But I want you to know that, whatever
+title it is exhibited under, it will always be, to me, a portrait--the
+truest I have ever painted."
+
+She flushed with genuine pleasure as she said brightly, "I like you for
+that. And now let's try it on Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard. You get
+him, and I'll run and bring her. Mind you don't let Mr. Lagrange in until
+I get back! I want to watch him when he first sees it."
+
+When the artist found Conrad Lagrange and told him that the picture was
+finished, the novelist, without comment, turned his attention to Czar.
+
+The painter, with an amused smile, asked, "Won't you come for a look at
+it, old man?"
+
+The other returned gruffly, "Thanks; but I don't think I care to risk it."
+
+The artist laughed. "But Miss Andrés wants you to come. She sent me to
+fetch you."
+
+Conrad Lagrange turned his peculiar, baffling eyes upon the young man.
+"Does _she_ like it?"
+
+"She seems to."
+
+"If she _seems_ to, she does," retorted the other, rising. "And that's
+different."
+
+When the novelist, with his three friends, stood before the easel, he was
+silent for so long that the girl said anxiously, "I--I thought you would
+like it, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+They saw the strange man's eyes fill with tears as he answered, in the
+gentle tones that always marked his words to her, "Like it? My dear child,
+how could I help liking it? It is you--you!" To the artist, he added, "It
+is great work, my boy, great! I--I wish your mother could have seen it. It
+is like her--as I knew her. You have done well." He turned, with gentle
+courtesy, to Myra Willard; "And you? What is your verdict, Miss Willard?"
+
+With her arm around the beautiful original of the portrait, the woman with
+the disfigured face answered, "I think, sir, that I, better than any one
+in all the world, know how good, how true, it is."
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke again to the artist, inquiringly; "You will exhibit
+it?"
+
+"Miss Andrés says that I may--but not as a portrait."
+
+The novelist could not conceal his pleasure at the answer. Presently, he
+said, "If it is not to be shown as a portrait, may I suggest a title?"
+
+"I was hoping you would!" exclaimed the painter.
+
+"And so was I," cried Sibyl, with delight. "What is it, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"Let it be exhibited as 'The Spirit of Nature--A Portrait'," answered
+Conrad Lagrange.
+
+As the novelist finished speaking, Yee Kee appeared in the doorway. "They
+come--big automobile. Whole lot people. Misse Taine, Miste' Lutlidge, sick
+man, whole lot--I come tell you."
+
+The artist spoke quickly,--"Stop them in the house, Kee; I'll be right
+in,"--and the Chinaman vanished.
+
+At Yee Kee's announcement, Myra Willard's face went white, and she gave a
+low cry.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said the girl, soothingly. "We can slip away through
+the garden--come."
+
+When Sibyl and the woman with the disfigured face were gone, Conrad
+Lagrange and Aaron King looked at each other, questioningly.
+
+Then the novelist said harshly,--pointing to the picture on the
+easel,--"You're not going to let that flock of buzzards feed on this, are
+you? I'll murder some one, sure as hell, if you do."
+
+"I don't think I could stand it, myself," said the artist, laughing
+grimly, as he drew the velvet curtain to hide the portrait.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+The Answer
+
+
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange entered the house to meet their
+callers from Fairlands Heights, the artist felt, oddly, that he was
+meeting a company of strangers.
+
+The carefully hidden, yet--to him--subtly revealed, warmth of Mrs. Taine's
+greeting embarrassed him with a momentary sense of shame. The frothing
+gush of Louise's inane ejaculations, and the coughing, choking, cursing of
+Mr. Taine,--whose feeble grip upon the flesh that had so betrayed him was,
+by now, so far loosed that he could scarcely walk alone,--set the painter
+struggling for words that would mean nothing--the only words that, under
+the circumstances, could serve. Aaron King was somewhat out of practise in
+the use of meaningless words, and the art of talking without saying
+anything is an art that requires constant exercise if one would not commit
+serious technical blunders. James Rutlidge's greeting was insolently
+familiar; as a man of certain mind greets--in public--a boon companion of
+his private and unmentionable adventures. Toward the great critic, the
+painter exercised a cool self-restraint that was at least commendable.
+
+While Aaron King, with James Rutlidge and Mr. Taine, with carefully
+assumed interest, was listening to Louise's effort to make a jumble of
+"ohs" and "ahs" and artistic sighs sound like a description of a sunset in
+the mountains, Mrs. Taine said quietly to Conrad Lagrange, "You certainly
+have taken excellent care of your protege, this summer. He looks
+splendidly fit."
+
+The novelist, watching the woman whose eyes, as she spoke, were upon the
+artist, answered, "You are pleased to flatter me, Mrs. Taine."
+
+She turned to him, with a knowing smile. "Perhaps I _am_ giving you more
+credit than is due. I understand Mr. King has not been in your care
+altogether. Shame on you, Mr. Lagrange! for a man of your age and
+experience to permit your charge to roam all over the country, alone and
+unprotected, with a picturesque mountain girl!--and that, after your
+warning to poor me!"
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled grimly. "I confess I thought of you in that
+connection several times."
+
+She eyed him doubtfully. "Oh, well," she said easily, "I suppose artists
+must amuse themselves, occasionally--the same as the rest of us."
+
+"I don't think that, '_amuse_' is exactly the word, Mrs. Taine," the other
+returned coldly.
+
+"No? Surely you don't meant to tell me that it is anything serious?"
+
+"I don't mean to tell you anything about it," he retorted rather sharply.
+
+She laughed. "You don't need to. Jim has already told me quite enough. Mr.
+King, himself, will tell me more."
+
+"Not unless he's a bigger fool than I think," growled the novelist.
+
+Again, she laughed into his face, mockingly. "You men are all more or less
+foolish when there's a woman in the case, aren't you?"
+
+To which, the other answered tartly, "If we were not, there would be no
+woman in the case."
+
+As Conrad Lagrange spoke, Louise, exhausted by her efforts to achieve that
+sunset in the mountains with her limited supply of adjectives, floundered
+hopelessly into the expressive silence of clasped hands and heaving breast
+and ecstatically upturned eyes. The artist, seizing the opportunity with
+the cunning of desperation, turned to Mrs. Taine, with some inane remark
+about the summers in California.
+
+Whatever it was that he said, Mrs. Taine agreed with him, heartily,
+adding, "And you, I suppose, have been making good use of your time? Or
+have you been simply storing up material and energy for this winter?"
+
+This brought Louise out of the depths of that sunset, with a flop. She was
+so sure that Mr. King had some inexpressibly wonderful work to show them.
+Couldn't they go at once to the equally inexpressibly beautiful studio, to
+see the inexpressibly lovely pictures that she was so inexpressibly sure
+he had been painting in the inexpressibly grand and beautiful and
+wonderfully lovely mountains?
+
+The painter assured them that he had no work for them to see; and Louise
+floundered again into the depths of inexpressible disappointment and
+despair.
+
+Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Aaron King found himself in his
+studio, alone with Mrs. Taine. He could not have told exactly how she
+managed it, or why. Perhaps, in sheer pity, she had rescued him from the
+floods of Louise's appreciation. Perhaps--she had some other reasons.
+There had been something said about her right to see her own picture, and
+then--there they were--with the others safely barred from intruding upon
+the premises sacred to art.
+
+When there was no longer need to fear the eyes of the world, Mrs. Taine
+was at no pains to hide the warmth of her feeling. With little reserve,
+she confessed herself in every look and tone and movement.
+
+"Are you really glad to see me, I wonder," she said invitingly. "All this
+summer, while I have been forced to endure the company of all sorts of
+stupid people, I have been thinking of you and your work. And, you see, I
+have come to you, the first possible moment after my return home."
+
+The man--being a man--could not remain wholly insensible to the alluring
+physical beauty of the splendid creature who stood so temptingly before
+him; but, to the honor of his kind, he could and did remain master of
+himself.
+
+The woman, true to her life training,--as James Rutlidge had been true to
+his schooling when he approached Sibyl Andrés in the mountains,--construed
+the artist's manner, not as a splendid self-control but as a careful
+policy. To her, and to her kind, the great issues of life are governed,
+not at all by principle, but by policy. It is not at all what one is, or
+what one may accomplish that matters; it is wholly what one may skillfully
+_appear_ to be, and what one may skillfully provoke the world to say,
+that is of vital importance. Turning from the painter to the easel, as if
+to find in his portrait of her the fuller expression of that which she
+believed he dared not yet put into words, she was about to draw aside the
+curtain; when Aaron King checked her quickly, with a smile that robbed his
+words of any rudeness.
+
+"Please don't touch that, Mrs. Taine. I am not yet ready to show it."
+
+As she turned from the easel to face him, he took her portrait from where
+it rested, face to the wall; and placed it upon another easel, saying,
+"Here is your picture."
+
+With the painting before her, she talked eagerly of her plans for the
+artist's future; how the picture was to be exhibited, and how, because it
+was her portrait, it would be praised and talked about by her friends who
+were leaders in the art circles. Frankly, she spoke of "pull" and
+"influence" and "scheme"; of "working" this and that "paper" for
+"write-ups"; of "handling" this or that "critic" and "writer"; of
+"reaching the committees"; of introducing the painter into the proper
+inside cliques, and clans; and of clever "advertising stunts" that would
+make him the most popular portrait painter of his day; insuring thus
+his--as she called it--fame.
+
+The man who had painted the picture of the spring glade, and who had so
+faithfully portrayed the truth and beauty of Sibyl Andrés as she stood
+among the roses, listened to this woman's plans for making his portrait of
+herself famous, with a feeling of embarrassment and shame.
+
+"Do you really think that the work merits such prominence as you say will
+be given it?" he asked doubtfully.
+
+She laughed knowingly, "Just wait until Jim Rutlidge's 'write-up' appears,
+and all the others follow his lead, and you'll see! The picture is clever
+enough--you know it as well as I. It is beautiful. It has everything that
+we women want in a portrait. I really don't know much about what you
+painters call art; but I know that when Jim and our friends get through
+with it, your picture will have every mark of a great masterpiece, and
+that you will be on the topmost wave of success."
+
+"And then what?" he asked.
+
+Again, she interpreted his words in the light of her own thoughts, and
+with little attempt to veil the fire that burned in her eyes, answered,
+"And then--I hope that you will not forget me."
+
+For a moment he returned her look; then a feeling of disgust and shame for
+her swept over him, and he again turned away, to stand gazing moodily out
+of the window that looked into the rose garden.
+
+"You seem to be disturbed and worried," she said, in a tone that implied a
+complete understanding of his mood, and a tacit acceptance of the things
+that he would say if it were not for the world.
+
+He laughed shortly--"I fear you will think me ungrateful for your
+kindness. Believe me, I am not."
+
+"I know you are not," she returned. "But don't think that you had better
+confess, just the same?"
+
+He answered wonderingly, "Confess?"
+
+"Yes." She shook her finger at him, in playful severity. "Oh, I know what
+you have been up to all summer--running wild with your mountain girl!
+Really, you ought to be more discreet."
+
+Aaron King's face burned as he stammered something about not knowing what
+she meant.
+
+She laughed gaily. "There, there, never mind--I forgive you--now that you
+are safely back in civilization again. I know you artists, and how you
+must have your periods of ah--relaxation--with rather more liberties than
+the common herd. Just so you are careful that the world doesn't know _too_
+much."
+
+At this frank revelation of her mind, the man stood amazed. For the
+construction she put upon his relation with the girl whose pure and gentle
+comradeship had led him to greater heights in his art than he had ever
+before attained, he could have driven this woman from the studio he felt
+that she profaned. But what could he say? He remembered Conrad Lagrange's
+counsel when James Rutlidge had seen the girl at their camp. What could he
+say that would not injure Sibyl Andrés? To cover his embarrassment, he
+forced a laugh and answered lightly, "Really, I am not good at
+confessions."
+
+"Nor I at playing the part of confessor," she laughed with him. "But, just
+the same, you might tell me what you think of yourself. Aren't you just a
+little ashamed?"
+
+The artist had moved to a position in front of her portrait; and, as he
+looked upon the painted lie, his answer came. "Rather let me tell you what
+I think of _you_, Mrs. Taine. And let me tell you in the language I know
+best. Let me put my answer to your charges here," he touched her portrait.
+
+Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange, himself.
+
+"I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put out by the turn his
+answer had taken.
+
+"I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to repaint your portrait. You
+remember, I wrote, when I returned Mr. Taine's generous check, that I was
+not altogether satisfied with it. Give me another chance."
+
+"You mean for me to come here again, to pose for you?--as I did before?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "just as you did before. I want to make a portrait
+worthy of you, as this is not. Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I
+cannot--" he hesitated then said deliberately--"what I _dare_ not put into
+words."
+
+The woman received his words as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared
+not, yet, openly express. She thought his request a clever ruse to renew
+their meetings in the privacy of his studio, and was, accordingly
+delighted.
+
+"Oh, that will be wonderful!--heavenly!" she cried, springing to her feet.
+"Can we begin at once? May I come to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "come to-morrow."
+
+"And may I wear the Quaker gown?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! I want you just as you were before--the same dress, the same
+pose. It is to be the same picture, you understand, only a better one--one
+more worthy of us, both. And now," he continued hurriedly "don't you
+think that we should return to the house?"
+
+"I suppose so," she answered regretfully--lingering.
+
+The artist was already opening the door.
+
+As they passed out, she placed her hand on his arm, and looked up into his
+face admiringly. "What a clever, clever man you are, to think of it! And
+what a story it will make for the papers--when my picture is shown--how
+you were not satisfied with the portrait and refused to let it go--and
+how, after keeping it in your studio for months, you repainted it, to
+satisfy your artistic conscience!"
+
+Aaron King smiled.
+
+The announcement in the house that the artist was to repaint Mrs. Taine's
+picture, provoked characteristic comment. Louise effervesced a frothy
+stream of bubbling exclamations. James Rutlidge gave a hearty, "By Jove,
+old man, you have nerve! If you can really improve on that canvas, you are
+a wonder." And Mr. Taine, under the watchful eye of his beautiful wife,
+responded with a husky whisper, "Quite right--my boy--quite right!
+Certainly--by all means--if you feel that way about it--" his consent and
+approval ending in a paroxysm of coughing that left him weak and
+breathless, and nearly eliminated him from the question, altogether.
+
+When the Fairlands Heights party had departed, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down.
+
+"Well,"--he growled harshly, in his most brutal tones,--"what is it? Is
+the dog returning to his vomit?--or is the prodigal turning his back on
+his hogs and his husks?"
+
+Aaron King smiled as he answered, "I think, rather, it's the case of the
+blind beggar who sat by the roadside, helpless, until a certain Great
+Physician passed that way."
+
+And Conrad Lagrange understood.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+You're Ruined, My Boy
+
+
+
+It was no light task to which Aaron King had set his hand. He did not
+doubt what it would cost him. Nor did Conrad Lagrange, as they talked
+together that evening, fail to point out clearly what it would mean to the
+artist, at the very beginning of his career, to fly thus rudely in the
+face of the providence that had chosen to serve him. The world's history
+of art and letters affords too many examples of men who, because they
+refused to pay court to the ruling cliques and circles of their little
+day, had seen the doors of recognition slammed in their faces; and who,
+even as they wrought their great works, had been forced to hear, as they
+toiled, the discordant yelpings of the self-appointed watchdogs of the
+halls of fame. Nor did the artist question the final outcome,--if only his
+work should be found worthy to endure,--for the world's history
+establishes, also, the truth--that he who labors for a higher wage than an
+approving paragraph in the daily paper, may, in spite of the condemnation
+of the pretending rulers, live in the life of his race, long after the
+names to which he refused to bow are lost in the dust of their self-raised
+thrones.
+
+The painter was driven to his course by that self-respect, without which,
+no man can sanely endure his own company; together with that reverence--I
+say it deliberately--that reverence for his art, without which, no worthy
+work is possible. He had come to understand that one may not prostitute
+his genius to the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reaping a
+prostitute's reward. The hideous ruin that Mr. Taine had, in himself,
+wrought by the criminal dissipation of his manhood's strength, and by the
+debasing of his physical appetites and passions, was to Aaron King, now, a
+token of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral ruin that alone can result
+from a debased and depraved dissipation of an artist's creative power. He
+saw clearly, now, that the influence his work must wield upon the lives of
+those who came within its reach, must be identical with the influence of
+Sibyl Andrés, who had so unconsciously opened his eyes to the true mission
+and glory of the arts, and thus had made his decision possible. In that
+hour when Mrs. Taine had revealed herself to him so clearly, following as
+it did so closely his days of work and the final completion of his
+portrait of the girl among the roses, he saw and felt the woman, not as
+one who could help him to the poor rewards of a temporary popularity, but
+as the spirit of an age that threatens the very life of art by seeking to
+destroy the vital truth and purpose of its existence. He felt that in
+painting the portrait of Mrs. Taine--as he had painted it--he had betrayed
+a trust; as truly as had his father who, for purely personal
+aggrandizement, had stolen the material wealth intrusted to him by his
+fellows. The young man understood, now, that, instead of fulfilling the
+purpose of his mother's sacrifice, and realizing for her her dying wish,
+as he had promised; the course he had entered upon would have thwarted the
+one and denied the other.
+
+The young man had answered the novelist truly, that it was a case of the
+blind beggar by the wayside. He might have carried the figure farther; for
+that same blind beggar, when his eyes had been opened, was persecuted by
+the very ones who had fed him in his infirmity. It is easier, sometimes,
+to receive blindly, than to give with eyes that see too clearly.
+
+When Mrs. Taine went to the artist, in the studio, the next day, she found
+him in the act of re-tying the package of his mother's letters. For nearly
+an hour, he had been reading them. For nearly an hour before that, he had
+been seated, motionless, before the picture that Conrad Lagrange had said
+was a portrait of the Spirit of Nature.
+
+When Mrs. Taine had slipped off her wrap, and stood before him gowned in
+the dress that so revealed the fleshly charms it pretended to hide, she
+indicated the letters in the artist's hands, with an insinuating laugh;
+while there was a glint of more than passing curiosity in her eyes. "Dear
+me," she said, "I hope I am not intruding upon the claims of some absent
+affinity."
+
+Aaron King gravely held out his hand with the package of letters, saying
+quietly, "They are from my mother."
+
+And the woman had sufficient grace to blush, for once, with unfeigned
+shame.
+
+When he had received her apologies, and, putting aside the letters, had
+succeeded in making her forget the incident, he said, "And now, if you are
+ready, shall we begin?"
+
+For some time the painter stood before the picture on his easel, without
+touching palette or brush, studying the face of the woman who posed for
+him. By a slight movement of her eyes, without turning her head, she could
+look him fairly in the face. Presently as he continued to gaze at her so
+intently, she laughed; and, with a little shrug of her shoulders and a
+pretense as of being cold, said, "When you look at me that way, I feel as
+though you had surprised me at my bath."
+
+The artist turned his attention instantly to his color-box. While setting
+his palette, with his eyes upon his task, he said deliberately, "'Venus
+Surprised at the Bath.' Do you know that you would make a lovely Venus?"
+
+With a low laugh, she returned, daringly. "Would you care to paint me as
+the Goddess of Love?"
+
+He, still, did not look at her; but answered, while, with deliberate care,
+he selected a few brushes from the Chinese jar near the easel, "Venus is
+always a very popular subject, you know."
+
+She did not speak for a moment or two; and the painter felt her watching
+him. As he turned to his canvas--still careful not to look in her
+direction--she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change the face so
+that no one would know it was I who posed."
+
+The man remembered her carefully acquired reputation for modesty, but held
+to his purpose, saying, as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as
+for that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." Then, suddenly,
+he turned his eyes upon her face, with a gaze so sharp and piercing that
+the blood slowly colored neck and cheek.
+
+But the painter did not wait for the blush. He had seen what he wanted and
+was at work--with the almost savage intensity that had marked his manner
+while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl Andrés.
+
+And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the portrait of the woman who
+Conrad Lagrange fancifully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to
+betray her real self--the self that was so commonly hidden from the world,
+under the mask of a pretended culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent
+refinement. He led her to talk of the world in which she lived--of the
+scandals and intrigues among those of her class who hold such enviable
+positions in life. He drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and
+religions of her kind. He encouraged her to talk of art--to give her
+understanding of the world of artists as she knew it, and to express her
+real opinions and tastes in pictures and books. He persuaded her to throw
+boldly aside the glittering, tinsel garb in which she walked before the
+world, and so to stand before him in all the hideous vulgarity, the
+intellectual poverty and the moral depravity of her naked self.
+
+At times, when, under his intense gaze, she drew the cloak of her
+pretenses hurriedly about her, he sat before his picture without touching
+the canvas, waiting; or, perhaps, he paced the floor; until, with
+skillful words, her fears were banished and she was again herself. Then,
+with quick eye and sure, ready hand, he wrought into the portrait upon the
+easel--so far as the power was given him--all that he saw in the face of
+the woman who--posing for him, secure in the belief that he was painting a
+lie--revealed her true nature, warped and distorted as it was by an age
+that, demanding realism in art, knows not what it demands. Always, when
+the sitting was finished, he drew the curtain to hide the picture;
+forbidding her to look at it until he said that it was finished.
+
+Much of the time, when he was not in the studio at work, the painter spent
+with Mrs. Taine and her friends, in the big touring car, and at the house
+on Fairlands Heights. But the artist did not, now, enter into the life of
+Fairlands' Pride for gain or for pleasure--he went for study--as a
+physician goes into the dissecting room. He justified himself by the old
+and familiar argument that it was for his art's sake.
+
+Sibyl Andrés, he seldom saw, except occasionally, in the early morning, in
+the rose garden. The girl knew what he was doing--that is, she knew that
+he was painting a portrait of Mrs. Taine--and so, with Myra Willard,
+avoided the place. But Conrad Lagrange now, made the neighboring house in
+the orange grove his place of refuge from Louise Taine, who always
+accompanied Mrs. Taine,--lest the world should talk,--but who never went
+as far as the studio.
+
+But often, as he worked, the artist heard the music of the mountain girl's
+violin; and he knew that she, in her own beautiful way, was trying to help
+him--as she would have said--to put the mountains into his work. Many
+times, he was conscious of the feeling that some one was watching him.
+Once, pausing at the garden end of the studio as he paced to and fro, he
+caught a glimpse of her as she slipped through the gate in the Ragged
+Robin hedge. And once, in the morning, after one of those afternoons when
+he had gone away with Mrs. Taine at the conclusion of the sitting, he
+found a note pinned to the velvet curtain that hid the canvas on his
+working easel. It was a quaint little missive; written in one of the
+girl's fanciful moods, with a reference to "Blue Beard," and the assurance
+that she had been strong and had not looked at the forbidden picture.
+
+As the work progressed, Mrs. Taine remarked, often, how the artist was
+changed. When painting that first picture, he had been so sure of himself.
+Working with careless ease, he had been suave and pleasant in his manner,
+with ready smile or laugh. Why, she questioned, was he, now, so grave and
+serious? Why did he pause so often, to sit staring at his canvas, or to
+pace the floor? Why did he seem to be so uncertain--to be questioning,
+searching, hesitating? The woman thought that she knew. Rejoicing in her
+fancied victory--all but won--she looked forward to the triumphant moment
+when this splendid man should be swept from his feet by the force of the
+passion she thought she saw him struggling to conceal. Meanwhile she
+tempted him by all the wiles she knew--inviting him with eyes and lips and
+graceful pose and meaning gesture.
+
+And Aaron King, with clear, untroubled eye seeing all; with cool brain
+understanding all; with steady, skillful hand, ruled supremely by his
+purpose, painted that which he saw and understood into his portrait of
+her.
+
+So they came to the last sitting. On the following evening, Mrs. Taine was
+giving a dinner at the house on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was
+to meet some people who would be--as she said--useful to him. Eastern
+people they were; from the accredited center of art and literature;
+members of the inner circle of the elect. They happened to be spending the
+season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to
+advance the painter's interests. It was very fortunate that her portrait
+was to be finished in time for them to see it.
+
+The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would not be necessary for
+her to come to the studio again, the picture was not yet finished, and he
+could not permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign the
+canvas.
+
+"But I may see it?" she asked, as he laid aside his palette and brushes,
+and announced that he was through.
+
+With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Not yet; please--not until I am
+ready."
+
+"Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting to one whose wish is
+law, "How mean of you! I know it is splendid! Are you satisfied? Is it
+better than the other? Is it like me?"
+
+"I am sure that it is much better than the other," he replied. "It is as
+like you as I can make it."
+
+"And is it as beautiful as the other?"
+
+"It is beautiful--as you are beautiful," he answered.
+
+"I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night--even if I haven't seen
+it. And so will Jim Rutlidge."
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange spent that evening at the little house next
+door. The next morning, the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch
+time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, the novelist went,
+again, to knock at the door.
+
+The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, "Come in, old man,
+come in and help me celebrate."
+
+Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, pale and worn, before his
+picture--his palette and brushes still in his hand.
+
+And such a picture!
+
+A moment, the novelist who knew--as few men know--the world that was
+revealed with such fidelity in that face upon the canvas, looked; then,
+with weird and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired artist and
+whirled him around the studio, in a triumphant dance.
+
+"You've done it! man--you've done it! It's all there; every rotten,
+stinking shred of it! Wow! but it's good--so damned good that it's almost
+inhuman. I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all the time--if
+only you could come alive. God, man! if _that_ could only be exhibited
+alongside the other! Look here!"
+
+He dragged the easel that held Sibyl Andrés' portrait to a place beside
+the one upon which the canvas just finished rested, and drew back the
+curtain. The effect was startling.
+
+"'The Spirit of Nature' and 'The Spirit of the Age'," said Conrad
+Lagrange, in a low tone.
+
+"But you're ruined, my boy," he added gleefully. "You're ruined. These
+canvases will never be exhibited Her own, she'll smash when she sees it;
+and you'll be artistically damned by the very gods she has invoked to
+bless you with fame and wealth. Lord, but I envy you! You have your chance
+now--a real chance to be worthy your mother's sacrifice.
+
+"Come on, let's get ready for the feast."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX
+
+The Hand Writing on the Wall
+
+
+
+It was November. Nearly a year had passed since that day when the young
+man on the Golden State Limited--with the inheritance he had received from
+his mother's dying lips, and with his solemn promise to her still fresh in
+his mind--looked into the eyes of the woman on the platform of the
+observation car. That same day, too, he first saw the woman with the
+disfigured face, and, for the first time, met the famous Conrad Lagrange.
+
+Aaron King was thinking of these things as he set out, that evening, with
+his friend, for the home of Mrs. Taine. He remarked to the novelist that
+the time seemed, to him, many years.
+
+"To me, Aaron," answered the strange man, "it has been the happiest
+and--if you would not misunderstand me--the most satisfying year of my
+life. And this"--he added, his deep voice betraying his emotion--"this has
+been the happiest day of the year. It is your independence day. I shall
+always celebrate it as such--I--I have no independence day of my own to
+celebrate, you know."
+
+Aaron King did not misunderstand.
+
+As the two men approached the big house on Fairlands Heights, they saw
+that modern palace, from concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze
+with many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the socially graded
+levels of Fairlands, it outshone them all; and, quite likely, the
+glittering display was mistaken by many dwellers in the valley below for a
+new constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, too, some lonely
+dweller, high up among the distant mountain peaks, looked down upon the
+sparkling bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the wide lap of
+the night, and smiled in quiet amusement that the earth children should
+attach such value to so fragile a toy.
+
+As they passed the massive, stone pillars of the entrance to the grounds,
+Conrad Lagrange said, "Really, Aaron, don't you feel a little ashamed of
+yourself?--coming here to-night, after the outrageous return you have made
+for the generous hospitality of these people? You know that if Mrs. Taine
+had seen what you have done to her portrait, you could force the pearly
+gates easier than you could break in here."
+
+The artist laughed. "To tell the truth, I don't feel exactly at home. But
+what the deuce can I do? After my intimacy with them, all these months, I
+can't assume that they are going to make my picture a reason for refusing
+to recognize me, can I? As I see it, they, not I, must take the
+initiative. I can't say: 'Well, I've told the truth about you, so throw me
+out'."
+
+The novelist grinned. "Thus it is when 'Art' becomes entangled with the
+family of 'Materialism.' It's hard to break away from the flesh-pots--even
+when you know you are on the road to the Promised Land. But don't
+worry--'The Age' will take the initiative fast enough when she sees your
+portrait of her. Wow! In the meantime, let's play their game to-night, and
+take what spoils the gods may send. There will be material here for
+pictures and stories a plenty." As they went up the wide steps and under
+the portal into the glare of the lights, and caught the sound of the
+voices within, he added under his breath, "Lord, man, but 'tis a pretty
+show!--if only things were called by their right names. That old
+Babylonian, Belshazzar, had nothing on us moderns after all, did he? Watch
+out for the writing upon the wall."
+
+When Aaron King and his companion entered the spacious rooms where the
+pride of Fairlands Heights and the eastern lions were assembled, a buzz of
+comment went round the glittering company. Aside from the fact that Mrs.
+Taine, with practised skill, had prepared the way for her protege, by
+subtly stimulating the curiosity of her guests--the appearance of the two
+men, alone, would have attracted their attention The artist, with his
+strong, splendidly proportioned, athletic body, and his handsome,
+clean-cut intellectual face--calmly sure of himself--with the air of one
+who knows that his veins are rich with the wealth of many generations of
+true culture and refinement; and the novelist--easily the most famous of
+his day--tall, emaciated, grotesquely stooped--with his homely face seamed
+and lined, world-worn and old, and his sharp eyes peering from under his
+craggy brows with that analyzing, cynical, half-pathetic half-humorous
+expression--certainly presented a contrast too striking to escape notice.
+
+For an instant, as comrades side by side upon a battle-field might do,
+they glanced over the scene. To the painter's eye, the assembled guests
+appeared as a glittering, shimmering, scintillating, cloud-like mass that,
+never still, stirred within itself, in slow, graceful restless
+motions--forming always, without purpose new combinations and groupings
+that were broken up, even as they were shaped, to be reformed; with the
+black spots and splashes of the men's conventional dress ever changing
+amid the brighter colors and textures of the women's gowns; the warm flesh
+tints of bare white arms and shoulders, gleaming here and there; and the
+flash and sparkle of jewels, threading the sheen of silks and the filmy
+softness of laces. Into the artist's mind--fresh from the tragic
+earnestness of his day's work, and still under the enduring spell of his
+weeks in the mountains--flashed a sentence from a good old book; "For what
+is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
+then vanisheth away."
+
+Then they were greeting, with conventional nothings their beautiful
+hostess; who, with a charming air of triumphant--but not too
+triumphant--proprietorship received them and passed them on, with a low
+spoken word to Aaron King; "I will take charge of you later."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, before they drifted apart, found opportunity to growl in
+his companion's ear; "A near-great musician--an actress of divorce court
+fame--an art critic, boon companion of our friend Rutlidge--two free-lance
+yellow journalists--a poet--with leading culture-club women of various
+brands, and a mob of mere fashion and wealth. The pickings should be
+good. Look at 'Materialism', over there."
+
+In a wheeled chair, attended by a servant in livery, a little apart from
+the center of the scene,--as though the pageant of life was about to move
+on without him,--but still, with desperate grip, holding his place in the
+picture, sat the genius of it all--the millionaire. The creature's wasted,
+skeleton-like limbs, were clothed grotesquely in conventional evening
+dress. His haggard, bestial face--repulsive with every mark of his wicked,
+licentious years--grinned with an insane determination to take the place
+that was his by right of his money bags; while his glazed and sunken eyes
+shone with fitful gleams, as he rallied the last of his vital forces, with
+a devilish defiance of the end that was so inevitably near.
+
+As Aaron King, in the splendid strength of his inheritance, went to pay
+his respects to the master of the house, that poor product of our age was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing, that shook him--gasping and
+choking--almost into unconsciousness. The ready attendant held out a glass
+of whisky, and he clutched the goblet with skinny hands that, in their
+trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the
+momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his
+yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered
+upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony,
+talon-like finger, the gleaming flash of a magnificent diamond.
+
+Mr. Taine greeted the artist with his husky whisper "Hello, old chap--glad
+to see you!" Peering into the laughing, chattering, glittering, throng he
+added, "Some beauties here to-night, heh? Gad! my boy, but I've seen the
+day I'd be out there among them! Ha, ha! Mrs. Taine, Louise, and Jim tried
+to shelve me--but I fooled 'em. Damn me, but I'm game for a good time yet!
+A little off my feed, and under the weather; but game, you understand,
+game as hell!" Then to the attendant--"Where's that whisky?" And, again,
+his yellow, claw-like hand--with that beautiful diamond, a gleaming point
+of pure, white light--lifted the glass to his grinning lips.
+
+When Mrs. Taine appeared to claim the artist, her husband--huddled in his
+chair, an unclean heap of all but decaying flesh--watched them go, with
+hidden, impotent rage.
+
+A few moments later, as Mrs. Taine and her charge were leaving one group
+of celebrities in search of another they encountered Conrad Lagrange.
+"What's this I see?" gibed the novelist, mockingly. "Is it 'Art being led
+by Beauty to the Judges and Executioners'? or, is it 'Beauty presenting an
+Artist to the Gods of Modern Art'?"
+
+"You had better be helping a good cause instead of making fun, Mr.
+Lagrange," the woman retorted. "You weren't always so famous yourself that
+you could afford to be indifferent, you know."
+
+Aaron King laughed as his friend replied, "Never fear, madam, never
+fear--I shall be on hand to assist at the obsequies."
+
+In the shifting of the groups and figures, when dinner was announced, the
+young man found himself, again, within reach of Conrad Lagrange; and the
+novelist whispered, with a grin, "Now for the flesh-pots in earnest. You
+will be really out of place in the next act, Aaron. Only we artists who
+have sold our souls have a right to the price of our shame. _You_ should
+dine upon a crust, you know. A genius without his crust, huh! A devil
+without his tail, or an ass without his long ears!"
+
+Most conspicuous in the brilliant throng assembled in that banquet hall,
+was the horrid figure of Mr. Taine who sat in his wheeled chair at the
+head of the table; his liveried attendant by his side. Frequently--as
+though compelled--eyes were turned toward that master of the feast, who
+was, himself, so far past feasting; and toward his beautiful young
+wife--the only woman in the room, whose shoulders and arms were not bare.
+
+At first, the talk moved somewhat heavily. Neighbor chattered nothings to
+neighbor in low tones. It was as though the foreboding presence of some
+grim, unbidden guest overshadowed the spirits of the company But gradually
+the scene became more animated The glitter of silver and crystal on the
+board; the sparkle of jewels and the wealth of shimmering colors that
+costumed the diners; with the strains of music that came from somewhere
+behind a floral screen that filled the air with fragrance; concealed, as
+it were, the hideous image of immorality which was the presiding genius of
+the feast. As the glare of a too bright light blinds the eyes to the ditch
+across one's path, so the brilliancy of their surroundings blinded the
+eyes of his guests to the meaning of that horrid figure in the seat of
+highest honor. But rich foods and rare wines soon loose the tongues that
+chatter the thoughts of those who do not think. As the glasses were filled
+and refilled again, the scene took color from the sparkling goblets.
+Voices were raised to a higher pitch. Shrill or boisterous laughter rang
+out, as jest and story went the rounds. It was Mrs. Taine, now, rather
+than her husband, who dominated the scene. With cheeks flushed and eyes
+bright she set the pace, nor permitted any laggards.
+
+Conrad Lagrange watched, cool and cynical--his worn face twisted into a
+mocking smile; his keen, baffling eyes, from under their scowling brows,
+seeing all, understanding all. Aaron King, weary with the work of the past
+days, endured--wishing it was over.
+
+The evening was well under way when Mrs. Taine held up her hand. In the
+silence, she said, "Listen! I have a real treat for you, to-night,
+friends. Listen!" As she spoke the last word, her eyes met the eyes of the
+artist, in mocking, challenging humor. He was wondering what she meant,
+when,--from behind that screen of flowers,--soft and low, poignantly sweet
+and thrilling in its purity of tone, came the music of the violin that he
+had learned to know so well.
+
+Instantly, the painter understood. Mrs. Taine had employed Sibyl Andrés to
+play for her guests that evening; thinking to tease the artist by
+presenting his mountain comrade in the guise of a hired servant. Why the
+girl had not told him, he did not know. Perhaps she had thought to enjoy
+his surprise. The effect of the girl's presence--or rather of her music,
+for she, herself, could not be seen--upon the artist was quite other than
+Mrs. Taine intended.
+
+Under the spell of the spirit that spoke in the violin, Aaron King was
+carried far from his glittering surroundings. Again, he stood where the
+bright waters of Clear Creek tumbled among the granite boulders, and where
+he had first moved to answer the call of that music of the hills. Again,
+he followed the old wagon road to the cedar thicket; and, in the little,
+grassy opening with its wild roses, its encircling wilderness growth, and
+its old log house under the sheltering sycamores, saw a beautiful girl
+dancing with the unconscious grace of a woodland sprite, her arms upheld
+in greeting to the mountains. Once again, he was painting in the sacred
+quiet of the spring glade where she had come to him with her three gifts;
+where, in maidenly innocence, she had danced the dance of the butterflies;
+and, later, with her music, had lifted their friendship to heights of
+purity as far above the comprehension of the company that listened to her
+now, as the mountain peaks among the stars that night were high above the
+house on Fairlands Heights.
+
+The music ceased. It was followed by the loud clapping of hands--with
+exclamations in high-pitched voices. "Who is it?" "Where did you find
+him?" "What's his name?"--for they judged, from Mrs. Taine's introductory
+words, that she expected them to show their appreciation.
+
+Mrs. Taine laughed, and, with her eyes mockingly upon the artist's face
+answered lightly, "Oh, she is a discovery of mine. She teaches music, and
+plays in one of the Fairlands churches."
+
+"You are a wonder," said one of the illustrious critics, admiringly. And
+lifting his glass, he cried, "Here's to our beautiful and talented
+hostess--the patron saint of all the arts--the friend of all true
+artists."
+
+In the quiet that followed the enthusiastic endorsement of the
+distinguished gentleman's words, another voice said, "If it's a girl,
+can't we see her?" "Yes, yes," came from several. "Please, Mrs. Taine,
+bring her out." "Have her play again." "Will she?"
+
+Mrs. Taine laughed. "Certainly, she will. That's what she's here for--to
+amuse you." And, again, as she spoke, her eyes met the eyes of Aaron King.
+
+At her signal, a servant left the room. A moment later, the mountain girl,
+dressed in simple white, with no jewel or ornament other than a rose in
+her soft, brown hair, stood before that company. Unconscious of the eyes
+that fed upon her loveliness; there was the faintest shadow of a smile
+upon her face as she met, in one swift glance, the artist's look; then,
+raising her violin, she made music for the revelers, at the will of Mrs.
+Taine. As she stood there in the modest naturalness of her winsome
+beauty--innocent and pure as the flowers that formed the screen behind
+her; hired to amuse the worthy friends and guests of that hideously
+repulsive devotee of lust and licentiousness who, from his wheeled chair,
+was glaring at her with eyes that burned insanely--she seemed, as indeed
+she was, a spirit from another world.
+
+James Rutlidge, his heavy features flushed with drink, was gazing at the
+girl with a look that betrayed his sensual passion. The face of Conrad
+Lagrange was dark and grim with scowling appreciation of the situation.
+Mrs. Taine was looking at the artist. And Aaron King, watching his girl
+comrade of the hills as she seemed to listen for the music which she in
+turn drew from the instrument, felt,--by the very force of the contrast
+between her and her surroundings he had never felt before, the power and
+charm of her personality--felt--and knew that Sibyl Andrés had come into
+his life to stay.
+
+In the flood of emotions that swept over him, and in the mental and
+spiritual exultation caused by her music and by her presence amid such
+scenes; it was given the painter to understand that she had, in truth,
+brought to him the strength, the purity, and the beauty of the hills; that
+she had, in truth, shown him the paths that lead to the mountain heights;
+that it was her unconscious influence and teaching that had made it
+impossible for him to prostitute his genius to win favor in the eyes of
+the world. He knew, now, that in those days when he had painted her
+portrait, as she stood with outstretched hands in the golden light among
+the roses, he had mixed his colors with the best love that a man may offer
+a woman. And he knew that the repainting of that false portrait of Mrs.
+Taine, with all that it would cost him, was his first offering to that
+love.
+
+The girl musician finished playing and slipped away. When they would have
+recalled her, Mrs. Taine--too well schooled to betray a hint of the
+emotions aroused by what she had just seen as she watched Aaron
+King--shook her head.
+
+At that instant, Mr. Taine rose to his feet, supporting himself by holding
+with shaking hands to the table. A hush, sudden as the hush of death, fell
+upon the company. The millionaire's attendant put out his hand to steady
+his master, and another servant stepped quickly forward. But the man who
+clung so tenaciously to his last bit of life, with a drunken strength in
+his dying limbs, shook them off, saying in a hoarse whisper, "Never mind!
+Never mind--you fools--can't you see I'm game!"
+
+In the quiet of the room, that a moment before rang with excited voices
+and shrill laughter, the man's husky, straining, whispered boast sounded
+like the mocking of some invisible, fiendish presence at the feast.
+
+Lifting a glass of whisky with that yellow, claw-like hand upon which the
+great diamond gleamed--a spot of flawless purity; with his repulsive
+features twisted into a grewsome ugliness by his straining effort to force
+his diseased vocal chords to make his words heard; the wretched creature
+said: "Here's to our girl musician. The prettiest--lassie that I--have
+seen for many a day--and I think I know a pretty girl--when I see one too.
+Who comes bright and fresh--from her mountains, to amuse us--and to add,
+to the beauty--and grace and wit and genius--that so distinguishes this
+company--the flavor and the freedom of her wild-wood home. Her music--is
+good, you'll all agree--" he paused to cough and to look inquiringly
+around, while every one nodded approval and smiled encouragingly. "Her
+music is good--but I--maintain that she, herself, is better. To me--her
+beauty is more pleasing to the eye--than--her fiddling can possibly--be to
+the ear!" Again he was forced to pause, while his guests, with hand and
+voice, applauded the clever words. Lifting the glass of whisky toward his
+lips that, by his effort to speak, were drawn back in a repulsive grin, he
+leered at the celebrities sitting nearest. "I suppose to-morrow--if we
+desire the company of these distinguished artists--we will have to
+follow--them to the mountains. I don't blame you, gentlemen--if I was
+not--ah--temporarily incapacitated--I would certainly--go for a little
+trip to the inspiring hills--myself. Even if I don't know--as much about
+_music_ and _art_ as some of you." Again his words were interrupted by
+that racking cough, the sound of which was lost in the applause that
+greeted his witticism. Lifting the glass once more, he continued, "So
+here's to our girl musician--who is her own--lovely self so much more
+attractive than any music--she can ever make." He drained the glass, and
+sank back into his chair, exhausted by his effort.
+
+Aaron King was on the point of springing to his feet, when Conrad Lagrange
+caught his eye with a warning look. Instantly, he remembered what the
+result would be if he should yield to his impulse. Wild with indignation,
+rage, and burning shame, he knew that to betray himself would be to invite
+a thousand sneering questions and insinuations to besmirch the name of
+the girl he loved.
+
+In the continued applause and laughter that followed the drinking of the
+millionaire's toast, the artist caught the admiring words, "Bully old
+sport." "Isn't he game?" "He has certainly traveled some pace in his day."
+"The girl is a beauty." "Let's have her in again." This last expression
+was so insistently echoed that Mrs. Taine--who, through it all, had been
+covertly watching Aaron King's face, and whose eyes were blazing now with
+something more than the effect of the wine she had been drinking--was
+forced to yield. A servant left the room, and, a moment later, reappeared,
+followed by Sibyl.
+
+The girl was greeted, now, by hearty applause which she, accepting as an
+expression of the company's appreciation of her music, received with
+smiling pleasure. The artist, his heart and soul aflame with his awakening
+love, fought for self-control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again,
+silently bade him wait.
+
+Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was stilled. Slowly, under
+the spell of the music that, to him, was a message from the mountain
+heights, Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. His twitching
+nerves became steady. He felt himself as it were, lifted out of and above
+the scene that a moment before had so stirred him to indignant anger. His
+brain worked with that clearness and precision which he had known while
+repainting Mrs. Taine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity; indignation to
+contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think how little the girl he loved
+needed his poor defense against the animalism that dominated the company
+she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room fixed upon her as she
+played, she was as far removed from those who had applauded the suggestive
+words of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their true
+comprehension.
+
+Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. As the flash of a
+search-light in the darkness of night brings out with startling clearness
+the details of the scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before
+him his picture. With trained eye and carefully acquired skill, he studied
+the scene; impressing upon his memory every detail--the rich appointments
+of the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver and crystal; the
+sparkling jewels and shimmering laces; the bare shoulders; the
+wine-flushed faces and feverish eyes; and, in the seat of honor, the
+disease-wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance of Mr. Taine
+who--almost unconscious with his exertion--was still feeding the last
+flickering flame of his lustful life with the vision of the girl whose
+beauty his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that
+company--expressing as it did the spirit of an age that is ruled by
+material wealth and dominated by the passions of the flesh--the center of
+every eye, yet, still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart from
+them all; standing in her simple dress of white against the background of
+flowers--the mountain girl with her violin--offering to them the highest,
+holiest, gift of the gods--her music. Upon the girl's lovely, winsome
+face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. Her wide, blue eyes, as she
+played, were pleading, questioning, half fearful--as though she sensed,
+instinctively the presence of the spirit she could not understand; and
+felt, in spite of the pretense of the applause that had greeted her, the
+rejection of her offering.
+
+Not only did the artist, in that moment of conception see his picture and
+feel the forces that were expressed by every character in the composition,
+but the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad Lagrange had
+uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Materialism."
+
+Sibyl Andrés finished her music, and quickly withdrew as if to escape the
+noisy applause. Amid the sound of the clapping hands and boisterous
+voices, Mr. Taine, summoning the last of his wasted strength, again
+struggled to his feet. With those claw-like hands he held to the table for
+support; while--shaking in every limb, his features twisted into a horrid,
+leering grin--he looked from face to face of the hushed and silent
+company; with glazed eyes in which the light that flickered so feebly was
+still the light of an impotent lust.
+
+Twice, the man essayed to speak, but could not. The room grew still as
+death. Then, suddenly--as they looked--he lifted that yellow, skinny hand,
+to his wrinkled, ape-like brow, and--partially loosing, thus, his
+supporting grip upon the table--fell back, in a ghastly heap of diseased
+flesh and fine raiment; in the midst of which blazed the great
+diamond--as though the cold, pure beauty of the inanimate stone triumphed
+in a life more vital than that of its wearer.
+
+His servants carried the unconscious master of the house from the room.
+Mrs. Taine, excusing herself, followed.
+
+In the confusion that ensued, the musicians, hidden behind the floral
+screen, struck up a lively air. Some of the guests made quiet preparations
+for leaving. A group of those men--famous in the world of art and
+letters--under the influence of the wine they had taken so freely, laughed
+loudly at some coarse jest. Others, thinking, perhaps,--if they could be
+said to think at all,--that their host's attack was not serious, renewed
+conversations and bravely attempted to restore a semblance of animation to
+the interrupted revelries.
+
+Aaron King worked his way to the side of Conrad Lagrange, "For God's sake,
+old man, let's get out of here."
+
+"I'll find Rutlidge or Louise or some one," returned the other, and
+disappeared.
+
+As the artist waited, through the open door of an adjoining room, he
+caught sight of Sibyl Andrés; who, with her violin-case in her hand, was
+about to leave. Obeying his impulse, he went to her.
+
+"What in the world are you doing here?" he said almost roughly--extending
+his hand to take the instrument she carried.
+
+She seemed a little bewildered by his manner, but smiled as she retained
+her violin. "I am here to earn my bread and butter, sir. What are you
+doing here?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to be rude."
+
+She laughed, then, with a troubled air--"But is it not right for me to be
+here? It is all right for me to play for these people, isn't it? Myra
+didn't want me to come, but we needed the money, and Mrs. Taine was so
+generous. I didn't tell you and Mr. Lagrange because I wanted the fun of
+surprising you." As he stood looking at her so gravely, she put out her
+hand impulsively to his arm. "What is it, oh, what is it? How have I done
+wrong?"
+
+"You have done no wrong, my dear girl," he answered "It is only that--"
+
+He was interrupted by the cold, clear voice of Mrs. Taine, who had entered
+the room, unnoticed by them. "I see you are going, Miss Andrés.
+Good-night. I will mail you a check to-morrow. Your music was very
+satisfactory. An automobile is waiting to take you home. Good night."
+
+Before Aaron King could speak, the girl was gone.
+
+"Mr. Lagrange and I were just about to go," said the artist, as the woman
+faced him. "I hope Mr. Taine has not suffered severely from the excitement
+of the evening?"
+
+The woman's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with feverish
+excitement. Going close to him, she said in a low, hurried tone, "No, no,
+you must not go. Mr. Taine is all right in his room. Every one else is
+having a good time. You must not go. Come, I have had no opportunity, at
+all, to have you to myself for a single moment. Come, I--"
+
+As she had interrupted Aaron King's reply to Sibyl Andrés, the cool,
+sarcastic tones of Conrad Lagrange's deep voice interrupted her. "Mrs.
+Taine, they are hunting for you all over the house. Your husband is
+calling for you. I'm sure that Mr. King will excuse you, under the
+circumstances."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX
+
+In the Same Hour
+
+
+
+In a splendid chamber, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that dollars
+could buy, and attended by liveried servants, Mr. Taine was dying.
+
+The physician who met Mrs. Taine at the door, answered her look of inquiry
+with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." Beside the bed, sat
+Louise, wringing her hands and moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without
+speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward.
+
+The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fingers upon the
+skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, Mr. Taine, your wife is here."
+
+In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the wrinkled brow, opened; the
+loosely hanging, sensual lips quivered.
+
+The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, Mr. Taine."
+
+A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed eyes. The doctor could
+have sworn that the lips were twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking
+smile. As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, from some
+unguessed depths of his being, the last remnant of his remaining strength,
+the man looked about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send the
+others away--everybody--but her."
+
+"O papa, papa!" exclaimed poor Louise, protestingly.
+
+"Never mind, daughter," came the whispered answer from the bed. "Try to be
+game, girl--game as your father. Take her away, Jim."
+
+As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus far stood like a statue,
+seemingly incapable of thought or feeling or movement, he said in a low
+tone, "I will be just outside the door, madam; easily within call."
+
+When only the woman was left in the room with her husband, the dying man
+spoke again; "Come here. Stand where I can see you."
+
+Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position near the foot of the bed.
+
+After a moment's silence, during which he seemed to be rallying the very
+last of his vital forces for the effort, he said, "Well--the game is
+played--out. You think--you're the winner. You're--wrong--damn you--you're
+wrong. I wasn't--so drunk to-night that--I couldn't see." His face twisted
+in a hideous, malicious grin. "You--love--that artist fellow.
+Your--interest in his art is--all rot. It's _him_ you want--and you--you
+have been thinking--you'd get him--with my money--the same as I got you.
+But you won't. You've--lost him already. I'm glad--you love him--damn
+glad--because--I know that after--what he's seen of me--even if he didn't
+love--that mountain--girl, he wouldn't wipe--his feet on you. You've
+tortured me--you've mocked--and sneered and laughed--at me--in my
+suffering--you fiend--and I've--tried my damnedest--to pay you back. What
+I couldn't do--the man you love--will--do for me. You'll suffer--now in
+earnest. You thought you'd be a--sure winner--as soon--as I was out
+of--the game. But you've lost--you've lost--you've lost! I saw your love
+for him--in your--face to-night--as I have seen--it every time--you two
+were together. I saw his love--for the girl--too--and I--saw--that
+you--saw it. I--I--wouldn't--wouldn't die--until I'd told you--that I
+knew." He paused to gather his strength for the last evil effort of his
+evil life.
+
+The woman--who had stood, frozen with horror, her eyes fixed upon the face
+of the dying man, as though under a dreadful spell--cowered before him,
+livid with fear. Cringing, helpless--as though before some infernal
+monster--she hid her face; while her husband, struggling for breath to
+make her hear, called her every foul name he could master--derided her
+with fiendish glee--mocked her, taunted her, cursed her--with words too
+vile to print. With an oath and a profane wish for her future upon his
+lips, the end came. The sensual mouth opened--the diseased wasted limbs
+shuddered--the insane light in the lust-worn eyes went out.
+
+With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon the floor beside the bed.
+
+From the lower part of the house came the faint sounds of the few
+remaining revelers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the house on Fairlands Heights
+that night, they walked quickly, as though eager to escape from the
+brilliantly lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some distance
+away. Then the novelist, checking his quick stride, pointed toward the
+shadowy bulk of the mountains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in
+solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky.
+
+"Well, boy," he said, "the mountains are still there. It's good to see
+them again, isn't it?"
+
+Reaching home, the older man bade his friend good night. But the artist,
+declaring that he was not yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar
+for company, to sit for a while on the porch.
+
+Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks,
+he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with
+Sibyl Andrés in the hills. Every incident of their friendship he
+recalled--every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she
+loved--reviewing every conversation--questioning searching, wondering,
+hoping, fearing.
+
+Later, he went out into the rose garden--her garden--where the air was
+fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care.
+In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her
+presence. Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses--to the little
+gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the
+vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot
+where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting,
+while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the
+secret of her loveliness. He remembered how he had felt her presence in
+those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the
+place was haunted. He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him,
+her music had always moved him--how her message from the hills had seemed
+to call to the best that was in him.
+
+So it was, that, as he recalled these things,--as he lived again the days
+of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life,
+how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his
+best needs,--he came to know the answer to his questions--to his doubts
+and fears and hopes. There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of
+hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his
+face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not
+deny him--that, when she was ready, she would come to him.
+
+In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life,
+profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his
+licentious will--and cursing--died; Aaron King--inspired by the character
+and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and
+dreaming of their comradeship that was to be--dedicated himself anew to
+the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which
+belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.
+
+But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andrés could
+come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best
+strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awakened love, as he
+dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days
+of his testing were so near at hand.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI
+
+As the World Sees
+
+
+
+It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from
+Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.
+
+Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the
+house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.
+
+There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He did not know where the
+artist was. He had gone off somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog.
+Perhaps they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not until dinner time.
+
+Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. King. She was going away,
+and must see him, if possible, before she left. She would come in, and, if
+Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write a little note,
+explaining--in case she should miss him. The Chinaman silently placed the
+writing material before her, and disappeared.
+
+Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced the floor restlessly,
+in nervous agitation. Her face, when she had thrown back the veil,
+appeared old and worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn look
+to the weary, downward droop of the lips. As she moved about the room,
+nervously fingering the books and trifles upon the table or the mantle,
+she seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the window to stand
+looking out as if hoping for the return of the artist. She went to the
+open door of his bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, her
+face betraying the agony of her mind.
+
+With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four o'clock, for the
+East--with the body of her husband. She could not go without seeing again
+the man whom, as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved--loved with the
+only love of which--because of her environment and life--she was capable.
+She still believed in her power over him whose passion she had besieged
+with all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which she had seen in
+his face as he had watched the girl musician the night of the dinner,
+filled her with fear. Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did
+not return, she seated herself at the table to put upon paper, as best she
+could, the things she had come to say.
+
+Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Calling the Chinaman, she
+asked for a key to the studio, explaining that she wished to see her
+picture. She still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter would
+not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her portrait, which she had not
+yet seen, she might find some evidence of the painter's passion for her.
+She had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon the canvas what he
+thought of her, nor could she fail to recall his manner and her
+interpretation of it as he had worked upon the picture.
+
+In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce daring to draw the
+curtain. But, calling up in her mind the emotions and thoughts of the
+hours she had spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made bold
+by her reestablished belief in his passion and by her convictions that
+were founded upon her own desires. Under the stimulating influence of her
+thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her eyes grew bright
+with the light of triumphant anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly
+drew aside the curtain.
+
+The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait of Sibyl Andrés.
+
+With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. Taine drew back from
+the canvas. Looking at the beautiful painting,--in which the artist had
+pictured, with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, the
+spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers among which she stood,--the
+woman was moved by many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappointment
+admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and anger swept over her.
+Blinded by bitter tears, with a choking sob, in an agony of remorse and
+shame, she turned away her face from the gaze of those pure eyes. Then, as
+the flame of her passion withered her shame, hot rage dried her tears, and
+she sprang forward with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the picture.
+But, even as she put forth her hand, she hesitated and drew back, afraid.
+As she stood thus in doubt--halting between her impulse and her fear--a
+sound at the door behind her drew her attention. She turned to face the
+beautiful original of the portrait Instantly the woman of the world had
+herself perfectly in hand.
+
+Sibyl Andrés drew back with an embarrassed, "I beg your pardon. I
+thought--" and would have fled.
+
+But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said quickly, "O how do you do,
+Miss Andrés; come in."
+
+She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and
+manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so
+expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched.
+Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose
+minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham
+emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words of sympathy.
+
+Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of condolence with a manner that
+was perfect in its semblance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet
+managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social distance that separated
+the widow of Mr. Taine from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if
+courageously determined not to dwell upon her bereavement, she said, "I
+was just looking, again, at Mr. King's picture--for which you posed. It is
+beautiful, isn't it? He told me that you were an exceptionally clever
+model--quite the best he has ever had."
+
+The girl--disarmed by her own genuine feeling of sympathy for the
+speaker--was troubled at something that seemed to lie beneath the kindly
+words of the experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she returned
+doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. Mr. Lagrange thinks, though,
+that it is really a splendid portrait."
+
+Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one might smile at a child.
+"Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is a famous novelist--but he really knows very
+little of pictures."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," returned Sibyl, simply. "But the picture is not
+to be shown as a portrait of me, at all."
+
+Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of course. Under the
+circumstances, you would scarcely expect it, would you?"
+
+Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the woman meant, answered
+doubtfully, "No. I--I did not wish it shown as my portrait."
+
+Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very earnest in her kindly
+interest; as if, moved out of the goodness of her heart, she stooped from
+her high place to advise and counsel one of her own sex, who was so wholly
+ignorant of the world. "I fear, my dear, that you know very little of
+artists and their methods."
+
+To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist before I met Mr. King,
+this summer, in the mountains."
+
+Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, with gentle solicitude,
+"May I tell you something for your own good, Miss Andrés?"
+
+"Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine."
+
+"An artist," said the older woman, carefully, with an air of positive
+knowledge, "must find the subjects for his pictures in life. As he goes
+about, he is constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures that
+are of interest to him--or, that may be used by him to make pictures
+of interest. The subjects--or, I should say, the people who pose for
+him--are nothing at all to the artist--aside from his picture, you
+see--no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. Often, they are
+professional models, whom he hires as one hires any sort of service,
+you know. Sometimes--" she paused as if hesitating, then continued
+gently--"sometimes they are people like yourself, who happen to appeal
+to his artistic fancy, and whom he can persuade to pose for him."
+
+The girl's face was white. She stared at the woman with pleading,
+frightened dismay. She made a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not.
+
+The older woman, watching her, continued, "Forgive me, dear child. I do
+not wish to hurt you. But Mr. King is _so_ careless. I told him he should
+be careful that you did not misunderstand his interest in you. But he
+laughed at me. He said that it was your _innocence_ that he wanted to
+paint, and cautioned me not to warn you until his picture was finished."
+She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the air of a critic.
+"He really _has_ caught it very well. Aaron--Mr. King is so good at that
+sort of thing. He never permits his models to know exactly what he is
+after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, unconsciously, the
+particular thing that he wishes to get into his picture."
+
+When the tortured girl had been given time to grasp the full import of her
+words, the woman said again,--turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a
+smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy between herself and the
+artist,--"Have you seen his portrait of me?"
+
+"No," faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to look at it. It has always
+been covered when I have been in the studio."
+
+Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was some reason, known only to
+herself and the painter, why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait.
+"And do you come to the studio often--alone as you came to-day?" she
+asked, still kindly, as though from her experience she was seeking to
+counsel the girl. "I mean--have you been coming since the picture for
+which you posed was finished?"
+
+The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrassment and shame as she
+answered, falteringly, "Yes."
+
+"You poor child! Really, I must scold Aaron for this. After my warning
+him, too, that people were talking about his intimacy with you in the
+mountains It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin himself, if he is not
+more careful." She seemed sincerely troubled over the situation.
+
+"I--I do not understand, Mrs. Taine," faltered Sibyl. "Do you mean that
+my--that Mr. King's friendship for me has harmed him? That I--that it is
+wrong for me to come here?"
+
+"Surely, Miss Andrés, you must understand what I mean."
+
+"No, I--I do not know. Tell me, please."
+
+Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, as if forced by her sense
+of duty, she spoke. "The truth is, my dear, that your being with Mr. King
+in the mountains--going to his camp as familiarly as you did, and spending
+so much time alone with him in the hills--and then your coming here so
+often, has led people to say unpleasant things."
+
+"But what do people say?" persisted Sibyl.
+
+The answer came with cruel deliberateness; "That you are not only Mr.
+King's model, but that you are his mistress as well."
+
+Sibyl Andrés shrank back from the woman as though she had received a blow
+in the face. Her cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a little cry,
+she buried her face in her hands.
+
+The kind voice of the older woman continued, "You see, dear, whether it is
+true or not, the effect is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world
+your relations to Mr. King are--are wrong, it is as bad as though it were
+actually true. I felt that I must tell you, child, not alone for your own
+good but for the sake of Mr. King and his work--for the sake of his
+position in the world. Frankly, if you continue to compromise him and his
+good name by coming like this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world
+may not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mistress or not, but
+people will not countenance his open association with her, even under the
+pretext that she is a model."
+
+As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. "Dear me, I really must
+be going. I have already spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss
+Andrés. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt you."
+
+The girl looked at her with the pain and terror filled eyes of some
+gentle wild creature that can not understand the cruelty of the trap that
+holds it fast. "Yes--yes, I--I suppose you know best. You must know more
+than I. I--thank you, Mrs. Taine. I--"
+
+When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andrés sat for a little while before her
+portrait; wondering, dumbly, at the happiness of that face upon the
+canvas. There were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned hot and
+dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she drew the curtain carefully to hide
+the picture, and started toward the door. She paused. Going to the easel
+that held the other picture, she laid her hand upon the curtain. Again,
+she paused. Aaron King had said that she must not look at that
+picture--Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not--why? She did not know
+why.
+
+Perhaps--if the mountain girl had drawn aside the curtain and had looked
+upon the face of Mrs. Taine as Aaron King had painted it--perhaps the rest
+of my story would not have happened.
+
+But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andrés
+held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long
+and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the
+door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her custom was.
+
+Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden to the little gate in
+the hedge, she disappeared in the orange grove.
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from a long walk, overtook Myra
+Willard, who was returning from town, just as the woman of the disfigured
+face arrived at the gate of the little house in the orange grove. For a
+moment, the three stood chatting--as neighbors will,--then the two men
+went on to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced their coming to
+Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them as they entered the living-room. Telling
+them of Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter that she had
+left for him.
+
+As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of his friend, read the
+closely written pages, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame.
+When he had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, without
+speaking, deliberately and methodically tore Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny
+fragments. Dropping the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted
+his hands together with a significant gesture and looked at his watch.
+"Her train left at four o'clock. It is now four-thirty."
+
+"For which," returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, "let us give thanks."
+
+As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, gave a low "woof" that
+signalized the approach of a friend.
+
+Looking through the open door, they saw Myra Willard coming hurriedly up
+the walk. They could see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went
+quicklv forward to meet her.
+
+Women of Myra Willard's strength of character--particularly those who have
+passed through the furnace of some terrible experience as she so
+evidently had--are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression of emotion.
+That she was alarmed and troubled was evident. Her face was white, her
+eyes were frightened and she trembled so that Aaron King helped her to a
+seat; but she told them clearly, with no unnecessary, hysterical
+exclamations, what had happened. Upon entering the house, after parting
+from the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she had found a letter
+from Sibyl. The girl was gone.
+
+As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad Lagrange who read it and
+gave it to the artist. It was a pitiful little note--rather vague--saying
+only that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that she had not meant
+to do wrong; asking her to tell Mr. King and the novelist good-by; and
+begging the artist's forgiveness that she had not understood.
+
+Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to the faces of his two
+friends, in consternation. "Do you understand this, Miss Willard?" he
+asked, when he could speak.
+
+The woman shook her head. "Only that something has happened to make the
+child think that her friendship with you has injured you; and that she has
+gone away for your sake. She--she thought so much of you, Mr. King."
+
+"And I--I love her, Miss Willard. I should have told you soon. I tell you
+now to reassure you. I love her."
+
+Aaron King made his declaration to his two friends with a simple dignity,
+but with a feeling that thrilled them with the force of his earnestness
+and the purity and strength of his passion.
+
+Conrad Lagrange--world-worn, scarred by his years of contact with the
+unclean, the vicious, and debasing passions of mankind--grasped the young
+man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his habitual reserve
+could not conceal. "I'm glad for you, Aaron"--he said, adding
+reverently--"as your mother would be glad."
+
+"I have known that you would tell me this, sometime Mr. King," said Myra
+Willard. "I knew it, I think, before you, yourself, realized; and I, too,
+am glad--glad for my girl, because I know what such a love will mean to
+her. But why--why has she gone like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl,
+my girl!" For a moment, the distracted woman was on the point of breaking
+down; but with an effort of her will, she controlled herself.
+
+"It's clear enough what has sent her away," growled Conrad Lagrange, with
+a warning glance to the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the
+notion that her friendship with Aaron has been causing talk. I think
+there's no doubt as to where she's gone."
+
+"You mean the mountains?" asked Myra Willard, quickly.
+
+"Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight to Brian Oakley. Think!
+Where else _would_ she go?"
+
+"She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from your neighbor up the road,
+hasn't she, Miss Willard?" asked Aaron King.
+
+"Yes. I'll run over there at once."
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them think anything unusual has
+happened. We'll go over to your house and wait for you there."
+
+Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. Sibyl had borrowed the
+horse; asking them if she might keep it until the next day. She did not
+say where she was going. She had left about four o'clock.
+
+"That will put her at Brian's by nine," said the novelist.
+
+"And I will arrive there about the same time," added Aaron King, eagerly.
+"It's now five-thirty. She has an hour's start; but I'll ride an hour
+harder."
+
+"With an automobile you could overtake her," said Myra Willard.
+
+"I know," returned the artist, "but if I take a horse, we can ride back
+together."
+
+He started through the grove, toward the other house, on a run.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII
+
+The Mysterious Disappearance
+
+
+
+By the time Aaron King had found a saddle-horse and was ready to start on
+his ride, it was six o'clock.
+
+Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl
+had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could
+scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after
+Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop
+somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized
+how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering
+his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then,
+telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and
+thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first
+plan.
+
+But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste
+because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his
+reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his
+mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely.
+Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the
+artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the
+limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they
+had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar
+and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the
+people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening
+meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs.
+Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched him out of sight, with
+wondering gaze. Those he met, turned their heads to look after him.
+
+Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with his horse's flying feet.
+The points along the way, where he and the famous novelist had stopped to
+rest, and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly to his mind
+all that those weeks in the mountains had brought to him. Backward from
+that day when he had for the first time set his face toward the hills, his
+mind traveled--almost from day to day--until he stood, again, in that
+impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his
+studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness
+and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andrés, he lived again that hour when
+his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when
+he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of
+her sacrifice--even unto poverty--that he might, unhampered, be fitted for
+his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn
+promise that the purpose and passion of his mother's years of sacrifice
+should, in him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he retraced the
+steps that had led to his understanding that only a true and noble art
+could ever make good that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the
+little passing day, alone; not by gaining the applause of the thoughtless
+crowd; not by winning the rewards bestowed by the self-appointed judges
+and patrons of the arts; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of
+himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or blame--by saying the
+thing that was given him to say, because it was given him to say--would he
+keep that which his mother had committed to him. As mile after mile of the
+distance that lay between him and the girl he loved was put behind him in
+his race to her side, it was given him to understand--as never
+before--how, first the friendship of the world-wearied man who had,
+himself, profaned his art; and then, the comradeship of that one whose
+life was so unspotted by the world; had helped him to a true and vital
+conception of his ministry of color and line and brush and canvas.
+
+It was twilight when the artist reached the spot where the road crosses
+the tumbling stream--the spot where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at
+the foot of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the creek, the
+man, without checking his pace, turned his head to look back upon the
+valley that, far below, was fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its
+weird and gloomy mystery,--with its hidden life revealed only by the
+sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns and cities,--it was suggestive,
+now, to his artist mind, of the life that had so nearly caught him in its
+glittering sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his eyes to the
+mountain peaks ahead that, still in the light of the western sun, glowed
+as though brushed with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish
+that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of pines, where he had sat
+with Sibyl Andrés that day when she had tried to make him see the train
+that had brought him to Fairlands.
+
+He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not realized his love for the
+girl, before they left the hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was
+born that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he was fishing;
+when he had watched her from the cedar thicket, as she made her music of
+the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself,
+had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him
+in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known,
+when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not
+come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the
+big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?
+
+It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the
+gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was
+forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at
+the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her
+girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that
+she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would
+tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his.
+And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the
+pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.
+
+It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees,
+the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate.
+Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The
+door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall
+form of Brian Oakley.
+
+"Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice."
+
+The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is
+left of me."
+
+"Aaron King, by all that's holy!" cried the Ranger, coming quickly down
+the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything
+wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of
+night?"
+
+Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he
+come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said
+mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's
+hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"
+
+Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."
+
+The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not
+been here to-day?"
+
+"She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive
+words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.
+
+Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder.
+"Come, old man, pull yourself together and let a little light in on this
+matter," he said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why did you expect to
+find Sibyl here?"
+
+When Aaron King had finished his story, the other said, still without
+excitement, "Come into the house. You're about all in. I heard Doctor
+Gordan's 'auto' going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. Their
+baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would have passed her. I'll
+throw the saddle on Max, and we'll run over there and see what he knows.
+But first, you've got to have a bite to eat."
+
+The young man protested but the Ranger said firmly, "You can eat while I
+saddle; come. I wish Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold
+meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her sister. I'll call you when
+I'm ready." He spoke the last word from the door as he went out.
+
+The artist tried to eat; but with little success. He was again mounted and
+ready to go when the Ranger rode up from the barn on the chestnut.
+
+When they reached the point where the road to Morton's ranch leaves the
+main canyon road, Brian Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went
+on up to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's and see the
+Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. Did you meet any one as you came
+up? I mean after you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the
+canyon?"
+
+"No," replied the other. "Why?"
+
+"A man on a horse passed the Station about seven o'clock, going down.
+Where did the Doctor pass you?"
+
+"He didn't pass me."
+
+"What?" said the Ranger, sharply.
+
+"No one passed me after I left Fairlands."
+
+"Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must have had a puncture or
+something, or he would have passed the Station before he did."
+
+It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the Morton ranch.
+
+"We don't want to start any excitement," said the officer, as they drew
+rein at the corral gate. "You stay here and I'll drop in--casual like."
+
+It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, that his companion was
+gone for hours. In reality, it was only a few minutes until the Ranger
+returned. He was walking quickly, and, springing into the saddle he
+started the chestnut off at a sharp lope.
+
+"The baby is better," he said. "Doctor was here this afternoon--started
+home about two o'clock. That 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon.
+Morton knew nothing of the man on horseback who went down. We'll cut
+across to Carleton's."
+
+Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside from the wagon road, to
+follow a narrow trail through the chaparral. To the artist, the little
+path in the darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein and
+followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quarters of an hour later, they
+came out into the main road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile
+and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind the orchard of the
+deserted place.
+
+It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was dark. Without
+dismounting, Brian Oakley called, "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer.
+Moving his horse close to the window of the room where he knew the rancher
+slept, the Ranger tapped on the sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you;
+it's Oakley."
+
+A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton asked, "What is it, Brian?
+What's up?"
+
+"Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night?"
+
+"Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down from their summer camp.
+What's the matter?"
+
+Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The rancher interrupted only
+to greet the artist with a "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made
+known the identity of his companion.
+
+When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher said, "I heard that 'auto'
+going up, and then heard it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You
+missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come on straight up here
+you'd a met it."
+
+"Did you see the man on horseback, going down, just before dusk?" asked
+the officer.
+
+"Yes, but not near enough to know him. You don't suppose Sibyl would go up
+to her old home do you, Brian?"
+
+"She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and I will ride up there, on
+the chance."
+
+"You'll stop in on your way back?" called the rancher, as the two horsemen
+moved away.
+
+"Sure," answered the Ranger.
+
+An hour later, they were back. They had found the old home under the giant
+sycamores, on the edge of the little clearing, dark and untenanted.
+
+Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the Carleton ranch-house.
+Down at the corral, the twinkling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and
+there. As the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern came rapidly
+up the hill. At the porch, they were met by Henry Carleton, his two sons,
+and a ranch hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, and of the
+lantern on the porch, listening to Brian Oakley's report, each held the
+bridle-reins of a saddle-horse.
+
+"I figured that the chance of her being up there was so mighty slim that
+we'd better be ready to ride when you got back," said the mountain
+ranchman. "What's your program, Brian?" Thus simply he put himself and his
+household in command of the Ranger.
+
+The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've got the fastest horse
+in the outfit. I want you to go down to the Power-House and find out if
+any one there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he explained to
+the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, that she came into the mountains.
+While I haven't a doubt but she did, we've got to know."
+
+Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger finished The officer turned
+to him again. "Find out what you can about that automobile and the man on
+horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get back." There was a sharp
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs, and the rider disappeared in the darkness of
+the night.
+
+The other members of the little party rode more leisurely down the canyon
+road to the Ranger Station. When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley
+said, "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a little note." He
+went into the house where, as they sat on the porch, they saw him through
+the window, his desk.
+
+The Ranger had finished his letter and with the sealed official envelope
+in his hand, appeared in the doorway when his messenger to the Power-House
+returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his horse up to the porch.
+"Good time, Jack," said the officer, quietly.
+
+The young man answered, "One of the company men saw Sibyl. He was coming
+up with a load of supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power-House
+just before dark. When he was opening the gate, the automobile went by. It
+was too dark to see how many were in the machine. They heard the 'auto' go
+down the canyon, again, later. No one noticed the man on horseback. Three
+Company men will be up here at daybreak."
+
+"Good boy," said Brian Oakley, again. And then, for a little, no sound
+save the soft clinking of bit or bridle-chain in the darkness broke the
+hush that fell over the little group. With faces turned toward their
+leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, the long official
+envelope in his hand. When he spoke, there was a ring in his voice that
+left in the minds of his companions no doubt as to his view of the
+seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply.
+
+The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. "Yes, sir."
+
+"You will ride to Fairlands. It's half past one, now. You should be back
+between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and
+bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know.
+You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at
+your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait."
+
+"Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished
+into the night.
+
+While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger
+spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your
+place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with
+breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place
+the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will
+likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."
+
+"Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the rancher as he mounted.
+"You know they'll be on the job."
+
+"You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the mountaineer rode away.
+Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the
+canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after
+sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into
+the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up
+Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley
+neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've
+found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."
+
+When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the
+artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more
+that can be done, until daylight."
+
+Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his
+hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon
+muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words
+that he was not tired.
+
+"You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of
+this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible,
+to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us.
+Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't
+sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."
+
+As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I
+knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in
+my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands
+before you did, unless it came over through the Galena Valley, from some
+town on the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way--which isn't likely. If it
+_did_ come from Fairlands, it must have waited somewhere along the road,
+to enter the canyon after dark. Do you think that any one else besides
+Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl started up here?"
+
+"I don't think so. The neighbor where she borrowed the horse didn't know
+where she was going."
+
+"Who saw her last?"
+
+"I think Mrs. Taine did."
+
+The artist had already told the Ranger about the possible meeting of Mrs.
+Taine and Sibyl in his studio.
+
+"Hu-m-m," said the other.
+
+"Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you know," said the artist.
+
+"Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said." The Ranger spoke casually. Then, as if
+dismissing the matter, he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll
+take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. As soon as it's
+light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out where that automobile went--and
+what for."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII
+
+Beginning the Search
+
+
+
+Aaron King lay with closed eyes, but not asleep. He was thinking,
+thinking, thinking In a weary circle, his tired brain went round and
+round, finding no place to stop. The man on horseback, the automobile,
+some accident that might have befallen the girl in her distraught state of
+mind--he could find no place in the weary treadmill of conjecture to rest.
+While it was still too dark to see, Brian Oakley called him. And the call
+was a relief.
+
+As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, "It'll be light enough
+to see, by the time we get above Carleton's. We know the automobile went
+that far anyway."
+
+At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, by the lights, that the
+mountaineer's family were already making ready for the gathering of the
+riders. A little beyond, they met two men from the Company Head-Work, on
+their way to the meeting place. Soon, in the gray, early morning light,
+the tracks of the automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed to
+the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine had stopped and,
+turning around, had started back down the canyon. With experienced care,
+Brian Oakley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity.
+
+Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give up hope of finding
+any positive signs pointing to the solution of the puzzle, the officer
+remounted, slowly. "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry and
+cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, that there are no clear
+signs at all. Come, we better get back to Carleton's, and start the boys
+out. When Milt returns from Fairlands he may know something."
+
+With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, summoned in the night by
+the Ranger's messengers, assembled at the ranch; every man armed and
+mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied to the trees in the
+yard, and along the fence in front, or standing with bridle-reins over
+their heads, the horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on their
+heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the mountain riders who had
+arrived first and had finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's
+word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with the later ones; and
+these, as fast as they finished their meal, made way for the new arrivals.
+There was no loud talk; no boisterous laughter; no uneasy restlessness.
+Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, these hardy mountaineers
+had answered Brian Oakley's call; and they placed themselves, now, under
+his command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excitement but with a
+purpose and spirit that would, if need be, hold them in their saddles
+until their horses dropped under them, and would, then, send them on,
+afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could be made to respond
+to their wills.
+
+
+
+
+There was scarce a man in that company, who did not know and love Sibyl
+Andrés, and who had not known and loved her parents. Many of them had
+ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andrés' death. When the officer
+and his companion appeared, they gathered round their leader with simple
+words of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word.
+
+Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, and assigned the
+territory to be covered by each. Three shots in quick succession, at
+intervals of two minutes, would signal that the search was finished. Two
+men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, after his messenger to the
+Sheriff had returned. At sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch
+for further orders. When the officer finished speaking, the little group
+of men turned to the horses, and, without the loss of a moment, were out
+of sight in the mountain wilderness.
+
+A half hour before he was due, young Carleton appeared with the Sheriff's
+answer to the Ranger's letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley,
+heartily. "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest yourself,
+and be ready for whatever comes next."
+
+He turned to those he had held to go with him; "All right, boys, let's
+ride. Sheriff will take care of the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron."
+
+All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger rode in the lead, bending
+low from his saddle, his gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he
+dismounted and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or to wait, at
+his word. When they came out on the pipe-line trail, he halted the party,
+and, on foot, went carefully over the ground either way from the point
+where they stood.
+
+"Boys," he said at last, "I have a hunch that there was a horse on this
+trail last night. It's been so blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I
+can't be sure. I held you two men because I know you are good trailers.
+Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, and see what you can find. It isn't
+necessary to say stay with it if you strike anything that even looks like
+it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the other way, and up the Galena
+trail to the fire-break."
+
+While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs in the little path, and
+the artist, with the others, was waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to
+that day when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under the oaks and, in
+a spirit of irresponsible fun, had committed themselves to the leadership
+of Croesus. To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free leisure,
+seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's fanciful oration to the burro,
+he thought grimly how unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of
+the great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly trivial
+incident. He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he
+had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on
+the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the
+canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome
+companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours
+that she had spent there with him?
+
+As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her,
+that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step
+of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the
+trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their
+canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the
+very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along
+the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his
+mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find
+her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The
+officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the
+way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He
+could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where
+was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse,
+leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They
+should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night. Last night!
+Was it only last night?
+
+Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break on the crest of the
+Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I don't think there's been anything over
+this way," he said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up there,
+for a look around."
+
+At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the clump of pines, where Aaron
+King and Sibyl Andrés had eaten their lunch.
+
+"We'll be here some time," said the Ranger. "Make yourself comfortable. I
+want to see if there's anything stirring down yonder."
+
+With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena Valley side of the
+range, through his powerful glass; commenting, now and then, when some
+object came in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat beside
+him.
+
+They had risen to go and the officer was returning his glass to its case
+on his saddle, when Aaron King--pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and
+hazy in the distant valley--said, "Look there!"
+
+The other turned his head to see a flash of light that winked through the
+dull, smoky veil, with startling clearness. He smiled and turned again to
+his saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the sun striking some
+bright object that happens to be at just the right angle to hit you with
+the reflection. A bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile
+shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. Come, we'll go back to
+the trail and follow the break the other way."
+
+In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, hard day, as Brian
+Oakley and Aaron King were starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their
+return to the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His quick eyes had
+caught the twinkling gleam of a light at Sibyl's old home, far below,
+across the canyon. The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his
+four-footed companion, was going down the steep trail at a pace that sent
+the gravel flying and forced the artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to
+cling desperately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger sent the
+chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as they crossed the rough
+boulder-strewn wash. Plunging through the tumbling water of the creek,
+the horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed along the old,
+weed-grown road, into the little clearing They were met by Czar with a
+bark of welcome. A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad Lagrange and
+Myra Willard.
+
+"But why don't you stay down at the ranch, Myra?" asked the Ranger, when
+he had told them that his day's work was without results.
+
+"Listen, Mr. Oakley," returned the woman with the disfigured face. "I know
+Sibyl too well not to understand the possibilities of her temperament.
+Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and cool and strong
+under ordinary circumstances, under peculiar mental stress such as I
+believe caused her to leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know
+nothing. The child may be wandering, alone--dazed and helpless under the
+shock of a cruel and malicious attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some
+terrible stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me as she did.
+If she _is_ alone, out here in the hills, there is a chance that--even in
+her distracted state of mind--she will find her way to her old home." The
+woman paused, and then, in the silence, added hesitatingly, "I--I may say
+that I know from experience the possibilities of which I speak."
+
+The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley said softly, "Myra, you've
+got more heart and more sense than all of us put together." To Conrad
+Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss Willard?"
+
+"Yes," answered the novelist, "I would be little good in the hills, at
+such work as you are doing, Brian. I will do what I can, here."
+
+When the Ranger and the artist were riding down the canyon to the ranch,
+the officer said, "There's a big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After
+all, she knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that she's got a
+fairly clear idea of what sent the child off like this. As it stands now,
+the girl may be just wandering around. If she _is_, the boys will pick her
+up before many hours. She may have met with some accident. If _that's_ it,
+we'll know before long. She may have been--I tell you, Aaron, it's that
+automobile acting the way it did that I can't get around."
+
+The searchers were all at the ranch when the two men arrived. No one had a
+word of encouragement to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no
+light on the mystery of the automobile. The two men who had followed the
+pipe-line trail had found nothing. A few times, they thought they had
+signs that a horse had been over the trail the night before, but there was
+no certainty; and after the pipe-line reached the floor of the canyon
+there was absolutely nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena
+Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horseman who had gone down the
+canyon the evening before. The man was known to all. He had been hunting,
+and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him.
+He had come, now, to help in the search.
+
+Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend
+the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for
+camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up
+the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.
+
+Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that
+could scarcely be called sleep.
+
+At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and
+fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a
+camp-fire's light, came in.
+
+All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of
+their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long
+after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly
+exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found
+alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.
+
+Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other
+side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been
+found. The animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. The saddle
+and the horse's sides were stained with dirt, as if the animal had fallen.
+The bridle-reins had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the
+saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; he might have fallen
+and left his rider lying senseless. In any case, they reasoned, the animal
+would scarcely have found his way over the Galena range after he had been
+left to wander at will.
+
+Brian Oakley decided to send the main company of riders over into the Pine
+Glen country, to continue the search there. He knew that the men who found
+the horse would follow the animal's track back as far as possible. He
+knew, also, that if the animal had been wandering several hours, as was
+likely, it would be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron
+King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange the
+result of the day's work.
+
+The artist's voice trembled as he told the general opinion of the
+mountaineers; but Myra Willard said, "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby
+will come back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she is not dead
+or--I would know it."
+
+In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told him the woman of the
+disfigured face had no ground for her belief, he was somehow helped, by
+her words, to hope.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV
+
+The Tracks on Granite Peak
+
+
+
+The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian
+Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger, himself,
+had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.
+
+When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the
+neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break
+on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of
+little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never
+been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion,
+steadily.
+
+"Is there nothing that I can do, Brian?" returned the young man,
+hopelessly. "God, man! I _must_ do something! I _must_, I tell you!"
+
+"Steady, old boy, steady," returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The
+first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If
+you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."
+
+Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right,
+Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of
+course."
+
+The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the
+day on that point, up there,"--he pointed to the clump of pines,--"with
+this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle.
+Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the
+country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he
+paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.
+
+The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"
+
+The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."
+
+Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"
+
+The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only
+recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, _nothing_, get away
+from me. I don't want _you_ to think. I want you to do the thing that will
+be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will _think_, that I
+hesitate to assign you to the position."
+
+The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face.
+Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I
+understand. You can depend upon me."
+
+"Good boy!" came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go
+to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find
+it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and
+then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will
+stay over at Pine Glen."
+
+Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb,
+Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried
+not to think.
+
+It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a
+long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light
+in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian
+Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the
+search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied,
+watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.
+
+Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity
+in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of
+the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he
+watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one
+flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause.
+For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot
+under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order:
+--- -- - - -- ---.
+
+At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain
+peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the
+Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another.
+With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but
+the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to
+see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to
+be the orange groves about Fairlands.
+
+Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do?
+What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing.
+Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every
+possibility, and letting nothing _nothing_, get away from me." Instantly,
+he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing could
+accomplish nothing.
+
+Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder beside the trail, where he
+was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock.
+Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward
+the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the
+fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.
+
+Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the
+saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head
+back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He
+knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home.
+Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and
+what was left of his lunch.
+
+There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through
+and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp
+thorns and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times,
+he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the
+ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing
+meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff,
+clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and
+projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush,
+found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from
+some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on
+one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always
+he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was
+torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body
+reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not
+stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made
+him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below
+the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when
+the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was
+gone.
+
+On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered
+material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the
+food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was
+bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that
+numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to
+and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a
+strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling
+lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad
+Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns
+among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble
+world. The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about
+the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the
+mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his
+head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his
+beat.
+
+In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of
+his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the
+canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.
+
+It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must
+be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was
+little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward
+the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt
+cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this
+precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the
+pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and
+hard.
+
+Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs.
+Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back
+and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost
+ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to
+think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of
+softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.
+
+Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was
+forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the
+direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then,
+as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and
+another and then--
+
+The man--worn by his physical exertion, and by his days of mental
+anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the
+broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a
+smaller, lighter foot.
+
+For a moment he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with
+grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense,
+quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear
+Creek, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.
+
+Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the
+novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of
+Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger
+expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the
+roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen
+neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the
+mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for
+one of his inexperience, the way along the crest of the Galenas was
+practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the
+trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head
+of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to
+Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the
+peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to
+find the artist.
+
+At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack
+Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and
+Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was
+agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at
+daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that
+night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should
+accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.
+
+Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack
+were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a
+messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile had been seen returning
+from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man
+in the car.
+
+"Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this,
+with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to
+Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of
+whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to
+trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left
+it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."
+
+A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in
+opposite directions.
+
+Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road
+branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House
+at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an
+automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine
+had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.
+
+A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped
+and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the
+head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward
+Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small
+store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were
+tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose
+to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on
+the trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a
+slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in
+Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the
+artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range,
+Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the
+supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV
+
+A Hard Way
+
+
+
+When Sibyl Andrés left the studio, after meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was
+dominated by one thought--that she must get away from the world that saw
+only evil in her friendship with Aaron King--a friendship that, to the
+mountain girl, was as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian
+Oakley.
+
+Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman with the disfigured
+face, only the worthy had been permitted to enter into the life of this
+child of the hills. Sibyl's character--mind and heart and body and
+soul--had been formed by the strength and purity of her mountain
+environment; by her association with her parents, with Myra Willard, and
+with her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental comradeship with
+the greatest spirits that music and literature have given to the world. As
+her physical strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain life,
+the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was the gift of those kindred
+spirits that are as mountains in the mental and spiritual life of the
+race.
+
+Love had come to Sibyl Andrés, not as it comes to those girls who, in the
+hot-house of passion we call civilization, are forced into premature and
+sickly bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come to her so
+gently, so naturally, so like the opening of a wild flower, that she had
+not yet understood that it was love. Even as her womanhood had come to
+fulfill her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life to fulfill her
+womanhood. She had chosen her mate with an unconscious obedience to the
+laws of life that was divinely reckless of the world.
+
+Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for
+Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet
+understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been
+tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his
+growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with
+that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of
+God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human
+lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity
+than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their
+children?
+
+The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in
+every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl
+Andrés possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of
+her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted
+the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as
+her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and
+sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had
+crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, frightened,
+dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, the girl turned in reluctant
+flight from the place that was, to her, because of her love, holy ground.
+
+It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mrs. Taine--the woman had
+spoken so kindly; had seemed so reluctant to speak at all; had appeared so
+to appreciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unimportant incidents,
+that, in the light of the worldly woman's words, could be twisted to
+evidence the truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon the
+girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with his work, instead of truly
+enjoying life with him, as she had thought, her friendship was to him a
+menace, a danger. She had believed--and the belief had brought her a
+strange happiness--that he had cared for her companionship. He had cared
+only to use her for his pictures--as he used his brushes. He had played
+with her--as she had seen him toy idly with a brush, while thinking over
+his work. He would throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as
+she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside.
+
+The woman who was still a child could not blame the artist--she was too
+loyal to what she had thought was their friendship; she was too unselfish
+in her yet unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could not blame
+him--only--only--she wished--oh how she wished--that she had understood.
+It would not have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood.
+
+In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her confused and
+bewildering thoughts, in all her suffering one thing was clear; she must
+get away from the world that could see only evil--she must go at once.
+Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any moment. She could not
+face them; now that she knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would
+leave a little note and Myra--dear Myra with her disfigured face--would
+understand.
+
+Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she dressed in her mountain
+costume. Still acting under her blind impulse to escape, she made no
+explanations to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In her desire
+to avoid coming face to face with any one, she even chose the more
+unfrequented streets through the orange groves. In her humiliation and
+shame, she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not until she had
+left the city far behind, and, in the soft dusk, drew near the mouth of
+the canyon, did she regain some measure of her self-control.
+
+As she was overtaking the Power Company's team and wagon of supplies, she
+turned in her saddle, for the first time, to look back. A mile away, on
+the road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving spot which she
+knew to be an automobile. One of the Company machines, she thought; and
+drew a breath of relief that Fairlands was so far away.
+
+It was quite dark as she entered the canyon; but, as she drew near, she
+could see against the sky, those great gates, opening silently,
+majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she
+rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks
+and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light
+of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was
+sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling
+Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and
+calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and,
+somehow, all would be well.
+
+The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to
+the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick
+ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw
+the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company
+machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor,
+to see some one of the mountain folk.
+
+As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and
+halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her
+horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal
+restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed
+that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until
+a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as
+though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them,
+and stopped; its engine still running.
+
+Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only
+their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very
+nicely."
+
+But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by
+the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped
+close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard
+above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.
+
+"It is Miss Andrés, is it not?" He spoke as though he was known to her;
+and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and
+feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his
+face, as she answered.
+
+Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's
+position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his
+powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's
+companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of the machine,
+had drawn close to the other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein.
+
+Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry out, a softly-rolled,
+silk handkerchief was thrust between her lips and skillfully tied in
+place. She struggled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of her
+captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. As he bound her hands,
+the man spoke reassuringly; "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you.
+I've got to do this; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do you no good
+to wear yourself out."
+
+Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the stranger was as gentle as
+the circumstances permitted him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at
+all; and, in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He seemed to
+be acting wholly against his will; as if driven by some power that
+rendered him, in fact, as helpless as his victim.
+
+The other man, still standing by the horse's head, spoke sharply; "All
+right there?"
+
+"All right, sir," gruffly answered the man who held Sibyl, and lifting the
+helpless girl gently in his arms he seated her carefully in the machine.
+An automobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar turned up to
+hide the handkerchief about her lips, and her hat was replaced by an
+"auto-cap," pulled low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the other
+man took the seat beside her; and the car moved forward.
+
+The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. Realizing the
+uselessness of any effort to escape, she wisely saved her strength;
+watchful to take quick advantage of any opportunity that might present
+itself. Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to release the
+bandage that prevented her from crying out. But the hands that had bound
+her had been too skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her
+companion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned collar and cap
+pulled low over "auto-glasses," the identity of the man driving the car
+was effectually hidden.
+
+Only when they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights
+through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her
+strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young
+voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her
+safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon
+run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as
+she was, the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she sank back in
+the seat, exhausted by her useless exertion.
+
+At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile stopped. The man who
+had been following on Sibyl's horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men
+worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets--as the girl guessed--on
+the animal. Presently, the one who had bound her, lifted her gently from
+the automobile "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her ear, as he
+carried her toward the horse. "It will do you no good." And the girl did
+not again resist, as he lifted her to the saddle.
+
+The driver of the car said something to his companion in a low tone, and
+Sibyl heard her captor answer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she
+were in her own home."
+
+Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only the reply; "Don't worry; I
+understand that. I'll go through with it. You've left me no chance to do
+anything else."
+
+Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the bridle-rein, the man who
+seemed to be under orders, led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the
+girl heard the automobile starting on its return. The sound died away in
+the distance. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sound of
+the man's hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the road.
+
+Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to the horse's shoulder,
+asked if she was comfortable. The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that
+gag," he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I dare not take
+chances." He turned abruptly away and they went on.
+
+Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a ray of hope. That no
+immediate danger threatened, she was assured. That the man was acting
+against his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend her efforts
+toward enlisting his sympathies,--to make it hard for him to carry out the
+purpose of whoever controlled him,--instead of antagonizing him by
+continued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, and so making it
+easier for him to do his master's bidding.
+
+Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they reached Burnt Pine,
+where the man removed the handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips.
+
+"Oh, thank you," she said quietly. "That is so much better."
+
+"I'm sorry that I had to do it," he returned, as he unbound her arms.
+"There, you may get down now, and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for
+you."
+
+The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to be free," she said.
+"But, really, I'm not a bit tired. Can't I help you with the pack?"
+
+"No," returned the other, gruffly, as though he understood her purpose and
+put himself on his guard. "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a
+long road ahead. You must rest."
+
+Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back against a tree.
+
+As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she said, "May I ask where
+you are taking me?"
+
+"It's a long road, Miss Andrés. We'll be there to-morrow night," he
+answered reluctantly.
+
+Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is--some one waiting for--for us, at
+the end of our journey?"
+
+The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "no, Miss Andrés; there'll he
+just you and me, for some time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear
+_me_."
+
+"I am not at all afraid of you," she returned gently. "But I am--" she
+hesitated--"I am sorry for you--that you have to do this."
+
+The man arose abruptly. "We must he going."
+
+For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to the Laurel Creek trail,
+toward San Gorgonio; then they turned aside to follow some unmarked way,
+known only to the man. When the first soft tints of the day shone in the
+sky behind the peaks and ridges, while Sibyl's friends were assembling at
+the Carleton Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was directing
+the day's search, the girl was following her guide in the wild depths of
+the mountain wilderness, miles from any trail. The country was strange to
+her, but she knew that they were making their way, far above the canyon
+rim, on the side of the San Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold
+Water country that opened into the great desert beyond.
+
+As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her companion a man of medium
+height, with powerful shoulders and arms; dressed in khaki, with mountain
+boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a powerful stride that told
+of almost tireless strength, the girl saw the familiar stock of a
+Winchester rifle. Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his face.
+It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but
+the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent.
+In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness,
+as though there were memories that could not be escaped.
+
+"We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss Andrés," he said
+gravely.
+
+"I'm so hungry," she answered, dismounting. "May I make the coffee?"
+
+He shook his head. "I'm sorry; but there must be no telltale smoke. The
+Ranger and his riders are out by now, as like as not."
+
+"You seem very familiar with the country," she said, moving easily toward
+the rifle which he had leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with
+the pack of supplies.
+
+"I am," he answered. "I have been forced to learn it thoroughly. By the
+way, Miss Andrés,"--he added, without turning his head, as he knelt on the
+ground to take food from the pack,--"that Winchester will do you no good.
+It is not loaded. I have the shells in my belt." He arose, facing her, and
+throwing open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five that hung in
+a shoulder holster under his left armpit. "This will serve in case quick
+action is needed, and it is always safely out of your reach, you see."
+
+The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," she said. "I might have
+known that you put the rifle within my reach to try me."
+
+"I thought it would save you needless disappointment to make things clear
+at once," he answered. "Breakfast is ready."
+
+The incident threw a strong light upon the character with which Sibyl had
+to deal. She realized, more than ever, that her only hope lay in so
+winning this man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn against
+whoever had forced him into his present position. The struggle was to be
+one of those silent battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are
+not seen but only felt, and where those who fight must often fight with
+smiling faces. The girl's part was to enlist her captor to fight for her,
+against himself. She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her object
+with caution. Eager to know who it was that ruled this man, and by what
+peculiar power a character so strong could be so subjected, she dared not
+ask. Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the
+mountain wilds, she watched and waited for some sign that her companion's
+mood would make it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she exercised
+all her womanly tact to lead him to forget his distasteful position, and
+so to make his uncongenial task as pleasant as possible.
+
+The girl did not realize how far her decision, in itself, aroused the
+admiring sympathy of her captor. Her coolness, self-possession, and
+bravery in meeting the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather
+than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, did more than she
+realized toward accomplishing her purpose.
+
+During that long forenoon, she sought to engage her guide in conversation,
+quite as though they were making a pleasure trip that was mutually
+agreeable. The man--as though he also desired his thoughts removed as far
+as might be from his real mission--responded readily, and succeeded in
+making himself a really interesting companion. Only once, did the girl
+venture to approach dangerous ground.
+
+"Really," she said, "I wish I knew your name. It seems so stupid not to
+know how to address you. Is that asking too much?"
+
+The man did not answer for some time, and the girl saw his face clouded
+with somber thought.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said gently. "I--I ought not to have asked."
+
+"My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andrés," he said deliberately. "But it is
+not the name by which I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is an
+honorable name, and I would like to hear it again--" he paused--"from
+you."
+
+Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston--believe me, I do
+appreciate your confidence, and--" she in turn hesitated--"and I will keep
+the trust."
+
+By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the Galenas, having come by an
+unmarked way, through the wild country around the head of Clear Creek
+Canyon.
+
+They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at his watch, took a small
+mirror from his pocket and stood gazing expectantly toward the distant
+valley where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, a flash of
+light appeared; then another and another. It was the signal that Aaron
+King had seen and to which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that
+first day of their search.
+
+With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak answered and the girl, watching
+and understanding that he was communicating with some one, saw his face
+grow dark with anger. She did not speak.
+
+They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the peak, when the man again
+stopped, saying, "You must dismount here, please."
+
+Removing the things from the saddle, he led the horse a little way down
+the Galena Valley side of the ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then,
+slapping the animal about the head with his open hand, he forced the horse
+to break the reins, and started him off toward the distant valley. Again,
+the girl understood and made no comment.
+
+Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her companion--his eyes
+avoiding hers in shame--said gruffly, "Come."
+
+Their way, now, led down from the higher levels of peak and ridge, into
+the canyons and gorges of the Cold Water country. There was no trail, but
+the man went forward as one entirely at home. At the head of a deep gorge,
+where their way seemed barred by the face of an impossible cliff that
+towered above their heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand,
+sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and faced the girl,
+enquiringly. "You have a good head, Miss Andrés?"
+
+Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. Marston," she answered.
+"You need not fear for me."
+
+Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, he led her, by a narrow
+ledge, across the face of the cliff; and then, by an easier path, down the
+opposite wall of the gorge.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at a little log cabin
+that was so hidden in the wild tangle of mountain growth at the bottom of
+the narrow canyon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred yards.
+
+The girl knew that they had reached the end of their journey. Nearly
+exhausted by the hours of physical exertion, and worn with the mental and
+nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that her companion spread
+for her upon the ground.
+
+"As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for you," he said,
+regarding her kindly. "Poor child, this has been a hard, hard, day for
+you. For me--"
+
+Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank him. For a moment he
+stood looking down at her. Then she saw his face grow black with rage,
+and, clenching his great fists, he turned away.
+
+While waiting for the darkness that would hide the smoke of the fire, the
+man gathered cedar boughs from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed
+in the cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built a fire in the
+rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, announced supper. The meal was
+really excellent; and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily;
+which won an admiring comment from her captor.
+
+The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to thank you, Miss Andrés,
+for making this day as easy for me as you have. We will be alone here,
+until Friday, at least; perhaps longer. There is a bar to the cabin door.
+You may rest here as safely as though you were in your own room. Good
+night."
+
+Before she could answer, he was gone.
+
+A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. "Mr. Marston," she
+called.
+
+"Yes, Miss Andrés," came, instantly, out of the darkness.
+
+"Please come into the cabin."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"It will be cold out there. Please come inside."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Andrés; but I will do very nicely. Bar the door and go to
+sleep."
+
+"But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know that you are
+comfortable."
+
+The man came to her and she saw him in the dim light of the fire, standing
+hat in hand. He spoke wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andrés, that you
+would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin with you?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in."
+
+But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And why are you not afraid?"
+he asked curiously.
+
+"Because," she answered, "I know that you are a gentleman."
+
+The man laughed harshly--such a laugh as Sibyl had never before heard. "A
+gentleman! This is the first time I have heard that word in connection
+with myself for many a year, Miss Andrés. You have little reason for using
+it--after what I have done to you--and am doing."
+
+"Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do what you are doing. You
+_are_ a gentleman, Mr. Marston.--Won't you please come in and sleep by the
+fire? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And you have had such a hard
+day."
+
+"God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andrés," the man said brokenly.
+"But I will not intrude upon your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he
+added savagely, "don't you see that I--I _can't?_ Bar your door, please,
+and let me play the part assigned to me. Your kindness to me, your
+confidence in me, is wasted."
+
+He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI
+
+What Should He Do
+
+
+
+The next morning, it was evident to Sibyl Andrés that the man who said his
+name was Henry Marston had not slept.
+
+All that day, she watched the battle--saw him fighting with himself. He
+kept apart from her, and spoke but little. When night came, as soon as
+supper was over, he again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in
+a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She could not understand;
+but she felt him fighting, fighting; and she knew that he fought for her.
+What was it? What terrible unseen force mastered this man,--compelled him
+to do its bidding,--even while he hated and loathed himself for
+submitting?
+
+Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless girl could only pray
+that her companion might be given strength.
+
+The following morning, at breakfast, he told her that he must go to
+Granite Peak to signal. His orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to
+go alone; but he would not. She might go with him, if she chose.
+
+Even this crumb of encouragement--that he would so far disobey his
+master--filled the girl's heart with hope. "I would love to go with you,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, I
+would rather stay."
+
+"You mean that you would rather be locked up in the cabin all day, than to
+make trouble for me?" he asked.
+
+"It wouldn't be so terrible," she answered, "and I would like to do
+something--something to--to show you that I appreciate your, kindness to
+me. There's nothing else I _can_ do, is there?"
+
+The man looked at her wonderingly. It was impossible to doubt her
+sincerity. And Sibyl, as she saw his face, knew that she had never before
+witnessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes that looked into
+hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, were the eyes of a soul in torment.
+Her own eyes filled with tears that she could not hide, and she turned
+away.
+
+At last he said slowly, "No, Miss Andrés, you shall not stay in the cabin
+to-day. Come; we must go on, or I shall be late."
+
+At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes from distant
+Fairlands--the flashes that Aaron King was watching, from the peak where
+they had sat together that day of their last climb. As the man answered
+the signals with his mirror, and the girl beside him watched, the artist
+was training his glass upon the spot where they stood; but, partially
+concealed as they were, the distance was too great.
+
+When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the message conveyed by the
+flashes of light, his face was terrible to see; and the girl, without
+asking, knew that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly fear gripped her
+heart; but she was strangely calm. On the way back to the cabin, the man
+scarcely spoke, but walked with bent head; and the girl felt him fighting,
+fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead with him, to demand that he tell
+her why he must do this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinctively
+that he must fight alone. So she watched and waited and prayed. As they
+were crossing the face of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man
+stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, stood looking
+moodily down into the depths below. Then they went on. That night, he did
+not leave the cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, but
+sat on one of the rude seats with which the little hut was furnished,
+gazing into the fire.
+
+The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss Andrés, I would like to
+ask your opinion in a matter that I cannot decide satisfactorily to
+myself."
+
+She took the seat on the other side of the rude fireplace.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Marston?"
+
+"I will put it in the form of a story," he answered. Then, after a wait of
+some minutes, as though he found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old
+story, Miss Andrés; a very common one, but with a difference. A young man,
+with every chance in the world to go right, went wrong. He was well-born.
+He was fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and
+considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the
+man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool--that's
+all--a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness.
+
+"A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is a big price for a young
+man to pay for being a fool, Miss Andrés. He was twenty-five when he went
+in--strong and vigorous, with a good mind; the prospects years of prison
+life--but that's not the story. I could not hope to make you understand
+what a thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a man of
+twenty-five. But, at least, you will not wonder that the man watched for
+an opportunity to escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten
+years,--ten years,--Miss Andrés, the man watched and prayed for a chance
+to escape. Then he got away.
+
+"He was never a criminal at heart, you must understand. He had no wish,
+now, to live a life of crime. He wished only to live a sane, orderly,
+useful, life of freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They could not
+take him, but they made it impossible for him to escape--he was
+starving--dying. He would not give himself up to the twenty years of hell
+that waited him. He did not want to die--but he would die rather than go
+back.
+
+"Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a man found him. The poor
+hunted devil of a convict aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the
+wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to furnish him with
+supplies, until it would be safe for him to leave his hiding place. He
+brought him food and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's prison
+pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were grown, and the prison manner
+and walk were, in some measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking
+that he had perished in the mountains, had given up looking for him; his
+benefactor gave him work--beautiful work in the orange groves--where he
+was safe and happy and useful and could feel himself a _man_.
+
+"Do you wonder, Miss Andrés, that the man was grateful? Do you wonder that
+he worshipped his benefactor--that he looked upon his friend as upon his
+savior?"
+
+"No," said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a beautiful thing to do--to
+help the poor fellow who wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man
+who had escaped, loved his friend."
+
+"But listen," said the other, "when the convict was beginning to feel
+safe; when he saw that he was out of danger; when he was living an
+honorable, happy life, instead of spending his days in the hell they call
+prison; when he was looking forward to years of happiness instead of to
+years of torment; then his benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and
+said, 'Unless you do what I tell you, now--unless you help me to something
+that I want, I will send you back to prison. Do as I say, and your life
+shall go on as it is--as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn you
+over to the officers, and you will go back to your hell for the remainder
+of your life.'
+
+"Do you wonder, Miss Andrés, that the convict obeyed his master?"
+
+The girl's face was white with despair, but she did not lose her
+self-control. She answered the man, thoughtfully--as though they were
+discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I think,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend upon what it was that the
+man wanted the convict to do. It seems to me that I can imagine the
+convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man
+wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his
+freedom. What was it the man wanted?"
+
+Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.
+
+The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.
+
+At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, "Freedom and
+a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only
+the memory of a good deed--which should the man choose, Miss Andrés?"
+
+"I think," she replied, "that you should tell me, plainly, what it was
+that the man wanted the convict to do."
+
+"I will go on with the story," said the other.
+
+"The convict's benefactor--or, perhaps I should say, master--loved a woman
+who refused to listen to him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very
+suddenly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hurried note, saying,
+only, that she was going away. By accident, the man found the note and saw
+his opportunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the
+mountains. He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no
+one would know what had become of her. He believed that she would marry
+him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone,
+because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she
+had gone with him. Their marriage would save her good name. He wanted the
+man whom he could send back to prison to help him.
+
+"The convict had known his benefactor's kindness of heart, you must
+remember, Miss Andrés. He knew that this man was able to give his wife
+everything that seems desirable in life--that thousands of women would
+have been glad to marry him. The man assured the convict that he desired
+only to make the girl his wife before all the world. He agreed that she
+should remain under the convict's protection until she _was_ his wife, and
+that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony." The man paused.
+
+When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do you wonder, Miss Andrés,
+that the convict obeyed his master?"
+
+"No," said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, Mr. Marston," she
+continued, hesitatingly, "what do you think the convict in your story
+would have done if the man had not--if he had not wanted to marry the
+girl?"
+
+"I know what he would have done in that case," the other answered with
+conviction. "He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would
+have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his
+freedom at such a price."
+
+The girl leaned forward, eagerly; "And suppose--suppose--that after the
+convict had done his master's bidding--suppose that after he had taken the
+girl away from her friends--suppose, then, the man would not marry her?"
+
+For a moment there was no sound in the little room, save the crackling of
+the fire in the fire-place, and the sound of a stick that had burned in
+two, falling in the ashes.
+
+"What would the convict do if the man would not marry the girl?" persisted
+Sibyl.
+
+Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge passing sentence; "If
+the man violated his word--if he lied to the convict--if his purpose
+toward the girl was anything less than an honorable marriage--if he
+refused to keep his promise after the convict had done his part--he would
+die, Miss Andrés. The convict would kill his benefactor--as surely as
+there is a just God who, alone, can say what is right and what is wrong."
+
+The girl uttered a low cry.
+
+The man did not seem to notice. "But the man will do as he promised, Miss
+Andrés. He wishes to make the girl his wife. He can give her all that
+women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In the eyes of the world,
+she would be envied by thousands. And the convict would gain freedom and
+the right to live an honorable life--the right to earn his bread by doing
+an honest man's work. Freedom and a life of honorable service, at the
+price; or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should he
+choose, Miss Andrés? The convict is past deciding for himself."
+
+The troubled answer came out of the honesty of the girl's heart; "Mr.
+Marston, I do not know."
+
+A moment, the man on the other side of the fireplace waited. Then, rising,
+he quietly left the cabin. The girl did not know that he was gone, until
+she heard the door close.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the wild Cold Water country,
+Sibyl Andrés sat before the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high,
+wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron King grimly walked his
+weary beat. In Clear Creek Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange
+waited, and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in the Galena
+Valley, an automobile from Fairlands stopped at the mouth of a canyon
+leading toward Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the night, a
+man strove to know right from wrong.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII
+
+The Man Was Insane
+
+
+
+Neither Sibyl Andrés nor her companion, the next morning, reopened their
+conversation of the night before. Each was preoccupied and silent, with
+troubled thoughts that might not be spoken.
+
+Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl saw the man listening, as though for
+a step on the mountainside above. She knew, without being told, that the
+convict was expecting his master. It was, perhaps, ten o'clock, when they
+heard a sound that told them some one was approaching.
+
+The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round of cartridges into the
+magazine; saying to the girl, "Go into the cabin and bar the door; quick,
+do as I say! Don't come out until I call you."
+
+She obeyed; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, disappeared in the
+heavy underbrush.
+
+A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the bushes and stepped into the
+little open space in front of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle
+under his arm.
+
+The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew as Henry Marston, with,
+"Hello, George, everything all right? Where is she?"
+
+"Miss Andrés is in the cabin. When I heard you coming, I asked her to go
+inside, and took cover in the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it
+was you."
+
+Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. But you needn't worry.
+Everything is as peaceful as a graveyard. They've found the horse, and
+they think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an accident while
+wandering around the hills in a state of mental aberration."
+
+"You left the supplies at the same old place, I suppose?" said the
+convict.
+
+"Yes, I brought what I could," Rutlidge indicated a pack which he had
+slipped from his shoulder as he was talking. "You better hike over there
+and bring in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will make it
+back by noon, to-morrow."
+
+The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word and trembled with fear.
+The convict spoke again.
+
+"What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge?"
+
+"Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until you get back. You must
+start at once. You say Miss Andrés is in the cabin?" He turned toward the
+door.
+
+But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. I have a word to say,
+before I go."
+
+"Well, out with it."
+
+"You are not going to forget your promise to me?"
+
+"Certainly not, George. You are safe."
+
+"I mean regarding Miss Andrés."
+
+"Oh, of course not! Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your wife."
+
+James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care of her until you get back.
+You need have no fear. You're not doubting my word, are you?"
+
+"If I doubted your word, I would take Miss Andrés with me," answered the
+convict, simply.
+
+James Rutlidge looked at him, curiously; "Oh, you would?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, too, that if you
+_should_ forget your promise--"
+
+"Well, what would you do if I should forget?"
+
+The answer came deliberately; "If you do not keep your promise I will kill
+you, Mr. Rutlidge."
+
+James Rutlidge did not reply.
+
+Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked.
+
+Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes?"
+
+"You may come out now, please, Miss Andrés."
+
+As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Thank you,
+Mr. Marston. I heard."
+
+"I meant you to hear," he returned in a whisper. "Do not be afraid." In a
+louder tone he continued. "I must go for supplies, Miss Andrés. I will be
+back to-morrow noon."
+
+He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and was gone.
+
+Sibyl Andrés faced James Rutlidge, without speaking. She was not afraid,
+now, as she had always been in his presence, until that day when he had so
+plainly declared himself to her and she met his advances with a gun. The
+convict's warning to the man who could send him back to prison for
+practically the remaining years of his life, had served its purpose in
+giving her courage. She did not believe that, for the present, Rutlidge
+would dare to do otherwise than heed the warning.
+
+[Illustration: Still she did not speak.]
+
+James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+"Really," he said, at last, "you do not seem at all glad to see me."
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"I am frightfully hungry"--he continued, with a short laugh, moving toward
+her as she stood in the door of the cabin--"I've been walking since
+midnight I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't even stop for
+breakfast."
+
+She stepped out, and moved away from the door.
+
+With another laugh, he entered the cabin.
+
+Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he went back to the girl
+who had seated herself on a log, at the farther side of the little
+clearing. "You seem fairly comfortable here," he said.
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He has been kind to you?"
+
+Still she did not speak.
+
+He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't keep this up, you know.
+Say what you have to say, and let's get it over."
+
+All the time, she had been regarding him intently--her wide, blue eyes
+filled with wondering pain. "How could you?" she said at last. "Oh, how
+could you do such a thing?"
+
+His face flushed. "I did it because you have driven me mad, I guess. From
+the first time I saw you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and
+again, in the last three years, to approach you; but you would have
+nothing to do with me. The more you spurned me, the more I wanted you.
+Then this man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with him. It made me
+wild. From that day when I met you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I
+have been ready for anything. I determined if I could not win you by fair
+means, I would take you in any way I could. When my opportunity came, I
+took advantage of it. I've got you. The story is already started that you
+were the painter's mistress, and that you have committed suicide. You
+shall stay here, a while, until the belief that you are dead has become a
+certainty; then you will go East with me."
+
+"But you cannot do a thing so horrible!" she exclaimed "I would tell my
+story to the first people we met."
+
+He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal meaning, "You do not seem to
+understand. You will be glad enough to keep the story a secret--when the
+time comes to go."
+
+Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only stammer, "How could
+you--oh how could you! Why, why--"
+
+"Why!" he echoed. Then, as he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with
+reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you!
+Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why!"
+
+He moved another step toward her, his face flushed with the insane passion
+that mastered him, his eyes burning with the reckless light of one past
+counting the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in terror.
+Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, thinking to shut and bar the
+door. She reached the door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While
+he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. Putting his
+shoulder to the door, the man easily forced it open against her lighter
+weight. As he crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest corner of
+the little room, and cowered, trembling--too shaken with horror to cry
+out. A moment he paused; then started toward her.
+
+At that instant, the convict burst through the underbrush into the little
+opening.
+
+Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang to the open door.
+
+The convict was breathing heavily from the exertion of a hard run.
+
+"What are you doing here?" demanded Rutlidge, sharply. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+"Some one is following my trail down from Granite Peak."
+
+"Well, what are you carrying that rifle for?" said Rutlidge, harshly, with
+an oath.
+
+"There may be others near enough to hear a shot," answered the convict.
+"Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is your part of the game--not mine. I did not
+agree to commit murder for you."
+
+"Where did you see him?"
+
+"A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where we turn off to go to the
+supply point."
+
+Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. "You stay here and take
+care of the girl--and see that she doesn't scream." With the last word he
+set out at a run.
+
+The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still crouched in the
+corner. The man's voice was imploring as he said, "Miss Andrés, Miss
+Andrés, what is the matter? Did he touch you? Tell me, did he harm you?"
+
+Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted her to her feet.
+"You--you came--just in time, Mr. Marston."
+
+An instant he stood there, then muttering something under his breath, he
+turned, caught up his rifle, and started toward the door.
+
+But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, "Mr. Marston, don't,
+don't leave me again."
+
+The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said solemnly "Miss Andrés, can
+you pray? I know you can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer he
+will surely hear you. Come with me. Come--and pray girl--pray for me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James
+Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that
+he, himself made to Sibyl. The man was insane--as Mr. Taine was insane--as
+Mrs. Taine was insane.
+
+What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to
+materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them
+ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their
+diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions
+with lascivious imaginings? Can a class--whatever its pretense to culture
+may be--can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts
+greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of
+which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?
+
+James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not
+tolerate purity of thought. It was literally impossible for him to think
+sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life.
+Education, culture, art, literature,--all that is commonly supposed to
+lift man above the level of the beasts,--are used by men and women of his
+kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to
+bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of
+reaching. In what he called his love for Sibyl Andrés, James Rutlidge was
+insane--but no more so than thousands of others. The methods of securing
+the objects of their desires vary--the motive that prompts is the
+same--the end sought is identical.
+
+As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid
+the cabin, the man's mind was in a whirl of emotions--rage at being
+interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one
+should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that
+the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger
+be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a
+maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following
+the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his
+search. The words of the convict rang in his ears. "This is your job. I
+did not agree to commit murder for you."
+
+Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy
+innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul--these are commonplaces in the
+insane philosophy of his kind. But to kill--to take a life
+deliberately--the thought was abhorrent to him. He was not educated to the
+thought of _taking_ life--he was trained to consider its _perversion_. The
+heroes in _his_ fiction did not _kill_ men--they _betrayed_ women. The
+heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers--they
+loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.
+
+But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andrés to be taken from him--to
+face the exposure that would inevitably follow--was impossible. If the man
+who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance--if he
+could be stopped. But how could he check him? What could he do? A
+rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.
+
+While these thoughts were seething in his hot brain, he was climbing
+rapidly toward the cliff at the head of the gorge, across which, he knew,
+the man who was following the tracks that led to the cabin below, must
+come.
+
+Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the face of that mighty
+wall of rock, less than a hundred feet to the other side, he stopped.
+There was no one in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet below the
+tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. Lifting his head, he looked
+carefully about, searching the mountainsides that slope steeply back from
+the rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the frowning cliff that
+towered a thousand feet above his head. He listened. He was thinking,
+thinking. The best of him and the worst of him struggled for supremacy.
+
+A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and beyond the other end of
+the ledge, caught his ear. With a quick step he moved behind a projecting
+corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVIII
+
+An Inevitable Conflict
+
+
+
+When Aaron King set out to follow the tracks he had found at Granite Peak,
+after his long, hard trip along the rugged crest of the Galenas, his
+weariness was forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, but with careful
+eyes and every sense keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he
+knew must lead him to Sibyl Andrés.
+
+He did not attempt to solve the problem of how the girl came there, nor
+did he pause to wonder about her companion. He did not even ask himself if
+Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing; knew nothing; was
+conscious of nothing; but the trail that led away into the depths of the
+mountain wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition; without
+food; unacquainted with the wild country into which he was going; reckless
+of danger to himself but with all possible care and caution for the sake
+of the girl he loved, he went on.
+
+Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the cabin was hidden, the trail,
+following the rim, soon led him to the ledge that lay across the face of
+the cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, he paused, to search
+the vicinity with careful eyes, then started to cross. As he set foot upon
+the ledge, a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop."
+
+At the word, Aaron King halted.
+
+A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from behind the rocks at the other
+end of the ledge. He was covering the artist with a rifle.
+
+In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The automobile, the mirror
+signals from Fairlands--it was all explained by the presence and by the
+menacing attitude of the man who barred his way. The artist's hand moved
+toward the weapon that hung at his hip.
+
+"Don't do that," said the man with the rifle. "I can't murder you in cold
+blood; but if you attempt to draw your gun, I'll fire."
+
+The other stood still.
+
+James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion; "Listen to me,
+King. It's useless for me to deny what brought me here. The trail you are
+following leads to Sibyl Andrés. You had her all summer. I've got her now.
+If you hadn't stumbled onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out
+of the country, and you would never have seen her again. I might have
+killed you before you saw me, but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the
+circumstances there is no possible compromise. I'll give you a fighting
+chance for your life and the girl. I'll take a fighting chance for my life
+and the girl. Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. We'll
+meet on the ledge there."
+
+James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will be remembered,--on
+the night of his death, boasted that he was game.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held
+his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its
+holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle
+behind the rock.
+
+Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats.
+For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed
+the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
+distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the
+man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their
+acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge
+had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the
+sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had
+strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first
+meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying
+that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist,
+in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.
+
+It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and
+characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other,
+each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately,
+they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the
+great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the
+bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills
+watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.
+
+As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
+warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers,
+they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier,
+but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut,
+muscular firmness.
+
+They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare
+handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs
+entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut
+nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of
+the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung
+over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and
+clenched teeth they wrestled.
+
+James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate
+effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King--worn by his days of
+anxiety, by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil over the
+mountains, without sufficient food or rest--felt his strength going.
+Slowly, the weight and endurance of the heavier man told against him.
+James Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze with savage
+triumph.
+
+They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing gasps, that told of the
+nearness of the finish. Slowly, Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to
+increase his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, was bearing
+the other downward and back.
+
+At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andrés reached the cliff. With a
+cry of horror, the girl stood as though turned to stone.
+
+Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the struggling men.
+
+With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In a low voice she called,
+"Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!"
+
+The two men on the ledge heard nothing--saw nothing.
+
+Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her companion heard. "Mr.
+Marston, Mr. Marston, it is Aaron King. I--I love him--I--love him."
+
+Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, the convict answered,
+"Pray, girl; pray, pray for me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle
+to his shoulder.
+
+Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body
+inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for
+the last triumphant effort.
+
+The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, was saying again,
+"Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed
+the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack of
+the rifle.
+
+James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For a fraction of a second,
+his form half straightened and he stood nearly erect; then, as a weed cut
+by the sharp scythe of a mower falls, he fell; his body whirling downward
+toward the trees and rocks below. The sound of the crashing branches
+mingled with the reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron
+King lay still.
+
+The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. Lifting the unconscious man
+in his arms, he carried him a little way down the mountain, toward the
+cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To Sibyl, who hung over the
+artist in an agony of loving fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right,
+presently, Miss Andrés. I'll fetch his coat and hat."
+
+Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead man's rifle, coat, and
+hat, and threw them over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the
+artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.
+
+"Listen, Miss Andrés," said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will
+be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his
+friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances.
+Good-by."
+
+From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked
+at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.
+
+Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for
+me?"
+
+A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like
+some hunted creature of the wilderness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIX
+
+The Better Way
+
+
+
+Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion
+of her woman heart, Sibyl Andrés bent over the unconscious object of her
+love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the
+sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven
+him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing
+was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes;
+she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her
+portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood
+and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.
+
+In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon
+the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her
+love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept
+away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile
+accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and
+the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened
+passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love
+him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant
+assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil
+seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.
+
+As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the
+girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him
+with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his
+hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron,
+Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped
+off her jacket and, placing it under his head, drew a little back.
+
+He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up at the dark pines that
+clothed the mountainsides. His lips moved and she heard her name; "Sibyl,
+Sibyl."
+
+She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing with color. "Yes, Mr.
+King."
+
+"Am I dreaming, again?" he said slowly, gazing at her as though struggling
+to command his senses.
+
+"No, Mr. King," she answered cheerily, "you are not dreaming."
+
+Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread of thought in a bewildering
+tangle of events, he went over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak
+where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make me see the Golden
+State Limited coming down from the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to
+watch for buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, then continued,
+"I saw flashes of light in Fairlands and on Granite Peak. I left a note
+for Brian and came over the range. I spent one night on the way. I found
+tracks on the peak. There were two, a man and a woman. I followed them to
+a ledge of rock at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the thread
+of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop me? Was there--was there a
+fight? Or is that part of my dream?"
+
+"No," she said softly, "that is not part of your dream."
+
+"And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I was going to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then where--" with quick energy he sat up and grasped her arm--"My God!
+Sibyl--Miss Andrés, did I, did I--" He could not finish the sentence, but
+sank back, overcome with emotion.
+
+The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice that rallied his
+mind and forced him to command himself.
+
+"Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember nothing more? You were
+struggling--your strength was going--can't you remember? You must, you
+must!"
+
+Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a rifle-shot?" he asked
+slowly. "It seems to me that something in my brain snapped, and everything
+went black. Was there a rifle-shot?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"And I did not--I did not--?"
+
+"No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would have killed you, but for
+the shot that you heard."
+
+"And Rutlidge is--?"
+
+"He is dead," she answered simply.
+
+"But who--?"
+
+Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that she had met Mrs.
+Taine in the studio until the convict had left her, a few minutes before.
+"And now," she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to the cabin.
+There is food there. You must be nearly starved. I will cook supper for
+you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."
+
+"But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must
+tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until
+I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you
+are ready to hear, now."
+
+She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you
+want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the
+man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff,
+understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."
+
+"And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell
+you?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial
+meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later,
+with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near
+the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that
+he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.
+
+Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut
+them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude
+little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were
+flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the
+night before, the convict had told that girl his story.
+
+Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the
+bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well,
+then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night,"
+she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice,
+he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland
+couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
+
+In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole
+quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood
+upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking
+toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and
+kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she
+crept back to her couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the
+faintly marked trail of the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the
+foot of the cliff. When the darkness came, the mountaineer ate a cold
+supper and, under a rude shelter quickly improvised by his skill in
+woodcraft, slept beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack
+Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his blanket under the
+pines. Somewhere in the night, the man who had saved Sibyl Andrés and
+Aaron King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted thing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their breakfast But so quietly did
+she move about her homely task that the artist did not awake. When the
+meal was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, declaring that
+he felt himself a new man. Breakfast over, they set out at once.
+
+When they came to the cliff at the head of the gulch, the girl halted and,
+shrinking back, covered her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the
+first time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. Gently, her
+companion led her across the ledge, and a little way back from the rim of
+the gorge on the other side.
+
+Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw Brian Oakley coming toward
+them. Laughing and crying, Sibyl ran to meet him; and the mountaineer, who
+had so many times looked death in the face, unafraid and unmoved, wept
+like a child as he held the girl in his arms.
+
+When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the events that led up to their
+meeting with the Ranger, and he in turn had told them how he had followed
+the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden supplies, had followed
+the trail of James Rutlidge from that point, the officer asked the girl
+several questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, while they,
+guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. Finally, he said, "Jack is due
+at Granite Peak, sometime about noon. He'll have his horse, and with Sibyl
+riding, we'll make it back down to the head of Clear Creek by dark. You
+young folks just wait for me here a little. I want to look around below
+there, a bit."
+
+As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to her feet and threw herself
+into his arms. "No, no, Brian Oakley, you shall not--you shall not do it!"
+
+Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into her pleading eyes,
+smilingly. "And what do you think I am going to do, girlie?"
+
+"You are going down there to pick up the trail of the man who saved
+Aaron--who saved me. But you shall not do it. I don't care if you are an
+officer, and he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do anything that
+might lead to his capture."
+
+"God bless you, child," answered Brian Oakley, "the only escaped convict I
+know anything about, this last year, according to my belief, died
+somewhere in the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my official
+reports on the matter."
+
+"And you're not going to find which way he went?"
+
+"Listen, Sibyl," said the Ranger gravely. "The disappearance of James
+Rutlidge, prominent as he was, will be heralded from one end of the world
+to the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. The search is sure
+to be carried into these hills, for that automobile trip in the night will
+not go unquestioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my suspicions.
+In a few days, the body will be safely past recognition, even should it be
+discovered through the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything
+durable being found to identify the man who fell over the cliff."
+
+When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, quietly, "It's a
+mighty good thing I went down. It wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We
+can forget it, now, with perfect safety. Remember"--he charged them
+impressively--"even to Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange, the story must be
+only that an unknown man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The man
+escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the Sheriff, or whoever can,
+solve the mystery of that automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance."
+
+A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack Carleton and, by dark, as
+Brian Oakley had said, were safely down to the head of Clear Creek; having
+come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier and shorter than the
+roundabout way followed by the convict and the girl.
+
+It was just past midnight when the three friends parted from young
+Carleton and crossed the canyon to Sibyl's old home.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XL
+
+Facing the Truth
+
+
+
+As Brian Oakley had predicted, the disappearance of James Rutlidge
+occupied columns in the newspapers, from coast to coast. In every article
+he was headlined as "A Distinguished Citizen;" "A Famous Critic;" "A
+Prominent Figure in the World of Art;" "One of the Greatest Living
+Authorities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Powerful Influence Upon
+the Artistic Production of the Age." The story of the unknown mountain
+girl's abduction and escape was a news item of a single day; but the
+disappearance of James Rutlidge kept the press busy for weeks. It may be
+dismissed here with the simple statement that the mystery has never been
+solved.
+
+Of the unknown man who had taken Sibyl away into the mountains, and who
+had escaped, the world has never heard. Of the convict who died but did
+not die in the hills, the world knows nothing. That is, the world knows
+nothing of the man in this connection. But Aaron and Sibyl, some years
+later, knew what became of Henry Marston--which does not, at all, belong
+to this story.
+
+Upon his return with Conrad Lagrange to their home in the orange groves,
+Aaron King plunged into his work with a purpose very different from the
+motive that had prompted him when first he took up his brushes in the
+studio that looked out upon the mountains and the rose garden.
+
+Day after day, as he gave himself to his great picture,--"The Feast of
+Materialism,"--he knew the joy of the worker who, in his art, surrenders
+himself to a noble purpose--a joy that is very different from the light,
+passing pleasure that comes from the mere exercise of technical skill. The
+artist did not, now, need to drive himself to his task, as the begging
+musician on the street corner forces himself to play to the passing crowd,
+for the pennies that are dropped in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by
+the conviction of a great truth, and by the realization of its woeful need
+in the world, to such adequate expression as his mastery of the tools of
+his craft would permit He was not, now, the slave of his technical
+knowledge; striving to produce a something that should be merely
+technically good. He was a master, compelling the medium of his art to
+serve him; as he, in turn, was compelled to serve the truth that had
+mastered him.
+
+Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an evening hour to the little
+house next door. Sometimes Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the
+studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came alone. But every day,
+as the artist worked, the music of her violin came to him, out of the
+orange grove, with its message from the hills. And the painter at his
+easel, reading aright the message, worked and waited; knowing surely that
+when she was ready she would come.
+
+Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron King, reading them--nearly
+always under the quizzing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was to
+bring the daily mail--carefully tore them into little pieces and dropped
+them into the waste basket, without comment.
+
+Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have you no thought for the
+day of judgment, young man? Do you not know that your sins will surely
+find you out?"
+
+The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, I believe."
+
+The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness is only hastening the
+end. If you don't answer those letters you will be forced, shortly, to
+meet the consequences face to face."
+
+"I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. "But I have my answer
+ready, you know."
+
+"You mean that portrait?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do the trick. But, believe
+me, there will be consequences!"
+
+The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big picture, when Mrs.
+Taine called, the day of her return to Fairlands.
+
+It was well on in the afternoon. Conrad Lagrange and Czar had started for
+a walk, but had gone, as usual, only as far as the neighboring house. Yee
+Kee, meeting Mrs. Taine at the door, explained, doubtfully, that the
+artist was at his work. He would go tell Mr. King that Mrs. Taine was
+here.
+
+"Never mind, Kee. I will tell him myself," she answered; and, before the
+Chinaman could protest, she was on her way to the studio.
+
+"Damn!" said the Celestial eloquently; and retired to his kitchen to
+ruminate upon the ways of "Mellican women."
+
+Mrs. Taine pushed open the door of the studio, so quietly, that the
+painter, standing at his easel and engrossed with his work, did not notice
+her presence. For several moments the woman stood watching him, paying no
+heed to the picture, seeing only the man. When he did not look around, she
+said, "Are you too busy to even _look_ at me?"
+
+With an exclamation, he faced her; then, as quickly, turned again; with
+hand outstretched to draw the easel curtain. But, as though obeying a
+second thought that came quickly upon the heels of the first impulse, he
+did not complete the movement. Instead, he laid his palette and brushes
+beside his color-box, and greeted her with, "How do you do, Mrs. Taine?
+When did you return to Fairlands? Is Miss Taine with you?"
+
+"Louise is abroad," she answered. "I--I preferred California. I arrived
+this afternoon." She went a step toward him. "You--you don't seem very
+glad to see me."
+
+The painter colored, but she continued impulsively, without waiting for
+his reply. "If you only knew all that I have been doing for you!--the
+wires I have pulled; the influences I have interested; the critics and
+newspaper men that I have talked to! Of course I couldn't do anything in a
+large public way, so soon after Mr. Taine's death, you know; but I have
+been busy, just the same, and everything is fixed. When our picture is
+exhibited next season, you will find yourself not only a famous painter,
+but a social success as well." She paused. When he still did not speak,
+she went on, with an air of troubled sadness; "I _do_ miss Jim's help
+though. Isn't it frightful the way he disappeared? Where do you suppose he
+is? I can't--I won't--believe that anything has happened to him. It's all
+just one of his schemes to get himself talked about. You'll see that he
+will appear again, safe and sound, when the papers stop filling their
+columns about him. I know Jim Rutlidge, too well."
+
+Aaron King thought of those bones, picked bare by the carrion birds, at
+the foot of the cliff. "It seems to be one of the mysteries of the day,"
+he said. "Commonplace enough, no doubt, if one only had the key to it."
+
+Mrs. Taine had evidently not been in Fairlands long enough to hear the
+story of Sibyl's disappearance--for which the artist mentally gave thanks.
+
+"I am glad for one thing," continued the woman, her mind intent upon the
+main purpose of her call. "Jim had already written a splendid criticism of
+your picture--before he went away--and I have it. All this newspaper talk
+about him will only help to attract attention to what he has said about
+_you._ They are saying such nice things of him and his devotion to art,
+you know--it is all bound to help you." She waited for his approval, and
+for some expression of his gratitude.
+
+"I fear, Mrs. Taine," he said slowly, "that you are making a mistake."
+
+She laughed nervously, and answered with forced gaiety. "Not me. I'm too
+old a hand at the game not to know just how far I dare or dare not go."
+
+"I do not mean that"--he returned--"I mean that I can not do my part. I
+fear you are mistaken in me."
+
+Again, she laughed. "What nonsense! I like for you to be modest, of
+course--that will be one of your greatest charms. But if you are worried
+about the quality of your work--forget it, my dear boy. Once I have made
+you the rage, no one will stop to think whether your pictures are good or
+bad. The art is not in what you do, but in how you get it before the
+world. Ask Conrad Lagrange if I am not right."
+
+"As to that," returned the artist, "Mr. Lagrange agrees with you,
+perfectly."
+
+"But what is this that you are doing now? Will it be ready for the
+exhibition too?" She looked past him, at the big canvas; and he, watching
+her curiously stepped aside.
+
+Parts of the picture were little more than sketched in, but still, line
+and color spoke with accusing truth the spirit of the company that had
+gathered at the banquet in the home on Fairlands Heights, the night of Mr.
+Taine's death. The figures were not portraits, it is true, but they
+expressed with striking fidelity, the lives and characters of those who
+had, that night, been assembled by Mrs. Taine to meet the artist. The
+figure in the picture, standing with uplifted glass and drunken pose at
+the head of the table--with bestial, lust-worn face, disease-shrunken
+limbs, and dying, licentious eyes fixed upon the beautiful girl
+musician--might easily have been Mr. Taine himself. The distinguished
+writers, and critics; the representatives of the social world and of
+wealth; Conrad Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. Taine
+with her pretense of modest dress that only emphasized her immodesty; and,
+in the midst of the unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the
+unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her violin, offering to them
+that which they were incapable of receiving--it was all there upon the
+canvas, as the artist had seen it that night. The picture cried aloud the
+intellectual degradation and the spiritual depravity of that class who,
+arrogating to themselves the authority of leaders in culture and art, by
+their approval and patronage of dangerous falsehood and sham in picture or
+story, make possible such characters as James Rutlidge.
+
+Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked at the picture on the easel,
+saw a look of doubt and uncertainty come over her face. Once, she turned
+toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, looked again at the
+canvas. She seemed perplexed and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of
+something in the picture that she did not rightly understand Then, as she
+looked, her eyes kindled with contemptuous scorn, and there was a
+pronounced sneer in her cold tones as she said, "Really, I don't believe I
+care for you to do this sort of thing." She laughed shortly. "It reminds
+one a little of that dinner at our house. Don't you think? It's the girl
+with the violin, I suppose."
+
+"There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine," said the artist, quietly.
+
+"No? Well, I think you'd better stick to your portraits. This is a great
+picture though," she admitted thoughtfully. "It, it grips you so. I can't
+seem to get away from it. I can see that it will create a sensation. But
+just the same, I don't like it. It's not nice, like your portrait of me.
+By the way"--and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to
+escape a distasteful subject--"do you remember that I have never seen my
+picture yet? Where do you keep it?"
+
+The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at
+work, "It is there, Mrs. Taine."
+
+"Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep it on the easel, still!"
+Playfully, she added, "Do you look at it often?--that you have it so
+handy?"
+
+"Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have looked at it
+frequently." He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was
+working upon the larger picture.
+
+"How nice of you," she answered "Please let me see it now. I remember when
+you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what
+you thought of me; have you? I wonder!"
+
+"I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine," he answered, and
+drew the curtain that hid the painting.
+
+As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King
+had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had
+seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though
+stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as
+though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really
+was.
+
+Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, "Is it--is it--true? Am
+I--am I _that_?"
+
+Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the girl he loved so nearly to a
+shameful end, and thinking of those bones at the foot of the cliff,
+answered justly; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that picture
+than in the things you said to Miss Andrés, here in this room, the day you
+left Fairlands."
+
+Her face went white with quick rage, but, controling herself, she said,
+"And where is the picture of your _mistress_? I should like to see it
+again, please."
+
+"Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because you are a woman, it is the
+only answer I can make to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as
+false as that portrait of you is true."
+
+Quickly he pushed another easel to a position beside the one that held
+Mrs. Taine's portrait, and drew the curtain.
+
+The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine--but only for a moment.
+A character that is the product of certain years of schooling in the
+thought and spirit of the class in which Mrs. Taine belonged, is not
+transformed by a single exhibition of painted truth. From the two
+portraits, the woman turned to the larger canvas. Then she faced the
+artist.
+
+"You fool!" she said with bitter rage. "O you fool! Do you think that you
+will ever be permitted to exhibit such trash as this?" she waved her hand
+to include the three paintings. "Do you think that I am going to drag
+you up the ladder of social position to fame and to wealth for such
+reward as that?" she singled out her own portrait. "Bah! you are
+impossible--impossible! I have been mad to think that I could make
+anything out of you. As for your idiotic claim that you have painted the
+truth--" She seized a large palette knife that lay with the artist's tools
+upon the table, and springing to her portrait, hacked and mutilated the
+canvas. The artist stood motionless making no effort to stop her. When the
+picture was utterly defaced she threw it at his feet. "_That_, for your
+truth, Mr. King!" With a quick motion, she turned toward the other
+portrait.
+
+But the artist, who had guessed her purpose, caught her hand. "That
+picture was yours, madam--this one is mine." There was a significant ring
+of triumph in his voice.
+
+Neither Aaron King nor Mrs. Taine had noticed three people who had entered
+the rose garden, from the orange grove, through the little gate in the
+corner of the hedge. Conrad Lagrange, Myra Willard and Sibyl were going to
+the studio; deliberately bent upon interrupting the artist at his work.
+They sometimes--as Conrad Lagrange put it--made, thus, a life-saving crew
+of three; dragging the painter to safety when the waves of inspiration
+were about to overwhelm him. Czar, of course, took an active part in these
+rescues.
+
+As the three friends approached the trellised arch that opened from the
+garden into the yard, a few feet from the studio door, the sound of Mrs.
+Taine's angry voice, came clearly through the open window.
+
+Conrad Lagrange stopped. "Evidently, Mr. King has company," he said,
+dryly.
+
+"It is Mrs. Taine, is it not?" asked Sibyl, quietly, recognizing the
+woman's voice.
+
+"Yes," answered the novelist.
+
+The woman with the disfigured face said hurriedly, "Come, Sibyl, we must
+go back. We will not disturb Mr. King, now, Mr. Lagrange. You two come
+over this evening." They saw her face white and frightened.
+
+"I believe I'll go back with you, if you don't mind," returned Conrad
+Lagrange, with his twisted grin; "I don't think I want any of that in
+there, either." To the dog who was moving toward the studio door, he
+added; "Here, Czar, you mustn't interrupt the lady. You're not in her
+class."
+
+They were moving away, when Mrs. Taine's voice came again, clearly and
+distinctly, through the window.
+
+"Oh, very well. I wish you joy of your possession. I promise you, though,
+that the world shall never hear of this portrait of your mistress. If you
+dare try to exhibit it, I shall see that the people to whom you must look
+for your patronage know how you found the original, an innocent, mountain
+girl, and brought her to your studio to live with you. Fairlands has
+already talked enough, but my influence has prevented it from going too
+far. You may be very sure that from now on I shall not exert myself to
+deny it."
+
+The artist's friends in the rose garden, again, stopped involuntarily.
+Sibyl uttered a low exclamation.
+
+Conrad Lagrange looked at Myra Willard. "I think," he said in a low tone,
+"that the time has come. Can you do it?"
+
+"Yes. I--I--must," returned the woman. She spoke to the girl, who, being a
+little in advance, had not heard the novelist's words, "Sibyl, dear, will
+you go on home, please? Mr, Lagrange will stay with me. I--I will join you
+presently."
+
+At a look from Conrad Lagrange, the girl obeyed.
+
+"Go with Sibyl, Czar," said the novelist; and the girl and the dog went
+quickly away through the garden.
+
+In the studio, Aaron King gazed at the angry woman in amazement. "Mrs.
+Taine," he said, with quiet dignity, "I must tell you that I hope to make
+Miss Andrés my wife."
+
+She laughed harshly. "And what has that to do with it?"
+
+"I thought that if you knew, it might help you to understand the
+situation," he answered simply.
+
+"I understand the situation, very well," she retorted, "but you do not
+appear to. The situation is this: I--I was interested in you--as an
+artist. I, because my position in the world enabled me to help you,
+commissioned you to paint my portrait. You are unknown, with no name, no
+place in the world. I could have given you success. I could have
+introduced you to the people that you must know if you are to succeed. My
+influence would insure you a favorable reception from those who make the
+reputations of men like you. I could have made you the rage. I could have
+made you famous. And now--"
+
+"Now," he said calmly, "you will exert your influence to hinder me in my
+work. Because I have not pleased you, you will use whatever power you have
+to ruin me. Is that what you mean, Mrs. Taine?"
+
+"You have made your choice. You must take the consequences," she replied
+coldly, and turned to leave the studio.
+
+In the doorway, stood the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+Conrad Lagrange stood near.
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+Marks of the Beast
+
+
+
+When Mrs. Taine would have passed out of the studio, the woman with the
+disfigured face said, "Wait madam, I must speak to you."
+
+Aaron King recalled that strange scene at the depot, the day of his
+arrival in Fairlands.
+
+"I have nothing to say to you"--returned Mrs. Taine, coldly--"stand aside
+please."
+
+But Conrad Lagrange quietly closed the door. "I think, Mrs. Taine," he
+remarked dryly, "than you will be interested in what Miss Willard has to
+say."
+
+"Oh, very well," returned the other, making the best of the situation.
+"Evidently, you heard what I just said to your protege."
+
+The novelist answered, "We did. Accept my compliments madam; you did it
+very nicely."
+
+"Thanks," she retorted, "I see you still play your role of protector. You
+might tell your charge whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable
+result of his--ah--artistic conscientiousness."
+
+"Mr. King knows that you are not. You have, indeed, put the situation
+rather mildly. It is a sad fact, but, never-the-less, a fact, that the
+noblest work is often forced to remain unrecognized and unknown to the
+world by the same methods that are used to exalt the unworthy. You
+undoubtedly have the power of which you boast, Mrs. Taine, but--"
+
+"But what?" she said triumphantly. "You think I will hesitate to use my
+influence?"
+
+"I _know_ you will not use it--in this case," came the unexpected answer.
+
+She laughed mockingly, "And why not? What will prevent?"
+
+"The one thing on earth, that you fear, madam"--answered Conrad
+Lagrange--"the eyes of the world."
+
+Aaron King listened, amazed.
+
+"I don't think I understand," said Mrs. Taine, coldly.
+
+"No? That is what Miss Willard proposes to explain," returned the
+novelist.
+
+She turned haughtily toward the woman with the disfigured face. "What can
+this poor creature say to anything I propose?"
+
+Myra Willard answered gently, sadly, "Have you no kindness, no sympathy at
+all, madam? Is there nothing but cruel selfishness in your heart?"
+
+"You are insolent," retorted the other, sharply. "Say what you have to say
+and be brief."
+
+Myra Willard drew close to the woman and looked long and searchingly into
+her face. The other returned her gaze with contemptuous indifference.
+
+"I have been sorry for you," said Myra Willard slowly. "I have not wished
+to speak. But I know what you said to Sibyl, here in the studio; and I
+overheard what you said to Mr. King, a few minutes ago. I cannot keep
+silent."
+
+"Proceed," said Mrs. Taine, shortly. "Say what you have to say, and be
+done with it."
+
+Myra Willard obeyed. "Mrs. Taine, twenty-six years ago, your guardian, the
+father of James Rutlidge won the love of a young girl. It does not matter
+who she was. She was beautiful and innocent That was her misfortune.
+Beauty and innocence often bring pain and sorrow, madam, in a world where
+there are too many men like Mr. Rutlidge, and his son. The girl thought
+the man--she did not know him by his real name--her lover. She thought
+that he became her husband. A baby was born to the girl who believed
+herself a wife; and the young mother was happy. For a short time, she was
+very happy.
+
+"Then, the awakening came. The girl mother was holding her baby to her
+breast, and singing, as happy mothers do, when a strange woman appeared in
+the open door of the room. She was a beautiful woman, richly dressed; but
+her face was distorted with passion. The young mother did not understand.
+She did not know, then, that the woman was Mrs. Rutlidge--the true wife of
+the father of her child. She knew that, afterward. The woman, in the
+doorway lifted her hand as though to throw something, and the mother,
+instinctively, bowed her head to shield her baby. Then something that
+burned like fire struck her face and neck. She screamed in agony, and
+fainted.
+
+"The rest of the story does not matter, I think. The injured mother was
+taken to the hospital. When she recovered, she learned that Mrs. Rutlidge
+was dead--a suicide. Later, Mr. Rutlidge took the baby to raise as his
+ward; telling the world that the child was the daughter of a relative who
+had died at its birth. You must understand that when the disfigured mother
+of the baby came to know the truth, she believed that it would be better
+for the little one if the facts of its birth were never known. The wealthy
+Mr. Rutlidge could give his ward every advantage of culture and social
+position. The child would grow to womanhood with no stain upon her name.
+Because she felt she owed her baby this, the only thing that she could
+give her, the mother consented and disappeared.
+
+"Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little of the acid that burned
+that mother's face fell upon the shoulder of her illegitimate baby."
+
+"God!" exclaimed the artist.
+
+Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine stood like a woman of stone.
+At the end, she gazed at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated
+with horror, while her hands moved to finger the buttons of her dress.
+Unconscious of what she was doing, as though under some strange spell,
+without removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred features she opened
+the waist of her dress and bared to them her right shoulder. It was marked
+by a broad scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her mother.
+
+Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the mother instinct. "My baby,
+my poor, poor girl!"
+
+The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an air of cold, unconquerable
+pride, the woman looked at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she
+swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
+why you have done this."
+
+Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, white and trembling. Aaron
+King stepped quickly to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her
+shoulder waited for the novelist to speak.
+
+"Miss Willard told you this story because I asked her to," said Conrad
+Lagrange. "I asked her to tell you because it gives me the power to
+protect the two people who are dearer to me than all the world."
+
+"Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered Mrs. Taine.
+
+"Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a reporter on a certain newspaper
+when the incidents just related occurred. I wrote the story for the press.
+In fact, it was the story that gave me my start in yellow journalism, from
+which I graduated the novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper
+game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of this story that you have
+just heard. Permit me to say, that I know how to write in the approved
+newspaper style, and to add that my name insures a wide hearing. Proceed
+to carry out your threats, and I promise you that I will give this
+attractive bit of news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper in
+the land. Can't you see the headlines? 'Startling Revelation,' 'The Secret
+of the Beautiful Mrs. Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social
+World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a Social Leader.' Do you
+understand, madam? Use your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr.
+King in his work; or fail to use your influence to contradict the lies
+you have already started about the character of Miss Andrés; and I will
+use the influence of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you before
+the eyes of the world for what you are."
+
+For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. Then, as she grasped the
+full significance of what he had said, she slowly bowed her head.
+
+Conrad Lagrange opened the door.
+
+As she went out, the woman with the disfigured face started forward,
+holding out her hands appealingly.
+
+Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly toward the big automobile
+that was waiting in front of the house.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XLII
+
+Aaron King's Success
+
+
+
+The winter months were past.
+
+Aaron King was sitting before his finished picture. The colors were still
+fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs in an honored place in one of
+the great galleries of the world. To the last careful touch, the artist
+had put into his painted message, the best he had to give. Back of every
+line and brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a worthy motive.
+For an hour, he had been sitting there, before the easel, brush and
+palette in hand, without touching the canvas. He could do no more.
+
+Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
+that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
+of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
+he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
+work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
+indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
+entered the studio; Czar at his heels.
+
+Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
+friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
+of the finished painting, now.
+
+"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"
+
+The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
+knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
+having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
+in his hand he read:
+
+"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
+otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
+distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
+the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
+indolent--slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of
+places--the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the
+wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers
+who pass him by. But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that
+lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere
+striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility
+conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I
+know--as you will some day come to understand--is not a blessing but a
+curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely; and which,
+if it be not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and poison the
+life of the race.
+
+"Because I would have your ambition, a safe and worthy ambition, Aaron, I
+ask that the supreme and final test of any work that comes from your hand
+may be this; that it satisfy you, yourself--that you may be not ashamed to
+sit down alone with your work, and thus to look it squarely in the face.
+Not critics, nor authorities, not popular opinion, not even law or
+religion, must be the court of final appeal when you are, by what you do,
+brought to bar; but by you, _yourself_, the judgment must be rendered. And
+this, too, is true, my son, by that judgment and that judgment alone, you
+will truly live or you will truly die."
+
+"And that"--said the novelist--so famous in the eyes of the world, so
+infamous in his own sight--"and that is what she tried to make me believe,
+when she and I were young together. But I would not. I would not accept
+it. I thought if I could win fame that she--" he checked himself suddenly.
+
+"But you have led me to accept it, old man," cried the artist heartily.
+"You have opened my eyes. You have helped me to understand my mother, as I
+never could have understood her, alone."
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted whimsically. "No doubt good
+may sometimes be accomplished by the presentation of a horrible example.
+But go on with your private exhibition. I'll not keep you longer. Come,
+Czar."
+
+In spite of the artist's protests, he left the studio.
+
+While the painter was putting away his letters, the novelist and the dog
+went through the rose garden and the orange grove, straight to the little
+house next door. They walked as though on a definite mission.
+
+Sibyl and Myra Willard were sitting on the porch.
+
+"Howdy, neighbor," called the girl, as the tall, ungainly form of the
+famous novelist appeared. "You seem to be the bearer of news. What is the
+latest word from the seat of war?"
+
+"It is finished," said Conrad Lagrange, returning Myra's gentle greeting,
+and accepting the chair that Sibyl offered.
+
+"The picture?" said the girl eagerly, a quick color flushing her cheeks.
+"Is the picture finished?"
+
+"Finished," returned the novelist. "I just left him mooning over it like a
+mother over a brand-new baby."
+
+They laughed together, and when, a moment later, the girl slipped into the
+house and did not return, the woman with the disfigured face and the
+famous novelist looked at each other with smiling eyes. When Czar, with
+sudden interest, started around the corner of the house, his master said
+suggestively, "Czar, you better stay here with the old folks."
+
+Passing through the house, and out of the kitchen door, Sibyl ran,
+lightly, through the orange grove, to the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge. A moment she paused, hesitating, then, stealing
+cautiously into the rose garden, she darted in quick flight to the shelter
+of the arbor; where she parted the screen of vines to gain a view of the
+studio.
+
+Between the big, north window and the window that opened into the garden,
+she saw the artist. She saw, too, the big canvas upon the easel. But Aaron
+King was not, now, looking at his work just finished. He was sitting
+before that other picture into which he had unconsciously painted, not
+only the truth that he saw in the winsome loveliness of the girl who posed
+for him with outstretshed hands among the roses, but his love for her as
+well.
+
+With a low laugh, Sibyl drew back. Swiftly, as she had reached the arbor,
+she crossed the garden, and a moment later, paused at the studio door.
+Again she hesitated--then, gently,--so gently that the artist, lost in his
+dreams, did not hear,--she opened the door. For a little, she stood
+watching him. Softly, she took a few steps toward him. The artist, as
+though sensing her presence, started and looked around.
+
+She was standing as she stood in the picture; her hands outstretched, a
+smile of welcome on her lips, the light of gladness in her eyes.
+
+As he rose from his chair before the easel, she went to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many days later, there was a quiet wedding, at Sibyl's old home in the
+hills. Besides the two young people and the clergyman, only Brian Oakley,
+Mrs. Oakley, Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard were present. These friends
+who had prepared the old place for the mating ones, after a simple dinner
+following the ceremony, returned down the canyon to the Station.
+
+Standing arm in arm, where the old road turns around the cedar thicket,
+and where the artist had first seen the girl, Sibyl and Aaron watched them
+go. From the other side of roaring Clear Creek, they turned to wave hats
+and handkerchiefs; the two in the shadow of the cedars answered; Czar
+barked joyful congratulations; and the wagon disappeared in the wilderness
+growth.
+
+Instead of turning back to the house behind them, the two, without
+speaking, as though obeying a common impulse, set out down the canyon.
+
+A little later they stood in the old spring glade, where the alders bore,
+still, in the smooth, gray bark of their trunks, the memories of long-ago
+lovers; where the light fell, slanting softly through the screen of leaf
+and branch and vine and virgin's-bower, upon the granite boulder and the
+cress-mottled waters of the spring, as through the window traceries of a
+vast and quiet cathedral; and where the distant roar of the mountain
+stream trembled in the air like the deep tones of some great organ.
+
+Sibyl, dressed in her brown, mountain costume, was sitting on the boulder,
+when the artist said softly, "Look!"
+
+Lifting her eyes, as he pointed, she saw two butterflies--it might almost
+have been the same two--with zigzag flight, through the opening in the
+draperies of virgin's-bower. With parted lips and flushed cheeks, the girl
+watched. Then--as the beautiful creatures, in their aerial waltz, whirled
+above her head--she rose, and lightly, gracefully,--almost as her winged
+companions,--accompanied them in their dance.
+
+The winged emblems of innocence and purity flitted away over the willow
+wall. The girl, with bright eyes and smiling lips--half laughing, half
+serious--looked toward her mate. He held out his arms and she went to him.
+
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
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+<title>The Eyes of the World, by Harold Bell Wright</title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of the World, by Harold Bell Wright
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Eyes of the World
+
+Author: Harold Bell Wright
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2004 [EBook #11715]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div id="frontispiece">
+<div class="image" id="illus01"><p><img src="images/illus01.png" alt="Sibyl" /><br />
+Sibyl</p></div>
+</div>
+
+<div id="tp">
+<h1 class="title">The Eyes of the World</h1>
+
+<h2 class="author">By Harold Bell Wright</h2>
+
+<h3>Author of "That Printer of Udells,"<br /> "The Shepherd of the Hills,"<br />
+"The Calling of Dan Matthews,"<br /> "The Winning of Barbara Worth,"<br />
+"Their Yesterdays," Etc.</h3>
+</div>
+
+<div id="dedication">
+<h2>To Benjamin H. Pearson</h2>
+
+<h3>Student, Artist, Gentleman</h3>
+
+<p>in appreciation of the friendship that began on the "Pipe-Line Trail," at
+the camp in the sycamores back of the old orchard, and among the higher
+peaks of the San Bernardinos; and because this story will always mean more
+to him than to any one else,--this book, with all good wishes, is</p>
+
+<p>Dedicated.</p>
+
+<p>H. B. W.</p>
+
+<p>"Tecolote Rancho,"<br />
+April 13, 1914.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div id="epigraph">
+<blockquote class="poem"><p>
+    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;"I have learned<br />
+    To look on Nature not as in the hour<br />
+    Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes<br />
+    The sad, still music of humanity,<br />
+    Not harsh or grating, though of ample power<br />
+    To chasten and subdue. And I have felt,<br />
+    A presence that disturbs me with the joy<br />
+    Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime<br />
+    Of something far more deeply interfused,<br />
+    Whose dwelling is in the lights of setting suns,<br />
+    And the round ocean and the living air,<br />
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.<br />
+    A motion and a spirit that impels<br />
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,<br />
+    And rolls through all things.</p>
+
+<p>    &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Therefore am I still<br />
+    A lover of the meadows and the woods<br />
+    And mountains.........<br />
+    ....... And this prayer I make,<br />
+    Knowing that Nature never did betray<br />
+    The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege<br />
+    Through all the years of this one life, to lead<br />
+    From joy to joy; for she can so inform<br />
+    The mind that is within us--so impress<br />
+    With quietness and beauty, and so feed<br />
+    With lofty thoughts--that neither evil tongues,<br />
+    Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,<br />
+    Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all<br />
+    The dreary intercourse of daily life,<br />
+    Shalt e'er prevail against us, or disturb<br />
+    Our cheerful faith."</p>
+
+<p>    William Wordsworth.</p></blockquote>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="toc">
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+
+<ol style="list-style-type: upper-roman">
+ <li><a href="#ch01">His Inheritance</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch02">The Woman With the Disfigured Face</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch03">The Famous Conrad Lagrange</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch04">At the House on Fairlands Heights</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch05">The Mystery of the Rose Garden</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch06">An Unknown Friend</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch07">Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch08">The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch09">Conrad Lagrange's Adventure</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch10">A Cry in the Night</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch11">Go Look in Your Mirror, You Fool</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch12">First Fruits of His Shame</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch13">Myra Willard's Challenge</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch14">In the Mountains</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch15">The Forest Ranger's Story</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch16">When the Canyon Gates Are Shut</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch17">Confessions in the Spring Glade</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch18">Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the Butterflies</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch19">The Three Gifts and their Meanings</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch20">Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch21">The Last Climb</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch22">Shadows of Coming Events</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch23">Outside the Canyon Gates Again</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch24">James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch25">On the Pipe-Line Trail</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch26">I Want You Just as You Are</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch27">The Answer</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch28">You're Ruined, My Boy</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch29">The Hand Writing On The Wall</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch30">In the Same Hour</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch31">As the World Sees</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch32">The Mysterious Disappearance</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch33">Beginning the Search</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch34">The Tracks on Granite Peak</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch35">A Hard Way</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch36">What Should He Do</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch37">The Man Was Insane</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch38">An Inevitable Conflict</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch39">The Better Way</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch40">Facing the Truth</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch41">Marks of the Beast</a></li>
+ <li><a href="#ch42">Aaron King's Success</a></li>
+</ol>
+</div>
+
+<div id="illustrations">
+<h2>Illustrations from Oil Paintings</h2>
+
+<p class="byline">By</p>
+
+<h2 class="author">F. Graham Cootes</h2>
+
+
+<p><a href="images/illus01.png">Sibyl</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="images/illus02.png">A curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="images/illus03.png">"Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"</a></p>
+
+<p><a href="images/illus04.png">Still she did not speak</a></p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<h1 class="title">The Eyes of the World</h1>
+
+
+
+<div id="ch01" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter I</h2>
+
+<h3>His Inheritance</h3>
+
+
+
+<p>It was winter--cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds and
+stinging wind.</p>
+
+<p>The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culture
+which has given to the history of our nation--to education, to religion,
+to the sciences, and to the arts--so many illustrious names.</p>
+
+<p>In the changing years, before the beginning of my story, the woman's
+immediate friends and associates had moved from the neighborhood to the
+newer and more fashionable districts of a younger generation. In that city
+of her father's there were few of her old companions left. There were
+fewer who remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and
+letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her
+home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to
+their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times,
+had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a
+passing day, had been hostess and friend.</p>
+
+<p>The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. Ruthlessly it had been
+stripped of its treasures of art and its proud luxuries. But, even in its
+naked necessities the room managed, still, to evidence the rare
+intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying tenant.</p>
+
+<p>The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, was marked by the
+death-gray. The eyes, deep in their hollows between the fleshless forehead
+and the prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were livid; the nose
+was sharp and pinched; the colorless cheeks were sunken; but the outlines
+were still delicately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. It was,
+still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen lips, only, was there a
+sign of life; and they trembled and fluttered in their effort to utter the
+words that an indomitable spirit gave them to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"To-day--to-day--he will--come." The voice was a thin, broken whisper; but
+colored, still, with pride and gladness.</p>
+
+<p>A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse turned quickly from the
+window. With soft, professional step, she crossed the room to bend over
+the bed. Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she spoke slowly,
+distinctly, with careful clearness; and, under the cool professionalism of
+her words, there was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight through the suddenly opened
+doors of a sepulchre, the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes,
+clear and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a powerful
+personality. In their shadowy depths, she saw the last glowing embers of
+the vital fire gathered; carefully nursed and tended; kept alive by a will
+that was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a definite purpose.
+Dying, this woman <i>would</i> not die--<i>could</i> not die--until the end for
+which she willed to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of
+Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand--without life, she was
+holding Death at bay.</p>
+
+<p>It was magnificent, and the gentle face under the nurse's cap shone with
+appreciation and admiration as she smiled her sympathy and understanding.</p>
+
+<p>"My son--my son--will come--to-day." The voice was stronger, and, with the
+eyes, expressed a conviction--a certainty--with the faintest shadow of a
+question.</p>
+
+<p>The nurse looked at her watch. "The boat was due in New York, early this
+morning, madam."</p>
+
+<p>A step sounded in the hall outside. The nurse started, and turned quickly
+toward the door. But the woman said, "The doctor." And, again, the fire
+that burned in those sunken eyes was hidden wearily under their dark lids.</p>
+
+<p>The white-haired physician and the nurse, at the farther end of the room,
+spoke together in low tones. Said the physician,--incredulous,--"You say
+there is no change?"</p>
+
+<p>"None that I can detect," breathed the nurse. "It is wonderful!"</p>
+
+<p>"Her mind is clear?"</p>
+
+<p>"As though she were in perfect health."</p>
+
+<p>The doctor took the nurse's chart. For a moment, he studied it in silence.
+He gave it back with a gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered,
+"she should be in her grave by now! It's a miracle! But she has always
+been like that--" he continued, half to himself, looking with troubled
+admiration toward the bed at the other end of the room--"always."</p>
+
+<p>He went slowly forward to the chair that the nurse placed for him. Seating
+himself quietly beside his patient, and bending forward with intense
+interest, his fine old head bowed, he regarded with more than professional
+care the wasted face upon the pillow.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor remembered, too well, when those finely moulded features--now,
+so worn by sorrow, so marked by sickness, so ghastly in the hue of
+death--were rounded with young-woman health and tinted with rare
+loveliness. He recalled that day when he saw her a bride. He remembered
+the sweet, proud dignity of her young wifehood. He saw her, again, when
+her face shone with the glad triumph and the holy joy of motherhood.</p>
+
+<p>The old physician turned from his patient, to look with sorrowful eyes
+about the room that was to witness the end.</p>
+
+<p>Why was such a woman dying like this? Why was a life of such rich mental
+and spiritual endowments--of such wealth of true culture--coming to its
+close in such material poverty?</p>
+
+<p>The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was one of the few who
+understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.</p>
+
+<p>There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
+that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts to
+which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor knew that
+there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the world of
+books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to care for her. All
+that a human being could do for her, in those days of her life's tragedy,
+that one had done. Then--because he understood--he had gone away. Her own
+son did not know--could not, in his young manhood, have understood, if he
+had known--would not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would
+understand--perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
+fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.</p>
+
+<p>At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
+gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.</p>
+
+<p>The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her eyes came the gleam of
+that old time challenging spirit. "Well--Doctor George," she answered.
+Then,--"I--told you--I would not--go--until he came. I must--have my
+way--still--you see. He will--come--to-day He must come."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mary," returned the doctor,--his fingers still on the thin wrist,
+and his eyes studying her face with professional keenness,--"yes, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>"And George--you will not forget--your promise? You will--give me a few
+minutes--of strength--when he comes--so that I can tell him? I--I--must
+tell him myself--George. You--will do--this last thing--for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. "Everything shall be as you
+wish--as I promised."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you--George. Thank you--my dear--dear--old friend."</p>
+
+<p>The nurse--who had been standing at the window--stepped quickly to the
+table that held a few bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor looked
+at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she opened a small, flat,
+leather case. With his fingers still on his patient's wrist, the physician
+spoke a word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse placed a
+hypodermic needle in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his assistant, a quick step
+sounded in the hall outside.</p>
+
+<p>The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes were fixed upon the door; her
+voice--stronger, now, with the strength of the powerful stimulant--rang
+out; "My boy--my boy--he is here! George, nurse, my boy is here!"</p>
+
+<p>The door opened. A young man of perhaps twenty-two years stood on the
+threshold.</p>
+
+<p>The most casual observer would have seen that he was a son of the dying
+woman. In the full flush of his young manhood's vigor, there was the same
+modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely turned nostrils, the same
+dark eyes under a breadth of forehead; while the determined chin and the
+well-squared jaw, together with a rather remarkable fineness of line,
+told of an inherited mental and spiritual strength and grace as charming
+as it is, in these days, rare. His dress was that of a gentleman of
+culture and social position. His very bearing evidenced that he had never
+been without means to gratify the legitimate tastes of a cultivated and
+refined intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>As he paused an instant in the open door to glance about that poverty
+stricken room, a look of bewildering amazement swept over his handsome
+face. He started to draw back--as if he had unintentionally entered the
+wrong apartment. Looking at the doctor, his lips parted as if to apologize
+for his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes met the eyes of the
+woman on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of horror, he sprang forward;--"Mother! Mother!"</p>
+
+<p>As he knelt there by the bed, when the first moments of their meeting were
+past, he turned his face toward the doctor. From the physician his gaze
+went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's old friend. His eyes
+were burning with shame and sorrow--with pain and doubt and accusation.
+His low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded, "What does this
+mean? Why is my mother here like--like this?"--his eyes swept the bare
+room again.</p>
+
+<p>The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my boy. It is to tell you, that
+I have waited."</p>
+
+<p>At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly followed the physician from
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>It was not long. When she had finished, the false strength that had kept
+the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived to be
+her last duty, failed quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"You will--promise--you will?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, mother, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I
+can--give you, my son."</p>
+
+<p>"O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before? Why did I not know!"
+The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>She smiled. "It--was--all that I could do--for you--my son--the only
+way--I could--help. I do not--regret the cost. You will--not forget?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never, mother, never."</p>
+
+<p>"You promise--to--to regain that--which--your father--"</p>
+
+<p>Solemnly the answer came,--in an agony of devotion and love,--"I
+promise--yes, mother, I promise."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and
+steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.</p>
+
+<p>He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed. He had
+set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his
+promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.</p>
+
+<p>How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry
+out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last
+to understand, is the story that I have to tell.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch02" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter II</h2>
+
+<h3>The Woman with the Disfigured Face</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The Golden State Limited, with two laboring engines, was climbing the
+desert side of San Gorgonio Pass.</p>
+
+<p>Now San Gorgonio Pass--as all men should know--is one of the two eastern
+gateways to the beautiful heart of Southern California. It is, therefore,
+the gateway to the scenes of my story.</p>
+
+<p>As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren slope of the mountain, in
+its effort to lessen the heavy grade, the young man on the platform of the
+observation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, sun-filled
+haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, over the vast reaches of
+the Colorado Desert. Now and then, as the Express swung around the curves,
+he gained a view of the lonely, snow-piled peaks of the San Bernardinos;
+with old San Gorgonio, lifting above the pine-fringed ridges of the lower
+Galenas, shining, silvery white, against the blue. Again, on the southern
+side of the pass, he saw San Jacinto's crags and cliffs rising almost
+sheer from the right-of-way.</p>
+
+<p>But the man watching the ever-changing panorama of gorgeously colored and
+fantastically unreal landscape was not thinking of the scenes that, to
+him, were new and strange. His thoughts were far away. Among those
+mountains grouped about San Gorgonio, the real value of the inheritance he
+had received from his mother was to be tested. On the pine-fringed ridge
+of the Galenas, among those granite cliffs and jagged peaks, the mettle of
+his manhood was to be tried under a strain such as few men in this
+commonplace work-a-day old world are-subjected to. But the young man did
+not know this.</p>
+
+<p>On the long journey across the continent, he had paid little heed to the
+sights that so interested his fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers,
+themselves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had approached him
+casually, as the sometimes tedious hours passed, he had been quietly and
+courteously unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked
+disinclination to mingle with them, together with the undeniably
+distinguished appearance of the young man, only served to center the
+interest of the little world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him.
+Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own thoughts, he became the
+object of many idle conjectures.</p>
+
+<p>Among the passengers whose curious eyes were so often turned in his
+direction, there was one whose interest was always carefully veiled. She
+was a woman of evident rank and distinction in that world where rank and
+distinction are determined wholly by dollars and by such social position
+as dollars can buy. She was beautiful; but with that carefully studied,
+wholly self-conscious--one is tempted to say professional--beauty of her
+kind. Her full rounded, splendidly developed body was gowned to
+accentuate the alluring curves of her sex. With such skill was this
+deliberate appeal to the physical hidden under a cloak of a pretending
+modesty that its charm was the more effectively revealed. Her features
+were almost too perfect. She was too coldly sure of herself--too perfectly
+trained in the art of self-repression. For a woman as young as she
+evidently was, she seemed to know too much. The careful indifference of
+her countenance seemed to say, "I am too well schooled in life to make
+mistakes." She was traveling with two companions--a fluffy, fluttering,
+characterless shadow of womanhood, and a man--an invalid who seldom left
+the privacy of the drawing-room which he occupied.</p>
+
+<p>As the train neared the summit of the pass, the young man on the
+observation car platform looked at his watch. A few miles more and he
+would arrive at his destination. Rising to his feet, he drew a deep breath
+of the glorious, sun-filled air. With his back to the door, and looking
+away into the distance, he did not notice the woman who, stepping from the
+car at that moment, stood directly behind him, steadying herself by the
+brass railing in front of the window. To their idly observing fellow
+passengers, the woman, too, appeared interested in the distant landscape.
+She might have been looking at the only other occupant of the platform.
+The passengers, from where they sat, could not have told.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there,--against the background of the primitive, many-colored
+landscape,--the young man might easily have attracted the attention of
+any one. He would have attracted attention in a crowd. Tall, with an
+athletic trimness of limb, a good breadth of shoulder, and a fine head
+poised with that natural, unconscious pride of the well-bred--he kept his
+feet on the unsteady platform of the car with that easy grace which marks
+only well-conditioned muscles, and is rarely seen save in those whose
+lives are sanely clean.</p>
+
+<p>The Express had entered the yards at the summit station, and was gradually
+lessening its speed. Just as the man turned to enter the car, the train
+came to a full stop, and the sudden jar threw him almost into the arms of
+the woman. For an instant, while he was struggling to regain his balance,
+he was so close to her that their garments touched. Indeed, he only
+prevented an actual collision by throwing his arm across her shoulder and
+catching the side of the car window against which she was leaning.</p>
+
+<p>In that moment, while his face was so close to hers that she might have
+felt his breath upon her cheek and he was involuntarily looking straight
+into her eyes, the man felt, queerly, that the woman was not shrinking
+from him. In fact, one less occupied with other thoughts might have
+construed her bold, open look, her slightly parted lips and flushed
+cheeks, as a welcome--quite as though she were in the habit of having
+handsome young men throw themselves into her arms.</p>
+
+<p>Then, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, he was saying, conventionally,
+"I beg your pardon. It was very stupid of me."</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, a mask of cold indifference slipped over her face. Without
+deigning to notice his courteous apology, she looked away, and, moving to
+the railing of the platform, became ostensibly interested in the busy
+activity of the railroad yards.</p>
+
+<p>Had the woman--in that instant when his arm was over her shoulder and his
+eyes were looking into hers--smiled, the incident would have slipped
+quickly from his mind. As it was, the flash-like impression of the moment
+remained, and--</p>
+
+<p>Down the steep grade of the narrow San Timateo Canyon, on the coast side
+of the mountain pass, the Overland thundered on the last stretch of its
+long race to the western edge of the continent. And now, from the car
+windows, the passengers caught tantalizing glimpses of bright pastures
+with their herds of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch
+buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and eucalyptus trees. On the
+rounded shoulders and steep flanks of the foothills that form the sides of
+the canyon, the barley fields looked down upon the meadows; and, now and
+then, in the whirling landscape winding side canyons--beautiful with
+live-oak and laurel, with greasewood and sage--led the eye away toward the
+pine-fringed ridges of the Galenas while above, the higher snow-clad peaks
+and domes of the San Bernardinos still shone coldly against the blue.</p>
+
+<p>In the Pullman, there was a stir of awakening interest The travel-wearied
+passengers, laying aside books and magazines and cards, renewed
+conversations that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert part of
+the journey, had lagged painfully. Throughout the train, there was an air
+of eager expectancy; a bustling movement of preparation. The woman of the
+observation car platform had disappeared into her stateroom. The young man
+gathered his things together in readiness to leave the train at the next
+stop.</p>
+
+<p>In the flying pictures framed by the windows, the dairy pastures and
+meadows were being replaced by small vineyards and orchards; the canyon
+wall, on the northern side, became higher and steeper, shutting out the
+mountains in the distance and showing only a fringe of trees on the sharp
+rim; while against the gray and yellow and brown and green of the
+chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the silvery softness of the
+olive trees that border the arroyo at their feet.</p>
+
+<p>With a long, triumphant shriek, the flying overland train--from the lands
+of ice and snow--from barren deserts and lonely mountains--rushed from the
+narrow mouth of the canyon, and swept out into the beautiful San
+Bernardino Valley where the travelers were greeted by wide, green miles of
+orange and lemon and walnut and olive groves--by many acres of gardens and
+vineyards and orchards. Amid these groves and gardens, the towns and
+cities are set; their streets and buildings half hidden in wildernesses of
+eucalyptus and peppers and palms; while--towering above the loveliness of
+the valley and visible now from the sweeping lines of their foothills to
+the gleaming white of their lonely peaks--rises, in blue-veiled,
+cloud-flecked steeps and purple shaded canyons, the beauty and grandeur of
+the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>It was January. To those who had so recently left the winter lands, the
+Southern California scene--so richly colored with its many shades of
+living green, so warm in its golden sunlight--seemed a dream of fairyland.
+It was as though that break in the mountain wall had ushered them suddenly
+into another world--a world, strange, indeed, to eyes accustomed to snow
+and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds.</p>
+
+<p>Among the many little cities half concealed in the luxurious,
+semi-tropical verdure of the wide valley at the foot of the mountains,
+Fairlands--if you ask a citizen of that well-known mecca of the
+tourist--is easily the Queen. As for that! all our Southern California
+cities are set in wildernesses of beauty; all are in wide valleys; all are
+at the foot of the mountains; all are meccas for tourists; each one--if
+you ask a citizen--is the Queen. If you, perchance should question this
+fact--write for our advertising literature.</p>
+
+<p>Passengers on the Golden State Limited--as perhaps you know--do not go
+direct to Fairlands. They change at Fairlands Junction. The little city,
+itself, is set in the lap of the hills that form the southern side of the
+valley, some three miles from the main line. It is as though this
+particular "Queen" withdrew from the great highway traveled by the vulgar
+herd--in the proud aloofness of her superior clay, sufficient unto
+herself. The soil out of which Fairlands is made is much richer, it is
+said, than the common dirt of her sister cities less than fifteen miles
+distant. A difference of only a few feet in elevation seems, strangely, to
+give her a much more rarefied air. Her proudest boast is that she has a
+larger number of millionaires in proportion to her population than any
+other city in the land.</p>
+
+<p>It was these peculiar and well-known advantages of Fairlands that led the
+young man of my story to select it as the starting point of his worthy
+ambition. And Fairlands is a good place for one so richly endowed with an
+inheritance that cannot be expressed in dollars to try his strength. Given
+such a community, amid such surroundings, with a man like the young man of
+my story, and something may be depended upon to happen.</p>
+
+<p>While the travelers from the East, bound for Fairlands, were waiting at
+the Junction for the local train that would take them through the orange
+groves to their journey's end, the young man noticed the woman of the
+observation car platform with her two companions. And now, as he paced to
+and fro, enjoying the exercise after the days of confinement in the
+Pullman, he observed them with stimulated interest--they, too, were going
+to Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>The man of the party, though certainly not old in years, was frightfully
+aged by dissipation and disease. The gross, sensual mouth with its
+loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes
+with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck
+and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a
+misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and,
+in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.</p>
+
+<p>As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big
+pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper,
+between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country,
+the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being
+worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy suggestion of
+womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected
+giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do
+hush! What will people think?" This last variation of his daughter's
+plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it
+furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly
+outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything
+at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing
+near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a
+little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's
+cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to
+be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or
+twice, as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes were turned in
+his direction.</p>
+
+<p>When the Fairlands train came in, the three found seats conveniently
+turned, near the forward end of the car. The young man, in passing,
+glanced down; and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the aisle,
+looked up full into his face.</p>
+
+<p>Again, as their eyes met, the man felt--as when they had stood so close
+together on the platform of the observation car--that she did not shrink
+from him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing about for a seat, he
+saw another face--a face, in its outlines, so like the one into which he
+had just looked, and yet so different--so far removed in its expression
+and meaning--that it fixed his attention instantly--compelling his
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>As this woman sat looking from the car window away toward the distant
+mountain peaks, the young man thought he had never seen a more perfect
+profile; nor a countenance that expressed such a beautiful blending of
+wistful longing, of patient fortitude, and saintly resignation. It was the
+face of a Madonna,--but a Madonna after the crucifixion,--pathetic in its
+lonely sorrow, inspiring in its spiritual strength, and holy in its purity
+and freedom from earthly passions.</p>
+
+<p>She was near his mother's age; and looking at her--as he moved down the
+aisle--his mother's face, as he had known it before their last meeting,
+came to him with startling vividness. For an instant, he paused, moved to
+take the chair beside her; but the next two seats were vacant, and he had
+no excuse for intruding. Arranging his grips, he quickly seated himself
+next to the window; and again, with eager interest, turned toward the
+woman in the chair ahead. Involuntarily, he started with astonishment and
+pity.</p>
+
+<p>The woman--still gazing from the window at the distant mountain peaks, and
+seemingly unconscious of her surroundings--presented now, to the man's
+shocked and compassionate gaze, the other side of her face. It was
+hideously disfigured by a great scar that--covering the entire cheek and
+neck--distorted the corner of the mouth, drew down the lower lid of the
+eye, and twisted her features into an ugly caricature. Even the ear, half
+hidden under the soft, gray-threaded hair, had not escaped, but was
+deformed by the same dreadful agent that had wrought such ruin to one of
+the loveliest countenances the man had ever looked upon.</p>
+
+<p>When the train stopped at Fairlands, and the passengers crowded into the
+aisle to make their way out, of the characters belonging to my story, the
+woman with the man and his daughter went first. Following them, a half
+car-length of people between, went the woman with the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>On the depot platform, as they moved toward the street, the young man
+still held his place near the woman who had so awakened his pitying
+interest. The three Overland passengers were met by a heavy-faced
+thick-necked man who escorted them to a luxurious touring car.</p>
+
+<p>The invalid and his daughter had entered the automobile when their escort,
+in turning toward the other member of the party, saw the woman with the
+disfigured face--who was now quite near. Instantly, he paused. And there
+was a smile of recognition on his somewhat coarse features as, lifting his
+hat, he bowed with--the young man fancied--condescending politeness. The
+woman standing by his side with her hand upon the door of the automobile,
+seeing her companion saluting some one, turned--and the next moment, the
+two women, whose features seemed so like--yet so unlike--were face to
+face.</p>
+
+<p>The young man saw the woman with the disfigured face stop short. For an
+instant, she stood as though dazed by an unexpected blow. Then, holding
+out her hands with a half-pleading, half-groping gesture, she staggered
+and would have fallen had he not stepped to her side.</p>
+
+<p>"Permit me, madam; you are ill."</p>
+
+<p>She neither spoke nor moved; but, with her eyes fixed upon the woman by
+the automobile, allowed him to support her--seemingly unconscious of his
+presence. And never before had the young man seen such anguish of spirit
+written in a human countenance.</p>
+
+<p>The one who had saluted her, advanced--as though to offer his services.
+But, as he moved toward her, she shrank back with a low--"No, no!" And
+such a look of horror and fear came into her eyes that the man by her side
+felt his muscles tense with indignation.</p>
+
+<p>Looking straight into the heavy face of the stranger, he said curtly, "I
+think you had better go on."</p>
+
+<p>With a careless shrug, the other turned and went back to the automobile,
+where he spoke in a low tone to his companions.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, who had been watching with a cold indifference, stepped into
+the car. The man took his seat by the chauffeur. As the big machine moved
+away, the woman with the disfigured face, again made as if to stretch
+forth her hands in a pleading gesture.</p>
+
+<p>The young man spoke pityingly; "May I assist you to a carriage, madam?"</p>
+
+<p>At his words, she looked up at him and--seeming to find in his face the
+strength she needed--answered in a low voice, "Thank you, sir; I am better
+now. I will he all right, presently, if you will put me on the car." She
+indicated a street-car that was just stopping at the crossing.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" he asked kindly, as he
+walked with her toward the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,"--with a sad attempt to smile,--"yes, and I thank you very much,
+sir, for your gentle courtesy."</p>
+
+<p>He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood with bared head as she
+passed inside, and the conductor gave the signal.</p>
+
+<p>The incident had attracted little attention from the passengers who were
+hurrying from the train. Their minds were too intent upon other things to
+more than glance at this little ripple on the surface of life. Those who
+had chanced to notice the woman's agitation had seen, also, that she was
+being cared for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second thought.</p>
+
+<p>When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot platform,
+the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking about,
+questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes
+fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.</p>
+
+<p>Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
+unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so
+rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought was
+to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His long,
+thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From
+under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a
+curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe.
+At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.</p>
+
+<p>Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape
+the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman
+with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. He turned, now,
+upon the young man who had so kindly given her assistance.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
+head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.</p>
+
+<p>Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon reaching
+the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.</p>
+
+<p>The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
+still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
+Setter at his feet.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch03" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter III</h2>
+
+<h3>The Famous Conrad Lagrange</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room, where
+he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
+the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who had
+directed him to the hotel.</p>
+
+<p>That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and the
+Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the clerk's
+counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his
+skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to present
+the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining
+tables; and the young man heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and
+commenting in an audible undertone, upon every dish that was served to
+him--swearing by all the heathen gods, known and unknown, that there was
+nothing fit to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the fact that
+there was no place else in the cursed town that served half so good, he
+would not touch a mouthful in the place. Then, to the other's secret
+amusement he fell to right heartily and made an astonishing meal of the
+really excellent viands he had so roundly vilified.</p>
+
+<p>Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar to the long veranda; intent
+upon enjoying the restful quiet of the evening after the tiresome days on
+the train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he had his cigar just
+nicely under way when the Irish Setter--with all the dignity of his royal
+blood--approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long silky ears,
+confidently upon the stranger's knee, the dog looked up into the man's
+face with an expression of hearty good-fellowship in his soft,
+golden-brown eyes that was irresistible.</p>
+
+<p>"Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fellow," and stroked the
+sleek head and neck, affectionately.</p>
+
+<p>A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The
+dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half
+pathetic, half humorous, and altogether cynical expression.</p>
+
+<p>The young man who had been so unresponsive to the advances of his fellow
+passengers, for some reason--unknown, probably, to himself--now took the
+initiative. "You have a fine dog here, sir," he said encouragingly.</p>
+
+<p>Without replying, the other turned away and in another moment returned
+with a chair; whereupon the dog, with slightly waving, feathery tail,
+transferred his attention to his master.</p>
+
+<p>Caressing the seal-brown head with a gentle hand, and apparently speaking
+to the soft eyes that looked up at him so understandingly, the man said,
+"If the human race was fit to associate with such dogs, the world would be
+a more comfortable place to live in." The deep voice that rumbled up from
+some unguessed depths of that sunken chest was remarkable in its
+suggestion of a virile power that the general appearance of the man seemed
+to deny. Facing his companion suddenly, he asked with a direct bluntness,
+"Are you not Aaron King--son of the Aaron King of New England political
+fame?"</p>
+
+<p>Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, the young man flushed.
+"Yes; my father was active in New England politics," he answered simply.
+"Did you know him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well"--returned the other--"very well." He repeated the two words
+with a suggestive emphasis; his eyes--with that curious, baffling,
+questioning look--still fixed upon his companion's face.</p>
+
+<p>The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened.</p>
+
+<p>Looking away, the strange man added, with a softer note in his rough
+voice, "I thought I knew you, when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and
+I were boy and girl together. There is a little of her face in yours. If
+you have as much of her character, you are to be congratulated--and--so
+are the rest of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to the dog;
+who, still looking up at him, seemed to express with slow-waving tail, an
+understanding of thoughts that were only partly put into words.</p>
+
+<p>There was an impersonality in the man's personalities that made it
+impossible for the subject of his observations to take offense.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King--when it was evident that the man had no thought of
+introducing himself--said, with the fine courtesy that seemed always to
+find expression in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, answered, "Conrad
+Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>The young man smiled. "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Lagrange.
+Surely, you are not the famous novelist of that name?"</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>why</i>, 'surely not'?" retorted the other, again turning his face
+quickly toward his companion. "Am I not distinguished enough in
+appearance? Do I look like the mob? True, I am a scrawny, humpbacked
+crooked-faced, scarecrow of a man--but what matters <i>that</i>, if I do not
+look like the mob? What is called fame is as scrawny and humpbacked and
+crooked-faced as my body--but what matters <i>that?</i> Famous or infamous--to
+not look like the mob is the thing."</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of
+sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked
+the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker
+turned from his human companion to a more worthy listener.</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King could find no words to reply, the novelist shot another
+question at him, with startling suddenness. "Do you read my books?"</p>
+
+<p>The other began a halting answer to the effect that everybody read Conrad
+Lagrange's books. But the distinguished author interrupted; "Don't take
+the trouble to lie--out of politeness. I shall ask you to tell me about
+them and you will be in a hole."</p>
+
+<p>The young man laughed as he said, with straight-forward frankness, "I have
+read only one, Mr. Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>"Which one?"</p>
+
+<p>"The--ah--why--the one, you know--where the husband of one woman falls in
+love with the wife of another who is in love with the husband of some one
+else. Pshaw!--what is the title? I mean the one that created such a
+furore, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes"--said the man, to his dog--"O yes, Czar--I am the famous Conrad
+Lagrange. I observe"--he added, turning to the other, with twinkling
+eyes--"I observe, Mr. King, that you really <i>do</i> have a good bit of your
+mother's character. That you do not read my books is a recommendation that
+I, better than any one, know how to appreciate." The light of humor went
+from his face, suddenly, as it had come. Again he turned away; and his
+deep voice was gentle as he continued, "Your mother is a rare and
+beautiful spirit, sir. Knowing her regard for the true and genuine,--her
+love for the pure and beautiful,--I scarcely expected to find her son
+interested in the realism of <i>my</i> fiction. I congratulate you, young
+man"--he paused; then added with indescribable bitterness--"that you have
+not read my books."</p>
+
+<p>For a few moments, Aaron King did not answer. At last, with quiet dignity,
+he said, "My mother was a remarkable woman, Mr. Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>The other faced him quickly. "You say <i>was</i>? Do you mean--?"</p>
+
+<p>"My mother is dead, sir. I was called home from abroad by her illness."</p>
+
+<p>For a little, the older man sat looking into the gathering dusk. Then,
+deliberately, he refilled his brier pipe, and, rising, said to his dog,
+"Come, Czar--it's time to go."</p>
+
+<p>Without a word of parting to his human companion with the dog moving
+sedately by his side, he disappeared into the darkness of the night.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All the next day, Aaron King--in the hotel dining-room, the lobby, and on
+the veranda--watched for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the
+little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the uncouth
+figure and the homely, world-worn face of the man whose unusual
+personality had so attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Conrad
+Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening before, the young man was
+smoking his after-dinner cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a
+whiff of pipe smoke announced the strange character's presence.</p>
+
+<p>Without taking a seat, the novelist said, "I always have a look at the
+mountains, at this time of the day, Mr. King--would you care to come?
+These mountains are the real thing, you know, and well worth
+seeing--particularly at this hour." There was a gentle softness in his
+deep voice, now--as unlike his usual speech as his physical appearance was
+unlike that of his younger companion.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King arose quickly. "Thank you, Mr, Lagrange; I will go with
+pleasure."</p>
+
+<p>Accompanied by the dog, they followed the avenue, under the giant pepper
+trees that shut out the sky with their gnarled limbs and gracefully
+drooping branches, to the edge of the little city; where the view to the
+north and northeast was unobstructed by houses. Just where the street
+became a road, Conrad Lagrange--putting his hand upon his companion's
+arm--said in a low voice, "This is the place."</p>
+
+<p>Behind them, beautiful Fairlands lay, half lost, in its wilderness of
+trees and flowers. Immediately in the foreground, a large tract of
+unimproved land brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet.
+Beyond these acres--upon which there were no trees--the orange groves were
+massed in dark green blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows
+of palms; clumps of peppers; or tall, plume-like eucalyptus; to mark the
+roads and the ranch homes. Beyond this--and rising, seemingly, out of the
+groves--the San Bernardinos heaved their mighty masses into the sky. It
+was almost dark. The city's lamps were lighted. The outlines of grove and
+garden were fast being lost in the deepening dusk. The foothills, with the
+lower spurs and ridges of the mountains, were softly modeled in dark blue
+against the deeper purple of the canyons and gorges. Upon the cloudless
+sky that was lighted with clearest saffron, the lines of the higher crests
+were sharply drawn; while the lonely, snow-capped peaks,--ten thousand
+feet above the darkening valley below,--catching the last rays of the sun,
+glowed rose-pink--changing to salmon--deepening into mauve--as the light
+failed.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King broke the silence by drawing a long breath--as one who could
+find no words to express his emotions.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange spoke sadly; "And to think that there are,--in this city
+of ten thousand,--probably, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety people
+who never see it."</p>
+
+<p>With a short laugh, the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch
+for my palette and brushes--though it's not at all my sort of thing."</p>
+
+<p>The other turned toward him quickly. "You are an artist?"</p>
+
+<p>"I had just completed my three years study abroad when mother's illness
+brought me home. I was fortunate enough to get one on the line, and they
+say--over there--that I had a good chance. I don't know how it will go
+here at home." There was a note of anxiety in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Portraits."</p>
+
+<div class="image" id="illus02"><p><img src="images/illus02.png" alt="A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and wholly cynical interrogation" /><br />
+A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and wholly cynical interrogation</p></div>
+
+<p>With his face again toward the mountains, the novelist said thoughtfully,
+"This West country will produce some mighty artists, Mr. King. By far the
+greater part of this land must remain, always, in its primitive
+naturalness. It will always be easier, here, than in the city crowded
+East, for a man to be himself. There is less of that spirit which is born
+of clubs and cliques and clans and schools--with their fine-spun
+theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely
+commissioned to sit in judgment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking,
+esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that
+loneliness out of which great art comes. The atmosphere of these mountains
+and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a
+clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others--and what, after
+all, <i>is</i> a great artist, but one who greatly asserts himself?"</p>
+
+<p>The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr. Lagrange, your words recall
+to my mind a thought in one of mother's favorite books. She quoted from
+the volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it by heart, and,
+in turn, it became my favorite. Indeed, I think that, with mother's aid as
+an interpreter, it has had more influence upon my life than any other one
+book. This is the thought: 'To understand the message of the mountains; to
+love them for what they are; and, in terms of every-day life, to give
+expression to that understanding and love--is a mark of true greatness of
+soul.' I do not know the author. The book is anonymous."</p>
+
+<p>"I am the author of that book, sir," the strange man answered with simple
+dignity, "--or, rather,--I should say,--I <i>was</i> the author," he added,
+with a burst of his bitter, sarcastic humor. "For God's sake don't betray
+me. I am, <i>now</i>, the <i>famous</i> Conrad Lagrange, you understand. I have a
+<i>name</i> to protect." His deep voice was shaken with feeling. His worn and
+rugged features twitched and worked with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King listened in amazement to the words that were spoken by the
+famous novelist with such pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation.
+Not knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are working here, Mr.
+Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Working! Me? I don't <i>work</i> anywhere. I am a literary scavenger. I haunt
+the intellectual slaughter pens, and live by the putrid offal that
+self-respecting writers reject. I glean the stinking materials for my
+stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. For the dollars they pay, I
+furnish my readers with those thrills that public decency forbids them to
+experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the purposes of mental
+prostitution. My books breed moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The
+unholy filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imaginations of my
+readers. I am an instigator of degrading immorality and unmentionable
+crimes. <i>Work</i>! No, young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing penance
+in this damned town. My rotten imaginings have proven too much--even for
+me--and the doctors sent me West to recuperate,"</p>
+
+<p>The artist could find no words that would answer. In silence, the two men
+turned away from the mountains, and started back along the avenue by which
+they had come.</p>
+
+<p>When they had walked some little distance, the young man said, "This is
+your first visit to Fairlands, Mr. Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was here last year"--answered the other--"here and in the hills yonder.
+Have <i>you</i> been much in the mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in California. This is my first trip to the West. I have seen
+something of the mountains, though, at tourist resorts--abroad."</p>
+
+<p>"Which means," commented the other, "that you have never seen them at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right."</p>
+
+<p>"And you--?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing his companion. "What
+brought you to this community that thinks so much more of its millionaires
+than it does of its mountains? Have <i>you</i> come to Fairlands to work?"</p>
+
+<p>"I hope to," answered the artist. "There are--there are reasons why I do
+not care to work, for the present, in the East. I confess it was because I
+understood that Fairlands offered exceptional opportunities for a portrait
+painter that I came here. To succeed in my work, you know, one must come
+in touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier to interest them
+when they are away from their homes--in some place like this--where their
+social duties and business cares are not so pressing."</p>
+
+<p>"There is no question of the material that Fairlands has to offer, Mr.
+King," returned the novelist, in his grim, sarcastic humor. "God! how I
+envy you!" he added, with a flash of earnest passion. "You are young--You
+are beginning your life work--You are looking forward to success--You--"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>must</i> succeed"--the painter interrupted impetuously--"I must."</p>
+
+<p>"Succeed in <i>what</i>? What do you mean by success?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, <i>you</i> should understand what I mean by success," the younger man
+retorted. "You who have gained--"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes; I forgot"--came the quick interruption--"I am the <i>famous</i>
+Conrad Lagrange. Of course, you, too, must succeed. You must become the
+<i>famous</i> Aaron King. But perhaps you will tell me why you must, as you
+call it, succeed?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist hesitated before answering; then said with anxious earnestness,
+"I don't think I can explain Mr. Lagrange. My mother--" he paused.</p>
+
+<p>The older man stopped short, and, turning, stood for a little with his
+face towards the mountains where San Bernardino's pyramid-like peak was
+thrust among the stars. When he spoke, every bit of that bitter humor was
+gone from his deep voice. "I beg your pardon, Mr. King"--he said
+slowly--"I am as ugly and misshapen in spirit as in body."</p>
+
+<p>But when they had walked some way--again in silence--and were drawing near
+the hotel, the momentary change in his mood passed. In a tone of stinging
+sarcasm he said. "You are on the right road, Mr. King. You did well to
+come to Fairlands. It is quite evident that you have mastered the modern
+technic of your art. To acquire fame, you have only to paint pictures of
+fast women who have no morals at all--making them appear as innocent
+maidens, because they have the price to pay, and, in the eyes of the
+world, are of social importance. Put upon your canvases what the world
+will call portraits of distinguished citizens--making low-browed
+money--thugs to look like noble patriots, and bloody butchers of humanity
+like benevolent saints. You need give yourself no uneasiness about your
+success. It is easy. Get in with the right people; use your family name
+and your distinguished ancestors; pull a few judicious advertising wires;
+do a few artistic stunts; get yourself into the papers long and often, no
+matter how; make yourself a fad; become a pet of the social autocrats--and
+your fame is assured. And--you will be what I am."</p>
+
+<p>The young man, quietly ignoring the humor of the novelist's words, said
+protestingly, "But, surely, to portray human nature is legitimate art, Mr.
+Lagrange. Your great artists that the West is to produce will not
+necessarily be landscape painters or write essays upon nature, will they?"</p>
+
+<p>"To portray human nature is legitimate work for an artist, yes"--agreed
+the novelist--"but he must portray human nature <i>plus</i>. The forces that
+<i>shape</i> human nature are the forces that must be felt in the picture and
+in the story. That these determining forces are so seldom seen by the eyes
+of the world, is the reason <i>for</i> pictures and stories. The artist who
+fails to realize for his world the character-creating elements in the life
+which he essays to paint or write, fails, to just that degree, in being an
+artist; or is self-branded by his work as criminally careless, a charlatan
+or a liar. That one who, for a price, presents a picture or a story
+without regard for the influence of his production upon the characters of
+those who receive it, commits a crime for which human law provides no
+adequate punishment. Being the famous Conrad Lagrange, you understand, I
+have the right to say this. You will probably believe it, some day--if
+you do not now. That is, you will believe it if you have the soul and the
+intelligence of an artist--if you have not--it will not matter--and you
+will be happy in your success."</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist finished speaking, the two men arrived at the hotel steps,
+where they halted, with that indecision of chance acquaintances who have
+no plans beyond the passing moment, yet who, in mutual interest, would
+extend the time of their brief companionship. While they stood there, each
+hesitating to make the advance, a big touring car rolled up the driveway,
+and stopped under the full light of the veranda. Aaron King recognized the
+lady of the observation car platform, with her two traveling companions
+and the heavy-faced man who had met them at the depot. As the party
+greeted the novelist and he returned their salutation, the artist turned
+away to find again the chair, where, an hour before, the strange character
+who was to play so large a part in his life and work had found him. The
+dog, Czar, as if preferring the companionship of the artist to the company
+of those who were engaging his master's attention, followed the young man.</p>
+
+<p>From where he sat, the painter could see the tall, uncouth figure of the
+famous novelist standing beside the automobile, while the occupants of the
+car were, apparently, absorbingly interested in what he was saying. The
+beautiful face of the woman was brightly animated as she evidently took
+the lead in the conversation. The artist could see her laughing and
+shaking her head. Once, he even heard her speak the writer's name;
+whereupon, every lounger upon the veranda, within hearing, turned to
+observe the party with curious interest. Several times, the young man
+noted that she glanced in his direction, half inquiringly, with a
+suggestion of being pleased, as though she were glad to have seen him in
+company with her celebrated friend. Then the man who held so large a place
+in the eyes of the world drew back, lifting his hat; the automobile
+started forward; the party called, "Good night." The woman's voice rose
+clear--so that the spectators might easily understand--"Remember, Mr.
+Lagrange--I shall expect you Thursday--day after to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad Lagrange came up the hotel steps, the eyes of all were upon him;
+but he--apparently unconscious of the company--went straight to the
+artist; where, without a word, he dropped into the vacant chair by the
+young man's side, and began thoughtfully refilling his brier pipe.
+Flipping the match over the veranda railing, and expelling a prodigious
+cloud of smoke, the novelist said grimly, "And there--my fellow artist--go
+your masters. I trust you observed them with proper reverence. I would
+have introduced you, but I do not like to take the initiative in such
+outrages. That will come soon enough. The young should be permitted to
+enjoy their freedom while they may."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed. "Thank you for your consideration," he returned, "but
+I do not think I am in any immediate danger."</p>
+
+<p>"Which"--the other retorted dryly--"betrays either innocence, caution, or
+an unusual understanding of life. I am not, now, prepared to say whether
+you know too much or too little."</p>
+
+<p>"I confess to a degree of curiosity," said the artist. "I traveled in the
+same Pullman with three of the party. May I ask the names of your
+friends?"</p>
+
+<p>The other answered in his bitterest vein; "I have no friends, Mr. King--I
+have only admirers. As for their names"--he continued--"there is no reason
+why I should withhold either who they are or what they are. Besides, I
+observed that the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art' has her
+eye upon you, already. As I shall very soon be commanded to drag you to
+her 'Court,' it is well for you to be prepared."</p>
+
+<p>The young man laughed as the other paused to puff vigorously at his brier
+pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"That red-faced, bull-necked brute, is James Rutlidge, the son and heir of
+old Jim Rutlidge," continued the novelist. "Jim inherited a few odd
+millions from <i>his</i> father, and killed himself spending them in
+unmentionable ways. The son is most worthily carrying out his father's
+mission, with bright prospects of exceeding his distinguished parent's
+fondest dreams. But, unfortunately, <i>he</i> is hampered by lack of adequate
+capital--the bulk of the family wealth having gone with the old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean James Rutlidge--the great critic?" exclaimed Aaron King, with
+increased interest.</p>
+
+<p>"The same," answered the other, with his twisted smile. "I thought you
+would recognize his name. As an artist, you will undoubtedly have much to
+do with him. His friendship is one of the things that are vital to your
+success. Believe me, his power in modern art is a red-faced, bull-necked
+power that you will do well to recognize. Of his companions," he went on,
+"the horrible example is Edward J. Taine--friend and fellow martyr of
+James Rutlidge, Senior. Satan, perhaps, can explain how he has managed to
+outlive his partner. His home is in New York, but he has a big house on
+Fairlands Heights, with large orange groves in this district. He comes
+here winters for his health. He'll die before long. The effervescing young
+creature is his daughter, Louise--by his first wife. The 'Goddess'--who is
+not much older than his daughter--is the present Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"His wife!"</p>
+
+<p>The artist's exclamation drew a sarcastic chuckle from the other. "I am
+prepared, now, to testify to your unworldly innocence of heart and mind,"
+he gibed. "And, pray, why not his wife? You see, she was the ward of old
+Rutlidge--a niece, it is said. Mrs. Rutlidge--as you have no doubt
+heard--killed herself. It was shortly after her death that Jim took this
+little one into his home. She and young Jim grew up together. What was
+more natural or fitting than that her guardian--when he was about to
+depart from this sad world where human flesh is not able to endure an
+unlimited amount of dissipation--should give the girl as a lively souvenir
+to his bosom friend and companion of his unmentionable deviltries? The
+transaction also enabled him, you understand, to draw upon the Taine
+millions; and so permitted him to finish his distinguished career with
+credit. You, with your artist's extravagant fancy, have, no doubt, been
+thinking of her as fashioned for <i>love</i>. I assure you <i>she</i> knows better.
+The world in which she has been schooled has left her no hazy ideas as to
+what she was made for."</p>
+
+<p>"I have heard of the Taines," said the younger man, thoughtfully. "I
+suppose this is the same family. They are very prominent in the social
+world, and quite generous patrons of the arts?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the eyes of the world," said the novelist, "they are the noblest of
+our Nobility. They dwell in the rarefied atmosphere of millions. By the
+dollarless multitudes they are envied. They assume to be the cultured of
+the cultured. Patrons of the arts! Why, man, <i>they have autographed copies
+of all my books!</i> They and their kind <i>feed</i> me and my kind. They will
+feed you, sir, or by God you'll starve! But you need have no fear that the
+crust of genius will be your portion," he added meaningly. "As I
+remarked--the 'Goddess' has her eye upon you."</p>
+
+<p>"And why do you so distinguish the lady?" asked the artist, quietly
+amused--with just a hint of well-bred condescension. "Has Mrs. Taine such
+powerful influence in the world of art?"</p>
+
+<p>If Conrad Lagrange noticed his companion's manner he passed it by. "I
+perceive," he said, "that you are still somewhat lacking in the rudiments
+of your profession. The statement of faith adhered to by modern climbers
+on the ladder of fame--such as I have been, and you aspire to be--is that
+'Pull' wins. Our creed is 'Graft.' By 'Influence' we stand, by
+'Influence' we fall. It pleases Mrs. Taine to be, in the world of art, a
+lobbyist. She knows the insides of the inside rings and cliques and
+committees that say what is, and what is not, art; that declare who shall
+be, and who shall not be, artists. She has power with those who, in their
+might, grant position and place in the halls of fame; as their kinsmen in
+the political world pass the plums to those who court their favor. The
+great critics who thunder anathemas at the poor devils who are outside,
+eat out of her hand. Jim Rutlidge and his unholy crew are at her beck and
+call. Jim, you see, needing all he can get of the Taine millions, hopes to
+marry Louise. You can scarcely blame the young and beautiful Mrs. Taine
+for not being interested in her husband--who is going to die so soon. The
+poor girl must have some amusement, so she interests herself in art, don't
+you know. She gives more dinners to artists and critics; buys more
+pictures and causes more pictures to be bought; mothers more art-culture
+clubs; discovers more new and startling geniuses; in short, has a larger
+and better trained company of lions than any one else in the business. She
+deals in lions. It's her fad to collect them--same as others collect
+butterflies or postage stamps. She has one other fad that is less harmful
+and just as deceptive--a carefully nourished reputation for prudery. I
+sometimes think the Gods must laugh or choke. That woman would no more
+speak to you without a proper introduction than she would appear on the
+street without shoes or stockings. She has never been seen in an evening
+gown. Her beautiful shoulders have never been immodestly bared to the
+eyes of the world."</p>
+
+<p>The artist thought of that moment on the observation car platform.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the novelist--refilling his pipe--said whimsically, "Some day,
+Mr. King, I shall write a true story. It shall be a novel of to-day, with
+characters drawn from life; and these characters, in my story, shall bear
+the names of the forces that have made them what they are and which they,
+in turn, have come to represent. I mean those forces that are so coloring
+and shaping the life and thought of this age."</p>
+
+<p>"That ought to be interesting," said the other, "but I am not quite sure
+that I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Probably you don't. You have not been thinking much of these things. You
+have your eye upon Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. To
+illustrate--our bull-necked friend and illustrious critic, James Rutlidge,
+in my story, will be named 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one
+'Lust.' The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine,--boon companion of
+'Lust,'--is 'Materialism'."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" laughed the artist. "I see; go on. Who is the daughter of
+'Materialism?'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Ragtime'," promptly returned the novelist, with a grin. "Who else could
+she be?"</p>
+
+<p>"And Mrs. Taine?" urged the other.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist responded quickly; "Why, the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm
+of 'Modern Art,' is 'The Age,' of course. Do you see? 'The Age' given over
+to 'Materialism' for base purposes by his companion, 'Lust.' And you----"
+he paused.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on," cried the young man, "who or what am I in your story?"</p>
+
+<p>"You, sir,"--answered Conrad Lagrange, seriously,--"in my story of modern
+life, represent Art. It remains to be seen whether 'The Age' will add you
+to her collection, or whether some other influence will intervene."</p>
+
+<p>"And you"--persisted the artist--"surely you are in the story."</p>
+
+<p>"I am very much in the story," the other answered. "My name is
+'Civilization.' My story will be published when I am dead. I have a
+reputation to sustain, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was not laughing, now. Something, that lay deep hidden beneath
+the rude exterior of the man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some
+powerful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped the artist's
+mind--compelling him to search for hidden meanings in the novelist's
+fanciful suggestions.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments passed in silence before the young man said slowly, "I met a
+character, yesterday, Mr. Lagrange, that might be added to your cast."</p>
+
+<p>"There are several that will be added to my cast," the other answered
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>To which the painter returned, "Did you notice that woman with the
+disfigured face, at the depot?"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange looked at his companion, quickly. "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know her?" questioned the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"No. Why do you ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only because she interested me, and because she seemed to know your
+friends--Mr. Rutlidge and Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist knocked the ashes from his pipe by tapping it on the veranda
+railing. The action seemed to express a peculiar mental effort; as though
+he were striving to recall something that had gone from his memory. "I saw
+what happened at the depot, of course," he said slowly. "I have seen the
+woman before. She lives here in Fairlands. Her name is Miss Willard. No
+one seems to know much about her. I can't get over the impression that I
+ought to know her--that I have met and known her somewhere years ago. Her
+manner, yesterday, at seeing Mrs. Taine, was certainly very strange." As
+if to free his mind from the unsuccessful effort to remember, he rose to
+his feet. "But why should she be added to the characters in my novel, Mr.
+King? What does she represent?"</p>
+
+<p>"Her name,"--said the artist,--"in your study of life, is suggested by her
+face--so beautiful on the one side--so distorted on the other--her name
+should be 'Symbol'."</p>
+
+<p>"There really is hope for you," returned the older man, with his quizzing
+smile. "Good night. Come, Czar." He passed into the hotel--the dog at his
+heels.</p>
+
+<p>It was two days later--Thursday--that Conrad Lagrange made his memorable
+visit to the Taines--memorable, in my story, because, at that time, Mrs.
+Taine gave such unmistakable evidence of her interest in Aaron King and
+his future.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch04" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter IV</h2>
+
+<h3>At the House on Fairlands Heights</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As my friend the social scientist would say; it is a phenomenon peculiar
+to urban life, that the social strata are more or less clearly defined
+geographically.</p>
+
+<p>That is,--in the English of everyday,--people of different classes live in
+different parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are given to
+the wholesale establishments, others to retail stores, and still others to
+the manufacturing plants; so there are the tenement districts, the slums,
+and the streets where may be found the homes of wealth and fashion.</p>
+
+<p>In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked by altitude. The city,
+lying in the lap of the hills and looking a little down upon the
+valley--plebeian business together with those who do the work of Fairlands
+occupies the lowest levels in the corporate limits. The heights are held
+by Fairlands' Pride. Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are
+graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most gratifying to observe
+how generally the citizens of this fortunate community aspire to higher
+things; and to note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is
+undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement which enables every one to
+look down upon his neighbor.</p>
+
+<p>The view from the winter home of the Taines was magnificent.</p>
+
+<p>From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine sat, that afternoon, one
+could have looked down upon all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done
+better than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical foliage
+that--save for the tower of the red-brick Y.M.C.A. building, the white,
+municipal flagstaff, and the steeples and belfries of the churches--hid
+the city, one might have looked up at the mountains. High, high, above the
+low levels occupied by the hill-climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift
+their heads in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest Fairlander
+of them all--looking down upon even the Taines themselves.</p>
+
+<p>But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared by the mountains. She
+sat by the window, indeed, but her eyes were upon the open pages of a
+book--a popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the governmental
+conscience was--and is still--permitted in print.</p>
+
+<p>The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. Taine was--in her
+opinion--almost as great in literature as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By
+those in authority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the unworthiness
+of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be one of the greatest writers of
+his generation. He is a realist--a modern of the moderns. His pen has
+never been debased by an inartistic and antiquated idealism. His claim to
+genius rests securely upon the fact that he has no ideals. He writes for
+that select circle of leaders who, like the Taines and the Rutlidges, are
+capable of appreciating his art. All of which means that he tells filthy
+stories in good English. That his stories are identical in material and
+motive with the vile yarns that are permitted only in the lowest class
+barber shops and in disreputable bar-rooms, in no way detracts from the
+admiring praise of his critics, the generosity of his publishers, or the
+appreciation of those for whom he writes.</p>
+
+<p>With tottering step and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the
+apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed,
+red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen,
+impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized
+him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his
+dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm.
+Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and
+tortured slave of the very devils of unholy passion that he had so often
+invoked to serve him. Repulsive as he was, he was an object to awaken the
+deepest pity.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, looking up from her novel, watched him curiously--without
+moving or changing her attitude of luxurious repose--without speaking.
+Almost, one would have said, a shade of a smile was upon her too perfect
+features.</p>
+
+<p>When the man--who had dropped weak and exhausted into a chair--could
+speak, he glared at her in a pitiful rage, and, in his throaty whisper,
+said with a curse, "You seem to be amused."</p>
+
+<p>Still, she did not speak. A tantalizing smile broke over her face, and she
+stretched her beautiful body lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned
+animal stirs in sleek, physical contentment.</p>
+
+<p>Again, with curses, he said, "I'm glad you so enjoy my company. To be
+laughed at, even, is better than your damned indifference."</p>
+
+<p>"You misjudge me," she answered in a voice that, low and soft, was still
+richly colored by the wealth of vitality that found expression in her
+splendid body. "I am not at all indifferent to your condition--quite the
+contrary. I am intensely interested. As for the amusement you afford
+me--please consider--for three years I have amused you. Can you deny me my
+turn?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed with a hideously mirthless chuckle as he returned with ghastly
+humor, "I have had the worth of my money. I advise you to make the most of
+your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant for you as I can, while
+I am with you, but, as you know, I am liable to leave you at any time,
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I shall miss you so when
+you are gone."</p>
+
+<p>He glared at her while she laughed mockingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Where is everybody?" he asked. "The place is as lonely as a tomb."</p>
+
+<p>"Louise is out riding with Jim."</p>
+
+<p>"And what are you doing at home?" he demanded suspiciously.</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Oh I remained to care for you--to keep you from being lonely."</p>
+
+<p>"You lie. You are expecting some one."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Who is it this time?" he persisted.</p>
+
+<p>"Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she murmured.</p>
+
+<p>"Whom are you expecting?"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear me! how persistently you look for evil," she mocked. "You know
+perfectly well that, thanks to my tact, I am considered quite the model
+wife. You really should cultivate a more trusting disposition."</p>
+
+<p>Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he suffered she again
+watched him with that curious air of interest. When he could command his
+voice, he gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, and you know
+that I know. Am I so innocent that Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and
+Black Whitman, and as many more of their kind, can make love to you under
+my very nose without my knowing it? You take damned good care--posing as a
+prude with your fad about immodest dress--that the world sees nothing; but
+you have never troubled to hide it from me."</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And why should I trouble to
+hide anything from you?" she demanded. "Look at me"--she posed as if to
+exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her physical
+beauty--"Look at me; am I to waste all <i>this</i> upon you? You tell me that
+you have had your money's worth--surely, the purchase price is mine to
+spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as your foul mind sees
+me, what right have you to object? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a
+stone at me? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have made for me
+but the horrible pleasure of watching you in the hell you have made for
+yourself? Be satisfied that the world does not see your shame--though
+it's from no consideration of you, but wholly for myself, that I am
+careful. As for my modesty--you know it is not a fad but a necessity."</p>
+
+<p>"That is just it"--he retorted--"it is the way you make a fad of a
+necessity! Forced to hide your shoulders, you make a virtue of
+concealment. You make capital of the very thing of which you are ashamed."</p>
+
+<p>"And is not that exactly what we all do?" she asked with brutal cynicism.
+"Do you not fear the eyes of the world as much as I? Be satisfied that I
+play the game of respectability with you--that I give the world no cause
+for talk. You may as well be," she finished with devilish frankness, "for
+you are past helping yourself in the matter."</p>
+
+<p>As she finished, a servant appeared to announce Mr. Conrad Lagrange; and
+the tall, uncouth figure of the novelist stood framed in the doorway; his
+sharp eyes regarding them with that peculiar, quizzing, baffling look.</p>
+
+<p>Edward Taine laughed with that horrid chuckle. "Howdy-do, Lagrange--glad
+to see you."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine went forward to greet the caller; saying as she gave him her
+hand, "You arrived just in time, Mr. Lagrange; Edward and I were
+discussing your latest book. We think it a masterpiece of realistic
+fiction. I'm sure it will add immensely to your fame. I hear it talked of
+everywhere as the most popular novel of the year. You wonderful man! How
+do you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't do it," answered Conrad Lagrange, looking straight into her
+eyes. "It does itself. My books are really true products of the age that
+reads them; and--to paraphrase a statesman who was himself a product of
+his age--for those who read my books they are just the kind of books that
+I would expect such people to read."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine looked at him with a curious, half-doubtful half-wistful
+expression; as though she glimpsed a hint of a meaning that did not appear
+upon the surface of his words. "You do say such--such--twisty things," she
+murmured. "I don't think I always understand what you mean; but when you
+look at me that way, I feel as though my maid had neglected to finish
+hooking me up."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist bowed in mock gallantry--a movement which made his ungainly
+form appear more grotesque than ever. "Indeed, madam, to my humble eyes,
+you are most beautifully and fittingly--ah--hooked up." He turned toward
+the invalid. "And how is the fortunate husband of the charming Mrs. Taine
+to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fine, Lagrange, fine," said the man--a cough interrupting his words.
+"Really, I think that Gertrude is unduly alarmed about my condition. In
+this glorious climate, I feel like a three-year-old."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> looking quite like yourself," returned the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"There's nothing at all the matter with me but a slight bronchial
+trouble," continued the other, coughing again. Then, to his
+wife--"Dearest, won't you ring, please; I'm sure it's time for my toddy;
+perhaps Mr. Lagrange will join me in a drink. What'll it be, Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, thanks, at this hour."</p>
+
+<p>"No? But you'll pardon me, I'm sure--Doctor's orders you know."</p>
+
+<p>A servant appeared. Mrs. Taine took the glass and carried it to her
+husband with her own hand, saying with tender solicitude, "Don't you
+think, dear, that you should lie down for a while? Mr. Lagrange will
+remain for dinner, you know. You must not tire yourself. I'm sure he will
+excuse you. I'll manage somehow to amuse him until Jim and Louise return."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I will rest a little, Gertrude." He turned to the guest--"While
+there is nothing really wrong, you know, Lagrange, still it's best to be
+on the safe side."</p>
+
+<p>"By all means," said the novelist, heartily. "You should take care of
+yourself. Don't, I beg, permit me to detain you."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, with careful tenderness, accompanied her husband to the door.
+When he had passed from the room, she faced the novelist, with--"Don't you
+think Edward is really very much worse, Mr. Lagrange? I keep up
+appearances, you know, but--" she paused with a charming air of perplexed
+and worried anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Your husband is certainly not a well man, madam--but you keep up
+appearances wonderfully. I really don't see how you manage it. But I
+suppose that for one of your nature it is natural."</p>
+
+<p>Again, she received his words with that look of doubtful
+understanding--as though sensing some meaning beneath the polite,
+commonplace surface. Then, as if to lead away from the subject--"You must
+really tell me what you think of our California home. I told you in New
+York, you remember, that I should ask you, the first thing. We were so
+sorry to have missed you last year. Please be frank. Isn't it beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very beautiful"--he answered--"exquisite taste--perfect harmony with
+modern art." His quizzing eyes twinkled, and a caricature of a smile
+distorted his face. "It fairly smells to heaven of the flesh pots."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "The odor should not be unfamiliar to you," she
+retorted. "By all accounts, your royalties are making you immensely rich.
+How wonderful it must be to be famous--to know that the whole world is
+talking about you! And that reminds me--who is your distinguished looking
+friend at the hotel? I was dying to ask you, the other night, but didn't
+dare. I know he is somebody famous."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, studying her face, answered reluctantly, "No, he is not
+famous; but I fear he is going to be."</p>
+
+<p>"Another twisty saying," she retorted. "But I mean to have an answer, so
+you may as well speak plainly. Have you known him long? What is his name?
+And what is he--a writer?"</p>
+
+<p>"His name is Aaron King. His mother and I grew up in the same
+neighborhood. He is an artist."</p>
+
+<p>"How romantic! Do you mean that he belongs to that old family of New
+England Kings?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is the last of them. His father was Aaron King--a prominent lawyer
+and politician in his state."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes! I remember! Wasn't there something whispered at the time of his
+death--some scandal that was hushed up--money stolen--or something? What
+was it? I can't think."</p>
+
+<p>"Whatever it was, Mrs. Taine, the son had nothing to do with it. Don't you
+think we might let the dead man stay safely buried?" There was an ominous
+glint in Conrad Lagrange's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine answered hurriedly, "Indeed, yes, Mr. Lagrange. You are right.
+And you shall bring Mr. King out to see me. If he is as nice as he looks,
+I promise you I will be very good to him. Perhaps I may even help him a
+little, through Jim, you know--bring him in touch with the right people
+and that sort of thing. What does he paint?"</p>
+
+<p>"Portraits." The novelist's tone was curt.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I am <i>sure</i> I could do a great deal for him."</p>
+
+<p>"And I am sure you would do a great deal <i>to</i> him," said Conrad Lagrange,
+bluntly.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed again. "And just what do you mean by that, Mr. Lagrange? I'm
+not sure whether it is complimentary or otherwise."</p>
+
+<p>"That depends upon what you consider complimentary," retorted the other.
+"As I told you--Aaron King is an artist."</p>
+
+<p>Again, she favored him with that look of doubtful understanding; shaking
+her head with mock sadness, and making a long sigh. "Another twister"--she
+said woefully--"just when we were getting along so beautifully, too.
+Won't you try again?"</p>
+
+<p>"In words of one syllable then--let him alone. He is, to-day, exactly
+where I was twenty years ago. For God's sake, let him alone. Play your
+game with those who are no loss to the world; or with those who, like me,
+are already lost. Let this man do his work. Don't make him what I am."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear, oh dear," she laughed, "and these are words of one syllable! You
+talk as though I were a dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour!"</p>
+
+<p>"You are," said the novelist, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice. I'm all shivery with delight, already. You really <i>must</i> bring
+him now, you see. You might as well, for, if you don't, I'll manage some
+other way when you are not around to protect him. You don't want to trust
+him to me unprotected, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and I won't," retorted Conrad Lagrange--which, though Mrs. Taine did
+not remark it, was also a twister.</p>
+
+<p>"But after all, perhaps he won't come," she said with mock anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry madam--he's just as much a fool as the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss Taine and her escort,
+James Rutlidge. Mrs. Taine had only time to shake a finger in playful
+warning at her companion, and to whisper, "Mind you bring your artist to
+me, or I'll get him when you're not looking; and listen, don't tell Jim
+about him; I must see what he is like, first."</p>
+
+<p>At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted the artist in his
+bitterest humor. "And how is the famous Aaron King, to-day? I trust that
+the greatest portrait painter of the age is well; that the hotel people
+have been properly attentive to the comfort of their illustrious guest?
+The world of art can ill afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any
+lack of the service that is due his greatness."</p>
+
+<p>The young man's face flushed at his companion's mocking tone; but he
+laughed. "I missed you at breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>"I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual debauch--it takes time
+to recover from a dinner with 'Materialism,' 'Sensual,' 'Ragtime' and 'The
+Age'," the other returned, the menu in his hand. "What slop are they
+offering to put in our troughs for this noon's feed?"</p>
+
+<p>Again, Aaron King laughed. But as the novelist, with characteristic
+comments and instructions to the waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist
+watched him as though waiting with interest his further remarks on the
+subject of his evening with the Taines.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned again to his companion, and
+from under his scowling brows regarded him much as a withered scientist
+might regard an interesting insect under his glass. "Permit me to
+congratulate you," he said suggestively--as though the bug had succeeded
+in acting in some manner fully expected by the scientist but wholly
+disgusting to him.</p>
+
+<p>The artist colored again as he returned curiously, "Upon what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Upon the start you have made toward the goal you hope to reach."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Taine wants you."</p>
+
+<p>"You are pleased to be facetious." Under the eyes of his companion, Aaron
+King felt that his reply did not at all conceal his satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>"I am pleased to be exact. I repeat--Mrs. Taine wants you. I am ordered by
+the reigning 'Goddess' of 'Modern Art'--'The Age'--to bring you into her
+'Court.' You have won favor in her sight. She finds you good to look at.
+She hopes to find you--as good as you look. If you do not disappoint her,
+your fame is assured."</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said the artist, somewhat sharply; nettled by the obvious
+meaning and by the sneering sarcasm of the novelist's words and tone.</p>
+
+<p>To which the other returned suggestively, "It is precisely because you can
+say, 'nonsense,' when you know it is no nonsense at all, but the exact
+truth, that your chance for fame is so good, my friend."</p>
+
+<p>"And did some reigning 'Goddess' insure your success and fame?"</p>
+
+<p>The older man turned his peculiar, penetrating, baffling eyes full upon
+his companion's face, and in a voice full of cynical sadness answered,
+"Exactly so. I paid court to the powers that be. They gave me the reward I
+sought; and--they made me what I am."</p>
+
+<p>So it came about that Conrad Lagrange, in due time, introduced Aaron King
+to the house on Fairlands Heights. Or,--as the novelist put it,--he,
+"Civilization",--in obedience to the commands of her "Royal Highness",
+"The Age",--presented the artist at her "Majesty's Court"; that the young
+man might sue for the royal favor.</p>
+
+<p>It was, perhaps, a month after the presentation ceremony, that the painter
+made what--to him, at least--was an important announcement.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch05" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter V</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mystery of the Rose Garden</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The acquaintance of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had developed rapidly
+into friendship.</p>
+
+<p>The man whom the world had chosen to place upon one of the highest
+pinnacles of its literary favor, and who--through some queer twist in his
+nature--was so lonely and embittered by his exaltation, seemed to find in
+the younger man who stood with the crowd at the foot of the ladder,
+something that marked him as different from his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Whether it was the artist's mother; some sacredly hidden memories of
+Lagrange's past; or, perhaps, some fancied recognition of the artist's
+genius and its possibilities; the strange man gave no hint; but he
+constantly sought the company of Aaron King, with an openness that made
+his preference for the painter's society very evident. If he had said
+anything about it, at all, Conrad Lagrange, likely, would have accounted
+for his interest, upon the ground that his dog, Czar, found the
+companionship agreeable. Their friendship, meanwhile--in the eyes of the
+world--conferred a peculiar distinction upon the young man--a distinction
+not at all displeasing to the ambitious artist; and the value of which he,
+probably, overrated.</p>
+
+<p>To Aaron King--aside from the subtle flattery of the famous novelist's
+attention--there was in the personality of the odd character a something
+that appealed to him with peculiar strength. Perhaps it was that the man's
+words, so often sharp and stinging with bitter sarcasm, seemed always to
+carry a hidden meaning that gave, as it were, glimpses of another nature
+buried deeply beneath a wreck of ruined dreams and disappointing
+achievements. Or, it may have been that, under all the cruel,
+world-hardness of the thoughts expressed, the young man sensed an
+undertone of pathetic sadness. Or, again, perhaps, it was those rare
+moments, when--on some walk that carried them beyond the outskirts of the
+town, and brought the mountains into unobstructed view--the clouds of
+bitterness were lifted; and the man spoke with poetic feeling of the
+realities of life, and of the true glory and mission of the arts;
+counseling his friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it was
+rare and fine.</p>
+
+<p>It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange had introduced the young
+man at the house on Fairlands Heights. The hour was late. The
+painter--returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine home--found
+the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a deserted corner of the hotel
+veranda. Dropping into the chair that was placed as if it awaited his
+coming, the artist--with no word of greeting to the man--bent over the
+brown head that was thrust so insistently against his knee, as Czar, with
+gently waving tail, made him welcome. Looking affectionately into the
+brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, the young man answered in the
+language that all dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his
+scowling brows, regarded the two intently.</p>
+
+<p>"They were disappointed that you were not there," said the painter,
+presently. "Mrs. Taine, particularly, charged me to say that she will not
+forgive, until you do proper penance for your sin."</p>
+
+<p>"I had better company," retorted the other. "Czar and I went for a look at
+the mountains. I suppose you have noticed that Czar does not care for the
+Fairlands Heights crowd. He is very peculiar in his friendships--for a
+dog. His instincts are remarkable."</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of his name, Czar transferred his attentions, for a moment,
+to his master; then stretched himself in his accustomed place beside the
+novelist's chair.</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "I did my best to invent an acceptable excuse for you;
+but she said it was no use--nothing short of your own personal prayers for
+mercy would do."</p>
+
+<p>"Humph; you should have reminded her that I purchased an indulgence some
+weeks ago."</p>
+
+<p>Again, the other laughed shortly. Watching him closely, Conrad Lagrange
+said, in his most sneering tones, "I trust, young man, that you are not
+failing to make good use of your opportunities. Let's see--dinner and the
+evening five times--afternoon calls as many--with motor trips to points of
+interest--and one theater party to Los Angeles--believe me; it is not
+often that struggling genius is so rewarded--before it has accomplished
+anything bad enough to merit such attention."</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>have</i> been idling most shamefully, haven't I?" said the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Idling!" rasped the other. "You have been the busiest hay-maker in the
+land. These scientific, intensive cultivation farmers of California are
+not in your class when it comes to utilizing the sunshine. Take my advice
+and continue your present activity without bothering yourself by any
+sentimental thoughts of your palette and brushes. The mere vulgar tools of
+your craft are of minor importance to one of your genius and opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>Then, in a half embarrassed manner, Aaron King made his announcement.
+"That may all be," he said, "but just the same, I am going to work."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew it"--returned the other, in mocking triumph--"I knew it the moment
+you came up the steps there. I could tell it by your walk; by the air with
+which you carried yourself; by your manner, your voice, your laugh--you
+fairly reek of prosperity and achievement--you are going to paint her
+portrait."</p>
+
+<p>"And why not?" retorted the young man, rather sharply, a trifle nettled by
+the other's tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not, indeed!" murmured the novelist. "Indeed, yes--by all means! It
+is so exactly the right thing to do that it is startling. You scale the
+heights of fame with such confident certainty in every move that it is
+positively uncanny to watch you."</p>
+
+<p>"If one's work is true, I fail to see why one should not take advantage
+of any influence that can contribute to his success," said the painter. "I
+assure you I am not so wealthy that I can afford to refuse such an
+attractive commission. You must admit that the beautiful Mrs. Taine is a
+subject worthy the brush of any artist; and I suppose it <i>is</i> conceivable
+that I <i>might</i> be ambitious to make a genuinely good job of it."</p>
+
+<p>The older man, as though touched by the evident sincerity of the artist's
+words, dropped his sneering tone and spoke earnestly; "The beautiful Mrs.
+Taine <i>is</i> a subject worthy a master's brush, my friend. But take my word
+for it, if you paint her portrait <i>as a master would paint it</i>, you will
+sign your own death warrant--so far as your popularity and fame as an
+artist goes."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it," declared Aaron King, flatly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know you don't. If you <i>did</i>, and still accepted the commission, you
+wouldn't be fit to associate with honest dogs like Czar, here."</p>
+
+<p>"But why"--persisted the artist--"why do you insist that my portrait of
+Mrs. Taine will be disastrous to my success, just to the degree that it is
+a work of genuine merit?"</p>
+
+<p>To which the novelist answered, cryptically, "If you have not the eyes to
+see the reason, it will matter little whether you know it or not. If you
+<i>do</i> see the reason, and, still, produce a portrait that pleases your
+sitter, then you will have paid the price; you will receive your reward;
+and"--the speaker's tone grew sad and bitter--"you will be what I am."</p>
+
+<p>With this, he arose abruptly and, without another word, stalked into the
+hotel; the dog following with quiet dignity, at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>From the beginning of their acquaintance, almost, the novelist and the
+artist had dropped into the habit of taking their meals together. At
+breakfast, the next morning, Conrad Lagrange reopened the conversation he
+had so abruptly closed the night before. "I suppose," he said, "that you
+will set up a studio, and do the thing in proper style?"</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Taine told me of a place that is for rent, and that she thinks would
+be just the thing," returned the young man. "It is across the road from
+that big grove owned by Mr. Taine. I was wondering if you would care to
+walk out that way with me this morning and help me look it over."</p>
+
+<p>The older man's hearty acceptance of the invitation assured the artist of
+his genuine interest, and, an hour later--after Aaron King had interviewed
+the agent and secured the keys, with the privilege of inspecting the
+premises--the two set out together.</p>
+
+<p>They found the place on the eastern edge of the town; half-hidden by the
+orange groves that surrounded it on every side. The height of the palms
+that grew along the road in front, the pepper and eucalyptus trees that
+overshadowed the house, and the size of the orange-trees that shut in the
+little yard with walls of green, marked the place as having been
+established before the wealth of the far-away East discovered the peculiar
+charm of the Fairlands hills. The lawn, the walks, and the drive were
+unkempt and overgrown with weeds. The house itself,--a small cottage with
+a wide porch across the front and on the side to the west,--unpainted for
+many seasons, was tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful
+gray.</p>
+
+<p>But the artist and his friend, as they approached, exclaimed aloud at the
+beauty of the scene; for, as if rejoicing in their freedom from restraint,
+the roses had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as their own. Up
+every post of the porch they had climbed; over the porch roof, they spread
+their wealth of color; over the gables, screening the windows with
+graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and bloom; up to the ridge
+and over the cornice, to the roof of the house itself--even to the top of
+the chimney they had won their way--and there, as if in an ecstasy of
+wanton loveliness, flung, a spray of glorious, perfumed beauty high into
+the air.</p>
+
+<p>On the front porch, the men turned to look away over the gentle slope of
+the orange groves, on the other side of the road, to the towering peaks
+and high ridges of the mountains--gleaming cold and white in the winter of
+their altitude. To the northeast, San Bernardino reared his head in lonely
+majesty--looking directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwellers
+in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded by the higher ridges and
+peaks and canyons of the range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the
+skies--the ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, they viewed
+the mighty sweep of the main range to Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels,
+beyond, with San Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting their
+heads above their fellows. In the immediate landscape, no house or
+building was to be seen. The dark-green mass of the orange groves hid
+every work of man's building between them and the tawny foothills save the
+gable and chimney of a neighboring cottage on the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen"--said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone, moved as always by the
+grandeur and beauty of the scene--"listen! Don't you hear them calling?
+Don't you feel the mountains sending their message to these poor insects
+who squirm and wriggle in this bit of muck men call their world? God, man!
+if only we, in our work, would heed the message of the hills!"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist spoke with such intensity of feeling--with such bitter
+sadness and regret in his voice--that Aaron King could not reply.</p>
+
+<p>Turning, the artist unlocked the door, and they entered the cottage.</p>
+
+<p>They found the interior of the house well arranged, and not in bad repair.
+"Just the thing for a bachelor's housekeeping"--was the painter's
+verdict--"but for a studio--impossible," and there was a touch of regret
+in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's continue our exploration," said the novelist, hopefully. "There's a
+barn out there." And they went out of the house, and down the drive on the
+eastern side of the yard.</p>
+
+<p>Here, again, they saw the roses in full possession of the place--by man,
+deserted. From foundation to roof, the building--a small simple
+structure--was almost hidden under a mass of vines. There was one large
+room below; with a loft above. The stable was in the rear. Built,
+evidently, at a later date than the house, the building was in better
+repair. The walls, so hidden without by the roses, were well sided; the
+floors were well laid. The big, sliding, main door opened on the drive in
+front; between it and the corner, to the west, was a small door; and in
+the western end, a window.</p>
+
+<p>Looking curiously from this window, Conrad Lagrange uttered an
+exclamation, and hurried abruptly from the building. The artist followed.</p>
+
+<p>From the end of the barn, and extending, the full width of the building,
+to the west line of the yard, was a rose garden--such a garden as Aaron
+King had never seen. On three sides, the little plot was enclosed by a
+tall hedge of Ragged Robins; above the hedge, on the south and west, was
+the dark-green wall of the orange grove; on the north, the pepper and
+eucalyptus trees in the yard, and a view of the distant mountains; and on
+the east, the vine-hidden end of the barn. Against the southern
+wall,--and, so, directly opposite the trellised, vine-covered arch of the
+entrance,--a small, lattice bower, with a rustic table and seats within,
+was completely covered, as was the barn, by the magically woven tapestry
+of the flowers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the entrance they
+found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of the premises, the garden was in
+perfect order--the roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged and
+clean; with no weed or sign of untidiness or neglect anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>The two men had come upon the spot so suddenly--so unexpectedly--the
+contrast with the neglected grounds and buildings was so marked--that they
+looked at each other in silence. The little retreat--so lovely, so hidden
+by its own beauty from the world, so cared for by careful hands--seemed
+haunted by an invisible spirit. Very quietly,--almost reverently,--they
+moved about; talking in low tones, as though half expecting--they knew not
+what.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one loves this place," said the novelist, softly, when they stood,
+again, in the entrance.</p>
+
+<p>And the artist answered in the same hushed voice, "I wonder what it
+means?"</p>
+
+<p>When they were again in the barn, Aaron King became eagerly enthusiastic
+over the possibilities of the big room. "Some rightly toned burlap on the
+walls and ceiling,"--he pointed out,--"with floor covering and rugs in
+harmony; there"--rolling back the big door as he spoke--"your north light;
+some hangings and screens to hide the stairway to the loft, and the stable
+door; your entrance over here in the corner, nicely out of the way; and
+the window looking into the garden--it's great man, great!"</p>
+
+<p>"And," answered Conrad Lagrange, from where he stood in the big front
+door, "the mountains! Don't forget the mountains. The soft, steady, north
+light on your canvas, and a message from the mountains to your soul,
+through the same window, should make it a good place to work, Mr.
+Painter-man. I suppose over here"--he moved away from the window, and
+spoke in his mocking way--"over here, you will have a tea-table for the
+ladies of the circle elect--who will come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their
+admiration of the newly discovered genius, and to chatter their
+misunderstandings of his art. Of course, there will be a page in velvet
+and gold. By all means, get hold of an oriental kid of some kind--oriental
+junk is quite the rage this year. You should take advantage of every
+influence that can contribute to your success, you know. And, whatever you
+do, don't fail to consult the 'Goddess' about these essentials of your
+craft. Many a promising genius has been lost to fame, through inviting the
+wrong people to take tea in his studio. But"--he finished whimsically,
+looking from the window into the garden--"but what the devil do you
+suppose the spirit who lives out there will think about it all."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The days of the two following weeks were busy days for Aaron King. He
+leased the place in the orange groves, and set men to work making it
+habitable. The lawn and grounds were trimmed and put in order; the
+interior of the house was renovated by painter and paper-hanger; and the
+barn, under the artist's direction, was transformed into an ideal studio.
+There was a trip to Los Angeles--quite fortunately upon a day when Mrs.
+Taine must go to the city shopping--for rugs and hangings; and another
+trip to purchase the tools of the artist's craft. And, at last, there was
+a Chinese cook and housekeeper to find; with supplies for his kitchen. It
+was at Conrad Lagrange's suggestion, that, from the first, every one was
+given strict orders to keep out of the rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>Every day, the novelist--accompanied, always, by Czar--walked out that way
+to see how things were progressing; and often,--if he had not been too
+busy to notice,--Aaron King might have seen a look of wistfulness in the
+keen, baffling eyes of the famous man--so world-weary and sad. And, while
+he did not cease to mock and jeer and offer sarcastic advice to his
+younger friend, the touch of pathos--that, like a minor chord, was so
+often heard in his most caustic and cruel speeches--was more pronounced.
+As for Czar--he always returned to the hotel with evident reluctance; and
+managed to express, in his dog way, the thoughts his distinguished master
+would not put in words.</p>
+
+<p>Very often, too, the big touring car from the house on Fairlands Heights
+stopped in front of the cottage, while the occupants inspected the
+premises, and--with many exclamations of flattering praise, and a few
+suggestions--made manifest their interest.</p>
+
+<p>In time, it was finished and ready--from the big easel by the great, north
+window in the studio, to the white-jacketed Yee Kee in the kitchen. When
+the last workman was gone with his tools; and the two men, after looking
+about the place for an hour, were standing on the front porch; Conrad
+Lagrange said, "And the stage is set. The scene shifters are off. The
+audience is waiting. Ring up the curtain for the next act. Even Czar has
+looked upon everything and calls it good--heh Czar?"</p>
+
+<p>The dog went to him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into
+the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand.
+Still fondling the dog,--without looking at the artist,--the older man
+continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I
+suppose? Or, will we lunch together, once more?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed--as a boy who has prepared a surprise, and has been
+struggling manfully to keep the secret until the proper moment should
+arrive. Placing his hand on the older man's shoulder, he answered
+meaningly, "I had planned that <i>we</i> would move in the morning." At the
+other's puzzled expression he laughed again.</p>
+
+<p>"We?" said the novelist, facing his friend, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Come here," returned the other. "I must show you something you haven't
+seen."</p>
+
+<p>He led the way to a room that they had decided he would not need, and the
+door of which was locked. Taking a key from his pocket, he handed it to
+his friend.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" said the older man, looking foolishly at the key in his
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's the key to that door," returned the other, with a gleeful chuckle.
+Then--"Unlock it."</p>
+
+<p>"Unlock it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure--that's what I gave you the key for."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange obeyed. Through the open door, he saw, not the bare and
+empty room he supposed was there, but a bedroom--charmingly furnished,
+complete in every detail. Turning, he faced his companion silently,
+inquiringly--with a look that Aaron King had never before seen in those
+strange, baffling eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"It's yours"--said the artist, hastily--"if you care to come. You'll have
+a free hand here, you know; for I will be in the studio much of the time.
+Kee will cook the things you like. You and Czar can come and go as you
+will. There is the arbor in the rose garden, you know, and see here"--he
+stepped to the window--"I chose this room for you, because it looks out
+upon your mountains."</p>
+
+<p>The strange man stood at the window for, what seemed to the artist, a long
+time. Suddenly, he turned to say sharply, "Young man, why did you do
+this?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why"--stammered the other, disconcerted--"because I want you--because I
+thought you would like to come. I beg your pardon--if I have made a
+mistake--but surely, no harm has been done."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think you could stand living with me--for any length of time?"</p>
+
+<p>The' painter laughed with relief. "Oh, <i>that's</i> it! I didn't know you had
+such a tender conscience. You scared me for a minute, I should think you
+would know by this time that you can't phase me with your wicked tongue."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist's face twisted into a grotesque smile. "I warn you--I will
+flay you and your friends just the same. You need it for the good of your
+soul."</p>
+
+<p>"As often and as hard as you like"--returned the other, heartily--"just so
+it's for the good of my soul. You will come?"</p>
+
+<p>"You will permit me to stand my share of the expense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Anything you like--if you will only come."</p>
+
+<p>The older man said gently,--for the first time calling the artist by his
+given name,--"Aaron, I believe that you are the only person in the world
+who would, really want me; and I <i>know</i> that you are the only person in
+the world to whom I would be grateful for such an invitation."</p>
+
+<p>The artist was about to reply, when the big automobile stopped in front of
+the house. Czar, on the porch, gave a low growl of disapproval; and,
+through the open door, they saw Mr. Taine and his wife with James Rutlidge
+and Louise.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist said something, under his breath, that had a vicious
+sound--quite unlike his words of the moment before. Czar, in disgust,
+retreated to the shelter of Yee Kee's domain. With a laugh, the younger
+man went out to meet his friends.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you at home this afternoon, Sir Artist?" called Mrs. Taine, gaily, as
+he went down the walk.</p>
+
+<p>"I will always be at home to the right people," he answered, greeting the
+other members of the party.</p>
+
+<p>As they moved toward the house,--Mr. Taine choking and coughing, his
+daughter chattering and exclaiming, and James Rutlidge critically
+observing,--Mrs. Taine dropped a little back to Aaron King's side. "And
+are you really established, at last?" she asked eagerly; with a charming,
+confidential air.</p>
+
+<p>"We move to-morrow morning," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"We?" she questioned.</p>
+
+<p>"Conrad Lagrange and I. He is going to live with me, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>It is remarkable how much meaning a woman can crowd into that one small
+syllable; particularly, when she draws a little away from you as she
+speaks it.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," he murmured apologetically, "don't you approve?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine's beautiful eyebrows went up inquiringly--"And why should I
+either approve or disapprove?"</p>
+
+<p>The young man was saved by the arrival of his guests at the porch steps,
+and by the appearance of Conrad Lagrange, in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"How delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Taine, heartily; as she, in turn, greeted
+the famous novelist. "Mr. King was just telling me that you were going to
+share this dear little place with him. I quite envy you both."</p>
+
+<p>The others had passed into the house.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sometimes guilty of saying twisty things yourself, aren't you?"
+returned the man; and, as he spoke, his remarkable eyes were fixed upon
+her as though reading her innermost thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>She flushed under his meaning gaze, but carried it off gaily with--"Oh
+dear! I wonder if my maid has hooked me up properly, this time?"</p>
+
+<p>They left Mr. Taine in an easy chair, with a bottle of his favorite
+whisky; and went over the place--from the arbor in the rose garden to Yee
+Kee's pantry--Mr. Rutlidge, critically and authoritatively approving;
+Louise, effervescing the same sugary nothings at every step; Mrs. Taine,
+with a pretty air of proprietorship; Conrad Lagrange, thoughtfully
+watching; and Aaron King, himself, irresponsibly gay and boyishly proud as
+he exhibited his achievements.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, Mrs. Taine--standing before the big easel--demanded to
+know of the artist, when he would begin her portrait--she was so
+interested, so eager to begin--how soon could she come? Louise assumed a
+worshipful attitude, and, gazing at the young man with reverent eyes,
+waited breathlessly. James Rutlidge drew near, condescendingly attentive,
+to the center of attraction. Conrad Lagrange turned his back.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," murmured the painter, "I hope you will not be too impatient,
+Mrs. Taine, I fear I cannot be ready for some time yet. I suppose I must
+confess to being over-sensitive to my environment; for it is a fact that
+my working mood does not come upon me readily amid strange surroundings.
+When I have become acclimated, as it were, I will be ready for you."</p>
+
+<p>"How wonderful!" breathed Louise.</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right," agreed Mr. Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>"Whenever you are ready," said Mrs. Taine, submissively.</p>
+
+<p>When their friends from the Heights were gone, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down, as he said with cutting sarcasm, "You did that very
+nicely. Over-sensitive to your environment, hell! If you <i>are</i> a bit fine
+strung, you have no business to make a <i>show</i> of it. It's a weakness, not
+a virtue. And the man who makes capital out of any man's weakness,--even
+of his own,--is either a criminal or a fool or both."</p>
+
+<p>Then they went back to the hotel for dinner.</p>
+
+<p>The next morning, the artist and the novelist moved from the hotel, to
+establish themselves in the little house in the orange groves--the
+little house with its unobstructed view of the mountains, and with its
+rose garden, so mysteriously tended.</p>
+
+</div>
+<div id="ch06" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter VI</h2>
+
+<h3>An Unknown Friend</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Yee Kee announced lunch, the artist, the novelist, and the dog were
+settled in their new home. In the afternoon, the painter spent an hour
+or two fussing over portfolios of old sketches, in his studio; while
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar lounged on the front porch.</p>
+
+<p>Once, the dog rose quietly, and, walking sedately to the edge of the
+porch toward the west, stood for some minutes gazing intently into the
+dark green mass of the orange grave. At last, as if concluding that
+whatever it was it was all right, he went calmly back to his place
+beside the novelist's chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you know,"--said the artist, as they sat on the porch that evening,
+with their after-dinner pipes,--"I believe this old place is haunted."</p>
+
+<p>"If it isn't, it ought to be," answered the other, contentedly--playing
+with Czar's silky ears. "A good ghost would fit in nicely here, wouldn't
+it--or he, or she. Its spookship would travel far to find a more
+delightful place for spooking in, and--providing, of course, she were a
+perfectly respectable hant--what a charming addition to our family he
+would make. When it was weary of moping and mowing and sobbing and
+wailing and gibbering, she could curl up at the foot of your bed and
+sleep; as Czar, here, curls up and sleeps at the foot of mine. A good
+ghost, you know--if he becomes really attached to you--is as constant
+and faithful and affectionate and companionable as a good dog."</p>
+
+<p>"B-r-r-r," said the artist. And Czar turned to look at him,
+questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same"--the painter continued--"when I was out there in the
+studio, I could feel some one watching me--you know the feeling."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange returned mockingly, "I trust your over-sensitive, artistic
+temperament is not to be so influenced by our ghostly visitor that you
+will be unfitted for your work."</p>
+
+<p>The other laughed. Then he said seriously, "Joking aside, Lagrange, I feel
+a presentiment--I can't put it into words--but--I feel that I <i>am</i> going
+to begin the real work of my life right here. I"--he hesitated--"it seems
+to me that I can sense some influence that I can't define--it's the
+mystery of the rose garden, perhaps," he finished with another short
+laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The man, who, in the eyes of the world, had won so large a measure of the
+success that his friend desired; and whose life was so embittered by the
+things for which he was envied by many; made no reply other than his slow,
+twisted smile.</p>
+
+<p>Silently, they watched the purple shadows of the mountains deepen; and saw
+the outlines of the tawny foothills grow vague and dim, until they were
+lost in the dusky monotone of the evening. The last faint tint of sunset
+color went from the sky back of the San Gabriels; while, close to the
+mountain peaks and ridges, the stars came out. The rows and the contour of
+the orange groves could no longer be distinguished the forms of the nearby
+trees were lost--the rich, lustrous green of their foliage brushed out
+with the dull black of the night; while the twinkling lights of the
+distant towns and hamlets, in the valley below, shone as sparkling jewels
+on the inky, velvet robe that, fold on fold, lay over the landscape.</p>
+
+<p>When the two had smoked in silence, for some time, the artist said slowly,
+"You knew my mother very well, did you not, Mr. Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"We were children together, Aaron." As he spoke, the man's deep voice was
+gentle, as always, when the young man's mother was mentioned.</p>
+
+<p>Again, for a little, neither spoke. As they sat looking away to the
+mountains, each seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Yet each felt that
+the other, to a degree, understood what he, himself, was thinking.</p>
+
+<p>Once more, the artist broke the silence,--facing his mother's friend with
+quiet resolution,--as though he felt himself forced to speak but knew not
+exactly how to begin. "Did you know her well--after--after my father's
+death--and while I was abroad?"</p>
+
+<p>The other bowed his head--"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very well."</p>
+
+<p>As if at loss for words, Aaron King still hesitated. "Mr. Lagrange," he
+said, at last, "there are some things about--about mother--that I would
+like to tell you--that I think she would want me to tell you, under the
+circumstances."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Conrad Lagrange, gently.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,--to begin,--you know, perhaps, how much mother and I have always
+been--" his fine voice broke and the older man bowed his head; but, with a
+slight lift of his determined chin, the painter went on calmly--"to each
+other. After father's death, until I was seventeen, we were never
+separated. She was my only teacher. Then I went away to school, seeing her
+only during my vacations, which we always spent, together in the country.
+Three years ago, I went abroad to finish my study. I did not see her again
+until--until I was called home."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," came in low tones from the other.</p>
+
+<p>"But, sir, while it seemed necessary that I should be away from
+home,--that we should be separated,--all through this period, we exchanged
+almost daily letters; planning for the future, and looking forward to the
+time when we could, again, be together."</p>
+
+<p>"I know, Aaron. It was very unusual--and very beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"When we were together, before I went away, I was a mere lad," continued
+the artist. "I knew in a general way that father had been a successful
+lawyer, and quite prominent in politics; and--because there was no change
+in our manner of living after his death, and there seemed to be always
+money for whatever we wanted, I suppose--I assumed, thoughtlessly, that
+there would always be plenty. During the years while I was at school,
+there was never, in any way, the slightest hint in mother's letters that
+would lead me to question the abundance of her resources. When they called
+me home,--" his voice broke, "--I found my mother dying--almost in
+poverty--our home stripped of the art treasures she loved--her own room,
+even, empty of everything save the barest necessities." In bitter sorrow
+and shame, the young man buried his face in his hands.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, his gaunt features twitching with the emotion that even his
+long schooling in the tragedies of life could not suppress, waited
+silently.</p>
+
+<p>When the artist had regained, in a measure, his self-control, he
+continued,--and every word came from him in shame and humiliation,--"Before
+she died, she told me about--my father. In the settlement of his affairs,
+at the time of his death, it appeared that he had taken advantage of the
+confidence of certain clients and had betrayed his trust; appropriating
+large sums to his own interests. He had even taken advantage of mother's
+influence in certain circles, and, relying upon her unquestioning faith
+in his integrity, had made her an unconscious instrument in furthering
+his schemes."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange made as if to speak, but checked himself and waited for
+the other to continue.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King went on; "Out of regard for my mother, the matter was kept as
+quiet as possible. The one who suffered the heaviest loss was able to
+protect her--in a measure. All the others were fully reimbursed. But
+mother--it would have been easier for her if she had died then. She
+withdrew from her friends and from the life she loved--she denied herself
+to all who sought her and devoted her life to me. Above all, she planned
+to keep me in ignorance of the truth until I should be equipped to win the
+place in the world that she coveted for me. It was for that, she sent me
+away, and kept me from home. As the demands for my educational expenses
+grew naturally heavier, she supplemented the slender resources, left in
+the final settlement of my father's estate, by sacrificing the treasures
+of her home, and by giving up the luxuries to which she had been
+accustomed from childhood. She even provided for me after her death--not
+wealth, but a comfortable amount, sufficient to support me in good
+circumstances until I can gain recognition and an income from my work."</p>
+
+<p>Under the lash of his memories, the young man sprang to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name, Lagrange, why did not some one tell me? I did not know--I
+did not know--I thought--O mother, mother, mother--why did you do it? Why
+was I not told? All these years I have lived a selfish fool, and
+you--you--I would have given up everything--I would have worked in a
+ditch, rather than accept this."</p>
+
+<p>The deep, quiet voice of Conrad Lagrange broke the stillness that followed
+the storm of the artist's passionate words. "And that is the answer,
+Aaron. She knew, too well, that you would not have accepted her sacrifice,
+if you had known. That is why she kept the secret until you had finished
+your education. She forbade her friends--she forbade me to interfere. And
+don't you see that she was right? Don't you see it? We would have done her
+the greatest injustice if we had, against her will, deprived her of this
+privilege. Her splendid pride, her high sense of honor, her nobility of
+spirit demanded the sacrifice. It was her right. God forgive me--I tried
+to make her see it otherwise--but she knew best. She always knew best,
+Aaron. Her only hope of regaining for you that self-respect and that
+position in life to which you--by right of birth and natural
+endowment--are entitled, was in you. The name which she had given to you
+could be restored to honor by you only. To train and equip you for your
+work, and to enable you, unhampered by need, to gain your footing, was the
+determined passion of her life. Her sacrifice, her suffering to that end,
+was the only restitution she could make to you for that which your father
+had squandered. Her proud spirit, her fine intelligence, her mother love
+for you, demanded it."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," returned the artist. "She told me before she died. She made me
+understand. She said that it was my inheritance. She asked for my promise
+that I would be true to her purpose. Her last words were an expression of
+her confidence that I would not disappoint her--that I would win a place
+and name that would wipe out the shame of my father's dishonor. And I
+will, Lagrange, I must. Mother--mother shall not be disappointed--she
+shall not be disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>"No,"--said the older man, so softly that the other, torn by the passion
+of his own thoughts, did not hear,--"No, Aaron, your mother will not be
+disappointed."</p>
+
+<p>For a time longer they sat in silence. Then the young man said, "I wish I
+knew the name of my mother's friend--the one who suffered the heaviest
+loss through my father, and who so generously protected her in the crisis.
+I would like to thank him, at least. I begged her to tell me, but she
+would not. She said he would not want me to know--that for me to attempt
+to reimburse him would, to his mind, rob him of his real reward."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, his head bowed, spoke quietly to the dog at his feet.
+Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle on his master's knee and looked up into
+the homely, world-worn face. Gently, the strange man--so lonely and
+embittered in the fame that he had won--at a price--stroked the brown
+head. "Your mother knew best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at
+his companion. "You must believe that she knew best. Her beautiful spirit
+could not lead her astray. She was right in this, also. Your sentiment
+does you honor, but you must respect her wish. Whoever the man was--she
+had reasons, I am sure, for feeling as she did--that it would be better
+for you not to know. It was some one, perhaps, whose influence upon you,
+she had cause to fear."</p>
+
+<p>"It was very strange," returned the artist, hesitatingly. "Perhaps I ought
+not to say it. But I felt that, as you suggest, she feared for me to know.
+She seemed to want to tell me, but did not, for <i>my</i> sake. It was very
+strange."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted you to know about mother,"--continued the artist,--"because I
+would like you to understand why--why I must succeed in my work."</p>
+
+<p>The older man smiled to himself, in the dusk. "I have always known why
+you must succeed, Aaron," he returned. "I have never questioned your
+motives. I question only your understanding of success. I question--if you
+will pardon me--your understanding of your mother's wish for you."</p>
+
+<p>Then, in one of those rare momentary moods, when he seemed to reveal to
+his young friend his real nature that lay so deeply hidden from the world,
+he added, "You are right, Aaron. This place <i>is</i> haunted--haunted by the
+spirit of the mountains, yonder--haunted by the spirit of the rose garden,
+out there. The silent strength of the hills, and the loveliness of the
+garden will attend you in your studio, as you work. I do not wonder that
+you feel a presentiment that your artistic future is to be shaped here;
+for between these influences and the other influences that will be brought
+to bear upon you, you will be forced to decide. May the God of all true
+art and artists help you to make no mistake. Listen!"</p>
+
+<p>As though in answer to the solemn words of the man who spoke from the
+fullness of a life-long experience and from the depths of a life-old love,
+a strain of music came from out the fragrant darkness. Somewhere, hidden
+in the depths of the orange grove, the soul of a true musician was seeking
+expression in the tones of a violin.</p>
+
+<p>Softly, sadly, with poignant clearness, the music lifted into the
+night--low and pleadingly at first; then stronger and more vibrant with
+feeling, as though sweetly insistent in its call; swelling next in volume
+and passion, as though in warning of some threatening evil; ringing with
+loving fear; sobbing, wailing, moaning, in anguish; clearly, gloriously,
+triumphant, at last; then sinking into solemn, reverent
+benediction--losing itself, finally, in the darkness, even as it had come.</p>
+
+<p>The two men, so fashioned by nature to receive such music, listened with
+emotions they could not have put into words. For the moment, the music to
+them was the voice of the guarding, calling, warning spirit of the
+mountains that, in their calm, majestic strength, were so far removed from
+the petty passions and longings of the baser world at their feet--it was
+the voice of the loving intimacy, the sweet purity, and the sacred beauty
+of the spirit of the garden. It was as though the things of which Conrad
+Lagrange had just spoken so reverently had cried aloud to them, out of the
+night, in confirmation of his words.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch07" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter VII</h2>
+
+<h3>Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King seemed loth to begin his work on the portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+Day after day, without apparent reason, he put it off--spending the hours
+in wandering aimlessly about the place, idling on the porch, or doing
+nothing in his studio. He would start from the house to the building at
+the end of the rose garden, as though moved by some clearly defined
+purpose--and then, for an hour or more, would dawdle among the things of
+his craft, with irresolute mind--turning over his sketches and drawings
+with uncertain hands, as though searching for something he knew was not
+there; toying with his paints and brushes; or sitting before his empty
+easel, looking away through the big window to the distant mountains. He
+seemed incapable of fixing his mind upon the task to which he attached so
+much importance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he begged her to be
+patient; and she, with pretended awe of the moods of genius, waited.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange jeered and mocked, offered sneering advice or sarcastic
+compliment; and, under it all, was keenly watchful and sympathetic--
+understanding better than the artist himself, perhaps, the secret of the
+painter's hesitation. Every day,--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in
+the afternoon or evening unseen musician, in the orange grove wrought
+for them melodie that, whether grave or gay, always carried, somehow,
+the feeling that had so moved them in the mysterious darkness of
+that first evening.</p>
+
+<p>They knew, now, of course, that the musician lived in the neighboring
+house--the gable and chimney of which was just visible above the
+orange-trees. But that was all. Obedient to some whimsical impulse that
+prompted them both, and was born, no doubt, of the circumstance and mood
+of that first evening, they did not seek to learn more. They
+feared--though they did not say it--that to learn the identity of the
+musician would rob them of the peculiar pleasure they found in the music,
+itself. So they spoke always of their unknown neighbor in a fanciful vein,
+as in like humor they spoke of the spirit that Aaron King still insisted
+haunted the place, or as they alluded to the mystery of the carefully
+tended rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>When the artist could put it off no longer, a day was finally set when
+Mrs. Taine was to come for the beginning of her portrait. The appointed
+hour found the artist in his studio. A canvas stood ready upon the easel;
+palette, colors and brushes were at hand. The painter was standing at the
+big, north window, looking up away to the mountains--the mountains that
+the novelist said called so insistently. Suddenly, he turned his head to
+listen. Sweetly clear and low, through the green wall of the orange-trees,
+came the music of that hidden violin.</p>
+
+<p>As he stood there,--with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to
+the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,--Aaron King
+knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare
+moments--that come, all unexpectedly--when, with prophetic vision, one
+sees clearly the end of the course he pursues and the destiny that waits
+him at its completion. As clearly, too, he saw the other way, and knew the
+meaning of the vision. But seldom is the strength given to man, in such
+moments, to choose for himself. Though he may see the other way clearly,
+his feet cling to the path he has elected to follow; nor will he, unless
+some one takes him by the hand saying, "Come," turn aside.</p>
+
+<p>A voice, not at all in harmony with the music, broke upon the artist's
+consciousness. He turned to see Mrs. Taine standing expectantly in the
+open door. "Hush!" said the painter, still under the spell of that moment
+so big with possibilities. "Listen,"--with a gesture, he checked her
+advance,--"listen."</p>
+
+<p>A look of haughty surprise flashed over the woman's too perfect features.
+Then, as her ear caught the tones of the violin, she half turned--but only
+for a moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Very clever, isn't it," she said as she came forward "It must be old
+Professor Becker. He lives somewhere around here, I understand. They say
+he is very good."</p>
+
+<p>The artist looked at her for an instant, in amazement Then, as his normal
+mind asserted itself, he burst into an embarrassed laugh.</p>
+
+<p>At her look of puzzled inquiry, he said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine.
+I did not realize how harshly I greeted you. The fact is I--I was
+dreaming"--he turned suggestively toward the canvas upon the easel. "You
+see I was expecting you--I was thinking--then the music
+came--and--well--when you actually appeared in the flesh, I did not for
+the moment realize that it was really you."</p>
+
+<p>"How charming of you!" she returned. "To be made the subject of an
+artist's dream--really it is quite the nicest compliment I have ever
+received. Tell me, do you like me in this?" she slipped the wrap she wore
+from her shoulders, and stood before him, gowned in the simple, gray dress
+of a Quaker Maid. Deliberately, she turned her beautiful self about for
+his critical inspection. Moving to and fro, sitting, half-reclining,
+standing--in various graceful poses she invited, challenged, dared, his
+closest attention--professional attention, of course--to every curve and
+detail.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of its simplicity of color and line, the gown still bore the
+unmistakable stamp of the wearer's world. The severity of line was subtly
+made to emphasize the voluptuousness of the body that was covered but not
+hidden. The quiet color was made to accentuate the flesh the dress
+concealed only to reveal. The very lack of ornament but served to center
+the attention upon the charms that so loudly professed to scorn them. It
+was worldliness speaking in the quiet voice of religion. It was vulgarity
+advertising itself in terms of good taste. She had made modesty the
+handmaiden of blatant immodesty, and the daring impudence of it all
+fairly stunned the painter.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" she said, watching his face, "I fear you don't like it, at
+all--and I thought it such a beautiful little gown. You told me to wear
+whatever I pleased, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> a beautiful gown," he said--then added impulsively, "and you are
+beautiful in it. You would be beautiful in anything."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head; favoring him with an understanding smile. "You say
+that to please me. I can see that you don't like me this way."</p>
+
+<p>"But I do," he insisted. "I like you that way, immensely. I was a bit
+surprised, that's all. You see, I thought, of course, that you would
+select an evening gown of some sort--something, you know, that would fit
+your social position--your place in the world. In this costume, the beauty
+of your shoulders--"</p>
+
+<p>Lowering her eyes as if embarrassed, she said coldly, "The beauty of my
+shoulders is not for the public. I have never worn--I will not wear--one
+of those dreadful, immodest gowns."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was bewildered. Suddenly, he remembered what Conrad Lagrange
+had said about her fad. But after so frankly exhibiting herself before
+him, dressed as she was in a gown that was deliberately planned to
+advertise her physical charms, to be particular about baring her shoulders
+in a conventional costume--! It was quite too much.</p>
+
+<p>"Again, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine," he managed to say. "I did not
+know. Under the circumstances, this is exactly the thing. Your portrait,
+in what is so frankly a costume assumed for the purpose, takes us out of
+the dilemma very nicely, indeed."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's exactly what I thought," she returned eagerly. "And this is
+so in keeping with my real tastes--don't you see? A real portrait--I mean
+a serious work of art, you know--should always be something more than a
+mere likeness, should it not? Don't you think that to be genuinely good, a
+portrait must reveal the spirit and character--must portray the soul, as
+well as the features? I <i>do</i> so want this to be a truly great picture--for
+your sake." Her manner seemed to say that she was doing it all for him. "I
+have never permitted any one to paint my portrait before, you know," she
+added meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very kind, Mrs. Taine," he returned gravely. "Believe me, I do
+appreciate this opportunity I shall do my best to express my appreciation
+here"--he indicated the canvas on the easel.</p>
+
+<p>When his sitter was posed to his liking, and the artist, with a few bold,
+sweeping, strokes of the charcoal had roughed out his subject on the
+canvas, and was bending over his color-box--he said, casually, to put her
+at ease, "You came alone this afternoon, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, indeed! I brought Louise with me. I shall always bring her, or
+some one. One cannot be too careful, you know," she added with simulated
+artlessness.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, studying her face, replied mechanically "No indeed."</p>
+
+<p>As he turned back to his canvas, Mrs. Taine continued, "I left her in the
+house, with a box of chocolates and a novel. I felt that you would rather
+we were alone."</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't look down," said the artist. "I want your eyes about
+here"--he indicated a picture on the wall, a little back and to the left
+of where he stood at the easel.</p>
+
+<p>After this, there was silence in the studio, for a little while. Mrs.
+Taine obediently kept the pose; her eyes upon the point the artist had
+indicated; but--as the man, himself, was almost directly in her line of
+vision--it was easy for her to watch him at his work, when his eyes were
+on his canvas or palette. The arrangement was admirable in that it
+relieved the tedium of the hour for the sitter; and gave her face an
+expression of animated interest that, truthfully fixed upon the canvas,
+should insure the fame and future of any painter.</p>
+
+<p>It would be quite too much to say that Aaron King became absorbed in his
+occupation. Thorough master of the tools of his craft, and of his own
+technic, as well; he was interested in the mere exercising of his skill,
+but he in no sense lost himself in his work. Two or three times, Mrs.
+Taine saw him glance quickly over his shoulder, as though expecting some
+one. Once, for quite a moment, he deliberately turned from his easel to
+stand at the window, looking up at the distant mountain peaks. Several
+times, he seemed to be listening.</p>
+
+<p>"May I talk?" she said at last.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, certainly," he returned. "I want you to feel perfectly at ease. You
+must be altogether at home here. Just let yourself go--say what you like,
+with no conventional restraints whatever--consider me a mechanical
+something that is no more than an article of furniture--be as thoroughly
+yourself as if alone in your own room."</p>
+
+<p>"How funny," she said musingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all"--he returned--"just a matter of business."</p>
+
+<p>"But it <i>would</i> be funny if I were to take you at your word," she replied;
+suddenly breaking the pose and meeting his gaze squarely. "Is it--is it
+quite necessary for the mechanical something to look at me like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I said that you were to <i>consider</i> me as an article of furniture. I
+didn't say that I <i>felt</i> like a table or chair."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look down; keep the pose, please," came somewhat sharply from the
+man at the easel, as though he were mentally taking himself in hand.</p>
+
+<p>After that, she watched him with increasing interest and, when he turned
+his head in that listening attitude, a curious, resentful light came into
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she asked abruptly, "What is it that you hear?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I heard music," he answered, coloring slightly and turning to
+his work with suddenly absorbing interest.</p>
+
+<p>"The violin that so enchanted you when I came to break the spell?" she
+persisted playfully--though the light in her eyes was not a playful light.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered shortly; stepping back and shading his eyes with his
+hand for a careful look at his canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"And don't you know who it is?"</p>
+
+<p>"You said it was an old professor somebody."</p>
+
+<p>"That was my <i>first</i> guess," she retorted. "Was I right?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"But it comes from that little box of a house, next door, doesn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Evidently," the artist answered. Then, laying aside his palette and
+brushes he said abruptly, "That is all for to-day; thank you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, so soon!" she exclaimed; and the regret in her voice was very
+pleasing to the man who was decidedly not a mechanical something.</p>
+
+<p>She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But the artist, with a quick
+motion, drew a curtain across the canvas, to hide his work; while he
+checked her with--"Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it until I say
+you may."</p>
+
+<p>"How mean of you," she protested; charmingly submissive. Then,
+eagerly--"And do you want me to-morrow? You do, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please--at the same hour."</p>
+
+<p>When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hidden under her wrap, Mrs.
+Taine stood, for a moment, looking thoughtfully about the studio; while
+the artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the automobile. "I
+am going to love this room," she said slowly; and, for the first time, her
+voice was genuinely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone that
+made him regard her wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when you are famous--when you are
+a great artist and all the great and famous people go to you to have their
+portraits painted--will you remember poor me, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Am I really going to be famous?" he returned doubtfully. "Are you so sure
+that this picture will mean success?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am sure--I <i>know</i>. You want to succeed don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering. Then, with
+a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had
+never before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to succeed! I--I must
+succeed. I tell you I <i>must</i>."</p>
+
+<p>And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, "And you
+shall--you shall."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling
+moodily at his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as he stood looking down
+upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.</p>
+
+<p>"All over," replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar's
+muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand. "Where did you fly to?"</p>
+
+<p>The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly anywhere to escape being
+entertained by that Ragtime' piece of human nonentity--Louise Taine. I
+saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his pipe as he spoke. "And
+how did the work go?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right," replied the painter, indifferently.</p>
+
+<p>The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then,
+striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the
+cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 'Her Majesty' was
+royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine
+linen; as befits the dignity of her state?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely,
+"I suppose you have got to know, damn you! I'm painting her as a Quaker
+Maiden."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst
+of the artist. Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse
+that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his
+scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and
+understanding "You poor fellow! It must be hell." Then, as his keen mind
+grasped the full significance of the artist's words, he murmured
+meditatively, "The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker
+gray--Shades of the giants who used to be! What an opportunity--if you
+only had the nerve to do it."</p>
+
+<p>The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace
+up and down the porch. "Don't, Lagrange, don't! I can't stand it, just
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"All right." said the other, heartily, "I won't." Rising, he put his hand
+on his friend's shoulder. "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before
+Yee Kee calls us to dinner."</p>
+
+<p>In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of something white lying in
+the well-kept path. With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It
+was a dainty square of lace--a handkerchief--with an exquisitely
+embroidered "S" in the corner.</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning
+eyes.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch08" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King was putting the last touches to his portrait of the woman
+who--Conrad Lagrange said--was the personification of the age.</p>
+
+<p>From that evening when the young man told his friend the story of his
+mother's sacrifice, their friendship had become like that friendship which
+passeth the love of women. While the novelist, true to his promise, did
+not cease to flay his younger companion--for the good of the artist's
+soul--those moments when his gentler moods ruled his speech were, perhaps,
+more frequent; and the artist was more and more learning to appreciate the
+rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intellectual brilliancy,
+and the keenness of mental vision that distinguished the man whose life
+was so embittered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture while the work was in
+progress. He said, bluntly, that he preferred to run no risk of
+interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be
+quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was
+accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The
+artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased
+to be left to himself with this particular picture.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to accompany his friend,
+occasionally, to the house on Fairlands Heights; where the painter
+continued to spend much of his time. When Mrs. Taine made mocking
+references to the novelist's promise not to leave the artist unprotected
+to her tender mercies, he always answered with some--as she said--twisty
+saying; to the effect that the present situation in no way lessened his
+determination to save the young man from the influences that would
+accomplish the ruin of his genius. "If"--he always added--"if he is worth
+saving; which remains to be seen." Always, at the Taine home, they met
+James Rutlidge. Frequently the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage
+in the orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>Under the skillful management of Rutlidge,--at the request of Mrs.
+Taine,--the newspapers were already busy with the name and work of Aaron
+King. True, the critic had never seen the artist's work; but,
+never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout the country often
+mentioned the high order of the painter's genius. There were little
+stories of his study and success abroad; tactful references to his
+aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his romantic life with the
+famous novelist in the orange groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his
+California studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was at work
+upon a portrait of the well-known social leader, Mrs. Taine--this being
+the first portrait ever painted of that famous beauty. That the picture
+would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the unanimous verdict of
+all who had been permitted to see the marvelous creation by this rare
+genius whose work was so little known in this country.</p>
+
+<p>Said Conrad Lagrange--"It is all so easy."</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen the woman of the
+disfigured face; and the novelist still tried in vain to fix her in his
+memory. Every day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring orange
+grove, the music of that unseen violin. They spoke, often, in playful
+mood, of the spirit that haunted the place; but they made no effort to
+solve the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. They knew that
+whoever cared for the roses worked there only in the early morning hours;
+and they carefully avoided going into the yard back of the house until
+after breakfast. They felt that an investigation might rob them of the
+peculiar humor of their fancy--a fancy that was to them, both, such a
+pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange-trees and roses such an
+added charm.</p>
+
+<p>But the other member of the trio of friends was not so reticent. Czar had
+formed an--to his most proper dogship--unusual habit. Frequently, when the
+three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he would rise suddenly
+from his place beside his master's chair, and walking sedately to the side
+of the porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, would stand
+listening attentively; then, without so much as a "by-your-leave," he
+would leap to the ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of the
+house. Later, he would come sedately back; greeting each, in turn, with
+that insistent thrust his soft muzzle against a knee; and assuring them,
+in the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, that his mission had
+been a most proper one, and that they might trust him to make no foolish
+mistakes that would mar the peace and harmony of their little household.
+The men never failed to agree with him that it was all right. In fact, so
+fully did they trust him that they never even stepped to the corner of the
+porch to see where he went; nor would they leave their chairs until he had
+returned.</p>
+
+<p>Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the studio,--being always careful
+that Louise accompanied her as far as the house,--Conrad Lagrange
+vanished. The man swore by all the strange and wonderful gods he knew--and
+they were many--that he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing
+young female devotee of the Arts--lest the mountains in their wrath should
+fall upon him.</p>
+
+<p>But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last sitting, the
+novelist--engaged in interesting talk with the artist--forgot.</p>
+
+<p>"You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as the big automobile
+stopped at the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, with no profane intent
+but with meaning quite literal; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the
+kitchen--nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee.</p>
+
+<p>"What's matte'," inquired the Chinaman, putting his head in at the
+living-room door; his almond eyes as wide as they could go, with an
+expression of celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. Catching
+sight of the automobile, his oriental features wrinkled into a yellow grin
+of understanding; "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, she come.
+He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', him all time gone, too; him no like
+lagtime--all same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in turn,
+vanished.</p>
+
+<p>"You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him--standing close,
+her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her
+sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively
+downcast. "And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?"
+she asked in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"Surely not"--he returned calmly--"you are coming to-morrow, with the
+others, aren't you?" Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were
+invited for the next day, to view the portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed the wrap she wore, and
+threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize
+what these hours have meant to me--how could you? You do not live in my
+world. Your world is--is so different You do not know--you do not know."
+With a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world that I live in is
+hell; and this--this--oh, it has been heavenly!"</p>
+
+<p>Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with
+outstretched arms--it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a
+surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.
+For the moment he forgot his work--he forgot everything--he was conscious
+only of the woman who stood before him. But even as the light of triumph
+blazed up in the woman's eyes, the man halted,--drew back; and his face
+was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the
+gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. It
+was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,--from their calm
+heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser
+tragedies,--watched over him. "Don't you think we had better proceed with
+our work?" he said calmly.</p>
+
+<p>The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger which she turned away to
+hide. Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and,
+as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas,
+she watched him now. Since that first day, when she had questioned him
+about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject,
+although--as was inevitable under the circumstances--their intimacy had
+grown. But not once had he turned from his work in that listening
+attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one,
+without her noting it. And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment,
+which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his
+easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.</p>
+
+<p>Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the
+music ceased. Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the
+quite casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I
+suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes,"--he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,--"we
+have never tried to make her acquaintance."</p>
+
+<p>The woman caught him up quickly; "To make <i>her</i> acquaintance? Why do you
+say, '<i>her</i>,' if you do not know who it is?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist was confused. "Did I say, <i>her</i>?" he questioned, his face
+flushed with embarrassment. "It was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad
+Lagrange nor I know anything about our neighbor."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed ironically. "And you <i>could</i> know so easily."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We prefer to accept the music
+as it comes to us--impersonally--for what it is--not for whoever makes
+it." He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful to him, under
+the circumstances of the moment.</p>
+
+<p>But the woman persisted. "Well, <i>I</i> know who it is. Shall I tell you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. I do not care to know. I am not interested in the musician."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted.</p>
+
+<p>"Please take the pose," returned Aaron King professionally. Mrs. Taine,
+wisely, for the time, dropped the subject; contenting herself with a
+meaning laugh.</p>
+
+<p>The artist silently gave all his attention to the nearly finished
+portrait. He was not painting, now, with full brush and swift sure
+strokes,--as had been his way when building up his picture,--but worked
+with occasional deft touches here and there; drawing back from the canvas
+often, to study it intently, his eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to
+the sitter's face and back again to the portrait; then stepping forward
+quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw an instant later for another
+long and searching study. Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside
+his palette and brushes; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with a smile, held out
+his hand. "Come," he said, "tell me if I have done well or ill."</p>
+
+<p>"It is finished?" she cried. "I may see it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is all that I can do"--he answered--"come." He led her to the easel,
+where they stood side by side before his work.</p>
+
+<p>The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, was a portrait of Mrs.
+Taine--yet not a portrait. Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of
+tone and line, it betrayed in every careful detail--in every mark of the
+brush--the thoughtful, painstaking care--the thorough knowledge and highly
+trained skill of an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic.
+But--if one might say so--the painting was more a picture than a portrait.
+The face upon the canvas was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the
+features were her features; but it was also the face of a sweetly modest
+Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too well cared for face of the beautiful
+woman of the world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a natural
+unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had watched the artist with such
+certain knowledge of life and with the boldness born of that knowledge
+were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of innocent maidenhood.
+The very coloring and the arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to
+express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors and of fashionable
+hair-dressers, but the instinctive care of womanliness. The costume that,
+when worn by the woman, expressed so fully her true character; in the
+picture, became the emblem of a pure and deeply religious spirit.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, placing her hand upon
+his arm, exclaimed in delight, "Oh, is it true? Am I really so beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "You like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Like it? How could I help liking it? It is lovely."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would please you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you"--she asked, with eager eyes--"are you satisfied with it? Does it
+seem good to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is never satisfied. I know
+the work is good--in a way. But it is very far from what it should be, I
+fear. I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my opportunity."
+He spoke with a shade of sadness.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch his arm, as she answered
+eagerly, "Ah, but no one else will say that. No one else will dare. It
+will be the sensation of the year--I tell you. Just you wait until Jim
+Rutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung for exhibition, and he tells the
+world about it. Everybody worth while will be coming to you then. And I--I
+will remember these hours with you, and be glad that I could help--even
+so little. Will you remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the picture
+is finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"And are you not glad?" he returned meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>They had both forgotten the painting before them. They did not see it.
+They each saw only the other.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. "People would very soon be
+talking if I should come here, alone--now that the picture is finished."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fairlands soon, for the
+summer," he returned slowly.</p>
+
+<p>"O listen,"--she cried with quick eagerness--"we are going to Lake
+Silence. What's to hinder your coming too? Everybody goes there, you know.
+Won't you come?"</p>
+
+<p>"But would it be altogether safe?" He reflected doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, of course,--Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim,--we are all going
+together--don't you see? I don't believe you want to go," she pouted. "I
+believe you want to forget."</p>
+
+<p>Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in her words and voice, the
+touch of her hand on his arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept
+the man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her hand, and his
+words came with reckless heat. "You know that I will not forget you. You
+know that I could not, if I would. Do you think that I have been so
+engrossed with my brushes and canvas that I have been unconscious of you?
+What is that painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do you think
+that because I must turn myself into a machine to make a photograph of
+your beauty, I am insensible to its charm? I am not a machine. I am a man;
+as you are a woman; and I--"</p>
+
+<p>She checked him suddenly--stepping aside with a quick movement, and the
+words, "Hush, some one is coming."</p>
+
+<p>The artist, too, heard voices, just without the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward her wrap. Aaron King,
+going to his easel, drew the velvet curtain to hide the picture.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch09" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter IX</h2>
+
+<h3>Conrad Lagrange's Adventure</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Certainly, when Conrad Lagrange fled so precipitately from Louise Taine,
+that afternoon, he had no thought that the trivial incident was to mark
+the beginning of a new era in his life; or that it would work out in the
+life of his dearest friend such far reaching results. His only purpose was
+to escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, young creature who
+believed herself so interested in art and letters, and who succeeded so
+admirably in expressing the spirit of her environment and training.</p>
+
+<p>With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself in the rose garden;
+finding a seat on the ground, in an angle of the studio wall and the
+Ragged Robin hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would be least
+likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approving of his master's action,
+stretched himself comfortably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited
+further developments.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. Taine, come from the
+house and enter the studio. For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable
+fear that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so often moved
+him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the garden. But the moment passed, and the
+novelist,--mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance,--with a
+chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and opened his book. Scarcely
+had he found his place in the pages, however, when he was again
+interrupted--this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's violin.
+Putting his book aside, the man reclining in the shelter of the roses,
+with half-closed eyes, yielded himself to the fancy of the spirit that
+called from the depths of the fragrant orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of the studio above his
+head dropped their lovely petals down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of
+the afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining leaves and branches,
+played over the bewildering riot of color. Here and there, golden-bodied
+bees and velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like duties.
+Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated on motionless wings and a
+lonely crow laid his course toward the distant mountain peaks that
+gleamed, silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower ridges and
+the tawny yellow of their foothills. The air was saturated with the
+fragrance of the rose and orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees,
+and with the thousand other perfumes of a California spring.</p>
+
+<p>The music ceased. The man waited--hoping that it would begin again. But it
+did not; and he was about to take up his book, once more, when Czar arose,
+stretched himself, stood for a moment in a picturesque, listening
+attitude, then trotted off among the roses; leaving the novelist with an
+odd feeling of uneasy expectancy--half resolved to stay, half determined
+to go. The thought of Louise in the house decided him, and he kept his
+place, hidden as he was, in the corner--a whimsical smile hovering over
+his world-lined features as though, after all, he felt himself entering
+upon some enjoyable adventure.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the other end of the
+garden, a low murmuring voice. As it came nearer, the man's smile grew
+more pronounced It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear and full in
+its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen speaker was talking to the novelist's
+dog. The smile on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he
+whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what he has been up to!"
+Rising quietly to his knees, he peered through the flower-laden bushes.</p>
+
+<p>A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was moving about the
+garden--bending over the roses, and talking in low tones to Czar, who--to
+his hidden master--appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his gentle
+companion's intimacy. The novelist--old in the study of character and
+trained by his long years of observation and experience in the world of
+artificiality--was fascinated by the loveliness of the scene.</p>
+
+<p>Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of white, with a modestly
+low-cut square at the throat, and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just
+below the elbow--her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved here and
+there, had all the charm of girlish grace with the fuller beauty of
+ripening womanhood. As she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the
+dog, in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every motion, was
+instinct with that strength and health that is seldom seen among those who
+wear the shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face,--warmly
+tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm fleshed and clear,--in its
+unconscious naturalness and in its winsome purity was like the flowers she
+stooped to kiss.</p>
+
+<p>As he watched, the man noticed--with a smile of understanding--that she
+kept rather to the side of the garden toward the house; where the artist,
+at his easel by the big, north light, could not see her through the small
+window in the end of the room; and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she
+would not be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she paused to
+listen, as if for any chance approaching step--appearing, to the fancy of
+the man, as some creature from another world--poised lightly, ready to
+vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon,--after a cautious,
+hesitating, listening look about,--she slipped, swift footed as a fawn,
+across the garden, and--followed by the dog--disappeared into the latticed
+rose-covered arbor against the southern wall.</p>
+
+<p>With a chuckle to himself, Conrad Lagrange crept quietly along the hedge
+to the door of her retreat.</p>
+
+<p>When she saw him there, she gave a little cry and started as though to
+escape. But the novelist, smiling barred her way; while Czar, joyfully
+greeting his master, turned from the man to the girl and back to the man
+again, as if, by dividing his attention equally between the two, he was
+bent upon assuring each that the other was a friend of the right sort.
+There was no mistaking the facts that the dog was introducing them, and
+that he was as proud of his new acquaintance as he was pleased to present
+his older and more intimate companion.</p>
+
+<p>A sunny smile broke over the girl's winsome face, as she caught the
+meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," she said, "are you his master?" Her
+manner was as natural and unrestrained as a child's--her voice, musically
+sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the speech of noisy, crowded cities
+or shrill chattering crowds.</p>
+
+<p>"I am his most faithful and humble subject," returned the man,
+whimsically.</p>
+
+<p>She was studying his face openly, while her own countenance--unschooled to
+hide emotions, untrained to deceive--frankly betrayed each passing thought
+and mood. The daintily turned chin, sensitive lips, delicate nostrils, and
+large, blue eyes,--with that wide, unafraid look of a child that has never
+been taught to fear,--revealed a spirit fine and rare; while the low,
+broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft brown hair,--that, arranged
+deftly in some simple fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every
+wayward breath of air,--gave the added charm of strength and purpose. The
+man, seeing these things and knowing--as few men ever know--their value,
+waited her verdict.</p>
+
+<p>It came with a smile and a pretty fancy, as though she caught the mood of
+the novelist's reply. "He has told me so much about you--how kind you are
+to him, and how he loves you. I hope you don't mind that he and I have
+learned to be good friends. Won't you tell me his name? I have tried
+everything, but nothing seems to fit. To call such a royal fellow,
+'doggie', doesn't do at all, does it?"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange laughed--and it was the laugh of a Conrad Lagrange unknown
+to the world. "No," he said with mock seriousness, "'doggie,' doesn't do
+at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. That is"--he added,
+giving full rein to his droll humor--"I gave it to him for a name. He has
+made it his title. He did that, you know, so I would always remember that
+he is my superior."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed--low, full-throated and clear--as a girl who has not sadly
+learned that she is a woman, laughs. Then she fell to caressing the dog
+and calling him by name; while Czar--in his efforts to express his delight
+and satisfaction--was as nearly undignified as it was possible for him to
+be.</p>
+
+<p>As he watched them, the rugged, world-worn features of the famous novelist
+were lighted with an expression that transformed them.</p>
+
+<p>"And I suppose," she said,--still responding to the novelist's playful
+mood,--"that Czar told you I was trespassing in your garden. Of course it
+was his duty to tell. I hope he told you, also, that I do not steal your
+roses."</p>
+
+<p>The man shook his head, and his sharp, green-gray eyes were twinkling
+merrily, now--as a boy in the spirit of some amusing venture. "Oh, no!
+Czar said nothing at all about trespassers. He did tell me, though, about
+a wonderful creature that comes every day to visit the garden. A nymph, he
+thought it was--a beautiful Oread from away up there among the silver
+peaks and purple canyons--or, perhaps, a lovely Dryad from among the oaks
+and pines. I felt quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread;
+because he said that she comes to gather colors from the roses, and that
+every morning and every evening she uses these colors to tint the highest
+peaks and crests of her mountains--making them so beautiful that mortals
+would always begin and end each day by looking up at them. Of course, the
+moment I saw, you I knew who you were."</p>
+
+<p>Unaffectedly pleased as a child at his quaint fancy, she answered merrily,
+"And so you hid among the roses to trap me, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed, I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I was forced to fly from a
+wicked Flibbertigibbet who seeks to torment me. I barely escaped with my
+life, and came into the garden to hide and recover from my fright. Then I
+heard the most wonderful music and guessed that you must be somewhere
+around. Then Czar, who had come with me to hide from the Flibbertigibbet
+in the house, left me. I looked to see where he had gone, and so I saw,
+sure enough, that it was you. All my life, you know, I have wanted to
+catch a real nymph; but never could. So when you came into the arbor, I
+couldn't resist trying again. And, now, here we are--with Czar to say it
+is all right."</p>
+
+<p>At his fanciful words, she laughed again, and her cheeks flushed with
+pleasure. Then, with grave sweetness, she said, "Won't you sit down,
+please, and let me explain seriously?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you must pretend to be like the rest of us," he returned with
+an air of resignation, "but all the same, Czar and I know you are not."</p>
+
+<p>When they were seated, she said simply, "My name is Sibyl Andres. This
+place used to be my home. My mother planted this garden with her own
+hands. Many of these roses were brought from our home in the mountains,
+where I was born, and where I lived with father and mother until five
+years ago. I feel, still, as though the old place in the hills were my
+real home, and every summer, when nearly every one goes away from
+Fairlands and there is nothing for me to do, Myra Willard and I go up
+there, for as long as we can. You see, I teach music and play in the
+churches. Miss Willard taught me. She and mother are the only teachers I
+have ever had. After father's death, mother and Myra and I lived here for
+two years; then mother died, and Myra and I moved to that little house
+over there, because we could not afford to keep this place. But the man
+who bought it gave me permission to care for the garden; so I come almost
+every day--through that little gate in the corner of the hedge, there--to
+tend the roses. Since you men moved in, though, I come, mostly, in the
+morning--early--before you are up. I only slip in, sometimes, for a few
+minutes, in the afternoon--when I think it will be safe. You see, being
+strangers, I--I feared you would think me bold--if I--if I asked to come.
+So many people really wouldn't understand, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange's deep voice was very gentle as he said, "Mr. King and I
+have known, all the time, that we had no real claim upon this garden,
+Miss Andr&eacute;s." Then, with his whimsical smile, he added, "You see, we felt,
+from the very first, that it was haunted by a lovely spirit that would
+vanish utterly if we intruded. That is why we have been so careful. We did
+not want to frighten you away. And besides, you know, Czar told us that it
+was all right!"</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes shone through a bright mist as she answered the man's kindly
+words. "You <i>are</i> good, Mr. Lagrange. And all the time it was really <i>you</i>
+of whom I was so afraid."</p>
+
+<p>"Why me, more than my friend?" he asked, regarding her thoughtfully.</p>
+
+<p>She colored a little under his searching gaze, but answered with that
+childlike frankness that was so much a part of her winsome charm, "Why,
+because your friend is an <i>artist</i>--I thought <i>he</i> would be sure to
+understand. I knew, of course, that you were the famous author; everybody
+talks about your living here." She seemed to think that her words
+explained.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you were afraid of me because I am famous?" he asked
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," she answered, "not because you are famous. I mean--I was not
+afraid of your <i>fame</i>," she smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must tell me at once--do you
+read my books?" He waited, as though much depended upon her answer.</p>
+
+<p>The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, unafraid look as she
+answered sadly, "No, sir. I have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music.
+They hurt me, somehow, all over."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased
+delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and
+humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew
+it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you
+were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep
+conviction verified.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know
+that an author <i>could</i> be so different from the things he writes about."
+Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that
+spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you
+talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books
+like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with
+pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful
+humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you
+and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I
+like secrets."</p>
+
+<p>He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really
+Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when
+I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or
+when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am
+in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who
+wrote them."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you
+<i>couldn't</i> be <i>that</i> kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be
+here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with our secret. Your name
+is not really Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, you know--any more than you really live over
+there in that little house. Your real home is in the mountains--just as
+you said--you <i>really</i> live among the glowing peaks, under the dark pines,
+on the ridges, and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only come
+down here to the Fairlands folk with a message from your mountains--and
+<i>we</i> call your message music. Your name is--"</p>
+
+<p>She was leaning forward, her face glowing with eagerness. "What is my
+name?"</p>
+
+<p>"What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. "That's it, 'Nature'."</p>
+
+<p>"And you? Who are you when you are not--when you are not in that other
+world?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me? Oh, my real name is 'Civilization'. Can't you guess why?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "Tell me."</p>
+
+<p>"Because,--in spite of all that the world that reads my books can
+give,--poor old 'Civilization' cannot be happy without the message that
+'Nature' brings from her mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"And you, too, love the mountains and--and this garden, and my music?" she
+asked half doubtingly. "You are not pretending that too--just to amuse
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am not pretending that," he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Then why--how can you do the--the other thing? I can't understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, you can't understand--how could you? You are 'Nature' and
+'Nature' must often be puzzled by the things that 'Civilization' does."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm glad you like my music,
+anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I glad--that I <i>can</i> like it. That's the only thing that saves
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"And your friend, the artist,--does he like my mountain music, do you
+think?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very much. He needs it too."</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he would like it, and that it
+would help him. It was really for him that I have played."</p>
+
+<p>"You played for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, I did not know about
+you--then. I thought you were altogether the man who wrote those
+books--and so I <i>could</i> not play for you. That is--I mean--you
+understand--I could not play--" again she seemed to search for a word, and
+finding it, smiled--"I could not play <i>myself</i> for you. But I thought that
+because he was an <i>artist</i> he would understand; and that if I <i>could</i> make
+the music tell him of the mountains it would, perhaps, help him a little
+to make his work beautiful and right--do you see?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might have known that it was for
+<i>him</i> that you brought your message from the hills. But poor old
+'Civilization' is frightfully stupid sometimes, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the arbor, and parting the
+screen of vines a little, said to him, "Look here!"</p>
+
+<p>Standing beside her, Conrad Lagrange, through the window in the end of the
+studio next the garden, saw Aaron King at his easel; the artist's position
+in the light of the big, north window being in a direct line between the
+two openings and the arbor. Mrs. Taine was sitting too far out of line to
+be seen.</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed gleefully. "Do you see him at his work? At first, I only
+hid here to find what kind of people were going to live in my old home.
+But when he was making our old barn into a studio, and I heard who you
+both were, I came because I love to watch him; as I try to make the music
+I think he would love to hear."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist studied her intently. She was so artless--so unaffected by
+the conventions of the world--in a word, so natural in expressing her
+thoughts, that the man who had given the best years of his life to feed
+the vicious, grossly sensual and bestial imaginations of his readers was
+deeply moved. He was puzzled what to say. At last, he murmured haltingly,
+"You like the artist, then?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were full of curious laughter as she answered, "Why, what a funny
+question--when I have never even talked with him. How <i>could</i> I like any
+one I have never known?"</p>
+
+<p>"But you make your music for him; and you come here to watch him?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but that is for the work he is doing; that is for his pictures." She
+turned to look through the tiny opening in the arbor. "How I wish I could
+see inside that beautiful room. I know it must be beautiful. Once, when
+you were all gone, I tried to steal in; but, of course, he keeps it
+locked."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the man, suddenly--prompted by her
+confession to resume his playful mood.</p>
+
+<p>"What?" she asked eagerly, in a like spirit of fun.</p>
+
+<p>"First," he answered, half teasingly, "I must know if you could, now, make
+your music for me as well as for him."</p>
+
+<p>"For the you that loves the mountains and the garden I'm sure I could,"
+she answered promptly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, if you will promise to do that--if you will promise not to
+play <i>yourself</i> for just him alone but for me too--I'll fix it so that you
+can go into the studio yonder."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I will always play for you, too, anyway--now that I know you."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he said, "we could just walk up to the door, and I could
+introduce you; but that would not be proper for <i>us</i> would it?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head positively, "I wouldn't like to do that. He would think
+I was intruding, I am sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then, we will do it this way--the first day that Mr. King and I are
+both away, and Tee Kee is gone, too; I'll slip out here and leave a letter
+and a key on your gate. The letter will tell you just the time when we go,
+and when we will return--so you will know whether it is safe for you or
+not, and how long you can stay. Only"--he became very serious--"only, you
+must promise one thing."</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you won't look at the picture on the easel."</p>
+
+<p>"But why must I promise that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because that picture will not be finished for a long time yet, and you
+must not look at it until I say it is ready. Mr. King wouldn't like you to
+see that picture, I am sure. In fact, he doesn't like for any one to see
+the picture he is working on just now."</p>
+
+<p>"How funny," she said, with a puzzled look. "What is he painting it for? I
+like for people to hear my music."</p>
+
+<p>The man answered before he thought--"But I don't like people to read my
+books."</p>
+
+<p>She shrank back, with troubled eyes, "Oh! is he--is he <i>that</i> kind of an
+artist?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, no!" exclaimed the novelist, hastily. "You must not think that. I
+did not mean you to think that. If he was <i>that</i> kind of an artist, I
+wouldn't let you go into the studio at all. Mr. King is a good man--the
+best man I have ever known. He is my friend because he knows the secret
+about me that you know. He does not read my books. He would not read one
+of them for anything. It is only that this picture is not finished. When
+it is finished, he will not care who sees it."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad," she said. "You frightened me, for a minute--I understand,
+now."</p>
+
+<p>"And you promise not to look at the picture on the easel?"</p>
+
+<p>She nodded,--"Of course. And when I come out I'll lock the door and put
+the key back on the gate again; and no one but you and I will ever know."</p>
+
+<p>"No one but you and I will know," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, Czar, who had been lying quietly in the doorway of the arbor,
+rose quickly to his feet, with a low growl.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, peering through the screen on the side toward the house, uttered
+an exclamation of fear and drew back, turning to her companion
+appealingly. "O please, please don't let that man find me here."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrauge looked and saw James Rutlidge coming down the path toward
+the arched entrance to the garden, which was directly across from the
+arbor.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop him, please stop him," whispered the girl, her hand upon his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"Stay here until I get him out of sight," said the novelist quickly. "I
+won't let him come into the garden. When we are gone, you can make your
+escape. Don't forget the music for me, and the key at the gate."</p>
+
+<p>He spoke to Czar, and with the dog obediently at heel went forward to meet
+Mr. Rutlidge, who had called for Mrs. Taine and Louise.</p>
+
+<p>But all the while that Conrad Lagrange was talking to the man, and leading
+him toward the door of the studio, he was wondering--why that look of fear
+upon the face of the girl in the garden? What had Sibyl Andr&eacute;s to do with
+James Rutlidge?</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch10" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter X</h2>
+
+<h3>A Cry in the Night</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As Conrad Lagrange and Mr. Rutlidge entered the studio, Aaron King turned
+from the easel, where he had drawn the velvet curtain to hide the finished
+portrait. Mrs. Taine was standing at the other side of the room, wrap in
+hand, calmly waiting, ready to go. The artist greeted Mr. Rutlidge
+cordially, while the woman triumphantly announced the completion of her
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man," said Rutlidge, addressing
+the artist familiarly. "It is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it
+this afternoon?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks,"--returned the artist,--"you are all coming to-morrow, at three,
+you know. I would rather not show it to-day. It is a little late for the
+best light; and I would like for <i>you</i> to see it under the most favorable
+conditions possible."</p>
+
+<p>The critic was visibly flattered by the painter's manner and by his
+well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "Quite right"--he said
+approvingly--"quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist--"These
+painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last
+touch or two before <i>I</i> come around." He laughed pompously at his own
+words--the others joining.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, the artist said hurriedly
+to his friend, "Come on, let's get it over." He led the way back to the
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought the light was too bad," said the older man, quizzingly, as they
+entered the big room.</p>
+
+<p>"It's good enough for <i>your</i> needs," retorted the painter savagely. "You
+could see all you want by candle-light." He jerked the curtain angrily
+aside, and--without a glance at the canvas--walked away to stand at the
+window looking out upon the rose garden--waiting for the flood of the
+novelist's scorn to overwhelm him. At last, when no sound broke the quiet
+of the room, he turned--to find himself alone.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait on the easel, had slipped
+quietly out of the building.</p>
+
+<p>The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, meditatively smoking his
+pipe on the front porch, with Czar lying at his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the painter, curiously,--anxious, as he had said, to have it
+over,--"why the deuce don't you <i>say</i> something?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist answered slowly, "My vocabulary is too limited, for one
+reason, and"--he looked thoughtfully down at Czar--"I prefer to wait until
+you have finished the portrait."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>is</i> finished," returned the artist desperately. "I swear I'll never
+touch a brush to the damned thing again."</p>
+
+<p>The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; "Listen to him,
+Czar--listen to the poor devil of a painter-man."</p>
+
+<p>The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master's knee, looked up
+into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, "If he was only
+a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert
+ourselves, so we could, couldn't we?" Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in
+dignified approval. His master continued, "But when a fellow can do a
+crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his
+work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into
+existence, it's best for outsiders to keep quite still. Your poor old
+master knows whereof he speaks, doesn't he, dog? That he does!"</p>
+
+<p>"And is that all you have to say on the subject?" demanded the artist, as
+though for some reason he was disappointed at his friend's reticence.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>might</i> add a word of advice," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
+you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
+Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
+automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
+accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
+prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
+novelist, they went at once to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
+fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
+of admiration, even <i>before</i> the portrait was revealed. As though the
+painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
+"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
+accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
+glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
+whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
+display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
+a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
+inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embarrassed attention to an
+appreciation that had the appearance, at least, of a more enduring value.
+Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her husband, she
+asked,--in a voice that was tremulous with loving care and anxiety to
+please,--"Do you like it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is magnificent, splendid, perfect!" This effort to give his praise of
+the artist's work the appearance of substantial reality cost the wretched
+product of lust and luxury a fit of coughing that racked his burnt-out
+body almost to its last feeble hold upon the world of flesh and, with a
+force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that
+neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again
+speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,--while grasping the
+painter's hand in effusive cordiality,--"My dear fellow, I congratulate
+you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is
+exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have
+done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character of Mrs. Taine." And
+then, to his wife,--"Dearest, I am glad for you, and proud. It is as
+worthy of you as paint and canvas could be." He turned to Conrad Lagrange
+who was an interested observer of the scene--"Am I not right, Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite right, Mr. Taine,--quite right. As you say, the portrait is most
+worthy the beauty and character of the charming subject."</p>
+
+<p>Another paroxysm of coughing mercifully prevented the poor creature's
+reply.</p>
+
+<p>With one accord, the little group turned, now, to James Rutlidge--the
+dreaded authority and arbiter of artistic destinies. That distinguished
+expert, while the others were speaking, had been listening intently;
+ostensibly, the while, he examined the picture with a show of trained
+skill that, it seemed, could not fail to detect unerringly those more
+subtle values and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden from
+the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, they watched the process by
+which professional criticism finds its verdict. That is, they <i>thought</i>
+they were watching the process. In reality, the method is more subtle than
+they knew.</p>
+
+<p>While the great critic moved back and forth in front of the easel; drew
+away from or bent over to closely scrutinize the canvas; shifted the easel
+a hair breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; hummed and muttered
+to himself abstractedly; cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem";
+squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head thrown back, or turned
+in every side angle his fat neck would permit: peered through his
+half-closed fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over and under
+his open hand or a paper held to shut out portions of the painting;--the
+others <i>thought</i> they saw him expertly weighing the evidence for and
+against the merit of the work. In <i>reality</i> it was his <i>ears</i> and not his
+<i>eyes</i> that helped the critic to his final decision--a decision which was
+delivered, at last, with a convincing air of ponderous finality. Indeed it
+was a judgment from which there could be no appeal, for it expressed
+exactly the views of those for whose benefit it was rendered. Then, in a
+manner subtly insinuating himself into the fellowship of the famous, he,
+too, turned to Conrad Lagrange with a scholarly; "Do you not agree, sir?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist answered with slow impressiveness; "The picture, undoubtedly,
+fully merits the appreciation and praise you have given it. I have already
+congratulated Mr. King--who was kind enough to show me his work before you
+arrived."</p>
+
+<p>After this, Yee Kee appeared upon the scene, and tea was served in the
+studio--a fitting ceremony to the launching of another genius.</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, Mr. Lagrange," said Mrs. Taine, quite casually,--when, under
+the influence of the mildly stimulating beverage, the talk had assumed a
+more frivolous vein,--"Who is your talented neighbor that so charms Mr.
+King with the music of a violin?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, as he turned toward the speaker, shot a quick glance at the
+Artist. Nor did those keen, baffling eyes fail to note that, at the
+question, James Rutlidge had paused in the middle of a sentence. "That is
+one of the mysteries of our romantic surroundings madam," said Conrad
+Lagrange, easily.</p>
+
+<p>"And a very charming mystery it seems to be," returned the woman. "It has
+been quite affecting to watch its influence upon Mr. King."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "I admit that I found the music, in combination with
+the beauty I have so feebly tried to out upon canvas, very stimulating."</p>
+
+<p>A flash of angry color swept into the perfect cheeks of Mrs. Taine, as she
+retorted with meaning; "You are as flattering in your speech as you are
+with your brush. I assure you I do not consider myself in your unknown
+musician's class."</p>
+
+<p>The small eyes of James Rutlidge were fixed inquiringly upon the speakers,
+while his heavy face betrayed--to the watchful novelist--an interest he
+could not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional merit?" he asked with
+an attempt at indifference.</p>
+
+<p>Louise Taine--sensing that the performances of the unnamed violinist had
+been acceptable to Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King--the two representatives
+of the world to which she aspired--could not let the opportunity slip. She
+fairly deluged them with the spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise
+of the musician--employing, hit or miss, every musical term that popped
+into her vacuous head.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed,"--said the critic,--"I seem to have missed a treat." Then,
+directly to the artist,--"And you say the violinist is wholly unknown to
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wholly," returned the painter, shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understanding and disbelief flit for
+an instant over the heavy face of James Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>When the automobile, at last, was departing with the artist's guests; the
+two friends stood for a moment watching it up the road to the west, toward
+town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. Taine lean forward to speak
+to the chauffeur while James Rutlidge, who was in the front seat, turned
+and shook his head as though in protest. The woman appeared to insist. The
+machine slowed down, as though 1he chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the
+outcome of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neighboring house,
+Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and the automobile turned suddenly in
+toward the curb and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared in the
+depths of the orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each other, for a moment, in
+questioning silence. The artist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>But the novelist--as they went toward the house--cursed Mrs. Taine, James
+Rutlidge, and all their kin and kind, with a vehement earnestness that
+startled his companion--familiar as the latter was with his friend's
+peculiar talent in the art of vigorous expression.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, that evening, the painter and the novelist sat on the
+porch--as their custom was--to watch the day go out of the sky and the
+night come over valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest
+peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twinkling lights of the towns
+of men. At that hour, too, it was the custom, now, for the violinist
+hidden in the orange grove, to make the music they both so loved.</p>
+
+<p>In the music, that night, there was a feeling that, to them, was new--a
+vague, uncertain, halting undertone that was born, they felt, of fear. It
+stirred them to question and to wonder. Without apparent cause or reason,
+they each oddly connected the troubled tone in the music with the stopping
+of the automobile from Fairlands Heights, that afternoon, at the gate of
+the little house next door--the artist, because of Mrs. Taine's insistent
+inquiry about the, to him, unknown musician;--Conrad Lagrange, because of
+the manner of the girl in the garden when James Rutlidge appeared and
+because of the critic's interest when they had spoken of the violinist in
+the studio. But neither expressed his thought to the other.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the music ceased, and they sat for an hour, perhaps, in
+silence--as close friends may do--exchanging only now and then a word.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, they were startled by a cry. In the still darkness of the night,
+from the mysterious depths of the orange grove, the sound came with such a
+shock that the two men, for the moment, held their places,
+motionless--questioning each other sharply--"What was that?" "Did you
+hear?"--as though they doubted, almost, their own ears.</p>
+
+<p>The cry came again; this time, undoubtedly, from that neighboring house to
+the west. It was unmistakably the cry of a woman--a woman in fear and
+pain.</p>
+
+<p>They leaped to their feet.</p>
+
+<p>Again the cry came from the black depths of the orange grove--shuddering,
+horrible--in an agony of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The two men sprang from the porch, and, through the darkness that in the
+orange grove was like a black wall, ran toward the spot from which the
+sound came--the dog at their heels.</p>
+
+<p>Breathless, they broke into the little yard in front of the tiny box-like
+house. Lights shone in the windows. All seemed peaceful and still. Czar
+betrayed no uneasiness. Going to the front door, they knocked.</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer save the sound of some one moving inside.</p>
+
+<p>Again, the artist knocked vigorously.</p>
+
+<p>The door opened, and a woman stood on the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Standing a little to one side, the men saw her features clearly, in the
+light from the room. It was the woman with the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange was first to command himself. "I beg your pardon, madam.
+We live in the house next door. We thought we heard a cry of distress. May
+we offer our assistance in any way? Is there anything we can do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, sir, you are very kind,"--returned the woman, in a low
+voice,--"but it is nothing. There is nothing you can do."</p>
+
+<p>And the voice of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, who stood farther back in the room, where
+the artist from his position could not see her, added, "It was good of you
+to come, Mr. Lagrange; but it is really nothing. We are so sorry you were
+disturbed."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," returned the men, as the woman of the disfigured face drew
+back from the door. "Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night," came from within the house, and the door was shut.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch11" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XI</h2>
+
+<h3>Go Look In Your Mirror, You Fool</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As the Taine automobile left Aaron King and his friend, that afternoon,
+Mrs. Taine spoke to the chauffeur; "You may stop a moment, at the next
+house, Henry."</p>
+
+<p>If she had fired a gun, James Rutlidge could not have turned with a more
+startled suddenness.</p>
+
+<p>"What in thunder do you want there?" he demanded shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"I want to stop," she returned calmly.</p>
+
+<p>"But I must get down town, at once," he protested. "I have already lost
+the best part of the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Your business seems to have become important very suddenly," she
+observed, sarcastically.</p>
+
+<p>"I have something to do besides making calls with you," he retorted. "Go
+on, Henry."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine spoke sharply; "Really, Jim, you are going too far. Henry, turn
+in at the house." The machine moved toward the curb and stopped. As she
+stepped from the car, she added, "I will only be a minute, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge growled an inarticulate curse.</p>
+
+<p>"What deviltry do you suppose she is up to now," rasped Mr. Taine.</p>
+
+<p>Which brought from his daughter the usual protest,--"O, papa, don't,"</p>
+
+<p>As Mrs. Taine approached the house, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s--busy among the flowers
+that bordered the walk--heard the woman's step, and stood quietly waiting
+her. Mrs. Taine's face was perfect in its expression of cordial interest,
+with just enough--but not too much--of a conscious, well-bred superiority.
+The girl's countenance was lighted by an expression of childlike surprise
+and wonder. What had brought this well-known leader in the social world
+from Fairlands Heights to the poor, little house in the orange grove, so
+far down the hill?</p>
+
+<p>"Good afternoon," said the caller. "You are Miss Andr&eacute;s, are you not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned the girl, with a smile. "Won't you come in? I will call
+Miss Willard."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you, no. I have only a moment. My friends are waiting. I am
+Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know. I have often seen you passing."</p>
+
+<p>The other turned abruptly. "What beautiful flowers."</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't they lovely," agreed Sibyl, with frank pleasure at the visitor's
+appreciation. "Let me give you a bunch." Swiftly she gathered a generous
+armful.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine protested, but the girl presented her offering with such grace
+and winsomeness that the other could not refuse. As she received the gift,
+the perfect features of the woman of the world were colored by a blush
+that even she could not control. "I understand, Miss Andr&eacute;s," she said,
+"that you are an accomplished violinist."</p>
+
+<p>"I teach and play in Park Church," was the simple answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I have never happened to hear you, myself,"--said Mrs. Taine
+smoothly,--"but my friends who live next door--Mr. Lagrange and Mr.
+King--have told me about you."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" The girl's voice was vaguely troubled, while the other, watching,
+saw the blush that colored her warmly tinted cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>"It is good of you to play for them," continued the woman from Fairlands
+Heights, casually. "You must enjoy the society of such famous men, very
+much. There are a great many people, you know, who would envy you your
+friendship with them."</p>
+
+<p>The girl replied quickly, "O, but you are mistaken. I am not acquainted
+with them, at all; that is--not with Mr. King--I have never spoken to
+him--and I only met Mr. Lagrange, for a few minutes, by accident."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! But I am forgetting the purpose of my call, and my friends will
+become impatient. Do you ever play for private entertainments, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s?--for--say a dinner, or a reception, you know?"</p>
+
+<p>"I would be very glad for such an engagement, Mrs. Taine. I must earn what
+I can with my music, and there are not enough pupils to occupy all my
+time. But perhaps you should hear me play, first. I will get my violin."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine checked her, "Oh, no, indeed. It is quite unnecessary, my
+dear. The opinion of your distinguished neighbors is quite enough. I shall
+keep you in mind for some future occasion. I just wished to learn if you
+would accept such an engagement. Good-by. Thanks--so much--for your
+flowers."</p>
+
+<p>She was upon the point of turning away, when a low cry from the nearby
+porch startled them both. Turning, they saw the woman with the disfigured
+face, standing in the doorway; an expression of mingled wonder, love, and
+supplication upon her hideously marred features. As they looked, she
+started toward them,--impulsively stretching out her arms, as though the
+gesture was an involuntary expression of some deep emotion,--then checked
+herself, suddenly as though in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s uttered an exclamation. "Why, Myra! what is it, dear?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine turned away with a gesture of horror, saying to the girl in a
+low, hurried voice, "Dear me, how dreadful! I really must be going."</p>
+
+<p>As she went down the flower-bordered path towards the street, the woman on
+the porch, again, stretched out her arms appealingly. Then, as Sibyl
+reached her side, the poor creature clasped the girl in a close embrace,
+and burst into bitter tears.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Upon the return of the Taines and James Rutlidge to the house on Fairlands
+Heights, Mrs. Taine retired immediately to her own luxuriously appointed
+apartments.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner, a maid brought to the household word that her mistress was
+suffering from a severe headache and would not be down and begged that she
+might not be disturbed during the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Alone in her room, Mrs. Taine--her headache being wholly
+conventional--gave herself unreservedly to the thoughts that she could
+not, under the eyes of others, entertain without restraint. She was seated
+at a window that looked down upon the carefully graded levels of the
+envying Fairlanders and across the wide sweep of the valley below to the
+mountains which, from that lofty point of vantage, could be seen from the
+base of their lowest foothills to the crests of their highest peaks. But
+the woman who lived on the Heights of Fairlands saw neither the homes of
+their neighbors, the busy valley below, nor the mountains that lifted so
+far above them all. Her thoughts were centered upon what, to her, was more
+than these.</p>
+
+<p>When night was gathering over the scene, her maid entered softly. Mrs.
+Taine dismissed the woman with a word, telling her not to return until she
+rang. Leaving the window, after drawing the shades close, she paced the
+now lighted room, in troubled uneasiness of mind. Here and there, she
+paused to touch or handle some familiar object--a photograph in a silver
+frame, a book on the carved table, the trifles on her open desk, or an
+ornamental vase on the mantle--then moved restlessly away to continue her
+aimless exercise. When the silence was rudely broken by the sound of a
+knock at her door, she stood still--a look of anger marring the
+well-schooled beauty of her features.</p>
+
+<p>The knock was repeated.</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation of impatient annoyance, she crossed the room, and
+flung open the door.</p>
+
+<p>Without leave or apology, her husband entered; and, as he did so, was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing that sent him reeling, gasping and
+breathless, to the nearest chair.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine stood watching her husband coldly, with a curious, speculative
+expression on her face that she made no attempt to hide. When his torture
+was abated--for the time--leaving him exhausted and trembling with
+weakness, she said coldly, "Well, what do you want? What are you doing
+here?"</p>
+
+<p>The man lifted his pallid, haggard face and, with a yellow, claw-like hand
+wiped the beads of clammy sweat from his forehead; while his deep-sunken
+eyes leered at her with an insane light.</p>
+
+<p>The woman was at no pains to conceal her disgust. In her voice there was
+no hint of pity. "Didn't Marie tell you that I wished to be alone?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," he jeered in his rasping whisper, "that's why I came." He
+gave a hideous resemblance to a laugh, which ended in a cough--and, again,
+he drew his skinny, shaking hand across his damp forehead "That's the time
+that a man should visit his wife, isn't it? When she is alone. Or"--he
+grinned mockingly--"when she wishes to be?"</p>
+
+<p>She regarded him with open scorn and loathing. "You unclean beast! Will
+you take yourself out of my room?"</p>
+
+<p>He gazed at her, as a malevolent devil might gloat over a soul delivered
+up for torture. "Not until I choose to go, my dear."</p>
+
+<div class="image" id="illus03"><p><img src="images/illus03.png" alt="&quot;Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?&quot;" /><br />
+&quot;Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?&quot;</p></div>
+
+<p>Suddenly changing her manner, she smiled with deliberate, mocking humor.
+While he watched, she moved leisurely to a deep, many-cushioned couch;
+and, arranging the pillows, reclined among them in the careless
+abandonment of voluptuous ease and physical content. Openly,
+ostentatiously, she exhibited herself to his burning gaze in various
+graceful poses--lifting her arms above her head to adjust a cushion more
+to her liking; turning and stretching her beautiful body; moving her limbs
+with sinuous enjoyment--as disregardful of his presence as though she were
+alone. At last she spoke in cool, even, colorless tones; "Perhaps you will
+tell me what you want?"</p>
+
+<p>The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensuality shook with
+inarticulate rage. Choking and coughing he writhed in his chair--his
+emaciated limbs twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in
+perspiration his claw-like hands opening and closing; his bloodless lips
+curled back from his yellow teeth, in a horrid grin of impotent fury. And
+all the while she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, smile. It
+was as though the malevolent devil and the tortured soul had suddenly
+changed places.</p>
+
+<p>When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his rasping whisper, with
+curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort
+with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then,
+among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the
+other, was maddening.</p>
+
+<p>"If this is all you came for,"--she said, easily,--"might have spared
+yourself the effort--don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I came to tell you that
+your intimacy with that damned painter must stop."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in the cushions, clenched
+until her rings hurt. "Just what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked
+evenly.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I mean what intimacy with a
+man always means to a woman like you."</p>
+
+<p>"The only meaning that a creature of your foul mind can understand," she
+retorted smoothly. "If it were worth while to tell you the truth, I would
+say that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been as proper as--as
+when I am alone with you."</p>
+
+<p>The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells of coughing--choking,
+gasping, fighting for breath, his eyes blazing with hatred and lust,
+mingling his words with oaths and curses--he raged at her. "And do you
+think--that, because I am so nearly dead,--I do not resent what--I saw,
+to-day? Do you think--I am so far gone that I cannot--understand--your
+interest in this man,--after--watching you, together, all--the afternoon?
+Has there been any one--in his studio, except you two, when--he was
+painting you in that dress--which you--designed for his benefit? Oh, no,
+indeed,--you and your--genius could not be interrupted,--for the sake--of
+his art. His art! Great God!--was there ever such a damnable farce--since
+hell was invented? Art!--you--<i>you</i>--<i>you</i>!--" crazed with jealous fury,
+he pointed at her with his yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and
+struggled to raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the cords
+of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was distorted with the strain
+of his effort--"<i>You!</i> painted as a--modest Quaker Maid,--with all the
+charm of innocence,--virtue, and religious piety in your face. <i>You!</i> And
+that picture will be exhibited--and written about--as a work of <i>art!</i>
+You'll pull all the strings,--and use all your influence,--and the
+thing--will be received as a--masterpiece."</p>
+
+<p>"And," she added calmly, "you will write a check--and lie, as you did this
+afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>Without heeding her remark, he went on,--"You know the picture is
+worthless. He knows it,--Conrad Lagrange knows it,--Jim Rutlidge knows
+it,--the whole damned clique and gang of you know it, He's like all his
+kind,--a pretender,--a poser,--playing into the hands--of such women as
+you; to win social position--and wealth. And we and our kind--we pretend
+to believe--in such damned parasites,--and exalt them and what we--call
+their art,--and keep them in luxury, and buy their pictures;--because they
+prostitute--their talents to gratify our vanity. We know it's all a damned
+sham--and a pretense that if they were real artists,--with an honest
+workman's respect for their work,--they wouldn't--recognize us."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget to send him a check,"--she murmured--"you can't afford to
+neglect it, you know--think how people would talk."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't worry," he replied. "There'll be no talk. I'll send the genius his
+check--for making love--to my wife in the sacred name of art,--and I'll
+lie--about his picture with--the rest of you. But there will be--no more
+of your intimacy with him. You're my wife,--in spite of hell,--and from
+now on--I'll see--that you are true--to me. Your sickening pose--of
+modesty in dress shall be something--more than a pose. For the little time
+I have left,--I'll have--you to--myself or I'll kill you."</p>
+
+<p>His reference to her refusal to uncover her shoulders in public broke the
+woman's calm and aroused her to a cold fury. Springing to her feet, she
+stood over him as he sat huddled in his chair, exhausted by his effort.</p>
+
+<p>"What is your silly, idle threat beside the fact," she said with stinging
+scorn. "To have killed me, instead of making me your wife, would have been
+a kindness greater than you are capable of. You know how unspeakably vile
+you were when you bought me. You know how every hour of my life with you
+has been a torment to me. You should be grateful that I have helped you to
+live your lie--that I have played the game of respectability with
+you--that I am willing to play it a little while longer, until you lay
+down your hand for good, and release us both.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose I <i>were</i> what you think me? What right have <i>you</i> to object to my
+pleasures? Have you--in all your life of idle, vicious, luxury--have you
+ever feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature? You know you
+have not. You have feared only the appearance of evil. To be as evil as
+you like so long as you can avoid the appearance of evil; that's the game
+you have taught me to play. That's the game we have played together.
+That's the game we and our kind insist the artists and writers shall help
+us play. That's the only game I know, and, by the rule of our game, so
+long as the world sees nothing, I shall do what pleases me.</p>
+
+<p>"You have had your day with me. You have had what you paid for. What right
+have you to deny me, now, an hour's forgetfulness? When I think of what I
+might have been, but for you, I wonder that I have cared to live, and I
+would not--except for the poor sport of torturing you.</p>
+
+<p>"You scoff at Mr. King's portrait of me because he has not painted me as I
+am! What would you have said if he <i>had</i> painted me as I am? What would
+you say if Conrad Lagrange should write the truth about us and our kind,
+for his millions of readers? You sneer at me because I cannot uncover my
+shoulders in the conventional dress of my class, and so make a virtue of a
+necessity and deceive the world by a pretense of modesty. Go look in your
+mirror, you fool! Your right to sneer at me for my poor little pretense is
+denied you by every line of your repulsive countenance Now get out. I'm
+going to retire."</p>
+
+<p>And she rang for her maid.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch12" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XII</h2>
+
+<h3>First Fruits of His Shame</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When the postman, in his little cart, stopped at the home of Aaron King
+and his friend, that day, it was Conrad Lagrange who received the mail.
+The artist was in his studio, and the novelist, knowing that the painter
+was not at work, went to him there with a letter.</p>
+
+<p>The portrait--still on the easel--was hidden by the velvet curtain.
+Sitting by a table that was littered with a confusion of sketches, books
+and papers, the young man was re-tying a package of old letters that he
+had, evidently, just been reading.</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist went to him, the artist said quietly,--indicating the
+package in his hand,--"From my mother. She wrote them during the last year
+of my study abroad." When the other did not reply, he continued
+thoughtfully, "Do you know, Lagrange, since my acquaintance with you, I
+find many things in these old letters that--at the time I received them--I
+did not, at all, appreciate. You seem to be helping me, somehow, to a
+better understanding of my mother's spirit and mind." He smiled.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, Conrad Lagrange, when he could trust himself to speak, said,
+"Your mother's mind and spirit, Aaron, were too fine and rare to be fully
+appreciated or understood except by one trained in the school of life,
+itself. When she wrote those letters, you were a student of mere
+craftsmanship. She, herself no doubt, recognized that you would not fully
+comprehend the things she wrote; but she put them down, out of the very
+fullness of her intellectual and spiritual wealth--trusting to your love
+to preserve the letters, and to the years to give you understanding."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," cried the artist, "those are almost her exact words--as I have just
+been reading them!"</p>
+
+<p>The other, smiling, continued quietly, "Your appreciation and
+understanding of your mother will continue to grow through all your life,
+Aaron. When you are old--as old as I am--you will still find in those
+letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths of greater value than you,
+now, can realize. But here--I have brought you your share of the
+afternoon's mail."</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King opened the envelope that his friend laid on the table
+before him, he sat regarding its contents with an air of thoughtful
+meditation--lost to his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist--who had gone to the window and was looking into the rose
+garden--turned to speak to his friend; but the other did not reply. Again,
+the man at the window addressed the painter; but still the younger man was
+silent. At this, Conrad Lagrange came back to the table; an expression of
+anxiety upon his face. "What is it, old man? What's the matter? No bad
+news, I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, laughed shortly, and held
+out to his friend the letter he had just received. It was from Mr. Taine.
+Enclosed was the millionaire's check. The letter was a formal business
+note; the check was for an amount that drew a low whistle from the
+novelist's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Rather higher pay than old brother Judas received for a somewhat similar
+service, isn't it," he commented, as he passed the letter and check back
+to the artist. Then, as he watched the younger man's face, he asked,
+"What's the matter, don't you like the flavor of these first fruits of
+your shame? I advise you to cultivate a taste for this sort of thing as
+quickly as possible--in your own defense."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think you are a little bit too hard on us all, Lagrange?" asked
+the artist, with a faint smile. "These people are satisfied. The picture
+pleases them."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they are pleased," retorted the other. "You know your business.
+That's the trouble with you. That's the trouble with us all, these
+days--we painters and writers and musicians--we know our business too
+damned well. We have the mechanics of our crafts, the tricks of our
+trades, so well in hand that we make our books and pictures and music say
+what we please. We <i>use</i> our art to gain our own vain ends instead of
+being driven <i>by</i> our art to find adequate expression for some great truth
+that demands through us a hearing. You have said it all, my friend--you
+have summed up the whole situation in the present-day world of creative
+art--these people are satisfied. You have given them what they want,
+prostituting your art to do it. That's what I have been doing all these
+years--giving people what they want. For a price we cater to them--even as
+their tailors, and milliners, and barbers. And never again will the world
+have a truly great art or literature until men like us--in the divine
+selfishness of their, calling--demand, first and last, that they,
+<i>themselves</i>, be satisfied by the work of their hands."</p>
+
+<p>Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the curtain. Involuntarily, the
+painter went to stand by his side before the picture.</p>
+
+<p>"Look at it!" cried the novelist. "Look at it in the light of your own
+genius! Don't you see its power? Doesn't it tell you what you <i>could</i> do,
+if you would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you couldn't feel a
+picture to be painted, it wouldn't matter. I'd let you ride to hell on
+your own palette, and be damned to you. But this thing shows a power that
+the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad because it is so good. Come
+here!" he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains.
+"There is an art like those mountains, my boy--lonely, apart from the
+world; remotely above the squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm
+strength and peace--an art to which men may look for inspiration and
+courage and hope. And there is an art that is like Fairlands--petty and
+shallow and mean--with only the fictitious value that its devotees assume,
+but never, actually, realize. Listen, Aaron, don't continue to misread
+your mother's letters. Don't misunderstand her as thinking that the place
+she coveted for you is a place within the power of these people to give.
+Come with me into the mountains, yonder. Come, and let us see if, in those
+hills of God, you cannot find yourself."</p>
+
+<p>When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, for a little, without
+reply--irresolute, before his picture--the check in his hand. At last,
+still without speaking, he went back to the table, where he wrote briefly
+his reply to Mr. Taine. When he had finished, he handed his letter to the
+older man, who read:</p>
+
+<p>   Dear Sir:</p>
+
+<p>   In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your check in payment
+   for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I appreciate your generosity, but
+   cannot, now, accept it.</p>
+
+<p>   I find, upon further consideration, that the portrait does not fully
+   satisfy me. I shall, therefore, keep the canvas until I can, with the
+   consent of my own mind, put my signature upon it.</p>
+
+<p>   Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of course, I cannot accept
+   payment for an unfinished work.</p>
+
+<p>   In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start to the mountains, for an
+   outing. Trusting that you and your family will enjoy the season at Lake
+   Silence I am, with kind regards,</p>
+
+<p>   Yours sincerely, Aaron King.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>That evening, the two men talked over their proposed trip, and laid their
+plans to start without delay As Conrad Lagrange put it--they would lose
+themselves in the hills; with no definite destination in view; and no set
+date for their return. Also, he stipulated that they should travel
+light--with only a pack burro to carry their supplies--and that they
+should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more
+unfrequented trails. The novelist's acquaintance with the country into
+which they would go, and his experience in woodcraft--gained upon many
+like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved--would make a guide
+unnecessary. It would be a new experience for Aaron King; and, as the
+novelist talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy for the trip; while
+the distant mountains, themselves, seemed to call him--inviting him to
+learn the secret of their calm strength and the spirit of their lofty
+peace. The following day, they would spend in town; purchasing an outfit
+of the necessary equipment and supplies, securing a burro, and attending
+to numerous odds and ends of business preparatory to their indefinite
+absence.</p>
+
+<p>It so happened, the next day, that Yee Kee,--who was to care for the place
+during their weeks of absence had matters of importance to himself, that
+demanded his attention in town. When his masters informed him that they
+would not be home for lunch, he took advantage of the opportunity and
+asked for the day.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it came about that Conrad Lagrange--in the spirit of a boy bent upon
+some secret adventure--stole out into the rose garden, that morning, to
+leave the promised letter and key at the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch13" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Myra Willard's Challenge</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Since her meeting with Conrad Lagrange in the rose garden, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s
+had looked, every day, for that promised letter. She found it early in the
+afternoon. It was a quaint letter--written in the spirit of their
+meeting--telling her the probable time of her neighbor's return; warning
+her, in fear of some fanciful horror, to beware of the picture on the
+easel; and wishing her joy of the adventure. With the note, was a key.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, the girl unlocked the door of the studio, and entered
+the building that had once been so familiar to her, but was now, in its
+interior, so transformed. Slowly, she pushed the door to, behind her. As
+though half frightened at her own daring, she stood quite still, looking
+about. In the atmosphere of that somewhat richly furnished apartment;
+poised timidly as if for ready flight; she seemed, indeed, the spirit that
+the novelist--in playful fancy--insisted that she was. Her cheeks were
+glowing with color; her eyes were bright with the excitement of her
+innocent adventure, and with her genuine admiration and appreciation of
+the beautiful room.</p>
+
+<p>Presently,--growing bolder,--she began moving about the
+studio--light-footed and graceful as a wild thing from her own mountain
+home, and, indeed, with much the air of a gentle creature of the woods
+that had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely interested in the
+things she found, she gradually forgot her timidity, and gave herself to
+the enjoyment of her surroundings, with the freedom and abandon of a
+child. From picture to picture, she went, with wide, eager eyes. She
+turned over the sketches in the big portfolios that were so invitingly
+open; looked with awe upon the brushes stuck in the big Chinese jar--upon
+the palettes, and at the tubes of color; flitting to the window that
+looked out upon her garden, and back to the great, north light with its
+view of the distant mountains; and again and again, paused to stand with
+her hands clasped behind her, in front of the big easel with its canvas
+hidden under the velvet curtain. Then she must try the chairs, the
+oriental couch, and even the stool--where she had seen the artist sitting,
+sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him from the arbor; and
+last--in a pretty make believe--she tried the seat on the model throne, as
+though posing herself, for her portrait.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, with a startled cry, she sprang to her feet; then shrank back,
+white and trembling--her big eyes fixed with pleading fear upon the man
+who stood in the open doorway, regarding her with a curious, triumphant
+smile. It was James Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl, occupied with her childlike delight, had failed to hear the
+automobile when it stopped in front of the house. Finding no one in the
+house the man had gone on to the studio, where--with the assurance of an
+intimate acquaintance--he had pushed open the door that was standing ajar.</p>
+
+<p>At the girl's frightened manner, the man laughed. Closing the door, he
+said, with an insinuating sneer, "You were not expecting me, it seems."</p>
+
+<p>His words aroused Sibyl from her momentary weakness. Rising, she said
+calmly, "I was not expecting any one, Mr. Rutlidge."</p>
+
+<p>Again he laughed--with unpleasant meaning. "You certainly look to be very
+much at home." He moved confidently to the easel stool and, seating
+himself continued with a leering smile, "What's the matter with my taking
+the artist's place for a little while--at least, until he comes?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl was too innocent to understand his assumption but her pure mind
+could not fail to sense the evil in his words.</p>
+
+<p>"I had permission to come here this afternoon," she said--her voice
+trembling a little with the fear that she did not understand. "Won't you
+go, please? Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Lagrange are at home."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not doubt your having permission to come here," he returned, with
+meaning stress upon the word, "permission". "I see you even carry a key to
+this really delightful room." He motioned with his head toward the door
+where he had seen the key in the lock, as she had left it.</p>
+
+<p>At this, she grasped a hint of the man's thought and, for an instant, drew
+hack in shame. Then, suddenly with a burst of indignant anger, she took a
+step toward him, demanding clearly; "Are you saying that I am in the
+habit of coming here to meet Mr. King?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed mockingly. "Really, my dear, no one, seeing you, now, could
+blame the man for giving you a key to this place where he is popularly
+supposed to be undisturbed. Mr. King is neither such a virtuous saint, nor
+so engrossed in his art, as to resent the companionship of such a vision
+of loveliness--simply because it comes in the form of good flesh and
+blood. Why be angry with me?"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks were crimson as she said, again, "Will you go?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not until you have settled the terms of peace," he answered with that
+leering smile. "Fortune has favored me, this afternoon, and I mean to
+profit by it."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, she looked at him--frightened and dismayed. Suddenly, with
+the flash-like quickness that was a part of her physical inheritance from
+her mountain life, she darted past him; eluding his effort to detain
+her--and was out of the building.</p>
+
+<p>With an oath, the man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, ran after
+her. Outside the door of the studio, he caught a glimpse of her white
+dress as she disappeared into the rose garden. In the garden, he saw her
+as she slipped through the little gate in the far corner of the hedge,
+into the orange grove. Recklessly he followed. Among the trees, he
+glimpsed, again, the white flash of her skirts, and dashed forward. At the
+farther edge of the grove that walled in the little yard where Sibyl
+lived, he saw her standing by the kitchen door. But between the girl and
+that last row of close-set trees, waiting his coming, stood the woman with
+the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge paused--angry with himself for so foolishly yielding to the
+impulse of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard went toward him fearlessly--her fine eyes blazing with
+righteous indignation. "What are you trying to do, James Rutlidge?" she
+demanded--and her words were bold and clear.</p>
+
+<p>The man was silent.</p>
+
+<p>"You are evidently a worthy son of your father," the woman
+continued--every clear-cut word biting into his consciousness with
+stinging scorn. "He, in his day, did all he knew to turn this world into a
+hell for those who were unfortunate enough to please his vile fancy. You,
+I see, are following faithfully his footsteps. I know you, and the creed
+of your kind--as I knew your father before you. No girl of innocent beauty
+is safe from you. Your unclean mind is as incapable of believing in
+virtue, as you are helpless in the grip of your own insane lust."</p>
+
+<p>The man was stung to fury by her cutting words. "Take your ugly face out
+of my sight," he said brutally.</p>
+
+<p>Fearlessly, she drew a step nearer. "It is because I am a woman that I
+have this ugly face, James Rutlidge." She touched her disfigured
+cheek--"These scars are the marks of the beast that rules you, sir, body
+and soul. Leave this place, or, as there is a God, I'll tell a tale that
+will forbid you ever showing your own evil countenance in public, again."</p>
+
+<p>Something in her eyes and in her manner, as she spoke, caused the
+man--beside himself with rage, as he was--to draw back. Some mysterious
+force that made itself felt in her bold words told him that hers was no
+idle threat. A moment they stood face to face, in the edge of the shadowy
+orange grove--the man of the world, prominent in circles of art and
+culture; and the woman whose natural loveliness was so distorted into a
+hideous mask of ugliness. With a short, derisive laugh, James Rutlidge
+turned and walked away.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were returning from town. As they neared
+their home, they saw one of the Taine automobiles in front of the house.
+"Company," said the artist with a smile--thinking of his letter to the
+millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>"It's Rutlidge," said the novelist--noting the absence of the chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>They were turning in at the entrance, when Czar--who had dashed ahead as
+if to investigate--halted, suddenly, with a low growl of disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>"Huh!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange, with his twisted grin. "It's Senior
+'Sensual' all right. Look at Czar; he knows the beast is around. Go fetch
+him, Czar."</p>
+
+<p>With an angry bark, the dog disappeared around the corner of the porch.
+The two men, following, were met by Rutlidge who had made his way back
+through the grove and the rose garden from the house next door. The dog,
+with muttering growls, was sniffing suspiciously at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>"Czar," said his master, suggestively. With a meaning glance, the dog
+reluctantly ceased his embarrassing attentions and went to see if
+everything was all right about the premises.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to their greeting and the quite natural question if he had been
+waiting long, Rutlidge answered with a laugh. "Oh, no--I have been amusing
+myself by prowling around your place. Snug quarters you have here; really,
+I never quite appreciated their charm, before."</p>
+
+<p>They seated themselves on the porch. Conrad Lagrange--thinking of Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s and that letter which he had left on the gate--from under his
+brows, watched their caller closely; the while he filled with painstaking
+care his brier pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"We like it," returned the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"I should think so--I'd be sorry to leave it if I were you. Mr. Taine
+tells me you are going to the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"We're not giving up this place, though," replied Aaron King. "Yee Kee
+stays to take care of things until our return."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I see. I generally go into the mountains, myself for a little hunt
+when the deer season opens. It may be that I will run across you
+somewhere. By the way--you haven't met your musical neighbor yet, have
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>The novelist gave particular attention to his pipe which did not seem to
+be behaving properly.</p>
+
+<p>The artist answered shortly, "No."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd certainly make her acquaintance, if I were you," said Rutlidge, with
+his suggestive smile. "She is a dream. A delightful little retreat--that
+studio of yours."</p>
+
+<p>The painter, puzzled by the man's words and by his insinuating air,
+returned coldly, "It does very well for a work-shop."</p>
+
+<p>The other laughed meaningly; "Yes, oh yes--a great little work-shop. I
+suppose you--ah--do not fear to trust your <i>art treasures</i> to the
+Chinaman, during your absence?"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange--certain, now, that the man had seen Sibyl Andr&eacute;s either
+entering or leaving the studio--said abruptly, "You need give yourself no
+concern for Mr. King's studio, Rutlidge. I can assure you that the
+treasures there will be well protected."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge understood the warning conveyed in the novelist's words
+that, to Aaron King, revealed nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," said the painter to their caller, "you are not uneasy for the
+safety of Mrs. Taine's portrait, are you, old man? If you are, of
+course--"</p>
+
+<p>"Damn Mrs. Taine's portrait!" ejaculated the man, rising hurriedly. "You
+know what I mean. It's all right, of course. I must be going. Hope you
+have a good outing and come back to find all your art treasures safe." He
+laughed coarsely, as he went down the walk.</p>
+
+<p>When the automobile was gone, the artist turned to his friend. "Now what
+in thunder did he mean by that? What's the matter with him? Do you suppose
+they imagine that there is anything wrong because I wouldn't turn over the
+picture?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is an unclean beast, Aaron," the novelist answered shortly. "His
+father was the worst I ever knew, and he's like him. Forget him. Here
+comes the delivery boy with our stuff. Let's overhaul the outfit. I hope
+they'll get here with that burro, before dark. Where'll we put him, in the
+studio, heh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Look here,"--said the artist a few minutes later, returning from a visit
+to the studio for something,--"this is what was the matter with Rutlidge.
+And you did it, old man. This is your key."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked the other in confusion taking the key.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, I found the studio door wide open, with your key in the lock. You
+must have been out there, just before we left this morning, and forgot to
+shut the door. Rutlidge probably noticed it when he was prowling about the
+place, and was trying to roast me for my carelessness."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange stared stupidly at the key in his hand. "Well I <i>am</i>
+damned," he muttered. Then added, in savage and--as it seemed to the
+artist--exaggerated wrath, "I'm a stupid, blundering, irresponsible old
+fool." Nor was he consoled when the painter innocently assured him that no
+harm had resulted from his carelessness.</p>
+
+<p>That night, as the two men sat on the porch, watching the last of the
+light on the mountain tops, they heard again the cry of fear and pain that
+came from the little house hidden in the depths of the orange grove.
+Wonderingly they listened. Once more it came--filled with shuddering
+terror.</p>
+
+<p>When the sound was not repeated, Conrad Lagrange thoughtfully knocked the
+ashes from his pipe. "Poor soul," he said. "Those scars did more than
+disfigure her beautiful face. I'll wager there's a sad story there, Aaron.
+It's strange how I am haunted by the impression that I ought to know her.
+But I can't make it come clear. Heigho,"--he added a moment later as if to
+free his mind from unpleasant thoughts,--"I'll be glad when we are safely
+up in the hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though we're
+getting away just in the nick of time. My back hair and the pricking of my
+thumbs warn me that your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up
+some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee has a plentiful supply
+of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, if they get too busy while we are gone."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed quietly in the dusk, as he returned "And I have a
+presentiment that those precious members of our household are preparing to
+accompany us to the hills. I feel in my bones that something is going to
+happen up there"--he pointed to the distant mountains, then added--"to me,
+at least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself good-by--if you know
+what I mean. I hope that donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he
+is, that he'll listen to reason and be content with his escorts of flesh
+and blood."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, the quiet of the evening was broken by a lusty,
+"Hee-haw, hee-haw," in front of the house.</p>
+
+<p>"There, I told you so!" ejaculated the painter.</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, the two men followed Czar down the walk, in the dark, to
+receive the shaggy, long-eared companion for their wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>As many a man has done--Aaron King had spoken, in jest, more truth than he
+knew.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch14" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>In The Mountains</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+In the gray of the early morning, hours before the dwellers on Fairlands
+Heights thought of leaving their beds, Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange made
+ready for their going.</p>
+
+<p>The burro, Croesus--so named by the novelist because, as the famous writer
+explained, "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was an
+ass"--was to be entrusted with all the available worldly possessions of
+the little party. An arrangement--the more experienced man carefully
+pointed out--that, considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was
+quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange,
+himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place--adjusting the saddle with
+careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top,
+and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly
+tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the
+uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their
+march, also, would place Croesus first; which position--the novelist,
+again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight--is held by all who
+value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As he
+watched his friend, the artist felt that, indeed, he was about to go far
+from the ways of life that he had always known.</p>
+
+<p>When all was ready, the two men--dressed in flannels, corduroys, and
+high-laced, mountain boots--called good-by to Yee Kee, respectfully
+invited Croesus to proceed, and set out--with Czar, the fourth member of
+the party, flying here and there in such a whirlwind of good spirits that
+not a shred of his usual dignity was left. The sun was still below the
+mountain's crest, though the higher points were gilded with its light,
+when they turned their backs upon the city made by men, and set their
+faces toward the hills that bore in every ridge and peak and cliff and
+crag and canyon the signature of God.</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad Lagrange said--they might have hired a wagon, or even an
+automobile, to take them and their goods to some mountain ranch where they
+would have had no trouble in securing a burro for their wanderings A team
+would have made the trip by noon. A machine would have set them down in
+Clear Creek Canyon before the sun could climb high enough to look over the
+canyon walls. "But that"--explained the novelist, as they trudged
+leisurely along between rows of palms that bordered the orange groves on
+either side of their road, and sensed the mystery that marks the birth of
+a new day--"but that is not a proper way to go to the mountains.</p>
+
+<p>"The mountains"--he continued, with his eyes upon the distant
+heights--"are not seen by those who would visit them with a rattle and
+clatter and rush and roar--as one would visit the cities of men. They are
+to be seen only by those who have the grace to go quietly; who have the
+understanding to go thoughtfully; the heart to go lovingly; and the spirit
+to go worshipfully. They are to be approached, not in the manner of one
+going to a horse-race, or a circus, but in the mood of one about to enter
+a great cathedral; or, indeed, of one seeking admittance to the very
+throne-room of God. When going to the mountains, one should take time to
+feel them drawing near. They are never intimate with those who hurry. Mere
+sight-seers seldom see much of anything. If possible,"--insisted the
+speaker, smiling gravely upon his companion,--"one should always spend, at
+least, a full day in the approach. Before entering the immediate presence
+of the hills, one should first view them from a distance, seeing them from
+base to peak--in the glory of the day's beginning, as they watch the world
+awake; in the majesty of full noon, as they maintain their calm above the
+turmoil of the day's doing; and in the glory of the sun's departure, as it
+lights last their crests and peaks. And then, after such a day, one should
+sleep, one night, at their feet."</p>
+
+<p>The artist listened with delight, as he always did when his friend spoke
+in those rare moods that revealed a nature so unknown to the world that
+had made him famous. When the novelist finished, the young man said
+gently, "And your words, my friend, are almost a direct quotation from
+that anonymous book which my mother so loved."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they are, Aaron"--admitted Conrad Lagrange--"perhaps they are."</p>
+
+<p>So it was that they spent that day--in leisure approach--the patient
+Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry
+sprite, playing here and there. Several times they stopped to rest beside
+the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or
+weeds. Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every
+step.</p>
+
+<p>Their road led always upward, with a gradual, easy grade; and by noon they
+had left the cultivated section of the lower valley for the higher,
+untilled lands. The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the lighter
+shining tints of the lemon groves, with the rich, satiny-gray tones of the
+olive-trees, were replaced now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and
+browns of the chaparral. The air was no longer heavy with the perfume of
+roses and orange-blossoms, but came to their nostrils laden with the
+pungent odors of yerba santa and greasewood and sage. Looking back, they
+could see the valley--marked off by its roads into many squares of green,
+and dotted here and there by small towns and cities--stretching away
+toward the western ocean until it was lost in a gray-blue haze out of
+which the distant San Gabriels, beyond Cajon Pass, lifted into the clear
+sky above, like the shore-line of dreamland rising out of a dream sea.
+Before them, the San Bernardinos drew ever nearer and more
+intimate--silently inviting them; patiently, with a world old patience,
+bidding them come; in the majestic humbleness of their lofty spirit,
+offering themselves and the wealth of their teaching.</p>
+
+<p>So they came, in the late afternoon, to that spot where the road for the
+first time crosses the alder and cottonwood bordered stream that, before
+it reaches the valley, is drawn from its natural course by the irrigation
+flumes and pipes.</p>
+
+<p>The sound of the mountain waters leaping down their granite-bouldered way
+reached the men while they were yet some distance. Croesus pointed his
+long ears forward in burro anticipation--his experience telling him that
+the day's work was about to end. Czar was already ranging along the side
+of the creek--sending a colony of squirrels scampering to the tree tops,
+and a bevy of quail whirring to the chaparral in frightened flight. The
+artist greeted the waters with a schoolboy shout of gladness. Conrad
+Lagrange, with the smile and the voice of a man miraculously recreated,
+said quietly, "This is the place where we stop for the night."</p>
+
+<p>Their camp was a simple matter. Croesus asked nothing but to be released
+from his burden--being quite capable of caring for himself. A wash in the
+clear, cold water of the brook; a simple meal, prepared by Conrad Lagrange
+over a small fire made of sticks gathered by the artist; their tarpaulin
+and blankets spread within sound of the music of the stream; a watching of
+the sun's glorious going down; a quiet pipe in the hush of the mysterious
+twilight; a "good night" in the soft darkness, when the myriad stars
+looked down upon the dull red glow of their camp-fire embers; with the
+guarding spirit of the mighty hills to give them peace--and they lay down
+to sleep at the mountain's feet.</p>
+
+<p>There is no sleeping late in the morning when one sleeps in the open,
+under the stars. After breakfast, the artist received another lesson in
+packing, and they moved on toward the world that already seemed to dwarf
+that other world which they had left, by one day's walking, so far below.
+A heavy fog, rolling in from the ocean in the night, submerged the valley
+in its dull, gray depths--leaving to the eye no view but the view of the
+mountains before them, and forcing upon the artist's mind the weird
+impression that the life he had always known was a fantastically unreal
+dream.</p>
+
+<p>And now,--as they approached,--the frowning entrance of Clear Creek Canyon
+grew more and more clearly defined. The higher peaks appeared to draw back
+and hide themselves behind the foothills, which--as the men came closer
+under their immediate slopes and walls--seemed to grow magically in height
+and bulk. A little before noon, they were in the rocky vestibule of the
+canyon. On either hand, the walls rose almost sheer, while their road,
+now, was but a narrow shelf under the overhanging cliffs, below which the
+white waters of the stream--cold from the snows so far above--tumbled
+impetuously over the boulders that obstructed their way--filling the
+hall-like gorge with tumultuous melody. Soon, the canyon narrowed to less
+than a stone's throw in width. The walls grew more grim and forbidding in
+their rocky nearness. And then they came to that point where, on either
+side, great cliffs, projecting, form the massive, rugged portals of the
+mountain's gate.</p>
+
+<p>First seen, from a point where the road rounds a jutting corner on the
+extreme right, the projecting cliffs ahead appear as a blank wall of rock
+that forbids further progress. But, as the men moved forward,--the road
+swinging more toward the center of the gorge,--the cliffs seemed to draw
+apart, and, through the way thus opened, they saw the great canyon and the
+mountains beyond. It was as though a mighty, invisible hand rolled
+silently back those awful doors to give them entrance.</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly, upon the inner side of the narrow passage the canyon widens to
+many times the width of the outer vestibule; and the road, crossing the
+creek, curves to the left; so that, looking back as they went, the two men
+saw the mighty doors closing again, behind them--as they had opened to let
+them in. It was as though that spirit sentinel, guarding the treasures of
+the hills, had jealously barred the way, that no one else from the world
+of men might follow.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King stopped. Drawing a deep breath, and removing his hat, he turned
+his face from that mountain wall, upward to the encircling pine-fringed
+ridges and towering peaks. He had, indeed, come far from the world that he
+had always known.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, smiling, watched his friend, but spoke no word.</p>
+
+<p>Clear Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow valley, some fifteen miles in length,
+and approaching a mile in its greatest width; lying between the main range
+of the San Bernardinos and the lower ridge of the Galenas. The lower end
+of the canyon is shut in by the sheer cliff walls, and by the rugged
+portals of the narrow entrance; the upper end is formed by the dividing
+ridge that separates the Clear Creek from the Cold Water country which
+opens out onto the Colorado Desert below San Gorgonio Pass and the peaks
+of the San Jacintos. Perhaps two miles above the entrance the canyon
+widens to its greatest width; and in this portion of the little
+valley,--which extends some five miles to where the walls again draw
+close,--located on the benches above the boulder-strewn wash of Clear
+Creek, are the homes of several mountain ranchers, and the Government
+Forest Ranger Station.</p>
+
+<p>At the Ranger Station, they stopped--Conrad Lagrange wishing to greet the
+mountaineer official, whom he had learned to know on his former trip. But
+the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his lonely trails, and they did not
+tarry.</p>
+
+<p>Just above the Station, they left the main road to follow the way that
+leads to the Morton Ranch in the mouth of Alder Canyon--a small side
+canyon leading steeply up to a low gap in the main range. Beyond Morton's,
+there is only a narrow trail. Three hundred yards above the ranch corral,
+where the road ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the
+mountaineer's home were lost to view. Except for the narrow winding path
+that they must follow single file, there was no sign of human life.</p>
+
+<p>For three weeks, they knew no roads other than those lonely, mountain
+trails. At times, they walked under dark pines where the ground was
+thickly carpeted with the dead, brown needles and the air was redolent
+with the odor of the majestic trees; or made their camps at night, feeding
+their blazing fires with the pitchy knots and cones. At other times, they
+found their way through thickets of manzanita and buckthorn, along the
+mountain's flank; or, winding zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made
+themselves at home under the slender, small-trunked alders; and added to
+the stores that Croesus packed, many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy
+torrent. Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or peak, where
+the pines were twisted and battered and torn by the warring elements, they
+looked far down upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world below;
+or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their fires; and, when the
+night was clear, saw, miles away and below, the thousands of twinkling
+star-like lights of the world they had left behind. Or, again, they halted
+in some forest and hill encircled glen; where the lush grass in the
+cienaga grew almost as high as Croesus' back, and the lilies even higher;
+and where, through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come down to
+drink at the beginning of some mountain stream. At last, their wanderings
+carried them close under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio--the loftiest
+of all the peaks. That night, they camped at timber-line and in the
+morning,--leaving Croesus and the outfit, while it was still dark,--made
+their way to the top, in time to see the sun come up from under the edge
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>So they were received into the inner life of the mountains; so the spirit
+that dwells in that unmarred world whispered to them the secrets of its
+enduring strength and lofty peace.</p>
+
+<p>From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that leads down to upper Clear
+Creek--halting, one night, at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the
+falls. Then--leaving the Laurel trail--they climbed over a spur of the
+main range, and so down the steep wall of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern
+Creek. The next day, they made their way on down to the floor of the main
+canyon--five miles above the point where they had left it at the beginning
+of their wanderings.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the canyon at the Clear Creek Power Company's intake, they took
+the company trail that follows the pipe-line along the southern wall. From
+the headwork to the reservoir two thousand feet above the power-house at
+the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, this trail is cut in the steep side of
+the Galena range--overhanging the narrow valley below--nine beautiful
+miles of it. At Oak Knoll,--where a Government trail for the Forest Ranger
+zigzags down from the pipe-line to the wagon road below,--they halted.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange explained that there were three ways back to the world
+they had left, nearly a month before--the pipe-line trail to the reservoir
+and so down to the power-house and the Fairlands road; the Government
+trail from the pipe-line, over the Galenas to the valley on the other
+side; or, the Oak Knoll trail down to Clear Creek and out through the
+canyon gates--the way they had come.</p>
+
+<p>"But," objected Aaron King, lazily,--from where he lay under a live-oak on
+the mountainside, a few feet above the trail,--"either route presupposes
+our wish to return to Fairlands."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist laughed. "Listen to him, Czar,"--he said to the dog lying at
+his feet,--"listen to that painter-man. He doesn't want to go back to
+Fairlands any more than we do, does he?"</p>
+
+<p>Rising, Czar looked at his master a moment, with slow waving tail, then
+turned inquiringly toward the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the young man, "what about it, old boy? Which trail shall we
+take? Or shall we take any of them?"</p>
+
+<p>With a prodigious yawn,--as though to indicate that he wearied of their
+foolish indecision,--Czar turned, with a low "woof," toward the fourth
+member of the company, who was browsing along the edge of the trail.
+Whenever Czar was in doubt as to the wants of his human companions he
+always barked at the burro.</p>
+
+<p>"He says, 'ask Croesus'," commented the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" cried the older man, with another laugh. "Let's put it up to the
+financier and let him choose."</p>
+
+<p>"Wait,"--said the artist, as the other turned toward the burro,--"don't be
+hasty--the occasion calls for solemn meditation and lofty discourse."</p>
+
+<p>"Your pardon,"--returned the novelist,--"'tis so. I will orate." Carefully
+selecting a pebble in readiness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the
+shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack is lighter by many
+meals than when first thou didst set out from that land where we did
+rescue thee from the hands of thy tormenting trader; but thy
+responsibilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom of thy choice,
+now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy chance, O illustrious ass, to
+recompense the world, this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious
+ancestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the way thy
+benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, Croesus, that thou dost choose
+wisely; or, by thy ears, we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the
+mountainside--a warning to thy kind."</p>
+
+<p>The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it
+was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus--with an indignant jerk of his
+head, and a flirt of his tail--started forward. At the fork of the trail,
+he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of
+accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and
+trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
+Laughing, the men followed--but far enough in the rear to permit their
+leader to choose his own way when they should reach the wagon road at the
+foot of the mountain wall. Without an instant's hesitation, Croesus turned
+down the road--quickening his pace, almost, into a trot.</p>
+
+<p>"By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like he knew where he was
+going."</p>
+
+<p>"He's taking you at your word," returned the artist. "Look at him go!
+Evidently, he's still under the inspiration of your oratory."</p>
+
+<p>The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gallop that caused the
+frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed on the outside of the pack, to rattle
+merrily. Splashing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark shadow of
+a thicket of alders and willows, where the road crosses a tiny rivulet
+that flows from a spring a hundred yards above. Climbing out of this
+gloomy hollow, the road turns sharply to the left, and the men hurried on
+to overtake their four-footed guide before he should be too long out of
+their sight. Just at the top of the little rise, before rounding the turn,
+they stopped. A few feet to the right of the road, with his nose at an
+old gate, stood Croesus. Nor would he heed Czar's bark commanding him to
+go on.</p>
+
+<p>On the other side of the fence, an old and long neglected apple orchard, a
+tumble-down log barn, and the wreck of a house with the fireplace and
+chimney standing stark and alone, told the story. The place was one of
+those old ranches, purchased by the Power Company for the water rights,
+and deserted by those who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient
+wagon tracks, overgrown with weeds, led somewhere around the edge of the
+orchard and were lost in the tangle of trees and brush on its lower side.</p>
+
+<p>The two men looked at each other in laughing surprise. The burro, turning
+his head, gazed at them over his shoulder, inquiringly, as much as to say,
+"Well, what's the matter now? Why don't you come along?"</p>
+
+<p>"When in doubt, ask Croesus," said the artist, gravely.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange calmly opened the gate.</p>
+
+<p>Promptly, the burro trotted ahead. Following the ancient weed-grown
+tracks, he led them around the lower end of the orchard; crossed a little
+stream; and, turning again, climbed a gentle rise of open, grassy land
+behind the orchard; stopping at last, with an air of having accomplished
+his purpose, in a beautiful little grove of sycamore trees that bordered a
+small cienaga.</p>
+
+<p>Completely hidden by the old orchard from the road in front, and backed by
+the foot of the mountain spur that here forms the northern wall of the
+little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view of the encircling
+peaks and ridges. San Bernardino was almost above their heads. To the
+east, were the more rugged walls of the upper and narrower end of the
+canyon; in their front, the beautiful Oak Knoll, with the dark steeps and
+pine-fringed crest of the Galenas against the sky; while to the west, the
+blue peaks of the far San Gabriels showed above the lower spurs and
+foothills of the more immediate range. The foreground was filled in by the
+gentle slope leading down to the tiny stream at the edge of the old
+orchard and, a little to the left, by the cienaga--rich in the color of
+its tall marsh grass and reeds, gemmed with brilliant flowers of gold and
+scarlet, bordered by graceful willows, and screened from the eye of the
+chance traveler by the lattice of tangled orchard boughs.</p>
+
+<p>Seated in the shade of the sycamores on the little knoll, the two friends
+enjoyed the beauty of the scene, and the charming seclusion of the lovely
+retreat; while Croesus stood patiently, as though waiting to be rewarded
+for his virtue, by the removal of his pack. Even Czar refrained from
+charging here and there, and lay down contentedly at their feet, with an
+air of having reached at last the place they had been seeking.</p>
+
+<p>A few days later found them established in a comfortable camp; with tents
+and furniture and hammocks and books and the delighted Yee Kee to take
+care of them. It had been easy to secure permission from the neighboring
+rancher who leased the orchard from the Company. Conrad Lagrange, with
+the man and his big mountain wagon, had made a trip to town--returning the
+next day with Yee Kee and the outfit. He brought, also, things from the
+studio; for the artist declared that he would no longer be without the
+materials of his art.</p>
+
+<p>The first day after the camp was built, the artist--declaring that he
+would settle the question, at once, as to whether Yee Kee could cook a
+trout as skillfully as the novelist--took rod and flies, and--leaving the
+famous author in a hammock, with Czar lying near--set out up the canyon.
+For perhaps two miles, the painter followed the creek--taking here and
+there from clear pool or swirling eddy a fish for his creel, and pausing
+often, as he went, to enjoy--in artist fashion--the beauties of the ever
+changing landscape.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon was almost gone when he finally turned back toward camp. He
+had been away, already longer than he intended; but still--as all
+fishermen will understand--he could not, on his way back down the stream,
+refrain from casting here and there over the pools that tempted him.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was touching the crest of the mountains when he had made but
+little more than half the distance of his return. He had just sent his fly
+skillfully over a deep pool in the shadow of a granite boulder, for what
+he determined must be his last cast, when, startlingly clear and sweet,
+came the tones of a violin.</p>
+
+<p>A master trout leaped. The hand of the unheeding fisherman felt the tug
+as the leader broke. Giving the victorious fish no thought, Aaron King
+slowly reeled in his line.</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking the pure, vibrant tones of the music to which the
+man listened with amazed delight. It was the music of the, to him, unknown
+violinist who lived hidden in the orange grove next door to his studio
+home in Fairlands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch15" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XV</h2>
+
+<h3>The Forest Ranger's Story</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Perhaps the motive that, in Fairlands, had restrained the artist from
+seeking to know his neighbor was without force in the mountains. Perhaps
+it was that, in the unconventional freedom of the hills, the man obeyed
+more readily his impulse. Aaron King did not stop to question. As though
+in answer to the call of that spirit which spoke in the tones of the
+violin, he moved in the direction from which the music came.</p>
+
+<p>Climbing out of the bed of the stream to the bench that slopes hack--a
+quarter of a mile, perhaps--to the foot of the canyon wall, he found
+himself in an old road that, where it once crossed the creek, had been
+destroyed by the mountain floods. Wonderingly he followed the dimly marked
+track that led through the chaparral toward a thicket of cedars, from
+beyond which the music seemed to come. Where the road curved to find its
+way through the green barrier he paused--the musician, undoubtedly, now,
+was just beyond. Still acting upon the impulse of the moment, he
+cautiously parted the boughs and peered through into a little, open glade
+that was closed in on every side by the rank growth of the mountain
+vegetation, by the thicket of dark cedars and by tangled masses of wild
+rose-bushes. Opposite the spot where he stood, and half concealed by great
+sycamore trees, was a small, log house with a thread of blue smoke curling
+lazily from the chimney. The place was another of those old ranches that
+had been purchased by the Power Company and permitted to go back to the
+wilderness from which it had been won by some hardy settler. The little
+plot of open ground--well sodded with firm turf and short-cropped by
+roving cattle and deer--had evidently been, at one time, the front yard of
+the mountaineer's home. A little out from the porch, and in full view of
+the artist,--her graceful form outlined against the background of wild
+roses,--stood Sibyl Andr&eacute;s with her violin.</p>
+
+<p>As the girl played,--her winsome face upturned to the mountain heights and
+her body, lightly poised, swaying with the movement of her arm as easily
+as a willow bough,--she appeared, to the man hidden in the cedars, as some
+beautiful spirit of the woods and hills--a spirit that would vanish
+instantly if he should step from his hiding place. He was so close that he
+could see her blue eyes, wide and unmindful of her surroundings; her lips,
+curved in an unconscious smile; and her cheeks, flushed with emotion under
+their warm brown tint--as she appeared to listen for the music that she,
+in turn,--seemingly with no effort of her will,--gave forth again in the
+tones of the instrument under her chin.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was moved by the beauty of the picture as he had never been
+stirred before. The peculiar charm of the music; the loveliness of the
+girl herself; the setting of the scene in the little glade with its wild
+roses, giant sycamores, dark cedars, and encircling mountain walls, all in
+the soft mystery of the twilight's beginning; and, withal, the
+unexpectedness of the vision--combined to make an impression upon the
+artist's mind that would endure for many years.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as he watched, the music ceased. The girl lowered her violin,
+and, with a low laugh, said to some one on the porch--concealed from the
+painter by the trunk of a sycamore--"O Myra, I want to dance. I can't keep
+still. I'm so glad, glad to be home again--to see old 'San Berdo' and
+'Gray Back' and all the rest of them up there!" She stretched out her arms
+as if in answer to a welcome from the hills. Then, whirling quickly, she
+gave the violin to her companion on the porch. "Play, Myra; please, dear,
+play."</p>
+
+<p>At her word, the music of the violin began again--coming now, from behind
+the trunk of the sycamore. In the hands of the unseen musician, the
+instrument laughed and sang a song of joyous abandonment--of freedom and
+rejoicing--of happiness and love--while in perfect harmony with the spirit
+and the rhythm of the melody, the girl danced upon the firm, green carpet
+of grass. Here and there, to and fro, about the little glade shut in from
+the world by its walls of living green, she tripped and whirled in
+unstudied grace--lightly as if winged--unconscious as the wild creatures
+that play in the depths of the woods--wayward as the zephyr that trips
+along the mountainside.</p>
+
+<p>It was a spontaneous expression of her spiritual and physical exaltation
+and was as natural as the laughter in her voice or the flush upon her
+cheeks. It was a dance that was like no dance that Aaron King had ever
+seen.</p>
+
+<p>The artist--watching through the screen of cedar boughs beside the old
+wagon road and scarcely daring to breathe lest the beautiful vision should
+vanish--forgot his position--forgot what he was doing. Fascinated by the
+scene to which he had been led, so unexpectedly by the music he had so
+often heard while at work in his studio, he was unmindful of the rude part
+he was playing. He was brought suddenly to himself by a heavy hand upon
+his shoulder. As he straightened, the hand whirled him half around and he
+found himself looking into a face that was tanned and seamed by many years
+in the open.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had so unceremoniously commanded the artist's attention stood
+a little above six feet in height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but
+full-muscled build that so often marks the mountain bred. He wore no coat.
+At his hip, a heavy Colt revolver hung in its worn holster from a full,
+loosely buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest was the shield
+of the United States Forest Service. From under the brim of his slouch
+hat, he gazed at Aaron King questioningly--in angry disapproval.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, neither of the men spoke. A word would have been heard the
+other side of the cedars. With a gesture commanding the artist to follow,
+the Ranger quietly, withdrew along the wagon road toward the creek.</p>
+
+<p>When they were at a distance where their voices would not reach the girl
+in the glade, the Ranger said with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps
+you will tell me who you are and what you mean by spying upon a couple of
+women, like that."</p>
+
+<p>The other could not conceal his embarrassment. "I don't blame you for
+calling me to account," he said. "If it were me--if our positions were
+reversed I mean--I should kick you down into the creek there."</p>
+
+<p>The cold, blue eyes--that had been measuring the painter so
+shrewdly--twinkled with a hint of humor. "You <i>do</i> look like a gentleman,
+you know," the officer said,--as if excusing himself for not following the
+artist's suggestion. "But, all the same, you must explain. Who are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"That part is easy, at least," returned the other. "Though the
+circumstance of our meeting <i>is</i> a temptation to lie."</p>
+
+<p>"Which would do you no good, and might lead to unpleasant complications,"
+retorted the Ranger, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>The man under question, still embarrassed, laughed shortly, as he
+returned, "I really was not thinking of it seriously. My name is Aaron
+King. I am an artist. You are Mr. Oakley, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>The officer nodded--beginning to smile. "Yes, I am Brian Oakley."</p>
+
+<p>The artist continued, "A month ago, Conrad Lagrange and I came into the
+mountains for an outing. We stopped at the Station, but there was no one
+at home. Most of the time, we have been just roaming around. Now, we are
+camped down there, back of that old apple orchard."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger broke into a laugh. "Mrs. Oakley was visiting friends up the
+canyon, the day you came in; but Morton told me. I've crossed your trail a
+dozen times, and sighted you nearly as many; but I was always too busy to
+go to you. I knew Lagrange didn't need any attention, you see; so I just
+figured on meeting up with you somewhere by accident like--about meal
+time, mebbe." He laughed again. "The accident part worked out all right."
+He paused, still laughing--enjoying the artist's discomfiture; then ended
+with a curious--"What in thunder were you sneaking around in the brush
+like that for, anyway? Those women won't bite."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King explained how he had heard the music while fishing; and how,
+following the sound, he had acted upon an impulse to catch a glimpse of
+the unknown musician before revealing himself; and then, in his interest,
+had forgotten that he was playing the part of a spy--until so rudely
+aroused by the hand of the Ranger.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley chuckled; "If <i>I'd</i> acted upon impulse when I first saw you
+peeking through those cedars, you would have been more surprised than you
+were. But while I was sneaking up on you I noticed your get-up--with your
+creel and rod--and figured how you might have come there. So I thought I
+would go a little slow."</p>
+
+<p>"And you wear rather heavy boots too," said the artist suggestively. Then,
+more at ease, he joined in the laugh at himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Catch any fish?" asked the Ranger--lifting the cover of the creel.
+"Whee!" as he saw the contents. "That's bully! And I'm hungry as a she
+wolf too! Been in the saddle since sunup without a bite. What do you say
+if I make that long deferred social call upon you and Lagrange this
+evening?"</p>
+
+<p>"I say, good! Mr. Oakley," returned the artist, heartily. "I guess you
+know what Lagrange will say."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I do." He whistled--a low, birdlike note. In answer, a beautiful,
+chestnut saddle-horse came out of the chaparral, where it had not been
+seen by the painter. "We're going, Max," said the officer, in a
+matter-of-fact way. And, as the two men set out, the horse followed, with
+a business-like air that brought a word of admiring comment from the
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>That Aaron King had won the approval of the Ranger was evidenced by the
+mountaineer's inviting himself to supper the camp in the sycamores. The
+fact that the officer considerately told Conrad Lagrange only that he had
+met the artist with his creel full of trout, and so had been tempted to
+accompany him, won the enduring gratitude of the young man. Thus the
+circumstances of their meeting introduced each to the other, with
+recommendations of peculiar value, and marked the beginning of a genuine
+and lasting friendship. But, while, out of delicate regard for the
+artist's feelings, he refrained from relating the--to the young
+man--embarrassing incident, Brian Oakley could not resist making, at every
+opportunity, sly references to their meeting--for the painter's benefit
+and his own amusement. Thus it happened that, after supper, as they sat
+with their pipes, the talk turned upon Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the woman with the
+disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger, to tease the artist, had remarked casually,--after
+complimenting them upon the location of their camp,--"And you've got some
+mighty nice neighbors, less than a mile above too."</p>
+
+<p>"Neighbors!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange--in a tone that left no doubt as
+to his sentiment in the matter.</p>
+
+<p>The others laughed; while the officer said, "Oh, I know how <i>you</i> feel!
+You think you don't want anybody poaching on your preserves. You're up
+here in the hills to get away from people, and all that. But you don't
+need to be uneasy. You won't even see these folks--unless you sneak up on
+them." He stole a look at the artist, and chuckled maliciously as the
+painter covertly shook his fist at him. "You may <i>hear</i> them though."</p>
+
+<p>"Which would probably be as bad," retorted the novelist, gruffly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know!" returned the other. "You might be able to stand it. I
+don't reckon you would object to a little music now and then, would
+you?--<i>real</i> music, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"So our neighbors are musical, are they?" The novelist seemed slightly
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Sibyl Andr&eacute;s is the most accomplished violinist I have ever heard," said
+the Ranger. "And I haven't always lived in these mountains, you know. As
+for Myra Willard--well--she taught Sibyl--though she doesn't pretend to
+equal her now."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange was interested, now, in earnest He turned to the artist,
+eagerly--but with caution--"Do you suppose it could be our neighbors in
+the orange grove, Aaron?"</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley watched them with quiet amusement.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it is," returned the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"You know it is!" ejaculated the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure--I heard the violin this afternoon. While I was fishing," he added
+hastily, when the Ranger laughed.</p>
+
+<p>The novelist commented savagely, "Seems to me you're mighty careful about
+keeping your news to yourself!"</p>
+
+<p>This brought another burst of merriment from the mountaineer.</p>
+
+<p>When the two men had explained to the Ranger about the music in the orange
+grove, Conrad Lagrange related how they had first heard that cry in the
+night; and how, when they had gone to the neighboring house, they had seen
+the woman of the disfigured face standing in the doorway.</p>
+
+<p>"It was Miss Willard who cried out," said Brian Oakley, quietly. "She
+dreams, sometimes, of the accident--or whatever it was--that left her with
+those scars--at least, that's what I think it is. Certainly it's no
+ordinary dream that would make a woman cry like that. The first time I
+heard her--the first time that she ever did it, in fact--she and Sibyl
+were stopping over night at my house. It was three years ago. Jim Rutlidge
+had just come West, on his first trip, and was up in the hills on a hunt.
+He happened along about sundown, and when he stepped into the room and
+Myra saw him, I thought she would faint. He looked like some one she had
+known--she said. And that night she gave that horrible cry. Lord! but it
+threw a fright into me. My wife didn't get over being nervous, for a week.
+Myra explained that she had dreamed--but that's all she would say. I
+figured that being upset by Rutlidge's reminding her of some one she had
+known started her mind to going on the past--and then she dreamed of
+whatever it was that gave her those scars."</p>
+
+<p>"You have known Miss Willard a long time, haven't you, Brian?" asked
+Conrad Lagrange, with the freedom of an old comrade--for men may grow
+closer together in one short season in the mountains than in years of
+meeting daily in the city.</p>
+
+<p>"I've known her ever since she came into the hills. That was the year
+Sibyl was born. All that anybody knows is what has happened since. Sibyl's
+mother, even--a month before she died--told me that Myra's history, before
+she came to them, was as unknown to her as it was the day she stopped at
+their door."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't get over the feeling that I ought to know her--that I have seen
+her somewhere, years ago," said the novelist, by way of explaining his
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it was before she got those scars," returned the Ranger. "No one
+could ever forget her face as it is now."</p>
+
+<p>"At the same time," commented the artist, "the scars would prevent your
+identifying her if she received them after you had known her."</p>
+
+<p>"All the same," said Conrad Lagrange,--as though his mind was bothered by
+his inability to establish some incident in his memory,--"I'll place her
+yet. Do you mind, Brian, telling us what you <i>do</i> know of her?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, not at all," returned the officer. "The story is anybody's property.
+Its being so well known is probably the reason you didn't hear it when you
+were up here before.</p>
+
+<p>"Sibyl's father and mother were here in the mountains when I came. They
+lived up there at the old place where Myra and Sibyl are camping now, and
+I never expect to meet finer people--either in this world or the next. For
+twenty years I knew them intimately. Will Andr&eacute;s was as true and square
+and white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good a woman as he was
+a man. They and my wife and I were more like brothers and sisters than
+most folks who are actually blood kin.</p>
+
+<p>"One day, along toward sundown, about a month before Sibyl was born, Nelly
+heard the dogs barking and went to see what was up. There stood Myra
+Willard at the gate--like she'd dropped out of the sky. Where she came
+from God only knows--except that she'd walked from some station on the
+railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course,
+Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted
+to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said,
+straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew,
+then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were
+against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying to get
+away from something. But the women--Nelly and my wife--somehow, believed
+in her, and--with the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of help
+hard to get--they carried the day. Well, sir, she made good. If twenty
+years acquaintance goes for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I
+don't care a damn what her history is.</p>
+
+<p>"We soon saw that she was educated and refined, and--as you can see for
+yourself--she must have been remarkably beautiful before she got so
+disfigured. When the baby was born, she just took the little one into her
+poor, broken heart like it had been her own, until Sibyl hardly knew which
+was her own mother. When the girl was old enough for school, Myra begged
+Will and Nelly to let her teach the child. She was always sending for
+books and it was about that time that she sent for a violin. The girl took
+to music like a bird. And--well--that's the way Sibyl was raised. She's
+got all the education that the best of them have--even to French and
+Italian and German--and she's missed some things that the schools teach
+outside of their text-books. She has a library--given to her mostly by
+Myra, a book at a time--that represents the best of the world's best
+writers. You know what her music is. But, hell!"--the Ranger interrupted
+himself with an apologetic laugh--"I'm supposed to be talking about Myra
+Willard. I don't know as I'm so far off, either, because what Sibyl
+is--aside from her natural inheritance from Will and Nelly--Myra has made
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"When Will was killed by those Mexican outlaws,--which is a story in
+itself,--Nelly sold the ranch to the Power Company, and bought an orange
+grove in Fairlands--which was the thing for her to do, as she and Myra
+could handle that sort of property, and the ranch had to go, anyway.
+Before Nelly died, she and I talked things over, and she put everything in
+Myra's hands, in trust for the girl. Later, Myra sold the grove and the
+house where you men live, now, and bought the little place next
+door--putting the rest of the money into gilt-edged securities in Sibyl's
+name; which insures the girl against want, for years to come. Sibyl helps
+out their income with her music. And that's the story, boys, except that
+they come up here into the mountains, every summer, to spend a month or so
+in the old home place."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>"But do you think it is safe for those women to stay up there alone?"
+asked Aaron King.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley laughed. "Safe! You don't know Myra Willard! Sibyl, herself,
+can pick a squirrel out of the tallest pine in the mountains with her
+six-shooter. Will and I taught her all we knew, as she grew up. Besides,
+you see, I drop in every day or so, to see that they're all right." He
+laughed meaningly as he added,--to Conrad Lagrange for the artist's
+benefit,--"I'm going to tell them, though, that Sibyl must be careful how
+she goes dancing around these hills--now that she has such distinguished
+but irresponsible neighbors."</p>
+
+<p>He whistled--and the chestnut horse was at his side before the echo of
+their laughter died away.</p>
+
+<p>With a "so-long," the Ranger rode away into the night.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch16" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>When the Canyon Gates Are Shut</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+If Aaron King had questioned what it was that had held him in the cedar
+thicket until Brian Oakley's heavy hand broke the spell, he would probably
+have answered that it was his artistic appreciation of the beautiful
+scene. But--deep down in the man's inner consciousness--there was a still,
+small voice--declaring, with an insistency not to be denied, that--for
+him--there was a something in that picture that was not to be put into the
+vernacular of his profession.</p>
+
+<p>Had he acted without his habitual self-control, the day following the
+Ranger's visit, he would, again, have gone fishing--up Clear Creek--at
+least, to the pool where that master trout had broken his leader. But he
+did not. Instead, he roamed aimlessly about the vicinity of the
+camp--explored the sycamore grove; climbed a little way up the mountain
+spur, and down again; circled the cienaga; and so came, finally, to the
+ruins of the house and barn on the creek side of the orchard.</p>
+
+<p>Not far from the lonely fireplace with its naked chimney, a little, old
+gate of split palings, in an ancient tumble-down fence, under a great
+mistletoe-hung oak, at the top of a bank--attracted his careless
+attention. From the gate, he saw what once had been a path leading down
+the bank to a spring, where the tiny streamlet that crossed the road a
+hundred yards away, on its course to Clear Creek, began. Pushing open the
+gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning post, the artist went down
+the path, and found himself in a charming nook--shut in on every side by
+the forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew rank and dense.</p>
+
+<p>For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod was firm and
+smooth--with a gray granite boulder in the center of the little glade,
+and, here and there, wild rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of
+alder trees breaking through. From the higher branches of the alders that
+shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery-green leaves, hung--with many
+a graceful loop and knot--ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of
+virgin's-bower. Along the bank below the old fence, the wild blackberries
+disputed possession with the roses; while the little stream was mottled
+with the tender green of watercress and bordered with moss and fragrant
+mint. Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak
+Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the
+orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe
+oak shut out the view. Through the screen of alder and grape and willow
+and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of
+a cathedral window. The bright waters of the spring, softly held by the
+green sod, crept away under the living wall, without a sound; but the deep
+murmur of the distant, larger stream, reached the place like the low
+tones of some great organ. A few regularly placed stones, where once had
+stood the family spring-house; with the names, initials, hearts and dates
+carved upon the smooth bark of the alders--now grown over and almost
+obliterated--seemed to fill the spot with ghostly memories.</p>
+
+<p>All that afternoon, the artist remained in the little retreat. The next
+day, equipped with easel, canvas and paint-box, he went again to the
+glade--determined to make a picture of the charming scene.</p>
+
+<p>For a month, now, uninterrupted by the distractions of social obligations
+or the like, Aaron King had been subjected to influences that had aroused
+the creative passion of his artist soul to its highest pitch. With his
+genius clamoring for expression, he had denied himself the medium that was
+his natural language. Forbidding his friend to accompany him, he worked
+now in the spring glade with a delight--with an ecstasy--that he had
+seldom, before, felt. And Conrad Lagrange, wisely, was content to let him
+go uninterrupted.</p>
+
+<p>As the hours of each day passed, the artist became more and more engrossed
+with his art. His spirit sang with the joy of receiving the loveliness of
+the scene before him, of making it his own, and of giving it forth
+again--a literal part of himself. The memories suggested by the stones of
+the spring-house foundation and the old carvings on the trees; the
+sunlight, falling so softly into the hushed seclusion of the glade, as
+through the traceried windows of a church; and the deep organ-tones of the
+distant creek; all served to give to the spot the religious atmosphere of
+a sanctuary; while the artist's abandonment in his work was little short
+of devotion.</p>
+
+<p>It was the third afternoon, when the painter became conscious that he had
+been hearing for some time--he could not have said how long--a low-sung
+melody--so blending with the organ-tones of the mountain stream that it
+seemed to come out of the music of the tumbling waters.</p>
+
+<p>With his brush poised between palette and canvas, the artist
+paused,--turning his head to listen,--half inclined to the belief that his
+fancy was tricking him. But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody
+was growing more distinct; but still the voice was in perfect harmony with
+the deep-toned accompaniment of the distant creek.</p>
+
+<p>Then he saw her. Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green
+of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and
+blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines--in the
+flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadows--she
+appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew
+out of the organ-sound of the waters.</p>
+
+<p>To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter had placed his
+easel a little back from the grassy, open spot. Seated as he was, on a low
+camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed--even
+by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in
+the woods and hills. As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a
+basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that
+grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the
+foot of the sheltering bank. Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered
+the fruit of Nature's offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature's
+music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native
+haunts.</p>
+
+<p>The man kept very still. Presently, when the girl had moved so that he
+could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his
+work--but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.</p>
+
+<p>Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly--losing itself,
+again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come. For a
+while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture;
+but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there. At last,
+as if compelled, he abruptly turned his head--and looked straight into her
+face.</p>
+
+<p>The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his work, when first the girl
+caught sight of him, that she had scarcely been startled. When she had
+ceased her song, and he, still, had not looked around; drawn by her
+interest in the picture, she had softly approached until she was standing
+quite close. Her lips were slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her
+eyes were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she stood leaning
+forward, her basket on her arm. So interested was she in the painting,
+that she seemed to have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the
+least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly into her face.</p>
+
+<p>"It is beautiful," she said, as though in answer to his question. And no
+one--hearing her, and watching her face as she spoke--could have doubted
+her sincerity. "It is so true, so--so"--she searched for a word, and
+smiled in triumph when she found it--"so <i>right</i>--so beautifully right.
+It--it makes me feel as--as I feel when I am at church--and the organ
+plays soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the window, and
+some one reads those beautiful words, 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let
+all the earth keep silence before him'."</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" exclaimed the artist, "that is exactly what I wanted it to say.
+When I saw this place, and heard the waters over there, like a great
+organ; and saw how the sunshine falls through the trees; I felt as you
+say, and I am trying to paint the picture so that those who see it will
+feel that way too."</p>
+
+<p>Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understanding as she cried eagerly,
+"Oh, I know! I know! I'm like that with my music! When I look at the
+mountains sometimes--or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing,
+or the winds call--I--I get so full and so--so kind of choked up inside
+that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it--and then I take
+my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel. I never can
+though--not altogether. But <i>you</i> have made your picture say what you
+feel. That's what makes it so right, isn't it? They said in Fairlands that
+you were a great artist, and I understand why, now. It must be wonderful
+to put what you see and feel into a picture like that--where nothing can
+ever change or spoil it."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment. "Oh, but I'm not a great
+artist, you know. I am scarcely known at all."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sincerely troubled. "And must
+one be <i>known</i>--to be great?" she asked. "Might not an artist be great and
+still be <i>unknown</i>? Or, might not one who was really very, very"--again
+she seemed to search for a word and as she found it, smiled--"very
+<i>small</i>, be known all over the world? The newspapers make some really bad
+people famous, sometimes, don't they? No, no, you are joking. You do not
+really think that being known to the world and greatness are the same."</p>
+
+<p>The man, studying her closely, saw that she was speaking her thoughts as
+openly as a child. Experimentally, he said, "If putting what you feel into
+your work is greatness, then <i>you</i> are a great artist, for your music does
+make one feel as though it came from the mountains, themselves."</p>
+
+<p>She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, "Oh! do you like my music?
+I so wanted you to."</p>
+
+<p>It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard her music. It did not
+occur to him to explain. They, neither of them, thought to remember that
+they had not been introduced. They really should have pretended that they
+did not know each other.</p>
+
+<p>"Sometimes," she continued with winsome confidence, "I think, myself, that
+I am really a great violinist--and then, again,"--she added wistfully,--"I
+know that I am not. But I am sure that I wouldn't like to be famous, at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Fame doesn't seem to matter so much, does it; when one is up
+here in the hills and the canyon gates are closed."</p>
+
+<p>She echoed his laughter with quick delight. "Did you see that? Did you see
+those great doors open to let you in, and then close again behind you as
+if to shut the world outside? But of course you would. Any one who could
+do that"--she pointed to the canvas--"would not fail to see the canyon
+gates." With her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more to
+forget the presence of the painter.</p>
+
+<p>Watching her face,--that betrayed her every passing thought and emotion as
+an untroubled pool mirrors the flowers that grow on its banks or the
+song-bird that pauses to drink,--the artist--to change her mood--said,
+"You <i>love</i> the mountains, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She turned her face toward him, again, as she answered simply, "Yes, I
+love the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"If you were a painter,"--he smiled,--"you would paint them, wouldn't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know that I would,"--she answered thoughtfully,--"but I would try
+to get the mountains into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you
+know what I mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you mean; and it is a beautiful
+thought. You wouldn't paint portraits, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I <i>could</i>," she answered. "It seems to me it would be so
+hard to get the mountains into a portrait of just anybody. An artist--a
+great artist, I mean--must make his picture right, mustn't he? And if his
+picture was a portrait of some one who wasn't very good, and he made it
+right; he wouldn't be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I would
+paint portraits--unless I could paint just the people who would want me to
+make my picture right."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were spoken so artlessly; and
+he looked at her keenly. But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose
+other than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of the force with
+which her simple words had gone home.</p>
+
+<p>"You love the mountains, too, don't you?" she asked suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am learning to love them more
+and more. But I fear I don't know them as well as you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I was born up here," she said, "and lived here until a few years ago. I
+think, sometimes, that the mountains almost talk to me."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you would help me to know the mountains as you know them," he
+asked eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>She drew a little back from him, but did not answer.</p>
+
+<p>"We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. "I heard your violin,
+the other evening, when I was fishing up the creek, near where you live;
+and so I know it is you who live next door to us in the orange grove. Mr.
+Lagrange and I are camped just over there back of the orchard. May we not
+be friends? Won't you help me to know your mountains?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told us that you and Mr.
+Lagrange were camped down here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man;
+Brian Oakley says that you are too--are you?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did not note the significance
+of her reference to the novelist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a
+very <i>bad</i> man."</p>
+
+<p>A smile broke over her face--her mood changing as quickly as the sunlight
+breaks through a cloud. "I know you are not"--she said--"a <i>bad</i> man
+wouldn't have wanted to paint this place as you have painted it."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to go.</p>
+
+<p>"But wait!" he cried, "you haven't told me--will you teach me to know your
+mountains as you know them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I cannot say," she answered smiling, as she moved away.</p>
+
+<p>"But at least, we will meet again," he urged.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily, "Why not? The mountains are for you as well as for me;
+and though the hills <i>are</i> so big, the trails are narrow, and the passes
+very few."</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh, she slipped away--her brown dress, that, in the shifty
+lights under the thick foliage, so harmonized with the colors of bush and
+vine and tree and rock, being so quickly lost to the artist's eye that she
+seemed almost to vanish into the scene before him.</p>
+
+<p>But presently, from beyond the willow wall, he heard her voice
+again--singing to the accompaniment of the mountain stream. Softly, the
+melody died away in the distance--losing itself, at last, in the deeper
+organ-tones of the mountain waters.</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes, the artist stood listening--thinking he heard it still.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King did not, that night, tell Conrad Lagrange of his adventure in
+the spring glade.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch17" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>Confessions in the Spring Glade</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+All the next day, while he worked upon his picture in the glade, Aaron
+King listened for that voice in the organ-like music of the distant
+waters. Many times, he turned to search the flickering light and shade of
+the undergrowth, behind him, for a glimpse of the girl's brown dress and
+winsome face.</p>
+
+<p>The next day she came.</p>
+
+<p>The artist had been looking long at a splash of sunlight that fell upon
+the gray granite boulder which was set in the green turf, and had turned
+to his canvas for--it seemed to him--only an instant. When he looked again
+at the boulder, she was standing there--had, apparently, been standing
+there for some time, waiting with smiling lips and laughing eyes for him
+to see her.</p>
+
+<p>A light creel hung by its webbed strap from her shoulder; in her hand, she
+carried a slender fly rod of good workmanship. Dressed in soft brown, with
+short skirts and high laced boots, and her wavy hair tucked under a wide,
+felt hat; with her blue eyes shining with fun, and her warmly tinted skin
+glowing with healthful exercise; she appeared--to the artist--more as some
+mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The
+manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no
+sound of her approach--no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen
+no movement among the bushes--no parting of the willows in the wall of
+green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the
+direction from which she had come.</p>
+
+<p>At first, he could scarce believe his eyes, and sat motionless in his
+surprise. Then her merry laugh rang out--breaking the spell.</p>
+
+<p>Springing from his seat, he went forward. "Are you a spirit?" he cried.
+"You must be something unreal, you know--the way you appear and disappear.
+The last time, you came out of the music of the waters, and went again the
+same way. To-day, you come out of the air, or the trees, or, perhaps, that
+gray boulder that is giving me such trouble."</p>
+
+<p>Laughing, she answered, "My father and Brian Oakley taught me. If you will
+watch the wild things in the woods, you can learn to do it too. I am no
+more a spirit than the cougar, when it stalks a rabbit in the chaparral;
+or a mink, as it slips among the rocks along the creek; or a fawn, when it
+crouches to hide in the underbrush."</p>
+
+<p>"You have been fishing?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed mockingly, "You are <i>so</i> observing! I think you might have
+taken <i>that</i> for granted, and asked what luck."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I might almost take that for granted too," he returned.</p>
+
+<p>"I took a few," she said carelessly. Then, with a charming air of
+authority--"And now, you must go back to your work. I shall vanish
+instantly, if you waste another moment's time because I am here."</p>
+
+<p>"But I want to talk," he protested. "I have been working hard since noon."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you have," she retorted. "But presently the light will change
+again, and you won't be able to do any more to-day; so you must keep busy
+while you can."</p>
+
+<p>"And you won't vanish--if I go on with my work?" he asked doubtfully. She
+was smiling at him with such a mischievous air, that he feared, if he
+turned away, she would disappear.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed aloud; "Not if you work," she said. "But if you stop--I'm
+gone."</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she went toward his easel, and, resting her fly rod
+carefully against the trunk of a near-by alder, slipped the creel from her
+shoulder, placing the basket on the ground with her hat. Then, while the
+painter watched her, she stood silently looking at the picture. Presently,
+she faced him, and, with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why don't
+you work? How can you waste your time and this light, looking at me? I
+shall go, if you don't come back to your picture, this minute."</p>
+
+<p>With a laugh, he obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment, she watched him; then turned away; and he heard her moving
+about, down by the tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows.</p>
+
+<p>Once, he paused and turned to look in her direction "What are you up to,
+now?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be up to leaving you,"--she retorted,--"if you look around,
+again."</p>
+
+<p>He promptly turned once more to his picture.</p>
+
+<p>Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her creel and rod, where
+she could see the picture under the artist's brush. "Does it bother, if I
+watch?" she asked softly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, indeed," he answered. "It helps--that is, it helps when it is <i>you</i>
+who watch." Which--to the painter's secret amazement--was a literal truth.
+The gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not come right,
+ceased to trouble him, now. Stimulated by her presence, he worked with a
+freedom and a sureness that was a delight.</p>
+
+<p>When he could not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she
+was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in
+the world are you doing?" he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"You are not supposed to know that I am doing anything," she retorted.
+"You have been peeking again."</p>
+
+<p>"You were so still--I feared you had vanished," he laughed. "If you'll
+keep talking to me, I'll know you are there, and will be good."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure it won't bother?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, then, <i>you</i> talk to me, and I'll answer."</p>
+
+<p>"I have a confession to make," he said, carefully studying the gray tones
+of the alder trunk beyond the gray boulder.</p>
+
+<p>"A confession?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I want to get it over--so it won't bother me."</p>
+
+<p>"Something about me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's what I am trying so hard to make you keep your eyes on your
+work for--because <i>I</i> have to make a confession to <i>you</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"To me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes--don't look around, please."</p>
+
+<p>"But what under the sun can you have to confess to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"You started yours first," she answered. "Go on. Maybe it will make it
+easier for me."</p>
+
+<p>Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he told her how he had
+watched her from the cedar thicket. When he had finished,--and she was
+silent,--he thought that she was angry, and turned about--expecting to see
+her gathering up her things to go.</p>
+
+<p>She was struggling to suppress her laughter. At the look of surprise on
+his face, she burst forth in such a gale of merriment that the little
+glade was filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of himself,
+the painter joined.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she cried, "but that <i>is</i> funny! I am glad, glad!"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, what do you mean by that?" he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Why--why--that's exactly what I was trying to get courage enough to
+confess to you!" she gasped. And then she told him how she had spied upon
+him from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his absence, she had
+visited his studio.</p>
+
+<p>"But how in the world did you get in? The place was always locked, when I
+was away."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said quaintly, "there was a good genie who let me in through the
+keyhole. I didn't meddle with anything, you know--I just looked at the
+beautiful room where you work. And I didn't glance, even, at the picture
+on the easel. The genie told me you wouldn't like that. I would not have
+drawn the curtain anyway, even if I hadn't been told. At least, I don't
+<i>think</i> I would--but perhaps I might--I can't always tell what I'm going
+to do, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio door open with Conrad
+Lagrange's key in the lock, and how the novelist had berated himself with
+such exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the thought of James
+Rutlidge's visit, that afternoon, and of his strange manner and
+insinuating remarks.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I know the name of your good genie," said the painter, facing the
+girl, seriously. "But tell me, did no one disturb you while you were in
+the studio?"</p>
+
+<p>Her cheeks colored painfully, and all the laughter was gone from her voice
+as she replied, "I didn't want you to know that part."</p>
+
+<p>"But I must know," he insisted gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said, "Mr. Rutlidge found me there; and I ran away through the
+garden. I don't like him. He frightens me. Please, is it necessary for us
+to talk about it any more? I had to make my confession of course, but must
+we talk about <i>that</i> part?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered, "we need not talk about it. It was necessary for me to
+know; but we will never mention that part, again. When we are back in the
+orange groves, you shall come to the rose garden and to the studio, as
+often as you like; your good genie and I will see to it that you are not
+disturbed--by any one."</p>
+
+<p>Her face brightened at his words. "And do you really like for me to make
+music for you--as Mr. Lagrange says you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't begin to tell you how much I like it," he answered smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"And it doesn't bother you in your work?"</p>
+
+<p>"It helps me," he declared--thinking of that portrait of Mrs. Taine.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am glad, glad!" she cried. "I wanted it to help. It was for that I
+played."</p>
+
+<p>"You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. "I thought it might--if I could get enough of the mountains
+into my music, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. You see, I only dance when
+I must--when the music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When I--when
+I"--she searched for a word, then finished abruptly--"oh, I can't tell you
+about it--it's just something you feel--there are no words for it. When I
+first come to the mountains,--after living in Fairlands all winter,--I
+always dance--the mountains feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance
+in the moonlight--when it feels so soft and light and clean; or in the
+twilight--when it's so still, and the air is so--so full of the day that
+has come home to rest and sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the
+big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, under the sky, sings
+through the dark branches."</p>
+
+<p>"But don't you ever dance to please your friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no--I don't dance to <i>please</i> any one--only just when it's for
+myself--when nothing else will do--when I <i>must</i>. Of course, sometimes,
+Myra or Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me--but they don't matter,
+you know. They are so much a part of me that I don't mind."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if you will ever dance for me?"</p>
+
+<p>Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. How could I? You see, you
+are not like anybody that I have ever known."</p>
+
+<p>"But I saw you the other evening, you remember."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had known, I wouldn't have
+danced."</p>
+
+<p>All the while--as she talked--her fingers had been busy with the slender,
+willow branches. "And now"--she said, abruptly changing the subject, and
+smiling as she spoke--"and now, you must turn back to your work."</p>
+
+<p>"But the light is not right," he protested.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she retorted. "Can't you
+pretend?"</p>
+
+<p>To humor her, he obeyed, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"You may look, now," she said, a minute later.</p>
+
+<p>He turned to see her standing close beside him, holding out a charming
+little basket that she had woven of the green willows and decorated with
+moss and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp moss, and lightly
+covered with the cress, lay a half dozen fine rainbow trout.</p>
+
+<p>"How pretty!" he exclaimed. "So that is what you have been doing!"</p>
+
+<p>"They are for you," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>"For me?" he cried.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded brightly; "For you and Mr. Lagrange. I know you like them
+because you said you were fishing when you heard my violin. And I thought
+that you wouldn't want to leave your picture, to fish for yourself, so I
+took them for you."</p>
+
+<p>The artist concealed his embarrassment with difficulty; and, while
+expressing his thanks and appreciation in rather formal words, studied her
+face keenly. But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous naturalness,
+an unaffected kindliness, and an innocent disregard of conventionalities,
+that would have disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than Aaron
+King.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, and swung the empty
+creel over her shoulder. Then, putting on her hat, she picked up her rod.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh--are you going?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"You have finished your work for to-day," she answered</p>
+
+<p>"But let me go with you, a little way."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. "No, I don't want you."</p>
+
+<p>"But you will come again?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps--if you won't stop work--but I can't promise--you see I never
+know what I am going to do up here in the mountains," she answered
+whimsically. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the morning; or I
+might be here, waiting for you, when you come to paint."</p>
+
+<p>He was putting his things in the box--thinking he would persuade her to
+let him accompany her a little way; if she saw that he really would paint
+no more. When he bent over the box, she was speaking. "I hope you will,"
+he answered.</p>
+
+<p>There was no reply.</p>
+
+<p>He straightened up and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>She was gone.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, he stood searching the glade with his eyes, carefully;
+listening to catch a sound--a puzzled, baffled look upon his face. Taking
+his things, at last, he started up the little path. But before he reached
+the old gate, a low laugh caused him to whirl quickly about.</p>
+
+<p>There she stood, beside the spring--a teasing smile on her face. Before he
+could command himself, she danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and
+slipped away through the green willow wall. Another merry laugh came back
+to him and then--the silence of the little glade, and the sound of the
+distant waters.</p>
+
+<p>With the basket of fish in his hand, Aaron King went slowly to camp;
+where, when Conrad Lagrange saw what the artist carried so carefully,
+explanations were in order.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch18" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the Butterflies</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+On the following day, the artist was putting away his things, at the close
+of the afternoon's work, when the girl appeared.</p>
+
+<p>The long, slanting bars of sunshine and the deepening shadows marked the
+lateness of the hour. As he bent over his paint-box, the man was thinking
+with regret that she would not come--that, perhaps, she would never come.
+And at the thought that he might not see her again, an odd fear gripped
+his heart. His thoughts were interrupted by a low, musical laugh; and he
+sprang to his feet, to search the glade with careful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Come out," he cried, as though adjuring an invisible spirit. "I know you
+are here; come out."</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh, she stepped from behind the trunk of one of the
+largest trees, within a few feet of where he stood. As she went toward
+him, she carried in her outstretched hands a graceful basket, woven of
+sycamore leaves and ferns, and filled with the ripest sweetest
+blackberries. She did not speak as she held out her offering; but the man,
+looking into her laughing eyes, fancied that there was a meaning and a
+purpose in the gift that did not appear upon the surface of her simple
+action.</p>
+
+<p>Expressing his pleasure, as he received the dainty basket, he could not
+refrain from adding, "But why do you bring me things?"</p>
+
+<p>She answered with that wayward, mocking humor that so often seized her;
+"Because I like to. I told you that I always do what I like--up here in
+the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you always will," he returned, "if your likes are all as delicious
+as this one."</p>
+
+<p>With the manner of a child playfully making a mystery yet anxious to have
+the secret discussed, she said, "I have one more gift to bring you, yet."</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you meant something by your presents," he cried. "It isn't just
+because you want me to have the things you bring."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes it is," she retorted, laughing mischievously at his triumphant
+and expectant tone. "If I didn't want you to have the things I
+bring--why--I wouldn't bring them, would I?"</p>
+
+<p>"But that isn't all," he insisted. "Tell me--why do you say you have one
+<i>more</i> gift to bring?"</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head with a delightful air of mystery "Not until I come
+again. When I come again, I will tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will come to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed teasingly at his eagerness. "How can I tell?" she answered. "I
+do not know, myself, what I will do to-morrow--when I am up here in the
+mountains--when the canyon gates are shut and the world is left outside."
+Even as she spoke, her mood changed and the last words were uttered
+wistfully, as a captive spirit--that, by nature wild and free, was
+permitted, for a brief time only, to go beyond its prison walls--might
+have spoken.</p>
+
+<p>The artist--puzzled by her flash-like change of moods, and by her manner
+as she spoke of the world beyond the canyon gates--had no words to reply.
+As he stood there,--in that little glade where the light fell as in a
+quiet cathedral and the air trembled with the deep organ-tones of the
+distant waters--holding in his hands the basket of leaves and ferns with
+its wild fruit, and looking at the beautiful girl who had brought her
+offering with the naturalness of a child of the mountains and the air of a
+woodland spirit,--he again felt that the world he had always known was
+very far away.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, too, was silent--as though, by some subtle power, she knew his
+thoughts and did not wish to interrupt.</p>
+
+<p>So still were they, that a wild bird--darting through the screen of alder
+boughs--stopped to swing on a limb above their heads, with a burst of
+wild-wood melody. In the arroyo beyond the willow wall, a quail called his
+evening call, and was answered by his mate from the top of the bank under
+the mistletoe oak. A pair of gray squirrels crept down the gray trunks of
+the trees and slipped around the granite boulder to drink at the spring;
+then scampered away again--half in frolic, half in fright--as they caught
+sight of the man and the maid. As the squirrels disappeared, the girl
+laughed--a low laugh of fellowship with the creatures of the
+wilderness--in complete understanding of their humor. Then--as though
+following the path of a sunbeam--two gorgeously brown and yellow winged
+butterflies came flitting through the draperies of virgin's-bower, and
+floated in zigzag flight about the glade--now high among the alder boughs;
+now low over the tops of the roses and berry-bushes; down to the fragrant
+mint at the water's edge; and up again to the tops of the willows, as if
+to leave the glade; but only to return again to the vines that covered the
+bank, and to the flowers that, here and there, starred the grassy sward.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!"--cried the girl impulsively, as the beautiful winged creatures
+disappeared at last,--"if people could only be like that! It's so hard to
+be yourself in the world. Everybody, there, seems trying to be something
+they are not. No one dares to be just themselves. Everything, up here, is
+so right--so true--so just what it is--and down there, everything tries so
+hard to be just what it is not. The world even <i>sees</i> so crooked that it
+<i>can't</i> believe when a thing is just what it is."</p>
+
+<p>While watching the butterflies, she had turned away from the artist and,
+in following their flight with her eyes, had taken a few light steps that
+brought her into the open, grassy center of the glade. With her face
+upturned to the opening in the foliage through which the butterflies had
+disappeared, she had spoken as if thinking aloud, rather than as
+addressing her companion.</p>
+
+<p>Before the artist could reply, the beautiful creatures came floating back
+as they had gone. With a low exclamation of delight, the girl watched them
+as they circled, now, above her head, in their aerial waltz among the
+sunbeams and leafy boughs. Then the man, watching, saw her--unheeding his
+presence--stretch her arms upward. For a moment she stood, lightly poised,
+and then, with her wide, shining eyes fixed upon those gorgeously winged
+spirits whirling in the fragrant air, with her lips parted in smiling
+delight, she danced upon the smooth turf of the glade--every step and
+movement in perfect harmony with the spirit of care-free abandonment that
+marked the movements of the butterflies that danced above her head.
+Unmindful of the watching man, as her dainty companions
+themselves,--forgetful of his presence,--she yielded to the impulse to
+express her emotions in free, rhythmic movement.</p>
+
+<p>Instinctively, Aaron King was silent--standing motionless, as if he feared
+to startle her into flight.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, as the girl danced--her eyes always upon her winged
+companions--the insects floated above the artist's head, and she became
+conscious of his presence. Her cheeks flushed and, laughing low,--as she
+danced, lightly as a spirit,--she impulsively stretched out her arms to
+him, in merry invitation--as though challenging him to join her.</p>
+
+<p>The gesture was as spontaneous and as innocent, in its freedom, as had
+been her offering of the gifts from mountain stream and bush. But the
+man--lured into forgetfulness of everything save the wild loveliness of
+the scene--started toward her. At his movement, a look of bewildered fear
+came into her face; but--too startled to control her movements on the
+instant, and as though impelled by some hidden power--she moved toward
+him--blindly, unconsciously--her eyes wide with that look of questioning
+fright. He had almost reached her when, as though by an effort of her
+will, she stopped and stood still--gazing into his face--trembling in
+every limb. Then, with a low cry, she sank down in a frightened, cowering,
+pleading attitude, and buried her crimson face in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>As though some unseen hand checked him, the man halted, and the girl's
+cheeks were not more crimson than his own.</p>
+
+<p>A moment he stood, then a step brought him to her side. Putting out his
+hand, he touched her upon the shoulder, and was about to speak. But at his
+touch, with another cry, she sprang to her feet and, whirling with the
+flash-like quickness of a wild thing, vanished into the undergrowth that
+walled in the glade.</p>
+
+<p>With a startled exclamation, the man tried to follow calling to her,
+reassuring her, begging her to come back. But there was no answer to his
+words; nor did he catch a glimpse of her; though once or twice he thought
+he heard her in swift flight up the canyon.</p>
+
+<p>All the way to the place where he had first seen her, he followed; but at
+the cedar thicket he stopped. For a long time, he stood there; while the
+twilight failed and the night came. Slowly,--in the soft darkness with
+bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed,--he went back down the canyon to
+the little glade, and to the camp.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch19" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XIX</h2>
+
+<h3>The Three Gifts and Their Meanings</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The next day, Aaron King--too distracted to paint--idled all the afternoon
+in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to
+camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude
+yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the
+charm of their intimacy--and he cursed himself--as many a man has
+cursed--for that momentary lack of self-control.</p>
+
+<p>But the following afternoon, as the artist worked,--bent upon quickly
+finishing his picture of the place that seemed now to reproach him with
+its sweet atmosphere of sacred purity,--he heard, as he had heard that
+first day, the low music of her voice blending with the music of the
+mountain stream. Scarce daring to move, he sat as though absorbed in his
+work--listening with all his heart, for some sound of her approach, other
+than the melody of her song that grew more and more distinct. At last, he
+knew that she was standing just the other side of the willows, beyond the
+little spring. He felt her hidden eyes upon him, but dared not look that
+way--feeling sure that if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would
+vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he made show of giving close
+attention to his work and waited.</p>
+
+<p>For some minutes, she remained concealed; singing low, as though to try
+him with temptation. Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised
+brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view
+beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's
+green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from
+the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.</p>
+
+<p>"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still
+holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him
+seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue
+eyes a troubled question.</p>
+
+<p>"I sought you all the way to your home," he said, gently, "but you would
+not let me come near."</p>
+
+<p>"I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her eyes but regarding him
+steadily with that questioning appeal.</p>
+
+<p>"I am sorry,"--he said,--"won't you forgive me? I will never frighten you
+so again. I did not mean to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I
+frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that
+you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I
+came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"</p>
+
+<p>The man could not answer.</p>
+
+<p>As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for
+granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him
+across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said
+with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts."
+Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box
+of colors.</p>
+
+<p>Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by
+the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the
+artist tried to thank her.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You
+promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you
+came again."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in
+her teasing mood.</p>
+
+<p>"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you
+know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."</p>
+
+<p>Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied, "But didn't you
+ask me again and again to help you to know the mountains as I know them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "but you would not promise."</p>
+
+<p>"I did better than promise"--she returned--"I brought you, from the
+mountains themselves, their three greatest gifts."</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, with the air of a backward schoolboy--"Won't you read
+the lesson?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you will work while I talk, I will," she answered--amused by the
+hopelessness of his manner and tone.</p>
+
+<p>Obediently, he took up his brushes, and turned toward his picture.</p>
+
+<p>Removing her hat, she seated herself on the ground, where she had woven
+the willow basket for the fish.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence, she began--timidly, at first, then with
+increasing confidence as she found words to express her charming fancy.
+"First, you must know, that in all the wild life of the mountains there is
+no creature so strong--in proportion to its size and weight, I mean--as
+the trout that lives in the mountain streams. Its home is in the icy
+torrents that are fed by the snows of the highest peaks and canyons. It
+lives, literally, in the innermost heart and life of the hills. It seeks
+its food at the foot of the falls, where the water boils in fierce fury;
+where the current swirls and leaps among the boulders; and where the
+stream rushes with all its might down the rocky channels. With its
+muscles, fine as tempered steel, it forces its way against the strength of
+the stream--conquering even the fifty-foot downward pour of a cataract.
+Its strength is a silent strength. It has no voice other than the voice of
+its own beautiful self. And all its gleaming colors you may see, in the
+morning and in the evening, tinting the mighty heads and shoulders and
+sides of the hills themselves. And so, the first gift that I brought
+you--fresh from the mountain's heart--was the gift of the mountain's
+strength.</p>
+
+<p>"The second gift was gathered from bushes that were never planted by the
+hand of man. They grow as free and untamed as the rains that water them,
+and the earth that feeds them, and the sunshine that sweetens hem. In them
+is the flavor of mountain mists, and low hung clouds, and shining dew; the
+odor of moist leaf-mould, and unimpoverished soil; the pleasant tang of
+the sunshine; and the softer sweetness of the shady nooks where they grow.
+In the second gift, I brought you the purity, and the flavor of the
+mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"And to-day"--she finished simply--"to-day I have brought you the beauty
+of the hills."</p>
+
+<p>"You have brought me more than the strength and purity and beauty of the
+mountains," exclaimed the painter. "You have brought me their mystery."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>"In your own beautiful self," he continued sincerely "you have brought me
+the mystery of these hills. You are wonderful! I have never known any one
+like you."</p>
+
+<p>She was wholly unconscious of the compliment--if indeed, he meant it as
+such. "I suppose I must be different," she returned with just a touch, of
+sadness in her voice. "You see I have never been taught like other girls.
+I know nothing at all of the world where you live--except what Myra has
+told me." Then, as if to change the subject, she asked shyly, "Would you
+care for my music to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>He assented eagerly--thinking she meant to sing. But, rising, she crossed
+the glade, and disappeared behind the willows--returning, a moment later,
+with her violin.</p>
+
+<p>In answer to his exclamation of pleased surprise, she said smiling, "I
+brought my violin because I thought, if you would let me play, the music
+would perhaps help us both to forget what--what happened when I danced."</p>
+
+<p>Standing by the gray boulder, with her face up turned to the mountains,
+she placed the instrument under her chin and drew the bow softly across
+the strings.</p>
+
+<p>For an hour or more she played. Then, as Czar trotted sedately into the
+glade, she lowered her instrument and, with a smile, called merrily to
+Conrad Lagrange who, attracted by the music, was standing at the gate on
+the bank--from the artist's position invisible; "Come down, good
+genie,--come down! You have been watching there quite long enough. Come,
+instantly; or with my magic I'll turn you into a fantastic, dancing bug,
+such as those that straddle there upon the waters of the spring, or else
+into a fat pollywog that wiggles in the black ooze among the dead leaves
+and rotting bits of wood."</p>
+
+<p>With a quick movement, she tucked her violin under her chin and played a
+few measures of the worst sort of ragtime, in perfect imitation of a
+popular performer. The effect, following the music she had just been
+making, was grotesque and horrible.</p>
+
+<p>"Mercy, mercy!" cried the man at the gate. "I beg! I beg! Do not, I pray,
+good nymph, torture me with thy dreadful power. I swear that I will obey
+thy every wish and whim."</p>
+
+<p>Pointing with her bow--as with a wand--to the boulder, she sternly
+commanded, "Come, then, and sit here upon this rock; and give to me an
+account of all that thou hast done since I left thee in the rose garden or
+I will split thy ears and stretch thy soul upon a torture rack of hideous
+noise."</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The novelist came down the
+path, on a run, to seat himself upon the gray boulder.</p>
+
+<p>The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist and the girl paid no
+heed to his unseemly merriment.</p>
+
+<p>"Speak,"--she commanded, waving her wand,--"what hast thou done?"</p>
+
+<p>"Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms as I could procure, open
+for thee the treasure room of thy desire?" growled the man on the rock.</p>
+
+<p>"And still," she retorted, "when I made myself subject to those terms, and
+obediently looked not upon the hidden mystery--still the room of my
+desires became a trap betraying me into rude hands from which I narrowly
+escaped. And you--you fled the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much
+as by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wandered, irresponsible,
+among my hills. Did you not say that my home was under these glowing
+peaks, and in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you think that I
+would not find you here, and charm you again within reach of my power?"</p>
+
+<p>"And what is thy will, good spirit?"--he asked, humbly--"tell me thy will
+and it shall be done--if thou wilt but make music <i>only</i> upon the
+instrument that is in thy hand."</p>
+
+<p>With a laugh, she ended the play, saying, "My will is that you and Mr.
+King come, to-morrow evening, for supper with Miss Willard and me. Brian
+Oakley and Mrs. Oakley will be there. I want you too."</p>
+
+<p>The men looked at each other in doubt.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, Miss Andr&eacute;s," said the artist, "we--"</p>
+
+<p>The girl interrupted with one of her flash-like changes. "I have invited
+you. You <i>must</i> come. I shall expect you." And before either of the men
+could speak again, she sprang lightly across the little stream, and
+disappeared through the willow wall.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I'll be--" The novelist checked himself, solemnly--staring blankly
+at the spot where she had disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of it?" demanded Conrad Lagrange, turning to his
+friend.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, packing up his things, answered, "I think we'd better go."</p>
+
+<p>Which opinion was concurred in by Brian Oakley who dropped in on them that
+evening.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch20" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XX</h2>
+
+<h3>Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+That same afternoon, while Sibyl Andr&eacute;s was making music for Aaron King in
+the spring glade, Brian Oakley, on his way down the canyon, stopped at the
+old place where Myra Willard and the girl were living. Riding into the
+yard that was fenced only by the wild growth, he was greeted cordially by
+the woman with the disfigured face, who was seated on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, Myra," he called in return, as he swung from the saddle; and
+leaving the chestnut to roam at will, he went to the porch, his spurs
+clinking softly over the short, thick grass.</p>
+
+<p>"Where's Sibyl?" he asked, seating himself on the top step.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Oakley," the woman answered, smiling. "You
+really didn't expect me to, did you?"</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger laughed. "Did she take gun, basket, rod or violin? If I know
+whether she's gone shooting berrying, fishing or fiddling, it may give me
+a clue--or did she take all four?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman watched him closely. "She took only her violin. She went
+sometime after lunch--down the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly
+to see her, Mr. Oakley?"</p>
+
+<p>It was evident to the woman that the officer was relieved. "Oh, no; she
+wouldn't be going far with her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's
+all right anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she must be
+careful, for a while. There's an escaped convict ranging somewhere in my
+district. I received the word this morning, and have been up around Lone
+Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear Creek to see if I could start
+anything. I didn't find any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell
+Sibyl that I say she must not go out without her gun--that if I catch her
+wandering around unarmed, I'll pack her off back to civilization, pronto."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help her to remember. It
+would be better, I suppose, if she stayed at home; but that seems so
+impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted the Ranger,
+confidently. "I'd back the girl against anything I ever met up with--when
+she has her artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors below called
+yet?"</p>
+
+<p>"No--at least, not while I have been at home. I have been berrying, two or
+three times. They might have come while I was out."</p>
+
+<p>"Has Sibyl met them yet?" came the next question.</p>
+
+<p>"She has not mentioned it, if she has."</p>
+
+<p>"H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>The woman's love for the girl prompted her to quick suspicion of the
+Ranger's manner.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mr. Oakley?" she asked. "Has the child been indiscreet? Has
+she done anything wrong? Has she been with those men?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has called upon one of them several times," returned Brian, smiling.
+"Mr. King is painting that little glade by the old spring at the foot of
+the bank, you know, and I guess she stumbled onto him. The place is one of
+her favorite spots. But bless your heart, Myra, there's no harm in it. It
+would be natural for her to get interested in any one making a picture of
+a place she loves as she does that old spring glade. She has spent days at
+a time there--ever since she was big enough to go that far from home."</p>
+
+<p>"It's strange that she has not mentioned it to me," said the
+woman--troubled in spite of the Ranger's reassuring words.</p>
+
+<p>The man directed his attention suddenly to his horse; "Max! You let
+Sibyl's roses alone." The animal turned his head questioningly toward his
+master. "Back!" said the Ranger, "back!" At his word, the chestnut
+promptly backed across the yard until the officer called, "That will do,"
+when he halted, and, with an impatient toss of his head, again looked
+toward the porch, inquiringly. "You are all right now," said the man.
+Whereupon the horse began contentedly cropping the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"I met Mr. King, accidentally, once, at the depot in Fairlands," continued
+the woman with the disfigured face. "He impressed me, then, as being a
+genuinely good man--a true gentleman. But, judging from his books, Conrad
+Lagrange is not a man I would wish Sibyl to meet. I have wondered at the
+artist's friendship with him."</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you, Myra, Lagrange is all right," said Brian Oakley, stoutly.
+"He's odd and eccentric and rough spoken sometimes; but he's not at all
+what you would think him from the stuff he writes. He's a true man at
+heart, and you needn't worry about Sibyl getting anything but good from an
+acquaintance with him. As for King--well--Conrad Lagrange vouches for him.
+If you knew Lagrange, you'd understand what that means. He and the young
+fellow's mother grew up together. He swears the lad is right; and, from
+what I've seen of him, I believe it. It doesn't follow, though, that you
+don't need to keep your eyes open. The girl is as innocent as a
+child--though she is a woman--and--well--accidents have happened, you
+know." As he spoke he glanced unconsciously at the scars that disfigured
+the naturally beautiful face of the woman.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard blushed as she answered sadly, "Yes, I know that accidents
+have happened. I will talk with Sibyl; and will you not speak to her too?
+She loves you so, and is always guided by your wishes. A little word or
+two from you would be an added safeguard."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure I'll talk to her," said the Ranger, heartily--rising and whistling
+to the chestnut. "But look here, Myra,"--he said, pausing with his foot in
+the stirrup,--"the girl must have her head, you know. We don't want to put
+her in the notion that every man in the world is a villain laying for a
+chance to do her harm. There <i>are</i> clean fellows--a few--and it will do
+Sibyl good to meet that kind." He swung himself lightly into the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>The woman smiled; "Sibyl could not think that all men are evil, after
+knowing her father and you, Mr. Oakley."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger laughed as he turned Max toward the opening in the cedar
+thicket. "Will was what God and Nelly made him, Myra; and I--if I'm fairly
+decent it's because Mary took me in hand in time. Men are mostly what you
+women make 'em, anyway, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget that you and Mrs. Oakley are coming for supper to-morrow,"
+she called after him.</p>
+
+<p>"No danger of our forgetting that," he answered. "Adios!" And the chestnut
+loped easily out of the yard.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard kept her place on the porch until the sound of the horse's
+galloping feet died away down the canyon. But, as she listened to the
+vanishing sound of the Ranger's going, her eyes were looking far away--as
+though his words had aroused in her heart memories of days long past. When
+the last echo had lost itself in the thin mountain air, she went into the
+house.</p>
+
+<p>Standing before the small mirror that served--in the rude, almost
+camp-like furnishings of the house--for both herself and Sibyl, she
+studied the face reflected there--turning her head slowly, as if comparing
+the beautiful unmarked side with the other that was so hideously
+disfigured. For some time she stood there, unflinchingly giving herself to
+the torture of this contemplation of her ruined loveliness; drinking to
+its bitter dregs the sorrowful cup of her secret memories; until, as
+though she could bear no more, she drew back--her eyes wide with pain and
+horror, her marred features twisted grotesquely in an agony of mental
+suffering. With a pitiful moan she sank upon her knees in prayer.</p>
+
+<p>In the earnestness of her spirit--out of the deep devotion of her love--as
+she prayed God for wisdom to guide the girl entrusted to her care, she
+spoke aloud. "Let me not rob her, dear Christ, of love; but help me to
+help her love aright. Help me, that in my fear for her I do not turn her
+heart against her mate when he shall come. Help me, that I do not so fill
+her pure mind with doubt and distrust of all men that she will look for
+evil, only. Help me, that I do not teach her to associate love wholly with
+that which is base and untrue. Grant, O God, that her beautiful life may
+not be marred by a love that is unworthy."</p>
+
+<p>As the woman with the disfigured face rose from her knees, she heard the
+voice of Sibyl, who was coming up the old road toward the cedars--singing
+as she came.</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl entered the house, a moment later, Myra Willard, still
+agitated, was bathing her face. The girl, seeing, checked the song upon
+her lips; and going to the woman who in everything but the ties of blood
+was mother to her, sought to discover the reason for her troubled manner,
+and tried to soothe her with loving words.</p>
+
+<p>The woman held the girl close in her arms and looked into the lovely,
+winsome face that was so unmarred by vicious thoughts of the world's
+teaching.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear child, do you not sometimes hate the sight of my ugliness?" she
+said. "It seems to me, you must."</p>
+
+<p>With her arms about her companion's neck, Sibyl pressed her pure, young
+lips to those disfiguring scars, in an impulsive kiss. "Foolish Myra," she
+cried, "you know I love you too well to see anything but your own
+beautiful self behind the scars. To me, your face is all like this"--and
+she softly kissed, in turn, the woman's unmarred cheek. "Whatever made the
+marks, I know that they are not dishonorable. So I never think of them at
+all, but see only the beautiful side--which is really you, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"No,"--answered Myra Willard, gently,--"my scars are not dishonorable. But
+the world does not see with your pure eyes, dear child. The world sees
+only the ugly, disfigured side of my face. It never looks at the other
+side. And listen, dear heart, so the world often sees dishonor where there
+is no dishonor It sees evil in many things where there is only good."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," returned the girl, "but you have never taught me to see with the
+eyes of the world. So, to me, what the world sees, does not matter."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray that it may never matter, child," answered the woman with the
+disfigured face, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Then, as they went out to the porch, she asked, "Did you meet Mr. Oakley
+as you were coming home?"</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl laughed and colored with a confusion that was new to her, as she
+answered, "Yes, I did--and he scolded me."</p>
+
+<p>"About your going unarmed?"</p>
+
+<p>"No,--but he told me about that too. I don't see why, whenever a poor
+criminal escapes, he always comes into <i>our</i> mountains. I don't like to
+'pack a gun'--unless I'm hunting. But Brian Oakley didn't scold me for
+that, though--he knows I always do as he says. He scolded because I hadn't
+told you about my going to see Mr. King, in the spring glade." She
+laughed, conscious of the color that was in her cheeks. "I told him it
+didn't matter whether I told you or not, because he always knows every
+single move I make, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Why <i>didn't</i> you tell me, dear?" asked the woman. "You never kept
+anything from me, before--I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>"Why dearest," the girl answered frankly, "I don't know, myself, why I
+didn't tell you"--which, Myra Willard knew, was the exact truth.</p>
+
+<p>Then Sibyl told her foster-mother everything about her acquaintance with
+the artist and Conrad Lagrange--from the time she first watched the
+painter, from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the novelist;
+until that afternoon, when she had invited them to supper, the next day.
+Only of her dancing before the artist, the girl did not tell.</p>
+
+<p>Later in the evening, Sibyl--saying that she would sing Myra to
+sleep--took her violin to the porch, outside the window; and in the dusk
+made soft music until the woman's troubled heart was calmed. When the moon
+came up from behind the Galenas, across the canyon, the girl tiptoed into
+the house, to bend over the sleeping woman, in tender solicitude. With
+that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, she stooped and
+softly kissed the disfigured face upon the pillow. At the touch, Myra
+Willard stirred uneasily; and the girl--careful to make no
+sound--withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to play; but, instead,
+sat motionless--her face turned down the canyon--her eyes looking far
+away. Then, quickly, she put aside the instrument, and--as though with
+sudden yielding to some inner impulse--slipped out into the grassy yard.
+And there, in the moon's white light,--with only the mountains, the trees,
+and the flowers to see,--she danced, again, as she had danced before the
+artist in the glade--with her face turned down the canyon, and her arms
+outstretched, longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of the old
+orchard.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard slept, came that shuddering,
+terror-stricken cry.</p>
+
+<p>The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. Kneeling, she put
+her strong young arms about the cowering, trembling form on the bed.
+"There, there, dear, it's all right."</p>
+
+<p>The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
+"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
+Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was <i>you</i>."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch21" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXI</h2>
+
+<h3>The Last Climb</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+That first visit of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange to the old home of
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s was the beginning of a delightful comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>Often, in the evening, the two men, with Czar, went to spend an hour in
+friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the canyon. Always, they were
+welcomed by Myra Willard with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly
+delighted to have them come. Always, they were invited with genuine
+hospitality to "come again." Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs.
+Oakley would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger would come riding
+into the yard before they left. At times, the canyon's mountain wall
+echoed the laughter of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played
+their fantastical game of words; or again, the older people would listen
+to the blending voices of the artist and the girl as, in the quiet hush of
+the evening, they sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on the
+violin; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned to the mountain tops,
+would make for her chosen friends the music of the hills.</p>
+
+<p>Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the camp in the sycamore
+grove--sometimes riding with the Ranger, sometimes alone; or they would
+hear her merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard as she
+passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, she would appear--equipped with
+rod or gun or basket--to frankly challenge Aaron King to some long ramble
+in the hills.</p>
+
+<p>So the days for the young man at the beginning of his life work, and for
+the young woman at the beginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the
+canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring Clear Creek, from the
+Ranger Station to the falls; in the quiet glades under the alders hung
+with virgin's-bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the
+mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, cedar-sheltered gulches,
+among tall brakes and lilies; or high up on the canyon walls under the
+dark and fragrant pines--over all the paths and trails familiar to her
+girlhood she led him--showing him every nook and glade and glen--teaching
+him to know, as he had asked, the mountains that she herself so loved.</p>
+
+<p>The time came, at last, when the two men must return to Fairlands. With
+Mr. and Mrs. Oakley they were spending the evening at Sibyl's home when
+Conrad Lagrange announced that they would leave the mountains, two days
+later.</p>
+
+<p>"Then,"--said the girl, impulsively,--"Mr. King and I are going for one
+last good-by climb to-morrow. Aren't we?" she concluded--turning to the
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed as he answered, "We certainly seem to be headed that
+way. Where are we going?"</p>
+
+<p>"We will start early and come back late"--she returned--"which really is
+all that any one ought to know about a climb that is just for the climb.
+And listen--no rod, no gun, no sketch-book. I'll fix a lunch."</p>
+
+<p>"Watch out for my convict," warned the Ranger. "He must be getting mighty
+hungry, by now."</p>
+
+<p>Early in the morning, they set out. Crossing the canyon, they climbed the
+Oak Knoll trail--down which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led by
+the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks before--to the pipe-line. Where
+the path from below leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks,
+on a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the mountain's shoulder,
+they paused for a look over the narrow valley that lay a thousand feet
+below. Across the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain
+torrent's way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling Clear Creek in its
+center, they could see the white dots that marked the camp back of the old
+orchard; and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the little opening
+with the cedar thicket and the giant sycamores that marked the spot where
+Sibyl was born.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day when he and Conrad
+Lagrange, in a spirit of venturesome fun, had left the choice of trails to
+the burro. "Good, old Croesus!" he said smiling.</p>
+
+<p>She knew the story of how they had been guided to their camping place, and
+laughed in return, as she answered, "He's a dear old burro, is Croesus,
+and worthy of a better name."</p>
+
+<p>"Plutus would be better," suggested the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian King?" she asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Wasn't Plutus the giver of wealth?" he returned.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, and wasn't he forced by Zeus to distribute his gifts without regard
+to the characters of the recipients?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "Plutus or Croesus--I'm glad he chose the Oak Knoll
+trail."</p>
+
+<p>"And so am I," answered the man, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung--narrow thread-like
+path--high upon the mountain wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon
+below. At a point where the trail turns to round the inward curve of one
+of the small side canyons--where the pines grow dark and tall--some
+thoughtful hand had laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under
+the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below the little path.
+Here they stopped again and, while they loitered, filled a small canteen
+with the cold, clear water from the mountain's heart. Farther on, where
+the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve of the wall between two
+mountain spurs, they turned aside to follow the Government trail that
+leads to the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then down into
+the valley on the other side. At the gap where the Galena trail crosses
+the fire-break, they again turned aside to make their leisure way along
+the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a fold and curve and kink
+like a great ribbon on the thin top of the ridge. With every step, now,
+they were climbing. Midday found them standing by a huge rock at the edge
+of a clump of pines on one of the higher points of the western end of the
+range. Here they would have their lunch.</p>
+
+<p>As they sat in the lee of the great rock, with the wind that sweeps the
+mountain tops singing in the pines above their heads, they looked directly
+down upon the wide Galena Valley and far across to the spurs and slopes of
+the San Jacintos beyond. Sibyl's keen eyes--mountain-trained from
+childhood--marked a railway train crawling down the grade from San
+Gorgonio Pass toward the distant ocean. She tried in vain to point it out
+to her companion. But the city eyes of the man could not find the tiny
+speck in the vast landscape that lay within the range of their vision. The
+artist looked at his watch. The train was the Golden State Limited that
+had brought him from the far away East, a few months before.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King remembered how, from the platform of the observation car, he
+had looked up at the mountains from which he now looked down. He
+remembered too, the woman into whose eyes he had, for the first time,
+looked that day. Turning his face to the west, he could distinguish under
+the haze of the distance the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands. Before three days had passed he would be in his studio home
+again. And the woman of the observation car platform--From distant
+Fairlands, the man turned his eyes to the winsome face of his girl comrade
+on the mountain top.</p>
+
+<p>"Please"--she said, meeting his serious gaze with a smile of frank
+fellowship--"please, what have I done?"</p>
+
+<p>Smiling, he answered gravely, "I don't exactly know--but you have done
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"You look so serious. I'm sure it must be pretty bad. Can't you think what
+it is?"</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "I was thinking about down there"--he pointed into the haze of
+the distant valley to the west.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she returned, "let's think about up here"--she waved her hand
+toward the high crest of the San Bernardinos, and the mountain peaks about
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you let me paint your portrait--when we get back to the orange
+groves?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," she returned. "Why do you want to paint me? I'm
+nobody, you know--but just me."</p>
+
+<p>"That's the reason I want to paint you," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the reason?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because you are you."</p>
+
+<p>"But a portrait of me would not help you on your road to fame," she
+retorted.</p>
+
+<p>He flinched. "Perhaps," he said, "that's partly why I want to do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Because it won't help you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because it won't help me on the road to fame. You <i>will</i> pose for me,
+won't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I cannot say"--she answered--"perhaps--please don't let's talk
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Because"--she answered seriously--"we have been such good friends up here
+in the mountains; such--such comrades. Up here in the hills, with the
+canyon gates shut against the world that I don't know, you are like--like
+Brian Oakley--and like my father used to be--and down there"--she
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "and down there I will be what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she answered wistfully, "but sometimes I can see you going
+on and on and on toward fame and the rewards it will bring you and you
+seem to get farther and farther and farther away from--from the mountains
+and our friendship; until you are so far away that I can't see you any
+more at all. I don't like to lose my mountain friends, you know."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled. "But no matter how famous I might become--no matter what fame
+might bring me--I could not forget you and your mountains."</p>
+
+<p>"I would not want you to remember me," she answered "if you were famous.
+That is--I mean"--she added hesitatingly--"if you were famous just because
+you <i>wanted</i> to be. But I know you could never forget the mountains. And
+that would be the trouble; don't you see? If you <i>could</i> forget, it would
+not matter. Ask Mr. Lagrange, he knows."</p>
+
+<p>For some time Aaron King sat, without speaking, looking about at the world
+that was so far from that other world--the world he had always known. The
+girl, too,--seeming to understand the thoughts that he himself, perhaps,
+could not have expressed,--was silent.</p>
+
+<p>Then he said slowly, "I don't think that I care for fame as I did before
+you taught me to know the mountains. It doesn't, somehow, now, seem to
+matter so much. It's the <i>work</i> that really matters--after all--isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>And Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, smiling, answered, "Yes, it's the work that really
+matters. I'm sure that <i>must</i> be so."</p>
+
+<p>In the afternoon, they went on, still following the fire-break, down to
+where it is intersected by the pipe-line a mile from the reservoir on the
+hill above the power-house; then back to Oak Knoll, again on the pipe-line
+trail all the way--a beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten walk.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was just touching the tops of the western mountains when they
+started down Oak Knoll. The canyon below, already, lay in the shadow. When
+they reached the foot of the trail, it was twilight. Across the road, by a
+small streamlet--a tributary to Clear Creek--a party of huntsmen were
+making ready to spend the night. The voices of the men came clearly
+through the gathering gloom. Under the trees, they could see the
+camp-fire's ruddy gleam. They did not notice the man who was standing,
+half hidden, in the bushes beside the road, near the spot where the trail
+opens into it. Silently, the man watched them as they turned up the road
+which they would follow a little way before crossing the canyon to Sibyl's
+home. Fifty yards farther on, they met Brian Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, you two," called the Ranger, cheerily--without stopping his horse.
+"Rather late to-night, ain't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be there by dark," called the artist And the Ranger passed on.</p>
+
+<p>At sound of the mountaineer's voice, the man in the bushes drew quickly
+back. The officer's trained eyes caught the movement in the brush, and he
+leaned forward in the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, the man reappeared in the road, farther down, around the
+bend. As the Ranger approached, he was hailed by a boisterous, "Hello,
+Brian! better stop and have a bite."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you do, Mr. Rutlidge?" came the officer's greeting, as he reined
+in his horse. "When did you land in the hills?"'</p>
+
+<p>"This afternoon," answered the other. "We're just making camp. Come and
+meet the fellows. You know some of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, not to-night,"--returned Brian Oakley,--"deer hunt, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes--thought we would be in good time for the opening of the season. By
+the way, do you happen to know where Lagrange and that artist friend of
+his are camped?"</p>
+
+<p>"In that bunch of sycamores back of the old orchard down there," answered
+the Ranger, watching the man's face keenly. "I just passed Mr. King, up
+the road a piece."</p>
+
+<p>"That so? I didn't see him go by," returned the other. "I think I'll run
+over and say 'hello' to Lagrange in the morning. We are only going as far
+as Burnt Pine to-morrow, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>"Keep your eyes open for an escaped convict," said the officer, casually.
+"There's one ranging somewhere in here--came in about a month ago. He's
+likely to clean out your camp. So long."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps we'll take him in for you," laughed the other. "Good night." He
+turned toward the camp-fire under the trees, as the officer rode away.</p>
+
+<p>"Now what in hell did that fellow want to lie to me like that for," said
+Brian Oakley to himself. "He must have seen King and Sibyl as they came
+down the trail. Max, old boy, when a man lies deliberately, without any
+apparent reason, you want to watch him."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch22" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXII</h2>
+
+<h3>Shadows of Coming Events</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were idling in their camp, after breakfast
+the next morning, when Czar turned his head, quickly, in a listening
+attitude. With a low growl that signified disapproval, he moved forward a
+step or two and stood stiffly erect, gazing toward the lower end of the
+orchard.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one coming, Czar?" asked the artist.</p>
+
+<p>The dog answered with another growl, while the hair on his neck bristled
+in anger.</p>
+
+<p>"Some one we don't like, heh!" commented the novelist. "Or"--he added as
+if musing upon the animal's instinct--"some one we ought not to like."</p>
+
+<p>A bark from Czar greeted James Rutlidge who at that moment appeared at the
+foot of the slope leading up to their camp.</p>
+
+<p>The two men--remembering the occasion of their visitor's last call at
+their home in Fairlands, when he had seen Sibyl in the studio--received
+the man with courtesy, but with little warmth. Czar continued to manifest
+his sentiments until rebuked by his master. The coolness of the reception,
+however, in no way disconcerted James Rutlidge; who, on his part, rather
+overdid his assumption of pleasure at meeting them again.</p>
+
+<p>Explaining that he had come with a party of friends on a hunting trip, he
+told them how he had met Brian Oakley, and so had learned of their camp
+hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, he said, had gone on
+up the canyon. They would stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he
+could easily join them before night. He could not think, he declared, of
+passing so near without greeting his friends.</p>
+
+<p>"You two certainly are expert when it comes to finding snug,
+out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, searching the camp and the
+immediate surroundings with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative
+eye. "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted place without ever
+dreaming that you were so ideally hidden back here."</p>
+
+<p>As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to rest upon a pair of gloves
+that Sibyl--the last time she had called--had carelessly left lying upon a
+stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp fashion, the rods and
+creels and guns were kept. The artist had intended to return the gloves
+the day before, together with a book of trout-flies which the girl had
+also forgotten; but, in his eagerness for the day's outing, he had gone
+off without them.</p>
+
+<p>The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to note that James Rutlidge had
+seen the telltale gloves. Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he
+asked abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after the health of
+Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise.</p>
+
+<p>The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed the heavy features of
+James Rutlidge, as he turned his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of
+the novelist was maddening.</p>
+
+<p>"The old boy is steadily going down," he said without feeling. "The
+doctors tell me that he can't last through the winter. It'll be a relief
+to everybody when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as
+always--remarkable how she keeps up appearances, considering her husband's
+serious condition. Louise is quite as usual. They will all be back in
+Fairlands in another month. They sent regards to you both--in case I
+should run across you."'</p>
+
+<p>The two men made the usual conventional replies, adding that they were
+returning to Fairlands the next day.</p>
+
+<p>"So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another meaning smile. "I don't
+see how you can think of leaving your really delightful retreat. I
+understand you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps though, they are
+also returning to the orange groves and roses."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about to reply with vigor to
+the sneering words, when Conrad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look.
+Ignoring the reference to their neighbors, the novelist replied suavely
+that they felt they must return to civilization as some matters in
+connection with the new edition of his last novel demanded his attention,
+and the artist wished to get back to his studio and to his work.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," urged Rutlidge, mockingly, "you ought not to go down now. The
+deer season opens in two days. Why not join our party for a hunt? We would
+be delighted to have you."</p>
+
+<p>They were coolly thanking him for the invitation,--that, from the tone in
+which it was given, was so evidently not meant,--when Czar, with a joyful
+bark, dashed away through the grove. A moment, and a clear, girlish voice
+called from among the trees that bordered the cienaga, "Whoo-ee." It was
+the signal that Sibyl always gave when she approached their camp.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge broke into a low laugh while Sibyl's friends looked at each
+other in angry consternation as the girl, following her hail and
+accompanied by the delighted dog, appeared in full view; her fishing-rod
+in hand, her creel swung over her shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's embarrassment, when, too late, she saw and recognized their
+visitor, was pitiful. As she came slowly forward, too confused to retreat,
+Rutlidge started to laugh again, but Aaron King, with an emphasis that
+checked the man's mirth, said in a low tone, "Stop that! Be careful!"</p>
+
+<p>As he spoke, the artist arose and with Conrad Lagrange went forward to
+greet Sibyl in--as nearly as they could--their customary manner.</p>
+
+<p>Formally, Rutlidge was presented to the girl; and, under the threatening
+eyes of the painter, greeted her with no hint of rudeness in his voice or
+manner; saying courteously, with a smile, "I have had the pleasure of Miss
+Andr&eacute;s' acquaintance for--let me see--three years now, is it not?" he
+appealed to her directly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was three years ago that I first saw you, sir," she returned coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"It was my first trip into the mountains, I remember," said Rutlidge,
+easily. "I met you at Brian Oakley's home."</p>
+
+<p>Without replying, she turned to Aaron King appealingly. "I--I left my
+gloves and fly-book. I was going fishing and called to get them."</p>
+
+<p>The artist gave her the articles with a word of regret for having so
+carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her
+two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back
+up the canyon, in the direction from which she had come.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl had disappeared among the trees, James Rutlidge said, with
+his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so
+unexpectedly. I--"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in
+his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be
+going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure
+you wouldn't care to join us?"</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from
+Aaron King and the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to
+be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport.
+Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful
+young woman, that Miss Andr&eacute;s. Charming companion--either in the mountains
+or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later."</p>
+
+<p>When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language
+that perhaps it would be better not to put in print.</p>
+
+<p>"And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous
+to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to
+charges that are not put into words."</p>
+
+<p>"I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said
+Aaron King, savagely.</p>
+
+<p>"Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly,
+and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store
+your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright,
+is sure to come."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Sibyl Andr&eacute;s went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that
+morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous
+freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when,
+in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she
+still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever
+known.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned again up the canyon, all the brightness of her day was
+gone. Her heart was heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with a
+dread of some impending evil which she could not understand. At every
+sound in the mountain wild-wood, she started. Time and again, as if
+expecting pursuit, she looked over her shoulder--poised like a creature of
+the woods ready for instant panic-stricken flight. So, without pausing to
+cast for trout, or even to go down to the stream, she returned home; where
+Myra Willard, seeing her come so early and empty handed, wondered. But to
+the woman's question, the girl only answered that she had changed her
+mind--that, after recovering her gloves and fly-book at the camp of their
+friends, she had decided to come home. The woman with the disfigured face,
+knowing that Aaron King was leaving the hills the next day, thought that
+she understood the girl's mood, and wisely made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>The artist and Conrad Lagrange went to spend their last evening in the
+hills with their friends. Brian Oakley, too, dropped in. But neither of
+the three men mentioned the name of James Rutlidge in the presence of the
+women; while Sibyl was, apparently, again her own bright and happy
+self--carrying on a fanciful play of words with the novelist, singing with
+the artist, and making music for them all with her violin. But before the
+evening was over, Conrad Lagrange found an opportunity to tell the Ranger
+of the incident of the morning, and of the construction that James
+Rutlidge had evidently put upon Sibyl's call at the camp. Brian
+Oakley,--thinking of the night before, and how the man must have seen the
+artist and the girl coming down the Oak Knoll trail in the
+twilight,--swore softly under his breath.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch23" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Outside the Canyon Gates Again</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange determined to go back from the mountains,
+the way they had come. Said the novelist, "It is as unseemly to rush
+pell-mell from an audience with the gods as it is to enter their presence
+irreverently."</p>
+
+<p>To which the artist answered, laughing, "Even criminals under sentence
+have, at least, the privilege of going to their prisons reluctantly."</p>
+
+<p>So they went down from the mountains, reverently and reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>Yee Kee, with the more elaborate equipment of the camp, was sent on ahead
+by wagon. The two men, with Croesus packed for a one night halt, and Czar,
+would follow. When all was ready, and they could neither of them invent
+any more excuses for lingering, Conrad Lagrange gave the word to the burro
+and they set out--down the little slope of grassy land; across the tiny
+stream from the cienaga; around the lower end of the old orchard, by the
+ancient weed-grown road--even Czar went slowly, with low-hung head, as if
+regretful at leaving the mountains that he, too, in his dog way, loved.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate, Aaron King asked the novelist to go on, saying that he would
+soon overtake him. It was possible, he said, that he might have left
+something in the spring glade. He thought he had better make sure. Conrad
+Lagrange, assenting, went through the gate and down the road, with the
+four-footed members of the party; and Czar must have thought that there
+was something very funny about old Croesus that morning, from the way his
+master laughed; when they were safely around the first turn.</p>
+
+<p>There was, of course, no material thing in the spring glade that the
+artist wanted. <i>He</i> knew that--quite as well as his laughing friend. Under
+the mistletoe oak, at the top of the bank, he paused, hesitating--as one
+will often pause when about to enter a sacred building. Softly, he pushed
+open the old gate, as he might have pushed open the door of a church.
+Slowly, reverently, he went down the path; baring his head as he went. He
+did not search for anything that he might have left. He simply stood for a
+few minutes under the gray-trunked alders that were so marked by the
+loving hands of long ago men and maidens--beside the mint bordered spring
+with the scattered stones of that old foundation--where, through the
+screen of boughs and vines and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell as through
+the traceries of a cathedral window, and the low, deep tones of the
+mountain waters came like the music of a great organ.</p>
+
+<p>It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, at that time, have told
+why, as he was leaving the hills, he had paused to visit once more the
+spot where Sibyl Andr&eacute;s had brought to him her three gifts from the
+mountains--where, in her pure innocence, she had danced before him the
+dance of the mating butterflies--and where, with the music of her violin,
+she had saved their friendship from the perils that threatened it--lifting
+their intimate comradeship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels,
+even as she had shown him the trails that lead from the lower canyon to
+the summits and peaks of the encircling mountain walls. But when he
+rejoined his friend there was something in his face that prevented the
+novelist from making any comment in a laughing vein.</p>
+
+<p>As the two men passed outward through the canyon gates and, looking
+backward as they went, saw those mighty doors close silently behind them,
+the artist was moved by emotions that were strange and new to the man who,
+two months before, had watched those gates open to receive him. This, too,
+is true; as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the mountains; so this
+man, now, knew, yet still did not know, himself.</p>
+
+<p>Where the road crosses, for the last time, the tumbling stream from the
+heart of the hills, they halted; and for one night slept again at the foot
+of the mountains. The next day they arrived at their little home in the
+orange grove. To Aaron King, it seemed that they had been away for years.</p>
+
+<p>When the traces of their days upon the road had been removed, and they
+were garbed again in the conventional costume of the world; when their
+outfit had been put away, and a home found for patient Croesus; the artist
+went to his studio. The afternoon passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but
+Aaron King did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find him. Softly,
+the older man pushed open the studio door to see the painter sitting
+before the portrait of Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's
+letters in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving the door ajar. Going to
+the corner of the house, he whistled low, and in answer, Czar come
+bounding to him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said the man,
+pointing toward the studio. "Go find Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, and pushing open the
+door entered the room; followed a few moments later by his master.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel was without a canvas. The
+portrait of Mrs. Taine was turned to the wall.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch24" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends,
+at Sibyl Andr&eacute;s' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last
+night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of
+one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear. She
+only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She
+had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge,
+until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous
+in his persistent efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the
+impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of
+their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home;
+perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often
+warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to
+develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to
+one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was, the mountain girl who
+was so naturally unafraid, feared this man who, in his own world, was an
+acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest spiritual and moral
+significance.</p>
+
+<p>That night, she slept but little. With the morning, every nerve demanded
+action, action. She felt as though if she could not spend herself in
+physical exertion she would go mad. Taking her lunch, and telling her
+companion that she was going for a good, full day with the trout; she was
+starting off, when the woman called her back.</p>
+
+<p>"You have forgotten Mr. Oakley's warning, dear. You are not to go unarmed,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, bother that old convict, Brian Oakley is so worried about," cried the
+girl. "I don't like to carry a gun when I am fishing. It's only an extra
+load." But, never-the-less, as she spoke, she went back to the porch;
+where Myra Willard handed her a belt of cartridges, with a serviceable
+Colt revolver in the holster. There was no hint of awkwardness when the
+girl buckled the belt about her waist and settled the holster in its place
+at her hip.</p>
+
+<p>"You will be careful, won't you, dear," said the woman, earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting her face for another good-by kiss, the girl answered, "Of course,
+dear mother heart." Then, with a laugh--"I'll agree to shoot the first man
+I meet, and identify him afterwards--if it will make you easier in your
+mind. You won't worry, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard smiled. "Not a bit, child. I know how Brian Oakley loves you,
+and he says that he has no fear for you if you are armed. He takes great
+chances himself, that man, but he would send us back to Fairlands, in a
+minute, if he thought you were in any danger in your rambles."</p>
+
+<p>Beside the roaring Clear Creek, Sibyl seated self upon a great
+boulder--her rod and flies neglected--apparently unmindful of the purpose
+that had brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon the swirling
+pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, a thousand feet up on Oak
+Knoll, where she knew the pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made
+the momentous decision that had resulted in her comradeship with Aaron
+King. Following the canyon wall with her eyes--as though in her mind she
+walked the thread-like path--from Oak Knoll to the fire-break a mile from
+the reservoir; her gaze then traced the crest of the Galenas, resting
+finally upon that clump of pines high up on the point that was so clearly
+marked against the sky. Once, she laid aside her rod, and slipped the
+creel from her shoulder. But even as she set out, she hesitated and turned
+back; resolutely taking up her fishing-tackle again, as though, angry with
+herself for her state of mind, she was determined to indulge no longer her
+mood of indecision.</p>
+
+<p>But the fishing did not go well. To properly cast a trout-fly, one's
+thoughts must be upon the art. A preoccupied mind and wandering attention
+tends to a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of aggravating
+complications. Sibyl--usually so skillful at this most delicate of
+sports--was as inaccurate and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The
+many pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek held for her, now,
+memories more attractive, by far, than the wary trout they sheltered. The
+familiar spots she had known since childhood were haunted by a something
+that made them seem new and strange.</p>
+
+<p>At last,--thoroughly angry with her inability to control her mood, and
+half ashamed of the thoughts that forced themselves so insistently upon
+her; with her nerves and muscles craving the action that would bring the
+relief of physical weariness,--she determined to leave the more familiar
+ground, for the higher and less frequented waters of Fern Creek. Climbing
+out of the canyon, by the steep, almost stair-like trail on the San
+Bernardino side, she walked hard and fast to reach Lone Cabin by noon.
+But, before she had finished her lunch, she decided not to fish there,
+after all; but to go on, over the still harder trail to Burnt Pine on
+Laurel Creek, and, returning to the lower canyon by the Laurel trail, to
+work down Clear Creek on the way to her home, in the late afternoon and
+twilight.</p>
+
+<p>The trail up the almost precipitous wall of the gorge at Lone Cabin, and
+over the mountain spur to Laurel Creek, is one that calls for a clear head
+and a sure foot. It is not a path for the city bred to essay, save with
+the ready arm of a guide. But the hill-trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s gloried in the task. The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed the
+climb from which her city sisters would have drawn back in trembling fear.</p>
+
+<p>Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height to the top, she halted.
+Her ear had caught a slight noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled
+down the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded from the trail
+where she stood, into the depths below. For a few minutes, the girl, on
+the little, shelf-like path that was scarcely wider than the span of her
+two hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff itself; while,
+with her face turned upward, she searched with keen eyes the rim of the
+gorge; her free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver at her
+hip. Then she went on--not timidly, but neither carelessly; not in the
+least frightened, but still,--knowing that the spot was far from the more
+frequented paths,--with experienced care.</p>
+
+<p>As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she paused again, to search
+with careful eyes the vicinity of the trail that from this point leads for
+a little way down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by easier
+stages, around the shoulder and the flank of the mountain, to Burnt Pine
+Camp. When no living object met her eye, and she could hear no sound save
+the lonely wind in the pines and the faint murmur of the stream in the
+gorge below, she took the few steps that yet remained of the climb, and
+seated herself for a moment's well-earned rest. Some small animal, she
+told herself,--a squirrel or a wood-rat, perhaps,--frightened at her
+approach, and scurrying hastily to cover, had dislodged the pebbles with
+the slight noise that she had heard.</p>
+
+<p>From where she sat with her back against the trunk of a great pine, she
+could see--far below, and beyond the immediate spurs and shoulders of the
+range, on the farther side of the gorge out of which she had just
+come--the lower end of Clear Creek canyon, and, miles away, under the
+blue haze of the distance, the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange
+groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way
+back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as
+if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny,
+moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the
+wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort,
+as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were
+to come. Would the friendship born in the hills endure in the world beyond
+the canyon gates? Could it endure away from those scenes that had given it
+birth? Was it possible for a fellowship, established in the free
+atmosphere of the mountains, to live in the lower altitude of Fairlands?
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s,--as she sat there, alone in the hills she loved,--in her
+heart of hearts, answered her own questions, "No." But still she searched
+the years to come--even as her eyes so futilely searched the distant
+landscape beyond the mighty gates that seemed, now, to shut her in from
+that world to which Aaron King was returning.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was aroused from her abstraction by a sound behind her and a
+little to the left of the tree against which she was leaning. In a flash,
+she was on her feet.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge stood a few steps away. He had been approaching her as she
+sat under the tree; but when she sprang to her feet and faced him, he
+halted. Lifting his hat, he greeted her with easy assurance; a confident,
+triumphant smile upon his heavy features.</p>
+
+<p>White-faced and trembling, the mountain girl--who a few moments before,
+had been so unafraid--stood shrinking before this cultured representative
+of the arts. Returning his salutation, she was starting hurriedly away
+down the trail, when he said, "Wait. Why be in such a hurry?"</p>
+
+<p>As if against her will, she paused. "It is growing late," she faltered; "I
+must go."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "I will go with you presently. Don't be afraid." Coming
+forward, with an air of making himself very much at home, he placed his
+rifle against the tree where she had been sitting. Then, as if to calm her
+fears, he continued, "I am camped at Burnt Pine, with a party of friends.
+I was up here looking for deer sign when I noticed you below, at the cabin
+there. I was just starting down to you, when I saw that you were going to
+come up; so I waited. Beautiful spot--this--don't you think?--so out of
+the way, too. Just the place for a quiet little visit."</p>
+
+<p>As the man spoke, he was eyeing her in a way that only served to confuse
+and frighten her the more. Murmuring some inaudible reply, she again
+started to go. But again he said, peremptorily, "Wait." And again, as if
+against her will, she paused. "If you have no scruples about wandering
+over the mountains alone with that artist fellow, I do not see why you
+should hesitate to favor me."</p>
+
+<p>The man's words were, undoubtedly, prompted by what he firmly believed to
+be the nature of the relation between the girl and Aaron King--a belief
+for which he had, to his mind, sufficient evidence. But Sibyl had no
+understanding of his meaning. In the innocence of her pure mind, the
+purport of his words was utterly lost. Her very fear of the man was not a
+reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a nature that had never
+felt the unclean touch of the world in which James Rutlidge habitually
+moved. It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her
+always so embarrassed in the man's presence. It was because she did not
+understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking
+her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in
+which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s. Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her
+relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence;
+he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail
+to understand.</p>
+
+<p>When she <i>did</i> grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
+gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
+expression in scathing words of denunciation.</p>
+
+<p>The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
+there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
+That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
+had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
+scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
+vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
+flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
+passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
+her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
+a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.</p>
+
+<p>But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
+different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
+With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
+careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar. In the blue eyes
+that looked at him, now, over the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no
+uncertainty of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the weapon with such
+ready swiftness, was as steady as though at target practice.
+Instinctively, the man half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield
+his face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he gasped, "put that
+down."</p>
+
+<p>In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that instant, than he had
+ever been before.</p>
+
+<p>Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still uplifted, he said again,
+"Put it down, I tell you. Don't you see I'm not going to touch you? You
+are crazy. You might kill me."</p>
+
+<p>Her words came cold and collected, expressing, together with her calm
+manner, perfect self-possession "If you can give any good reason why I
+should not kill you, I will let you go."</p>
+
+<p>The man was carefully drawing backward toward the tree against which he
+had placed his rifle.</p>
+
+<p>She watched him, with a disconcerting smile. "You may as well stop now,"
+she said, in those even, composed tones. "I shall fire, the moment you are
+within reach of your gun."</p>
+
+<p>He halted with a gesture of despair; his face livid with fear at her
+apparent indecision as to his fate.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, she spoke again. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill
+you--unless you force me to--which I assure you will not be at all
+difficult for you to do. Move down the trail until I tell you to stop."
+She indicated the direction, along the ridge of the mountain spur.</p>
+
+<p>He obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," she said, when he was some twenty paces away.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, turning to face her again.</p>
+
+<p>Picking up his Winchester, she skillfully and rapidly threw all of the
+shells out of the magazine. Then, covering him again with her own weapon,
+she went a few steps closer and threw the empty rifle at his feet. "Now,"
+she said, "put that gun over your left shoulder, and go on ahead of me
+down the trail. If you try to dodge or run, or if you change the position
+of your rifle, I'll kill you."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to take you down to your camp at Burnt Pine."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge, pale with rage and shame, stood still. "You may as well
+kill me," he said. "I will never go into camp, this way."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be uneasy," she returned. "I am no more anxious for the world to
+know of this, than you are. Do as I say. When we come within sight of your
+camp, or if we meet any one, I will put up my gun and we will go on
+together. That's why I am permitting you to carry your rifle."</p>
+
+<p>So they went down the mountainside--the man with his empty rifle over his
+shoulder; the girl following, a few paces in the rear, with ready weapon.</p>
+
+<p>When they had come within sight of the camp, James Rutlidge said, "There's
+some one there."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," returned Sibyl, slipping her gun in its holster and stepping
+forward beside her companion. And there was a note of glad relief in her
+voice, for it was Brian Oakley who was bending over the camp-fire "Come,"
+she continued to her companion, "and act as though nothing had happened."</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger, on his way down from somewhere in the vicinity of San
+Gorgonio, had stopped at the hunters' camp for a belated dinner. Finding
+no one at home, he had started a fire, and had helped himself to coffee
+and bacon. He was just concluding his appropriated meal, when Sibyl and
+James Rutlidge arrived.</p>
+
+<p>In a few words, the girl explained to her friend, that she was on her way
+over the trail from Lone Cabin, and had accidentally met Mr. Rutlidge who
+had accompanied her as far as the camp. James Rutlidge had little to say
+beyond assuring the Ranger of his welcome; and very soon, the officer and
+the girl set out on their way down the Laurel trail to Clear Creek canyon.
+As they went, Sibyl's old friend asked not a few questions about her
+meeting with James Rutlidge; but the girl, walking ahead in the narrow
+trail, evaded him, and was glad that he could not see her face.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl had spoken the literal truth when she said to Rutlidge, that she did
+not want any one to know of the incident. She felt ashamed and humiliated
+at the thought of telling even her father's old comrade and friend. She
+knew Brian Oakley too well to have any doubts as to what would happen if
+he knew how the man had approached her, and she shrank from the inevitable
+outcome. She wished only to forget the whole affair, and, as quickly as
+possible, turned the conversation into other and safer channels.</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger could not stop at the house with her, but must go on down the
+canyon, to the Station. So the girl returned to Myra Willard, alone; and,
+to the woman's surprise, for the second time, with an empty creel.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl explained her failure to bring home a catch of trout, with the
+simple statement that she had not fished; and then--to her companion's
+amazement--burst into tears; begging to return at once to their little
+home in Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard thought that she understood, better than the girl herself,
+why, for the first time in her life, Sibyl wished to leave the mountains.
+Perhaps the woman with the disfigured face was right.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch25" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXV</h2>
+
+<h3>On the Pipe-Line Trail</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+James Rutlidge spent the day following his experience with Sibyl Andr&eacute;s,
+in camp. His companions very quickly felt his sullen, ugly mood, and left
+him to his own thoughts.</p>
+
+<p>The manner in which Sibyl received his advances had in no way changed the
+man's mind as to the nature of her relation to Aaron King. To one of James
+Rutlidge's type,--schooled in the intellectual moral and esthetic tenets
+of his class,--it was impossible to think of the companionship of the
+artist and the girl in any other light. If he had even considered the
+possibility of a clean, pure comradeship existing between them--under all
+the circumstances of their friendship as he had seen them in the studio,
+on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's camp--he would have answered
+himself that Aaron King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage
+of his opportunities. The humiliation of his pride, and his rage at being
+so ignominiously checked by the girl whom he had so long endeavored to
+win, served only to increase his desire for her. Sibyl's resolute spirit,
+and vigorous beauty, when aroused by him, together with her unexpected
+opposition to his advances, were as fuel to the flame of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not improve his temper;
+and the next morning his friends were relieved to see him setting out
+alone, with rifle and field-glass and lunch. Ostensibly starting in the
+direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he doubled back, as soon as he
+was out of sight of camp, and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek
+canyon.</p>
+
+<p>It could not be said that the man had any definite purpose in mind. He was
+simply yielding in a purposeless way to his mood, which, for the time
+being, could find no other expression. The remote chance that some
+opportunity looking toward his desire might present itself, led him to
+seek the scenes where such an opportunity would be most likely to occur.</p>
+
+<p>Crossing the canyon above the Company Headwork he came into the pipe-line
+trail at a point a little back from the main wagon road and, an hour
+later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the Government trail leads
+down into the canyon below, and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had
+committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus. Here he left the trail,
+and climbed to a point on a spur of the mountain, from which he could see
+the path for some distance on either side and below, and from which his
+view of the narrow valley was unobstructed. Comfortably seated, with his
+back against a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon the
+little spot of open green--marked by the giant sycamores, the dark line of
+cedars, and the half hidden house--where he knew that Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and
+Myra Willard were living.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon the scene that so
+interested him, than he uttered a low exclamation. The two women,
+surrounded by their luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the porch
+with Brian Oakley; waiting, evidently, for the wagon that was crossing the
+creek toward the house. It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and the woman with the disfigured face were returning to
+Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, James Rutlidge sat watching, with absorbing interest, the
+unconscious people in the canyon below. Once, he turned for a brief glance
+at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, farther down the creek.
+The camp of Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there. Quickly he
+fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her friends. Presently,--as one will
+when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,--he lowered his
+hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in
+the landscape before him. At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on
+the near-by trail below. It was a pitiful figure--ill-kempt ragged,
+half-starved, haggard-faced.</p>
+
+<p>Creeping feebly along the lonely little path--without seeing the man on
+the mountainside above--crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful
+air--the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the
+trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.</p>
+
+<p>As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher on the rocks above
+involuntarily glanced toward the distant Forest Ranger; then back to
+the--as he rightly guessed--escaped convict.</p>
+
+<p>There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of a man like James Rutlidge
+when, however bad or dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels
+strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to help. Undoubtedly,
+James Rutlidge inherited from his father those tendencies that made him
+easily ruled by his baser passions. His character was as truly the
+legitimate product of the age, of the social environment, and of the
+thought that accepts such characters. What he might have been if better
+born, or if schooled in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual integrity,
+is an idle speculation. He was what his inheritance and his life had made
+him. He was not without impulses for good. The pitiful, hunted creature,
+creeping so wearily along the trail, awoke in this man of the accepted
+culture of his day a feeling of compassion, and aroused in him a desire to
+offer assistance. For the legal aspect of the case, James Rutlidge had all
+the indifference of his kind, who imbibe contempt for law with their
+mother's milk. For the moment he hesitated. Then, as the figure below
+passed from his sight, under the point of the spur, he slipped quietly
+down the mountainside, and, a few minutes later, met the convict face to
+face.</p>
+
+<p>At the leveled rifle and the sharp command, "Hands up," the poor fellow
+halted with a gesture of tragic despair. An instant they stood; then the
+hunted one turned impulsively toward the canyon that, here, lies almost a
+sheer thousand feet below.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge spoke sharply. "Don't do that. I'm not an officer. I want
+to help you."</p>
+
+<p>The convict turned his hunted, fearful, starving face in doubtful
+bewilderment toward the speaker.</p>
+
+<p>The man with the gun continued, "I got the drop on you to prevent
+accidents--until I could explain--that's all." He lowered the rifle.</p>
+
+<p>The other went a staggering step forward. "You mean that?" he said in a
+harsh, incredulous whisper. "You--you're not playing with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why should I want to play with you?" returned the other, kindly. "Come,
+let's get off the trail. I have something to eat, up there." He led the
+way back to the place where he had left his lunch.</p>
+
+<p>Dropping down upon the ground, the starving man seized the offered food
+with an animal-like cry; feeding noisily, with the manner of a famished
+beast. The other watched with mingled pity and disgust.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, in stammering, halting phrases, but in words that showed no
+lack of education, the wretched creature attempted to apologize for his
+unseemly eagerness, and endeavored to thank his benefactor. "I suppose,
+sir, there is no use trying to deny my identity," he said, when James
+Rutlidge had again assured him of his kindly interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," agreed the other, "and, so far as I am concerned, there is
+no reason why you should."</p>
+
+<p>"Just what do you mean by that, sir?" questioned the convict.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean that I am not an officer and have no reason in the world for
+turning you over to them. I saw you coming along the trail down there
+and, of course, could not help noticing your condition and guessing who
+you were. To me, you are simply a poor devil who has gotten into a tight
+hole, and I want to help you out a bit, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward the canyon below, as he
+answered, "I thank you, sir, but it would have been better if you had not.
+Your help has only put the end off for a few hours. They've got me shut
+in. I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get
+out. I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There
+was no mistaking his desperate purpose.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail
+and the rocky depth below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he
+said invitingly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but
+I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late."</p>
+
+<p>While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly. As he had
+been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary
+assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more
+lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great
+a risk to his own convenience. The convict's hopeless condition, his
+despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all
+combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him. But while that truly
+benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister
+motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James
+Rutlidge's nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his
+by inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that
+had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could
+watch Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.
+Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to
+a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation
+where a man like the one before him--wholly in his power as this man would
+be--might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose--the purpose that
+had brought about their meeting.</p>
+
+<p>Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I suppose the most of us
+are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get
+it. One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our
+wrong-doing. What if I should help you out--make it possible for you to
+live like other men who are safe from the law? What would you do if I were
+to help you to your freedom?"</p>
+
+<p>The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the
+sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.</p>
+
+<p>"You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?" asked Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water. I
+could live there a year if I had supplies."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge considered. "I've got it!" he said at last. "Listen! There
+must be some peak, at the Cold Water end of this range, from which you can
+see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," the other answered eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"And," continued Rutlidge, "there is a good 'auto' road up the Galena
+Valley. One could get, I should think, to a point within--say nine hours
+of your camp. Do you know anything about the heliograph?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the man, his face brightening. "That is, I understand the
+general principle--that it's a method of signaling by mirror flashes."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! This is my plan. I will meet you to-morrow on the Laurel Creek
+trail, where it turns off from the creek toward San Gorgonio. You know the
+spot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on the divide between this
+canyon and the Cold Water, to some peak in the Galenas from which we can
+see Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can pick out some point
+at the upper end of Galena Valley, that we can both find later."</p>
+
+<p>"I understand."</p>
+
+<p>"When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a night trip in the 'auto' to
+that point, with supplies. You will meet me there. The day before I make
+the trip, I'll signal you by mirror flashes that I am coming; and you will
+answer from the peak. We'll agree on the time of day and the signals
+to-morrow. When you have kept close, long enough for your beard and hair
+to grow out well, everybody will have given you up for dead or gone. Then
+I will take you down and give you a job in an orange grove. There's a
+little house there where you can live. You won't need to show yourself
+down-town and, in time, you will be forgotten. I'll bring you enough food
+to-morrow to last you until I can return to town and can get back on the
+first night trip."</p>
+
+<p>The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes later, after trying brokenly
+to express his gratitude, was a creature very different from the poor,
+frightened hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rutlidge had halted
+an hour before. What that man was to become, would depend almost wholly
+upon his benefactor.</p>
+
+<p>When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again took up his field-glass. The
+old home of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s was deserted. While he had been talking with the
+convict, the girl and Myra Willard had started on their way back to
+Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the man slipped the glass
+into its case, and, with a long, slow look over the scene, set out on his
+way to rejoin his friends.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch26" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>I Want You Just as You Are</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The evening of that day after their return from the mountains, when Conrad
+Lagrange had found Aaron King so absorbed in his mother's letters, the
+artist continued in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The next morning, it
+was the same. Refusing every attempt of his friend to engage him in
+conversation, he answered only with absent-minded mono-syllables; until
+the novelist, declaring that the painter was fit company for neither beast
+nor man, left him alone; and went off somewhere with Czar.</p>
+
+<p>The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon in his studio, doing
+nothing of importance. That is, to a casual observer he would have
+<i>seemed</i> to be doing nothing of importance. He did, however, place his
+picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. Taine, and then,
+for an hour or more, sat considering the two paintings. Then he turned the
+"Quaker Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in place on the
+easel. That was all.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned to the
+studio--hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged his palette, paints, and
+brushes ready to his hand, indeed--but he, then, did nothing with them.
+Listlessly, without interest, he turned through his portfolios of
+sketches. Often, he looked away through the big, north window to the
+distant mountain tops. Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting
+before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, clear and sweet, from
+the depths of the orange grove, came the pure tones of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s'
+violin.</p>
+
+<p>So soft and low was the music, at first, that the artist almost doubted
+that it was real, thinking--as he had thought that day when Sibyl came
+singing to the glade--that it was his fancy tricking him. When he and
+Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three days before, the girl and her
+companion had not expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks.
+But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. As the tones grew
+louder and more insistent, with a ringing note of gladness, he knew that
+the mountain girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language she
+loved best, was greeting her friends.</p>
+
+<p>But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that Aaron King gave the
+novelist no share in their neighbor's musical greeting. He received the
+message as if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes
+brightened; he stood erect, his face turned upward toward the mountain
+peaks in the distance; his lips curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he
+could see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment as she played,
+knowing his surprise. Once, he started impulsively toward the door, but
+paused, hesitating, and turned back. When the music ceased, he went to the
+open window that looked out into the rose garden, and watched expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she came through the orange
+grove beyond the Ragged Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at
+the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full view.</p>
+
+<p>The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft
+brown,--made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,--with felt hat
+to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was dressed, now,
+as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was
+hiding from Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little back, with a
+low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder. Was that lovely creature
+there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills? The Sibyl Andr&eacute;s he
+had known--in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb--was a
+winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall,
+and beautifully developed woman.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and
+there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting;
+singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that
+enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of
+the wind that caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she
+belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and
+oaks of the mountains. The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood
+as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.</p>
+
+<p>Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture
+of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. "Hold the pose--please
+hold it! I want you just as you are!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his
+welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the
+polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did
+everything, gave herself to his mood.</p>
+
+<p>Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it across the studio, he
+cried out, again, "Don't move, please don't move!" and began working. He
+was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into
+the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was
+expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.
+"If I can get it! If I can only get it!" he exclaimed again and again,
+with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.</p>
+
+<p>All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all
+his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without
+conscious effort--obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful
+straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and
+harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so
+surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, as he was
+unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil,
+as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the
+roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s came singing through the
+orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands
+outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting
+before his easel, palette and brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had
+worked that first day--with no thought for anything save for his picture.</p>
+
+<p>In the mornings, he walked with Conrad Lagrange or, sometimes, worked with
+Sibyl in the garden. Often, in the evening, the two men would visit the
+little house next door. Occasionally, the girl and the woman with the
+disfigured face would come to sit for a while on the front porch with
+their friends. Thus the neighborly friendship that began in the hills was
+continued in the orange groves. The comradeship between the two young
+people grew stronger, hour by hour, as the painter worked at his easel to
+express with canvas and color and brush the spirit of the girl whose
+character and life was so unmarred by the world.</p>
+
+<p>A11 through those days, when he was so absorbed in his work that he often
+failed to reply when she spoke to him, the girl manifested a helpful
+understanding of his mood that caused the painter to marvel. She seemed to
+know, instinctively, when he was baffled or perplexed by the annoying
+devils of "can't-get-at-it," that so delight to torment artist folk; just
+as she knew and rejoiced when the imps were routed and the soul of the man
+exulted with the sureness and freedom of his hand. He asked her, once,
+when they had finished for the day, how it was that she knew so well how
+the work was progressing, when she could not see the picture.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed merrily. "But I can see <i>you</i>; and I"--she hesitated with that
+trick, that he was learning to know so well, of searching for a word--"I
+just <i>feel</i> what you are feeling. I suppose it's because my music is that
+way. Sometimes, it simply won't come right, at all, and I feel as though I
+never <i>could</i> do it. Then, again, it seems to do itself; and I listen and
+wonder--just as if I had nothing to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>So that day came when the artist, drawing slowly back from his easel,
+stood so long gazing at his picture without touching it that the girl
+called to him, "What's the matter? Won't it come right?"</p>
+
+<p>Slowly he laid aside his palette and brushes. Standing at the open window,
+he looked at her--smiling but silent--as she held the pose.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I not right?" she asked
+anxiously. Then, before he could answer--"Oh, have you finished? Is it all
+done?"</p>
+
+<p>Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have done all that I can do.
+Come."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, she stood in the studio door.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."</p>
+
+<p>"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."</p>
+
+<p>The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned
+curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have
+never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or
+condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be
+so modern."</p>
+
+<p>"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your
+work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just
+as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, that's the reason. I--I'm afraid to see myself as you see me."</p>
+
+<p>The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he answered seriously, "Miss
+Andr&eacute;s, you, of all the people I have ever known, have the least cause to
+fear to look at your portrait for <i>that</i> reason. Come."</p>
+
+<p>Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side before the picture.</p>
+
+<p>For some time, she looked at the beautiful work into which Aaron King had
+put the best of himself and of his genius. At last, turning full upon him,
+her eyes blue and shining, she said in a low tone, "O Mr. King, it is
+too--too--beautiful! It is so beautiful it--it--hurts. She seems to,
+to"--she searched for the word--"to belong to the roses, doesn't she? It
+makes you feel just as the rose garden makes you feel."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed with pleasure, "What a child of nature you are! You have
+forgotten that it is a portrait of yourself, haven't you?"</p>
+
+<p>She laughed with him. "I <i>had</i> forgotten. It's so lovely!" Then she added
+wistfully, "Am I--am I really like that?--just a little?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," he answered. "But that is just a little, a very little, like you."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him half doubtfully--sincerely unmindful of the compliment,
+in her consideration of its truth. Shaking her head, with a serious smile,
+she returned slowly, "I wish that I could be sure you are not mistaken."</p>
+
+<p>"You will permit me to exhibit the picture, will you?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, yes! of course! You made it for people to see, didn't you? I don't
+believe any one could look at it seriously without having good thoughts,
+could they?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure they could not," he answered. "But, you see, it's a portrait of
+you; and I thought you might not care for the--ah--" he finished with a
+smile--"shall I say fame?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I did not think that you would tell any one that <i>I</i> had anything to
+do with it. Is it necessary that my name should be mentioned?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not exactly necessary"--he admitted--"but few women, these days, would
+miss the opportunity."</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head, with a positive air. "No, no; you must exhibit it as a
+picture; not as a portrait of me. The portrait part is of no importance.
+It is what you have made your picture say, that will do good."</p>
+
+<p>"And what have I made it say?" he asked, curiously pleased.</p>
+
+<p>"Why it says that--that a woman should be beautiful as the roses are
+beautiful--without thinking too much about it, you know--just as a man
+should be strong without thinking too much about his strength, I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he agreed, "it says that. But I want you to know that, whatever
+title it is exhibited under, it will always be, to me, a portrait--the
+truest I have ever painted."</p>
+
+<p>She flushed with genuine pleasure as she said brightly, "I like you for
+that. And now let's try it on Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard. You get
+him, and I'll run and bring her. Mind you don't let Mr. Lagrange in until
+I get back! I want to watch him when he first sees it."</p>
+
+<p>When the artist found Conrad Lagrange and told him that the picture was
+finished, the novelist, without comment, turned his attention to Czar.</p>
+
+<p>The painter, with an amused smile, asked, "Won't you come for a look at
+it, old man?"</p>
+
+<p>The other returned gruffly, "Thanks; but I don't think I care to risk it."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "But Miss Andr&eacute;s wants you to come. She sent me to
+fetch you."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange turned his peculiar, baffling eyes upon the young man.
+"Does <i>she</i> like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"She seems to."</p>
+
+<p>"If she <i>seems</i> to, she does," retorted the other, rising. "And that's
+different."</p>
+
+<p>When the novelist, with his three friends, stood before the easel, he was
+silent for so long that the girl said anxiously, "I--I thought you would
+like it, Mr. Lagrange."</p>
+
+<p>They saw the strange man's eyes fill with tears as he answered, in the
+gentle tones that always marked his words to her, "Like it? My dear child,
+how could I help liking it? It is you--you!" To the artist, he added, "It
+is great work, my boy, great! I--I wish your mother could have seen it. It
+is like her--as I knew her. You have done well." He turned, with gentle
+courtesy, to Myra Willard; "And you? What is your verdict, Miss Willard?"</p>
+
+<p>With her arm around the beautiful original of the portrait, the woman with
+the disfigured face answered, "I think, sir, that I, better than any one
+in all the world, know how good, how true, it is."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange spoke again to the artist, inquiringly; "You will exhibit
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Andr&eacute;s says that I may--but not as a portrait."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist could not conceal his pleasure at the answer. Presently, he
+said, "If it is not to be shown as a portrait, may I suggest a title?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was hoping you would!" exclaimed the painter.</p>
+
+<p>"And so was I," cried Sibyl, with delight. "What is it, Mr. Lagrange?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let it be exhibited as 'The Spirit of Nature--A Portrait'," answered
+Conrad Lagrange.</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist finished speaking, Yee Kee appeared in the doorway. "They
+come--big automobile. Whole lot people. Misse Taine, Miste' Lutlidge, sick
+man, whole lot--I come tell you."</p>
+
+<p>The artist spoke quickly,--"Stop them in the house, Kee; I'll be right
+in,"--and the Chinaman vanished.</p>
+
+<p>At Yee Kee's announcement, Myra Willard's face went white, and she gave a
+low cry.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, dear," said the girl, soothingly. "We can slip away through
+the garden--come."</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl and the woman with the disfigured face were gone, Conrad
+Lagrange and Aaron King looked at each other, questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>Then the novelist said harshly,--pointing to the picture on the
+easel,--"You're not going to let that flock of buzzards feed on this, are
+you? I'll murder some one, sure as hell, if you do."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I could stand it, myself," said the artist, laughing
+grimly, as he drew the velvet curtain to hide the portrait.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch27" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Answer</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange entered the house to meet their
+callers from Fairlands Heights, the artist felt, oddly, that he was
+meeting a company of strangers.</p>
+
+<p>The carefully hidden, yet--to him--subtly revealed, warmth of Mrs. Taine's
+greeting embarrassed him with a momentary sense of shame. The frothing
+gush of Louise's inane ejaculations, and the coughing, choking, cursing of
+Mr. Taine,--whose feeble grip upon the flesh that had so betrayed him was,
+by now, so far loosed that he could scarcely walk alone,--set the painter
+struggling for words that would mean nothing--the only words that, under
+the circumstances, could serve. Aaron King was somewhat out of practise in
+the use of meaningless words, and the art of talking without saying
+anything is an art that requires constant exercise if one would not commit
+serious technical blunders. James Rutlidge's greeting was insolently
+familiar; as a man of certain mind greets--in public--a boon companion of
+his private and unmentionable adventures. Toward the great critic, the
+painter exercised a cool self-restraint that was at least commendable.</p>
+
+<p>While Aaron King, with James Rutlidge and Mr. Taine, with carefully
+assumed interest, was listening to Louise's effort to make a jumble of
+"ohs" and "ahs" and artistic sighs sound like a description of a sunset in
+the mountains, Mrs. Taine said quietly to Conrad Lagrange, "You certainly
+have taken excellent care of your protege, this summer. He looks
+splendidly fit."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist, watching the woman whose eyes, as she spoke, were upon the
+artist, answered, "You are pleased to flatter me, Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>She turned to him, with a knowing smile. "Perhaps I <i>am</i> giving you more
+credit than is due. I understand Mr. King has not been in your care
+altogether. Shame on you, Mr. Lagrange! for a man of your age and
+experience to permit your charge to roam all over the country, alone and
+unprotected, with a picturesque mountain girl!--and that, after your
+warning to poor me!"</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange smiled grimly. "I confess I thought of you in that
+connection several times."</p>
+
+<p>She eyed him doubtfully. "Oh, well," she said easily, "I suppose artists
+must amuse themselves, occasionally--the same as the rest of us."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think that, '<i>amuse</i>' is exactly the word, Mrs. Taine," the other
+returned coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? Surely you don't meant to tell me that it is anything serious?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't mean to tell you anything about it," he retorted rather sharply.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed. "You don't need to. Jim has already told me quite enough. Mr.
+King, himself, will tell me more."</p>
+
+<p>"Not unless he's a bigger fool than I think," growled the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she laughed into his face, mockingly. "You men are all more or less
+foolish when there's a woman in the case, aren't you?"</p>
+
+<p>To which, the other answered tartly, "If we were not, there would be no
+woman in the case."</p>
+
+<p>As Conrad Lagrange spoke, Louise, exhausted by her efforts to achieve that
+sunset in the mountains with her limited supply of adjectives, floundered
+hopelessly into the expressive silence of clasped hands and heaving breast
+and ecstatically upturned eyes. The artist, seizing the opportunity with
+the cunning of desperation, turned to Mrs. Taine, with some inane remark
+about the summers in California.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever it was that he said, Mrs. Taine agreed with him, heartily,
+adding, "And you, I suppose, have been making good use of your time? Or
+have you been simply storing up material and energy for this winter?"</p>
+
+<p>This brought Louise out of the depths of that sunset, with a flop. She was
+so sure that Mr. King had some inexpressibly wonderful work to show them.
+Couldn't they go at once to the equally inexpressibly beautiful studio, to
+see the inexpressibly lovely pictures that she was so inexpressibly sure
+he had been painting in the inexpressibly grand and beautiful and
+wonderfully lovely mountains?</p>
+
+<p>The painter assured them that he had no work for them to see; and Louise
+floundered again into the depths of inexpressible disappointment and
+despair.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Aaron King found himself in his
+studio, alone with Mrs. Taine. He could not have told exactly how she
+managed it, or why. Perhaps, in sheer pity, she had rescued him from the
+floods of Louise's appreciation. Perhaps--she had some other reasons.
+There had been something said about her right to see her own picture, and
+then--there they were--with the others safely barred from intruding upon
+the premises sacred to art.</p>
+
+<p>When there was no longer need to fear the eyes of the world, Mrs. Taine
+was at no pains to hide the warmth of her feeling. With little reserve,
+she confessed herself in every look and tone and movement.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you really glad to see me, I wonder," she said invitingly. "All this
+summer, while I have been forced to endure the company of all sorts of
+stupid people, I have been thinking of you and your work. And, you see, I
+have come to you, the first possible moment after my return home."</p>
+
+<p>The man--being a man--could not remain wholly insensible to the alluring
+physical beauty of the splendid creature who stood so temptingly before
+him; but, to the honor of his kind, he could and did remain master of
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>The woman, true to her life training,--as James Rutlidge had been true to
+his schooling when he approached Sibyl Andr&eacute;s in the mountains,--construed
+the artist's manner, not as a splendid self-control but as a careful
+policy. To her, and to her kind, the great issues of life are governed,
+not at all by principle, but by policy. It is not at all what one is, or
+what one may accomplish that matters; it is wholly what one may skillfully
+<i>appear</i> to be, and what one may skillfully provoke the world to say,
+that is of vital importance. Turning from the painter to the easel, as if
+to find in his portrait of her the fuller expression of that which she
+believed he dared not yet put into words, she was about to draw aside the
+curtain; when Aaron King checked her quickly, with a smile that robbed his
+words of any rudeness.</p>
+
+<p>"Please don't touch that, Mrs. Taine. I am not yet ready to show it."</p>
+
+<p>As she turned from the easel to face him, he took her portrait from where
+it rested, face to the wall; and placed it upon another easel, saying,
+"Here is your picture."</p>
+
+<p>With the painting before her, she talked eagerly of her plans for the
+artist's future; how the picture was to be exhibited, and how, because it
+was her portrait, it would be praised and talked about by her friends who
+were leaders in the art circles. Frankly, she spoke of "pull" and
+"influence" and "scheme"; of "working" this and that "paper" for
+"write-ups"; of "handling" this or that "critic" and "writer"; of
+"reaching the committees"; of introducing the painter into the proper
+inside cliques, and clans; and of clever "advertising stunts" that would
+make him the most popular portrait painter of his day; insuring thus
+his--as she called it--fame.</p>
+
+<p>The man who had painted the picture of the spring glade, and who had so
+faithfully portrayed the truth and beauty of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s as she stood
+among the roses, listened to this woman's plans for making his portrait of
+herself famous, with a feeling of embarrassment and shame.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think that the work merits such prominence as you say will
+be given it?" he asked doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed knowingly, "Just wait until Jim Rutlidge's 'write-up' appears,
+and all the others follow his lead, and you'll see! The picture is clever
+enough--you know it as well as I. It is beautiful. It has everything that
+we women want in a portrait. I really don't know much about what you
+painters call art; but I know that when Jim and our friends get through
+with it, your picture will have every mark of a great masterpiece, and
+that you will be on the topmost wave of success."</p>
+
+<p>"And then what?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she interpreted his words in the light of her own thoughts, and
+with little attempt to veil the fire that burned in her eyes, answered,
+"And then--I hope that you will not forget me."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he returned her look; then a feeling of disgust and shame for
+her swept over him, and he again turned away, to stand gazing moodily out
+of the window that looked into the rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>"You seem to be disturbed and worried," she said, in a tone that implied a
+complete understanding of his mood, and a tacit acceptance of the things
+that he would say if it were not for the world.</p>
+
+<p>He laughed shortly--"I fear you will think me ungrateful for your
+kindness. Believe me, I am not."</p>
+
+<p>"I know you are not," she returned. "But don't think that you had better
+confess, just the same?"</p>
+
+<p>He answered wonderingly, "Confess?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." She shook her finger at him, in playful severity. "Oh, I know what
+you have been up to all summer--running wild with your mountain girl!
+Really, you ought to be more discreet."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's face burned as he stammered something about not knowing what
+she meant.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed gaily. "There, there, never mind--I forgive you--now that you
+are safely back in civilization again. I know you artists, and how you
+must have your periods of ah--relaxation--with rather more liberties than
+the common herd. Just so you are careful that the world doesn't know <i>too</i>
+much."</p>
+
+<p>At this frank revelation of her mind, the man stood amazed. For the
+construction she put upon his relation with the girl whose pure and gentle
+comradeship had led him to greater heights in his art than he had ever
+before attained, he could have driven this woman from the studio he felt
+that she profaned. But what could he say? He remembered Conrad Lagrange's
+counsel when James Rutlidge had seen the girl at their camp. What could he
+say that would not injure Sibyl Andr&eacute;s? To cover his embarrassment, he
+forced a laugh and answered lightly, "Really, I am not good at
+confessions."</p>
+
+<p>"Nor I at playing the part of confessor," she laughed with him. "But, just
+the same, you might tell me what you think of yourself. Aren't you just a
+little ashamed?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist had moved to a position in front of her portrait; and, as he
+looked upon the painted lie, his answer came. "Rather let me tell you what
+I think of <i>you</i>, Mrs. Taine. And let me tell you in the language I know
+best. Let me put my answer to your charges here," he touched her portrait.</p>
+
+<p>Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange, himself.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put out by the turn his
+answer had taken.</p>
+
+<p>"I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to repaint your portrait. You
+remember, I wrote, when I returned Mr. Taine's generous check, that I was
+not altogether satisfied with it. Give me another chance."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean for me to come here again, to pose for you?--as I did before?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "just as you did before. I want to make a portrait
+worthy of you, as this is not. Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I
+cannot--" he hesitated then said deliberately--"what I <i>dare</i> not put into
+words."</p>
+
+<p>The woman received his words as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared
+not, yet, openly express. She thought his request a clever ruse to renew
+their meetings in the privacy of his studio, and was, accordingly
+delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that will be wonderful!--heavenly!" she cried, springing to her feet.
+"Can we begin at once? May I come to-morrow?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he answered, "come to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"And may I wear the Quaker gown?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed! I want you just as you were before--the same dress, the same
+pose. It is to be the same picture, you understand, only a better one--one
+more worthy of us, both. And now," he continued hurriedly "don't you
+think that we should return to the house?"</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," she answered regretfully--lingering.</p>
+
+<p>The artist was already opening the door.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed out, she placed her hand on his arm, and looked up into his
+face admiringly. "What a clever, clever man you are, to think of it! And
+what a story it will make for the papers--when my picture is shown--how
+you were not satisfied with the portrait and refused to let it go--and
+how, after keeping it in your studio for months, you repainted it, to
+satisfy your artistic conscience!"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King smiled.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement in the house that the artist was to repaint Mrs. Taine's
+picture, provoked characteristic comment. Louise effervesced a frothy
+stream of bubbling exclamations. James Rutlidge gave a hearty, "By Jove,
+old man, you have nerve! If you can really improve on that canvas, you are
+a wonder." And Mr. Taine, under the watchful eye of his beautiful wife,
+responded with a husky whisper, "Quite right--my boy--quite right!
+Certainly--by all means--if you feel that way about it--" his consent and
+approval ending in a paroxysm of coughing that left him weak and
+breathless, and nearly eliminated him from the question, altogether.</p>
+
+<p>When the Fairlands Heights party had departed, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down.</p>
+
+<p>"Well,"--he growled harshly, in his most brutal tones,--"what is it? Is
+the dog returning to his vomit?--or is the prodigal turning his back on
+his hogs and his husks?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King smiled as he answered, "I think, rather, it's the case of the
+blind beggar who sat by the roadside, helpless, until a certain Great
+Physician passed that way."</p>
+
+<p>And Conrad Lagrange understood.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch28" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>You're Ruined, My Boy</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+It was no light task to which Aaron King had set his hand. He did not
+doubt what it would cost him. Nor did Conrad Lagrange, as they talked
+together that evening, fail to point out clearly what it would mean to the
+artist, at the very beginning of his career, to fly thus rudely in the
+face of the providence that had chosen to serve him. The world's history
+of art and letters affords too many examples of men who, because they
+refused to pay court to the ruling cliques and circles of their little
+day, had seen the doors of recognition slammed in their faces; and who,
+even as they wrought their great works, had been forced to hear, as they
+toiled, the discordant yelpings of the self-appointed watchdogs of the
+halls of fame. Nor did the artist question the final outcome,--if only his
+work should be found worthy to endure,--for the world's history
+establishes, also, the truth--that he who labors for a higher wage than an
+approving paragraph in the daily paper, may, in spite of the condemnation
+of the pretending rulers, live in the life of his race, long after the
+names to which he refused to bow are lost in the dust of their self-raised
+thrones.</p>
+
+<p>The painter was driven to his course by that self-respect, without which,
+no man can sanely endure his own company; together with that reverence--I
+say it deliberately--that reverence for his art, without which, no worthy
+work is possible. He had come to understand that one may not prostitute
+his genius to the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reaping a
+prostitute's reward. The hideous ruin that Mr. Taine had, in himself,
+wrought by the criminal dissipation of his manhood's strength, and by the
+debasing of his physical appetites and passions, was to Aaron King, now, a
+token of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral ruin that alone can result
+from a debased and depraved dissipation of an artist's creative power. He
+saw clearly, now, that the influence his work must wield upon the lives of
+those who came within its reach, must be identical with the influence of
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, who had so unconsciously opened his eyes to the true mission
+and glory of the arts, and thus had made his decision possible. In that
+hour when Mrs. Taine had revealed herself to him so clearly, following as
+it did so closely his days of work and the final completion of his
+portrait of the girl among the roses, he saw and felt the woman, not as
+one who could help him to the poor rewards of a temporary popularity, but
+as the spirit of an age that threatens the very life of art by seeking to
+destroy the vital truth and purpose of its existence. He felt that in
+painting the portrait of Mrs. Taine--as he had painted it--he had betrayed
+a trust; as truly as had his father who, for purely personal
+aggrandizement, had stolen the material wealth intrusted to him by his
+fellows. The young man understood, now, that, instead of fulfilling the
+purpose of his mother's sacrifice, and realizing for her her dying wish,
+as he had promised; the course he had entered upon would have thwarted the
+one and denied the other.</p>
+
+<p>The young man had answered the novelist truly, that it was a case of the
+blind beggar by the wayside. He might have carried the figure farther; for
+that same blind beggar, when his eyes had been opened, was persecuted by
+the very ones who had fed him in his infirmity. It is easier, sometimes,
+to receive blindly, than to give with eyes that see too clearly.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine went to the artist, in the studio, the next day, she found
+him in the act of re-tying the package of his mother's letters. For nearly
+an hour, he had been reading them. For nearly an hour before that, he had
+been seated, motionless, before the picture that Conrad Lagrange had said
+was a portrait of the Spirit of Nature.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine had slipped off her wrap, and stood before him gowned in
+the dress that so revealed the fleshly charms it pretended to hide, she
+indicated the letters in the artist's hands, with an insinuating laugh;
+while there was a glint of more than passing curiosity in her eyes. "Dear
+me," she said, "I hope I am not intruding upon the claims of some absent
+affinity."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King gravely held out his hand with the package of letters, saying
+quietly, "They are from my mother."</p>
+
+<p>And the woman had sufficient grace to blush, for once, with unfeigned
+shame.</p>
+
+<p>When he had received her apologies, and, putting aside the letters, had
+succeeded in making her forget the incident, he said, "And now, if you are
+ready, shall we begin?"</p>
+
+<p>For some time the painter stood before the picture on his easel, without
+touching palette or brush, studying the face of the woman who posed for
+him. By a slight movement of her eyes, without turning her head, she could
+look him fairly in the face. Presently as he continued to gaze at her so
+intently, she laughed; and, with a little shrug of her shoulders and a
+pretense as of being cold, said, "When you look at me that way, I feel as
+though you had surprised me at my bath."</p>
+
+<p>The artist turned his attention instantly to his color-box. While setting
+his palette, with his eyes upon his task, he said deliberately, "'Venus
+Surprised at the Bath.' Do you know that you would make a lovely Venus?"</p>
+
+<p>With a low laugh, she returned, daringly. "Would you care to paint me as
+the Goddess of Love?"</p>
+
+<p>He, still, did not look at her; but answered, while, with deliberate care,
+he selected a few brushes from the Chinese jar near the easel, "Venus is
+always a very popular subject, you know."</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak for a moment or two; and the painter felt her watching
+him. As he turned to his canvas--still careful not to look in her
+direction--she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change the face so
+that no one would know it was I who posed."</p>
+
+<p>The man remembered her carefully acquired reputation for modesty, but held
+to his purpose, saying, as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as
+for that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." Then, suddenly,
+he turned his eyes upon her face, with a gaze so sharp and piercing that
+the blood slowly colored neck and cheek.</p>
+
+<p>But the painter did not wait for the blush. He had seen what he wanted and
+was at work--with the almost savage intensity that had marked his manner
+while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the portrait of the woman who
+Conrad Lagrange fancifully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to
+betray her real self--the self that was so commonly hidden from the world,
+under the mask of a pretended culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent
+refinement. He led her to talk of the world in which she lived--of the
+scandals and intrigues among those of her class who hold such enviable
+positions in life. He drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and
+religions of her kind. He encouraged her to talk of art--to give her
+understanding of the world of artists as she knew it, and to express her
+real opinions and tastes in pictures and books. He persuaded her to throw
+boldly aside the glittering, tinsel garb in which she walked before the
+world, and so to stand before him in all the hideous vulgarity, the
+intellectual poverty and the moral depravity of her naked self.</p>
+
+<p>At times, when, under his intense gaze, she drew the cloak of her
+pretenses hurriedly about her, he sat before his picture without touching
+the canvas, waiting; or, perhaps, he paced the floor; until, with
+skillful words, her fears were banished and she was again herself. Then,
+with quick eye and sure, ready hand, he wrought into the portrait upon the
+easel--so far as the power was given him--all that he saw in the face of
+the woman who--posing for him, secure in the belief that he was painting a
+lie--revealed her true nature, warped and distorted as it was by an age
+that, demanding realism in art, knows not what it demands. Always, when
+the sitting was finished, he drew the curtain to hide the picture;
+forbidding her to look at it until he said that it was finished.</p>
+
+<p>Much of the time, when he was not in the studio at work, the painter spent
+with Mrs. Taine and her friends, in the big touring car, and at the house
+on Fairlands Heights. But the artist did not, now, enter into the life of
+Fairlands' Pride for gain or for pleasure--he went for study--as a
+physician goes into the dissecting room. He justified himself by the old
+and familiar argument that it was for his art's sake.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, he seldom saw, except occasionally, in the early morning, in
+the rose garden. The girl knew what he was doing--that is, she knew that
+he was painting a portrait of Mrs. Taine--and so, with Myra Willard,
+avoided the place. But Conrad Lagrange now, made the neighboring house in
+the orange grove his place of refuge from Louise Taine, who always
+accompanied Mrs. Taine,--lest the world should talk,--but who never went
+as far as the studio.</p>
+
+<p>But often, as he worked, the artist heard the music of the mountain girl's
+violin; and he knew that she, in her own beautiful way, was trying to help
+him--as she would have said--to put the mountains into his work. Many
+times, he was conscious of the feeling that some one was watching him.
+Once, pausing at the garden end of the studio as he paced to and fro, he
+caught a glimpse of her as she slipped through the gate in the Ragged
+Robin hedge. And once, in the morning, after one of those afternoons when
+he had gone away with Mrs. Taine at the conclusion of the sitting, he
+found a note pinned to the velvet curtain that hid the canvas on his
+working easel. It was a quaint little missive; written in one of the
+girl's fanciful moods, with a reference to "Blue Beard," and the assurance
+that she had been strong and had not looked at the forbidden picture.</p>
+
+<p>As the work progressed, Mrs. Taine remarked, often, how the artist was
+changed. When painting that first picture, he had been so sure of himself.
+Working with careless ease, he had been suave and pleasant in his manner,
+with ready smile or laugh. Why, she questioned, was he, now, so grave and
+serious? Why did he pause so often, to sit staring at his canvas, or to
+pace the floor? Why did he seem to be so uncertain--to be questioning,
+searching, hesitating? The woman thought that she knew. Rejoicing in her
+fancied victory--all but won--she looked forward to the triumphant moment
+when this splendid man should be swept from his feet by the force of the
+passion she thought she saw him struggling to conceal. Meanwhile she
+tempted him by all the wiles she knew--inviting him with eyes and lips and
+graceful pose and meaning gesture.</p>
+
+<p>And Aaron King, with clear, untroubled eye seeing all; with cool brain
+understanding all; with steady, skillful hand, ruled supremely by his
+purpose, painted that which he saw and understood into his portrait of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>So they came to the last sitting. On the following evening, Mrs. Taine was
+giving a dinner at the house on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was
+to meet some people who would be--as she said--useful to him. Eastern
+people they were; from the accredited center of art and literature;
+members of the inner circle of the elect. They happened to be spending the
+season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to
+advance the painter's interests. It was very fortunate that her portrait
+was to be finished in time for them to see it.</p>
+
+<p>The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would not be necessary for
+her to come to the studio again, the picture was not yet finished, and he
+could not permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign the
+canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"But I may see it?" she asked, as he laid aside his palette and brushes,
+and announced that he was through.</p>
+
+<p>With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Not yet; please--not until I am
+ready."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting to one whose wish is
+law, "How mean of you! I know it is splendid! Are you satisfied? Is it
+better than the other? Is it like me?"</p>
+
+<p>"I am sure that it is much better than the other," he replied. "It is as
+like you as I can make it."</p>
+
+<p>"And is it as beautiful as the other?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is beautiful--as you are beautiful," he answered.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night--even if I haven't seen
+it. And so will Jim Rutlidge."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange spent that evening at the little house next
+door. The next morning, the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch
+time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, the novelist went,
+again, to knock at the door.</p>
+
+<p>The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, "Come in, old man,
+come in and help me celebrate."</p>
+
+<p>Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, pale and worn, before his
+picture--his palette and brushes still in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>And such a picture!</p>
+
+<p>A moment, the novelist who knew--as few men know--the world that was
+revealed with such fidelity in that face upon the canvas, looked; then,
+with weird and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired artist and
+whirled him around the studio, in a triumphant dance.</p>
+
+<p>"You've done it! man--you've done it! It's all there; every rotten,
+stinking shred of it! Wow! but it's good--so damned good that it's almost
+inhuman. I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all the time--if
+only you could come alive. God, man! if <i>that</i> could only be exhibited
+alongside the other! Look here!"</p>
+
+<p>He dragged the easel that held Sibyl Andr&eacute;s' portrait to a place beside
+the one upon which the canvas just finished rested, and drew back the
+curtain. The effect was startling.</p>
+
+<p>"'The Spirit of Nature' and 'The Spirit of the Age'," said Conrad
+Lagrange, in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're ruined, my boy," he added gleefully. "You're ruined. These
+canvases will never be exhibited Her own, she'll smash when she sees it;
+and you'll be artistically damned by the very gods she has invoked to
+bless you with fame and wealth. Lord, but I envy you! You have your chance
+now--a real chance to be worthy your mother's sacrifice.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, let's get ready for the feast."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch29" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>The Hand Writing on the Wall</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+It was November. Nearly a year had passed since that day when the young
+man on the Golden State Limited--with the inheritance he had received from
+his mother's dying lips, and with his solemn promise to her still fresh in
+his mind--looked into the eyes of the woman on the platform of the
+observation car. That same day, too, he first saw the woman with the
+disfigured face, and, for the first time, met the famous Conrad Lagrange.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was thinking of these things as he set out, that evening, with
+his friend, for the home of Mrs. Taine. He remarked to the novelist that
+the time seemed, to him, many years.</p>
+
+<p>"To me, Aaron," answered the strange man, "it has been the happiest
+and--if you would not misunderstand me--the most satisfying year of my
+life. And this"--he added, his deep voice betraying his emotion--"this has
+been the happiest day of the year. It is your independence day. I shall
+always celebrate it as such--I--I have no independence day of my own to
+celebrate, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King did not misunderstand.</p>
+
+<p>As the two men approached the big house on Fairlands Heights, they saw
+that modern palace, from concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze
+with many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the socially graded
+levels of Fairlands, it outshone them all; and, quite likely, the
+glittering display was mistaken by many dwellers in the valley below for a
+new constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, too, some lonely
+dweller, high up among the distant mountain peaks, looked down upon the
+sparkling bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the wide lap of
+the night, and smiled in quiet amusement that the earth children should
+attach such value to so fragile a toy.</p>
+
+<p>As they passed the massive, stone pillars of the entrance to the grounds,
+Conrad Lagrange said, "Really, Aaron, don't you feel a little ashamed of
+yourself?--coming here to-night, after the outrageous return you have made
+for the generous hospitality of these people? You know that if Mrs. Taine
+had seen what you have done to her portrait, you could force the pearly
+gates easier than you could break in here."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "To tell the truth, I don't feel exactly at home. But
+what the deuce can I do? After my intimacy with them, all these months, I
+can't assume that they are going to make my picture a reason for refusing
+to recognize me, can I? As I see it, they, not I, must take the
+initiative. I can't say: 'Well, I've told the truth about you, so throw me
+out'."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist grinned. "Thus it is when 'Art' becomes entangled with the
+family of 'Materialism.' It's hard to break away from the flesh-pots--even
+when you know you are on the road to the Promised Land. But don't
+worry--'The Age' will take the initiative fast enough when she sees your
+portrait of her. Wow! In the meantime, let's play their game to-night, and
+take what spoils the gods may send. There will be material here for
+pictures and stories a plenty." As they went up the wide steps and under
+the portal into the glare of the lights, and caught the sound of the
+voices within, he added under his breath, "Lord, man, but 'tis a pretty
+show!--if only things were called by their right names. That old
+Babylonian, Belshazzar, had nothing on us moderns after all, did he? Watch
+out for the writing upon the wall."</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King and his companion entered the spacious rooms where the
+pride of Fairlands Heights and the eastern lions were assembled, a buzz of
+comment went round the glittering company. Aside from the fact that Mrs.
+Taine, with practised skill, had prepared the way for her protege, by
+subtly stimulating the curiosity of her guests--the appearance of the two
+men, alone, would have attracted their attention The artist, with his
+strong, splendidly proportioned, athletic body, and his handsome,
+clean-cut intellectual face--calmly sure of himself--with the air of one
+who knows that his veins are rich with the wealth of many generations of
+true culture and refinement; and the novelist--easily the most famous of
+his day--tall, emaciated, grotesquely stooped--with his homely face seamed
+and lined, world-worn and old, and his sharp eyes peering from under his
+craggy brows with that analyzing, cynical, half-pathetic half-humorous
+expression--certainly presented a contrast too striking to escape notice.</p>
+
+<p>For an instant, as comrades side by side upon a battle-field might do,
+they glanced over the scene. To the painter's eye, the assembled guests
+appeared as a glittering, shimmering, scintillating, cloud-like mass that,
+never still, stirred within itself, in slow, graceful restless
+motions--forming always, without purpose new combinations and groupings
+that were broken up, even as they were shaped, to be reformed; with the
+black spots and splashes of the men's conventional dress ever changing
+amid the brighter colors and textures of the women's gowns; the warm flesh
+tints of bare white arms and shoulders, gleaming here and there; and the
+flash and sparkle of jewels, threading the sheen of silks and the filmy
+softness of laces. Into the artist's mind--fresh from the tragic
+earnestness of his day's work, and still under the enduring spell of his
+weeks in the mountains--flashed a sentence from a good old book; "For what
+is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
+then vanisheth away."</p>
+
+<p>Then they were greeting, with conventional nothings their beautiful
+hostess; who, with a charming air of triumphant--but not too
+triumphant--proprietorship received them and passed them on, with a low
+spoken word to Aaron King; "I will take charge of you later."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange, before they drifted apart, found opportunity to growl in
+his companion's ear; "A near-great musician--an actress of divorce court
+fame--an art critic, boon companion of our friend Rutlidge--two free-lance
+yellow journalists--a poet--with leading culture-club women of various
+brands, and a mob of mere fashion and wealth. The pickings should be
+good. Look at 'Materialism', over there."</p>
+
+<p>In a wheeled chair, attended by a servant in livery, a little apart from
+the center of the scene,--as though the pageant of life was about to move
+on without him,--but still, with desperate grip, holding his place in the
+picture, sat the genius of it all--the millionaire. The creature's wasted,
+skeleton-like limbs, were clothed grotesquely in conventional evening
+dress. His haggard, bestial face--repulsive with every mark of his wicked,
+licentious years--grinned with an insane determination to take the place
+that was his by right of his money bags; while his glazed and sunken eyes
+shone with fitful gleams, as he rallied the last of his vital forces, with
+a devilish defiance of the end that was so inevitably near.</p>
+
+<p>As Aaron King, in the splendid strength of his inheritance, went to pay
+his respects to the master of the house, that poor product of our age was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing, that shook him--gasping and
+choking--almost into unconsciousness. The ready attendant held out a glass
+of whisky, and he clutched the goblet with skinny hands that, in their
+trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the
+momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his
+yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered
+upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony,
+talon-like finger, the gleaming flash of a magnificent diamond.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Taine greeted the artist with his husky whisper "Hello, old chap--glad
+to see you!" Peering into the laughing, chattering, glittering, throng he
+added, "Some beauties here to-night, heh? Gad! my boy, but I've seen the
+day I'd be out there among them! Ha, ha! Mrs. Taine, Louise, and Jim tried
+to shelve me--but I fooled 'em. Damn me, but I'm game for a good time yet!
+A little off my feed, and under the weather; but game, you understand,
+game as hell!" Then to the attendant--"Where's that whisky?" And, again,
+his yellow, claw-like hand--with that beautiful diamond, a gleaming point
+of pure, white light--lifted the glass to his grinning lips.</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine appeared to claim the artist, her husband--huddled in his
+chair, an unclean heap of all but decaying flesh--watched them go, with
+hidden, impotent rage.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later, as Mrs. Taine and her charge were leaving one group
+of celebrities in search of another they encountered Conrad Lagrange.
+"What's this I see?" gibed the novelist, mockingly. "Is it 'Art being led
+by Beauty to the Judges and Executioners'? or, is it 'Beauty presenting an
+Artist to the Gods of Modern Art'?"</p>
+
+<p>"You had better be helping a good cause instead of making fun, Mr.
+Lagrange," the woman retorted. "You weren't always so famous yourself that
+you could afford to be indifferent, you know."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King laughed as his friend replied, "Never fear, madam, never
+fear--I shall be on hand to assist at the obsequies."</p>
+
+<p>In the shifting of the groups and figures, when dinner was announced, the
+young man found himself, again, within reach of Conrad Lagrange; and the
+novelist whispered, with a grin, "Now for the flesh-pots in earnest. You
+will be really out of place in the next act, Aaron. Only we artists who
+have sold our souls have a right to the price of our shame. <i>You</i> should
+dine upon a crust, you know. A genius without his crust, huh! A devil
+without his tail, or an ass without his long ears!"</p>
+
+<p>Most conspicuous in the brilliant throng assembled in that banquet hall,
+was the horrid figure of Mr. Taine who sat in his wheeled chair at the
+head of the table; his liveried attendant by his side. Frequently--as
+though compelled--eyes were turned toward that master of the feast, who
+was, himself, so far past feasting; and toward his beautiful young
+wife--the only woman in the room, whose shoulders and arms were not bare.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the talk moved somewhat heavily. Neighbor chattered nothings to
+neighbor in low tones. It was as though the foreboding presence of some
+grim, unbidden guest overshadowed the spirits of the company But gradually
+the scene became more animated The glitter of silver and crystal on the
+board; the sparkle of jewels and the wealth of shimmering colors that
+costumed the diners; with the strains of music that came from somewhere
+behind a floral screen that filled the air with fragrance; concealed, as
+it were, the hideous image of immorality which was the presiding genius of
+the feast. As the glare of a too bright light blinds the eyes to the ditch
+across one's path, so the brilliancy of their surroundings blinded the
+eyes of his guests to the meaning of that horrid figure in the seat of
+highest honor. But rich foods and rare wines soon loose the tongues that
+chatter the thoughts of those who do not think. As the glasses were filled
+and refilled again, the scene took color from the sparkling goblets.
+Voices were raised to a higher pitch. Shrill or boisterous laughter rang
+out, as jest and story went the rounds. It was Mrs. Taine, now, rather
+than her husband, who dominated the scene. With cheeks flushed and eyes
+bright she set the pace, nor permitted any laggards.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange watched, cool and cynical--his worn face twisted into a
+mocking smile; his keen, baffling eyes, from under their scowling brows,
+seeing all, understanding all. Aaron King, weary with the work of the past
+days, endured--wishing it was over.</p>
+
+<p>The evening was well under way when Mrs. Taine held up her hand. In the
+silence, she said, "Listen! I have a real treat for you, to-night,
+friends. Listen!" As she spoke the last word, her eyes met the eyes of the
+artist, in mocking, challenging humor. He was wondering what she meant,
+when,--from behind that screen of flowers,--soft and low, poignantly sweet
+and thrilling in its purity of tone, came the music of the violin that he
+had learned to know so well.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, the painter understood. Mrs. Taine had employed Sibyl Andr&eacute;s to
+play for her guests that evening; thinking to tease the artist by
+presenting his mountain comrade in the guise of a hired servant. Why the
+girl had not told him, he did not know. Perhaps she had thought to enjoy
+his surprise. The effect of the girl's presence--or rather of her music,
+for she, herself, could not be seen--upon the artist was quite other than
+Mrs. Taine intended.</p>
+
+<p>Under the spell of the spirit that spoke in the violin, Aaron King was
+carried far from his glittering surroundings. Again, he stood where the
+bright waters of Clear Creek tumbled among the granite boulders, and where
+he had first moved to answer the call of that music of the hills. Again,
+he followed the old wagon road to the cedar thicket; and, in the little,
+grassy opening with its wild roses, its encircling wilderness growth, and
+its old log house under the sheltering sycamores, saw a beautiful girl
+dancing with the unconscious grace of a woodland sprite, her arms upheld
+in greeting to the mountains. Once again, he was painting in the sacred
+quiet of the spring glade where she had come to him with her three gifts;
+where, in maidenly innocence, she had danced the dance of the butterflies;
+and, later, with her music, had lifted their friendship to heights of
+purity as far above the comprehension of the company that listened to her
+now, as the mountain peaks among the stars that night were high above the
+house on Fairlands Heights.</p>
+
+<p>The music ceased. It was followed by the loud clapping of hands--with
+exclamations in high-pitched voices. "Who is it?" "Where did you find
+him?" "What's his name?"--for they judged, from Mrs. Taine's introductory
+words, that she expected them to show their appreciation.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine laughed, and, with her eyes mockingly upon the artist's face
+answered lightly, "Oh, she is a discovery of mine. She teaches music, and
+plays in one of the Fairlands churches."</p>
+
+<p>"You are a wonder," said one of the illustrious critics, admiringly. And
+lifting his glass, he cried, "Here's to our beautiful and talented
+hostess--the patron saint of all the arts--the friend of all true
+artists."</p>
+
+<p>In the quiet that followed the enthusiastic endorsement of the
+distinguished gentleman's words, another voice said, "If it's a girl,
+can't we see her?" "Yes, yes," came from several. "Please, Mrs. Taine,
+bring her out." "Have her play again." "Will she?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine laughed. "Certainly, she will. That's what she's here for--to
+amuse you." And, again, as she spoke, her eyes met the eyes of Aaron King.</p>
+
+<p>At her signal, a servant left the room. A moment later, the mountain girl,
+dressed in simple white, with no jewel or ornament other than a rose in
+her soft, brown hair, stood before that company. Unconscious of the eyes
+that fed upon her loveliness; there was the faintest shadow of a smile
+upon her face as she met, in one swift glance, the artist's look; then,
+raising her violin, she made music for the revelers, at the will of Mrs.
+Taine. As she stood there in the modest naturalness of her winsome
+beauty--innocent and pure as the flowers that formed the screen behind
+her; hired to amuse the worthy friends and guests of that hideously
+repulsive devotee of lust and licentiousness who, from his wheeled chair,
+was glaring at her with eyes that burned insanely--she seemed, as indeed
+she was, a spirit from another world.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge, his heavy features flushed with drink, was gazing at the
+girl with a look that betrayed his sensual passion. The face of Conrad
+Lagrange was dark and grim with scowling appreciation of the situation.
+Mrs. Taine was looking at the artist. And Aaron King, watching his girl
+comrade of the hills as she seemed to listen for the music which she in
+turn drew from the instrument, felt,--by the very force of the contrast
+between her and her surroundings he had never felt before, the power and
+charm of her personality--felt--and knew that Sibyl Andr&eacute;s had come into
+his life to stay.</p>
+
+<p>In the flood of emotions that swept over him, and in the mental and
+spiritual exultation caused by her music and by her presence amid such
+scenes; it was given the painter to understand that she had, in truth,
+brought to him the strength, the purity, and the beauty of the hills; that
+she had, in truth, shown him the paths that lead to the mountain heights;
+that it was her unconscious influence and teaching that had made it
+impossible for him to prostitute his genius to win favor in the eyes of
+the world. He knew, now, that in those days when he had painted her
+portrait, as she stood with outstretched hands in the golden light among
+the roses, he had mixed his colors with the best love that a man may offer
+a woman. And he knew that the repainting of that false portrait of Mrs.
+Taine, with all that it would cost him, was his first offering to that
+love.</p>
+
+<p>The girl musician finished playing and slipped away. When they would have
+recalled her, Mrs. Taine--too well schooled to betray a hint of the
+emotions aroused by what she had just seen as she watched Aaron
+King--shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, Mr. Taine rose to his feet, supporting himself by holding
+with shaking hands to the table. A hush, sudden as the hush of death, fell
+upon the company. The millionaire's attendant put out his hand to steady
+his master, and another servant stepped quickly forward. But the man who
+clung so tenaciously to his last bit of life, with a drunken strength in
+his dying limbs, shook them off, saying in a hoarse whisper, "Never mind!
+Never mind--you fools--can't you see I'm game!"</p>
+
+<p>In the quiet of the room, that a moment before rang with excited voices
+and shrill laughter, the man's husky, straining, whispered boast sounded
+like the mocking of some invisible, fiendish presence at the feast.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting a glass of whisky with that yellow, claw-like hand upon which the
+great diamond gleamed--a spot of flawless purity; with his repulsive
+features twisted into a grewsome ugliness by his straining effort to force
+his diseased vocal chords to make his words heard; the wretched creature
+said: "Here's to our girl musician. The prettiest--lassie that I--have
+seen for many a day--and I think I know a pretty girl--when I see one too.
+Who comes bright and fresh--from her mountains, to amuse us--and to add,
+to the beauty--and grace and wit and genius--that so distinguishes this
+company--the flavor and the freedom of her wild-wood home. Her music--is
+good, you'll all agree--" he paused to cough and to look inquiringly
+around, while every one nodded approval and smiled encouragingly. "Her
+music is good--but I--maintain that she, herself, is better. To me--her
+beauty is more pleasing to the eye--than--her fiddling can possibly--be to
+the ear!" Again he was forced to pause, while his guests, with hand and
+voice, applauded the clever words. Lifting the glass of whisky toward his
+lips that, by his effort to speak, were drawn back in a repulsive grin, he
+leered at the celebrities sitting nearest. "I suppose to-morrow--if we
+desire the company of these distinguished artists--we will have to
+follow--them to the mountains. I don't blame you, gentlemen--if I was
+not--ah--temporarily incapacitated--I would certainly--go for a little
+trip to the inspiring hills--myself. Even if I don't know--as much about
+<i>music</i> and <i>art</i> as some of you." Again his words were interrupted by
+that racking cough, the sound of which was lost in the applause that
+greeted his witticism. Lifting the glass once more, he continued, "So
+here's to our girl musician--who is her own--lovely self so much more
+attractive than any music--she can ever make." He drained the glass, and
+sank back into his chair, exhausted by his effort.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was on the point of springing to his feet, when Conrad Lagrange
+caught his eye with a warning look. Instantly, he remembered what the
+result would be if he should yield to his impulse. Wild with indignation,
+rage, and burning shame, he knew that to betray himself would be to invite
+a thousand sneering questions and insinuations to besmirch the name of
+the girl he loved.</p>
+
+<p>In the continued applause and laughter that followed the drinking of the
+millionaire's toast, the artist caught the admiring words, "Bully old
+sport." "Isn't he game?" "He has certainly traveled some pace in his day."
+"The girl is a beauty." "Let's have her in again." This last expression
+was so insistently echoed that Mrs. Taine--who, through it all, had been
+covertly watching Aaron King's face, and whose eyes were blazing now with
+something more than the effect of the wine she had been drinking--was
+forced to yield. A servant left the room, and, a moment later, reappeared,
+followed by Sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>The girl was greeted, now, by hearty applause which she, accepting as an
+expression of the company's appreciation of her music, received with
+smiling pleasure. The artist, his heart and soul aflame with his awakening
+love, fought for self-control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again,
+silently bade him wait.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was stilled. Slowly, under
+the spell of the music that, to him, was a message from the mountain
+heights, Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. His twitching
+nerves became steady. He felt himself as it were, lifted out of and above
+the scene that a moment before had so stirred him to indignant anger. His
+brain worked with that clearness and precision which he had known while
+repainting Mrs. Taine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity; indignation to
+contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think how little the girl he loved
+needed his poor defense against the animalism that dominated the company
+she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room fixed upon her as she
+played, she was as far removed from those who had applauded the suggestive
+words of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their true
+comprehension.</p>
+
+<p>Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. As the flash of a
+search-light in the darkness of night brings out with startling clearness
+the details of the scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before
+him his picture. With trained eye and carefully acquired skill, he studied
+the scene; impressing upon his memory every detail--the rich appointments
+of the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver and crystal; the
+sparkling jewels and shimmering laces; the bare shoulders; the
+wine-flushed faces and feverish eyes; and, in the seat of honor, the
+disease-wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance of Mr. Taine
+who--almost unconscious with his exertion--was still feeding the last
+flickering flame of his lustful life with the vision of the girl whose
+beauty his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that
+company--expressing as it did the spirit of an age that is ruled by
+material wealth and dominated by the passions of the flesh--the center of
+every eye, yet, still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart from
+them all; standing in her simple dress of white against the background of
+flowers--the mountain girl with her violin--offering to them the highest,
+holiest, gift of the gods--her music. Upon the girl's lovely, winsome
+face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. Her wide, blue eyes, as she
+played, were pleading, questioning, half fearful--as though she sensed,
+instinctively the presence of the spirit she could not understand; and
+felt, in spite of the pretense of the applause that had greeted her, the
+rejection of her offering.</p>
+
+<p>Not only did the artist, in that moment of conception see his picture and
+feel the forces that were expressed by every character in the composition,
+but the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad Lagrange had
+uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Materialism."</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s finished her music, and quickly withdrew as if to escape the
+noisy applause. Amid the sound of the clapping hands and boisterous
+voices, Mr. Taine, summoning the last of his wasted strength, again
+struggled to his feet. With those claw-like hands he held to the table for
+support; while--shaking in every limb, his features twisted into a horrid,
+leering grin--he looked from face to face of the hushed and silent
+company; with glazed eyes in which the light that flickered so feebly was
+still the light of an impotent lust.</p>
+
+<p>Twice, the man essayed to speak, but could not. The room grew still as
+death. Then, suddenly--as they looked--he lifted that yellow, skinny hand,
+to his wrinkled, ape-like brow, and--partially loosing, thus, his
+supporting grip upon the table--fell back, in a ghastly heap of diseased
+flesh and fine raiment; in the midst of which blazed the great
+diamond--as though the cold, pure beauty of the inanimate stone triumphed
+in a life more vital than that of its wearer.</p>
+
+<p>His servants carried the unconscious master of the house from the room.
+Mrs. Taine, excusing herself, followed.</p>
+
+<p>In the confusion that ensued, the musicians, hidden behind the floral
+screen, struck up a lively air. Some of the guests made quiet preparations
+for leaving. A group of those men--famous in the world of art and
+letters--under the influence of the wine they had taken so freely, laughed
+loudly at some coarse jest. Others, thinking, perhaps,--if they could be
+said to think at all,--that their host's attack was not serious, renewed
+conversations and bravely attempted to restore a semblance of animation to
+the interrupted revelries.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King worked his way to the side of Conrad Lagrange, "For God's sake,
+old man, let's get out of here."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll find Rutlidge or Louise or some one," returned the other, and
+disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist waited, through the open door of an adjoining room, he
+caught sight of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s; who, with her violin-case in her hand, was
+about to leave. Obeying his impulse, he went to her.</p>
+
+<p>"What in the world are you doing here?" he said almost roughly--extending
+his hand to take the instrument she carried.</p>
+
+<p>She seemed a little bewildered by his manner, but smiled as she retained
+her violin. "I am here to earn my bread and butter, sir. What are you
+doing here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to be rude."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed, then, with a troubled air--"But is it not right for me to be
+here? It is all right for me to play for these people, isn't it? Myra
+didn't want me to come, but we needed the money, and Mrs. Taine was so
+generous. I didn't tell you and Mr. Lagrange because I wanted the fun of
+surprising you." As he stood looking at her so gravely, she put out her
+hand impulsively to his arm. "What is it, oh, what is it? How have I done
+wrong?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have done no wrong, my dear girl," he answered "It is only that--"</p>
+
+<p>He was interrupted by the cold, clear voice of Mrs. Taine, who had entered
+the room, unnoticed by them. "I see you are going, Miss Andr&eacute;s.
+Good-night. I will mail you a check to-morrow. Your music was very
+satisfactory. An automobile is waiting to take you home. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>Before Aaron King could speak, the girl was gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Lagrange and I were just about to go," said the artist, as the woman
+faced him. "I hope Mr. Taine has not suffered severely from the excitement
+of the evening?"</p>
+
+<p>The woman's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with feverish
+excitement. Going close to him, she said in a low, hurried tone, "No, no,
+you must not go. Mr. Taine is all right in his room. Every one else is
+having a good time. You must not go. Come, I have had no opportunity, at
+all, to have you to myself for a single moment. Come, I--"</p>
+
+<p>As she had interrupted Aaron King's reply to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, the cool,
+sarcastic tones of Conrad Lagrange's deep voice interrupted her. "Mrs.
+Taine, they are hunting for you all over the house. Your husband is
+calling for you. I'm sure that Mr. King will excuse you, under the
+circumstances."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch30" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXX</h2>
+
+<h3>In the Same Hour</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+In a splendid chamber, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that dollars
+could buy, and attended by liveried servants, Mr. Taine was dying.</p>
+
+<p>The physician who met Mrs. Taine at the door, answered her look of inquiry
+with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." Beside the bed, sat
+Louise, wringing her hands and moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without
+speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward.</p>
+
+<p>The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fingers upon the
+skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, Mr. Taine, your wife is here."</p>
+
+<p>In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the wrinkled brow, opened; the
+loosely hanging, sensual lips quivered.</p>
+
+<p>The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, Mr. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed eyes. The doctor could
+have sworn that the lips were twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking
+smile. As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, from some
+unguessed depths of his being, the last remnant of his remaining strength,
+the man looked about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send the
+others away--everybody--but her."</p>
+
+<p>"O papa, papa!" exclaimed poor Louise, protestingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, daughter," came the whispered answer from the bed. "Try to be
+game, girl--game as your father. Take her away, Jim."</p>
+
+<p>As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus far stood like a statue,
+seemingly incapable of thought or feeling or movement, he said in a low
+tone, "I will be just outside the door, madam; easily within call."</p>
+
+<p>When only the woman was left in the room with her husband, the dying man
+spoke again; "Come here. Stand where I can see you."</p>
+
+<p>Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position near the foot of the bed.</p>
+
+<p>After a moment's silence, during which he seemed to be rallying the very
+last of his vital forces for the effort, he said, "Well--the game is
+played--out. You think--you're the winner. You're--wrong--damn you--you're
+wrong. I wasn't--so drunk to-night that--I couldn't see." His face twisted
+in a hideous, malicious grin. "You--love--that artist fellow.
+Your--interest in his art is--all rot. It's <i>him</i> you want--and you--you
+have been thinking--you'd get him--with my money--the same as I got you.
+But you won't. You've--lost him already. I'm glad--you love him--damn
+glad--because--I know that after--what he's seen of me--even if he didn't
+love--that mountain--girl, he wouldn't wipe--his feet on you. You've
+tortured me--you've mocked--and sneered and laughed--at me--in my
+suffering--you fiend--and I've--tried my damnedest--to pay you back. What
+I couldn't do--the man you love--will--do for me. You'll suffer--now in
+earnest. You thought you'd be a--sure winner--as soon--as I was out
+of--the game. But you've lost--you've lost--you've lost! I saw your love
+for him--in your--face to-night--as I have seen--it every time--you two
+were together. I saw his love--for the girl--too--and I--saw--that
+you--saw it. I--I--wouldn't--wouldn't die--until I'd told you--that I
+knew." He paused to gather his strength for the last evil effort of his
+evil life.</p>
+
+<p>The woman--who had stood, frozen with horror, her eyes fixed upon the face
+of the dying man, as though under a dreadful spell--cowered before him,
+livid with fear. Cringing, helpless--as though before some infernal
+monster--she hid her face; while her husband, struggling for breath to
+make her hear, called her every foul name he could master--derided her
+with fiendish glee--mocked her, taunted her, cursed her--with words too
+vile to print. With an oath and a profane wish for her future upon his
+lips, the end came. The sensual mouth opened--the diseased wasted limbs
+shuddered--the insane light in the lust-worn eyes went out.</p>
+
+<p>With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon the floor beside the bed.</p>
+
+<p>From the lower part of the house came the faint sounds of the few
+remaining revelers.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the house on Fairlands Heights
+that night, they walked quickly, as though eager to escape from the
+brilliantly lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some distance
+away. Then the novelist, checking his quick stride, pointed toward the
+shadowy bulk of the mountains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in
+solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, boy," he said, "the mountains are still there. It's good to see
+them again, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Reaching home, the older man bade his friend good night. But the artist,
+declaring that he was not yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar
+for company, to sit for a while on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks,
+he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s in the hills. Every incident of their friendship he
+recalled--every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she
+loved--reviewing every conversation--questioning searching, wondering,
+hoping, fearing.</p>
+
+<p>Later, he went out into the rose garden--her garden--where the air was
+fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care.
+In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her
+presence. Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses--to the little
+gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the
+vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot
+where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting,
+while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the
+secret of her loveliness. He remembered how he had felt her presence in
+those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the
+place was haunted. He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him,
+her music had always moved him--how her message from the hills had seemed
+to call to the best that was in him.</p>
+
+<p>So it was, that, as he recalled these things,--as he lived again the days
+of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life,
+how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his
+best needs,--he came to know the answer to his questions--to his doubts
+and fears and hopes. There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of
+hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his
+face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not
+deny him--that, when she was ready, she would come to him.</p>
+
+<p>In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life,
+profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his
+licentious will--and cursing--died; Aaron King--inspired by the character
+and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and
+dreaming of their comradeship that was to be--dedicated himself anew to
+the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which
+belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.</p>
+
+<p>But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andr&eacute;s could
+come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best
+strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awakened love, as he
+dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days
+of his testing were so near at hand.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch31" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXI</h2>
+
+<h3>As the World Sees</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from
+Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the
+house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.</p>
+
+<p>There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He did not know where the
+artist was. He had gone off somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog.
+Perhaps they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not until dinner time.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. King. She was going away,
+and must see him, if possible, before she left. She would come in, and, if
+Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write a little note,
+explaining--in case she should miss him. The Chinaman silently placed the
+writing material before her, and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced the floor restlessly,
+in nervous agitation. Her face, when she had thrown back the veil,
+appeared old and worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn look
+to the weary, downward droop of the lips. As she moved about the room,
+nervously fingering the books and trifles upon the table or the mantle,
+she seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the window to stand
+looking out as if hoping for the return of the artist. She went to the
+open door of his bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, her
+face betraying the agony of her mind.</p>
+
+<p>With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four o'clock, for the
+East--with the body of her husband. She could not go without seeing again
+the man whom, as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved--loved with the
+only love of which--because of her environment and life--she was capable.
+She still believed in her power over him whose passion she had besieged
+with all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which she had seen in
+his face as he had watched the girl musician the night of the dinner,
+filled her with fear. Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did
+not return, she seated herself at the table to put upon paper, as best she
+could, the things she had come to say.</p>
+
+<p>Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Calling the Chinaman, she
+asked for a key to the studio, explaining that she wished to see her
+picture. She still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter would
+not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her portrait, which she had not
+yet seen, she might find some evidence of the painter's passion for her.
+She had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon the canvas what he
+thought of her, nor could she fail to recall his manner and her
+interpretation of it as he had worked upon the picture.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce daring to draw the
+curtain. But, calling up in her mind the emotions and thoughts of the
+hours she had spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made bold
+by her reestablished belief in his passion and by her convictions that
+were founded upon her own desires. Under the stimulating influence of her
+thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her eyes grew bright
+with the light of triumphant anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly
+drew aside the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait of Sibyl Andr&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. Taine drew back from
+the canvas. Looking at the beautiful painting,--in which the artist had
+pictured, with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, the
+spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers among which she stood,--the
+woman was moved by many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappointment
+admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and anger swept over her.
+Blinded by bitter tears, with a choking sob, in an agony of remorse and
+shame, she turned away her face from the gaze of those pure eyes. Then, as
+the flame of her passion withered her shame, hot rage dried her tears, and
+she sprang forward with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the picture.
+But, even as she put forth her hand, she hesitated and drew back, afraid.
+As she stood thus in doubt--halting between her impulse and her fear--a
+sound at the door behind her drew her attention. She turned to face the
+beautiful original of the portrait Instantly the woman of the world had
+herself perfectly in hand.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s drew back with an embarrassed, "I beg your pardon. I
+thought--" and would have fled.</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said quickly, "O how do you do,
+Miss Andr&eacute;s; come in."</p>
+
+<p>She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and
+manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so
+expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched.
+Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose
+minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham
+emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words of sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of condolence with a manner that
+was perfect in its semblance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet
+managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social distance that separated
+the widow of Mr. Taine from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if
+courageously determined not to dwell upon her bereavement, she said, "I
+was just looking, again, at Mr. King's picture--for which you posed. It is
+beautiful, isn't it? He told me that you were an exceptionally clever
+model--quite the best he has ever had."</p>
+
+<p>The girl--disarmed by her own genuine feeling of sympathy for the
+speaker--was troubled at something that seemed to lie beneath the kindly
+words of the experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she returned
+doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. Mr. Lagrange thinks, though,
+that it is really a splendid portrait."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one might smile at a child.
+"Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is a famous novelist--but he really knows very
+little of pictures."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you are right," returned Sibyl, simply. "But the picture is not
+to be shown as a portrait of me, at all."</p>
+
+<p>Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of course. Under the
+circumstances, you would scarcely expect it, would you?"</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the woman meant, answered
+doubtfully, "No. I--I did not wish it shown as my portrait."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very earnest in her kindly
+interest; as if, moved out of the goodness of her heart, she stooped from
+her high place to advise and counsel one of her own sex, who was so wholly
+ignorant of the world. "I fear, my dear, that you know very little of
+artists and their methods."</p>
+
+<p>To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist before I met Mr. King,
+this summer, in the mountains."</p>
+
+<p>Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, with gentle solicitude,
+"May I tell you something for your own good, Miss Andr&eacute;s?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"An artist," said the older woman, carefully, with an air of positive
+knowledge, "must find the subjects for his pictures in life. As he goes
+about, he is constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures that
+are of interest to him--or, that may be used by him to make pictures
+of interest. The subjects--or, I should say, the people who pose for
+him--are nothing at all to the artist--aside from his picture, you
+see--no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. Often, they are
+professional models, whom he hires as one hires any sort of service,
+you know. Sometimes--" she paused as if hesitating, then continued
+gently--"sometimes they are people like yourself, who happen to appeal
+to his artistic fancy, and whom he can persuade to pose for him."</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face was white. She stared at the woman with pleading,
+frightened dismay. She made a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not.</p>
+
+<p>The older woman, watching her, continued, "Forgive me, dear child. I do
+not wish to hurt you. But Mr. King is <i>so</i> careless. I told him he should
+be careful that you did not misunderstand his interest in you. But he
+laughed at me. He said that it was your <i>innocence</i> that he wanted to
+paint, and cautioned me not to warn you until his picture was finished."
+She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the air of a critic.
+"He really <i>has</i> caught it very well. Aaron--Mr. King is so good at that
+sort of thing. He never permits his models to know exactly what he is
+after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, unconsciously, the
+particular thing that he wishes to get into his picture."</p>
+
+<p>When the tortured girl had been given time to grasp the full import of her
+words, the woman said again,--turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a
+smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy between herself and the
+artist,--"Have you seen his portrait of me?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to look at it. It has always
+been covered when I have been in the studio."</p>
+
+<p>Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was some reason, known only to
+herself and the painter, why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait.
+"And do you come to the studio often--alone as you came to-day?" she
+asked, still kindly, as though from her experience she was seeking to
+counsel the girl. "I mean--have you been coming since the picture for
+which you posed was finished?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrassment and shame as she
+answered, falteringly, "Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"You poor child! Really, I must scold Aaron for this. After my warning
+him, too, that people were talking about his intimacy with you in the
+mountains It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin himself, if he is not
+more careful." She seemed sincerely troubled over the situation.</p>
+
+<p>"I--I do not understand, Mrs. Taine," faltered Sibyl. "Do you mean that
+my--that Mr. King's friendship for me has harmed him? That I--that it is
+wrong for me to come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Surely, Miss Andr&eacute;s, you must understand what I mean."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I--I do not know. Tell me, please."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, as if forced by her sense
+of duty, she spoke. "The truth is, my dear, that your being with Mr. King
+in the mountains--going to his camp as familiarly as you did, and spending
+so much time alone with him in the hills--and then your coming here so
+often, has led people to say unpleasant things."</p>
+
+<p>"But what do people say?" persisted Sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>The answer came with cruel deliberateness; "That you are not only Mr.
+King's model, but that you are his mistress as well."</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s shrank back from the woman as though she had received a blow
+in the face. Her cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a little cry,
+she buried her face in her hands.</p>
+
+<p>The kind voice of the older woman continued, "You see, dear, whether it is
+true or not, the effect is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world
+your relations to Mr. King are--are wrong, it is as bad as though it were
+actually true. I felt that I must tell you, child, not alone for your own
+good but for the sake of Mr. King and his work--for the sake of his
+position in the world. Frankly, if you continue to compromise him and his
+good name by coming like this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world
+may not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mistress or not, but
+people will not countenance his open association with her, even under the
+pretext that she is a model."</p>
+
+<p>As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. "Dear me, I really must
+be going. I have already spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl looked at her with the pain and terror filled eyes of some
+gentle wild creature that can not understand the cruelty of the trap that
+holds it fast. "Yes--yes, I--I suppose you know best. You must know more
+than I. I--thank you, Mrs. Taine. I--"</p>
+
+<p>When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s sat for a little while before her
+portrait; wondering, dumbly, at the happiness of that face upon the
+canvas. There were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned hot and
+dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she drew the curtain carefully to hide
+the picture, and started toward the door. She paused. Going to the easel
+that held the other picture, she laid her hand upon the curtain. Again,
+she paused. Aaron King had said that she must not look at that
+picture--Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not--why? She did not know
+why.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps--if the mountain girl had drawn aside the curtain and had looked
+upon the face of Mrs. Taine as Aaron King had painted it--perhaps the rest
+of my story would not have happened.</p>
+
+<p>But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s
+held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long
+and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the
+door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her custom was.</p>
+
+<p>Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden to the little gate in
+the hedge, she disappeared in the orange grove.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from a long walk, overtook Myra
+Willard, who was returning from town, just as the woman of the disfigured
+face arrived at the gate of the little house in the orange grove. For a
+moment, the three stood chatting--as neighbors will,--then the two men
+went on to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced their coming to
+Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them as they entered the living-room. Telling
+them of Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter that she had
+left for him.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of his friend, read the
+closely written pages, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame.
+When he had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, without
+speaking, deliberately and methodically tore Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny
+fragments. Dropping the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted
+his hands together with a significant gesture and looked at his watch.
+"Her train left at four o'clock. It is now four-thirty."</p>
+
+<p>"For which," returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, "let us give thanks."</p>
+
+<p>As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, gave a low "woof" that
+signalized the approach of a friend.</p>
+
+<p>Looking through the open door, they saw Myra Willard coming hurriedly up
+the walk. They could see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went
+quicklv forward to meet her.</p>
+
+<p>Women of Myra Willard's strength of character--particularly those who have
+passed through the furnace of some terrible experience as she so
+evidently had--are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression of emotion.
+That she was alarmed and troubled was evident. Her face was white, her
+eyes were frightened and she trembled so that Aaron King helped her to a
+seat; but she told them clearly, with no unnecessary, hysterical
+exclamations, what had happened. Upon entering the house, after parting
+from the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she had found a letter
+from Sibyl. The girl was gone.</p>
+
+<p>As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad Lagrange who read it and
+gave it to the artist. It was a pitiful little note--rather vague--saying
+only that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that she had not meant
+to do wrong; asking her to tell Mr. King and the novelist good-by; and
+begging the artist's forgiveness that she had not understood.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to the faces of his two
+friends, in consternation. "Do you understand this, Miss Willard?" he
+asked, when he could speak.</p>
+
+<p>The woman shook her head. "Only that something has happened to make the
+child think that her friendship with you has injured you; and that she has
+gone away for your sake. She--she thought so much of you, Mr. King."</p>
+
+<p>"And I--I love her, Miss Willard. I should have told you soon. I tell you
+now to reassure you. I love her."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King made his declaration to his two friends with a simple dignity,
+but with a feeling that thrilled them with the force of his earnestness
+and the purity and strength of his passion.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange--world-worn, scarred by his years of contact with the
+unclean, the vicious, and debasing passions of mankind--grasped the young
+man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his habitual reserve
+could not conceal. "I'm glad for you, Aaron"--he said, adding
+reverently--"as your mother would be glad."</p>
+
+<p>"I have known that you would tell me this, sometime Mr. King," said Myra
+Willard. "I knew it, I think, before you, yourself, realized; and I, too,
+am glad--glad for my girl, because I know what such a love will mean to
+her. But why--why has she gone like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl,
+my girl!" For a moment, the distracted woman was on the point of breaking
+down; but with an effort of her will, she controlled herself.</p>
+
+<p>"It's clear enough what has sent her away," growled Conrad Lagrange, with
+a warning glance to the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the
+notion that her friendship with Aaron has been causing talk. I think
+there's no doubt as to where she's gone."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean the mountains?" asked Myra Willard, quickly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight to Brian Oakley. Think!
+Where else <i>would</i> she go?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from your neighbor up the road,
+hasn't she, Miss Willard?" asked Aaron King.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I'll run over there at once."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them think anything unusual has
+happened. We'll go over to your house and wait for you there."</p>
+
+<p>Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. Sibyl had borrowed the
+horse; asking them if she might keep it until the next day. She did not
+say where she was going. She had left about four o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>"That will put her at Brian's by nine," said the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>"And I will arrive there about the same time," added Aaron King, eagerly.
+"It's now five-thirty. She has an hour's start; but I'll ride an hour
+harder."</p>
+
+<p>"With an automobile you could overtake her," said Myra Willard.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," returned the artist, "but if I take a horse, we can ride back
+together."</p>
+
+<p>He started through the grove, toward the other house, on a run.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch32" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mysterious Disappearance</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+By the time Aaron King had found a saddle-horse and was ready to start on
+his ride, it was six o'clock.</p>
+
+<p>Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl
+had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could
+scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after
+Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop
+somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized
+how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering
+his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then,
+telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and
+thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first
+plan.</p>
+
+<p>But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste
+because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his
+reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his
+mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely.
+Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the
+artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the
+limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they
+had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar
+and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the
+people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening
+meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs.
+Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched him out of sight, with
+wondering gaze. Those he met, turned their heads to look after him.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with his horse's flying feet.
+The points along the way, where he and the famous novelist had stopped to
+rest, and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly to his mind
+all that those weeks in the mountains had brought to him. Backward from
+that day when he had for the first time set his face toward the hills, his
+mind traveled--almost from day to day--until he stood, again, in that
+impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his
+studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness
+and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, he lived again that hour when
+his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when
+he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of
+her sacrifice--even unto poverty--that he might, unhampered, be fitted for
+his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn
+promise that the purpose and passion of his mother's years of sacrifice
+should, in him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he retraced the
+steps that had led to his understanding that only a true and noble art
+could ever make good that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the
+little passing day, alone; not by gaining the applause of the thoughtless
+crowd; not by winning the rewards bestowed by the self-appointed judges
+and patrons of the arts; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of
+himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or blame--by saying the
+thing that was given him to say, because it was given him to say--would he
+keep that which his mother had committed to him. As mile after mile of the
+distance that lay between him and the girl he loved was put behind him in
+his race to her side, it was given him to understand--as never
+before--how, first the friendship of the world-wearied man who had,
+himself, profaned his art; and then, the comradeship of that one whose
+life was so unspotted by the world; had helped him to a true and vital
+conception of his ministry of color and line and brush and canvas.</p>
+
+<p>It was twilight when the artist reached the spot where the road crosses
+the tumbling stream--the spot where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at
+the foot of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the creek, the
+man, without checking his pace, turned his head to look back upon the
+valley that, far below, was fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its
+weird and gloomy mystery,--with its hidden life revealed only by the
+sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns and cities,--it was suggestive,
+now, to his artist mind, of the life that had so nearly caught him in its
+glittering sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his eyes to the
+mountain peaks ahead that, still in the light of the western sun, glowed
+as though brushed with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish
+that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of pines, where he had sat
+with Sibyl Andr&eacute;s that day when she had tried to make him see the train
+that had brought him to Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not realized his love for the
+girl, before they left the hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was
+born that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he was fishing;
+when he had watched her from the cedar thicket, as she made her music of
+the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself,
+had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him
+in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known,
+when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not
+come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the
+big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?</p>
+
+<p>It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the
+gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was
+forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at
+the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her
+girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that
+she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would
+tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his.
+And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the
+pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.</p>
+
+<p>It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees,
+the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate.
+Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The
+door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall
+form of Brian Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>"Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice."</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is
+left of me."</p>
+
+<p>"Aaron King, by all that's holy!" cried the Ranger, coming quickly down
+the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything
+wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of
+night?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he
+come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said
+mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's
+hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not
+been here to-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive
+words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder.
+"Come, old man, pull yourself together and let a little light in on this
+matter," he said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why did you expect to
+find Sibyl here?"</p>
+
+<p>When Aaron King had finished his story, the other said, still without
+excitement, "Come into the house. You're about all in. I heard Doctor
+Gordan's 'auto' going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. Their
+baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would have passed her. I'll
+throw the saddle on Max, and we'll run over there and see what he knows.
+But first, you've got to have a bite to eat."</p>
+
+<p>The young man protested but the Ranger said firmly, "You can eat while I
+saddle; come. I wish Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold
+meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her sister. I'll call you when
+I'm ready." He spoke the last word from the door as he went out.</p>
+
+<p>The artist tried to eat; but with little success. He was again mounted and
+ready to go when the Ranger rode up from the barn on the chestnut.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the point where the road to Morton's ranch leaves the
+main canyon road, Brian Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went
+on up to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's and see the
+Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. Did you meet any one as you came
+up? I mean after you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the
+canyon?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," replied the other. "Why?"</p>
+
+<p>"A man on a horse passed the Station about seven o'clock, going down.
+Where did the Doctor pass you?"</p>
+
+<p>"He didn't pass me."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said the Ranger, sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"No one passed me after I left Fairlands."</p>
+
+<p>"Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must have had a puncture or
+something, or he would have passed the Station before he did."</p>
+
+<p>It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the Morton ranch.</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want to start any excitement," said the officer, as they drew
+rein at the corral gate. "You stay here and I'll drop in--casual like."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, that his companion was
+gone for hours. In reality, it was only a few minutes until the Ranger
+returned. He was walking quickly, and, springing into the saddle he
+started the chestnut off at a sharp lope.</p>
+
+<p>"The baby is better," he said. "Doctor was here this afternoon--started
+home about two o'clock. That 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon.
+Morton knew nothing of the man on horseback who went down. We'll cut
+across to Carleton's."</p>
+
+<p>Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside from the wagon road, to
+follow a narrow trail through the chaparral. To the artist, the little
+path in the darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein and
+followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quarters of an hour later, they
+came out into the main road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile
+and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind the orchard of the
+deserted place.</p>
+
+<p>It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was dark. Without
+dismounting, Brian Oakley called, "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer.
+Moving his horse close to the window of the room where he knew the rancher
+slept, the Ranger tapped on the sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you;
+it's Oakley."</p>
+
+<p>A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton asked, "What is it, Brian?
+What's up?"</p>
+
+<p>"Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down from their summer camp.
+What's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The rancher interrupted only
+to greet the artist with a "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made
+known the identity of his companion.</p>
+
+<p>When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher said, "I heard that 'auto'
+going up, and then heard it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You
+missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come on straight up here
+you'd a met it."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you see the man on horseback, going down, just before dusk?" asked
+the officer.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but not near enough to know him. You don't suppose Sibyl would go up
+to her old home do you, Brian?"</p>
+
+<p>"She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and I will ride up there, on
+the chance."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll stop in on your way back?" called the rancher, as the two horsemen
+moved away.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure," answered the Ranger.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later, they were back. They had found the old home under the giant
+sycamores, on the edge of the little clearing, dark and untenanted.</p>
+
+<p>Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the Carleton ranch-house.
+Down at the corral, the twinkling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and
+there. As the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern came rapidly
+up the hill. At the porch, they were met by Henry Carleton, his two sons,
+and a ranch hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, and of the
+lantern on the porch, listening to Brian Oakley's report, each held the
+bridle-reins of a saddle-horse.</p>
+
+<p>"I figured that the chance of her being up there was so mighty slim that
+we'd better be ready to ride when you got back," said the mountain
+ranchman. "What's your program, Brian?" Thus simply he put himself and his
+household in command of the Ranger.</p>
+
+<p>The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've got the fastest horse
+in the outfit. I want you to go down to the Power-House and find out if
+any one there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he explained to
+the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, that she came into the mountains.
+While I haven't a doubt but she did, we've got to know."</p>
+
+<p>Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger finished The officer turned
+to him again. "Find out what you can about that automobile and the man on
+horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get back." There was a sharp
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs, and the rider disappeared in the darkness of
+the night.</p>
+
+<p>The other members of the little party rode more leisurely down the canyon
+road to the Ranger Station. When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley
+said, "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a little note." He
+went into the house where, as they sat on the porch, they saw him through
+the window, his desk.</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger had finished his letter and with the sealed official envelope
+in his hand, appeared in the doorway when his messenger to the Power-House
+returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his horse up to the porch.
+"Good time, Jack," said the officer, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>The young man answered, "One of the company men saw Sibyl. He was coming
+up with a load of supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power-House
+just before dark. When he was opening the gate, the automobile went by. It
+was too dark to see how many were in the machine. They heard the 'auto' go
+down the canyon, again, later. No one noticed the man on horseback. Three
+Company men will be up here at daybreak."</p>
+
+<p>"Good boy," said Brian Oakley, again. And then, for a little, no sound
+save the soft clinking of bit or bridle-chain in the darkness broke the
+hush that fell over the little group. With faces turned toward their
+leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, the long official
+envelope in his hand. When he spoke, there was a ring in his voice that
+left in the minds of his companions no doubt as to his view of the
+seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply.</p>
+
+<p>The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. "Yes, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You will ride to Fairlands. It's half past one, now. You should be back
+between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and
+bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know.
+You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at
+your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished
+into the night.</p>
+
+<p>While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger
+spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your
+place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with
+breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place
+the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will
+likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the rancher as he mounted.
+"You know they'll be on the job."</p>
+
+<p>"You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the mountaineer rode away.
+Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the
+canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after
+sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into
+the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up
+Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley
+neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've
+found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."</p>
+
+<p>When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the
+artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more
+that can be done, until daylight."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his
+hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon
+muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words
+that he was not tired.</p>
+
+<p>"You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of
+this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible,
+to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us.
+Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't
+sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."</p>
+
+<p>As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I
+knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in
+my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands
+before you did, unless it came over through the Galena Valley, from some
+town on the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way--which isn't likely. If it
+<i>did</i> come from Fairlands, it must have waited somewhere along the road,
+to enter the canyon after dark. Do you think that any one else besides
+Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl started up here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so. The neighbor where she borrowed the horse didn't know
+where she was going."</p>
+
+<p>"Who saw her last?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think Mrs. Taine did."</p>
+
+<p>The artist had already told the Ranger about the possible meeting of Mrs.
+Taine and Sibyl in his studio.</p>
+
+<p>"Hu-m-m," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you know," said the artist.</p>
+
+<p>"Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said." The Ranger spoke casually. Then, as if
+dismissing the matter, he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll
+take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. As soon as it's
+light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out where that automobile went--and
+what for."</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch33" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIII</h2>
+
+<h3>Beginning the Search</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Aaron King lay with closed eyes, but not asleep. He was thinking,
+thinking, thinking In a weary circle, his tired brain went round and
+round, finding no place to stop. The man on horseback, the automobile,
+some accident that might have befallen the girl in her distraught state of
+mind--he could find no place in the weary treadmill of conjecture to rest.
+While it was still too dark to see, Brian Oakley called him. And the call
+was a relief.</p>
+
+<p>As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, "It'll be light enough
+to see, by the time we get above Carleton's. We know the automobile went
+that far anyway."</p>
+
+<p>At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, by the lights, that the
+mountaineer's family were already making ready for the gathering of the
+riders. A little beyond, they met two men from the Company Head-Work, on
+their way to the meeting place. Soon, in the gray, early morning light,
+the tracks of the automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed to
+the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine had stopped and,
+turning around, had started back down the canyon. With experienced care,
+Brian Oakley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity.</p>
+
+<p>Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give up hope of finding
+any positive signs pointing to the solution of the puzzle, the officer
+remounted, slowly. "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry and
+cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, that there are no clear
+signs at all. Come, we better get back to Carleton's, and start the boys
+out. When Milt returns from Fairlands he may know something."</p>
+
+<p>With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, summoned in the night by
+the Ranger's messengers, assembled at the ranch; every man armed and
+mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied to the trees in the
+yard, and along the fence in front, or standing with bridle-reins over
+their heads, the horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on their
+heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the mountain riders who had
+arrived first and had finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's
+word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with the later ones; and
+these, as fast as they finished their meal, made way for the new arrivals.
+There was no loud talk; no boisterous laughter; no uneasy restlessness.
+Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, these hardy mountaineers
+had answered Brian Oakley's call; and they placed themselves, now, under
+his command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excitement but with a
+purpose and spirit that would, if need be, hold them in their saddles
+until their horses dropped under them, and would, then, send them on,
+afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could be made to respond
+to their wills.</p>
+
+<p>
+
+
+There was scarce a man in that company, who did not know and love Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s, and who had not known and loved her parents. Many of them had
+ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andr&eacute;s' death. When the officer
+and his companion appeared, they gathered round their leader with simple
+words of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, and assigned the
+territory to be covered by each. Three shots in quick succession, at
+intervals of two minutes, would signal that the search was finished. Two
+men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, after his messenger to the
+Sheriff had returned. At sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch
+for further orders. When the officer finished speaking, the little group
+of men turned to the horses, and, without the loss of a moment, were out
+of sight in the mountain wilderness.</p>
+
+<p>A half hour before he was due, young Carleton appeared with the Sheriff's
+answer to the Ranger's letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley,
+heartily. "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest yourself,
+and be ready for whatever comes next."</p>
+
+<p>He turned to those he had held to go with him; "All right, boys, let's
+ride. Sheriff will take care of the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger rode in the lead, bending
+low from his saddle, his gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he
+dismounted and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or to wait, at
+his word. When they came out on the pipe-line trail, he halted the party,
+and, on foot, went carefully over the ground either way from the point
+where they stood.</p>
+
+<p>"Boys," he said at last, "I have a hunch that there was a horse on this
+trail last night. It's been so blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I
+can't be sure. I held you two men because I know you are good trailers.
+Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, and see what you can find. It isn't
+necessary to say stay with it if you strike anything that even looks like
+it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the other way, and up the Galena
+trail to the fire-break."</p>
+
+<p>While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs in the little path, and
+the artist, with the others, was waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to
+that day when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under the oaks and, in
+a spirit of irresponsible fun, had committed themselves to the leadership
+of Croesus. To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free leisure,
+seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's fanciful oration to the burro,
+he thought grimly how unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of
+the great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly trivial
+incident. He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he
+had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on
+the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the
+canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome
+companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours
+that she had spent there with him?</p>
+
+<p>As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her,
+that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step
+of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the
+trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their
+canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the
+very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along
+the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his
+mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find
+her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The
+officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the
+way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He
+could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where
+was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse,
+leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They
+should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night. Last night!
+Was it only last night?</p>
+
+<p>Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break on the crest of the
+Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I don't think there's been anything over
+this way," he said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up there,
+for a look around."</p>
+
+<p>At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the clump of pines, where Aaron
+King and Sibyl Andr&eacute;s had eaten their lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll be here some time," said the Ranger. "Make yourself comfortable. I
+want to see if there's anything stirring down yonder."</p>
+
+<p>With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena Valley side of the
+range, through his powerful glass; commenting, now and then, when some
+object came in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat beside
+him.</p>
+
+<p>They had risen to go and the officer was returning his glass to its case
+on his saddle, when Aaron King--pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and
+hazy in the distant valley--said, "Look there!"</p>
+
+<p>The other turned his head to see a flash of light that winked through the
+dull, smoky veil, with startling clearness. He smiled and turned again to
+his saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the sun striking some
+bright object that happens to be at just the right angle to hit you with
+the reflection. A bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile
+shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. Come, we'll go back to
+the trail and follow the break the other way."</p>
+
+<p>In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, hard day, as Brian
+Oakley and Aaron King were starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their
+return to the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His quick eyes had
+caught the twinkling gleam of a light at Sibyl's old home, far below,
+across the canyon. The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his
+four-footed companion, was going down the steep trail at a pace that sent
+the gravel flying and forced the artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to
+cling desperately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger sent the
+chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as they crossed the rough
+boulder-strewn wash. Plunging through the tumbling water of the creek,
+the horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed along the old,
+weed-grown road, into the little clearing They were met by Czar with a
+bark of welcome. A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad Lagrange and
+Myra Willard.</p>
+
+<p>"But why don't you stay down at the ranch, Myra?" asked the Ranger, when
+he had told them that his day's work was without results.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Mr. Oakley," returned the woman with the disfigured face. "I know
+Sibyl too well not to understand the possibilities of her temperament.
+Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and cool and strong
+under ordinary circumstances, under peculiar mental stress such as I
+believe caused her to leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know
+nothing. The child may be wandering, alone--dazed and helpless under the
+shock of a cruel and malicious attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some
+terrible stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me as she did.
+If she <i>is</i> alone, out here in the hills, there is a chance that--even in
+her distracted state of mind--she will find her way to her old home." The
+woman paused, and then, in the silence, added hesitatingly, "I--I may say
+that I know from experience the possibilities of which I speak."</p>
+
+<p>The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley said softly, "Myra, you've
+got more heart and more sense than all of us put together." To Conrad
+Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss Willard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the novelist, "I would be little good in the hills, at
+such work as you are doing, Brian. I will do what I can, here."</p>
+
+<p>When the Ranger and the artist were riding down the canyon to the ranch,
+the officer said, "There's a big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After
+all, she knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that she's got a
+fairly clear idea of what sent the child off like this. As it stands now,
+the girl may be just wandering around. If she <i>is</i>, the boys will pick her
+up before many hours. She may have met with some accident. If <i>that's</i> it,
+we'll know before long. She may have been--I tell you, Aaron, it's that
+automobile acting the way it did that I can't get around."</p>
+
+<p>The searchers were all at the ranch when the two men arrived. No one had a
+word of encouragement to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no
+light on the mystery of the automobile. The two men who had followed the
+pipe-line trail had found nothing. A few times, they thought they had
+signs that a horse had been over the trail the night before, but there was
+no certainty; and after the pipe-line reached the floor of the canyon
+there was absolutely nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena
+Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horseman who had gone down the
+canyon the evening before. The man was known to all. He had been hunting,
+and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him.
+He had come, now, to help in the search.</p>
+
+<p>Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend
+the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for
+camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up
+the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that
+could scarcely be called sleep.</p>
+
+<p>At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and
+fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a
+camp-fire's light, came in.</p>
+
+<p>All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of
+their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long
+after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly
+exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found
+alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other
+side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been
+found. The animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. The saddle
+and the horse's sides were stained with dirt, as if the animal had fallen.
+The bridle-reins had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the
+saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; he might have fallen
+and left his rider lying senseless. In any case, they reasoned, the animal
+would scarcely have found his way over the Galena range after he had been
+left to wander at will.</p>
+
+<p>Brian Oakley decided to send the main company of riders over into the Pine
+Glen country, to continue the search there. He knew that the men who found
+the horse would follow the animal's track back as far as possible. He
+knew, also, that if the animal had been wandering several hours, as was
+likely, it would be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron
+King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange the
+result of the day's work.</p>
+
+<p>The artist's voice trembled as he told the general opinion of the
+mountaineers; but Myra Willard said, "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby
+will come back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she is not dead
+or--I would know it."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told him the woman of the
+disfigured face had no ground for her belief, he was somehow helped, by
+her words, to hope.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch34" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIV</h2>
+
+<h3>The Tracks on Granite Peak</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian
+Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger, himself,
+had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.</p>
+
+<p>When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the
+neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break
+on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of
+little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never
+been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion,
+steadily.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there nothing that I can do, Brian?" returned the young man,
+hopelessly. "God, man! I <i>must</i> do something! I <i>must</i>, I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Steady, old boy, steady," returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The
+first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If
+you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."</p>
+
+<p>Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right,
+Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of
+course."</p>
+
+<p>The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the
+day on that point, up there,"--he pointed to the clump of pines,--"with
+this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle.
+Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the
+country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he
+paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.</p>
+
+<p>The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"</p>
+
+<p>The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only
+recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, <i>nothing</i>, get away
+from me. I don't want <i>you</i> to think. I want you to do the thing that will
+be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will <i>think</i>, that I
+hesitate to assign you to the position."</p>
+
+<p>The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face.
+Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I
+understand. You can depend upon me."</p>
+
+<p>"Good boy!" came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go
+to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find
+it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and
+then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will
+stay over at Pine Glen."</p>
+
+<p>Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb,
+Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried
+not to think.</p>
+
+<p>It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a
+long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light
+in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian
+Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the
+search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied,
+watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity
+in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of
+the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he
+watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one
+flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause.
+For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot
+under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order:
+--- -- - - -- ---.</p>
+
+<p>At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain
+peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the
+Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another.
+With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but
+the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to
+see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to
+be the orange groves about Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do?
+What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing.
+Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every
+possibility, and letting nothing <i>nothing</i>, get away from me." Instantly,
+he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing could
+accomplish nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder beside the trail, where he
+was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock.
+Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward
+the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the
+fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.</p>
+
+<p>Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the
+saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head
+back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He
+knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home.
+Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and
+what was left of his lunch.</p>
+
+<p>There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through
+and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp
+thorns and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times,
+he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the
+ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing
+meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff,
+clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and
+projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush,
+found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from
+some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on
+one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always
+he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was
+torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body
+reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not
+stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made
+him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below
+the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when
+the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p>On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered
+material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the
+food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was
+bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that
+numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to
+and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a
+strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling
+lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad
+Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns
+among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble
+world. The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about
+the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the
+mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his
+head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his
+beat.</p>
+
+<p>In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of
+his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the
+canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.</p>
+
+<p>It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must
+be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was
+little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward
+the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt
+cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this
+precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the
+pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and
+hard.</p>
+
+<p>Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs.
+Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back
+and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost
+ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to
+think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of
+softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was
+forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the
+direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then,
+as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and
+another and then--</p>
+
+<p>The man--worn by his physical exertion, and by his days of mental
+anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the
+broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a
+smaller, lighter foot.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with
+grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense,
+quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear
+Creek, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.</p>
+
+<p>Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the
+novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of
+Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger
+expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the
+roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen
+neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the
+mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for
+one of his inexperience, the way along the crest of the Galenas was
+practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the
+trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head
+of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to
+Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the
+peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to
+find the artist.</p>
+
+<p>At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack
+Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and
+Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was
+agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at
+daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that
+night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should
+accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack
+were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a
+messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile had been seen returning
+from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man
+in the car.</p>
+
+<p>"Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this,
+with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to
+Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of
+whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to
+trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left
+it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."</p>
+
+<p>A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in
+opposite directions.</p>
+
+<p>Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road
+branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House
+at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an
+automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine
+had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.</p>
+
+<p>A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped
+and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the
+head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward
+Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small
+store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were
+tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose
+to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on
+the trail.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a
+slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in
+Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the
+artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range,
+Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the
+supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch35" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXV</h2>
+
+<h3>A Hard Way</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Sibyl Andr&eacute;s left the studio, after meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was
+dominated by one thought--that she must get away from the world that saw
+only evil in her friendship with Aaron King--a friendship that, to the
+mountain girl, was as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian
+Oakley.</p>
+
+<p>Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman with the disfigured
+face, only the worthy had been permitted to enter into the life of this
+child of the hills. Sibyl's character--mind and heart and body and
+soul--had been formed by the strength and purity of her mountain
+environment; by her association with her parents, with Myra Willard, and
+with her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental comradeship with
+the greatest spirits that music and literature have given to the world. As
+her physical strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain life,
+the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was the gift of those kindred
+spirits that are as mountains in the mental and spiritual life of the
+race.</p>
+
+<p>Love had come to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, not as it comes to those girls who, in the
+hot-house of passion we call civilization, are forced into premature and
+sickly bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come to her so
+gently, so naturally, so like the opening of a wild flower, that she had
+not yet understood that it was love. Even as her womanhood had come to
+fulfill her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life to fulfill her
+womanhood. She had chosen her mate with an unconscious obedience to the
+laws of life that was divinely reckless of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for
+Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet
+understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been
+tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his
+growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with
+that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of
+God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human
+lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity
+than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their
+children?</p>
+
+<p>The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in
+every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl
+Andr&eacute;s possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of
+her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted
+the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as
+her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and
+sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had
+crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, frightened,
+dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, the girl turned in reluctant
+flight from the place that was, to her, because of her love, holy ground.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mrs. Taine--the woman had
+spoken so kindly; had seemed so reluctant to speak at all; had appeared so
+to appreciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unimportant incidents,
+that, in the light of the worldly woman's words, could be twisted to
+evidence the truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon the
+girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with his work, instead of truly
+enjoying life with him, as she had thought, her friendship was to him a
+menace, a danger. She had believed--and the belief had brought her a
+strange happiness--that he had cared for her companionship. He had cared
+only to use her for his pictures--as he used his brushes. He had played
+with her--as she had seen him toy idly with a brush, while thinking over
+his work. He would throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as
+she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside.</p>
+
+<p>The woman who was still a child could not blame the artist--she was too
+loyal to what she had thought was their friendship; she was too unselfish
+in her yet unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could not blame
+him--only--only--she wished--oh how she wished--that she had understood.
+It would not have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood.</p>
+
+<p>In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her confused and
+bewildering thoughts, in all her suffering one thing was clear; she must
+get away from the world that could see only evil--she must go at once.
+Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any moment. She could not
+face them; now that she knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would
+leave a little note and Myra--dear Myra with her disfigured face--would
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she dressed in her mountain
+costume. Still acting under her blind impulse to escape, she made no
+explanations to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In her desire
+to avoid coming face to face with any one, she even chose the more
+unfrequented streets through the orange groves. In her humiliation and
+shame, she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not until she had
+left the city far behind, and, in the soft dusk, drew near the mouth of
+the canyon, did she regain some measure of her self-control.</p>
+
+<p>As she was overtaking the Power Company's team and wagon of supplies, she
+turned in her saddle, for the first time, to look back. A mile away, on
+the road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving spot which she
+knew to be an automobile. One of the Company machines, she thought; and
+drew a breath of relief that Fairlands was so far away.</p>
+
+<p>It was quite dark as she entered the canyon; but, as she drew near, she
+could see against the sky, those great gates, opening silently,
+majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she
+rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks
+and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light
+of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was
+sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling
+Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and
+calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and,
+somehow, all would be well.</p>
+
+<p>The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to
+the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick
+ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw
+the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company
+machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor,
+to see some one of the mountain folk.</p>
+
+<p>As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and
+halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her
+horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal
+restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed
+that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until
+a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as
+though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them,
+and stopped; its engine still running.</p>
+
+<p>Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only
+their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very
+nicely."</p>
+
+<p>But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by
+the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped
+close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard
+above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Miss Andr&eacute;s, is it not?" He spoke as though he was known to her;
+and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and
+feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his
+face, as she answered.</p>
+
+<p>Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's
+position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his
+powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's
+companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of the machine,
+had drawn close to the other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein.</p>
+
+<p>Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry out, a softly-rolled,
+silk handkerchief was thrust between her lips and skillfully tied in
+place. She struggled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of her
+captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. As he bound her hands,
+the man spoke reassuringly; "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you.
+I've got to do this; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do you no good
+to wear yourself out."</p>
+
+<p>Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the stranger was as gentle as
+the circumstances permitted him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at
+all; and, in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He seemed to
+be acting wholly against his will; as if driven by some power that
+rendered him, in fact, as helpless as his victim.</p>
+
+<p>The other man, still standing by the horse's head, spoke sharply; "All
+right there?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, sir," gruffly answered the man who held Sibyl, and lifting the
+helpless girl gently in his arms he seated her carefully in the machine.
+An automobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar turned up to
+hide the handkerchief about her lips, and her hat was replaced by an
+"auto-cap," pulled low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the other
+man took the seat beside her; and the car moved forward.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. Realizing the
+uselessness of any effort to escape, she wisely saved her strength;
+watchful to take quick advantage of any opportunity that might present
+itself. Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to release the
+bandage that prevented her from crying out. But the hands that had bound
+her had been too skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her
+companion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned collar and cap
+pulled low over "auto-glasses," the identity of the man driving the car
+was effectually hidden.</p>
+
+<p>Only when they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights
+through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her
+strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young
+voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her
+safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon
+run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as
+she was, the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she sank back in
+the seat, exhausted by her useless exertion.</p>
+
+<p>At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile stopped. The man who
+had been following on Sibyl's horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men
+worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets--as the girl guessed--on
+the animal. Presently, the one who had bound her, lifted her gently from
+the automobile "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her ear, as he
+carried her toward the horse. "It will do you no good." And the girl did
+not again resist, as he lifted her to the saddle.</p>
+
+<p>The driver of the car said something to his companion in a low tone, and
+Sibyl heard her captor answer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she
+were in her own home."</p>
+
+<p>Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only the reply; "Don't worry; I
+understand that. I'll go through with it. You've left me no chance to do
+anything else."</p>
+
+<p>Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the bridle-rein, the man who
+seemed to be under orders, led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the
+girl heard the automobile starting on its return. The sound died away in
+the distance. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sound of
+the man's hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the road.</p>
+
+<p>Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to the horse's shoulder,
+asked if she was comfortable. The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that
+gag," he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I dare not take
+chances." He turned abruptly away and they went on.</p>
+
+<p>Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a ray of hope. That no
+immediate danger threatened, she was assured. That the man was acting
+against his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend her efforts
+toward enlisting his sympathies,--to make it hard for him to carry out the
+purpose of whoever controlled him,--instead of antagonizing him by
+continued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, and so making it
+easier for him to do his master's bidding.</p>
+
+<p>Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they reached Burnt Pine,
+where the man removed the handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, thank you," she said quietly. "That is so much better."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry that I had to do it," he returned, as he unbound her arms.
+"There, you may get down now, and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for
+you."</p>
+
+<p>The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to be free," she said.
+"But, really, I'm not a bit tired. Can't I help you with the pack?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," returned the other, gruffly, as though he understood her purpose and
+put himself on his guard. "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a
+long road ahead. You must rest."</p>
+
+<p>Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back against a tree.</p>
+
+<p>As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she said, "May I ask where
+you are taking me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a long road, Miss Andr&eacute;s. We'll be there to-morrow night," he
+answered reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is--some one waiting for--for us, at
+the end of our journey?"</p>
+
+<p>The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "no, Miss Andr&eacute;s; there'll he
+just you and me, for some time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear
+<i>me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at all afraid of you," she returned gently. "But I am--" she
+hesitated--"I am sorry for you--that you have to do this."</p>
+
+<p>The man arose abruptly. "We must he going."</p>
+
+<p>For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to the Laurel Creek trail,
+toward San Gorgonio; then they turned aside to follow some unmarked way,
+known only to the man. When the first soft tints of the day shone in the
+sky behind the peaks and ridges, while Sibyl's friends were assembling at
+the Carleton Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was directing
+the day's search, the girl was following her guide in the wild depths of
+the mountain wilderness, miles from any trail. The country was strange to
+her, but she knew that they were making their way, far above the canyon
+rim, on the side of the San Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold
+Water country that opened into the great desert beyond.</p>
+
+<p>As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her companion a man of medium
+height, with powerful shoulders and arms; dressed in khaki, with mountain
+boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a powerful stride that told
+of almost tireless strength, the girl saw the familiar stock of a
+Winchester rifle. Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his face.
+It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but
+the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent.
+In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness,
+as though there were memories that could not be escaped.</p>
+
+<p>"We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss Andr&eacute;s," he said
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so hungry," she answered, dismounting. "May I make the coffee?"</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head. "I'm sorry; but there must be no telltale smoke. The
+Ranger and his riders are out by now, as like as not."</p>
+
+<p>"You seem very familiar with the country," she said, moving easily toward
+the rifle which he had leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with
+the pack of supplies.</p>
+
+<p>"I am," he answered. "I have been forced to learn it thoroughly. By the
+way, Miss Andr&eacute;s,"--he added, without turning his head, as he knelt on the
+ground to take food from the pack,--"that Winchester will do you no good.
+It is not loaded. I have the shells in my belt." He arose, facing her, and
+throwing open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five that hung in
+a shoulder holster under his left armpit. "This will serve in case quick
+action is needed, and it is always safely out of your reach, you see."</p>
+
+<p>The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," she said. "I might have
+known that you put the rifle within my reach to try me."</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it would save you needless disappointment to make things clear
+at once," he answered. "Breakfast is ready."</p>
+
+<p>The incident threw a strong light upon the character with which Sibyl had
+to deal. She realized, more than ever, that her only hope lay in so
+winning this man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn against
+whoever had forced him into his present position. The struggle was to be
+one of those silent battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are
+not seen but only felt, and where those who fight must often fight with
+smiling faces. The girl's part was to enlist her captor to fight for her,
+against himself. She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her object
+with caution. Eager to know who it was that ruled this man, and by what
+peculiar power a character so strong could be so subjected, she dared not
+ask. Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the
+mountain wilds, she watched and waited for some sign that her companion's
+mood would make it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she exercised
+all her womanly tact to lead him to forget his distasteful position, and
+so to make his uncongenial task as pleasant as possible.</p>
+
+<p>The girl did not realize how far her decision, in itself, aroused the
+admiring sympathy of her captor. Her coolness, self-possession, and
+bravery in meeting the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather
+than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, did more than she
+realized toward accomplishing her purpose.</p>
+
+<p>During that long forenoon, she sought to engage her guide in conversation,
+quite as though they were making a pleasure trip that was mutually
+agreeable. The man--as though he also desired his thoughts removed as far
+as might be from his real mission--responded readily, and succeeded in
+making himself a really interesting companion. Only once, did the girl
+venture to approach dangerous ground.</p>
+
+<p>"Really," she said, "I wish I knew your name. It seems so stupid not to
+know how to address you. Is that asking too much?"</p>
+
+<p>The man did not answer for some time, and the girl saw his face clouded
+with somber thought.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," she said gently. "I--I ought not to have asked."</p>
+
+<p>"My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andr&eacute;s," he said deliberately. "But it is
+not the name by which I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is an
+honorable name, and I would like to hear it again--" he paused--"from
+you."</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston--believe me, I do
+appreciate your confidence, and--" she in turn hesitated--"and I will keep
+the trust."</p>
+
+<p>By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the Galenas, having come by an
+unmarked way, through the wild country around the head of Clear Creek
+Canyon.</p>
+
+<p>They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at his watch, took a small
+mirror from his pocket and stood gazing expectantly toward the distant
+valley where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, a flash of
+light appeared; then another and another. It was the signal that Aaron
+King had seen and to which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that
+first day of their search.</p>
+
+<p>With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak answered and the girl, watching
+and understanding that he was communicating with some one, saw his face
+grow dark with anger. She did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the peak, when the man again
+stopped, saying, "You must dismount here, please."</p>
+
+<p>Removing the things from the saddle, he led the horse a little way down
+the Galena Valley side of the ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then,
+slapping the animal about the head with his open hand, he forced the horse
+to break the reins, and started him off toward the distant valley. Again,
+the girl understood and made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her companion--his eyes
+avoiding hers in shame--said gruffly, "Come."</p>
+
+<p>Their way, now, led down from the higher levels of peak and ridge, into
+the canyons and gorges of the Cold Water country. There was no trail, but
+the man went forward as one entirely at home. At the head of a deep gorge,
+where their way seemed barred by the face of an impossible cliff that
+towered above their heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand,
+sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and faced the girl,
+enquiringly. "You have a good head, Miss Andr&eacute;s?"</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. Marston," she answered.
+"You need not fear for me."</p>
+
+<p>Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, he led her, by a narrow
+ledge, across the face of the cliff; and then, by an easier path, down the
+opposite wall of the gorge.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at a little log cabin
+that was so hidden in the wild tangle of mountain growth at the bottom of
+the narrow canyon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred yards.</p>
+
+<p>The girl knew that they had reached the end of their journey. Nearly
+exhausted by the hours of physical exertion, and worn with the mental and
+nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that her companion spread
+for her upon the ground.</p>
+
+<p>"As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for you," he said,
+regarding her kindly. "Poor child, this has been a hard, hard, day for
+you. For me--"</p>
+
+<p>Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank him. For a moment he
+stood looking down at her. Then she saw his face grow black with rage,
+and, clenching his great fists, he turned away.</p>
+
+<p>While waiting for the darkness that would hide the smoke of the fire, the
+man gathered cedar boughs from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed
+in the cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built a fire in the
+rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, announced supper. The meal was
+really excellent; and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily;
+which won an admiring comment from her captor.</p>
+
+<p>The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to thank you, Miss Andr&eacute;s,
+for making this day as easy for me as you have. We will be alone here,
+until Friday, at least; perhaps longer. There is a bar to the cabin door.
+You may rest here as safely as though you were in your own room. Good
+night."</p>
+
+<p>Before she could answer, he was gone.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. "Mr. Marston," she
+called.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Miss Andr&eacute;s," came, instantly, out of the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"Please come into the cabin."</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be cold out there. Please come inside."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Miss Andr&eacute;s; but I will do very nicely. Bar the door and go to
+sleep."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know that you are
+comfortable."</p>
+
+<p>The man came to her and she saw him in the dim light of the fire, standing
+hat in hand. He spoke wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andr&eacute;s, that you
+would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in."</p>
+
+<p>But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And why are you not afraid?"
+he asked curiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," she answered, "I know that you are a gentleman."</p>
+
+<p>The man laughed harshly--such a laugh as Sibyl had never before heard. "A
+gentleman! This is the first time I have heard that word in connection
+with myself for many a year, Miss Andr&eacute;s. You have little reason for using
+it--after what I have done to you--and am doing."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do what you are doing. You
+<i>are</i> a gentleman, Mr. Marston.--Won't you please come in and sleep by the
+fire? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And you have had such a hard
+day."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andr&eacute;s," the man said brokenly.
+"But I will not intrude upon your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he
+added savagely, "don't you see that I--I <i>can't?</i> Bar your door, please,
+and let me play the part assigned to me. Your kindness to me, your
+confidence in me, is wasted."</p>
+
+<p>He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the darkness.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch36" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVI</h2>
+
+<h3>What Should He Do</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The next morning, it was evident to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s that the man who said his
+name was Henry Marston had not slept.</p>
+
+<p>All that day, she watched the battle--saw him fighting with himself. He
+kept apart from her, and spoke but little. When night came, as soon as
+supper was over, he again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in
+a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She could not understand;
+but she felt him fighting, fighting; and she knew that he fought for her.
+What was it? What terrible unseen force mastered this man,--compelled him
+to do its bidding,--even while he hated and loathed himself for
+submitting?</p>
+
+<p>Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless girl could only pray
+that her companion might be given strength.</p>
+
+<p>The following morning, at breakfast, he told her that he must go to
+Granite Peak to signal. His orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to
+go alone; but he would not. She might go with him, if she chose.</p>
+
+<p>Even this crumb of encouragement--that he would so far disobey his
+master--filled the girl's heart with hope. "I would love to go with you,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, I
+would rather stay."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that you would rather be locked up in the cabin all day, than to
+make trouble for me?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"It wouldn't be so terrible," she answered, "and I would like to do
+something--something to--to show you that I appreciate your, kindness to
+me. There's nothing else I <i>can</i> do, is there?"</p>
+
+<p>The man looked at her wonderingly. It was impossible to doubt her
+sincerity. And Sibyl, as she saw his face, knew that she had never before
+witnessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes that looked into
+hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, were the eyes of a soul in torment.
+Her own eyes filled with tears that she could not hide, and she turned
+away.</p>
+
+<p>At last he said slowly, "No, Miss Andr&eacute;s, you shall not stay in the cabin
+to-day. Come; we must go on, or I shall be late."</p>
+
+<p>At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes from distant
+Fairlands--the flashes that Aaron King was watching, from the peak where
+they had sat together that day of their last climb. As the man answered
+the signals with his mirror, and the girl beside him watched, the artist
+was training his glass upon the spot where they stood; but, partially
+concealed as they were, the distance was too great.</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the message conveyed by the
+flashes of light, his face was terrible to see; and the girl, without
+asking, knew that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly fear gripped her
+heart; but she was strangely calm. On the way back to the cabin, the man
+scarcely spoke, but walked with bent head; and the girl felt him fighting,
+fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead with him, to demand that he tell
+her why he must do this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinctively
+that he must fight alone. So she watched and waited and prayed. As they
+were crossing the face of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man
+stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, stood looking
+moodily down into the depths below. Then they went on. That night, he did
+not leave the cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, but
+sat on one of the rude seats with which the little hut was furnished,
+gazing into the fire.</p>
+
+<p>The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss Andr&eacute;s, I would like to
+ask your opinion in a matter that I cannot decide satisfactorily to
+myself."</p>
+
+<p>She took the seat on the other side of the rude fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it, Mr. Marston?"</p>
+
+<p>"I will put it in the form of a story," he answered. Then, after a wait of
+some minutes, as though he found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old
+story, Miss Andr&eacute;s; a very common one, but with a difference. A young man,
+with every chance in the world to go right, went wrong. He was well-born.
+He was fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and
+considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the
+man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool--that's
+all--a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness.</p>
+
+<p>"A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is a big price for a young
+man to pay for being a fool, Miss Andr&eacute;s. He was twenty-five when he went
+in--strong and vigorous, with a good mind; the prospects years of prison
+life--but that's not the story. I could not hope to make you understand
+what a thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a man of
+twenty-five. But, at least, you will not wonder that the man watched for
+an opportunity to escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten
+years,--ten years,--Miss Andr&eacute;s, the man watched and prayed for a chance
+to escape. Then he got away.</p>
+
+<p>"He was never a criminal at heart, you must understand. He had no wish,
+now, to live a life of crime. He wished only to live a sane, orderly,
+useful, life of freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They could not
+take him, but they made it impossible for him to escape--he was
+starving--dying. He would not give himself up to the twenty years of hell
+that waited him. He did not want to die--but he would die rather than go
+back.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a man found him. The poor
+hunted devil of a convict aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the
+wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to furnish him with
+supplies, until it would be safe for him to leave his hiding place. He
+brought him food and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's prison
+pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were grown, and the prison manner
+and walk were, in some measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking
+that he had perished in the mountains, had given up looking for him; his
+benefactor gave him work--beautiful work in the orange groves--where he
+was safe and happy and useful and could feel himself a <i>man</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wonder, Miss Andr&eacute;s, that the man was grateful? Do you wonder that
+he worshipped his benefactor--that he looked upon his friend as upon his
+savior?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a beautiful thing to do--to
+help the poor fellow who wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man
+who had escaped, loved his friend."</p>
+
+<p>"But listen," said the other, "when the convict was beginning to feel
+safe; when he saw that he was out of danger; when he was living an
+honorable, happy life, instead of spending his days in the hell they call
+prison; when he was looking forward to years of happiness instead of to
+years of torment; then his benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and
+said, 'Unless you do what I tell you, now--unless you help me to something
+that I want, I will send you back to prison. Do as I say, and your life
+shall go on as it is--as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn you
+over to the officers, and you will go back to your hell for the remainder
+of your life.'</p>
+
+<p>"Do you wonder, Miss Andr&eacute;s, that the convict obeyed his master?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's face was white with despair, but she did not lose her
+self-control. She answered the man, thoughtfully--as though they were
+discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I think,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend upon what it was that the
+man wanted the convict to do. It seems to me that I can imagine the
+convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man
+wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his
+freedom. What was it the man wanted?"</p>
+
+<p>Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.</p>
+
+<p>The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, "Freedom and
+a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only
+the memory of a good deed--which should the man choose, Miss Andr&eacute;s?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think," she replied, "that you should tell me, plainly, what it was
+that the man wanted the convict to do."</p>
+
+<p>"I will go on with the story," said the other.</p>
+
+<p>"The convict's benefactor--or, perhaps I should say, master--loved a woman
+who refused to listen to him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very
+suddenly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hurried note, saying,
+only, that she was going away. By accident, the man found the note and saw
+his opportunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the
+mountains. He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no
+one would know what had become of her. He believed that she would marry
+him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone,
+because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she
+had gone with him. Their marriage would save her good name. He wanted the
+man whom he could send back to prison to help him.</p>
+
+<p>"The convict had known his benefactor's kindness of heart, you must
+remember, Miss Andr&eacute;s. He knew that this man was able to give his wife
+everything that seems desirable in life--that thousands of women would
+have been glad to marry him. The man assured the convict that he desired
+only to make the girl his wife before all the world. He agreed that she
+should remain under the convict's protection until she <i>was</i> his wife, and
+that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony." The man paused.</p>
+
+<p>When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do you wonder, Miss Andr&eacute;s,
+that the convict obeyed his master?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, Mr. Marston," she
+continued, hesitatingly, "what do you think the convict in your story
+would have done if the man had not--if he had not wanted to marry the
+girl?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know what he would have done in that case," the other answered with
+conviction. "He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would
+have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his
+freedom at such a price."</p>
+
+<p>The girl leaned forward, eagerly; "And suppose--suppose--that after the
+convict had done his master's bidding--suppose that after he had taken the
+girl away from her friends--suppose, then, the man would not marry her?"</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was no sound in the little room, save the crackling of
+the fire in the fire-place, and the sound of a stick that had burned in
+two, falling in the ashes.</p>
+
+<p>"What would the convict do if the man would not marry the girl?" persisted
+Sibyl.</p>
+
+<p>Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge passing sentence; "If
+the man violated his word--if he lied to the convict--if his purpose
+toward the girl was anything less than an honorable marriage--if he
+refused to keep his promise after the convict had done his part--he would
+die, Miss Andr&eacute;s. The convict would kill his benefactor--as surely as
+there is a just God who, alone, can say what is right and what is wrong."</p>
+
+<p>The girl uttered a low cry.</p>
+
+<p>The man did not seem to notice. "But the man will do as he promised, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s. He wishes to make the girl his wife. He can give her all that
+women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In the eyes of the world,
+she would be envied by thousands. And the convict would gain freedom and
+the right to live an honorable life--the right to earn his bread by doing
+an honest man's work. Freedom and a life of honorable service, at the
+price; or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should he
+choose, Miss Andr&eacute;s? The convict is past deciding for himself."</p>
+
+<p>The troubled answer came out of the honesty of the girl's heart; "Mr.
+Marston, I do not know."</p>
+
+<p>A moment, the man on the other side of the fireplace waited. Then, rising,
+he quietly left the cabin. The girl did not know that he was gone, until
+she heard the door close.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the wild Cold Water country,
+Sibyl Andr&eacute;s sat before the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high,
+wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron King grimly walked his
+weary beat. In Clear Creek Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange
+waited, and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in the Galena
+Valley, an automobile from Fairlands stopped at the mouth of a canyon
+leading toward Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the night, a
+man strove to know right from wrong.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch37" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Man Was Insane</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Neither Sibyl Andr&eacute;s nor her companion, the next morning, reopened their
+conversation of the night before. Each was preoccupied and silent, with
+troubled thoughts that might not be spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl saw the man listening, as though for
+a step on the mountainside above. She knew, without being told, that the
+convict was expecting his master. It was, perhaps, ten o'clock, when they
+heard a sound that told them some one was approaching.</p>
+
+<p>The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round of cartridges into the
+magazine; saying to the girl, "Go into the cabin and bar the door; quick,
+do as I say! Don't come out until I call you."</p>
+
+<p>She obeyed; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, disappeared in the
+heavy underbrush.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the bushes and stepped into the
+little open space in front of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle
+under his arm.</p>
+
+<p>The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew as Henry Marston, with,
+"Hello, George, everything all right? Where is she?"</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Andr&eacute;s is in the cabin. When I heard you coming, I asked her to go
+inside, and took cover in the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it
+was you."</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. But you needn't worry.
+Everything is as peaceful as a graveyard. They've found the horse, and
+they think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an accident while
+wandering around the hills in a state of mental aberration."</p>
+
+<p>"You left the supplies at the same old place, I suppose?" said the
+convict.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I brought what I could," Rutlidge indicated a pack which he had
+slipped from his shoulder as he was talking. "You better hike over there
+and bring in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will make it
+back by noon, to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word and trembled with fear.
+The convict spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>"What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until you get back. You must
+start at once. You say Miss Andr&eacute;s is in the cabin?" He turned toward the
+door.</p>
+
+<p>But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. I have a word to say,
+before I go."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, out with it."</p>
+
+<p>"You are not going to forget your promise to me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly not, George. You are safe."</p>
+
+<p>"I mean regarding Miss Andr&eacute;s."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course not! Why, what's the matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your wife."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care of her until you get back.
+You need have no fear. You're not doubting my word, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"If I doubted your word, I would take Miss Andr&eacute;s with me," answered the
+convict, simply.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge looked at him, curiously; "Oh, you would?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, too, that if you
+<i>should</i> forget your promise--"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what would you do if I should forget?"</p>
+
+<p>The answer came deliberately; "If you do not keep your promise I will kill
+you, Mr. Rutlidge."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge did not reply.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"You may come out now, please, Miss Andr&eacute;s."</p>
+
+<p>As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Thank you,
+Mr. Marston. I heard."</p>
+
+<p>"I meant you to hear," he returned in a whisper. "Do not be afraid." In a
+louder tone he continued. "I must go for supplies, Miss Andr&eacute;s. I will be
+back to-morrow noon."</p>
+
+<p>He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and was gone.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl Andr&eacute;s faced James Rutlidge, without speaking. She was not afraid,
+now, as she had always been in his presence, until that day when he had so
+plainly declared himself to her and she met his advances with a gun. The
+convict's warning to the man who could send him back to prison for
+practically the remaining years of his life, had served its purpose in
+giving her courage. She did not believe that, for the present, Rutlidge
+would dare to do otherwise than heed the warning.</p>
+
+<div class="image" id="illus04"><p><img src="images/illus04.png" alt="Still she did not speak." /><br />
+Still she did not speak.</p></div>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+"Really," he said, at last, "you do not seem at all glad to see me."</p>
+
+<p>She made no reply.</p>
+
+<p>"I am frightfully hungry"--he continued, with a short laugh, moving toward
+her as she stood in the door of the cabin--"I've been walking since
+midnight I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't even stop for
+breakfast."</p>
+
+<p>She stepped out, and moved away from the door.</p>
+
+<p>With another laugh, he entered the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he went back to the girl
+who had seated herself on a log, at the farther side of the little
+clearing. "You seem fairly comfortable here," he said.</p>
+
+<p>She did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>"You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He has been kind to you?"</p>
+
+<p>Still she did not speak.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't keep this up, you know.
+Say what you have to say, and let's get it over."</p>
+
+<p>All the time, she had been regarding him intently--her wide, blue eyes
+filled with wondering pain. "How could you?" she said at last. "Oh, how
+could you do such a thing?"</p>
+
+<p>His face flushed. "I did it because you have driven me mad, I guess. From
+the first time I saw you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and
+again, in the last three years, to approach you; but you would have
+nothing to do with me. The more you spurned me, the more I wanted you.
+Then this man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with him. It made me
+wild. From that day when I met you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I
+have been ready for anything. I determined if I could not win you by fair
+means, I would take you in any way I could. When my opportunity came, I
+took advantage of it. I've got you. The story is already started that you
+were the painter's mistress, and that you have committed suicide. You
+shall stay here, a while, until the belief that you are dead has become a
+certainty; then you will go East with me."</p>
+
+<p>"But you cannot do a thing so horrible!" she exclaimed "I would tell my
+story to the first people we met."</p>
+
+<p>He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal meaning, "You do not seem to
+understand. You will be glad enough to keep the story a secret--when the
+time comes to go."</p>
+
+<p>Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only stammer, "How could
+you--oh how could you! Why, why--"</p>
+
+<p>"Why!" he echoed. Then, as he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with
+reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you!
+Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why!"</p>
+
+<p>He moved another step toward her, his face flushed with the insane passion
+that mastered him, his eyes burning with the reckless light of one past
+counting the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in terror.
+Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, thinking to shut and bar the
+door. She reached the door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While
+he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. Putting his
+shoulder to the door, the man easily forced it open against her lighter
+weight. As he crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest corner of
+the little room, and cowered, trembling--too shaken with horror to cry
+out. A moment he paused; then started toward her.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, the convict burst through the underbrush into the little
+opening.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang to the open door.</p>
+
+<p>The convict was breathing heavily from the exertion of a hard run.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you doing here?" demanded Rutlidge, sharply. "What's the
+matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Some one is following my trail down from Granite Peak."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what are you carrying that rifle for?" said Rutlidge, harshly, with
+an oath.</p>
+
+<p>"There may be others near enough to hear a shot," answered the convict.
+"Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is your part of the game--not mine. I did not
+agree to commit murder for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Where did you see him?"</p>
+
+<p>"A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where we turn off to go to the
+supply point."</p>
+
+<p>Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. "You stay here and take
+care of the girl--and see that she doesn't scream." With the last word he
+set out at a run.</p>
+
+<p>The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still crouched in the
+corner. The man's voice was imploring as he said, "Miss Andr&eacute;s, Miss
+Andr&eacute;s, what is the matter? Did he touch you? Tell me, did he harm you?"</p>
+
+<p>Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted her to her feet.
+"You--you came--just in time, Mr. Marston."</p>
+
+<p>An instant he stood there, then muttering something under his breath, he
+turned, caught up his rifle, and started toward the door.</p>
+
+<p>But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, "Mr. Marston, don't,
+don't leave me again."</p>
+
+<p>The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said solemnly "Miss Andr&eacute;s, can
+you pray? I know you can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer he
+will surely hear you. Come with me. Come--and pray girl--pray for me."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James
+Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that
+he, himself made to Sibyl. The man was insane--as Mr. Taine was insane--as
+Mrs. Taine was insane.</p>
+
+<p>What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to
+materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them
+ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their
+diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions
+with lascivious imaginings? Can a class--whatever its pretense to culture
+may be--can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts
+greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of
+which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not
+tolerate purity of thought. It was literally impossible for him to think
+sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life.
+Education, culture, art, literature,--all that is commonly supposed to
+lift man above the level of the beasts,--are used by men and women of his
+kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to
+bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of
+reaching. In what he called his love for Sibyl Andr&eacute;s, James Rutlidge was
+insane--but no more so than thousands of others. The methods of securing
+the objects of their desires vary--the motive that prompts is the
+same--the end sought is identical.</p>
+
+<p>As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid
+the cabin, the man's mind was in a whirl of emotions--rage at being
+interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one
+should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that
+the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger
+be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a
+maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following
+the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his
+search. The words of the convict rang in his ears. "This is your job. I
+did not agree to commit murder for you."</p>
+
+<p>Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy
+innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul--these are commonplaces in the
+insane philosophy of his kind. But to kill--to take a life
+deliberately--the thought was abhorrent to him. He was not educated to the
+thought of <i>taking</i> life--he was trained to consider its <i>perversion</i>. The
+heroes in <i>his</i> fiction did not <i>kill</i> men--they <i>betrayed</i> women. The
+heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers--they
+loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.</p>
+
+<p>But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andr&eacute;s to be taken from him--to
+face the exposure that would inevitably follow--was impossible. If the man
+who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance--if he
+could be stopped. But how could he check him? What could he do? A
+rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.</p>
+
+<p>While these thoughts were seething in his hot brain, he was climbing
+rapidly toward the cliff at the head of the gorge, across which, he knew,
+the man who was following the tracks that led to the cabin below, must
+come.</p>
+
+<p>Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the face of that mighty
+wall of rock, less than a hundred feet to the other side, he stopped.
+There was no one in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet below the
+tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. Lifting his head, he looked
+carefully about, searching the mountainsides that slope steeply back from
+the rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the frowning cliff that
+towered a thousand feet above his head. He listened. He was thinking,
+thinking. The best of him and the worst of him struggled for supremacy.</p>
+
+<p>A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and beyond the other end of
+the ledge, caught his ear. With a quick step he moved behind a projecting
+corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch38" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXVIII</h2>
+
+<h3>An Inevitable Conflict</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Aaron King set out to follow the tracks he had found at Granite Peak,
+after his long, hard trip along the rugged crest of the Galenas, his
+weariness was forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, but with careful
+eyes and every sense keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he
+knew must lead him to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s.</p>
+
+<p>He did not attempt to solve the problem of how the girl came there, nor
+did he pause to wonder about her companion. He did not even ask himself if
+Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing; knew nothing; was
+conscious of nothing; but the trail that led away into the depths of the
+mountain wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition; without
+food; unacquainted with the wild country into which he was going; reckless
+of danger to himself but with all possible care and caution for the sake
+of the girl he loved, he went on.</p>
+
+<p>Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the cabin was hidden, the trail,
+following the rim, soon led him to the ledge that lay across the face of
+the cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, he paused, to search
+the vicinity with careful eyes, then started to cross. As he set foot upon
+the ledge, a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop."</p>
+
+<p>At the word, Aaron King halted.</p>
+
+<p>A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from behind the rocks at the other
+end of the ledge. He was covering the artist with a rifle.</p>
+
+<p>In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The automobile, the mirror
+signals from Fairlands--it was all explained by the presence and by the
+menacing attitude of the man who barred his way. The artist's hand moved
+toward the weapon that hung at his hip.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do that," said the man with the rifle. "I can't murder you in cold
+blood; but if you attempt to draw your gun, I'll fire."</p>
+
+<p>The other stood still.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion; "Listen to me,
+King. It's useless for me to deny what brought me here. The trail you are
+following leads to Sibyl Andr&eacute;s. You had her all summer. I've got her now.
+If you hadn't stumbled onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out
+of the country, and you would never have seen her again. I might have
+killed you before you saw me, but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the
+circumstances there is no possible compromise. I'll give you a fighting
+chance for your life and the girl. I'll take a fighting chance for my life
+and the girl. Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. We'll
+meet on the ledge there."</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will be remembered,--on
+the night of his death, boasted that he was game.</p>
+
+<p>Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held
+his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its
+holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle
+behind the rock.</p>
+
+<p>Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats.
+For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed
+the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
+distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the
+man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their
+acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge
+had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the
+sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had
+strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first
+meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying
+that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist,
+in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and
+characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other,
+each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately,
+they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the
+great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the
+bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills
+watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.</p>
+
+<p>As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
+warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers,
+they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier,
+but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut,
+muscular firmness.</p>
+
+<p>They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare
+handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs
+entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut
+nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of
+the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung
+over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and
+clenched teeth they wrestled.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate
+effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King--worn by his days of
+anxiety, by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil over the
+mountains, without sufficient food or rest--felt his strength going.
+Slowly, the weight and endurance of the heavier man told against him.
+James Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze with savage
+triumph.</p>
+
+<p>They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing gasps, that told of the
+nearness of the finish. Slowly, Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to
+increase his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, was bearing
+the other downward and back.</p>
+
+<p>At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andr&eacute;s reached the cliff. With a
+cry of horror, the girl stood as though turned to stone.</p>
+
+<p>Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the struggling men.</p>
+
+<p>With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In a low voice she called,
+"Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!"</p>
+
+<p>The two men on the ledge heard nothing--saw nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her companion heard. "Mr.
+Marston, Mr. Marston, it is Aaron King. I--I love him--I--love him."</p>
+
+<p>Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, the convict answered,
+"Pray, girl; pray, pray for me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle
+to his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body
+inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for
+the last triumphant effort.</p>
+
+<p>The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, was saying again,
+"Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed
+the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack of
+the rifle.</p>
+
+<p>James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For a fraction of a second,
+his form half straightened and he stood nearly erect; then, as a weed cut
+by the sharp scythe of a mower falls, he fell; his body whirling downward
+toward the trees and rocks below. The sound of the crashing branches
+mingled with the reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron
+King lay still.</p>
+
+<p>The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. Lifting the unconscious man
+in his arms, he carried him a little way down the mountain, toward the
+cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To Sibyl, who hung over the
+artist in an agony of loving fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right,
+presently, Miss Andr&eacute;s. I'll fetch his coat and hat."</p>
+
+<p>Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead man's rifle, coat, and
+hat, and threw them over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the
+artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Miss Andr&eacute;s," said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will
+be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his
+friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances.
+Good-by."</p>
+
+<p>From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked
+at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.</p>
+
+<p>Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like
+some hunted creature of the wilderness.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch39" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XXXIX</h2>
+
+<h3>The Better Way</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion
+of her woman heart, Sibyl Andr&eacute;s bent over the unconscious object of her
+love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the
+sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven
+him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing
+was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes;
+she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her
+portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood
+and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.</p>
+
+<p>In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon
+the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her
+love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept
+away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile
+accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and
+the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened
+passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love
+him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant
+assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil
+seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.</p>
+
+<p>As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the
+girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him
+with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his
+hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron,
+Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped
+off her jacket and, placing it under his head, drew a little back.</p>
+
+<p>He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up at the dark pines that
+clothed the mountainsides. His lips moved and she heard her name; "Sibyl,
+Sibyl."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing with color. "Yes, Mr.
+King."</p>
+
+<p>"Am I dreaming, again?" he said slowly, gazing at her as though struggling
+to command his senses.</p>
+
+<p>"No, Mr. King," she answered cheerily, "you are not dreaming."</p>
+
+<p>Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread of thought in a bewildering
+tangle of events, he went over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak
+where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make me see the Golden
+State Limited coming down from the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to
+watch for buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, then continued,
+"I saw flashes of light in Fairlands and on Granite Peak. I left a note
+for Brian and came over the range. I spent one night on the way. I found
+tracks on the peak. There were two, a man and a woman. I followed them to
+a ledge of rock at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the thread
+of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop me? Was there--was there a
+fight? Or is that part of my dream?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said softly, "that is not part of your dream."</p>
+
+<p>"And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I was going to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Then where--" with quick energy he sat up and grasped her arm--"My God!
+Sibyl--Miss Andr&eacute;s, did I, did I--" He could not finish the sentence, but
+sank back, overcome with emotion.</p>
+
+<p>The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice that rallied his
+mind and forced him to command himself.</p>
+
+<p>"Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember nothing more? You were
+struggling--your strength was going--can't you remember? You must, you
+must!"</p>
+
+<p>Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a rifle-shot?" he asked
+slowly. "It seems to me that something in my brain snapped, and everything
+went black. Was there a rifle-shot?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"And I did not--I did not--?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would have killed you, but for
+the shot that you heard."</p>
+
+<p>"And Rutlidge is--?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is dead," she answered simply.</p>
+
+<p>"But who--?"</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that she had met Mrs.
+Taine in the studio until the convict had left her, a few minutes before.
+"And now," she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to the cabin.
+There is food there. You must be nearly starved. I will cook supper for
+you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."</p>
+
+<p>"But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must
+tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until
+I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you
+are ready to hear, now."</p>
+
+<p>She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you
+want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the
+man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff,
+understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."</p>
+
+<p>"And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell
+you?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial
+meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later,
+with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near
+the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that
+he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.</p>
+
+<p>Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut
+them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude
+little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were
+flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the
+night before, the convict had told that girl his story.</p>
+
+<p>Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the
+bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well,
+then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night,"
+she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice,
+he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland
+couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole
+quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood
+upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking
+toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and
+kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she
+crept back to her couch.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the
+faintly marked trail of the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the
+foot of the cliff. When the darkness came, the mountaineer ate a cold
+supper and, under a rude shelter quickly improvised by his skill in
+woodcraft, slept beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack
+Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his blanket under the
+pines. Somewhere in the night, the man who had saved Sibyl Andr&eacute;s and
+Aaron King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted thing.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their breakfast But so quietly did
+she move about her homely task that the artist did not awake. When the
+meal was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, declaring that
+he felt himself a new man. Breakfast over, they set out at once.</p>
+
+<p>When they came to the cliff at the head of the gulch, the girl halted and,
+shrinking back, covered her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the
+first time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. Gently, her
+companion led her across the ledge, and a little way back from the rim of
+the gorge on the other side.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw Brian Oakley coming toward
+them. Laughing and crying, Sibyl ran to meet him; and the mountaineer, who
+had so many times looked death in the face, unafraid and unmoved, wept
+like a child as he held the girl in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the events that led up to their
+meeting with the Ranger, and he in turn had told them how he had followed
+the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden supplies, had followed
+the trail of James Rutlidge from that point, the officer asked the girl
+several questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, while they,
+guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. Finally, he said, "Jack is due
+at Granite Peak, sometime about noon. He'll have his horse, and with Sibyl
+riding, we'll make it back down to the head of Clear Creek by dark. You
+young folks just wait for me here a little. I want to look around below
+there, a bit."</p>
+
+<p>As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to her feet and threw herself
+into his arms. "No, no, Brian Oakley, you shall not--you shall not do it!"</p>
+
+<p>Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into her pleading eyes,
+smilingly. "And what do you think I am going to do, girlie?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are going down there to pick up the trail of the man who saved
+Aaron--who saved me. But you shall not do it. I don't care if you are an
+officer, and he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do anything that
+might lead to his capture."</p>
+
+<p>"God bless you, child," answered Brian Oakley, "the only escaped convict I
+know anything about, this last year, according to my belief, died
+somewhere in the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my official
+reports on the matter."</p>
+
+<p>"And you're not going to find which way he went?"</p>
+
+<p>"Listen, Sibyl," said the Ranger gravely. "The disappearance of James
+Rutlidge, prominent as he was, will be heralded from one end of the world
+to the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. The search is sure
+to be carried into these hills, for that automobile trip in the night will
+not go unquestioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my suspicions.
+In a few days, the body will be safely past recognition, even should it be
+discovered through the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything
+durable being found to identify the man who fell over the cliff."</p>
+
+<p>When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, quietly, "It's a
+mighty good thing I went down. It wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We
+can forget it, now, with perfect safety. Remember"--he charged them
+impressively--"even to Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange, the story must be
+only that an unknown man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The man
+escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the Sheriff, or whoever can,
+solve the mystery of that automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance."</p>
+
+<p>A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack Carleton and, by dark, as
+Brian Oakley had said, were safely down to the head of Clear Creek; having
+come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier and shorter than the
+roundabout way followed by the convict and the girl.</p>
+
+<p>It was just past midnight when the three friends parted from young
+Carleton and crossed the canyon to Sibyl's old home.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch40" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XL</h2>
+
+<h3>Facing the Truth</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+As Brian Oakley had predicted, the disappearance of James Rutlidge
+occupied columns in the newspapers, from coast to coast. In every article
+he was headlined as "A Distinguished Citizen;" "A Famous Critic;" "A
+Prominent Figure in the World of Art;" "One of the Greatest Living
+Authorities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Powerful Influence Upon
+the Artistic Production of the Age." The story of the unknown mountain
+girl's abduction and escape was a news item of a single day; but the
+disappearance of James Rutlidge kept the press busy for weeks. It may be
+dismissed here with the simple statement that the mystery has never been
+solved.</p>
+
+<p>Of the unknown man who had taken Sibyl away into the mountains, and who
+had escaped, the world has never heard. Of the convict who died but did
+not die in the hills, the world knows nothing. That is, the world knows
+nothing of the man in this connection. But Aaron and Sibyl, some years
+later, knew what became of Henry Marston--which does not, at all, belong
+to this story.</p>
+
+<p>Upon his return with Conrad Lagrange to their home in the orange groves,
+Aaron King plunged into his work with a purpose very different from the
+motive that had prompted him when first he took up his brushes in the
+studio that looked out upon the mountains and the rose garden.</p>
+
+<p>Day after day, as he gave himself to his great picture,--"The Feast of
+Materialism,"--he knew the joy of the worker who, in his art, surrenders
+himself to a noble purpose--a joy that is very different from the light,
+passing pleasure that comes from the mere exercise of technical skill. The
+artist did not, now, need to drive himself to his task, as the begging
+musician on the street corner forces himself to play to the passing crowd,
+for the pennies that are dropped in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by
+the conviction of a great truth, and by the realization of its woeful need
+in the world, to such adequate expression as his mastery of the tools of
+his craft would permit He was not, now, the slave of his technical
+knowledge; striving to produce a something that should be merely
+technically good. He was a master, compelling the medium of his art to
+serve him; as he, in turn, was compelled to serve the truth that had
+mastered him.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an evening hour to the little
+house next door. Sometimes Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the
+studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came alone. But every day,
+as the artist worked, the music of her violin came to him, out of the
+orange grove, with its message from the hills. And the painter at his
+easel, reading aright the message, worked and waited; knowing surely that
+when she was ready she would come.</p>
+
+<p>Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron King, reading them--nearly
+always under the quizzing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was to
+bring the daily mail--carefully tore them into little pieces and dropped
+them into the waste basket, without comment.</p>
+
+<p>Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have you no thought for the
+day of judgment, young man? Do you not know that your sins will surely
+find you out?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness is only hastening the
+end. If you don't answer those letters you will be forced, shortly, to
+meet the consequences face to face."</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. "But I have my answer
+ready, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean that portrait?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do the trick. But, believe
+me, there will be consequences!"</p>
+
+<p>The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big picture, when Mrs.
+Taine called, the day of her return to Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>It was well on in the afternoon. Conrad Lagrange and Czar had started for
+a walk, but had gone, as usual, only as far as the neighboring house. Yee
+Kee, meeting Mrs. Taine at the door, explained, doubtfully, that the
+artist was at his work. He would go tell Mr. King that Mrs. Taine was
+here.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, Kee. I will tell him myself," she answered; and, before the
+Chinaman could protest, she was on her way to the studio.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn!" said the Celestial eloquently; and retired to his kitchen to
+ruminate upon the ways of "Mellican women."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine pushed open the door of the studio, so quietly, that the
+painter, standing at his easel and engrossed with his work, did not notice
+her presence. For several moments the woman stood watching him, paying no
+heed to the picture, seeing only the man. When he did not look around, she
+said, "Are you too busy to even <i>look</i> at me?"</p>
+
+<p>With an exclamation, he faced her; then, as quickly, turned again; with
+hand outstretched to draw the easel curtain. But, as though obeying a
+second thought that came quickly upon the heels of the first impulse, he
+did not complete the movement. Instead, he laid his palette and brushes
+beside his color-box, and greeted her with, "How do you do, Mrs. Taine?
+When did you return to Fairlands? Is Miss Taine with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Louise is abroad," she answered. "I--I preferred California. I arrived
+this afternoon." She went a step toward him. "You--you don't seem very
+glad to see me."</p>
+
+<p>The painter colored, but she continued impulsively, without waiting for
+his reply. "If you only knew all that I have been doing for you!--the
+wires I have pulled; the influences I have interested; the critics and
+newspaper men that I have talked to! Of course I couldn't do anything in a
+large public way, so soon after Mr. Taine's death, you know; but I have
+been busy, just the same, and everything is fixed. When our picture is
+exhibited next season, you will find yourself not only a famous painter,
+but a social success as well." She paused. When he still did not speak,
+she went on, with an air of troubled sadness; "I <i>do</i> miss Jim's help
+though. Isn't it frightful the way he disappeared? Where do you suppose he
+is? I can't--I won't--believe that anything has happened to him. It's all
+just one of his schemes to get himself talked about. You'll see that he
+will appear again, safe and sound, when the papers stop filling their
+columns about him. I know Jim Rutlidge, too well."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King thought of those bones, picked bare by the carrion birds, at
+the foot of the cliff. "It seems to be one of the mysteries of the day,"
+he said. "Commonplace enough, no doubt, if one only had the key to it."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine had evidently not been in Fairlands long enough to hear the
+story of Sibyl's disappearance--for which the artist mentally gave thanks.</p>
+
+<p>"I am glad for one thing," continued the woman, her mind intent upon the
+main purpose of her call. "Jim had already written a splendid criticism of
+your picture--before he went away--and I have it. All this newspaper talk
+about him will only help to attract attention to what he has said about
+<i>you.</i> They are saying such nice things of him and his devotion to art,
+you know--it is all bound to help you." She waited for his approval, and
+for some expression of his gratitude.</p>
+
+<p>"I fear, Mrs. Taine," he said slowly, "that you are making a mistake."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed nervously, and answered with forced gaiety. "Not me. I'm too
+old a hand at the game not to know just how far I dare or dare not go."</p>
+
+<p>"I do not mean that"--he returned--"I mean that I can not do my part. I
+fear you are mistaken in me."</p>
+
+<p>Again, she laughed. "What nonsense! I like for you to be modest, of
+course--that will be one of your greatest charms. But if you are worried
+about the quality of your work--forget it, my dear boy. Once I have made
+you the rage, no one will stop to think whether your pictures are good or
+bad. The art is not in what you do, but in how you get it before the
+world. Ask Conrad Lagrange if I am not right."</p>
+
+<p>"As to that," returned the artist, "Mr. Lagrange agrees with you,
+perfectly."</p>
+
+<p>"But what is this that you are doing now? Will it be ready for the
+exhibition too?" She looked past him, at the big canvas; and he, watching
+her curiously stepped aside.</p>
+
+<p>Parts of the picture were little more than sketched in, but still, line
+and color spoke with accusing truth the spirit of the company that had
+gathered at the banquet in the home on Fairlands Heights, the night of Mr.
+Taine's death. The figures were not portraits, it is true, but they
+expressed with striking fidelity, the lives and characters of those who
+had, that night, been assembled by Mrs. Taine to meet the artist. The
+figure in the picture, standing with uplifted glass and drunken pose at
+the head of the table--with bestial, lust-worn face, disease-shrunken
+limbs, and dying, licentious eyes fixed upon the beautiful girl
+musician--might easily have been Mr. Taine himself. The distinguished
+writers, and critics; the representatives of the social world and of
+wealth; Conrad Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. Taine
+with her pretense of modest dress that only emphasized her immodesty; and,
+in the midst of the unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the
+unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her violin, offering to them
+that which they were incapable of receiving--it was all there upon the
+canvas, as the artist had seen it that night. The picture cried aloud the
+intellectual degradation and the spiritual depravity of that class who,
+arrogating to themselves the authority of leaders in culture and art, by
+their approval and patronage of dangerous falsehood and sham in picture or
+story, make possible such characters as James Rutlidge.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked at the picture on the easel,
+saw a look of doubt and uncertainty come over her face. Once, she turned
+toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, looked again at the
+canvas. She seemed perplexed and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of
+something in the picture that she did not rightly understand Then, as she
+looked, her eyes kindled with contemptuous scorn, and there was a
+pronounced sneer in her cold tones as she said, "Really, I don't believe I
+care for you to do this sort of thing." She laughed shortly. "It reminds
+one a little of that dinner at our house. Don't you think? It's the girl
+with the violin, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine," said the artist, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? Well, I think you'd better stick to your portraits. This is a great
+picture though," she admitted thoughtfully. "It, it grips you so. I can't
+seem to get away from it. I can see that it will create a sensation. But
+just the same, I don't like it. It's not nice, like your portrait of me.
+By the way"--and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to
+escape a distasteful subject--"do you remember that I have never seen my
+picture yet? Where do you keep it?"</p>
+
+<p>The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at
+work, "It is there, Mrs. Taine."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep it on the easel, still!"
+Playfully, she added, "Do you look at it often?--that you have it so
+handy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have looked at it
+frequently." He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was
+working upon the larger picture.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice of you," she answered "Please let me see it now. I remember when
+you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what
+you thought of me; have you? I wonder!"</p>
+
+<p>"I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine," he answered, and
+drew the curtain that hid the painting.</p>
+
+<p>As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King
+had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had
+seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though
+stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as
+though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, "Is it--is it--true? Am
+I--am I <i>that</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the girl he loved so nearly to a
+shameful end, and thinking of those bones at the foot of the cliff,
+answered justly; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that picture
+than in the things you said to Miss Andr&eacute;s, here in this room, the day you
+left Fairlands."</p>
+
+<p>Her face went white with quick rage, but, controling herself, she said,
+"And where is the picture of your <i>mistress</i>? I should like to see it
+again, please."</p>
+
+<p>"Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because you are a woman, it is the
+only answer I can make to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as
+false as that portrait of you is true."</p>
+
+<p>Quickly he pushed another easel to a position beside the one that held
+Mrs. Taine's portrait, and drew the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine--but only for a moment.
+A character that is the product of certain years of schooling in the
+thought and spirit of the class in which Mrs. Taine belonged, is not
+transformed by a single exhibition of painted truth. From the two
+portraits, the woman turned to the larger canvas. Then she faced the
+artist.</p>
+
+<p>"You fool!" she said with bitter rage. "O you fool! Do you think that you
+will ever be permitted to exhibit such trash as this?" she waved her hand
+to include the three paintings. "Do you think that I am going to drag
+you up the ladder of social position to fame and to wealth for such
+reward as that?" she singled out her own portrait. "Bah! you are
+impossible--impossible! I have been mad to think that I could make
+anything out of you. As for your idiotic claim that you have painted the
+truth--" She seized a large palette knife that lay with the artist's tools
+upon the table, and springing to her portrait, hacked and mutilated the
+canvas. The artist stood motionless making no effort to stop her. When the
+picture was utterly defaced she threw it at his feet. "<i>That</i>, for your
+truth, Mr. King!" With a quick motion, she turned toward the other
+portrait.</p>
+
+<p>But the artist, who had guessed her purpose, caught her hand. "That
+picture was yours, madam--this one is mine." There was a significant ring
+of triumph in his voice.</p>
+
+<p>Neither Aaron King nor Mrs. Taine had noticed three people who had entered
+the rose garden, from the orange grove, through the little gate in the
+corner of the hedge. Conrad Lagrange, Myra Willard and Sibyl were going to
+the studio; deliberately bent upon interrupting the artist at his work.
+They sometimes--as Conrad Lagrange put it--made, thus, a life-saving crew
+of three; dragging the painter to safety when the waves of inspiration
+were about to overwhelm him. Czar, of course, took an active part in these
+rescues.</p>
+
+<p>As the three friends approached the trellised arch that opened from the
+garden into the yard, a few feet from the studio door, the sound of Mrs.
+Taine's angry voice, came clearly through the open window.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange stopped. "Evidently, Mr. King has company," he said,
+dryly.</p>
+
+<p>"It is Mrs. Taine, is it not?" asked Sibyl, quietly, recognizing the
+woman's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," answered the novelist.</p>
+
+<p>The woman with the disfigured face said hurriedly, "Come, Sibyl, we must
+go back. We will not disturb Mr. King, now, Mr. Lagrange. You two come
+over this evening." They saw her face white and frightened.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I'll go back with you, if you don't mind," returned Conrad
+Lagrange, with his twisted grin; "I don't think I want any of that in
+there, either." To the dog who was moving toward the studio door, he
+added; "Here, Czar, you mustn't interrupt the lady. You're not in her
+class."</p>
+
+<p>They were moving away, when Mrs. Taine's voice came again, clearly and
+distinctly, through the window.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well. I wish you joy of your possession. I promise you, though,
+that the world shall never hear of this portrait of your mistress. If you
+dare try to exhibit it, I shall see that the people to whom you must look
+for your patronage know how you found the original, an innocent, mountain
+girl, and brought her to your studio to live with you. Fairlands has
+already talked enough, but my influence has prevented it from going too
+far. You may be very sure that from now on I shall not exert myself to
+deny it."</p>
+
+<p>The artist's friends in the rose garden, again, stopped involuntarily.
+Sibyl uttered a low exclamation.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange looked at Myra Willard. "I think," he said in a low tone,
+"that the time has come. Can you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I--I--must," returned the woman. She spoke to the girl, who, being a
+little in advance, had not heard the novelist's words, "Sibyl, dear, will
+you go on home, please? Mr, Lagrange will stay with me. I--I will join you
+presently."</p>
+
+<p>At a look from Conrad Lagrange, the girl obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Go with Sibyl, Czar," said the novelist; and the girl and the dog went
+quickly away through the garden.</p>
+
+<p>In the studio, Aaron King gazed at the angry woman in amazement. "Mrs.
+Taine," he said, with quiet dignity, "I must tell you that I hope to make
+Miss Andr&eacute;s my wife."</p>
+
+<p>She laughed harshly. "And what has that to do with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought that if you knew, it might help you to understand the
+situation," he answered simply.</p>
+
+<p>"I understand the situation, very well," she retorted, "but you do not
+appear to. The situation is this: I--I was interested in you--as an
+artist. I, because my position in the world enabled me to help you,
+commissioned you to paint my portrait. You are unknown, with no name, no
+place in the world. I could have given you success. I could have
+introduced you to the people that you must know if you are to succeed. My
+influence would insure you a favorable reception from those who make the
+reputations of men like you. I could have made you the rage. I could have
+made you famous. And now--"</p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said calmly, "you will exert your influence to hinder me in my
+work. Because I have not pleased you, you will use whatever power you have
+to ruin me. Is that what you mean, Mrs. Taine?"</p>
+
+<p>"You have made your choice. You must take the consequences," she replied
+coldly, and turned to leave the studio.</p>
+
+<p>In the doorway, stood the woman with the disfigured face.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange stood near.</p>
+
+
+<div id="ch41" class="chapter">
+<h3>XLI</h3>
+
+<h3>Marks of the Beast</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+When Mrs. Taine would have passed out of the studio, the woman with the
+disfigured face said, "Wait madam, I must speak to you."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King recalled that strange scene at the depot, the day of his
+arrival in Fairlands.</p>
+
+<p>"I have nothing to say to you"--returned Mrs. Taine, coldly--"stand aside
+please."</p>
+
+<p>But Conrad Lagrange quietly closed the door. "I think, Mrs. Taine," he
+remarked dryly, "than you will be interested in what Miss Willard has to
+say."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, very well," returned the other, making the best of the situation.
+"Evidently, you heard what I just said to your protege."</p>
+
+<p>The novelist answered, "We did. Accept my compliments madam; you did it
+very nicely."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks," she retorted, "I see you still play your role of protector. You
+might tell your charge whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable
+result of his--ah--artistic conscientiousness."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. King knows that you are not. You have, indeed, put the situation
+rather mildly. It is a sad fact, but, never-the-less, a fact, that the
+noblest work is often forced to remain unrecognized and unknown to the
+world by the same methods that are used to exalt the unworthy. You
+undoubtedly have the power of which you boast, Mrs. Taine, but--"</p>
+
+<p>"But what?" she said triumphantly. "You think I will hesitate to use my
+influence?"</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> you will not use it--in this case," came the unexpected answer.</p>
+
+<p>She laughed mockingly, "And why not? What will prevent?"</p>
+
+<p>"The one thing on earth, that you fear, madam"--answered Conrad
+Lagrange--"the eyes of the world."</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King listened, amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I understand," said Mrs. Taine, coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"No? That is what Miss Willard proposes to explain," returned the
+novelist.</p>
+
+<p>She turned haughtily toward the woman with the disfigured face. "What can
+this poor creature say to anything I propose?"</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard answered gently, sadly, "Have you no kindness, no sympathy at
+all, madam? Is there nothing but cruel selfishness in your heart?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are insolent," retorted the other, sharply. "Say what you have to say
+and be brief."</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard drew close to the woman and looked long and searchingly into
+her face. The other returned her gaze with contemptuous indifference.</p>
+
+<p>"I have been sorry for you," said Myra Willard slowly. "I have not wished
+to speak. But I know what you said to Sibyl, here in the studio; and I
+overheard what you said to Mr. King, a few minutes ago. I cannot keep
+silent."</p>
+
+<p>"Proceed," said Mrs. Taine, shortly. "Say what you have to say, and be
+done with it."</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard obeyed. "Mrs. Taine, twenty-six years ago, your guardian, the
+father of James Rutlidge won the love of a young girl. It does not matter
+who she was. She was beautiful and innocent That was her misfortune.
+Beauty and innocence often bring pain and sorrow, madam, in a world where
+there are too many men like Mr. Rutlidge, and his son. The girl thought
+the man--she did not know him by his real name--her lover. She thought
+that he became her husband. A baby was born to the girl who believed
+herself a wife; and the young mother was happy. For a short time, she was
+very happy.</p>
+
+<p>"Then, the awakening came. The girl mother was holding her baby to her
+breast, and singing, as happy mothers do, when a strange woman appeared in
+the open door of the room. She was a beautiful woman, richly dressed; but
+her face was distorted with passion. The young mother did not understand.
+She did not know, then, that the woman was Mrs. Rutlidge--the true wife of
+the father of her child. She knew that, afterward. The woman, in the
+doorway lifted her hand as though to throw something, and the mother,
+instinctively, bowed her head to shield her baby. Then something that
+burned like fire struck her face and neck. She screamed in agony, and
+fainted.</p>
+
+<p>"The rest of the story does not matter, I think. The injured mother was
+taken to the hospital. When she recovered, she learned that Mrs. Rutlidge
+was dead--a suicide. Later, Mr. Rutlidge took the baby to raise as his
+ward; telling the world that the child was the daughter of a relative who
+had died at its birth. You must understand that when the disfigured mother
+of the baby came to know the truth, she believed that it would be better
+for the little one if the facts of its birth were never known. The wealthy
+Mr. Rutlidge could give his ward every advantage of culture and social
+position. The child would grow to womanhood with no stain upon her name.
+Because she felt she owed her baby this, the only thing that she could
+give her, the mother consented and disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little of the acid that burned
+that mother's face fell upon the shoulder of her illegitimate baby."</p>
+
+<p>"God!" exclaimed the artist.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine stood like a woman of stone.
+At the end, she gazed at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated
+with horror, while her hands moved to finger the buttons of her dress.
+Unconscious of what she was doing, as though under some strange spell,
+without removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred features she opened
+the waist of her dress and bared to them her right shoulder. It was marked
+by a broad scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her mother.</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the mother instinct. "My baby,
+my poor, poor girl!"</p>
+
+<p>The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an air of cold, unconquerable
+pride, the woman looked at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she
+swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
+why you have done this."</p>
+
+<p>Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, white and trembling. Aaron
+King stepped quickly to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her
+shoulder waited for the novelist to speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Willard told you this story because I asked her to," said Conrad
+Lagrange. "I asked her to tell you because it gives me the power to
+protect the two people who are dearer to me than all the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered Mrs. Taine.</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a reporter on a certain newspaper
+when the incidents just related occurred. I wrote the story for the press.
+In fact, it was the story that gave me my start in yellow journalism, from
+which I graduated the novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper
+game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of this story that you have
+just heard. Permit me to say, that I know how to write in the approved
+newspaper style, and to add that my name insures a wide hearing. Proceed
+to carry out your threats, and I promise you that I will give this
+attractive bit of news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper in
+the land. Can't you see the headlines? 'Startling Revelation,' 'The Secret
+of the Beautiful Mrs. Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social
+World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a Social Leader.' Do you
+understand, madam? Use your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr.
+King in his work; or fail to use your influence to contradict the lies
+you have already started about the character of Miss Andr&eacute;s; and I will
+use the influence of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you before
+the eyes of the world for what you are."</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. Then, as she grasped the
+full significance of what he had said, she slowly bowed her head.</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange opened the door.</p>
+
+<p>As she went out, the woman with the disfigured face started forward,
+holding out her hands appealingly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly toward the big automobile
+that was waiting in front of the house.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<div id="ch42" class="chapter">
+<h2>Chapter XLII</h2>
+
+<h3>Aaron King's Success</h3>
+
+<p>
+
+The winter months were past.</p>
+
+<p>Aaron King was sitting before his finished picture. The colors were still
+fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs in an honored place in one of
+the great galleries of the world. To the last careful touch, the artist
+had put into his painted message, the best he had to give. Back of every
+line and brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a worthy motive.
+For an hour, he had been sitting there, before the easel, brush and
+palette in hand, without touching the canvas. He could do no more.</p>
+
+<p>Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
+that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
+of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
+he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
+work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
+indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
+entered the studio; Czar at his heels.</p>
+
+<p>Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
+friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
+of the finished painting, now.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"</p>
+
+<p>The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
+knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
+having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
+in his hand he read:</p>
+
+<p>"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
+otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
+distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
+the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
+indolent--slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of
+places--the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the
+wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers
+who pass him by. But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that
+lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere
+striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility
+conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I
+know--as you will some day come to understand--is not a blessing but a
+curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely; and which,
+if it be not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and poison the
+life of the race.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I would have your ambition, a safe and worthy ambition, Aaron, I
+ask that the supreme and final test of any work that comes from your hand
+may be this; that it satisfy you, yourself--that you may be not ashamed to
+sit down alone with your work, and thus to look it squarely in the face.
+Not critics, nor authorities, not popular opinion, not even law or
+religion, must be the court of final appeal when you are, by what you do,
+brought to bar; but by you, <i>yourself</i>, the judgment must be rendered. And
+this, too, is true, my son, by that judgment and that judgment alone, you
+will truly live or you will truly die."</p>
+
+<p>"And that"--said the novelist--so famous in the eyes of the world, so
+infamous in his own sight--"and that is what she tried to make me believe,
+when she and I were young together. But I would not. I would not accept
+it. I thought if I could win fame that she--" he checked himself suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"But you have led me to accept it, old man," cried the artist heartily.
+"You have opened my eyes. You have helped me to understand my mother, as I
+never could have understood her, alone."</p>
+
+<p>Conrad Lagrange smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted whimsically. "No doubt good
+may sometimes be accomplished by the presentation of a horrible example.
+But go on with your private exhibition. I'll not keep you longer. Come,
+Czar."</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the artist's protests, he left the studio.</p>
+
+<p>While the painter was putting away his letters, the novelist and the dog
+went through the rose garden and the orange grove, straight to the little
+house next door. They walked as though on a definite mission.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl and Myra Willard were sitting on the porch.</p>
+
+<p>"Howdy, neighbor," called the girl, as the tall, ungainly form of the
+famous novelist appeared. "You seem to be the bearer of news. What is the
+latest word from the seat of war?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is finished," said Conrad Lagrange, returning Myra's gentle greeting,
+and accepting the chair that Sibyl offered.</p>
+
+<p>"The picture?" said the girl eagerly, a quick color flushing her cheeks.
+"Is the picture finished?"</p>
+
+<p>"Finished," returned the novelist. "I just left him mooning over it like a
+mother over a brand-new baby."</p>
+
+<p>They laughed together, and when, a moment later, the girl slipped into the
+house and did not return, the woman with the disfigured face and the
+famous novelist looked at each other with smiling eyes. When Czar, with
+sudden interest, started around the corner of the house, his master said
+suggestively, "Czar, you better stay here with the old folks."</p>
+
+<p>Passing through the house, and out of the kitchen door, Sibyl ran,
+lightly, through the orange grove, to the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge. A moment she paused, hesitating, then, stealing
+cautiously into the rose garden, she darted in quick flight to the shelter
+of the arbor; where she parted the screen of vines to gain a view of the
+studio.</p>
+
+<p>Between the big, north window and the window that opened into the garden,
+she saw the artist. She saw, too, the big canvas upon the easel. But Aaron
+King was not, now, looking at his work just finished. He was sitting
+before that other picture into which he had unconsciously painted, not
+only the truth that he saw in the winsome loveliness of the girl who posed
+for him with outstretshed hands among the roses, but his love for her as
+well.</p>
+
+<p>With a low laugh, Sibyl drew back. Swiftly, as she had reached the arbor,
+she crossed the garden, and a moment later, paused at the studio door.
+Again she hesitated--then, gently,--so gently that the artist, lost in his
+dreams, did not hear,--she opened the door. For a little, she stood
+watching him. Softly, she took a few steps toward him. The artist, as
+though sensing her presence, started and looked around.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing as she stood in the picture; her hands outstretched, a
+smile of welcome on her lips, the light of gladness in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>As he rose from his chair before the easel, she went to him.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>Not many days later, there was a quiet wedding, at Sibyl's old home in the
+hills. Besides the two young people and the clergyman, only Brian Oakley,
+Mrs. Oakley, Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard were present. These friends
+who had prepared the old place for the mating ones, after a simple dinner
+following the ceremony, returned down the canyon to the Station.</p>
+
+<p>Standing arm in arm, where the old road turns around the cedar thicket,
+and where the artist had first seen the girl, Sibyl and Aaron watched them
+go. From the other side of roaring Clear Creek, they turned to wave hats
+and handkerchiefs; the two in the shadow of the cedars answered; Czar
+barked joyful congratulations; and the wagon disappeared in the wilderness
+growth.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of turning back to the house behind them, the two, without
+speaking, as though obeying a common impulse, set out down the canyon.</p>
+
+<p>A little later they stood in the old spring glade, where the alders bore,
+still, in the smooth, gray bark of their trunks, the memories of long-ago
+lovers; where the light fell, slanting softly through the screen of leaf
+and branch and vine and virgin's-bower, upon the granite boulder and the
+cress-mottled waters of the spring, as through the window traceries of a
+vast and quiet cathedral; and where the distant roar of the mountain
+stream trembled in the air like the deep tones of some great organ.</p>
+
+<p>Sibyl, dressed in her brown, mountain costume, was sitting on the boulder,
+when the artist said softly, "Look!"</p>
+
+<p>Lifting her eyes, as he pointed, she saw two butterflies--it might almost
+have been the same two--with zigzag flight, through the opening in the
+draperies of virgin's-bower. With parted lips and flushed cheeks, the girl
+watched. Then--as the beautiful creatures, in their aerial waltz, whirled
+above her head--she rose, and lightly, gracefully,--almost as her winged
+companions,--accompanied them in their dance.</p>
+
+<p>The winged emblems of innocence and purity flitted away over the willow
+wall. The girl, with bright eyes and smiling lips--half laughing, half
+serious--looked toward her mate. He held out his arms and she went to him.</p>
+
+<h4>
+The End</h4>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eyes of the World, by Harold Bell Wright
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Eyes of the World
+
+Author: Harold Bell Wright
+
+Release Date: March 25, 2004 [EBook #11715]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EYES OF THE WORLD ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+The Eyes of the World
+
+By Harold Bell Wright
+
+Author of "That Printer of Udells," "The Shepherd of the Hills,"
+"The Calling of Dan Matthews," "The Winning of Barbara Worth,"
+"Their Yesterdays," Etc.
+
+
+
+
+To Benjamin H. Pearson
+
+Student, Artist, Gentleman
+
+in appreciation of the friendship that began on the "Pipe-Line Trail," at
+the camp in the sycamores back of the old orchard, and among the higher
+peaks of the San Bernardinos; and because this story will always mean more
+to him than to any one else,--this book, with all good wishes, is
+
+Dedicated.
+
+H. B. W.
+
+"Tecolote Rancho,"
+April 13, 1914.
+
+
+
+
+                  "I have learned
+    To look on Nature not as in the hour
+    Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
+    The sad, still music of humanity,
+    Not harsh or grating, though of ample power
+    To chasten and subdue. And I have felt,
+    A presence that disturbs me with the joy
+    Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
+    Of something far more deeply interfused,
+    Whose dwelling is in the lights of setting suns,
+    And the round ocean and the living air,
+    And the blue sky, and in the mind of man.
+    A motion and a spirit that impels
+    All thinking things, all objects of all thoughts,
+    And rolls through all things.
+
+            Therefore am I still
+    A lover of the meadows and the woods
+    And mountains.........
+    ....... And this prayer I make,
+    Knowing that Nature never did betray
+    The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege
+    Through all the years of this one life, to lead
+    From joy to joy; for she can so inform
+    The mind that is within us--so impress
+    With quietness and beauty, and so feed
+    With lofty thoughts--that neither evil tongues,
+    Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
+    Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
+    The dreary intercourse of daily life,
+    Shalt e'er prevail against us, or disturb
+    Our cheerful faith."
+
+    William Wordsworth.
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+
+      I. His Inheritance
+     II. The Woman With the Disfigured Face
+    III. The Famous Conrad Lagrange
+     IV. At the House on Fairlands Heights
+      V. The Mystery of the Rose Garden
+     VI. An Unknown Friend
+    VII. Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray
+   VIII. The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
+     IX. Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
+      X. A Cry in the Night
+     XI. Go Look in Your Mirror, You Fool
+    XII. First Fruits of His Shame
+   XIII. Myra Willard's Challenge
+    XIV. In the Mountains
+     XV. The Forest Ranger's Story
+    XVI. When the Canyon Gates Are Shut
+   XVII. Confessions in the Spring Glade
+  XVIII. Sibyl Andres and the Butterflies
+    XIX. The Three Gifts and their Meanings
+     XX. Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning
+    XXI. The Last Climb
+   XXII. Shadows of Coming Events
+  XXIII. Outside the Canyon Gates Again
+   XXIV. James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake
+    XXV. On the Pipe-Line Trail
+   XXVI. I Want You Just as You Are
+  XXVII. The Answer
+ XXVIII. You're Ruined, My Boy
+   XXIX. The Hand Writing On The Wall
+    XXX. In the Same Hour
+   XXXI. As the World Sees
+  XXXII. The Mysterious Disappearance
+ XXXIII. Beginning the Search
+  XXXIV. The Tracks on Granite Peak
+   XXXV. A Hard Way
+  XXXVI. What Should He Do
+ XXXVII. The Man Was Insane
+XXXVIII. An Inevitable Conflict
+  XXXIX. The Better Way
+     XL. Facing the Truth
+    XLI. Marks of the Beast
+   XLII. Aaron King's Success
+
+
+
+
+Illustrations from Oil Paintings
+
+By
+
+F. Graham Cootes
+
+
+Sibyl
+
+A curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation
+
+"Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"
+
+Still she did not speak
+
+
+
+
+The Eyes of the World
+
+
+
+
+Chapter I
+
+His Inheritance
+
+
+
+It was winter--cold and snow and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds and
+stinging wind.
+
+The house was an ancient mansion on an old street in that city of culture
+which has given to the history of our nation--to education, to religion,
+to the sciences, and to the arts--so many illustrious names.
+
+In the changing years, before the beginning of my story, the woman's
+immediate friends and associates had moved from the neighborhood to the
+newer and more fashionable districts of a younger generation. In that city
+of her father's there were few of her old companions left. There were
+fewer who remembered. The distinguished leaders in the world of art and
+letters, whose voices had been so often heard within the walls of her
+home, had, one by one, passed on; leaving their works and their names to
+their children. The children, in the greedy rush of these younger times,
+had too readily forgotten the woman who, to the culture and genius of a
+passing day, had been hostess and friend.
+
+The apartment was pitifully bare and empty. Ruthlessly it had been
+stripped of its treasures of art and its proud luxuries. But, even in its
+naked necessities the room managed, still, to evidence the rare
+intelligence and the exquisite refinement of its dying tenant.
+
+The face upon the pillow, so wasted by sickness, was marked by the
+death-gray. The eyes, deep in their hollows between the fleshless forehead
+and the prominent cheek-bones, were closed; the lips were livid; the nose
+was sharp and pinched; the colorless cheeks were sunken; but the outlines
+were still delicately drawn and the proportions nobly fashioned. It was,
+still, the face of a gentlewoman. In the ashen lips, only, was there a
+sign of life; and they trembled and fluttered in their effort to utter the
+words that an indomitable spirit gave them to speak.
+
+"To-day--to-day--he will--come." The voice was a thin, broken whisper; but
+colored, still, with pride and gladness.
+
+A young woman in the uniform of a trained nurse turned quickly from the
+window. With soft, professional step, she crossed the room to bend over
+the bed. Her trained fingers sought the skeleton wrist; she spoke slowly,
+distinctly, with careful clearness; and, under the cool professionalism of
+her words, there was a tone of marked respect. "What is it, madam?"
+
+The sunken eyes opened. As a burst of sunlight through the suddenly opened
+doors of a sepulchre, the death-gray face was illumed. In those eyes,
+clear and burning, the nurse saw all that remained of a powerful
+personality. In their shadowy depths, she saw the last glowing embers of
+the vital fire gathered; carefully nursed and tended; kept alive by a will
+that was clinging, with almost superhuman tenacity, to a definite purpose.
+Dying, this woman _would_ not die--_could_ not die--until the end for
+which she willed to live should be accomplished. In the very grasp of
+Death, she was forcing Death to stay his hand--without life, she was
+holding Death at bay.
+
+It was magnificent, and the gentle face under the nurse's cap shone with
+appreciation and admiration as she smiled her sympathy and understanding.
+
+"My son--my son--will come--to-day." The voice was stronger, and, with the
+eyes, expressed a conviction--a certainty--with the faintest shadow of a
+question.
+
+The nurse looked at her watch. "The boat was due in New York, early this
+morning, madam."
+
+A step sounded in the hall outside. The nurse started, and turned quickly
+toward the door. But the woman said, "The doctor." And, again, the fire
+that burned in those sunken eyes was hidden wearily under their dark lids.
+
+The white-haired physician and the nurse, at the farther end of the room,
+spoke together in low tones. Said the physician,--incredulous,--"You say
+there is no change?"
+
+"None that I can detect," breathed the nurse. "It is wonderful!"
+
+"Her mind is clear?"
+
+"As though she were in perfect health."
+
+The doctor took the nurse's chart. For a moment, he studied it in silence.
+He gave it back with a gesture of amazement. "God! nurse," he whispered,
+"she should be in her grave by now! It's a miracle! But she has always
+been like that--" he continued, half to himself, looking with troubled
+admiration toward the bed at the other end of the room--"always."
+
+He went slowly forward to the chair that the nurse placed for him. Seating
+himself quietly beside his patient, and bending forward with intense
+interest, his fine old head bowed, he regarded with more than professional
+care the wasted face upon the pillow.
+
+The doctor remembered, too well, when those finely moulded features--now,
+so worn by sorrow, so marked by sickness, so ghastly in the hue of
+death--were rounded with young-woman health and tinted with rare
+loveliness. He recalled that day when he saw her a bride. He remembered
+the sweet, proud dignity of her young wifehood. He saw her, again, when
+her face shone with the glad triumph and the holy joy of motherhood.
+
+The old physician turned from his patient, to look with sorrowful eyes
+about the room that was to witness the end.
+
+Why was such a woman dying like this? Why was a life of such rich mental
+and spiritual endowments--of such wealth of true culture--coming to its
+close in such material poverty?
+
+The doctor was one of the few who knew. He was one of the few who
+understood that, to the woman herself, it was necessary.
+
+There were those who--without understanding, for the sake of the years
+that were gone--would have surrounded her with the material comforts to
+which, in her younger days, she had been accustomed. The doctor knew that
+there was one--a friend of her childhood, famous, now, in the world of
+books--who would have come from the ends of the earth to care for her. All
+that a human being could do for her, in those days of her life's tragedy,
+that one had done. Then--because he understood--he had gone away. Her own
+son did not know--could not, in his young manhood, have understood, if he
+had known--would not understand when he came. Perhaps, some day, he would
+understand--perhaps.
+
+When the physician turned again toward the bed, to touch with gentle
+fingers the wrist of his patient, his eyes were wet.
+
+At his touch, her eyes opened to regard him with affectionate trust and
+gratitude.
+
+"Well Mary," he said almost bruskly.
+
+The lips fashioned the ghost of a smile; into her eyes came the gleam of
+that old time challenging spirit. "Well--Doctor George," she answered.
+Then,--"I--told you--I would not--go--until he came. I must--have my
+way--still--you see. He will--come--to-day He must come."
+
+"Yes, Mary," returned the doctor,--his fingers still on the thin wrist,
+and his eyes studying her face with professional keenness,--"yes, of
+course."
+
+"And George--you will not forget--your promise? You will--give me a few
+minutes--of strength--when he comes--so that I can tell him? I--I--must
+tell him myself--George. You--will do--this last thing--for me?"
+
+"Yes, Mary, of course," he answered again. "Everything shall be as you
+wish--as I promised."
+
+"Thank you--George. Thank you--my dear--dear--old friend."
+
+The nurse--who had been standing at the window--stepped quickly to the
+table that held a few bottles, glasses, and instruments. The doctor looked
+at her sharply. She nodded a silent answer, as she opened a small, flat,
+leather case. With his fingers still on his patient's wrist, the physician
+spoke a word of instruction; and, in a moment, the nurse placed a
+hypodermic needle in his hand.
+
+As the doctor gave the instrument, again, to his assistant, a quick step
+sounded in the hall outside.
+
+The patient turned her head. Her eager eyes were fixed upon the door; her
+voice--stronger, now, with the strength of the powerful stimulant--rang
+out; "My boy--my boy--he is here! George, nurse, my boy is here!"
+
+The door opened. A young man of perhaps twenty-two years stood on the
+threshold.
+
+The most casual observer would have seen that he was a son of the dying
+woman. In the full flush of his young manhood's vigor, there was the same
+modeling of the mouth, the same nose with finely turned nostrils, the same
+dark eyes under a breadth of forehead; while the determined chin and the
+well-squared jaw, together with a rather remarkable fineness of line,
+told of an inherited mental and spiritual strength and grace as charming
+as it is, in these days, rare. His dress was that of a gentleman of
+culture and social position. His very bearing evidenced that he had never
+been without means to gratify the legitimate tastes of a cultivated and
+refined intelligence.
+
+As he paused an instant in the open door to glance about that poverty
+stricken room, a look of bewildering amazement swept over his handsome
+face. He started to draw back--as if he had unintentionally entered the
+wrong apartment. Looking at the doctor, his lips parted as if to apologize
+for his intrusion. But before he could speak, his eyes met the eyes of the
+woman on the bed.
+
+With a cry of horror, he sprang forward;--"Mother! Mother!"
+
+As he knelt there by the bed, when the first moments of their meeting were
+past, he turned his face toward the doctor. From the physician his gaze
+went to the nurse, then back again to his mother's old friend. His eyes
+were burning with shame and sorrow--with pain and doubt and accusation.
+His low voice was tense with emotion, as he demanded, "What does this
+mean? Why is my mother here like--like this?"--his eyes swept the bare
+room again.
+
+The dying woman answered. "I will explain, my boy. It is to tell you, that
+I have waited."
+
+At a look from the doctor, the nurse quietly followed the physician from
+the room.
+
+It was not long. When she had finished, the false strength that had kept
+the woman alive until she had accomplished that which she conceived to be
+her last duty, failed quickly.
+
+"You will--promise--you will?"
+
+"Yes, mother, yes."
+
+"Your education--your training--your blood--they--are--all--that--I
+can--give you, my son."
+
+"O mother, mother! why did you not tell me before? Why did I not know!"
+The cry was a protest--an expression of bitterest shame and sorrow.
+
+She smiled. "It--was--all that I could do--for you--my son--the only
+way--I could--help. I do not--regret the cost. You will--not forget?"
+
+"Never, mother, never."
+
+"You promise--to--to regain that--which--your father--"
+
+Solemnly the answer came,--in an agony of devotion and love,--"I
+promise--yes, mother, I promise."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A month later, the young man was traveling, as fast as modern steam and
+steel could carry him, toward the western edge of the continent.
+
+He was flying from the city of his birth, as from a place accursed. He had
+set his face toward a new land--determined to work out, there, his
+promise--the promise that he did not, at the first, understand.
+
+How he misunderstood,--how he attempted to use his inheritance to carry
+out what he first thought was his mother's wish,--and how he came at last
+to understand, is the story that I have to tell.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter II
+
+The Woman with the Disfigured Face
+
+
+
+The Golden State Limited, with two laboring engines, was climbing the
+desert side of San Gorgonio Pass.
+
+Now San Gorgonio Pass--as all men should know--is one of the two eastern
+gateways to the beautiful heart of Southern California. It is, therefore,
+the gateway to the scenes of my story.
+
+As the heavy train zigzagged up the long, barren slope of the mountain, in
+its effort to lessen the heavy grade, the young man on the platform of the
+observation car could see, far to the east, the shimmering, sun-filled
+haze that lies, always, like a veil of mystery, over the vast reaches of
+the Colorado Desert. Now and then, as the Express swung around the curves,
+he gained a view of the lonely, snow-piled peaks of the San Bernardinos;
+with old San Gorgonio, lifting above the pine-fringed ridges of the lower
+Galenas, shining, silvery white, against the blue. Again, on the southern
+side of the pass, he saw San Jacinto's crags and cliffs rising almost
+sheer from the right-of-way.
+
+But the man watching the ever-changing panorama of gorgeously colored and
+fantastically unreal landscape was not thinking of the scenes that, to
+him, were new and strange. His thoughts were far away. Among those
+mountains grouped about San Gorgonio, the real value of the inheritance he
+had received from his mother was to be tested. On the pine-fringed ridge
+of the Galenas, among those granite cliffs and jagged peaks, the mettle of
+his manhood was to be tried under a strain such as few men in this
+commonplace work-a-day old world are-subjected to. But the young man did
+not know this.
+
+On the long journey across the continent, he had paid little heed to the
+sights that so interested his fellow passengers. To his fellow passengers,
+themselves, he had been as indifferent. To those who had approached him
+casually, as the sometimes tedious hours passed, he had been quietly and
+courteously unresponsive. This well-bred but decidedly marked
+disinclination to mingle with them, together with the undeniably
+distinguished appearance of the young man, only served to center the
+interest of the little world of the Pullmans more strongly upon him.
+Keeping to himself, and engrossed with his own thoughts, he became the
+object of many idle conjectures.
+
+Among the passengers whose curious eyes were so often turned in his
+direction, there was one whose interest was always carefully veiled. She
+was a woman of evident rank and distinction in that world where rank and
+distinction are determined wholly by dollars and by such social position
+as dollars can buy. She was beautiful; but with that carefully studied,
+wholly self-conscious--one is tempted to say professional--beauty of her
+kind. Her full rounded, splendidly developed body was gowned to
+accentuate the alluring curves of her sex. With such skill was this
+deliberate appeal to the physical hidden under a cloak of a pretending
+modesty that its charm was the more effectively revealed. Her features
+were almost too perfect. She was too coldly sure of herself--too perfectly
+trained in the art of self-repression. For a woman as young as she
+evidently was, she seemed to know too much. The careful indifference of
+her countenance seemed to say, "I am too well schooled in life to make
+mistakes." She was traveling with two companions--a fluffy, fluttering,
+characterless shadow of womanhood, and a man--an invalid who seldom left
+the privacy of the drawing-room which he occupied.
+
+As the train neared the summit of the pass, the young man on the
+observation car platform looked at his watch. A few miles more and he
+would arrive at his destination. Rising to his feet, he drew a deep breath
+of the glorious, sun-filled air. With his back to the door, and looking
+away into the distance, he did not notice the woman who, stepping from the
+car at that moment, stood directly behind him, steadying herself by the
+brass railing in front of the window. To their idly observing fellow
+passengers, the woman, too, appeared interested in the distant landscape.
+She might have been looking at the only other occupant of the platform.
+The passengers, from where they sat, could not have told.
+
+As he stood there,--against the background of the primitive, many-colored
+landscape,--the young man might easily have attracted the attention of
+any one. He would have attracted attention in a crowd. Tall, with an
+athletic trimness of limb, a good breadth of shoulder, and a fine head
+poised with that natural, unconscious pride of the well-bred--he kept his
+feet on the unsteady platform of the car with that easy grace which marks
+only well-conditioned muscles, and is rarely seen save in those whose
+lives are sanely clean.
+
+The Express had entered the yards at the summit station, and was gradually
+lessening its speed. Just as the man turned to enter the car, the train
+came to a full stop, and the sudden jar threw him almost into the arms of
+the woman. For an instant, while he was struggling to regain his balance,
+he was so close to her that their garments touched. Indeed, he only
+prevented an actual collision by throwing his arm across her shoulder and
+catching the side of the car window against which she was leaning.
+
+In that moment, while his face was so close to hers that she might have
+felt his breath upon her cheek and he was involuntarily looking straight
+into her eyes, the man felt, queerly, that the woman was not shrinking
+from him. In fact, one less occupied with other thoughts might have
+construed her bold, open look, her slightly parted lips and flushed
+cheeks, as a welcome--quite as though she were in the habit of having
+handsome young men throw themselves into her arms.
+
+Then, with a hint of a smile in his eyes, he was saying, conventionally,
+"I beg your pardon. It was very stupid of me."
+
+As he spoke, a mask of cold indifference slipped over her face. Without
+deigning to notice his courteous apology, she looked away, and, moving to
+the railing of the platform, became ostensibly interested in the busy
+activity of the railroad yards.
+
+Had the woman--in that instant when his arm was over her shoulder and his
+eyes were looking into hers--smiled, the incident would have slipped
+quickly from his mind. As it was, the flash-like impression of the moment
+remained, and--
+
+Down the steep grade of the narrow San Timateo Canyon, on the coast side
+of the mountain pass, the Overland thundered on the last stretch of its
+long race to the western edge of the continent. And now, from the car
+windows, the passengers caught tantalizing glimpses of bright pastures
+with their herds of contented dairy cows, and with their white ranch
+buildings set in the shade of giant pepper and eucalyptus trees. On the
+rounded shoulders and steep flanks of the foothills that form the sides of
+the canyon, the barley fields looked down upon the meadows; and, now and
+then, in the whirling landscape winding side canyons--beautiful with
+live-oak and laurel, with greasewood and sage--led the eye away toward the
+pine-fringed ridges of the Galenas while above, the higher snow-clad peaks
+and domes of the San Bernardinos still shone coldly against the blue.
+
+In the Pullman, there was a stir of awakening interest The travel-wearied
+passengers, laying aside books and magazines and cards, renewed
+conversations that, in the last monotonous hours of the desert part of
+the journey, had lagged painfully. Throughout the train, there was an air
+of eager expectancy; a bustling movement of preparation. The woman of the
+observation car platform had disappeared into her stateroom. The young man
+gathered his things together in readiness to leave the train at the next
+stop.
+
+In the flying pictures framed by the windows, the dairy pastures and
+meadows were being replaced by small vineyards and orchards; the canyon
+wall, on the northern side, became higher and steeper, shutting out the
+mountains in the distance and showing only a fringe of trees on the sharp
+rim; while against the gray and yellow and brown and green of the
+chaparral on the steep, untilled bluffs, shone the silvery softness of the
+olive trees that border the arroyo at their feet.
+
+With a long, triumphant shriek, the flying overland train--from the lands
+of ice and snow--from barren deserts and lonely mountains--rushed from the
+narrow mouth of the canyon, and swept out into the beautiful San
+Bernardino Valley where the travelers were greeted by wide, green miles of
+orange and lemon and walnut and olive groves--by many acres of gardens and
+vineyards and orchards. Amid these groves and gardens, the towns and
+cities are set; their streets and buildings half hidden in wildernesses of
+eucalyptus and peppers and palms; while--towering above the loveliness of
+the valley and visible now from the sweeping lines of their foothills to
+the gleaming white of their lonely peaks--rises, in blue-veiled,
+cloud-flecked steeps and purple shaded canyons, the beauty and grandeur of
+the mountains.
+
+It was January. To those who had so recently left the winter lands, the
+Southern California scene--so richly colored with its many shades of
+living green, so warm in its golden sunlight--seemed a dream of fairyland.
+It was as though that break in the mountain wall had ushered them suddenly
+into another world--a world, strange, indeed, to eyes accustomed to snow
+and ice and naked trees and leaden clouds.
+
+Among the many little cities half concealed in the luxurious,
+semi-tropical verdure of the wide valley at the foot of the mountains,
+Fairlands--if you ask a citizen of that well-known mecca of the
+tourist--is easily the Queen. As for that! all our Southern California
+cities are set in wildernesses of beauty; all are in wide valleys; all are
+at the foot of the mountains; all are meccas for tourists; each one--if
+you ask a citizen--is the Queen. If you, perchance should question this
+fact--write for our advertising literature.
+
+Passengers on the Golden State Limited--as perhaps you know--do not go
+direct to Fairlands. They change at Fairlands Junction. The little city,
+itself, is set in the lap of the hills that form the southern side of the
+valley, some three miles from the main line. It is as though this
+particular "Queen" withdrew from the great highway traveled by the vulgar
+herd--in the proud aloofness of her superior clay, sufficient unto
+herself. The soil out of which Fairlands is made is much richer, it is
+said, than the common dirt of her sister cities less than fifteen miles
+distant. A difference of only a few feet in elevation seems, strangely, to
+give her a much more rarefied air. Her proudest boast is that she has a
+larger number of millionaires in proportion to her population than any
+other city in the land.
+
+It was these peculiar and well-known advantages of Fairlands that led the
+young man of my story to select it as the starting point of his worthy
+ambition. And Fairlands is a good place for one so richly endowed with an
+inheritance that cannot be expressed in dollars to try his strength. Given
+such a community, amid such surroundings, with a man like the young man of
+my story, and something may be depended upon to happen.
+
+While the travelers from the East, bound for Fairlands, were waiting at
+the Junction for the local train that would take them through the orange
+groves to their journey's end, the young man noticed the woman of the
+observation car platform with her two companions. And now, as he paced to
+and fro, enjoying the exercise after the days of confinement in the
+Pullman, he observed them with stimulated interest--they, too, were going
+to Fairlands.
+
+The man of the party, though certainly not old in years, was frightfully
+aged by dissipation and disease. The gross, sensual mouth with its
+loose-hanging lips; the blotched and clammy skin; the pale, watery eyes
+with their inflamed rims and flabby pouches; the sunken chest, skinny neck
+and limbs; and the thin rasping voice--all cried aloud the shame of a
+misspent life. It was as clearly evident that he was a man of wealth and,
+in the eyes of the world, of an enviable social rank.
+
+As the young man passed and repassed them, where they stood under the big
+pepper tree that shades the depot, the man--in his harsh, throaty whisper,
+between spasms of coughing--was cursing the train service, the country,
+the weather; and, apparently, whatever else he could think of as being
+worthy or unworthy his impotent ill-temper. The shadowy suggestion of
+womanhood--glancing toward the young man--was saying, with affected
+giggles, "O papa, don't! Oh isn't it perfectly lovely! O papa, don't! Do
+hush! What will people think?" This last variation of his daughter's
+plaint must have given the man some satisfaction, at least, for it
+furnished him another target for his pointless shafts; and he fairly
+outdid himself in politely damning whoever might presume to think anything
+at all of him; with the net result that two Mexicans, who were loafing
+near enough to hear, grinned with admiring amusement. The woman stood a
+little apart from the others. Coldly indifferent alike to the man's
+cursing and coughing and to the daughter's ejaculations, she appeared to
+be looking at the mountains. But the young man fancied that, once or
+twice, as he faced about at the end of his beat, her eyes were turned in
+his direction.
+
+When the Fairlands train came in, the three found seats conveniently
+turned, near the forward end of the car. The young man, in passing,
+glanced down; and the woman, who had taken the chair next to the aisle,
+looked up full into his face.
+
+Again, as their eyes met, the man felt--as when they had stood so close
+together on the platform of the observation car--that she did not shrink
+from him. It was only for an instant. Then, glancing about for a seat, he
+saw another face--a face, in its outlines, so like the one into which he
+had just looked, and yet so different--so far removed in its expression
+and meaning--that it fixed his attention instantly--compelling his
+interest.
+
+As this woman sat looking from the car window away toward the distant
+mountain peaks, the young man thought he had never seen a more perfect
+profile; nor a countenance that expressed such a beautiful blending of
+wistful longing, of patient fortitude, and saintly resignation. It was the
+face of a Madonna,--but a Madonna after the crucifixion,--pathetic in its
+lonely sorrow, inspiring in its spiritual strength, and holy in its purity
+and freedom from earthly passions.
+
+She was near his mother's age; and looking at her--as he moved down the
+aisle--his mother's face, as he had known it before their last meeting,
+came to him with startling vividness. For an instant, he paused, moved to
+take the chair beside her; but the next two seats were vacant, and he had
+no excuse for intruding. Arranging his grips, he quickly seated himself
+next to the window; and again, with eager interest, turned toward the
+woman in the chair ahead. Involuntarily, he started with astonishment and
+pity.
+
+The woman--still gazing from the window at the distant mountain peaks, and
+seemingly unconscious of her surroundings--presented now, to the man's
+shocked and compassionate gaze, the other side of her face. It was
+hideously disfigured by a great scar that--covering the entire cheek and
+neck--distorted the corner of the mouth, drew down the lower lid of the
+eye, and twisted her features into an ugly caricature. Even the ear, half
+hidden under the soft, gray-threaded hair, had not escaped, but was
+deformed by the same dreadful agent that had wrought such ruin to one of
+the loveliest countenances the man had ever looked upon.
+
+When the train stopped at Fairlands, and the passengers crowded into the
+aisle to make their way out, of the characters belonging to my story, the
+woman with the man and his daughter went first. Following them, a half
+car-length of people between, went the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+On the depot platform, as they moved toward the street, the young man
+still held his place near the woman who had so awakened his pitying
+interest. The three Overland passengers were met by a heavy-faced
+thick-necked man who escorted them to a luxurious touring car.
+
+The invalid and his daughter had entered the automobile when their escort,
+in turning toward the other member of the party, saw the woman with the
+disfigured face--who was now quite near. Instantly, he paused. And there
+was a smile of recognition on his somewhat coarse features as, lifting his
+hat, he bowed with--the young man fancied--condescending politeness. The
+woman standing by his side with her hand upon the door of the automobile,
+seeing her companion saluting some one, turned--and the next moment, the
+two women, whose features seemed so like--yet so unlike--were face to
+face.
+
+The young man saw the woman with the disfigured face stop short. For an
+instant, she stood as though dazed by an unexpected blow. Then, holding
+out her hands with a half-pleading, half-groping gesture, she staggered
+and would have fallen had he not stepped to her side.
+
+"Permit me, madam; you are ill."
+
+She neither spoke nor moved; but, with her eyes fixed upon the woman by
+the automobile, allowed him to support her--seemingly unconscious of his
+presence. And never before had the young man seen such anguish of spirit
+written in a human countenance.
+
+The one who had saluted her, advanced--as though to offer his services.
+But, as he moved toward her, she shrank back with a low--"No, no!" And
+such a look of horror and fear came into her eyes that the man by her side
+felt his muscles tense with indignation.
+
+Looking straight into the heavy face of the stranger, he said curtly, "I
+think you had better go on."
+
+With a careless shrug, the other turned and went back to the automobile,
+where he spoke in a low tone to his companions.
+
+The woman, who had been watching with a cold indifference, stepped into
+the car. The man took his seat by the chauffeur. As the big machine moved
+away, the woman with the disfigured face, again made as if to stretch
+forth her hands in a pleading gesture.
+
+The young man spoke pityingly; "May I assist you to a carriage, madam?"
+
+At his words, she looked up at him and--seeming to find in his face the
+strength she needed--answered in a low voice, "Thank you, sir; I am better
+now. I will he all right, presently, if you will put me on the car." She
+indicated a street-car that was just stopping at the crossing.
+
+"Are you quite sure that you are strong enough?" he asked kindly, as he
+walked with her toward the car.
+
+"Yes,"--with a sad attempt to smile,--"yes, and I thank you very much,
+sir, for your gentle courtesy."
+
+He assisted her up the step of the car, and stood with bared head as she
+passed inside, and the conductor gave the signal.
+
+The incident had attracted little attention from the passengers who were
+hurrying from the train. Their minds were too intent upon other things to
+more than glance at this little ripple on the surface of life. Those who
+had chanced to notice the woman's agitation had seen, also, that she was
+being cared for; and so had passed on, giving the scene no second thought.
+
+When the man returned from the street to his grips on the depot platform,
+the hacks and hotel buses were gone. As he stood looking about,
+questioningly, for some one who might direct him to a hotel, his eyes
+fell upon a strange individual who was regarding him intently.
+
+Fully six feet in height, the observer was so lean that he suggested the
+unpleasant appearance of a living skeleton. His narrow shoulders were so
+rounded, his form was so stooped, that the young man's first thought was
+to wonder how tall he would really be if he could stand erect. His long,
+thin face, seamed and lined, was striking in its grotesque ugliness. From
+under his craggy, scowling brows, his sharp green-gray eyes peered with a
+curious expression of baffling, quizzing, half pathetic, and wholly
+cynical, interrogation. He was smoking a straight, much-used brier pipe.
+At his feet, lay a beautiful Irish Setter dog.
+
+Half hidden by a supporting column of the depot portico--as if to escape
+the notice of the people in the automobile--he had been watching the woman
+with the disfigured face, with more than casual interest. He turned, now,
+upon the young man who had so kindly given her assistance.
+
+In answer to the stranger's inquiry, with a curt sentence and a nod of his
+head he directed him to a hotel--two blocks away.
+
+Thanking him, the young man, carrying his grips, set out. Upon reaching
+the street, he involuntarily turned to look back.
+
+The oddly appearing character had not moved from his place, but stood,
+still looking after the stranger--the brier pipe in his mouth, the Irish
+Setter at his feet.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter III
+
+The Famous Conrad Lagrange
+
+
+
+When the young man reached the hotel, he went at once to his room, where
+he passed the time between the hour of his arrival and the evening meal.
+
+Upon his return to the lobby, the first object that attracted his eyes was
+the uncouth figure of the man whom he had seen at the depot, and who had
+directed him to the hotel.
+
+That oddly appearing individual, his brier pipe still in his mouth and the
+Irish Setter at his feet, was standing--or rather lounging--at the clerk's
+counter, bending over the register; an attitude which--making his
+skeleton-like form more round shouldered than ever--caused him to present
+the general outlines of a rude interrogation point.
+
+In the dining-room, a few minutes later, the two men sat at adjoining
+tables; and the young man heard his neighbor bullying the waiters and
+commenting in an audible undertone, upon every dish that was served to
+him--swearing by all the heathen gods, known and unknown, that there was
+nothing fit to eat in the house; and that if it were not for the fact that
+there was no place else in the cursed town that served half so good, he
+would not touch a mouthful in the place. Then, to the other's secret
+amusement he fell to right heartily and made an astonishing meal of the
+really excellent viands he had so roundly vilified.
+
+Dinner over, the young man went with his cigar to the long veranda; intent
+upon enjoying the restful quiet of the evening after the tiresome days on
+the train. Carrying a chair to an unoccupied corner, he had his cigar just
+nicely under way when the Irish Setter--with all the dignity of his royal
+blood--approached. Resting a seal-brown head, with its long silky ears,
+confidently upon the stranger's knee, the dog looked up into the man's
+face with an expression of hearty good-fellowship in his soft,
+golden-brown eyes that was irresistible.
+
+"Good dog," said the man, heartily, "good old fellow," and stroked the
+sleek head and neck, affectionately.
+
+A whiff of pipe smoke drifted over his shoulder, and he looked around. The
+dog's master stood just behind him; regarding him with that quizzing, half
+pathetic, half humorous, and altogether cynical expression.
+
+The young man who had been so unresponsive to the advances of his fellow
+passengers, for some reason--unknown, probably, to himself--now took the
+initiative. "You have a fine dog here, sir," he said encouragingly.
+
+Without replying, the other turned away and in another moment returned
+with a chair; whereupon the dog, with slightly waving, feathery tail,
+transferred his attention to his master.
+
+Caressing the seal-brown head with a gentle hand, and apparently speaking
+to the soft eyes that looked up at him so understandingly, the man said,
+"If the human race was fit to associate with such dogs, the world would be
+a more comfortable place to live in." The deep voice that rumbled up from
+some unguessed depths of that sunken chest was remarkable in its
+suggestion of a virile power that the general appearance of the man seemed
+to deny. Facing his companion suddenly, he asked with a direct bluntness,
+"Are you not Aaron King--son of the Aaron King of New England political
+fame?"
+
+Under the searching gaze of those green-gray eyes, the young man flushed.
+"Yes; my father was active in New England politics," he answered simply.
+"Did you know him?"
+
+"Very well"--returned the other--"very well." He repeated the two words
+with a suggestive emphasis; his eyes--with that curious, baffling,
+questioning look--still fixed upon his companion's face.
+
+The red in Aaron King's cheeks deepened.
+
+Looking away, the strange man added, with a softer note in his rough
+voice, "I thought I knew you, when I saw you at the depot. Your mother and
+I were boy and girl together. There is a little of her face in yours. If
+you have as much of her character, you are to be congratulated--and--so
+are the rest of us." The last words were spoken, apparently, to the dog;
+who, still looking up at him, seemed to express with slow-waving tail, an
+understanding of thoughts that were only partly put into words.
+
+There was an impersonality in the man's personalities that made it
+impossible for the subject of his observations to take offense.
+
+Aaron King--when it was evident that the man had no thought of
+introducing himself--said, with the fine courtesy that seemed always to
+find expression in his voice and manner, "May I ask your name, sir?"
+
+The other, without turning his eyes from the dog, answered, "Conrad
+Lagrange."
+
+The young man smiled. "I am very pleased to meet you, Mr. Lagrange.
+Surely, you are not the famous novelist of that name?"
+
+"And _why_, 'surely not'?" retorted the other, again turning his face
+quickly toward his companion. "Am I not distinguished enough in
+appearance? Do I look like the mob? True, I am a scrawny, humpbacked
+crooked-faced, scarecrow of a man--but what matters _that_, if I do not
+look like the mob? What is called fame is as scrawny and humpbacked and
+crooked-faced as my body--but what matters _that?_ Famous or infamous--to
+not look like the mob is the thing."
+
+It is impossible to put in print the peculiar humor of pathetic regret, of
+sarcasm born of contempt, of intolerant intellectual pride, that marked
+the last sentence, which was addressed to the dog, as though the speaker
+turned from his human companion to a more worthy listener.
+
+When Aaron King could find no words to reply, the novelist shot another
+question at him, with startling suddenness. "Do you read my books?"
+
+The other began a halting answer to the effect that everybody read Conrad
+Lagrange's books. But the distinguished author interrupted; "Don't take
+the trouble to lie--out of politeness. I shall ask you to tell me about
+them and you will be in a hole."
+
+The young man laughed as he said, with straight-forward frankness, "I have
+read only one, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"The--ah--why--the one, you know--where the husband of one woman falls in
+love with the wife of another who is in love with the husband of some one
+else. Pshaw!--what is the title? I mean the one that created such a
+furore, you know."
+
+"Yes"--said the man, to his dog--"O yes, Czar--I am the famous Conrad
+Lagrange. I observe"--he added, turning to the other, with twinkling
+eyes--"I observe, Mr. King, that you really _do_ have a good bit of your
+mother's character. That you do not read my books is a recommendation that
+I, better than any one, know how to appreciate." The light of humor went
+from his face, suddenly, as it had come. Again he turned away; and his
+deep voice was gentle as he continued, "Your mother is a rare and
+beautiful spirit, sir. Knowing her regard for the true and genuine,--her
+love for the pure and beautiful,--I scarcely expected to find her son
+interested in the realism of _my_ fiction. I congratulate you, young
+man"--he paused; then added with indescribable bitterness--"that you have
+not read my books."
+
+For a few moments, Aaron King did not answer. At last, with quiet dignity,
+he said, "My mother was a remarkable woman, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+The other faced him quickly. "You say _was_? Do you mean--?"
+
+"My mother is dead, sir. I was called home from abroad by her illness."
+
+For a little, the older man sat looking into the gathering dusk. Then,
+deliberately, he refilled his brier pipe, and, rising, said to his dog,
+"Come, Czar--it's time to go."
+
+Without a word of parting to his human companion with the dog moving
+sedately by his side, he disappeared into the darkness of the night.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All the next day, Aaron King--in the hotel dining-room, the lobby, and on
+the veranda--watched for the famous novelist. Even on the streets of the
+little city, he found himself hoping to catch a glimpse of the uncouth
+figure and the homely, world-worn face of the man whose unusual
+personality had so attracted him. The day was nearly gone when Conrad
+Lagrange again appeared. As on the evening before, the young man was
+smoking his after-dinner cigar on the veranda, when the Irish Setter and a
+whiff of pipe smoke announced the strange character's presence.
+
+Without taking a seat, the novelist said, "I always have a look at the
+mountains, at this time of the day, Mr. King--would you care to come?
+These mountains are the real thing, you know, and well worth
+seeing--particularly at this hour." There was a gentle softness in his
+deep voice, now--as unlike his usual speech as his physical appearance was
+unlike that of his younger companion.
+
+Aaron King arose quickly. "Thank you, Mr, Lagrange; I will go with
+pleasure."
+
+Accompanied by the dog, they followed the avenue, under the giant pepper
+trees that shut out the sky with their gnarled limbs and gracefully
+drooping branches, to the edge of the little city; where the view to the
+north and northeast was unobstructed by houses. Just where the street
+became a road, Conrad Lagrange--putting his hand upon his companion's
+arm--said in a low voice, "This is the place."
+
+Behind them, beautiful Fairlands lay, half lost, in its wilderness of
+trees and flowers. Immediately in the foreground, a large tract of
+unimproved land brought the wild grasses and plants to their very feet.
+Beyond these acres--upon which there were no trees--the orange groves were
+massed in dark green blocks and squares; with, here and there, thin rows
+of palms; clumps of peppers; or tall, plume-like eucalyptus; to mark the
+roads and the ranch homes. Beyond this--and rising, seemingly, out of the
+groves--the San Bernardinos heaved their mighty masses into the sky. It
+was almost dark. The city's lamps were lighted. The outlines of grove and
+garden were fast being lost in the deepening dusk. The foothills, with the
+lower spurs and ridges of the mountains, were softly modeled in dark blue
+against the deeper purple of the canyons and gorges. Upon the cloudless
+sky that was lighted with clearest saffron, the lines of the higher crests
+were sharply drawn; while the lonely, snow-capped peaks,--ten thousand
+feet above the darkening valley below,--catching the last rays of the sun,
+glowed rose-pink--changing to salmon--deepening into mauve--as the light
+failed.
+
+Aaron King broke the silence by drawing a long breath--as one who could
+find no words to express his emotions.
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke sadly; "And to think that there are,--in this city
+of ten thousand,--probably, nine thousand nine hundred and ninety people
+who never see it."
+
+With a short laugh, the young man said, "It makes my fingers fairly itch
+for my palette and brushes--though it's not at all my sort of thing."
+
+The other turned toward him quickly. "You are an artist?"
+
+"I had just completed my three years study abroad when mother's illness
+brought me home. I was fortunate enough to get one on the line, and they
+say--over there--that I had a good chance. I don't know how it will go
+here at home." There was a note of anxiety in his voice.
+
+"What do you do?"
+
+"Portraits."
+
+[Illustration: A curious expression of baffling quizzing half pathetic and
+wholly cynical interrogation]
+
+With his face again toward the mountains, the novelist said thoughtfully,
+"This West country will produce some mighty artists, Mr. King. By far the
+greater part of this land must remain, always, in its primitive
+naturalness. It will always be easier, here, than in the city crowded
+East, for a man to be himself. There is less of that spirit which is born
+of clubs and cliques and clans and schools--with their fine-spun
+theorizing, and their impudent assumption that they are divinely
+commissioned to sit in judgment. There is less of artistic tea-drinking,
+esthetic posing, and soulful talk; and more opportunity for that
+loneliness out of which great art comes. The atmosphere of these mountains
+and deserts and seas inspires to a self-assertion, rather than to a
+clinging fast to the traditions and culture of others--and what, after
+all, _is_ a great artist, but one who greatly asserts himself?"
+
+The younger man answered in a like vein; "Mr. Lagrange, your words recall
+to my mind a thought in one of mother's favorite books. She quoted from
+the volume so often that, as a youngster, I almost knew it by heart, and,
+in turn, it became my favorite. Indeed, I think that, with mother's aid as
+an interpreter, it has had more influence upon my life than any other one
+book. This is the thought: 'To understand the message of the mountains; to
+love them for what they are; and, in terms of every-day life, to give
+expression to that understanding and love--is a mark of true greatness of
+soul.' I do not know the author. The book is anonymous."
+
+"I am the author of that book, sir," the strange man answered with simple
+dignity, "--or, rather,--I should say,--I _was_ the author," he added,
+with a burst of his bitter, sarcastic humor. "For God's sake don't betray
+me. I am, _now_, the _famous_ Conrad Lagrange, you understand. I have a
+_name_ to protect." His deep voice was shaken with feeling. His worn and
+rugged features twitched and worked with emotion.
+
+Aaron King listened in amazement to the words that were spoken by the
+famous novelist with such pathetic regret and stinging self-accusation.
+Not knowing how to reply, he said casually, "You are working here, Mr.
+Lagrange?"
+
+"Working! Me? I don't _work_ anywhere. I am a literary scavenger. I haunt
+the intellectual slaughter pens, and live by the putrid offal that
+self-respecting writers reject. I glean the stinking materials for my
+stories from the sewers and cesspools of life. For the dollars they pay, I
+furnish my readers with those thrills that public decency forbids them to
+experience at first hand. I am a procurer for the purposes of mental
+prostitution. My books breed moral pestilence and spiritual disease. The
+unholy filth I write fouls the minds and pollutes the imaginations of my
+readers. I am an instigator of degrading immorality and unmentionable
+crimes. _Work_! No, young man, I don't work. Just now, I'm doing penance
+in this damned town. My rotten imaginings have proven too much--even for
+me--and the doctors sent me West to recuperate,"
+
+The artist could find no words that would answer. In silence, the two men
+turned away from the mountains, and started back along the avenue by which
+they had come.
+
+When they had walked some little distance, the young man said, "This is
+your first visit to Fairlands, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"I was here last year"--answered the other--"here and in the hills yonder.
+Have _you_ been much in the mountains?"
+
+"Not in California. This is my first trip to the West. I have seen
+something of the mountains, though, at tourist resorts--abroad."
+
+"Which means," commented the other, "that you have never seen them at
+all."
+
+Aaron King laughed. "I dare say you are right."
+
+"And you--?" asked the novelist, abruptly, eyeing his companion. "What
+brought you to this community that thinks so much more of its millionaires
+than it does of its mountains? Have _you_ come to Fairlands to work?"
+
+"I hope to," answered the artist. "There are--there are reasons why I do
+not care to work, for the present, in the East. I confess it was because I
+understood that Fairlands offered exceptional opportunities for a portrait
+painter that I came here. To succeed in my work, you know, one must come
+in touch with people of influence. It is sometimes easier to interest them
+when they are away from their homes--in some place like this--where their
+social duties and business cares are not so pressing."
+
+"There is no question of the material that Fairlands has to offer, Mr.
+King," returned the novelist, in his grim, sarcastic humor. "God! how I
+envy you!" he added, with a flash of earnest passion. "You are young--You
+are beginning your life work--You are looking forward to success--You--"
+
+"I _must_ succeed"--the painter interrupted impetuously--"I must."
+
+"Succeed in _what_? What do you mean by success?"
+
+"Surely, _you_ should understand what I mean by success," the younger man
+retorted. "You who have gained--"
+
+"Oh, yes; I forgot"--came the quick interruption--"I am the _famous_
+Conrad Lagrange. Of course, you, too, must succeed. You must become the
+_famous_ Aaron King. But perhaps you will tell me why you must, as you
+call it, succeed?"
+
+The artist hesitated before answering; then said with anxious earnestness,
+"I don't think I can explain Mr. Lagrange. My mother--" he paused.
+
+The older man stopped short, and, turning, stood for a little with his
+face towards the mountains where San Bernardino's pyramid-like peak was
+thrust among the stars. When he spoke, every bit of that bitter humor was
+gone from his deep voice. "I beg your pardon, Mr. King"--he said
+slowly--"I am as ugly and misshapen in spirit as in body."
+
+But when they had walked some way--again in silence--and were drawing near
+the hotel, the momentary change in his mood passed. In a tone of stinging
+sarcasm he said. "You are on the right road, Mr. King. You did well to
+come to Fairlands. It is quite evident that you have mastered the modern
+technic of your art. To acquire fame, you have only to paint pictures of
+fast women who have no morals at all--making them appear as innocent
+maidens, because they have the price to pay, and, in the eyes of the
+world, are of social importance. Put upon your canvases what the world
+will call portraits of distinguished citizens--making low-browed
+money--thugs to look like noble patriots, and bloody butchers of humanity
+like benevolent saints. You need give yourself no uneasiness about your
+success. It is easy. Get in with the right people; use your family name
+and your distinguished ancestors; pull a few judicious advertising wires;
+do a few artistic stunts; get yourself into the papers long and often, no
+matter how; make yourself a fad; become a pet of the social autocrats--and
+your fame is assured. And--you will be what I am."
+
+The young man, quietly ignoring the humor of the novelist's words, said
+protestingly, "But, surely, to portray human nature is legitimate art, Mr.
+Lagrange. Your great artists that the West is to produce will not
+necessarily be landscape painters or write essays upon nature, will they?"
+
+"To portray human nature is legitimate work for an artist, yes"--agreed
+the novelist--"but he must portray human nature _plus_. The forces that
+_shape_ human nature are the forces that must be felt in the picture and
+in the story. That these determining forces are so seldom seen by the eyes
+of the world, is the reason _for_ pictures and stories. The artist who
+fails to realize for his world the character-creating elements in the life
+which he essays to paint or write, fails, to just that degree, in being an
+artist; or is self-branded by his work as criminally careless, a charlatan
+or a liar. That one who, for a price, presents a picture or a story
+without regard for the influence of his production upon the characters of
+those who receive it, commits a crime for which human law provides no
+adequate punishment. Being the famous Conrad Lagrange, you understand, I
+have the right to say this. You will probably believe it, some day--if
+you do not now. That is, you will believe it if you have the soul and the
+intelligence of an artist--if you have not--it will not matter--and you
+will be happy in your success."
+
+As the novelist finished speaking, the two men arrived at the hotel steps,
+where they halted, with that indecision of chance acquaintances who have
+no plans beyond the passing moment, yet who, in mutual interest, would
+extend the time of their brief companionship. While they stood there, each
+hesitating to make the advance, a big touring car rolled up the driveway,
+and stopped under the full light of the veranda. Aaron King recognized the
+lady of the observation car platform, with her two traveling companions
+and the heavy-faced man who had met them at the depot. As the party
+greeted the novelist and he returned their salutation, the artist turned
+away to find again the chair, where, an hour before, the strange character
+who was to play so large a part in his life and work had found him. The
+dog, Czar, as if preferring the companionship of the artist to the company
+of those who were engaging his master's attention, followed the young man.
+
+From where he sat, the painter could see the tall, uncouth figure of the
+famous novelist standing beside the automobile, while the occupants of the
+car were, apparently, absorbingly interested in what he was saying. The
+beautiful face of the woman was brightly animated as she evidently took
+the lead in the conversation. The artist could see her laughing and
+shaking her head. Once, he even heard her speak the writer's name;
+whereupon, every lounger upon the veranda, within hearing, turned to
+observe the party with curious interest. Several times, the young man
+noted that she glanced in his direction, half inquiringly, with a
+suggestion of being pleased, as though she were glad to have seen him in
+company with her celebrated friend. Then the man who held so large a place
+in the eyes of the world drew back, lifting his hat; the automobile
+started forward; the party called, "Good night." The woman's voice rose
+clear--so that the spectators might easily understand--"Remember, Mr.
+Lagrange--I shall expect you Thursday--day after to-morrow."
+
+As Conrad Lagrange came up the hotel steps, the eyes of all were upon him;
+but he--apparently unconscious of the company--went straight to the
+artist; where, without a word, he dropped into the vacant chair by the
+young man's side, and began thoughtfully refilling his brier pipe.
+Flipping the match over the veranda railing, and expelling a prodigious
+cloud of smoke, the novelist said grimly, "And there--my fellow artist--go
+your masters. I trust you observed them with proper reverence. I would
+have introduced you, but I do not like to take the initiative in such
+outrages. That will come soon enough. The young should be permitted to
+enjoy their freedom while they may."
+
+Aaron King laughed. "Thank you for your consideration," he returned, "but
+I do not think I am in any immediate danger."
+
+"Which"--the other retorted dryly--"betrays either innocence, caution, or
+an unusual understanding of life. I am not, now, prepared to say whether
+you know too much or too little."
+
+"I confess to a degree of curiosity," said the artist. "I traveled in the
+same Pullman with three of the party. May I ask the names of your
+friends?"
+
+The other answered in his bitterest vein; "I have no friends, Mr. King--I
+have only admirers. As for their names"--he continued--"there is no reason
+why I should withhold either who they are or what they are. Besides, I
+observed that the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm of 'Modern Art' has her
+eye upon you, already. As I shall very soon be commanded to drag you to
+her 'Court,' it is well for you to be prepared."
+
+The young man laughed as the other paused to puff vigorously at his brier
+pipe.
+
+"That red-faced, bull-necked brute, is James Rutlidge, the son and heir of
+old Jim Rutlidge," continued the novelist. "Jim inherited a few odd
+millions from _his_ father, and killed himself spending them in
+unmentionable ways. The son is most worthily carrying out his father's
+mission, with bright prospects of exceeding his distinguished parent's
+fondest dreams. But, unfortunately, _he_ is hampered by lack of adequate
+capital--the bulk of the family wealth having gone with the old man."
+
+"Do you mean James Rutlidge--the great critic?" exclaimed Aaron King, with
+increased interest.
+
+"The same," answered the other, with his twisted smile. "I thought you
+would recognize his name. As an artist, you will undoubtedly have much to
+do with him. His friendship is one of the things that are vital to your
+success. Believe me, his power in modern art is a red-faced, bull-necked
+power that you will do well to recognize. Of his companions," he went on,
+"the horrible example is Edward J. Taine--friend and fellow martyr of
+James Rutlidge, Senior. Satan, perhaps, can explain how he has managed to
+outlive his partner. His home is in New York, but he has a big house on
+Fairlands Heights, with large orange groves in this district. He comes
+here winters for his health. He'll die before long. The effervescing young
+creature is his daughter, Louise--by his first wife. The 'Goddess'--who is
+not much older than his daughter--is the present Mrs. Taine."
+
+"His wife!"
+
+The artist's exclamation drew a sarcastic chuckle from the other. "I am
+prepared, now, to testify to your unworldly innocence of heart and mind,"
+he gibed. "And, pray, why not his wife? You see, she was the ward of old
+Rutlidge--a niece, it is said. Mrs. Rutlidge--as you have no doubt
+heard--killed herself. It was shortly after her death that Jim took this
+little one into his home. She and young Jim grew up together. What was
+more natural or fitting than that her guardian--when he was about to
+depart from this sad world where human flesh is not able to endure an
+unlimited amount of dissipation--should give the girl as a lively souvenir
+to his bosom friend and companion of his unmentionable deviltries? The
+transaction also enabled him, you understand, to draw upon the Taine
+millions; and so permitted him to finish his distinguished career with
+credit. You, with your artist's extravagant fancy, have, no doubt, been
+thinking of her as fashioned for _love_. I assure you _she_ knows better.
+The world in which she has been schooled has left her no hazy ideas as to
+what she was made for."
+
+"I have heard of the Taines," said the younger man, thoughtfully. "I
+suppose this is the same family. They are very prominent in the social
+world, and quite generous patrons of the arts?"
+
+"In the eyes of the world," said the novelist, "they are the noblest of
+our Nobility. They dwell in the rarefied atmosphere of millions. By the
+dollarless multitudes they are envied. They assume to be the cultured of
+the cultured. Patrons of the arts! Why, man, _they have autographed copies
+of all my books!_ They and their kind _feed_ me and my kind. They will
+feed you, sir, or by God you'll starve! But you need have no fear that the
+crust of genius will be your portion," he added meaningly. "As I
+remarked--the 'Goddess' has her eye upon you."
+
+"And why do you so distinguish the lady?" asked the artist, quietly
+amused--with just a hint of well-bred condescension. "Has Mrs. Taine such
+powerful influence in the world of art?"
+
+If Conrad Lagrange noticed his companion's manner he passed it by. "I
+perceive," he said, "that you are still somewhat lacking in the rudiments
+of your profession. The statement of faith adhered to by modern climbers
+on the ladder of fame--such as I have been, and you aspire to be--is that
+'Pull' wins. Our creed is 'Graft.' By 'Influence' we stand, by
+'Influence' we fall. It pleases Mrs. Taine to be, in the world of art, a
+lobbyist. She knows the insides of the inside rings and cliques and
+committees that say what is, and what is not, art; that declare who shall
+be, and who shall not be, artists. She has power with those who, in their
+might, grant position and place in the halls of fame; as their kinsmen in
+the political world pass the plums to those who court their favor. The
+great critics who thunder anathemas at the poor devils who are outside,
+eat out of her hand. Jim Rutlidge and his unholy crew are at her beck and
+call. Jim, you see, needing all he can get of the Taine millions, hopes to
+marry Louise. You can scarcely blame the young and beautiful Mrs. Taine
+for not being interested in her husband--who is going to die so soon. The
+poor girl must have some amusement, so she interests herself in art, don't
+you know. She gives more dinners to artists and critics; buys more
+pictures and causes more pictures to be bought; mothers more art-culture
+clubs; discovers more new and startling geniuses; in short, has a larger
+and better trained company of lions than any one else in the business. She
+deals in lions. It's her fad to collect them--same as others collect
+butterflies or postage stamps. She has one other fad that is less harmful
+and just as deceptive--a carefully nourished reputation for prudery. I
+sometimes think the Gods must laugh or choke. That woman would no more
+speak to you without a proper introduction than she would appear on the
+street without shoes or stockings. She has never been seen in an evening
+gown. Her beautiful shoulders have never been immodestly bared to the
+eyes of the world."
+
+The artist thought of that moment on the observation car platform.
+
+Presently, the novelist--refilling his pipe--said whimsically, "Some day,
+Mr. King, I shall write a true story. It shall be a novel of to-day, with
+characters drawn from life; and these characters, in my story, shall bear
+the names of the forces that have made them what they are and which they,
+in turn, have come to represent. I mean those forces that are so coloring
+and shaping the life and thought of this age."
+
+"That ought to be interesting," said the other, "but I am not quite sure
+that I understand."
+
+"Probably you don't. You have not been thinking much of these things. You
+have your eye upon Fame, and that old witch lives in another direction. To
+illustrate--our bull-necked friend and illustrious critic, James Rutlidge,
+in my story, will be named 'Sensual.' His distinguished father was one
+'Lust.' The horrible example, Mr. Edward Taine,--boon companion of
+'Lust,'--is 'Materialism'."
+
+"Good!" laughed the artist. "I see; go on. Who is the daughter of
+'Materialism?'"
+
+"'Ragtime'," promptly returned the novelist, with a grin. "Who else could
+she be?"
+
+"And Mrs. Taine?" urged the other.
+
+The novelist responded quickly; "Why, the reigning 'Goddess' in the realm
+of 'Modern Art,' is 'The Age,' of course. Do you see? 'The Age' given over
+to 'Materialism' for base purposes by his companion, 'Lust.' And you----"
+he paused.
+
+"Go on," cried the young man, "who or what am I in your story?"
+
+"You, sir,"--answered Conrad Lagrange, seriously,--"in my story of modern
+life, represent Art. It remains to be seen whether 'The Age' will add you
+to her collection, or whether some other influence will intervene."
+
+"And you"--persisted the artist--"surely you are in the story."
+
+"I am very much in the story," the other answered. "My name is
+'Civilization.' My story will be published when I am dead. I have a
+reputation to sustain, you know."
+
+Aaron King was not laughing, now. Something, that lay deep hidden beneath
+the rude exterior of the man, made itself felt in his deep voice. Some
+powerful force, underlying his whimsical words, gripped the artist's
+mind--compelling him to search for hidden meanings in the novelist's
+fanciful suggestions.
+
+A few moments passed in silence before the young man said slowly, "I met a
+character, yesterday, Mr. Lagrange, that might be added to your cast."
+
+"There are several that will be added to my cast," the other answered
+dryly.
+
+To which the painter returned, "Did you notice that woman with the
+disfigured face, at the depot?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange looked at his companion, quickly. "Yes."
+
+"Do you know her?" questioned the artist.
+
+"No. Why do you ask?"
+
+"Only because she interested me, and because she seemed to know your
+friends--Mr. Rutlidge and Mrs. Taine."
+
+The novelist knocked the ashes from his pipe by tapping it on the veranda
+railing. The action seemed to express a peculiar mental effort; as though
+he were striving to recall something that had gone from his memory. "I saw
+what happened at the depot, of course," he said slowly. "I have seen the
+woman before. She lives here in Fairlands. Her name is Miss Willard. No
+one seems to know much about her. I can't get over the impression that I
+ought to know her--that I have met and known her somewhere years ago. Her
+manner, yesterday, at seeing Mrs. Taine, was certainly very strange." As
+if to free his mind from the unsuccessful effort to remember, he rose to
+his feet. "But why should she be added to the characters in my novel, Mr.
+King? What does she represent?"
+
+"Her name,"--said the artist,--"in your study of life, is suggested by her
+face--so beautiful on the one side--so distorted on the other--her name
+should be 'Symbol'."
+
+"There really is hope for you," returned the older man, with his quizzing
+smile. "Good night. Come, Czar." He passed into the hotel--the dog at his
+heels.
+
+It was two days later--Thursday--that Conrad Lagrange made his memorable
+visit to the Taines--memorable, in my story, because, at that time, Mrs.
+Taine gave such unmistakable evidence of her interest in Aaron King and
+his future.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IV
+
+At the House on Fairlands Heights
+
+
+
+As my friend the social scientist would say; it is a phenomenon peculiar
+to urban life, that the social strata are more or less clearly defined
+geographically.
+
+That is,--in the English of everyday,--people of different classes live in
+different parts of the city. As certain streets and blocks are given to
+the wholesale establishments, others to retail stores, and still others to
+the manufacturing plants; so there are the tenement districts, the slums,
+and the streets where may be found the homes of wealth and fashion.
+
+In Fairlands, the social rating is largely marked by altitude. The city,
+lying in the lap of the hills and looking a little down upon the
+valley--plebeian business together with those who do the work of Fairlands
+occupies the lowest levels in the corporate limits. The heights are held
+by Fairlands' Pride. Between these two extremes, the Fairlanders are
+graded fairly by the levels they occupy. It is most gratifying to observe
+how generally the citizens of this fortunate community aspire to higher
+things; and to note that the peculiarly proud spirit of this people is
+undoubtedly explained by this happy arrangement which enables every one to
+look down upon his neighbor.
+
+The view from the winter home of the Taines was magnificent.
+
+From the window of the room where Mrs. Taine sat, that afternoon, one
+could have looked down upon all Fairlands. One might, indeed, have done
+better than that. Looking over the wealth of semi-tropical foliage
+that--save for the tower of the red-brick Y.M.C.A. building, the white,
+municipal flagstaff, and the steeples and belfries of the churches--hid
+the city, one might have looked up at the mountains. High, high, above the
+low levels occupied by the hill-climbing Fairlanders, the mountains lift
+their heads in solemn dignity; looking down upon the loftiest Fairlander
+of them all--looking down upon even the Taines themselves.
+
+But the glory of Mrs. Taine's God was not declared by the mountains. She
+sat by the window, indeed, but her eyes were upon the open pages of a
+book--a popular novel that by some strange legal lapse of the governmental
+conscience was--and is still--permitted in print.
+
+The author of the story that so engrossed Mrs. Taine was--in her
+opinion--almost as great in literature as Conrad Lagrange, himself. By
+those in authority who pronounce upon the worthiness or the unworthiness
+of writer folk, he is, to-day, said to be one of the greatest writers of
+his generation. He is a realist--a modern of the moderns. His pen has
+never been debased by an inartistic and antiquated idealism. His claim to
+genius rests securely upon the fact that he has no ideals. He writes for
+that select circle of leaders who, like the Taines and the Rutlidges, are
+capable of appreciating his art. All of which means that he tells filthy
+stories in good English. That his stories are identical in material and
+motive with the vile yarns that are permitted only in the lowest class
+barber shops and in disreputable bar-rooms, in no way detracts from the
+admiring praise of his critics, the generosity of his publishers, or the
+appreciation of those for whom he writes.
+
+With tottering step and feeble, shaking limbs, Edward Taine entered the
+apartment. As he stood, silently looking at his young wife, his glazed,
+red-rimmed eyes fed upon her voluptuous beauty with a look of sullen,
+impotent lustfulness that was near insanity. A spasm of coughing seized
+him; he gasped and choked, his wasted body shaken and racked, his
+dissipated face hideously distorted by the violence of the paroxysm.
+Wrecked by the flesh he had lived to gratify, he was now the mocked and
+tortured slave of the very devils of unholy passion that he had so often
+invoked to serve him. Repulsive as he was, he was an object to awaken the
+deepest pity.
+
+Mrs. Taine, looking up from her novel, watched him curiously--without
+moving or changing her attitude of luxurious repose--without speaking.
+Almost, one would have said, a shade of a smile was upon her too perfect
+features.
+
+When the man--who had dropped weak and exhausted into a chair--could
+speak, he glared at her in a pitiful rage, and, in his throaty whisper,
+said with a curse, "You seem to be amused."
+
+Still, she did not speak. A tantalizing smile broke over her face, and she
+stretched her beautiful body lazily in her chair, as a well-conditioned
+animal stirs in sleek, physical contentment.
+
+Again, with curses, he said, "I'm glad you so enjoy my company. To be
+laughed at, even, is better than your damned indifference."
+
+"You misjudge me," she answered in a voice that, low and soft, was still
+richly colored by the wealth of vitality that found expression in her
+splendid body. "I am not at all indifferent to your condition--quite the
+contrary. I am intensely interested. As for the amusement you afford
+me--please consider--for three years I have amused you. Can you deny me my
+turn?"
+
+He laughed with a hideously mirthless chuckle as he returned with ghastly
+humor, "I have had the worth of my money. I advise you to make the most of
+your opportunity. I shall make things as pleasant for you as I can, while
+I am with you, but, as you know, I am liable to leave you at any time,
+now."
+
+"Pray don't hurry away," she replied sweetly. "I shall miss you so when
+you are gone."
+
+He glared at her while she laughed mockingly.
+
+"Where is everybody?" he asked. "The place is as lonely as a tomb."
+
+"Louise is out riding with Jim."
+
+"And what are you doing at home?" he demanded suspiciously.
+
+"Me? Oh I remained to care for you--to keep you from being lonely."
+
+"You lie. You are expecting some one."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Who is it this time?" he persisted.
+
+"Your insinuations are so unwarranted," she murmured.
+
+"Whom are you expecting?"
+
+"Dear me! how persistently you look for evil," she mocked. "You know
+perfectly well that, thanks to my tact, I am considered quite the model
+wife. You really should cultivate a more trusting disposition."
+
+Another fit of coughing seized him, and while he suffered she again
+watched him with that curious air of interest. When he could command his
+voice, he gasped in a choking whisper, "You fiend! I know, and you know
+that I know. Am I so innocent that Jack Hanover, and Charlie Rodgers, and
+Black Whitman, and as many more of their kind, can make love to you under
+my very nose without my knowing it? You take damned good care--posing as a
+prude with your fad about immodest dress--that the world sees nothing; but
+you have never troubled to hide it from me."
+
+Deliberately, she arose and stood before him. "And why should I trouble to
+hide anything from you?" she demanded. "Look at me"--she posed as if to
+exhibit for his critical inspection the charm of her physical
+beauty--"Look at me; am I to waste all _this_ upon you? You tell me that
+you have had your money's worth--surely, the purchase price is mine to
+spend as I will. Even suppose that I were as evil as your foul mind sees
+me, what right have you to object? Are you so chaste that you dare cast a
+stone at me? Am I to have no pleasure in this hell you have made for me
+but the horrible pleasure of watching you in the hell you have made for
+yourself? Be satisfied that the world does not see your shame--though
+it's from no consideration of you, but wholly for myself, that I am
+careful. As for my modesty--you know it is not a fad but a necessity."
+
+"That is just it"--he retorted--"it is the way you make a fad of a
+necessity! Forced to hide your shoulders, you make a virtue of
+concealment. You make capital of the very thing of which you are ashamed."
+
+"And is not that exactly what we all do?" she asked with brutal cynicism.
+"Do you not fear the eyes of the world as much as I? Be satisfied that I
+play the game of respectability with you--that I give the world no cause
+for talk. You may as well be," she finished with devilish frankness, "for
+you are past helping yourself in the matter."
+
+As she finished, a servant appeared to announce Mr. Conrad Lagrange; and
+the tall, uncouth figure of the novelist stood framed in the doorway; his
+sharp eyes regarding them with that peculiar, quizzing, baffling look.
+
+Edward Taine laughed with that horrid chuckle. "Howdy-do, Lagrange--glad
+to see you."
+
+Mrs. Taine went forward to greet the caller; saying as she gave him her
+hand, "You arrived just in time, Mr. Lagrange; Edward and I were
+discussing your latest book. We think it a masterpiece of realistic
+fiction. I'm sure it will add immensely to your fame. I hear it talked of
+everywhere as the most popular novel of the year. You wonderful man! How
+do you do it?"
+
+"I don't do it," answered Conrad Lagrange, looking straight into her
+eyes. "It does itself. My books are really true products of the age that
+reads them; and--to paraphrase a statesman who was himself a product of
+his age--for those who read my books they are just the kind of books that
+I would expect such people to read."
+
+Mrs. Taine looked at him with a curious, half-doubtful half-wistful
+expression; as though she glimpsed a hint of a meaning that did not appear
+upon the surface of his words. "You do say such--such--twisty things," she
+murmured. "I don't think I always understand what you mean; but when you
+look at me that way, I feel as though my maid had neglected to finish
+hooking me up."
+
+The novelist bowed in mock gallantry--a movement which made his ungainly
+form appear more grotesque than ever. "Indeed, madam, to my humble eyes,
+you are most beautifully and fittingly--ah--hooked up." He turned toward
+the invalid. "And how is the fortunate husband of the charming Mrs. Taine
+to-day?"
+
+"Fine, Lagrange, fine," said the man--a cough interrupting his words.
+"Really, I think that Gertrude is unduly alarmed about my condition. In
+this glorious climate, I feel like a three-year-old."
+
+"You _are_ looking quite like yourself," returned the novelist.
+
+"There's nothing at all the matter with me but a slight bronchial
+trouble," continued the other, coughing again. Then, to his
+wife--"Dearest, won't you ring, please; I'm sure it's time for my toddy;
+perhaps Mr. Lagrange will join me in a drink. What'll it be, Lagrange?"
+
+"Nothing, thanks, at this hour."
+
+"No? But you'll pardon me, I'm sure--Doctor's orders you know."
+
+A servant appeared. Mrs. Taine took the glass and carried it to her
+husband with her own hand, saying with tender solicitude, "Don't you
+think, dear, that you should lie down for a while? Mr. Lagrange will
+remain for dinner, you know. You must not tire yourself. I'm sure he will
+excuse you. I'll manage somehow to amuse him until Jim and Louise return."
+
+"I believe I will rest a little, Gertrude." He turned to the guest--"While
+there is nothing really wrong, you know, Lagrange, still it's best to be
+on the safe side."
+
+"By all means," said the novelist, heartily. "You should take care of
+yourself. Don't, I beg, permit me to detain you."
+
+Mrs. Taine, with careful tenderness, accompanied her husband to the door.
+When he had passed from the room, she faced the novelist, with--"Don't you
+think Edward is really very much worse, Mr. Lagrange? I keep up
+appearances, you know, but--" she paused with a charming air of perplexed
+and worried anxiety.
+
+"Your husband is certainly not a well man, madam--but you keep up
+appearances wonderfully. I really don't see how you manage it. But I
+suppose that for one of your nature it is natural."
+
+Again, she received his words with that look of doubtful
+understanding--as though sensing some meaning beneath the polite,
+commonplace surface. Then, as if to lead away from the subject--"You must
+really tell me what you think of our California home. I told you in New
+York, you remember, that I should ask you, the first thing. We were so
+sorry to have missed you last year. Please be frank. Isn't it beautiful?"
+
+"Very beautiful"--he answered--"exquisite taste--perfect harmony with
+modern art." His quizzing eyes twinkled, and a caricature of a smile
+distorted his face. "It fairly smells to heaven of the flesh pots."
+
+She laughed merrily. "The odor should not be unfamiliar to you," she
+retorted. "By all accounts, your royalties are making you immensely rich.
+How wonderful it must be to be famous--to know that the whole world is
+talking about you! And that reminds me--who is your distinguished looking
+friend at the hotel? I was dying to ask you, the other night, but didn't
+dare. I know he is somebody famous."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, studying her face, answered reluctantly, "No, he is not
+famous; but I fear he is going to be."
+
+"Another twisty saying," she retorted. "But I mean to have an answer, so
+you may as well speak plainly. Have you known him long? What is his name?
+And what is he--a writer?"
+
+"His name is Aaron King. His mother and I grew up in the same
+neighborhood. He is an artist."
+
+"How romantic! Do you mean that he belongs to that old family of New
+England Kings?"
+
+"He is the last of them. His father was Aaron King--a prominent lawyer
+and politician in his state."
+
+"Oh, yes! I remember! Wasn't there something whispered at the time of his
+death--some scandal that was hushed up--money stolen--or something? What
+was it? I can't think."
+
+"Whatever it was, Mrs. Taine, the son had nothing to do with it. Don't you
+think we might let the dead man stay safely buried?" There was an ominous
+glint in Conrad Lagrange's eyes.
+
+Mrs. Taine answered hurriedly, "Indeed, yes, Mr. Lagrange. You are right.
+And you shall bring Mr. King out to see me. If he is as nice as he looks,
+I promise you I will be very good to him. Perhaps I may even help him a
+little, through Jim, you know--bring him in touch with the right people
+and that sort of thing. What does he paint?"
+
+"Portraits." The novelist's tone was curt.
+
+"Then I am _sure_ I could do a great deal for him."
+
+"And I am sure you would do a great deal _to_ him," said Conrad Lagrange,
+bluntly.
+
+She laughed again. "And just what do you mean by that, Mr. Lagrange? I'm
+not sure whether it is complimentary or otherwise."
+
+"That depends upon what you consider complimentary," retorted the other.
+"As I told you--Aaron King is an artist."
+
+Again, she favored him with that look of doubtful understanding; shaking
+her head with mock sadness, and making a long sigh. "Another twister"--she
+said woefully--"just when we were getting along so beautifully, too.
+Won't you try again?"
+
+"In words of one syllable then--let him alone. He is, to-day, exactly
+where I was twenty years ago. For God's sake, let him alone. Play your
+game with those who are no loss to the world; or with those who, like me,
+are already lost. Let this man do his work. Don't make him what I am."
+
+"Oh dear, oh dear," she laughed, "and these are words of one syllable! You
+talk as though I were a dreadful dragon seeking a genius to devour!"
+
+"You are," said the novelist, gruffly.
+
+"How nice. I'm all shivery with delight, already. You really _must_ bring
+him now, you see. You might as well, for, if you don't, I'll manage some
+other way when you are not around to protect him. You don't want to trust
+him to me unprotected, do you?"
+
+"No, and I won't," retorted Conrad Lagrange--which, though Mrs. Taine did
+not remark it, was also a twister.
+
+"But after all, perhaps he won't come," she said with mock anxiety.
+
+"Don't worry madam--he's just as much a fool as the rest of us."
+
+As the novelist spoke, they heard the voices of Miss Taine and her escort,
+James Rutlidge. Mrs. Taine had only time to shake a finger in playful
+warning at her companion, and to whisper, "Mind you bring your artist to
+me, or I'll get him when you're not looking; and listen, don't tell Jim
+about him; I must see what he is like, first."
+
+At lunch, the next day, Conrad Lagrange greeted the artist in his
+bitterest humor. "And how is the famous Aaron King, to-day? I trust that
+the greatest portrait painter of the age is well; that the hotel people
+have been properly attentive to the comfort of their illustrious guest?
+The world of art can ill afford to have its rarest genius suffer from any
+lack of the service that is due his greatness."
+
+The young man's face flushed at his companion's mocking tone; but he
+laughed. "I missed you at breakfast."
+
+"I was sleeping off the effect of my intellectual debauch--it takes time
+to recover from a dinner with 'Materialism,' 'Sensual,' 'Ragtime' and 'The
+Age'," the other returned, the menu in his hand. "What slop are they
+offering to put in our troughs for this noon's feed?"
+
+Again, Aaron King laughed. But as the novelist, with characteristic
+comments and instructions to the waitress, ordered his lunch, the artist
+watched him as though waiting with interest his further remarks on the
+subject of his evening with the Taines.
+
+When the girl was gone, Conrad Lagrange turned again to his companion, and
+from under his scowling brows regarded him much as a withered scientist
+might regard an interesting insect under his glass. "Permit me to
+congratulate you," he said suggestively--as though the bug had succeeded
+in acting in some manner fully expected by the scientist but wholly
+disgusting to him.
+
+The artist colored again as he returned curiously, "Upon what?"
+
+"Upon the start you have made toward the goal you hope to reach."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Mrs. Taine wants you."
+
+"You are pleased to be facetious." Under the eyes of his companion, Aaron
+King felt that his reply did not at all conceal his satisfaction.
+
+"I am pleased to be exact. I repeat--Mrs. Taine wants you. I am ordered by
+the reigning 'Goddess' of 'Modern Art'--'The Age'--to bring you into her
+'Court.' You have won favor in her sight. She finds you good to look at.
+She hopes to find you--as good as you look. If you do not disappoint her,
+your fame is assured."
+
+"Nonsense," said the artist, somewhat sharply; nettled by the obvious
+meaning and by the sneering sarcasm of the novelist's words and tone.
+
+To which the other returned suggestively, "It is precisely because you can
+say, 'nonsense,' when you know it is no nonsense at all, but the exact
+truth, that your chance for fame is so good, my friend."
+
+"And did some reigning 'Goddess' insure your success and fame?"
+
+The older man turned his peculiar, penetrating, baffling eyes full upon
+his companion's face, and in a voice full of cynical sadness answered,
+"Exactly so. I paid court to the powers that be. They gave me the reward I
+sought; and--they made me what I am."
+
+So it came about that Conrad Lagrange, in due time, introduced Aaron King
+to the house on Fairlands Heights. Or,--as the novelist put it,--he,
+"Civilization",--in obedience to the commands of her "Royal Highness",
+"The Age",--presented the artist at her "Majesty's Court"; that the young
+man might sue for the royal favor.
+
+It was, perhaps, a month after the presentation ceremony, that the painter
+made what--to him, at least--was an important announcement.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter V
+
+The Mystery of the Rose Garden
+
+
+
+The acquaintance of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had developed rapidly
+into friendship.
+
+The man whom the world had chosen to place upon one of the highest
+pinnacles of its literary favor, and who--through some queer twist in his
+nature--was so lonely and embittered by his exaltation, seemed to find in
+the younger man who stood with the crowd at the foot of the ladder,
+something that marked him as different from his fellows.
+
+Whether it was the artist's mother; some sacredly hidden memories of
+Lagrange's past; or, perhaps, some fancied recognition of the artist's
+genius and its possibilities; the strange man gave no hint; but he
+constantly sought the company of Aaron King, with an openness that made
+his preference for the painter's society very evident. If he had said
+anything about it, at all, Conrad Lagrange, likely, would have accounted
+for his interest, upon the ground that his dog, Czar, found the
+companionship agreeable. Their friendship, meanwhile--in the eyes of the
+world--conferred a peculiar distinction upon the young man--a distinction
+not at all displeasing to the ambitious artist; and the value of which he,
+probably, overrated.
+
+To Aaron King--aside from the subtle flattery of the famous novelist's
+attention--there was in the personality of the odd character a something
+that appealed to him with peculiar strength. Perhaps it was that the man's
+words, so often sharp and stinging with bitter sarcasm, seemed always to
+carry a hidden meaning that gave, as it were, glimpses of another nature
+buried deeply beneath a wreck of ruined dreams and disappointing
+achievements. Or, it may have been that, under all the cruel,
+world-hardness of the thoughts expressed, the young man sensed an
+undertone of pathetic sadness. Or, again, perhaps, it was those rare
+moments, when--on some walk that carried them beyond the outskirts of the
+town, and brought the mountains into unobstructed view--the clouds of
+bitterness were lifted; and the man spoke with poetic feeling of the
+realities of life, and of the true glory and mission of the arts;
+counseling his friend with an intelligence as true and delicate as it was
+rare and fine.
+
+It was nearly two months after Conrad Lagrange had introduced the young
+man at the house on Fairlands Heights. The hour was late. The
+painter--returning from a dinner and an evening at the Taine home--found
+the novelist, with pipe and dog, in a deserted corner of the hotel
+veranda. Dropping into the chair that was placed as if it awaited his
+coming, the artist--with no word of greeting to the man--bent over the
+brown head that was thrust so insistently against his knee, as Czar, with
+gently waving tail, made him welcome. Looking affectionately into the
+brown eyes while he stroked the silky coat, the young man answered in the
+language that all dogs understand; while the novelist, from under his
+scowling brows, regarded the two intently.
+
+"They were disappointed that you were not there," said the painter,
+presently. "Mrs. Taine, particularly, charged me to say that she will not
+forgive, until you do proper penance for your sin."
+
+"I had better company," retorted the other. "Czar and I went for a look at
+the mountains. I suppose you have noticed that Czar does not care for the
+Fairlands Heights crowd. He is very peculiar in his friendships--for a
+dog. His instincts are remarkable."
+
+At the sound of his name, Czar transferred his attentions, for a moment,
+to his master; then stretched himself in his accustomed place beside the
+novelist's chair.
+
+The artist laughed. "I did my best to invent an acceptable excuse for you;
+but she said it was no use--nothing short of your own personal prayers for
+mercy would do."
+
+"Humph; you should have reminded her that I purchased an indulgence some
+weeks ago."
+
+Again, the other laughed shortly. Watching him closely, Conrad Lagrange
+said, in his most sneering tones, "I trust, young man, that you are not
+failing to make good use of your opportunities. Let's see--dinner and the
+evening five times--afternoon calls as many--with motor trips to points of
+interest--and one theater party to Los Angeles--believe me; it is not
+often that struggling genius is so rewarded--before it has accomplished
+anything bad enough to merit such attention."
+
+"I _have_ been idling most shamefully, haven't I?" said the artist.
+
+"Idling!" rasped the other. "You have been the busiest hay-maker in the
+land. These scientific, intensive cultivation farmers of California are
+not in your class when it comes to utilizing the sunshine. Take my advice
+and continue your present activity without bothering yourself by any
+sentimental thoughts of your palette and brushes. The mere vulgar tools of
+your craft are of minor importance to one of your genius and opportunity."
+
+Then, in a half embarrassed manner, Aaron King made his announcement.
+"That may all be," he said, "but just the same, I am going to work."
+
+"I knew it"--returned the other, in mocking triumph--"I knew it the moment
+you came up the steps there. I could tell it by your walk; by the air with
+which you carried yourself; by your manner, your voice, your laugh--you
+fairly reek of prosperity and achievement--you are going to paint her
+portrait."
+
+"And why not?" retorted the young man, rather sharply, a trifle nettled by
+the other's tone.
+
+"Why not, indeed!" murmured the novelist. "Indeed, yes--by all means! It
+is so exactly the right thing to do that it is startling. You scale the
+heights of fame with such confident certainty in every move that it is
+positively uncanny to watch you."
+
+"If one's work is true, I fail to see why one should not take advantage
+of any influence that can contribute to his success," said the painter. "I
+assure you I am not so wealthy that I can afford to refuse such an
+attractive commission. You must admit that the beautiful Mrs. Taine is a
+subject worthy the brush of any artist; and I suppose it _is_ conceivable
+that I _might_ be ambitious to make a genuinely good job of it."
+
+The older man, as though touched by the evident sincerity of the artist's
+words, dropped his sneering tone and spoke earnestly; "The beautiful Mrs.
+Taine _is_ a subject worthy a master's brush, my friend. But take my word
+for it, if you paint her portrait _as a master would paint it_, you will
+sign your own death warrant--so far as your popularity and fame as an
+artist goes."
+
+"I don't believe it," declared Aaron King, flatly.
+
+"I know you don't. If you _did_, and still accepted the commission, you
+wouldn't be fit to associate with honest dogs like Czar, here."
+
+"But why"--persisted the artist--"why do you insist that my portrait of
+Mrs. Taine will be disastrous to my success, just to the degree that it is
+a work of genuine merit?"
+
+To which the novelist answered, cryptically, "If you have not the eyes to
+see the reason, it will matter little whether you know it or not. If you
+_do_ see the reason, and, still, produce a portrait that pleases your
+sitter, then you will have paid the price; you will receive your reward;
+and"--the speaker's tone grew sad and bitter--"you will be what I am."
+
+With this, he arose abruptly and, without another word, stalked into the
+hotel; the dog following with quiet dignity, at his heels.
+
+From the beginning of their acquaintance, almost, the novelist and the
+artist had dropped into the habit of taking their meals together. At
+breakfast, the next morning, Conrad Lagrange reopened the conversation he
+had so abruptly closed the night before. "I suppose," he said, "that you
+will set up a studio, and do the thing in proper style?"
+
+"Mrs. Taine told me of a place that is for rent, and that she thinks would
+be just the thing," returned the young man. "It is across the road from
+that big grove owned by Mr. Taine. I was wondering if you would care to
+walk out that way with me this morning and help me look it over."
+
+The older man's hearty acceptance of the invitation assured the artist of
+his genuine interest, and, an hour later--after Aaron King had interviewed
+the agent and secured the keys, with the privilege of inspecting the
+premises--the two set out together.
+
+They found the place on the eastern edge of the town; half-hidden by the
+orange groves that surrounded it on every side. The height of the palms
+that grew along the road in front, the pepper and eucalyptus trees that
+overshadowed the house, and the size of the orange-trees that shut in the
+little yard with walls of green, marked the place as having been
+established before the wealth of the far-away East discovered the peculiar
+charm of the Fairlands hills. The lawn, the walks, and the drive were
+unkempt and overgrown with weeds. The house itself,--a small cottage with
+a wide porch across the front and on the side to the west,--unpainted for
+many seasons, was tinted by the brush of the elements, a soft and restful
+gray.
+
+But the artist and his friend, as they approached, exclaimed aloud at the
+beauty of the scene; for, as if rejoicing in their freedom from restraint,
+the roses had claimed the dwelling, so neglected by man, as their own. Up
+every post of the porch they had climbed; over the porch roof, they spread
+their wealth of color; over the gables, screening the windows with
+graceful lattice of vine and branch and leaf and bloom; up to the ridge
+and over the cornice, to the roof of the house itself--even to the top of
+the chimney they had won their way--and there, as if in an ecstasy of
+wanton loveliness, flung, a spray of glorious, perfumed beauty high into
+the air.
+
+On the front porch, the men turned to look away over the gentle slope of
+the orange groves, on the other side of the road, to the towering peaks
+and high ridges of the mountains--gleaming cold and white in the winter of
+their altitude. To the northeast, San Bernardino reared his head in lonely
+majesty--looking directly down upon the foothills and the feeble dwellers
+in the valley below. Far beyond, and surrounded by the higher ridges and
+peaks and canyons of the range, San Gorgonio sat enthroned in the
+skies--the ruler of them all. From the northeast, westward, they viewed
+the mighty sweep of the main range to Cajon Pass and the San Gabriels,
+beyond, with San Antonio, Cucamonga, and their sister peaks lifting their
+heads above their fellows. In the immediate landscape, no house or
+building was to be seen. The dark-green mass of the orange groves hid
+every work of man's building between them and the tawny foothills save the
+gable and chimney of a neighboring cottage on the west.
+
+"Listen"--said Conrad Lagrange, in a low tone, moved as always by the
+grandeur and beauty of the scene--"listen! Don't you hear them calling?
+Don't you feel the mountains sending their message to these poor insects
+who squirm and wriggle in this bit of muck men call their world? God, man!
+if only we, in our work, would heed the message of the hills!"
+
+The novelist spoke with such intensity of feeling--with such bitter
+sadness and regret in his voice--that Aaron King could not reply.
+
+Turning, the artist unlocked the door, and they entered the cottage.
+
+They found the interior of the house well arranged, and not in bad repair.
+"Just the thing for a bachelor's housekeeping"--was the painter's
+verdict--"but for a studio--impossible," and there was a touch of regret
+in his voice.
+
+"Let's continue our exploration," said the novelist, hopefully. "There's a
+barn out there." And they went out of the house, and down the drive on the
+eastern side of the yard.
+
+Here, again, they saw the roses in full possession of the place--by man,
+deserted. From foundation to roof, the building--a small simple
+structure--was almost hidden under a mass of vines. There was one large
+room below; with a loft above. The stable was in the rear. Built,
+evidently, at a later date than the house, the building was in better
+repair. The walls, so hidden without by the roses, were well sided; the
+floors were well laid. The big, sliding, main door opened on the drive in
+front; between it and the corner, to the west, was a small door; and in
+the western end, a window.
+
+Looking curiously from this window, Conrad Lagrange uttered an
+exclamation, and hurried abruptly from the building. The artist followed.
+
+From the end of the barn, and extending, the full width of the building,
+to the west line of the yard, was a rose garden--such a garden as Aaron
+King had never seen. On three sides, the little plot was enclosed by a
+tall hedge of Ragged Robins; above the hedge, on the south and west, was
+the dark-green wall of the orange grove; on the north, the pepper and
+eucalyptus trees in the yard, and a view of the distant mountains; and on
+the east, the vine-hidden end of the barn. Against the southern
+wall,--and, so, directly opposite the trellised, vine-covered arch of the
+entrance,--a small, lattice bower, with a rustic table and seats within,
+was completely covered, as was the barn, by the magically woven tapestry
+of the flowers. In the corner of the hedge farthest from the entrance they
+found a narrow gate. Unlike the rest of the premises, the garden was in
+perfect order--the roses trimmed and cared for; the walks neatly edged and
+clean; with no weed or sign of untidiness or neglect anywhere.
+
+The two men had come upon the spot so suddenly--so unexpectedly--the
+contrast with the neglected grounds and buildings was so marked--that they
+looked at each other in silence. The little retreat--so lovely, so hidden
+by its own beauty from the world, so cared for by careful hands--seemed
+haunted by an invisible spirit. Very quietly,--almost reverently,--they
+moved about; talking in low tones, as though half expecting--they knew not
+what.
+
+"Some one loves this place," said the novelist, softly, when they stood,
+again, in the entrance.
+
+And the artist answered in the same hushed voice, "I wonder what it
+means?"
+
+When they were again in the barn, Aaron King became eagerly enthusiastic
+over the possibilities of the big room. "Some rightly toned burlap on the
+walls and ceiling,"--he pointed out,--"with floor covering and rugs in
+harmony; there"--rolling back the big door as he spoke--"your north light;
+some hangings and screens to hide the stairway to the loft, and the stable
+door; your entrance over here in the corner, nicely out of the way; and
+the window looking into the garden--it's great man, great!"
+
+"And," answered Conrad Lagrange, from where he stood in the big front
+door, "the mountains! Don't forget the mountains. The soft, steady, north
+light on your canvas, and a message from the mountains to your soul,
+through the same window, should make it a good place to work, Mr.
+Painter-man. I suppose over here"--he moved away from the window, and
+spoke in his mocking way--"over here, you will have a tea-table for the
+ladies of the circle elect--who will come to, 'oh', and, 'ah', their
+admiration of the newly discovered genius, and to chatter their
+misunderstandings of his art. Of course, there will be a page in velvet
+and gold. By all means, get hold of an oriental kid of some kind--oriental
+junk is quite the rage this year. You should take advantage of every
+influence that can contribute to your success, you know. And, whatever you
+do, don't fail to consult the 'Goddess' about these essentials of your
+craft. Many a promising genius has been lost to fame, through inviting the
+wrong people to take tea in his studio. But"--he finished whimsically,
+looking from the window into the garden--"but what the devil do you
+suppose the spirit who lives out there will think about it all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The days of the two following weeks were busy days for Aaron King. He
+leased the place in the orange groves, and set men to work making it
+habitable. The lawn and grounds were trimmed and put in order; the
+interior of the house was renovated by painter and paper-hanger; and the
+barn, under the artist's direction, was transformed into an ideal studio.
+There was a trip to Los Angeles--quite fortunately upon a day when Mrs.
+Taine must go to the city shopping--for rugs and hangings; and another
+trip to purchase the tools of the artist's craft. And, at last, there was
+a Chinese cook and housekeeper to find; with supplies for his kitchen. It
+was at Conrad Lagrange's suggestion, that, from the first, every one was
+given strict orders to keep out of the rose garden.
+
+Every day, the novelist--accompanied, always, by Czar--walked out that way
+to see how things were progressing; and often,--if he had not been too
+busy to notice,--Aaron King might have seen a look of wistfulness in the
+keen, baffling eyes of the famous man--so world-weary and sad. And, while
+he did not cease to mock and jeer and offer sarcastic advice to his
+younger friend, the touch of pathos--that, like a minor chord, was so
+often heard in his most caustic and cruel speeches--was more pronounced.
+As for Czar--he always returned to the hotel with evident reluctance; and
+managed to express, in his dog way, the thoughts his distinguished master
+would not put in words.
+
+Very often, too, the big touring car from the house on Fairlands Heights
+stopped in front of the cottage, while the occupants inspected the
+premises, and--with many exclamations of flattering praise, and a few
+suggestions--made manifest their interest.
+
+In time, it was finished and ready--from the big easel by the great, north
+window in the studio, to the white-jacketed Yee Kee in the kitchen. When
+the last workman was gone with his tools; and the two men, after looking
+about the place for an hour, were standing on the front porch; Conrad
+Lagrange said, "And the stage is set. The scene shifters are off. The
+audience is waiting. Ring up the curtain for the next act. Even Czar has
+looked upon everything and calls it good--heh Czar?"
+
+The dog went to him; and, for some minutes, the novelist looked down into
+the brown eyes of his four-footed companion who seemed so to understand.
+Still fondling the dog,--without looking at the artist,--the older man
+continued, "You will have your things moved over in the morning, I
+suppose? Or, will we lunch together, once more?"
+
+Aaron King laughed--as a boy who has prepared a surprise, and has been
+struggling manfully to keep the secret until the proper moment should
+arrive. Placing his hand on the older man's shoulder, he answered
+meaningly, "I had planned that _we_ would move in the morning." At the
+other's puzzled expression he laughed again.
+
+"We?" said the novelist, facing his friend, quickly.
+
+"Come here," returned the other. "I must show you something you haven't
+seen."
+
+He led the way to a room that they had decided he would not need, and the
+door of which was locked. Taking a key from his pocket, he handed it to
+his friend.
+
+"What's this?" said the older man, looking foolishly at the key in his
+hand.
+
+"It's the key to that door," returned the other, with a gleeful chuckle.
+Then--"Unlock it."
+
+"Unlock it?"
+
+"Sure--that's what I gave you the key for."
+
+Conrad Lagrange obeyed. Through the open door, he saw, not the bare and
+empty room he supposed was there, but a bedroom--charmingly furnished,
+complete in every detail. Turning, he faced his companion silently,
+inquiringly--with a look that Aaron King had never before seen in those
+strange, baffling eyes.
+
+"It's yours"--said the artist, hastily--"if you care to come. You'll have
+a free hand here, you know; for I will be in the studio much of the time.
+Kee will cook the things you like. You and Czar can come and go as you
+will. There is the arbor in the rose garden, you know, and see here"--he
+stepped to the window--"I chose this room for you, because it looks out
+upon your mountains."
+
+The strange man stood at the window for, what seemed to the artist, a long
+time. Suddenly, he turned to say sharply, "Young man, why did you do
+this?"
+
+"Why"--stammered the other, disconcerted--"because I want you--because I
+thought you would like to come. I beg your pardon--if I have made a
+mistake--but surely, no harm has been done."
+
+"And you think you could stand living with me--for any length of time?"
+
+The' painter laughed with relief. "Oh, _that's_ it! I didn't know you had
+such a tender conscience. You scared me for a minute, I should think you
+would know by this time that you can't phase me with your wicked tongue."
+
+The novelist's face twisted into a grotesque smile. "I warn you--I will
+flay you and your friends just the same. You need it for the good of your
+soul."
+
+"As often and as hard as you like"--returned the other, heartily--"just so
+it's for the good of my soul. You will come?"
+
+"You will permit me to stand my share of the expense?"
+
+"Anything you like--if you will only come."
+
+The older man said gently,--for the first time calling the artist by his
+given name,--"Aaron, I believe that you are the only person in the world
+who would, really want me; and I _know_ that you are the only person in
+the world to whom I would be grateful for such an invitation."
+
+The artist was about to reply, when the big automobile stopped in front of
+the house. Czar, on the porch, gave a low growl of disapproval; and,
+through the open door, they saw Mr. Taine and his wife with James Rutlidge
+and Louise.
+
+The novelist said something, under his breath, that had a vicious
+sound--quite unlike his words of the moment before. Czar, in disgust,
+retreated to the shelter of Yee Kee's domain. With a laugh, the younger
+man went out to meet his friends.
+
+"Are you at home this afternoon, Sir Artist?" called Mrs. Taine, gaily, as
+he went down the walk.
+
+"I will always be at home to the right people," he answered, greeting the
+other members of the party.
+
+As they moved toward the house,--Mr. Taine choking and coughing, his
+daughter chattering and exclaiming, and James Rutlidge critically
+observing,--Mrs. Taine dropped a little back to Aaron King's side. "And
+are you really established, at last?" she asked eagerly; with a charming,
+confidential air.
+
+"We move to-morrow morning," he answered.
+
+"We?" she questioned.
+
+"Conrad Lagrange and I. He is going to live with me, you know."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+It is remarkable how much meaning a woman can crowd into that one small
+syllable; particularly, when she draws a little away from you as she
+speaks it.
+
+"Why," he murmured apologetically, "don't you approve?"
+
+Mrs. Taine's beautiful eyebrows went up inquiringly--"And why should I
+either approve or disapprove?"
+
+The young man was saved by the arrival of his guests at the porch steps,
+and by the appearance of Conrad Lagrange, in the doorway.
+
+"How delightful!" exclaimed Mrs. Taine, heartily; as she, in turn, greeted
+the famous novelist. "Mr. King was just telling me that you were going to
+share this dear little place with him. I quite envy you both."
+
+The others had passed into the house.
+
+"You are sometimes guilty of saying twisty things yourself, aren't you?"
+returned the man; and, as he spoke, his remarkable eyes were fixed upon
+her as though reading her innermost thoughts.
+
+She flushed under his meaning gaze, but carried it off gaily with--"Oh
+dear! I wonder if my maid has hooked me up properly, this time?"
+
+They left Mr. Taine in an easy chair, with a bottle of his favorite
+whisky; and went over the place--from the arbor in the rose garden to Yee
+Kee's pantry--Mr. Rutlidge, critically and authoritatively approving;
+Louise, effervescing the same sugary nothings at every step; Mrs. Taine,
+with a pretty air of proprietorship; Conrad Lagrange, thoughtfully
+watching; and Aaron King, himself, irresponsibly gay and boyishly proud as
+he exhibited his achievements.
+
+In the studio, Mrs. Taine--standing before the big easel--demanded to
+know of the artist, when he would begin her portrait--she was so
+interested, so eager to begin--how soon could she come? Louise assumed a
+worshipful attitude, and, gazing at the young man with reverent eyes,
+waited breathlessly. James Rutlidge drew near, condescendingly attentive,
+to the center of attraction. Conrad Lagrange turned his back.
+
+"Really," murmured the painter, "I hope you will not be too impatient,
+Mrs. Taine, I fear I cannot be ready for some time yet. I suppose I must
+confess to being over-sensitive to my environment; for it is a fact that
+my working mood does not come upon me readily amid strange surroundings.
+When I have become acclimated, as it were, I will be ready for you."
+
+"How wonderful!" breathed Louise.
+
+"Quite right," agreed Mr. Rutlidge.
+
+"Whenever you are ready," said Mrs. Taine, submissively.
+
+When their friends from the Heights were gone, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down, as he said with cutting sarcasm, "You did that very
+nicely. Over-sensitive to your environment, hell! If you _are_ a bit fine
+strung, you have no business to make a _show_ of it. It's a weakness, not
+a virtue. And the man who makes capital out of any man's weakness,--even
+of his own,--is either a criminal or a fool or both."
+
+Then they went back to the hotel for dinner.
+
+The next morning, the artist and the novelist moved from the hotel, to
+establish themselves in the little house in the orange groves--the
+little house with its unobstructed view of the mountains, and with its
+rose garden, so mysteriously tended.
+
+
+
+Chapter VI
+
+An Unknown Friend
+
+
+
+When Yee Kee announced lunch, the artist, the novelist, and the dog were
+settled in their new home. In the afternoon, the painter spent an hour
+or two fussing over portfolios of old sketches, in his studio; while
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar lounged on the front porch.
+
+Once, the dog rose quietly, and, walking sedately to the edge of the
+porch toward the west, stood for some minutes gazing intently into the
+dark green mass of the orange grave. At last, as if concluding that
+whatever it was it was all right, he went calmly back to his place
+beside the novelist's chair.
+
+"Do you know,"--said the artist, as they sat on the porch that evening,
+with their after-dinner pipes,--"I believe this old place is haunted."
+
+"If it isn't, it ought to be," answered the other, contentedly--playing
+with Czar's silky ears. "A good ghost would fit in nicely here, wouldn't
+it--or he, or she. Its spookship would travel far to find a more
+delightful place for spooking in, and--providing, of course, she were a
+perfectly respectable hant--what a charming addition to our family he
+would make. When it was weary of moping and mowing and sobbing and
+wailing and gibbering, she could curl up at the foot of your bed and
+sleep; as Czar, here, curls up and sleeps at the foot of mine. A good
+ghost, you know--if he becomes really attached to you--is as constant
+and faithful and affectionate and companionable as a good dog."
+
+"B-r-r-r," said the artist. And Czar turned to look at him,
+questioningly.
+
+"All the same"--the painter continued--"when I was out there in the
+studio, I could feel some one watching me--you know the feeling."
+
+Conrad Lagrange returned mockingly, "I trust your over-sensitive, artistic
+temperament is not to be so influenced by our ghostly visitor that you
+will be unfitted for your work."
+
+The other laughed. Then he said seriously, "Joking aside, Lagrange, I feel
+a presentiment--I can't put it into words--but--I feel that I _am_ going
+to begin the real work of my life right here. I"--he hesitated--"it seems
+to me that I can sense some influence that I can't define--it's the
+mystery of the rose garden, perhaps," he finished with another short
+laugh.
+
+The man, who, in the eyes of the world, had won so large a measure of the
+success that his friend desired; and whose life was so embittered by the
+things for which he was envied by many; made no reply other than his slow,
+twisted smile.
+
+Silently, they watched the purple shadows of the mountains deepen; and saw
+the outlines of the tawny foothills grow vague and dim, until they were
+lost in the dusky monotone of the evening. The last faint tint of sunset
+color went from the sky back of the San Gabriels; while, close to the
+mountain peaks and ridges, the stars came out. The rows and the contour of
+the orange groves could no longer be distinguished the forms of the nearby
+trees were lost--the rich, lustrous green of their foliage brushed out
+with the dull black of the night; while the twinkling lights of the
+distant towns and hamlets, in the valley below, shone as sparkling jewels
+on the inky, velvet robe that, fold on fold, lay over the landscape.
+
+When the two had smoked in silence, for some time, the artist said slowly,
+"You knew my mother very well, did you not, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"We were children together, Aaron." As he spoke, the man's deep voice was
+gentle, as always, when the young man's mother was mentioned.
+
+Again, for a little, neither spoke. As they sat looking away to the
+mountains, each seemed occupied with his own thoughts. Yet each felt that
+the other, to a degree, understood what he, himself, was thinking.
+
+Once more, the artist broke the silence,--facing his mother's friend with
+quiet resolution,--as though he felt himself forced to speak but knew not
+exactly how to begin. "Did you know her well--after--after my father's
+death--and while I was abroad?"
+
+The other bowed his head--"Yes."
+
+"Very well?"
+
+"Very well."
+
+As if at loss for words, Aaron King still hesitated. "Mr. Lagrange," he
+said, at last, "there are some things about--about mother--that I would
+like to tell you--that I think she would want me to tell you, under the
+circumstances."
+
+"Yes," said Conrad Lagrange, gently.
+
+"Well,--to begin,--you know, perhaps, how much mother and I have always
+been--" his fine voice broke and the older man bowed his head; but, with a
+slight lift of his determined chin, the painter went on calmly--"to each
+other. After father's death, until I was seventeen, we were never
+separated. She was my only teacher. Then I went away to school, seeing her
+only during my vacations, which we always spent, together in the country.
+Three years ago, I went abroad to finish my study. I did not see her again
+until--until I was called home."
+
+"I know," came in low tones from the other.
+
+"But, sir, while it seemed necessary that I should be away from
+home,--that we should be separated,--all through this period, we exchanged
+almost daily letters; planning for the future, and looking forward to the
+time when we could, again, be together."
+
+"I know, Aaron. It was very unusual--and very beautiful."
+
+"When we were together, before I went away, I was a mere lad," continued
+the artist. "I knew in a general way that father had been a successful
+lawyer, and quite prominent in politics; and--because there was no change
+in our manner of living after his death, and there seemed to be always
+money for whatever we wanted, I suppose--I assumed, thoughtlessly, that
+there would always be plenty. During the years while I was at school,
+there was never, in any way, the slightest hint in mother's letters that
+would lead me to question the abundance of her resources. When they called
+me home,--" his voice broke, "--I found my mother dying--almost in
+poverty--our home stripped of the art treasures she loved--her own room,
+even, empty of everything save the barest necessities." In bitter sorrow
+and shame, the young man buried his face in his hands.
+
+The novelist, his gaunt features twitching with the emotion that even his
+long schooling in the tragedies of life could not suppress, waited
+silently.
+
+When the artist had regained, in a measure, his self-control, he
+continued,--and every word came from him in shame and humiliation,--"Before
+she died, she told me about--my father. In the settlement of his affairs,
+at the time of his death, it appeared that he had taken advantage of the
+confidence of certain clients and had betrayed his trust; appropriating
+large sums to his own interests. He had even taken advantage of mother's
+influence in certain circles, and, relying upon her unquestioning faith
+in his integrity, had made her an unconscious instrument in furthering
+his schemes."
+
+Conrad Lagrange made as if to speak, but checked himself and waited for
+the other to continue.
+
+Aaron King went on; "Out of regard for my mother, the matter was kept as
+quiet as possible. The one who suffered the heaviest loss was able to
+protect her--in a measure. All the others were fully reimbursed. But
+mother--it would have been easier for her if she had died then. She
+withdrew from her friends and from the life she loved--she denied herself
+to all who sought her and devoted her life to me. Above all, she planned
+to keep me in ignorance of the truth until I should be equipped to win the
+place in the world that she coveted for me. It was for that, she sent me
+away, and kept me from home. As the demands for my educational expenses
+grew naturally heavier, she supplemented the slender resources, left in
+the final settlement of my father's estate, by sacrificing the treasures
+of her home, and by giving up the luxuries to which she had been
+accustomed from childhood. She even provided for me after her death--not
+wealth, but a comfortable amount, sufficient to support me in good
+circumstances until I can gain recognition and an income from my work."
+
+Under the lash of his memories, the young man sprang to his feet.
+
+"In God's name, Lagrange, why did not some one tell me? I did not know--I
+did not know--I thought--O mother, mother, mother--why did you do it? Why
+was I not told? All these years I have lived a selfish fool, and
+you--you--I would have given up everything--I would have worked in a
+ditch, rather than accept this."
+
+The deep, quiet voice of Conrad Lagrange broke the stillness that followed
+the storm of the artist's passionate words. "And that is the answer,
+Aaron. She knew, too well, that you would not have accepted her sacrifice,
+if you had known. That is why she kept the secret until you had finished
+your education. She forbade her friends--she forbade me to interfere. And
+don't you see that she was right? Don't you see it? We would have done her
+the greatest injustice if we had, against her will, deprived her of this
+privilege. Her splendid pride, her high sense of honor, her nobility of
+spirit demanded the sacrifice. It was her right. God forgive me--I tried
+to make her see it otherwise--but she knew best. She always knew best,
+Aaron. Her only hope of regaining for you that self-respect and that
+position in life to which you--by right of birth and natural
+endowment--are entitled, was in you. The name which she had given to you
+could be restored to honor by you only. To train and equip you for your
+work, and to enable you, unhampered by need, to gain your footing, was the
+determined passion of her life. Her sacrifice, her suffering to that end,
+was the only restitution she could make to you for that which your father
+had squandered. Her proud spirit, her fine intelligence, her mother love
+for you, demanded it."
+
+"I know," returned the artist. "She told me before she died. She made me
+understand. She said that it was my inheritance. She asked for my promise
+that I would be true to her purpose. Her last words were an expression of
+her confidence that I would not disappoint her--that I would win a place
+and name that would wipe out the shame of my father's dishonor. And I
+will, Lagrange, I must. Mother--mother shall not be disappointed--she
+shall not be disappointed."
+
+"No,"--said the older man, so softly that the other, torn by the passion
+of his own thoughts, did not hear,--"No, Aaron, your mother will not be
+disappointed."
+
+For a time longer they sat in silence. Then the young man said, "I wish I
+knew the name of my mother's friend--the one who suffered the heaviest
+loss through my father, and who so generously protected her in the crisis.
+I would like to thank him, at least. I begged her to tell me, but she
+would not. She said he would not want me to know--that for me to attempt
+to reimburse him would, to his mind, rob him of his real reward."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, his head bowed, spoke quietly to the dog at his feet.
+Rising, Czar laid his soft muzzle on his master's knee and looked up into
+the homely, world-worn face. Gently, the strange man--so lonely and
+embittered in the fame that he had won--at a price--stroked the brown
+head. "Your mother knew best, Aaron," he said slowly, without looking at
+his companion. "You must believe that she knew best. Her beautiful spirit
+could not lead her astray. She was right in this, also. Your sentiment
+does you honor, but you must respect her wish. Whoever the man was--she
+had reasons, I am sure, for feeling as she did--that it would be better
+for you not to know. It was some one, perhaps, whose influence upon you,
+she had cause to fear."
+
+"It was very strange," returned the artist, hesitatingly. "Perhaps I ought
+not to say it. But I felt that, as you suggest, she feared for me to know.
+She seemed to want to tell me, but did not, for _my_ sake. It was very
+strange."
+
+Conrad Lagrange made no reply.
+
+"I wanted you to know about mother,"--continued the artist,--"because I
+would like you to understand why--why I must succeed in my work."
+
+The older man smiled to himself, in the dusk. "I have always known why
+you must succeed, Aaron," he returned. "I have never questioned your
+motives. I question only your understanding of success. I question--if you
+will pardon me--your understanding of your mother's wish for you."
+
+Then, in one of those rare momentary moods, when he seemed to reveal to
+his young friend his real nature that lay so deeply hidden from the world,
+he added, "You are right, Aaron. This place _is_ haunted--haunted by the
+spirit of the mountains, yonder--haunted by the spirit of the rose garden,
+out there. The silent strength of the hills, and the loveliness of the
+garden will attend you in your studio, as you work. I do not wonder that
+you feel a presentiment that your artistic future is to be shaped here;
+for between these influences and the other influences that will be brought
+to bear upon you, you will be forced to decide. May the God of all true
+art and artists help you to make no mistake. Listen!"
+
+As though in answer to the solemn words of the man who spoke from the
+fullness of a life-long experience and from the depths of a life-old love,
+a strain of music came from out the fragrant darkness. Somewhere, hidden
+in the depths of the orange grove, the soul of a true musician was seeking
+expression in the tones of a violin.
+
+Softly, sadly, with poignant clearness, the music lifted into the
+night--low and pleadingly at first; then stronger and more vibrant with
+feeling, as though sweetly insistent in its call; swelling next in volume
+and passion, as though in warning of some threatening evil; ringing with
+loving fear; sobbing, wailing, moaning, in anguish; clearly, gloriously,
+triumphant, at last; then sinking into solemn, reverent
+benediction--losing itself, finally, in the darkness, even as it had come.
+
+The two men, so fashioned by nature to receive such music, listened with
+emotions they could not have put into words. For the moment, the music to
+them was the voice of the guarding, calling, warning spirit of the
+mountains that, in their calm, majestic strength, were so far removed from
+the petty passions and longings of the baser world at their feet--it was
+the voice of the loving intimacy, the sweet purity, and the sacred beauty
+of the spirit of the garden. It was as though the things of which Conrad
+Lagrange had just spoken so reverently had cried aloud to them, out of the
+night, in confirmation of his words.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VII
+
+Mrs. Taine in Quaker Gray
+
+
+
+Aaron King seemed loth to begin his work on the portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+Day after day, without apparent reason, he put it off--spending the hours
+in wandering aimlessly about the place, idling on the porch, or doing
+nothing in his studio. He would start from the house to the building at
+the end of the rose garden, as though moved by some clearly defined
+purpose--and then, for an hour or more, would dawdle among the things of
+his craft, with irresolute mind--turning over his sketches and drawings
+with uncertain hands, as though searching for something he knew was not
+there; toying with his paints and brushes; or sitting before his empty
+easel, looking away through the big window to the distant mountains. He
+seemed incapable of fixing his mind upon the task to which he attached so
+much importance. Several times, Mrs. Taine called, but he begged her to be
+patient; and she, with pretended awe of the moods of genius, waited.
+
+Conrad Lagrange jeered and mocked, offered sneering advice or sarcastic
+compliment; and, under it all, was keenly watchful and sympathetic--
+understanding better than the artist himself, perhaps, the secret of the
+painter's hesitation. Every day,--sometimes in the morning, sometimes in
+the afternoon or evening unseen musician, in the orange grove wrought
+for them melodie that, whether grave or gay, always carried, somehow,
+the feeling that had so moved them in the mysterious darkness of
+that first evening.
+
+They knew, now, of course, that the musician lived in the neighboring
+house--the gable and chimney of which was just visible above the
+orange-trees. But that was all. Obedient to some whimsical impulse that
+prompted them both, and was born, no doubt, of the circumstance and mood
+of that first evening, they did not seek to learn more. They
+feared--though they did not say it--that to learn the identity of the
+musician would rob them of the peculiar pleasure they found in the music,
+itself. So they spoke always of their unknown neighbor in a fanciful vein,
+as in like humor they spoke of the spirit that Aaron King still insisted
+haunted the place, or as they alluded to the mystery of the carefully
+tended rose garden.
+
+When the artist could put it off no longer, a day was finally set when
+Mrs. Taine was to come for the beginning of her portrait. The appointed
+hour found the artist in his studio. A canvas stood ready upon the easel;
+palette, colors and brushes were at hand. The painter was standing at the
+big, north window, looking up away to the mountains--the mountains that
+the novelist said called so insistently. Suddenly, he turned his head to
+listen. Sweetly clear and low, through the green wall of the orange-trees,
+came the music of that hidden violin.
+
+As he stood there,--with his eyes fixed upon the mountains, listening to
+the spirit that spoke in the tones of the unseen instrument,--Aaron King
+knew, all at once, that the passing moment was one of those rare
+moments--that come, all unexpectedly--when, with prophetic vision, one
+sees clearly the end of the course he pursues and the destiny that waits
+him at its completion. As clearly, too, he saw the other way, and knew the
+meaning of the vision. But seldom is the strength given to man, in such
+moments, to choose for himself. Though he may see the other way clearly,
+his feet cling to the path he has elected to follow; nor will he, unless
+some one takes him by the hand saying, "Come," turn aside.
+
+A voice, not at all in harmony with the music, broke upon the artist's
+consciousness. He turned to see Mrs. Taine standing expectantly in the
+open door. "Hush!" said the painter, still under the spell of that moment
+so big with possibilities. "Listen,"--with a gesture, he checked her
+advance,--"listen."
+
+A look of haughty surprise flashed over the woman's too perfect features.
+Then, as her ear caught the tones of the violin, she half turned--but only
+for a moment.
+
+"Very clever, isn't it," she said as she came forward "It must be old
+Professor Becker. He lives somewhere around here, I understand. They say
+he is very good."
+
+The artist looked at her for an instant, in amazement Then, as his normal
+mind asserted itself, he burst into an embarrassed laugh.
+
+At her look of puzzled inquiry, he said, "I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine.
+I did not realize how harshly I greeted you. The fact is I--I was
+dreaming"--he turned suggestively toward the canvas upon the easel. "You
+see I was expecting you--I was thinking--then the music
+came--and--well--when you actually appeared in the flesh, I did not for
+the moment realize that it was really you."
+
+"How charming of you!" she returned. "To be made the subject of an
+artist's dream--really it is quite the nicest compliment I have ever
+received. Tell me, do you like me in this?" she slipped the wrap she wore
+from her shoulders, and stood before him, gowned in the simple, gray dress
+of a Quaker Maid. Deliberately, she turned her beautiful self about for
+his critical inspection. Moving to and fro, sitting, half-reclining,
+standing--in various graceful poses she invited, challenged, dared, his
+closest attention--professional attention, of course--to every curve and
+detail.
+
+In spite of its simplicity of color and line, the gown still bore the
+unmistakable stamp of the wearer's world. The severity of line was subtly
+made to emphasize the voluptuousness of the body that was covered but not
+hidden. The quiet color was made to accentuate the flesh the dress
+concealed only to reveal. The very lack of ornament but served to center
+the attention upon the charms that so loudly professed to scorn them. It
+was worldliness speaking in the quiet voice of religion. It was vulgarity
+advertising itself in terms of good taste. She had made modesty the
+handmaiden of blatant immodesty, and the daring impudence of it all
+fairly stunned the painter.
+
+"Oh dear!" she said, watching his face, "I fear you don't like it, at
+all--and I thought it such a beautiful little gown. You told me to wear
+whatever I pleased, you know."
+
+"It _is_ a beautiful gown," he said--then added impulsively, "and you are
+beautiful in it. You would be beautiful in anything."
+
+She shook her head; favoring him with an understanding smile. "You say
+that to please me. I can see that you don't like me this way."
+
+"But I do," he insisted. "I like you that way, immensely. I was a bit
+surprised, that's all. You see, I thought, of course, that you would
+select an evening gown of some sort--something, you know, that would fit
+your social position--your place in the world. In this costume, the beauty
+of your shoulders--"
+
+Lowering her eyes as if embarrassed, she said coldly, "The beauty of my
+shoulders is not for the public. I have never worn--I will not wear--one
+of those dreadful, immodest gowns."
+
+Aaron King was bewildered. Suddenly, he remembered what Conrad Lagrange
+had said about her fad. But after so frankly exhibiting herself before
+him, dressed as she was in a gown that was deliberately planned to
+advertise her physical charms, to be particular about baring her shoulders
+in a conventional costume--! It was quite too much.
+
+"Again, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Taine," he managed to say. "I did not
+know. Under the circumstances, this is exactly the thing. Your portrait,
+in what is so frankly a costume assumed for the purpose, takes us out of
+the dilemma very nicely, indeed."
+
+"Why, that's exactly what I thought," she returned eagerly. "And this is
+so in keeping with my real tastes--don't you see? A real portrait--I mean
+a serious work of art, you know--should always be something more than a
+mere likeness, should it not? Don't you think that to be genuinely good, a
+portrait must reveal the spirit and character--must portray the soul, as
+well as the features? I _do_ so want this to be a truly great picture--for
+your sake." Her manner seemed to say that she was doing it all for him. "I
+have never permitted any one to paint my portrait before, you know," she
+added meaningly.
+
+"You are very kind, Mrs. Taine," he returned gravely. "Believe me, I do
+appreciate this opportunity I shall do my best to express my appreciation
+here"--he indicated the canvas on the easel.
+
+When his sitter was posed to his liking, and the artist, with a few bold,
+sweeping, strokes of the charcoal had roughed out his subject on the
+canvas, and was bending over his color-box--he said, casually, to put her
+at ease, "You came alone this afternoon, did you?"
+
+"Oh, no, indeed! I brought Louise with me. I shall always bring her, or
+some one. One cannot be too careful, you know," she added with simulated
+artlessness.
+
+The painter, studying her face, replied mechanically "No indeed."
+
+As he turned back to his canvas, Mrs. Taine continued, "I left her in the
+house, with a box of chocolates and a novel. I felt that you would rather
+we were alone."
+
+"Please don't look down," said the artist. "I want your eyes about
+here"--he indicated a picture on the wall, a little back and to the left
+of where he stood at the easel.
+
+After this, there was silence in the studio, for a little while. Mrs.
+Taine obediently kept the pose; her eyes upon the point the artist had
+indicated; but--as the man, himself, was almost directly in her line of
+vision--it was easy for her to watch him at his work, when his eyes were
+on his canvas or palette. The arrangement was admirable in that it
+relieved the tedium of the hour for the sitter; and gave her face an
+expression of animated interest that, truthfully fixed upon the canvas,
+should insure the fame and future of any painter.
+
+It would be quite too much to say that Aaron King became absorbed in his
+occupation. Thorough master of the tools of his craft, and of his own
+technic, as well; he was interested in the mere exercising of his skill,
+but he in no sense lost himself in his work. Two or three times, Mrs.
+Taine saw him glance quickly over his shoulder, as though expecting some
+one. Once, for quite a moment, he deliberately turned from his easel to
+stand at the window, looking up at the distant mountain peaks. Several
+times, he seemed to be listening.
+
+"May I talk?" she said at last.
+
+"Why, certainly," he returned. "I want you to feel perfectly at ease. You
+must be altogether at home here. Just let yourself go--say what you like,
+with no conventional restraints whatever--consider me a mechanical
+something that is no more than an article of furniture--be as thoroughly
+yourself as if alone in your own room."
+
+"How funny," she said musingly.
+
+"Not at all"--he returned--"just a matter of business."
+
+"But it _would_ be funny if I were to take you at your word," she replied;
+suddenly breaking the pose and meeting his gaze squarely. "Is it--is it
+quite necessary for the mechanical something to look at me like that?"
+
+"I said that you were to _consider_ me as an article of furniture. I
+didn't say that I _felt_ like a table or chair."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Don't look down; keep the pose, please," came somewhat sharply from the
+man at the easel, as though he were mentally taking himself in hand.
+
+After that, she watched him with increasing interest and, when he turned
+his head in that listening attitude, a curious, resentful light came into
+her eyes.
+
+Presently, she asked abruptly, "What is it that you hear?"
+
+"I thought I heard music," he answered, coloring slightly and turning to
+his work with suddenly absorbing interest.
+
+"The violin that so enchanted you when I came to break the spell?" she
+persisted playfully--though the light in her eyes was not a playful light.
+
+"Yes," he answered shortly; stepping back and shading his eyes with his
+hand for a careful look at his canvas.
+
+"And don't you know who it is?"
+
+"You said it was an old professor somebody."
+
+"That was my _first_ guess," she retorted. "Was I right?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"But it comes from that little box of a house, next door, doesn't it?"
+
+"Evidently," the artist answered. Then, laying aside his palette and
+brushes he said abruptly, "That is all for to-day; thank you."
+
+"Oh, so soon!" she exclaimed; and the regret in her voice was very
+pleasing to the man who was decidedly not a mechanical something.
+
+She started eagerly forward toward the easel. But the artist, with a quick
+motion, drew a curtain across the canvas, to hide his work; while he
+checked her with--"Not yet, please. I don't want you to see it until I say
+you may."
+
+"How mean of you," she protested; charmingly submissive. Then,
+eagerly--"And do you want me to-morrow? You do, don't you?"
+
+"Yes, please--at the same hour."
+
+When the Quaker Maiden's dress was safely hidden under her wrap, Mrs.
+Taine stood, for a moment, looking thoughtfully about the studio; while
+the artist waited at the door, ready to escort her to the automobile. "I
+am going to love this room," she said slowly; and, for the first time, her
+voice was genuinely sincere, with a hint of wistfulness in its tone that
+made him regard her wonderingly.
+
+She went to him impulsively. "Will you, when you are famous--when you are
+a great artist and all the great and famous people go to you to have their
+portraits painted--will you remember poor me, I wonder?"
+
+"Am I really going to be famous?" he returned doubtfully. "Are you so sure
+that this picture will mean success?"
+
+"Of course I am sure--I _know_. You want to succeed don't you?"
+
+Aaron King returned her look, for a moment, without answering. Then, with
+a quick, fierce determination that betrayed a depth of feeling she had
+never before seen in him, he exclaimed, "Do I want to succeed! I--I must
+succeed. I tell you I _must_."
+
+And the woman answered very softly, with her hand upon his arm, "And you
+shall--you shall."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Conrad Lagrange and Czar found the artist on the front porch, pulling
+moodily at his pipe.
+
+"Is it all over for to-day?" asked the novelist as he stood looking down
+upon the young man with that peculiarly piercing, baffling gaze.
+
+"All over," replied the artist, answering the greeting thrust of Czar's
+muzzle against his knee, with caressing hand. "Where did you fly to?"
+
+The other dropped into a chair. "I would fly anywhere to escape being
+entertained by that Ragtime' piece of human nonentity--Louise Taine. I
+saw them coming, just in time." He was filling his pipe as he spoke. "And
+how did the work go?"
+
+"All right," replied the painter, indifferently.
+
+The older man shot a curious sidewise glance at his moody companion; then,
+striking a match, he gave careful attention to his pipe. Watching the
+cloud of blue smoke, he said quizzingly, "I suppose 'Her Majesty' was
+royally apparelled for the occasion-properly arrayed in purple and fine
+linen; as befits the dignity of her state?"
+
+The artist turned at the mocking, suggestive tone and answered savagely,
+"I suppose you have got to know, damn you! I'm painting her as a Quaker
+Maiden."
+
+Conrad Lagrange's reply was as surprising in its way as was the outburst
+of the artist. Instead of the tirade of biting sarcasm and stinging abuse
+that the painter expected, the older man only gazed at him from under his
+scowling brows and, shaking his head, sadly, said with sincere regret and
+understanding "You poor fellow! It must be hell." Then, as his keen mind
+grasped the full significance of the artist's words, he murmured
+meditatively, "The personification of the age masquerading in Quaker
+gray--Shades of the giants who used to be! What an opportunity--if you
+only had the nerve to do it."
+
+The artist flung out his hand in protest as he rose from his chair to pace
+up and down the porch. "Don't, Lagrange, don't! I can't stand it, just
+now."
+
+"All right." said the other, heartily, "I won't." Rising, he put his hand
+on his friend's shoulder. "Come, let's go for a look at the roses, before
+Yee Kee calls us to dinner."
+
+In the garden, the artist's eye caught sight of something white lying in
+the well-kept path. With an exclamation, he went quickly to pick it up. It
+was a dainty square of lace--a handkerchief--with an exquisitely
+embroidered "S" in the corner.
+
+The two men looked at each other in silence; with smiling, questioning
+eyes.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter VIII
+
+The Portrait That Was Not a Portrait
+
+
+
+Aaron King was putting the last touches to his portrait of the woman
+who--Conrad Lagrange said--was the personification of the age.
+
+From that evening when the young man told his friend the story of his
+mother's sacrifice, their friendship had become like that friendship which
+passeth the love of women. While the novelist, true to his promise, did
+not cease to flay his younger companion--for the good of the artist's
+soul--those moments when his gentler moods ruled his speech were, perhaps,
+more frequent; and the artist was more and more learning to appreciate the
+rare imagination, the delicacy of feeling, the intellectual brilliancy,
+and the keenness of mental vision that distinguished the man whose life
+was so embittered by the use he had made of his own rich gifts.
+
+The novelist steadily refused to look at the picture while the work was in
+progress. He said, bluntly, that he preferred to run no risk of
+interfering with the young man's chance for fame; and that it would be
+quite enough for him to look upon his friend's shame when it was
+accomplished; without witnessing the process in its various stages. The
+artist laughed to hide the embarrassing fact that he was rather pleased
+to be left to himself with this particular picture.
+
+Conrad Lagrange did not, however, refuse to accompany his friend,
+occasionally, to the house on Fairlands Heights; where the painter
+continued to spend much of his time. When Mrs. Taine made mocking
+references to the novelist's promise not to leave the artist unprotected
+to her tender mercies, he always answered with some--as she said--twisty
+saying; to the effect that the present situation in no way lessened his
+determination to save the young man from the influences that would
+accomplish the ruin of his genius. "If"--he always added--"if he is worth
+saving; which remains to be seen." Always, at the Taine home, they met
+James Rutlidge. Frequently the celebrated critic dropped in at the cottage
+in the orange grove.
+
+Under the skillful management of Rutlidge,--at the request of Mrs.
+Taine,--the newspapers were already busy with the name and work of Aaron
+King. True, the critic had never seen the artist's work; but,
+never-the-less, the papers and magazines throughout the country often
+mentioned the high order of the painter's genius. There were little
+stories of his study and success abroad; tactful references to his
+aristocratic family; entertaining accounts of his romantic life with the
+famous novelist in the orange groves of Fairlands, and of how, in his
+California studio among the roses, the distinguished painter was at work
+upon a portrait of the well-known social leader, Mrs. Taine--this being
+the first portrait ever painted of that famous beauty. That the picture
+would create a sensation at the exhibition, was the unanimous verdict of
+all who had been permitted to see the marvelous creation by this rare
+genius whose work was so little known in this country.
+
+Said Conrad Lagrange--"It is all so easy."
+
+Once or twice, the artist or his friend had seen the woman of the
+disfigured face; and the novelist still tried in vain to fix her in his
+memory. Every day, they heard, in the depths of the neighboring orange
+grove, the music of that unseen violin. They spoke, often, in playful
+mood, of the spirit that haunted the place; but they made no effort to
+solve the mystery of the carefully tended rose garden. They knew that
+whoever cared for the roses worked there only in the early morning hours;
+and they carefully avoided going into the yard back of the house until
+after breakfast. They felt that an investigation might rob them of the
+peculiar humor of their fancy--a fancy that was to them, both, such a
+pleasure; and gave to their home amid the orange-trees and roses such an
+added charm.
+
+But the other member of the trio of friends was not so reticent. Czar had
+formed an--to his most proper dogship--unusual habit. Frequently, when the
+three were sitting on the porch in the evening, he would rise suddenly
+from his place beside his master's chair, and walking sedately to the side
+of the porch facing that neighboring gable and chimney, would stand
+listening attentively; then, without so much as a "by-your-leave," he
+would leap to the ground, and vanish somewhere around the corner of the
+house. Later, he would come sedately back; greeting each, in turn, with
+that insistent thrust his soft muzzle against a knee; and assuring them,
+in the wordless speech of his expressive, brown eyes, that his mission had
+been a most proper one, and that they might trust him to make no foolish
+mistakes that would mar the peace and harmony of their little household.
+The men never failed to agree with him that it was all right. In fact, so
+fully did they trust him that they never even stepped to the corner of the
+porch to see where he went; nor would they leave their chairs until he had
+returned.
+
+Upon those days when Mrs. Taine came to the studio,--being always careful
+that Louise accompanied her as far as the house,--Conrad Lagrange
+vanished. The man swore by all the strange and wonderful gods he knew--and
+they were many--that he feared to spend an hour with that effervescing
+young female devotee of the Arts--lest the mountains in their wrath should
+fall upon him.
+
+But that day, when Mrs. Taine came for the last sitting, the
+novelist--engaged in interesting talk with the artist--forgot.
+
+"You are caught," cried the painter, gleefully, as the big automobile
+stopped at the gate.
+
+"I'll be damned if I am," retorted the novelist, with no profane intent
+but with meaning quite literal; and, seizing a book, he bolted through the
+kitchen--nearly upsetting the startled Yee Kee.
+
+"What's matte'," inquired the Chinaman, putting his head in at the
+living-room door; his almond eyes as wide as they could go, with an
+expression of celestial consternation that convulsed the artist. Catching
+sight of the automobile, his oriental features wrinkled into a yellow grin
+of understanding; "Oh! see um come! Ha! I know. He all time go, she come.
+He say no like lagtime gal. Dog Cza', him all time gone, too; him no like
+lagtime--all same Miste' Laglange. Ha! I go, too," and he, in turn,
+vanished.
+
+"You are early, to-day," said Aaron King, as he escorted Mrs. Taine to the
+studio.
+
+Just inside the door, she turned impulsively to face him--standing close,
+her beautifully groomed and voluptuous body instinct with the lure of her
+sex, her too perfect features slightly flushed, and her eyes submissively
+downcast. "And have you forgotten that this is the last time I can come?"
+she asked in a low tone.
+
+"Surely not"--he returned calmly--"you are coming to-morrow, with the
+others, aren't you?" Her husband with James Rutlidge and Louise Taine were
+invited for the next day, to view the portrait.
+
+"Oh, but that will be so different!" She loosed the wrap she wore, and
+threw it aside with an indescribable familiar gesture. "You don't realize
+what these hours have meant to me--how could you? You do not live in my
+world. Your world is--is so different You do not know--you do not know."
+With a sudden burst of passion, she added, "The world that I live in is
+hell; and this--this--oh, it has been heavenly!"
+
+Her words, her voice, the poise of her figure, the gesture with
+outstretched arms--it was all so nearly an invitation, so nearly a
+surrender of herself to him, that the man started forward impulsively.
+For the moment he forgot his work--he forgot everything--he was conscious
+only of the woman who stood before him. But even as the light of triumph
+blazed up in the woman's eyes, the man halted,--drew back; and his face
+was turned from her as he listened to the sweetly appealing message of the
+gentle spirit that made itself felt in the music of that hidden violin. It
+was as though, in truth, the mountains, themselves,--from their calm
+heights so remote from the little world wherein men live their baser
+tragedies,--watched over him. "Don't you think we had better proceed with
+our work?" he said calmly.
+
+The light in the woman's eyes changed to anger which she turned away to
+hide. Without replying, she went to her place and assumed the pose; and,
+as she had watched him day after day when his eyes were upon the canvas,
+she watched him now. Since that first day, when she had questioned him
+about the unseen musician, they had not mentioned the subject,
+although--as was inevitable under the circumstances--their intimacy had
+grown. But not once had he turned from his work in that listening
+attitude, or looked from the window as though half-expecting some one,
+without her noting it. And, always, her eyes had flashed with resentment,
+which she had promptly concealed when the painter, again turning to his
+easel, had looked from his canvas to her face.
+
+Scarcely was the artist well started in his work, that afternoon, when the
+music ceased. Presently, Mrs. Taine broke her watchful silence, with the
+quite casual remark; "Your musical neighbor is still unknown to you, I
+suppose?"
+
+"Yes,"--he answered smiling, as though more to himself than at her,--"we
+have never tried to make her acquaintance."
+
+The woman caught him up quickly; "To make _her_ acquaintance? Why do you
+say, '_her_,' if you do not know who it is?"
+
+The artist was confused. "Did I say, _her_?" he questioned, his face
+flushed with embarrassment. "It was a slip of the tongue. Neither Conrad
+Lagrange nor I know anything about our neighbor."
+
+She laughed ironically. "And you _could_ know so easily."
+
+"I suppose so; but we have never cared to. We prefer to accept the music
+as it comes to us--impersonally--for what it is--not for whoever makes
+it." He spoke coldly, as though the subject was distasteful to him, under
+the circumstances of the moment.
+
+But the woman persisted. "Well, _I_ know who it is. Shall I tell you?"
+
+"No. I do not care to know. I am not interested in the musician."
+
+"Oh, but you might be, you know," she retorted.
+
+"Please take the pose," returned Aaron King professionally. Mrs. Taine,
+wisely, for the time, dropped the subject; contenting herself with a
+meaning laugh.
+
+The artist silently gave all his attention to the nearly finished
+portrait. He was not painting, now, with full brush and swift sure
+strokes,--as had been his way when building up his picture,--but worked
+with occasional deft touches here and there; drawing back from the canvas
+often, to study it intently, his eyes glancing swiftly from the picture to
+the sitter's face and back again to the portrait; then stepping forward
+quickly, ready brush in hand; to withdraw an instant later for another
+long and searching study. Presently, with an air of relief, he laid aside
+his palette and brushes; and turning to Mrs. Taine, with a smile, held out
+his hand. "Come," he said, "tell me if I have done well or ill."
+
+"It is finished?" she cried. "I may see it?"
+
+"It is all that I can do"--he answered--"come." He led her to the easel,
+where they stood side by side before his work.
+
+The picture, still fresh from the painter's brush, was a portrait of Mrs.
+Taine--yet not a portrait. Exquisite in coloring and in its harmony of
+tone and line, it betrayed in every careful detail--in every mark of the
+brush--the thoughtful, painstaking care--the thorough knowledge and highly
+trained skill of an artist who was, at least, master of his own technic.
+But--if one might say so--the painting was more a picture than a portrait.
+The face upon the canvas was the face of Mrs. Taine, indeed, in that the
+features were her features; but it was also the face of a sweetly modest
+Quaker Maid. The too perfect, too well cared for face of the beautiful
+woman of the world was, on the canvas, given the charm of a natural
+unconscious loveliness. The eyes that had watched the artist with such
+certain knowledge of life and with the boldness born of that knowledge
+were, in the picture, beautiful with the charm of innocent maidenhood.
+The very coloring and the arrangement of the hair were changed subtly to
+express, not the skill of high-priced beauty-doctors and of fashionable
+hair-dressers, but the instinctive care of womanliness. The costume that,
+when worn by the woman, expressed so fully her true character; in the
+picture, became the emblem of a pure and deeply religious spirit.
+
+Mrs. Taine turned impulsively to the artist, and, placing her hand upon
+his arm, exclaimed in delight, "Oh, is it true? Am I really so beautiful?"
+
+The artist laughed. "You like it?"
+
+"Like it? How could I help liking it? It is lovely."
+
+"I am glad," he returned. "I hoped it would please you."
+
+"And you"--she asked, with eager eyes--"are you satisfied with it? Does it
+seem good to you?"
+
+"Oh, as for that," he answered, "I suppose one is never satisfied. I know
+the work is good--in a way. But it is very far from what it should be, I
+fear. I feel that, after all, I have not made the most of my opportunity."
+He spoke with a shade of sadness.
+
+Again, she put out her hand impulsively to touch his arm, as she answered
+eagerly, "Ah, but no one else will say that. No one else will dare. It
+will be the sensation of the year--I tell you. Just you wait until Jim
+Rutlidge sees it. Wait until it is hung for exhibition, and he tells the
+world about it. Everybody worth while will be coming to you then. And I--I
+will remember these hours with you, and be glad that I could help--even
+so little. Will you remember them, too, I wonder. Are you glad the picture
+is finished?"
+
+"And are you not glad?" he returned meaningly.
+
+They had both forgotten the painting before them. They did not see it.
+They each saw only the other.
+
+"No, I am not glad," she said in a low tone. "People would very soon be
+talking if I should come here, alone--now that the picture is finished."
+
+"I suppose in any case you will be leaving Fairlands soon, for the
+summer," he returned slowly.
+
+"O listen,"--she cried with quick eagerness--"we are going to Lake
+Silence. What's to hinder your coming too? Everybody goes there, you know.
+Won't you come?"
+
+"But would it be altogether safe?" He reflected doubtfully.
+
+"Why, of course,--Mr. Taine, Louise, and Jim,--we are all going
+together--don't you see? I don't believe you want to go," she pouted. "I
+believe you want to forget."
+
+Her alluring manner, the invitation conveyed in her words and voice, the
+touch of her hand on his arm, and the nearness of her person, fairly swept
+the man off his feet. With quick passion, he caught her hand, and his
+words came with reckless heat. "You know that I will not forget you. You
+know that I could not, if I would. Do you think that I have been so
+engrossed with my brushes and canvas that I have been unconscious of you?
+What is that painted thing beside your own beautiful self? Do you think
+that because I must turn myself into a machine to make a photograph of
+your beauty, I am insensible to its charm? I am not a machine. I am a man;
+as you are a woman; and I--"
+
+She checked him suddenly--stepping aside with a quick movement, and the
+words, "Hush, some one is coming."
+
+The artist, too, heard voices, just without the door.
+
+Mrs. Taine moved swiftly across the room toward her wrap. Aaron King,
+going to his easel, drew the velvet curtain to hide the picture.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter IX
+
+Conrad Lagrange's Adventure
+
+
+
+Certainly, when Conrad Lagrange fled so precipitately from Louise Taine,
+that afternoon, he had no thought that the trivial incident was to mark
+the beginning of a new era in his life; or that it would work out in the
+life of his dearest friend such far reaching results. His only purpose was
+to escape an hour of the frothy vaporings of the poor, young creature who
+believed herself so interested in art and letters, and who succeeded so
+admirably in expressing the spirit of her environment and training.
+
+With his pipe and book, the novelist hid himself in the rose garden;
+finding a seat on the ground, in an angle of the studio wall and the
+Ragged Robin hedge, where any one entering the enclosure would be least
+likely to observe him. Czar, heartily approving of his master's action,
+stretched himself comfortably under the nearest rose-bush, and waited
+further developments.
+
+Presently, the novelist heard his friend, with Mrs. Taine, come from the
+house and enter the studio. For a moment, he entertained the uncomfortable
+fear that the artist, in a spirit of sheer boyish fun that so often moved
+him, would bring Mrs. Taine to the garden. But the moment passed, and the
+novelist,--mentally blessing the young man for his forbearance,--with a
+chuckle of satisfaction, lighted his pipe and opened his book. Scarcely
+had he found his place in the pages, however, when he was again
+interrupted--this time, by the welcome tones of their neighbor's violin.
+Putting his book aside, the man reclining in the shelter of the roses,
+with half-closed eyes, yielded himself to the fancy of the spirit that
+called from the depths of the fragrant orange grove.
+
+The mass of roses in the hedge and on the wall of the studio above his
+head dropped their lovely petals down upon him. The warm, slanting rays of
+the afternoon sun, softened by the screen of shining leaves and branches,
+played over the bewildering riot of color. Here and there, golden-bodied
+bees and velvet-winged butterflies flitted about their fairy-like duties.
+Far above, in the deep blue, a hawk floated on motionless wings and a
+lonely crow laid his course toward the distant mountain peaks that
+gleamed, silvery white, above the blue and purple of the lower ridges and
+the tawny yellow of their foothills. The air was saturated with the
+fragrance of the rose and orange blossoms, of eucalyptus and pepper trees,
+and with the thousand other perfumes of a California spring.
+
+The music ceased. The man waited--hoping that it would begin again. But it
+did not; and he was about to take up his book, once more, when Czar arose,
+stretched himself, stood for a moment in a picturesque, listening
+attitude, then trotted off among the roses; leaving the novelist with an
+odd feeling of uneasy expectancy--half resolved to stay, half determined
+to go. The thought of Louise in the house decided him, and he kept his
+place, hidden as he was, in the corner--a whimsical smile hovering over
+his world-lined features as though, after all, he felt himself entering
+upon some enjoyable adventure.
+
+Presently, he heard indistinctly, somewhere in the other end of the
+garden, a low murmuring voice. As it came nearer, the man's smile grew
+more pronounced It was a wonderfully attractive voice, clear and full in
+its pure-toned sweetness. The unseen speaker was talking to the novelist's
+dog. The smile on the man's face was still more pronounced, as he
+whispered to himself, "The rascal! So this is what he has been up to!"
+Rising quietly to his knees, he peered through the flower-laden bushes.
+
+A young woman of rare and exquisite beauty was moving about the
+garden--bending over the roses, and talking in low tones to Czar, who--to
+his hidden master--appeared to appreciate fully the favor of his gentle
+companion's intimacy. The novelist--old in the study of character and
+trained by his long years of observation and experience in the world of
+artificiality--was fascinated by the loveliness of the scene.
+
+Dressed simply, in some soft clinging material of white, with a modestly
+low-cut square at the throat, and sleeves that ended in filmy lace just
+below the elbow--her lithe, softly rounded form, as she moved here and
+there, had all the charm of girlish grace with the fuller beauty of
+ripening womanhood. As she bent over the roses, or stooped to caress the
+dog, in gentle comradeship, her step, her poise, her every motion, was
+instinct with that strength and health that is seldom seen among those who
+wear the shackles of a too conventionalized society. Her face,--warmly
+tinted by the golden out-of-doors, firm fleshed and clear,--in its
+unconscious naturalness and in its winsome purity was like the flowers she
+stooped to kiss.
+
+As he watched, the man noticed--with a smile of understanding--that she
+kept rather to the side of the garden toward the house; where the artist,
+at his easel by the big, north light, could not see her through the small
+window in the end of the room; and where, hidden by the tall hedge, she
+would not be noticed from Yee Kee's kitchen. Often, too, she paused to
+listen, as if for any chance approaching step--appearing, to the fancy of
+the man, as some creature from another world--poised lightly, ready to
+vanish if any rude observer came too near. Soon,--after a cautious,
+hesitating, listening look about,--she slipped, swift footed as a fawn,
+across the garden, and--followed by the dog--disappeared into the latticed
+rose-covered arbor against the southern wall.
+
+With a chuckle to himself, Conrad Lagrange crept quietly along the hedge
+to the door of her retreat.
+
+When she saw him there, she gave a little cry and started as though to
+escape. But the novelist, smiling barred her way; while Czar, joyfully
+greeting his master, turned from the man to the girl and back to the man
+again, as if, by dividing his attention equally between the two, he was
+bent upon assuring each that the other was a friend of the right sort.
+There was no mistaking the facts that the dog was introducing them, and
+that he was as proud of his new acquaintance as he was pleased to present
+his older and more intimate companion.
+
+A sunny smile broke over the girl's winsome face, as she caught the
+meaning of Czar's behavior. "O," she said, "are you his master?" Her
+manner was as natural and unrestrained as a child's--her voice, musically
+sweet and low, as one unaccustomed to the speech of noisy, crowded cities
+or shrill chattering crowds.
+
+"I am his most faithful and humble subject," returned the man,
+whimsically.
+
+She was studying his face openly, while her own countenance--unschooled to
+hide emotions, untrained to deceive--frankly betrayed each passing thought
+and mood. The daintily turned chin, sensitive lips, delicate nostrils, and
+large, blue eyes,--with that wide, unafraid look of a child that has never
+been taught to fear,--revealed a spirit fine and rare; while the low,
+broad forehead, shaded by a wealth of soft brown hair,--that, arranged
+deftly in some simple fashion, seemed to invite the caress of every
+wayward breath of air,--gave the added charm of strength and purpose. The
+man, seeing these things and knowing--as few men ever know--their value,
+waited her verdict.
+
+It came with a smile and a pretty fancy, as though she caught the mood of
+the novelist's reply. "He has told me so much about you--how kind you are
+to him, and how he loves you. I hope you don't mind that he and I have
+learned to be good friends. Won't you tell me his name? I have tried
+everything, but nothing seems to fit. To call such a royal fellow,
+'doggie', doesn't do at all, does it?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange laughed--and it was the laugh of a Conrad Lagrange unknown
+to the world. "No," he said with mock seriousness, "'doggie,' doesn't do
+at all. He's not that kind of a dog. His name is Czar. That is"--he added,
+giving full rein to his droll humor--"I gave it to him for a name. He has
+made it his title. He did that, you know, so I would always remember that
+he is my superior."
+
+She laughed--low, full-throated and clear--as a girl who has not sadly
+learned that she is a woman, laughs. Then she fell to caressing the dog
+and calling him by name; while Czar--in his efforts to express his delight
+and satisfaction--was as nearly undignified as it was possible for him to
+be.
+
+As he watched them, the rugged, world-worn features of the famous novelist
+were lighted with an expression that transformed them.
+
+"And I suppose," she said,--still responding to the novelist's playful
+mood,--"that Czar told you I was trespassing in your garden. Of course it
+was his duty to tell. I hope he told you, also, that I do not steal your
+roses."
+
+The man shook his head, and his sharp, green-gray eyes were twinkling
+merrily, now--as a boy in the spirit of some amusing venture. "Oh, no!
+Czar said nothing at all about trespassers. He did tell me, though, about
+a wonderful creature that comes every day to visit the garden. A nymph, he
+thought it was--a beautiful Oread from away up there among the silver
+peaks and purple canyons--or, perhaps, a lovely Dryad from among the oaks
+and pines. I felt quite sure, though, that the nymph must be an Oread;
+because he said that she comes to gather colors from the roses, and that
+every morning and every evening she uses these colors to tint the highest
+peaks and crests of her mountains--making them so beautiful that mortals
+would always begin and end each day by looking up at them. Of course, the
+moment I saw, you I knew who you were."
+
+Unaffectedly pleased as a child at his quaint fancy, she answered merrily,
+"And so you hid among the roses to trap me, I suppose."
+
+"Indeed, I did not," he retorted indignantly. "I was forced to fly from a
+wicked Flibbertigibbet who seeks to torment me. I barely escaped with my
+life, and came into the garden to hide and recover from my fright. Then I
+heard the most wonderful music and guessed that you must be somewhere
+around. Then Czar, who had come with me to hide from the Flibbertigibbet
+in the house, left me. I looked to see where he had gone, and so I saw,
+sure enough, that it was you. All my life, you know, I have wanted to
+catch a real nymph; but never could. So when you came into the arbor, I
+couldn't resist trying again. And, now, here we are--with Czar to say it
+is all right."
+
+At his fanciful words, she laughed again, and her cheeks flushed with
+pleasure. Then, with grave sweetness, she said, "Won't you sit down,
+please, and let me explain seriously?"
+
+"I suppose you must pretend to be like the rest of us," he returned with
+an air of resignation, "but all the same, Czar and I know you are not."
+
+When they were seated, she said simply, "My name is Sibyl Andres. This
+place used to be my home. My mother planted this garden with her own
+hands. Many of these roses were brought from our home in the mountains,
+where I was born, and where I lived with father and mother until five
+years ago. I feel, still, as though the old place in the hills were my
+real home, and every summer, when nearly every one goes away from
+Fairlands and there is nothing for me to do, Myra Willard and I go up
+there, for as long as we can. You see, I teach music and play in the
+churches. Miss Willard taught me. She and mother are the only teachers I
+have ever had. After father's death, mother and Myra and I lived here for
+two years; then mother died, and Myra and I moved to that little house
+over there, because we could not afford to keep this place. But the man
+who bought it gave me permission to care for the garden; so I come almost
+every day--through that little gate in the corner of the hedge, there--to
+tend the roses. Since you men moved in, though, I come, mostly, in the
+morning--early--before you are up. I only slip in, sometimes, for a few
+minutes, in the afternoon--when I think it will be safe. You see, being
+strangers, I--I feared you would think me bold--if I--if I asked to come.
+So many people really wouldn't understand, you know."
+
+Conrad Lagrange's deep voice was very gentle as he said, "Mr. King and I
+have known, all the time, that we had no real claim upon this garden,
+Miss Andres." Then, with his whimsical smile, he added, "You see, we felt,
+from the very first, that it was haunted by a lovely spirit that would
+vanish utterly if we intruded. That is why we have been so careful. We did
+not want to frighten you away. And besides, you know, Czar told us that it
+was all right!"
+
+The blue eyes shone through a bright mist as she answered the man's kindly
+words. "You _are_ good, Mr. Lagrange. And all the time it was really _you_
+of whom I was so afraid."
+
+"Why me, more than my friend?" he asked, regarding her thoughtfully.
+
+She colored a little under his searching gaze, but answered with that
+childlike frankness that was so much a part of her winsome charm, "Why,
+because your friend is an _artist_--I thought _he_ would be sure to
+understand. I knew, of course, that you were the famous author; everybody
+talks about your living here." She seemed to think that her words
+explained.
+
+"You mean that you were afraid of me because I am famous?" he asked
+doubtfully.
+
+"Oh no," she answered, "not because you are famous. I mean--I was not
+afraid of your _fame_," she smiled.
+
+"And now," said the novelist decisively, "you must tell me at once--do you
+read my books?" He waited, as though much depended upon her answer.
+
+The blue eyes were gazing at him with that wide, unafraid look as she
+answered sadly, "No, sir. I have tried, but I can't. They spoil my music.
+They hurt me, somehow, all over."
+
+Conrad Lagrange received her words with mingled emotions--with pleased
+delight at her ingenuous frankness; with bitter shame, sorrow, and
+humiliation and, at the last, with genuine gladness and relief. "I knew
+it"--he said triumphantly--"I knew it. It was because of my books that you
+were so afraid of me?" He asked eagerly, as one would ask to have a deep
+conviction verified.
+
+"You see," she said,--smiling at the manner of his words,--"I did not know
+that an author _could_ be so different from the things he writes about."
+Then, with a puzzled air--"But why do you write the horrid things that
+spoil my music and make me afraid? Why don't you write as you
+talk--about--about the mountains? Why don't you make books
+like--like"--she seemed to be searching for a word, and smiled with
+pleasure when she found it--"like yourself?"
+
+"Listen"--said the novelist impressively, taking refuge in his fanciful
+humor--"listen--I'll tell you a secret that must always be for just you
+and me--you like secrets don't you?"--anxiously.
+
+She laughed with pleasure--responding instantly to his mood. "Of course I
+like secrets."
+
+He nodded approval. "I was sure you did. Now listen--I am not really
+Conrad Lagrange, the man who wrote those books that hurt you so--not when
+I am here in your rose garden, or when I am listening to your music, or
+when I am away up there in your mountains, you know. It is only when I am
+in the unclean world that reads and likes my books that I am the man who
+wrote them."
+
+Her eyes shone with quick understanding. "Of course," she agreed, "you
+_couldn't_ be _that_ kind of a man, and love the music, and like to be
+here among the roses or up in the mountains, could you?"
+
+"No, and I'll tell you something else that goes with our secret. Your name
+is not really Sibyl Andres, you know--any more than you really live over
+there in that little house. Your real home is in the mountains--just as
+you said--you _really_ live among the glowing peaks, under the dark pines,
+on the ridges, and in the purple shadows of the canyons. You only come
+down here to the Fairlands folk with a message from your mountains--and
+_we_ call your message music. Your name is--"
+
+She was leaning forward, her face glowing with eagerness. "What is my
+name?"
+
+"What can it be but 'Nature'," he said softly. "That's it, 'Nature'."
+
+"And you? Who are you when you are not--when you are not in that other
+world?"
+
+"Me? Oh, my real name is 'Civilization'. Can't you guess why?"
+
+She shook her head. "Tell me."
+
+"Because,--in spite of all that the world that reads my books can
+give,--poor old 'Civilization' cannot be happy without the message that
+'Nature' brings from her mountains."
+
+"And you, too, love the mountains and--and this garden, and my music?" she
+asked half doubtingly. "You are not pretending that too--just to amuse
+me?"
+
+"No, I am not pretending that," he said.
+
+"Then why--how can you do the--the other thing? I can't understand."
+
+"Of course, you can't understand--how could you? You are 'Nature' and
+'Nature' must often be puzzled by the things that 'Civilization' does."
+
+"Yes. I think that is true," she agreed. "But I'm glad you like my music,
+anyway."
+
+"And so am I glad--that I _can_ like it. That's the only thing that saves
+me."
+
+"And your friend, the artist,--does he like my mountain music, do you
+think?"
+
+"Very much. He needs it too."
+
+"I am glad," she answered simply. "I hoped he would like it, and that it
+would help him. It was really for him that I have played."
+
+"You played for him?"
+
+"Yes," she returned without confusion. "You see, I did not know about
+you--then. I thought you were altogether the man who wrote those
+books--and so I _could_ not play for you. That is--I mean--you
+understand--I could not play--" again she seemed to search for a word, and
+finding it, smiled--"I could not play _myself_ for you. But I thought that
+because he was an _artist_ he would understand; and that if I _could_ make
+the music tell him of the mountains it would, perhaps, help him a little
+to make his work beautiful and right--do you see?"
+
+"Yes," he answered smilingly, "I see. I might have known that it was for
+_him_ that you brought your message from the hills. But poor old
+'Civilization' is frightfully stupid sometimes, you know."
+
+Laughingly, she turned to the lattice wall of the arbor, and parting the
+screen of vines a little, said to him, "Look here!"
+
+Standing beside her, Conrad Lagrange, through the window in the end of the
+studio next the garden, saw Aaron King at his easel; the artist's position
+in the light of the big, north window being in a direct line between the
+two openings and the arbor. Mrs. Taine was sitting too far out of line to
+be seen.
+
+The girl laughed gleefully. "Do you see him at his work? At first, I only
+hid here to find what kind of people were going to live in my old home.
+But when he was making our old barn into a studio, and I heard who you
+both were, I came because I love to watch him; as I try to make the music
+I think he would love to hear."
+
+The novelist studied her intently. She was so artless--so unaffected by
+the conventions of the world--in a word, so natural in expressing her
+thoughts, that the man who had given the best years of his life to feed
+the vicious, grossly sensual and bestial imaginations of his readers was
+deeply moved. He was puzzled what to say. At last, he murmured haltingly,
+"You like the artist, then?"
+
+Her eyes were full of curious laughter as she answered, "Why, what a funny
+question--when I have never even talked with him. How _could_ I like any
+one I have never known?"
+
+"But you make your music for him; and you come here to watch him?"
+
+"Oh, but that is for the work he is doing; that is for his pictures." She
+turned to look through the tiny opening in the arbor. "How I wish I could
+see inside that beautiful room. I know it must be beautiful. Once, when
+you were all gone, I tried to steal in; but, of course, he keeps it
+locked."
+
+"I'll tell you what we'll do," said the man, suddenly--prompted by her
+confession to resume his playful mood.
+
+"What?" she asked eagerly, in a like spirit of fun.
+
+"First," he answered, half teasingly, "I must know if you could, now, make
+your music for me as well as for him."
+
+"For the you that loves the mountains and the garden I'm sure I could,"
+she answered promptly.
+
+"Well then, if you will promise to do that--if you will promise not to
+play _yourself_ for just him alone but for me too--I'll fix it so that you
+can go into the studio yonder."
+
+"Oh, I will always play for you, too, anyway--now that I know you."
+
+"Of course," he said, "we could just walk up to the door, and I could
+introduce you; but that would not be proper for _us_ would it?"
+
+She shook her head positively, "I wouldn't like to do that. He would think
+I was intruding, I am sure."
+
+"Well then, we will do it this way--the first day that Mr. King and I are
+both away, and Tee Kee is gone, too; I'll slip out here and leave a letter
+and a key on your gate. The letter will tell you just the time when we go,
+and when we will return--so you will know whether it is safe for you or
+not, and how long you can stay. Only"--he became very serious--"only, you
+must promise one thing."
+
+"What?"
+
+"That you won't look at the picture on the easel."
+
+"But why must I promise that?"
+
+"Because that picture will not be finished for a long time yet, and you
+must not look at it until I say it is ready. Mr. King wouldn't like you to
+see that picture, I am sure. In fact, he doesn't like for any one to see
+the picture he is working on just now."
+
+"How funny," she said, with a puzzled look. "What is he painting it for? I
+like for people to hear my music."
+
+The man answered before he thought--"But I don't like people to read my
+books."
+
+She shrank back, with troubled eyes, "Oh! is he--is he _that_ kind of an
+artist?"
+
+"No, no, no!" exclaimed the novelist, hastily. "You must not think that. I
+did not mean you to think that. If he was _that_ kind of an artist, I
+wouldn't let you go into the studio at all. Mr. King is a good man--the
+best man I have ever known. He is my friend because he knows the secret
+about me that you know. He does not read my books. He would not read one
+of them for anything. It is only that this picture is not finished. When
+it is finished, he will not care who sees it."
+
+"I'm glad," she said. "You frightened me, for a minute--I understand,
+now."
+
+"And you promise not to look at the picture on the easel?"
+
+She nodded,--"Of course. And when I come out I'll lock the door and put
+the key back on the gate again; and no one but you and I will ever know."
+
+"No one but you and I will know," he answered.
+
+As he spoke, Czar, who had been lying quietly in the doorway of the arbor,
+rose quickly to his feet, with a low growl.
+
+The girl, peering through the screen on the side toward the house, uttered
+an exclamation of fear and drew back, turning to her companion
+appealingly. "O please, please don't let that man find me here."
+
+Conrad Lagrauge looked and saw James Rutlidge coming down the path toward
+the arched entrance to the garden, which was directly across from the
+arbor.
+
+"Stop him, please stop him," whispered the girl, her hand upon his arm.
+
+"Stay here until I get him out of sight," said the novelist quickly. "I
+won't let him come into the garden. When we are gone, you can make your
+escape. Don't forget the music for me, and the key at the gate."
+
+He spoke to Czar, and with the dog obediently at heel went forward to meet
+Mr. Rutlidge, who had called for Mrs. Taine and Louise.
+
+But all the while that Conrad Lagrange was talking to the man, and leading
+him toward the door of the studio, he was wondering--why that look of fear
+upon the face of the girl in the garden? What had Sibyl Andres to do with
+James Rutlidge?
+
+
+
+
+Chapter X
+
+A Cry in the Night
+
+
+
+As Conrad Lagrange and Mr. Rutlidge entered the studio, Aaron King turned
+from the easel, where he had drawn the velvet curtain to hide the finished
+portrait. Mrs. Taine was standing at the other side of the room, wrap in
+hand, calmly waiting, ready to go. The artist greeted Mr. Rutlidge
+cordially, while the woman triumphantly announced the completion of her
+portrait.
+
+"Ah! permit me to congratulate you, old man," said Rutlidge, addressing
+the artist familiarly. "It is too much, I suppose, to expect a look at it
+this afternoon?"
+
+"Thanks,"--returned the artist,--"you are all coming to-morrow, at three,
+you know. I would rather not show it to-day. It is a little late for the
+best light; and I would like for _you_ to see it under the most favorable
+conditions possible."
+
+The critic was visibly flattered by the painter's manner and by his
+well-chosen emphasis upon the personal pronoun. "Quite right"--he said
+approvingly--"quite right, old boy." He turned to the novelist--"These
+painter chaps, you know, Lagrange, like to have a few hours for a last
+touch or two before _I_ come around." He laughed pompously at his own
+words--the others joining.
+
+When Mrs. Taine and her companions were gone, the artist said hurriedly
+to his friend, "Come on, let's get it over." He led the way back to the
+studio.
+
+"I thought the light was too bad," said the older man, quizzingly, as they
+entered the big room.
+
+"It's good enough for _your_ needs," retorted the painter savagely. "You
+could see all you want by candle-light." He jerked the curtain angrily
+aside, and--without a glance at the canvas--walked away to stand at the
+window looking out upon the rose garden--waiting for the flood of the
+novelist's scorn to overwhelm him. At last, when no sound broke the quiet
+of the room, he turned--to find himself alone.
+
+Conrad Lagrange, after one look at the portrait on the easel, had slipped
+quietly out of the building.
+
+The artist found his friend, a few minutes later, meditatively smoking his
+pipe on the front porch, with Czar lying at his feet.
+
+"Well," said the painter, curiously,--anxious, as he had said, to have it
+over,--"why the deuce don't you _say_ something?"
+
+The novelist answered slowly, "My vocabulary is too limited, for one
+reason, and"--he looked thoughtfully down at Czar--"I prefer to wait until
+you have finished the portrait."
+
+"It _is_ finished," returned the artist desperately. "I swear I'll never
+touch a brush to the damned thing again."
+
+The man with the pipe spoke to the dog at his feet; "Listen to him,
+Czar--listen to the poor devil of a painter-man."
+
+The dog arose, and, placing his head upon his master's knee, looked up
+into the lined and rugged face, as the novelist continued, "If he was only
+a wee bit puffed up and cocky over the thing, now, we could exert
+ourselves, so we could, couldn't we?" Czar slowly waved a feathery tail in
+dignified approval. His master continued, "But when a fellow can do a
+crime like that, and still retain enough virtue in his heart to hear his
+work shrieking to heaven its curses upon him for calling it into
+existence, it's best for outsiders to keep quite still. Your poor old
+master knows whereof he speaks, doesn't he, dog? That he does!"
+
+"And is that all you have to say on the subject?" demanded the artist, as
+though for some reason he was disappointed at his friend's reticence.
+
+"I _might_ add a word of advice," said the other.
+
+"Well, what is it?"
+
+"That you pray your gods--if you have any--to be merciful, and bestow upon
+you either less genius or more intelligence to appreciate it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At three o'clock, the following afternoon, the little party from Fairlands
+Heights came to view, the portrait Or,--as Conrad Lagrange said, while the
+automobile was approaching the house, "Well, here they come--'The Age',
+accompanied by 'Materialism', 'Sensual', and 'Ragtime'--to look upon the
+prostitution of Art, and call it good." Escorted by the artist, and the
+novelist, they went at once to the studio.
+
+The appreciation of the picture was instantaneous--so instantaneous, in
+fact, that Louise Taine's lips were shaped to deliver an expressive "oh"
+of admiration, even _before_ the portrait was revealed. As though the
+painter, in drawing back the easel curtain, gave an appointed signal, that
+"oh" was set off with the suddenness of a sky-rocket's rush, and was
+accompanied in its flight by a great volume of sizzling, sputtering,
+glittering, adjectival sparks that--filling the air to no purpose
+whatever--winked out as they were born; the climax of the pyrotechnical
+display being reached in the explosive pop of another "oh" which released
+a brilliant shower of variegated sighs and moans and ecstatic looks and
+inarticulate exclamations--ending, of course, in total darkness.
+
+Mrs. Taine hastened to turn the artist's embarrassed attention to an
+appreciation that had the appearance, at least, of a more enduring value.
+Drawing, with affectionate solicitude, close to her husband, she
+asked,--in a voice that was tremulous with loving care and anxiety to
+please,--"Do you like it, dear?"
+
+"It is magnificent, splendid, perfect!" This effort to give his praise of
+the artist's work the appearance of substantial reality cost the wretched
+product of lust and luxury a fit of coughing that racked his burnt-out
+body almost to its last feeble hold upon the world of flesh and, with a
+force that shamed the strength of his words, drove home the truth that
+neither his praise nor his scorn could long endure. When he could again
+speak, he said, in his husky, rasping whisper,--while grasping the
+painter's hand in effusive cordiality,--"My dear fellow, I congratulate
+you. It is exquisite. It will create a sensation, sir, when it is
+exhibited. Your fame is assured. I must thank you for the honor you have
+done me in thus immortalizing the beauty and character of Mrs. Taine." And
+then, to his wife,--"Dearest, I am glad for you, and proud. It is as
+worthy of you as paint and canvas could be." He turned to Conrad Lagrange
+who was an interested observer of the scene--"Am I not right, Lagrange?"
+
+"Quite right, Mr. Taine,--quite right. As you say, the portrait is most
+worthy the beauty and character of the charming subject."
+
+Another paroxysm of coughing mercifully prevented the poor creature's
+reply.
+
+With one accord, the little group turned, now, to James Rutlidge--the
+dreaded authority and arbiter of artistic destinies. That distinguished
+expert, while the others were speaking, had been listening intently;
+ostensibly, the while, he examined the picture with a show of trained
+skill that, it seemed, could not fail to detect unerringly those more
+subtle values and defects that are popularly supposed to be hidden from
+the common eye. Silently, in breathless awe, they watched the process by
+which professional criticism finds its verdict. That is, they _thought_
+they were watching the process. In reality, the method is more subtle than
+they knew.
+
+While the great critic moved back and forth in front of the easel; drew
+away from or bent over to closely scrutinize the canvas; shifted the easel
+a hair breadth several times; sat down; stood erect; hummed and muttered
+to himself abstractedly; cleared his throat with an impressive "Ahem";
+squinted through nearly closed eyes, with his head thrown back, or turned
+in every side angle his fat neck would permit: peered through his
+half-closed fist; peeped through funnels of paper; sighted over and under
+his open hand or a paper held to shut out portions of the painting;--the
+others _thought_ they saw him expertly weighing the evidence for and
+against the merit of the work. In _reality_ it was his _ears_ and not his
+_eyes_ that helped the critic to his final decision--a decision which was
+delivered, at last, with a convincing air of ponderous finality. Indeed it
+was a judgment from which there could be no appeal, for it expressed
+exactly the views of those for whose benefit it was rendered. Then, in a
+manner subtly insinuating himself into the fellowship of the famous, he,
+too, turned to Conrad Lagrange with a scholarly; "Do you not agree, sir?"
+
+The novelist answered with slow impressiveness; "The picture, undoubtedly,
+fully merits the appreciation and praise you have given it. I have already
+congratulated Mr. King--who was kind enough to show me his work before you
+arrived."
+
+After this, Yee Kee appeared upon the scene, and tea was served in the
+studio--a fitting ceremony to the launching of another genius.
+
+"By the way, Mr. Lagrange," said Mrs. Taine, quite casually,--when, under
+the influence of the mildly stimulating beverage, the talk had assumed a
+more frivolous vein,--"Who is your talented neighbor that so charms Mr.
+King with the music of a violin?"
+
+The novelist, as he turned toward the speaker, shot a quick glance at the
+Artist. Nor did those keen, baffling eyes fail to note that, at the
+question, James Rutlidge had paused in the middle of a sentence. "That is
+one of the mysteries of our romantic surroundings madam," said Conrad
+Lagrange, easily.
+
+"And a very charming mystery it seems to be," returned the woman. "It has
+been quite affecting to watch its influence upon Mr. King."
+
+The artist laughed. "I admit that I found the music, in combination with
+the beauty I have so feebly tried to out upon canvas, very stimulating."
+
+A flash of angry color swept into the perfect cheeks of Mrs. Taine, as she
+retorted with meaning; "You are as flattering in your speech as you are
+with your brush. I assure you I do not consider myself in your unknown
+musician's class."
+
+The small eyes of James Rutlidge were fixed inquiringly upon the speakers,
+while his heavy face betrayed--to the watchful novelist--an interest he
+could not hide. "Is this music of such exceptional merit?" he asked with
+an attempt at indifference.
+
+Louise Taine--sensing that the performances of the unnamed violinist had
+been acceptable to Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King--the two representatives
+of the world to which she aspired--could not let the opportunity slip. She
+fairly deluged them with the spray of her admiring ejaculations in praise
+of the musician--employing, hit or miss, every musical term that popped
+into her vacuous head.
+
+"Indeed,"--said the critic,--"I seem to have missed a treat." Then,
+directly to the artist,--"And you say the violinist is wholly unknown to
+you?"
+
+"Wholly," returned the painter, shortly.
+
+Conrad Lagrange saw a faint smile of understanding and disbelief flit for
+an instant over the heavy face of James Rutlidge.
+
+When the automobile, at last, was departing with the artist's guests; the
+two friends stood for a moment watching it up the road to the west, toward
+town. As the big car moved away, they saw Mrs. Taine lean forward to speak
+to the chauffeur while James Rutlidge, who was in the front seat, turned
+and shook his head as though in protest. The woman appeared to insist. The
+machine slowed down, as though the chauffeur, in doubt, awaited the
+outcome of the discussion. Then, just in front of that neighboring house,
+Rutlidge seemed to yield abruptly, and the automobile turned suddenly in
+toward the curb and stopped. Mrs. Taine alighted, and disappeared in the
+depths of the orange grove.
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange looked at each other, for a moment, in
+questioning silence. The artist laughed. "Our poor little mystery," he
+said.
+
+But the novelist--as they went toward the house--cursed Mrs. Taine, James
+Rutlidge, and all their kin and kind, with a vehement earnestness that
+startled his companion--familiar as the latter was with his friend's
+peculiar talent in the art of vigorous expression.
+
+After dinner, that evening, the painter and the novelist sat on the
+porch--as their custom was--to watch the day go out of the sky and the
+night come over valley and hill and mountain until, above the highest
+peaks, the stars of God looked down upon the twinkling lights of the towns
+of men. At that hour, too, it was the custom, now, for the violinist
+hidden in the orange grove, to make the music they both so loved.
+
+In the music, that night, there was a feeling that, to them, was new--a
+vague, uncertain, halting undertone that was born, they felt, of fear. It
+stirred them to question and to wonder. Without apparent cause or reason,
+they each oddly connected the troubled tone in the music with the stopping
+of the automobile from Fairlands Heights, that afternoon, at the gate of
+the little house next door--the artist, because of Mrs. Taine's insistent
+inquiry about the, to him, unknown musician;--Conrad Lagrange, because of
+the manner of the girl in the garden when James Rutlidge appeared and
+because of the critic's interest when they had spoken of the violinist in
+the studio. But neither expressed his thought to the other.
+
+Presently, the music ceased, and they sat for an hour, perhaps, in
+silence--as close friends may do--exchanging only now and then a word.
+
+Suddenly, they were startled by a cry. In the still darkness of the night,
+from the mysterious depths of the orange grove, the sound came with such a
+shock that the two men, for the moment, held their places,
+motionless--questioning each other sharply--"What was that?" "Did you
+hear?"--as though they doubted, almost, their own ears.
+
+The cry came again; this time, undoubtedly, from that neighboring house to
+the west. It was unmistakably the cry of a woman--a woman in fear and
+pain.
+
+They leaped to their feet.
+
+Again the cry came from the black depths of the orange grove--shuddering,
+horrible--in an agony of fear.
+
+The two men sprang from the porch, and, through the darkness that in the
+orange grove was like a black wall, ran toward the spot from which the
+sound came--the dog at their heels.
+
+Breathless, they broke into the little yard in front of the tiny box-like
+house. Lights shone in the windows. All seemed peaceful and still. Czar
+betrayed no uneasiness. Going to the front door, they knocked.
+
+There was no answer save the sound of some one moving inside.
+
+Again, the artist knocked vigorously.
+
+The door opened, and a woman stood on the threshold.
+
+Standing a little to one side, the men saw her features clearly, in the
+light from the room. It was the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+Conrad Lagrange was first to command himself. "I beg your pardon, madam.
+We live in the house next door. We thought we heard a cry of distress. May
+we offer our assistance in any way? Is there anything we can do?"
+
+"Thank you, sir, you are very kind,"--returned the woman, in a low
+voice,--"but it is nothing. There is nothing you can do."
+
+And the voice of Sibyl Andres, who stood farther back in the room, where
+the artist from his position could not see her, added, "It was good of you
+to come, Mr. Lagrange; but it is really nothing. We are so sorry you were
+disturbed."
+
+"Not at all," returned the men, as the woman of the disfigured face drew
+back from the door. "Good night."
+
+"Good night," came from within the house, and the door was shut.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XI
+
+Go Look In Your Mirror, You Fool
+
+
+
+As the Taine automobile left Aaron King and his friend, that afternoon,
+Mrs. Taine spoke to the chauffeur; "You may stop a moment, at the next
+house, Henry."
+
+If she had fired a gun, James Rutlidge could not have turned with a more
+startled suddenness.
+
+"What in thunder do you want there?" he demanded shortly.
+
+"I want to stop," she returned calmly.
+
+"But I must get down town, at once," he protested. "I have already lost
+the best part of the afternoon."
+
+"Your business seems to have become important very suddenly," she
+observed, sarcastically.
+
+"I have something to do besides making calls with you," he retorted. "Go
+on, Henry."
+
+Mrs. Taine spoke sharply; "Really, Jim, you are going too far. Henry, turn
+in at the house." The machine moved toward the curb and stopped. As she
+stepped from the car, she added, "I will only be a minute, Jim."
+
+Rutlidge growled an inarticulate curse.
+
+"What deviltry do you suppose she is up to now," rasped Mr. Taine.
+
+Which brought from his daughter the usual protest,--"O, papa, don't,"
+
+As Mrs. Taine approached the house, Sibyl Andres--busy among the flowers
+that bordered the walk--heard the woman's step, and stood quietly waiting
+her. Mrs. Taine's face was perfect in its expression of cordial interest,
+with just enough--but not too much--of a conscious, well-bred superiority.
+The girl's countenance was lighted by an expression of childlike surprise
+and wonder. What had brought this well-known leader in the social world
+from Fairlands Heights to the poor, little house in the orange grove, so
+far down the hill?
+
+"Good afternoon," said the caller. "You are Miss Andres, are you not?"
+
+"Yes," returned the girl, with a smile. "Won't you come in? I will call
+Miss Willard."
+
+"Oh, thank you, no. I have only a moment. My friends are waiting. I am
+Mrs. Taine."
+
+"Yes, I know. I have often seen you passing."
+
+The other turned abruptly. "What beautiful flowers."
+
+"Aren't they lovely," agreed Sibyl, with frank pleasure at the visitor's
+appreciation. "Let me give you a bunch." Swiftly she gathered a generous
+armful.
+
+Mrs. Taine protested, but the girl presented her offering with such grace
+and winsomeness that the other could not refuse. As she received the gift,
+the perfect features of the woman of the world were colored by a blush
+that even she could not control. "I understand, Miss Andres," she said,
+"that you are an accomplished violinist."
+
+"I teach and play in Park Church," was the simple answer.
+
+"I have never happened to hear you, myself,"--said Mrs. Taine
+smoothly,--"but my friends who live next door--Mr. Lagrange and Mr.
+King--have told me about you."
+
+"Oh!" The girl's voice was vaguely troubled, while the other, watching,
+saw the blush that colored her warmly tinted cheeks.
+
+"It is good of you to play for them," continued the woman from Fairlands
+Heights, casually. "You must enjoy the society of such famous men, very
+much. There are a great many people, you know, who would envy you your
+friendship with them."
+
+The girl replied quickly, "O, but you are mistaken. I am not acquainted
+with them, at all; that is--not with Mr. King--I have never spoken to
+him--and I only met Mr. Lagrange, for a few minutes, by accident."
+
+"Indeed! But I am forgetting the purpose of my call, and my friends will
+become impatient. Do you ever play for private entertainments, Miss
+Andres?--for--say a dinner, or a reception, you know?"
+
+"I would be very glad for such an engagement, Mrs. Taine. I must earn what
+I can with my music, and there are not enough pupils to occupy all my
+time. But perhaps you should hear me play, first. I will get my violin."
+
+Mrs. Taine checked her, "Oh, no, indeed. It is quite unnecessary, my
+dear. The opinion of your distinguished neighbors is quite enough. I shall
+keep you in mind for some future occasion. I just wished to learn if you
+would accept such an engagement. Good-by. Thanks--so much--for your
+flowers."
+
+She was upon the point of turning away, when a low cry from the nearby
+porch startled them both. Turning, they saw the woman with the disfigured
+face, standing in the doorway; an expression of mingled wonder, love, and
+supplication upon her hideously marred features. As they looked, she
+started toward them,--impulsively stretching out her arms, as though the
+gesture was an involuntary expression of some deep emotion,--then checked
+herself, suddenly as though in doubt.
+
+Sibyl Andres uttered an exclamation. "Why, Myra! what is it, dear?"
+
+Mrs. Taine turned away with a gesture of horror, saying to the girl in a
+low, hurried voice, "Dear me, how dreadful! I really must be going."
+
+As she went down the flower-bordered path towards the street, the woman on
+the porch, again, stretched out her arms appealingly. Then, as Sibyl
+reached her side, the poor creature clasped the girl in a close embrace,
+and burst into bitter tears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Upon the return of the Taines and James Rutlidge to the house on Fairlands
+Heights, Mrs. Taine retired immediately to her own luxuriously appointed
+apartments.
+
+At dinner, a maid brought to the household word that her mistress was
+suffering from a severe headache and would not be down and begged that she
+might not be disturbed during the evening.
+
+Alone in her room, Mrs. Taine--her headache being wholly
+conventional--gave herself unreservedly to the thoughts that she could
+not, under the eyes of others, entertain without restraint. She was seated
+at a window that looked down upon the carefully graded levels of the
+envying Fairlanders and across the wide sweep of the valley below to the
+mountains which, from that lofty point of vantage, could be seen from the
+base of their lowest foothills to the crests of their highest peaks. But
+the woman who lived on the Heights of Fairlands saw neither the homes of
+their neighbors, the busy valley below, nor the mountains that lifted so
+far above them all. Her thoughts were centered upon what, to her, was more
+than these.
+
+When night was gathering over the scene, her maid entered softly. Mrs.
+Taine dismissed the woman with a word, telling her not to return until she
+rang. Leaving the window, after drawing the shades close, she paced the
+now lighted room, in troubled uneasiness of mind. Here and there, she
+paused to touch or handle some familiar object--a photograph in a silver
+frame, a book on the carved table, the trifles on her open desk, or an
+ornamental vase on the mantle--then moved restlessly away to continue her
+aimless exercise. When the silence was rudely broken by the sound of a
+knock at her door, she stood still--a look of anger marring the
+well-schooled beauty of her features.
+
+The knock was repeated.
+
+With an exclamation of impatient annoyance, she crossed the room, and
+flung open the door.
+
+Without leave or apology, her husband entered; and, as he did so, was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing that sent him reeling, gasping and
+breathless, to the nearest chair.
+
+Mrs. Taine stood watching her husband coldly, with a curious, speculative
+expression on her face that she made no attempt to hide. When his torture
+was abated--for the time--leaving him exhausted and trembling with
+weakness, she said coldly, "Well, what do you want? What are you doing
+here?"
+
+The man lifted his pallid, haggard face and, with a yellow, claw-like hand
+wiped the beads of clammy sweat from his forehead; while his deep-sunken
+eyes leered at her with an insane light.
+
+The woman was at no pains to conceal her disgust. In her voice there was
+no hint of pity. "Didn't Marie tell you that I wished to be alone?"
+
+"Of course," he jeered in his rasping whisper, "that's why I came." He
+gave a hideous resemblance to a laugh, which ended in a cough--and, again,
+he drew his skinny, shaking hand across his damp forehead "That's the time
+that a man should visit his wife, isn't it? When she is alone. Or"--he
+grinned mockingly--"when she wishes to be?"
+
+She regarded him with open scorn and loathing. "You unclean beast! Will
+you take yourself out of my room?"
+
+He gazed at her, as a malevolent devil might gloat over a soul delivered
+up for torture. "Not until I choose to go, my dear."
+
+[Illustration: "Well, what do you want? What are you doing here?"]
+
+Suddenly changing her manner, she smiled with deliberate, mocking humor.
+While he watched, she moved leisurely to a deep, many-cushioned couch;
+and, arranging the pillows, reclined among them in the careless
+abandonment of voluptuous ease and physical content. Openly,
+ostentatiously, she exhibited herself to his burning gaze in various
+graceful poses--lifting her arms above her head to adjust a cushion more
+to her liking; turning and stretching her beautiful body; moving her limbs
+with sinuous enjoyment--as disregardful of his presence as though she were
+alone. At last she spoke in cool, even, colorless tones; "Perhaps you will
+tell me what you want?"
+
+The wretched victim of his own unbridled sensuality shook with
+inarticulate rage. Choking and coughing he writhed in his chair--his
+emaciated limbs twisted grotesquely; his sallow face bathed in
+perspiration his claw-like hands opening and closing; his bloodless lips
+curled back from his yellow teeth, in a horrid grin of impotent fury. And
+all the while she lay watching him with that pitiless, mocking, smile. It
+was as though the malevolent devil and the tortured soul had suddenly
+changed places.
+
+When the man could speak, he reviled her, in his rasping whisper, with
+curses that it seemed must blister his tongue. She received his effort
+with jeering laughter and taunting words; moving her body, now and then,
+among the cushions, with an air of purely physical enjoyment that, to the
+other, was maddening.
+
+"If this is all you came for,"--she said, easily,--"might have spared
+yourself the effort--don't you think?"
+
+Controlling himself, in a measure, he returned, "I came to tell you that
+your intimacy with that damned painter must stop."
+
+Her eyes narrowed slightly. One hand, hidden in the cushions, clenched
+until her rings hurt. "Just what do you mean by my intimacy?" she asked
+evenly.
+
+"You know what I mean," he replied coarsely. "I mean what intimacy with a
+man always means to a woman like you."
+
+"The only meaning that a creature of your foul mind can understand," she
+retorted smoothly. "If it were worth while to tell you the truth, I would
+say that my conduct when alone with Mr. King has been as proper as--as
+when I am alone with you."
+
+The taunt maddened him. Interrupted by spells of coughing--choking,
+gasping, fighting for breath, his eyes blazing with hatred and lust,
+mingling his words with oaths and curses--he raged at her. "And do you
+think--that, because I am so nearly dead,--I do not resent what--I saw,
+to-day? Do you think--I am so far gone that I cannot--understand--your
+interest in this man,--after--watching you, together, all--the afternoon?
+Has there been any one--in his studio, except you two, when--he was
+painting you in that dress--which you--designed for his benefit? Oh, no,
+indeed,--you and your--genius could not be interrupted,--for the sake--of
+his art. His art! Great God!--was there ever such a damnable farce--since
+hell was invented? Art!--you--_you_--_you_!--" crazed with jealous fury,
+he pointed at her with his yellow, shaking, skeleton fingers; and
+struggled to raise his voice above that rasping whisper until the cords
+of his scrawny neck stood out and his face was distorted with the strain
+of his effort--"_You!_ painted as a--modest Quaker Maid,--with all the
+charm of innocence,--virtue, and religious piety in your face. _You!_ And
+that picture will be exhibited--and written about--as a work of _art!_
+You'll pull all the strings,--and use all your influence,--and the
+thing--will be received as a--masterpiece."
+
+"And," she added calmly, "you will write a check--and lie, as you did this
+afternoon."
+
+Without heeding her remark, he went on,--"You know the picture is
+worthless. He knows it,--Conrad Lagrange knows it,--Jim Rutlidge knows
+it,--the whole damned clique and gang of you know it, He's like all his
+kind,--a pretender,--a poser,--playing into the hands--of such women as
+you; to win social position--and wealth. And we and our kind--we pretend
+to believe--in such damned parasites,--and exalt them and what we--call
+their art,--and keep them in luxury, and buy their pictures;--because they
+prostitute--their talents to gratify our vanity. We know it's all a damned
+sham--and a pretense that if they were real artists,--with an honest
+workman's respect for their work,--they wouldn't--recognize us."
+
+"Don't forget to send him a check,"--she murmured--"you can't afford to
+neglect it, you know--think how people would talk."
+
+"Don't worry," he replied. "There'll be no talk. I'll send the genius his
+check--for making love--to my wife in the sacred name of art,--and I'll
+lie--about his picture with--the rest of you. But there will be--no more
+of your intimacy with him. You're my wife,--in spite of hell,--and from
+now on--I'll see--that you are true--to me. Your sickening pose--of
+modesty in dress shall be something--more than a pose. For the little time
+I have left,--I'll have--you to--myself or I'll kill you."
+
+His reference to her refusal to uncover her shoulders in public broke the
+woman's calm and aroused her to a cold fury. Springing to her feet, she
+stood over him as he sat huddled in his chair, exhausted by his effort.
+
+"What is your silly, idle threat beside the fact," she said with stinging
+scorn. "To have killed me, instead of making me your wife, would have been
+a kindness greater than you are capable of. You know how unspeakably vile
+you were when you bought me. You know how every hour of my life with you
+has been a torment to me. You should be grateful that I have helped you to
+live your lie--that I have played the game of respectability with
+you--that I am willing to play it a little while longer, until you lay
+down your hand for good, and release us both.
+
+"Suppose I _were_ what you think me? What right have _you_ to object to my
+pleasures? Have you--in all your life of idle, vicious, luxury--have you
+ever feared to do evil if it appealed to your bestial nature? You know you
+have not. You have feared only the appearance of evil. To be as evil as
+you like so long as you can avoid the appearance of evil; that's the game
+you have taught me to play. That's the game we have played together.
+That's the game we and our kind insist the artists and writers shall help
+us play. That's the only game I know, and, by the rule of our game, so
+long as the world sees nothing, I shall do what pleases me.
+
+"You have had your day with me. You have had what you paid for. What right
+have you to deny me, now, an hour's forgetfulness? When I think of what I
+might have been, but for you, I wonder that I have cared to live, and I
+would not--except for the poor sport of torturing you.
+
+"You scoff at Mr. King's portrait of me because he has not painted me as I
+am! What would you have said if he _had_ painted me as I am? What would
+you say if Conrad Lagrange should write the truth about us and our kind,
+for his millions of readers? You sneer at me because I cannot uncover my
+shoulders in the conventional dress of my class, and so make a virtue of a
+necessity and deceive the world by a pretense of modesty. Go look in your
+mirror, you fool! Your right to sneer at me for my poor little pretense is
+denied you by every line of your repulsive countenance Now get out. I'm
+going to retire."
+
+And she rang for her maid.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XII
+
+First Fruits of His Shame
+
+
+
+When the postman, in his little cart, stopped at the home of Aaron King
+and his friend, that day, it was Conrad Lagrange who received the mail.
+The artist was in his studio, and the novelist, knowing that the painter
+was not at work, went to him there with a letter.
+
+The portrait--still on the easel--was hidden by the velvet curtain.
+Sitting by a table that was littered with a confusion of sketches, books
+and papers, the young man was re-tying a package of old letters that he
+had, evidently, just been reading.
+
+As the novelist went to him, the artist said quietly,--indicating the
+package in his hand,--"From my mother. She wrote them during the last year
+of my study abroad." When the other did not reply, he continued
+thoughtfully, "Do you know, Lagrange, since my acquaintance with you, I
+find many things in these old letters that--at the time I received them--I
+did not, at all, appreciate. You seem to be helping me, somehow, to a
+better understanding of my mother's spirit and mind." He smiled.
+
+Presently, Conrad Lagrange, when he could trust himself to speak, said,
+"Your mother's mind and spirit, Aaron, were too fine and rare to be fully
+appreciated or understood except by one trained in the school of life,
+itself. When she wrote those letters, you were a student of mere
+craftsmanship. She, herself no doubt, recognized that you would not fully
+comprehend the things she wrote; but she put them down, out of the very
+fullness of her intellectual and spiritual wealth--trusting to your love
+to preserve the letters, and to the years to give you understanding."
+
+"Why," cried the artist, "those are almost her exact words--as I have just
+been reading them!"
+
+The other, smiling, continued quietly, "Your appreciation and
+understanding of your mother will continue to grow through all your life,
+Aaron. When you are old--as old as I am--you will still find in those
+letters hidden treasures of thought, and truths of greater value than you,
+now, can realize. But here--I have brought you your share of the
+afternoon's mail."
+
+When Aaron King opened the envelope that his friend laid on the table
+before him, he sat regarding its contents with an air of thoughtful
+meditation--lost to his surroundings.
+
+The novelist--who had gone to the window and was looking into the rose
+garden--turned to speak to his friend; but the other did not reply. Again,
+the man at the window addressed the painter; but still the younger man was
+silent. At this, Conrad Lagrange came back to the table; an expression of
+anxiety upon his face. "What is it, old man? What's the matter? No bad
+news, I hope?"
+
+Aaron King, aroused from his fit of abstraction, laughed shortly, and held
+out to his friend the letter he had just received. It was from Mr. Taine.
+Enclosed was the millionaire's check. The letter was a formal business
+note; the check was for an amount that drew a low whistle from the
+novelist's lips.
+
+"Rather higher pay than old brother Judas received for a somewhat similar
+service, isn't it," he commented, as he passed the letter and check back
+to the artist. Then, as he watched the younger man's face, he asked,
+"What's the matter, don't you like the flavor of these first fruits of
+your shame? I advise you to cultivate a taste for this sort of thing as
+quickly as possible--in your own defense."
+
+"Don't you think you are a little bit too hard on us all, Lagrange?" asked
+the artist, with a faint smile. "These people are satisfied. The picture
+pleases them."
+
+"Of course they are pleased," retorted the other. "You know your business.
+That's the trouble with you. That's the trouble with us all, these
+days--we painters and writers and musicians--we know our business too
+damned well. We have the mechanics of our crafts, the tricks of our
+trades, so well in hand that we make our books and pictures and music say
+what we please. We _use_ our art to gain our own vain ends instead of
+being driven _by_ our art to find adequate expression for some great truth
+that demands through us a hearing. You have said it all, my friend--you
+have summed up the whole situation in the present-day world of creative
+art--these people are satisfied. You have given them what they want,
+prostituting your art to do it. That's what I have been doing all these
+years--giving people what they want. For a price we cater to them--even as
+their tailors, and milliners, and barbers. And never again will the world
+have a truly great art or literature until men like us--in the divine
+selfishness of their, calling--demand, first and last, that they,
+_themselves_, be satisfied by the work of their hands."
+
+Going to the easel, he rudely jerked aside the curtain. Involuntarily, the
+painter went to stand by his side before the picture.
+
+"Look at it!" cried the novelist. "Look at it in the light of your own
+genius! Don't you see its power? Doesn't it tell you what you _could_ do,
+if you would? If you couldn't paint a picture, or if you couldn't feel a
+picture to be painted, it wouldn't matter. I'd let you ride to hell on
+your own palette, and be damned to you. But this thing shows a power that
+the world can ill afford to lose. It is so bad because it is so good. Come
+here!" he drew his friend to the big window, and pointed to the mountains.
+"There is an art like those mountains, my boy--lonely, apart from the
+world; remotely above the squalid ambitions of men; Godlike in its calm
+strength and peace--an art to which men may look for inspiration and
+courage and hope. And there is an art that is like Fairlands--petty and
+shallow and mean--with only the fictitious value that its devotees assume,
+but never, actually, realize. Listen, Aaron, don't continue to misread
+your mother's letters. Don't misunderstand her as thinking that the place
+she coveted for you is a place within the power of these people to give.
+Come with me into the mountains, yonder. Come, and let us see if, in those
+hills of God, you cannot find yourself."
+
+When Conrad Lagrange finished, the artist stood, for a little, without
+reply--irresolute, before his picture--the check in his hand. At last,
+still without speaking, he went back to the table, where he wrote briefly
+his reply to Mr. Taine. When he had finished, he handed his letter to the
+older man, who read:
+
+   Dear Sir:
+
+   In reply to yours of the 13th, inst., enclosing your check in payment
+   for the portrait of Mrs. Taine; I appreciate your generosity, but
+   cannot, now, accept it.
+
+   I find, upon further consideration, that the portrait does not fully
+   satisfy me. I shall, therefore, keep the canvas until I can, with the
+   consent of my own mind, put my signature upon it.
+
+   Herewith, I am returning your check; for, of course, I cannot accept
+   payment for an unfinished work.
+
+   In a day or two, Mr. Lagrange and I will start to the mountains, for an
+   outing. Trusting that you and your family will enjoy the season at Lake
+   Silence I am, with kind regards,
+
+   Yours sincerely, Aaron King.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That evening, the two men talked over their proposed trip, and laid their
+plans to start without delay As Conrad Lagrange put it--they would lose
+themselves in the hills; with no definite destination in view; and no set
+date for their return. Also, he stipulated that they should travel
+light--with only a pack burro to carry their supplies--and that they
+should avoid the haunts of the summer resorters, and keep to the more
+unfrequented trails. The novelist's acquaintance with the country into
+which they would go, and his experience in woodcraft--gained upon many
+like expeditions in the lonely wilds he loved--would make a guide
+unnecessary. It would be a new experience for Aaron King; and, as the
+novelist talked, he found himself eager as a schoolboy for the trip; while
+the distant mountains, themselves, seemed to call him--inviting him to
+learn the secret of their calm strength and the spirit of their lofty
+peace. The following day, they would spend in town; purchasing an outfit
+of the necessary equipment and supplies, securing a burro, and attending
+to numerous odds and ends of business preparatory to their indefinite
+absence.
+
+It so happened, the next day, that Yee Kee,--who was to care for the place
+during their weeks of absence had matters of importance to himself, that
+demanded his attention in town. When his masters informed him that they
+would not be home for lunch, he took advantage of the opportunity and
+asked for the day.
+
+Thus it came about that Conrad Lagrange--in the spirit of a boy bent upon
+some secret adventure--stole out into the rose garden, that morning, to
+leave the promised letter and key at the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIII
+
+Myra Willard's Challenge
+
+
+
+Since her meeting with Conrad Lagrange in the rose garden, Sibyl Andres
+had looked, every day, for that promised letter. She found it early in the
+afternoon. It was a quaint letter--written in the spirit of their
+meeting--telling her the probable time of her neighbor's return; warning
+her, in fear of some fanciful horror, to beware of the picture on the
+easel; and wishing her joy of the adventure. With the note, was a key.
+
+A few minutes later, the girl unlocked the door of the studio, and entered
+the building that had once been so familiar to her, but was now, in its
+interior, so transformed. Slowly, she pushed the door to, behind her. As
+though half frightened at her own daring, she stood quite still, looking
+about. In the atmosphere of that somewhat richly furnished apartment;
+poised timidly as if for ready flight; she seemed, indeed, the spirit that
+the novelist--in playful fancy--insisted that she was. Her cheeks were
+glowing with color; her eyes were bright with the excitement of her
+innocent adventure, and with her genuine admiration and appreciation of
+the beautiful room.
+
+Presently,--growing bolder,--she began moving about the
+studio--light-footed and graceful as a wild thing from her own mountain
+home, and, indeed, with much the air of a gentle creature of the woods
+that had strayed into the haunts of men. Intensely interested in the
+things she found, she gradually forgot her timidity, and gave herself to
+the enjoyment of her surroundings, with the freedom and abandon of a
+child. From picture to picture, she went, with wide, eager eyes. She
+turned over the sketches in the big portfolios that were so invitingly
+open; looked with awe upon the brushes stuck in the big Chinese jar--upon
+the palettes, and at the tubes of color; flitting to the window that
+looked out upon her garden, and back to the great, north light with its
+view of the distant mountains; and again and again, paused to stand with
+her hands clasped behind her, in front of the big easel with its canvas
+hidden under the velvet curtain. Then she must try the chairs, the
+oriental couch, and even the stool--where she had seen the artist sitting,
+sometimes, at his work, when she had watched him from the arbor; and
+last--in a pretty make believe--she tried the seat on the model throne, as
+though posing herself, for her portrait.
+
+Suddenly, with a startled cry, she sprang to her feet; then shrank back,
+white and trembling--her big eyes fixed with pleading fear upon the man
+who stood in the open doorway, regarding her with a curious, triumphant
+smile. It was James Rutlidge.
+
+Sibyl, occupied with her childlike delight, had failed to hear the
+automobile when it stopped in front of the house. Finding no one in the
+house the man had gone on to the studio, where--with the assurance of an
+intimate acquaintance--he had pushed open the door that was standing ajar.
+
+At the girl's frightened manner, the man laughed. Closing the door, he
+said, with an insinuating sneer, "You were not expecting me, it seems."
+
+His words aroused Sibyl from her momentary weakness. Rising, she said
+calmly, "I was not expecting any one, Mr. Rutlidge."
+
+Again he laughed--with unpleasant meaning. "You certainly look to be very
+much at home." He moved confidently to the easel stool and, seating
+himself continued with a leering smile, "What's the matter with my taking
+the artist's place for a little while--at least, until he comes?"
+
+The girl was too innocent to understand his assumption but her pure mind
+could not fail to sense the evil in his words.
+
+"I had permission to come here this afternoon," she said--her voice
+trembling a little with the fear that she did not understand. "Won't you
+go, please? Neither Mr. King nor Mr. Lagrange are at home."
+
+"I do not doubt your having permission to come here," he returned, with
+meaning stress upon the word, "permission". "I see you even carry a key to
+this really delightful room." He motioned with his head toward the door
+where he had seen the key in the lock, as she had left it.
+
+At this, she grasped a hint of the man's thought and, for an instant, drew
+hack in shame. Then, suddenly with a burst of indignant anger, she took a
+step toward him, demanding clearly; "Are you saying that I am in the
+habit of coming here to meet Mr. King?"
+
+He laughed mockingly. "Really, my dear, no one, seeing you, now, could
+blame the man for giving you a key to this place where he is popularly
+supposed to be undisturbed. Mr. King is neither such a virtuous saint, nor
+so engrossed in his art, as to resent the companionship of such a vision
+of loveliness--simply because it comes in the form of good flesh and
+blood. Why be angry with me?"
+
+Her cheeks were crimson as she said, again, "Will you go?"
+
+"Not until you have settled the terms of peace," he answered with that
+leering smile. "Fortune has favored me, this afternoon, and I mean to
+profit by it."
+
+For an instant, she looked at him--frightened and dismayed. Suddenly, with
+the flash-like quickness that was a part of her physical inheritance from
+her mountain life, she darted past him; eluding his effort to detain
+her--and was out of the building.
+
+With an oath, the man, acting upon the impulse of the moment, ran after
+her. Outside the door of the studio, he caught a glimpse of her white
+dress as she disappeared into the rose garden. In the garden, he saw her
+as she slipped through the little gate in the far corner of the hedge,
+into the orange grove. Recklessly he followed. Among the trees, he
+glimpsed, again, the white flash of her skirts, and dashed forward. At the
+farther edge of the grove that walled in the little yard where Sibyl
+lived, he saw her standing by the kitchen door. But between the girl and
+that last row of close-set trees, waiting his coming, stood the woman with
+the disfigured face.
+
+Rutlidge paused--angry with himself for so foolishly yielding to the
+impulse of his passion.
+
+Myra Willard went toward him fearlessly--her fine eyes blazing with
+righteous indignation. "What are you trying to do, James Rutlidge?" she
+demanded--and her words were bold and clear.
+
+The man was silent.
+
+"You are evidently a worthy son of your father," the woman
+continued--every clear-cut word biting into his consciousness with
+stinging scorn. "He, in his day, did all he knew to turn this world into a
+hell for those who were unfortunate enough to please his vile fancy. You,
+I see, are following faithfully his footsteps. I know you, and the creed
+of your kind--as I knew your father before you. No girl of innocent beauty
+is safe from you. Your unclean mind is as incapable of believing in
+virtue, as you are helpless in the grip of your own insane lust."
+
+The man was stung to fury by her cutting words. "Take your ugly face out
+of my sight," he said brutally.
+
+Fearlessly, she drew a step nearer. "It is because I am a woman that I
+have this ugly face, James Rutlidge." She touched her disfigured
+cheek--"These scars are the marks of the beast that rules you, sir, body
+and soul. Leave this place, or, as there is a God, I'll tell a tale that
+will forbid you ever showing your own evil countenance in public, again."
+
+Something in her eyes and in her manner, as she spoke, caused the
+man--beside himself with rage, as he was--to draw back. Some mysterious
+force that made itself felt in her bold words told him that hers was no
+idle threat. A moment they stood face to face, in the edge of the shadowy
+orange grove--the man of the world, prominent in circles of art and
+culture; and the woman whose natural loveliness was so distorted into a
+hideous mask of ugliness. With a short, derisive laugh, James Rutlidge
+turned and walked away.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were returning from town. As they neared
+their home, they saw one of the Taine automobiles in front of the house.
+"Company," said the artist with a smile--thinking of his letter to the
+millionaire.
+
+"It's Rutlidge," said the novelist--noting the absence of the chauffeur.
+
+They were turning in at the entrance, when Czar--who had dashed ahead as
+if to investigate--halted, suddenly, with a low growl of disapproval.
+
+"Huh!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange, with his twisted grin. "It's Senior
+'Sensual' all right. Look at Czar; he knows the beast is around. Go fetch
+him, Czar."
+
+With an angry bark, the dog disappeared around the corner of the porch.
+The two men, following, were met by Rutlidge who had made his way back
+through the grove and the rose garden from the house next door. The dog,
+with muttering growls, was sniffing suspiciously at his heels.
+
+"Czar," said his master, suggestively. With a meaning glance, the dog
+reluctantly ceased his embarrassing attentions and went to see if
+everything was all right about the premises.
+
+In answer to their greeting and the quite natural question if he had been
+waiting long, Rutlidge answered with a laugh. "Oh, no--I have been amusing
+myself by prowling around your place. Snug quarters you have here; really,
+I never quite appreciated their charm, before."
+
+They seated themselves on the porch. Conrad Lagrange--thinking of Sibyl
+Andres and that letter which he had left on the gate--from under his
+brows, watched their caller closely; the while he filled with painstaking
+care his brier pipe.
+
+"We like it," returned the artist.
+
+"I should think so--I'd be sorry to leave it if I were you. Mr. Taine
+tells me you are going to the mountains."
+
+"We're not giving up this place, though," replied Aaron King. "Yee Kee
+stays to take care of things until our return."
+
+"Oh, I see. I generally go into the mountains, myself for a little hunt
+when the deer season opens. It may be that I will run across you
+somewhere. By the way--you haven't met your musical neighbor yet, have
+you?"
+
+The novelist gave particular attention to his pipe which did not seem to
+be behaving properly.
+
+The artist answered shortly, "No."
+
+"I'd certainly make her acquaintance, if I were you," said Rutlidge, with
+his suggestive smile. "She is a dream. A delightful little retreat--that
+studio of yours."
+
+The painter, puzzled by the man's words and by his insinuating air,
+returned coldly, "It does very well for a work-shop."
+
+The other laughed meaningly; "Yes, oh yes--a great little work-shop. I
+suppose you--ah--do not fear to trust your _art treasures_ to the
+Chinaman, during your absence?"
+
+Conrad Lagrange--certain, now, that the man had seen Sibyl Andres either
+entering or leaving the studio--said abruptly, "You need give yourself no
+concern for Mr. King's studio, Rutlidge. I can assure you that the
+treasures there will be well protected."
+
+James Rutlidge understood the warning conveyed in the novelist's words
+that, to Aaron King, revealed nothing.
+
+"Really," said the painter to their caller, "you are not uneasy for the
+safety of Mrs. Taine's portrait, are you, old man? If you are, of
+course--"
+
+"Damn Mrs. Taine's portrait!" ejaculated the man, rising hurriedly. "You
+know what I mean. It's all right, of course. I must be going. Hope you
+have a good outing and come back to find all your art treasures safe." He
+laughed coarsely, as he went down the walk.
+
+When the automobile was gone, the artist turned to his friend. "Now what
+in thunder did he mean by that? What's the matter with him? Do you suppose
+they imagine that there is anything wrong because I wouldn't turn over the
+picture?"
+
+"He is an unclean beast, Aaron," the novelist answered shortly. "His
+father was the worst I ever knew, and he's like him. Forget him. Here
+comes the delivery boy with our stuff. Let's overhaul the outfit. I hope
+they'll get here with that burro, before dark. Where'll we put him, in the
+studio, heh?"
+
+"Look here,"--said the artist a few minutes later, returning from a visit
+to the studio for something,--"this is what was the matter with Rutlidge.
+And you did it, old man. This is your key."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the other in confusion taking the key.
+
+"Why, I found the studio door wide open, with your key in the lock. You
+must have been out there, just before we left this morning, and forgot to
+shut the door. Rutlidge probably noticed it when he was prowling about the
+place, and was trying to roast me for my carelessness."
+
+Conrad Lagrange stared stupidly at the key in his hand. "Well I _am_
+damned," he muttered. Then added, in savage and--as it seemed to the
+artist--exaggerated wrath, "I'm a stupid, blundering, irresponsible old
+fool." Nor was he consoled when the painter innocently assured him that no
+harm had resulted from his carelessness.
+
+That night, as the two men sat on the porch, watching the last of the
+light on the mountain tops, they heard again the cry of fear and pain that
+came from the little house hidden in the depths of the orange grove.
+Wonderingly they listened. Once more it came--filled with shuddering
+terror.
+
+When the sound was not repeated, Conrad Lagrange thoughtfully knocked the
+ashes from his pipe. "Poor soul," he said. "Those scars did more than
+disfigure her beautiful face. I'll wager there's a sad story there, Aaron.
+It's strange how I am haunted by the impression that I ought to know her.
+But I can't make it come clear. Heigho,"--he added a moment later as if to
+free his mind from unpleasant thoughts,--"I'll be glad when we are safely
+up in the hills yonder. Do you know, old man, I feel as though we're
+getting away just in the nick of time. My back hair and the pricking of my
+thumbs warn me that your dearly beloved spooks are combining to put up
+some sort of a spooking job on us. I hope Yee Kee has a plentiful supply
+of joss-sticks to stand 'em off, if they get too busy while we are gone."
+
+Aaron King laughed quietly in the dusk, as he returned "And I have a
+presentiment that those precious members of our household are preparing to
+accompany us to the hills. I feel in my bones that something is going to
+happen up there"--he pointed to the distant mountains, then added--"to me,
+at least. I feel as though I were about to bid myself good-by--if you know
+what I mean. I hope that donkey of ours isn't a psychic donkey, or, if he
+is, that he'll listen to reason and be content with his escorts of flesh
+and blood."
+
+As he finished speaking, the quiet of the evening was broken by a lusty,
+"Hee-haw, hee-haw," in front of the house.
+
+"There, I told you so!" ejaculated the painter.
+
+Laughing, the two men followed Czar down the walk, in the dark, to
+receive the shaggy, long-eared companion for their wanderings.
+
+As many a man has done--Aaron King had spoken, in jest, more truth than he
+knew.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIV
+
+In The Mountains
+
+
+
+In the gray of the early morning, hours before the dwellers on Fairlands
+Heights thought of leaving their beds, Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange made
+ready for their going.
+
+The burro, Croesus--so named by the novelist because, as the famous writer
+explained, "that ancient multi-millionaire, you know, really was an
+ass"--was to be entrusted with all the available worldly possessions of
+the little party. An arrangement--the more experienced man carefully
+pointed out--that, considering the chief characteristics of Croesus, was
+quite in accord with the customs of modern pilgrimages. Conrad Lagrange,
+himself, skillfully fixed the pack in place--adjusting the saddle with
+careful hand; accurately dividing the weight, with the blankets on top,
+and, over all, the canvas tarpaulin folded the proper size and neatly
+tucked in around the ends; and finally securing the whole with the, to the
+uninitiated, intricate and complicated diamond hitch. The order of their
+march, also, would place Croesus first; which position--the novelist,
+again, gravely explained, as he drew the cinches tight--is held by all who
+value good form, to be the donkey's proper place in the procession. As he
+watched his friend, the artist felt that, indeed, he was about to go far
+from the ways of life that he had always known.
+
+When all was ready, the two men--dressed in flannels, corduroys, and
+high-laced, mountain boots--called good-by to Yee Kee, respectfully
+invited Croesus to proceed, and set out--with Czar, the fourth member of
+the party, flying here and there in such a whirlwind of good spirits that
+not a shred of his usual dignity was left. The sun was still below the
+mountain's crest, though the higher points were gilded with its light,
+when they turned their backs upon the city made by men, and set their
+faces toward the hills that bore in every ridge and peak and cliff and
+crag and canyon the signature of God.
+
+As Conrad Lagrange said--they might have hired a wagon, or even an
+automobile, to take them and their goods to some mountain ranch where they
+would have had no trouble in securing a burro for their wanderings A team
+would have made the trip by noon. A machine would have set them down in
+Clear Creek Canyon before the sun could climb high enough to look over the
+canyon walls. "But that"--explained the novelist, as they trudged
+leisurely along between rows of palms that bordered the orange groves on
+either side of their road, and sensed the mystery that marks the birth of
+a new day--"but that is not a proper way to go to the mountains.
+
+"The mountains"--he continued, with his eyes upon the distant
+heights--"are not seen by those who would visit them with a rattle and
+clatter and rush and roar--as one would visit the cities of men. They are
+to be seen only by those who have the grace to go quietly; who have the
+understanding to go thoughtfully; the heart to go lovingly; and the spirit
+to go worshipfully. They are to be approached, not in the manner of one
+going to a horse-race, or a circus, but in the mood of one about to enter
+a great cathedral; or, indeed, of one seeking admittance to the very
+throne-room of God. When going to the mountains, one should take time to
+feel them drawing near. They are never intimate with those who hurry. Mere
+sight-seers seldom see much of anything. If possible,"--insisted the
+speaker, smiling gravely upon his companion,--"one should always spend, at
+least, a full day in the approach. Before entering the immediate presence
+of the hills, one should first view them from a distance, seeing them from
+base to peak--in the glory of the day's beginning, as they watch the world
+awake; in the majesty of full noon, as they maintain their calm above the
+turmoil of the day's doing; and in the glory of the sun's departure, as it
+lights last their crests and peaks. And then, after such a day, one should
+sleep, one night, at their feet."
+
+The artist listened with delight, as he always did when his friend spoke
+in those rare moods that revealed a nature so unknown to the world that
+had made him famous. When the novelist finished, the young man said
+gently, "And your words, my friend, are almost a direct quotation from
+that anonymous book which my mother so loved."
+
+"Perhaps they are, Aaron"--admitted Conrad Lagrange--"perhaps they are."
+
+So it was that they spent that day--in leisure approach--the patient
+Croesus, with his burden, always in the lead, and Czar, like a merry
+sprite, playing here and there. Several times they stopped to rest beside
+the road, while provident Croesus gathered a few mouthfuls of grass or
+weeds. Many times they halted to enjoy the scene that changed with every
+step.
+
+Their road led always upward, with a gradual, easy grade; and by noon they
+had left the cultivated section of the lower valley for the higher,
+untilled lands. The dark, glossy-green of the orange and the lighter
+shining tints of the lemon groves, with the rich, satiny-gray tones of the
+olive-trees, were replaced now by the softer grays, greens, yellows, and
+browns of the chaparral. The air was no longer heavy with the perfume of
+roses and orange-blossoms, but came to their nostrils laden with the
+pungent odors of yerba santa and greasewood and sage. Looking back, they
+could see the valley--marked off by its roads into many squares of green,
+and dotted here and there by small towns and cities--stretching away
+toward the western ocean until it was lost in a gray-blue haze out of
+which the distant San Gabriels, beyond Cajon Pass, lifted into the clear
+sky above, like the shore-line of dreamland rising out of a dream sea.
+Before them, the San Bernardinos drew ever nearer and more
+intimate--silently inviting them; patiently, with a world old patience,
+bidding them come; in the majestic humbleness of their lofty spirit,
+offering themselves and the wealth of their teaching.
+
+So they came, in the late afternoon, to that spot where the road for the
+first time crosses the alder and cottonwood bordered stream that, before
+it reaches the valley, is drawn from its natural course by the irrigation
+flumes and pipes.
+
+The sound of the mountain waters leaping down their granite-bouldered way
+reached the men while they were yet some distance. Croesus pointed his
+long ears forward in burro anticipation--his experience telling him that
+the day's work was about to end. Czar was already ranging along the side
+of the creek--sending a colony of squirrels scampering to the tree tops,
+and a bevy of quail whirring to the chaparral in frightened flight. The
+artist greeted the waters with a schoolboy shout of gladness. Conrad
+Lagrange, with the smile and the voice of a man miraculously recreated,
+said quietly, "This is the place where we stop for the night."
+
+Their camp was a simple matter. Croesus asked nothing but to be released
+from his burden--being quite capable of caring for himself. A wash in the
+clear, cold water of the brook; a simple meal, prepared by Conrad Lagrange
+over a small fire made of sticks gathered by the artist; their tarpaulin
+and blankets spread within sound of the music of the stream; a watching of
+the sun's glorious going down; a quiet pipe in the hush of the mysterious
+twilight; a "good night" in the soft darkness, when the myriad stars
+looked down upon the dull red glow of their camp-fire embers; with the
+guarding spirit of the mighty hills to give them peace--and they lay down
+to sleep at the mountain's feet.
+
+There is no sleeping late in the morning when one sleeps in the open,
+under the stars. After breakfast, the artist received another lesson in
+packing, and they moved on toward the world that already seemed to dwarf
+that other world which they had left, by one day's walking, so far below.
+A heavy fog, rolling in from the ocean in the night, submerged the valley
+in its dull, gray depths--leaving to the eye no view but the view of the
+mountains before them, and forcing upon the artist's mind the weird
+impression that the life he had always known was a fantastically unreal
+dream.
+
+And now,--as they approached,--the frowning entrance of Clear Creek Canyon
+grew more and more clearly defined. The higher peaks appeared to draw back
+and hide themselves behind the foothills, which--as the men came closer
+under their immediate slopes and walls--seemed to grow magically in height
+and bulk. A little before noon, they were in the rocky vestibule of the
+canyon. On either hand, the walls rose almost sheer, while their road,
+now, was but a narrow shelf under the overhanging cliffs, below which the
+white waters of the stream--cold from the snows so far above--tumbled
+impetuously over the boulders that obstructed their way--filling the
+hall-like gorge with tumultuous melody. Soon, the canyon narrowed to less
+than a stone's throw in width. The walls grew more grim and forbidding in
+their rocky nearness. And then they came to that point where, on either
+side, great cliffs, projecting, form the massive, rugged portals of the
+mountain's gate.
+
+First seen, from a point where the road rounds a jutting corner on the
+extreme right, the projecting cliffs ahead appear as a blank wall of rock
+that forbids further progress. But, as the men moved forward,--the road
+swinging more toward the center of the gorge,--the cliffs seemed to draw
+apart, and, through the way thus opened, they saw the great canyon and the
+mountains beyond. It was as though a mighty, invisible hand rolled
+silently back those awful doors to give them entrance.
+
+Abruptly, upon the inner side of the narrow passage the canyon widens to
+many times the width of the outer vestibule; and the road, crossing the
+creek, curves to the left; so that, looking back as they went, the two men
+saw the mighty doors closing again, behind them--as they had opened to let
+them in. It was as though that spirit sentinel, guarding the treasures of
+the hills, had jealously barred the way, that no one else from the world
+of men might follow.
+
+Aaron King stopped. Drawing a deep breath, and removing his hat, he turned
+his face from that mountain wall, upward to the encircling pine-fringed
+ridges and towering peaks. He had, indeed, come far from the world that he
+had always known.
+
+Conrad Lagrange, smiling, watched his friend, but spoke no word.
+
+Clear Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow valley, some fifteen miles in length,
+and approaching a mile in its greatest width; lying between the main range
+of the San Bernardinos and the lower ridge of the Galenas. The lower end
+of the canyon is shut in by the sheer cliff walls, and by the rugged
+portals of the narrow entrance; the upper end is formed by the dividing
+ridge that separates the Clear Creek from the Cold Water country which
+opens out onto the Colorado Desert below San Gorgonio Pass and the peaks
+of the San Jacintos. Perhaps two miles above the entrance the canyon
+widens to its greatest width; and in this portion of the little
+valley,--which extends some five miles to where the walls again draw
+close,--located on the benches above the boulder-strewn wash of Clear
+Creek, are the homes of several mountain ranchers, and the Government
+Forest Ranger Station.
+
+At the Ranger Station, they stopped--Conrad Lagrange wishing to greet the
+mountaineer official, whom he had learned to know on his former trip. But
+the Ranger was away somewhere, riding his lonely trails, and they did not
+tarry.
+
+Just above the Station, they left the main road to follow the way that
+leads to the Morton Ranch in the mouth of Alder Canyon--a small side
+canyon leading steeply up to a low gap in the main range. Beyond Morton's,
+there is only a narrow trail. Three hundred yards above the ranch corral,
+where the road ends and the trail begins, the buildings of the
+mountaineer's home were lost to view. Except for the narrow winding path
+that they must follow single file, there was no sign of human life.
+
+For three weeks, they knew no roads other than those lonely, mountain
+trails. At times, they walked under dark pines where the ground was
+thickly carpeted with the dead, brown needles and the air was redolent
+with the odor of the majestic trees; or made their camps at night, feeding
+their blazing fires with the pitchy knots and cones. At other times, they
+found their way through thickets of manzanita and buckthorn, along the
+mountain's flank; or, winding zigzag down some narrow canyon wall, made
+themselves at home under the slender, small-trunked alders; and added to
+the stores that Croesus packed, many a lusty trout from the tumbling, icy
+torrent. Again, high up on some wind-swept granite ridge or peak, where
+the pines were twisted and battered and torn by the warring elements, they
+looked far down upon the rolling sea of clouds that hid the world below;
+or, in the shelter of some mighty cliff, built their fires; and, when the
+night was clear, saw, miles away and below, the thousands of twinkling
+star-like lights of the world they had left behind. Or, again, they halted
+in some forest and hill encircled glen; where the lush grass in the
+cienaga grew almost as high as Croesus' back, and the lilies even higher;
+and where, through the dark green brakes, the timid deer come down to
+drink at the beginning of some mountain stream. At last, their wanderings
+carried them close under the snowy heights of San Gorgonio--the loftiest
+of all the peaks. That night, they camped at timber-line and in the
+morning,--leaving Croesus and the outfit, while it was still dark,--made
+their way to the top, in time to see the sun come up from under the edge
+of the world.
+
+So they were received into the inner life of the mountains; so the spirit
+that dwells in that unmarred world whispered to them the secrets of its
+enduring strength and lofty peace.
+
+From San Gorgonio, they followed the trail that leads down to upper Clear
+Creek--halting, one night, at Burnt Pine Camp on Laurel Creek, above the
+falls. Then--leaving the Laurel trail--they climbed over a spur of the
+main range, and so down the steep wall of the gorge to Lone Cabin on Fern
+Creek. The next day, they made their way on down to the floor of the main
+canyon--five miles above the point where they had left it at the beginning
+of their wanderings.
+
+Crossing the canyon at the Clear Creek Power Company's intake, they took
+the company trail that follows the pipe-line along the southern wall. From
+the headwork to the reservoir two thousand feet above the power-house at
+the mouth of Clear Creek Canyon, this trail is cut in the steep side of
+the Galena range--overhanging the narrow valley below--nine beautiful
+miles of it. At Oak Knoll,--where a Government trail for the Forest Ranger
+zigzags down from the pipe-line to the wagon road below,--they halted.
+
+Conrad Lagrange explained that there were three ways back to the world
+they had left, nearly a month before--the pipe-line trail to the reservoir
+and so down to the power-house and the Fairlands road; the Government
+trail from the pipe-line, over the Galenas to the valley on the other
+side; or, the Oak Knoll trail down to Clear Creek and out through the
+canyon gates--the way they had come.
+
+"But," objected Aaron King, lazily,--from where he lay under a live-oak on
+the mountainside, a few feet above the trail,--"either route presupposes
+our wish to return to Fairlands."
+
+The novelist laughed. "Listen to him, Czar,"--he said to the dog lying at
+his feet,--"listen to that painter-man. He doesn't want to go back to
+Fairlands any more than we do, does he?"
+
+Rising, Czar looked at his master a moment, with slow waving tail, then
+turned inquiringly toward the artist.
+
+"Well," said the young man, "what about it, old boy? Which trail shall we
+take? Or shall we take any of them?"
+
+With a prodigious yawn,--as though to indicate that he wearied of their
+foolish indecision,--Czar turned, with a low "woof," toward the fourth
+member of the company, who was browsing along the edge of the trail.
+Whenever Czar was in doubt as to the wants of his human companions he
+always barked at the burro.
+
+"He says, 'ask Croesus'," commented the artist.
+
+"Good!" cried the older man, with another laugh. "Let's put it up to the
+financier and let him choose."
+
+"Wait,"--said the artist, as the other turned toward the burro,--"don't be
+hasty--the occasion calls for solemn meditation and lofty discourse."
+
+"Your pardon,"--returned the novelist,--"'tis so. I will orate." Carefully
+selecting a pebble in readiness to emphasize his remarks, he addressed the
+shaggy arbiter of their fate. "Sir Croesus, thy pack is lighter by many
+meals than when first thou didst set out from that land where we did
+rescue thee from the hands of thy tormenting trader; but thy
+responsibilities are weightier, many fold. Upon the wisdom of thy choice,
+now, great issue rests. Thou hast thy chance, O illustrious ass, to
+recompense the world, this day, for the many evils wrought by thy odious
+ancestor and by all his long-eared kin. Choose, now, the way thy
+benefactors' feet shall go; and see to it, Croesus, that thou dost choose
+wisely; or, by thy ears, we'll flay thy woolly hide and hang it on the
+mountainside--a warning to thy kind."
+
+The well-thrown pebble struck that part of the burro's anatomy at which it
+was aimed; the dog barked; and Croesus--with an indignant jerk of his
+head, and a flirt of his tail--started forward. At the fork of the trail,
+he paused. The two men waited with breathless interest. With an air of
+accepting the responsibility placed upon him, the burro whirled and
+trotted down the narrow path that led to the floor of the canyon below.
+Laughing, the men followed--but far enough in the rear to permit their
+leader to choose his own way when they should reach the wagon road at the
+foot of the mountain wall. Without an instant's hesitation, Croesus turned
+down the road--quickening his pace, almost, into a trot.
+
+"By George!" ejaculated the novelist, "he acts like he knew where he was
+going."
+
+"He's taking you at your word," returned the artist. "Look at him go!
+Evidently, he's still under the inspiration of your oratory."
+
+The burro had broken into a ridiculous, little gallop that caused the
+frying-pan and coffee-pot, lashed on the outside of the pack, to rattle
+merrily. Splashing through the creek, he disappeared in the dark shadow of
+a thicket of alders and willows, where the road crosses a tiny rivulet
+that flows from a spring a hundred yards above. Climbing out of this
+gloomy hollow, the road turns sharply to the left, and the men hurried on
+to overtake their four-footed guide before he should be too long out of
+their sight. Just at the top of the little rise, before rounding the turn,
+they stopped. A few feet to the right of the road, with his nose at an
+old gate, stood Croesus. Nor would he heed Czar's bark commanding him to
+go on.
+
+On the other side of the fence, an old and long neglected apple orchard, a
+tumble-down log barn, and the wreck of a house with the fireplace and
+chimney standing stark and alone, told the story. The place was one of
+those old ranches, purchased by the Power Company for the water rights,
+and deserted by those who once had called it home. From the gate, ancient
+wagon tracks, overgrown with weeds, led somewhere around the edge of the
+orchard and were lost in the tangle of trees and brush on its lower side.
+
+The two men looked at each other in laughing surprise. The burro, turning
+his head, gazed at them over his shoulder, inquiringly, as much as to say,
+"Well, what's the matter now? Why don't you come along?"
+
+"When in doubt, ask Croesus," said the artist, gravely.
+
+Conrad Lagrange calmly opened the gate.
+
+Promptly, the burro trotted ahead. Following the ancient weed-grown
+tracks, he led them around the lower end of the orchard; crossed a little
+stream; and, turning again, climbed a gentle rise of open, grassy land
+behind the orchard; stopping at last, with an air of having accomplished
+his purpose, in a beautiful little grove of sycamore trees that bordered a
+small cienaga.
+
+Completely hidden by the old orchard from the road in front, and backed by
+the foot of the mountain spur that here forms the northern wall of the
+little valley, the spot commanded a magnificent view of the encircling
+peaks and ridges. San Bernardino was almost above their heads. To the
+east, were the more rugged walls of the upper and narrower end of the
+canyon; in their front, the beautiful Oak Knoll, with the dark steeps and
+pine-fringed crest of the Galenas against the sky; while to the west, the
+blue peaks of the far San Gabriels showed above the lower spurs and
+foothills of the more immediate range. The foreground was filled in by the
+gentle slope leading down to the tiny stream at the edge of the old
+orchard and, a little to the left, by the cienaga--rich in the color of
+its tall marsh grass and reeds, gemmed with brilliant flowers of gold and
+scarlet, bordered by graceful willows, and screened from the eye of the
+chance traveler by the lattice of tangled orchard boughs.
+
+Seated in the shade of the sycamores on the little knoll, the two friends
+enjoyed the beauty of the scene, and the charming seclusion of the lovely
+retreat; while Croesus stood patiently, as though waiting to be rewarded
+for his virtue, by the removal of his pack. Even Czar refrained from
+charging here and there, and lay down contentedly at their feet, with an
+air of having reached at last the place they had been seeking.
+
+A few days later found them established in a comfortable camp; with tents
+and furniture and hammocks and books and the delighted Yee Kee to take
+care of them. It had been easy to secure permission from the neighboring
+rancher who leased the orchard from the Company. Conrad Lagrange, with
+the man and his big mountain wagon, had made a trip to town--returning the
+next day with Yee Kee and the outfit. He brought, also, things from the
+studio; for the artist declared that he would no longer be without the
+materials of his art.
+
+The first day after the camp was built, the artist--declaring that he
+would settle the question, at once, as to whether Yee Kee could cook a
+trout as skillfully as the novelist--took rod and flies, and--leaving the
+famous author in a hammock, with Czar lying near--set out up the canyon.
+For perhaps two miles, the painter followed the creek--taking here and
+there from clear pool or swirling eddy a fish for his creel, and pausing
+often, as he went, to enjoy--in artist fashion--the beauties of the ever
+changing landscape.
+
+The afternoon was almost gone when he finally turned back toward camp. He
+had been away, already longer than he intended; but still--as all
+fishermen will understand--he could not, on his way back down the stream,
+refrain from casting here and there over the pools that tempted him.
+
+The sun was touching the crest of the mountains when he had made but
+little more than half the distance of his return. He had just sent his fly
+skillfully over a deep pool in the shadow of a granite boulder, for what
+he determined must be his last cast, when, startlingly clear and sweet,
+came the tones of a violin.
+
+A master trout leaped. The hand of the unheeding fisherman felt the tug
+as the leader broke. Giving the victorious fish no thought, Aaron King
+slowly reeled in his line.
+
+There was no mistaking the pure, vibrant tones of the music to which the
+man listened with amazed delight. It was the music of the, to him, unknown
+violinist who lived hidden in the orange grove next door to his studio
+home in Fairlands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XV
+
+The Forest Ranger's Story
+
+
+
+Perhaps the motive that, in Fairlands, had restrained the artist from
+seeking to know his neighbor was without force in the mountains. Perhaps
+it was that, in the unconventional freedom of the hills, the man obeyed
+more readily his impulse. Aaron King did not stop to question. As though
+in answer to the call of that spirit which spoke in the tones of the
+violin, he moved in the direction from which the music came.
+
+Climbing out of the bed of the stream to the bench that slopes hack--a
+quarter of a mile, perhaps--to the foot of the canyon wall, he found
+himself in an old road that, where it once crossed the creek, had been
+destroyed by the mountain floods. Wonderingly he followed the dimly marked
+track that led through the chaparral toward a thicket of cedars, from
+beyond which the music seemed to come. Where the road curved to find its
+way through the green barrier he paused--the musician, undoubtedly, now,
+was just beyond. Still acting upon the impulse of the moment, he
+cautiously parted the boughs and peered through into a little, open glade
+that was closed in on every side by the rank growth of the mountain
+vegetation, by the thicket of dark cedars and by tangled masses of wild
+rose-bushes. Opposite the spot where he stood, and half concealed by great
+sycamore trees, was a small, log house with a thread of blue smoke curling
+lazily from the chimney. The place was another of those old ranches that
+had been purchased by the Power Company and permitted to go back to the
+wilderness from which it had been won by some hardy settler. The little
+plot of open ground--well sodded with firm turf and short-cropped by
+roving cattle and deer--had evidently been, at one time, the front yard of
+the mountaineer's home. A little out from the porch, and in full view of
+the artist,--her graceful form outlined against the background of wild
+roses,--stood Sibyl Andres with her violin.
+
+As the girl played,--her winsome face upturned to the mountain heights and
+her body, lightly poised, swaying with the movement of her arm as easily
+as a willow bough,--she appeared, to the man hidden in the cedars, as some
+beautiful spirit of the woods and hills--a spirit that would vanish
+instantly if he should step from his hiding place. He was so close that he
+could see her blue eyes, wide and unmindful of her surroundings; her lips,
+curved in an unconscious smile; and her cheeks, flushed with emotion under
+their warm brown tint--as she appeared to listen for the music that she,
+in turn,--seemingly with no effort of her will,--gave forth again in the
+tones of the instrument under her chin.
+
+Aaron King was moved by the beauty of the picture as he had never been
+stirred before. The peculiar charm of the music; the loveliness of the
+girl herself; the setting of the scene in the little glade with its wild
+roses, giant sycamores, dark cedars, and encircling mountain walls, all in
+the soft mystery of the twilight's beginning; and, withal, the
+unexpectedness of the vision--combined to make an impression upon the
+artist's mind that would endure for many years.
+
+Suddenly, as he watched, the music ceased. The girl lowered her violin,
+and, with a low laugh, said to some one on the porch--concealed from the
+painter by the trunk of a sycamore--"O Myra, I want to dance. I can't keep
+still. I'm so glad, glad to be home again--to see old 'San Berdo' and
+'Gray Back' and all the rest of them up there!" She stretched out her arms
+as if in answer to a welcome from the hills. Then, whirling quickly, she
+gave the violin to her companion on the porch. "Play, Myra; please, dear,
+play."
+
+At her word, the music of the violin began again--coming now, from behind
+the trunk of the sycamore. In the hands of the unseen musician, the
+instrument laughed and sang a song of joyous abandonment--of freedom and
+rejoicing--of happiness and love--while in perfect harmony with the spirit
+and the rhythm of the melody, the girl danced upon the firm, green carpet
+of grass. Here and there, to and fro, about the little glade shut in from
+the world by its walls of living green, she tripped and whirled in
+unstudied grace--lightly as if winged--unconscious as the wild creatures
+that play in the depths of the woods--wayward as the zephyr that trips
+along the mountainside.
+
+It was a spontaneous expression of her spiritual and physical exaltation
+and was as natural as the laughter in her voice or the flush upon her
+cheeks. It was a dance that was like no dance that Aaron King had ever
+seen.
+
+The artist--watching through the screen of cedar boughs beside the old
+wagon road and scarcely daring to breathe lest the beautiful vision should
+vanish--forgot his position--forgot what he was doing. Fascinated by the
+scene to which he had been led, so unexpectedly by the music he had so
+often heard while at work in his studio, he was unmindful of the rude part
+he was playing. He was brought suddenly to himself by a heavy hand upon
+his shoulder. As he straightened, the hand whirled him half around and he
+found himself looking into a face that was tanned and seamed by many years
+in the open.
+
+The man who had so unceremoniously commanded the artist's attention stood
+a little above six feet in height, and was of that deep-chested, lean, but
+full-muscled build that so often marks the mountain bred. He wore no coat.
+At his hip, a heavy Colt revolver hung in its worn holster from a full,
+loosely buckled, cartridge belt. Upon his unbuttoned vest was the shield
+of the United States Forest Service. From under the brim of his slouch
+hat, he gazed at Aaron King questioningly--in angry disapproval.
+
+Instinctively, neither of the men spoke. A word would have been heard the
+other side of the cedars. With a gesture commanding the artist to follow,
+the Ranger quietly, withdrew along the wagon road toward the creek.
+
+When they were at a distance where their voices would not reach the girl
+in the glade, the Ranger said with angry abruptness, "Now, sir, perhaps
+you will tell me who you are and what you mean by spying upon a couple of
+women, like that."
+
+The other could not conceal his embarrassment. "I don't blame you for
+calling me to account," he said. "If it were me--if our positions were
+reversed I mean--I should kick you down into the creek there."
+
+The cold, blue eyes--that had been measuring the painter so
+shrewdly--twinkled with a hint of humor. "You _do_ look like a gentleman,
+you know," the officer said,--as if excusing himself for not following the
+artist's suggestion. "But, all the same, you must explain. Who are you?"
+
+"That part is easy, at least," returned the other. "Though the
+circumstance of our meeting _is_ a temptation to lie."
+
+"Which would do you no good, and might lead to unpleasant complications,"
+retorted the Ranger, sharply.
+
+The man under question, still embarrassed, laughed shortly, as he
+returned, "I really was not thinking of it seriously. My name is Aaron
+King. I am an artist. You are Mr. Oakley, I suppose."
+
+The officer nodded--beginning to smile. "Yes, I am Brian Oakley."
+
+The artist continued, "A month ago, Conrad Lagrange and I came into the
+mountains for an outing. We stopped at the Station, but there was no one
+at home. Most of the time, we have been just roaming around. Now, we are
+camped down there, back of that old apple orchard."
+
+The Ranger broke into a laugh. "Mrs. Oakley was visiting friends up the
+canyon, the day you came in; but Morton told me. I've crossed your trail a
+dozen times, and sighted you nearly as many; but I was always too busy to
+go to you. I knew Lagrange didn't need any attention, you see; so I just
+figured on meeting up with you somewhere by accident like--about meal
+time, mebbe." He laughed again. "The accident part worked out all right."
+He paused, still laughing--enjoying the artist's discomfiture; then ended
+with a curious--"What in thunder were you sneaking around in the brush
+like that for, anyway? Those women won't bite."
+
+Aaron King explained how he had heard the music while fishing; and how,
+following the sound, he had acted upon an impulse to catch a glimpse of
+the unknown musician before revealing himself; and then, in his interest,
+had forgotten that he was playing the part of a spy--until so rudely
+aroused by the hand of the Ranger.
+
+Brian Oakley chuckled; "If _I'd_ acted upon impulse when I first saw you
+peeking through those cedars, you would have been more surprised than you
+were. But while I was sneaking up on you I noticed your get-up--with your
+creel and rod--and figured how you might have come there. So I thought I
+would go a little slow."
+
+"And you wear rather heavy boots too," said the artist suggestively. Then,
+more at ease, he joined in the laugh at himself.
+
+"Catch any fish?" asked the Ranger--lifting the cover of the creel.
+"Whee!" as he saw the contents. "That's bully! And I'm hungry as a she
+wolf too! Been in the saddle since sunup without a bite. What do you say
+if I make that long deferred social call upon you and Lagrange this
+evening?"
+
+"I say, good! Mr. Oakley," returned the artist, heartily. "I guess you
+know what Lagrange will say."
+
+"You bet I do." He whistled--a low, birdlike note. In answer, a beautiful,
+chestnut saddle-horse came out of the chaparral, where it had not been
+seen by the painter. "We're going, Max," said the officer, in a
+matter-of-fact way. And, as the two men set out, the horse followed, with
+a business-like air that brought a word of admiring comment from the
+artist.
+
+That Aaron King had won the approval of the Ranger was evidenced by the
+mountaineer's inviting himself to supper the camp in the sycamores. The
+fact that the officer considerately told Conrad Lagrange only that he had
+met the artist with his creel full of trout, and so had been tempted to
+accompany him, won the enduring gratitude of the young man. Thus the
+circumstances of their meeting introduced each to the other, with
+recommendations of peculiar value, and marked the beginning of a genuine
+and lasting friendship. But, while, out of delicate regard for the
+artist's feelings, he refrained from relating the--to the young
+man--embarrassing incident, Brian Oakley could not resist making, at every
+opportunity, sly references to their meeting--for the painter's benefit
+and his own amusement. Thus it happened that, after supper, as they sat
+with their pipes, the talk turned upon Sibyl Andres and the woman with the
+disfigured face.
+
+The Ranger, to tease the artist, had remarked casually,--after
+complimenting them upon the location of their camp,--"And you've got some
+mighty nice neighbors, less than a mile above too."
+
+"Neighbors!" ejaculated Conrad Lagrange--in a tone that left no doubt as
+to his sentiment in the matter.
+
+The others laughed; while the officer said, "Oh, I know how _you_ feel!
+You think you don't want anybody poaching on your preserves. You're up
+here in the hills to get away from people, and all that. But you don't
+need to be uneasy. You won't even see these folks--unless you sneak up on
+them." He stole a look at the artist, and chuckled maliciously as the
+painter covertly shook his fist at him. "You may _hear_ them though."
+
+"Which would probably be as bad," retorted the novelist, gruffly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know!" returned the other. "You might be able to stand it. I
+don't reckon you would object to a little music now and then, would
+you?--_real_ music, I mean."
+
+"So our neighbors are musical, are they?" The novelist seemed slightly
+interested.
+
+"Sibyl Andres is the most accomplished violinist I have ever heard," said
+the Ranger. "And I haven't always lived in these mountains, you know. As
+for Myra Willard--well--she taught Sibyl--though she doesn't pretend to
+equal her now."
+
+Conrad Lagrange was interested, now, in earnest He turned to the artist,
+eagerly--but with caution--"Do you suppose it could be our neighbors in
+the orange grove, Aaron?"
+
+Brian Oakley watched them with quiet amusement.
+
+"I know it is," returned the artist.
+
+"You know it is!" ejaculated the other.
+
+"Sure--I heard the violin this afternoon. While I was fishing," he added
+hastily, when the Ranger laughed.
+
+The novelist commented savagely, "Seems to me you're mighty careful about
+keeping your news to yourself!"
+
+This brought another burst of merriment from the mountaineer.
+
+When the two men had explained to the Ranger about the music in the orange
+grove, Conrad Lagrange related how they had first heard that cry in the
+night; and how, when they had gone to the neighboring house, they had seen
+the woman of the disfigured face standing in the doorway.
+
+"It was Miss Willard who cried out," said Brian Oakley, quietly. "She
+dreams, sometimes, of the accident--or whatever it was--that left her with
+those scars--at least, that's what I think it is. Certainly it's no
+ordinary dream that would make a woman cry like that. The first time I
+heard her--the first time that she ever did it, in fact--she and Sibyl
+were stopping over night at my house. It was three years ago. Jim Rutlidge
+had just come West, on his first trip, and was up in the hills on a hunt.
+He happened along about sundown, and when he stepped into the room and
+Myra saw him, I thought she would faint. He looked like some one she had
+known--she said. And that night she gave that horrible cry. Lord! but it
+threw a fright into me. My wife didn't get over being nervous, for a week.
+Myra explained that she had dreamed--but that's all she would say. I
+figured that being upset by Rutlidge's reminding her of some one she had
+known started her mind to going on the past--and then she dreamed of
+whatever it was that gave her those scars."
+
+"You have known Miss Willard a long time, haven't you, Brian?" asked
+Conrad Lagrange, with the freedom of an old comrade--for men may grow
+closer together in one short season in the mountains than in years of
+meeting daily in the city.
+
+"I've known her ever since she came into the hills. That was the year
+Sibyl was born. All that anybody knows is what has happened since. Sibyl's
+mother, even--a month before she died--told me that Myra's history, before
+she came to them, was as unknown to her as it was the day she stopped at
+their door."
+
+"I can't get over the feeling that I ought to know her--that I have seen
+her somewhere, years ago," said the novelist, by way of explaining his
+interest.
+
+"Then it was before she got those scars," returned the Ranger. "No one
+could ever forget her face as it is now."
+
+"At the same time," commented the artist, "the scars would prevent your
+identifying her if she received them after you had known her."
+
+"All the same," said Conrad Lagrange,--as though his mind was bothered by
+his inability to establish some incident in his memory,--"I'll place her
+yet. Do you mind, Brian, telling us what you _do_ know of her?"
+
+"Why, not at all," returned the officer. "The story is anybody's property.
+Its being so well known is probably the reason you didn't hear it when you
+were up here before.
+
+"Sibyl's father and mother were here in the mountains when I came. They
+lived up there at the old place where Myra and Sibyl are camping now, and
+I never expect to meet finer people--either in this world or the next. For
+twenty years I knew them intimately. Will Andres was as true and square
+and white a man as ever lived and Nelly was just as good a woman as he was
+a man. They and my wife and I were more like brothers and sisters than
+most folks who are actually blood kin.
+
+"One day, along toward sundown, about a month before Sibyl was born, Nelly
+heard the dogs barking and went to see what was up. There stood Myra
+Willard at the gate--like she'd dropped out of the sky. Where she came
+from God only knows--except that she'd walked from some station on the
+railroad over toward the pass. She was just about all in; and, of course,
+Nelly had her into the house and was fixing her up in no time. She wanted
+to work, but admitted that she had never done much housework. She said,
+straight out, that they should never know more about her than they knew,
+then; but insisted that she was not a bad woman. At first, Will and I were
+against it for, of course, it was easy to see that she was trying to get
+away from something. But the women--Nelly and my wife--somehow, believed
+in her, and--with the baby due to arrive in a month and any kind of help
+hard to get--they carried the day. Well, sir, she made good. If twenty
+years acquaintance goes for anything, she's one of God's own kind, and I
+don't care a damn what her history is.
+
+"We soon saw that she was educated and refined, and--as you can see for
+yourself--she must have been remarkably beautiful before she got so
+disfigured. When the baby was born, she just took the little one into her
+poor, broken heart like it had been her own, until Sibyl hardly knew which
+was her own mother. When the girl was old enough for school, Myra begged
+Will and Nelly to let her teach the child. She was always sending for
+books and it was about that time that she sent for a violin. The girl took
+to music like a bird. And--well--that's the way Sibyl was raised. She's
+got all the education that the best of them have--even to French and
+Italian and German--and she's missed some things that the schools teach
+outside of their text-books. She has a library--given to her mostly by
+Myra, a book at a time--that represents the best of the world's best
+writers. You know what her music is. But, hell!"--the Ranger interrupted
+himself with an apologetic laugh--"I'm supposed to be talking about Myra
+Willard. I don't know as I'm so far off, either, because what Sibyl
+is--aside from her natural inheritance from Will and Nelly--Myra has made
+her.
+
+"When Will was killed by those Mexican outlaws,--which is a story in
+itself,--Nelly sold the ranch to the Power Company, and bought an orange
+grove in Fairlands--which was the thing for her to do, as she and Myra
+could handle that sort of property, and the ranch had to go, anyway.
+Before Nelly died, she and I talked things over, and she put everything in
+Myra's hands, in trust for the girl. Later, Myra sold the grove and the
+house where you men live, now, and bought the little place next
+door--putting the rest of the money into gilt-edged securities in Sibyl's
+name; which insures the girl against want, for years to come. Sibyl helps
+out their income with her music. And that's the story, boys, except that
+they come up here into the mountains, every summer, to spend a month or so
+in the old home place."
+
+The Ranger rose to go.
+
+"But do you think it is safe for those women to stay up there alone?"
+asked Aaron King.
+
+Brian Oakley laughed. "Safe! You don't know Myra Willard! Sibyl, herself,
+can pick a squirrel out of the tallest pine in the mountains with her
+six-shooter. Will and I taught her all we knew, as she grew up. Besides,
+you see, I drop in every day or so, to see that they're all right." He
+laughed meaningly as he added,--to Conrad Lagrange for the artist's
+benefit,--"I'm going to tell them, though, that Sibyl must be careful how
+she goes dancing around these hills--now that she has such distinguished
+but irresponsible neighbors."
+
+He whistled--and the chestnut horse was at his side before the echo of
+their laughter died away.
+
+With a "so-long," the Ranger rode away into the night.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVI
+
+When the Canyon Gates Are Shut
+
+
+
+If Aaron King had questioned what it was that had held him in the cedar
+thicket until Brian Oakley's heavy hand broke the spell, he would probably
+have answered that it was his artistic appreciation of the beautiful
+scene. But--deep down in the man's inner consciousness--there was a still,
+small voice--declaring, with an insistency not to be denied, that--for
+him--there was a something in that picture that was not to be put into the
+vernacular of his profession.
+
+Had he acted without his habitual self-control, the day following the
+Ranger's visit, he would, again, have gone fishing--up Clear Creek--at
+least, to the pool where that master trout had broken his leader. But he
+did not. Instead, he roamed aimlessly about the vicinity of the
+camp--explored the sycamore grove; climbed a little way up the mountain
+spur, and down again; circled the cienaga; and so came, finally, to the
+ruins of the house and barn on the creek side of the orchard.
+
+Not far from the lonely fireplace with its naked chimney, a little, old
+gate of split palings, in an ancient tumble-down fence, under a great
+mistletoe-hung oak, at the top of a bank--attracted his careless
+attention. From the gate, he saw what once had been a path leading down
+the bank to a spring, where the tiny streamlet that crossed the road a
+hundred yards away, on its course to Clear Creek, began. Pushing open the
+gate that sagged dejectedly from its leaning post, the artist went down
+the path, and found himself in a charming nook--shut in on every side by
+the forest vegetation that, watered by the spring, grew rank and dense.
+
+For a space on the gate side of the spring, the sod was firm and
+smooth--with a gray granite boulder in the center of the little glade,
+and, here and there, wild rose-bushes and the slender, gray trunks of
+alder trees breaking through. From the higher branches of the alders that
+shut out the sky with their dainty, silvery-green leaves, hung--with many
+a graceful loop and knot--ropes of wild grape-vine and curtains of
+virgin's-bower. Along the bank below the old fence, the wild blackberries
+disputed possession with the roses; while the little stream was mottled
+with the tender green of watercress and bordered with moss and fragrant
+mint. Above the arroyo willows, on the farther side of the glade, Oak
+Knoll, with bits of the pine-clad Galenas, could be glimpsed; but on the
+orchard side, the vine-dressed bank with the old gate under the mistletoe
+oak shut out the view. Through the screen of alder and grape and willow
+and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell, as through the delicate traceries of
+a cathedral window. The bright waters of the spring, softly held by the
+green sod, crept away under the living wall, without a sound; but the deep
+murmur of the distant, larger stream, reached the place like the low
+tones of some great organ. A few regularly placed stones, where once had
+stood the family spring-house; with the names, initials, hearts and dates
+carved upon the smooth bark of the alders--now grown over and almost
+obliterated--seemed to fill the spot with ghostly memories.
+
+All that afternoon, the artist remained in the little retreat. The next
+day, equipped with easel, canvas and paint-box, he went again to the
+glade--determined to make a picture of the charming scene.
+
+For a month, now, uninterrupted by the distractions of social obligations
+or the like, Aaron King had been subjected to influences that had aroused
+the creative passion of his artist soul to its highest pitch. With his
+genius clamoring for expression, he had denied himself the medium that was
+his natural language. Forbidding his friend to accompany him, he worked
+now in the spring glade with a delight--with an ecstasy--that he had
+seldom, before, felt. And Conrad Lagrange, wisely, was content to let him
+go uninterrupted.
+
+As the hours of each day passed, the artist became more and more engrossed
+with his art. His spirit sang with the joy of receiving the loveliness of
+the scene before him, of making it his own, and of giving it forth
+again--a literal part of himself. The memories suggested by the stones of
+the spring-house foundation and the old carvings on the trees; the
+sunlight, falling so softly into the hushed seclusion of the glade, as
+through the traceried windows of a church; and the deep organ-tones of the
+distant creek; all served to give to the spot the religious atmosphere of
+a sanctuary; while the artist's abandonment in his work was little short
+of devotion.
+
+It was the third afternoon, when the painter became conscious that he had
+been hearing for some time--he could not have said how long--a low-sung
+melody--so blending with the organ-tones of the mountain stream that it
+seemed to come out of the music of the tumbling waters.
+
+With his brush poised between palette and canvas, the artist
+paused,--turning his head to listen,--half inclined to the belief that his
+fancy was tricking him. But no; the singer was coming nearer; the melody
+was growing more distinct; but still the voice was in perfect harmony with
+the deep-toned accompaniment of the distant creek.
+
+Then he saw her. Dressed in soft brown that blended subtly with the green
+of the willows, the gray of the alder trunks, the russet of rose and
+blackberry-bush, and the umber of the swinging grape-vines--in the
+flickering sunshine, the soft changing half-lights, and deep shadows--she
+appeared to grow out of the scene itself; even as her low-sung melody grew
+out of the organ-sound of the waters.
+
+To get the effect that satisfied him best, the painter had placed his
+easel a little back from the grassy, open spot. Seated as he was, on a low
+camp-stool, among the bushes, he would not have been easily observed--even
+by eyes trained to the quickness of vision that belongs to those reared in
+the woods and hills. As the girl drew closer, he saw that she carried a
+basket on her arm, and that she was picking the wild blackberries that
+grew in such luscious profusion in the rich, well watered ground at the
+foot of the sheltering bank. Unconscious of any listener, as she gathered
+the fruit of Nature's offering, she sang to the accompaniment of Nature's
+music, with the artless freedom of a wild thing unafraid in its native
+haunts.
+
+The man kept very still. Presently, when the girl had moved so that he
+could not see her, he turned to his canvas as if, again, absorbed in his
+work--but hearing still, behind him, the low-voiced melody of her song.
+
+Then the music ceased; not abruptly, but dying away softly--losing itself,
+again, in the organ-tones of the distant waters, as it had come. For a
+while, the artist worked on; not daring to take his eyes from his picture;
+but feeling, in every tingling nerve of him, that she was there. At last,
+as if compelled, he abruptly turned his head--and looked straight into her
+face.
+
+The man had been, apparently, so absorbed in his work, when first the girl
+caught sight of him, that she had scarcely been startled. When she had
+ceased her song, and he, still, had not looked around; drawn by her
+interest in the picture, she had softly approached until she was standing
+quite close. Her lips were slightly parted, her face was flushed, and her
+eyes were shining with delight and excited pleasure, as she stood leaning
+forward, her basket on her arm. So interested was she in the painting,
+that she seemed to have quite forgotten the painter, and was not in the
+least embarrassed when he so suddenly looked directly into her face.
+
+"It is beautiful," she said, as though in answer to his question. And no
+one--hearing her, and watching her face as she spoke--could have doubted
+her sincerity. "It is so true, so--so"--she searched for a word, and
+smiled in triumph when she found it--"so _right_--so beautifully right.
+It--it makes me feel as--as I feel when I am at church--and the organ
+plays soft and low, and the light comes slanting through the window, and
+some one reads those beautiful words, 'The Lord is in his holy temple; let
+all the earth keep silence before him'."
+
+"Why!" exclaimed the artist, "that is exactly what I wanted it to say.
+When I saw this place, and heard the waters over there, like a great
+organ; and saw how the sunshine falls through the trees; I felt as you
+say, and I am trying to paint the picture so that those who see it will
+feel that way too."
+
+Her face was aglow with enthusiastic understanding as she cried eagerly,
+"Oh, I know! I know! I'm like that with my music! When I look at the
+mountains sometimes--or at the trees and flowers, or hear the waters sing,
+or the winds call--I--I get so full and so--so kind of choked up inside
+that it hurts; and I feel as though I must try to tell it--and then I take
+my violin and try and try to make the music say what I feel. I never can
+though--not altogether. But _you_ have made your picture say what you
+feel. That's what makes it so right, isn't it? They said in Fairlands that
+you were a great artist, and I understand why, now. It must be wonderful
+to put what you see and feel into a picture like that--where nothing can
+ever change or spoil it."
+
+Aaron King laughed with boyish embarrassment. "Oh, but I'm not a great
+artist, you know. I am scarcely known at all."
+
+She looked at him with her great, blue eyes sincerely troubled. "And must
+one be _known_--to be great?" she asked. "Might not an artist be great and
+still be _unknown_? Or, might not one who was really very, very"--again
+she seemed to search for a word and as she found it, smiled--"very
+_small_, be known all over the world? The newspapers make some really bad
+people famous, sometimes, don't they? No, no, you are joking. You do not
+really think that being known to the world and greatness are the same."
+
+The man, studying her closely, saw that she was speaking her thoughts as
+openly as a child. Experimentally, he said, "If putting what you feel into
+your work is greatness, then _you_ are a great artist, for your music does
+make one feel as though it came from the mountains, themselves."
+
+She was frankly pleased, and cried intimately, "Oh! do you like my music?
+I so wanted you to."
+
+It did not occur to her to ask when he had heard her music. It did not
+occur to him to explain. They, neither of them, thought to remember that
+they had not been introduced. They really should have pretended that they
+did not know each other.
+
+"Sometimes," she continued with winsome confidence, "I think, myself, that
+I am really a great violinist--and then, again,"--she added wistfully,--"I
+know that I am not. But I am sure that I wouldn't like to be famous, at
+all."
+
+He laughed. "Fame doesn't seem to matter so much, does it; when one is up
+here in the hills and the canyon gates are closed."
+
+She echoed his laughter with quick delight. "Did you see that? Did you see
+those great doors open to let you in, and then close again behind you as
+if to shut the world outside? But of course you would. Any one who could
+do that"--she pointed to the canvas--"would not fail to see the canyon
+gates." With her eyes again upon the picture, she seemed once more to
+forget the presence of the painter.
+
+Watching her face,--that betrayed her every passing thought and emotion as
+an untroubled pool mirrors the flowers that grow on its banks or the
+song-bird that pauses to drink,--the artist--to change her mood--said,
+"You _love_ the mountains, don't you?"
+
+She turned her face toward him, again, as she answered simply, "Yes, I
+love the mountains."
+
+"If you were a painter,"--he smiled,--"you would paint them, wouldn't
+you?"
+
+"I don't know that I would,"--she answered thoughtfully,--"but I would try
+to get the mountains into my picture, whatever it was. I wonder if you
+know what I mean?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I think I know what you mean; and it is a beautiful
+thought. You wouldn't paint portraits, would you?"
+
+"I don't think I _could_," she answered. "It seems to me it would be so
+hard to get the mountains into a portrait of just anybody. An artist--a
+great artist, I mean--must make his picture right, mustn't he? And if his
+picture was a portrait of some one who wasn't very good, and he made it
+right; he wouldn't be liked very well, would he? No, I don't think I would
+paint portraits--unless I could paint just the people who would want me to
+make my picture right."
+
+Aaron King's face flushed at the words that were spoken so artlessly; and
+he looked at her keenly. But the girl was wholly innocent of any purpose
+other than to express her thoughts. She did not dream of the force with
+which her simple words had gone home.
+
+"You love the mountains, too, don't you?" she asked suddenly.
+
+"Yes," he answered, "I love the mountains. I am learning to love them more
+and more. But I fear I don't know them as well as you do."
+
+"I was born up here," she said, "and lived here until a few years ago. I
+think, sometimes, that the mountains almost talk to me."
+
+"I wonder if you would help me to know the mountains as you know them," he
+asked eagerly.
+
+She drew a little back from him, but did not answer.
+
+"We are neighbors, you see," he continued smiling. "I heard your violin,
+the other evening, when I was fishing up the creek, near where you live;
+and so I know it is you who live next door to us in the orange grove. Mr.
+Lagrange and I are camped just over there back of the orchard. May we not
+be friends? Won't you help me to know your mountains?"
+
+"I know about you," she said. "Brian Oakley told us that you and Mr.
+Lagrange were camped down here. Mr. Lagrange said that you are a good man;
+Brian Oakley says that you are too--are you?"
+
+The artist flushed. In his embarrassment, he did not note the significance
+of her reference to the novelist. "At least," he said gently, "I am not a
+very _bad_ man."
+
+A smile broke over her face--her mood changing as quickly as the sunlight
+breaks through a cloud. "I know you are not"--she said--"a _bad_ man
+wouldn't have wanted to paint this place as you have painted it."
+
+She turned to go.
+
+"But wait!" he cried, "you haven't told me--will you teach me to know your
+mountains as you know them?"
+
+"I'm sure I cannot say," she answered smiling, as she moved away.
+
+"But at least, we will meet again," he urged.
+
+She laughed gaily, "Why not? The mountains are for you as well as for me;
+and though the hills _are_ so big, the trails are narrow, and the passes
+very few."
+
+With another laugh, she slipped away--her brown dress, that, in the shifty
+lights under the thick foliage, so harmonized with the colors of bush and
+vine and tree and rock, being so quickly lost to the artist's eye that she
+seemed almost to vanish into the scene before him.
+
+But presently, from beyond the willow wall, he heard her voice
+again--singing to the accompaniment of the mountain stream. Softly, the
+melody died away in the distance--losing itself, at last, in the deeper
+organ-tones of the mountain waters.
+
+For some minutes, the artist stood listening--thinking he heard it still.
+
+Aaron King did not, that night, tell Conrad Lagrange of his adventure in
+the spring glade.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVII
+
+Confessions in the Spring Glade
+
+
+
+All the next day, while he worked upon his picture in the glade, Aaron
+King listened for that voice in the organ-like music of the distant
+waters. Many times, he turned to search the flickering light and shade of
+the undergrowth, behind him, for a glimpse of the girl's brown dress and
+winsome face.
+
+The next day she came.
+
+The artist had been looking long at a splash of sunlight that fell upon
+the gray granite boulder which was set in the green turf, and had turned
+to his canvas for--it seemed to him--only an instant. When he looked again
+at the boulder, she was standing there--had, apparently, been standing
+there for some time, waiting with smiling lips and laughing eyes for him
+to see her.
+
+A light creel hung by its webbed strap from her shoulder; in her hand, she
+carried a slender fly rod of good workmanship. Dressed in soft brown, with
+short skirts and high laced boots, and her wavy hair tucked under a wide,
+felt hat; with her blue eyes shining with fun, and her warmly tinted skin
+glowing with healthful exercise; she appeared--to the artist--more as some
+mythical spirit of the mountains, than as a maiden of flesh and blood. The
+manner of her coming, too, heightened the impression. He had heard no
+sound of her approach--no step, no rustle of the underbrush. He had seen
+no movement among the bushes--no parting of the willows in the wall of
+green. There had been no hint of her nearness. He could not even guess the
+direction from which she had come.
+
+At first, he could scarce believe his eyes, and sat motionless in his
+surprise. Then her merry laugh rang out--breaking the spell.
+
+Springing from his seat, he went forward. "Are you a spirit?" he cried.
+"You must be something unreal, you know--the way you appear and disappear.
+The last time, you came out of the music of the waters, and went again the
+same way. To-day, you come out of the air, or the trees, or, perhaps, that
+gray boulder that is giving me such trouble."
+
+Laughing, she answered, "My father and Brian Oakley taught me. If you will
+watch the wild things in the woods, you can learn to do it too. I am no
+more a spirit than the cougar, when it stalks a rabbit in the chaparral;
+or a mink, as it slips among the rocks along the creek; or a fawn, when it
+crouches to hide in the underbrush."
+
+"You have been fishing?" he asked.
+
+She laughed mockingly, "You are _so_ observing! I think you might have
+taken _that_ for granted, and asked what luck."
+
+"I believe I might almost take that for granted too," he returned.
+
+"I took a few," she said carelessly. Then, with a charming air of
+authority--"And now, you must go back to your work. I shall vanish
+instantly, if you waste another moment's time because I am here."
+
+"But I want to talk," he protested. "I have been working hard since noon."
+
+"Of course you have," she retorted. "But presently the light will change
+again, and you won't be able to do any more to-day; so you must keep busy
+while you can."
+
+"And you won't vanish--if I go on with my work?" he asked doubtfully. She
+was smiling at him with such a mischievous air, that he feared, if he
+turned away, she would disappear.
+
+She laughed aloud; "Not if you work," she said. "But if you stop--I'm
+gone."
+
+As she spoke, she went toward his easel, and, resting her fly rod
+carefully against the trunk of a near-by alder, slipped the creel from her
+shoulder, placing the basket on the ground with her hat. Then, while the
+painter watched her, she stood silently looking at the picture. Presently,
+she faced him, and, with an impulsive stamp of her foot, said, "Why don't
+you work? How can you waste your time and this light, looking at me? I
+shall go, if you don't come back to your picture, this minute."
+
+With a laugh, he obeyed.
+
+For a moment, she watched him; then turned away; and he heard her moving
+about, down by the tiny stream, where it disappeared under the willows.
+
+Once, he paused and turned to look in her direction "What are you up to,
+now?" he said.
+
+"I shall be up to leaving you,"--she retorted,--"if you look around,
+again."
+
+He promptly turned once more to his picture.
+
+Soon, she came back, and seated herself beside her creel and rod, where
+she could see the picture under the artist's brush. "Does it bother, if I
+watch?" she asked softly.
+
+"No, indeed," he answered. "It helps--that is, it helps when it is _you_
+who watch." Which--to the painter's secret amazement--was a literal truth.
+The gray rock with the splash of sunshine that would not come right,
+ceased to trouble him, now. Stimulated by her presence, he worked with a
+freedom and a sureness that was a delight.
+
+When he could not refrain from looking in her direction, he saw that she
+was bending, with busy hands, over some willow twigs in her lap. "What in
+the world are you doing?" he asked curiously.
+
+"You are not supposed to know that I am doing anything," she retorted.
+"You have been peeking again."
+
+"You were so still--I feared you had vanished," he laughed. "If you'll
+keep talking to me, I'll know you are there, and will be good."
+
+"Sure it won't bother?"
+
+"Sure," he answered.
+
+"Well, then, _you_ talk to me, and I'll answer."
+
+"I have a confession to make," he said, carefully studying the gray tones
+of the alder trunk beyond the gray boulder.
+
+"A confession?"
+
+"Yes, I want to get it over--so it won't bother me."
+
+"Something about me?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, that's what I am trying so hard to make you keep your eyes on your
+work for--because _I_ have to make a confession to _you_."
+
+"To me?"
+
+"Yes--don't look around, please."
+
+"But what under the sun can you have to confess to me?"
+
+"You started yours first," she answered. "Go on. Maybe it will make it
+easier for me."
+
+Studiously keeping his eyes upon his canvas, he told her how he had
+watched her from the cedar thicket. When he had finished,--and she was
+silent,--he thought that she was angry, and turned about--expecting to see
+her gathering up her things to go.
+
+She was struggling to suppress her laughter. At the look of surprise on
+his face, she burst forth in such a gale of merriment that the little
+glade was filled with the music of her glee; while, in spite of himself,
+the painter joined.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "but that _is_ funny! I am glad, glad!"
+
+"Now, what do you mean by that?" he demanded.
+
+"Why--why--that's exactly what I was trying to get courage enough to
+confess to you!" she gasped. And then she told him how she had spied upon
+him from the arbor in the rose garden; and how, in his absence, she had
+visited his studio.
+
+"But how in the world did you get in? The place was always locked, when I
+was away."
+
+"Oh," she said quaintly, "there was a good genie who let me in through the
+keyhole. I didn't meddle with anything, you know--I just looked at the
+beautiful room where you work. And I didn't glance, even, at the picture
+on the easel. The genie told me you wouldn't like that. I would not have
+drawn the curtain anyway, even if I hadn't been told. At least, I don't
+_think_ I would--but perhaps I might--I can't always tell what I'm going
+to do, you know."
+
+Suddenly, the artist remembered finding the studio door open with Conrad
+Lagrange's key in the lock, and how the novelist had berated himself with
+such exaggerated vehemence; and, in a flash, came the thought of James
+Rutlidge's visit, that afternoon, and of his strange manner and
+insinuating remarks.
+
+"I think I know the name of your good genie," said the painter, facing the
+girl, seriously. "But tell me, did no one disturb you while you were in
+the studio?"
+
+Her cheeks colored painfully, and all the laughter was gone from her voice
+as she replied, "I didn't want you to know that part."
+
+"But I must know," he insisted gravely.
+
+"Yes," she said, "Mr. Rutlidge found me there; and I ran away through the
+garden. I don't like him. He frightens me. Please, is it necessary for us
+to talk about it any more? I had to make my confession of course, but must
+we talk about _that_ part?"
+
+"No," he answered, "we need not talk about it. It was necessary for me to
+know; but we will never mention that part, again. When we are back in the
+orange groves, you shall come to the rose garden and to the studio, as
+often as you like; your good genie and I will see to it that you are not
+disturbed--by any one."
+
+Her face brightened at his words. "And do you really like for me to make
+music for you--as Mr. Lagrange says you do?"
+
+"I can't begin to tell you how much I like it," he answered smiling.
+
+"And it doesn't bother you in your work?"
+
+"It helps me," he declared--thinking of that portrait of Mrs. Taine.
+
+"Oh, I am glad, glad!" she cried. "I wanted it to help. It was for that I
+played."
+
+"You played to help me?" he asked wonderingly.
+
+She nodded. "I thought it might--if I could get enough of the mountains
+into my music, you know."
+
+"And will you dance for me, sometimes too?" he asked.
+
+She shook her head. "I cannot tell about that. You see, I only dance when
+I must--when the music, somehow, doesn't seem quite enough. When I--when
+I"--she searched for a word, then finished abruptly--"oh, I can't tell you
+about it--it's just something you feel--there are no words for it. When I
+first come to the mountains,--after living in Fairlands all winter,--I
+always dance--the mountains feel so big and strong. And sometimes I dance
+in the moonlight--when it feels so soft and light and clean; or in the
+twilight--when it's so still, and the air is so--so full of the day that
+has come home to rest and sleep; and sometimes when I am away up under the
+big pines and the wind, from off the mountain tops, under the sky, sings
+through the dark branches."
+
+"But don't you ever dance to please your friends?"
+
+"Oh, no--I don't dance to _please_ any one--only just when it's for
+myself--when nothing else will do--when I _must_. Of course, sometimes,
+Myra or Brian Oakley or Mrs. Oakley are with me--but they don't matter,
+you know. They are so much a part of me that I don't mind."
+
+"I wonder if you will ever dance for me?"
+
+Again, she shook her head. "I don't think so. How could I? You see, you
+are not like anybody that I have ever known."
+
+"But I saw you the other evening, you remember."
+
+"Yes, but I didn't know you were there. If I had known, I wouldn't have
+danced."
+
+All the while--as she talked--her fingers had been busy with the slender,
+willow branches. "And now"--she said, abruptly changing the subject, and
+smiling as she spoke--"and now, you must turn back to your work."
+
+"But the light is not right," he protested.
+
+"Never mind, you must pretend that it is," she retorted. "Can't you
+pretend?"
+
+To humor her, he obeyed, laughing.
+
+"You may look, now," she said, a minute later.
+
+He turned to see her standing close beside him, holding out a charming
+little basket that she had woven of the green willows and decorated with
+moss and watercress. In the basket, on the cool, damp moss, and lightly
+covered with the cress, lay a half dozen fine rainbow trout.
+
+"How pretty!" he exclaimed. "So that is what you have been doing!"
+
+"They are for you," she said simply.
+
+"For me?" he cried.
+
+She nodded brightly; "For you and Mr. Lagrange. I know you like them
+because you said you were fishing when you heard my violin. And I thought
+that you wouldn't want to leave your picture, to fish for yourself, so I
+took them for you."
+
+The artist concealed his embarrassment with difficulty; and, while
+expressing his thanks and appreciation in rather formal words, studied her
+face keenly. But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous naturalness,
+an unaffected kindliness, and an innocent disregard of conventionalities,
+that would have disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than Aaron
+King.
+
+Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, and swung the empty
+creel over her shoulder. Then, putting on her hat, she picked up her rod.
+
+"Oh--are you going?" he said.
+
+"You have finished your work for to-day," she answered
+
+"But let me go with you, a little way."
+
+She shook her head. "No, I don't want you."
+
+"But you will come again?"
+
+"Perhaps--if you won't stop work--but I can't promise--you see I never
+know what I am going to do up here in the mountains," she answered
+whimsically. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the morning; or I
+might be here, waiting for you, when you come to paint."
+
+He was putting his things in the box--thinking he would persuade her to
+let him accompany her a little way; if she saw that he really would paint
+no more. When he bent over the box, she was speaking. "I hope you will,"
+he answered.
+
+There was no reply.
+
+He straightened up and looked around.
+
+She was gone.
+
+For some time, he stood searching the glade with his eyes, carefully;
+listening to catch a sound--a puzzled, baffled look upon his face. Taking
+his things, at last, he started up the little path. But before he reached
+the old gate, a low laugh caused him to whirl quickly about.
+
+There she stood, beside the spring--a teasing smile on her face. Before he
+could command himself, she danced a step or two, with an elfish air, and
+slipped away through the green willow wall. Another merry laugh came back
+to him and then--the silence of the little glade, and the sound of the
+distant waters.
+
+With the basket of fish in his hand, Aaron King went slowly to camp;
+where, when Conrad Lagrange saw what the artist carried so carefully,
+explanations were in order.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XVIII
+
+Sibyl Andres and the Butterflies
+
+
+
+On the following day, the artist was putting away his things, at the close
+of the afternoon's work, when the girl appeared.
+
+The long, slanting bars of sunshine and the deepening shadows marked the
+lateness of the hour. As he bent over his paint-box, the man was thinking
+with regret that she would not come--that, perhaps, she would never come.
+And at the thought that he might not see her again, an odd fear gripped
+his heart. His thoughts were interrupted by a low, musical laugh; and he
+sprang to his feet, to search the glade with careful eyes.
+
+"Come out," he cried, as though adjuring an invisible spirit. "I know you
+are here; come out."
+
+With another laugh, she stepped from behind the trunk of one of the
+largest trees, within a few feet of where he stood. As she went toward
+him, she carried in her outstretched hands a graceful basket, woven of
+sycamore leaves and ferns, and filled with the ripest sweetest
+blackberries. She did not speak as she held out her offering; but the man,
+looking into her laughing eyes, fancied that there was a meaning and a
+purpose in the gift that did not appear upon the surface of her simple
+action.
+
+Expressing his pleasure, as he received the dainty basket, he could not
+refrain from adding, "But why do you bring me things?"
+
+She answered with that wayward, mocking humor that so often seized her;
+"Because I like to. I told you that I always do what I like--up here in
+the mountains."
+
+"I hope you always will," he returned, "if your likes are all as delicious
+as this one."
+
+With the manner of a child playfully making a mystery yet anxious to have
+the secret discussed, she said, "I have one more gift to bring you, yet."
+
+"I knew you meant something by your presents," he cried. "It isn't just
+because you want me to have the things you bring."
+
+"Oh, yes it is," she retorted, laughing mischievously at his triumphant
+and expectant tone. "If I didn't want you to have the things I
+bring--why--I wouldn't bring them, would I?"
+
+"But that isn't all," he insisted. "Tell me--why do you say you have one
+_more_ gift to bring?"
+
+She shook her head with a delightful air of mystery "Not until I come
+again. When I come again, I will tell you."
+
+"And you will come to-morrow?"
+
+She laughed teasingly at his eagerness. "How can I tell?" she answered. "I
+do not know, myself, what I will do to-morrow--when I am up here in the
+mountains--when the canyon gates are shut and the world is left outside."
+Even as she spoke, her mood changed and the last words were uttered
+wistfully, as a captive spirit--that, by nature wild and free, was
+permitted, for a brief time only, to go beyond its prison walls--might
+have spoken.
+
+The artist--puzzled by her flash-like change of moods, and by her manner
+as she spoke of the world beyond the canyon gates--had no words to reply.
+As he stood there,--in that little glade where the light fell as in a
+quiet cathedral and the air trembled with the deep organ-tones of the
+distant waters--holding in his hands the basket of leaves and ferns with
+its wild fruit, and looking at the beautiful girl who had brought her
+offering with the naturalness of a child of the mountains and the air of a
+woodland spirit,--he again felt that the world he had always known was
+very far away.
+
+The girl, too, was silent--as though, by some subtle power, she knew his
+thoughts and did not wish to interrupt.
+
+So still were they, that a wild bird--darting through the screen of alder
+boughs--stopped to swing on a limb above their heads, with a burst of
+wild-wood melody. In the arroyo beyond the willow wall, a quail called his
+evening call, and was answered by his mate from the top of the bank under
+the mistletoe oak. A pair of gray squirrels crept down the gray trunks of
+the trees and slipped around the granite boulder to drink at the spring;
+then scampered away again--half in frolic, half in fright--as they caught
+sight of the man and the maid. As the squirrels disappeared, the girl
+laughed--a low laugh of fellowship with the creatures of the
+wilderness--in complete understanding of their humor. Then--as though
+following the path of a sunbeam--two gorgeously brown and yellow winged
+butterflies came flitting through the draperies of virgin's-bower, and
+floated in zigzag flight about the glade--now high among the alder boughs;
+now low over the tops of the roses and berry-bushes; down to the fragrant
+mint at the water's edge; and up again to the tops of the willows, as if
+to leave the glade; but only to return again to the vines that covered the
+bank, and to the flowers that, here and there, starred the grassy sward.
+
+"Oh!"--cried the girl impulsively, as the beautiful winged creatures
+disappeared at last,--"if people could only be like that! It's so hard to
+be yourself in the world. Everybody, there, seems trying to be something
+they are not. No one dares to be just themselves. Everything, up here, is
+so right--so true--so just what it is--and down there, everything tries so
+hard to be just what it is not. The world even _sees_ so crooked that it
+_can't_ believe when a thing is just what it is."
+
+While watching the butterflies, she had turned away from the artist and,
+in following their flight with her eyes, had taken a few light steps that
+brought her into the open, grassy center of the glade. With her face
+upturned to the opening in the foliage through which the butterflies had
+disappeared, she had spoken as if thinking aloud, rather than as
+addressing her companion.
+
+Before the artist could reply, the beautiful creatures came floating back
+as they had gone. With a low exclamation of delight, the girl watched them
+as they circled, now, above her head, in their aerial waltz among the
+sunbeams and leafy boughs. Then the man, watching, saw her--unheeding his
+presence--stretch her arms upward. For a moment she stood, lightly poised,
+and then, with her wide, shining eyes fixed upon those gorgeously winged
+spirits whirling in the fragrant air, with her lips parted in smiling
+delight, she danced upon the smooth turf of the glade--every step and
+movement in perfect harmony with the spirit of care-free abandonment that
+marked the movements of the butterflies that danced above her head.
+Unmindful of the watching man, as her dainty companions
+themselves,--forgetful of his presence,--she yielded to the impulse to
+express her emotions in free, rhythmic movement.
+
+Instinctively, Aaron King was silent--standing motionless, as if he feared
+to startle her into flight.
+
+Suddenly, as the girl danced--her eyes always upon her winged
+companions--the insects floated above the artist's head, and she became
+conscious of his presence. Her cheeks flushed and, laughing low,--as she
+danced, lightly as a spirit,--she impulsively stretched out her arms to
+him, in merry invitation--as though challenging him to join her.
+
+The gesture was as spontaneous and as innocent, in its freedom, as had
+been her offering of the gifts from mountain stream and bush. But the
+man--lured into forgetfulness of everything save the wild loveliness of
+the scene--started toward her. At his movement, a look of bewildered fear
+came into her face; but--too startled to control her movements on the
+instant, and as though impelled by some hidden power--she moved toward
+him--blindly, unconsciously--her eyes wide with that look of questioning
+fright. He had almost reached her when, as though by an effort of her
+will, she stopped and stood still--gazing into his face--trembling in
+every limb. Then, with a low cry, she sank down in a frightened, cowering,
+pleading attitude, and buried her crimson face in her hands.
+
+As though some unseen hand checked him, the man halted, and the girl's
+cheeks were not more crimson than his own.
+
+A moment he stood, then a step brought him to her side. Putting out his
+hand, he touched her upon the shoulder, and was about to speak. But at his
+touch, with another cry, she sprang to her feet and, whirling with the
+flash-like quickness of a wild thing, vanished into the undergrowth that
+walled in the glade.
+
+With a startled exclamation, the man tried to follow calling to her,
+reassuring her, begging her to come back. But there was no answer to his
+words; nor did he catch a glimpse of her; though once or twice he thought
+he heard her in swift flight up the canyon.
+
+All the way to the place where he had first seen her, he followed; but at
+the cedar thicket he stopped. For a long time, he stood there; while the
+twilight failed and the night came. Slowly,--in the soft darkness with
+bowed head, as one humbled and ashamed,--he went back down the canyon to
+the little glade, and to the camp.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XIX
+
+The Three Gifts and Their Meanings
+
+
+
+The next day, Aaron King--too distracted to paint--idled all the afternoon
+in the glade. But the girl did not come. When it was dark, he returned to
+camp; telling himself that she would never come again; that his rude
+yielding to the lure of her wild beauty had rightly broken forever the
+charm of their intimacy--and he cursed himself--as many a man has
+cursed--for that momentary lack of self-control.
+
+But the following afternoon, as the artist worked,--bent upon quickly
+finishing his picture of the place that seemed now to reproach him with
+its sweet atmosphere of sacred purity,--he heard, as he had heard that
+first day, the low music of her voice blending with the music of the
+mountain stream. Scarce daring to move, he sat as though absorbed in his
+work--listening with all his heart, for some sound of her approach, other
+than the melody of her song that grew more and more distinct. At last, he
+knew that she was standing just the other side of the willows, beyond the
+little spring. He felt her hidden eyes upon him, but dared not look that
+way--feeling sure that if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would
+vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he made show of giving close
+attention to his work and waited.
+
+For some minutes, she remained concealed; singing low, as though to try
+him with temptation. Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised
+brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view
+beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's
+green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from
+the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.
+
+"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still
+holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him
+seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue
+eyes a troubled question.
+
+"I sought you all the way to your home," he said, gently, "but you would
+not let me come near."
+
+"I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her eyes but regarding him
+steadily with that questioning appeal.
+
+"I am sorry,"--he said,--"won't you forgive me? I will never frighten you
+so again. I did not mean to do it."
+
+"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I
+frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that
+you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I
+came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"
+
+The man could not answer.
+
+As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for
+granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him
+across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said
+with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts."
+Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box
+of colors.
+
+Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by
+the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the
+artist tried to thank her.
+
+"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You
+promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you
+came again."
+
+She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in
+her teasing mood.
+
+"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you
+know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."
+
+Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied, "But didn't you
+ask me again and again to help you to know the mountains as I know them?"
+
+"Yes," he said, "but you would not promise."
+
+"I did better than promise"--she returned--"I brought you, from the
+mountains themselves, their three greatest gifts."
+
+He shook his head, with the air of a backward schoolboy--"Won't you read
+the lesson?"
+
+"If you will work while I talk, I will," she answered--amused by the
+hopelessness of his manner and tone.
+
+Obediently, he took up his brushes, and turned toward his picture.
+
+Removing her hat, she seated herself on the ground, where she had woven
+the willow basket for the fish.
+
+After a moment's silence, she began--timidly, at first, then with
+increasing confidence as she found words to express her charming fancy.
+"First, you must know, that in all the wild life of the mountains there is
+no creature so strong--in proportion to its size and weight, I mean--as
+the trout that lives in the mountain streams. Its home is in the icy
+torrents that are fed by the snows of the highest peaks and canyons. It
+lives, literally, in the innermost heart and life of the hills. It seeks
+its food at the foot of the falls, where the water boils in fierce fury;
+where the current swirls and leaps among the boulders; and where the
+stream rushes with all its might down the rocky channels. With its
+muscles, fine as tempered steel, it forces its way against the strength of
+the stream--conquering even the fifty-foot downward pour of a cataract.
+Its strength is a silent strength. It has no voice other than the voice of
+its own beautiful self. And all its gleaming colors you may see, in the
+morning and in the evening, tinting the mighty heads and shoulders and
+sides of the hills themselves. And so, the first gift that I brought
+you--fresh from the mountain's heart--was the gift of the mountain's
+strength.
+
+"The second gift was gathered from bushes that were never planted by the
+hand of man. They grow as free and untamed as the rains that water them,
+and the earth that feeds them, and the sunshine that sweetens hem. In them
+is the flavor of mountain mists, and low hung clouds, and shining dew; the
+odor of moist leaf-mould, and unimpoverished soil; the pleasant tang of
+the sunshine; and the softer sweetness of the shady nooks where they grow.
+In the second gift, I brought you the purity, and the flavor of the
+mountains."
+
+"And to-day"--she finished simply--"to-day I have brought you the beauty
+of the hills."
+
+"You have brought me more than the strength and purity and beauty of the
+mountains," exclaimed the painter. "You have brought me their mystery."
+
+She looked at him questioningly.
+
+"In your own beautiful self," he continued sincerely "you have brought me
+the mystery of these hills. You are wonderful! I have never known any one
+like you."
+
+She was wholly unconscious of the compliment--if indeed, he meant it as
+such. "I suppose I must be different," she returned with just a touch, of
+sadness in her voice. "You see I have never been taught like other girls.
+I know nothing at all of the world where you live--except what Myra has
+told me." Then, as if to change the subject, she asked shyly, "Would you
+care for my music to-day?"
+
+He assented eagerly--thinking she meant to sing. But, rising, she crossed
+the glade, and disappeared behind the willows--returning, a moment later,
+with her violin.
+
+In answer to his exclamation of pleased surprise, she said smiling, "I
+brought my violin because I thought, if you would let me play, the music
+would perhaps help us both to forget what--what happened when I danced."
+
+Standing by the gray boulder, with her face up turned to the mountains,
+she placed the instrument under her chin and drew the bow softly across
+the strings.
+
+For an hour or more she played. Then, as Czar trotted sedately into the
+glade, she lowered her instrument and, with a smile, called merrily to
+Conrad Lagrange who, attracted by the music, was standing at the gate on
+the bank--from the artist's position invisible; "Come down, good
+genie,--come down! You have been watching there quite long enough. Come,
+instantly; or with my magic I'll turn you into a fantastic, dancing bug,
+such as those that straddle there upon the waters of the spring, or else
+into a fat pollywog that wiggles in the black ooze among the dead leaves
+and rotting bits of wood."
+
+With a quick movement, she tucked her violin under her chin and played a
+few measures of the worst sort of ragtime, in perfect imitation of a
+popular performer. The effect, following the music she had just been
+making, was grotesque and horrible.
+
+"Mercy, mercy!" cried the man at the gate. "I beg! I beg! Do not, I pray,
+good nymph, torture me with thy dreadful power. I swear that I will obey
+thy every wish and whim."
+
+Pointing with her bow--as with a wand--to the boulder, she sternly
+commanded, "Come, then, and sit here upon this rock; and give to me an
+account of all that thou hast done since I left thee in the rose garden or
+I will split thy ears and stretch thy soul upon a torture rack of hideous
+noise."
+
+She lifted her violin again, threateningly. The novelist came down the
+path, on a run, to seat himself upon the gray boulder.
+
+The artist shouted with laughter. But the novelist and the girl paid no
+heed to his unseemly merriment.
+
+"Speak,"--she commanded, waving her wand,--"what hast thou done?"
+
+"Did I not obey thy will and, under such terms as I could procure, open
+for thee the treasure room of thy desire?" growled the man on the rock.
+
+"And still," she retorted, "when I made myself subject to those terms, and
+obediently looked not upon the hidden mystery--still the room of my
+desires became a trap betraying me into rude hands from which I narrowly
+escaped. And you--you fled the scene of your wrong-doing, without so much
+as by-your-leave, and for these long weeks have wandered, irresponsible,
+among my hills. Did you not say that my home was under these glowing
+peaks, and in the purple shadows of these canyons? Did you think that I
+would not find you here, and charm you again within reach of my power?"
+
+"And what is thy will, good spirit?"--he asked, humbly--"tell me thy will
+and it shall be done--if thou wilt but make music _only_ upon the
+instrument that is in thy hand."
+
+With a laugh, she ended the play, saying, "My will is that you and Mr.
+King come, to-morrow evening, for supper with Miss Willard and me. Brian
+Oakley and Mrs. Oakley will be there. I want you too."
+
+The men looked at each other in doubt.
+
+"Really, Miss Andres," said the artist, "we--"
+
+The girl interrupted with one of her flash-like changes. "I have invited
+you. You _must_ come. I shall expect you." And before either of the men
+could speak again, she sprang lightly across the little stream, and
+disappeared through the willow wall.
+
+"Well, I'll be--" The novelist checked himself, solemnly--staring blankly
+at the spot where she had disappeared.
+
+The artist laughed.
+
+"What do you think of it?" demanded Conrad Lagrange, turning to his
+friend.
+
+Aaron King, packing up his things, answered, "I think we'd better go."
+
+Which opinion was concurred in by Brian Oakley who dropped in on them that
+evening.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XX
+
+Myra's Prayer and the Ranger's Warning
+
+
+
+That same afternoon, while Sibyl Andres was making music for Aaron King in
+the spring glade, Brian Oakley, on his way down the canyon, stopped at the
+old place where Myra Willard and the girl were living. Riding into the
+yard that was fenced only by the wild growth, he was greeted cordially by
+the woman with the disfigured face, who was seated on the porch.
+
+"Howdy, Myra," he called in return, as he swung from the saddle; and
+leaving the chestnut to roam at will, he went to the porch, his spurs
+clinking softly over the short, thick grass.
+
+"Where's Sibyl?" he asked, seating himself on the top step.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Oakley," the woman answered, smiling. "You
+really didn't expect me to, did you?"
+
+The Ranger laughed. "Did she take gun, basket, rod or violin? If I know
+whether she's gone shooting berrying, fishing or fiddling, it may give me
+a clue--or did she take all four?"
+
+The woman watched him closely. "She took only her violin. She went
+sometime after lunch--down the canyon, I think. Do you wish particularly
+to see her, Mr. Oakley?"
+
+It was evident to the woman that the officer was relieved. "Oh, no; she
+wouldn't be going far with her violin. If she went down the canyon, it's
+all right anyway. But I stopped in to tell the girl that she must be
+careful, for a while. There's an escaped convict ranging somewhere in my
+district. I received the word this morning, and have been up around Lone
+Cabin and Burnt Pine and the head of Clear Creek to see if I could start
+anything. I didn't find any signs, but the information is reliable. Tell
+Sibyl that I say she must not go out without her gun--that if I catch her
+wandering around unarmed, I'll pack her off back to civilization, pronto."
+
+"I'll tell her," said Myra Willard, "and I'll help her to remember. It
+would be better, I suppose, if she stayed at home; but that seems so
+impossible."
+
+"She'll be all right if she has her gun," asserted the Ranger,
+confidently. "I'd back the girl against anything I ever met up with--when
+she has her artillery. By the way, Myra, have your neighbors below called
+yet?"
+
+"No--at least, not while I have been at home. I have been berrying, two or
+three times. They might have come while I was out."
+
+"Has Sibyl met them yet?" came the next question.
+
+"She has not mentioned it, if she has."
+
+"H-m-m," mused Brian Oakley.
+
+The woman's love for the girl prompted her to quick suspicion of the
+Ranger's manner.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Oakley?" she asked. "Has the child been indiscreet? Has
+she done anything wrong? Has she been with those men?"
+
+"She has called upon one of them several times," returned Brian, smiling.
+"Mr. King is painting that little glade by the old spring at the foot of
+the bank, you know, and I guess she stumbled onto him. The place is one of
+her favorite spots. But bless your heart, Myra, there's no harm in it. It
+would be natural for her to get interested in any one making a picture of
+a place she loves as she does that old spring glade. She has spent days at
+a time there--ever since she was big enough to go that far from home."
+
+"It's strange that she has not mentioned it to me," said the
+woman--troubled in spite of the Ranger's reassuring words.
+
+The man directed his attention suddenly to his horse; "Max! You let
+Sibyl's roses alone." The animal turned his head questioningly toward his
+master. "Back!" said the Ranger, "back!" At his word, the chestnut
+promptly backed across the yard until the officer called, "That will do,"
+when he halted, and, with an impatient toss of his head, again looked
+toward the porch, inquiringly. "You are all right now," said the man.
+Whereupon the horse began contentedly cropping the grass.
+
+"I met Mr. King, accidentally, once, at the depot in Fairlands," continued
+the woman with the disfigured face. "He impressed me, then, as being a
+genuinely good man--a true gentleman. But, judging from his books, Conrad
+Lagrange is not a man I would wish Sibyl to meet. I have wondered at the
+artist's friendship with him."
+
+"I tell you, Myra, Lagrange is all right," said Brian Oakley, stoutly.
+"He's odd and eccentric and rough spoken sometimes; but he's not at all
+what you would think him from the stuff he writes. He's a true man at
+heart, and you needn't worry about Sibyl getting anything but good from an
+acquaintance with him. As for King--well--Conrad Lagrange vouches for him.
+If you knew Lagrange, you'd understand what that means. He and the young
+fellow's mother grew up together. He swears the lad is right; and, from
+what I've seen of him, I believe it. It doesn't follow, though, that you
+don't need to keep your eyes open. The girl is as innocent as a
+child--though she is a woman--and--well--accidents have happened, you
+know." As he spoke he glanced unconsciously at the scars that disfigured
+the naturally beautiful face of the woman.
+
+Myra Willard blushed as she answered sadly, "Yes, I know that accidents
+have happened. I will talk with Sibyl; and will you not speak to her too?
+She loves you so, and is always guided by your wishes. A little word or
+two from you would be an added safeguard."
+
+"Sure I'll talk to her," said the Ranger, heartily--rising and whistling
+to the chestnut. "But look here, Myra,"--he said, pausing with his foot in
+the stirrup,--"the girl must have her head, you know. We don't want to put
+her in the notion that every man in the world is a villain laying for a
+chance to do her harm. There _are_ clean fellows--a few--and it will do
+Sibyl good to meet that kind." He swung himself lightly into the saddle.
+
+The woman smiled; "Sibyl could not think that all men are evil, after
+knowing her father and you, Mr. Oakley."
+
+The Ranger laughed as he turned Max toward the opening in the cedar
+thicket. "Will was what God and Nelly made him, Myra; and I--if I'm fairly
+decent it's because Mary took me in hand in time. Men are mostly what you
+women make 'em, anyway, I reckon."
+
+"Don't forget that you and Mrs. Oakley are coming for supper to-morrow,"
+she called after him.
+
+"No danger of our forgetting that," he answered. "Adios!" And the chestnut
+loped easily out of the yard.
+
+Myra Willard kept her place on the porch until the sound of the horse's
+galloping feet died away down the canyon. But, as she listened to the
+vanishing sound of the Ranger's going, her eyes were looking far away--as
+though his words had aroused in her heart memories of days long past. When
+the last echo had lost itself in the thin mountain air, she went into the
+house.
+
+Standing before the small mirror that served--in the rude, almost
+camp-like furnishings of the house--for both herself and Sibyl, she
+studied the face reflected there--turning her head slowly, as if comparing
+the beautiful unmarked side with the other that was so hideously
+disfigured. For some time she stood there, unflinchingly giving herself to
+the torture of this contemplation of her ruined loveliness; drinking to
+its bitter dregs the sorrowful cup of her secret memories; until, as
+though she could bear no more, she drew back--her eyes wide with pain and
+horror, her marred features twisted grotesquely in an agony of mental
+suffering. With a pitiful moan she sank upon her knees in prayer.
+
+In the earnestness of her spirit--out of the deep devotion of her love--as
+she prayed God for wisdom to guide the girl entrusted to her care, she
+spoke aloud. "Let me not rob her, dear Christ, of love; but help me to
+help her love aright. Help me, that in my fear for her I do not turn her
+heart against her mate when he shall come. Help me, that I do not so fill
+her pure mind with doubt and distrust of all men that she will look for
+evil, only. Help me, that I do not teach her to associate love wholly with
+that which is base and untrue. Grant, O God, that her beautiful life may
+not be marred by a love that is unworthy."
+
+As the woman with the disfigured face rose from her knees, she heard the
+voice of Sibyl, who was coming up the old road toward the cedars--singing
+as she came.
+
+When Sibyl entered the house, a moment later, Myra Willard, still
+agitated, was bathing her face. The girl, seeing, checked the song upon
+her lips; and going to the woman who in everything but the ties of blood
+was mother to her, sought to discover the reason for her troubled manner,
+and tried to soothe her with loving words.
+
+The woman held the girl close in her arms and looked into the lovely,
+winsome face that was so unmarred by vicious thoughts of the world's
+teaching.
+
+"Dear child, do you not sometimes hate the sight of my ugliness?" she
+said. "It seems to me, you must."
+
+With her arms about her companion's neck, Sibyl pressed her pure, young
+lips to those disfiguring scars, in an impulsive kiss. "Foolish Myra," she
+cried, "you know I love you too well to see anything but your own
+beautiful self behind the scars. To me, your face is all like this"--and
+she softly kissed, in turn, the woman's unmarred cheek. "Whatever made the
+marks, I know that they are not dishonorable. So I never think of them at
+all, but see only the beautiful side--which is really you, you know."
+
+"No,"--answered Myra Willard, gently,--"my scars are not dishonorable. But
+the world does not see with your pure eyes, dear child. The world sees
+only the ugly, disfigured side of my face. It never looks at the other
+side. And listen, dear heart, so the world often sees dishonor where there
+is no dishonor It sees evil in many things where there is only good."
+
+"Yes," returned the girl, "but you have never taught me to see with the
+eyes of the world. So, to me, what the world sees, does not matter."
+
+"Pray that it may never matter, child," answered the woman with the
+disfigured face, earnestly.
+
+Then, as they went out to the porch, she asked, "Did you meet Mr. Oakley
+as you were coming home?"
+
+Sibyl laughed and colored with a confusion that was new to her, as she
+answered, "Yes, I did--and he scolded me."
+
+"About your going unarmed?"
+
+"No,--but he told me about that too. I don't see why, whenever a poor
+criminal escapes, he always comes into _our_ mountains. I don't like to
+'pack a gun'--unless I'm hunting. But Brian Oakley didn't scold me for
+that, though--he knows I always do as he says. He scolded because I hadn't
+told you about my going to see Mr. King, in the spring glade." She
+laughed, conscious of the color that was in her cheeks. "I told him it
+didn't matter whether I told you or not, because he always knows every
+single move I make, anyway."
+
+"Why _didn't_ you tell me, dear?" asked the woman. "You never kept
+anything from me, before--I'm sure."
+
+"Why dearest," the girl answered frankly, "I don't know, myself, why I
+didn't tell you"--which, Myra Willard knew, was the exact truth.
+
+Then Sibyl told her foster-mother everything about her acquaintance with
+the artist and Conrad Lagrange--from the time she first watched the
+painter, from the arbor in the rose garden, where she met the novelist;
+until that afternoon, when she had invited them to supper, the next day.
+Only of her dancing before the artist, the girl did not tell.
+
+Later in the evening, Sibyl--saying that she would sing Myra to
+sleep--took her violin to the porch, outside the window; and in the dusk
+made soft music until the woman's troubled heart was calmed. When the moon
+came up from behind the Galenas, across the canyon, the girl tiptoed into
+the house, to bend over the sleeping woman, in tender solicitude. With
+that mother tenderness belonging to all true women, she stooped and
+softly kissed the disfigured face upon the pillow. At the touch, Myra
+Willard stirred uneasily; and the girl--careful to make no
+sound--withdrew.
+
+On the porch, she again took up her violin as if to play; but, instead,
+sat motionless--her face turned down the canyon--her eyes looking far
+away. Then, quickly, she put aside the instrument, and--as though with
+sudden yielding to some inner impulse--slipped out into the grassy yard.
+And there, in the moon's white light,--with only the mountains, the trees,
+and the flowers to see,--she danced, again, as she had danced before the
+artist in the glade--with her face turned down the canyon, and her arms
+outstretched, longingly, toward the camp in the sycamores back of the old
+orchard.
+
+Suddenly, from the room where Myra Willard slept, came that shuddering,
+terror-stricken cry.
+
+The girl, fleet-footed as a deer, ran into the house. Kneeling, she put
+her strong young arms about the cowering, trembling form on the bed.
+"There, there, dear, it's all right."
+
+The woman of the disfigured face caught Sibyl's hand, impulsively.
+"I--I--was dreaming again," she whispered, "and--and this time--O
+Sibyl--this time, I dreamed that it was _you_."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXI
+
+The Last Climb
+
+
+
+That first visit of Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange to the old home of
+Sibyl Andres was the beginning of a delightful comradeship.
+
+Often, in the evening, the two men, with Czar, went to spend an hour in
+friendly intercourse with their neighbors up the canyon. Always, they were
+welcomed by Myra Willard with a quiet dignity; while Sibyl was frankly
+delighted to have them come. Always, they were invited with genuine
+hospitality to "come again." Frequently, Brian Oakley and perhaps Mrs.
+Oakley would be there when they arrived; or the Ranger would come riding
+into the yard before they left. At times, the canyon's mountain wall
+echoed the laughter of the little company as Sibyl and the novelist played
+their fantastical game of words; or again, the older people would listen
+to the blending voices of the artist and the girl as, in the quiet hush of
+the evening, they sang together to Myra Willard's accompaniment on the
+violin; or, perhaps, Sibyl, with her face upturned to the mountain tops,
+would make for her chosen friends the music of the hills.
+
+Not infrequently, too, the girl would call at the camp in the sycamore
+grove--sometimes riding with the Ranger, sometimes alone; or they would
+hear her merry hail from the gate the other side of the orchard as she
+passed by. And sometimes, in the morning, she would appear--equipped with
+rod or gun or basket--to frankly challenge Aaron King to some long ramble
+in the hills.
+
+So the days for the young man at the beginning of his life work, and for
+the young woman at the beginning of her womanhood, passed. Up and down the
+canyon, along the boulder-strewn bed of the roaring Clear Creek, from the
+Ranger Station to the falls; in the quiet glades under the alders hung
+with virgin's-bower and wild grape; beneath the live-oaks on the
+mountains' flanks or shoulders; in dimly lighted, cedar-sheltered gulches,
+among tall brakes and lilies; or high up on the canyon walls under the
+dark and fragrant pines--over all the paths and trails familiar to her
+girlhood she led him--showing him every nook and glade and glen--teaching
+him to know, as he had asked, the mountains that she herself so loved.
+
+The time came, at last, when the two men must return to Fairlands. With
+Mr. and Mrs. Oakley they were spending the evening at Sibyl's home when
+Conrad Lagrange announced that they would leave the mountains, two days
+later.
+
+"Then,"--said the girl, impulsively,--"Mr. King and I are going for one
+last good-by climb to-morrow. Aren't we?" she concluded--turning to the
+artist.
+
+Aaron King laughed as he answered, "We certainly seem to be headed that
+way. Where are we going?"
+
+"We will start early and come back late"--she returned--"which really is
+all that any one ought to know about a climb that is just for the climb.
+And listen--no rod, no gun, no sketch-book. I'll fix a lunch."
+
+"Watch out for my convict," warned the Ranger. "He must be getting mighty
+hungry, by now."
+
+Early in the morning, they set out. Crossing the canyon, they climbed the
+Oak Knoll trail--down which the artist and Conrad Lagrange had been led by
+the uncanny wisdom of Croesus, a few weeks before--to the pipe-line. Where
+the path from below leads into the pipe-line trail, under the live-oaks,
+on a shelf cut in the comparatively easy slope of the mountain's shoulder,
+they paused for a look over the narrow valley that lay a thousand feet
+below. Across the wide, gray, boulder-strewn wash of the mountain
+torrent's way, with the gleaming thread of tumbling Clear Creek in its
+center, they could see the white dots that marked the camp back of the old
+orchard; and, farther up the stream, could distinguish the little opening
+with the cedar thicket and the giant sycamores that marked the spot where
+Sibyl was born.
+
+Aaron King, looking at the girl, recalled that day when he and Conrad
+Lagrange, in a spirit of venturesome fun, had left the choice of trails to
+the burro. "Good, old Croesus!" he said smiling.
+
+She knew the story of how they had been guided to their camping place, and
+laughed in return, as she answered, "He's a dear old burro, is Croesus,
+and worthy of a better name."
+
+"Plutus would be better," suggested the artist.
+
+"Because a Greek God is better than a Lydian King?" she asked curiously.
+
+"Wasn't Plutus the giver of wealth?" he returned.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, and wasn't he forced by Zeus to distribute his gifts without regard
+to the characters of the recipients?"
+
+She laughed merrily. "Plutus or Croesus--I'm glad he chose the Oak Knoll
+trail."
+
+"And so am I," answered the man, earnestly.
+
+Leisurely, they followed the trail that is hung--narrow thread-like
+path--high upon the mountain wall, invisible from the floor of the canyon
+below. At a point where the trail turns to round the inward curve of one
+of the small side canyons--where the pines grow dark and tall--some
+thoughtful hand had laid a small pipe from the large conduit tunnel, under
+the trail, to a barrel fixed on the mountainside below the little path.
+Here they stopped again and, while they loitered, filled a small canteen
+with the cold, clear water from the mountain's heart. Farther on, where
+the pipe-line again rounds the inward curve of the wall between two
+mountain spurs, they turned aside to follow the Government trail that
+leads to the fire-break on the summit of the Galenas and then down into
+the valley on the other side. At the gap where the Galena trail crosses
+the fire-break, they again turned aside to make their leisure way along
+the broad, brush-cleared break that lies in many a fold and curve and kink
+like a great ribbon on the thin top of the ridge. With every step, now,
+they were climbing. Midday found them standing by a huge rock at the edge
+of a clump of pines on one of the higher points of the western end of the
+range. Here they would have their lunch.
+
+As they sat in the lee of the great rock, with the wind that sweeps the
+mountain tops singing in the pines above their heads, they looked directly
+down upon the wide Galena Valley and far across to the spurs and slopes of
+the San Jacintos beyond. Sibyl's keen eyes--mountain-trained from
+childhood--marked a railway train crawling down the grade from San
+Gorgonio Pass toward the distant ocean. She tried in vain to point it out
+to her companion. But the city eyes of the man could not find the tiny
+speck in the vast landscape that lay within the range of their vision. The
+artist looked at his watch. The train was the Golden State Limited that
+had brought him from the far away East, a few months before.
+
+Aaron King remembered how, from the platform of the observation car, he
+had looked up at the mountains from which he now looked down. He
+remembered too, the woman into whose eyes he had, for the first time,
+looked that day. Turning his face to the west, he could distinguish under
+the haze of the distance the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands. Before three days had passed he would be in his studio home
+again. And the woman of the observation car platform--From distant
+Fairlands, the man turned his eyes to the winsome face of his girl comrade
+on the mountain top.
+
+"Please"--she said, meeting his serious gaze with a smile of frank
+fellowship--"please, what have I done?"
+
+Smiling, he answered gravely, "I don't exactly know--but you have done
+something."
+
+"You look so serious. I'm sure it must be pretty bad. Can't you think what
+it is?"
+
+He laughed. "I was thinking about down there"--he pointed into the haze of
+the distant valley to the west.
+
+"Don't," she returned, "let's think about up here"--she waved her hand
+toward the high crest of the San Bernardinos, and the mountain peaks about
+them.
+
+"Will you let me paint your portrait--when we get back to the orange
+groves?" he asked.
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," she returned. "Why do you want to paint me? I'm
+nobody, you know--but just me."
+
+"That's the reason I want to paint you," he answered.
+
+"What's the reason?"
+
+"Because you are you."
+
+"But a portrait of me would not help you on your road to fame," she
+retorted.
+
+He flinched. "Perhaps," he said, "that's partly why I want to do it."
+
+"Because it won't help you?"
+
+"Because it won't help me on the road to fame. You _will_ pose for me,
+won't you?"
+
+"I'm sure I cannot say"--she answered--"perhaps--please don't let's talk
+about it."
+
+"Why not?" he asked curiously.
+
+"Because"--she answered seriously--"we have been such good friends up here
+in the mountains; such--such comrades. Up here in the hills, with the
+canyon gates shut against the world that I don't know, you are like--like
+Brian Oakley--and like my father used to be--and down there"--she
+hesitated.
+
+"Yes," he said, "and down there I will be what?"
+
+"I don't know," she answered wistfully, "but sometimes I can see you going
+on and on and on toward fame and the rewards it will bring you and you
+seem to get farther and farther and farther away from--from the mountains
+and our friendship; until you are so far away that I can't see you any
+more at all. I don't like to lose my mountain friends, you know."
+
+He smiled. "But no matter how famous I might become--no matter what fame
+might bring me--I could not forget you and your mountains."
+
+"I would not want you to remember me," she answered "if you were famous.
+That is--I mean"--she added hesitatingly--"if you were famous just because
+you _wanted_ to be. But I know you could never forget the mountains. And
+that would be the trouble; don't you see? If you _could_ forget, it would
+not matter. Ask Mr. Lagrange, he knows."
+
+For some time Aaron King sat, without speaking, looking about at the world
+that was so far from that other world--the world he had always known. The
+girl, too,--seeming to understand the thoughts that he himself, perhaps,
+could not have expressed,--was silent.
+
+Then he said slowly, "I don't think that I care for fame as I did before
+you taught me to know the mountains. It doesn't, somehow, now, seem to
+matter so much. It's the _work_ that really matters--after all--isn't it?"
+
+And Sibyl Andres, smiling, answered, "Yes, it's the work that really
+matters. I'm sure that _must_ be so."
+
+In the afternoon, they went on, still following the fire-break, down to
+where it is intersected by the pipe-line a mile from the reservoir on the
+hill above the power-house; then back to Oak Knoll, again on the pipe-line
+trail all the way--a beautiful and never-to-be-forgotten walk.
+
+The sun was just touching the tops of the western mountains when they
+started down Oak Knoll. The canyon below, already, lay in the shadow. When
+they reached the foot of the trail, it was twilight. Across the road, by a
+small streamlet--a tributary to Clear Creek--a party of huntsmen were
+making ready to spend the night. The voices of the men came clearly
+through the gathering gloom. Under the trees, they could see the
+camp-fire's ruddy gleam. They did not notice the man who was standing,
+half hidden, in the bushes beside the road, near the spot where the trail
+opens into it. Silently, the man watched them as they turned up the road
+which they would follow a little way before crossing the canyon to Sibyl's
+home. Fifty yards farther on, they met Brian Oakley.
+
+"Howdy, you two," called the Ranger, cheerily--without stopping his horse.
+"Rather late to-night, ain't you?"
+
+"We'll be there by dark," called the artist And the Ranger passed on.
+
+At sound of the mountaineer's voice, the man in the bushes drew quickly
+back. The officer's trained eyes caught the movement in the brush, and he
+leaned forward in the saddle.
+
+A moment later, the man reappeared in the road, farther down, around the
+bend. As the Ranger approached, he was hailed by a boisterous, "Hello,
+Brian! better stop and have a bite."
+
+"How do you do, Mr. Rutlidge?" came the officer's greeting, as he reined
+in his horse. "When did you land in the hills?"'
+
+"This afternoon," answered the other. "We're just making camp. Come and
+meet the fellows. You know some of them."
+
+"Thanks, not to-night,"--returned Brian Oakley,--"deer hunt, I suppose."
+
+"Yes--thought we would be in good time for the opening of the season. By
+the way, do you happen to know where Lagrange and that artist friend of
+his are camped?"
+
+"In that bunch of sycamores back of the old orchard down there," answered
+the Ranger, watching the man's face keenly. "I just passed Mr. King, up
+the road a piece."
+
+"That so? I didn't see him go by," returned the other. "I think I'll run
+over and say 'hello' to Lagrange in the morning. We are only going as far
+as Burnt Pine to-morrow, anyway."
+
+"Keep your eyes open for an escaped convict," said the officer, casually.
+"There's one ranging somewhere in here--came in about a month ago. He's
+likely to clean out your camp. So long."
+
+"Perhaps we'll take him in for you," laughed the other. "Good night." He
+turned toward the camp-fire under the trees, as the officer rode away.
+
+"Now what in hell did that fellow want to lie to me like that for," said
+Brian Oakley to himself. "He must have seen King and Sibyl as they came
+down the trail. Max, old boy, when a man lies deliberately, without any
+apparent reason, you want to watch him."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXII
+
+Shadows of Coming Events
+
+
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange were idling in their camp, after breakfast
+the next morning, when Czar turned his head, quickly, in a listening
+attitude. With a low growl that signified disapproval, he moved forward a
+step or two and stood stiffly erect, gazing toward the lower end of the
+orchard.
+
+"Some one coming, Czar?" asked the artist.
+
+The dog answered with another growl, while the hair on his neck bristled
+in anger.
+
+"Some one we don't like, heh!" commented the novelist. "Or"--he added as
+if musing upon the animal's instinct--"some one we ought not to like."
+
+A bark from Czar greeted James Rutlidge who at that moment appeared at the
+foot of the slope leading up to their camp.
+
+The two men--remembering the occasion of their visitor's last call at
+their home in Fairlands, when he had seen Sibyl in the studio--received
+the man with courtesy, but with little warmth. Czar continued to manifest
+his sentiments until rebuked by his master. The coolness of the reception,
+however, in no way disconcerted James Rutlidge; who, on his part, rather
+overdid his assumption of pleasure at meeting them again.
+
+Explaining that he had come with a party of friends on a hunting trip, he
+told them how he had met Brian Oakley, and so had learned of their camp
+hidden behind the old orchard. The rest of his party, he said, had gone on
+up the canyon. They would stop at Burnt Pine on Laurel Creek, where he
+could easily join them before night. He could not think, he declared, of
+passing so near without greeting his friends.
+
+"You two certainly are expert when it comes to finding snug,
+out-of-the-way quarters," he commented, searching the camp and the
+immediate surroundings with a careful and, ostensibly, an appreciative
+eye. "A thousand people might pass this old, deserted place without ever
+dreaming that you were so ideally hidden back here."
+
+As he finished speaking, his roving eye came to rest upon a pair of gloves
+that Sibyl--the last time she had called--had carelessly left lying upon a
+stump close by a giant sycamore where, in camp fashion, the rods and
+creels and guns were kept. The artist had intended to return the gloves
+the day before, together with a book of trout-flies which the girl had
+also forgotten; but, in his eagerness for the day's outing, he had gone
+off without them.
+
+The observing Conrad Lagrange did not fail to note that James Rutlidge had
+seen the telltale gloves. Fixing his peculiar eyes upon the visitor, he
+asked abruptly, with polite but purposeful interest, after the health of
+Mr. and Mrs. Taine and Louise.
+
+The faint shadow of a suggestive smile that crossed the heavy features of
+James Rutlidge, as he turned his gaze from the gloves to meet the look of
+the novelist was maddening.
+
+"The old boy is steadily going down," he said without feeling. "The
+doctors tell me that he can't last through the winter. It'll be a relief
+to everybody when he goes. Mrs. Taine is well and beautiful, as
+always--remarkable how she keeps up appearances, considering her husband's
+serious condition. Louise is quite as usual. They will all be back in
+Fairlands in another month. They sent regards to you both--in case I
+should run across you."'
+
+The two men made the usual conventional replies, adding that they were
+returning to Fairlands the next day.
+
+"So soon?" exclaimed their visitor, with another meaning smile. "I don't
+see how you can think of leaving your really delightful retreat. I
+understand you have such charming neighbors too. Perhaps though, they are
+also returning to the orange groves and roses."
+
+Aaron King's face flushed hotly, and he was about to reply with vigor to
+the sneering words, when Conrad Lagrange silenced him with a quick look.
+Ignoring the reference to their neighbors, the novelist replied suavely
+that they felt they must return to civilization as some matters in
+connection with the new edition of his last novel demanded his attention,
+and the artist wished to get back to his studio and to his work.
+
+"Really," urged Rutlidge, mockingly, "you ought not to go down now. The
+deer season opens in two days. Why not join our party for a hunt? We would
+be delighted to have you."
+
+They were coolly thanking him for the invitation,--that, from the tone in
+which it was given, was so evidently not meant,--when Czar, with a joyful
+bark, dashed away through the grove. A moment, and a clear, girlish voice
+called from among the trees that bordered the cienaga, "Whoo-ee." It was
+the signal that Sibyl always gave when she approached their camp.
+
+James Rutlidge broke into a low laugh while Sibyl's friends looked at each
+other in angry consternation as the girl, following her hail and
+accompanied by the delighted dog, appeared in full view; her fishing-rod
+in hand, her creel swung over her shoulder.
+
+The girl's embarrassment, when, too late, she saw and recognized their
+visitor, was pitiful. As she came slowly forward, too confused to retreat,
+Rutlidge started to laugh again, but Aaron King, with an emphasis that
+checked the man's mirth, said in a low tone, "Stop that! Be careful!"
+
+As he spoke, the artist arose and with Conrad Lagrange went forward to
+greet Sibyl in--as nearly as they could--their customary manner.
+
+Formally, Rutlidge was presented to the girl; and, under the threatening
+eyes of the painter, greeted her with no hint of rudeness in his voice or
+manner; saying courteously, with a smile, "I have had the pleasure of Miss
+Andres' acquaintance for--let me see--three years now, is it not?" he
+appealed to her directly.
+
+"It was three years ago that I first saw you, sir," she returned coolly.
+
+"It was my first trip into the mountains, I remember," said Rutlidge,
+easily. "I met you at Brian Oakley's home."
+
+Without replying, she turned to Aaron King appealingly. "I--I left my
+gloves and fly-book. I was going fishing and called to get them."
+
+The artist gave her the articles with a word of regret for having so
+carelessly forgotten to return them to her. With a simple "good-by" to her
+two friends but without even a glance toward their caller, she went back
+up the canyon, in the direction from which she had come.
+
+When the girl had disappeared among the trees, James Rutlidge said, with
+his meaning smile, "Really, I owe you an apology for dropping in so
+unexpectedly. I--"
+
+Conrad Lagrange interrupted him, curtly. "No apology is due, sir."
+
+"No?" returned Rutlidge, with a rising inflection and a drawling note in
+his voice that was almost too much for the others. "I really must be
+going, anyway," he continued. "My party will be some distance ahead. Sure
+you wouldn't care to join us?"
+
+"Thanks! Sorry! but we cannot this time. Good of you to ask us," came from
+Aaron King and the novelist.
+
+"Can't say that I blame you," their caller returned. "The fishing used to
+be fine in this neighborhood. You must have had some delightful sport.
+Don't blame you in the least for not joining our stag party. Delightful
+young woman, that Miss Andres. Charming companion--either in the mountains
+or in civilization Good-by--see you in Fairlands, later."
+
+When he was out of hearing the two men relieved their feelings in language
+that perhaps it would be better not to put in print.
+
+"And the worst of it is," remarked the novelist, "it's so damned dangerous
+to deny something that does not exist or make explanations in answer to
+charges that are not put into words."
+
+"I could scarcely refrain from kicking the beast down the hill," said
+Aaron King, savagely.
+
+"Which"--the other returned--"would have complicated matters exceedingly,
+and would have accomplished nothing at all. For the girl's sake, store
+your wrath against the day of judgment which, if I read the signs aright,
+is sure to come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Sibyl Andres went down the canyon to the camp in the sycamores, that
+morning, the world, to her, was very bright. Her heart sang with joyous
+freedom amid the scenes that she so loved. Care-free and happy, as when,
+in the days of her girlhood, she had gone to visit the spring glade, she
+still was conscious of a deeper joy than in her girlhood she had ever
+known.
+
+When she returned again up the canyon, all the brightness of her day was
+gone. Her heart was heavy with foreboding fear. She was oppressed with a
+dread of some impending evil which she could not understand. At every
+sound in the mountain wild-wood, she started. Time and again, as if
+expecting pursuit, she looked over her shoulder--poised like a creature of
+the woods ready for instant panic-stricken flight. So, without pausing to
+cast for trout, or even to go down to the stream, she returned home; where
+Myra Willard, seeing her come so early and empty handed, wondered. But to
+the woman's question, the girl only answered that she had changed her
+mind--that, after recovering her gloves and fly-book at the camp of their
+friends, she had decided to come home. The woman with the disfigured face,
+knowing that Aaron King was leaving the hills the next day, thought that
+she understood the girl's mood, and wisely made no comment.
+
+The artist and Conrad Lagrange went to spend their last evening in the
+hills with their friends. Brian Oakley, too, dropped in. But neither of
+the three men mentioned the name of James Rutlidge in the presence of the
+women; while Sibyl was, apparently, again her own bright and happy
+self--carrying on a fanciful play of words with the novelist, singing with
+the artist, and making music for them all with her violin. But before the
+evening was over, Conrad Lagrange found an opportunity to tell the Ranger
+of the incident of the morning, and of the construction that James
+Rutlidge had evidently put upon Sibyl's call at the camp. Brian
+Oakley,--thinking of the night before, and how the man must have seen the
+artist and the girl coming down the Oak Knoll trail in the
+twilight,--swore softly under his breath.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIII
+
+Outside the Canyon Gates Again
+
+
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange determined to go back from the mountains,
+the way they had come. Said the novelist, "It is as unseemly to rush
+pell-mell from an audience with the gods as it is to enter their presence
+irreverently."
+
+To which the artist answered, laughing, "Even criminals under sentence
+have, at least, the privilege of going to their prisons reluctantly."
+
+So they went down from the mountains, reverently and reluctantly.
+
+Yee Kee, with the more elaborate equipment of the camp, was sent on ahead
+by wagon. The two men, with Croesus packed for a one night halt, and Czar,
+would follow. When all was ready, and they could neither of them invent
+any more excuses for lingering, Conrad Lagrange gave the word to the burro
+and they set out--down the little slope of grassy land; across the tiny
+stream from the cienaga; around the lower end of the old orchard, by the
+ancient weed-grown road--even Czar went slowly, with low-hung head, as if
+regretful at leaving the mountains that he, too, in his dog way, loved.
+
+At the gate, Aaron King asked the novelist to go on, saying that he would
+soon overtake him. It was possible, he said, that he might have left
+something in the spring glade. He thought he had better make sure. Conrad
+Lagrange, assenting, went through the gate and down the road, with the
+four-footed members of the party; and Czar must have thought that there
+was something very funny about old Croesus that morning, from the way his
+master laughed; when they were safely around the first turn.
+
+There was, of course, no material thing in the spring glade that the
+artist wanted. _He_ knew that--quite as well as his laughing friend. Under
+the mistletoe oak, at the top of the bank, he paused, hesitating--as one
+will often pause when about to enter a sacred building. Softly, he pushed
+open the old gate, as he might have pushed open the door of a church.
+Slowly, reverently, he went down the path; baring his head as he went. He
+did not search for anything that he might have left. He simply stood for a
+few minutes under the gray-trunked alders that were so marked by the
+loving hands of long ago men and maidens--beside the mint bordered spring
+with the scattered stones of that old foundation--where, through the
+screen of boughs and vines and virgin's-bower the sunlight fell as through
+the traceries of a cathedral window, and the low, deep tones of the
+mountain waters came like the music of a great organ.
+
+It is likely that Aaron King, himself, could not, at that time, have told
+why, as he was leaving the hills, he had paused to visit once more the
+spot where Sibyl Andres had brought to him her three gifts from the
+mountains--where, in her pure innocence, she had danced before him the
+dance of the mating butterflies--and where, with the music of her violin,
+she had saved their friendship from the perils that threatened it--lifting
+their intimate comradeship into the pure atmosphere of the higher levels,
+even as she had shown him the trails that lead from the lower canyon to
+the summits and peaks of the encircling mountain walls. But when he
+rejoined his friend there was something in his face that prevented the
+novelist from making any comment in a laughing vein.
+
+As the two men passed outward through the canyon gates and, looking
+backward as they went, saw those mighty doors close silently behind them,
+the artist was moved by emotions that were strange and new to the man who,
+two months before, had watched those gates open to receive him. This, too,
+is true; as that man, then, knew, but did not know, the mountains; so this
+man, now, knew, yet still did not know, himself.
+
+Where the road crosses, for the last time, the tumbling stream from the
+heart of the hills, they halted; and for one night slept again at the foot
+of the mountains. The next day they arrived at their little home in the
+orange grove. To Aaron King, it seemed that they had been away for years.
+
+When the traces of their days upon the road had been removed, and they
+were garbed again in the conventional costume of the world; when their
+outfit had been put away, and a home found for patient Croesus; the artist
+went to his studio. The afternoon passed and Yee Kee called dinner; but
+Aaron King did not come. Then Conrad Lagrange went to find him. Softly,
+the older man pushed open the studio door to see the painter sitting
+before the portrait of Mrs. Taine, with the package of his mother's
+letters in his hand.
+
+Without a sound, the novelist withdrew, leaving the door ajar. Going to
+the corner of the house, he whistled low, and in answer, Czar come
+bounding to him from the porch. "Go find Aaron, Czar," said the man,
+pointing toward the studio. "Go find Aaron."
+
+Obediently, with waving tail, the dog trotted off, and pushing open the
+door entered the room; followed a few moments later by his master.
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled as he saw that the easel was without a canvas. The
+portrait of Mrs. Taine was turned to the wall.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIV
+
+James Rutlidge Makes a Mistake
+
+
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had said, "good-by," to their friends,
+at Sibyl Andres' home, that evening; and had returned to spend their last
+night at the camp in the sycamores; the girl's mood was again the mood of
+one oppressed by a haunting, foreboding fear.
+
+Sibyl could not have expressed, or even to herself defined, her fear. She
+only knew that in the presence of James Rutlidge she was frightened. She
+had tried many times to overcome her strange antipathy; for Rutlidge,
+until that day in the studio, had never been other than kind and courteous
+in his persistent efforts to win her friendship. Perhaps it was the
+impression left by the memory of Myra Willard's manner at the time of
+their first meeting with him, three years before, in Brian Oakley's home;
+perhaps it was because the woman with the disfigured face had so often
+warned her against permitting her slight acquaintance with Rutlidge to
+develop; perhaps it was something else--some instinct, possible, only, to
+one of her pure, unspoiled nature--whatever it was, the mountain girl who
+was so naturally unafraid, feared this man who, in his own world, was an
+acknowledged authority upon matters of the highest spiritual and moral
+significance.
+
+That night, she slept but little. With the morning, every nerve demanded
+action, action. She felt as though if she could not spend herself in
+physical exertion she would go mad. Taking her lunch, and telling her
+companion that she was going for a good, full day with the trout; she was
+starting off, when the woman called her back.
+
+"You have forgotten Mr. Oakley's warning, dear. You are not to go unarmed,
+you know."
+
+"Oh, bother that old convict, Brian Oakley is so worried about," cried the
+girl. "I don't like to carry a gun when I am fishing. It's only an extra
+load." But, never-the-less, as she spoke, she went back to the porch;
+where Myra Willard handed her a belt of cartridges, with a serviceable
+Colt revolver in the holster. There was no hint of awkwardness when the
+girl buckled the belt about her waist and settled the holster in its place
+at her hip.
+
+"You will be careful, won't you, dear," said the woman, earnestly.
+
+Lifting her face for another good-by kiss, the girl answered, "Of course,
+dear mother heart." Then, with a laugh--"I'll agree to shoot the first man
+I meet, and identify him afterwards--if it will make you easier in your
+mind. You won't worry, will you?"
+
+Myra Willard smiled. "Not a bit, child. I know how Brian Oakley loves you,
+and he says that he has no fear for you if you are armed. He takes great
+chances himself, that man, but he would send us back to Fairlands, in a
+minute, if he thought you were in any danger in your rambles."
+
+Beside the roaring Clear Creek, Sibyl seated self upon a great
+boulder--her rod and flies neglected--apparently unmindful of the purpose
+that had brought her to the stream. Her eyes were not upon the swirling
+pool at her feet, but were lifted to a spot, a thousand feet up on Oak
+Knoll, where she knew the pipe-line trail lay, and where Croesus had made
+the momentous decision that had resulted in her comradeship with Aaron
+King. Following the canyon wall with her eyes--as though in her mind she
+walked the thread-like path--from Oak Knoll to the fire-break a mile from
+the reservoir; her gaze then traced the crest of the Galenas, resting
+finally upon that clump of pines high up on the point that was so clearly
+marked against the sky. Once, she laid aside her rod, and slipped the
+creel from her shoulder. But even as she set out, she hesitated and turned
+back; resolutely taking up her fishing-tackle again, as though, angry with
+herself for her state of mind, she was determined to indulge no longer her
+mood of indecision.
+
+But the fishing did not go well. To properly cast a trout-fly, one's
+thoughts must be upon the art. A preoccupied mind and wandering attention
+tends to a tangled line, a snarled leader, and all sorts of aggravating
+complications. Sibyl--usually so skillful at this most delicate of
+sports--was as inaccurate and awkward, this day, as the merest tyro. The
+many pools and falls and swirling eddies of Clear Creek held for her, now,
+memories more attractive, by far, than the wary trout they sheltered. The
+familiar spots she had known since childhood were haunted by a something
+that made them seem new and strange.
+
+At last,--thoroughly angry with her inability to control her mood, and
+half ashamed of the thoughts that forced themselves so insistently upon
+her; with her nerves and muscles craving the action that would bring the
+relief of physical weariness,--she determined to leave the more familiar
+ground, for the higher and less frequented waters of Fern Creek. Climbing
+out of the canyon, by the steep, almost stair-like trail on the San
+Bernardino side, she walked hard and fast to reach Lone Cabin by noon.
+But, before she had finished her lunch, she decided not to fish there,
+after all; but to go on, over the still harder trail to Burnt Pine on
+Laurel Creek, and, returning to the lower canyon by the Laurel trail, to
+work down Clear Creek on the way to her home, in the late afternoon and
+twilight.
+
+The trail up the almost precipitous wall of the gorge at Lone Cabin, and
+over the mountain spur to Laurel Creek, is one that calls for a clear head
+and a sure foot. It is not a path for the city bred to essay, save with
+the ready arm of a guide. But the hill-trained muscles and nerves of Sibyl
+Andres gloried in the task. The cool-headed, mountain girl enjoyed the
+climb from which her city sisters would have drawn back in trembling fear.
+
+Once, at a point perhaps two-thirds of the height to the top, she halted.
+Her ear had caught a slight noise above her head, as a few pebbles rolled
+down the almost perpendicular face of the wall and bounded from the trail
+where she stood, into the depths below. For a few minutes, the girl, on
+the little, shelf-like path that was scarcely wider than the span of her
+two hands, was as motionless and as silent as the cliff itself; while,
+with her face turned upward, she searched with keen eyes the rim of the
+gorge; her free, right hand resting upon the butt of the revolver at her
+hip. Then she went on--not timidly, but neither carelessly; not in the
+least frightened, but still,--knowing that the spot was far from the more
+frequented paths,--with experienced care.
+
+As her head and shoulders came above the rim, she paused again, to search
+with careful eyes the vicinity of the trail that from this point leads for
+a little way down the knife-like ridge of the spur, and then, by easier
+stages, around the shoulder and the flank of the mountain, to Burnt Pine
+Camp. When no living object met her eye, and she could hear no sound save
+the lonely wind in the pines and the faint murmur of the stream in the
+gorge below, she took the few steps that yet remained of the climb, and
+seated herself for a moment's well-earned rest. Some small animal, she
+told herself,--a squirrel or a wood-rat, perhaps,--frightened at her
+approach, and scurrying hastily to cover, had dislodged the pebbles with
+the slight noise that she had heard.
+
+From where she sat with her back against the trunk of a great pine, she
+could see--far below, and beyond the immediate spurs and shoulders of the
+range, on the farther side of the gorge out of which she had just
+come--the lower end of Clear Creek canyon, and, miles away, under the
+blue haze of the distance, the dark squares of the orange groves of
+Fairlands.
+
+Somewhere between those canyon gates and the little city in the orange
+groves, the girl knew that Aaron King and his friend were making their way
+back to the world of men. With her eyes fixed upon the distant scene, as
+if striving for a wholly impossible strength of vision to mark the tiny,
+moving spots that she knew were there, the girl upon the high rim of the
+wild and lonely mountain gorge was lost to her surroundings, in an effort,
+as vain, to see her comrade of the weeks just past, in the years that were
+to come. Would the friendship born in the hills endure in the world beyond
+the canyon gates? Could it endure away from those scenes that had given it
+birth? Was it possible for a fellowship, established in the free
+atmosphere of the mountains, to live in the lower altitude of Fairlands?
+Sibyl Andres,--as she sat there, alone in the hills she loved,--in her
+heart of hearts, answered her own questions, "No." But still she searched
+the years to come--even as her eyes so futilely searched the distant
+landscape beyond the mighty gates that seemed, now, to shut her in from
+that world to which Aaron King was returning.
+
+The girl was aroused from her abstraction by a sound behind her and a
+little to the left of the tree against which she was leaning. In a flash,
+she was on her feet.
+
+James Rutlidge stood a few steps away. He had been approaching her as she
+sat under the tree; but when she sprang to her feet and faced him, he
+halted. Lifting his hat, he greeted her with easy assurance; a confident,
+triumphant smile upon his heavy features.
+
+White-faced and trembling, the mountain girl--who a few moments before,
+had been so unafraid--stood shrinking before this cultured representative
+of the arts. Returning his salutation, she was starting hurriedly away
+down the trail, when he said, "Wait. Why be in such a hurry?"
+
+As if against her will, she paused. "It is growing late," she faltered; "I
+must go."
+
+He laughed. "I will go with you presently. Don't be afraid." Coming
+forward, with an air of making himself very much at home, he placed his
+rifle against the tree where she had been sitting. Then, as if to calm her
+fears, he continued, "I am camped at Burnt Pine, with a party of friends.
+I was up here looking for deer sign when I noticed you below, at the cabin
+there. I was just starting down to you, when I saw that you were going to
+come up; so I waited. Beautiful spot--this--don't you think?--so out of
+the way, too. Just the place for a quiet little visit."
+
+As the man spoke, he was eyeing her in a way that only served to confuse
+and frighten her the more. Murmuring some inaudible reply, she again
+started to go. But again he said, peremptorily, "Wait." And again, as if
+against her will, she paused. "If you have no scruples about wandering
+over the mountains alone with that artist fellow, I do not see why you
+should hesitate to favor me."
+
+The man's words were, undoubtedly, prompted by what he firmly believed to
+be the nature of the relation between the girl and Aaron King--a belief
+for which he had, to his mind, sufficient evidence. But Sibyl had no
+understanding of his meaning. In the innocence of her pure mind, the
+purport of his words was utterly lost. Her very fear of the man was not a
+reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a nature that had never
+felt the unclean touch of the world in which James Rutlidge habitually
+moved. It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her
+always so embarrassed in the man's presence. It was because she did not
+understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking
+her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.
+
+James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in
+which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of
+Sibyl Andres. Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her
+relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence;
+he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail
+to understand.
+
+When she _did_ grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness
+gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found
+expression in scathing words of denunciation.
+
+The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation. To him,
+there was nothing more in her refusal than her preference for the artist.
+That this young woman--to him, an unschooled girl of the hills--whom he
+had so long marked as his own, should give herself to another, and so
+scornfully turn from him, was an affront that he could not brook. The very
+vigor of her wrath, as she stood before him,--her eyes bright, her cheeks
+flushed, and her beautiful body quivering with the vehemence of her
+passionate outburst,--only served to fan the flame of his desire; while
+her stinging words provoked his bestial mind to an animal-like rage. With
+a muttered oath and a threat, he started toward her.
+
+But the woman who faced him now, with full understanding, was very
+different from the timid, frightened girl who had not at first understood.
+With a business-like movement that was the result of Brian Oakley's
+careful training, her hand dropped to her hip and was raised again.
+
+James Rutlidge stopped, as though against an iron bar. In the blue eyes
+that looked at him, now, over the dark barrel of the revolver, he read no
+uncertainty of purpose. The small hand that had drawn the weapon with such
+ready swiftness, was as steady as though at target practice.
+Instinctively, the man half turned, throwing up his arm as if to shield
+his face from a menacing blow. "For God's sake," he gasped, "put that
+down."
+
+In truth, James Rutlidge was nearer death, at that instant, than he had
+ever been before.
+
+Drawing back a few fearful paces, his hands still uplifted, he said again,
+"Put it down, I tell you. Don't you see I'm not going to touch you? You
+are crazy. You might kill me."
+
+Her words came cold and collected, expressing, together with her calm
+manner, perfect self-possession "If you can give any good reason why I
+should not kill you, I will let you go."
+
+The man was carefully drawing backward toward the tree against which he
+had placed his rifle.
+
+She watched him, with a disconcerting smile. "You may as well stop now,"
+she said, in those even, composed tones. "I shall fire, the moment you are
+within reach of your gun."
+
+He halted with a gesture of despair; his face livid with fear at her
+apparent indecision as to his fate.
+
+Presently, she spoke again. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill
+you--unless you force me to--which I assure you will not be at all
+difficult for you to do. Move down the trail until I tell you to stop."
+She indicated the direction, along the ridge of the mountain spur.
+
+He obeyed.
+
+"That will do," she said, when he was some twenty paces away.
+
+He stopped, turning to face her again.
+
+Picking up his Winchester, she skillfully and rapidly threw all of the
+shells out of the magazine. Then, covering him again with her own weapon,
+she went a few steps closer and threw the empty rifle at his feet. "Now,"
+she said, "put that gun over your left shoulder, and go on ahead of me
+down the trail. If you try to dodge or run, or if you change the position
+of your rifle, I'll kill you."
+
+"What are you going to do?" he asked.
+
+"I'm going to take you down to your camp at Burnt Pine."
+
+James Rutlidge, pale with rage and shame, stood still. "You may as well
+kill me," he said. "I will never go into camp, this way."
+
+"Don't be uneasy," she returned. "I am no more anxious for the world to
+know of this, than you are. Do as I say. When we come within sight of your
+camp, or if we meet any one, I will put up my gun and we will go on
+together. That's why I am permitting you to carry your rifle."
+
+So they went down the mountainside--the man with his empty rifle over his
+shoulder; the girl following, a few paces in the rear, with ready weapon.
+
+When they had come within sight of the camp, James Rutlidge said, "There's
+some one there."
+
+"I see," returned Sibyl, slipping her gun in its holster and stepping
+forward beside her companion. And there was a note of glad relief in her
+voice, for it was Brian Oakley who was bending over the camp-fire "Come,"
+she continued to her companion, "and act as though nothing had happened."
+
+The Ranger, on his way down from somewhere in the vicinity of San
+Gorgonio, had stopped at the hunters' camp for a belated dinner. Finding
+no one at home, he had started a fire, and had helped himself to coffee
+and bacon. He was just concluding his appropriated meal, when Sibyl and
+James Rutlidge arrived.
+
+In a few words, the girl explained to her friend, that she was on her way
+over the trail from Lone Cabin, and had accidentally met Mr. Rutlidge who
+had accompanied her as far as the camp. James Rutlidge had little to say
+beyond assuring the Ranger of his welcome; and very soon, the officer and
+the girl set out on their way down the Laurel trail to Clear Creek canyon.
+As they went, Sibyl's old friend asked not a few questions about her
+meeting with James Rutlidge; but the girl, walking ahead in the narrow
+trail, evaded him, and was glad that he could not see her face.
+
+Sibyl had spoken the literal truth when she said to Rutlidge, that she did
+not want any one to know of the incident. She felt ashamed and humiliated
+at the thought of telling even her father's old comrade and friend. She
+knew Brian Oakley too well to have any doubts as to what would happen if
+he knew how the man had approached her, and she shrank from the inevitable
+outcome. She wished only to forget the whole affair, and, as quickly as
+possible, turned the conversation into other and safer channels.
+
+The Ranger could not stop at the house with her, but must go on down the
+canyon, to the Station. So the girl returned to Myra Willard, alone; and,
+to the woman's surprise, for the second time, with an empty creel.
+
+Sibyl explained her failure to bring home a catch of trout, with the
+simple statement that she had not fished; and then--to her companion's
+amazement--burst into tears; begging to return at once to their little
+home in Fairlands.
+
+Myra Willard thought that she understood, better than the girl herself,
+why, for the first time in her life, Sibyl wished to leave the mountains.
+Perhaps the woman with the disfigured face was right.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXV
+
+On the Pipe-Line Trail
+
+
+
+James Rutlidge spent the day following his experience with Sibyl Andres,
+in camp. His companions very quickly felt his sullen, ugly mood, and left
+him to his own thoughts.
+
+The manner in which Sibyl received his advances had in no way changed the
+man's mind as to the nature of her relation to Aaron King. To one of James
+Rutlidge's type,--schooled in the intellectual moral and esthetic tenets
+of his class,--it was impossible to think of the companionship of the
+artist and the girl in any other light. If he had even considered the
+possibility of a clean, pure comradeship existing between them--under all
+the circumstances of their friendship as he had seen them in the studio,
+on the trail at dusk, and in the artist's camp--he would have answered
+himself that Aaron King was not such a fool as to fail to take advantage
+of his opportunities. The humiliation of his pride, and his rage at being
+so ignominiously checked by the girl whom he had so long endeavored to
+win, served only to increase his desire for her. Sibyl's resolute spirit,
+and vigorous beauty, when aroused by him, together with her unexpected
+opposition to his advances, were as fuel to the flame of his passion.
+
+His day of sullen brooding over the matter did not improve his temper;
+and the next morning his friends were relieved to see him setting out
+alone, with rifle and field-glass and lunch. Ostensibly starting in the
+direction of the upper Laurel Creek country he doubled back, as soon as he
+was out of sight of camp, and took the trail leading down to Clear Creek
+canyon.
+
+It could not be said that the man had any definite purpose in mind. He was
+simply yielding in a purposeless way to his mood, which, for the time
+being, could find no other expression. The remote chance that some
+opportunity looking toward his desire might present itself, led him to
+seek the scenes where such an opportunity would be most likely to occur.
+
+Crossing the canyon above the Company Headwork he came into the pipe-line
+trail at a point a little back from the main wagon road and, an hour
+later, reached the place on Oak Knoll where the Government trail leads
+down into the canyon below, and where Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange had
+committed themselves to the judgment of Croesus. Here he left the trail,
+and climbed to a point on a spur of the mountain, from which he could see
+the path for some distance on either side and below, and from which his
+view of the narrow valley was unobstructed. Comfortably seated, with his
+back against a rock, he adjusted his field-glass and trained it upon the
+little spot of open green--marked by the giant sycamores, the dark line of
+cedars, and the half hidden house--where he knew that Sibyl Andres and
+Myra Willard were living.
+
+No sooner had he focused the powerful glass upon the scene that so
+interested him, than he uttered a low exclamation. The two women,
+surrounded by their luggage and camp equipment, were sitting on the porch
+with Brian Oakley; waiting, evidently, for the wagon that was crossing the
+creek toward the house. It was clear to the man on the mountainside, that
+Sibyl Andres and the woman with the disfigured face were returning to
+Fairlands.
+
+For some time, James Rutlidge sat watching, with absorbing interest, the
+unconscious people in the canyon below. Once, he turned for a brief glance
+at the grove of sycamores behind the old orchard, farther down the creek.
+The camp of Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King was no longer there. Quickly he
+fixed his gaze again upon Sibyl and her friends. Presently,--as one will
+when looking long through a field-glass or telescope,--he lowered his
+hands, to rest his eyes by looking, unaided, at the immediate objects in
+the landscape before him. At that moment, the figure of a man appeared on
+the near-by trail below. It was a pitiful figure--ill-kempt ragged,
+half-starved, haggard-faced.
+
+Creeping feebly along the lonely little path--without seeing the man on
+the mountainside above--crouching as he walked with a hunted, fearful
+air--the poor creature moved toward the point of the spur around which the
+trail led beneath the spot where Rutlidge sat.
+
+As the man on the trail drew nearer, the watcher on the rocks above
+involuntarily glanced toward the distant Forest Ranger; then back to
+the--as he rightly guessed--escaped convict.
+
+There are, no doubt, many moments in the life of a man like James Rutlidge
+when, however bad or dominated by evil influences he may be, he feels
+strongly the impulse of pity and the kindly desire to help. Undoubtedly,
+James Rutlidge inherited from his father those tendencies that made him
+easily ruled by his baser passions. His character was as truly the
+legitimate product of the age, of the social environment, and of the
+thought that accepts such characters. What he might have been if better
+born, or if schooled in an atmosphere of moral and intellectual integrity,
+is an idle speculation. He was what his inheritance and his life had made
+him. He was not without impulses for good. The pitiful, hunted creature,
+creeping so wearily along the trail, awoke in this man of the accepted
+culture of his day a feeling of compassion, and aroused in him a desire to
+offer assistance. For the legal aspect of the case, James Rutlidge had all
+the indifference of his kind, who imbibe contempt for law with their
+mother's milk. For the moment he hesitated. Then, as the figure below
+passed from his sight, under the point of the spur, he slipped quietly
+down the mountainside, and, a few minutes later, met the convict face to
+face.
+
+At the leveled rifle and the sharp command, "Hands up," the poor fellow
+halted with a gesture of tragic despair. An instant they stood; then the
+hunted one turned impulsively toward the canyon that, here, lies almost a
+sheer thousand feet below.
+
+James Rutlidge spoke sharply. "Don't do that. I'm not an officer. I want
+to help you."
+
+The convict turned his hunted, fearful, starving face in doubtful
+bewilderment toward the speaker.
+
+The man with the gun continued, "I got the drop on you to prevent
+accidents--until I could explain--that's all." He lowered the rifle.
+
+The other went a staggering step forward. "You mean that?" he said in a
+harsh, incredulous whisper. "You--you're not playing with me?"
+
+"Why should I want to play with you?" returned the other, kindly. "Come,
+let's get off the trail. I have something to eat, up there." He led the
+way back to the place where he had left his lunch.
+
+Dropping down upon the ground, the starving man seized the offered food
+with an animal-like cry; feeding noisily, with the manner of a famished
+beast. The other watched with mingled pity and disgust.
+
+Presently, in stammering, halting phrases, but in words that showed no
+lack of education, the wretched creature attempted to apologize for his
+unseemly eagerness, and endeavored to thank his benefactor. "I suppose,
+sir, there is no use trying to deny my identity," he said, when James
+Rutlidge had again assured him of his kindly interest.
+
+"Not at all," agreed the other, "and, so far as I am concerned, there is
+no reason why you should."
+
+"Just what do you mean by that, sir?" questioned the convict.
+
+"I mean that I am not an officer and have no reason in the world for
+turning you over to them. I saw you coming along the trail down there
+and, of course, could not help noticing your condition and guessing who
+you were. To me, you are simply a poor devil who has gotten into a tight
+hole, and I want to help you out a bit, that's all."
+
+The convict turned his eyes despairingly toward the canyon below, as he
+answered, "I thank you, sir, but it would have been better if you had not.
+Your help has only put the end off for a few hours. They've got me shut
+in. I can keep away from them, up here in the mountains, but I can't get
+out. I won't go back to that hell they call prison though--I won't." There
+was no mistaking his desperate purpose.
+
+James Rutlidge thought of that quick movement toward the edge of the trail
+and the rocky depth below. "You don't seem such a bad sort, at heart," he
+said invitingly.
+
+"I'm not," returned the other, "I've been a fool--miserably weak fool--but
+I've had my lesson--only--I have had it too late."
+
+While the man was speaking, James Rutlidge was thinking quickly. As he had
+been moved, at first, by a spirit of compassion to give temporary
+assistance to the poor hunted creature, he was now prompted to offer more
+lasting help--providing, of course, that he could do so without too great
+a risk to his own convenience. The convict's hopeless condition, his
+despairing purpose, and his evident wish to live free from the past, all
+combined to arouse in the other a desire to aid him. But while that truly
+benevolent inclination was, in his consciousness, unmarred with sinister
+motive of any sort; still, deeper than the impulse for good in James
+Rutlidge's nature lay those dominant instincts and passions that were his
+by inheritance and training. The brutal desire, the mood and purpose that
+had brought him to that spot where with the aid of his glass he could
+watch Sibyl Andres, were not denied by his impulse to kindly service.
+Under all his thinking, as he considered how he could help the convict to
+a better life, there was the shadowy suggestion of a possible situation
+where a man like the one before him--wholly in his power as this man would
+be--might be of use to him in furthering his own purpose--the purpose that
+had brought about their meeting.
+
+Studying the object of his pity, he said slowly, "I suppose the most of us
+are as deserving of punishment as the majority of those who actually get
+it. One way or another, we are all trying to escape the penalty for our
+wrong-doing. What if I should help you out--make it possible for you to
+live like other men who are safe from the law? What would you do if I were
+to help you to your freedom?"
+
+The hunted man became incoherent in his pleading for a chance to prove the
+sincerity of his wish to live an orderly, respectable, and honest life.
+
+"You have a safe hiding place here in the mountains?" asked Rutlidge.
+
+"Yes; a little hut, hidden in a deep gorge, over on the Cold Water. I
+could live there a year if I had supplies."
+
+James Rutlidge considered. "I've got it!" he said at last. "Listen! There
+must be some peak, at the Cold Water end of this range, from which you can
+see Fairlands as well as the Galena Valley."
+
+"Yes," the other answered eagerly.
+
+"And," continued Rutlidge, "there is a good 'auto' road up the Galena
+Valley. One could get, I should think, to a point within--say nine hours
+of your camp. Do you know anything about the heliograph?"
+
+"Yes," said the man, his face brightening. "That is, I understand the
+general principle--that it's a method of signaling by mirror flashes."
+
+"Good! This is my plan. I will meet you to-morrow on the Laurel Creek
+trail, where it turns off from the creek toward San Gorgonio. You know the
+spot?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"We will go around the head of Clear Creek, on the divide between this
+canyon and the Cold Water, to some peak in the Galenas from which we can
+see Fairlands; and where, with the field-glass, we can pick out some point
+at the upper end of Galena Valley, that we can both find later."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"When I get back to Fairlands, I will make a night trip in the 'auto' to
+that point, with supplies. You will meet me there. The day before I make
+the trip, I'll signal you by mirror flashes that I am coming; and you will
+answer from the peak. We'll agree on the time of day and the signals
+to-morrow. When you have kept close, long enough for your beard and hair
+to grow out well, everybody will have given you up for dead or gone. Then
+I will take you down and give you a job in an orange grove. There's a
+little house there where you can live. You won't need to show yourself
+down-town and, in time, you will be forgotten. I'll bring you enough food
+to-morrow to last you until I can return to town and can get back on the
+first night trip."
+
+The man who left James Rutlidge a few minutes later, after trying brokenly
+to express his gratitude, was a creature very different from the poor,
+frightened hunted, starving, despairing, wretch that Rutlidge had halted
+an hour before. What that man was to become, would depend almost wholly
+upon his benefactor.
+
+When the man was gone, James Rutlidge again took up his field-glass. The
+old home of Sibyl Andres was deserted. While he had been talking with the
+convict, the girl and Myra Willard had started on their way back to
+Fairlands.
+
+With a peculiar smile upon his heavy features, the man slipped the glass
+into its case, and, with a long, slow look over the scene, set out on his
+way to rejoin his friends.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVI
+
+I Want You Just as You Are
+
+
+
+The evening of that day after their return from the mountains, when Conrad
+Lagrange had found Aaron King so absorbed in his mother's letters, the
+artist continued in his silent, preoccupied, mood. The next morning, it
+was the same. Refusing every attempt of his friend to engage him in
+conversation, he answered only with absent-minded mono-syllables; until
+the novelist, declaring that the painter was fit company for neither beast
+nor man, left him alone; and went off somewhere with Czar.
+
+The artist spent the greater part of the forenoon in his studio, doing
+nothing of importance. That is, to a casual observer he would have
+_seemed_ to be doing nothing of importance. He did, however, place his
+picture of the spring glade beside the portrait of Mrs. Taine, and then,
+for an hour or more, sat considering the two paintings. Then he turned the
+"Quaker Maid" again to the wall and fixed a fresh canvas in place on the
+easel. That was all.
+
+Immediately after their midday lunch, he returned to the
+studio--hurriedly, as if to work. He arranged his palette, paints, and
+brushes ready to his hand, indeed--but he, then, did nothing with them.
+Listlessly, without interest, he turned through his portfolios of
+sketches. Often, he looked away through the big, north window to the
+distant mountain tops. Often, he seemed to be listening. He was sitting
+before the easel, staring at the blank canvas, when, clear and sweet, from
+the depths of the orange grove, came the pure tones of Sibyl Andres'
+violin.
+
+So soft and low was the music, at first, that the artist almost doubted
+that it was real, thinking--as he had thought that day when Sibyl came
+singing to the glade--that it was his fancy tricking him. When he and
+Conrad Lagrange left the mountains three days before, the girl and her
+companion had not expected to return to Fairlands for at least two weeks.
+But there was no mistaking that music of the hills. As the tones grew
+louder and more insistent, with a ringing note of gladness, he knew that
+the mountain girl was announcing her arrival and, in the language she
+loved best, was greeting her friends.
+
+But so strangely selfish is the heart of man, that Aaron King gave the
+novelist no share in their neighbor's musical greeting. He received the
+message as if it were to himself alone. As he listened, his eyes
+brightened; he stood erect, his face turned upward toward the mountain
+peaks in the distance; his lips curved in a slow smile. He fancied that he
+could see the girl's winsome face lighted with merriment as she played,
+knowing his surprise. Once, he started impulsively toward the door, but
+paused, hesitating, and turned back. When the music ceased, he went to the
+open window that looked out into the rose garden, and watched expectantly.
+
+Presently, he heard her low-voiced song as she came through the orange
+grove beyond the Ragged Robin hedge. Then he glimpsed her white dress at
+the little gate in the corner. Then she stood in full view.
+
+The artist had, so far, seen Sibyl only in her mountain costume of soft
+brown,--made for rough contact with rocks and underbrush,--with felt hat
+to match, and high, laced boots, fit for climbing. She was dressed, now,
+as Conrad Lagrange had seen her that first time in the garden, when he was
+hiding from Louise Taine. The man at the window drew a little back, with a
+low exclamation of pleased surprise and wonder. Was that lovely creature
+there among the roses his girl comrade of the hills? The Sibyl Andres he
+had known--in the short skirt and high boots of her mountain garb--was a
+winsome, fanciful, sometimes serious, sometimes wayward, maiden. This
+Sibyl Andres, gowned in clinging white, was a slender, gracefully tall,
+and beautifully developed woman.
+
+Slowly, she came toward the studio end of the garden; pausing here and
+there to bend over the flowers as though in loving, tender greeting;
+singing, the while, her low-voiced melody; unafraid of the sunshine that
+enveloped her in a golden flood, undisturbed by the careless fingers of
+the wind that caressed her hair. A girl of the clean out-of-doors, she
+belonged among the roses, even as she had been at home among the pines and
+oaks of the mountains. The artist, fascinated by the lovely scene, stood
+as though fearing to move, lest the vision vanish.
+
+Then, looking up, she saw him, and stretched out her hands in a gesture
+of greeting, with a laugh of pleasure.
+
+"Don't move, don't move!" he called impulsively. "Hold the pose--please
+hold it! I want you just as you are!"
+
+The girl, amused at his tragic earnestness, and at the manner of his
+welcome, understood that the zeal of the artist had brushed aside the
+polite formalities of the man; and, as unaffectedly natural as she did
+everything, gave herself to his mood.
+
+Dragging his easel with the blank canvas upon it across the studio, he
+cried out, again, "Don't move, please don't move!" and began working. He
+was as one beside himself, so wholly absorbed was he in translating into
+the terms of color and line, the loveliness purity and truth that was
+expressed by the personality of the girl as she stood among the flowers.
+"If I can get it! If I can only get it!" he exclaimed again and again,
+with a kind of savage earnestness, as he worked.
+
+All his years of careful training, all his studiously acquired skill, all
+his mastery of the mechanics of his craft, came to him, now, without
+conscious effort--obedient to his purpose. Here was no thoughtful
+straining to remember the laws of composition, and perspective, and
+harmony. Here was no skillful evading of the truth he saw. So freely, so
+surely, he worked, he scarcely knew he painted. Forgetting self, as he was
+unconscious of his technic, he worked as the birds sing, as the bees toil,
+as the deer runs. Under his hand, his picture grew and blossomed as the
+roses, themselves, among which the beautiful girl stood.
+
+Day after day, at that same hour, Sibyl Andres came singing through the
+orange grove, to stand in the golden sunlight among the roses, with hands
+outstretched in greeting. Every day, Aaron King waited her coming--sitting
+before his easel, palette and brush in hand. Each day, he worked as he had
+worked that first day--with no thought for anything save for his picture.
+
+In the mornings, he walked with Conrad Lagrange or, sometimes, worked with
+Sibyl in the garden. Often, in the evening, the two men would visit the
+little house next door. Occasionally, the girl and the woman with the
+disfigured face would come to sit for a while on the front porch with
+their friends. Thus the neighborly friendship that began in the hills was
+continued in the orange groves. The comradeship between the two young
+people grew stronger, hour by hour, as the painter worked at his easel to
+express with canvas and color and brush the spirit of the girl whose
+character and life was so unmarred by the world.
+
+A11 through those days, when he was so absorbed in his work that he often
+failed to reply when she spoke to him, the girl manifested a helpful
+understanding of his mood that caused the painter to marvel. She seemed to
+know, instinctively, when he was baffled or perplexed by the annoying
+devils of "can't-get-at-it," that so delight to torment artist folk; just
+as she knew and rejoiced when the imps were routed and the soul of the man
+exulted with the sureness and freedom of his hand. He asked her, once,
+when they had finished for the day, how it was that she knew so well how
+the work was progressing, when she could not see the picture.
+
+She laughed merrily. "But I can see _you_; and I"--she hesitated with that
+trick, that he was learning to know so well, of searching for a word--"I
+just _feel_ what you are feeling. I suppose it's because my music is that
+way. Sometimes, it simply won't come right, at all, and I feel as though I
+never _could_ do it. Then, again, it seems to do itself; and I listen and
+wonder--just as if I had nothing to do with it."
+
+So that day came when the artist, drawing slowly back from his easel,
+stood so long gazing at his picture without touching it that the girl
+called to him, "What's the matter? Won't it come right?"
+
+Slowly he laid aside his palette and brushes. Standing at the open window,
+he looked at her--smiling but silent--as she held the pose.
+
+For an instant, she did not understand. "Am I not right?" she asked
+anxiously. Then, before he could answer--"Oh, have you finished? Is it all
+done?"
+
+Still smiling, he answered almost sadly, "I have done all that I can do.
+Come."
+
+A moment later, she stood in the studio door.
+
+Seeing her hesitate, he said again, "Come."
+
+"I--I am afraid to look," she faltered.
+
+He laughed. "Really I don't think it's quite so bad as that."
+
+"Oh, but I don't mean that I'm afraid it's bad--it isn't."
+
+The painter watched her,--a queer expression on his face,--as he returned
+curiously, "And how, pray tell, do you know it isn't bad--when you have
+never seen it? It's quite the thing, I'll admit, for critics to praise or
+condemn without much knowledge of the work; but I didn't expect you to be
+so modern."
+
+"You are making fun of me," she laughed. "But I don't care. I know your
+work is good, because I know how and why you did it. You painted it just
+as you painted the spring glade, didn't you?"
+
+"Yes," he said soberly, "I did. But why are you afraid?"
+
+"Why, that's the reason. I--I'm afraid to see myself as you see me."
+
+The man's voice was gentle with feeling as he answered seriously, "Miss
+Andres, you, of all the people I have ever known, have the least cause to
+fear to look at your portrait for _that_ reason. Come."
+
+Slowly, she went forward to stand by his side before the picture.
+
+For some time, she looked at the beautiful work into which Aaron King had
+put the best of himself and of his genius. At last, turning full upon him,
+her eyes blue and shining, she said in a low tone, "O Mr. King, it is
+too--too--beautiful! It is so beautiful it--it--hurts. She seems to,
+to"--she searched for the word--"to belong to the roses, doesn't she? It
+makes you feel just as the rose garden makes you feel."
+
+He laughed with pleasure, "What a child of nature you are! You have
+forgotten that it is a portrait of yourself, haven't you?"
+
+She laughed with him. "I _had_ forgotten. It's so lovely!" Then she added
+wistfully, "Am I--am I really like that?--just a little?"
+
+"No," he answered. "But that is just a little, a very little, like you."
+
+She looked at him half doubtfully--sincerely unmindful of the compliment,
+in her consideration of its truth. Shaking her head, with a serious smile,
+she returned slowly, "I wish that I could be sure you are not mistaken."
+
+"You will permit me to exhibit the picture, will you?" he asked.
+
+"Why, yes! of course! You made it for people to see, didn't you? I don't
+believe any one could look at it seriously without having good thoughts,
+could they?"
+
+"I'm sure they could not," he answered. "But, you see, it's a portrait of
+you; and I thought you might not care for the--ah--" he finished with a
+smile--"shall I say fame?"
+
+"Oh! I did not think that you would tell any one that _I_ had anything to
+do with it. Is it necessary that my name should be mentioned?"
+
+"Not exactly necessary"--he admitted--"but few women, these days, would
+miss the opportunity."
+
+She shook her head, with a positive air. "No, no; you must exhibit it as a
+picture; not as a portrait of me. The portrait part is of no importance.
+It is what you have made your picture say, that will do good."
+
+"And what have I made it say?" he asked, curiously pleased.
+
+"Why it says that--that a woman should be beautiful as the roses are
+beautiful--without thinking too much about it, you know--just as a man
+should be strong without thinking too much about his strength, I mean."
+
+"Yes," he agreed, "it says that. But I want you to know that, whatever
+title it is exhibited under, it will always be, to me, a portrait--the
+truest I have ever painted."
+
+She flushed with genuine pleasure as she said brightly, "I like you for
+that. And now let's try it on Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard. You get
+him, and I'll run and bring her. Mind you don't let Mr. Lagrange in until
+I get back! I want to watch him when he first sees it."
+
+When the artist found Conrad Lagrange and told him that the picture was
+finished, the novelist, without comment, turned his attention to Czar.
+
+The painter, with an amused smile, asked, "Won't you come for a look at
+it, old man?"
+
+The other returned gruffly, "Thanks; but I don't think I care to risk it."
+
+The artist laughed. "But Miss Andres wants you to come. She sent me to
+fetch you."
+
+Conrad Lagrange turned his peculiar, baffling eyes upon the young man.
+"Does _she_ like it?"
+
+"She seems to."
+
+"If she _seems_ to, she does," retorted the other, rising. "And that's
+different."
+
+When the novelist, with his three friends, stood before the easel, he was
+silent for so long that the girl said anxiously, "I--I thought you would
+like it, Mr. Lagrange."
+
+They saw the strange man's eyes fill with tears as he answered, in the
+gentle tones that always marked his words to her, "Like it? My dear child,
+how could I help liking it? It is you--you!" To the artist, he added, "It
+is great work, my boy, great! I--I wish your mother could have seen it. It
+is like her--as I knew her. You have done well." He turned, with gentle
+courtesy, to Myra Willard; "And you? What is your verdict, Miss Willard?"
+
+With her arm around the beautiful original of the portrait, the woman with
+the disfigured face answered, "I think, sir, that I, better than any one
+in all the world, know how good, how true, it is."
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke again to the artist, inquiringly; "You will exhibit
+it?"
+
+"Miss Andres says that I may--but not as a portrait."
+
+The novelist could not conceal his pleasure at the answer. Presently, he
+said, "If it is not to be shown as a portrait, may I suggest a title?"
+
+"I was hoping you would!" exclaimed the painter.
+
+"And so was I," cried Sibyl, with delight. "What is it, Mr. Lagrange?"
+
+"Let it be exhibited as 'The Spirit of Nature--A Portrait'," answered
+Conrad Lagrange.
+
+As the novelist finished speaking, Yee Kee appeared in the doorway. "They
+come--big automobile. Whole lot people. Misse Taine, Miste' Lutlidge, sick
+man, whole lot--I come tell you."
+
+The artist spoke quickly,--"Stop them in the house, Kee; I'll be right
+in,"--and the Chinaman vanished.
+
+At Yee Kee's announcement, Myra Willard's face went white, and she gave a
+low cry.
+
+"Never mind, dear," said the girl, soothingly. "We can slip away through
+the garden--come."
+
+When Sibyl and the woman with the disfigured face were gone, Conrad
+Lagrange and Aaron King looked at each other, questioningly.
+
+Then the novelist said harshly,--pointing to the picture on the
+easel,--"You're not going to let that flock of buzzards feed on this, are
+you? I'll murder some one, sure as hell, if you do."
+
+"I don't think I could stand it, myself," said the artist, laughing
+grimly, as he drew the velvet curtain to hide the portrait.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVII
+
+The Answer
+
+
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange entered the house to meet their
+callers from Fairlands Heights, the artist felt, oddly, that he was
+meeting a company of strangers.
+
+The carefully hidden, yet--to him--subtly revealed, warmth of Mrs. Taine's
+greeting embarrassed him with a momentary sense of shame. The frothing
+gush of Louise's inane ejaculations, and the coughing, choking, cursing of
+Mr. Taine,--whose feeble grip upon the flesh that had so betrayed him was,
+by now, so far loosed that he could scarcely walk alone,--set the painter
+struggling for words that would mean nothing--the only words that, under
+the circumstances, could serve. Aaron King was somewhat out of practise in
+the use of meaningless words, and the art of talking without saying
+anything is an art that requires constant exercise if one would not commit
+serious technical blunders. James Rutlidge's greeting was insolently
+familiar; as a man of certain mind greets--in public--a boon companion of
+his private and unmentionable adventures. Toward the great critic, the
+painter exercised a cool self-restraint that was at least commendable.
+
+While Aaron King, with James Rutlidge and Mr. Taine, with carefully
+assumed interest, was listening to Louise's effort to make a jumble of
+"ohs" and "ahs" and artistic sighs sound like a description of a sunset in
+the mountains, Mrs. Taine said quietly to Conrad Lagrange, "You certainly
+have taken excellent care of your protege, this summer. He looks
+splendidly fit."
+
+The novelist, watching the woman whose eyes, as she spoke, were upon the
+artist, answered, "You are pleased to flatter me, Mrs. Taine."
+
+She turned to him, with a knowing smile. "Perhaps I _am_ giving you more
+credit than is due. I understand Mr. King has not been in your care
+altogether. Shame on you, Mr. Lagrange! for a man of your age and
+experience to permit your charge to roam all over the country, alone and
+unprotected, with a picturesque mountain girl!--and that, after your
+warning to poor me!"
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled grimly. "I confess I thought of you in that
+connection several times."
+
+She eyed him doubtfully. "Oh, well," she said easily, "I suppose artists
+must amuse themselves, occasionally--the same as the rest of us."
+
+"I don't think that, '_amuse_' is exactly the word, Mrs. Taine," the other
+returned coldly.
+
+"No? Surely you don't meant to tell me that it is anything serious?"
+
+"I don't mean to tell you anything about it," he retorted rather sharply.
+
+She laughed. "You don't need to. Jim has already told me quite enough. Mr.
+King, himself, will tell me more."
+
+"Not unless he's a bigger fool than I think," growled the novelist.
+
+Again, she laughed into his face, mockingly. "You men are all more or less
+foolish when there's a woman in the case, aren't you?"
+
+To which, the other answered tartly, "If we were not, there would be no
+woman in the case."
+
+As Conrad Lagrange spoke, Louise, exhausted by her efforts to achieve that
+sunset in the mountains with her limited supply of adjectives, floundered
+hopelessly into the expressive silence of clasped hands and heaving breast
+and ecstatically upturned eyes. The artist, seizing the opportunity with
+the cunning of desperation, turned to Mrs. Taine, with some inane remark
+about the summers in California.
+
+Whatever it was that he said, Mrs. Taine agreed with him, heartily,
+adding, "And you, I suppose, have been making good use of your time? Or
+have you been simply storing up material and energy for this winter?"
+
+This brought Louise out of the depths of that sunset, with a flop. She was
+so sure that Mr. King had some inexpressibly wonderful work to show them.
+Couldn't they go at once to the equally inexpressibly beautiful studio, to
+see the inexpressibly lovely pictures that she was so inexpressibly sure
+he had been painting in the inexpressibly grand and beautiful and
+wonderfully lovely mountains?
+
+The painter assured them that he had no work for them to see; and Louise
+floundered again into the depths of inexpressible disappointment and
+despair.
+
+Nevertheless, a few minutes later, Aaron King found himself in his
+studio, alone with Mrs. Taine. He could not have told exactly how she
+managed it, or why. Perhaps, in sheer pity, she had rescued him from the
+floods of Louise's appreciation. Perhaps--she had some other reasons.
+There had been something said about her right to see her own picture, and
+then--there they were--with the others safely barred from intruding upon
+the premises sacred to art.
+
+When there was no longer need to fear the eyes of the world, Mrs. Taine
+was at no pains to hide the warmth of her feeling. With little reserve,
+she confessed herself in every look and tone and movement.
+
+"Are you really glad to see me, I wonder," she said invitingly. "All this
+summer, while I have been forced to endure the company of all sorts of
+stupid people, I have been thinking of you and your work. And, you see, I
+have come to you, the first possible moment after my return home."
+
+The man--being a man--could not remain wholly insensible to the alluring
+physical beauty of the splendid creature who stood so temptingly before
+him; but, to the honor of his kind, he could and did remain master of
+himself.
+
+The woman, true to her life training,--as James Rutlidge had been true to
+his schooling when he approached Sibyl Andres in the mountains,--construed
+the artist's manner, not as a splendid self-control but as a careful
+policy. To her, and to her kind, the great issues of life are governed,
+not at all by principle, but by policy. It is not at all what one is, or
+what one may accomplish that matters; it is wholly what one may skillfully
+_appear_ to be, and what one may skillfully provoke the world to say,
+that is of vital importance. Turning from the painter to the easel, as if
+to find in his portrait of her the fuller expression of that which she
+believed he dared not yet put into words, she was about to draw aside the
+curtain; when Aaron King checked her quickly, with a smile that robbed his
+words of any rudeness.
+
+"Please don't touch that, Mrs. Taine. I am not yet ready to show it."
+
+As she turned from the easel to face him, he took her portrait from where
+it rested, face to the wall; and placed it upon another easel, saying,
+"Here is your picture."
+
+With the painting before her, she talked eagerly of her plans for the
+artist's future; how the picture was to be exhibited, and how, because it
+was her portrait, it would be praised and talked about by her friends who
+were leaders in the art circles. Frankly, she spoke of "pull" and
+"influence" and "scheme"; of "working" this and that "paper" for
+"write-ups"; of "handling" this or that "critic" and "writer"; of
+"reaching the committees"; of introducing the painter into the proper
+inside cliques, and clans; and of clever "advertising stunts" that would
+make him the most popular portrait painter of his day; insuring thus
+his--as she called it--fame.
+
+The man who had painted the picture of the spring glade, and who had so
+faithfully portrayed the truth and beauty of Sibyl Andres as she stood
+among the roses, listened to this woman's plans for making his portrait of
+herself famous, with a feeling of embarrassment and shame.
+
+"Do you really think that the work merits such prominence as you say will
+be given it?" he asked doubtfully.
+
+She laughed knowingly, "Just wait until Jim Rutlidge's 'write-up' appears,
+and all the others follow his lead, and you'll see! The picture is clever
+enough--you know it as well as I. It is beautiful. It has everything that
+we women want in a portrait. I really don't know much about what you
+painters call art; but I know that when Jim and our friends get through
+with it, your picture will have every mark of a great masterpiece, and
+that you will be on the topmost wave of success."
+
+"And then what?" he asked.
+
+Again, she interpreted his words in the light of her own thoughts, and
+with little attempt to veil the fire that burned in her eyes, answered,
+"And then--I hope that you will not forget me."
+
+For a moment he returned her look; then a feeling of disgust and shame for
+her swept over him, and he again turned away, to stand gazing moodily out
+of the window that looked into the rose garden.
+
+"You seem to be disturbed and worried," she said, in a tone that implied a
+complete understanding of his mood, and a tacit acceptance of the things
+that he would say if it were not for the world.
+
+He laughed shortly--"I fear you will think me ungrateful for your
+kindness. Believe me, I am not."
+
+"I know you are not," she returned. "But don't think that you had better
+confess, just the same?"
+
+He answered wonderingly, "Confess?"
+
+"Yes." She shook her finger at him, in playful severity. "Oh, I know what
+you have been up to all summer--running wild with your mountain girl!
+Really, you ought to be more discreet."
+
+Aaron King's face burned as he stammered something about not knowing what
+she meant.
+
+She laughed gaily. "There, there, never mind--I forgive you--now that you
+are safely back in civilization again. I know you artists, and how you
+must have your periods of ah--relaxation--with rather more liberties than
+the common herd. Just so you are careful that the world doesn't know _too_
+much."
+
+At this frank revelation of her mind, the man stood amazed. For the
+construction she put upon his relation with the girl whose pure and gentle
+comradeship had led him to greater heights in his art than he had ever
+before attained, he could have driven this woman from the studio he felt
+that she profaned. But what could he say? He remembered Conrad Lagrange's
+counsel when James Rutlidge had seen the girl at their camp. What could he
+say that would not injure Sibyl Andres? To cover his embarrassment, he
+forced a laugh and answered lightly, "Really, I am not good at
+confessions."
+
+"Nor I at playing the part of confessor," she laughed with him. "But, just
+the same, you might tell me what you think of yourself. Aren't you just a
+little ashamed?"
+
+The artist had moved to a position in front of her portrait; and, as he
+looked upon the painted lie, his answer came. "Rather let me tell you what
+I think of _you_, Mrs. Taine. And let me tell you in the language I know
+best. Let me put my answer to your charges here," he touched her portrait.
+
+Almost, his reply was worthy of Conrad Lagrange, himself.
+
+"I don't quite understand," she said, a trifle put out by the turn his
+answer had taken.
+
+"I mean," he explained eagerly, "that I want to repaint your portrait. You
+remember, I wrote, when I returned Mr. Taine's generous check, that I was
+not altogether satisfied with it. Give me another chance."
+
+"You mean for me to come here again, to pose for you?--as I did before?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "just as you did before. I want to make a portrait
+worthy of you, as this is not. Let me tell you, on the canvas, what I
+cannot--" he hesitated then said deliberately--"what I _dare_ not put into
+words."
+
+The woman received his words as a veiled declaration of a passion he dared
+not, yet, openly express. She thought his request a clever ruse to renew
+their meetings in the privacy of his studio, and was, accordingly
+delighted.
+
+"Oh, that will be wonderful!--heavenly!" she cried, springing to her feet.
+"Can we begin at once? May I come to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes," he answered, "come to-morrow."
+
+"And may I wear the Quaker gown?"
+
+"Yes, indeed! I want you just as you were before--the same dress, the same
+pose. It is to be the same picture, you understand, only a better one--one
+more worthy of us, both. And now," he continued hurriedly "don't you
+think that we should return to the house?"
+
+"I suppose so," she answered regretfully--lingering.
+
+The artist was already opening the door.
+
+As they passed out, she placed her hand on his arm, and looked up into his
+face admiringly. "What a clever, clever man you are, to think of it! And
+what a story it will make for the papers--when my picture is shown--how
+you were not satisfied with the portrait and refused to let it go--and
+how, after keeping it in your studio for months, you repainted it, to
+satisfy your artistic conscience!"
+
+Aaron King smiled.
+
+The announcement in the house that the artist was to repaint Mrs. Taine's
+picture, provoked characteristic comment. Louise effervesced a frothy
+stream of bubbling exclamations. James Rutlidge gave a hearty, "By Jove,
+old man, you have nerve! If you can really improve on that canvas, you are
+a wonder." And Mr. Taine, under the watchful eye of his beautiful wife,
+responded with a husky whisper, "Quite right--my boy--quite right!
+Certainly--by all means--if you feel that way about it--" his consent and
+approval ending in a paroxysm of coughing that left him weak and
+breathless, and nearly eliminated him from the question, altogether.
+
+When the Fairlands Heights party had departed, Conrad Lagrange looked the
+artist up and down.
+
+"Well,"--he growled harshly, in his most brutal tones,--"what is it? Is
+the dog returning to his vomit?--or is the prodigal turning his back on
+his hogs and his husks?"
+
+Aaron King smiled as he answered, "I think, rather, it's the case of the
+blind beggar who sat by the roadside, helpless, until a certain Great
+Physician passed that way."
+
+And Conrad Lagrange understood.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXVIII
+
+You're Ruined, My Boy
+
+
+
+It was no light task to which Aaron King had set his hand. He did not
+doubt what it would cost him. Nor did Conrad Lagrange, as they talked
+together that evening, fail to point out clearly what it would mean to the
+artist, at the very beginning of his career, to fly thus rudely in the
+face of the providence that had chosen to serve him. The world's history
+of art and letters affords too many examples of men who, because they
+refused to pay court to the ruling cliques and circles of their little
+day, had seen the doors of recognition slammed in their faces; and who,
+even as they wrought their great works, had been forced to hear, as they
+toiled, the discordant yelpings of the self-appointed watchdogs of the
+halls of fame. Nor did the artist question the final outcome,--if only his
+work should be found worthy to endure,--for the world's history
+establishes, also, the truth--that he who labors for a higher wage than an
+approving paragraph in the daily paper, may, in spite of the condemnation
+of the pretending rulers, live in the life of his race, long after the
+names to which he refused to bow are lost in the dust of their self-raised
+thrones.
+
+The painter was driven to his course by that self-respect, without which,
+no man can sanely endure his own company; together with that reverence--I
+say it deliberately--that reverence for his art, without which, no worthy
+work is possible. He had come to understand that one may not prostitute
+his genius to the immoral purposes of a diseased age, without reaping a
+prostitute's reward. The hideous ruin that Mr. Taine had, in himself,
+wrought by the criminal dissipation of his manhood's strength, and by the
+debasing of his physical appetites and passions, was to Aaron King, now, a
+token of the intellectual, spiritual, and moral ruin that alone can result
+from a debased and depraved dissipation of an artist's creative power. He
+saw clearly, now, that the influence his work must wield upon the lives of
+those who came within its reach, must be identical with the influence of
+Sibyl Andres, who had so unconsciously opened his eyes to the true mission
+and glory of the arts, and thus had made his decision possible. In that
+hour when Mrs. Taine had revealed herself to him so clearly, following as
+it did so closely his days of work and the final completion of his
+portrait of the girl among the roses, he saw and felt the woman, not as
+one who could help him to the poor rewards of a temporary popularity, but
+as the spirit of an age that threatens the very life of art by seeking to
+destroy the vital truth and purpose of its existence. He felt that in
+painting the portrait of Mrs. Taine--as he had painted it--he had betrayed
+a trust; as truly as had his father who, for purely personal
+aggrandizement, had stolen the material wealth intrusted to him by his
+fellows. The young man understood, now, that, instead of fulfilling the
+purpose of his mother's sacrifice, and realizing for her her dying wish,
+as he had promised; the course he had entered upon would have thwarted the
+one and denied the other.
+
+The young man had answered the novelist truly, that it was a case of the
+blind beggar by the wayside. He might have carried the figure farther; for
+that same blind beggar, when his eyes had been opened, was persecuted by
+the very ones who had fed him in his infirmity. It is easier, sometimes,
+to receive blindly, than to give with eyes that see too clearly.
+
+When Mrs. Taine went to the artist, in the studio, the next day, she found
+him in the act of re-tying the package of his mother's letters. For nearly
+an hour, he had been reading them. For nearly an hour before that, he had
+been seated, motionless, before the picture that Conrad Lagrange had said
+was a portrait of the Spirit of Nature.
+
+When Mrs. Taine had slipped off her wrap, and stood before him gowned in
+the dress that so revealed the fleshly charms it pretended to hide, she
+indicated the letters in the artist's hands, with an insinuating laugh;
+while there was a glint of more than passing curiosity in her eyes. "Dear
+me," she said, "I hope I am not intruding upon the claims of some absent
+affinity."
+
+Aaron King gravely held out his hand with the package of letters, saying
+quietly, "They are from my mother."
+
+And the woman had sufficient grace to blush, for once, with unfeigned
+shame.
+
+When he had received her apologies, and, putting aside the letters, had
+succeeded in making her forget the incident, he said, "And now, if you are
+ready, shall we begin?"
+
+For some time the painter stood before the picture on his easel, without
+touching palette or brush, studying the face of the woman who posed for
+him. By a slight movement of her eyes, without turning her head, she could
+look him fairly in the face. Presently as he continued to gaze at her so
+intently, she laughed; and, with a little shrug of her shoulders and a
+pretense as of being cold, said, "When you look at me that way, I feel as
+though you had surprised me at my bath."
+
+The artist turned his attention instantly to his color-box. While setting
+his palette, with his eyes upon his task, he said deliberately, "'Venus
+Surprised at the Bath.' Do you know that you would make a lovely Venus?"
+
+With a low laugh, she returned, daringly. "Would you care to paint me as
+the Goddess of Love?"
+
+He, still, did not look at her; but answered, while, with deliberate care,
+he selected a few brushes from the Chinese jar near the easel, "Venus is
+always a very popular subject, you know."
+
+She did not speak for a moment or two; and the painter felt her watching
+him. As he turned to his canvas--still careful not to look in her
+direction--she said, suggestively, "I suppose you could change the face so
+that no one would know it was I who posed."
+
+The man remembered her carefully acquired reputation for modesty, but held
+to his purpose, saying, as if considering the question seriously, "Oh, as
+for that part; it could be managed with perfect safety." Then, suddenly,
+he turned his eyes upon her face, with a gaze so sharp and piercing that
+the blood slowly colored neck and cheek.
+
+But the painter did not wait for the blush. He had seen what he wanted and
+was at work--with the almost savage intensity that had marked his manner
+while he had worked upon the portrait of Sibyl Andres.
+
+And so, day after day, as he painted, again, the portrait of the woman who
+Conrad Lagrange fancifully called "The Age," the artist permitted her to
+betray her real self--the self that was so commonly hidden from the world,
+under the mask of a pretended culture, and the cloak of a fraudulent
+refinement. He led her to talk of the world in which she lived--of the
+scandals and intrigues among those of her class who hold such enviable
+positions in life. He drew from her the philosophies and beliefs and
+religions of her kind. He encouraged her to talk of art--to give her
+understanding of the world of artists as she knew it, and to express her
+real opinions and tastes in pictures and books. He persuaded her to throw
+boldly aside the glittering, tinsel garb in which she walked before the
+world, and so to stand before him in all the hideous vulgarity, the
+intellectual poverty and the moral depravity of her naked self.
+
+At times, when, under his intense gaze, she drew the cloak of her
+pretenses hurriedly about her, he sat before his picture without touching
+the canvas, waiting; or, perhaps, he paced the floor; until, with
+skillful words, her fears were banished and she was again herself. Then,
+with quick eye and sure, ready hand, he wrought into the portrait upon the
+easel--so far as the power was given him--all that he saw in the face of
+the woman who--posing for him, secure in the belief that he was painting a
+lie--revealed her true nature, warped and distorted as it was by an age
+that, demanding realism in art, knows not what it demands. Always, when
+the sitting was finished, he drew the curtain to hide the picture;
+forbidding her to look at it until he said that it was finished.
+
+Much of the time, when he was not in the studio at work, the painter spent
+with Mrs. Taine and her friends, in the big touring car, and at the house
+on Fairlands Heights. But the artist did not, now, enter into the life of
+Fairlands' Pride for gain or for pleasure--he went for study--as a
+physician goes into the dissecting room. He justified himself by the old
+and familiar argument that it was for his art's sake.
+
+Sibyl Andres, he seldom saw, except occasionally, in the early morning, in
+the rose garden. The girl knew what he was doing--that is, she knew that
+he was painting a portrait of Mrs. Taine--and so, with Myra Willard,
+avoided the place. But Conrad Lagrange now, made the neighboring house in
+the orange grove his place of refuge from Louise Taine, who always
+accompanied Mrs. Taine,--lest the world should talk,--but who never went
+as far as the studio.
+
+But often, as he worked, the artist heard the music of the mountain girl's
+violin; and he knew that she, in her own beautiful way, was trying to help
+him--as she would have said--to put the mountains into his work. Many
+times, he was conscious of the feeling that some one was watching him.
+Once, pausing at the garden end of the studio as he paced to and fro, he
+caught a glimpse of her as she slipped through the gate in the Ragged
+Robin hedge. And once, in the morning, after one of those afternoons when
+he had gone away with Mrs. Taine at the conclusion of the sitting, he
+found a note pinned to the velvet curtain that hid the canvas on his
+working easel. It was a quaint little missive; written in one of the
+girl's fanciful moods, with a reference to "Blue Beard," and the assurance
+that she had been strong and had not looked at the forbidden picture.
+
+As the work progressed, Mrs. Taine remarked, often, how the artist was
+changed. When painting that first picture, he had been so sure of himself.
+Working with careless ease, he had been suave and pleasant in his manner,
+with ready smile or laugh. Why, she questioned, was he, now, so grave and
+serious? Why did he pause so often, to sit staring at his canvas, or to
+pace the floor? Why did he seem to be so uncertain--to be questioning,
+searching, hesitating? The woman thought that she knew. Rejoicing in her
+fancied victory--all but won--she looked forward to the triumphant moment
+when this splendid man should be swept from his feet by the force of the
+passion she thought she saw him struggling to conceal. Meanwhile she
+tempted him by all the wiles she knew--inviting him with eyes and lips and
+graceful pose and meaning gesture.
+
+And Aaron King, with clear, untroubled eye seeing all; with cool brain
+understanding all; with steady, skillful hand, ruled supremely by his
+purpose, painted that which he saw and understood into his portrait of
+her.
+
+So they came to the last sitting. On the following evening, Mrs. Taine was
+giving a dinner at the house on Fairlands Heights, at which the artist was
+to meet some people who would be--as she said--useful to him. Eastern
+people they were; from the accredited center of art and literature;
+members of the inner circle of the elect. They happened to be spending the
+season on the Coast, and she had taken advantage of the opportunity to
+advance the painter's interests. It was very fortunate that her portrait
+was to be finished in time for them to see it.
+
+The artist was sorry, he said, but, while it would not be necessary for
+her to come to the studio again, the picture was not yet finished, and he
+could not permit its being exhibited until he was ready to sign the
+canvas.
+
+"But I may see it?" she asked, as he laid aside his palette and brushes,
+and announced that he was through.
+
+With a quick hand, he drew the curtain. "Not yet; please--not until I am
+ready."
+
+"Oh!" she cried with a charming air of submitting to one whose wish is
+law, "How mean of you! I know it is splendid! Are you satisfied? Is it
+better than the other? Is it like me?"
+
+"I am sure that it is much better than the other," he replied. "It is as
+like you as I can make it."
+
+"And is it as beautiful as the other?"
+
+"It is beautiful--as you are beautiful," he answered.
+
+"I shall tell them all about it, to-morrow night--even if I haven't seen
+it. And so will Jim Rutlidge."
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange spent that evening at the little house next
+door. The next morning, the artist shut himself up in his studio. At lunch
+time, he would not come out. Late in the afternoon, the novelist went,
+again, to knock at the door.
+
+The artist called in a voice that rang with triumph, "Come in, old man,
+come in and help me celebrate."
+
+Entering, Conrad Lagrange found him; sitting, pale and worn, before his
+picture--his palette and brushes still in his hand.
+
+And such a picture!
+
+A moment, the novelist who knew--as few men know--the world that was
+revealed with such fidelity in that face upon the canvas, looked; then,
+with weird and wonderful oaths of delight, he caught the tired artist and
+whirled him around the studio, in a triumphant dance.
+
+"You've done it! man--you've done it! It's all there; every rotten,
+stinking shred of it! Wow! but it's good--so damned good that it's almost
+inhuman. I knew you had it in you. I knew it was in you, all the time--if
+only you could come alive. God, man! if _that_ could only be exhibited
+alongside the other! Look here!"
+
+He dragged the easel that held Sibyl Andres' portrait to a place beside
+the one upon which the canvas just finished rested, and drew back the
+curtain. The effect was startling.
+
+"'The Spirit of Nature' and 'The Spirit of the Age'," said Conrad
+Lagrange, in a low tone.
+
+"But you're ruined, my boy," he added gleefully. "You're ruined. These
+canvases will never be exhibited Her own, she'll smash when she sees it;
+and you'll be artistically damned by the very gods she has invoked to
+bless you with fame and wealth. Lord, but I envy you! You have your chance
+now--a real chance to be worthy your mother's sacrifice.
+
+"Come on, let's get ready for the feast."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXIX
+
+The Hand Writing on the Wall
+
+
+
+It was November. Nearly a year had passed since that day when the young
+man on the Golden State Limited--with the inheritance he had received from
+his mother's dying lips, and with his solemn promise to her still fresh in
+his mind--looked into the eyes of the woman on the platform of the
+observation car. That same day, too, he first saw the woman with the
+disfigured face, and, for the first time, met the famous Conrad Lagrange.
+
+Aaron King was thinking of these things as he set out, that evening, with
+his friend, for the home of Mrs. Taine. He remarked to the novelist that
+the time seemed, to him, many years.
+
+"To me, Aaron," answered the strange man, "it has been the happiest
+and--if you would not misunderstand me--the most satisfying year of my
+life. And this"--he added, his deep voice betraying his emotion--"this has
+been the happiest day of the year. It is your independence day. I shall
+always celebrate it as such--I--I have no independence day of my own to
+celebrate, you know."
+
+Aaron King did not misunderstand.
+
+As the two men approached the big house on Fairlands Heights, they saw
+that modern palace, from concrete foundation to red-tiled roof, ablaze
+with many lights. Situated upon the very topmost of the socially graded
+levels of Fairlands, it outshone them all; and, quite likely, the
+glittering display was mistaken by many dwellers in the valley below for a
+new constellation of the heavenly bodies. Quite likely, too, some lonely
+dweller, high up among the distant mountain peaks, looked down upon the
+sparkling bauble that lay for the moment, as it were, on the wide lap of
+the night, and smiled in quiet amusement that the earth children should
+attach such value to so fragile a toy.
+
+As they passed the massive, stone pillars of the entrance to the grounds,
+Conrad Lagrange said, "Really, Aaron, don't you feel a little ashamed of
+yourself?--coming here to-night, after the outrageous return you have made
+for the generous hospitality of these people? You know that if Mrs. Taine
+had seen what you have done to her portrait, you could force the pearly
+gates easier than you could break in here."
+
+The artist laughed. "To tell the truth, I don't feel exactly at home. But
+what the deuce can I do? After my intimacy with them, all these months, I
+can't assume that they are going to make my picture a reason for refusing
+to recognize me, can I? As I see it, they, not I, must take the
+initiative. I can't say: 'Well, I've told the truth about you, so throw me
+out'."
+
+The novelist grinned. "Thus it is when 'Art' becomes entangled with the
+family of 'Materialism.' It's hard to break away from the flesh-pots--even
+when you know you are on the road to the Promised Land. But don't
+worry--'The Age' will take the initiative fast enough when she sees your
+portrait of her. Wow! In the meantime, let's play their game to-night, and
+take what spoils the gods may send. There will be material here for
+pictures and stories a plenty." As they went up the wide steps and under
+the portal into the glare of the lights, and caught the sound of the
+voices within, he added under his breath, "Lord, man, but 'tis a pretty
+show!--if only things were called by their right names. That old
+Babylonian, Belshazzar, had nothing on us moderns after all, did he? Watch
+out for the writing upon the wall."
+
+When Aaron King and his companion entered the spacious rooms where the
+pride of Fairlands Heights and the eastern lions were assembled, a buzz of
+comment went round the glittering company. Aside from the fact that Mrs.
+Taine, with practised skill, had prepared the way for her protege, by
+subtly stimulating the curiosity of her guests--the appearance of the two
+men, alone, would have attracted their attention The artist, with his
+strong, splendidly proportioned, athletic body, and his handsome,
+clean-cut intellectual face--calmly sure of himself--with the air of one
+who knows that his veins are rich with the wealth of many generations of
+true culture and refinement; and the novelist--easily the most famous of
+his day--tall, emaciated, grotesquely stooped--with his homely face seamed
+and lined, world-worn and old, and his sharp eyes peering from under his
+craggy brows with that analyzing, cynical, half-pathetic half-humorous
+expression--certainly presented a contrast too striking to escape notice.
+
+For an instant, as comrades side by side upon a battle-field might do,
+they glanced over the scene. To the painter's eye, the assembled guests
+appeared as a glittering, shimmering, scintillating, cloud-like mass that,
+never still, stirred within itself, in slow, graceful restless
+motions--forming always, without purpose new combinations and groupings
+that were broken up, even as they were shaped, to be reformed; with the
+black spots and splashes of the men's conventional dress ever changing
+amid the brighter colors and textures of the women's gowns; the warm flesh
+tints of bare white arms and shoulders, gleaming here and there; and the
+flash and sparkle of jewels, threading the sheen of silks and the filmy
+softness of laces. Into the artist's mind--fresh from the tragic
+earnestness of his day's work, and still under the enduring spell of his
+weeks in the mountains--flashed a sentence from a good old book; "For what
+is your life? It is even a vapor, that appeareth for a little time, and
+then vanisheth away."
+
+Then they were greeting, with conventional nothings their beautiful
+hostess; who, with a charming air of triumphant--but not too
+triumphant--proprietorship received them and passed them on, with a low
+spoken word to Aaron King; "I will take charge of you later."
+
+Conrad Lagrange, before they drifted apart, found opportunity to growl in
+his companion's ear; "A near-great musician--an actress of divorce court
+fame--an art critic, boon companion of our friend Rutlidge--two free-lance
+yellow journalists--a poet--with leading culture-club women of various
+brands, and a mob of mere fashion and wealth. The pickings should be
+good. Look at 'Materialism', over there."
+
+In a wheeled chair, attended by a servant in livery, a little apart from
+the center of the scene,--as though the pageant of life was about to move
+on without him,--but still, with desperate grip, holding his place in the
+picture, sat the genius of it all--the millionaire. The creature's wasted,
+skeleton-like limbs, were clothed grotesquely in conventional evening
+dress. His haggard, bestial face--repulsive with every mark of his wicked,
+licentious years--grinned with an insane determination to take the place
+that was his by right of his money bags; while his glazed and sunken eyes
+shone with fitful gleams, as he rallied the last of his vital forces, with
+a devilish defiance of the end that was so inevitably near.
+
+As Aaron King, in the splendid strength of his inheritance, went to pay
+his respects to the master of the house, that poor product of our age was
+seized by a paroxysm of coughing, that shook him--gasping and
+choking--almost into unconsciousness. The ready attendant held out a glass
+of whisky, and he clutched the goblet with skinny hands that, in their
+trembling eagerness, rattled the crystal against his teeth. In the
+momentary respite afforded by the powerful stimulant, he lifted his
+yellow, claw-like hand to wipe the clammy beads of sweat that gathered
+upon his wrinkled, ape-like brow; and the painter saw, on one bony,
+talon-like finger, the gleaming flash of a magnificent diamond.
+
+Mr. Taine greeted the artist with his husky whisper "Hello, old chap--glad
+to see you!" Peering into the laughing, chattering, glittering, throng he
+added, "Some beauties here to-night, heh? Gad! my boy, but I've seen the
+day I'd be out there among them! Ha, ha! Mrs. Taine, Louise, and Jim tried
+to shelve me--but I fooled 'em. Damn me, but I'm game for a good time yet!
+A little off my feed, and under the weather; but game, you understand,
+game as hell!" Then to the attendant--"Where's that whisky?" And, again,
+his yellow, claw-like hand--with that beautiful diamond, a gleaming point
+of pure, white light--lifted the glass to his grinning lips.
+
+When Mrs. Taine appeared to claim the artist, her husband--huddled in his
+chair, an unclean heap of all but decaying flesh--watched them go, with
+hidden, impotent rage.
+
+A few moments later, as Mrs. Taine and her charge were leaving one group
+of celebrities in search of another they encountered Conrad Lagrange.
+"What's this I see?" gibed the novelist, mockingly. "Is it 'Art being led
+by Beauty to the Judges and Executioners'? or, is it 'Beauty presenting an
+Artist to the Gods of Modern Art'?"
+
+"You had better be helping a good cause instead of making fun, Mr.
+Lagrange," the woman retorted. "You weren't always so famous yourself that
+you could afford to be indifferent, you know."
+
+Aaron King laughed as his friend replied, "Never fear, madam, never
+fear--I shall be on hand to assist at the obsequies."
+
+In the shifting of the groups and figures, when dinner was announced, the
+young man found himself, again, within reach of Conrad Lagrange; and the
+novelist whispered, with a grin, "Now for the flesh-pots in earnest. You
+will be really out of place in the next act, Aaron. Only we artists who
+have sold our souls have a right to the price of our shame. _You_ should
+dine upon a crust, you know. A genius without his crust, huh! A devil
+without his tail, or an ass without his long ears!"
+
+Most conspicuous in the brilliant throng assembled in that banquet hall,
+was the horrid figure of Mr. Taine who sat in his wheeled chair at the
+head of the table; his liveried attendant by his side. Frequently--as
+though compelled--eyes were turned toward that master of the feast, who
+was, himself, so far past feasting; and toward his beautiful young
+wife--the only woman in the room, whose shoulders and arms were not bare.
+
+At first, the talk moved somewhat heavily. Neighbor chattered nothings to
+neighbor in low tones. It was as though the foreboding presence of some
+grim, unbidden guest overshadowed the spirits of the company But gradually
+the scene became more animated The glitter of silver and crystal on the
+board; the sparkle of jewels and the wealth of shimmering colors that
+costumed the diners; with the strains of music that came from somewhere
+behind a floral screen that filled the air with fragrance; concealed, as
+it were, the hideous image of immorality which was the presiding genius of
+the feast. As the glare of a too bright light blinds the eyes to the ditch
+across one's path, so the brilliancy of their surroundings blinded the
+eyes of his guests to the meaning of that horrid figure in the seat of
+highest honor. But rich foods and rare wines soon loose the tongues that
+chatter the thoughts of those who do not think. As the glasses were filled
+and refilled again, the scene took color from the sparkling goblets.
+Voices were raised to a higher pitch. Shrill or boisterous laughter rang
+out, as jest and story went the rounds. It was Mrs. Taine, now, rather
+than her husband, who dominated the scene. With cheeks flushed and eyes
+bright she set the pace, nor permitted any laggards.
+
+Conrad Lagrange watched, cool and cynical--his worn face twisted into a
+mocking smile; his keen, baffling eyes, from under their scowling brows,
+seeing all, understanding all. Aaron King, weary with the work of the past
+days, endured--wishing it was over.
+
+The evening was well under way when Mrs. Taine held up her hand. In the
+silence, she said, "Listen! I have a real treat for you, to-night,
+friends. Listen!" As she spoke the last word, her eyes met the eyes of the
+artist, in mocking, challenging humor. He was wondering what she meant,
+when,--from behind that screen of flowers,--soft and low, poignantly sweet
+and thrilling in its purity of tone, came the music of the violin that he
+had learned to know so well.
+
+Instantly, the painter understood. Mrs. Taine had employed Sibyl Andres to
+play for her guests that evening; thinking to tease the artist by
+presenting his mountain comrade in the guise of a hired servant. Why the
+girl had not told him, he did not know. Perhaps she had thought to enjoy
+his surprise. The effect of the girl's presence--or rather of her music,
+for she, herself, could not be seen--upon the artist was quite other than
+Mrs. Taine intended.
+
+Under the spell of the spirit that spoke in the violin, Aaron King was
+carried far from his glittering surroundings. Again, he stood where the
+bright waters of Clear Creek tumbled among the granite boulders, and where
+he had first moved to answer the call of that music of the hills. Again,
+he followed the old wagon road to the cedar thicket; and, in the little,
+grassy opening with its wild roses, its encircling wilderness growth, and
+its old log house under the sheltering sycamores, saw a beautiful girl
+dancing with the unconscious grace of a woodland sprite, her arms upheld
+in greeting to the mountains. Once again, he was painting in the sacred
+quiet of the spring glade where she had come to him with her three gifts;
+where, in maidenly innocence, she had danced the dance of the butterflies;
+and, later, with her music, had lifted their friendship to heights of
+purity as far above the comprehension of the company that listened to her
+now, as the mountain peaks among the stars that night were high above the
+house on Fairlands Heights.
+
+The music ceased. It was followed by the loud clapping of hands--with
+exclamations in high-pitched voices. "Who is it?" "Where did you find
+him?" "What's his name?"--for they judged, from Mrs. Taine's introductory
+words, that she expected them to show their appreciation.
+
+Mrs. Taine laughed, and, with her eyes mockingly upon the artist's face
+answered lightly, "Oh, she is a discovery of mine. She teaches music, and
+plays in one of the Fairlands churches."
+
+"You are a wonder," said one of the illustrious critics, admiringly. And
+lifting his glass, he cried, "Here's to our beautiful and talented
+hostess--the patron saint of all the arts--the friend of all true
+artists."
+
+In the quiet that followed the enthusiastic endorsement of the
+distinguished gentleman's words, another voice said, "If it's a girl,
+can't we see her?" "Yes, yes," came from several. "Please, Mrs. Taine,
+bring her out." "Have her play again." "Will she?"
+
+Mrs. Taine laughed. "Certainly, she will. That's what she's here for--to
+amuse you." And, again, as she spoke, her eyes met the eyes of Aaron King.
+
+At her signal, a servant left the room. A moment later, the mountain girl,
+dressed in simple white, with no jewel or ornament other than a rose in
+her soft, brown hair, stood before that company. Unconscious of the eyes
+that fed upon her loveliness; there was the faintest shadow of a smile
+upon her face as she met, in one swift glance, the artist's look; then,
+raising her violin, she made music for the revelers, at the will of Mrs.
+Taine. As she stood there in the modest naturalness of her winsome
+beauty--innocent and pure as the flowers that formed the screen behind
+her; hired to amuse the worthy friends and guests of that hideously
+repulsive devotee of lust and licentiousness who, from his wheeled chair,
+was glaring at her with eyes that burned insanely--she seemed, as indeed
+she was, a spirit from another world.
+
+James Rutlidge, his heavy features flushed with drink, was gazing at the
+girl with a look that betrayed his sensual passion. The face of Conrad
+Lagrange was dark and grim with scowling appreciation of the situation.
+Mrs. Taine was looking at the artist. And Aaron King, watching his girl
+comrade of the hills as she seemed to listen for the music which she in
+turn drew from the instrument, felt,--by the very force of the contrast
+between her and her surroundings he had never felt before, the power and
+charm of her personality--felt--and knew that Sibyl Andres had come into
+his life to stay.
+
+In the flood of emotions that swept over him, and in the mental and
+spiritual exultation caused by her music and by her presence amid such
+scenes; it was given the painter to understand that she had, in truth,
+brought to him the strength, the purity, and the beauty of the hills; that
+she had, in truth, shown him the paths that lead to the mountain heights;
+that it was her unconscious influence and teaching that had made it
+impossible for him to prostitute his genius to win favor in the eyes of
+the world. He knew, now, that in those days when he had painted her
+portrait, as she stood with outstretched hands in the golden light among
+the roses, he had mixed his colors with the best love that a man may offer
+a woman. And he knew that the repainting of that false portrait of Mrs.
+Taine, with all that it would cost him, was his first offering to that
+love.
+
+The girl musician finished playing and slipped away. When they would have
+recalled her, Mrs. Taine--too well schooled to betray a hint of the
+emotions aroused by what she had just seen as she watched Aaron
+King--shook her head.
+
+At that instant, Mr. Taine rose to his feet, supporting himself by holding
+with shaking hands to the table. A hush, sudden as the hush of death, fell
+upon the company. The millionaire's attendant put out his hand to steady
+his master, and another servant stepped quickly forward. But the man who
+clung so tenaciously to his last bit of life, with a drunken strength in
+his dying limbs, shook them off, saying in a hoarse whisper, "Never mind!
+Never mind--you fools--can't you see I'm game!"
+
+In the quiet of the room, that a moment before rang with excited voices
+and shrill laughter, the man's husky, straining, whispered boast sounded
+like the mocking of some invisible, fiendish presence at the feast.
+
+Lifting a glass of whisky with that yellow, claw-like hand upon which the
+great diamond gleamed--a spot of flawless purity; with his repulsive
+features twisted into a grewsome ugliness by his straining effort to force
+his diseased vocal chords to make his words heard; the wretched creature
+said: "Here's to our girl musician. The prettiest--lassie that I--have
+seen for many a day--and I think I know a pretty girl--when I see one too.
+Who comes bright and fresh--from her mountains, to amuse us--and to add,
+to the beauty--and grace and wit and genius--that so distinguishes this
+company--the flavor and the freedom of her wild-wood home. Her music--is
+good, you'll all agree--" he paused to cough and to look inquiringly
+around, while every one nodded approval and smiled encouragingly. "Her
+music is good--but I--maintain that she, herself, is better. To me--her
+beauty is more pleasing to the eye--than--her fiddling can possibly--be to
+the ear!" Again he was forced to pause, while his guests, with hand and
+voice, applauded the clever words. Lifting the glass of whisky toward his
+lips that, by his effort to speak, were drawn back in a repulsive grin, he
+leered at the celebrities sitting nearest. "I suppose to-morrow--if we
+desire the company of these distinguished artists--we will have to
+follow--them to the mountains. I don't blame you, gentlemen--if I was
+not--ah--temporarily incapacitated--I would certainly--go for a little
+trip to the inspiring hills--myself. Even if I don't know--as much about
+_music_ and _art_ as some of you." Again his words were interrupted by
+that racking cough, the sound of which was lost in the applause that
+greeted his witticism. Lifting the glass once more, he continued, "So
+here's to our girl musician--who is her own--lovely self so much more
+attractive than any music--she can ever make." He drained the glass, and
+sank back into his chair, exhausted by his effort.
+
+Aaron King was on the point of springing to his feet, when Conrad Lagrange
+caught his eye with a warning look. Instantly, he remembered what the
+result would be if he should yield to his impulse. Wild with indignation,
+rage, and burning shame, he knew that to betray himself would be to invite
+a thousand sneering questions and insinuations to besmirch the name of
+the girl he loved.
+
+In the continued applause and laughter that followed the drinking of the
+millionaire's toast, the artist caught the admiring words, "Bully old
+sport." "Isn't he game?" "He has certainly traveled some pace in his day."
+"The girl is a beauty." "Let's have her in again." This last expression
+was so insistently echoed that Mrs. Taine--who, through it all, had been
+covertly watching Aaron King's face, and whose eyes were blazing now with
+something more than the effect of the wine she had been drinking--was
+forced to yield. A servant left the room, and, a moment later, reappeared,
+followed by Sibyl.
+
+The girl was greeted, now, by hearty applause which she, accepting as an
+expression of the company's appreciation of her music, received with
+smiling pleasure. The artist, his heart and soul aflame with his awakening
+love, fought for self-control. Conrad Lagrange, catching his eye, again,
+silently bade him wait.
+
+Sibyl lifted her violin and the noisy company was stilled. Slowly, under
+the spell of the music that, to him, was a message from the mountain
+heights, Aaron King grew calm. His tense muscles relaxed. His twitching
+nerves became steady. He felt himself as it were, lifted out of and above
+the scene that a moment before had so stirred him to indignant anger. His
+brain worked with that clearness and precision which he had known while
+repainting Mrs. Taine's portrait. Wrath gave way to pity; indignation to
+contempt. In confidence, he smiled to think how little the girl he loved
+needed his poor defense against the animalism that dominated the company
+she was hired to amuse. With every eye in the room fixed upon her as she
+played, she was as far removed from those who had applauded the suggestive
+words of the dying sensualist as her music was beyond their true
+comprehension.
+
+Then it was that the genius of the artist awoke. As the flash of a
+search-light in the darkness of night brings out with startling clearness
+the details of the scene upon which it is turned, the painter saw before
+him his picture. With trained eye and carefully acquired skill, he studied
+the scene; impressing upon his memory every detail--the rich appointments
+of the room; the glittering lights; the gleaming silver and crystal; the
+sparkling jewels and shimmering laces; the bare shoulders; the
+wine-flushed faces and feverish eyes; and, in the seat of honor, the
+disease-wasted form and repulsive, sin-marked countenance of Mr. Taine
+who--almost unconscious with his exertion--was still feeding the last
+flickering flame of his lustful life with the vision of the girl whose
+beauty his toast had profaned: and in the midst of that
+company--expressing as it did the spirit of an age that is ruled by
+material wealth and dominated by the passions of the flesh--the center of
+every eye, yet, still, in her purity and innocence, removed and apart from
+them all; standing in her simple dress of white against the background of
+flowers--the mountain girl with her violin--offering to them the highest,
+holiest, gift of the gods--her music. Upon the girl's lovely, winsome
+face, was a look, now, of troubled doubt. Her wide, blue eyes, as she
+played, were pleading, questioning, half fearful--as though she sensed,
+instinctively the presence of the spirit she could not understand; and
+felt, in spite of the pretense of the applause that had greeted her, the
+rejection of her offering.
+
+Not only did the artist, in that moment of conception see his picture and
+feel the forces that were expressed by every character in the composition,
+but the title, even, came to him as clearly as if Conrad Lagrange had
+uttered it aloud, "The Feast of Materialism."
+
+Sibyl Andres finished her music, and quickly withdrew as if to escape the
+noisy applause. Amid the sound of the clapping hands and boisterous
+voices, Mr. Taine, summoning the last of his wasted strength, again
+struggled to his feet. With those claw-like hands he held to the table for
+support; while--shaking in every limb, his features twisted into a horrid,
+leering grin--he looked from face to face of the hushed and silent
+company; with glazed eyes in which the light that flickered so feebly was
+still the light of an impotent lust.
+
+Twice, the man essayed to speak, but could not. The room grew still as
+death. Then, suddenly--as they looked--he lifted that yellow, skinny hand,
+to his wrinkled, ape-like brow, and--partially loosing, thus, his
+supporting grip upon the table--fell back, in a ghastly heap of diseased
+flesh and fine raiment; in the midst of which blazed the great
+diamond--as though the cold, pure beauty of the inanimate stone triumphed
+in a life more vital than that of its wearer.
+
+His servants carried the unconscious master of the house from the room.
+Mrs. Taine, excusing herself, followed.
+
+In the confusion that ensued, the musicians, hidden behind the floral
+screen, struck up a lively air. Some of the guests made quiet preparations
+for leaving. A group of those men--famous in the world of art and
+letters--under the influence of the wine they had taken so freely, laughed
+loudly at some coarse jest. Others, thinking, perhaps,--if they could be
+said to think at all,--that their host's attack was not serious, renewed
+conversations and bravely attempted to restore a semblance of animation to
+the interrupted revelries.
+
+Aaron King worked his way to the side of Conrad Lagrange, "For God's sake,
+old man, let's get out of here."
+
+"I'll find Rutlidge or Louise or some one," returned the other, and
+disappeared.
+
+As the artist waited, through the open door of an adjoining room, he
+caught sight of Sibyl Andres; who, with her violin-case in her hand, was
+about to leave. Obeying his impulse, he went to her.
+
+"What in the world are you doing here?" he said almost roughly--extending
+his hand to take the instrument she carried.
+
+She seemed a little bewildered by his manner, but smiled as she retained
+her violin. "I am here to earn my bread and butter, sir. What are you
+doing here?"
+
+"I beg your pardon," he said. "I did not mean to be rude."
+
+She laughed, then, with a troubled air--"But is it not right for me to be
+here? It is all right for me to play for these people, isn't it? Myra
+didn't want me to come, but we needed the money, and Mrs. Taine was so
+generous. I didn't tell you and Mr. Lagrange because I wanted the fun of
+surprising you." As he stood looking at her so gravely, she put out her
+hand impulsively to his arm. "What is it, oh, what is it? How have I done
+wrong?"
+
+"You have done no wrong, my dear girl," he answered "It is only that--"
+
+He was interrupted by the cold, clear voice of Mrs. Taine, who had entered
+the room, unnoticed by them. "I see you are going, Miss Andres.
+Good-night. I will mail you a check to-morrow. Your music was very
+satisfactory. An automobile is waiting to take you home. Good night."
+
+Before Aaron King could speak, the girl was gone.
+
+"Mr. Lagrange and I were just about to go," said the artist, as the woman
+faced him. "I hope Mr. Taine has not suffered severely from the excitement
+of the evening?"
+
+The woman's cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were bright with feverish
+excitement. Going close to him, she said in a low, hurried tone, "No, no,
+you must not go. Mr. Taine is all right in his room. Every one else is
+having a good time. You must not go. Come, I have had no opportunity, at
+all, to have you to myself for a single moment. Come, I--"
+
+As she had interrupted Aaron King's reply to Sibyl Andres, the cool,
+sarcastic tones of Conrad Lagrange's deep voice interrupted her. "Mrs.
+Taine, they are hunting for you all over the house. Your husband is
+calling for you. I'm sure that Mr. King will excuse you, under the
+circumstances."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXX
+
+In the Same Hour
+
+
+
+In a splendid chamber, surrounded by every comfort and luxury that dollars
+could buy, and attended by liveried servants, Mr. Taine was dying.
+
+The physician who met Mrs. Taine at the door, answered her look of inquiry
+with; "Your husband is very near the end, madam." Beside the bed, sat
+Louise, wringing her hands and moaning. James Rutlidge stood near. Without
+speaking, Mrs. Taine went forward.
+
+The doctor, bending over his patient, with his fingers upon the
+skeleton-like wrist, said, "Mr. Taine, Mr. Taine, your wife is here."
+
+In response, the eyes, deep sunken under the wrinkled brow, opened; the
+loosely hanging, sensual lips quivered.
+
+The physician spoke again; "Your wife is here, Mr. Taine."
+
+A sudden gleam of light flared up in the glazed eyes. The doctor could
+have sworn that the lips were twisted into a shadow of a ghastly, mocking
+smile. As if summoning, by a supreme effort of his will, from some
+unguessed depths of his being, the last remnant of his remaining strength,
+the man looked about the room and, in a hoarse whisper, said, "Send the
+others away--everybody--but her."
+
+"O papa, papa!" exclaimed poor Louise, protestingly.
+
+"Never mind, daughter," came the whispered answer from the bed. "Try to be
+game, girl--game as your father. Take her away, Jim."
+
+As the physician passed Mrs. Taine, who had thus far stood like a statue,
+seemingly incapable of thought or feeling or movement, he said in a low
+tone, "I will be just outside the door, madam; easily within call."
+
+When only the woman was left in the room with her husband, the dying man
+spoke again; "Come here. Stand where I can see you."
+
+Mechanically, she obeyed; moving to a position near the foot of the bed.
+
+After a moment's silence, during which he seemed to be rallying the very
+last of his vital forces for the effort, he said, "Well--the game is
+played--out. You think--you're the winner. You're--wrong--damn you--you're
+wrong. I wasn't--so drunk to-night that--I couldn't see." His face twisted
+in a hideous, malicious grin. "You--love--that artist fellow.
+Your--interest in his art is--all rot. It's _him_ you want--and you--you
+have been thinking--you'd get him--with my money--the same as I got you.
+But you won't. You've--lost him already. I'm glad--you love him--damn
+glad--because--I know that after--what he's seen of me--even if he didn't
+love--that mountain--girl, he wouldn't wipe--his feet on you. You've
+tortured me--you've mocked--and sneered and laughed--at me--in my
+suffering--you fiend--and I've--tried my damnedest--to pay you back. What
+I couldn't do--the man you love--will--do for me. You'll suffer--now in
+earnest. You thought you'd be a--sure winner--as soon--as I was out
+of--the game. But you've lost--you've lost--you've lost! I saw your love
+for him--in your--face to-night--as I have seen--it every time--you two
+were together. I saw his love--for the girl--too--and I--saw--that
+you--saw it. I--I--wouldn't--wouldn't die--until I'd told you--that I
+knew." He paused to gather his strength for the last evil effort of his
+evil life.
+
+The woman--who had stood, frozen with horror, her eyes fixed upon the face
+of the dying man, as though under a dreadful spell--cowered before him,
+livid with fear. Cringing, helpless--as though before some infernal
+monster--she hid her face; while her husband, struggling for breath to
+make her hear, called her every foul name he could master--derided her
+with fiendish glee--mocked her, taunted her, cursed her--with words too
+vile to print. With an oath and a profane wish for her future upon his
+lips, the end came. The sensual mouth opened--the diseased wasted limbs
+shuddered--the insane light in the lust-worn eyes went out.
+
+With a scream, Mrs. Taine sank unconscious upon the floor beside the bed.
+
+From the lower part of the house came the faint sounds of the few
+remaining revelers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange left the house on Fairlands Heights
+that night, they walked quickly, as though eager to escape from the
+brilliantly lighted vicinity. Neither spoke until they were some distance
+away. Then the novelist, checking his quick stride, pointed toward the
+shadowy bulk of the mountains that heaved their mighty crests and peaks in
+solemn grandeur high into the midnight sky.
+
+"Well, boy," he said, "the mountains are still there. It's good to see
+them again, isn't it?"
+
+Reaching home, the older man bade his friend good night. But the artist,
+declaring that he was not yet ready to turn in, went, with pipe and Czar
+for company, to sit for a while on the porch.
+
+Looking away over the dark mass of the orange groves to the distant peaks,
+he lived over again, in his thoughts, those weeks of comradeship with
+Sibyl Andres in the hills. Every incident of their friendship he
+recalled--every hour they had spent together amid the scenes she
+loved--reviewing every conversation--questioning searching, wondering,
+hoping, fearing.
+
+Later, he went out into the rose garden--her garden--where the air was
+fragrant with the perfume of the flowers she tended with such loving care.
+In the soft, still darkness of the night, the place seemed haunted by her
+presence. Quietly, he moved here and there among the roses--to the little
+gate in the Ragged Robin hedge, through which she came and went; to the
+vine-covered arbor where she had watched him at his work; and to the spot
+where she had stood, day after day, with hands outstretched in greeting,
+while he worked to make the colors and lines upon his canvas tell the
+secret of her loveliness. He remembered how he had felt her presence in
+those days when he had laughingly insisted to Conrad Lagrange that the
+place was haunted. He remembered how, even when she was unknown to him,
+her music had always moved him--how her message from the hills had seemed
+to call to the best that was in him.
+
+So it was, that, as he recalled these things,--as he lived again the days
+of his companionship with her and realized how she had come into his life,
+how she had appealed always to the best of him, and satisfied always his
+best needs,--he came to know the answer to his questions--to his doubts
+and fears and hopes. There, in the rose garden, with its dark walls of
+hedge and vine and grove, in the still night under the stars, with his
+face to the distant mountains, he knew that the mountain girl would not
+deny him--that, when she was ready, she would come to him.
+
+In the hour when Mr. Taine, with the last strength of his evil life,
+profanely cursed the woman that his gold had bought to serve his
+licentious will--and cursing--died; Aaron King--inspired by the character
+and purity of the woman he loved, and by whom he knew he was loved, and
+dreaming of their comradeship that was to be--dedicated himself anew to
+the ministry of his art and so entered into that more abundant life which
+belongs by divine right to all who will claim it.
+
+But it was not given Aaron King to know that before Sibyl Andres could
+come to him he must be tested by a trial that would tax his manhood's best
+strength to the uttermost. In that night of his awakened love, as he
+dreamed of the days of its realization, the man did not know that the days
+of his testing were so near at hand.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXI
+
+As the World Sees
+
+
+
+It was three days after the incidents just related when an automobile from
+Fairlands Heights stopped at the home of Aaron King and the novelist.
+
+Mrs. Taine, dressed in black and heavily veiled, went, alone, to the
+house, where Yee Kee appeared in answer to her ring.
+
+There was no one at home, the Chinaman said. He did not know where the
+artist was. He had gone off somewhere with Mr. Lagrange and the dog.
+Perhaps they would return in a few minutes; perhaps not until dinner time.
+
+Mrs. Taine was exceedingly anxious to see Mr. King. She was going away,
+and must see him, if possible, before she left. She would come in, and, if
+Yee Kee would get her pen and paper, would write a little note,
+explaining--in case she should miss him. The Chinaman silently placed the
+writing material before her, and disappeared.
+
+Before sitting down to her letter, the woman paced the floor restlessly,
+in nervous agitation. Her face, when she had thrown back the veil,
+appeared old and worn, with dark circles under the eyes, and a drawn look
+to the weary, downward droop of the lips. As she moved about the room,
+nervously fingering the books and trifles upon the table or the mantle,
+she seemed beside herself with anxiety. She went to the window to stand
+looking out as if hoping for the return of the artist. She went to the
+open door of his bedroom, her hands clenched, her limbs trembling, her
+face betraying the agony of her mind.
+
+With Louise, she was leaving that evening, at four o'clock, for the
+East--with the body of her husband. She could not go without seeing again
+the man whom, as Mr. Taine had rightly said, she loved--loved with the
+only love of which--because of her environment and life--she was capable.
+She still believed in her power over him whose passion she had besieged
+with all the lure of her physical beauty, but that which she had seen in
+his face as he had watched the girl musician the night of the dinner,
+filled her with fear. Presently, in her desperation, when the artist did
+not return, she seated herself at the table to put upon paper, as best she
+could, the things she had come to say.
+
+Her letter finished, she looked at her watch. Calling the Chinaman, she
+asked for a key to the studio, explaining that she wished to see her
+picture. She still hoped for the artist's return and that her letter would
+not be necessary. She hoped, too, that in her portrait, which she had not
+yet seen, she might find some evidence of the painter's passion for her.
+She had not forgotten his saying that he would put upon the canvas what he
+thought of her, nor could she fail to recall his manner and her
+interpretation of it as he had worked upon the picture.
+
+In the studio, she stood before the easel, scarce daring to draw the
+curtain. But, calling up in her mind the emotions and thoughts of the
+hours she had spent in that room alone with the artist, she was made bold
+by her reestablished belief in his passion and by her convictions that
+were founded upon her own desires. Under the stimulating influence of her
+thoughts, a flush of color stole into her cheeks, her eyes grew bright
+with the light of triumphant anticipation. With an eager hand she boldly
+drew aside the curtain.
+
+The picture upon the easel was the artist's portrait of Sibyl Andres.
+
+With an exclamation that was not unlike fear, Mrs. Taine drew back from
+the canvas. Looking at the beautiful painting,--in which the artist had
+pictured, with unconscious love and an almost religious fidelity, the
+spirit of the girl who was so like the flowers among which she stood,--the
+woman was moved by many conflicting emotions. Surprise, disappointment
+admiration, envy, jealousy, sadness, regret, and anger swept over her.
+Blinded by bitter tears, with a choking sob, in an agony of remorse and
+shame, she turned away her face from the gaze of those pure eyes. Then, as
+the flame of her passion withered her shame, hot rage dried her tears, and
+she sprang forward with an animal-like fierceness, to destroy the picture.
+But, even as she put forth her hand, she hesitated and drew back, afraid.
+As she stood thus in doubt--halting between her impulse and her fear--a
+sound at the door behind her drew her attention. She turned to face the
+beautiful original of the portrait Instantly the woman of the world had
+herself perfectly in hand.
+
+Sibyl Andres drew back with an embarrassed, "I beg your pardon. I
+thought--" and would have fled.
+
+But Mrs. Taine, with perfect cordiality, said quickly, "O how do you do,
+Miss Andres; come in."
+
+She seemed so sincere in the welcome that was implied in her voice and
+manner; while her face, together with her somber garb of mourning, was so
+expressive of sadness and grief that the girl's gentle heart was touched.
+Going forward, with that natural, dignity that belongs to those whose
+minds and hearts are unsullied by habitual pretense of feeling and sham
+emotions, Sibyl spoke a few well chosen words of sympathy.
+
+Mrs. Taine received the girl's expression of condolence with a manner that
+was perfect in its semblance of carefully controlled sorrow and grief, yet
+managed, skillfully, to suggest the wide social distance that separated
+the widow of Mr. Taine from the unknown, mountain girl. Then, as if
+courageously determined not to dwell upon her bereavement, she said, "I
+was just looking, again, at Mr. King's picture--for which you posed. It is
+beautiful, isn't it? He told me that you were an exceptionally clever
+model--quite the best he has ever had."
+
+The girl--disarmed by her own genuine feeling of sympathy for the
+speaker--was troubled at something that seemed to lie beneath the kindly
+words of the experienced woman. "To me, it is beautiful," she returned
+doubtfully. "But, of course, I don't know. Mr. Lagrange thinks, though,
+that it is really a splendid portrait."
+
+Mrs. Taine smiled with a confident air, as one might smile at a child.
+"Mr. Lagrange, my dear, is a famous novelist--but he really knows very
+little of pictures."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," returned Sibyl, simply. "But the picture is not
+to be shown as a portrait of me, at all."
+
+Again, that knowing smile. "So I understand, of course. Under the
+circumstances, you would scarcely expect it, would you?"
+
+Sibyl, not in the least understanding what the woman meant, answered
+doubtfully, "No. I--I did not wish it shown as my portrait."
+
+Mrs. Taine, studying the girl's face, became very earnest in her kindly
+interest; as if, moved out of the goodness of her heart, she stooped from
+her high place to advise and counsel one of her own sex, who was so wholly
+ignorant of the world. "I fear, my dear, that you know very little of
+artists and their methods."
+
+To which the girl replied, "I never knew an artist before I met Mr. King,
+this summer, in the mountains."
+
+Still watching her face closely, Mrs. Taine said, with gentle solicitude,
+"May I tell you something for your own good, Miss Andres?"
+
+"Certainly, if you please, Mrs. Taine."
+
+"An artist," said the older woman, carefully, with an air of positive
+knowledge, "must find the subjects for his pictures in life. As he goes
+about, he is constantly on the look-out for new faces or figures that
+are of interest to him--or, that may be used by him to make pictures
+of interest. The subjects--or, I should say, the people who pose for
+him--are nothing at all to the artist--aside from his picture, you
+see--no more than his paints and brushes and canvas. Often, they are
+professional models, whom he hires as one hires any sort of service,
+you know. Sometimes--" she paused as if hesitating, then continued
+gently--"sometimes they are people like yourself, who happen to appeal
+to his artistic fancy, and whom he can persuade to pose for him."
+
+The girl's face was white. She stared at the woman with pleading,
+frightened dismay. She made a pitiful attempt to speak, but could not.
+
+The older woman, watching her, continued, "Forgive me, dear child. I do
+not wish to hurt you. But Mr. King is _so_ careless. I told him he should
+be careful that you did not misunderstand his interest in you. But he
+laughed at me. He said that it was your _innocence_ that he wanted to
+paint, and cautioned me not to warn you until his picture was finished."
+She turned to look at the picture on the easel with the air of a critic.
+"He really _has_ caught it very well. Aaron--Mr. King is so good at that
+sort of thing. He never permits his models to know exactly what he is
+after, you see, but leads them, cleverly, to exhibit, unconsciously, the
+particular thing that he wishes to get into his picture."
+
+When the tortured girl had been given time to grasp the full import of her
+words, the woman said again,--turning toward Sibyl, as she spoke, with a
+smiling air that was intended to show the intimacy between herself and the
+artist,--"Have you seen his portrait of me?"
+
+"No," faltered Sibyl. "Mr. King told me not to look at it. It has always
+been covered when I have been in the studio."
+
+Again, Mrs. Taine smiled, as though there was some reason, known only to
+herself and the painter, why he did not wish the girl to see the portrait.
+"And do you come to the studio often--alone as you came to-day?" she
+asked, still kindly, as though from her experience she was seeking to
+counsel the girl. "I mean--have you been coming since the picture for
+which you posed was finished?"
+
+The girl's white cheeks grew red with embarrassment and shame as she
+answered, falteringly, "Yes."
+
+"You poor child! Really, I must scold Aaron for this. After my warning
+him, too, that people were talking about his intimacy with you in the
+mountains It is quite too bad of him! He will ruin himself, if he is not
+more careful." She seemed sincerely troubled over the situation.
+
+"I--I do not understand, Mrs. Taine," faltered Sibyl. "Do you mean that
+my--that Mr. King's friendship for me has harmed him? That I--that it is
+wrong for me to come here?"
+
+"Surely, Miss Andres, you must understand what I mean."
+
+"No, I--I do not know. Tell me, please."
+
+Mrs. Taine hesitated as though reluctant. Then, as if forced by her sense
+of duty, she spoke. "The truth is, my dear, that your being with Mr. King
+in the mountains--going to his camp as familiarly as you did, and spending
+so much time alone with him in the hills--and then your coming here so
+often, has led people to say unpleasant things."
+
+"But what do people say?" persisted Sibyl.
+
+The answer came with cruel deliberateness; "That you are not only Mr.
+King's model, but that you are his mistress as well."
+
+Sibyl Andres shrank back from the woman as though she had received a blow
+in the face. Her cheeks and brow and neck were crimson. With a little cry,
+she buried her face in her hands.
+
+The kind voice of the older woman continued, "You see, dear, whether it is
+true or not, the effect is exactly the same. If in the eyes of the world
+your relations to Mr. King are--are wrong, it is as bad as though it were
+actually true. I felt that I must tell you, child, not alone for your own
+good but for the sake of Mr. King and his work--for the sake of his
+position in the world. Frankly, if you continue to compromise him and his
+good name by coming like this to his studio, it will ruin him. The world
+may not care particularly whether Mr. King keeps a mistress or not, but
+people will not countenance his open association with her, even under the
+pretext that she is a model."
+
+As she finished, Mrs. Taine looked at her watch. "Dear me, I really must
+be going. I have already spent more time than I intended. Good-by, Miss
+Andres. I know you will forgive me if I have hurt you."
+
+The girl looked at her with the pain and terror filled eyes of some
+gentle wild creature that can not understand the cruelty of the trap that
+holds it fast. "Yes--yes, I--I suppose you know best. You must know more
+than I. I--thank you, Mrs. Taine. I--"
+
+When Mrs. Taine was gone, Sibyl Andres sat for a little while before her
+portrait; wondering, dumbly, at the happiness of that face upon the
+canvas. There were no tears. She could not cry. Her eyes burned hot and
+dry. Her lips were parched. Rising, she drew the curtain carefully to hide
+the picture, and started toward the door. She paused. Going to the easel
+that held the other picture, she laid her hand upon the curtain. Again,
+she paused. Aaron King had said that she must not look at that
+picture--Conrad Lagrange had said that she must not--why? She did not know
+why.
+
+Perhaps--if the mountain girl had drawn aside the curtain and had looked
+upon the face of Mrs. Taine as Aaron King had painted it--perhaps the rest
+of my story would not have happened.
+
+But, true to the wish of her friends, even in her misery, Sibyl Andres
+held her hand. At the door of the studio, she turned again, to look long
+and lingeringly about the room. Then she went out, closing and locking the
+door, and leaving the key on a hidden nail, as her custom was.
+
+Going slowly, lingeringly, through the rose garden to the little gate in
+the hedge, she disappeared in the orange grove.
+
+Aaron King and Conrad Lagrange, returning from a long walk, overtook Myra
+Willard, who was returning from town, just as the woman of the disfigured
+face arrived at the gate of the little house in the orange grove. For a
+moment, the three stood chatting--as neighbors will,--then the two men
+went on to their own home. Czar, racing ahead, announced their coming to
+Yee Kee and the Chinaman met them as they entered the living-room. Telling
+them of Mrs. Taine's visit, he gave Aaron King the letter that she had
+left for him.
+
+As the artist, conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of his friend, read the
+closely written pages, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment and shame.
+When he had finished, he faced the novelist's eyes steadily and, without
+speaking, deliberately and methodically tore Mrs. Taine's letter into tiny
+fragments. Dropping the scraps of paper into the waste basket, he dusted
+his hands together with a significant gesture and looked at his watch.
+"Her train left at four o'clock. It is now four-thirty."
+
+"For which," returned Conrad Lagrange, solemnly, "let us give thanks."
+
+As the novelist spoke, Czar, on the porch outside, gave a low "woof" that
+signalized the approach of a friend.
+
+Looking through the open door, they saw Myra Willard coming hurriedly up
+the walk. They could see that the woman was greatly agitated, and went
+quicklv forward to meet her.
+
+Women of Myra Willard's strength of character--particularly those who have
+passed through the furnace of some terrible experience as she so
+evidently had--are not given to loud, uncontrolled expression of emotion.
+That she was alarmed and troubled was evident. Her face was white, her
+eyes were frightened and she trembled so that Aaron King helped her to a
+seat; but she told them clearly, with no unnecessary, hysterical
+exclamations, what had happened. Upon entering the house, after parting
+from the two men at the gate, a few minutes before, she had found a letter
+from Sibyl. The girl was gone.
+
+As she spoke, she handed the letter to Conrad Lagrange who read it and
+gave it to the artist. It was a pitiful little note--rather vague--saying
+only that she must go away at once; assuring Myra that she had not meant
+to do wrong; asking her to tell Mr. King and the novelist good-by; and
+begging the artist's forgiveness that she had not understood.
+
+Aaron King looked from the letter in his hand to the faces of his two
+friends, in consternation. "Do you understand this, Miss Willard?" he
+asked, when he could speak.
+
+The woman shook her head. "Only that something has happened to make the
+child think that her friendship with you has injured you; and that she has
+gone away for your sake. She--she thought so much of you, Mr. King."
+
+"And I--I love her, Miss Willard. I should have told you soon. I tell you
+now to reassure you. I love her."
+
+Aaron King made his declaration to his two friends with a simple dignity,
+but with a feeling that thrilled them with the force of his earnestness
+and the purity and strength of his passion.
+
+Conrad Lagrange--world-worn, scarred by his years of contact with the
+unclean, the vicious, and debasing passions of mankind--grasped the young
+man's hand, while his eyes shone with an emotion his habitual reserve
+could not conceal. "I'm glad for you, Aaron"--he said, adding
+reverently--"as your mother would be glad."
+
+"I have known that you would tell me this, sometime Mr. King," said Myra
+Willard. "I knew it, I think, before you, yourself, realized; and I, too,
+am glad--glad for my girl, because I know what such a love will mean to
+her. But why--why has she gone like this? Where has she gone? Oh, my girl,
+my girl!" For a moment, the distracted woman was on the point of breaking
+down; but with an effort of her will, she controlled herself.
+
+"It's clear enough what has sent her away," growled Conrad Lagrange, with
+a warning glance to the artist. "Some one has filled her mind with the
+notion that her friendship with Aaron has been causing talk. I think
+there's no doubt as to where she's gone."
+
+"You mean the mountains?" asked Myra Willard, quickly.
+
+"Yes. I'd stake my life that she has gone straight to Brian Oakley. Think!
+Where else _would_ she go?"
+
+"She has sometimes borrowed a saddle-horse from your neighbor up the road,
+hasn't she, Miss Willard?" asked Aaron King.
+
+"Yes. I'll run over there at once."
+
+Conrad Lagrange spoke quickly; "Don't let them think anything unusual has
+happened. We'll go over to your house and wait for you there."
+
+Fifteen minutes later, Myra Willard returned. Sibyl had borrowed the
+horse; asking them if she might keep it until the next day. She did not
+say where she was going. She had left about four o'clock.
+
+"That will put her at Brian's by nine," said the novelist.
+
+"And I will arrive there about the same time," added Aaron King, eagerly.
+"It's now five-thirty. She has an hour's start; but I'll ride an hour
+harder."
+
+"With an automobile you could overtake her," said Myra Willard.
+
+"I know," returned the artist, "but if I take a horse, we can ride back
+together."
+
+He started through the grove, toward the other house, on a run.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXII
+
+The Mysterious Disappearance
+
+
+
+By the time Aaron King had found a saddle-horse and was ready to start on
+his ride, it was six o'clock.
+
+Granting that Conrad Lagrange was right in his supposition that the girl
+had left with the intention of going to Brian Oakley's, the artist could
+scarcely, now, hope to arrive at the Ranger Station until some time after
+Sibyl had reached the home of her friends--unless she should stop
+somewhere on the way, which he did not think likely. Once, as he realized
+how the minutes were slipping away, he was on the point of reconsidering
+his reply to Myra Willard's suggestion that he take an automobile. Then,
+telling himself that he would surely find Sibyl at the Station and
+thinking of the return trip with her, he determined to carry out his first
+plan.
+
+But when he was finally on the road, he did not ride with less haste
+because he no longer expected to overtake Sibyl. In spite of his
+reassuring himself, again and again, that the girl he loved was safe, his
+mind was too disturbed by the situation to permit of his riding leisurely.
+Beyond the outskirts of the city, with his horse warmed to its work, the
+artist pushed his mount harder and harder until the animal reached the
+limit of a pace that its rider felt it could endure for the distance they
+had to go. Over the way that he and Conrad Lagrange had walked with Czar
+and Croesus so leisurely, he went, now, with such hot haste that the
+people in the homes in the orange groves, sitting down to their evening
+meal, paused to listen to the sharp, ringing beat of the galloping hoofs.
+Two or three travelers, as he passed, watched him out of sight, with
+wondering gaze. Those he met, turned their heads to look after him.
+
+Aaron King's thoughts, as he rode, kept pace with his horse's flying feet.
+The points along the way, where he and the famous novelist had stopped to
+rest, and to enjoy the beauty of the scene, recalled vividly to his mind
+all that those weeks in the mountains had brought to him. Backward from
+that day when he had for the first time set his face toward the hills, his
+mind traveled--almost from day to day--until he stood, again, in that
+impoverished home of his boyhood to which he had been summoned from his
+studies abroad. As he urged his laboring horse forward, in the eagerness
+and anxiety of his love for Sibyl Andres, he lived again that hour when
+his dying mother told her faltering story of his father's dishonor; when
+he knew, for the first time, her life of devotion to him, and learned of
+her sacrifice--even unto poverty--that he might, unhampered, be fitted for
+his life work; and when, receiving his inheritance, he had made his solemn
+promise that the purpose and passion of his mother's years of sacrifice
+should, in him and in his work, be fulfilled. One by one, he retraced the
+steps that had led to his understanding that only a true and noble art
+could ever make good that promise. Not by winning the poor notice of the
+little passing day, alone; not by gaining the applause of the thoughtless
+crowd; not by winning the rewards bestowed by the self-appointed judges
+and patrons of the arts; but by a true, honest, and fearless giving of
+himself in his work, regardless alike of praise or blame--by saying the
+thing that was given him to say, because it was given him to say--would he
+keep that which his mother had committed to him. As mile after mile of the
+distance that lay between him and the girl he loved was put behind him in
+his race to her side, it was given him to understand--as never
+before--how, first the friendship of the world-wearied man who had,
+himself, profaned his art; and then, the comradeship of that one whose
+life was so unspotted by the world; had helped him to a true and vital
+conception of his ministry of color and line and brush and canvas.
+
+It was twilight when the artist reached the spot where the road crosses
+the tumbling stream--the spot where he and Conrad Lagrange had slept at
+the foot of the mountains. Where the road curves toward the creek, the
+man, without checking his pace, turned his head to look back upon the
+valley that, far below, was fast being lost in the gathering dusk. In its
+weird and gloomy mystery,--with its hidden life revealed only by the
+sparkling, twinkling lights of the towns and cities,--it was suggestive,
+now, to his artist mind, of the life that had so nearly caught him in its
+glittering sensual snare. A moment later, he lifted his eyes to the
+mountain peaks ahead that, still in the light of the western sun, glowed
+as though brushed with living fire. Against the sky, he could distinguish
+that peak in the Galena range, with the clump of pines, where he had sat
+with Sibyl Andres that day when she had tried to make him see the train
+that had brought him to Fairlands.
+
+He wondered now, as he rode, why he had not realized his love for the
+girl, before they left the hills. It seemed to him, now, that his love was
+born that evening when he had first heard her violin, as he was fishing;
+when he had watched her from the cedar thicket, as she made her music of
+the mountains and as she danced in the grassy yard. Why, he asked himself,
+had he not been conscious of his love in those days when she came to him
+in the spring glade, and in the days that followed? Why had he not known,
+when he painted her portrait in the rose garden? Why had the awakening not
+come until that night when he saw her in the company of revelers at the
+big house on Fairlands Heights--the night that Mr. Taine died?
+
+It was dark before he reached the canyon gates. In the blackness of the
+gorge, with only the light of a narrow strip of stars overhead, he was
+forced to ride more slowly. But his confidence that he would find her at
+the Ranger Station had increased as he approached the scenes of her
+girlhood home. To go to her friends, seemed so inevitably the thing that
+she would do. A few miles farther, now, and he would see her. He would
+tell her why he had come. He would claim the love that he knew was his.
+And so, with a better heart, he permitted his tired horse to slacken the
+pace. He even smiled to think of her surprise when she should see him.
+
+It was a little past nine o'clock when the artist saw, through the trees,
+the lights in the windows at the Station, and dismounted to open the gate.
+Hiding up to the house, he gave the old familiar hail, "Whoo-e-e." The
+door opened, and with the flood of light that streamed out came the tall
+form of Brian Oakley.
+
+"Hello! Seems to me I ought to know that voice."
+
+The artist laughed nervously. "It's me, all right, Brian--what there is
+left of me."
+
+"Aaron King, by all that's holy!" cried the Ranger, coming quickly down
+the steps and toward the shadowy horseman. "What's the matter? Anything
+wrong with Sibyl or Myra Willard? What brings you up here, this time of
+night?"
+
+Aaron King heard the questions with sinking heart. But so certain had he
+come to feel that the girl would be at the Station, that he said
+mechanically, as he dropped wearily from his horse to grasp his friend's
+hand, "I followed Sibyl. How long has she been here?"
+
+Brian Oakley spoke quickly; "Sibyl is not here, Aaron."
+
+The artist caught the Ranger's arm. "Do you mean, Brian, that she has not
+been here to-day?"
+
+"She has not been here," returned the officer, coolly.
+
+"Good God!" exclaimed the other, stunned and bewildered by the positive
+words. Blindly, he turned toward his horse.
+
+Brian Oakley, stepping forward, put his hand on the artist's shoulder.
+"Come, old man, pull yourself together and let a little light in on this
+matter," he said calmly. "Tell me what has happened. Why did you expect to
+find Sibyl here?"
+
+When Aaron King had finished his story, the other said, still without
+excitement, "Come into the house. You're about all in. I heard Doctor
+Gordan's 'auto' going up the canyon to Morton's about an hour ago. Their
+baby's sick. If Sibyl was on the road, he would have passed her. I'll
+throw the saddle on Max, and we'll run over there and see what he knows.
+But first, you've got to have a bite to eat."
+
+The young man protested but the Ranger said firmly, "You can eat while I
+saddle; come. I wish Mary was home," he added, as he set out some cold
+meat and bread. "She is in Los Angeles with her sister. I'll call you when
+I'm ready." He spoke the last word from the door as he went out.
+
+The artist tried to eat; but with little success. He was again mounted and
+ready to go when the Ranger rode up from the barn on the chestnut.
+
+When they reached the point where the road to Morton's ranch leaves the
+main canyon road, Brian Oakley said, "It's barely possible that she went
+on up to Carleton's. But I think we better go to Morton's and see the
+Doctor first. We don't want to miss him. Did you meet any one as you came
+up? I mean after you got within two or three miles of the mouth of the
+canyon?"
+
+"No," replied the other. "Why?"
+
+"A man on a horse passed the Station about seven o'clock, going down.
+Where did the Doctor pass you?"
+
+"He didn't pass me."
+
+"What?" said the Ranger, sharply.
+
+"No one passed me after I left Fairlands."
+
+"Hu-m-m. If Doc left town before you, he must have had a puncture or
+something, or he would have passed the Station before he did."
+
+It was ten o'clock when the two men arrived at the Morton ranch.
+
+"We don't want to start any excitement," said the officer, as they drew
+rein at the corral gate. "You stay here and I'll drop in--casual like."
+
+It seemed to Aaron King, waiting in the darkness, that his companion was
+gone for hours. In reality, it was only a few minutes until the Ranger
+returned. He was walking quickly, and, springing into the saddle he
+started the chestnut off at a sharp lope.
+
+"The baby is better," he said. "Doctor was here this afternoon--started
+home about two o'clock. That 'auto' must have gone on up the canyon.
+Morton knew nothing of the man on horseback who went down. We'll cut
+across to Carleton's."
+
+Presently, the Ranger swung the chestnut aside from the wagon road, to
+follow a narrow trail through the chaparral. To the artist, the little
+path in the darkness was invisible, but he gave his horse the rein and
+followed the shadowy form ahead. Three-quarters of an hour later, they
+came out into the main road, again; near the Carleton ranch corral, a mile
+and a half below the old camp in the sycamores behind the orchard of the
+deserted place.
+
+It was now eleven o'clock and the ranch-house was dark. Without
+dismounting, Brian Oakley called, "Hello, Henry!" There was no answer.
+Moving his horse close to the window of the room where he knew the rancher
+slept, the Ranger tapped on the sash. "Henry, turn out; I want to see you;
+it's Oakley."
+
+A moment later the sash was raised and Carleton asked, "What is it, Brian?
+What's up?"
+
+"Is Sibyl stopping with you folks, to-night?"
+
+"Sibyl! Haven't seen her since they went down from their summer camp.
+What's the matter?"
+
+Briefly, the Ranger explained the situation. The rancher interrupted only
+to greet the artist with a "howdy, Mr. King," as the officer's words made
+known the identity of his companion.
+
+When Brian Oakley had concluded, the rancher said, "I heard that 'auto'
+going up, and then heard it going back down, again, about an hour ago. You
+missed it by turning off to Morton's. If you'd come on straight up here
+you'd a met it."
+
+"Did you see the man on horseback, going down, just before dusk?" asked
+the officer.
+
+"Yes, but not near enough to know him. You don't suppose Sibyl would go up
+to her old home do you, Brian?"
+
+"She might, under the circumstances. Aaron and I will ride up there, on
+the chance."
+
+"You'll stop in on your way back?" called the rancher, as the two horsemen
+moved away.
+
+"Sure," answered the Ranger.
+
+An hour later, they were back. They had found the old home under the giant
+sycamores, on the edge of the little clearing, dark and untenanted.
+
+Lights were shining, now, from the windows of the Carleton ranch-house.
+Down at the corral, the twinkling gleam of a lantern bobbed here and
+there. As the Ranger and his companion drew near, the lantern came rapidly
+up the hill. At the porch, they were met by Henry Carleton, his two sons,
+and a ranch hand. As the four stood in the light of the window, and of the
+lantern on the porch, listening to Brian Oakley's report, each held the
+bridle-reins of a saddle-horse.
+
+"I figured that the chance of her being up there was so mighty slim that
+we'd better be ready to ride when you got back," said the mountain
+ranchman. "What's your program, Brian?" Thus simply he put himself and his
+household in command of the Ranger.
+
+The officer turned to the eldest son, "Jack, you've got the fastest horse
+in the outfit. I want you to go down to the Power-House and find out if
+any one there saw Sibyl anywhere on the road. You see," he explained to
+the group, "we don't know for sure, yet, that she came into the mountains.
+While I haven't a doubt but she did, we've got to know."
+
+Jack Carleton was in the saddle as the Ranger finished The officer turned
+to him again. "Find out what you can about that automobile and the man on
+horseback. We'll be at the Station when you get back." There was a sharp
+clatter of iron-shod hoofs, and the rider disappeared in the darkness of
+the night.
+
+The other members of the little party rode more leisurely down the canyon
+road to the Ranger Station. When they arrived at the house, Brian Oakley
+said, "Make yourselves easy, boys. I'm going to write a little note." He
+went into the house where, as they sat on the porch, they saw him through
+the window, his desk.
+
+The Ranger had finished his letter and with the sealed official envelope
+in his hand, appeared in the doorway when his messenger to the Power-House
+returned. Without dismounting, the rider reined his horse up to the porch.
+"Good time, Jack," said the officer, quietly.
+
+The young man answered, "One of the company men saw Sibyl. He was coming
+up with a load of supplies and she passed him a mile below the Power-House
+just before dark. When he was opening the gate, the automobile went by. It
+was too dark to see how many were in the machine. They heard the 'auto' go
+down the canyon, again, later. No one noticed the man on horseback. Three
+Company men will be up here at daybreak."
+
+"Good boy," said Brian Oakley, again. And then, for a little, no sound
+save the soft clinking of bit or bridle-chain in the darkness broke the
+hush that fell over the little group. With faces turned toward their
+leader, they waited his word. The Ranger stood still, the long official
+envelope in his hand. When he spoke, there was a ring in his voice that
+left in the minds of his companions no doubt as to his view of the
+seriousness of the situation. "Milt," he said sharply.
+
+The youngest of the Carleton sons stepped forward. "Yes, sir."
+
+"You will ride to Fairlands. It's half past one, now. You should be back
+between eight and nine in the morning. Give this letter to the Sheriff and
+bring me his answer. Stop at Miss Willard's and tell her what you know.
+You'll get something to eat there, while you're talking. If I'm not at
+your house when you get back, feed your horse and wait."
+
+"Yes, sir," came the answer, and an instant later the boy rider vanished
+into the night.
+
+While the sound of the messenger's going still came to them, the Ranger
+spoke again. "Henry, you'll ride to Morton's. Tell him to be at your
+place, with his crowd, by daylight. Then go home and be ready with
+breakfast for the riders when they come in. We'll have to make your place
+the center. It'll be hard on your wife and the girls, but Mrs. Morton will
+likely go over to lend them a hand. I wish to God Mary was here."
+
+"Never mind about my folks, Brian," returned the rancher as he mounted.
+"You know they'll be on the job."
+
+"You bet I know, Henry," came the answer as the mountaineer rode away.
+Then--"Bill, you'll take every one between here and the head of the
+canyon. If there's a man shows up at Carleton's later than an hour after
+sunup, we'll run him out of the country. Tom, you take the trail over into
+the Santa Ana, circle around to the mouth of the canyon, and back up
+Clear Creek. Turn out everybody. Jack, you'll take the Galena Valley
+neighborhood. Send in your men but don't come back yourself until you've
+found that man who went down the canyon on horseback."
+
+When the last rider was gone in the darkness, the Ranger said to the
+artist, "Come, Aaron, you must get some rest. There's not a thing more
+that can be done, until daylight."
+
+Aaron King protested. But, strong as he was, the unusual exertion of his
+hours in the saddle, together with his racking anxiety, had told upon
+muscles and nerves. His face, pale and drawn, gave the lie to his words
+that he was not tired.
+
+"You must rest, man," said Brian Oakley, shortly. "There may be days of
+this ahead of us. You've got to snatch every minute, when it's possible,
+to conserve your strength. You've already had more than the rest of us.
+Jerk off your boots and lie down until I call you, even if you can't
+sleep. Do as I say--I'm boss here."
+
+As the artist obeyed, the Ranger continued, "I wrote the Sheriff all I
+knew--and some things that I suspect. It's that automobile that sticks in
+my mind--that and some other things. The machine must have left Fairlands
+before you did, unless it came over through the Galena Valley, from some
+town on the railroad, up San Gorgonio Pass way--which isn't likely. If it
+_did_ come from Fairlands, it must have waited somewhere along the road,
+to enter the canyon after dark. Do you think that any one else besides
+Myra Willard and Lagrange and you know that Sibyl started up here?"
+
+"I don't think so. The neighbor where she borrowed the horse didn't know
+where she was going."
+
+"Who saw her last?"
+
+"I think Mrs. Taine did."
+
+The artist had already told the Ranger about the possible meeting of Mrs.
+Taine and Sibyl in his studio.
+
+"Hu-m-m," said the other.
+
+"Mrs. Taine left for the East at four o'clock, you know," said the artist.
+
+"Jim Rutlidge didn't go, you said." The Ranger spoke casually. Then, as if
+dismissing the matter, he continued, "You get some rest now, Aaron. I'll
+take care of your horse and saddle a fresh one for you. As soon as it's
+light, we'll ride. I'm going to find out where that automobile went--and
+what for."
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIII
+
+Beginning the Search
+
+
+
+Aaron King lay with closed eyes, but not asleep. He was thinking,
+thinking, thinking In a weary circle, his tired brain went round and
+round, finding no place to stop. The man on horseback, the automobile,
+some accident that might have befallen the girl in her distraught state of
+mind--he could find no place in the weary treadmill of conjecture to rest.
+While it was still too dark to see, Brian Oakley called him. And the call
+was a relief.
+
+As the artist pulled on his boots, the Ranger said, "It'll be light enough
+to see, by the time we get above Carleton's. We know the automobile went
+that far anyway."
+
+At the Carleton ranch, as they passed, they saw, by the lights, that the
+mountaineer's family were already making ready for the gathering of the
+riders. A little beyond, they met two men from the Company Head-Work, on
+their way to the meeting place. Soon, in the gray, early morning light,
+the tracks of the automobile were clearly seen. Eagerly, they followed to
+the foot of the Oak Knoll trail, where the machine had stopped and,
+turning around, had started back down the canyon. With experienced care,
+Brian Oakley searched every inch of the ground in the vicinity.
+
+Shaking his head, at last, as though forced to give up hope of finding
+any positive signs pointing to the solution of the puzzle, the officer
+remounted, slowly. "I can't make it out," he said. "The road is so dry and
+cut up with tracks, and the trail is so gravelly, that there are no clear
+signs at all. Come, we better get back to Carleton's, and start the boys
+out. When Milt returns from Fairlands he may know something."
+
+With the rising of the sun, the mountain folk, summoned in the night by
+the Ranger's messengers, assembled at the ranch; every man armed and
+mounted with the best his possessions afforded. Tied to the trees in the
+yard, and along the fence in front, or standing with bridle-reins over
+their heads, the horses waited. Lying on the porch, or squatting on their
+heels, in unconscious picturesque attitudes, the mountain riders who had
+arrived first and had finished their breakfast were ready for the Ranger's
+word. In the ranch kitchen, the table was filled with the later ones; and
+these, as fast as they finished their meal, made way for the new arrivals.
+There was no loud talk; no boisterous laughter; no uneasy restlessness.
+Calm-eyed, soft-voiced, deliberate in movement, these hardy mountaineers
+had answered Brian Oakley's call; and they placed themselves, now, under
+his command, with no idle comment, no wasteful excitement but with a
+purpose and spirit that would, if need be, hold them in their saddles
+until their horses dropped under them, and would, then, send them on,
+afoot, as long as their iron nerves and muscles could be made to respond
+to their wills.
+
+
+
+
+There was scarce a man in that company, who did not know and love Sibyl
+Andres, and who had not known and loved her parents. Many of them had
+ridden with the Ranger at the time of Will Andres' death. When the officer
+and his companion appeared, they gathered round their leader with simple
+words of greeting, and stood silently ready for his word.
+
+Briefly, Brian Oakley divided them into parties, and assigned the
+territory to be covered by each. Three shots in quick succession, at
+intervals of two minutes, would signal that the search was finished. Two
+men, he held to go with him up Oak Knoll trail, after his messenger to the
+Sheriff had returned. At sunset, they were all to reassemble at the ranch
+for further orders. When the officer finished speaking, the little group
+of men turned to the horses, and, without the loss of a moment, were out
+of sight in the mountain wilderness.
+
+A half hour before he was due, young Carleton appeared with the Sheriff's
+answer to the Ranger's letter. "Well done, boy," said Brian Oakley,
+heartily. "Take care of your horse, now, and then get some rest yourself,
+and be ready for whatever comes next."
+
+He turned to those he had held to go with him; "All right, boys, let's
+ride. Sheriff will take care of the Fairlands end. Come, Aaron."
+
+All the way up the Oak Knoll trail the Ranger rode in the lead, bending
+low from his saddle, his gaze fixed on the little path. Twice he
+dismounted and walked ahead, leaving the chestnut to follow or to wait, at
+his word. When they came out on the pipe-line trail, he halted the party,
+and, on foot, went carefully over the ground either way from the point
+where they stood.
+
+"Boys," he said at last, "I have a hunch that there was a horse on this
+trail last night. It's been so blamed dry, and for so long, though, that I
+can't be sure. I held you two men because I know you are good trailers.
+Follow the pipe-line up the canyon, and see what you can find. It isn't
+necessary to say stay with it if you strike anything that even looks like
+it might be a lead. Aaron and I will take the other way, and up the Galena
+trail to the fire-break."
+
+While Brian Oakley had been searching for signs in the little path, and
+the artist, with the others, was waiting, Aaron King's mind went back to
+that day when he and Conrad Lagrange had sat there under the oaks and, in
+a spirit of irresponsible fun, had committed themselves to the leadership
+of Croesus. To the young man, now, that day, with its care-free leisure,
+seemed long ago. Remembering the novelist's fanciful oration to the burro,
+he thought grimly how unconscious they had been, in their merriment, of
+the great issues that did actually rest upon the seemingly trivial
+incident. He recalled, too, with startling vividness, the times that he
+had climbed to that spot with Sibyl, or, reaching it from either way on
+the pipe-line, had gone with her down the zigzag path to the road in the
+canyon below. Had she, last night, alone, or with some unwelcome
+companions, paused a moment under those oaks? Had she remembered the hours
+that she had spent there with him?
+
+As he followed the Ranger over the ground that he had walked with her,
+that day of their last climb together, it seemed to him that every step
+of the way was haunted by her sweet personality. The objects along the
+trail--a point of rock, a pine, the barrel where they had filled their
+canteen, a broken section of the concrete pipe left by the workmen, the
+very rocks and cliffs, the flowers--dry and withered now--that grew along
+the little path--a thousand things that met his eyes--recalled her to his
+mind until he felt her presence so vividly that he almost expected to find
+her waiting, with smiling, winsome face, just around the next turn. The
+officer, who, moving ahead, scanned with careful eyes every foot of the
+way, seemed to the artist, now, to be playing some fantastic game. He
+could not, for the moment, believe that the girl he loved was--God! where
+was she? Why did Brian Oakley move so slowly, on foot, while his horse,
+leisurely cropping the grass, followed? He should be in the saddle! They
+should be riding, riding riding--as he had ridden last night. Last night!
+Was it only last night?
+
+Where the Government trail crosses the fire-break on the crest of the
+Galenas, Brian Oakley paused. "I don't think there's been anything over
+this way," he said. "We'll follow the fire-break to that point up there,
+for a look around."
+
+At noon, they stood by the big rock, under the clump of pines, where Aaron
+King and Sibyl Andres had eaten their lunch.
+
+"We'll be here some time," said the Ranger. "Make yourself comfortable. I
+want to see if there's anything stirring down yonder."
+
+With his back to the rock, he searched the Galena Valley side of the
+range, through his powerful glass; commenting, now and then, when some
+object came in the field of his vision, to his companion who sat beside
+him.
+
+They had risen to go and the officer was returning his glass to its case
+on his saddle, when Aaron King--pointing toward Fairlands, lying dim and
+hazy in the distant valley--said, "Look there!"
+
+The other turned his head to see a flash of light that winked through the
+dull, smoky veil, with startling clearness. He smiled and turned again to
+his saddle. "You'll often see that," he said. "It's the sun striking some
+bright object that happens to be at just the right angle to hit you with
+the reflection. A bit of new tin on a roof, a window, an automobile
+shield, anything bright enough, will do the trick. Come, we'll go back to
+the trail and follow the break the other way."
+
+In the dusk of the evening, at the close of the long, hard day, as Brian
+Oakley and Aaron King were starting down the Oak Knoll trail on their
+return to the ranch, the Ranger uttered an exclamation. His quick eyes had
+caught the twinkling gleam of a light at Sibyl's old home, far below,
+across the canyon. The next instant, the chestnut, followed by his
+four-footed companion, was going down the steep trail at a pace that sent
+the gravel flying and forced the artist, unaccustomed to such riding, to
+cling desperately to the saddle. Up the canyon road, the Ranger sent the
+chestnut at a run, nor did he draw rein as they crossed the rough
+boulder-strewn wash. Plunging through the tumbling water of the creek,
+the horses scrambled up the farther bank, and dashed along the old,
+weed-grown road, into the little clearing They were met by Czar with a
+bark of welcome. A moment later, they were greeted by Conrad Lagrange and
+Myra Willard.
+
+"But why don't you stay down at the ranch, Myra?" asked the Ranger, when
+he had told them that his day's work was without results.
+
+"Listen, Mr. Oakley," returned the woman with the disfigured face. "I know
+Sibyl too well not to understand the possibilities of her temperament.
+Natures, fine and sensitive as hers, though brave and cool and strong
+under ordinary circumstances, under peculiar mental stress such as I
+believe caused her to leave us, are easily thrown out of balance. We know
+nothing. The child may be wandering, alone--dazed and helpless under the
+shock of a cruel and malicious attempt to wreck her happiness. Only some
+terrible stress of emotion could have caused her to leave me as she did.
+If she _is_ alone, out here in the hills, there is a chance that--even in
+her distracted state of mind--she will find her way to her old home." The
+woman paused, and then, in the silence, added hesitatingly, "I--I may say
+that I know from experience the possibilities of which I speak."
+
+The three men bowed their heads. Brian Oakley said softly, "Myra, you've
+got more heart and more sense than all of us put together." To Conrad
+Lagrange, he added, "You will stay here with Miss Willard?"
+
+"Yes," answered the novelist, "I would be little good in the hills, at
+such work as you are doing, Brian. I will do what I can, here."
+
+When the Ranger and the artist were riding down the canyon to the ranch,
+the officer said, "There's a big chance that Myra is right, Aaron. After
+all, she knows Sibyl better than any of us, and I can see that she's got a
+fairly clear idea of what sent the child off like this. As it stands now,
+the girl may be just wandering around. If she _is_, the boys will pick her
+up before many hours. She may have met with some accident. If _that's_ it,
+we'll know before long. She may have been--I tell you, Aaron, it's that
+automobile acting the way it did that I can't get around."
+
+The searchers were all at the ranch when the two men arrived. No one had a
+word of encouragement to report. A messenger from the Sheriff brought no
+light on the mystery of the automobile. The two men who had followed the
+pipe-line trail had found nothing. A few times, they thought they had
+signs that a horse had been over the trail the night before, but there was
+no certainty; and after the pipe-line reached the floor of the canyon
+there was absolutely nothing. Jack Carleton was back from the Galena
+Valley neighborhood, and, with him, was the horseman who had gone down the
+canyon the evening before. The man was known to all. He had been hunting,
+and was on his way home when Henry Carleton and the Ranger had seen him.
+He had come, now, to help in the search.
+
+Picking a half dozen men from the party, Brian Oakley sent them to spend
+the night riding the higher trails and fire-breaks, watching for
+camp-fire lights. The others, he ordered to rest, in readiness to take up
+the search at daylight, should the night riders come in without results.
+
+Aaron King, exhausted, physically and mentally, sank into a stupor that
+could scarcely be called sleep.
+
+At daybreak, the riders who had been all night on the higher trails and
+fire-breaks, searching the darkness for the possible gleam of a
+camp-fire's light, came in.
+
+All that day--Wednesday--the mountain horsemen rode, widening the area of
+their search under the direction of the Ranger. From sundown until long
+after dark, they came straggling wearily back; their horses nearly
+exhausted, the riders beginning to fear that Sibyl would never be found
+alive. There was no further word from the Sheriff at Fairlands.
+
+Then suddenly, out of the blackness of the night, a rider from the other
+side of the Galenas arrived with the word that the girl's horse had been
+found. The animal was grazing in the neighborhood of Pine Glen. The saddle
+and the horse's sides were stained with dirt, as if the animal had fallen.
+The bridle-reins had been broken. The horse might have rolled on the
+saddle; he might have stepped on the bridle-reins; he might have fallen
+and left his rider lying senseless. In any case, they reasoned, the animal
+would scarcely have found his way over the Galena range after he had been
+left to wander at will.
+
+Brian Oakley decided to send the main company of riders over into the Pine
+Glen country, to continue the search there. He knew that the men who found
+the horse would follow the animal's track back as far as possible. He
+knew, also, that if the animal had been wandering several hours, as was
+likely, it would be impossible to back-track far. Late as it was, Aaron
+King rode up the canyon to tell Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange the
+result of the day's work.
+
+The artist's voice trembled as he told the general opinion of the
+mountaineers; but Myra Willard said, "Mr. King, they are wrong. My baby
+will come back. There's harm come to her no doubt; but she is not dead
+or--I would know it."
+
+In spite of the fact that Aaron King's reason told him the woman of the
+disfigured face had no ground for her belief, he was somehow helped, by
+her words, to hope.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIV
+
+The Tracks on Granite Peak
+
+
+
+The searching party was already on the way over to Pine Glen, when Brian
+Oakley stopped at Sibyl's old home for Aaron King. The Ranger, himself,
+had waited to receive the morning message from the Sheriff.
+
+When the two men, following the Government trail that leads to the
+neighborhood where the girl's horse had been found, reached the fire-break
+on the summit of the Galenas, the officer said, "Aaron, you'll be of
+little use over there in that Pine Glen country, where you have never
+been." He had pulled up his horse and was looking at his companion,
+steadily.
+
+"Is there nothing that I can do, Brian?" returned the young man,
+hopelessly. "God, man! I _must_ do something! I _must_, I tell you!"
+
+"Steady, old boy, steady," returned the mountaineer's calm voice. "The
+first thing you must do, you know, is to keep a firm grip on yourself. If
+you lose your nerve I'll have you on my hands too."
+
+Under his companion's eye, the artist controlled himself. "You're right,
+Brian," he said calmly. "What do you want me to do? You know best, of
+course."
+
+The officer, still watching him, said slowly, "I want you to spend the
+day on that point, up there,"--he pointed to the clump of pines,--"with
+this glass." He turned to take an extra field-glass from his saddle.
+Handing the glass to the other, he continued "You can see all over the
+country, on the Galena Valley side of this range, from there." Again he
+paused, as though reluctant to give the final word of his instructions.
+
+The young man looked at him, questioningly. "Yes?"
+
+The Ranger answered in a low tone, "You are to watch for buzzards, Aaron."
+
+Aaron King went white. "Brian! You think--"
+
+The answer came sharply, "I am not thinking. I don't dare think. I am only
+recognizing every possibility and letting nothing, _nothing_, get away
+from me. I don't want _you_ to think. I want you to do the thing that will
+be of greatest service. It's because I am afraid you will _think_, that I
+hesitate to assign you to the position."
+
+The sharp words acted like a dash of cold water in the young man's face.
+Unconsciously, he straightened in his saddle. "Thank you, Brian. I
+understand. You can depend upon me."
+
+"Good boy!" came the hearty and instant approval. "If you see anything, go
+to it; leaving a note here, under a stone on top of this rock; I'll find
+it to-night, when I come back. If nothing shows up, stay until dark, and
+then go down to Carleton's. I'll be in late. The rest of the party will
+stay over at Pine Glen."
+
+Alone on the peak where he had sat with Sibyl the day of their last climb,
+Aaron King watched for the buzzards' telltale, circling flight--and tried
+not to think.
+
+It was one o'clock when the artist--resting his eyes for a moment, after a
+long, searching look through the glass--caught, again, that flash of light
+in the blue haze that lay over Fairlands in the distant valley. Brian
+Oakley had said,--when they had seen it that first day of the
+search,--that it was a common sight; but the artist, his mind preoccupied,
+watched the point of light with momentary, idle interest.
+
+Suddenly, he awoke to the fact that there seemed to be a timed regularity
+in the flashes. Into his mind came the memory of something he had read of
+the heliograph, and of methods of signalling with mirrors Closely, now, he
+watched--three flashes in quick succession--pause--two flashes--pause--one
+flash--pause--one flash--pause--two flashes--pause--three flashes--pause.
+For several minutes the artist waited, his eyes fixed on the distant spot
+under the haze. Then the flashes began again, repeating the same order:
+--- -- - - -- ---.
+
+At the last flash, the man sprang to his feet, and searched the mountain
+peaks and spurs behind him. On lonely Granite Peak, at the far end of the
+Galena Range, a flash of light caught his eye--then another and another.
+With an exclamation, he lifted his glass. He could distinguish nothing but
+the peak from which had come the flashes. He turned toward the valley to
+see a long flash and then--only the haze and the dark spot that he knew to
+be the orange groves about Fairlands.
+
+Aaron King sank, weak and trembling, against the rock. What should he do?
+What could he do? The signals might mean much. They might mean nothing.
+Brian Oakley's words that morning, came to him; "I am recognizing every
+possibility, and letting nothing _nothing_, get away from me." Instantly,
+he was galvanized into life. Idle thinking, wondering, conjecturing could
+accomplish nothing.
+
+Riding as fast as possible down to the boulder beside the trail, where he
+was to leave his message, he wrote a note and placed it under the rock.
+Then he set out, to ride the fire-break along the top of the range, toward
+the distant Granite Peak. An hour's riding took him to the end of the
+fire-break, and he saw that from there on he must go afoot.
+
+Tying the bridle-reins over the saddle-horn, and fastening a note to the
+saddle, in case any one should find the horse, he turned the animal's head
+back the way he had come, and, with a sharp blow, started it forward. He
+knew that the horse--one of Carleton's--would probably make its way home.
+Turning, he set his face toward the lonely peak; carrying his canteen and
+what was left of his lunch.
+
+There was no trail for his feet now. At times, he forced his way through
+and over bushes of buckthorn and manzanita that seemed, with their sharp
+thorns and tangled branches, to be stubbornly fighting him back. At times,
+he made his way along some steep slope, from pine to pine, where the
+ground was slippery with the brown needles, and where to lose his footing
+meant a fall of a thousand feet. Again, he scaled some rocky cliff,
+clinging with his fingers to jutting points of rock, finding niches and
+projections for his feet; or, with the help of vine and root and bush,
+found a way down some seemingly impossible precipice. Now and then, from
+some higher point, he sighted Granite Peak. Often, he saw, far below, on
+one hand the great canyon, and on the other the wide Galena Valley. Always
+he pushed forward. His face was scratched and stained; his clothing was
+torn by the bushes; his hands were bloody from the sharp rocks; his body
+reeked with sweat; his breath came in struggling gasps; but he would not
+stop. He felt himself driven, as it were, by some inner power that made
+him insensible to hardship or death. Far behind him, the sun dropped below
+the sky-line of the distant San Gabriels, but he did not notice. Only when
+the dusk of the coming night was upon him, did he realize that the day was
+gone.
+
+On a narrow shelf, in the lee of a great cliff, he hastily gathered
+material for a fire, and, with his back to the rock, ate a little of the
+food he carried. Far up on that wind-swept, mountain ridge, the night was
+bitter cold. Again and again he aroused himself from the weary stupor that
+numbed his senses, and replenished the fire, or forced himself to pace to
+and fro upon the ledge. Overhead, he saw the stars glittering with a
+strange brilliancy. In the canyon, far below, there were a few twinkling
+lights to mark the Carleton ranch, and the old home of Sibyl, where Conrad
+Lagrange and Myra Willard waited. Miles away, the lights of the towns
+among the orange groves, twinkled like feeble stars in another feeble
+world. The cold wind moaned and wailed in the dark pines and swirled about
+the cliff in sudden gusts. A cougar screamed somewhere on the
+mountainside below. An answering scream came from the ledge above his
+head. The artist threw more fuel upon his fire, and grimly walked his
+beat.
+
+In the cold, gray dawn of that Friday morning, he ate a few mouthfuls of
+his scanty store of food and, as soon as it was light,--even while the
+canyon below was still in the gloom,--started on his way.
+
+It was eleven o'clock when, almost exhausted, he reached what he knew must
+be the peak that he had seen through his glass the day before. There was
+little or no vegetation upon that high, wind-swept point. The side toward
+the distant peak from which the artist had seen the signals, was an abrupt
+cliff--hundreds of feet of sheer, granite rock. From the rim of this
+precipice, the peak sloped gradually down and back to the edge of the
+pines that grew about its base. The ground in the open space was bare and
+hard.
+
+Carefully, Aaron King searched--as he had seen the Ranger do--for signs.
+Beginning at a spot near the edge of the cliff, he worked gradually, back
+and forth, in ever widening arcs, toward the pines below. He was almost
+ready to give up in despair, cursing himself for being such a fool as to
+think that he could pick up a trail, when, clearly marked in a bit of
+softer soil, he saw the print of a hob-nailed boot.
+
+Instantly the man's weariness was gone. The long, hard way he had come was
+forgotten. Insensible, now, to hunger and fatigue, he moved eagerly in the
+direction the boot-track pointed. He was rewarded by another track. Then,
+as he moved nearer the softer ground, toward the trees, another and
+another and then--
+
+The man--worn by his physical exertion, and by his days of mental
+anguish--for a moment, lost control of himself. Clearly marked, beside the
+broad track of the heavier, man's boot, was the unmistakable print of a
+smaller, lighter foot.
+
+For a moment he stood with clenched fists and heaving breast; then, with
+grim eagerness, with every sense supernaturally alert, with nerves tense,
+quick eyes and ready muscles, he went forward on the trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was after dark, that night, when Brian Oakley, on his way back to Clear
+Creek, stopped at the rock where the artist had left his note.
+
+Reaching the floor of the canyon, he crossed to tell Myra Willard and the
+novelist the result of the day's search. The men riding in the vicinity of
+Pine Glen had found nothing. It had been--as the Ranger
+expected--impossible to follow back for any distance on the track of the
+roaming horse, for the animal had been grazing about the Pine Glen
+neighborhood for at least a day. Over the note left by Aaron King, the
+mountaineer shook his head doubtfully. Aaron had done right to go. But for
+one of his inexperience, the way along the crest of the Galenas was
+practically impossible. If the young man had known, he could have made the
+trip much easier by returning to Clear Creek and following up to the head
+of that canyon, then climbing to the crest of the divide, and so around to
+Granite Peak. The Ranger, himself, would start, at daybreak, for the
+peak, by that route; and would come back along the crest of the range, to
+find the artist.
+
+At Carleton's, they told the officer that Aaron's horse had come in. Jack
+Carleton and his father arrived from the country above Lone Cabin and
+Burnt Pine, a few minutes after Brian Oakley reached the ranch. It was
+agreed that Henry should join the searchers at Pine Glen, at
+daybreak--lest any one should have seen the artist's camp-fire, that
+night, and so lose precious time going to it--and that Jack should
+accompany the Ranger to Granite Peak.
+
+Henry Carleton had gone on his way to Pine Glen, and Brian Oakley and Jack
+were in the saddle, ready to start up the canyon, the next morning, when a
+messenger from the Sheriff arrived. An automobile had been seen returning
+from the mountains, about two o'clock that night. There was only one man
+in the car.
+
+"Jack," said the Ranger, "Aaron has got hold of the right end of this,
+with his mirror flashes. You've got to go up the canyon alone. Get to
+Granite Peak as quick as God will let you, and pick up the trail of
+whoever signalled from there; keeping one eye open for Aaron. I'm going to
+trail that automobile as far as it went, and follow whatever met or left
+it. We'll likely meet somewhere, over in the Cold Water country."
+
+A minute later the two men who had planned to ride together were going in
+opposite directions.
+
+Following the Fairlands road until he came to where the Galena Valley road
+branches off from the Clear Creek way, three miles below the Power-House
+at the mouth of the canyon, Brian Oakley found the tracks of an
+automobile--made without doubt, during the night just past. The machine
+had gone up the Galena Valley road, and had returned.
+
+A little before noon, the officer stood where the automobile had stopped
+and turned around for the return trip. The place was well up toward the
+head of the valley, near the mouth of a canyon that leads upward toward
+Granite Peak. An hour's careful work, and the Ranger uncovered a small
+store of supplies; hidden a quarter of a mile up the canyon. There were
+tracks leading away up the side of the mountain. Turning his horse loose
+to find its way home; Brian Oakley, without stopping for lunch, set out on
+the trail.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+High up on Granite Peak, Aaron King was bending over the print of a
+slender shoe, beside the track of a heavy hob-nailed boot. Somewhere in
+Clear Creek canyon, Jack Carleton was riding to gain the point where the
+artist stood. At the foot of the mountain, on the other side of the range,
+Brian Oakley was setting out to follow the faint trail that started at the
+supplies brought by the automobile, in the night, from Fairlands.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXV
+
+A Hard Way
+
+
+
+When Sibyl Andres left the studio, after meeting Mrs. Taine, her mind was
+dominated by one thought--that she must get away from the world that saw
+only evil in her friendship with Aaron King--a friendship that, to the
+mountain girl, was as pure as her relations to Myra Willard or Brian
+Oakley.
+
+Under the watchful, experienced care of the woman with the disfigured
+face, only the worthy had been permitted to enter into the life of this
+child of the hills. Sibyl's character--mind and heart and body and
+soul--had been formed by the strength and purity of her mountain
+environment; by her association with her parents, with Myra Willard, and
+with her parents' life-long friends; and by her mental comradeship with
+the greatest spirits that music and literature have given to the world. As
+her physical strength and beauty was the gift of her free mountain life,
+the beauty and strength of her pure spirit was the gift of those kindred
+spirits that are as mountains in the mental and spiritual life of the
+race.
+
+Love had come to Sibyl Andres, not as it comes to those girls who, in the
+hot-house of passion we call civilization, are forced into premature and
+sickly bloom by an atmosphere of sensuality. Love had come to her so
+gently, so naturally, so like the opening of a wild flower, that she had
+not yet understood that it was love. Even as her womanhood had come to
+fulfill her girlhood, so Aaron King had come into her life to fulfill her
+womanhood. She had chosen her mate with an unconscious obedience to the
+laws of life that was divinely reckless of the world.
+
+Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for
+Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet
+understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been
+tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his
+growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with
+that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of
+God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human
+lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity
+than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their
+children?
+
+The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in
+every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl
+Andres possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of
+her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted
+the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as
+her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and
+sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had
+crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose. Wounded, frightened,
+dismayed, not understanding, unable to deny, the girl turned in reluctant
+flight from the place that was, to her, because of her love, holy ground.
+
+It was impossible for Sibyl not to believe Mrs. Taine--the woman had
+spoken so kindly; had seemed so reluctant to speak at all; had appeared so
+to appreciate her innocence. A thousand trivial and unimportant incidents,
+that, in the light of the worldly woman's words, could be twisted to
+evidence the truth of the things she said, came crowding in upon the
+girl's mind. Instead of helping Aaron King with his work, instead of truly
+enjoying life with him, as she had thought, her friendship was to him a
+menace, a danger. She had believed--and the belief had brought her a
+strange happiness--that he had cared for her companionship. He had cared
+only to use her for his pictures--as he used his brushes. He had played
+with her--as she had seen him toy idly with a brush, while thinking over
+his work. He would throw her aside, when she had served his purpose, as
+she had seen him throw a worn-out brush aside.
+
+The woman who was still a child could not blame the artist--she was too
+loyal to what she had thought was their friendship; she was too unselfish
+in her yet unrecognized love for her chosen mate. No, she could not blame
+him--only--only--she wished--oh how she wished--that she had understood.
+It would not have hurt so, perhaps, if she had understood.
+
+In all the cruel tangle of her emotions, in all her confused and
+bewildering thoughts, in all her suffering one thing was clear; she must
+get away from the world that could see only evil--she must go at once.
+Conrad Lagrange and Aaron King might come at any moment. She could not
+face them; now that she knew. She wished Myra was home. But she would
+leave a little note and Myra--dear Myra with her disfigured face--would
+understand.
+
+Quickly, the girl wrote her letter. Hurriedly, she dressed in her mountain
+costume. Still acting under her blind impulse to escape, she made no
+explanations to the neighbors, when she went for the horse. In her desire
+to avoid coming face to face with any one, she even chose the more
+unfrequented streets through the orange groves. In her humiliation and
+shame, she wished for the kindly darkness of the night. Not until she had
+left the city far behind, and, in the soft dusk, drew near the mouth of
+the canyon, did she regain some measure of her self-control.
+
+As she was overtaking the Power Company's team and wagon of supplies, she
+turned in her saddle, for the first time, to look back. A mile away, on
+the road, she could see a cloud of dust and a dark, moving spot which she
+knew to be an automobile. One of the Company machines, she thought; and
+drew a breath of relief that Fairlands was so far away.
+
+It was quite dark as she entered the canyon; but, as she drew near, she
+could see against the sky, those great gates, opening silently,
+majestically to receive her. From within the canyon, she watched, as she
+rode, to see them slowly close again. The sight of the encircling peaks
+and ridges, rising in solemn grandeur out of the darkness into the light
+of the stars, comforted her. The night wind, drawing down the canyon, was
+sweet and bracing with the odor of the hills. The roar of the tumbling
+Clear Creek, filling the night with its deep-toned music, soothed and
+calmed her troubled mind. Presently, she would be with her friends, and,
+somehow, all would be well.
+
+The girl had ridden half the distance, perhaps, from the canyon gates to
+the Ranger Station when, above the roar of the mountain stream, her quick
+ear caught the sound of an automobile, behind her. Looking back, she saw
+the gleam of the lights, like two great eyes in the darkness. A Company
+machine, going up to the Head-Work, she thought. Or, perhaps the Doctor,
+to see some one of the mountain folk.
+
+As the automobile drew nearer, she reined her horse out of the road, and
+halted in the thick chaparral to let it pass. The blazing lights, as her
+horse turned to face the approaching machine, blinded her. The animal
+restive under the ordeal, demanded all her attention. She scarcely noticed
+that the automobile had slowed down, when within a few feet of her, until
+a man, suddenly, stood at her horse's head; his hand on the bridle-rein as
+though to assist her. At the same instant, the machine moved past them,
+and stopped; its engine still running.
+
+Still with the thought of the Company men in her mind, the girl saw only
+their usual courtesy. "Thank you," she said, "I can handle him very
+nicely."
+
+But the man--whom she had not had time to see, blinded as she had been by
+the light, and who was now only dimly visible in the darkness--stepped
+close to the horse's shoulder, as if to make himself more easily heard
+above the noise of the machine, his hand still holding the bridle-rein.
+
+"It is Miss Andres, is it not?" He spoke as though he was known to her;
+and the girl--still thinking that it was one of the Company men, and
+feeling that he expected her to recognize him--leaned forward to see his
+face, as she answered.
+
+Instantly, the stranger--standing close and taking advantage of the girl's
+position as she stooped toward him from the saddle--caught her in his
+powerful arms and lifted her to the ground. At the same moment, the man's
+companion who, under cover of the darkness and the noise of the machine,
+had drawn close to the other side of the horse, caught the bridle-rein.
+
+Before the girl, taken so off her guard could cry out, a softly-rolled,
+silk handkerchief was thrust between her lips and skillfully tied in
+place. She struggled desperately; but, against the powerful arms of her
+captor, her splendid, young strength was useless. As he bound her hands,
+the man spoke reassuringly; "Don't fight, Miss. I'm not going to hurt you.
+I've got to do this; but I'll be as easy as I can. It will do you no good
+to wear yourself out."
+
+Frightened as she was, the girl felt that the stranger was as gentle as
+the circumstances permitted him to be. He had not, in fact, hurt her at
+all; and, in his voice, she caught a tone of genuine regret. He seemed to
+be acting wholly against his will; as if driven by some power that
+rendered him, in fact, as helpless as his victim.
+
+The other man, still standing by the horse's head, spoke sharply; "All
+right there?"
+
+"All right, sir," gruffly answered the man who held Sibyl, and lifting the
+helpless girl gently in his arms he seated her carefully in the machine.
+An automobile-coat was thrown around her, the high collar turned up to
+hide the handkerchief about her lips, and her hat was replaced by an
+"auto-cap," pulled low. Then her captor went back to the horse; the other
+man took the seat beside her; and the car moved forward.
+
+The girl's fright now gave way to perfect coolness. Realizing the
+uselessness of any effort to escape, she wisely saved her strength;
+watchful to take quick advantage of any opportunity that might present
+itself. Silently, she worked at her bonds, and endeavored to release the
+bandage that prevented her from crying out. But the hands that had bound
+her had been too skillful. Turning her head, she tried to see her
+companion's face. But, in the darkness, with upturned collar and cap
+pulled low over "auto-glasses," the identity of the man driving the car
+was effectually hidden.
+
+Only when they were passing the Ranger Station and Sibyl saw the lights
+through the trees, did she, for a moment, renew her struggle. With all her
+strength she strained to release her hands. One cry from her strong, young
+voice would bring Brian Oakley so quickly after the automobile that her
+safety would be assured. On that mountain road, the chestnut would soon
+run them down. She even tried to throw herself from the car; but, bound as
+she was, the hand of her companion easily prevented, and she sank back in
+the seat, exhausted by her useless exertion.
+
+At the foot of the Oak Knoll trail the automobile stopped. The man who
+had been following on Sibyl's horse came up quickly. Swiftly, the two men
+worked; placing sacks of supplies and blankets--as the girl guessed--on
+the animal. Presently, the one who had bound her, lifted her gently from
+the automobile "Don't hurt yourself, Miss," he said in her ear, as he
+carried her toward the horse. "It will do you no good." And the girl did
+not again resist, as he lifted her to the saddle.
+
+The driver of the car said something to his companion in a low tone, and
+Sibyl heard her captor answer, "The girl will be as safe with me as if she
+were in her own home."
+
+Again, the other spoke, and the girl heard only the reply; "Don't worry; I
+understand that. I'll go through with it. You've left me no chance to do
+anything else."
+
+Then, stepping to the horse's head and taking the bridle-rein, the man who
+seemed to be under orders, led the way up the canyon. Behind them, the
+girl heard the automobile starting on its return. The sound died away in
+the distance. The silence of the night was disturbed only by the sound of
+the man's hob-nailed boots and the horse's iron-shod feet on the road.
+
+Once, her captor halted a moment, and, coming to the horse's shoulder,
+asked if she was comfortable. The girl bowed her head. "I'm sorry for that
+gag," he said. "As soon as it's safe, I'll remove it; but I dare not take
+chances." He turned abruptly away and they went on.
+
+Dimly, Sibyl saw, in her companion's manner, a ray of hope. That no
+immediate danger threatened, she was assured. That the man was acting
+against his will, was as evident. Wisely, she resolved to bend her efforts
+toward enlisting his sympathies,--to make it hard for him to carry out the
+purpose of whoever controlled him,--instead of antagonizing him by
+continued resistance and repeated attempts to escape, and so making it
+easier for him to do his master's bidding.
+
+Leaving the canyon by the Laurel Creek trail, they reached Burnt Pine,
+where the man removed the handkerchief that sealed the girl's lips.
+
+"Oh, thank you," she said quietly. "That is so much better."
+
+"I'm sorry that I had to do it," he returned, as he unbound her arms.
+"There, you may get down now, and rest, while I fix a bit of lunch for
+you."
+
+The girl sprang to the ground. "It is a relief to be free," she said.
+"But, really, I'm not a bit tired. Can't I help you with the pack?"
+
+"No," returned the other, gruffly, as though he understood her purpose and
+put himself on his guard. "We'll only be here a few minutes, and it's a
+long road ahead. You must rest."
+
+Obediently, she sat down on the ground, her back against a tree.
+
+As they lunched, in the dim light of the stars, she said, "May I ask where
+you are taking me?"
+
+"It's a long road, Miss Andres. We'll be there to-morrow night," he
+answered reluctantly.
+
+Again, she ventured timidly; "And is, is--some one waiting for--for us, at
+the end of our journey?"
+
+The man's voice was kinder as he answered, "no, Miss Andres; there'll he
+just you and me, for some time. And," he added, "you don't need to fear
+_me_."
+
+"I am not at all afraid of you," she returned gently. "But I am--" she
+hesitated--"I am sorry for you--that you have to do this."
+
+The man arose abruptly. "We must he going."
+
+For some distance beyond Burnt Pine, they kept to the Laurel Creek trail,
+toward San Gorgonio; then they turned aside to follow some unmarked way,
+known only to the man. When the first soft tints of the day shone in the
+sky behind the peaks and ridges, while Sibyl's friends were assembling at
+the Carleton Ranch in Clear Creek Canyon, and Brian Oakley was directing
+the day's search, the girl was following her guide in the wild depths of
+the mountain wilderness, miles from any trail. The country was strange to
+her, but she knew that they were making their way, far above the canyon
+rim, on the side of the San Bernardino range, toward the distant Cold
+Water country that opened into the great desert beyond.
+
+As the light grew stronger, Sibyl saw her companion a man of medium
+height, with powerful shoulders and arms; dressed in khaki, with mountain
+boots. Under his arm, as he led the way with a powerful stride that told
+of almost tireless strength, the girl saw the familiar stock of a
+Winchester rifle. Presently he halted, and as he turned, she saw his face.
+It was not a bad face. A heavy beard hid mouth and cheek and throat, but
+the nose was not coarse or brutal, and the brow was broad and intelligent.
+In the brown eyes there was, the girl thought, a look of wistful sadness,
+as though there were memories that could not be escaped.
+
+"We will have breakfast here, if you please, Miss Andres," he said
+gravely.
+
+"I'm so hungry," she answered, dismounting. "May I make the coffee?"
+
+He shook his head. "I'm sorry; but there must be no telltale smoke. The
+Ranger and his riders are out by now, as like as not."
+
+"You seem very familiar with the country," she said, moving easily toward
+the rifle which he had leaned against a tree, while he busied himself with
+the pack of supplies.
+
+"I am," he answered. "I have been forced to learn it thoroughly. By the
+way, Miss Andres,"--he added, without turning his head, as he knelt on the
+ground to take food from the pack,--"that Winchester will do you no good.
+It is not loaded. I have the shells in my belt." He arose, facing her, and
+throwing open his coat, touched the butt of a Colt forty-five that hung in
+a shoulder holster under his left armpit. "This will serve in case quick
+action is needed, and it is always safely out of your reach, you see."
+
+The girl laughed. "I admit that I was tempted," she said. "I might have
+known that you put the rifle within my reach to try me."
+
+"I thought it would save you needless disappointment to make things clear
+at once," he answered. "Breakfast is ready."
+
+The incident threw a strong light upon the character with which Sibyl had
+to deal. She realized, more than ever, that her only hope lay in so
+winning this man's sympathies and friendship that he would turn against
+whoever had forced him into his present position. The struggle was to be
+one of those silent battles of the spirit, where the forces that war are
+not seen but only felt, and where those who fight must often fight with
+smiling faces. The girl's part was to enlist her captor to fight for her,
+against himself. She saw, as clearly, the need of approaching her object
+with caution. Eager to know who it was that ruled this man, and by what
+peculiar power a character so strong could be so subjected, she dared not
+ask. Hour after hour, as they journeyed deeper and deeper into the
+mountain wilds, she watched and waited for some sign that her companion's
+mood would make it safe for her to approach him. Meanwhile, she exercised
+all her womanly tact to lead him to forget his distasteful position, and
+so to make his uncongenial task as pleasant as possible.
+
+The girl did not realize how far her decision, in itself, aroused the
+admiring sympathy of her captor. Her coolness, self-possession, and
+bravery in meeting the situation with calm, watchful readiness, rather
+than with hysterical moaning and frantic pleading, did more than she
+realized toward accomplishing her purpose.
+
+During that long forenoon, she sought to engage her guide in conversation,
+quite as though they were making a pleasure trip that was mutually
+agreeable. The man--as though he also desired his thoughts removed as far
+as might be from his real mission--responded readily, and succeeded in
+making himself a really interesting companion. Only once, did the girl
+venture to approach dangerous ground.
+
+"Really," she said, "I wish I knew your name. It seems so stupid not to
+know how to address you. Is that asking too much?"
+
+The man did not answer for some time, and the girl saw his face clouded
+with somber thought.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said gently. "I--I ought not to have asked."
+
+"My name is Henry Marston, Miss Andres," he said deliberately. "But it is
+not the name by which I am known these days," he added bitterly. "It is an
+honorable name, and I would like to hear it again--" he paused--"from
+you."
+
+Sibyl returned gently, "Thank you, Mr. Marston--believe me, I do
+appreciate your confidence, and--" she in turn hesitated--"and I will keep
+the trust."
+
+By noon, they had reached Granite Peak in the Galenas, having come by an
+unmarked way, through the wild country around the head of Clear Creek
+Canyon.
+
+They had finished lunch, when Marston, looking at his watch, took a small
+mirror from his pocket and stood gazing expectantly toward the distant
+valley where Fairlands lay under the blue haze. Presently, a flash of
+light appeared; then another and another. It was the signal that Aaron
+King had seen and to which he had called Brian Oakley's attention, that
+first day of their search.
+
+With his mirror, the man on Granite Peak answered and the girl, watching
+and understanding that he was communicating with some one, saw his face
+grow dark with anger. She did not speak.
+
+They had traveled a half mile, perhaps, from the peak, when the man again
+stopped, saying, "You must dismount here, please."
+
+Removing the things from the saddle, he led the horse a little way down
+the Galena Valley side of the ridge, and tied the reins to a tree. Then,
+slapping the animal about the head with his open hand, he forced the horse
+to break the reins, and started him off toward the distant valley. Again,
+the girl understood and made no comment.
+
+Lifting the pack to his own strong shoulders, her companion--his eyes
+avoiding hers in shame--said gruffly, "Come."
+
+Their way, now, led down from the higher levels of peak and ridge, into
+the canyons and gorges of the Cold Water country. There was no trail, but
+the man went forward as one entirely at home. At the head of a deep gorge,
+where their way seemed barred by the face of an impossible cliff that
+towered above their heads a thousand feet and dropped, another thousand,
+sheer to the tops of the pines below, he halted and faced the girl,
+enquiringly. "You have a good head, Miss Andres?"
+
+Sibyl smiled. "I was born in the mountains, Mr. Marston," she answered.
+"You need not fear for me."
+
+Drawing near to the very brink of the precipice, he led her, by a narrow
+ledge, across the face of the cliff; and then, by an easier path, down the
+opposite wall of the gorge.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when they arrived at a little log cabin
+that was so hidden in the wild tangle of mountain growth at the bottom of
+the narrow canyon as to be invisible from a distance of a hundred yards.
+
+The girl knew that they had reached the end of their journey. Nearly
+exhausted by the hours of physical exertion, and worn with the mental and
+nervous strain, she sank down upon the blankets that her companion spread
+for her upon the ground.
+
+"As soon as it is dark, I will cook a hot supper for you," he said,
+regarding her kindly. "Poor child, this has been a hard, hard, day for
+you. For me--"
+
+Fighting to keep back the tears, she tried to thank him. For a moment he
+stood looking down at her. Then she saw his face grow black with rage,
+and, clenching his great fists, he turned away.
+
+While waiting for the darkness that would hide the smoke of the fire, the
+man gathered cedar boughs from trees near-by, and made a comfortable bed
+in the cabin, for the girl. As soon as it was dark, he built a fire in the
+rude fire-place, and, in a few minutes, announced supper. The meal was
+really excellent; and Sibyl, in spite of her situation, ate heartily;
+which won an admiring comment from her captor.
+
+The meal finished, he said awkwardly, "I want to thank you, Miss Andres,
+for making this day as easy for me as you have. We will be alone here,
+until Friday, at least; perhaps longer. There is a bar to the cabin door.
+You may rest here as safely as though you were in your own room. Good
+night."
+
+Before she could answer, he was gone.
+
+A few minutes later, Sibyl stood in the open door. "Mr. Marston," she
+called.
+
+"Yes, Miss Andres," came, instantly, out of the darkness.
+
+"Please come into the cabin."
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"It will be cold out there. Please come inside."
+
+"Thank you, Miss Andres; but I will do very nicely. Bar the door and go to
+sleep."
+
+"But, Mr. Marston, I will sleep better if I know that you are
+comfortable."
+
+The man came to her and she saw him in the dim light of the fire, standing
+hat in hand. He spoke wonderingly. "Do you mean, Miss Andres, that you
+would not be afraid to sleep, if I occupied the cabin with you?"
+
+"No," she answered, "I am not afraid. Come in."
+
+But he did not move to cross the threshold. "And why are you not afraid?"
+he asked curiously.
+
+"Because," she answered, "I know that you are a gentleman."
+
+The man laughed harshly--such a laugh as Sibyl had never before heard. "A
+gentleman! This is the first time I have heard that word in connection
+with myself for many a year, Miss Andres. You have little reason for using
+it--after what I have done to you--and am doing."
+
+"Oh, but you see, I know that you are forced to do what you are doing. You
+_are_ a gentleman, Mr. Marston.--Won't you please come in and sleep by the
+fire? You will be so uncomfortable out there. And you have had such a hard
+day."
+
+"God bless you, for your good heart, Miss Andres," the man said brokenly.
+"But I will not intrude upon your privacy to-night. Don't you see," he
+added savagely, "don't you see that I--I _can't?_ Bar your door, please,
+and let me play the part assigned to me. Your kindness to me, your
+confidence in me, is wasted."
+
+He turned abruptly away and disappeared in the darkness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVI
+
+What Should He Do
+
+
+
+The next morning, it was evident to Sibyl Andres that the man who said his
+name was Henry Marston had not slept.
+
+All that day, she watched the battle--saw him fighting with himself. He
+kept apart from her, and spoke but little. When night came, as soon as
+supper was over, he again left the cabin, to spend the long, dark hours in
+a struggle that the girl could only dimly sense. She could not understand;
+but she felt him fighting, fighting; and she knew that he fought for her.
+What was it? What terrible unseen force mastered this man,--compelled him
+to do its bidding,--even while he hated and loathed himself for
+submitting?
+
+Watchful, ready, hoping, despairing, the helpless girl could only pray
+that her companion might be given strength.
+
+The following morning, at breakfast, he told her that he must go to
+Granite Peak to signal. His orders were to lock her in the cabin, and to
+go alone; but he would not. She might go with him, if she chose.
+
+Even this crumb of encouragement--that he would so far disobey his
+master--filled the girl's heart with hope. "I would love to go with you,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "but if it is going to make trouble for you, I
+would rather stay."
+
+"You mean that you would rather be locked up in the cabin all day, than to
+make trouble for me?" he asked.
+
+"It wouldn't be so terrible," she answered, "and I would like to do
+something--something to--to show you that I appreciate your, kindness to
+me. There's nothing else I _can_ do, is there?"
+
+The man looked at her wonderingly. It was impossible to doubt her
+sincerity. And Sibyl, as she saw his face, knew that she had never before
+witnessed such mental and spiritual anguish. The eyes that looked into
+hers so questioningly, so pleadingly, were the eyes of a soul in torment.
+Her own eyes filled with tears that she could not hide, and she turned
+away.
+
+At last he said slowly, "No, Miss Andres, you shall not stay in the cabin
+to-day. Come; we must go on, or I shall be late."
+
+At Granite Peak, Sibyl watched the signal flashes from distant
+Fairlands--the flashes that Aaron King was watching, from the peak where
+they had sat together that day of their last climb. As the man answered
+the signals with his mirror, and the girl beside him watched, the artist
+was training his glass upon the spot where they stood; but, partially
+concealed as they were, the distance was too great.
+
+When Sibyl's captor turned, after receiving the message conveyed by the
+flashes of light, his face was terrible to see; and the girl, without
+asking, knew that the crisis was drawing near. Deadly fear gripped her
+heart; but she was strangely calm. On the way back to the cabin, the man
+scarcely spoke, but walked with bent head; and the girl felt him fighting,
+fighting. She longed to cry out, to plead with him, to demand that he tell
+her why he must do this thing; but she dared not. She knew, instinctively
+that he must fight alone. So she watched and waited and prayed. As they
+were crossing the face of the canyon wall, on the narrow ledge, the man
+stopped and, as though forgetting the girl's presence, stood looking
+moodily down into the depths below. Then they went on. That night, he did
+not leave the cabin as soon as they had finished their evening meal, but
+sat on one of the rude seats with which the little hut was furnished,
+gazing into the fire.
+
+The girl's heart beat quicker, as he said, "Miss Andres, I would like to
+ask your opinion in a matter that I cannot decide satisfactorily to
+myself."
+
+She took the seat on the other side of the rude fireplace.
+
+"What is it, Mr. Marston?"
+
+"I will put it in the form of a story," he answered. Then, after a wait of
+some minutes, as though he found it hard to begin, he said, "It is an old
+story, Miss Andres; a very common one, but with a difference. A young man,
+with every chance in the world to go right, went wrong. He was well-born.
+He was fairly well educated. His father was a man of influence and
+considerable means. He had many friends, good and bad. I do not think the
+man was intentionally bad, but I do not excuse him. He was a fool--that's
+all--a fool. And, as fools must, he paid the price of his foolishness.
+
+"A sentence of thirty years in the penitentiary is a big price for a young
+man to pay for being a fool, Miss Andres. He was twenty-five when he went
+in--strong and vigorous, with a good mind; the prospects years of prison
+life--but that's not the story. I could not hope to make you understand
+what a thirty years sentence to the penitentiary means to a man of
+twenty-five. But, at least, you will not wonder that the man watched for
+an opportunity to escape. He prayed for an opportunity. For ten
+years,--ten years,--Miss Andres, the man watched and prayed for a chance
+to escape. Then he got away.
+
+"He was never a criminal at heart, you must understand. He had no wish,
+now, to live a life of crime. He wished only to live a sane, orderly,
+useful, life of freedom. They hunted him to the mountains. They could not
+take him, but they made it impossible for him to escape--he was
+starving--dying. He would not give himself up to the twenty years of hell
+that waited him. He did not want to die--but he would die rather than go
+back.
+
+"Then, one day, when he was very near the end, a man found him. The poor
+hunted devil of a convict aroused his pity. He offered help. He gave the
+wretched, starving creature food. He arranged to furnish him with
+supplies, until it would be safe for him to leave his hiding place. He
+brought him food and clothing and books. Later, when the convict's prison
+pallor was gone, when his hair and beard were grown, and the prison manner
+and walk were, in some measure, forgotten; when the officers, thinking
+that he had perished in the mountains, had given up looking for him; his
+benefactor gave him work--beautiful work in the orange groves--where he
+was safe and happy and useful and could feel himself a _man_.
+
+"Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the man was grateful? Do you wonder that
+he worshipped his benefactor--that he looked upon his friend as upon his
+savior?"
+
+"No," said the girl, "I do not wonder. It was a beautiful thing to do--to
+help the poor fellow who wanted to do right. I do not wonder that the man
+who had escaped, loved his friend."
+
+"But listen," said the other, "when the convict was beginning to feel
+safe; when he saw that he was out of danger; when he was living an
+honorable, happy life, instead of spending his days in the hell they call
+prison; when he was looking forward to years of happiness instead of to
+years of torment; then his benefactor came to him suddenly, one day, and
+said, 'Unless you do what I tell you, now--unless you help me to something
+that I want, I will send you back to prison. Do as I say, and your life
+shall go on as it is--as you have planned. Refuse, and I will turn you
+over to the officers, and you will go back to your hell for the remainder
+of your life.'
+
+"Do you wonder, Miss Andres, that the convict obeyed his master?"
+
+The girl's face was white with despair, but she did not lose her
+self-control. She answered the man, thoughtfully--as though they were
+discussing some situation in which neither had a vital interest. "I think,
+Mr. Marston," she said, "that it would depend upon what it was that the
+man wanted the convict to do. It seems to me that I can imagine the
+convict being happier in prison, knowing that he had not done what the man
+wanted, than he would he, free, remembering what he had done to gain his
+freedom. What was it the man wanted?"
+
+Breathlessly, Sibyl waited the answer.
+
+The man on the other side of the fire did not speak.
+
+At last, in a voice hoarse with emotion, Henry Marston said, "Freedom and
+a life of honorable usefulness purchased at a price, or hell, with only
+the memory of a good deed--which should the man choose, Miss Andres?"
+
+"I think," she replied, "that you should tell me, plainly, what it was
+that the man wanted the convict to do."
+
+"I will go on with the story," said the other.
+
+"The convict's benefactor--or, perhaps I should say, master--loved a woman
+who refused to listen to him. The girl, for some reason, left home, very
+suddenly and unexpectedly to any one. She left a hurried note, saying,
+only, that she was going away. By accident, the man found the note and saw
+his opportunity. He guessed that the girl would go to friends in the
+mountains. He saw that if he could intercept her, and keep her hidden, no
+one would know what had become of her. He believed that she would marry
+him rather than face the world after spending so many days with him alone,
+because her manner of leaving home would lend color to the story that she
+had gone with him. Their marriage would save her good name. He wanted the
+man whom he could send back to prison to help him.
+
+"The convict had known his benefactor's kindness of heart, you must
+remember, Miss Andres. He knew that this man was able to give his wife
+everything that seems desirable in life--that thousands of women would
+have been glad to marry him. The man assured the convict that he desired
+only to make the girl his wife before all the world. He agreed that she
+should remain under the convict's protection until she _was_ his wife, and
+that the convict should, himself, witness the ceremony." The man paused.
+
+When the girl did not speak, he said again, "Do you wonder, Miss Andres,
+that the convict obeyed his master?"
+
+"No," said the girl, softly, "I do not wonder. But, Mr. Marston," she
+continued, hesitatingly, "what do you think the convict in your story
+would have done if the man had not--if he had not wanted to marry the
+girl?"
+
+"I know what he would have done in that case," the other answered with
+conviction. "He would have gone back to his twenty years of hell. He would
+have gone back to fifty years of hell, if need be, rather than buy his
+freedom at such a price."
+
+The girl leaned forward, eagerly; "And suppose--suppose--that after the
+convict had done his master's bidding--suppose that after he had taken the
+girl away from her friends--suppose, then, the man would not marry her?"
+
+For a moment there was no sound in the little room, save the crackling of
+the fire in the fire-place, and the sound of a stick that had burned in
+two, falling in the ashes.
+
+"What would the convict do if the man would not marry the girl?" persisted
+Sibyl.
+
+Her companion spoke with the solemnity of a judge passing sentence; "If
+the man violated his word--if he lied to the convict--if his purpose
+toward the girl was anything less than an honorable marriage--if he
+refused to keep his promise after the convict had done his part--he would
+die, Miss Andres. The convict would kill his benefactor--as surely as
+there is a just God who, alone, can say what is right and what is wrong."
+
+The girl uttered a low cry.
+
+The man did not seem to notice. "But the man will do as he promised, Miss
+Andres. He wishes to make the girl his wife. He can give her all that
+women, these days, seem to desire in marriage. In the eyes of the world,
+she would be envied by thousands. And the convict would gain freedom and
+the right to live an honorable life--the right to earn his bread by doing
+an honest man's work. Freedom and a life of honorable service, at the
+price; or hell, with only the memory of a good deed--which should he
+choose, Miss Andres? The convict is past deciding for himself."
+
+The troubled answer came out of the honesty of the girl's heart; "Mr.
+Marston, I do not know."
+
+A moment, the man on the other side of the fireplace waited. Then, rising,
+he quietly left the cabin. The girl did not know that he was gone, until
+she heard the door close.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In that log hut, hidden in the deep gorge, in the wild Cold Water country,
+Sibyl Andres sat before the dying fire, waiting for the dawn. On a high,
+wind-swept ledge in the Galena mountains, Aaron King grimly walked his
+weary beat. In Clear Creek Canyon, Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange
+waited, and Brian Oakley planned for the morrow. Over in the Galena
+Valley, an automobile from Fairlands stopped at the mouth of a canyon
+leading toward Granite Peak. Somewhere, in the darkness of the night, a
+man strove to know right from wrong.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVII
+
+The Man Was Insane
+
+
+
+Neither Sibyl Andres nor her companion, the next morning, reopened their
+conversation of the night before. Each was preoccupied and silent, with
+troubled thoughts that might not be spoken.
+
+Often, as the forenoon passed, Sibyl saw the man listening, as though for
+a step on the mountainside above. She knew, without being told, that the
+convict was expecting his master. It was, perhaps, ten o'clock, when they
+heard a sound that told them some one was approaching.
+
+The man caught up his rifle and slipped a round of cartridges into the
+magazine; saying to the girl, "Go into the cabin and bar the door; quick,
+do as I say! Don't come out until I call you."
+
+She obeyed; and the convict, himself, rifle in hand, disappeared in the
+heavy underbrush.
+
+A few minutes later, James Rutlidge parted the bushes and stepped into the
+little open space in front of the cabin. The convict reappeared, his rifle
+under his arm.
+
+The new-comer greeted the man whom Sibyl knew as Henry Marston, with,
+"Hello, George, everything all right? Where is she?"
+
+"Miss Andres is in the cabin. When I heard you coming, I asked her to go
+inside, and took cover in the brush, myself, until I knew for sure that it
+was you."
+
+Rutlidge laughed. "You are all right, George. But you needn't worry.
+Everything is as peaceful as a graveyard. They've found the horse, and
+they think now that the girl killed herself, or met with an accident while
+wandering around the hills in a state of mental aberration."
+
+"You left the supplies at the same old place, I suppose?" said the
+convict.
+
+"Yes, I brought what I could," Rutlidge indicated a pack which he had
+slipped from his shoulder as he was talking. "You better hike over there
+and bring in the rest to-night. If you leave at once, you will make it
+back by noon, to-morrow."
+
+The girl in the cabin, listening, heard every word and trembled with fear.
+The convict spoke again.
+
+"What are your plans, Mr. Rutlidge?"
+
+"Never mind my plans, now. They can wait until you get back. You must
+start at once. You say Miss Andres is in the cabin?" He turned toward the
+door.
+
+But the other said, shortly, "Wait a minute, sir. I have a word to say,
+before I go."
+
+"Well, out with it."
+
+"You are not going to forget your promise to me?"
+
+"Certainly not, George. You are safe."
+
+"I mean regarding Miss Andres."
+
+"Oh, of course not! Why, what's the matter?"
+
+"Nothing, only she is in my care until she is your wife."
+
+James Rutlidge laughed. "I will take good care of her until you get back.
+You need have no fear. You're not doubting my word, are you?"
+
+"If I doubted your word, I would take Miss Andres with me," answered the
+convict, simply.
+
+James Rutlidge looked at him, curiously; "Oh, you would?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I would; and I think I should tell you, too, that if you
+_should_ forget your promise--"
+
+"Well, what would you do if I should forget?"
+
+The answer came deliberately; "If you do not keep your promise I will kill
+you, Mr. Rutlidge."
+
+James Rutlidge did not reply.
+
+Stepping to the cabin door, the convict knocked.
+
+Sibyl's voice answered, "Yes?"
+
+"You may come out now, please, Miss Andres."
+
+As the girl opened the door, she spoke to him in a low tone. "Thank you,
+Mr. Marston. I heard."
+
+"I meant you to hear," he returned in a whisper. "Do not be afraid." In a
+louder tone he continued. "I must go for supplies, Miss Andres. I will be
+back to-morrow noon."
+
+He stepped around the corner of the cabin, and was gone.
+
+Sibyl Andres faced James Rutlidge, without speaking. She was not afraid,
+now, as she had always been in his presence, until that day when he had so
+plainly declared himself to her and she met his advances with a gun. The
+convict's warning to the man who could send him back to prison for
+practically the remaining years of his life, had served its purpose in
+giving her courage. She did not believe that, for the present, Rutlidge
+would dare to do otherwise than heed the warning.
+
+[Illustration: Still she did not speak.]
+
+James Rutlidge regarded her with a smile of triumphant satisfaction.
+"Really," he said, at last, "you do not seem at all glad to see me."
+
+She made no reply.
+
+"I am frightfully hungry"--he continued, with a short laugh, moving toward
+her as she stood in the door of the cabin--"I've been walking since
+midnight I was in such a hurry to get here that I didn't even stop for
+breakfast."
+
+She stepped out, and moved away from the door.
+
+With another laugh, he entered the cabin.
+
+Presently, when he had helped himself to food, he went back to the girl
+who had seated herself on a log, at the farther side of the little
+clearing. "You seem fairly comfortable here," he said.
+
+She did not speak.
+
+"You and my man get along nicely, I take it. He has been kind to you?"
+
+Still she did not speak.
+
+He spoke sharply, "Look here, my girl, you can't keep this up, you know.
+Say what you have to say, and let's get it over."
+
+All the time, she had been regarding him intently--her wide, blue eyes
+filled with wondering pain. "How could you?" she said at last. "Oh, how
+could you do such a thing?"
+
+His face flushed. "I did it because you have driven me mad, I guess. From
+the first time I saw you, I have wanted you. I have tried again and
+again, in the last three years, to approach you; but you would have
+nothing to do with me. The more you spurned me, the more I wanted you.
+Then this man, King, came. You were friendly enough, with him. It made me
+wild. From that day when I met you in the mountains above Lone Cabin, I
+have been ready for anything. I determined if I could not win you by fair
+means, I would take you in any way I could. When my opportunity came, I
+took advantage of it. I've got you. The story is already started that you
+were the painter's mistress, and that you have committed suicide. You
+shall stay here, a while, until the belief that you are dead has become a
+certainty; then you will go East with me."
+
+"But you cannot do a thing so horrible!" she exclaimed "I would tell my
+story to the first people we met."
+
+He laughed grimly, as he retorted with brutal meaning, "You do not seem to
+understand. You will be glad enough to keep the story a secret--when the
+time comes to go."
+
+Bewildered by fear and shame, the girl could only stammer, "How could
+you--oh how could you! Why, why--"
+
+"Why!" he echoed. Then, as he went a step toward her, he exclaimed, with
+reckless profanity, "Ask the God who made me what I am, why I want you!
+Ask the God who made you so beautiful, why!"
+
+He moved another step toward her, his face flushed with the insane passion
+that mastered him, his eyes burning with the reckless light of one past
+counting the cost; and the girl, seeing, sprang to her feet, in terror.
+Wheeling suddenly, she ran into the cabin, thinking to shut and bar the
+door. She reached the door, and swung it shut, but the bar was gone. While
+he was in the cabin he had placed it out of her reach. Putting his
+shoulder to the door, the man easily forced it open against her lighter
+weight. As he crossed the threshold, she sprang to the farthest corner of
+the little room, and cowered, trembling--too shaken with horror to cry
+out. A moment he paused; then started toward her.
+
+At that instant, the convict burst through the underbrush into the little
+opening.
+
+Hearing the sound, Rutlidge wheeled and sprang to the open door.
+
+The convict was breathing heavily from the exertion of a hard run.
+
+"What are you doing here?" demanded Rutlidge, sharply. "What's the
+matter?"
+
+"Some one is following my trail down from Granite Peak."
+
+"Well, what are you carrying that rifle for?" said Rutlidge, harshly, with
+an oath.
+
+"There may be others near enough to hear a shot," answered the convict.
+"Besides, Mr. Rutlidge, this is your part of the game--not mine. I did not
+agree to commit murder for you."
+
+"Where did you see him?"
+
+"A half mile beyond the head of the gulch, where we turn off to go to the
+supply point."
+
+Rutlidge, rifle in hand, stepped from the house. "You stay here and take
+care of the girl--and see that she doesn't scream." With the last word he
+set out at a run.
+
+The convict sprang into the cabin, where Sibyl still crouched in the
+corner. The man's voice was imploring as he said, "Miss Andres, Miss
+Andres, what is the matter? Did he touch you? Tell me, did he harm you?"
+
+Sobbing, the girl held out her hands, and he lifted her to her feet.
+"You--you came--just in time, Mr. Marston."
+
+An instant he stood there, then muttering something under his breath, he
+turned, caught up his rifle, and started toward the door.
+
+But, as he reached the threshold, she cried out, "Mr. Marston, don't,
+don't leave me again."
+
+The convict stopped, hesitated, then he said solemnly "Miss Andres, can
+you pray? I know you can. You are a good girl. If God can hear a prayer he
+will surely hear you. Come with me. Come--and pray girl--pray for me."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most charitable construction that can be put upon the action of James
+Rutlidge, just related, is to accept the explanation of his conduct that
+he, himself made to Sibyl. The man was insane--as Mr. Taine was insane--as
+Mrs. Taine was insane.
+
+What else can be said of a class of people who, in an age wedded to
+materialism, demand of their artists not that they shall set before them
+ideals of truth and purity and beauty, but that they shall feed their
+diseased minds with thoughts of lust and stimulate their abnormal passions
+with lascivious imaginings? Can a class--whatever its pretense to culture
+may be--can a class, that, in story and picture and music and play, counts
+greatest in art those who most effectively arouse the basest passions of
+which the human being is capable, be rightly judged sane?
+
+James Rutlidge was bred, born, and reared in an atmosphere that does not
+tolerate purity of thought. It was literally impossible for him to think
+sanely of the holiest, most sacred, most fundamental facts of life.
+Education, culture, art, literature,--all that is commonly supposed to
+lift man above the level of the beasts,--are used by men and women of his
+kind to so pervert their own natures that they are able to descend to
+bestial depths that the dumb animals themselves are not capable of
+reaching. In what he called his love for Sibyl Andres, James Rutlidge was
+insane--but no more so than thousands of others. The methods of securing
+the objects of their desires vary--the motive that prompts is the
+same--the end sought is identical.
+
+As he hurriedly climbed the mountainside, out of the deep gorge that hid
+the cabin, the man's mind was in a whirl of emotions--rage at being
+interrupted at the moment of his triumph; dread lest the approaching one
+should be accompanied by others, and the girl be taken from him; fear that
+the convict would prove troublesome, even should the more immediate danger
+be averted; anger at himself for being so blindly precipitous; and a
+maddening indecision as to how he should check the man who was following
+the tracks that led from Granite Peak to the evident object of his
+search. The words of the convict rang in his ears. "This is your job. I
+did not agree to commit murder for you."
+
+Murder had no place in the insanity of James Rutlidge To destroy
+innocence, to kill virtue, to murder a soul--these are commonplaces in the
+insane philosophy of his kind. But to kill--to take a life
+deliberately--the thought was abhorrent to him. He was not educated to the
+thought of _taking_ life--he was trained to consider its _perversion_. The
+heroes in _his_ fiction did not _kill_ men--they _betrayed_ women. The
+heroines in his stories did not desire the death of their betrayers--they
+loved them, and deserted their husbands for them.
+
+But to stand idly aside and permit Sibyl Andres to be taken from him--to
+face the exposure that would inevitably follow--was impossible. If the man
+who had struck the trail was alone, there might still be a chance--if he
+could be stopped. But how could he check him? What could he do? A
+rifle-shot might bring a dozen searchers.
+
+While these thoughts were seething in his hot brain, he was climbing
+rapidly toward the cliff at the head of the gorge, across which, he knew,
+the man who was following the tracks that led to the cabin below, must
+come.
+
+Gaining the end of the ledge that leads across the face of that mighty
+wall of rock, less than a hundred feet to the other side, he stopped.
+There was no one in sight. Looking down, he saw, a thousand feet below the
+tops of the trees in the bottom of the gorge. Lifting his head, he looked
+carefully about, searching the mountainsides that slope steeply back from
+the rim of the narrow canyon. He looked up at the frowning cliff that
+towered a thousand feet above his head. He listened. He was thinking,
+thinking. The best of him and the worst of him struggled for supremacy.
+
+A sound on the mountainside, above the gorge, and beyond the other end of
+the ledge, caught his ear. With a quick step he moved behind a projecting
+corner of the cliff. Rifle in hand, he waited.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXVIII
+
+An Inevitable Conflict
+
+
+
+When Aaron King set out to follow the tracks he had found at Granite Peak,
+after his long, hard trip along the rugged crest of the Galenas, his
+weariness was forgotten. Eagerly, as if fresh and strong, but with careful
+eyes and every sense keenly alert, he went forward on the trail that he
+knew must lead him to Sibyl Andres.
+
+He did not attempt to solve the problem of how the girl came there, nor
+did he pause to wonder about her companion. He did not even ask himself if
+Sibyl were living or dead. He thought of nothing; knew nothing; was
+conscious of nothing; but the trail that led away into the depths of the
+mountain wilderness. Insensible to his own physical condition; without
+food; unacquainted with the wild country into which he was going; reckless
+of danger to himself but with all possible care and caution for the sake
+of the girl he loved, he went on.
+
+Coming to the brink of the gorge in which the cabin was hidden, the trail,
+following the rim, soon led him to the ledge that lay across the face of
+the cliff at the head of the narrow canyon. A moment, he paused, to search
+the vicinity with careful eyes, then started to cross. As he set foot upon
+the ledge, a voice at the other end called sharply, "Stop."
+
+At the word, Aaron King halted.
+
+A moment passed. James Rutlidge stepped from behind the rocks at the other
+end of the ledge. He was covering the artist with a rifle.
+
+In a flash, the man on the trail understood. The automobile, the mirror
+signals from Fairlands--it was all explained by the presence and by the
+menacing attitude of the man who barred his way. The artist's hand moved
+toward the weapon that hung at his hip.
+
+"Don't do that," said the man with the rifle. "I can't murder you in cold
+blood; but if you attempt to draw your gun, I'll fire."
+
+The other stood still.
+
+James Rutlidge spoke again, his voice hoarse with emotion; "Listen to me,
+King. It's useless for me to deny what brought me here. The trail you are
+following leads to Sibyl Andres. You had her all summer. I've got her now.
+If you hadn't stumbled onto the trail up there, I would have taken her out
+of the country, and you would never have seen her again. I might have
+killed you before you saw me, but I couldn't. I'm not that kind. Under the
+circumstances there is no possible compromise. I'll give you a fighting
+chance for your life and the girl. I'll take a fighting chance for my life
+and the girl. Throw your gun out of reach and I'll leave mine here. We'll
+meet on the ledge there."
+
+James Rutlidge was no coward. Mr. Taine, also,--it will be remembered,--on
+the night of his death, boasted that he was game.
+
+Without an instant's hesitation, Aaron King unbuckled the belt that held
+his weapon and, turning, tossed it behind him, with the gun still in its
+holster. At the other end of the ledge, James Rutlidge set his rifle
+behind the rock.
+
+Deliberately, the two men removed their coats and threw aside their hats.
+For a moment they stood eyeing each other. Into Aaron King's mind flashed
+the memory of that scene at the Fairlands depot, when, moved by the
+distress of the woman with the disfigured face, he had first spoken to the
+man who faced him now. With startling vividness, the incidents of their
+acquaintance came to him in flash-like succession--the day that Rutlidge
+had met Sibyl in the studio; the time of his visit to the camp in the
+sycamore grove; the night of the Taine banquet--a hundred things that had
+strengthened the feeling of antagonism which had marked their first
+meeting. And, through it all, he seemed to hear Conrad Lagrange saying
+that in his story of life this character's name was "Sensual." The artist,
+in that instant, knew that this meeting was inevitable.
+
+It was only for a moment that the two men--who in their lives and
+characters represented forces so antagonistic--stood regarding each other,
+each knowing that the duel would be--must be--to the death. Deliberately,
+they started toward the center of the ledge. Over their heads towered the
+great cliff. A thousand feet below were the tops of the trees in the
+bottom of the gorge. About them, on every hand, the silent, mighty hills
+watched--the wild and lonely wilderness waited.
+
+As they drew closer together, they moved, as wrestlers,
+warily--crouching, silent, alert. Stripped to their shirts and trousers,
+they were both splendid physical types. James Rutlidge was the heavier,
+but Aaron King made up for his lack in weight by a more clean-cut,
+muscular firmness.
+
+They grappled. As two primitive men in a savage age might have met, bare
+handed, they came together. Locked in each other's arms, their limbs
+entwined, with set faces, tugging muscles, straining sinews, and taut
+nerves they struggled. One moment they crushed against the rocky wall of
+the cliff--the next, and they swayed toward the edge of the ledge and hung
+over the dizzy precipice. With pounding hearts, laboring breath, and
+clenched teeth they wrestled.
+
+James Rutlidge's foot slipped on the rocky floor; but, with a desperate
+effort, he regained his momentary loss. Aaron King--worn by his days of
+anxiety, by his sleepless nights and by the long hours of toil over the
+mountains, without sufficient food or rest--felt his strength going.
+Slowly, the weight and endurance of the heavier man told against him.
+James Rutlidge felt it, and his eyes were beginning to blaze with savage
+triumph.
+
+They were breathing, now, with hoarse, sobbing gasps, that told of the
+nearness of the finish. Slowly, Aaron King weakened. Rutlidge, spurred to
+increase his effort, and exerting every ounce of his strength, was bearing
+the other downward and back.
+
+At that instant, the convict and Sibyl Andres reached the cliff. With a
+cry of horror, the girl stood as though turned to stone.
+
+Motionless, without a word, the convict watched the struggling men.
+
+With a sob, the girl stretched forth her hands. In a low voice she called,
+"Aaron! Aaron! Aaron!"
+
+The two men on the ledge heard nothing--saw nothing.
+
+Sibyl spoke again, almost in a whisper, but her companion heard. "Mr.
+Marston, Mr. Marston, it is Aaron King. I--I love him--I--love him."
+
+Without taking his eyes from the struggling men, the convict answered,
+"Pray, girl; pray, pray for me." As he spoke, he steadily raised his rifle
+to his shoulder.
+
+Aaron King went down upon one knee. Rutlidge his legs braced, his body
+inclined toward the edge of the precipice, was gathering his strength for
+the last triumphant effort.
+
+The convict, looking along his steady rifle barrel, was saying again,
+"Pray, pray for me, girl." As the words left his lips, his finger pressed
+the trigger, and the quiet of the hills was broken by the sharp crack of
+the rifle.
+
+James Rutlidge's hold upon the artist slipped. For a fraction of a second,
+his form half straightened and he stood nearly erect; then, as a weed cut
+by the sharp scythe of a mower falls, he fell; his body whirling downward
+toward the trees and rocks below. The sound of the crashing branches
+mingled with the reverberating report of the shot. On the ledge, Aaron
+King lay still.
+
+The convict dropped his rifle and ran forward. Lifting the unconscious man
+in his arms, he carried him a little way down the mountain, toward the
+cabin; where he laid him gently on the ground. To Sibyl, who hung over the
+artist in an agony of loving fear, he said hurriedly, "He'll be all right,
+presently, Miss Andres. I'll fetch his coat and hat."
+
+Running back to the ledge, he caught up the dead man's rifle, coat, and
+hat, and threw them over the precipice, as he swiftly crossed for the
+artist's things. Recovering his own rifle, he ran back to the girl.
+
+"Listen, Miss Andres," said the convict, speaking quickly. "Mr. King will
+be all right in a few minutes. That rifle-shot will likely bring his
+friends; if not, you are safe, now, anyway. I dare not take chances.
+Good-by."
+
+From where she sat with the unconscious man's head in her lap, she looked
+at him, wonderingly. "Good-by?" she repeated questioningly.
+
+Henry Marston smiled grimly. "Certainly, good-by What else is there for
+me?"
+
+A moment later, she saw him running swiftly down the mountainside, like
+some hunted creature of the wilderness.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XXXIX
+
+The Better Way
+
+
+
+Alone on the mountainside with the man who had awakened the pure passion
+of her woman heart, Sibyl Andres bent over the unconscious object of her
+love. She saw his face, unshaven, grimy with the dirt of the trail and the
+sweat of the fight, drawn and thin with the mental torture that had driven
+him beyond the limit of his physical strength; she saw how his clothing
+was stained and torn by contact with sharp rocks and thorns and bushes;
+she saw his hands--the hands that she had watched at their work upon her
+portrait as she stood among the roses--cut and bruised, caked with blood
+and dirt--and, seeing these things, she understood.
+
+In that brief moment when she had watched Aaron King in the struggle upon
+the ledge,--and, knowing that he was fighting for her, had realized her
+love for him,--all that Mrs. Taine had said to her in the studio was swept
+away. The cruel falsehoods, the heartless misrepresentations, the vile
+accusations that had caused her to seek the refuge of the mountains and
+the protection of her childhood friends were, in the blaze of her awakened
+passion, burned to ashes; her cry to the convict--"I love him, I love
+him"--was more than an expression of her love; it was a triumphant
+assertion of her belief in his love for her--it was her answer to the evil
+seeing world that could not comprehend their fellowship.
+
+As the life within the man forced him slowly toward consciousness, the
+girl, natural as always in the full expression of herself, bent over him
+with tender solicitude. With endearing words, she kissed his brow, his
+hair, his hands. She called his name in tones of affection. "Aaron, Aaron,
+Aaron." But when she saw that he was about to awake, she deftly slipped
+off her jacket and, placing it under his head, drew a little back.
+
+He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly up at the dark pines that
+clothed the mountainsides. His lips moved and she heard her name; "Sibyl,
+Sibyl."
+
+She leaned forward, eagerly, her cheeks glowing with color. "Yes, Mr.
+King."
+
+"Am I dreaming, again?" he said slowly, gazing at her as though struggling
+to command his senses.
+
+"No, Mr. King," she answered cheerily, "you are not dreaming."
+
+Carefully, as one striving to follow a thread of thought in a bewildering
+tangle of events, he went over the hours just past. "I was up on that peak
+where you and I ate lunch the day you tried to make me see the Golden
+State Limited coming down from the pass. Brian Oakley sent me there to
+watch for buzzards." For a moment he turned away his face, then continued,
+"I saw flashes of light in Fairlands and on Granite Peak. I left a note
+for Brian and came over the range. I spent one night on the way. I found
+tracks on the peak. There were two, a man and a woman. I followed them to
+a ledge of rock at the head of a canyon," he paused. Thus far the thread
+of his thought was clear. "Did some one stop me? Was there--was there a
+fight? Or is that part of my dream?"
+
+"No," she said softly, "that is not part of your dream."
+
+"And it was James Rutlidge who stopped me, as I was going to you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then where--" with quick energy he sat up and grasped her arm--"My God!
+Sibyl--Miss Andres, did I, did I--" He could not finish the sentence, but
+sank back, overcome with emotion.
+
+The girl spoke quickly, with a clear, insistent voice that rallied his
+mind and forced him to command himself.
+
+"Think, Mr. King, think! Do you remember nothing more? You were
+struggling--your strength was going--can't you remember? You must, you
+must!"
+
+Lifting his face he looked at her. "Was there a rifle-shot?" he asked
+slowly. "It seems to me that something in my brain snapped, and everything
+went black. Was there a rifle-shot?"
+
+"Yes," she answered.
+
+"And I did not--I did not--?"
+
+"No. You did not kill James Rutlidge. He would have killed you, but for
+the shot that you heard."
+
+"And Rutlidge is--?"
+
+"He is dead," she answered simply.
+
+"But who--?"
+
+Briefly, she told him the story, from the time that she had met Mrs.
+Taine in the studio until the convict had left her, a few minutes before.
+"And now," she finished, rising quickly, "we must go down to the cabin.
+There is food there. You must be nearly starved. I will cook supper for
+you, and when you have had a night's sleep, we will start home."
+
+"But first," he said, as he rose to his feet and stood before her, "I must
+tell you something. I should have told you before, but I was waiting until
+I thought you were ready to hear. I wonder if you know. I wonder if you
+are ready to hear, now."
+
+She looked him frankly in the eyes as she answered, "Yes, I know what you
+want to tell me. But don't, don't tell me here." She shuddered, and the
+man remembering the dead body that lay at the foot of the cliff,
+understood. "Wait," she said, "until we are home."
+
+"And you will come to me when you are ready? When you want me to tell
+you?" he said.
+
+"Yes," she answered softly, "I will go to you when I am ready."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At the cabin in the gulch, the girl hastened to prepare a substantial
+meal. There was no one, now, to fear that the smoke would be seen. Later,
+with cedar boughs and blankets, she made a bed for him on the floor near
+the fire-place. When he would have helped her she forbade him; saying that
+he was her guest and that he must rest to be ready for the homeward trip.
+
+Softly, the day slipped away over the mountain peaks and ridges that shut
+them in. Softly, the darkness of the night settled down. In the rude
+little hut, in the lonely gulch, the man and the woman whose lives were
+flowing together as two converging streams, sat by the fire, where, the
+night before, the convict had told that girl his story.
+
+Very early, Sibyl insisted that her companion lie down to sleep upon the
+bed she had made. When he protested, she answered, laughing, "Very well,
+then, but you will be obliged to sit up alone," and, with a "Good night,"
+she retired to her own bed in another corner of the cabin. Once or twice,
+he spoke to her, but when she did not answer he lay down upon his woodland
+couch and in a few minutes was fast asleep.
+
+In the dim light of the embers, the girl slipped from her bed and stole
+quietly across the room to the fire-place, to lay another stick of wood
+upon the glowing coals. A moment she stood, in the ruddy light, looking
+toward the sleeping man. Then, without a sound, she stole to his side, and
+kneeling, softly touched his forehead with her lips. As silently, she
+crept back to her couch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+All that afternoon Brian Oakley had been following with trained eyes, the
+faintly marked trail of the man whose dead body was lying, now, at the
+foot of the cliff. When the darkness came, the mountaineer ate a cold
+supper and, under a rude shelter quickly improvised by his skill in
+woodcraft, slept beside the trail. Near the head of Clear Creek, Jack
+Carleton, on his way to Granite Peak, rolled in his blanket under the
+pines. Somewhere in the night, the man who had saved Sibyl Andres and
+Aaron King, each for the other, fled like a fearful, hunted thing.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At daybreak, Sibyl was up, preparing their breakfast But so quietly did
+she move about her homely task that the artist did not awake. When the
+meal was ready, she called him, and he sprang to his feet, declaring that
+he felt himself a new man. Breakfast over, they set out at once.
+
+When they came to the cliff at the head of the gulch, the girl halted and,
+shrinking back, covered her face with trembling hands; afraid, for the
+first time in her life, to set foot upon a mountain trail. Gently, her
+companion led her across the ledge, and a little way back from the rim of
+the gorge on the other side.
+
+Five minutes later they heard a shout and saw Brian Oakley coming toward
+them. Laughing and crying, Sibyl ran to meet him; and the mountaineer, who
+had so many times looked death in the face, unafraid and unmoved, wept
+like a child as he held the girl in his arms.
+
+When Sibyl and Aaron had related briefly the events that led up to their
+meeting with the Ranger, and he in turn had told them how he had followed
+the track of the automobile and, finding the hidden supplies, had followed
+the trail of James Rutlidge from that point, the officer asked the girl
+several questions. Then, for a little while he was silent, while they,
+guessing his thoughts, did not interrupt. Finally, he said, "Jack is due
+at Granite Peak, sometime about noon. He'll have his horse, and with Sibyl
+riding, we'll make it back down to the head of Clear Creek by dark. You
+young folks just wait for me here a little. I want to look around below
+there, a bit."
+
+As he started toward the gulch, Sibyl sprang to her feet and threw herself
+into his arms. "No, no, Brian Oakley, you shall not--you shall not do it!"
+
+Holding her close, the Ranger looked down into her pleading eyes,
+smilingly. "And what do you think I am going to do, girlie?"
+
+"You are going down there to pick up the trail of the man who saved
+Aaron--who saved me. But you shall not do it. I don't care if you are an
+officer, and he is an escaped convict! I will not let you do anything that
+might lead to his capture."
+
+"God bless you, child," answered Brian Oakley, "the only escaped convict I
+know anything about, this last year, according to my belief, died
+somewhere in the mountains. If you don't believe it, look up my official
+reports on the matter."
+
+"And you're not going to find which way he went?"
+
+"Listen, Sibyl," said the Ranger gravely. "The disappearance of James
+Rutlidge, prominent as he was, will be heralded from one end of the world
+to the other. The newspapers will make the most of it. The search is sure
+to be carried into these hills, for that automobile trip in the night will
+not go unquestioned, and Sheriff Walters knows too much of my suspicions.
+In a few days, the body will be safely past recognition, even should it be
+discovered through the buzzards. But I can't take chances of anything
+durable being found to identify the man who fell over the cliff."
+
+When he returned to them, two hours later, he said, quietly, "It's a
+mighty good thing I went down. It wasn't a nice job, but I feel better. We
+can forget it, now, with perfect safety. Remember"--he charged them
+impressively--"even to Myra Willard and Conrad Lagrange, the story must be
+only that an unknown man took you, Sibyl, from your horse. The man
+escaped, when Aaron found you. We'll let the Sheriff, or whoever can,
+solve the mystery of that automobile and Jim Rutlidge's disappearance."
+
+A half mile from Granite Peak, they met Jack Carleton and, by dark, as
+Brian Oakley had said, were safely down to the head of Clear Creek; having
+come by routes, known to the Ranger, that were easier and shorter than the
+roundabout way followed by the convict and the girl.
+
+It was just past midnight when the three friends parted from young
+Carleton and crossed the canyon to Sibyl's old home.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XL
+
+Facing the Truth
+
+
+
+As Brian Oakley had predicted, the disappearance of James Rutlidge
+occupied columns in the newspapers, from coast to coast. In every article
+he was headlined as "A Distinguished Citizen;" "A Famous Critic;" "A
+Prominent Figure in the World of Art;" "One of the Greatest Living
+Authorities;" "Leader in the Modern School;" "Of Powerful Influence Upon
+the Artistic Production of the Age." The story of the unknown mountain
+girl's abduction and escape was a news item of a single day; but the
+disappearance of James Rutlidge kept the press busy for weeks. It may be
+dismissed here with the simple statement that the mystery has never been
+solved.
+
+Of the unknown man who had taken Sibyl away into the mountains, and who
+had escaped, the world has never heard. Of the convict who died but did
+not die in the hills, the world knows nothing. That is, the world knows
+nothing of the man in this connection. But Aaron and Sibyl, some years
+later, knew what became of Henry Marston--which does not, at all, belong
+to this story.
+
+Upon his return with Conrad Lagrange to their home in the orange groves,
+Aaron King plunged into his work with a purpose very different from the
+motive that had prompted him when first he took up his brushes in the
+studio that looked out upon the mountains and the rose garden.
+
+Day after day, as he gave himself to his great picture,--"The Feast of
+Materialism,"--he knew the joy of the worker who, in his art, surrenders
+himself to a noble purpose--a joy that is very different from the light,
+passing pleasure that comes from the mere exercise of technical skill. The
+artist did not, now, need to drive himself to his task, as the begging
+musician on the street corner forces himself to play to the passing crowd,
+for the pennies that are dropped in his tin cup. Rather was he driven by
+the conviction of a great truth, and by the realization of its woeful need
+in the world, to such adequate expression as his mastery of the tools of
+his craft would permit He was not, now, the slave of his technical
+knowledge; striving to produce a something that should be merely
+technically good. He was a master, compelling the medium of his art to
+serve him; as he, in turn, was compelled to serve the truth that had
+mastered him.
+
+Sometimes, with Conrad Lagrange, he went for an evening hour to the little
+house next door. Sometimes Sibyl and Myra Willard would drop in at the
+studio, in the afternoon. The girl never, now, came alone. But every day,
+as the artist worked, the music of her violin came to him, out of the
+orange grove, with its message from the hills. And the painter at his
+easel, reading aright the message, worked and waited; knowing surely that
+when she was ready she would come.
+
+Letters from Mrs. Taine were frequent. Aaron King, reading them--nearly
+always under the quizzing eyes of Conrad Lagrange, whose custom it was to
+bring the daily mail--carefully tore them into little pieces and dropped
+them into the waste basket, without comment.
+
+Once, the novelist asked with mock gravity, "Have you no thought for the
+day of judgment, young man? Do you not know that your sins will surely
+find you out?"
+
+The artist laughed. "It is so written in the law, I believe."
+
+The other continued solemnly, "Your recklessness is only hastening the
+end. If you don't answer those letters you will be forced, shortly, to
+meet the consequences face to face."
+
+"I suppose so," returned the painter, indifferently. "But I have my answer
+ready, you know."
+
+"You mean that portrait?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+The novelist laughed grimly. "I think it will do the trick. But, believe
+me, there will be consequences!"
+
+The artist was in his studio, at work upon the big picture, when Mrs.
+Taine called, the day of her return to Fairlands.
+
+It was well on in the afternoon. Conrad Lagrange and Czar had started for
+a walk, but had gone, as usual, only as far as the neighboring house. Yee
+Kee, meeting Mrs. Taine at the door, explained, doubtfully, that the
+artist was at his work. He would go tell Mr. King that Mrs. Taine was
+here.
+
+"Never mind, Kee. I will tell him myself," she answered; and, before the
+Chinaman could protest, she was on her way to the studio.
+
+"Damn!" said the Celestial eloquently; and retired to his kitchen to
+ruminate upon the ways of "Mellican women."
+
+Mrs. Taine pushed open the door of the studio, so quietly, that the
+painter, standing at his easel and engrossed with his work, did not notice
+her presence. For several moments the woman stood watching him, paying no
+heed to the picture, seeing only the man. When he did not look around, she
+said, "Are you too busy to even _look_ at me?"
+
+With an exclamation, he faced her; then, as quickly, turned again; with
+hand outstretched to draw the easel curtain. But, as though obeying a
+second thought that came quickly upon the heels of the first impulse, he
+did not complete the movement. Instead, he laid his palette and brushes
+beside his color-box, and greeted her with, "How do you do, Mrs. Taine?
+When did you return to Fairlands? Is Miss Taine with you?"
+
+"Louise is abroad," she answered. "I--I preferred California. I arrived
+this afternoon." She went a step toward him. "You--you don't seem very
+glad to see me."
+
+The painter colored, but she continued impulsively, without waiting for
+his reply. "If you only knew all that I have been doing for you!--the
+wires I have pulled; the influences I have interested; the critics and
+newspaper men that I have talked to! Of course I couldn't do anything in a
+large public way, so soon after Mr. Taine's death, you know; but I have
+been busy, just the same, and everything is fixed. When our picture is
+exhibited next season, you will find yourself not only a famous painter,
+but a social success as well." She paused. When he still did not speak,
+she went on, with an air of troubled sadness; "I _do_ miss Jim's help
+though. Isn't it frightful the way he disappeared? Where do you suppose he
+is? I can't--I won't--believe that anything has happened to him. It's all
+just one of his schemes to get himself talked about. You'll see that he
+will appear again, safe and sound, when the papers stop filling their
+columns about him. I know Jim Rutlidge, too well."
+
+Aaron King thought of those bones, picked bare by the carrion birds, at
+the foot of the cliff. "It seems to be one of the mysteries of the day,"
+he said. "Commonplace enough, no doubt, if one only had the key to it."
+
+Mrs. Taine had evidently not been in Fairlands long enough to hear the
+story of Sibyl's disappearance--for which the artist mentally gave thanks.
+
+"I am glad for one thing," continued the woman, her mind intent upon the
+main purpose of her call. "Jim had already written a splendid criticism of
+your picture--before he went away--and I have it. All this newspaper talk
+about him will only help to attract attention to what he has said about
+_you._ They are saying such nice things of him and his devotion to art,
+you know--it is all bound to help you." She waited for his approval, and
+for some expression of his gratitude.
+
+"I fear, Mrs. Taine," he said slowly, "that you are making a mistake."
+
+She laughed nervously, and answered with forced gaiety. "Not me. I'm too
+old a hand at the game not to know just how far I dare or dare not go."
+
+"I do not mean that"--he returned--"I mean that I can not do my part. I
+fear you are mistaken in me."
+
+Again, she laughed. "What nonsense! I like for you to be modest, of
+course--that will be one of your greatest charms. But if you are worried
+about the quality of your work--forget it, my dear boy. Once I have made
+you the rage, no one will stop to think whether your pictures are good or
+bad. The art is not in what you do, but in how you get it before the
+world. Ask Conrad Lagrange if I am not right."
+
+"As to that," returned the artist, "Mr. Lagrange agrees with you,
+perfectly."
+
+"But what is this that you are doing now? Will it be ready for the
+exhibition too?" She looked past him, at the big canvas; and he, watching
+her curiously stepped aside.
+
+Parts of the picture were little more than sketched in, but still, line
+and color spoke with accusing truth the spirit of the company that had
+gathered at the banquet in the home on Fairlands Heights, the night of Mr.
+Taine's death. The figures were not portraits, it is true, but they
+expressed with striking fidelity, the lives and characters of those who
+had, that night, been assembled by Mrs. Taine to meet the artist. The
+figure in the picture, standing with uplifted glass and drunken pose at
+the head of the table--with bestial, lust-worn face, disease-shrunken
+limbs, and dying, licentious eyes fixed upon the beautiful girl
+musician--might easily have been Mr. Taine himself. The distinguished
+writers, and critics; the representatives of the social world and of
+wealth; Conrad Lagrange with cold, cynical, mocking, smile; Mrs. Taine
+with her pretense of modest dress that only emphasized her immodesty; and,
+in the midst of the unclean minded crew, the lovely innocence and the
+unconscious purity of the mountain girl with her violin, offering to them
+that which they were incapable of receiving--it was all there upon the
+canvas, as the artist had seen it that night. The picture cried aloud the
+intellectual degradation and the spiritual depravity of that class who,
+arrogating to themselves the authority of leaders in culture and art, by
+their approval and patronage of dangerous falsehood and sham in picture or
+story, make possible such characters as James Rutlidge.
+
+Aaron King, watching Mrs. Taine as she looked at the picture on the easel,
+saw a look of doubt and uncertainty come over her face. Once, she turned
+toward him, as if to speak; but, without a word, looked again at the
+canvas. She seemed perplexed and puzzled, as though she caught glimpses of
+something in the picture that she did not rightly understand Then, as she
+looked, her eyes kindled with contemptuous scorn, and there was a
+pronounced sneer in her cold tones as she said, "Really, I don't believe I
+care for you to do this sort of thing." She laughed shortly. "It reminds
+one a little of that dinner at our house. Don't you think? It's the girl
+with the violin, I suppose."
+
+"There are no portraits in it, Mrs. Taine," said the artist, quietly.
+
+"No? Well, I think you'd better stick to your portraits. This is a great
+picture though," she admitted thoughtfully. "It, it grips you so. I can't
+seem to get away from it. I can see that it will create a sensation. But
+just the same, I don't like it. It's not nice, like your portrait of me.
+By the way"--and she turned eagerly from the big canvas as though glad to
+escape a distasteful subject--"do you remember that I have never seen my
+picture yet? Where do you keep it?"
+
+The painter indicated another easel, near the one upon which he was at
+work, "It is there, Mrs. Taine."
+
+"Oh," she said with a pleased smile. "You keep it on the easel, still!"
+Playfully, she added, "Do you look at it often?--that you have it so
+handy?"
+
+"Yes," said the artist, "I must admit that I have looked at it
+frequently." He did not explain why he looked at her portrait while he was
+working upon the larger picture.
+
+"How nice of you," she answered "Please let me see it now. I remember when
+you wanted to repaint it, you said you would put on the canvas just what
+you thought of me; have you? I wonder!"
+
+"I would rather that you judge for yourself, Mrs. Taine," he answered, and
+drew the curtain that hid the painting.
+
+As the woman looked upon that portrait of herself, into which Aaron King
+had painted, with all the skill at his command, everything that he had
+seen in her face as she posed for him, she stood a moment as though
+stunned. Then, with a gesture of horror and shame, she shrank back, as
+though the painted thing accused her of being what, indeed, she really
+was.
+
+Turning to the artist, imploringly, she whispered, "Is it--is it--true? Am
+I--am I _that_?"
+
+Aaron King, remembering how she had sent the girl he loved so nearly to a
+shameful end, and thinking of those bones at the foot of the cliff,
+answered justly; "At least, madam, there is more truth in that picture
+than in the things you said to Miss Andres, here in this room, the day you
+left Fairlands."
+
+Her face went white with quick rage, but, controling herself, she said,
+"And where is the picture of your _mistress_? I should like to see it
+again, please."
+
+"Gladly, madam," returned the artist. "Because you are a woman, it is the
+only answer I can make to your charge; which, permit me to say, is as
+false as that portrait of you is true."
+
+Quickly he pushed another easel to a position beside the one that held
+Mrs. Taine's portrait, and drew the curtain.
+
+The effect, for a moment, silenced even Mrs. Taine--but only for a moment.
+A character that is the product of certain years of schooling in the
+thought and spirit of the class in which Mrs. Taine belonged, is not
+transformed by a single exhibition of painted truth. From the two
+portraits, the woman turned to the larger canvas. Then she faced the
+artist.
+
+"You fool!" she said with bitter rage. "O you fool! Do you think that you
+will ever be permitted to exhibit such trash as this?" she waved her hand
+to include the three paintings. "Do you think that I am going to drag
+you up the ladder of social position to fame and to wealth for such
+reward as that?" she singled out her own portrait. "Bah! you are
+impossible--impossible! I have been mad to think that I could make
+anything out of you. As for your idiotic claim that you have painted the
+truth--" She seized a large palette knife that lay with the artist's tools
+upon the table, and springing to her portrait, hacked and mutilated the
+canvas. The artist stood motionless making no effort to stop her. When the
+picture was utterly defaced she threw it at his feet. "_That_, for your
+truth, Mr. King!" With a quick motion, she turned toward the other
+portrait.
+
+But the artist, who had guessed her purpose, caught her hand. "That
+picture was yours, madam--this one is mine." There was a significant ring
+of triumph in his voice.
+
+Neither Aaron King nor Mrs. Taine had noticed three people who had entered
+the rose garden, from the orange grove, through the little gate in the
+corner of the hedge. Conrad Lagrange, Myra Willard and Sibyl were going to
+the studio; deliberately bent upon interrupting the artist at his work.
+They sometimes--as Conrad Lagrange put it--made, thus, a life-saving crew
+of three; dragging the painter to safety when the waves of inspiration
+were about to overwhelm him. Czar, of course, took an active part in these
+rescues.
+
+As the three friends approached the trellised arch that opened from the
+garden into the yard, a few feet from the studio door, the sound of Mrs.
+Taine's angry voice, came clearly through the open window.
+
+Conrad Lagrange stopped. "Evidently, Mr. King has company," he said,
+dryly.
+
+"It is Mrs. Taine, is it not?" asked Sibyl, quietly, recognizing the
+woman's voice.
+
+"Yes," answered the novelist.
+
+The woman with the disfigured face said hurriedly, "Come, Sibyl, we must
+go back. We will not disturb Mr. King, now, Mr. Lagrange. You two come
+over this evening." They saw her face white and frightened.
+
+"I believe I'll go back with you, if you don't mind," returned Conrad
+Lagrange, with his twisted grin; "I don't think I want any of that in
+there, either." To the dog who was moving toward the studio door, he
+added; "Here, Czar, you mustn't interrupt the lady. You're not in her
+class."
+
+They were moving away, when Mrs. Taine's voice came again, clearly and
+distinctly, through the window.
+
+"Oh, very well. I wish you joy of your possession. I promise you, though,
+that the world shall never hear of this portrait of your mistress. If you
+dare try to exhibit it, I shall see that the people to whom you must look
+for your patronage know how you found the original, an innocent, mountain
+girl, and brought her to your studio to live with you. Fairlands has
+already talked enough, but my influence has prevented it from going too
+far. You may be very sure that from now on I shall not exert myself to
+deny it."
+
+The artist's friends in the rose garden, again, stopped involuntarily.
+Sibyl uttered a low exclamation.
+
+Conrad Lagrange looked at Myra Willard. "I think," he said in a low tone,
+"that the time has come. Can you do it?"
+
+"Yes. I--I--must," returned the woman. She spoke to the girl, who, being a
+little in advance, had not heard the novelist's words, "Sibyl, dear, will
+you go on home, please? Mr, Lagrange will stay with me. I--I will join you
+presently."
+
+At a look from Conrad Lagrange, the girl obeyed.
+
+"Go with Sibyl, Czar," said the novelist; and the girl and the dog went
+quickly away through the garden.
+
+In the studio, Aaron King gazed at the angry woman in amazement. "Mrs.
+Taine," he said, with quiet dignity, "I must tell you that I hope to make
+Miss Andres my wife."
+
+She laughed harshly. "And what has that to do with it?"
+
+"I thought that if you knew, it might help you to understand the
+situation," he answered simply.
+
+"I understand the situation, very well," she retorted, "but you do not
+appear to. The situation is this: I--I was interested in you--as an
+artist. I, because my position in the world enabled me to help you,
+commissioned you to paint my portrait. You are unknown, with no name, no
+place in the world. I could have given you success. I could have
+introduced you to the people that you must know if you are to succeed. My
+influence would insure you a favorable reception from those who make the
+reputations of men like you. I could have made you the rage. I could have
+made you famous. And now--"
+
+"Now," he said calmly, "you will exert your influence to hinder me in my
+work. Because I have not pleased you, you will use whatever power you have
+to ruin me. Is that what you mean, Mrs. Taine?"
+
+"You have made your choice. You must take the consequences," she replied
+coldly, and turned to leave the studio.
+
+In the doorway, stood the woman with the disfigured face.
+
+Conrad Lagrange stood near.
+
+
+
+
+XLI
+
+Marks of the Beast
+
+
+
+When Mrs. Taine would have passed out of the studio, the woman with the
+disfigured face said, "Wait madam, I must speak to you."
+
+Aaron King recalled that strange scene at the depot, the day of his
+arrival in Fairlands.
+
+"I have nothing to say to you"--returned Mrs. Taine, coldly--"stand aside
+please."
+
+But Conrad Lagrange quietly closed the door. "I think, Mrs. Taine," he
+remarked dryly, "than you will be interested in what Miss Willard has to
+say."
+
+"Oh, very well," returned the other, making the best of the situation.
+"Evidently, you heard what I just said to your protege."
+
+The novelist answered, "We did. Accept my compliments madam; you did it
+very nicely."
+
+"Thanks," she retorted, "I see you still play your role of protector. You
+might tell your charge whether or not I am mistaken as to the probable
+result of his--ah--artistic conscientiousness."
+
+"Mr. King knows that you are not. You have, indeed, put the situation
+rather mildly. It is a sad fact, but, never-the-less, a fact, that the
+noblest work is often forced to remain unrecognized and unknown to the
+world by the same methods that are used to exalt the unworthy. You
+undoubtedly have the power of which you boast, Mrs. Taine, but--"
+
+"But what?" she said triumphantly. "You think I will hesitate to use my
+influence?"
+
+"I _know_ you will not use it--in this case," came the unexpected answer.
+
+She laughed mockingly, "And why not? What will prevent?"
+
+"The one thing on earth, that you fear, madam"--answered Conrad
+Lagrange--"the eyes of the world."
+
+Aaron King listened, amazed.
+
+"I don't think I understand," said Mrs. Taine, coldly.
+
+"No? That is what Miss Willard proposes to explain," returned the
+novelist.
+
+She turned haughtily toward the woman with the disfigured face. "What can
+this poor creature say to anything I propose?"
+
+Myra Willard answered gently, sadly, "Have you no kindness, no sympathy at
+all, madam? Is there nothing but cruel selfishness in your heart?"
+
+"You are insolent," retorted the other, sharply. "Say what you have to say
+and be brief."
+
+Myra Willard drew close to the woman and looked long and searchingly into
+her face. The other returned her gaze with contemptuous indifference.
+
+"I have been sorry for you," said Myra Willard slowly. "I have not wished
+to speak. But I know what you said to Sibyl, here in the studio; and I
+overheard what you said to Mr. King, a few minutes ago. I cannot keep
+silent."
+
+"Proceed," said Mrs. Taine, shortly. "Say what you have to say, and be
+done with it."
+
+Myra Willard obeyed. "Mrs. Taine, twenty-six years ago, your guardian, the
+father of James Rutlidge won the love of a young girl. It does not matter
+who she was. She was beautiful and innocent That was her misfortune.
+Beauty and innocence often bring pain and sorrow, madam, in a world where
+there are too many men like Mr. Rutlidge, and his son. The girl thought
+the man--she did not know him by his real name--her lover. She thought
+that he became her husband. A baby was born to the girl who believed
+herself a wife; and the young mother was happy. For a short time, she was
+very happy.
+
+"Then, the awakening came. The girl mother was holding her baby to her
+breast, and singing, as happy mothers do, when a strange woman appeared in
+the open door of the room. She was a beautiful woman, richly dressed; but
+her face was distorted with passion. The young mother did not understand.
+She did not know, then, that the woman was Mrs. Rutlidge--the true wife of
+the father of her child. She knew that, afterward. The woman, in the
+doorway lifted her hand as though to throw something, and the mother,
+instinctively, bowed her head to shield her baby. Then something that
+burned like fire struck her face and neck. She screamed in agony, and
+fainted.
+
+"The rest of the story does not matter, I think. The injured mother was
+taken to the hospital. When she recovered, she learned that Mrs. Rutlidge
+was dead--a suicide. Later, Mr. Rutlidge took the baby to raise as his
+ward; telling the world that the child was the daughter of a relative who
+had died at its birth. You must understand that when the disfigured mother
+of the baby came to know the truth, she believed that it would be better
+for the little one if the facts of its birth were never known. The wealthy
+Mr. Rutlidge could give his ward every advantage of culture and social
+position. The child would grow to womanhood with no stain upon her name.
+Because she felt she owed her baby this, the only thing that she could
+give her, the mother consented and disappeared.
+
+"Madam," finished Myra Willard, slowly, "a little of the acid that burned
+that mother's face fell upon the shoulder of her illegitimate baby."
+
+"God!" exclaimed the artist.
+
+Throughout Myra Willard's story, Mrs. Taine stood like a woman of stone.
+At the end, she gazed at the woman's disfigured face, as though fascinated
+with horror, while her hands moved to finger the buttons of her dress.
+Unconscious of what she was doing, as though under some strange spell,
+without removing her gaze from Myra Willard's marred features she opened
+the waist of her dress and bared to them her right shoulder. It was marked
+by a broad scar like the scars that disfigured the face of her mother.
+
+Myra Willard started forward, impelled by the mother instinct. "My baby,
+my poor, poor girl!"
+
+The words broke the spell. Drawing back with an air of cold, unconquerable
+pride, the woman looked at Conrad Lagrange. "And now," she said, as she
+swiftly rearranged her dress, "perhaps you will be good enough to tell me
+why you have done this."
+
+Myra Willard turned away to sink into a chair, white and trembling. Aaron
+King stepped quickly to her side, and, placing his hand gently on her
+shoulder waited for the novelist to speak.
+
+"Miss Willard told you this story because I asked her to," said Conrad
+Lagrange. "I asked her to tell you because it gives me the power to
+protect the two people who are dearer to me than all the world."
+
+"Still in your role of protector, I see," sneered Mrs. Taine.
+
+"Exactly, madam. It happens that I was a reporter on a certain newspaper
+when the incidents just related occurred. I wrote the story for the press.
+In fact, it was the story that gave me my start in yellow journalism, from
+which I graduated the novelist of your acquaintance. I know the newspaper
+game thoroughly, Mrs. Taine. I know the truth of this story that you have
+just heard. Permit me to say, that I know how to write in the approved
+newspaper style, and to add that my name insures a wide hearing. Proceed
+to carry out your threats, and I promise you that I will give this
+attractive bit of news, in all its colorful details, to every newspaper in
+the land. Can't you see the headlines? 'Startling Revelation,' 'The Secret
+of the Beautiful Mrs. Taine's Shoulders,' 'Why a Leader in the Social
+World makes Modesty her Fad,' 'The Parentage of a Social Leader.' Do you
+understand, madam? Use your influence to interfere with or to hinder Mr.
+King in his work; or fail to use your influence to contradict the lies
+you have already started about the character of Miss Andres; and I will
+use the influence of my pen and the prestige of my name to put you before
+the eyes of the world for what you are."
+
+For a moment the woman looked at him, defiantly. Then, as she grasped the
+full significance of what he had said, she slowly bowed her head.
+
+Conrad Lagrange opened the door.
+
+As she went out, the woman with the disfigured face started forward,
+holding out her hands appealingly.
+
+Mrs. Taine did not look back, but went quickly toward the big automobile
+that was waiting in front of the house.
+
+
+
+
+Chapter XLII
+
+Aaron King's Success
+
+
+
+The winter months were past.
+
+Aaron King was sitting before his finished picture. The colors were still
+fresh upon the canvas that, to-day, hangs in an honored place in one of
+the great galleries of the world. To the last careful touch, the artist
+had put into his painted message, the best he had to give. Back of every
+line and brush-stroke there was the deep conviction of a worthy motive.
+For an hour, he had been sitting there, before the easel, brush and
+palette in hand, without touching the canvas. He could do no more.
+
+Laying aside his tools, he went to his desk, and took from the drawer,
+that package of his mother's letters. He pushed a deep arm-chair in front
+of his picture, and again seated himself. As he read letter after letter,
+he lifted his eyes, at almost every sentence from the written pages to his
+work. It was as though he were submitting his picture to a final test--as,
+indeed, he was. He had reached the last letter when Conrad Lagrange
+entered the studio; Czar at his heels.
+
+Every day, while the picture was growing under the artist's hand, his
+friend had watched it take on beauty and power. He did not need to speak
+of the finished painting, now.
+
+"Well, lad," he said, "the old letters again?"
+
+The artist, caressing the dog's silky head as it was thrust against his
+knee, answered, "Yes, I finished the picture two hours ago. I have been
+having a private exhibition all on my own hook. Listen." From the letter
+in his hand he read:
+
+"It is right for you to be ambitious, my son. I would not have you
+otherwise. Without a strong desire to reach some height that in the
+distance lifts above the level of the present, a man becomes a laggard on
+the highway of life--a mere loafer by the wayside--slothful,
+indolent--slipping easily, as the years go, into the most despicable of
+places--the place of a human parasite that, contributing nothing to the
+wealth of the race, feeds upon the strength of the multitude of toilers
+who pass him by. But ambition, my boy, is like to all the other gifts that
+lead men Godward. It must be a noble ambition, nobly controlled. A mere
+striving for place and power, without a saving sense of the responsibility
+conferred by that place and power, is ignoble. Such an ambition, I
+know--as you will some day come to understand--is not a blessing but a
+curse. It is the curse from which our age is suffering sorely; and which,
+if it be not lifted, will continue to vitiate the strength and poison the
+life of the race.
+
+"Because I would have your ambition, a safe and worthy ambition, Aaron, I
+ask that the supreme and final test of any work that comes from your hand
+may be this; that it satisfy you, yourself--that you may be not ashamed to
+sit down alone with your work, and thus to look it squarely in the face.
+Not critics, nor authorities, not popular opinion, not even law or
+religion, must be the court of final appeal when you are, by what you do,
+brought to bar; but by you, _yourself_, the judgment must be rendered. And
+this, too, is true, my son, by that judgment and that judgment alone, you
+will truly live or you will truly die."
+
+"And that"--said the novelist--so famous in the eyes of the world, so
+infamous in his own sight--"and that is what she tried to make me believe,
+when she and I were young together. But I would not. I would not accept
+it. I thought if I could win fame that she--" he checked himself suddenly.
+
+"But you have led me to accept it, old man," cried the artist heartily.
+"You have opened my eyes. You have helped me to understand my mother, as I
+never could have understood her, alone."
+
+Conrad Lagrange smiled. "Perhaps," he admitted whimsically. "No doubt good
+may sometimes be accomplished by the presentation of a horrible example.
+But go on with your private exhibition. I'll not keep you longer. Come,
+Czar."
+
+In spite of the artist's protests, he left the studio.
+
+While the painter was putting away his letters, the novelist and the dog
+went through the rose garden and the orange grove, straight to the little
+house next door. They walked as though on a definite mission.
+
+Sibyl and Myra Willard were sitting on the porch.
+
+"Howdy, neighbor," called the girl, as the tall, ungainly form of the
+famous novelist appeared. "You seem to be the bearer of news. What is the
+latest word from the seat of war?"
+
+"It is finished," said Conrad Lagrange, returning Myra's gentle greeting,
+and accepting the chair that Sibyl offered.
+
+"The picture?" said the girl eagerly, a quick color flushing her cheeks.
+"Is the picture finished?"
+
+"Finished," returned the novelist. "I just left him mooning over it like a
+mother over a brand-new baby."
+
+They laughed together, and when, a moment later, the girl slipped into the
+house and did not return, the woman with the disfigured face and the
+famous novelist looked at each other with smiling eyes. When Czar, with
+sudden interest, started around the corner of the house, his master said
+suggestively, "Czar, you better stay here with the old folks."
+
+Passing through the house, and out of the kitchen door, Sibyl ran,
+lightly, through the orange grove, to the little gate in the corner of the
+Ragged Robin hedge. A moment she paused, hesitating, then, stealing
+cautiously into the rose garden, she darted in quick flight to the shelter
+of the arbor; where she parted the screen of vines to gain a view of the
+studio.
+
+Between the big, north window and the window that opened into the garden,
+she saw the artist. She saw, too, the big canvas upon the easel. But Aaron
+King was not, now, looking at his work just finished. He was sitting
+before that other picture into which he had unconsciously painted, not
+only the truth that he saw in the winsome loveliness of the girl who posed
+for him with outstretshed hands among the roses, but his love for her as
+well.
+
+With a low laugh, Sibyl drew back. Swiftly, as she had reached the arbor,
+she crossed the garden, and a moment later, paused at the studio door.
+Again she hesitated--then, gently,--so gently that the artist, lost in his
+dreams, did not hear,--she opened the door. For a little, she stood
+watching him. Softly, she took a few steps toward him. The artist, as
+though sensing her presence, started and looked around.
+
+She was standing as she stood in the picture; her hands outstretched, a
+smile of welcome on her lips, the light of gladness in her eyes.
+
+As he rose from his chair before the easel, she went to him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not many days later, there was a quiet wedding, at Sibyl's old home in the
+hills. Besides the two young people and the clergyman, only Brian Oakley,
+Mrs. Oakley, Conrad Lagrange and Myra Willard were present. These friends
+who had prepared the old place for the mating ones, after a simple dinner
+following the ceremony, returned down the canyon to the Station.
+
+Standing arm in arm, where the old road turns around the cedar thicket,
+and where the artist had first seen the girl, Sibyl and Aaron watched them
+go. From the other side of roaring Clear Creek, they turned to wave hats
+and handkerchiefs; the two in the shadow of the cedars answered; Czar
+barked joyful congratulations; and the wagon disappeared in the wilderness
+growth.
+
+Instead of turning back to the house behind them, the two, without
+speaking, as though obeying a common impulse, set out down the canyon.
+
+A little later they stood in the old spring glade, where the alders bore,
+still, in the smooth, gray bark of their trunks, the memories of long-ago
+lovers; where the light fell, slanting softly through the screen of leaf
+and branch and vine and virgin's-bower, upon the granite boulder and the
+cress-mottled waters of the spring, as through the window traceries of a
+vast and quiet cathedral; and where the distant roar of the mountain
+stream trembled in the air like the deep tones of some great organ.
+
+Sibyl, dressed in her brown, mountain costume, was sitting on the boulder,
+when the artist said softly, "Look!"
+
+Lifting her eyes, as he pointed, she saw two butterflies--it might almost
+have been the same two--with zigzag flight, through the opening in the
+draperies of virgin's-bower. With parted lips and flushed cheeks, the girl
+watched. Then--as the beautiful creatures, in their aerial waltz, whirled
+above her head--she rose, and lightly, gracefully,--almost as her winged
+companions,--accompanied them in their dance.
+
+The winged emblems of innocence and purity flitted away over the willow
+wall. The girl, with bright eyes and smiling lips--half laughing, half
+serious--looked toward her mate. He held out his arms and she went to him.
+
+
+The End
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Eyes of the World, by Harold Bell Wright
+
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