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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/36029-8.txt b/36029-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0f7567d --- /dev/null +++ b/36029-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13606 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Speckled Bird, by Augusta J. Evans Wilson + + +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: A Speckled Bird + + +Author: Augusta J. Evans Wilson + + + +Release Date: May 4, 2011 [eBook #36029] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +A SPECKLED BIRD + +by + +AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON + +Author of "St. Elmo," "Vashti," "Infelice," "At the Mercy of Tiberius," +etc. + + + "As a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her." + + + + + + + +G. W. Dillingham Company +Publishers New York + +Copyright, 1902, by +G. W. Dillingham Company + +A Speckled Bird. +Issued August, 1902. + + + + + To + MY KIND READERS + KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, WHO HAVE DESIRED AND ASKED + ME TO WRITE AGAIN, THESE PAGES ARE OFFERED + IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF VERY + LOYAL FRIENDSHIP DURING + MANY YEARS + + + + +A SPECKLED BIRD + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Grandma, who named me Eglah?" + +"My cousin, Bishop Vivian, when he baptized you." + +"Do you think he had any right to put such a label on me?" + +"Certainly, because your father selected your name, and the bishop had +no choice." + +"It is so ugly, I never can like it, and a little baby that can't speak +her mind ought not to be tied to something she must drag all her life +and hate for ever and ever." + +"Eat your breakfast, and try to be a good, quiet child, then your name +will not trouble you so much." + +"I never shall like it, any more than you do, and you know, grandma, +when you call me your mouth twists like you had toothache." + +"I was not consulted about your name. It belonged to your New England +Grandmother Kent, and as it appears you belong only to your father, you +were called after his mother. I heard him tell you it was the name of a +queen--one of David's wives." + +"Yes, but I found out she was not the head queen--just a sort of +step-wife queen. Now if I could only be the pet queen, Sheba, I should +not fret at all." + +"The Queen of Sheba was not David's wife." + +"You are all wrong about your Bible, grandma, because you are only a +Methodist. David's Sheba was nicknamed Bath Sheba, for the reason that +he saw her going to her bath-house, and she looked so pretty. I saw her +picture in father's 'Piscopal Bible." + +"There, there! Be quiet. Drink your milk." + +Mrs. Maurice leaned back in her chair and sighed as she looked down at +the fragile child beside her. The tall, silver coffee urn showed in +repoussé on one side the flight of Europa, on the other Dirce dragged to +death. Eglah could never understand how the strands of the victim's hair +supported the weight of her form, and wondered why they did not give way +and set the prisoner free. To-day she eyed it askance, then surveyed her +own fair image reflected in the polished, smooth surface below the band +of figures. + +"Grandma, don't you think horses are much nicer for ladies to ride than +oxen?" + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Then why did you buy ox riders?" one small finger pointed to the +heirloom fetich. + +"I did not buy the urn. It has belonged to your Grandfather Maurice's +family for one hundred and fifty years, and was brought from Old +England. Eliza, take her away. If she cannot be silent, she must go back +and have her meals with you. It seems impossible to teach her that in +the presence of grown people children are expected to listen." + +Mrs. Mitchell came forward from a side table, lifted the little girl +from her chair, and untied the ruffled bib that protected her white +dimity dress. + +"Now tell grandmother you are sorry you annoyed her, and if she will let +you sit at her table you will be as quiet as she wishes." + +"Ma-Lila, don't make me tell stories; she doesn't believe them, and I am +so tired saying things I don't mean. I want to go back to the side +table, where you are not always scolding me. Grandma, it will be +peacefuller if I stay with Ma-Lila----" + +"Hush! Come here." + +Mrs. Maurice lifted the little one's dimpled chin and studied the fair +face that had bloomed seven years in her lonely home: a winsome face cut +like a gem, velvety-brown eyes, long-lashed, and the pure, pale oval set +in a shining bronze frame of curling hair, all chestnut in shade, +braided with gold when sunshine hid among the ripples. + +"Kent! Kent--even her ears small as any other rogue's. She is her +father's child." + +"Is that a sin, grandma?" + +Mrs. Maurice swiftly laid her hand over the uplifted, upbraiding eyes, +to veil something in their depths that often disquieted her, and sought +refuge in her habitual command: + +"Take her away, Eliza." + +Ringing the small bell close to the breakfast tray, the mistress took a +spray of starry jasmine from the vase in the centre of the table, and as +she turned away said to the grey-haired butler: + +"Aaron, you will put a plate and chair for Miss Eglah at the side table +until further orders. Tell Oliver I shall not want the carriage until +four o'clock." + +Unusually tall and very handsome was this stately widow of a Confederate +general who had been slain during one of the fierce conflicts around +beleaguered Richmond. No white hairs marred the glossy blackness of the +thick coil half hidden under a snowy crêpe cap, and the brilliant blue +eyes were undimmed by tearful years of widowhood--a widowhood involving +for her the full, sad significance of the sacred and melancholy term, an +inability to forget, a despair of any earthly consolation, and a jealous +reticence that denied all discussion of her sorrow, as she would have +defended her dead from an alien's rude touch. To her, time had brought +neither oblivion nor alleviation, only a sharpened sense of irreparable +bereavement; and as one standing in an unending and hopeless eclipse, +she accepted the gloom with a stern and silent rejection of all other +lights when the sun of her life went down. + +Anniversaries are electric batteries that thrill the domain of emotions, +and one day out of every three hundred and sixty-five the strings of +memory are keyed to their utmost tension, vibrating with an intolerable +intensity that reddens the lips of old wounds and quickens dull aches to +stinging torture. + +This memorial morning Mrs. Maurice crossed the wide, vaulted hall, and +passing through the long, pillared drawing-room, opened a locked door +and shut herself in a darkened chamber to keep tryst with the sacred +souvenirs that represented all she held dear. Raising the window, she +turned the blinds to allow sunlight entrance into this silent reliquary +filled with mementoes jealously guarded "in solemn salvatory": a heavy, +square bedstead with twisted columns that upheld a red-lined tester +whence embroidered draperies fell; a gilded swinging wicker crib, with +baby blankets, rose bordered; a velvet easy chair, where a gentleman's +quilted silk dressing-gown hung over the carved back, and his slippers +lay beneath; a table heaped with a child's toys, books, and +daguerreotypes of various sizes. On a leathern couch lay a folded +Confederate uniform, and a man's straw hat, cane, spurs, and riding whip +had been placed beside the faded grey coat. Over the old-fashioned, high +marble mantel hung a portrait of General Egbert Maurice, clad in +uniform, wearing three stars and a wreath on his collar, and holding his +plumed hat in his right hand. At one corner of the mantel a furled +Confederate flag leaned until it touched the frame of the picture, and +from the marble shelf, where lay the general's sash and sword, hung the +stained and torn guidon of his favorite regiment. On the wall opposite +the fireplace the portrait of a lovely girl with an apron full of roses +seemed to fill the room with radiance and color. + +With a slow, caressing movement, Mrs. Maurice's slim white hand passed +over the front of the smoking-gown, and fastened in a button hole the +spray of fragrant, satin-starred jasmine; then, lifting the faded grey +coat, she held it to her heart in a tight, straining clasp, as she +seated herself on the couch, and her fingers lingered on tarnished gilt +buttons and braid. Inside the uniform was pinned a parcel wrapped in +tissue paper, from which she shook out a mass of yellowed lace, and as +the filmy folds of an infant's christening robe swept across her lap, a +subtle perfume of withered flowers like the breath of a rose jar stole +over the room. + +With dry eyes she looked long at one portrait, then at the other: the +husband of her youth and the only child that had come as crowning +blessing to a happy married life where no dissensions muttered, no +discordant clash jarred the perfect harmony. As the dead years babbled, +she listened now to echoes of manly tones, and now to a baby's prattling +lisp, still dividing as of yore her heart's homage. When war robbed her +of the husband who had never ceased to be tender lover, her only hold on +life centred in their beautiful daughter Marcia, and the struggle to +guard her and defend from confiscation and ruin the fine landed estate +and large fortune left by General Maurice had served, in some degree, to +lessen the tendency to morbid brooding. + +To the truly typical Southern woman who survived the loss of family +idols and of her country's freedom, for which she had surrendered them, +"reconstruction," political and social, was no more possible than the +physical resurrection and return of slain thousands lying in Confederate +graves all over the trampled and ruined South. + +No mourning Southern matron indulged more intensely an inexorable, +passionate hatred of Northern invaders than did Mrs. Maurice, who +refused to accept the inevitable, and shut her doors against agents of +"union and reconstruction" as promptly as she would have barred out +leprosy or smallpox. + +Proud of the social prestige with which her Brahmin birth and stainless +family record had dowered her, she wielded her influence in +uncompromising hostility to all who advocated a tacit acceptance of the +new conditions called "peace." The loss of negroes that abandoned +several plantations would have materially impaired the Maurice fortune, +had not the prevision of the general's commission merchant in a distant +seaport induced the precautionary course of sending a portion of his +crop of cotton to Liverpool early in the first year of the war, thus +securing a large amount of treasure under the British flag, where (as +the cotton factor wrote Mrs. Maurice a few years later) "'Union' thieves +could not steal, nor 'reconstruction' moths and rust feed upon it." Out +of the wreckage that succeeded the final catastrophe at Appomattox the +family fortune of General Maurice emerged triumphant in proportions, and +the minority of Marcia was a bulwark that defied successfully the +numerous assaults of "loyal confiscators." + +Sooner or later the _diabolus ex machina_ confronts us all, and pierces +at the one spot least guarded because deemed invulnerable. Mrs. +Maurice's maternal pride was built on the shifting sands of girlish +impulse and flattered vanity, and the crash showed her that somewhere at +the cross roads she had failed to offer a black lamb in propitiating +evil divinities--had left no morsel of meat for the sleuth-hounds of +baleful destiny that suddenly bayed destruction to the last earthly hope +life held for her. Reared in the semi-cloistral seclusion of a Southern +girl's education in ante-bellum days, trained at home by governesses, +and barred from society until she should have made the European tour for +which her mother had fixed an early date, predestined Marcia went to her +doom when at the house of a friend she met accidentally the recently +appointed Federal judge, Allison Kent--handsome, courtly, debonair, and +wily. + +Clandestine courtships rarely lag; hence this lover of forty years, +dreading discovery and the prompt removal of an infatuated girl only +seventeen on her last birthday, kept the mother in complete ignorance of +impending calamity until the night before her departure for Europe, when +Marcia fled with him to an adjoining State, where a justice of the peace +made them man and wife. + +In accordance with life-long custom, Mrs. Maurice went to her child's +bedroom to kiss her good night, and on the pillow found a farewell note, +praying for forgiveness, and promising to meet her at a town on the line +of her journey. How the mother bore this shock only God knew; no eye but +His watched during that long night, when her soul went down into a +Gehenna of torture--when, alone in her crucifixion, she accepted defeat, +and girded herself for grim endurance. As day dawned she unlocked her +door, and summoning her servants, said: + +"Miss Marcia has left me to marry a man who cannot enter my house. Take +this note to Mr. Whitfield's residence at once; not to his office, to +his house. Minerva, you will finish packing Miss Marcia's trunk, which +must be sent to her. I shall make no change in my plans, except to take +the noon train instead of the one at midnight. Ask me no questions. Send +Mitchell and Eliza to me." + +When her attorney, Mr. Whitfield, appalled by the stony white face that +showed no hint of tears, no more trace of grief than the marble figure +that supported the mantel at her side, essayed a few words of sympathy, +she put out her hands with an imperious gesture. + +"There is no comfort possible, and I need your help only in writing a +new will. I start to New York at noon, so you have little time." + +A few hours later, having seen only her pastor and her lawyer, she left +her rifled home by a route that enabled her to avoid the town designated +as a place of meeting. Across the girl's farewell letter, which was +returned to "Marcia Maurice," she had written: "My only hope is that God +will take me out of this world before I see again the face of the child +who has disgraced the memory of her father and the name of her mother." + +Eighteen months had been spent in Europe, whence she was most +reluctantly recalled by the death of Robert Mitchell, the overseer and +business manager of one of her plantations, who was killed by the +explosion of a mill engine. His young widow, Eliza, had been sheltered +and guarded in Mrs. Maurice's home when orphaned by the death of her +father, a Methodist chaplain attached to General Maurice's command, and +the intimacy of years was marked by unfailing kindness and confidence on +the part of the benefactress, by profound affection and ardent gratitude +on that of the destitute girl. The peculiarly harrowing circumstances +attending her husband's loss had so severely shocked Eliza that Mrs. +Maurice promptly removed her from the "overseer's cottage" to her own +house, where she was nursed tenderly and skilfully in the room that +before her marriage she had so long called her home. Loving Marcia very +warmly, she had attempted to intercede with the indignant mother, and +one of her letters had enclosed an appeal from the erring daughter. It +was returned unopened, and accompanied by a very positive assurance that +any future repetition would not be forgiven. Old friends gathered to +greet the returned traveller, yet all intuitively avoided allusion to +the domestic cancer that, despite her proud, silent composure, was +eating the heart barred against sympathy. She learned from the +newspapers that under the new Federal régime Judge Kent was temporarily +Senator, and that after a season in Washington he and Marcia were living +at a hotel in her own neighboring city; but as the latter had followed +her husband into the Episcopal Church, no meeting occurred between +parent and child. So complete was the estrangement, and so +unapproachable the stern, silent attitude of the mother, that when Dr. +Eggleston, the family physician, and Bishop Vivian, the favorite cousin, +called early one morning on an urgent errand, both realized that they +championed a forlorn and desperate cause in battling with this old +lioness robbed of her young. + +Instinctively she divined their mission as her eyes fell upon a letter +lying on the bishop's knee, and her lips narrowed and tightened. +Standing on the hearth with her arms folded, she listened quietly to her +cousin's impassioned pleading for forgiveness and to the doctor's +distressing presentation of Marcia's alarming condition, which he felt +constrained to pronounce hopeless. + +"Madam, if you deny her dying prayer, remorse will drive you to +despair." + +"She has been dead to me since the hour she deliberately deceived and +forsook me. Kent's wife ceased to be my child when she insulted, +disgraced, her father's name." + +"Oh, Patricia, how can you hope or claim God's mercy for yourself if you +refuse pardon to your repentant and unhappy daughter?" + +A spark leaped into the cold clear eyes. + +"For mercy I think I shall never need to plead, and when my God grants +me justice I will try to be satisfied." + +"Will you not at least read the few lines the poor child wrote while we +held her hand and guided the pen? Oh, cousin, if you could see her now!" +The bishop held out the letter. + +"Because you are the bearer I cannot refuse you that courtesy." + +She walked to the window and, holding the curtain aside, read the brief +petition: + + "My Own Mother: + + "Let me come home to die. It will not be so hard if I can look + into your face once more, and know that your dear hand will + close my eyes as I go down into my grave. I shall see father + soon, and if he could come now to my help, you know he would + take me in his arms and lay me in my mother's lap. Be merciful + to your poor, dying + + "MARCIA." + +Leaning eagerly forward, the two grey-haired men watched and listened +for some relenting token; but after a few moments she turned toward a +desk, and with no change in the frozen calm of her handsome face, she +merely traced a word at the bottom of the page, handed it to the bishop, +and left the room. "Come." + +That night a cold waxen image of a boy whose soul refused to enter its +clay tabernacle was laid for a moment in Eliza Mitchell's arms, to be +kissed as only young mothers can kiss their dead first-born. The +following day the hospital ambulance brought back on a stretcher the wan +form of the erring daughter, who fainted from exhaustion as the bearers +carried her into the home of her fathers. Three days later she died in +her mother's arms, whispering with icy lips: "If my baby lives, keep her +for my sake--for my sake." + +So little Eglah Kent was given, when three hours old, to the care of the +young foster-mother Eliza, and slept upon the heart that mourned for the +lost baby boy. Since then seven years had passed, and to-day, as Mrs. +Maurice caressed Marcia's lace christening robe, she put aside all that +pertained to the girl's disobedience and elopement, and memory dwelt +only upon the sunny time when her husband and daughter made home a +heaven. Into the quiet room crept the whine of a dog scratching at the +door. As she opened it, a feeble brown creature crossed the floor, +crouched before the hearth, and, raising soft, tender eyes to the +portrait of the general, barked once and beat the carpet with his tail, +as if in salute; her husband's favorite pointer Hector, failing fast, +but loyal and true as the heart of his widow. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Sharing in some degree that infallible instinct whereby lower animals +interpret the character of their owners, young children are often as +wise and wary as dogs and cats, and before Eglah could walk without +clinging to Eliza's finger, she knew intuitively that her silent, +watchful grandmother eyed her suspiciously, and that warm caresses could +be expected only from her father and her young foster-mother. Profound +and regretful compassion rather than tenderness filled Mrs. Maurice's +heart, and she faithfully ministered to the infant's needs, as she would +have pityingly warmed and fed some bleating lamb bereft of its dam by +March snows. Since the little girl showed, except in form, no faintest +trace of Maurice blood, her grandmother regarded her most +sorrowfully--not as Marcia's baby, but as the living monument of a cruel +and unpardonable injury inflicted by Judge Kent. Even in the cradle +Eglah defied an authority supreme in the household. + +"You must not say Lila, but Mama-Eliza." + +"I won't! It hurths my tongue to say Elitha. I will say Ma-Lila." + +The child's inherent antagonism made her a vexing embodiment of protest, +an obstinate interrogation point punctuating the commands of this +old-fashioned lady whose domestic canons belonged to an era when boys +and girls were not considered "servile" because trained to answer their +elders "No, sir," or "Yes, ma'am," and when after a meal in the sunset +glow young human broods followed feathered folk to an early rest before +stars spangled the sky. If among General Maurice's choice collection of +thoroughbred game fowls, with yellow legs and bronze breasts, had +appeared an uncouth mongrel pullet, dust-colored and blue of skin, his +exacting widow would not have rejected it more summarily than did her +proud soul repudiate the Kent scion whom she housed luxuriously because +of Marcia's last prayer, but felt no more desire to caress than to +fondle the bullet that slew her husband. + +Judge Kent's official duties called him often from the city, and during +his visits to his child Mrs. Maurice, if compelled to see him, +maintained the reticent, frigid courtesy with which she had received him +when he first crossed her threshold bearing his unconscious wife. He had +never touched the slender white fingers that pointed to the staircase +that day, and while she allowed herself no verbal expression of +animosity, he was humiliated by the consciousness of her intense +detestation. As Southern hostess in a typical Southern home, she fully +realized _noblesse oblige_, and her punctilious observance of the +etiquette of hospitality accentuated the position she assigned him--that +of stranger within her gates. He had hoped the baby might bridge the +chasm, but when he ventured to dwell upon his unwillingness to deprive +Mrs. Maurice of this "sweet source of solace," she promptly dispelled +his illusion. + +"Make no mistake, Judge Kent. You leave the poor child here, and I +retain her simply because her mother so requested." + +Desiring to minimize sources of future contention, she had directed Mr. +Whitfield to acquaint him with her will, whereby the entire estate would +pass at her death into the hands of certain trustees, who, after +providing a liberal annuity for Eglah and Eliza, should control +absolutely all interests until Eglah was twenty-one years old, when a +legacy of five thousand dollars would be paid to Eliza. Should the +little girl be removed from the care of her foster-mother, the annuity +of the former ceased, and half of the value of the estate should be +deducted from her inheritance; and if Eglah died before marriage, the +homestead was bequeathed to childless Confederate widows of that State, +as an Egbert Maurice memorial. Since General Maurice's last testament +had left his fortune unconditionally to his wife, there was no appeal +from her decision, and Judge Kent bore the keen disappointment with such +semblance of acquiescence as he could summon, striving to veil his +hatred of the woman whose contempt lay beneath her studied courtesy like +an iron wall under a sheet of ice. An adroit and tireless schemer, he +usually steered safely in the troubled political sea, and only once, in +an unguarded moment, dared the current of Mrs. Maurice's convictions. + +"If the people of the South could only reason from the analogy of +history----" + +He was silenced by the hand thrown up, palm outward. + +"We have only the privilege of suffering and remembering. The grim +analogy of Sicily under Verres suggests a rather painful parallel. For +us there remains solely the grace of silence; and it were well if you, +sir, could set me an example, when numbered among guests under my roof." + +The voice was low, clear, steady, but the narrow lip arched, and the +light in her blue eyes reminded him of the violet flame one sees flash +up over a bed of hot anthracite. + +Eglah was five years old when her father was called to Washington, and +thence sent to Europe on a government mission, which he so successfully +accomplished that on his return the governor of his native State +appointed him senator to fill an unexpired term. Having proved a useful +servant of the Administration, official influence secured his election +and return to the United States' Senate two years later, and Mrs. +Maurice welcomed any change that removed him from her neighborhood. His +rare visits were festivals to his little daughter, and she revelled in +the wealth of caresses, the endearing words, the prodigality of gifts +that always characterized his brief sojourns. Thus were laid the +foundations of an intense and absorbing devotion to her father that +gradually became the dominant factor in her life. + +"Nutwood"--the three-storied red brick house crowning an eminence shaded +by walnut and chestnut trees--had been built in 1825 by General +Maurice's father, and its pillared piazza running along three sides +overlooked the city of Y----, two miles distant, where spires and +factory chimneys lifted their lines against mellow western skies. On the +first and second floors of the old mansion wide halls crossed at right +angles, admitting breezes from every point of the compass, and so +unusually thick were the walls that the nearly square windows framed in +cedar furnished comfortable lounging seats. For many years this place +had been famous throughout the State for its race-horses, game chickens, +pointers, fox-hounds, and fine library, and the hospitality dispensed +was peculiar to an era characterized by conditions that the Civil War +annihilated. No invading army had reached the city of Y----, but raiding +cavalry squads once completely sacked the Maurice plantations many miles +distant in the river valley, and burned not only the empty gin house, +but the commodious family residence often occupied in autumn. Prior to +her departure for Europe Mrs. Maurice had rebuilt gin and warehouses, +and erected a pretty four-room cottage comfortably furnished, which, +with fifty acres of adjoining land, she gave as dower to Eliza when she +married the faithful overseer and manager of the "Bend Plantations." + +One sultry spring morning in Eglah's ninth year, she sat with Eliza in +the "out-door schoolroom" where lessons were studied in warm weather. It +was a cool retreat--a circular, latticed summer-house--overrun by yellow +woodbine, honeysuckle, and a pink multiflora rose, all in full bloom, +busy distilling perfume their satin lips offered in libation to the +lazily wandering wind that caressed them. The pointed roof was rain +proof, the floor tiled, and between the arched openings seats were +fastened to the lattice wall. From the round table in the centre lovely +views of shrubbery, lily-starred lawn, far-off grain fields, green +pasture lands where cattle browsed, seemed set in frames of leafage and +tendril that ran riot around the archways. A walk bordered with lilacs +and azaleas led to the door of the conservatory, which flanked the long +drawing-room; stretching beyond, one could see the wide front of the +house, where no balustrade broke the line of white columns rising to the +crenellated flat roof. Eglah sat with a geography lying open before her +on the table, and her head supported by arms resting on the map, but +once she turned a leaf, and the wind fluttered a letter many weeks old +from her father. + +"Are you ready to answer the map questions?" + +"No, Ma-Lila. Why must I always answer other people's questions, when +nobody answers mine? I will say my lesson when you tell me what +'scallawag' and 'carpet-bagger' mean." + +"They are ugly slang words, and if I were you I should try to forget I +ever heard them. Little girls have nothing to do with politics, and you +have not told me of whom the Graham children were speaking at the +party." + +"Never mind about names. I looked in the dictionary, but could not find +'scallawag.' I know it means something horrid and vulgar and hateful, +and I never will go to another party." + +Eliza's reply was drowned by the scream of "King Herod"--a lordly +peacock that had earned the title from his slaughter of young turkeys +and chickens in the poultry yard. Now he trailed his feathers across the +walk, came up to the summer-house, and uttered his piercing cry in quick +succession. + +"Something is going to happen. Uncle Aaron says it is a bad sign when +Herod squalls at a door." + +"Something happened a while ago, when a man rode up the avenue and tied +his horse. Now he is leaving the steps, and Herod knows he is a +stranger. You must not listen to superstitious foolishness from +negroes," said Eliza, with a fine scorn of all but her own peculiar pet +superstition, kept closely guarded in her heart. + +Eglah shut the geography, propped her chin on her palms as her elbows +rested on the table, and watched the beautiful bird preen his feathers. + +"Ma-Lila, how old must I be before you will be ready to tell me why +grandmother hates my father so?" + +"Dearie, she does not 'hate' him, and you ought to try not to----" + +"Don't tell stories, Ma-Lila, because I want always to believe +everything you say--and--there! Listen to grandma's bell. Three rings; +that is for you." + +Eliza laid in her work basket the embroidered cambric ruffle she was +hemming and, throwing her white apron over her head, went swiftly to the +house. + +Mrs. Maurice sat in the drawing-room, with two newspapers unfolded on +her lap, but whether their contents annoyed or gratified her, the cold, +quiet face gave no indication. + +"Is Eglah ready to come and recite her lessons?" + +"Not yet, madam." + +"Put away her books; she will be excused from lessons to-day. Judge Kent +has married again in Washington, and these papers furnish detailed +accounts of the brilliant wedding reception. He has swallowed the gold +bait of a widow he met in Europe. She is reputed rich, of course--a Mrs. +Nina Herriott--and the bridal pair will go to England for the summer." + +"Our poor baby! This news will break her heart," replied the +foster-mother, whose eyes had filled with tears at thought of the +child's suffering. + +"Yes, she will grieve sorely, but better now than later in life. I have +been pondering the best way to break the news to her." + +"Let me tell her. I think I understand her disposition more thoroughly +than anyone else." + +"You fancy I do not comprehend my own granddaughter?" + +"I beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Maurice. I mean only that I have watched +all her little ways, and she feels less restraint with me than with you; +but of course you must choose your own way in this matter." + +"For us, this marriage is fortunate, and I rejoice at every circumstance +that heightens the barrier between Judge Kent and me. He will never dare +to disturb the child while I live, and brides are not importunate for +the custody of step-children. Eliza, I never felt until to-day that +Eglah is really Marcia's baby. She is a thousand times dearer to me now +than ever before." + +"Dear madam, I thank God for anything that will make you open your heart +and take the precious child in. In many ways she needs tenderness from +you, and especially since the children's parties she has attended +recently, where rude things were said about her father. She has not told +me all, but you know the damaging rumors about some of his decisions +while Federal Judge in our State, and the Graham children, whose +interests suffered through him, speak very bitterly of his career. Eglah +has asked me many questions lately, which I always evaded, but she +broods over this matter and is resentful." + +"Poor little thing! Her father has lived on sour grapes so long, her +teeth must inevitably be on edge. Henceforth she belongs to me." + +"She is absolutely devoted to him, and it is distressing to know how her +very heartstrings are tied around him. It amounts to idolatry." + +"Yes, I realize that, and it will be a sad day for her when the glamour +fades and she sees the ugly, deformed clay feet of her idol." + +"It would break her heart." + +"No. We both know sorrow does not destroy, and death is deaf to calls +from crushed hearts. She will simply find herself chained to a galling +sense of shame. These papers were brought this morning by a young man +who impressed me as a thoroughbred gentleman--Mr. Noel Herriott, son of +Mrs. Kent's first husband. He spoke kindly of his stepmother, and +explained that, as he was passing through Y---- on his way west, Judge +Kent had given him a card of introduction to me, and requested him to +see Eglah, for whom he brought the package yonder on the window sill. I +knew the poor child would be distressed at the news, and thought it best +she should have time to recover from the shock before seeing him. He +continues his journey by the midnight train, and I have invited him to +return and take tea here, when Eglah can be introduced to him. Eliza, +perhaps you are right; certainly you are more nearly her mother than any +living being, and you will tenderly break the news to her. Carry the +papers and the parcel and make her understand. After a while I wish to +come out and join you." + +In shaking and furling his rainbow train King Herod had shed a long +feather. Eglah picked it up, and finding a knife in the work basket +proceeded to sharpen the end into a pen, with which she purposed writing +to her father. As Eliza entered and placed the papers on the table, the +little girl looked up. + +"Oh, Ma-Lila, you are crying! What is it? Not bad news from father?" + +"My baby, your father is well and has sent you a present. Come to me, +darling; I want to talk to you." She drew her to her lap and held her +close. + +"We know, of course, your father dearly loves his daughter, but he is +often very lonely, and as he cannot have you with him, what would you +think if you heard he had married a lady who would be kind and good to +him? Don't you----" + +"I know that would be a lie--a wicked lie! Why do you say such horrible +things and hurt me so?" She threw off the clasping arm and sprang to the +floor, stamping the tiles with her right foot. + +"My precious baby, I would not hurt you for a million of dollars! You +know your Lila loves you better than everything else in the world. I +would rather hold my hand in the fire than tell you a painful thing if +it could be helped. But somebody must speak the truth to you." + +She knelt down by the indignant child and kissed her hot cheek twice. + +"My darling, it is true--positively true--that your father was married +some days ago. Now, you must not struggle to get away from me. Listen, +and let me explain it all." + +"Don't! I won't listen. I can't--wait--wait--" She went to the seat +along the wall and threw herself face downward, crossing her arms over +her head. She lay so still that a quarter of an hour later Eliza sat +down beside her, and while her hand softly stroked the brown curls, she +read slowly the description of church wedding and subsequent reception. + +"My darling, you love your father so well you want him to be happy, +and----" + +"No, not with another wife, and away from me. I would rather he was +dead--for then nobody else could claim him. Two wives! It is like having +two Gods." + +Taking the papers, she read the marked paragraphs, and though neither +sob nor tear betrayed the intensity of her sorrow, one little hand +caught at her throat, where a stricture seemed to stifle her. + +"You must try to bear this trouble patiently." + +"I can't. I would not bear it at all, if I could help myself. Now I am +an orphan! An orphan!" + +"Not while I live to love you. Look at this parcel, your father's +present." + +Eliza unwrapped the paper and took out an oblong gilded box, to which +was fastened a card: "For our dear little daughter Eglah, with love of +her father and mother." The child glanced at the handwriting and her +eyes seemed almost to take fire. She snatched the box and threw it to +the floor. + +"It is not mine; I have no father and no mother. I have only Ma-Lila +left!" + +She buried her face in Eliza's lap, and hoping a burst of tears would +relieve the strain, the nurse silently caressed her, waiting for the +storm to break; but save the trembling of the figure no sign was given. +After a while, Eliza whispered, + +"Grandmother is coming down the walk." + +Eglah started up as if electrified, and lifted the box from the floor, +holding it against her breast. Leaning on her cane, Mrs. Maurice came to +the table, sat down, and opened her arms. + +"My dear child, come here." + +Not an inch stirred Eglah, and Eliza gently forced her forward within +reach of the extended arms. Mrs. Maurice leaned down to kiss her, but +she turned her head away. + +"My poor little girl, don't you know I love you?" + +"Oh, no, grandma; you never did love me, and you never will." + +"But I do, dear child. Kiss me." + +"I don't want to kiss you any more than you want to kiss me. I +understand exactly how you feel. You are sorry for me because you think +father has treated me badly in getting married. But, grandmother, you +need not pity me now, for I must make you understand that _my father +always is right_. No matter what he may do, he has good reasons, and if +I am satisfied nobody else can complain. I shall always know father is +right." + +The dry, white face was lifted proudly, and the challenging eyes met her +grandmother's steadily, but the childish lips trembled and the hand +clutched spasmodically at her throat. + +A gush of genuine tenderness warmed the old lady's heart as she took the +quivering fingers, spread them on her own palm, and touched the girl's +forehead with her lips. + +"'Loyal and true'--that is the Maurice motto. 'Though He slay me, yet +will I trust Him!' To-day we will have no lessons, and this evening +Eliza shall dress you especially to meet the gentleman, Mr. Herriott, +whom your father wishes you to know. Eliza, see that she has a warm +bath, and put some orange flower water in her glass of lemonade." + +In after years Noel Herriott often recalled that afternoon spent at +Nutwood. The inimitable courtesy of the handsome stately hostess, the +sweet countenance of the widowed foster-mother--whose anxious, tender +gaze rarely left the white-clad child--the grave negro butler, wearing +linen apron that matched his grey head, and the spacious old +cedar-wainscotted dining-room where, on bare, polished mahogany table, +the light of wax candles was reflected in silver dishes and candelabra, +and glittered from heavy, antique-shaped, cut-glass bowls, while golden +honeycomb and ripe strawberries mixed their fragrance with the breath of +crimson carnations heaped in a Sèvres china centrepiece that once graced +banquets at Trianon. Most vivid of all impressions, he retained the +imperishable image of a beautiful girl, with singularly white cheeks and +lustrous, shy eyes, glowing unnaturally from her fierce struggle for +composure--a proud, sensitive face whose exquisite lines suggested rare +old cameos behind cabinet glass. + +Though the guest was a very young man, his quiet manner and perfect ease +indicated thorough acquaintance with the most refined society, and +despite her sectional prejudice Mrs. Maurice yielded to the charm of an +unusually handsome personality and a conversation marred by no trace of +egotism. The crocus light of after-glow still tinged the west, where the +sickle of a new moon swung, when the visitor rose to depart. + +"Miss Eglah, when I come back from New Mexico and Arizona, shall I bring +you a Zuñi pickaninny or a Moqui pony?" + +She shook her head. + +"Since your father has stolen my stepmother, do you not think you might +persuade yourself to accept me as a sort of half cousin or +hemi-demi-semi-stepbrother, or any kind of a relative you may choose? I +am quite alone in the world, and you are just the sister I should like +to claim as my hermanita. May I?" + +"Thank you, sir, I would rather not. I want only my father." + +He bowed, and lifting her dainty little hand brushed it with his +mustache. + +"Mrs. Maurice, in saying good-bye, I must thank you cordially for the +privilege of spending several hours in your lovely home, which +illustrates all I have read of charming Southern life, and realizes +completely my ideal picture of what your sunny land must have been in +former years." + +"Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I wish you a pleasant journey. Nutwood is a +mere shadow of old and happier days. Ichabod is printed all over the +ruined South, and we live only to guard our graves." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The quiet, systematic routine of life at Nutwood was by no means +cloistral in its seclusion, and though the term "house-party" had not +yet taken root south of the Potomac, guests from various parts of the +State frequently spent a week with Mrs. Maurice, and were entertained at +dinners, luncheons, and teas with the lavish hospitality traditional in +the family. Accustomed early to meeting strangers, Eglah was neither +bashful nor awkward, but she understood fully that her father was +unpopular in the social world around her, and she deeply resented an +antipathy which, though never discussed in her presence, she felt it +impossible to forgive or remove. The explanatory assistance of Minerva, +daughter of the cook, had enabled her to comprehend all the unpleasant +significance of "scallawag" and "carpet-bagger," and with the fervor of +indignant loyalty she promptly espoused whatever cause her father was +reputed to represent. Alert and _en garde_, she expected attacks, felt +eager to retaliate, and consequently was often stung by the young people +of her circle with whom she was no favorite. For many months after Judge +Kent's second marriage, Mrs. Maurice yielded to a new and yearning +tenderness toward her grandchild, whom she heartily pitied, but the +overtures came too late; the plastic season had passed, the angles had +stiffened, the childish heart had hardened hopelessly, and caresses that +formerly might have won her love were received in cold, irresponsive +passiveness. + +Once she had gone under Eliza's care to spend Christmas in Washington, +and though the pretty, gay, good-natured stepmother laid siege to the +girl's heart and fondled and pampered her, Mrs. Kent knew from the +defiant gleam in her watchful, jealous eyes that the daughter would +never tolerate a usurper who sat on her own mother's throne and divided +her father's affections. + +During the following year, Mrs. Maurice was prostrated by an attack of +pneumonia that resulted in heart weakness, from which she never fully +rallied. The reins of household government slipped easily into Eliza's +hands, and that reticent, faithful young woman proved worthy of the +confidence so long reposed in her by her benefactress. + +The last link in the chain of daily duties to which the invalid clung +was her habit of listening to Eglah's recitations from text-books, but +the hour came when she reluctantly laid down the self-imposed task. + +"My dear, in future say your lessons to Eliza. I find I am not strong +enough to be patient, and without perfect patience no one should attempt +to teach. Go now and practise your piano exercises; it will not disturb +me in the least." + +She took into her own cold, beautifully shaped hand Eglah's slender, +warm fingers, looked at them critically, and smiled as she drew them +tenderly across her cheek. + +"Kiss me, little one. Try always to obey Eliza, for she will never fail +you when you need comfort, and in all this world nobody loves you as she +does. Send her to me." + +When the nurse came in and seated herself, darning gourd in hand, Mrs. +Maurice was glancing over a blank book used for memoranda. + + +"Eliza, here are some instructions you must follow faithfully when I am +gone. I have written them carefully, so that you cannot misunderstand. I +leave nothing to your discretion, not because your judgment is +defective, but simply for the reason that I desire my wishes executed +exactly. It is an absolute condition of my will that you should have the +personal care of Eglah until she marries. If she should be sent to a +new-fangled college (one of her father's Yankee fads), you will board in +sight of her; when she travels, you go with her. Nothing but her death, +or marriage, shall separate you, and with this provision I can safely +leave her. Egbert and Marcia will understand I have done what was +possible for the poor baby. Proud little thing! she will be tortured +indeed if ever the time comes when she feels ashamed of her father--and +wily though he is, her eyes are keen. She is all Kent in appearance, +except her hands and feet; they are dainty, beautiful, patrician, +genuinely Maurice like my Marcia's." + +She laid the book on Eliza's lap, motioned her away, and, turning her +head aside, closed her eyes. + +With the ebbing of summer tide her pulse waned slowly but steadily, like +a star going down to the gates of the west. Leaning heavily on her +husband's cane, followed by the aged pointer, the tall, wasted figure +went to and fro through the old house, as one having packed and waiting +for departure looks to see if aught has been forgotten; and over the +pallid face with its cloud of black hair an exultant smile sometimes +shone, as she realized how soon she should reclaim her treasures in the +beckoning Beyond. It was an August night when the pilot's signal came, +and swiftly and gladly she "crossed the bar." Eliza was aroused from a +sound sleep by Eglah, who shook her. + +"Ma-Lila, I am so frightened! I heard grandma call out 'Egbert!' +'Marcia!' Something had already waked me suddenly." + +"Oh, dearie, you were only dreaming." + +She sprang up and lighted a candle, but the girl clung to her. + +"No, it was not a dream. I heard it clear and loud like a quick cry. I +was so scared I waited a while, and then I went to her room--but she is +not there! I could see the bed was empty, because Dinah had left the +night lamp burning in the passage. What can it mean?" + +"Grandmother is often restless, and goes out on the colonnade, where the +fresh air relieves her oppressed breathing. No doubt she is there now. +Baby, do not tremble so." + +Clutching Eliza's nightgown, Eglah followed her to the sick room, which +was unoccupied, and waking Dinah, who slept on a cot in the hall, they +searched the entire length of the piazza, the foster-mother shielding +the light with her hand. Turning to re-enter the house, they were +startled by the howl of a dog, answered instantly by a scream from +Herod, roosting on one of the arched chimney tops. Eglah was so +terrified she threw her arms around Eliza, thereby dashing the candle +from her trembling hand. + +"She must be in the general's room, and old Hector is there also." + +Swiftly they crossed the halls, and found a light shining through the +partly open door of the memorial chamber. A candle burned low under the +portrait over the mantel, and Hector, with his head thrown back against +his mistress's knee, howled feebly. She sat in her husband's easy chair, +her head pillowed on his dressing gown, where a fresh Cape jasmine +gleamed, and over her lap flowed the yellowed lace of Marcia's +christening robe, half hiding the baby shoes of white kid. She had laid +one hand on the Confederate uniform folded on the couch beside her +chair, and about the long, white fingers of the other were wrapped +strands of vivid red seed-coral--the necklace and bracelets of her only +child. Stern lines and shadows of sorrow had faded forever from the +frozen face, where eternal peace set its blessed seal, and in the wide +eyes fixed on her husband's portrait was the rapt expression that comes +only with the lifting of the veil as the soul drifts through its windows +of flesh. The icy shiver that runs across the world when day dawns grew +into a windy gust from the west, extinguishing the fluttering candle +flame and blowing the lace curtains out eastward like white sails +bearing away the happy spirit to crystal seas. At the edge of the sky, +where the morning star burned, a thread of orange glowed in the soft +pearl grey of the new day, and only the crowing of the game cocks from +their cedar thicket broke the silence that death consecrates. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Were it possible to probe the recesses of cerebration by some +psychological process as searching as the Roentgen ray, many strange +beliefs would be dragged from secret chambers sedulously guarded, where +mental fetiches are worshipped. Those who knew Eliza Mitchell well +considered her a very pretty, dignified, reticent young widow, who won +respect by her adherence to mourning garments--never laid aside after +her husband's death; but her rigid observance of the strictest phase of +Methodist discipline presented a certain austerity of character that +appeared to rebuke quietly even the members of her own denomination who +indulged in "the putting on of gold and costly apparel, and taking such +diversions" as aforetime were considered appanages of the "flesh and the +devil." + +Keenly observant and silently contemplative, she had grown shrewd as a +judge of character, and laid the tribute of her confidence at the feet +of few; yet this little woman, eminently practical and rigidly orthodox +in the faith of her father, had surrendered to one belief that dominated +heart, soul, and mind--that ruled her absolutely, and that she jealously +guarded from all but her God. Her most intense and precious conviction +was that the soul created and intended for her baby boy, who never +breathed, had been assigned to the body of Marcia's infant girl born a +little later. She was assured that her child had never known life on +earth, and had been in his coffin but a few hours when Eglah first +opened her eyes. Souls never die. What of the soulless still-born? Would +God deny any Christian mother reunion with her innocent baby in the +world of spirits? From the hour that Marcia's wailing child was laid on +Eliza's bosom she accepted it as an incarnation of the soul of little +Elliot, adrift in space but housed at last in the form committed to her +fostering care. Whether this phantasmal belief sprang from feverish +conditions under which she first felt the baby's warm lips at her +breast, Eliza never questioned; and as the years passed the conviction +strengthened, until she easily explained all Eglah's waywardness by the +hypothesis that a boy's soul fretted under the limitations of a girl's +body. Ignorant of the complex elements that fed her devotion to the +child, even Mrs. Maurice could not fully understand her idolatrous +fondness, her perfect and marvellous patience that condoned all errors, +and only Eglah could have told how often she was fondled as "my Elliot" +when cradle songs were crooned in the sanctuary of the nursery. +Notwithstanding Mrs. Mitchell was zealous in missionary work, and when +she read her reports as treasurer of the "Hindustan" fund, she dwelt +feelingly on the benighted superstition that worshipped idols and +believed in transmigration of soul. + +After Mrs. Maurice's death, Mr. Whitfield as administrator closed +Nutwood, leaving Aaron and his daughter Celia custodians, and Eglah and +Eliza went to Washington, where two small rooms were selected for their +occupancy in the fashionable "apartments" leased by Senator Kent. His +daughter now enjoyed every educational advantage that a governess for +modern languages and a tutor for Greek and mathematics could supply, +while teachers in the entire range of feminine accomplishments were +eager to encourage cultivation of any special talent. In dancing and +riding she was found surprisingly proficient, and as Senator Kent was +desirous she should enter as early as possible a "woman's college" in +his native State where one of his sisters was professor, the child was +industriously coached to achieve this purpose. + +Standing as it were on the rim of a new world, strewn with the flotsam +and jetsam of shattered political, ethical, and domestic systems, where +all nations and social conditions found representation, Eglah and Eliza +confronted novel customs, strange beliefs, and cosmopolitan diction that +clashed sharply on the conservative standards of old Southern usage. +Tethered to the pivot of her Methodist discipline, Mrs. Mitchell swung +around the narrow circle of conscientious orthodoxy; but Eglah made +alarming excursions into ecclesiastical provinces, and their first +serious altercation arose from the announcement that the girl had +decided to join the class for confirmation in the Episcopal church where +Judge Kent worshipped. + +"Confirmation? Oh, no; you are too young to take such an important +step." + +"Now, Ma-Lila, would you say that if I asked to join the Methodist +Church?" + +"That would be different, because you know more about the Church in +which you have been raised." + +"I know the Episcopal catechism from cover to cover, and I like the +service, and the choristers, and the candles used in some Episcopal +churches, and----" + +"Dearie, you merely want to follow your father, and, moreover----" + +"Did not you follow your father? You are what you are just because your +father was a Methodist preacher, and a chaplain who was killed bringing +my grandfather off the battle-field. What are fathers for, if not to set +us examples?" + +"Do you forget your dear grandmother, and her love for the church you +were christened in, and could you who owe her so much defy her wishes?" + +"Grandmother is so glad to get away and be in heaven that she never will +worry over me any more; and if I am only good enough to go where she is +when I die, what difference will it make to her how I got there? Seems +to me, Ma-Lila, all this strife over different faiths is as foolish as +denying people their choice of routes when they go travelling in summer. +If we have perfect right to trust our bodies to our favorite railroad, +we ought to feel as free to take tickets for our souls on any line that +leads to God." + +Eliza took the girl's hands and pressed the soft palms to her own +cheeks, as she said, in a voice that faltered despite her will: + +"My darling, let us wait. Promise me one thing; do nothing for another +year at least. For my sake, baby, I beg of you." + +Eglah saw unshed tears in the black eyes that had always shone tenderly +on her, and rising she stole one arm around the nurse's neck and kissed +her unsteady lips. + +"Please don't fret about it. You shall have your wish. Of course I will +wait a year if you think it best; but you must help me, because somehow +it is harder for me to be good here than it was down at home." + +"It is a sacred promise you make me now." + +"I told you I would wait. Did I ever deceive you? You ought to know me +better than Mrs. Kent, and even she told father yesterday she had been +trying to find out whether I had most talent for the piano or the +mandolin, and she concluded I really had no talent for anything--showed +only genius for telling the truth." + +Thenceforth Mrs. Mitchell redoubled her efforts to control the spiritual +aspirations of the girl to whom she had devoted her life, and the +bargain she made with her conscience was that Judge Kent had the right +to train and develop and decorate the body of his daughter, even along +lines she deemed Philistine, but the immortal spark--the soul intended +for her little Elliot--was immutably hers, to be saved eternally in the +faith to which her own hopes were anchored. That night, when she had +brushed and braided Eglah's golden-brown hair that no one else ever +arranged, she suddenly caught the slim form in a straining embrace. + +"God bless my Elliot--my own precious baby!" + +"It has been a long time since you called me Elliot, and it sounds queer +to give me the name of your boy. Why should you?" + +"You are my boy, and my Eglah also; two in one, and my only joy in all +the world. Don't argue, dearie; go to sleep." + +She lifted her into bed and tucked the silk quilt carefully about her, +as though crib days had not ended. + +"Ma-Lila, if we should all meet in heaven--and I do hope that somehow I +shall get there--I am afraid I shall feel puzzled to know who really is +my mother, because it seems to me I belong more to you than to anybody +else except father; but then grandmother will certainly be there, and +she will carry me straight to that special spot--the heavenly +'west-end'--where all the Maurices dwell, and hand me over to her +Marcia: the beautiful one I never saw, my own mother, who would not wait +in this world long enough to look at me." + +"Hush, my lamb! Good night." + +In the adjoining room she sat down at a table where books were piled, +and opening one read a marked passage: + +"The story was told by the owner of a shop where was sold the +amber-tinted syrup of malt given to young children when milk could not +be obtained. A pale woman in white came very late for many nights to buy +a cup of this syrup--_midzu ame_--but never spoke. + +"One night, when she beckoned him to follow, he went with her to the +cemetery, where she suddenly vanished in a tomb, and he heard a young +child crying under ground. On opening the tomb there was found the +corpse of the woman, and by her side a young infant smiling, who had +been fed from a cup of _midzu ame_ in the hand of the corpse. The woman +had by mistake been prematurely buried. The child was born in the grave, +and love--stronger than death--compelled the ghost to provide +nourishment for her baby." + +Eliza closed the volume and tossed it across the table. + +"As if we needed old heathen Japan to teach us the length and breadth +and depth and deathlessness of maternal devotion, when we know from the +Bible that though God in heaven forsook His Son, the earthly mother +clung to Jesus!" + + * * * * * + +It was an intensely cold, windless, brilliant moonlight night in +January, two years after she came to live in Washington, and when the +clock struck eleven she heard a quick but cautious step in the corridor +and a slight tap at her door. Mr. Herriott stood at the threshold and +beckoned her to the head of the steps. + +"Is Eglah asleep?" + +"I think she is." + +"Come downstairs quietly." + +In the lower hall, where the lights burned brightly, she saw that he +looked pale and troubled. + +"Mrs. Mitchell, a terrible blow has fallen upon us. Mrs. Kent went +sleighing with some friends, and the horses became uncontrollable. The +sleigh was overturned, and poor Nina, thrown against a stone wall, was +killed instantly. Will you do what is best when she is brought home? +Don't rouse little Eglah. I am going to find Senator Kent, who is in +committee meeting, and break the news as gently as possible. Poor, dear +Nina! So merry, so kind hearted! Laughing and chaffing me for my +awkwardness when I tucked the lap robe about her feet." + +Once more death levelled a wall that in some degree barred Eglah from +her father, and from that wintry night she dated the beginning of her +happy reign over his undivided affection--a monopoly she had long +coveted as the supreme privilege and crown of life. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"Has the success of the experiment justified the labor and enthusiasm +you spent upon it?" + +"Yes, Noel, the result far surpasses my hopes, and I am impatient for +you to visit us, not only to understand fully the complete success of +the work, but to receive the grateful acknowledgments of every member of +the Order." + +"Then you bar your doors against me, because any expression of thanks is +annoying, and the great pleasure I gave myself in deeding the property +to you would be marred. Remember, Vernon, I am not a well-rounded +character, measured by your ecclesiastical tape-line, and one of my ugly +angles is aversion to thanks. If you have drained the marshland and +reclaimed the house from mildew and mice you have made your neighbors +debtors." + +"The same Noel Herriott of college days!" + +"Only more so, if you please. Nothing human is immutable, and if a man +does not improve he grows worse. By the way, is your reverence still +'Brother' Temple, or have you climbed the ladder of spiritual +promotion?" + +"I am always Vernon to you, but the world knows me as 'Father' Temple. +When will you come to us at 'Calvary House' and inspect the rich harvest +from the seed you sowed? I long for the one thing you have +withheld--your deep, hearty sympathy in my grand and holy work." + +"Meaning that nothing less than the three vows will assure you of my +safety?" + +"That is beyond all that I ever dared to hope, but your cordial +approbation would cheer me more than the indorsement of any other man. +Generous though you are in financial assistance, your mental attitude +toward our Order is that of the smiling tolerance with which one watches +a child building a house of cards." + +"However tentative my opinion relative to the scope and permanence of +your religious movement, you cannot doubt that I earnestly desire the +success to which the sanctity of your motive entitles you. Partial as I +am to gymnastic methods, I allow no athletic feats in my mental +processes; I neither run nor leap to conclusions, and you must give me +time. You and I always approach vital questions by different paths: you +lean generally to collectiveness; I usually prefer the slower leverage +of individualism. You are burning the candle of life at both ends, and +trying to realize your noble ideals; I plod far behind, with only a +feeble taper and indulge no higher hope than to idealize my realities." + + +"When will you come to the lovely home you have given us? There is one +room we have called 'Founder's,' and set apart for you; and, Noel, no +sun sets that has not brought us to our knees in prayer for you who made +it possible for us to own a chapel. When shall we welcome you?" + +"Not now. I must go home, where matters need attention. Strange, is it +not, that the magic of a name should outlive all it represents? That +lonely old stone house staring at its shadow on the lake has no vital +element of home except my horses and dogs, and one Maltese cat that +sleeps in my arm-chair. When Nina married Senator Kent the last thread +that tied me to anything like domesticity snapped, and I followed my +bent and prowled from land to land." + +"Why do you not marry some sweet, gentle woman and settle yourself?" + +"Scarcely the advice one might expect from the priestly Father of an +Anglican celibate order. Has your creed narrowed to such alternatives? +Either a cell at Calvary or the snare and disillusions of marriage? +Unfortunately for me, women have exerted only a traditional influence on +my life. My own young mother died before I could remember her, and I was +consigned to tutors when I should have been trundling hoops. I went +early to college, and after father's second marriage was rarely at home; +hence my acquaintance with women in the home circle is nebulous and +legendary. As a boy I disdained sweethearts; as a man they disdain me. +The only woman I ever really cared for would no more marry me than a +stone slab in a cemetery; so, with many thanks, I cannot utilize your +counsel, and it only remains for you to keep a cell for me at Calvary. +Some day at eventide I may creep in, and you will kindly shrive and +bless me." + +Mr. Herriott had been leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped +behind his head, and when he rose he towered six feet two inches, +smiling gravely at the upturned face of Father Temple, whose sombre +clerical habit contrasted vividly with the white yachting flannels worn +by his friend. + +"Ah, Noel, what a Viking you look! Save prize fighting, is there +anything in the realm of athletics you have not accomplished?" + +"I fear you would not compliment me with even that civilized exception +if you had seen a skirmish, minus weapons, that I had with a hairy, +tattooed Dyak in a Borneo jungle where I hunted orchids. Vernon, if you +trained your muscles more, and let up a little on your soul, allowed it +a breathing spell, you would not look so flaccid and anæmic. Don't +prefer monkish Latin to Juvenal: _mens sana in corpore sano_! You +observe, respect for your Reverence prevents my offering you the +Rabelais parody. Come, dine with me to-night." + +"No, thank you. I am to give a brief 'retreat.' Tell me about my cousin +Eglah; you crossed the ocean in the same steamer." + +"You have not seen her?" + +"For a few moments only. She is a beautiful girl." + +"What remains to be said--since you accord her the mantle of beauty, +whose folds, broader even than charity's, hide all defects? Where shall +I begin? Being her cousin, you must know what I have merely heard: that +she swept through college like a southern tornado--or should I have said +like a meteor?--carrying off the honors, and was the youngest graduate +who had ever turned the heads of the spectacled lecturers. Yet it +appears she values her trophy merely because her laurels pleased her +father, at whose feet she sits in adoration. In her physique, gymnastic +training leaves nothing to be improved; she won badges, and can hold her +own at basket-ball, tennis, rowing, and swimming. Is not the catalogue +complete? So much for mental attainments and physical perfection, but in +the domain of womanly emotions she is simply an unknown quantity--a +latter-day sphinx, fresh and fair before drifting desert sands deface +her. If a lover should ever win her heart he will certainly be entitled +to it, by the supreme right of discovery. Her affection for Judge Kent +absolutely rules her, and in one respect she is unique, she is as +utterly incapable of flirtations as an unfledged owl." + +"On account of the family connection you have been thrown so intimately +into her society that I hoped you could tell me something of her +religious tendencies." + +"I am such a confirmed tramp that my visits to the family have been +brief and interrupted by long absences. Eglah always appealed peculiarly +to my sympathy because of the pathetic antagonism of her environment. +Your cousin, Judge Kent, was very much disliked at the South, where +sectional political rancor was, is, and will be rife, and his child +suffered keenly on that account. When she came north to live, her social +surroundings were even worse, because she furiously resented every +reflection upon the people of the South, where the Maurices were +conspicuous in war records. Her efforts at loyalty all around the circle +have not made smooth sailing for her, and her motives were doubtless +complex. You are curious about her 'religious tendencies'? If you are +wise you will not stir any Calvary leaven into the pure sweet flour of +her soul, unless you covet war _á outrance_ with that nondescript +personage Mrs. Mitchell--an anomalous blend, alert as a lynx, wary as a +fox, stealthy as a cougar--who serves Eglah in divers and sundry +capacities: an amalgamated foster-mother, housekeeper, maid, companion, +chaperon, and confidante. She is a Simon-pure puritan, prim as +Priscilla, and her processes of reasoning are quite as broad as the edge +of a razor. That she viciously opposes all forms of 'ritualism' I happen +to know from listening to a discussion between her and Eglah, in which +the whole bundle of dogmas was thrashed out, from 'historic episcopate' +and 'confession' to incense, candles, and 'reservation of the +sacrament.' What a pile of chaff they built! Eglah's appreciation of +sensuous beauty and classical music inclines her to gorgeous vestments, +jewelled windows, and the rhythmic chanting of choristers that lift +their chins like Raphael's cherubs, but Mrs. Mitchell finds in the +severe simplicity of her own tabernacle an added sanctity, and your +Calvary House will be to her that of Rimmon. In Rome Judge Kent had a +touch of fever which frightened Eglah into telegraphing for me at Basle, +where I was attending a scientific congress, so we came home together." + +"If Eglah's enthusiasm could be aroused in our mission work, she would +wield an incalculable power for good." + +"Vernon--pardon the lapse into argot--'don't!' Let the child pick her +own way to peace. She is not addicted to enthusiasms: one attack long +ago destroyed her susceptibility to subsequent seizures; she can be +enthusiastic over only one teraph--her father. Must you go? Wait a +moment. Friendship is frank, and I am sorry to see you losing the vigor +that in college days distinguished you. Fast less, and sleep more. Come +home with me and hunt and fish and row, and let other people's souls +enjoy a vacation." + +As they shook hands Father Temple asked: + +"And what have scientific congresses done for your soul, Noel?" + +"Drawn me closer, I hope, to the Creator whose subtle and inexorable +laws are best revealed to the faithful student that fearlessly analyzes +His universal work. The sole aim of scientists is 'to admit nothing +false, and to omit nothing true.' Vernon, have faith in me as of old, +and keep a cell whitewashed for me at Calvary House. Truly-- + + "So many paths lead up to God, + 'Twere strange if any soul should miss them all." + +With his hand on the stair rail the minister paused and looked back. + +"One thing I wish to ask is whether Eglah had any special admirers +abroad? American heiresses are attractive." + +"She had as many beaux as she chose to permit. Two attachés of American +legations were particularly attentive, and a handsome English naval +officer whose father is a duke will doubtless cross the ocean to renew +his acquaintance. Possess your soul in patience. Her heart is as sound +asleep as when she dreamed in her crib, and the man who wakes and wins +it will travel no macadamized road. Before Lent she will be in New York +for a week, and when Congress adjourns the family will come to me on the +Lake for a visit." + +Given a man of thirty-three, unusually good-looking, possessing by +inheritance a large fortune, dowered with infinite leisure upon which no +professional duties laid intrusive claim, handicapped by no church +obligations, and the world assumes that he has inevitably run the gamut +of those iniquities set by Satan as snares for the idle rich. Intensely +virile as was Noel Herriott, his polished placidity of manner and +courteous conservatism masked in some degree the strength and tenacious +obstinacy of a character that presented enigmatical phases to those who +knew him best. Heredity and education had combined in kneading him +physically, mentally, and morally along rather peculiar curves during +the plastic period of boyhood, and the finishing touches that determined +the mould came from his parting interview with his Presbyterian father, +when Fergus Herriott sent him away to college. + +"My son, God gave you a remarkably fine body. Neither neglect nor abuse +it, but be sure you master it from the start, else you will be the slave +of your own flesh. Bad habits are the leeches that would suck a Hercules +to effeminacy. Steer as clear of the sins labelled "Thou shalt not" as +you would of that leper island down in the Pacific. The ten commandments +are equal links in the moral chain, and it is no man's privilege to pick +and choose which he will break or which he will keep; because if he +violates one, it is merely a question of temptation, necessity, and +opportunity when he will transgress all. If he bears false witness and +lies, he will steal money as he filched character; if he covets his +neighbor's wife, the time comes when he murders her husband. _Falsus in +uno, falsus in omnibus._ You are going where you will hear much fine +talk about 'lofty, broadening, philosophic ideals' and 'progressive, +altruistic standards of humanitarianism and honor.' Now mark you, God's +laws are not 'progressive,' they are absolutely fixed, and when you are +as old as I am you will have learned that 'man's honor,' unless based on +them, is merely a sliding scale set up on a quicksand. My boy, try to +lead such a clean life that when the mirror of records is held up to you +in the final judgment you will not squirm and want to look the other +way; and now, my last word is, you had the great misfortune to lose your +dear, sweet mother in this world--be sure you deserve to find her in the +next." + +During the journey to college he found in his well-filled pocket-book a +folded sheet containing additional memoranda in his father's cramped, +old-fashioned writing. + +"Be honest first, then generous--never wasteful. Pose on no pedestals +and you will escape falls. Avoid priggishness, which is detestable +mental dry-rot; and flee from cant, the convenient domino of hypocrisy. +Cultivate genuine sympathy for all suffering humanity, and remember that +a man's safest companion is his own conscientious, incorruptible +self-respect." + +Doubtless in the years that followed Noel realized that indeed + + "Souls were dangerous things to carry straight + Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world;" + +but that he succeeded fairly well might have been inferred from a +certain scar on his throat, received while chastising two of his +classmates who had caricatured him in doggerel under the title of "Sir +Dandy Galahad." Misled by the quiet reserve of his manner, and an inborn +courtesy that made him as good a listener as talker, strangers never +suspected the existence of a temper fierce and, when fully aroused, +well-nigh implacable. In his third collegiate year the death of his +father left him untrammelled in the selection of a profession, and soon +after he entered into possession of a fortune so large that its golden +key would have opened the door of almost any career he might have +chosen. His mental trend was toward scientific studies, and his dominant +scheme of investigation embraced the elusive problems of anthropology. +His individual and favorite hypothesis involved the genesis of +aboriginal American man, and to secure all prehistoric and especially +pre-glacial data he had attended post-collegiate lectures at several +European universities, supplemented by sojourns in Central America, +Pacific Islands, and British North America. + +Since the death of his stepmother, Mr. Herriott had established +temporary headquarters in New York in "apartments" not far from the old +Herriott house, which by provision of his wife's will was now the +property of Judge Kent. While the family of the senator usually remained +in Washington, Eglah and Mrs. Mitchell frequently spent a week in New +York, and on such occasions, if Noel chanced to be in the city, they +relied upon him to serve as escort when needed. That he had successfully +run the gauntlet of Eliza's years of cautious, suspicious observation, +and finally commanded her admiring confidence, contributed in some +degree to the easy _camaraderie_ maintained between Eglah and himself: +on her part a genuinely trusting friendship, pure and simple; on his +that cool, watchful quietude that holds in leash the one deep passionate +love of a strong nature and a lonely life. From the day he first saw the +little quivering white-clad girl standing in the sunset glow that +flooded the fragrant, flower-filled dining-room at Nutwood, he had +opened the empty temple of his heart, and where no image dwelt--save the +memory of his father--he lifted this child to a pure altar, and offered +silent homage. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"Of course, Mr. Herriott, you are vastly amused by my ambitious +pretension." + +"Why Mr. Herriott? And why assume amusement which I certainly have not +expressed?" + +"Not verbally; but I quite understand that look in your eyes, when by +sheer force of will you hold your lips from smiling. Only courtesy keeps +in check your contempt for our 'higher education.'" + +"Eglah, be a little more just in your generalizations. If the education +be really 'higher' and thorough, no reasonable man could afford to +disparage it. You have spent the morning over volumes of tedious +statistics, extracting figures on _ad valorem_ and 'specific' schedules +that only a custom-house clerk or a tariff expert could utilize by +eliminating nonessentials and compiling valuable tables. Why waste this +perfect day over metric puzzles--dekameter, hectoliter, myriagram?" + +"Father wished the exact figures, and to work for him is my greatest +pleasure." + +"Do not confound motive and accomplishment. Your father's secretary +would have collected the statistics in half the time and in a more +satisfactory form, simply because he has been trained for such search, +as dogs are taught to hunt truffles." + +"Mr. Metcalf was needed in Washington, and as father has tried me +sufficiently to trust the accuracy of my work, he asked me to make this +investigation while I was in New York. Mr. Noel, to help him even in +trifles is my very life; he is my world, my all." + +Mr. Herriott lifted his hat and bowed. + +"Your devotion is beautiful and sacred, and Judge Kent should feel proud +of the list of rivals he so successfully defies. Perhaps it has not yet +occurred to him that in chaining yourself to his library desk you are +restricted to sawdust diet." + +"Varied now and then, you must admit, by banquets of opera, germans, +receptions, teas, theatre parties, and the embassies. When I was working +so hard at college I looked forward eagerly to 'coming out,' as to a +magical door that would swing suddenly open into a wonderful world, +where, because of new conditions, I should become a different person, +and shed my girlish ideas as serpents slip their skins; but since the +'open sesame,' and I have 'arrived,' I seem to have lost nothing of the +past, and my old, tiresome self is tyrannous as ever." + +"Is social life in Washington disappointing?" + +"That is scarcely the right term. Life is certainly very brilliant, and +gay and panoramic, and I enjoy music and dancing, and some dinner +parties; above all, I find keen pleasure in following a spirited debate +in the House, or listening to speeches in the Senate, but sometimes I +catch myself wondering if this is indeed all--the veritable kernel of +society, politics, diplomacy, or merely the shell partly cracked. Life +here and in Washington does not seem so absolutely real as it was at +home, at Nutwood." + +They were driving in Central Park, and Eglah shared the front seat of +the trap where Mr. Herriott held the reins of his spirited horses, and +brought them down to a steady, rapid trot. It was a cold but sunny day +in February, and as he laced his way in and out of the stream of +vehicles, he and his companion were the theme of much comment from the +passing throng. Fastidious in the matter of clothes, he was always +remarkably well dressed--a fact accentuated by his unusual height and +erect carriage--and at the two fashionable clubs to which he belonged he +was generally regarded "as all around, the best looking member." The +dark steel-blue grey eyes--with no hint of yellow--which his Scotch +father gave him, lost something of their penetrating brilliance under +the long jet lashes that, with black brows and thick clustering hair, +his mother had contributed, and his naturally clear olive skin had been +weather-tanned in various climates to a browner tint. In profile his +face resembled a bronze medallion, and when he smiled his well-cut lips, +that in repose seemed ominously thin, showed curves of rare beauty +around a faultless set of teeth. The sun of prosperity had ripened and +mellowed his manhood, and, as yet, no acid of cynicism had invaded his +nature. + +Gowned in a fur-trimmed cloth of hunter's green, Eglah wore a velvet +toque of same hue, that failed to conceal the mass of golden-brown hair +burnished by sunshine into the similitude of a white-oak leaf dyed in +autumn. Under delicate, level brows, her large dark eyes--_chataigne_ in +some lights, almost black at times--were set rather far apart in an oval +face whose exquisitely clear, pure pallor was stained only by the +healthy rich red of slender lips, that had a treacherous trick of +quivering when any strong emotion stirred the deeps of her heart. By the +accepted canons of art and cultured taste her form and features had been +adjudged "beautiful," and some great-grandmother of the far South had +dowered her with a peculiar grace of movement--not languid, nor sinuous, +nor Delsartian--a natural idiosyncrasy that made the manner of her +steps, the lifting of head and motion of hands, unlike other women's. +Only one gift--most potent of all--had been withheld from her +birthright: she was absolutely devoid of personal magnetism, and her +habitual cold indifference approached haughtiness, that the world +resented. A certain aloofness of manner hedged her around even in the +midst of the social whirl, and though in conversation the lovely eyes +appeared to meet frankly those confronting hers, people were vaguely +conscious that some veil was rarely lifted from their soft, shining +depths. + +Sudden congestion in the line of equipages, stretching far ahead, had +caused a temporary halt, and when the knot dissolved, and the impatient +horses sprang forward once more, Eglah said: + +"I thought you loved good music too well to lose last night's opera +treat, and until the final act I expected you." + +"Shall I flatter myself that even in the midst of the select party +occupying my box you really missed me?" + +"Certainly I missed you--all the more because some of them chattered, +and you would have hushed the tattle." + +"Am I so successful in the rôle of ogre as to over-awe my guests in an +opera box?" + +"Your quiet way of setting an example of good breeding is sometimes +contagious among thoughtless people." + +"My lucky star is surely ascending: you have paid me two compliments, +and I am puzzled to know whether I shall be expected to balance my +account at _ad valorem_ rates on the basis of your assessment or mine?" + +"Oh, you and I established free trade long ago, and I can always tell +you the truth without pausing to weigh words as do legation attachés, +and as father does when wily lobbyists intercept him on his way from +committee rooms. Mr. Noel, had you any special reason for absenting +yourself? The lovely lilac orchids were, of course, far more ornamental +in your empty chair, and you must not think me lacking in appreciation +because I am so tardy in thanking you for them." + +"An unexpected change in the date of a lecture given by one of my +friends kept me away, when I had hoped to join you. As I had promised to +attend, there was no alternative when a belated note informed me that +last night had been selected for its delivery." + +"Tell me about it." + +"If I should so afflict you, most certainly you would vote me a bore, or +fall asleep in self-defence." + +"When you say that, you know curiosity always covets the forbidden." + +"At your peril then! It was a monograph on the autochthonic origin of +American races, and by way of ornamentation bristled with such graceful +trifles as cephalic index, _brachycephalic_, and _dolichocephalic_, and +was sprinkled with the curry of _Votanic_ legends, and choice tid-bits +from the Quiché _Popol Vuh_ and from _Codex Chimalpopoco_! Sounds spicy, +doesn't it? Piques your appetite for a larger slice?" + +"No, thank you. Yet you preferred that tiresome jargon to listening to a +superb tenor solo?" + +"In a way--yes. We all ride hobby-horses from the nursery to the +cemetery, and it is merely a question of individual taste what blood +strain or pedigree we choose. My racing stable is not so generously +supplied as yours, which embraces colts of various breeds: reports of +fisheries commissions, bounties, American tonnage from 18-- to 18--, and +a vast----" + +"Sarcasm does not fit you becomingly, Mr. Noel; it hangs askew, like a +clown's cap on a cowl. What have you registered your own special toy, +that you canter so vigorously around the world? Is it called ethnology, +or totemism, or anthropology?" + +"When I have finished trying all its gaits, and find the sum total +satisfactory, I shall label it, and fit a comfortable side saddle and +introduce you formally. Now, Miss Kent, come to confession. Did you see +the list of passengers who arrived on yesterday's steamer from +Liverpool?" + +"I did not." + +"Can you recollect a certain prophecy I made at Cowes, anent a handsome +naval officer who entertained us at luncheon on his father's yacht?" + +"Cassandra was a woman, and men should not trespass on the one feminine +right of 'I told you so,' that has descended to us intact from Hecuba's +daughter. But, Mr. Noel, if you mean----" + +She turned and looked up into his eyes. + +"Yes, I met him this morning at the club, where Ogden introduced him, +and I saved him a useless journey to Washington by telling him you were +here for a few days." + +"I can only say I am sorry to hear it." + +"While he is in New York I must, in part, return the hospitality shown +us, and your father will pay the remainder of the debt in Washington. I +have arranged a dinner for this evening, and later we shall see +'Hamlet,' then a supper afterward at Delmonico's. Will you join us at +the theatre, if I call for you, bringing Mrs. St. Clair as chaperon?" + +"Thank you, I much prefer not to be one of the party; besides, I have a +previous engagement. I am going with my cousin, Vernon Temple, to a +meeting of shop girls, a sort of night school established by some of his +lady friends." + +"What class does he teach?" + +"I believe he 'talks' now and then on 'feminine arts,' and to-night +there will be a lecture on lace making and tapestry guilds, illustrated +of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible +'Bayeux.' I am trying to classify this new cousin, who seems to me a +queer blend of mediæval monk, pre-Raphaelite reformer, and socialist. He +is altogether unlike any one I ever knew, but his beautiful, sad face +reminds me of a picture I saw in Munich--a young priest administering +the viaticum to his dying sweetheart, whom he forsook for holy orders." + +Lowering his eyelids, Mr. Herriott glanced keenly at her. + +"You find Temple wonderfully magnetic at times?" + +"Scarcely that. 'Magnetic' implies so much and really explains so +little. When I see his ceaseless struggle to keep the heel of his spirit +on the neck of his flesh, it suggests a fanatical rebellion against that +equipoise God saw fit to establish. Like Joubert, 'he seems to be a soul +that by accident met with a body, and tries to make the best of it.' My +cousin Temple is fond of you." + +"Despite much difference of opinion on many questions, our friendship +has survived the 'storm and stress' period, and I honor a man whose +battle cry for humanity is: + + "'Make trade a Christian possibility, + And individual right no general wrong.' + +Have you noticed the expression of Mrs. Mitchell's face when they happen +to meet?" + +"Haven't I! It is too funny to see her narrow her eyes and look at him +as if he were some unclassified beast whose method of pouncing on his +prey had not yet been warningly advertised. She is convinced he is an +ecclesiastical infernal machine trying to wreck our family orthodoxy. I +asked him----" + +She stopped suddenly at sight of two gentlemen approaching on horseback, +and Mr. Herriott smiled, as he whispered: + +"Lo! the second son of a duke!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +In a quiet and unfrequented cross street--equally remote from the +thronged thoroughfares of trade and from fashionable avenues lined with +palaces--stood the low and unpretentious Chapel of St. Hyacinth, marked +by neither spire nor belfry. The old stone front receded sufficiently +from the pavement to permit a short flight of shallow steps that led to +an arched door in a pillared portico with a cross on its pointed roof, +which hung over the entrance like a sullen, frowning brow. A northeast +wind came fitfully in hissing blasts, dashed with fine sleet; but when +Eglah passed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced +with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which +glimmered brass lattice screens, rows of tall candles, the gilded +carving of the white altar, laden with lilies, and the marble statue of +the Virgin, at whose snowy feet a red light burned in a silver lamp. On +each side of the wall below the brass lattice that barred the chancel +was a "confessional" of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the +clustered lights in the centre of the concave ceiling formed a crown. + +On the right and left of the altar the white surpliced choristers filled +several seats, and the quivering thunder of the organ ceased suddenly, +as if to listen to the marvellous voice of the boy soloist, that swelled +and rose as if the singer felt himself "hard by the gates of heaven." A +slender child of ten years, grasping his music with waxen hands almost +infantile in size, while his head, covered thickly with shining ripples +of golden hair, was thrown back, and his blue eyes almost purplish, like +a periwinkle, were raised in contemplation of the crown glowing above +him. The colorless face was delicate and beautiful as if wrought out of +ivory, and a certain pathetic sadness of expression inherent in fragile +childhood was for the moment dominated by the radiant exultation of his +wonderful eyes, that seemed made to dwell between the wings of a seraph. + +Father Temple left the altar before which he had knelt in prayer, and +advancing to the steps of the chancel, stood with one hand on the brass +railing and briefly explained his unexpected presence. A telegram had +summoned the rector of St. Hyacinth's to the deathbed of his father, and +the request to officiate in his absence had been received too late to +permit the preparation of a regular sermon; hence the patient indulgence +of the congregation was invoked for some desultory remarks which might +not prove entirely fruitless. After a few exordial sentences, he +repeated slowly the opening ten verses from St. John xv., and waited a +moment. + +"For text let us consider: 'I am the true vine,' said our Lord, 'and +ye, my brethren, are the branches.'" + +Then followed a recitative of various selected passages from the "Sermon +in the Hospital," in tones so musical and liquid, and with a repose of +manner so profound, yet full of subtle magnetism, that his audience +gazed in sympathetic wonder at the slight figure clad in the sombre +habit of his order--at the thin, pallid spiritual face where large, +deep-set black eyes burned with the preternatural light of consecrated +but consuming zeal. The folded arms attempted no gestures--what need, +while that rhythmic wave of sound flowed on?--until the end, when the +clasped hands were lifted in final appeal: + + "... the Cross of Christ + Is more to us than all His miracles. + + * * * * * + + Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand, + Only the cruel crushing of the feet + When through the bitter night the Lord comes down + To tread the winepress. Not by sight, but faith, + Endure, endure--be faithful to the end." + +Unconscious of his movement, and irresistibly drawn, the young soloist +sitting in the front row of choristers had risen, and leaning far +forward, looked up into the face of the priest, like one mesmerized, his +parted lips trembling in a passion of ecstasy. Then the organ boomed, +and the boy fell from paradise and joined the choristers chanting as +they marched away behind the uplifted cross. + +A lady stepped into the aisle and touched Eglah's arm. + +"So glad to see you here, Miss Kent. Shall always welcome you to my pew. +What a delightful elocutionary _tour de force_ Father Temple gave us! He +would make a fortune on the stage of secular drama." + +"Yes. Fra Ugo himself could scarcely have been more impressive when he +talked to the sick and dying on hospital cots. To my cousin Vernon this +world is only a hospital of sick souls. Mrs. St. Clair, I should like to +meet that little boy who sang so beautifully. Can you help me?" + +"Very easily. Come back with me now to the vestry and we may find him. +Did you notice how that lovely boy seemed almost hypnotized?" + +Only two of the larger choristers lingered, chatting with the +choirmaster, and as they turned toward the rear stairway leading to the +street, Mrs. St. Clair exclaimed: + +"Mr. De Graffenried, stop the boys. We want to see the soloist. Call him +back." + +"Madam, I think he is still in the chancel." + +Lifting the velvet curtain that concealed the altar from their view, she +beckoned Eglah to her side. + +Father Temple had been detained by one of the church-wardens, and as he +turned to hasten away the boy, standing near, caught the black skirt of +the priest. + +"Please, sir, may I speak to you?" + +"Certainly. I am glad to be able to thank you for the music to-day. Your +solo gave me great pleasure." + +"I could have done better, but my throat is sore; it bled just now. I +told nobody, because I am the only one who can reach that high C, and so +I tried not to fail. I want to ask you how I can learn all the words you +spoke? Oh, if I could, I would set them to a chant; they would lift my +heart out of me if I could sing them." + +"You shall have them. What is your name?" + +"Leighton Dane." + +Father Temple took his tablets from an inside pocket and made an entry. + +"Where do you live?" + +"Oh, a long way off. Far down in East ---- Street; but, please sir, if +you would leave the poetry here, I could get it at next rehearsal." + +"My little man, how do you know it is poetry? The words do not rhyme." + +"Rhyme? I do not understand that word--but I feel poetry. I always know +it by the way my blood beats, and the little shiver that runs down my +back, and the joy that makes me cry sometimes." + +"I will send you a printed copy, in care of the rector. Dear child, God +has given you a wonderfully sweet voice, and I am glad you use it in His +service." + +He laid his thin hand on the boy's golden head, and smiled down into the +wistful blue eyes, where tears glistened. + +The childish fingers, holding two snowy spikes of Roman hyacinth, were +lifted and placed on the priest's hand, pressing it timidly against his +curls. + +"Thank you, sir. Please take these. They smell like the heavenly +gardens, and I have nothing else to give." + +"Were they not on the altar?" + +"Yes, I slipped out two from the cluster there." + +"Then they belong to God. By what right do you touch sacred gifts +brought to Him?" + +"They were mine. I bought them last night and laid them yonder when I +came to-day--and God can spare just two, when I have nothing else to pay +you with. Did you--oh! did you think I--stole--them?" A sob shook him, +and tears followed. + +Father Temple stooped and drew the little white-robed form to him, +pressing the head against his breast. + +"Forgive me, I did not quite understand; and I am sure the dear Father +knows what is in your grateful heart. God bless you and keep you. I +shall put the hyacinths between the leaves of my Bible." + +Eglah stretched an arm across Mrs. St. Clair's shoulder and dropped the +curtain. + +"Come away. Some other time I may talk to him, not now." + +The following day Eglah returned to Washington, and two hours before the +departure of the train she drove to Twenty-third Street, where she and +Mrs. Mitchell usually made their purchases of damask, ribbon, and lace. +While the latter bent over boxes of wools and crochet cottons, Eglah +seated herself at the handkerchief counter. When she had selected the +desired number, the saleswoman filled out her index sheet and rapped +sharply with her pencil. + +"Cash! Here, cash!" + +Several minutes elapsed. + +"These cash boys are so tiresome. Cash, cash! I had to report one last +week. Cash--here he comes at last. Now, do hurry up; you are a regular +snail." + +In the boy who hastened away Eglah recognized the soloist of St. +Hyacinth's, and noticed a bandage around his throat. When he came back +with the parcel and counted the change into the palm of the saleswoman, +Eglah touched his arm. + +"I heard you sing yesterday, and want to tell you how much I liked your +voice." + +"Thank you, ma'am, I----" + +A spell of coughing interrupted, and she noticed how wan and weary he +looked, and how heavy were the greyish shadows under his lovely eyes. + +"I am afraid you are not well to-day. Are you an orphan?" + +"Oh, no. Mother is living, and she says a mother is worth forty +fathers." + +"Will you tell me her name, and where she lives?" + +"Mrs. Nona Dane, and she has the glove counter at ----, Fourteenth +Street." + +At this instant the floor-walker strode forward, and a frightened +expression crossed the boy's white face as he turned quickly, but Eglah +laid a detaining hand on his head as, rising, she confronted the +floor-walker. + +"If he loitered it is not his fault; I kept him. If he missed a call I +am to blame. Good-bye, Leighton; shake hands. When I come back to New +York I hope to hear you sing again at St. Hyacinth's; and if I miss you +here, I shall buy elsewhere." + +His hot fingers quivered in her clasp, and, pressing a folded bill into +his hand, she joined her foster-mother and left the store. + +"What a frail, beautiful boy, and what genuine golden hair! Looks as if +it had been dipped in a pot of gilt. Dearie, don't you think it a shame +these young children are chained up in stores when they ought to be +romping and playing ball?" + +As their carriage turned from Twenty-third Street toward Broadway, that +always crowded angle was even more than usually thronged, and during the +brief pause Mr. Herriott came out of Maillard's with a box of bon-bons. + +"I am just going to the ferry to wait for you. Are you not too early, or +has my watch gone astray?" + +"Come with us, Mr. Noel, we have ample room. Yes, it is early; but of +course at the last minute I must needs shop on the way." + + +As he seated himself in the carriage he handed a package to Eglah. + +"The latest Paris 'Revue,' and your favorite _marron glacé_ and +chocolate." + +"Thank you heartily, for both. I wonder if I ever shall cease to be a +spoiled child--in your eyes?" + +"Whatever you may be in my eyes, you certainly will always remain." + +"How discouraging, that you should feel quite hopeless of any +improvement in me. Driver, I wish to stop in West Fourteenth Street, +at ----. Gloves, Mr. Noel, always gloves." + +"Will you bet a pair of best driving gauntlets that I cannot tell you +exactly why you go there to-day?" + +"Certainly; silk-lined, fur-tipped gauntlets. I told you my errand was +gloves; pray what other reason?" + +"You are going to get a glimpse of 'Juno.'" + +"Juno? Nearly everything comes to New York sooner or later, but really I +never imagined she could step out from the books of mythology. I hunt no +goddess. When you pay your wager, be sure to select delicate fawn color, +that will match my spring jacket." + +"The debt is yours. Confess, Eglah--honor bright--you are curious about +the woman who sells gloves in Fourteenth Street." + +"I will present to you a witch's skirt, cap, and broomstick. But why +'Juno'?" + +"The matter was thrashed out at the club last week, where Vandiver told +us some artist had compared her to a print of the Ludovisi Juno hanging +in Goupil's window. Hence her elevation to Olympus." + +"Then you know all about her?" + +"On the contrary, I never saw her; but she seems to be the magnet +drawing people to----just now." + +The carriage stopped, and Eglah walked into the department store. + +"Come in, Mr. Noel, and pick out your gauntlets." + +"Not to-day. Juno indulged in tricks that made even Jupiter keep one eye +on her wiles, and I shall merely admire at a safe distance." + +In front of the glove counter half a dozen women clustered, and on the +outside of the group three men lounged--one evidently a foreigner, with +bushy beard, coarse, hairy hands, and furtive eyes, small even behind +very large spectacles. Among several busy saleswomen it was easy to +discover the centre of attraction--a finely developed form, tall and +graceful in every movement, and a face of surpassing beauty, lighted by +dark violet eyes, flushed with the glow of perfect health, and crowned +by a braided mass of glittering yellow hair heaped high on a shapely +head, that held it as an empress wears her tiara. In its vivid coloring +the face suggested a tropical flower, but, looking closer, one thought +of a frozen tulip under a sheet of ice, so hard was the cold gleam of +the defiant eyes and the proud compression of red lips that had +forgotten how to smile, that seemed never to have known curves of +tenderness. While Eglah waited, the foreigner leaned across the counter. + +"Some black silk gloves. Number eight and a half." + +"In the next room. Men's department." + +"You got the papers for the league?" + +"Yes, that is all arranged. Meeting will be at ten o'clock to-night. You +can't talk here." + +He touched the rim of his hat and walked away, and she looked toward +Eglah. + +"Grey kid gloves, stitched with white silk." + +"What size?" + +"Five and a quarter." + +The voice had a sharp metallic ring, with an impatient inflection, and +as she turned, lifting her arms to a box on an upper shelf, all the +lovely outlines of her figure were shown most advantageously, and Eglah +glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Herriott. He was watching the woman +behind the counter with an intensely curious expression, as though +disagreeably perplexed. She found the desired number. + +"Shall I stretch them?" + +"No, it is not necessary." + +"Do you wish them fitted on your hands?" + +"I will not give you that trouble. What is the price?" + +"It is part of my business to fit them. Two dollars and a quarter. Here, +cash!" + +Eglah's desire to mention the chorister of St. Hyacinth's was quickly +extinguished by the pronouncedly repellent bearing that plainly +proclaimed all intercourse must be restricted to the business of the +counter, and as she returned to the carriage, Mr. Herriott said: + +"Well, you college girls are nothing if not severely classical, so I +presume you will offer a ewe lamb, all garlanded with willow and +dittany, and prinked out in pomegranate blossoms, on the Junonian +altar." + +"I am glad Jove tied her hands and hung her up above the earth and below +the heavens, with anvils on her ankles, where she could do no more +mischief. That goddess of yours has the most cruelly cold, hard face I +ever looked at, and yet--in a way--so beautiful. Evidently she has not +even the shadow of a soul--must have given it all to that angelic boy? +What is her history? Of course she has one." + +"It has been said happy women have none, and in this case adversity must +have curdled very early the stream of her youthful joys. Vandiver +investigated her--from a distance he says, as she froze him when he +attempted acquaintanceship. He has a protégé in the constabulary who +learned through police channels all that she will allow to be known of +her life. Some years ago she drifted here from the far West--part of the +human flotsam annually stranded in this city, and she found work in a +cloak manufactory. Later she incited a strike among the cloak cutters, +which resulted disastrously for the workers, and when all the strikers +submitted, she alone was refused re-employment, and doors were closed +against her. She secured a position in a large bric-à-brac +establishment, but when a valuable antique vase disappeared, she was +suspected and arrested. While in prison a day and night awaiting trial, +the vase was found in a pawnbroker's shop, and the colored porter of the +bric-à-brac dealer acknowledged the theft. The firm very honorably made +ample public retraction of the unjust charge, and endeavored to +compensate and appease the injured woman, but she shook the dust of the +house from her feet and betook herself to Brooklyn. Recently she +accepted her present place." + +"Do you mean to imply that she is--is--Bohemian?" + +"That depends upon your interpretation of a very flexible term. I am +told she conducts herself with strict propriety, reports Mr. Dane dead, +and receives attentions from no one; but she is avowedly a socialist of +the extreme type: belongs to labor organizations, attends their +meetings, makes impassioned addresses, and, in fine, is a female Ishmael +whose hands are much too pretty for such savage work. Did you notice an +odd-looking, shambling man with preposterous spectacles who spoke to +her? He is an agent of a band of Russian Nihilists seeking aid from +sympathizers here. She is reported as possessing some education, +advocates 'single-tax' and all the communistic vagaries that appeal +to the great mass of toiling poor, the discontented and morose, as +colored balloons captivate the fancy of children at a circus door. +She frequents a hall down on the East Side, where at night the clans +of the disgruntled assemble, and long-haired men and short-haired +women--who absolutely believe that the only real 'devil is private +property'--denounce wealth and preach their gospel of covetousness. Here +we are at the ferry, and just in time to meet the boat." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Distinctly a _poseur_, Senator Kent had studied his physical good points +with sufficient attention to establish the habit of exhibiting them +advantageously, and to-night, as he leaned back in his easy chair, +persons who knew him well understood that the fine leonine head was +always turned adroitly to the right because a defect in one drooping +eyelid found semiconcealment in the shadow of nose and brow. Political +and financial prosperity had prevented or erased the lines that usually +mark countenances of men of his age, and his smooth, handsome smiling +face seemed to defy and rebut the testimony offered by grey hair and +white mustache. + +Suave and conciliatory, tactful yet tenacious of purpose, a carefully +cultivated air of frankness ambushed subtle craftiness that rarely +failed to accomplish schemes which the unwary never suspected. +Unhampered by scruples, he had scaled the heights of success, climbing +the ladder of cautious expediency, and claiming allegiance only to +principles and policies that beckoned from the rung just above his head. +Proverbial good nature, voiced by a musical, hearty laugh, won him +social popularity, and even in congressional debate he never laid aside +the polished armor of imperturbable courtesy. Despite the keen scrutiny +of Eliza Mitchell during many years of intimate association, his +character had remained a baffling enigma, and her suspicious distrust +was allayed, in some degree, by his genial equanimity and amiable +abdication of control in domestic details. That he wore a mask she had +always believed, yet it fitted so perfectly she could not penetrate the +steel mesh, and in no unguarded moment had its springs loosened. + +The luxuriously furnished library was bright and warm with fire glow and +gas light, and sweet with the breath of white azaleas heaped in a +pale-pink bowl on the low mantel shelf. Only the click of the typewriter +disturbed the stillness until Eglah rose from the instrument, covered +it, and numbered the written pages, arranging them in a sheaf. + +"All ready now, father, and Mr. Metcalf can incorporate these tables in +the report you will need to-morrow. Do you wish to verify the figures?" + +"Not necessary, my dear. You are usually accurate." + +"Thanks for the sugar plum. You know exactly how sweet is your praise." + +Coming forward, she sat down on the carpeted foot-board attached to his +reclining chair, leaned her head against his knee, and stretched her +fingers toward the fire. He laid one large dimpled hand on her shoulder, +and she turned her cheek to touch it. After the lapse of some minutes +the clock struck, and Eglah sprang up. + +"Barely time to dress for the Secretary's dinner! Has the carriage been +ordered?" + +"Yes. I can doze a while longer, as I have to change only my coat, vest, +and tie." + +"Eglah, do you need my help in dressing, or will Octavia suit you best?" +asked Mrs. Mitchell, who sat at a small table near the hearth, matching +silk squares for an afghan. + +"You can revise me finally, and punctuate me with additional pins when I +come down. Don't let father oversleep himself." + +Senator Kent straightened the folds of his padded dressing-gown, and +through half-closed eyes watched the small hands hovering over silken +scraps, and wondered, as he had often done before, what manner of man +could have been the "overseer" husband for whom this grave, pretty, +reticent, demure widow still mourned in black garments, relieved only by +narrow white ruches at her throat and wrists. + +The clock ticked softly, and the senator seemed asleep, when the ringing +of the door bell roused him. Some moments passed before the library door +opened and a servant entered. + +"A note, sir. It was laid on top of the bell knob, and the messenger did +not wait, for I looked up and down the street." + +"Evidently of no importance, else the delivery would not have been so +careless." + +He lazily took an envelope from the silver salver and held it up. + + "Senator Allison Kent, + Washington, D. C. + + "_Strictly Personal._" + +Both the address and contents were type-written. + +Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a mass of scarlet satin +ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a +groan--an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal +sorely stricken. + +He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, +then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado +on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such +message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter +into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his +mustache, twisting it into knots. + +The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only +with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert +echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every +life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this +successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment +of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of +retributive destiny. + +"You have bad news, Judge Kent?" + +He made no answer, and she seized his arm. + +"What is the dreadful news that distresses you?" + +As he turned his eyes upon her, all their light and color seemed faded +to a dull glassiness, and his voice shook like a hysterical woman's. + +"News--did you say? No--I have received no news. None whatever." + +"Then what ails you? I shall call Eglah." + +She turned, but he clutched her skirt. + +"For God's sake, don't ever tell her! Why grieve the child? The truth +is--" He caught his breath, and a sickly smile showed how his mouth +trembled, as he swept his hand across his brow. + +"You are sick?" + +"Oh, yes--sick; that is it exactly. Sick--sick indeed. Some oysters I +ate, and cheese; later I very foolishly drank ale." + +"Then, sir, you must go to bed, and Eglah will send an explanation of +your unavoidable absence from the dinner." + +Upstairs a door was opened, and a sweet, girlish voice trilled two bars +of a Venetian barcarolle. + +Judge Kent threw out his arms appealingly. + +"I must go to-night. For God's sake, don't let her know anything! Say +nothing. I shall tell her I was a little faint from indigestion. Vile +compound--oysters, ale, Roquefort! Promise me to hold your tongue; not +for my sake, but hers. I am obliged to attend this dinner, and it would +spoil her evening if she knew how deadly sick--I--really was a moment +ago. Promise me." + +"Very well. I suppose you know best what concerns you most. I promise." + +"You are the only woman I ever knew upon whom I could rely to hold her +tongue. Now, quick as you can, bring the decanter of brandy to my room. +Amuse the child with her frills and finery while I dress. I must have a +little time." + +When she carried the brandy to his door, the hand that grasped it was +icy, and the other tugged ineffectually at his white tie. + +Humming her boat-song, Eglah trailed silken draperies down the winding +stairs and into the library, where she courtesied low to Eliza and swept +her train--like a peacock's plumes--up to the grate, putting one +slippered foot on the brass fender. + +She was gowned in green crêpe of an uncommon tint, that held +multitudinous silvery lights in its crinkled texture, and when she moved +they glistened and played hide and seek in the clinging folds. Around +her fair, full throat a rope of emeralds coiled twice. + +"Am I all right--ready for publication and criticism? The damp weather +makes my hair so curly I can scarcely keep it in line. Ma-Lila, the +clasp of my necklace feels a little rickety, so I must ask you to move +it around in front, and cover it securely with this." + +She held out a diamond butterfly, and Eliza fastened it in the gold-wire +links of the emerald chain. As she settled the jewels in place, she +stooped and kissed one lovely white shoulder. + +"Solemn little mother! I know exactly what you are thinking. That I am +as frivolous a creature as grandmother's heirloom butterfly? You should +not lose sight of the psychic symbolism of this much slandered and +despised insect. Little white butterflies whose wings are all powdered +with shining star-dust are the souls of babies----" + +"Pagan nonsense that I won't listen to. Moreover, you ought to be +ashamed to jest about your immortal soul as if it were yours +exclusively--to play with as you would a ball." + +"You darling Puritan! If you do not unlace yours it surely will smother. +Really, I thought it was orthodox to believe that in the very last +analysis and final adjustment of personal property one's own soul was +one's solitary chattel that defied and survived the confiscation of +death. Motherkin, don't scold! Kiss me good night, and help me with my +cloak, so that I shall not muss all this lace jabot. Is not father +ready?" + +Eliza laid her long, white velvet cloak around her and tied the ribbons +under her chin. + +"What keeps father so long? I heard the front door bell ring; is there a +visitor?" + +"No visitor. Only some document left for the Judge. He is dressing." + +Eglah went to the door of an adjoining room and rapped. + +"Father, we shall be late. Unpardonable, you know, at a formal dinner." + +"Almost ready. Old men need more time for repairs than young beauties." + +When he came in, walking briskly, with his overcoat on his arm, Eliza +saw that he had rallied surprisingly. Brandy reinforced his nerves, and +the cautious, defensive tactics of a lifetime availed now to readjust +and restore his equipoise of manner. A flush showed on the full cheeks, +and his eyes shone like those of a cat in some dim corner. + +"Inexcusably late, father! What can we say?" + +"Come, my dear; leave that to me. I shall simply apologize by telling +the truth--a spell of indigestion delayed me, but I felt sure one of the +Secretary's famous cocktails would rejuvenate me." + +Women, secure in their heritage of personal charms, resent as the most +unpardonable of affronts to their mental acumen explanations that do not +explain, and Mrs. Mitchell was thoroughly exasperated by the flimsiness +of the deception which she was expected to accept with unquestioning +credulity. Silence under strenuous conditions she could have condoned, +because it left her the resource of conjecture; an honest confession of +vitally grave business complications she would have regarded as +confidential, and loyally held inviolate, but "oysters, ale, and +Roquefort" was a stinging challenge to her feminine intuitions. Judge +Kent's arrested assertion: "The truth is--" recalled Mrs. Maurice's +estimate of his veracity when she had applied to him the sarcasm: "He +holds truth too precious to be wasted on everybody." That he cowered +under some unexpected blow she was quite sure, but her solicitude +included him only as his interests involved Eglah's welfare, and any +intimation of coming disaster fluttered this foster-mother, as the +faint, grey shadow of a hawk high in the heavens startles a hen into +signalling her brood. Ignorant of the quarter whence trouble might +approach, how could she shield Eglah, whose safety had been committed to +her guardianship? Had she the right to discover the contents of a note +that "contained no news"? Did his falsehood entitle her to pry into his +correspondence? All the smothered distrust of years was acutely +intensified, and she rose and walked to his room. A bright light shone +through the transom, but when she turned the bolt she found the door +locked. During her residence in the house this precaution had never +before been taken, hence she knew the note had not been destroyed. +Returning to the library, she rang the bell, and the butler responded +promptly. + +"Have you locked up the silver? Bring me the key. Close the house for +the night. Judge Kent will be out late. Tell Octavia to have good fires +upstairs, and then she need not wait for Miss Eglah, as I shall sit up +till she comes; and, Watson, you can go home. Should the front door bell +ring, I shall be here." + +More than once she had suspected that the senator was interested in +financial speculations, and, though Eglah's fortune had been carefully +tied up beyond his reach, she began to fear he might by some devious +process jeopard it. "Hypothecating securities" was a bristling phrase +she had never quite comprehended, but it symbolized an ogre she must +outwit. + +In one corner of the library stood a tall, brass-mounted chiffonier +filled with papers, and above it hung an engraving. Behind, and entirely +concealed, was a door opening into a small bathroom that formed an +alcove in the senator's apartment. After an hour had passed, Mrs. +Mitchell placed her shoulder against the chiffonier, that rolled easily +on its castors, and she slipped behind it. There was no key in the lock, +but a slender steel bolt slid horizontally under her hand, and the door +opened a few inches only, barred by a table, which she succeeded in +pushing aside. Lifting the portière inside, she entered the +sleeping-room, and found the _robe de chambre_ hanging over the back of +a chair. The pockets were empty, the drawers of the bureau locked, but +under the pillow on the bed she thrust one hand and drew out the object +of her search. It contained neither date nor signature, and was +type-written in purple ink on thin paper bearing no water-mark. + + "A friend to you and to yours believes it a genuine kindness to + inform you that the identity of 'Ely Twiggs' has been + discovered, and hopes an early knowledge of this fact may be + useful to you." + +She replaced the note beneath the pillow, returned to the library, and +rolled back the chiffonier. After all, she had ended her quest in a +cul-de-sac. Turning the gas jets low, she sat watching the blue flicker +that danced like witch-lights in the grate, and once she smiled at her +own discomfiture, realizing that her attempt was futile as would be the +trial of a Yale key to open a "combination" vault lock, the arrangement +of which was unknown. Keenly alert, she heard the rattle of the +night-latch, the closing of the front door, and, after a moment, Judge +Kent came slowly into the room. At first he did not notice her presence, +and in this brief unguarded interval she saw the countenance without its +habitual mask--a face gloomy, perturbed, unnaturally flushed, with +restless eyes gleaming like those of a jaded, hunted forest animal. + +"Ah--Mrs. Mitchell! Sitting up for Eglah? Didn't she tell you she was +going from the dinner to the cotillon? Herriott will see her home. It is +a shame to have kept you up, but girls are so thoughtless." + +"Eglah is never that, and I knew she would be late at the cotillon. I +waited downstairs solely to see you." + +"Very kind, I am sure; but I feel much better, thank you. Indeed, I may +say I have fully recovered from that sudden, intolerable spell of +nausea. You are very good to worry over that little attack, but pray +think no more about it. I shall abjure Welsh rarebit and oysters in +future. At my time of life, pneumogastric nerves get their innings." + +Brightening the light in the gas globe over the mantel, she approached +and confronted him. + +"Judge Kent, I am not 'worrying' over the condition of your digestive +organs, but I do feel deeply interested in the nature of the trouble +that has come upon you so unexpectedly, and I cannot sleep until I tell +you what I have done to-night. Whatever injures you wounds Eglah, and +solely on her account I felt justified in taking a step that no weaker +motive could have sanctioned. I sat up to tell you that when I found you +would not trust me with the truth, I hunted it by reading the note that +fell this evening like a bombshell. I have no hesitation in confessing +the fact. I am here for that purpose." + +She set her small, white teeth grimly and clasped her hands behind her. + +He looked down at her, as a mastiff at a barking pug, and, throwing back +his head, laughed heartily, clapping his hands softly. + +"Bravo, Methodist burglar! You seem an expert, and find locked doors no +barrier. What would Eglah think of your breaking into my room, and into +my correspondence?" + +"Shall we ask her? Only my promise not to mention this matter to her +prevents me from telling her as quickly and frankly as I have told you. +May I speak to her?" + +"Madam, you possess an arsenal of mental reservations, and I doubt +whether you can keep a promise." + +"I can be silent against my will, and even in defiance of my judgment. +Try me." + +"Then consider yourself on probation. Where is my hoax of a note?" + +"Under your pillow, where you left it." + +His eyes twinkled, and his voice shook as with suppressed laughter. + +"A woman's curiosity cost us Eden. My dear little lady, what did you +discover in my anonymous letter?" + +"That 'Ely Twiggs' is a terrible menace to your peace of mind." + +"Would you like a translation of that ugly occult phrase? It is merely a +telegraphic cipher. You have conjured up a malignant chimera; rest +assured it is only a dingy red-paper balloon, with a flickering taper +inside. Good night. Pray allow no compunctious qualms to disturb the +peace of your Methodist conscience." + +"No church is responsible for errors of its members, and I wish I could +believe it possible that your Episcopal conscience will allow you a +night of refreshing sleep. For my dear child's sake, I hoped you would +confide in me, and I regret that you withhold the truth. Good night, +sir." + +"Little foster-mother, remember your promise." + +He held out his hand, but she declined the overture and walked away. + +"My Methodist promise will bear any weight laid on it." + + * * * * * + +Without premonition, a sudden storm had swept over the city that night, +and at two o'clock, when Eglah and Mr. Herriott went down the steps to +enter their carriage, the stone pavement held tiny pools and rills of +water. + +"Wait, Eglah, your slippers will be soaked." + +"I can run across on tiptoe." + +"You shall not! Permit me." + +He stooped, lifted her from the lower step, and placed her on the +cushioned seat. + +"How strong you are!" she said, laughing, as he entered the carriage and +sat down opposite, not beside her. + +"Physically--yes. If my force of will equalled my nerves and muscles, I +should be a much happier man." + +"Infirmity of will? You,--the most obstinate man I ever met! How little +you know yourself!" + +"You are so sure you read me aright, perhaps you understand why all the +strength of my manhood has not saved me from staking my earthly hopes on +a venture that may be fatal. Can you explain?" + +"Is it some scientific scheme? Some theory that may prove a delusion?" + +"It is simply the possibility that the woman I love will not give me her +heart. Eglah, I have been patient. I wished you to see and know other +men--to form your own ideal, to compare me with some more brilliant and +attractive--before I asked for your love. Since the day I first saw +you--a grieved child--at Nutwood, my heart has been entirely yours, and +all my future is gilded with the hope of a home in which you will reign +as my wife. I bring you the one unshared love of my life. May I have the +blessed assurance that you will accept it?" + +For some seconds Eglah neither moved nor spoke; then she slipped down on +her knees and laid her head on his hands, that were folded together. + +"Mr. Noel--dear Mr. Noel--I will never marry. Only one man in all the +world is necessary to my happiness, and he is my father. What you tell +me now is a surprise--a painful surprise to me--because I never thought +of you as of some who flattered and even some who have asked my hand. +You were always my best friend, my wise, sympathetic companion, and I +never could think of you as desiring or needing any woman's affection. +You have seemed unlike other men I meet in society, and I believed you +cared most for books and scientific experiments, though I thought you +always felt a very kind, friendly, brotherly interest in me. Oh, I am so +sorry you have uttered such words to-night! You must know I am not like +other women in our circle, and I have no intention of marrying. If I +should select any man to love it might be you, because I respect and +trust you so profoundly; but that could never happen to me. What have I +inadvertently done to make you misjudge my feelings? You must forgive +me. I never suspected." + +As she pressed her face against his hands he felt her lips trembling, +and his struggle for self-control was short and fierce. After a moment, +he raised and replaced her on the seat and sat beside her. + +"I can reproach only myself for a delusion that costs me more than you +will ever know. In my loneliness the dream was so beautiful. I could not +resist its fascination. Dear little girl, you are the only one I ever +wished or asked to be my wife, and because you are so precious to me I +will not surrender my hope, unless you force me. Remember the long years +I have waited for you. In time, perhaps, you might learn to care for me. +May I entreat you to try?" + +"Mr. Noel, I trust you, I admire you--in a way I feel attached to +you--but I must tell you the truth. I shall marry no one, not even you." + +"Then I shall never repeat my folly. Be sure I will vex you no more; but +there is something you can do to lessen my pain. If trouble or disaster +or sorrow overtake you, will you promise to confide in me, to allow me +to share it, as if I were indeed that elder brother you have tried to +believe me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Noel. After father I will always turn next to you, and you +must not condemn me because, unintentionally, I have been so unfortunate +as to hurt you." + +"For several reasons I wish your father to know at once all that has +been said to-night. He is aware of my intentions, and kind enough to +approve them. One final request I trust you will not refuse me. The +visit to my house on the Lake has been definitely arranged, and I +particularly desire that no change of plan should be made. Henceforth no +word of mine will ever recall this interview, and during your stay under +my roof I assure you no allusion to my dead hopes shall annoy you. Trust +me, and come." + + * * * * * + +The carriage stopped at Senator Kent's door. As Mr. Herriott led her up +the steps, she noticed he barely touched her arm, and when he rang the +bell she caught his hand between both of hers. + +"Dear Mr. Noel--you do forgive me?" + +A neighboring lamp shone full on his handsome face, pale and set, and a +sudden consciousness of the unusual charm of his noble personality +thrilled her. Withdrawing his hand, he held it behind him, and, as he +looked down at her, his lips twitched. + +"You have done me no wrong by simply following the true, womanly +dictates of your pure heart. Marriage without genuine love is a +degradation to which you could never stoop. I will love you always, +always; but I find it hard to forgive myself for making utter shipwreck +of a man's dearest aim in life. Good night." + +As Mrs. Mitchell opened the door, he turned away and went swiftly into +the street. + +"Eglah! What is the matter? You are crying." + +"How can I help it when I have hurt the noblest man in all the +world--except father? My one true friend, who never failed to be good to +me!" + +"You have refused to marry Mr. Herriott? My baby, you will never find +his equal. Your father can scarcely forgive this defeat of his pet +scheme, dating from the time you were ten years old." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +"Herriott, I owe you an apology for coming so late, but feel quite sure +you will pardon a delay that was unavoidable. I have kept your dinner +waiting half an hour." + +"No matter, provided you bring an appetite that can defy overdone fish. +I am glad it is only delay, and not total failure. Vernon, you look so +spent, may I venture to offer your reverence a tonic--club-labelled +'cocktail'? It is the best antidote I dare suggest for the slow method +of suicide you have adopted." + +"Thank you--no." + +"Then come in to dinner." + +"I wasted the whole afternoon trying to find a boy down on the East +Side, but when at last I reached the house I was told he had moved from +that neighborhood. He is a soloist at St. Hyacinth's, and I had promised +him a booklet." + +"Leighton Dane?" + +"Yes. What do you know of him?" + +"That he will sing no more at St. Hyacinth's. Henceforth his solos +belong to choirs beyond the stars. The boy is slowly dying of +consumption." + +"When did you see him?" + +"A few days ago. He is at No. 980 ---- Street, Brooklyn. Your cousin +Eglah asked me to keep an eye on him. Poor little lad! His battle with +pain and loneliness is pathetic, and I rather think the end is not far +off." + +"Loneliness? Who takes care of him?" + +"His mother is away all day at her work, but an old German and his wife +living on the same floor of the tenement look after him as best they +can." + +"Could you deliver the book to him?" + +"If you wish it; but why not make another effort to see him?" + +"My hands are so full. In two days I must run down to Washington, and +then back home, where I am needed. How luxurious your quarters are! Less +like a bachelor's den than one would expect." + +"Next week I give up these rooms, and when I chance to be in the city +shall live at the club." + +"Is not this decision rather sudden?" + +"No. For some time I have contemplated another expedition to Arizona and +Montana, in quest of prehistoric records needed for an anthropological +paper that Professor De Wette asked me to contribute to the next volume +of Reports." + +"What date have you fixed?" + +"About the middle of July, immediately after the visit to 'Greyledge,' +which Senator Kent and Eglah have promised as soon as Congress adjourns. +I am sorry you could not arrange to join the small 'house party,' and +rest yourself by fishing in the Lake, instead of the turbid pools of +humanity." + +"What about Calvary House? We expect you there." + +"That pleasure must be deferred; but I have thought a good deal about +your need of more ground there, and believe I have found just what you +want. Come into the library, it is cooler, and I have some papers for +you. You know the Ravenal lands--some twenty acres--lie across "Tangled +Brook," west of your lines. The property was sold recently by the +trustees and my agent bought it. Now you can easily bridge the stream, +using the foundation of the old paper-mill dam, and by extending your +fences cover the whole. I know the old farmhouse was burned years ago, +but those pasture lands are fine, and that hill sloping south will make +a good vineyard. Here are all the papers, and my deed to the +Brotherhood. Stop! No thanks, not a word, or I cancel the transfer. Some +day, when I visit you, I may not be welcome, because I promise you now, +if your stewardship does not suit me and things seem mismanaged, I will +most certainly turn you all out." + +Father Temple laid the bundle of papers on the table and grasped Mr. +Herriott's hand, pressing it warmly, but something in the bright, steady +grey eyes warned him to attempt no verbal expression of gratitude. + +His host lighted a cigar, and drew from a stand near his elbow a +portfolio tied with purple tape. + +"Does your reverence ever waste time now in sketches and water-color?" + +"Life is far too strenuous for such trifling." + +"How do you know that some day you will not be required to dig up that +buried talent and answer the charge of neglecting to bring in the +expected interest? Nature intended you for one of her artistic +interpreters, and if you had been loyal to her commission you might rank +to-day as R.A. Last summer I was searching an old trunk for a college +text-book, when I happened to find some of your drawings, that were +packed by mistake with my luggage in the bustle of leaving the +university." + +From the pile of loose sheets he held up one, and, after a moment's +survey, in which he turned it at various angles, he handed it to his +guest. + +Father Temple was leaning back in a cushioned arm-chair, and against the +violet velvet background his pale, placid, scholarly face was sharply +silhouetted. Listlessly raising the sketch sidewise, so that a gas jet +on his left shone upon it, he looked at it. The profound repose that +habitually rested on his countenance broke up swiftly, as a sleeping +pool shivers when a stone is hurled into its motionless depths. His lips +whitened, and he laid the paper as a screen over his eyes. Mr. Herriott +crossed the floor to the door of the dining-room, and, loitering +deliberately, ordered coffee. When he came back, followed by a servant +bearing coffee and liqueurs, the priest was standing at an open window, +and in the clenched fingers of the hands clasped behind him the sketch +quivered as though shaken by the wind. + +"Close the door, Hawkins, and when I want you I will ring. Come, Vernon; +I remember your fondness for coffee, and this is good and piping hot." + +The thin figure in the girded cassock shook his head and leaned out of +the window, staring up at the golden stars throbbing above the roar and +din of the crowded street. + +After some minutes, during which the host rattled cups and glasses, +Father Temple walked up and down the room, then came back to the table. +The despairing sorrow in his deep, soft eyes made Mr. Herriott rise +instantly. + +"Vernon, have I wounded you by my reminiscent babble of college days?" + +Without a word, the arms of the priest were lifted to the man towering +over him, and he laid his head on the shoulder of one who had never +failed him. + +"Temple, forgive me, dear old fellow, if I have broken rudely into some +sacred, sealed chamber." + +"You have done me a priceless kindness in restoring my picture, but with +it comes the hour of humiliation I always knew must sooner or later +overtake me. Noel, your good opinion is so precious to me I shrink from +losing it. I have dreaded your condemnation next to that of my God. You +always trusted and respected me, even in what you deemed foolish monkish +extremes, and yet--and yet----" + +"Sit down, and pull yourself together. You have fasted and prayed your +starved nerves into a fit of womanish hysteria. I am no father confessor +for you, and if you are not the true, loyal man I have believed you all +these years, then, while you are under my roof, I prefer not to find out +that you are a hypocrite." + +He pushed his friend back into the easy chair, and handed him a glass of +chartreuse, but it was put aside. + +"Noel, you must hear me. After the first bitterness I shall feel +relieved that you know literally all I can tell, and then you will +understand many things in my life. To-day I am what I am, simply and +solely in the hope of expiating the sin of my youth. Noel, the sin of my +youth found me out early, and this life I lead is an attempted +atonement. Do you begin to understand?" + +Mr. Herriott held up the sketch, and, as he struck it sharply with his +fingers, his face darkened. + +"Whose portrait is this?" + +"The woman--the young girl--whose life I blighted." + +"Good God! Blighted? Is your villainy so black?" + +"I am Father Temple, vowed to celibacy, and somewhere in the wide, cruel +world a wife and child of mine may have gone down to perdition because I +was a coward--a vile coward, too base for a brave man to recognize. I +knew you would despise me, and I kept silent as long as I could. Do you +wonder?" + +Mr. Herriott stood over him like an avenging Viking. + +"You betrayed a woman? Wife, or victim of----" + +"Both. I married and I deserted her." + +"The marriage was legal--no swindling sham?" + +"Legal in form, though I was a minor and she a mere child." + +"And you ensnared her deliberately, intending to----" + +The priest sprang to his feet and his eyes flashed. + +"I loved her, and married her secretly, and intended no wrong; but +before I could publicly claim her--before I was of age and dared to face +my father with the fact of my marriage--I lost her. She disappeared as +completely as if the ocean rolled over her." + +"Is this the unvarnished truth? There is nothing worse, nothing more +heinous than what you have told me?" Mr. Herriott breathed quickly, as +his keen, cold eyes searched severely the wan face before him. + +"I have told you the whole, bitter truth." + +"Then I have not entirely lost my friend. Now sit down; begin at the +beginning of this black business, and let me try to share your load of +trouble. Don't hurry--be explicit. Keep back nothing. If you intended no +wrong, there must and shall be found some way to right it." + +"Too late! If you take a white flower and inhale its perfume, and then +carelessly drop it where hurrying crowds are sure to trample it into the +dust, what hope that, search as you may, you will ever find it, or, +finding it, be able to restore the torn, soiled, ruined petals? Wherever +she is, no matter what she has become, what sin and shame stain and +defile her, she is my wife. I swore before God I would take her for my +wife, 'for better, for worse,' and though it is my fault--and mine +only--that I did not publish the marriage, I have kept my vows, and am +dedicated to life-long celibacy. My boyish cowardice--what awful +shipwreck it has made of two lives! You want the details? It is a +shameful story, but not long. In the early summer of my nineteenth year +I spent vacation in the far Northwest, at an advanced army station, +Post ----, where father was in command of his regiment. Hunting was fine +but dangerous, as Indians on the frontier were ugly just then, and +several tribes were painting for the war path. One hot afternoon, +tramping back to camp with my rifle on my shoulder, I went down a steep, +wooded hill to drink at a spring, and as I parted the thick growth I saw +a cow chewing her cud, while a bare-footed girl stooped and milked into +a cedar pail. She sprang up, much alarmed, and stood against a glowing +background of scarlet rhododendrons. Her calico bonnet had fallen off, +her sleeves rolled up showed her white, dimpled arms, and all over her +head and shoulders the gold-colored hair was twisted into little curls +and waves and tendrils that glittered like gilt wire. As she stared at +me with large purplish-blue eyes, her bright red lips trembled, and--" +He paused, and involuntarily wrung his thin white hands. + +"I had seen handsome women, and many lovely girls, but never so +exquisite a creature as this, and from that moment I lost reason, +prudence, everything but conscience, and my heritage of honorable +instincts. Nona Moorland was the daughter of a teamster attached to +father's command; a brutal, rough man, whose second wife--a selfish, +jealous virago--made the step-daughter's life a cruel burden. They +occupied a log cabin just outside the Post parade grounds, and the girl +was never allowed in sight of drill lines except when under convoy of +the stepmother she assisted in carrying to headquarters the freshly +laundered clothes of the officers. Having been forbidden, under threat +of corporeal punishment, to speak to or be seen with any soldier, save +in her father's cabin, she was terrified at the danger of a discovery of +our acquaintance; hence our interviews were secret, and adroitly +arranged to elude suspicion. Her extraordinary personal beauty and +gentleness of deportment more than compensated for illiteracy and humble +origin, and after a few days I planned a clandestine marriage, to which +she readily assented. The Post chaplain had made a pet of me, because I +aided him in some botanical and geological tramps close to the frontier, +and finally he consented to help us, provided his agency was never +betrayed. We both swore we would not divulge his name or knowledge of +our scheme, and so one starry night he and Hill, a private soldier who +went as witness, stole out, and met Nona and me in a dense grove of +trees near Moorland's cabin. There we were married according to the +ritual of the Episcopal Church. I was not quite nineteen, she a slender +girl just past her fifteenth birthday. Under the quiet stars that shone +as our altar lights, we took solemn, life-long vows as husband and wife, +and there, when a written certificate had been given to Nona, we all +joined hands and pledged ourselves in the sight of God to keep the +secret until I was of age, or thought it prudent to publish the +marriage. To her I meant no more wrong than to myself, and kept to the +form of law, knowing we were minors, and that no license legalized the +ceremony which I believed and argued the Church sanctified. You knew my +father sufficiently well to remember how terribly stern he was, how +morose he often seemed, and I dared not defy him. For three weeks life +was a brief vision of heaven to Nona and me. She was so lovely, so +tender, so humbly conscious of her social inferiority and lack of +education, so fired with an ambitious zeal for culture and improvement +to fit herself for the circle where Colonel Temple's son was born to +move. Then the bolt fell. A courier from the nearest telegraph station +brought news that father had been promoted, was ordered to Washington, +and would soon go abroad on some military commission. I begged to spend +the remaining days of my vacation at Post ----, but was sharply refused, +and all things were ordered in readiness for our departure next day at +sunrise." + +Some overwhelming memory arrested the narrative, and Father Temple held +the portrait sketch toward the light. Then he crossed his arms on the +table and bowed his face upon them. The room was very still, and there +seemed suddenly a startling insistence in the harsh sound of an organ +that began to grind out "O promise me," on the pavement below. Mr. +Herriott threw down a coin, closed the window, and resumed his seat. + +"Noel, you must think me weak and unmanly. You are so strong yourself, +you can scarcely----" + +"Strong? I think if I had to carry your burden I should go out and hang +myself." + +"That last interview is a perpetual nightmare no noon sunshine ever +dispels. Nona was frantic at the unexpectedly sudden separation, and she +clung to me like a drowning child; but by degrees she accepted the +inevitable, and her trust in me was supreme. She would be patient, and +study books the chaplain would provide, and rely on him to forward her +letters, and receive and find means to deliver mine. A full moon showed +me her tearful face when we stood up to say good-bye. Oh, beautiful, +tender, devoted, and pure as any lily God ever set to bloom in a wicked +world! As I took her in my arms, she kissed me repeatedly, and I felt +her lips tremble on mine as she sobbed: + +"'No matter what happens, you must trust me as perfectly as I trust you. +If we keep true to each other, all the world can't part us long.' + +"That farewell vision abides with me--sleeping, it walks as a living +presence through my dreams; waking, it thrusts itself between me and my +God; and when I kneel before the marble image of the Mother of my Lord, +her holy face is hidden by that of my fair, sweet young wife. It has +become an obsession from which I cannot escape. After I went east, two +letters reached me; then, in the late autumn when father had sailed, I +was stricken with typhoid fever, that kept me prisoner for three months, +and the inflammatory rheumatism that followed it so completely wrecked +me, I was carried to the country home of an aunt in Massachusetts, in +whose care father left me when he went to Europe. In my convalescence I +wrote repeatedly under cover to the chaplain, signing only my middle +name, Pembroke, but heard nothing until the next June. While still on +crutches, I went for a day's visit to college to collect and pack my +belongings, and there I found one dusty, mislaid letter from Nona, full +of sad forebodings. The chaplain had wandered too far away to a mountain +range, accompanied only by an orderly, who reported on his return that +his companion had been scalped by Indians while he was examining some +rock ledges, and that he had barely escaped by desperate riding. A +cavalry troop, sent out to recover the body and avenge the death, was +ambushed in a wooded defile and four troopers were killed, among the +number Hill. The letter had been written in January--five months before. +Both witnesses of our marriage in the grave! Anxiety and distress +brought on renewal of rheumatic fever, and I was crippled in hands and +feet for six terrible weeks. One day, as I was trying my ability to walk +about the room, a delayed letter was forwarded from college--the last I +ever received from Nona. Her father had died very suddenly from +congestion of the lungs, and his wife returned immediately to her family +in Arkansas; but because of my poor Nona's condition, which had +subjected her to severe abuse and horrible accusations, the stepmother +had cast her off, refused her recognition, and abandoned her. Because +she refused to divulge the name of her husband, her declaration that she +was a wife only increased the torrent of insults that swept her beyond +the pale of respectability. She wrote that one friend--the only person +who believed her assertion that she had been lawfully married--was just +then leaving the Post for his old home, his time of service having +expired, and he had kindly carried her in a covered wagon to a small +village some days' travel east of the Post, where he found shelter for +her until after the birth of her child. She begged I would send money to +pay her board and also to enable her to travel east and live near me, +because she was so terror-stricken among strangers. The same day my +father summoned me to Europe, having decided I should attend lectures +in Germany and at Oxford. By express, I forwarded the money to +Nona, in accordance with her directions--"Care of Delia Brown, +Thompsonville, ---- Territory"--and I wrote her, explaining all the +circumstances, assuring her I would join her as soon as I could travel, +and that henceforth we should never be separated. A few hours later I +was laid up with a severe relapse, and when, finally, I started west in +September, I was still so lame any movement was torture. At last the +stage coach put me down at the cluster of log houses called +Thompsonville, and by the aid of crutches I found my way to a low, dark +cabin of two rooms, where Delia Brown made a scanty living by washing +and ironing for men attached to a party of prospecting miners. She was +a gaunt, sinister looking woman from Maine, with small, deep-set, faded +yellow eyes that bored like a gimlet, and as she took a pipe from her +ugly bluish lips and greeted me my heart sank. Where was Nona? Gone--with +the man who brought her there, and who 'paid well for her keep.' When? +Several weeks ago. Did she receive my letter, and had the money reached +her? Yes, the money had been delivered to her--Delia Brown--and she had +given it to the woman Nona, in the presence of one Josh' Smith. My +letter had seemed to terrify the woman, and as soon as she knew I was +coming she went away suddenly, saying she was going to New Orleans, and +she and the man could take care of the baby. What was the man's name? He +called himself Lay' Walker, but she doubted 'if he was not somebody else, +and folks had their suspicions about the whole affair.' The baby boy was +four months old when the man and woman took it away, but it was 'such a +poor, puny, ailing child it had little chance to live.' What I suffered +then only God will ever know, but faith in Nona sustained me while I +went from cabin to cabin, receiving on all sides confirmation of Delia +Brown's statements from women who had met her, and also from the mail +and express agent--Josh' Smith--who assured me he had delivered the +letter and package of money addressed to Nona Moorland, care of Delia +Brown, to the latter, and exhibited her receipt. Lay' Walker was +described as a very 'handsome Spanish-looking young fellow,' and he and +the woman seemed fond of each other. He spent his money freely on her, +and talked about Florida and banana growing, and said they wanted to get +to New Orleans, where his friends had a schooner running in the West +India fruit trade. After an exhaustive search, I made my way to New +Orleans and engaged police assistance, but no clue could be found. Then I +arranged advertisements to run six months, and went on to Pensacola and +to Tampa. I advertised in two Florida newspapers, asking Nona Moorland +to write to me, care of my father's lawyer in Boston. No response, no +word, no hint ever reached me. When December arrived and I had no +tidings, I deposited money in a Boston bank to the credit of Nona +Moorland, and leaving instructions that all mail matter should be +forwarded promptly to me, I sailed for Europe, shattered in body, almost +hopeless, and the tortured prey of remorseful regret at the awful +consequence of my midsummer madness." + +A nervous shiver seized him, and he lifted the chartreuse to his +colorless lips. + +Mr. Herriott's sinewy brown hand closed over the cold white fingers half +hidden in the folds of the black cassock. + +"And the woman, Delia Brown? What became of her?" + +"How should I know?" + +"There lies the crux of this dreadful entanglement. She duped you." + +"Possibly. When I left Thompsonville she was preparing to remove to +Maine, where she had relatives. I doubted her as long as I could; but +nearly eleven years of cruel silence have slowly destroyed every vestige +of hope, or of faith in Nona's loyalty. Understand, I do not accuse +her--I dare not--I accept the blame. The fault was mine; she was an +innocent, ignorant child, and what she considered my heartless, wicked +desertion has thrown her into the jaws of destruction. If her soul is +lost, God will require me to answer for the ruin--and that is the +bitterness of my intolerable life. The immortal soul of my wife, of the +mother of my child--a homeless, nameless, fatherless waif! I hold +marriage indissoluble by human enactment, and while Nona lives I regard +her as my wife, no matter what she has become, no matter into what +shameful career she may have been driven by my cowardly course of +action. When she believed I had abandoned her, the poor girl doubtless +grew desperate. What I have told you is known only to my confessor, to +the Superior of our Order in England, where I took my vows, and to my +father, to whom I promptly confided everything when I joined him in +Germany just before his death. That he refused to forgive me you will +readily believe. This sketch you have restored to me was enlarged from +one I made at Post ----, and its loss greatly grieved me. Oh, Noel, +stinging memory is more merciless than sharp-set hair shirts that fret +the flesh. When I see happy mothers and children, their laughter smites +my heart like an iron hand; and while I minister to the suffering +outcast little ones in pauper homes, my bruised soul seems to hear the +accusing, piteous cry of my own forsaken, lost lamb--thrown out to +hungry wolves." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Sabbath quietude had laid a finger on thousands of metal lips that +screamed the song of labor on other days, and the great city seemed +almost asleep as Mr. Herriott entered his carriage at ten o'clock and +gave the order, "Brooklyn--Fulton Ferry." After a restless night, spent +in searching an old diary for dates and notes, he had gradually untied +some knotted memories--vague and conflicting--and straightened a slender +thread that might possibly guide to the identification of an elusive +personality. On the seat in front of him a basket of purple grapes added +their fruity fragrance to the perfume of a bunch of white carnations, +and during the long drive the expression of perplexity which had knitted +his brows relaxed into the alert placidity that characterized his strong +face. + +Summer heat, blown in by a humid south wind, touched the sky with an +intense blue, against which one long, thin curl of cloud shone like a +silver feather, and Brooklyn parks and lawns shook their green banners +of grass blades and young, silken foliage. In the middle of a block of +old brick tenement houses, Mr. Herriott entered an open door, where two +children fought over a wailing black kitten, and went up the inner +stairway to a narrow hall, on which opened several doors bearing cards +inscribed with the name of occupants of the rooms. At one, labelled +"Mrs. Dane," he rapped. It was opened partly, and held ajar. + +"Well, who knocked?" + +"One of Leighton's friends. Can I see him?" + +"Not to-day. He is not well enough for visitors." + +"May I come in and see you?" + +"Why should you? What do you want?" + +Before he could reply, a weak voice pleaded: + +"Please, mother! It is Mr. Herriott: let him in. He has been so good to +me--please--please!" + +"If I do, you are not to talk and bring back that spell of coughing." + +The door was swung fully open, and Mr. Herriott confronted "Juno." + +"You are Mr. Herriott, as I supposed. Walk in, and excuse the confusion +of the rooms. I was up all night, and have not put things in order." + +She wore a dark skirt and white muslin sacque, loose at the throat, +ungirded, and the sleeves were rolled up, exposing the symmetry of her +dimpled white arms. A rich, lovely red stained her lips and +cheeks--perhaps from embarrassment, probably from the heat of the +oil-stove, on which, evidently, breakfast had been recently prepared. +She pointed to an adjoining room, where Leighton lay on a cot close to +the open window. + +"Oh, sir, are they really for me?" as Mr. Herriott laid the basket and +flowers beside him. + +"Look, mother! Grapes, grapes! And the smell of the carnations! Was +there ever anything so sweet? I don't know how to thank you, sir. I wish +I could say something, but when my heart is full I just can't tell it." + +His little hot hand caught Mr. Herriott's, and the thin fingers twined +caressingly about it. + +"You are not to thank me, and you must not talk. Remember, that was the +condition upon which I was allowed to see you. Eat your grapes while +your mother tells me about you." + +"You will spoil him. I can't give him such luxuries as hothouse fruit +and flowers, though now and then he has his bunch of violets." + +"When was the doctor here?" + + +"Friday. He changed the medicine, but I can see no benefit as yet." + +"If you think it would not tire him too much, I should like to take him +out for a drive." + +"Thank you, but I could not consent to that." + +"Why not? The fresh air is balmy to-day, and would do him good. I have a +carriage at the door, and if you are unwilling to trust the boy with me, +I should be glad to take you also. May I?" + +Her blue eyes glittered and her lips straightened their curves. + +"Most certainly not." + +"Pardon me, madam; my interest in your child----" + +"Does not justify a man of your position in taking a 'department store +saleswoman' to drive on Sunday through public places." + +"Perhaps you are right. Then I shall efface myself promptly, and you and +Leighton can keep the carriage as long as you like." + +"Such favors I accept from no man." + +"Not even to help your sick boy?" + +She put her hand on the child's shining curls, and a world of tenderness +glorified her velvet eyes. + +"Not even for my very own baby could I incur such an obligation." + +"Smell them, mother--like spice! Don't they make you think of the +carnation garden in San Francisco, where Uncle Dane used to carry us?" + +"How long ago was that, Leighton?" asked Mr. Herriott, watching the +woman's face. + +"Oh, it was when I was a little chap and wore frocks." + +"Were you born in San Francisco?" + +"No. He was born in ---- Territory." + +"Mrs. Dane, can you tell me what became of the artist Belmont?" + +"Why do you ask me that question?" + +"In order to get an answer. He painted your face for his 'Aurora,' and +the picture was photographed." + +"Yes; I needed money, and Mr. Dane permitted him to come to our house +for the sittings. That was my first and last experience as a model." + +"I have met you before." + +She straightened herself, and answered defiantly: + +"Probably I have sold you gloves, or socks, or handkerchiefs--certainly +not the right to meddle with my personal affairs." + +"I went with a San Francisco friend to see a night school for women, +which his mother had established. You were there." + +"Yes, I was there two winters. Now, sir, have you a police badge hidden +inside your coat? Are you playing reporter--disguised as a benevolent +gentleman--hunting up the details of last night's meeting and riot at +Newark? You know, of course, that I made a speech there?" + +"Indeed? I had imagined you sat up all night with your sick boy." + +"There is a strike on down there, and I spoke against arbitrating labor +grievances, and against the ghastly sham of getting the rights of the +poor from a picked judge and a packed jury. Bombs and boycott make the +best mill for grinding out justice to starving, over-worked men and +women." + +"How long have you been an 'anarchist,' or perhaps you prefer the term +'socialist'?" + +"From the day I was sixteen years old, and learned how rich men trample +and betray and despise and insult the ignorant, helpless poor." + +"It must have been a terribly cruel grievance that transformed into a +fury one who was intended for a loving, gentle woman." + +She laughed, and her beautiful teeth took hold of the glowing under lip. + +"Grievance? We all have one--we are simply born to suffer, as to +breathe--but the unendurable the unpardonable comes from the grasping, +murderous, fiendish selfishness of rich men. You have been so kind to my +boy, I have tried hard to believe genuine benevolence--what you are +pleased to call 'Christian philanthropy'--inspired your visits to him +during my absence, but you are all alike--you gilded society +sultans--and you come here with some cowardly design carefully smothered +under flowers, fruit, and candy. So, Leighton, make the most of to-day, +for we will see no more of your Mr. Herriott." + +"Madam, I shall be as frank as you have shown yourself. There is one +woman in this world whose wishes rule me absolutely, and because she +requested me to see your child now and then, I have come several times, +until my sympathetic interest equals hers. With your career in New York +I am acquainted. For your radical views and utterances I have neither +respect nor toleration, yet, if you will permit me to explain, there are +reasons that lead me to believe I can do you a very great service." + +"I am not in need of service from any man. Your formula has not even the +ring of originality; I have heard such sickening reiterations of it from +false, bearded lips." + +"That you have been a cruelly wronged woman I feel assured, but I am +equally certain that your worst enemy was no man--was one of your own +sex. For your own sake, will you answer two questions?" + +"For my own sake, I distinctly refuse to be catechised by impertinent +strangers." + +"Oh, mother; please mother! He has been so good to me, how could he mean +harm to you? Don't worry her, Mr. Herriott. She can't abide men; they +fret her, and she hates them--unless they are starved and ragged. Please +let her alone, and look at my doves. They come for the crumbs on the +window sill. See! Here is a new one, pure white. Mother, scatter some +bread on the sheet and they will come in." + +She sprinkled some scraps of cake close to his pillow, and, after a +little coy skirmishing, the pigeons fluttered in to the feast; but just +then a spell of coughing shook the fragile form on the cot, and with a +flash and whirr the flock vanished. Mrs. Dane lifted the boy and fanned +him, wiping away the moisture that beaded his clustering curls, and Mr. +Herriott piled the pillows and cushions behind his shaking shoulders. +When the paroxysm ended, and Leighton lay wan and spent, the visitor +leaned over him. + +"I should like to do several things for you, but your mother will not +permit me. Miss Kent wishes you to know she remembers you with interest, +and hopes to hear you sing again. The stranger who preached at St. +Hyacinth's has not forgotten the poem he promised you, and will bring it +soon. I saw him last night. Now, I must say good-bye for to-day. Don't +try to speak, I understand everything." + +Silently Mrs. Dane followed him to the door. Across the threshold, he +turned and lowered his voice. + +"A sea voyage is the only thing that will prolong his life. With your +consent, it can be arranged at once." + +She shook her head. + +"Madam, I find I must revise my ideals of maternal devotion. You punish +your innocent child for the sins of those who blighted your youth? You +harangue a rabble in favor of 'justice' and deny it to a dying boy." + +She caught her breath, leaned against the wall, and covered her face +with her hands. When he saw it again the color had ebbed, the lovely +eyes were darkened by unshed tears, and the lips were beyond her +control. + +"My baby--my fatherless little one! Ever since he was born I have +struggled so hard to keep his mother's name clean--his mother's name, +all he had--clean and beyond reproach! Do you suppose that now, at the +last, I would put myself under obligation to a rich man? We may die +paupers, he and I, but when we go to the Potter's Field--the only +undisputed land labor can claim--we go free, honest, and unblemished, +and if there was a God, I could hold up my baby and demand why He had +cursed us both in our innocence." + +"I am sorry that the circumstances coloring your life have destroyed +every vestige of confidence in man's honor, yet I have no alternative +but to accept your decision, and I wish you good morning." + +He lifted his hat, and had gone half way down the stairs, when she +followed and touched his sleeve. + +"I did not thank you for much goodness to my child, but I do want to say +I am not ungrateful; only I have had so little to be thankful for, I +don't quite know how to phrase gratitude. The world has been so hard to +me I am suspicious of every rich man in your social circle. You see, my +face has handicapped me always----" + +She set her teeth and struck one palm resentfully against her cheek, and +the passionate, pent-up cry of years of suffering broke through the next +words. + +"Yes, my face has been my curse, and it was the steel trap that snapped +chains on me when I was only a child. Kindness to my Leighton is the one +thing that touches what is left of my heart; and how do you suppose I +can bear now to listen to his sobbing yonder, because he thinks I have +rudely driven you away? Oh, my pretty baby! My own beautiful little one! +Cast out, with only his girl-mother to fight for him against this cruel +world! And now if I lose him, if my all is taken away from me----" + +She wrung her hands, and the blanched face was upturned as if +challenging her God. + +"Madam, I understand fully, and I intend to help your boy; but be sure I +shall visit him when you are absent. Tell him I shall come, with your +consent, while he is alone; and some day I think you will trust me, even +despite the fact that I happen to have money. Good-bye." + +He held out his hand, but she seemed not to see it, and as she turned +and walked wearily up the steps he went down to his carriage. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"Miss Kent, it is quite evident that you do not approve of us." + +"Will you be so kind as to explain to whom 'us' refers?" + +"Our great social world, including government, congressional and +diplomatic circles, club life, and all that 'progress' stands for. +Instead of moving abreast with the 'advance' current, you have drifted +aside into an eddy as contracted, as pitiably narrow as--pardon me, we +emancipated new women dare now to speak the brazen truth--as narrow as +the hands and feet you Southerners boast as sign of aristocratic blood." + +Eglah lifted her grey-gloved hand, examined its outlines critically, and +placed it within a few inches of the broad, thick palm which Ethelberta +Higginbottom had laid on her own lap as she sat in the gallery of the +Senate chamber. + +"Thank you very much, Miss Higginbottom. It is traditional in my family +to admire slender fingers, but we are not so intolerant as to deny +others the privilege of occupying as much space as their digits can +cover, and we never brand people as absolutely disreputable because they +wear number six shoes and number seven-and-a-half gloves. If degrees of +latitude determine the height of insteps, what manifest injustice has +been meted out to longitudinal lines that you Westerners so proudly +claim? Probably you have forgotten that my father is from New England, +and he owns a silver caddy--two hundred years old--that was empty at one +time because 'fish drank tea in Boston harbor.'" + +"Oh, but your mother was Southern and you represent not heredity, but +sheredity, a sociological factor of immense potency, which must be +reckoned with, let me tell you, in the near future, when women fully +emancipated come to enjoyment of all the rights so long withheld from +them. Then mothers, and not fathers will wield the destiny of this great +country; and already female colleges are fast spreading the blessed +gospel of free and equal rights. Last week some one asserted that you +were a graduate of ---- College, but I contradicted it flatly, as +impossible and absurd." + +"I am sorry I do my dear _Alma Mater_ such lamentable discredit; but, +unfortunately, we were not taught to wear our diplomas on our hats as +advertisements of scholarship." + +"You certainly amaze me!" + +"Perhaps you will excuse my frankness in assuring you that sensation at +least is mutual." + +"With your educational advantages, to lock up your mind in a stockade of +provincialism! Desectionalize yourself!" + +"May I ask whether you spell your last verb with an x or a ct? I should +prefer first to ascertain which process is demanded of me." + +"Your Southern bigotry is a mill-stone around your neck. The very word +'emancipation' is a red rag to old slaveholders and their progeny. You +never can forgive us for breaking the shackles of groaning millions held +in bondage." + +Eglah laughed. + +"Pardon me, but it certainly is ludicrous that one possessing your +'broad culture and desectionalized' horizon of thought should really +believe in that old worn-out 'raw-head and bloody-bones' figure of +speech which has done duty so long. It surely is entitled to decent +interment where all dilapidated scarecrows cease from troubling. We +Southern people no more want our negroes back as slaves than you desire +the return of hordes of Indians whom you so completely dispossessed of +their native lands in your 'wild and rapacious West,' and whom a 'white, +fatherly' government is rapidly reducing to extinction by its beneficent +agencies. The white South is 'emancipated' from the moral responsibility +of elevating the black race now so happy in 'national' tutelage, where +their guardians taught them the system of bookkeeping and all the subtle +processes of the 'Freedmen's Bureau.'" + +"How lonely you must feel in Washington. You have no more regard for the +rights of your own sex than for--" She stammered and coughed. + +"Indeed, I have the most affectionate and jealous regard for every right +that inheres in my dower of American womanhood. I claim and enjoy the +right to be as cultured, as learned, as useful, and--if you please--as +ornamental in society and at home as my individual limitations will +permit. I have no wrongs, no grievances, no crying need to usurp lines +of work that will break down the barriers God set between men and women. +I am not in rebellion against legal statutes, nor the canons of +well-established decency and refinement in feminine usage, and, finally, +I am so inordinately proud of being a well-born Southern woman, with a +full complement of honorable great-grandfathers and blue-blooded, +stainless great-grand-mothers, that I have neither pretext nor +inclination to revolt against mankind." + +"Miss Kent, you have rather pretty eyes, but you are so steeped in +Southern--what do you call it--_dolce far niente_, or _laissez faire_, +or semi-stagnation of soul that you are too lazy to open them wide +enough to see the thrilling vista of woman's triumph that illumines----" + +"Thank you; my much flattered eyes are sufficiently open at this moment +to perceive the behavior of that nondescript creature in feminine +garments who is flirting so undisguisedly with Senator Smallweed yonder, +on your right; one of the early emancipated--an advanced lobbyist." + +"You mean that piquant, charming little Mrs. Morrison? Dear soul! She is +a pathetically tragic object lesson. Had to get a divorce from a brutal +husband and become a bread-winner. Why should not women lobby? They are +so nimble witted, nature fitted them admirably for such work." + +"And gave them the adroitly nimble fingers to fit the pockets they +pick." + +"That is some cowardly man's cruel slander. My creed is always to defend +my own sex; it is only Christian charity and genuine feminine justice." + +"Provided it be not merely lax morality. Sometimes the distinction is +not clear to very 'advanced,' zealous people." + +"At least your father does not share your narrow harshness. He and Mrs. +Morrison are quite 'chummy,' and I happen to know he sees her often." + +"How could he avoid it? Shoals of sharks swim in Washington, and since +your friend belongs to the 'emancipated' variety, doubtless she indulges +an 'elective affinity' for the largest senatorial prey in sight, and +hungrily shadows him. Yesterday that 'Bison Head' bill she is working +for came to grief in committee, and will be buried to-day. Even sharks +occasionally miss a meal." + +"Oh, you are not up to date! Before the decision was announced one of +the committee weakened, asked for reconsideration; another hurried +meeting was held last night, and the bill will not be reported this +session. Not killed you understand, just tenderly pigeon-holed, securely +wrapped up in parliamentary camphor to scare away opposition moths, and +allowed to sleep while its pretty guardian angel has another session in +which to smooth the way for its final passage." + +At this moment a messenger boy brought a note to Miss Higginbottom, and +Eglah rose. + +"You do not suspect who the _weakening_ member was?" + +"If I cared to ask, I dare say your fair _divorcée_ friend would be able +to enlighten me, but the petty political schemes engineered by lobbyists +do not interest me." + +"One moment, Miss Kent. You did not come to my _musicale_. I have only +one olive twig left. We entertain a few friends to-morrow night in honor +of a famous Western woman, who will lecture next season on 'Civic +Problems,' for the purpose of raising money to build a vast, up-to-date +club temple, where women can proclaim their views on female right to +suffrage and expansion. May I have the pleasure of presenting you?" + +"You are very kind, Miss Higginbottom, but as we leave Washington at the +end of the week, I regret that I shall not have time for any new +engagements. Pray accept my thanks for several courtesies." + +"I used to wonder why you are so unpopular, but it soon ceased to be a +mystery, and it will be no sacrifice to you to give up Washington, in +retiring from public life. When Senator Kent formally resigns--as is the +burden of a little bird's song that utters no false notes--he will, +doubtless, consign you to a more congenial circle of friends." + +"In saying good-bye, I shall find some solace in the assurance that at +least you will not mourn inconsolably because of my final departure. +Please present my best wishes to Mrs. Higginbottom, who has shown me +much kindness, and whom I may not be able to see again. Good-bye." + +She stood a few seconds, smiling mischievously into the florid face of +the large-featured woman of most certain age, whose light-yellow eyes +flashed back unmistakable malice, then, amid the roar of applause that +greeted the peroration of a white-haired senator in the chamber below, +she quietly stole out of the Capitol, and sought a favorite corner of +the Smithsonian grounds. + +Walking slowly, she asked in a spirit of self-chastisement why she had +allowed waspish stings to provoke a retaliatory tone, at variance with +that cool repose of well-bred urbanity and imperturbable courtesy on +which she prided herself; and was not the condescension of retort an +unladylike and mortifying weakness? + +Now and then come radiant days when a noon sun shines hot, and no +faintest film flecks the stainless blue, yet one grows vaguely conscious +of waning brightness, and gradually the horizon blanches to a deadly +grey, while leaden clouds creep into view like spectral fingers of some +vast hand groping across the sky to smother the sun. Shadows projected +by the invisible unnerve natures that fearlessly face tangible, +well-defined danger, as 'the sallow, weird light preceding an eclipse is +more menacing than its total darkness, where friendly stars still +shine.' For Eglah, the clock of fate had begun to chime that _mauvais +quart d'heure_ which Mrs. Maurice had known would inevitably overtake +her, and the preliminary whirring of the hidden cogs had found her +unprepared. Blind faith in her father's sagacity, political +steadfastness, and incorruptibility, had built a pedestal from which he +smiled down benignantly upon her, making life a festival; but when the +needle of doubt pricked the fine veil love spun across her vision, and +she dared allow herself to question, a shivering and nameless dread +shook her happy young heart, as unexpectedly blighting as a shower of +sleet on an August passion-flower. When Jove nods his worship wanes. + +Since the night of the cotillon, several inexplicable circumstances, +comparatively slight yet cumulative, had perplexed this fond and loyal +daughter, who began to find the maze of Senator Kent's political methods +too tortuous for her exploration. + +Startled by his abrupt reversal of judgment on more than one important +question involving party allegiance, she had sought an explanation, +which he laughingly evaded, and, when she pressed the matter, his +avoidance was marked by an irritability of speech and gesture hitherto +unknown in the domestic circle. The undisguised graciousness of his +demeanor toward Mrs. Morrison had surprised and annoyed her, and she was +painfully astonished by his efforts to conciliate Senator Higginbottom, +who belonged to the opposite party, and was a loud, aggressive, and +hirsute apostle of the silver gospel so dear to his constituency, and so +conducive to his individual interest as a mine owner. Mrs. Higginbottom, +a plain, kind-hearted, motherly old woman, who knew much more of +sheep-shearing and beehives than of fashionable etiquette and diplomatic +technicalities, Eglah had found it possible to receive cordially, but +the daughter, Ethelberta, was an intolerable offence to all her feminine +instincts, and when Judge Kent insisted, with some asperity, that the +"Higginbottoms must be cultivated," the ordeal of playing hostess to +this "advanced and emancipated new woman" proved peculiarly unpleasant. +A certain watchful restlessness in her father's manner did not escape +her notice, nor the recent accession of sphinx-like non-committalism in +Mr. Metcalf, and she pondered uneasily a question of Mrs. Mitchell's: + +"Dearie, did it ever occur to you that in some way Judge Kent seems +rather afraid of Mr. Herriott, or perhaps I should say is always so +guarded in his presence?" + +"Never! Impossible and absurd. He has supreme confidence in him, and +once, not long ago, he scolded me sharply because I could not consider +him head and shoulders above all other men." + +The session of Congress was within two days of its close, and that +morning, as Senator Kent rose from an untasted breakfast, he astounded +Eglah and Eliza by the ejaculation, "God knows, I shall be glad to get +out of this grind!" + +Fearing sickness had robbed him of his appetite, Eglah followed him to +the library, but he waved her back. + +"Metcalf is waiting to show me a paper, and I must not be interrupted. +My dear, my time is not my own--even for you." + +Hitherto she had never been an interruption, and it seemed as if some +iron door was shut suddenly between her life and his. "The Bison Head" +purchase bill, for which Mrs. Morrison flitted to and fro, had been +fought by Senator Kent in committee room, where the contest was close, +but Senator Higginbottom was chairman, and when Miss Ethelberta +announced that a member had "weakened" and the bill might be saved by +postponement, Eglah knew who had changed front, and she began to realize +how ancient pilgrims felt when, at Delphi, the oracle said no to-day and +yes to-morrow. Idolatrous habit was strong; the pedestal trembled, but +it was a far cry to its overthrow, and she wrestled stubbornly to defend +inconsistencies that humiliated and staggered her. Time, the master +magician, would perhaps show her the Senator's reasons woven into a +crown of laurel--as unexpected as the garland of glowing roses that +spring out of a naked sword blade, at the gesture of a juggler. To-day +she recalled her grandmother's softened face with eyes of tender +compassion on that morning when the news of the second marriage had been +brought to Nutwood. After all, was there just cause for the old lady's +contempt and aversion, and were the rumors rife in Y---- shadows of grim +and disgraceful facts that must cling to her father's name, fateful as +the philter of Nessus? The thought stifled her, and she put her hand to +her throat with the old childish habit that always betrayed intolerable +pain. She could not go home--must not meet Eliza's eyes until she +strangled this crouching horror. Through the Smithsonian she wandered, +apparently examining its treasures, but now she saw only the pitying +countenance of her grandmother, and now the malicious triumph in Miss +Higginbottom's eyes, as she exulted in some impending misfortune. +"Formal resignation"--adumbrated by more than one innuendo--portended +the summary collapse of a political career that she had believed would +culminate in elevation to a Cabinet seat during the next administration. +For her, obstinate confidence was to-day the sole refuge, and she set +her teeth as she verified Mrs. Maurice's prediction: "'Though he slay +me, yet will I trust him.' My own father cannot betray the faith of his +loyal child." + +Dreading Eliza's scrutiny, it was with a feeling of temporary relief +that she recollected an engagement to attend a "lawn party" held that +afternoon at a residence whose owner was laboring to raise an endowment +fund for a local charity. When she reached home, a change of costume +gave time to marshal all her defensive forces; and, as she came +downstairs to join her waiting chaperon, Mrs. Mitchell forbore to +comment on the unusual color that burned in her cheeks. + +"Little mother, don't sit up for me. I promised Mrs. Ellerbee to assist +at the flower table, and may be kept late. Be sure you get your beauty +sleep." + +Dinner was delayed an hour beyond the usual time, but Senator Kent did +not appear, and as such deviations from domestic rule had recently +occurred often, and were explained by congestion of business at the +Capitol, incident to approaching adjournment, Mrs. Mitchell took her +meal alone. It was prayer-meeting evening at the Methodist Church in her +neighborhood, and, after the exercises ended, she walked home, took up a +magazine, and tried unsuccessfully to read. The political atmosphere was +so charged with electricity that she felt a crisis was imminent, and +only the extent of the storm was conjectural. How much Eglah suspected +the foster-mother merely surmised, because some inexplicable barrier +seemed, within the past fortnight, built up to limit their free +interchange of thought. It was a sultry, sombre night; city walls and +pavements sent up their garnered heat in quivering waves, and the stars +were blurred and faint as they retreated behind a dim haze that was not +mist. At eleven o'clock the street corner light showed her Senator Kent +walking rapidly. She went into the dining-room to arrange the salad and +cold tea he always enjoyed after missing his dinner, and while he +lingered in the hall Eglah returned. She was bare-headed, very pale, and +her lips fluttered, but a brave, tender smile lighted her eyes, and she +put her arms about his neck and kissed him twice. + +"How tired you poor national Solons must be! But I know one whose day's +work is not yet ended, and who must pick a whole flock of crows with me, +right now. Why did you change your vote on the 'Bison Head' purchase?" + +"Who says I did?" + +His face was deeply flushed, but he laughed and pinched her white cheek. + +"The chairman has a daughter." + +"A leaky gossip. Congressmen ought to be bachelors or childless +widowers; but then, my dear, how could I possibly exist without you?" + +"Father, what induced you to favor a measure you have condemned so +emphatically?" + +"Several good reasons I am much too tired to discuss. Don't forget your +Emerson, who says 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little +minds, adored by little statesmen,' and remember, also, 'a wise man +sometimes changes his mind, a fool never.' The bill will not be reported +till next session, and conditions alter, so _après moi le déluge_!" + +She walked toward the dining-room, and on the threshold Eliza saw her +put both hands to her throat. Drawing her breath quickly, she turned +back and threw her arms around him. + +"Oh, father! Was it kind, was it merciful to let me learn by chance from +strangers that you have determined to resign your senatorship, to end a +glorious career in which you know my dearest hopes and pride centre?" + +For a moment he made no reply, only clasped her closely, pillowed her +head on his breast, and kissed her cold cheek repeatedly. + +Then he spoke in a husky tone, as a nervous surgeon might, uncertain of +his own diagnosis. + +"My darling girl, I confess it was a cowardly dread of the pain I knew +my decision would cause you, and I very weakly put off the evil day as +long as possible. Immediately after adjournment I intended to tell you +all the plans that seem best for our future, and did not anticipate this +premature disclosure, which is presumptuous impertinence in its author. +In quitting public life even temporarily, my brightest compensation is +the prospect of spending my time in the sweet companionship of my +precious, incomparable daughter. Forgive your old father the arrant +cowardice of keeping silent for a few days." + +She clung to him like a frightened child, and he felt her trembling as +one in an ague. + +"Why must you resign? Why step down when you have a right to expect the +new administration will offer you a place in the Cabinet? Why? Don't +keep back anything from me now." + +"My love, I don't wish to distress you; I shrink from exciting any +alarm, but you certainly have a right to the truth. My health does not +permit the amount of canvassing work that I believe will be required for +my re-election, because our State legislature will be much divided this +presidential campaign over vital issues, both local and national. As my +term expires soon, I think it best to resign now, and avoid grave +complications that threaten our party organization in the State +legislature. Recently I have had premonitions that drove me to consult +Dr. McLemore, and he advises me to withdraw from active political life, +at least for a season. He believes complete rest and freedom from public +responsibility are all that my health demands. I did not wish you to +know this, but you are such an inquisitive monkey, such an arbitrary +minx, that nothing less than the whole truth will satisfy your exacting +reason. Now kiss me, my pretty chestnut burr, and let us pick no more +crows." + +"You have been ill, and we--I--never suspected it?" + +She caught her breath spasmodically, stifling a sob. Her father glanced +significantly at Eliza, who stood beside the table, lifting a pitcher of +iced tea that clinked against its sides in her nervous grasp. + +"I see Mrs. Mitchell--always admirably reliable--has kept her promise to +me. Now she can tell you I had a very severe attack the night we were so +late at Secretary P----'s dinner, and you could not understand my delay +in dressing." + +"Ma-Lila! You kept me in ignorance of father's danger, when you should +have warned me?" + +"Your father positively forbade any mention of the matter to you, and as +I never saw or heard of a recurrence of what he assured me was merely +the result of imprudent indulgence in oysters, cheese, and beer, I had +no excuse for disobeying his command to keep silence." + +The little woman's eyes sparkled, and an involuntary curl of her lip did +not escape Eglah's questioning sorrowful gaze. + +"Come, my dear, do not quite strangle what is left of a very tired old +man. Now that explanations are completely over, I feel as happy as a boy +just returned from the dentist's where he left an aching tooth; and +since you know absolutely all that can be told, I should like some tea +dashed with cognac, for I have had a hard, tedious day." + +He unwound her arms, patted her head, and took his seat at the table. + +Eglah squeezed a lemon into a goblet of tea, Eliza stirred the +mayonnaise, and Judge Kent helped himself to an anchovy sandwich, while +he asked whether they had heard the sad news of the sudden death of a +popular attaché of one of the legations, who had been killed an hour +before by the accidental discharge of his own pistol. Heroic efforts +were made by all to avoid the disturbing theme upon which the Senator +had peremptorily rung down the curtain, and to relieve the tension the +trio separated as soon as possible. + +How much of the perfunctory explanation either woman credited neither +could determine, but each refrained from probing the other, and both +endeavored to bridge the crater by that golden silence that knows no +pangs of regretted speech. Lying wide awake, Mrs. Mitchell noted the +slow passage of the heavy hours, and day was just below the eastern sky +line when the sudden shrill trilling of a canary in the adjoining room +told that some restless movement of Eglah's had aroused it. Eliza longed +to go and comfort the suffering girl, but every heart has a sanctuary +which not even the tenderest affection should dare to violate, and the +subtle sympathy of the overseer's wife taught her love's duty was to +guard, not force the entrance. After a few moments, Eglah opened the +door and came on tiptoe to her bed. + +"What is it, dearie? Nobody can sleep on such a suffocating night." + +She sat up and put one arm around the white figure, which, instead of +yielding to her clasp, held back straight and stiff as steel. + +"I thought I heard you stir, else I should not have ventured to disturb +you. Ma-Lila, the thought of father's ill health weighs terribly on my +heart. Will you please tell me the nature of that attack which you both +kept from me? What were the symptoms?" + +"He had been dozing in his chair, and quite suddenly sprang up, pale, +and evidently much agitated. I wished to call you, and urged him to +abandon the idea of leaving the house, but he insisted I should not give +you even a hint, and asked for the decanter of brandy, which he was sure +would relieve a severe fit of indigestion caused by imprudence at +luncheon. He went to his room, and when he came out you saw no sign of +serious indisposition." + +"He had been annoyed by no visitors?" + +"He had seen no one but Watson and myself." + +"Do you think there was heart trouble that night? Tell me frankly." + +"Yes, most certainly there was; but, my baby, heart trouble comes from +various causes, and I really do not think your father's physical +condition justifies any serious uneasiness. He is evidently alarmed, but +nervous strain and mental worry are sufficient to produce all his +symptoms, and you will find that retirement from congressional +complications expedites recovery in such cases." + +The girlish form relaxed, and a hot cheek was pressed against the +foster-mother's face. + +"Don't comfort me with false hopes, unless you are sure I am unduly +frightened." + +"Listen to me. I am absolutely certain that Judge Kent's health need +cause you no alarm in future. Now, shake off that nightmare, and go to +sleep like a good child, or I will certainly dose you with bromide." + +She kissed her softly, and with an arm about her waist led her back to +her bed. + +"Ma-Lila, I want to forget the last three weeks. Won't you help me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"What is the urgent necessity? I have just held my afternoon mission +service, and I am very tired. Noel, why are you so insistent?" + +"Perhaps it has been borne in upon my 'subliminal consciousness' that if +you wait too long you may possibly regret it. Once or twice I have found +profit in following a rule my old nurse taught me when I wore kilts: +'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.' No 'dæmon' squats +at my ear, and I claim no mantic illumination, still I should be glad to +know you will make that visit at once." + +"You fear the poor boy is dying?" + +"Not immediately, but he appears hopelessly ill, and needs all the kind +words you may find yourself better able to utter than any one else. +Moreover, it would be well that you should see his mother, who is away +at work during the week, and as you expect to leave the city so soon, +this will be the most suitable opportunity for you to meet her at home. +Poor, fierce, bitter soul! She has no milk of human kindness left; it +soured and has become acrid--intensely mordacious." + +"She belongs then to the unhappy class of frail women who go swiftly to +utter wreck in all large cities, where sin is arrayed in rose color and +gilt. Strange that the boy of such a creature should remind one of the +infant St. John or a seraph of Angelico's." + +"Some fragments of her history lead me to believe that she is as +trustworthy and pure as any woman to whom you preach. Her morality is +beyond cavil, but theoretically she seems to have gone wild among the +hedges and ditches of socialism." + +"You consider her a conscientious, good woman?" + +"As far as I can ascertain she lives irreproachably, bar associating +with anarchists. I surmise some man has treated her cruelly, or she +thinks so, and now she----" + +Mr. Herriott rose, looked at his watch, and laughed. + +"Temple, do you recollect one summer night under the elms, when +rehearsing for the Greek play, Prescott Winthrop declaimed the +herdsman's message from the 'Bacchæ,' and emphasized the portrait of +Agave in the frenzy of the _Thiasus_ strangling a calf and fondling a +wolf's whelp? To-day Leighton's mother recalled that scene, but she is +not dancing to meet Bromius--only hunting revenge on all mankind. Ah, +you are going? I suggest a cautious approach. Leave the carriage out of +sight, and boldly flourish the promised book as an open sesame. You of +the cassock clan enjoy privileges denied to us, the ungirdled sons of +Belial. After all, you may prove the _deus ex machina_, and through the +poor little lad may be able to lay a healing touch on the mother's sick +soul. Come to my rooms after your visit, and we will say good-bye until +I get back from my long jaunt." + +An hour later Father Temple made his way into the tenement house, +through a noisy mob of children romping on the pavement, and when he +entered the narrow hall outside din was conquered by the deep, swelling +music of "Quis est Homo," wailing from a violoncello held between the +knees of a man sitting half way up the stairs, a thin, stooping old +figure with shaggy grey hair, and bearded as a Welsh harper. The priest +ascended, and the musician edged closer to the wall to allow him passage +way, but he merely nodded his bowed head, and the solemn strains rose +and fell like the sobbing moan of waves settling to calm after lashing +blasts. Father Temple lifted his finger. + +"Mrs. Dane lives on the next floor?" + +"Go ub. She vill see no briests, but her door is oben for de child to +hear de music he loves. Dear leedle boy is sick, and my cello sounds +more better here dan closer." + +He shut his eyes and continued playing. Opposite the undraped west +window of the room above, an alley stretched, making clear pathway for +the sinking sun that poured a parting flood of radiance into the +apartment, and upon the cot where, propped up with pillows, the boy +clasped his arms around his knees, and listened, quiet and happy. +Between cot and window his mother sat, facing the back of her chair, on +top of which she rested one arm, leaning her brow upon it, while the +other hand, lying on the cot, slowly stroked Leighton's bare feet. +Having washed her hair earlier in the day, it was now brushed out over +her shoulders to dry in the sunshine, and the bright mass of waving +tendrils seemed to clothe her with light. On the floor were scattered +several newspaper sheets--"The Chain Breaker"--and across her knee lay +an open copy of "Battle-cry of Labor." Only the mellow voice of the +cello sounded, and the room was sweet with the breath of Mr. Herriott's +white carnations nodding in a blue bowl on the table. Standing a moment +at the threshold, Father Temple's eyes fastened on the veil of golden +locks falling to the floor, and his heart leaped, then seemed to cease +beating as he recalled a vision of the far West, where just such +glittering strands had been twined around his fingers. + +"Oh, my St. Hyacinth's preacher!" + +At Leighton's glad cry his mother raised her head, started up, and, +moving forward a few steps, swept back her hair, holding it with both +hands. Before her stood the tall, thin figure in the long, black habit +of his Order, cord-girded at the waist; with a soft wool hat and book in +one hand; a clean-shaven face, pale, sensitive, scholarly, and +suggestive of "lauds and prime," of asceticism without peace, and of +brooding regret. + +He recognized every line in her lovely features, from the large pansy +eyes and delicate, over-arching brows to the perfect oval molding of +cheek and chin, and the full, downward curve of scarlet lips. Love is so +keen of vision it pierces the changes wrought by ripening years, and he +knew the dear face. She did not suspect, love had been dead so long, and +she had buried all tender memories in its neglected grave. + +"I am surprised a Romish priest wastes his time coming here, and I have +no welcome to offer you, because I wish no visitors." + +With a swift movement he closed the door, dropped hat and book, and came +close to her. The sudden glow on his cheek, the light of exultation in +his sad eyes transformed him. + +"Look at me. Don't you know me? Look--look!" + +Eye to eye they watched each other, and at the sound of his deep, +tender, quivering voice recollection smote hard upon her heart, and a +vague, shivering pain drove the blood from her face, but she fought the +suggestion. + +"You are unknown to me." + +"I am Vernon Pembroke Temple, and you are Nona, my wife! My Nona--my own +wife----" + +Words failed him, and he held out his arms. She recoiled, throwing up +her hands with a gesture of loathing, and stood as if turned to stone, +so strangely hard was a face where eyes kindled and burned with the pent +hatred and scorn of long years of sore trial. + +"You had not sins enough to sink your soul without adding hypocrisy? A +preacher! A priest! Cowardice, perjury, moral leprosy, skulking under a +long cloak as black as what is left of your vile heart!" + +Each word fell like a red-hot flail, but he did not wince, and neither +father nor mother heard the low wail from the cot where childish arms +covered a face white with horror. + +"You think, you believe I intentionally and pre-meditatedly deserted +you, and in your ignorance of facts you certainly had cause to despise +me, but----" + +"Think--believe! As if it were possible to doubt the villainy planned! +The crime you so carefully committed against a mere child, knowing she +was a helpless victim, believing she could never redress her awful +wrongs. As if you had set a trap and caught an innocent, happy bird, and +then broken its wings and tossed it to screaming hawks! Coward--coward +as you always were--how dare you face me?" + +"Nona, dear Nona--" He put out his hand appealingly, but she struck it +aside with stinging force, and stepped backward. + +"Out of my sight, or I call the police." + +She pointed to the door. He turned, locked it, put the key in his +pocket, and his eyes steadily met the challenge in hers. The banked, +smouldering fires that flashed up must burn lower before he could plead. +So they stood: he flushed, smiling, happy; she shaken by a tempest of +rage that blanched her to a livid pallor and set all the glittering +rings of hair quivering, as if innumerable golden serpents coiled and +uncoiled around her trembling form. + +In the pause he lifted the hanging ends of the knotted cord. + +"Do you understand what this habit means?" + +"Don't I? A holy cloak to hide every sin that makes this world a hotter +hell than even God could fashion--if God were possible. You drape it +over the ten commandments, blotting them out, while you sing psalms, and +rob the toiling poor, and ruin young lives, and murder innocent souls. +Oh, yes, to my sorrow, I understand all it means!" + +"It means my consecration to celibacy when you fled from me, and I had +exhausted all efforts to find you." + +"Celibacy! Celibacy! I needed no nunnery to help me keep clean and pure, +but you ran behind monastery walls to protect yourself from retribution +at a wronged woman's hands. Coward from first to last! When I fled from +you? You must indeed be possessed of the devil to dare such language to +me." + +"Nona, there has been some awful mistake----" + +"Yes, a mistake that I was not scalped, or that a merciful bolt of +lightning did not strike me dead that day--that cursed day--when first I +set my eyes on your false, treacherous face! If you could only know how +I hate, despise, utterly despise the bare thought, much more the +horrible sight of you!" + +"No wonder, since circumstances were apparently all against me at----" + +"Circumstances are no shelter for honest, honorable men, if there be any +left; and the hard, bitter, murderous facts of your shameful life would +find you out if you dodged under the very throne of the God you +blaspheme by professing!" + +"Will you listen to the truth?" + +"You could not speak it if you tried. I listened to you once too often, +and you wrecked me, and I am no longer a fool." + +"Why did you leave Thompsonville after you received my letters, and the +money I sent you, and when you knew I was coming there to take you away +with me?" + +For an instant she looked at him with startled curiosity, then laughed +hysterically. + +"I left Thompsonville because you wrote no letters, sent no money, and +took no notice of my frantic appeals for help in my hour of horrible +trial. A sick woman with a frail, feeble baby, facing starvation, +abandoned, slandered, and trampled in the mud, I could only snatch at +the hand held out to me by the one man I have found honest, honorable, +loyal, and true, as he was pitying and kind." + +"But when I reached Thompsonville Delia Brown told me----" + +Her scornful laugh drowned his words. + +"'When you reached Thompsonville' in your dreams--after a night's +carousal at college! Even a congenital idiot would sicken at that." + +No shadow of impatience crossed his happy countenance; the intensity of +her scoffing bitterness was part of his punishment--the harvest that +sprang from his own sowing--and he must not complain until she +understood fully. + +"I can prove that I went to Thompsonville, and I have the sworn +testimony of Delia Brown that she delivered into your hands my letters +and the package of money I sent to her care through the express agent. +On a scrap of paper I have also a receipt in pencil from you to Delia +Brown." + +She shook her head and smote her palms together. + +"Forgeries one and all. I would not believe you on your oath, unless the +grave yawned, and Leighton Dane--dead six years--came back as witness in +your favor." + +"'He was the handsome Spanish-looking man' Delia Brown told me stole my +wife and child and disappeared suddenly--going to Florida or Cuba to +grow bananas--when you heard I was coming to Thompsonville?" + +"He was a good old man, my father's best friend, who took his place as +teamster--and when I was literally driven out of the cabin one rainy +night by my stepmother, he was the only human being who believed I was +not vile. He pitied me and carried me in one of the Government wagons to +Thompsonville, and paid my board until I was able to earn my bread by +helping Delia Brown wash and iron. His term was expiring soon, and when +he started back to his home in California, he came by to see if I needed +anything. + +"Finding I was ill in body, distracted in mind, desperate, because I +knew then I was utterly deserted, and had no hope of help, he offered to +carry me West and protect me on account of his friendship for my father. +Oh, bless him--for ever and ever! He made an humble little home for us, +and shielded and respected me, and pitied and believed in me with all +the strength of his great, true heart, and was a second and a much +better father to me in my shameful desolation and helplessness. He +adopted me and my baby, and when he died he left his small savings to +us; and so I named my outcast little one Leighton Dane for the one loyal +friend who helped me to feed and clothe him when his own father rejected +and abandoned him. I had no proof except the certificate you made me +swear I would conceal for two years, and your ally, the devil, worked +well for you when the mice nesting in my trunk cut it into shreds while +I was ill. The chaplain and Ransom Hill were dead; I had none to speak +for me; but Mr. Dane believed my words, and he put his big hand on my +head and comforted me. + +"'Poor little girl, don't worry; just be easy in your mind, for I know +you are telling the truth. I know you are good as your own baby, and if +every mouth in America swore against you I would trust you as I always +trusted my own mother.'" + +A mist clouded her eyes, as dew softens the tint of a violet, but she +clenched her hands, and bit her lip hard to still its tremor, adding +with sullen emphasis: + +"In all these black years the one star of comfort I can ever see shines +in the assurance that the only truly good man I have found, who knew me +well, respected and trusted me as he did his dead mother." + +"You never saw or heard of the advertisements I published in various +papers, asking you to inform me where I could find you?" + +The contempt in her ringing answer stung him like a whip-lash. + +"People who are neither 'lost, strayed, nor stolen' spend no time +hunting for imaginary advertisements that never go to press." + +"You shall read them in the papers with their printed dates. Copies have +been filed and preserved with reports of unsuccessful search from chiefs +of police in Louisiana and Florida, whom I paid to hunt for some trace +of you. They are deposited in a Boston bank, with a sum of money placed +to your credit--all to be delivered to the order of Nona Moorland +Temple. Write to Noah Giles, cashier of Orchard Street Bank. I will +telegraph, vouching for your right to the tin box bearing your name, and +in two days you shall possess absolute proof that I am not the hardened +scoundrel you think me. Weak, rash, cowardly I certainly was, but as God +hears me, never forgetful, never unfaithful, never intending the wrong +for which you have suffered so frightfully." + +The gaze of each fastened on the other, neither had noticed the cot or +its occupant. + +Leighton slipped slowly down till his feet touched the floor, and he +clung to the mattress for some seconds, measuring the distance to the +pair standing in the middle of the room. Weak from emotion that almost +overwhelmed him, he felt his limbs would not support him, and, gathering +his cotton nightgown about him, he sank on his knees and crawled +noiselessly forward. Between father and mother he crouched, then laid +his head against the feet of the priest and feebly raised his arms. + +"My father----" + +The sight, and all it implied as judgment of evidence in defence, drove +her to jealous frenzy, and she sprang forward as a panther leaps to +succor her young. + +"Don't touch him! Don't you dare to lay your finger on him! You have no +more right to him than to an archangel! He has no father, has only his +downtrodden girl-mother. Don't you dare to put your sacrilegious hand on +his holy head. He is not yours!" + +With his right arm he held her back, as she stooped to snatch the boy +away, and, kneeling, he passed his left hand under the prostrate form, +gathered him close to his breast, and looked up smiling into her eyes. + +"Not mine! If I am not his father--who is?" + +"He is mine, solely mine; body and soul, he belongs only to me! Before +he was born you turned us adrift in the world to perish, and now that +for ten years I have worked day and night, fought for bread and shelter, +carried him on my bosom, slept with him in my arms, you--who robbed me +of everything, even my good name--you dare--dare claim my outcast baby! +I would rather shroud my darling than hear him call you father." + +Leighton's arms stole round the priest's neck, and his tangled yellow +curls touched the dark head bent over him. Father Temple kissed the +little quivering face, strained him to his heart, and the long-sealed +fountain broke in tears that streamed upon the clinging child. + +"My baby, my son, my own lost lamb, for whom I have searched and +prayed--God knows how faithfully, how sorrowfully--all these long, +dreadful years!" + +As she stood above them, barred by that tense right arm, noting the +tight clasp of the thin hands locked behind the father's head, an +impotent rage made her long to scream out the agony that found no vent +save in a rapid beating of one foot on the bare floor--much like the +lashing tail of some furious furred creature, crouching to spring, yet +warily hesitant. + +Father Temple's outstretched hand caught a fold of her skirt, and with +it a strand of floating hair. + +"Nona, my wife--my own wife----" + +She twitched her dress from his grasp and shook it. + +"I am not your wife! Thank God, I am no man's wife! I am free as I was +before you came--an ever-lasting blot between me and the sunshine. I +kept my promise to you. I set my teeth and was silent under a fiery +storm of slander and foul accusations that blistered my girlish cheek +with shame, but I waited till the years you named had passed, and you +had reached your majority, and plucked up courage to face your father, +and had a legal right to ratify what the Church sanctioned through the +chaplain. Then I told my only friend all the facts. I ceased to hope, +because I had lost faith, but Mr. Dane pleaded for you: 'Wait one year +more, give him the last chance to do right.' He wrote to a friend in the +old regiment and inquired about all the officers, and his answer told us +that your father was in Europe, and that the major thought you were with +him. Then I laid my case before one of the human vultures that batten on +the wreckage of broken vows--a lawyer, expert in snapping matrimonial +chains. He sent you all the necessary notices--sent them to your college +address, the only one I could give him. Very soon the decree of absolute +divorce was rendered, and I dropped all right to a name I had never +publicly claimed--cast it off as gladly as I would some foul garment +worn by a leper. Free--free to live my life as I pleased; Mrs. Dane and +her boy Leighton--free to go wherever I wished, after death took the +only real protector I ever had. And I chose, for my baby's sake as well +as my own, to lead the hard life of a working woman, but clean, and +honorable, and innocent as that of any abbess safely stored away from +temptation behind brick walls and iron gates, and though my own little +one may well be ashamed of his father, he will never need to blush for +his mother when the peace of death hides her from an unjust and a cruel +world." + +Sunshine had vanished, the room was darkening, and the last glow from a +topaz band low in the west flickered over the woman's head, as she +swayed in the wave of passionate protest that rocked her from all +trammels of control. There was a brief silence, broken by a strangling +sob and cough, and over the breast of the priest's cassock a warm red +stream trickled. He rose quickly with the boy in his arms and carried +him to the window. + +"Nona, a hemorrhage!" + +"Lay him down. If you have killed him, it is the fit ending of all my +wrongs at your hands. Now stand back! Back! Do you hear--you curse of my +life!" + +She sponged the child's face, laid a wet compress on his throat, and +kept one finger on his pulse, not daring to give medicine while the +narrowing red stream oozed more slowly. She lighted a lamp, flew into a +recess near the stove, and came back with a hypodermic syringe. + +"Now, mother's man, don't flinch." + +Pushing up the sleeve, she injected a colorless fluid into his arm, held +it some seconds, and laid her lips near the puncture. Then with one hand +she held his head raised slightly, and with the other sponged the lips +until the flow ceased and the gasping breath grew easy. + +"Swallow your medicine slowly, don't strangle. You must lie perfectly +still. Mother's own little man needs to go to sleep now and forget all +he has heard to-day." + +Father Temple had fallen on his knees at the opposite side of the cot, +clinging to one of the boy's hands, and suddenly the child turned his +head and looked imploringly, first at father, then at mother. Both +understood the mute prayer in the beautiful, tender eyes. A quavering +sound--part sob, part cough--made their hearts leap. + +"I never will be fatherless any more. So glad! Don't leave me, father." + +"Leighton, you shall always be fatherless. This man can be nothing to +us. Because of his deceitful promises I suffered the disgrace of +smarting from a horse-whip laid on my shoulders when one night I was +driven out of my father's cabin by his wife, and to shelter myself from +sleet and rain crawled into a covered wagon and slept on hay and corn, +until Uncle Dane found me there, and had mercy on me. I owe to this +priest every sorrow and trouble that have darkened my life and yours. +All these years we have had only each other, and you must understand +your mother is the one who has the sole right to your love. My darling, +you and mother can be happy together, and we need only each other." + +She struggled for composure, but there was an ominous pant in her veiled +voice. + +"I want my father! Oh, I want him--I--want him!" Tears glided over his +cheeks. + +She leaned down, snatched Leighton's hand from the priest's clasp, +clutching it between both of hers, and turned her blazing eyes upon the +kneeling man. + +"Will you go now? Have you not done harm enough to satisfy even you? +These are my rooms, and I will tolerate your intrusion no longer. +Remember, my decree of divorce is absolute, and it secures to me the +custody of my child." + +"I recognize no validity in divorces, and the law cannot annul a +ceremony performed outside of its restrictions and requirements. Because +we were minors we invoked the aid of the Church, and our vows before God +can never be cancelled by any civil statute. Except as a solemn, sacred +rite, there was nothing in our marriage to legitimize our child. This is +my son, not by license of law, but because we swore fidelity to each +other 'until death do us part,' and called God to witness; and no human +decree can rob me of my child--since you dare not name any other man his +father. I defy you to lay your hand on his innocent head and question +his legitimacy, which inheres only in a ceremony no civil law +sanctioned. Months of tedious and well-nigh fatal illness delayed my +return to you, and during my delirium your letters were mislaid. When at +last I accidentally recovered two letters, and went on crutches to bring +you back with me, you had disappeared. All the proofs of my search shall +be laid before you, and though I do not wonder you grew desperate and +cast me out of your heart as unscrupulous and treacherous, the facts +when investigated must convince you I have kept my vows as faithfully as +you kept yours. I felt that somewhere in the world my wife and child +were adrift, through my folly, my cowardly fear of my father, and, +broken-hearted and conscience-smitten, I confessed to the Superior of my +Order in England at that time, that I desired to live a celibate in +expiation of a rash act in my boyhood, which separated me from the wife +I still loved. I took my vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity with +the explicit understanding that they did not absolve me from my marriage +vows, should God mercifully permit me to find my family. I hold supreme +the oath I took under the stars at the Post, and second in sanctity my +vows before the altar in our chapel. For the awful consequences of my +boyish weakness I accuse only myself, and if it be part of my punishment +that I have lost irrevocably the affection and confidence of the mother +of my child, then, at least, there remains for me the comfort of finding +my boy, from whom I will never again be separated; and to him I must +atone for years of unintentional neglect." + +He saw that his appeal was futile as the leap of a wave that breaks and +sinks in froth at the foot of basaltic cliffs, and the joyful light died +in his eyes when he began to realize that wishing to believe the worst +she would never accept proofs offered in exculpation. + +"Nona, try to forgive me, for the sake of our son, our own beautiful, +innocent boy." + +There was no answer but the steady, quick tapping of her foot on the +floor, and her defiant face showed no more softening than an iron mask. + +Leaning forward, he kissed Leighton's tearful cheek, and despite his +effort to control his voice it trembled. + +"My precious child, I thank God I have found you! Between your mother +and me you must not attempt to judge now. She has suffered terribly on +account of mistakes I made, and she certainly has the best right to you +and to your love. It is painful for her to see me, and I cannot blame +her, but some arrangement must and shall be made by which I can come +often and be with you without intruding upon her. She will select and +name the hours when my visits will give her least annoyance. Good night, +my son. To-day I am happier than I have been since I kissed your dear +mother good-bye." + +He tore a blank page from Ugo Bassi's "Sermon," wrote a few lines, laid +the paper near his wife's hand, and went out, closing the door very +gently. + +"The hemorrhage was not all blood. I think an abscess has broken, and it +may save his life. He must have a change as soon as it is safe to move +him; but at present it might be fatal. Your money and his in the Boston +bank will make him comfortable, and unless you use it I shall be obliged +to interfere. Let the doctor decide where and when the child should go. +To-morrow at two o'clock I wish to come here, but you can easily avoid +seeing me if you so desire. May God soften your heart towards your +unfortunate but faithful husband." + +When Father Temple entered the Herriott library, Noel rose from a desk +where he was sealing letters and put out both hands. + +"Herriott, most blessed of friends! How can I ever thank you?" + +"You have found your wife and child? Thank God! I could scarcely wait +for the good news I was sure you would bring me." + +His eyes were misty, and the grip of his hands was harder than he knew +as he drew the priest to a chair. + +"Dear old fellow, it has been rather too much for you. Brace yourself +with this mixture. I had an idea your Reverence might need a tonic, +since 'after the manner of men, you have fought with beasts at Ephesus.' +Drink it! Your spiritual superior would advise it if he could see your +face." + +"Tell me, Noel, how you discovered Nona." + +"I saw her at the glove counter where she is employed, and was puzzled +by her resemblance to a face I had admired in San Francisco. I heard out +there that some mystery hung about her, but no hint of any impropriety +on her part. Such delicacy of features and perfect coloring are rare, +and faces so beautiful etch deep on one's memory. Belmont painted her as +'Aurora' in his group, and gave me a photograph of her head; but he +spoke of her with respect, and commented on her proud prudishness in +refusing to sit in his studio. You recollect Sidney Forsyth? He carried +me to a 'night school' for working girls, established by his mother, and +there I first saw 'Aurora,' hard at work in the bookkeeping class. He +admired her extravagantly, and told me that despite her girlish +appearance she was a widow with a child, and lived like a nun in the +very small cottage of an old uncle. Last summer, in hunting through a +discarded trunk hastily packed at Oxford while you were on the +Continent, I found among several sheets from your portfolio that +water-color sketch, and it revived my old suspicion that some early +tragedy had driven you into cloisters. Sooner or later one finds on +almost every man's road through life the sign-post, _dux femina facti_, +and I stumbled against yours when I had ceased to conjecture your motive +for a course that astounded your friends. Last night, after you left me, +I verified a few dates in my diary, and to-day's visit to Brooklyn made +it absolutely certain my identification was correct. I congratulate you, +and am heartily glad that I helped to flush your family covey." + +"Congratulations sound grim after all I passed through to-day. Did you +ever dream you were dying from thirst, and just as you stooped to drink +the spring vanished? I have realized that tantalizing vision. Nona will +never forgive me, never accept my explanation, never believe my +statements, never tolerate the sight of me. She hates me with an +intensity that is sickening, and because the child is mine she would +rather see him in his coffin than in my arms. She hugs to her heart the +conviction that I am utterly vile, because she wants to believe the +worst, and furiously rejects any attempt to prove that I am not a doubly +dyed hypocrite and villain. You have been so loyal a friend, I should +like to tell you all that occurred." + +When he finished a detailed recital of his interview, he leaned back, +sighed heavily, and closed his eyes. + +"I knew you were going into a fiery furnace, for, from what I have heard +and seen of your wife, I fear she is one of the few inexorable women, +impervious to reason, to passionate pleading, to the most adroit +cajolery. The hotter the lava, the harder when it cools. Will you permit +me to offer a suggestion?" + +The priest raised his haggard face and laid his hand on Mr. Herriott's +knee. + +"I shall be grateful for advice which I sorely need just now." + +"You have found the missing, but if you are not wide awake and cautious +you will lose them again, and permanently." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You told her you would go back to-morrow at two o'clock? I rather think +you will not find her; she will have vanished forever." + +"Impossible! The child is too ill to be moved, and she would not risk +the danger to him." + +"In her present mood nothing is impossible, and she would dare death if +it were necessary, in order to thwart you. She belongs to more than one +society of communists, and the freemasonry in operation is marvellous. +There are places in this city, in Chicago, and in several New Jersey +towns where she could disappear as successfully as in a Siberian mine; +and you must keep in touch with your beautiful boy, who is much too fine +a porcelain vase to be filled with the vitriol of socialism. Before you +sleep to-night ask the police department to set a special watchman in +sight of that house, with instructions to report to you any indications +of intended removal." + +"Then I must go, although I do not share your apprehension that Nona +would rashly risk the boy's safety. Noel, I owe you so much--and for +such various benefits--I am simply bankrupt in expressions of gratitude; +but at least I can pray God to grant you your dearest desire in life, be +that what it may." + +He rose, and Mr. Herriott walked with him to the front door. + +"Temple, write me fully all that you know I shall wish to hear. Let me +help you in any way possible to secure a change of climate for your +little St. John of the gilded locks. Early to-morrow I go home, and in a +few days your cousins from Washington will be my guests. Are you quite +willing Eglah should know the complications surrounding you at present?" + +"Tell her everything, and do not spare me or suffer her to blame the +innocent victims of my rashness. Some day Eglah may help me to soften my +Nona's heart. When and where may I hope to see you again?" + +"Very soon I start to Arizona for a short stay, thence to the most +northern of the Aleutian Islands, where I expect to find Eskimo +cliff-dwellers, and later to the region northwest of Hudson Bay. Be sure +to write me, and Vernon--pardon my perhaps unjustifiable +insistence--don't fail to secure police surveillance before you sleep." + +When the door closed, Mr. Herriott wrote a telegram to the physician who +attended Leighton, walked to the nearest telegraph office, and heard his +message click over the wires. + +A few days later he was not surprised to learn that only the sternly +positive interdict of the doctor had frustrated an attempt to remove +Leighton from Brooklyn at ten o'clock on Monday morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The first view of "Greyledge" suggested a stone crazy-quilt, so +multitudinous were its angles, so incongruous its medley of styles; but +examination showed architectural strata superimposed in such trend that +the paradoxical dip had uplifted the oldest to the crest. Three stories, +_échelon_, looked as if they had frozen in dancing a minuet, each +receding yet rising, and when, as a bride, Nina Herriott stepped out of +her carriage, she gayly made three very low bows to the dwelling that +appeared courtesying to welcome her. The long first story was a piazza +or loggia, with wide, round arches upheld by double shafts, closed in +winter by glass doors and storm shutters, in summer noons sheltered from +the glare of sun-smitten water by white and blue awnings. No railing +divided it from the broad stone terrace just below, overhanging the lake +that mirrored its carved and fluted balustrade where vine-fringed vases +glowed with flowers for three months of each year. At the north end of +the arcade, a round tower, rising one hundred and fifty feet, held a +lamp with brilliant reflector that shone far out over the apparently +shoreless lake on moonless and stormy nights, and at the south corner +one of several flights of steps led to an arched and domed pavilion +where boats were moored. + +The second floor flowered into bay windows, mullioned and diamond paned; +and the third might have slipped from some Swiss hillside, so full it +seemed of small balconies, sharp gables, dormers, and deep recesses, and +the steep roof that crowned the whole overhung like an Alpine hat the +frivolous impertinence of trefoil and stained glass. Rains had bleached +and snow storms pumiced the stone walls to a smooth, cool grey, silvered +in spots by films of lichen, while on two turreted chimneys ivy had +braved ascent to weave a cloak of glossy green across the sombre smoke +stains garnered during many generations. The most elevated portion of +the composite structure had been built on the side of a rocky hill, at +some distance from the lake edge, and gradually the declivity had been +graded for the later additions that finally advanced until they could +see their own irregular façade reflected in the water spraying their +foundations; consequently the floors were on different levels, and one +went up and down short flights of steps to reach apartments in the same +story. + +Herriott tradition claimed that early French pioneers had here destroyed +an Indian fort, and that their rude hunting lodge was succeeded by a +missionary station, where a semi-circular excavation in the rock had +served as oratory; in proof whereof an old wooden cross, partly gilded +with tarnished, tattered gold leaf, still hung in the small stone cave +that once echoed the antiphony of Latin chants, and held forever in its +mossy crannies subtle, spicy survivals of sanctifying incense. Sheltered +on the north by hills, clothed with vineyards along their southern face, +the courtyard and shrubbery nestled close to the rocks, but eastward +stretched wide fields and level meadows bounded by dense woods rising on +steep uplands, blue in the distance; and south lay a garden of olden +time, with primly boxed beds, walks hedged with lilacs, snow-balls, +glistening rhododendrons, and masses of roses that ran riot to the foot +of a high enclosing stone wall, where a shining mantle of ivy climbed to +match its verdure with the velvet of hills that here circled like a +clasping arm, reaching from far-away forests to the lake margin. The +courtyard was so nearly on a level with the rear of the house that only +three shallow steps were needed for entrance, and at this spot the range +of color had been exhausted by masses of lilies, irises, peonies, and +foliage plants--so brilliant that in the summer sunshine benignant +nature seemed to have paved the place with a flawless prism. + +On the morning after the arrival of Mr. Herriott's guests, breakfast had +been served on the long, arcaded piazza, where stood three circular +tables, each bright and fragrant from central piles of flowers and +fruit. At the middle one Mr. Herriott sat with Eglah and Judge Kent, +around that on his left were Miss Katrina Manning--an aunt of Noel's +mother--Professor Cleveden, and Eliza Mitchell, and grouped at his right +were Beatrix Roberts, a cousin of Miss Manning's, Dana Stapleton of New +York, and Roger Hull, the young congressman from a northwestern State, +whose devotion to Eglah had long been undisguised. + +It was a cloudless summer day, and the crisp wind from the west drove +the crystal water of the great inland sea into ruffles of foamy lace +against the stone face of the terrace. If she had floated down from a +Fragonard panel, or stepped out of a Watteau _clavecin_, Miss Manning +could not have represented more picturesquely a dainty type of the long +by-gone. Low in stature, slight and graceful, this airy old lady, with +silver hair piled high on her head, where jewelled side combs held her +curls close--habitually wore grey silk or velvet, and her bright, +restless round eyes increased her likeness to a bird, hence Noel's pet +name was "Auntie Dove." Her gowns were many years behind the reigning +mode, and she shook her voluminous skirts in indignant scorn of +close-clinging garments then coming rapidly into vogue. When her +favorite young cousin Beatrix plucked up courage to denounce +"antediluvian fashions," the grey old dame seized her by the shoulders +and shook her till her teeth chattered. + +"Trix, you are an impertinent minx! My gowns are decent and fit my +morals, and I would as soon change the cover on the Manning family +Bible. You young people have no longer any sense of proportion; your +skirts are so skin-tight you might all be 'artist's models,' and your +manners and your disgraceful slang are about as unlaced as the +bohemians. If your refined grandmother Manning could move in her +portrait frame, she would most certainly turn her back to you and her +shocked countenance to the wall." + +To-day she lifted her tortoise-shell lorgnette to examine the rather +unusual pattern of Professor Cleveden's black onyx sleeve buttons, which +represented tarantulas with prominent diamond eyes. + +"Noel, are we all permanently arranged in trios? Because, if so, you +have been cruelly unkind in condemning the professor to sit next to an +orthodox old woman who knows no more science than a blind kitten, who is +no bugologist, no apostle to moths, and who bitterly disapproves of +crucifying butterflies on pins." + +"Aunt Trina, you will not be allowed to monopolize each other, no matter +how earnestly you both may desire to do so. Shall we change groups once +a day, or at each meal, in order that the collective wit and wisdom may +be impartially distributed?" + +"I suggest that all names be deposited in a box and that we draw for +places," said Mr. Stapleton, fearful of losing his neighbor, Miss +Roberts. + +"Dana, what a rash challenge to chance! She can be spiteful, that +classic, grinning old jade, and might roll up three women to one table, +leaving a solitary charming belle--presumably myself--to the tender +mercies of five furious men. Fancy the impotent wrath of the beauless +trio robbed of their legitimate prey! Noel, do not risk any such dire +disaster, but try the democratic plan of rotation in office, whereby I +shall afflict each of you for only a few hours of my term. What +delicious apricots! Surely old Amos Lea did not grow them?" + +Miss Manning held up a twig on which twin, luscious apricots glowed. + +"They were ripened by the hot suns and spiced by Pacific breezes in +lower California, where I have a friend who now and then sends a hamper +from his fruit farm. Beauties, are they not? My old gardener Amos, +jealous of the fame of his own orchard, snorted contemptuously and +assured me they tasted like stale sawdust." + +"Does he still employ David, St. Paul, and the prophets as proxies to +curse his enemies?" asked Professor Cleveden, helping himself liberally +to cherries. + +Catching sight of Eliza Mitchell's rebuking eyes, Mr. Herriott laughed. + +"Yes, he sternly restricts his imprecations to Biblical quotations. When +I was a boy I ruined some very rare tulips by setting mole traps in the +border, and in his rage he called on 'fat bulls of Bashan' to gore me. +Years later I imported a stock of pigeons, and when they literally +devoured his early crop of sweet peas, he seized me by the coat collar, +showed me the havoc, and shouted, 'May the Angel of the Lord chase you +and your devilish English thieves.' He has tyrannized over us all so +long, that his wrath knew no bounds when my amiable young stepmother, +who desired some alterations in the hothouse, defied his arguments and +wishes, and insisted on an annex for orchids that necessitated the +removal of his pet carnations. Whereupon, raising his hand, he shook it +furiously and hissed: 'Madam, you have done me much evil. May the Lord +requite you according to your works!' With tears in her eyes Nina fled +to my father." + +"A grumpy curmudgeon is old Amos Lea, but his religious convictions are +so earnest that I would sooner house a swarm of wasps inside my vest +than tread on his Baptist toes. He objects strenuously to my association +with Herriott, having overheard some of our heretical geologic +discussions as we strolled through the gardens, and he eyes me as if I +were the foul fiend at Herriott's heels, prodding him downward with a +pitchfork. I wish that somewhere in the great outside world I had such a +loyal, godly friend to pray for my soul." + +"Dear me! I thought you scientists disdained such a superstition, and +that you had reduced souls and minds to mere 'reflex sensory' action, +and 'cerebral sinuosities,' and 'psychoplasm,' and 'inherited +instincts,' and deposits of phosphorus?" interjected Miss Roberts, as +she dipped her jewelled hand into her finger bowl to bruise the lemon +blossoms. + +"My dear young lady, pray do not join the multitude in stoning the +prophets. If there be ghosts--blessed are the grammarians who invented a +subjunctive mood--those of martyred students of science will one day +haunt you, more terrible than 'an army with banners.' Herriott is a much +more attractive target than I--younger and handsomer--why not call him +into the witness box and swear him on the case of souls?" + +"Trix, there is no need to pester yourself about Noel's soul. Old Amos +Lea made sure of his safety when he baptized him the second time. Noel, +tell her about it. How your poor father laughed that day!" + +"Being a rigid Baptist and an elder, Amos scouted my Presbyterian +christening as totally inadequate to neutralize what he considered my +unusually large share of original sin, and as his wife, Susan, was my +nurse, they began to grieve over my reprobateness as soon as I was old +enough to lay claim to moral responsibility. When I was about sixteen I +was out yonder on the lake fishing. Two friends were with me, and we all +swam well, or thought we did. A sudden squall capsized the boat, and I +was caught and held under it in such a way that I could not extricate +myself. The boys hovered around, trying unsuccessfully to help me, but +just then Amos kicked off his boots, plunged in, and swam to the rescue. +He was strong as a whale, raised the end of the boat with his shoulder +and dragged me out. I was slightly stunned, and he swam with me into +shallow water, where he could stand up. Then he lifted me horizontally, +as if I had been a baby in long clothes, and repeating with triumphant +fervor the baptismal formula of his Church, he immersed me so thoroughly +that I regained consciousness, and he turned me over to Susan and hot +blankets, as a 'brand snatched from the burning,' and properly +baptized." + +Removing the ice from the yellow heart of his melon, Judge Kent glanced +around the table. + +"Owning such a paradise as this home, do you not all share my amazement +that Herriott can prefer to shut it up and wander contentedly over the +continent, searching its rough crannies--Labná, Mitla, Casa Grande, and +where not--for what he pedantically calls the 'primeval anthropological +nidus'?" + +"Oh, bless you, Senator Kent, it is just in his blood, and he can no +more keep still than a flea can stop hopping. His father was a +surveyor--civil engineer--always roving, and Noel is exactly like him; +which none of you will doubt when I assure you his mother really was an +absolutely beautiful woman. He is a hopeless tramp. He gravitates to the +wildest places of creation, as you and Mr. Hull to the cultivation of +votes, and Dana to Wall Street kites, and this insecticide professor to +picking the lock of God's workshop when He has closed the door and gone +to His seventh day rest." + +"Aunt Trina refuses to believe that my ambition to become acquainted +with our prehistoric family relatives is a laudable method of climbing +the genealogical tree. She is not enthusiastic on ancestry." + +"That depends, my dear boy, on the 'strain' you are hunting. If the +first hatching of brown skins in that 'primeval nidus' of your dreams +had only been as wise and prudent as modern cattle and horse raisers, +and fixed rules of pure-blooded pedigree, we might not fear to grope +backward lest we find only 'grades' in our family group. Now, climbing a +genuine, decent, civilized ancestral tree is much better sport than +twisting up slippery totem poles with a coyote, or a coon, or a vulture +perched on top, as head of the family." + +"And, pray, what of the sacred menagerie of heraldry? The quadrupeds, +birds, flowers of armorial blazonry--all that makes heraldic pomp +picturesque--are but survivals of primeval totem symbols throughout the +world. Auntie Dove, your book-plate and your family seal bear a leopard +couchant, very dear to your orthodox, patrician heart, and some day your +hereditary pet beast may have glared down upon a Tlinkit teepee." + +"Marriage is the only cure for Herriott, and it would effectually tether +him," said Mr. Hull, keeping his eyes on Eglah. + +"It appears that you have carefully avoided taking your own +prescription," answered his host. + +"It is by no means my fault. Though futile, my efforts have been +heroic." + +Professor Cleveden leaned forward. + +"You good people do not understand how deeply Herriott is imbued with +the conviction that contemporary 'differentiation' is not a synonym for +desirable advancement. The complex, hybridized, neurotic creature he +meets in society does not always impress him as vastly superior to the +primeval female type, and you may all expect that whenever matrimonial +shackles restrict his pasturage, which will not be _in Wyandot lines_, +he will be hobbled by 'some savage woman' whose accomplishments are +limited to the slim schedule set down by that jilted cynic of 'Locksley +Hall.' The 'new woman' incites us to pray fervently for swift reversion +to type. Now, Miss Manning, I am sure you are preparing to tell me +that----" + +"That of course in such matters tastes differ, and not one of us feels +disposed to deprive Professor Cleveden of his coveted female simian +companion; but, as Noel never has had a flirtatious 'Cousin Amy' to rub +him the wrong way, he has no provocation to present to me a squaw as my +great niece." + +"It is very evident the professor viciously remembers his own 'Amy,'" +said Miss Roberts, who was watching keenly for some manifestation of +consciousness in Noel and Eglah. + +"Miss Beatrix, no scapegoat 'Amy' bears away my sins of temper, because, +as a naturalist, I am unalterably opposed to the marriage of cousins. I +never owned but one sweetheart. She took my unfeathered young affections +into her tender hands when she was only ten years old, and so carefully +has she preserved them that after twenty years of married life she +remains my charming sweetheart--my pearl of womanhood--the supreme joy +of my existence. She is the one priceless fossil in my collection, +guarded with jealous watchfulness, because she no more resembles the new +feminine type than a snowy dove a blind, broken-winged, snapping hawk." + +"When I marry, my ambition will soar beyond being bottled in alcohol or +boxed in sawdust or cotton wool, like a centipede or a cracked egg of +the great auk. I should imagine that men who spend their work days among +musty, stuffy fossils would rather enjoy the variety of an up-to-date, +cultivated wife who kept in touch with social tides and currents. Now, +Mr. Herriott, you who prowl about laboratories and museums until you +understand their dreary jargon as fully as you do leading a german or +playing polo, ought to be a wiser umpire than this one-sided shut-in +scientist, who prefers dry bones to living pink flesh." + +"In the first place, Miss Beatrix, I must, in the absence of Mrs. +Cleveden, protest against her husband's classification of her as a +fossil. She is alive to her finger tips with enthusiasm for his work, in +which she is his ablest assistant, and knowing something of his charming +home life, I consider him the most enviable man of my acquaintance. We +who are not so fortunate in the matter of sweethearts, must content +ourselves with the best available substitute; and you know, 'if one +cannot have what one loves, one must love what one has.'" + +"A defence of fickleness quite unworthy of you; and moreover, Noel, +utterly untrue, for of all people in the world you are the very last to +surrender anything you really want." + +"Aunt Katrina, would you have me spend my life wailing for the moon?" + +"Pooh! You are not so fatuous as to want to drag a surveyor's chain +across its cold chasms and jagged heights; and after a brief study of +your frozen charmer you would turn your telescope on something +accessible and more valuable. Miss Kent, do you consider Noel a fickle +person?" + +Eglah looked up, and, meeting the eyes of her host, they both laughed. + +"Certainly not. His life-long devotion to you ought to shield him from +all suspicion of inconstancy." + +"Aunt Trina, she is not an impartial umpire. The first time I saw her, a +little girl wearing a snowy muslin with blue ribbon bows on her +shoulders, we entered into a compact, adopted each other as half-brother +and stepsister, and now in supreme trust we form a sort of mutual aid, +mutual defence--on my part, admiration--association. If she saw fifty +fatal flaws in me she would loyally conceal them from you, who are such +a terribly severe censor." + +"Herriott ought to go into politics; don't you think so, Miss Manning?" +asked Mr. Hull. + +"By no means. I prefer he should keep his hands clean." + +"Senator Kent can tell you, madam, that we do not all dabble in mud or +pitch." + +Mr. Herriott leaned forward, and spoke more quickly than usual. + +"She is afraid I might not swell the class of distinguished exceptions +which you and Senator Kent represent. Aunt Trina, may I trouble you for +a second cup of coffee and an extra lump of sugar?" + +Beatrix had completed her inventory of Eglah's points of attraction, and +now, as her eyes rested on the graceful figure daintily gowned in lilac +muslin, the result annoyed her. + +"Miss Kent, has your college training fitted you to believe all the +marvellous tales these two wise scholars tell us; as, for instance, that +this lovely spot--this suburb of paradise where we are sitting--was once +buried for ages under ten thousand feet of glacial ice?" + +"I am sorry to confess my course of study carried me only far enough to +see the border land of a kingdom I never expect to explore. Unless one +specializes, four years at college make no experts. You might as well +ask a butterfly to classify all the blossoms it hovered over, or measure +the depths of glaciers." + +The professor pushed aside his cup, and looked at her. + +"And why not? It can teach us infinitely more than its human, club-crazy +sisters. My dear Miss Kent, we who are in bonds to science exact great +accuracy even in the selection of metaphors, and you will pardon me if I +rise to defend the usefulness of butterflies. On top of Mount Washington +survives a colony of butterflies found nowhere else south of Arctic +snows and ice; descendants of a family which retreated with the great +glacier that once overflowed New Hampshire and left only the pinnacle of +Mount Washington uncovered. When the _OEneis_ household moved back to +Labrador and Greenland, these silk-winged stragglers, flirting in +corners, were abandoned by their chaperons, and for thousands of years +their progeny have flitted around that stone crest to show us the depth +of the glacier." + +Professor Cleveden adjusted his eye-glasses and moved his chair so as to +look straight at Miss Manning, who at once put up her lorgnette to probe +his gold spectacles. + +"Are you an enthusiastic club-woman?" + +"Why don't you ask me if I approve of perjury, arson, and poisoning?" + +"My dear madam, did I not hear you last evening quoting the sonorous +periods of Mrs. Helen Phædra Swan Hall, whose mission seems to be the +emancipation of her sex from bondage to God as well as to man?" + +"Oh, no, Mr. Cleveden! It was I who asked Mr. Hull to explain the bill +she is trying to have introduced in Congress. Cousin Katrina thinks all +such advanced women should be locked up as lunatics, but she is too +extreme and hopelessly narrow for this generation, while I like to keep +up with the procession. Do tell us about this prophetess." + +"Her husband was a mild man, reputed a faithful husband and a devoted +father, but the female comet he was yoked with indignantly spurned such +slavish rôle as wifehood and maternity involved, and she ranted around +clubdom and through the press, striving to enlighten the world, until, +finally, she determined to break her domestic chains and shake off all +impedimenta of marriage obligations. Having deliberately selected as +successor a friend whose opinions proved quite as lax as her own, she +promoted an intimacy that resulted in accordance with her scheme. Then +she suggested divorce to Hall, who very naturally assented with +alacrity. When he promptly married the woman chosen, Mrs. Helen Phædra +Swan gladly abandoned all care of her own children to the new wife, +washed her hands of maternal responsibility, and proclaimed herself free +to work for the rights of woman and the enlightenment of the world. +Soaring eagles scorn to perch at one man's hearthstone, and behold the +comical climax of her flight above the laws of decency and good taste. +She has swooped down on a new husband, and, for a season at least will +call herself Mrs. Helen Phædra Swan Butler. Such, Miss Roberts, is your +'prophetess.' Having heard that the pet theme of her present +lucubrations is the 'ideal education of children,' I suggested to my own +connubial serf, my 'true love,' that the study of the views of this +experienced seeress might assist us in the training of our one ewe lamb, +our old-fashioned little maid, and the reception of my proposition was +of a nature conjugal loyalty forbids me to describe. Mrs. Helen Phædra +Swan Butler is merely a degenerate imitation of the Amazons, who changed +their husbands annually and deserted their children. A survival of +polyandry, if you please. Formerly women looked sternly and sorrowfully +from their lofty pure plateau upon polygamy and bigamy as the horrible +heinous luxury of wicked, despotic men; now they are stepping down into +the mire, claiming equal rights in sin, and the emancipated new female +clamors for easy divorce and the freedom of polyandry. In other days, +before 'higher education, club-culture, and female rights' had abolished +home life, domestic sanctity, and fireside _lararium_, all good women +held Clytemnestra the infamous archetype of feminine depravity, but the +doctrine of 'equality' lowers the old high standard, and the new code +reads: 'She had as good a right to Ægisthus as Agamemnon to Chryseis.' +As if the gods failed to overtake both in their sins." + +Miss Manning rang a silver bell, and, rising, tapped the professor's arm +with her lorgnette. + +"Yet you have the audacity to ask me if I condone creatures whose real +aim is to reverse God's decree of the sexes? Trix thinks I should like +them locked up in insane asylums? By no means. I should prefer to see +all such 'removed' by the methods you men employ when brutes become +afflicted with rabies and glanders. I am an old woman, Mr. Cleveden, but +I do object to the way in which you 'scientists' dispense with +conventional verbal draperies in discussing some questions. After all is +said, I presume that 'truth' you are worshipping must wear clothes, and +there is no need to confiscate her garments. Moreover, you are not to +believe for one instant that Miss Roberts means half of the idiotic +rubbish she talks. Girls nowadays think it _chic_ to affect fads, but +Trix is no more a 'new woman' than I am a winged saint. Noel, what is +the order of the morning?" + +"The senator and the professor wish to fish; Stapleton and I are bound +to the stable and kennel, and later to the billiard table to settle an +old debt; Mr. Hull, Eglah, and Miss Beatrix will go out on the launch, +and the phaeton and your ponies will take you and Mrs. Mitchell to see +the finest views of the lake and hills." + +"I much prefer to see your dogs and watch your billiard game, if I may," +said Miss Roberts, picking from the table vase some scarlet poppies that +she fastened in her belt. + +"Miss Manning, do come with us on the lake; the day is so lovely." Eglah +laid an appealing hand on the grey silk sleeve, and Miss Katrina's keen +eyes softened. + +"You are very good to want a crusty old woman as ballast, but I am not +fond of the water. The wind is no respecter of grey hairs, takes such +impertinent liberties with my maidenly curls, and, beside, if an +accident should occur I can swim only as far as a cannon ball might, and +of course in an emergency Mr. Hull would devote himself exclusively to +saving me, hence you would probably drown. Thank you, Miss Kent, but +Mrs. Mitchell and I shall do our best to strangle time till luncheon." + +During that long drive Eliza was kept constantly on guard, parrying +questions that betrayed an earnest curiosity relative to Mr. Herriott's +standing in the senator's family; and she readily divined that Eglah was +considered a formidable obstacle to a marriage long desired between +their host and Beatrix Roberts, the youngest of several unmarried +daughters whose father was Miss Manning's second cousin. + +"And why do you think Noel will never marry?" + +"Of course, madam, I can only conjecture; but from what I have seen of +Mr. Herriott, I think he is very happy as he is, and if he desired or +intended to wed any one, he would scarcely be so eager to renew his +travels in distant lands." + +"And Miss Kent? Lovely, refined-looking woman, but cold as a frozen mill +pond. We hear she has had some fine offers. The world wonders for whom +she is waiting." + +"As far as I know, she is absolutely indifferent. For her father she has +a peculiarly strong and tender affection, and I shall be very much +surprised if she ever marries." + +When she returned to her own room, she felt that she had stepped down +from the witness stand after an adroit cross-examination, in which she +had maintained her non-committal rôle. As the pleasant days passed, she +and Judge Kent watched their host, hoping for some manifestation of +tenderness, or pique, or consciousness of past suitor-claims that might +portend possibility of renewal. No faintest evidence of other than calm, +friendly, hospitable interest rewarded their scrutiny. If it were indeed +complete surrender of hopes once cherished, would there not have been +traces of disappointment, some bitterness, some cloud on face and +manner? + +Although she was unusually free from coquetry, Eglah was too familiar +with the moods of rejected lovers not to observe the exceptional +demeanor of the master of Greyledge, and his cool _insouciance_ would +have perplexed her had she not recollected his assurance that no word of +his should ever recall the painful interview in the carriage. She +noticed that he never touched her arm or hand if it could be avoided, +and, if he really cared for her society, why did he invite Roger Hull to +his house and afford him every opportunity to monopolize her? The +weather continued favorable; the guests could not fail to regret the +approaching end of their visit, and Mr. Herriott seemed unusually happy, +yet he had abstained from being alone with Eglah. + +On the last day, at the close of dinner, the host proposed that coffee +and cigars should be served on the terrace overhanging the water. The +afternoon had been hot and sultry, and the full moon rose out of a tawny +haze that smouldered at the horizon but silvered and glistened as the +light swam through. Eliza stole away to pack the trunks, and Senator +Kent, the professor, and Mr. Hull strolled up and down smoking, while +Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton followed Mr. Herriott to the pavilion, +where he unlocked a boat and fitted the oars. Miss Manning's favorite +anisette had accomplished its mission, and her white head was bowed on +the billowy lace fichu that covered her neck. Noiselessly Eglah slipped +into the loggia, down the steps leading to the garden beyond the +courtyard, and ran along a walk, dark under dense overhanging boughs. +For a little while she must be alone to ponder the first really stern +words her father had ever spoken to her. They were writing letters in +the library that morning, when Senator Kent turned to her. + +"My daughter, I must tell you that I am watching very impatiently for +the announcement of your acceptance of Herriott." + +"Father, you will never hear it." + +"I distinctly refuse to believe you will persist in defying my wishes. +Hitherto you have very sweetly yielded to my guidance in all matters of +importance, but if you obstinately and foolishly thwart a cherished plan +that concerns me more deeply than you know, you will forfeit my +forgiveness." + +"I will never marry a man I do not love----" + +"No silly rodomontade, if you please, my dear. You quite understand my +wishes." + +"Father, even if my own feelings had changed sufficiently to induce me +to give him a different answer, I am absolutely sure Mr. Noel will never +renew his offer; and this fact is most welcome, because it removes all +possibility of my obeying you. You must see that he is now simply my +friend." + +"Then you have only a short time in which to recall him. Women whistle +lovers back as easily as traps catch mice. It depends solely on you, and +I warn you now of bitter consequences unless you comply with----" + +Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton entered the library, and Eglah retreated +to her own room. During dinner Eliza and Mr. Herriott noticed the +unusual flush on her cheeks, the strained, restless expression of her +eyes; but neither had opportunity for questioning, and, shielded by +general conversation, she escaped comment. Sitting opposite at table, +her father had once looked steadily at her. + +"Eglah, you chance to have the fruit I covet close to your hand. Will +you peel me a peach?" + +The garden walk she had followed divided, and into a narrow path she +plunged, finding a resting place on a miniature rockery covered with +fern and periwinkle. The night was so still she could hear the dip of +oars as the boat left shore, and far away the throbbing of a steamer +whose lights flashed across the foam as it sped onward. With her face in +her hands, Eglah recalled Eliza's exasperating question: "Why was +Senator Kent afraid of Mr. Herriott?" Was he? What could be the nature +of the trouble concealed? If Noel were cognizant of impending misfortune +she felt absolutely sure he would never consent to precipitate it. +Because she could share her perplexity with no one, her habitual repose +of manner forsook her. In the unexpected rift between her father and +herself she dispassionately canvassed the possibility of an available +bridge, and, feeling confident no second proposal would be made by Mr. +Herriott, she rejoiced in the belief that his silence would effectually +bar compliance with a command she entertained no thought of obeying. She +saw that he had deliberately surrendered her, and, unlike most women, +she was profoundly glad. Now and then, when he looked unusually handsome +in his yachting suit, and again in full evening dress, presiding with +ease and dignity at his table, Eglah compared her host with his guests, +with some brilliant men she had met in Washington and New York, and +always he seemed aloof and superior as an ivory image among terra-cotta +figurines. Conscious that his serene self-poise sprang in no degree from +personal vanity or pride of wealth, she admired his physical perfection, +and wondered why all his excellences had no more power to stir her heart +than a stained-glass saint in a cathedral window, or a flawless head of +Hylas. At such moments she decided God had designed her to be only a +daughter, and wifehood had no alluring charms, no rosy glamour. + +Out of the dense shadow behind the mound of periwinkle came a sudden +rushing sound, a sharp bark, and the large collie Pilot sprang over a +stone wall and bounded up to the rockery. A moment later Mr. Herriott +whistled, vaulted over the same wall, and stood peering into the clumps +of shrubbery. Eglah patted the dog, hushed him in a whisper, and shrank +closer to the ground. + +"Eglah! Where are you? Eglah!" + +The dog barked, and his master came forward. + +"How could you suspect I was here?" + +"I have a Turk's nose for perfume. I am partial to prussic acid odors, +and no heliotrope blooms on this side of the garden. Who dared send you +to Coventry? For what are you doing penance, here in the dark?" + +"Simply enjoying the delicious, perfect peace that surrounds this +special nook like a velvet mantle. Were you hunting for me?" + +"No. I supposed you were in the loggia. I went for a few minutes to the +small house beyond the wall, where Amos and Susan live. She has been +sick several days, and nothing appeases her wrath if I neglect to say +good night to her. One of her childish whims is that I shall crack her +almonds and filberts, and yesterday when I demurred and turned the +nut-crackers over to Amos she shed tears, declaring his hands were not +always above suspicion, and that as she had performed this service for +me before I was promoted to trousers and vests, I owed it to her now +since she has lost her teeth. By jumping the fence, this is the short +cut from her house to the courtyard." + +"Susan was your nurse?" + +"Yes, since I was a year old, and she has been very faithful to my +family." + +"I should like to see her." + +"Then you shall make her a little visit to-morrow morning, but she can +never see you; she is entirely blind. Eglah, come out of this damp +corner. The moonlight is brilliant, and there is a beach-walk I wish to +show you." + +As she rose and shook her draperies, he walked in advance, saying over +his shoulder: + +"You would not accept my arm, for I am sure you need both hands to guard +your lace and silk frills from thorns and twigs. Here is the garden +boundary. Take care not to trip crossing this stile; come on, only three +steps. Now look at that sickle of the beach, with its long row of silver +poplars outlining a frieze around the land side of the curve. Once in a +furious gale that drove a steamer ashore--just beyond the point--I +watched those distracted trees toss their whitening leaves, as though +hands in prayer, and they lean always inward, shivering with prevision +of wrecks." + +Over the burnished lake a full moon shone, and here and there a sinuous +ripple flashed like a fiery serpent as it glided to land, then slipped +back, while across the waste of water floated the tinkling of Beatrix's +mandolin and the tenor voice of her escort. Mr. Herriott took off his +hat, and when he turned suddenly to his companion she noticed a +brilliant smile on his face. + +"Dana is very happy to-night, and I am glad to carry away the pleasant +consciousness that I have done everything possible in smoothing the path +to his heart's goal." + +"You believe he will win her?" + +"I certainly hope success for him. Her heart is already his, and, if he +can only be patient, she must ultimately yield." + +"You think that in such matters persistency is invincible?" + +"On the contrary, many Jacobs never win their Rachels; and my prediction +fits only the lovers out yonder. Aunt Trina will wail and invoke all the +Manning family ghosts, but the pretty hand of Miss Beatrix will follow +her heart." + +Looking up at him, she admitted that in personal charm he surpassed all +men she had ever met, but into this verdict entered no emotional element +sufficiently strong to shiver the crystal calm of her heart, and she +found it difficult to identify this handsome, placid, smiling +countenance with a white, drawn, twitching face whose keen pain had +recently wrung tears from her in Washington. + +The unusual flush had faded, leaving her cheeks cool and stainless as +the petals of a white rose, and the restless spark in her eyes had been +extinguished by drops that were never allowed to fall. Mr. Herriott had +studied her face too many years not to detect the new strained +expression, the compression of lips that would quiver, and all his +jealous surmises focussed on one dread--Father Temple. + +"Shall we walk on slowly? Not far off is a seat. I have been wishing for +a quiet, uninterrupted talk before we say good-bye for an indefinite +period, and this is my last opportunity. Eglah, when did you hear from +Vernon Temple?" + +"I cannot recall the exact date, but it was several weeks ago. We do not +really correspond, and his occasional notes are so impersonal that in +replying I sometimes feel as if I were addressing an abstraction. At +first he interested me extremely, but one cannot easily maintain his +mystical elevation of spirit." + +"I thought you were really fond of him." + +"Knowing as you do that I have absolutely no faculty for growing fond of +people, I am surprised you should have made the mistake. He enlisted my +interest in some of his benevolent schemes, especially a 'sisterhood' +for care of infirm indigents; but father has no sympathy with Vernon or +his vocation, and, therefore, I have been less impressed." + +"At one time you were extravagant in praise of his 'saintly, magnetic +face.'" + +"So I possibly am, or have been, about several fine pictures of +handsome, bleeding flagellants and tormented martyrs, but I should +prefer not to hang them permanently in my dining-room." + +"Do you know anything of your cousin's early life, or of the reasons +that induced him to join his 'Order'?" + +"Nothing whatever, except that while at college he was ill, and one of +father's sisters had him removed to her farmhouse, where he remained for +months before he could discard crutches." + +Mr. Herriott stopped and turned towards her. Holding his hat behind him, +he leaned forward and scanned her closely. + +"Vernon is a married man, and his wife is living." + +"Is it possible! If any one else had told me, I should doubt it. I am +sure father knows nothing of the wife. Where is she? _Cherchez la femme_ +is rarely a satire." + +In the flood of moonlight her fair face--expressive only of +surprise--showed no vestige of emotion that could disquiet him, and so +intense was his relief that for a moment he dared not trust his voice; +then he put on his hat and whistled to his dog. As they walked slowly +along the margin of the lake, he told her briefly the history of Father +Temple and the recent discovery of his wife and child. + +"Thank you for telling me such pleasant news. I am very glad poor Vernon +will have that angelic boy to comfort him--but 'Juno'? So beautiful, so +hard, so bitter! How can any meek priest ever hope to manage her?" + +They had reached the point of the sickle, and looking back the swelling +curves of wooded hills, masses of glossy shrubbery, the irregular +profile of the house, outlined by its twinkling lights, and the vast +shimmering mirror of the great lake, all lay bathed in liquid gold. +Somewhere in a neighboring copse a bird, disturbed by the dog or misled +by the splendor of the night, twittered, and then, to reassure his +brooding mate near by, broke into a rapture of song. Clasping her hands +behind her head, Eglah lifted her face to listen, and Mr. Herriott +watched the moisture glisten on her lashes. + +"Sweet as any aubade of the olden time, under olive and ilex, is it +not?" + +For a moment she did not reply, then, with a sweep of her arm toward the +house on the rocks, she said: + +"So beautiful, so full of peace--of such profound repose--how can +you--why will you leave it?" + +"Because I do not forget '_le repos est une bonne chose, mais l'ennui +est son frère_.' I love and enjoy my home, but I prefer not to stagnate. +Garnering the bright and charming memories of the past few days, it can +never again seem quite as lonely as I have sometimes found it. I am glad +you have met Professor Cleveden, who is one of my best friends. His +domestic relations are so happy, and so perfect in their adjustments, +that no forlorn bachelor, once admitted to his home, could escape pangs +of envy. His wife is literally partner in his joys, sorrows, studies, +and diversions, and their only child--the 'little maid' Violet--is +spelling in the alphabet of science. Cleveden swears she shall be locked +up in his laboratory, safe from the social microbes that he fancies +infest the atmosphere of female clubs and 'emancipated women.' Some day +I hope you will meet Mrs. Cleveden. She is very beautiful and gracious, +though he assures me he has one grievance against his 'sweetheart,' and +Patmore expressed it: + + "'Her manners, when they call me lord, + Remind me 'tis by courtesy; + Not with her least consent of will.'" + +"Father distrusts the professor, and cautioned me not to discuss any +religious questions, because he considers him a brilliant casuist." + +"Cleveden has one apostle whom he follows at all hazards--simple, stern, +scientifically established truth--and to him the natural laws are as +sacred as those Moses brought directly from the same God who framed them +all. For mere dogma in science or religion he has no tolerance, and I +shall never forget the profound emotion with which, in a lecture, he +quoted: 'These sciences are the real steps in the great world's +altar-stairs that slope through darkness up to God.' Revealed religion +lets down a ladder from heaven; natural sciences are the solid rungs by +which men like Cleveden build and climb. Side by side these ladders +rise, never crossing at sharp angles, both ending, resting at the feet +of God. Up one spiritual faith runs easily; along the other some souls +of different mould toilsomely ascend, each and all seeking and finding +the same goal--the eternal Ruler of the universe. Cleveden scoffs at +nothing but shallow shams, and we have heard him repeat passages from +Job and David, then declaim from the Iliad, and declare that as between +the thunder roll of Hebrew and Greek, the latter was as the rustle of +rushes in a summer wind to the pounding of Atlantic surf on rock-walled +shores." + +"Nevertheless, father regrets that you cling to such an unsafe guide." + +"He is worthy of my trust. Conscientiously hunting only for truth, he +admonishes his students: + + "'Hath man no second life? + Pitch this one high!' + +"To a young man groping in the mist of agnosticism, he repeated the +declaration of one of the most subtle scientific thinkers of this +century: 'That he had scrutinized every agnostic hypothesis he knew of, +and found that they one and all needed a God to make them workable.' + +"I wish I could respect myself as I respect and honor my friend. Eglah, +knowing your reticent nature, I am perhaps presumptuous in taking a rash +step. There is some trouble that annoys you. Before I go away for such a +long, uncertain absence, will you trust me? I may not be able to remove +the burden, but I should be glad to share it. Can you tell me what +distresses you?" + +She looked at him steadily, then away at the brooding water, where +voices of the night had begun to croon. + +"Mr. Noel, let us go back; the boat is at the terrace." + +When they reached the stone stile, she said: + +"Do you know why father resigned the senatorship?" + +"He has not confided his reasons to me." + +"Having known him so long, should you think that his state of health +demanded such a step?" + +"His appearance at present does not indicate any cause for alarm, and +you ought not to conjure a spectre with which to frighten yourself." + +"His physician did the conjuring." + +She sat down on the stile, and in her strained, sad gaze he measured the +depth of her disquietude. + +"Mr. Noel, if you know any outside circumstances that appear to +necessitate or warrant this sudden abandonment of a brilliant senatorial +career, I beg you will be once more your old, kind, candid self and tell +me. If I understood I could bear it better." + +"You think your father is perfectly well?" + +"I cannot see the change he insists has overtaken him of late; can you?" + +"Yes. Within the year his nervousness and want of equipoise have been +apparent, and when the newspapers stated that his 'medical adviser' had +recommended rest and Aix-les-Bains I was rejoiced. The atmosphere of +Washington is the worst possible for him. When do you sail?" + +"On the twenty-fifth." + +"Mrs. Mitchell accompanies you?" + +"Of course. You scarcely understand what all this means to me. I have no +life outside of father's. His political future is my sole horizon. To +help, follow close, watch his ascent, was my world. This sudden, +inexplicable surrender, this stepping down and back into obscurity and +inaction leave me no foothold on coming years, and I feel adrift. Mr. +Noel, would it be unreasonable for me to hope that when father returns +in vigorous health a Cabinet seat or a foreign mission might be offered +him by the Republican party he has served so long, so faithfully?" + +The wistful pathos of uplifted eyes that searched his stirred all the +tenderness of his nature, but he allowed himself no manifestation. + +"If you anticipate such reward for your father, and then lose it, +disappointment would intensify the annoyance. By dismissing the +expectation, the charm of surprise will be added to the value of +promotion. You have passed the age of soap bubbles, and ought to know +that upon political preferment no man can depend with certainty, +especially in a republican country." + +"I shall not, will not, accept defeat. I must be patient until next +year, and then, somehow--in some way--we shall recover our kingdom. I am +so proud of father--ah, so proud!" + +She rose, and he put out his hand to assist her, but she crossed the +stile without touching his fingers, and they silently approached the +courtyard. + +At a late hour, when the party dispersed, Judge Kent was the first +person who reached his own room. Soon after, Eglah tapped at his door. +As he opened it, a flood of light streamed over her cold, proud face, +and his keen gaze seemed to probe her soul. + +"Well?" + +She shook her head and stretched her arms towards him. + +"Father----" + +He laid a finger heavily on her trembling lips, then turned her around, +pushed her gently but firmly back from the threshold, and locked the +door on the inside. + +The remaining hours of the night Mr. Herriott spent pacing slowly the +beach-walk, realizing anew the hopelessness of any change in conditions +that barred him from his heart's desire, and the wisdom of his +determination to travel as far as possible. The moon, magnified by mist +into a vast sphere of silver, swam in the west, tipping each wavelet +with a glittering fringe, and now and then crooning whispers of the +great expanse of water seemed to swell and fill the echoing hollows of +the brooding night. + +The intense bitterness of Mr. Herriott's reflections crept into his +voice. + +"Loyal soul! Nobody can help her now. Rude winds have blown wide the +guarded gate of her temple, and she will spend her life on her knees, +trying to regild the clay feet of her one image." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +"My son, Leighton Dane Temple, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, +and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." + +Other than baptismal drops fell on the boy's head, as with unsteady lips +and brimming eyes Father Temple bent over him; and the hand that +administered the rite clung tenderly to the damp curls. The room was +very dim and still, the atmosphere heavy with the breath of tuberoses +clustered on the pillow, and the figure sitting at the foot of the cot +with her arms folded, manifested by sound or motion no more interest +than a stone image. On the mantel shelf was the tin box bearing her +name, and many days before letters, newspapers, and money had testified +to the truth of her husband's statements, but to its contents she made +no allusion, allowed none. Their estrangement was too complete to be +bridged even by words when avoidance was possible. Occasionally, as he +entered or left the room, she acknowledged his salutation by a slight +inclination of her head; but usually sullen silence and apparent +unconsciousness of his presence showed how bitterly she resented a +presentation of facts that pleaded his exculpation. She hugged her +wrongs, and any attempt to minimize his guilt infuriated her. Her ruined +life was an acrid dead sea, into which no sweetness could fall, and she +clung to its most loathsome aspects with a grim stubbornness unnatural +and incomprehensible in women of a different type. The boy's death had +seemed imminent more than once, and though he rallied again and again, +the sands were surely near the end, running low. + +Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his +mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a +railroad village. + +To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex +elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, +there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in +the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue +with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple +and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs +casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover. +Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled +seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a +mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched +itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely +massed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the +wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible. + +Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, +and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright +eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach. +Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his +father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once +set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the +happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked +or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into +fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to +her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious +of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of +heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation. + +On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along +the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all +the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the +Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the +sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love +had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until +recently he had shared the current belief--"_tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner_"--because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection +inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto +herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and +faithfully, forgive not at all. + +As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle +voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a +cluster of daisies, which he had rejected. + +"My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as +pretty indoors as out on the meadow." + +She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away. + +"There's father! He will understand." + +She moved away to the window and stood with face averted. Father Temple +took the child's outstretched hand. + +"Father, why can't I be carried out yonder, where the daisies are spread +like sheets? I want to lie down a little while, and feel them cover me, +and listen to the bees--and out there I can breathe easier. Mother will +not let me, says I might catch cold; as if the sunshine could make me +worse. Why can't I go?" + +"My son, I fear you had a bad night, and your mother is a better judge +than I, because she never leaves you. If she approved, I would gladly +take you to the daisies." + +"She refused to move me down here, but you brought me." + +"It was the doctor, not I, who induced her to consent." + +"Oh, I want to go where the daisies are calling me! Don't you see how +they turn and beckon and----" His feeble voice broke in a sob. + +"Mother's man must have his milk punch," said Nona, going into the next +room to prepare it. + +Instantly the boy whispered: + +"Father, pick me up, and carry me; quick!" + +After a moment Father Temple went into the adjoining apartment. His wife +stood shaking the milk into froth, and her glance slipped from his face +with no more evidence of recognition than if she had looked at the wall. + +"Nona, there has been a dreadful change since yesterday. The time will +soon come when you can find comfort only in remembering you denied him +nothing. Well wrapped up, a few moments in the sunshine will not harm +him." + +She passed him without reply, and when the milk punch had been given, +she stooped suddenly and kissed her child twice. His wasted arms crept +feebly to her neck. + +"Please, mother--the daisies." + +"If I let you go a little while, you must not ask to stay." + +She buttoned his flannel dressing-gown about his throat, wrapped him in +her shawl, and put on his little grey cloth cap. + +Taking a light blanket from the bed, Father Temple lifted the emaciated +form, cradled him tenderly in his arms, and bore him across the orchard. +The mother preceded them, opened and closed the gate, and, when they +reached the meadow, she withdrew to the brink of the pond, sat down +under the ancient willow, and locked her hands in her lap. Close by, on +a knoll, the blanket had been spread; Leighton was laid upon it, and +feebly stretching his arms drew the daisies over him until they veiled +the shrunken figure, and only the wan face and golden curls were +visible. In a pale-blue sky the sun shone hot; white butterflies swam +lazily to and fro, like drifting blossoms from interstellar gardens; a +sheep bell tinkled now and then, and from the south, a freshening wind +bore echoes of the ceaseless chant of the heaving sea. + +Out of the flowery coverlet Leighton's hand stole, feeling for his +father's fingers, and a happy light shone in the boy's violet eyes, but +his breathing had grown quick and painfully labored. Suddenly he +struggled up, leaning against his father's shoulder. + +"What ails the sun? Mother! Where's mother?" + +One of those swift, ghostly fogs that spring without warning from the +ocean was sweeping inland, and as sunlight smote the advancing pillars +of mist it seemed transmuted into battlements and towers of some city of +silver. Strained maternal ears had caught the boy's faint cry, and Nona +knelt, clasping him close, resting his head on her bosom. His wide and +wondering eyes were fixed on the strange, shining wall drawing swiftly +nearer. + +"The gates of heaven! Mother, mother----" + +A moment later the chill waves of mist flowed over them, blotting out +the sun. + +Under that grey pall, daisy-dotted, the blue eyes closed; the pure, +lovely face, still smiling, lay white against his mother's cheek. + + * * * * * + +Not always comes imperial death as pacificator; now and then the flame +of vengeance leaps through the shroud of shadows, and sometimes open +graves typify wider, deeper chasms that know no closing. There are +natures who prefer total surrender rather than any sharing of that which +they hold dearest; and of such was the pallid, dry-eyed mother, lying +hour after hour on the bed where her fragile boy slept his last sleep. + +His head rested on her right arm, and with her left hand she had drawn +his icy fingers inside her dress, trying to warm them on the breast +where in infancy they toyed. Since the moment she had snatched him from +the meadow couch of daisies and borne him unaided to the farmhouse, no +one was allowed to touch him, and the angel who called and guided the +young soul to God was more welcome than the human father daring to claim +him. During the long night of her last vigil, the priest, pacing an +adjoining room, wondered at the stern repression of her grief; and only +once, through the half-open door, came a frantic cry, ending in a low, +quivering wail. + +"Mother's man! Mother's own pretty--pretty--darling baby! Oh----" + +An hour later, when he ventured to re-enter the room, he knew the one +passionate outbreak signalled her final surrender. She had lifted the +little wasted form from the bed and laid him in a coffin resting on a +low table; covering all but the delicate, chiselled face and shining +hair with a thick shroud of daisies. + +Now, with hands locked in her lap, she sat leaning her head against the +coffin. Tears he could not repress fell as the father bent down to the +casket, but she put her arm across it, barring him. + +"Don't! You must not touch my baby." + +Sinking to his knees he put his hand on the fingers lying in her lap. + +"Oh, Nona! Eleven years ago to-night!" + +She pushed his hand aside, and when he bowed his head on her knee, she +moved her chair back to avoid the touch. + +"My wife----" + +"No. I am no man's wife. I can't forget, and I don't wish to forgive, +even if I could. I want you to understand that I would rather see my +darling where he is than have him live for you to come between us. The +Nona you knew died ten years ago, when insulted, and slandered, and +despised I washed and ironed for money to clothe and feed my little +fatherless one--my own beautiful little baby." + +She laid her hand on the cold head and fondled the golden rings of hair, +but no moisture dimmed the large, mournful eyes that defied her +husband's pleading. + +A moment later she added, in a stinging tone: + +"After to-morrow you will have no excuse to intrude upon me; with a +childless, hopeless, desperate woman you can meddle no more, and I shall +contrive to save myself the intolerable sight of your face. In your tin +box you will find the money I have not touched, but the papers I burned +to-night; because in the grave--my baby's grave--certificates of +legitimacy are not required. I wish no record retained of any +association or tie with you, and henceforth I want to hear neither from +nor of you. For ten years what heart I had left beat only for my baby, +and his precious little hands will always hold it tight in his coffin. +After to-morrow my work waits for me, and your path and mine will cross +no more." + +Up and down the room Father Temple walked, striving to master his +emotion. Pausing in front of her, he asked very tenderly: + +"May I know where and what is the work my son's mother has selected?" + +"It is everywhere; the struggle of the poor to loosen the strangling +clutch of the rich on their throats; the cruel war which will end only +with the downfall of aristocrats, when millionaires will be hunted like +other criminals, when cowardly sons of rich army officers can dare to +marry publicly the daughters of their regimental teamsters, and when a +pure woman, because she is pure, will be as much respected as a crowned +head. You preach 'he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.' We +have a different doctrine, a broader gospel. When justice reigns there +will be no poor, no hoarded surplus of dishonest riches, no 'benevolent +fund' doled out by 'philanthropic' pharisees to the workers whose labor +created it. In that day, no poor girls in reeking tenements will be +goaded by the sight of fashionable society women, who drink, and smoke, +and gamble, and loll half clad in opera boxes, and hug their lap dogs +and their lovers instead of their children. In that day society lines +will vanish, and only two classes exist--workers and drones, governed by +beehive laws. To aid in this is all I care for now--all that remains for +me--and my work will be well done." + +She had spoken in a cold, defiant tone, keeping her eyes on the coffin +and her fingers on the child's curls, but after a moment a spasm of +anguish shook her mercilessly, and, rising, she pointed to the door, +saying, between strangling sobs: + +"Leave me, and shut the door. I have all I can bear now. Leave me alone +with my little one." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Aix-les-Bains proved a successful prescription, and Judge Kent declared +himself cured; but two silent women knew he could obtain only a modicum +of sleep, and noted the fact that when the daily mail--nervously +expected and handled--had been scanned he grew gay and chatty. After +sixteen months on the continent, he settled for a while at Taormina, and +here his companions were surprised to learn that his business agent had +sold every foot of real estate he owned in America, including the +Herriott house in New York, and the old homestead built in an elm grove +among the bleak, stony hills of New England. + +"Father, when was the house in Thirty-eighth Street sold?" + +"Soon after we reached Aix." + +"And you never told me?" + +"Why should I? Herriott might cherish some sentiment about it, but the +matter touched you in no way." + +"At least I should like to know who bought it." + +"Herriott. While at Greyledge I told him it would be on the market, and +he instructed his agent to make the purchase." + +"Had I known in time, Mr. Whitfield might have invested some idle money. +I like those cool, big, old-fashioned rooms." + +"I entertain no doubt that sooner or later they will be yours. Mrs. +Mitchell, may I trouble you for the 'Figaro' at your elbow?" + +"Who owns the old homestead that has belonged to some Kent for two +hundred years?" + +"The town has grown until it needs a juvenile 'reformatory,' and one is +now in course of erection where my old barn stood so long. A better site +could not have been found, or one more vigilantly patrolled by orthodox +puritan ghosts." + +"Have you no regrets when you think of strangers possessing the little +family burying ground where some of your ancestors long ago crumbled to +dust?" + +Eglah lifted her hand to brush away an orange petal that drifted down to +the velvet collar of his coat, and Eliza knew that the perpendicular +line between her brows indexed profound dissatisfaction. + +"Regrets are unprofitable, and what remains of my life must pay +dividends. My dear, will you kindly hand me my match box?" + +"Then you are homeless?" + +Smiling blandly, he bowed to her. + +"I trust not, while my daughter owns thousands of acres of the finest +land in the South." + +"Do you forget how often you have declared you would never again live +south of Washington?" + +"I forget nothing, but circumstances are not as fixed as parallels of +latitude, and changed conditions demand readjustment of plans. +Irrevocability travelled into limbo with ancient Medes and Persians, and +after the first of May I hope I may count upon the traditional +hospitality of Nutwood. You are of age, and have the right to occupy +it." + +Slowly but steadily the barrier between father and child had risen and +strengthened since the visit to Greyledge--a wall as of crystal, which +she could neither level nor penetrate. Close to him, having him +apparently within touch, yet conscious always that a transparent +obstacle divided them. To the cause of estrangement he never referred, +even indirectly, and he was neither irritable nor stern, but mercilessly +cold and punctiliously courteous. Why he had selected Taormina in +preference to Palermo was known only to himself, but one morning Eliza +and Eglah saw a letter postmarked Catania, and both recognized Mr. +Herriott's peculiarly bold handwriting. Judge Kent read it, returned it +to the envelope, which he put in his pocket, and unfolded a New York +newspaper. Mrs. Mitchell moved away to a distant window, carrying her +embroidery frame and silks, and Eglah opened the piano and played softly +two of Chopin's _nocturnes_. In the mirror opposite she saw that her +father was listening, beating time with the index finger of his right +hand. When she ended and approached him, he shut his eyes and hummed the +final bars. + +"Father, why did you come here for so long a stay?" + +"It is convenient to Catania and on the road to Messina." + +"You knew that Mr. Herriott expected to be there?" + +"I know that he has a scientific friend there who is an expert in all +that pertains to seismology, and that he wishes Herriott to see his +seismographs." + +"That fact should in no degree influence our movements." + +"Speak solely for yourself, my dear. I particularly desire to see +Herriott before he starts from Tromsö on his trip to the midnight sun." + +Leaning forward, his fine dark eyes fixed on hers, he lowered his voice. + +"A separation of eighteen months must have brought you to a realization +of your blind folly, and it is necessary that you should have an +opportunity to retrieve your error. Herriott comes to-day." + +"A lifetime--a thousand years would make no difference with me. I am +glad to know that he will never ask me a second time to marry him, and +if he should, I could not, and I would not. Oh, father! Put that idea +out of your mind, and give me back my own place in your heart." + +She came close and tried to embrace him, but he held her back at arm's +length. + +"I love only those who obey me; and defiance I never forgive. Until you +come to an appreciation of your duty as regards my unalterable wishes, I +must request you not to touch me, not to expect any notice from me, +except such social courtesies as one cannot avoid." + +"I am the price of something Mr. Herriott alone can sell you? What is it +you wish to buy?" + +"Your future happiness, and my peace of mind." + +"Distinctly, I decline to be sold." + +He smiled, put her aside, drew his chair out upon a balcony, and resumed +reading his newspaper. + +The conversation had been inaudible to Eliza, but, putting out her hand, +she rose quickly at sight of a white face where the large eyes glowed as +on the memorable day in the pavilion at Nutwood. + +Looking steadily before her, Eglah passed into an adjoining room and +locked the door. Some hours later she laid a note on Mrs. Mitchell's +lap. + +"I am going to sit a while in the old Greco-Roman theatre. I shall come +back when I am tired. Please ask no questions." + +Through one of the arches, built twenty-three centuries ago, she looked +out, wondering if any change could enhance the charm that lay like a +magic mantle over the visible world. The purple sea broke in a tangled +fringe of silver on the curving beach, Ætna, snow hooded, rose a vast +altar far away, with thin, tapering feather of smoke floating as incense +from its Plutonian cavern; and gaunt, gnarled olive orchards made a +luminous grey background for pink plumes of almond trees, scarlet +pomegranates, rose oleanders, and orange and lemon groves white with +bloom that fell like a fragrant shower on crimson tulips and waxen +cyclamen. In the witchery of her surroundings, thronged with beckoning +spectres of Greek, Roman, Saracen, and Norman legends, Eglah had +hitherto been able to forget on this spot all but the entrancing beauty +of the wonderful old cliffs; yet this afternoon sombre shadows seemed to +shroud a smiling sea and land, menacing as the smoking mountain that +cast its perpetual challenge to a sapphire sky. + +The vague anxiety, the tenderly regretful pain long gnawing at her +heart, had given place now to angry indignation, and a humiliating +consciousness of her father's persistent and increasing desire to barter +her, body and soul, for something that Mr. Herriott possessed. Not his +great wealth, her own fortune was sufficiently ample; not his social +influence, since political aspirations had come to an untimely end; +there was no animosity to be conciliated, no strained personal relations +existed, only a mild friendship manifested by occasional correspondence. +Her conjectures ran around a baffling circle marked only by the starting +post, "what?" "why?" Nemesis is not always so intent on pursuit of the +culprit that she can forego the parenthetic pastime of striking at the +innocent who may chance to stand between, and Eglah had begun to +entertain a bitter resentment against Mr. Herriott--the only visible +factor in her father's alienation--despite her firm conviction that he +would never, by a renewed proposal, smooth the way to a consummation of +the desired sale. + +The strong sense of dispassionate justice on which she prided herself +upbraided her sharply, but the intolerable disappointments of the last +eighteen months shook her from the calm, cool heights of impersonal +reasoning. As she leaned her bare head against the pillar of an arch +through which presageful Greek chorus chants--ages ago--had drifted away +to sea, her upturned face was shown in clear relief, like ivory features +on a dull-red background. Gowned in grey cloth, she had clustered lemon +blossoms around the cameo fastening her belt, and across her lap lay a +branch of acanthus, its pale, delicate lilac flowers springing among the +curved, glossy leaves. + +From a neighboring angle in the portico, to which Mr. Herriott had +noiselessly ascended, his eager, hungry eyes watched her, studied her, +and through a mist of unconquerable tenderness he noted the changes time +had printed on the frank, fair face--so much older, so pale, so hard, so +sullen rather than sorrowful. The light of youthful hope in her lovely +eyes had been driven away by some ugly fact always confronting her, and +the sensitive lips were set tight, stern, pitiless. Who or what was the +Gorgon that had frozen the exquisite face he loved so passionately? More +than grief was written there, and he who had so long interpreted its +phases read the dominant emotion, indignant protest against some wrong. +Over the crest of Ætna the sinking sun hovered, and in the wonderful +radiance, that seemed woven of vast rainbows into some celestial garment +for sea and land, Mr. Herriott came out of his niche and stood before +her. + +"I am very glad to see you here, Eglah. It seems so long since we parted +at Greyledge." + +He held out both hands, and, without rising, she put up one of hers, but +he saw the swift frown, the undisguised annoyance his presence caused. +There had been no opportunity for fastening a mask, or forcing +perfunctory smiles, and upon her frank truthfulness and scorn of +dissimulation he relied implicitly. Very tenderly he covered her cold +fingers with his warm palms, and, as she withdrew them, he seated +himself on a stone at her side. + +"Who has put me in your black books? Not a word of welcome for a +travel-weary vagrant starving for friendly recognition?" + +She looked coldly at him, but something in his fine, magnetic eyes, his +caressing tone, touched her into self-reproach. + +"If ever you should get into my black book, you will have put yourself +there. Mr. Herriott, I am very glad to see you looking so remarkably +well." + +"Have I so many grey locks, to warrant my promotion to Mr. Herriott?" + +She glanced at the silky black head bent toward her. + +"Not a white hair visible. Your promotion comes by brevet, in honor of +perfect behavior as well as additional years. Of course you have seen +father?" + +"No, I met only Mrs. Mitchell, who told me you had gone to watch the +sunset, and I knew this must be your coign of vantage." + +"This is not your first visit?" + +"No. The island attracts me more than any other part of Italy, and +justifies what has been said: 'Sicily is the smile of God.'" + +"Then surely His frown must be Ætna--'the pillar of heaven, the nurse of +sharp, eternal snows.' A few moments ago it was dazzling, now how grim +and sombre it looms, and that wavering jet of smoke crawls against the +purple sky as a dying candle flame flickers over the head of a corpse. I +sometimes wonder if God----" + +She had lifted the acanthus spray and touched it with her cheek, and her +eyes followed the ascending smoke which suddenly glowed from crater +lights beneath as sunset splendors faded; but the sentence was not +finished, and her lips paled. Turning toward her companion, she smiled. + +"You have been feeling the old earth's pulse while she was in an ague?" + +"Yes. On the surface our ancient mother appears so absolutely in repose, +and yet, when we get down nearer her mighty heart, we find the earth is +never still; it trembles and thrills ceaselessly. This was my first view +of the seismic pendulum records, in a subterranean vault that suggested +the workshop of Hephæstus." + +"I should think you would tire of wandering about, and prefer to go +home." + +"If I had one, doubtless I should; but roof, walls, and fields and +gardens do not exactly constitute the home that would content me." + +"Mr. Noel, you are wedded to science, and nothing else will ever satisfy +you." + +"Yes, I am very faithful to my vast spouse, and I find her loyal. She +never flirts, never is inconsistent or petulant; when I work hard she +smiles divinely, and, like that other sorceress of the Nile, 'age cannot +wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Domesticity is not +one of her charms, hence hand in hand we roam the world, making a +perpetual bridal tour. No connubial quarrels disturb our sweet repose, +even when I write to you, her only rival; but if I grow indolent, or +over wise or conceited, she simply lays her great finger on her lips of +stone and turns her huge planetary back upon me. Now, Eglah, you are due +in the confessional. Why did you fail to answer my letter from Fort +Churchill, Hudson Bay?" + +"Because it contained no address, and to reach you seemed as uncertain +as mailing a letter to that wild new comet pious people are praying will +not make a carrom with earth and moon and sundry stars. Have you heard +that Beatrix and Mr. Stapleton were married in November?" + +"Yes, I received a long wail from Aunt Trina, in which she came as near +boxing my ears as intervening distance permitted. Dana and Trix will be +as happy as a pair of Java finches in a gilt cage." + +"I imagined that Miss Manning's objection arose solely from the fact +that the cage was not gilded." + +"Wall Street is a wonderful matchmaker, and smiled on the lovers. +Sometimes Hymen corners stocks, and Dana's kite was lucky." + +Having learned from Judge Kent that Mr. Herriott had assisted Mr. +Stapleton in financial matters, Eglah smiled, and the old look of kindly +trust came back to her eyes as they steadily met his. + +"What a treat it would be to read Miss Manning's letter!" + +"Because you think my ears deserve boxing, and you enjoy seeing justice +meted out? How unkind to your faithful old friend! Nevertheless, I would +lay the letter before you, but it is in my trunk at Brindisi, where I am +due to meet Chalcott for the next steamer to Cyprus. Chalcott has +questioned the accuracy of statements relative to the recent excavations +there, and wants local data, and as he is also at odds with Schliemann +over the Troad, we go there to debate the claim of Hissarlik _versus_ +Bunárbashi." + +"I did not know you were so deeply interested in classical archæology." + +"I am not, and it does not attract me; but it is a special line of study +with Chalcott, who wishes me to accompany him, not as co-worker, but +merely as a friend." + +"You prefer Hopi and Haida legends, and 'Walam-Olum,' and 'glacial +moraines,' and 'kettle holes'? You see, as an old friend, I thought it +really my duty to read those two reports you sent to father." + +"I dare say you found them very tiresome; but pre-glacial conditions and +anthropological problems appeal powerfully to me. In tossing up balloons +we do not all select the same color." + +"After burrowing in the Troad, where next?" + +"Tromsö, Hammerfest and the midnight sun. We shall have a pleasant +party: two Americans, a German professor, an English scientist, and a +Russian astronomer. I must go on to Brindisi to-morrow, but I could not +resist the temptation to see you and spend a few hours." + +"It will be a long time before you reach home?" + +"So long that I have fixed no date for return." + +The unmistakable expression of relief that crossed her face was not lost +upon him, and involuntarily he clenched his right hand resting on his +knee. + +"Eglah, your countenance is honest as your heart, and you are not glad +to see your old friend. May I ask why?" + +Without hesitation she looked at him frankly. + +"To-day something annoyed me very sorely, and I came here to fight it +out alone. I fear I have at times the temper of a Tartar, and the evil +one possessed me at the very moment you appeared and spoke to me. Just +then nothing would have given me pleasure, but your patient courtesy +makes me ashamed; and now, Mr. Noel, you must believe me when I assure +you I am heartily glad to be with you, and hear of your various +expeditions." + +Smiling cordially, she held out her hand, but he took no notice of it, +and for a moment his eyes rested on the sea, where a freshening wind +crimped the long swells of water dyed by the after-glow into the gold of +a daffodil. Turning, he bent over her. + +"May I ask you a question?" + +"Certainly, if I may be allowed discretionary powers as regards +answering. I do not think Mr. Noel could make an unkind inquiry, or that +he would distress me in any way." + +"Am I responsible for the annoyance you referred to?" + +Keen as was his gaze, she did not waver. + +"Personally it was impossible that you could have been responsible. When +it occurred you were in Catania." + +She saw that he was not satisfied, and, rising, put on her hat. + +"We must go back; father will have so much to talk over with you. Please +carry my acanthus; I shall make a sketch of this spray, it is so laden +with blossoms." + +In silence they walked some distance, and rather suddenly she exclaimed: + +"I must have been rude indeed, when you, so generous and kind, will not +forgive me. Mr. Noel, I am not quite my old self, and to-day have felt +at odds with the world. Father's incomprehensible retirement from public +life grieves and perplexes me, because his health is perfect, and I +cannot patiently accept the forfeiture of all my hopes for his political +future. Without his knowledge, I wrote early in the new Administration +to two prominent officials, close personal friends of the President, and +asked their influence in securing a foreign ministerial position for my +father. With elaborate circumlocution they expressed regrets, and +'tendered kindest remembrance and best wishes.' I presume it is wise to +wage no war with the inevitable, but I simply cannot reconcile myself to +the most bitter disappointment of my life. You see, I trust you so +entirely I am opening my heart to you, that you may quite understand I +did not intend to show any lack of cordiality to you." + +He laughed, and tapped her shoulder twice with the acanthus spray. + +"With all my heart I absolve you. Rude you could not be, and I trust the +time will never come when I deserve to be treated less cordially than in +the past. When do you go back to America?" + +"In May or June. Ma-Lila will stay away no longer; she is so anxious to +look after her little fifty-acre farm." + +"In the South, of course?" + +"Yes; it is a corner of one of the 'bend plantations,' and with a new, +pretty cottage, well furnished, grandmother gave it to her as a bridal +present. None of us can ever forget that her father was killed while +bringing my dying grandfather off the battle-field." + +"Has Judge Kent decided where he will live?" + +"He has sold the old homestead in New England, and we expect to settle +down in the only remaining home, Nutwood, which, in accordance with +grandmother's will, we now have the right to occupy. Until this year the +trustees controlled and closed it." + +"Do not forget that whenever you and your father wish to visit New York +the house in Thirty-eighth Street will be entirely at your disposal--at +least for a couple of years. A telegram to my old butler Hawkins will +always insure a comfortable reception. Here comes the Judge. How +remarkably well he looks." + +Very late that night, when adieux had been spoken and only father and +daughter remained in the small salon, Eglah rose, and they looked +steadily at each other. In her dark brown eyes two defiant stars glowed, +but the clear, sweet voice was low and tender. + +"Father, after what was said this morning, I of course can only wish you +good-night. Your conditions make it impossible for me to attempt to kiss +you, and until you choose to remove the embargo, I certainly shall +observe it, in accordance with your orders. Good-night, dear father." + +He bowed as if to a duchess. + +"Good-night, Eglah." + +When Mr. Herriott went down the steps leading from the Kent apartments +to the street, Mrs. Mitchell beckoned him into a niche between two stone +pillars, and said, almost in a whisper: + +"Excuse me, sir, but will you tell me what is behind this trouble +between Eglah and her father?" + +"She says it is the result of his refusal to re-enter politics." + +"Exactly; but what is behind his refusal? She is fretting herself ill, +because she cannot find out. Ever since our last day at Greyledge they +have been estranged. This morning, when your letter arrived, something +very unpleasant occurred; and you see Eglah is not like herself." + +"My letter was a most innocent paper bomb--the mere announcement that I +intended to stop here a few hours on my way to Messina. It contained +absolutely nothing more, and you must have mistaken the cause of her +annoyance. Perhaps you wish to intimate that you think my presence +enhances the trouble, whatever it may be? I shall be glad to have you +speak frankly." + +For a moment she was silent, but she patted his coat sleeve approvingly. + +"Mr. Herriott, she is all I have in this world, and I can't see the +child breaking her heart over Judge Kent's selfish secretiveness. There +is something about him I do not understand, and I thought you might be +able to explain it to me." + +"As you have known him so much longer and more intimately than I, it +seems probable that you can estimate him accurately without my +assistance. Mrs. Mitchell, it will be a long time before I see any of +you again, and going so far away, I shall remember with great pleasure +that our dear Eglah will have you always at her side, in dark and stormy +as well as sunny hours. Good-bye; my very best wishes for you all." + +He understood most thoroughly. Eglah's struggle to receive cordially an +evidently unwelcome visitor had pained him inexpressibly, wounding his +pride even more than his heart, and since his absence contributed to her +peace, he resolved that henceforth she should know no disquietude. If, +despite his efforts to surrender, he had cherished a faint, +unacknowledged hope, he strangled it effectually now, and in after years +he thought of Ætna only as a monument whose shadow lay ever across the +acanthus-covered grave of his last beautiful illusion. + +Longer than usual Eglah knelt beside her bed that night, and when she +rose, Mrs. Mitchell, waiting to brush out and braid her hair, noted in +the pale young face traces of mental wrestling. + +"Little mother, does God answer your prayers?" + +"Not always in the way I may have wished, but when they are denied I +seem to receive instead an increased assurance that He knows best; and +as to a child crying for sharp-edged tools, His refusal springs from +omniscient mercy." + +"Do you think Mr. Noel is really a Christian? Father believes him a mere +rationalist." + +"His is such a fine character, only Christianity could have moulded +him." + +"I wish I knew whether he prays every night." + +"Why?" + +"If he does, his prayers and mine must clash like crossed swords before +the Lord, and Mr. Noel is better than I, and deserves to receive that +which he wants most; but he will not--he shall not!" + +"Eglah, dearie! The Lord alone will decide." + +"No. If we are free agents, human will can not be coerced by Him who +gave it. Even our great, dear, good God cannot give him what I pray he +will be denied. Never--never!" + +"For what is he praying?" + +"A razor--that would cut his fingers--so he must not have it. Now, lest +you should 'imagine vain things,' I wish you to know that Mr. Noel has +not renewed his proposal of marriage, and I hope never will. It is only +just to him that you should fully understand he is now no suitor. He is +simply my loyal, noble friend, in whom I trust implicitly. Good-night, +_Madrecita_." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It had been a cold, cloudy January day in one of the great northern +cities, and with night came flurries of snow that powdered telegraph +wires and danced like thistledown around the corners. Two and a half +years had elapsed since the angel of death stooped to swing his sickle +in the daisy meadow on Long Island, and in a low, wide basement room, +fronting the street, Mrs. Dane sat at her sewing machine, hemming a +child's check aprons piled on a chair. The apartment was plainly but +comfortably furnished, and filled now with the pungent odor of ginger, +cloves, and cinnamon from a pan of small cakes on the top of an oil +stove. The gas jet above her heightened the metallic lustre of her +abundant hair, and deepened fringy shadows cast by her thick, dusky +lashes. Upon the beautiful face time had softly pressed its velvet palm, +smoothing the angles of bitterness and wrath that had been intensified +by the struggle with her husband, whom she now believed she had eluded +forever by removing to another city. On the broad windowsill at her +right stood an oval, brass filigree frame holding a photograph of +Leighton in his chorister vestments, and in front of the picture a dozen +violets filled a wine-glass. As she finished and folded an apron, +leaning forward to place it on the chair, her glance fell on the +photograph, rested there, and the ocean of the past moaned, surged, +broke over her. Despite her persistent scoffing moods, she had found it +impossible to forget the few lines Father Temple had repeated with a +faltering voice after the grave closed over the sweet young singer of +St. Hyacinth's. They haunted some chamber of her defiant soul, and when +she gazed at the holy face of her boy they stole out and whispered: + + "Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold + Within this quiet fold, + Among Thy Father's sheep + I lay to sleep! + A heart that never for a night did rest + Beyond its mother's breast. + Lord, keep it close to Thee, + Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me." + +A rap on her door recalled her, and she swept one hand across her misty +eyes. + +"Come in." + +A man of middle age, low in stature, and muffled to the chin in a +handsome overcoat, stood, hat in hand, at the door. + +"Mr. Coolidge, I am surprised to see you, and you have made a mistake in +coming to my lodgings. I will not ask you to be seated, because I do not +wish to receive you." + +"But, madam, no other way of communicating with you seems possible, as +correspondence has certainly proved disastrous. That note of Mr. +Cathcart's, which you saw fit to send to his wife, ploughed up more +trouble than a ton of dynamite, and his few remaining grey hairs will +disappear before the end of this fracas. Talk about savage wild beasts, +and claws, and paws, and fangs, but you women can trump them every time +when the game is cruelty, and you want to get even with some man. Poor +Mr. Cathcart! I don't hold him a saint, but I must say you misread his +note and misjudged him." + +"Did you see the note?" + +"After his wife received it? No, but he told me exactly what it +contained, and why he was obliged to have the meeting secret." + +"Written by a millionaire to his poor typewriter, it was an insult, and +as such you would have hotly resented it if your sister stood in my +dependent position." + +"You have not an idea what he wanted to say to you when he asked you to +return to the office after every one had gone. He has found out that you +have great influence with Max Harlberg, and that you belong to several +'Unions,' and he wished to pay you handsomely if you would persuade Max +to agree to arbitration and not call a strike. Since he learned you are +a power among these men who are causing us so much trouble, he is +anxious to conciliate you, and fears your resignation will increase the +difficulty of a settlement." + +"He sent you here to offer this explanation?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Dane, and I can vouch for its truth." + +"Mr. Coolidge, you have always treated me with respect and courtesy, and +I have no desire to be rude to you, but I am sorry you came to offer so +shameful a bargain. I believe in 'unions'; they became necessary when +vast consolidations of capital began to strangle small corporations, and +laborers learned that only by a united front could they expect living +wages. You magnates of 'trusts' are responsible for 'unions'; you set us +the example: when capital bands, labor is forced to organize in +self-defence. You of the caste of Dives sowed dragon's teeth, and now +the abundance of your crop appalls you? We of the Lazarus caste see hope +ahead; the day is coming when we shall have an honest and fair and +permanent adjustment on the Karl Marx basis of 'plus value,' and then +every mechanic in your shops will own an interest in the car he builds +in the ratio of the hours he worked on it. Heart and soul I am with your +motormen and conductors, your carpenters and machinists. Their cause is +just, and, if I can help them, all the bonds and all the gold your +company hoards in its vaults cannot buy me." + +"At least you might persuade Harlberg to consent to arbitrate the +differences. The men would have an equal chance with the company." + +"Arbitration wolves have left no lambs silly enough to bleat their +grievances. Two years ago the strike was settled on a basis almost fair +to your employees, and in six months the provisions were nullified by +changes made possible when non-union motormen were brought here. Max cut +his eye teeth then, and now he has a winning hand." + +"You think a strike inevitable?" + +"I know it, and rejoice that the company will smart for its grinding, +inhuman treatment of men who have endured it for the sake of wives and +children looking to them for bread. Because you and Mr. Cathcart and Mr. +Hazleton and your board of directors have ample fortunes, you see no +enormity in requiring men with large families to work twelve hours, +exposed to rain, sleet, sun, and if, overcome with fatigue, they fail to +awake in time to report for duty at the exact minute your schedule +demands, they are 'laid off for three days' as punishment. No day of +rest to spend at home; nothing to anticipate but the ceaseless grind, +grind--worse than that of driving wheels and pistons in machinery, which +are allowed to stop and cool on Sunday." + +"If you return to your desk to-morrow Mr. Cathcart says he will double +your salary." + +"Tell him to divide the extra pay among the needy grey-beards limping +around the cars and shops. I will never work in his office again." + +"You are very unwise, Mrs. Dane, and since you sympathize with the men, +you ought not to lose the opportunity to prove yourself their friend at +court. Moreover, in rejecting a larger salary you are laying up a store +of regrets." + +"Make no mistake, Mr. Coolidge. You rich often force us poor to suffer +severely, but we seldom 'regret,' because that implies error on our +part. We are bitter under the pain, but we do not regret the course of +duty to ourselves that brought down the lash." + +"Is it true that if the railroad men's strike is declared the +telegraphers' and typewriters' unions will order a sympathetic strike? +You seem to have begun in advance." + +"I think not. Two nights ago, at our meeting, I urged the members to +abandon the idea, though Harlberg was present to insist upon it. A +'sympathetic strike' is only sentiment running riot, and special class +suffering alone justifies revolt. Altruistic theories of reform and +abstract justice ought not to tie up public systems and precipitate +armed conflicts. I have learned that for us 'strikes' are fearful +catastrophes--social earthquakes so far-reaching in consequences that +you opulent dwellers on a serene plateau, immune from disaster, can form +no adequate estimate of the ghastly wreck wrought in substrata of the +laboring class. Especially ruinous is the strain on our women. The men +are excited, goaded, kept on the _qui vive_, held to the front by +magnetic leaders--but the waiting women and children! Cold, hungry, +terrified, huddled in helpless idleness, expecting any moment to see +husband and father brought in on a shutter--buried in the 'potter's +field' if he dies, sent to prison as a 'riotous lawbreaker' if he +lives--these are the saddest features of bloody struggles that the +outside world never sees. Instead of 'sympathetic strikes,' far more +useful sympathy should be shown by other unions working full time +steadily and sharing their wages with those fighting for violated rights +against the encroachments of combined capital. That is what I intend to +do." + +"Have you accepted another position as typewriter?" + +"Not yet; but many ways of earning my bread lie open before me. I never +resign from my sewing machine, and I learned embroidery at a convent +where royal orders have been filled." + +"Making check aprons will not pay room rent." + +Gathering the little garments in her arms, she rose, her tall, graceful +figure clearly outlined by her mourning dress, and her eyes sparkled. + +"Do you remember old Silas Bowen?" + +"I do not." + +"Your corporation memories, like your consciences, are sieves. One day, +while arranging a trolleywire, a tall post behind him, decayed at its +base, fell, and crippled him. He lost a leg, and all the fingers of one +hand. Your company paid the surgeon's bill, and Bowen was sent adrift +without a cent. He sued for damages, and the jury gave him what he asked +for. You appealed the case, and a Hungarian pedler, who hated him +vindictively, swore that Bowen was so drunk he could not understand +warning shouts that the pole was shaking, and that he was falling when +the post toppled and struck him. You won, and he lost by perjury. He is +able to do little, and has nine children. His wife and oldest daughter +launder laces and fine muslins, and these aprons are for the +youngest--twins, one of whom has spinal disease and will never walk. Mr. +Coolidge, I have rather liked you, because I found you always a +gentleman, but my patience is exhausted, and, as I shall never work +again for your company, there is no reason why you should prolong your +visit." + +"Nothing can change your mind in our favor?" + +"Nothing." + +"I wish the whole confounded, sickening business could be ended. Of +course the company will win. New men will be at the barns and +power-houses early to-morrow, prepared to run the cars, and the court +will enjoin strikers from active interference. At the first shot the +militia will be called out to take a hand, and then the poor devils +running around like blind adders will be slaughtered. You women ought to +stop it. Some of you firebrands will land in jail." + +"Jail sounds dreadful, but after all it is not so bad; has its +perquisites that wealth furnishes. I tried it once. The rich, old Jew +who arrested me for stealing a Satsuma vase was so terrified when it was +found where a negro porter had pawned it, that he sent his superb +carriage and horses and liveried coachman to carry me from jail to my +lodgings. It was my first and last ride on satin cushions. Good-night, +Mr. Coolidge." + +When the door closed behind him, she counted the spice cakes into a +paper bag, placed it in the bundle of aprons, and wrapped the whole in a +square of oil cloth. Pushing her hair back from her brow, she drew a +black veil closely around her face, tied the ends under her chin, and +put on her long waterproof cloak, lifting the cape over her head, where +she fastened it with a safety pin. Under the grey overhanging folds of +the cape the fair, cold face looked serene as a nun's. Extinguishing the +flame of the oil stove, her eyes rested a moment on the picture of +Leighton, then she lowered the gas jet at the machine, picked up the +bundle, locked the door, and dropped the key in her pocket as she went +out to the street. + +The snow fall was light and intermittent, but now and then the crystal +facets glittered in the vivid bluish glare of quivering electric globes. + +Three hours later Father Temple, passing through the city on his way +south, stood, valise in hand, on a street corner, waiting for a downtown +car, and fearful he might miss the train where his sleeping berth had +been engaged. No car came from any quarter, and he walked on, hoping to +be overtaken. Soon a steady, rapid tread of many feet sounded from the +rear, and a squad of police dashed past him. + +"What is the matter with the cars?" he shouted to the hurrying column. + +One man looked over his shoulder. + +"The strike is on. Street car track torn up." + +In a marvellously short time the crowded pavement became a dense mass of +men and women struggling slowly forward; then a dull, deep, sullen roar, +that shook windows and doors, rolled up to the starless sky where snow +feathers fluttered. A woman screamed: + +"The brutes are firing cannon into the poor strikers!" + +"Not much! Some devilish striker throwing a bomb," answered her husband. + +Father Temple, finding progress impeded, stepped down into the street +and hurried on. At the end of the next square the hospital ambulance +clattered by at emergency speed, and behind it another detachment of +police at double-quick step. The street was bare as mid-desert of +vehicles, save those from hospitals, and down the double railway track +flowed a human stream, panting to reach the fray, eager to witness the +struggle as old Romans who fought for places under the _velarium_, and +shrieked "_Habet!_" Two officers on horseback galloped by, and then came +reports of shots, followed by the wild, thousand-throated whoop and hoot +of maddened men drunk with hate and fury. At the intersection of three +streets, where a small park lay, the strikers had massed the cars from +every direction, shut off the current, cut the wires, and taken their +stand. Expecting trouble next day, the company had prepared guards and +provided extra police protection for their barns and power-houses, where +a few non-union men had been secured, but the strikers frustrated these +plans by refusing to run as directed to the defended terminus. Where the +line of clustered cars ended on both tracks, iron rails had been torn up +and piled across the road bed, and here, in front and rear, motormen, +conductors, carpenters, machinists, and linemen were massed, stubbornly +defying all attempts to repair the tracks or move the cars. + +A half hour before Father Temple reached the outskirts of the crowd at +the square, a woman had elbowed her way to the front car and sprung upon +the platform. Just below her Max Harlberg was distributing pistols to a +group of men, all gesticulating angrily. + +Clapping her hands to arrest attention, Mrs. Dane called: + +"Silas Bowen, if you are here, answer. Silas Bowen!" + +"Aye, aye! Silas Bowen is here to hurry up Judgment day for the hounds +that have dodged it too long." + +"You must go to your wife; she needs you. The tenement where you live +burned down to-night." + +"Let it burn! I hope the old rat hole isn't insured." + +"But your wife is frantic, and wants you at once; and one of your +children is hurt. Silas, do go to them, I beg of you. I have the +helpless boy and the burned girl at my room, and your wife is there." + +"I have waited too long for this picnic to turn my back just as the +music begins. I am in for my share of the fun to-night, and kindling +wood will be cheap to-morrow. When the devil's pay day comes for the +boss, I mean to see the count." + +Leaning over the dashboard of the car, Mrs. Dane watched for an +opportunity, and snatched from Harlberg's hand the pistol reserved for +his own use. Holding it above her head, she cried: + +"Friends, fellow-workers, listen a moment! You are striking for the +right to live like human beings, not beasts of burden; but be careful, +be sure you do not put yourselves in the wrong by rash violence. If +strife comes, let your oppressors start it. Personal attack is not your +privilege, but defence is your right. Stand here quietly, shoulder to +shoulder, cool, steady, and keep non-union traitors at arm's length. We +who are working will see that the pot boils for your families; but, men, +I beg of you, attempt no violence; because, if the first shot comes from +us, the end will be we shall all drop from the frying pan into the fire. +The police are bloodhounds wearing the collar of rich corporations, and +the courts are butcher pens, where 'fighting strikers' are slaughtered. +When rifles are fired into your ranks and bayonets thrust into your +bodies, then--only then--must you remember 'blood washes blood.' Oh, +men, be patient! Max Harlberg, don't forget that you are responsible for +what may happen now. These men have obeyed you--have followed you like +sheep to the edge of a precipice. Don't drive them with the butt of a +pistol to leap to ruin. Counsel no bloodshed, no rashness, no wreckage." + +A feeble cheer rose, smothered by a grumbling growl. + +The wind had blown the cape back to her shoulders, and the folds of +black veil banding her head slipped down, restraining no longer the +ripples of hair curling above her temples. Leaning over the dashboard, +one hand clutching the collar of Harlberg's overcoat as she talked +rapidly to him, she resembled some gilt-headed figure carved at the prow +of a vessel, always first to front tempests. + +Just then a solid column of policemen charged the strikers, forcing them +back almost upon the pile of rails near the foremost car, and following +the line of lifted and revolving clubs, Mr. Cathcart and his +superintendent, Hazleton appeared. Hisses, jeers, oaths, and a prolonged +howl greeted them, amid which paving stones smote the heavy clubs that +swung right and left like flails, and Harlberg sprang to the iron +controller, leaped thence to the roof of the car, and shouted his orders +to the strikers on the ground. Wounded, bleeding men were trampled by +the swaying mass as it surged forward, staggered back, panting, cursing, +hooting; then, in quick succession, three shots rang out. + +A moment later Mrs. Dane laid Harlberg's pistol on top of the controller +stand, and, as she stepped down from the platform to make her way home, +something hurtled through the air and struck between the spot where Mr. +Cathcart stood and the iron dashboard of the car. In the blinding glare +of the explosion two strikers and a policeman were seen to fall, and +when the roar and sharp shivering of crashed windows ended, a sudden +hush fell upon the multitude. + +Father Temple had slowly forced his way along the outer edge of the +quivering throng and reached the centre of the square, where in summer a +fountain babbled. Some one behind grasped his cassock. + +"You are a priest? For the love of God, come to a dying man! Come back." + +Death had sounded a temporary truce, and for some moments only whispers +passed trembling lips, but the strikers still guarded the rails. Mr. +Cathcart wiped off the dust thrown into his face by the explosion, bared +his grey head, and lifted his hand: + +"Men, don't you think you have worked mischief enough for one night? +Eight dead, and only God knows how many wounded! That is an ugly bill +the law will surely make you pay. You heard those three shots fired into +the air? It was a signal for the armory; the troops are now coming. Who +will feed your babies when you are bayonetted?" + +A mounted policeman spurred his horse close to the president. + +"The soldiers are hurrying down." + +The leaders recognized the futility of continued resistance, and, as +they slowly fell back from the track the police were in undisputed +control of the cars when the hurrying line of soldiers reached the +square. + +Father Temple and his unknown guide paused beside a stretcher. Two men +wearing the Red Cross badge bent over it. + +"Stand back; here is a priest." + +Both rose, and pointed to the sheet covering a motionless figure. + +"Too late. He is dead." + +Then one added, as he touched Father Temple's sleeve: + +"You might be of use over yonder, where a woman is badly hurt. They are +waiting for an ambulance to move her." + +When Max Harlberg ordered the retreat of the strikers and jumped from +the roof of the car to the pavement, he caught sight of a huddled mass +on the step near the motor controller, and simultaneously he and Mr. +Cathcart approached the spot. + +Mrs. Dane had sunk down in a sitting posture on the step, and her head +rested against the shattered edge of the dashboard, her face tilted +skyward, where two stars blinked feebly through thinning snow flakes. +Blood dripped from the right shoulder, and behind one ear a red stream +dyed her golden braids, but the blue eyes were open, and her limp hands +lay in the crimson pool deepening in her lap, where the waterproof cloak +held it. + +"My God, it is my typewriter! Hazleton, Hazleton! Telephone for an +ambulance. Hurry! I knew she was mixed up in this deviltry, but didn't +think she would actually come to the front and take a hand." + +"She did not. She came here hunting Bowen, whose family was burned out +to-night, and she had taken some of them to her room. His wife has +spasms when she is worried, and was screaming for him, so Mrs. Dane was +begging him to go back with her. She wanted a peaceable strike--urged us +not to begin any fight--and she snatched a pistol out of my hand. Can't +you speak to me, Mrs. Dane? Where are you hurt worst?" + +Harlberg stooped to lift her, but Cathcart held him back. + +"Stop! You must wait for the doctor. She might bleed to death if you +moved her. A pretty night's work in a civilized city! Lord, how I wish +all you anarchists had one neck! So Silas Bowen has paid her liberally +for helping his family! He threw that bomb--aimed it at Hazleton and me, +and when it exploded she was struck by something. Leather-headed, +black-hearted scoundrel! The police have just marched him off, and the +infernal fool ought to be hung from the first lamp-post." + +An ambulance came up at a gallop, and while the surgeon sprang out and +hurried toward the group, Father Temple stepped forward. As the electric +light shone full on the upturned face and the wide, fixed eyes, a cry +broke from the lips of the priest, who tried to thrust all aside. + +"My Nona! My own pansy eyes!" + +The surgeon pushed him back. + +"I must have room to examine her. Help me lay her across the platform. +Here, you! Are you her brother? Take her firmly by the shoulders, so; +steady, lower her head." + +"She is my wife." + +What was done, and exactly why, none but the surgeon ever understood; +those who looked on knew only that jagged cuts were sprayed and closed +and bandaged; that the lovely hair was shorn away from a wound at the +back of the head, and hypodermics inserted in the arm. + +No word was spoken until the stretcher was ordered close to the car +platform, and the patient was lifted tenderly and laid upon it. Then the +thin, shaking hand of the priest clutched the doctor's sleeve. + +"I have the right to know exactly what you think." + +"Then I must be frank. She has received probably fatal injuries to spine +and brain, and paralysis has resulted. Whether the paralysis will be +permanent I cannot say now, because the extent of the shock has yet to +be determined." + +"She is not entirely unconscious." + +"I am sure she is. On what do you base your opinion?" + +"I know too well the expression of her eyes, and it changed when I spoke +to her." + +"Her tongue is certainly paralyzed, and she can move neither hand nor +foot." + +"I do not wish her carried to the charity hospital, though doubtless the +treatment is the same. Please take her to the Mercy Infirmary, and will +you be so kind as to let me sit close to her in the ambulance?" + +Keenly the doctor scanned the convulsed face, where overmastering +emotion defied control. + +"Your wife, you said? My friend, don't you think it time you laid aside +your disguise? Priests are not--in this country--given to acknowledging +their wives so publicly. It may be all right, but your marital claims +and your clothes don't seem to fit." + +"I am not a Romanist. I belong to an Episcopal celibate Order, and my +superior understands and directs my movements. If you knew everything +you would pity me----" + +The surgeon took off his hat, bowed, and waved him to a seat in the +ambulance. + +In after years, when Father Temple's dark hair had whitened, and vital +fires were burning low, to the verge of ashes, he looked back always +with supreme tenderness and immeasurable joy to the days that followed +the strike, as after some tempest lulls one watches the unexpected +lustre of an after-glow where it glints over the wreckage wrought, and +waves its banners of gilded rose between vanishing storm clouds and +oncoming night. + +In that small room at the Infirmary reigned profound quiet, broken only +by the low voices of two wise-eyed, tender-handed, know-all, +tell-nothing nurses, whose ideals of absolute obedience to staff orders +were as starched as their caps and collars. They shared the doctor's +opinion that the patient was conscious of nothing, because she neither +flinched nor moaned when her wounds were dressed, but the watcher who +spent part of each morning beside the bed knew better. Waiting one day +until the nurses left the room, he drew from his pocket a photograph of +Leighton, leaned down, and held it close to her. The half-closed eyes +widened, brightened, and, after a moment, tears gathered. + +He laid the picture against her lips and left it on her breast. + +With that fine instinct which inheres only in supremely unselfish love, +he fought down the longing to fondle her, allowed himself no approach to +a caress, remembering that his touch was loathsome to her, and in her +present helplessness would prove a cruel insult. He accepted as part of +his punishment the fierce trial of bending so close to the precious face +her hatred denied him; and only once, when the nurse laid the patient's +hand in his, while she tightened a bandage and gave a hypodermic, he +bowed his face upon it and kissed the palm. + +Sometimes for hours she kept her eyes shut; again, for as long a period, +she would not close them, and though her gaze, never vacant, wandered +from face to face, it held no inquiry, no sadness, no meaning save of +profound introspection, of some subtle mental readjustment; but only a +deep, slowly drawn sigh of utter weariness ever crossed her pale lips, +from which the blood had been drained. Father Temple felt assured that +as she lay motionless, fronting eternity, her self-communion was +profound and calmly searching; and ceaselessly he prayed that God's +mercy might comfort the brave, lonely, helpless soul. + +One morning the nurse reported that during the night Mrs. Dane had moved +her right hand and arm, but the improvement did not continue, and while +at times fully conscious, her vitality was evidently ebbing, and the +pulse began to fail. She had never spoken, and the doctor said she never +would. Standing outside the door, Father Temple waited one noon to hear +the physician's report. As he came out he put his hand on the priest's +shoulder, and answered the mute appeal in eyes that were wells of +hopeless grief. + +"Don't leave her. I have asked the matron to let you stay now. We have +done all we could, and she does not suffer. She may slip away at any +moment." + +The room was very still, and sweet with violets which Father Temple +brought daily. The muslin curtain had been looped back to admit light +that fell full on the pillow where lay the beautiful head, shorn of a +portion of its golden crown. Her features were sharpened, and the eyes +seemed preternaturally large above dark, deep shadows worn by suffering. + +The compassionate nurse withdrew, closing the door noiselessly. With +locked hands the priest stood, looking down into the whitening face +which the fine chisel of pain had reduced to a marvel of delicate +perfection, and when her long, brown lashes slowly drooped, he fell upon +his knees and prayed, his head bowed on the bed close to her pillow. In +the agony of his petition one passionate, broken cry rolled through the +solemn silence. + +"Lord, visit upon me the punishment of her unbelief! Let me suffer +all--everything--because through me she lost her faith. Spare her pure, +precious soul and save her! Oh, God, mercifully receive and comfort her +dear soul, for Christ's sake!" + +Some moments passed, and while he knelt, his crucifix pressed against +his breast, he felt a cold hand laid on his bowed head and a faint +effort to pat it. In the wonderful blue eyes a new light had dawned. + +"My darling Nona, will you forgive me? You cannot speak, but, oh, +try--try to press my hand! Have pity on me!" + +He had risen, and her hand was clasped in his, as he stooped over her. +Feebly the icy fingers contracted in his palm. + + +"Vernon, I have forgiven everything. I could have spoken after the +second day, but I was not ready. I wanted to be sure this was the end. +So much to count over. Vernon, I was too--too--hard--on you--but----" + +Breath failed her, and she gasped painfully. + +"My wife, my darling wife! Tell me you are not afraid now." + +She looked steadily into his eyes, and after a little while there came, +brokenly, an echo as of a voice drifting away into immeasurable wastes. + +"I go to my long sleep--no bad dreams. Too tired--to be afraid----" + +A moment passed, while she struggled for breath, and over her face stole +a smile. + +"If it--is--something--else--better, my baby will +be--there--my--baby----" + +He felt a tremor in her fingers, as with a long, low sigh the frozen +lips closed, but the calm, brave gaze did not waver. + +At last, after long years, it was his privilege to hold her to his heart +and kiss down the stiffening lids that veiled forever the smiling pansy +eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +For political rancor time is not an emollient panacea. Sectional hatred +bites hard on memory, as acid into copper, and the perspective of years +of absence failed to alter in any degree the rough angles, ugly scars, +and deep shadows that characterized the people's portrait of Judge Kent. +Impotence to correct intensifies public sense of wrong, and compulsory +submission to injury borne silently garners bitterness which in actual +strife would effervesce. Only those who lived in the Southern seaboard +and Gulf States during the long, stinging years that followed the +surrender at Appomattox can understand why the names of Grant and +Sherman stirred little enmity, when compared with the unfathomable +execration and contempt aroused by the civil Federal vultures that +settled like a cloud over State, county, and municipal treasuries. The +battening of this horde soon reduced Southern finances and credit to a +grewsome skeleton. In that stifling Ragnarok, family estates feudal in +extent were seized as "abandoned lands" and parcelled out to freedman, +who had been enticed to abandon them in order to succeed their masters +in ownership. "Patriots are paupers now," was the grim proverb current +among Confederates, and the very few who showed conditions bordering on +comfort were, in public estimation, required to "stand and deliver" an +explanation of the fortuitous circumstances that saved them from the +general ruin. + +Judge Kent's judicial career had been disastrous to the interests of +many throughout the State, and among the legions who improved their +fortunes by coming south to "reconstruct and to dispense justice," he +was especially detested by the citizens of Y----. To Eglah, his +insistence upon returning to Nutwood was explicable solely on the +hypothesis that speculative reverses had demanded the sale of his own +property and swallowed the result; hence his resources were exhausted. + +Recollection of slights, insinuations, invectives, and jeers that had +imbittered her childhood did not lend beckoning glamour to the +home-coming; and without the powerful protection of Mrs. Maurice's +presence she suspected she was making a social plunge with no net spread +to succor. Deliberately and systematically she planned the gradual +renovation and, to a limited degree, the refurnishing of the beautiful +old house where it now seemed her future must be spent. A new close +carriage and stylish trap were shipped in advance, and Mrs. Mitchell +went down to superintend preparations for occupancy of Nutwood, leaving +Judge Kent and his daughter to follow a week later. + +Old Aaron was stooping badly and stiff with rheumatism, but refused to +relax his grasp on the butler's reins; Celie maintained her iron sway in +the kitchen; her two daughters were eager to discharge the duties of +housemaids, and Oliver, hopelessly bed-ridden, claimed that his son had +the best right to succeed him as coachman. + +When, on the morning after her arrival, Eglah entered the cedar-panelled +dining-room, and seated herself at the head of the table, where +glittered the tall, silver coffee urn with Dirce and her beast in bold +relief, she almost expected to see her grandmother's face reflected +there as in days gone by, and involuntarily looked over her shoulder +with a telepathic impression that behind her chair stood the stately, +old, crêpe-coifed dame disputing usurpation. Judge Kent drained his +second cup of creamless tea, held up the thin, fluted china to examine +the twisted signature of the manufacturer, listened to its protest as he +carefully thumped it, and pushed it aside. + +"Eglah, I do not like the room where I slept last night, and I wish a +change made to-day." + +"Why, father? I selected the handsomest room in the house for you. That +has always been considered the best--set apart as the guest-chamber." + +"Well, as I am not a guest, I have no desire to appropriate the +perquisites. I prefer the room opening into the library." + +"Not my grandfather's room--not where grandmother hoarded sacred--" She +paused, and the silver fruit knife, with which she peeled a peach, +clanged sharply as it fell. + +"Exactly. I mean the museum of rebel relics. I wish them removed at +once, and my own things unpacked and arranged there." + +"Father, it was grandmother's expressed wish to keep that----" + +"It is rather late to evoke sentiment in her behalf. She left nothing +undone to hamper, annoy, and inconvenience us, and----" + +"Father! _De mortuis--!_ Although I am her grandchild under protest on +her part, she gave me her estate, and the one room she loved ought to be +reserved just as she wished." + +As she leaned to the right of the urn, to look squarely at her father, +her face was close to Mrs. Mitchell, who noted its pallor and an ominous +curve in the thin lips. Judge Kent beat a muffled tattoo with the prongs +of his fork on the handle of a spoon lying near. He smiled, eyed her +fixedly, and inclined his head in dismissal. + +"It is not a question for discussion, but a simply imperative matter of +obedience to instructions. I must have the change made at once, and if +extra help is needed Aaron will see immediately that it is secured." + +From the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table he selected a sprig +of ruby stock-gilly, inhaled its fragrance, fastened it in his coat, and +strolled out on the front colonnade. + +Over the girl's white face flowed a deep, dull red, and for a moment her +slender hands covered it. Then she touched the bell at her left, and +smiled bravely at the butler who answered it. + +"Uncle Aaron, put a pitcher of tea on the ice, so that whenever father +needs it I can have it cold. Tell Ma'm Celie I have not had such a good +breakfast since I wore short skirts and my hair down my back. Her coffee +was perfect, the waffles and beaten biscuit the very best I ever tasted, +and the brain croquettes could not be improved." + +"Yes, Missie, she thought she would please you. She don't forget how you +loved waffles and honey when you used to wear bibs and set in your high +chair." + +Having invested all in a teraph of fine gold, its votary sees with vague +uneasiness a gradual dimness blur the sheen, and when, under friction, +the gilt surface melts away and only corroding brass remains, the shock +is severe. However slow the transformation, the final disillusion is not +softened. + +Standing in the memorial room, with her arms resting on the mantel +shelf, Eglah looked up at the frank, noble patrician face of General +Maurice, until an unsuspected undercurrent of pride and tenderness +suddenly surged at the thought that his blood ran in her veins. Whatever +ills might overtake her, no bar sinister could ever mar, no breath of +blame could cloud the lustre of this side of her family shield. Studying +the portrait above her, and that of her lovely young mother on the +opposite wall, she began for the first time to take possession of her +Maurice birthright, conscious that here her pride could never drag +anchor. The room that from her nursery days had always been Marcia's +remained unoccupied after her death, and to this apartment Eglah and +Eliza removed every cherished object Mrs. Maurice had stored in her +husband's old study, arranging pictures, books, furniture as she had +left them. No word of comment passed the locked lips of either woman, +but, when all had been adjusted, Eglah fastened the door and handed the +key to Mrs. Mitchell. + +"You know she preferred 'Grand Dukes' and Cape jasmines, so we will keep +some in front of the portrait, and once a week we must see that no dust +collects here." + +In the future, stretching before the young mistress of Nutwood gleamed +two goals--friendly, social recognition of her father, and the +compilation and publication of a volume containing a sketch of his +career, written by herself, selected speeches delivered in Congress, and +certain judicial decisions relative to Confederate property, individual +and corporation, which had tarred him heavily throughout the State, +where they were promulgated. To the attainment of these aims she +purposed to devote her energies, believing that the accomplishment of +the biographical scheme would inevitably remove the barrier of +estrangement that had shut her from her father's confidence. + +After a week spent in looking over Nutwood, visiting Mrs. Mitchell's +home and inspecting the condition of gin houses, mills, fences, and +cabins on the plantations, the appointed day arrived when Mr. Whitfield +came with books and a large tin box to give a detailed account of his +stewardship. + +Eglah noticed that while he held and pressed her fingers cordially, he +merely bowed, and seemed not to see Judge Kent's proffered hand. After +the interview she understood, when Eliza told her that during the period +_habeas corpus_ was suspended by Federal authority the husband of Mr. +Whitfield's only sister had been imprisoned for "treasonable language" +by the desire and co-operation of Judge Kent, and that distress of mind +and anxiety on her husband's account had precipitated the death of the +wife before his release from jail. + +Thin, wiry, grizzled, keenly alert, the lawyer's light-blue eyes dwelt +chiefly on the girl's face, save when her father asked a question or a +fuller explanation of some statement. Now and then Judge Kent, watchful +but studiedly debonair and suave, glanced over a paper, and once he +challenged the accuracy of a computation of interest, which on revision +proved correct. They were grouped around an oval table in the library, +an open tin box in the centre, flanked by two ledgers and piles of +papers, and Eglah sat close to Mr. Whitfield's right, while her father +took his place immediately opposite her. + +She leaned a little forward, her arms crossed on the mahogany, and +looked up steadily at the lawyer, but when he offered a paper for +examination she smiled and shook her head. + + +"You must perceive the farcical futility of talking business to such an +inexperienced girl," said Judge Kent, stretching out his hand to take a +bundle of stock certificates his daughter had motioned away. + +"Really you surprise me, because, from all we have heard of her college +training, I was prepared to find Marcia's child an expert." + +"Father knows I can calculate interest, and that I understand +bookkeeping, but he would be ashamed of me if I suspected or hunted for +errors in the accounts of a friend who for so many years has kindly +guarded my financial interests." + +The lawyer patted her hand and smiled. + +"That sounds like your dear mother, and I am glad you have her low, +clear voice, like the melody of a silver harp string; but your father is +quite right in urging careful inspection of matters that have been so +long intrusted solely to me. Now, I believe we have gone over the +important points, except that railroad muddle, which is still undecided. +I brought suit over a year ago, and as the new branch and spurs run +through the middle of one of your best cotton fields on Willow Creek +plantation, I hope the next term of court will give us a satisfactory +settlement. Boynton is a good overseer--not a graduate of a college of +technology nor an agricultural chemist, who knows from looking at the +soil the exact day when the Noachian flood left your lands dry, nor is +he a new-fangled 'manager,' but he is just an overseer of auld lang +syne; a trifle lax, but our old-fashioned plantation rules are dead as +Pharaoh, and he winks at lapses he cannot prevent. However, he keeps the +repair machinery busy on fences and stables, the negroes like him, and +you will find your leases and contracts all signed properly. Of course +you are aware your grandmother left instructions that when you married, +or as soon as you were twenty-one, $5,000 should be paid to Mrs. +Mitchell. I consulted the bishop, and we thought it best to defer this +matter until her return to America, but it should not be delayed longer, +and here is the check, which you can hand to her. With the payment of +this legacy her annual allowance ends." + +Eglah opened the table drawer, drew out an envelope, and laid it before +him. + +"Enclose, address, and seal it. Before you leave the house, please +deliver it to her." + +"Have you any questions to ask? Do not hesitate, if there is anything +else you do not understand, anything you wish to know." + +"Absolutely nothing, except an adequate way of thanking you for all your +patient goodness. If you can explain how I shall accomplish this, you +will increase my huge debt." + +Judge Kent rose and smiled benignly. + +"Eglah, I wonder it has not occurred to you that a proper recognition of +the value of Mr. Whitfield's services ought to involve a willingness and +effort on your part to relieve him entirely of the burden of +responsibility he has borne so long, and which, under my guidance, you +are quite capable of assuming. You are of age, and the trusteeship +should end at once." + +For fully a moment she pondered the suggestion, then laid her hand on +the lawyer's arm. + +"Tell me frankly whether you prefer to surrender the management of our +business affairs? Irrespective of my individual feeling, your wishes +alone must decide the matter, and you can best determine if the tax upon +your time is too onerous." + +Mr. Whitfield drew the tin box before her, and pointed to a large +envelope marked "Last Will and Testament of Patricia Maurice." + +"I imagine you scarcely comprehend some of the conditions that place me +in a peculiarly embarrassing position. Here is the will of your +grandmother; I preserved for you the original draft in her handwriting. +The last page bears upon the question under discussion. Read it now, and +then, whatever your wishes, I individually shall obey them." + +Judge Kent seated himself, lifted the decanter in front of him, and +filled a glass. + +"Meantime, will you join me in a glass of sherry?" + +"No, thank you; my doctor restricts me to claret." + +Very slowly Eglah read the broad sheet, and her countenance changed, +clouded, as she betrayed her annoyance by taking her under lip between +her teeth. + +"We beg your pardon, Mr. Whitfield; we had entirely forgotten that +clause. Unless I marry, your trusteeship continues until I am thirty +years old, should I live so long." + +"Not necessarily mine. I can resign, or death may release me, but some +other person would be required." + +"A most unjust and absurd provision," said the judge, draining his +second glass, and striving to conceal his remembrance of the fact that +Mrs. Maurice had expressly forbidden his connection with the +trusteeship. + +Mr. Whitfield smiled. + +"We lawyers all know testators use only their individual standards of +justice, wisdom, and fitness." + + +Eglah had folded the paper, replaced it in the envelope, and turned to +the lawyer. + +"It appears that if for any reason you should relinquish this +responsibility, your successor is already appointed, and in that event I +should become practically the ward of the Chancery Court, which never +resigns, never dies." + +She looked straight into her father's watching eyes, and continued +slowly, distinctly: + +"I shall not marry. Your stewardship, dear Mr. Whitfield, involves some +additional years of trouble for you, but I am so deeply grateful to you, +I shall certainly try to cause as little annoyance as possible." + +A shutter swung open, the sun flashed in, and she crossed the room to +exclude the glare. + +Returning, she paused behind her father's chair, put her arms around his +neck, and interlaced her fingers. Without an instant's hesitation he +elevated and shook his shoulders so decidedly her hands fell to her +side. + +"Sit down, my dear." + +He built a pyramid with his plump, white, carefully manicured fingers, +and the brilliant eyes he fixed on the man beside him held a challenge. + +"If the sanctity of wills were not debatable, our profession would be +barred from browsing in rich pastures of litigation; and 'undue +influence,' fostering injustice, has bred strife since its innings as +far back as the wrongs of Esau. As sole heir to the Maurice fortune, my +daughter can follow her individual wishes and judgment concerning the +management of what is indisputably her own, since there could be no +family contestants." + +He bowed to Mr. Whitfield. + +"Judge Kent, if Eglah so decided, there would be, on my part, no +contest." + +"You are both mistaken. There would inevitably result a destroying +contest, with my conscience and my self-respect." + +Mr. Whitfield caught his breath as he noted the transformation of the +girl's face into a blanched, stony mask. Carefully replacing every +package of papers in the box, she looked under the table to be sure none +had fluttered to the floor, turned the key in the brass padlock, and +pushed the box toward the lawyer. + +"Mr. Whitfield, I have several times regretted that this inheritance was +left to me; to-day I deplore it. While I gratefully appreciate your wise +and faithful guardianship, I confess I very naturally feel sorry my own +dear father cannot manage my affairs; but I believe that all wills of +sane persons should be held sacred--absolutely inviolable. If the +Maurice estate is mine, it is on specified conditions that I would no +more break than the ten commandments. I shall not marry; therefore the +trusteeship must continue until I am thirty, and of all men in the +world, except my father, I certainly prefer you should retain it. Only +in strict conformity to the provisions by which I inherit will I remain +at Nutwood or spend its income; but my father's opinions and wishes are +very dear to me, and since he objects strenuously to some of the +conditions which naturally wound him, I intend to leave to him the +decision of the rejection or acceptance of the inheritance. Grandmother +declared that if the terms of trusteeship were violated, it was her wish +that I should receive merely the annuity allowed me since her death, and +that her entire estate--including Nutwood and the plantations--should be +given in perpetuity to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in this +State; women whose husbands and sons had been lost in defence of the +South. That you as trustee might not contest a flagrant violation of the +will is merely an expression of your personal reluctance to chide me +publicly; but it is a dubious compliment to any sense of right and +justice. Now, father, shall we relinquish the estate to the widows and +find a home elsewhere? Sometimes I think it would be best for us in many +ways, but you shall decide. Shall we go or stay?" + +Steadily she faced him, cool and firm as a granite gargoyle, but his +nostrils flared, his teeth gleamed under his grey mustache, and, tilting +back his chair, he laughed unpleasantly. + +"My dear, histrionism is not becoming to you--especially without chiton, +diploïdion, and fillets. Either your Alma Mater is weak along lines of +elocutionary training or you do it so little credit you never earned +your diploma. Your pretty little prologue is as preposterous as the +senseless limitations you are embracing so dramatically; but you are now +fully of age--except in Mrs. Maurice's opinion--and since the +inheritance is yours, not mine, you must accept the consequences of your +own tragic avowal and tie up your hands for some years to come. At least +I can congratulate you that all responsibility devolves upon so astute +and experienced a trustee as Mr. Whitfield, who will watch over your +interests till silver threads adorn your locks and you wear spectacles. +Since this matter is settled, be so good as to spare me any--Come in, +Aaron. What is it?" + +The butler had knocked twice, and now beckoned to some one behind him. + +"A boy with a despatch." + +The messenger held up the yellow telegram. + +"Senator Allison Kent." + +Very deliberately he wrote his name in the receipt book, pausing to trim +the pencil tied to it; then, bowing to Mr. Whitfield, "With your +permission," he opened the envelope. Eglah saw his face flush, and he +coughed twice in a peculiar way she knew indicated deep annoyance. + +"Any answer, sir?" asked the boy. + +"Yes, but you must wait for it." + +He took up a pen, drummed with fingers of his left hand on the table, +and rose. + +"As I find it necessary to consult a record before replying to this +telegram, I must beg you, sir, to excuse me. I hope you will have time +to enjoy some of our fine fruit to-day." + +At the door he called to the butler, standing in a side hall. + +"Aaron, order dinner at three o'clock, and the trap at four. I must take +the 'cannon-ball train.'" + +He and the messenger disappeared, and after a moment Eglah withdrew her +eyes from the vacant chair opposite, and turned to her guest. + +"I think you brought some papers you wish me to sign. May I do so now?" + +"When you have examined them, they must be signed in the presence of a +notary public, whom you can find at my office, or, if you prefer, he +shall come here." + +He laid a roll of type-written documents on the table and rose. + +"Shall I leave the box with you for to-day?" + +Impatiently she pushed it aside. + +"Take it away--keep it. I hope I may never set my eyes on it again." + +The brooding shadow on her pale, rigid face made the lawyer's blue eyes +cloudy. + +"Dear child, I have always been the intimate friend of the Maurice +family. I loved your sweet, young mother, and I hope you know I am +willing to help you in every way possible, and that you will not +hesitate to call upon me." + +"Thank you. I am so sure of your sincerity, I shall begin at once to ask +your counsel. There are social complications that make a pleasant +residence here problematical, and consideration of the course most +expedient for me to pursue leaves me in doubt and perplexity. I have +thought of opening the house and grounds two weeks hence, in order to +celebrate my father's birthday by a _fête champêtre_, to which every +family inscribed on grandmother's visiting list should be invited. I +prefer to throw rather than pick up the gauntlet. You thoroughly +comprehend the situation, and I should like your advice." + +"Wait a while. Go slowly; social wounds do not heal by first intention. +Be chary of invitations, and do not hunt for challenges. Hold your own +firmly, but courteously, and in time I think you will win. For your +father's sake, try to conciliate the members of his church; they are an +influential social factor here. Mrs. Maurice's old friends will rally +around 'Marcia's baby,' and you must be patient. Later, when sure of +your ground, you can give all the festivals you like without receiving +an avalanche of 'regrets' that would easily paper your hall. My wife and +the girls will call at once, and I hope you will come to us just as +often as possible; but whenever you wish to see me, drive down to the +office, or write me, as, for some reasons, it is advisable I should be +here very rarely. Dear child, while your features are like your handsome +father's, you resemble your mother in many ways, and I am glad to find +you have the crystal conscience and flawless instinct of honor that all +men reverenced in General Maurice. Good-bye. I have overstayed my time. +Tell Boynton to bring up the two horses I had broken and trained for +your saddle. One of them, the bay, took blue ribbon at the State fair +last fall, and there is no better stock south of Kentucky." + +She walked with him half way down the hall, and they shook hands. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Whitfield; thank you for many things. You will find +Ma-Lila in the dining-room, and whatever you think she ought to know of +to-day's interview, I prefer you should tell her. She is indeed my +second mother." + +After a while she went slowly to her father's room. The door was half +open, but she paused and knocked. + +He stood looking over an old account book, and, without glancing up, +said fretfully: + +"Well, what is it?" + +"Father, I came to pack your valise." + +"It is already packed." + +"May I come in? I want to tell you----" + +"No. You will say nothing that I should wish to hear." + +"Will you allow me to see the telegram which I fear annoys you?" + +"The ashes only are at your service--all that remains of it." + +"Tell me, at least, why you are going, and where?" + +"First to Washington. Elsewhere as circumstances may direct." + +"Please let me go with you----" + +"Most certainly you stay where you are." + +"Father--my father!" She advanced toward him, but recalling the shudder +with which he had shaken her arms from his shoulders, she stepped back +to the threshold. + +"Oh, father, you are cruel! You know you are breaking my heart!" + +The sob, the passion of pain in her voice, smote and hurt him sorely, +but he did not falter an instant. + +"In breaking your will, your heart may be healed." + +He had not looked at her, and all the while the index finger of his +right hand moved up and down columns of figures, searching for some +item, which was finally found and marked. Leaning against the door, she +watched him until Aaron rang the dinner bell. + +"Father, may I drive you to the station?" + +"No." + +"Then I prefer to say good-bye here, as I am going to my own room." + +"As you please. Good-bye, Eglah." + +"I wish I could share this trouble, whatever it may be that calls you +away; but since you elect to condemn me to the torture of suspense, I +have no alternative but to endure it as best I can. Good-bye, my dear +father." + +She held out both hands, but, instead of approaching her, he opened a +glass door leading to the colonnade and disappeared. + +The velvet, paternal touch caressing her tenderly from the days of her +babyhood had, during the last two years, stiffened, hardened into a +steel gauntlet, strangling her. + +The betrayal of his selfish and unscrupulous desire to violate the +provisions of the will had painfully startled and keenly mortified her; +but the barb that sank deepest in her sore, aching heart was the +realization of her father's deliberate plan to humiliate and punish her. +Was his persistent effort to force a marriage with Mr. Herriott based on +the determination to hasten her unlimited control of her grandmother's +estate? Until now, this explanation had not occurred to her, because the +clause binding her to the trusteeship--which rankled ceaselessly in his +mind--had made no impression on her memory. Maturely she deliberated, +weighing the past in the light of the new supposition, but this solution +was rejected as inadequate. In view of Mr. Herriott's indefinite absence +and studied silence, her father's obstinate adherence to his matrimonial +ultimatum remained inexplicable. That day ended her overtures for +reconciliation; and she laid the ax to the root of her olive tree. + +The next morning was Sunday--the first after their return--and she +ordered the carriage. + +"Little mother, I am going with you to eleven o'clock service, and I am +sure you understand it is a tribute of respect to grandmother, that +after many years of absence I attend first the church she helped to +build." + +Curious eyes watched for Miss Kent in another church, where her father +had worshipped, and carried her mother, and when, daintily robed in +white, Eglah walked with the overseer's wife along the Methodist aisle +and sat down in the Maurice pew, a sudden mist blurred the vision of +many in the congregation, and old Dr. Eggleston wiped his spectacles and +whispered to his wife: + +"Poor Marcia's baby! I can never forget her pitiful little wail for an +hour after she was born. Ah, her face is like a lily just lifted, +hunting for its God." + +Henceforth social lines were indicated by an apparently trivial +distinction; the small circle that in former years received Judge Kent, +and the strangers and new residents of Y---- spoke of the mistress of +Nutwood as Miss Kent; but to the mass of old families she was always +"Marcia's child," or "Mrs. Maurice's granddaughter." + +Very few typical Southern homes, representing wealth, liberal education, +and cultured artistic taste when 1861 dawned, have survived the jagged +wounds of war, the still more destructive bayonet-loaded harrow of +"reconstruction," and the merciless mildew of poverty that tarnished +ante-bellum splendor. + +Nutwood escaped comparatively intact, because, while the owner lived, +her revenue--drawn in part from European investments made early in the +war by friends in London--enabled her to maintain and repair the +property until her plantations could be readjusted under the new régime; +and, after her death, the managers of the estate had jealously guarded +it from the inroads of decay. + +Outside conditions, social and domestic, had changed utterly; new canons +prevailed, new manners of strange laxity rolled over former dikes of +purity, refinement, and decorum; but the turbid tide of up-to-date +flippancy broke and ebbed from the tall iron gates of the old house on +the hill. Here decadence was excluded, and one coming into the +long-closed mansion inhaled a vague haunting aroma, as if old furniture, +glass, china, books, paintings, and silver had been sprinkled with +powdered sandalwood, lavender, and rose leaves that blended with the +subtle pervading atmosphere of hereditary racial pride. + +It resembled other homes in Y---- as little as some gallery of +brilliant, glaring impressionist pictures suggests a cabinet of +exquisite miniatures, rich mosaics, and carved ivory, where the witching +glamour of mellowing centuries hovers. + +Eglah found only two scars of time. The conservatory was empty and +closed, and in the rear of the house several rows of low brick walls +showed where formerly stood what Mrs. Maurice called her "grapery," a +sunny spot enclosed with glass, alluring to her grandchild, who had +climbed a step-ladder to reach shouldered clusters, as large as her +head, of translucent, golden _Chasselas_. + +No strange new element invaded dwelling or grounds; the same brown hand +that gave her "hot-water tea" when she sat in her high chair now placed +her chocolate before her, and she missed only old Hector, who had +followed his master to happier hunting grounds, and King Herod, gone, +doubtless, to share the punishment of his namesake. The thoroughbred +horses and silver-grey Jerseys were fine as she remembered them, and +though they now seemed smaller, the white game fowls were as beautiful +as of yore, when she toddled after her grandmother to feed them in the +enclosure to which they were restricted. + +Years had made no alteration, save that a fond, trusting child came back +a sadly anxious woman, fronting the world with calm defiance, but +shivering silently under a numbing shadow of brooding dread that time +might deepen, but could not dispel. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +After prolonged residence in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Washington, +New York, and continental Europe, it was inevitable that returning +absentees should find the restricted environment of Y---- stiflingly +provincial; and, despite the rapid growth of the town, consequent upon +construction of new railways and erection of furnaces and cotton mills, +its limitations were apparent. There was no lack of individual brains or +culture, but Eglah missed keenly the effectively massed mental activity +that shrewdly focussed all lights on national questions, political +policies, and diplomatic legerdemain in Washington; and especially the +stimulating intellectual ozone, the sharpening friction of perpetual +debate in congressional circles. An exalted official career at the +Capitol lured her like a baleful witch, and transition from brilliant +public life to comparatively secluded domesticity in a Southern country +home strained her patience. + +Gentlemen who composed the most fashionable club in Y---- gave an +elaborate german to welcome the chatelaine of Nutwood. The small Kent +coterie invited the judge and his daughter to several dinners, that were +promptly repaid, while, now and then, Eglah was requested to appear at +ladies' luncheons, and to assist at five o'clock teas; but more and more +she realized and resented keenly that among the proud old families she +was tolerated simply because of the powerful hereditary Maurice +prestige. Noting the social discrimination against her father, and in +some quarters the far from fervent, though courteous acceptance of +herself, her few invitations to Nutwood dinners were confined to those +who had welcomed him to their board and fireside. By degrees an element +of haughtiness, at variance with her youthful grace and beauty, invaded +her manner, and her frigid politeness hastened the diminution of the +circle revolving about her, and reduced social hospitalities to merely +formal visiting. Complete abandonment of the contemplated _fête +champêtre_ resulted from the arrival of the mail one morning, three +weeks after Judge Kent's return from Washington--a journey to which no +one ever alluded. + +Leaning back in her low wicker rocking-chair, in a shaded angle of the +colonnade, Eglah listlessly watched Eliza's white Angora cat, stretched +on the floor and following with avid green eyes the coquettish +manoeuvres of two brilliant red birds that flashed from a tangle of +Belgian honeysuckle vines--brocaded with pale-pink satin clusters--to +the quivering covert of a neighboring acacia, swinging its long, flowery +fringes of vivid yellow. + +Of the town, nearly two miles distant, church spires and factory +chimneys were visible; but beyond the roaring river and far away, rose +against blue sky a battlement of hills, tapestried with that tender, +purple mist woven only in the loom of distance. With less than usual +interest, Eglah began to examine the papers and letters lying in her +lap. One heavy envelope contained samples of sprigged muslin for +curtains; in another, that was so light it seemed empty, she found a +newspaper clipping carefully folded in a blank sheet of thin notepaper. + + "Special Correspondence. + + "Washington: + + "From a source always well informed and usually accurate, it + has been whispered that the sudden change of policy in a + certain senator--whose resignation surprised his congressional + colleagues--finds explanation in the menaced divulgement of + some damaging facts connecting the ex-senator's votes with + crooked syndicate dealings in the West. How this record was + unearthed is not yet known, but it is rumored a blondined Circe + of the lobby Ææa used her knowledge of it quite successfully in + furtherance of the Bison Head bill that hung so long in + committee room, and also to secure the senator's resignation in + favor of a rival candidate for whom she shows deep sympathy. + Her threat to place her information at the service of the + approaching Legislature of the incumbent's native State + hastened his resignation some months prior to the expiration of + his term, and he promptly 'left his country for his country's + good,' to recuperate in foreign lands. Truly, 'God's fruit of + justice ripens slow,'--but fate takes care to shake the tree. + Now and then we have proof in public life that '_Dieu paie, + mais il ne paie pas tous les Samedis._'" + +The name of the paper did not appear in the clipping and date and +signature had been erased. The envelope bore postmark of a Colorado +town, and the address was type-written. It was not from the State +represented in the Senate by the Hon. Rufus Higginbottom, but Eglah's +intuitions assured her the extract had been sent by the hand of Miss +Ethelberta. Doubtless it had appeared while they were in Europe, but +whether the press circulated it freely she was now barred from +investigating. + +A moan she could not repress escaped her usually well guarded lips, and +she shivered as if a freezing wind swung her to and fro. + +A stealthy hand creeping around the dial had reached that predestined +hour she so vaguely dreaded, and its strokes sounded the knell of her +life's dearest hope. + +Was it merely a party libel--one of the scandalous personalities used in +retaliation for some stinging blow her father had dealt Democracy--a +foul partisan aspersion such as political opponents hurl with shameful +recklessness? + +Two years ago she would have hurried to her father for denial, and +published proofs that his hands were clean; but to-day, for some moments +after the shock, doubt seemed the only land of promise where she could +dwell with any semblance of peace. Looking back over all that made their +last two months in Washington so painful to her, recalling the +inexplicable nervousness that was invariably exhibited when American +letters and papers reached them at Aix les Bains, she connected +incidents that formerly had no visible relation, and filial faith began +to rock and drift from its life-long moorings. Yet with obstinate +tenacity she swung back to the only comforting supposition--that +political hatred and the unscrupulous ambition of a rival candidate had +combined to fabricate this atrocious calumny. Were it possible for Judge +Kent to vindicate himself, why had he failed to do so promptly in print? +Again and again she read the clipping, carefully committing to memory +the entire article, and when quite sure it was literally indelible, she +tore the paper into innumerable fragments and tossed them to the wind +singing through the venerable tree tops. + +A different nature might, perhaps, have utilized the printed statement +as a bridge over the chasm gaping between her father and herself, but +intense pride and yearning love prompted her to shield him from the +great shame of knowing she had read the blistering libel. That the +burned telegram related to this publication, was an explanation of his +reluctance to acquaint her with the contents, that appealed now to her +tenderness, and her eyes softened in a passionate longing to throw +herself into his arms, as in happier days. + +Doubtless the press in Y---- had copied this assault upon his political +integrity, his many enemies were gloating over it, and henceforth she +would make no attempt to level the bristling hedge of social distrust. +As one who snatches from the grave some beloved dead, and battles in +frantic hope of resuscitation, she grappled closer, to warm at her heart +the wan, fading remains of loyal filial confidence. It was an hour of +exceeding bitterness, of intolerable humiliation, but undaunted by the +severity of a blow smiting her where most vulnerable, she girded herself +to struggle in defence, faintly cheered by a vague yet obstinate hope +that in coming years her Biography might avail to rehabilitate the +character so unjustly assailed. + +Before her lay isolation, hidden heartache, the silent surrender of her +dearest ambition, and the acceptance of life robbed of all rosy plans. + +Remembering how firmly Mrs. Maurice's slim hands had held the reins of +government, Eglah followed precedent in all details of domestic +management that did not conflict with her father's wishes. While he had +amused himself with viticulture and the erection of new glass houses, +she was interested in extending and refitting the conservatory, but Mrs. +Mitchell's frequent and increasing sojourns at her small farm, many +miles distant, disquieted her foster-child, who finally rebelled. + +"No, Ma-Lila, it is out of the question. I can not let you go and spend +a week. What do you suppose would become of me? You may as well stop +packing your trunk." + +"O, dearie, you are perfectly well, and your father is always here. It +is March and I must go." + +"Yes, I am fortunate in having father, but I want to keep you where I +can touch you whenever I wish. Ever since I could crawl you have slain +my bugaboos, and as I have not outgrown the cowardice of covering my +face with the sheet, I find the sight of that prim black head of yours +is necessary to my peace of mind. I am jealous of that little den down +by the old mill, and if you will sell out and give it up I should be +glad to pay double its value. Then you could buy bonds and cut your +coupons, and keep your hands white and soft as they ought to be, instead +of delving with butter, eggs, honey, and pickles." + +"Sell Dairy-Dingle! I would almost as soon sell my husband's grave. +Dairy-Dingle, where I had my two years of heaven on earth? When I go +there I want to kiss the doorstep where my Robert and I used to sit when +his day's work was ended, and in the starlight we listened to the +mocking-bird singing in the locust thicket all overrun with red and +yellow woodbine. Just now I am obliged to be there to see about the +lambs, and to be sure of the settings of eggs for the Plymouth Rocks, +and Black Spanish." + +"How did the lambs contrive to live all those years when you were away, +keeping me in order?" + +"Poorly enough, I have not a doubt, judging from the looks of the flock. +Ever since I received that letter from Robert's youngest sister, Judith, +asking me to help her educate as a civil engineer the boy she named for +her brother, I have felt the necessity of increasing the income from my +place in order to furnish the required funds. My Robert's namesake shall +have the college training he wants. Drought cut off my corn last year, +and later rain floods stained my cotton." + +"Then let Mr. Boynton manage your place, as he does ours, and you stay +here, while I hand you a check for what the boy Robert le Diable may +need." + +"Thank you, precious baby, but that would be outside charity, and he and +Judith are proud. Besides, in working and denying myself there is such a +sweetness, such a comfort in helping, as if it were serving my dear dead +to aid those he loved. Mere money is not worth half as much as the +affection that goes with it, and the labor that earned it; but, my +darling, you can't quite feel as I do." + +"No, I do not understand. Sometimes I wonder if I am not like a doll +stinted in her quota of sawdust; and I am sure my heart is too small, or +too cold, or too wicked, to hold more than two persons. I love only +father and you, and where you are concerned I shall never be of age. +Women who outgrow the need of their mothers repel me, like museum +'freaks.' You must not go away so often, because I miss you, and this is +an opportune time to tell you that at the back of my head lurks an ugly +mental scare-crow that if at some crisis of my life you happened to be +absent, I might go daft and scuttle the ship. Remember, you promised +grandmother you would not leave me." + +Prescient shadows darkened her appealing eyes, as she bent to press her +cool cheek against the rosy one of her companion, and drew her out upon +the wide, latticed piazza at the rear of the house. + +"She asked that I should stay with you until you married, or were +twenty-one years old; but, my baby, I need you far more than you need +me. You are my heart, and you know it; and I shall be away from you as +little as possible; nevertheless I must not neglect my own patches and +pastures. By the by, that Jersey heifer you gave me ought to be +registered. What would be a pretty name, easy to call? One that matches +her in beauty will be hard to find." + +"Her profile entitles her to a classical name, but the appropriateness +of its significance must be observed. As 'Hecuba' she would feel in duty +bound to add nineteen to your herd." + +"No, indeed. That is a mouthful of stuttering ugliness." + +"'Persephone' rolls softly, like the long swell of a foamless wave +settling to rest--but then you could expect no pearly horned progeny, +and she might spend her days lowing for her mother. The prettiest short +names are already in the herd books. 'Antiope?' She would not take good +care of her calves. You don't like mythology because it is pagan, and +when I pleaded with you that your cat should be 'Hebe' you turned up +your little nose and labelled her 'Delilah.' Such a consistent saint! +You prefer Old Testament wickedness to heathen purity. Suppose you +compromise on 'Doucette,' and then you can feel sure she will neither +kick nor gore." + +"If that is the best you can suggest, I shall just suit myself and call +her Patricia of Nutwood." + +"_Madrecita_, you can not. It is pre-empted. The mother of our herd was +imported from St. Helier by my grandfather, when she was only eight +months old, and he registered her in his own herd book, 'Patricia of +Nutwood.' Mr. Boynton showed me an old leather-bound copy last winter, +when I signed several transfers." + +"Then the next best for my brown satin beauty is 'Noela,' in honor of +Mr. Herriott." + +"I am racked by jealousy that you should overlook the liquid brevity of +'Eglahtina' or 'Eglahkentana.' Let us sit here on the steps, where we +can enjoy our leafy canopy. Could anything be more beautiful?" + +She threw back her head and looked up. In front of the steps two lines +of very old elm trees marked the limits of a walk leading through the +"back yard" to the vegetable garden. On each row, planted opposite, +white wistaria had been trained so carefully that as the lower lateral +elm branches were cut away to keep the arch intact, the vines climbed +higher until now, the top boughs of the trees having met, all along the +walls and across the pale-green dome of elm leaves swung long, drooping +spikes of snowy bloom, amid the olive-tinted wistaria foliage. + +"I never saw anything so lovely in Italy," said Eliza, stroking Delilah, +and straightening the blue bow on the cat's neck. + +"We came too late last spring for the bloom, and we have not seen this +living ceiling for so many years. When I was at college I used to shut +my eyes and recall it just as we left it. My little 'sundown supper' +table on the square of matting yonder, you sitting on the bottom step +crocheting mats, grandmother, so tall and thin, walking up and down the +side flower garden over there, gathering rose leaves for the big blue +china rose jar in the drawing-room, old Hector following her like a lean +shadow, and King Herod spreading his tail till I threw him bread crumbs. +How often I longed for one of my 'sundown' suppers--my bowl of hominy +and cream, my cup of milk, the tea cakes and ginger pone, and blackberry +jam. The smell of cloves and cinnamon, and the taste thereof!" + +Watching her face, relaxed in dreamy retrospection, Mrs. Mitchell asked: + +"Where is Mr. Herriott?" + +Without removing her eyes from the long wistaria plumes waving overhead, +she answered in a colder tone: + +"When father heard last, he was in Norway, but since then I read an +account of a dinner given to the party of which he was a member, by a +geographical society in London." + +"You have received no letter?" + +"None recently, and I do not expect any." + +"Because you do not deserve any. I am so disappointed in him." + +"In what respect? I imagined that in your eyes, as in father's, he was +simply perfect." + +"He is capable of something far better than lounging through life with +his hands in his pockets, and loafing around the world. If he could only +have the good luck to lose his money, he might accomplish what God makes +such men for." + +"He is not an idle tramp. He is kept busy dancing attendance on his +exacting bride." + +"Bride!" exclaimed Mrs. Mitchell, with such startling shrillness that +Delilah sprang out of her lap and surveyed her with astonishment. + +"Not a bride of pink flesh, on whom he can bestow collars of diamonds, +but an old dame of hoary locks, whose harsh jargon he considers musical, +and who, having taken his purse and tied him to her apron strings, drags +him from the bowels of the earth to the mountains of the moon, amusing +him with photographs of microbes and eclipses, and with prehistoric +skeletons that her relentless horny claws have stolen from their lawful +graves. Long ago he was wedded to 'Science,' and of course he keeps his +bridal vows." + +"I am sure you do not fully understand him, and I wonder he did not +marry Miss Stanley; she is so lovely, and he certainly admired her." + +"She is indeed a luscious beauty, and attracted him, but if he really +had any serious intentions, I think she lost him that night when the +alarm of fire emptied the theatre. Ours was a proscenium box in the +second tier. Eleanor Stanley had dined with Captain Sefton's sister, he +was her escort, and I went with Mr. Herriott. Of course you know all +about the horrible tragedy, but I never told any one what preceded it. +Toward the end, and while the curtain was down, Captain Sefton so far +forgot himself as to repeat an unpardonably _risque_ story of a smart +set leader, at which Eleanor laughed heartily. I stared at my bouquet of +orchids, and lifted them to shield my face where I felt the blood. +Without moving an eyelash Mr. Noel sat like a sphinx, looking steadily +at Eleanor, then took my opera glass and watched a party of pretty girls +in the dress circle. His face was as absolutely impassive as one of the +masks frescoed on the ceiling. In the middle of the next and closing +act, a scream from the rear of the stage startled us, and almost +simultaneously two of the ballet girls rushed from behind the wings, +with fire blazing in their short, gauzy skirts. One ran to the corner of +the stage just under our box, and the actors fled from her. Mr. Herriott +put his hand heavily on my shoulder. + +"Do not move an inch till I come." + +He snatched his overcoat and my velvet opera cloak, stepped on the +railing of the box, measured the distance with his eye and leaped down. +He struck on his feet, and staggered, but the next instant he reached +the girl, who ran shrieking up and down, caught her, threw my cloak over +her head, pressed her to the floor, covered her with his overcoat, and +rolled her over and over as if she were a ball. Of course she was +horribly burned, but she lived. The other poor creature kept her hands +before her face as a screen from the flames, missed her footing, +stumbled over the footlights and fell among the orchestra chairs. The +musicians smothered the flames, but she died after two hours of torture. +Mr. Herriott's gloves saved his hands, but one wrist was badly +blistered, and his mustache singed. When we were going home I told him +how enthusiastically Eleanor admired and praised his bravery, and that +she declared she would strive to win his affection were he not so +'goody-goody'; she feared he would expect her to be equally pious. A +queer expression I could not understand crossed his face, and when he +spoke his voice was stern: + +"'I am not pious; more is the pity! At least I am too honest to accept +praise I do not deserve. Please be so kind as not to refer again to this +evening, several surprising incidents of which I shall be glad to +forget.' A few days later he sent to replace my scorched velvet, that +gorgeous ivory satin opera cloak brocaded with lilies in silver, which +father and you wished me to accept, and I based my refusal on his +request, as the mere sight of it would inevitably remind him of a night +neither of us wished to recall. Look yonder." + +"Yes; there must be a picket off that white game yard fence, for I am +positive I fastened the gate this morning. Run on ahead and open the +gate wide, for when they are driven back they never can find the crack +where they came out. That white rooster is all ruffled up for a fight +with the red one. Scare the hens back and stand on one side." + +When the fugitives had been shut in, the two women stood admiring the +flock. + +"Dearie, do you know how old these chickens are? Forty years before +railroads were built in this state, your grandfather brought them in a +champagne basket on the top of a stage-coach from somewhere in Maryland, +and the person who gave them to him had imported them from England forty +years before. Think of it!" + +"I do, with astonishment difficult to express. More than eighty years +old, and no sign of decrepitude in crowing, fighting and laying eggs! +Little mother, what are _tarrididdles_?" + +Laughing, she put her hands on Eliza's shoulder and shook her gently. +The little woman pinched her ear. + +"Don't talk slang to me. You know I did not mean these very identical +fowls are those that came in the champagne basket, but the original +trio, two hens and a cock, were kept in a separate yard, and so the +stock has remained pure game for more than forty years. They are such +beauties, and to the last day of her life your grandmother was so proud +and fond of them. One morning when we were feeding them she told me how +General Maurice had laughed over the cunning of one of the negroes whose +duty it was to attend to the fowl yards. The general had promised a +setting of eggs to a friend in a neighboring county, and ordered the man +to bring him one dozen perfectly fresh. The negro protested against a +violation of the rule that no one else should own the white games, so +that if stolen they could be traced. His master insisted, and when the +eggs were handed to him he packed them very carefully in cotton, to +prevent jostling, and sent them to his friend. Some time afterward, a +letter reached your grandfather, informing him none of the eggs had +hatched, and he called the man and read the letter to him. + +"'Narry aigg hatched? Well, I made sure they couldn't, for I am +'sponsible for keeping dem chickens safe at home and I 'tends to my +bizness. You see, marster, I knowed you was in a mighty tight fix, +'cause natchelly you hated to say no when Dr. Glenn axed for 'em, and +most natchelly you didn't want our yaller-breasted, brass-winged white +games crowing in other folks' yards, and so I just pintedly shuck 'em +and shuck 'em like thunder, till they was foamy enough for Celie's omlet +skillet.'" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +If owners of old manorial houses kept frank and faithful log-books, +strange domestic records might now and then be read, rivalling in tragic +incidents those of passing ships. Conspicuously infelicitous was the +stream of events beating against Calvary House and reducing an ancient, +broad estate and handsome three-storied brick residence to a few +impoverished acres, and a rambling structure partly destroyed by fire, +and wholly abandoned to vacancy and isolation in consequence of grewsome +gossip. During eighty years the proprietorship had been vested in only +two families, totally unrelated; in the first, the reckless extravagance +and unbridled careers of four beautiful women depleted the domestic +coffer, necessitated the sacrifice and sale of the property, and drove a +weakly indulgent father to suicide. In the second the vices of sons +plunged the widowed mother into melancholia and an insane asylum. + +From time to time portions of land were sold to enable the boys to +continue their wild carousals. Fratricidal strife ensued, and one +brother spent the dismal residue of his days in the penitentiary, +expiating the murder of the other. The vicious round of horse-racing, +cock-fighting, fox-hunting, gambling and drinking once madly run had +ended in the final wreck, and what remained of the estate fell into the +hands of Mr. Herriott's father, whose agent held the mortgage. +Sufficiently grim was the foundation of facts; yet still more appalling +the superstructure of neighborhood traditions, and the ghoulish tales of +superstitious servants. Venerable trees, whose sheltering arms might +have veiled the ruin, had been over-grown by mistletoe, until very few +survived to stand guard, and when a hunter crept with his pointer +through broom-sedge waist high all over the lawn, his cigar spark set +the whole aflame, and only two fine old oaks close to the house were +left as sentinels. Later, a lightning bolt destroyed one; two years +after, an equinoctial gale blew the other half across the mossy roof. +Stark, weather beaten, its broken windows like eyeless sockets in a +skull, the old house, dumb in desolation, stood in dire need of the +mercies of bell, candle, censer, and aspergill to exorcise its garrison +of unholy spectres. Five years after the place had been given by Noel +Herriott to the "Brothers of the Order of Calvary," lime, paint, +wallpaper, patient toil and a wise appreciation of the adaptability of +angles, corridors, dormer windows and verandas, in architectural +alterations, had transformed it into a quaintly irregular but +picturesque structure. Outside mouldy walls were curtained with +ampelopsis lace, while from a circular belfry between the original +square rock chimneys, a deep-toned bell swung below a tall gilt cross, +and uttered its holy message of peace to a troubled and tragic past. The +basement had been converted into a refectory, kitchen and store room, +the large apartments were partitioned into individual cells, and an +infirmary; and the long drawing-room became a chapel, with a small +oratory adjoining. Here a pipe organ sounded through the arch leading +into the chapel, and over this opening a purple curtain fell when +service ended. Beyond and in line with the oratory, a one-story wing +with a wide cloistered piazza looked toward the rear of the house, and +held a sacristy; then three small chambers fronting the vine-draped +cloister behind whose arches paced, book in hand, fathers, brothers and +lay brothers. + +In the early stages of the era of renovation the place had resembled an +industrial farm rather than a religious retreat; but gradually, as +orchard and vineyard were replanted, gardens outlined and cultivated, a +solemn, peaceful silence enveloped Calvary House, broken by no ruder +sounds than Angelus, chants from the chapel, low-swelling organ tones, +and that peculiarly sweet, thrilling threnody of hedge sparrows moaning +in a ragged thicket of very old lilacs. Along the front of the sloping +lawn a fence divided it from the turnpike leading into the city, and +over the wide wooden gate sprang an arch bearing in black letters, +Calvary House, and surmounted by a cross. From the gate latch swung the +porter's bell. + +Since the day when, standing at an open grave close to Leighton's mound +in Evergreen, Father Temple had read the committal service as his wife's +coffin was lowered, and pronounced the farewell benediction, the springs +of his busy life seemed to have broken. Max Harlberg and the few who had +followed the hearse, stole away, leaving the priest on his knees. Later, +as stars came out to guard the hosts of sleepers, a watchman found him +prone on the damp mound, and in a heavy stupor. An ambulance carried him +to the nearest hospital, where he rallied slowly from an attack of +pneumonia that left his lungs too weak to permit the possibility of +preaching, and the doctors warned him a year's rest was imperative. +Engagements for "missions" and "retreats" were cancelled, and his +superior summoned him home, but after a few days advised him to go South +and visit his relatives in Y---- until the winds of March had blown out +their fury. On his return, still thin and wan, he resumed his duties, +and from Prime to Compline missed no service. After Vespers, the tolling +of the _De Profundis_ bell called all to their knees in silent prayer +for the dead, and his bowed head was always the last lifted. How much +penance was self-imposed none knew, but a change had come into the +habitually sad face; keen mental strife, devouring anxiety, were at an +end, and the large dark eyes told of an inward patience that was not yet +peace, of an acceptance of the verdict that his life spelled hopeless +failure. So marked was the alteration in figure and features, that one +sunny day at Calvary House, as Mr. Herriott grasped his hand, he was +painfully startled. + +"Vernon! You are little more than a holy shadow! If starving is the +regimen prescribed here, I do not feel tempted to tarry even for a day." + +"Noel--God bless you, dear old fellow! At last you have remembered us, +and how well you look! The bare sight of your superb strength is tonic. +Come into the chapel. Terce bell is sounding. After a little the +Brotherhood will greet you." + +Under the guidance of Father Superior Elverton, a gaunt man of unusual +height, with the ascetic jaw of a Trappist, and dreamy eyes mystical as +Hugo of St. Victor, Mr. Herriott was shown fields, garden and buildings, +and after dinner in the refectory, where, in honor of his presence, +conversation was allowed, he asked the privilege of being left alone +with Father Temple. It was a warm day, and drawing chairs to a shaded +recess of the cloister, Mr. Herriott said: + +"I am so glad the weather favored me to-day for this visit. It will rain +soon." + +"No; look at that deep blue, clear sky. I see no prophecy of rain, but +you have tried so many climates, doubtless you are weather wise." + +"If a man who has slept often in tents, open boats and on the bare +ground learns nothing of nature's atmospheric signal code, he is far +below savages in intelligence, and more ignorant than brutes. You of the +shut-in clan are not skilled meteorologists, but time is too precious to +be wasted in idle weather chat. Vernon, there is much I should like to +know, yet I shrink from questioning you. Many letters have been lost, +and my home news came in snatches, sometimes with no connection, no +coherence. I have thought of you constantly, and now what you are +willing to tell me of all that has happened since we parted in New York +that Sunday night, I shall be glad to hear." + +Leaning his elbow on the brick base of an arch and bowing his head in +his palm, Father Temple narrated the circumstances that attended the +death of his wife and son, withholding nothing. His muffled voice was +steady and passionless, as if reading from the breviary, and when the +face lifted it showed only the quiet hopelessness in eyes of one going +back over a battle-field where all that was cherished went down. + +"Thank you, Temple. It might have been worse, and at least you must be +comforted in knowing that at the last she relented and did you justice." + +"The last has become first. All that preceded it I have cast away, and +that final hour of forgiveness, that touch on my head--that feeble +clinging of her fingers--is what remains of my past life--what sustains +me for the future." + +"Try to avoid morbid retrospection. Your expiation has been so complete +you have no grounds for self-reproach; you are still a young man, and +your life work is ahead of you." + +The priest threw out one hand, and his trained tone broke suddenly. + +"Expiation will never end while I have breath to pray--not until the +same grave that holds my victims covers me. You can not understand, +because you know no more about love than the rubric! If you had ever +felt your wife's lips on yours, or the clasp of your child's arms, and +heard his glad, tender cry of 'father!'--you would realize that no +expiation could be sufficient, if your hand had smitten them to ruin." + +"Perhaps I do understand the torture more thoroughly than you imagine, +and you must allow me to say that were I as sadly circumstanced as +yourself, I should set my back to the past, and resolutely hunt for +sunshine in coming years. Deliberate, intentional villainy was never +your sin, and for a foolish boy's rash haste you did everything possible +to atone. I shall be sorry to see you so unmanly as to sink down in the +mildew of an abject melancholy. Your surroundings invite morbid +memories, and just here, Vernon, let me say I do not like your +refectory. It is dark, damp, mouldy, and you must make a change. +I should enjoy breakfasting in the catacombs quite as much. Ask your +superior to estimate the cost of building a refectory on this floor, say +to the left yonder, and perhaps the matter may be arranged +satisfactorily. Another bell! What office comes next?" + +"That is to notify us 'free time' is over for the day. We have an hour +in which to employ ourselves without direction. Below the vegetable +garden Brother Theodore comes from his pet strawberry bed, and over +yonder, what looks like a huge black bird with flapping white wings is +Brother Aristide dusting the leaves of his grapevines with some +insecticide powder. He came from Burgundy, and believes that ledge +behind the line of cherry trees lying south-southeast will give him +Chambertin equal to the best in Côte d'Or. You see even here each +trundles his recreation hoop once a day." + +An east wind had spun fine silver cloud lines curving across the blue, +clustering, widening into two vast, fleecy pinions that were floating +slowly to the gates of the west. Despite sunshine, chilliness edged the +air, and Father Temple coughed hoarsely. + +"Your reverence should not stay here next winter. It is too humid. As +the crow flies and the wind sweeps, the Atlantic can not be more than +twenty miles away, and when northeast gales howl from Barnegat to +Hatteras, this is no sanatorium for you. If you have no special +preference for tuberculosis, and have not vowed slow suicide on that +altar, I should be glad if you would select some other mode of exit when +you finally say good-bye. Consumption robbed me of my father--I hope I +shall not lose my friend also thereby." + +The priest smiled, and laid his thin hand on his companion's knee. + +"In many characteristics we differ so widely, I have often wondered that +you care at all for me." + +"You were so honest and fearless and manly when we met at college. You +showed such genuine pluck in that hazing scandal, so much quiet, heroic +magnanimity when the official investigation followed. Vernon, for God's +sake, wake up! You have talent; don't doze like a toad under a stone +wall. Come out of shadows that paralyze you, and try to make your mark +in the world of letters. I do not wish to change my----" + +He paused and frowned. A flush tinged Father Temple's sallow cheek. + +"You do not wish to consider me unmanly now?" + +"That is exactly it, and if you force me to do so I swear I never will +forgive you. Don't brood and mope. Go back to Plato and Horace--they are +the best brooms for cloistral cobwebs--and promise me you will not stay +here next winter." + +"My cousin Allison Kent and Eglah insist I shall spend December and +January with them, in Y----, and since I am forbidden to preach at +present, I may accept the invitation. I was there on a brief visit +several months ago." + +"Tell me about them. It has been long since I heard directly." + +"The judge has grown extremely stout, and says he enjoys the lazy +leisure of Southern life among the opulent, but he seemed restless and +abstracted, and was often absent on fishing excursions. Eglah perplexes +me. She is graver, more reticent, and far more beautiful, but reminds me +of a person walking in troubled sleep, determined, yet vaguely +apprehensive. At times it occurred to me that her relations with her +father were not as tenderly cordial as I remembered in the Washington +life; he never caressed her, and she seemed in a certain degree aloof, +but her careful deference in manner and speech was exquisite. She told +me his retirement from a senatorial position was the supreme +disappointment of her life, and her chief solace now is the preparation +of a volume of his speeches, prefaced by a biographical sketch she +intends to write. I think her father is very unpopular with the majority +of old families in Y----, who will never forgive his course while +Federal judge, and as they represent the best social element, conditions +beyond her control have embarrassed Eglah, but she gives no hint and +fronts the situation with admirable cool calmness." + +Leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head, Mr. +Herriott seemed to watch the narrowing circles of a hawk beneath which +three frantic pigeons dashed aimlessly round and round, and in the final +swift swoop one white bird disappeared in a vanishing brown shadow. + +"You have lost a pigeon." + +"We have none. The lay brothers complain of their depredations in the +garden, and sometimes trap those that belong in the city, but they are +always carried off and set free." + +"Vernon, why does not your cousin Eglah marry Roger Hull? He is as +nearly worthy of her as any man she will ever meet; he is eminently good +looking, bright, a spirited debater, and as it is said he carries the +votes of his district in his vest pocket, he has an assured political +position where she could gratify her ambition. If he lives he will sit +in the Senate. He was very devoted in his attentions. Is he still +loyal?" + +"No. I hear he is reported engaged to a pretty girl in Washington, whose +father is a naval officer. Certainly Eglah does not lack beaux. She has +very fine horses, rides daily, and one of her most frequent escorts was +a Dr. Burbridge, very handsome and a specialist in neurology. I don't +know Hull, but he has been twice to Nutwood since Eglah came back from +Europe, and Cousin Allison said that she froze him so completely on his +last visit that he gave up the chase, and consoled himself with a more +responsive charmer. If political life allures her, Hull certainly +offered an attractive opportunity, but I am sure her father did not +favor that suit, and as her ambition was more for his preferment than +from any personal fondness for a congressional career, she will soon +cease to regret, and find contentment in her lovely surroundings." + +"I am afraid not. Pardon the simile--but take a thoroughbred filly +raised and trained on the race track, and when she is champing her bit, +trembling for the signal to start, lead her aside, shut her in a +pasture, fasten her to a plough trace, or harness her with a mule on the +other side of a wagon-tongue, and do you wonder the load comes to grief, +or the furrows are crooked when she sees the racers flash by, and hears +the rush of hoofs, the roar of cheering thousands? Eglah knows what she +wants, and disdains compromise. The present environment suits her as +little as a stagnant millpond would a yacht cup challenger." + +"I wish she could marry happily, but the day I came away we stood at the +front steps and I told her I hoped I might have the privilege of +performing the ceremony, if during my life she consented to make some +man happy. The judge laughed and tapped me on the shoulder. 'I will see +you get that wedding fee. When you are needed I shall telegraph you.' +She stepped a little closer to him, put her hands behind her, and looked +at him with strange intentness; then turning to me she said, with +singular emphasis: 'I shall never marry. As I have been baptized, only +one more ceremony can be performed for me, and if Ma-Lila does not +insist upon a Methodist minister, I promise that you shall pronounce +'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'--when mother earth takes me back to her +heart.' + +"Just then Mrs. Mitchell dropped her basket, and the clatter of keys and +scissors broke the strain, which I could not understand. But Eglah's +eyes recalled something I have not thought of for years. Do you +recollect a picture of the Norns we saw that summer we walked through +Wales?" + +"Three figures, one veiled? We could not find out who painted it, but I +never shall forget the wonderful eyes of Urd." + +"They looked at me again that day in Nutwood. The expression was as +inscrutable as the smile of Mona Lisa--not defiance, nor yet +renunciation, neither scorn nor bitterness, but deathless pride and a +pain so hopeless no sound could voice it." + +There was a brief silence, broken by the muffled chanting in the chapel, +and Mr. Herriott's hands were gripped so tight behind his head the nails +were purple, but his face showed no emotion, and when he spoke his tone +betrayed only quiet sympathy. + +"For many years I have associated her with a passage in Jeremiah: '_As a +speckled bird, the birds round about are against her.'_' Poor little +speckled bird, beating out her life. Battling alone against a host of +hawks is dreary work." + +"I suppose you are going to Y----?" + +"No, I must get back home. I have been away too long. My poor faithful +Susan is dead." + +"I hope you are tired of globe-trotting, and ready to anchor yourself at +your own fireside." + +"As yet I have made no definite plans; have been considering two recent +offers. One is the presidency of a great railroad system--a position I +might possibly fit myself to occupy if I went into the machine shops and +roundhouses and worked hard for the next five years. It happens that the +shares and bonds of one short but very important line which my father +practically owned when the middle West was comparatively undeveloped, +have appreciated enormously, and now that road is the link absolutely +necessary to the contemplated consolidation of a new route that will +touch the Pacific. I cabled my refusal to sell out, and the next bait +was the presidency. Mr. Stadmeyer and I have controlling interests and +our views accord. Two days ago we had a meeting, at which I declined +office, and we leased our road for thirty years. That relieved me from +one horn of the dilemma; the other still threatens. A Polar expedition +will be ready next year, and I have been asked to take a place aboard +ship." + +"Noel, I beg of you, dismiss that thought. Of all scientific follies, +that Pole-hunting mania is the wildest, the most indefensible. To add +your bleaching bones to the cairns heaped on the eternal ice altar of +Polar night is no ambition worthy of you. Don't think me childish, but +the sight of you is such a comfort I could not bear to have you risk +your life searching for mares' nests so far away." + +Mr. Herriott laughed--a genial, hearty, deep-chested sound rarely heard +in cloisters. + +"Get rid of that cough, and I will take you along as chaplain to +christen the Pole--presumably it is pagan at present. I wish you would +go down to New Mexico or Arizona and make a sensible effort to build up +your constitution, which seems suing you for damages. Leave medicine and +the breviary in your cell, and lie under the stars and inhale that +wonderful, healing air. When you wish to pray go down into the Grand +Cañon, you will find you can succeed without needing a book to help you. +In that sky verily 'the heavens declare the glory of God; and the +firmament sheweth His handiwork.' Mission work, and to spare, would +interest you at a Moqui Pueblo, and I can recommend one whose primeval, +idyllic repose dwells in my memory like an eclogue of Virgil's. It is +spread over the crown and sides of a precipice where terraces tilt their +outer edges upward to prevent water from draining the little gardens. +Masonry-lined cisterns gleam under moonlight like molten silver, sheep +and goats bleat in their stone enclosures, a frieze of kids runs below +the cornice of brown cupids drowsing on the wall, and all about the mesa +a pink cloud of blooming peach trees and a yellow mist of acacias. Weigh +this cure scheme, discuss it in Sanhedrim, and if you think favorably of +it let me hear from you before October, as I have several friends among +ranchmen, and some of the Moquis have not forgotten me." + +"Do you intend to settle down now at your lake-shore house?" + +"Yes, for the present. I have been invited to write for two scientific +magazines, and one of the subjects suggested rather appeals to me--a +comparison of the fiords of Norway with those of Alaska and British +Columbia, but I have not fully decided. However, I am committed to help +Chalcott verify numerous citations from Strabo's tenth book, relative to +Crete, and I must brush up my classics. Chalcott is sanguine of 'great +finds' around the site of ancient Knossos in the near future. He has +been stung by the Pelasgian bee, and I have promised to hunt and copy +some passages from Strabo." + +He took his hat from the floor and rose. + +"Now I must say good-bye to father superior and the brethren." + +"We hoped you would spend at least one night with us, in the room we +have named and set apart for you." + +"I must get back to Philadelphia in time for a meeting to-morrow of +stockholders and directors of our railroad. Mr. Stadmeyer requested me +to attend, though he is really our watchdog. Don't delay the refectory +improvements, and since you are all so good as to give me a special +penitential apartment, I wish you would brighten it up with a cheerful +paper, and allow me the privilege of sending some human derelict to +anchor here in peace. God knows, there are fleets of souls adrift, and I +should be glad if, for my sake, you can tow some into the snug harbor of +my cell, until the day comes when my sins culminate and force me here +for penance." + +When the two walked down to the outer gate, the contrast between the +virile athlete and the shadowy black form of the priest was pathetically +vivid. + +The busy shuttles of the east wind had spread their cirrus laces even +along the western horizon where the sun had vanished, and the sky was +one huge arching shell enamelled with mother-of-pearl, as the cloudlets +burned in the after-glow. + +"Vernon, don't look back. You have balanced your books with the past. +Dear old fellow, I wish to think of you as fulfilling the rich promise +of our college days." + +"Assure me you will give up that Arctic whim. The thought of it +distresses me." + +"Do not worry about me. The expedition could not be ready to start for +at least a year, and by that time I may not need to go. Sir John +Franklin's ghost may chat with mine and tell me all the secrets of the +Pole, which doubtless he discovered when Arctic ice claimed his body." + +He laughed, they shook hands, and parted. + +At a bend in the road he turned, looked back and waved his hat to the +watching figure standing under the gilt cross, and silhouetted in sharp +lines against the opal dome of the west. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +"Little mother, the weather is so lovely I really ought to drive with +you to Dairy Dingle, instead of letting you go in that dusty, stuffy +car; but you will not wait, and you know I have promised to go to the +club german to-morrow night." + +"I shall get back in time to help you; the train is due at 7:10. Your +dress is already pressed, and ribbons and lace sewed on, but as you have +not worn it, I want to be sure about the hang of that skirt. Your +sash----" + +"Your train is ready to start. Good-bye, Ma-Lila." + +"Good-bye, dearie. I wish the club house and Dr. Burbridge were in +Jericho! Then you could go with me." + +Mrs. Mitchell kissed her companion's cheek and hurried to the car +platform, where she paused a moment, looking back at the girl seated in +her trap, balancing her lace parasol. + +"Are you going directly home?" + +"No. I shall call to inquire how Mrs. Whitfield is to-day, and as the +bishop has come home from Florida I must congratulate him on his +restoration to health. Bring me some titi blossoms." + +The bell clanged, the engine puffed, and the train disappeared around a +curve. An hour afterward, in front of the post-office, the mail for +Nutwood was brought to the trap. Eglah took two letters addressed to +herself, and placed the remainder with papers under the cushion of the +trap seat. + + +"Oliver, stop at Holmein's garden. Then go on home and give the mail to +father. If he has not returned from fishing, be careful to lay letters +and papers on the library table in front of his chair. I shall walk from +Holmein's." + +The grounds of the florist were nearly a mile from the gates of Nutwood, +and on a new street-car line extending to a park that overlooked the +river. From Holmein's the broad, sandy road ran straight through thick +woods to the avenue of the old house on the hill. Having secured a bunch +of double white violets, Judge Kent's favorite flower, his daughter +walked homeward. Ivory thuribles of magnolia and bay swung their +fragrance up and down the nave of ancient pines, and the profound +repose, the silence as of primeval wilds was broken only now and then by +the antiphonal plaints of doves lamenting on the lofty green pine +cornices, or a low preluding chord, as fingers of the wind touched the +leafy pipes of the forest organ. + +Many months had passed, and the procession of the seasons brought no +comforting element to brighten the monotonous life that so severely +taxed Eglah's patience. A card and dinner party on Judge Kent's birthday +had pleased him for the moment, but while he praised the menu and +decorations, no relaxation of chill politeness rewarded her. Only one +_al fresco_ festival was held. When nuts were ripe in autumn the young +mistress had invited the children belonging to Sunday-schools and the +orphan asylum in Y---- to come one afternoon to Nutwood and gather +chestnuts and walnuts. In the grove long tables held refreshments, that +were served by Eglah and Eliza to the hungry throng, and for the first +time since the war hundreds of happy little ones raced and shouted under +the ancestral trees. Several plank seats remained as souvenirs of the +occasion, and to-day Eglah turned away from the avenue, and sat down +between two young chestnuts. At her feet was a miniature doll house of +walnut shells built to amuse a flaxen-haired tot who shrank tearfully +from the sharp pricks of chestnut burrs, and begged for a "truly fairy +tale." + +Now Eglah was reminded of the wide, curious eyes raised to hers when she +had repeated: + + "I fancy the fairies make merry, + With thorns for their knives and forks; + They have currants for bottles of sherry, + And the little brown heads are the corks. + A leaf makes the tent they sit under, + Their ballroom's a white lily-cup; + Shall I know all about them, I wonder, + For certain, when I am grown up?" + +Laying her flowers beside her, she broke the seal of a letter from Mrs. +St. Clair, postmarked New York, and after a moment the sheet fell into +her lap. Raising it, she read a second time: + +"We are so shocked and grieved to find that Mr. Herriott is actually +going on that North Pole expedition we thought he had abandoned. He has +been much fêted since his return last year, and all of our set are +heartily sorry to give him up. Some of us believe you could put a stop +to this nonsense, if you would only come to your senses, and use your +influence. The idea of such a man going into the grewsome business of +eating blubber and seal, and possibly Eskimo dog steak! Hunting a +graveyard among hummocks! I suggested to him that a better plan would be +to go down into a cold-storage vault, throw away the key and slam the +spring-lock door. Then we should be allowed the consolation of covering +him with flowers." + +She replaced the letter in the envelope, and fell into a profound +revery. If Mr. Herriott sailed away and never returned, her father could +no longer cling to his sole condition of reconciliation. Years ago her +own responsibility had ended, and even had she desired to reconsider the +proposal of marriage, no opportunity to do so had been given her. She +had not seen Mr. Herriott since that afternoon in the old Greco-Roman +theatre. Two kind, brief, merely friendly letters had reached her, +followed by a box containing for herself some fine Oriental +embroideries, and an exquisitely carved ivory triptych; for Mrs. +Mitchell a copy of a quaint circular picture in the old Byzantine style, +representing a group of young lambs asleep around the standing figure of +the child Jesus, whose body rayed light, as in the "_Notte_," one little +hand extended over them, while he looked up to an angelic guard only +dimly outlined by the gleaming tips of hovering pinions. + +If Mr. Herriott never returned? Her eyes filled with unshed tears. For +so many years he had been her devoted and loyal friend, and she honored +and trusted him supremely. Never to see him again would grieve her +deeply, but she felt assured he no longer loved her as formerly--that +sincere friendship was the only sentiment he now entertained. Were his +heart still hers, could he have maintained the total repression that +marked recent years? He had given his word not to refer to a matter that +distressed her, but when men really loved, such compacts were forgotten, +and it must have been easy for Mr. Herriott to keep his promise of +absolute silence. + +Gathering up her flowers, letters and parasol, she walked slowly across +the lawn and reached the house by a side door, without meeting any of +the servants. + +On the library table lay Judge Kent's unopened mail; hence she knew he +had not yet returned from the fishing trip on which he started at +daylight. Over the door opening into his adjoining bedroom a heavy +portière of crimson plush usually hung, but a few days previous winter +draperies had been replaced by Madras curtains that resembled stained +glass. Lifting this summer portière, Eglah went into the bedroom, filled +a vase with water and arranged the drooping violets on her father's +bureau. Only during his absence did she ever come into this apartment, +so long her grandmother's reliquary, where the girl seemed always to see +old Hector crouching against his dead mistress, and that white face, +whose fixed blue eyes pierced beyond the orange dawn and fronted God. + +The memory of her childish terror on the night of Mrs. Maurice's death +haunted the room, despite her effort to dispel it, yet to-day she sat +down on a lounge and re-read Mrs. St. Clair's letter. If her father knew +of the contemplated Arctic journey, he had given no hint. Perhaps the +vessel had already sailed. Then at last she could find peace and +reconciliation. Possibly Mr. Herriott might change his plans. If ever he +renewed his offer would she--could she yield to her father's wishes? She +set her teeth. + +"Sell myself--even for father's love? Never!" + +It seemed cruel that some misfortune to her best and dearest friend +should offer her sole channel of escape, and after a while she made +deliberate choice. + +"Come what may, I pray no harm will overtake Mr. Noel. I would rather +continue to fight and suffer than know he was lost; and surely God will +watch over him." + +Some moments passed while, forgetting to remove her hat, she sat tapping +her knee with the letter. Then heavy footsteps rang on the bare, +"dry-rubbed" floor, and Judge Kent's voice sounded through the library. + +"Take that arm chair, Herriott. Eglah is in town, but she will be at +home soon." + +"I am glad to have an opportunity to talk to you in her absence. I have +not come here voluntarily; necessity drove me. My mission now is so +distressingly painful that could it have been avoided I should certainly +not be here. To shield Eglah from annoyance I would undertake anything +but neglect of duty. Of course you know the deplorable matter to which I +allude?" + +Every word came distinctly through the lace-hung doorway, and Eglah +rose, reluctant to overhear that which it was evident the speaker wished +withheld from her; but an overmastering desire to understand once for +all conditions that had so long perplexed her, coerced her to remain. +There was grave trouble, and she must suffer later--why not now? A full +comprehension was the first step toward defence. + +"I am surprised that you should intentionally embarrass me, but I +suppose you refer to the United States and railroad bonds that were +hypothecated. I knew you had redeemed them, delivered them to the +college, and I hoped when I parted with the house in Thirty-eighth +Street that I could turn it over to you in part payment of that bond +business; but an unfortunate venture reduced me to such urgent need, I +was obliged to take the money you offered through Trainem. Don't +interrupt me--now you have forced me to speak, I want no renewal of this +matter. Except the trustees and their attorneys, no one remembers the +unjust clause in your father's will that Nina should have the New York +house and certain stocks outright, but only the interest on those bonds +which at her death should belong to the Presbyterian College. Munificent +provision for the widow of a reputed multimillionaire! Since you have so +kindly and generously recovered the bonds and delivered them to the +trustees, I see no necessity for this revival of so disagreeable a +subject, and certainly no propriety in dragging before Eglah what does +not concern her. The trusteeship under which her own estate is held at +present, prevents my using any part of it to repay you, as I would do +most gladly, were it possible." + +"Had you not forbidden an interruption, you might have spared yourself +an unpleasant retrospection, as I earnestly desired to assure you at the +outset that you are entirely mistaken in my purpose. I had no +thought--no intention, of alluding to the subject of the bonds, which is +even more disagreeable to me than to you, but since you have brought it +up, while I decline to discuss my father's will, you must permit me to +say that the course I pursued was prompted solely by my affection for +Nina, and a desire to protect her innocent name. Hence as regards the +bonds you owe me nothing." + +"Do you doubt they were hypothecated with her consent and desire?" + +"Judge Kent, you must pardon me if I ask you to dismiss issues long +past. I am here for a far graver and more imperatively pressing matter. +It seems hard indeed that I, who have accepted and enjoyed your +hospitality--I, who for many years have known that my heart dwelt upon +your roof--should be the unfortunate agent forced to bring grief and +trouble to your hearth. I suppose you suspect to what I refer?" + +"No. I have so many enemies, and such an infernal succession of bad +luck, I never know where a bomb may burst. I haven't an idea what you +are driving at." + +Mr. Herriott walked twice across the floor. + +"Do you recollect Edward Hunt?" + +"Yes. A cross between a fox and a blood-hound. He was a cousin of yours. +I gave hearty thanks when I heard he was dead." + +"Allow me to correct you; he married a cousin of my mother's. Of course +you recall his connection with the syndicate that secured congressional +grant of lands in the West, which subsequently proved so valuable. You +were a member of the Senate committee that reported favorably, and +doubtless you recollect all that passed between you and Hunt at that +time." + +"Good God! When the grave closed over him, I thought that syndicate +business was screwed down in his coffin." + +"Judge Kent, I would give my right arm if it could be shut in there. Do +you recall a time in Washington, the night of Secretary D----'s dinner, +from which I carried Eglah to a cotillon? Early in the evening you +received an anonymous warning that the personality of 'Ely Twiggs' had +been discovered. Accidentally the truth came into my possession. I sent +it, that you might prepare any defence you deemed advisable--and I was +unwilling you should suspect I knew the facts. The cashier of that +western Pentland Bank was Duncan Keith, whom I knew when I was a boy, +and when the bank failed, he and the bookkeeper disappeared, after +destroying the books; at least the president and teller so stated at the +examination held by directors and stockholders. Edward Hunt was a +director, and defended Keith. He always contended that the president and +teller had conspired to throw the guilt on an innocent man. Leaving his +son with the boy's grandmother in Ohio, Keith fled, and was reported +somewhere in South America. One night in Geneva, where I went to attend +a scientific congress, a blurred sheet was brought to me at the hotel. + +"'Your old friend Duncan Keith is dying. I am an innocent victim. Come +and take my message to my boy in Ohio.' + +"The shoemaker who brought the note piloted me to his shop, where in an +attic room I found poor Keith. He was sinking fast, but begged me to do +him the only favor this world held. He insisted I should watch over his +son, whose grandmother had recently died, and the boy had now no +relations but an aunt, a sister of Keith's wife. With his last sobbing +breath he swore to me he was innocent. He declared the charge of +embezzlement was untrue; that his individual account was short only +eight hundred dollars, overdrawn with the knowledge and consent of +president and teller, who denied their sanction when the crash came, and +charged him with theft and forgeries he had never committed. As security +for the money borrowed, he had given a mortgage on a small piece of +land, but to avoid mortgage tax it had not been recorded, and could not +be found. Fear of prosecution and inability to establish his innocence +against the united persecution of bank officials had driven him from the +country. Part of the records he preserved and carried away, but he +needed an important link, the stubs of a certain check book, and some +bank drafts returned from London. His health failed fast, and confined +to his room, he had abandoned all hope, when one day he received a +package addressed in Edward Hunt's handwriting. It contained not only +the stubs, but checks and two receipts establishing beyond doubt the +guilt of the president, teller, and two other persons. Poor Keith! On +his narrow bed he had a tin box under his elbow, and he laid the key on +my knee. + +"'Noel, I am honest as you are, and I want you to help my boy clear my +name. All the proof is in this box. Will you keep it safe until Duncan +is twenty-one, and then give it to him, and explain my enclosed letter +of instructions? I tried to write my wishes to you, and that letter also +is in the box. If I had not heard you were here, I should have asked our +consul to send the box to you. Noel, will you help my son? I don't ask +you to prosecute, or take any part; I only beg you to guard these proofs +till he is of age. Will you promise me now, in God's sight, to keep +these papers safe, and put them into no hand but Duncan's?' + +"I took the box and put my hand on his, already cold and damp in death. + +"'_So help me God, I will guard the papers, and give them only into +Duncan's own hand._' + +"I sat with him until the end. Five hours later, at two o'clock, he +died. Only God knows how bitterly and ceaselessly I have rued that rash +promise now goading me to a step I would almost rather die than take. +When I accepted the trust, I knew absolutely nothing of your connection +with that bank, or of the transactions by which you came into possession +of stock and shares in the land company and bank, all standing in the +name of 'Ely Twiggs,' the dividends of which were always sent direct to +London, and receipted for by 'Ely Twiggs's' agent, who reported him +travelling in Egypt. 'Ely Twiggs,' as far as my information went, was +associated solely with the syndicate's work in Congress. I made no +examination of the proofs until very recently, because the appointed +time had not arrived, and since I looked into that box I have not had +one moment's peace. The array of evidence, strengthened by two of your +own letters, rests the culpability on the president, the teller, Marsden +and yourself. You must know how it pains me to lay this matter before +you, but it is necessary you should understand the facts." + +His voice wavered, and again he walked the length of the room. + +A deep, quivering groan came from the depths of Judge Kent's chair, and +leaning across the library table he poured out and swallowed a glass of +brandy. + +"The imminence of this misfortune is what appalls me. Duncan Keith will +be twenty-one years old in less than a month, and as I sail so soon with +the expedition, I am now on my way to place the box in his hands and +explain his father's wishes. I may never come back, and I must execute +my trust now, especially as the poor fellow is not in good health." + +"My God! You can't mean to tell me you intend to arm him and my enemies +with documents that will disgrace me?" + +"Not if it were possible to avoid it without breaking my oath. I have +pondered, I have passed sleepless nights trying to devise some method of +shielding you; but unless I lie to a dead man who trusted me, I am +compelled to deliver the box." + +"Noel, for God's sake be reasonable! Don't sacrifice me to maudlin +sentimentality. You pretend to love my innocent child, and yet pursue a +course you know will break her heart, as well as mine?" + +"Judge Kent, for her sake I would do anything--save dishonor myself." + +"Then you have ceased to love her!" + +"No; I love her, and I always shall, until she is some other man's wife. +I gave her my whole heart when she was a mere child, and she is still +the one woman in all the world who holds it in her dear little hands. To +shield her from this terrible sorrow, I have thought you might go abroad +at once, and keep American papers out of her reach for a while. Duncan +will probably move promptly in exonerating his father's name; there will +be, of course, a nine days' sensation, then matters will settle; a later +stratum of news will press it out of sight, and Eglah need never know." + +"Could not the boy be influenced to sell the papers and drop it?" + +"Certainly not by me. Do you think it possible I could insult the dead +by helping to undo what I swore to aid his son in accomplishing?" + +"But you swore in ignorance of facts learned since." + +"No, only in ignorance of the personality of some who contributed to +Keith's ruin. I am the most unhappy poor devil on earth, but no +honorable alternative is allowed me, and to-night I go on to Duncan and +deliver the box. I must meet the vessel which touches at Sydney, Cape +Breton, on the 15th, and I have no time to spare. I shall come back this +afternoon to see Eglah and say good-bye, and I can only hope that after +calm consideration of all the circumstances embarrassing me, you will +not censure me for a deplorable course of action which my sense of honor +makes absolutely imperative." + +Judge Kent sat facing the Madras drapery towards which Mr. Herriott's +back was turned, and at this moment a glass door leading to the +colonnade opened; the draught of air blew the curtain into the library, +and the Judge saw his daughter slip quickly from his bedroom. With a +vague hope of gaining time, he said unsteadily: + +"I am so stunned, I am not myself. That you should sweep me and mine to +destruction seems incredible; but, nevertheless, will you stay and +dine?" + +"No, thank you, Judge Kent. It would be painful for both of us. Later, I +must see Eglah once more." + +In crucial hours, when some crisis wrecks plans, landmarks, life-long +aims, the brain works with preternatural clearness and celerity. Through +the torturing ordeal of that half hour Eglah had listened, numb with +shame and horror. The world seemed to have dissolved in a night that +could know no dawn; yet, groping in this chaos, two desperate resolves +nerved her. + +She would secure that box of papers, no matter at what cost. Her father +should be saved from disgrace, and he should never suspect she knew his +guilt. She must see Mr. Herriott before she saw her father. Swiftly she +matured her resolution; then an unusual glitter came into her lovely +soft eyes, and she sat down between the chestnut trees and waited. + +At a quick stride, Mr. Herriott descended the avenue until nearly +opposite the seat, and she rose and walked toward him. + +Their hands met in a tight, clinging clasp, but for an instant neither +spoke. He noted that the blood had ebbed from her lips, and that she was +frightfully pale, but the eyes lifted to his glowed unnaturally. + +"I intended coming back later, to spend an hour with you and say +good-bye, as----" + +"Never to say good-bye again! You shall not leave me." + +She drew him down to the seat beside her, and he smiled at the imperious +tone, so suggestive of her childish days. + +"You do not understand conditions, unless--When did you see your +father?" + +"Not since last night. He went fishing at daylight." + +"Then you do not know that I came to bid you farewell before sailing for +the Arctic circle?" + +"Yes. I have not seen father to-day, but this letter from Mrs. St. Clair +arrived by the morning mail. Mr. Herriott, I am the most miserable woman +God ever made, and I want to turn to you now, but I scarcely know just +how to do so. Once--that night in Washington--you said you would never +change, that you would always love me; but I have no right to expect +after years of absence--" She paused and the frozen face crimsoned. + +He caught his breath and leaned toward her. + +"I love you now as I loved you then. My heart has always belonged to +you. If you doubt it, you wrong me." + +"Then, Mr. Noel, do not leave me. If you go away now you will break my +heart." + +He rose and looked down at her, wondering at the desperate appeal in her +eyes. + +"I do not understand, because I long ago ceased to hope I could ever be +essential to your happiness. I am obliged to leave here to-night; but if +there is any service I can render before I sail from Sydney, on the +15th, I am sure you know how very gladly I should help you. If, as you +say, you wish to turn to me, I beg that you will do so at once. Why are +you miserable?" + +She covered her face with her hands. + +"If you love me, will you abandon this expedition for my sake?" + +"I cannot now, it is too late. My word is pledged by cable, and the +vessel is on the Atlantic. Eglah, I dare not hope that you have learned +to care; I will not delude myself. Don't torture me by vague suggestions +that half madden me." + +He sat down beside her, painfully perplexed. + +Her hands fell into her lap, clutched each other, and when she spoke it +was in a shuddering, broken whisper. + +"Then, if you must go, take me with you till you sail. We can be married +to-night." + +For fully a moment his eyes, amazed, incredulous, searched hers; then he +surrendered himself to a measureless exultation. + +"My darling--my own proud darling!" + +He drew her close, and she felt him tremble as she hid her face against +his shoulder--felt his lips on her neck, on her bare, quivering hand +that he held pressed to his cheek. + +"I know it is selfish to permit you to bind yourself to me on the eve of +a perilous journey from which I may not return, but after so many long, +hopeless years the temptation is more than I can resist. I can have you, +my darling, for only a few short days, but the happiness of a lifetime +shall glorify them. To-night I must go to Ohio, to close up some +business with my ward, Duncan Keith; then on to Greyledge for two days +before starting for Cape Breton. Why did you not give me this precious +intimation earlier? You have always known what you are to me. Was it the +news in Mrs. St. Clair's letter regarding my departure that pleaded for +me in your proud, stubborn heart?" + +"I never realized until to-day how much I need you. Mr. Noel, this has +come upon me so suddenly I am stunned. Give me a little time--till my +mind clears. Let us see father at once; there are so many things to be +arranged if--if----" + +He bent to kiss her, but with one shaking hand she softly turned his +face aside. + +"Not yet, please--while I am Eglah Kent." + +Her arms stole up around his neck and her strained voice broke. + +"I am so unhappy; I seem to be in a horrible, strangling dream. Be +patient with me. You are the only one in all the world who can comfort +me, and I am looking to you now as--I once looked to God." + +Holding her in a close clasp, he felt her quivering from head to foot. + +"Sweetheart, don't tremble so. Trust me, darling, and love me, and no +home in the wide universe will be so happy and blessed as ours. Ours! +The word holds heaven. Are you cold, that you shiver so constantly? Come +into the sunshine." + +Pacing up and down the colonnade, Judge Kent watched them approaching. +He looked worn, hunted, and a sickly pallor marked his usually florid +face. Before Mr. Herriott could speak, he was startled by a strange +hysterical sound from Eglah; not a cry, not a sob. As she looked at her +father, her face lighted with a marvellous, yearning tenderness, and she +sprang into his extended arms. + +"Father, you will love me now! Kiss me, kiss me. Hold me tight--take me +back to my place in your heart." + +Only he could hear the low ripple of broken words, and his tears dripped +on her face as he pressed his lips to hers. + +"Herriott, what does it all mean?" + +"That I am the happiest, proudest man on earth. Coming here to say +good-bye to my sweetheart, I shall carry my wife away with me." + +"But she cannot go to the North Pole, and--you may not survive the +dangers." + +"When I know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice +in Greenland could shut me away from her?" + +"God bless my daughter! How shall I live without her?" + +"We are never to be separated. Mr. Herriott could not wish anything so +cruel." + +She rose on tiptoe, put a hand on each wet cheek, and kissed her father +twice. + +Mr. Herriott looked at his watch. + +"Eglah has consented to be married to-night, and my train leaves at +eleven. There are several important matters to be arranged, and I should +be glad to know her wishes." + +She rang the bell, then stepped to his side and slipped her hand in his. + +"Father's rector is absent, and I wish Bishop Vivian to perform the +ceremony; he loved my grandmother, and she loved him." + +Aaron appeared at the door. + +"Tell Oliver to bring the trap around as soon as he can. Father, you +must go in with Mr. Herriott. Mrs. Whitfield is sick, but I want Mr. +Whitfield and Lucy and Dr. Eggleston and his wife to be here. If you +wish any others, invite them. Mr. Noel, what hour?" + +"I suggest not later than nine." + +"My dear Ma-Lila will never forgive me. She is away." + +"Where? Could not a telegram reach her?" + +"No, she is in the country, two miles from a station. She left me only +this morning, and will be so grieved." + +"How far away?" + +"Fifteen miles by carriage road, twenty by rail. There is the trap. +Father, I am going upstairs now; and, if you please, I want to be alone +till--till--till--" One hand clutched her throat, and she looked +appealingly into Mr. Herriott's eyes. + +He smiled, stooped, and pressed to his lips the slender fingers he held. + +"Set your mind at rest about Mrs. Mitchell. She shall be here, if I have +to send a special for her." + +When explanation and instructions had been given to Aaron and Minerva, +Eglah went upstairs and locked herself in the room to which had been +removed the furniture and portraits Mrs. Maurice held sacred. Up and +down she walked, feeling that an iron band was throttling her. She and +her father were drifting out to a black gulf of humiliation--of hopeless +disgrace--and only that box of papers could rescue, anchor them in +safety. Mr. Herriott loved her so devotedly, she believed that when she +was his wife he would yield the papers in answer to her prayers. If he +refused? She recalled the ring of indignation in his voice when her +father suggested bribing Duncan Keith. Marriage would give her immediate +control of her estate, and surely her fortune could purchase the papers +from the boy, when in her presence Mr. Herriott delivered them to him. +If all efforts failed, she would go down to ruin knowing she had left +nothing undone to save her father, and now, at last, she had regained +her place in his heart. + +The price? Her face burned, and she wrung her hands. After to-night's +ceremony, could she ever again respect herself? When Mr. Herriott knew, +would he despise her? Family portraits on the wall caught her glance. +Did the stainless Maurices, and her own young mother, watching from the +Celestial City, see all the burden of shame settling down on her +shoulders? Would her grandmother's cold, proud blue eyes look "I told +you so," or soften in tender pity for "poor Marcia's baby"? Public +disgrace over which so many would gloat, to escape such infamy was any +price too dear? The price--herself? + +Three hours later she saw her trunk carried downstairs. When the clock +struck eight, she was dressed for her wedding. The gown ordered for the +club german was a trailing, ivory _crêpe de Chine_, and where lace +ruffles met on the corsage she fastened a spray of white lilac from the +bouquet Mr. Herriott had sent. No gleam of jewels marred the white +perfection of face and figure, but her dilated eyes burned like brown +agates when the light smites them. On the dressing-table lay a note for +Mrs. Mitchell. + + "My dear, sweet little mother: The crucial hour came, and you + were away. I may have scuttled ship, but I did what seemed + best. Some things you cannot understand now, but I know you + love me too well to distress me with questions--when I ask you + to trust me. Pray for your + + "BABY." + +As the clock struck half-past eight, Eliza ran up the steps and into the +room, holding against her shoulder a branch of titi pearled with bloom. +At sight of the extraordinary loveliness of the figure standing as if +frozen, she burst into tears. + +"My beautiful--my baby! What does all this mean? Your father has forced +you to----" + +"Hush, hush. My father was as much astonished as you are. I feared you +could not come in time, and here is a note, in which I said all that I +can tell you. Don't scold me, and don't cry; wait till I am gone." + +She gave her the note and kissed her cheek, where tears were streaming. + +"Oh, my baby, give me the positive assurance that this step is +voluntary--that you love Mr. Herriott." + +"Entirely voluntary. My supreme wish is to go with Mr. Herriott. He is +the noblest man in all the world." + +"Yes, but you have not just found that out; you have always known it. +Now, do you love him? I am afraid you do not; and, my baby, marriage +without loving a husband is----" + +Eglah laid a hand over Eliza's lips. + +"Father is coming for me. I want to wear some titi, because you brought +it to me. Pin two clusters under the folds of lace here, just over your +baby's heart. Now, kiss Eglah Kent good-bye, and leave me with father +while you take off your hat and dry your eyes." + +"My dear, are you ready?" + +"Wait a few minutes for Ma-Lila. Father, if I can not persuade Mr. Noel +to abandon his journey, you must be sure to meet me when he telegraphs +you and leaves me. I am inexpressibly unhappy, but if you will forget +the last three years, and love me as in the dear old days, it will +comfort and gladden me." + +The clock chimed nine. Near the foot of the stairway Mr. Herriott +waited, and when he came forward the almost unearthly beauty of Eglah's +face made his heart throb with vague apprehension. It wore a rapt +expression of supreme exaltation, as if a somnambulist walked with eyes +fixed on some goal beyond a yawning black chasm. + +Drawing her arm from her father's, she stepped to Mr. Herriott's side +and laid her hand in his. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The fast vestibuled train, forty minutes late, swung northward at a +speed that kept the car in a quiver. There were few passengers, asleep +in their berths, and Mr. Herriott had secured the drawing-room. It was +new, luxurious in appointments, and to the end of the brass rod +supporting the lamp in the centre he had fastened a great sheaf of white +carnations, sent by Mrs. Whitfield. Closing the sliding door that opened +into the sleeper, he sat down beside the figure clad in a dark-blue +cloth suit. + +"I am so insanely happy I dare not pinch or shake myself, lest I should +wake and find it only a heavenly dream." + +He took one of her remarkably beautiful hands, which he had always +admired, and where he had placed a broad, heavy band of gold four hours +before. Spreading the cold fingers on his warm palm, he lifted them +against his cheek, brushed them with his mustache. + +"Lovely little snowflakes; how long I have coveted their touch! And now +they are absolutely my very own. Mine forever." + +She had been leaning back, but straightened, braced herself, and her +breathing was deep and rapid. + +"Mr. Noel, do you really love me above everything else?" + +He laughed so heartily that she saw the glitter of his fine teeth. + +"Do I love you above everything else? You elusive witch! If you will +withdraw the embargo of your request--'not yet, please'--I can soon +convince you." + +His handsome face, radiantly happy, bent close to hers, but she shrank +away from him. + +"I am your wife now, but----" + +She paused, with a strained look in her eyes. + +"Yes; my own precious wife at last, thank God!" + +"There is one, only one proof that will convince me I am really first in +your heart. Give me at once the box of papers that incriminate my +father." + +He dropped her hand and rose. + +"It is hard, indeed, when a man must refuse the first request of his +bride; but, my darling, I cannot dishonor myself. Such baseness would +not prove my love; and it would inevitably arouse your contempt." + +She had risen, and as they faced each other under the lamp the swaying +carnations almost touched his glossy black head. + +Lifting her tightly locked hands in entreaty, her voice vibrated like a +lute string rudely swept. + +"Don't, oh, don't break my heart! Help me to shield my father from +shame, and I will bless you as long as I live. I am so wretched--the +world is going to pieces--and I am clinging to you as the one rock of +safety, the sole refuge that will not fail me. If you ever really loved +me, oh, Mr. Noel, have mercy on me now!" + +His face hardened, and, unwilling to trust his voice, he shook his head. +She staggered as if from a blow, but after a moment her cheeks flamed, +and banked fires glowed in her dilated eyes. + +"Eglah, when did your father have the cruelty to tell you about the +papers in my possession?" + +"He never told me. He does not suspect I know, and he must not find out +I am aware of their existence; because I could not bear that such an +additional sorrow should overtake him. My father! It is your will and +purpose to ruin him in his old age?" + +"Only Judge Kent and I were cognizant of the existence of that box. May +I ask how you obtained your information?" + +"I was in his bedroom next to the library when you and father came in. +The door was open, and through the thin curtain I heard every +word--every cruel, horrible word, that cut my heart like a dagger. At +first, when you spoke of not wishing me to know, I felt I had no right +to listen, but some things had long perplexed me, things that father +would not explain, and I determined to make an end of mysteries." + +All tenderness had vanished from his set face, and his blue-grey eyes +watched her much as a judge might a witness on the stand. + +The train had entered a deep, rocky cut, and the clattering roar sounded +a verbal truce. When it rushed through a meadow, Mr. Herriott put his +hands behind him. + +"I must have all the truth now. If you had not overheard that +conversation, you would not have waited for and intercepted me in the +grove?" + +"Certainly not. I wished to see you at once, and before I met father." + +"Your terrible distress and agitation were solely on his account, and +not because of my approaching journey?" + +"Yes, for father's safety. I was grieved to hear you were going so far +away, but, Mr. Noel, father is my all. When I learned of the exposure +threatening him I think I must have gone mad, or I should not have made +the ghastly mistake of believing you loved me well enough to help me +save him, and----" + +She paused, silenced by the flash in his eyes, the white fury of his +face. + +"You proposed our marriage solely to find an opportunity for getting +possession of the papers?" + +"Yes, that was my object. I thought you would not deny the prayer of +your wife." + +"You have come to my arms with no more love in your heart than when you +refused me years ago?" + +"Yes. In a way I have always been attached to you; I honor, and admire, +and trust you fully, and of all men I hold you first--but love! God help +me! Perhaps in time I may learn." + +"You considered yourself the price of the papers, and felt assured I +could not refuse to sell? Any man who held them could own you body and +soul! Any clodhopper, lout, any libertine, any moral leper could own you +for life, in exchange for the papers! You, my white-souled, proud, +sensitive, ideal woman, for sale! For sale!" + +The red spots in her cheeks deepened, and a defiant ring steadied her +trembling voice. + +"As you are the only person who could yield me what I sought, you are +the one possible purchaser. But there was an additional reason for my +becoming your wife. My grandmother's will requires the estate she gave +me kept in the hands of a trustee until I am thirty, unless I marry. In +that event I come into immediate unrestricted possession, and I thought +if you denied my prayer I would be financially able to buy the papers +when you delivered them in my presence. That is the one hope that stands +now between me and despair--a hope made possible by and based on my +marriage. There was no other door of escape from ruin, and so I sold +myself to the one man whom I have always honored and trusted--who I +believed would be patient with me. Yes, I sold myself. That you would be +deeply aggrieved I knew, because I intended you should learn all the +truth to-night. The horror, the hot shame of the last few hours you will +never, never understand." + +"There was, however, solace for you in the possibility that Polar perils +might speedily cancel your matrimonial bonds? At least that is one hope +I can share with you." + +Swinging around a sharp curve, the car lurched violently, and she +staggered. He caught her arm and led her to the seat, where she leaned +her head against the panel and shut her eyes. Singularly beautiful was +the proud face wearing the pathetic seal of mental suffering, but, as he +looked down at her, no pity softened the gleam in his eyes, and his +hands clinched in his struggle for self-control. + +"To-night I have learned how a man feels when an angel he worshipped +from afar stooped from her heights, led him up, up to the open gate of +heaven, and, just as he was entering, the same angelic hand dropped him +into hell. When I had abandoned all hope of winning you, the suddenness +of your surrender made my head reel. I was amazed; but the possibility +that you deliberately planned to deceive me no more occurred to me than +would an insult to my dead mother. For me you have embodied all that I +hold pure, lofty, refined, admirable in womanhood. I was fastidious, but +you filled my ideal, and I trusted you almost as I trust my God. You +have wronged me doubly--in the loss of yourself, but far worse in the +destruction of my belief in the incorruptibility of some women; sooner +or later all are for sale. + +"If I had sailed away before seeing you at Y---- I should have carried an +unsullied, a perfect, sacred memory of you to light the long Arctic +night. God knows I would sooner have died there than realize you +cruelly, deliberately deceived me. You thought you were buying the +papers; but, as they will not be delivered, the trade is off. You cannot +get possession of what you purchased, and the price paid I here return +to you. You have no papers, and I have no wife. Without value received +on your part, I have no right to you, and we stand now just as we did +before that marriage ceremony, which has proved a mere commercial +mockery. I abhor shams--above all things sham marriage. All or none. +Only very strong, deep, tender love justifies a woman in giving herself +away. Otherwise the relation degrades her; she is little better than an +odalisque; and such I decline to see you. For me you have no love--never +will have--and as regards my own wishes, your duplicity has effectually +slain what once warmed my heart. After a few days, relief for both of us +will come in separation. If I never return you will escape much +annoyance. When two years elapse, the divorce court cannot refuse to +give you freedom from nominal bonds, and then you will soon forget that +you were ever--even in name--my wife." + +She had grown ghastly pale, and her lips fluttered. In the brief silence +a sick child's fretful cry rolled through the adjoining sleeper, then +the train thundered into a tunnel. + +"Mr. Herriott, I am so utterly miserable cruel words, even from you, no +longer have power to wound me. I--" She laughed nervously, and sat +upright. + +"My worse than useless appeal to your mercy reminds me of a picture of +the Deluge I once saw, when I was a happy child. A drowning woman clung +to the edge of an open window in the ark, begging succor, and Noah +leaned out and pried off her grasping hands, smiting her back into +hungry waves. I shall obey your wishes, Mr. Herriott, in all but one +step you have suggested. I do not believe in the validity of divorces. +Vows made to God can never be cancelled by civil processes. A +consecrated minister is not a mere notary public to attest signatures to +a deed. My marriage is forever sacred as my baptism; my covenant in His +sight, in His holy name, stands always--'till death us do part.' You +shall be as free as you wish. You need never see me again, but so long +as I live I intend to hold myself your wife." + +"Will you do me the kindness to hand me your ring?" + +She drew it from her finger and held it toward him. He turned it slowly, +smiling bitterly. + +"You have not seen the inscription. 'Till death us do part.' The sight +of it must be an unpleasant reminder, and I hope and ask that you will +never wear it. As a worthless symbol of what no longer exists, allow me +to throw it away." + +"Just as you please; only remember you have no right to do so, it is +mine. If it were cast into the ocean, I should never cease to feel its +sacred clasp on my finger." + +He laid it on the seat beside her, and she replaced it on her hand. He +looked at his watch. + +"It will soon be daylight. I am going into the smoking car. Perhaps you +can rest. Shall I send the porter?" + +"No. I could not sleep." + +He went out, closing the door carefully. + +With a smothered groan she sank back, and beat her palms against each +other. Humiliated, sorely wounded, yet indignant--almost hopeless, but +defiant--she stubbornly refused to despair until she had exhausted every +means at her command. + +After a while she knelt down and prayed God's help in her mission to +save her father. She never knew that the door had glided noiselessly +half way in its groove and that Mr. Herriott stood there to ask if she +needed anything. He saw the figure bowed in prayer, and stole away as +softly as he came. The strain was telling upon her quivering nerves. +Hysterical aching in her throat, parched and dry, was almost +intolerable, and the swaying carnations so burdened the air that when +she rose her head swam. + +After an hour she struggled to her feet. If she had some water it might +cool her throat. From her satchel she took a cup, opened the door, and, +supporting herself by one hand on the wall of the car, she walked down +the narrow passage, where she knew the water-tank stood near the +porter's seat. Before she reached it she saw Mr. Herriott leaning +sideways against the glass door opening on the platform. Just then the +brakeman raised his lantern, and the flash showed a hopelessly sad face +sternly set under the close-fitting travelling cap. As she turned back, +he saw her and advanced. + +"What do you wish?" + +She held out the cup. + +"Some water, please." + +She reeled, clutched at the wall, and for an instant everything spun +round. He placed her in the porter's folding chair, and when he held the +cup to her mouth saw that her teeth chattered. She drank spasmodically, +and a long, shuddering sigh drifted across her white lips. + +"You must lie down and rest. The porter will arrange your berth." + +She shook her head and rose. + +"You cannot walk alone; lean on me." + +"Yes, I can help myself now. I was thirsty and dizzy." + +She drew back, but he put his arm around her, holding her firmly against +him, and placed her on the seat in the drawing-room. She pointed to the +carnations. + +"The perfume is overpowering. I can't reach them. Please take them out." + +Lifting an arm he snapped the string. + +"Like every other souvenir and symbol of to-night, they are simply +sickening." + +Raising the window he threw the flowers into a river across which the +locomotive was cautiously feeling its way. He opened his own satchel, +leaning against hers on the opposite seat, took out a silver flask, and +poured some ruby, aromatic liquid into the cup. + +"You are sadly spent; take this." + +"No, I do not need anything more." + +"You must. It is merely a mild cocktail." + +"No, Mr. Herriott, I prefer not." + +"A few hours ago did you swear to obey me? Drink it." + +She hid her face in her hands and shivered. + +"Eglah, try to control yourself." + +"Please don't take any trouble on my account; just leave me alone with +my torturing forebodings. No one but God can help me now. The sight of +me is painful to you, and I shrink from annoying you. Mr. Herriott, +please leave me to myself." + +He sat down beside her, the cup in his hand. + +"To-night you have made me suffer more than you will ever +understand--you have hurt me beyond all possibility of healing--and, +perhaps, in the terribly sudden overthrow of beautiful hopes you had +called into existence, I may have seemed harsh. If so, you must pardon +any desperate words my torture wrung from me. Poor child, you have +sorrows enough without any additions from my hand. I cannot trust myself +to talk to you; my temper is sometimes beyond control, and you have +bruised my heart so sorely I am not sure of self-command. Poor little +girl! Do me the favor to drink this, because I ask it." + +He held the cup to her lips and she drank. He took a pillow from the +opposite seat and put it behind her head. + +"If you need anything you have only to open the door and I shall come." + +"Mr. Herriott, there is but one thing I shall ever ask you to do for me. +The ring you placed on my finger I took off at your request. Here it is. +With your own hand put it back where it belongs, and it will be there +when I die." + +She held out her hand with the ring in her palm. He looked at her +intently, and his lips tightened. + +"Repeat a mockery? A shameful farce!" + +He lifted the glittering circle, tossed it up twice, struggling with the +impulse to hurl it through the window, then suddenly slipped it on her +finger, dropped her hand, and, picking up his satchel, left her. + +Would the night never end? If Duncan Keith refused to sell? She thought +of quiet, lovely olive-clad plains in Sicily, with pergolas cool in +green shadows of vines, where they might retreat from disgraceful +publicity. Mr. Herriott scorned, repudiated her, and henceforth she +could devote herself entirely to tender care of her father. Ambition and +hope were dead, but was there any anæsthetic to still the burning stings +of memory? She went to the opposite seat and rested her head against the +open window. A thin, sallow, fading old moon hung like a spectre in the +sky where the morning star lighted the way for the coming new day, and +the dew-sprinkled air swept in, spiced with waves of aroma from a +blooming vineyard. + +Hamlets, meadows, fields, bridges, the looming shadow of a wooded +mountain fled past as the train rocked, hummed, and flew on. Looking up +at the quiet heavens, Eglah lifted her hands and heart in passionate +appeal. + +"Dear God, have mercy upon us! If I did wrong, forgive my sin. Help me +now to save my poor unfortunate father, and I will strive to be a better +Christian all the remainder of my days." + +At eight o'clock a waiter brought her breakfast. Later, when Mr. +Herriott came in, it was evident he had mastered himself; the fury of +white heat had chilled to cold steel. He was very pale, and an unusual +rigidity locked his features. + +"You must be very tired of this close place, and I am glad we shall +change cars. It is a fine day, and the scenery along the route will +interest you. Here is our train. Give me your wrap and satchel." + +The change was into a parlor car with fresh, linen-covered revolving +chairs, and wide windows framing lovely spring pastorals--sheep on a +green hillside, cattle knee deep in rock-bedded crystal streams, and +everywhere the busy bird world nest building. + +Eglah drew a deep breath of relief, and, as Mr. Herriott pushed a +hassock under her feet, she looked up at him. + +"Thank you. Will you be so kind as to tell me when we shall reach the +place where your ward lives?" + +"I think the train has about made up lost time, and we are due at +Woodbury at half-past six. It is not on the trunk line, and we take a +narrow gauge just beyond Carville." + +Both wound their watches, and then, liberally supplied with magazines +and papers, settled comfortably in adjoining seats. She was the only +woman in the car, and a dozen men were scattered about, a few playing +cards, some dozing, others absorbed in newspapers. + +Mr. Herriott sat in front of his companion, his chair turned half around +and toward the window. After a time he took from his satchel a folded +chart and note-book. Spreading the former across his knees, he appeared +oblivious of all but the lines and figures, yet the angles in his bronze +face did not soften. Eglah had taken off her hat, hoping to ease the +teasing pain in her temples. She rested her head against the back of the +chair, and held up an open magazine, but no page was turned, and as she +laid it in her lap she shut her eyes. + +Her thoughts drifted to a small villa near Messina which Judge Kent had +expressed a wish to occupy because he chanced to see it in a rosy mantle +of almond blossoms. Mr. Whitfield would attend to estate matters, and +Boynton could be trusted to manage the plantations, though they were +miles apart. She could do as she pleased now with her money, and if she +failed in her mission to Woodbury she would ask her father to take her +abroad at once, until Mr. Herriott returned. During that time public +discussion of "Ely Twiggs" would end, and probably she need never come +back to America. Mr. Herriott evidently wished her out of his life, +forever out of his sight, and certainly he should be gratified. Her +father could not suspect her reason for going to Europe; he knew how to +keep newspapers from her, and as he did not dream she knew the dreadful +truth, they might resume the dear old life. So profound was her revery +that she had unconsciously opened her eyes, and they looked out, seeing, +not the farms and forests gliding by the window, but the sapphire sky, +the purple sea, the snow of lemon groves, the red glow of +oleander-walled gardens, and the silvery grey-green olive orchards where +she might hide her father from shame, herself from the withering scorn +of Mr. Herriott's cruel eyes. + +Glancing at her over the top of the lifted chart, his attention was +arrested by the intense abstraction in which she was plunged. Her +extreme pallor was relieved only by vivid color in her delicately curved +lips, and under the eyes bluish circles told something of her suffering. +He thought of the haunting, wonderful eyes of Urd, and bit his lips as +he watched her; so pathetically hopeless, yet unwaveringly proud was the +pure face he had loved long and passionately. + +The door behind them opened, and a naval officer entered, carrying in +his arms a crying child about six months old. The bundle of muslin and +lace squirmed and struggled as the man strove to pacify it by beating a +tattoo on the window, dangling his watch close to the baby's eyes, and +bouncing it up and down. He walked about, sat down, laid the infant face +downward across his knees, trotted it, patted it, but with no quieting +success, and, when the engine blew long and loud for a bridge crossing, +the frightened child screamed distressingly. + +The officer rose. + +"I am sorry to annoy the passengers, but the nurse has been taken so ill +she cannot hold her head up, and as the boy cries to go to her I was +obliged to bring him in here. He never saw me until last night. I was on +a cruise when his poor mother died." + +Once more he essayed to whistle, and swayed to and fro with a rocking +motion, but finally desperate, he turned to a young man in a neighboring +chair, who was smiling over a cartoon in "Puck." + +"Sir, would you do me the great kindness to hold him just a moment, +while I get something from his nurse?" + +"All right, I will try; but I happen to be a bachelor, and I never held +a baby in my life. Come on, little man. Some day you surely will make a +star screamer in opera. Now for it, sonny." + +He held out his arms, but, as the father attempted to transfer the boy, +the sight of another strange face increased his terror; the little hands +grasped the officer's beard, and the baby shrieked in protest. + +Eglah rose and crossed the car. + +"He is accustomed to women; perhaps I can quiet him. Will you allow me +to try?" + +"O, thank you, madam!" + +She took one little hand, caressed it, toyed with the fingers, and cooed +as only women can. After a moment the child ceased crying, and when very +gently she took it and laid it up against her shoulder the little +creature nestled close to her. His suspicion, however, was not entirely +allayed. Suddenly he lifted his head, stared curiously into her face, +and when she laid her cheek on his, wet with tears, he seemed reassured +and clung to her, his lips touching her throat. + +The young man leaned over and whispered to a friend in the chair before +him. + +"He shows good taste in picking his nurse. Is not she a beauty? I have +been watching that handsome couple, and things are not serene in their +camp. I was near him in the smoker, and his face looked like a +brownstone statue with live wild-cat eyes." + +Eglah walked slowly up and down the aisle, humming low and very softly +Kücken's "Schlummerlied." Now and then the child sobbed faintly. + +The officer came back with a bottle of milk, but, as he hurried forward, +Eglah shook her head. After a little while the exhausted baby slept +soundly. + +"Madam, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your goodness. I will +relieve you now, and I trust the passengers will excuse the annoyance." + +"Let me keep him a while; he still sobs now and then, and if moved might +wake. A good nap will quiet his nerves." + +"It is too great a tax on you, madam." + +"When I am tired, I shall bring him to you." + +"In a half hour we get home, and since you are so very kind, I will help +the nurse arrange luggage for our station." + +Eglah went back to her own chair, and holding the little creature with +her right arm softly patted him with her left hand. At every motion the +wedding ring flashed like a dancing demon in Mr. Herriott's watching +eyes. + +"Poor little chap. Did you mesmerize him?" + +"I think there is telepathy in great trouble. He feels intuitively that +some one else is suffering torture, and 'a fellow feeling' drew him to +me." + +She avoided looking at him, and her eyes followed the evolutions of a +flock of white geese holding regatta in a pond close to the railway +track. + +After some moments, she cautiously and tenderly laid her muslin-clad +burden in her lap, and smoothed out the long lace-ruffled robe. With a +start one little hand was thrown up, but she caught and held it. He was +a handsome boy, and when she untied the lace cap, too tight at his +throat, his fluffy yellow locks enhanced his beauty. + +The sight of the baby fingers clinging to the hand where the gold band +shone renewed the struggle Mr. Herriott was trying to crush. + +Leaning toward her, he said: + +"Last night, at your request, I stifled my repugnance, and did what I +deeply regret. To-day I must ask you for the only favor you can ever +grant me. Give me back my ring." + +There was an angry pant in his voice that made the words a demand rather +than request. + +"Mr. Herriott, I am sorry to refuse any wish of yours; but I cannot." + +"I want it." + +She looked steadily at him. + +"So do I. When I die it will be where you placed it; but in the coffin +human covenants end, and I will order it sent to you by those who lay me +in the grave. My ring is the badge of my loyalty--not yours. You are as +free as you wish to be, but when I meet my God He will know I kept my +marriage vows--always." + +"And the supreme vow was to love me!" + +From the fury in his eyes she did not flinch. + +"Yes, I intended to keep all. I thought I might learn to love you; and +that you would be patient with me. I wanted to love you, and, as God +hears me, I meant to spend my life trying to love you." + +Unable to restrain words he was unwilling to utter, he sprang up and +took refuge on the front platform. + +A prolonged whistle of the engine announced the next stop, and the baby +awoke with a startled cry, just as his father entered, followed by the +nurse, a middle-aged woman who looked too ill to stand. Eglah rose and +laid the child in her arms. + +"Madam, I am deeply grateful for your courtesy and goodness. I intended +handing my card to your husband. Permit me to lay it on his chair." + +"I was glad to have your pretty boy. It was a welcome incident in a very +dreary day. Good morning, sir." + +Mr. Herriott did not return until the second call for luncheon sounded +through the train. He took her hat from the brass hook and held it +toward her. + +"I dare say you are sufficiently weary to welcome luncheon." + +"Thank you, but I want absolutely nothing. I hope you will go without +me." + +He went out, but not to the dining car. + +An hour later, when he came back, she had crossed the aisle to a vacant +chair, raised the window, and, with an arm on the broad sill, rested her +head there. She did not notice his entrance, and resuming his seat he +opened a magazine. + +Above the line of brass lattice that held packages, hats, and umbrellas +ran a panel of mirrors, and in the section over his head was reflected +the face and figure directly opposite. For the next hour he held the +magazine open, but his eyes never left the mirror. Twice she looked at +her watch without raising her head, and from the tense, strained +fixedness of her features he knew she was nerving herself for the ordeal +at Woodbury; the final effort in her father's behalf, which he felt +assured would prove futile. Conflicting emotions shook him, but nothing +availed to abate the rage of his disappointment. + +The train slowed at the entrance to a large town, and as the station +platform filled with curious faces peering into the car windows, Eglah +went back to her own seat. + +A moment later the door was thrown open, and a boy wearing the uniform +of the telegraph company shouted: + +"Is Mr. Noel Herriott aboard? Message for Mr. Noel Herriott!" + +"I am Mr. Herriott." + +He went forward, signed his name in the receipt-book, and opened the +envelope. He stood with his back to Eglah, and remained so motionless +that she was seized by an apprehension some evil had overtaken her +father. Just as she rose he turned and approached her. + +"Has anything happened to father? + +"This is not from the South. It does not refer to him. We may have to +stop here. Keep your seat till I ascertain positively." + +Very soon he returned, followed by a porter, who promptly collected +satchels and magazines. + +"I find I must wait here until two o'clock in the morning." + +"Why delay reaching Woodbury? I beg of you let us hasten on." + +"There are reasons necessitating it that will be explained later." + +She had drawn back, but he took her arm. + +"The train will move in a moment, and unless you wish to go on alone, we +must be quick." + +He assisted her into an omnibus, where several passengers waited, and +they were driven to a hotel. Mr. Herriott ordered two rooms, and at the +door of one said: + +"I must see that the trunks are brought at once. I need mine." + +Throwing aside her hat, Eglah began to pace the floor. His countenance +had undergone a marked change--subtle, inexplicable--and an indefinable +dread caught her heart as in a vise. It seemed to her that an hour +passed before he tapped at the door, and she could scarcely articulate, + +"Come in." + +With a square package sealed in brown paper under one arm, Mr. Herriott +entered, closed the door, and deposited the bundle on a small table. +From his vest pocket he drew the folded telegram and gave it to her. + + "Woodbury, 3 P.M. + + "Duncan Keith died two days ago. Wired you at New York Club. + Everything attended to here. Will meet you at Carville at 8 + P.M. + + "HERMAN MARTIN." + +Her wide, terrified eyes gazed into his. + +"What does it mean for me--now?" + +"It means that probably some guilty bank officials will go 'unwhipped of +justice.' Duncan's father had no relatives in America. He was a poor +stowaway lad from England, and since the grandmother's death his son, +Duncan, had only his mother's sister, Mrs. Martin. I could not hear from +Duncan, to whom I wrote twice last week, and this telegram is an answer +to one I sent Martin, telling him I could make only a very brief stop at +Woodbury to-night. I have done my duty. I have kept my word. The +prosecution of the guilty does not devolve on me, and Martin will never +consent to undertake a suit for libel. It would involve money which he +does not possess, and responsibility he will not dare to assume. Your +father's letters, and the vouchers for large sums of money sent to 'Ely +Twiggs,' are in a separate envelope. I shall burn them now, before I +deliver the box to Martin." + +She sprang forward, her hands on his shoulders, her lips quivering like +rose-leaves in a gale. + +"Do you mean it? Will you save my father?" + +He took her wrists and held her away from him. + +"Death saves him; certainly not I." + +"No more sorrow can ever come to him?" + +"Not from this box; and none through me." + +The revulsion overwhelmed her. She sank back, and when he caught her and +put his ear to her mouth he could not hear her breathe. He lifted and +laid her upon a sofa, and stood looking down at her. So pure and white, +so helpless, so beautiful! Legally his wife, but never to be his. + +Dipping a towel in water he bathed her face, sprinkled it. The icy hands +he chafed in his broad, warm palms, and as his fingers touched the +wedding ring he ground his teeth. When her breathing grew stronger, he +rose, relinquished her hands, and after a moment she opened her eyes. + +"I thought you college-bred girls too well trained to faint." + +She sat up, half dazed, and the water dripped from her hair. + +"I never fainted before; something smothered me, and everything turned +black. Mr. Herriott!" + +He had gone to the table, but turned, and looked at her over his +shoulder. + +"Mr. Herriott, did not you say father was safe from shame and sorrow?" + +"In a few moments he will be." + +He opened the tin box, selected a small bundle of papers in an envelope +marked "Ely Twiggs," and drew some matches from his case. In the grate +he burned them one by one, then relocked and tied up the box. + +"Eglah, what a pity Iphigenia did not know favorable winds were already +blowing at Aulis before she yielded herself to her father's sacrificing +hands! Poor Duncan had been dead twenty-four hours when the bishop +performed that nuptial farce. If Martin's telegram had been forwarded, +you would now be happy at home. I find it necessary to change my plans +somewhat. I can spend but a single day at home, and, instead of going +directly thence to Boston, shall make a few hours' stay in New York to +see my lawyers." + +"To alter your will? You need not. I have more than I require, and if I +were a pauper I should never accept a cent from you. There is only one +thing you can ever give me, and that I must want as long as I live." + +He was walking slowly up and down the floor, his hands behind him, and +paused beside the sofa. + +"What is it?" + +She pushed back the damp rings of hair, and lifted to his, pleading eyes +pathetically sad. + +"Your confidence--your old faith in me." + +"Confidence! It lies with love in a grave so deep there can be no +resurrection. The world is full of women--lovely, luscious women. Of +fair flesh there is for most men no lack; but I wanted, I hungered, I +longed for only one pair of dimpled arms folded about my neck, one +woman's divinely tender eyes answering all the love in mine, one pair of +proud, pure, sensitive, beautiful lips seeking and clinging to mine. +Voluntarily you gave yourself to me--your precious self--and when +bewildered with happiness I caught you to my heart, you stabbed me. I +was mole blind, but sharp clipping has rid me of my cataracts. Let us +make an end of this dismal farce. All my life I have fought my infernal +temper, and now it has me by the throat. It will take an Arctic winter +to cool the hot fury that possesses me; and because I must not speak +harshly to you, I wish to ask if you will allow me to leave you here? I +can telegraph your father to come at once." + +For a moment wounded pride stifled her; she shrank as from a blow, and +red signals swung back into her pale cheeks. + +"As you please, Mr. Herriott. It is more painfully embarrassing for me +to force my presence upon you than for you to endure the sight of me for +a few hours longer. If you prefer to leave me here instead of at the +place selected and designated before I left home, of course I shall +submit. We have not many friends, and father's enemies will gossip over +the fact that I was sent home before you sailed from Boston. This, +however, is a minor matter in comparison with the fear that the change +you suggest might lead father to suspect I had learned the object of +your visit to Y----. Life will be unendurable to me if he finds out that +I know the contents of that box. I would rather die than have him +believe all the horrible facts are in my possession. For his sake I----" + +"For his sake you would go down into Hades!" + +"Where else am I now? What ordeal more fiery than last night and to-day? +I know now that I did wrong, but the awful ruin seemed so imminent I +fled through the only door of escape that appeared possible. I am +punished, and I deserve all I suffer. Leave me here, or anywhere else, +as you find most convenient and most comfortable for yourself." + +"Pardon me. Of course your wishes determine the matter. I suggested the +change, thinking that as your sole object in making this journey was to +secure the papers, you would find it a relief to return as soon as you +were sure of their destruction." + +He wrote a few lines in his note-book and held it before her. + +"Would this be entirely agreeable to you? 'Judge Allison Kent: Duncan +died two days ago. I burned the "Ely Twiggs" papers to-night. Never +mention them to Eglah. She wishes you to meet her in Philadelphia +Saturday.'" + +"Thank you; that is what I prefer. When you come back----" + +"I hope never to come back. I will not lead a sham life, and I will not +live under the same roof with one who, to please her father, tried to +love me and found she could not." + +"When you come back I shall try to be in Europe, and you may rest +assured of no intrusion. My marriage gives me control of my own estate, +and now I wish to know the amount it cost you to recover the bonds you +delivered to the college." + +"You must excuse me if I decline to answer. That matter concerns only +Nina and myself. What I did was solely for her and my father." + +"I shall find out, and send a check to your lawyers." + +"My lawyers know absolutely nothing about it, and as your father must +not suspect you heard the conversation, you will scarcely ask him. I +have some letters to write, memoranda to arrange for Martin, and several +telegrams to send immediately. Our train starts at two A.M., and you can +get a sound sleep, which you sadly need. I ordered your dinner sent +here. Do you wish your trunk?" + +She shook her head. + +"Try to get a good rest. You will be called in time for the train. I +have papers to prepare that will keep me busy until then. Eglah--poor +little girl--" + +She looked up at him defiantly, but the peculiar expression in his +brilliant eyes she could not understand. + +He caught his mustache between his teeth, picked up the tin box, and +left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The weather had changed. After rain a keen north wind curled the waters +of the great lake into wreaths of foam, breaking against the terrace, +and the old Scotch clock in the lower hall struck midnight as Mr. +Herriott's carriage drew up before the open door of his house. When he +stepped to the ground a wild uproar of rejoicing dogs greeted him, and +it was some seconds before he could rid himself of caressing paws. He +assisted Eglah out, and turning toward the light met Amos Lea. + +"Why, old man! It was kind of you to sit up for us. You should be asleep +in your bed. Here is Mrs. Herriott. You saw her one summer." + +The gardener held out his rough, hard hand, and she laid hers in it. + +"Welcome home, madam. I hope you will be good to the lad; he will always +do right by you." + +Mr. Herriott laughed as he led her up the stone steps. + +"Amos, you can not lecture her as you do me." + +The housekeeper and one of the maids came forward for wraps and +satchels. + +"Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Herriott is very tired. Did you receive my telegram from +Carville?" + +"Yes, sir; the blue room is in order; bath, fire, supper, everything all +ready." + +Drawing Eglah's arm through his, he ascended the wide oak staircase, +saying: + +"I had it papered and arranged especially for you that summer you came +for a few days, and since then no one has been allowed to occupy it." + +At the landing he called over the railing: + +"Mrs. Orr, as it will be late when the trunks come, do not send up Mrs. +Herriott's until morning. She needs rest, and I do not wish her +disturbed before she rings her bell." + +On a table drawn near the fire in the "blue room" a decanter and glasses +glittered in the glow from an open hearth. Mr. Herriott poured out some +Tokay. + + +"I am sorry I could not make your home-coming less dismal; but for you +the worst is over, and, if you please, we will not refer to it again. +To-morrow I shall be engaged with two committees, one relating to a +scientific scholarship I wish to establish, and my time is so limited I +can be with you very little. The necessity for going via New York, where +I must stop, shortens my stay here; and I am compelled to allow some +margin for delay _en route_ from Boston to Sydney, where the vessel is +due on the fifteenth. This is not exactly a 'loving-cup,' but you must +join me." + +He touched her glass with his, and a deep undercurrent of suppressed +emotion surged through the quietly spoken words. + +"Complete oblivion of all that has distressed you during the last +forty-eight hours. Put me entirely out of your thoughts, and remember +that now you can be happy with your father." + +He emptied his glass and replaced it on the salver. + +"No. I would not forget it if I could. I pray God that you may escape +every danger; that you will come back in safety to your home; and while +I may never see you again, I hope to hear you are far happier than I +could ever have made you." + +She sipped the wine, put it aside, and continued: + +"You can not understand the utter ruin of hopes, ambitions, beliefs, +that heretofore made my life worth living. In the awful wreck one thing +survives--my faith in you, who walk always in the light of 'the high +white star of Truth.' I honor and I trust you now as I never did before +the ordeal of the last few hours. The fault was mine, not yours; and as +I deserve, I wish I could bear all the pain, all the consequences, of my +desperate rashness. You do not understand what I suffer." + +She stood with her hands folded on her breast, so close to him that he +noted how wan and drawn the young face had grown, how measureless the +misery in eyes peering hopelessly into futurity. + +"At least I fully and sorrowfully understand one thing--you know no more +about love than that baby you nursed on the train." + +In avoidance of his cold scrutiny, her strained gaze had wandered to the +frieze of silver lilies on the wall, but now she looked at him. + +"Mr. Herriott, you may be sure that when you go away and leave me +forever, I shall never learn." + +There was a sudden glint in his eyes, like a blue blade flash, but after +a moment he listened to the clock, and turned away. + +"Good-night. Get all the sleep you can. You will need it for your +journey South to-morrow." + +He closed the door, and she heard his quick step ring down the long +stairway; then the joyful bark of the dogs told he had left the house. + +She was an unusually healthy woman, and, impatient of the teasing pain +in her temples, shook out her heavy coil of hair. She walked from door +to fireplace, from bed to bathroom, up and down, around and around, too +restless to lie down, dominated by a strange feeling she made no attempt +to analyze. As the clock struck four, she still walked to and fro, never +suspecting that Mr. Herriott stood in the hall, close to her door, +listening to the slow sound of her feet on the polished oak floor, +fighting down his longing to enter and take her in his arms. + +The "blue room" looked out on the sickle-shaped beach and upon the lake, +and when the sun rose above cliffs at the rear of the house, the racing +waves leaped, crooned, flashed in golden light. + +Looping back the lace draperies at the window, Eglah stood watching the +flight of a loon, the quivering, silver flicker of ducks' wings against +the pale pink sky-line, the gliding of a sloop with sails bending like a +huge white butterfly balancing over some vast blue flower. + +Walking slowly up the beach, Mr. Herriott was approaching the stile, and +with him the collie Pilot, the Polish wolfhound Tzar, one on each side, +and the wiry black-and-white Skye terrier Snap wriggling in front. At +the stile Amos Lea sat waiting, and master and gardener talked for some +minutes. + +After a little the latter rose, put one hand on Mr. Herriott's shoulder, +raised the other, and turned his rugged face toward heaven. + +Eglah knew he was praying for the man now hurrying away to multitudinous +dangers, and her eyes grew strangely humid. When the mist cleared, she +saw they were shaking hands, and Amos disappeared behind the garden +wall. As the master neared the terrace steps he glanced up at her +window, took off his cap, and saluted her. He had never looked so +commanding, so nobly built, so superior to all other men. Something +stirred, quivered, woke up in her heart, and a swift spasm of pain +seized her. + +A half hour later Mr. Herriott knocked at her door. She opened it, and +one quick glance at the ivory bed and its lace hangings told him she had +not lain down. + +"Good morning. Will you come down and give me my coffee, or shall I send +breakfast to you here?" + +"I prefer to come down." + +He held up a bouquet of heliotrope, daintily arranged. + +"Amos Lea's 'compliments to the madam,' and he hopes she will wear these +flowers, as he always cut heliotrope for her when she visited here." + +Afraid to trust her voice, she took the bouquet, inhaled its fragrance, +and slipped the stems into the girdle of her silk morning gown. + +At the head of the stairs he put his palm under her elbow to steady her +steps, but at the door of the dining-room, where butler and housekeeper +waited, he took her fingers in his, led her to the head of the table, +and seated her. During breakfast he talked of the garden, of his horses, +of some pheasants he knew she would admire, of a tazza on the library +mantel she must be sure to examine, and she wondered at the complete +control and composure he had attained. Was it merely the _noblesse +oblige_ of a courteous host? + +After a second cup of coffee, he looked at the clock. + +"Hawkins, tell Rivers to bring the dog-cart around. Eglah, come and see +Amos Lea's gloxinias." + +He put on his hat and light overcoat, and walked beside her to the +hothouse. + +"I shall be busy in town nearly all day, there are so many last things +to be attended to. I had abandoned all idea of joining this expedition, +when I received a letter telling me an important member of the party had +lost his father, and family interests compelled him to stay at home. The +request was urgent that I should cable my acceptance of the invitation, +which I did; hence I have had little time for necessary preparation, and +some things I am obliged to do this morning. Here comes the cart. We +must be at the station by five o'clock this afternoon. Your train +southbound starts just ten minutes before mine leaves for New York. +Trunks will be sent in at three o'clock. While I am away in town I +should be glad to have you look all over the house. Some of the rooms +you have never seen--my laboratory and den. In my bedroom hangs a +portrait of my lovely mother, that I particularly desire you to see. +Good-bye." + +He raised his hat, sprang into the cart, and was soon out of sight. + +Five moments later the keen, solemn eyes of Amos peered at her from +behind a cluster of tall palms. + +"Why didn't you marry him sooner, and keep him at home?" + +"I did not know he was going until the day we were married. I hoped and +believed I could induce him to stay, but he had given his word." + +"And that word of his he never breaks. Head, heart, purse, maybe will +give way, but not the pledged word of old Fergus Herriott's boy. This +self-murder that goes on in the name of 'science' is a sin in the +nostrils of the Lord, and if only the blear-eyed, spectacled old fools +that set up to know more about creation than Moses did, after he went to +school to God for forty days, could swamp themselves under the ice, it +would be silly enough, and no matter, but for my lad! Susan and I +nursed, rocked him, prayed over his cradle since he was barely one year +old, and now for him to be cast out like Jonah for fish bait. If God had +wanted the North Pole handled and strung with flags it would never have +been shut up in nights six months long, behind ice high as Ararat and +wide as the flood. There will be lonesome days till the lad gets +home--and if he never comes back! Where will his dear bones be in the +resurrection?" + +His bearded chin trembled, and his heavy, shaggy white eyebrows met over +his nose. + +"Mr. Lea, we must not cease to pray. God needs such noble men as Mr. +Herriott, and He can protect him from every danger." + +"Madam, don't 'mister' me. I am just Amos Lea--Noel's Amos. Study your +Bible and you will find out the Lord needs no man; the best of us are +but worthless cumberers of the ground." + +He drew his sleeve across his eyes and left her. + +Up and down the hothouses, through the shrubbery, over the stile, along +the curving beach and back to the terrace she wandered, striving in vain +to divert her thoughts from one fact that overshadowed everything +else--the master was going away that afternoon, and she might never see +him again. From public disgrace her father was safe, the crisis of acute +terror on his account had passed; but now, as the smoke of the battle +drifted away, she became dimly conscious that she carried a wound she +had not suspected and could not explain. The ache in her heart was +unlike any former pain; there was nothing with which to compare it, and +she dared not analyze it at present. Through the house she walked +aimlessly until she reached the suite of rooms set apart for the master. +In the laboratory she did not linger, but the adjoining apartment she +knew must be the "den," from the strong, pervading odor of cigar smoke. +The wainscoting of carved walnut, five feet high, was surmounted by a +shelf holding a miscellaneous collection of whips, pipes, geological +specimens, flints from Indian mounds, a hematite hatchet, a copper maul, +a jade adze. In one corner of the room stood a totem pole with a +brooding owl; in another a "kahili" of white feathers, with richly +inlaid handle; and upon the wall above the shelf, suspended by heavy +silk cords, a gold-colored "ahulla." Two trunks strapped and ready for +removal had been drawn to the middle of the apartment. On one lay a +heavy overcoat fur lined, and a fine field glass in a leather shield; on +the other a gun case and box of instruments. + +She sat down in a deep morocco cushioned chair, from the brass knob of +which hung a somewhat faded silk smoking jacket lined with quilted +orange satin, and looked up at the steel engravings, the etchings, the +water colors on the wall; at some marble and bronze busts on the mantel +shelf, and on the top of a teak cabinet filled with curios from Crete, +Uxmal, Labná, and the Mancos Cañon. + +Over the writing desk and a neighboring table were strewn scientific +journals, and on a sheet of paper that had fluttered to the floor on its +way to the over-laden waste basket, bold headlines had been written by +Mr. Herriott: + +"First--Were the cliff-dwellers of Asiatic origin? + +"Second--Are the Eskimos survivors of pre-glacial man who dwelt within +the Arctic circle when its fauna and flora, under similar climatic +conditions, corresponded with those now existing in Virginia and +Maryland? + +"Third--Are kames and drumlins infallible index fingers?" + +Whether the page contained notes from some book that he wished to +controvert, or his own views jotted down for future elaboration, she +could not determine; but as she stooped to pick up and preserve it, a +growl startled her, and around the corner of the desk she saw the red +eyes of Tzar. She spoke to him, but he rose, showed his fangs, and +stalked out of the room, the bristles stiff on his dun-colored back. How +long she sat, plunged in painful, perplexed revery, she never knew; but +finally she went to the open door of the bedroom, and leaned against the +facing, unwilling to enter. Over the low, carved chimney-piece hung the +portrait of Mrs. Herriott, a very beautiful young woman in black velvet +and pearls, and the perfect features, the poise of head, the silky black +hair, and especially the fine moulding of brow she gave to her son, +though unlike his her soft, tender eyes matched her hair in color. + +Below the portrait a silver frame held a photograph of Eglah in evening +dress, taken in Washington; beside it another, wearing her college cap +and gown. On the dressing table a glittering circle arrested her +attention. Swiftly she entered, crossed the room, and leaned over it. An +exquisitely painted miniature of herself, set with diamonds, and resting +on a carved ivory easel, looked up at her. Two discarded photographs of +Mr. Herriott lay with some torn letters under a neighboring chair. She +snatched one and hurried away, fearing to trust herself; but passing the +smoking jacket she caught it up, folded it under her arm, and escaped to +her room. + +Exchanging her trailing morning gown of cream silk for the travelling +suit, she packed her trunk, hiding jacket and photograph beneath the +tray, locked it, and sat down to wait. In the wreck of her overturned +altar and shattered filial ideals, beyond and above the desolation of +her cruel disenchantment, rose one image inflexible, incorruptible, +absolutely invulnerable to temptation, that involved sacrifice of duty. +As the mist cleared, strange new valuations loomed, and she thought of +lines that limned his portrait: + + "Loyalty is still the same, + Whether it win or lose the game." + +For years he had been entirely hers. Now she lost him hopelessly. His +contempt could spare no room for pity; her presence infuriated him. + +He had lifted her to a sacred niche where love and reverence jealously +guarded her, and she had hurled herself down into the mire of the market +place. + +"For sale! Any man could have bought you, body and soul." + +The words branded her. They seemed burned in by the scorn flaming in his +eyes, and she thought of the red letter on Hester Prynne's breast. The +world should never know, but she would carry that scar to her grave. + +Soon the clock struck three, and simultaneously the outcry of the dogs +announced their master's return. Hat and gloves in hand, Eglah went down +to the drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of Mr. Herriott hurrying +toward the gardener's cottage. Later he went to his own rooms, and when +dinner was announced apologized for unavoidable delay. + +He had reined himself in with a grip so tight that the only evidence of +suppressed excitement was the feverish, steady gleam in his eyes. He +talked of Mrs. St. Clair, of Father Temple, of Trix Stapleton, whom he +should see for a moment in New York. + +During a brief lull in the conversation, Eglah said: + +"I found your mother's portrait, which you asked me to look at. In an +extraordinary degree you resemble her." + +"Thank you. That is a compliment I value. It is indeed a pity she could +not have endowed me with the patience and amiability that so endeared +her to all who knew her." + +Very soon the moment came for parting words, and she went down to the +carriage step, leaving him with the servants clustered in the hall, but +Amos Lea was not visible. Mr. Herriott handed Eglah to the back seat, +and for a moment stooped to speak to and pat the head of each dog. As he +entered the carriage and seated himself opposite his companion, slamming +the door as signal to the coachman, the housemaid threw up her hands and +ran down the steps. + +"Please, sir, Mr. Herriott, may I speak to you?" + +He put out his head. + +"What is the matter?" + +"The silk jacket, sir. You told me to carry it to Mr. Lea, but, sir, I +can't find it. You must have put it in your trunk." + +"No, I wore it this morning after the trunks were locked and strapped." + +"Indeed, sir, I have searched your rooms most faithful, and that jacket +is not there." + +"You will find it somewhere in the den. Good-bye, Della. Drive on, +Rivers." + +The house fronted the lake, and the carriage road at the rear wound +through thick shrubbery, groups of deodars, and a lane of lilacs in full +bloom. The iron gates were open, and against one marble pillar Amos Lea +leaned. As the horses dashed through, he motioned to the driver. At +sight of him Mr. Herriott's face changed, softened; he sprang out and +walked back a few yards. + +Through a glass in the curtain Eglah saw the old man's brawny hands laid +on Mr. Herriott's shoulders, and the harsh voice shook. + +"Oh, lad! May the Lord bless you and keep you in the hollow of His hand, +and bring your body safely back, and save your dear soul from the snares +of the ungodly that go down to the icy sea in ships. Wherever you wander +Susan's eyes will follow you until you reach that rest where there is no +more night." + +"It hurts me sorely to say good-bye to you, Amos. For my sake take extra +care of yourself. Let up on moles and slugs and shotbugs in damp +weather. Look after my dogs for me, and be good to Aunt Trina when she +comes for her visit. One thing more, be sure the tower lamp is lighted +every night. When I am groping and stumbling in Arctic darkness, it will +cheer me to know that light is shining over a black, stormy lake. Now I +must go. I hope God will keep you strong and well. Good-bye." + +Then the voice sank so low a few additional words were inaudible to +those beyond the gate. He took the gardener's hands, shook them warmly, +and re-entered the carriage. As he did so Eglah pointed to the seat +beside her, which he accepted, and she saw his eyes were misty. + +For some moments neither spoke. + +"Aunt Trina is fond of the old place, and I have asked her to spend July +here, with any friends she may wish to bring. She and Amos spar like +prize fighters over immersion and close communion, and he brands her +extreme ritualism 'idolatry rank as the groves of Baal.'" + +He looked at his watch, and called to the coachman: + +"Rivers, we have very little time to spare." + +His closed right hand rested on his knee, and Eglah laid hers upon it. + +"Since I was a little girl you have been my faithful, sympathizing, +patient friend, and now I can not bear that you should leave me without +uttering one kind word of forgiveness for the great wrong I realize at +last that I have done you." + +"Eglah, for God's sake don't open that door, which shuts out--what I can +not discuss again with you, because I must not wound you." + +She noticed the suppressed pant in his voice, and as he did not respond +to the touch of her hand, her slender fingers crept between and twined +around his. + +"Mr. Herriott, when you come home----" + + +"I shall try not to come home." + +"If I promise you shall never see me there, perhaps that assurance may +tempt you back. You are casting me out of your life, and I have no right +to complain, but I wish to say that I hope you will have no fear for the +name you gave irrevocably into my keeping." + +"You bear my name, my father's name, but I am very sure your little +white hands will hold it clean, pure, and sacred. Should you invoke +legal aid to free you from merely nominal matrimonial bonds, I prefer +you should then resume your father's name. If you choose to make no +change, and I do not return, the name will die with you, and I believe +you will guard it as you would the Grail." + +Unconsciously his hand tightened on hers, until the edge of the ring cut +into her finger. + +"Mr. Herriott, you will write to me?" + +He shook his head. + +Looking intently at her, he noticed the deep blue shadows under her +eyes, and the first tears he had ever seen her shed rolled slowly over +her worn face. + +"Unless my letters were hollow shams, they would only distress you, and +all future annoyance I wish to avoid. Silence is the only possible +peace." + +At this moment the carriage stopped, and he looked out. + +"Why do you lag, Rivers?" + +"A train, sir. Switch engine and gravel cars." + +"Drive around it." + +"I can't, sir. Red signal just ahead of the horse's nose." + +Mr. Herriott stepped out, and walked for some minutes up and down the +embankment. Then the train pulled out, and when he re-entered his +carriage he took the front seat. + +"I sent a telegram to your father, which ought to reach him in +Washington, telling him the number of your train, and your hotel in +Philadelphia; and I hope your return journey will prove more agreeable +than your trip with me. If any necessity should arise that would require +you to communicate with me, you will find this card in the outside +pocket of your satchel, but the address means only that letters will be +forwarded to Upernavik. When we leave there no mail will reach us." + +The carriage drew up to the platform, and Mr. Herriott assisted Eglah +into the train. With her wraps and satchel he preceded her to the +drawing-room. + +"This is more comfortable than the one you occupied two days ago, and I +trust you can rest well. Here are your tickets and check. This train is +almost ready to start, and mine moves in ten minutes. In parting I make +only one request. I ask you now to put me out of your life. I want you +to forget me, and be happy with your father. Good-bye." + + +His face was white, and the expression of his eyes she never forgot. + +He had extended his hand, but the horrible possibilities of the future +swept all proud scruples aside, and she put her arms around his neck, +clinging desperately to him. + +"Mr. Noel, you shall never, never, be out of my life! I will always +belong to my--own--Mr. Noel." + +The check rein snapped. + +He clasped--strained her against his breast, and she felt the furious +beating of his heart. It was barely a moment. Gently he unwound her +arms, put her quickly aside, and left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The resumption of cordially affectionate relations between Judge Kent +and his daughter was marked on her part by increased tenderness and +deference, on his by demonstrative caresses particularly conspicuous +after years of alienation. His exactions upon her time became despotic; +he was dissatisfied when she was out of his sight, and if within reach +his hand usually rested on her arm or shoulder. The paramount aim of her +life was attained. She was assured that she reigned supreme in her +coveted kingdom--his heart. Freed from dread of public exposure, his +spirits rebounded, and his jovial, self-indulgent nature enjoyed basking +once more before the fire of financial prosperity, exulted in the +consciousness that at last the long desired Maurice fortune was at his +command. Eglah wondered that from the hour he met her in Philadelphia he +asked no questions concerning her bridal journey--no explanation of her +unexpectedly hurried return. + +He sedulously avoided all mention of Mr. Herriott, except to rail at the +imbecility of Arctic explorers, and suspecting that he smarted from the +humiliating knowledge that his son-in-law had possessed proofs of his +guilt, she welcomed silence as balm for her sore heart. From the day of +her return to Nutwood she severed every social tie linking her with +Y----. Of visiting she made an end, all invitations were declined, and +she was seen only at church, beside her father. They rode, drove, walked +together. On his fishing jaunts she read while he wandered from pool to +pool, and made tea for him when, tired and thirsty, he came back to a +shaded spot where she waited. Now and then a few of his friends spent an +evening in the billiard room, or played cards in the library, and +discussed Republican policies. At night Eliza Mitchell usually brought +her sewing to the table, Judge Kent smoked in his easy chair, and Eglah +arranged the chessboard at his elbow, or read aloud from some volume he +had selected. It rarely happened that she received his good-night kiss +until she had played a _nocturne_ or an _étude_ for which he asked. He +had an ardent, sensuous love of beauty in color, form, sound; +impassioned poetry, deep, rich melody, and subtle harmonies entranced +him, dimmed his fine, eloquent eyes. His musical taste had been +cultivated in accordance with classical standards, and while his +daughter's proficiency was not extraordinary, she played skilfully and +with a tenderly magnetic touch that justified his compliment: "My +daughter has tears in her pretty fingers." + +When a proud, reticent, beautiful woman suddenly takes an unusual and +totally unexpected step, abrogating fashionable conventions--when, +keeping her own counsel, she disdains explanation and shuts herself away +from curious questioners--the hounds of gossip are unleashed, and +beagles and fox-terriers follow in full cry. Outraged Y---- hummed like +a swarming hive. + +"Married without a sign of a trousseau, on a few hours' notice, with +barely time to get a license, a ring and a minister, and to pack her +trunk! Disgraceful!" + +Rumors of Mr. Herriott's wealth swelled to fabulous proportions. A +sister of Dr. Burbridge, whose young cousin was employed in the office +of the telegraph company, plied him with questions, until indiscreetly +and reluctantly he confided to her that two telegrams sent by the groom +showed that he had not come to Y---- intending marriage; whereupon she +set afloat information which merely increased the complexity of the +problem. Judge Kent had been so long the community scapegoat that in the +final public solution and adjustment of disreputable responsibility, an +additional load of selfish, wily iniquity was laid on his sin-stained +shoulders. By cunning chicanery he had forced his daughter's sudden +marriage, hoping that Arctic dangers, often fatal, would soon make her a +widow dowered with millions. + +Even the few who witnessed the ceremony, and recalled Eglah's +inscrutable white face, understood as little as the resentful uninvited, +yet when questioned they loyally maintained reserve. + +Bishop Vivian, Mr. Whitfield, and the Egglestons warmly defended the +girl, whom secretly they pitied, but society pilloried her. + +"She was shamelessly mercenary, absolutely devoid of womanly delicacy, +and a shocking disgrace to her poor mother's family." + +Henceforth the anti-Kent social element in Y---- resolved itself into a +vigilance committee to watch her behavior as a married woman. + +Into the whirlpool of tittle-tattle Mrs. Mitchell wisely abstained from +plunging. Her own information was too meagre, her uneasiness concerning +Eglah's stubborn silence and inexplicable manner too profound to admit +of discussion, even in defence. She staid at home, bided her time, and +held her peace. Moreover, she was wrestling with conscientious scruples +regarding her duty in withholding from Eglah some disquieting facts +known only to herself. + +The second night after his daughter's departure, Judge Kent had indulged +in stimulants to an unprecedented and alarming extent. With a decanter +of brandy at his elbow, he dozed in his arm-chair until roused by Aaron, +who delivered a telegram. Eliza was going upstairs to her own room, when +the boy rang the bell and handed in the message. + +"Lock up the house, Aaron. I think the judge is sleepy and will soon go +to bed." + +An hour later she sat reading her Bible, and heard a sound as of some +heavy object falling. Snatching her lamp, she went swiftly to the +library. The overturned decanter was slowly emptying itself on the +table, and Judge Kent lay on the floor, his head resting against the +cushioned seat of his chair. Evidently he had risen, slipped on the +polished floor, dropped the decanter, and lost consciousness. + +His face was purple, his breathing stertorous. Holding his head, she +pushed the chair back and laid him flat on the floor. + +Was it apoplectic seizure or intoxication? Her inexperience justified no +independent action, yet if drunkenness explained existing conditions, +she shrank from publishing the disgrace that would mortally wound Eglah. + +Bathing his head and face, she administered such restoratives as she +possessed, and loosened his vest and collar. Finally it seemed necessary +to summon Aaron and send Oliver for the doctor, but as she rose to ring +the bell Judge Kent opened his eyes. A dark, turbid red still stained +his face, but his respiration was less labored. + +"Don't move. After a little I can get Oliver to help you into bed." + +"I had a fall?" + +His utterance was thick, his articulation indistinct, and he hiccoughed. + +"Yes, sir. You are better, I think, and if you will only lie still a +while you can soon be made comfortable in your own room." + +She went into the adjoining apartment, saw that the bed had been +prepared, and a lamp lighted. When she returned he had struggled into a +sitting posture, his arms clasped around his knees. She sat down and +waited. On the table lay the brandy-stained telegram sent by Mr. +Herriott after he had burned the papers at Carville. She picked it up, +read it twice, and laid it down. + +"Mrs. Mitchell, if you will help me I can get into a chair." + +She took his extended hands, and he rose slowly, staggered against her, +and sank into his chair. Five minutes later he slept, but gradually his +face resumed its usual color. Eliza brought a basin of water from the +bedroom, washed away the brandy streaks from the floor and table, and +with a silk handkerchief dried and polished the fine old mahogany, +already whitening from its alcoholic bath. She went to an open window +and waited. The night was balmy, and loitering, thievish puffs of air +came laden with rifled sweetness from multitudinous lips of forest and +garden bloom. Far away the muffled monody of the river falls rose +towards the stars, whose light wove a golden braid across the water's +quivering crystal plunge over granite crags. In the dense shadow of the +walnut grove a squirrel barked, and from their red cedar covert the game +cocks shrilled midnight. + +After two hours Judge Kent awoke and groaned. Mrs. Mitchell handed him a +goblet of iced water, which he drained. + +"Shall I go and rouse Oliver, or would you prefer Aaron to assist you?" + +"I don't want either. If you will help me over this infernally slippery +floor to my bedroom sofa, I can manage." + +"You do not wish the doctor sent for?" + +"No." + +She took his arm, guided his unsteady steps to the sofa, arranged a +pillow, and unlaced his shoes. Very soon his deep, regular breathing +assured her the worst had passed. Was it the brandy, or the telegram or +both? What were the "Ely Twiggs" papers, of which Eglah must know +nothing, and why was she coming home immediately, instead of going to +Sydney, or at least as far as Boston? Could Mr. Herriott have been a +party to some scheme whereby she was entrapped into that sudden +marriage? + +At three o'clock she looked from the library door at the sleeping form +on the sofa, and with anxiety allayed, went upstairs to her room. +Awaiting a cue, she made no inquiries when he appeared at late +breakfast, and with characteristic aplomb his only reference to the +previous evening was an apology for troubling her to give him a third +cup of tea. + +"My head is a trifle shaky from the jar of that fall. Men of my age and +weight can not afford to sit down so heavily on bare boards, and I shall +insist on matting when the carpets are taken up." + +The receipt of the telegram requesting him to meet his daughter in +Philadelphia was followed by hurried preparations for departure, and +Mrs. Mitchell ventured to expostulate. + +"Judge Kent, if you realized how serious was your attack in the library, +you would not risk the imprudence of a railway journey. You ought to see +your doctor. Let me go and meet Eglah in Philadelphia." + +His bloodshot eyes twinkled as they met hers. + +"Doctor? Absurd! Attack? You mean that unlucky slip? It amounts to +nothing except a stubborn stiffness on the side where I struck those +diabolical sand-scoured boards. I particularly desire the matter should +not be mentioned to my daughter, who would reproach herself severely for +that 'dry-rubbed' floor she knows I detest as a cat does swimming." + +During his absence a cabinet maker was summoned and removed the ugly +grey stains on Eglah's favorite piece of old claw-footed mahogany. For a +time the incident seemed forgotten by all save the quiet, silent woman +keeping watch for the consequences. + +A few days after Eglah's return she sat at a window in her bedroom, +noting the deepening glory of the west, where the sun was just sinking +behind purple hills. It was the date on which the "Ahvungah" would leave +Sydney and begin her voyage to the world of eternal ice. + +The day had seemed one of doom, as if set for a funeral, and the going +down of the sun brought other shadows--darker than the mists that would +soon swim under the stars. If Mr. Herriott had forgiven her she might +have gone to Cape Breton, could have been with him till the last moment. +Now he was upon the ocean, and only God knew the future that looked so +black, so spectral, so full of desolation. + +Mrs. Mitchell opened the door and handed her a package. + +"Dearie, the express messenger brought this, and I signed for you." + +She went back to her own room and resumed her darning. + +The parcel was addressed in Mr. Herriott's handwriting: "Mrs. Noel +Herriott. Care Hon. Allison Kent." A wave of color flowed over Eglah's +pale face as she looked at her new name, and felt assured his eyes had +gleamed with scorn as he penned it. A pass-book and check-book of a New +York bank, with note from the cashier, were the first objects that met +her eye, and were instantly thrown aside; then a square box, elaborately +sealed. When she removed the wrapping paper a red morocco case appeared, +and around it was tied a note without a personal address. + + "Just before my father died he gave me two rings; one the + little gold band that hangs on my watch chain--my mother's + wedding ring. The other a stone he had given her on the day of + their betrothal. When he laid them in my hand, he said: 'Wear + one always. If you should ever marry, give the other, with my + blessing, to the woman who bears our name.' Because it was his + wish, I simply obey his injunction, and trust the ring sacred + from my mother's touch will grace the hand it was once my + fondest hope, my most ardent wish to claim. This should reach + you the day we leave Sydney. The sham is ended. Your freedom is + now complete. Do not hesitate to use it in any way that will + restore the happiness you so unwisely, so rashly imperilled. If + possible, your path in future shall be spared my shadow. + Good-bye. + + "HERRIOTT." + +The words stung like a scourge, and involuntarily she covered her face +with her hands. Time merely increased his bitterness; there was nothing +more for her to hope or expect. He intended perpetual separation. + +Mechanically she lifted the ring from its velvet bed. It was a superb +diamond, marked on the inside of the gold band, "Fergus to Una." The +circle fitted only one finger, that wearing the wedding ring, and was +too broad to share it. She replaced the jewel in its case and closed it. +A little later, when Mrs. Mitchell came in, the stony, despairing face +of the girl startled her. She ran forward and took her in her arms. + +"What is the matter? You have shut me out long enough; now I will know. +You have heard from Mr. Herriott?" + +"Yes. He sent me a check-book for money on deposit and a ring that had +been his mother's." + +"What are you breaking your heart over? O my baby, don't keep your +trouble from me! The dreadful night you went away you asked me not to +question you, but I must; I can't bear the sight of your dear face. +Nobody loves you as I do, and you know you can trust me." + +Eglah was silent a moment, and Eliza felt her shiver. + +"Yes, I am sure your love is the truest I shall ever possess, and I +trust you; but some things are like red coals, and you shrink from +handling them. Suppose you had wounded your Robert so deeply, so sorely +he never forgave you, would you wish to drag the horror up and talk of +the details? Put yourself in my place." + +"I cannot understand, because Mr. Herriott loves you so devotedly he +would forgive anything you might have done." + +"You do not know him; neither did I before I left home. I made the +mistake of presuming too far on his love. I wronged him, and he will +never forgive me." + +"I refuse to believe you wronged him." + +"Yes, I did him a great wrong. I did not intend to wound him, and when I +realized all that followed, it was too late for remedy. I don't wish to +say anything more, even to you. The thought of the red coals scorches my +heart. If the time should ever come when I feel I can talk freely, you +will not need to question. Until then, love me and be patient, and leave +me to myself. To-day Mr. Herriott is at sea--gone on his long voyage. O +Ma-Lila! Ma-Lila, pray to God that he may never come home! Or that if he +lives, I may die soon." + +"You foolish, wicked girl! Are you crazy?" + +"I have been, but my late tenants have gone into the swine. A week ago +they possessed me, and wild work followed. Since their departure I find +it impossible to regain my old self. I have, after frightful nightmare, +awakened a very repentant, an exceedingly miserable woman, but the fault +was all mine. Mr. Herriott was not to blame. He is even nobler than you +know, nobler than I dreamed; but I wounded, injured him past pardon; and +now I purpose to bear in silence, and as best I may, a sorrow that I +alone have brought upon myself. No one can help me. I only ask to be +spared all questions, all reference to my marriage. Father is calling +me. Will you give him his tea? Ask him to excuse me. Good-night. I wish +to be alone until breakfast." + +When Eliza went downstairs next morning, Eglah was coming from the side +garden with both hands full of dewy roses for the table vase, and, +having listened until two o'clock to the restless footsteps in the room +next to her own, the foster-mother glanced anxiously at her. + +The cold, passionless repose that comes only after a fierce and vital +struggle had settled upon her white, worn face, and the woman who knew +her best could not determine whether it meant conquest or surrender. + +As summer advanced, Eglah noticed the frequency with which her father +fell asleep in the midst of conversation, and when he dozed one day with +a bowl of sherbet in his hand, she became alarmed and sent for Dr. +Plympton, an old friend of Judge Kent's, who had moved South and settled +in Y---- during the dismal days of carpet bag rule. + +He gave him tonics, diet regimen on which he laid much stress, and +ordered the family away to certain springs in a distant State. Having +secured a cottage, Eglah avoided the hotel and maintained complete +seclusion. Her father keenly enjoyed the change, and gradually the +tendency to drowse was less apparent, but the prohibition of alcoholic +drinks fretted him, and that which was tabooed at the cottage was +alluringly accessible at the hotel. + +When the season closed, he and Eglah decided to stop _en route_ for a +day, to pay their long promised visit to Calvary House. + +As Mrs. Mitchell could not be persuaded to enter "an Episcopal monkish +institution" of which she disapproved so vigorously, she went back alone +to Nutwood and busied herself with household preparations for winter. + +When the judge and his daughter reached home, Dr. Plympton expressed +himself much pleased with improved conditions which Mrs. Mitchell could +not discover, and Eglah's apprehensions were allayed. Her father's +increasing dependence upon her touched and cheered her inexpressibly, +and for his sake she diligently assisted him in work that forced her +thoughts into a new channel. An important appropriation bill, in which +Judge Kent's native State was much interested, would be presented to +Congress about the middle of December, or soon after the holiday recess, +and he had been requested by old friends and constituents to address the +Senate committee, advocating a favorable report. The collection and +arrangement of necessary statistics kept her busy at his side, and when +the last type-written page was added to the pile at his elbow, he patted +her hand fondly and complimented her useful accuracy. + +Rejoicing in the accomplishment of their tedious task, the trap was +ordered, and father and daughter drove until the dinner hour. + +She noticed he dozed twice while she talked, although when they reached +home he seemed as well as usual, humming a gay little Sicilian song as +he divested himself of overcoat and muffler. It had been a perfect +autumn day, crisp, crystalline. The deep, vivid yellow of the great +undulating mass of walnut foliage hung against the western sky like +cloth of gold curtains around a porphyry shrine, above which Venus +burned as ministering taper. With her cheek pressed to the window pane +in the library, Eglah watched the fading after-glow, and her hands +clutched each other. This was the day when from the iron-bound, +ice-sheathed fiords of Smith's Sound the sun disappeared. The long Polar +night had set in. Would Mr. Herriott ever see the sun again? + +She had procured all books written in English that related to Arctic +travel, and in the sanctuary of her own room prepared, from an almanac +and from explorer's diaries, a calendar, noting the length of each day, +the coming of the moon, the date of shortest twilight, the falling of +total darkness. Mr. Herriott's voyage began in May; no tidings had +reached her. She expected none, but her lips moved: "Oh, God, keep him +in safety through the awful night!" + +The dreary vision of her imagination contrasted sharply with the +luxurious aspect of the library, where a fire of oak logs glowed beyond +the marble hearth. A crimson velvet carpet covered the floor, and warm +winter draperies enhanced the atmosphere of comfort. On the table an +oval cut-glass basket held great clusters of orange chrysanthemums; not +the huge, solitary, odorless globes now so popular in cities, but +thickly studded, fragrant branches that bloom nowhere with such lavish +sweetness as in old Southern gardens. + +Mrs. Mitchell brightened the lamp and began to match the squares of a +calico "rising sun" quilt she was making as her Christmas present to the +Methodist parsonage. Judge Kent leaned back in his arm-chair, his +silver-powdered head on the red cushion, good looking, debonair, +thoroughly content; and in one hand he held a richly gilded liqueur +glass, brimming with an emerald cordial. Eglah came to his side and put +her hand on his wrist. + +"Father, Dr. Plympton forbids liqueurs. Please do not drink that." + +"Only a thimbleful of _crème de menthe_! Babies take mint tea. Even Mrs. +Mitchell drinks this." + +His fine eyes sparkled mischievously, and he bowed to her. + +"No, sir. I make my mint cordial from my own garden, and I know what is +in it; but you can't be sure about foreign-fangled mixtures." + +"I wish to make sure that delicious gumbo-filé will not give me +nightmare." + +"Father, I begged you not to touch it, and you had your favorite clam +bouillon the doctor commends so highly." + +"Bouillon--gumbo-filé? 'As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto +wine.' My duchess, don't scold. Your pretty mouth was made for sweeter +uses. Kiss me." + +He brushed his white mustache aside, and leaning down she pressed her +lips to his. + +"Father, are you quite well to-night?" + +"Quite well, and absolutely happy. Now, give me some music to round out +and seal this glorious, perfect day." + +She opened the upright piano, and while she played one of his favorite +fugues--Handel's in E minor--he kept time, swinging the tiny, gilded +glass. Flickering flames in the wide chimney were reflected on the +polished rosewood panels of the piano, and as they wavered up and down +before her, Eglah thought of spectral auroral fringes flashing in +moonless Polar night, staining with prismatic hues the world of snow, +kindling red beacons on pinnacles of immemorial ice. + +The fugue ended, and as her fingers left the keys a tinkling crash +caused her to turn her head. + +The liqueur glass was shattered on the floor and Judge Kent lay +insensible in his chair. + +Paralysis appeared so complete that for some days Doctors Plympton and +Eggleston entertained no hope; but the sufferer rallied surprisingly, +and while his utterance was not fully intelligible, and he never +regained the use of his lower limbs, he was often conscious. + +Mrs. Mitchell and the physicians would have welcomed a passionate +outbreak of the silent grief that seemed to have frozen Eglah, as, calm +and dry-eyed, she ministered in the sick-room she rarely left. Two +faithful men assisted in nursing--one by day, one by night, because she +could not lift her father--and she slept on a cot beside him, or across +the foot of his bed. She administered all his medicine, fed him with her +own hands, caressed, and cheered him. + +After a few weeks, though entirely helpless, he was able to be dressed +and lifted into a reclining rolling-chair, and when the weather +permitted she wheeled him around the sunny side of the long colonnade, +where he usually fell asleep. The speech arranged so carefully for the +Senate committee she read again critically, made a few corrections, and +forwarded it with a brief announcement of his illness to the friends who +had employed Judge Kent to prepare and deliver it in committee room. + +Her stern self-repression discouraged conversation relative to the +sufferer, and she buoyed herself with no false hopes. + +A ripple of compassion stirred Y----, and some who had criticized her +most severely for her haughty aloofness--some whose sole grievance was +her absolute devotion to an "unprincipled father"--left cards, words of +sympathy, and flowers for Mrs. Herriott. Except the doctors, she saw no +one but Mrs. Eggleston and Mr. Whitfield, who had lost his wife a few +months previous. Bishop Vivian had died during the summer, but her +father's rector came often. At times the sick man's clouded mind seemed +incapable of retaining any impression, but he never failed to respond to +music, and when his chair was rolled close to the piano and Eglah played +selections he loved best, it comforted her to watch the pleased, +contented expression of the placid, handsome old face so dear to her. +Noticing how wan and drawn the girl's lips were, the physicians urged +Mrs. Mitchell to persuade her to drive or walk. + +"No. I will not lose sight of him for a moment. He is my all, and what +becomes of me makes no difference. I have but one wish now--to go with +him." + +One bright, warm day, late in December, Judge Kent appeared surprisingly +better, though his articulation continued very indistinct, and his +daughter understood him best because she closely watched his lips. The +doctors had made their morning visit, and, wrapped in his dressing-gown, +the sick man asked to be rolled into sunshine. + +Eglah tucked a lap robe carefully about the reclining form, and he +feebly lifted the one hand he could move, and pointed to the glass door. + +"That way; not through library." + +She unlocked and opened it, wheeling the chair out on the colonnade, and +some change in his countenance arrested her attention. Bending down, she +found tears on his cheeks. + +"You opened this door the day Herriott came. Because you heard him tell +me about Keith, you married him. You burned the papers--you saved me." + +"No, father; no!" + +She fell on her knees and hid her face in his gown. + +"You tried to keep me from knowing you heard Herriott, but I saw you. +You married him for my sake. My blessed child! When I am gone, I want +you to remember no other man ever had such a daughter. My Eglah----" + +After a moment he sighed, and with great difficulty added slowly: + +"My dear, kiss me, and always--always you must know--how precious +you--are, precious----" + +She kissed him twice, dried his cheeks, and, as he turned his head on +the pillow and closed his eyes, she rolled him up and down the +colonnade, hoping that during his nap he would forget. He often slept +soundly in this way, soothed by the motion like a child in a carriage. + +Was he laboring under some delusion of an enfeebled brain--did he dream? +Or was it possible he had actually seen her leave his room on her errand +of rescue? + +A half hour later a veil of cloud drifted across the sun, a blast of +wind leaped out of the northwest, and, fearing a change of temperature, +she turned the chair toward the door and wheeled it inside. + +Leaning tenderly over the sleeper, his quiet, cold, set face told her he +had gone to that bar of final trial where, in his Maker's infinite +mercy, only He who fashions and reads human hearts and sees entirely +around the circle of circumstances, can justly judge. + +A low, long-drawn, quivering cry, as of some creature mortally stricken, +summoned Mrs. Mitchell, who found the girl huddled over the still form, +his grey head lifted to her breast. + +Holding her solitary vigil that night beside him, her cheek laid on his +shoulder, her hand clasping his icy, interlocked fingers, she found a +solace which surprised her in the assurance that he had known the +significance of her sacrifice--that he loved her better in consequence +of all she had ventured and suffered in his behalf. Her supreme dread +had been his discovery of the cause of her marriage, but now and then +the scowling menace from which we cower, breaks in smiling, tender +benediction. To love, that prompts and sustains in crucial hours of +self-immolation, is occasionally added a transforming exaltation that +sublimates the unworthy object for whom the sacrifice is borne; and the +most pityingly merciful of all angels--Death--extinguishes life with one +hand, while the other smooths scars of character, levels unlovely +angles, lifts shadows of sin, and gives to memory that magic mantle +whose halo never fades. + +With singular and unnatural calmness, Eglah had arranged the details of +the funeral service next day in her father's church. She telegraphed +Father Temple to meet her in Washington _en route_ to the North, and +asked Mr. Whitfield to go with her until her cousin joined her on the +train. + +To lay her father to rest among his enemies in Y---- was unendurable; +she would take him to the cemetery in his native State, where his +parents and sisters slept, and erect a monument there in sight of his +constituents who had honored and loved him. + +It had grown very cold; there was no fire in the long drawing-room, +where portraits of Maurices and Vivians stared imperiously down at the +alien lying motionless under the great cut-glass chandelier. Silent and +tearless the girl kept watch. The undertaker had mentioned the date to +be inscribed on the casket plate, and she recalled her Arctic calendar. +This was the solstice, the sunless midnight, the core of Polar winter. +To-morrow the sun would begin to climb back to Mr. Herriott, but the sun +of her life had set forever. A shudder shook her, and she nestled +closer, laying her lips against her father's throat. Eliza laid heavier +wraps around the stooping shoulders, placed a hot blanket under her +feet, and now and then kissed the girl's bowed head, but no words, no +sob, profaned the sacred silence. + +When the body was carried to the chancel of the crowded church, she +walked alone, followed closely by the few who best understood her +isolation. Shrouded in black, she sat still and silent as her dead; and +some persons present who had cause for bitterness against +"reconstruction judiciary" forgot their wrongs in genuine pity for the +proud and lonely mourner. + +Under a fragrant pall, woven of smilax and his favorite double white +violets, that covered the casket and fell to its handles, she bore him +away to the stony hills of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Its alliterative jingle had probably commended Dairy Dingle to Marcia +Maurice when she selected a name for the new home of the overseer, +Robert Mitchell. Here he brought his bride from Nutwood, where she had +lived since her father's death on the battle-field. A Federal cavalry +raid, intended specially for the looting of Y---- and the destruction of +its factories, had loitered too long at Willow Bend plantation, and +finding Confederate squadrons in hot pursuit, the Union troopers were +forced to retreat, after burning every building in sight except the +cabins of the negroes. General Maurice loved the rambling, airy, +old-fashioned country house where he was born, and here he usually +brought his family to spend Christmas, and make genuine holiday for his +numerous slaves. After the raid only rock chimneys stood as +commemorative pillars, and not a vestige of gin-house, cotton sheds, or +stables was visible. At a hard gallop the fleeing troopers passed an +adjacent grist-mill which supplied several plantations with meal, and +paused long enough to kindle a blaze in a pile of corn sacks. The +miller, a lame negro, extinguished the flames, and preserved a structure +where several generations had brought their contributions to the hopper. +Near this old red mill Mrs. Maurice built a house for her overseer, and +after Eliza's marriage gave it and the adjoining fifty acres of cleared +land to the young wife. It was a small, square box of a house, with four +rooms, broad, low-pitched piazzas, and wide hall running through the +middle. Where the rear gallery ended, a covered way, brick paved, led to +the kitchen and servants' room. On the left, at a sudden dip of the +land, and several hundred yards distant, stood the spring house, or +stone dairy, a low structure built over a small stream running from the +bold spring that gushed out of the hillside a few feet away--and falling +into the creek just above the mill-dam. + +A shallow canal dug through the centre of the dairy had been paved with +rock, and here, winter and summer, the milk bowls and butter jars stood +in water rippling against their sides. + +While General Maurice lived, he kept only his Jersey herd at Nutwood, +but at Willow Bend his famous Short-horns, red, and red roan, roamed +over pasturage extending hundreds of acres. The "cow pen" and milking +shed were not visible, hidden on the edge of a plateau running far away +to a stretch of primeval, lonely pine woods crossed only by cattle +paths. In a green cup encircled by wimpling hills the overseer's home +nestled like a white bird hovering to drink. The sharply curving creek +that divided it from the plantation was bridged a half mile below the +mill, and a dense growth of trees and vines clothed the banks. In an +opposite direction, beyond the house, and mantling the upland slopes, +lay fields of grain, glistening as the wind crinkled the yellowing +folds. + +Locust and china trees, overrun by English honeysuckle, coral, and buff +woodbine, shaded the cottage, and all about the spring house clustered +azaleas--white, pink, orange, scarlet--filling the quiet hollow with +waves of incomparable perfume. Hanging on the bluff above the bubbling +spring a thicket of titi swung exquisite opal plumes, over which bees +drowsed; and crowding to the front for dress parade clung a line of +mountain laurel or "ivy" faintly flushed with pale-rose clusters waiting +to burst into bloom and with their crimped shell-pink cups rival fluted +and tinted treasures from Sèvres and Murano. + + * * * * * + +Into this green, shadowy dingle had come its long absent mistress, and, +closing Nutwood, Eglah shared her foster-mother's secluded home in the +heart of the pine woods. + +For many months after her father's death she seemed a mute, breathing +statue rather than a suffering woman, so deep lay the pain no words +could fathom. Close and tender as were the ties linking the two, Eliza +dared not probe the wound, and when Eglah closed the door of her own +room, the loving little mother would have broken into a sealed tomb as +soon as violate her solitude. + +Two miles beyond the plantation, across the creek, a new railway line +had established a station called Maurice, and about this nucleus a +village grew with surprising rapidity. The site selected on Eglah's land +by the railway company chanced to be that of the neighborhood +school-house, where, on the fourth Sunday of each month, a Methodist +minister of many mission chapels preached. Mrs. Mitchell had organized a +Sabbath school, and Eglah had given a cabinet organ, but the figure +shrouded in mourning was seen only when driving in her trap, or more +frequently alone on horseback. These long rides through rolling pine +forests and silent sunny glades, where she met none but her own +velvet-eyed, browsing red cattle, and shy, happy rabbits, were hours of +immeasurable relief; yet, at intervals, proved battle-ground on which +she fought the crowding spectres of a sombre, brooding future. Political +and social ambitions were shut forever in her father's grave; domestic +duties ended when the doors and gates of Nutwood had been locked; and +business affairs were in far wiser hands than hers. What should she do +with her empty life? + +One afternoon, goaded by sad thoughts, she had ridden farther than +usual, and, returning, reined her horse in at the brink of a meadow to +tighten her coil of hair, shaken by a rapid gallop. Before her a group +of young, red, dappled calves lay in the thick grass, their soft eyes +wonderingly alert, and all Pan's orchestra seemed rehearsing. A +wood-lark in a crab-apple bush set the pitch, a red-bird followed; two +crows answered from the top of an ancient pine, and among beech boughs a +velvet-throated thrush trilled, while under sedge shadows frogs croaked +a hoarse bassoon. From the edge of a pool dimpling the turf white herons +rose, flitting slowly across an orange sky, where cloud fringes burned +in the similitude of scarlet tulips. If she could cease to be a woman +with an aching heart and an immortal soul, what a peaceful home was here +among the sinless forest children vast mother earth had called to sing +and play in her pine-roofed, grassy nursery. If the sylvan quietude of +this Theocritan retreat had power to witch her surging pulses to +unbroken calm, she might hide for ever in her own green aisles, secure +from stinging shafts of gossip and derision. She lifted the reins and +the horse sprang forward. + +A year ago Mr. Herriott had sailed. No tidings reached her; no allusion +to the "Ahvungah" had appeared in any of the newspapers she searched +daily. She knew the vessel would not stop at an American port--would +return directly to Europe from the Arctic circle--but the American press +would chronicle the close of the expedition. If disaster had overtaken +it, how soon could she know? + +Was Mr. Herriott frozen fast in the awful desolation of Whale Sound, or +sledging in a race with death across that vast, level, white ice desert +of compacted snow in central Greenland, eight thousand feet above the +sea, swept by Polar winds that never sleep? Wherever Arctic fetters held +him, the moon shone constantly two weeks for him, and after the long +night a returning sun was now gilding the minarets of icebergs and +unlocking the bars of floes. + +If he never came back she could indulge the love that so unexpectedly +stirred her heart, that had grown swiftly since he left her; if he +survived and returned she must hide her affection and herself far from +the biting, branding scorn that would always glow in his eyes. How could +she bear the dreary coming years of a possibly long life? There were +hours in which she tried to hope he would not come back; but recalling +that one moment when he held her so tight to his breast, she seemed to +feel again the furious beating of his heart which had never belonged to +any woman but herself, and, as the memory thrilled her, into her wan +face crept a joyful flush. At last, too late, her heart was his, but he +no longer desired or valued it. He had cast her out of his life. Riding +slowly homeward in the star-powdered, silvery-grey gloaming, she locked +her torturing thoughts behind the mask of silence that was becoming +habitual, and near the mill met Mrs. Mitchell's tender eyes on watch for +her. + +A few mornings later, Eglah stood in the dairy door, looking up beyond a +sentry line of tall pear trees uniformed in vivid green, to the +hillside, where lay the peach orchard a month before in full flower, +billowing gently like a wide coverlet of pink silk shaken in sunlight. +Followed by Delilah, who knew the haunts of water-rats in the velvet +moss low on the banks, she walked toward the creek. Over one corner of +the deserted red mill a dewberry vine feathered with blossoms rambled +almost to the sagging roof, and along the ruined line of the old race +ferns held up their lace fronds to shade the lilac spikes of +water-hyacinths. It was a cool, lonely place, sweet with the breath of +wild flowers, silent save the endless adagio in minors played by crystal +fingers of the stream stealing down the broken, crumbling stone dam. In +that quiet nook all outside noises seemed intrusive, and Eglah listened +to the beat of a horse's hoofs cantering across the bridge below the +mill. Very soon Mr. Boynton appeared and dismounted. + +"Good morning, Miss Eglah. A telegram was forwarded from Y----, and as I +happened to be at Maurice when it came, I brought it at once." + +"Thank you very much." + +She took the message and walked away a few steps, struggling for +strength to face the worst. + + "Mrs. Noel Herriott: + + "Amos Lea has been ill for months. To-day I am called to + Chicago to my sick son. Della will not stay here without me. + Some woman ought to come. + + "AMANDA ORR." + +"I hope it is good news about your husband?" + +"Mr. Boynton, it might be worse. Sickness in Mr. Herriott's household +seems to require that I should go to his home for a few days. Please +wait here until I can go to the house and find out what must be done. I +may trouble you to attend to some matters for me." + +Mrs. Mitchell sat on the steps at the rear of the cottage, stemming a +bowl of strawberries and warily watching the elusive feints of a white +turkey hen picking her way to a nest hidden in a tangle of blackberry +vines. Eglah held the open telegram before her eyes and waited. + +"I suppose you want me to go?" + +"I wish you to be there with me. I can not go alone." + +"Dearie, you can't nurse the gardener. If Mr. Herriott were at home he +would not listen to any such nonsense." + +"I like Amos Lea, and I intend to put him in the hands of a good trained +nurse until Mrs. Orr returns." + +"That could be done easily by telegraph or letter. But, my baby, if it +would comfort you to be in the house----" + +Eglah threw up her hand with a warning gesture. + +"I wish to stay only a few days; just long enough to assure myself that +the old man is carefully attended to. I prefer not to start from Y----, +and the train despatcher at Maurice can stop the up train at 11.45. We +need no trunk, and I have the money to pay our way on. I shall write and +have more forwarded from the bank. Ma-Lila, I wish to start to-night. +Can you get ready?" + +The little woman's level brows puckered, but the light in her eyes was a +caress. + +"Can I refuse any of your foolish whims? I have spoiled you all your +life, and it is rather late in the day for me to undertake to oppose +you. I see Hiram Boynton waiting, and I must arrange with him to have +his boys sleep here and take care of everything in our absence. You know +my pet cow's calf is only three days old, and her udder needs watching." + +They reached Greyledge at noon, accompanied by the middle-aged nurse +commended by the matron of a hospital in the neighboring city. At the +sound of carriage wheels on the stone driveway, the dogs greeted them +from the kennels in the stable yard, and several peals from the front +door bell rang through the closed house before the butler, pipe in hand, +opened the door. Speechless from astonishment, he staggered back. + +"Good morning, Hawkins. How is Amos Lea?" + +"About the same, ma'am, the doctor says. Mrs. Herriott, I hope you will +excuse the looks of things. If I had known you were coming I would have +lighted the furnace and warmed the house and been nearer ready. There is +not a female on the place. Della was that prudish she went with her +aunt." + +"Did Mrs. Orr leave all the keys with you?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Bring them to me and show me where they belong. Is Rivers here?" + +"Oh, yes, ma'am; also his cousin Nelson, who helps with the horses and +dogs; and David Green, the under gardener." + +"Hawkins, you know Mrs. Mitchell; she came with me on a visit before my +marriage; and this is Mrs. Adams, who will nurse Amos for the present. +Open the house and make fires in the 'blue room' and two other bedrooms. +I shall be here only a short while, and you must do the best you can for +us as regards meals. When the time comes for feeding the dogs I wish to +be notified. I am afraid they have forgotten me." + +"If you please, ma'am, what is the news from Mr. Herriott? When I saw +you I felt sure he must be coming home shortly. We count the days till +we see him." + +"I am sorry, Hawkins, but no news reaches me now. It has been a long, +dreary, dreadful time. I came because Mrs. Orr telegraphed me some one +was needed here to look after the sick. Ma-Lila, will you go upstairs +with Mrs. Adams while I see Amos?" + +Near the gardener's cottage she met David Green, with a bowl of broth in +his hands and a scowl on his sunburned face. + +"How are you, David? Hearing that Amos is sick, I have brought a good +nurse to stay with him till the housekeeper returns. What is the matter +with him?" + +"Madam, it is mostly crankiness now, in my opinion. Last fall he had a +spell of fever that left him ailing, and in January he fell into +inflammatory rheumatism that made him as helpless as a baby and +fractious as a bull pup. But he got better of it, and able to hobble +around his room on crutches. Like the mule he is, he would creep down to +the green-houses, hunting something to scold me about, and his crutch +slipped on the ice and he hurt his hip joint. The doctor orders him to +keep still and not move that leg, but, madam, he shuffles around in his +bed for all the world like hyenas in a circus cage. We men take him up +as easy as can be and lay him on a cot and change his clothes; but +cranky! Cross! The angels couldn't please him. I guess he is sore, and +when we jar and hurt him, instead of cursing us with a wholesome, honest +oath we are used to, he throws up his arms, rolls back his eyes till +they are all white balls, and shouts to the Lord to set Jezreel's +hounds, and Og, and the rest of the Bible beasts, and the imps of Belial +upon us! He calls us 'godless goats,' and we don't set up to be +religious, but he passes for pious and stands high in his church, and it +makes us feel creepy, because we don't know when the Lord might happen +to listen to him. You know, madam, he has got a strong pull on the +master. Mr. Herriott humors his whims, and now he is away we are doing +our best for Amos. Every other night I leave my family, three miles +away, and sleep here in his room. Mrs. Herriott, I have come to the +conclusion that if the master does not get home soon the old man will +fret himself to death. Day and night he prays for him. Every morning we +bring him a paper, and his poor hands shake while he holds it and +searches for news of the vessel, as a pointer hunts partridges. My wife +is a first-class cook, and, thinking to please him, she made and sent +him this broth. Just now, when he tasted it, the corners of his mouth +went nearly to his ears, and he asked me please to pour it into Tzar's +pan as I passed the kennel. If I had my choice, I would rather nurse a +bucketful of hornets." + +"I am glad you have all been so good to him; you especially, who have a +wife and children to claim you. I hope Mr. Herriott can soon be at home, +and he will thank you. Now your responsibility ceases, because I have +employed a good nurse, trained in a hospital, who will know what is best +for him and make him obey the doctor's directions. David, I am sure you +men will be considerate and respectful while she remains." + +At the door of the gardener's house, Snap dashed out, barking viciously. +She called his name twice and held out her hand, but, eyeing her +suspiciously, he growled and retreated across the threshold. Propped +with pillows, Amos was on a cot near the hearth, and a newspaper lay +across his knees. The room was bright with sunshine, and when Eglah +entered, clad in black, her long crêpe veil thrown back and falling +nearly to the floor, the old man stared at her and almost shrieked: + +"Has the Lord God taken my lad? You wear widow's black for him?" + +"No, Amos. The Lord God took my father, and my mourning is for him." + +He threw up his arms. + +"God be praised!" + +After a moment, he added apologetically: + +"Madam, I mean I am thankful Noel is spared. You see, I think only of +the boy." + +She drew a chair to the cot and took one of the gardener's wasted, +gnarled hands in hers. + +"I did not hear of your sickness till three days ago, and I came at +once, to see if I could not make you more comfortable while Mrs. Orr is +away." + +"It makes no difference about my worn-out old body--that is a crippled +hulk. My mind is in torment because of the lad's danger. Where is he +now? In the ice on land, or locked up in the ship of the ungodly name, +that can never break loose from the bergs leaning over her? Tell me, was +your news later than my letter?" + +He dragged from his bosom two worn, soiled envelopes and held them +towards her. One was postmarked St. John, N. B., the other Dundee, +Scotland. As she opened them a bunch of yellow poppies and a little +square of moss fell into her lap. She glanced at the dates. The oldest +was from Upernavik, soon after the vessel reached Greenland; the most +recent was from off Cape Alexander, where the "Ahvungah" was frozen in. + +"No, Amos, your news is the latest I have heard." + +Her voice quivered, and replacing the flowers in an envelope, she laid +the unread letters on the cot. + +"Was your last letter from him the same date as mine?" + +"No; it was earlier." + +The cold, light-grey eyes in their deep, sunken sockets probed hers like +steel. + +"Madam, it was your fault he went away." + +"No, his word was pledged before our marriage, and I am not responsible +for this journey. I did all that was possible to keep him." + +Amos leaned forward and grasped her wrist. + +"You know you are to blame. What was it you did to him? That night you +came--a bride--I saw when he took you from the carriage everything had +gone wrong with him. I knew what that grip of his mouth and that red +spark in his eyes meant. You did him some wrong." + +She shook her head, and, even in his wrath, the hopeless sorrow in her +eyes touched him. + +"You struck him a bitter, hard blow somewhere. You see, since he was a +year old and his mother died, I have watched him. His father was away +with his railroads and his mines out West, and Susan and I had the care +of him till he was put to his books and had a tutor to teach him Latin. +They set him at that stupid business too early. I made his kites, and +played marbles with him, and sailed his little boats, and--" His voice +broke, and he paused to steady it. + +"He was always truthful, and honorable, and generous, but--may the Lord +have mercy on him--he was born with the temper of Beelzebub. Not from +his mother did he get it, but from his hard old father, Fergus Herriott, +who somehow managed to keep himself under check-rein and bit. He never +punished the lad but once, and that was when the devil possessed the +child. He was barely ten years old. He fell into a terrible rage with +Susan about the fit of a bathing suit she made for him, and kicked the +clothes into the lake. Then he turned on her like a son of Belial with +rough, ugly, sinful language till she cried. His father happened to be +in the boat house near by. He came out, took him by the shoulders and +shook him, ordering him to apologize instantly to his nurse. The boy set +his teeth and shook his head. + +"'If you do not apologize properly to her, I shall thrash you.' + +"The lad's eyes blazed. + +"'As you are my father, you will do as you like, sir.' + +"Then and there he thrashed him, Susan howling, but not a sound from +him. Mr. Herriott sent him to his room, and ordered Susan not to go near +him. There were several railroad officials to dinner that day, and they +staid late. Susan sat yonder by the window, crying fit to break her +heart, when the lad walked in and went close to her. She held out her +arms, and the tears ran down her cheeks. + +"'Susan, I am sorry I was such a beast. I am ashamed of what I said, and +I beg your pardon. Dear Susan, forgive me.' + +"My poor wife, how she hugged and petted him, only he never would let +any one kiss him on his lips. As he sat in her lap, with one arm around +her neck, his face was deadly white and his eyes looked like two red +stars; the devil had not loosed his grip. Then his father called at the +doorstep, 'Amos, is Noel here?' When the old man came in, the boy was +standing in the middle of the floor, with his hands behind him, and +Susan ran forward. + +"'If you please, Mr. Herriott, I am sure he is not well. I thought so at +the lake side, and he is feverish. His head is hot.' + +"'Yes, Susan. Truly his head is too hot. Come, my son.' + +"He held out his hand, but Noel did not move. His father went to him, +put an arm around him, and forced him away. Next morning the doctor was +sent for, found him in a raging fever; said it was measles, but Susan +knew better. For a week Mr. Herriott never left that room, even for his +meals, and he chastised him no more. Each day he was prouder and fonder +of the boy. Madam, I am telling you all this that you may be sure I make +no mistakes about him. He was hard hit the day he went away. There is a +place far around the beach bend, a stone bench, where he has fought +battles with himself since he wore frilled shirts. It is his +stamping-ground when his blood is up, and the devil squats at his ears. +Now I want to know why he spent his last night at home down there +alone?" + +His bony hand tightened its grip like the claw of an eagle on her wrist, +and beneath the shaggy white brows his keen, fiery eyes demanded answer. + + +"Madam, you drove him there." + +"Mr. Herriott was very angry with me. Unintentionally I had wounded him, +and he did not forgive me; I fear he never will. He is not to blame. I +did what seemed right and necessary at the time, but afterward I found I +had made a terrible mistake. It is all my fault, not his. Amos, I am +very unhappy, far more so than Mr. Herriott; but some matters I discuss +with no one, and you must ask me no more questions." + +"Of course he was not to blame; he never is. You did not read his +letters." He held them toward her. + +"No, they were intended solely for you." + +"But I am more than willing you should see what he says about the +God-forsaken den of bears and wolves where he is blundering around in +the dark." + +"Thank you, Amos, but they would only distress me." + +Watching her pale, beautiful face, the old man sighed. + +"Madam, if you are not to blame for his going on this wild, godless +chase, I must not feel so bitter against his young wife as I have done. +Dear lad! The very last words he spoke to me that day at the gate were, +'If I never come back, do all you can for Mrs. Herriott, for my sake. +Amos, I have loved her since she was ten years old.'" + +There was a tap at the door, and the doctor entered. Eglah rose and drew +her veil over her face, but Amos clutched her sleeve. + +"Doctor, this is Mrs. Herriott, the lad's wife." + +"I am glad to see you here, doctor. Knowing Mrs. Orr was called away, I +have a trained nurse, who will help you get Amos Lea out of bed. I shall +send her at once to you for instructions." + +Without attempting to analyze her complex emotions, Eglah surrendered +herself to the strange new comfort of wandering hour after hour about +the house, where every nook and corner babbled of the owner. Despite her +efforts to placate and win the dogs, they sullenly rejected her +overtures, echoing the repudiation of their master, and watching her +with suspicious enmity. On the second afternoon the doctor and nurse +assured her the gardener would soon be relieved by electricity, massage, +and tonics, and when a letter from Mrs. Orr to Hawkins announced her +expected return two days later, there seemed no reason for prolonging +Eglah's visit. She wished to avoid an interview with the housekeeper, +and arranged to start south a few hours earlier than the time fixed for +her arrival. In the stone cottage she spent a portion of each day; had +gone carefully over Arctic maps and charts with Amos, outlining the +probable course of the exploring party. She explained some terms, and +gave him a duplicate of the calendar she had made for herself, whereby +he could tell when and how long the moon shone, what day the sun set, +and when, after months, it would rise again. As the old man watched +through his silver spectacles the sad, worn, pallid face, and realized +that she too suffered, his resentful antipathy diminished, and Mr. +Herriott's farewell charge began to invest her with an unexpected +sanctity. + +The last day of her stay was unusually warm for the season, and after +reading to the sick man and leaving a bunch of jonquils near his cot, +Eglah went quite late in the afternoon for a farewell walk along the +beach. She coaxed the dogs unavailingly. Pilot, the collie, followed as +far as the stone stile, and then deserted her. Beyond the end of the +curve, where silver poplars came to the water's edge, she found a white +marble seat, shaped like a horseshoe, with broad arms and an arched back +elaborately carved. Winter rains had rippled and drifted the sand over +its feet, and across one corner a bramble strayed. It was here Mr. +Herriott had spent his last night at home. She brushed aside dead +leaves, sat down, and plucked away the encroaching vine. Deep in her +heart sang his final words to Amos: "I have loved her since she was ten +years old." Living or dead, he was hers; angry and estranged, but +hers--always hers. + +She thought of what life might have been with him here, remembered the +warm, close clasp of his hand, the lover light in his fine eyes that was +a caress that first hour on the cars; and recalling the last moment, +when he strained her to his breast, her fair face flushed, her sad heart +thrilled. Now that beautiful "might have been" lay irrecoverable as the +"lost land of Lyonnesse," under its transparent shroud, and haunting +echoes of tender tones tolled faintly, like buried bells of Folge Fond. + +The day had been sultry, but the wind rose with the full, red moon that +swung now above the cliffs, a globe of burnished copper, taking on the +glory of gold as it climbed higher, and from some distant belfry a +vesper benediction, low and sweet, slowly drifted over the great lake. +The water, glassy an hour before, thrilled and swelled in answer to the +fingers of the wind, as a viol to the touch of its bow, and wavelets +widened, shimmered as they ran. An eastbound schooner, all sails set, +midway from shore to horizon, followed the path of light like a gigantic +white moth fluttering upward to the moon. Where did her rays find Mr. +Herriott to-night? Sleeping his last sleep in the wind-carved marble +sepulchre of glittering sastrugi, with that white moon of the "Great +Ice" silvering the face now so dear to his abandoned wife? Or frozen and +embalmed under the lee of towering blue hummocks, in the grim shadow of +looming iron-bound shores? Or dying of starvation in a lampless, rent, +ruined, iglooyah, with only Innuit corpses encircling him? + +She fell on her knees, bowed her head on the seat, and prayed as never +before for his safety. + +The wind freshened from the south, and far away in some mountain lair +thunder growled. Eglah looked long at the beautiful curve of the land, +at the shivering poplars turning white in anticipation of storm, at the +irregular outline of the old stone pile projecting its spectral shadow +on the shining water lapping the terrace wall. Two hours later a gale +swept the lake, and under bluish glare of lightning the waves showed +their flashing teeth. + +With fine feminine instinct that penetrates far below the surface, yet +gives no hint of the depths, Eliza divined that the unhappy woman +desired unbroken solitude, and the foster-mother went early to her own +bedroom. + +Slowly Eglah mounted the spiral stairs that led to the billiard room and +thence to the tower. The former was dark, and as she placed her candle +on the table something fluttered and fell. It was a Chiriqui quetzal, +perched upon a small slab brought from Palenque and fastened as a +bracket above the fireplace. She picked it up, smoothed the brilliant, +drooping feathers, and set it securely on the table, but a legend she +had associated with it made her shiver as she opened the door and +stepped into the tower. + +High above her, and just under the roof, the great lamp with its +reflector threw light far out over the tossing waste of water, kindling +crowns of fire where the wave crests broke. She sat down on a wooden +bench at one of the open arches, and watched the departing cloud fringe +of the storm rushing from the far, sweet, throbbing South, to the icy +silence of a more distant North; listened to the fitful moan of tired +waves, trying to sob themselves to rest. Would the fleet _föhn_ reach +Greenland, melt the blue cables strong as steel that held iceberg +ranges, domed with frosted silver--open the yellow eyes of poppies, and +waft the ivory gulls back to weary watchers? Often a blessing there, it +was sometimes a curse. Could that fierce, hot, southern breath battle +against the ceaseless wind, snow-laden even in sunshine, that sweeps +forever from palæocrystic seas across the white desolation of the great +ice cap? Persistent study of Northern travels had so completely filled +Eglah's mind with Arctic images, that by an inevitable magnetism every +change of atmospheric conditions pointed to the Pole. + +As the night waned, the moon emerged from ragged clouds, and gradually +the lake quieted to its wonted crooning monologue, broken only by the +strophe and antistrophe of startled water-fowl scattered by the storm. +Eglah heard the clock strike two, and went down to the billiard room. +The candle was flickering, and in its spasmodic light the eyes of the +Quiché holy bird had a preternatural, sinister glitter. She hurried +downstairs and locked herself in the den, the master's favorite room. +Cabinets were sealed, busts shrouded in cambric hoods, pictures veiled. +Only Mr. Herriott's desk remained as she remembered it, and here, with +her arms crossed on the morocco cover and her face hidden upon them, she +watched the night depart, saw the dawn of the day that would take her +away forever from the home she had learned to love too late. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Heavy are the brakes with which suspense and anxious longing clog the +wheels of time, yet seasons end; the spokes spin and come again, +insistent reminders to waiting watchers of the endless, inexorable +procession of years. + +An early frost had hastened autumnal effects usually due a month later, +and the atmosphere was crisp and sparkling. White oaks, maples, and +sweet gums rustled their amber leaves sprinkled with red, black gums +swung scarlet torches from every bough, wild grape vines festooned +supporting trees with fluttering lace-of-gold, and crimson and bronze +berry-brambles had colored warmly under the first frost kiss. Close to +the little wire gate of the Dingle a tulip tree shook its burnished, +brocaded banners, and in and around its branches coiled a muscadine, +hung with glossy, purplish-black clusters that filled the air with +delicious, challenging fragrance. + +With an unopened roll of newspapers in her hand, Eglah leaned for some +moments on the gate, admiring the superb vestments of yellow and red +that nature hung out to bar the cold--a small cloud island of ruby near +the horizon against which an acacia etched its slender lines, and +listening to the song of a mocking-bird, that rose like a flute above +the whistle of a partridge astray in feathery broom sedge. On the +orchard slope Mrs. Mitchell, basket in hand, groped and peered amid +tufts of golden-rod, hunting a belated brood of young turkeys. Eglah +passed through the gate, went into the mill, and found a seat on one of +the circular grinding stones. The wall had partly fallen on the west +side, and the glow of a sinking sun lighted the dusty, cobwebbed rafters +that upheld what remained of the roof. The chant of a portion of the +stream rolling from mossy rocks to the ruined, sluggish race was low and +soothing as a lullaby. + +It had been a sad day, marking two years since the evening in the +library when Judge Kent had been stricken; the beginning of a slow +death. Dwelling upon the indelible incidents, an acute pain was added to +the chronic ache from which his daughter's heart was never free. While +missing her father sorely in her sorrowful isolation, she realized that +death had come at the behest of mercy. As long as he lived his enemies +could assail him at any moment; now he was comparatively safe under the +snow of his native hills. If it were possible to recall him, she would +not; she preferred to suffer alone that he might rest in peace. Two days +before she had gone for a few hours to Y---- to see in his favorite +church the recently completed tall, arched window, ablaze with rose, +purple, crimson, and emerald glass, erected by her, "To the glory of God +and in memory of Allison Kent." + +Depressed and heartsick, she often sought the solitude of the mill, but +in the grey gloom of the rafters above her head a pair of wrens had +dwelt for several seasons, and now resented her presence, twittering +their protest. Opening the New York and Boston papers, she glanced over +one and laid it aside. Unfolding another, her fingers clutched the +sheet, where headlines had been reprinted from an English journal: + + "RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'" + + "After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has + brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated + the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less + rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while + frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming + the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party, + availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon, + and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a + sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'--the _Sermiksoak_, + but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their + absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the + shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had + drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to + overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party + suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the + long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across + a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the + meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while + climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long + enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for + America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the + surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in + Polar regions at least another year--Professor Roy, the + palæontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much + interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the + Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's + Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land, + hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the + descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect + to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but + should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison + them." + +Until this spasm of pain seized her heart, Eglah had not realized or +acknowledged that she cherished any hope, save that God would preserve +the life of the man who so completely renounced her. If she had vaguely +trusted time might soften and remove his bitterness, she understood at +last the mockery of a delusion that she had unconsciously indulged. +Above the evensong of the rippling water at her feet, rang his +passionate words that last day in the carriage: "I shall try not to come +home." To escape the possibility of proximity to her he had plunged into +unknown wilds, where only the trails of foxes, wolves, bears, could +thread the silent desolation, and at all hazards he would keep the +promise of his farewell note: "Your path in future shall be spared my +shadow." Wandering into the jaws of death, rather than see her again; +for how elusive, how slender, the chances of meeting whalers. As in a +mirage she seemed to see him on the colonnade at Nutwood, as he stood +looking with eloquent, happy eyes at her, assuring her father: "When I +know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice in +Greenland can shut me away from her?" And now the Arctic Circle would +hold his chosen grave, because she could never cross it. The mail for +America held no word for her; but doubtless kind messages had come to an +old man whose sunken eyes would shine with delight over tidings from +"the lad." + +To all of us come times when, self-surrendered to depression, some +psychic imp drags from mental oblivion and shakes fiendishly before us +ghoulish images long forgotten; and now, as purplish-grey shadows +gathered in the mill, Eglah saw that vision of "Were-Wolves," the souls +of wretched men fleeing from light, hiding in Polar midnight. + + "Each panter in the darkness + Is a demon-haunted soul, + The shadowy, phantom were-wolves, + Who circle round the Pole. + Their tongues are crimson flaming, + Their haunted blue eyes gleam, + And they strain them to the utmost + O'er frozen lake and stream; + Their cry one note of agony + That is neither yelp nor bark, + These panters of the northern waste + Who hound them to the dark." + +The voice of Mrs. Mitchell calling her name aroused Eglah, and she +staggered to her feet, swaying slightly as from a stinging blow. That +silent, yearning tenderness, to which she had gladly yielded for so many +months, now appeared an insult to her womanly pride. + +Rejected and despised, abandoned forever, made by her husband's +repudiation a target for gossip and harsh comment, why should she love +him? Why, when too hopelessly late, had her heart so unexpectedly +followed him, refusing to relax its quest? + +Gathering the scattered papers, she left the mill and walked toward the +house. As the core of an opal the west showed bands of pearl, beryl, +sapphire, rose, and when twilight stole over hillside and dingle, Venus +glowed in a violet sea, so large, palpitating, brilliant, she seemed a +golden torch flaring in interstellar currents, to light the way of the +thin young moon swimming beneath her. Did both torture the were-wolves? + +At the gate Eliza waited, and putting an arm around the girl drew her +into the hall of the cottage, where a lamp hung from the low ceiling. +Under its light Eglah's face showed white and rigid. + +"Little mother, I must ask you to leave me to myself to-night. This has +been a sad day in many ways. I miss my father, and one trouble of which +I never speak, even to you--the only one who loves me--presses heavily +upon me just now. There are the papers. You will find an account of the +return of the 'Ahvungah,' but Mr. Herriott preferred to remain another +year. Kiss me good-night, and ask God to take me soon, soon--to father." + +The following winter was long and cold, with flurries of snow, and +rattling of sleet, and it proved monotonously dull to the two women shut +in the small house. The rooms were cosey, with curtains falling to the +bright carpets; and roaring fires of oak and pine logs reddened the +walls of the little parlor, where Eglah's upright piano enabled her to +banish, at times, gloomy retrospection. Twice Mr. Whitfield came for a +day and night, and cheered them with news of the outside world. + +When the weather permitted Eliza to attend her Sabbath-school at +Maurice, she occasionally persuaded Eglah to play the organ for the +children, but she was annoyed by no obtrusive attention on the part of +sympathetic country people, whose warm hearts respected the heavy +mourning in which she was wrapped, and recognized her right to complete +seclusion. At college one of her favorite studies had been Spanish, and +without giving an explanation she now applied herself to it with renewed +interest. When Eliza questioned her, she referred vaguely to the liquid +melody that charmed her in Spanish poetry, and expressed a desire to +translate a volume which pleased her. + +No allusion to Mr. Herriott or his home now passed her lips. Mr. +Whitfield's anxiety to understand the perplexing conditions, and Eglah's +unwavering reticence, led him to interrogate Eliza. + +"Mr. Whitfield, I can't tell you what I do not know. Mr. Herriott's name +is never uttered by her, never mentioned now by me. She is so silent she +would certainly forget how to talk if she were not a woman. She intends +to go to Europe, and, as you know, keeps some business matters in +readiness, but no date has been fixed. You will be advised in time to +draw up her will, of which she talked to me about a week ago. The months +come and go, and the dear child is always as you see her, calm, +uncomplaining, with lips locked as a statue's, but I must say I feel all +the time as if I am walking over a grave that may suddenly crumble and +cave in under my feet." + +Returning spring was welcome, and early summer brought once more the +solace and diversion of long rides through solemn, lonely pine +stretches, where only birds, nature's feathered syrinx, sounded in the +silence, happy as human children prattling to their mother. + +A mute acceptance of the inevitable, as far removed from resignation, as +from pleading protest, had sealed Eglah's face in passionless repose, +pathetic and inscrutable. Inflexibly she maintained her resolve, + + "--to fly no signal + That the soul founders in a sea of sorrow," + +and solitude was her refuge. A long delayed monument having been +completed at her father's grave, the desire to visit and inspect it +dominated her, and one hot day the two women went North. To the devoted +child bowed at the feet of a marble angel, the carved lips seemed to +whisper her father's farewell words of commendation and tender gratitude +for her self-sacrifice in his behalf. Did he know now all it had +cost--the branding humiliation, the fierce heart hunger she had found +only when she offered herself on an altar that crumbled beneath her? + +When the slab was covered with white violets, and she had pressed her +lips to the name chiselled on the scroll, she put one hand on Mrs. +Mitchell's shoulder and pointed to a grassy plot at her feet. + +"Little mother, I hope it will not be long before I can shut my tired +eyes forever, and when that happy day comes I want you to bring me here +and lay me close to father, at his left side. One other thing you must +not fail to do; after I am in my coffin be sure you take off my ring--my +wedding ring--and if Mr. Herriott be living give it into his hand. He +has wanted it back since the day he placed it on my finger, and only God +knows how glad I shall be to surrender it. 'So long as ye both shall +live' it is mine, but in the grave God gives us back our vows and sets +us free." + +The cold, hopeless renunciation in face and voice was more than the +loving little woman could endure, and with a burst of tears she threw +her arm about the girl, pressing her to her heart. + +"My baby, have you no mercy for me, that you talk so cruelly? I shall be +asleep by my Robert long before death calls one so young and strong and +beautiful as my own dearie. Please have some consideration for me, and +don't discuss such dreadful matters. I see from your eyes you want a +promise. Well, if I outlive you--preposterous--I will forget nothing, +provided you spare me all heart-sickening talk in future." + +On the return journey Mrs. Mitchell wished to stop in New York, but +Eglah shrank from the possibility of meeting old friends, dreading +questions. As she intended to see her cousin Vernon Temple for a day, +she went on to the hotel in the city near Calvary House, where her +foster-mother joined her after a day's shopping tour in New York. At the +time of Eglah's visit of a few hours here with her father, and while her +cousin was at Nutwood, they had discussed plans for a new altar much +needed in the chapel, and during her residence at the Dingle she had +submitted a design duplicating in many respects a carved and pillared +shrine she and Judge Kent had seen near Avignon. The Father Superior and +her cousin gratefully accepted her offer, and before she started to New +England a letter announced the completion of the altar, and expressed +the hope that she would be able to see it. If Mr. Herriott never +returned, she locked deep in her heart an intention to make it a +memorial to him, the donor of house and estate to the Brotherhood. The +Provençal model was guarded by two seraphs; these she would add later, +if the White North kept the wanderer folded forever to her breast of +snow. + +Of celibate organizations, Romish or Protestant, Mrs. Mitchell +distinctly disapproved, and she had listened with ill-concealed +annoyance and uneasiness when at Nutwood Vernon Temple expatiated upon +the noble work accomplished by Episcopal deaconesses in sisterhood +homes. She had always dreaded his influence over his cousin, especially +since her father's death. Calvary House was as the threshold of Rimmon, +and when the carriage approached it she exclaimed: + +"I have no intention of going inside that monkish den. How a sensible, +level-headed man like Mr. Herriott could give away property for such +fanatical use passes my understanding. I may be an ecclesiastical +ignoramus; I certainly am a 'narrow Methodist'; but, my dear baby, I +can't broaden even to please you, and you must excuse me. I had a +catalogue from the great poultry farm that I hear is only a mile or two +farther out on this road, and while you see your cousin and examine the +things you gave the chapel, I will drive on and order some white +guineas. Here, don't forget your box of embroideries. I shall wait at +the gate for you." + +The bell on the latch rang as Eglah passed under the gilt cross, and at +the front door the porter, a young lay brother, looked at her in +amazement. + +"I wish to see Father Temple. I am his cousin, Eglah Kent." + +"He is not here. He went to Philadelphia yesterday." + +"Then tell the Father Superior--he knows me--that the lady who gave the +new altar wishes to speak to him about it." + +"Father Superior is holding a mission in New York." + +"Where is the sacristan?" + +"'Free time' has just begun, and he has gone to look after his beehives. +I can call Father Phillips." + +"No. I do not care to meet any of the Brotherhood who do not know me. I +was here once with my father, and Father Temple has visited my house in +the South. I came merely to look at the new altar, and bring some fresh +covers to the sacristan. Do not disturb any one; this is 'free time,' +and I must not keep you. Please say nothing about me now. I shall go +into the chapel--I know the way--and then return to my carriage." + +He opened the nearest door of the chapel, bowed, and disappeared. + +Before the carved panel in the centre of the altar she stood some +moments, rejoicing that the sculptor had succeeded so well in +reproducing the cherub heads running as a frieze between the columns. +From the box she shook out two pulpit-falls, one embroidered with iris, +one with passion flowers; then a chalice veil of shimmering white silk +marked with a Greek cross. Beneath these lay a long altar cover of snowy +linen cambric, "the fair linen cloth," studded with crosses along the +centre, and bordered with annunciation lilies. + +She smoothed and arranged it on the polished surface of the shrine, +while a vision of an added seraph, standing _in memoriam_ at each end, +shone before her. She recalled Tennyson's inscription in Westminster +Abbey, where one wife, widowed by Polar perils, had set her tribute of +love. To her the sympathy of the world went out, and the nations, +sharing her long search, shared her sorrow. + +Misunderstood and censured, Eglah bore her burden alone, and now, +sinking to her knees, with her forehead pressed against the marble, she +prayed that the wanderer in desolate lands might be guarded from every +ill and brought safely home. Prayer always deepened her impression that +he would return, and as she rose and loitered a moment in admiration of +the chiselled stone, her sad lips whispered to her lonely heart: + + "He will come,-- + Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead." + +Suddenly her heart leaped, then seemed to forget to beat. A voice rich, +mellow, unmistakable, came from the arched gallery beyond the little +oratory opening into the chapel: + +"Roy, you are no baby, and my singing days are over." + +A feeble, nervous tone answered: + +"Herriott, you sang life into me that awful night after you carried me +in your arms behind a snow drift, rubbed my frozen hands, and tied our +last dog to my legs to keep me warm. 'It shall be light, it shall be +light!' How the song soared and echoed in the terrible silence of the +ice desert, as if spirits of the snow caught up the refrain! Do you +remember that ghastly red thread of a moon on the glacial line above us, +like a swooping bloody sickle? Even in my blindness that infernal moon +haunts me still. Just then, as the echo died, out of the blackness, as +if an answer to a prophet's prayer, the swift glory of the aurora swept +down and enveloped us. You saved my life, and before you leave me here I +should like to hear that song once more. I suppose I am childish yet, +but in my blindness you might humor me. Who wrote that song?" + +"You are such a hopeless pagan you do not recognize the Bible? It is an +arrangement of two verses in the Old Testament: 'And it shall come to +pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear. But it shall come +to pass that at evening time it shall be light.' When I was attending +lectures in Germany, one of the professors set the words to the tune of +an old Latin hymn, and the students began to chant it. That night when I +was obliged to keep you awake, it occurred to me. Roy, I can't humor you +now, but I intend to take you and an old man at home down to Arizona to +thaw the Arctic poison out of you. When we are stretched on a sunny mesa +where the air quivers with heat, if you feel the need of more light, I +promise to chant your song. I am not willing to abandon the goal that we +were so near. If you had not broken down, we should have found those +stone ruins with the inscriptions, and I intend to see them. After a +while I shall fit out an expedition to suit myself, and if you can get +rid of your horror of that baby moon that in your delirium you swore was +a bloody scythe coming to cut your throat, I hope to number you among my +impedimenta." + +The purple curtain, caught back only during service, hung over the arch; +but at one side a narrow aperture, close to the gilt organ pipe in the +oratory, admitted outside light. + +Irresistibly drawn by the voice that set her pulses surging, Eglah had +gone to the arch, and grasping the velvet folds looked cautiously +through the cleft between organ and curtain, across the small oratory +and down the cloister. On a cot lay an emaciated man whose eyes were +bandaged. By his side and fronting the oratory stood Mr. Herriott, his +hands in his pockets. + +He looked taller, rather gaunt, somewhat bleached in complexion, and the +absence of mustache showed the fine curves of his peculiarly firm, thin +lips. His eyes were lowered to the sick man's countenance, and the thick +black lashes veiled their grey-blue depths, but over the handsome face +had come a subtle change, etched by corroding memories. It was graver, +colder, less magnetic. + +As Eglah watched him her breath fluttered; involuntarily she stretched +her arms an instant toward him, and her eyes lighted with a tender glow. +"My own Mr. Noel. My own!" was the unspoken claim of her heart, +momentarily happy at sight of him. Then Mr. Herriott put his fingers +over his friend's pulse. + +"Vernon promised to get back to-morrow, and the oculist will look after +you until I can go home and see about my neglected household. In order +to avoid press publicity and inevitable interviewing, I am keeping my +return secret for a few days; and, clean-shaven and goggle-eyed, hope to +reach my house unrecognized, where I can smooth out the tangles that +years of absence tie. Later, business will force me to New York, and I +shall be glad of a glimpse of my old club life, but meanwhile you will +not be forgotten. Now, Roy, you must come in. One of the lay brothers +will help me lift your cot." + +As he advanced toward the steps near the end of the cloister, Eglah +covered her face with her heavy veil, and went swiftly through a side +door of the chapel, down the gladiolus-bordered walk to the gate, where +the carriage waited. As she sank back in one corner, keeping her +features veiled, Mrs. Mitchell laid a hand on her knee. + +"Well? Are you satisfied, and did the altar cloths fit? Did you find +what you expected?" + +She did not answer immediately, and when she spoke her voice quivered +through the effort to strangle a dry sob. + +"I found far more than I expected, and the altar is lovely. Everything I +could possibly do that would have pleased father I have done. My father, +my father, have I spared even myself! Memorial window, monument, the +altar here, all are finished, and now nothing remains for my empty +hands. My dear little mother, you are so good to me; you promised you +would go abroad when I felt it best to start. At last the time has come, +and I wish to leave America within the next week if possible." + +After a moment a long, shuddering sigh made her voice unsteady. + +"I have just seen Mr. Herriott--safe, strong, and well. He will never +know I was so near; he could not see me. Accidentally I heard his voice, +and looked through a curtain, and----" + +Mrs. Mitchell had drawn her into her arms, but the black crêpe was held +over her face. + +"The public will be kept in ignorance of his return for a few days, and +before his arrival is announced and people begin to question and +speculate, I must be on the ocean. I was so close to him--so close--and +yet----" + +A wave of tenderness drowned words. + +"Oh, my baby! Why did you not speak to your husband?" + +After a struggle for composure she answered, with a cold, rising ring in +her tone: + +"He does not consider himself my husband. More than three years ago he +willed we should be strangers. He built the wall of separation, of +absolute silence between us, and no word, no sign from me shall ever +cross it. He is within his rights. I dispute nothing. I claim only the +privilege of helping him in his effort to avoid me, and I must have the +ocean between us. He will breathe freely when he feels sure that by no +possible accident the sight of my face can ever again affront him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + "Willow Creek Plantation, + + "Wednesday. + + "Mr. Herriott. + + "Dear Sir: Permit me to say at the outset that these lines are + intended solely for your eyes, and I beg you will regard them + as strictly confidential. If I were not so sure you are an + honorable gentleman, they would never be written. On the 18th + my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow + Bend, where we have lived since her father's death. By her + desire we go to Europe, and, as we shall remain there + indefinitely, I should like to talk with you of some matters + that concern you--matters I am unwilling to mention unless we + are face to face. The railway station Maurice is near me, but + if you do me the favor to grant my request, it would be better + for you to avoid Y---- and come directly to Sunflower, ten + miles north of Maurice. If you can be at Sunflower on the 17th, + I will meet you there when the one o'clock train arrives. + Unless you come that day, it would be too late. You will see no + one but me, and no one must ever be told I went to Sunflower, + or saw you. My child is absent in Y----, and will not return + until night of the 17th, when I meet her at Maurice. Do not + write me. Do not telegraph me. I scarcely allow myself to hope + that you will come, and if I do not see you I shall regret it + for many reasons. If I fail in my conscientious effort to right + a great wrong, it will not be my fault. + + "Very respectfully, + + "ELIZA MITCHELL." + +Allowing two days' margin for accidental delays, Eliza indulged no doubt +that this letter would reach its destination in ample time to enable Mr. +Herriott to keep the appointment, should he consent to meet her, and, +after putting on a special delivery stamp, she mailed it at Maurice with +her own hand. + +The probability of a change of residence had been so fully discussed +that preliminary arrangements had long been made; but the early date, +suddenly fixed, necessitated great activity to insure readiness for +departure. + +Eglah's calm, listless indifference had given place to feverish +impatience in expediting all preparations incident to the journey, and +the perplexed and anxious little woman who watched her movements was +rejoiced when business of importance called her to Y----, where Mr. +Whitfield was confined by gout to his room. Since the day at Calvary +House, Eliza had observed a marked change in Eglah; the wistful, +hopeless expression had vanished, and proud defiance settled on her +face. While tortured by suspense, she had yielded to the tender yearning +of her heart; but the sight of Mr. Herriott, safe, well, and strong, +contentedly planning a future in which he assigned no niche to her, +stung her womanly pride, intensified her longing to evade forever the +possibility of meeting the man who had so completely ignored and +repudiated her. + +Some delay in the preparation of papers Mr. Whitfield required her to +sign kept her in Y---- longer than she had intended. He very carefully +wrote her will, in which, following the trend of her grandmother's +sympathies, she bequeathed Nutwood and adjoining lands as a Maurice Home +"to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in the State." To Vivian +and Maurice relatives of her own mother, who refused association with +Marcia after her marriage, and whom Eglah had always avoided, she gave +one plantation--Canebrake. To Mrs. Mitchell Willow Creek Bend was left, +in grateful recognition of her loving care; and all personal property, +stocks, and bonds were devised to the vestry of her father's church, for +the erection and maintenance of a memorial Chapter House. + +Business concluded, she telegraphed that on the 17th, at eight P.M., she +would reach Maurice, and wished Mrs. Mitchell to meet her with the trap. + +At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th, the overseer's wife, +desiring to avoid the passenger train, went in the caboose of a local +freight to Sunflower. It was an "excursion" day in honor of the opening +of a Masonic hall just completed, and many strangers strolled about the +village awaiting the hour fixed for the dedication ceremonies. At one +o'clock, when the fast southbound train paused long enough to deliver +the mail-bag, Eliza stood on the little platform, watching the line of +dusty cars. As a tall figure, valise in hand, stepped from the Pullman +sleeper, she did not promptly recognize the clean-shaven face, wearing +grey goggles. Handing his valise to a negro porter sitting on the +baggage truck, he glanced about him, and approached the little woman, +who was trembling with suspense. + +"How are you, Mrs. Mitchell?" + +He held out his hand. + +"Oh, Mr. Herriott! I was not sure it was you. Thank God! I was so afraid +you would not come." + +He took off the goggles and dropped them in his coat pocket. + +"I dare say these glasses partly disguise, but snow-blindness left my +eyes rather sensitive, and I wore them as guard against railroad dust." + +"Come with me, Mr. Herriott. This little place is full of strangers +to-day on account of a Masonic meeting, but there is a quiet spot in the +grove yonder, where a recent picnic party left some benches." + +In silence they reached the grove of old red oaks, and Eliza sat down on +a rough, board seat; but he declined to share it, and stood before her, +his eyes an interrogation. + +"Mr. Herriott, I asked you to come here because you are pursuing a +course I think you would abandon if you knew some facts that only I can +give you. But first, I want your promise that no matter what the future +holds, you will never let Eglah know or suspect that I wrote you, came +here, or saw you. If she found it out she would never forgive me; she +would desert me, and I am running a great risk. Give me your word of +honor to keep this meeting always strictly confidential. If you promise, +I shall feel easy." + +"I promise. You may trust me." + +"Thank you, sir. Before I say more, will you tell me if you still love +your wife?" + +His face hardened and his eyes narrowed. + +"Pardon me, madam. I did not come here to be catechised." + +"If you have ceased to love her, then I should betray a holy trust by +lifting a very sacred veil. I can speak freely only to a man who loves +her as she deserves--and as I have always believed you did. If you no +longer love her, I have come on worse than a fool's errand." + +There was a brief silence, and hot tears ran over the little woman's +cheeks. + +"And if I love her still? Go on, go on." + +"Then why are you breaking her dear heart?" + +"Madam, her heart has never been in my keeping. You must know that for +years I made every effort to win it, and failing, I abandoned the hope. +Our merely nominal relation was dissolved by mutual consent, and I gave +her entire freedom before I started North. I have never been close +enough to her heart to wound it." + +"Please, Mr. Herriott, listen to me patiently. I must go back so far. +She did not love you when she married you. Why she so suddenly took that +awful step I don't know. She refused to explain. I believed that her +father had persuaded her, but she assured me he had no knowledge of her +intention until after she had voluntarily made her decision, and she is +absolutely truthful. She is reticent and proud, but of false statements +she is incapable. She has never confided the motive of her rash marriage +to me, and what she is unwilling to have me know, nobody else can ever +tell me. Better than any one living I understand her, and when she came +back with her father from Greyledge I saw a great change in her; she was +not the indifferent girl whom you had taken away. The estrangement +between Judge Kent and herself had ended, and she rejoiced in the +cordial reconciliation, but some sad mystery in the background +overshadowed her and puzzled me. The day she received that express +package from you she suddenly seemed to go frantic, and her distress was +so overwhelming I was frightened. Never before or since has she shown +such passionate grief. She told me she had wronged, wounded you, and +that you would never forgive her. How she wronged you she would not +explain, and I don't know any more now than I did then. But she insisted +again and again that you were not to blame--that it was entirely her +fault, and she must bear the sorrow she had brought upon herself. She +wrung her hands and begged me to pray she might die before you came back +and rejected her. When I tried to comfort her, and asked why you should +do such a cruel, unjust thing, she wailed: 'You loved your husband; if +you had wounded him past pardon, could you bear to talk about it? Don't +question me. Think of your Robert, and try to realize how I feel.' All +that night she walked the floor of her room, and next morning she looked +years older--so white, so silent, as if gazing down into a grave. Since +then she has never been the same Eglah. Something in your last message, +which I did not see, slew her peace of mind for all time. She shut +herself away from society, lived exclusively with her father and with +me. When Judge Kent died I dreaded a total collapse in the child who had +worshipped him from her babyhood; but she bore the awful strain +silently, calmly, surprisingly. Mr. Whitfield put his arm around her +shoulder as she stood by the coffin, and, with tears in his eyes, the +old man praised her devotion and her bravery. She looked up at him with +a strange smile on her bloodless lips. + +"'One can suffer only so much, then numbness comes. After the misery of +many months a last blow does not crush. The petrified are not always +where they belong--in the grave.' + +"After the funeral she closed Nutwood, moved her books, piano, and +horses down to my little cottage in the heart of the pine woods, denied +herself to every one, and there we have lived in strict seclusion. +Day and night she pored over books of Arctic travel, and on the walls of +her room she had maps and charts, and what she called her 'comfort +calendar,' that she patched together from almanacs, to mark what time +day and night began near the Pole and when the new moons were due. It +made my heart ache to see her face each day as she searched the papers +for some news of you. At last she ceased to expect any, and your name +was not mentioned. Mr. Herriott, do you recollect your striped silk +smoking-jacket, with pink poppies embroidered on collar and cuffs and +down the front?" + +"Yes. I had such a jacket." + +"One sultry summer night, about one o'clock, I went on tiptoe into +Eglah's room to get a vial of medicine that was kept in a closet there, +and, as she slept poorly, I tried not to disturb her. Her window was +open, the curtains looped back, and a full moon shone in. She was +sitting up in bed, with her face buried in some bright wrapping, and a +sort of strangled moan came from her. I went to the bed and asked what +the trouble was. Had she neuralgia in her face, that she was muffling it +on such a hot night? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have heard the +quiver in her voice! + +"'No, no. Heartache--heartache only the grave can ease.' + +"Next day, while she was away, I searched for that striped thing which I +had never seen before. She kept it in a long, satin-lined, sandalwood +case, among her perfumed laces, and when I examined it I found a +smoking-jacket, with a dog whistle in one pocket, and in the other a +handkerchief marked 'Herriott.' I----" + +Mr. Herriott had walked away, and after several moments recalled the +search for the missing jacket on the day of his departure, and the pride +with which Amos only three nights ago, had shown him a warm, quilted +cashmere gown "the madam" had sent him because the jacket left for him +had never been found. When he came back to the seat, he stood with his +face turned from her, and she could see only his profile. + +"Sir, if you don't hear me out, you can't understand why I came. Eglah +would sit for hours, a book before her, her hands folded in a way +peculiar to her--her wedding ring against her lips--so silent, so still, +she seemed a stone; but she roused to a manifestation of interest when +we heard your old gardener was ill and needed attention. While we were +at your house she seemed more like herself than at any time since that +express package reached her; but a deep undercurrent of sorrow she could +not hide. Over the house and grounds she wandered continually, and that +long lake beach was her favorite walk. Every evening she shut herself in +one of the rooms downstairs--I think it was your smoking-room--and the +last night we were there she spent locked in that room. She sent for a +photographer from the city and had copies taken of your mother's +portrait and of yours--that one hanging next to your father's in the +drawing-room. To-day on her dressing-table stand two pictures of you and +one she insists resembles you--the photograph of a French poet she saw +once in Arles. She thinks the brow and eyes and nose are yours, and, +though she does not like the lower portion of the face, she had the +photograph enlarged and framed. I could not keep my tears back when, +leaning from the carriage, she took her last look at your home. There +was such a world of suffering in her sad eyes, and her dear lips and +chin trembled like a little child's. + +"'Being here is next best to seeing the master. I can never come again. +When he returns I must be in Europe, out of his way.'" + +Mr. Herriott turned suddenly and looked down steadily at his companion. + +"Pardon me, Mrs. Mitchell. You prefer to stay at home? You do not wish +to go abroad?" + +His keen eyes searched hers, and their flash answered him. + +"Whatever the child thinks is best for her peace I want above everything +else; and I am ready and willing to go with her to Europe, Africa, the +Fiji Islands--to the ends of the earth. I do love my little home, still +more my husband's grave, almost in sight of it; I love my cows and my +chickens; but first and last, and better than all, I love my baby, who +came to my arms when she was three hours old, and who now, in turning +her back upon an unjust world, clings only to me. I never took an oath +before God that I would 'for better, for worse, love and cherish her +till death,' but I rather think my love will abide, will stand all tests +and trials that have crumbled some other vows she once trusted." + +After a moment she added: + +"Perhaps I have already said too much, and you may not care to hear +more." + +"Madam, I wish you to tell me everything you think it best I should +know. I am here for that purpose, at your request." + +"Eglah was terribly hurt to find Amos had heard twice from you while, +consumed with suspense, she had received not even a line. After we went +home she grew more and more restless, but I noticed she carefully +avoided any allusion to you. One night I heard her moving about, and +then she left her room. It is a lonely little place where we live, +rather unprotected, and the servants--man and wife--do not wake easily. +Eglah had a way of walking about the gallery and yard when she could not +sleep that made me uneasy. I went out to expostulate, and found her +sitting on the steps in the moonlight with that jacket of yours in her +arms. I sat down and took her hand. In a horrible dream, she had seen +you lying dead between two blue slabs of ice, a white owl on your +breast, and she was hugging and stroking that striped silk as only those +who love can caress the garments of lost darlings. You know she very +rarely cries. In all her life I never saw tears on her face more than +three or four times. I tried to soothe her, and said that full moon +overhead was making the Pole itself bright. She turned suddenly to me, +the tears dripping, and, oh, if I could give you the heartbroken tone in +which she said: + + 'The broad noonday was night to me, + The full-moon night was dark to me, + The stars whirled and the poles span + The hour God took him far from me.' + +"After that night she guarded herself more closely against any +expression of feeling, and carefully abstained from all reference to you +until the evening she learned from a Boston paper that your vessel had +returned to Europe, and you had preferred to stay in Arctic regions. My +poor baby! She looked so white, so stunned, as if some one had struck +her a heavy blow." + +Eliza sobbed and her tears streamed. + +"Mr. Herriott, she felt assured you would not come home because you +feared you might meet her, and then she asked me to keep my promise and +go with her to Europe as soon as some stone-cutting designs could be +filled. She waited only to see three memorials completed. From the day +she learned the 'Ahvungah' had returned, I saw a bitter, resentful +element beginning to invade what had been only regretful tenderness, and +her lips were locked. The window in the Episcopal Church at Y---- was +placed, and soon after we went North to see the monument ordered for her +father's grave. I dreaded she would break down there, but she was as +quiet as the marble angel of the Resurrection standing on the slab. She +showed me where she wished her body laid, close to her father's, and +then she asked me to be sure--after she was safe in her coffin--to take +off her wedding ring and send it to you, because you had wanted it back +from the day you gave it to her. She refused to stop in New York, +fearing some of her friends or yours might see and question her. Any +allusion to her marriage was as the touch of red-hot irons. On our way +home she went one afternoon to Calvary House to see her cousin +Temple--the priest--and look at an altar she had given him. I waited +outside in the carriage, and she joined me, holding her thick mourning +veil over her face. As she and her father designed this altar after one +they had seen somewhere abroad, I thought her silence and evident +distress resulted from its association with him. After a while she said, +in a strange, muffled way, that she had done everything she was sure her +father would like if he could speak to her, and now her hands were +empty, and she wished to sail for Europe at the earliest possible +date--probably within a week. As she leaned against me, and I held her +hand, I felt her shiver. Then she told me she had just seen you at +Calvary House, strong and well, and she must leave America at once." + +"She saw me! When?" + +Mr. Herriott had grown very pale. + +"A week ago yesterday. She said you had brought some sick, blind man +there, and you were going home. I asked her why she did not speak to +you, and she answered that three years ago you had willed you and she +should be strangers; you had built a wall of silence, and no word, no +sign from her should ever break it. Unobserved by you, she had seen you +in the cloister, heard you talking of your plans for future travel, and, +fearing discovery, she had hurried from the chapel. Since then every +nerve has been strained to get away." + +Mr. Herriott walked a few yards, put on his glasses, and stood for some +time with his hands behind him. A sad, perplexed face met Eliza's eager +eyes when he came back, and for the first time seated himself beside +her. + +"To what portion of Europe are you going?" + +"To Spain; to a quiet little place hidden away in the Pyrenees, where +she hopes she will meet no one who ever heard of her, and where, having +nothing to remind her of three horrible years, she can try to forget her +suffering. To avoid all acquaintances, she will not sail from New York, +but goes directly to Charleston, and thence to Havana, where she can +take a steamer to Spain. I think, sir, no one can understand her +terrible humiliation in being rejected. While you were away, surrounded +by dangers, and she was on the rack of suspense, tortured almost beyond +endurance, only deep and tender love filled her heart. Since she has +seen you safe and well--yet no word of remembrance has been sent to +her--wounded pride possesses her, and she seems indeed petrified. Even +now she maintains with strange composure: 'He is within his rights; he +is not to blame. It was all my fault. I made the mistake of presuming +too far on his love, which was less than I counted on, and I deserve my +punishment; but sometimes I think God, who saw my heart and knew I did +not intend any wrong, might have spared me some of the bitter dregs I +have had to drink.' With all her pride, she is acutely sensitive to +adverse gossip. From childhood she has borne so much on account of her +father's unpopularity in the State, and people do not understand her. In +Washington her loyalty to the South and to the Maurices subjected her to +sneers and much unpleasantness. Her sudden marriage and subsequent +events, especially her coming home before you sailed, have caused +annoying comment, and now she is hurrying through Y----, anxious to get +away before the fact of your return is known there. She does not suspect +the opposition manifested by some of the vestrymen to that memorial +window. Only the pleadings of the rector and the influence of Mr. +Whitfield, who is not an Episcopalian and who had no cause to like Judge +Kent, availed to smother the objections to its erection. This +mortification we have managed to save her. Now, sir, you will please +pardon me if I speak very frankly. What passed between you and Eglah +after your marriage I do not know, nor did Judge Kent. Her lips have +been sealed, but I have often thought the estrangement arose from your +discovery of the fact that she did not love you as she should have done +before she married you, and therefore I have come here to try to save +you both from making shipwreck of your lives. If that was the cause of +the trouble, it exists no longer. She loves you now as devotedly as even +you could wish." + +He shook his head and swept his hand across his face. + +"Madam, she pities me, she deplores my disappointment; perhaps she +censures herself unduly, but love! She knows no more of love than a baby +in its cradle. She never will. She is absolutely incapable of loving any +man. Too many have tried zealously to touch her heart, and failed as +signally as I certainly did." + +Mrs. Mitchell's black eyes sparkled through her tears. + +"Mr. Herriott, since she was three hours old she has been my child. I +know her as well as I know myself. I am a woman; I loved my husband +better than my life, and when I see genuine, loyal, tender love in a +wife I know it as surely as you know where the sun rises. My baby did +not love you when she took her marriage vows, but you were deep in her +heart when she came home; and her love has grown until it is now so +strong it is a slow torture, from which she would gladly escape if she +could. Do you suppose a woman proud, reserved, cold as Eglah is would +treasure and caress, and sleep with her cheek on a man's faded old +smoking-jacket if she did not tenderly love the wearer whose touch had +made it sacred? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have seen her all these +years--her patient, hopeless face! If you could realize the life she +leads in the overseer's house and contrast it with that brilliant past +when you saw her admired and sought in New York--even in London--you +might perhaps understand how changed she is. I longed for you to know +that your wife's heart is wholly yours, because I have believed you +would always love her. If she ever suspects I have told you her secret +she will never forgive--she will disown me. You must not cause me to +lose my child. Just now she is sorely mortified and resentful, but----" + +Eliza paused and looked at the man beside her, but she could not see his +eyes. + +"Please do me the kindness to finish your sentence." + +"But if you could meet her and----" + +Again she hesitated, discouraged by the expression settling around his +mouth. + +"In consequence of a voluntary pledge on my part, I could not now +intrude upon her." + +"If you called and asked to see her, I am sure she would decline to +receive you; but if you really desire to see her before she sails, it +could be arranged without her knowledge or co-operation. We go from +Maurice to-morrow night at eight o'clock and pass through Y---- without +stopping. Eglah comes from Y---- at eight to-night. To-morrow she will +be at my house all day until four o'clock, when she goes over to the +Willow Bend plantation to say good-bye to the Boyntons and negro +tenants, and also the tenants and field hands from Canebrake plantation, +whom Mr. Boynton will have present. Eglah usually takes a book and +spends the morning under the trees in my front yard, or in the old mill, +where she often sits for hours. If you merely want to see your wife +again before she passes forever out of your life you can easily do so +from the shelter of my butter-bean arbor, which is near the trees, and +she will never know it. If you care to speak to her, you may be sure of +no interruption. Mr. Herriott, God took my husband, but I could not have +borne my loss if my Robert had voluntarily taken himself from me. My +heart aches for Eglah. She is indeed my all in this world, and I have +risked a great deal to put you in possession of the truth. She loves you +as earnestly and tenderly as you could wish, but it remains for you to +make her admit it--to compel her to confession. Her pride has been so +sorely wounded she would die sooner than move one inch toward +reconciliation." + +She looked at her watch and rose. + +"My train will soon be due." + +As they walked toward the small station-house, Mr. Herriott held out his +hand. + +"Whatever the future may hold, I shall always thank you inexpressibly +for the confidence, the sacred trust you have reposed in me, and I will +never betray it. I doubt the wisdom of seeing Eglah. I know only too +well the difference between true love and that regretful compassion her +kind heart indulges. There are reasons that make me unwilling to violate +my own pledge to her, but if I should decide to go to your house, will +you direct me how to find it?" + +"You can drive to Maurice, ten miles south, or take the night train, +which will not stop here unless it is flagged. Once at Maurice, any one +will show you Willow Bend road. When you pass the plantation, which is +quite a settlement, cross the bridge, turn to the right, and you will +soon see an old red mill in front of my gate. Here comes my train." + +"No, madam; not your train. That is only a freight-engine and gravel +cars." + +"I came on it, and I go back the same way. For many reasons I prefer to +keep this trip as secret as possible, at least until after to-morrow, +when we leave home; so I avoided the passenger train that brought up +some Maurice Masons. The smaller the place, the wider the eyes, the +keener the ears, and the more nimble the tongues that dwell there. Rufus +Boling, the conductor yonder, expects to marry my favorite Sunday-school +pupil, Minna Gaines, to-morrow night, and I have done all I could for +the child's wedding. Consequently, though the railroad officials grumble +and forbid, he consented to let me ride in the caboose, provided I would +not sit at the window, and promised not to sue for damages if I lost a +limb or an eye on the trip. Are you ready, Rufus? Good-bye, Mr. +Herriott. I have done my best for my child and for you. God help you +both!" + +He took her hand and pressed it cordially. + +"In any event, you may rest assured I never shall cease to thank you for +your effort; and life will always be sweeter because of some facts you +have given me." + +He assisted her into the close, smoky caboose, lifted his hat and, as +the engine pulled slowly out, he took off his glasses and walked back to +the red-oak grove. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was a cloudless, warm day when Mr. Herriott crossed the bridge, and +walked up the road bordering a creek hidden by its vivid fringe of +willows. At the ruined mill he paused; here the sandy road ended. Beyond +on an upland towered a pine forest, its organ pipes whispering as the +south wind touched the tremolo; in front nestled the small, white house, +partly veiled by rose and yellow jasmine vines, and all the little +hollow was brimmed with cool, green shadows cast by trees across +clustering flower beds. A blended perfume distilled by dew from Hersé's +crystal fingers hovered over the Dingle, the cold, unctuous odor of +tuberoses, the warm spice of carnations, and that clinging breath of wan +lilies that evokes white faces and folded fingers of the dead, but +stronger than all, the fragrance of wild grapes in creamy bloom. More +than cloistral quiet reigned; only the rippling monody of water feeling +its way over the crumbling dam to the far-off sea, and the tinkle of the +spring runnel sounding low, clear, elfish, as if some Malis or +"April-eyed Nycheia" smote her tambourine and set silver bells ringing. +Once from the green silken tent of willows a shy lark, hermit of dells, +thrilled the silence with his resonant, sylvan roulade, and a locust +under beech boughs answered, clashing his brazen sistrum. + +The blinds and windows at the front of the cottage were open, and white +muslin curtains stirred now and then, as the breeze swayed them. Pots of +flowering geranium and heliotrope were grouped on the piazza, and among +them slept Delilah. As Mr. Herriott looked at the humble nest of a home, +and thought of stately Nutwood, of gilded ballrooms where Eglah had +reigned an acknowledged beauty, he began to realize the monotony, the +dreary loneliness of life here in the heart of almost primeval forests. +She had elected to shut herself far away from the brilliant circle of +former days, but he could not believe it was for his sake; grief for her +father had made her a recluse. + +The dazzling possibility with which Mrs. Mitchell enticed him, he had +put aside as a delusion he could not indulge a second time, for behind +it was the biting mockery with which he had once grappled. His nominal +wife had led the life of a nun during his absence, but loyalty was far +removed from love, and the steps of an altar suited her nature better +than a husband's arms. For many hours he had fought the hope that would +smile out of the folds of his old jacket, but the intense longing to see +her again conquered reason, prudence, consistent adherence to the line +of action he had voluntarily prescribed for both. He would secrete +himself, and merely look once more at the face he had striven +ineffectually to forget, and she should never suspect his presence. + +At a little distance was the gate of the low wire fence, but he stepped +across the wire, and passed through the open door of the dairy to a tall +tulip tree, around the body of which coiled the brown serpent of the +muscadine. Very near this tree, now all aglow with its orange-spotted +cups, stood--on the edge of a verbena bed--an ancient mimosa in full +bloom. Years before, an August gale had pollarded it, and lateral +branches drooped almost to the ground, except on one side, where they +were cut away to frame an arch, and this entrance showed a wooden bench +set against the trunk of the tree. To-day it resembled a huge Japanese +umbrella of olive-green lace thickly studded with pink silk aigrettes +that shook out waves of sweetness, mellow, fruity, languorous. Looking +around for the best coign of vantage, Mr. Herriott noticed the narrow +arbor covered by a thick growth of butter-bean vines, where he stood +secure from observation. On the ground, only five yards distant, lay a +woman's broad black straw hat tied basket-fashion with its ribbon +strings, and filled with spikes of tuberoses. By cautious pressure of +the bean vines he could see very distinctly the front of the house and +the mimosa seat. + +With his head on his hand and a throbbing of his heart that defied +control, he waited, his eyes on the hat, he never knew how long, until a +sudden thrill shook him. + +From an invisible corner of the garden, Eglah came slowly toward the +arbor. Her mourning gown of lustreless, thin black silk fitted perfectly +the curves of her finely moulded figure, and at her throat she had +fastened a spray of white star jasmine. High on her head the glossy, +gold-flecked chestnut hair was piled in soft loose coils and puffs that +caught the sunshine as she walked, holding in the clasp of one arm a +sheaf of long-stemmed lilies. Advancing until she reached the hat, she +leaned down, swung the knotted ribbons over her right wrist, and stood a +moment listening to the peaceful woodland message of the lark. Three +years had wrought a marvellous change. The rich promise of her youth had +expanded into an almost flawless loveliness. A certain girlish slimness +had given place to the fuller, rounded lines of graceful, perfect +womanhood, and over the pathetic, pale face had settled a passionless +repose that comes only when hope is dead, and silent pride sits on its +tombstone. As she held the lilies with her left arm, the hand gleamed +white against the folds of her black dress, and the wedding ring +flashed. Her cold, exquisite purity matched that of a Roman vestal on +her way to shrines, but her large brown eyes, looking far away, were so +darkened by shadows of mournful memory, of helpless yet uncomplaining +renunciation, that Mr. Herriott could not endure the sight. He threw his +hand across his face, and strangled the impulse to spring to her side, +to catch her in his arms. When he looked again, she had walked away +toward the house. + +With a book in her hand, Mrs. Mitchell ran down the steps. + +"I am waiting for the flowers, before I close the box for the little +bride. These lilies are just what she needs for the altar. Give them to +me." + +Then a low, sweet, sad voice swept the heartstrings of the man who +watched and listened. + +"Do not forget to send my present. I put my card inside the case. Dear +little Minna, I hope she may be happy. If her husband really loves her, +she enters her heaven; but if not, the poor little thing will soon wish +the burial instead of marriage service had been read over her to-night. +I trust the child may never find out that a tolling bell is sweeter than +a wedding peal. You found my Baedeker?" + +"Yes, in the mill where you left it a week ago." + +"I must look out one or two points in it, and the air is so deliciously +sweet I think I shall stay a while in the garden on this last Dingle +day, unless you need me to help you." + +"There is nothing for you to do inside; everything is ready." + +"Ma-Lila, you have been crying! What makes you so nervous? You are +trembling." + +"Oh, I feel upset! Leaving Robert's lonely grave, and all." + +The girl stooped, and kissed her cheek. + +"It seems very selfish to ask you to leave a place so dear to you; but I +hope God will begin to pity me at last, and call me soon where I shall +trouble no one any more. Then----" + +Mrs. Mitchell laid the lilies on her lips to close them. + +"Hush, my baby--hush! I am screwed up now like a frazzled fiddle-string, +and if you give another twist I shall just go to pieces." + +Taking the flower-laden hat, she placed it with the lilies on the step, +and turned toward the dairy. + +Baedeker in hand, Eglah moved away, but as she neared the arbor she +looked back over her shoulder and called: + +"Little mother, when Dorcas brings the clothes she kept to flute, please +call me. I ought to finish packing my trunk by one o'clock. Mr. Boynton +says the baggage should be at the station not later than five o'clock, +and you know we have to shake hands with all the plantation folks at +four. Where are you going?" + +"Only to the spring house for the cream I promised Minna for +charlotte-russe. I set the jug there to cool." + +"Let me bring it. You will wear yourself out." + +"As if you knew morning's cream from that two days old! Go read your +book." + +She sped toward the dairy like a running bird and though she did not +turn her head, the black eyes were busy. In the shelter of the spring +house she fell on her knees beside pans and bowls and with streaming +eyes prayed that after the battle perpetual peace might come. + +Under the canopy of the mimosa Eglah passed, seated herself on the +bench, and opened the Baedeker. Through the lace meshes of the foliage +filtered sunshine, dappling her mourning gown with gold, quivering in +the waves of her hair, and after a while she pushed the book aside, laid +her head back against the trunk of the tree, and her long, silky lashes +touched her cheeks. + +Mr. Herriott's glowing, hungry eyes watched every movement, noted the +outline of the full white throat, the listless drooping of the hands at +her side, the sad, proud curve of sensitive lips closed on ceaseless +pain that no complaint could adequately voice. He was unable to bear any +longer the look of patient hopelessness that each moment stabbed his +heart. At the thought that this was possibly his last sight of her, that +in obedience to his harsh dictates she was passing forever out of his +life, a wave of invincible protest surged over him, and before its +passionate fury pride, resolutions, his pledges of renunciation +vanished. The longing of many years seized, mastered him. In the sight +of God and man she was his. He would possess his own. With a quick, +noiseless stride he crossed the narrow space that separated them, and +entered the arch. His shadow was thrown forward, and she lifted her +eyes. + +For an instant, a bewildered expression drifted over her countenance, +then her features settled into a marble mask. Her eyes shone suddenly +with a jewel gleam, as when a lamp flashes over the face of a gem; her +lids drooped, and she rose. + +They stood only a few feet apart, a little belt of white verbena +fluttering flags of truce between them. His bronze face locked, his +eager grey eyes starred with the glint of battle probed hers for an +instant; she calmly defiant, colorless as the jasmine on her breast. + +He held out his hand. + +"Eglah!" His voice was a passionate appeal. + +She interlaced and clasped her own fingers, her hands hanging in front +of her. + +"Mr. Herriott, I am very glad you have reached home safely. I +congratulate you upon escaping the dangers of your Arctic journey." + +"You are not surprised to see me in the United States?" + +"Not at all. I happened to call at Calvary House recently, and +accidentally I saw and heard you talking in the cloister." + +"You were so near, so near--yet gave me no intimation of your presence?" + +"I have studied and learned thoroughly the lesson you selected and set +for me; you wished to avoid me. My schooling was effectual, and I was +glad to gratify you." + +"When I landed I went first to Calvary House with a suffering human +wreck whom I promised----" + +"Why trouble yourself to explain what concerns only you and your sick +friend? Your reasons I have neither the right to ask, nor any desire to +hear." + +"At least you will permit me to thank you for all your gracious kindness +to Amos Lea. He tells me you saved his life, and thereby I am far more +your debtor than is the poor old man." + +"Never my debtor. Amos and I understand each other, and I was glad to +help take care of him. You owe me absolutely nothing but the fulfilment +of your own unsolicited pledges." + +"Why do you suppose I came here?" + +"Why--indeed; when you pressed on my acceptance the promise that my +'future should be spared your shadow'? I presume you came from a +chivalric sense of imaginary duty, or possibly a courteous +semi-recognition of what you may have conjectured I might regard as my +legal claims. I have absolutely none of any kind, along any lines. +Having renounced and banished me, perhaps you wished to assure yourself +that the condemned is at least not needy in exile? By what right could +you expect me--disowned, rejected, scorned--to desire ever to see again +a man whom once I trusted, almost as I did my God? To whom I fled as +sole refuge from the infamy that threatened one supreme in my life, and +when like a frantic child I clung to him, believing he loved me, he +shook me off, as if a worm crawled on his hand. After the whirlwind +passed, after the black veil of death mercifully interposed and hid us +from ruin, I came to my senses--I realized the magnitude of my error. My +ideal world had crumbled, you alone survived the wreck; I honored you +for your loyalty to the innocent man in his grave, and God knows I have +rejoiced that you denied my prayer, that you refused to perjure +yourself, but--your cruel words sank deep. While I could not blame you, +my punishment has been as severe as I deserved, as keenly mortifying as +you intended and desired. In my helplessness and sorrow you have +humiliated me by every means at your command, made me a target for +derision and for slander. Three long, sad years, without a line. Yet you +found a way to write to your gardener." + +"Yes, I knew Amos loved me. You did not." + +"As you felt assured of that fact, I fail to understand why you have +come." + +"Not from the chivalric motives you have done me the honor to impute to +me. I am no walking code of priggish courtesy; I am merely a man who +knows exactly what he wants most, and, missing that, deceives himself +with nothing less. I am here to-day solely to see, at least once more, +the face that has held my heart in bondage since you were a child. To +intrude upon you was not my purpose, and I did not intend to violate my +self-imposed limit of absolute silence, but I could not resist the +longing to look into your eyes, to hear your voice; and I thought I was +strong enough to watch you a little while, without your knowledge, and +go away forever, leaving you in peace. I might have known better. The +sight of you shivered my own compact. I have suffered far more than you, +and if my harshness wounded you beyond forgiveness, remember, oh, +remember, how long I have loved you!" + +"I can remember only that your last spoken words were a vehement request +that I should forget you." + +Her lower lip fluttered, and she caught it between her teeth. + +"Yes, but if farewell utterances are inexorably binding, you must pardon +me if I remind you of yours. All through the gloom and bitterness of our +separation a sacred, sweet voice has sounded in my ears the precious +words of promise you whispered when your arms clasped my neck, and your +dear face lay on my heart: 'You will never be out of my life--my own Mr. +Noel.'" + +A vivid rose stole into her cheeks, and she leaned farther back to +increase the space between them. + +"I had not then received my text-book--had not learned the lesson +assigned. After that, you wrote your final mandate: 'My freedom was +complete,' and you urged me to use it in any way most 'conducive to the +happiness so unwisely imperilled' by my rash marriage. I shall endeavor +to follow your counsel, and if you had waited one day later, you would +have been spared this unpleasant duty-visit. I go away to-night, and +never again shall you be annoyed by even hearing of me. Mr. Herriott, in +spite of all your wrongs, at the last you trusted your name to my +keeping. I have indeed held it 'sacred as the Grail,' and now I return +it to you as stainless as when you gave it. I am leaving America to find +an obscure resting-place in a strange land where I shall be known only +by the name to which I was born; and, once across the ocean, I can +escape, perhaps, the social gibbet from which dangle, deservedly, 'women +with histories.' I have no need of your name, noble though it is, to +help me keep my oath to God. Divorce I hold a shameful blot on true +womanhood, a menace to domestic and national morality, an insult to the +Lord. Human law can no more annul my marriage than my baptismal vow; +neither was made to man; both stand on that divine record only death can +erase; they are locked among the sacraments of God, _'so long as ye both +shall live.'_ Your freedom is as unconditional as you may wish, and that +court of release which you commended to me, is equally open to you." + +The pulse in her lovely throat throbbed violently, and watching her lift +one hand there with the old childish effort to loosen the stricture, his +lips tightened and he stepped closer. + +"And if I decline to accept, to permit your renunciation of my name, +which is more sacred since you have worn it? To make a football of God's +statute is as little my purpose as is yours. Sometimes I have cheated +myself with the forlorn hope that absence might possibly help me to +accomplish that which long association failed to bring me. After years +of suffering, of sombre retrospection, I hope I have come back less a +Tartar than when we parted. Then I surrendered you entirely--absolutely. +I do so still. I claim no more rights or privileges than I possessed +before that marriage ceremony made you nominally mine; but if your great +pity for the lonely man who never loved any other woman can possibly +grow into a deeper feeling, will you try to forgive my harshness that +dreadful night? Knowing what you are to me, will you come to me?" + +"Come to you who repudiated me! By what right dare you suppose, +expect----" + +"I have no right even to hope, but my hungry heart dares, and will dare +desperate chances." + +"You told me your confidence was dead as your love. The scar of that +brand can never heal." + +"Yes, I said many bitter, cruel things in the hot rage of my +disappointment, that I should be glad to forget. In extenuation, you +must remember that you beckoned me unexpectedly to heaven, and when I +was thrust out the crash unhinged me. It was for your own sake I asked +you to put me out of your life; to save you from the horrible martyrdom +of unloving wifehood, from dragging through life the ball and chain of a +galling, intolerable tie. To put you out of mine I knew was as +impossible in future years as I had found it in the past. In my farewell +note I considered your peace of mind, not my own. If you could realize +all you are to me, perhaps you might understand better what that +voluntary surrender of your precious self cost me, when, by the law of +God and of man, you belonged to me." + +She had avoided meeting his eyes; the strain set her lips to quivering, +increased the strangling grip on her throat, and unconsciously her +fingers clutched and wrung one another. + +"After three years of dreary absence you have not even a friendly hand +to offer to the man who has carried you in his heart ever since you wore +muslin aprons--who holds you the one love of his life?" + +"Mr. Herriott, you ceased to love me when you ceased to trust me, else +all these years----" + +She paused, warned by the treacherous quiver in her voice. He stood +quite still, and after a moment opened his arms. + +"My sweetheart, will you try me? Will you grant me the privilege of +convincing you?" + +She shook her head. Something in his eyes dazzled her, and an alarming +pallor overspread her face, blanching her lips. + +"If you have found happiness in forgetting and excluding me entirely +from your life and your future, I cannot complain that you followed my +counsel; but I will accept that positive assurance only from your own +truthful lips. Your peace of mind is more to me than my own. Have you +shut me out of your heart forever?" + +She tried to move aside, to pass him, but he barred her escape with an +outstretched arm, and she shrank back. + +"If you care no more for me now than when I left you, I have no +alternative but to live alone; and I will never again intrude, never +annoy you by the sight of my face. I will not accept compassion, or +friendly sympathy. All--or none. I want love--love that brings a pure +woman gladly to her husband's breast. Once you took some solemn vows for +me, invoking the presence of the Lord you worship. Now, trusting you +implicitly, knowing you will not deceive me, I must ask you to give me +one final pledge. If you cannot love me as I wish--if your heart, your +whole heart will never belong to me--then, calling God to witness the +truth of your words, look me straight in the eyes and tell me so." + +She trembled, shut her eyes, and, as a rich red rushed into her white +cheeks, she covered her face with her hands. + +A gust of wind shook the mimosa, and on her bowed head drifted the pink +silk filaments, powdering her brown coil and puffs. + +Very gently Mr. Herriott took the trembling little hands, kissed the +palms, and, drawing her slowly, tenderly toward him, lifted her arms to +his neck, holding them there. + +With a low, broken cry she surrendered. + +"Mr. Noel, you have broken my heart." + +He waited to steady his voice. + +"My proud darling, there seemed no other way. When it heals, please God, +I shall have my throne inside." + +With her face hidden on his shoulder, he held her close, his cheek +against her hair, and each knew how fiercely the heart of the other +throbbed. After some moments, he tightened the arm clasping her waist, +and his deep, passionately tender tone caressed like a velvet glove. + +"I don't know how many years I have longed for the touch of your lips. +Even as a child you never allowed me to kiss you; and, except your +father, I am sure no man ever has. My sweetheart, if indeed you are +learning to love me, can you, will you give me now what I want--my own +wife's pure lips?" + +She crimsoned to the tips of her small ears, and clung to him, not +daring to meet his eyes. + +"One memorable night, when two of my dogs froze at my feet, I sat under +the lee of my sledge, waiting for a gale of sleet to howl itself to +rest. I fell asleep and had a heavenly dream, in which you came and +kissed me." + +"Mr. Herriott, you cannot love me now as you did before that horrible +journey on the cars when your words seemed to scorch--brand me. I am +afraid--I am afraid----" + +He felt her tremble. + +"My darling, I love you infinitely more. You were never so sacred, so +dear as to-day. Of what can you feel afraid now? In my dream you were +more generous. I can take, but I prefer to receive the blessed seal I +hope you will give me, as holy assurance that you are entirely my own." + +Shyly she turned her flushed face towards his, one hand, quivering like +a frightened bird, softly drew his brown cheek closer, and the proud, +beautiful, vestal lips nestled and clung to her husband's. + +Sitting beside her on the bench, he said, as his brilliant, happy eyes +studied her face: + +"Will you please tell me when you began really to care for me?" + +"What can that matter now? Do not make me look back into shadows I wish +to forget. All our light shines ahead." + +"I should like to fix the date of my coronation, that I may compute +accurately my despotic reign from the hour I entered into possession of +my kingdom. Tell me, sweetheart; why should you shrink?" + +"Do you recall that last morning at home, when you came from the beach +followed by the dogs? Seeing me at the window, you took off your cap and +waved it. As I looked down at you then, something strange seemed +suddenly to stir and wake up and tremble in my heart. I did not +understand; it was a new feeling, and I was so wounded and tortured over +many things I could not analyze it; supposed it a part of my punishment. +I had seen you look better. Your boating suit and full evening dress +were certainly more becoming, but in some unaccountable, extraordinary +way that grey cap wave, and the peculiar expression I had never before +seen in your eyes, brought you closer to me than you had ever been. When +I sat alone in your smoking-room and saw the strapped trunks and your +fur overcoat--like a coffin and a pall--a terribly bitter wave rolled +over me at the thought of giving you up. I began to be jealous of Amos, +and I envied the dear old dogs the tender caress of your stroking hand. +At the last you coldly said good-bye; but when you caught, strained me +against you, I found out what it all meant. I knew then that woman's +heritage of sorrow was mine, and that my heart followed you into Polar +night. The ache that began that day at Greyledge grew and tortured me +until--I felt your arms around me once more." + +He lifted her left hand and kissed it, pressing the ring against his +face. + +"Why did not you tell me? I should have been spared so much brutal +bitterness of feeling." + +"It was impossible after all the harsh, cruel things you had deemed it +your duty to say to me, and you would have scouted such a sudden change +of feeling as inconceivable, as absurd. The strangeness of the +revelation overwhelmed, frightened me; I was more astonished than you +would have been. Tell you? Mr. Noel, I would sooner have gone to the +stake." + +"Your silence tied me to one. Men are perverse devils. I hated the sight +of this wedding ring; I longed to melt it in a crucible in my +laboratory. You will never understand the storm that raged within me +that day on the train when you hummed Kücken and laid the baby on your +breast. Every time you lifted your hand and patted the poor little +creature, that gold band danced and flashed in my eyes like a mocking +imp. But your ring had its innings. After a year my temper cooled. Day +and night I found myself drifting back more hopelessly to you; and +always before me your little white hand flashed that circle--signet of +my ownership--because you had clung to it and declared 'it was the badge +of your loyalty.' I saw it in the blue gulfs of icebergs, in the +wonderful orange radiance of auroral arches, in the glare of low, tired +suns that could not set, in the unearthly lustre of moons holding vigil +over a silent desert wrapped in its shroud of ice, and in the ghostly +phosphorescence of snow-mantled glaciers. Always, everywhere, that dear +ringed hand beckoned like a beacon. I knew you did not love me; I was +grimly sure you never would; but the assurance that no other man could +ever claim lips denied to me, that you would proudly hold and keep your +precious self sacred to one whose name you bore, comforted me." + +He took her face in his palms, bending close his handsome head, and a +mist dimmed the sparkle in his magnetic eyes. + +"My darling, the coldest night I ever spent, when lost on the 'Great +Ice,' where a snow-storm obliterated sledge tracks and death seemed +inevitable, the remembered touch of your dear arms clinging around my +neck, the pressure of your face on my breast, thrilled my heart, fired +my blood, and warmed my freezing body. I missed the Pole; I nearly lost +my life; but, ah, thank God, better than either, more precious than all, +I have found at last, and I own the pure heart of my wife." + + + + +POPULAR NOVELS + + +BY AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON. + + INEZ + BEULAH + MACARIA + ST. ELMO + VASHTI + INFELICE + AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS + A SPECKLED BIRD + + +"Who has not read with rare delight the novels of Augusta Evans? Her +strange, wonderful and fascinating style; the profound depths to which +she sinks the probe into human nature, touching its most sacred chords +and springs; the intense interest thrown around her characters, and the +very marked peculiarities of her principal figures, conspire to give an +unusual interest to the works of this eminent Southern authoress." + + +ECCENTRICITIES OF GENIUS + +By Major J. B. Pond. + +READ WHAT IS SAID OF IT. + +"It is distinctly one of the most interesting books of the year from any +point of view."--_Rochester Sunday Herald._ + +"It is many a day since I have read so fascinating a book of +reminiscences. Many a day--or perhaps I should have said a 'night'--for +this volume has given me delight during hours, when, according to the +laws of nature, I should have been asleep."--_Newell Dwight Hillis._ + +"One of the most simple, naive and straightforward books ever written. +It fairly reeks with personality.... No man living has had such +interesting association with so many interesting people."--_Home +Journal._ + +"Adorned by many pictures, never before published."--_Detroit Journal._ + +"Possesses unparalleled attractions."--_Boston Journal._ + +"Major Pond goes deep into his subject, furnishing pen-portraits that +are admirably clear and graphic."--_The Mail and Express._ + +"The whole book, stuffed as it is with anecdotes and extracts from +personal letters, is marvelously interesting."--_Boston Transcript._ + +"All the world loves a teller of stories, and readers will surely +take approvingly to the man who gives them so much of entertaining +reading as is found in Major Pond's 600 pages of bright personal +description."--_N.Y. Times._ + +"Shining by reflected light, its pages literally teem with interesting +anecdotes of many sorts."--_Chicago Evening Post._ + +"Originality stamps the volume, copiously illustrated with +portraits."--_The Boston Globe._ + +"It has a thousand charms, and a thousand points of interest. It is full +of striking gems of thought, rare descriptions of men and places; +biographical bits that delight one by their variety, and the distinction +of those alluded to. From a literary view it is as interesting as +Disraeli's famous "Curiosities of Literature."--_Philadelphia Item._ + +"If any more charming and interesting book has appeared this season, it +has not come to our notice. The get-up is worthy of the matter of the +book."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ + + +THE VOYAGE OF ITHOBAL + +BY SIR EDWIN ARNOLD + + +Ithobal was the first African explorer we know about. He was a sea +captain of Tyre, who rescued and married an African Princess, and then +induced the King of Egypt to put him in charge of a voyage of +exploration of the wonderful land of his wife's birth. + +After a voyage of fifteen thousand miles around Africa, he returns after +numerous and exciting adventures, which bring out almost every feature +of African life and scenery. Ithobal relates the story of his enterprise +in a discourse of seven days before the throne of Pharaoh, who crowns +him with honors. + + SIR HENRY M. STANLEY, in a letter to the author, says of + it:--"You have added greatly to the happiness of many of your + race by the production of so unique a poem, so rich in the + beauties of the sweet English language." + +Other able critics who have read the blind poet's new epic poem unite in +calling it even better than the old favorite, "The Light of Asia." + + +EQUAL PARTNERS. + +By Howard Fielding. + +"This is a thoroughly enjoyable detective story, written in good, crisp +style, and with a decided surprise in the last pages. It is adroitly +contrived that almost every character in the book shall be suspected of +the crime of attempted murder before the actual culprit is discovered. +The characters are excellently differentiated, and the story is vastly +diverting, nor are there any repulsive features about the book. It is a +stirring tale and will enliven a dull evening successfully."--_Chicago +Tribune_. + + +DORIS KINGSLEY, Child and Colonist. + +By EMMA RAYNER, author of "Free to Serve," "In Castle and Colony," etc. + +This story of the South in the first half of the eighteenth century, +opens with one of the strangest episodes in the early history of South +Carolina--the pursuit and capture by the Governor of Carolina of a +pirate vessel, full, not of treasure, but of English men and women; and +the selling of those same unfortunate voyagers as bond servants in the +colony. Doris Kingsley, a child stolen from the streets of London, is +the youngest of the party, and is the heroine of the story. Doris +Kingsley is a novel of absorbing interest, dramatic and historically +true. + + +OLD JED PROUTY (A Narrative of the Penobscot). + +By RICHARD GOLDEN and MARY C. FRANCIS. + +In "Old Jed Prouty" the reading public is presented with a New England +character story of unusual interest and merit. The plot, although not an +involved one, hides enough mystery to lend the spice of the unknown to +the reader's zest, and the simple and natural dénouement emphasizes the +high moral ethics of the story, and throws into strong relief the deep +human sentiments that dominate the tale. Standing out above all, +infusing into the fiber of every chapter the rugged sincerity, the +homely wit and the quaint philosophy of New England, is the central +character about which the pivot of the story turns, "Old Jed Prouty," +real in name and real in goodness, who at the time of his life, some +thirty years since, was a landmark in the Valley of the Penobscot. + + +JOHN WINSLOW. + +By HENRY D. NORTHROP. + +"'John Winslow' is one of those inviting books of country life of which +the best part of 'Eben Holden' has come to be the accepted type. Plenty +of shrewd common sense in the chief character, a dash of love on the +side, an incidental and inevitable bit of human wickedness--but +everything in the picture and the framing attractive. This is a book for +a wide reach among readers."--_N. Y. World._ + +"Properly ranks with 'Eben Holden,' 'David Harum,' and 'Quincy Adams +Sawyer.' The four may be put in a class by themselves as distinctive +types of homespun Americans."--_The North American._ + +"Worthy to live with 'David Harum' and 'Eben Holden.'"--_Publishers' +Weekly_. + + +UNDER A LUCKY STAR, a New Book on Astrology. + +By CHARLOTTE ABELL WALKER. + +Tells what occupation to adopt, and what line of life to follow, what +associates and partners to choose, how to recognize the possibilities +and limitations of our friends and ourselves, and of other important +matters to human life, including suggestions on marriage, being mainly +culled from the minds of ancient and modern philosophers. Illustrated, +cloth bound. + + +THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID. + +By FRANCES GORDON FANE. + +A clever, well-written story, full of love and pathos, and thrilling +with dramatic crises. Each step of the domestic tragedy is skilfully +portrayed, until the final climax is reached. + +"Its author has made it a powerful, telling story to read."--_N.Y. +World_. + + +THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY, a Story of Chivalry in the Fifteenth Century. + +By JOHN P. RITTER. Author of "The Man Who Dared." + +This is a wonderfully interesting story, and will find a welcome with +all who love to read of deeds of chivalry. + +"It is a clean, clear and clever story of chivalry at its best, and will +find a great many well-pleased readers."--_New York World_. Cloth bound, +illustrated. + + +A MASTER OF FORTUNE, being Further Adventures of "Captain Kettle." + +By CUTCLIFFE HYNE. + +"It has the dash and tinge of reality that makes you feel as if you were +in the midst of it all."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"The many readers who followed with bated breath the wild adventures of +Captain Kettle in the book named for him, will welcome Cutcliffe Hyne's +new collection of tales dealing with that remarkable sea dog. The volume +is well called 'A Master of Fortune.'"--_Philadelphia Press._ + + +"Nobody who has followed the gallant sailor--diminutive, but oh, my!--in +his previous adventures around the earth, is going to miss this red-hot +volume of marvelous exploits."--_N. Y. World._ + + +THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE. + +By CUTCLIFFE HYNE. + +The best sea story since the days of Marryat. Captain Kettle is a +devil-may-care sea dog, half pirate and half preacher. The author +carries him through many hairbreadth escapes and makes him a character +that will live long in the annals of fiction. The success of this book +is marvelous. + + +THE MULLIGANS. A Novel. + +By EDWARD HARRIGAN. + +The _New York World_ says: "Mr. Harrigan gave to his Mulligan dramas the +most distinctly typical character plays which have ever been seen on the +native stage. They were studied and displayed straight from the life of +New York and their popularity was unbounded. His book is one of the most +generally interesting of the new season's output." + +_It is a marvelously entertaining novel, possessing a keenness of wit +and humor unsurpassed by any recent work. All the characters stand out, +as true to life, as natural and as vivid as if portrayed by Dickens._ + + +NORMAN HOLT, a Story of the Army of the Cumberland. + +By GENERAL (Capt.) CHARLES KING. + +"No more charming historic war story has ever been written. It is +Captain King's best, and bearing, as it does, on the great battle of +Mission Ridge, although the story is woven in fiction, it adds an +invaluable record of that gigantic contest between the two great +armies." + +"The characters are real, their emotions natural, and the romance that +is interwoven is delightful. It is wholesome and one of General King's +best, if not his best book."--_N. Y. Journal._ + +"From the first chapter to the last page the interest of the reader +never fags. General King has written no more brilliant or stirring novel +than 'Norman Holt.'"--_N. Y. Press._ + + +JOHN HENRY, (25th Thousand.) + +By HUGH MCHUGH. + +"'John Henry' has just 'butted' its way in between the literary bars and +capered over the book counters to the tune of twelve thousand copies +before its publishers could recover their breath. + +"Every page is as catchy as a bar from a popular song. + +"The slang is as correct, original and smart as the newest handshake +from London. + +"In the lottery of humorous books 'John Henry' seems to approximate the +capital prize."--_N. Y. Journal._ + +"All who have laughed over 'Billy Baxter' will heartily enjoy this +book."--_The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer_. + + +THE KING OF HONEY ISLAND, (45th Thousand.) + +By MAURICE THOMPSON, author of "Alice of Old Vincennes," etc. + +"'The King of Honey Island' bears quite as many marks of the genius of +the author as does 'Alice of Old Vincennes,' with the additional charm, +perhaps of more buoyancy and beauty of thought and expression. In +'Alice' Mr. Thompson plumed himself as a master word painter. In 'The +King of Honey Island' he developed into a veritable American Ouida, for +his descriptive powers are marvelous. Like the true artist that he was, +he paints Nature as it looks, not as it is, so that the reader, in +glimpsing the battle of New Orleans, hears, almost, the cannon's +roar."--_The Topeka Capital._ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD*** + + +******* This file should be named 36029-8.txt or 36029-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/2/36029 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Evans Wilson</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: A Speckled Bird</p> +<p>Author: Augusta J. Evans Wilson</p> +<p>Release Date: May 4, 2011 [eBook #36029]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan,<br /> + and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt=""/> +</div> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h1>A SPECKLED BIRD</h1> + +<h2>BY AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "ST. ELMO," "VASHTI," "INFELICE," "AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS," +ETC.</h3> +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h3>"As a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her."</h3> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<h3>G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY<br /> +PUBLISHERS NEW YORK</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Copyright</span>, 1902, BY<br /> +G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY</h3> + +<h3><i>A Speckled Bird.<br /> +Issued August, 1902.</i></h3> +<p> </p> + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> + +<h3>To<br /> +MY KIND READERS<br /> +KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, WHO HAVE DESIRED AND ASKED<br /> +ME TO WRITE AGAIN, THESE PAGES ARE OFFERED<br /> +IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF VERY<br /> +LOYAL FRIENDSHIP DURING<br /> +MANY YEARS</h3> + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + + +<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. --> +<p> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">CHAPTER XXIII</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">CHAPTER XXIV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">CHAPTER XXV</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">CHAPTER XXVI</a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">CHAPTER XXVII</a><br /><br /> +<a href="#POPULAR_NOVELS">POPULAR NOVELS</a><br /> +</p> +<!-- End Autogenerated TOC. --> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>A SPECKLED BIRD</h2> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> + + +<p>"Grandma, who named me Eglah?"</p> + +<p>"My cousin, Bishop Vivian, when he baptized you."</p> + +<p>"Do you think he had any right to put such a label on me?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, because your father selected your name, and the bishop had +no choice."</p> + +<p>"It is so ugly, I never can like it, and a little baby that can't speak +her mind ought not to be tied to something she must drag all her life +and hate for ever and ever."</p> + +<p>"Eat your breakfast, and try to be a good, quiet child, then your name +will not trouble you so much."</p> + +<p>"I never shall like it, any more than you do, and you know, grandma, +when you call me your mouth twists like you had toothache."</p> + +<p>"I was not consulted about your name. It belonged to your New England +Grandmother Kent, and as it appears you belong only to your father, you +were called after his mother. I heard him tell you it was the name of a +queen—one of David's wives."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but I found out she was not the head queen—just a sort of +step-wife queen. Now if I could only be the pet queen, Sheba, I should +not fret at all."</p> + +<p>"The Queen of Sheba was not David's wife."</p> + +<p>"You are all wrong about your Bible, grandma, because you are only a +Methodist. David's Sheba was nicknamed Bath Sheba, for the reason that +he saw her going to her bath-house, and she looked so pretty. I saw her +picture in father's 'Piscopal Bible."</p> + +<p>"There, there! Be quiet. Drink your milk."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maurice leaned back in her chair and sighed as she looked down at +the fragile child beside her. The tall, silver coffee urn showed in +repoussé on one side the flight of Europa, on the other Dirce dragged to +death. Eglah could never understand how the strands of the victim's hair +supported the weight of her form, and wondered why they did not give way +and set the prisoner free. To-day she eyed it askance, then surveyed her +own fair image reflected in the polished, smooth surface below the band +of figures.</p> + +<p>"Grandma, don't you think horses are much nicer for ladies to ride than +oxen?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, my dear."</p> + +<p>"Then why did you buy ox riders?" one small finger pointed to the +heirloom fetich.</p> + +<p>"I did not buy the urn. It has belonged to your Grandfather Maurice's +family for one hundred and fifty years, and was brought from Old +England. Eliza, take her away. If she cannot be silent, she must go back +and have her meals with you. It seems impossible to teach her that in +the presence of grown people children are expected to listen."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell came forward from a side table, lifted the little girl +from her chair, and untied the ruffled bib that protected her white +dimity dress.</p> + +<p>"Now tell grandmother you are sorry you annoyed her, and if she will let +you sit at her table you will be as quiet as she wishes."</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila, don't make me tell stories; she doesn't believe them, and I am +so tired saying things I don't mean. I want to go back to the side +table, where you are not always scolding me. Grandma, it will be +peacefuller if I stay with Ma-Lila——"</p> + +<p>"Hush! Come here."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maurice lifted the little one's dimpled chin and studied the fair +face that had bloomed seven years in her lonely home: a winsome face cut +like a gem, velvety-brown eyes, long-lashed, and the pure, pale oval set +in a shining bronze frame of curling hair, all chestnut in shade, +braided with gold when sunshine hid among the ripples.</p> + +<p>"Kent! Kent—even her ears small as any other rogue's. She is her +father's child."</p> + +<p>"Is that a sin, grandma?"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maurice swiftly laid her hand over the uplifted, upbraiding eyes, +to veil something in their depths that often disquieted her, and sought +refuge in her habitual command:</p> + +<p>"Take her away, Eliza."</p> + +<p>Ringing the small bell close to the breakfast tray, the mistress took a +spray of starry jasmine from the vase in the centre of the table, and as +she turned away said to the grey-haired butler:</p> + +<p>"Aaron, you will put a plate and chair for Miss Eglah at the side table +until further orders. Tell Oliver I shall not want the carriage until +four o'clock."</p> + +<p>Unusually tall and very handsome was this stately widow of a Confederate +general who had been slain during one of the fierce conflicts around +beleaguered Richmond. No white hairs marred the glossy blackness of the +thick coil half hidden under a snowy crêpe cap, and the brilliant blue +eyes were undimmed by tearful years of widowhood—a widowhood involving +for her the full, sad significance of the sacred and melancholy term, an +inability to forget, a despair of any earthly consolation, and a jealous +reticence that denied all discussion of her sorrow, as she would have +defended her dead from an alien's rude touch. To her, time had brought +neither oblivion nor alleviation, only a sharpened sense of irreparable +bereavement; and as one standing in an unending and hopeless eclipse, +she accepted the gloom with a stern and silent rejection of all other +lights when the sun of her life went down.</p> + +<p>Anniversaries are electric batteries that thrill the domain of emotions, +and one day out of every three hundred and sixty-five the strings of +memory are keyed to their utmost tension, vibrating with an intolerable +intensity that reddens the lips of old wounds and quickens dull aches to +stinging torture.</p> + +<p>This memorial morning Mrs. Maurice crossed the wide, vaulted hall, and +passing through the long, pillared drawing-room, opened a locked door +and shut herself in a darkened chamber to keep tryst with the sacred +souvenirs that represented all she held dear. Raising the window, she +turned the blinds to allow sunlight entrance into this silent reliquary +filled with mementoes jealously guarded "in solemn salvatory": a heavy, +square bedstead with twisted columns that upheld a red-lined tester +whence embroidered draperies fell; a gilded swinging wicker crib, with +baby blankets, rose bordered; a velvet easy chair, where a gentleman's +quilted silk dressing-gown hung over the carved back, and his slippers +lay beneath; a table heaped with a child's toys, books, and +daguerreotypes of various sizes. On a leathern couch lay a folded +Confederate uniform, and a man's straw hat, cane, spurs, and riding whip +had been placed beside the faded grey coat. Over the old-fashioned, high +marble mantel hung a portrait of General Egbert Maurice, clad in +uniform, wearing three stars and a wreath on his collar, and holding his +plumed hat in his right hand. At one corner of the mantel a furled +Confederate flag leaned until it touched the frame of the picture, and +from the marble shelf, where lay the general's sash and sword, hung the +stained and torn guidon of his favorite regiment. On the wall opposite +the fireplace the portrait of a lovely girl with an apron full of roses +seemed to fill the room with radiance and color.</p> + +<p>With a slow, caressing movement, Mrs. Maurice's slim white hand passed +over the front of the smoking-gown, and fastened in a button hole the +spray of fragrant, satin-starred jasmine; then, lifting the faded grey +coat, she held it to her heart in a tight, straining clasp, as she +seated herself on the couch, and her fingers lingered on tarnished gilt +buttons and braid. Inside the uniform was pinned a parcel wrapped in +tissue paper, from which she shook out a mass of yellowed lace, and as +the filmy folds of an infant's christening robe swept across her lap, a +subtle perfume of withered flowers like the breath of a rose jar stole +over the room.</p> + +<p>With dry eyes she looked long at one portrait, then at the other: the +husband of her youth and the only child that had come as crowning +blessing to a happy married life where no dissensions muttered, no +discordant clash jarred the perfect harmony. As the dead years babbled, +she listened now to echoes of manly tones, and now to a baby's prattling +lisp, still dividing as of yore her heart's homage. When war robbed her +of the husband who had never ceased to be tender lover, her only hold on +life centred in their beautiful daughter Marcia, and the struggle to +guard her and defend from confiscation and ruin the fine landed estate +and large fortune left by General Maurice had served, in some degree, to +lessen the tendency to morbid brooding.</p> + +<p>To the truly typical Southern woman who survived the loss of family +idols and of her country's freedom, for which she had surrendered them, +"reconstruction," political and social, was no more possible than the +physical resurrection and return of slain thousands lying in Confederate +graves all over the trampled and ruined South.</p> + +<p>No mourning Southern matron indulged more intensely an inexorable, +passionate hatred of Northern invaders than did Mrs. Maurice, who +refused to accept the inevitable, and shut her doors against agents of +"union and reconstruction" as promptly as she would have barred out +leprosy or smallpox.</p> + +<p>Proud of the social prestige with which her Brahmin birth and stainless +family record had dowered her, she wielded her influence in +uncompromising hostility to all who advocated a tacit acceptance of the +new conditions called "peace." The loss of negroes that abandoned +several plantations would have materially impaired the Maurice fortune, +had not the prevision of the general's commission merchant in a distant +seaport induced the precautionary course of sending a portion of his +crop of cotton to Liverpool early in the first year of the war, thus +securing a large amount of treasure under the British flag, where (as +the cotton factor wrote Mrs. Maurice a few years later) "'Union' thieves +could not steal, nor 'reconstruction' moths and rust feed upon it." Out +of the wreckage that succeeded the final catastrophe at Appomattox the +family fortune of General Maurice emerged triumphant in proportions, and +the minority of Marcia was a bulwark that defied successfully the +numerous assaults of "loyal confiscators."</p> + +<p>Sooner or later the <i>diabolus ex machina</i> confronts us all, and pierces +at the one spot least guarded because deemed invulnerable. Mrs. +Maurice's maternal pride was built on the shifting sands of girlish +impulse and flattered vanity, and the crash showed her that somewhere at +the cross roads she had failed to offer a black lamb in propitiating +evil divinities—had left no morsel of meat for the sleuth-hounds of +baleful destiny that suddenly bayed destruction to the last earthly hope +life held for her. Reared in the semi-cloistral seclusion of a Southern +girl's education in ante-bellum days, trained at home by governesses, +and barred from society until she should have made the European tour for +which her mother had fixed an early date, predestined Marcia went to her +doom when at the house of a friend she met accidentally the recently +appointed Federal judge, Allison Kent—handsome, courtly, debonair, and +wily.</p> + +<p>Clandestine courtships rarely lag; hence this lover of forty years, +dreading discovery and the prompt removal of an infatuated girl only +seventeen on her last birthday, kept the mother in complete ignorance of +impending calamity until the night before her departure for Europe, when +Marcia fled with him to an adjoining State, where a justice of the peace +made them man and wife.</p> + +<p>In accordance with life-long custom, Mrs. Maurice went to her child's +bedroom to kiss her good night, and on the pillow found a farewell note, +praying for forgiveness, and promising to meet her at a town on the line +of her journey. How the mother bore this shock only God knew; no eye but +His watched during that long night, when her soul went down into a +Gehenna of torture—when, alone in her crucifixion, she accepted defeat, +and girded herself for grim endurance. As day dawned she unlocked her +door, and summoning her servants, said:</p> + +<p>"Miss Marcia has left me to marry a man who cannot enter my house. Take +this note to Mr. Whitfield's residence at once; not to his office, to +his house. Minerva, you will finish packing Miss Marcia's trunk, which +must be sent to her. I shall make no change in my plans, except to take +the noon train instead of the one at midnight. Ask me no questions. Send +Mitchell and Eliza to me."</p> + +<p>When her attorney, Mr. Whitfield, appalled by the stony white face that +showed no hint of tears, no more trace of grief than the marble figure +that supported the mantel at her side, essayed a few words of sympathy, +she put out her hands with an imperious gesture.</p> + +<p>"There is no comfort possible, and I need your help only in writing a +new will. I start to New York at noon, so you have little time."</p> + +<p>A few hours later, having seen only her pastor and her lawyer, she left +her rifled home by a route that enabled her to avoid the town designated +as a place of meeting. Across the girl's farewell letter, which was +returned to "Marcia Maurice," she had written: "My only hope is that God +will take me out of this world before I see again the face of the child +who has disgraced the memory of her father and the name of her mother."</p> + +<p>Eighteen months had been spent in Europe, whence she was most +reluctantly recalled by the death of Robert Mitchell, the overseer and +business manager of one of her plantations, who was killed by the +explosion of a mill engine. His young widow, Eliza, had been sheltered +and guarded in Mrs. Maurice's home when orphaned by the death of her +father, a Methodist chaplain attached to General Maurice's command, and +the intimacy of years was marked by unfailing kindness and confidence on +the part of the benefactress, by profound affection and ardent gratitude +on that of the destitute girl. The peculiarly harrowing circumstances +attending her husband's loss had so severely shocked Eliza that Mrs. +Maurice promptly removed her from the "overseer's cottage" to her own +house, where she was nursed tenderly and skilfully in the room that +before her marriage she had so long called her home. Loving Marcia very +warmly, she had attempted to intercede with the indignant mother, and +one of her letters had enclosed an appeal from the erring daughter. It +was returned unopened, and accompanied by a very positive assurance that +any future repetition would not be forgiven. Old friends gathered to +greet the returned traveller, yet all intuitively avoided allusion to +the domestic cancer that, despite her proud, silent composure, was +eating the heart barred against sympathy. She learned from the +newspapers that under the new Federal régime Judge Kent was temporarily +Senator, and that after a season in Washington he and Marcia were living +at a hotel in her own neighboring city; but as the latter had followed +her husband into the Episcopal Church, no meeting occurred between +parent and child. So complete was the estrangement, and so +unapproachable the stern, silent attitude of the mother, that when Dr. +Eggleston, the family physician, and Bishop Vivian, the favorite cousin, +called early one morning on an urgent errand, both realized that they +championed a forlorn and desperate cause in battling with this old +lioness robbed of her young.</p> + +<p>Instinctively she divined their mission as her eyes fell upon a letter +lying on the bishop's knee, and her lips narrowed and tightened. +Standing on the hearth with her arms folded, she listened quietly to her +cousin's impassioned pleading for forgiveness and to the doctor's +distressing presentation of Marcia's alarming condition, which he felt +constrained to pronounce hopeless.</p> + +<p>"Madam, if you deny her dying prayer, remorse will drive you to +despair."</p> + +<p>"She has been dead to me since the hour she deliberately deceived and +forsook me. Kent's wife ceased to be my child when she insulted, +disgraced, her father's name."</p> + +<p>"Oh, Patricia, how can you hope or claim God's mercy for yourself if you +refuse pardon to your repentant and unhappy daughter?"</p> + +<p>A spark leaped into the cold clear eyes.</p> + +<p>"For mercy I think I shall never need to plead, and when my God grants +me justice I will try to be satisfied."</p> + +<p>"Will you not at least read the few lines the poor child wrote while we +held her hand and guided the pen? Oh, cousin, if you could see her now!" +The bishop held out the letter.</p> + +<p>"Because you are the bearer I cannot refuse you that courtesy."</p> + +<p>She walked to the window and, holding the curtain aside, read the brief +petition:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"My Own Mother:</p> + +<p>"Let me come home to die. It will not be so hard if I can look +into your face once more, and know that your dear hand will +close my eyes as I go down into my grave. I shall see father +soon, and if he could come now to my help, you know he would +take me in his arms and lay me in my mother's lap. Be merciful +to your poor, dying</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Marcia</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Leaning eagerly forward, the two grey-haired men watched and listened +for some relenting token; but after a few moments she turned toward a +desk, and with no change in the frozen calm of her handsome face, she +merely traced a word at the bottom of the page, handed it to the bishop, +and left the room. "Come."</p> + +<p>That night a cold waxen image of a boy whose soul refused to enter its +clay tabernacle was laid for a moment in Eliza Mitchell's arms, to be +kissed as only young mothers can kiss their dead first-born. The +following day the hospital ambulance brought back on a stretcher the wan +form of the erring daughter, who fainted from exhaustion as the bearers +carried her into the home of her fathers. Three days later she died in +her mother's arms, whispering with icy lips: "If my baby lives, keep her +for my sake—for my sake."</p> + +<p>So little Eglah Kent was given, when three hours old, to the care of the +young foster-mother Eliza, and slept upon the heart that mourned for the +lost baby boy. Since then seven years had passed, and to-day, as Mrs. +Maurice caressed Marcia's lace christening robe, she put aside all that +pertained to the girl's disobedience and elopement, and memory dwelt +only upon the sunny time when her husband and daughter made home a +heaven. Into the quiet room crept the whine of a dog scratching at the +door. As she opened it, a feeble brown creature crossed the floor, +crouched before the hearth, and, raising soft, tender eyes to the +portrait of the general, barked once and beat the carpet with his tail, +as if in salute; her husband's favorite pointer Hector, failing fast, +but loyal and true as the heart of his widow.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> + + +<p>Sharing in some degree that infallible instinct whereby lower animals +interpret the character of their owners, young children are often as +wise and wary as dogs and cats, and before Eglah could walk without +clinging to Eliza's finger, she knew intuitively that her silent, +watchful grandmother eyed her suspiciously, and that warm caresses could +be expected only from her father and her young foster-mother. Profound +and regretful compassion rather than tenderness filled Mrs. Maurice's +heart, and she faithfully ministered to the infant's needs, as she would +have pityingly warmed and fed some bleating lamb bereft of its dam by +March snows. Since the little girl showed, except in form, no faintest +trace of Maurice blood, her grandmother regarded her most +sorrowfully—not as Marcia's baby, but as the living monument of a cruel +and unpardonable injury inflicted by Judge Kent. Even in the cradle +Eglah defied an authority supreme in the household.</p> + +<p>"You must not say Lila, but Mama-Eliza."</p> + +<p>"I won't! It hurths my tongue to say Elitha. I will say Ma-Lila."</p> + +<p>The child's inherent antagonism made her a vexing embodiment of protest, +an obstinate interrogation point punctuating the commands of this +old-fashioned lady whose domestic canons belonged to an era when boys +and girls were not considered "servile" because trained to answer their +elders "No, sir," or "Yes, ma'am," and when after a meal in the sunset +glow young human broods followed feathered folk to an early rest before +stars spangled the sky. If among General Maurice's choice collection of +thoroughbred game fowls, with yellow legs and bronze breasts, had +appeared an uncouth mongrel pullet, dust-colored and blue of skin, his +exacting widow would not have rejected it more summarily than did her +proud soul repudiate the Kent scion whom she housed luxuriously because +of Marcia's last prayer, but felt no more desire to caress than to +fondle the bullet that slew her husband.</p> + +<p>Judge Kent's official duties called him often from the city, and during +his visits to his child Mrs. Maurice, if compelled to see him, +maintained the reticent, frigid courtesy with which she had received him +when he first crossed her threshold bearing his unconscious wife. He had +never touched the slender white fingers that pointed to the staircase +that day, and while she allowed herself no verbal expression of +animosity, he was humiliated by the consciousness of her intense +detestation. As Southern hostess in a typical Southern home, she fully +realized <i>noblesse oblige</i>, and her punctilious observance of the +etiquette of hospitality accentuated the position she assigned him—that +of stranger within her gates. He had hoped the baby might bridge the +chasm, but when he ventured to dwell upon his unwillingness to deprive +Mrs. Maurice of this "sweet source of solace," she promptly dispelled +his illusion.</p> + +<p>"Make no mistake, Judge Kent. You leave the poor child here, and I +retain her simply because her mother so requested."</p> + +<p>Desiring to minimize sources of future contention, she had directed Mr. +Whitfield to acquaint him with her will, whereby the entire estate would +pass at her death into the hands of certain trustees, who, after +providing a liberal annuity for Eglah and Eliza, should control +absolutely all interests until Eglah was twenty-one years old, when a +legacy of five thousand dollars would be paid to Eliza. Should the +little girl be removed from the care of her foster-mother, the annuity +of the former ceased, and half of the value of the estate should be +deducted from her inheritance; and if Eglah died before marriage, the +homestead was bequeathed to childless Confederate widows of that State, +as an Egbert Maurice memorial. Since General Maurice's last testament +had left his fortune unconditionally to his wife, there was no appeal +from her decision, and Judge Kent bore the keen disappointment with such +semblance of acquiescence as he could summon, striving to veil his +hatred of the woman whose contempt lay beneath her studied courtesy like +an iron wall under a sheet of ice. An adroit and tireless schemer, he +usually steered safely in the troubled political sea, and only once, in +an unguarded moment, dared the current of Mrs. Maurice's convictions.</p> + +<p>"If the people of the South could only reason from the analogy of +history——"</p> + +<p>He was silenced by the hand thrown up, palm outward.</p> + +<p>"We have only the privilege of suffering and remembering. The grim +analogy of Sicily under Verres suggests a rather painful parallel. For +us there remains solely the grace of silence; and it were well if you, +sir, could set me an example, when numbered among guests under my roof."</p> + +<p>The voice was low, clear, steady, but the narrow lip arched, and the +light in her blue eyes reminded him of the violet flame one sees flash +up over a bed of hot anthracite.</p> + +<p>Eglah was five years old when her father was called to Washington, and +thence sent to Europe on a government mission, which he so successfully +accomplished that on his return the governor of his native State +appointed him senator to fill an unexpired term. Having proved a useful +servant of the Administration, official influence secured his election +and return to the United States' Senate two years later, and Mrs. +Maurice welcomed any change that removed him from her neighborhood. His +rare visits were festivals to his little daughter, and she revelled in +the wealth of caresses, the endearing words, the prodigality of gifts +that always characterized his brief sojourns. Thus were laid the +foundations of an intense and absorbing devotion to her father that +gradually became the dominant factor in her life.</p> + +<p>"Nutwood"—the three-storied red brick house crowning an eminence shaded +by walnut and chestnut trees—had been built in 1825 by General +Maurice's father, and its pillared piazza running along three sides +overlooked the city of Y——, two miles distant, where spires and +factory chimneys lifted their lines against mellow western skies. On the +first and second floors of the old mansion wide halls crossed at right +angles, admitting breezes from every point of the compass, and so +unusually thick were the walls that the nearly square windows framed in +cedar furnished comfortable lounging seats. For many years this place +had been famous throughout the State for its race-horses, game chickens, +pointers, fox-hounds, and fine library, and the hospitality dispensed +was peculiar to an era characterized by conditions that the Civil War +annihilated. No invading army had reached the city of Y——, but raiding +cavalry squads once completely sacked the Maurice plantations many miles +distant in the river valley, and burned not only the empty gin house, +but the commodious family residence often occupied in autumn. Prior to +her departure for Europe Mrs. Maurice had rebuilt gin and warehouses, +and erected a pretty four-room cottage comfortably furnished, which, +with fifty acres of adjoining land, she gave as dower to Eliza when she +married the faithful overseer and manager of the "Bend Plantations."</p> + +<p>One sultry spring morning in Eglah's ninth year, she sat with Eliza in +the "out-door schoolroom" where lessons were studied in warm weather. It +was a cool retreat—a circular, latticed summer-house—overrun by yellow +woodbine, honeysuckle, and a pink multiflora rose, all in full bloom, +busy distilling perfume their satin lips offered in libation to the +lazily wandering wind that caressed them. The pointed roof was rain +proof, the floor tiled, and between the arched openings seats were +fastened to the lattice wall. From the round table in the centre lovely +views of shrubbery, lily-starred lawn, far-off grain fields, green +pasture lands where cattle browsed, seemed set in frames of leafage and +tendril that ran riot around the archways. A walk bordered with lilacs +and azaleas led to the door of the conservatory, which flanked the long +drawing-room; stretching beyond, one could see the wide front of the +house, where no balustrade broke the line of white columns rising to the +crenellated flat roof. Eglah sat with a geography lying open before her +on the table, and her head supported by arms resting on the map, but +once she turned a leaf, and the wind fluttered a letter many weeks old +from her father.</p> + +<p>"Are you ready to answer the map questions?"</p> + +<p>"No, Ma-Lila. Why must I always answer other people's questions, when +nobody answers mine? I will say my lesson when you tell me what +'scallawag' and 'carpet-bagger' mean."</p> + +<p>"They are ugly slang words, and if I were you I should try to forget I +ever heard them. Little girls have nothing to do with politics, and you +have not told me of whom the Graham children were speaking at the +party."</p> + +<p>"Never mind about names. I looked in the dictionary, but could not find +'scallawag.' I know it means something horrid and vulgar and hateful, +and I never will go to another party."</p> + +<p>Eliza's reply was drowned by the scream of "King Herod"—a lordly +peacock that had earned the title from his slaughter of young turkeys +and chickens in the poultry yard. Now he trailed his feathers across the +walk, came up to the summer-house, and uttered his piercing cry in quick +succession.</p> + +<p>"Something is going to happen. Uncle Aaron says it is a bad sign when +Herod squalls at a door."</p> + +<p>"Something happened a while ago, when a man rode up the avenue and tied +his horse. Now he is leaving the steps, and Herod knows he is a +stranger. You must not listen to superstitious foolishness from +negroes," said Eliza, with a fine scorn of all but her own peculiar pet +superstition, kept closely guarded in her heart.</p> + +<p>Eglah shut the geography, propped her chin on her palms as her elbows +rested on the table, and watched the beautiful bird preen his feathers.</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila, how old must I be before you will be ready to tell me why +grandmother hates my father so?"</p> + +<p>"Dearie, she does not 'hate' him, and you ought to try not to——"</p> + +<p>"Don't tell stories, Ma-Lila, because I want always to believe +everything you say—and—there! Listen to grandma's bell. Three rings; +that is for you."</p> + +<p>Eliza laid in her work basket the embroidered cambric ruffle she was +hemming and, throwing her white apron over her head, went swiftly to the +house.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Maurice sat in the drawing-room, with two newspapers unfolded on +her lap, but whether their contents annoyed or gratified her, the cold, +quiet face gave no indication.</p> + +<p>"Is Eglah ready to come and recite her lessons?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet, madam."</p> + +<p>"Put away her books; she will be excused from lessons to-day. Judge Kent +has married again in Washington, and these papers furnish detailed +accounts of the brilliant wedding reception. He has swallowed the gold +bait of a widow he met in Europe. She is reputed rich, of course—a Mrs. +Nina Herriott—and the bridal pair will go to England for the summer."</p> + +<p>"Our poor baby! This news will break her heart," replied the +foster-mother, whose eyes had filled with tears at thought of the +child's suffering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, she will grieve sorely, but better now than later in life. I have +been pondering the best way to break the news to her."</p> + +<p>"Let me tell her. I think I understand her disposition more thoroughly +than anyone else."</p> + +<p>"You fancy I do not comprehend my own granddaughter?"</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Maurice. I mean only that I have watched +all her little ways, and she feels less restraint with me than with you; +but of course you must choose your own way in this matter."</p> + +<p>"For us, this marriage is fortunate, and I rejoice at every circumstance +that heightens the barrier between Judge Kent and me. He will never dare +to disturb the child while I live, and brides are not importunate for +the custody of step-children. Eliza, I never felt until to-day that +Eglah is really Marcia's baby. She is a thousand times dearer to me now +than ever before."</p> + +<p>"Dear madam, I thank God for anything that will make you open your heart +and take the precious child in. In many ways she needs tenderness from +you, and especially since the children's parties she has attended +recently, where rude things were said about her father. She has not told +me all, but you know the damaging rumors about some of his decisions +while Federal Judge in our State, and the Graham children, whose +interests suffered through him, speak very bitterly of his career. Eglah +has asked me many questions lately, which I always evaded, but she +broods over this matter and is resentful."</p> + +<p>"Poor little thing! Her father has lived on sour grapes so long, her +teeth must inevitably be on edge. Henceforth she belongs to me."</p> + +<p>"She is absolutely devoted to him, and it is distressing to know how her +very heartstrings are tied around him. It amounts to idolatry."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I realize that, and it will be a sad day for her when the glamour +fades and she sees the ugly, deformed clay feet of her idol."</p> + +<p>"It would break her heart."</p> + +<p>"No. We both know sorrow does not destroy, and death is deaf to calls +from crushed hearts. She will simply find herself chained to a galling +sense of shame. These papers were brought this morning by a young man +who impressed me as a thoroughbred gentleman—Mr. Noel Herriott, son of +Mrs. Kent's first husband. He spoke kindly of his stepmother, and +explained that, as he was passing through Y—— on his way west, Judge +Kent had given him a card of introduction to me, and requested him to +see Eglah, for whom he brought the package yonder on the window sill. I +knew the poor child would be distressed at the news, and thought it best +she should have time to recover from the shock before seeing him. He +continues his journey by the midnight train, and I have invited him to +return and take tea here, when Eglah can be introduced to him. Eliza, +perhaps you are right; certainly you are more nearly her mother than any +living being, and you will tenderly break the news to her. Carry the +papers and the parcel and make her understand. After a while I wish to +come out and join you."</p> + +<p>In shaking and furling his rainbow train King Herod had shed a long +feather. Eglah picked it up, and finding a knife in the work basket +proceeded to sharpen the end into a pen, with which she purposed writing +to her father. As Eliza entered and placed the papers on the table, the +little girl looked up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Ma-Lila, you are crying! What is it? Not bad news from father?"</p> + +<p>"My baby, your father is well and has sent you a present. Come to me, +darling; I want to talk to you." She drew her to her lap and held her +close.</p> + +<p>"We know, of course, your father dearly loves his daughter, but he is +often very lonely, and as he cannot have you with him, what would you +think if you heard he had married a lady who would be kind and good to +him? Don't you——"</p> + +<p>"I know that would be a lie—a wicked lie! Why do you say such horrible +things and hurt me so?" She threw off the clasping arm and sprang to the +floor, stamping the tiles with her right foot.</p> + +<p>"My precious baby, I would not hurt you for a million of dollars! You +know your Lila loves you better than everything else in the world. I +would rather hold my hand in the fire than tell you a painful thing if +it could be helped. But somebody must speak the truth to you."</p> + +<p>She knelt down by the indignant child and kissed her hot cheek twice.</p> + +<p>"My darling, it is true—positively true—that your father was married +some days ago. Now, you must not struggle to get away from me. Listen, +and let me explain it all."</p> + +<p>"Don't! I won't listen. I can't—wait—wait—" She went to the seat +along the wall and threw herself face downward, crossing her arms over +her head. She lay so still that a quarter of an hour later Eliza sat +down beside her, and while her hand softly stroked the brown curls, she +read slowly the description of church wedding and subsequent reception.</p> + +<p>"My darling, you love your father so well you want him to be happy, +and——"</p> + +<p>"No, not with another wife, and away from me. I would rather he was +dead—for then nobody else could claim him. Two wives! It is like having +two Gods."</p> + +<p>Taking the papers, she read the marked paragraphs, and though neither +sob nor tear betrayed the intensity of her sorrow, one little hand +caught at her throat, where a stricture seemed to stifle her.</p> + +<p>"You must try to bear this trouble patiently."</p> + +<p>"I can't. I would not bear it at all, if I could help myself. Now I am +an orphan! An orphan!"</p> + +<p>"Not while I live to love you. Look at this parcel, your father's +present."</p> + +<p>Eliza unwrapped the paper and took out an oblong gilded box, to which +was fastened a card: "For our dear little daughter Eglah, with love of +her father and mother." The child glanced at the handwriting and her +eyes seemed almost to take fire. She snatched the box and threw it to +the floor.</p> + +<p>"It is not mine; I have no father and no mother. I have only Ma-Lila +left!"</p> + +<p>She buried her face in Eliza's lap, and hoping a burst of tears would +relieve the strain, the nurse silently caressed her, waiting for the +storm to break; but save the trembling of the figure no sign was given. +After a while, Eliza whispered,</p> + +<p>"Grandmother is coming down the walk."</p> + +<p>Eglah started up as if electrified, and lifted the box from the floor, +holding it against her breast. Leaning on her cane, Mrs. Maurice came to +the table, sat down, and opened her arms.</p> + +<p>"My dear child, come here."</p> + +<p>Not an inch stirred Eglah, and Eliza gently forced her forward within +reach of the extended arms. Mrs. Maurice leaned down to kiss her, but +she turned her head away.</p> + +<p>"My poor little girl, don't you know I love you?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, grandma; you never did love me, and you never will."</p> + +<p>"But I do, dear child. Kiss me."</p> + +<p>"I don't want to kiss you any more than you want to kiss me. I +understand exactly how you feel. You are sorry for me because you think +father has treated me badly in getting married. But, grandmother, you +need not pity me now, for I must make you understand that <i>my father +always is right</i>. No matter what he may do, he has good reasons, and if +I am satisfied nobody else can complain. I shall always know father is +right."</p> + +<p>The dry, white face was lifted proudly, and the challenging eyes met her +grandmother's steadily, but the childish lips trembled and the hand +clutched spasmodically at her throat.</p> + +<p>A gush of genuine tenderness warmed the old lady's heart as she took the +quivering fingers, spread them on her own palm, and touched the girl's +forehead with her lips.</p> + +<p>"'Loyal and true'—that is the Maurice motto. 'Though He slay me, yet +will I trust Him!' To-day we will have no lessons, and this evening +Eliza shall dress you especially to meet the gentleman, Mr. Herriott, +whom your father wishes you to know. Eliza, see that she has a warm +bath, and put some orange flower water in her glass of lemonade."</p> + +<p>In after years Noel Herriott often recalled that afternoon spent at +Nutwood. The inimitable courtesy of the handsome stately hostess, the +sweet countenance of the widowed foster-mother—whose anxious, tender +gaze rarely left the white-clad child—the grave negro butler, wearing +linen apron that matched his grey head, and the spacious old +cedar-wainscotted dining-room where, on bare, polished mahogany table, +the light of wax candles was reflected in silver dishes and candelabra, +and glittered from heavy, antique-shaped, cut-glass bowls, while golden +honeycomb and ripe strawberries mixed their fragrance with the breath of +crimson carnations heaped in a Sèvres china centrepiece that once graced +banquets at Trianon. Most vivid of all impressions, he retained the +imperishable image of a beautiful girl, with singularly white cheeks and +lustrous, shy eyes, glowing unnaturally from her fierce struggle for +composure—a proud, sensitive face whose exquisite lines suggested rare +old cameos behind cabinet glass.</p> + +<p>Though the guest was a very young man, his quiet manner and perfect ease +indicated thorough acquaintance with the most refined society, and +despite her sectional prejudice Mrs. Maurice yielded to the charm of an +unusually handsome personality and a conversation marred by no trace of +egotism. The crocus light of after-glow still tinged the west, where the +sickle of a new moon swung, when the visitor rose to depart.</p> + +<p>"Miss Eglah, when I come back from New Mexico and Arizona, shall I bring +you a Zuñi pickaninny or a Moqui pony?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Since your father has stolen my stepmother, do you not think you might +persuade yourself to accept me as a sort of half cousin or +hemi-demi-semi-stepbrother, or any kind of a relative you may choose? I +am quite alone in the world, and you are just the sister I should like +to claim as my hermanita. May I?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir, I would rather not. I want only my father."</p> + +<p>He bowed, and lifting her dainty little hand brushed it with his +mustache.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Maurice, in saying good-bye, I must thank you cordially for the +privilege of spending several hours in your lovely home, which +illustrates all I have read of charming Southern life, and realizes +completely my ideal picture of what your sunny land must have been in +former years."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I wish you a pleasant journey. Nutwood is a +mere shadow of old and happier days. Ichabod is printed all over the +ruined South, and we live only to guard our graves."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> + + +<p>The quiet, systematic routine of life at Nutwood was by no means +cloistral in its seclusion, and though the term "house-party" had not +yet taken root south of the Potomac, guests from various parts of the +State frequently spent a week with Mrs. Maurice, and were entertained at +dinners, luncheons, and teas with the lavish hospitality traditional in +the family. Accustomed early to meeting strangers, Eglah was neither +bashful nor awkward, but she understood fully that her father was +unpopular in the social world around her, and she deeply resented an +antipathy which, though never discussed in her presence, she felt it +impossible to forgive or remove. The explanatory assistance of Minerva, +daughter of the cook, had enabled her to comprehend all the unpleasant +significance of "scallawag" and "carpet-bagger," and with the fervor of +indignant loyalty she promptly espoused whatever cause her father was +reputed to represent. Alert and <i>en garde</i>, she expected attacks, felt +eager to retaliate, and consequently was often stung by the young people +of her circle with whom she was no favorite. For many months after Judge +Kent's second marriage, Mrs. Maurice yielded to a new and yearning +tenderness toward her grandchild, whom she heartily pitied, but the +overtures came too late; the plastic season had passed, the angles had +stiffened, the childish heart had hardened hopelessly, and caresses that +formerly might have won her love were received in cold, irresponsive +passiveness.</p> + +<p>Once she had gone under Eliza's care to spend Christmas in Washington, +and though the pretty, gay, good-natured stepmother laid siege to the +girl's heart and fondled and pampered her, Mrs. Kent knew from the +defiant gleam in her watchful, jealous eyes that the daughter would +never tolerate a usurper who sat on her own mother's throne and divided +her father's affections.</p> + +<p>During the following year, Mrs. Maurice was prostrated by an attack of +pneumonia that resulted in heart weakness, from which she never fully +rallied. The reins of household government slipped easily into Eliza's +hands, and that reticent, faithful young woman proved worthy of the +confidence so long reposed in her by her benefactress.</p> + +<p>The last link in the chain of daily duties to which the invalid clung +was her habit of listening to Eglah's recitations from text-books, but +the hour came when she reluctantly laid down the self-imposed task.</p> + +<p>"My dear, in future say your lessons to Eliza. I find I am not strong +enough to be patient, and without perfect patience no one should attempt +to teach. Go now and practise your piano exercises; it will not disturb +me in the least."</p> + +<p>She took into her own cold, beautifully shaped hand Eglah's slender, +warm fingers, looked at them critically, and smiled as she drew them +tenderly across her cheek.</p> + +<p>"Kiss me, little one. Try always to obey Eliza, for she will never fail +you when you need comfort, and in all this world nobody loves you as she +does. Send her to me."</p> + +<p>When the nurse came in and seated herself, darning gourd in hand, Mrs. +Maurice was glancing over a blank book used for memoranda.</p> + + +<p>"Eliza, here are some instructions you must follow faithfully when I am +gone. I have written them carefully, so that you cannot misunderstand. I +leave nothing to your discretion, not because your judgment is +defective, but simply for the reason that I desire my wishes executed +exactly. It is an absolute condition of my will that you should have the +personal care of Eglah until she marries. If she should be sent to a +new-fangled college (one of her father's Yankee fads), you will board in +sight of her; when she travels, you go with her. Nothing but her death, +or marriage, shall separate you, and with this provision I can safely +leave her. Egbert and Marcia will understand I have done what was +possible for the poor baby. Proud little thing! she will be tortured +indeed if ever the time comes when she feels ashamed of her father—and +wily though he is, her eyes are keen. She is all Kent in appearance, +except her hands and feet; they are dainty, beautiful, patrician, +genuinely Maurice like my Marcia's."</p> + +<p>She laid the book on Eliza's lap, motioned her away, and, turning her +head aside, closed her eyes.</p> + +<p>With the ebbing of summer tide her pulse waned slowly but steadily, like +a star going down to the gates of the west. Leaning heavily on her +husband's cane, followed by the aged pointer, the tall, wasted figure +went to and fro through the old house, as one having packed and waiting +for departure looks to see if aught has been forgotten; and over the +pallid face with its cloud of black hair an exultant smile sometimes +shone, as she realized how soon she should reclaim her treasures in the +beckoning Beyond. It was an August night when the pilot's signal came, +and swiftly and gladly she "crossed the bar." Eliza was aroused from a +sound sleep by Eglah, who shook her.</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila, I am so frightened! I heard grandma call out 'Egbert!' +'Marcia!' Something had already waked me suddenly."</p> + +<p>"Oh, dearie, you were only dreaming."</p> + +<p>She sprang up and lighted a candle, but the girl clung to her.</p> + +<p>"No, it was not a dream. I heard it clear and loud like a quick cry. I +was so scared I waited a while, and then I went to her room—but she is +not there! I could see the bed was empty, because Dinah had left the +night lamp burning in the passage. What can it mean?"</p> + +<p>"Grandmother is often restless, and goes out on the colonnade, where the +fresh air relieves her oppressed breathing. No doubt she is there now. +Baby, do not tremble so."</p> + +<p>Clutching Eliza's nightgown, Eglah followed her to the sick room, which +was unoccupied, and waking Dinah, who slept on a cot in the hall, they +searched the entire length of the piazza, the foster-mother shielding +the light with her hand. Turning to re-enter the house, they were +startled by the howl of a dog, answered instantly by a scream from +Herod, roosting on one of the arched chimney tops. Eglah was so +terrified she threw her arms around Eliza, thereby dashing the candle +from her trembling hand.</p> + +<p>"She must be in the general's room, and old Hector is there also."</p> + +<p>Swiftly they crossed the halls, and found a light shining through the +partly open door of the memorial chamber. A candle burned low under the +portrait over the mantel, and Hector, with his head thrown back against +his mistress's knee, howled feebly. She sat in her husband's easy chair, +her head pillowed on his dressing gown, where a fresh Cape jasmine +gleamed, and over her lap flowed the yellowed lace of Marcia's +christening robe, half hiding the baby shoes of white kid. She had laid +one hand on the Confederate uniform folded on the couch beside her +chair, and about the long, white fingers of the other were wrapped +strands of vivid red seed-coral—the necklace and bracelets of her only +child. Stern lines and shadows of sorrow had faded forever from the +frozen face, where eternal peace set its blessed seal, and in the wide +eyes fixed on her husband's portrait was the rapt expression that comes +only with the lifting of the veil as the soul drifts through its windows +of flesh. The icy shiver that runs across the world when day dawns grew +into a windy gust from the west, extinguishing the fluttering candle +flame and blowing the lace curtains out eastward like white sails +bearing away the happy spirit to crystal seas. At the edge of the sky, +where the morning star burned, a thread of orange glowed in the soft +pearl grey of the new day, and only the crowing of the game cocks from +their cedar thicket broke the silence that death consecrates.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> + + +<p>Were it possible to probe the recesses of cerebration by some +psychological process as searching as the Roentgen ray, many strange +beliefs would be dragged from secret chambers sedulously guarded, where +mental fetiches are worshipped. Those who knew Eliza Mitchell well +considered her a very pretty, dignified, reticent young widow, who won +respect by her adherence to mourning garments—never laid aside after +her husband's death; but her rigid observance of the strictest phase of +Methodist discipline presented a certain austerity of character that +appeared to rebuke quietly even the members of her own denomination who +indulged in "the putting on of gold and costly apparel, and taking such +diversions" as aforetime were considered appanages of the "flesh and the +devil."</p> + +<p>Keenly observant and silently contemplative, she had grown shrewd as a +judge of character, and laid the tribute of her confidence at the feet +of few; yet this little woman, eminently practical and rigidly orthodox +in the faith of her father, had surrendered to one belief that dominated +heart, soul, and mind—that ruled her absolutely, and that she jealously +guarded from all but her God. Her most intense and precious conviction +was that the soul created and intended for her baby boy, who never +breathed, had been assigned to the body of Marcia's infant girl born a +little later. She was assured that her child had never known life on +earth, and had been in his coffin but a few hours when Eglah first +opened her eyes. Souls never die. What of the soulless still-born? Would +God deny any Christian mother reunion with her innocent baby in the +world of spirits? From the hour that Marcia's wailing child was laid on +Eliza's bosom she accepted it as an incarnation of the soul of little +Elliot, adrift in space but housed at last in the form committed to her +fostering care. Whether this phantasmal belief sprang from feverish +conditions under which she first felt the baby's warm lips at her +breast, Eliza never questioned; and as the years passed the conviction +strengthened, until she easily explained all Eglah's waywardness by the +hypothesis that a boy's soul fretted under the limitations of a girl's +body. Ignorant of the complex elements that fed her devotion to the +child, even Mrs. Maurice could not fully understand her idolatrous +fondness, her perfect and marvellous patience that condoned all errors, +and only Eglah could have told how often she was fondled as "my Elliot" +when cradle songs were crooned in the sanctuary of the nursery. +Notwithstanding Mrs. Mitchell was zealous in missionary work, and when +she read her reports as treasurer of the "Hindustan" fund, she dwelt +feelingly on the benighted superstition that worshipped idols and +believed in transmigration of soul.</p> + +<p>After Mrs. Maurice's death, Mr. Whitfield as administrator closed +Nutwood, leaving Aaron and his daughter Celia custodians, and Eglah and +Eliza went to Washington, where two small rooms were selected for their +occupancy in the fashionable "apartments" leased by Senator Kent. His +daughter now enjoyed every educational advantage that a governess for +modern languages and a tutor for Greek and mathematics could supply, +while teachers in the entire range of feminine accomplishments were +eager to encourage cultivation of any special talent. In dancing and +riding she was found surprisingly proficient, and as Senator Kent was +desirous she should enter as early as possible a "woman's college" in +his native State where one of his sisters was professor, the child was +industriously coached to achieve this purpose.</p> + +<p>Standing as it were on the rim of a new world, strewn with the flotsam +and jetsam of shattered political, ethical, and domestic systems, where +all nations and social conditions found representation, Eglah and Eliza +confronted novel customs, strange beliefs, and cosmopolitan diction that +clashed sharply on the conservative standards of old Southern usage. +Tethered to the pivot of her Methodist discipline, Mrs. Mitchell swung +around the narrow circle of conscientious orthodoxy; but Eglah made +alarming excursions into ecclesiastical provinces, and their first +serious altercation arose from the announcement that the girl had +decided to join the class for confirmation in the Episcopal church where +Judge Kent worshipped.</p> + +<p>"Confirmation? Oh, no; you are too young to take such an important +step."</p> + +<p>"Now, Ma-Lila, would you say that if I asked to join the Methodist +Church?"</p> + +<p>"That would be different, because you know more about the Church in +which you have been raised."</p> + +<p>"I know the Episcopal catechism from cover to cover, and I like the +service, and the choristers, and the candles used in some Episcopal +churches, and——"</p> + +<p>"Dearie, you merely want to follow your father, and, moreover——"</p> + +<p>"Did not you follow your father? You are what you are just because your +father was a Methodist preacher, and a chaplain who was killed bringing +my grandfather off the battle-field. What are fathers for, if not to set +us examples?"</p> + +<p>"Do you forget your dear grandmother, and her love for the church you +were christened in, and could you who owe her so much defy her wishes?"</p> + +<p>"Grandmother is so glad to get away and be in heaven that she never will +worry over me any more; and if I am only good enough to go where she is +when I die, what difference will it make to her how I got there? Seems +to me, Ma-Lila, all this strife over different faiths is as foolish as +denying people their choice of routes when they go travelling in summer. +If we have perfect right to trust our bodies to our favorite railroad, +we ought to feel as free to take tickets for our souls on any line that +leads to God."</p> + +<p>Eliza took the girl's hands and pressed the soft palms to her own +cheeks, as she said, in a voice that faltered despite her will:</p> + +<p>"My darling, let us wait. Promise me one thing; do nothing for another +year at least. For my sake, baby, I beg of you."</p> + +<p>Eglah saw unshed tears in the black eyes that had always shone tenderly +on her, and rising she stole one arm around the nurse's neck and kissed +her unsteady lips.</p> + +<p>"Please don't fret about it. You shall have your wish. Of course I will +wait a year if you think it best; but you must help me, because somehow +it is harder for me to be good here than it was down at home."</p> + +<p>"It is a sacred promise you make me now."</p> + +<p>"I told you I would wait. Did I ever deceive you? You ought to know me +better than Mrs. Kent, and even she told father yesterday she had been +trying to find out whether I had most talent for the piano or the +mandolin, and she concluded I really had no talent for anything—showed +only genius for telling the truth."</p> + +<p>Thenceforth Mrs. Mitchell redoubled her efforts to control the spiritual +aspirations of the girl to whom she had devoted her life, and the +bargain she made with her conscience was that Judge Kent had the right +to train and develop and decorate the body of his daughter, even along +lines she deemed Philistine, but the immortal spark—the soul intended +for her little Elliot—was immutably hers, to be saved eternally in the +faith to which her own hopes were anchored. That night, when she had +brushed and braided Eglah's golden-brown hair that no one else ever +arranged, she suddenly caught the slim form in a straining embrace.</p> + +<p>"God bless my Elliot—my own precious baby!"</p> + +<p>"It has been a long time since you called me Elliot, and it sounds queer +to give me the name of your boy. Why should you?"</p> + +<p>"You are my boy, and my Eglah also; two in one, and my only joy in all +the world. Don't argue, dearie; go to sleep."</p> + +<p>She lifted her into bed and tucked the silk quilt carefully about her, +as though crib days had not ended.</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila, if we should all meet in heaven—and I do hope that somehow I +shall get there—I am afraid I shall feel puzzled to know who really is +my mother, because it seems to me I belong more to you than to anybody +else except father; but then grandmother will certainly be there, and +she will carry me straight to that special spot—the heavenly +'west-end'—where all the Maurices dwell, and hand me over to her +Marcia: the beautiful one I never saw, my own mother, who would not wait +in this world long enough to look at me."</p> + +<p>"Hush, my lamb! Good night."</p> + +<p>In the adjoining room she sat down at a table where books were piled, +and opening one read a marked passage:</p> + +<p>"The story was told by the owner of a shop where was sold the +amber-tinted syrup of malt given to young children when milk could not +be obtained. A pale woman in white came very late for many nights to buy +a cup of this syrup—<i>midzu ame</i>—but never spoke.</p> + +<p>"One night, when she beckoned him to follow, he went with her to the +cemetery, where she suddenly vanished in a tomb, and he heard a young +child crying under ground. On opening the tomb there was found the +corpse of the woman, and by her side a young infant smiling, who had +been fed from a cup of <i>midzu ame</i> in the hand of the corpse. The woman +had by mistake been prematurely buried. The child was born in the grave, +and love—stronger than death—compelled the ghost to provide +nourishment for her baby."</p> + +<p>Eliza closed the volume and tossed it across the table.</p> + +<p>"As if we needed old heathen Japan to teach us the length and breadth +and depth and deathlessness of maternal devotion, when we know from the +Bible that though God in heaven forsook His Son, the earthly mother +clung to Jesus!"</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>It was an intensely cold, windless, brilliant moonlight night in +January, two years after she came to live in Washington, and when the +clock struck eleven she heard a quick but cautious step in the corridor +and a slight tap at her door. Mr. Herriott stood at the threshold and +beckoned her to the head of the steps.</p> + +<p>"Is Eglah asleep?"</p> + +<p>"I think she is."</p> + +<p>"Come downstairs quietly."</p> + +<p>In the lower hall, where the lights burned brightly, she saw that he +looked pale and troubled.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Mitchell, a terrible blow has fallen upon us. Mrs. Kent went +sleighing with some friends, and the horses became uncontrollable. The +sleigh was overturned, and poor Nina, thrown against a stone wall, was +killed instantly. Will you do what is best when she is brought home? +Don't rouse little Eglah. I am going to find Senator Kent, who is in +committee meeting, and break the news as gently as possible. Poor, dear +Nina! So merry, so kind hearted! Laughing and chaffing me for my +awkwardness when I tucked the lap robe about her feet."</p> + +<p>Once more death levelled a wall that in some degree barred Eglah from +her father, and from that wintry night she dated the beginning of her +happy reign over his undivided affection—a monopoly she had long +coveted as the supreme privilege and crown of life.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> + + +<p>"Has the success of the experiment justified the labor and enthusiasm +you spent upon it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Noel, the result far surpasses my hopes, and I am impatient for +you to visit us, not only to understand fully the complete success of +the work, but to receive the grateful acknowledgments of every member of +the Order."</p> + +<p>"Then you bar your doors against me, because any expression of thanks is +annoying, and the great pleasure I gave myself in deeding the property +to you would be marred. Remember, Vernon, I am not a well-rounded +character, measured by your ecclesiastical tape-line, and one of my ugly +angles is aversion to thanks. If you have drained the marshland and +reclaimed the house from mildew and mice you have made your neighbors +debtors."</p> + +<p>"The same Noel Herriott of college days!"</p> + +<p>"Only more so, if you please. Nothing human is immutable, and if a man +does not improve he grows worse. By the way, is your reverence still +'Brother' Temple, or have you climbed the ladder of spiritual +promotion?"</p> + +<p>"I am always Vernon to you, but the world knows me as 'Father' Temple. +When will you come to us at 'Calvary House' and inspect the rich harvest +from the seed you sowed? I long for the one thing you have +withheld—your deep, hearty sympathy in my grand and holy work."</p> + +<p>"Meaning that nothing less than the three vows will assure you of my +safety?"</p> + +<p>"That is beyond all that I ever dared to hope, but your cordial +approbation would cheer me more than the indorsement of any other man. +Generous though you are in financial assistance, your mental attitude +toward our Order is that of the smiling tolerance with which one watches +a child building a house of cards."</p> + +<p>"However tentative my opinion relative to the scope and permanence of +your religious movement, you cannot doubt that I earnestly desire the +success to which the sanctity of your motive entitles you. Partial as I +am to gymnastic methods, I allow no athletic feats in my mental +processes; I neither run nor leap to conclusions, and you must give me +time. You and I always approach vital questions by different paths: you +lean generally to collectiveness; I usually prefer the slower leverage +of individualism. You are burning the candle of life at both ends, and +trying to realize your noble ideals; I plod far behind, with only a +feeble taper and indulge no higher hope than to idealize my realities."</p> + + +<p>"When will you come to the lovely home you have given us? There is one +room we have called 'Founder's,' and set apart for you; and, Noel, no +sun sets that has not brought us to our knees in prayer for you who made +it possible for us to own a chapel. When shall we welcome you?"</p> + +<p>"Not now. I must go home, where matters need attention. Strange, is it +not, that the magic of a name should outlive all it represents? That +lonely old stone house staring at its shadow on the lake has no vital +element of home except my horses and dogs, and one Maltese cat that +sleeps in my arm-chair. When Nina married Senator Kent the last thread +that tied me to anything like domesticity snapped, and I followed my +bent and prowled from land to land."</p> + +<p>"Why do you not marry some sweet, gentle woman and settle yourself?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely the advice one might expect from the priestly Father of an +Anglican celibate order. Has your creed narrowed to such alternatives? +Either a cell at Calvary or the snare and disillusions of marriage? +Unfortunately for me, women have exerted only a traditional influence on +my life. My own young mother died before I could remember her, and I was +consigned to tutors when I should have been trundling hoops. I went +early to college, and after father's second marriage was rarely at home; +hence my acquaintance with women in the home circle is nebulous and +legendary. As a boy I disdained sweethearts; as a man they disdain me. +The only woman I ever really cared for would no more marry me than a +stone slab in a cemetery; so, with many thanks, I cannot utilize your +counsel, and it only remains for you to keep a cell for me at Calvary. +Some day at eventide I may creep in, and you will kindly shrive and +bless me."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott had been leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped +behind his head, and when he rose he towered six feet two inches, +smiling gravely at the upturned face of Father Temple, whose sombre +clerical habit contrasted vividly with the white yachting flannels worn +by his friend.</p> + +<p>"Ah, Noel, what a Viking you look! Save prize fighting, is there +anything in the realm of athletics you have not accomplished?"</p> + +<p>"I fear you would not compliment me with even that civilized exception +if you had seen a skirmish, minus weapons, that I had with a hairy, +tattooed Dyak in a Borneo jungle where I hunted orchids. Vernon, if you +trained your muscles more, and let up a little on your soul, allowed it +a breathing spell, you would not look so flaccid and anæmic. Don't +prefer monkish Latin to Juvenal: <i>mens sana in corpore sano</i>! You +observe, respect for your Reverence prevents my offering you the +Rabelais parody. Come, dine with me to-night."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. I am to give a brief 'retreat.' Tell me about my cousin +Eglah; you crossed the ocean in the same steamer."</p> + +<p>"You have not seen her?"</p> + +<p>"For a few moments only. She is a beautiful girl."</p> + +<p>"What remains to be said—since you accord her the mantle of beauty, +whose folds, broader even than charity's, hide all defects? Where shall +I begin? Being her cousin, you must know what I have merely heard: that +she swept through college like a southern tornado—or should I have said +like a meteor?—carrying off the honors, and was the youngest graduate +who had ever turned the heads of the spectacled lecturers. Yet it +appears she values her trophy merely because her laurels pleased her +father, at whose feet she sits in adoration. In her physique, gymnastic +training leaves nothing to be improved; she won badges, and can hold her +own at basket-ball, tennis, rowing, and swimming. Is not the catalogue +complete? So much for mental attainments and physical perfection, but in +the domain of womanly emotions she is simply an unknown quantity—a +latter-day sphinx, fresh and fair before drifting desert sands deface +her. If a lover should ever win her heart he will certainly be entitled +to it, by the supreme right of discovery. Her affection for Judge Kent +absolutely rules her, and in one respect she is unique, she is as +utterly incapable of flirtations as an unfledged owl."</p> + +<p>"On account of the family connection you have been thrown so intimately +into her society that I hoped you could tell me something of her +religious tendencies."</p> + +<p>"I am such a confirmed tramp that my visits to the family have been +brief and interrupted by long absences. Eglah always appealed peculiarly +to my sympathy because of the pathetic antagonism of her environment. +Your cousin, Judge Kent, was very much disliked at the South, where +sectional political rancor was, is, and will be rife, and his child +suffered keenly on that account. When she came north to live, her social +surroundings were even worse, because she furiously resented every +reflection upon the people of the South, where the Maurices were +conspicuous in war records. Her efforts at loyalty all around the circle +have not made smooth sailing for her, and her motives were doubtless +complex. You are curious about her 'religious tendencies'? If you are +wise you will not stir any Calvary leaven into the pure sweet flour of +her soul, unless you covet war <i>á outrance</i> with that nondescript +personage Mrs. Mitchell—an anomalous blend, alert as a lynx, wary as a +fox, stealthy as a cougar—who serves Eglah in divers and sundry +capacities: an amalgamated foster-mother, housekeeper, maid, companion, +chaperon, and confidante. She is a Simon-pure puritan, prim as +Priscilla, and her processes of reasoning are quite as broad as the edge +of a razor. That she viciously opposes all forms of 'ritualism' I happen +to know from listening to a discussion between her and Eglah, in which +the whole bundle of dogmas was thrashed out, from 'historic episcopate' +and 'confession' to incense, candles, and 'reservation of the +sacrament.' What a pile of chaff they built! Eglah's appreciation of +sensuous beauty and classical music inclines her to gorgeous vestments, +jewelled windows, and the rhythmic chanting of choristers that lift +their chins like Raphael's cherubs, but Mrs. Mitchell finds in the +severe simplicity of her own tabernacle an added sanctity, and your +Calvary House will be to her that of Rimmon. In Rome Judge Kent had a +touch of fever which frightened Eglah into telegraphing for me at Basle, +where I was attending a scientific congress, so we came home together."</p> + +<p>"If Eglah's enthusiasm could be aroused in our mission work, she would +wield an incalculable power for good."</p> + +<p>"Vernon—pardon the lapse into argot—'don't!' Let the child pick her +own way to peace. She is not addicted to enthusiasms: one attack long +ago destroyed her susceptibility to subsequent seizures; she can be +enthusiastic over only one teraph—her father. Must you go? Wait a +moment. Friendship is frank, and I am sorry to see you losing the vigor +that in college days distinguished you. Fast less, and sleep more. Come +home with me and hunt and fish and row, and let other people's souls +enjoy a vacation."</p> + +<p>As they shook hands Father Temple asked:</p> + +<p>"And what have scientific congresses done for your soul, Noel?"</p> + +<p>"Drawn me closer, I hope, to the Creator whose subtle and inexorable +laws are best revealed to the faithful student that fearlessly analyzes +His universal work. The sole aim of scientists is 'to admit nothing +false, and to omit nothing true.' Vernon, have faith in me as of old, +and keep a cell whitewashed for me at Calvary House. Truly—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"So many paths lead up to God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Twere strange if any soul should miss them all."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>With his hand on the stair rail the minister paused and looked back.</p> + +<p>"One thing I wish to ask is whether Eglah had any special admirers +abroad? American heiresses are attractive."</p> + +<p>"She had as many beaux as she chose to permit. Two attachés of American +legations were particularly attentive, and a handsome English naval +officer whose father is a duke will doubtless cross the ocean to renew +his acquaintance. Possess your soul in patience. Her heart is as sound +asleep as when she dreamed in her crib, and the man who wakes and wins +it will travel no macadamized road. Before Lent she will be in New York +for a week, and when Congress adjourns the family will come to me on the +Lake for a visit."</p> + +<p>Given a man of thirty-three, unusually good-looking, possessing by +inheritance a large fortune, dowered with infinite leisure upon which no +professional duties laid intrusive claim, handicapped by no church +obligations, and the world assumes that he has inevitably run the gamut +of those iniquities set by Satan as snares for the idle rich. Intensely +virile as was Noel Herriott, his polished placidity of manner and +courteous conservatism masked in some degree the strength and tenacious +obstinacy of a character that presented enigmatical phases to those who +knew him best. Heredity and education had combined in kneading him +physically, mentally, and morally along rather peculiar curves during +the plastic period of boyhood, and the finishing touches that determined +the mould came from his parting interview with his Presbyterian father, +when Fergus Herriott sent him away to college.</p> + +<p>"My son, God gave you a remarkably fine body. Neither neglect nor abuse +it, but be sure you master it from the start, else you will be the slave +of your own flesh. Bad habits are the leeches that would suck a Hercules +to effeminacy. Steer as clear of the sins labelled "Thou shalt not" as +you would of that leper island down in the Pacific. The ten commandments +are equal links in the moral chain, and it is no man's privilege to pick +and choose which he will break or which he will keep; because if he +violates one, it is merely a question of temptation, necessity, and +opportunity when he will transgress all. If he bears false witness and +lies, he will steal money as he filched character; if he covets his +neighbor's wife, the time comes when he murders her husband. <i>Falsus in +uno, falsus in omnibus.</i> You are going where you will hear much fine +talk about 'lofty, broadening, philosophic ideals' and 'progressive, +altruistic standards of humanitarianism and honor.' Now mark you, God's +laws are not 'progressive,' they are absolutely fixed, and when you are +as old as I am you will have learned that 'man's honor,' unless based on +them, is merely a sliding scale set up on a quicksand. My boy, try to +lead such a clean life that when the mirror of records is held up to you +in the final judgment you will not squirm and want to look the other +way; and now, my last word is, you had the great misfortune to lose your +dear, sweet mother in this world—be sure you deserve to find her in the +next."</p> + +<p>During the journey to college he found in his well-filled pocket-book a +folded sheet containing additional memoranda in his father's cramped, +old-fashioned writing.</p> + +<p>"Be honest first, then generous—never wasteful. Pose on no pedestals +and you will escape falls. Avoid priggishness, which is detestable +mental dry-rot; and flee from cant, the convenient domino of hypocrisy. +Cultivate genuine sympathy for all suffering humanity, and remember that +a man's safest companion is his own conscientious, incorruptible +self-respect."</p> + +<p>Doubtless in the years that followed Noel realized that indeed</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Souls were dangerous things to carry straight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world;"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>but that he succeeded fairly well might have been inferred from a +certain scar on his throat, received while chastising two of his +classmates who had caricatured him in doggerel under the title of "Sir +Dandy Galahad." Misled by the quiet reserve of his manner, and an inborn +courtesy that made him as good a listener as talker, strangers never +suspected the existence of a temper fierce and, when fully aroused, +well-nigh implacable. In his third collegiate year the death of his +father left him untrammelled in the selection of a profession, and soon +after he entered into possession of a fortune so large that its golden +key would have opened the door of almost any career he might have +chosen. His mental trend was toward scientific studies, and his dominant +scheme of investigation embraced the elusive problems of anthropology. +His individual and favorite hypothesis involved the genesis of +aboriginal American man, and to secure all prehistoric and especially +pre-glacial data he had attended post-collegiate lectures at several +European universities, supplemented by sojourns in Central America, +Pacific Islands, and British North America.</p> + +<p>Since the death of his stepmother, Mr. Herriott had established +temporary headquarters in New York in "apartments" not far from the old +Herriott house, which by provision of his wife's will was now the +property of Judge Kent. While the family of the senator usually remained +in Washington, Eglah and Mrs. Mitchell frequently spent a week in New +York, and on such occasions, if Noel chanced to be in the city, they +relied upon him to serve as escort when needed. That he had successfully +run the gauntlet of Eliza's years of cautious, suspicious observation, +and finally commanded her admiring confidence, contributed in some +degree to the easy <i>camaraderie</i> maintained between Eglah and himself: +on her part a genuinely trusting friendship, pure and simple; on his +that cool, watchful quietude that holds in leash the one deep passionate +love of a strong nature and a lonely life. From the day he first saw the +little quivering white-clad girl standing in the sunset glow that +flooded the fragrant, flower-filled dining-room at Nutwood, he had +opened the empty temple of his heart, and where no image dwelt—save the +memory of his father—he lifted this child to a pure altar, and offered +silent homage.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> + + +<p>"Of course, Mr. Herriott, you are vastly amused by my ambitious +pretension."</p> + +<p>"Why Mr. Herriott? And why assume amusement which I certainly have not +expressed?"</p> + +<p>"Not verbally; but I quite understand that look in your eyes, when by +sheer force of will you hold your lips from smiling. Only courtesy keeps +in check your contempt for our 'higher education.'"</p> + +<p>"Eglah, be a little more just in your generalizations. If the education +be really 'higher' and thorough, no reasonable man could afford to +disparage it. You have spent the morning over volumes of tedious +statistics, extracting figures on <i>ad valorem</i> and 'specific' schedules +that only a custom-house clerk or a tariff expert could utilize by +eliminating nonessentials and compiling valuable tables. Why waste this +perfect day over metric puzzles—dekameter, hectoliter, myriagram?"</p> + +<p>"Father wished the exact figures, and to work for him is my greatest +pleasure."</p> + +<p>"Do not confound motive and accomplishment. Your father's secretary +would have collected the statistics in half the time and in a more +satisfactory form, simply because he has been trained for such search, +as dogs are taught to hunt truffles."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Metcalf was needed in Washington, and as father has tried me +sufficiently to trust the accuracy of my work, he asked me to make this +investigation while I was in New York. Mr. Noel, to help him even in +trifles is my very life; he is my world, my all."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott lifted his hat and bowed.</p> + +<p>"Your devotion is beautiful and sacred, and Judge Kent should feel proud +of the list of rivals he so successfully defies. Perhaps it has not yet +occurred to him that in chaining yourself to his library desk you are +restricted to sawdust diet."</p> + +<p>"Varied now and then, you must admit, by banquets of opera, germans, +receptions, teas, theatre parties, and the embassies. When I was working +so hard at college I looked forward eagerly to 'coming out,' as to a +magical door that would swing suddenly open into a wonderful world, +where, because of new conditions, I should become a different person, +and shed my girlish ideas as serpents slip their skins; but since the +'open sesame,' and I have 'arrived,' I seem to have lost nothing of the +past, and my old, tiresome self is tyrannous as ever."</p> + +<p>"Is social life in Washington disappointing?"</p> + +<p>"That is scarcely the right term. Life is certainly very brilliant, and +gay and panoramic, and I enjoy music and dancing, and some dinner +parties; above all, I find keen pleasure in following a spirited debate +in the House, or listening to speeches in the Senate, but sometimes I +catch myself wondering if this is indeed all—the veritable kernel of +society, politics, diplomacy, or merely the shell partly cracked. Life +here and in Washington does not seem so absolutely real as it was at +home, at Nutwood."</p> + +<p>They were driving in Central Park, and Eglah shared the front seat of +the trap where Mr. Herriott held the reins of his spirited horses, and +brought them down to a steady, rapid trot. It was a cold but sunny day +in February, and as he laced his way in and out of the stream of +vehicles, he and his companion were the theme of much comment from the +passing throng. Fastidious in the matter of clothes, he was always +remarkably well dressed—a fact accentuated by his unusual height and +erect carriage—and at the two fashionable clubs to which he belonged he +was generally regarded "as all around, the best looking member." The +dark steel-blue grey eyes—with no hint of yellow—which his Scotch +father gave him, lost something of their penetrating brilliance under +the long jet lashes that, with black brows and thick clustering hair, +his mother had contributed, and his naturally clear olive skin had been +weather-tanned in various climates to a browner tint. In profile his +face resembled a bronze medallion, and when he smiled his well-cut lips, +that in repose seemed ominously thin, showed curves of rare beauty +around a faultless set of teeth. The sun of prosperity had ripened and +mellowed his manhood, and, as yet, no acid of cynicism had invaded his +nature.</p> + +<p>Gowned in a fur-trimmed cloth of hunter's green, Eglah wore a velvet +toque of same hue, that failed to conceal the mass of golden-brown hair +burnished by sunshine into the similitude of a white-oak leaf dyed in +autumn. Under delicate, level brows, her large dark eyes—<i>chataigne</i> in +some lights, almost black at times—were set rather far apart in an oval +face whose exquisitely clear, pure pallor was stained only by the +healthy rich red of slender lips, that had a treacherous trick of +quivering when any strong emotion stirred the deeps of her heart. By the +accepted canons of art and cultured taste her form and features had been +adjudged "beautiful," and some great-grandmother of the far South had +dowered her with a peculiar grace of movement—not languid, nor sinuous, +nor Delsartian—a natural idiosyncrasy that made the manner of her +steps, the lifting of head and motion of hands, unlike other women's. +Only one gift—most potent of all—had been withheld from her +birthright: she was absolutely devoid of personal magnetism, and her +habitual cold indifference approached haughtiness, that the world +resented. A certain aloofness of manner hedged her around even in the +midst of the social whirl, and though in conversation the lovely eyes +appeared to meet frankly those confronting hers, people were vaguely +conscious that some veil was rarely lifted from their soft, shining +depths.</p> + +<p>Sudden congestion in the line of equipages, stretching far ahead, had +caused a temporary halt, and when the knot dissolved, and the impatient +horses sprang forward once more, Eglah said:</p> + +<p>"I thought you loved good music too well to lose last night's opera +treat, and until the final act I expected you."</p> + +<p>"Shall I flatter myself that even in the midst of the select party +occupying my box you really missed me?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly I missed you—all the more because some of them chattered, +and you would have hushed the tattle."</p> + +<p>"Am I so successful in the rôle of ogre as to over-awe my guests in an +opera box?"</p> + +<p>"Your quiet way of setting an example of good breeding is sometimes +contagious among thoughtless people."</p> + +<p>"My lucky star is surely ascending: you have paid me two compliments, +and I am puzzled to know whether I shall be expected to balance my +account at <i>ad valorem</i> rates on the basis of your assessment or mine?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, you and I established free trade long ago, and I can always tell +you the truth without pausing to weigh words as do legation attachés, +and as father does when wily lobbyists intercept him on his way from +committee rooms. Mr. Noel, had you any special reason for absenting +yourself? The lovely lilac orchids were, of course, far more ornamental +in your empty chair, and you must not think me lacking in appreciation +because I am so tardy in thanking you for them."</p> + +<p>"An unexpected change in the date of a lecture given by one of my +friends kept me away, when I had hoped to join you. As I had promised to +attend, there was no alternative when a belated note informed me that +last night had been selected for its delivery."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about it."</p> + +<p>"If I should so afflict you, most certainly you would vote me a bore, or +fall asleep in self-defence."</p> + +<p>"When you say that, you know curiosity always covets the forbidden."</p> + +<p>"At your peril then! It was a monograph on the autochthonic origin of +American races, and by way of ornamentation bristled with such graceful +trifles as cephalic index, <i>brachycephalic</i>, and <i>dolichocephalic</i>, and +was sprinkled with the curry of <i>Votanic</i> legends, and choice tid-bits +from the Quiché <i>Popol Vuh</i> and from <i>Codex Chimalpopoco</i>! Sounds spicy, +doesn't it? Piques your appetite for a larger slice?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you. Yet you preferred that tiresome jargon to listening to a +superb tenor solo?"</p> + +<p>"In a way—yes. We all ride hobby-horses from the nursery to the +cemetery, and it is merely a question of individual taste what blood +strain or pedigree we choose. My racing stable is not so generously +supplied as yours, which embraces colts of various breeds: reports of +fisheries commissions, bounties, American tonnage from 18— to 18—, and +a vast——"</p> + +<p>"Sarcasm does not fit you becomingly, Mr. Noel; it hangs askew, like a +clown's cap on a cowl. What have you registered your own special toy, +that you canter so vigorously around the world? Is it called ethnology, +or totemism, or anthropology?"</p> + +<p>"When I have finished trying all its gaits, and find the sum total +satisfactory, I shall label it, and fit a comfortable side saddle and +introduce you formally. Now, Miss Kent, come to confession. Did you see +the list of passengers who arrived on yesterday's steamer from +Liverpool?"</p> + +<p>"I did not."</p> + +<p>"Can you recollect a certain prophecy I made at Cowes, anent a handsome +naval officer who entertained us at luncheon on his father's yacht?"</p> + +<p>"Cassandra was a woman, and men should not trespass on the one feminine +right of 'I told you so,' that has descended to us intact from Hecuba's +daughter. But, Mr. Noel, if you mean——"</p> + +<p>She turned and looked up into his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I met him this morning at the club, where Ogden introduced him, +and I saved him a useless journey to Washington by telling him you were +here for a few days."</p> + +<p>"I can only say I am sorry to hear it."</p> + +<p>"While he is in New York I must, in part, return the hospitality shown +us, and your father will pay the remainder of the debt in Washington. I +have arranged a dinner for this evening, and later we shall see +'Hamlet,' then a supper afterward at Delmonico's. Will you join us at +the theatre, if I call for you, bringing Mrs. St. Clair as chaperon?"</p> + +<p>"Thank you, I much prefer not to be one of the party; besides, I have a +previous engagement. I am going with my cousin, Vernon Temple, to a +meeting of shop girls, a sort of night school established by some of his +lady friends."</p> + +<p>"What class does he teach?"</p> + +<p>"I believe he 'talks' now and then on 'feminine arts,' and to-night +there will be a lecture on lace making and tapestry guilds, illustrated +of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible +'Bayeux.' I am trying to classify this new cousin, who seems to me a +queer blend of mediæval monk, pre-Raphaelite reformer, and socialist. He +is altogether unlike any one I ever knew, but his beautiful, sad face +reminds me of a picture I saw in Munich—a young priest administering +the viaticum to his dying sweetheart, whom he forsook for holy orders."</p> + +<p>Lowering his eyelids, Mr. Herriott glanced keenly at her.</p> + +<p>"You find Temple wonderfully magnetic at times?"</p> + +<p>"Scarcely that. 'Magnetic' implies so much and really explains so +little. When I see his ceaseless struggle to keep the heel of his spirit +on the neck of his flesh, it suggests a fanatical rebellion against that +equipoise God saw fit to establish. Like Joubert, 'he seems to be a soul +that by accident met with a body, and tries to make the best of it.' My +cousin Temple is fond of you."</p> + +<p>"Despite much difference of opinion on many questions, our friendship +has survived the 'storm and stress' period, and I honor a man whose +battle cry for humanity is:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Make trade a Christian possibility,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And individual right no general wrong.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Have you noticed the expression of Mrs. Mitchell's face when they happen +to meet?"</p> + +<p>"Haven't I! It is too funny to see her narrow her eyes and look at him +as if he were some unclassified beast whose method of pouncing on his +prey had not yet been warningly advertised. She is convinced he is an +ecclesiastical infernal machine trying to wreck our family orthodoxy. I +asked him——"</p> + +<p>She stopped suddenly at sight of two gentlemen approaching on horseback, +and Mr. Herriott smiled, as he whispered:</p> + +<p>"Lo! the second son of a duke!"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> + + +<p>In a quiet and unfrequented cross street—equally remote from the +thronged thoroughfares of trade and from fashionable avenues lined with +palaces—stood the low and unpretentious Chapel of St. Hyacinth, marked +by neither spire nor belfry. The old stone front receded sufficiently +from the pavement to permit a short flight of shallow steps that led to +an arched door in a pillared portico with a cross on its pointed roof, +which hung over the entrance like a sullen, frowning brow. A northeast +wind came fitfully in hissing blasts, dashed with fine sleet; but when +Eglah passed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced +with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which +glimmered brass lattice screens, rows of tall candles, the gilded +carving of the white altar, laden with lilies, and the marble statue of +the Virgin, at whose snowy feet a red light burned in a silver lamp. On +each side of the wall below the brass lattice that barred the chancel +was a "confessional" of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the +clustered lights in the centre of the concave ceiling formed a crown.</p> + +<p>On the right and left of the altar the white surpliced choristers filled +several seats, and the quivering thunder of the organ ceased suddenly, +as if to listen to the marvellous voice of the boy soloist, that swelled +and rose as if the singer felt himself "hard by the gates of heaven." A +slender child of ten years, grasping his music with waxen hands almost +infantile in size, while his head, covered thickly with shining ripples +of golden hair, was thrown back, and his blue eyes almost purplish, like +a periwinkle, were raised in contemplation of the crown glowing above +him. The colorless face was delicate and beautiful as if wrought out of +ivory, and a certain pathetic sadness of expression inherent in fragile +childhood was for the moment dominated by the radiant exultation of his +wonderful eyes, that seemed made to dwell between the wings of a seraph.</p> + +<p>Father Temple left the altar before which he had knelt in prayer, and +advancing to the steps of the chancel, stood with one hand on the brass +railing and briefly explained his unexpected presence. A telegram had +summoned the rector of St. Hyacinth's to the deathbed of his father, and +the request to officiate in his absence had been received too late to +permit the preparation of a regular sermon; hence the patient indulgence +of the congregation was invoked for some desultory remarks which might +not prove entirely fruitless. After a few exordial sentences, he +repeated slowly the opening ten verses from St. John xv., and waited a +moment.</p> + +<p>"For text let us consider: 'I am the true vine,' said our Lord, 'and +ye, my brethren, are the branches.'"</p> + +<p>Then followed a recitative of various selected passages from the "Sermon +in the Hospital," in tones so musical and liquid, and with a repose of +manner so profound, yet full of subtle magnetism, that his audience +gazed in sympathetic wonder at the slight figure clad in the sombre +habit of his order—at the thin, pallid spiritual face where large, +deep-set black eyes burned with the preternatural light of consecrated +but consuming zeal. The folded arms attempted no gestures—what need, +while that rhythmic wave of sound flowed on?—until the end, when the +clasped hands were lifted in final appeal:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"... the Cross of Christ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is more to us than all His miracles.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only the cruel crushing of the feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When through the bitter night the Lord comes down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To tread the winepress. Not by sight, but faith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Endure, endure—be faithful to the end."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Unconscious of his movement, and irresistibly drawn, the young soloist +sitting in the front row of choristers had risen, and leaning far +forward, looked up into the face of the priest, like one mesmerized, his +parted lips trembling in a passion of ecstasy. Then the organ boomed, +and the boy fell from paradise and joined the choristers chanting as +they marched away behind the uplifted cross.</p> + +<p>A lady stepped into the aisle and touched Eglah's arm.</p> + +<p>"So glad to see you here, Miss Kent. Shall always welcome you to my pew. +What a delightful elocutionary <i>tour de force</i> Father Temple gave us! He +would make a fortune on the stage of secular drama."</p> + +<p>"Yes. Fra Ugo himself could scarcely have been more impressive when he +talked to the sick and dying on hospital cots. To my cousin Vernon this +world is only a hospital of sick souls. Mrs. St. Clair, I should like to +meet that little boy who sang so beautifully. Can you help me?"</p> + +<p>"Very easily. Come back with me now to the vestry and we may find him. +Did you notice how that lovely boy seemed almost hypnotized?"</p> + +<p>Only two of the larger choristers lingered, chatting with the +choirmaster, and as they turned toward the rear stairway leading to the +street, Mrs. St. Clair exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"Mr. De Graffenried, stop the boys. We want to see the soloist. Call him +back."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I think he is still in the chancel."</p> + +<p>Lifting the velvet curtain that concealed the altar from their view, she +beckoned Eglah to her side.</p> + +<p>Father Temple had been detained by one of the church-wardens, and as he +turned to hasten away the boy, standing near, caught the black skirt of +the priest.</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, may I speak to you?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly. I am glad to be able to thank you for the music to-day. Your +solo gave me great pleasure."</p> + +<p>"I could have done better, but my throat is sore; it bled just now. I +told nobody, because I am the only one who can reach that high C, and so +I tried not to fail. I want to ask you how I can learn all the words you +spoke? Oh, if I could, I would set them to a chant; they would lift my +heart out of me if I could sing them."</p> + +<p>"You shall have them. What is your name?"</p> + +<p>"Leighton Dane."</p> + +<p>Father Temple took his tablets from an inside pocket and made an entry.</p> + +<p>"Where do you live?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, a long way off. Far down in East —— Street; but, please sir, if +you would leave the poetry here, I could get it at next rehearsal."</p> + +<p>"My little man, how do you know it is poetry? The words do not rhyme."</p> + +<p>"Rhyme? I do not understand that word—but I feel poetry. I always know +it by the way my blood beats, and the little shiver that runs down my +back, and the joy that makes me cry sometimes."</p> + +<p>"I will send you a printed copy, in care of the rector. Dear child, God +has given you a wonderfully sweet voice, and I am glad you use it in His +service."</p> + +<p>He laid his thin hand on the boy's golden head, and smiled down into the +wistful blue eyes, where tears glistened.</p> + +<p>The childish fingers, holding two snowy spikes of Roman hyacinth, were +lifted and placed on the priest's hand, pressing it timidly against his +curls.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir. Please take these. They smell like the heavenly +gardens, and I have nothing else to give."</p> + +<p>"Were they not on the altar?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I slipped out two from the cluster there."</p> + +<p>"Then they belong to God. By what right do you touch sacred gifts +brought to Him?"</p> + +<p>"They were mine. I bought them last night and laid them yonder when I +came to-day—and God can spare just two, when I have nothing else to pay +you with. Did you—oh! did you think I—stole—them?" A sob shook him, +and tears followed.</p> + +<p>Father Temple stooped and drew the little white-robed form to him, +pressing the head against his breast.</p> + +<p>"Forgive me, I did not quite understand; and I am sure the dear Father +knows what is in your grateful heart. God bless you and keep you. I +shall put the hyacinths between the leaves of my Bible."</p> + +<p>Eglah stretched an arm across Mrs. St. Clair's shoulder and dropped the +curtain.</p> + +<p>"Come away. Some other time I may talk to him, not now."</p> + +<p>The following day Eglah returned to Washington, and two hours before the +departure of the train she drove to Twenty-third Street, where she and +Mrs. Mitchell usually made their purchases of damask, ribbon, and lace. +While the latter bent over boxes of wools and crochet cottons, Eglah +seated herself at the handkerchief counter. When she had selected the +desired number, the saleswoman filled out her index sheet and rapped +sharply with her pencil.</p> + +<p>"Cash! Here, cash!"</p> + +<p>Several minutes elapsed.</p> + +<p>"These cash boys are so tiresome. Cash, cash! I had to report one last +week. Cash—here he comes at last. Now, do hurry up; you are a regular +snail."</p> + +<p>In the boy who hastened away Eglah recognized the soloist of St. +Hyacinth's, and noticed a bandage around his throat. When he came back +with the parcel and counted the change into the palm of the saleswoman, +Eglah touched his arm.</p> + +<p>"I heard you sing yesterday, and want to tell you how much I liked your +voice."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, ma'am, I——"</p> + +<p>A spell of coughing interrupted, and she noticed how wan and weary he +looked, and how heavy were the greyish shadows under his lovely eyes.</p> + +<p>"I am afraid you are not well to-day. Are you an orphan?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no. Mother is living, and she says a mother is worth forty +fathers."</p> + +<p>"Will you tell me her name, and where she lives?"</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Nona Dane, and she has the glove counter at ——, Fourteenth +Street."</p> + +<p>At this instant the floor-walker strode forward, and a frightened +expression crossed the boy's white face as he turned quickly, but Eglah +laid a detaining hand on his head as, rising, she confronted the +floor-walker.</p> + +<p>"If he loitered it is not his fault; I kept him. If he missed a call I +am to blame. Good-bye, Leighton; shake hands. When I come back to New +York I hope to hear you sing again at St. Hyacinth's; and if I miss you +here, I shall buy elsewhere."</p> + +<p>His hot fingers quivered in her clasp, and, pressing a folded bill into +his hand, she joined her foster-mother and left the store.</p> + +<p>"What a frail, beautiful boy, and what genuine golden hair! Looks as if +it had been dipped in a pot of gilt. Dearie, don't you think it a shame +these young children are chained up in stores when they ought to be +romping and playing ball?"</p> + +<p>As their carriage turned from Twenty-third Street toward Broadway, that +always crowded angle was even more than usually thronged, and during the +brief pause Mr. Herriott came out of Maillard's with a box of bon-bons.</p> + +<p>"I am just going to the ferry to wait for you. Are you not too early, or +has my watch gone astray?"</p> + +<p>"Come with us, Mr. Noel, we have ample room. Yes, it is early; but of +course at the last minute I must needs shop on the way."</p> + + +<p>As he seated himself in the carriage he handed a package to Eglah.</p> + +<p>"The latest Paris 'Revue,' and your favorite <i>marron glacé</i> and +chocolate."</p> + +<p>"Thank you heartily, for both. I wonder if I ever shall cease to be a +spoiled child—in your eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Whatever you may be in my eyes, you certainly will always remain."</p> + +<p>"How discouraging, that you should feel quite hopeless of any +improvement in me. Driver, I wish to stop in West Fourteenth Street, +at ——. Gloves, Mr. Noel, always gloves."</p> + +<p>"Will you bet a pair of best driving gauntlets that I cannot tell you +exactly why you go there to-day?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly; silk-lined, fur-tipped gauntlets. I told you my errand was +gloves; pray what other reason?"</p> + +<p>"You are going to get a glimpse of 'Juno.'"</p> + +<p>"Juno? Nearly everything comes to New York sooner or later, but really I +never imagined she could step out from the books of mythology. I hunt no +goddess. When you pay your wager, be sure to select delicate fawn color, +that will match my spring jacket."</p> + +<p>"The debt is yours. Confess, Eglah—honor bright—you are curious about +the woman who sells gloves in Fourteenth Street."</p> + +<p>"I will present to you a witch's skirt, cap, and broomstick. But why +'Juno'?"</p> + +<p>"The matter was thrashed out at the club last week, where Vandiver told +us some artist had compared her to a print of the Ludovisi Juno hanging +in Goupil's window. Hence her elevation to Olympus."</p> + +<p>"Then you know all about her?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, I never saw her; but she seems to be the magnet +drawing people to——just now."</p> + +<p>The carriage stopped, and Eglah walked into the department store.</p> + +<p>"Come in, Mr. Noel, and pick out your gauntlets."</p> + +<p>"Not to-day. Juno indulged in tricks that made even Jupiter keep one eye +on her wiles, and I shall merely admire at a safe distance."</p> + +<p>In front of the glove counter half a dozen women clustered, and on the +outside of the group three men lounged—one evidently a foreigner, with +bushy beard, coarse, hairy hands, and furtive eyes, small even behind +very large spectacles. Among several busy saleswomen it was easy to +discover the centre of attraction—a finely developed form, tall and +graceful in every movement, and a face of surpassing beauty, lighted by +dark violet eyes, flushed with the glow of perfect health, and crowned +by a braided mass of glittering yellow hair heaped high on a shapely +head, that held it as an empress wears her tiara. In its vivid coloring +the face suggested a tropical flower, but, looking closer, one thought +of a frozen tulip under a sheet of ice, so hard was the cold gleam of +the defiant eyes and the proud compression of red lips that had +forgotten how to smile, that seemed never to have known curves of +tenderness. While Eglah waited, the foreigner leaned across the counter.</p> + +<p>"Some black silk gloves. Number eight and a half."</p> + +<p>"In the next room. Men's department."</p> + +<p>"You got the papers for the league?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is all arranged. Meeting will be at ten o'clock to-night. You +can't talk here."</p> + +<p>He touched the rim of his hat and walked away, and she looked toward +Eglah.</p> + +<p>"Grey kid gloves, stitched with white silk."</p> + +<p>"What size?"</p> + +<p>"Five and a quarter."</p> + +<p>The voice had a sharp metallic ring, with an impatient inflection, and +as she turned, lifting her arms to a box on an upper shelf, all the +lovely outlines of her figure were shown most advantageously, and Eglah +glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Herriott. He was watching the woman +behind the counter with an intensely curious expression, as though +disagreeably perplexed. She found the desired number.</p> + +<p>"Shall I stretch them?"</p> + +<p>"No, it is not necessary."</p> + +<p>"Do you wish them fitted on your hands?"</p> + +<p>"I will not give you that trouble. What is the price?"</p> + +<p>"It is part of my business to fit them. Two dollars and a quarter. Here, +cash!"</p> + +<p>Eglah's desire to mention the chorister of St. Hyacinth's was quickly +extinguished by the pronouncedly repellent bearing that plainly +proclaimed all intercourse must be restricted to the business of the +counter, and as she returned to the carriage, Mr. Herriott said:</p> + +<p>"Well, you college girls are nothing if not severely classical, so I +presume you will offer a ewe lamb, all garlanded with willow and +dittany, and prinked out in pomegranate blossoms, on the Junonian +altar."</p> + +<p>"I am glad Jove tied her hands and hung her up above the earth and below +the heavens, with anvils on her ankles, where she could do no more +mischief. That goddess of yours has the most cruelly cold, hard face I +ever looked at, and yet—in a way—so beautiful. Evidently she has not +even the shadow of a soul—must have given it all to that angelic boy? +What is her history? Of course she has one."</p> + +<p>"It has been said happy women have none, and in this case adversity must +have curdled very early the stream of her youthful joys. Vandiver +investigated her—from a distance he says, as she froze him when he +attempted acquaintanceship. He has a protégé in the constabulary who +learned through police channels all that she will allow to be known of +her life. Some years ago she drifted here from the far West—part of the +human flotsam annually stranded in this city, and she found work in a +cloak manufactory. Later she incited a strike among the cloak cutters, +which resulted disastrously for the workers, and when all the strikers +submitted, she alone was refused re-employment, and doors were closed +against her. She secured a position in a large bric-à-brac +establishment, but when a valuable antique vase disappeared, she was +suspected and arrested. While in prison a day and night awaiting trial, +the vase was found in a pawnbroker's shop, and the colored porter of the +bric-à-brac dealer acknowledged the theft. The firm very honorably made +ample public retraction of the unjust charge, and endeavored to +compensate and appease the injured woman, but she shook the dust of the +house from her feet and betook herself to Brooklyn. Recently she +accepted her present place."</p> + +<p>"Do you mean to imply that she is—is—Bohemian?"</p> + +<p>"That depends upon your interpretation of a very flexible term. I am +told she conducts herself with strict propriety, reports Mr. Dane dead, +and receives attentions from no one; but she is avowedly a socialist of +the extreme type: belongs to labor organizations, attends their +meetings, makes impassioned addresses, and, in fine, is a female Ishmael +whose hands are much too pretty for such savage work. Did you notice an +odd-looking, shambling man with preposterous spectacles who spoke to +her? He is an agent of a band of Russian Nihilists seeking aid from +sympathizers here. She is reported as possessing some education, +advocates 'single-tax' and all the communistic vagaries that appeal to +the great mass of toiling poor, the discontented and morose, as colored +balloons captivate the fancy of children at a circus door. She frequents +a hall down on the East Side, where at night the clans of the +disgruntled assemble, and long-haired men and short-haired women—who +absolutely believe that the only real 'devil is private +property'—denounce wealth and preach their gospel of covetousness. Here +we are at the ferry, and just in time to meet the boat."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> + + +<p>Distinctly a <i>poseur</i>, Senator Kent had studied his physical good points +with sufficient attention to establish the habit of exhibiting them +advantageously, and to-night, as he leaned back in his easy chair, +persons who knew him well understood that the fine leonine head was +always turned adroitly to the right because a defect in one drooping +eyelid found semiconcealment in the shadow of nose and brow. Political +and financial prosperity had prevented or erased the lines that usually +mark countenances of men of his age, and his smooth, handsome smiling +face seemed to defy and rebut the testimony offered by grey hair and +white mustache.</p> + +<p>Suave and conciliatory, tactful yet tenacious of purpose, a carefully +cultivated air of frankness ambushed subtle craftiness that rarely +failed to accomplish schemes which the unwary never suspected. +Unhampered by scruples, he had scaled the heights of success, climbing +the ladder of cautious expediency, and claiming allegiance only to +principles and policies that beckoned from the rung just above his head. +Proverbial good nature, voiced by a musical, hearty laugh, won him +social popularity, and even in congressional debate he never laid aside +the polished armor of imperturbable courtesy. Despite the keen scrutiny +of Eliza Mitchell during many years of intimate association, his +character had remained a baffling enigma, and her suspicious distrust +was allayed, in some degree, by his genial equanimity and amiable +abdication of control in domestic details. That he wore a mask she had +always believed, yet it fitted so perfectly she could not penetrate the +steel mesh, and in no unguarded moment had its springs loosened.</p> + +<p>The luxuriously furnished library was bright and warm with fire glow and +gas light, and sweet with the breath of white azaleas heaped in a +pale-pink bowl on the low mantel shelf. Only the click of the typewriter +disturbed the stillness until Eglah rose from the instrument, covered +it, and numbered the written pages, arranging them in a sheaf.</p> + +<p>"All ready now, father, and Mr. Metcalf can incorporate these tables in +the report you will need to-morrow. Do you wish to verify the figures?"</p> + +<p>"Not necessary, my dear. You are usually accurate."</p> + +<p>"Thanks for the sugar plum. You know exactly how sweet is your praise."</p> + +<p>Coming forward, she sat down on the carpeted foot-board attached to his +reclining chair, leaned her head against his knee, and stretched her +fingers toward the fire. He laid one large dimpled hand on her shoulder, +and she turned her cheek to touch it. After the lapse of some minutes +the clock struck, and Eglah sprang up.</p> + +<p>"Barely time to dress for the Secretary's dinner! Has the carriage been +ordered?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I can doze a while longer, as I have to change only my coat, vest, +and tie."</p> + +<p>"Eglah, do you need my help in dressing, or will Octavia suit you best?" +asked Mrs. Mitchell, who sat at a small table near the hearth, matching +silk squares for an afghan.</p> + +<p>"You can revise me finally, and punctuate me with additional pins when I +come down. Don't let father oversleep himself."</p> + +<p>Senator Kent straightened the folds of his padded dressing-gown, and +through half-closed eyes watched the small hands hovering over silken +scraps, and wondered, as he had often done before, what manner of man +could have been the "overseer" husband for whom this grave, pretty, +reticent, demure widow still mourned in black garments, relieved only by +narrow white ruches at her throat and wrists.</p> + +<p>The clock ticked softly, and the senator seemed asleep, when the ringing +of the door bell roused him. Some moments passed before the library door +opened and a servant entered.</p> + +<p>"A note, sir. It was laid on top of the bell knob, and the messenger did +not wait, for I looked up and down the street."</p> + +<p>"Evidently of no importance, else the delivery would not have been so +careless."</p> + +<p>He lazily took an envelope from the silver salver and held it up.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Senator Allison Kent,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Washington, D. C.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"<i>Strictly Personal.</i>"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Both the address and contents were type-written.</p> + +<p>Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a mass of scarlet satin +ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a +groan—an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal +sorely stricken.</p> + +<p>He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, +then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado +on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such +message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter +into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his +mustache, twisting it into knots.</p> + +<p>The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only +with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert +echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every +life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this +successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment +of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of +retributive destiny.</p> + +<p>"You have bad news, Judge Kent?"</p> + +<p>He made no answer, and she seized his arm.</p> + +<p>"What is the dreadful news that distresses you?"</p> + +<p>As he turned his eyes upon her, all their light and color seemed faded +to a dull glassiness, and his voice shook like a hysterical woman's.</p> + +<p>"News—did you say? No—I have received no news. None whatever."</p> + +<p>"Then what ails you? I shall call Eglah."</p> + +<p>She turned, but he clutched her skirt.</p> + +<p>"For God's sake, don't ever tell her! Why grieve the child? The truth +is—" He caught his breath, and a sickly smile showed how his mouth +trembled, as he swept his hand across his brow.</p> + +<p>"You are sick?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes—sick; that is it exactly. Sick—sick indeed. Some oysters I +ate, and cheese; later I very foolishly drank ale."</p> + +<p>"Then, sir, you must go to bed, and Eglah will send an explanation of +your unavoidable absence from the dinner."</p> + +<p>Upstairs a door was opened, and a sweet, girlish voice trilled two bars +of a Venetian barcarolle.</p> + +<p>Judge Kent threw out his arms appealingly.</p> + +<p>"I must go to-night. For God's sake, don't let her know anything! Say +nothing. I shall tell her I was a little faint from indigestion. Vile +compound—oysters, ale, Roquefort! Promise me to hold your tongue; not +for my sake, but hers. I am obliged to attend this dinner, and it would +spoil her evening if she knew how deadly sick—I—really was a moment +ago. Promise me."</p> + +<p>"Very well. I suppose you know best what concerns you most. I promise."</p> + +<p>"You are the only woman I ever knew upon whom I could rely to hold her +tongue. Now, quick as you can, bring the decanter of brandy to my room. +Amuse the child with her frills and finery while I dress. I must have a +little time."</p> + +<p>When she carried the brandy to his door, the hand that grasped it was +icy, and the other tugged ineffectually at his white tie.</p> + +<p>Humming her boat-song, Eglah trailed silken draperies down the winding +stairs and into the library, where she courtesied low to Eliza and swept +her train—like a peacock's plumes—up to the grate, putting one +slippered foot on the brass fender.</p> + +<p>She was gowned in green crêpe of an uncommon tint, that held +multitudinous silvery lights in its crinkled texture, and when she moved +they glistened and played hide and seek in the clinging folds. Around +her fair, full throat a rope of emeralds coiled twice.</p> + +<p>"Am I all right—ready for publication and criticism? The damp weather +makes my hair so curly I can scarcely keep it in line. Ma-Lila, the +clasp of my necklace feels a little rickety, so I must ask you to move +it around in front, and cover it securely with this."</p> + +<p>She held out a diamond butterfly, and Eliza fastened it in the gold-wire +links of the emerald chain. As she settled the jewels in place, she +stooped and kissed one lovely white shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Solemn little mother! I know exactly what you are thinking. That I am +as frivolous a creature as grandmother's heirloom butterfly? You should +not lose sight of the psychic symbolism of this much slandered and +despised insect. Little white butterflies whose wings are all powdered +with shining star-dust are the souls of babies——"</p> + +<p>"Pagan nonsense that I won't listen to. Moreover, you ought to be +ashamed to jest about your immortal soul as if it were yours +exclusively—to play with as you would a ball."</p> + +<p>"You darling Puritan! If you do not unlace yours it surely will smother. +Really, I thought it was orthodox to believe that in the very last +analysis and final adjustment of personal property one's own soul was +one's solitary chattel that defied and survived the confiscation of +death. Motherkin, don't scold! Kiss me good night, and help me with my +cloak, so that I shall not muss all this lace jabot. Is not father +ready?"</p> + +<p>Eliza laid her long, white velvet cloak around her and tied the ribbons +under her chin.</p> + +<p>"What keeps father so long? I heard the front door bell ring; is there a +visitor?"</p> + +<p>"No visitor. Only some document left for the Judge. He is dressing."</p> + +<p>Eglah went to the door of an adjoining room and rapped.</p> + +<p>"Father, we shall be late. Unpardonable, you know, at a formal dinner."</p> + +<p>"Almost ready. Old men need more time for repairs than young beauties."</p> + +<p>When he came in, walking briskly, with his overcoat on his arm, Eliza +saw that he had rallied surprisingly. Brandy reinforced his nerves, and +the cautious, defensive tactics of a lifetime availed now to readjust +and restore his equipoise of manner. A flush showed on the full cheeks, +and his eyes shone like those of a cat in some dim corner.</p> + +<p>"Inexcusably late, father! What can we say?"</p> + +<p>"Come, my dear; leave that to me. I shall simply apologize by telling +the truth—a spell of indigestion delayed me, but I felt sure one of the +Secretary's famous cocktails would rejuvenate me."</p> + +<p>Women, secure in their heritage of personal charms, resent as the most +unpardonable of affronts to their mental acumen explanations that do not +explain, and Mrs. Mitchell was thoroughly exasperated by the flimsiness +of the deception which she was expected to accept with unquestioning +credulity. Silence under strenuous conditions she could have condoned, +because it left her the resource of conjecture; an honest confession of +vitally grave business complications she would have regarded as +confidential, and loyally held inviolate, but "oysters, ale, and +Roquefort" was a stinging challenge to her feminine intuitions. Judge +Kent's arrested assertion: "The truth is—" recalled Mrs. Maurice's +estimate of his veracity when she had applied to him the sarcasm: "He +holds truth too precious to be wasted on everybody." That he cowered +under some unexpected blow she was quite sure, but her solicitude +included him only as his interests involved Eglah's welfare, and any +intimation of coming disaster fluttered this foster-mother, as the +faint, grey shadow of a hawk high in the heavens startles a hen into +signalling her brood. Ignorant of the quarter whence trouble might +approach, how could she shield Eglah, whose safety had been committed to +her guardianship? Had she the right to discover the contents of a note +that "contained no news"? Did his falsehood entitle her to pry into his +correspondence? All the smothered distrust of years was acutely +intensified, and she rose and walked to his room. A bright light shone +through the transom, but when she turned the bolt she found the door +locked. During her residence in the house this precaution had never +before been taken, hence she knew the note had not been destroyed. +Returning to the library, she rang the bell, and the butler responded +promptly.</p> + +<p>"Have you locked up the silver? Bring me the key. Close the house for +the night. Judge Kent will be out late. Tell Octavia to have good fires +upstairs, and then she need not wait for Miss Eglah, as I shall sit up +till she comes; and, Watson, you can go home. Should the front door bell +ring, I shall be here."</p> + +<p>More than once she had suspected that the senator was interested in +financial speculations, and, though Eglah's fortune had been carefully +tied up beyond his reach, she began to fear he might by some devious +process jeopard it. "Hypothecating securities" was a bristling phrase +she had never quite comprehended, but it symbolized an ogre she must +outwit.</p> + +<p>In one corner of the library stood a tall, brass-mounted chiffonier +filled with papers, and above it hung an engraving. Behind, and entirely +concealed, was a door opening into a small bathroom that formed an +alcove in the senator's apartment. After an hour had passed, Mrs. +Mitchell placed her shoulder against the chiffonier, that rolled easily +on its castors, and she slipped behind it. There was no key in the lock, +but a slender steel bolt slid horizontally under her hand, and the door +opened a few inches only, barred by a table, which she succeeded in +pushing aside. Lifting the portière inside, she entered the +sleeping-room, and found the <i>robe de chambre</i> hanging over the back of +a chair. The pockets were empty, the drawers of the bureau locked, but +under the pillow on the bed she thrust one hand and drew out the object +of her search. It contained neither date nor signature, and was +type-written in purple ink on thin paper bearing no water-mark.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"A friend to you and to yours believes it a genuine kindness to +inform you that the identity of '<span class="smcap">Ely Twiggs</span>' has been +discovered, and hopes an early knowledge of this fact may be +useful to you."</p></blockquote> + +<p>She replaced the note beneath the pillow, returned to the library, and +rolled back the chiffonier. After all, she had ended her quest in a +cul-de-sac. Turning the gas jets low, she sat watching the blue flicker +that danced like witch-lights in the grate, and once she smiled at her +own discomfiture, realizing that her attempt was futile as would be the +trial of a Yale key to open a "combination" vault lock, the arrangement +of which was unknown. Keenly alert, she heard the rattle of the +night-latch, the closing of the front door, and, after a moment, Judge +Kent came slowly into the room. At first he did not notice her presence, +and in this brief unguarded interval she saw the countenance without its +habitual mask—a face gloomy, perturbed, unnaturally flushed, with +restless eyes gleaming like those of a jaded, hunted forest animal.</p> + +<p>"Ah—Mrs. Mitchell! Sitting up for Eglah? Didn't she tell you she was +going from the dinner to the cotillon? Herriott will see her home. It is +a shame to have kept you up, but girls are so thoughtless."</p> + +<p>"Eglah is never that, and I knew she would be late at the cotillon. I +waited downstairs solely to see you."</p> + +<p>"Very kind, I am sure; but I feel much better, thank you. Indeed, I may +say I have fully recovered from that sudden, intolerable spell of +nausea. You are very good to worry over that little attack, but pray +think no more about it. I shall abjure Welsh rarebit and oysters in +future. At my time of life, pneumogastric nerves get their innings."</p> + +<p>Brightening the light in the gas globe over the mantel, she approached +and confronted him.</p> + +<p>"Judge Kent, I am not 'worrying' over the condition of your digestive +organs, but I do feel deeply interested in the nature of the trouble +that has come upon you so unexpectedly, and I cannot sleep until I tell +you what I have done to-night. Whatever injures you wounds Eglah, and +solely on her account I felt justified in taking a step that no weaker +motive could have sanctioned. I sat up to tell you that when I found you +would not trust me with the truth, I hunted it by reading the note that +fell this evening like a bombshell. I have no hesitation in confessing +the fact. I am here for that purpose."</p> + +<p>She set her small, white teeth grimly and clasped her hands behind her.</p> + +<p>He looked down at her, as a mastiff at a barking pug, and, throwing back +his head, laughed heartily, clapping his hands softly.</p> + +<p>"Bravo, Methodist burglar! You seem an expert, and find locked doors no +barrier. What would Eglah think of your breaking into my room, and into +my correspondence?"</p> + +<p>"Shall we ask her? Only my promise not to mention this matter to her +prevents me from telling her as quickly and frankly as I have told you. +May I speak to her?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, you possess an arsenal of mental reservations, and I doubt +whether you can keep a promise."</p> + +<p>"I can be silent against my will, and even in defiance of my judgment. +Try me."</p> + +<p>"Then consider yourself on probation. Where is my hoax of a note?"</p> + +<p>"Under your pillow, where you left it."</p> + +<p>His eyes twinkled, and his voice shook as with suppressed laughter.</p> + +<p>"A woman's curiosity cost us Eden. My dear little lady, what did you +discover in my anonymous letter?"</p> + +<p>"That 'Ely Twiggs' is a terrible menace to your peace of mind."</p> + +<p>"Would you like a translation of that ugly occult phrase? It is merely a +telegraphic cipher. You have conjured up a malignant chimera; rest +assured it is only a dingy red-paper balloon, with a flickering taper +inside. Good night. Pray allow no compunctious qualms to disturb the +peace of your Methodist conscience."</p> + +<p>"No church is responsible for errors of its members, and I wish I could +believe it possible that your Episcopal conscience will allow you a +night of refreshing sleep. For my dear child's sake, I hoped you would +confide in me, and I regret that you withhold the truth. Good night, +sir."</p> + +<p>"Little foster-mother, remember your promise."</p> + +<p>He held out his hand, but she declined the overture and walked away.</p> + +<p>"My Methodist promise will bear any weight laid on it."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Without premonition, a sudden storm had swept over the city that night, +and at two o'clock, when Eglah and Mr. Herriott went down the steps to +enter their carriage, the stone pavement held tiny pools and rills of +water.</p> + +<p>"Wait, Eglah, your slippers will be soaked."</p> + +<p>"I can run across on tiptoe."</p> + +<p>"You shall not! Permit me."</p> + +<p>He stooped, lifted her from the lower step, and placed her on the +cushioned seat.</p> + +<p>"How strong you are!" she said, laughing, as he entered the carriage and +sat down opposite, not beside her.</p> + +<p>"Physically—yes. If my force of will equalled my nerves and muscles, I +should be a much happier man."</p> + +<p>"Infirmity of will? You,—the most obstinate man I ever met! How little +you know yourself!"</p> + +<p>"You are so sure you read me aright, perhaps you understand why all the +strength of my manhood has not saved me from staking my earthly hopes on +a venture that may be fatal. Can you explain?"</p> + +<p>"Is it some scientific scheme? Some theory that may prove a delusion?"</p> + +<p>"It is simply the possibility that the woman I love will not give me her +heart. Eglah, I have been patient. I wished you to see and know other +men—to form your own ideal, to compare me with some more brilliant and +attractive—before I asked for your love. Since the day I first saw +you—a grieved child—at Nutwood, my heart has been entirely yours, and +all my future is gilded with the hope of a home in which you will reign +as my wife. I bring you the one unshared love of my life. May I have the +blessed assurance that you will accept it?"</p> + +<p>For some seconds Eglah neither moved nor spoke; then she slipped down on +her knees and laid her head on his hands, that were folded together.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel—dear Mr. Noel—I will never marry. Only one man in all the +world is necessary to my happiness, and he is my father. What you tell +me now is a surprise—a painful surprise to me—because I never thought +of you as of some who flattered and even some who have asked my hand. +You were always my best friend, my wise, sympathetic companion, and I +never could think of you as desiring or needing any woman's affection. +You have seemed unlike other men I meet in society, and I believed you +cared most for books and scientific experiments, though I thought you +always felt a very kind, friendly, brotherly interest in me. Oh, I am so +sorry you have uttered such words to-night! You must know I am not like +other women in our circle, and I have no intention of marrying. If I +should select any man to love it might be you, because I respect and +trust you so profoundly; but that could never happen to me. What have I +inadvertently done to make you misjudge my feelings? You must forgive +me. I never suspected."</p> + +<p>As she pressed her face against his hands he felt her lips trembling, +and his struggle for self-control was short and fierce. After a moment, +he raised and replaced her on the seat and sat beside her.</p> + +<p>"I can reproach only myself for a delusion that costs me more than you +will ever know. In my loneliness the dream was so beautiful. I could not +resist its fascination. Dear little girl, you are the only one I ever +wished or asked to be my wife, and because you are so precious to me I +will not surrender my hope, unless you force me. Remember the long years +I have waited for you. In time, perhaps, you might learn to care for me. +May I entreat you to try?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, I trust you, I admire you—in a way I feel attached to +you—but I must tell you the truth. I shall marry no one, not even you."</p> + +<p>"Then I shall never repeat my folly. Be sure I will vex you no more; +but there is something you can do to lessen my pain. If trouble or disaster +or sorrow overtake you, will you promise to confide in me, to allow me +to share it, as if I were indeed that elder brother you have tried to +believe me?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mr. Noel. After father I will always turn next to you, and you +must not condemn me because, unintentionally, I have been so unfortunate +as to hurt you."</p> + +<p>"For several reasons I wish your father to know at once all that has +been said to-night. He is aware of my intentions, and kind enough to +approve them. One final request I trust you will not refuse me. The +visit to my house on the Lake has been definitely arranged, and I +particularly desire that no change of plan should be made. Henceforth no +word of mine will ever recall this interview, and during your stay under +my roof I assure you no allusion to my dead hopes shall annoy you. Trust +me, and come."</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The carriage stopped at Senator Kent's door. As Mr. Herriott led her up +the steps, she noticed he barely touched her arm, and when he rang the +bell she caught his hand between both of hers.</p> + +<p>"Dear Mr. Noel—you do forgive me?"</p> + +<p>A neighboring lamp shone full on his handsome face, pale and set, and a +sudden consciousness of the unusual charm of his noble personality +thrilled her. Withdrawing his hand, he held it behind him, and, as he +looked down at her, his lips twitched.</p> + +<p>"You have done me no wrong by simply following the true, womanly +dictates of your pure heart. Marriage without genuine love is a +degradation to which you could never stoop. I will love you always, +always; but I find it hard to forgive myself for making utter shipwreck +of a man's dearest aim in life. Good night."</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Mitchell opened the door, he turned away and went swiftly into +the street.</p> + +<p>"Eglah! What is the matter? You are crying."</p> + +<p>"How can I help it when I have hurt the noblest man in all the +world—except father? My one true friend, who never failed to be good to +me!"</p> + +<p>"You have refused to marry Mr. Herriott? My baby, you will never find +his equal. Your father can scarcely forgive this defeat of his pet +scheme, dating from the time you were ten years old."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> + + +<p>"Herriott, I owe you an apology for coming so late, but feel quite sure +you will pardon a delay that was unavoidable. I have kept your dinner +waiting half an hour."</p> + +<p>"No matter, provided you bring an appetite that can defy overdone fish. +I am glad it is only delay, and not total failure. Vernon, you look so +spent, may I venture to offer your reverence a tonic—club-labelled +'cocktail'? It is the best antidote I dare suggest for the slow method +of suicide you have adopted."</p> + +<p>"Thank you—no."</p> + +<p>"Then come in to dinner."</p> + +<p>"I wasted the whole afternoon trying to find a boy down on the East +Side, but when at last I reached the house I was told he had moved from +that neighborhood. He is a soloist at St. Hyacinth's, and I had promised +him a booklet."</p> + +<p>"Leighton Dane?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. What do you know of him?"</p> + +<p>"That he will sing no more at St. Hyacinth's. Henceforth his solos +belong to choirs beyond the stars. The boy is slowly dying of +consumption."</p> + +<p>"When did you see him?"</p> + +<p>"A few days ago. He is at No. 980 —— Street, Brooklyn. Your cousin +Eglah asked me to keep an eye on him. Poor little lad! His battle with +pain and loneliness is pathetic, and I rather think the end is not far +off."</p> + +<p>"Loneliness? Who takes care of him?"</p> + +<p>"His mother is away all day at her work, but an old German and his wife +living on the same floor of the tenement look after him as best they +can."</p> + +<p>"Could you deliver the book to him?"</p> + +<p>"If you wish it; but why not make another effort to see him?"</p> + +<p>"My hands are so full. In two days I must run down to Washington, and +then back home, where I am needed. How luxurious your quarters are! Less +like a bachelor's den than one would expect."</p> + +<p>"Next week I give up these rooms, and when I chance to be in the city +shall live at the club."</p> + +<p>"Is not this decision rather sudden?"</p> + +<p>"No. For some time I have contemplated another expedition to Arizona and +Montana, in quest of prehistoric records needed for an anthropological +paper that Professor De Wette asked me to contribute to the next volume +of Reports."</p> + +<p>"What date have you fixed?"</p> + +<p>"About the middle of July, immediately after the visit to 'Greyledge,' +which Senator Kent and Eglah have promised as soon as Congress adjourns. +I am sorry you could not arrange to join the small 'house party,' and +rest yourself by fishing in the Lake, instead of the turbid pools of +humanity."</p> + +<p>"What about Calvary House? We expect you there."</p> + +<p>"That pleasure must be deferred; but I have thought a good deal about +your need of more ground there, and believe I have found just what you +want. Come into the library, it is cooler, and I have some papers for +you. You know the Ravenal lands—some twenty acres—lie across "Tangled +Brook," west of your lines. The property was sold recently by the +trustees and my agent bought it. Now you can easily bridge the stream, +using the foundation of the old paper-mill dam, and by extending your +fences cover the whole. I know the old farmhouse was burned years ago, +but those pasture lands are fine, and that hill sloping south will make +a good vineyard. Here are all the papers, and my deed to the +Brotherhood. Stop! No thanks, not a word, or I cancel the transfer. Some +day, when I visit you, I may not be welcome, because I promise you now, +if your stewardship does not suit me and things seem mismanaged, I will +most certainly turn you all out."</p> + +<p>Father Temple laid the bundle of papers on the table and grasped Mr. +Herriott's hand, pressing it warmly, but something in the bright, steady +grey eyes warned him to attempt no verbal expression of gratitude.</p> + +<p>His host lighted a cigar, and drew from a stand near his elbow a +portfolio tied with purple tape.</p> + +<p>"Does your reverence ever waste time now in sketches and water-color?"</p> + +<p>"Life is far too strenuous for such trifling."</p> + +<p>"How do you know that some day you will not be required to dig up that +buried talent and answer the charge of neglecting to bring in the +expected interest? Nature intended you for one of her artistic +interpreters, and if you had been loyal to her commission you might rank +to-day as R.A. Last summer I was searching an old trunk for a college +text-book, when I happened to find some of your drawings, that were +packed by mistake with my luggage in the bustle of leaving the +university."</p> + +<p>From the pile of loose sheets he held up one, and, after a moment's +survey, in which he turned it at various angles, he handed it to his +guest.</p> + +<p>Father Temple was leaning back in a cushioned arm-chair, and against the +violet velvet background his pale, placid, scholarly face was sharply +silhouetted. Listlessly raising the sketch sidewise, so that a gas jet +on his left shone upon it, he looked at it. The profound repose that +habitually rested on his countenance broke up swiftly, as a sleeping +pool shivers when a stone is hurled into its motionless depths. His lips +whitened, and he laid the paper as a screen over his eyes. Mr. Herriott +crossed the floor to the door of the dining-room, and, loitering +deliberately, ordered coffee. When he came back, followed by a servant +bearing coffee and liqueurs, the priest was standing at an open window, +and in the clenched fingers of the hands clasped behind him the sketch +quivered as though shaken by the wind.</p> + +<p>"Close the door, Hawkins, and when I want you I will ring. Come, Vernon; +I remember your fondness for coffee, and this is good and piping hot."</p> + +<p>The thin figure in the girded cassock shook his head and leaned out of +the window, staring up at the golden stars throbbing above the roar and +din of the crowded street.</p> + +<p>After some minutes, during which the host rattled cups and glasses, +Father Temple walked up and down the room, then came back to the table. +The despairing sorrow in his deep, soft eyes made Mr. Herriott rise +instantly.</p> + +<p>"Vernon, have I wounded you by my reminiscent babble of college days?"</p> + +<p>Without a word, the arms of the priest were lifted to the man towering +over him, and he laid his head on the shoulder of one who had never +failed him.</p> + +<p>"Temple, forgive me, dear old fellow, if I have broken rudely into some +sacred, sealed chamber."</p> + +<p>"You have done me a priceless kindness in restoring my picture, but with +it comes the hour of humiliation I always knew must sooner or later +overtake me. Noel, your good opinion is so precious to me I shrink from +losing it. I have dreaded your condemnation next to that of my God. You +always trusted and respected me, even in what you deemed foolish monkish +extremes, and yet—and yet——"</p> + +<p>"Sit down, and pull yourself together. You have fasted and prayed your +starved nerves into a fit of womanish hysteria. I am no father confessor +for you, and if you are not the true, loyal man I have believed you all +these years, then, while you are under my roof, I prefer not to find out +that you are a hypocrite."</p> + +<p>He pushed his friend back into the easy chair, and handed him a glass of +chartreuse, but it was put aside.</p> + +<p>"Noel, you must hear me. After the first bitterness I shall feel +relieved that you know literally all I can tell, and then you will +understand many things in my life. To-day I am what I am, simply and +solely in the hope of expiating the sin of my youth. Noel, the sin of my +youth found me out early, and this life I lead is an attempted +atonement. Do you begin to understand?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott held up the sketch, and, as he struck it sharply with his +fingers, his face darkened.</p> + +<p>"Whose portrait is this?"</p> + +<p>"The woman—the young girl—whose life I blighted."</p> + +<p>"Good God! Blighted? Is your villainy so black?"</p> + +<p>"I am Father Temple, vowed to celibacy, and somewhere in the wide, cruel +world a wife and child of mine may have gone down to perdition because I +was a coward—a vile coward, too base for a brave man to recognize. I +knew you would despise me, and I kept silent as long as I could. Do you +wonder?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott stood over him like an avenging Viking.</p> + +<p>"You betrayed a woman? Wife, or victim of——"</p> + +<p>"Both. I married and I deserted her."</p> + +<p>"The marriage was legal—no swindling sham?"</p> + +<p>"Legal in form, though I was a minor and she a mere child."</p> + +<p>"And you ensnared her deliberately, intending to——"</p> + +<p>The priest sprang to his feet and his eyes flashed.</p> + +<p>"I loved her, and married her secretly, and intended no wrong; but +before I could publicly claim her—before I was of age and dared to face +my father with the fact of my marriage—I lost her. She disappeared as +completely as if the ocean rolled over her."</p> + +<p>"Is this the unvarnished truth? There is nothing worse, nothing more +heinous than what you have told me?" Mr. Herriott breathed quickly, as +his keen, cold eyes searched severely the wan face before him.</p> + +<p>"I have told you the whole, bitter truth."</p> + +<p>"Then I have not entirely lost my friend. Now sit down; begin at the +beginning of this black business, and let me try to share your load of +trouble. Don't hurry—be explicit. Keep back nothing. If you intended no +wrong, there must and shall be found some way to right it."</p> + +<p>"Too late! If you take a white flower and inhale its perfume, and then +carelessly drop it where hurrying crowds are sure to trample it into the +dust, what hope that, search as you may, you will ever find it, or, +finding it, be able to restore the torn, soiled, ruined petals? Wherever +she is, no matter what she has become, what sin and shame stain and +defile her, she is my wife. I swore before God I would take her for my +wife, 'for better, for worse,' and though it is my fault—and mine +only—that I did not publish the marriage, I have kept my vows, and am +dedicated to life-long celibacy. My boyish cowardice—what awful +shipwreck it has made of two lives! You want the details? It is a +shameful story, but not long. In the early summer of my nineteenth year +I spent vacation in the far Northwest, at an advanced army station, +Post ——, where father was in command of his regiment. Hunting was fine +but dangerous, as Indians on the frontier were ugly just then, and +several tribes were painting for the war path. One hot afternoon, +tramping back to camp with my rifle on my shoulder, I went down a steep, +wooded hill to drink at a spring, and as I parted the thick growth I saw +a cow chewing her cud, while a bare-footed girl stooped and milked into +a cedar pail. She sprang up, much alarmed, and stood against a glowing +background of scarlet rhododendrons. Her calico bonnet had fallen off, +her sleeves rolled up showed her white, dimpled arms, and all over her +head and shoulders the gold-colored hair was twisted into little curls +and waves and tendrils that glittered like gilt wire. As she stared at +me with large purplish-blue eyes, her bright red lips trembled, and—" +He paused, and involuntarily wrung his thin white hands.</p> + +<p>"I had seen handsome women, and many lovely girls, but never so +exquisite a creature as this, and from that moment I lost reason, +prudence, everything but conscience, and my heritage of honorable +instincts. Nona Moorland was the daughter of a teamster attached to +father's command; a brutal, rough man, whose second wife—a selfish, +jealous virago—made the step-daughter's life a cruel burden. They +occupied a log cabin just outside the Post parade grounds, and the girl +was never allowed in sight of drill lines except when under convoy of +the stepmother she assisted in carrying to headquarters the freshly +laundered clothes of the officers. Having been forbidden, under threat +of corporeal punishment, to speak to or be seen with any soldier, save +in her father's cabin, she was terrified at the danger of a discovery of +our acquaintance; hence our interviews were secret, and adroitly +arranged to elude suspicion. Her extraordinary personal beauty and +gentleness of deportment more than compensated for illiteracy and humble +origin, and after a few days I planned a clandestine marriage, to which +she readily assented. The Post chaplain had made a pet of me, because I +aided him in some botanical and geological tramps close to the frontier, +and finally he consented to help us, provided his agency was never +betrayed. We both swore we would not divulge his name or knowledge of +our scheme, and so one starry night he and Hill, a private soldier who +went as witness, stole out, and met Nona and me in a dense grove of +trees near Moorland's cabin. There we were married according to the +ritual of the Episcopal Church. I was not quite nineteen, she a slender +girl just past her fifteenth birthday. Under the quiet stars that shone +as our altar lights, we took solemn, life-long vows as husband and wife, +and there, when a written certificate had been given to Nona, we all +joined hands and pledged ourselves in the sight of God to keep the +secret until I was of age, or thought it prudent to publish the +marriage. To her I meant no more wrong than to myself, and kept to the +form of law, knowing we were minors, and that no license legalized the +ceremony which I believed and argued the Church sanctified. You knew my +father sufficiently well to remember how terribly stern he was, how +morose he often seemed, and I dared not defy him. For three weeks life +was a brief vision of heaven to Nona and me. She was so lovely, so +tender, so humbly conscious of her social inferiority and lack of +education, so fired with an ambitious zeal for culture and improvement +to fit herself for the circle where Colonel Temple's son was born to +move. Then the bolt fell. A courier from the nearest telegraph station +brought news that father had been promoted, was ordered to Washington, +and would soon go abroad on some military commission. I begged to spend +the remaining days of my vacation at Post ——, but was sharply refused, +and all things were ordered in readiness for our departure next day at +sunrise."</p> + +<p>Some overwhelming memory arrested the narrative, and Father Temple held +the portrait sketch toward the light. Then he crossed his arms on the +table and bowed his face upon them. The room was very still, and there +seemed suddenly a startling insistence in the harsh sound of an organ +that began to grind out "O promise me," on the pavement below. Mr. +Herriott threw down a coin, closed the window, and resumed his seat.</p> + +<p>"Noel, you must think me weak and unmanly. You are so strong yourself, +you can scarcely——"</p> + +<p>"Strong? I think if I had to carry your burden I should go out and hang +myself."</p> + +<p>"That last interview is a perpetual nightmare no noon sunshine ever +dispels. Nona was frantic at the unexpectedly sudden separation, and she +clung to me like a drowning child; but by degrees she accepted the +inevitable, and her trust in me was supreme. She would be patient, and +study books the chaplain would provide, and rely on him to forward her +letters, and receive and find means to deliver mine. A full moon showed +me her tearful face when we stood up to say good-bye. Oh, beautiful, +tender, devoted, and pure as any lily God ever set to bloom in a wicked +world! As I took her in my arms, she kissed me repeatedly, and I felt +her lips tremble on mine as she sobbed:</p> + +<p>"'No matter what happens, you must trust me as perfectly as I trust you. +If we keep true to each other, all the world can't part us long.'</p> + +<p>"That farewell vision abides with me—sleeping, it walks as a living +presence through my dreams; waking, it thrusts itself between me and my +God; and when I kneel before the marble image of the Mother of my Lord, +her holy face is hidden by that of my fair, sweet young wife. It has +become an obsession from which I cannot escape. After I went east, two +letters reached me; then, in the late autumn when father had sailed, I +was stricken with typhoid fever, that kept me prisoner for three months, +and the inflammatory rheumatism that followed it so completely wrecked +me, I was carried to the country home of an aunt in Massachusetts, in +whose care father left me when he went to Europe. In my convalescence I +wrote repeatedly under cover to the chaplain, signing only my middle +name, Pembroke, but heard nothing until the next June. While still on +crutches, I went for a day's visit to college to collect and pack my +belongings, and there I found one dusty, mislaid letter from Nona, full +of sad forebodings. The chaplain had wandered too far away to a mountain +range, accompanied only by an orderly, who reported on his return that +his companion had been scalped by Indians while he was examining some +rock ledges, and that he had barely escaped by desperate riding. A +cavalry troop, sent out to recover the body and avenge the death, was +ambushed in a wooded defile and four troopers were killed, among the +number Hill. The letter had been written in January—five months before. +Both witnesses of our marriage in the grave! Anxiety and distress +brought on renewal of rheumatic fever, and I was crippled in hands and +feet for six terrible weeks. One day, as I was trying my ability to walk +about the room, a delayed letter was forwarded from college—the last I +ever received from Nona. Her father had died very suddenly from +congestion of the lungs, and his wife returned immediately to her family +in Arkansas; but because of my poor Nona's condition, which had +subjected her to severe abuse and horrible accusations, the stepmother +had cast her off, refused her recognition, and abandoned her. Because +she refused to divulge the name of her husband, her declaration that she +was a wife only increased the torrent of insults that swept her beyond +the pale of respectability. She wrote that one friend—the only person +who believed her assertion that she had been lawfully married—was just +then leaving the Post for his old home, his time of service having +expired, and he had kindly carried her in a covered wagon to a small +village some days' travel east of the Post, where he found shelter for +her until after the birth of her child. She begged I would send money to +pay her board and also to enable her to travel east and live near me, +because she was so terror-stricken among strangers. The same day my +father summoned me to Europe, having decided I should attend lectures +in Germany and at Oxford. By express, I forwarded the money to +Nona, in accordance with her directions—"Care of Delia Brown, +Thompsonville, —— Territory"—and I wrote her, explaining all the +circumstances, assuring her I would join her as soon as I could travel, +and that henceforth we should never be separated. A few hours later I +was laid up with a severe relapse, and when, finally, I started west in +September, I was still so lame any movement was torture. At last the +stage coach put me down at the cluster of log houses called +Thompsonville, and by the aid of crutches I found my way to a low, dark +cabin of two rooms, where Delia Brown made a scanty living by washing +and ironing for men attached to a party of prospecting miners. She was +a gaunt, sinister looking woman from Maine, with small, deep-set, faded +yellow eyes that bored like a gimlet, and as she took a pipe from her +ugly bluish lips and greeted me my heart sank. Where was Nona? Gone—with +the man who brought her there, and who 'paid well for her keep.' When? +Several weeks ago. Did she receive my letter, and had the money reached +her? Yes, the money had been delivered to her—Delia Brown—and she had +given it to the woman Nona, in the presence of one Josh' Smith. My +letter had seemed to terrify the woman, and as soon as she knew I was +coming she went away suddenly, saying she was going to New Orleans, and +she and the man could take care of the baby. What was the man's name? He +called himself Lay' Walker, but she doubted 'if he was not somebody else, +and folks had their suspicions about the whole affair.' The baby boy was +four months old when the man and woman took it away, but it was 'such a +poor, puny, ailing child it had little chance to live.' What I suffered +then only God will ever know, but faith in Nona sustained me while I +went from cabin to cabin, receiving on all sides confirmation of Delia +Brown's statements from women who had met her, and also from the mail +and express agent—Josh' Smith—who assured me he had delivered the +letter and package of money addressed to Nona Moorland, care of Delia +Brown, to the latter, and exhibited her receipt. Lay' Walker was +described as a very 'handsome Spanish-looking young fellow,' and he and +the woman seemed fond of each other. He spent his money freely on her, +and talked about Florida and banana growing, and said they wanted to get +to New Orleans, where his friends had a schooner running in the West +India fruit trade. After an exhaustive search, I made my way to New +Orleans and engaged police assistance, but no clue could be found. Then I +arranged advertisements to run six months, and went on to Pensacola and +to Tampa. I advertised in two Florida newspapers, asking Nona Moorland +to write to me, care of my father's lawyer in Boston. No response, no +word, no hint ever reached me. When December arrived and I had no +tidings, I deposited money in a Boston bank to the credit of Nona +Moorland, and leaving instructions that all mail matter should be +forwarded promptly to me, I sailed for Europe, shattered in body, almost +hopeless, and the tortured prey of remorseful regret at the awful +consequence of my midsummer madness."</p> + +<p>A nervous shiver seized him, and he lifted the chartreuse to his +colorless lips.</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott's sinewy brown hand closed over the cold white fingers half +hidden in the folds of the black cassock.</p> + +<p>"And the woman, Delia Brown? What became of her?"</p> + +<p>"How should I know?"</p> + +<p>"There lies the crux of this dreadful entanglement. She duped you."</p> + +<p>"Possibly. When I left Thompsonville she was preparing to remove to +Maine, where she had relatives. I doubted her as long as I could; but +nearly eleven years of cruel silence have slowly destroyed every vestige +of hope, or of faith in Nona's loyalty. Understand, I do not accuse +her—I dare not—I accept the blame. The fault was mine; she was an +innocent, ignorant child, and what she considered my heartless, wicked +desertion has thrown her into the jaws of destruction. If her soul is +lost, God will require me to answer for the ruin—and that is the +bitterness of my intolerable life. The immortal soul of my wife, of the +mother of my child—a homeless, nameless, fatherless waif! I hold +marriage indissoluble by human enactment, and while Nona lives I regard +her as my wife, no matter what she has become, no matter into what +shameful career she may have been driven by my cowardly course of +action. When she believed I had abandoned her, the poor girl doubtless +grew desperate. What I have told you is known only to my confessor, to +the Superior of our Order in England, where I took my vows, and to my +father, to whom I promptly confided everything when I joined him in +Germany just before his death. That he refused to forgive me you will +readily believe. This sketch you have restored to me was enlarged from +one I made at Post ——, and its loss greatly grieved me. Oh, Noel, +stinging memory is more merciless than sharp-set hair shirts that fret +the flesh. When I see happy mothers and children, their laughter smites +my heart like an iron hand; and while I minister to the suffering +outcast little ones in pauper homes, my bruised soul seems to hear the +accusing, piteous cry of my own forsaken, lost lamb—thrown out to +hungry wolves."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> + + +<p>Sabbath quietude had laid a finger on thousands of metal lips that +screamed the song of labor on other days, and the great city seemed +almost asleep as Mr. Herriott entered his carriage at ten o'clock and +gave the order, "Brooklyn—Fulton Ferry." After a restless night, spent +in searching an old diary for dates and notes, he had gradually untied +some knotted memories—vague and conflicting—and straightened a slender +thread that might possibly guide to the identification of an elusive +personality. On the seat in front of him a basket of purple grapes added +their fruity fragrance to the perfume of a bunch of white carnations, +and during the long drive the expression of perplexity which had knitted +his brows relaxed into the alert placidity that characterized his strong +face.</p> + +<p>Summer heat, blown in by a humid south wind, touched the sky with an +intense blue, against which one long, thin curl of cloud shone like a +silver feather, and Brooklyn parks and lawns shook their green banners +of grass blades and young, silken foliage. In the middle of a block of +old brick tenement houses, Mr. Herriott entered an open door, where two +children fought over a wailing black kitten, and went up the inner +stairway to a narrow hall, on which opened several doors bearing cards +inscribed with the name of occupants of the rooms. At one, labelled +"Mrs. Dane," he rapped. It was opened partly, and held ajar.</p> + +<p>"Well, who knocked?"</p> + +<p>"One of Leighton's friends. Can I see him?"</p> + +<p>"Not to-day. He is not well enough for visitors."</p> + +<p>"May I come in and see you?"</p> + +<p>"Why should you? What do you want?"</p> + +<p>Before he could reply, a weak voice pleaded:</p> + +<p>"Please, mother! It is Mr. Herriott: let him in. He has been so good to +me—please—please!"</p> + +<p>"If I do, you are not to talk and bring back that spell of coughing."</p> + +<p>The door was swung fully open, and Mr. Herriott confronted "Juno."</p> + +<p>"You are Mr. Herriott, as I supposed. Walk in, and excuse the confusion +of the rooms. I was up all night, and have not put things in order."</p> + +<p>She wore a dark skirt and white muslin sacque, loose at the throat, +ungirded, and the sleeves were rolled up, exposing the symmetry of her +dimpled white arms. A rich, lovely red stained her lips and +cheeks—perhaps from embarrassment, probably from the heat of the +oil-stove, on which, evidently, breakfast had been recently prepared. +She pointed to an adjoining room, where Leighton lay on a cot close to +the open window.</p> + +<p>"Oh, sir, are they really for me?" as Mr. Herriott laid the basket and +flowers beside him.</p> + +<p>"Look, mother! Grapes, grapes! And the smell of the carnations! Was +there ever anything so sweet? I don't know how to thank you, sir. I wish +I could say something, but when my heart is full I just can't tell it."</p> + +<p>His little hot hand caught Mr. Herriott's, and the thin fingers twined +caressingly about it.</p> + +<p>"You are not to thank me, and you must not talk. Remember, that was the +condition upon which I was allowed to see you. Eat your grapes while +your mother tells me about you."</p> + +<p>"You will spoil him. I can't give him such luxuries as hothouse fruit +and flowers, though now and then he has his bunch of violets."</p> + +<p>"When was the doctor here?"</p> + + +<p>"Friday. He changed the medicine, but I can see no benefit as yet."</p> + +<p>"If you think it would not tire him too much, I should like to take him +out for a drive."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, but I could not consent to that."</p> + +<p>"Why not? The fresh air is balmy to-day, and would do him good. I have a +carriage at the door, and if you are unwilling to trust the boy with me, +I should be glad to take you also. May I?"</p> + +<p>Her blue eyes glittered and her lips straightened their curves.</p> + +<p>"Most certainly not."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, madam; my interest in your child——"</p> + +<p>"Does not justify a man of your position in taking a 'department store +saleswoman' to drive on Sunday through public places."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you are right. Then I shall efface myself promptly, and you and +Leighton can keep the carriage as long as you like."</p> + +<p>"Such favors I accept from no man."</p> + +<p>"Not even to help your sick boy?"</p> + +<p>She put her hand on the child's shining curls, and a world of tenderness +glorified her velvet eyes.</p> + +<p>"Not even for my very own baby could I incur such an obligation."</p> + +<p>"Smell them, mother—like spice! Don't they make you think of the +carnation garden in San Francisco, where Uncle Dane used to carry us?"</p> + +<p>"How long ago was that, Leighton?" asked Mr. Herriott, watching the +woman's face.</p> + +<p>"Oh, it was when I was a little chap and wore frocks."</p> + +<p>"Were you born in San Francisco?"</p> + +<p>"No. He was born in —— Territory."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Dane, can you tell me what became of the artist Belmont?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you ask me that question?"</p> + +<p>"In order to get an answer. He painted your face for his 'Aurora,' and +the picture was photographed."</p> + +<p>"Yes; I needed money, and Mr. Dane permitted him to come to our house +for the sittings. That was my first and last experience as a model."</p> + +<p>"I have met you before."</p> + +<p>She straightened herself, and answered defiantly:</p> + +<p>"Probably I have sold you gloves, or socks, or handkerchiefs—certainly +not the right to meddle with my personal affairs."</p> + +<p>"I went with a San Francisco friend to see a night school for women, +which his mother had established. You were there."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I was there two winters. Now, sir, have you a police badge hidden +inside your coat? Are you playing reporter—disguised as a benevolent +gentleman—hunting up the details of last night's meeting and riot at +Newark? You know, of course, that I made a speech there?"</p> + +<p>"Indeed? I had imagined you sat up all night with your sick boy."</p> + +<p>"There is a strike on down there, and I spoke against arbitrating labor +grievances, and against the ghastly sham of getting the rights of the +poor from a picked judge and a packed jury. Bombs and boycott make the +best mill for grinding out justice to starving, over-worked men and +women."</p> + +<p>"How long have you been an 'anarchist,' or perhaps you prefer the term +'socialist'?"</p> + +<p>"From the day I was sixteen years old, and learned how rich men trample +and betray and despise and insult the ignorant, helpless poor."</p> + +<p>"It must have been a terribly cruel grievance that transformed into a +fury one who was intended for a loving, gentle woman."</p> + +<p>She laughed, and her beautiful teeth took hold of the glowing under lip.</p> + +<p>"Grievance? We all have one—we are simply born to suffer, as to +breathe—but the unendurable the unpardonable comes from the grasping, +murderous, fiendish selfishness of rich men. You have been so kind to my +boy, I have tried hard to believe genuine benevolence—what you are +pleased to call 'Christian philanthropy'—inspired your visits to him +during my absence, but you are all alike—you gilded society +sultans—and you come here with some cowardly design carefully smothered +under flowers, fruit, and candy. So, Leighton, make the most of to-day, +for we will see no more of your Mr. Herriott."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I shall be as frank as you have shown yourself. There is one +woman in this world whose wishes rule me absolutely, and because she +requested me to see your child now and then, I have come several times, +until my sympathetic interest equals hers. With your career in New York +I am acquainted. For your radical views and utterances I have neither +respect nor toleration, yet, if you will permit me to explain, there are +reasons that lead me to believe I can do you a very great service."</p> + +<p>"I am not in need of service from any man. Your formula has not even the +ring of originality; I have heard such sickening reiterations of it from +false, bearded lips."</p> + +<p>"That you have been a cruelly wronged woman I feel assured, but I am +equally certain that your worst enemy was no man—was one of your own +sex. For your own sake, will you answer two questions?"</p> + +<p>"For my own sake, I distinctly refuse to be catechised by impertinent +strangers."</p> + +<p>"Oh, mother; please mother! He has been so good to me, how could he mean +harm to you? Don't worry her, Mr. Herriott. She can't abide men; they +fret her, and she hates them—unless they are starved and ragged. Please +let her alone, and look at my doves. They come for the crumbs on the +window sill. See! Here is a new one, pure white. Mother, scatter some +bread on the sheet and they will come in."</p> + +<p>She sprinkled some scraps of cake close to his pillow, and, after a +little coy skirmishing, the pigeons fluttered in to the feast; but just +then a spell of coughing shook the fragile form on the cot, and with a +flash and whirr the flock vanished. Mrs. Dane lifted the boy and fanned +him, wiping away the moisture that beaded his clustering curls, and Mr. +Herriott piled the pillows and cushions behind his shaking shoulders. +When the paroxysm ended, and Leighton lay wan and spent, the visitor +leaned over him.</p> + +<p>"I should like to do several things for you, but your mother will not +permit me. Miss Kent wishes you to know she remembers you with interest, +and hopes to hear you sing again. The stranger who preached at St. +Hyacinth's has not forgotten the poem he promised you, and will bring it +soon. I saw him last night. Now, I must say good-bye for to-day. Don't +try to speak, I understand everything."</p> + +<p>Silently Mrs. Dane followed him to the door. Across the threshold, he +turned and lowered his voice.</p> + +<p>"A sea voyage is the only thing that will prolong his life. With your +consent, it can be arranged at once."</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Madam, I find I must revise my ideals of maternal devotion. You punish +your innocent child for the sins of those who blighted your youth? You +harangue a rabble in favor of 'justice' and deny it to a dying boy."</p> + +<p>She caught her breath, leaned against the wall, and covered her face +with her hands. When he saw it again the color had ebbed, the lovely +eyes were darkened by unshed tears, and the lips were beyond her +control.</p> + +<p>"My baby—my fatherless little one! Ever since he was born I have +struggled so hard to keep his mother's name clean—his mother's name, +all he had—clean and beyond reproach! Do you suppose that now, at the +last, I would put myself under obligation to a rich man? We may die +paupers, he and I, but when we go to the Potter's Field—the only +undisputed land labor can claim—we go free, honest, and unblemished, +and if there was a God, I could hold up my baby and demand why He had +cursed us both in our innocence."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry that the circumstances coloring your life have destroyed +every vestige of confidence in man's honor, yet I have no alternative +but to accept your decision, and I wish you good morning."</p> + +<p>He lifted his hat, and had gone half way down the stairs, when she +followed and touched his sleeve.</p> + +<p>"I did not thank you for much goodness to my child, but I do want to say +I am not ungrateful; only I have had so little to be thankful for, I +don't quite know how to phrase gratitude. The world has been so hard to +me I am suspicious of every rich man in your social circle. You see, my +face has handicapped me always——"</p> + +<p>She set her teeth and struck one palm resentfully against her cheek, and +the passionate, pent-up cry of years of suffering broke through the next +words.</p> + +<p>"Yes, my face has been my curse, and it was the steel trap that snapped +chains on me when I was only a child. Kindness to my Leighton is the one +thing that touches what is left of my heart; and how do you suppose I +can bear now to listen to his sobbing yonder, because he thinks I have +rudely driven you away? Oh, my pretty baby! My own beautiful little one! +Cast out, with only his girl-mother to fight for him against this cruel +world! And now if I lose him, if my all is taken away from me——"</p> + +<p>She wrung her hands, and the blanched face was upturned as if +challenging her God.</p> + +<p>"Madam, I understand fully, and I intend to help your boy; but be sure I +shall visit him when you are absent. Tell him I shall come, with your +consent, while he is alone; and some day I think you will trust me, even +despite the fact that I happen to have money. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>He held out his hand, but she seemed not to see it, and as she turned +and walked wearily up the steps he went down to his carriage.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> + + +<p>"Miss Kent, it is quite evident that you do not approve of us."</p> + +<p>"Will you be so kind as to explain to whom 'us' refers?"</p> + +<p>"Our great social world, including government, congressional and +diplomatic circles, club life, and all that 'progress' stands for. +Instead of moving abreast with the 'advance' current, you have drifted +aside into an eddy as contracted, as pitiably narrow as—pardon me, we +emancipated new women dare now to speak the brazen truth—as narrow as +the hands and feet you Southerners boast as sign of aristocratic blood."</p> + +<p>Eglah lifted her grey-gloved hand, examined its outlines critically, and +placed it within a few inches of the broad, thick palm which Ethelberta +Higginbottom had laid on her own lap as she sat in the gallery of the +Senate chamber.</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much, Miss Higginbottom. It is traditional in my family +to admire slender fingers, but we are not so intolerant as to deny +others the privilege of occupying as much space as their digits can +cover, and we never brand people as absolutely disreputable because they +wear number six shoes and number seven-and-a-half gloves. If degrees of +latitude determine the height of insteps, what manifest injustice has +been meted out to longitudinal lines that you Westerners so proudly +claim? Probably you have forgotten that my father is from New England, +and he owns a silver caddy—two hundred years old—that was empty at one +time because 'fish drank tea in Boston harbor.'"</p> + +<p>"Oh, but your mother was Southern and you represent not heredity, but +sheredity, a sociological factor of immense potency, which must be +reckoned with, let me tell you, in the near future, when women fully +emancipated come to enjoyment of all the rights so long withheld from +them. Then mothers, and not fathers will wield the destiny of this great +country; and already female colleges are fast spreading the blessed +gospel of free and equal rights. Last week some one asserted that you +were a graduate of —— College, but I contradicted it flatly, as +impossible and absurd."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry I do my dear <i>Alma Mater</i> such lamentable discredit; but, +unfortunately, we were not taught to wear our diplomas on our hats as +advertisements of scholarship."</p> + +<p>"You certainly amaze me!"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps you will excuse my frankness in assuring you that sensation at +least is mutual."</p> + +<p>"With your educational advantages, to lock up your mind in a stockade of +provincialism! Desectionalize yourself!"</p> + +<p>"May I ask whether you spell your last verb with an x or a ct? I should +prefer first to ascertain which process is demanded of me."</p> + +<p>"Your Southern bigotry is a mill-stone around your neck. The very word +'emancipation' is a red rag to old slaveholders and their progeny. You +never can forgive us for breaking the shackles of groaning millions held +in bondage."</p> + +<p>Eglah laughed.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, but it certainly is ludicrous that one possessing your +'broad culture and desectionalized' horizon of thought should really +believe in that old worn-out 'raw-head and bloody-bones' figure of +speech which has done duty so long. It surely is entitled to decent +interment where all dilapidated scarecrows cease from troubling. We +Southern people no more want our negroes back as slaves than you desire +the return of hordes of Indians whom you so completely dispossessed of +their native lands in your 'wild and rapacious West,' and whom a 'white, +fatherly' government is rapidly reducing to extinction by its beneficent +agencies. The white South is 'emancipated' from the moral responsibility +of elevating the black race now so happy in 'national' tutelage, where +their guardians taught them the system of bookkeeping and all the subtle +processes of the 'Freedmen's Bureau.'"</p> + +<p>"How lonely you must feel in Washington. You have no more regard for the +rights of your own sex than for—" She stammered and coughed.</p> + +<p>"Indeed, I have the most affectionate and jealous regard for every right +that inheres in my dower of American womanhood. I claim and enjoy the +right to be as cultured, as learned, as useful, and—if you please—as +ornamental in society and at home as my individual limitations will +permit. I have no wrongs, no grievances, no crying need to usurp lines +of work that will break down the barriers God set between men and women. +I am not in rebellion against legal statutes, nor the canons of +well-established decency and refinement in feminine usage, and, finally, +I am so inordinately proud of being a well-born Southern woman, with a +full complement of honorable great-grandfathers and blue-blooded, +stainless great-grand-mothers, that I have neither pretext nor +inclination to revolt against mankind."</p> + +<p>"Miss Kent, you have rather pretty eyes, but you are so steeped in +Southern—what do you call it—<i>dolce far niente</i>, or <i>laissez faire</i>, +or semi-stagnation of soul that you are too lazy to open them wide +enough to see the thrilling vista of woman's triumph that illumines——"</p> + +<p>"Thank you; my much flattered eyes are sufficiently open at this moment +to perceive the behavior of that nondescript creature in feminine +garments who is flirting so undisguisedly with Senator Smallweed yonder, +on your right; one of the early emancipated—an advanced lobbyist."</p> + +<p>"You mean that piquant, charming little Mrs. Morrison? Dear soul! She is +a pathetically tragic object lesson. Had to get a divorce from a brutal +husband and become a bread-winner. Why should not women lobby? They are +so nimble witted, nature fitted them admirably for such work."</p> + +<p>"And gave them the adroitly nimble fingers to fit the pockets they +pick."</p> + +<p>"That is some cowardly man's cruel slander. My creed is always to defend +my own sex; it is only Christian charity and genuine feminine justice."</p> + +<p>"Provided it be not merely lax morality. Sometimes the distinction is +not clear to very 'advanced,' zealous people."</p> + +<p>"At least your father does not share your narrow harshness. He and Mrs. +Morrison are quite 'chummy,' and I happen to know he sees her often."</p> + +<p>"How could he avoid it? Shoals of sharks swim in Washington, and since +your friend belongs to the 'emancipated' variety, doubtless she indulges +an 'elective affinity' for the largest senatorial prey in sight, and +hungrily shadows him. Yesterday that 'Bison Head' bill she is working +for came to grief in committee, and will be buried to-day. Even sharks +occasionally miss a meal."</p> + +<p>"Oh, you are not up to date! Before the decision was announced one of +the committee weakened, asked for reconsideration; another hurried +meeting was held last night, and the bill will not be reported this +session. Not killed you understand, just tenderly pigeon-holed, securely +wrapped up in parliamentary camphor to scare away opposition moths, and +allowed to sleep while its pretty guardian angel has another session in +which to smooth the way for its final passage."</p> + +<p>At this moment a messenger boy brought a note to Miss Higginbottom, and +Eglah rose.</p> + +<p>"You do not suspect who the <i>weakening</i> member was?"</p> + +<p>"If I cared to ask, I dare say your fair <i>divorcée</i> friend would be able +to enlighten me, but the petty political schemes engineered by lobbyists +do not interest me."</p> + +<p>"One moment, Miss Kent. You did not come to my <i>musicale</i>. I have only +one olive twig left. We entertain a few friends to-morrow night in honor +of a famous Western woman, who will lecture next season on 'Civic +Problems,' for the purpose of raising money to build a vast, up-to-date +club temple, where women can proclaim their views on female right to +suffrage and expansion. May I have the pleasure of presenting you?"</p> + +<p>"You are very kind, Miss Higginbottom, but as we leave Washington at the +end of the week, I regret that I shall not have time for any new +engagements. Pray accept my thanks for several courtesies."</p> + +<p>"I used to wonder why you are so unpopular, but it soon ceased to be a +mystery, and it will be no sacrifice to you to give up Washington, in +retiring from public life. When Senator Kent formally resigns—as is the +burden of a little bird's song that utters no false notes—he will, +doubtless, consign you to a more congenial circle of friends."</p> + +<p>"In saying good-bye, I shall find some solace in the assurance that at +least you will not mourn inconsolably because of my final departure. +Please present my best wishes to Mrs. Higginbottom, who has shown me +much kindness, and whom I may not be able to see again. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>She stood a few seconds, smiling mischievously into the florid face of +the large-featured woman of most certain age, whose light-yellow eyes +flashed back unmistakable malice, then, amid the roar of applause that +greeted the peroration of a white-haired senator in the chamber below, +she quietly stole out of the Capitol, and sought a favorite corner of +the Smithsonian grounds.</p> + +<p>Walking slowly, she asked in a spirit of self-chastisement why she had +allowed waspish stings to provoke a retaliatory tone, at variance with +that cool repose of well-bred urbanity and imperturbable courtesy on +which she prided herself; and was not the condescension of retort an +unladylike and mortifying weakness?</p> + +<p>Now and then come radiant days when a noon sun shines hot, and no +faintest film flecks the stainless blue, yet one grows vaguely conscious +of waning brightness, and gradually the horizon blanches to a deadly +grey, while leaden clouds creep into view like spectral fingers of some +vast hand groping across the sky to smother the sun. Shadows projected +by the invisible unnerve natures that fearlessly face tangible, +well-defined danger, as 'the sallow, weird light preceding an eclipse is +more menacing than its total darkness, where friendly stars still +shine.' For Eglah, the clock of fate had begun to chime that <i>mauvais +quart d'heure</i> which Mrs. Maurice had known would inevitably overtake +her, and the preliminary whirring of the hidden cogs had found her +unprepared. Blind faith in her father's sagacity, political +steadfastness, and incorruptibility, had built a pedestal from which he +smiled down benignantly upon her, making life a festival; but when the +needle of doubt pricked the fine veil love spun across her vision, and +she dared allow herself to question, a shivering and nameless dread +shook her happy young heart, as unexpectedly blighting as a shower of +sleet on an August passion-flower. When Jove nods his worship wanes.</p> + +<p>Since the night of the cotillon, several inexplicable circumstances, +comparatively slight yet cumulative, had perplexed this fond and loyal +daughter, who began to find the maze of Senator Kent's political methods +too tortuous for her exploration.</p> + +<p>Startled by his abrupt reversal of judgment on more than one important +question involving party allegiance, she had sought an explanation, +which he laughingly evaded, and, when she pressed the matter, his +avoidance was marked by an irritability of speech and gesture hitherto +unknown in the domestic circle. The undisguised graciousness of his +demeanor toward Mrs. Morrison had surprised and annoyed her, and she was +painfully astonished by his efforts to conciliate Senator Higginbottom, +who belonged to the opposite party, and was a loud, aggressive, and +hirsute apostle of the silver gospel so dear to his constituency, and so +conducive to his individual interest as a mine owner. Mrs. Higginbottom, +a plain, kind-hearted, motherly old woman, who knew much more of +sheep-shearing and beehives than of fashionable etiquette and diplomatic +technicalities, Eglah had found it possible to receive cordially, but +the daughter, Ethelberta, was an intolerable offence to all her feminine +instincts, and when Judge Kent insisted, with some asperity, that the +"Higginbottoms must be cultivated," the ordeal of playing hostess to +this "advanced and emancipated new woman" proved peculiarly unpleasant. +A certain watchful restlessness in her father's manner did not escape +her notice, nor the recent accession of sphinx-like non-committalism in +Mr. Metcalf, and she pondered uneasily a question of Mrs. Mitchell's:</p> + +<p>"Dearie, did it ever occur to you that in some way Judge Kent seems +rather afraid of Mr. Herriott, or perhaps I should say is always so +guarded in his presence?"</p> + +<p>"Never! Impossible and absurd. He has supreme confidence in him, and +once, not long ago, he scolded me sharply because I could not consider +him head and shoulders above all other men."</p> + +<p>The session of Congress was within two days of its close, and that +morning, as Senator Kent rose from an untasted breakfast, he astounded +Eglah and Eliza by the ejaculation, "God knows, I shall be glad to get +out of this grind!"</p> + +<p>Fearing sickness had robbed him of his appetite, Eglah followed him to +the library, but he waved her back.</p> + +<p>"Metcalf is waiting to show me a paper, and I must not be interrupted. +My dear, my time is not my own—even for you."</p> + +<p>Hitherto she had never been an interruption, and it seemed as if some +iron door was shut suddenly between her life and his. "The Bison Head" +purchase bill, for which Mrs. Morrison flitted to and fro, had been +fought by Senator Kent in committee room, where the contest was close, +but Senator Higginbottom was chairman, and when Miss Ethelberta +announced that a member had "weakened" and the bill might be saved by +postponement, Eglah knew who had changed front, and she began to realize +how ancient pilgrims felt when, at Delphi, the oracle said no to-day and +yes to-morrow. Idolatrous habit was strong; the pedestal trembled, but +it was a far cry to its overthrow, and she wrestled stubbornly to defend +inconsistencies that humiliated and staggered her. Time, the master +magician, would perhaps show her the Senator's reasons woven into a +crown of laurel—as unexpected as the garland of glowing roses that +spring out of a naked sword blade, at the gesture of a juggler. To-day +she recalled her grandmother's softened face with eyes of tender +compassion on that morning when the news of the second marriage had been +brought to Nutwood. After all, was there just cause for the old lady's +contempt and aversion, and were the rumors rife in Y—— shadows of grim +and disgraceful facts that must cling to her father's name, fateful as +the philter of Nessus? The thought stifled her, and she put her hand to +her throat with the old childish habit that always betrayed intolerable +pain. She could not go home—must not meet Eliza's eyes until she +strangled this crouching horror. Through the Smithsonian she wandered, +apparently examining its treasures, but now she saw only the pitying +countenance of her grandmother, and now the malicious triumph in Miss +Higginbottom's eyes, as she exulted in some impending misfortune. +"Formal resignation"—adumbrated by more than one innuendo—portended +the summary collapse of a political career that she had believed would +culminate in elevation to a Cabinet seat during the next administration. +For her, obstinate confidence was to-day the sole refuge, and she set +her teeth as she verified Mrs. Maurice's prediction: "'Though he slay +me, yet will I trust him.' My own father cannot betray the faith of his +loyal child."</p> + +<p>Dreading Eliza's scrutiny, it was with a feeling of temporary relief +that she recollected an engagement to attend a "lawn party" held that +afternoon at a residence whose owner was laboring to raise an endowment +fund for a local charity. When she reached home, a change of costume +gave time to marshal all her defensive forces; and, as she came +downstairs to join her waiting chaperon, Mrs. Mitchell forbore to +comment on the unusual color that burned in her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"Little mother, don't sit up for me. I promised Mrs. Ellerbee to assist +at the flower table, and may be kept late. Be sure you get your beauty +sleep."</p> + +<p>Dinner was delayed an hour beyond the usual time, but Senator Kent did +not appear, and as such deviations from domestic rule had recently +occurred often, and were explained by congestion of business at the +Capitol, incident to approaching adjournment, Mrs. Mitchell took her +meal alone. It was prayer-meeting evening at the Methodist Church in her +neighborhood, and, after the exercises ended, she walked home, took up a +magazine, and tried unsuccessfully to read. The political atmosphere was +so charged with electricity that she felt a crisis was imminent, and +only the extent of the storm was conjectural. How much Eglah suspected +the foster-mother merely surmised, because some inexplicable barrier +seemed, within the past fortnight, built up to limit their free +interchange of thought. It was a sultry, sombre night; city walls and +pavements sent up their garnered heat in quivering waves, and the stars +were blurred and faint as they retreated behind a dim haze that was not +mist. At eleven o'clock the street corner light showed her Senator Kent +walking rapidly. She went into the dining-room to arrange the salad and +cold tea he always enjoyed after missing his dinner, and while he +lingered in the hall Eglah returned. She was bare-headed, very pale, and +her lips fluttered, but a brave, tender smile lighted her eyes, and she +put her arms about his neck and kissed him twice.</p> + +<p>"How tired you poor national Solons must be! But I know one whose day's +work is not yet ended, and who must pick a whole flock of crows with me, +right now. Why did you change your vote on the 'Bison Head' purchase?"</p> + +<p>"Who says I did?"</p> + +<p>His face was deeply flushed, but he laughed and pinched her white cheek.</p> + +<p>"The chairman has a daughter."</p> + +<p>"A leaky gossip. Congressmen ought to be bachelors or childless +widowers; but then, my dear, how could I possibly exist without you?"</p> + +<p>"Father, what induced you to favor a measure you have condemned so +emphatically?"</p> + +<p>"Several good reasons I am much too tired to discuss. Don't forget your +Emerson, who says 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little +minds, adored by little statesmen,' and remember, also, 'a wise man +sometimes changes his mind, a fool never.' The bill will not be reported +till next session, and conditions alter, so <i>après moi le déluge</i>!"</p> + +<p>She walked toward the dining-room, and on the threshold Eliza saw her +put both hands to her throat. Drawing her breath quickly, she turned +back and threw her arms around him.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father! Was it kind, was it merciful to let me learn by chance from +strangers that you have determined to resign your senatorship, to end a +glorious career in which you know my dearest hopes and pride centre?"</p> + +<p>For a moment he made no reply, only clasped her closely, pillowed her +head on his breast, and kissed her cold cheek repeatedly.</p> + +<p>Then he spoke in a husky tone, as a nervous surgeon might, uncertain of +his own diagnosis.</p> + +<p>"My darling girl, I confess it was a cowardly dread of the pain I knew +my decision would cause you, and I very weakly put off the evil day as +long as possible. Immediately after adjournment I intended to tell you +all the plans that seem best for our future, and did not anticipate this +premature disclosure, which is presumptuous impertinence in its author. +In quitting public life even temporarily, my brightest compensation is +the prospect of spending my time in the sweet companionship of my +precious, incomparable daughter. Forgive your old father the arrant +cowardice of keeping silent for a few days."</p> + +<p>She clung to him like a frightened child, and he felt her trembling as +one in an ague.</p> + +<p>"Why must you resign? Why step down when you have a right to expect the +new administration will offer you a place in the Cabinet? Why? Don't +keep back anything from me now."</p> + +<p>"My love, I don't wish to distress you; I shrink from exciting any +alarm, but you certainly have a right to the truth. My health does not +permit the amount of canvassing work that I believe will be required for +my re-election, because our State legislature will be much divided this +presidential campaign over vital issues, both local and national. As my +term expires soon, I think it best to resign now, and avoid grave +complications that threaten our party organization in the State +legislature. Recently I have had premonitions that drove me to consult +Dr. McLemore, and he advises me to withdraw from active political life, +at least for a season. He believes complete rest and freedom from public +responsibility are all that my health demands. I did not wish you to +know this, but you are such an inquisitive monkey, such an arbitrary +minx, that nothing less than the whole truth will satisfy your exacting +reason. Now kiss me, my pretty chestnut burr, and let us pick no more +crows."</p> + +<p>"You have been ill, and we—I—never suspected it?"</p> + +<p>She caught her breath spasmodically, stifling a sob. Her father glanced +significantly at Eliza, who stood beside the table, lifting a pitcher of +iced tea that clinked against its sides in her nervous grasp.</p> + +<p>"I see Mrs. Mitchell—always admirably reliable—has kept her promise to +me. Now she can tell you I had a very severe attack the night we were so +late at Secretary P——'s dinner, and you could not understand my delay +in dressing."</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila! You kept me in ignorance of father's danger, when you should +have warned me?"</p> + +<p>"Your father positively forbade any mention of the matter to you, and as +I never saw or heard of a recurrence of what he assured me was merely +the result of imprudent indulgence in oysters, cheese, and beer, I had +no excuse for disobeying his command to keep silence."</p> + +<p>The little woman's eyes sparkled, and an involuntary curl of her lip did +not escape Eglah's questioning sorrowful gaze.</p> + +<p>"Come, my dear, do not quite strangle what is left of a very tired old +man. Now that explanations are completely over, I feel as happy as a boy +just returned from the dentist's where he left an aching tooth; and +since you know absolutely all that can be told, I should like some tea +dashed with cognac, for I have had a hard, tedious day."</p> + +<p>He unwound her arms, patted her head, and took his seat at the table.</p> + +<p>Eglah squeezed a lemon into a goblet of tea, Eliza stirred the +mayonnaise, and Judge Kent helped himself to an anchovy sandwich, while +he asked whether they had heard the sad news of the sudden death of a +popular attaché of one of the legations, who had been killed an hour +before by the accidental discharge of his own pistol. Heroic efforts +were made by all to avoid the disturbing theme upon which the Senator +had peremptorily rung down the curtain, and to relieve the tension the +trio separated as soon as possible.</p> + +<p>How much of the perfunctory explanation either woman credited neither +could determine, but each refrained from probing the other, and both +endeavored to bridge the crater by that golden silence that knows no +pangs of regretted speech. Lying wide awake, Mrs. Mitchell noted the +slow passage of the heavy hours, and day was just below the eastern sky +line when the sudden shrill trilling of a canary in the adjoining room +told that some restless movement of Eglah's had aroused it. Eliza longed +to go and comfort the suffering girl, but every heart has a sanctuary +which not even the tenderest affection should dare to violate, and the +subtle sympathy of the overseer's wife taught her love's duty was to +guard, not force the entrance. After a few moments, Eglah opened the +door and came on tiptoe to her bed.</p> + +<p>"What is it, dearie? Nobody can sleep on such a suffocating night."</p> + +<p>She sat up and put one arm around the white figure, which, instead of +yielding to her clasp, held back straight and stiff as steel.</p> + +<p>"I thought I heard you stir, else I should not have ventured to disturb +you. Ma-Lila, the thought of father's ill health weighs terribly on my +heart. Will you please tell me the nature of that attack which you both +kept from me? What were the symptoms?"</p> + +<p>"He had been dozing in his chair, and quite suddenly sprang up, pale, +and evidently much agitated. I wished to call you, and urged him to +abandon the idea of leaving the house, but he insisted I should not give +you even a hint, and asked for the decanter of brandy, which he was sure +would relieve a severe fit of indigestion caused by imprudence at +luncheon. He went to his room, and when he came out you saw no sign of +serious indisposition."</p> + +<p>"He had been annoyed by no visitors?"</p> + +<p>"He had seen no one but Watson and myself."</p> + +<p>"Do you think there was heart trouble that night? Tell me frankly."</p> + +<p>"Yes, most certainly there was; but, my baby, heart trouble comes from +various causes, and I really do not think your father's physical +condition justifies any serious uneasiness. He is evidently alarmed, but +nervous strain and mental worry are sufficient to produce all his +symptoms, and you will find that retirement from congressional +complications expedites recovery in such cases."</p> + +<p>The girlish form relaxed, and a hot cheek was pressed against the +foster-mother's face.</p> + +<p>"Don't comfort me with false hopes, unless you are sure I am unduly +frightened."</p> + +<p>"Listen to me. I am absolutely certain that Judge Kent's health need +cause you no alarm in future. Now, shake off that nightmare, and go to +sleep like a good child, or I will certainly dose you with bromide."</p> + +<p>She kissed her softly, and with an arm about her waist led her back to +her bed.</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila, I want to forget the last three weeks. Won't you help me?"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> + + +<p>"What is the urgent necessity? I have just held my afternoon mission +service, and I am very tired. Noel, why are you so insistent?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it has been borne in upon my 'subliminal consciousness' that if +you wait too long you may possibly regret it. Once or twice I have found +profit in following a rule my old nurse taught me when I wore kilts: +'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.' No 'dæmon' squats +at my ear, and I claim no mantic illumination, still I should be glad to +know you will make that visit at once."</p> + +<p>"You fear the poor boy is dying?"</p> + +<p>"Not immediately, but he appears hopelessly ill, and needs all the kind +words you may find yourself better able to utter than any one else. +Moreover, it would be well that you should see his mother, who is away +at work during the week, and as you expect to leave the city so soon, +this will be the most suitable opportunity for you to meet her at home. +Poor, fierce, bitter soul! She has no milk of human kindness left; it +soured and has become acrid—intensely mordacious."</p> + +<p>"She belongs then to the unhappy class of frail women who go swiftly to +utter wreck in all large cities, where sin is arrayed in rose color and +gilt. Strange that the boy of such a creature should remind one of the +infant St. John or a seraph of Angelico's."</p> + +<p>"Some fragments of her history lead me to believe that she is as +trustworthy and pure as any woman to whom you preach. Her morality is +beyond cavil, but theoretically she seems to have gone wild among the +hedges and ditches of socialism."</p> + +<p>"You consider her a conscientious, good woman?"</p> + +<p>"As far as I can ascertain she lives irreproachably, bar associating +with anarchists. I surmise some man has treated her cruelly, or she +thinks so, and now she——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott rose, looked at his watch, and laughed.</p> + +<p>"Temple, do you recollect one summer night under the elms, when +rehearsing for the Greek play, Prescott Winthrop declaimed the +herdsman's message from the 'Bacchæ,' and emphasized the portrait of +Agave in the frenzy of the <i>Thiasus</i> strangling a calf and fondling a +wolf's whelp? To-day Leighton's mother recalled that scene, but she is +not dancing to meet Bromius—only hunting revenge on all mankind. Ah, +you are going? I suggest a cautious approach. Leave the carriage out of +sight, and boldly flourish the promised book as an open sesame. You of +the cassock clan enjoy privileges denied to us, the ungirdled sons of +Belial. After all, you may prove the <i>deus ex machina</i>, and through the +poor little lad may be able to lay a healing touch on the mother's sick +soul. Come to my rooms after your visit, and we will say good-bye until +I get back from my long jaunt."</p> + +<p>An hour later Father Temple made his way into the tenement house, +through a noisy mob of children romping on the pavement, and when he +entered the narrow hall outside din was conquered by the deep, swelling +music of "Quis est Homo," wailing from a violoncello held between the +knees of a man sitting half way up the stairs, a thin, stooping old +figure with shaggy grey hair, and bearded as a Welsh harper. The priest +ascended, and the musician edged closer to the wall to allow him passage +way, but he merely nodded his bowed head, and the solemn strains rose +and fell like the sobbing moan of waves settling to calm after lashing +blasts. Father Temple lifted his finger.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Dane lives on the next floor?"</p> + +<p>"Go ub. She vill see no briests, but her door is oben for de child to +hear de music he loves. Dear leedle boy is sick, and my cello sounds +more better here dan closer."</p> + +<p>He shut his eyes and continued playing. Opposite the undraped west +window of the room above, an alley stretched, making clear pathway for +the sinking sun that poured a parting flood of radiance into the +apartment, and upon the cot where, propped up with pillows, the boy +clasped his arms around his knees, and listened, quiet and happy. +Between cot and window his mother sat, facing the back of her chair, on +top of which she rested one arm, leaning her brow upon it, while the +other hand, lying on the cot, slowly stroked Leighton's bare feet. +Having washed her hair earlier in the day, it was now brushed out over +her shoulders to dry in the sunshine, and the bright mass of waving +tendrils seemed to clothe her with light. On the floor were scattered +several newspaper sheets—"The Chain Breaker"—and across her knee lay +an open copy of "Battle-cry of Labor." Only the mellow voice of the +cello sounded, and the room was sweet with the breath of Mr. Herriott's +white carnations nodding in a blue bowl on the table. Standing a moment +at the threshold, Father Temple's eyes fastened on the veil of golden +locks falling to the floor, and his heart leaped, then seemed to cease +beating as he recalled a vision of the far West, where just such +glittering strands had been twined around his fingers.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my St. Hyacinth's preacher!"</p> + +<p>At Leighton's glad cry his mother raised her head, started up, and, +moving forward a few steps, swept back her hair, holding it with both +hands. Before her stood the tall, thin figure in the long, black habit +of his Order, cord-girded at the waist; with a soft wool hat and book in +one hand; a clean-shaven face, pale, sensitive, scholarly, and +suggestive of "lauds and prime," of asceticism without peace, and of +brooding regret.</p> + +<p>He recognized every line in her lovely features, from the large pansy +eyes and delicate, over-arching brows to the perfect oval molding of +cheek and chin, and the full, downward curve of scarlet lips. Love is so +keen of vision it pierces the changes wrought by ripening years, and he +knew the dear face. She did not suspect, love had been dead so long, and +she had buried all tender memories in its neglected grave.</p> + +<p>"I am surprised a Romish priest wastes his time coming here, and I have +no welcome to offer you, because I wish no visitors."</p> + +<p>With a swift movement he closed the door, dropped hat and book, and came +close to her. The sudden glow on his cheek, the light of exultation in +his sad eyes transformed him.</p> + +<p>"Look at me. Don't you know me? Look—look!"</p> + +<p>Eye to eye they watched each other, and at the sound of his deep, +tender, quivering voice recollection smote hard upon her heart, and a +vague, shivering pain drove the blood from her face, but she fought the +suggestion.</p> + +<p>"You are unknown to me."</p> + +<p>"I am Vernon Pembroke Temple, and you are Nona, my wife! My Nona—my own +wife——"</p> + +<p>Words failed him, and he held out his arms. She recoiled, throwing up +her hands with a gesture of loathing, and stood as if turned to stone, +so strangely hard was a face where eyes kindled and burned with the pent +hatred and scorn of long years of sore trial.</p> + +<p>"You had not sins enough to sink your soul without adding hypocrisy? A +preacher! A priest! Cowardice, perjury, moral leprosy, skulking under a +long cloak as black as what is left of your vile heart!"</p> + +<p>Each word fell like a red-hot flail, but he did not wince, and neither +father nor mother heard the low wail from the cot where childish arms +covered a face white with horror.</p> + +<p>"You think, you believe I intentionally and pre-meditatedly deserted +you, and in your ignorance of facts you certainly had cause to despise +me, but——"</p> + +<p>"Think—believe! As if it were possible to doubt the villainy planned! +The crime you so carefully committed against a mere child, knowing she +was a helpless victim, believing she could never redress her awful +wrongs. As if you had set a trap and caught an innocent, happy bird, and +then broken its wings and tossed it to screaming hawks! Coward—coward +as you always were—how dare you face me?"</p> + +<p>"Nona, dear Nona—" He put out his hand appealingly, but she struck it +aside with stinging force, and stepped backward.</p> + +<p>"Out of my sight, or I call the police."</p> + +<p>She pointed to the door. He turned, locked it, put the key in his +pocket, and his eyes steadily met the challenge in hers. The banked, +smouldering fires that flashed up must burn lower before he could plead. +So they stood: he flushed, smiling, happy; she shaken by a tempest of +rage that blanched her to a livid pallor and set all the glittering +rings of hair quivering, as if innumerable golden serpents coiled and +uncoiled around her trembling form.</p> + +<p>In the pause he lifted the hanging ends of the knotted cord.</p> + +<p>"Do you understand what this habit means?"</p> + +<p>"Don't I? A holy cloak to hide every sin that makes this world a hotter +hell than even God could fashion—if God were possible. You drape it +over the ten commandments, blotting them out, while you sing psalms, and +rob the toiling poor, and ruin young lives, and murder innocent souls. +Oh, yes, to my sorrow, I understand all it means!"</p> + +<p>"It means my consecration to celibacy when you fled from me, and I had +exhausted all efforts to find you."</p> + +<p>"Celibacy! Celibacy! I needed no nunnery to help me keep clean and pure, +but you ran behind monastery walls to protect yourself from retribution +at a wronged woman's hands. Coward from first to last! When I fled from +you? You must indeed be possessed of the devil to dare such language to +me."</p> + +<p>"Nona, there has been some awful mistake——"</p> + +<p>"Yes, a mistake that I was not scalped, or that a merciful bolt of +lightning did not strike me dead that day—that cursed day—when first I +set my eyes on your false, treacherous face! If you could only know how +I hate, despise, utterly despise the bare thought, much more the +horrible sight of you!"</p> + +<p>"No wonder, since circumstances were apparently all against me at——"</p> + +<p>"Circumstances are no shelter for honest, honorable men, if there be any +left; and the hard, bitter, murderous facts of your shameful life would +find you out if you dodged under the very throne of the God you +blaspheme by professing!"</p> + +<p>"Will you listen to the truth?"</p> + +<p>"You could not speak it if you tried. I listened to you once too often, +and you wrecked me, and I am no longer a fool."</p> + +<p>"Why did you leave Thompsonville after you received my letters, and the +money I sent you, and when you knew I was coming there to take you away +with me?"</p> + +<p>For an instant she looked at him with startled curiosity, then laughed +hysterically.</p> + +<p>"I left Thompsonville because you wrote no letters, sent no money, and +took no notice of my frantic appeals for help in my hour of horrible +trial. A sick woman with a frail, feeble baby, facing starvation, +abandoned, slandered, and trampled in the mud, I could only snatch at +the hand held out to me by the one man I have found honest, honorable, +loyal, and true, as he was pitying and kind."</p> + +<p>"But when I reached Thompsonville Delia Brown told me——"</p> + +<p>Her scornful laugh drowned his words.</p> + +<p>"'When you reached Thompsonville' in your dreams—after a night's +carousal at college! Even a congenital idiot would sicken at that."</p> + +<p>No shadow of impatience crossed his happy countenance; the intensity of +her scoffing bitterness was part of his punishment—the harvest that +sprang from his own sowing—and he must not complain until she +understood fully.</p> + +<p>"I can prove that I went to Thompsonville, and I have the sworn +testimony of Delia Brown that she delivered into your hands my letters +and the package of money I sent to her care through the express agent. +On a scrap of paper I have also a receipt in pencil from you to Delia +Brown."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and smote her palms together.</p> + +<p>"Forgeries one and all. I would not believe you on your oath, unless the +grave yawned, and Leighton Dane—dead six years—came back as witness in +your favor."</p> + +<p>"'He was the handsome Spanish-looking man' Delia Brown told me stole my +wife and child and disappeared suddenly—going to Florida or Cuba to +grow bananas—when you heard I was coming to Thompsonville?"</p> + +<p>"He was a good old man, my father's best friend, who took his place as +teamster—and when I was literally driven out of the cabin one rainy +night by my stepmother, he was the only human being who believed I was +not vile. He pitied me and carried me in one of the Government wagons to +Thompsonville, and paid my board until I was able to earn my bread by +helping Delia Brown wash and iron. His term was expiring soon, and when +he started back to his home in California, he came by to see if I needed +anything.</p> + +<p>"Finding I was ill in body, distracted in mind, desperate, because I +knew then I was utterly deserted, and had no hope of help, he offered to +carry me West and protect me on account of his friendship for my father. +Oh, bless him—for ever and ever! He made an humble little home for us, +and shielded and respected me, and pitied and believed in me with all +the strength of his great, true heart, and was a second and a much +better father to me in my shameful desolation and helplessness. He +adopted me and my baby, and when he died he left his small savings to +us; and so I named my outcast little one Leighton Dane for the one loyal +friend who helped me to feed and clothe him when his own father rejected +and abandoned him. I had no proof except the certificate you made me +swear I would conceal for two years, and your ally, the devil, worked +well for you when the mice nesting in my trunk cut it into shreds while +I was ill. The chaplain and Ransom Hill were dead; I had none to speak +for me; but Mr. Dane believed my words, and he put his big hand on my +head and comforted me.</p> + +<p>"'Poor little girl, don't worry; just be easy in your mind, for I know +you are telling the truth. I know you are good as your own baby, and if +every mouth in America swore against you I would trust you as I always +trusted my own mother.'"</p> + +<p>A mist clouded her eyes, as dew softens the tint of a violet, but she +clenched her hands, and bit her lip hard to still its tremor, adding +with sullen emphasis:</p> + +<p>"In all these black years the one star of comfort I can ever see shines +in the assurance that the only truly good man I have found, who knew me +well, respected and trusted me as he did his dead mother."</p> + +<p>"You never saw or heard of the advertisements I published in various +papers, asking you to inform me where I could find you?"</p> + +<p>The contempt in her ringing answer stung him like a whip-lash.</p> + +<p>"People who are neither 'lost, strayed, nor stolen' spend no time +hunting for imaginary advertisements that never go to press."</p> + +<p>"You shall read them in the papers with their printed dates. Copies have +been filed and preserved with reports of unsuccessful search from chiefs +of police in Louisiana and Florida, whom I paid to hunt for some trace +of you. They are deposited in a Boston bank, with a sum of money placed +to your credit—all to be delivered to the order of Nona Moorland +Temple. Write to Noah Giles, cashier of Orchard Street Bank. I will +telegraph, vouching for your right to the tin box bearing your name, and +in two days you shall possess absolute proof that I am not the hardened +scoundrel you think me. Weak, rash, cowardly I certainly was, but as God +hears me, never forgetful, never unfaithful, never intending the wrong +for which you have suffered so frightfully."</p> + +<p>The gaze of each fastened on the other, neither had noticed the cot or +its occupant.</p> + +<p>Leighton slipped slowly down till his feet touched the floor, and he +clung to the mattress for some seconds, measuring the distance to the +pair standing in the middle of the room. Weak from emotion that almost +overwhelmed him, he felt his limbs would not support him, and, gathering +his cotton nightgown about him, he sank on his knees and crawled +noiselessly forward. Between father and mother he crouched, then laid +his head against the feet of the priest and feebly raised his arms.</p> + +<p>"My father——"</p> + +<p>The sight, and all it implied as judgment of evidence in defence, drove +her to jealous frenzy, and she sprang forward as a panther leaps to +succor her young.</p> + +<p>"Don't touch him! Don't you dare to lay your finger on him! You have no +more right to him than to an archangel! He has no father, has only his +downtrodden girl-mother. Don't you dare to put your sacrilegious hand on +his holy head. He is not yours!"</p> + +<p>With his right arm he held her back, as she stooped to snatch the boy +away, and, kneeling, he passed his left hand under the prostrate form, +gathered him close to his breast, and looked up smiling into her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Not mine! If I am not his father—who is?"</p> + +<p>"He is mine, solely mine; body and soul, he belongs only to me! Before +he was born you turned us adrift in the world to perish, and now that +for ten years I have worked day and night, fought for bread and shelter, +carried him on my bosom, slept with him in my arms, you—who robbed me +of everything, even my good name—you dare—dare claim my outcast baby! +I would rather shroud my darling than hear him call you father."</p> + +<p>Leighton's arms stole round the priest's neck, and his tangled yellow +curls touched the dark head bent over him. Father Temple kissed the +little quivering face, strained him to his heart, and the long-sealed +fountain broke in tears that streamed upon the clinging child.</p> + +<p>"My baby, my son, my own lost lamb, for whom I have searched and +prayed—God knows how faithfully, how sorrowfully—all these long, +dreadful years!"</p> + +<p>As she stood above them, barred by that tense right arm, noting the +tight clasp of the thin hands locked behind the father's head, an +impotent rage made her long to scream out the agony that found no vent +save in a rapid beating of one foot on the bare floor—much like the +lashing tail of some furious furred creature, crouching to spring, yet +warily hesitant.</p> + +<p>Father Temple's outstretched hand caught a fold of her skirt, and with +it a strand of floating hair.</p> + +<p>"Nona, my wife—my own wife——"</p> + +<p>She twitched her dress from his grasp and shook it.</p> + +<p>"I am not your wife! Thank God, I am no man's wife! I am free as I was +before you came—an ever-lasting blot between me and the sunshine. I +kept my promise to you. I set my teeth and was silent under a fiery +storm of slander and foul accusations that blistered my girlish cheek +with shame, but I waited till the years you named had passed, and you +had reached your majority, and plucked up courage to face your father, +and had a legal right to ratify what the Church sanctioned through the +chaplain. Then I told my only friend all the facts. I ceased to hope, +because I had lost faith, but Mr. Dane pleaded for you: 'Wait one year +more, give him the last chance to do right.' He wrote to a friend in the +old regiment and inquired about all the officers, and his answer told us +that your father was in Europe, and that the major thought you were with +him. Then I laid my case before one of the human vultures that batten on +the wreckage of broken vows—a lawyer, expert in snapping matrimonial +chains. He sent you all the necessary notices—sent them to your college +address, the only one I could give him. Very soon the decree of absolute +divorce was rendered, and I dropped all right to a name I had never +publicly claimed—cast it off as gladly as I would some foul garment +worn by a leper. Free—free to live my life as I pleased; Mrs. Dane and +her boy Leighton—free to go wherever I wished, after death took the +only real protector I ever had. And I chose, for my baby's sake as well +as my own, to lead the hard life of a working woman, but clean, and +honorable, and innocent as that of any abbess safely stored away from +temptation behind brick walls and iron gates, and though my own little +one may well be ashamed of his father, he will never need to blush for +his mother when the peace of death hides her from an unjust and a cruel +world."</p> + +<p>Sunshine had vanished, the room was darkening, and the last glow from a +topaz band low in the west flickered over the woman's head, as she +swayed in the wave of passionate protest that rocked her from all +trammels of control. There was a brief silence, broken by a strangling +sob and cough, and over the breast of the priest's cassock a warm red +stream trickled. He rose quickly with the boy in his arms and carried +him to the window.</p> + +<p>"Nona, a hemorrhage!"</p> + +<p>"Lay him down. If you have killed him, it is the fit ending of all my +wrongs at your hands. Now stand back! Back! Do you hear—you curse of my +life!"</p> + +<p>She sponged the child's face, laid a wet compress on his throat, and +kept one finger on his pulse, not daring to give medicine while the +narrowing red stream oozed more slowly. She lighted a lamp, flew into a +recess near the stove, and came back with a hypodermic syringe.</p> + +<p>"Now, mother's man, don't flinch."</p> + +<p>Pushing up the sleeve, she injected a colorless fluid into his arm, held +it some seconds, and laid her lips near the puncture. Then with one hand +she held his head raised slightly, and with the other sponged the lips +until the flow ceased and the gasping breath grew easy.</p> + +<p>"Swallow your medicine slowly, don't strangle. You must lie perfectly +still. Mother's own little man needs to go to sleep now and forget all +he has heard to-day."</p> + +<p>Father Temple had fallen on his knees at the opposite side of the cot, +clinging to one of the boy's hands, and suddenly the child turned his +head and looked imploringly, first at father, then at mother. Both +understood the mute prayer in the beautiful, tender eyes. A quavering +sound—part sob, part cough—made their hearts leap.</p> + +<p>"I never will be fatherless any more. So glad! Don't leave me, father."</p> + +<p>"Leighton, you shall always be fatherless. This man can be nothing to +us. Because of his deceitful promises I suffered the disgrace of +smarting from a horse-whip laid on my shoulders when one night I was +driven out of my father's cabin by his wife, and to shelter myself from +sleet and rain crawled into a covered wagon and slept on hay and corn, +until Uncle Dane found me there, and had mercy on me. I owe to this +priest every sorrow and trouble that have darkened my life and yours. +All these years we have had only each other, and you must understand +your mother is the one who has the sole right to your love. My darling, +you and mother can be happy together, and we need only each other."</p> + +<p>She struggled for composure, but there was an ominous pant in her veiled +voice.</p> + +<p>"I want my father! Oh, I want him—I—want him!" Tears glided over his +cheeks.</p> + +<p>She leaned down, snatched Leighton's hand from the priest's clasp, +clutching it between both of hers, and turned her blazing eyes upon the +kneeling man.</p> + +<p>"Will you go now? Have you not done harm enough to satisfy even you? +These are my rooms, and I will tolerate your intrusion no longer. +Remember, my decree of divorce is absolute, and it secures to me the +custody of my child."</p> + +<p>"I recognize no validity in divorces, and the law cannot annul a +ceremony performed outside of its restrictions and requirements. Because +we were minors we invoked the aid of the Church, and our vows before God +can never be cancelled by any civil statute. Except as a solemn, sacred +rite, there was nothing in our marriage to legitimize our child. This is +my son, not by license of law, but because we swore fidelity to each +other 'until death do us part,' and called God to witness; and no human +decree can rob me of my child—since you dare not name any other man his +father. I defy you to lay your hand on his innocent head and question +his legitimacy, which inheres only in a ceremony no civil law +sanctioned. Months of tedious and well-nigh fatal illness delayed my +return to you, and during my delirium your letters were mislaid. When at +last I accidentally recovered two letters, and went on crutches to bring +you back with me, you had disappeared. All the proofs of my search shall +be laid before you, and though I do not wonder you grew desperate and +cast me out of your heart as unscrupulous and treacherous, the facts +when investigated must convince you I have kept my vows as faithfully as +you kept yours. I felt that somewhere in the world my wife and child +were adrift, through my folly, my cowardly fear of my father, and, +broken-hearted and conscience-smitten, I confessed to the Superior of my +Order in England at that time, that I desired to live a celibate in +expiation of a rash act in my boyhood, which separated me from the wife +I still loved. I took my vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity with +the explicit understanding that they did not absolve me from my marriage +vows, should God mercifully permit me to find my family. I hold supreme +the oath I took under the stars at the Post, and second in sanctity my +vows before the altar in our chapel. For the awful consequences of my +boyish weakness I accuse only myself, and if it be part of my punishment +that I have lost irrevocably the affection and confidence of the mother +of my child, then, at least, there remains for me the comfort of finding +my boy, from whom I will never again be separated; and to him I must +atone for years of unintentional neglect."</p> + +<p>He saw that his appeal was futile as the leap of a wave that breaks and +sinks in froth at the foot of basaltic cliffs, and the joyful light died +in his eyes when he began to realize that wishing to believe the worst +she would never accept proofs offered in exculpation.</p> + +<p>"Nona, try to forgive me, for the sake of our son, our own beautiful, +innocent boy."</p> + +<p>There was no answer but the steady, quick tapping of her foot on the +floor, and her defiant face showed no more softening than an iron mask.</p> + +<p>Leaning forward, he kissed Leighton's tearful cheek, and despite his +effort to control his voice it trembled.</p> + +<p>"My precious child, I thank God I have found you! Between your mother +and me you must not attempt to judge now. She has suffered terribly on +account of mistakes I made, and she certainly has the best right to you +and to your love. It is painful for her to see me, and I cannot blame +her, but some arrangement must and shall be made by which I can come +often and be with you without intruding upon her. She will select and +name the hours when my visits will give her least annoyance. Good night, +my son. To-day I am happier than I have been since I kissed your dear +mother good-bye."</p> + +<p>He tore a blank page from Ugo Bassi's "Sermon," wrote a few lines, laid +the paper near his wife's hand, and went out, closing the door very +gently.</p> + +<p>"The hemorrhage was not all blood. I think an abscess has broken, and it +may save his life. He must have a change as soon as it is safe to move +him; but at present it might be fatal. Your money and his in the Boston +bank will make him comfortable, and unless you use it I shall be obliged +to interfere. Let the doctor decide where and when the child should go. +To-morrow at two o'clock I wish to come here, but you can easily avoid +seeing me if you so desire. May God soften your heart towards your +unfortunate but faithful husband."</p> + +<p>When Father Temple entered the Herriott library, Noel rose from a desk +where he was sealing letters and put out both hands.</p> + +<p>"Herriott, most blessed of friends! How can I ever thank you?"</p> + +<p>"You have found your wife and child? Thank God! I could scarcely wait +for the good news I was sure you would bring me."</p> + +<p>His eyes were misty, and the grip of his hands was harder than he knew +as he drew the priest to a chair.</p> + +<p>"Dear old fellow, it has been rather too much for you. Brace yourself +with this mixture. I had an idea your Reverence might need a tonic, +since 'after the manner of men, you have fought with beasts at Ephesus.' +Drink it! Your spiritual superior would advise it if he could see your +face."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, Noel, how you discovered Nona."</p> + +<p>"I saw her at the glove counter where she is employed, and was puzzled +by her resemblance to a face I had admired in San Francisco. I heard out +there that some mystery hung about her, but no hint of any impropriety +on her part. Such delicacy of features and perfect coloring are rare, +and faces so beautiful etch deep on one's memory. Belmont painted her as +'Aurora' in his group, and gave me a photograph of her head; but he +spoke of her with respect, and commented on her proud prudishness in +refusing to sit in his studio. You recollect Sidney Forsyth? He carried +me to a 'night school' for working girls, established by his mother, and +there I first saw 'Aurora,' hard at work in the bookkeeping class. He +admired her extravagantly, and told me that despite her girlish +appearance she was a widow with a child, and lived like a nun in the +very small cottage of an old uncle. Last summer, in hunting through a +discarded trunk hastily packed at Oxford while you were on the +Continent, I found among several sheets from your portfolio that +water-color sketch, and it revived my old suspicion that some early +tragedy had driven you into cloisters. Sooner or later one finds on +almost every man's road through life the sign-post, <i>dux femina facti</i>, +and I stumbled against yours when I had ceased to conjecture your motive +for a course that astounded your friends. Last night, after you left me, +I verified a few dates in my diary, and to-day's visit to Brooklyn made +it absolutely certain my identification was correct. I congratulate you, +and am heartily glad that I helped to flush your family covey."</p> + +<p>"Congratulations sound grim after all I passed through to-day. Did you +ever dream you were dying from thirst, and just as you stooped to drink +the spring vanished? I have realized that tantalizing vision. Nona will +never forgive me, never accept my explanation, never believe my +statements, never tolerate the sight of me. She hates me with an +intensity that is sickening, and because the child is mine she would +rather see him in his coffin than in my arms. She hugs to her heart the +conviction that I am utterly vile, because she wants to believe the +worst, and furiously rejects any attempt to prove that I am not a doubly +dyed hypocrite and villain. You have been so loyal a friend, I should +like to tell you all that occurred."</p> + +<p>When he finished a detailed recital of his interview, he leaned back, +sighed heavily, and closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"I knew you were going into a fiery furnace, for, from what I have heard +and seen of your wife, I fear she is one of the few inexorable women, +impervious to reason, to passionate pleading, to the most adroit +cajolery. The hotter the lava, the harder when it cools. Will you permit +me to offer a suggestion?"</p> + +<p>The priest raised his haggard face and laid his hand on Mr. Herriott's +knee.</p> + +<p>"I shall be grateful for advice which I sorely need just now."</p> + +<p>"You have found the missing, but if you are not wide awake and cautious +you will lose them again, and permanently."</p> + +<p>"What do you mean?"</p> + +<p>"You told her you would go back to-morrow at two o'clock? I rather think +you will not find her; she will have vanished forever."</p> + +<p>"Impossible! The child is too ill to be moved, and she would not risk +the danger to him."</p> + +<p>"In her present mood nothing is impossible, and she would dare death if +it were necessary, in order to thwart you. She belongs to more than one +society of communists, and the freemasonry in operation is marvellous. +There are places in this city, in Chicago, and in several New Jersey +towns where she could disappear as successfully as in a Siberian mine; +and you must keep in touch with your beautiful boy, who is much too fine +a porcelain vase to be filled with the vitriol of socialism. Before you +sleep to-night ask the police department to set a special watchman in +sight of that house, with instructions to report to you any indications +of intended removal."</p> + +<p>"Then I must go, although I do not share your apprehension that Nona +would rashly risk the boy's safety. Noel, I owe you so much—and for +such various benefits—I am simply bankrupt in expressions of gratitude; +but at least I can pray God to grant you your dearest desire in life, be +that what it may."</p> + +<p>He rose, and Mr. Herriott walked with him to the front door.</p> + +<p>"Temple, write me fully all that you know I shall wish to hear. Let me +help you in any way possible to secure a change of climate for your +little St. John of the gilded locks. Early to-morrow I go home, and in a +few days your cousins from Washington will be my guests. Are you quite +willing Eglah should know the complications surrounding you at present?"</p> + +<p>"Tell her everything, and do not spare me or suffer her to blame the +innocent victims of my rashness. Some day Eglah may help me to soften my +Nona's heart. When and where may I hope to see you again?"</p> + +<p>"Very soon I start to Arizona for a short stay, thence to the most +northern of the Aleutian Islands, where I expect to find Eskimo +cliff-dwellers, and later to the region northwest of Hudson Bay. Be sure +to write me, and Vernon—pardon my perhaps unjustifiable +insistence—don't fail to secure police surveillance before you sleep."</p> + +<p>When the door closed, Mr. Herriott wrote a telegram to the physician who +attended Leighton, walked to the nearest telegraph office, and heard his +message click over the wires.</p> + +<p>A few days later he was not surprised to learn that only the sternly +positive interdict of the doctor had frustrated an attempt to remove +Leighton from Brooklyn at ten o'clock on Monday morning.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> + + +<p>The first view of "Greyledge" suggested a stone crazy-quilt, so +multitudinous were its angles, so incongruous its medley of styles; but +examination showed architectural strata superimposed in such trend that +the paradoxical dip had uplifted the oldest to the crest. Three stories, +<i>échelon</i>, looked as if they had frozen in dancing a minuet, each +receding yet rising, and when, as a bride, Nina Herriott stepped out of +her carriage, she gayly made three very low bows to the dwelling that +appeared courtesying to welcome her. The long first story was a piazza +or loggia, with wide, round arches upheld by double shafts, closed in +winter by glass doors and storm shutters, in summer noons sheltered from +the glare of sun-smitten water by white and blue awnings. No railing +divided it from the broad stone terrace just below, overhanging the lake +that mirrored its carved and fluted balustrade where vine-fringed vases +glowed with flowers for three months of each year. At the north end of +the arcade, a round tower, rising one hundred and fifty feet, held a +lamp with brilliant reflector that shone far out over the apparently +shoreless lake on moonless and stormy nights, and at the south corner +one of several flights of steps led to an arched and domed pavilion +where boats were moored.</p> + +<p>The second floor flowered into bay windows, mullioned and diamond paned; +and the third might have slipped from some Swiss hillside, so full it +seemed of small balconies, sharp gables, dormers, and deep recesses, and +the steep roof that crowned the whole overhung like an Alpine hat the +frivolous impertinence of trefoil and stained glass. Rains had bleached +and snow storms pumiced the stone walls to a smooth, cool grey, silvered +in spots by films of lichen, while on two turreted chimneys ivy had +braved ascent to weave a cloak of glossy green across the sombre smoke +stains garnered during many generations. The most elevated portion of +the composite structure had been built on the side of a rocky hill, at +some distance from the lake edge, and gradually the declivity had been +graded for the later additions that finally advanced until they could +see their own irregular façade reflected in the water spraying their +foundations; consequently the floors were on different levels, and one +went up and down short flights of steps to reach apartments in the same +story.</p> + +<p>Herriott tradition claimed that early French pioneers had here destroyed +an Indian fort, and that their rude hunting lodge was succeeded by a +missionary station, where a semi-circular excavation in the rock had +served as oratory; in proof whereof an old wooden cross, partly gilded +with tarnished, tattered gold leaf, still hung in the small stone cave +that once echoed the antiphony of Latin chants, and held forever in its +mossy crannies subtle, spicy survivals of sanctifying incense. Sheltered +on the north by hills, clothed with vineyards along their southern face, +the courtyard and shrubbery nestled close to the rocks, but eastward +stretched wide fields and level meadows bounded by dense woods rising on +steep uplands, blue in the distance; and south lay a garden of olden +time, with primly boxed beds, walks hedged with lilacs, snow-balls, +glistening rhododendrons, and masses of roses that ran riot to the foot +of a high enclosing stone wall, where a shining mantle of ivy climbed to +match its verdure with the velvet of hills that here circled like a +clasping arm, reaching from far-away forests to the lake margin. The +courtyard was so nearly on a level with the rear of the house that only +three shallow steps were needed for entrance, and at this spot the range +of color had been exhausted by masses of lilies, irises, peonies, and +foliage plants—so brilliant that in the summer sunshine benignant +nature seemed to have paved the place with a flawless prism.</p> + +<p>On the morning after the arrival of Mr. Herriott's guests, breakfast had +been served on the long, arcaded piazza, where stood three circular +tables, each bright and fragrant from central piles of flowers and +fruit. At the middle one Mr. Herriott sat with Eglah and Judge Kent, +around that on his left were Miss Katrina Manning—an aunt of Noel's +mother—Professor Cleveden, and Eliza Mitchell, and grouped at his right +were Beatrix Roberts, a cousin of Miss Manning's, Dana Stapleton of New +York, and Roger Hull, the young congressman from a northwestern State, +whose devotion to Eglah had long been undisguised.</p> + +<p>It was a cloudless summer day, and the crisp wind from the west drove +the crystal water of the great inland sea into ruffles of foamy lace +against the stone face of the terrace. If she had floated down from a +Fragonard panel, or stepped out of a Watteau <i>clavecin</i>, Miss Manning +could not have represented more picturesquely a dainty type of the long +by-gone. Low in stature, slight and graceful, this airy old lady, with +silver hair piled high on her head, where jewelled side combs held her +curls close—habitually wore grey silk or velvet, and her bright, +restless round eyes increased her likeness to a bird, hence Noel's pet +name was "Auntie Dove." Her gowns were many years behind the reigning +mode, and she shook her voluminous skirts in indignant scorn of +close-clinging garments then coming rapidly into vogue. When her +favorite young cousin Beatrix plucked up courage to denounce +"antediluvian fashions," the grey old dame seized her by the shoulders +and shook her till her teeth chattered.</p> + +<p>"Trix, you are an impertinent minx! My gowns are decent and fit my +morals, and I would as soon change the cover on the Manning family +Bible. You young people have no longer any sense of proportion; your +skirts are so skin-tight you might all be 'artist's models,' and your +manners and your disgraceful slang are about as unlaced as the +bohemians. If your refined grandmother Manning could move in her +portrait frame, she would most certainly turn her back to you and her +shocked countenance to the wall."</p> + +<p>To-day she lifted her tortoise-shell lorgnette to examine the rather +unusual pattern of Professor Cleveden's black onyx sleeve buttons, which +represented tarantulas with prominent diamond eyes.</p> + +<p>"Noel, are we all permanently arranged in trios? Because, if so, you +have been cruelly unkind in condemning the professor to sit next to an +orthodox old woman who knows no more science than a blind kitten, who is +no bugologist, no apostle to moths, and who bitterly disapproves of +crucifying butterflies on pins."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Trina, you will not be allowed to monopolize each other, no matter +how earnestly you both may desire to do so. Shall we change groups once +a day, or at each meal, in order that the collective wit and wisdom may +be impartially distributed?"</p> + +<p>"I suggest that all names be deposited in a box and that we draw for +places," said Mr. Stapleton, fearful of losing his neighbor, Miss +Roberts.</p> + +<p>"Dana, what a rash challenge to chance! She can be spiteful, that +classic, grinning old jade, and might roll up three women to one table, +leaving a solitary charming belle—presumably myself—to the tender +mercies of five furious men. Fancy the impotent wrath of the beauless +trio robbed of their legitimate prey! Noel, do not risk any such dire +disaster, but try the democratic plan of rotation in office, whereby I +shall afflict each of you for only a few hours of my term. What +delicious apricots! Surely old Amos Lea did not grow them?"</p> + +<p>Miss Manning held up a twig on which twin, luscious apricots glowed.</p> + +<p>"They were ripened by the hot suns and spiced by Pacific breezes in +lower California, where I have a friend who now and then sends a hamper +from his fruit farm. Beauties, are they not? My old gardener Amos, +jealous of the fame of his own orchard, snorted contemptuously and +assured me they tasted like stale sawdust."</p> + +<p>"Does he still employ David, St. Paul, and the prophets as proxies to +curse his enemies?" asked Professor Cleveden, helping himself liberally +to cherries.</p> + +<p>Catching sight of Eliza Mitchell's rebuking eyes, Mr. Herriott laughed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, he sternly restricts his imprecations to Biblical quotations. When +I was a boy I ruined some very rare tulips by setting mole traps in the +border, and in his rage he called on 'fat bulls of Bashan' to gore me. +Years later I imported a stock of pigeons, and when they literally +devoured his early crop of sweet peas, he seized me by the coat collar, +showed me the havoc, and shouted, 'May the Angel of the Lord chase you +and your devilish English thieves.' He has tyrannized over us all so +long, that his wrath knew no bounds when my amiable young stepmother, +who desired some alterations in the hothouse, defied his arguments and +wishes, and insisted on an annex for orchids that necessitated the +removal of his pet carnations. Whereupon, raising his hand, he shook it +furiously and hissed: 'Madam, you have done me much evil. May the Lord +requite you according to your works!' With tears in her eyes Nina fled +to my father."</p> + +<p>"A grumpy curmudgeon is old Amos Lea, but his religious convictions are +so earnest that I would sooner house a swarm of wasps inside my vest +than tread on his Baptist toes. He objects strenuously to my association +with Herriott, having overheard some of our heretical geologic +discussions as we strolled through the gardens, and he eyes me as if I +were the foul fiend at Herriott's heels, prodding him downward with a +pitchfork. I wish that somewhere in the great outside world I had such a +loyal, godly friend to pray for my soul."</p> + +<p>"Dear me! I thought you scientists disdained such a superstition, and +that you had reduced souls and minds to mere 'reflex sensory' action, +and 'cerebral sinuosities,' and 'psychoplasm,' and 'inherited +instincts,' and deposits of phosphorus?" interjected Miss Roberts, as +she dipped her jewelled hand into her finger bowl to bruise the lemon +blossoms.</p> + +<p>"My dear young lady, pray do not join the multitude in stoning the +prophets. If there be ghosts—blessed are the grammarians who invented a +subjunctive mood—those of martyred students of science will one day +haunt you, more terrible than 'an army with banners.' Herriott is a much +more attractive target than I—younger and handsomer—why not call him +into the witness box and swear him on the case of souls?"</p> + +<p>"Trix, there is no need to pester yourself about Noel's soul. Old Amos +Lea made sure of his safety when he baptized him the second time. Noel, +tell her about it. How your poor father laughed that day!"</p> + +<p>"Being a rigid Baptist and an elder, Amos scouted my Presbyterian +christening as totally inadequate to neutralize what he considered my +unusually large share of original sin, and as his wife, Susan, was my +nurse, they began to grieve over my reprobateness as soon as I was old +enough to lay claim to moral responsibility. When I was about sixteen I +was out yonder on the lake fishing. Two friends were with me, and we all +swam well, or thought we did. A sudden squall capsized the boat, and I +was caught and held under it in such a way that I could not extricate +myself. The boys hovered around, trying unsuccessfully to help me, but +just then Amos kicked off his boots, plunged in, and swam to the rescue. +He was strong as a whale, raised the end of the boat with his shoulder +and dragged me out. I was slightly stunned, and he swam with me into +shallow water, where he could stand up. Then he lifted me horizontally, +as if I had been a baby in long clothes, and repeating with triumphant +fervor the baptismal formula of his Church, he immersed me so thoroughly +that I regained consciousness, and he turned me over to Susan and hot +blankets, as a 'brand snatched from the burning,' and properly +baptized."</p> + +<p>Removing the ice from the yellow heart of his melon, Judge Kent glanced +around the table.</p> + +<p>"Owning such a paradise as this home, do you not all share my amazement +that Herriott can prefer to shut it up and wander contentedly over the +continent, searching its rough crannies—Labná, Mitla, Casa Grande, and +where not—for what he pedantically calls the 'primeval anthropological +nidus'?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, bless you, Senator Kent, it is just in his blood, and he can no +more keep still than a flea can stop hopping. His father was a +surveyor—civil engineer—always roving, and Noel is exactly like him; +which none of you will doubt when I assure you his mother really was an +absolutely beautiful woman. He is a hopeless tramp. He gravitates to the +wildest places of creation, as you and Mr. Hull to the cultivation of +votes, and Dana to Wall Street kites, and this insecticide professor to +picking the lock of God's workshop when He has closed the door and gone +to His seventh day rest."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Trina refuses to believe that my ambition to become acquainted +with our prehistoric family relatives is a laudable method of climbing +the genealogical tree. She is not enthusiastic on ancestry."</p> + +<p>"That depends, my dear boy, on the 'strain' you are hunting. If the +first hatching of brown skins in that 'primeval nidus' of your dreams +had only been as wise and prudent as modern cattle and horse raisers, +and fixed rules of pure-blooded pedigree, we might not fear to grope +backward lest we find only 'grades' in our family group. Now, climbing a +genuine, decent, civilized ancestral tree is much better sport than +twisting up slippery totem poles with a coyote, or a coon, or a vulture +perched on top, as head of the family."</p> + +<p>"And, pray, what of the sacred menagerie of heraldry? The quadrupeds, +birds, flowers of armorial blazonry—all that makes heraldic pomp +picturesque—are but survivals of primeval totem symbols throughout the +world. Auntie Dove, your book-plate and your family seal bear a leopard +couchant, very dear to your orthodox, patrician heart, and some day your +hereditary pet beast may have glared down upon a Tlinkit teepee."</p> + +<p>"Marriage is the only cure for Herriott, and it would effectually tether +him," said Mr. Hull, keeping his eyes on Eglah.</p> + +<p>"It appears that you have carefully avoided taking your own +prescription," answered his host.</p> + +<p>"It is by no means my fault. Though futile, my efforts have been +heroic."</p> + +<p>Professor Cleveden leaned forward.</p> + +<p>"You good people do not understand how deeply Herriott is imbued with +the conviction that contemporary 'differentiation' is not a synonym for +desirable advancement. The complex, hybridized, neurotic creature he +meets in society does not always impress him as vastly superior to the +primeval female type, and you may all expect that whenever matrimonial +shackles restrict his pasturage, which will not be <i>in Wyandot lines</i>, +he will be hobbled by 'some savage woman' whose accomplishments are +limited to the slim schedule set down by that jilted cynic of 'Locksley +Hall.' The 'new woman' incites us to pray fervently for swift reversion +to type. Now, Miss Manning, I am sure you are preparing to tell me +that——"</p> + +<p>"That of course in such matters tastes differ, and not one of us feels +disposed to deprive Professor Cleveden of his coveted female simian +companion; but, as Noel never has had a flirtatious 'Cousin Amy' to rub +him the wrong way, he has no provocation to present to me a squaw as my +great niece."</p> + +<p>"It is very evident the professor viciously remembers his own 'Amy,'" +said Miss Roberts, who was watching keenly for some manifestation of +consciousness in Noel and Eglah.</p> + +<p>"Miss Beatrix, no scapegoat 'Amy' bears away my sins of temper, because, +as a naturalist, I am unalterably opposed to the marriage of cousins. I +never owned but one sweetheart. She took my unfeathered young affections +into her tender hands when she was only ten years old, and so carefully +has she preserved them that after twenty years of married life she +remains my charming sweetheart—my pearl of womanhood—the supreme joy +of my existence. She is the one priceless fossil in my collection, +guarded with jealous watchfulness, because she no more resembles the new +feminine type than a snowy dove a blind, broken-winged, snapping hawk."</p> + +<p>"When I marry, my ambition will soar beyond being bottled in alcohol or +boxed in sawdust or cotton wool, like a centipede or a cracked egg of +the great auk. I should imagine that men who spend their work days among +musty, stuffy fossils would rather enjoy the variety of an up-to-date, +cultivated wife who kept in touch with social tides and currents. Now, +Mr. Herriott, you who prowl about laboratories and museums until you +understand their dreary jargon as fully as you do leading a german or +playing polo, ought to be a wiser umpire than this one-sided shut-in +scientist, who prefers dry bones to living pink flesh."</p> + +<p>"In the first place, Miss Beatrix, I must, in the absence of Mrs. +Cleveden, protest against her husband's classification of her as a +fossil. She is alive to her finger tips with enthusiasm for his work, in +which she is his ablest assistant, and knowing something of his charming +home life, I consider him the most enviable man of my acquaintance. We +who are not so fortunate in the matter of sweethearts, must content +ourselves with the best available substitute; and you know, 'if one +cannot have what one loves, one must love what one has.'"</p> + +<p>"A defence of fickleness quite unworthy of you; and moreover, Noel, +utterly untrue, for of all people in the world you are the very last to +surrender anything you really want."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Katrina, would you have me spend my life wailing for the moon?"</p> + +<p>"Pooh! You are not so fatuous as to want to drag a surveyor's chain +across its cold chasms and jagged heights; and after a brief study of +your frozen charmer you would turn your telescope on something +accessible and more valuable. Miss Kent, do you consider Noel a fickle +person?"</p> + +<p>Eglah looked up, and, meeting the eyes of her host, they both laughed.</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. His life-long devotion to you ought to shield him from +all suspicion of inconstancy."</p> + +<p>"Aunt Trina, she is not an impartial umpire. The first time I saw her, a +little girl wearing a snowy muslin with blue ribbon bows on her +shoulders, we entered into a compact, adopted each other as half-brother +and stepsister, and now in supreme trust we form a sort of mutual aid, +mutual defence—on my part, admiration—association. If she saw fifty +fatal flaws in me she would loyally conceal them from you, who are such +a terribly severe censor."</p> + +<p>"Herriott ought to go into politics; don't you think so, Miss Manning?" +asked Mr. Hull.</p> + +<p>"By no means. I prefer he should keep his hands clean."</p> + +<p>"Senator Kent can tell you, madam, that we do not all dabble in mud or +pitch."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott leaned forward, and spoke more quickly than usual.</p> + +<p>"She is afraid I might not swell the class of distinguished exceptions +which you and Senator Kent represent. Aunt Trina, may I trouble you for +a second cup of coffee and an extra lump of sugar?"</p> + +<p>Beatrix had completed her inventory of Eglah's points of attraction, and +now, as her eyes rested on the graceful figure daintily gowned in lilac +muslin, the result annoyed her.</p> + +<p>"Miss Kent, has your college training fitted you to believe all the +marvellous tales these two wise scholars tell us; as, for instance, that +this lovely spot—this suburb of paradise where we are sitting—was once +buried for ages under ten thousand feet of glacial ice?"</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to confess my course of study carried me only far enough to +see the border land of a kingdom I never expect to explore. Unless one +specializes, four years at college make no experts. You might as well +ask a butterfly to classify all the blossoms it hovered over, or measure +the depths of glaciers."</p> + +<p>The professor pushed aside his cup, and looked at her.</p> + +<p>"And why not? It can teach us infinitely more than its human, club-crazy +sisters. My dear Miss Kent, we who are in bonds to science exact great +accuracy even in the selection of metaphors, and you will pardon me if I +rise to defend the usefulness of butterflies. On top of Mount Washington +survives a colony of butterflies found nowhere else south of Arctic +snows and ice; descendants of a family which retreated with the great +glacier that once overflowed New Hampshire and left only the pinnacle of +Mount Washington uncovered. When the <i>Œneis</i> household moved back to +Labrador and Greenland, these silk-winged stragglers, flirting in +corners, were abandoned by their chaperons, and for thousands of years +their progeny have flitted around that stone crest to show us the depth +of the glacier."</p> + +<p>Professor Cleveden adjusted his eye-glasses and moved his chair so as to +look straight at Miss Manning, who at once put up her lorgnette to probe +his gold spectacles.</p> + +<p>"Are you an enthusiastic club-woman?"</p> + +<p>"Why don't you ask me if I approve of perjury, arson, and poisoning?"</p> + +<p>"My dear madam, did I not hear you last evening quoting the sonorous +periods of Mrs. Helen Phædra Swan Hall, whose mission seems to be the +emancipation of her sex from bondage to God as well as to man?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, no, Mr. Cleveden! It was I who asked Mr. Hull to explain the bill +she is trying to have introduced in Congress. Cousin Katrina thinks all +such advanced women should be locked up as lunatics, but she is too +extreme and hopelessly narrow for this generation, while I like to keep +up with the procession. Do tell us about this prophetess."</p> + +<p>"Her husband was a mild man, reputed a faithful husband and a devoted +father, but the female comet he was yoked with indignantly spurned such +slavish rôle as wifehood and maternity involved, and she ranted around +clubdom and through the press, striving to enlighten the world, until, +finally, she determined to break her domestic chains and shake off all +impedimenta of marriage obligations. Having deliberately selected as +successor a friend whose opinions proved quite as lax as her own, she +promoted an intimacy that resulted in accordance with her scheme. Then +she suggested divorce to Hall, who very naturally assented with +alacrity. When he promptly married the woman chosen, Mrs. Helen Phædra +Swan gladly abandoned all care of her own children to the new wife, +washed her hands of maternal responsibility, and proclaimed herself free +to work for the rights of woman and the enlightenment of the world. +Soaring eagles scorn to perch at one man's hearthstone, and behold the +comical climax of her flight above the laws of decency and good taste. +She has swooped down on a new husband, and, for a season at least will +call herself Mrs. Helen Phædra Swan Butler. Such, Miss Roberts, is your +'prophetess.' Having heard that the pet theme of her present +lucubrations is the 'ideal education of children,' I suggested to my own +connubial serf, my 'true love,' that the study of the views of this +experienced seeress might assist us in the training of our one ewe lamb, +our old-fashioned little maid, and the reception of my proposition was +of a nature conjugal loyalty forbids me to describe. Mrs. Helen Phædra +Swan Butler is merely a degenerate imitation of the Amazons, who changed +their husbands annually and deserted their children. A survival of +polyandry, if you please. Formerly women looked sternly and sorrowfully +from their lofty pure plateau upon polygamy and bigamy as the horrible +heinous luxury of wicked, despotic men; now they are stepping down into +the mire, claiming equal rights in sin, and the emancipated new female +clamors for easy divorce and the freedom of polyandry. In other days, +before 'higher education, club-culture, and female rights' had abolished +home life, domestic sanctity, and fireside <i>lararium</i>, all good women +held Clytemnestra the infamous archetype of feminine depravity, but the +doctrine of 'equality' lowers the old high standard, and the new code +reads: 'She had as good a right to Ægisthus as Agamemnon to Chryseis.' +As if the gods failed to overtake both in their sins."</p> + +<p>Miss Manning rang a silver bell, and, rising, tapped the professor's arm +with her lorgnette.</p> + +<p>"Yet you have the audacity to ask me if I condone creatures whose real +aim is to reverse God's decree of the sexes? Trix thinks I should like +them locked up in insane asylums? By no means. I should prefer to see +all such 'removed' by the methods you men employ when brutes become +afflicted with rabies and glanders. I am an old woman, Mr. Cleveden, but +I do object to the way in which you 'scientists' dispense with +conventional verbal draperies in discussing some questions. After all is +said, I presume that 'truth' you are worshipping must wear clothes, and +there is no need to confiscate her garments. Moreover, you are not to +believe for one instant that Miss Roberts means half of the idiotic +rubbish she talks. Girls nowadays think it <i>chic</i> to affect fads, but +Trix is no more a 'new woman' than I am a winged saint. Noel, what is +the order of the morning?"</p> + +<p>"The senator and the professor wish to fish; Stapleton and I are bound +to the stable and kennel, and later to the billiard table to settle an +old debt; Mr. Hull, Eglah, and Miss Beatrix will go out on the launch, +and the phaeton and your ponies will take you and Mrs. Mitchell to see +the finest views of the lake and hills."</p> + +<p>"I much prefer to see your dogs and watch your billiard game, if I may," +said Miss Roberts, picking from the table vase some scarlet poppies that +she fastened in her belt.</p> + +<p>"Miss Manning, do come with us on the lake; the day is so lovely." Eglah +laid an appealing hand on the grey silk sleeve, and Miss Katrina's keen +eyes softened.</p> + +<p>"You are very good to want a crusty old woman as ballast, but I am not +fond of the water. The wind is no respecter of grey hairs, takes such +impertinent liberties with my maidenly curls, and, beside, if an +accident should occur I can swim only as far as a cannon ball might, and +of course in an emergency Mr. Hull would devote himself exclusively to +saving me, hence you would probably drown. Thank you, Miss Kent, but +Mrs. Mitchell and I shall do our best to strangle time till luncheon."</p> + +<p>During that long drive Eliza was kept constantly on guard, parrying +questions that betrayed an earnest curiosity relative to Mr. Herriott's +standing in the senator's family; and she readily divined that Eglah was +considered a formidable obstacle to a marriage long desired between +their host and Beatrix Roberts, the youngest of several unmarried +daughters whose father was Miss Manning's second cousin.</p> + +<p>"And why do you think Noel will never marry?"</p> + +<p>"Of course, madam, I can only conjecture; but from what I have seen of +Mr. Herriott, I think he is very happy as he is, and if he desired or +intended to wed any one, he would scarcely be so eager to renew his +travels in distant lands."</p> + +<p>"And Miss Kent? Lovely, refined-looking woman, but cold as a frozen mill +pond. We hear she has had some fine offers. The world wonders for whom +she is waiting."</p> + +<p>"As far as I know, she is absolutely indifferent. For her father she has +a peculiarly strong and tender affection, and I shall be very much +surprised if she ever marries."</p> + +<p>When she returned to her own room, she felt that she had stepped down +from the witness stand after an adroit cross-examination, in which she +had maintained her non-committal rôle. As the pleasant days passed, she +and Judge Kent watched their host, hoping for some manifestation of +tenderness, or pique, or consciousness of past suitor-claims that might +portend possibility of renewal. No faintest evidence of other than calm, +friendly, hospitable interest rewarded their scrutiny. If it were indeed +complete surrender of hopes once cherished, would there not have been +traces of disappointment, some bitterness, some cloud on face and +manner?</p> + +<p>Although she was unusually free from coquetry, Eglah was too familiar +with the moods of rejected lovers not to observe the exceptional +demeanor of the master of Greyledge, and his cool <i>insouciance</i> would +have perplexed her had she not recollected his assurance that no word of +his should ever recall the painful interview in the carriage. She +noticed that he never touched her arm or hand if it could be avoided, +and, if he really cared for her society, why did he invite Roger Hull to +his house and afford him every opportunity to monopolize her? The +weather continued favorable; the guests could not fail to regret the +approaching end of their visit, and Mr. Herriott seemed unusually happy, +yet he had abstained from being alone with Eglah.</p> + +<p>On the last day, at the close of dinner, the host proposed that coffee +and cigars should be served on the terrace overhanging the water. The +afternoon had been hot and sultry, and the full moon rose out of a tawny +haze that smouldered at the horizon but silvered and glistened as the +light swam through. Eliza stole away to pack the trunks, and Senator +Kent, the professor, and Mr. Hull strolled up and down smoking, while +Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton followed Mr. Herriott to the pavilion, +where he unlocked a boat and fitted the oars. Miss Manning's favorite +anisette had accomplished its mission, and her white head was bowed on +the billowy lace fichu that covered her neck. Noiselessly Eglah slipped +into the loggia, down the steps leading to the garden beyond the +courtyard, and ran along a walk, dark under dense overhanging boughs. +For a little while she must be alone to ponder the first really stern +words her father had ever spoken to her. They were writing letters in +the library that morning, when Senator Kent turned to her.</p> + +<p>"My daughter, I must tell you that I am watching very impatiently for +the announcement of your acceptance of Herriott."</p> + +<p>"Father, you will never hear it."</p> + +<p>"I distinctly refuse to believe you will persist in defying my wishes. +Hitherto you have very sweetly yielded to my guidance in all matters of +importance, but if you obstinately and foolishly thwart a cherished plan +that concerns me more deeply than you know, you will forfeit my +forgiveness."</p> + +<p>"I will never marry a man I do not love——"</p> + +<p>"No silly rodomontade, if you please, my dear. You quite understand my +wishes."</p> + +<p>"Father, even if my own feelings had changed sufficiently to induce me +to give him a different answer, I am absolutely sure Mr. Noel will never +renew his offer; and this fact is most welcome, because it removes all +possibility of my obeying you. You must see that he is now simply my +friend."</p> + +<p>"Then you have only a short time in which to recall him. Women whistle +lovers back as easily as traps catch mice. It depends solely on you, and +I warn you now of bitter consequences unless you comply with——"</p> + +<p>Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton entered the library, and Eglah retreated +to her own room. During dinner Eliza and Mr. Herriott noticed the +unusual flush on her cheeks, the strained, restless expression of her +eyes; but neither had opportunity for questioning, and, shielded by +general conversation, she escaped comment. Sitting opposite at table, +her father had once looked steadily at her.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, you chance to have the fruit I covet close to your hand. Will +you peel me a peach?"</p> + +<p>The garden walk she had followed divided, and into a narrow path she +plunged, finding a resting place on a miniature rockery covered with +fern and periwinkle. The night was so still she could hear the dip of +oars as the boat left shore, and far away the throbbing of a steamer +whose lights flashed across the foam as it sped onward. With her face in +her hands, Eglah recalled Eliza's exasperating question: "Why was +Senator Kent afraid of Mr. Herriott?" Was he? What could be the nature +of the trouble concealed? If Noel were cognizant of impending misfortune +she felt absolutely sure he would never consent to precipitate it. +Because she could share her perplexity with no one, her habitual repose +of manner forsook her. In the unexpected rift between her father and +herself she dispassionately canvassed the possibility of an available +bridge, and, feeling confident no second proposal would be made by Mr. +Herriott, she rejoiced in the belief that his silence would effectually +bar compliance with a command she entertained no thought of obeying. She +saw that he had deliberately surrendered her, and, unlike most women, +she was profoundly glad. Now and then, when he looked unusually handsome +in his yachting suit, and again in full evening dress, presiding with +ease and dignity at his table, Eglah compared her host with his guests, +with some brilliant men she had met in Washington and New York, and +always he seemed aloof and superior as an ivory image among terra-cotta +figurines. Conscious that his serene self-poise sprang in no degree from +personal vanity or pride of wealth, she admired his physical perfection, +and wondered why all his excellences had no more power to stir her heart +than a stained-glass saint in a cathedral window, or a flawless head of +Hylas. At such moments she decided God had designed her to be only a +daughter, and wifehood had no alluring charms, no rosy glamour.</p> + +<p>Out of the dense shadow behind the mound of periwinkle came a sudden +rushing sound, a sharp bark, and the large collie Pilot sprang over a +stone wall and bounded up to the rockery. A moment later Mr. Herriott +whistled, vaulted over the same wall, and stood peering into the clumps +of shrubbery. Eglah patted the dog, hushed him in a whisper, and shrank +closer to the ground.</p> + +<p>"Eglah! Where are you? Eglah!"</p> + +<p>The dog barked, and his master came forward.</p> + +<p>"How could you suspect I was here?"</p> + +<p>"I have a Turk's nose for perfume. I am partial to prussic acid odors, +and no heliotrope blooms on this side of the garden. Who dared send you +to Coventry? For what are you doing penance, here in the dark?"</p> + +<p>"Simply enjoying the delicious, perfect peace that surrounds this +special nook like a velvet mantle. Were you hunting for me?"</p> + +<p>"No. I supposed you were in the loggia. I went for a few minutes to the +small house beyond the wall, where Amos and Susan live. She has been +sick several days, and nothing appeases her wrath if I neglect to say +good night to her. One of her childish whims is that I shall crack her +almonds and filberts, and yesterday when I demurred and turned the +nut-crackers over to Amos she shed tears, declaring his hands were not +always above suspicion, and that as she had performed this service for +me before I was promoted to trousers and vests, I owed it to her now +since she has lost her teeth. By jumping the fence, this is the short +cut from her house to the courtyard."</p> + +<p>"Susan was your nurse?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, since I was a year old, and she has been very faithful to my +family."</p> + +<p>"I should like to see her."</p> + +<p>"Then you shall make her a little visit to-morrow morning, but she can +never see you; she is entirely blind. Eglah, come out of this damp +corner. The moonlight is brilliant, and there is a beach-walk I wish to +show you."</p> + +<p>As she rose and shook her draperies, he walked in advance, saying over +his shoulder:</p> + +<p>"You would not accept my arm, for I am sure you need both hands to guard +your lace and silk frills from thorns and twigs. Here is the garden +boundary. Take care not to trip crossing this stile; come on, only three +steps. Now look at that sickle of the beach, with its long row of silver +poplars outlining a frieze around the land side of the curve. Once in a +furious gale that drove a steamer ashore—just beyond the point—I +watched those distracted trees toss their whitening leaves, as though +hands in prayer, and they lean always inward, shivering with prevision +of wrecks."</p> + +<p>Over the burnished lake a full moon shone, and here and there a sinuous +ripple flashed like a fiery serpent as it glided to land, then slipped +back, while across the waste of water floated the tinkling of Beatrix's +mandolin and the tenor voice of her escort. Mr. Herriott took off his +hat, and when he turned suddenly to his companion she noticed a +brilliant smile on his face.</p> + +<p>"Dana is very happy to-night, and I am glad to carry away the pleasant +consciousness that I have done everything possible in smoothing the path +to his heart's goal."</p> + +<p>"You believe he will win her?"</p> + +<p>"I certainly hope success for him. Her heart is already his, and, if he +can only be patient, she must ultimately yield."</p> + +<p>"You think that in such matters persistency is invincible?"</p> + +<p>"On the contrary, many Jacobs never win their Rachels; and my prediction +fits only the lovers out yonder. Aunt Trina will wail and invoke all the +Manning family ghosts, but the pretty hand of Miss Beatrix will follow +her heart."</p> + +<p>Looking up at him, she admitted that in personal charm he surpassed all +men she had ever met, but into this verdict entered no emotional element +sufficiently strong to shiver the crystal calm of her heart, and she +found it difficult to identify this handsome, placid, smiling +countenance with a white, drawn, twitching face whose keen pain had +recently wrung tears from her in Washington.</p> + +<p>The unusual flush had faded, leaving her cheeks cool and stainless as +the petals of a white rose, and the restless spark in her eyes had been +extinguished by drops that were never allowed to fall. Mr. Herriott had +studied her face too many years not to detect the new strained +expression, the compression of lips that would quiver, and all his +jealous surmises focussed on one dread—Father Temple.</p> + +<p>"Shall we walk on slowly? Not far off is a seat. I have been wishing for +a quiet, uninterrupted talk before we say good-bye for an indefinite +period, and this is my last opportunity. Eglah, when did you hear from +Vernon Temple?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot recall the exact date, but it was several weeks ago. We do not +really correspond, and his occasional notes are so impersonal that in +replying I sometimes feel as if I were addressing an abstraction. At +first he interested me extremely, but one cannot easily maintain his +mystical elevation of spirit."</p> + +<p>"I thought you were really fond of him."</p> + +<p>"Knowing as you do that I have absolutely no faculty for growing fond of +people, I am surprised you should have made the mistake. He enlisted my +interest in some of his benevolent schemes, especially a 'sisterhood' +for care of infirm indigents; but father has no sympathy with Vernon or +his vocation, and, therefore, I have been less impressed."</p> + +<p>"At one time you were extravagant in praise of his 'saintly, magnetic +face.'"</p> + +<p>"So I possibly am, or have been, about several fine pictures of +handsome, bleeding flagellants and tormented martyrs, but I should +prefer not to hang them permanently in my dining-room."</p> + +<p>"Do you know anything of your cousin's early life, or of the reasons +that induced him to join his 'Order'?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing whatever, except that while at college he was ill, and one of +father's sisters had him removed to her farmhouse, where he remained for +months before he could discard crutches."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott stopped and turned towards her. Holding his hat behind him, +he leaned forward and scanned her closely.</p> + +<p>"Vernon is a married man, and his wife is living."</p> + +<p>"Is it possible! If any one else had told me, I should doubt it. I am +sure father knows nothing of the wife. Where is she? <i>Cherchez la femme</i> +is rarely a satire."</p> + +<p>In the flood of moonlight her fair face—expressive only of +surprise—showed no vestige of emotion that could disquiet him, and so +intense was his relief that for a moment he dared not trust his voice; +then he put on his hat and whistled to his dog. As they walked slowly +along the margin of the lake, he told her briefly the history of Father +Temple and the recent discovery of his wife and child.</p> + +<p>"Thank you for telling me such pleasant news. I am very glad poor Vernon +will have that angelic boy to comfort him—but 'Juno'? So beautiful, so +hard, so bitter! How can any meek priest ever hope to manage her?"</p> + +<p>They had reached the point of the sickle, and looking back the swelling +curves of wooded hills, masses of glossy shrubbery, the irregular +profile of the house, outlined by its twinkling lights, and the vast +shimmering mirror of the great lake, all lay bathed in liquid gold. +Somewhere in a neighboring copse a bird, disturbed by the dog or misled +by the splendor of the night, twittered, and then, to reassure his +brooding mate near by, broke into a rapture of song. Clasping her hands +behind her head, Eglah lifted her face to listen, and Mr. Herriott +watched the moisture glisten on her lashes.</p> + +<p>"Sweet as any aubade of the olden time, under olive and ilex, is it +not?"</p> + +<p>For a moment she did not reply, then, with a sweep of her arm toward the +house on the rocks, she said:</p> + +<p>"So beautiful, so full of peace—of such profound repose—how can +you—why will you leave it?"</p> + +<p>"Because I do not forget '<i>le repos est une bonne chose, mais l'ennui +est son frère</i>.' I love and enjoy my home, but I prefer not to stagnate. +Garnering the bright and charming memories of the past few days, it can +never again seem quite as lonely as I have sometimes found it. I am glad +you have met Professor Cleveden, who is one of my best friends. His +domestic relations are so happy, and so perfect in their adjustments, +that no forlorn bachelor, once admitted to his home, could escape pangs +of envy. His wife is literally partner in his joys, sorrows, studies, +and diversions, and their only child—the 'little maid' Violet—is +spelling in the alphabet of science. Cleveden swears she shall be locked +up in his laboratory, safe from the social microbes that he fancies +infest the atmosphere of female clubs and 'emancipated women.' Some day +I hope you will meet Mrs. Cleveden. She is very beautiful and gracious, +though he assures me he has one grievance against his 'sweetheart,' and +Patmore expressed it:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Her manners, when they call me lord,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Remind me 'tis by courtesy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not with her least consent of will.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Father distrusts the professor, and cautioned me not to discuss any +religious questions, because he considers him a brilliant casuist."</p> + +<p>"Cleveden has one apostle whom he follows at all hazards—simple, stern, +scientifically established truth—and to him the natural laws are as +sacred as those Moses brought directly from the same God who framed them +all. For mere dogma in science or religion he has no tolerance, and I +shall never forget the profound emotion with which, in a lecture, he +quoted: 'These sciences are the real steps in the great world's +altar-stairs that slope through darkness up to God.' Revealed religion +lets down a ladder from heaven; natural sciences are the solid rungs by +which men like Cleveden build and climb. Side by side these ladders +rise, never crossing at sharp angles, both ending, resting at the feet +of God. Up one spiritual faith runs easily; along the other some souls +of different mould toilsomely ascend, each and all seeking and finding +the same goal—the eternal Ruler of the universe. Cleveden scoffs at +nothing but shallow shams, and we have heard him repeat passages from +Job and David, then declaim from the Iliad, and declare that as between +the thunder roll of Hebrew and Greek, the latter was as the rustle of +rushes in a summer wind to the pounding of Atlantic surf on rock-walled +shores."</p> + +<p>"Nevertheless, father regrets that you cling to such an unsafe guide."</p> + +<p>"He is worthy of my trust. Conscientiously hunting only for truth, he +admonishes his students:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"'Hath man no second life?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pitch this one high!'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"To a young man groping in the mist of agnosticism, he repeated the +declaration of one of the most subtle scientific thinkers of this +century: 'That he had scrutinized every agnostic hypothesis he knew of, +and found that they one and all needed a God to make them workable.'</p> + +<p>"I wish I could respect myself as I respect and honor my friend. Eglah, +knowing your reticent nature, I am perhaps presumptuous in taking a rash +step. There is some trouble that annoys you. Before I go away for such a +long, uncertain absence, will you trust me? I may not be able to remove +the burden, but I should be glad to share it. Can you tell me what +distresses you?"</p> + +<p>She looked at him steadily, then away at the brooding water, where +voices of the night had begun to croon.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, let us go back; the boat is at the terrace."</p> + +<p>When they reached the stone stile, she said:</p> + +<p>"Do you know why father resigned the senatorship?"</p> + +<p>"He has not confided his reasons to me."</p> + +<p>"Having known him so long, should you think that his state of health +demanded such a step?"</p> + +<p>"His appearance at present does not indicate any cause for alarm, and +you ought not to conjure a spectre with which to frighten yourself."</p> + +<p>"His physician did the conjuring."</p> + +<p>She sat down on the stile, and in her strained, sad gaze he measured the +depth of her disquietude.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, if you know any outside circumstances that appear to +necessitate or warrant this sudden abandonment of a brilliant senatorial +career, I beg you will be once more your old, kind, candid self and tell +me. If I understood I could bear it better."</p> + +<p>"You think your father is perfectly well?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot see the change he insists has overtaken him of late; can you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. Within the year his nervousness and want of equipoise have been +apparent, and when the newspapers stated that his 'medical adviser' had +recommended rest and Aix-les-Bains I was rejoiced. The atmosphere of +Washington is the worst possible for him. When do you sail?"</p> + +<p>"On the twenty-fifth."</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Mitchell accompanies you?"</p> + +<p>"Of course. You scarcely understand what all this means to me. I have no +life outside of father's. His political future is my sole horizon. To +help, follow close, watch his ascent, was my world. This sudden, +inexplicable surrender, this stepping down and back into obscurity and +inaction leave me no foothold on coming years, and I feel adrift. Mr. +Noel, would it be unreasonable for me to hope that when father returns +in vigorous health a Cabinet seat or a foreign mission might be offered +him by the Republican party he has served so long, so faithfully?"</p> + +<p>The wistful pathos of uplifted eyes that searched his stirred all the +tenderness of his nature, but he allowed himself no manifestation.</p> + +<p>"If you anticipate such reward for your father, and then lose it, +disappointment would intensify the annoyance. By dismissing the +expectation, the charm of surprise will be added to the value of +promotion. You have passed the age of soap bubbles, and ought to know +that upon political preferment no man can depend with certainty, +especially in a republican country."</p> + +<p>"I shall not, will not, accept defeat. I must be patient until next +year, and then, somehow—in some way—we shall recover our kingdom. I am +so proud of father—ah, so proud!"</p> + +<p>She rose, and he put out his hand to assist her, but she crossed the +stile without touching his fingers, and they silently approached the +courtyard.</p> + +<p>At a late hour, when the party dispersed, Judge Kent was the first +person who reached his own room. Soon after, Eglah tapped at his door. +As he opened it, a flood of light streamed over her cold, proud face, +and his keen gaze seemed to probe her soul.</p> + +<p>"Well?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head and stretched her arms towards him.</p> + +<p>"Father——"</p> + +<p>He laid a finger heavily on her trembling lips, then turned her around, +pushed her gently but firmly back from the threshold, and locked the +door on the inside.</p> + +<p>The remaining hours of the night Mr. Herriott spent pacing slowly the +beach-walk, realizing anew the hopelessness of any change in conditions +that barred him from his heart's desire, and the wisdom of his +determination to travel as far as possible. The moon, magnified by mist +into a vast sphere of silver, swam in the west, tipping each wavelet +with a glittering fringe, and now and then crooning whispers of the +great expanse of water seemed to swell and fill the echoing hollows of +the brooding night.</p> + +<p>The intense bitterness of Mr. Herriott's reflections crept into his +voice.</p> + +<p>"Loyal soul! Nobody can help her now. Rude winds have blown wide the +guarded gate of her temple, and she will spend her life on her knees, +trying to regild the clay feet of her one image."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> + + +<p>"My son, Leighton Dane Temple, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, +and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."</p> + +<p>Other than baptismal drops fell on the boy's head, as with unsteady lips +and brimming eyes Father Temple bent over him; and the hand that +administered the rite clung tenderly to the damp curls. The room was +very dim and still, the atmosphere heavy with the breath of tuberoses +clustered on the pillow, and the figure sitting at the foot of the cot +with her arms folded, manifested by sound or motion no more interest +than a stone image. On the mantel shelf was the tin box bearing her +name, and many days before letters, newspapers, and money had testified +to the truth of her husband's statements, but to its contents she made +no allusion, allowed none. Their estrangement was too complete to be +bridged even by words when avoidance was possible. Occasionally, as he +entered or left the room, she acknowledged his salutation by a slight +inclination of her head; but usually sullen silence and apparent +unconsciousness of his presence showed how bitterly she resented a +presentation of facts that pleaded his exculpation. She hugged her +wrongs, and any attempt to minimize his guilt infuriated her. Her ruined +life was an acrid dead sea, into which no sweetness could fall, and she +clung to its most loathsome aspects with a grim stubbornness unnatural +and incomprehensible in women of a different type. The boy's death had +seemed imminent more than once, and though he rallied again and again, +the sands were surely near the end, running low.</p> + +<p>Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his +mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a +railroad village.</p> + +<p>To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex +elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, +there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in +the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue +with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple +and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs +casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover. +Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled +seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a +mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched +itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely +massed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the +wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible.</p> + +<p>Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, +and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright +eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach. +Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his +father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once +set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the +happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked +or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into +fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to +her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious +of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of +heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation.</p> + +<p>On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along +the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all +the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the +Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the +sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love +had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until +recently he had shared the current belief—"<i>tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner</i>"—because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection +inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto +herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and +faithfully, forgive not at all.</p> + +<p>As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle +voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a +cluster of daisies, which he had rejected.</p> + +<p>"My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as +pretty indoors as out on the meadow."</p> + +<p>She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away.</p> + +<p>"There's father! He will understand."</p> + +<p>She moved away to the window and stood with face averted. Father Temple +took the child's outstretched hand.</p> + +<p>"Father, why can't I be carried out yonder, where the daisies are spread +like sheets? I want to lie down a little while, and feel them cover me, +and listen to the bees—and out there I can breathe easier. Mother will +not let me, says I might catch cold; as if the sunshine could make me +worse. Why can't I go?"</p> + +<p>"My son, I fear you had a bad night, and your mother is a better judge +than I, because she never leaves you. If she approved, I would gladly +take you to the daisies."</p> + +<p>"She refused to move me down here, but you brought me."</p> + +<p>"It was the doctor, not I, who induced her to consent."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I want to go where the daisies are calling me! Don't you see how +they turn and beckon and——" His feeble voice broke in a sob.</p> + +<p>"Mother's man must have his milk punch," said Nona, going into the next +room to prepare it.</p> + +<p>Instantly the boy whispered:</p> + +<p>"Father, pick me up, and carry me; quick!"</p> + +<p>After a moment Father Temple went into the adjoining apartment. His wife +stood shaking the milk into froth, and her glance slipped from his face +with no more evidence of recognition than if she had looked at the wall.</p> + +<p>"Nona, there has been a dreadful change since yesterday. The time will +soon come when you can find comfort only in remembering you denied him +nothing. Well wrapped up, a few moments in the sunshine will not harm +him."</p> + +<p>She passed him without reply, and when the milk punch had been given, +she stooped suddenly and kissed her child twice. His wasted arms crept +feebly to her neck.</p> + +<p>"Please, mother—the daisies."</p> + +<p>"If I let you go a little while, you must not ask to stay."</p> + +<p>She buttoned his flannel dressing-gown about his throat, wrapped him in +her shawl, and put on his little grey cloth cap.</p> + +<p>Taking a light blanket from the bed, Father Temple lifted the emaciated +form, cradled him tenderly in his arms, and bore him across the orchard. +The mother preceded them, opened and closed the gate, and, when they +reached the meadow, she withdrew to the brink of the pond, sat down +under the ancient willow, and locked her hands in her lap. Close by, on +a knoll, the blanket had been spread; Leighton was laid upon it, and +feebly stretching his arms drew the daisies over him until they veiled +the shrunken figure, and only the wan face and golden curls were +visible. In a pale-blue sky the sun shone hot; white butterflies swam +lazily to and fro, like drifting blossoms from interstellar gardens; a +sheep bell tinkled now and then, and from the south, a freshening wind +bore echoes of the ceaseless chant of the heaving sea.</p> + +<p>Out of the flowery coverlet Leighton's hand stole, feeling for his +father's fingers, and a happy light shone in the boy's violet eyes, but +his breathing had grown quick and painfully labored. Suddenly he +struggled up, leaning against his father's shoulder.</p> + +<p>"What ails the sun? Mother! Where's mother?"</p> + +<p>One of those swift, ghostly fogs that spring without warning from the +ocean was sweeping inland, and as sunlight smote the advancing pillars +of mist it seemed transmuted into battlements and towers of some city of +silver. Strained maternal ears had caught the boy's faint cry, and Nona +knelt, clasping him close, resting his head on her bosom. His wide and +wondering eyes were fixed on the strange, shining wall drawing swiftly +nearer.</p> + +<p>"The gates of heaven! Mother, mother——"</p> + +<p>A moment later the chill waves of mist flowed over them, blotting out +the sun.</p> + +<p>Under that grey pall, daisy-dotted, the blue eyes closed; the pure, +lovely face, still smiling, lay white against his mother's cheek.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Not always comes imperial death as pacificator; now and then the flame +of vengeance leaps through the shroud of shadows, and sometimes open +graves typify wider, deeper chasms that know no closing. There are +natures who prefer total surrender rather than any sharing of that which +they hold dearest; and of such was the pallid, dry-eyed mother, lying +hour after hour on the bed where her fragile boy slept his last sleep.</p> + +<p>His head rested on her right arm, and with her left hand she had drawn +his icy fingers inside her dress, trying to warm them on the breast +where in infancy they toyed. Since the moment she had snatched him from +the meadow couch of daisies and borne him unaided to the farmhouse, no +one was allowed to touch him, and the angel who called and guided the +young soul to God was more welcome than the human father daring to claim +him. During the long night of her last vigil, the priest, pacing an +adjoining room, wondered at the stern repression of her grief; and only +once, through the half-open door, came a frantic cry, ending in a low, +quivering wail.</p> + +<p>"Mother's man! Mother's own pretty—pretty—darling baby! Oh——"</p> + +<p>An hour later, when he ventured to re-enter the room, he knew the one +passionate outbreak signalled her final surrender. She had lifted the +little wasted form from the bed and laid him in a coffin resting on a +low table; covering all but the delicate, chiselled face and shining +hair with a thick shroud of daisies.</p> + +<p>Now, with hands locked in her lap, she sat leaning her head against the +coffin. Tears he could not repress fell as the father bent down to the +casket, but she put her arm across it, barring him.</p> + +<p>"Don't! You must not touch my baby."</p> + +<p>Sinking to his knees he put his hand on the fingers lying in her lap.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Nona! Eleven years ago to-night!"</p> + +<p>She pushed his hand aside, and when he bowed his head on her knee, she +moved her chair back to avoid the touch.</p> + +<p>"My wife——"</p> + +<p>"No. I am no man's wife. I can't forget, and I don't wish to forgive, +even if I could. I want you to understand that I would rather see my +darling where he is than have him live for you to come between us. The +Nona you knew died ten years ago, when insulted, and slandered, and +despised I washed and ironed for money to clothe and feed my little +fatherless one—my own beautiful little baby."</p> + +<p>She laid her hand on the cold head and fondled the golden rings of hair, +but no moisture dimmed the large, mournful eyes that defied her +husband's pleading.</p> + +<p>A moment later she added, in a stinging tone:</p> + +<p>"After to-morrow you will have no excuse to intrude upon me; with a +childless, hopeless, desperate woman you can meddle no more, and I shall +contrive to save myself the intolerable sight of your face. In your tin +box you will find the money I have not touched, but the papers I burned +to-night; because in the grave—my baby's grave—certificates of +legitimacy are not required. I wish no record retained of any +association or tie with you, and henceforth I want to hear neither from +nor of you. For ten years what heart I had left beat only for my baby, +and his precious little hands will always hold it tight in his coffin. +After to-morrow my work waits for me, and your path and mine will cross +no more."</p> + +<p>Up and down the room Father Temple walked, striving to master his +emotion. Pausing in front of her, he asked very tenderly:</p> + +<p>"May I know where and what is the work my son's mother has selected?"</p> + +<p>"It is everywhere; the struggle of the poor to loosen the strangling +clutch of the rich on their throats; the cruel war which will end only +with the downfall of aristocrats, when millionaires will be hunted like +other criminals, when cowardly sons of rich army officers can dare to +marry publicly the daughters of their regimental teamsters, and when a +pure woman, because she is pure, will be as much respected as a crowned +head. You preach 'he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.' We +have a different doctrine, a broader gospel. When justice reigns there +will be no poor, no hoarded surplus of dishonest riches, no 'benevolent +fund' doled out by 'philanthropic' pharisees to the workers whose labor +created it. In that day, no poor girls in reeking tenements will be +goaded by the sight of fashionable society women, who drink, and smoke, +and gamble, and loll half clad in opera boxes, and hug their lap dogs +and their lovers instead of their children. In that day society lines +will vanish, and only two classes exist—workers and drones, governed by +beehive laws. To aid in this is all I care for now—all that remains for +me—and my work will be well done."</p> + +<p>She had spoken in a cold, defiant tone, keeping her eyes on the coffin +and her fingers on the child's curls, but after a moment a spasm of +anguish shook her mercilessly, and, rising, she pointed to the door, +saying, between strangling sobs:</p> + +<p>"Leave me, and shut the door. I have all I can bear now. Leave me alone +with my little one."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> + + +<p>Aix-les-Bains proved a successful prescription, and Judge Kent declared +himself cured; but two silent women knew he could obtain only a modicum +of sleep, and noted the fact that when the daily mail—nervously +expected and handled—had been scanned he grew gay and chatty. After +sixteen months on the continent, he settled for a while at Taormina, and +here his companions were surprised to learn that his business agent had +sold every foot of real estate he owned in America, including the +Herriott house in New York, and the old homestead built in an elm grove +among the bleak, stony hills of New England.</p> + +<p>"Father, when was the house in Thirty-eighth Street sold?"</p> + +<p>"Soon after we reached Aix."</p> + +<p>"And you never told me?"</p> + +<p>"Why should I? Herriott might cherish some sentiment about it, but the +matter touched you in no way."</p> + +<p>"At least I should like to know who bought it."</p> + +<p>"Herriott. While at Greyledge I told him it would be on the market, and +he instructed his agent to make the purchase."</p> + +<p>"Had I known in time, Mr. Whitfield might have invested some idle money. +I like those cool, big, old-fashioned rooms."</p> + +<p>"I entertain no doubt that sooner or later they will be yours. Mrs. +Mitchell, may I trouble you for the 'Figaro' at your elbow?"</p> + +<p>"Who owns the old homestead that has belonged to some Kent for two +hundred years?"</p> + +<p>"The town has grown until it needs a juvenile 'reformatory,' and one is +now in course of erection where my old barn stood so long. A better site +could not have been found, or one more vigilantly patrolled by orthodox +puritan ghosts."</p> + +<p>"Have you no regrets when you think of strangers possessing the little +family burying ground where some of your ancestors long ago crumbled to +dust?"</p> + +<p>Eglah lifted her hand to brush away an orange petal that drifted down to +the velvet collar of his coat, and Eliza knew that the perpendicular +line between her brows indexed profound dissatisfaction.</p> + +<p>"Regrets are unprofitable, and what remains of my life must pay +dividends. My dear, will you kindly hand me my match box?"</p> + +<p>"Then you are homeless?"</p> + +<p>Smiling blandly, he bowed to her.</p> + +<p>"I trust not, while my daughter owns thousands of acres of the finest +land in the South."</p> + +<p>"Do you forget how often you have declared you would never again live +south of Washington?"</p> + +<p>"I forget nothing, but circumstances are not as fixed as parallels of +latitude, and changed conditions demand readjustment of plans. +Irrevocability travelled into limbo with ancient Medes and Persians, and +after the first of May I hope I may count upon the traditional +hospitality of Nutwood. You are of age, and have the right to occupy +it."</p> + +<p>Slowly but steadily the barrier between father and child had risen and +strengthened since the visit to Greyledge—a wall as of crystal, which +she could neither level nor penetrate. Close to him, having him +apparently within touch, yet conscious always that a transparent +obstacle divided them. To the cause of estrangement he never referred, +even indirectly, and he was neither irritable nor stern, but mercilessly +cold and punctiliously courteous. Why he had selected Taormina in +preference to Palermo was known only to himself, but one morning Eliza +and Eglah saw a letter postmarked Catania, and both recognized Mr. +Herriott's peculiarly bold handwriting. Judge Kent read it, returned it +to the envelope, which he put in his pocket, and unfolded a New York +newspaper. Mrs. Mitchell moved away to a distant window, carrying her +embroidery frame and silks, and Eglah opened the piano and played softly +two of Chopin's <i>nocturnes</i>. In the mirror opposite she saw that her +father was listening, beating time with the index finger of his right +hand. When she ended and approached him, he shut his eyes and hummed the +final bars.</p> + +<p>"Father, why did you come here for so long a stay?"</p> + +<p>"It is convenient to Catania and on the road to Messina."</p> + +<p>"You knew that Mr. Herriott expected to be there?"</p> + +<p>"I know that he has a scientific friend there who is an expert in all +that pertains to seismology, and that he wishes Herriott to see his +seismographs."</p> + +<p>"That fact should in no degree influence our movements."</p> + +<p>"Speak solely for yourself, my dear. I particularly desire to see +Herriott before he starts from Tromsö on his trip to the midnight sun."</p> + +<p>Leaning forward, his fine dark eyes fixed on hers, he lowered his voice.</p> + +<p>"A separation of eighteen months must have brought you to a realization +of your blind folly, and it is necessary that you should have an +opportunity to retrieve your error. Herriott comes to-day."</p> + +<p>"A lifetime—a thousand years would make no difference with me. I am +glad to know that he will never ask me a second time to marry him, and +if he should, I could not, and I would not. Oh, father! Put that idea +out of your mind, and give me back my own place in your heart."</p> + +<p>She came close and tried to embrace him, but he held her back at arm's +length.</p> + +<p>"I love only those who obey me; and defiance I never forgive. Until you +come to an appreciation of your duty as regards my unalterable wishes, I +must request you not to touch me, not to expect any notice from me, +except such social courtesies as one cannot avoid."</p> + +<p>"I am the price of something Mr. Herriott alone can sell you? What is it +you wish to buy?"</p> + +<p>"Your future happiness, and my peace of mind."</p> + +<p>"Distinctly, I decline to be sold."</p> + +<p>He smiled, put her aside, drew his chair out upon a balcony, and resumed +reading his newspaper.</p> + +<p>The conversation had been inaudible to Eliza, but, putting out her hand, +she rose quickly at sight of a white face where the large eyes glowed as +on the memorable day in the pavilion at Nutwood.</p> + +<p>Looking steadily before her, Eglah passed into an adjoining room and +locked the door. Some hours later she laid a note on Mrs. Mitchell's +lap.</p> + +<p>"I am going to sit a while in the old Greco-Roman theatre. I shall come +back when I am tired. Please ask no questions."</p> + +<p>Through one of the arches, built twenty-three centuries ago, she looked +out, wondering if any change could enhance the charm that lay like a +magic mantle over the visible world. The purple sea broke in a tangled +fringe of silver on the curving beach, Ætna, snow hooded, rose a vast +altar far away, with thin, tapering feather of smoke floating as incense +from its Plutonian cavern; and gaunt, gnarled olive orchards made a +luminous grey background for pink plumes of almond trees, scarlet +pomegranates, rose oleanders, and orange and lemon groves white with +bloom that fell like a fragrant shower on crimson tulips and waxen +cyclamen. In the witchery of her surroundings, thronged with beckoning +spectres of Greek, Roman, Saracen, and Norman legends, Eglah had +hitherto been able to forget on this spot all but the entrancing beauty +of the wonderful old cliffs; yet this afternoon sombre shadows seemed to +shroud a smiling sea and land, menacing as the smoking mountain that +cast its perpetual challenge to a sapphire sky.</p> + +<p>The vague anxiety, the tenderly regretful pain long gnawing at her +heart, had given place now to angry indignation, and a humiliating +consciousness of her father's persistent and increasing desire to barter +her, body and soul, for something that Mr. Herriott possessed. Not his +great wealth, her own fortune was sufficiently ample; not his social +influence, since political aspirations had come to an untimely end; +there was no animosity to be conciliated, no strained personal relations +existed, only a mild friendship manifested by occasional correspondence. +Her conjectures ran around a baffling circle marked only by the starting +post, "what?" "why?" Nemesis is not always so intent on pursuit of the +culprit that she can forego the parenthetic pastime of striking at the +innocent who may chance to stand between, and Eglah had begun to +entertain a bitter resentment against Mr. Herriott—the only visible +factor in her father's alienation—despite her firm conviction that he +would never, by a renewed proposal, smooth the way to a consummation of +the desired sale.</p> + +<p>The strong sense of dispassionate justice on which she prided herself +upbraided her sharply, but the intolerable disappointments of the last +eighteen months shook her from the calm, cool heights of impersonal +reasoning. As she leaned her bare head against the pillar of an arch +through which presageful Greek chorus chants—ages ago—had drifted away +to sea, her upturned face was shown in clear relief, like ivory features +on a dull-red background. Gowned in grey cloth, she had clustered lemon +blossoms around the cameo fastening her belt, and across her lap lay a +branch of acanthus, its pale, delicate lilac flowers springing among the +curved, glossy leaves.</p> + +<p>From a neighboring angle in the portico, to which Mr. Herriott had +noiselessly ascended, his eager, hungry eyes watched her, studied her, +and through a mist of unconquerable tenderness he noted the changes time +had printed on the frank, fair face—so much older, so pale, so hard, so +sullen rather than sorrowful. The light of youthful hope in her lovely +eyes had been driven away by some ugly fact always confronting her, and +the sensitive lips were set tight, stern, pitiless. Who or what was the +Gorgon that had frozen the exquisite face he loved so passionately? More +than grief was written there, and he who had so long interpreted its +phases read the dominant emotion, indignant protest against some wrong. +Over the crest of Ætna the sinking sun hovered, and in the wonderful +radiance, that seemed woven of vast rainbows into some celestial garment +for sea and land, Mr. Herriott came out of his niche and stood before +her.</p> + +<p>"I am very glad to see you here, Eglah. It seems so long since we parted +at Greyledge."</p> + +<p>He held out both hands, and, without rising, she put up one of hers, but +he saw the swift frown, the undisguised annoyance his presence caused. +There had been no opportunity for fastening a mask, or forcing +perfunctory smiles, and upon her frank truthfulness and scorn of +dissimulation he relied implicitly. Very tenderly he covered her cold +fingers with his warm palms, and, as she withdrew them, he seated +himself on a stone at her side.</p> + +<p>"Who has put me in your black books? Not a word of welcome for a +travel-weary vagrant starving for friendly recognition?"</p> + +<p>She looked coldly at him, but something in his fine, magnetic eyes, his +caressing tone, touched her into self-reproach.</p> + +<p>"If ever you should get into my black book, you will have put yourself +there. Mr. Herriott, I am very glad to see you looking so remarkably +well."</p> + +<p>"Have I so many grey locks, to warrant my promotion to Mr. Herriott?"</p> + +<p>She glanced at the silky black head bent toward her.</p> + +<p>"Not a white hair visible. Your promotion comes by brevet, in honor of +perfect behavior as well as additional years. Of course you have seen +father?"</p> + +<p>"No, I met only Mrs. Mitchell, who told me you had gone to watch the +sunset, and I knew this must be your coign of vantage."</p> + +<p>"This is not your first visit?"</p> + +<p>"No. The island attracts me more than any other part of Italy, and +justifies what has been said: 'Sicily is the smile of God.'"</p> + +<p>"Then surely His frown must be Ætna—'the pillar of heaven, the nurse of +sharp, eternal snows.' A few moments ago it was dazzling, now how grim +and sombre it looms, and that wavering jet of smoke crawls against the +purple sky as a dying candle flame flickers over the head of a corpse. I +sometimes wonder if God——"</p> + +<p>She had lifted the acanthus spray and touched it with her cheek, and her +eyes followed the ascending smoke which suddenly glowed from crater +lights beneath as sunset splendors faded; but the sentence was not +finished, and her lips paled. Turning toward her companion, she smiled.</p> + +<p>"You have been feeling the old earth's pulse while she was in an ague?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. On the surface our ancient mother appears so absolutely in repose, +and yet, when we get down nearer her mighty heart, we find the earth is +never still; it trembles and thrills ceaselessly. This was my first view +of the seismic pendulum records, in a subterranean vault that suggested +the workshop of Hephæstus."</p> + +<p>"I should think you would tire of wandering about, and prefer to go +home."</p> + +<p>"If I had one, doubtless I should; but roof, walls, and fields and +gardens do not exactly constitute the home that would content me."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, you are wedded to science, and nothing else will ever satisfy +you."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am very faithful to my vast spouse, and I find her loyal. She +never flirts, never is inconsistent or petulant; when I work hard she +smiles divinely, and, like that other sorceress of the Nile, 'age cannot +wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Domesticity is not +one of her charms, hence hand in hand we roam the world, making a +perpetual bridal tour. No connubial quarrels disturb our sweet repose, +even when I write to you, her only rival; but if I grow indolent, or +over wise or conceited, she simply lays her great finger on her lips of +stone and turns her huge planetary back upon me. Now, Eglah, you are due +in the confessional. Why did you fail to answer my letter from Fort +Churchill, Hudson Bay?"</p> + +<p>"Because it contained no address, and to reach you seemed as uncertain +as mailing a letter to that wild new comet pious people are praying will +not make a carrom with earth and moon and sundry stars. Have you heard +that Beatrix and Mr. Stapleton were married in November?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, I received a long wail from Aunt Trina, in which she came as near +boxing my ears as intervening distance permitted. Dana and Trix will be +as happy as a pair of Java finches in a gilt cage."</p> + +<p>"I imagined that Miss Manning's objection arose solely from the fact +that the cage was not gilded."</p> + +<p>"Wall Street is a wonderful matchmaker, and smiled on the lovers. +Sometimes Hymen corners stocks, and Dana's kite was lucky."</p> + +<p>Having learned from Judge Kent that Mr. Herriott had assisted Mr. +Stapleton in financial matters, Eglah smiled, and the old look of kindly +trust came back to her eyes as they steadily met his.</p> + +<p>"What a treat it would be to read Miss Manning's letter!"</p> + +<p>"Because you think my ears deserve boxing, and you enjoy seeing justice +meted out? How unkind to your faithful old friend! Nevertheless, I would +lay the letter before you, but it is in my trunk at Brindisi, where I am +due to meet Chalcott for the next steamer to Cyprus. Chalcott has +questioned the accuracy of statements relative to the recent excavations +there, and wants local data, and as he is also at odds with Schliemann +over the Troad, we go there to debate the claim of Hissarlik <i>versus</i> +Bunárbashi."</p> + +<p>"I did not know you were so deeply interested in classical archæology."</p> + +<p>"I am not, and it does not attract me; but it is a special line of study +with Chalcott, who wishes me to accompany him, not as co-worker, but +merely as a friend."</p> + +<p>"You prefer Hopi and Haida legends, and 'Walam-Olum,' and 'glacial +moraines,' and 'kettle holes'? You see, as an old friend, I thought it +really my duty to read those two reports you sent to father."</p> + +<p>"I dare say you found them very tiresome; but pre-glacial conditions and +anthropological problems appeal powerfully to me. In tossing up balloons +we do not all select the same color."</p> + +<p>"After burrowing in the Troad, where next?"</p> + +<p>"Tromsö, Hammerfest and the midnight sun. We shall have a pleasant +party: two Americans, a German professor, an English scientist, and a +Russian astronomer. I must go on to Brindisi to-morrow, but I could not +resist the temptation to see you and spend a few hours."</p> + +<p>"It will be a long time before you reach home?"</p> + +<p>"So long that I have fixed no date for return."</p> + +<p>The unmistakable expression of relief that crossed her face was not lost +upon him, and involuntarily he clenched his right hand resting on his +knee.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, your countenance is honest as your heart, and you are not glad +to see your old friend. May I ask why?"</p> + +<p>Without hesitation she looked at him frankly.</p> + +<p>"To-day something annoyed me very sorely, and I came here to fight it +out alone. I fear I have at times the temper of a Tartar, and the evil +one possessed me at the very moment you appeared and spoke to me. Just +then nothing would have given me pleasure, but your patient courtesy +makes me ashamed; and now, Mr. Noel, you must believe me when I assure +you I am heartily glad to be with you, and hear of your various +expeditions."</p> + +<p>Smiling cordially, she held out her hand, but he took no notice of it, +and for a moment his eyes rested on the sea, where a freshening wind +crimped the long swells of water dyed by the after-glow into the gold of +a daffodil. Turning, he bent over her.</p> + +<p>"May I ask you a question?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly, if I may be allowed discretionary powers as regards +answering. I do not think Mr. Noel could make an unkind inquiry, or that +he would distress me in any way."</p> + +<p>"Am I responsible for the annoyance you referred to?"</p> + +<p>Keen as was his gaze, she did not waver.</p> + +<p>"Personally it was impossible that you could have been responsible. When +it occurred you were in Catania."</p> + +<p>She saw that he was not satisfied, and, rising, put on her hat.</p> + +<p>"We must go back; father will have so much to talk over with you. Please +carry my acanthus; I shall make a sketch of this spray, it is so laden +with blossoms."</p> + +<p>In silence they walked some distance, and rather suddenly she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"I must have been rude indeed, when you, so generous and kind, will not +forgive me. Mr. Noel, I am not quite my old self, and to-day have felt +at odds with the world. Father's incomprehensible retirement from public +life grieves and perplexes me, because his health is perfect, and I +cannot patiently accept the forfeiture of all my hopes for his political +future. Without his knowledge, I wrote early in the new Administration +to two prominent officials, close personal friends of the President, and +asked their influence in securing a foreign ministerial position for my +father. With elaborate circumlocution they expressed regrets, and +'tendered kindest remembrance and best wishes.' I presume it is wise to +wage no war with the inevitable, but I simply cannot reconcile myself to +the most bitter disappointment of my life. You see, I trust you so +entirely I am opening my heart to you, that you may quite understand I +did not intend to show any lack of cordiality to you."</p> + +<p>He laughed, and tapped her shoulder twice with the acanthus spray.</p> + +<p>"With all my heart I absolve you. Rude you could not be, and I trust the +time will never come when I deserve to be treated less cordially than in +the past. When do you go back to America?"</p> + +<p>"In May or June. Ma-Lila will stay away no longer; she is so anxious to +look after her little fifty-acre farm."</p> + +<p>"In the South, of course?"</p> + +<p>"Yes; it is a corner of one of the 'bend plantations,' and with a new, +pretty cottage, well furnished, grandmother gave it to her as a bridal +present. None of us can ever forget that her father was killed while +bringing my dying grandfather off the battle-field."</p> + +<p>"Has Judge Kent decided where he will live?"</p> + +<p>"He has sold the old homestead in New England, and we expect to settle +down in the only remaining home, Nutwood, which, in accordance with +grandmother's will, we now have the right to occupy. Until this year the +trustees controlled and closed it."</p> + +<p>"Do not forget that whenever you and your father wish to visit New York +the house in Thirty-eighth Street will be entirely at your disposal—at +least for a couple of years. A telegram to my old butler Hawkins will +always insure a comfortable reception. Here comes the Judge. How +remarkably well he looks."</p> + +<p>Very late that night, when adieux had been spoken and only father and +daughter remained in the small salon, Eglah rose, and they looked +steadily at each other. In her dark brown eyes two defiant stars glowed, +but the clear, sweet voice was low and tender.</p> + +<p>"Father, after what was said this morning, I of course can only wish you +good-night. Your conditions make it impossible for me to attempt to kiss +you, and until you choose to remove the embargo, I certainly shall +observe it, in accordance with your orders. Good-night, dear father."</p> + +<p>He bowed as if to a duchess.</p> + +<p>"Good-night, Eglah."</p> + +<p>When Mr. Herriott went down the steps leading from the Kent apartments +to the street, Mrs. Mitchell beckoned him into a niche between two stone +pillars, and said, almost in a whisper:</p> + +<p>"Excuse me, sir, but will you tell me what is behind this trouble +between Eglah and her father?"</p> + +<p>"She says it is the result of his refusal to re-enter politics."</p> + +<p>"Exactly; but what is behind his refusal? She is fretting herself ill, +because she cannot find out. Ever since our last day at Greyledge they +have been estranged. This morning, when your letter arrived, something +very unpleasant occurred; and you see Eglah is not like herself."</p> + +<p>"My letter was a most innocent paper bomb—the mere announcement that I +intended to stop here a few hours on my way to Messina. It contained +absolutely nothing more, and you must have mistaken the cause of her +annoyance. Perhaps you wish to intimate that you think my presence +enhances the trouble, whatever it may be? I shall be glad to have you +speak frankly."</p> + +<p>For a moment she was silent, but she patted his coat sleeve approvingly.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, she is all I have in this world, and I can't see the +child breaking her heart over Judge Kent's selfish secretiveness. There +is something about him I do not understand, and I thought you might be +able to explain it to me."</p> + +<p>"As you have known him so much longer and more intimately than I, it +seems probable that you can estimate him accurately without my +assistance. Mrs. Mitchell, it will be a long time before I see any of +you again, and going so far away, I shall remember with great pleasure +that our dear Eglah will have you always at her side, in dark and stormy +as well as sunny hours. Good-bye; my very best wishes for you all."</p> + +<p>He understood most thoroughly. Eglah's struggle to receive cordially an +evidently unwelcome visitor had pained him inexpressibly, wounding his +pride even more than his heart, and since his absence contributed to her +peace, he resolved that henceforth she should know no disquietude. If, +despite his efforts to surrender, he had cherished a faint, +unacknowledged hope, he strangled it effectually now, and in after years +he thought of Ætna only as a monument whose shadow lay ever across the +acanthus-covered grave of his last beautiful illusion.</p> + +<p>Longer than usual Eglah knelt beside her bed that night, and when she +rose, Mrs. Mitchell, waiting to brush out and braid her hair, noted in +the pale young face traces of mental wrestling.</p> + +<p>"Little mother, does God answer your prayers?"</p> + +<p>"Not always in the way I may have wished, but when they are denied I +seem to receive instead an increased assurance that He knows best; and +as to a child crying for sharp-edged tools, His refusal springs from +omniscient mercy."</p> + +<p>"Do you think Mr. Noel is really a Christian? Father believes him a mere +rationalist."</p> + +<p>"His is such a fine character, only Christianity could have moulded +him."</p> + +<p>"I wish I knew whether he prays every night."</p> + +<p>"Why?"</p> + +<p>"If he does, his prayers and mine must clash like crossed swords before +the Lord, and Mr. Noel is better than I, and deserves to receive that +which he wants most; but he will not—he shall not!"</p> + +<p>"Eglah, dearie! The Lord alone will decide."</p> + +<p>"No. If we are free agents, human will can not be coerced by Him who +gave it. Even our great, dear, good God cannot give him what I pray he +will be denied. Never—never!"</p> + +<p>"For what is he praying?"</p> + +<p>"A razor—that would cut his fingers—so he must not have it. Now, lest +you should 'imagine vain things,' I wish you to know that Mr. Noel has +not renewed his proposal of marriage, and I hope never will. It is only +just to him that you should fully understand he is now no suitor. He is +simply my loyal, noble friend, in whom I trust implicitly. Good-night, +<i>Madrecita</i>."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> + + +<p>It had been a cold, cloudy January day in one of the great northern +cities, and with night came flurries of snow that powdered telegraph +wires and danced like thistledown around the corners. Two and a half +years had elapsed since the angel of death stooped to swing his sickle +in the daisy meadow on Long Island, and in a low, wide basement room, +fronting the street, Mrs. Dane sat at her sewing machine, hemming a +child's check aprons piled on a chair. The apartment was plainly but +comfortably furnished, and filled now with the pungent odor of ginger, +cloves, and cinnamon from a pan of small cakes on the top of an oil +stove. The gas jet above her heightened the metallic lustre of her +abundant hair, and deepened fringy shadows cast by her thick, dusky +lashes. Upon the beautiful face time had softly pressed its velvet palm, +smoothing the angles of bitterness and wrath that had been intensified +by the struggle with her husband, whom she now believed she had eluded +forever by removing to another city. On the broad windowsill at her +right stood an oval, brass filigree frame holding a photograph of +Leighton in his chorister vestments, and in front of the picture a dozen +violets filled a wine-glass. As she finished and folded an apron, +leaning forward to place it on the chair, her glance fell on the +photograph, rested there, and the ocean of the past moaned, surged, +broke over her. Despite her persistent scoffing moods, she had found it +impossible to forget the few lines Father Temple had repeated with a +faltering voice after the grave closed over the sweet young singer of +St. Hyacinth's. They haunted some chamber of her defiant soul, and when +she gazed at the holy face of her boy they stole out and whispered:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within this quiet fold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among Thy Father's sheep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I lay to sleep!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A heart that never for a night did rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond its mother's breast.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lord, keep it close to Thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>A rap on her door recalled her, and she swept one hand across her misty +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Come in."</p> + +<p>A man of middle age, low in stature, and muffled to the chin in a +handsome overcoat, stood, hat in hand, at the door.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Coolidge, I am surprised to see you, and you have made a mistake in +coming to my lodgings. I will not ask you to be seated, because I do not +wish to receive you."</p> + +<p>"But, madam, no other way of communicating with you seems possible, as +correspondence has certainly proved disastrous. That note of Mr. +Cathcart's, which you saw fit to send to his wife, ploughed up more +trouble than a ton of dynamite, and his few remaining grey hairs will +disappear before the end of this fracas. Talk about savage wild beasts, +and claws, and paws, and fangs, but you women can trump them every time +when the game is cruelty, and you want to get even with some man. Poor +Mr. Cathcart! I don't hold him a saint, but I must say you misread his +note and misjudged him."</p> + +<p>"Did you see the note?"</p> + +<p>"After his wife received it? No, but he told me exactly what it +contained, and why he was obliged to have the meeting secret."</p> + +<p>"Written by a millionaire to his poor typewriter, it was an insult, and +as such you would have hotly resented it if your sister stood in my +dependent position."</p> + +<p>"You have not an idea what he wanted to say to you when he asked you to +return to the office after every one had gone. He has found out that you +have great influence with Max Harlberg, and that you belong to several +'Unions,' and he wished to pay you handsomely if you would persuade Max +to agree to arbitration and not call a strike. Since he learned you are +a power among these men who are causing us so much trouble, he is +anxious to conciliate you, and fears your resignation will increase the +difficulty of a settlement."</p> + +<p>"He sent you here to offer this explanation?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, Mrs. Dane, and I can vouch for its truth."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Coolidge, you have always treated me with respect and courtesy, and +I have no desire to be rude to you, but I am sorry you came to offer so +shameful a bargain. I believe in 'unions'; they became necessary when +vast consolidations of capital began to strangle small corporations, and +laborers learned that only by a united front could they expect living +wages. You magnates of 'trusts' are responsible for 'unions'; you set us +the example: when capital bands, labor is forced to organize in +self-defence. You of the caste of Dives sowed dragon's teeth, and now +the abundance of your crop appalls you? We of the Lazarus caste see hope +ahead; the day is coming when we shall have an honest and fair and +permanent adjustment on the Karl Marx basis of 'plus value,' and then +every mechanic in your shops will own an interest in the car he builds +in the ratio of the hours he worked on it. Heart and soul I am with your +motormen and conductors, your carpenters and machinists. Their cause is +just, and, if I can help them, all the bonds and all the gold your +company hoards in its vaults cannot buy me."</p> + +<p>"At least you might persuade Harlberg to consent to arbitrate the +differences. The men would have an equal chance with the company."</p> + +<p>"Arbitration wolves have left no lambs silly enough to bleat their +grievances. Two years ago the strike was settled on a basis almost fair +to your employees, and in six months the provisions were nullified by +changes made possible when non-union motormen were brought here. Max cut +his eye teeth then, and now he has a winning hand."</p> + +<p>"You think a strike inevitable?"</p> + +<p>"I know it, and rejoice that the company will smart for its grinding, +inhuman treatment of men who have endured it for the sake of wives and +children looking to them for bread. Because you and Mr. Cathcart and Mr. +Hazleton and your board of directors have ample fortunes, you see no +enormity in requiring men with large families to work twelve hours, +exposed to rain, sleet, sun, and if, overcome with fatigue, they fail to +awake in time to report for duty at the exact minute your schedule +demands, they are 'laid off for three days' as punishment. No day of +rest to spend at home; nothing to anticipate but the ceaseless grind, +grind—worse than that of driving wheels and pistons in machinery, which +are allowed to stop and cool on Sunday."</p> + +<p>"If you return to your desk to-morrow Mr. Cathcart says he will double +your salary."</p> + +<p>"Tell him to divide the extra pay among the needy grey-beards limping +around the cars and shops. I will never work in his office again."</p> + +<p>"You are very unwise, Mrs. Dane, and since you sympathize with the men, +you ought not to lose the opportunity to prove yourself their friend at +court. Moreover, in rejecting a larger salary you are laying up a store +of regrets."</p> + +<p>"Make no mistake, Mr. Coolidge. You rich often force us poor to suffer +severely, but we seldom 'regret,' because that implies error on our +part. We are bitter under the pain, but we do not regret the course of +duty to ourselves that brought down the lash."</p> + +<p>"Is it true that if the railroad men's strike is declared the +telegraphers' and typewriters' unions will order a sympathetic strike? +You seem to have begun in advance."</p> + +<p>"I think not. Two nights ago, at our meeting, I urged the members to +abandon the idea, though Harlberg was present to insist upon it. A +'sympathetic strike' is only sentiment running riot, and special class +suffering alone justifies revolt. Altruistic theories of reform and +abstract justice ought not to tie up public systems and precipitate +armed conflicts. I have learned that for us 'strikes' are fearful +catastrophes—social earthquakes so far-reaching in consequences that +you opulent dwellers on a serene plateau, immune from disaster, can form +no adequate estimate of the ghastly wreck wrought in substrata of the +laboring class. Especially ruinous is the strain on our women. The men +are excited, goaded, kept on the <i>qui vive</i>, held to the front by +magnetic leaders—but the waiting women and children! Cold, hungry, +terrified, huddled in helpless idleness, expecting any moment to see +husband and father brought in on a shutter—buried in the 'potter's +field' if he dies, sent to prison as a 'riotous lawbreaker' if he +lives—these are the saddest features of bloody struggles that the +outside world never sees. Instead of 'sympathetic strikes,' far more +useful sympathy should be shown by other unions working full time +steadily and sharing their wages with those fighting for violated rights +against the encroachments of combined capital. That is what I intend to +do."</p> + +<p>"Have you accepted another position as typewriter?"</p> + +<p>"Not yet; but many ways of earning my bread lie open before me. I never +resign from my sewing machine, and I learned embroidery at a convent +where royal orders have been filled."</p> + +<p>"Making check aprons will not pay room rent."</p> + +<p>Gathering the little garments in her arms, she rose, her tall, graceful +figure clearly outlined by her mourning dress, and her eyes sparkled.</p> + +<p>"Do you remember old Silas Bowen?"</p> + +<p>"I do not."</p> + +<p>"Your corporation memories, like your consciences, are sieves. One day, +while arranging a trolleywire, a tall post behind him, decayed at its +base, fell, and crippled him. He lost a leg, and all the fingers of one +hand. Your company paid the surgeon's bill, and Bowen was sent adrift +without a cent. He sued for damages, and the jury gave him what he asked +for. You appealed the case, and a Hungarian pedler, who hated him +vindictively, swore that Bowen was so drunk he could not understand +warning shouts that the pole was shaking, and that he was falling when +the post toppled and struck him. You won, and he lost by perjury. He is +able to do little, and has nine children. His wife and oldest daughter +launder laces and fine muslins, and these aprons are for the +youngest—twins, one of whom has spinal disease and will never walk. Mr. +Coolidge, I have rather liked you, because I found you always a +gentleman, but my patience is exhausted, and, as I shall never work +again for your company, there is no reason why you should prolong your +visit."</p> + +<p>"Nothing can change your mind in our favor?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing."</p> + +<p>"I wish the whole confounded, sickening business could be ended. Of +course the company will win. New men will be at the barns and +power-houses early to-morrow, prepared to run the cars, and the court +will enjoin strikers from active interference. At the first shot the +militia will be called out to take a hand, and then the poor devils +running around like blind adders will be slaughtered. You women ought to +stop it. Some of you firebrands will land in jail."</p> + +<p>"Jail sounds dreadful, but after all it is not so bad; has its +perquisites that wealth furnishes. I tried it once. The rich, old Jew +who arrested me for stealing a Satsuma vase was so terrified when it was +found where a negro porter had pawned it, that he sent his superb +carriage and horses and liveried coachman to carry me from jail to my +lodgings. It was my first and last ride on satin cushions. Good-night, +Mr. Coolidge."</p> + +<p>When the door closed behind him, she counted the spice cakes into a +paper bag, placed it in the bundle of aprons, and wrapped the whole in a +square of oil cloth. Pushing her hair back from her brow, she drew a +black veil closely around her face, tied the ends under her chin, and +put on her long waterproof cloak, lifting the cape over her head, where +she fastened it with a safety pin. Under the grey overhanging folds of +the cape the fair, cold face looked serene as a nun's. Extinguishing the +flame of the oil stove, her eyes rested a moment on the picture of +Leighton, then she lowered the gas jet at the machine, picked up the +bundle, locked the door, and dropped the key in her pocket as she went +out to the street.</p> + +<p>The snow fall was light and intermittent, but now and then the crystal +facets glittered in the vivid bluish glare of quivering electric globes.</p> + +<p>Three hours later Father Temple, passing through the city on his way +south, stood, valise in hand, on a street corner, waiting for a downtown +car, and fearful he might miss the train where his sleeping berth had +been engaged. No car came from any quarter, and he walked on, hoping to +be overtaken. Soon a steady, rapid tread of many feet sounded from the +rear, and a squad of police dashed past him.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter with the cars?" he shouted to the hurrying column.</p> + +<p>One man looked over his shoulder.</p> + +<p>"The strike is on. Street car track torn up."</p> + +<p>In a marvellously short time the crowded pavement became a dense mass of +men and women struggling slowly forward; then a dull, deep, sullen roar, +that shook windows and doors, rolled up to the starless sky where snow +feathers fluttered. A woman screamed:</p> + +<p>"The brutes are firing cannon into the poor strikers!"</p> + +<p>"Not much! Some devilish striker throwing a bomb," answered her husband.</p> + +<p>Father Temple, finding progress impeded, stepped down into the street +and hurried on. At the end of the next square the hospital ambulance +clattered by at emergency speed, and behind it another detachment of +police at double-quick step. The street was bare as mid-desert of +vehicles, save those from hospitals, and down the double railway track +flowed a human stream, panting to reach the fray, eager to witness the +struggle as old Romans who fought for places under the <i>velarium</i>, and +shrieked "<i>Habet!</i>" Two officers on horseback galloped by, and then came +reports of shots, followed by the wild, thousand-throated whoop and hoot +of maddened men drunk with hate and fury. At the intersection of three +streets, where a small park lay, the strikers had massed the cars from +every direction, shut off the current, cut the wires, and taken their +stand. Expecting trouble next day, the company had prepared guards and +provided extra police protection for their barns and power-houses, where +a few non-union men had been secured, but the strikers frustrated these +plans by refusing to run as directed to the defended terminus. Where the +line of clustered cars ended on both tracks, iron rails had been torn up +and piled across the road bed, and here, in front and rear, motormen, +conductors, carpenters, machinists, and linemen were massed, stubbornly +defying all attempts to repair the tracks or move the cars.</p> + +<p>A half hour before Father Temple reached the outskirts of the crowd at +the square, a woman had elbowed her way to the front car and sprung upon +the platform. Just below her Max Harlberg was distributing pistols to a +group of men, all gesticulating angrily.</p> + +<p>Clapping her hands to arrest attention, Mrs. Dane called:</p> + +<p>"Silas Bowen, if you are here, answer. Silas Bowen!"</p> + +<p>"Aye, aye! Silas Bowen is here to hurry up Judgment day for the hounds +that have dodged it too long."</p> + +<p>"You must go to your wife; she needs you. The tenement where you live +burned down to-night."</p> + +<p>"Let it burn! I hope the old rat hole isn't insured."</p> + +<p>"But your wife is frantic, and wants you at once; and one of your +children is hurt. Silas, do go to them, I beg of you. I have the +helpless boy and the burned girl at my room, and your wife is there."</p> + +<p>"I have waited too long for this picnic to turn my back just as the +music begins. I am in for my share of the fun to-night, and kindling +wood will be cheap to-morrow. When the devil's pay day comes for the +boss, I mean to see the count."</p> + +<p>Leaning over the dashboard of the car, Mrs. Dane watched for an +opportunity, and snatched from Harlberg's hand the pistol reserved for +his own use. Holding it above her head, she cried:</p> + +<p>"Friends, fellow-workers, listen a moment! You are striking for the +right to live like human beings, not beasts of burden; but be careful, +be sure you do not put yourselves in the wrong by rash violence. If +strife comes, let your oppressors start it. Personal attack is not your +privilege, but defence is your right. Stand here quietly, shoulder to +shoulder, cool, steady, and keep non-union traitors at arm's length. We +who are working will see that the pot boils for your families; but, men, +I beg of you, attempt no violence; because, if the first shot comes from +us, the end will be we shall all drop from the frying pan into the fire. +The police are bloodhounds wearing the collar of rich corporations, and +the courts are butcher pens, where 'fighting strikers' are slaughtered. +When rifles are fired into your ranks and bayonets thrust into your +bodies, then—only then—must you remember 'blood washes blood.' Oh, +men, be patient! Max Harlberg, don't forget that you are responsible for +what may happen now. These men have obeyed you—have followed you like +sheep to the edge of a precipice. Don't drive them with the butt of a +pistol to leap to ruin. Counsel no bloodshed, no rashness, no wreckage."</p> + +<p>A feeble cheer rose, smothered by a grumbling growl.</p> + +<p>The wind had blown the cape back to her shoulders, and the folds of +black veil banding her head slipped down, restraining no longer the +ripples of hair curling above her temples. Leaning over the dashboard, +one hand clutching the collar of Harlberg's overcoat as she talked +rapidly to him, she resembled some gilt-headed figure carved at the prow +of a vessel, always first to front tempests.</p> + +<p>Just then a solid column of policemen charged the strikers, forcing them +back almost upon the pile of rails near the foremost car, and following +the line of lifted and revolving clubs, Mr. Cathcart and his +superintendent, Hazleton appeared. Hisses, jeers, oaths, and a prolonged +howl greeted them, amid which paving stones smote the heavy clubs that +swung right and left like flails, and Harlberg sprang to the iron +controller, leaped thence to the roof of the car, and shouted his orders +to the strikers on the ground. Wounded, bleeding men were trampled by +the swaying mass as it surged forward, staggered back, panting, cursing, +hooting; then, in quick succession, three shots rang out.</p> + +<p>A moment later Mrs. Dane laid Harlberg's pistol on top of the controller +stand, and, as she stepped down from the platform to make her way home, +something hurtled through the air and struck between the spot where Mr. +Cathcart stood and the iron dashboard of the car. In the blinding glare +of the explosion two strikers and a policeman were seen to fall, and +when the roar and sharp shivering of crashed windows ended, a sudden +hush fell upon the multitude.</p> + +<p>Father Temple had slowly forced his way along the outer edge of the +quivering throng and reached the centre of the square, where in summer a +fountain babbled. Some one behind grasped his cassock.</p> + +<p>"You are a priest? For the love of God, come to a dying man! Come back."</p> + +<p>Death had sounded a temporary truce, and for some moments only whispers +passed trembling lips, but the strikers still guarded the rails. Mr. +Cathcart wiped off the dust thrown into his face by the explosion, bared +his grey head, and lifted his hand:</p> + +<p>"Men, don't you think you have worked mischief enough for one night? +Eight dead, and only God knows how many wounded! That is an ugly bill +the law will surely make you pay. You heard those three shots fired into +the air? It was a signal for the armory; the troops are now coming. Who +will feed your babies when you are bayonetted?"</p> + +<p>A mounted policeman spurred his horse close to the president.</p> + +<p>"The soldiers are hurrying down."</p> + +<p>The leaders recognized the futility of continued resistance, and, as +they slowly fell back from the track the police were in undisputed +control of the cars when the hurrying line of soldiers reached the +square.</p> + +<p>Father Temple and his unknown guide paused beside a stretcher. Two men +wearing the Red Cross badge bent over it.</p> + +<p>"Stand back; here is a priest."</p> + +<p>Both rose, and pointed to the sheet covering a motionless figure.</p> + +<p>"Too late. He is dead."</p> + +<p>Then one added, as he touched Father Temple's sleeve:</p> + +<p>"You might be of use over yonder, where a woman is badly hurt. They are +waiting for an ambulance to move her."</p> + +<p>When Max Harlberg ordered the retreat of the strikers and jumped from +the roof of the car to the pavement, he caught sight of a huddled mass +on the step near the motor controller, and simultaneously he and Mr. +Cathcart approached the spot.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Dane had sunk down in a sitting posture on the step, and her head +rested against the shattered edge of the dashboard, her face tilted +skyward, where two stars blinked feebly through thinning snow flakes. +Blood dripped from the right shoulder, and behind one ear a red stream +dyed her golden braids, but the blue eyes were open, and her limp hands +lay in the crimson pool deepening in her lap, where the waterproof cloak +held it.</p> + +<p>"My God, it is my typewriter! Hazleton, Hazleton! Telephone for an +ambulance. Hurry! I knew she was mixed up in this deviltry, but didn't +think she would actually come to the front and take a hand."</p> + +<p>"She did not. She came here hunting Bowen, whose family was burned out +to-night, and she had taken some of them to her room. His wife has +spasms when she is worried, and was screaming for him, so Mrs. Dane was +begging him to go back with her. She wanted a peaceable strike—urged us +not to begin any fight—and she snatched a pistol out of my hand. Can't +you speak to me, Mrs. Dane? Where are you hurt worst?"</p> + +<p>Harlberg stooped to lift her, but Cathcart held him back.</p> + +<p>"Stop! You must wait for the doctor. She might bleed to death if you +moved her. A pretty night's work in a civilized city! Lord, how I wish +all you anarchists had one neck! So Silas Bowen has paid her liberally +for helping his family! He threw that bomb—aimed it at Hazleton and me, +and when it exploded she was struck by something. Leather-headed, +black-hearted scoundrel! The police have just marched him off, and the +infernal fool ought to be hung from the first lamp-post."</p> + +<p>An ambulance came up at a gallop, and while the surgeon sprang out and +hurried toward the group, Father Temple stepped forward. As the electric +light shone full on the upturned face and the wide, fixed eyes, a cry +broke from the lips of the priest, who tried to thrust all aside.</p> + +<p>"My Nona! My own pansy eyes!"</p> + +<p>The surgeon pushed him back.</p> + +<p>"I must have room to examine her. Help me lay her across the platform. +Here, you! Are you her brother? Take her firmly by the shoulders, so; +steady, lower her head."</p> + +<p>"She is my wife."</p> + +<p>What was done, and exactly why, none but the surgeon ever understood; +those who looked on knew only that jagged cuts were sprayed and closed +and bandaged; that the lovely hair was shorn away from a wound at the +back of the head, and hypodermics inserted in the arm.</p> + +<p>No word was spoken until the stretcher was ordered close to the car +platform, and the patient was lifted tenderly and laid upon it. Then the +thin, shaking hand of the priest clutched the doctor's sleeve.</p> + +<p>"I have the right to know exactly what you think."</p> + +<p>"Then I must be frank. She has received probably fatal injuries to spine +and brain, and paralysis has resulted. Whether the paralysis will be +permanent I cannot say now, because the extent of the shock has yet to +be determined."</p> + +<p>"She is not entirely unconscious."</p> + +<p>"I am sure she is. On what do you base your opinion?"</p> + +<p>"I know too well the expression of her eyes, and it changed when I spoke +to her."</p> + +<p>"Her tongue is certainly paralyzed, and she can move neither hand nor +foot."</p> + +<p>"I do not wish her carried to the charity hospital, though doubtless the +treatment is the same. Please take her to the Mercy Infirmary, and will +you be so kind as to let me sit close to her in the ambulance?"</p> + +<p>Keenly the doctor scanned the convulsed face, where overmastering +emotion defied control.</p> + +<p>"Your wife, you said? My friend, don't you think it time you laid aside +your disguise? Priests are not—in this country—given to acknowledging +their wives so publicly. It may be all right, but your marital claims +and your clothes don't seem to fit."</p> + +<p>"I am not a Romanist. I belong to an Episcopal celibate Order, and my +superior understands and directs my movements. If you knew everything +you would pity me——"</p> + +<p>The surgeon took off his hat, bowed, and waved him to a seat in the +ambulance.</p> + +<p>In after years, when Father Temple's dark hair had whitened, and vital +fires were burning low, to the verge of ashes, he looked back always +with supreme tenderness and immeasurable joy to the days that followed +the strike, as after some tempest lulls one watches the unexpected +lustre of an after-glow where it glints over the wreckage wrought, and +waves its banners of gilded rose between vanishing storm clouds and +oncoming night.</p> + +<p>In that small room at the Infirmary reigned profound quiet, broken only +by the low voices of two wise-eyed, tender-handed, know-all, +tell-nothing nurses, whose ideals of absolute obedience to staff orders +were as starched as their caps and collars. They shared the doctor's +opinion that the patient was conscious of nothing, because she neither +flinched nor moaned when her wounds were dressed, but the watcher who +spent part of each morning beside the bed knew better. Waiting one day +until the nurses left the room, he drew from his pocket a photograph of +Leighton, leaned down, and held it close to her. The half-closed eyes +widened, brightened, and, after a moment, tears gathered.</p> + +<p>He laid the picture against her lips and left it on her breast.</p> + +<p>With that fine instinct which inheres only in supremely unselfish love, +he fought down the longing to fondle her, allowed himself no approach to +a caress, remembering that his touch was loathsome to her, and in her +present helplessness would prove a cruel insult. He accepted as part of +his punishment the fierce trial of bending so close to the precious face +her hatred denied him; and only once, when the nurse laid the patient's +hand in his, while she tightened a bandage and gave a hypodermic, he +bowed his face upon it and kissed the palm.</p> + +<p>Sometimes for hours she kept her eyes shut; again, for as long a period, +she would not close them, and though her gaze, never vacant, wandered +from face to face, it held no inquiry, no sadness, no meaning save of +profound introspection, of some subtle mental readjustment; but only a +deep, slowly drawn sigh of utter weariness ever crossed her pale lips, +from which the blood had been drained. Father Temple felt assured that +as she lay motionless, fronting eternity, her self-communion was +profound and calmly searching; and ceaselessly he prayed that God's +mercy might comfort the brave, lonely, helpless soul.</p> + +<p>One morning the nurse reported that during the night Mrs. Dane had moved +her right hand and arm, but the improvement did not continue, and while +at times fully conscious, her vitality was evidently ebbing, and the +pulse began to fail. She had never spoken, and the doctor said she never +would. Standing outside the door, Father Temple waited one noon to hear +the physician's report. As he came out he put his hand on the priest's +shoulder, and answered the mute appeal in eyes that were wells of +hopeless grief.</p> + +<p>"Don't leave her. I have asked the matron to let you stay now. We have +done all we could, and she does not suffer. She may slip away at any +moment."</p> + +<p>The room was very still, and sweet with violets which Father Temple +brought daily. The muslin curtain had been looped back to admit light +that fell full on the pillow where lay the beautiful head, shorn of a +portion of its golden crown. Her features were sharpened, and the eyes +seemed preternaturally large above dark, deep shadows worn by suffering.</p> + +<p>The compassionate nurse withdrew, closing the door noiselessly. With +locked hands the priest stood, looking down into the whitening face +which the fine chisel of pain had reduced to a marvel of delicate +perfection, and when her long, brown lashes slowly drooped, he fell upon +his knees and prayed, his head bowed on the bed close to her pillow. In +the agony of his petition one passionate, broken cry rolled through the +solemn silence.</p> + +<p>"Lord, visit upon me the punishment of her unbelief! Let me suffer +all—everything—because through me she lost her faith. Spare her pure, +precious soul and save her! Oh, God, mercifully receive and comfort her +dear soul, for Christ's sake!"</p> + +<p>Some moments passed, and while he knelt, his crucifix pressed against +his breast, he felt a cold hand laid on his bowed head and a faint +effort to pat it. In the wonderful blue eyes a new light had dawned.</p> + +<p>"My darling Nona, will you forgive me? You cannot speak, but, oh, +try—try to press my hand! Have pity on me!"</p> + +<p>He had risen, and her hand was clasped in his, as he stooped over her. +Feebly the icy fingers contracted in his palm.</p> + + +<p>"Vernon, I have forgiven everything. I could have spoken after the +second day, but I was not ready. I wanted to be sure this was the end. +So much to count over. Vernon, I was too—too—hard—on you—but——"</p> + +<p>Breath failed her, and she gasped painfully.</p> + +<p>"My wife, my darling wife! Tell me you are not afraid now."</p> + +<p>She looked steadily into his eyes, and after a little while there came, +brokenly, an echo as of a voice drifting away into immeasurable wastes.</p> + +<p>"I go to my long sleep—no bad dreams. Too tired—to be afraid——"</p> + +<p>A moment passed, while she struggled for breath, and over her face stole +a smile.</p> + +<p>"If it—is—something—else—better, my baby will +be—there—my—baby——"</p> + +<p>He felt a tremor in her fingers, as with a long, low sigh the frozen +lips closed, but the calm, brave gaze did not waver.</p> + +<p>At last, after long years, it was his privilege to hold her to his heart +and kiss down the stiffening lids that veiled forever the smiling pansy +eyes.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> + + +<p>For political rancor time is not an emollient panacea. Sectional hatred +bites hard on memory, as acid into copper, and the perspective of years +of absence failed to alter in any degree the rough angles, ugly scars, +and deep shadows that characterized the people's portrait of Judge Kent. +Impotence to correct intensifies public sense of wrong, and compulsory +submission to injury borne silently garners bitterness which in actual +strife would effervesce. Only those who lived in the Southern seaboard +and Gulf States during the long, stinging years that followed the +surrender at Appomattox can understand why the names of Grant and +Sherman stirred little enmity, when compared with the unfathomable +execration and contempt aroused by the civil Federal vultures that +settled like a cloud over State, county, and municipal treasuries. The +battening of this horde soon reduced Southern finances and credit to a +grewsome skeleton. In that stifling Ragnarok, family estates feudal in +extent were seized as "abandoned lands" and parcelled out to freedman, +who had been enticed to abandon them in order to succeed their masters +in ownership. "Patriots are paupers now," was the grim proverb current +among Confederates, and the very few who showed conditions bordering on +comfort were, in public estimation, required to "stand and deliver" an +explanation of the fortuitous circumstances that saved them from the +general ruin.</p> + +<p>Judge Kent's judicial career had been disastrous to the interests of +many throughout the State, and among the legions who improved their +fortunes by coming south to "reconstruct and to dispense justice," he +was especially detested by the citizens of Y——. To Eglah, his +insistence upon returning to Nutwood was explicable solely on the +hypothesis that speculative reverses had demanded the sale of his own +property and swallowed the result; hence his resources were exhausted.</p> + +<p>Recollection of slights, insinuations, invectives, and jeers that had +imbittered her childhood did not lend beckoning glamour to the +home-coming; and without the powerful protection of Mrs. Maurice's +presence she suspected she was making a social plunge with no net spread +to succor. Deliberately and systematically she planned the gradual +renovation and, to a limited degree, the refurnishing of the beautiful +old house where it now seemed her future must be spent. A new close +carriage and stylish trap were shipped in advance, and Mrs. Mitchell +went down to superintend preparations for occupancy of Nutwood, leaving +Judge Kent and his daughter to follow a week later.</p> + +<p>Old Aaron was stooping badly and stiff with rheumatism, but refused to +relax his grasp on the butler's reins; Celie maintained her iron sway in +the kitchen; her two daughters were eager to discharge the duties of +housemaids, and Oliver, hopelessly bed-ridden, claimed that his son had +the best right to succeed him as coachman.</p> + +<p>When, on the morning after her arrival, Eglah entered the cedar-panelled +dining-room, and seated herself at the head of the table, where +glittered the tall, silver coffee urn with Dirce and her beast in bold +relief, she almost expected to see her grandmother's face reflected +there as in days gone by, and involuntarily looked over her shoulder +with a telepathic impression that behind her chair stood the stately, +old, crêpe-coifed dame disputing usurpation. Judge Kent drained his +second cup of creamless tea, held up the thin, fluted china to examine +the twisted signature of the manufacturer, listened to its protest as he +carefully thumped it, and pushed it aside.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, I do not like the room where I slept last night, and I wish a +change made to-day."</p> + +<p>"Why, father? I selected the handsomest room in the house for you. That +has always been considered the best—set apart as the guest-chamber."</p> + +<p>"Well, as I am not a guest, I have no desire to appropriate the +perquisites. I prefer the room opening into the library."</p> + +<p>"Not my grandfather's room—not where grandmother hoarded sacred—" She +paused, and the silver fruit knife, with which she peeled a peach, +clanged sharply as it fell.</p> + +<p>"Exactly. I mean the museum of rebel relics. I wish them removed at +once, and my own things unpacked and arranged there."</p> + +<p>"Father, it was grandmother's expressed wish to keep that——"</p> + +<p>"It is rather late to evoke sentiment in her behalf. She left nothing +undone to hamper, annoy, and inconvenience us, and——"</p> + +<p>"Father! <i>De mortuis—!</i> Although I am her grandchild under protest on +her part, she gave me her estate, and the one room she loved ought to be +reserved just as she wished."</p> + +<p>As she leaned to the right of the urn, to look squarely at her father, +her face was close to Mrs. Mitchell, who noted its pallor and an ominous +curve in the thin lips. Judge Kent beat a muffled tattoo with the prongs +of his fork on the handle of a spoon lying near. He smiled, eyed her +fixedly, and inclined his head in dismissal.</p> + +<p>"It is not a question for discussion, but a simply imperative matter of +obedience to instructions. I must have the change made at once, and if +extra help is needed Aaron will see immediately that it is secured."</p> + +<p>From the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table he selected a sprig +of ruby stock-gilly, inhaled its fragrance, fastened it in his coat, and +strolled out on the front colonnade.</p> + +<p>Over the girl's white face flowed a deep, dull red, and for a moment her +slender hands covered it. Then she touched the bell at her left, and +smiled bravely at the butler who answered it.</p> + +<p>"Uncle Aaron, put a pitcher of tea on the ice, so that whenever father +needs it I can have it cold. Tell Ma'm Celie I have not had such a good +breakfast since I wore short skirts and my hair down my back. Her coffee +was perfect, the waffles and beaten biscuit the very best I ever tasted, +and the brain croquettes could not be improved."</p> + +<p>"Yes, Missie, she thought she would please you. She don't forget how you +loved waffles and honey when you used to wear bibs and set in your high +chair."</p> + +<p>Having invested all in a teraph of fine gold, its votary sees with vague +uneasiness a gradual dimness blur the sheen, and when, under friction, +the gilt surface melts away and only corroding brass remains, the shock +is severe. However slow the transformation, the final disillusion is not +softened.</p> + +<p>Standing in the memorial room, with her arms resting on the mantel +shelf, Eglah looked up at the frank, noble patrician face of General +Maurice, until an unsuspected undercurrent of pride and tenderness +suddenly surged at the thought that his blood ran in her veins. Whatever +ills might overtake her, no bar sinister could ever mar, no breath of +blame could cloud the lustre of this side of her family shield. Studying +the portrait above her, and that of her lovely young mother on the +opposite wall, she began for the first time to take possession of her +Maurice birthright, conscious that here her pride could never drag +anchor. The room that from her nursery days had always been Marcia's +remained unoccupied after her death, and to this apartment Eglah and +Eliza removed every cherished object Mrs. Maurice had stored in her +husband's old study, arranging pictures, books, furniture as she had +left them. No word of comment passed the locked lips of either woman, +but, when all had been adjusted, Eglah fastened the door and handed the +key to Mrs. Mitchell.</p> + +<p>"You know she preferred 'Grand Dukes' and Cape jasmines, so we will keep +some in front of the portrait, and once a week we must see that no dust +collects here."</p> + +<p>In the future, stretching before the young mistress of Nutwood gleamed +two goals—friendly, social recognition of her father, and the +compilation and publication of a volume containing a sketch of his +career, written by herself, selected speeches delivered in Congress, and +certain judicial decisions relative to Confederate property, individual +and corporation, which had tarred him heavily throughout the State, +where they were promulgated. To the attainment of these aims she +purposed to devote her energies, believing that the accomplishment of +the biographical scheme would inevitably remove the barrier of +estrangement that had shut her from her father's confidence.</p> + +<p>After a week spent in looking over Nutwood, visiting Mrs. Mitchell's +home and inspecting the condition of gin houses, mills, fences, and +cabins on the plantations, the appointed day arrived when Mr. Whitfield +came with books and a large tin box to give a detailed account of his +stewardship.</p> + +<p>Eglah noticed that while he held and pressed her fingers cordially, he +merely bowed, and seemed not to see Judge Kent's proffered hand. After +the interview she understood, when Eliza told her that during the period +<i>habeas corpus</i> was suspended by Federal authority the husband of Mr. +Whitfield's only sister had been imprisoned for "treasonable language" +by the desire and co-operation of Judge Kent, and that distress of mind +and anxiety on her husband's account had precipitated the death of the +wife before his release from jail.</p> + +<p>Thin, wiry, grizzled, keenly alert, the lawyer's light-blue eyes dwelt +chiefly on the girl's face, save when her father asked a question or a +fuller explanation of some statement. Now and then Judge Kent, watchful +but studiedly debonair and suave, glanced over a paper, and once he +challenged the accuracy of a computation of interest, which on revision +proved correct. They were grouped around an oval table in the library, +an open tin box in the centre, flanked by two ledgers and piles of +papers, and Eglah sat close to Mr. Whitfield's right, while her father +took his place immediately opposite her.</p> + +<p>She leaned a little forward, her arms crossed on the mahogany, and +looked up steadily at the lawyer, but when he offered a paper for +examination she smiled and shook her head.</p> + + +<p>"You must perceive the farcical futility of talking business to such an +inexperienced girl," said Judge Kent, stretching out his hand to take a +bundle of stock certificates his daughter had motioned away.</p> + +<p>"Really you surprise me, because, from all we have heard of her college +training, I was prepared to find Marcia's child an expert."</p> + +<p>"Father knows I can calculate interest, and that I understand +bookkeeping, but he would be ashamed of me if I suspected or hunted for +errors in the accounts of a friend who for so many years has kindly +guarded my financial interests."</p> + +<p>The lawyer patted her hand and smiled.</p> + +<p>"That sounds like your dear mother, and I am glad you have her low, +clear voice, like the melody of a silver harp string; but your father is +quite right in urging careful inspection of matters that have been so +long intrusted solely to me. Now, I believe we have gone over the +important points, except that railroad muddle, which is still undecided. +I brought suit over a year ago, and as the new branch and spurs run +through the middle of one of your best cotton fields on Willow Creek +plantation, I hope the next term of court will give us a satisfactory +settlement. Boynton is a good overseer—not a graduate of a college of +technology nor an agricultural chemist, who knows from looking at the +soil the exact day when the Noachian flood left your lands dry, nor is +he a new-fangled 'manager,' but he is just an overseer of auld lang +syne; a trifle lax, but our old-fashioned plantation rules are dead as +Pharaoh, and he winks at lapses he cannot prevent. However, he keeps the +repair machinery busy on fences and stables, the negroes like him, and +you will find your leases and contracts all signed properly. Of course +you are aware your grandmother left instructions that when you married, +or as soon as you were twenty-one, $5,000 should be paid to Mrs. +Mitchell. I consulted the bishop, and we thought it best to defer this +matter until her return to America, but it should not be delayed longer, +and here is the check, which you can hand to her. With the payment of +this legacy her annual allowance ends."</p> + +<p>Eglah opened the table drawer, drew out an envelope, and laid it before +him.</p> + +<p>"Enclose, address, and seal it. Before you leave the house, please +deliver it to her."</p> + +<p>"Have you any questions to ask? Do not hesitate, if there is anything +else you do not understand, anything you wish to know."</p> + +<p>"Absolutely nothing, except an adequate way of thanking you for all your +patient goodness. If you can explain how I shall accomplish this, you +will increase my huge debt."</p> + +<p>Judge Kent rose and smiled benignly.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, I wonder it has not occurred to you that a proper recognition of +the value of Mr. Whitfield's services ought to involve a willingness and +effort on your part to relieve him entirely of the burden of +responsibility he has borne so long, and which, under my guidance, you +are quite capable of assuming. You are of age, and the trusteeship +should end at once."</p> + +<p>For fully a moment she pondered the suggestion, then laid her hand on +the lawyer's arm.</p> + +<p>"Tell me frankly whether you prefer to surrender the management of our +business affairs? Irrespective of my individual feeling, your wishes +alone must decide the matter, and you can best determine if the tax upon +your time is too onerous."</p> + +<p>Mr. Whitfield drew the tin box before her, and pointed to a large +envelope marked "Last Will and Testament of Patricia Maurice."</p> + +<p>"I imagine you scarcely comprehend some of the conditions that place me +in a peculiarly embarrassing position. Here is the will of your +grandmother; I preserved for you the original draft in her handwriting. +The last page bears upon the question under discussion. Read it now, and +then, whatever your wishes, I individually shall obey them."</p> + +<p>Judge Kent seated himself, lifted the decanter in front of him, and +filled a glass.</p> + +<p>"Meantime, will you join me in a glass of sherry?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you; my doctor restricts me to claret."</p> + +<p>Very slowly Eglah read the broad sheet, and her countenance changed, +clouded, as she betrayed her annoyance by taking her under lip between +her teeth.</p> + +<p>"We beg your pardon, Mr. Whitfield; we had entirely forgotten that +clause. Unless I marry, your trusteeship continues until I am thirty +years old, should I live so long."</p> + +<p>"Not necessarily mine. I can resign, or death may release me, but some +other person would be required."</p> + +<p>"A most unjust and absurd provision," said the judge, draining his +second glass, and striving to conceal his remembrance of the fact that +Mrs. Maurice had expressly forbidden his connection with the +trusteeship.</p> + +<p>Mr. Whitfield smiled.</p> + +<p>"We lawyers all know testators use only their individual standards of +justice, wisdom, and fitness."</p> + + +<p>Eglah had folded the paper, replaced it in the envelope, and turned to +the lawyer.</p> + +<p>"It appears that if for any reason you should relinquish this +responsibility, your successor is already appointed, and in that event I +should become practically the ward of the Chancery Court, which never +resigns, never dies."</p> + +<p>She looked straight into her father's watching eyes, and continued +slowly, distinctly:</p> + +<p>"I shall not marry. Your stewardship, dear Mr. Whitfield, involves some +additional years of trouble for you, but I am so deeply grateful to you, +I shall certainly try to cause as little annoyance as possible."</p> + +<p>A shutter swung open, the sun flashed in, and she crossed the room to +exclude the glare.</p> + +<p>Returning, she paused behind her father's chair, put her arms around his +neck, and interlaced her fingers. Without an instant's hesitation he +elevated and shook his shoulders so decidedly her hands fell to her +side.</p> + +<p>"Sit down, my dear."</p> + +<p>He built a pyramid with his plump, white, carefully manicured fingers, +and the brilliant eyes he fixed on the man beside him held a challenge.</p> + +<p>"If the sanctity of wills were not debatable, our profession would be +barred from browsing in rich pastures of litigation; and 'undue +influence,' fostering injustice, has bred strife since its innings as +far back as the wrongs of Esau. As sole heir to the Maurice fortune, my +daughter can follow her individual wishes and judgment concerning the +management of what is indisputably her own, since there could be no +family contestants."</p> + +<p>He bowed to Mr. Whitfield.</p> + +<p>"Judge Kent, if Eglah so decided, there would be, on my part, no +contest."</p> + +<p>"You are both mistaken. There would inevitably result a destroying +contest, with my conscience and my self-respect."</p> + +<p>Mr. Whitfield caught his breath as he noted the transformation of the +girl's face into a blanched, stony mask. Carefully replacing every +package of papers in the box, she looked under the table to be sure none +had fluttered to the floor, turned the key in the brass padlock, and +pushed the box toward the lawyer.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Whitfield, I have several times regretted that this inheritance was +left to me; to-day I deplore it. While I gratefully appreciate your wise +and faithful guardianship, I confess I very naturally feel sorry my own +dear father cannot manage my affairs; but I believe that all wills of +sane persons should be held sacred—absolutely inviolable. If the +Maurice estate is mine, it is on specified conditions that I would no +more break than the ten commandments. I shall not marry; therefore the +trusteeship must continue until I am thirty, and of all men in the +world, except my father, I certainly prefer you should retain it. Only +in strict conformity to the provisions by which I inherit will I remain +at Nutwood or spend its income; but my father's opinions and wishes are +very dear to me, and since he objects strenuously to some of the +conditions which naturally wound him, I intend to leave to him the +decision of the rejection or acceptance of the inheritance. Grandmother +declared that if the terms of trusteeship were violated, it was her wish +that I should receive merely the annuity allowed me since her death, and +that her entire estate—including Nutwood and the plantations—should be +given in perpetuity to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in this +State; women whose husbands and sons had been lost in defence of the +South. That you as trustee might not contest a flagrant violation of the +will is merely an expression of your personal reluctance to chide me +publicly; but it is a dubious compliment to any sense of right and +justice. Now, father, shall we relinquish the estate to the widows and +find a home elsewhere? Sometimes I think it would be best for us in many +ways, but you shall decide. Shall we go or stay?"</p> + +<p>Steadily she faced him, cool and firm as a granite gargoyle, but his +nostrils flared, his teeth gleamed under his grey mustache, and, tilting +back his chair, he laughed unpleasantly.</p> + +<p>"My dear, histrionism is not becoming to you—especially without chiton, +diploïdion, and fillets. Either your Alma Mater is weak along lines of +elocutionary training or you do it so little credit you never earned +your diploma. Your pretty little prologue is as preposterous as the +senseless limitations you are embracing so dramatically; but you are now +fully of age—except in Mrs. Maurice's opinion—and since the +inheritance is yours, not mine, you must accept the consequences of your +own tragic avowal and tie up your hands for some years to come. At least +I can congratulate you that all responsibility devolves upon so astute +and experienced a trustee as Mr. Whitfield, who will watch over your +interests till silver threads adorn your locks and you wear spectacles. +Since this matter is settled, be so good as to spare me any—Come in, +Aaron. What is it?"</p> + +<p>The butler had knocked twice, and now beckoned to some one behind him.</p> + +<p>"A boy with a despatch."</p> + +<p>The messenger held up the yellow telegram.</p> + +<p>"Senator Allison Kent."</p> + +<p>Very deliberately he wrote his name in the receipt book, pausing to trim +the pencil tied to it; then, bowing to Mr. Whitfield, "With your +permission," he opened the envelope. Eglah saw his face flush, and he +coughed twice in a peculiar way she knew indicated deep annoyance.</p> + +<p>"Any answer, sir?" asked the boy.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you must wait for it."</p> + +<p>He took up a pen, drummed with fingers of his left hand on the table, +and rose.</p> + +<p>"As I find it necessary to consult a record before replying to this +telegram, I must beg you, sir, to excuse me. I hope you will have time +to enjoy some of our fine fruit to-day."</p> + +<p>At the door he called to the butler, standing in a side hall.</p> + +<p>"Aaron, order dinner at three o'clock, and the trap at four. I must take +the 'cannon-ball train.'"</p> + +<p>He and the messenger disappeared, and after a moment Eglah withdrew her +eyes from the vacant chair opposite, and turned to her guest.</p> + +<p>"I think you brought some papers you wish me to sign. May I do so now?"</p> + +<p>"When you have examined them, they must be signed in the presence of a +notary public, whom you can find at my office, or, if you prefer, he +shall come here."</p> + +<p>He laid a roll of type-written documents on the table and rose.</p> + +<p>"Shall I leave the box with you for to-day?"</p> + +<p>Impatiently she pushed it aside.</p> + +<p>"Take it away—keep it. I hope I may never set my eyes on it again."</p> + +<p>The brooding shadow on her pale, rigid face made the lawyer's blue eyes +cloudy.</p> + +<p>"Dear child, I have always been the intimate friend of the Maurice +family. I loved your sweet, young mother, and I hope you know I am +willing to help you in every way possible, and that you will not +hesitate to call upon me."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. I am so sure of your sincerity, I shall begin at once to ask +your counsel. There are social complications that make a pleasant +residence here problematical, and consideration of the course most +expedient for me to pursue leaves me in doubt and perplexity. I have +thought of opening the house and grounds two weeks hence, in order to +celebrate my father's birthday by a <i>fête champêtre</i>, to which every +family inscribed on grandmother's visiting list should be invited. I +prefer to throw rather than pick up the gauntlet. You thoroughly +comprehend the situation, and I should like your advice."</p> + +<p>"Wait a while. Go slowly; social wounds do not heal by first intention. +Be chary of invitations, and do not hunt for challenges. Hold your own +firmly, but courteously, and in time I think you will win. For your +father's sake, try to conciliate the members of his church; they are an +influential social factor here. Mrs. Maurice's old friends will rally +around 'Marcia's baby,' and you must be patient. Later, when sure of +your ground, you can give all the festivals you like without receiving +an avalanche of 'regrets' that would easily paper your hall. My wife and +the girls will call at once, and I hope you will come to us just as +often as possible; but whenever you wish to see me, drive down to the +office, or write me, as, for some reasons, it is advisable I should be +here very rarely. Dear child, while your features are like your handsome +father's, you resemble your mother in many ways, and I am glad to find +you have the crystal conscience and flawless instinct of honor that all +men reverenced in General Maurice. Good-bye. I have overstayed my time. +Tell Boynton to bring up the two horses I had broken and trained for +your saddle. One of them, the bay, took blue ribbon at the State fair +last fall, and there is no better stock south of Kentucky."</p> + +<p>She walked with him half way down the hall, and they shook hands.</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Mr. Whitfield; thank you for many things. You will find +Ma-Lila in the dining-room, and whatever you think she ought to know of +to-day's interview, I prefer you should tell her. She is indeed my +second mother."</p> + +<p>After a while she went slowly to her father's room. The door was half +open, but she paused and knocked.</p> + +<p>He stood looking over an old account book, and, without glancing up, +said fretfully:</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it?"</p> + +<p>"Father, I came to pack your valise."</p> + +<p>"It is already packed."</p> + +<p>"May I come in? I want to tell you——"</p> + +<p>"No. You will say nothing that I should wish to hear."</p> + +<p>"Will you allow me to see the telegram which I fear annoys you?"</p> + +<p>"The ashes only are at your service—all that remains of it."</p> + +<p>"Tell me, at least, why you are going, and where?"</p> + +<p>"First to Washington. Elsewhere as circumstances may direct."</p> + +<p>"Please let me go with you——"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly you stay where you are."</p> + +<p>"Father—my father!" She advanced toward him, but recalling the shudder +with which he had shaken her arms from his shoulders, she stepped back +to the threshold.</p> + +<p>"Oh, father, you are cruel! You know you are breaking my heart!"</p> + +<p>The sob, the passion of pain in her voice, smote and hurt him sorely, +but he did not falter an instant.</p> + +<p>"In breaking your will, your heart may be healed."</p> + +<p>He had not looked at her, and all the while the index finger of his +right hand moved up and down columns of figures, searching for some +item, which was finally found and marked. Leaning against the door, she +watched him until Aaron rang the dinner bell.</p> + +<p>"Father, may I drive you to the station?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Then I prefer to say good-bye here, as I am going to my own room."</p> + +<p>"As you please. Good-bye, Eglah."</p> + +<p>"I wish I could share this trouble, whatever it may be that calls you +away; but since you elect to condemn me to the torture of suspense, I +have no alternative but to endure it as best I can. Good-bye, my dear +father."</p> + +<p>She held out both hands, but, instead of approaching her, he opened a +glass door leading to the colonnade and disappeared.</p> + +<p>The velvet, paternal touch caressing her tenderly from the days of her +babyhood had, during the last two years, stiffened, hardened into a +steel gauntlet, strangling her.</p> + +<p>The betrayal of his selfish and unscrupulous desire to violate the +provisions of the will had painfully startled and keenly mortified her; +but the barb that sank deepest in her sore, aching heart was the +realization of her father's deliberate plan to humiliate and punish her. +Was his persistent effort to force a marriage with Mr. Herriott based on +the determination to hasten her unlimited control of her grandmother's +estate? Until now, this explanation had not occurred to her, because the +clause binding her to the trusteeship—which rankled ceaselessly in his +mind—had made no impression on her memory. Maturely she deliberated, +weighing the past in the light of the new supposition, but this solution +was rejected as inadequate. In view of Mr. Herriott's indefinite absence +and studied silence, her father's obstinate adherence to his matrimonial +ultimatum remained inexplicable. That day ended her overtures for +reconciliation; and she laid the ax to the root of her olive tree.</p> + +<p>The next morning was Sunday—the first after their return—and she +ordered the carriage.</p> + +<p>"Little mother, I am going with you to eleven o'clock service, and I am +sure you understand it is a tribute of respect to grandmother, that +after many years of absence I attend first the church she helped to +build."</p> + +<p>Curious eyes watched for Miss Kent in another church, where her father +had worshipped, and carried her mother, and when, daintily robed in +white, Eglah walked with the overseer's wife along the Methodist aisle +and sat down in the Maurice pew, a sudden mist blurred the vision of +many in the congregation, and old Dr. Eggleston wiped his spectacles and +whispered to his wife:</p> + +<p>"Poor Marcia's baby! I can never forget her pitiful little wail for an +hour after she was born. Ah, her face is like a lily just lifted, +hunting for its God."</p> + +<p>Henceforth social lines were indicated by an apparently trivial +distinction; the small circle that in former years received Judge Kent, +and the strangers and new residents of Y—— spoke of the mistress of +Nutwood as Miss Kent; but to the mass of old families she was always +"Marcia's child," or "Mrs. Maurice's granddaughter."</p> + +<p>Very few typical Southern homes, representing wealth, liberal education, +and cultured artistic taste when 1861 dawned, have survived the jagged +wounds of war, the still more destructive bayonet-loaded harrow of +"reconstruction," and the merciless mildew of poverty that tarnished +ante-bellum splendor.</p> + +<p>Nutwood escaped comparatively intact, because, while the owner lived, +her revenue—drawn in part from European investments made early in the +war by friends in London—enabled her to maintain and repair the +property until her plantations could be readjusted under the new régime; +and, after her death, the managers of the estate had jealously guarded +it from the inroads of decay.</p> + +<p>Outside conditions, social and domestic, had changed utterly; new canons +prevailed, new manners of strange laxity rolled over former dikes of +purity, refinement, and decorum; but the turbid tide of up-to-date +flippancy broke and ebbed from the tall iron gates of the old house on +the hill. Here decadence was excluded, and one coming into the +long-closed mansion inhaled a vague haunting aroma, as if old furniture, +glass, china, books, paintings, and silver had been sprinkled with +powdered sandalwood, lavender, and rose leaves that blended with the +subtle pervading atmosphere of hereditary racial pride.</p> + +<p>It resembled other homes in Y—— as little as some gallery of +brilliant, glaring impressionist pictures suggests a cabinet of +exquisite miniatures, rich mosaics, and carved ivory, where the witching +glamour of mellowing centuries hovers.</p> + +<p>Eglah found only two scars of time. The conservatory was empty and +closed, and in the rear of the house several rows of low brick walls +showed where formerly stood what Mrs. Maurice called her "grapery," a +sunny spot enclosed with glass, alluring to her grandchild, who had +climbed a step-ladder to reach shouldered clusters, as large as her +head, of translucent, golden <i>Chasselas</i>.</p> + +<p>No strange new element invaded dwelling or grounds; the same brown hand +that gave her "hot-water tea" when she sat in her high chair now placed +her chocolate before her, and she missed only old Hector, who had +followed his master to happier hunting grounds, and King Herod, gone, +doubtless, to share the punishment of his namesake. The thoroughbred +horses and silver-grey Jerseys were fine as she remembered them, and +though they now seemed smaller, the white game fowls were as beautiful +as of yore, when she toddled after her grandmother to feed them in the +enclosure to which they were restricted.</p> + +<p>Years had made no alteration, save that a fond, trusting child came back +a sadly anxious woman, fronting the world with calm defiance, but +shivering silently under a numbing shadow of brooding dread that time +might deepen, but could not dispel.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII</h2> + + +<p>After prolonged residence in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Washington, +New York, and continental Europe, it was inevitable that returning +absentees should find the restricted environment of Y—— stiflingly +provincial; and, despite the rapid growth of the town, consequent upon +construction of new railways and erection of furnaces and cotton mills, +its limitations were apparent. There was no lack of individual brains or +culture, but Eglah missed keenly the effectively massed mental activity +that shrewdly focussed all lights on national questions, political +policies, and diplomatic legerdemain in Washington; and especially the +stimulating intellectual ozone, the sharpening friction of perpetual +debate in congressional circles. An exalted official career at the +Capitol lured her like a baleful witch, and transition from brilliant +public life to comparatively secluded domesticity in a Southern country +home strained her patience.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen who composed the most fashionable club in Y—— gave an +elaborate german to welcome the chatelaine of Nutwood. The small Kent +coterie invited the judge and his daughter to several dinners, that were +promptly repaid, while, now and then, Eglah was requested to appear at +ladies' luncheons, and to assist at five o'clock teas; but more and more +she realized and resented keenly that among the proud old families she +was tolerated simply because of the powerful hereditary Maurice +prestige. Noting the social discrimination against her father, and in +some quarters the far from fervent, though courteous acceptance of +herself, her few invitations to Nutwood dinners were confined to those +who had welcomed him to their board and fireside. By degrees an element +of haughtiness, at variance with her youthful grace and beauty, invaded +her manner, and her frigid politeness hastened the diminution of the +circle revolving about her, and reduced social hospitalities to merely +formal visiting. Complete abandonment of the contemplated <i>fête +champêtre</i> resulted from the arrival of the mail one morning, three +weeks after Judge Kent's return from Washington—a journey to which no +one ever alluded.</p> + +<p>Leaning back in her low wicker rocking-chair, in a shaded angle of the +colonnade, Eglah listlessly watched Eliza's white Angora cat, stretched +on the floor and following with avid green eyes the coquettish +manœig;uvres of two brilliant red birds that flashed from a tangle of +Belgian honeysuckle vines—brocaded with pale-pink satin clusters—to +the quivering covert of a neighboring acacia, swinging its long, flowery +fringes of vivid yellow.</p> + +<p>Of the town, nearly two miles distant, church spires and factory +chimneys were visible; but beyond the roaring river and far away, rose +against blue sky a battlement of hills, tapestried with that tender, +purple mist woven only in the loom of distance. With less than usual +interest, Eglah began to examine the papers and letters lying in her +lap. One heavy envelope contained samples of sprigged muslin for +curtains; in another, that was so light it seemed empty, she found a +newspaper clipping carefully folded in a blank sheet of thin notepaper.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Special Correspondence.</p> + +<p>"Washington:</p> + +<p>"From a source always well informed and usually accurate, it +has been whispered that the sudden change of policy in a +certain senator—whose resignation surprised his congressional +colleagues—finds explanation in the menaced divulgement of +some damaging facts connecting the ex-senator's votes with +crooked syndicate dealings in the West. How this record was +unearthed is not yet known, but it is rumored a blondined Circe +of the lobby Ææa used her knowledge of it quite successfully in +furtherance of the Bison Head bill that hung so long in +committee room, and also to secure the senator's resignation in +favor of a rival candidate for whom she shows deep sympathy. +Her threat to place her information at the service of the +approaching Legislature of the incumbent's native State +hastened his resignation some months prior to the expiration of +his term, and he promptly 'left his country for his country's +good,' to recuperate in foreign lands. Truly, 'God's fruit of +justice ripens slow,'—but fate takes care to shake the tree. +Now and then we have proof in public life that '<i>Dieu paie, +mais il ne paie pas tous les Samedis.</i>'"</p></blockquote> + +<p>The name of the paper did not appear in the clipping and date and +signature had been erased. The envelope bore postmark of a Colorado +town, and the address was type-written. It was not from the State +represented in the Senate by the Hon. Rufus Higginbottom, but Eglah's +intuitions assured her the extract had been sent by the hand of Miss +Ethelberta. Doubtless it had appeared while they were in Europe, but +whether the press circulated it freely she was now barred from +investigating.</p> + +<p>A moan she could not repress escaped her usually well guarded lips, and +she shivered as if a freezing wind swung her to and fro.</p> + +<p>A stealthy hand creeping around the dial had reached that predestined +hour she so vaguely dreaded, and its strokes sounded the knell of her +life's dearest hope.</p> + +<p>Was it merely a party libel—one of the scandalous personalities used in +retaliation for some stinging blow her father had dealt Democracy—a +foul partisan aspersion such as political opponents hurl with shameful +recklessness?</p> + +<p>Two years ago she would have hurried to her father for denial, and +published proofs that his hands were clean; but to-day, for some moments +after the shock, doubt seemed the only land of promise where she could +dwell with any semblance of peace. Looking back over all that made their +last two months in Washington so painful to her, recalling the +inexplicable nervousness that was invariably exhibited when American +letters and papers reached them at Aix les Bains, she connected +incidents that formerly had no visible relation, and filial faith began +to rock and drift from its life-long moorings. Yet with obstinate +tenacity she swung back to the only comforting supposition—that +political hatred and the unscrupulous ambition of a rival candidate had +combined to fabricate this atrocious calumny. Were it possible for Judge +Kent to vindicate himself, why had he failed to do so promptly in print? +Again and again she read the clipping, carefully committing to memory +the entire article, and when quite sure it was literally indelible, she +tore the paper into innumerable fragments and tossed them to the wind +singing through the venerable tree tops.</p> + +<p>A different nature might, perhaps, have utilized the printed statement +as a bridge over the chasm gaping between her father and herself, but +intense pride and yearning love prompted her to shield him from the +great shame of knowing she had read the blistering libel. That the +burned telegram related to this publication, was an explanation of his +reluctance to acquaint her with the contents, that appealed now to her +tenderness, and her eyes softened in a passionate longing to throw +herself into his arms, as in happier days.</p> + +<p>Doubtless the press in Y—— had copied this assault upon his political +integrity, his many enemies were gloating over it, and henceforth she +would make no attempt to level the bristling hedge of social distrust. +As one who snatches from the grave some beloved dead, and battles in +frantic hope of resuscitation, she grappled closer, to warm at her heart +the wan, fading remains of loyal filial confidence. It was an hour of +exceeding bitterness, of intolerable humiliation, but undaunted by the +severity of a blow smiting her where most vulnerable, she girded herself +to struggle in defence, faintly cheered by a vague yet obstinate hope +that in coming years her Biography might avail to rehabilitate the +character so unjustly assailed.</p> + +<p>Before her lay isolation, hidden heartache, the silent surrender of her +dearest ambition, and the acceptance of life robbed of all rosy plans.</p> + +<p>Remembering how firmly Mrs. Maurice's slim hands had held the reins of +government, Eglah followed precedent in all details of domestic +management that did not conflict with her father's wishes. While he had +amused himself with viticulture and the erection of new glass houses, +she was interested in extending and refitting the conservatory, but Mrs. +Mitchell's frequent and increasing sojourns at her small farm, many +miles distant, disquieted her foster-child, who finally rebelled.</p> + +<p>"No, Ma-Lila, it is out of the question. I can not let you go and spend +a week. What do you suppose would become of me? You may as well stop +packing your trunk."</p> + +<p>"O, dearie, you are perfectly well, and your father is always here. It +is March and I must go."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am fortunate in having father, but I want to keep you where I +can touch you whenever I wish. Ever since I could crawl you have slain +my bugaboos, and as I have not outgrown the cowardice of covering my +face with the sheet, I find the sight of that prim black head of yours +is necessary to my peace of mind. I am jealous of that little den down +by the old mill, and if you will sell out and give it up I should be +glad to pay double its value. Then you could buy bonds and cut your +coupons, and keep your hands white and soft as they ought to be, instead +of delving with butter, eggs, honey, and pickles."</p> + +<p>"Sell Dairy-Dingle! I would almost as soon sell my husband's grave. +Dairy-Dingle, where I had my two years of heaven on earth? When I go +there I want to kiss the doorstep where my Robert and I used to sit when +his day's work was ended, and in the starlight we listened to the +mocking-bird singing in the locust thicket all overrun with red and +yellow woodbine. Just now I am obliged to be there to see about the +lambs, and to be sure of the settings of eggs for the Plymouth Rocks, +and Black Spanish."</p> + +<p>"How did the lambs contrive to live all those years when you were away, +keeping me in order?"</p> + +<p>"Poorly enough, I have not a doubt, judging from the looks of the flock. +Ever since I received that letter from Robert's youngest sister, Judith, +asking me to help her educate as a civil engineer the boy she named for +her brother, I have felt the necessity of increasing the income from my +place in order to furnish the required funds. My Robert's namesake shall +have the college training he wants. Drought cut off my corn last year, +and later rain floods stained my cotton."</p> + +<p>"Then let Mr. Boynton manage your place, as he does ours, and you stay +here, while I hand you a check for what the boy Robert le Diable may +need."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, precious baby, but that would be outside charity, and he and +Judith are proud. Besides, in working and denying myself there is such a +sweetness, such a comfort in helping, as if it were serving my dear dead +to aid those he loved. Mere money is not worth half as much as the +affection that goes with it, and the labor that earned it; but, my +darling, you can't quite feel as I do."</p> + +<p>"No, I do not understand. Sometimes I wonder if I am not like a doll +stinted in her quota of sawdust; and I am sure my heart is too small, or +too cold, or too wicked, to hold more than two persons. I love only +father and you, and where you are concerned I shall never be of age. +Women who outgrow the need of their mothers repel me, like museum +'freaks.' You must not go away so often, because I miss you, and this is +an opportune time to tell you that at the back of my head lurks an ugly +mental scare-crow that if at some crisis of my life you happened to be +absent, I might go daft and scuttle the ship. Remember, you promised +grandmother you would not leave me."</p> + +<p>Prescient shadows darkened her appealing eyes, as she bent to press her +cool cheek against the rosy one of her companion, and drew her out upon +the wide, latticed piazza at the rear of the house.</p> + +<p>"She asked that I should stay with you until you married, or were +twenty-one years old; but, my baby, I need you far more than you need +me. You are my heart, and you know it; and I shall be away from you as +little as possible; nevertheless I must not neglect my own patches and +pastures. By the by, that Jersey heifer you gave me ought to be +registered. What would be a pretty name, easy to call? One that matches +her in beauty will be hard to find."</p> + +<p>"Her profile entitles her to a classical name, but the appropriateness +of its significance must be observed. As 'Hecuba' she would feel in duty +bound to add nineteen to your herd."</p> + +<p>"No, indeed. That is a mouthful of stuttering ugliness."</p> + +<p>"'Persephone' rolls softly, like the long swell of a foamless wave +settling to rest—but then you could expect no pearly horned progeny, +and she might spend her days lowing for her mother. The prettiest short +names are already in the herd books. 'Antiope?' She would not take good +care of her calves. You don't like mythology because it is pagan, and +when I pleaded with you that your cat should be 'Hebe' you turned up +your little nose and labelled her 'Delilah.' Such a consistent saint! +You prefer Old Testament wickedness to heathen purity. Suppose you +compromise on 'Doucette,' and then you can feel sure she will neither +kick nor gore."</p> + +<p>"If that is the best you can suggest, I shall just suit myself and call +her Patricia of Nutwood."</p> + +<p>"<i>Madrecita</i>, you can not. It is pre-empted. The mother of our herd was +imported from St. Helier by my grandfather, when she was only eight +months old, and he registered her in his own herd book, 'Patricia of +Nutwood.' Mr. Boynton showed me an old leather-bound copy last winter, +when I signed several transfers."</p> + +<p>"Then the next best for my brown satin beauty is 'Noela,' in honor of +Mr. Herriott."</p> + +<p>"I am racked by jealousy that you should overlook the liquid brevity of +'Eglahtina' or 'Eglahkentana.' Let us sit here on the steps, where we +can enjoy our leafy canopy. Could anything be more beautiful?"</p> + +<p>She threw back her head and looked up. In front of the steps two lines +of very old elm trees marked the limits of a walk leading through the +"back yard" to the vegetable garden. On each row, planted opposite, +white wistaria had been trained so carefully that as the lower lateral +elm branches were cut away to keep the arch intact, the vines climbed +higher until now, the top boughs of the trees having met, all along the +walls and across the pale-green dome of elm leaves swung long, drooping +spikes of snowy bloom, amid the olive-tinted wistaria foliage.</p> + +<p>"I never saw anything so lovely in Italy," said Eliza, stroking Delilah, +and straightening the blue bow on the cat's neck.</p> + +<p>"We came too late last spring for the bloom, and we have not seen this +living ceiling for so many years. When I was at college I used to shut +my eyes and recall it just as we left it. My little 'sundown supper' +table on the square of matting yonder, you sitting on the bottom step +crocheting mats, grandmother, so tall and thin, walking up and down the +side flower garden over there, gathering rose leaves for the big blue +china rose jar in the drawing-room, old Hector following her like a lean +shadow, and King Herod spreading his tail till I threw him bread crumbs. +How often I longed for one of my 'sundown' suppers—my bowl of hominy +and cream, my cup of milk, the tea cakes and ginger pone, and blackberry +jam. The smell of cloves and cinnamon, and the taste thereof!"</p> + +<p>Watching her face, relaxed in dreamy retrospection, Mrs. Mitchell asked:</p> + +<p>"Where is Mr. Herriott?"</p> + +<p>Without removing her eyes from the long wistaria plumes waving overhead, +she answered in a colder tone:</p> + +<p>"When father heard last, he was in Norway, but since then I read an +account of a dinner given to the party of which he was a member, by a +geographical society in London."</p> + +<p>"You have received no letter?"</p> + +<p>"None recently, and I do not expect any."</p> + +<p>"Because you do not deserve any. I am so disappointed in him."</p> + +<p>"In what respect? I imagined that in your eyes, as in father's, he was +simply perfect."</p> + +<p>"He is capable of something far better than lounging through life with +his hands in his pockets, and loafing around the world. If he could only +have the good luck to lose his money, he might accomplish what God makes +such men for."</p> + +<p>"He is not an idle tramp. He is kept busy dancing attendance on his +exacting bride."</p> + +<p>"Bride!" exclaimed Mrs. Mitchell, with such startling shrillness that +Delilah sprang out of her lap and surveyed her with astonishment.</p> + +<p>"Not a bride of pink flesh, on whom he can bestow collars of diamonds, +but an old dame of hoary locks, whose harsh jargon he considers musical, +and who, having taken his purse and tied him to her apron strings, drags +him from the bowels of the earth to the mountains of the moon, amusing +him with photographs of microbes and eclipses, and with prehistoric +skeletons that her relentless horny claws have stolen from their lawful +graves. Long ago he was wedded to 'Science,' and of course he keeps his +bridal vows."</p> + +<p>"I am sure you do not fully understand him, and I wonder he did not +marry Miss Stanley; she is so lovely, and he certainly admired her."</p> + +<p>"She is indeed a luscious beauty, and attracted him, but if he really +had any serious intentions, I think she lost him that night when the +alarm of fire emptied the theatre. Ours was a proscenium box in the +second tier. Eleanor Stanley had dined with Captain Sefton's sister, he +was her escort, and I went with Mr. Herriott. Of course you know all +about the horrible tragedy, but I never told any one what preceded it. +Toward the end, and while the curtain was down, Captain Sefton so far +forgot himself as to repeat an unpardonably <i>risque</i> story of a smart +set leader, at which Eleanor laughed heartily. I stared at my bouquet of +orchids, and lifted them to shield my face where I felt the blood. +Without moving an eyelash Mr. Noel sat like a sphinx, looking steadily +at Eleanor, then took my opera glass and watched a party of pretty girls +in the dress circle. His face was as absolutely impassive as one of the +masks frescoed on the ceiling. In the middle of the next and closing +act, a scream from the rear of the stage startled us, and almost +simultaneously two of the ballet girls rushed from behind the wings, +with fire blazing in their short, gauzy skirts. One ran to the corner of +the stage just under our box, and the actors fled from her. Mr. Herriott +put his hand heavily on my shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Do not move an inch till I come."</p> + +<p>He snatched his overcoat and my velvet opera cloak, stepped on the +railing of the box, measured the distance with his eye and leaped down. +He struck on his feet, and staggered, but the next instant he reached +the girl, who ran shrieking up and down, caught her, threw my cloak over +her head, pressed her to the floor, covered her with his overcoat, and +rolled her over and over as if she were a ball. Of course she was +horribly burned, but she lived. The other poor creature kept her hands +before her face as a screen from the flames, missed her footing, +stumbled over the footlights and fell among the orchestra chairs. The +musicians smothered the flames, but she died after two hours of torture. +Mr. Herriott's gloves saved his hands, but one wrist was badly +blistered, and his mustache singed. When we were going home I told him +how enthusiastically Eleanor admired and praised his bravery, and that +she declared she would strive to win his affection were he not so +'goody-goody'; she feared he would expect her to be equally pious. A +queer expression I could not understand crossed his face, and when he +spoke his voice was stern:</p> + +<p>"'I am not pious; more is the pity! At least I am too honest to accept +praise I do not deserve. Please be so kind as not to refer again to this +evening, several surprising incidents of which I shall be glad to +forget.' A few days later he sent to replace my scorched velvet, that +gorgeous ivory satin opera cloak brocaded with lilies in silver, which +father and you wished me to accept, and I based my refusal on his +request, as the mere sight of it would inevitably remind him of a night +neither of us wished to recall. Look yonder."</p> + +<p>"Yes; there must be a picket off that white game yard fence, for I am +positive I fastened the gate this morning. Run on ahead and open the +gate wide, for when they are driven back they never can find the crack +where they came out. That white rooster is all ruffled up for a fight +with the red one. Scare the hens back and stand on one side."</p> + +<p>When the fugitives had been shut in, the two women stood admiring the +flock.</p> + +<p>"Dearie, do you know how old these chickens are? Forty years before +railroads were built in this state, your grandfather brought them in a +champagne basket on the top of a stage-coach from somewhere in Maryland, +and the person who gave them to him had imported them from England forty +years before. Think of it!"</p> + +<p>"I do, with astonishment difficult to express. More than eighty years +old, and no sign of decrepitude in crowing, fighting and laying eggs! +Little mother, what are <i>tarrididdles</i>?"</p> + +<p>Laughing, she put her hands on Eliza's shoulder and shook her gently. +The little woman pinched her ear.</p> + +<p>"Don't talk slang to me. You know I did not mean these very identical +fowls are those that came in the champagne basket, but the original +trio, two hens and a cock, were kept in a separate yard, and so the +stock has remained pure game for more than forty years. They are such +beauties, and to the last day of her life your grandmother was so proud +and fond of them. One morning when we were feeding them she told me how +General Maurice had laughed over the cunning of one of the negroes whose +duty it was to attend to the fowl yards. The general had promised a +setting of eggs to a friend in a neighboring county, and ordered the man +to bring him one dozen perfectly fresh. The negro protested against a +violation of the rule that no one else should own the white games, so +that if stolen they could be traced. His master insisted, and when the +eggs were handed to him he packed them very carefully in cotton, to +prevent jostling, and sent them to his friend. Some time afterward, a +letter reached your grandfather, informing him none of the eggs had +hatched, and he called the man and read the letter to him.</p> + +<p>"'Narry aigg hatched? Well, I made sure they couldn't, for I am +'sponsible for keeping dem chickens safe at home and I 'tends to my +bizness. You see, marster, I knowed you was in a mighty tight fix, +'cause natchelly you hated to say no when Dr. Glenn axed for 'em, and +most natchelly you didn't want our yaller-breasted, brass-winged white +games crowing in other folks' yards, and so I just pintedly shuck 'em +and shuck 'em like thunder, till they was foamy enough for Celie's omlet +skillet.'"</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX</h2> + + +<p>If owners of old manorial houses kept frank and faithful log-books, +strange domestic records might now and then be read, rivalling in tragic +incidents those of passing ships. Conspicuously infelicitous was the +stream of events beating against Calvary House and reducing an ancient, +broad estate and handsome three-storied brick residence to a few +impoverished acres, and a rambling structure partly destroyed by fire, +and wholly abandoned to vacancy and isolation in consequence of grewsome +gossip. During eighty years the proprietorship had been vested in only +two families, totally unrelated; in the first, the reckless extravagance +and unbridled careers of four beautiful women depleted the domestic +coffer, necessitated the sacrifice and sale of the property, and drove a +weakly indulgent father to suicide. In the second the vices of sons +plunged the widowed mother into melancholia and an insane asylum.</p> + +<p>From time to time portions of land were sold to enable the boys to +continue their wild carousals. Fratricidal strife ensued, and one +brother spent the dismal residue of his days in the penitentiary, +expiating the murder of the other. The vicious round of horse-racing, +cock-fighting, fox-hunting, gambling and drinking once madly run had +ended in the final wreck, and what remained of the estate fell into the +hands of Mr. Herriott's father, whose agent held the mortgage. +Sufficiently grim was the foundation of facts; yet still more appalling +the superstructure of neighborhood traditions, and the ghoulish tales of +superstitious servants. Venerable trees, whose sheltering arms might +have veiled the ruin, had been over-grown by mistletoe, until very few +survived to stand guard, and when a hunter crept with his pointer +through broom-sedge waist high all over the lawn, his cigar spark set +the whole aflame, and only two fine old oaks close to the house were +left as sentinels. Later, a lightning bolt destroyed one; two years +after, an equinoctial gale blew the other half across the mossy roof. +Stark, weather beaten, its broken windows like eyeless sockets in a +skull, the old house, dumb in desolation, stood in dire need of the +mercies of bell, candle, censer, and aspergill to exorcise its garrison +of unholy spectres. Five years after the place had been given by Noel +Herriott to the "Brothers of the Order of Calvary," lime, paint, +wallpaper, patient toil and a wise appreciation of the adaptability of +angles, corridors, dormer windows and verandas, in architectural +alterations, had transformed it into a quaintly irregular but +picturesque structure. Outside mouldy walls were curtained with +ampelopsis lace, while from a circular belfry between the original +square rock chimneys, a deep-toned bell swung below a tall gilt cross, +and uttered its holy message of peace to a troubled and tragic past. The +basement had been converted into a refectory, kitchen and store room, +the large apartments were partitioned into individual cells, and an +infirmary; and the long drawing-room became a chapel, with a small +oratory adjoining. Here a pipe organ sounded through the arch leading +into the chapel, and over this opening a purple curtain fell when +service ended. Beyond and in line with the oratory, a one-story wing +with a wide cloistered piazza looked toward the rear of the house, and +held a sacristy; then three small chambers fronting the vine-draped +cloister behind whose arches paced, book in hand, fathers, brothers and +lay brothers.</p> + +<p>In the early stages of the era of renovation the place had resembled an +industrial farm rather than a religious retreat; but gradually, as +orchard and vineyard were replanted, gardens outlined and cultivated, a +solemn, peaceful silence enveloped Calvary House, broken by no ruder +sounds than Angelus, chants from the chapel, low-swelling organ tones, +and that peculiarly sweet, thrilling threnody of hedge sparrows moaning +in a ragged thicket of very old lilacs. Along the front of the sloping +lawn a fence divided it from the turnpike leading into the city, and +over the wide wooden gate sprang an arch bearing in black letters, +Calvary House, and surmounted by a cross. From the gate latch swung the +porter's bell.</p> + +<p>Since the day when, standing at an open grave close to Leighton's mound +in Evergreen, Father Temple had read the committal service as his wife's +coffin was lowered, and pronounced the farewell benediction, the springs +of his busy life seemed to have broken. Max Harlberg and the few who had +followed the hearse, stole away, leaving the priest on his knees. Later, +as stars came out to guard the hosts of sleepers, a watchman found him +prone on the damp mound, and in a heavy stupor. An ambulance carried him +to the nearest hospital, where he rallied slowly from an attack of +pneumonia that left his lungs too weak to permit the possibility of +preaching, and the doctors warned him a year's rest was imperative. +Engagements for "missions" and "retreats" were cancelled, and his +superior summoned him home, but after a few days advised him to go South +and visit his relatives in Y—— until the winds of March had blown out +their fury. On his return, still thin and wan, he resumed his duties, +and from Prime to Compline missed no service. After Vespers, the tolling +of the <i>De Profundis</i> bell called all to their knees in silent prayer +for the dead, and his bowed head was always the last lifted. How much +penance was self-imposed none knew, but a change had come into the +habitually sad face; keen mental strife, devouring anxiety, were at an +end, and the large dark eyes told of an inward patience that was not yet +peace, of an acceptance of the verdict that his life spelled hopeless +failure. So marked was the alteration in figure and features, that one +sunny day at Calvary House, as Mr. Herriott grasped his hand, he was +painfully startled.</p> + +<p>"Vernon! You are little more than a holy shadow! If starving is the +regimen prescribed here, I do not feel tempted to tarry even for a day."</p> + +<p>"Noel—God bless you, dear old fellow! At last you have remembered us, +and how well you look! The bare sight of your superb strength is tonic. +Come into the chapel. Terce bell is sounding. After a little the +Brotherhood will greet you."</p> + +<p>Under the guidance of Father Superior Elverton, a gaunt man of unusual +height, with the ascetic jaw of a Trappist, and dreamy eyes mystical as +Hugo of St. Victor, Mr. Herriott was shown fields, garden and buildings, +and after dinner in the refectory, where, in honor of his presence, +conversation was allowed, he asked the privilege of being left alone +with Father Temple. It was a warm day, and drawing chairs to a shaded +recess of the cloister, Mr. Herriott said:</p> + +<p>"I am so glad the weather favored me to-day for this visit. It will rain +soon."</p> + +<p>"No; look at that deep blue, clear sky. I see no prophecy of rain, but +you have tried so many climates, doubtless you are weather wise."</p> + +<p>"If a man who has slept often in tents, open boats and on the bare +ground learns nothing of nature's atmospheric signal code, he is far +below savages in intelligence, and more ignorant than brutes. You of the +shut-in clan are not skilled meteorologists, but time is too precious to +be wasted in idle weather chat. Vernon, there is much I should like to +know, yet I shrink from questioning you. Many letters have been lost, +and my home news came in snatches, sometimes with no connection, no +coherence. I have thought of you constantly, and now what you are +willing to tell me of all that has happened since we parted in New York +that Sunday night, I shall be glad to hear."</p> + +<p>Leaning his elbow on the brick base of an arch and bowing his head in +his palm, Father Temple narrated the circumstances that attended the +death of his wife and son, withholding nothing. His muffled voice was +steady and passionless, as if reading from the breviary, and when the +face lifted it showed only the quiet hopelessness in eyes of one going +back over a battle-field where all that was cherished went down.</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Temple. It might have been worse, and at least you must be +comforted in knowing that at the last she relented and did you justice."</p> + +<p>"The last has become first. All that preceded it I have cast away, and +that final hour of forgiveness, that touch on my head—that feeble +clinging of her fingers—is what remains of my past life—what sustains +me for the future."</p> + +<p>"Try to avoid morbid retrospection. Your expiation has been so complete +you have no grounds for self-reproach; you are still a young man, and +your life work is ahead of you."</p> + +<p>The priest threw out one hand, and his trained tone broke suddenly.</p> + +<p>"Expiation will never end while I have breath to pray—not until the +same grave that holds my victims covers me. You can not understand, +because you know no more about love than the rubric! If you had ever +felt your wife's lips on yours, or the clasp of your child's arms, and +heard his glad, tender cry of 'father!'—you would realize that no +expiation could be sufficient, if your hand had smitten them to ruin."</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I do understand the torture more thoroughly than you imagine, +and you must allow me to say that were I as sadly circumstanced as +yourself, I should set my back to the past, and resolutely hunt for +sunshine in coming years. Deliberate, intentional villainy was never +your sin, and for a foolish boy's rash haste you did everything possible +to atone. I shall be sorry to see you so unmanly as to sink down in the +mildew of an abject melancholy. Your surroundings invite morbid +memories, and just here, Vernon, let me say I do not like your +refectory. It is dark, damp, mouldy, and you must make a change. +I should enjoy breakfasting in the catacombs quite as much. Ask your +superior to estimate the cost of building a refectory on this floor, say +to the left yonder, and perhaps the matter may be arranged +satisfactorily. Another bell! What office comes next?"</p> + +<p>"That is to notify us 'free time' is over for the day. We have an hour +in which to employ ourselves without direction. Below the vegetable +garden Brother Theodore comes from his pet strawberry bed, and over +yonder, what looks like a huge black bird with flapping white wings is +Brother Aristide dusting the leaves of his grapevines with some +insecticide powder. He came from Burgundy, and believes that ledge +behind the line of cherry trees lying south-southeast will give him +Chambertin equal to the best in Côte d'Or. You see even here each +trundles his recreation hoop once a day."</p> + +<p>An east wind had spun fine silver cloud lines curving across the blue, +clustering, widening into two vast, fleecy pinions that were floating +slowly to the gates of the west. Despite sunshine, chilliness edged the +air, and Father Temple coughed hoarsely.</p> + +<p>"Your reverence should not stay here next winter. It is too humid. As +the crow flies and the wind sweeps, the Atlantic can not be more than +twenty miles away, and when northeast gales howl from Barnegat to +Hatteras, this is no sanatorium for you. If you have no special +preference for tuberculosis, and have not vowed slow suicide on that +altar, I should be glad if you would select some other mode of exit when +you finally say good-bye. Consumption robbed me of my father—I hope I +shall not lose my friend also thereby."</p> + +<p>The priest smiled, and laid his thin hand on his companion's knee.</p> + +<p>"In many characteristics we differ so widely, I have often wondered that +you care at all for me."</p> + +<p>"You were so honest and fearless and manly when we met at college. You +showed such genuine pluck in that hazing scandal, so much quiet, heroic +magnanimity when the official investigation followed. Vernon, for God's +sake, wake up! You have talent; don't doze like a toad under a stone +wall. Come out of shadows that paralyze you, and try to make your mark +in the world of letters. I do not wish to change my——"</p> + +<p>He paused and frowned. A flush tinged Father Temple's sallow cheek.</p> + +<p>"You do not wish to consider me unmanly now?"</p> + +<p>"That is exactly it, and if you force me to do so I swear I never will +forgive you. Don't brood and mope. Go back to Plato and Horace—they are +the best brooms for cloistral cobwebs—and promise me you will not stay +here next winter."</p> + +<p>"My cousin Allison Kent and Eglah insist I shall spend December and +January with them, in Y——, and since I am forbidden to preach at +present, I may accept the invitation. I was there on a brief visit +several months ago."</p> + +<p>"Tell me about them. It has been long since I heard directly."</p> + +<p>"The judge has grown extremely stout, and says he enjoys the lazy +leisure of Southern life among the opulent, but he seemed restless and +abstracted, and was often absent on fishing excursions. Eglah perplexes +me. She is graver, more reticent, and far more beautiful, but reminds me +of a person walking in troubled sleep, determined, yet vaguely +apprehensive. At times it occurred to me that her relations with her +father were not as tenderly cordial as I remembered in the Washington +life; he never caressed her, and she seemed in a certain degree aloof, +but her careful deference in manner and speech was exquisite. She told +me his retirement from a senatorial position was the supreme +disappointment of her life, and her chief solace now is the preparation +of a volume of his speeches, prefaced by a biographical sketch she +intends to write. I think her father is very unpopular with the majority +of old families in Y——, who will never forgive his course while +Federal judge, and as they represent the best social element, conditions +beyond her control have embarrassed Eglah, but she gives no hint and +fronts the situation with admirable cool calmness."</p> + +<p>Leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head, Mr. +Herriott seemed to watch the narrowing circles of a hawk beneath which +three frantic pigeons dashed aimlessly round and round, and in the final +swift swoop one white bird disappeared in a vanishing brown shadow.</p> + +<p>"You have lost a pigeon."</p> + +<p>"We have none. The lay brothers complain of their depredations in the +garden, and sometimes trap those that belong in the city, but they are +always carried off and set free."</p> + +<p>"Vernon, why does not your cousin Eglah marry Roger Hull? He is as +nearly worthy of her as any man she will ever meet; he is eminently good +looking, bright, a spirited debater, and as it is said he carries the +votes of his district in his vest pocket, he has an assured political +position where she could gratify her ambition. If he lives he will sit +in the Senate. He was very devoted in his attentions. Is he still +loyal?"</p> + +<p>"No. I hear he is reported engaged to a pretty girl in Washington, whose +father is a naval officer. Certainly Eglah does not lack beaux. She has +very fine horses, rides daily, and one of her most frequent escorts was +a Dr. Burbridge, very handsome and a specialist in neurology. I don't +know Hull, but he has been twice to Nutwood since Eglah came back from +Europe, and Cousin Allison said that she froze him so completely on his +last visit that he gave up the chase, and consoled himself with a more +responsive charmer. If political life allures her, Hull certainly +offered an attractive opportunity, but I am sure her father did not +favor that suit, and as her ambition was more for his preferment than +from any personal fondness for a congressional career, she will soon +cease to regret, and find contentment in her lovely surroundings."</p> + +<p>"I am afraid not. Pardon the simile—but take a thoroughbred filly +raised and trained on the race track, and when she is champing her bit, +trembling for the signal to start, lead her aside, shut her in a +pasture, fasten her to a plough trace, or harness her with a mule on the +other side of a wagon-tongue, and do you wonder the load comes to grief, +or the furrows are crooked when she sees the racers flash by, and hears +the rush of hoofs, the roar of cheering thousands? Eglah knows what she +wants, and disdains compromise. The present environment suits her as +little as a stagnant millpond would a yacht cup challenger."</p> + +<p>"I wish she could marry happily, but the day I came away we stood at the +front steps and I told her I hoped I might have the privilege of +performing the ceremony, if during my life she consented to make some +man happy. The judge laughed and tapped me on the shoulder. 'I will see +you get that wedding fee. When you are needed I shall telegraph you.' +She stepped a little closer to him, put her hands behind her, and looked +at him with strange intentness; then turning to me she said, with +singular emphasis: 'I shall never marry. As I have been baptized, only +one more ceremony can be performed for me, and if Ma-Lila does not +insist upon a Methodist minister, I promise that you shall pronounce +'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'—when mother earth takes me back to her +heart.'</p> + +<p>"Just then Mrs. Mitchell dropped her basket, and the clatter of keys and +scissors broke the strain, which I could not understand. But Eglah's +eyes recalled something I have not thought of for years. Do you +recollect a picture of the Norns we saw that summer we walked through +Wales?"</p> + +<p>"Three figures, one veiled? We could not find out who painted it, but I +never shall forget the wonderful eyes of Urd."</p> + +<p>"They looked at me again that day in Nutwood. The expression was as +inscrutable as the smile of Mona Lisa—not defiance, nor yet +renunciation, neither scorn nor bitterness, but deathless pride and a +pain so hopeless no sound could voice it."</p> + +<p>There was a brief silence, broken by the muffled chanting in the chapel, +and Mr. Herriott's hands were gripped so tight behind his head the nails +were purple, but his face showed no emotion, and when he spoke his tone +betrayed only quiet sympathy.</p> + +<p>"For many years I have associated her with a passage in Jeremiah: '<i>As a +speckled bird, the birds round about are against her.'</i>' Poor little +speckled bird, beating out her life. Battling alone against a host of +hawks is dreary work."</p> + +<p>"I suppose you are going to Y——?"</p> + +<p>"No, I must get back home. I have been away too long. My poor faithful +Susan is dead."</p> + +<p>"I hope you are tired of globe-trotting, and ready to anchor yourself at +your own fireside."</p> + +<p>"As yet I have made no definite plans; have been considering two recent +offers. One is the presidency of a great railroad system—a position I +might possibly fit myself to occupy if I went into the machine shops and +roundhouses and worked hard for the next five years. It happens that the +shares and bonds of one short but very important line which my father +practically owned when the middle West was comparatively undeveloped, +have appreciated enormously, and now that road is the link absolutely +necessary to the contemplated consolidation of a new route that will +touch the Pacific. I cabled my refusal to sell out, and the next bait +was the presidency. Mr. Stadmeyer and I have controlling interests and +our views accord. Two days ago we had a meeting, at which I declined +office, and we leased our road for thirty years. That relieved me from +one horn of the dilemma; the other still threatens. A Polar expedition +will be ready next year, and I have been asked to take a place aboard +ship."</p> + +<p>"Noel, I beg of you, dismiss that thought. Of all scientific follies, +that Pole-hunting mania is the wildest, the most indefensible. To add +your bleaching bones to the cairns heaped on the eternal ice altar of +Polar night is no ambition worthy of you. Don't think me childish, but +the sight of you is such a comfort I could not bear to have you risk +your life searching for mares' nests so far away."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott laughed—a genial, hearty, deep-chested sound rarely heard +in cloisters.</p> + +<p>"Get rid of that cough, and I will take you along as chaplain to +christen the Pole—presumably it is pagan at present. I wish you would +go down to New Mexico or Arizona and make a sensible effort to build up +your constitution, which seems suing you for damages. Leave medicine and +the breviary in your cell, and lie under the stars and inhale that +wonderful, healing air. When you wish to pray go down into the Grand +Cañon, you will find you can succeed without needing a book to help you. +In that sky verily 'the heavens declare the glory of God; and the +firmament sheweth His handiwork.' Mission work, and to spare, would +interest you at a Moqui Pueblo, and I can recommend one whose primeval, +idyllic repose dwells in my memory like an eclogue of Virgil's. It is +spread over the crown and sides of a precipice where terraces tilt their +outer edges upward to prevent water from draining the little gardens. +Masonry-lined cisterns gleam under moonlight like molten silver, sheep +and goats bleat in their stone enclosures, a frieze of kids runs below +the cornice of brown cupids drowsing on the wall, and all about the mesa +a pink cloud of blooming peach trees and a yellow mist of acacias. Weigh +this cure scheme, discuss it in Sanhedrim, and if you think favorably of +it let me hear from you before October, as I have several friends among +ranchmen, and some of the Moquis have not forgotten me."</p> + +<p>"Do you intend to settle down now at your lake-shore house?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for the present. I have been invited to write for two scientific +magazines, and one of the subjects suggested rather appeals to me—a +comparison of the fiords of Norway with those of Alaska and British +Columbia, but I have not fully decided. However, I am committed to help +Chalcott verify numerous citations from Strabo's tenth book, relative to +Crete, and I must brush up my classics. Chalcott is sanguine of 'great +finds' around the site of ancient Knossos in the near future. He has +been stung by the Pelasgian bee, and I have promised to hunt and copy +some passages from Strabo."</p> + +<p>He took his hat from the floor and rose.</p> + +<p>"Now I must say good-bye to father superior and the brethren."</p> + +<p>"We hoped you would spend at least one night with us, in the room we +have named and set apart for you."</p> + +<p>"I must get back to Philadelphia in time for a meeting to-morrow of +stockholders and directors of our railroad. Mr. Stadmeyer requested me +to attend, though he is really our watchdog. Don't delay the refectory +improvements, and since you are all so good as to give me a special +penitential apartment, I wish you would brighten it up with a cheerful +paper, and allow me the privilege of sending some human derelict to +anchor here in peace. God knows, there are fleets of souls adrift, and I +should be glad if, for my sake, you can tow some into the snug harbor of +my cell, until the day comes when my sins culminate and force me here +for penance."</p> + +<p>When the two walked down to the outer gate, the contrast between the +virile athlete and the shadowy black form of the priest was pathetically +vivid.</p> + +<p>The busy shuttles of the east wind had spread their cirrus laces even +along the western horizon where the sun had vanished, and the sky was +one huge arching shell enamelled with mother-of-pearl, as the cloudlets +burned in the after-glow.</p> + +<p>"Vernon, don't look back. You have balanced your books with the past. +Dear old fellow, I wish to think of you as fulfilling the rich promise +of our college days."</p> + +<p>"Assure me you will give up that Arctic whim. The thought of it +distresses me."</p> + +<p>"Do not worry about me. The expedition could not be ready to start for +at least a year, and by that time I may not need to go. Sir John +Franklin's ghost may chat with mine and tell me all the secrets of the +Pole, which doubtless he discovered when Arctic ice claimed his body."</p> + +<p>He laughed, they shook hands, and parted.</p> + +<p>At a bend in the road he turned, looked back and waved his hat to the +watching figure standing under the gilt cross, and silhouetted in sharp +lines against the opal dome of the west.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX</h2> + + +<p>"Little mother, the weather is so lovely I really ought to drive with +you to Dairy Dingle, instead of letting you go in that dusty, stuffy +car; but you will not wait, and you know I have promised to go to the +club german to-morrow night."</p> + +<p>"I shall get back in time to help you; the train is due at 7:10. Your +dress is already pressed, and ribbons and lace sewed on, but as you have +not worn it, I want to be sure about the hang of that skirt. Your +sash——"</p> + +<p>"Your train is ready to start. Good-bye, Ma-Lila."</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, dearie. I wish the club house and Dr. Burbridge were in +Jericho! Then you could go with me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell kissed her companion's cheek and hurried to the car +platform, where she paused a moment, looking back at the girl seated in +her trap, balancing her lace parasol.</p> + +<p>"Are you going directly home?"</p> + +<p>"No. I shall call to inquire how Mrs. Whitfield is to-day, and as the +bishop has come home from Florida I must congratulate him on his +restoration to health. Bring me some titi blossoms."</p> + +<p>The bell clanged, the engine puffed, and the train disappeared around a +curve. An hour afterward, in front of the post-office, the mail for +Nutwood was brought to the trap. Eglah took two letters addressed to +herself, and placed the remainder with papers under the cushion of the +trap seat.</p> + + +<p>"Oliver, stop at Holmein's garden. Then go on home and give the mail to +father. If he has not returned from fishing, be careful to lay letters +and papers on the library table in front of his chair. I shall walk from +Holmein's."</p> + +<p>The grounds of the florist were nearly a mile from the gates of Nutwood, +and on a new street-car line extending to a park that overlooked the +river. From Holmein's the broad, sandy road ran straight through thick +woods to the avenue of the old house on the hill. Having secured a bunch +of double white violets, Judge Kent's favorite flower, his daughter +walked homeward. Ivory thuribles of magnolia and bay swung their +fragrance up and down the nave of ancient pines, and the profound +repose, the silence as of primeval wilds was broken only now and then by +the antiphonal plaints of doves lamenting on the lofty green pine +cornices, or a low preluding chord, as fingers of the wind touched the +leafy pipes of the forest organ.</p> + +<p>Many months had passed, and the procession of the seasons brought no +comforting element to brighten the monotonous life that so severely +taxed Eglah's patience. A card and dinner party on Judge Kent's birthday +had pleased him for the moment, but while he praised the menu and +decorations, no relaxation of chill politeness rewarded her. Only one +<i>al fresco</i> festival was held. When nuts were ripe in autumn the young +mistress had invited the children belonging to Sunday-schools and the +orphan asylum in Y—— to come one afternoon to Nutwood and gather +chestnuts and walnuts. In the grove long tables held refreshments, that +were served by Eglah and Eliza to the hungry throng, and for the first +time since the war hundreds of happy little ones raced and shouted under +the ancestral trees. Several plank seats remained as souvenirs of the +occasion, and to-day Eglah turned away from the avenue, and sat down +between two young chestnuts. At her feet was a miniature doll house of +walnut shells built to amuse a flaxen-haired tot who shrank tearfully +from the sharp pricks of chestnut burrs, and begged for a "truly fairy +tale."</p> + +<p>Now Eglah was reminded of the wide, curious eyes raised to hers when she +had repeated:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I fancy the fairies make merry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">With thorns for their knives and forks;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They have currants for bottles of sherry,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And the little brown heads are the corks.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A leaf makes the tent they sit under,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Their ballroom's a white lily-cup;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall I know all about them, I wonder,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For certain, when I am grown up?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Laying her flowers beside her, she broke the seal of a letter from Mrs. +St. Clair, postmarked New York, and after a moment the sheet fell into +her lap. Raising it, she read a second time:</p> + +<p>"We are so shocked and grieved to find that Mr. Herriott is actually +going on that North Pole expedition we thought he had abandoned. He has +been much fêted since his return last year, and all of our set are +heartily sorry to give him up. Some of us believe you could put a stop +to this nonsense, if you would only come to your senses, and use your +influence. The idea of such a man going into the grewsome business of +eating blubber and seal, and possibly Eskimo dog steak! Hunting a +graveyard among hummocks! I suggested to him that a better plan would be +to go down into a cold-storage vault, throw away the key and slam the +spring-lock door. Then we should be allowed the consolation of covering +him with flowers."</p> + +<p>She replaced the letter in the envelope, and fell into a profound +revery. If Mr. Herriott sailed away and never returned, her father could +no longer cling to his sole condition of reconciliation. Years ago her +own responsibility had ended, and even had she desired to reconsider the +proposal of marriage, no opportunity to do so had been given her. She +had not seen Mr. Herriott since that afternoon in the old Greco-Roman +theatre. Two kind, brief, merely friendly letters had reached her, +followed by a box containing for herself some fine Oriental +embroideries, and an exquisitely carved ivory triptych; for Mrs. +Mitchell a copy of a quaint circular picture in the old Byzantine style, +representing a group of young lambs asleep around the standing figure of +the child Jesus, whose body rayed light, as in the "<i>Notte</i>," one little +hand extended over them, while he looked up to an angelic guard only +dimly outlined by the gleaming tips of hovering pinions.</p> + +<p>If Mr. Herriott never returned? Her eyes filled with unshed tears. For +so many years he had been her devoted and loyal friend, and she honored +and trusted him supremely. Never to see him again would grieve her +deeply, but she felt assured he no longer loved her as formerly—that +sincere friendship was the only sentiment he now entertained. Were his +heart still hers, could he have maintained the total repression that +marked recent years? He had given his word not to refer to a matter that +distressed her, but when men really loved, such compacts were forgotten, +and it must have been easy for Mr. Herriott to keep his promise of +absolute silence.</p> + +<p>Gathering up her flowers, letters and parasol, she walked slowly across +the lawn and reached the house by a side door, without meeting any of +the servants.</p> + +<p>On the library table lay Judge Kent's unopened mail; hence she knew he +had not yet returned from the fishing trip on which he started at +daylight. Over the door opening into his adjoining bedroom a heavy +portière of crimson plush usually hung, but a few days previous winter +draperies had been replaced by Madras curtains that resembled stained +glass. Lifting this summer portière, Eglah went into the bedroom, filled +a vase with water and arranged the drooping violets on her father's +bureau. Only during his absence did she ever come into this apartment, +so long her grandmother's reliquary, where the girl seemed always to see +old Hector crouching against his dead mistress, and that white face, +whose fixed blue eyes pierced beyond the orange dawn and fronted God.</p> + +<p>The memory of her childish terror on the night of Mrs. Maurice's death +haunted the room, despite her effort to dispel it, yet to-day she sat +down on a lounge and re-read Mrs. St. Clair's letter. If her father knew +of the contemplated Arctic journey, he had given no hint. Perhaps the +vessel had already sailed. Then at last she could find peace and +reconciliation. Possibly Mr. Herriott might change his plans. If ever he +renewed his offer would she—could she yield to her father's wishes? She +set her teeth.</p> + +<p>"Sell myself—even for father's love? Never!"</p> + +<p>It seemed cruel that some misfortune to her best and dearest friend +should offer her sole channel of escape, and after a while she made +deliberate choice.</p> + +<p>"Come what may, I pray no harm will overtake Mr. Noel. I would rather +continue to fight and suffer than know he was lost; and surely God will +watch over him."</p> + +<p>Some moments passed while, forgetting to remove her hat, she sat tapping +her knee with the letter. Then heavy footsteps rang on the bare, +"dry-rubbed" floor, and Judge Kent's voice sounded through the library.</p> + +<p>"Take that arm chair, Herriott. Eglah is in town, but she will be at +home soon."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to have an opportunity to talk to you in her absence. I have +not come here voluntarily; necessity drove me. My mission now is so +distressingly painful that could it have been avoided I should certainly +not be here. To shield Eglah from annoyance I would undertake anything +but neglect of duty. Of course you know the deplorable matter to which I +allude?"</p> + +<p>Every word came distinctly through the lace-hung doorway, and Eglah +rose, reluctant to overhear that which it was evident the speaker wished +withheld from her; but an overmastering desire to understand once for +all conditions that had so long perplexed her, coerced her to remain. +There was grave trouble, and she must suffer later—why not now? A full +comprehension was the first step toward defence.</p> + +<p>"I am surprised that you should intentionally embarrass me, but I +suppose you refer to the United States and railroad bonds that were +hypothecated. I knew you had redeemed them, delivered them to the +college, and I hoped when I parted with the house in Thirty-eighth +Street that I could turn it over to you in part payment of that bond +business; but an unfortunate venture reduced me to such urgent need, I +was obliged to take the money you offered through Trainem. Don't +interrupt me—now you have forced me to speak, I want no renewal of this +matter. Except the trustees and their attorneys, no one remembers the +unjust clause in your father's will that Nina should have the New York +house and certain stocks outright, but only the interest on those bonds +which at her death should belong to the Presbyterian College. Munificent +provision for the widow of a reputed multimillionaire! Since you have so +kindly and generously recovered the bonds and delivered them to the +trustees, I see no necessity for this revival of so disagreeable a +subject, and certainly no propriety in dragging before Eglah what does +not concern her. The trusteeship under which her own estate is held at +present, prevents my using any part of it to repay you, as I would do +most gladly, were it possible."</p> + +<p>"Had you not forbidden an interruption, you might have spared yourself +an unpleasant retrospection, as I earnestly desired to assure you at the +outset that you are entirely mistaken in my purpose. I had no +thought—no intention, of alluding to the subject of the bonds, which is +even more disagreeable to me than to you, but since you have brought it +up, while I decline to discuss my father's will, you must permit me to +say that the course I pursued was prompted solely by my affection for +Nina, and a desire to protect her innocent name. Hence as regards the +bonds you owe me nothing."</p> + +<p>"Do you doubt they were hypothecated with her consent and desire?"</p> + +<p>"Judge Kent, you must pardon me if I ask you to dismiss issues long +past. I am here for a far graver and more imperatively pressing matter. +It seems hard indeed that I, who have accepted and enjoyed your +hospitality—I, who for many years have known that my heart dwelt upon +your roof—should be the unfortunate agent forced to bring grief and +trouble to your hearth. I suppose you suspect to what I refer?"</p> + +<p>"No. I have so many enemies, and such an infernal succession of bad +luck, I never know where a bomb may burst. I haven't an idea what you +are driving at."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott walked twice across the floor.</p> + +<p>"Do you recollect Edward Hunt?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. A cross between a fox and a blood-hound. He was a cousin of yours. +I gave hearty thanks when I heard he was dead."</p> + +<p>"Allow me to correct you; he married a cousin of my mother's. Of course +you recall his connection with the syndicate that secured congressional +grant of lands in the West, which subsequently proved so valuable. You +were a member of the Senate committee that reported favorably, and +doubtless you recollect all that passed between you and Hunt at that +time."</p> + +<p>"Good God! When the grave closed over him, I thought that syndicate +business was screwed down in his coffin."</p> + +<p>"Judge Kent, I would give my right arm if it could be shut in there. Do +you recall a time in Washington, the night of Secretary D——'s dinner, +from which I carried Eglah to a cotillon? Early in the evening you +received an anonymous warning that the personality of 'Ely Twiggs' had +been discovered. Accidentally the truth came into my possession. I sent +it, that you might prepare any defence you deemed advisable—and I was +unwilling you should suspect I knew the facts. The cashier of that +western Pentland Bank was Duncan Keith, whom I knew when I was a boy, +and when the bank failed, he and the bookkeeper disappeared, after +destroying the books; at least the president and teller so stated at the +examination held by directors and stockholders. Edward Hunt was a +director, and defended Keith. He always contended that the president and +teller had conspired to throw the guilt on an innocent man. Leaving his +son with the boy's grandmother in Ohio, Keith fled, and was reported +somewhere in South America. One night in Geneva, where I went to attend +a scientific congress, a blurred sheet was brought to me at the hotel.</p> + +<p>"'Your old friend Duncan Keith is dying. I am an innocent victim. Come +and take my message to my boy in Ohio.'</p> + +<p>"The shoemaker who brought the note piloted me to his shop, where in an +attic room I found poor Keith. He was sinking fast, but begged me to do +him the only favor this world held. He insisted I should watch over his +son, whose grandmother had recently died, and the boy had now no +relations but an aunt, a sister of Keith's wife. With his last sobbing +breath he swore to me he was innocent. He declared the charge of +embezzlement was untrue; that his individual account was short only +eight hundred dollars, overdrawn with the knowledge and consent of +president and teller, who denied their sanction when the crash came, and +charged him with theft and forgeries he had never committed. As security +for the money borrowed, he had given a mortgage on a small piece of +land, but to avoid mortgage tax it had not been recorded, and could not +be found. Fear of prosecution and inability to establish his innocence +against the united persecution of bank officials had driven him from the +country. Part of the records he preserved and carried away, but he +needed an important link, the stubs of a certain check book, and some +bank drafts returned from London. His health failed fast, and confined +to his room, he had abandoned all hope, when one day he received a +package addressed in Edward Hunt's handwriting. It contained not only +the stubs, but checks and two receipts establishing beyond doubt the +guilt of the president, teller, and two other persons. Poor Keith! On +his narrow bed he had a tin box under his elbow, and he laid the key on +my knee.</p> + +<p>"'Noel, I am honest as you are, and I want you to help my boy clear my +name. All the proof is in this box. Will you keep it safe until Duncan +is twenty-one, and then give it to him, and explain my enclosed letter +of instructions? I tried to write my wishes to you, and that letter also +is in the box. If I had not heard you were here, I should have asked our +consul to send the box to you. Noel, will you help my son? I don't ask +you to prosecute, or take any part; I only beg you to guard these proofs +till he is of age. Will you promise me now, in God's sight, to keep +these papers safe, and put them into no hand but Duncan's?'</p> + +<p>"I took the box and put my hand on his, already cold and damp in death.</p> + +<p>"'<i>So help me God, I will guard the papers, and give them only into +Duncan's own hand.</i>'</p> + +<p>"I sat with him until the end. Five hours later, at two o'clock, he +died. Only God knows how bitterly and ceaselessly I have rued that rash +promise now goading me to a step I would almost rather die than take. +When I accepted the trust, I knew absolutely nothing of your connection +with that bank, or of the transactions by which you came into possession +of stock and shares in the land company and bank, all standing in the +name of 'Ely Twiggs,' the dividends of which were always sent direct to +London, and receipted for by 'Ely Twiggs's' agent, who reported him +travelling in Egypt. 'Ely Twiggs,' as far as my information went, was +associated solely with the syndicate's work in Congress. I made no +examination of the proofs until very recently, because the appointed +time had not arrived, and since I looked into that box I have not had +one moment's peace. The array of evidence, strengthened by two of your +own letters, rests the culpability on the president, the teller, Marsden +and yourself. You must know how it pains me to lay this matter before +you, but it is necessary you should understand the facts."</p> + +<p>His voice wavered, and again he walked the length of the room.</p> + +<p>A deep, quivering groan came from the depths of Judge Kent's chair, and +leaning across the library table he poured out and swallowed a glass of +brandy.</p> + +<p>"The imminence of this misfortune is what appalls me. Duncan Keith will +be twenty-one years old in less than a month, and as I sail so soon with +the expedition, I am now on my way to place the box in his hands and +explain his father's wishes. I may never come back, and I must execute +my trust now, especially as the poor fellow is not in good health."</p> + +<p>"My God! You can't mean to tell me you intend to arm him and my enemies +with documents that will disgrace me?"</p> + +<p>"Not if it were possible to avoid it without breaking my oath. I have +pondered, I have passed sleepless nights trying to devise some method of +shielding you; but unless I lie to a dead man who trusted me, I am +compelled to deliver the box."</p> + +<p>"Noel, for God's sake be reasonable! Don't sacrifice me to maudlin +sentimentality. You pretend to love my innocent child, and yet pursue a +course you know will break her heart, as well as mine?"</p> + +<p>"Judge Kent, for her sake I would do anything—save dishonor myself."</p> + +<p>"Then you have ceased to love her!"</p> + +<p>"No; I love her, and I always shall, until she is some other man's wife. +I gave her my whole heart when she was a mere child, and she is still +the one woman in all the world who holds it in her dear little hands. To +shield her from this terrible sorrow, I have thought you might go abroad +at once, and keep American papers out of her reach for a while. Duncan +will probably move promptly in exonerating his father's name; there will +be, of course, a nine days' sensation, then matters will settle; a later +stratum of news will press it out of sight, and Eglah need never know."</p> + +<p>"Could not the boy be influenced to sell the papers and drop it?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not by me. Do you think it possible I could insult the dead +by helping to undo what I swore to aid his son in accomplishing?"</p> + +<p>"But you swore in ignorance of facts learned since."</p> + +<p>"No, only in ignorance of the personality of some who contributed to +Keith's ruin. I am the most unhappy poor devil on earth, but no +honorable alternative is allowed me, and to-night I go on to Duncan and +deliver the box. I must meet the vessel which touches at Sydney, Cape +Breton, on the 15th, and I have no time to spare. I shall come back this +afternoon to see Eglah and say good-bye, and I can only hope that after +calm consideration of all the circumstances embarrassing me, you will +not censure me for a deplorable course of action which my sense of honor +makes absolutely imperative."</p> + +<p>Judge Kent sat facing the Madras drapery towards which Mr. Herriott's +back was turned, and at this moment a glass door leading to the +colonnade opened; the draught of air blew the curtain into the library, +and the Judge saw his daughter slip quickly from his bedroom. With a +vague hope of gaining time, he said unsteadily:</p> + +<p>"I am so stunned, I am not myself. That you should sweep me and mine to +destruction seems incredible; but, nevertheless, will you stay and +dine?"</p> + +<p>"No, thank you, Judge Kent. It would be painful for both of us. Later, I +must see Eglah once more."</p> + +<p>In crucial hours, when some crisis wrecks plans, landmarks, life-long +aims, the brain works with preternatural clearness and celerity. Through +the torturing ordeal of that half hour Eglah had listened, numb with +shame and horror. The world seemed to have dissolved in a night that +could know no dawn; yet, groping in this chaos, two desperate resolves +nerved her.</p> + +<p>She would secure that box of papers, no matter at what cost. Her father +should be saved from disgrace, and he should never suspect she knew his +guilt. She must see Mr. Herriott before she saw her father. Swiftly she +matured her resolution; then an unusual glitter came into her lovely +soft eyes, and she sat down between the chestnut trees and waited.</p> + +<p>At a quick stride, Mr. Herriott descended the avenue until nearly +opposite the seat, and she rose and walked toward him.</p> + +<p>Their hands met in a tight, clinging clasp, but for an instant neither +spoke. He noted that the blood had ebbed from her lips, and that she was +frightfully pale, but the eyes lifted to his glowed unnaturally.</p> + +<p>"I intended coming back later, to spend an hour with you and say +good-bye, as——"</p> + +<p>"Never to say good-bye again! You shall not leave me."</p> + +<p>She drew him down to the seat beside her, and he smiled at the imperious +tone, so suggestive of her childish days.</p> + +<p>"You do not understand conditions, unless—When did you see your +father?"</p> + +<p>"Not since last night. He went fishing at daylight."</p> + +<p>"Then you do not know that I came to bid you farewell before sailing for +the Arctic circle?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I have not seen father to-day, but this letter from Mrs. St. Clair +arrived by the morning mail. Mr. Herriott, I am the most miserable woman +God ever made, and I want to turn to you now, but I scarcely know just +how to do so. Once—that night in Washington—you said you would never +change, that you would always love me; but I have no right to expect +after years of absence—" She paused and the frozen face crimsoned.</p> + +<p>He caught his breath and leaned toward her.</p> + +<p>"I love you now as I loved you then. My heart has always belonged to +you. If you doubt it, you wrong me."</p> + +<p>"Then, Mr. Noel, do not leave me. If you go away now you will break my +heart."</p> + +<p>He rose and looked down at her, wondering at the desperate appeal in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>"I do not understand, because I long ago ceased to hope I could ever be +essential to your happiness. I am obliged to leave here to-night; but if +there is any service I can render before I sail from Sydney, on the +15th, I am sure you know how very gladly I should help you. If, as you +say, you wish to turn to me, I beg that you will do so at once. Why are +you miserable?"</p> + +<p>She covered her face with her hands.</p> + +<p>"If you love me, will you abandon this expedition for my sake?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot now, it is too late. My word is pledged by cable, and the +vessel is on the Atlantic. Eglah, I dare not hope that you have learned +to care; I will not delude myself. Don't torture me by vague suggestions +that half madden me."</p> + +<p>He sat down beside her, painfully perplexed.</p> + +<p>Her hands fell into her lap, clutched each other, and when she spoke it +was in a shuddering, broken whisper.</p> + +<p>"Then, if you must go, take me with you till you sail. We can be married +to-night."</p> + +<p>For fully a moment his eyes, amazed, incredulous, searched hers; then he +surrendered himself to a measureless exultation.</p> + +<p>"My darling—my own proud darling!"</p> + +<p>He drew her close, and she felt him tremble as she hid her face against +his shoulder—felt his lips on her neck, on her bare, quivering hand +that he held pressed to his cheek.</p> + +<p>"I know it is selfish to permit you to bind yourself to me on the eve of +a perilous journey from which I may not return, but after so many long, +hopeless years the temptation is more than I can resist. I can have you, +my darling, for only a few short days, but the happiness of a lifetime +shall glorify them. To-night I must go to Ohio, to close up some +business with my ward, Duncan Keith; then on to Greyledge for two days +before starting for Cape Breton. Why did you not give me this precious +intimation earlier? You have always known what you are to me. Was it the +news in Mrs. St. Clair's letter regarding my departure that pleaded for +me in your proud, stubborn heart?"</p> + +<p>"I never realized until to-day how much I need you. Mr. Noel, this has +come upon me so suddenly I am stunned. Give me a little time—till my +mind clears. Let us see father at once; there are so many things to be +arranged if—if——"</p> + +<p>He bent to kiss her, but with one shaking hand she softly turned his +face aside.</p> + +<p>"Not yet, please—while I am Eglah Kent."</p> + +<p>Her arms stole up around his neck and her strained voice broke.</p> + +<p>"I am so unhappy; I seem to be in a horrible, strangling dream. Be +patient with me. You are the only one in all the world who can comfort +me, and I am looking to you now as—I once looked to God."</p> + +<p>Holding her in a close clasp, he felt her quivering from head to foot.</p> + +<p>"Sweetheart, don't tremble so. Trust me, darling, and love me, and no +home in the wide universe will be so happy and blessed as ours. Ours! +The word holds heaven. Are you cold, that you shiver so constantly? Come +into the sunshine."</p> + +<p>Pacing up and down the colonnade, Judge Kent watched them approaching. +He looked worn, hunted, and a sickly pallor marked his usually florid +face. Before Mr. Herriott could speak, he was startled by a strange +hysterical sound from Eglah; not a cry, not a sob. As she looked at her +father, her face lighted with a marvellous, yearning tenderness, and she +sprang into his extended arms.</p> + +<p>"Father, you will love me now! Kiss me, kiss me. Hold me tight—take me +back to my place in your heart."</p> + +<p>Only he could hear the low ripple of broken words, and his tears dripped +on her face as he pressed his lips to hers.</p> + +<p>"Herriott, what does it all mean?"</p> + +<p>"That I am the happiest, proudest man on earth. Coming here to say +good-bye to my sweetheart, I shall carry my wife away with me."</p> + +<p>"But she cannot go to the North Pole, and—you may not survive the +dangers."</p> + +<p>"When I know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice +in Greenland could shut me away from her?"</p> + +<p>"God bless my daughter! How shall I live without her?"</p> + +<p>"We are never to be separated. Mr. Herriott could not wish anything so +cruel."</p> + +<p>She rose on tiptoe, put a hand on each wet cheek, and kissed her father +twice.</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>"Eglah has consented to be married to-night, and my train leaves at +eleven. There are several important matters to be arranged, and I should +be glad to know her wishes."</p> + +<p>She rang the bell, then stepped to his side and slipped her hand in his.</p> + +<p>"Father's rector is absent, and I wish Bishop Vivian to perform the +ceremony; he loved my grandmother, and she loved him."</p> + +<p>Aaron appeared at the door.</p> + +<p>"Tell Oliver to bring the trap around as soon as he can. Father, you +must go in with Mr. Herriott. Mrs. Whitfield is sick, but I want Mr. +Whitfield and Lucy and Dr. Eggleston and his wife to be here. If you +wish any others, invite them. Mr. Noel, what hour?"</p> + +<p>"I suggest not later than nine."</p> + +<p>"My dear Ma-Lila will never forgive me. She is away."</p> + +<p>"Where? Could not a telegram reach her?"</p> + +<p>"No, she is in the country, two miles from a station. She left me only +this morning, and will be so grieved."</p> + +<p>"How far away?"</p> + +<p>"Fifteen miles by carriage road, twenty by rail. There is the trap. +Father, I am going upstairs now; and, if you please, I want to be alone +till—till—till—" One hand clutched her throat, and she looked +appealingly into Mr. Herriott's eyes.</p> + +<p>He smiled, stooped, and pressed to his lips the slender fingers he held.</p> + +<p>"Set your mind at rest about Mrs. Mitchell. She shall be here, if I have +to send a special for her."</p> + +<p>When explanation and instructions had been given to Aaron and Minerva, +Eglah went upstairs and locked herself in the room to which had been +removed the furniture and portraits Mrs. Maurice held sacred. Up and +down she walked, feeling that an iron band was throttling her. She and +her father were drifting out to a black gulf of humiliation—of hopeless +disgrace—and only that box of papers could rescue, anchor them in +safety. Mr. Herriott loved her so devotedly, she believed that when she +was his wife he would yield the papers in answer to her prayers. If he +refused? She recalled the ring of indignation in his voice when her +father suggested bribing Duncan Keith. Marriage would give her immediate +control of her estate, and surely her fortune could purchase the papers +from the boy, when in her presence Mr. Herriott delivered them to him. +If all efforts failed, she would go down to ruin knowing she had left +nothing undone to save her father, and now, at last, she had regained +her place in his heart.</p> + +<p>The price? Her face burned, and she wrung her hands. After to-night's +ceremony, could she ever again respect herself? When Mr. Herriott knew, +would he despise her? Family portraits on the wall caught her glance. +Did the stainless Maurices, and her own young mother, watching from the +Celestial City, see all the burden of shame settling down on her +shoulders? Would her grandmother's cold, proud blue eyes look "I told +you so," or soften in tender pity for "poor Marcia's baby"? Public +disgrace over which so many would gloat, to escape such infamy was any +price too dear? The price—herself?</p> + +<p>Three hours later she saw her trunk carried downstairs. When the clock +struck eight, she was dressed for her wedding. The gown ordered for the +club german was a trailing, ivory <i>crêpe de Chine</i>, and where lace +ruffles met on the corsage she fastened a spray of white lilac from the +bouquet Mr. Herriott had sent. No gleam of jewels marred the white +perfection of face and figure, but her dilated eyes burned like brown +agates when the light smites them. On the dressing-table lay a note for +Mrs. Mitchell.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"My dear, sweet little mother: The crucial hour came, and you +were away. I may have scuttled ship, but I did what seemed +best. Some things you cannot understand now, but I know you +love me too well to distress me with questions—when I ask you +to trust me. Pray for your</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Baby.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>As the clock struck half-past eight, Eliza ran up the steps and into the +room, holding against her shoulder a branch of titi pearled with bloom. +At sight of the extraordinary loveliness of the figure standing as if +frozen, she burst into tears.</p> + +<p>"My beautiful—my baby! What does all this mean? Your father has forced +you to——"</p> + +<p>"Hush, hush. My father was as much astonished as you are. I feared you +could not come in time, and here is a note, in which I said all that I +can tell you. Don't scold me, and don't cry; wait till I am gone."</p> + +<p>She gave her the note and kissed her cheek, where tears were streaming.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my baby, give me the positive assurance that this step is +voluntary—that you love Mr. Herriott."</p> + +<p>"Entirely voluntary. My supreme wish is to go with Mr. Herriott. He is +the noblest man in all the world."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you have not just found that out; you have always known it. +Now, do you love him? I am afraid you do not; and, my baby, marriage +without loving a husband is——"</p> + +<p>Eglah laid a hand over Eliza's lips.</p> + +<p>"Father is coming for me. I want to wear some titi, because you brought +it to me. Pin two clusters under the folds of lace here, just over your +baby's heart. Now, kiss Eglah Kent good-bye, and leave me with father +while you take off your hat and dry your eyes."</p> + +<p>"My dear, are you ready?"</p> + +<p>"Wait a few minutes for Ma-Lila. Father, if I can not persuade Mr. Noel +to abandon his journey, you must be sure to meet me when he telegraphs +you and leaves me. I am inexpressibly unhappy, but if you will forget +the last three years, and love me as in the dear old days, it will +comfort and gladden me."</p> + +<p>The clock chimed nine. Near the foot of the stairway Mr. Herriott +waited, and when he came forward the almost unearthly beauty of Eglah's +face made his heart throb with vague apprehension. It wore a rapt +expression of supreme exaltation, as if a somnambulist walked with eyes +fixed on some goal beyond a yawning black chasm.</p> + +<p>Drawing her arm from her father's, she stepped to Mr. Herriott's side +and laid her hand in his.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI</h2> + + +<p>The fast vestibuled train, forty minutes late, swung northward at a +speed that kept the car in a quiver. There were few passengers, asleep +in their berths, and Mr. Herriott had secured the drawing-room. It was +new, luxurious in appointments, and to the end of the brass rod +supporting the lamp in the centre he had fastened a great sheaf of white +carnations, sent by Mrs. Whitfield. Closing the sliding door that opened +into the sleeper, he sat down beside the figure clad in a dark-blue +cloth suit.</p> + +<p>"I am so insanely happy I dare not pinch or shake myself, lest I should +wake and find it only a heavenly dream."</p> + +<p>He took one of her remarkably beautiful hands, which he had always +admired, and where he had placed a broad, heavy band of gold four hours +before. Spreading the cold fingers on his warm palm, he lifted them +against his cheek, brushed them with his mustache.</p> + +<p>"Lovely little snowflakes; how long I have coveted their touch! And now +they are absolutely my very own. Mine forever."</p> + +<p>She had been leaning back, but straightened, braced herself, and her +breathing was deep and rapid.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, do you really love me above everything else?"</p> + +<p>He laughed so heartily that she saw the glitter of his fine teeth.</p> + +<p>"Do I love you above everything else? You elusive witch! If you will +withdraw the embargo of your request—'not yet, please'—I can soon +convince you."</p> + +<p>His handsome face, radiantly happy, bent close to hers, but she shrank +away from him.</p> + +<p>"I am your wife now, but——"</p> + +<p>She paused, with a strained look in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes; my own precious wife at last, thank God!"</p> + +<p>"There is one, only one proof that will convince me I am really first in +your heart. Give me at once the box of papers that incriminate my +father."</p> + +<p>He dropped her hand and rose.</p> + +<p>"It is hard, indeed, when a man must refuse the first request of his +bride; but, my darling, I cannot dishonor myself. Such baseness would +not prove my love; and it would inevitably arouse your contempt."</p> + +<p>She had risen, and as they faced each other under the lamp the swaying +carnations almost touched his glossy black head.</p> + +<p>Lifting her tightly locked hands in entreaty, her voice vibrated like a +lute string rudely swept.</p> + +<p>"Don't, oh, don't break my heart! Help me to shield my father from +shame, and I will bless you as long as I live. I am so wretched—the +world is going to pieces—and I am clinging to you as the one rock of +safety, the sole refuge that will not fail me. If you ever really loved +me, oh, Mr. Noel, have mercy on me now!"</p> + +<p>His face hardened, and, unwilling to trust his voice, he shook his head. +She staggered as if from a blow, but after a moment her cheeks flamed, +and banked fires glowed in her dilated eyes.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, when did your father have the cruelty to tell you about the +papers in my possession?"</p> + +<p>"He never told me. He does not suspect I know, and he must not find out +I am aware of their existence; because I could not bear that such an +additional sorrow should overtake him. My father! It is your will and +purpose to ruin him in his old age?"</p> + +<p>"Only Judge Kent and I were cognizant of the existence of that box. May +I ask how you obtained your information?"</p> + +<p>"I was in his bedroom next to the library when you and father came in. +The door was open, and through the thin curtain I heard every +word—every cruel, horrible word, that cut my heart like a dagger. At +first, when you spoke of not wishing me to know, I felt I had no right +to listen, but some things had long perplexed me, things that father +would not explain, and I determined to make an end of mysteries."</p> + +<p>All tenderness had vanished from his set face, and his blue-grey eyes +watched her much as a judge might a witness on the stand.</p> + +<p>The train had entered a deep, rocky cut, and the clattering roar sounded +a verbal truce. When it rushed through a meadow, Mr. Herriott put his +hands behind him.</p> + +<p>"I must have all the truth now. If you had not overheard that +conversation, you would not have waited for and intercepted me in the +grove?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly not. I wished to see you at once, and before I met father."</p> + +<p>"Your terrible distress and agitation were solely on his account, and +not because of my approaching journey?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, for father's safety. I was grieved to hear you were going so far +away, but, Mr. Noel, father is my all. When I learned of the exposure +threatening him I think I must have gone mad, or I should not have made +the ghastly mistake of believing you loved me well enough to help me +save him, and——"</p> + +<p>She paused, silenced by the flash in his eyes, the white fury of his +face.</p> + +<p>"You proposed our marriage solely to find an opportunity for getting +possession of the papers?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, that was my object. I thought you would not deny the prayer of +your wife."</p> + +<p>"You have come to my arms with no more love in your heart than when you +refused me years ago?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. In a way I have always been attached to you; I honor, and admire, +and trust you fully, and of all men I hold you first—but love! God help +me! Perhaps in time I may learn."</p> + +<p>"You considered yourself the price of the papers, and felt assured I +could not refuse to sell? Any man who held them could own you body and +soul! Any clodhopper, lout, any libertine, any moral leper could own you +for life, in exchange for the papers! You, my white-souled, proud, +sensitive, ideal woman, for sale! For sale!"</p> + +<p>The red spots in her cheeks deepened, and a defiant ring steadied her +trembling voice.</p> + +<p>"As you are the only person who could yield me what I sought, you are +the one possible purchaser. But there was an additional reason for my +becoming your wife. My grandmother's will requires the estate she gave +me kept in the hands of a trustee until I am thirty, unless I marry. In +that event I come into immediate unrestricted possession, and I thought +if you denied my prayer I would be financially able to buy the papers +when you delivered them in my presence. That is the one hope that stands +now between me and despair—a hope made possible by and based on my +marriage. There was no other door of escape from ruin, and so I sold +myself to the one man whom I have always honored and trusted—who I +believed would be patient with me. Yes, I sold myself. That you would be +deeply aggrieved I knew, because I intended you should learn all the +truth to-night. The horror, the hot shame of the last few hours you will +never, never understand."</p> + +<p>"There was, however, solace for you in the possibility that Polar perils +might speedily cancel your matrimonial bonds? At least that is one hope +I can share with you."</p> + +<p>Swinging around a sharp curve, the car lurched violently, and she +staggered. He caught her arm and led her to the seat, where she leaned +her head against the panel and shut her eyes. Singularly beautiful was +the proud face wearing the pathetic seal of mental suffering, but, as he +looked down at her, no pity softened the gleam in his eyes, and his +hands clinched in his struggle for self-control.</p> + +<p>"To-night I have learned how a man feels when an angel he worshipped +from afar stooped from her heights, led him up, up to the open gate of +heaven, and, just as he was entering, the same angelic hand dropped him +into hell. When I had abandoned all hope of winning you, the suddenness +of your surrender made my head reel. I was amazed; but the possibility +that you deliberately planned to deceive me no more occurred to me than +would an insult to my dead mother. For me you have embodied all that I +hold pure, lofty, refined, admirable in womanhood. I was fastidious, but +you filled my ideal, and I trusted you almost as I trust my God. You +have wronged me doubly—in the loss of yourself, but far worse in the +destruction of my belief in the incorruptibility of some women; sooner +or later all are for sale.</p> + +<p>"If I had sailed away before seeing you at Y—— I should have carried an +unsullied, a perfect, sacred memory of you to light the long Arctic +night. God knows I would sooner have died there than realize you +cruelly, deliberately deceived me. You thought you were buying the +papers; but, as they will not be delivered, the trade is off. You cannot +get possession of what you purchased, and the price paid I here return +to you. You have no papers, and I have no wife. Without value received +on your part, I have no right to you, and we stand now just as we did +before that marriage ceremony, which has proved a mere commercial +mockery. I abhor shams—above all things sham marriage. All or none. +Only very strong, deep, tender love justifies a woman in giving herself +away. Otherwise the relation degrades her; she is little better than an +odalisque; and such I decline to see you. For me you have no love—never +will have—and as regards my own wishes, your duplicity has effectually +slain what once warmed my heart. After a few days, relief for both of us +will come in separation. If I never return you will escape much +annoyance. When two years elapse, the divorce court cannot refuse to +give you freedom from nominal bonds, and then you will soon forget that +you were ever—even in name—my wife."</p> + +<p>She had grown ghastly pale, and her lips fluttered. In the brief silence +a sick child's fretful cry rolled through the adjoining sleeper, then +the train thundered into a tunnel.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, I am so utterly miserable cruel words, even from you, no +longer have power to wound me. I—" She laughed nervously, and sat +upright.</p> + +<p>"My worse than useless appeal to your mercy reminds me of a picture of +the Deluge I once saw, when I was a happy child. A drowning woman clung +to the edge of an open window in the ark, begging succor, and Noah +leaned out and pried off her grasping hands, smiting her back into +hungry waves. I shall obey your wishes, Mr. Herriott, in all but one +step you have suggested. I do not believe in the validity of divorces. +Vows made to God can never be cancelled by civil processes. A +consecrated minister is not a mere notary public to attest signatures to +a deed. My marriage is forever sacred as my baptism; my covenant in His +sight, in His holy name, stands always—'till death us do part.' You +shall be as free as you wish. You need never see me again, but so long +as I live I intend to hold myself your wife."</p> + +<p>"Will you do me the kindness to hand me your ring?"</p> + +<p>She drew it from her finger and held it toward him. He turned it slowly, +smiling bitterly.</p> + +<p>"You have not seen the inscription. 'Till death us do part.' The sight +of it must be an unpleasant reminder, and I hope and ask that you will +never wear it. As a worthless symbol of what no longer exists, allow me +to throw it away."</p> + +<p>"Just as you please; only remember you have no right to do so, it is +mine. If it were cast into the ocean, I should never cease to feel its +sacred clasp on my finger."</p> + +<p>He laid it on the seat beside her, and she replaced it on her hand. He +looked at his watch.</p> + +<p>"It will soon be daylight. I am going into the smoking car. Perhaps you +can rest. Shall I send the porter?"</p> + +<p>"No. I could not sleep."</p> + +<p>He went out, closing the door carefully.</p> + +<p>With a smothered groan she sank back, and beat her palms against each +other. Humiliated, sorely wounded, yet indignant—almost hopeless, but +defiant—she stubbornly refused to despair until she had exhausted every +means at her command.</p> + +<p>After a while she knelt down and prayed God's help in her mission to +save her father. She never knew that the door had glided noiselessly +half way in its groove and that Mr. Herriott stood there to ask if she +needed anything. He saw the figure bowed in prayer, and stole away as +softly as he came. The strain was telling upon her quivering nerves. +Hysterical aching in her throat, parched and dry, was almost +intolerable, and the swaying carnations so burdened the air that when +she rose her head swam.</p> + +<p>After an hour she struggled to her feet. If she had some water it might +cool her throat. From her satchel she took a cup, opened the door, and, +supporting herself by one hand on the wall of the car, she walked down +the narrow passage, where she knew the water-tank stood near the +porter's seat. Before she reached it she saw Mr. Herriott leaning +sideways against the glass door opening on the platform. Just then the +brakeman raised his lantern, and the flash showed a hopelessly sad face +sternly set under the close-fitting travelling cap. As she turned back, +he saw her and advanced.</p> + +<p>"What do you wish?"</p> + +<p>She held out the cup.</p> + +<p>"Some water, please."</p> + +<p>She reeled, clutched at the wall, and for an instant everything spun +round. He placed her in the porter's folding chair, and when he held the +cup to her mouth saw that her teeth chattered. She drank spasmodically, +and a long, shuddering sigh drifted across her white lips.</p> + +<p>"You must lie down and rest. The porter will arrange your berth."</p> + +<p>She shook her head and rose.</p> + +<p>"You cannot walk alone; lean on me."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I can help myself now. I was thirsty and dizzy."</p> + +<p>She drew back, but he put his arm around her, holding her firmly against +him, and placed her on the seat in the drawing-room. She pointed to the +carnations.</p> + +<p>"The perfume is overpowering. I can't reach them. Please take them out."</p> + +<p>Lifting an arm he snapped the string.</p> + +<p>"Like every other souvenir and symbol of to-night, they are simply +sickening."</p> + +<p>Raising the window he threw the flowers into a river across which the +locomotive was cautiously feeling its way. He opened his own satchel, +leaning against hers on the opposite seat, took out a silver flask, and +poured some ruby, aromatic liquid into the cup.</p> + +<p>"You are sadly spent; take this."</p> + +<p>"No, I do not need anything more."</p> + +<p>"You must. It is merely a mild cocktail."</p> + +<p>"No, Mr. Herriott, I prefer not."</p> + +<p>"A few hours ago did you swear to obey me? Drink it."</p> + +<p>She hid her face in her hands and shivered.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, try to control yourself."</p> + +<p>"Please don't take any trouble on my account; just leave me alone with +my torturing forebodings. No one but God can help me now. The sight of +me is painful to you, and I shrink from annoying you. Mr. Herriott, +please leave me to myself."</p> + +<p>He sat down beside her, the cup in his hand.</p> + +<p>"To-night you have made me suffer more than you will ever +understand—you have hurt me beyond all possibility of healing—and, +perhaps, in the terribly sudden overthrow of beautiful hopes you had +called into existence, I may have seemed harsh. If so, you must pardon +any desperate words my torture wrung from me. Poor child, you have +sorrows enough without any additions from my hand. I cannot trust myself +to talk to you; my temper is sometimes beyond control, and you have +bruised my heart so sorely I am not sure of self-command. Poor little +girl! Do me the favor to drink this, because I ask it."</p> + +<p>He held the cup to her lips and she drank. He took a pillow from the +opposite seat and put it behind her head.</p> + +<p>"If you need anything you have only to open the door and I shall come."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, there is but one thing I shall ever ask you to do for me. +The ring you placed on my finger I took off at your request. Here it is. +With your own hand put it back where it belongs, and it will be there +when I die."</p> + +<p>She held out her hand with the ring in her palm. He looked at her +intently, and his lips tightened.</p> + +<p>"Repeat a mockery? A shameful farce!"</p> + +<p>He lifted the glittering circle, tossed it up twice, struggling with the +impulse to hurl it through the window, then suddenly slipped it on her +finger, dropped her hand, and, picking up his satchel, left her.</p> + +<p>Would the night never end? If Duncan Keith refused to sell? She thought +of quiet, lovely olive-clad plains in Sicily, with pergolas cool in +green shadows of vines, where they might retreat from disgraceful +publicity. Mr. Herriott scorned, repudiated her, and henceforth she +could devote herself entirely to tender care of her father. Ambition and +hope were dead, but was there any anæsthetic to still the burning stings +of memory? She went to the opposite seat and rested her head against the +open window. A thin, sallow, fading old moon hung like a spectre in the +sky where the morning star lighted the way for the coming new day, and +the dew-sprinkled air swept in, spiced with waves of aroma from a +blooming vineyard.</p> + +<p>Hamlets, meadows, fields, bridges, the looming shadow of a wooded +mountain fled past as the train rocked, hummed, and flew on. Looking up +at the quiet heavens, Eglah lifted her hands and heart in passionate +appeal.</p> + +<p>"Dear God, have mercy upon us! If I did wrong, forgive my sin. Help me +now to save my poor unfortunate father, and I will strive to be a better +Christian all the remainder of my days."</p> + +<p>At eight o'clock a waiter brought her breakfast. Later, when Mr. +Herriott came in, it was evident he had mastered himself; the fury of +white heat had chilled to cold steel. He was very pale, and an unusual +rigidity locked his features.</p> + +<p>"You must be very tired of this close place, and I am glad we shall +change cars. It is a fine day, and the scenery along the route will +interest you. Here is our train. Give me your wrap and satchel."</p> + +<p>The change was into a parlor car with fresh, linen-covered revolving +chairs, and wide windows framing lovely spring pastorals—sheep on a +green hillside, cattle knee deep in rock-bedded crystal streams, and +everywhere the busy bird world nest building.</p> + +<p>Eglah drew a deep breath of relief, and, as Mr. Herriott pushed a +hassock under her feet, she looked up at him.</p> + +<p>"Thank you. Will you be so kind as to tell me when we shall reach the +place where your ward lives?"</p> + +<p>"I think the train has about made up lost time, and we are due at +Woodbury at half-past six. It is not on the trunk line, and we take a +narrow gauge just beyond Carville."</p> + +<p>Both wound their watches, and then, liberally supplied with magazines +and papers, settled comfortably in adjoining seats. She was the only +woman in the car, and a dozen men were scattered about, a few playing +cards, some dozing, others absorbed in newspapers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott sat in front of his companion, his chair turned half around +and toward the window. After a time he took from his satchel a folded +chart and note-book. Spreading the former across his knees, he appeared +oblivious of all but the lines and figures, yet the angles in his bronze +face did not soften. Eglah had taken off her hat, hoping to ease the +teasing pain in her temples. She rested her head against the back of the +chair, and held up an open magazine, but no page was turned, and as she +laid it in her lap she shut her eyes.</p> + +<p>Her thoughts drifted to a small villa near Messina which Judge Kent had +expressed a wish to occupy because he chanced to see it in a rosy mantle +of almond blossoms. Mr. Whitfield would attend to estate matters, and +Boynton could be trusted to manage the plantations, though they were +miles apart. She could do as she pleased now with her money, and if she +failed in her mission to Woodbury she would ask her father to take her +abroad at once, until Mr. Herriott returned. During that time public +discussion of "Ely Twiggs" would end, and probably she need never come +back to America. Mr. Herriott evidently wished her out of his life, +forever out of his sight, and certainly he should be gratified. Her +father could not suspect her reason for going to Europe; he knew how to +keep newspapers from her, and as he did not dream she knew the dreadful +truth, they might resume the dear old life. So profound was her revery +that she had unconsciously opened her eyes, and they looked out, seeing, +not the farms and forests gliding by the window, but the sapphire sky, +the purple sea, the snow of lemon groves, the red glow of +oleander-walled gardens, and the silvery grey-green olive orchards where +she might hide her father from shame, herself from the withering scorn +of Mr. Herriott's cruel eyes.</p> + +<p>Glancing at her over the top of the lifted chart, his attention was +arrested by the intense abstraction in which she was plunged. Her +extreme pallor was relieved only by vivid color in her delicately curved +lips, and under the eyes bluish circles told something of her suffering. +He thought of the haunting, wonderful eyes of Urd, and bit his lips as +he watched her; so pathetically hopeless, yet unwaveringly proud was the +pure face he had loved long and passionately.</p> + +<p>The door behind them opened, and a naval officer entered, carrying in +his arms a crying child about six months old. The bundle of muslin and +lace squirmed and struggled as the man strove to pacify it by beating a +tattoo on the window, dangling his watch close to the baby's eyes, and +bouncing it up and down. He walked about, sat down, laid the infant face +downward across his knees, trotted it, patted it, but with no quieting +success, and, when the engine blew long and loud for a bridge crossing, +the frightened child screamed distressingly.</p> + +<p>The officer rose.</p> + +<p>"I am sorry to annoy the passengers, but the nurse has been taken so ill +she cannot hold her head up, and as the boy cries to go to her I was +obliged to bring him in here. He never saw me until last night. I was on +a cruise when his poor mother died."</p> + +<p>Once more he essayed to whistle, and swayed to and fro with a rocking +motion, but finally desperate, he turned to a young man in a neighboring +chair, who was smiling over a cartoon in "Puck."</p> + +<p>"Sir, would you do me the great kindness to hold him just a moment, +while I get something from his nurse?"</p> + +<p>"All right, I will try; but I happen to be a bachelor, and I never held +a baby in my life. Come on, little man. Some day you surely will make a +star screamer in opera. Now for it, sonny."</p> + +<p>He held out his arms, but, as the father attempted to transfer the boy, +the sight of another strange face increased his terror; the little hands +grasped the officer's beard, and the baby shrieked in protest.</p> + +<p>Eglah rose and crossed the car.</p> + +<p>"He is accustomed to women; perhaps I can quiet him. Will you allow me +to try?"</p> + +<p>"O, thank you, madam!"</p> + +<p>She took one little hand, caressed it, toyed with the fingers, and cooed +as only women can. After a moment the child ceased crying, and when very +gently she took it and laid it up against her shoulder the little +creature nestled close to her. His suspicion, however, was not entirely +allayed. Suddenly he lifted his head, stared curiously into her face, +and when she laid her cheek on his, wet with tears, he seemed reassured +and clung to her, his lips touching her throat.</p> + +<p>The young man leaned over and whispered to a friend in the chair before +him.</p> + +<p>"He shows good taste in picking his nurse. Is not she a beauty? I have +been watching that handsome couple, and things are not serene in their +camp. I was near him in the smoker, and his face looked like a +brownstone statue with live wild-cat eyes."</p> + +<p>Eglah walked slowly up and down the aisle, humming low and very softly +Kücken's "Schlummerlied." Now and then the child sobbed faintly.</p> + +<p>The officer came back with a bottle of milk, but, as he hurried forward, +Eglah shook her head. After a little while the exhausted baby slept +soundly.</p> + +<p>"Madam, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your goodness. I will +relieve you now, and I trust the passengers will excuse the annoyance."</p> + +<p>"Let me keep him a while; he still sobs now and then, and if moved might +wake. A good nap will quiet his nerves."</p> + +<p>"It is too great a tax on you, madam."</p> + +<p>"When I am tired, I shall bring him to you."</p> + +<p>"In a half hour we get home, and since you are so very kind, I will help +the nurse arrange luggage for our station."</p> + +<p>Eglah went back to her own chair, and holding the little creature with +her right arm softly patted him with her left hand. At every motion the +wedding ring flashed like a dancing demon in Mr. Herriott's watching +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Poor little chap. Did you mesmerize him?"</p> + +<p>"I think there is telepathy in great trouble. He feels intuitively that +some one else is suffering torture, and 'a fellow feeling' drew him to +me."</p> + +<p>She avoided looking at him, and her eyes followed the evolutions of a +flock of white geese holding regatta in a pond close to the railway +track.</p> + +<p>After some moments, she cautiously and tenderly laid her muslin-clad +burden in her lap, and smoothed out the long lace-ruffled robe. With a +start one little hand was thrown up, but she caught and held it. He was +a handsome boy, and when she untied the lace cap, too tight at his +throat, his fluffy yellow locks enhanced his beauty.</p> + +<p>The sight of the baby fingers clinging to the hand where the gold band +shone renewed the struggle Mr. Herriott was trying to crush.</p> + +<p>Leaning toward her, he said:</p> + +<p>"Last night, at your request, I stifled my repugnance, and did what I +deeply regret. To-day I must ask you for the only favor you can ever +grant me. Give me back my ring."</p> + +<p>There was an angry pant in his voice that made the words a demand rather +than request.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, I am sorry to refuse any wish of yours; but I cannot."</p> + +<p>"I want it."</p> + +<p>She looked steadily at him.</p> + +<p>"So do I. When I die it will be where you placed it; but in the coffin +human covenants end, and I will order it sent to you by those who lay me +in the grave. My ring is the badge of my loyalty—not yours. You are as +free as you wish to be, but when I meet my God He will know I kept my +marriage vows—always."</p> + +<p>"And the supreme vow was to love me!"</p> + +<p>From the fury in his eyes she did not flinch.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I intended to keep all. I thought I might learn to love you; and +that you would be patient with me. I wanted to love you, and, as God +hears me, I meant to spend my life trying to love you."</p> + +<p>Unable to restrain words he was unwilling to utter, he sprang up and +took refuge on the front platform.</p> + +<p>A prolonged whistle of the engine announced the next stop, and the baby +awoke with a startled cry, just as his father entered, followed by the +nurse, a middle-aged woman who looked too ill to stand. Eglah rose and +laid the child in her arms.</p> + +<p>"Madam, I am deeply grateful for your courtesy and goodness. I intended +handing my card to your husband. Permit me to lay it on his chair."</p> + +<p>"I was glad to have your pretty boy. It was a welcome incident in a very +dreary day. Good morning, sir."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott did not return until the second call for luncheon sounded +through the train. He took her hat from the brass hook and held it +toward her.</p> + +<p>"I dare say you are sufficiently weary to welcome luncheon."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, but I want absolutely nothing. I hope you will go without +me."</p> + +<p>He went out, but not to the dining car.</p> + +<p>An hour later, when he came back, she had crossed the aisle to a vacant +chair, raised the window, and, with an arm on the broad sill, rested her +head there. She did not notice his entrance, and resuming his seat he +opened a magazine.</p> + +<p>Above the line of brass lattice that held packages, hats, and umbrellas +ran a panel of mirrors, and in the section over his head was reflected +the face and figure directly opposite. For the next hour he held the +magazine open, but his eyes never left the mirror. Twice she looked at +her watch without raising her head, and from the tense, strained +fixedness of her features he knew she was nerving herself for the ordeal +at Woodbury; the final effort in her father's behalf, which he felt +assured would prove futile. Conflicting emotions shook him, but nothing +availed to abate the rage of his disappointment.</p> + +<p>The train slowed at the entrance to a large town, and as the station +platform filled with curious faces peering into the car windows, Eglah +went back to her own seat.</p> + +<p>A moment later the door was thrown open, and a boy wearing the uniform +of the telegraph company shouted:</p> + +<p>"Is Mr. Noel Herriott aboard? Message for Mr. Noel Herriott!"</p> + +<p>"I am Mr. Herriott."</p> + +<p>He went forward, signed his name in the receipt-book, and opened the +envelope. He stood with his back to Eglah, and remained so motionless +that she was seized by an apprehension some evil had overtaken her +father. Just as she rose he turned and approached her.</p> + +<p>"Has anything happened to father?</p> + +<p>"This is not from the South. It does not refer to him. We may have to +stop here. Keep your seat till I ascertain positively."</p> + +<p>Very soon he returned, followed by a porter, who promptly collected +satchels and magazines.</p> + +<p>"I find I must wait here until two o'clock in the morning."</p> + +<p>"Why delay reaching Woodbury? I beg of you let us hasten on."</p> + +<p>"There are reasons necessitating it that will be explained later."</p> + +<p>She had drawn back, but he took her arm.</p> + +<p>"The train will move in a moment, and unless you wish to go on alone, we +must be quick."</p> + +<p>He assisted her into an omnibus, where several passengers waited, and +they were driven to a hotel. Mr. Herriott ordered two rooms, and at the +door of one said:</p> + +<p>"I must see that the trunks are brought at once. I need mine."</p> + +<p>Throwing aside her hat, Eglah began to pace the floor. His countenance +had undergone a marked change—subtle, inexplicable—and an indefinable +dread caught her heart as in a vise. It seemed to her that an hour +passed before he tapped at the door, and she could scarcely articulate,</p> + +<p>"Come in."</p> + +<p>With a square package sealed in brown paper under one arm, Mr. Herriott +entered, closed the door, and deposited the bundle on a small table. +From his vest pocket he drew the folded telegram and gave it to her.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Woodbury, 3 P.M.</p> + +<p>"Duncan Keith died two days ago. Wired you at New York Club. +Everything attended to here. Will meet you at Carville at 8 +P.M.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Herman Martin.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>Her wide, terrified eyes gazed into his.</p> + +<p>"What does it mean for me—now?"</p> + +<p>"It means that probably some guilty bank officials will go 'unwhipped of +justice.' Duncan's father had no relatives in America. He was a poor +stowaway lad from England, and since the grandmother's death his son, +Duncan, had only his mother's sister, Mrs. Martin. I could not hear from +Duncan, to whom I wrote twice last week, and this telegram is an answer +to one I sent Martin, telling him I could make only a very brief stop at +Woodbury to-night. I have done my duty. I have kept my word. The +prosecution of the guilty does not devolve on me, and Martin will never +consent to undertake a suit for libel. It would involve money which he +does not possess, and responsibility he will not dare to assume. Your +father's letters, and the vouchers for large sums of money sent to 'Ely +Twiggs,' are in a separate envelope. I shall burn them now, before I +deliver the box to Martin."</p> + +<p>She sprang forward, her hands on his shoulders, her lips quivering like +rose-leaves in a gale.</p> + +<p>"Do you mean it? Will you save my father?"</p> + +<p>He took her wrists and held her away from him.</p> + +<p>"Death saves him; certainly not I."</p> + +<p>"No more sorrow can ever come to him?"</p> + +<p>"Not from this box; and none through me."</p> + +<p>The revulsion overwhelmed her. She sank back, and when he caught her and +put his ear to her mouth he could not hear her breathe. He lifted and +laid her upon a sofa, and stood looking down at her. So pure and white, +so helpless, so beautiful! Legally his wife, but never to be his.</p> + +<p>Dipping a towel in water he bathed her face, sprinkled it. The icy hands +he chafed in his broad, warm palms, and as his fingers touched the +wedding ring he ground his teeth. When her breathing grew stronger, he +rose, relinquished her hands, and after a moment she opened her eyes.</p> + +<p>"I thought you college-bred girls too well trained to faint."</p> + +<p>She sat up, half dazed, and the water dripped from her hair.</p> + +<p>"I never fainted before; something smothered me, and everything turned +black. Mr. Herriott!"</p> + +<p>He had gone to the table, but turned, and looked at her over his +shoulder.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, did not you say father was safe from shame and sorrow?"</p> + +<p>"In a few moments he will be."</p> + +<p>He opened the tin box, selected a small bundle of papers in an envelope +marked "Ely Twiggs," and drew some matches from his case. In the grate +he burned them one by one, then relocked and tied up the box.</p> + +<p>"Eglah, what a pity Iphigenia did not know favorable winds were already +blowing at Aulis before she yielded herself to her father's sacrificing +hands! Poor Duncan had been dead twenty-four hours when the bishop +performed that nuptial farce. If Martin's telegram had been forwarded, +you would now be happy at home. I find it necessary to change my plans +somewhat. I can spend but a single day at home, and, instead of going +directly thence to Boston, shall make a few hours' stay in New York to +see my lawyers."</p> + +<p>"To alter your will? You need not. I have more than I require, and if I +were a pauper I should never accept a cent from you. There is only one +thing you can ever give me, and that I must want as long as I live."</p> + +<p>He was walking slowly up and down the floor, his hands behind him, and +paused beside the sofa.</p> + +<p>"What is it?"</p> + +<p>She pushed back the damp rings of hair, and lifted to his, pleading eyes +pathetically sad.</p> + +<p>"Your confidence—your old faith in me."</p> + +<p>"Confidence! It lies with love in a grave so deep there can be no +resurrection. The world is full of women—lovely, luscious women. Of +fair flesh there is for most men no lack; but I wanted, I hungered, I +longed for only one pair of dimpled arms folded about my neck, one +woman's divinely tender eyes answering all the love in mine, one pair of +proud, pure, sensitive, beautiful lips seeking and clinging to mine. +Voluntarily you gave yourself to me—your precious self—and when +bewildered with happiness I caught you to my heart, you stabbed me. I +was mole blind, but sharp clipping has rid me of my cataracts. Let us +make an end of this dismal farce. All my life I have fought my infernal +temper, and now it has me by the throat. It will take an Arctic winter +to cool the hot fury that possesses me; and because I must not speak +harshly to you, I wish to ask if you will allow me to leave you here? I +can telegraph your father to come at once."</p> + +<p>For a moment wounded pride stifled her; she shrank as from a blow, and +red signals swung back into her pale cheeks.</p> + +<p>"As you please, Mr. Herriott. It is more painfully embarrassing for me +to force my presence upon you than for you to endure the sight of me for +a few hours longer. If you prefer to leave me here instead of at the +place selected and designated before I left home, of course I shall +submit. We have not many friends, and father's enemies will gossip over +the fact that I was sent home before you sailed from Boston. This, +however, is a minor matter in comparison with the fear that the change +you suggest might lead father to suspect I had learned the object of +your visit to Y——. Life will be unendurable to me if he finds out that +I know the contents of that box. I would rather die than have him +believe all the horrible facts are in my possession. For his sake I——"</p> + +<p>"For his sake you would go down into Hades!"</p> + +<p>"Where else am I now? What ordeal more fiery than last night and to-day? +I know now that I did wrong, but the awful ruin seemed so imminent I +fled through the only door of escape that appeared possible. I am +punished, and I deserve all I suffer. Leave me here, or anywhere else, +as you find most convenient and most comfortable for yourself."</p> + +<p>"Pardon me. Of course your wishes determine the matter. I suggested the +change, thinking that as your sole object in making this journey was to +secure the papers, you would find it a relief to return as soon as you +were sure of their destruction."</p> + +<p>He wrote a few lines in his note-book and held it before her.</p> + +<p>"Would this be entirely agreeable to you? 'Judge Allison Kent: Duncan +died two days ago. I burned the "Ely Twiggs" papers to-night. Never +mention them to Eglah. She wishes you to meet her in Philadelphia +Saturday.'"</p> + +<p>"Thank you; that is what I prefer. When you come back——"</p> + +<p>"I hope never to come back. I will not lead a sham life, and I will not +live under the same roof with one who, to please her father, tried to +love me and found she could not."</p> + +<p>"When you come back I shall try to be in Europe, and you may rest +assured of no intrusion. My marriage gives me control of my own estate, +and now I wish to know the amount it cost you to recover the bonds you +delivered to the college."</p> + +<p>"You must excuse me if I decline to answer. That matter concerns only +Nina and myself. What I did was solely for her and my father."</p> + +<p>"I shall find out, and send a check to your lawyers."</p> + +<p>"My lawyers know absolutely nothing about it, and as your father must +not suspect you heard the conversation, you will scarcely ask him. I +have some letters to write, memoranda to arrange for Martin, and several +telegrams to send immediately. Our train starts at two A.M., and you can +get a sound sleep, which you sadly need. I ordered your dinner sent +here. Do you wish your trunk?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>"Try to get a good rest. You will be called in time for the train. I +have papers to prepare that will keep me busy until then. Eglah—poor +little girl—"</p> + +<p>She looked up at him defiantly, but the peculiar expression in his +brilliant eyes she could not understand.</p> + +<p>He caught his mustache between his teeth, picked up the tin box, and +left her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII</h2> + + +<p>The weather had changed. After rain a keen north wind curled the waters +of the great lake into wreaths of foam, breaking against the terrace, +and the old Scotch clock in the lower hall struck midnight as Mr. +Herriott's carriage drew up before the open door of his house. When he +stepped to the ground a wild uproar of rejoicing dogs greeted him, and +it was some seconds before he could rid himself of caressing paws. He +assisted Eglah out, and turning toward the light met Amos Lea.</p> + +<p>"Why, old man! It was kind of you to sit up for us. You should be asleep +in your bed. Here is Mrs. Herriott. You saw her one summer."</p> + +<p>The gardener held out his rough, hard hand, and she laid hers in it.</p> + +<p>"Welcome home, madam. I hope you will be good to the lad; he will always +do right by you."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott laughed as he led her up the stone steps.</p> + +<p>"Amos, you can not lecture her as you do me."</p> + +<p>The housekeeper and one of the maids came forward for wraps and +satchels.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Herriott is very tired. Did you receive my telegram from +Carville?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir; the blue room is in order; bath, fire, supper, everything all +ready."</p> + +<p>Drawing Eglah's arm through his, he ascended the wide oak staircase, +saying:</p> + +<p>"I had it papered and arranged especially for you that summer you came +for a few days, and since then no one has been allowed to occupy it."</p> + +<p>At the landing he called over the railing:</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Orr, as it will be late when the trunks come, do not send up Mrs. +Herriott's until morning. She needs rest, and I do not wish her +disturbed before she rings her bell."</p> + +<p>On a table drawn near the fire in the "blue room" a decanter and glasses +glittered in the glow from an open hearth. Mr. Herriott poured out some +Tokay.</p> + + +<p>"I am sorry I could not make your home-coming less dismal; but for you +the worst is over, and, if you please, we will not refer to it again. +To-morrow I shall be engaged with two committees, one relating to a +scientific scholarship I wish to establish, and my time is so limited I +can be with you very little. The necessity for going via New York, where +I must stop, shortens my stay here; and I am compelled to allow some +margin for delay <i>en route</i> from Boston to Sydney, where the vessel is +due on the fifteenth. This is not exactly a 'loving-cup,' but you must +join me."</p> + +<p>He touched her glass with his, and a deep undercurrent of suppressed +emotion surged through the quietly spoken words.</p> + +<p>"Complete oblivion of all that has distressed you during the last +forty-eight hours. Put me entirely out of your thoughts, and remember +that now you can be happy with your father."</p> + +<p>He emptied his glass and replaced it on the salver.</p> + +<p>"No. I would not forget it if I could. I pray God that you may escape +every danger; that you will come back in safety to your home; and while +I may never see you again, I hope to hear you are far happier than I +could ever have made you."</p> + +<p>She sipped the wine, put it aside, and continued:</p> + +<p>"You can not understand the utter ruin of hopes, ambitions, beliefs, +that heretofore made my life worth living. In the awful wreck one thing +survives—my faith in you, who walk always in the light of 'the high +white star of Truth.' I honor and I trust you now as I never did before +the ordeal of the last few hours. The fault was mine, not yours; and as +I deserve, I wish I could bear all the pain, all the consequences, of my +desperate rashness. You do not understand what I suffer."</p> + +<p>She stood with her hands folded on her breast, so close to him that he +noted how wan and drawn the young face had grown, how measureless the +misery in eyes peering hopelessly into futurity.</p> + +<p>"At least I fully and sorrowfully understand one thing—you know no more +about love than that baby you nursed on the train."</p> + +<p>In avoidance of his cold scrutiny, her strained gaze had wandered to the +frieze of silver lilies on the wall, but now she looked at him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, you may be sure that when you go away and leave me +forever, I shall never learn."</p> + +<p>There was a sudden glint in his eyes, like a blue blade flash, but after +a moment he listened to the clock, and turned away.</p> + +<p>"Good-night. Get all the sleep you can. You will need it for your +journey South to-morrow."</p> + +<p>He closed the door, and she heard his quick step ring down the long +stairway; then the joyful bark of the dogs told he had left the house.</p> + +<p>She was an unusually healthy woman, and, impatient of the teasing pain +in her temples, shook out her heavy coil of hair. She walked from door +to fireplace, from bed to bathroom, up and down, around and around, too +restless to lie down, dominated by a strange feeling she made no attempt +to analyze. As the clock struck four, she still walked to and fro, never +suspecting that Mr. Herriott stood in the hall, close to her door, +listening to the slow sound of her feet on the polished oak floor, +fighting down his longing to enter and take her in his arms.</p> + +<p>The "blue room" looked out on the sickle-shaped beach and upon the lake, +and when the sun rose above cliffs at the rear of the house, the racing +waves leaped, crooned, flashed in golden light.</p> + +<p>Looping back the lace draperies at the window, Eglah stood watching the +flight of a loon, the quivering, silver flicker of ducks' wings against +the pale pink sky-line, the gliding of a sloop with sails bending like a +huge white butterfly balancing over some vast blue flower.</p> + +<p>Walking slowly up the beach, Mr. Herriott was approaching the stile, and +with him the collie Pilot, the Polish wolfhound Tzar, one on each side, +and the wiry black-and-white Skye terrier Snap wriggling in front. At +the stile Amos Lea sat waiting, and master and gardener talked for some +minutes.</p> + +<p>After a little the latter rose, put one hand on Mr. Herriott's shoulder, +raised the other, and turned his rugged face toward heaven.</p> + +<p>Eglah knew he was praying for the man now hurrying away to multitudinous +dangers, and her eyes grew strangely humid. When the mist cleared, she +saw they were shaking hands, and Amos disappeared behind the garden +wall. As the master neared the terrace steps he glanced up at her +window, took off his cap, and saluted her. He had never looked so +commanding, so nobly built, so superior to all other men. Something +stirred, quivered, woke up in her heart, and a swift spasm of pain +seized her.</p> + +<p>A half hour later Mr. Herriott knocked at her door. She opened it, and +one quick glance at the ivory bed and its lace hangings told him she had +not lain down.</p> + +<p>"Good morning. Will you come down and give me my coffee, or shall I send +breakfast to you here?"</p> + +<p>"I prefer to come down."</p> + +<p>He held up a bouquet of heliotrope, daintily arranged.</p> + +<p>"Amos Lea's 'compliments to the madam,' and he hopes she will wear these +flowers, as he always cut heliotrope for her when she visited here."</p> + +<p>Afraid to trust her voice, she took the bouquet, inhaled its fragrance, +and slipped the stems into the girdle of her silk morning gown.</p> + +<p>At the head of the stairs he put his palm under her elbow to steady her +steps, but at the door of the dining-room, where butler and housekeeper +waited, he took her fingers in his, led her to the head of the table, +and seated her. During breakfast he talked of the garden, of his horses, +of some pheasants he knew she would admire, of a tazza on the library +mantel she must be sure to examine, and she wondered at the complete +control and composure he had attained. Was it merely the <i>noblesse +oblige</i> of a courteous host?</p> + +<p>After a second cup of coffee, he looked at the clock.</p> + +<p>"Hawkins, tell Rivers to bring the dog-cart around. Eglah, come and see +Amos Lea's gloxinias."</p> + +<p>He put on his hat and light overcoat, and walked beside her to the +hothouse.</p> + +<p>"I shall be busy in town nearly all day, there are so many last things +to be attended to. I had abandoned all idea of joining this expedition, +when I received a letter telling me an important member of the party had +lost his father, and family interests compelled him to stay at home. The +request was urgent that I should cable my acceptance of the invitation, +which I did; hence I have had little time for necessary preparation, and +some things I am obliged to do this morning. Here comes the cart. We +must be at the station by five o'clock this afternoon. Your train +southbound starts just ten minutes before mine leaves for New York. +Trunks will be sent in at three o'clock. While I am away in town I +should be glad to have you look all over the house. Some of the rooms +you have never seen—my laboratory and den. In my bedroom hangs a +portrait of my lovely mother, that I particularly desire you to see. +Good-bye."</p> + +<p>He raised his hat, sprang into the cart, and was soon out of sight.</p> + +<p>Five moments later the keen, solemn eyes of Amos peered at her from +behind a cluster of tall palms.</p> + +<p>"Why didn't you marry him sooner, and keep him at home?"</p> + +<p>"I did not know he was going until the day we were married. I hoped and +believed I could induce him to stay, but he had given his word."</p> + +<p>"And that word of his he never breaks. Head, heart, purse, maybe will +give way, but not the pledged word of old Fergus Herriott's boy. This +self-murder that goes on in the name of 'science' is a sin in the +nostrils of the Lord, and if only the blear-eyed, spectacled old fools +that set up to know more about creation than Moses did, after he went to +school to God for forty days, could swamp themselves under the ice, it +would be silly enough, and no matter, but for my lad! Susan and I +nursed, rocked him, prayed over his cradle since he was barely one year +old, and now for him to be cast out like Jonah for fish bait. If God had +wanted the North Pole handled and strung with flags it would never have +been shut up in nights six months long, behind ice high as Ararat and +wide as the flood. There will be lonesome days till the lad gets +home—and if he never comes back! Where will his dear bones be in the +resurrection?"</p> + +<p>His bearded chin trembled, and his heavy, shaggy white eyebrows met over +his nose.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Lea, we must not cease to pray. God needs such noble men as Mr. +Herriott, and He can protect him from every danger."</p> + +<p>"Madam, don't 'mister' me. I am just Amos Lea—Noel's Amos. Study your +Bible and you will find out the Lord needs no man; the best of us are +but worthless cumberers of the ground."</p> + +<p>He drew his sleeve across his eyes and left her.</p> + +<p>Up and down the hothouses, through the shrubbery, over the stile, along +the curving beach and back to the terrace she wandered, striving in vain +to divert her thoughts from one fact that overshadowed everything +else—the master was going away that afternoon, and she might never see +him again. From public disgrace her father was safe, the crisis of acute +terror on his account had passed; but now, as the smoke of the battle +drifted away, she became dimly conscious that she carried a wound she +had not suspected and could not explain. The ache in her heart was +unlike any former pain; there was nothing with which to compare it, and +she dared not analyze it at present. Through the house she walked +aimlessly until she reached the suite of rooms set apart for the master. +In the laboratory she did not linger, but the adjoining apartment she +knew must be the "den," from the strong, pervading odor of cigar smoke. +The wainscoting of carved walnut, five feet high, was surmounted by a +shelf holding a miscellaneous collection of whips, pipes, geological +specimens, flints from Indian mounds, a hematite hatchet, a copper maul, +a jade adze. In one corner of the room stood a totem pole with a +brooding owl; in another a "kahili" of white feathers, with richly +inlaid handle; and upon the wall above the shelf, suspended by heavy +silk cords, a gold-colored "ahulla." Two trunks strapped and ready for +removal had been drawn to the middle of the apartment. On one lay a +heavy overcoat fur lined, and a fine field glass in a leather shield; on +the other a gun case and box of instruments.</p> + +<p>She sat down in a deep morocco cushioned chair, from the brass knob of +which hung a somewhat faded silk smoking jacket lined with quilted +orange satin, and looked up at the steel engravings, the etchings, the +water colors on the wall; at some marble and bronze busts on the mantel +shelf, and on the top of a teak cabinet filled with curios from Crete, +Uxmal, Labná, and the Mancos Cañon.</p> + +<p>Over the writing desk and a neighboring table were strewn scientific +journals, and on a sheet of paper that had fluttered to the floor on its +way to the over-laden waste basket, bold headlines had been written by +Mr. Herriott:</p> + +<p>"First—Were the cliff-dwellers of Asiatic origin?</p> + +<p>"Second—Are the Eskimos survivors of pre-glacial man who dwelt within +the Arctic circle when its fauna and flora, under similar climatic +conditions, corresponded with those now existing in Virginia and +Maryland?</p> + +<p>"Third—Are kames and drumlins infallible index fingers?"</p> + +<p>Whether the page contained notes from some book that he wished to +controvert, or his own views jotted down for future elaboration, she +could not determine; but as she stooped to pick up and preserve it, a +growl startled her, and around the corner of the desk she saw the red +eyes of Tzar. She spoke to him, but he rose, showed his fangs, and +stalked out of the room, the bristles stiff on his dun-colored back. How +long she sat, plunged in painful, perplexed revery, she never knew; but +finally she went to the open door of the bedroom, and leaned against the +facing, unwilling to enter. Over the low, carved chimney-piece hung the +portrait of Mrs. Herriott, a very beautiful young woman in black velvet +and pearls, and the perfect features, the poise of head, the silky black +hair, and especially the fine moulding of brow she gave to her son, +though unlike his her soft, tender eyes matched her hair in color.</p> + +<p>Below the portrait a silver frame held a photograph of Eglah in evening +dress, taken in Washington; beside it another, wearing her college cap +and gown. On the dressing table a glittering circle arrested her +attention. Swiftly she entered, crossed the room, and leaned over it. An +exquisitely painted miniature of herself, set with diamonds, and resting +on a carved ivory easel, looked up at her. Two discarded photographs of +Mr. Herriott lay with some torn letters under a neighboring chair. She +snatched one and hurried away, fearing to trust herself; but passing the +smoking jacket she caught it up, folded it under her arm, and escaped to +her room.</p> + +<p>Exchanging her trailing morning gown of cream silk for the travelling +suit, she packed her trunk, hiding jacket and photograph beneath the +tray, locked it, and sat down to wait. In the wreck of her overturned +altar and shattered filial ideals, beyond and above the desolation of +her cruel disenchantment, rose one image inflexible, incorruptible, +absolutely invulnerable to temptation, that involved sacrifice of duty. +As the mist cleared, strange new valuations loomed, and she thought of +lines that limned his portrait:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Loyalty is still the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whether it win or lose the game."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For years he had been entirely hers. Now she lost him hopelessly. His +contempt could spare no room for pity; her presence infuriated him.</p> + +<p>He had lifted her to a sacred niche where love and reverence jealously +guarded her, and she had hurled herself down into the mire of the market +place.</p> + +<p>"For sale! Any man could have bought you, body and soul."</p> + +<p>The words branded her. They seemed burned in by the scorn flaming in his +eyes, and she thought of the red letter on Hester Prynne's breast. The +world should never know, but she would carry that scar to her grave.</p> + +<p>Soon the clock struck three, and simultaneously the outcry of the dogs +announced their master's return. Hat and gloves in hand, Eglah went down +to the drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of Mr. Herriott hurrying +toward the gardener's cottage. Later he went to his own rooms, and when +dinner was announced apologized for unavoidable delay.</p> + +<p>He had reined himself in with a grip so tight that the only evidence of +suppressed excitement was the feverish, steady gleam in his eyes. He +talked of Mrs. St. Clair, of Father Temple, of Trix Stapleton, whom he +should see for a moment in New York.</p> + +<p>During a brief lull in the conversation, Eglah said:</p> + +<p>"I found your mother's portrait, which you asked me to look at. In an +extraordinary degree you resemble her."</p> + +<p>"Thank you. That is a compliment I value. It is indeed a pity she could +not have endowed me with the patience and amiability that so endeared +her to all who knew her."</p> + +<p>Very soon the moment came for parting words, and she went down to the +carriage step, leaving him with the servants clustered in the hall, but +Amos Lea was not visible. Mr. Herriott handed Eglah to the back seat, +and for a moment stooped to speak to and pat the head of each dog. As he +entered the carriage and seated himself opposite his companion, slamming +the door as signal to the coachman, the housemaid threw up her hands and +ran down the steps.</p> + +<p>"Please, sir, Mr. Herriott, may I speak to you?"</p> + +<p>He put out his head.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter?"</p> + +<p>"The silk jacket, sir. You told me to carry it to Mr. Lea, but, sir, I +can't find it. You must have put it in your trunk."</p> + +<p>"No, I wore it this morning after the trunks were locked and strapped."</p> + +<p>"Indeed, sir, I have searched your rooms most faithful, and that jacket +is not there."</p> + +<p>"You will find it somewhere in the den. Good-bye, Della. Drive on, +Rivers."</p> + +<p>The house fronted the lake, and the carriage road at the rear wound +through thick shrubbery, groups of deodars, and a lane of lilacs in full +bloom. The iron gates were open, and against one marble pillar Amos Lea +leaned. As the horses dashed through, he motioned to the driver. At +sight of him Mr. Herriott's face changed, softened; he sprang out and +walked back a few yards.</p> + +<p>Through a glass in the curtain Eglah saw the old man's brawny hands laid +on Mr. Herriott's shoulders, and the harsh voice shook.</p> + +<p>"Oh, lad! May the Lord bless you and keep you in the hollow of His hand, +and bring your body safely back, and save your dear soul from the snares +of the ungodly that go down to the icy sea in ships. Wherever you wander +Susan's eyes will follow you until you reach that rest where there is no +more night."</p> + +<p>"It hurts me sorely to say good-bye to you, Amos. For my sake take extra +care of yourself. Let up on moles and slugs and shotbugs in damp +weather. Look after my dogs for me, and be good to Aunt Trina when she +comes for her visit. One thing more, be sure the tower lamp is lighted +every night. When I am groping and stumbling in Arctic darkness, it will +cheer me to know that light is shining over a black, stormy lake. Now I +must go. I hope God will keep you strong and well. Good-bye."</p> + +<p>Then the voice sank so low a few additional words were inaudible to +those beyond the gate. He took the gardener's hands, shook them warmly, +and re-entered the carriage. As he did so Eglah pointed to the seat +beside her, which he accepted, and she saw his eyes were misty.</p> + +<p>For some moments neither spoke.</p> + +<p>"Aunt Trina is fond of the old place, and I have asked her to spend July +here, with any friends she may wish to bring. She and Amos spar like +prize fighters over immersion and close communion, and he brands her +extreme ritualism 'idolatry rank as the groves of Baal.'"</p> + +<p>He looked at his watch, and called to the coachman:</p> + +<p>"Rivers, we have very little time to spare."</p> + +<p>His closed right hand rested on his knee, and Eglah laid hers upon it.</p> + +<p>"Since I was a little girl you have been my faithful, sympathizing, +patient friend, and now I can not bear that you should leave me without +uttering one kind word of forgiveness for the great wrong I realize at +last that I have done you."</p> + +<p>"Eglah, for God's sake don't open that door, which shuts out—what I can +not discuss again with you, because I must not wound you."</p> + +<p>She noticed the suppressed pant in his voice, and as he did not respond +to the touch of her hand, her slender fingers crept between and twined +around his.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, when you come home——"</p> + + +<p>"I shall try not to come home."</p> + +<p>"If I promise you shall never see me there, perhaps that assurance may +tempt you back. You are casting me out of your life, and I have no right +to complain, but I wish to say that I hope you will have no fear for the +name you gave irrevocably into my keeping."</p> + +<p>"You bear my name, my father's name, but I am very sure your little +white hands will hold it clean, pure, and sacred. Should you invoke +legal aid to free you from merely nominal matrimonial bonds, I prefer +you should then resume your father's name. If you choose to make no +change, and I do not return, the name will die with you, and I believe +you will guard it as you would the Grail."</p> + +<p>Unconsciously his hand tightened on hers, until the edge of the ring cut +into her finger.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, you will write to me?"</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>Looking intently at her, he noticed the deep blue shadows under her +eyes, and the first tears he had ever seen her shed rolled slowly over +her worn face.</p> + +<p>"Unless my letters were hollow shams, they would only distress you, and +all future annoyance I wish to avoid. Silence is the only possible +peace."</p> + +<p>At this moment the carriage stopped, and he looked out.</p> + +<p>"Why do you lag, Rivers?"</p> + +<p>"A train, sir. Switch engine and gravel cars."</p> + +<p>"Drive around it."</p> + +<p>"I can't, sir. Red signal just ahead of the horse's nose."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott stepped out, and walked for some minutes up and down the +embankment. Then the train pulled out, and when he re-entered his +carriage he took the front seat.</p> + +<p>"I sent a telegram to your father, which ought to reach him in +Washington, telling him the number of your train, and your hotel in +Philadelphia; and I hope your return journey will prove more agreeable +than your trip with me. If any necessity should arise that would require +you to communicate with me, you will find this card in the outside +pocket of your satchel, but the address means only that letters will be +forwarded to Upernavik. When we leave there no mail will reach us."</p> + +<p>The carriage drew up to the platform, and Mr. Herriott assisted Eglah +into the train. With her wraps and satchel he preceded her to the +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>"This is more comfortable than the one you occupied two days ago, and I +trust you can rest well. Here are your tickets and check. This train is +almost ready to start, and mine moves in ten minutes. In parting I make +only one request. I ask you now to put me out of your life. I want you +to forget me, and be happy with your father. Good-bye."</p> + + +<p>His face was white, and the expression of his eyes she never forgot.</p> + +<p>He had extended his hand, but the horrible possibilities of the future +swept all proud scruples aside, and she put her arms around his neck, +clinging desperately to him.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, you shall never, never, be out of my life! I will always +belong to my—own—Mr. Noel."</p> + +<p>The check rein snapped.</p> + +<p>He clasped—strained her against his breast, and she felt the furious +beating of his heart. It was barely a moment. Gently he unwound her +arms, put her quickly aside, and left her.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII</h2> + + +<p>The resumption of cordially affectionate relations between Judge Kent +and his daughter was marked on her part by increased tenderness and +deference, on his by demonstrative caresses particularly conspicuous +after years of alienation. His exactions upon her time became despotic; +he was dissatisfied when she was out of his sight, and if within reach +his hand usually rested on her arm or shoulder. The paramount aim of her +life was attained. She was assured that she reigned supreme in her +coveted kingdom—his heart. Freed from dread of public exposure, his +spirits rebounded, and his jovial, self-indulgent nature enjoyed basking +once more before the fire of financial prosperity, exulted in the +consciousness that at last the long desired Maurice fortune was at his +command. Eglah wondered that from the hour he met her in Philadelphia he +asked no questions concerning her bridal journey—no explanation of her +unexpectedly hurried return.</p> + +<p>He sedulously avoided all mention of Mr. Herriott, except to rail at the +imbecility of Arctic explorers, and suspecting that he smarted from the +humiliating knowledge that his son-in-law had possessed proofs of his +guilt, she welcomed silence as balm for her sore heart. From the day of +her return to Nutwood she severed every social tie linking her with +Y——. Of visiting she made an end, all invitations were declined, and +she was seen only at church, beside her father. They rode, drove, walked +together. On his fishing jaunts she read while he wandered from pool to +pool, and made tea for him when, tired and thirsty, he came back to a +shaded spot where she waited. Now and then a few of his friends spent an +evening in the billiard room, or played cards in the library, and +discussed Republican policies. At night Eliza Mitchell usually brought +her sewing to the table, Judge Kent smoked in his easy chair, and Eglah +arranged the chessboard at his elbow, or read aloud from some volume he +had selected. It rarely happened that she received his good-night kiss +until she had played a <i>nocturne</i> or an <i>étude</i> for which he asked. He +had an ardent, sensuous love of beauty in color, form, sound; +impassioned poetry, deep, rich melody, and subtle harmonies entranced +him, dimmed his fine, eloquent eyes. His musical taste had been +cultivated in accordance with classical standards, and while his +daughter's proficiency was not extraordinary, she played skilfully and +with a tenderly magnetic touch that justified his compliment: "My +daughter has tears in her pretty fingers."</p> + +<p>When a proud, reticent, beautiful woman suddenly takes an unusual and +totally unexpected step, abrogating fashionable conventions—when, +keeping her own counsel, she disdains explanation and shuts herself away +from curious questioners—the hounds of gossip are unleashed, and +beagles and fox-terriers follow in full cry. Outraged Y—— hummed like +a swarming hive.</p> + +<p>"Married without a sign of a trousseau, on a few hours' notice, with +barely time to get a license, a ring and a minister, and to pack her +trunk! Disgraceful!"</p> + +<p>Rumors of Mr. Herriott's wealth swelled to fabulous proportions. A +sister of Dr. Burbridge, whose young cousin was employed in the office +of the telegraph company, plied him with questions, until indiscreetly +and reluctantly he confided to her that two telegrams sent by the groom +showed that he had not come to Y—— intending marriage; whereupon she +set afloat information which merely increased the complexity of the +problem. Judge Kent had been so long the community scapegoat that in the +final public solution and adjustment of disreputable responsibility, an +additional load of selfish, wily iniquity was laid on his sin-stained +shoulders. By cunning chicanery he had forced his daughter's sudden +marriage, hoping that Arctic dangers, often fatal, would soon make her a +widow dowered with millions.</p> + +<p>Even the few who witnessed the ceremony, and recalled Eglah's +inscrutable white face, understood as little as the resentful uninvited, +yet when questioned they loyally maintained reserve.</p> + +<p>Bishop Vivian, Mr. Whitfield, and the Egglestons warmly defended the +girl, whom secretly they pitied, but society pilloried her.</p> + +<p>"She was shamelessly mercenary, absolutely devoid of womanly delicacy, +and a shocking disgrace to her poor mother's family."</p> + +<p>Henceforth the anti-Kent social element in Y—— resolved itself into a +vigilance committee to watch her behavior as a married woman.</p> + +<p>Into the whirlpool of tittle-tattle Mrs. Mitchell wisely abstained from +plunging. Her own information was too meagre, her uneasiness concerning +Eglah's stubborn silence and inexplicable manner too profound to admit +of discussion, even in defence. She staid at home, bided her time, and +held her peace. Moreover, she was wrestling with conscientious scruples +regarding her duty in withholding from Eglah some disquieting facts +known only to herself.</p> + +<p>The second night after his daughter's departure, Judge Kent had indulged +in stimulants to an unprecedented and alarming extent. With a decanter +of brandy at his elbow, he dozed in his arm-chair until roused by Aaron, +who delivered a telegram. Eliza was going upstairs to her own room, when +the boy rang the bell and handed in the message.</p> + +<p>"Lock up the house, Aaron. I think the judge is sleepy and will soon go +to bed."</p> + +<p>An hour later she sat reading her Bible, and heard a sound as of some +heavy object falling. Snatching her lamp, she went swiftly to the +library. The overturned decanter was slowly emptying itself on the +table, and Judge Kent lay on the floor, his head resting against the +cushioned seat of his chair. Evidently he had risen, slipped on the +polished floor, dropped the decanter, and lost consciousness.</p> + +<p>His face was purple, his breathing stertorous. Holding his head, she +pushed the chair back and laid him flat on the floor.</p> + +<p>Was it apoplectic seizure or intoxication? Her inexperience justified no +independent action, yet if drunkenness explained existing conditions, +she shrank from publishing the disgrace that would mortally wound Eglah.</p> + +<p>Bathing his head and face, she administered such restoratives as she +possessed, and loosened his vest and collar. Finally it seemed necessary +to summon Aaron and send Oliver for the doctor, but as she rose to ring +the bell Judge Kent opened his eyes. A dark, turbid red still stained +his face, but his respiration was less labored.</p> + +<p>"Don't move. After a little I can get Oliver to help you into bed."</p> + +<p>"I had a fall?"</p> + +<p>His utterance was thick, his articulation indistinct, and he hiccoughed.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir. You are better, I think, and if you will only lie still a +while you can soon be made comfortable in your own room."</p> + +<p>She went into the adjoining apartment, saw that the bed had been +prepared, and a lamp lighted. When she returned he had struggled into a +sitting posture, his arms clasped around his knees. She sat down and +waited. On the table lay the brandy-stained telegram sent by Mr. +Herriott after he had burned the papers at Carville. She picked it up, +read it twice, and laid it down.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Mitchell, if you will help me I can get into a chair."</p> + +<p>She took his extended hands, and he rose slowly, staggered against her, +and sank into his chair. Five minutes later he slept, but gradually his +face resumed its usual color. Eliza brought a basin of water from the +bedroom, washed away the brandy streaks from the floor and table, and +with a silk handkerchief dried and polished the fine old mahogany, +already whitening from its alcoholic bath. She went to an open window +and waited. The night was balmy, and loitering, thievish puffs of air +came laden with rifled sweetness from multitudinous lips of forest and +garden bloom. Far away the muffled monody of the river falls rose +towards the stars, whose light wove a golden braid across the water's +quivering crystal plunge over granite crags. In the dense shadow of the +walnut grove a squirrel barked, and from their red cedar covert the game +cocks shrilled midnight.</p> + +<p>After two hours Judge Kent awoke and groaned. Mrs. Mitchell handed him a +goblet of iced water, which he drained.</p> + +<p>"Shall I go and rouse Oliver, or would you prefer Aaron to assist you?"</p> + +<p>"I don't want either. If you will help me over this infernally slippery +floor to my bedroom sofa, I can manage."</p> + +<p>"You do not wish the doctor sent for?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>She took his arm, guided his unsteady steps to the sofa, arranged a +pillow, and unlaced his shoes. Very soon his deep, regular breathing +assured her the worst had passed. Was it the brandy, or the telegram or +both? What were the "Ely Twiggs" papers, of which Eglah must know +nothing, and why was she coming home immediately, instead of going to +Sydney, or at least as far as Boston? Could Mr. Herriott have been a +party to some scheme whereby she was entrapped into that sudden +marriage?</p> + +<p>At three o'clock she looked from the library door at the sleeping form +on the sofa, and with anxiety allayed, went upstairs to her room. +Awaiting a cue, she made no inquiries when he appeared at late +breakfast, and with characteristic aplomb his only reference to the +previous evening was an apology for troubling her to give him a third +cup of tea.</p> + +<p>"My head is a trifle shaky from the jar of that fall. Men of my age and +weight can not afford to sit down so heavily on bare boards, and I shall +insist on matting when the carpets are taken up."</p> + +<p>The receipt of the telegram requesting him to meet his daughter in +Philadelphia was followed by hurried preparations for departure, and +Mrs. Mitchell ventured to expostulate.</p> + +<p>"Judge Kent, if you realized how serious was your attack in the library, +you would not risk the imprudence of a railway journey. You ought to see +your doctor. Let me go and meet Eglah in Philadelphia."</p> + +<p>His bloodshot eyes twinkled as they met hers.</p> + +<p>"Doctor? Absurd! Attack? You mean that unlucky slip? It amounts to +nothing except a stubborn stiffness on the side where I struck those +diabolical sand-scoured boards. I particularly desire the matter should +not be mentioned to my daughter, who would reproach herself severely for +that 'dry-rubbed' floor she knows I detest as a cat does swimming."</p> + +<p>During his absence a cabinet maker was summoned and removed the ugly +grey stains on Eglah's favorite piece of old claw-footed mahogany. For a +time the incident seemed forgotten by all save the quiet, silent woman +keeping watch for the consequences.</p> + +<p>A few days after Eglah's return she sat at a window in her bedroom, +noting the deepening glory of the west, where the sun was just sinking +behind purple hills. It was the date on which the "Ahvungah" would leave +Sydney and begin her voyage to the world of eternal ice.</p> + +<p>The day had seemed one of doom, as if set for a funeral, and the going +down of the sun brought other shadows—darker than the mists that would +soon swim under the stars. If Mr. Herriott had forgiven her she might +have gone to Cape Breton, could have been with him till the last moment. +Now he was upon the ocean, and only God knew the future that looked so +black, so spectral, so full of desolation.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell opened the door and handed her a package.</p> + +<p>"Dearie, the express messenger brought this, and I signed for you."</p> + +<p>She went back to her own room and resumed her darning.</p> + +<p>The parcel was addressed in Mr. Herriott's handwriting: "Mrs. Noel +Herriott. Care Hon. Allison Kent." A wave of color flowed over Eglah's +pale face as she looked at her new name, and felt assured his eyes had +gleamed with scorn as he penned it. A pass-book and check-book of a New +York bank, with note from the cashier, were the first objects that met +her eye, and were instantly thrown aside; then a square box, elaborately +sealed. When she removed the wrapping paper a red morocco case appeared, +and around it was tied a note without a personal address.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Just before my father died he gave me two rings; one the +little gold band that hangs on my watch chain—my mother's +wedding ring. The other a stone he had given her on the day of +their betrothal. When he laid them in my hand, he said: 'Wear +one always. If you should ever marry, give the other, with my +blessing, to the woman who bears our name.' Because it was his +wish, I simply obey his injunction, and trust the ring sacred +from my mother's touch will grace the hand it was once my +fondest hope, my most ardent wish to claim. This should reach +you the day we leave Sydney. The sham is ended. Your freedom is +now complete. Do not hesitate to use it in any way that will +restore the happiness you so unwisely, so rashly imperilled. If +possible, your path in future shall be spared my shadow. +Good-bye.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Herriott.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>The words stung like a scourge, and involuntarily she covered her face +with her hands. Time merely increased his bitterness; there was nothing +more for her to hope or expect. He intended perpetual separation.</p> + +<p>Mechanically she lifted the ring from its velvet bed. It was a superb +diamond, marked on the inside of the gold band, "Fergus to Una." The +circle fitted only one finger, that wearing the wedding ring, and was +too broad to share it. She replaced the jewel in its case and closed it. +A little later, when Mrs. Mitchell came in, the stony, despairing face +of the girl startled her. She ran forward and took her in her arms.</p> + +<p>"What is the matter? You have shut me out long enough; now I will know. +You have heard from Mr. Herriott?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. He sent me a check-book for money on deposit and a ring that had +been his mother's."</p> + +<p>"What are you breaking your heart over? O my baby, don't keep your +trouble from me! The dreadful night you went away you asked me not to +question you, but I must; I can't bear the sight of your dear face. +Nobody loves you as I do, and you know you can trust me."</p> + +<p>Eglah was silent a moment, and Eliza felt her shiver.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I am sure your love is the truest I shall ever possess, and I +trust you; but some things are like red coals, and you shrink from +handling them. Suppose you had wounded your Robert so deeply, so sorely +he never forgave you, would you wish to drag the horror up and talk of +the details? Put yourself in my place."</p> + +<p>"I cannot understand, because Mr. Herriott loves you so devotedly he +would forgive anything you might have done."</p> + +<p>"You do not know him; neither did I before I left home. I made the +mistake of presuming too far on his love. I wronged him, and he will +never forgive me."</p> + +<p>"I refuse to believe you wronged him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I did him a great wrong. I did not intend to wound him, and when I +realized all that followed, it was too late for remedy. I don't wish to +say anything more, even to you. The thought of the red coals scorches my +heart. If the time should ever come when I feel I can talk freely, you +will not need to question. Until then, love me and be patient, and leave +me to myself. To-day Mr. Herriott is at sea—gone on his long voyage. O +Ma-Lila! Ma-Lila, pray to God that he may never come home! Or that if he +lives, I may die soon."</p> + +<p>"You foolish, wicked girl! Are you crazy?"</p> + +<p>"I have been, but my late tenants have gone into the swine. A week ago +they possessed me, and wild work followed. Since their departure I find +it impossible to regain my old self. I have, after frightful nightmare, +awakened a very repentant, an exceedingly miserable woman, but the fault +was all mine. Mr. Herriott was not to blame. He is even nobler than you +know, nobler than I dreamed; but I wounded, injured him past pardon; and +now I purpose to bear in silence, and as best I may, a sorrow that I +alone have brought upon myself. No one can help me. I only ask to be +spared all questions, all reference to my marriage. Father is calling +me. Will you give him his tea? Ask him to excuse me. Good-night. I wish +to be alone until breakfast."</p> + +<p>When Eliza went downstairs next morning, Eglah was coming from the side +garden with both hands full of dewy roses for the table vase, and, +having listened until two o'clock to the restless footsteps in the room +next to her own, the foster-mother glanced anxiously at her.</p> + +<p>The cold, passionless repose that comes only after a fierce and vital +struggle had settled upon her white, worn face, and the woman who knew +her best could not determine whether it meant conquest or surrender.</p> + +<p>As summer advanced, Eglah noticed the frequency with which her father +fell asleep in the midst of conversation, and when he dozed one day with +a bowl of sherbet in his hand, she became alarmed and sent for Dr. +Plympton, an old friend of Judge Kent's, who had moved South and settled +in Y—— during the dismal days of carpet bag rule.</p> + +<p>He gave him tonics, diet regimen on which he laid much stress, and +ordered the family away to certain springs in a distant State. Having +secured a cottage, Eglah avoided the hotel and maintained complete +seclusion. Her father keenly enjoyed the change, and gradually the +tendency to drowse was less apparent, but the prohibition of alcoholic +drinks fretted him, and that which was tabooed at the cottage was +alluringly accessible at the hotel.</p> + +<p>When the season closed, he and Eglah decided to stop <i>en route</i> for a +day, to pay their long promised visit to Calvary House.</p> + +<p>As Mrs. Mitchell could not be persuaded to enter "an Episcopal monkish +institution" of which she disapproved so vigorously, she went back alone +to Nutwood and busied herself with household preparations for winter.</p> + +<p>When the judge and his daughter reached home, Dr. Plympton expressed +himself much pleased with improved conditions which Mrs. Mitchell could +not discover, and Eglah's apprehensions were allayed. Her father's +increasing dependence upon her touched and cheered her inexpressibly, +and for his sake she diligently assisted him in work that forced her +thoughts into a new channel. An important appropriation bill, in which +Judge Kent's native State was much interested, would be presented to +Congress about the middle of December, or soon after the holiday recess, +and he had been requested by old friends and constituents to address the +Senate committee, advocating a favorable report. The collection and +arrangement of necessary statistics kept her busy at his side, and when +the last type-written page was added to the pile at his elbow, he patted +her hand fondly and complimented her useful accuracy.</p> + +<p>Rejoicing in the accomplishment of their tedious task, the trap was +ordered, and father and daughter drove until the dinner hour.</p> + +<p>She noticed he dozed twice while she talked, although when they reached +home he seemed as well as usual, humming a gay little Sicilian song as +he divested himself of overcoat and muffler. It had been a perfect +autumn day, crisp, crystalline. The deep, vivid yellow of the great +undulating mass of walnut foliage hung against the western sky like +cloth of gold curtains around a porphyry shrine, above which Venus +burned as ministering taper. With her cheek pressed to the window pane +in the library, Eglah watched the fading after-glow, and her hands +clutched each other. This was the day when from the iron-bound, +ice-sheathed fiords of Smith's Sound the sun disappeared. The long Polar +night had set in. Would Mr. Herriott ever see the sun again?</p> + +<p>She had procured all books written in English that related to Arctic +travel, and in the sanctuary of her own room prepared, from an almanac +and from explorer's diaries, a calendar, noting the length of each day, +the coming of the moon, the date of shortest twilight, the falling of +total darkness. Mr. Herriott's voyage began in May; no tidings had +reached her. She expected none, but her lips moved: "Oh, God, keep him +in safety through the awful night!"</p> + +<p>The dreary vision of her imagination contrasted sharply with the +luxurious aspect of the library, where a fire of oak logs glowed beyond +the marble hearth. A crimson velvet carpet covered the floor, and warm +winter draperies enhanced the atmosphere of comfort. On the table an +oval cut-glass basket held great clusters of orange chrysanthemums; not +the huge, solitary, odorless globes now so popular in cities, but +thickly studded, fragrant branches that bloom nowhere with such lavish +sweetness as in old Southern gardens.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell brightened the lamp and began to match the squares of a +calico "rising sun" quilt she was making as her Christmas present to the +Methodist parsonage. Judge Kent leaned back in his arm-chair, his +silver-powdered head on the red cushion, good looking, debonair, +thoroughly content; and in one hand he held a richly gilded liqueur +glass, brimming with an emerald cordial. Eglah came to his side and put +her hand on his wrist.</p> + +<p>"Father, Dr. Plympton forbids liqueurs. Please do not drink that."</p> + +<p>"Only a thimbleful of <i>crème de menthe</i>! Babies take mint tea. Even Mrs. +Mitchell drinks this."</p> + +<p>His fine eyes sparkled mischievously, and he bowed to her.</p> + +<p>"No, sir. I make my mint cordial from my own garden, and I know what is +in it; but you can't be sure about foreign-fangled mixtures."</p> + +<p>"I wish to make sure that delicious gumbo-filé will not give me +nightmare."</p> + +<p>"Father, I begged you not to touch it, and you had your favorite clam +bouillon the doctor commends so highly."</p> + +<p>"Bouillon—gumbo-filé? 'As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto +wine.' My duchess, don't scold. Your pretty mouth was made for sweeter +uses. Kiss me."</p> + +<p>He brushed his white mustache aside, and leaning down she pressed her +lips to his.</p> + +<p>"Father, are you quite well to-night?"</p> + +<p>"Quite well, and absolutely happy. Now, give me some music to round out +and seal this glorious, perfect day."</p> + +<p>She opened the upright piano, and while she played one of his favorite +fugues—Handel's in E minor—he kept time, swinging the tiny, gilded +glass. Flickering flames in the wide chimney were reflected on the +polished rosewood panels of the piano, and as they wavered up and down +before her, Eglah thought of spectral auroral fringes flashing in +moonless Polar night, staining with prismatic hues the world of snow, +kindling red beacons on pinnacles of immemorial ice.</p> + +<p>The fugue ended, and as her fingers left the keys a tinkling crash +caused her to turn her head.</p> + +<p>The liqueur glass was shattered on the floor and Judge Kent lay +insensible in his chair.</p> + +<p>Paralysis appeared so complete that for some days Doctors Plympton and +Eggleston entertained no hope; but the sufferer rallied surprisingly, +and while his utterance was not fully intelligible, and he never +regained the use of his lower limbs, he was often conscious.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell and the physicians would have welcomed a passionate +outbreak of the silent grief that seemed to have frozen Eglah, as, calm +and dry-eyed, she ministered in the sick-room she rarely left. Two +faithful men assisted in nursing—one by day, one by night, because she +could not lift her father—and she slept on a cot beside him, or across +the foot of his bed. She administered all his medicine, fed him with her +own hands, caressed, and cheered him.</p> + +<p>After a few weeks, though entirely helpless, he was able to be dressed +and lifted into a reclining rolling-chair, and when the weather +permitted she wheeled him around the sunny side of the long colonnade, +where he usually fell asleep. The speech arranged so carefully for the +Senate committee she read again critically, made a few corrections, and +forwarded it with a brief announcement of his illness to the friends who +had employed Judge Kent to prepare and deliver it in committee room.</p> + +<p>Her stern self-repression discouraged conversation relative to the +sufferer, and she buoyed herself with no false hopes.</p> + +<p>A ripple of compassion stirred Y——, and some who had criticized her +most severely for her haughty aloofness—some whose sole grievance was +her absolute devotion to an "unprincipled father"—left cards, words of +sympathy, and flowers for Mrs. Herriott. Except the doctors, she saw no +one but Mrs. Eggleston and Mr. Whitfield, who had lost his wife a few +months previous. Bishop Vivian had died during the summer, but her +father's rector came often. At times the sick man's clouded mind seemed +incapable of retaining any impression, but he never failed to respond to +music, and when his chair was rolled close to the piano and Eglah played +selections he loved best, it comforted her to watch the pleased, +contented expression of the placid, handsome old face so dear to her. +Noticing how wan and drawn the girl's lips were, the physicians urged +Mrs. Mitchell to persuade her to drive or walk.</p> + +<p>"No. I will not lose sight of him for a moment. He is my all, and what +becomes of me makes no difference. I have but one wish now—to go with +him."</p> + +<p>One bright, warm day, late in December, Judge Kent appeared surprisingly +better, though his articulation continued very indistinct, and his +daughter understood him best because she closely watched his lips. The +doctors had made their morning visit, and, wrapped in his dressing-gown, +the sick man asked to be rolled into sunshine.</p> + +<p>Eglah tucked a lap robe carefully about the reclining form, and he +feebly lifted the one hand he could move, and pointed to the glass door.</p> + +<p>"That way; not through library."</p> + +<p>She unlocked and opened it, wheeling the chair out on the colonnade, and +some change in his countenance arrested her attention. Bending down, she +found tears on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>"You opened this door the day Herriott came. Because you heard him tell +me about Keith, you married him. You burned the papers—you saved me."</p> + +<p>"No, father; no!"</p> + +<p>She fell on her knees and hid her face in his gown.</p> + +<p>"You tried to keep me from knowing you heard Herriott, but I saw you. +You married him for my sake. My blessed child! When I am gone, I want +you to remember no other man ever had such a daughter. My Eglah——"</p> + +<p>After a moment he sighed, and with great difficulty added slowly:</p> + +<p>"My dear, kiss me, and always—always you must know—how precious +you—are, precious——"</p> + +<p>She kissed him twice, dried his cheeks, and, as he turned his head on +the pillow and closed his eyes, she rolled him up and down the +colonnade, hoping that during his nap he would forget. He often slept +soundly in this way, soothed by the motion like a child in a carriage.</p> + +<p>Was he laboring under some delusion of an enfeebled brain—did he dream? +Or was it possible he had actually seen her leave his room on her errand +of rescue?</p> + +<p>A half hour later a veil of cloud drifted across the sun, a blast of +wind leaped out of the northwest, and, fearing a change of temperature, +she turned the chair toward the door and wheeled it inside.</p> + +<p>Leaning tenderly over the sleeper, his quiet, cold, set face told her he +had gone to that bar of final trial where, in his Maker's infinite +mercy, only He who fashions and reads human hearts and sees entirely +around the circle of circumstances, can justly judge.</p> + +<p>A low, long-drawn, quivering cry, as of some creature mortally stricken, +summoned Mrs. Mitchell, who found the girl huddled over the still form, +his grey head lifted to her breast.</p> + +<p>Holding her solitary vigil that night beside him, her cheek laid on his +shoulder, her hand clasping his icy, interlocked fingers, she found a +solace which surprised her in the assurance that he had known the +significance of her sacrifice—that he loved her better in consequence +of all she had ventured and suffered in his behalf. Her supreme dread +had been his discovery of the cause of her marriage, but now and then +the scowling menace from which we cower, breaks in smiling, tender +benediction. To love, that prompts and sustains in crucial hours of +self-immolation, is occasionally added a transforming exaltation that +sublimates the unworthy object for whom the sacrifice is borne; and the +most pityingly merciful of all angels—Death—extinguishes life with one +hand, while the other smooths scars of character, levels unlovely +angles, lifts shadows of sin, and gives to memory that magic mantle +whose halo never fades.</p> + +<p>With singular and unnatural calmness, Eglah had arranged the details of +the funeral service next day in her father's church. She telegraphed +Father Temple to meet her in Washington <i>en route</i> to the North, and +asked Mr. Whitfield to go with her until her cousin joined her on the +train.</p> + +<p>To lay her father to rest among his enemies in Y—— was unendurable; +she would take him to the cemetery in his native State, where his +parents and sisters slept, and erect a monument there in sight of his +constituents who had honored and loved him.</p> + +<p>It had grown very cold; there was no fire in the long drawing-room, +where portraits of Maurices and Vivians stared imperiously down at the +alien lying motionless under the great cut-glass chandelier. Silent and +tearless the girl kept watch. The undertaker had mentioned the date to +be inscribed on the casket plate, and she recalled her Arctic calendar. +This was the solstice, the sunless midnight, the core of Polar winter. +To-morrow the sun would begin to climb back to Mr. Herriott, but the sun +of her life had set forever. A shudder shook her, and she nestled +closer, laying her lips against her father's throat. Eliza laid heavier +wraps around the stooping shoulders, placed a hot blanket under her +feet, and now and then kissed the girl's bowed head, but no words, no +sob, profaned the sacred silence.</p> + +<p>When the body was carried to the chancel of the crowded church, she +walked alone, followed closely by the few who best understood her +isolation. Shrouded in black, she sat still and silent as her dead; and +some persons present who had cause for bitterness against +"reconstruction judiciary" forgot their wrongs in genuine pity for the +proud and lonely mourner.</p> + +<p>Under a fragrant pall, woven of smilax and his favorite double white +violets, that covered the casket and fell to its handles, she bore him +away to the stony hills of New England.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV</h2> + + +<p>Its alliterative jingle had probably commended Dairy Dingle to Marcia +Maurice when she selected a name for the new home of the overseer, +Robert Mitchell. Here he brought his bride from Nutwood, where she had +lived since her father's death on the battle-field. A Federal cavalry +raid, intended specially for the looting of Y—— and the destruction of +its factories, had loitered too long at Willow Bend plantation, and +finding Confederate squadrons in hot pursuit, the Union troopers were +forced to retreat, after burning every building in sight except the +cabins of the negroes. General Maurice loved the rambling, airy, +old-fashioned country house where he was born, and here he usually +brought his family to spend Christmas, and make genuine holiday for his +numerous slaves. After the raid only rock chimneys stood as +commemorative pillars, and not a vestige of gin-house, cotton sheds, or +stables was visible. At a hard gallop the fleeing troopers passed an +adjacent grist-mill which supplied several plantations with meal, and +paused long enough to kindle a blaze in a pile of corn sacks. The +miller, a lame negro, extinguished the flames, and preserved a structure +where several generations had brought their contributions to the hopper. +Near this old red mill Mrs. Maurice built a house for her overseer, and +after Eliza's marriage gave it and the adjoining fifty acres of cleared +land to the young wife. It was a small, square box of a house, with four +rooms, broad, low-pitched piazzas, and wide hall running through the +middle. Where the rear gallery ended, a covered way, brick paved, led to +the kitchen and servants' room. On the left, at a sudden dip of the +land, and several hundred yards distant, stood the spring house, or +stone dairy, a low structure built over a small stream running from the +bold spring that gushed out of the hillside a few feet away—and falling +into the creek just above the mill-dam.</p> + +<p>A shallow canal dug through the centre of the dairy had been paved with +rock, and here, winter and summer, the milk bowls and butter jars stood +in water rippling against their sides.</p> + +<p>While General Maurice lived, he kept only his Jersey herd at Nutwood, +but at Willow Bend his famous Short-horns, red, and red roan, roamed +over pasturage extending hundreds of acres. The "cow pen" and milking +shed were not visible, hidden on the edge of a plateau running far away +to a stretch of primeval, lonely pine woods crossed only by cattle +paths. In a green cup encircled by wimpling hills the overseer's home +nestled like a white bird hovering to drink. The sharply curving creek +that divided it from the plantation was bridged a half mile below the +mill, and a dense growth of trees and vines clothed the banks. In an +opposite direction, beyond the house, and mantling the upland slopes, +lay fields of grain, glistening as the wind crinkled the yellowing +folds.</p> + +<p>Locust and china trees, overrun by English honeysuckle, coral, and buff +woodbine, shaded the cottage, and all about the spring house clustered +azaleas—white, pink, orange, scarlet—filling the quiet hollow with +waves of incomparable perfume. Hanging on the bluff above the bubbling +spring a thicket of titi swung exquisite opal plumes, over which bees +drowsed; and crowding to the front for dress parade clung a line of +mountain laurel or "ivy" faintly flushed with pale-rose clusters waiting +to burst into bloom and with their crimped shell-pink cups rival fluted +and tinted treasures from Sèvres and Murano.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Into this green, shadowy dingle had come its long absent mistress, and, +closing Nutwood, Eglah shared her foster-mother's secluded home in the +heart of the pine woods.</p> + +<p>For many months after her father's death she seemed a mute, breathing +statue rather than a suffering woman, so deep lay the pain no words +could fathom. Close and tender as were the ties linking the two, Eliza +dared not probe the wound, and when Eglah closed the door of her own +room, the loving little mother would have broken into a sealed tomb as +soon as violate her solitude.</p> + +<p>Two miles beyond the plantation, across the creek, a new railway line +had established a station called Maurice, and about this nucleus a +village grew with surprising rapidity. The site selected on Eglah's land +by the railway company chanced to be that of the neighborhood +school-house, where, on the fourth Sunday of each month, a Methodist +minister of many mission chapels preached. Mrs. Mitchell had organized a +Sabbath school, and Eglah had given a cabinet organ, but the figure +shrouded in mourning was seen only when driving in her trap, or more +frequently alone on horseback. These long rides through rolling pine +forests and silent sunny glades, where she met none but her own +velvet-eyed, browsing red cattle, and shy, happy rabbits, were hours of +immeasurable relief; yet, at intervals, proved battle-ground on which +she fought the crowding spectres of a sombre, brooding future. Political +and social ambitions were shut forever in her father's grave; domestic +duties ended when the doors and gates of Nutwood had been locked; and +business affairs were in far wiser hands than hers. What should she do +with her empty life?</p> + +<p>One afternoon, goaded by sad thoughts, she had ridden farther than +usual, and, returning, reined her horse in at the brink of a meadow to +tighten her coil of hair, shaken by a rapid gallop. Before her a group +of young, red, dappled calves lay in the thick grass, their soft eyes +wonderingly alert, and all Pan's orchestra seemed rehearsing. A +wood-lark in a crab-apple bush set the pitch, a red-bird followed; two +crows answered from the top of an ancient pine, and among beech boughs a +velvet-throated thrush trilled, while under sedge shadows frogs croaked +a hoarse bassoon. From the edge of a pool dimpling the turf white herons +rose, flitting slowly across an orange sky, where cloud fringes burned +in the similitude of scarlet tulips. If she could cease to be a woman +with an aching heart and an immortal soul, what a peaceful home was here +among the sinless forest children vast mother earth had called to sing +and play in her pine-roofed, grassy nursery. If the sylvan quietude of +this Theocritan retreat had power to witch her surging pulses to +unbroken calm, she might hide for ever in her own green aisles, secure +from stinging shafts of gossip and derision. She lifted the reins and +the horse sprang forward.</p> + +<p>A year ago Mr. Herriott had sailed. No tidings reached her; no allusion +to the "Ahvungah" had appeared in any of the newspapers she searched +daily. She knew the vessel would not stop at an American port—would +return directly to Europe from the Arctic circle—but the American press +would chronicle the close of the expedition. If disaster had overtaken +it, how soon could she know?</p> + +<p>Was Mr. Herriott frozen fast in the awful desolation of Whale Sound, or +sledging in a race with death across that vast, level, white ice desert +of compacted snow in central Greenland, eight thousand feet above the +sea, swept by Polar winds that never sleep? Wherever Arctic fetters held +him, the moon shone constantly two weeks for him, and after the long +night a returning sun was now gilding the minarets of icebergs and +unlocking the bars of floes.</p> + +<p>If he never came back she could indulge the love that so unexpectedly +stirred her heart, that had grown swiftly since he left her; if he +survived and returned she must hide her affection and herself far from +the biting, branding scorn that would always glow in his eyes. How could +she bear the dreary coming years of a possibly long life? There were +hours in which she tried to hope he would not come back; but recalling +that one moment when he held her so tight to his breast, she seemed to +feel again the furious beating of his heart which had never belonged to +any woman but herself, and, as the memory thrilled her, into her wan +face crept a joyful flush. At last, too late, her heart was his, but he +no longer desired or valued it. He had cast her out of his life. Riding +slowly homeward in the star-powdered, silvery-grey gloaming, she locked +her torturing thoughts behind the mask of silence that was becoming +habitual, and near the mill met Mrs. Mitchell's tender eyes on watch for +her.</p> + +<p>A few mornings later, Eglah stood in the dairy door, looking up beyond a +sentry line of tall pear trees uniformed in vivid green, to the +hillside, where lay the peach orchard a month before in full flower, +billowing gently like a wide coverlet of pink silk shaken in sunlight. +Followed by Delilah, who knew the haunts of water-rats in the velvet +moss low on the banks, she walked toward the creek. Over one corner of +the deserted red mill a dewberry vine feathered with blossoms rambled +almost to the sagging roof, and along the ruined line of the old race +ferns held up their lace fronds to shade the lilac spikes of +water-hyacinths. It was a cool, lonely place, sweet with the breath of +wild flowers, silent save the endless adagio in minors played by crystal +fingers of the stream stealing down the broken, crumbling stone dam. In +that quiet nook all outside noises seemed intrusive, and Eglah listened +to the beat of a horse's hoofs cantering across the bridge below the +mill. Very soon Mr. Boynton appeared and dismounted.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Miss Eglah. A telegram was forwarded from Y——, and as I +happened to be at Maurice when it came, I brought it at once."</p> + +<p>"Thank you very much."</p> + +<p>She took the message and walked away a few steps, struggling for +strength to face the worst.</p> + +<blockquote><p>"Mrs. Noel Herriott:</p> + +<p>"Amos Lea has been ill for months. To-day I am called to +Chicago to my sick son. Della will not stay here without me. +Some woman ought to come.</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Amanda Orr.</span>"</p></blockquote> + +<p>"I hope it is good news about your husband?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Boynton, it might be worse. Sickness in Mr. Herriott's household +seems to require that I should go to his home for a few days. Please +wait here until I can go to the house and find out what must be done. I +may trouble you to attend to some matters for me."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell sat on the steps at the rear of the cottage, stemming a +bowl of strawberries and warily watching the elusive feints of a white +turkey hen picking her way to a nest hidden in a tangle of blackberry +vines. Eglah held the open telegram before her eyes and waited.</p> + +<p>"I suppose you want me to go?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you to be there with me. I can not go alone."</p> + +<p>"Dearie, you can't nurse the gardener. If Mr. Herriott were at home he +would not listen to any such nonsense."</p> + +<p>"I like Amos Lea, and I intend to put him in the hands of a good trained +nurse until Mrs. Orr returns."</p> + +<p>"That could be done easily by telegraph or letter. But, my baby, if it +would comfort you to be in the house——"</p> + +<p>Eglah threw up her hand with a warning gesture.</p> + +<p>"I wish to stay only a few days; just long enough to assure myself that +the old man is carefully attended to. I prefer not to start from Y——, +and the train despatcher at Maurice can stop the up train at 11.45. We +need no trunk, and I have the money to pay our way on. I shall write and +have more forwarded from the bank. Ma-Lila, I wish to start to-night. +Can you get ready?"</p> + +<p>The little woman's level brows puckered, but the light in her eyes was a +caress.</p> + +<p>"Can I refuse any of your foolish whims? I have spoiled you all your +life, and it is rather late in the day for me to undertake to oppose +you. I see Hiram Boynton waiting, and I must arrange with him to have +his boys sleep here and take care of everything in our absence. You know +my pet cow's calf is only three days old, and her udder needs watching."</p> + +<p>They reached Greyledge at noon, accompanied by the middle-aged nurse +commended by the matron of a hospital in the neighboring city. At the +sound of carriage wheels on the stone driveway, the dogs greeted them +from the kennels in the stable yard, and several peals from the front +door bell rang through the closed house before the butler, pipe in hand, +opened the door. Speechless from astonishment, he staggered back.</p> + +<p>"Good morning, Hawkins. How is Amos Lea?"</p> + +<p>"About the same, ma'am, the doctor says. Mrs. Herriott, I hope you will +excuse the looks of things. If I had known you were coming I would have +lighted the furnace and warmed the house and been nearer ready. There is +not a female on the place. Della was that prudish she went with her +aunt."</p> + +<p>"Did Mrs. Orr leave all the keys with you?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, ma'am."</p> + +<p>"Bring them to me and show me where they belong. Is Rivers here?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes, ma'am; also his cousin Nelson, who helps with the horses and +dogs; and David Green, the under gardener."</p> + +<p>"Hawkins, you know Mrs. Mitchell; she came with me on a visit before my +marriage; and this is Mrs. Adams, who will nurse Amos for the present. +Open the house and make fires in the 'blue room' and two other bedrooms. +I shall be here only a short while, and you must do the best you can for +us as regards meals. When the time comes for feeding the dogs I wish to +be notified. I am afraid they have forgotten me."</p> + +<p>"If you please, ma'am, what is the news from Mr. Herriott? When I saw +you I felt sure he must be coming home shortly. We count the days till +we see him."</p> + +<p>"I am sorry, Hawkins, but no news reaches me now. It has been a long, +dreary, dreadful time. I came because Mrs. Orr telegraphed me some one +was needed here to look after the sick. Ma-Lila, will you go upstairs +with Mrs. Adams while I see Amos?"</p> + +<p>Near the gardener's cottage she met David Green, with a bowl of broth in +his hands and a scowl on his sunburned face.</p> + +<p>"How are you, David? Hearing that Amos is sick, I have brought a good +nurse to stay with him till the housekeeper returns. What is the matter +with him?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, it is mostly crankiness now, in my opinion. Last fall he had a +spell of fever that left him ailing, and in January he fell into +inflammatory rheumatism that made him as helpless as a baby and +fractious as a bull pup. But he got better of it, and able to hobble +around his room on crutches. Like the mule he is, he would creep down to +the green-houses, hunting something to scold me about, and his crutch +slipped on the ice and he hurt his hip joint. The doctor orders him to +keep still and not move that leg, but, madam, he shuffles around in his +bed for all the world like hyenas in a circus cage. We men take him up +as easy as can be and lay him on a cot and change his clothes; but +cranky! Cross! The angels couldn't please him. I guess he is sore, and +when we jar and hurt him, instead of cursing us with a wholesome, honest +oath we are used to, he throws up his arms, rolls back his eyes till +they are all white balls, and shouts to the Lord to set Jezreel's +hounds, and Og, and the rest of the Bible beasts, and the imps of Belial +upon us! He calls us 'godless goats,' and we don't set up to be +religious, but he passes for pious and stands high in his church, and it +makes us feel creepy, because we don't know when the Lord might happen +to listen to him. You know, madam, he has got a strong pull on the +master. Mr. Herriott humors his whims, and now he is away we are doing +our best for Amos. Every other night I leave my family, three miles +away, and sleep here in his room. Mrs. Herriott, I have come to the +conclusion that if the master does not get home soon the old man will +fret himself to death. Day and night he prays for him. Every morning we +bring him a paper, and his poor hands shake while he holds it and +searches for news of the vessel, as a pointer hunts partridges. My wife +is a first-class cook, and, thinking to please him, she made and sent +him this broth. Just now, when he tasted it, the corners of his mouth +went nearly to his ears, and he asked me please to pour it into Tzar's +pan as I passed the kennel. If I had my choice, I would rather nurse a +bucketful of hornets."</p> + +<p>"I am glad you have all been so good to him; you especially, who have a +wife and children to claim you. I hope Mr. Herriott can soon be at home, +and he will thank you. Now your responsibility ceases, because I have +employed a good nurse, trained in a hospital, who will know what is best +for him and make him obey the doctor's directions. David, I am sure you +men will be considerate and respectful while she remains."</p> + +<p>At the door of the gardener's house, Snap dashed out, barking viciously. +She called his name twice and held out her hand, but, eyeing her +suspiciously, he growled and retreated across the threshold. Propped +with pillows, Amos was on a cot near the hearth, and a newspaper lay +across his knees. The room was bright with sunshine, and when Eglah +entered, clad in black, her long crêpe veil thrown back and falling +nearly to the floor, the old man stared at her and almost shrieked:</p> + +<p>"Has the Lord God taken my lad? You wear widow's black for him?"</p> + +<p>"No, Amos. The Lord God took my father, and my mourning is for him."</p> + +<p>He threw up his arms.</p> + +<p>"God be praised!"</p> + +<p>After a moment, he added apologetically:</p> + +<p>"Madam, I mean I am thankful Noel is spared. You see, I think only of +the boy."</p> + +<p>She drew a chair to the cot and took one of the gardener's wasted, +gnarled hands in hers.</p> + +<p>"I did not hear of your sickness till three days ago, and I came at +once, to see if I could not make you more comfortable while Mrs. Orr is +away."</p> + +<p>"It makes no difference about my worn-out old body—that is a crippled +hulk. My mind is in torment because of the lad's danger. Where is he +now? In the ice on land, or locked up in the ship of the ungodly name, +that can never break loose from the bergs leaning over her? Tell me, was +your news later than my letter?"</p> + +<p>He dragged from his bosom two worn, soiled envelopes and held them +towards her. One was postmarked St. John, N. B., the other Dundee, +Scotland. As she opened them a bunch of yellow poppies and a little +square of moss fell into her lap. She glanced at the dates. The oldest +was from Upernavik, soon after the vessel reached Greenland; the most +recent was from off Cape Alexander, where the "Ahvungah" was frozen in.</p> + +<p>"No, Amos, your news is the latest I have heard."</p> + +<p>Her voice quivered, and replacing the flowers in an envelope, she laid +the unread letters on the cot.</p> + +<p>"Was your last letter from him the same date as mine?"</p> + +<p>"No; it was earlier."</p> + +<p>The cold, light-grey eyes in their deep, sunken sockets probed hers like +steel.</p> + +<p>"Madam, it was your fault he went away."</p> + +<p>"No, his word was pledged before our marriage, and I am not responsible +for this journey. I did all that was possible to keep him."</p> + +<p>Amos leaned forward and grasped her wrist.</p> + +<p>"You know you are to blame. What was it you did to him? That night you +came—a bride—I saw when he took you from the carriage everything had +gone wrong with him. I knew what that grip of his mouth and that red +spark in his eyes meant. You did him some wrong."</p> + +<p>She shook her head, and, even in his wrath, the hopeless sorrow in her +eyes touched him.</p> + +<p>"You struck him a bitter, hard blow somewhere. You see, since he was a +year old and his mother died, I have watched him. His father was away +with his railroads and his mines out West, and Susan and I had the care +of him till he was put to his books and had a tutor to teach him Latin. +They set him at that stupid business too early. I made his kites, and +played marbles with him, and sailed his little boats, and—" His voice +broke, and he paused to steady it.</p> + +<p>"He was always truthful, and honorable, and generous, but—may the Lord +have mercy on him—he was born with the temper of Beelzebub. Not from +his mother did he get it, but from his hard old father, Fergus Herriott, +who somehow managed to keep himself under check-rein and bit. He never +punished the lad but once, and that was when the devil possessed the +child. He was barely ten years old. He fell into a terrible rage with +Susan about the fit of a bathing suit she made for him, and kicked the +clothes into the lake. Then he turned on her like a son of Belial with +rough, ugly, sinful language till she cried. His father happened to be +in the boat house near by. He came out, took him by the shoulders and +shook him, ordering him to apologize instantly to his nurse. The boy set +his teeth and shook his head.</p> + +<p>"'If you do not apologize properly to her, I shall thrash you.'</p> + +<p>"The lad's eyes blazed.</p> + +<p>"'As you are my father, you will do as you like, sir.'</p> + +<p>"Then and there he thrashed him, Susan howling, but not a sound from +him. Mr. Herriott sent him to his room, and ordered Susan not to go near +him. There were several railroad officials to dinner that day, and they +staid late. Susan sat yonder by the window, crying fit to break her +heart, when the lad walked in and went close to her. She held out her +arms, and the tears ran down her cheeks.</p> + +<p>"'Susan, I am sorry I was such a beast. I am ashamed of what I said, and +I beg your pardon. Dear Susan, forgive me.'</p> + +<p>"My poor wife, how she hugged and petted him, only he never would let +any one kiss him on his lips. As he sat in her lap, with one arm around +her neck, his face was deadly white and his eyes looked like two red +stars; the devil had not loosed his grip. Then his father called at the +doorstep, 'Amos, is Noel here?' When the old man came in, the boy was +standing in the middle of the floor, with his hands behind him, and +Susan ran forward.</p> + +<p>"'If you please, Mr. Herriott, I am sure he is not well. I thought so at +the lake side, and he is feverish. His head is hot.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, Susan. Truly his head is too hot. Come, my son.'</p> + +<p>"He held out his hand, but Noel did not move. His father went to him, +put an arm around him, and forced him away. Next morning the doctor was +sent for, found him in a raging fever; said it was measles, but Susan +knew better. For a week Mr. Herriott never left that room, even for his +meals, and he chastised him no more. Each day he was prouder and fonder +of the boy. Madam, I am telling you all this that you may be sure I make +no mistakes about him. He was hard hit the day he went away. There is a +place far around the beach bend, a stone bench, where he has fought +battles with himself since he wore frilled shirts. It is his +stamping-ground when his blood is up, and the devil squats at his ears. +Now I want to know why he spent his last night at home down there +alone?"</p> + +<p>His bony hand tightened its grip like the claw of an eagle on her wrist, +and beneath the shaggy white brows his keen, fiery eyes demanded answer.</p> + + +<p>"Madam, you drove him there."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott was very angry with me. Unintentionally I had wounded him, +and he did not forgive me; I fear he never will. He is not to blame. I +did what seemed right and necessary at the time, but afterward I found I +had made a terrible mistake. It is all my fault, not his. Amos, I am +very unhappy, far more so than Mr. Herriott; but some matters I discuss +with no one, and you must ask me no more questions."</p> + +<p>"Of course he was not to blame; he never is. You did not read his +letters." He held them toward her.</p> + +<p>"No, they were intended solely for you."</p> + +<p>"But I am more than willing you should see what he says about the +God-forsaken den of bears and wolves where he is blundering around in +the dark."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, Amos, but they would only distress me."</p> + +<p>Watching her pale, beautiful face, the old man sighed.</p> + +<p>"Madam, if you are not to blame for his going on this wild, godless +chase, I must not feel so bitter against his young wife as I have done. +Dear lad! The very last words he spoke to me that day at the gate were, +'If I never come back, do all you can for Mrs. Herriott, for my sake. +Amos, I have loved her since she was ten years old.'"</p> + +<p>There was a tap at the door, and the doctor entered. Eglah rose and drew +her veil over her face, but Amos clutched her sleeve.</p> + +<p>"Doctor, this is Mrs. Herriott, the lad's wife."</p> + +<p>"I am glad to see you here, doctor. Knowing Mrs. Orr was called away, I +have a trained nurse, who will help you get Amos Lea out of bed. I shall +send her at once to you for instructions."</p> + +<p>Without attempting to analyze her complex emotions, Eglah surrendered +herself to the strange new comfort of wandering hour after hour about +the house, where every nook and corner babbled of the owner. Despite her +efforts to placate and win the dogs, they sullenly rejected her +overtures, echoing the repudiation of their master, and watching her +with suspicious enmity. On the second afternoon the doctor and nurse +assured her the gardener would soon be relieved by electricity, massage, +and tonics, and when a letter from Mrs. Orr to Hawkins announced her +expected return two days later, there seemed no reason for prolonging +Eglah's visit. She wished to avoid an interview with the housekeeper, +and arranged to start south a few hours earlier than the time fixed for +her arrival. In the stone cottage she spent a portion of each day; had +gone carefully over Arctic maps and charts with Amos, outlining the +probable course of the exploring party. She explained some terms, and +gave him a duplicate of the calendar she had made for herself, whereby +he could tell when and how long the moon shone, what day the sun set, +and when, after months, it would rise again. As the old man watched +through his silver spectacles the sad, worn, pallid face, and realized +that she too suffered, his resentful antipathy diminished, and Mr. +Herriott's farewell charge began to invest her with an unexpected +sanctity.</p> + +<p>The last day of her stay was unusually warm for the season, and after +reading to the sick man and leaving a bunch of jonquils near his cot, +Eglah went quite late in the afternoon for a farewell walk along the +beach. She coaxed the dogs unavailingly. Pilot, the collie, followed as +far as the stone stile, and then deserted her. Beyond the end of the +curve, where silver poplars came to the water's edge, she found a white +marble seat, shaped like a horseshoe, with broad arms and an arched back +elaborately carved. Winter rains had rippled and drifted the sand over +its feet, and across one corner a bramble strayed. It was here Mr. +Herriott had spent his last night at home. She brushed aside dead +leaves, sat down, and plucked away the encroaching vine. Deep in her +heart sang his final words to Amos: "I have loved her since she was ten +years old." Living or dead, he was hers; angry and estranged, but +hers—always hers.</p> + +<p>She thought of what life might have been with him here, remembered the +warm, close clasp of his hand, the lover light in his fine eyes that was +a caress that first hour on the cars; and recalling the last moment, +when he strained her to his breast, her fair face flushed, her sad heart +thrilled. Now that beautiful "might have been" lay irrecoverable as the +"lost land of Lyonnesse," under its transparent shroud, and haunting +echoes of tender tones tolled faintly, like buried bells of Folge Fond.</p> + +<p>The day had been sultry, but the wind rose with the full, red moon that +swung now above the cliffs, a globe of burnished copper, taking on the +glory of gold as it climbed higher, and from some distant belfry a +vesper benediction, low and sweet, slowly drifted over the great lake. +The water, glassy an hour before, thrilled and swelled in answer to the +fingers of the wind, as a viol to the touch of its bow, and wavelets +widened, shimmered as they ran. An eastbound schooner, all sails set, +midway from shore to horizon, followed the path of light like a gigantic +white moth fluttering upward to the moon. Where did her rays find Mr. +Herriott to-night? Sleeping his last sleep in the wind-carved marble +sepulchre of glittering sastrugi, with that white moon of the "Great +Ice" silvering the face now so dear to his abandoned wife? Or frozen and +embalmed under the lee of towering blue hummocks, in the grim shadow of +looming iron-bound shores? Or dying of starvation in a lampless, rent, +ruined, iglooyah, with only Innuit corpses encircling him?</p> + +<p>She fell on her knees, bowed her head on the seat, and prayed as never +before for his safety.</p> + +<p>The wind freshened from the south, and far away in some mountain lair +thunder growled. Eglah looked long at the beautiful curve of the land, +at the shivering poplars turning white in anticipation of storm, at the +irregular outline of the old stone pile projecting its spectral shadow +on the shining water lapping the terrace wall. Two hours later a gale +swept the lake, and under bluish glare of lightning the waves showed +their flashing teeth.</p> + +<p>With fine feminine instinct that penetrates far below the surface, yet +gives no hint of the depths, Eliza divined that the unhappy woman +desired unbroken solitude, and the foster-mother went early to her own +bedroom.</p> + +<p>Slowly Eglah mounted the spiral stairs that led to the billiard room and +thence to the tower. The former was dark, and as she placed her candle +on the table something fluttered and fell. It was a Chiriqui quetzal, +perched upon a small slab brought from Palenque and fastened as a +bracket above the fireplace. She picked it up, smoothed the brilliant, +drooping feathers, and set it securely on the table, but a legend she +had associated with it made her shiver as she opened the door and +stepped into the tower.</p> + +<p>High above her, and just under the roof, the great lamp with its +reflector threw light far out over the tossing waste of water, kindling +crowns of fire where the wave crests broke. She sat down on a wooden +bench at one of the open arches, and watched the departing cloud fringe +of the storm rushing from the far, sweet, throbbing South, to the icy +silence of a more distant North; listened to the fitful moan of tired +waves, trying to sob themselves to rest. Would the fleet <i>föhn</i> reach +Greenland, melt the blue cables strong as steel that held iceberg +ranges, domed with frosted silver—open the yellow eyes of poppies, and +waft the ivory gulls back to weary watchers? Often a blessing there, it +was sometimes a curse. Could that fierce, hot, southern breath battle +against the ceaseless wind, snow-laden even in sunshine, that sweeps +forever from palæocrystic seas across the white desolation of the great +ice cap? Persistent study of Northern travels had so completely filled +Eglah's mind with Arctic images, that by an inevitable magnetism every +change of atmospheric conditions pointed to the Pole.</p> + +<p>As the night waned, the moon emerged from ragged clouds, and gradually +the lake quieted to its wonted crooning monologue, broken only by the +strophe and antistrophe of startled water-fowl scattered by the storm. +Eglah heard the clock strike two, and went down to the billiard room. +The candle was flickering, and in its spasmodic light the eyes of the +Quiché holy bird had a preternatural, sinister glitter. She hurried +downstairs and locked herself in the den, the master's favorite room. +Cabinets were sealed, busts shrouded in cambric hoods, pictures veiled. +Only Mr. Herriott's desk remained as she remembered it, and here, with +her arms crossed on the morocco cover and her face hidden upon them, she +watched the night depart, saw the dawn of the day that would take her +away forever from the home she had learned to love too late.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV</h2> + + +<p>Heavy are the brakes with which suspense and anxious longing clog the +wheels of time, yet seasons end; the spokes spin and come again, +insistent reminders to waiting watchers of the endless, inexorable +procession of years.</p> + +<p>An early frost had hastened autumnal effects usually due a month later, +and the atmosphere was crisp and sparkling. White oaks, maples, and +sweet gums rustled their amber leaves sprinkled with red, black gums +swung scarlet torches from every bough, wild grape vines festooned +supporting trees with fluttering lace-of-gold, and crimson and bronze +berry-brambles had colored warmly under the first frost kiss. Close to +the little wire gate of the Dingle a tulip tree shook its burnished, +brocaded banners, and in and around its branches coiled a muscadine, +hung with glossy, purplish-black clusters that filled the air with +delicious, challenging fragrance.</p> + +<p>With an unopened roll of newspapers in her hand, Eglah leaned for some +moments on the gate, admiring the superb vestments of yellow and red +that nature hung out to bar the cold—a small cloud island of ruby near +the horizon against which an acacia etched its slender lines, and +listening to the song of a mocking-bird, that rose like a flute above +the whistle of a partridge astray in feathery broom sedge. On the +orchard slope Mrs. Mitchell, basket in hand, groped and peered amid +tufts of golden-rod, hunting a belated brood of young turkeys. Eglah +passed through the gate, went into the mill, and found a seat on one of +the circular grinding stones. The wall had partly fallen on the west +side, and the glow of a sinking sun lighted the dusty, cobwebbed rafters +that upheld what remained of the roof. The chant of a portion of the +stream rolling from mossy rocks to the ruined, sluggish race was low and +soothing as a lullaby.</p> + +<p>It had been a sad day, marking two years since the evening in the +library when Judge Kent had been stricken; the beginning of a slow +death. Dwelling upon the indelible incidents, an acute pain was added to +the chronic ache from which his daughter's heart was never free. While +missing her father sorely in her sorrowful isolation, she realized that +death had come at the behest of mercy. As long as he lived his enemies +could assail him at any moment; now he was comparatively safe under the +snow of his native hills. If it were possible to recall him, she would +not; she preferred to suffer alone that he might rest in peace. Two days +before she had gone for a few hours to Y—— to see in his favorite +church the recently completed tall, arched window, ablaze with rose, +purple, crimson, and emerald glass, erected by her, "To the glory of God +and in memory of Allison Kent."</p> + +<p>Depressed and heartsick, she often sought the solitude of the mill, but +in the grey gloom of the rafters above her head a pair of wrens had +dwelt for several seasons, and now resented her presence, twittering +their protest. Opening the New York and Boston papers, she glanced over +one and laid it aside. Unfolding another, her fingers clutched the +sheet, where headlines had been reprinted from an English journal:</p> + +<blockquote><p>"RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'"</p> + +<p>"After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has +brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated +the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less +rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while +frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming +the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party, +availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon, +and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a +sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'—the <i>Sermiksoak</i>, +but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their +absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the +shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had +drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to +overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party +suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the +long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across +a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the +meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while +climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long +enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for +America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the +surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in +Polar regions at least another year—Professor Roy, the +palæontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much +interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the +Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's +Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land, +hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the +descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect +to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but +should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison +them."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Until this spasm of pain seized her heart, Eglah had not realized or +acknowledged that she cherished any hope, save that God would preserve +the life of the man who so completely renounced her. If she had vaguely +trusted time might soften and remove his bitterness, she understood at +last the mockery of a delusion that she had unconsciously indulged. +Above the evensong of the rippling water at her feet, rang his +passionate words that last day in the carriage: "I shall try not to come +home." To escape the possibility of proximity to her he had plunged into +unknown wilds, where only the trails of foxes, wolves, bears, could +thread the silent desolation, and at all hazards he would keep the +promise of his farewell note: "Your path in future shall be spared my +shadow." Wandering into the jaws of death, rather than see her again; +for how elusive, how slender, the chances of meeting whalers. As in a +mirage she seemed to see him on the colonnade at Nutwood, as he stood +looking with eloquent, happy eyes at her, assuring her father: "When I +know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice in +Greenland can shut me away from her?" And now the Arctic Circle would +hold his chosen grave, because she could never cross it. The mail for +America held no word for her; but doubtless kind messages had come to an +old man whose sunken eyes would shine with delight over tidings from +"the lad."</p> + +<p>To all of us come times when, self-surrendered to depression, some +psychic imp drags from mental oblivion and shakes fiendishly before us +ghoulish images long forgotten; and now, as purplish-grey shadows +gathered in the mill, Eglah saw that vision of "Were-Wolves," the souls +of wretched men fleeing from light, hiding in Polar midnight.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Each panter in the darkness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is a demon-haunted soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The shadowy, phantom were-wolves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who circle round the Pole.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their tongues are crimson flaming,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their haunted blue eyes gleam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they strain them to the utmost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O'er frozen lake and stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their cry one note of agony<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That is neither yelp nor bark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These panters of the northern waste<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who hound them to the dark."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The voice of Mrs. Mitchell calling her name aroused Eglah, and she +staggered to her feet, swaying slightly as from a stinging blow. That +silent, yearning tenderness, to which she had gladly yielded for so many +months, now appeared an insult to her womanly pride.</p> + +<p>Rejected and despised, abandoned forever, made by her husband's +repudiation a target for gossip and harsh comment, why should she love +him? Why, when too hopelessly late, had her heart so unexpectedly +followed him, refusing to relax its quest?</p> + +<p>Gathering the scattered papers, she left the mill and walked toward the +house. As the core of an opal the west showed bands of pearl, beryl, +sapphire, rose, and when twilight stole over hillside and dingle, Venus +glowed in a violet sea, so large, palpitating, brilliant, she seemed a +golden torch flaring in interstellar currents, to light the way of the +thin young moon swimming beneath her. Did both torture the were-wolves?</p> + +<p>At the gate Eliza waited, and putting an arm around the girl drew her +into the hall of the cottage, where a lamp hung from the low ceiling. +Under its light Eglah's face showed white and rigid.</p> + +<p>"Little mother, I must ask you to leave me to myself to-night. This has +been a sad day in many ways. I miss my father, and one trouble of which +I never speak, even to you—the only one who loves me—presses heavily +upon me just now. There are the papers. You will find an account of the +return of the 'Ahvungah,' but Mr. Herriott preferred to remain another +year. Kiss me good-night, and ask God to take me soon, soon—to father."</p> + +<p>The following winter was long and cold, with flurries of snow, and +rattling of sleet, and it proved monotonously dull to the two women shut +in the small house. The rooms were cosey, with curtains falling to the +bright carpets; and roaring fires of oak and pine logs reddened the +walls of the little parlor, where Eglah's upright piano enabled her to +banish, at times, gloomy retrospection. Twice Mr. Whitfield came for a +day and night, and cheered them with news of the outside world.</p> + +<p>When the weather permitted Eliza to attend her Sabbath-school at +Maurice, she occasionally persuaded Eglah to play the organ for the +children, but she was annoyed by no obtrusive attention on the part of +sympathetic country people, whose warm hearts respected the heavy +mourning in which she was wrapped, and recognized her right to complete +seclusion. At college one of her favorite studies had been Spanish, and +without giving an explanation she now applied herself to it with renewed +interest. When Eliza questioned her, she referred vaguely to the liquid +melody that charmed her in Spanish poetry, and expressed a desire to +translate a volume which pleased her.</p> + +<p>No allusion to Mr. Herriott or his home now passed her lips. Mr. +Whitfield's anxiety to understand the perplexing conditions, and Eglah's +unwavering reticence, led him to interrogate Eliza.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Whitfield, I can't tell you what I do not know. Mr. Herriott's name +is never uttered by her, never mentioned now by me. She is so silent she +would certainly forget how to talk if she were not a woman. She intends +to go to Europe, and, as you know, keeps some business matters in +readiness, but no date has been fixed. You will be advised in time to +draw up her will, of which she talked to me about a week ago. The months +come and go, and the dear child is always as you see her, calm, +uncomplaining, with lips locked as a statue's, but I must say I feel all +the time as if I am walking over a grave that may suddenly crumble and +cave in under my feet."</p> + +<p>Returning spring was welcome, and early summer brought once more the +solace and diversion of long rides through solemn, lonely pine +stretches, where only birds, nature's feathered syrinx, sounded in the +silence, happy as human children prattling to their mother.</p> + +<p>A mute acceptance of the inevitable, as far removed from resignation, as +from pleading protest, had sealed Eglah's face in passionless repose, +pathetic and inscrutable. Inflexibly she maintained her resolve,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"—to fly no signal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That the soul founders in a sea of sorrow,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and solitude was her refuge. A long delayed monument having been +completed at her father's grave, the desire to visit and inspect it +dominated her, and one hot day the two women went North. To the devoted +child bowed at the feet of a marble angel, the carved lips seemed to +whisper her father's farewell words of commendation and tender gratitude +for her self-sacrifice in his behalf. Did he know now all it had +cost—the branding humiliation, the fierce heart hunger she had found +only when she offered herself on an altar that crumbled beneath her?</p> + +<p>When the slab was covered with white violets, and she had pressed her +lips to the name chiselled on the scroll, she put one hand on Mrs. +Mitchell's shoulder and pointed to a grassy plot at her feet.</p> + +<p>"Little mother, I hope it will not be long before I can shut my tired +eyes forever, and when that happy day comes I want you to bring me here +and lay me close to father, at his left side. One other thing you must +not fail to do; after I am in my coffin be sure you take off my ring—my +wedding ring—and if Mr. Herriott be living give it into his hand. He +has wanted it back since the day he placed it on my finger, and only God +knows how glad I shall be to surrender it. 'So long as ye both shall +live' it is mine, but in the grave God gives us back our vows and sets +us free."</p> + +<p>The cold, hopeless renunciation in face and voice was more than the +loving little woman could endure, and with a burst of tears she threw +her arm about the girl, pressing her to her heart.</p> + +<p>"My baby, have you no mercy for me, that you talk so cruelly? I shall be +asleep by my Robert long before death calls one so young and strong and +beautiful as my own dearie. Please have some consideration for me, and +don't discuss such dreadful matters. I see from your eyes you want a +promise. Well, if I outlive you—preposterous—I will forget nothing, +provided you spare me all heart-sickening talk in future."</p> + +<p>On the return journey Mrs. Mitchell wished to stop in New York, but +Eglah shrank from the possibility of meeting old friends, dreading +questions. As she intended to see her cousin Vernon Temple for a day, +she went on to the hotel in the city near Calvary House, where her +foster-mother joined her after a day's shopping tour in New York. At the +time of Eglah's visit of a few hours here with her father, and while her +cousin was at Nutwood, they had discussed plans for a new altar much +needed in the chapel, and during her residence at the Dingle she had +submitted a design duplicating in many respects a carved and pillared +shrine she and Judge Kent had seen near Avignon. The Father Superior and +her cousin gratefully accepted her offer, and before she started to New +England a letter announced the completion of the altar, and expressed +the hope that she would be able to see it. If Mr. Herriott never +returned, she locked deep in her heart an intention to make it a +memorial to him, the donor of house and estate to the Brotherhood. The +Provençal model was guarded by two seraphs; these she would add later, +if the White North kept the wanderer folded forever to her breast of +snow.</p> + +<p>Of celibate organizations, Romish or Protestant, Mrs. Mitchell +distinctly disapproved, and she had listened with ill-concealed +annoyance and uneasiness when at Nutwood Vernon Temple expatiated upon +the noble work accomplished by Episcopal deaconesses in sisterhood +homes. She had always dreaded his influence over his cousin, especially +since her father's death. Calvary House was as the threshold of Rimmon, +and when the carriage approached it she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>"I have no intention of going inside that monkish den. How a sensible, +level-headed man like Mr. Herriott could give away property for such +fanatical use passes my understanding. I may be an ecclesiastical +ignoramus; I certainly am a 'narrow Methodist'; but, my dear baby, I +can't broaden even to please you, and you must excuse me. I had a +catalogue from the great poultry farm that I hear is only a mile or two +farther out on this road, and while you see your cousin and examine the +things you gave the chapel, I will drive on and order some white +guineas. Here, don't forget your box of embroideries. I shall wait at +the gate for you."</p> + +<p>The bell on the latch rang as Eglah passed under the gilt cross, and at +the front door the porter, a young lay brother, looked at her in +amazement.</p> + +<p>"I wish to see Father Temple. I am his cousin, Eglah Kent."</p> + +<p>"He is not here. He went to Philadelphia yesterday."</p> + +<p>"Then tell the Father Superior—he knows me—that the lady who gave the +new altar wishes to speak to him about it."</p> + +<p>"Father Superior is holding a mission in New York."</p> + +<p>"Where is the sacristan?"</p> + +<p>"'Free time' has just begun, and he has gone to look after his beehives. +I can call Father Phillips."</p> + +<p>"No. I do not care to meet any of the Brotherhood who do not know me. I +was here once with my father, and Father Temple has visited my house in +the South. I came merely to look at the new altar, and bring some fresh +covers to the sacristan. Do not disturb any one; this is 'free time,' +and I must not keep you. Please say nothing about me now. I shall go +into the chapel—I know the way—and then return to my carriage."</p> + +<p>He opened the nearest door of the chapel, bowed, and disappeared.</p> + +<p>Before the carved panel in the centre of the altar she stood some +moments, rejoicing that the sculptor had succeeded so well in +reproducing the cherub heads running as a frieze between the columns. +From the box she shook out two pulpit-falls, one embroidered with iris, +one with passion flowers; then a chalice veil of shimmering white silk +marked with a Greek cross. Beneath these lay a long altar cover of snowy +linen cambric, "the fair linen cloth," studded with crosses along the +centre, and bordered with annunciation lilies.</p> + +<p>She smoothed and arranged it on the polished surface of the shrine, +while a vision of an added seraph, standing <i>in memoriam</i> at each end, +shone before her. She recalled Tennyson's inscription in Westminster +Abbey, where one wife, widowed by Polar perils, had set her tribute of +love. To her the sympathy of the world went out, and the nations, +sharing her long search, shared her sorrow.</p> + +<p>Misunderstood and censured, Eglah bore her burden alone, and now, +sinking to her knees, with her forehead pressed against the marble, she +prayed that the wanderer in desolate lands might be guarded from every +ill and brought safely home. Prayer always deepened her impression that +he would return, and as she rose and loitered a moment in admiration of +the chiselled stone, her sad lips whispered to her lonely heart:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"He will come,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Suddenly her heart leaped, then seemed to forget to beat. A voice rich, +mellow, unmistakable, came from the arched gallery beyond the little +oratory opening into the chapel:</p> + +<p>"Roy, you are no baby, and my singing days are over."</p> + +<p>A feeble, nervous tone answered:</p> + +<p>"Herriott, you sang life into me that awful night after you carried me +in your arms behind a snow drift, rubbed my frozen hands, and tied our +last dog to my legs to keep me warm. 'It shall be light, it shall be +light!' How the song soared and echoed in the terrible silence of the +ice desert, as if spirits of the snow caught up the refrain! Do you +remember that ghastly red thread of a moon on the glacial line above us, +like a swooping bloody sickle? Even in my blindness that infernal moon +haunts me still. Just then, as the echo died, out of the blackness, as +if an answer to a prophet's prayer, the swift glory of the aurora swept +down and enveloped us. You saved my life, and before you leave me here I +should like to hear that song once more. I suppose I am childish yet, +but in my blindness you might humor me. Who wrote that song?"</p> + +<p>"You are such a hopeless pagan you do not recognize the Bible? It is an +arrangement of two verses in the Old Testament: 'And it shall come to +pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear. But it shall come +to pass that at evening time it shall be light.' When I was attending +lectures in Germany, one of the professors set the words to the tune of +an old Latin hymn, and the students began to chant it. That night when I +was obliged to keep you awake, it occurred to me. Roy, I can't humor you +now, but I intend to take you and an old man at home down to Arizona to +thaw the Arctic poison out of you. When we are stretched on a sunny mesa +where the air quivers with heat, if you feel the need of more light, I +promise to chant your song. I am not willing to abandon the goal that we +were so near. If you had not broken down, we should have found those +stone ruins with the inscriptions, and I intend to see them. After a +while I shall fit out an expedition to suit myself, and if you can get +rid of your horror of that baby moon that in your delirium you swore was +a bloody scythe coming to cut your throat, I hope to number you among my +impedimenta."</p> + +<p>The purple curtain, caught back only during service, hung over the arch; +but at one side a narrow aperture, close to the gilt organ pipe in the +oratory, admitted outside light.</p> + +<p>Irresistibly drawn by the voice that set her pulses surging, Eglah had +gone to the arch, and grasping the velvet folds looked cautiously +through the cleft between organ and curtain, across the small oratory +and down the cloister. On a cot lay an emaciated man whose eyes were +bandaged. By his side and fronting the oratory stood Mr. Herriott, his +hands in his pockets.</p> + +<p>He looked taller, rather gaunt, somewhat bleached in complexion, and the +absence of mustache showed the fine curves of his peculiarly firm, thin +lips. His eyes were lowered to the sick man's countenance, and the thick +black lashes veiled their grey-blue depths, but over the handsome face +had come a subtle change, etched by corroding memories. It was graver, +colder, less magnetic.</p> + +<p>As Eglah watched him her breath fluttered; involuntarily she stretched +her arms an instant toward him, and her eyes lighted with a tender glow. +"My own Mr. Noel. My own!" was the unspoken claim of her heart, +momentarily happy at sight of him. Then Mr. Herriott put his fingers +over his friend's pulse.</p> + +<p>"Vernon promised to get back to-morrow, and the oculist will look after +you until I can go home and see about my neglected household. In order +to avoid press publicity and inevitable interviewing, I am keeping my +return secret for a few days; and, clean-shaven and goggle-eyed, hope to +reach my house unrecognized, where I can smooth out the tangles that +years of absence tie. Later, business will force me to New York, and I +shall be glad of a glimpse of my old club life, but meanwhile you will +not be forgotten. Now, Roy, you must come in. One of the lay brothers +will help me lift your cot."</p> + +<p>As he advanced toward the steps near the end of the cloister, Eglah +covered her face with her heavy veil, and went swiftly through a side +door of the chapel, down the gladiolus-bordered walk to the gate, where +the carriage waited. As she sank back in one corner, keeping her +features veiled, Mrs. Mitchell laid a hand on her knee.</p> + +<p>"Well? Are you satisfied, and did the altar cloths fit? Did you find +what you expected?"</p> + +<p>She did not answer immediately, and when she spoke her voice quivered +through the effort to strangle a dry sob.</p> + +<p>"I found far more than I expected, and the altar is lovely. Everything I +could possibly do that would have pleased father I have done. My father, +my father, have I spared even myself! Memorial window, monument, the +altar here, all are finished, and now nothing remains for my empty +hands. My dear little mother, you are so good to me; you promised you +would go abroad when I felt it best to start. At last the time has come, +and I wish to leave America within the next week if possible."</p> + +<p>After a moment a long, shuddering sigh made her voice unsteady.</p> + +<p>"I have just seen Mr. Herriott—safe, strong, and well. He will never +know I was so near; he could not see me. Accidentally I heard his voice, +and looked through a curtain, and——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell had drawn her into her arms, but the black crêpe was held +over her face.</p> + +<p>"The public will be kept in ignorance of his return for a few days, and +before his arrival is announced and people begin to question and +speculate, I must be on the ocean. I was so close to him—so close—and +yet——"</p> + +<p>A wave of tenderness drowned words.</p> + +<p>"Oh, my baby! Why did you not speak to your husband?"</p> + +<p>After a struggle for composure she answered, with a cold, rising ring in +her tone:</p> + +<p>"He does not consider himself my husband. More than three years ago he +willed we should be strangers. He built the wall of separation, of +absolute silence between us, and no word, no sign from me shall ever +cross it. He is within his rights. I dispute nothing. I claim only the +privilege of helping him in his effort to avoid me, and I must have the +ocean between us. He will breathe freely when he feels sure that by no +possible accident the sight of my face can ever again affront him."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI</h2> + + +<blockquote><p>"Willow Creek Plantation,</p> + +<p>"Wednesday.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott.</p> + +<p>"Dear Sir: Permit me to say at the outset that these lines are +intended solely for your eyes, and I beg you will regard them +as strictly confidential. If I were not so sure you are an +honorable gentleman, they would never be written. On the 18th +my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow +Bend, where we have lived since her father's death. By her +desire we go to Europe, and, as we shall remain there +indefinitely, I should like to talk with you of some matters +that concern you—matters I am unwilling to mention unless we +are face to face. The railway station Maurice is near me, but +if you do me the favor to grant my request, it would be better +for you to avoid Y—— and come directly to Sunflower, ten +miles north of Maurice. If you can be at Sunflower on the 17th, +I will meet you there when the one o'clock train arrives. +Unless you come that day, it would be too late. You will see no +one but me, and no one must ever be told I went to Sunflower, +or saw you. My child is absent in Y——, and will not return +until night of the 17th, when I meet her at Maurice. Do not +write me. Do not telegraph me. I scarcely allow myself to hope +that you will come, and if I do not see you I shall regret it +for many reasons. If I fail in my conscientious effort to right +a great wrong, it will not be my fault.</p> + +<p>"Very respectfully,</p> + +<p>"<span class="smcap">Eliza Mitchell</span>."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Allowing two days' margin for accidental delays, Eliza indulged no doubt +that this letter would reach its destination in ample time to enable Mr. +Herriott to keep the appointment, should he consent to meet her, and, +after putting on a special delivery stamp, she mailed it at Maurice with +her own hand.</p> + +<p>The probability of a change of residence had been so fully discussed +that preliminary arrangements had long been made; but the early date, +suddenly fixed, necessitated great activity to insure readiness for +departure.</p> + +<p>Eglah's calm, listless indifference had given place to feverish +impatience in expediting all preparations incident to the journey, and +the perplexed and anxious little woman who watched her movements was +rejoiced when business of importance called her to Y——, where Mr. +Whitfield was confined by gout to his room. Since the day at Calvary +House, Eliza had observed a marked change in Eglah; the wistful, +hopeless expression had vanished, and proud defiance settled on her +face. While tortured by suspense, she had yielded to the tender yearning +of her heart; but the sight of Mr. Herriott, safe, well, and strong, +contentedly planning a future in which he assigned no niche to her, +stung her womanly pride, intensified her longing to evade forever the +possibility of meeting the man who had so completely ignored and +repudiated her.</p> + +<p>Some delay in the preparation of papers Mr. Whitfield required her to +sign kept her in Y—— longer than she had intended. He very carefully +wrote her will, in which, following the trend of her grandmother's +sympathies, she bequeathed Nutwood and adjoining lands as a Maurice Home +"to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in the State." To Vivian +and Maurice relatives of her own mother, who refused association with +Marcia after her marriage, and whom Eglah had always avoided, she gave +one plantation—Canebrake. To Mrs. Mitchell Willow Creek Bend was left, +in grateful recognition of her loving care; and all personal property, +stocks, and bonds were devised to the vestry of her father's church, for +the erection and maintenance of a memorial Chapter House.</p> + +<p>Business concluded, she telegraphed that on the 17th, at eight P.M., she +would reach Maurice, and wished Mrs. Mitchell to meet her with the trap.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th, the overseer's wife, +desiring to avoid the passenger train, went in the caboose of a local +freight to Sunflower. It was an "excursion" day in honor of the opening +of a Masonic hall just completed, and many strangers strolled about the +village awaiting the hour fixed for the dedication ceremonies. At one +o'clock, when the fast southbound train paused long enough to deliver +the mail-bag, Eliza stood on the little platform, watching the line of +dusty cars. As a tall figure, valise in hand, stepped from the Pullman +sleeper, she did not promptly recognize the clean-shaven face, wearing +grey goggles. Handing his valise to a negro porter sitting on the +baggage truck, he glanced about him, and approached the little woman, +who was trembling with suspense.</p> + +<p>"How are you, Mrs. Mitchell?"</p> + +<p>He held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Oh, Mr. Herriott! I was not sure it was you. Thank God! I was so afraid +you would not come."</p> + +<p>He took off the goggles and dropped them in his coat pocket.</p> + +<p>"I dare say these glasses partly disguise, but snow-blindness left my +eyes rather sensitive, and I wore them as guard against railroad dust."</p> + +<p>"Come with me, Mr. Herriott. This little place is full of strangers +to-day on account of a Masonic meeting, but there is a quiet spot in the +grove yonder, where a recent picnic party left some benches."</p> + +<p>In silence they reached the grove of old red oaks, and Eliza sat down on +a rough, board seat; but he declined to share it, and stood before her, +his eyes an interrogation.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, I asked you to come here because you are pursuing a +course I think you would abandon if you knew some facts that only I can +give you. But first, I want your promise that no matter what the future +holds, you will never let Eglah know or suspect that I wrote you, came +here, or saw you. If she found it out she would never forgive me; she +would desert me, and I am running a great risk. Give me your word of +honor to keep this meeting always strictly confidential. If you promise, +I shall feel easy."</p> + +<p>"I promise. You may trust me."</p> + +<p>"Thank you, sir. Before I say more, will you tell me if you still love +your wife?"</p> + +<p>His face hardened and his eyes narrowed.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, madam. I did not come here to be catechised."</p> + +<p>"If you have ceased to love her, then I should betray a holy trust by +lifting a very sacred veil. I can speak freely only to a man who loves +her as she deserves—and as I have always believed you did. If you no +longer love her, I have come on worse than a fool's errand."</p> + +<p>There was a brief silence, and hot tears ran over the little woman's +cheeks.</p> + +<p>"And if I love her still? Go on, go on."</p> + +<p>"Then why are you breaking her dear heart?"</p> + +<p>"Madam, her heart has never been in my keeping. You must know that for +years I made every effort to win it, and failing, I abandoned the hope. +Our merely nominal relation was dissolved by mutual consent, and I gave +her entire freedom before I started North. I have never been close +enough to her heart to wound it."</p> + +<p>"Please, Mr. Herriott, listen to me patiently. I must go back so far. +She did not love you when she married you. Why she so suddenly took that +awful step I don't know. She refused to explain. I believed that her +father had persuaded her, but she assured me he had no knowledge of her +intention until after she had voluntarily made her decision, and she is +absolutely truthful. She is reticent and proud, but of false statements +she is incapable. She has never confided the motive of her rash marriage +to me, and what she is unwilling to have me know, nobody else can ever +tell me. Better than any one living I understand her, and when she came +back with her father from Greyledge I saw a great change in her; she was +not the indifferent girl whom you had taken away. The estrangement +between Judge Kent and herself had ended, and she rejoiced in the +cordial reconciliation, but some sad mystery in the background +overshadowed her and puzzled me. The day she received that express +package from you she suddenly seemed to go frantic, and her distress was +so overwhelming I was frightened. Never before or since has she shown +such passionate grief. She told me she had wronged, wounded you, and +that you would never forgive her. How she wronged you she would not +explain, and I don't know any more now than I did then. But she insisted +again and again that you were not to blame—that it was entirely her +fault, and she must bear the sorrow she had brought upon herself. She +wrung her hands and begged me to pray she might die before you came back +and rejected her. When I tried to comfort her, and asked why you should +do such a cruel, unjust thing, she wailed: 'You loved your husband; if +you had wounded him past pardon, could you bear to talk about it? Don't +question me. Think of your Robert, and try to realize how I feel.' All +that night she walked the floor of her room, and next morning she looked +years older—so white, so silent, as if gazing down into a grave. Since +then she has never been the same Eglah. Something in your last message, +which I did not see, slew her peace of mind for all time. She shut +herself away from society, lived exclusively with her father and with +me. When Judge Kent died I dreaded a total collapse in the child who had +worshipped him from her babyhood; but she bore the awful strain +silently, calmly, surprisingly. Mr. Whitfield put his arm around her +shoulder as she stood by the coffin, and, with tears in his eyes, the +old man praised her devotion and her bravery. She looked up at him with +a strange smile on her bloodless lips.</p> + +<p>"'One can suffer only so much, then numbness comes. After the misery of +many months a last blow does not crush. The petrified are not always +where they belong—in the grave.'</p> + +<p>"After the funeral she closed Nutwood, moved her books, piano, and +horses down to my little cottage in the heart of the pine woods, denied +herself to every one, and there we have lived in strict seclusion. +Day and night she pored over books of Arctic travel, and on the walls of +her room she had maps and charts, and what she called her 'comfort +calendar,' that she patched together from almanacs, to mark what time +day and night began near the Pole and when the new moons were due. It +made my heart ache to see her face each day as she searched the papers +for some news of you. At last she ceased to expect any, and your name +was not mentioned. Mr. Herriott, do you recollect your striped silk +smoking-jacket, with pink poppies embroidered on collar and cuffs and +down the front?"</p> + +<p>"Yes. I had such a jacket."</p> + +<p>"One sultry summer night, about one o'clock, I went on tiptoe into +Eglah's room to get a vial of medicine that was kept in a closet there, +and, as she slept poorly, I tried not to disturb her. Her window was +open, the curtains looped back, and a full moon shone in. She was +sitting up in bed, with her face buried in some bright wrapping, and a +sort of strangled moan came from her. I went to the bed and asked what +the trouble was. Had she neuralgia in her face, that she was muffling it +on such a hot night? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have heard the +quiver in her voice!</p> + +<p>"'No, no. Heartache—heartache only the grave can ease.'</p> + +<p>"Next day, while she was away, I searched for that striped thing which I +had never seen before. She kept it in a long, satin-lined, sandalwood +case, among her perfumed laces, and when I examined it I found a +smoking-jacket, with a dog whistle in one pocket, and in the other a +handkerchief marked 'Herriott.' I——"</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott had walked away, and after several moments recalled the +search for the missing jacket on the day of his departure, and the pride +with which Amos only three nights ago, had shown him a warm, quilted +cashmere gown "the madam" had sent him because the jacket left for him +had never been found. When he came back to the seat, he stood with his +face turned from her, and she could see only his profile.</p> + +<p>"Sir, if you don't hear me out, you can't understand why I came. Eglah +would sit for hours, a book before her, her hands folded in a way +peculiar to her—her wedding ring against her lips—so silent, so still, +she seemed a stone; but she roused to a manifestation of interest when +we heard your old gardener was ill and needed attention. While we were +at your house she seemed more like herself than at any time since that +express package reached her; but a deep undercurrent of sorrow she could +not hide. Over the house and grounds she wandered continually, and that +long lake beach was her favorite walk. Every evening she shut herself in +one of the rooms downstairs—I think it was your smoking-room—and the +last night we were there she spent locked in that room. She sent for a +photographer from the city and had copies taken of your mother's +portrait and of yours—that one hanging next to your father's in the +drawing-room. To-day on her dressing-table stand two pictures of you and +one she insists resembles you—the photograph of a French poet she saw +once in Arles. She thinks the brow and eyes and nose are yours, and, +though she does not like the lower portion of the face, she had the +photograph enlarged and framed. I could not keep my tears back when, +leaning from the carriage, she took her last look at your home. There +was such a world of suffering in her sad eyes, and her dear lips and +chin trembled like a little child's.</p> + +<p>"'Being here is next best to seeing the master. I can never come again. +When he returns I must be in Europe, out of his way.'"</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott turned suddenly and looked down steadily at his companion.</p> + +<p>"Pardon me, Mrs. Mitchell. You prefer to stay at home? You do not wish +to go abroad?"</p> + +<p>His keen eyes searched hers, and their flash answered him.</p> + +<p>"Whatever the child thinks is best for her peace I want above everything +else; and I am ready and willing to go with her to Europe, Africa, the +Fiji Islands—to the ends of the earth. I do love my little home, still +more my husband's grave, almost in sight of it; I love my cows and my +chickens; but first and last, and better than all, I love my baby, who +came to my arms when she was three hours old, and who now, in turning +her back upon an unjust world, clings only to me. I never took an oath +before God that I would 'for better, for worse, love and cherish her +till death,' but I rather think my love will abide, will stand all tests +and trials that have crumbled some other vows she once trusted."</p> + +<p>After a moment she added:</p> + +<p>"Perhaps I have already said too much, and you may not care to hear +more."</p> + +<p>"Madam, I wish you to tell me everything you think it best I should +know. I am here for that purpose, at your request."</p> + +<p>"Eglah was terribly hurt to find Amos had heard twice from you while, +consumed with suspense, she had received not even a line. After we went +home she grew more and more restless, but I noticed she carefully +avoided any allusion to you. One night I heard her moving about, and +then she left her room. It is a lonely little place where we live, +rather unprotected, and the servants—man and wife—do not wake easily. +Eglah had a way of walking about the gallery and yard when she could not +sleep that made me uneasy. I went out to expostulate, and found her +sitting on the steps in the moonlight with that jacket of yours in her +arms. I sat down and took her hand. In a horrible dream, she had seen +you lying dead between two blue slabs of ice, a white owl on your +breast, and she was hugging and stroking that striped silk as only those +who love can caress the garments of lost darlings. You know she very +rarely cries. In all her life I never saw tears on her face more than +three or four times. I tried to soothe her, and said that full moon +overhead was making the Pole itself bright. She turned suddenly to me, +the tears dripping, and, oh, if I could give you the heartbroken tone in +which she said:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'The broad noonday was night to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The full-moon night was dark to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The stars whirled and the poles span<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The hour God took him far from me.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"After that night she guarded herself more closely against any +expression of feeling, and carefully abstained from all reference to you +until the evening she learned from a Boston paper that your vessel had +returned to Europe, and you had preferred to stay in Arctic regions. My +poor baby! She looked so white, so stunned, as if some one had struck +her a heavy blow."</p> + +<p>Eliza sobbed and her tears streamed.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, she felt assured you would not come home because you +feared you might meet her, and then she asked me to keep my promise and +go with her to Europe as soon as some stone-cutting designs could be +filled. She waited only to see three memorials completed. From the day +she learned the 'Ahvungah' had returned, I saw a bitter, resentful +element beginning to invade what had been only regretful tenderness, and +her lips were locked. The window in the Episcopal Church at Y—— was +placed, and soon after we went North to see the monument ordered for her +father's grave. I dreaded she would break down there, but she was as +quiet as the marble angel of the Resurrection standing on the slab. She +showed me where she wished her body laid, close to her father's, and +then she asked me to be sure—after she was safe in her coffin—to take +off her wedding ring and send it to you, because you had wanted it back +from the day you gave it to her. She refused to stop in New York, +fearing some of her friends or yours might see and question her. Any +allusion to her marriage was as the touch of red-hot irons. On our way +home she went one afternoon to Calvary House to see her cousin +Temple—the priest—and look at an altar she had given him. I waited +outside in the carriage, and she joined me, holding her thick mourning +veil over her face. As she and her father designed this altar after one +they had seen somewhere abroad, I thought her silence and evident +distress resulted from its association with him. After a while she said, +in a strange, muffled way, that she had done everything she was sure her +father would like if he could speak to her, and now her hands were +empty, and she wished to sail for Europe at the earliest possible +date—probably within a week. As she leaned against me, and I held her +hand, I felt her shiver. Then she told me she had just seen you at +Calvary House, strong and well, and she must leave America at once."</p> + +<p>"She saw me! When?"</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott had grown very pale.</p> + +<p>"A week ago yesterday. She said you had brought some sick, blind man +there, and you were going home. I asked her why she did not speak to +you, and she answered that three years ago you had willed you and she +should be strangers; you had built a wall of silence, and no word, no +sign from her should ever break it. Unobserved by you, she had seen you +in the cloister, heard you talking of your plans for future travel, and, +fearing discovery, she had hurried from the chapel. Since then every +nerve has been strained to get away."</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott walked a few yards, put on his glasses, and stood for some +time with his hands behind him. A sad, perplexed face met Eliza's eager +eyes when he came back, and for the first time seated himself beside +her.</p> + +<p>"To what portion of Europe are you going?"</p> + +<p>"To Spain; to a quiet little place hidden away in the Pyrenees, where +she hopes she will meet no one who ever heard of her, and where, having +nothing to remind her of three horrible years, she can try to forget her +suffering. To avoid all acquaintances, she will not sail from New York, +but goes directly to Charleston, and thence to Havana, where she can +take a steamer to Spain. I think, sir, no one can understand her +terrible humiliation in being rejected. While you were away, surrounded +by dangers, and she was on the rack of suspense, tortured almost beyond +endurance, only deep and tender love filled her heart. Since she has +seen you safe and well—yet no word of remembrance has been sent to +her—wounded pride possesses her, and she seems indeed petrified. Even +now she maintains with strange composure: 'He is within his rights; he +is not to blame. It was all my fault. I made the mistake of presuming +too far on his love, which was less than I counted on, and I deserve my +punishment; but sometimes I think God, who saw my heart and knew I did +not intend any wrong, might have spared me some of the bitter dregs I +have had to drink.' With all her pride, she is acutely sensitive to +adverse gossip. From childhood she has borne so much on account of her +father's unpopularity in the State, and people do not understand her. In +Washington her loyalty to the South and to the Maurices subjected her to +sneers and much unpleasantness. Her sudden marriage and subsequent +events, especially her coming home before you sailed, have caused +annoying comment, and now she is hurrying through Y——, anxious to get +away before the fact of your return is known there. She does not suspect +the opposition manifested by some of the vestrymen to that memorial +window. Only the pleadings of the rector and the influence of Mr. +Whitfield, who is not an Episcopalian and who had no cause to like Judge +Kent, availed to smother the objections to its erection. This +mortification we have managed to save her. Now, sir, you will please +pardon me if I speak very frankly. What passed between you and Eglah +after your marriage I do not know, nor did Judge Kent. Her lips have +been sealed, but I have often thought the estrangement arose from your +discovery of the fact that she did not love you as she should have done +before she married you, and therefore I have come here to try to save +you both from making shipwreck of your lives. If that was the cause of +the trouble, it exists no longer. She loves you now as devotedly as even +you could wish."</p> + +<p>He shook his head and swept his hand across his face.</p> + +<p>"Madam, she pities me, she deplores my disappointment; perhaps she +censures herself unduly, but love! She knows no more of love than a baby +in its cradle. She never will. She is absolutely incapable of loving any +man. Too many have tried zealously to touch her heart, and failed as +signally as I certainly did."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell's black eyes sparkled through her tears.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, since she was three hours old she has been my child. I +know her as well as I know myself. I am a woman; I loved my husband +better than my life, and when I see genuine, loyal, tender love in a +wife I know it as surely as you know where the sun rises. My baby did +not love you when she took her marriage vows, but you were deep in her +heart when she came home; and her love has grown until it is now so +strong it is a slow torture, from which she would gladly escape if she +could. Do you suppose a woman proud, reserved, cold as Eglah is would +treasure and caress, and sleep with her cheek on a man's faded old +smoking-jacket if she did not tenderly love the wearer whose touch had +made it sacred? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have seen her all these +years—her patient, hopeless face! If you could realize the life she +leads in the overseer's house and contrast it with that brilliant past +when you saw her admired and sought in New York—even in London—you +might perhaps understand how changed she is. I longed for you to know +that your wife's heart is wholly yours, because I have believed you +would always love her. If she ever suspects I have told you her secret +she will never forgive—she will disown me. You must not cause me to +lose my child. Just now she is sorely mortified and resentful, but——"</p> + +<p>Eliza paused and looked at the man beside her, but she could not see his +eyes.</p> + +<p>"Please do me the kindness to finish your sentence."</p> + +<p>"But if you could meet her and——"</p> + +<p>Again she hesitated, discouraged by the expression settling around his +mouth.</p> + +<p>"In consequence of a voluntary pledge on my part, I could not now +intrude upon her."</p> + +<p>"If you called and asked to see her, I am sure she would decline to +receive you; but if you really desire to see her before she sails, it +could be arranged without her knowledge or co-operation. We go from +Maurice to-morrow night at eight o'clock and pass through Y—— without +stopping. Eglah comes from Y—— at eight to-night. To-morrow she will +be at my house all day until four o'clock, when she goes over to the +Willow Bend plantation to say good-bye to the Boyntons and negro +tenants, and also the tenants and field hands from Canebrake plantation, +whom Mr. Boynton will have present. Eglah usually takes a book and +spends the morning under the trees in my front yard, or in the old mill, +where she often sits for hours. If you merely want to see your wife +again before she passes forever out of your life you can easily do so +from the shelter of my butter-bean arbor, which is near the trees, and +she will never know it. If you care to speak to her, you may be sure of +no interruption. Mr. Herriott, God took my husband, but I could not have +borne my loss if my Robert had voluntarily taken himself from me. My +heart aches for Eglah. She is indeed my all in this world, and I have +risked a great deal to put you in possession of the truth. She loves you +as earnestly and tenderly as you could wish, but it remains for you to +make her admit it—to compel her to confession. Her pride has been so +sorely wounded she would die sooner than move one inch toward +reconciliation."</p> + +<p>She looked at her watch and rose.</p> + +<p>"My train will soon be due."</p> + +<p>As they walked toward the small station-house, Mr. Herriott held out his +hand.</p> + +<p>"Whatever the future may hold, I shall always thank you inexpressibly +for the confidence, the sacred trust you have reposed in me, and I will +never betray it. I doubt the wisdom of seeing Eglah. I know only too +well the difference between true love and that regretful compassion her +kind heart indulges. There are reasons that make me unwilling to violate +my own pledge to her, but if I should decide to go to your house, will +you direct me how to find it?"</p> + +<p>"You can drive to Maurice, ten miles south, or take the night train, +which will not stop here unless it is flagged. Once at Maurice, any one +will show you Willow Bend road. When you pass the plantation, which is +quite a settlement, cross the bridge, turn to the right, and you will +soon see an old red mill in front of my gate. Here comes my train."</p> + +<p>"No, madam; not your train. That is only a freight-engine and gravel +cars."</p> + +<p>"I came on it, and I go back the same way. For many reasons I prefer to +keep this trip as secret as possible, at least until after to-morrow, +when we leave home; so I avoided the passenger train that brought up +some Maurice Masons. The smaller the place, the wider the eyes, the +keener the ears, and the more nimble the tongues that dwell there. Rufus +Boling, the conductor yonder, expects to marry my favorite Sunday-school +pupil, Minna Gaines, to-morrow night, and I have done all I could for +the child's wedding. Consequently, though the railroad officials grumble +and forbid, he consented to let me ride in the caboose, provided I would +not sit at the window, and promised not to sue for damages if I lost a +limb or an eye on the trip. Are you ready, Rufus? Good-bye, Mr. +Herriott. I have done my best for my child and for you. God help you +both!"</p> + +<p>He took her hand and pressed it cordially.</p> + +<p>"In any event, you may rest assured I never shall cease to thank you for +your effort; and life will always be sweeter because of some facts you +have given me."</p> + +<p>He assisted her into the close, smoky caboose, lifted his hat and, as +the engine pulled slowly out, he took off his glasses and walked back to +the red-oak grove.</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII</h2> + + +<p>It was a cloudless, warm day when Mr. Herriott crossed the bridge, and +walked up the road bordering a creek hidden by its vivid fringe of +willows. At the ruined mill he paused; here the sandy road ended. Beyond +on an upland towered a pine forest, its organ pipes whispering as the +south wind touched the tremolo; in front nestled the small, white house, +partly veiled by rose and yellow jasmine vines, and all the little +hollow was brimmed with cool, green shadows cast by trees across +clustering flower beds. A blended perfume distilled by dew from Hersé's +crystal fingers hovered over the Dingle, the cold, unctuous odor of +tuberoses, the warm spice of carnations, and that clinging breath of wan +lilies that evokes white faces and folded fingers of the dead, but +stronger than all, the fragrance of wild grapes in creamy bloom. More +than cloistral quiet reigned; only the rippling monody of water feeling +its way over the crumbling dam to the far-off sea, and the tinkle of the +spring runnel sounding low, clear, elfish, as if some Malis or +"April-eyed Nycheia" smote her tambourine and set silver bells ringing. +Once from the green silken tent of willows a shy lark, hermit of dells, +thrilled the silence with his resonant, sylvan roulade, and a locust +under beech boughs answered, clashing his brazen sistrum.</p> + +<p>The blinds and windows at the front of the cottage were open, and white +muslin curtains stirred now and then, as the breeze swayed them. Pots of +flowering geranium and heliotrope were grouped on the piazza, and among +them slept Delilah. As Mr. Herriott looked at the humble nest of a home, +and thought of stately Nutwood, of gilded ballrooms where Eglah had +reigned an acknowledged beauty, he began to realize the monotony, the +dreary loneliness of life here in the heart of almost primeval forests. +She had elected to shut herself far away from the brilliant circle of +former days, but he could not believe it was for his sake; grief for her +father had made her a recluse.</p> + +<p>The dazzling possibility with which Mrs. Mitchell enticed him, he had +put aside as a delusion he could not indulge a second time, for behind +it was the biting mockery with which he had once grappled. His nominal +wife had led the life of a nun during his absence, but loyalty was far +removed from love, and the steps of an altar suited her nature better +than a husband's arms. For many hours he had fought the hope that would +smile out of the folds of his old jacket, but the intense longing to see +her again conquered reason, prudence, consistent adherence to the line +of action he had voluntarily prescribed for both. He would secrete +himself, and merely look once more at the face he had striven +ineffectually to forget, and she should never suspect his presence.</p> + +<p>At a little distance was the gate of the low wire fence, but he stepped +across the wire, and passed through the open door of the dairy to a tall +tulip tree, around the body of which coiled the brown serpent of the +muscadine. Very near this tree, now all aglow with its orange-spotted +cups, stood—on the edge of a verbena bed—an ancient mimosa in +full bloom. Years before, an August gale had pollarded it, and lateral +branches drooped almost to the ground, except on one side, where they +were cut away to frame an arch, and this entrance showed a wooden bench +set against the trunk of the tree. To-day it resembled a huge Japanese +umbrella of olive-green lace thickly studded with pink silk aigrettes +that shook out waves of sweetness, mellow, fruity, languorous. Looking +around for the best coign of vantage, Mr. Herriott noticed the narrow +arbor covered by a thick growth of butter-bean vines, where he stood +secure from observation. On the ground, only five yards distant, lay a +woman's broad black straw hat tied basket-fashion with its ribbon +strings, and filled with spikes of tuberoses. By cautious pressure of +the bean vines he could see very distinctly the front of the house and +the mimosa seat.</p> + +<p>With his head on his hand and a throbbing of his heart that defied +control, he waited, his eyes on the hat, he never knew how long, until a +sudden thrill shook him.</p> + +<p>From an invisible corner of the garden, Eglah came slowly toward the +arbor. Her mourning gown of lustreless, thin black silk fitted perfectly +the curves of her finely moulded figure, and at her throat she had +fastened a spray of white star jasmine. High on her head the glossy, +gold-flecked chestnut hair was piled in soft loose coils and puffs that +caught the sunshine as she walked, holding in the clasp of one arm a +sheaf of long-stemmed lilies. Advancing until she reached the hat, she +leaned down, swung the knotted ribbons over her right wrist, and stood a +moment listening to the peaceful woodland message of the lark. Three +years had wrought a marvellous change. The rich promise of her youth had +expanded into an almost flawless loveliness. A certain girlish slimness +had given place to the fuller, rounded lines of graceful, perfect +womanhood, and over the pathetic, pale face had settled a passionless +repose that comes only when hope is dead, and silent pride sits on its +tombstone. As she held the lilies with her left arm, the hand gleamed +white against the folds of her black dress, and the wedding ring +flashed. Her cold, exquisite purity matched that of a Roman vestal on +her way to shrines, but her large brown eyes, looking far away, were so +darkened by shadows of mournful memory, of helpless yet uncomplaining +renunciation, that Mr. Herriott could not endure the sight. He threw his +hand across his face, and strangled the impulse to spring to her side, +to catch her in his arms. When he looked again, she had walked away +toward the house.</p> + +<p>With a book in her hand, Mrs. Mitchell ran down the steps.</p> + +<p>"I am waiting for the flowers, before I close the box for the little +bride. These lilies are just what she needs for the altar. Give them to +me."</p> + +<p>Then a low, sweet, sad voice swept the heartstrings of the man who +watched and listened.</p> + +<p>"Do not forget to send my present. I put my card inside the case. Dear +little Minna, I hope she may be happy. If her husband really loves her, +she enters her heaven; but if not, the poor little thing will soon wish +the burial instead of marriage service had been read over her to-night. +I trust the child may never find out that a tolling bell is sweeter than +a wedding peal. You found my Baedeker?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, in the mill where you left it a week ago."</p> + +<p>"I must look out one or two points in it, and the air is so deliciously +sweet I think I shall stay a while in the garden on this last Dingle +day, unless you need me to help you."</p> + +<p>"There is nothing for you to do inside; everything is ready."</p> + +<p>"Ma-Lila, you have been crying! What makes you so nervous? You are +trembling."</p> + +<p>"Oh, I feel upset! Leaving Robert's lonely grave, and all."</p> + +<p>The girl stooped, and kissed her cheek.</p> + +<p>"It seems very selfish to ask you to leave a place so dear to you; but I +hope God will begin to pity me at last, and call me soon where I shall +trouble no one any more. Then——"</p> + +<p>Mrs. Mitchell laid the lilies on her lips to close them.</p> + +<p>"Hush, my baby—hush! I am screwed up now like a frazzled fiddle-string, +and if you give another twist I shall just go to pieces."</p> + +<p>Taking the flower-laden hat, she placed it with the lilies on the step, +and turned toward the dairy.</p> + +<p>Baedeker in hand, Eglah moved away, but as she neared the arbor she +looked back over her shoulder and called:</p> + +<p>"Little mother, when Dorcas brings the clothes she kept to flute, please +call me. I ought to finish packing my trunk by one o'clock. Mr. Boynton +says the baggage should be at the station not later than five o'clock, +and you know we have to shake hands with all the plantation folks at +four. Where are you going?"</p> + +<p>"Only to the spring house for the cream I promised Minna for +charlotte-russe. I set the jug there to cool."</p> + +<p>"Let me bring it. You will wear yourself out."</p> + +<p>"As if you knew morning's cream from that two days old! Go read your +book."</p> + +<p>She sped toward the dairy like a running bird and though she did not +turn her head, the black eyes were busy. In the shelter of the spring +house she fell on her knees beside pans and bowls and with streaming +eyes prayed that after the battle perpetual peace might come.</p> + +<p>Under the canopy of the mimosa Eglah passed, seated herself on the +bench, and opened the Baedeker. Through the lace meshes of the foliage +filtered sunshine, dappling her mourning gown with gold, quivering in +the waves of her hair, and after a while she pushed the book aside, laid +her head back against the trunk of the tree, and her long, silky lashes +touched her cheeks.</p> + +<p>Mr. Herriott's glowing, hungry eyes watched every movement, noted the +outline of the full white throat, the listless drooping of the hands at +her side, the sad, proud curve of sensitive lips closed on ceaseless +pain that no complaint could adequately voice. He was unable to bear any +longer the look of patient hopelessness that each moment stabbed his +heart. At the thought that this was possibly his last sight of her, that +in obedience to his harsh dictates she was passing forever out of his +life, a wave of invincible protest surged over him, and before its +passionate fury pride, resolutions, his pledges of renunciation +vanished. The longing of many years seized, mastered him. In the sight +of God and man she was his. He would possess his own. With a quick, +noiseless stride he crossed the narrow space that separated them, and +entered the arch. His shadow was thrown forward, and she lifted her +eyes.</p> + +<p>For an instant, a bewildered expression drifted over her countenance, +then her features settled into a marble mask. Her eyes shone suddenly +with a jewel gleam, as when a lamp flashes over the face of a gem; her +lids drooped, and she rose.</p> + +<p>They stood only a few feet apart, a little belt of white verbena +fluttering flags of truce between them. His bronze face locked, his +eager grey eyes starred with the glint of battle probed hers for an +instant; she calmly defiant, colorless as the jasmine on her breast.</p> + +<p>He held out his hand.</p> + +<p>"Eglah!" His voice was a passionate appeal.</p> + +<p>She interlaced and clasped her own fingers, her hands hanging in front +of her.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, I am very glad you have reached home safely. I +congratulate you upon escaping the dangers of your Arctic journey."</p> + +<p>"You are not surprised to see me in the United States?"</p> + +<p>"Not at all. I happened to call at Calvary House recently, and +accidentally I saw and heard you talking in the cloister."</p> + +<p>"You were so near, so near—yet gave me no intimation of your presence?"</p> + +<p>"I have studied and learned thoroughly the lesson you selected and set +for me; you wished to avoid me. My schooling was effectual, and I was +glad to gratify you."</p> + +<p>"When I landed I went first to Calvary House with a suffering human +wreck whom I promised——"</p> + +<p>"Why trouble yourself to explain what concerns only you and your sick +friend? Your reasons I have neither the right to ask, nor any desire to +hear."</p> + +<p>"At least you will permit me to thank you for all your gracious kindness +to Amos Lea. He tells me you saved his life, and thereby I am far more +your debtor than is the poor old man."</p> + +<p>"Never my debtor. Amos and I understand each other, and I was glad to +help take care of him. You owe me absolutely nothing but the fulfilment +of your own unsolicited pledges."</p> + +<p>"Why do you suppose I came here?"</p> + +<p>"Why—indeed; when you pressed on my acceptance the promise that my +'future should be spared your shadow'? I presume you came from a +chivalric sense of imaginary duty, or possibly a courteous +semi-recognition of what you may have conjectured I might regard as my +legal claims. I have absolutely none of any kind, along any lines. +Having renounced and banished me, perhaps you wished to assure yourself +that the condemned is at least not needy in exile? By what right could +you expect me—disowned, rejected, scorned—to desire ever to see again +a man whom once I trusted, almost as I did my God? To whom I fled as +sole refuge from the infamy that threatened one supreme in my life, and +when like a frantic child I clung to him, believing he loved me, he +shook me off, as if a worm crawled on his hand. After the whirlwind +passed, after the black veil of death mercifully interposed and hid us +from ruin, I came to my senses—I realized the magnitude of my error. My +ideal world had crumbled, you alone survived the wreck; I honored you +for your loyalty to the innocent man in his grave, and God knows I have +rejoiced that you denied my prayer, that you refused to perjure +yourself, but—your cruel words sank deep. While I could not blame you, +my punishment has been as severe as I deserved, as keenly mortifying as +you intended and desired. In my helplessness and sorrow you have +humiliated me by every means at your command, made me a target for +derision and for slander. Three long, sad years, without a line. Yet you +found a way to write to your gardener."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I knew Amos loved me. You did not."</p> + +<p>"As you felt assured of that fact, I fail to understand why you have +come."</p> + +<p>"Not from the chivalric motives you have done me the honor to impute to +me. I am no walking code of priggish courtesy; I am merely a man who +knows exactly what he wants most, and, missing that, deceives himself +with nothing less. I am here to-day solely to see, at least once more, +the face that has held my heart in bondage since you were a child. To +intrude upon you was not my purpose, and I did not intend to violate my +self-imposed limit of absolute silence, but I could not resist the +longing to look into your eyes, to hear your voice; and I thought I was +strong enough to watch you a little while, without your knowledge, and +go away forever, leaving you in peace. I might have known better. The +sight of you shivered my own compact. I have suffered far more than you, +and if my harshness wounded you beyond forgiveness, remember, oh, +remember, how long I have loved you!"</p> + +<p>"I can remember only that your last spoken words were a vehement request +that I should forget you."</p> + +<p>Her lower lip fluttered, and she caught it between her teeth.</p> + +<p>"Yes, but if farewell utterances are inexorably binding, you must pardon +me if I remind you of yours. All through the gloom and bitterness of our +separation a sacred, sweet voice has sounded in my ears the precious +words of promise you whispered when your arms clasped my neck, and your +dear face lay on my heart: 'You will never be out of my life—my own Mr. +Noel.'"</p> + +<p>A vivid rose stole into her cheeks, and she leaned farther back to +increase the space between them.</p> + +<p>"I had not then received my text-book—had not learned the lesson +assigned. After that, you wrote your final mandate: 'My freedom was +complete,' and you urged me to use it in any way most 'conducive to the +happiness so unwisely imperilled' by my rash marriage. I shall endeavor +to follow your counsel, and if you had waited one day later, you would +have been spared this unpleasant duty-visit. I go away to-night, and +never again shall you be annoyed by even hearing of me. Mr. Herriott, in +spite of all your wrongs, at the last you trusted your name to my +keeping. I have indeed held it 'sacred as the Grail,' and now I return +it to you as stainless as when you gave it. I am leaving America to find +an obscure resting-place in a strange land where I shall be known only +by the name to which I was born; and, once across the ocean, I can +escape, perhaps, the social gibbet from which dangle, deservedly, 'women +with histories.' I have no need of your name, noble though it is, to +help me keep my oath to God. Divorce I hold a shameful blot on true +womanhood, a menace to domestic and national morality, an insult to the +Lord. Human law can no more annul my marriage than my baptismal vow; +neither was made to man; both stand on that divine record only death can +erase; they are locked among the sacraments of God, <i>'so long as ye both +shall live.'</i> Your freedom is as unconditional as you may wish, and that +court of release which you commended to me, is equally open to you."</p> + +<p>The pulse in her lovely throat throbbed violently, and watching her lift +one hand there with the old childish effort to loosen the stricture, his +lips tightened and he stepped closer.</p> + +<p>"And if I decline to accept, to permit your renunciation of my name, +which is more sacred since you have worn it? To make a football of God's +statute is as little my purpose as is yours. Sometimes I have cheated +myself with the forlorn hope that absence might possibly help me to +accomplish that which long association failed to bring me. After years +of suffering, of sombre retrospection, I hope I have come back less a +Tartar than when we parted. Then I surrendered you entirely—absolutely. +I do so still. I claim no more rights or privileges than I possessed +before that marriage ceremony made you nominally mine; but if your great +pity for the lonely man who never loved any other woman can possibly +grow into a deeper feeling, will you try to forgive my harshness that +dreadful night? Knowing what you are to me, will you come to me?"</p> + +<p>"Come to you who repudiated me! By what right dare you suppose, +expect——"</p> + +<p>"I have no right even to hope, but my hungry heart dares, and will dare +desperate chances."</p> + +<p>"You told me your confidence was dead as your love. The scar of that +brand can never heal."</p> + +<p>"Yes, I said many bitter, cruel things in the hot rage of my +disappointment, that I should be glad to forget. In extenuation, you +must remember that you beckoned me unexpectedly to heaven, and when I +was thrust out the crash unhinged me. It was for your own sake I asked +you to put me out of your life; to save you from the horrible martyrdom +of unloving wifehood, from dragging through life the ball and chain of a +galling, intolerable tie. To put you out of mine I knew was as +impossible in future years as I had found it in the past. In my farewell +note I considered your peace of mind, not my own. If you could realize +all you are to me, perhaps you might understand better what that +voluntary surrender of your precious self cost me, when, by the law of +God and of man, you belonged to me."</p> + +<p>She had avoided meeting his eyes; the strain set her lips to quivering, +increased the strangling grip on her throat, and unconsciously her +fingers clutched and wrung one another.</p> + +<p>"After three years of dreary absence you have not even a friendly hand +to offer to the man who has carried you in his heart ever since you wore +muslin aprons—who holds you the one love of his life?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, you ceased to love me when you ceased to trust me, else +all these years——"</p> + +<p>She paused, warned by the treacherous quiver in her voice. He stood +quite still, and after a moment opened his arms.</p> + +<p>"My sweetheart, will you try me? Will you grant me the privilege of +convincing you?"</p> + +<p>She shook her head. Something in his eyes dazzled her, and an alarming +pallor overspread her face, blanching her lips.</p> + +<p>"If you have found happiness in forgetting and excluding me entirely +from your life and your future, I cannot complain that you followed my +counsel; but I will accept that positive assurance only from your own +truthful lips. Your peace of mind is more to me than my own. Have you +shut me out of your heart forever?"</p> + +<p>She tried to move aside, to pass him, but he barred her escape with an +outstretched arm, and she shrank back.</p> + +<p>"If you care no more for me now than when I left you, I have no +alternative but to live alone; and I will never again intrude, never +annoy you by the sight of my face. I will not accept compassion, or +friendly sympathy. All—or none. I want love—love that brings a pure +woman gladly to her husband's breast. Once you took some solemn vows for +me, invoking the presence of the Lord you worship. Now, trusting you +implicitly, knowing you will not deceive me, I must ask you to give me +one final pledge. If you cannot love me as I wish—if your heart, your +whole heart will never belong to me—then, calling God to witness the +truth of your words, look me straight in the eyes and tell me so."</p> + +<p>She trembled, shut her eyes, and, as a rich red rushed into her white +cheeks, she covered her face with her hands.</p> + +<p>A gust of wind shook the mimosa, and on her bowed head drifted the pink +silk filaments, powdering her brown coil and puffs.</p> + +<p>Very gently Mr. Herriott took the trembling little hands, kissed the +palms, and, drawing her slowly, tenderly toward him, lifted her arms to +his neck, holding them there.</p> + +<p>With a low, broken cry she surrendered.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Noel, you have broken my heart."</p> + +<p>He waited to steady his voice.</p> + +<p>"My proud darling, there seemed no other way. When it heals, please God, +I shall have my throne inside."</p> + +<p>With her face hidden on his shoulder, he held her close, his cheek +against her hair, and each knew how fiercely the heart of the other +throbbed. After some moments, he tightened the arm clasping her waist, +and his deep, passionately tender tone caressed like a velvet glove.</p> + +<p>"I don't know how many years I have longed for the touch of your lips. +Even as a child you never allowed me to kiss you; and, except your +father, I am sure no man ever has. My sweetheart, if indeed you are +learning to love me, can you, will you give me now what I want—my own +wife's pure lips?"</p> + +<p>She crimsoned to the tips of her small ears, and clung to him, not +daring to meet his eyes.</p> + +<p>"One memorable night, when two of my dogs froze at my feet, I sat under +the lee of my sledge, waiting for a gale of sleet to howl itself to +rest. I fell asleep and had a heavenly dream, in which you came and +kissed me."</p> + +<p>"Mr. Herriott, you cannot love me now as you did before that horrible +journey on the cars when your words seemed to scorch—brand me. I am +afraid—I am afraid——"</p> + +<p>He felt her tremble.</p> + +<p>"My darling, I love you infinitely more. You were never so sacred, so +dear as to-day. Of what can you feel afraid now? In my dream you were +more generous. I can take, but I prefer to receive the blessed seal I +hope you will give me, as holy assurance that you are entirely my own."</p> + +<p>Shyly she turned her flushed face towards his, one hand, quivering like +a frightened bird, softly drew his brown cheek closer, and the proud, +beautiful, vestal lips nestled and clung to her husband's.</p> + +<p>Sitting beside her on the bench, he said, as his brilliant, happy eyes +studied her face:</p> + +<p>"Will you please tell me when you began really to care for me?"</p> + +<p>"What can that matter now? Do not make me look back into shadows I wish +to forget. All our light shines ahead."</p> + +<p>"I should like to fix the date of my coronation, that I may compute +accurately my despotic reign from the hour I entered into possession of +my kingdom. Tell me, sweetheart; why should you shrink?"</p> + +<p>"Do you recall that last morning at home, when you came from the beach +followed by the dogs? Seeing me at the window, you took off your cap and +waved it. As I looked down at you then, something strange seemed +suddenly to stir and wake up and tremble in my heart. I did not +understand; it was a new feeling, and I was so wounded and tortured over +many things I could not analyze it; supposed it a part of my punishment. +I had seen you look better. Your boating suit and full evening dress +were certainly more becoming, but in some unaccountable, extraordinary +way that grey cap wave, and the peculiar expression I had never before +seen in your eyes, brought you closer to me than you had ever been. When +I sat alone in your smoking-room and saw the strapped trunks and your +fur overcoat—like a coffin and a pall—a terribly bitter wave rolled +over me at the thought of giving you up. I began to be jealous of Amos, +and I envied the dear old dogs the tender caress of your stroking hand. +At the last you coldly said good-bye; but when you caught, strained me +against you, I found out what it all meant. I knew then that woman's +heritage of sorrow was mine, and that my heart followed you into Polar +night. The ache that began that day at Greyledge grew and tortured me +until—I felt your arms around me once more."</p> + +<p>He lifted her left hand and kissed it, pressing the ring against his +face.</p> + +<p>"Why did not you tell me? I should have been spared so much brutal +bitterness of feeling."</p> + +<p>"It was impossible after all the harsh, cruel things you had deemed it +your duty to say to me, and you would have scouted such a sudden change +of feeling as inconceivable, as absurd. The strangeness of the +revelation overwhelmed, frightened me; I was more astonished than you +would have been. Tell you? Mr. Noel, I would sooner have gone to the +stake."</p> + +<p>"Your silence tied me to one. Men are perverse devils. I hated the sight +of this wedding ring; I longed to melt it in a crucible in my +laboratory. You will never understand the storm that raged within me +that day on the train when you hummed Kücken and laid the baby on your +breast. Every time you lifted your hand and patted the poor little +creature, that gold band danced and flashed in my eyes like a mocking +imp. But your ring had its innings. After a year my temper cooled. Day +and night I found myself drifting back more hopelessly to you; and +always before me your little white hand flashed that circle—signet of +my ownership—because you had clung to it and declared 'it was the badge +of your loyalty.' I saw it in the blue gulfs of icebergs, in the +wonderful orange radiance of auroral arches, in the glare of low, tired +suns that could not set, in the unearthly lustre of moons holding vigil +over a silent desert wrapped in its shroud of ice, and in the ghostly +phosphorescence of snow-mantled glaciers. Always, everywhere, that dear +ringed hand beckoned like a beacon. I knew you did not love me; I was +grimly sure you never would; but the assurance that no other man could +ever claim lips denied to me, that you would proudly hold and keep your +precious self sacred to one whose name you bore, comforted me."</p> + +<p>He took her face in his palms, bending close his handsome head, and a +mist dimmed the sparkle in his magnetic eyes.</p> + +<p>"My darling, the coldest night I ever spent, when lost on the 'Great +Ice,' where a snow-storm obliterated sledge tracks and death seemed +inevitable, the remembered touch of your dear arms clinging around my +neck, the pressure of your face on my breast, thrilled my heart, fired +my blood, and warmed my freezing body. I missed the Pole; I nearly lost +my life; but, ah, thank God, better than either, more precious than all, +I have found at last, and I own the pure heart of my wife."</p> + + + +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="POPULAR_NOVELS" id="POPULAR_NOVELS"></a>POPULAR NOVELS</h2> + + +<h3>BY AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON.</h3> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">INEZ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">BEULAH<br /></span> +<span class="i0">MACARIA<br /></span> +<span class="i0">ST. ELMO<br /></span> +<span class="i0">VASHTI<br /></span> +<span class="i0">INFELICE<br /></span> +<span class="i0">AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A SPECKLED BIRD<br /></span> +</div></div> + + +<p>"Who has not read with rare delight the novels of Augusta Evans? Her +strange, wonderful and fascinating style; the profound depths to which +she sinks the probe into human nature, touching its most sacred chords +and springs; the intense interest thrown around her characters, and the +very marked peculiarities of her principal figures, conspire to give an +unusual interest to the works of this eminent Southern authoress."</p> + + +<h3>ECCENTRICITIES OF GENIUS<br /> +By Major J. B. Pond.</h3> + +<p>READ WHAT IS SAID OF IT.</p> + +<p>"It is distinctly one of the most interesting books of the year from any +point of view."—<i>Rochester Sunday Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"It is many a day since I have read so fascinating a book of +reminiscences. Many a day—or perhaps I should have said a 'night'—for +this volume has given me delight during hours, when, according to the +laws of nature, I should have been asleep."—<i>Newell Dwight Hillis.</i></p> + +<p>"One of the most simple, naive and straightforward books ever written. +It fairly reeks with personality.... No man living has had such +interesting association with so many interesting people."—<i>Home +Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"Adorned by many pictures, never before published."—<i>Detroit Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"Possesses unparalleled attractions."—<i>Boston Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"Major Pond goes deep into his subject, furnishing pen-portraits that +are admirably clear and graphic."—<i>The Mail and Express.</i></p> + +<p>"The whole book, stuffed as it is with anecdotes and extracts from +personal letters, is marvelously interesting."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p> + +<p>"All the world loves a teller of stories, and readers will surely +take approvingly to the man who gives them so much of entertaining +reading as is found in Major Pond's 600 pages of bright personal +description."—<i>N.Y. Times.</i></p> + +<p>"Shining by reflected light, its pages literally teem with interesting +anecdotes of many sorts."—<i>Chicago Evening Post.</i></p> + +<p>"Originality stamps the volume, copiously illustrated with +portraits."—<i>The Boston Globe.</i></p> + +<p>"It has a thousand charms, and a thousand points of interest. It is full +of striking gems of thought, rare descriptions of men and places; +biographical bits that delight one by their variety, and the distinction +of those alluded to. From a literary view it is as interesting as +Disraeli's famous "Curiosities of Literature."—<i>Philadelphia Item.</i></p> + +<p>"If any more charming and interesting book has appeared this season, it +has not come to our notice. The get-up is worthy of the matter of the +book."—<i>Philadelphia Evening Telegraph.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE VOYAGE OF ITHOBAL<br /> +BY SIR EDWIN ARNOLD</h3> + + +<p>Ithobal was the first African explorer we know about. He was a sea +captain of Tyre, who rescued and married an African Princess, and then +induced the King of Egypt to put him in charge of a voyage of +exploration of the wonderful land of his wife's birth.</p> + +<p>After a voyage of fifteen thousand miles around Africa, he returns after +numerous and exciting adventures, which bring out almost every feature +of African life and scenery. Ithobal relates the story of his enterprise +in a discourse of seven days before the throne of Pharaoh, who crowns +him with honors.</p> + +<blockquote><p><span class="smcap">Sir Henry M. Stanley</span>, in a letter to the author, says of +it:—"You have added greatly to the happiness of many of your +race by the production of so unique a poem, so rich in the +beauties of the sweet English language."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Other able critics who have read the blind poet's new epic poem unite in +calling it even better than the old favorite, "The Light of Asia."</p> + + +<h3>EQUAL PARTNERS.<br /> +By Howard Fielding.</h3> + +<p>"This is a thoroughly enjoyable detective story, written in good, crisp +style, and with a decided surprise in the last pages. It is adroitly +contrived that almost every character in the book shall be suspected of +the crime of attempted murder before the actual culprit is discovered. +The characters are excellently differentiated, and the story is vastly +diverting, nor are there any repulsive features about the book. It is a +stirring tale and will enliven a dull evening successfully."—<i>Chicago +Tribune</i>.</p> + + +<h3>DORIS KINGSLEY, Child and Colonist.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Emma Rayner</span>, author of "Free to Serve," "In Castle and Colony," etc.</h3> + +<p>This story of the South in the first half of the eighteenth century, +opens with one of the strangest episodes in the early history of South +Carolina—the pursuit and capture by the Governor of Carolina of a +pirate vessel, full, not of treasure, but of English men and women; and +the selling of those same unfortunate voyagers as bond servants in the +colony. Doris Kingsley, a child stolen from the streets of London, is +the youngest of the party, and is the heroine of the story. Doris +Kingsley is a novel of absorbing interest, dramatic and historically +true.</p> + + +<h3>OLD JED PROUTY (A Narrative of the Penobscot).<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Richard Golden</span> and <span class="smcap">Mary C. Francis</span>.</h3> + +<p>In "Old Jed Prouty" the reading public is presented with a New England +character story of unusual interest and merit. The plot, although not an +involved one, hides enough mystery to lend the spice of the unknown to +the reader's zest, and the simple and natural dénouement emphasizes the +high moral ethics of the story, and throws into strong relief the deep +human sentiments that dominate the tale. Standing out above all, +infusing into the fiber of every chapter the rugged sincerity, the +homely wit and the quaint philosophy of New England, is the central +character about which the pivot of the story turns, "Old Jed Prouty," +real in name and real in goodness, who at the time of his life, some +thirty years since, was a landmark in the Valley of the Penobscot.</p> + + +<h3>JOHN WINSLOW.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Henry D. Northrop</span>.</h3> + +<p>"'John Winslow' is one of those inviting books of country life of which +the best part of 'Eben Holden' has come to be the accepted type. Plenty +of shrewd common sense in the chief character, a dash of love on the +side, an incidental and inevitable bit of human wickedness—but +everything in the picture and the framing attractive. This is a book for +a wide reach among readers."—<i>N. Y. World.</i></p> + +<p>"Properly ranks with 'Eben Holden,' 'David Harum,' and 'Quincy Adams +Sawyer.' The four may be put in a class by themselves as distinctive +types of homespun Americans."—<i>The North American.</i></p> + +<p>"Worthy to live with 'David Harum' and 'Eben Holden.'"—<i>Publishers' +Weekly</i>.</p> + + +<h3>UNDER A LUCKY STAR, a New Book on Astrology.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Charlotte Abell Walker</span>.</h3> + +<p>Tells what occupation to adopt, and what line of life to follow, what +associates and partners to choose, how to recognize the possibilities +and limitations of our friends and ourselves, and of other important +matters to human life, including suggestions on marriage, being mainly +culled from the minds of ancient and modern philosophers. Illustrated, +cloth bound.</p> + + +<h3>THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Frances Gordon Fane</span>.</h3> + +<p>A clever, well-written story, full of love and pathos, and thrilling +with dramatic crises. Each step of the domestic tragedy is skilfully +portrayed, until the final climax is reached.</p> + +<p>"Its author has made it a powerful, telling story to read."—<i>N.Y. +World</i>.</p> + + +<h3>THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY, a Story of Chivalry in the Fifteenth Century.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">John P. Ritter</span>. Author of "The Man Who Dared."</h3> + +<p>This is a wonderfully interesting story, and will find a welcome with +all who love to read of deeds of chivalry.</p> + +<p>"It is a clean, clear and clever story of chivalry at its best, and will +find a great many well-pleased readers."—<i>New York World</i>. Cloth bound, +illustrated.</p> + + +<h3>A MASTER OF FORTUNE, being Further Adventures of "Captain Kettle."<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Cutcliffe Hyne</span>.</h3> + +<p>"It has the dash and tinge of reality that makes you feel as if you were +in the midst of it all."—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>"The many readers who followed with bated breath the wild adventures of +Captain Kettle in the book named for him, will welcome Cutcliffe Hyne's +new collection of tales dealing with that remarkable sea dog. The volume +is well called 'A Master of Fortune.'"—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i></p> + +<p>"Nobody who has followed the gallant sailor—diminutive, but oh, my!—in +his previous adventures around the earth, is going to miss this red-hot +volume of marvelous exploits."—<i>N. Y. World.</i></p> + + +<h3>THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Cutcliffe Hyne</span>.</h3> + +<p>The best sea story since the days of Marryat. Captain Kettle is a +devil-may-care sea dog, half pirate and half preacher. The author +carries him through many hairbreadth escapes and makes him a character +that will live long in the annals of fiction. The success of this book +is marvelous.</p> + + +<h3>THE MULLIGANS. A Novel.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Edward Harrigan</span>.</h3> + +<p>The <i>New York World</i> says: "Mr. Harrigan gave to his Mulligan dramas the +most distinctly typical character plays which have ever been seen on the +native stage. They were studied and displayed straight from the life of +New York and their popularity was unbounded. His book is one of the most +generally interesting of the new season's output."</p> + +<p><i>It is a marvelously entertaining novel, possessing a keenness of wit +and humor unsurpassed by any recent work. All the characters stand out, +as true to life, as natural and as vivid as if portrayed by Dickens.</i></p> + + +<h3>NORMAN HOLT, a Story of the Army of the Cumberland.<br /> +By <span class="smcap">General</span> (Capt.) <span class="smcap">Charles King</span>.</h3> + +<p>"No more charming historic war story has ever been written. It is +Captain King's best, and bearing, as it does, on the great battle of +Mission Ridge, although the story is woven in fiction, it adds an +invaluable record of that gigantic contest between the two great +armies."</p> + +<p>"The characters are real, their emotions natural, and the romance that +is interwoven is delightful. It is wholesome and one of General King's +best, if not his best book."—<i>N. Y. Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"From the first chapter to the last page the interest of the reader +never fags. General King has written no more brilliant or stirring novel +than 'Norman Holt.'"—<i>N. Y. Press.</i></p> + + +<h3>JOHN HENRY, (25th Thousand.)<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Hugh McHugh</span>.</h3> + +<p>"'John Henry' has just 'butted' its way in between the literary bars and +capered over the book counters to the tune of twelve thousand copies +before its publishers could recover their breath.</p> + +<p>"Every page is as catchy as a bar from a popular song.</p> + +<p>"The slang is as correct, original and smart as the newest handshake +from London.</p> + +<p>"In the lottery of humorous books 'John Henry' seems to approximate the +capital prize."—<i>N. Y. Journal.</i></p> + +<p>"All who have laughed over 'Billy Baxter' will heartily enjoy this +book."—<i>The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer</i>.</p> + + +<h3>THE KING OF HONEY ISLAND, (45th Thousand.)<br /> +By <span class="smcap">Maurice Thompson</span>, author of "Alice of Old Vincennes," etc.</h3> + +<p>"'The King of Honey Island' bears quite as many marks of the genius of +the author as does 'Alice of Old Vincennes,' with the additional charm, +perhaps of more buoyancy and beauty of thought and expression. In +'Alice' Mr. Thompson plumed himself as a master word painter. In 'The +King of Honey Island' he developed into a veritable American Ouida, for +his descriptive powers are marvelous. Like the true artist that he was, +he paints Nature as it looks, not as it is, so that the reader, in +glimpsing the battle of New Orleans, hears, almost, the cannon's +roar."—<i>The Topeka Capital.</i></p> + + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 36029-h.txt or 36029-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/2/36029">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/6/0/2/36029</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/36029-h/images/cover.jpg b/36029-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c496a61 --- /dev/null +++ b/36029-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/36029.txt b/36029.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..953a3ec --- /dev/null +++ b/36029.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13606 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Speckled Bird, by Augusta J. Evans Wilson + + +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: A Speckled Bird + + +Author: Augusta J. Evans Wilson + + + +Release Date: May 4, 2011 [eBook #36029] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD*** + + +E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Mary Meehan, and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) + + + +A SPECKLED BIRD + +by + +AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON + +Author of "St. Elmo," "Vashti," "Infelice," "At the Mercy of Tiberius," +etc. + + + "As a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her." + + + + + + + +G. W. Dillingham Company +Publishers New York + +Copyright, 1902, by +G. W. Dillingham Company + +A Speckled Bird. +Issued August, 1902. + + + + + To + MY KIND READERS + KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, WHO HAVE DESIRED AND ASKED + ME TO WRITE AGAIN, THESE PAGES ARE OFFERED + IN GRATEFUL RECOGNITION OF VERY + LOYAL FRIENDSHIP DURING + MANY YEARS + + + + +A SPECKLED BIRD + + + + +CHAPTER I + + +"Grandma, who named me Eglah?" + +"My cousin, Bishop Vivian, when he baptized you." + +"Do you think he had any right to put such a label on me?" + +"Certainly, because your father selected your name, and the bishop had +no choice." + +"It is so ugly, I never can like it, and a little baby that can't speak +her mind ought not to be tied to something she must drag all her life +and hate for ever and ever." + +"Eat your breakfast, and try to be a good, quiet child, then your name +will not trouble you so much." + +"I never shall like it, any more than you do, and you know, grandma, +when you call me your mouth twists like you had toothache." + +"I was not consulted about your name. It belonged to your New England +Grandmother Kent, and as it appears you belong only to your father, you +were called after his mother. I heard him tell you it was the name of a +queen--one of David's wives." + +"Yes, but I found out she was not the head queen--just a sort of +step-wife queen. Now if I could only be the pet queen, Sheba, I should +not fret at all." + +"The Queen of Sheba was not David's wife." + +"You are all wrong about your Bible, grandma, because you are only a +Methodist. David's Sheba was nicknamed Bath Sheba, for the reason that +he saw her going to her bath-house, and she looked so pretty. I saw her +picture in father's 'Piscopal Bible." + +"There, there! Be quiet. Drink your milk." + +Mrs. Maurice leaned back in her chair and sighed as she looked down at +the fragile child beside her. The tall, silver coffee urn showed in +repousse on one side the flight of Europa, on the other Dirce dragged to +death. Eglah could never understand how the strands of the victim's hair +supported the weight of her form, and wondered why they did not give way +and set the prisoner free. To-day she eyed it askance, then surveyed her +own fair image reflected in the polished, smooth surface below the band +of figures. + +"Grandma, don't you think horses are much nicer for ladies to ride than +oxen?" + +"Yes, my dear." + +"Then why did you buy ox riders?" one small finger pointed to the +heirloom fetich. + +"I did not buy the urn. It has belonged to your Grandfather Maurice's +family for one hundred and fifty years, and was brought from Old +England. Eliza, take her away. If she cannot be silent, she must go back +and have her meals with you. It seems impossible to teach her that in +the presence of grown people children are expected to listen." + +Mrs. Mitchell came forward from a side table, lifted the little girl +from her chair, and untied the ruffled bib that protected her white +dimity dress. + +"Now tell grandmother you are sorry you annoyed her, and if she will let +you sit at her table you will be as quiet as she wishes." + +"Ma-Lila, don't make me tell stories; she doesn't believe them, and I am +so tired saying things I don't mean. I want to go back to the side +table, where you are not always scolding me. Grandma, it will be +peacefuller if I stay with Ma-Lila----" + +"Hush! Come here." + +Mrs. Maurice lifted the little one's dimpled chin and studied the fair +face that had bloomed seven years in her lonely home: a winsome face cut +like a gem, velvety-brown eyes, long-lashed, and the pure, pale oval set +in a shining bronze frame of curling hair, all chestnut in shade, +braided with gold when sunshine hid among the ripples. + +"Kent! Kent--even her ears small as any other rogue's. She is her +father's child." + +"Is that a sin, grandma?" + +Mrs. Maurice swiftly laid her hand over the uplifted, upbraiding eyes, +to veil something in their depths that often disquieted her, and sought +refuge in her habitual command: + +"Take her away, Eliza." + +Ringing the small bell close to the breakfast tray, the mistress took a +spray of starry jasmine from the vase in the centre of the table, and as +she turned away said to the grey-haired butler: + +"Aaron, you will put a plate and chair for Miss Eglah at the side table +until further orders. Tell Oliver I shall not want the carriage until +four o'clock." + +Unusually tall and very handsome was this stately widow of a Confederate +general who had been slain during one of the fierce conflicts around +beleaguered Richmond. No white hairs marred the glossy blackness of the +thick coil half hidden under a snowy crepe cap, and the brilliant blue +eyes were undimmed by tearful years of widowhood--a widowhood involving +for her the full, sad significance of the sacred and melancholy term, an +inability to forget, a despair of any earthly consolation, and a jealous +reticence that denied all discussion of her sorrow, as she would have +defended her dead from an alien's rude touch. To her, time had brought +neither oblivion nor alleviation, only a sharpened sense of irreparable +bereavement; and as one standing in an unending and hopeless eclipse, +she accepted the gloom with a stern and silent rejection of all other +lights when the sun of her life went down. + +Anniversaries are electric batteries that thrill the domain of emotions, +and one day out of every three hundred and sixty-five the strings of +memory are keyed to their utmost tension, vibrating with an intolerable +intensity that reddens the lips of old wounds and quickens dull aches to +stinging torture. + +This memorial morning Mrs. Maurice crossed the wide, vaulted hall, and +passing through the long, pillared drawing-room, opened a locked door +and shut herself in a darkened chamber to keep tryst with the sacred +souvenirs that represented all she held dear. Raising the window, she +turned the blinds to allow sunlight entrance into this silent reliquary +filled with mementoes jealously guarded "in solemn salvatory": a heavy, +square bedstead with twisted columns that upheld a red-lined tester +whence embroidered draperies fell; a gilded swinging wicker crib, with +baby blankets, rose bordered; a velvet easy chair, where a gentleman's +quilted silk dressing-gown hung over the carved back, and his slippers +lay beneath; a table heaped with a child's toys, books, and +daguerreotypes of various sizes. On a leathern couch lay a folded +Confederate uniform, and a man's straw hat, cane, spurs, and riding whip +had been placed beside the faded grey coat. Over the old-fashioned, high +marble mantel hung a portrait of General Egbert Maurice, clad in +uniform, wearing three stars and a wreath on his collar, and holding his +plumed hat in his right hand. At one corner of the mantel a furled +Confederate flag leaned until it touched the frame of the picture, and +from the marble shelf, where lay the general's sash and sword, hung the +stained and torn guidon of his favorite regiment. On the wall opposite +the fireplace the portrait of a lovely girl with an apron full of roses +seemed to fill the room with radiance and color. + +With a slow, caressing movement, Mrs. Maurice's slim white hand passed +over the front of the smoking-gown, and fastened in a button hole the +spray of fragrant, satin-starred jasmine; then, lifting the faded grey +coat, she held it to her heart in a tight, straining clasp, as she +seated herself on the couch, and her fingers lingered on tarnished gilt +buttons and braid. Inside the uniform was pinned a parcel wrapped in +tissue paper, from which she shook out a mass of yellowed lace, and as +the filmy folds of an infant's christening robe swept across her lap, a +subtle perfume of withered flowers like the breath of a rose jar stole +over the room. + +With dry eyes she looked long at one portrait, then at the other: the +husband of her youth and the only child that had come as crowning +blessing to a happy married life where no dissensions muttered, no +discordant clash jarred the perfect harmony. As the dead years babbled, +she listened now to echoes of manly tones, and now to a baby's prattling +lisp, still dividing as of yore her heart's homage. When war robbed her +of the husband who had never ceased to be tender lover, her only hold on +life centred in their beautiful daughter Marcia, and the struggle to +guard her and defend from confiscation and ruin the fine landed estate +and large fortune left by General Maurice had served, in some degree, to +lessen the tendency to morbid brooding. + +To the truly typical Southern woman who survived the loss of family +idols and of her country's freedom, for which she had surrendered them, +"reconstruction," political and social, was no more possible than the +physical resurrection and return of slain thousands lying in Confederate +graves all over the trampled and ruined South. + +No mourning Southern matron indulged more intensely an inexorable, +passionate hatred of Northern invaders than did Mrs. Maurice, who +refused to accept the inevitable, and shut her doors against agents of +"union and reconstruction" as promptly as she would have barred out +leprosy or smallpox. + +Proud of the social prestige with which her Brahmin birth and stainless +family record had dowered her, she wielded her influence in +uncompromising hostility to all who advocated a tacit acceptance of the +new conditions called "peace." The loss of negroes that abandoned +several plantations would have materially impaired the Maurice fortune, +had not the prevision of the general's commission merchant in a distant +seaport induced the precautionary course of sending a portion of his +crop of cotton to Liverpool early in the first year of the war, thus +securing a large amount of treasure under the British flag, where (as +the cotton factor wrote Mrs. Maurice a few years later) "'Union' thieves +could not steal, nor 'reconstruction' moths and rust feed upon it." Out +of the wreckage that succeeded the final catastrophe at Appomattox the +family fortune of General Maurice emerged triumphant in proportions, and +the minority of Marcia was a bulwark that defied successfully the +numerous assaults of "loyal confiscators." + +Sooner or later the _diabolus ex machina_ confronts us all, and pierces +at the one spot least guarded because deemed invulnerable. Mrs. +Maurice's maternal pride was built on the shifting sands of girlish +impulse and flattered vanity, and the crash showed her that somewhere at +the cross roads she had failed to offer a black lamb in propitiating +evil divinities--had left no morsel of meat for the sleuth-hounds of +baleful destiny that suddenly bayed destruction to the last earthly hope +life held for her. Reared in the semi-cloistral seclusion of a Southern +girl's education in ante-bellum days, trained at home by governesses, +and barred from society until she should have made the European tour for +which her mother had fixed an early date, predestined Marcia went to her +doom when at the house of a friend she met accidentally the recently +appointed Federal judge, Allison Kent--handsome, courtly, debonair, and +wily. + +Clandestine courtships rarely lag; hence this lover of forty years, +dreading discovery and the prompt removal of an infatuated girl only +seventeen on her last birthday, kept the mother in complete ignorance of +impending calamity until the night before her departure for Europe, when +Marcia fled with him to an adjoining State, where a justice of the peace +made them man and wife. + +In accordance with life-long custom, Mrs. Maurice went to her child's +bedroom to kiss her good night, and on the pillow found a farewell note, +praying for forgiveness, and promising to meet her at a town on the line +of her journey. How the mother bore this shock only God knew; no eye but +His watched during that long night, when her soul went down into a +Gehenna of torture--when, alone in her crucifixion, she accepted defeat, +and girded herself for grim endurance. As day dawned she unlocked her +door, and summoning her servants, said: + +"Miss Marcia has left me to marry a man who cannot enter my house. Take +this note to Mr. Whitfield's residence at once; not to his office, to +his house. Minerva, you will finish packing Miss Marcia's trunk, which +must be sent to her. I shall make no change in my plans, except to take +the noon train instead of the one at midnight. Ask me no questions. Send +Mitchell and Eliza to me." + +When her attorney, Mr. Whitfield, appalled by the stony white face that +showed no hint of tears, no more trace of grief than the marble figure +that supported the mantel at her side, essayed a few words of sympathy, +she put out her hands with an imperious gesture. + +"There is no comfort possible, and I need your help only in writing a +new will. I start to New York at noon, so you have little time." + +A few hours later, having seen only her pastor and her lawyer, she left +her rifled home by a route that enabled her to avoid the town designated +as a place of meeting. Across the girl's farewell letter, which was +returned to "Marcia Maurice," she had written: "My only hope is that God +will take me out of this world before I see again the face of the child +who has disgraced the memory of her father and the name of her mother." + +Eighteen months had been spent in Europe, whence she was most +reluctantly recalled by the death of Robert Mitchell, the overseer and +business manager of one of her plantations, who was killed by the +explosion of a mill engine. His young widow, Eliza, had been sheltered +and guarded in Mrs. Maurice's home when orphaned by the death of her +father, a Methodist chaplain attached to General Maurice's command, and +the intimacy of years was marked by unfailing kindness and confidence on +the part of the benefactress, by profound affection and ardent gratitude +on that of the destitute girl. The peculiarly harrowing circumstances +attending her husband's loss had so severely shocked Eliza that Mrs. +Maurice promptly removed her from the "overseer's cottage" to her own +house, where she was nursed tenderly and skilfully in the room that +before her marriage she had so long called her home. Loving Marcia very +warmly, she had attempted to intercede with the indignant mother, and +one of her letters had enclosed an appeal from the erring daughter. It +was returned unopened, and accompanied by a very positive assurance that +any future repetition would not be forgiven. Old friends gathered to +greet the returned traveller, yet all intuitively avoided allusion to +the domestic cancer that, despite her proud, silent composure, was +eating the heart barred against sympathy. She learned from the +newspapers that under the new Federal regime Judge Kent was temporarily +Senator, and that after a season in Washington he and Marcia were living +at a hotel in her own neighboring city; but as the latter had followed +her husband into the Episcopal Church, no meeting occurred between +parent and child. So complete was the estrangement, and so +unapproachable the stern, silent attitude of the mother, that when Dr. +Eggleston, the family physician, and Bishop Vivian, the favorite cousin, +called early one morning on an urgent errand, both realized that they +championed a forlorn and desperate cause in battling with this old +lioness robbed of her young. + +Instinctively she divined their mission as her eyes fell upon a letter +lying on the bishop's knee, and her lips narrowed and tightened. +Standing on the hearth with her arms folded, she listened quietly to her +cousin's impassioned pleading for forgiveness and to the doctor's +distressing presentation of Marcia's alarming condition, which he felt +constrained to pronounce hopeless. + +"Madam, if you deny her dying prayer, remorse will drive you to +despair." + +"She has been dead to me since the hour she deliberately deceived and +forsook me. Kent's wife ceased to be my child when she insulted, +disgraced, her father's name." + +"Oh, Patricia, how can you hope or claim God's mercy for yourself if you +refuse pardon to your repentant and unhappy daughter?" + +A spark leaped into the cold clear eyes. + +"For mercy I think I shall never need to plead, and when my God grants +me justice I will try to be satisfied." + +"Will you not at least read the few lines the poor child wrote while we +held her hand and guided the pen? Oh, cousin, if you could see her now!" +The bishop held out the letter. + +"Because you are the bearer I cannot refuse you that courtesy." + +She walked to the window and, holding the curtain aside, read the brief +petition: + + "My Own Mother: + + "Let me come home to die. It will not be so hard if I can look + into your face once more, and know that your dear hand will + close my eyes as I go down into my grave. I shall see father + soon, and if he could come now to my help, you know he would + take me in his arms and lay me in my mother's lap. Be merciful + to your poor, dying + + "MARCIA." + +Leaning eagerly forward, the two grey-haired men watched and listened +for some relenting token; but after a few moments she turned toward a +desk, and with no change in the frozen calm of her handsome face, she +merely traced a word at the bottom of the page, handed it to the bishop, +and left the room. "Come." + +That night a cold waxen image of a boy whose soul refused to enter its +clay tabernacle was laid for a moment in Eliza Mitchell's arms, to be +kissed as only young mothers can kiss their dead first-born. The +following day the hospital ambulance brought back on a stretcher the wan +form of the erring daughter, who fainted from exhaustion as the bearers +carried her into the home of her fathers. Three days later she died in +her mother's arms, whispering with icy lips: "If my baby lives, keep her +for my sake--for my sake." + +So little Eglah Kent was given, when three hours old, to the care of the +young foster-mother Eliza, and slept upon the heart that mourned for the +lost baby boy. Since then seven years had passed, and to-day, as Mrs. +Maurice caressed Marcia's lace christening robe, she put aside all that +pertained to the girl's disobedience and elopement, and memory dwelt +only upon the sunny time when her husband and daughter made home a +heaven. Into the quiet room crept the whine of a dog scratching at the +door. As she opened it, a feeble brown creature crossed the floor, +crouched before the hearth, and, raising soft, tender eyes to the +portrait of the general, barked once and beat the carpet with his tail, +as if in salute; her husband's favorite pointer Hector, failing fast, +but loyal and true as the heart of his widow. + + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Sharing in some degree that infallible instinct whereby lower animals +interpret the character of their owners, young children are often as +wise and wary as dogs and cats, and before Eglah could walk without +clinging to Eliza's finger, she knew intuitively that her silent, +watchful grandmother eyed her suspiciously, and that warm caresses could +be expected only from her father and her young foster-mother. Profound +and regretful compassion rather than tenderness filled Mrs. Maurice's +heart, and she faithfully ministered to the infant's needs, as she would +have pityingly warmed and fed some bleating lamb bereft of its dam by +March snows. Since the little girl showed, except in form, no faintest +trace of Maurice blood, her grandmother regarded her most +sorrowfully--not as Marcia's baby, but as the living monument of a cruel +and unpardonable injury inflicted by Judge Kent. Even in the cradle +Eglah defied an authority supreme in the household. + +"You must not say Lila, but Mama-Eliza." + +"I won't! It hurths my tongue to say Elitha. I will say Ma-Lila." + +The child's inherent antagonism made her a vexing embodiment of protest, +an obstinate interrogation point punctuating the commands of this +old-fashioned lady whose domestic canons belonged to an era when boys +and girls were not considered "servile" because trained to answer their +elders "No, sir," or "Yes, ma'am," and when after a meal in the sunset +glow young human broods followed feathered folk to an early rest before +stars spangled the sky. If among General Maurice's choice collection of +thoroughbred game fowls, with yellow legs and bronze breasts, had +appeared an uncouth mongrel pullet, dust-colored and blue of skin, his +exacting widow would not have rejected it more summarily than did her +proud soul repudiate the Kent scion whom she housed luxuriously because +of Marcia's last prayer, but felt no more desire to caress than to +fondle the bullet that slew her husband. + +Judge Kent's official duties called him often from the city, and during +his visits to his child Mrs. Maurice, if compelled to see him, +maintained the reticent, frigid courtesy with which she had received him +when he first crossed her threshold bearing his unconscious wife. He had +never touched the slender white fingers that pointed to the staircase +that day, and while she allowed herself no verbal expression of +animosity, he was humiliated by the consciousness of her intense +detestation. As Southern hostess in a typical Southern home, she fully +realized _noblesse oblige_, and her punctilious observance of the +etiquette of hospitality accentuated the position she assigned him--that +of stranger within her gates. He had hoped the baby might bridge the +chasm, but when he ventured to dwell upon his unwillingness to deprive +Mrs. Maurice of this "sweet source of solace," she promptly dispelled +his illusion. + +"Make no mistake, Judge Kent. You leave the poor child here, and I +retain her simply because her mother so requested." + +Desiring to minimize sources of future contention, she had directed Mr. +Whitfield to acquaint him with her will, whereby the entire estate would +pass at her death into the hands of certain trustees, who, after +providing a liberal annuity for Eglah and Eliza, should control +absolutely all interests until Eglah was twenty-one years old, when a +legacy of five thousand dollars would be paid to Eliza. Should the +little girl be removed from the care of her foster-mother, the annuity +of the former ceased, and half of the value of the estate should be +deducted from her inheritance; and if Eglah died before marriage, the +homestead was bequeathed to childless Confederate widows of that State, +as an Egbert Maurice memorial. Since General Maurice's last testament +had left his fortune unconditionally to his wife, there was no appeal +from her decision, and Judge Kent bore the keen disappointment with such +semblance of acquiescence as he could summon, striving to veil his +hatred of the woman whose contempt lay beneath her studied courtesy like +an iron wall under a sheet of ice. An adroit and tireless schemer, he +usually steered safely in the troubled political sea, and only once, in +an unguarded moment, dared the current of Mrs. Maurice's convictions. + +"If the people of the South could only reason from the analogy of +history----" + +He was silenced by the hand thrown up, palm outward. + +"We have only the privilege of suffering and remembering. The grim +analogy of Sicily under Verres suggests a rather painful parallel. For +us there remains solely the grace of silence; and it were well if you, +sir, could set me an example, when numbered among guests under my roof." + +The voice was low, clear, steady, but the narrow lip arched, and the +light in her blue eyes reminded him of the violet flame one sees flash +up over a bed of hot anthracite. + +Eglah was five years old when her father was called to Washington, and +thence sent to Europe on a government mission, which he so successfully +accomplished that on his return the governor of his native State +appointed him senator to fill an unexpired term. Having proved a useful +servant of the Administration, official influence secured his election +and return to the United States' Senate two years later, and Mrs. +Maurice welcomed any change that removed him from her neighborhood. His +rare visits were festivals to his little daughter, and she revelled in +the wealth of caresses, the endearing words, the prodigality of gifts +that always characterized his brief sojourns. Thus were laid the +foundations of an intense and absorbing devotion to her father that +gradually became the dominant factor in her life. + +"Nutwood"--the three-storied red brick house crowning an eminence shaded +by walnut and chestnut trees--had been built in 1825 by General +Maurice's father, and its pillared piazza running along three sides +overlooked the city of Y----, two miles distant, where spires and +factory chimneys lifted their lines against mellow western skies. On the +first and second floors of the old mansion wide halls crossed at right +angles, admitting breezes from every point of the compass, and so +unusually thick were the walls that the nearly square windows framed in +cedar furnished comfortable lounging seats. For many years this place +had been famous throughout the State for its race-horses, game chickens, +pointers, fox-hounds, and fine library, and the hospitality dispensed +was peculiar to an era characterized by conditions that the Civil War +annihilated. No invading army had reached the city of Y----, but raiding +cavalry squads once completely sacked the Maurice plantations many miles +distant in the river valley, and burned not only the empty gin house, +but the commodious family residence often occupied in autumn. Prior to +her departure for Europe Mrs. Maurice had rebuilt gin and warehouses, +and erected a pretty four-room cottage comfortably furnished, which, +with fifty acres of adjoining land, she gave as dower to Eliza when she +married the faithful overseer and manager of the "Bend Plantations." + +One sultry spring morning in Eglah's ninth year, she sat with Eliza in +the "out-door schoolroom" where lessons were studied in warm weather. It +was a cool retreat--a circular, latticed summer-house--overrun by yellow +woodbine, honeysuckle, and a pink multiflora rose, all in full bloom, +busy distilling perfume their satin lips offered in libation to the +lazily wandering wind that caressed them. The pointed roof was rain +proof, the floor tiled, and between the arched openings seats were +fastened to the lattice wall. From the round table in the centre lovely +views of shrubbery, lily-starred lawn, far-off grain fields, green +pasture lands where cattle browsed, seemed set in frames of leafage and +tendril that ran riot around the archways. A walk bordered with lilacs +and azaleas led to the door of the conservatory, which flanked the long +drawing-room; stretching beyond, one could see the wide front of the +house, where no balustrade broke the line of white columns rising to the +crenellated flat roof. Eglah sat with a geography lying open before her +on the table, and her head supported by arms resting on the map, but +once she turned a leaf, and the wind fluttered a letter many weeks old +from her father. + +"Are you ready to answer the map questions?" + +"No, Ma-Lila. Why must I always answer other people's questions, when +nobody answers mine? I will say my lesson when you tell me what +'scallawag' and 'carpet-bagger' mean." + +"They are ugly slang words, and if I were you I should try to forget I +ever heard them. Little girls have nothing to do with politics, and you +have not told me of whom the Graham children were speaking at the +party." + +"Never mind about names. I looked in the dictionary, but could not find +'scallawag.' I know it means something horrid and vulgar and hateful, +and I never will go to another party." + +Eliza's reply was drowned by the scream of "King Herod"--a lordly +peacock that had earned the title from his slaughter of young turkeys +and chickens in the poultry yard. Now he trailed his feathers across the +walk, came up to the summer-house, and uttered his piercing cry in quick +succession. + +"Something is going to happen. Uncle Aaron says it is a bad sign when +Herod squalls at a door." + +"Something happened a while ago, when a man rode up the avenue and tied +his horse. Now he is leaving the steps, and Herod knows he is a +stranger. You must not listen to superstitious foolishness from +negroes," said Eliza, with a fine scorn of all but her own peculiar pet +superstition, kept closely guarded in her heart. + +Eglah shut the geography, propped her chin on her palms as her elbows +rested on the table, and watched the beautiful bird preen his feathers. + +"Ma-Lila, how old must I be before you will be ready to tell me why +grandmother hates my father so?" + +"Dearie, she does not 'hate' him, and you ought to try not to----" + +"Don't tell stories, Ma-Lila, because I want always to believe +everything you say--and--there! Listen to grandma's bell. Three rings; +that is for you." + +Eliza laid in her work basket the embroidered cambric ruffle she was +hemming and, throwing her white apron over her head, went swiftly to the +house. + +Mrs. Maurice sat in the drawing-room, with two newspapers unfolded on +her lap, but whether their contents annoyed or gratified her, the cold, +quiet face gave no indication. + +"Is Eglah ready to come and recite her lessons?" + +"Not yet, madam." + +"Put away her books; she will be excused from lessons to-day. Judge Kent +has married again in Washington, and these papers furnish detailed +accounts of the brilliant wedding reception. He has swallowed the gold +bait of a widow he met in Europe. She is reputed rich, of course--a Mrs. +Nina Herriott--and the bridal pair will go to England for the summer." + +"Our poor baby! This news will break her heart," replied the +foster-mother, whose eyes had filled with tears at thought of the +child's suffering. + +"Yes, she will grieve sorely, but better now than later in life. I have +been pondering the best way to break the news to her." + +"Let me tell her. I think I understand her disposition more thoroughly +than anyone else." + +"You fancy I do not comprehend my own granddaughter?" + +"I beg your pardon, dear Mrs. Maurice. I mean only that I have watched +all her little ways, and she feels less restraint with me than with you; +but of course you must choose your own way in this matter." + +"For us, this marriage is fortunate, and I rejoice at every circumstance +that heightens the barrier between Judge Kent and me. He will never dare +to disturb the child while I live, and brides are not importunate for +the custody of step-children. Eliza, I never felt until to-day that +Eglah is really Marcia's baby. She is a thousand times dearer to me now +than ever before." + +"Dear madam, I thank God for anything that will make you open your heart +and take the precious child in. In many ways she needs tenderness from +you, and especially since the children's parties she has attended +recently, where rude things were said about her father. She has not told +me all, but you know the damaging rumors about some of his decisions +while Federal Judge in our State, and the Graham children, whose +interests suffered through him, speak very bitterly of his career. Eglah +has asked me many questions lately, which I always evaded, but she +broods over this matter and is resentful." + +"Poor little thing! Her father has lived on sour grapes so long, her +teeth must inevitably be on edge. Henceforth she belongs to me." + +"She is absolutely devoted to him, and it is distressing to know how her +very heartstrings are tied around him. It amounts to idolatry." + +"Yes, I realize that, and it will be a sad day for her when the glamour +fades and she sees the ugly, deformed clay feet of her idol." + +"It would break her heart." + +"No. We both know sorrow does not destroy, and death is deaf to calls +from crushed hearts. She will simply find herself chained to a galling +sense of shame. These papers were brought this morning by a young man +who impressed me as a thoroughbred gentleman--Mr. Noel Herriott, son of +Mrs. Kent's first husband. He spoke kindly of his stepmother, and +explained that, as he was passing through Y---- on his way west, Judge +Kent had given him a card of introduction to me, and requested him to +see Eglah, for whom he brought the package yonder on the window sill. I +knew the poor child would be distressed at the news, and thought it best +she should have time to recover from the shock before seeing him. He +continues his journey by the midnight train, and I have invited him to +return and take tea here, when Eglah can be introduced to him. Eliza, +perhaps you are right; certainly you are more nearly her mother than any +living being, and you will tenderly break the news to her. Carry the +papers and the parcel and make her understand. After a while I wish to +come out and join you." + +In shaking and furling his rainbow train King Herod had shed a long +feather. Eglah picked it up, and finding a knife in the work basket +proceeded to sharpen the end into a pen, with which she purposed writing +to her father. As Eliza entered and placed the papers on the table, the +little girl looked up. + +"Oh, Ma-Lila, you are crying! What is it? Not bad news from father?" + +"My baby, your father is well and has sent you a present. Come to me, +darling; I want to talk to you." She drew her to her lap and held her +close. + +"We know, of course, your father dearly loves his daughter, but he is +often very lonely, and as he cannot have you with him, what would you +think if you heard he had married a lady who would be kind and good to +him? Don't you----" + +"I know that would be a lie--a wicked lie! Why do you say such horrible +things and hurt me so?" She threw off the clasping arm and sprang to the +floor, stamping the tiles with her right foot. + +"My precious baby, I would not hurt you for a million of dollars! You +know your Lila loves you better than everything else in the world. I +would rather hold my hand in the fire than tell you a painful thing if +it could be helped. But somebody must speak the truth to you." + +She knelt down by the indignant child and kissed her hot cheek twice. + +"My darling, it is true--positively true--that your father was married +some days ago. Now, you must not struggle to get away from me. Listen, +and let me explain it all." + +"Don't! I won't listen. I can't--wait--wait--" She went to the seat +along the wall and threw herself face downward, crossing her arms over +her head. She lay so still that a quarter of an hour later Eliza sat +down beside her, and while her hand softly stroked the brown curls, she +read slowly the description of church wedding and subsequent reception. + +"My darling, you love your father so well you want him to be happy, +and----" + +"No, not with another wife, and away from me. I would rather he was +dead--for then nobody else could claim him. Two wives! It is like having +two Gods." + +Taking the papers, she read the marked paragraphs, and though neither +sob nor tear betrayed the intensity of her sorrow, one little hand +caught at her throat, where a stricture seemed to stifle her. + +"You must try to bear this trouble patiently." + +"I can't. I would not bear it at all, if I could help myself. Now I am +an orphan! An orphan!" + +"Not while I live to love you. Look at this parcel, your father's +present." + +Eliza unwrapped the paper and took out an oblong gilded box, to which +was fastened a card: "For our dear little daughter Eglah, with love of +her father and mother." The child glanced at the handwriting and her +eyes seemed almost to take fire. She snatched the box and threw it to +the floor. + +"It is not mine; I have no father and no mother. I have only Ma-Lila +left!" + +She buried her face in Eliza's lap, and hoping a burst of tears would +relieve the strain, the nurse silently caressed her, waiting for the +storm to break; but save the trembling of the figure no sign was given. +After a while, Eliza whispered, + +"Grandmother is coming down the walk." + +Eglah started up as if electrified, and lifted the box from the floor, +holding it against her breast. Leaning on her cane, Mrs. Maurice came to +the table, sat down, and opened her arms. + +"My dear child, come here." + +Not an inch stirred Eglah, and Eliza gently forced her forward within +reach of the extended arms. Mrs. Maurice leaned down to kiss her, but +she turned her head away. + +"My poor little girl, don't you know I love you?" + +"Oh, no, grandma; you never did love me, and you never will." + +"But I do, dear child. Kiss me." + +"I don't want to kiss you any more than you want to kiss me. I +understand exactly how you feel. You are sorry for me because you think +father has treated me badly in getting married. But, grandmother, you +need not pity me now, for I must make you understand that _my father +always is right_. No matter what he may do, he has good reasons, and if +I am satisfied nobody else can complain. I shall always know father is +right." + +The dry, white face was lifted proudly, and the challenging eyes met her +grandmother's steadily, but the childish lips trembled and the hand +clutched spasmodically at her throat. + +A gush of genuine tenderness warmed the old lady's heart as she took the +quivering fingers, spread them on her own palm, and touched the girl's +forehead with her lips. + +"'Loyal and true'--that is the Maurice motto. 'Though He slay me, yet +will I trust Him!' To-day we will have no lessons, and this evening +Eliza shall dress you especially to meet the gentleman, Mr. Herriott, +whom your father wishes you to know. Eliza, see that she has a warm +bath, and put some orange flower water in her glass of lemonade." + +In after years Noel Herriott often recalled that afternoon spent at +Nutwood. The inimitable courtesy of the handsome stately hostess, the +sweet countenance of the widowed foster-mother--whose anxious, tender +gaze rarely left the white-clad child--the grave negro butler, wearing +linen apron that matched his grey head, and the spacious old +cedar-wainscotted dining-room where, on bare, polished mahogany table, +the light of wax candles was reflected in silver dishes and candelabra, +and glittered from heavy, antique-shaped, cut-glass bowls, while golden +honeycomb and ripe strawberries mixed their fragrance with the breath of +crimson carnations heaped in a Sevres china centrepiece that once graced +banquets at Trianon. Most vivid of all impressions, he retained the +imperishable image of a beautiful girl, with singularly white cheeks and +lustrous, shy eyes, glowing unnaturally from her fierce struggle for +composure--a proud, sensitive face whose exquisite lines suggested rare +old cameos behind cabinet glass. + +Though the guest was a very young man, his quiet manner and perfect ease +indicated thorough acquaintance with the most refined society, and +despite her sectional prejudice Mrs. Maurice yielded to the charm of an +unusually handsome personality and a conversation marred by no trace of +egotism. The crocus light of after-glow still tinged the west, where the +sickle of a new moon swung, when the visitor rose to depart. + +"Miss Eglah, when I come back from New Mexico and Arizona, shall I bring +you a Zuni pickaninny or a Moqui pony?" + +She shook her head. + +"Since your father has stolen my stepmother, do you not think you might +persuade yourself to accept me as a sort of half cousin or +hemi-demi-semi-stepbrother, or any kind of a relative you may choose? I +am quite alone in the world, and you are just the sister I should like +to claim as my hermanita. May I?" + +"Thank you, sir, I would rather not. I want only my father." + +He bowed, and lifting her dainty little hand brushed it with his +mustache. + +"Mrs. Maurice, in saying good-bye, I must thank you cordially for the +privilege of spending several hours in your lovely home, which +illustrates all I have read of charming Southern life, and realizes +completely my ideal picture of what your sunny land must have been in +former years." + +"Good-bye, Mr. Herriott. I wish you a pleasant journey. Nutwood is a +mere shadow of old and happier days. Ichabod is printed all over the +ruined South, and we live only to guard our graves." + + + + +CHAPTER III + + +The quiet, systematic routine of life at Nutwood was by no means +cloistral in its seclusion, and though the term "house-party" had not +yet taken root south of the Potomac, guests from various parts of the +State frequently spent a week with Mrs. Maurice, and were entertained at +dinners, luncheons, and teas with the lavish hospitality traditional in +the family. Accustomed early to meeting strangers, Eglah was neither +bashful nor awkward, but she understood fully that her father was +unpopular in the social world around her, and she deeply resented an +antipathy which, though never discussed in her presence, she felt it +impossible to forgive or remove. The explanatory assistance of Minerva, +daughter of the cook, had enabled her to comprehend all the unpleasant +significance of "scallawag" and "carpet-bagger," and with the fervor of +indignant loyalty she promptly espoused whatever cause her father was +reputed to represent. Alert and _en garde_, she expected attacks, felt +eager to retaliate, and consequently was often stung by the young people +of her circle with whom she was no favorite. For many months after Judge +Kent's second marriage, Mrs. Maurice yielded to a new and yearning +tenderness toward her grandchild, whom she heartily pitied, but the +overtures came too late; the plastic season had passed, the angles had +stiffened, the childish heart had hardened hopelessly, and caresses that +formerly might have won her love were received in cold, irresponsive +passiveness. + +Once she had gone under Eliza's care to spend Christmas in Washington, +and though the pretty, gay, good-natured stepmother laid siege to the +girl's heart and fondled and pampered her, Mrs. Kent knew from the +defiant gleam in her watchful, jealous eyes that the daughter would +never tolerate a usurper who sat on her own mother's throne and divided +her father's affections. + +During the following year, Mrs. Maurice was prostrated by an attack of +pneumonia that resulted in heart weakness, from which she never fully +rallied. The reins of household government slipped easily into Eliza's +hands, and that reticent, faithful young woman proved worthy of the +confidence so long reposed in her by her benefactress. + +The last link in the chain of daily duties to which the invalid clung +was her habit of listening to Eglah's recitations from text-books, but +the hour came when she reluctantly laid down the self-imposed task. + +"My dear, in future say your lessons to Eliza. I find I am not strong +enough to be patient, and without perfect patience no one should attempt +to teach. Go now and practise your piano exercises; it will not disturb +me in the least." + +She took into her own cold, beautifully shaped hand Eglah's slender, +warm fingers, looked at them critically, and smiled as she drew them +tenderly across her cheek. + +"Kiss me, little one. Try always to obey Eliza, for she will never fail +you when you need comfort, and in all this world nobody loves you as she +does. Send her to me." + +When the nurse came in and seated herself, darning gourd in hand, Mrs. +Maurice was glancing over a blank book used for memoranda. + + +"Eliza, here are some instructions you must follow faithfully when I am +gone. I have written them carefully, so that you cannot misunderstand. I +leave nothing to your discretion, not because your judgment is +defective, but simply for the reason that I desire my wishes executed +exactly. It is an absolute condition of my will that you should have the +personal care of Eglah until she marries. If she should be sent to a +new-fangled college (one of her father's Yankee fads), you will board in +sight of her; when she travels, you go with her. Nothing but her death, +or marriage, shall separate you, and with this provision I can safely +leave her. Egbert and Marcia will understand I have done what was +possible for the poor baby. Proud little thing! she will be tortured +indeed if ever the time comes when she feels ashamed of her father--and +wily though he is, her eyes are keen. She is all Kent in appearance, +except her hands and feet; they are dainty, beautiful, patrician, +genuinely Maurice like my Marcia's." + +She laid the book on Eliza's lap, motioned her away, and, turning her +head aside, closed her eyes. + +With the ebbing of summer tide her pulse waned slowly but steadily, like +a star going down to the gates of the west. Leaning heavily on her +husband's cane, followed by the aged pointer, the tall, wasted figure +went to and fro through the old house, as one having packed and waiting +for departure looks to see if aught has been forgotten; and over the +pallid face with its cloud of black hair an exultant smile sometimes +shone, as she realized how soon she should reclaim her treasures in the +beckoning Beyond. It was an August night when the pilot's signal came, +and swiftly and gladly she "crossed the bar." Eliza was aroused from a +sound sleep by Eglah, who shook her. + +"Ma-Lila, I am so frightened! I heard grandma call out 'Egbert!' +'Marcia!' Something had already waked me suddenly." + +"Oh, dearie, you were only dreaming." + +She sprang up and lighted a candle, but the girl clung to her. + +"No, it was not a dream. I heard it clear and loud like a quick cry. I +was so scared I waited a while, and then I went to her room--but she is +not there! I could see the bed was empty, because Dinah had left the +night lamp burning in the passage. What can it mean?" + +"Grandmother is often restless, and goes out on the colonnade, where the +fresh air relieves her oppressed breathing. No doubt she is there now. +Baby, do not tremble so." + +Clutching Eliza's nightgown, Eglah followed her to the sick room, which +was unoccupied, and waking Dinah, who slept on a cot in the hall, they +searched the entire length of the piazza, the foster-mother shielding +the light with her hand. Turning to re-enter the house, they were +startled by the howl of a dog, answered instantly by a scream from +Herod, roosting on one of the arched chimney tops. Eglah was so +terrified she threw her arms around Eliza, thereby dashing the candle +from her trembling hand. + +"She must be in the general's room, and old Hector is there also." + +Swiftly they crossed the halls, and found a light shining through the +partly open door of the memorial chamber. A candle burned low under the +portrait over the mantel, and Hector, with his head thrown back against +his mistress's knee, howled feebly. She sat in her husband's easy chair, +her head pillowed on his dressing gown, where a fresh Cape jasmine +gleamed, and over her lap flowed the yellowed lace of Marcia's +christening robe, half hiding the baby shoes of white kid. She had laid +one hand on the Confederate uniform folded on the couch beside her +chair, and about the long, white fingers of the other were wrapped +strands of vivid red seed-coral--the necklace and bracelets of her only +child. Stern lines and shadows of sorrow had faded forever from the +frozen face, where eternal peace set its blessed seal, and in the wide +eyes fixed on her husband's portrait was the rapt expression that comes +only with the lifting of the veil as the soul drifts through its windows +of flesh. The icy shiver that runs across the world when day dawns grew +into a windy gust from the west, extinguishing the fluttering candle +flame and blowing the lace curtains out eastward like white sails +bearing away the happy spirit to crystal seas. At the edge of the sky, +where the morning star burned, a thread of orange glowed in the soft +pearl grey of the new day, and only the crowing of the game cocks from +their cedar thicket broke the silence that death consecrates. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Were it possible to probe the recesses of cerebration by some +psychological process as searching as the Roentgen ray, many strange +beliefs would be dragged from secret chambers sedulously guarded, where +mental fetiches are worshipped. Those who knew Eliza Mitchell well +considered her a very pretty, dignified, reticent young widow, who won +respect by her adherence to mourning garments--never laid aside after +her husband's death; but her rigid observance of the strictest phase of +Methodist discipline presented a certain austerity of character that +appeared to rebuke quietly even the members of her own denomination who +indulged in "the putting on of gold and costly apparel, and taking such +diversions" as aforetime were considered appanages of the "flesh and the +devil." + +Keenly observant and silently contemplative, she had grown shrewd as a +judge of character, and laid the tribute of her confidence at the feet +of few; yet this little woman, eminently practical and rigidly orthodox +in the faith of her father, had surrendered to one belief that dominated +heart, soul, and mind--that ruled her absolutely, and that she jealously +guarded from all but her God. Her most intense and precious conviction +was that the soul created and intended for her baby boy, who never +breathed, had been assigned to the body of Marcia's infant girl born a +little later. She was assured that her child had never known life on +earth, and had been in his coffin but a few hours when Eglah first +opened her eyes. Souls never die. What of the soulless still-born? Would +God deny any Christian mother reunion with her innocent baby in the +world of spirits? From the hour that Marcia's wailing child was laid on +Eliza's bosom she accepted it as an incarnation of the soul of little +Elliot, adrift in space but housed at last in the form committed to her +fostering care. Whether this phantasmal belief sprang from feverish +conditions under which she first felt the baby's warm lips at her +breast, Eliza never questioned; and as the years passed the conviction +strengthened, until she easily explained all Eglah's waywardness by the +hypothesis that a boy's soul fretted under the limitations of a girl's +body. Ignorant of the complex elements that fed her devotion to the +child, even Mrs. Maurice could not fully understand her idolatrous +fondness, her perfect and marvellous patience that condoned all errors, +and only Eglah could have told how often she was fondled as "my Elliot" +when cradle songs were crooned in the sanctuary of the nursery. +Notwithstanding Mrs. Mitchell was zealous in missionary work, and when +she read her reports as treasurer of the "Hindustan" fund, she dwelt +feelingly on the benighted superstition that worshipped idols and +believed in transmigration of soul. + +After Mrs. Maurice's death, Mr. Whitfield as administrator closed +Nutwood, leaving Aaron and his daughter Celia custodians, and Eglah and +Eliza went to Washington, where two small rooms were selected for their +occupancy in the fashionable "apartments" leased by Senator Kent. His +daughter now enjoyed every educational advantage that a governess for +modern languages and a tutor for Greek and mathematics could supply, +while teachers in the entire range of feminine accomplishments were +eager to encourage cultivation of any special talent. In dancing and +riding she was found surprisingly proficient, and as Senator Kent was +desirous she should enter as early as possible a "woman's college" in +his native State where one of his sisters was professor, the child was +industriously coached to achieve this purpose. + +Standing as it were on the rim of a new world, strewn with the flotsam +and jetsam of shattered political, ethical, and domestic systems, where +all nations and social conditions found representation, Eglah and Eliza +confronted novel customs, strange beliefs, and cosmopolitan diction that +clashed sharply on the conservative standards of old Southern usage. +Tethered to the pivot of her Methodist discipline, Mrs. Mitchell swung +around the narrow circle of conscientious orthodoxy; but Eglah made +alarming excursions into ecclesiastical provinces, and their first +serious altercation arose from the announcement that the girl had +decided to join the class for confirmation in the Episcopal church where +Judge Kent worshipped. + +"Confirmation? Oh, no; you are too young to take such an important +step." + +"Now, Ma-Lila, would you say that if I asked to join the Methodist +Church?" + +"That would be different, because you know more about the Church in +which you have been raised." + +"I know the Episcopal catechism from cover to cover, and I like the +service, and the choristers, and the candles used in some Episcopal +churches, and----" + +"Dearie, you merely want to follow your father, and, moreover----" + +"Did not you follow your father? You are what you are just because your +father was a Methodist preacher, and a chaplain who was killed bringing +my grandfather off the battle-field. What are fathers for, if not to set +us examples?" + +"Do you forget your dear grandmother, and her love for the church you +were christened in, and could you who owe her so much defy her wishes?" + +"Grandmother is so glad to get away and be in heaven that she never will +worry over me any more; and if I am only good enough to go where she is +when I die, what difference will it make to her how I got there? Seems +to me, Ma-Lila, all this strife over different faiths is as foolish as +denying people their choice of routes when they go travelling in summer. +If we have perfect right to trust our bodies to our favorite railroad, +we ought to feel as free to take tickets for our souls on any line that +leads to God." + +Eliza took the girl's hands and pressed the soft palms to her own +cheeks, as she said, in a voice that faltered despite her will: + +"My darling, let us wait. Promise me one thing; do nothing for another +year at least. For my sake, baby, I beg of you." + +Eglah saw unshed tears in the black eyes that had always shone tenderly +on her, and rising she stole one arm around the nurse's neck and kissed +her unsteady lips. + +"Please don't fret about it. You shall have your wish. Of course I will +wait a year if you think it best; but you must help me, because somehow +it is harder for me to be good here than it was down at home." + +"It is a sacred promise you make me now." + +"I told you I would wait. Did I ever deceive you? You ought to know me +better than Mrs. Kent, and even she told father yesterday she had been +trying to find out whether I had most talent for the piano or the +mandolin, and she concluded I really had no talent for anything--showed +only genius for telling the truth." + +Thenceforth Mrs. Mitchell redoubled her efforts to control the spiritual +aspirations of the girl to whom she had devoted her life, and the +bargain she made with her conscience was that Judge Kent had the right +to train and develop and decorate the body of his daughter, even along +lines she deemed Philistine, but the immortal spark--the soul intended +for her little Elliot--was immutably hers, to be saved eternally in the +faith to which her own hopes were anchored. That night, when she had +brushed and braided Eglah's golden-brown hair that no one else ever +arranged, she suddenly caught the slim form in a straining embrace. + +"God bless my Elliot--my own precious baby!" + +"It has been a long time since you called me Elliot, and it sounds queer +to give me the name of your boy. Why should you?" + +"You are my boy, and my Eglah also; two in one, and my only joy in all +the world. Don't argue, dearie; go to sleep." + +She lifted her into bed and tucked the silk quilt carefully about her, +as though crib days had not ended. + +"Ma-Lila, if we should all meet in heaven--and I do hope that somehow I +shall get there--I am afraid I shall feel puzzled to know who really is +my mother, because it seems to me I belong more to you than to anybody +else except father; but then grandmother will certainly be there, and +she will carry me straight to that special spot--the heavenly +'west-end'--where all the Maurices dwell, and hand me over to her +Marcia: the beautiful one I never saw, my own mother, who would not wait +in this world long enough to look at me." + +"Hush, my lamb! Good night." + +In the adjoining room she sat down at a table where books were piled, +and opening one read a marked passage: + +"The story was told by the owner of a shop where was sold the +amber-tinted syrup of malt given to young children when milk could not +be obtained. A pale woman in white came very late for many nights to buy +a cup of this syrup--_midzu ame_--but never spoke. + +"One night, when she beckoned him to follow, he went with her to the +cemetery, where she suddenly vanished in a tomb, and he heard a young +child crying under ground. On opening the tomb there was found the +corpse of the woman, and by her side a young infant smiling, who had +been fed from a cup of _midzu ame_ in the hand of the corpse. The woman +had by mistake been prematurely buried. The child was born in the grave, +and love--stronger than death--compelled the ghost to provide +nourishment for her baby." + +Eliza closed the volume and tossed it across the table. + +"As if we needed old heathen Japan to teach us the length and breadth +and depth and deathlessness of maternal devotion, when we know from the +Bible that though God in heaven forsook His Son, the earthly mother +clung to Jesus!" + + * * * * * + +It was an intensely cold, windless, brilliant moonlight night in +January, two years after she came to live in Washington, and when the +clock struck eleven she heard a quick but cautious step in the corridor +and a slight tap at her door. Mr. Herriott stood at the threshold and +beckoned her to the head of the steps. + +"Is Eglah asleep?" + +"I think she is." + +"Come downstairs quietly." + +In the lower hall, where the lights burned brightly, she saw that he +looked pale and troubled. + +"Mrs. Mitchell, a terrible blow has fallen upon us. Mrs. Kent went +sleighing with some friends, and the horses became uncontrollable. The +sleigh was overturned, and poor Nina, thrown against a stone wall, was +killed instantly. Will you do what is best when she is brought home? +Don't rouse little Eglah. I am going to find Senator Kent, who is in +committee meeting, and break the news as gently as possible. Poor, dear +Nina! So merry, so kind hearted! Laughing and chaffing me for my +awkwardness when I tucked the lap robe about her feet." + +Once more death levelled a wall that in some degree barred Eglah from +her father, and from that wintry night she dated the beginning of her +happy reign over his undivided affection--a monopoly she had long +coveted as the supreme privilege and crown of life. + + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"Has the success of the experiment justified the labor and enthusiasm +you spent upon it?" + +"Yes, Noel, the result far surpasses my hopes, and I am impatient for +you to visit us, not only to understand fully the complete success of +the work, but to receive the grateful acknowledgments of every member of +the Order." + +"Then you bar your doors against me, because any expression of thanks is +annoying, and the great pleasure I gave myself in deeding the property +to you would be marred. Remember, Vernon, I am not a well-rounded +character, measured by your ecclesiastical tape-line, and one of my ugly +angles is aversion to thanks. If you have drained the marshland and +reclaimed the house from mildew and mice you have made your neighbors +debtors." + +"The same Noel Herriott of college days!" + +"Only more so, if you please. Nothing human is immutable, and if a man +does not improve he grows worse. By the way, is your reverence still +'Brother' Temple, or have you climbed the ladder of spiritual +promotion?" + +"I am always Vernon to you, but the world knows me as 'Father' Temple. +When will you come to us at 'Calvary House' and inspect the rich harvest +from the seed you sowed? I long for the one thing you have +withheld--your deep, hearty sympathy in my grand and holy work." + +"Meaning that nothing less than the three vows will assure you of my +safety?" + +"That is beyond all that I ever dared to hope, but your cordial +approbation would cheer me more than the indorsement of any other man. +Generous though you are in financial assistance, your mental attitude +toward our Order is that of the smiling tolerance with which one watches +a child building a house of cards." + +"However tentative my opinion relative to the scope and permanence of +your religious movement, you cannot doubt that I earnestly desire the +success to which the sanctity of your motive entitles you. Partial as I +am to gymnastic methods, I allow no athletic feats in my mental +processes; I neither run nor leap to conclusions, and you must give me +time. You and I always approach vital questions by different paths: you +lean generally to collectiveness; I usually prefer the slower leverage +of individualism. You are burning the candle of life at both ends, and +trying to realize your noble ideals; I plod far behind, with only a +feeble taper and indulge no higher hope than to idealize my realities." + + +"When will you come to the lovely home you have given us? There is one +room we have called 'Founder's,' and set apart for you; and, Noel, no +sun sets that has not brought us to our knees in prayer for you who made +it possible for us to own a chapel. When shall we welcome you?" + +"Not now. I must go home, where matters need attention. Strange, is it +not, that the magic of a name should outlive all it represents? That +lonely old stone house staring at its shadow on the lake has no vital +element of home except my horses and dogs, and one Maltese cat that +sleeps in my arm-chair. When Nina married Senator Kent the last thread +that tied me to anything like domesticity snapped, and I followed my +bent and prowled from land to land." + +"Why do you not marry some sweet, gentle woman and settle yourself?" + +"Scarcely the advice one might expect from the priestly Father of an +Anglican celibate order. Has your creed narrowed to such alternatives? +Either a cell at Calvary or the snare and disillusions of marriage? +Unfortunately for me, women have exerted only a traditional influence on +my life. My own young mother died before I could remember her, and I was +consigned to tutors when I should have been trundling hoops. I went +early to college, and after father's second marriage was rarely at home; +hence my acquaintance with women in the home circle is nebulous and +legendary. As a boy I disdained sweethearts; as a man they disdain me. +The only woman I ever really cared for would no more marry me than a +stone slab in a cemetery; so, with many thanks, I cannot utilize your +counsel, and it only remains for you to keep a cell for me at Calvary. +Some day at eventide I may creep in, and you will kindly shrive and +bless me." + +Mr. Herriott had been leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped +behind his head, and when he rose he towered six feet two inches, +smiling gravely at the upturned face of Father Temple, whose sombre +clerical habit contrasted vividly with the white yachting flannels worn +by his friend. + +"Ah, Noel, what a Viking you look! Save prize fighting, is there +anything in the realm of athletics you have not accomplished?" + +"I fear you would not compliment me with even that civilized exception +if you had seen a skirmish, minus weapons, that I had with a hairy, +tattooed Dyak in a Borneo jungle where I hunted orchids. Vernon, if you +trained your muscles more, and let up a little on your soul, allowed it +a breathing spell, you would not look so flaccid and anaemic. Don't +prefer monkish Latin to Juvenal: _mens sana in corpore sano_! You +observe, respect for your Reverence prevents my offering you the +Rabelais parody. Come, dine with me to-night." + +"No, thank you. I am to give a brief 'retreat.' Tell me about my cousin +Eglah; you crossed the ocean in the same steamer." + +"You have not seen her?" + +"For a few moments only. She is a beautiful girl." + +"What remains to be said--since you accord her the mantle of beauty, +whose folds, broader even than charity's, hide all defects? Where shall +I begin? Being her cousin, you must know what I have merely heard: that +she swept through college like a southern tornado--or should I have said +like a meteor?--carrying off the honors, and was the youngest graduate +who had ever turned the heads of the spectacled lecturers. Yet it +appears she values her trophy merely because her laurels pleased her +father, at whose feet she sits in adoration. In her physique, gymnastic +training leaves nothing to be improved; she won badges, and can hold her +own at basket-ball, tennis, rowing, and swimming. Is not the catalogue +complete? So much for mental attainments and physical perfection, but in +the domain of womanly emotions she is simply an unknown quantity--a +latter-day sphinx, fresh and fair before drifting desert sands deface +her. If a lover should ever win her heart he will certainly be entitled +to it, by the supreme right of discovery. Her affection for Judge Kent +absolutely rules her, and in one respect she is unique, she is as +utterly incapable of flirtations as an unfledged owl." + +"On account of the family connection you have been thrown so intimately +into her society that I hoped you could tell me something of her +religious tendencies." + +"I am such a confirmed tramp that my visits to the family have been +brief and interrupted by long absences. Eglah always appealed peculiarly +to my sympathy because of the pathetic antagonism of her environment. +Your cousin, Judge Kent, was very much disliked at the South, where +sectional political rancor was, is, and will be rife, and his child +suffered keenly on that account. When she came north to live, her social +surroundings were even worse, because she furiously resented every +reflection upon the people of the South, where the Maurices were +conspicuous in war records. Her efforts at loyalty all around the circle +have not made smooth sailing for her, and her motives were doubtless +complex. You are curious about her 'religious tendencies'? If you are +wise you will not stir any Calvary leaven into the pure sweet flour of +her soul, unless you covet war _a outrance_ with that nondescript +personage Mrs. Mitchell--an anomalous blend, alert as a lynx, wary as a +fox, stealthy as a cougar--who serves Eglah in divers and sundry +capacities: an amalgamated foster-mother, housekeeper, maid, companion, +chaperon, and confidante. She is a Simon-pure puritan, prim as +Priscilla, and her processes of reasoning are quite as broad as the edge +of a razor. That she viciously opposes all forms of 'ritualism' I happen +to know from listening to a discussion between her and Eglah, in which +the whole bundle of dogmas was thrashed out, from 'historic episcopate' +and 'confession' to incense, candles, and 'reservation of the +sacrament.' What a pile of chaff they built! Eglah's appreciation of +sensuous beauty and classical music inclines her to gorgeous vestments, +jewelled windows, and the rhythmic chanting of choristers that lift +their chins like Raphael's cherubs, but Mrs. Mitchell finds in the +severe simplicity of her own tabernacle an added sanctity, and your +Calvary House will be to her that of Rimmon. In Rome Judge Kent had a +touch of fever which frightened Eglah into telegraphing for me at Basle, +where I was attending a scientific congress, so we came home together." + +"If Eglah's enthusiasm could be aroused in our mission work, she would +wield an incalculable power for good." + +"Vernon--pardon the lapse into argot--'don't!' Let the child pick her +own way to peace. She is not addicted to enthusiasms: one attack long +ago destroyed her susceptibility to subsequent seizures; she can be +enthusiastic over only one teraph--her father. Must you go? Wait a +moment. Friendship is frank, and I am sorry to see you losing the vigor +that in college days distinguished you. Fast less, and sleep more. Come +home with me and hunt and fish and row, and let other people's souls +enjoy a vacation." + +As they shook hands Father Temple asked: + +"And what have scientific congresses done for your soul, Noel?" + +"Drawn me closer, I hope, to the Creator whose subtle and inexorable +laws are best revealed to the faithful student that fearlessly analyzes +His universal work. The sole aim of scientists is 'to admit nothing +false, and to omit nothing true.' Vernon, have faith in me as of old, +and keep a cell whitewashed for me at Calvary House. Truly-- + + "So many paths lead up to God, + 'Twere strange if any soul should miss them all." + +With his hand on the stair rail the minister paused and looked back. + +"One thing I wish to ask is whether Eglah had any special admirers +abroad? American heiresses are attractive." + +"She had as many beaux as she chose to permit. Two attaches of American +legations were particularly attentive, and a handsome English naval +officer whose father is a duke will doubtless cross the ocean to renew +his acquaintance. Possess your soul in patience. Her heart is as sound +asleep as when she dreamed in her crib, and the man who wakes and wins +it will travel no macadamized road. Before Lent she will be in New York +for a week, and when Congress adjourns the family will come to me on the +Lake for a visit." + +Given a man of thirty-three, unusually good-looking, possessing by +inheritance a large fortune, dowered with infinite leisure upon which no +professional duties laid intrusive claim, handicapped by no church +obligations, and the world assumes that he has inevitably run the gamut +of those iniquities set by Satan as snares for the idle rich. Intensely +virile as was Noel Herriott, his polished placidity of manner and +courteous conservatism masked in some degree the strength and tenacious +obstinacy of a character that presented enigmatical phases to those who +knew him best. Heredity and education had combined in kneading him +physically, mentally, and morally along rather peculiar curves during +the plastic period of boyhood, and the finishing touches that determined +the mould came from his parting interview with his Presbyterian father, +when Fergus Herriott sent him away to college. + +"My son, God gave you a remarkably fine body. Neither neglect nor abuse +it, but be sure you master it from the start, else you will be the slave +of your own flesh. Bad habits are the leeches that would suck a Hercules +to effeminacy. Steer as clear of the sins labelled "Thou shalt not" as +you would of that leper island down in the Pacific. The ten commandments +are equal links in the moral chain, and it is no man's privilege to pick +and choose which he will break or which he will keep; because if he +violates one, it is merely a question of temptation, necessity, and +opportunity when he will transgress all. If he bears false witness and +lies, he will steal money as he filched character; if he covets his +neighbor's wife, the time comes when he murders her husband. _Falsus in +uno, falsus in omnibus._ You are going where you will hear much fine +talk about 'lofty, broadening, philosophic ideals' and 'progressive, +altruistic standards of humanitarianism and honor.' Now mark you, God's +laws are not 'progressive,' they are absolutely fixed, and when you are +as old as I am you will have learned that 'man's honor,' unless based on +them, is merely a sliding scale set up on a quicksand. My boy, try to +lead such a clean life that when the mirror of records is held up to you +in the final judgment you will not squirm and want to look the other +way; and now, my last word is, you had the great misfortune to lose your +dear, sweet mother in this world--be sure you deserve to find her in the +next." + +During the journey to college he found in his well-filled pocket-book a +folded sheet containing additional memoranda in his father's cramped, +old-fashioned writing. + +"Be honest first, then generous--never wasteful. Pose on no pedestals +and you will escape falls. Avoid priggishness, which is detestable +mental dry-rot; and flee from cant, the convenient domino of hypocrisy. +Cultivate genuine sympathy for all suffering humanity, and remember that +a man's safest companion is his own conscientious, incorruptible +self-respect." + +Doubtless in the years that followed Noel realized that indeed + + "Souls were dangerous things to carry straight + Through all the spilt saltpetre of the world;" + +but that he succeeded fairly well might have been inferred from a +certain scar on his throat, received while chastising two of his +classmates who had caricatured him in doggerel under the title of "Sir +Dandy Galahad." Misled by the quiet reserve of his manner, and an inborn +courtesy that made him as good a listener as talker, strangers never +suspected the existence of a temper fierce and, when fully aroused, +well-nigh implacable. In his third collegiate year the death of his +father left him untrammelled in the selection of a profession, and soon +after he entered into possession of a fortune so large that its golden +key would have opened the door of almost any career he might have +chosen. His mental trend was toward scientific studies, and his dominant +scheme of investigation embraced the elusive problems of anthropology. +His individual and favorite hypothesis involved the genesis of +aboriginal American man, and to secure all prehistoric and especially +pre-glacial data he had attended post-collegiate lectures at several +European universities, supplemented by sojourns in Central America, +Pacific Islands, and British North America. + +Since the death of his stepmother, Mr. Herriott had established +temporary headquarters in New York in "apartments" not far from the old +Herriott house, which by provision of his wife's will was now the +property of Judge Kent. While the family of the senator usually remained +in Washington, Eglah and Mrs. Mitchell frequently spent a week in New +York, and on such occasions, if Noel chanced to be in the city, they +relied upon him to serve as escort when needed. That he had successfully +run the gauntlet of Eliza's years of cautious, suspicious observation, +and finally commanded her admiring confidence, contributed in some +degree to the easy _camaraderie_ maintained between Eglah and himself: +on her part a genuinely trusting friendship, pure and simple; on his +that cool, watchful quietude that holds in leash the one deep passionate +love of a strong nature and a lonely life. From the day he first saw the +little quivering white-clad girl standing in the sunset glow that +flooded the fragrant, flower-filled dining-room at Nutwood, he had +opened the empty temple of his heart, and where no image dwelt--save the +memory of his father--he lifted this child to a pure altar, and offered +silent homage. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +"Of course, Mr. Herriott, you are vastly amused by my ambitious +pretension." + +"Why Mr. Herriott? And why assume amusement which I certainly have not +expressed?" + +"Not verbally; but I quite understand that look in your eyes, when by +sheer force of will you hold your lips from smiling. Only courtesy keeps +in check your contempt for our 'higher education.'" + +"Eglah, be a little more just in your generalizations. If the education +be really 'higher' and thorough, no reasonable man could afford to +disparage it. You have spent the morning over volumes of tedious +statistics, extracting figures on _ad valorem_ and 'specific' schedules +that only a custom-house clerk or a tariff expert could utilize by +eliminating nonessentials and compiling valuable tables. Why waste this +perfect day over metric puzzles--dekameter, hectoliter, myriagram?" + +"Father wished the exact figures, and to work for him is my greatest +pleasure." + +"Do not confound motive and accomplishment. Your father's secretary +would have collected the statistics in half the time and in a more +satisfactory form, simply because he has been trained for such search, +as dogs are taught to hunt truffles." + +"Mr. Metcalf was needed in Washington, and as father has tried me +sufficiently to trust the accuracy of my work, he asked me to make this +investigation while I was in New York. Mr. Noel, to help him even in +trifles is my very life; he is my world, my all." + +Mr. Herriott lifted his hat and bowed. + +"Your devotion is beautiful and sacred, and Judge Kent should feel proud +of the list of rivals he so successfully defies. Perhaps it has not yet +occurred to him that in chaining yourself to his library desk you are +restricted to sawdust diet." + +"Varied now and then, you must admit, by banquets of opera, germans, +receptions, teas, theatre parties, and the embassies. When I was working +so hard at college I looked forward eagerly to 'coming out,' as to a +magical door that would swing suddenly open into a wonderful world, +where, because of new conditions, I should become a different person, +and shed my girlish ideas as serpents slip their skins; but since the +'open sesame,' and I have 'arrived,' I seem to have lost nothing of the +past, and my old, tiresome self is tyrannous as ever." + +"Is social life in Washington disappointing?" + +"That is scarcely the right term. Life is certainly very brilliant, and +gay and panoramic, and I enjoy music and dancing, and some dinner +parties; above all, I find keen pleasure in following a spirited debate +in the House, or listening to speeches in the Senate, but sometimes I +catch myself wondering if this is indeed all--the veritable kernel of +society, politics, diplomacy, or merely the shell partly cracked. Life +here and in Washington does not seem so absolutely real as it was at +home, at Nutwood." + +They were driving in Central Park, and Eglah shared the front seat of +the trap where Mr. Herriott held the reins of his spirited horses, and +brought them down to a steady, rapid trot. It was a cold but sunny day +in February, and as he laced his way in and out of the stream of +vehicles, he and his companion were the theme of much comment from the +passing throng. Fastidious in the matter of clothes, he was always +remarkably well dressed--a fact accentuated by his unusual height and +erect carriage--and at the two fashionable clubs to which he belonged he +was generally regarded "as all around, the best looking member." The +dark steel-blue grey eyes--with no hint of yellow--which his Scotch +father gave him, lost something of their penetrating brilliance under +the long jet lashes that, with black brows and thick clustering hair, +his mother had contributed, and his naturally clear olive skin had been +weather-tanned in various climates to a browner tint. In profile his +face resembled a bronze medallion, and when he smiled his well-cut lips, +that in repose seemed ominously thin, showed curves of rare beauty +around a faultless set of teeth. The sun of prosperity had ripened and +mellowed his manhood, and, as yet, no acid of cynicism had invaded his +nature. + +Gowned in a fur-trimmed cloth of hunter's green, Eglah wore a velvet +toque of same hue, that failed to conceal the mass of golden-brown hair +burnished by sunshine into the similitude of a white-oak leaf dyed in +autumn. Under delicate, level brows, her large dark eyes--_chataigne_ in +some lights, almost black at times--were set rather far apart in an oval +face whose exquisitely clear, pure pallor was stained only by the +healthy rich red of slender lips, that had a treacherous trick of +quivering when any strong emotion stirred the deeps of her heart. By the +accepted canons of art and cultured taste her form and features had been +adjudged "beautiful," and some great-grandmother of the far South had +dowered her with a peculiar grace of movement--not languid, nor sinuous, +nor Delsartian--a natural idiosyncrasy that made the manner of her +steps, the lifting of head and motion of hands, unlike other women's. +Only one gift--most potent of all--had been withheld from her +birthright: she was absolutely devoid of personal magnetism, and her +habitual cold indifference approached haughtiness, that the world +resented. A certain aloofness of manner hedged her around even in the +midst of the social whirl, and though in conversation the lovely eyes +appeared to meet frankly those confronting hers, people were vaguely +conscious that some veil was rarely lifted from their soft, shining +depths. + +Sudden congestion in the line of equipages, stretching far ahead, had +caused a temporary halt, and when the knot dissolved, and the impatient +horses sprang forward once more, Eglah said: + +"I thought you loved good music too well to lose last night's opera +treat, and until the final act I expected you." + +"Shall I flatter myself that even in the midst of the select party +occupying my box you really missed me?" + +"Certainly I missed you--all the more because some of them chattered, +and you would have hushed the tattle." + +"Am I so successful in the role of ogre as to over-awe my guests in an +opera box?" + +"Your quiet way of setting an example of good breeding is sometimes +contagious among thoughtless people." + +"My lucky star is surely ascending: you have paid me two compliments, +and I am puzzled to know whether I shall be expected to balance my +account at _ad valorem_ rates on the basis of your assessment or mine?" + +"Oh, you and I established free trade long ago, and I can always tell +you the truth without pausing to weigh words as do legation attaches, +and as father does when wily lobbyists intercept him on his way from +committee rooms. Mr. Noel, had you any special reason for absenting +yourself? The lovely lilac orchids were, of course, far more ornamental +in your empty chair, and you must not think me lacking in appreciation +because I am so tardy in thanking you for them." + +"An unexpected change in the date of a lecture given by one of my +friends kept me away, when I had hoped to join you. As I had promised to +attend, there was no alternative when a belated note informed me that +last night had been selected for its delivery." + +"Tell me about it." + +"If I should so afflict you, most certainly you would vote me a bore, or +fall asleep in self-defence." + +"When you say that, you know curiosity always covets the forbidden." + +"At your peril then! It was a monograph on the autochthonic origin of +American races, and by way of ornamentation bristled with such graceful +trifles as cephalic index, _brachycephalic_, and _dolichocephalic_, and +was sprinkled with the curry of _Votanic_ legends, and choice tid-bits +from the Quiche _Popol Vuh_ and from _Codex Chimalpopoco_! Sounds spicy, +doesn't it? Piques your appetite for a larger slice?" + +"No, thank you. Yet you preferred that tiresome jargon to listening to a +superb tenor solo?" + +"In a way--yes. We all ride hobby-horses from the nursery to the +cemetery, and it is merely a question of individual taste what blood +strain or pedigree we choose. My racing stable is not so generously +supplied as yours, which embraces colts of various breeds: reports of +fisheries commissions, bounties, American tonnage from 18-- to 18--, and +a vast----" + +"Sarcasm does not fit you becomingly, Mr. Noel; it hangs askew, like a +clown's cap on a cowl. What have you registered your own special toy, +that you canter so vigorously around the world? Is it called ethnology, +or totemism, or anthropology?" + +"When I have finished trying all its gaits, and find the sum total +satisfactory, I shall label it, and fit a comfortable side saddle and +introduce you formally. Now, Miss Kent, come to confession. Did you see +the list of passengers who arrived on yesterday's steamer from +Liverpool?" + +"I did not." + +"Can you recollect a certain prophecy I made at Cowes, anent a handsome +naval officer who entertained us at luncheon on his father's yacht?" + +"Cassandra was a woman, and men should not trespass on the one feminine +right of 'I told you so,' that has descended to us intact from Hecuba's +daughter. But, Mr. Noel, if you mean----" + +She turned and looked up into his eyes. + +"Yes, I met him this morning at the club, where Ogden introduced him, +and I saved him a useless journey to Washington by telling him you were +here for a few days." + +"I can only say I am sorry to hear it." + +"While he is in New York I must, in part, return the hospitality shown +us, and your father will pay the remainder of the debt in Washington. I +have arranged a dinner for this evening, and later we shall see +'Hamlet,' then a supper afterward at Delmonico's. Will you join us at +the theatre, if I call for you, bringing Mrs. St. Clair as chaperon?" + +"Thank you, I much prefer not to be one of the party; besides, I have a +previous engagement. I am going with my cousin, Vernon Temple, to a +meeting of shop girls, a sort of night school established by some of his +lady friends." + +"What class does he teach?" + +"I believe he 'talks' now and then on 'feminine arts,' and to-night +there will be a lecture on lace making and tapestry guilds, illustrated +of course by a sketch of the inevitable Matilda and the indestructible +'Bayeux.' I am trying to classify this new cousin, who seems to me a +queer blend of mediaeval monk, pre-Raphaelite reformer, and socialist. He +is altogether unlike any one I ever knew, but his beautiful, sad face +reminds me of a picture I saw in Munich--a young priest administering +the viaticum to his dying sweetheart, whom he forsook for holy orders." + +Lowering his eyelids, Mr. Herriott glanced keenly at her. + +"You find Temple wonderfully magnetic at times?" + +"Scarcely that. 'Magnetic' implies so much and really explains so +little. When I see his ceaseless struggle to keep the heel of his spirit +on the neck of his flesh, it suggests a fanatical rebellion against that +equipoise God saw fit to establish. Like Joubert, 'he seems to be a soul +that by accident met with a body, and tries to make the best of it.' My +cousin Temple is fond of you." + +"Despite much difference of opinion on many questions, our friendship +has survived the 'storm and stress' period, and I honor a man whose +battle cry for humanity is: + + "'Make trade a Christian possibility, + And individual right no general wrong.' + +Have you noticed the expression of Mrs. Mitchell's face when they happen +to meet?" + +"Haven't I! It is too funny to see her narrow her eyes and look at him +as if he were some unclassified beast whose method of pouncing on his +prey had not yet been warningly advertised. She is convinced he is an +ecclesiastical infernal machine trying to wreck our family orthodoxy. I +asked him----" + +She stopped suddenly at sight of two gentlemen approaching on horseback, +and Mr. Herriott smiled, as he whispered: + +"Lo! the second son of a duke!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +In a quiet and unfrequented cross street--equally remote from the +thronged thoroughfares of trade and from fashionable avenues lined with +palaces--stood the low and unpretentious Chapel of St. Hyacinth, marked +by neither spire nor belfry. The old stone front receded sufficiently +from the pavement to permit a short flight of shallow steps that led to +an arched door in a pillared portico with a cross on its pointed roof, +which hung over the entrance like a sullen, frowning brow. A northeast +wind came fitfully in hissing blasts, dashed with fine sleet; but when +Eglah passed through the swinging inner door a warm atmosphere spiced +with resinous incense infolded her as in a fragrant mist, through which +glimmered brass lattice screens, rows of tall candles, the gilded +carving of the white altar, laden with lilies, and the marble statue of +the Virgin, at whose snowy feet a red light burned in a silver lamp. On +each side of the wall below the brass lattice that barred the chancel +was a "confessional" of dark wood surmounted by a cross, and the +clustered lights in the centre of the concave ceiling formed a crown. + +On the right and left of the altar the white surpliced choristers filled +several seats, and the quivering thunder of the organ ceased suddenly, +as if to listen to the marvellous voice of the boy soloist, that swelled +and rose as if the singer felt himself "hard by the gates of heaven." A +slender child of ten years, grasping his music with waxen hands almost +infantile in size, while his head, covered thickly with shining ripples +of golden hair, was thrown back, and his blue eyes almost purplish, like +a periwinkle, were raised in contemplation of the crown glowing above +him. The colorless face was delicate and beautiful as if wrought out of +ivory, and a certain pathetic sadness of expression inherent in fragile +childhood was for the moment dominated by the radiant exultation of his +wonderful eyes, that seemed made to dwell between the wings of a seraph. + +Father Temple left the altar before which he had knelt in prayer, and +advancing to the steps of the chancel, stood with one hand on the brass +railing and briefly explained his unexpected presence. A telegram had +summoned the rector of St. Hyacinth's to the deathbed of his father, and +the request to officiate in his absence had been received too late to +permit the preparation of a regular sermon; hence the patient indulgence +of the congregation was invoked for some desultory remarks which might +not prove entirely fruitless. After a few exordial sentences, he +repeated slowly the opening ten verses from St. John xv., and waited a +moment. + +"For text let us consider: 'I am the true vine,' said our Lord, 'and +ye, my brethren, are the branches.'" + +Then followed a recitative of various selected passages from the "Sermon +in the Hospital," in tones so musical and liquid, and with a repose of +manner so profound, yet full of subtle magnetism, that his audience +gazed in sympathetic wonder at the slight figure clad in the sombre +habit of his order--at the thin, pallid spiritual face where large, +deep-set black eyes burned with the preternatural light of consecrated +but consuming zeal. The folded arms attempted no gestures--what need, +while that rhythmic wave of sound flowed on?--until the end, when the +clasped hands were lifted in final appeal: + + "... the Cross of Christ + Is more to us than all His miracles. + + * * * * * + + Thou wilt not see the face nor feel the hand, + Only the cruel crushing of the feet + When through the bitter night the Lord comes down + To tread the winepress. Not by sight, but faith, + Endure, endure--be faithful to the end." + +Unconscious of his movement, and irresistibly drawn, the young soloist +sitting in the front row of choristers had risen, and leaning far +forward, looked up into the face of the priest, like one mesmerized, his +parted lips trembling in a passion of ecstasy. Then the organ boomed, +and the boy fell from paradise and joined the choristers chanting as +they marched away behind the uplifted cross. + +A lady stepped into the aisle and touched Eglah's arm. + +"So glad to see you here, Miss Kent. Shall always welcome you to my pew. +What a delightful elocutionary _tour de force_ Father Temple gave us! He +would make a fortune on the stage of secular drama." + +"Yes. Fra Ugo himself could scarcely have been more impressive when he +talked to the sick and dying on hospital cots. To my cousin Vernon this +world is only a hospital of sick souls. Mrs. St. Clair, I should like to +meet that little boy who sang so beautifully. Can you help me?" + +"Very easily. Come back with me now to the vestry and we may find him. +Did you notice how that lovely boy seemed almost hypnotized?" + +Only two of the larger choristers lingered, chatting with the +choirmaster, and as they turned toward the rear stairway leading to the +street, Mrs. St. Clair exclaimed: + +"Mr. De Graffenried, stop the boys. We want to see the soloist. Call him +back." + +"Madam, I think he is still in the chancel." + +Lifting the velvet curtain that concealed the altar from their view, she +beckoned Eglah to her side. + +Father Temple had been detained by one of the church-wardens, and as he +turned to hasten away the boy, standing near, caught the black skirt of +the priest. + +"Please, sir, may I speak to you?" + +"Certainly. I am glad to be able to thank you for the music to-day. Your +solo gave me great pleasure." + +"I could have done better, but my throat is sore; it bled just now. I +told nobody, because I am the only one who can reach that high C, and so +I tried not to fail. I want to ask you how I can learn all the words you +spoke? Oh, if I could, I would set them to a chant; they would lift my +heart out of me if I could sing them." + +"You shall have them. What is your name?" + +"Leighton Dane." + +Father Temple took his tablets from an inside pocket and made an entry. + +"Where do you live?" + +"Oh, a long way off. Far down in East ---- Street; but, please sir, if +you would leave the poetry here, I could get it at next rehearsal." + +"My little man, how do you know it is poetry? The words do not rhyme." + +"Rhyme? I do not understand that word--but I feel poetry. I always know +it by the way my blood beats, and the little shiver that runs down my +back, and the joy that makes me cry sometimes." + +"I will send you a printed copy, in care of the rector. Dear child, God +has given you a wonderfully sweet voice, and I am glad you use it in His +service." + +He laid his thin hand on the boy's golden head, and smiled down into the +wistful blue eyes, where tears glistened. + +The childish fingers, holding two snowy spikes of Roman hyacinth, were +lifted and placed on the priest's hand, pressing it timidly against his +curls. + +"Thank you, sir. Please take these. They smell like the heavenly +gardens, and I have nothing else to give." + +"Were they not on the altar?" + +"Yes, I slipped out two from the cluster there." + +"Then they belong to God. By what right do you touch sacred gifts +brought to Him?" + +"They were mine. I bought them last night and laid them yonder when I +came to-day--and God can spare just two, when I have nothing else to pay +you with. Did you--oh! did you think I--stole--them?" A sob shook him, +and tears followed. + +Father Temple stooped and drew the little white-robed form to him, +pressing the head against his breast. + +"Forgive me, I did not quite understand; and I am sure the dear Father +knows what is in your grateful heart. God bless you and keep you. I +shall put the hyacinths between the leaves of my Bible." + +Eglah stretched an arm across Mrs. St. Clair's shoulder and dropped the +curtain. + +"Come away. Some other time I may talk to him, not now." + +The following day Eglah returned to Washington, and two hours before the +departure of the train she drove to Twenty-third Street, where she and +Mrs. Mitchell usually made their purchases of damask, ribbon, and lace. +While the latter bent over boxes of wools and crochet cottons, Eglah +seated herself at the handkerchief counter. When she had selected the +desired number, the saleswoman filled out her index sheet and rapped +sharply with her pencil. + +"Cash! Here, cash!" + +Several minutes elapsed. + +"These cash boys are so tiresome. Cash, cash! I had to report one last +week. Cash--here he comes at last. Now, do hurry up; you are a regular +snail." + +In the boy who hastened away Eglah recognized the soloist of St. +Hyacinth's, and noticed a bandage around his throat. When he came back +with the parcel and counted the change into the palm of the saleswoman, +Eglah touched his arm. + +"I heard you sing yesterday, and want to tell you how much I liked your +voice." + +"Thank you, ma'am, I----" + +A spell of coughing interrupted, and she noticed how wan and weary he +looked, and how heavy were the greyish shadows under his lovely eyes. + +"I am afraid you are not well to-day. Are you an orphan?" + +"Oh, no. Mother is living, and she says a mother is worth forty +fathers." + +"Will you tell me her name, and where she lives?" + +"Mrs. Nona Dane, and she has the glove counter at ----, Fourteenth +Street." + +At this instant the floor-walker strode forward, and a frightened +expression crossed the boy's white face as he turned quickly, but Eglah +laid a detaining hand on his head as, rising, she confronted the +floor-walker. + +"If he loitered it is not his fault; I kept him. If he missed a call I +am to blame. Good-bye, Leighton; shake hands. When I come back to New +York I hope to hear you sing again at St. Hyacinth's; and if I miss you +here, I shall buy elsewhere." + +His hot fingers quivered in her clasp, and, pressing a folded bill into +his hand, she joined her foster-mother and left the store. + +"What a frail, beautiful boy, and what genuine golden hair! Looks as if +it had been dipped in a pot of gilt. Dearie, don't you think it a shame +these young children are chained up in stores when they ought to be +romping and playing ball?" + +As their carriage turned from Twenty-third Street toward Broadway, that +always crowded angle was even more than usually thronged, and during the +brief pause Mr. Herriott came out of Maillard's with a box of bon-bons. + +"I am just going to the ferry to wait for you. Are you not too early, or +has my watch gone astray?" + +"Come with us, Mr. Noel, we have ample room. Yes, it is early; but of +course at the last minute I must needs shop on the way." + + +As he seated himself in the carriage he handed a package to Eglah. + +"The latest Paris 'Revue,' and your favorite _marron glace_ and +chocolate." + +"Thank you heartily, for both. I wonder if I ever shall cease to be a +spoiled child--in your eyes?" + +"Whatever you may be in my eyes, you certainly will always remain." + +"How discouraging, that you should feel quite hopeless of any +improvement in me. Driver, I wish to stop in West Fourteenth Street, +at ----. Gloves, Mr. Noel, always gloves." + +"Will you bet a pair of best driving gauntlets that I cannot tell you +exactly why you go there to-day?" + +"Certainly; silk-lined, fur-tipped gauntlets. I told you my errand was +gloves; pray what other reason?" + +"You are going to get a glimpse of 'Juno.'" + +"Juno? Nearly everything comes to New York sooner or later, but really I +never imagined she could step out from the books of mythology. I hunt no +goddess. When you pay your wager, be sure to select delicate fawn color, +that will match my spring jacket." + +"The debt is yours. Confess, Eglah--honor bright--you are curious about +the woman who sells gloves in Fourteenth Street." + +"I will present to you a witch's skirt, cap, and broomstick. But why +'Juno'?" + +"The matter was thrashed out at the club last week, where Vandiver told +us some artist had compared her to a print of the Ludovisi Juno hanging +in Goupil's window. Hence her elevation to Olympus." + +"Then you know all about her?" + +"On the contrary, I never saw her; but she seems to be the magnet +drawing people to----just now." + +The carriage stopped, and Eglah walked into the department store. + +"Come in, Mr. Noel, and pick out your gauntlets." + +"Not to-day. Juno indulged in tricks that made even Jupiter keep one eye +on her wiles, and I shall merely admire at a safe distance." + +In front of the glove counter half a dozen women clustered, and on the +outside of the group three men lounged--one evidently a foreigner, with +bushy beard, coarse, hairy hands, and furtive eyes, small even behind +very large spectacles. Among several busy saleswomen it was easy to +discover the centre of attraction--a finely developed form, tall and +graceful in every movement, and a face of surpassing beauty, lighted by +dark violet eyes, flushed with the glow of perfect health, and crowned +by a braided mass of glittering yellow hair heaped high on a shapely +head, that held it as an empress wears her tiara. In its vivid coloring +the face suggested a tropical flower, but, looking closer, one thought +of a frozen tulip under a sheet of ice, so hard was the cold gleam of +the defiant eyes and the proud compression of red lips that had +forgotten how to smile, that seemed never to have known curves of +tenderness. While Eglah waited, the foreigner leaned across the counter. + +"Some black silk gloves. Number eight and a half." + +"In the next room. Men's department." + +"You got the papers for the league?" + +"Yes, that is all arranged. Meeting will be at ten o'clock to-night. You +can't talk here." + +He touched the rim of his hat and walked away, and she looked toward +Eglah. + +"Grey kid gloves, stitched with white silk." + +"What size?" + +"Five and a quarter." + +The voice had a sharp metallic ring, with an impatient inflection, and +as she turned, lifting her arms to a box on an upper shelf, all the +lovely outlines of her figure were shown most advantageously, and Eglah +glanced over her shoulder at Mr. Herriott. He was watching the woman +behind the counter with an intensely curious expression, as though +disagreeably perplexed. She found the desired number. + +"Shall I stretch them?" + +"No, it is not necessary." + +"Do you wish them fitted on your hands?" + +"I will not give you that trouble. What is the price?" + +"It is part of my business to fit them. Two dollars and a quarter. Here, +cash!" + +Eglah's desire to mention the chorister of St. Hyacinth's was quickly +extinguished by the pronouncedly repellent bearing that plainly +proclaimed all intercourse must be restricted to the business of the +counter, and as she returned to the carriage, Mr. Herriott said: + +"Well, you college girls are nothing if not severely classical, so I +presume you will offer a ewe lamb, all garlanded with willow and +dittany, and prinked out in pomegranate blossoms, on the Junonian +altar." + +"I am glad Jove tied her hands and hung her up above the earth and below +the heavens, with anvils on her ankles, where she could do no more +mischief. That goddess of yours has the most cruelly cold, hard face I +ever looked at, and yet--in a way--so beautiful. Evidently she has not +even the shadow of a soul--must have given it all to that angelic boy? +What is her history? Of course she has one." + +"It has been said happy women have none, and in this case adversity must +have curdled very early the stream of her youthful joys. Vandiver +investigated her--from a distance he says, as she froze him when he +attempted acquaintanceship. He has a protege in the constabulary who +learned through police channels all that she will allow to be known of +her life. Some years ago she drifted here from the far West--part of the +human flotsam annually stranded in this city, and she found work in a +cloak manufactory. Later she incited a strike among the cloak cutters, +which resulted disastrously for the workers, and when all the strikers +submitted, she alone was refused re-employment, and doors were closed +against her. She secured a position in a large bric-a-brac +establishment, but when a valuable antique vase disappeared, she was +suspected and arrested. While in prison a day and night awaiting trial, +the vase was found in a pawnbroker's shop, and the colored porter of the +bric-a-brac dealer acknowledged the theft. The firm very honorably made +ample public retraction of the unjust charge, and endeavored to +compensate and appease the injured woman, but she shook the dust of the +house from her feet and betook herself to Brooklyn. Recently she +accepted her present place." + +"Do you mean to imply that she is--is--Bohemian?" + +"That depends upon your interpretation of a very flexible term. I am +told she conducts herself with strict propriety, reports Mr. Dane dead, +and receives attentions from no one; but she is avowedly a socialist of +the extreme type: belongs to labor organizations, attends their +meetings, makes impassioned addresses, and, in fine, is a female Ishmael +whose hands are much too pretty for such savage work. Did you notice an +odd-looking, shambling man with preposterous spectacles who spoke to +her? He is an agent of a band of Russian Nihilists seeking aid from +sympathizers here. She is reported as possessing some education, +advocates 'single-tax' and all the communistic vagaries that appeal +to the great mass of toiling poor, the discontented and morose, as +colored balloons captivate the fancy of children at a circus door. +She frequents a hall down on the East Side, where at night the clans +of the disgruntled assemble, and long-haired men and short-haired +women--who absolutely believe that the only real 'devil is private +property'--denounce wealth and preach their gospel of covetousness. Here +we are at the ferry, and just in time to meet the boat." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Distinctly a _poseur_, Senator Kent had studied his physical good points +with sufficient attention to establish the habit of exhibiting them +advantageously, and to-night, as he leaned back in his easy chair, +persons who knew him well understood that the fine leonine head was +always turned adroitly to the right because a defect in one drooping +eyelid found semiconcealment in the shadow of nose and brow. Political +and financial prosperity had prevented or erased the lines that usually +mark countenances of men of his age, and his smooth, handsome smiling +face seemed to defy and rebut the testimony offered by grey hair and +white mustache. + +Suave and conciliatory, tactful yet tenacious of purpose, a carefully +cultivated air of frankness ambushed subtle craftiness that rarely +failed to accomplish schemes which the unwary never suspected. +Unhampered by scruples, he had scaled the heights of success, climbing +the ladder of cautious expediency, and claiming allegiance only to +principles and policies that beckoned from the rung just above his head. +Proverbial good nature, voiced by a musical, hearty laugh, won him +social popularity, and even in congressional debate he never laid aside +the polished armor of imperturbable courtesy. Despite the keen scrutiny +of Eliza Mitchell during many years of intimate association, his +character had remained a baffling enigma, and her suspicious distrust +was allayed, in some degree, by his genial equanimity and amiable +abdication of control in domestic details. That he wore a mask she had +always believed, yet it fitted so perfectly she could not penetrate the +steel mesh, and in no unguarded moment had its springs loosened. + +The luxuriously furnished library was bright and warm with fire glow and +gas light, and sweet with the breath of white azaleas heaped in a +pale-pink bowl on the low mantel shelf. Only the click of the typewriter +disturbed the stillness until Eglah rose from the instrument, covered +it, and numbered the written pages, arranging them in a sheaf. + +"All ready now, father, and Mr. Metcalf can incorporate these tables in +the report you will need to-morrow. Do you wish to verify the figures?" + +"Not necessary, my dear. You are usually accurate." + +"Thanks for the sugar plum. You know exactly how sweet is your praise." + +Coming forward, she sat down on the carpeted foot-board attached to his +reclining chair, leaned her head against his knee, and stretched her +fingers toward the fire. He laid one large dimpled hand on her shoulder, +and she turned her cheek to touch it. After the lapse of some minutes +the clock struck, and Eglah sprang up. + +"Barely time to dress for the Secretary's dinner! Has the carriage been +ordered?" + +"Yes. I can doze a while longer, as I have to change only my coat, vest, +and tie." + +"Eglah, do you need my help in dressing, or will Octavia suit you best?" +asked Mrs. Mitchell, who sat at a small table near the hearth, matching +silk squares for an afghan. + +"You can revise me finally, and punctuate me with additional pins when I +come down. Don't let father oversleep himself." + +Senator Kent straightened the folds of his padded dressing-gown, and +through half-closed eyes watched the small hands hovering over silken +scraps, and wondered, as he had often done before, what manner of man +could have been the "overseer" husband for whom this grave, pretty, +reticent, demure widow still mourned in black garments, relieved only by +narrow white ruches at her throat and wrists. + +The clock ticked softly, and the senator seemed asleep, when the ringing +of the door bell roused him. Some moments passed before the library door +opened and a servant entered. + +"A note, sir. It was laid on top of the bell knob, and the messenger did +not wait, for I looked up and down the street." + +"Evidently of no importance, else the delivery would not have been so +careless." + +He lazily took an envelope from the silver salver and held it up. + + "Senator Allison Kent, + Washington, D. C. + + "_Strictly Personal._" + +Both the address and contents were type-written. + +Intent on her patchwork, Eliza was bending over a mass of scarlet satin +ribbon, when a strange sound startled her: not a cry, nor yet a +groan--an anomalous smothered utterance of pain, as from a strong animal +sorely stricken. + +He had struggled to his feet, and the large, heavy body swayed twice, +then righted itself, and he stood staring blankly at the red lily dado +on the opposite wall, as though their crimson petals spelled some such +message as foreshadowed doom to Babylon. One hand crushed the letter +into an inside pocket of the dressing-gown, the other clutched his +mustache, twisting it into knots. + +The swift, inexplicable change of countenance could be compared only +with the startled alertness of a drowsing fox when his dim, snug covert +echoes the first far-off blast of the coming hunter's horn. In every +life some alluring vision of Arden beckons and beguiles, and to this +successful man, basking in the golden glamor of a satisfying attainment +of his aim, came suddenly an ominous baying of the bloodhounds of +retributive destiny. + +"You have bad news, Judge Kent?" + +He made no answer, and she seized his arm. + +"What is the dreadful news that distresses you?" + +As he turned his eyes upon her, all their light and color seemed faded +to a dull glassiness, and his voice shook like a hysterical woman's. + +"News--did you say? No--I have received no news. None whatever." + +"Then what ails you? I shall call Eglah." + +She turned, but he clutched her skirt. + +"For God's sake, don't ever tell her! Why grieve the child? The truth +is--" He caught his breath, and a sickly smile showed how his mouth +trembled, as he swept his hand across his brow. + +"You are sick?" + +"Oh, yes--sick; that is it exactly. Sick--sick indeed. Some oysters I +ate, and cheese; later I very foolishly drank ale." + +"Then, sir, you must go to bed, and Eglah will send an explanation of +your unavoidable absence from the dinner." + +Upstairs a door was opened, and a sweet, girlish voice trilled two bars +of a Venetian barcarolle. + +Judge Kent threw out his arms appealingly. + +"I must go to-night. For God's sake, don't let her know anything! Say +nothing. I shall tell her I was a little faint from indigestion. Vile +compound--oysters, ale, Roquefort! Promise me to hold your tongue; not +for my sake, but hers. I am obliged to attend this dinner, and it would +spoil her evening if she knew how deadly sick--I--really was a moment +ago. Promise me." + +"Very well. I suppose you know best what concerns you most. I promise." + +"You are the only woman I ever knew upon whom I could rely to hold her +tongue. Now, quick as you can, bring the decanter of brandy to my room. +Amuse the child with her frills and finery while I dress. I must have a +little time." + +When she carried the brandy to his door, the hand that grasped it was +icy, and the other tugged ineffectually at his white tie. + +Humming her boat-song, Eglah trailed silken draperies down the winding +stairs and into the library, where she courtesied low to Eliza and swept +her train--like a peacock's plumes--up to the grate, putting one +slippered foot on the brass fender. + +She was gowned in green crepe of an uncommon tint, that held +multitudinous silvery lights in its crinkled texture, and when she moved +they glistened and played hide and seek in the clinging folds. Around +her fair, full throat a rope of emeralds coiled twice. + +"Am I all right--ready for publication and criticism? The damp weather +makes my hair so curly I can scarcely keep it in line. Ma-Lila, the +clasp of my necklace feels a little rickety, so I must ask you to move +it around in front, and cover it securely with this." + +She held out a diamond butterfly, and Eliza fastened it in the gold-wire +links of the emerald chain. As she settled the jewels in place, she +stooped and kissed one lovely white shoulder. + +"Solemn little mother! I know exactly what you are thinking. That I am +as frivolous a creature as grandmother's heirloom butterfly? You should +not lose sight of the psychic symbolism of this much slandered and +despised insect. Little white butterflies whose wings are all powdered +with shining star-dust are the souls of babies----" + +"Pagan nonsense that I won't listen to. Moreover, you ought to be +ashamed to jest about your immortal soul as if it were yours +exclusively--to play with as you would a ball." + +"You darling Puritan! If you do not unlace yours it surely will smother. +Really, I thought it was orthodox to believe that in the very last +analysis and final adjustment of personal property one's own soul was +one's solitary chattel that defied and survived the confiscation of +death. Motherkin, don't scold! Kiss me good night, and help me with my +cloak, so that I shall not muss all this lace jabot. Is not father +ready?" + +Eliza laid her long, white velvet cloak around her and tied the ribbons +under her chin. + +"What keeps father so long? I heard the front door bell ring; is there a +visitor?" + +"No visitor. Only some document left for the Judge. He is dressing." + +Eglah went to the door of an adjoining room and rapped. + +"Father, we shall be late. Unpardonable, you know, at a formal dinner." + +"Almost ready. Old men need more time for repairs than young beauties." + +When he came in, walking briskly, with his overcoat on his arm, Eliza +saw that he had rallied surprisingly. Brandy reinforced his nerves, and +the cautious, defensive tactics of a lifetime availed now to readjust +and restore his equipoise of manner. A flush showed on the full cheeks, +and his eyes shone like those of a cat in some dim corner. + +"Inexcusably late, father! What can we say?" + +"Come, my dear; leave that to me. I shall simply apologize by telling +the truth--a spell of indigestion delayed me, but I felt sure one of the +Secretary's famous cocktails would rejuvenate me." + +Women, secure in their heritage of personal charms, resent as the most +unpardonable of affronts to their mental acumen explanations that do not +explain, and Mrs. Mitchell was thoroughly exasperated by the flimsiness +of the deception which she was expected to accept with unquestioning +credulity. Silence under strenuous conditions she could have condoned, +because it left her the resource of conjecture; an honest confession of +vitally grave business complications she would have regarded as +confidential, and loyally held inviolate, but "oysters, ale, and +Roquefort" was a stinging challenge to her feminine intuitions. Judge +Kent's arrested assertion: "The truth is--" recalled Mrs. Maurice's +estimate of his veracity when she had applied to him the sarcasm: "He +holds truth too precious to be wasted on everybody." That he cowered +under some unexpected blow she was quite sure, but her solicitude +included him only as his interests involved Eglah's welfare, and any +intimation of coming disaster fluttered this foster-mother, as the +faint, grey shadow of a hawk high in the heavens startles a hen into +signalling her brood. Ignorant of the quarter whence trouble might +approach, how could she shield Eglah, whose safety had been committed to +her guardianship? Had she the right to discover the contents of a note +that "contained no news"? Did his falsehood entitle her to pry into his +correspondence? All the smothered distrust of years was acutely +intensified, and she rose and walked to his room. A bright light shone +through the transom, but when she turned the bolt she found the door +locked. During her residence in the house this precaution had never +before been taken, hence she knew the note had not been destroyed. +Returning to the library, she rang the bell, and the butler responded +promptly. + +"Have you locked up the silver? Bring me the key. Close the house for +the night. Judge Kent will be out late. Tell Octavia to have good fires +upstairs, and then she need not wait for Miss Eglah, as I shall sit up +till she comes; and, Watson, you can go home. Should the front door bell +ring, I shall be here." + +More than once she had suspected that the senator was interested in +financial speculations, and, though Eglah's fortune had been carefully +tied up beyond his reach, she began to fear he might by some devious +process jeopard it. "Hypothecating securities" was a bristling phrase +she had never quite comprehended, but it symbolized an ogre she must +outwit. + +In one corner of the library stood a tall, brass-mounted chiffonier +filled with papers, and above it hung an engraving. Behind, and entirely +concealed, was a door opening into a small bathroom that formed an +alcove in the senator's apartment. After an hour had passed, Mrs. +Mitchell placed her shoulder against the chiffonier, that rolled easily +on its castors, and she slipped behind it. There was no key in the lock, +but a slender steel bolt slid horizontally under her hand, and the door +opened a few inches only, barred by a table, which she succeeded in +pushing aside. Lifting the portiere inside, she entered the +sleeping-room, and found the _robe de chambre_ hanging over the back of +a chair. The pockets were empty, the drawers of the bureau locked, but +under the pillow on the bed she thrust one hand and drew out the object +of her search. It contained neither date nor signature, and was +type-written in purple ink on thin paper bearing no water-mark. + + "A friend to you and to yours believes it a genuine kindness to + inform you that the identity of 'Ely Twiggs' has been + discovered, and hopes an early knowledge of this fact may be + useful to you." + +She replaced the note beneath the pillow, returned to the library, and +rolled back the chiffonier. After all, she had ended her quest in a +cul-de-sac. Turning the gas jets low, she sat watching the blue flicker +that danced like witch-lights in the grate, and once she smiled at her +own discomfiture, realizing that her attempt was futile as would be the +trial of a Yale key to open a "combination" vault lock, the arrangement +of which was unknown. Keenly alert, she heard the rattle of the +night-latch, the closing of the front door, and, after a moment, Judge +Kent came slowly into the room. At first he did not notice her presence, +and in this brief unguarded interval she saw the countenance without its +habitual mask--a face gloomy, perturbed, unnaturally flushed, with +restless eyes gleaming like those of a jaded, hunted forest animal. + +"Ah--Mrs. Mitchell! Sitting up for Eglah? Didn't she tell you she was +going from the dinner to the cotillon? Herriott will see her home. It is +a shame to have kept you up, but girls are so thoughtless." + +"Eglah is never that, and I knew she would be late at the cotillon. I +waited downstairs solely to see you." + +"Very kind, I am sure; but I feel much better, thank you. Indeed, I may +say I have fully recovered from that sudden, intolerable spell of +nausea. You are very good to worry over that little attack, but pray +think no more about it. I shall abjure Welsh rarebit and oysters in +future. At my time of life, pneumogastric nerves get their innings." + +Brightening the light in the gas globe over the mantel, she approached +and confronted him. + +"Judge Kent, I am not 'worrying' over the condition of your digestive +organs, but I do feel deeply interested in the nature of the trouble +that has come upon you so unexpectedly, and I cannot sleep until I tell +you what I have done to-night. Whatever injures you wounds Eglah, and +solely on her account I felt justified in taking a step that no weaker +motive could have sanctioned. I sat up to tell you that when I found you +would not trust me with the truth, I hunted it by reading the note that +fell this evening like a bombshell. I have no hesitation in confessing +the fact. I am here for that purpose." + +She set her small, white teeth grimly and clasped her hands behind her. + +He looked down at her, as a mastiff at a barking pug, and, throwing back +his head, laughed heartily, clapping his hands softly. + +"Bravo, Methodist burglar! You seem an expert, and find locked doors no +barrier. What would Eglah think of your breaking into my room, and into +my correspondence?" + +"Shall we ask her? Only my promise not to mention this matter to her +prevents me from telling her as quickly and frankly as I have told you. +May I speak to her?" + +"Madam, you possess an arsenal of mental reservations, and I doubt +whether you can keep a promise." + +"I can be silent against my will, and even in defiance of my judgment. +Try me." + +"Then consider yourself on probation. Where is my hoax of a note?" + +"Under your pillow, where you left it." + +His eyes twinkled, and his voice shook as with suppressed laughter. + +"A woman's curiosity cost us Eden. My dear little lady, what did you +discover in my anonymous letter?" + +"That 'Ely Twiggs' is a terrible menace to your peace of mind." + +"Would you like a translation of that ugly occult phrase? It is merely a +telegraphic cipher. You have conjured up a malignant chimera; rest +assured it is only a dingy red-paper balloon, with a flickering taper +inside. Good night. Pray allow no compunctious qualms to disturb the +peace of your Methodist conscience." + +"No church is responsible for errors of its members, and I wish I could +believe it possible that your Episcopal conscience will allow you a +night of refreshing sleep. For my dear child's sake, I hoped you would +confide in me, and I regret that you withhold the truth. Good night, +sir." + +"Little foster-mother, remember your promise." + +He held out his hand, but she declined the overture and walked away. + +"My Methodist promise will bear any weight laid on it." + + * * * * * + +Without premonition, a sudden storm had swept over the city that night, +and at two o'clock, when Eglah and Mr. Herriott went down the steps to +enter their carriage, the stone pavement held tiny pools and rills of +water. + +"Wait, Eglah, your slippers will be soaked." + +"I can run across on tiptoe." + +"You shall not! Permit me." + +He stooped, lifted her from the lower step, and placed her on the +cushioned seat. + +"How strong you are!" she said, laughing, as he entered the carriage and +sat down opposite, not beside her. + +"Physically--yes. If my force of will equalled my nerves and muscles, I +should be a much happier man." + +"Infirmity of will? You,--the most obstinate man I ever met! How little +you know yourself!" + +"You are so sure you read me aright, perhaps you understand why all the +strength of my manhood has not saved me from staking my earthly hopes on +a venture that may be fatal. Can you explain?" + +"Is it some scientific scheme? Some theory that may prove a delusion?" + +"It is simply the possibility that the woman I love will not give me her +heart. Eglah, I have been patient. I wished you to see and know other +men--to form your own ideal, to compare me with some more brilliant and +attractive--before I asked for your love. Since the day I first saw +you--a grieved child--at Nutwood, my heart has been entirely yours, and +all my future is gilded with the hope of a home in which you will reign +as my wife. I bring you the one unshared love of my life. May I have the +blessed assurance that you will accept it?" + +For some seconds Eglah neither moved nor spoke; then she slipped down on +her knees and laid her head on his hands, that were folded together. + +"Mr. Noel--dear Mr. Noel--I will never marry. Only one man in all the +world is necessary to my happiness, and he is my father. What you tell +me now is a surprise--a painful surprise to me--because I never thought +of you as of some who flattered and even some who have asked my hand. +You were always my best friend, my wise, sympathetic companion, and I +never could think of you as desiring or needing any woman's affection. +You have seemed unlike other men I meet in society, and I believed you +cared most for books and scientific experiments, though I thought you +always felt a very kind, friendly, brotherly interest in me. Oh, I am so +sorry you have uttered such words to-night! You must know I am not like +other women in our circle, and I have no intention of marrying. If I +should select any man to love it might be you, because I respect and +trust you so profoundly; but that could never happen to me. What have I +inadvertently done to make you misjudge my feelings? You must forgive +me. I never suspected." + +As she pressed her face against his hands he felt her lips trembling, +and his struggle for self-control was short and fierce. After a moment, +he raised and replaced her on the seat and sat beside her. + +"I can reproach only myself for a delusion that costs me more than you +will ever know. In my loneliness the dream was so beautiful. I could not +resist its fascination. Dear little girl, you are the only one I ever +wished or asked to be my wife, and because you are so precious to me I +will not surrender my hope, unless you force me. Remember the long years +I have waited for you. In time, perhaps, you might learn to care for me. +May I entreat you to try?" + +"Mr. Noel, I trust you, I admire you--in a way I feel attached to +you--but I must tell you the truth. I shall marry no one, not even you." + +"Then I shall never repeat my folly. Be sure I will vex you no more; but +there is something you can do to lessen my pain. If trouble or disaster +or sorrow overtake you, will you promise to confide in me, to allow me +to share it, as if I were indeed that elder brother you have tried to +believe me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Noel. After father I will always turn next to you, and you +must not condemn me because, unintentionally, I have been so unfortunate +as to hurt you." + +"For several reasons I wish your father to know at once all that has +been said to-night. He is aware of my intentions, and kind enough to +approve them. One final request I trust you will not refuse me. The +visit to my house on the Lake has been definitely arranged, and I +particularly desire that no change of plan should be made. Henceforth no +word of mine will ever recall this interview, and during your stay under +my roof I assure you no allusion to my dead hopes shall annoy you. Trust +me, and come." + + * * * * * + +The carriage stopped at Senator Kent's door. As Mr. Herriott led her up +the steps, she noticed he barely touched her arm, and when he rang the +bell she caught his hand between both of hers. + +"Dear Mr. Noel--you do forgive me?" + +A neighboring lamp shone full on his handsome face, pale and set, and a +sudden consciousness of the unusual charm of his noble personality +thrilled her. Withdrawing his hand, he held it behind him, and, as he +looked down at her, his lips twitched. + +"You have done me no wrong by simply following the true, womanly +dictates of your pure heart. Marriage without genuine love is a +degradation to which you could never stoop. I will love you always, +always; but I find it hard to forgive myself for making utter shipwreck +of a man's dearest aim in life. Good night." + +As Mrs. Mitchell opened the door, he turned away and went swiftly into +the street. + +"Eglah! What is the matter? You are crying." + +"How can I help it when I have hurt the noblest man in all the +world--except father? My one true friend, who never failed to be good to +me!" + +"You have refused to marry Mr. Herriott? My baby, you will never find +his equal. Your father can scarcely forgive this defeat of his pet +scheme, dating from the time you were ten years old." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +"Herriott, I owe you an apology for coming so late, but feel quite sure +you will pardon a delay that was unavoidable. I have kept your dinner +waiting half an hour." + +"No matter, provided you bring an appetite that can defy overdone fish. +I am glad it is only delay, and not total failure. Vernon, you look so +spent, may I venture to offer your reverence a tonic--club-labelled +'cocktail'? It is the best antidote I dare suggest for the slow method +of suicide you have adopted." + +"Thank you--no." + +"Then come in to dinner." + +"I wasted the whole afternoon trying to find a boy down on the East +Side, but when at last I reached the house I was told he had moved from +that neighborhood. He is a soloist at St. Hyacinth's, and I had promised +him a booklet." + +"Leighton Dane?" + +"Yes. What do you know of him?" + +"That he will sing no more at St. Hyacinth's. Henceforth his solos +belong to choirs beyond the stars. The boy is slowly dying of +consumption." + +"When did you see him?" + +"A few days ago. He is at No. 980 ---- Street, Brooklyn. Your cousin +Eglah asked me to keep an eye on him. Poor little lad! His battle with +pain and loneliness is pathetic, and I rather think the end is not far +off." + +"Loneliness? Who takes care of him?" + +"His mother is away all day at her work, but an old German and his wife +living on the same floor of the tenement look after him as best they +can." + +"Could you deliver the book to him?" + +"If you wish it; but why not make another effort to see him?" + +"My hands are so full. In two days I must run down to Washington, and +then back home, where I am needed. How luxurious your quarters are! Less +like a bachelor's den than one would expect." + +"Next week I give up these rooms, and when I chance to be in the city +shall live at the club." + +"Is not this decision rather sudden?" + +"No. For some time I have contemplated another expedition to Arizona and +Montana, in quest of prehistoric records needed for an anthropological +paper that Professor De Wette asked me to contribute to the next volume +of Reports." + +"What date have you fixed?" + +"About the middle of July, immediately after the visit to 'Greyledge,' +which Senator Kent and Eglah have promised as soon as Congress adjourns. +I am sorry you could not arrange to join the small 'house party,' and +rest yourself by fishing in the Lake, instead of the turbid pools of +humanity." + +"What about Calvary House? We expect you there." + +"That pleasure must be deferred; but I have thought a good deal about +your need of more ground there, and believe I have found just what you +want. Come into the library, it is cooler, and I have some papers for +you. You know the Ravenal lands--some twenty acres--lie across "Tangled +Brook," west of your lines. The property was sold recently by the +trustees and my agent bought it. Now you can easily bridge the stream, +using the foundation of the old paper-mill dam, and by extending your +fences cover the whole. I know the old farmhouse was burned years ago, +but those pasture lands are fine, and that hill sloping south will make +a good vineyard. Here are all the papers, and my deed to the +Brotherhood. Stop! No thanks, not a word, or I cancel the transfer. Some +day, when I visit you, I may not be welcome, because I promise you now, +if your stewardship does not suit me and things seem mismanaged, I will +most certainly turn you all out." + +Father Temple laid the bundle of papers on the table and grasped Mr. +Herriott's hand, pressing it warmly, but something in the bright, steady +grey eyes warned him to attempt no verbal expression of gratitude. + +His host lighted a cigar, and drew from a stand near his elbow a +portfolio tied with purple tape. + +"Does your reverence ever waste time now in sketches and water-color?" + +"Life is far too strenuous for such trifling." + +"How do you know that some day you will not be required to dig up that +buried talent and answer the charge of neglecting to bring in the +expected interest? Nature intended you for one of her artistic +interpreters, and if you had been loyal to her commission you might rank +to-day as R.A. Last summer I was searching an old trunk for a college +text-book, when I happened to find some of your drawings, that were +packed by mistake with my luggage in the bustle of leaving the +university." + +From the pile of loose sheets he held up one, and, after a moment's +survey, in which he turned it at various angles, he handed it to his +guest. + +Father Temple was leaning back in a cushioned arm-chair, and against the +violet velvet background his pale, placid, scholarly face was sharply +silhouetted. Listlessly raising the sketch sidewise, so that a gas jet +on his left shone upon it, he looked at it. The profound repose that +habitually rested on his countenance broke up swiftly, as a sleeping +pool shivers when a stone is hurled into its motionless depths. His lips +whitened, and he laid the paper as a screen over his eyes. Mr. Herriott +crossed the floor to the door of the dining-room, and, loitering +deliberately, ordered coffee. When he came back, followed by a servant +bearing coffee and liqueurs, the priest was standing at an open window, +and in the clenched fingers of the hands clasped behind him the sketch +quivered as though shaken by the wind. + +"Close the door, Hawkins, and when I want you I will ring. Come, Vernon; +I remember your fondness for coffee, and this is good and piping hot." + +The thin figure in the girded cassock shook his head and leaned out of +the window, staring up at the golden stars throbbing above the roar and +din of the crowded street. + +After some minutes, during which the host rattled cups and glasses, +Father Temple walked up and down the room, then came back to the table. +The despairing sorrow in his deep, soft eyes made Mr. Herriott rise +instantly. + +"Vernon, have I wounded you by my reminiscent babble of college days?" + +Without a word, the arms of the priest were lifted to the man towering +over him, and he laid his head on the shoulder of one who had never +failed him. + +"Temple, forgive me, dear old fellow, if I have broken rudely into some +sacred, sealed chamber." + +"You have done me a priceless kindness in restoring my picture, but with +it comes the hour of humiliation I always knew must sooner or later +overtake me. Noel, your good opinion is so precious to me I shrink from +losing it. I have dreaded your condemnation next to that of my God. You +always trusted and respected me, even in what you deemed foolish monkish +extremes, and yet--and yet----" + +"Sit down, and pull yourself together. You have fasted and prayed your +starved nerves into a fit of womanish hysteria. I am no father confessor +for you, and if you are not the true, loyal man I have believed you all +these years, then, while you are under my roof, I prefer not to find out +that you are a hypocrite." + +He pushed his friend back into the easy chair, and handed him a glass of +chartreuse, but it was put aside. + +"Noel, you must hear me. After the first bitterness I shall feel +relieved that you know literally all I can tell, and then you will +understand many things in my life. To-day I am what I am, simply and +solely in the hope of expiating the sin of my youth. Noel, the sin of my +youth found me out early, and this life I lead is an attempted +atonement. Do you begin to understand?" + +Mr. Herriott held up the sketch, and, as he struck it sharply with his +fingers, his face darkened. + +"Whose portrait is this?" + +"The woman--the young girl--whose life I blighted." + +"Good God! Blighted? Is your villainy so black?" + +"I am Father Temple, vowed to celibacy, and somewhere in the wide, cruel +world a wife and child of mine may have gone down to perdition because I +was a coward--a vile coward, too base for a brave man to recognize. I +knew you would despise me, and I kept silent as long as I could. Do you +wonder?" + +Mr. Herriott stood over him like an avenging Viking. + +"You betrayed a woman? Wife, or victim of----" + +"Both. I married and I deserted her." + +"The marriage was legal--no swindling sham?" + +"Legal in form, though I was a minor and she a mere child." + +"And you ensnared her deliberately, intending to----" + +The priest sprang to his feet and his eyes flashed. + +"I loved her, and married her secretly, and intended no wrong; but +before I could publicly claim her--before I was of age and dared to face +my father with the fact of my marriage--I lost her. She disappeared as +completely as if the ocean rolled over her." + +"Is this the unvarnished truth? There is nothing worse, nothing more +heinous than what you have told me?" Mr. Herriott breathed quickly, as +his keen, cold eyes searched severely the wan face before him. + +"I have told you the whole, bitter truth." + +"Then I have not entirely lost my friend. Now sit down; begin at the +beginning of this black business, and let me try to share your load of +trouble. Don't hurry--be explicit. Keep back nothing. If you intended no +wrong, there must and shall be found some way to right it." + +"Too late! If you take a white flower and inhale its perfume, and then +carelessly drop it where hurrying crowds are sure to trample it into the +dust, what hope that, search as you may, you will ever find it, or, +finding it, be able to restore the torn, soiled, ruined petals? Wherever +she is, no matter what she has become, what sin and shame stain and +defile her, she is my wife. I swore before God I would take her for my +wife, 'for better, for worse,' and though it is my fault--and mine +only--that I did not publish the marriage, I have kept my vows, and am +dedicated to life-long celibacy. My boyish cowardice--what awful +shipwreck it has made of two lives! You want the details? It is a +shameful story, but not long. In the early summer of my nineteenth year +I spent vacation in the far Northwest, at an advanced army station, +Post ----, where father was in command of his regiment. Hunting was fine +but dangerous, as Indians on the frontier were ugly just then, and +several tribes were painting for the war path. One hot afternoon, +tramping back to camp with my rifle on my shoulder, I went down a steep, +wooded hill to drink at a spring, and as I parted the thick growth I saw +a cow chewing her cud, while a bare-footed girl stooped and milked into +a cedar pail. She sprang up, much alarmed, and stood against a glowing +background of scarlet rhododendrons. Her calico bonnet had fallen off, +her sleeves rolled up showed her white, dimpled arms, and all over her +head and shoulders the gold-colored hair was twisted into little curls +and waves and tendrils that glittered like gilt wire. As she stared at +me with large purplish-blue eyes, her bright red lips trembled, and--" +He paused, and involuntarily wrung his thin white hands. + +"I had seen handsome women, and many lovely girls, but never so +exquisite a creature as this, and from that moment I lost reason, +prudence, everything but conscience, and my heritage of honorable +instincts. Nona Moorland was the daughter of a teamster attached to +father's command; a brutal, rough man, whose second wife--a selfish, +jealous virago--made the step-daughter's life a cruel burden. They +occupied a log cabin just outside the Post parade grounds, and the girl +was never allowed in sight of drill lines except when under convoy of +the stepmother she assisted in carrying to headquarters the freshly +laundered clothes of the officers. Having been forbidden, under threat +of corporeal punishment, to speak to or be seen with any soldier, save +in her father's cabin, she was terrified at the danger of a discovery of +our acquaintance; hence our interviews were secret, and adroitly +arranged to elude suspicion. Her extraordinary personal beauty and +gentleness of deportment more than compensated for illiteracy and humble +origin, and after a few days I planned a clandestine marriage, to which +she readily assented. The Post chaplain had made a pet of me, because I +aided him in some botanical and geological tramps close to the frontier, +and finally he consented to help us, provided his agency was never +betrayed. We both swore we would not divulge his name or knowledge of +our scheme, and so one starry night he and Hill, a private soldier who +went as witness, stole out, and met Nona and me in a dense grove of +trees near Moorland's cabin. There we were married according to the +ritual of the Episcopal Church. I was not quite nineteen, she a slender +girl just past her fifteenth birthday. Under the quiet stars that shone +as our altar lights, we took solemn, life-long vows as husband and wife, +and there, when a written certificate had been given to Nona, we all +joined hands and pledged ourselves in the sight of God to keep the +secret until I was of age, or thought it prudent to publish the +marriage. To her I meant no more wrong than to myself, and kept to the +form of law, knowing we were minors, and that no license legalized the +ceremony which I believed and argued the Church sanctified. You knew my +father sufficiently well to remember how terribly stern he was, how +morose he often seemed, and I dared not defy him. For three weeks life +was a brief vision of heaven to Nona and me. She was so lovely, so +tender, so humbly conscious of her social inferiority and lack of +education, so fired with an ambitious zeal for culture and improvement +to fit herself for the circle where Colonel Temple's son was born to +move. Then the bolt fell. A courier from the nearest telegraph station +brought news that father had been promoted, was ordered to Washington, +and would soon go abroad on some military commission. I begged to spend +the remaining days of my vacation at Post ----, but was sharply refused, +and all things were ordered in readiness for our departure next day at +sunrise." + +Some overwhelming memory arrested the narrative, and Father Temple held +the portrait sketch toward the light. Then he crossed his arms on the +table and bowed his face upon them. The room was very still, and there +seemed suddenly a startling insistence in the harsh sound of an organ +that began to grind out "O promise me," on the pavement below. Mr. +Herriott threw down a coin, closed the window, and resumed his seat. + +"Noel, you must think me weak and unmanly. You are so strong yourself, +you can scarcely----" + +"Strong? I think if I had to carry your burden I should go out and hang +myself." + +"That last interview is a perpetual nightmare no noon sunshine ever +dispels. Nona was frantic at the unexpectedly sudden separation, and she +clung to me like a drowning child; but by degrees she accepted the +inevitable, and her trust in me was supreme. She would be patient, and +study books the chaplain would provide, and rely on him to forward her +letters, and receive and find means to deliver mine. A full moon showed +me her tearful face when we stood up to say good-bye. Oh, beautiful, +tender, devoted, and pure as any lily God ever set to bloom in a wicked +world! As I took her in my arms, she kissed me repeatedly, and I felt +her lips tremble on mine as she sobbed: + +"'No matter what happens, you must trust me as perfectly as I trust you. +If we keep true to each other, all the world can't part us long.' + +"That farewell vision abides with me--sleeping, it walks as a living +presence through my dreams; waking, it thrusts itself between me and my +God; and when I kneel before the marble image of the Mother of my Lord, +her holy face is hidden by that of my fair, sweet young wife. It has +become an obsession from which I cannot escape. After I went east, two +letters reached me; then, in the late autumn when father had sailed, I +was stricken with typhoid fever, that kept me prisoner for three months, +and the inflammatory rheumatism that followed it so completely wrecked +me, I was carried to the country home of an aunt in Massachusetts, in +whose care father left me when he went to Europe. In my convalescence I +wrote repeatedly under cover to the chaplain, signing only my middle +name, Pembroke, but heard nothing until the next June. While still on +crutches, I went for a day's visit to college to collect and pack my +belongings, and there I found one dusty, mislaid letter from Nona, full +of sad forebodings. The chaplain had wandered too far away to a mountain +range, accompanied only by an orderly, who reported on his return that +his companion had been scalped by Indians while he was examining some +rock ledges, and that he had barely escaped by desperate riding. A +cavalry troop, sent out to recover the body and avenge the death, was +ambushed in a wooded defile and four troopers were killed, among the +number Hill. The letter had been written in January--five months before. +Both witnesses of our marriage in the grave! Anxiety and distress +brought on renewal of rheumatic fever, and I was crippled in hands and +feet for six terrible weeks. One day, as I was trying my ability to walk +about the room, a delayed letter was forwarded from college--the last I +ever received from Nona. Her father had died very suddenly from +congestion of the lungs, and his wife returned immediately to her family +in Arkansas; but because of my poor Nona's condition, which had +subjected her to severe abuse and horrible accusations, the stepmother +had cast her off, refused her recognition, and abandoned her. Because +she refused to divulge the name of her husband, her declaration that she +was a wife only increased the torrent of insults that swept her beyond +the pale of respectability. She wrote that one friend--the only person +who believed her assertion that she had been lawfully married--was just +then leaving the Post for his old home, his time of service having +expired, and he had kindly carried her in a covered wagon to a small +village some days' travel east of the Post, where he found shelter for +her until after the birth of her child. She begged I would send money to +pay her board and also to enable her to travel east and live near me, +because she was so terror-stricken among strangers. The same day my +father summoned me to Europe, having decided I should attend lectures +in Germany and at Oxford. By express, I forwarded the money to +Nona, in accordance with her directions--"Care of Delia Brown, +Thompsonville, ---- Territory"--and I wrote her, explaining all the +circumstances, assuring her I would join her as soon as I could travel, +and that henceforth we should never be separated. A few hours later I +was laid up with a severe relapse, and when, finally, I started west in +September, I was still so lame any movement was torture. At last the +stage coach put me down at the cluster of log houses called +Thompsonville, and by the aid of crutches I found my way to a low, dark +cabin of two rooms, where Delia Brown made a scanty living by washing +and ironing for men attached to a party of prospecting miners. She was +a gaunt, sinister looking woman from Maine, with small, deep-set, faded +yellow eyes that bored like a gimlet, and as she took a pipe from her +ugly bluish lips and greeted me my heart sank. Where was Nona? Gone--with +the man who brought her there, and who 'paid well for her keep.' When? +Several weeks ago. Did she receive my letter, and had the money reached +her? Yes, the money had been delivered to her--Delia Brown--and she had +given it to the woman Nona, in the presence of one Josh' Smith. My +letter had seemed to terrify the woman, and as soon as she knew I was +coming she went away suddenly, saying she was going to New Orleans, and +she and the man could take care of the baby. What was the man's name? He +called himself Lay' Walker, but she doubted 'if he was not somebody else, +and folks had their suspicions about the whole affair.' The baby boy was +four months old when the man and woman took it away, but it was 'such a +poor, puny, ailing child it had little chance to live.' What I suffered +then only God will ever know, but faith in Nona sustained me while I +went from cabin to cabin, receiving on all sides confirmation of Delia +Brown's statements from women who had met her, and also from the mail +and express agent--Josh' Smith--who assured me he had delivered the +letter and package of money addressed to Nona Moorland, care of Delia +Brown, to the latter, and exhibited her receipt. Lay' Walker was +described as a very 'handsome Spanish-looking young fellow,' and he and +the woman seemed fond of each other. He spent his money freely on her, +and talked about Florida and banana growing, and said they wanted to get +to New Orleans, where his friends had a schooner running in the West +India fruit trade. After an exhaustive search, I made my way to New +Orleans and engaged police assistance, but no clue could be found. Then I +arranged advertisements to run six months, and went on to Pensacola and +to Tampa. I advertised in two Florida newspapers, asking Nona Moorland +to write to me, care of my father's lawyer in Boston. No response, no +word, no hint ever reached me. When December arrived and I had no +tidings, I deposited money in a Boston bank to the credit of Nona +Moorland, and leaving instructions that all mail matter should be +forwarded promptly to me, I sailed for Europe, shattered in body, almost +hopeless, and the tortured prey of remorseful regret at the awful +consequence of my midsummer madness." + +A nervous shiver seized him, and he lifted the chartreuse to his +colorless lips. + +Mr. Herriott's sinewy brown hand closed over the cold white fingers half +hidden in the folds of the black cassock. + +"And the woman, Delia Brown? What became of her?" + +"How should I know?" + +"There lies the crux of this dreadful entanglement. She duped you." + +"Possibly. When I left Thompsonville she was preparing to remove to +Maine, where she had relatives. I doubted her as long as I could; but +nearly eleven years of cruel silence have slowly destroyed every vestige +of hope, or of faith in Nona's loyalty. Understand, I do not accuse +her--I dare not--I accept the blame. The fault was mine; she was an +innocent, ignorant child, and what she considered my heartless, wicked +desertion has thrown her into the jaws of destruction. If her soul is +lost, God will require me to answer for the ruin--and that is the +bitterness of my intolerable life. The immortal soul of my wife, of the +mother of my child--a homeless, nameless, fatherless waif! I hold +marriage indissoluble by human enactment, and while Nona lives I regard +her as my wife, no matter what she has become, no matter into what +shameful career she may have been driven by my cowardly course of +action. When she believed I had abandoned her, the poor girl doubtless +grew desperate. What I have told you is known only to my confessor, to +the Superior of our Order in England, where I took my vows, and to my +father, to whom I promptly confided everything when I joined him in +Germany just before his death. That he refused to forgive me you will +readily believe. This sketch you have restored to me was enlarged from +one I made at Post ----, and its loss greatly grieved me. Oh, Noel, +stinging memory is more merciless than sharp-set hair shirts that fret +the flesh. When I see happy mothers and children, their laughter smites +my heart like an iron hand; and while I minister to the suffering +outcast little ones in pauper homes, my bruised soul seems to hear the +accusing, piteous cry of my own forsaken, lost lamb--thrown out to +hungry wolves." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Sabbath quietude had laid a finger on thousands of metal lips that +screamed the song of labor on other days, and the great city seemed +almost asleep as Mr. Herriott entered his carriage at ten o'clock and +gave the order, "Brooklyn--Fulton Ferry." After a restless night, spent +in searching an old diary for dates and notes, he had gradually untied +some knotted memories--vague and conflicting--and straightened a slender +thread that might possibly guide to the identification of an elusive +personality. On the seat in front of him a basket of purple grapes added +their fruity fragrance to the perfume of a bunch of white carnations, +and during the long drive the expression of perplexity which had knitted +his brows relaxed into the alert placidity that characterized his strong +face. + +Summer heat, blown in by a humid south wind, touched the sky with an +intense blue, against which one long, thin curl of cloud shone like a +silver feather, and Brooklyn parks and lawns shook their green banners +of grass blades and young, silken foliage. In the middle of a block of +old brick tenement houses, Mr. Herriott entered an open door, where two +children fought over a wailing black kitten, and went up the inner +stairway to a narrow hall, on which opened several doors bearing cards +inscribed with the name of occupants of the rooms. At one, labelled +"Mrs. Dane," he rapped. It was opened partly, and held ajar. + +"Well, who knocked?" + +"One of Leighton's friends. Can I see him?" + +"Not to-day. He is not well enough for visitors." + +"May I come in and see you?" + +"Why should you? What do you want?" + +Before he could reply, a weak voice pleaded: + +"Please, mother! It is Mr. Herriott: let him in. He has been so good to +me--please--please!" + +"If I do, you are not to talk and bring back that spell of coughing." + +The door was swung fully open, and Mr. Herriott confronted "Juno." + +"You are Mr. Herriott, as I supposed. Walk in, and excuse the confusion +of the rooms. I was up all night, and have not put things in order." + +She wore a dark skirt and white muslin sacque, loose at the throat, +ungirded, and the sleeves were rolled up, exposing the symmetry of her +dimpled white arms. A rich, lovely red stained her lips and +cheeks--perhaps from embarrassment, probably from the heat of the +oil-stove, on which, evidently, breakfast had been recently prepared. +She pointed to an adjoining room, where Leighton lay on a cot close to +the open window. + +"Oh, sir, are they really for me?" as Mr. Herriott laid the basket and +flowers beside him. + +"Look, mother! Grapes, grapes! And the smell of the carnations! Was +there ever anything so sweet? I don't know how to thank you, sir. I wish +I could say something, but when my heart is full I just can't tell it." + +His little hot hand caught Mr. Herriott's, and the thin fingers twined +caressingly about it. + +"You are not to thank me, and you must not talk. Remember, that was the +condition upon which I was allowed to see you. Eat your grapes while +your mother tells me about you." + +"You will spoil him. I can't give him such luxuries as hothouse fruit +and flowers, though now and then he has his bunch of violets." + +"When was the doctor here?" + + +"Friday. He changed the medicine, but I can see no benefit as yet." + +"If you think it would not tire him too much, I should like to take him +out for a drive." + +"Thank you, but I could not consent to that." + +"Why not? The fresh air is balmy to-day, and would do him good. I have a +carriage at the door, and if you are unwilling to trust the boy with me, +I should be glad to take you also. May I?" + +Her blue eyes glittered and her lips straightened their curves. + +"Most certainly not." + +"Pardon me, madam; my interest in your child----" + +"Does not justify a man of your position in taking a 'department store +saleswoman' to drive on Sunday through public places." + +"Perhaps you are right. Then I shall efface myself promptly, and you and +Leighton can keep the carriage as long as you like." + +"Such favors I accept from no man." + +"Not even to help your sick boy?" + +She put her hand on the child's shining curls, and a world of tenderness +glorified her velvet eyes. + +"Not even for my very own baby could I incur such an obligation." + +"Smell them, mother--like spice! Don't they make you think of the +carnation garden in San Francisco, where Uncle Dane used to carry us?" + +"How long ago was that, Leighton?" asked Mr. Herriott, watching the +woman's face. + +"Oh, it was when I was a little chap and wore frocks." + +"Were you born in San Francisco?" + +"No. He was born in ---- Territory." + +"Mrs. Dane, can you tell me what became of the artist Belmont?" + +"Why do you ask me that question?" + +"In order to get an answer. He painted your face for his 'Aurora,' and +the picture was photographed." + +"Yes; I needed money, and Mr. Dane permitted him to come to our house +for the sittings. That was my first and last experience as a model." + +"I have met you before." + +She straightened herself, and answered defiantly: + +"Probably I have sold you gloves, or socks, or handkerchiefs--certainly +not the right to meddle with my personal affairs." + +"I went with a San Francisco friend to see a night school for women, +which his mother had established. You were there." + +"Yes, I was there two winters. Now, sir, have you a police badge hidden +inside your coat? Are you playing reporter--disguised as a benevolent +gentleman--hunting up the details of last night's meeting and riot at +Newark? You know, of course, that I made a speech there?" + +"Indeed? I had imagined you sat up all night with your sick boy." + +"There is a strike on down there, and I spoke against arbitrating labor +grievances, and against the ghastly sham of getting the rights of the +poor from a picked judge and a packed jury. Bombs and boycott make the +best mill for grinding out justice to starving, over-worked men and +women." + +"How long have you been an 'anarchist,' or perhaps you prefer the term +'socialist'?" + +"From the day I was sixteen years old, and learned how rich men trample +and betray and despise and insult the ignorant, helpless poor." + +"It must have been a terribly cruel grievance that transformed into a +fury one who was intended for a loving, gentle woman." + +She laughed, and her beautiful teeth took hold of the glowing under lip. + +"Grievance? We all have one--we are simply born to suffer, as to +breathe--but the unendurable the unpardonable comes from the grasping, +murderous, fiendish selfishness of rich men. You have been so kind to my +boy, I have tried hard to believe genuine benevolence--what you are +pleased to call 'Christian philanthropy'--inspired your visits to him +during my absence, but you are all alike--you gilded society +sultans--and you come here with some cowardly design carefully smothered +under flowers, fruit, and candy. So, Leighton, make the most of to-day, +for we will see no more of your Mr. Herriott." + +"Madam, I shall be as frank as you have shown yourself. There is one +woman in this world whose wishes rule me absolutely, and because she +requested me to see your child now and then, I have come several times, +until my sympathetic interest equals hers. With your career in New York +I am acquainted. For your radical views and utterances I have neither +respect nor toleration, yet, if you will permit me to explain, there are +reasons that lead me to believe I can do you a very great service." + +"I am not in need of service from any man. Your formula has not even the +ring of originality; I have heard such sickening reiterations of it from +false, bearded lips." + +"That you have been a cruelly wronged woman I feel assured, but I am +equally certain that your worst enemy was no man--was one of your own +sex. For your own sake, will you answer two questions?" + +"For my own sake, I distinctly refuse to be catechised by impertinent +strangers." + +"Oh, mother; please mother! He has been so good to me, how could he mean +harm to you? Don't worry her, Mr. Herriott. She can't abide men; they +fret her, and she hates them--unless they are starved and ragged. Please +let her alone, and look at my doves. They come for the crumbs on the +window sill. See! Here is a new one, pure white. Mother, scatter some +bread on the sheet and they will come in." + +She sprinkled some scraps of cake close to his pillow, and, after a +little coy skirmishing, the pigeons fluttered in to the feast; but just +then a spell of coughing shook the fragile form on the cot, and with a +flash and whirr the flock vanished. Mrs. Dane lifted the boy and fanned +him, wiping away the moisture that beaded his clustering curls, and Mr. +Herriott piled the pillows and cushions behind his shaking shoulders. +When the paroxysm ended, and Leighton lay wan and spent, the visitor +leaned over him. + +"I should like to do several things for you, but your mother will not +permit me. Miss Kent wishes you to know she remembers you with interest, +and hopes to hear you sing again. The stranger who preached at St. +Hyacinth's has not forgotten the poem he promised you, and will bring it +soon. I saw him last night. Now, I must say good-bye for to-day. Don't +try to speak, I understand everything." + +Silently Mrs. Dane followed him to the door. Across the threshold, he +turned and lowered his voice. + +"A sea voyage is the only thing that will prolong his life. With your +consent, it can be arranged at once." + +She shook her head. + +"Madam, I find I must revise my ideals of maternal devotion. You punish +your innocent child for the sins of those who blighted your youth? You +harangue a rabble in favor of 'justice' and deny it to a dying boy." + +She caught her breath, leaned against the wall, and covered her face +with her hands. When he saw it again the color had ebbed, the lovely +eyes were darkened by unshed tears, and the lips were beyond her +control. + +"My baby--my fatherless little one! Ever since he was born I have +struggled so hard to keep his mother's name clean--his mother's name, +all he had--clean and beyond reproach! Do you suppose that now, at the +last, I would put myself under obligation to a rich man? We may die +paupers, he and I, but when we go to the Potter's Field--the only +undisputed land labor can claim--we go free, honest, and unblemished, +and if there was a God, I could hold up my baby and demand why He had +cursed us both in our innocence." + +"I am sorry that the circumstances coloring your life have destroyed +every vestige of confidence in man's honor, yet I have no alternative +but to accept your decision, and I wish you good morning." + +He lifted his hat, and had gone half way down the stairs, when she +followed and touched his sleeve. + +"I did not thank you for much goodness to my child, but I do want to say +I am not ungrateful; only I have had so little to be thankful for, I +don't quite know how to phrase gratitude. The world has been so hard to +me I am suspicious of every rich man in your social circle. You see, my +face has handicapped me always----" + +She set her teeth and struck one palm resentfully against her cheek, and +the passionate, pent-up cry of years of suffering broke through the next +words. + +"Yes, my face has been my curse, and it was the steel trap that snapped +chains on me when I was only a child. Kindness to my Leighton is the one +thing that touches what is left of my heart; and how do you suppose I +can bear now to listen to his sobbing yonder, because he thinks I have +rudely driven you away? Oh, my pretty baby! My own beautiful little one! +Cast out, with only his girl-mother to fight for him against this cruel +world! And now if I lose him, if my all is taken away from me----" + +She wrung her hands, and the blanched face was upturned as if +challenging her God. + +"Madam, I understand fully, and I intend to help your boy; but be sure I +shall visit him when you are absent. Tell him I shall come, with your +consent, while he is alone; and some day I think you will trust me, even +despite the fact that I happen to have money. Good-bye." + +He held out his hand, but she seemed not to see it, and as she turned +and walked wearily up the steps he went down to his carriage. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"Miss Kent, it is quite evident that you do not approve of us." + +"Will you be so kind as to explain to whom 'us' refers?" + +"Our great social world, including government, congressional and +diplomatic circles, club life, and all that 'progress' stands for. +Instead of moving abreast with the 'advance' current, you have drifted +aside into an eddy as contracted, as pitiably narrow as--pardon me, we +emancipated new women dare now to speak the brazen truth--as narrow as +the hands and feet you Southerners boast as sign of aristocratic blood." + +Eglah lifted her grey-gloved hand, examined its outlines critically, and +placed it within a few inches of the broad, thick palm which Ethelberta +Higginbottom had laid on her own lap as she sat in the gallery of the +Senate chamber. + +"Thank you very much, Miss Higginbottom. It is traditional in my family +to admire slender fingers, but we are not so intolerant as to deny +others the privilege of occupying as much space as their digits can +cover, and we never brand people as absolutely disreputable because they +wear number six shoes and number seven-and-a-half gloves. If degrees of +latitude determine the height of insteps, what manifest injustice has +been meted out to longitudinal lines that you Westerners so proudly +claim? Probably you have forgotten that my father is from New England, +and he owns a silver caddy--two hundred years old--that was empty at one +time because 'fish drank tea in Boston harbor.'" + +"Oh, but your mother was Southern and you represent not heredity, but +sheredity, a sociological factor of immense potency, which must be +reckoned with, let me tell you, in the near future, when women fully +emancipated come to enjoyment of all the rights so long withheld from +them. Then mothers, and not fathers will wield the destiny of this great +country; and already female colleges are fast spreading the blessed +gospel of free and equal rights. Last week some one asserted that you +were a graduate of ---- College, but I contradicted it flatly, as +impossible and absurd." + +"I am sorry I do my dear _Alma Mater_ such lamentable discredit; but, +unfortunately, we were not taught to wear our diplomas on our hats as +advertisements of scholarship." + +"You certainly amaze me!" + +"Perhaps you will excuse my frankness in assuring you that sensation at +least is mutual." + +"With your educational advantages, to lock up your mind in a stockade of +provincialism! Desectionalize yourself!" + +"May I ask whether you spell your last verb with an x or a ct? I should +prefer first to ascertain which process is demanded of me." + +"Your Southern bigotry is a mill-stone around your neck. The very word +'emancipation' is a red rag to old slaveholders and their progeny. You +never can forgive us for breaking the shackles of groaning millions held +in bondage." + +Eglah laughed. + +"Pardon me, but it certainly is ludicrous that one possessing your +'broad culture and desectionalized' horizon of thought should really +believe in that old worn-out 'raw-head and bloody-bones' figure of +speech which has done duty so long. It surely is entitled to decent +interment where all dilapidated scarecrows cease from troubling. We +Southern people no more want our negroes back as slaves than you desire +the return of hordes of Indians whom you so completely dispossessed of +their native lands in your 'wild and rapacious West,' and whom a 'white, +fatherly' government is rapidly reducing to extinction by its beneficent +agencies. The white South is 'emancipated' from the moral responsibility +of elevating the black race now so happy in 'national' tutelage, where +their guardians taught them the system of bookkeeping and all the subtle +processes of the 'Freedmen's Bureau.'" + +"How lonely you must feel in Washington. You have no more regard for the +rights of your own sex than for--" She stammered and coughed. + +"Indeed, I have the most affectionate and jealous regard for every right +that inheres in my dower of American womanhood. I claim and enjoy the +right to be as cultured, as learned, as useful, and--if you please--as +ornamental in society and at home as my individual limitations will +permit. I have no wrongs, no grievances, no crying need to usurp lines +of work that will break down the barriers God set between men and women. +I am not in rebellion against legal statutes, nor the canons of +well-established decency and refinement in feminine usage, and, finally, +I am so inordinately proud of being a well-born Southern woman, with a +full complement of honorable great-grandfathers and blue-blooded, +stainless great-grand-mothers, that I have neither pretext nor +inclination to revolt against mankind." + +"Miss Kent, you have rather pretty eyes, but you are so steeped in +Southern--what do you call it--_dolce far niente_, or _laissez faire_, +or semi-stagnation of soul that you are too lazy to open them wide +enough to see the thrilling vista of woman's triumph that illumines----" + +"Thank you; my much flattered eyes are sufficiently open at this moment +to perceive the behavior of that nondescript creature in feminine +garments who is flirting so undisguisedly with Senator Smallweed yonder, +on your right; one of the early emancipated--an advanced lobbyist." + +"You mean that piquant, charming little Mrs. Morrison? Dear soul! She is +a pathetically tragic object lesson. Had to get a divorce from a brutal +husband and become a bread-winner. Why should not women lobby? They are +so nimble witted, nature fitted them admirably for such work." + +"And gave them the adroitly nimble fingers to fit the pockets they +pick." + +"That is some cowardly man's cruel slander. My creed is always to defend +my own sex; it is only Christian charity and genuine feminine justice." + +"Provided it be not merely lax morality. Sometimes the distinction is +not clear to very 'advanced,' zealous people." + +"At least your father does not share your narrow harshness. He and Mrs. +Morrison are quite 'chummy,' and I happen to know he sees her often." + +"How could he avoid it? Shoals of sharks swim in Washington, and since +your friend belongs to the 'emancipated' variety, doubtless she indulges +an 'elective affinity' for the largest senatorial prey in sight, and +hungrily shadows him. Yesterday that 'Bison Head' bill she is working +for came to grief in committee, and will be buried to-day. Even sharks +occasionally miss a meal." + +"Oh, you are not up to date! Before the decision was announced one of +the committee weakened, asked for reconsideration; another hurried +meeting was held last night, and the bill will not be reported this +session. Not killed you understand, just tenderly pigeon-holed, securely +wrapped up in parliamentary camphor to scare away opposition moths, and +allowed to sleep while its pretty guardian angel has another session in +which to smooth the way for its final passage." + +At this moment a messenger boy brought a note to Miss Higginbottom, and +Eglah rose. + +"You do not suspect who the _weakening_ member was?" + +"If I cared to ask, I dare say your fair _divorcee_ friend would be able +to enlighten me, but the petty political schemes engineered by lobbyists +do not interest me." + +"One moment, Miss Kent. You did not come to my _musicale_. I have only +one olive twig left. We entertain a few friends to-morrow night in honor +of a famous Western woman, who will lecture next season on 'Civic +Problems,' for the purpose of raising money to build a vast, up-to-date +club temple, where women can proclaim their views on female right to +suffrage and expansion. May I have the pleasure of presenting you?" + +"You are very kind, Miss Higginbottom, but as we leave Washington at the +end of the week, I regret that I shall not have time for any new +engagements. Pray accept my thanks for several courtesies." + +"I used to wonder why you are so unpopular, but it soon ceased to be a +mystery, and it will be no sacrifice to you to give up Washington, in +retiring from public life. When Senator Kent formally resigns--as is the +burden of a little bird's song that utters no false notes--he will, +doubtless, consign you to a more congenial circle of friends." + +"In saying good-bye, I shall find some solace in the assurance that at +least you will not mourn inconsolably because of my final departure. +Please present my best wishes to Mrs. Higginbottom, who has shown me +much kindness, and whom I may not be able to see again. Good-bye." + +She stood a few seconds, smiling mischievously into the florid face of +the large-featured woman of most certain age, whose light-yellow eyes +flashed back unmistakable malice, then, amid the roar of applause that +greeted the peroration of a white-haired senator in the chamber below, +she quietly stole out of the Capitol, and sought a favorite corner of +the Smithsonian grounds. + +Walking slowly, she asked in a spirit of self-chastisement why she had +allowed waspish stings to provoke a retaliatory tone, at variance with +that cool repose of well-bred urbanity and imperturbable courtesy on +which she prided herself; and was not the condescension of retort an +unladylike and mortifying weakness? + +Now and then come radiant days when a noon sun shines hot, and no +faintest film flecks the stainless blue, yet one grows vaguely conscious +of waning brightness, and gradually the horizon blanches to a deadly +grey, while leaden clouds creep into view like spectral fingers of some +vast hand groping across the sky to smother the sun. Shadows projected +by the invisible unnerve natures that fearlessly face tangible, +well-defined danger, as 'the sallow, weird light preceding an eclipse is +more menacing than its total darkness, where friendly stars still +shine.' For Eglah, the clock of fate had begun to chime that _mauvais +quart d'heure_ which Mrs. Maurice had known would inevitably overtake +her, and the preliminary whirring of the hidden cogs had found her +unprepared. Blind faith in her father's sagacity, political +steadfastness, and incorruptibility, had built a pedestal from which he +smiled down benignantly upon her, making life a festival; but when the +needle of doubt pricked the fine veil love spun across her vision, and +she dared allow herself to question, a shivering and nameless dread +shook her happy young heart, as unexpectedly blighting as a shower of +sleet on an August passion-flower. When Jove nods his worship wanes. + +Since the night of the cotillon, several inexplicable circumstances, +comparatively slight yet cumulative, had perplexed this fond and loyal +daughter, who began to find the maze of Senator Kent's political methods +too tortuous for her exploration. + +Startled by his abrupt reversal of judgment on more than one important +question involving party allegiance, she had sought an explanation, +which he laughingly evaded, and, when she pressed the matter, his +avoidance was marked by an irritability of speech and gesture hitherto +unknown in the domestic circle. The undisguised graciousness of his +demeanor toward Mrs. Morrison had surprised and annoyed her, and she was +painfully astonished by his efforts to conciliate Senator Higginbottom, +who belonged to the opposite party, and was a loud, aggressive, and +hirsute apostle of the silver gospel so dear to his constituency, and so +conducive to his individual interest as a mine owner. Mrs. Higginbottom, +a plain, kind-hearted, motherly old woman, who knew much more of +sheep-shearing and beehives than of fashionable etiquette and diplomatic +technicalities, Eglah had found it possible to receive cordially, but +the daughter, Ethelberta, was an intolerable offence to all her feminine +instincts, and when Judge Kent insisted, with some asperity, that the +"Higginbottoms must be cultivated," the ordeal of playing hostess to +this "advanced and emancipated new woman" proved peculiarly unpleasant. +A certain watchful restlessness in her father's manner did not escape +her notice, nor the recent accession of sphinx-like non-committalism in +Mr. Metcalf, and she pondered uneasily a question of Mrs. Mitchell's: + +"Dearie, did it ever occur to you that in some way Judge Kent seems +rather afraid of Mr. Herriott, or perhaps I should say is always so +guarded in his presence?" + +"Never! Impossible and absurd. He has supreme confidence in him, and +once, not long ago, he scolded me sharply because I could not consider +him head and shoulders above all other men." + +The session of Congress was within two days of its close, and that +morning, as Senator Kent rose from an untasted breakfast, he astounded +Eglah and Eliza by the ejaculation, "God knows, I shall be glad to get +out of this grind!" + +Fearing sickness had robbed him of his appetite, Eglah followed him to +the library, but he waved her back. + +"Metcalf is waiting to show me a paper, and I must not be interrupted. +My dear, my time is not my own--even for you." + +Hitherto she had never been an interruption, and it seemed as if some +iron door was shut suddenly between her life and his. "The Bison Head" +purchase bill, for which Mrs. Morrison flitted to and fro, had been +fought by Senator Kent in committee room, where the contest was close, +but Senator Higginbottom was chairman, and when Miss Ethelberta +announced that a member had "weakened" and the bill might be saved by +postponement, Eglah knew who had changed front, and she began to realize +how ancient pilgrims felt when, at Delphi, the oracle said no to-day and +yes to-morrow. Idolatrous habit was strong; the pedestal trembled, but +it was a far cry to its overthrow, and she wrestled stubbornly to defend +inconsistencies that humiliated and staggered her. Time, the master +magician, would perhaps show her the Senator's reasons woven into a +crown of laurel--as unexpected as the garland of glowing roses that +spring out of a naked sword blade, at the gesture of a juggler. To-day +she recalled her grandmother's softened face with eyes of tender +compassion on that morning when the news of the second marriage had been +brought to Nutwood. After all, was there just cause for the old lady's +contempt and aversion, and were the rumors rife in Y---- shadows of grim +and disgraceful facts that must cling to her father's name, fateful as +the philter of Nessus? The thought stifled her, and she put her hand to +her throat with the old childish habit that always betrayed intolerable +pain. She could not go home--must not meet Eliza's eyes until she +strangled this crouching horror. Through the Smithsonian she wandered, +apparently examining its treasures, but now she saw only the pitying +countenance of her grandmother, and now the malicious triumph in Miss +Higginbottom's eyes, as she exulted in some impending misfortune. +"Formal resignation"--adumbrated by more than one innuendo--portended +the summary collapse of a political career that she had believed would +culminate in elevation to a Cabinet seat during the next administration. +For her, obstinate confidence was to-day the sole refuge, and she set +her teeth as she verified Mrs. Maurice's prediction: "'Though he slay +me, yet will I trust him.' My own father cannot betray the faith of his +loyal child." + +Dreading Eliza's scrutiny, it was with a feeling of temporary relief +that she recollected an engagement to attend a "lawn party" held that +afternoon at a residence whose owner was laboring to raise an endowment +fund for a local charity. When she reached home, a change of costume +gave time to marshal all her defensive forces; and, as she came +downstairs to join her waiting chaperon, Mrs. Mitchell forbore to +comment on the unusual color that burned in her cheeks. + +"Little mother, don't sit up for me. I promised Mrs. Ellerbee to assist +at the flower table, and may be kept late. Be sure you get your beauty +sleep." + +Dinner was delayed an hour beyond the usual time, but Senator Kent did +not appear, and as such deviations from domestic rule had recently +occurred often, and were explained by congestion of business at the +Capitol, incident to approaching adjournment, Mrs. Mitchell took her +meal alone. It was prayer-meeting evening at the Methodist Church in her +neighborhood, and, after the exercises ended, she walked home, took up a +magazine, and tried unsuccessfully to read. The political atmosphere was +so charged with electricity that she felt a crisis was imminent, and +only the extent of the storm was conjectural. How much Eglah suspected +the foster-mother merely surmised, because some inexplicable barrier +seemed, within the past fortnight, built up to limit their free +interchange of thought. It was a sultry, sombre night; city walls and +pavements sent up their garnered heat in quivering waves, and the stars +were blurred and faint as they retreated behind a dim haze that was not +mist. At eleven o'clock the street corner light showed her Senator Kent +walking rapidly. She went into the dining-room to arrange the salad and +cold tea he always enjoyed after missing his dinner, and while he +lingered in the hall Eglah returned. She was bare-headed, very pale, and +her lips fluttered, but a brave, tender smile lighted her eyes, and she +put her arms about his neck and kissed him twice. + +"How tired you poor national Solons must be! But I know one whose day's +work is not yet ended, and who must pick a whole flock of crows with me, +right now. Why did you change your vote on the 'Bison Head' purchase?" + +"Who says I did?" + +His face was deeply flushed, but he laughed and pinched her white cheek. + +"The chairman has a daughter." + +"A leaky gossip. Congressmen ought to be bachelors or childless +widowers; but then, my dear, how could I possibly exist without you?" + +"Father, what induced you to favor a measure you have condemned so +emphatically?" + +"Several good reasons I am much too tired to discuss. Don't forget your +Emerson, who says 'a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little +minds, adored by little statesmen,' and remember, also, 'a wise man +sometimes changes his mind, a fool never.' The bill will not be reported +till next session, and conditions alter, so _apres moi le deluge_!" + +She walked toward the dining-room, and on the threshold Eliza saw her +put both hands to her throat. Drawing her breath quickly, she turned +back and threw her arms around him. + +"Oh, father! Was it kind, was it merciful to let me learn by chance from +strangers that you have determined to resign your senatorship, to end a +glorious career in which you know my dearest hopes and pride centre?" + +For a moment he made no reply, only clasped her closely, pillowed her +head on his breast, and kissed her cold cheek repeatedly. + +Then he spoke in a husky tone, as a nervous surgeon might, uncertain of +his own diagnosis. + +"My darling girl, I confess it was a cowardly dread of the pain I knew +my decision would cause you, and I very weakly put off the evil day as +long as possible. Immediately after adjournment I intended to tell you +all the plans that seem best for our future, and did not anticipate this +premature disclosure, which is presumptuous impertinence in its author. +In quitting public life even temporarily, my brightest compensation is +the prospect of spending my time in the sweet companionship of my +precious, incomparable daughter. Forgive your old father the arrant +cowardice of keeping silent for a few days." + +She clung to him like a frightened child, and he felt her trembling as +one in an ague. + +"Why must you resign? Why step down when you have a right to expect the +new administration will offer you a place in the Cabinet? Why? Don't +keep back anything from me now." + +"My love, I don't wish to distress you; I shrink from exciting any +alarm, but you certainly have a right to the truth. My health does not +permit the amount of canvassing work that I believe will be required for +my re-election, because our State legislature will be much divided this +presidential campaign over vital issues, both local and national. As my +term expires soon, I think it best to resign now, and avoid grave +complications that threaten our party organization in the State +legislature. Recently I have had premonitions that drove me to consult +Dr. McLemore, and he advises me to withdraw from active political life, +at least for a season. He believes complete rest and freedom from public +responsibility are all that my health demands. I did not wish you to +know this, but you are such an inquisitive monkey, such an arbitrary +minx, that nothing less than the whole truth will satisfy your exacting +reason. Now kiss me, my pretty chestnut burr, and let us pick no more +crows." + +"You have been ill, and we--I--never suspected it?" + +She caught her breath spasmodically, stifling a sob. Her father glanced +significantly at Eliza, who stood beside the table, lifting a pitcher of +iced tea that clinked against its sides in her nervous grasp. + +"I see Mrs. Mitchell--always admirably reliable--has kept her promise to +me. Now she can tell you I had a very severe attack the night we were so +late at Secretary P----'s dinner, and you could not understand my delay +in dressing." + +"Ma-Lila! You kept me in ignorance of father's danger, when you should +have warned me?" + +"Your father positively forbade any mention of the matter to you, and as +I never saw or heard of a recurrence of what he assured me was merely +the result of imprudent indulgence in oysters, cheese, and beer, I had +no excuse for disobeying his command to keep silence." + +The little woman's eyes sparkled, and an involuntary curl of her lip did +not escape Eglah's questioning sorrowful gaze. + +"Come, my dear, do not quite strangle what is left of a very tired old +man. Now that explanations are completely over, I feel as happy as a boy +just returned from the dentist's where he left an aching tooth; and +since you know absolutely all that can be told, I should like some tea +dashed with cognac, for I have had a hard, tedious day." + +He unwound her arms, patted her head, and took his seat at the table. + +Eglah squeezed a lemon into a goblet of tea, Eliza stirred the +mayonnaise, and Judge Kent helped himself to an anchovy sandwich, while +he asked whether they had heard the sad news of the sudden death of a +popular attache of one of the legations, who had been killed an hour +before by the accidental discharge of his own pistol. Heroic efforts +were made by all to avoid the disturbing theme upon which the Senator +had peremptorily rung down the curtain, and to relieve the tension the +trio separated as soon as possible. + +How much of the perfunctory explanation either woman credited neither +could determine, but each refrained from probing the other, and both +endeavored to bridge the crater by that golden silence that knows no +pangs of regretted speech. Lying wide awake, Mrs. Mitchell noted the +slow passage of the heavy hours, and day was just below the eastern sky +line when the sudden shrill trilling of a canary in the adjoining room +told that some restless movement of Eglah's had aroused it. Eliza longed +to go and comfort the suffering girl, but every heart has a sanctuary +which not even the tenderest affection should dare to violate, and the +subtle sympathy of the overseer's wife taught her love's duty was to +guard, not force the entrance. After a few moments, Eglah opened the +door and came on tiptoe to her bed. + +"What is it, dearie? Nobody can sleep on such a suffocating night." + +She sat up and put one arm around the white figure, which, instead of +yielding to her clasp, held back straight and stiff as steel. + +"I thought I heard you stir, else I should not have ventured to disturb +you. Ma-Lila, the thought of father's ill health weighs terribly on my +heart. Will you please tell me the nature of that attack which you both +kept from me? What were the symptoms?" + +"He had been dozing in his chair, and quite suddenly sprang up, pale, +and evidently much agitated. I wished to call you, and urged him to +abandon the idea of leaving the house, but he insisted I should not give +you even a hint, and asked for the decanter of brandy, which he was sure +would relieve a severe fit of indigestion caused by imprudence at +luncheon. He went to his room, and when he came out you saw no sign of +serious indisposition." + +"He had been annoyed by no visitors?" + +"He had seen no one but Watson and myself." + +"Do you think there was heart trouble that night? Tell me frankly." + +"Yes, most certainly there was; but, my baby, heart trouble comes from +various causes, and I really do not think your father's physical +condition justifies any serious uneasiness. He is evidently alarmed, but +nervous strain and mental worry are sufficient to produce all his +symptoms, and you will find that retirement from congressional +complications expedites recovery in such cases." + +The girlish form relaxed, and a hot cheek was pressed against the +foster-mother's face. + +"Don't comfort me with false hopes, unless you are sure I am unduly +frightened." + +"Listen to me. I am absolutely certain that Judge Kent's health need +cause you no alarm in future. Now, shake off that nightmare, and go to +sleep like a good child, or I will certainly dose you with bromide." + +She kissed her softly, and with an arm about her waist led her back to +her bed. + +"Ma-Lila, I want to forget the last three weeks. Won't you help me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +"What is the urgent necessity? I have just held my afternoon mission +service, and I am very tired. Noel, why are you so insistent?" + +"Perhaps it has been borne in upon my 'subliminal consciousness' that if +you wait too long you may possibly regret it. Once or twice I have found +profit in following a rule my old nurse taught me when I wore kilts: +'Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.' No 'daemon' squats +at my ear, and I claim no mantic illumination, still I should be glad to +know you will make that visit at once." + +"You fear the poor boy is dying?" + +"Not immediately, but he appears hopelessly ill, and needs all the kind +words you may find yourself better able to utter than any one else. +Moreover, it would be well that you should see his mother, who is away +at work during the week, and as you expect to leave the city so soon, +this will be the most suitable opportunity for you to meet her at home. +Poor, fierce, bitter soul! She has no milk of human kindness left; it +soured and has become acrid--intensely mordacious." + +"She belongs then to the unhappy class of frail women who go swiftly to +utter wreck in all large cities, where sin is arrayed in rose color and +gilt. Strange that the boy of such a creature should remind one of the +infant St. John or a seraph of Angelico's." + +"Some fragments of her history lead me to believe that she is as +trustworthy and pure as any woman to whom you preach. Her morality is +beyond cavil, but theoretically she seems to have gone wild among the +hedges and ditches of socialism." + +"You consider her a conscientious, good woman?" + +"As far as I can ascertain she lives irreproachably, bar associating +with anarchists. I surmise some man has treated her cruelly, or she +thinks so, and now she----" + +Mr. Herriott rose, looked at his watch, and laughed. + +"Temple, do you recollect one summer night under the elms, when +rehearsing for the Greek play, Prescott Winthrop declaimed the +herdsman's message from the 'Bacchae,' and emphasized the portrait of +Agave in the frenzy of the _Thiasus_ strangling a calf and fondling a +wolf's whelp? To-day Leighton's mother recalled that scene, but she is +not dancing to meet Bromius--only hunting revenge on all mankind. Ah, +you are going? I suggest a cautious approach. Leave the carriage out of +sight, and boldly flourish the promised book as an open sesame. You of +the cassock clan enjoy privileges denied to us, the ungirdled sons of +Belial. After all, you may prove the _deus ex machina_, and through the +poor little lad may be able to lay a healing touch on the mother's sick +soul. Come to my rooms after your visit, and we will say good-bye until +I get back from my long jaunt." + +An hour later Father Temple made his way into the tenement house, +through a noisy mob of children romping on the pavement, and when he +entered the narrow hall outside din was conquered by the deep, swelling +music of "Quis est Homo," wailing from a violoncello held between the +knees of a man sitting half way up the stairs, a thin, stooping old +figure with shaggy grey hair, and bearded as a Welsh harper. The priest +ascended, and the musician edged closer to the wall to allow him passage +way, but he merely nodded his bowed head, and the solemn strains rose +and fell like the sobbing moan of waves settling to calm after lashing +blasts. Father Temple lifted his finger. + +"Mrs. Dane lives on the next floor?" + +"Go ub. She vill see no briests, but her door is oben for de child to +hear de music he loves. Dear leedle boy is sick, and my cello sounds +more better here dan closer." + +He shut his eyes and continued playing. Opposite the undraped west +window of the room above, an alley stretched, making clear pathway for +the sinking sun that poured a parting flood of radiance into the +apartment, and upon the cot where, propped up with pillows, the boy +clasped his arms around his knees, and listened, quiet and happy. +Between cot and window his mother sat, facing the back of her chair, on +top of which she rested one arm, leaning her brow upon it, while the +other hand, lying on the cot, slowly stroked Leighton's bare feet. +Having washed her hair earlier in the day, it was now brushed out over +her shoulders to dry in the sunshine, and the bright mass of waving +tendrils seemed to clothe her with light. On the floor were scattered +several newspaper sheets--"The Chain Breaker"--and across her knee lay +an open copy of "Battle-cry of Labor." Only the mellow voice of the +cello sounded, and the room was sweet with the breath of Mr. Herriott's +white carnations nodding in a blue bowl on the table. Standing a moment +at the threshold, Father Temple's eyes fastened on the veil of golden +locks falling to the floor, and his heart leaped, then seemed to cease +beating as he recalled a vision of the far West, where just such +glittering strands had been twined around his fingers. + +"Oh, my St. Hyacinth's preacher!" + +At Leighton's glad cry his mother raised her head, started up, and, +moving forward a few steps, swept back her hair, holding it with both +hands. Before her stood the tall, thin figure in the long, black habit +of his Order, cord-girded at the waist; with a soft wool hat and book in +one hand; a clean-shaven face, pale, sensitive, scholarly, and +suggestive of "lauds and prime," of asceticism without peace, and of +brooding regret. + +He recognized every line in her lovely features, from the large pansy +eyes and delicate, over-arching brows to the perfect oval molding of +cheek and chin, and the full, downward curve of scarlet lips. Love is so +keen of vision it pierces the changes wrought by ripening years, and he +knew the dear face. She did not suspect, love had been dead so long, and +she had buried all tender memories in its neglected grave. + +"I am surprised a Romish priest wastes his time coming here, and I have +no welcome to offer you, because I wish no visitors." + +With a swift movement he closed the door, dropped hat and book, and came +close to her. The sudden glow on his cheek, the light of exultation in +his sad eyes transformed him. + +"Look at me. Don't you know me? Look--look!" + +Eye to eye they watched each other, and at the sound of his deep, +tender, quivering voice recollection smote hard upon her heart, and a +vague, shivering pain drove the blood from her face, but she fought the +suggestion. + +"You are unknown to me." + +"I am Vernon Pembroke Temple, and you are Nona, my wife! My Nona--my own +wife----" + +Words failed him, and he held out his arms. She recoiled, throwing up +her hands with a gesture of loathing, and stood as if turned to stone, +so strangely hard was a face where eyes kindled and burned with the pent +hatred and scorn of long years of sore trial. + +"You had not sins enough to sink your soul without adding hypocrisy? A +preacher! A priest! Cowardice, perjury, moral leprosy, skulking under a +long cloak as black as what is left of your vile heart!" + +Each word fell like a red-hot flail, but he did not wince, and neither +father nor mother heard the low wail from the cot where childish arms +covered a face white with horror. + +"You think, you believe I intentionally and pre-meditatedly deserted +you, and in your ignorance of facts you certainly had cause to despise +me, but----" + +"Think--believe! As if it were possible to doubt the villainy planned! +The crime you so carefully committed against a mere child, knowing she +was a helpless victim, believing she could never redress her awful +wrongs. As if you had set a trap and caught an innocent, happy bird, and +then broken its wings and tossed it to screaming hawks! Coward--coward +as you always were--how dare you face me?" + +"Nona, dear Nona--" He put out his hand appealingly, but she struck it +aside with stinging force, and stepped backward. + +"Out of my sight, or I call the police." + +She pointed to the door. He turned, locked it, put the key in his +pocket, and his eyes steadily met the challenge in hers. The banked, +smouldering fires that flashed up must burn lower before he could plead. +So they stood: he flushed, smiling, happy; she shaken by a tempest of +rage that blanched her to a livid pallor and set all the glittering +rings of hair quivering, as if innumerable golden serpents coiled and +uncoiled around her trembling form. + +In the pause he lifted the hanging ends of the knotted cord. + +"Do you understand what this habit means?" + +"Don't I? A holy cloak to hide every sin that makes this world a hotter +hell than even God could fashion--if God were possible. You drape it +over the ten commandments, blotting them out, while you sing psalms, and +rob the toiling poor, and ruin young lives, and murder innocent souls. +Oh, yes, to my sorrow, I understand all it means!" + +"It means my consecration to celibacy when you fled from me, and I had +exhausted all efforts to find you." + +"Celibacy! Celibacy! I needed no nunnery to help me keep clean and pure, +but you ran behind monastery walls to protect yourself from retribution +at a wronged woman's hands. Coward from first to last! When I fled from +you? You must indeed be possessed of the devil to dare such language to +me." + +"Nona, there has been some awful mistake----" + +"Yes, a mistake that I was not scalped, or that a merciful bolt of +lightning did not strike me dead that day--that cursed day--when first I +set my eyes on your false, treacherous face! If you could only know how +I hate, despise, utterly despise the bare thought, much more the +horrible sight of you!" + +"No wonder, since circumstances were apparently all against me at----" + +"Circumstances are no shelter for honest, honorable men, if there be any +left; and the hard, bitter, murderous facts of your shameful life would +find you out if you dodged under the very throne of the God you +blaspheme by professing!" + +"Will you listen to the truth?" + +"You could not speak it if you tried. I listened to you once too often, +and you wrecked me, and I am no longer a fool." + +"Why did you leave Thompsonville after you received my letters, and the +money I sent you, and when you knew I was coming there to take you away +with me?" + +For an instant she looked at him with startled curiosity, then laughed +hysterically. + +"I left Thompsonville because you wrote no letters, sent no money, and +took no notice of my frantic appeals for help in my hour of horrible +trial. A sick woman with a frail, feeble baby, facing starvation, +abandoned, slandered, and trampled in the mud, I could only snatch at +the hand held out to me by the one man I have found honest, honorable, +loyal, and true, as he was pitying and kind." + +"But when I reached Thompsonville Delia Brown told me----" + +Her scornful laugh drowned his words. + +"'When you reached Thompsonville' in your dreams--after a night's +carousal at college! Even a congenital idiot would sicken at that." + +No shadow of impatience crossed his happy countenance; the intensity of +her scoffing bitterness was part of his punishment--the harvest that +sprang from his own sowing--and he must not complain until she +understood fully. + +"I can prove that I went to Thompsonville, and I have the sworn +testimony of Delia Brown that she delivered into your hands my letters +and the package of money I sent to her care through the express agent. +On a scrap of paper I have also a receipt in pencil from you to Delia +Brown." + +She shook her head and smote her palms together. + +"Forgeries one and all. I would not believe you on your oath, unless the +grave yawned, and Leighton Dane--dead six years--came back as witness in +your favor." + +"'He was the handsome Spanish-looking man' Delia Brown told me stole my +wife and child and disappeared suddenly--going to Florida or Cuba to +grow bananas--when you heard I was coming to Thompsonville?" + +"He was a good old man, my father's best friend, who took his place as +teamster--and when I was literally driven out of the cabin one rainy +night by my stepmother, he was the only human being who believed I was +not vile. He pitied me and carried me in one of the Government wagons to +Thompsonville, and paid my board until I was able to earn my bread by +helping Delia Brown wash and iron. His term was expiring soon, and when +he started back to his home in California, he came by to see if I needed +anything. + +"Finding I was ill in body, distracted in mind, desperate, because I +knew then I was utterly deserted, and had no hope of help, he offered to +carry me West and protect me on account of his friendship for my father. +Oh, bless him--for ever and ever! He made an humble little home for us, +and shielded and respected me, and pitied and believed in me with all +the strength of his great, true heart, and was a second and a much +better father to me in my shameful desolation and helplessness. He +adopted me and my baby, and when he died he left his small savings to +us; and so I named my outcast little one Leighton Dane for the one loyal +friend who helped me to feed and clothe him when his own father rejected +and abandoned him. I had no proof except the certificate you made me +swear I would conceal for two years, and your ally, the devil, worked +well for you when the mice nesting in my trunk cut it into shreds while +I was ill. The chaplain and Ransom Hill were dead; I had none to speak +for me; but Mr. Dane believed my words, and he put his big hand on my +head and comforted me. + +"'Poor little girl, don't worry; just be easy in your mind, for I know +you are telling the truth. I know you are good as your own baby, and if +every mouth in America swore against you I would trust you as I always +trusted my own mother.'" + +A mist clouded her eyes, as dew softens the tint of a violet, but she +clenched her hands, and bit her lip hard to still its tremor, adding +with sullen emphasis: + +"In all these black years the one star of comfort I can ever see shines +in the assurance that the only truly good man I have found, who knew me +well, respected and trusted me as he did his dead mother." + +"You never saw or heard of the advertisements I published in various +papers, asking you to inform me where I could find you?" + +The contempt in her ringing answer stung him like a whip-lash. + +"People who are neither 'lost, strayed, nor stolen' spend no time +hunting for imaginary advertisements that never go to press." + +"You shall read them in the papers with their printed dates. Copies have +been filed and preserved with reports of unsuccessful search from chiefs +of police in Louisiana and Florida, whom I paid to hunt for some trace +of you. They are deposited in a Boston bank, with a sum of money placed +to your credit--all to be delivered to the order of Nona Moorland +Temple. Write to Noah Giles, cashier of Orchard Street Bank. I will +telegraph, vouching for your right to the tin box bearing your name, and +in two days you shall possess absolute proof that I am not the hardened +scoundrel you think me. Weak, rash, cowardly I certainly was, but as God +hears me, never forgetful, never unfaithful, never intending the wrong +for which you have suffered so frightfully." + +The gaze of each fastened on the other, neither had noticed the cot or +its occupant. + +Leighton slipped slowly down till his feet touched the floor, and he +clung to the mattress for some seconds, measuring the distance to the +pair standing in the middle of the room. Weak from emotion that almost +overwhelmed him, he felt his limbs would not support him, and, gathering +his cotton nightgown about him, he sank on his knees and crawled +noiselessly forward. Between father and mother he crouched, then laid +his head against the feet of the priest and feebly raised his arms. + +"My father----" + +The sight, and all it implied as judgment of evidence in defence, drove +her to jealous frenzy, and she sprang forward as a panther leaps to +succor her young. + +"Don't touch him! Don't you dare to lay your finger on him! You have no +more right to him than to an archangel! He has no father, has only his +downtrodden girl-mother. Don't you dare to put your sacrilegious hand on +his holy head. He is not yours!" + +With his right arm he held her back, as she stooped to snatch the boy +away, and, kneeling, he passed his left hand under the prostrate form, +gathered him close to his breast, and looked up smiling into her eyes. + +"Not mine! If I am not his father--who is?" + +"He is mine, solely mine; body and soul, he belongs only to me! Before +he was born you turned us adrift in the world to perish, and now that +for ten years I have worked day and night, fought for bread and shelter, +carried him on my bosom, slept with him in my arms, you--who robbed me +of everything, even my good name--you dare--dare claim my outcast baby! +I would rather shroud my darling than hear him call you father." + +Leighton's arms stole round the priest's neck, and his tangled yellow +curls touched the dark head bent over him. Father Temple kissed the +little quivering face, strained him to his heart, and the long-sealed +fountain broke in tears that streamed upon the clinging child. + +"My baby, my son, my own lost lamb, for whom I have searched and +prayed--God knows how faithfully, how sorrowfully--all these long, +dreadful years!" + +As she stood above them, barred by that tense right arm, noting the +tight clasp of the thin hands locked behind the father's head, an +impotent rage made her long to scream out the agony that found no vent +save in a rapid beating of one foot on the bare floor--much like the +lashing tail of some furious furred creature, crouching to spring, yet +warily hesitant. + +Father Temple's outstretched hand caught a fold of her skirt, and with +it a strand of floating hair. + +"Nona, my wife--my own wife----" + +She twitched her dress from his grasp and shook it. + +"I am not your wife! Thank God, I am no man's wife! I am free as I was +before you came--an ever-lasting blot between me and the sunshine. I +kept my promise to you. I set my teeth and was silent under a fiery +storm of slander and foul accusations that blistered my girlish cheek +with shame, but I waited till the years you named had passed, and you +had reached your majority, and plucked up courage to face your father, +and had a legal right to ratify what the Church sanctioned through the +chaplain. Then I told my only friend all the facts. I ceased to hope, +because I had lost faith, but Mr. Dane pleaded for you: 'Wait one year +more, give him the last chance to do right.' He wrote to a friend in the +old regiment and inquired about all the officers, and his answer told us +that your father was in Europe, and that the major thought you were with +him. Then I laid my case before one of the human vultures that batten on +the wreckage of broken vows--a lawyer, expert in snapping matrimonial +chains. He sent you all the necessary notices--sent them to your college +address, the only one I could give him. Very soon the decree of absolute +divorce was rendered, and I dropped all right to a name I had never +publicly claimed--cast it off as gladly as I would some foul garment +worn by a leper. Free--free to live my life as I pleased; Mrs. Dane and +her boy Leighton--free to go wherever I wished, after death took the +only real protector I ever had. And I chose, for my baby's sake as well +as my own, to lead the hard life of a working woman, but clean, and +honorable, and innocent as that of any abbess safely stored away from +temptation behind brick walls and iron gates, and though my own little +one may well be ashamed of his father, he will never need to blush for +his mother when the peace of death hides her from an unjust and a cruel +world." + +Sunshine had vanished, the room was darkening, and the last glow from a +topaz band low in the west flickered over the woman's head, as she +swayed in the wave of passionate protest that rocked her from all +trammels of control. There was a brief silence, broken by a strangling +sob and cough, and over the breast of the priest's cassock a warm red +stream trickled. He rose quickly with the boy in his arms and carried +him to the window. + +"Nona, a hemorrhage!" + +"Lay him down. If you have killed him, it is the fit ending of all my +wrongs at your hands. Now stand back! Back! Do you hear--you curse of my +life!" + +She sponged the child's face, laid a wet compress on his throat, and +kept one finger on his pulse, not daring to give medicine while the +narrowing red stream oozed more slowly. She lighted a lamp, flew into a +recess near the stove, and came back with a hypodermic syringe. + +"Now, mother's man, don't flinch." + +Pushing up the sleeve, she injected a colorless fluid into his arm, held +it some seconds, and laid her lips near the puncture. Then with one hand +she held his head raised slightly, and with the other sponged the lips +until the flow ceased and the gasping breath grew easy. + +"Swallow your medicine slowly, don't strangle. You must lie perfectly +still. Mother's own little man needs to go to sleep now and forget all +he has heard to-day." + +Father Temple had fallen on his knees at the opposite side of the cot, +clinging to one of the boy's hands, and suddenly the child turned his +head and looked imploringly, first at father, then at mother. Both +understood the mute prayer in the beautiful, tender eyes. A quavering +sound--part sob, part cough--made their hearts leap. + +"I never will be fatherless any more. So glad! Don't leave me, father." + +"Leighton, you shall always be fatherless. This man can be nothing to +us. Because of his deceitful promises I suffered the disgrace of +smarting from a horse-whip laid on my shoulders when one night I was +driven out of my father's cabin by his wife, and to shelter myself from +sleet and rain crawled into a covered wagon and slept on hay and corn, +until Uncle Dane found me there, and had mercy on me. I owe to this +priest every sorrow and trouble that have darkened my life and yours. +All these years we have had only each other, and you must understand +your mother is the one who has the sole right to your love. My darling, +you and mother can be happy together, and we need only each other." + +She struggled for composure, but there was an ominous pant in her veiled +voice. + +"I want my father! Oh, I want him--I--want him!" Tears glided over his +cheeks. + +She leaned down, snatched Leighton's hand from the priest's clasp, +clutching it between both of hers, and turned her blazing eyes upon the +kneeling man. + +"Will you go now? Have you not done harm enough to satisfy even you? +These are my rooms, and I will tolerate your intrusion no longer. +Remember, my decree of divorce is absolute, and it secures to me the +custody of my child." + +"I recognize no validity in divorces, and the law cannot annul a +ceremony performed outside of its restrictions and requirements. Because +we were minors we invoked the aid of the Church, and our vows before God +can never be cancelled by any civil statute. Except as a solemn, sacred +rite, there was nothing in our marriage to legitimize our child. This is +my son, not by license of law, but because we swore fidelity to each +other 'until death do us part,' and called God to witness; and no human +decree can rob me of my child--since you dare not name any other man his +father. I defy you to lay your hand on his innocent head and question +his legitimacy, which inheres only in a ceremony no civil law +sanctioned. Months of tedious and well-nigh fatal illness delayed my +return to you, and during my delirium your letters were mislaid. When at +last I accidentally recovered two letters, and went on crutches to bring +you back with me, you had disappeared. All the proofs of my search shall +be laid before you, and though I do not wonder you grew desperate and +cast me out of your heart as unscrupulous and treacherous, the facts +when investigated must convince you I have kept my vows as faithfully as +you kept yours. I felt that somewhere in the world my wife and child +were adrift, through my folly, my cowardly fear of my father, and, +broken-hearted and conscience-smitten, I confessed to the Superior of my +Order in England at that time, that I desired to live a celibate in +expiation of a rash act in my boyhood, which separated me from the wife +I still loved. I took my vows of poverty, obedience, and chastity with +the explicit understanding that they did not absolve me from my marriage +vows, should God mercifully permit me to find my family. I hold supreme +the oath I took under the stars at the Post, and second in sanctity my +vows before the altar in our chapel. For the awful consequences of my +boyish weakness I accuse only myself, and if it be part of my punishment +that I have lost irrevocably the affection and confidence of the mother +of my child, then, at least, there remains for me the comfort of finding +my boy, from whom I will never again be separated; and to him I must +atone for years of unintentional neglect." + +He saw that his appeal was futile as the leap of a wave that breaks and +sinks in froth at the foot of basaltic cliffs, and the joyful light died +in his eyes when he began to realize that wishing to believe the worst +she would never accept proofs offered in exculpation. + +"Nona, try to forgive me, for the sake of our son, our own beautiful, +innocent boy." + +There was no answer but the steady, quick tapping of her foot on the +floor, and her defiant face showed no more softening than an iron mask. + +Leaning forward, he kissed Leighton's tearful cheek, and despite his +effort to control his voice it trembled. + +"My precious child, I thank God I have found you! Between your mother +and me you must not attempt to judge now. She has suffered terribly on +account of mistakes I made, and she certainly has the best right to you +and to your love. It is painful for her to see me, and I cannot blame +her, but some arrangement must and shall be made by which I can come +often and be with you without intruding upon her. She will select and +name the hours when my visits will give her least annoyance. Good night, +my son. To-day I am happier than I have been since I kissed your dear +mother good-bye." + +He tore a blank page from Ugo Bassi's "Sermon," wrote a few lines, laid +the paper near his wife's hand, and went out, closing the door very +gently. + +"The hemorrhage was not all blood. I think an abscess has broken, and it +may save his life. He must have a change as soon as it is safe to move +him; but at present it might be fatal. Your money and his in the Boston +bank will make him comfortable, and unless you use it I shall be obliged +to interfere. Let the doctor decide where and when the child should go. +To-morrow at two o'clock I wish to come here, but you can easily avoid +seeing me if you so desire. May God soften your heart towards your +unfortunate but faithful husband." + +When Father Temple entered the Herriott library, Noel rose from a desk +where he was sealing letters and put out both hands. + +"Herriott, most blessed of friends! How can I ever thank you?" + +"You have found your wife and child? Thank God! I could scarcely wait +for the good news I was sure you would bring me." + +His eyes were misty, and the grip of his hands was harder than he knew +as he drew the priest to a chair. + +"Dear old fellow, it has been rather too much for you. Brace yourself +with this mixture. I had an idea your Reverence might need a tonic, +since 'after the manner of men, you have fought with beasts at Ephesus.' +Drink it! Your spiritual superior would advise it if he could see your +face." + +"Tell me, Noel, how you discovered Nona." + +"I saw her at the glove counter where she is employed, and was puzzled +by her resemblance to a face I had admired in San Francisco. I heard out +there that some mystery hung about her, but no hint of any impropriety +on her part. Such delicacy of features and perfect coloring are rare, +and faces so beautiful etch deep on one's memory. Belmont painted her as +'Aurora' in his group, and gave me a photograph of her head; but he +spoke of her with respect, and commented on her proud prudishness in +refusing to sit in his studio. You recollect Sidney Forsyth? He carried +me to a 'night school' for working girls, established by his mother, and +there I first saw 'Aurora,' hard at work in the bookkeeping class. He +admired her extravagantly, and told me that despite her girlish +appearance she was a widow with a child, and lived like a nun in the +very small cottage of an old uncle. Last summer, in hunting through a +discarded trunk hastily packed at Oxford while you were on the +Continent, I found among several sheets from your portfolio that +water-color sketch, and it revived my old suspicion that some early +tragedy had driven you into cloisters. Sooner or later one finds on +almost every man's road through life the sign-post, _dux femina facti_, +and I stumbled against yours when I had ceased to conjecture your motive +for a course that astounded your friends. Last night, after you left me, +I verified a few dates in my diary, and to-day's visit to Brooklyn made +it absolutely certain my identification was correct. I congratulate you, +and am heartily glad that I helped to flush your family covey." + +"Congratulations sound grim after all I passed through to-day. Did you +ever dream you were dying from thirst, and just as you stooped to drink +the spring vanished? I have realized that tantalizing vision. Nona will +never forgive me, never accept my explanation, never believe my +statements, never tolerate the sight of me. She hates me with an +intensity that is sickening, and because the child is mine she would +rather see him in his coffin than in my arms. She hugs to her heart the +conviction that I am utterly vile, because she wants to believe the +worst, and furiously rejects any attempt to prove that I am not a doubly +dyed hypocrite and villain. You have been so loyal a friend, I should +like to tell you all that occurred." + +When he finished a detailed recital of his interview, he leaned back, +sighed heavily, and closed his eyes. + +"I knew you were going into a fiery furnace, for, from what I have heard +and seen of your wife, I fear she is one of the few inexorable women, +impervious to reason, to passionate pleading, to the most adroit +cajolery. The hotter the lava, the harder when it cools. Will you permit +me to offer a suggestion?" + +The priest raised his haggard face and laid his hand on Mr. Herriott's +knee. + +"I shall be grateful for advice which I sorely need just now." + +"You have found the missing, but if you are not wide awake and cautious +you will lose them again, and permanently." + +"What do you mean?" + +"You told her you would go back to-morrow at two o'clock? I rather think +you will not find her; she will have vanished forever." + +"Impossible! The child is too ill to be moved, and she would not risk +the danger to him." + +"In her present mood nothing is impossible, and she would dare death if +it were necessary, in order to thwart you. She belongs to more than one +society of communists, and the freemasonry in operation is marvellous. +There are places in this city, in Chicago, and in several New Jersey +towns where she could disappear as successfully as in a Siberian mine; +and you must keep in touch with your beautiful boy, who is much too fine +a porcelain vase to be filled with the vitriol of socialism. Before you +sleep to-night ask the police department to set a special watchman in +sight of that house, with instructions to report to you any indications +of intended removal." + +"Then I must go, although I do not share your apprehension that Nona +would rashly risk the boy's safety. Noel, I owe you so much--and for +such various benefits--I am simply bankrupt in expressions of gratitude; +but at least I can pray God to grant you your dearest desire in life, be +that what it may." + +He rose, and Mr. Herriott walked with him to the front door. + +"Temple, write me fully all that you know I shall wish to hear. Let me +help you in any way possible to secure a change of climate for your +little St. John of the gilded locks. Early to-morrow I go home, and in a +few days your cousins from Washington will be my guests. Are you quite +willing Eglah should know the complications surrounding you at present?" + +"Tell her everything, and do not spare me or suffer her to blame the +innocent victims of my rashness. Some day Eglah may help me to soften my +Nona's heart. When and where may I hope to see you again?" + +"Very soon I start to Arizona for a short stay, thence to the most +northern of the Aleutian Islands, where I expect to find Eskimo +cliff-dwellers, and later to the region northwest of Hudson Bay. Be sure +to write me, and Vernon--pardon my perhaps unjustifiable +insistence--don't fail to secure police surveillance before you sleep." + +When the door closed, Mr. Herriott wrote a telegram to the physician who +attended Leighton, walked to the nearest telegraph office, and heard his +message click over the wires. + +A few days later he was not surprised to learn that only the sternly +positive interdict of the doctor had frustrated an attempt to remove +Leighton from Brooklyn at ten o'clock on Monday morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The first view of "Greyledge" suggested a stone crazy-quilt, so +multitudinous were its angles, so incongruous its medley of styles; but +examination showed architectural strata superimposed in such trend that +the paradoxical dip had uplifted the oldest to the crest. Three stories, +_echelon_, looked as if they had frozen in dancing a minuet, each +receding yet rising, and when, as a bride, Nina Herriott stepped out of +her carriage, she gayly made three very low bows to the dwelling that +appeared courtesying to welcome her. The long first story was a piazza +or loggia, with wide, round arches upheld by double shafts, closed in +winter by glass doors and storm shutters, in summer noons sheltered from +the glare of sun-smitten water by white and blue awnings. No railing +divided it from the broad stone terrace just below, overhanging the lake +that mirrored its carved and fluted balustrade where vine-fringed vases +glowed with flowers for three months of each year. At the north end of +the arcade, a round tower, rising one hundred and fifty feet, held a +lamp with brilliant reflector that shone far out over the apparently +shoreless lake on moonless and stormy nights, and at the south corner +one of several flights of steps led to an arched and domed pavilion +where boats were moored. + +The second floor flowered into bay windows, mullioned and diamond paned; +and the third might have slipped from some Swiss hillside, so full it +seemed of small balconies, sharp gables, dormers, and deep recesses, and +the steep roof that crowned the whole overhung like an Alpine hat the +frivolous impertinence of trefoil and stained glass. Rains had bleached +and snow storms pumiced the stone walls to a smooth, cool grey, silvered +in spots by films of lichen, while on two turreted chimneys ivy had +braved ascent to weave a cloak of glossy green across the sombre smoke +stains garnered during many generations. The most elevated portion of +the composite structure had been built on the side of a rocky hill, at +some distance from the lake edge, and gradually the declivity had been +graded for the later additions that finally advanced until they could +see their own irregular facade reflected in the water spraying their +foundations; consequently the floors were on different levels, and one +went up and down short flights of steps to reach apartments in the same +story. + +Herriott tradition claimed that early French pioneers had here destroyed +an Indian fort, and that their rude hunting lodge was succeeded by a +missionary station, where a semi-circular excavation in the rock had +served as oratory; in proof whereof an old wooden cross, partly gilded +with tarnished, tattered gold leaf, still hung in the small stone cave +that once echoed the antiphony of Latin chants, and held forever in its +mossy crannies subtle, spicy survivals of sanctifying incense. Sheltered +on the north by hills, clothed with vineyards along their southern face, +the courtyard and shrubbery nestled close to the rocks, but eastward +stretched wide fields and level meadows bounded by dense woods rising on +steep uplands, blue in the distance; and south lay a garden of olden +time, with primly boxed beds, walks hedged with lilacs, snow-balls, +glistening rhododendrons, and masses of roses that ran riot to the foot +of a high enclosing stone wall, where a shining mantle of ivy climbed to +match its verdure with the velvet of hills that here circled like a +clasping arm, reaching from far-away forests to the lake margin. The +courtyard was so nearly on a level with the rear of the house that only +three shallow steps were needed for entrance, and at this spot the range +of color had been exhausted by masses of lilies, irises, peonies, and +foliage plants--so brilliant that in the summer sunshine benignant +nature seemed to have paved the place with a flawless prism. + +On the morning after the arrival of Mr. Herriott's guests, breakfast had +been served on the long, arcaded piazza, where stood three circular +tables, each bright and fragrant from central piles of flowers and +fruit. At the middle one Mr. Herriott sat with Eglah and Judge Kent, +around that on his left were Miss Katrina Manning--an aunt of Noel's +mother--Professor Cleveden, and Eliza Mitchell, and grouped at his right +were Beatrix Roberts, a cousin of Miss Manning's, Dana Stapleton of New +York, and Roger Hull, the young congressman from a northwestern State, +whose devotion to Eglah had long been undisguised. + +It was a cloudless summer day, and the crisp wind from the west drove +the crystal water of the great inland sea into ruffles of foamy lace +against the stone face of the terrace. If she had floated down from a +Fragonard panel, or stepped out of a Watteau _clavecin_, Miss Manning +could not have represented more picturesquely a dainty type of the long +by-gone. Low in stature, slight and graceful, this airy old lady, with +silver hair piled high on her head, where jewelled side combs held her +curls close--habitually wore grey silk or velvet, and her bright, +restless round eyes increased her likeness to a bird, hence Noel's pet +name was "Auntie Dove." Her gowns were many years behind the reigning +mode, and she shook her voluminous skirts in indignant scorn of +close-clinging garments then coming rapidly into vogue. When her +favorite young cousin Beatrix plucked up courage to denounce +"antediluvian fashions," the grey old dame seized her by the shoulders +and shook her till her teeth chattered. + +"Trix, you are an impertinent minx! My gowns are decent and fit my +morals, and I would as soon change the cover on the Manning family +Bible. You young people have no longer any sense of proportion; your +skirts are so skin-tight you might all be 'artist's models,' and your +manners and your disgraceful slang are about as unlaced as the +bohemians. If your refined grandmother Manning could move in her +portrait frame, she would most certainly turn her back to you and her +shocked countenance to the wall." + +To-day she lifted her tortoise-shell lorgnette to examine the rather +unusual pattern of Professor Cleveden's black onyx sleeve buttons, which +represented tarantulas with prominent diamond eyes. + +"Noel, are we all permanently arranged in trios? Because, if so, you +have been cruelly unkind in condemning the professor to sit next to an +orthodox old woman who knows no more science than a blind kitten, who is +no bugologist, no apostle to moths, and who bitterly disapproves of +crucifying butterflies on pins." + +"Aunt Trina, you will not be allowed to monopolize each other, no matter +how earnestly you both may desire to do so. Shall we change groups once +a day, or at each meal, in order that the collective wit and wisdom may +be impartially distributed?" + +"I suggest that all names be deposited in a box and that we draw for +places," said Mr. Stapleton, fearful of losing his neighbor, Miss +Roberts. + +"Dana, what a rash challenge to chance! She can be spiteful, that +classic, grinning old jade, and might roll up three women to one table, +leaving a solitary charming belle--presumably myself--to the tender +mercies of five furious men. Fancy the impotent wrath of the beauless +trio robbed of their legitimate prey! Noel, do not risk any such dire +disaster, but try the democratic plan of rotation in office, whereby I +shall afflict each of you for only a few hours of my term. What +delicious apricots! Surely old Amos Lea did not grow them?" + +Miss Manning held up a twig on which twin, luscious apricots glowed. + +"They were ripened by the hot suns and spiced by Pacific breezes in +lower California, where I have a friend who now and then sends a hamper +from his fruit farm. Beauties, are they not? My old gardener Amos, +jealous of the fame of his own orchard, snorted contemptuously and +assured me they tasted like stale sawdust." + +"Does he still employ David, St. Paul, and the prophets as proxies to +curse his enemies?" asked Professor Cleveden, helping himself liberally +to cherries. + +Catching sight of Eliza Mitchell's rebuking eyes, Mr. Herriott laughed. + +"Yes, he sternly restricts his imprecations to Biblical quotations. When +I was a boy I ruined some very rare tulips by setting mole traps in the +border, and in his rage he called on 'fat bulls of Bashan' to gore me. +Years later I imported a stock of pigeons, and when they literally +devoured his early crop of sweet peas, he seized me by the coat collar, +showed me the havoc, and shouted, 'May the Angel of the Lord chase you +and your devilish English thieves.' He has tyrannized over us all so +long, that his wrath knew no bounds when my amiable young stepmother, +who desired some alterations in the hothouse, defied his arguments and +wishes, and insisted on an annex for orchids that necessitated the +removal of his pet carnations. Whereupon, raising his hand, he shook it +furiously and hissed: 'Madam, you have done me much evil. May the Lord +requite you according to your works!' With tears in her eyes Nina fled +to my father." + +"A grumpy curmudgeon is old Amos Lea, but his religious convictions are +so earnest that I would sooner house a swarm of wasps inside my vest +than tread on his Baptist toes. He objects strenuously to my association +with Herriott, having overheard some of our heretical geologic +discussions as we strolled through the gardens, and he eyes me as if I +were the foul fiend at Herriott's heels, prodding him downward with a +pitchfork. I wish that somewhere in the great outside world I had such a +loyal, godly friend to pray for my soul." + +"Dear me! I thought you scientists disdained such a superstition, and +that you had reduced souls and minds to mere 'reflex sensory' action, +and 'cerebral sinuosities,' and 'psychoplasm,' and 'inherited +instincts,' and deposits of phosphorus?" interjected Miss Roberts, as +she dipped her jewelled hand into her finger bowl to bruise the lemon +blossoms. + +"My dear young lady, pray do not join the multitude in stoning the +prophets. If there be ghosts--blessed are the grammarians who invented a +subjunctive mood--those of martyred students of science will one day +haunt you, more terrible than 'an army with banners.' Herriott is a much +more attractive target than I--younger and handsomer--why not call him +into the witness box and swear him on the case of souls?" + +"Trix, there is no need to pester yourself about Noel's soul. Old Amos +Lea made sure of his safety when he baptized him the second time. Noel, +tell her about it. How your poor father laughed that day!" + +"Being a rigid Baptist and an elder, Amos scouted my Presbyterian +christening as totally inadequate to neutralize what he considered my +unusually large share of original sin, and as his wife, Susan, was my +nurse, they began to grieve over my reprobateness as soon as I was old +enough to lay claim to moral responsibility. When I was about sixteen I +was out yonder on the lake fishing. Two friends were with me, and we all +swam well, or thought we did. A sudden squall capsized the boat, and I +was caught and held under it in such a way that I could not extricate +myself. The boys hovered around, trying unsuccessfully to help me, but +just then Amos kicked off his boots, plunged in, and swam to the rescue. +He was strong as a whale, raised the end of the boat with his shoulder +and dragged me out. I was slightly stunned, and he swam with me into +shallow water, where he could stand up. Then he lifted me horizontally, +as if I had been a baby in long clothes, and repeating with triumphant +fervor the baptismal formula of his Church, he immersed me so thoroughly +that I regained consciousness, and he turned me over to Susan and hot +blankets, as a 'brand snatched from the burning,' and properly +baptized." + +Removing the ice from the yellow heart of his melon, Judge Kent glanced +around the table. + +"Owning such a paradise as this home, do you not all share my amazement +that Herriott can prefer to shut it up and wander contentedly over the +continent, searching its rough crannies--Labna, Mitla, Casa Grande, and +where not--for what he pedantically calls the 'primeval anthropological +nidus'?" + +"Oh, bless you, Senator Kent, it is just in his blood, and he can no +more keep still than a flea can stop hopping. His father was a +surveyor--civil engineer--always roving, and Noel is exactly like him; +which none of you will doubt when I assure you his mother really was an +absolutely beautiful woman. He is a hopeless tramp. He gravitates to the +wildest places of creation, as you and Mr. Hull to the cultivation of +votes, and Dana to Wall Street kites, and this insecticide professor to +picking the lock of God's workshop when He has closed the door and gone +to His seventh day rest." + +"Aunt Trina refuses to believe that my ambition to become acquainted +with our prehistoric family relatives is a laudable method of climbing +the genealogical tree. She is not enthusiastic on ancestry." + +"That depends, my dear boy, on the 'strain' you are hunting. If the +first hatching of brown skins in that 'primeval nidus' of your dreams +had only been as wise and prudent as modern cattle and horse raisers, +and fixed rules of pure-blooded pedigree, we might not fear to grope +backward lest we find only 'grades' in our family group. Now, climbing a +genuine, decent, civilized ancestral tree is much better sport than +twisting up slippery totem poles with a coyote, or a coon, or a vulture +perched on top, as head of the family." + +"And, pray, what of the sacred menagerie of heraldry? The quadrupeds, +birds, flowers of armorial blazonry--all that makes heraldic pomp +picturesque--are but survivals of primeval totem symbols throughout the +world. Auntie Dove, your book-plate and your family seal bear a leopard +couchant, very dear to your orthodox, patrician heart, and some day your +hereditary pet beast may have glared down upon a Tlinkit teepee." + +"Marriage is the only cure for Herriott, and it would effectually tether +him," said Mr. Hull, keeping his eyes on Eglah. + +"It appears that you have carefully avoided taking your own +prescription," answered his host. + +"It is by no means my fault. Though futile, my efforts have been +heroic." + +Professor Cleveden leaned forward. + +"You good people do not understand how deeply Herriott is imbued with +the conviction that contemporary 'differentiation' is not a synonym for +desirable advancement. The complex, hybridized, neurotic creature he +meets in society does not always impress him as vastly superior to the +primeval female type, and you may all expect that whenever matrimonial +shackles restrict his pasturage, which will not be _in Wyandot lines_, +he will be hobbled by 'some savage woman' whose accomplishments are +limited to the slim schedule set down by that jilted cynic of 'Locksley +Hall.' The 'new woman' incites us to pray fervently for swift reversion +to type. Now, Miss Manning, I am sure you are preparing to tell me +that----" + +"That of course in such matters tastes differ, and not one of us feels +disposed to deprive Professor Cleveden of his coveted female simian +companion; but, as Noel never has had a flirtatious 'Cousin Amy' to rub +him the wrong way, he has no provocation to present to me a squaw as my +great niece." + +"It is very evident the professor viciously remembers his own 'Amy,'" +said Miss Roberts, who was watching keenly for some manifestation of +consciousness in Noel and Eglah. + +"Miss Beatrix, no scapegoat 'Amy' bears away my sins of temper, because, +as a naturalist, I am unalterably opposed to the marriage of cousins. I +never owned but one sweetheart. She took my unfeathered young affections +into her tender hands when she was only ten years old, and so carefully +has she preserved them that after twenty years of married life she +remains my charming sweetheart--my pearl of womanhood--the supreme joy +of my existence. She is the one priceless fossil in my collection, +guarded with jealous watchfulness, because she no more resembles the new +feminine type than a snowy dove a blind, broken-winged, snapping hawk." + +"When I marry, my ambition will soar beyond being bottled in alcohol or +boxed in sawdust or cotton wool, like a centipede or a cracked egg of +the great auk. I should imagine that men who spend their work days among +musty, stuffy fossils would rather enjoy the variety of an up-to-date, +cultivated wife who kept in touch with social tides and currents. Now, +Mr. Herriott, you who prowl about laboratories and museums until you +understand their dreary jargon as fully as you do leading a german or +playing polo, ought to be a wiser umpire than this one-sided shut-in +scientist, who prefers dry bones to living pink flesh." + +"In the first place, Miss Beatrix, I must, in the absence of Mrs. +Cleveden, protest against her husband's classification of her as a +fossil. She is alive to her finger tips with enthusiasm for his work, in +which she is his ablest assistant, and knowing something of his charming +home life, I consider him the most enviable man of my acquaintance. We +who are not so fortunate in the matter of sweethearts, must content +ourselves with the best available substitute; and you know, 'if one +cannot have what one loves, one must love what one has.'" + +"A defence of fickleness quite unworthy of you; and moreover, Noel, +utterly untrue, for of all people in the world you are the very last to +surrender anything you really want." + +"Aunt Katrina, would you have me spend my life wailing for the moon?" + +"Pooh! You are not so fatuous as to want to drag a surveyor's chain +across its cold chasms and jagged heights; and after a brief study of +your frozen charmer you would turn your telescope on something +accessible and more valuable. Miss Kent, do you consider Noel a fickle +person?" + +Eglah looked up, and, meeting the eyes of her host, they both laughed. + +"Certainly not. His life-long devotion to you ought to shield him from +all suspicion of inconstancy." + +"Aunt Trina, she is not an impartial umpire. The first time I saw her, a +little girl wearing a snowy muslin with blue ribbon bows on her +shoulders, we entered into a compact, adopted each other as half-brother +and stepsister, and now in supreme trust we form a sort of mutual aid, +mutual defence--on my part, admiration--association. If she saw fifty +fatal flaws in me she would loyally conceal them from you, who are such +a terribly severe censor." + +"Herriott ought to go into politics; don't you think so, Miss Manning?" +asked Mr. Hull. + +"By no means. I prefer he should keep his hands clean." + +"Senator Kent can tell you, madam, that we do not all dabble in mud or +pitch." + +Mr. Herriott leaned forward, and spoke more quickly than usual. + +"She is afraid I might not swell the class of distinguished exceptions +which you and Senator Kent represent. Aunt Trina, may I trouble you for +a second cup of coffee and an extra lump of sugar?" + +Beatrix had completed her inventory of Eglah's points of attraction, and +now, as her eyes rested on the graceful figure daintily gowned in lilac +muslin, the result annoyed her. + +"Miss Kent, has your college training fitted you to believe all the +marvellous tales these two wise scholars tell us; as, for instance, that +this lovely spot--this suburb of paradise where we are sitting--was once +buried for ages under ten thousand feet of glacial ice?" + +"I am sorry to confess my course of study carried me only far enough to +see the border land of a kingdom I never expect to explore. Unless one +specializes, four years at college make no experts. You might as well +ask a butterfly to classify all the blossoms it hovered over, or measure +the depths of glaciers." + +The professor pushed aside his cup, and looked at her. + +"And why not? It can teach us infinitely more than its human, club-crazy +sisters. My dear Miss Kent, we who are in bonds to science exact great +accuracy even in the selection of metaphors, and you will pardon me if I +rise to defend the usefulness of butterflies. On top of Mount Washington +survives a colony of butterflies found nowhere else south of Arctic +snows and ice; descendants of a family which retreated with the great +glacier that once overflowed New Hampshire and left only the pinnacle of +Mount Washington uncovered. When the _OEneis_ household moved back to +Labrador and Greenland, these silk-winged stragglers, flirting in +corners, were abandoned by their chaperons, and for thousands of years +their progeny have flitted around that stone crest to show us the depth +of the glacier." + +Professor Cleveden adjusted his eye-glasses and moved his chair so as to +look straight at Miss Manning, who at once put up her lorgnette to probe +his gold spectacles. + +"Are you an enthusiastic club-woman?" + +"Why don't you ask me if I approve of perjury, arson, and poisoning?" + +"My dear madam, did I not hear you last evening quoting the sonorous +periods of Mrs. Helen Phaedra Swan Hall, whose mission seems to be the +emancipation of her sex from bondage to God as well as to man?" + +"Oh, no, Mr. Cleveden! It was I who asked Mr. Hull to explain the bill +she is trying to have introduced in Congress. Cousin Katrina thinks all +such advanced women should be locked up as lunatics, but she is too +extreme and hopelessly narrow for this generation, while I like to keep +up with the procession. Do tell us about this prophetess." + +"Her husband was a mild man, reputed a faithful husband and a devoted +father, but the female comet he was yoked with indignantly spurned such +slavish role as wifehood and maternity involved, and she ranted around +clubdom and through the press, striving to enlighten the world, until, +finally, she determined to break her domestic chains and shake off all +impedimenta of marriage obligations. Having deliberately selected as +successor a friend whose opinions proved quite as lax as her own, she +promoted an intimacy that resulted in accordance with her scheme. Then +she suggested divorce to Hall, who very naturally assented with +alacrity. When he promptly married the woman chosen, Mrs. Helen Phaedra +Swan gladly abandoned all care of her own children to the new wife, +washed her hands of maternal responsibility, and proclaimed herself free +to work for the rights of woman and the enlightenment of the world. +Soaring eagles scorn to perch at one man's hearthstone, and behold the +comical climax of her flight above the laws of decency and good taste. +She has swooped down on a new husband, and, for a season at least will +call herself Mrs. Helen Phaedra Swan Butler. Such, Miss Roberts, is your +'prophetess.' Having heard that the pet theme of her present +lucubrations is the 'ideal education of children,' I suggested to my own +connubial serf, my 'true love,' that the study of the views of this +experienced seeress might assist us in the training of our one ewe lamb, +our old-fashioned little maid, and the reception of my proposition was +of a nature conjugal loyalty forbids me to describe. Mrs. Helen Phaedra +Swan Butler is merely a degenerate imitation of the Amazons, who changed +their husbands annually and deserted their children. A survival of +polyandry, if you please. Formerly women looked sternly and sorrowfully +from their lofty pure plateau upon polygamy and bigamy as the horrible +heinous luxury of wicked, despotic men; now they are stepping down into +the mire, claiming equal rights in sin, and the emancipated new female +clamors for easy divorce and the freedom of polyandry. In other days, +before 'higher education, club-culture, and female rights' had abolished +home life, domestic sanctity, and fireside _lararium_, all good women +held Clytemnestra the infamous archetype of feminine depravity, but the +doctrine of 'equality' lowers the old high standard, and the new code +reads: 'She had as good a right to Aegisthus as Agamemnon to Chryseis.' +As if the gods failed to overtake both in their sins." + +Miss Manning rang a silver bell, and, rising, tapped the professor's arm +with her lorgnette. + +"Yet you have the audacity to ask me if I condone creatures whose real +aim is to reverse God's decree of the sexes? Trix thinks I should like +them locked up in insane asylums? By no means. I should prefer to see +all such 'removed' by the methods you men employ when brutes become +afflicted with rabies and glanders. I am an old woman, Mr. Cleveden, but +I do object to the way in which you 'scientists' dispense with +conventional verbal draperies in discussing some questions. After all is +said, I presume that 'truth' you are worshipping must wear clothes, and +there is no need to confiscate her garments. Moreover, you are not to +believe for one instant that Miss Roberts means half of the idiotic +rubbish she talks. Girls nowadays think it _chic_ to affect fads, but +Trix is no more a 'new woman' than I am a winged saint. Noel, what is +the order of the morning?" + +"The senator and the professor wish to fish; Stapleton and I are bound +to the stable and kennel, and later to the billiard table to settle an +old debt; Mr. Hull, Eglah, and Miss Beatrix will go out on the launch, +and the phaeton and your ponies will take you and Mrs. Mitchell to see +the finest views of the lake and hills." + +"I much prefer to see your dogs and watch your billiard game, if I may," +said Miss Roberts, picking from the table vase some scarlet poppies that +she fastened in her belt. + +"Miss Manning, do come with us on the lake; the day is so lovely." Eglah +laid an appealing hand on the grey silk sleeve, and Miss Katrina's keen +eyes softened. + +"You are very good to want a crusty old woman as ballast, but I am not +fond of the water. The wind is no respecter of grey hairs, takes such +impertinent liberties with my maidenly curls, and, beside, if an +accident should occur I can swim only as far as a cannon ball might, and +of course in an emergency Mr. Hull would devote himself exclusively to +saving me, hence you would probably drown. Thank you, Miss Kent, but +Mrs. Mitchell and I shall do our best to strangle time till luncheon." + +During that long drive Eliza was kept constantly on guard, parrying +questions that betrayed an earnest curiosity relative to Mr. Herriott's +standing in the senator's family; and she readily divined that Eglah was +considered a formidable obstacle to a marriage long desired between +their host and Beatrix Roberts, the youngest of several unmarried +daughters whose father was Miss Manning's second cousin. + +"And why do you think Noel will never marry?" + +"Of course, madam, I can only conjecture; but from what I have seen of +Mr. Herriott, I think he is very happy as he is, and if he desired or +intended to wed any one, he would scarcely be so eager to renew his +travels in distant lands." + +"And Miss Kent? Lovely, refined-looking woman, but cold as a frozen mill +pond. We hear she has had some fine offers. The world wonders for whom +she is waiting." + +"As far as I know, she is absolutely indifferent. For her father she has +a peculiarly strong and tender affection, and I shall be very much +surprised if she ever marries." + +When she returned to her own room, she felt that she had stepped down +from the witness stand after an adroit cross-examination, in which she +had maintained her non-committal role. As the pleasant days passed, she +and Judge Kent watched their host, hoping for some manifestation of +tenderness, or pique, or consciousness of past suitor-claims that might +portend possibility of renewal. No faintest evidence of other than calm, +friendly, hospitable interest rewarded their scrutiny. If it were indeed +complete surrender of hopes once cherished, would there not have been +traces of disappointment, some bitterness, some cloud on face and +manner? + +Although she was unusually free from coquetry, Eglah was too familiar +with the moods of rejected lovers not to observe the exceptional +demeanor of the master of Greyledge, and his cool _insouciance_ would +have perplexed her had she not recollected his assurance that no word of +his should ever recall the painful interview in the carriage. She +noticed that he never touched her arm or hand if it could be avoided, +and, if he really cared for her society, why did he invite Roger Hull to +his house and afford him every opportunity to monopolize her? The +weather continued favorable; the guests could not fail to regret the +approaching end of their visit, and Mr. Herriott seemed unusually happy, +yet he had abstained from being alone with Eglah. + +On the last day, at the close of dinner, the host proposed that coffee +and cigars should be served on the terrace overhanging the water. The +afternoon had been hot and sultry, and the full moon rose out of a tawny +haze that smouldered at the horizon but silvered and glistened as the +light swam through. Eliza stole away to pack the trunks, and Senator +Kent, the professor, and Mr. Hull strolled up and down smoking, while +Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton followed Mr. Herriott to the pavilion, +where he unlocked a boat and fitted the oars. Miss Manning's favorite +anisette had accomplished its mission, and her white head was bowed on +the billowy lace fichu that covered her neck. Noiselessly Eglah slipped +into the loggia, down the steps leading to the garden beyond the +courtyard, and ran along a walk, dark under dense overhanging boughs. +For a little while she must be alone to ponder the first really stern +words her father had ever spoken to her. They were writing letters in +the library that morning, when Senator Kent turned to her. + +"My daughter, I must tell you that I am watching very impatiently for +the announcement of your acceptance of Herriott." + +"Father, you will never hear it." + +"I distinctly refuse to believe you will persist in defying my wishes. +Hitherto you have very sweetly yielded to my guidance in all matters of +importance, but if you obstinately and foolishly thwart a cherished plan +that concerns me more deeply than you know, you will forfeit my +forgiveness." + +"I will never marry a man I do not love----" + +"No silly rodomontade, if you please, my dear. You quite understand my +wishes." + +"Father, even if my own feelings had changed sufficiently to induce me +to give him a different answer, I am absolutely sure Mr. Noel will never +renew his offer; and this fact is most welcome, because it removes all +possibility of my obeying you. You must see that he is now simply my +friend." + +"Then you have only a short time in which to recall him. Women whistle +lovers back as easily as traps catch mice. It depends solely on you, and +I warn you now of bitter consequences unless you comply with----" + +Miss Roberts and Mr. Stapleton entered the library, and Eglah retreated +to her own room. During dinner Eliza and Mr. Herriott noticed the +unusual flush on her cheeks, the strained, restless expression of her +eyes; but neither had opportunity for questioning, and, shielded by +general conversation, she escaped comment. Sitting opposite at table, +her father had once looked steadily at her. + +"Eglah, you chance to have the fruit I covet close to your hand. Will +you peel me a peach?" + +The garden walk she had followed divided, and into a narrow path she +plunged, finding a resting place on a miniature rockery covered with +fern and periwinkle. The night was so still she could hear the dip of +oars as the boat left shore, and far away the throbbing of a steamer +whose lights flashed across the foam as it sped onward. With her face in +her hands, Eglah recalled Eliza's exasperating question: "Why was +Senator Kent afraid of Mr. Herriott?" Was he? What could be the nature +of the trouble concealed? If Noel were cognizant of impending misfortune +she felt absolutely sure he would never consent to precipitate it. +Because she could share her perplexity with no one, her habitual repose +of manner forsook her. In the unexpected rift between her father and +herself she dispassionately canvassed the possibility of an available +bridge, and, feeling confident no second proposal would be made by Mr. +Herriott, she rejoiced in the belief that his silence would effectually +bar compliance with a command she entertained no thought of obeying. She +saw that he had deliberately surrendered her, and, unlike most women, +she was profoundly glad. Now and then, when he looked unusually handsome +in his yachting suit, and again in full evening dress, presiding with +ease and dignity at his table, Eglah compared her host with his guests, +with some brilliant men she had met in Washington and New York, and +always he seemed aloof and superior as an ivory image among terra-cotta +figurines. Conscious that his serene self-poise sprang in no degree from +personal vanity or pride of wealth, she admired his physical perfection, +and wondered why all his excellences had no more power to stir her heart +than a stained-glass saint in a cathedral window, or a flawless head of +Hylas. At such moments she decided God had designed her to be only a +daughter, and wifehood had no alluring charms, no rosy glamour. + +Out of the dense shadow behind the mound of periwinkle came a sudden +rushing sound, a sharp bark, and the large collie Pilot sprang over a +stone wall and bounded up to the rockery. A moment later Mr. Herriott +whistled, vaulted over the same wall, and stood peering into the clumps +of shrubbery. Eglah patted the dog, hushed him in a whisper, and shrank +closer to the ground. + +"Eglah! Where are you? Eglah!" + +The dog barked, and his master came forward. + +"How could you suspect I was here?" + +"I have a Turk's nose for perfume. I am partial to prussic acid odors, +and no heliotrope blooms on this side of the garden. Who dared send you +to Coventry? For what are you doing penance, here in the dark?" + +"Simply enjoying the delicious, perfect peace that surrounds this +special nook like a velvet mantle. Were you hunting for me?" + +"No. I supposed you were in the loggia. I went for a few minutes to the +small house beyond the wall, where Amos and Susan live. She has been +sick several days, and nothing appeases her wrath if I neglect to say +good night to her. One of her childish whims is that I shall crack her +almonds and filberts, and yesterday when I demurred and turned the +nut-crackers over to Amos she shed tears, declaring his hands were not +always above suspicion, and that as she had performed this service for +me before I was promoted to trousers and vests, I owed it to her now +since she has lost her teeth. By jumping the fence, this is the short +cut from her house to the courtyard." + +"Susan was your nurse?" + +"Yes, since I was a year old, and she has been very faithful to my +family." + +"I should like to see her." + +"Then you shall make her a little visit to-morrow morning, but she can +never see you; she is entirely blind. Eglah, come out of this damp +corner. The moonlight is brilliant, and there is a beach-walk I wish to +show you." + +As she rose and shook her draperies, he walked in advance, saying over +his shoulder: + +"You would not accept my arm, for I am sure you need both hands to guard +your lace and silk frills from thorns and twigs. Here is the garden +boundary. Take care not to trip crossing this stile; come on, only three +steps. Now look at that sickle of the beach, with its long row of silver +poplars outlining a frieze around the land side of the curve. Once in a +furious gale that drove a steamer ashore--just beyond the point--I +watched those distracted trees toss their whitening leaves, as though +hands in prayer, and they lean always inward, shivering with prevision +of wrecks." + +Over the burnished lake a full moon shone, and here and there a sinuous +ripple flashed like a fiery serpent as it glided to land, then slipped +back, while across the waste of water floated the tinkling of Beatrix's +mandolin and the tenor voice of her escort. Mr. Herriott took off his +hat, and when he turned suddenly to his companion she noticed a +brilliant smile on his face. + +"Dana is very happy to-night, and I am glad to carry away the pleasant +consciousness that I have done everything possible in smoothing the path +to his heart's goal." + +"You believe he will win her?" + +"I certainly hope success for him. Her heart is already his, and, if he +can only be patient, she must ultimately yield." + +"You think that in such matters persistency is invincible?" + +"On the contrary, many Jacobs never win their Rachels; and my prediction +fits only the lovers out yonder. Aunt Trina will wail and invoke all the +Manning family ghosts, but the pretty hand of Miss Beatrix will follow +her heart." + +Looking up at him, she admitted that in personal charm he surpassed all +men she had ever met, but into this verdict entered no emotional element +sufficiently strong to shiver the crystal calm of her heart, and she +found it difficult to identify this handsome, placid, smiling +countenance with a white, drawn, twitching face whose keen pain had +recently wrung tears from her in Washington. + +The unusual flush had faded, leaving her cheeks cool and stainless as +the petals of a white rose, and the restless spark in her eyes had been +extinguished by drops that were never allowed to fall. Mr. Herriott had +studied her face too many years not to detect the new strained +expression, the compression of lips that would quiver, and all his +jealous surmises focussed on one dread--Father Temple. + +"Shall we walk on slowly? Not far off is a seat. I have been wishing for +a quiet, uninterrupted talk before we say good-bye for an indefinite +period, and this is my last opportunity. Eglah, when did you hear from +Vernon Temple?" + +"I cannot recall the exact date, but it was several weeks ago. We do not +really correspond, and his occasional notes are so impersonal that in +replying I sometimes feel as if I were addressing an abstraction. At +first he interested me extremely, but one cannot easily maintain his +mystical elevation of spirit." + +"I thought you were really fond of him." + +"Knowing as you do that I have absolutely no faculty for growing fond of +people, I am surprised you should have made the mistake. He enlisted my +interest in some of his benevolent schemes, especially a 'sisterhood' +for care of infirm indigents; but father has no sympathy with Vernon or +his vocation, and, therefore, I have been less impressed." + +"At one time you were extravagant in praise of his 'saintly, magnetic +face.'" + +"So I possibly am, or have been, about several fine pictures of +handsome, bleeding flagellants and tormented martyrs, but I should +prefer not to hang them permanently in my dining-room." + +"Do you know anything of your cousin's early life, or of the reasons +that induced him to join his 'Order'?" + +"Nothing whatever, except that while at college he was ill, and one of +father's sisters had him removed to her farmhouse, where he remained for +months before he could discard crutches." + +Mr. Herriott stopped and turned towards her. Holding his hat behind him, +he leaned forward and scanned her closely. + +"Vernon is a married man, and his wife is living." + +"Is it possible! If any one else had told me, I should doubt it. I am +sure father knows nothing of the wife. Where is she? _Cherchez la femme_ +is rarely a satire." + +In the flood of moonlight her fair face--expressive only of +surprise--showed no vestige of emotion that could disquiet him, and so +intense was his relief that for a moment he dared not trust his voice; +then he put on his hat and whistled to his dog. As they walked slowly +along the margin of the lake, he told her briefly the history of Father +Temple and the recent discovery of his wife and child. + +"Thank you for telling me such pleasant news. I am very glad poor Vernon +will have that angelic boy to comfort him--but 'Juno'? So beautiful, so +hard, so bitter! How can any meek priest ever hope to manage her?" + +They had reached the point of the sickle, and looking back the swelling +curves of wooded hills, masses of glossy shrubbery, the irregular +profile of the house, outlined by its twinkling lights, and the vast +shimmering mirror of the great lake, all lay bathed in liquid gold. +Somewhere in a neighboring copse a bird, disturbed by the dog or misled +by the splendor of the night, twittered, and then, to reassure his +brooding mate near by, broke into a rapture of song. Clasping her hands +behind her head, Eglah lifted her face to listen, and Mr. Herriott +watched the moisture glisten on her lashes. + +"Sweet as any aubade of the olden time, under olive and ilex, is it +not?" + +For a moment she did not reply, then, with a sweep of her arm toward the +house on the rocks, she said: + +"So beautiful, so full of peace--of such profound repose--how can +you--why will you leave it?" + +"Because I do not forget '_le repos est une bonne chose, mais l'ennui +est son frere_.' I love and enjoy my home, but I prefer not to stagnate. +Garnering the bright and charming memories of the past few days, it can +never again seem quite as lonely as I have sometimes found it. I am glad +you have met Professor Cleveden, who is one of my best friends. His +domestic relations are so happy, and so perfect in their adjustments, +that no forlorn bachelor, once admitted to his home, could escape pangs +of envy. His wife is literally partner in his joys, sorrows, studies, +and diversions, and their only child--the 'little maid' Violet--is +spelling in the alphabet of science. Cleveden swears she shall be locked +up in his laboratory, safe from the social microbes that he fancies +infest the atmosphere of female clubs and 'emancipated women.' Some day +I hope you will meet Mrs. Cleveden. She is very beautiful and gracious, +though he assures me he has one grievance against his 'sweetheart,' and +Patmore expressed it: + + "'Her manners, when they call me lord, + Remind me 'tis by courtesy; + Not with her least consent of will.'" + +"Father distrusts the professor, and cautioned me not to discuss any +religious questions, because he considers him a brilliant casuist." + +"Cleveden has one apostle whom he follows at all hazards--simple, stern, +scientifically established truth--and to him the natural laws are as +sacred as those Moses brought directly from the same God who framed them +all. For mere dogma in science or religion he has no tolerance, and I +shall never forget the profound emotion with which, in a lecture, he +quoted: 'These sciences are the real steps in the great world's +altar-stairs that slope through darkness up to God.' Revealed religion +lets down a ladder from heaven; natural sciences are the solid rungs by +which men like Cleveden build and climb. Side by side these ladders +rise, never crossing at sharp angles, both ending, resting at the feet +of God. Up one spiritual faith runs easily; along the other some souls +of different mould toilsomely ascend, each and all seeking and finding +the same goal--the eternal Ruler of the universe. Cleveden scoffs at +nothing but shallow shams, and we have heard him repeat passages from +Job and David, then declaim from the Iliad, and declare that as between +the thunder roll of Hebrew and Greek, the latter was as the rustle of +rushes in a summer wind to the pounding of Atlantic surf on rock-walled +shores." + +"Nevertheless, father regrets that you cling to such an unsafe guide." + +"He is worthy of my trust. Conscientiously hunting only for truth, he +admonishes his students: + + "'Hath man no second life? + Pitch this one high!' + +"To a young man groping in the mist of agnosticism, he repeated the +declaration of one of the most subtle scientific thinkers of this +century: 'That he had scrutinized every agnostic hypothesis he knew of, +and found that they one and all needed a God to make them workable.' + +"I wish I could respect myself as I respect and honor my friend. Eglah, +knowing your reticent nature, I am perhaps presumptuous in taking a rash +step. There is some trouble that annoys you. Before I go away for such a +long, uncertain absence, will you trust me? I may not be able to remove +the burden, but I should be glad to share it. Can you tell me what +distresses you?" + +She looked at him steadily, then away at the brooding water, where +voices of the night had begun to croon. + +"Mr. Noel, let us go back; the boat is at the terrace." + +When they reached the stone stile, she said: + +"Do you know why father resigned the senatorship?" + +"He has not confided his reasons to me." + +"Having known him so long, should you think that his state of health +demanded such a step?" + +"His appearance at present does not indicate any cause for alarm, and +you ought not to conjure a spectre with which to frighten yourself." + +"His physician did the conjuring." + +She sat down on the stile, and in her strained, sad gaze he measured the +depth of her disquietude. + +"Mr. Noel, if you know any outside circumstances that appear to +necessitate or warrant this sudden abandonment of a brilliant senatorial +career, I beg you will be once more your old, kind, candid self and tell +me. If I understood I could bear it better." + +"You think your father is perfectly well?" + +"I cannot see the change he insists has overtaken him of late; can you?" + +"Yes. Within the year his nervousness and want of equipoise have been +apparent, and when the newspapers stated that his 'medical adviser' had +recommended rest and Aix-les-Bains I was rejoiced. The atmosphere of +Washington is the worst possible for him. When do you sail?" + +"On the twenty-fifth." + +"Mrs. Mitchell accompanies you?" + +"Of course. You scarcely understand what all this means to me. I have no +life outside of father's. His political future is my sole horizon. To +help, follow close, watch his ascent, was my world. This sudden, +inexplicable surrender, this stepping down and back into obscurity and +inaction leave me no foothold on coming years, and I feel adrift. Mr. +Noel, would it be unreasonable for me to hope that when father returns +in vigorous health a Cabinet seat or a foreign mission might be offered +him by the Republican party he has served so long, so faithfully?" + +The wistful pathos of uplifted eyes that searched his stirred all the +tenderness of his nature, but he allowed himself no manifestation. + +"If you anticipate such reward for your father, and then lose it, +disappointment would intensify the annoyance. By dismissing the +expectation, the charm of surprise will be added to the value of +promotion. You have passed the age of soap bubbles, and ought to know +that upon political preferment no man can depend with certainty, +especially in a republican country." + +"I shall not, will not, accept defeat. I must be patient until next +year, and then, somehow--in some way--we shall recover our kingdom. I am +so proud of father--ah, so proud!" + +She rose, and he put out his hand to assist her, but she crossed the +stile without touching his fingers, and they silently approached the +courtyard. + +At a late hour, when the party dispersed, Judge Kent was the first +person who reached his own room. Soon after, Eglah tapped at his door. +As he opened it, a flood of light streamed over her cold, proud face, +and his keen gaze seemed to probe her soul. + +"Well?" + +She shook her head and stretched her arms towards him. + +"Father----" + +He laid a finger heavily on her trembling lips, then turned her around, +pushed her gently but firmly back from the threshold, and locked the +door on the inside. + +The remaining hours of the night Mr. Herriott spent pacing slowly the +beach-walk, realizing anew the hopelessness of any change in conditions +that barred him from his heart's desire, and the wisdom of his +determination to travel as far as possible. The moon, magnified by mist +into a vast sphere of silver, swam in the west, tipping each wavelet +with a glittering fringe, and now and then crooning whispers of the +great expanse of water seemed to swell and fill the echoing hollows of +the brooding night. + +The intense bitterness of Mr. Herriott's reflections crept into his +voice. + +"Loyal soul! Nobody can help her now. Rude winds have blown wide the +guarded gate of her temple, and she will spend her life on her knees, +trying to regild the clay feet of her one image." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +"My son, Leighton Dane Temple, I baptize thee in the name of the Father, +and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen." + +Other than baptismal drops fell on the boy's head, as with unsteady lips +and brimming eyes Father Temple bent over him; and the hand that +administered the rite clung tenderly to the damp curls. The room was +very dim and still, the atmosphere heavy with the breath of tuberoses +clustered on the pillow, and the figure sitting at the foot of the cot +with her arms folded, manifested by sound or motion no more interest +than a stone image. On the mantel shelf was the tin box bearing her +name, and many days before letters, newspapers, and money had testified +to the truth of her husband's statements, but to its contents she made +no allusion, allowed none. Their estrangement was too complete to be +bridged even by words when avoidance was possible. Occasionally, as he +entered or left the room, she acknowledged his salutation by a slight +inclination of her head; but usually sullen silence and apparent +unconsciousness of his presence showed how bitterly she resented a +presentation of facts that pleaded his exculpation. She hugged her +wrongs, and any attempt to minimize his guilt infuriated her. Her ruined +life was an acrid dead sea, into which no sweetness could fall, and she +clung to its most loathsome aspects with a grim stubbornness unnatural +and incomprehensible in women of a different type. The boy's death had +seemed imminent more than once, and though he rallied again and again, +the sands were surely near the end, running low. + +Two weeks after his baptism, Father Temple secured for him and his +mother rooms at an old farmhouse on Long Island, not very far from a +railroad village. + +To the weary child, sick of city heat, city din, and all the complex +elements that make tenement life an affliction to sensitive natures, +there seemed a foretaste of that heaven to which he was hastening, in +the cool, vine-laced porch where wrens nested, the elm-shaded yard, blue +with larkspurs, and the green-carpeted orchard of low-spreading apple +and towering cherry trees, that formed a quivering loom of boughs +casting gilt network of braided sunbeams on purple heads of clover. +Outside the picket fence that enclosed the fruit trees a meadow rolled +seaward, and in one of its deep dimples a small clear pond shone like a +mirror whereon an enormous willow trailed its branches and watched +itself grow old. Across this meadow ox-eye daisies ran riot, so densely +massed, so tall, they seemed great stretches of snow, and only when the +wind swept them into billows were green stems discernible. + +Father Temple had found convenient quarters in the neighboring village, +and each day he walked to the little farm, where the feverishly bright +eyes of the boy glowed with more intense brilliance at his approach. +Leighton's sensitive nature responded to every spiritual appeal his +father attempted, as though some subtle, dormant chord of sympathy once +set in vibration would never cease to thrill. Sometimes, watching the +happy, rapt expression on her child's face as the priest read or talked +or prayed with him, a jealous rage seized the mother, shaking her into +fierce revolt, and she shut her eyes, set her teeth, put her hands to +her ears, and mutely fought down her fury. On such occasions, conscious +of her suffering, he shortened his visit, carrying away an accession of +heartache over the utter hopelessness of any form of reconciliation. + +On the morning of the anniversary of his marriage, as he walked along +the lane leading to the farmhouse, a flood of reminiscences drowned all +the intervening years, and once more he stood under the stars at the +Post, holding Nona in his arms. Could she forget the date? Would the +sweet, warm wind of tender memory fresh from the happy day their love +had sanctified, breathe no melting magic on her frozen nature? Until +recently he had shared the current belief--"_tout comprendre c'est tout +pardonner_"--because of the limitless, patient, condoning affection +inhering in true wifehood, but the teamster's daughter was a law unto +herself, and taught him that some women, who love most intensely and +faithfully, forgive not at all. + +As he entered the sick room he detected in Leighton's usually gentle +voice a note of fretfulness. His mother stood beside the bed, holding a +cluster of daisies, which he had rejected. + +"My darling, I gathered them where they grew finest, and these are as +pretty indoors as out on the meadow." + +She laid them beside him, but he turned his face away. + +"There's father! He will understand." + +She moved away to the window and stood with face averted. Father Temple +took the child's outstretched hand. + +"Father, why can't I be carried out yonder, where the daisies are spread +like sheets? I want to lie down a little while, and feel them cover me, +and listen to the bees--and out there I can breathe easier. Mother will +not let me, says I might catch cold; as if the sunshine could make me +worse. Why can't I go?" + +"My son, I fear you had a bad night, and your mother is a better judge +than I, because she never leaves you. If she approved, I would gladly +take you to the daisies." + +"She refused to move me down here, but you brought me." + +"It was the doctor, not I, who induced her to consent." + +"Oh, I want to go where the daisies are calling me! Don't you see how +they turn and beckon and----" His feeble voice broke in a sob. + +"Mother's man must have his milk punch," said Nona, going into the next +room to prepare it. + +Instantly the boy whispered: + +"Father, pick me up, and carry me; quick!" + +After a moment Father Temple went into the adjoining apartment. His wife +stood shaking the milk into froth, and her glance slipped from his face +with no more evidence of recognition than if she had looked at the wall. + +"Nona, there has been a dreadful change since yesterday. The time will +soon come when you can find comfort only in remembering you denied him +nothing. Well wrapped up, a few moments in the sunshine will not harm +him." + +She passed him without reply, and when the milk punch had been given, +she stooped suddenly and kissed her child twice. His wasted arms crept +feebly to her neck. + +"Please, mother--the daisies." + +"If I let you go a little while, you must not ask to stay." + +She buttoned his flannel dressing-gown about his throat, wrapped him in +her shawl, and put on his little grey cloth cap. + +Taking a light blanket from the bed, Father Temple lifted the emaciated +form, cradled him tenderly in his arms, and bore him across the orchard. +The mother preceded them, opened and closed the gate, and, when they +reached the meadow, she withdrew to the brink of the pond, sat down +under the ancient willow, and locked her hands in her lap. Close by, on +a knoll, the blanket had been spread; Leighton was laid upon it, and +feebly stretching his arms drew the daisies over him until they veiled +the shrunken figure, and only the wan face and golden curls were +visible. In a pale-blue sky the sun shone hot; white butterflies swam +lazily to and fro, like drifting blossoms from interstellar gardens; a +sheep bell tinkled now and then, and from the south, a freshening wind +bore echoes of the ceaseless chant of the heaving sea. + +Out of the flowery coverlet Leighton's hand stole, feeling for his +father's fingers, and a happy light shone in the boy's violet eyes, but +his breathing had grown quick and painfully labored. Suddenly he +struggled up, leaning against his father's shoulder. + +"What ails the sun? Mother! Where's mother?" + +One of those swift, ghostly fogs that spring without warning from the +ocean was sweeping inland, and as sunlight smote the advancing pillars +of mist it seemed transmuted into battlements and towers of some city of +silver. Strained maternal ears had caught the boy's faint cry, and Nona +knelt, clasping him close, resting his head on her bosom. His wide and +wondering eyes were fixed on the strange, shining wall drawing swiftly +nearer. + +"The gates of heaven! Mother, mother----" + +A moment later the chill waves of mist flowed over them, blotting out +the sun. + +Under that grey pall, daisy-dotted, the blue eyes closed; the pure, +lovely face, still smiling, lay white against his mother's cheek. + + * * * * * + +Not always comes imperial death as pacificator; now and then the flame +of vengeance leaps through the shroud of shadows, and sometimes open +graves typify wider, deeper chasms that know no closing. There are +natures who prefer total surrender rather than any sharing of that which +they hold dearest; and of such was the pallid, dry-eyed mother, lying +hour after hour on the bed where her fragile boy slept his last sleep. + +His head rested on her right arm, and with her left hand she had drawn +his icy fingers inside her dress, trying to warm them on the breast +where in infancy they toyed. Since the moment she had snatched him from +the meadow couch of daisies and borne him unaided to the farmhouse, no +one was allowed to touch him, and the angel who called and guided the +young soul to God was more welcome than the human father daring to claim +him. During the long night of her last vigil, the priest, pacing an +adjoining room, wondered at the stern repression of her grief; and only +once, through the half-open door, came a frantic cry, ending in a low, +quivering wail. + +"Mother's man! Mother's own pretty--pretty--darling baby! Oh----" + +An hour later, when he ventured to re-enter the room, he knew the one +passionate outbreak signalled her final surrender. She had lifted the +little wasted form from the bed and laid him in a coffin resting on a +low table; covering all but the delicate, chiselled face and shining +hair with a thick shroud of daisies. + +Now, with hands locked in her lap, she sat leaning her head against the +coffin. Tears he could not repress fell as the father bent down to the +casket, but she put her arm across it, barring him. + +"Don't! You must not touch my baby." + +Sinking to his knees he put his hand on the fingers lying in her lap. + +"Oh, Nona! Eleven years ago to-night!" + +She pushed his hand aside, and when he bowed his head on her knee, she +moved her chair back to avoid the touch. + +"My wife----" + +"No. I am no man's wife. I can't forget, and I don't wish to forgive, +even if I could. I want you to understand that I would rather see my +darling where he is than have him live for you to come between us. The +Nona you knew died ten years ago, when insulted, and slandered, and +despised I washed and ironed for money to clothe and feed my little +fatherless one--my own beautiful little baby." + +She laid her hand on the cold head and fondled the golden rings of hair, +but no moisture dimmed the large, mournful eyes that defied her +husband's pleading. + +A moment later she added, in a stinging tone: + +"After to-morrow you will have no excuse to intrude upon me; with a +childless, hopeless, desperate woman you can meddle no more, and I shall +contrive to save myself the intolerable sight of your face. In your tin +box you will find the money I have not touched, but the papers I burned +to-night; because in the grave--my baby's grave--certificates of +legitimacy are not required. I wish no record retained of any +association or tie with you, and henceforth I want to hear neither from +nor of you. For ten years what heart I had left beat only for my baby, +and his precious little hands will always hold it tight in his coffin. +After to-morrow my work waits for me, and your path and mine will cross +no more." + +Up and down the room Father Temple walked, striving to master his +emotion. Pausing in front of her, he asked very tenderly: + +"May I know where and what is the work my son's mother has selected?" + +"It is everywhere; the struggle of the poor to loosen the strangling +clutch of the rich on their throats; the cruel war which will end only +with the downfall of aristocrats, when millionaires will be hunted like +other criminals, when cowardly sons of rich army officers can dare to +marry publicly the daughters of their regimental teamsters, and when a +pure woman, because she is pure, will be as much respected as a crowned +head. You preach 'he that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord.' We +have a different doctrine, a broader gospel. When justice reigns there +will be no poor, no hoarded surplus of dishonest riches, no 'benevolent +fund' doled out by 'philanthropic' pharisees to the workers whose labor +created it. In that day, no poor girls in reeking tenements will be +goaded by the sight of fashionable society women, who drink, and smoke, +and gamble, and loll half clad in opera boxes, and hug their lap dogs +and their lovers instead of their children. In that day society lines +will vanish, and only two classes exist--workers and drones, governed by +beehive laws. To aid in this is all I care for now--all that remains for +me--and my work will be well done." + +She had spoken in a cold, defiant tone, keeping her eyes on the coffin +and her fingers on the child's curls, but after a moment a spasm of +anguish shook her mercilessly, and, rising, she pointed to the door, +saying, between strangling sobs: + +"Leave me, and shut the door. I have all I can bear now. Leave me alone +with my little one." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Aix-les-Bains proved a successful prescription, and Judge Kent declared +himself cured; but two silent women knew he could obtain only a modicum +of sleep, and noted the fact that when the daily mail--nervously +expected and handled--had been scanned he grew gay and chatty. After +sixteen months on the continent, he settled for a while at Taormina, and +here his companions were surprised to learn that his business agent had +sold every foot of real estate he owned in America, including the +Herriott house in New York, and the old homestead built in an elm grove +among the bleak, stony hills of New England. + +"Father, when was the house in Thirty-eighth Street sold?" + +"Soon after we reached Aix." + +"And you never told me?" + +"Why should I? Herriott might cherish some sentiment about it, but the +matter touched you in no way." + +"At least I should like to know who bought it." + +"Herriott. While at Greyledge I told him it would be on the market, and +he instructed his agent to make the purchase." + +"Had I known in time, Mr. Whitfield might have invested some idle money. +I like those cool, big, old-fashioned rooms." + +"I entertain no doubt that sooner or later they will be yours. Mrs. +Mitchell, may I trouble you for the 'Figaro' at your elbow?" + +"Who owns the old homestead that has belonged to some Kent for two +hundred years?" + +"The town has grown until it needs a juvenile 'reformatory,' and one is +now in course of erection where my old barn stood so long. A better site +could not have been found, or one more vigilantly patrolled by orthodox +puritan ghosts." + +"Have you no regrets when you think of strangers possessing the little +family burying ground where some of your ancestors long ago crumbled to +dust?" + +Eglah lifted her hand to brush away an orange petal that drifted down to +the velvet collar of his coat, and Eliza knew that the perpendicular +line between her brows indexed profound dissatisfaction. + +"Regrets are unprofitable, and what remains of my life must pay +dividends. My dear, will you kindly hand me my match box?" + +"Then you are homeless?" + +Smiling blandly, he bowed to her. + +"I trust not, while my daughter owns thousands of acres of the finest +land in the South." + +"Do you forget how often you have declared you would never again live +south of Washington?" + +"I forget nothing, but circumstances are not as fixed as parallels of +latitude, and changed conditions demand readjustment of plans. +Irrevocability travelled into limbo with ancient Medes and Persians, and +after the first of May I hope I may count upon the traditional +hospitality of Nutwood. You are of age, and have the right to occupy +it." + +Slowly but steadily the barrier between father and child had risen and +strengthened since the visit to Greyledge--a wall as of crystal, which +she could neither level nor penetrate. Close to him, having him +apparently within touch, yet conscious always that a transparent +obstacle divided them. To the cause of estrangement he never referred, +even indirectly, and he was neither irritable nor stern, but mercilessly +cold and punctiliously courteous. Why he had selected Taormina in +preference to Palermo was known only to himself, but one morning Eliza +and Eglah saw a letter postmarked Catania, and both recognized Mr. +Herriott's peculiarly bold handwriting. Judge Kent read it, returned it +to the envelope, which he put in his pocket, and unfolded a New York +newspaper. Mrs. Mitchell moved away to a distant window, carrying her +embroidery frame and silks, and Eglah opened the piano and played softly +two of Chopin's _nocturnes_. In the mirror opposite she saw that her +father was listening, beating time with the index finger of his right +hand. When she ended and approached him, he shut his eyes and hummed the +final bars. + +"Father, why did you come here for so long a stay?" + +"It is convenient to Catania and on the road to Messina." + +"You knew that Mr. Herriott expected to be there?" + +"I know that he has a scientific friend there who is an expert in all +that pertains to seismology, and that he wishes Herriott to see his +seismographs." + +"That fact should in no degree influence our movements." + +"Speak solely for yourself, my dear. I particularly desire to see +Herriott before he starts from Tromso on his trip to the midnight sun." + +Leaning forward, his fine dark eyes fixed on hers, he lowered his voice. + +"A separation of eighteen months must have brought you to a realization +of your blind folly, and it is necessary that you should have an +opportunity to retrieve your error. Herriott comes to-day." + +"A lifetime--a thousand years would make no difference with me. I am +glad to know that he will never ask me a second time to marry him, and +if he should, I could not, and I would not. Oh, father! Put that idea +out of your mind, and give me back my own place in your heart." + +She came close and tried to embrace him, but he held her back at arm's +length. + +"I love only those who obey me; and defiance I never forgive. Until you +come to an appreciation of your duty as regards my unalterable wishes, I +must request you not to touch me, not to expect any notice from me, +except such social courtesies as one cannot avoid." + +"I am the price of something Mr. Herriott alone can sell you? What is it +you wish to buy?" + +"Your future happiness, and my peace of mind." + +"Distinctly, I decline to be sold." + +He smiled, put her aside, drew his chair out upon a balcony, and resumed +reading his newspaper. + +The conversation had been inaudible to Eliza, but, putting out her hand, +she rose quickly at sight of a white face where the large eyes glowed as +on the memorable day in the pavilion at Nutwood. + +Looking steadily before her, Eglah passed into an adjoining room and +locked the door. Some hours later she laid a note on Mrs. Mitchell's +lap. + +"I am going to sit a while in the old Greco-Roman theatre. I shall come +back when I am tired. Please ask no questions." + +Through one of the arches, built twenty-three centuries ago, she looked +out, wondering if any change could enhance the charm that lay like a +magic mantle over the visible world. The purple sea broke in a tangled +fringe of silver on the curving beach, Aetna, snow hooded, rose a vast +altar far away, with thin, tapering feather of smoke floating as incense +from its Plutonian cavern; and gaunt, gnarled olive orchards made a +luminous grey background for pink plumes of almond trees, scarlet +pomegranates, rose oleanders, and orange and lemon groves white with +bloom that fell like a fragrant shower on crimson tulips and waxen +cyclamen. In the witchery of her surroundings, thronged with beckoning +spectres of Greek, Roman, Saracen, and Norman legends, Eglah had +hitherto been able to forget on this spot all but the entrancing beauty +of the wonderful old cliffs; yet this afternoon sombre shadows seemed to +shroud a smiling sea and land, menacing as the smoking mountain that +cast its perpetual challenge to a sapphire sky. + +The vague anxiety, the tenderly regretful pain long gnawing at her +heart, had given place now to angry indignation, and a humiliating +consciousness of her father's persistent and increasing desire to barter +her, body and soul, for something that Mr. Herriott possessed. Not his +great wealth, her own fortune was sufficiently ample; not his social +influence, since political aspirations had come to an untimely end; +there was no animosity to be conciliated, no strained personal relations +existed, only a mild friendship manifested by occasional correspondence. +Her conjectures ran around a baffling circle marked only by the starting +post, "what?" "why?" Nemesis is not always so intent on pursuit of the +culprit that she can forego the parenthetic pastime of striking at the +innocent who may chance to stand between, and Eglah had begun to +entertain a bitter resentment against Mr. Herriott--the only visible +factor in her father's alienation--despite her firm conviction that he +would never, by a renewed proposal, smooth the way to a consummation of +the desired sale. + +The strong sense of dispassionate justice on which she prided herself +upbraided her sharply, but the intolerable disappointments of the last +eighteen months shook her from the calm, cool heights of impersonal +reasoning. As she leaned her bare head against the pillar of an arch +through which presageful Greek chorus chants--ages ago--had drifted away +to sea, her upturned face was shown in clear relief, like ivory features +on a dull-red background. Gowned in grey cloth, she had clustered lemon +blossoms around the cameo fastening her belt, and across her lap lay a +branch of acanthus, its pale, delicate lilac flowers springing among the +curved, glossy leaves. + +From a neighboring angle in the portico, to which Mr. Herriott had +noiselessly ascended, his eager, hungry eyes watched her, studied her, +and through a mist of unconquerable tenderness he noted the changes time +had printed on the frank, fair face--so much older, so pale, so hard, so +sullen rather than sorrowful. The light of youthful hope in her lovely +eyes had been driven away by some ugly fact always confronting her, and +the sensitive lips were set tight, stern, pitiless. Who or what was the +Gorgon that had frozen the exquisite face he loved so passionately? More +than grief was written there, and he who had so long interpreted its +phases read the dominant emotion, indignant protest against some wrong. +Over the crest of Aetna the sinking sun hovered, and in the wonderful +radiance, that seemed woven of vast rainbows into some celestial garment +for sea and land, Mr. Herriott came out of his niche and stood before +her. + +"I am very glad to see you here, Eglah. It seems so long since we parted +at Greyledge." + +He held out both hands, and, without rising, she put up one of hers, but +he saw the swift frown, the undisguised annoyance his presence caused. +There had been no opportunity for fastening a mask, or forcing +perfunctory smiles, and upon her frank truthfulness and scorn of +dissimulation he relied implicitly. Very tenderly he covered her cold +fingers with his warm palms, and, as she withdrew them, he seated +himself on a stone at her side. + +"Who has put me in your black books? Not a word of welcome for a +travel-weary vagrant starving for friendly recognition?" + +She looked coldly at him, but something in his fine, magnetic eyes, his +caressing tone, touched her into self-reproach. + +"If ever you should get into my black book, you will have put yourself +there. Mr. Herriott, I am very glad to see you looking so remarkably +well." + +"Have I so many grey locks, to warrant my promotion to Mr. Herriott?" + +She glanced at the silky black head bent toward her. + +"Not a white hair visible. Your promotion comes by brevet, in honor of +perfect behavior as well as additional years. Of course you have seen +father?" + +"No, I met only Mrs. Mitchell, who told me you had gone to watch the +sunset, and I knew this must be your coign of vantage." + +"This is not your first visit?" + +"No. The island attracts me more than any other part of Italy, and +justifies what has been said: 'Sicily is the smile of God.'" + +"Then surely His frown must be Aetna--'the pillar of heaven, the nurse of +sharp, eternal snows.' A few moments ago it was dazzling, now how grim +and sombre it looms, and that wavering jet of smoke crawls against the +purple sky as a dying candle flame flickers over the head of a corpse. I +sometimes wonder if God----" + +She had lifted the acanthus spray and touched it with her cheek, and her +eyes followed the ascending smoke which suddenly glowed from crater +lights beneath as sunset splendors faded; but the sentence was not +finished, and her lips paled. Turning toward her companion, she smiled. + +"You have been feeling the old earth's pulse while she was in an ague?" + +"Yes. On the surface our ancient mother appears so absolutely in repose, +and yet, when we get down nearer her mighty heart, we find the earth is +never still; it trembles and thrills ceaselessly. This was my first view +of the seismic pendulum records, in a subterranean vault that suggested +the workshop of Hephaestus." + +"I should think you would tire of wandering about, and prefer to go +home." + +"If I had one, doubtless I should; but roof, walls, and fields and +gardens do not exactly constitute the home that would content me." + +"Mr. Noel, you are wedded to science, and nothing else will ever satisfy +you." + +"Yes, I am very faithful to my vast spouse, and I find her loyal. She +never flirts, never is inconsistent or petulant; when I work hard she +smiles divinely, and, like that other sorceress of the Nile, 'age cannot +wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety.' Domesticity is not +one of her charms, hence hand in hand we roam the world, making a +perpetual bridal tour. No connubial quarrels disturb our sweet repose, +even when I write to you, her only rival; but if I grow indolent, or +over wise or conceited, she simply lays her great finger on her lips of +stone and turns her huge planetary back upon me. Now, Eglah, you are due +in the confessional. Why did you fail to answer my letter from Fort +Churchill, Hudson Bay?" + +"Because it contained no address, and to reach you seemed as uncertain +as mailing a letter to that wild new comet pious people are praying will +not make a carrom with earth and moon and sundry stars. Have you heard +that Beatrix and Mr. Stapleton were married in November?" + +"Yes, I received a long wail from Aunt Trina, in which she came as near +boxing my ears as intervening distance permitted. Dana and Trix will be +as happy as a pair of Java finches in a gilt cage." + +"I imagined that Miss Manning's objection arose solely from the fact +that the cage was not gilded." + +"Wall Street is a wonderful matchmaker, and smiled on the lovers. +Sometimes Hymen corners stocks, and Dana's kite was lucky." + +Having learned from Judge Kent that Mr. Herriott had assisted Mr. +Stapleton in financial matters, Eglah smiled, and the old look of kindly +trust came back to her eyes as they steadily met his. + +"What a treat it would be to read Miss Manning's letter!" + +"Because you think my ears deserve boxing, and you enjoy seeing justice +meted out? How unkind to your faithful old friend! Nevertheless, I would +lay the letter before you, but it is in my trunk at Brindisi, where I am +due to meet Chalcott for the next steamer to Cyprus. Chalcott has +questioned the accuracy of statements relative to the recent excavations +there, and wants local data, and as he is also at odds with Schliemann +over the Troad, we go there to debate the claim of Hissarlik _versus_ +Bunarbashi." + +"I did not know you were so deeply interested in classical archaeology." + +"I am not, and it does not attract me; but it is a special line of study +with Chalcott, who wishes me to accompany him, not as co-worker, but +merely as a friend." + +"You prefer Hopi and Haida legends, and 'Walam-Olum,' and 'glacial +moraines,' and 'kettle holes'? You see, as an old friend, I thought it +really my duty to read those two reports you sent to father." + +"I dare say you found them very tiresome; but pre-glacial conditions and +anthropological problems appeal powerfully to me. In tossing up balloons +we do not all select the same color." + +"After burrowing in the Troad, where next?" + +"Tromso, Hammerfest and the midnight sun. We shall have a pleasant +party: two Americans, a German professor, an English scientist, and a +Russian astronomer. I must go on to Brindisi to-morrow, but I could not +resist the temptation to see you and spend a few hours." + +"It will be a long time before you reach home?" + +"So long that I have fixed no date for return." + +The unmistakable expression of relief that crossed her face was not lost +upon him, and involuntarily he clenched his right hand resting on his +knee. + +"Eglah, your countenance is honest as your heart, and you are not glad +to see your old friend. May I ask why?" + +Without hesitation she looked at him frankly. + +"To-day something annoyed me very sorely, and I came here to fight it +out alone. I fear I have at times the temper of a Tartar, and the evil +one possessed me at the very moment you appeared and spoke to me. Just +then nothing would have given me pleasure, but your patient courtesy +makes me ashamed; and now, Mr. Noel, you must believe me when I assure +you I am heartily glad to be with you, and hear of your various +expeditions." + +Smiling cordially, she held out her hand, but he took no notice of it, +and for a moment his eyes rested on the sea, where a freshening wind +crimped the long swells of water dyed by the after-glow into the gold of +a daffodil. Turning, he bent over her. + +"May I ask you a question?" + +"Certainly, if I may be allowed discretionary powers as regards +answering. I do not think Mr. Noel could make an unkind inquiry, or that +he would distress me in any way." + +"Am I responsible for the annoyance you referred to?" + +Keen as was his gaze, she did not waver. + +"Personally it was impossible that you could have been responsible. When +it occurred you were in Catania." + +She saw that he was not satisfied, and, rising, put on her hat. + +"We must go back; father will have so much to talk over with you. Please +carry my acanthus; I shall make a sketch of this spray, it is so laden +with blossoms." + +In silence they walked some distance, and rather suddenly she exclaimed: + +"I must have been rude indeed, when you, so generous and kind, will not +forgive me. Mr. Noel, I am not quite my old self, and to-day have felt +at odds with the world. Father's incomprehensible retirement from public +life grieves and perplexes me, because his health is perfect, and I +cannot patiently accept the forfeiture of all my hopes for his political +future. Without his knowledge, I wrote early in the new Administration +to two prominent officials, close personal friends of the President, and +asked their influence in securing a foreign ministerial position for my +father. With elaborate circumlocution they expressed regrets, and +'tendered kindest remembrance and best wishes.' I presume it is wise to +wage no war with the inevitable, but I simply cannot reconcile myself to +the most bitter disappointment of my life. You see, I trust you so +entirely I am opening my heart to you, that you may quite understand I +did not intend to show any lack of cordiality to you." + +He laughed, and tapped her shoulder twice with the acanthus spray. + +"With all my heart I absolve you. Rude you could not be, and I trust the +time will never come when I deserve to be treated less cordially than in +the past. When do you go back to America?" + +"In May or June. Ma-Lila will stay away no longer; she is so anxious to +look after her little fifty-acre farm." + +"In the South, of course?" + +"Yes; it is a corner of one of the 'bend plantations,' and with a new, +pretty cottage, well furnished, grandmother gave it to her as a bridal +present. None of us can ever forget that her father was killed while +bringing my dying grandfather off the battle-field." + +"Has Judge Kent decided where he will live?" + +"He has sold the old homestead in New England, and we expect to settle +down in the only remaining home, Nutwood, which, in accordance with +grandmother's will, we now have the right to occupy. Until this year the +trustees controlled and closed it." + +"Do not forget that whenever you and your father wish to visit New York +the house in Thirty-eighth Street will be entirely at your disposal--at +least for a couple of years. A telegram to my old butler Hawkins will +always insure a comfortable reception. Here comes the Judge. How +remarkably well he looks." + +Very late that night, when adieux had been spoken and only father and +daughter remained in the small salon, Eglah rose, and they looked +steadily at each other. In her dark brown eyes two defiant stars glowed, +but the clear, sweet voice was low and tender. + +"Father, after what was said this morning, I of course can only wish you +good-night. Your conditions make it impossible for me to attempt to kiss +you, and until you choose to remove the embargo, I certainly shall +observe it, in accordance with your orders. Good-night, dear father." + +He bowed as if to a duchess. + +"Good-night, Eglah." + +When Mr. Herriott went down the steps leading from the Kent apartments +to the street, Mrs. Mitchell beckoned him into a niche between two stone +pillars, and said, almost in a whisper: + +"Excuse me, sir, but will you tell me what is behind this trouble +between Eglah and her father?" + +"She says it is the result of his refusal to re-enter politics." + +"Exactly; but what is behind his refusal? She is fretting herself ill, +because she cannot find out. Ever since our last day at Greyledge they +have been estranged. This morning, when your letter arrived, something +very unpleasant occurred; and you see Eglah is not like herself." + +"My letter was a most innocent paper bomb--the mere announcement that I +intended to stop here a few hours on my way to Messina. It contained +absolutely nothing more, and you must have mistaken the cause of her +annoyance. Perhaps you wish to intimate that you think my presence +enhances the trouble, whatever it may be? I shall be glad to have you +speak frankly." + +For a moment she was silent, but she patted his coat sleeve approvingly. + +"Mr. Herriott, she is all I have in this world, and I can't see the +child breaking her heart over Judge Kent's selfish secretiveness. There +is something about him I do not understand, and I thought you might be +able to explain it to me." + +"As you have known him so much longer and more intimately than I, it +seems probable that you can estimate him accurately without my +assistance. Mrs. Mitchell, it will be a long time before I see any of +you again, and going so far away, I shall remember with great pleasure +that our dear Eglah will have you always at her side, in dark and stormy +as well as sunny hours. Good-bye; my very best wishes for you all." + +He understood most thoroughly. Eglah's struggle to receive cordially an +evidently unwelcome visitor had pained him inexpressibly, wounding his +pride even more than his heart, and since his absence contributed to her +peace, he resolved that henceforth she should know no disquietude. If, +despite his efforts to surrender, he had cherished a faint, +unacknowledged hope, he strangled it effectually now, and in after years +he thought of Aetna only as a monument whose shadow lay ever across the +acanthus-covered grave of his last beautiful illusion. + +Longer than usual Eglah knelt beside her bed that night, and when she +rose, Mrs. Mitchell, waiting to brush out and braid her hair, noted in +the pale young face traces of mental wrestling. + +"Little mother, does God answer your prayers?" + +"Not always in the way I may have wished, but when they are denied I +seem to receive instead an increased assurance that He knows best; and +as to a child crying for sharp-edged tools, His refusal springs from +omniscient mercy." + +"Do you think Mr. Noel is really a Christian? Father believes him a mere +rationalist." + +"His is such a fine character, only Christianity could have moulded +him." + +"I wish I knew whether he prays every night." + +"Why?" + +"If he does, his prayers and mine must clash like crossed swords before +the Lord, and Mr. Noel is better than I, and deserves to receive that +which he wants most; but he will not--he shall not!" + +"Eglah, dearie! The Lord alone will decide." + +"No. If we are free agents, human will can not be coerced by Him who +gave it. Even our great, dear, good God cannot give him what I pray he +will be denied. Never--never!" + +"For what is he praying?" + +"A razor--that would cut his fingers--so he must not have it. Now, lest +you should 'imagine vain things,' I wish you to know that Mr. Noel has +not renewed his proposal of marriage, and I hope never will. It is only +just to him that you should fully understand he is now no suitor. He is +simply my loyal, noble friend, in whom I trust implicitly. Good-night, +_Madrecita_." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It had been a cold, cloudy January day in one of the great northern +cities, and with night came flurries of snow that powdered telegraph +wires and danced like thistledown around the corners. Two and a half +years had elapsed since the angel of death stooped to swing his sickle +in the daisy meadow on Long Island, and in a low, wide basement room, +fronting the street, Mrs. Dane sat at her sewing machine, hemming a +child's check aprons piled on a chair. The apartment was plainly but +comfortably furnished, and filled now with the pungent odor of ginger, +cloves, and cinnamon from a pan of small cakes on the top of an oil +stove. The gas jet above her heightened the metallic lustre of her +abundant hair, and deepened fringy shadows cast by her thick, dusky +lashes. Upon the beautiful face time had softly pressed its velvet palm, +smoothing the angles of bitterness and wrath that had been intensified +by the struggle with her husband, whom she now believed she had eluded +forever by removing to another city. On the broad windowsill at her +right stood an oval, brass filigree frame holding a photograph of +Leighton in his chorister vestments, and in front of the picture a dozen +violets filled a wine-glass. As she finished and folded an apron, +leaning forward to place it on the chair, her glance fell on the +photograph, rested there, and the ocean of the past moaned, surged, +broke over her. Despite her persistent scoffing moods, she had found it +impossible to forget the few lines Father Temple had repeated with a +faltering voice after the grave closed over the sweet young singer of +St. Hyacinth's. They haunted some chamber of her defiant soul, and when +she gazed at the holy face of her boy they stole out and whispered: + + "Another lamb, O Lamb of God, behold + Within this quiet fold, + Among Thy Father's sheep + I lay to sleep! + A heart that never for a night did rest + Beyond its mother's breast. + Lord, keep it close to Thee, + Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me." + +A rap on her door recalled her, and she swept one hand across her misty +eyes. + +"Come in." + +A man of middle age, low in stature, and muffled to the chin in a +handsome overcoat, stood, hat in hand, at the door. + +"Mr. Coolidge, I am surprised to see you, and you have made a mistake in +coming to my lodgings. I will not ask you to be seated, because I do not +wish to receive you." + +"But, madam, no other way of communicating with you seems possible, as +correspondence has certainly proved disastrous. That note of Mr. +Cathcart's, which you saw fit to send to his wife, ploughed up more +trouble than a ton of dynamite, and his few remaining grey hairs will +disappear before the end of this fracas. Talk about savage wild beasts, +and claws, and paws, and fangs, but you women can trump them every time +when the game is cruelty, and you want to get even with some man. Poor +Mr. Cathcart! I don't hold him a saint, but I must say you misread his +note and misjudged him." + +"Did you see the note?" + +"After his wife received it? No, but he told me exactly what it +contained, and why he was obliged to have the meeting secret." + +"Written by a millionaire to his poor typewriter, it was an insult, and +as such you would have hotly resented it if your sister stood in my +dependent position." + +"You have not an idea what he wanted to say to you when he asked you to +return to the office after every one had gone. He has found out that you +have great influence with Max Harlberg, and that you belong to several +'Unions,' and he wished to pay you handsomely if you would persuade Max +to agree to arbitration and not call a strike. Since he learned you are +a power among these men who are causing us so much trouble, he is +anxious to conciliate you, and fears your resignation will increase the +difficulty of a settlement." + +"He sent you here to offer this explanation?" + +"Yes, Mrs. Dane, and I can vouch for its truth." + +"Mr. Coolidge, you have always treated me with respect and courtesy, and +I have no desire to be rude to you, but I am sorry you came to offer so +shameful a bargain. I believe in 'unions'; they became necessary when +vast consolidations of capital began to strangle small corporations, and +laborers learned that only by a united front could they expect living +wages. You magnates of 'trusts' are responsible for 'unions'; you set us +the example: when capital bands, labor is forced to organize in +self-defence. You of the caste of Dives sowed dragon's teeth, and now +the abundance of your crop appalls you? We of the Lazarus caste see hope +ahead; the day is coming when we shall have an honest and fair and +permanent adjustment on the Karl Marx basis of 'plus value,' and then +every mechanic in your shops will own an interest in the car he builds +in the ratio of the hours he worked on it. Heart and soul I am with your +motormen and conductors, your carpenters and machinists. Their cause is +just, and, if I can help them, all the bonds and all the gold your +company hoards in its vaults cannot buy me." + +"At least you might persuade Harlberg to consent to arbitrate the +differences. The men would have an equal chance with the company." + +"Arbitration wolves have left no lambs silly enough to bleat their +grievances. Two years ago the strike was settled on a basis almost fair +to your employees, and in six months the provisions were nullified by +changes made possible when non-union motormen were brought here. Max cut +his eye teeth then, and now he has a winning hand." + +"You think a strike inevitable?" + +"I know it, and rejoice that the company will smart for its grinding, +inhuman treatment of men who have endured it for the sake of wives and +children looking to them for bread. Because you and Mr. Cathcart and Mr. +Hazleton and your board of directors have ample fortunes, you see no +enormity in requiring men with large families to work twelve hours, +exposed to rain, sleet, sun, and if, overcome with fatigue, they fail to +awake in time to report for duty at the exact minute your schedule +demands, they are 'laid off for three days' as punishment. No day of +rest to spend at home; nothing to anticipate but the ceaseless grind, +grind--worse than that of driving wheels and pistons in machinery, which +are allowed to stop and cool on Sunday." + +"If you return to your desk to-morrow Mr. Cathcart says he will double +your salary." + +"Tell him to divide the extra pay among the needy grey-beards limping +around the cars and shops. I will never work in his office again." + +"You are very unwise, Mrs. Dane, and since you sympathize with the men, +you ought not to lose the opportunity to prove yourself their friend at +court. Moreover, in rejecting a larger salary you are laying up a store +of regrets." + +"Make no mistake, Mr. Coolidge. You rich often force us poor to suffer +severely, but we seldom 'regret,' because that implies error on our +part. We are bitter under the pain, but we do not regret the course of +duty to ourselves that brought down the lash." + +"Is it true that if the railroad men's strike is declared the +telegraphers' and typewriters' unions will order a sympathetic strike? +You seem to have begun in advance." + +"I think not. Two nights ago, at our meeting, I urged the members to +abandon the idea, though Harlberg was present to insist upon it. A +'sympathetic strike' is only sentiment running riot, and special class +suffering alone justifies revolt. Altruistic theories of reform and +abstract justice ought not to tie up public systems and precipitate +armed conflicts. I have learned that for us 'strikes' are fearful +catastrophes--social earthquakes so far-reaching in consequences that +you opulent dwellers on a serene plateau, immune from disaster, can form +no adequate estimate of the ghastly wreck wrought in substrata of the +laboring class. Especially ruinous is the strain on our women. The men +are excited, goaded, kept on the _qui vive_, held to the front by +magnetic leaders--but the waiting women and children! Cold, hungry, +terrified, huddled in helpless idleness, expecting any moment to see +husband and father brought in on a shutter--buried in the 'potter's +field' if he dies, sent to prison as a 'riotous lawbreaker' if he +lives--these are the saddest features of bloody struggles that the +outside world never sees. Instead of 'sympathetic strikes,' far more +useful sympathy should be shown by other unions working full time +steadily and sharing their wages with those fighting for violated rights +against the encroachments of combined capital. That is what I intend to +do." + +"Have you accepted another position as typewriter?" + +"Not yet; but many ways of earning my bread lie open before me. I never +resign from my sewing machine, and I learned embroidery at a convent +where royal orders have been filled." + +"Making check aprons will not pay room rent." + +Gathering the little garments in her arms, she rose, her tall, graceful +figure clearly outlined by her mourning dress, and her eyes sparkled. + +"Do you remember old Silas Bowen?" + +"I do not." + +"Your corporation memories, like your consciences, are sieves. One day, +while arranging a trolleywire, a tall post behind him, decayed at its +base, fell, and crippled him. He lost a leg, and all the fingers of one +hand. Your company paid the surgeon's bill, and Bowen was sent adrift +without a cent. He sued for damages, and the jury gave him what he asked +for. You appealed the case, and a Hungarian pedler, who hated him +vindictively, swore that Bowen was so drunk he could not understand +warning shouts that the pole was shaking, and that he was falling when +the post toppled and struck him. You won, and he lost by perjury. He is +able to do little, and has nine children. His wife and oldest daughter +launder laces and fine muslins, and these aprons are for the +youngest--twins, one of whom has spinal disease and will never walk. Mr. +Coolidge, I have rather liked you, because I found you always a +gentleman, but my patience is exhausted, and, as I shall never work +again for your company, there is no reason why you should prolong your +visit." + +"Nothing can change your mind in our favor?" + +"Nothing." + +"I wish the whole confounded, sickening business could be ended. Of +course the company will win. New men will be at the barns and +power-houses early to-morrow, prepared to run the cars, and the court +will enjoin strikers from active interference. At the first shot the +militia will be called out to take a hand, and then the poor devils +running around like blind adders will be slaughtered. You women ought to +stop it. Some of you firebrands will land in jail." + +"Jail sounds dreadful, but after all it is not so bad; has its +perquisites that wealth furnishes. I tried it once. The rich, old Jew +who arrested me for stealing a Satsuma vase was so terrified when it was +found where a negro porter had pawned it, that he sent his superb +carriage and horses and liveried coachman to carry me from jail to my +lodgings. It was my first and last ride on satin cushions. Good-night, +Mr. Coolidge." + +When the door closed behind him, she counted the spice cakes into a +paper bag, placed it in the bundle of aprons, and wrapped the whole in a +square of oil cloth. Pushing her hair back from her brow, she drew a +black veil closely around her face, tied the ends under her chin, and +put on her long waterproof cloak, lifting the cape over her head, where +she fastened it with a safety pin. Under the grey overhanging folds of +the cape the fair, cold face looked serene as a nun's. Extinguishing the +flame of the oil stove, her eyes rested a moment on the picture of +Leighton, then she lowered the gas jet at the machine, picked up the +bundle, locked the door, and dropped the key in her pocket as she went +out to the street. + +The snow fall was light and intermittent, but now and then the crystal +facets glittered in the vivid bluish glare of quivering electric globes. + +Three hours later Father Temple, passing through the city on his way +south, stood, valise in hand, on a street corner, waiting for a downtown +car, and fearful he might miss the train where his sleeping berth had +been engaged. No car came from any quarter, and he walked on, hoping to +be overtaken. Soon a steady, rapid tread of many feet sounded from the +rear, and a squad of police dashed past him. + +"What is the matter with the cars?" he shouted to the hurrying column. + +One man looked over his shoulder. + +"The strike is on. Street car track torn up." + +In a marvellously short time the crowded pavement became a dense mass of +men and women struggling slowly forward; then a dull, deep, sullen roar, +that shook windows and doors, rolled up to the starless sky where snow +feathers fluttered. A woman screamed: + +"The brutes are firing cannon into the poor strikers!" + +"Not much! Some devilish striker throwing a bomb," answered her husband. + +Father Temple, finding progress impeded, stepped down into the street +and hurried on. At the end of the next square the hospital ambulance +clattered by at emergency speed, and behind it another detachment of +police at double-quick step. The street was bare as mid-desert of +vehicles, save those from hospitals, and down the double railway track +flowed a human stream, panting to reach the fray, eager to witness the +struggle as old Romans who fought for places under the _velarium_, and +shrieked "_Habet!_" Two officers on horseback galloped by, and then came +reports of shots, followed by the wild, thousand-throated whoop and hoot +of maddened men drunk with hate and fury. At the intersection of three +streets, where a small park lay, the strikers had massed the cars from +every direction, shut off the current, cut the wires, and taken their +stand. Expecting trouble next day, the company had prepared guards and +provided extra police protection for their barns and power-houses, where +a few non-union men had been secured, but the strikers frustrated these +plans by refusing to run as directed to the defended terminus. Where the +line of clustered cars ended on both tracks, iron rails had been torn up +and piled across the road bed, and here, in front and rear, motormen, +conductors, carpenters, machinists, and linemen were massed, stubbornly +defying all attempts to repair the tracks or move the cars. + +A half hour before Father Temple reached the outskirts of the crowd at +the square, a woman had elbowed her way to the front car and sprung upon +the platform. Just below her Max Harlberg was distributing pistols to a +group of men, all gesticulating angrily. + +Clapping her hands to arrest attention, Mrs. Dane called: + +"Silas Bowen, if you are here, answer. Silas Bowen!" + +"Aye, aye! Silas Bowen is here to hurry up Judgment day for the hounds +that have dodged it too long." + +"You must go to your wife; she needs you. The tenement where you live +burned down to-night." + +"Let it burn! I hope the old rat hole isn't insured." + +"But your wife is frantic, and wants you at once; and one of your +children is hurt. Silas, do go to them, I beg of you. I have the +helpless boy and the burned girl at my room, and your wife is there." + +"I have waited too long for this picnic to turn my back just as the +music begins. I am in for my share of the fun to-night, and kindling +wood will be cheap to-morrow. When the devil's pay day comes for the +boss, I mean to see the count." + +Leaning over the dashboard of the car, Mrs. Dane watched for an +opportunity, and snatched from Harlberg's hand the pistol reserved for +his own use. Holding it above her head, she cried: + +"Friends, fellow-workers, listen a moment! You are striking for the +right to live like human beings, not beasts of burden; but be careful, +be sure you do not put yourselves in the wrong by rash violence. If +strife comes, let your oppressors start it. Personal attack is not your +privilege, but defence is your right. Stand here quietly, shoulder to +shoulder, cool, steady, and keep non-union traitors at arm's length. We +who are working will see that the pot boils for your families; but, men, +I beg of you, attempt no violence; because, if the first shot comes from +us, the end will be we shall all drop from the frying pan into the fire. +The police are bloodhounds wearing the collar of rich corporations, and +the courts are butcher pens, where 'fighting strikers' are slaughtered. +When rifles are fired into your ranks and bayonets thrust into your +bodies, then--only then--must you remember 'blood washes blood.' Oh, +men, be patient! Max Harlberg, don't forget that you are responsible for +what may happen now. These men have obeyed you--have followed you like +sheep to the edge of a precipice. Don't drive them with the butt of a +pistol to leap to ruin. Counsel no bloodshed, no rashness, no wreckage." + +A feeble cheer rose, smothered by a grumbling growl. + +The wind had blown the cape back to her shoulders, and the folds of +black veil banding her head slipped down, restraining no longer the +ripples of hair curling above her temples. Leaning over the dashboard, +one hand clutching the collar of Harlberg's overcoat as she talked +rapidly to him, she resembled some gilt-headed figure carved at the prow +of a vessel, always first to front tempests. + +Just then a solid column of policemen charged the strikers, forcing them +back almost upon the pile of rails near the foremost car, and following +the line of lifted and revolving clubs, Mr. Cathcart and his +superintendent, Hazleton appeared. Hisses, jeers, oaths, and a prolonged +howl greeted them, amid which paving stones smote the heavy clubs that +swung right and left like flails, and Harlberg sprang to the iron +controller, leaped thence to the roof of the car, and shouted his orders +to the strikers on the ground. Wounded, bleeding men were trampled by +the swaying mass as it surged forward, staggered back, panting, cursing, +hooting; then, in quick succession, three shots rang out. + +A moment later Mrs. Dane laid Harlberg's pistol on top of the controller +stand, and, as she stepped down from the platform to make her way home, +something hurtled through the air and struck between the spot where Mr. +Cathcart stood and the iron dashboard of the car. In the blinding glare +of the explosion two strikers and a policeman were seen to fall, and +when the roar and sharp shivering of crashed windows ended, a sudden +hush fell upon the multitude. + +Father Temple had slowly forced his way along the outer edge of the +quivering throng and reached the centre of the square, where in summer a +fountain babbled. Some one behind grasped his cassock. + +"You are a priest? For the love of God, come to a dying man! Come back." + +Death had sounded a temporary truce, and for some moments only whispers +passed trembling lips, but the strikers still guarded the rails. Mr. +Cathcart wiped off the dust thrown into his face by the explosion, bared +his grey head, and lifted his hand: + +"Men, don't you think you have worked mischief enough for one night? +Eight dead, and only God knows how many wounded! That is an ugly bill +the law will surely make you pay. You heard those three shots fired into +the air? It was a signal for the armory; the troops are now coming. Who +will feed your babies when you are bayonetted?" + +A mounted policeman spurred his horse close to the president. + +"The soldiers are hurrying down." + +The leaders recognized the futility of continued resistance, and, as +they slowly fell back from the track the police were in undisputed +control of the cars when the hurrying line of soldiers reached the +square. + +Father Temple and his unknown guide paused beside a stretcher. Two men +wearing the Red Cross badge bent over it. + +"Stand back; here is a priest." + +Both rose, and pointed to the sheet covering a motionless figure. + +"Too late. He is dead." + +Then one added, as he touched Father Temple's sleeve: + +"You might be of use over yonder, where a woman is badly hurt. They are +waiting for an ambulance to move her." + +When Max Harlberg ordered the retreat of the strikers and jumped from +the roof of the car to the pavement, he caught sight of a huddled mass +on the step near the motor controller, and simultaneously he and Mr. +Cathcart approached the spot. + +Mrs. Dane had sunk down in a sitting posture on the step, and her head +rested against the shattered edge of the dashboard, her face tilted +skyward, where two stars blinked feebly through thinning snow flakes. +Blood dripped from the right shoulder, and behind one ear a red stream +dyed her golden braids, but the blue eyes were open, and her limp hands +lay in the crimson pool deepening in her lap, where the waterproof cloak +held it. + +"My God, it is my typewriter! Hazleton, Hazleton! Telephone for an +ambulance. Hurry! I knew she was mixed up in this deviltry, but didn't +think she would actually come to the front and take a hand." + +"She did not. She came here hunting Bowen, whose family was burned out +to-night, and she had taken some of them to her room. His wife has +spasms when she is worried, and was screaming for him, so Mrs. Dane was +begging him to go back with her. She wanted a peaceable strike--urged us +not to begin any fight--and she snatched a pistol out of my hand. Can't +you speak to me, Mrs. Dane? Where are you hurt worst?" + +Harlberg stooped to lift her, but Cathcart held him back. + +"Stop! You must wait for the doctor. She might bleed to death if you +moved her. A pretty night's work in a civilized city! Lord, how I wish +all you anarchists had one neck! So Silas Bowen has paid her liberally +for helping his family! He threw that bomb--aimed it at Hazleton and me, +and when it exploded she was struck by something. Leather-headed, +black-hearted scoundrel! The police have just marched him off, and the +infernal fool ought to be hung from the first lamp-post." + +An ambulance came up at a gallop, and while the surgeon sprang out and +hurried toward the group, Father Temple stepped forward. As the electric +light shone full on the upturned face and the wide, fixed eyes, a cry +broke from the lips of the priest, who tried to thrust all aside. + +"My Nona! My own pansy eyes!" + +The surgeon pushed him back. + +"I must have room to examine her. Help me lay her across the platform. +Here, you! Are you her brother? Take her firmly by the shoulders, so; +steady, lower her head." + +"She is my wife." + +What was done, and exactly why, none but the surgeon ever understood; +those who looked on knew only that jagged cuts were sprayed and closed +and bandaged; that the lovely hair was shorn away from a wound at the +back of the head, and hypodermics inserted in the arm. + +No word was spoken until the stretcher was ordered close to the car +platform, and the patient was lifted tenderly and laid upon it. Then the +thin, shaking hand of the priest clutched the doctor's sleeve. + +"I have the right to know exactly what you think." + +"Then I must be frank. She has received probably fatal injuries to spine +and brain, and paralysis has resulted. Whether the paralysis will be +permanent I cannot say now, because the extent of the shock has yet to +be determined." + +"She is not entirely unconscious." + +"I am sure she is. On what do you base your opinion?" + +"I know too well the expression of her eyes, and it changed when I spoke +to her." + +"Her tongue is certainly paralyzed, and she can move neither hand nor +foot." + +"I do not wish her carried to the charity hospital, though doubtless the +treatment is the same. Please take her to the Mercy Infirmary, and will +you be so kind as to let me sit close to her in the ambulance?" + +Keenly the doctor scanned the convulsed face, where overmastering +emotion defied control. + +"Your wife, you said? My friend, don't you think it time you laid aside +your disguise? Priests are not--in this country--given to acknowledging +their wives so publicly. It may be all right, but your marital claims +and your clothes don't seem to fit." + +"I am not a Romanist. I belong to an Episcopal celibate Order, and my +superior understands and directs my movements. If you knew everything +you would pity me----" + +The surgeon took off his hat, bowed, and waved him to a seat in the +ambulance. + +In after years, when Father Temple's dark hair had whitened, and vital +fires were burning low, to the verge of ashes, he looked back always +with supreme tenderness and immeasurable joy to the days that followed +the strike, as after some tempest lulls one watches the unexpected +lustre of an after-glow where it glints over the wreckage wrought, and +waves its banners of gilded rose between vanishing storm clouds and +oncoming night. + +In that small room at the Infirmary reigned profound quiet, broken only +by the low voices of two wise-eyed, tender-handed, know-all, +tell-nothing nurses, whose ideals of absolute obedience to staff orders +were as starched as their caps and collars. They shared the doctor's +opinion that the patient was conscious of nothing, because she neither +flinched nor moaned when her wounds were dressed, but the watcher who +spent part of each morning beside the bed knew better. Waiting one day +until the nurses left the room, he drew from his pocket a photograph of +Leighton, leaned down, and held it close to her. The half-closed eyes +widened, brightened, and, after a moment, tears gathered. + +He laid the picture against her lips and left it on her breast. + +With that fine instinct which inheres only in supremely unselfish love, +he fought down the longing to fondle her, allowed himself no approach to +a caress, remembering that his touch was loathsome to her, and in her +present helplessness would prove a cruel insult. He accepted as part of +his punishment the fierce trial of bending so close to the precious face +her hatred denied him; and only once, when the nurse laid the patient's +hand in his, while she tightened a bandage and gave a hypodermic, he +bowed his face upon it and kissed the palm. + +Sometimes for hours she kept her eyes shut; again, for as long a period, +she would not close them, and though her gaze, never vacant, wandered +from face to face, it held no inquiry, no sadness, no meaning save of +profound introspection, of some subtle mental readjustment; but only a +deep, slowly drawn sigh of utter weariness ever crossed her pale lips, +from which the blood had been drained. Father Temple felt assured that +as she lay motionless, fronting eternity, her self-communion was +profound and calmly searching; and ceaselessly he prayed that God's +mercy might comfort the brave, lonely, helpless soul. + +One morning the nurse reported that during the night Mrs. Dane had moved +her right hand and arm, but the improvement did not continue, and while +at times fully conscious, her vitality was evidently ebbing, and the +pulse began to fail. She had never spoken, and the doctor said she never +would. Standing outside the door, Father Temple waited one noon to hear +the physician's report. As he came out he put his hand on the priest's +shoulder, and answered the mute appeal in eyes that were wells of +hopeless grief. + +"Don't leave her. I have asked the matron to let you stay now. We have +done all we could, and she does not suffer. She may slip away at any +moment." + +The room was very still, and sweet with violets which Father Temple +brought daily. The muslin curtain had been looped back to admit light +that fell full on the pillow where lay the beautiful head, shorn of a +portion of its golden crown. Her features were sharpened, and the eyes +seemed preternaturally large above dark, deep shadows worn by suffering. + +The compassionate nurse withdrew, closing the door noiselessly. With +locked hands the priest stood, looking down into the whitening face +which the fine chisel of pain had reduced to a marvel of delicate +perfection, and when her long, brown lashes slowly drooped, he fell upon +his knees and prayed, his head bowed on the bed close to her pillow. In +the agony of his petition one passionate, broken cry rolled through the +solemn silence. + +"Lord, visit upon me the punishment of her unbelief! Let me suffer +all--everything--because through me she lost her faith. Spare her pure, +precious soul and save her! Oh, God, mercifully receive and comfort her +dear soul, for Christ's sake!" + +Some moments passed, and while he knelt, his crucifix pressed against +his breast, he felt a cold hand laid on his bowed head and a faint +effort to pat it. In the wonderful blue eyes a new light had dawned. + +"My darling Nona, will you forgive me? You cannot speak, but, oh, +try--try to press my hand! Have pity on me!" + +He had risen, and her hand was clasped in his, as he stooped over her. +Feebly the icy fingers contracted in his palm. + + +"Vernon, I have forgiven everything. I could have spoken after the +second day, but I was not ready. I wanted to be sure this was the end. +So much to count over. Vernon, I was too--too--hard--on you--but----" + +Breath failed her, and she gasped painfully. + +"My wife, my darling wife! Tell me you are not afraid now." + +She looked steadily into his eyes, and after a little while there came, +brokenly, an echo as of a voice drifting away into immeasurable wastes. + +"I go to my long sleep--no bad dreams. Too tired--to be afraid----" + +A moment passed, while she struggled for breath, and over her face stole +a smile. + +"If it--is--something--else--better, my baby will +be--there--my--baby----" + +He felt a tremor in her fingers, as with a long, low sigh the frozen +lips closed, but the calm, brave gaze did not waver. + +At last, after long years, it was his privilege to hold her to his heart +and kiss down the stiffening lids that veiled forever the smiling pansy +eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +For political rancor time is not an emollient panacea. Sectional hatred +bites hard on memory, as acid into copper, and the perspective of years +of absence failed to alter in any degree the rough angles, ugly scars, +and deep shadows that characterized the people's portrait of Judge Kent. +Impotence to correct intensifies public sense of wrong, and compulsory +submission to injury borne silently garners bitterness which in actual +strife would effervesce. Only those who lived in the Southern seaboard +and Gulf States during the long, stinging years that followed the +surrender at Appomattox can understand why the names of Grant and +Sherman stirred little enmity, when compared with the unfathomable +execration and contempt aroused by the civil Federal vultures that +settled like a cloud over State, county, and municipal treasuries. The +battening of this horde soon reduced Southern finances and credit to a +grewsome skeleton. In that stifling Ragnarok, family estates feudal in +extent were seized as "abandoned lands" and parcelled out to freedman, +who had been enticed to abandon them in order to succeed their masters +in ownership. "Patriots are paupers now," was the grim proverb current +among Confederates, and the very few who showed conditions bordering on +comfort were, in public estimation, required to "stand and deliver" an +explanation of the fortuitous circumstances that saved them from the +general ruin. + +Judge Kent's judicial career had been disastrous to the interests of +many throughout the State, and among the legions who improved their +fortunes by coming south to "reconstruct and to dispense justice," he +was especially detested by the citizens of Y----. To Eglah, his +insistence upon returning to Nutwood was explicable solely on the +hypothesis that speculative reverses had demanded the sale of his own +property and swallowed the result; hence his resources were exhausted. + +Recollection of slights, insinuations, invectives, and jeers that had +imbittered her childhood did not lend beckoning glamour to the +home-coming; and without the powerful protection of Mrs. Maurice's +presence she suspected she was making a social plunge with no net spread +to succor. Deliberately and systematically she planned the gradual +renovation and, to a limited degree, the refurnishing of the beautiful +old house where it now seemed her future must be spent. A new close +carriage and stylish trap were shipped in advance, and Mrs. Mitchell +went down to superintend preparations for occupancy of Nutwood, leaving +Judge Kent and his daughter to follow a week later. + +Old Aaron was stooping badly and stiff with rheumatism, but refused to +relax his grasp on the butler's reins; Celie maintained her iron sway in +the kitchen; her two daughters were eager to discharge the duties of +housemaids, and Oliver, hopelessly bed-ridden, claimed that his son had +the best right to succeed him as coachman. + +When, on the morning after her arrival, Eglah entered the cedar-panelled +dining-room, and seated herself at the head of the table, where +glittered the tall, silver coffee urn with Dirce and her beast in bold +relief, she almost expected to see her grandmother's face reflected +there as in days gone by, and involuntarily looked over her shoulder +with a telepathic impression that behind her chair stood the stately, +old, crepe-coifed dame disputing usurpation. Judge Kent drained his +second cup of creamless tea, held up the thin, fluted china to examine +the twisted signature of the manufacturer, listened to its protest as he +carefully thumped it, and pushed it aside. + +"Eglah, I do not like the room where I slept last night, and I wish a +change made to-day." + +"Why, father? I selected the handsomest room in the house for you. That +has always been considered the best--set apart as the guest-chamber." + +"Well, as I am not a guest, I have no desire to appropriate the +perquisites. I prefer the room opening into the library." + +"Not my grandfather's room--not where grandmother hoarded sacred--" She +paused, and the silver fruit knife, with which she peeled a peach, +clanged sharply as it fell. + +"Exactly. I mean the museum of rebel relics. I wish them removed at +once, and my own things unpacked and arranged there." + +"Father, it was grandmother's expressed wish to keep that----" + +"It is rather late to evoke sentiment in her behalf. She left nothing +undone to hamper, annoy, and inconvenience us, and----" + +"Father! _De mortuis--!_ Although I am her grandchild under protest on +her part, she gave me her estate, and the one room she loved ought to be +reserved just as she wished." + +As she leaned to the right of the urn, to look squarely at her father, +her face was close to Mrs. Mitchell, who noted its pallor and an ominous +curve in the thin lips. Judge Kent beat a muffled tattoo with the prongs +of his fork on the handle of a spoon lying near. He smiled, eyed her +fixedly, and inclined his head in dismissal. + +"It is not a question for discussion, but a simply imperative matter of +obedience to instructions. I must have the change made at once, and if +extra help is needed Aaron will see immediately that it is secured." + +From the bowl of flowers in the middle of the table he selected a sprig +of ruby stock-gilly, inhaled its fragrance, fastened it in his coat, and +strolled out on the front colonnade. + +Over the girl's white face flowed a deep, dull red, and for a moment her +slender hands covered it. Then she touched the bell at her left, and +smiled bravely at the butler who answered it. + +"Uncle Aaron, put a pitcher of tea on the ice, so that whenever father +needs it I can have it cold. Tell Ma'm Celie I have not had such a good +breakfast since I wore short skirts and my hair down my back. Her coffee +was perfect, the waffles and beaten biscuit the very best I ever tasted, +and the brain croquettes could not be improved." + +"Yes, Missie, she thought she would please you. She don't forget how you +loved waffles and honey when you used to wear bibs and set in your high +chair." + +Having invested all in a teraph of fine gold, its votary sees with vague +uneasiness a gradual dimness blur the sheen, and when, under friction, +the gilt surface melts away and only corroding brass remains, the shock +is severe. However slow the transformation, the final disillusion is not +softened. + +Standing in the memorial room, with her arms resting on the mantel +shelf, Eglah looked up at the frank, noble patrician face of General +Maurice, until an unsuspected undercurrent of pride and tenderness +suddenly surged at the thought that his blood ran in her veins. Whatever +ills might overtake her, no bar sinister could ever mar, no breath of +blame could cloud the lustre of this side of her family shield. Studying +the portrait above her, and that of her lovely young mother on the +opposite wall, she began for the first time to take possession of her +Maurice birthright, conscious that here her pride could never drag +anchor. The room that from her nursery days had always been Marcia's +remained unoccupied after her death, and to this apartment Eglah and +Eliza removed every cherished object Mrs. Maurice had stored in her +husband's old study, arranging pictures, books, furniture as she had +left them. No word of comment passed the locked lips of either woman, +but, when all had been adjusted, Eglah fastened the door and handed the +key to Mrs. Mitchell. + +"You know she preferred 'Grand Dukes' and Cape jasmines, so we will keep +some in front of the portrait, and once a week we must see that no dust +collects here." + +In the future, stretching before the young mistress of Nutwood gleamed +two goals--friendly, social recognition of her father, and the +compilation and publication of a volume containing a sketch of his +career, written by herself, selected speeches delivered in Congress, and +certain judicial decisions relative to Confederate property, individual +and corporation, which had tarred him heavily throughout the State, +where they were promulgated. To the attainment of these aims she +purposed to devote her energies, believing that the accomplishment of +the biographical scheme would inevitably remove the barrier of +estrangement that had shut her from her father's confidence. + +After a week spent in looking over Nutwood, visiting Mrs. Mitchell's +home and inspecting the condition of gin houses, mills, fences, and +cabins on the plantations, the appointed day arrived when Mr. Whitfield +came with books and a large tin box to give a detailed account of his +stewardship. + +Eglah noticed that while he held and pressed her fingers cordially, he +merely bowed, and seemed not to see Judge Kent's proffered hand. After +the interview she understood, when Eliza told her that during the period +_habeas corpus_ was suspended by Federal authority the husband of Mr. +Whitfield's only sister had been imprisoned for "treasonable language" +by the desire and co-operation of Judge Kent, and that distress of mind +and anxiety on her husband's account had precipitated the death of the +wife before his release from jail. + +Thin, wiry, grizzled, keenly alert, the lawyer's light-blue eyes dwelt +chiefly on the girl's face, save when her father asked a question or a +fuller explanation of some statement. Now and then Judge Kent, watchful +but studiedly debonair and suave, glanced over a paper, and once he +challenged the accuracy of a computation of interest, which on revision +proved correct. They were grouped around an oval table in the library, +an open tin box in the centre, flanked by two ledgers and piles of +papers, and Eglah sat close to Mr. Whitfield's right, while her father +took his place immediately opposite her. + +She leaned a little forward, her arms crossed on the mahogany, and +looked up steadily at the lawyer, but when he offered a paper for +examination she smiled and shook her head. + + +"You must perceive the farcical futility of talking business to such an +inexperienced girl," said Judge Kent, stretching out his hand to take a +bundle of stock certificates his daughter had motioned away. + +"Really you surprise me, because, from all we have heard of her college +training, I was prepared to find Marcia's child an expert." + +"Father knows I can calculate interest, and that I understand +bookkeeping, but he would be ashamed of me if I suspected or hunted for +errors in the accounts of a friend who for so many years has kindly +guarded my financial interests." + +The lawyer patted her hand and smiled. + +"That sounds like your dear mother, and I am glad you have her low, +clear voice, like the melody of a silver harp string; but your father is +quite right in urging careful inspection of matters that have been so +long intrusted solely to me. Now, I believe we have gone over the +important points, except that railroad muddle, which is still undecided. +I brought suit over a year ago, and as the new branch and spurs run +through the middle of one of your best cotton fields on Willow Creek +plantation, I hope the next term of court will give us a satisfactory +settlement. Boynton is a good overseer--not a graduate of a college of +technology nor an agricultural chemist, who knows from looking at the +soil the exact day when the Noachian flood left your lands dry, nor is +he a new-fangled 'manager,' but he is just an overseer of auld lang +syne; a trifle lax, but our old-fashioned plantation rules are dead as +Pharaoh, and he winks at lapses he cannot prevent. However, he keeps the +repair machinery busy on fences and stables, the negroes like him, and +you will find your leases and contracts all signed properly. Of course +you are aware your grandmother left instructions that when you married, +or as soon as you were twenty-one, $5,000 should be paid to Mrs. +Mitchell. I consulted the bishop, and we thought it best to defer this +matter until her return to America, but it should not be delayed longer, +and here is the check, which you can hand to her. With the payment of +this legacy her annual allowance ends." + +Eglah opened the table drawer, drew out an envelope, and laid it before +him. + +"Enclose, address, and seal it. Before you leave the house, please +deliver it to her." + +"Have you any questions to ask? Do not hesitate, if there is anything +else you do not understand, anything you wish to know." + +"Absolutely nothing, except an adequate way of thanking you for all your +patient goodness. If you can explain how I shall accomplish this, you +will increase my huge debt." + +Judge Kent rose and smiled benignly. + +"Eglah, I wonder it has not occurred to you that a proper recognition of +the value of Mr. Whitfield's services ought to involve a willingness and +effort on your part to relieve him entirely of the burden of +responsibility he has borne so long, and which, under my guidance, you +are quite capable of assuming. You are of age, and the trusteeship +should end at once." + +For fully a moment she pondered the suggestion, then laid her hand on +the lawyer's arm. + +"Tell me frankly whether you prefer to surrender the management of our +business affairs? Irrespective of my individual feeling, your wishes +alone must decide the matter, and you can best determine if the tax upon +your time is too onerous." + +Mr. Whitfield drew the tin box before her, and pointed to a large +envelope marked "Last Will and Testament of Patricia Maurice." + +"I imagine you scarcely comprehend some of the conditions that place me +in a peculiarly embarrassing position. Here is the will of your +grandmother; I preserved for you the original draft in her handwriting. +The last page bears upon the question under discussion. Read it now, and +then, whatever your wishes, I individually shall obey them." + +Judge Kent seated himself, lifted the decanter in front of him, and +filled a glass. + +"Meantime, will you join me in a glass of sherry?" + +"No, thank you; my doctor restricts me to claret." + +Very slowly Eglah read the broad sheet, and her countenance changed, +clouded, as she betrayed her annoyance by taking her under lip between +her teeth. + +"We beg your pardon, Mr. Whitfield; we had entirely forgotten that +clause. Unless I marry, your trusteeship continues until I am thirty +years old, should I live so long." + +"Not necessarily mine. I can resign, or death may release me, but some +other person would be required." + +"A most unjust and absurd provision," said the judge, draining his +second glass, and striving to conceal his remembrance of the fact that +Mrs. Maurice had expressly forbidden his connection with the +trusteeship. + +Mr. Whitfield smiled. + +"We lawyers all know testators use only their individual standards of +justice, wisdom, and fitness." + + +Eglah had folded the paper, replaced it in the envelope, and turned to +the lawyer. + +"It appears that if for any reason you should relinquish this +responsibility, your successor is already appointed, and in that event I +should become practically the ward of the Chancery Court, which never +resigns, never dies." + +She looked straight into her father's watching eyes, and continued +slowly, distinctly: + +"I shall not marry. Your stewardship, dear Mr. Whitfield, involves some +additional years of trouble for you, but I am so deeply grateful to you, +I shall certainly try to cause as little annoyance as possible." + +A shutter swung open, the sun flashed in, and she crossed the room to +exclude the glare. + +Returning, she paused behind her father's chair, put her arms around his +neck, and interlaced her fingers. Without an instant's hesitation he +elevated and shook his shoulders so decidedly her hands fell to her +side. + +"Sit down, my dear." + +He built a pyramid with his plump, white, carefully manicured fingers, +and the brilliant eyes he fixed on the man beside him held a challenge. + +"If the sanctity of wills were not debatable, our profession would be +barred from browsing in rich pastures of litigation; and 'undue +influence,' fostering injustice, has bred strife since its innings as +far back as the wrongs of Esau. As sole heir to the Maurice fortune, my +daughter can follow her individual wishes and judgment concerning the +management of what is indisputably her own, since there could be no +family contestants." + +He bowed to Mr. Whitfield. + +"Judge Kent, if Eglah so decided, there would be, on my part, no +contest." + +"You are both mistaken. There would inevitably result a destroying +contest, with my conscience and my self-respect." + +Mr. Whitfield caught his breath as he noted the transformation of the +girl's face into a blanched, stony mask. Carefully replacing every +package of papers in the box, she looked under the table to be sure none +had fluttered to the floor, turned the key in the brass padlock, and +pushed the box toward the lawyer. + +"Mr. Whitfield, I have several times regretted that this inheritance was +left to me; to-day I deplore it. While I gratefully appreciate your wise +and faithful guardianship, I confess I very naturally feel sorry my own +dear father cannot manage my affairs; but I believe that all wills of +sane persons should be held sacred--absolutely inviolable. If the +Maurice estate is mine, it is on specified conditions that I would no +more break than the ten commandments. I shall not marry; therefore the +trusteeship must continue until I am thirty, and of all men in the +world, except my father, I certainly prefer you should retain it. Only +in strict conformity to the provisions by which I inherit will I remain +at Nutwood or spend its income; but my father's opinions and wishes are +very dear to me, and since he objects strenuously to some of the +conditions which naturally wound him, I intend to leave to him the +decision of the rejection or acceptance of the inheritance. Grandmother +declared that if the terms of trusteeship were violated, it was her wish +that I should receive merely the annuity allowed me since her death, and +that her entire estate--including Nutwood and the plantations--should be +given in perpetuity to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in this +State; women whose husbands and sons had been lost in defence of the +South. That you as trustee might not contest a flagrant violation of the +will is merely an expression of your personal reluctance to chide me +publicly; but it is a dubious compliment to any sense of right and +justice. Now, father, shall we relinquish the estate to the widows and +find a home elsewhere? Sometimes I think it would be best for us in many +ways, but you shall decide. Shall we go or stay?" + +Steadily she faced him, cool and firm as a granite gargoyle, but his +nostrils flared, his teeth gleamed under his grey mustache, and, tilting +back his chair, he laughed unpleasantly. + +"My dear, histrionism is not becoming to you--especially without chiton, +diploidion, and fillets. Either your Alma Mater is weak along lines of +elocutionary training or you do it so little credit you never earned +your diploma. Your pretty little prologue is as preposterous as the +senseless limitations you are embracing so dramatically; but you are now +fully of age--except in Mrs. Maurice's opinion--and since the +inheritance is yours, not mine, you must accept the consequences of your +own tragic avowal and tie up your hands for some years to come. At least +I can congratulate you that all responsibility devolves upon so astute +and experienced a trustee as Mr. Whitfield, who will watch over your +interests till silver threads adorn your locks and you wear spectacles. +Since this matter is settled, be so good as to spare me any--Come in, +Aaron. What is it?" + +The butler had knocked twice, and now beckoned to some one behind him. + +"A boy with a despatch." + +The messenger held up the yellow telegram. + +"Senator Allison Kent." + +Very deliberately he wrote his name in the receipt book, pausing to trim +the pencil tied to it; then, bowing to Mr. Whitfield, "With your +permission," he opened the envelope. Eglah saw his face flush, and he +coughed twice in a peculiar way she knew indicated deep annoyance. + +"Any answer, sir?" asked the boy. + +"Yes, but you must wait for it." + +He took up a pen, drummed with fingers of his left hand on the table, +and rose. + +"As I find it necessary to consult a record before replying to this +telegram, I must beg you, sir, to excuse me. I hope you will have time +to enjoy some of our fine fruit to-day." + +At the door he called to the butler, standing in a side hall. + +"Aaron, order dinner at three o'clock, and the trap at four. I must take +the 'cannon-ball train.'" + +He and the messenger disappeared, and after a moment Eglah withdrew her +eyes from the vacant chair opposite, and turned to her guest. + +"I think you brought some papers you wish me to sign. May I do so now?" + +"When you have examined them, they must be signed in the presence of a +notary public, whom you can find at my office, or, if you prefer, he +shall come here." + +He laid a roll of type-written documents on the table and rose. + +"Shall I leave the box with you for to-day?" + +Impatiently she pushed it aside. + +"Take it away--keep it. I hope I may never set my eyes on it again." + +The brooding shadow on her pale, rigid face made the lawyer's blue eyes +cloudy. + +"Dear child, I have always been the intimate friend of the Maurice +family. I loved your sweet, young mother, and I hope you know I am +willing to help you in every way possible, and that you will not +hesitate to call upon me." + +"Thank you. I am so sure of your sincerity, I shall begin at once to ask +your counsel. There are social complications that make a pleasant +residence here problematical, and consideration of the course most +expedient for me to pursue leaves me in doubt and perplexity. I have +thought of opening the house and grounds two weeks hence, in order to +celebrate my father's birthday by a _fete champetre_, to which every +family inscribed on grandmother's visiting list should be invited. I +prefer to throw rather than pick up the gauntlet. You thoroughly +comprehend the situation, and I should like your advice." + +"Wait a while. Go slowly; social wounds do not heal by first intention. +Be chary of invitations, and do not hunt for challenges. Hold your own +firmly, but courteously, and in time I think you will win. For your +father's sake, try to conciliate the members of his church; they are an +influential social factor here. Mrs. Maurice's old friends will rally +around 'Marcia's baby,' and you must be patient. Later, when sure of +your ground, you can give all the festivals you like without receiving +an avalanche of 'regrets' that would easily paper your hall. My wife and +the girls will call at once, and I hope you will come to us just as +often as possible; but whenever you wish to see me, drive down to the +office, or write me, as, for some reasons, it is advisable I should be +here very rarely. Dear child, while your features are like your handsome +father's, you resemble your mother in many ways, and I am glad to find +you have the crystal conscience and flawless instinct of honor that all +men reverenced in General Maurice. Good-bye. I have overstayed my time. +Tell Boynton to bring up the two horses I had broken and trained for +your saddle. One of them, the bay, took blue ribbon at the State fair +last fall, and there is no better stock south of Kentucky." + +She walked with him half way down the hall, and they shook hands. + +"Good-bye, Mr. Whitfield; thank you for many things. You will find +Ma-Lila in the dining-room, and whatever you think she ought to know of +to-day's interview, I prefer you should tell her. She is indeed my +second mother." + +After a while she went slowly to her father's room. The door was half +open, but she paused and knocked. + +He stood looking over an old account book, and, without glancing up, +said fretfully: + +"Well, what is it?" + +"Father, I came to pack your valise." + +"It is already packed." + +"May I come in? I want to tell you----" + +"No. You will say nothing that I should wish to hear." + +"Will you allow me to see the telegram which I fear annoys you?" + +"The ashes only are at your service--all that remains of it." + +"Tell me, at least, why you are going, and where?" + +"First to Washington. Elsewhere as circumstances may direct." + +"Please let me go with you----" + +"Most certainly you stay where you are." + +"Father--my father!" She advanced toward him, but recalling the shudder +with which he had shaken her arms from his shoulders, she stepped back +to the threshold. + +"Oh, father, you are cruel! You know you are breaking my heart!" + +The sob, the passion of pain in her voice, smote and hurt him sorely, +but he did not falter an instant. + +"In breaking your will, your heart may be healed." + +He had not looked at her, and all the while the index finger of his +right hand moved up and down columns of figures, searching for some +item, which was finally found and marked. Leaning against the door, she +watched him until Aaron rang the dinner bell. + +"Father, may I drive you to the station?" + +"No." + +"Then I prefer to say good-bye here, as I am going to my own room." + +"As you please. Good-bye, Eglah." + +"I wish I could share this trouble, whatever it may be that calls you +away; but since you elect to condemn me to the torture of suspense, I +have no alternative but to endure it as best I can. Good-bye, my dear +father." + +She held out both hands, but, instead of approaching her, he opened a +glass door leading to the colonnade and disappeared. + +The velvet, paternal touch caressing her tenderly from the days of her +babyhood had, during the last two years, stiffened, hardened into a +steel gauntlet, strangling her. + +The betrayal of his selfish and unscrupulous desire to violate the +provisions of the will had painfully startled and keenly mortified her; +but the barb that sank deepest in her sore, aching heart was the +realization of her father's deliberate plan to humiliate and punish her. +Was his persistent effort to force a marriage with Mr. Herriott based on +the determination to hasten her unlimited control of her grandmother's +estate? Until now, this explanation had not occurred to her, because the +clause binding her to the trusteeship--which rankled ceaselessly in his +mind--had made no impression on her memory. Maturely she deliberated, +weighing the past in the light of the new supposition, but this solution +was rejected as inadequate. In view of Mr. Herriott's indefinite absence +and studied silence, her father's obstinate adherence to his matrimonial +ultimatum remained inexplicable. That day ended her overtures for +reconciliation; and she laid the ax to the root of her olive tree. + +The next morning was Sunday--the first after their return--and she +ordered the carriage. + +"Little mother, I am going with you to eleven o'clock service, and I am +sure you understand it is a tribute of respect to grandmother, that +after many years of absence I attend first the church she helped to +build." + +Curious eyes watched for Miss Kent in another church, where her father +had worshipped, and carried her mother, and when, daintily robed in +white, Eglah walked with the overseer's wife along the Methodist aisle +and sat down in the Maurice pew, a sudden mist blurred the vision of +many in the congregation, and old Dr. Eggleston wiped his spectacles and +whispered to his wife: + +"Poor Marcia's baby! I can never forget her pitiful little wail for an +hour after she was born. Ah, her face is like a lily just lifted, +hunting for its God." + +Henceforth social lines were indicated by an apparently trivial +distinction; the small circle that in former years received Judge Kent, +and the strangers and new residents of Y---- spoke of the mistress of +Nutwood as Miss Kent; but to the mass of old families she was always +"Marcia's child," or "Mrs. Maurice's granddaughter." + +Very few typical Southern homes, representing wealth, liberal education, +and cultured artistic taste when 1861 dawned, have survived the jagged +wounds of war, the still more destructive bayonet-loaded harrow of +"reconstruction," and the merciless mildew of poverty that tarnished +ante-bellum splendor. + +Nutwood escaped comparatively intact, because, while the owner lived, +her revenue--drawn in part from European investments made early in the +war by friends in London--enabled her to maintain and repair the +property until her plantations could be readjusted under the new regime; +and, after her death, the managers of the estate had jealously guarded +it from the inroads of decay. + +Outside conditions, social and domestic, had changed utterly; new canons +prevailed, new manners of strange laxity rolled over former dikes of +purity, refinement, and decorum; but the turbid tide of up-to-date +flippancy broke and ebbed from the tall iron gates of the old house on +the hill. Here decadence was excluded, and one coming into the +long-closed mansion inhaled a vague haunting aroma, as if old furniture, +glass, china, books, paintings, and silver had been sprinkled with +powdered sandalwood, lavender, and rose leaves that blended with the +subtle pervading atmosphere of hereditary racial pride. + +It resembled other homes in Y---- as little as some gallery of +brilliant, glaring impressionist pictures suggests a cabinet of +exquisite miniatures, rich mosaics, and carved ivory, where the witching +glamour of mellowing centuries hovers. + +Eglah found only two scars of time. The conservatory was empty and +closed, and in the rear of the house several rows of low brick walls +showed where formerly stood what Mrs. Maurice called her "grapery," a +sunny spot enclosed with glass, alluring to her grandchild, who had +climbed a step-ladder to reach shouldered clusters, as large as her +head, of translucent, golden _Chasselas_. + +No strange new element invaded dwelling or grounds; the same brown hand +that gave her "hot-water tea" when she sat in her high chair now placed +her chocolate before her, and she missed only old Hector, who had +followed his master to happier hunting grounds, and King Herod, gone, +doubtless, to share the punishment of his namesake. The thoroughbred +horses and silver-grey Jerseys were fine as she remembered them, and +though they now seemed smaller, the white game fowls were as beautiful +as of yore, when she toddled after her grandmother to feed them in the +enclosure to which they were restricted. + +Years had made no alteration, save that a fond, trusting child came back +a sadly anxious woman, fronting the world with calm defiance, but +shivering silently under a numbing shadow of brooding dread that time +might deepen, but could not dispel. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +After prolonged residence in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of Washington, +New York, and continental Europe, it was inevitable that returning +absentees should find the restricted environment of Y---- stiflingly +provincial; and, despite the rapid growth of the town, consequent upon +construction of new railways and erection of furnaces and cotton mills, +its limitations were apparent. There was no lack of individual brains or +culture, but Eglah missed keenly the effectively massed mental activity +that shrewdly focussed all lights on national questions, political +policies, and diplomatic legerdemain in Washington; and especially the +stimulating intellectual ozone, the sharpening friction of perpetual +debate in congressional circles. An exalted official career at the +Capitol lured her like a baleful witch, and transition from brilliant +public life to comparatively secluded domesticity in a Southern country +home strained her patience. + +Gentlemen who composed the most fashionable club in Y---- gave an +elaborate german to welcome the chatelaine of Nutwood. The small Kent +coterie invited the judge and his daughter to several dinners, that were +promptly repaid, while, now and then, Eglah was requested to appear at +ladies' luncheons, and to assist at five o'clock teas; but more and more +she realized and resented keenly that among the proud old families she +was tolerated simply because of the powerful hereditary Maurice +prestige. Noting the social discrimination against her father, and in +some quarters the far from fervent, though courteous acceptance of +herself, her few invitations to Nutwood dinners were confined to those +who had welcomed him to their board and fireside. By degrees an element +of haughtiness, at variance with her youthful grace and beauty, invaded +her manner, and her frigid politeness hastened the diminution of the +circle revolving about her, and reduced social hospitalities to merely +formal visiting. Complete abandonment of the contemplated _fete +champetre_ resulted from the arrival of the mail one morning, three +weeks after Judge Kent's return from Washington--a journey to which no +one ever alluded. + +Leaning back in her low wicker rocking-chair, in a shaded angle of the +colonnade, Eglah listlessly watched Eliza's white Angora cat, stretched +on the floor and following with avid green eyes the coquettish +manoeuvres of two brilliant red birds that flashed from a tangle of +Belgian honeysuckle vines--brocaded with pale-pink satin clusters--to +the quivering covert of a neighboring acacia, swinging its long, flowery +fringes of vivid yellow. + +Of the town, nearly two miles distant, church spires and factory +chimneys were visible; but beyond the roaring river and far away, rose +against blue sky a battlement of hills, tapestried with that tender, +purple mist woven only in the loom of distance. With less than usual +interest, Eglah began to examine the papers and letters lying in her +lap. One heavy envelope contained samples of sprigged muslin for +curtains; in another, that was so light it seemed empty, she found a +newspaper clipping carefully folded in a blank sheet of thin notepaper. + + "Special Correspondence. + + "Washington: + + "From a source always well informed and usually accurate, it + has been whispered that the sudden change of policy in a + certain senator--whose resignation surprised his congressional + colleagues--finds explanation in the menaced divulgement of + some damaging facts connecting the ex-senator's votes with + crooked syndicate dealings in the West. How this record was + unearthed is not yet known, but it is rumored a blondined Circe + of the lobby Aeaea used her knowledge of it quite successfully + in furtherance of the Bison Head bill that hung so long in + committee room, and also to secure the senator's resignation in + favor of a rival candidate for whom she shows deep sympathy. + Her threat to place her information at the service of the + approaching Legislature of the incumbent's native State + hastened his resignation some months prior to the expiration of + his term, and he promptly 'left his country for his country's + good,' to recuperate in foreign lands. Truly, 'God's fruit of + justice ripens slow,'--but fate takes care to shake the tree. + Now and then we have proof in public life that '_Dieu paie, + mais il ne paie pas tous les Samedis._'" + +The name of the paper did not appear in the clipping and date and +signature had been erased. The envelope bore postmark of a Colorado +town, and the address was type-written. It was not from the State +represented in the Senate by the Hon. Rufus Higginbottom, but Eglah's +intuitions assured her the extract had been sent by the hand of Miss +Ethelberta. Doubtless it had appeared while they were in Europe, but +whether the press circulated it freely she was now barred from +investigating. + +A moan she could not repress escaped her usually well guarded lips, and +she shivered as if a freezing wind swung her to and fro. + +A stealthy hand creeping around the dial had reached that predestined +hour she so vaguely dreaded, and its strokes sounded the knell of her +life's dearest hope. + +Was it merely a party libel--one of the scandalous personalities used in +retaliation for some stinging blow her father had dealt Democracy--a +foul partisan aspersion such as political opponents hurl with shameful +recklessness? + +Two years ago she would have hurried to her father for denial, and +published proofs that his hands were clean; but to-day, for some moments +after the shock, doubt seemed the only land of promise where she could +dwell with any semblance of peace. Looking back over all that made their +last two months in Washington so painful to her, recalling the +inexplicable nervousness that was invariably exhibited when American +letters and papers reached them at Aix les Bains, she connected +incidents that formerly had no visible relation, and filial faith began +to rock and drift from its life-long moorings. Yet with obstinate +tenacity she swung back to the only comforting supposition--that +political hatred and the unscrupulous ambition of a rival candidate had +combined to fabricate this atrocious calumny. Were it possible for Judge +Kent to vindicate himself, why had he failed to do so promptly in print? +Again and again she read the clipping, carefully committing to memory +the entire article, and when quite sure it was literally indelible, she +tore the paper into innumerable fragments and tossed them to the wind +singing through the venerable tree tops. + +A different nature might, perhaps, have utilized the printed statement +as a bridge over the chasm gaping between her father and herself, but +intense pride and yearning love prompted her to shield him from the +great shame of knowing she had read the blistering libel. That the +burned telegram related to this publication, was an explanation of his +reluctance to acquaint her with the contents, that appealed now to her +tenderness, and her eyes softened in a passionate longing to throw +herself into his arms, as in happier days. + +Doubtless the press in Y---- had copied this assault upon his political +integrity, his many enemies were gloating over it, and henceforth she +would make no attempt to level the bristling hedge of social distrust. +As one who snatches from the grave some beloved dead, and battles in +frantic hope of resuscitation, she grappled closer, to warm at her heart +the wan, fading remains of loyal filial confidence. It was an hour of +exceeding bitterness, of intolerable humiliation, but undaunted by the +severity of a blow smiting her where most vulnerable, she girded herself +to struggle in defence, faintly cheered by a vague yet obstinate hope +that in coming years her Biography might avail to rehabilitate the +character so unjustly assailed. + +Before her lay isolation, hidden heartache, the silent surrender of her +dearest ambition, and the acceptance of life robbed of all rosy plans. + +Remembering how firmly Mrs. Maurice's slim hands had held the reins of +government, Eglah followed precedent in all details of domestic +management that did not conflict with her father's wishes. While he had +amused himself with viticulture and the erection of new glass houses, +she was interested in extending and refitting the conservatory, but Mrs. +Mitchell's frequent and increasing sojourns at her small farm, many +miles distant, disquieted her foster-child, who finally rebelled. + +"No, Ma-Lila, it is out of the question. I can not let you go and spend +a week. What do you suppose would become of me? You may as well stop +packing your trunk." + +"O, dearie, you are perfectly well, and your father is always here. It +is March and I must go." + +"Yes, I am fortunate in having father, but I want to keep you where I +can touch you whenever I wish. Ever since I could crawl you have slain +my bugaboos, and as I have not outgrown the cowardice of covering my +face with the sheet, I find the sight of that prim black head of yours +is necessary to my peace of mind. I am jealous of that little den down +by the old mill, and if you will sell out and give it up I should be +glad to pay double its value. Then you could buy bonds and cut your +coupons, and keep your hands white and soft as they ought to be, instead +of delving with butter, eggs, honey, and pickles." + +"Sell Dairy-Dingle! I would almost as soon sell my husband's grave. +Dairy-Dingle, where I had my two years of heaven on earth? When I go +there I want to kiss the doorstep where my Robert and I used to sit when +his day's work was ended, and in the starlight we listened to the +mocking-bird singing in the locust thicket all overrun with red and +yellow woodbine. Just now I am obliged to be there to see about the +lambs, and to be sure of the settings of eggs for the Plymouth Rocks, +and Black Spanish." + +"How did the lambs contrive to live all those years when you were away, +keeping me in order?" + +"Poorly enough, I have not a doubt, judging from the looks of the flock. +Ever since I received that letter from Robert's youngest sister, Judith, +asking me to help her educate as a civil engineer the boy she named for +her brother, I have felt the necessity of increasing the income from my +place in order to furnish the required funds. My Robert's namesake shall +have the college training he wants. Drought cut off my corn last year, +and later rain floods stained my cotton." + +"Then let Mr. Boynton manage your place, as he does ours, and you stay +here, while I hand you a check for what the boy Robert le Diable may +need." + +"Thank you, precious baby, but that would be outside charity, and he and +Judith are proud. Besides, in working and denying myself there is such a +sweetness, such a comfort in helping, as if it were serving my dear dead +to aid those he loved. Mere money is not worth half as much as the +affection that goes with it, and the labor that earned it; but, my +darling, you can't quite feel as I do." + +"No, I do not understand. Sometimes I wonder if I am not like a doll +stinted in her quota of sawdust; and I am sure my heart is too small, or +too cold, or too wicked, to hold more than two persons. I love only +father and you, and where you are concerned I shall never be of age. +Women who outgrow the need of their mothers repel me, like museum +'freaks.' You must not go away so often, because I miss you, and this is +an opportune time to tell you that at the back of my head lurks an ugly +mental scare-crow that if at some crisis of my life you happened to be +absent, I might go daft and scuttle the ship. Remember, you promised +grandmother you would not leave me." + +Prescient shadows darkened her appealing eyes, as she bent to press her +cool cheek against the rosy one of her companion, and drew her out upon +the wide, latticed piazza at the rear of the house. + +"She asked that I should stay with you until you married, or were +twenty-one years old; but, my baby, I need you far more than you need +me. You are my heart, and you know it; and I shall be away from you as +little as possible; nevertheless I must not neglect my own patches and +pastures. By the by, that Jersey heifer you gave me ought to be +registered. What would be a pretty name, easy to call? One that matches +her in beauty will be hard to find." + +"Her profile entitles her to a classical name, but the appropriateness +of its significance must be observed. As 'Hecuba' she would feel in duty +bound to add nineteen to your herd." + +"No, indeed. That is a mouthful of stuttering ugliness." + +"'Persephone' rolls softly, like the long swell of a foamless wave +settling to rest--but then you could expect no pearly horned progeny, +and she might spend her days lowing for her mother. The prettiest short +names are already in the herd books. 'Antiope?' She would not take good +care of her calves. You don't like mythology because it is pagan, and +when I pleaded with you that your cat should be 'Hebe' you turned up +your little nose and labelled her 'Delilah.' Such a consistent saint! +You prefer Old Testament wickedness to heathen purity. Suppose you +compromise on 'Doucette,' and then you can feel sure she will neither +kick nor gore." + +"If that is the best you can suggest, I shall just suit myself and call +her Patricia of Nutwood." + +"_Madrecita_, you can not. It is pre-empted. The mother of our herd was +imported from St. Helier by my grandfather, when she was only eight +months old, and he registered her in his own herd book, 'Patricia of +Nutwood.' Mr. Boynton showed me an old leather-bound copy last winter, +when I signed several transfers." + +"Then the next best for my brown satin beauty is 'Noela,' in honor of +Mr. Herriott." + +"I am racked by jealousy that you should overlook the liquid brevity of +'Eglahtina' or 'Eglahkentana.' Let us sit here on the steps, where we +can enjoy our leafy canopy. Could anything be more beautiful?" + +She threw back her head and looked up. In front of the steps two lines +of very old elm trees marked the limits of a walk leading through the +"back yard" to the vegetable garden. On each row, planted opposite, +white wistaria had been trained so carefully that as the lower lateral +elm branches were cut away to keep the arch intact, the vines climbed +higher until now, the top boughs of the trees having met, all along the +walls and across the pale-green dome of elm leaves swung long, drooping +spikes of snowy bloom, amid the olive-tinted wistaria foliage. + +"I never saw anything so lovely in Italy," said Eliza, stroking Delilah, +and straightening the blue bow on the cat's neck. + +"We came too late last spring for the bloom, and we have not seen this +living ceiling for so many years. When I was at college I used to shut +my eyes and recall it just as we left it. My little 'sundown supper' +table on the square of matting yonder, you sitting on the bottom step +crocheting mats, grandmother, so tall and thin, walking up and down the +side flower garden over there, gathering rose leaves for the big blue +china rose jar in the drawing-room, old Hector following her like a lean +shadow, and King Herod spreading his tail till I threw him bread crumbs. +How often I longed for one of my 'sundown' suppers--my bowl of hominy +and cream, my cup of milk, the tea cakes and ginger pone, and blackberry +jam. The smell of cloves and cinnamon, and the taste thereof!" + +Watching her face, relaxed in dreamy retrospection, Mrs. Mitchell asked: + +"Where is Mr. Herriott?" + +Without removing her eyes from the long wistaria plumes waving overhead, +she answered in a colder tone: + +"When father heard last, he was in Norway, but since then I read an +account of a dinner given to the party of which he was a member, by a +geographical society in London." + +"You have received no letter?" + +"None recently, and I do not expect any." + +"Because you do not deserve any. I am so disappointed in him." + +"In what respect? I imagined that in your eyes, as in father's, he was +simply perfect." + +"He is capable of something far better than lounging through life with +his hands in his pockets, and loafing around the world. If he could only +have the good luck to lose his money, he might accomplish what God makes +such men for." + +"He is not an idle tramp. He is kept busy dancing attendance on his +exacting bride." + +"Bride!" exclaimed Mrs. Mitchell, with such startling shrillness that +Delilah sprang out of her lap and surveyed her with astonishment. + +"Not a bride of pink flesh, on whom he can bestow collars of diamonds, +but an old dame of hoary locks, whose harsh jargon he considers musical, +and who, having taken his purse and tied him to her apron strings, drags +him from the bowels of the earth to the mountains of the moon, amusing +him with photographs of microbes and eclipses, and with prehistoric +skeletons that her relentless horny claws have stolen from their lawful +graves. Long ago he was wedded to 'Science,' and of course he keeps his +bridal vows." + +"I am sure you do not fully understand him, and I wonder he did not +marry Miss Stanley; she is so lovely, and he certainly admired her." + +"She is indeed a luscious beauty, and attracted him, but if he really +had any serious intentions, I think she lost him that night when the +alarm of fire emptied the theatre. Ours was a proscenium box in the +second tier. Eleanor Stanley had dined with Captain Sefton's sister, he +was her escort, and I went with Mr. Herriott. Of course you know all +about the horrible tragedy, but I never told any one what preceded it. +Toward the end, and while the curtain was down, Captain Sefton so far +forgot himself as to repeat an unpardonably _risque_ story of a smart +set leader, at which Eleanor laughed heartily. I stared at my bouquet of +orchids, and lifted them to shield my face where I felt the blood. +Without moving an eyelash Mr. Noel sat like a sphinx, looking steadily +at Eleanor, then took my opera glass and watched a party of pretty girls +in the dress circle. His face was as absolutely impassive as one of the +masks frescoed on the ceiling. In the middle of the next and closing +act, a scream from the rear of the stage startled us, and almost +simultaneously two of the ballet girls rushed from behind the wings, +with fire blazing in their short, gauzy skirts. One ran to the corner of +the stage just under our box, and the actors fled from her. Mr. Herriott +put his hand heavily on my shoulder. + +"Do not move an inch till I come." + +He snatched his overcoat and my velvet opera cloak, stepped on the +railing of the box, measured the distance with his eye and leaped down. +He struck on his feet, and staggered, but the next instant he reached +the girl, who ran shrieking up and down, caught her, threw my cloak over +her head, pressed her to the floor, covered her with his overcoat, and +rolled her over and over as if she were a ball. Of course she was +horribly burned, but she lived. The other poor creature kept her hands +before her face as a screen from the flames, missed her footing, +stumbled over the footlights and fell among the orchestra chairs. The +musicians smothered the flames, but she died after two hours of torture. +Mr. Herriott's gloves saved his hands, but one wrist was badly +blistered, and his mustache singed. When we were going home I told him +how enthusiastically Eleanor admired and praised his bravery, and that +she declared she would strive to win his affection were he not so +'goody-goody'; she feared he would expect her to be equally pious. A +queer expression I could not understand crossed his face, and when he +spoke his voice was stern: + +"'I am not pious; more is the pity! At least I am too honest to accept +praise I do not deserve. Please be so kind as not to refer again to this +evening, several surprising incidents of which I shall be glad to +forget.' A few days later he sent to replace my scorched velvet, that +gorgeous ivory satin opera cloak brocaded with lilies in silver, which +father and you wished me to accept, and I based my refusal on his +request, as the mere sight of it would inevitably remind him of a night +neither of us wished to recall. Look yonder." + +"Yes; there must be a picket off that white game yard fence, for I am +positive I fastened the gate this morning. Run on ahead and open the +gate wide, for when they are driven back they never can find the crack +where they came out. That white rooster is all ruffled up for a fight +with the red one. Scare the hens back and stand on one side." + +When the fugitives had been shut in, the two women stood admiring the +flock. + +"Dearie, do you know how old these chickens are? Forty years before +railroads were built in this state, your grandfather brought them in a +champagne basket on the top of a stage-coach from somewhere in Maryland, +and the person who gave them to him had imported them from England forty +years before. Think of it!" + +"I do, with astonishment difficult to express. More than eighty years +old, and no sign of decrepitude in crowing, fighting and laying eggs! +Little mother, what are _tarrididdles_?" + +Laughing, she put her hands on Eliza's shoulder and shook her gently. +The little woman pinched her ear. + +"Don't talk slang to me. You know I did not mean these very identical +fowls are those that came in the champagne basket, but the original +trio, two hens and a cock, were kept in a separate yard, and so the +stock has remained pure game for more than forty years. They are such +beauties, and to the last day of her life your grandmother was so proud +and fond of them. One morning when we were feeding them she told me how +General Maurice had laughed over the cunning of one of the negroes whose +duty it was to attend to the fowl yards. The general had promised a +setting of eggs to a friend in a neighboring county, and ordered the man +to bring him one dozen perfectly fresh. The negro protested against a +violation of the rule that no one else should own the white games, so +that if stolen they could be traced. His master insisted, and when the +eggs were handed to him he packed them very carefully in cotton, to +prevent jostling, and sent them to his friend. Some time afterward, a +letter reached your grandfather, informing him none of the eggs had +hatched, and he called the man and read the letter to him. + +"'Narry aigg hatched? Well, I made sure they couldn't, for I am +'sponsible for keeping dem chickens safe at home and I 'tends to my +bizness. You see, marster, I knowed you was in a mighty tight fix, +'cause natchelly you hated to say no when Dr. Glenn axed for 'em, and +most natchelly you didn't want our yaller-breasted, brass-winged white +games crowing in other folks' yards, and so I just pintedly shuck 'em +and shuck 'em like thunder, till they was foamy enough for Celie's omlet +skillet.'" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +If owners of old manorial houses kept frank and faithful log-books, +strange domestic records might now and then be read, rivalling in tragic +incidents those of passing ships. Conspicuously infelicitous was the +stream of events beating against Calvary House and reducing an ancient, +broad estate and handsome three-storied brick residence to a few +impoverished acres, and a rambling structure partly destroyed by fire, +and wholly abandoned to vacancy and isolation in consequence of grewsome +gossip. During eighty years the proprietorship had been vested in only +two families, totally unrelated; in the first, the reckless extravagance +and unbridled careers of four beautiful women depleted the domestic +coffer, necessitated the sacrifice and sale of the property, and drove a +weakly indulgent father to suicide. In the second the vices of sons +plunged the widowed mother into melancholia and an insane asylum. + +From time to time portions of land were sold to enable the boys to +continue their wild carousals. Fratricidal strife ensued, and one +brother spent the dismal residue of his days in the penitentiary, +expiating the murder of the other. The vicious round of horse-racing, +cock-fighting, fox-hunting, gambling and drinking once madly run had +ended in the final wreck, and what remained of the estate fell into the +hands of Mr. Herriott's father, whose agent held the mortgage. +Sufficiently grim was the foundation of facts; yet still more appalling +the superstructure of neighborhood traditions, and the ghoulish tales of +superstitious servants. Venerable trees, whose sheltering arms might +have veiled the ruin, had been over-grown by mistletoe, until very few +survived to stand guard, and when a hunter crept with his pointer +through broom-sedge waist high all over the lawn, his cigar spark set +the whole aflame, and only two fine old oaks close to the house were +left as sentinels. Later, a lightning bolt destroyed one; two years +after, an equinoctial gale blew the other half across the mossy roof. +Stark, weather beaten, its broken windows like eyeless sockets in a +skull, the old house, dumb in desolation, stood in dire need of the +mercies of bell, candle, censer, and aspergill to exorcise its garrison +of unholy spectres. Five years after the place had been given by Noel +Herriott to the "Brothers of the Order of Calvary," lime, paint, +wallpaper, patient toil and a wise appreciation of the adaptability of +angles, corridors, dormer windows and verandas, in architectural +alterations, had transformed it into a quaintly irregular but +picturesque structure. Outside mouldy walls were curtained with +ampelopsis lace, while from a circular belfry between the original +square rock chimneys, a deep-toned bell swung below a tall gilt cross, +and uttered its holy message of peace to a troubled and tragic past. The +basement had been converted into a refectory, kitchen and store room, +the large apartments were partitioned into individual cells, and an +infirmary; and the long drawing-room became a chapel, with a small +oratory adjoining. Here a pipe organ sounded through the arch leading +into the chapel, and over this opening a purple curtain fell when +service ended. Beyond and in line with the oratory, a one-story wing +with a wide cloistered piazza looked toward the rear of the house, and +held a sacristy; then three small chambers fronting the vine-draped +cloister behind whose arches paced, book in hand, fathers, brothers and +lay brothers. + +In the early stages of the era of renovation the place had resembled an +industrial farm rather than a religious retreat; but gradually, as +orchard and vineyard were replanted, gardens outlined and cultivated, a +solemn, peaceful silence enveloped Calvary House, broken by no ruder +sounds than Angelus, chants from the chapel, low-swelling organ tones, +and that peculiarly sweet, thrilling threnody of hedge sparrows moaning +in a ragged thicket of very old lilacs. Along the front of the sloping +lawn a fence divided it from the turnpike leading into the city, and +over the wide wooden gate sprang an arch bearing in black letters, +Calvary House, and surmounted by a cross. From the gate latch swung the +porter's bell. + +Since the day when, standing at an open grave close to Leighton's mound +in Evergreen, Father Temple had read the committal service as his wife's +coffin was lowered, and pronounced the farewell benediction, the springs +of his busy life seemed to have broken. Max Harlberg and the few who had +followed the hearse, stole away, leaving the priest on his knees. Later, +as stars came out to guard the hosts of sleepers, a watchman found him +prone on the damp mound, and in a heavy stupor. An ambulance carried him +to the nearest hospital, where he rallied slowly from an attack of +pneumonia that left his lungs too weak to permit the possibility of +preaching, and the doctors warned him a year's rest was imperative. +Engagements for "missions" and "retreats" were cancelled, and his +superior summoned him home, but after a few days advised him to go South +and visit his relatives in Y---- until the winds of March had blown out +their fury. On his return, still thin and wan, he resumed his duties, +and from Prime to Compline missed no service. After Vespers, the tolling +of the _De Profundis_ bell called all to their knees in silent prayer +for the dead, and his bowed head was always the last lifted. How much +penance was self-imposed none knew, but a change had come into the +habitually sad face; keen mental strife, devouring anxiety, were at an +end, and the large dark eyes told of an inward patience that was not yet +peace, of an acceptance of the verdict that his life spelled hopeless +failure. So marked was the alteration in figure and features, that one +sunny day at Calvary House, as Mr. Herriott grasped his hand, he was +painfully startled. + +"Vernon! You are little more than a holy shadow! If starving is the +regimen prescribed here, I do not feel tempted to tarry even for a day." + +"Noel--God bless you, dear old fellow! At last you have remembered us, +and how well you look! The bare sight of your superb strength is tonic. +Come into the chapel. Terce bell is sounding. After a little the +Brotherhood will greet you." + +Under the guidance of Father Superior Elverton, a gaunt man of unusual +height, with the ascetic jaw of a Trappist, and dreamy eyes mystical as +Hugo of St. Victor, Mr. Herriott was shown fields, garden and buildings, +and after dinner in the refectory, where, in honor of his presence, +conversation was allowed, he asked the privilege of being left alone +with Father Temple. It was a warm day, and drawing chairs to a shaded +recess of the cloister, Mr. Herriott said: + +"I am so glad the weather favored me to-day for this visit. It will rain +soon." + +"No; look at that deep blue, clear sky. I see no prophecy of rain, but +you have tried so many climates, doubtless you are weather wise." + +"If a man who has slept often in tents, open boats and on the bare +ground learns nothing of nature's atmospheric signal code, he is far +below savages in intelligence, and more ignorant than brutes. You of the +shut-in clan are not skilled meteorologists, but time is too precious to +be wasted in idle weather chat. Vernon, there is much I should like to +know, yet I shrink from questioning you. Many letters have been lost, +and my home news came in snatches, sometimes with no connection, no +coherence. I have thought of you constantly, and now what you are +willing to tell me of all that has happened since we parted in New York +that Sunday night, I shall be glad to hear." + +Leaning his elbow on the brick base of an arch and bowing his head in +his palm, Father Temple narrated the circumstances that attended the +death of his wife and son, withholding nothing. His muffled voice was +steady and passionless, as if reading from the breviary, and when the +face lifted it showed only the quiet hopelessness in eyes of one going +back over a battle-field where all that was cherished went down. + +"Thank you, Temple. It might have been worse, and at least you must be +comforted in knowing that at the last she relented and did you justice." + +"The last has become first. All that preceded it I have cast away, and +that final hour of forgiveness, that touch on my head--that feeble +clinging of her fingers--is what remains of my past life--what sustains +me for the future." + +"Try to avoid morbid retrospection. Your expiation has been so complete +you have no grounds for self-reproach; you are still a young man, and +your life work is ahead of you." + +The priest threw out one hand, and his trained tone broke suddenly. + +"Expiation will never end while I have breath to pray--not until the +same grave that holds my victims covers me. You can not understand, +because you know no more about love than the rubric! If you had ever +felt your wife's lips on yours, or the clasp of your child's arms, and +heard his glad, tender cry of 'father!'--you would realize that no +expiation could be sufficient, if your hand had smitten them to ruin." + +"Perhaps I do understand the torture more thoroughly than you imagine, +and you must allow me to say that were I as sadly circumstanced as +yourself, I should set my back to the past, and resolutely hunt for +sunshine in coming years. Deliberate, intentional villainy was never +your sin, and for a foolish boy's rash haste you did everything possible +to atone. I shall be sorry to see you so unmanly as to sink down in the +mildew of an abject melancholy. Your surroundings invite morbid +memories, and just here, Vernon, let me say I do not like your +refectory. It is dark, damp, mouldy, and you must make a change. +I should enjoy breakfasting in the catacombs quite as much. Ask your +superior to estimate the cost of building a refectory on this floor, say +to the left yonder, and perhaps the matter may be arranged +satisfactorily. Another bell! What office comes next?" + +"That is to notify us 'free time' is over for the day. We have an hour +in which to employ ourselves without direction. Below the vegetable +garden Brother Theodore comes from his pet strawberry bed, and over +yonder, what looks like a huge black bird with flapping white wings is +Brother Aristide dusting the leaves of his grapevines with some +insecticide powder. He came from Burgundy, and believes that ledge +behind the line of cherry trees lying south-southeast will give him +Chambertin equal to the best in Cote d'Or. You see even here each +trundles his recreation hoop once a day." + +An east wind had spun fine silver cloud lines curving across the blue, +clustering, widening into two vast, fleecy pinions that were floating +slowly to the gates of the west. Despite sunshine, chilliness edged the +air, and Father Temple coughed hoarsely. + +"Your reverence should not stay here next winter. It is too humid. As +the crow flies and the wind sweeps, the Atlantic can not be more than +twenty miles away, and when northeast gales howl from Barnegat to +Hatteras, this is no sanatorium for you. If you have no special +preference for tuberculosis, and have not vowed slow suicide on that +altar, I should be glad if you would select some other mode of exit when +you finally say good-bye. Consumption robbed me of my father--I hope I +shall not lose my friend also thereby." + +The priest smiled, and laid his thin hand on his companion's knee. + +"In many characteristics we differ so widely, I have often wondered that +you care at all for me." + +"You were so honest and fearless and manly when we met at college. You +showed such genuine pluck in that hazing scandal, so much quiet, heroic +magnanimity when the official investigation followed. Vernon, for God's +sake, wake up! You have talent; don't doze like a toad under a stone +wall. Come out of shadows that paralyze you, and try to make your mark +in the world of letters. I do not wish to change my----" + +He paused and frowned. A flush tinged Father Temple's sallow cheek. + +"You do not wish to consider me unmanly now?" + +"That is exactly it, and if you force me to do so I swear I never will +forgive you. Don't brood and mope. Go back to Plato and Horace--they are +the best brooms for cloistral cobwebs--and promise me you will not stay +here next winter." + +"My cousin Allison Kent and Eglah insist I shall spend December and +January with them, in Y----, and since I am forbidden to preach at +present, I may accept the invitation. I was there on a brief visit +several months ago." + +"Tell me about them. It has been long since I heard directly." + +"The judge has grown extremely stout, and says he enjoys the lazy +leisure of Southern life among the opulent, but he seemed restless and +abstracted, and was often absent on fishing excursions. Eglah perplexes +me. She is graver, more reticent, and far more beautiful, but reminds me +of a person walking in troubled sleep, determined, yet vaguely +apprehensive. At times it occurred to me that her relations with her +father were not as tenderly cordial as I remembered in the Washington +life; he never caressed her, and she seemed in a certain degree aloof, +but her careful deference in manner and speech was exquisite. She told +me his retirement from a senatorial position was the supreme +disappointment of her life, and her chief solace now is the preparation +of a volume of his speeches, prefaced by a biographical sketch she +intends to write. I think her father is very unpopular with the majority +of old families in Y----, who will never forgive his course while +Federal judge, and as they represent the best social element, conditions +beyond her control have embarrassed Eglah, but she gives no hint and +fronts the situation with admirable cool calmness." + +Leaning back in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head, Mr. +Herriott seemed to watch the narrowing circles of a hawk beneath which +three frantic pigeons dashed aimlessly round and round, and in the final +swift swoop one white bird disappeared in a vanishing brown shadow. + +"You have lost a pigeon." + +"We have none. The lay brothers complain of their depredations in the +garden, and sometimes trap those that belong in the city, but they are +always carried off and set free." + +"Vernon, why does not your cousin Eglah marry Roger Hull? He is as +nearly worthy of her as any man she will ever meet; he is eminently good +looking, bright, a spirited debater, and as it is said he carries the +votes of his district in his vest pocket, he has an assured political +position where she could gratify her ambition. If he lives he will sit +in the Senate. He was very devoted in his attentions. Is he still +loyal?" + +"No. I hear he is reported engaged to a pretty girl in Washington, whose +father is a naval officer. Certainly Eglah does not lack beaux. She has +very fine horses, rides daily, and one of her most frequent escorts was +a Dr. Burbridge, very handsome and a specialist in neurology. I don't +know Hull, but he has been twice to Nutwood since Eglah came back from +Europe, and Cousin Allison said that she froze him so completely on his +last visit that he gave up the chase, and consoled himself with a more +responsive charmer. If political life allures her, Hull certainly +offered an attractive opportunity, but I am sure her father did not +favor that suit, and as her ambition was more for his preferment than +from any personal fondness for a congressional career, she will soon +cease to regret, and find contentment in her lovely surroundings." + +"I am afraid not. Pardon the simile--but take a thoroughbred filly +raised and trained on the race track, and when she is champing her bit, +trembling for the signal to start, lead her aside, shut her in a +pasture, fasten her to a plough trace, or harness her with a mule on the +other side of a wagon-tongue, and do you wonder the load comes to grief, +or the furrows are crooked when she sees the racers flash by, and hears +the rush of hoofs, the roar of cheering thousands? Eglah knows what she +wants, and disdains compromise. The present environment suits her as +little as a stagnant millpond would a yacht cup challenger." + +"I wish she could marry happily, but the day I came away we stood at the +front steps and I told her I hoped I might have the privilege of +performing the ceremony, if during my life she consented to make some +man happy. The judge laughed and tapped me on the shoulder. 'I will see +you get that wedding fee. When you are needed I shall telegraph you.' +She stepped a little closer to him, put her hands behind her, and looked +at him with strange intentness; then turning to me she said, with +singular emphasis: 'I shall never marry. As I have been baptized, only +one more ceremony can be performed for me, and if Ma-Lila does not +insist upon a Methodist minister, I promise that you shall pronounce +'ashes to ashes, dust to dust'--when mother earth takes me back to her +heart.' + +"Just then Mrs. Mitchell dropped her basket, and the clatter of keys and +scissors broke the strain, which I could not understand. But Eglah's +eyes recalled something I have not thought of for years. Do you +recollect a picture of the Norns we saw that summer we walked through +Wales?" + +"Three figures, one veiled? We could not find out who painted it, but I +never shall forget the wonderful eyes of Urd." + +"They looked at me again that day in Nutwood. The expression was as +inscrutable as the smile of Mona Lisa--not defiance, nor yet +renunciation, neither scorn nor bitterness, but deathless pride and a +pain so hopeless no sound could voice it." + +There was a brief silence, broken by the muffled chanting in the chapel, +and Mr. Herriott's hands were gripped so tight behind his head the nails +were purple, but his face showed no emotion, and when he spoke his tone +betrayed only quiet sympathy. + +"For many years I have associated her with a passage in Jeremiah: '_As a +speckled bird, the birds round about are against her.'_' Poor little +speckled bird, beating out her life. Battling alone against a host of +hawks is dreary work." + +"I suppose you are going to Y----?" + +"No, I must get back home. I have been away too long. My poor faithful +Susan is dead." + +"I hope you are tired of globe-trotting, and ready to anchor yourself at +your own fireside." + +"As yet I have made no definite plans; have been considering two recent +offers. One is the presidency of a great railroad system--a position I +might possibly fit myself to occupy if I went into the machine shops and +roundhouses and worked hard for the next five years. It happens that the +shares and bonds of one short but very important line which my father +practically owned when the middle West was comparatively undeveloped, +have appreciated enormously, and now that road is the link absolutely +necessary to the contemplated consolidation of a new route that will +touch the Pacific. I cabled my refusal to sell out, and the next bait +was the presidency. Mr. Stadmeyer and I have controlling interests and +our views accord. Two days ago we had a meeting, at which I declined +office, and we leased our road for thirty years. That relieved me from +one horn of the dilemma; the other still threatens. A Polar expedition +will be ready next year, and I have been asked to take a place aboard +ship." + +"Noel, I beg of you, dismiss that thought. Of all scientific follies, +that Pole-hunting mania is the wildest, the most indefensible. To add +your bleaching bones to the cairns heaped on the eternal ice altar of +Polar night is no ambition worthy of you. Don't think me childish, but +the sight of you is such a comfort I could not bear to have you risk +your life searching for mares' nests so far away." + +Mr. Herriott laughed--a genial, hearty, deep-chested sound rarely heard +in cloisters. + +"Get rid of that cough, and I will take you along as chaplain to +christen the Pole--presumably it is pagan at present. I wish you would +go down to New Mexico or Arizona and make a sensible effort to build up +your constitution, which seems suing you for damages. Leave medicine and +the breviary in your cell, and lie under the stars and inhale that +wonderful, healing air. When you wish to pray go down into the Grand +Canyon, you will find you can succeed without needing a book to help you. +In that sky verily 'the heavens declare the glory of God; and the +firmament sheweth His handiwork.' Mission work, and to spare, would +interest you at a Moqui Pueblo, and I can recommend one whose primeval, +idyllic repose dwells in my memory like an eclogue of Virgil's. It is +spread over the crown and sides of a precipice where terraces tilt their +outer edges upward to prevent water from draining the little gardens. +Masonry-lined cisterns gleam under moonlight like molten silver, sheep +and goats bleat in their stone enclosures, a frieze of kids runs below +the cornice of brown cupids drowsing on the wall, and all about the mesa +a pink cloud of blooming peach trees and a yellow mist of acacias. Weigh +this cure scheme, discuss it in Sanhedrim, and if you think favorably of +it let me hear from you before October, as I have several friends among +ranchmen, and some of the Moquis have not forgotten me." + +"Do you intend to settle down now at your lake-shore house?" + +"Yes, for the present. I have been invited to write for two scientific +magazines, and one of the subjects suggested rather appeals to me--a +comparison of the fiords of Norway with those of Alaska and British +Columbia, but I have not fully decided. However, I am committed to help +Chalcott verify numerous citations from Strabo's tenth book, relative to +Crete, and I must brush up my classics. Chalcott is sanguine of 'great +finds' around the site of ancient Knossos in the near future. He has +been stung by the Pelasgian bee, and I have promised to hunt and copy +some passages from Strabo." + +He took his hat from the floor and rose. + +"Now I must say good-bye to father superior and the brethren." + +"We hoped you would spend at least one night with us, in the room we +have named and set apart for you." + +"I must get back to Philadelphia in time for a meeting to-morrow of +stockholders and directors of our railroad. Mr. Stadmeyer requested me +to attend, though he is really our watchdog. Don't delay the refectory +improvements, and since you are all so good as to give me a special +penitential apartment, I wish you would brighten it up with a cheerful +paper, and allow me the privilege of sending some human derelict to +anchor here in peace. God knows, there are fleets of souls adrift, and I +should be glad if, for my sake, you can tow some into the snug harbor of +my cell, until the day comes when my sins culminate and force me here +for penance." + +When the two walked down to the outer gate, the contrast between the +virile athlete and the shadowy black form of the priest was pathetically +vivid. + +The busy shuttles of the east wind had spread their cirrus laces even +along the western horizon where the sun had vanished, and the sky was +one huge arching shell enamelled with mother-of-pearl, as the cloudlets +burned in the after-glow. + +"Vernon, don't look back. You have balanced your books with the past. +Dear old fellow, I wish to think of you as fulfilling the rich promise +of our college days." + +"Assure me you will give up that Arctic whim. The thought of it +distresses me." + +"Do not worry about me. The expedition could not be ready to start for +at least a year, and by that time I may not need to go. Sir John +Franklin's ghost may chat with mine and tell me all the secrets of the +Pole, which doubtless he discovered when Arctic ice claimed his body." + +He laughed, they shook hands, and parted. + +At a bend in the road he turned, looked back and waved his hat to the +watching figure standing under the gilt cross, and silhouetted in sharp +lines against the opal dome of the west. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + + +"Little mother, the weather is so lovely I really ought to drive with +you to Dairy Dingle, instead of letting you go in that dusty, stuffy +car; but you will not wait, and you know I have promised to go to the +club german to-morrow night." + +"I shall get back in time to help you; the train is due at 7:10. Your +dress is already pressed, and ribbons and lace sewed on, but as you have +not worn it, I want to be sure about the hang of that skirt. Your +sash----" + +"Your train is ready to start. Good-bye, Ma-Lila." + +"Good-bye, dearie. I wish the club house and Dr. Burbridge were in +Jericho! Then you could go with me." + +Mrs. Mitchell kissed her companion's cheek and hurried to the car +platform, where she paused a moment, looking back at the girl seated in +her trap, balancing her lace parasol. + +"Are you going directly home?" + +"No. I shall call to inquire how Mrs. Whitfield is to-day, and as the +bishop has come home from Florida I must congratulate him on his +restoration to health. Bring me some titi blossoms." + +The bell clanged, the engine puffed, and the train disappeared around a +curve. An hour afterward, in front of the post-office, the mail for +Nutwood was brought to the trap. Eglah took two letters addressed to +herself, and placed the remainder with papers under the cushion of the +trap seat. + + +"Oliver, stop at Holmein's garden. Then go on home and give the mail to +father. If he has not returned from fishing, be careful to lay letters +and papers on the library table in front of his chair. I shall walk from +Holmein's." + +The grounds of the florist were nearly a mile from the gates of Nutwood, +and on a new street-car line extending to a park that overlooked the +river. From Holmein's the broad, sandy road ran straight through thick +woods to the avenue of the old house on the hill. Having secured a bunch +of double white violets, Judge Kent's favorite flower, his daughter +walked homeward. Ivory thuribles of magnolia and bay swung their +fragrance up and down the nave of ancient pines, and the profound +repose, the silence as of primeval wilds was broken only now and then by +the antiphonal plaints of doves lamenting on the lofty green pine +cornices, or a low preluding chord, as fingers of the wind touched the +leafy pipes of the forest organ. + +Many months had passed, and the procession of the seasons brought no +comforting element to brighten the monotonous life that so severely +taxed Eglah's patience. A card and dinner party on Judge Kent's birthday +had pleased him for the moment, but while he praised the menu and +decorations, no relaxation of chill politeness rewarded her. Only one +_al fresco_ festival was held. When nuts were ripe in autumn the young +mistress had invited the children belonging to Sunday-schools and the +orphan asylum in Y---- to come one afternoon to Nutwood and gather +chestnuts and walnuts. In the grove long tables held refreshments, that +were served by Eglah and Eliza to the hungry throng, and for the first +time since the war hundreds of happy little ones raced and shouted under +the ancestral trees. Several plank seats remained as souvenirs of the +occasion, and to-day Eglah turned away from the avenue, and sat down +between two young chestnuts. At her feet was a miniature doll house of +walnut shells built to amuse a flaxen-haired tot who shrank tearfully +from the sharp pricks of chestnut burrs, and begged for a "truly fairy +tale." + +Now Eglah was reminded of the wide, curious eyes raised to hers when she +had repeated: + + "I fancy the fairies make merry, + With thorns for their knives and forks; + They have currants for bottles of sherry, + And the little brown heads are the corks. + A leaf makes the tent they sit under, + Their ballroom's a white lily-cup; + Shall I know all about them, I wonder, + For certain, when I am grown up?" + +Laying her flowers beside her, she broke the seal of a letter from Mrs. +St. Clair, postmarked New York, and after a moment the sheet fell into +her lap. Raising it, she read a second time: + +"We are so shocked and grieved to find that Mr. Herriott is actually +going on that North Pole expedition we thought he had abandoned. He has +been much feted since his return last year, and all of our set are +heartily sorry to give him up. Some of us believe you could put a stop +to this nonsense, if you would only come to your senses, and use your +influence. The idea of such a man going into the grewsome business of +eating blubber and seal, and possibly Eskimo dog steak! Hunting a +graveyard among hummocks! I suggested to him that a better plan would be +to go down into a cold-storage vault, throw away the key and slam the +spring-lock door. Then we should be allowed the consolation of covering +him with flowers." + +She replaced the letter in the envelope, and fell into a profound +revery. If Mr. Herriott sailed away and never returned, her father could +no longer cling to his sole condition of reconciliation. Years ago her +own responsibility had ended, and even had she desired to reconsider the +proposal of marriage, no opportunity to do so had been given her. She +had not seen Mr. Herriott since that afternoon in the old Greco-Roman +theatre. Two kind, brief, merely friendly letters had reached her, +followed by a box containing for herself some fine Oriental +embroideries, and an exquisitely carved ivory triptych; for Mrs. +Mitchell a copy of a quaint circular picture in the old Byzantine style, +representing a group of young lambs asleep around the standing figure of +the child Jesus, whose body rayed light, as in the "_Notte_," one little +hand extended over them, while he looked up to an angelic guard only +dimly outlined by the gleaming tips of hovering pinions. + +If Mr. Herriott never returned? Her eyes filled with unshed tears. For +so many years he had been her devoted and loyal friend, and she honored +and trusted him supremely. Never to see him again would grieve her +deeply, but she felt assured he no longer loved her as formerly--that +sincere friendship was the only sentiment he now entertained. Were his +heart still hers, could he have maintained the total repression that +marked recent years? He had given his word not to refer to a matter that +distressed her, but when men really loved, such compacts were forgotten, +and it must have been easy for Mr. Herriott to keep his promise of +absolute silence. + +Gathering up her flowers, letters and parasol, she walked slowly across +the lawn and reached the house by a side door, without meeting any of +the servants. + +On the library table lay Judge Kent's unopened mail; hence she knew he +had not yet returned from the fishing trip on which he started at +daylight. Over the door opening into his adjoining bedroom a heavy +portiere of crimson plush usually hung, but a few days previous winter +draperies had been replaced by Madras curtains that resembled stained +glass. Lifting this summer portiere, Eglah went into the bedroom, filled +a vase with water and arranged the drooping violets on her father's +bureau. Only during his absence did she ever come into this apartment, +so long her grandmother's reliquary, where the girl seemed always to see +old Hector crouching against his dead mistress, and that white face, +whose fixed blue eyes pierced beyond the orange dawn and fronted God. + +The memory of her childish terror on the night of Mrs. Maurice's death +haunted the room, despite her effort to dispel it, yet to-day she sat +down on a lounge and re-read Mrs. St. Clair's letter. If her father knew +of the contemplated Arctic journey, he had given no hint. Perhaps the +vessel had already sailed. Then at last she could find peace and +reconciliation. Possibly Mr. Herriott might change his plans. If ever he +renewed his offer would she--could she yield to her father's wishes? She +set her teeth. + +"Sell myself--even for father's love? Never!" + +It seemed cruel that some misfortune to her best and dearest friend +should offer her sole channel of escape, and after a while she made +deliberate choice. + +"Come what may, I pray no harm will overtake Mr. Noel. I would rather +continue to fight and suffer than know he was lost; and surely God will +watch over him." + +Some moments passed while, forgetting to remove her hat, she sat tapping +her knee with the letter. Then heavy footsteps rang on the bare, +"dry-rubbed" floor, and Judge Kent's voice sounded through the library. + +"Take that arm chair, Herriott. Eglah is in town, but she will be at +home soon." + +"I am glad to have an opportunity to talk to you in her absence. I have +not come here voluntarily; necessity drove me. My mission now is so +distressingly painful that could it have been avoided I should certainly +not be here. To shield Eglah from annoyance I would undertake anything +but neglect of duty. Of course you know the deplorable matter to which I +allude?" + +Every word came distinctly through the lace-hung doorway, and Eglah +rose, reluctant to overhear that which it was evident the speaker wished +withheld from her; but an overmastering desire to understand once for +all conditions that had so long perplexed her, coerced her to remain. +There was grave trouble, and she must suffer later--why not now? A full +comprehension was the first step toward defence. + +"I am surprised that you should intentionally embarrass me, but I +suppose you refer to the United States and railroad bonds that were +hypothecated. I knew you had redeemed them, delivered them to the +college, and I hoped when I parted with the house in Thirty-eighth +Street that I could turn it over to you in part payment of that bond +business; but an unfortunate venture reduced me to such urgent need, I +was obliged to take the money you offered through Trainem. Don't +interrupt me--now you have forced me to speak, I want no renewal of this +matter. Except the trustees and their attorneys, no one remembers the +unjust clause in your father's will that Nina should have the New York +house and certain stocks outright, but only the interest on those bonds +which at her death should belong to the Presbyterian College. Munificent +provision for the widow of a reputed multimillionaire! Since you have so +kindly and generously recovered the bonds and delivered them to the +trustees, I see no necessity for this revival of so disagreeable a +subject, and certainly no propriety in dragging before Eglah what does +not concern her. The trusteeship under which her own estate is held at +present, prevents my using any part of it to repay you, as I would do +most gladly, were it possible." + +"Had you not forbidden an interruption, you might have spared yourself +an unpleasant retrospection, as I earnestly desired to assure you at the +outset that you are entirely mistaken in my purpose. I had no +thought--no intention, of alluding to the subject of the bonds, which is +even more disagreeable to me than to you, but since you have brought it +up, while I decline to discuss my father's will, you must permit me to +say that the course I pursued was prompted solely by my affection for +Nina, and a desire to protect her innocent name. Hence as regards the +bonds you owe me nothing." + +"Do you doubt they were hypothecated with her consent and desire?" + +"Judge Kent, you must pardon me if I ask you to dismiss issues long +past. I am here for a far graver and more imperatively pressing matter. +It seems hard indeed that I, who have accepted and enjoyed your +hospitality--I, who for many years have known that my heart dwelt upon +your roof--should be the unfortunate agent forced to bring grief and +trouble to your hearth. I suppose you suspect to what I refer?" + +"No. I have so many enemies, and such an infernal succession of bad +luck, I never know where a bomb may burst. I haven't an idea what you +are driving at." + +Mr. Herriott walked twice across the floor. + +"Do you recollect Edward Hunt?" + +"Yes. A cross between a fox and a blood-hound. He was a cousin of yours. +I gave hearty thanks when I heard he was dead." + +"Allow me to correct you; he married a cousin of my mother's. Of course +you recall his connection with the syndicate that secured congressional +grant of lands in the West, which subsequently proved so valuable. You +were a member of the Senate committee that reported favorably, and +doubtless you recollect all that passed between you and Hunt at that +time." + +"Good God! When the grave closed over him, I thought that syndicate +business was screwed down in his coffin." + +"Judge Kent, I would give my right arm if it could be shut in there. Do +you recall a time in Washington, the night of Secretary D----'s dinner, +from which I carried Eglah to a cotillon? Early in the evening you +received an anonymous warning that the personality of 'Ely Twiggs' had +been discovered. Accidentally the truth came into my possession. I sent +it, that you might prepare any defence you deemed advisable--and I was +unwilling you should suspect I knew the facts. The cashier of that +western Pentland Bank was Duncan Keith, whom I knew when I was a boy, +and when the bank failed, he and the bookkeeper disappeared, after +destroying the books; at least the president and teller so stated at the +examination held by directors and stockholders. Edward Hunt was a +director, and defended Keith. He always contended that the president and +teller had conspired to throw the guilt on an innocent man. Leaving his +son with the boy's grandmother in Ohio, Keith fled, and was reported +somewhere in South America. One night in Geneva, where I went to attend +a scientific congress, a blurred sheet was brought to me at the hotel. + +"'Your old friend Duncan Keith is dying. I am an innocent victim. Come +and take my message to my boy in Ohio.' + +"The shoemaker who brought the note piloted me to his shop, where in an +attic room I found poor Keith. He was sinking fast, but begged me to do +him the only favor this world held. He insisted I should watch over his +son, whose grandmother had recently died, and the boy had now no +relations but an aunt, a sister of Keith's wife. With his last sobbing +breath he swore to me he was innocent. He declared the charge of +embezzlement was untrue; that his individual account was short only +eight hundred dollars, overdrawn with the knowledge and consent of +president and teller, who denied their sanction when the crash came, and +charged him with theft and forgeries he had never committed. As security +for the money borrowed, he had given a mortgage on a small piece of +land, but to avoid mortgage tax it had not been recorded, and could not +be found. Fear of prosecution and inability to establish his innocence +against the united persecution of bank officials had driven him from the +country. Part of the records he preserved and carried away, but he +needed an important link, the stubs of a certain check book, and some +bank drafts returned from London. His health failed fast, and confined +to his room, he had abandoned all hope, when one day he received a +package addressed in Edward Hunt's handwriting. It contained not only +the stubs, but checks and two receipts establishing beyond doubt the +guilt of the president, teller, and two other persons. Poor Keith! On +his narrow bed he had a tin box under his elbow, and he laid the key on +my knee. + +"'Noel, I am honest as you are, and I want you to help my boy clear my +name. All the proof is in this box. Will you keep it safe until Duncan +is twenty-one, and then give it to him, and explain my enclosed letter +of instructions? I tried to write my wishes to you, and that letter also +is in the box. If I had not heard you were here, I should have asked our +consul to send the box to you. Noel, will you help my son? I don't ask +you to prosecute, or take any part; I only beg you to guard these proofs +till he is of age. Will you promise me now, in God's sight, to keep +these papers safe, and put them into no hand but Duncan's?' + +"I took the box and put my hand on his, already cold and damp in death. + +"'_So help me God, I will guard the papers, and give them only into +Duncan's own hand._' + +"I sat with him until the end. Five hours later, at two o'clock, he +died. Only God knows how bitterly and ceaselessly I have rued that rash +promise now goading me to a step I would almost rather die than take. +When I accepted the trust, I knew absolutely nothing of your connection +with that bank, or of the transactions by which you came into possession +of stock and shares in the land company and bank, all standing in the +name of 'Ely Twiggs,' the dividends of which were always sent direct to +London, and receipted for by 'Ely Twiggs's' agent, who reported him +travelling in Egypt. 'Ely Twiggs,' as far as my information went, was +associated solely with the syndicate's work in Congress. I made no +examination of the proofs until very recently, because the appointed +time had not arrived, and since I looked into that box I have not had +one moment's peace. The array of evidence, strengthened by two of your +own letters, rests the culpability on the president, the teller, Marsden +and yourself. You must know how it pains me to lay this matter before +you, but it is necessary you should understand the facts." + +His voice wavered, and again he walked the length of the room. + +A deep, quivering groan came from the depths of Judge Kent's chair, and +leaning across the library table he poured out and swallowed a glass of +brandy. + +"The imminence of this misfortune is what appalls me. Duncan Keith will +be twenty-one years old in less than a month, and as I sail so soon with +the expedition, I am now on my way to place the box in his hands and +explain his father's wishes. I may never come back, and I must execute +my trust now, especially as the poor fellow is not in good health." + +"My God! You can't mean to tell me you intend to arm him and my enemies +with documents that will disgrace me?" + +"Not if it were possible to avoid it without breaking my oath. I have +pondered, I have passed sleepless nights trying to devise some method of +shielding you; but unless I lie to a dead man who trusted me, I am +compelled to deliver the box." + +"Noel, for God's sake be reasonable! Don't sacrifice me to maudlin +sentimentality. You pretend to love my innocent child, and yet pursue a +course you know will break her heart, as well as mine?" + +"Judge Kent, for her sake I would do anything--save dishonor myself." + +"Then you have ceased to love her!" + +"No; I love her, and I always shall, until she is some other man's wife. +I gave her my whole heart when she was a mere child, and she is still +the one woman in all the world who holds it in her dear little hands. To +shield her from this terrible sorrow, I have thought you might go abroad +at once, and keep American papers out of her reach for a while. Duncan +will probably move promptly in exonerating his father's name; there will +be, of course, a nine days' sensation, then matters will settle; a later +stratum of news will press it out of sight, and Eglah need never know." + +"Could not the boy be influenced to sell the papers and drop it?" + +"Certainly not by me. Do you think it possible I could insult the dead +by helping to undo what I swore to aid his son in accomplishing?" + +"But you swore in ignorance of facts learned since." + +"No, only in ignorance of the personality of some who contributed to +Keith's ruin. I am the most unhappy poor devil on earth, but no +honorable alternative is allowed me, and to-night I go on to Duncan and +deliver the box. I must meet the vessel which touches at Sydney, Cape +Breton, on the 15th, and I have no time to spare. I shall come back this +afternoon to see Eglah and say good-bye, and I can only hope that after +calm consideration of all the circumstances embarrassing me, you will +not censure me for a deplorable course of action which my sense of honor +makes absolutely imperative." + +Judge Kent sat facing the Madras drapery towards which Mr. Herriott's +back was turned, and at this moment a glass door leading to the +colonnade opened; the draught of air blew the curtain into the library, +and the Judge saw his daughter slip quickly from his bedroom. With a +vague hope of gaining time, he said unsteadily: + +"I am so stunned, I am not myself. That you should sweep me and mine to +destruction seems incredible; but, nevertheless, will you stay and +dine?" + +"No, thank you, Judge Kent. It would be painful for both of us. Later, I +must see Eglah once more." + +In crucial hours, when some crisis wrecks plans, landmarks, life-long +aims, the brain works with preternatural clearness and celerity. Through +the torturing ordeal of that half hour Eglah had listened, numb with +shame and horror. The world seemed to have dissolved in a night that +could know no dawn; yet, groping in this chaos, two desperate resolves +nerved her. + +She would secure that box of papers, no matter at what cost. Her father +should be saved from disgrace, and he should never suspect she knew his +guilt. She must see Mr. Herriott before she saw her father. Swiftly she +matured her resolution; then an unusual glitter came into her lovely +soft eyes, and she sat down between the chestnut trees and waited. + +At a quick stride, Mr. Herriott descended the avenue until nearly +opposite the seat, and she rose and walked toward him. + +Their hands met in a tight, clinging clasp, but for an instant neither +spoke. He noted that the blood had ebbed from her lips, and that she was +frightfully pale, but the eyes lifted to his glowed unnaturally. + +"I intended coming back later, to spend an hour with you and say +good-bye, as----" + +"Never to say good-bye again! You shall not leave me." + +She drew him down to the seat beside her, and he smiled at the imperious +tone, so suggestive of her childish days. + +"You do not understand conditions, unless--When did you see your +father?" + +"Not since last night. He went fishing at daylight." + +"Then you do not know that I came to bid you farewell before sailing for +the Arctic circle?" + +"Yes. I have not seen father to-day, but this letter from Mrs. St. Clair +arrived by the morning mail. Mr. Herriott, I am the most miserable woman +God ever made, and I want to turn to you now, but I scarcely know just +how to do so. Once--that night in Washington--you said you would never +change, that you would always love me; but I have no right to expect +after years of absence--" She paused and the frozen face crimsoned. + +He caught his breath and leaned toward her. + +"I love you now as I loved you then. My heart has always belonged to +you. If you doubt it, you wrong me." + +"Then, Mr. Noel, do not leave me. If you go away now you will break my +heart." + +He rose and looked down at her, wondering at the desperate appeal in her +eyes. + +"I do not understand, because I long ago ceased to hope I could ever be +essential to your happiness. I am obliged to leave here to-night; but if +there is any service I can render before I sail from Sydney, on the +15th, I am sure you know how very gladly I should help you. If, as you +say, you wish to turn to me, I beg that you will do so at once. Why are +you miserable?" + +She covered her face with her hands. + +"If you love me, will you abandon this expedition for my sake?" + +"I cannot now, it is too late. My word is pledged by cable, and the +vessel is on the Atlantic. Eglah, I dare not hope that you have learned +to care; I will not delude myself. Don't torture me by vague suggestions +that half madden me." + +He sat down beside her, painfully perplexed. + +Her hands fell into her lap, clutched each other, and when she spoke it +was in a shuddering, broken whisper. + +"Then, if you must go, take me with you till you sail. We can be married +to-night." + +For fully a moment his eyes, amazed, incredulous, searched hers; then he +surrendered himself to a measureless exultation. + +"My darling--my own proud darling!" + +He drew her close, and she felt him tremble as she hid her face against +his shoulder--felt his lips on her neck, on her bare, quivering hand +that he held pressed to his cheek. + +"I know it is selfish to permit you to bind yourself to me on the eve of +a perilous journey from which I may not return, but after so many long, +hopeless years the temptation is more than I can resist. I can have you, +my darling, for only a few short days, but the happiness of a lifetime +shall glorify them. To-night I must go to Ohio, to close up some +business with my ward, Duncan Keith; then on to Greyledge for two days +before starting for Cape Breton. Why did you not give me this precious +intimation earlier? You have always known what you are to me. Was it the +news in Mrs. St. Clair's letter regarding my departure that pleaded for +me in your proud, stubborn heart?" + +"I never realized until to-day how much I need you. Mr. Noel, this has +come upon me so suddenly I am stunned. Give me a little time--till my +mind clears. Let us see father at once; there are so many things to be +arranged if--if----" + +He bent to kiss her, but with one shaking hand she softly turned his +face aside. + +"Not yet, please--while I am Eglah Kent." + +Her arms stole up around his neck and her strained voice broke. + +"I am so unhappy; I seem to be in a horrible, strangling dream. Be +patient with me. You are the only one in all the world who can comfort +me, and I am looking to you now as--I once looked to God." + +Holding her in a close clasp, he felt her quivering from head to foot. + +"Sweetheart, don't tremble so. Trust me, darling, and love me, and no +home in the wide universe will be so happy and blessed as ours. Ours! +The word holds heaven. Are you cold, that you shiver so constantly? Come +into the sunshine." + +Pacing up and down the colonnade, Judge Kent watched them approaching. +He looked worn, hunted, and a sickly pallor marked his usually florid +face. Before Mr. Herriott could speak, he was startled by a strange +hysterical sound from Eglah; not a cry, not a sob. As she looked at her +father, her face lighted with a marvellous, yearning tenderness, and she +sprang into his extended arms. + +"Father, you will love me now! Kiss me, kiss me. Hold me tight--take me +back to my place in your heart." + +Only he could hear the low ripple of broken words, and his tears dripped +on her face as he pressed his lips to hers. + +"Herriott, what does it all mean?" + +"That I am the happiest, proudest man on earth. Coming here to say +good-bye to my sweetheart, I shall carry my wife away with me." + +"But she cannot go to the North Pole, and--you may not survive the +dangers." + +"When I know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice +in Greenland could shut me away from her?" + +"God bless my daughter! How shall I live without her?" + +"We are never to be separated. Mr. Herriott could not wish anything so +cruel." + +She rose on tiptoe, put a hand on each wet cheek, and kissed her father +twice. + +Mr. Herriott looked at his watch. + +"Eglah has consented to be married to-night, and my train leaves at +eleven. There are several important matters to be arranged, and I should +be glad to know her wishes." + +She rang the bell, then stepped to his side and slipped her hand in his. + +"Father's rector is absent, and I wish Bishop Vivian to perform the +ceremony; he loved my grandmother, and she loved him." + +Aaron appeared at the door. + +"Tell Oliver to bring the trap around as soon as he can. Father, you +must go in with Mr. Herriott. Mrs. Whitfield is sick, but I want Mr. +Whitfield and Lucy and Dr. Eggleston and his wife to be here. If you +wish any others, invite them. Mr. Noel, what hour?" + +"I suggest not later than nine." + +"My dear Ma-Lila will never forgive me. She is away." + +"Where? Could not a telegram reach her?" + +"No, she is in the country, two miles from a station. She left me only +this morning, and will be so grieved." + +"How far away?" + +"Fifteen miles by carriage road, twenty by rail. There is the trap. +Father, I am going upstairs now; and, if you please, I want to be alone +till--till--till--" One hand clutched her throat, and she looked +appealingly into Mr. Herriott's eyes. + +He smiled, stooped, and pressed to his lips the slender fingers he held. + +"Set your mind at rest about Mrs. Mitchell. She shall be here, if I have +to send a special for her." + +When explanation and instructions had been given to Aaron and Minerva, +Eglah went upstairs and locked herself in the room to which had been +removed the furniture and portraits Mrs. Maurice held sacred. Up and +down she walked, feeling that an iron band was throttling her. She and +her father were drifting out to a black gulf of humiliation--of hopeless +disgrace--and only that box of papers could rescue, anchor them in +safety. Mr. Herriott loved her so devotedly, she believed that when she +was his wife he would yield the papers in answer to her prayers. If he +refused? She recalled the ring of indignation in his voice when her +father suggested bribing Duncan Keith. Marriage would give her immediate +control of her estate, and surely her fortune could purchase the papers +from the boy, when in her presence Mr. Herriott delivered them to him. +If all efforts failed, she would go down to ruin knowing she had left +nothing undone to save her father, and now, at last, she had regained +her place in his heart. + +The price? Her face burned, and she wrung her hands. After to-night's +ceremony, could she ever again respect herself? When Mr. Herriott knew, +would he despise her? Family portraits on the wall caught her glance. +Did the stainless Maurices, and her own young mother, watching from the +Celestial City, see all the burden of shame settling down on her +shoulders? Would her grandmother's cold, proud blue eyes look "I told +you so," or soften in tender pity for "poor Marcia's baby"? Public +disgrace over which so many would gloat, to escape such infamy was any +price too dear? The price--herself? + +Three hours later she saw her trunk carried downstairs. When the clock +struck eight, she was dressed for her wedding. The gown ordered for the +club german was a trailing, ivory _crepe de Chine_, and where lace +ruffles met on the corsage she fastened a spray of white lilac from the +bouquet Mr. Herriott had sent. No gleam of jewels marred the white +perfection of face and figure, but her dilated eyes burned like brown +agates when the light smites them. On the dressing-table lay a note for +Mrs. Mitchell. + + "My dear, sweet little mother: The crucial hour came, and you + were away. I may have scuttled ship, but I did what seemed + best. Some things you cannot understand now, but I know you + love me too well to distress me with questions--when I ask you + to trust me. Pray for your + + "BABY." + +As the clock struck half-past eight, Eliza ran up the steps and into the +room, holding against her shoulder a branch of titi pearled with bloom. +At sight of the extraordinary loveliness of the figure standing as if +frozen, she burst into tears. + +"My beautiful--my baby! What does all this mean? Your father has forced +you to----" + +"Hush, hush. My father was as much astonished as you are. I feared you +could not come in time, and here is a note, in which I said all that I +can tell you. Don't scold me, and don't cry; wait till I am gone." + +She gave her the note and kissed her cheek, where tears were streaming. + +"Oh, my baby, give me the positive assurance that this step is +voluntary--that you love Mr. Herriott." + +"Entirely voluntary. My supreme wish is to go with Mr. Herriott. He is +the noblest man in all the world." + +"Yes, but you have not just found that out; you have always known it. +Now, do you love him? I am afraid you do not; and, my baby, marriage +without loving a husband is----" + +Eglah laid a hand over Eliza's lips. + +"Father is coming for me. I want to wear some titi, because you brought +it to me. Pin two clusters under the folds of lace here, just over your +baby's heart. Now, kiss Eglah Kent good-bye, and leave me with father +while you take off your hat and dry your eyes." + +"My dear, are you ready?" + +"Wait a few minutes for Ma-Lila. Father, if I can not persuade Mr. Noel +to abandon his journey, you must be sure to meet me when he telegraphs +you and leaves me. I am inexpressibly unhappy, but if you will forget +the last three years, and love me as in the dear old days, it will +comfort and gladden me." + +The clock chimed nine. Near the foot of the stairway Mr. Herriott +waited, and when he came forward the almost unearthly beauty of Eglah's +face made his heart throb with vague apprehension. It wore a rapt +expression of supreme exaltation, as if a somnambulist walked with eyes +fixed on some goal beyond a yawning black chasm. + +Drawing her arm from her father's, she stepped to Mr. Herriott's side +and laid her hand in his. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + + +The fast vestibuled train, forty minutes late, swung northward at a +speed that kept the car in a quiver. There were few passengers, asleep +in their berths, and Mr. Herriott had secured the drawing-room. It was +new, luxurious in appointments, and to the end of the brass rod +supporting the lamp in the centre he had fastened a great sheaf of white +carnations, sent by Mrs. Whitfield. Closing the sliding door that opened +into the sleeper, he sat down beside the figure clad in a dark-blue +cloth suit. + +"I am so insanely happy I dare not pinch or shake myself, lest I should +wake and find it only a heavenly dream." + +He took one of her remarkably beautiful hands, which he had always +admired, and where he had placed a broad, heavy band of gold four hours +before. Spreading the cold fingers on his warm palm, he lifted them +against his cheek, brushed them with his mustache. + +"Lovely little snowflakes; how long I have coveted their touch! And now +they are absolutely my very own. Mine forever." + +She had been leaning back, but straightened, braced herself, and her +breathing was deep and rapid. + +"Mr. Noel, do you really love me above everything else?" + +He laughed so heartily that she saw the glitter of his fine teeth. + +"Do I love you above everything else? You elusive witch! If you will +withdraw the embargo of your request--'not yet, please'--I can soon +convince you." + +His handsome face, radiantly happy, bent close to hers, but she shrank +away from him. + +"I am your wife now, but----" + +She paused, with a strained look in her eyes. + +"Yes; my own precious wife at last, thank God!" + +"There is one, only one proof that will convince me I am really first in +your heart. Give me at once the box of papers that incriminate my +father." + +He dropped her hand and rose. + +"It is hard, indeed, when a man must refuse the first request of his +bride; but, my darling, I cannot dishonor myself. Such baseness would +not prove my love; and it would inevitably arouse your contempt." + +She had risen, and as they faced each other under the lamp the swaying +carnations almost touched his glossy black head. + +Lifting her tightly locked hands in entreaty, her voice vibrated like a +lute string rudely swept. + +"Don't, oh, don't break my heart! Help me to shield my father from +shame, and I will bless you as long as I live. I am so wretched--the +world is going to pieces--and I am clinging to you as the one rock of +safety, the sole refuge that will not fail me. If you ever really loved +me, oh, Mr. Noel, have mercy on me now!" + +His face hardened, and, unwilling to trust his voice, he shook his head. +She staggered as if from a blow, but after a moment her cheeks flamed, +and banked fires glowed in her dilated eyes. + +"Eglah, when did your father have the cruelty to tell you about the +papers in my possession?" + +"He never told me. He does not suspect I know, and he must not find out +I am aware of their existence; because I could not bear that such an +additional sorrow should overtake him. My father! It is your will and +purpose to ruin him in his old age?" + +"Only Judge Kent and I were cognizant of the existence of that box. May +I ask how you obtained your information?" + +"I was in his bedroom next to the library when you and father came in. +The door was open, and through the thin curtain I heard every +word--every cruel, horrible word, that cut my heart like a dagger. At +first, when you spoke of not wishing me to know, I felt I had no right +to listen, but some things had long perplexed me, things that father +would not explain, and I determined to make an end of mysteries." + +All tenderness had vanished from his set face, and his blue-grey eyes +watched her much as a judge might a witness on the stand. + +The train had entered a deep, rocky cut, and the clattering roar sounded +a verbal truce. When it rushed through a meadow, Mr. Herriott put his +hands behind him. + +"I must have all the truth now. If you had not overheard that +conversation, you would not have waited for and intercepted me in the +grove?" + +"Certainly not. I wished to see you at once, and before I met father." + +"Your terrible distress and agitation were solely on his account, and +not because of my approaching journey?" + +"Yes, for father's safety. I was grieved to hear you were going so far +away, but, Mr. Noel, father is my all. When I learned of the exposure +threatening him I think I must have gone mad, or I should not have made +the ghastly mistake of believing you loved me well enough to help me +save him, and----" + +She paused, silenced by the flash in his eyes, the white fury of his +face. + +"You proposed our marriage solely to find an opportunity for getting +possession of the papers?" + +"Yes, that was my object. I thought you would not deny the prayer of +your wife." + +"You have come to my arms with no more love in your heart than when you +refused me years ago?" + +"Yes. In a way I have always been attached to you; I honor, and admire, +and trust you fully, and of all men I hold you first--but love! God help +me! Perhaps in time I may learn." + +"You considered yourself the price of the papers, and felt assured I +could not refuse to sell? Any man who held them could own you body and +soul! Any clodhopper, lout, any libertine, any moral leper could own you +for life, in exchange for the papers! You, my white-souled, proud, +sensitive, ideal woman, for sale! For sale!" + +The red spots in her cheeks deepened, and a defiant ring steadied her +trembling voice. + +"As you are the only person who could yield me what I sought, you are +the one possible purchaser. But there was an additional reason for my +becoming your wife. My grandmother's will requires the estate she gave +me kept in the hands of a trustee until I am thirty, unless I marry. In +that event I come into immediate unrestricted possession, and I thought +if you denied my prayer I would be financially able to buy the papers +when you delivered them in my presence. That is the one hope that stands +now between me and despair--a hope made possible by and based on my +marriage. There was no other door of escape from ruin, and so I sold +myself to the one man whom I have always honored and trusted--who I +believed would be patient with me. Yes, I sold myself. That you would be +deeply aggrieved I knew, because I intended you should learn all the +truth to-night. The horror, the hot shame of the last few hours you will +never, never understand." + +"There was, however, solace for you in the possibility that Polar perils +might speedily cancel your matrimonial bonds? At least that is one hope +I can share with you." + +Swinging around a sharp curve, the car lurched violently, and she +staggered. He caught her arm and led her to the seat, where she leaned +her head against the panel and shut her eyes. Singularly beautiful was +the proud face wearing the pathetic seal of mental suffering, but, as he +looked down at her, no pity softened the gleam in his eyes, and his +hands clinched in his struggle for self-control. + +"To-night I have learned how a man feels when an angel he worshipped +from afar stooped from her heights, led him up, up to the open gate of +heaven, and, just as he was entering, the same angelic hand dropped him +into hell. When I had abandoned all hope of winning you, the suddenness +of your surrender made my head reel. I was amazed; but the possibility +that you deliberately planned to deceive me no more occurred to me than +would an insult to my dead mother. For me you have embodied all that I +hold pure, lofty, refined, admirable in womanhood. I was fastidious, but +you filled my ideal, and I trusted you almost as I trust my God. You +have wronged me doubly--in the loss of yourself, but far worse in the +destruction of my belief in the incorruptibility of some women; sooner +or later all are for sale. + +"If I had sailed away before seeing you at Y---- I should have carried an +unsullied, a perfect, sacred memory of you to light the long Arctic +night. God knows I would sooner have died there than realize you +cruelly, deliberately deceived me. You thought you were buying the +papers; but, as they will not be delivered, the trade is off. You cannot +get possession of what you purchased, and the price paid I here return +to you. You have no papers, and I have no wife. Without value received +on your part, I have no right to you, and we stand now just as we did +before that marriage ceremony, which has proved a mere commercial +mockery. I abhor shams--above all things sham marriage. All or none. +Only very strong, deep, tender love justifies a woman in giving herself +away. Otherwise the relation degrades her; she is little better than an +odalisque; and such I decline to see you. For me you have no love--never +will have--and as regards my own wishes, your duplicity has effectually +slain what once warmed my heart. After a few days, relief for both of us +will come in separation. If I never return you will escape much +annoyance. When two years elapse, the divorce court cannot refuse to +give you freedom from nominal bonds, and then you will soon forget that +you were ever--even in name--my wife." + +She had grown ghastly pale, and her lips fluttered. In the brief silence +a sick child's fretful cry rolled through the adjoining sleeper, then +the train thundered into a tunnel. + +"Mr. Herriott, I am so utterly miserable cruel words, even from you, no +longer have power to wound me. I--" She laughed nervously, and sat +upright. + +"My worse than useless appeal to your mercy reminds me of a picture of +the Deluge I once saw, when I was a happy child. A drowning woman clung +to the edge of an open window in the ark, begging succor, and Noah +leaned out and pried off her grasping hands, smiting her back into +hungry waves. I shall obey your wishes, Mr. Herriott, in all but one +step you have suggested. I do not believe in the validity of divorces. +Vows made to God can never be cancelled by civil processes. A +consecrated minister is not a mere notary public to attest signatures to +a deed. My marriage is forever sacred as my baptism; my covenant in His +sight, in His holy name, stands always--'till death us do part.' You +shall be as free as you wish. You need never see me again, but so long +as I live I intend to hold myself your wife." + +"Will you do me the kindness to hand me your ring?" + +She drew it from her finger and held it toward him. He turned it slowly, +smiling bitterly. + +"You have not seen the inscription. 'Till death us do part.' The sight +of it must be an unpleasant reminder, and I hope and ask that you will +never wear it. As a worthless symbol of what no longer exists, allow me +to throw it away." + +"Just as you please; only remember you have no right to do so, it is +mine. If it were cast into the ocean, I should never cease to feel its +sacred clasp on my finger." + +He laid it on the seat beside her, and she replaced it on her hand. He +looked at his watch. + +"It will soon be daylight. I am going into the smoking car. Perhaps you +can rest. Shall I send the porter?" + +"No. I could not sleep." + +He went out, closing the door carefully. + +With a smothered groan she sank back, and beat her palms against each +other. Humiliated, sorely wounded, yet indignant--almost hopeless, but +defiant--she stubbornly refused to despair until she had exhausted every +means at her command. + +After a while she knelt down and prayed God's help in her mission to +save her father. She never knew that the door had glided noiselessly +half way in its groove and that Mr. Herriott stood there to ask if she +needed anything. He saw the figure bowed in prayer, and stole away as +softly as he came. The strain was telling upon her quivering nerves. +Hysterical aching in her throat, parched and dry, was almost +intolerable, and the swaying carnations so burdened the air that when +she rose her head swam. + +After an hour she struggled to her feet. If she had some water it might +cool her throat. From her satchel she took a cup, opened the door, and, +supporting herself by one hand on the wall of the car, she walked down +the narrow passage, where she knew the water-tank stood near the +porter's seat. Before she reached it she saw Mr. Herriott leaning +sideways against the glass door opening on the platform. Just then the +brakeman raised his lantern, and the flash showed a hopelessly sad face +sternly set under the close-fitting travelling cap. As she turned back, +he saw her and advanced. + +"What do you wish?" + +She held out the cup. + +"Some water, please." + +She reeled, clutched at the wall, and for an instant everything spun +round. He placed her in the porter's folding chair, and when he held the +cup to her mouth saw that her teeth chattered. She drank spasmodically, +and a long, shuddering sigh drifted across her white lips. + +"You must lie down and rest. The porter will arrange your berth." + +She shook her head and rose. + +"You cannot walk alone; lean on me." + +"Yes, I can help myself now. I was thirsty and dizzy." + +She drew back, but he put his arm around her, holding her firmly against +him, and placed her on the seat in the drawing-room. She pointed to the +carnations. + +"The perfume is overpowering. I can't reach them. Please take them out." + +Lifting an arm he snapped the string. + +"Like every other souvenir and symbol of to-night, they are simply +sickening." + +Raising the window he threw the flowers into a river across which the +locomotive was cautiously feeling its way. He opened his own satchel, +leaning against hers on the opposite seat, took out a silver flask, and +poured some ruby, aromatic liquid into the cup. + +"You are sadly spent; take this." + +"No, I do not need anything more." + +"You must. It is merely a mild cocktail." + +"No, Mr. Herriott, I prefer not." + +"A few hours ago did you swear to obey me? Drink it." + +She hid her face in her hands and shivered. + +"Eglah, try to control yourself." + +"Please don't take any trouble on my account; just leave me alone with +my torturing forebodings. No one but God can help me now. The sight of +me is painful to you, and I shrink from annoying you. Mr. Herriott, +please leave me to myself." + +He sat down beside her, the cup in his hand. + +"To-night you have made me suffer more than you will ever +understand--you have hurt me beyond all possibility of healing--and, +perhaps, in the terribly sudden overthrow of beautiful hopes you had +called into existence, I may have seemed harsh. If so, you must pardon +any desperate words my torture wrung from me. Poor child, you have +sorrows enough without any additions from my hand. I cannot trust myself +to talk to you; my temper is sometimes beyond control, and you have +bruised my heart so sorely I am not sure of self-command. Poor little +girl! Do me the favor to drink this, because I ask it." + +He held the cup to her lips and she drank. He took a pillow from the +opposite seat and put it behind her head. + +"If you need anything you have only to open the door and I shall come." + +"Mr. Herriott, there is but one thing I shall ever ask you to do for me. +The ring you placed on my finger I took off at your request. Here it is. +With your own hand put it back where it belongs, and it will be there +when I die." + +She held out her hand with the ring in her palm. He looked at her +intently, and his lips tightened. + +"Repeat a mockery? A shameful farce!" + +He lifted the glittering circle, tossed it up twice, struggling with the +impulse to hurl it through the window, then suddenly slipped it on her +finger, dropped her hand, and, picking up his satchel, left her. + +Would the night never end? If Duncan Keith refused to sell? She thought +of quiet, lovely olive-clad plains in Sicily, with pergolas cool in +green shadows of vines, where they might retreat from disgraceful +publicity. Mr. Herriott scorned, repudiated her, and henceforth she +could devote herself entirely to tender care of her father. Ambition and +hope were dead, but was there any anaesthetic to still the burning stings +of memory? She went to the opposite seat and rested her head against the +open window. A thin, sallow, fading old moon hung like a spectre in the +sky where the morning star lighted the way for the coming new day, and +the dew-sprinkled air swept in, spiced with waves of aroma from a +blooming vineyard. + +Hamlets, meadows, fields, bridges, the looming shadow of a wooded +mountain fled past as the train rocked, hummed, and flew on. Looking up +at the quiet heavens, Eglah lifted her hands and heart in passionate +appeal. + +"Dear God, have mercy upon us! If I did wrong, forgive my sin. Help me +now to save my poor unfortunate father, and I will strive to be a better +Christian all the remainder of my days." + +At eight o'clock a waiter brought her breakfast. Later, when Mr. +Herriott came in, it was evident he had mastered himself; the fury of +white heat had chilled to cold steel. He was very pale, and an unusual +rigidity locked his features. + +"You must be very tired of this close place, and I am glad we shall +change cars. It is a fine day, and the scenery along the route will +interest you. Here is our train. Give me your wrap and satchel." + +The change was into a parlor car with fresh, linen-covered revolving +chairs, and wide windows framing lovely spring pastorals--sheep on a +green hillside, cattle knee deep in rock-bedded crystal streams, and +everywhere the busy bird world nest building. + +Eglah drew a deep breath of relief, and, as Mr. Herriott pushed a +hassock under her feet, she looked up at him. + +"Thank you. Will you be so kind as to tell me when we shall reach the +place where your ward lives?" + +"I think the train has about made up lost time, and we are due at +Woodbury at half-past six. It is not on the trunk line, and we take a +narrow gauge just beyond Carville." + +Both wound their watches, and then, liberally supplied with magazines +and papers, settled comfortably in adjoining seats. She was the only +woman in the car, and a dozen men were scattered about, a few playing +cards, some dozing, others absorbed in newspapers. + +Mr. Herriott sat in front of his companion, his chair turned half around +and toward the window. After a time he took from his satchel a folded +chart and note-book. Spreading the former across his knees, he appeared +oblivious of all but the lines and figures, yet the angles in his bronze +face did not soften. Eglah had taken off her hat, hoping to ease the +teasing pain in her temples. She rested her head against the back of the +chair, and held up an open magazine, but no page was turned, and as she +laid it in her lap she shut her eyes. + +Her thoughts drifted to a small villa near Messina which Judge Kent had +expressed a wish to occupy because he chanced to see it in a rosy mantle +of almond blossoms. Mr. Whitfield would attend to estate matters, and +Boynton could be trusted to manage the plantations, though they were +miles apart. She could do as she pleased now with her money, and if she +failed in her mission to Woodbury she would ask her father to take her +abroad at once, until Mr. Herriott returned. During that time public +discussion of "Ely Twiggs" would end, and probably she need never come +back to America. Mr. Herriott evidently wished her out of his life, +forever out of his sight, and certainly he should be gratified. Her +father could not suspect her reason for going to Europe; he knew how to +keep newspapers from her, and as he did not dream she knew the dreadful +truth, they might resume the dear old life. So profound was her revery +that she had unconsciously opened her eyes, and they looked out, seeing, +not the farms and forests gliding by the window, but the sapphire sky, +the purple sea, the snow of lemon groves, the red glow of +oleander-walled gardens, and the silvery grey-green olive orchards where +she might hide her father from shame, herself from the withering scorn +of Mr. Herriott's cruel eyes. + +Glancing at her over the top of the lifted chart, his attention was +arrested by the intense abstraction in which she was plunged. Her +extreme pallor was relieved only by vivid color in her delicately curved +lips, and under the eyes bluish circles told something of her suffering. +He thought of the haunting, wonderful eyes of Urd, and bit his lips as +he watched her; so pathetically hopeless, yet unwaveringly proud was the +pure face he had loved long and passionately. + +The door behind them opened, and a naval officer entered, carrying in +his arms a crying child about six months old. The bundle of muslin and +lace squirmed and struggled as the man strove to pacify it by beating a +tattoo on the window, dangling his watch close to the baby's eyes, and +bouncing it up and down. He walked about, sat down, laid the infant face +downward across his knees, trotted it, patted it, but with no quieting +success, and, when the engine blew long and loud for a bridge crossing, +the frightened child screamed distressingly. + +The officer rose. + +"I am sorry to annoy the passengers, but the nurse has been taken so ill +she cannot hold her head up, and as the boy cries to go to her I was +obliged to bring him in here. He never saw me until last night. I was on +a cruise when his poor mother died." + +Once more he essayed to whistle, and swayed to and fro with a rocking +motion, but finally desperate, he turned to a young man in a neighboring +chair, who was smiling over a cartoon in "Puck." + +"Sir, would you do me the great kindness to hold him just a moment, +while I get something from his nurse?" + +"All right, I will try; but I happen to be a bachelor, and I never held +a baby in my life. Come on, little man. Some day you surely will make a +star screamer in opera. Now for it, sonny." + +He held out his arms, but, as the father attempted to transfer the boy, +the sight of another strange face increased his terror; the little hands +grasped the officer's beard, and the baby shrieked in protest. + +Eglah rose and crossed the car. + +"He is accustomed to women; perhaps I can quiet him. Will you allow me +to try?" + +"O, thank you, madam!" + +She took one little hand, caressed it, toyed with the fingers, and cooed +as only women can. After a moment the child ceased crying, and when very +gently she took it and laid it up against her shoulder the little +creature nestled close to her. His suspicion, however, was not entirely +allayed. Suddenly he lifted his head, stared curiously into her face, +and when she laid her cheek on his, wet with tears, he seemed reassured +and clung to her, his lips touching her throat. + +The young man leaned over and whispered to a friend in the chair before +him. + +"He shows good taste in picking his nurse. Is not she a beauty? I have +been watching that handsome couple, and things are not serene in their +camp. I was near him in the smoker, and his face looked like a +brownstone statue with live wild-cat eyes." + +Eglah walked slowly up and down the aisle, humming low and very softly +Kuecken's "Schlummerlied." Now and then the child sobbed faintly. + +The officer came back with a bottle of milk, but, as he hurried forward, +Eglah shook her head. After a little while the exhausted baby slept +soundly. + +"Madam, I cannot thank you sufficiently for your goodness. I will +relieve you now, and I trust the passengers will excuse the annoyance." + +"Let me keep him a while; he still sobs now and then, and if moved might +wake. A good nap will quiet his nerves." + +"It is too great a tax on you, madam." + +"When I am tired, I shall bring him to you." + +"In a half hour we get home, and since you are so very kind, I will help +the nurse arrange luggage for our station." + +Eglah went back to her own chair, and holding the little creature with +her right arm softly patted him with her left hand. At every motion the +wedding ring flashed like a dancing demon in Mr. Herriott's watching +eyes. + +"Poor little chap. Did you mesmerize him?" + +"I think there is telepathy in great trouble. He feels intuitively that +some one else is suffering torture, and 'a fellow feeling' drew him to +me." + +She avoided looking at him, and her eyes followed the evolutions of a +flock of white geese holding regatta in a pond close to the railway +track. + +After some moments, she cautiously and tenderly laid her muslin-clad +burden in her lap, and smoothed out the long lace-ruffled robe. With a +start one little hand was thrown up, but she caught and held it. He was +a handsome boy, and when she untied the lace cap, too tight at his +throat, his fluffy yellow locks enhanced his beauty. + +The sight of the baby fingers clinging to the hand where the gold band +shone renewed the struggle Mr. Herriott was trying to crush. + +Leaning toward her, he said: + +"Last night, at your request, I stifled my repugnance, and did what I +deeply regret. To-day I must ask you for the only favor you can ever +grant me. Give me back my ring." + +There was an angry pant in his voice that made the words a demand rather +than request. + +"Mr. Herriott, I am sorry to refuse any wish of yours; but I cannot." + +"I want it." + +She looked steadily at him. + +"So do I. When I die it will be where you placed it; but in the coffin +human covenants end, and I will order it sent to you by those who lay me +in the grave. My ring is the badge of my loyalty--not yours. You are as +free as you wish to be, but when I meet my God He will know I kept my +marriage vows--always." + +"And the supreme vow was to love me!" + +From the fury in his eyes she did not flinch. + +"Yes, I intended to keep all. I thought I might learn to love you; and +that you would be patient with me. I wanted to love you, and, as God +hears me, I meant to spend my life trying to love you." + +Unable to restrain words he was unwilling to utter, he sprang up and +took refuge on the front platform. + +A prolonged whistle of the engine announced the next stop, and the baby +awoke with a startled cry, just as his father entered, followed by the +nurse, a middle-aged woman who looked too ill to stand. Eglah rose and +laid the child in her arms. + +"Madam, I am deeply grateful for your courtesy and goodness. I intended +handing my card to your husband. Permit me to lay it on his chair." + +"I was glad to have your pretty boy. It was a welcome incident in a very +dreary day. Good morning, sir." + +Mr. Herriott did not return until the second call for luncheon sounded +through the train. He took her hat from the brass hook and held it +toward her. + +"I dare say you are sufficiently weary to welcome luncheon." + +"Thank you, but I want absolutely nothing. I hope you will go without +me." + +He went out, but not to the dining car. + +An hour later, when he came back, she had crossed the aisle to a vacant +chair, raised the window, and, with an arm on the broad sill, rested her +head there. She did not notice his entrance, and resuming his seat he +opened a magazine. + +Above the line of brass lattice that held packages, hats, and umbrellas +ran a panel of mirrors, and in the section over his head was reflected +the face and figure directly opposite. For the next hour he held the +magazine open, but his eyes never left the mirror. Twice she looked at +her watch without raising her head, and from the tense, strained +fixedness of her features he knew she was nerving herself for the ordeal +at Woodbury; the final effort in her father's behalf, which he felt +assured would prove futile. Conflicting emotions shook him, but nothing +availed to abate the rage of his disappointment. + +The train slowed at the entrance to a large town, and as the station +platform filled with curious faces peering into the car windows, Eglah +went back to her own seat. + +A moment later the door was thrown open, and a boy wearing the uniform +of the telegraph company shouted: + +"Is Mr. Noel Herriott aboard? Message for Mr. Noel Herriott!" + +"I am Mr. Herriott." + +He went forward, signed his name in the receipt-book, and opened the +envelope. He stood with his back to Eglah, and remained so motionless +that she was seized by an apprehension some evil had overtaken her +father. Just as she rose he turned and approached her. + +"Has anything happened to father? + +"This is not from the South. It does not refer to him. We may have to +stop here. Keep your seat till I ascertain positively." + +Very soon he returned, followed by a porter, who promptly collected +satchels and magazines. + +"I find I must wait here until two o'clock in the morning." + +"Why delay reaching Woodbury? I beg of you let us hasten on." + +"There are reasons necessitating it that will be explained later." + +She had drawn back, but he took her arm. + +"The train will move in a moment, and unless you wish to go on alone, we +must be quick." + +He assisted her into an omnibus, where several passengers waited, and +they were driven to a hotel. Mr. Herriott ordered two rooms, and at the +door of one said: + +"I must see that the trunks are brought at once. I need mine." + +Throwing aside her hat, Eglah began to pace the floor. His countenance +had undergone a marked change--subtle, inexplicable--and an indefinable +dread caught her heart as in a vise. It seemed to her that an hour +passed before he tapped at the door, and she could scarcely articulate, + +"Come in." + +With a square package sealed in brown paper under one arm, Mr. Herriott +entered, closed the door, and deposited the bundle on a small table. +From his vest pocket he drew the folded telegram and gave it to her. + + "Woodbury, 3 P.M. + + "Duncan Keith died two days ago. Wired you at New York Club. + Everything attended to here. Will meet you at Carville at 8 + P.M. + + "HERMAN MARTIN." + +Her wide, terrified eyes gazed into his. + +"What does it mean for me--now?" + +"It means that probably some guilty bank officials will go 'unwhipped of +justice.' Duncan's father had no relatives in America. He was a poor +stowaway lad from England, and since the grandmother's death his son, +Duncan, had only his mother's sister, Mrs. Martin. I could not hear from +Duncan, to whom I wrote twice last week, and this telegram is an answer +to one I sent Martin, telling him I could make only a very brief stop at +Woodbury to-night. I have done my duty. I have kept my word. The +prosecution of the guilty does not devolve on me, and Martin will never +consent to undertake a suit for libel. It would involve money which he +does not possess, and responsibility he will not dare to assume. Your +father's letters, and the vouchers for large sums of money sent to 'Ely +Twiggs,' are in a separate envelope. I shall burn them now, before I +deliver the box to Martin." + +She sprang forward, her hands on his shoulders, her lips quivering like +rose-leaves in a gale. + +"Do you mean it? Will you save my father?" + +He took her wrists and held her away from him. + +"Death saves him; certainly not I." + +"No more sorrow can ever come to him?" + +"Not from this box; and none through me." + +The revulsion overwhelmed her. She sank back, and when he caught her and +put his ear to her mouth he could not hear her breathe. He lifted and +laid her upon a sofa, and stood looking down at her. So pure and white, +so helpless, so beautiful! Legally his wife, but never to be his. + +Dipping a towel in water he bathed her face, sprinkled it. The icy hands +he chafed in his broad, warm palms, and as his fingers touched the +wedding ring he ground his teeth. When her breathing grew stronger, he +rose, relinquished her hands, and after a moment she opened her eyes. + +"I thought you college-bred girls too well trained to faint." + +She sat up, half dazed, and the water dripped from her hair. + +"I never fainted before; something smothered me, and everything turned +black. Mr. Herriott!" + +He had gone to the table, but turned, and looked at her over his +shoulder. + +"Mr. Herriott, did not you say father was safe from shame and sorrow?" + +"In a few moments he will be." + +He opened the tin box, selected a small bundle of papers in an envelope +marked "Ely Twiggs," and drew some matches from his case. In the grate +he burned them one by one, then relocked and tied up the box. + +"Eglah, what a pity Iphigenia did not know favorable winds were already +blowing at Aulis before she yielded herself to her father's sacrificing +hands! Poor Duncan had been dead twenty-four hours when the bishop +performed that nuptial farce. If Martin's telegram had been forwarded, +you would now be happy at home. I find it necessary to change my plans +somewhat. I can spend but a single day at home, and, instead of going +directly thence to Boston, shall make a few hours' stay in New York to +see my lawyers." + +"To alter your will? You need not. I have more than I require, and if I +were a pauper I should never accept a cent from you. There is only one +thing you can ever give me, and that I must want as long as I live." + +He was walking slowly up and down the floor, his hands behind him, and +paused beside the sofa. + +"What is it?" + +She pushed back the damp rings of hair, and lifted to his, pleading eyes +pathetically sad. + +"Your confidence--your old faith in me." + +"Confidence! It lies with love in a grave so deep there can be no +resurrection. The world is full of women--lovely, luscious women. Of +fair flesh there is for most men no lack; but I wanted, I hungered, I +longed for only one pair of dimpled arms folded about my neck, one +woman's divinely tender eyes answering all the love in mine, one pair of +proud, pure, sensitive, beautiful lips seeking and clinging to mine. +Voluntarily you gave yourself to me--your precious self--and when +bewildered with happiness I caught you to my heart, you stabbed me. I +was mole blind, but sharp clipping has rid me of my cataracts. Let us +make an end of this dismal farce. All my life I have fought my infernal +temper, and now it has me by the throat. It will take an Arctic winter +to cool the hot fury that possesses me; and because I must not speak +harshly to you, I wish to ask if you will allow me to leave you here? I +can telegraph your father to come at once." + +For a moment wounded pride stifled her; she shrank as from a blow, and +red signals swung back into her pale cheeks. + +"As you please, Mr. Herriott. It is more painfully embarrassing for me +to force my presence upon you than for you to endure the sight of me for +a few hours longer. If you prefer to leave me here instead of at the +place selected and designated before I left home, of course I shall +submit. We have not many friends, and father's enemies will gossip over +the fact that I was sent home before you sailed from Boston. This, +however, is a minor matter in comparison with the fear that the change +you suggest might lead father to suspect I had learned the object of +your visit to Y----. Life will be unendurable to me if he finds out that +I know the contents of that box. I would rather die than have him +believe all the horrible facts are in my possession. For his sake I----" + +"For his sake you would go down into Hades!" + +"Where else am I now? What ordeal more fiery than last night and to-day? +I know now that I did wrong, but the awful ruin seemed so imminent I +fled through the only door of escape that appeared possible. I am +punished, and I deserve all I suffer. Leave me here, or anywhere else, +as you find most convenient and most comfortable for yourself." + +"Pardon me. Of course your wishes determine the matter. I suggested the +change, thinking that as your sole object in making this journey was to +secure the papers, you would find it a relief to return as soon as you +were sure of their destruction." + +He wrote a few lines in his note-book and held it before her. + +"Would this be entirely agreeable to you? 'Judge Allison Kent: Duncan +died two days ago. I burned the "Ely Twiggs" papers to-night. Never +mention them to Eglah. She wishes you to meet her in Philadelphia +Saturday.'" + +"Thank you; that is what I prefer. When you come back----" + +"I hope never to come back. I will not lead a sham life, and I will not +live under the same roof with one who, to please her father, tried to +love me and found she could not." + +"When you come back I shall try to be in Europe, and you may rest +assured of no intrusion. My marriage gives me control of my own estate, +and now I wish to know the amount it cost you to recover the bonds you +delivered to the college." + +"You must excuse me if I decline to answer. That matter concerns only +Nina and myself. What I did was solely for her and my father." + +"I shall find out, and send a check to your lawyers." + +"My lawyers know absolutely nothing about it, and as your father must +not suspect you heard the conversation, you will scarcely ask him. I +have some letters to write, memoranda to arrange for Martin, and several +telegrams to send immediately. Our train starts at two A.M., and you can +get a sound sleep, which you sadly need. I ordered your dinner sent +here. Do you wish your trunk?" + +She shook her head. + +"Try to get a good rest. You will be called in time for the train. I +have papers to prepare that will keep me busy until then. Eglah--poor +little girl--" + +She looked up at him defiantly, but the peculiar expression in his +brilliant eyes she could not understand. + +He caught his mustache between his teeth, picked up the tin box, and +left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + + +The weather had changed. After rain a keen north wind curled the waters +of the great lake into wreaths of foam, breaking against the terrace, +and the old Scotch clock in the lower hall struck midnight as Mr. +Herriott's carriage drew up before the open door of his house. When he +stepped to the ground a wild uproar of rejoicing dogs greeted him, and +it was some seconds before he could rid himself of caressing paws. He +assisted Eglah out, and turning toward the light met Amos Lea. + +"Why, old man! It was kind of you to sit up for us. You should be asleep +in your bed. Here is Mrs. Herriott. You saw her one summer." + +The gardener held out his rough, hard hand, and she laid hers in it. + +"Welcome home, madam. I hope you will be good to the lad; he will always +do right by you." + +Mr. Herriott laughed as he led her up the stone steps. + +"Amos, you can not lecture her as you do me." + +The housekeeper and one of the maids came forward for wraps and +satchels. + +"Mrs. Orr, Mrs. Herriott is very tired. Did you receive my telegram from +Carville?" + +"Yes, sir; the blue room is in order; bath, fire, supper, everything all +ready." + +Drawing Eglah's arm through his, he ascended the wide oak staircase, +saying: + +"I had it papered and arranged especially for you that summer you came +for a few days, and since then no one has been allowed to occupy it." + +At the landing he called over the railing: + +"Mrs. Orr, as it will be late when the trunks come, do not send up Mrs. +Herriott's until morning. She needs rest, and I do not wish her +disturbed before she rings her bell." + +On a table drawn near the fire in the "blue room" a decanter and glasses +glittered in the glow from an open hearth. Mr. Herriott poured out some +Tokay. + + +"I am sorry I could not make your home-coming less dismal; but for you +the worst is over, and, if you please, we will not refer to it again. +To-morrow I shall be engaged with two committees, one relating to a +scientific scholarship I wish to establish, and my time is so limited I +can be with you very little. The necessity for going via New York, where +I must stop, shortens my stay here; and I am compelled to allow some +margin for delay _en route_ from Boston to Sydney, where the vessel is +due on the fifteenth. This is not exactly a 'loving-cup,' but you must +join me." + +He touched her glass with his, and a deep undercurrent of suppressed +emotion surged through the quietly spoken words. + +"Complete oblivion of all that has distressed you during the last +forty-eight hours. Put me entirely out of your thoughts, and remember +that now you can be happy with your father." + +He emptied his glass and replaced it on the salver. + +"No. I would not forget it if I could. I pray God that you may escape +every danger; that you will come back in safety to your home; and while +I may never see you again, I hope to hear you are far happier than I +could ever have made you." + +She sipped the wine, put it aside, and continued: + +"You can not understand the utter ruin of hopes, ambitions, beliefs, +that heretofore made my life worth living. In the awful wreck one thing +survives--my faith in you, who walk always in the light of 'the high +white star of Truth.' I honor and I trust you now as I never did before +the ordeal of the last few hours. The fault was mine, not yours; and as +I deserve, I wish I could bear all the pain, all the consequences, of my +desperate rashness. You do not understand what I suffer." + +She stood with her hands folded on her breast, so close to him that he +noted how wan and drawn the young face had grown, how measureless the +misery in eyes peering hopelessly into futurity. + +"At least I fully and sorrowfully understand one thing--you know no more +about love than that baby you nursed on the train." + +In avoidance of his cold scrutiny, her strained gaze had wandered to the +frieze of silver lilies on the wall, but now she looked at him. + +"Mr. Herriott, you may be sure that when you go away and leave me +forever, I shall never learn." + +There was a sudden glint in his eyes, like a blue blade flash, but after +a moment he listened to the clock, and turned away. + +"Good-night. Get all the sleep you can. You will need it for your +journey South to-morrow." + +He closed the door, and she heard his quick step ring down the long +stairway; then the joyful bark of the dogs told he had left the house. + +She was an unusually healthy woman, and, impatient of the teasing pain +in her temples, shook out her heavy coil of hair. She walked from door +to fireplace, from bed to bathroom, up and down, around and around, too +restless to lie down, dominated by a strange feeling she made no attempt +to analyze. As the clock struck four, she still walked to and fro, never +suspecting that Mr. Herriott stood in the hall, close to her door, +listening to the slow sound of her feet on the polished oak floor, +fighting down his longing to enter and take her in his arms. + +The "blue room" looked out on the sickle-shaped beach and upon the lake, +and when the sun rose above cliffs at the rear of the house, the racing +waves leaped, crooned, flashed in golden light. + +Looping back the lace draperies at the window, Eglah stood watching the +flight of a loon, the quivering, silver flicker of ducks' wings against +the pale pink sky-line, the gliding of a sloop with sails bending like a +huge white butterfly balancing over some vast blue flower. + +Walking slowly up the beach, Mr. Herriott was approaching the stile, and +with him the collie Pilot, the Polish wolfhound Tzar, one on each side, +and the wiry black-and-white Skye terrier Snap wriggling in front. At +the stile Amos Lea sat waiting, and master and gardener talked for some +minutes. + +After a little the latter rose, put one hand on Mr. Herriott's shoulder, +raised the other, and turned his rugged face toward heaven. + +Eglah knew he was praying for the man now hurrying away to multitudinous +dangers, and her eyes grew strangely humid. When the mist cleared, she +saw they were shaking hands, and Amos disappeared behind the garden +wall. As the master neared the terrace steps he glanced up at her +window, took off his cap, and saluted her. He had never looked so +commanding, so nobly built, so superior to all other men. Something +stirred, quivered, woke up in her heart, and a swift spasm of pain +seized her. + +A half hour later Mr. Herriott knocked at her door. She opened it, and +one quick glance at the ivory bed and its lace hangings told him she had +not lain down. + +"Good morning. Will you come down and give me my coffee, or shall I send +breakfast to you here?" + +"I prefer to come down." + +He held up a bouquet of heliotrope, daintily arranged. + +"Amos Lea's 'compliments to the madam,' and he hopes she will wear these +flowers, as he always cut heliotrope for her when she visited here." + +Afraid to trust her voice, she took the bouquet, inhaled its fragrance, +and slipped the stems into the girdle of her silk morning gown. + +At the head of the stairs he put his palm under her elbow to steady her +steps, but at the door of the dining-room, where butler and housekeeper +waited, he took her fingers in his, led her to the head of the table, +and seated her. During breakfast he talked of the garden, of his horses, +of some pheasants he knew she would admire, of a tazza on the library +mantel she must be sure to examine, and she wondered at the complete +control and composure he had attained. Was it merely the _noblesse +oblige_ of a courteous host? + +After a second cup of coffee, he looked at the clock. + +"Hawkins, tell Rivers to bring the dog-cart around. Eglah, come and see +Amos Lea's gloxinias." + +He put on his hat and light overcoat, and walked beside her to the +hothouse. + +"I shall be busy in town nearly all day, there are so many last things +to be attended to. I had abandoned all idea of joining this expedition, +when I received a letter telling me an important member of the party had +lost his father, and family interests compelled him to stay at home. The +request was urgent that I should cable my acceptance of the invitation, +which I did; hence I have had little time for necessary preparation, and +some things I am obliged to do this morning. Here comes the cart. We +must be at the station by five o'clock this afternoon. Your train +southbound starts just ten minutes before mine leaves for New York. +Trunks will be sent in at three o'clock. While I am away in town I +should be glad to have you look all over the house. Some of the rooms +you have never seen--my laboratory and den. In my bedroom hangs a +portrait of my lovely mother, that I particularly desire you to see. +Good-bye." + +He raised his hat, sprang into the cart, and was soon out of sight. + +Five moments later the keen, solemn eyes of Amos peered at her from +behind a cluster of tall palms. + +"Why didn't you marry him sooner, and keep him at home?" + +"I did not know he was going until the day we were married. I hoped and +believed I could induce him to stay, but he had given his word." + +"And that word of his he never breaks. Head, heart, purse, maybe will +give way, but not the pledged word of old Fergus Herriott's boy. This +self-murder that goes on in the name of 'science' is a sin in the +nostrils of the Lord, and if only the blear-eyed, spectacled old fools +that set up to know more about creation than Moses did, after he went to +school to God for forty days, could swamp themselves under the ice, it +would be silly enough, and no matter, but for my lad! Susan and I +nursed, rocked him, prayed over his cradle since he was barely one year +old, and now for him to be cast out like Jonah for fish bait. If God had +wanted the North Pole handled and strung with flags it would never have +been shut up in nights six months long, behind ice high as Ararat and +wide as the flood. There will be lonesome days till the lad gets +home--and if he never comes back! Where will his dear bones be in the +resurrection?" + +His bearded chin trembled, and his heavy, shaggy white eyebrows met over +his nose. + +"Mr. Lea, we must not cease to pray. God needs such noble men as Mr. +Herriott, and He can protect him from every danger." + +"Madam, don't 'mister' me. I am just Amos Lea--Noel's Amos. Study your +Bible and you will find out the Lord needs no man; the best of us are +but worthless cumberers of the ground." + +He drew his sleeve across his eyes and left her. + +Up and down the hothouses, through the shrubbery, over the stile, along +the curving beach and back to the terrace she wandered, striving in vain +to divert her thoughts from one fact that overshadowed everything +else--the master was going away that afternoon, and she might never see +him again. From public disgrace her father was safe, the crisis of acute +terror on his account had passed; but now, as the smoke of the battle +drifted away, she became dimly conscious that she carried a wound she +had not suspected and could not explain. The ache in her heart was +unlike any former pain; there was nothing with which to compare it, and +she dared not analyze it at present. Through the house she walked +aimlessly until she reached the suite of rooms set apart for the master. +In the laboratory she did not linger, but the adjoining apartment she +knew must be the "den," from the strong, pervading odor of cigar smoke. +The wainscoting of carved walnut, five feet high, was surmounted by a +shelf holding a miscellaneous collection of whips, pipes, geological +specimens, flints from Indian mounds, a hematite hatchet, a copper maul, +a jade adze. In one corner of the room stood a totem pole with a +brooding owl; in another a "kahili" of white feathers, with richly +inlaid handle; and upon the wall above the shelf, suspended by heavy +silk cords, a gold-colored "ahulla." Two trunks strapped and ready for +removal had been drawn to the middle of the apartment. On one lay a +heavy overcoat fur lined, and a fine field glass in a leather shield; on +the other a gun case and box of instruments. + +She sat down in a deep morocco cushioned chair, from the brass knob of +which hung a somewhat faded silk smoking jacket lined with quilted +orange satin, and looked up at the steel engravings, the etchings, the +water colors on the wall; at some marble and bronze busts on the mantel +shelf, and on the top of a teak cabinet filled with curios from Crete, +Uxmal, Labna, and the Mancos Canyon. + +Over the writing desk and a neighboring table were strewn scientific +journals, and on a sheet of paper that had fluttered to the floor on its +way to the over-laden waste basket, bold headlines had been written by +Mr. Herriott: + +"First--Were the cliff-dwellers of Asiatic origin? + +"Second--Are the Eskimos survivors of pre-glacial man who dwelt within +the Arctic circle when its fauna and flora, under similar climatic +conditions, corresponded with those now existing in Virginia and +Maryland? + +"Third--Are kames and drumlins infallible index fingers?" + +Whether the page contained notes from some book that he wished to +controvert, or his own views jotted down for future elaboration, she +could not determine; but as she stooped to pick up and preserve it, a +growl startled her, and around the corner of the desk she saw the red +eyes of Tzar. She spoke to him, but he rose, showed his fangs, and +stalked out of the room, the bristles stiff on his dun-colored back. How +long she sat, plunged in painful, perplexed revery, she never knew; but +finally she went to the open door of the bedroom, and leaned against the +facing, unwilling to enter. Over the low, carved chimney-piece hung the +portrait of Mrs. Herriott, a very beautiful young woman in black velvet +and pearls, and the perfect features, the poise of head, the silky black +hair, and especially the fine moulding of brow she gave to her son, +though unlike his her soft, tender eyes matched her hair in color. + +Below the portrait a silver frame held a photograph of Eglah in evening +dress, taken in Washington; beside it another, wearing her college cap +and gown. On the dressing table a glittering circle arrested her +attention. Swiftly she entered, crossed the room, and leaned over it. An +exquisitely painted miniature of herself, set with diamonds, and resting +on a carved ivory easel, looked up at her. Two discarded photographs of +Mr. Herriott lay with some torn letters under a neighboring chair. She +snatched one and hurried away, fearing to trust herself; but passing the +smoking jacket she caught it up, folded it under her arm, and escaped to +her room. + +Exchanging her trailing morning gown of cream silk for the travelling +suit, she packed her trunk, hiding jacket and photograph beneath the +tray, locked it, and sat down to wait. In the wreck of her overturned +altar and shattered filial ideals, beyond and above the desolation of +her cruel disenchantment, rose one image inflexible, incorruptible, +absolutely invulnerable to temptation, that involved sacrifice of duty. +As the mist cleared, strange new valuations loomed, and she thought of +lines that limned his portrait: + + "Loyalty is still the same, + Whether it win or lose the game." + +For years he had been entirely hers. Now she lost him hopelessly. His +contempt could spare no room for pity; her presence infuriated him. + +He had lifted her to a sacred niche where love and reverence jealously +guarded her, and she had hurled herself down into the mire of the market +place. + +"For sale! Any man could have bought you, body and soul." + +The words branded her. They seemed burned in by the scorn flaming in his +eyes, and she thought of the red letter on Hester Prynne's breast. The +world should never know, but she would carry that scar to her grave. + +Soon the clock struck three, and simultaneously the outcry of the dogs +announced their master's return. Hat and gloves in hand, Eglah went down +to the drawing-room, and caught a glimpse of Mr. Herriott hurrying +toward the gardener's cottage. Later he went to his own rooms, and when +dinner was announced apologized for unavoidable delay. + +He had reined himself in with a grip so tight that the only evidence of +suppressed excitement was the feverish, steady gleam in his eyes. He +talked of Mrs. St. Clair, of Father Temple, of Trix Stapleton, whom he +should see for a moment in New York. + +During a brief lull in the conversation, Eglah said: + +"I found your mother's portrait, which you asked me to look at. In an +extraordinary degree you resemble her." + +"Thank you. That is a compliment I value. It is indeed a pity she could +not have endowed me with the patience and amiability that so endeared +her to all who knew her." + +Very soon the moment came for parting words, and she went down to the +carriage step, leaving him with the servants clustered in the hall, but +Amos Lea was not visible. Mr. Herriott handed Eglah to the back seat, +and for a moment stooped to speak to and pat the head of each dog. As he +entered the carriage and seated himself opposite his companion, slamming +the door as signal to the coachman, the housemaid threw up her hands and +ran down the steps. + +"Please, sir, Mr. Herriott, may I speak to you?" + +He put out his head. + +"What is the matter?" + +"The silk jacket, sir. You told me to carry it to Mr. Lea, but, sir, I +can't find it. You must have put it in your trunk." + +"No, I wore it this morning after the trunks were locked and strapped." + +"Indeed, sir, I have searched your rooms most faithful, and that jacket +is not there." + +"You will find it somewhere in the den. Good-bye, Della. Drive on, +Rivers." + +The house fronted the lake, and the carriage road at the rear wound +through thick shrubbery, groups of deodars, and a lane of lilacs in full +bloom. The iron gates were open, and against one marble pillar Amos Lea +leaned. As the horses dashed through, he motioned to the driver. At +sight of him Mr. Herriott's face changed, softened; he sprang out and +walked back a few yards. + +Through a glass in the curtain Eglah saw the old man's brawny hands laid +on Mr. Herriott's shoulders, and the harsh voice shook. + +"Oh, lad! May the Lord bless you and keep you in the hollow of His hand, +and bring your body safely back, and save your dear soul from the snares +of the ungodly that go down to the icy sea in ships. Wherever you wander +Susan's eyes will follow you until you reach that rest where there is no +more night." + +"It hurts me sorely to say good-bye to you, Amos. For my sake take extra +care of yourself. Let up on moles and slugs and shotbugs in damp +weather. Look after my dogs for me, and be good to Aunt Trina when she +comes for her visit. One thing more, be sure the tower lamp is lighted +every night. When I am groping and stumbling in Arctic darkness, it will +cheer me to know that light is shining over a black, stormy lake. Now I +must go. I hope God will keep you strong and well. Good-bye." + +Then the voice sank so low a few additional words were inaudible to +those beyond the gate. He took the gardener's hands, shook them warmly, +and re-entered the carriage. As he did so Eglah pointed to the seat +beside her, which he accepted, and she saw his eyes were misty. + +For some moments neither spoke. + +"Aunt Trina is fond of the old place, and I have asked her to spend July +here, with any friends she may wish to bring. She and Amos spar like +prize fighters over immersion and close communion, and he brands her +extreme ritualism 'idolatry rank as the groves of Baal.'" + +He looked at his watch, and called to the coachman: + +"Rivers, we have very little time to spare." + +His closed right hand rested on his knee, and Eglah laid hers upon it. + +"Since I was a little girl you have been my faithful, sympathizing, +patient friend, and now I can not bear that you should leave me without +uttering one kind word of forgiveness for the great wrong I realize at +last that I have done you." + +"Eglah, for God's sake don't open that door, which shuts out--what I can +not discuss again with you, because I must not wound you." + +She noticed the suppressed pant in his voice, and as he did not respond +to the touch of her hand, her slender fingers crept between and twined +around his. + +"Mr. Herriott, when you come home----" + + +"I shall try not to come home." + +"If I promise you shall never see me there, perhaps that assurance may +tempt you back. You are casting me out of your life, and I have no right +to complain, but I wish to say that I hope you will have no fear for the +name you gave irrevocably into my keeping." + +"You bear my name, my father's name, but I am very sure your little +white hands will hold it clean, pure, and sacred. Should you invoke +legal aid to free you from merely nominal matrimonial bonds, I prefer +you should then resume your father's name. If you choose to make no +change, and I do not return, the name will die with you, and I believe +you will guard it as you would the Grail." + +Unconsciously his hand tightened on hers, until the edge of the ring cut +into her finger. + +"Mr. Herriott, you will write to me?" + +He shook his head. + +Looking intently at her, he noticed the deep blue shadows under her +eyes, and the first tears he had ever seen her shed rolled slowly over +her worn face. + +"Unless my letters were hollow shams, they would only distress you, and +all future annoyance I wish to avoid. Silence is the only possible +peace." + +At this moment the carriage stopped, and he looked out. + +"Why do you lag, Rivers?" + +"A train, sir. Switch engine and gravel cars." + +"Drive around it." + +"I can't, sir. Red signal just ahead of the horse's nose." + +Mr. Herriott stepped out, and walked for some minutes up and down the +embankment. Then the train pulled out, and when he re-entered his +carriage he took the front seat. + +"I sent a telegram to your father, which ought to reach him in +Washington, telling him the number of your train, and your hotel in +Philadelphia; and I hope your return journey will prove more agreeable +than your trip with me. If any necessity should arise that would require +you to communicate with me, you will find this card in the outside +pocket of your satchel, but the address means only that letters will be +forwarded to Upernavik. When we leave there no mail will reach us." + +The carriage drew up to the platform, and Mr. Herriott assisted Eglah +into the train. With her wraps and satchel he preceded her to the +drawing-room. + +"This is more comfortable than the one you occupied two days ago, and I +trust you can rest well. Here are your tickets and check. This train is +almost ready to start, and mine moves in ten minutes. In parting I make +only one request. I ask you now to put me out of your life. I want you +to forget me, and be happy with your father. Good-bye." + + +His face was white, and the expression of his eyes she never forgot. + +He had extended his hand, but the horrible possibilities of the future +swept all proud scruples aside, and she put her arms around his neck, +clinging desperately to him. + +"Mr. Noel, you shall never, never, be out of my life! I will always +belong to my--own--Mr. Noel." + +The check rein snapped. + +He clasped--strained her against his breast, and she felt the furious +beating of his heart. It was barely a moment. Gently he unwound her +arms, put her quickly aside, and left her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + + +The resumption of cordially affectionate relations between Judge Kent +and his daughter was marked on her part by increased tenderness and +deference, on his by demonstrative caresses particularly conspicuous +after years of alienation. His exactions upon her time became despotic; +he was dissatisfied when she was out of his sight, and if within reach +his hand usually rested on her arm or shoulder. The paramount aim of her +life was attained. She was assured that she reigned supreme in her +coveted kingdom--his heart. Freed from dread of public exposure, his +spirits rebounded, and his jovial, self-indulgent nature enjoyed basking +once more before the fire of financial prosperity, exulted in the +consciousness that at last the long desired Maurice fortune was at his +command. Eglah wondered that from the hour he met her in Philadelphia he +asked no questions concerning her bridal journey--no explanation of her +unexpectedly hurried return. + +He sedulously avoided all mention of Mr. Herriott, except to rail at the +imbecility of Arctic explorers, and suspecting that he smarted from the +humiliating knowledge that his son-in-law had possessed proofs of his +guilt, she welcomed silence as balm for her sore heart. From the day of +her return to Nutwood she severed every social tie linking her with +Y----. Of visiting she made an end, all invitations were declined, and +she was seen only at church, beside her father. They rode, drove, walked +together. On his fishing jaunts she read while he wandered from pool to +pool, and made tea for him when, tired and thirsty, he came back to a +shaded spot where she waited. Now and then a few of his friends spent an +evening in the billiard room, or played cards in the library, and +discussed Republican policies. At night Eliza Mitchell usually brought +her sewing to the table, Judge Kent smoked in his easy chair, and Eglah +arranged the chessboard at his elbow, or read aloud from some volume he +had selected. It rarely happened that she received his good-night kiss +until she had played a _nocturne_ or an _etude_ for which he asked. He +had an ardent, sensuous love of beauty in color, form, sound; +impassioned poetry, deep, rich melody, and subtle harmonies entranced +him, dimmed his fine, eloquent eyes. His musical taste had been +cultivated in accordance with classical standards, and while his +daughter's proficiency was not extraordinary, she played skilfully and +with a tenderly magnetic touch that justified his compliment: "My +daughter has tears in her pretty fingers." + +When a proud, reticent, beautiful woman suddenly takes an unusual and +totally unexpected step, abrogating fashionable conventions--when, +keeping her own counsel, she disdains explanation and shuts herself away +from curious questioners--the hounds of gossip are unleashed, and +beagles and fox-terriers follow in full cry. Outraged Y---- hummed like +a swarming hive. + +"Married without a sign of a trousseau, on a few hours' notice, with +barely time to get a license, a ring and a minister, and to pack her +trunk! Disgraceful!" + +Rumors of Mr. Herriott's wealth swelled to fabulous proportions. A +sister of Dr. Burbridge, whose young cousin was employed in the office +of the telegraph company, plied him with questions, until indiscreetly +and reluctantly he confided to her that two telegrams sent by the groom +showed that he had not come to Y---- intending marriage; whereupon she +set afloat information which merely increased the complexity of the +problem. Judge Kent had been so long the community scapegoat that in the +final public solution and adjustment of disreputable responsibility, an +additional load of selfish, wily iniquity was laid on his sin-stained +shoulders. By cunning chicanery he had forced his daughter's sudden +marriage, hoping that Arctic dangers, often fatal, would soon make her a +widow dowered with millions. + +Even the few who witnessed the ceremony, and recalled Eglah's +inscrutable white face, understood as little as the resentful uninvited, +yet when questioned they loyally maintained reserve. + +Bishop Vivian, Mr. Whitfield, and the Egglestons warmly defended the +girl, whom secretly they pitied, but society pilloried her. + +"She was shamelessly mercenary, absolutely devoid of womanly delicacy, +and a shocking disgrace to her poor mother's family." + +Henceforth the anti-Kent social element in Y---- resolved itself into a +vigilance committee to watch her behavior as a married woman. + +Into the whirlpool of tittle-tattle Mrs. Mitchell wisely abstained from +plunging. Her own information was too meagre, her uneasiness concerning +Eglah's stubborn silence and inexplicable manner too profound to admit +of discussion, even in defence. She staid at home, bided her time, and +held her peace. Moreover, she was wrestling with conscientious scruples +regarding her duty in withholding from Eglah some disquieting facts +known only to herself. + +The second night after his daughter's departure, Judge Kent had indulged +in stimulants to an unprecedented and alarming extent. With a decanter +of brandy at his elbow, he dozed in his arm-chair until roused by Aaron, +who delivered a telegram. Eliza was going upstairs to her own room, when +the boy rang the bell and handed in the message. + +"Lock up the house, Aaron. I think the judge is sleepy and will soon go +to bed." + +An hour later she sat reading her Bible, and heard a sound as of some +heavy object falling. Snatching her lamp, she went swiftly to the +library. The overturned decanter was slowly emptying itself on the +table, and Judge Kent lay on the floor, his head resting against the +cushioned seat of his chair. Evidently he had risen, slipped on the +polished floor, dropped the decanter, and lost consciousness. + +His face was purple, his breathing stertorous. Holding his head, she +pushed the chair back and laid him flat on the floor. + +Was it apoplectic seizure or intoxication? Her inexperience justified no +independent action, yet if drunkenness explained existing conditions, +she shrank from publishing the disgrace that would mortally wound Eglah. + +Bathing his head and face, she administered such restoratives as she +possessed, and loosened his vest and collar. Finally it seemed necessary +to summon Aaron and send Oliver for the doctor, but as she rose to ring +the bell Judge Kent opened his eyes. A dark, turbid red still stained +his face, but his respiration was less labored. + +"Don't move. After a little I can get Oliver to help you into bed." + +"I had a fall?" + +His utterance was thick, his articulation indistinct, and he hiccoughed. + +"Yes, sir. You are better, I think, and if you will only lie still a +while you can soon be made comfortable in your own room." + +She went into the adjoining apartment, saw that the bed had been +prepared, and a lamp lighted. When she returned he had struggled into a +sitting posture, his arms clasped around his knees. She sat down and +waited. On the table lay the brandy-stained telegram sent by Mr. +Herriott after he had burned the papers at Carville. She picked it up, +read it twice, and laid it down. + +"Mrs. Mitchell, if you will help me I can get into a chair." + +She took his extended hands, and he rose slowly, staggered against her, +and sank into his chair. Five minutes later he slept, but gradually his +face resumed its usual color. Eliza brought a basin of water from the +bedroom, washed away the brandy streaks from the floor and table, and +with a silk handkerchief dried and polished the fine old mahogany, +already whitening from its alcoholic bath. She went to an open window +and waited. The night was balmy, and loitering, thievish puffs of air +came laden with rifled sweetness from multitudinous lips of forest and +garden bloom. Far away the muffled monody of the river falls rose +towards the stars, whose light wove a golden braid across the water's +quivering crystal plunge over granite crags. In the dense shadow of the +walnut grove a squirrel barked, and from their red cedar covert the game +cocks shrilled midnight. + +After two hours Judge Kent awoke and groaned. Mrs. Mitchell handed him a +goblet of iced water, which he drained. + +"Shall I go and rouse Oliver, or would you prefer Aaron to assist you?" + +"I don't want either. If you will help me over this infernally slippery +floor to my bedroom sofa, I can manage." + +"You do not wish the doctor sent for?" + +"No." + +She took his arm, guided his unsteady steps to the sofa, arranged a +pillow, and unlaced his shoes. Very soon his deep, regular breathing +assured her the worst had passed. Was it the brandy, or the telegram or +both? What were the "Ely Twiggs" papers, of which Eglah must know +nothing, and why was she coming home immediately, instead of going to +Sydney, or at least as far as Boston? Could Mr. Herriott have been a +party to some scheme whereby she was entrapped into that sudden +marriage? + +At three o'clock she looked from the library door at the sleeping form +on the sofa, and with anxiety allayed, went upstairs to her room. +Awaiting a cue, she made no inquiries when he appeared at late +breakfast, and with characteristic aplomb his only reference to the +previous evening was an apology for troubling her to give him a third +cup of tea. + +"My head is a trifle shaky from the jar of that fall. Men of my age and +weight can not afford to sit down so heavily on bare boards, and I shall +insist on matting when the carpets are taken up." + +The receipt of the telegram requesting him to meet his daughter in +Philadelphia was followed by hurried preparations for departure, and +Mrs. Mitchell ventured to expostulate. + +"Judge Kent, if you realized how serious was your attack in the library, +you would not risk the imprudence of a railway journey. You ought to see +your doctor. Let me go and meet Eglah in Philadelphia." + +His bloodshot eyes twinkled as they met hers. + +"Doctor? Absurd! Attack? You mean that unlucky slip? It amounts to +nothing except a stubborn stiffness on the side where I struck those +diabolical sand-scoured boards. I particularly desire the matter should +not be mentioned to my daughter, who would reproach herself severely for +that 'dry-rubbed' floor she knows I detest as a cat does swimming." + +During his absence a cabinet maker was summoned and removed the ugly +grey stains on Eglah's favorite piece of old claw-footed mahogany. For a +time the incident seemed forgotten by all save the quiet, silent woman +keeping watch for the consequences. + +A few days after Eglah's return she sat at a window in her bedroom, +noting the deepening glory of the west, where the sun was just sinking +behind purple hills. It was the date on which the "Ahvungah" would leave +Sydney and begin her voyage to the world of eternal ice. + +The day had seemed one of doom, as if set for a funeral, and the going +down of the sun brought other shadows--darker than the mists that would +soon swim under the stars. If Mr. Herriott had forgiven her she might +have gone to Cape Breton, could have been with him till the last moment. +Now he was upon the ocean, and only God knew the future that looked so +black, so spectral, so full of desolation. + +Mrs. Mitchell opened the door and handed her a package. + +"Dearie, the express messenger brought this, and I signed for you." + +She went back to her own room and resumed her darning. + +The parcel was addressed in Mr. Herriott's handwriting: "Mrs. Noel +Herriott. Care Hon. Allison Kent." A wave of color flowed over Eglah's +pale face as she looked at her new name, and felt assured his eyes had +gleamed with scorn as he penned it. A pass-book and check-book of a New +York bank, with note from the cashier, were the first objects that met +her eye, and were instantly thrown aside; then a square box, elaborately +sealed. When she removed the wrapping paper a red morocco case appeared, +and around it was tied a note without a personal address. + + "Just before my father died he gave me two rings; one the + little gold band that hangs on my watch chain--my mother's + wedding ring. The other a stone he had given her on the day of + their betrothal. When he laid them in my hand, he said: 'Wear + one always. If you should ever marry, give the other, with my + blessing, to the woman who bears our name.' Because it was his + wish, I simply obey his injunction, and trust the ring sacred + from my mother's touch will grace the hand it was once my + fondest hope, my most ardent wish to claim. This should reach + you the day we leave Sydney. The sham is ended. Your freedom is + now complete. Do not hesitate to use it in any way that will + restore the happiness you so unwisely, so rashly imperilled. If + possible, your path in future shall be spared my shadow. + Good-bye. + + "HERRIOTT." + +The words stung like a scourge, and involuntarily she covered her face +with her hands. Time merely increased his bitterness; there was nothing +more for her to hope or expect. He intended perpetual separation. + +Mechanically she lifted the ring from its velvet bed. It was a superb +diamond, marked on the inside of the gold band, "Fergus to Una." The +circle fitted only one finger, that wearing the wedding ring, and was +too broad to share it. She replaced the jewel in its case and closed it. +A little later, when Mrs. Mitchell came in, the stony, despairing face +of the girl startled her. She ran forward and took her in her arms. + +"What is the matter? You have shut me out long enough; now I will know. +You have heard from Mr. Herriott?" + +"Yes. He sent me a check-book for money on deposit and a ring that had +been his mother's." + +"What are you breaking your heart over? O my baby, don't keep your +trouble from me! The dreadful night you went away you asked me not to +question you, but I must; I can't bear the sight of your dear face. +Nobody loves you as I do, and you know you can trust me." + +Eglah was silent a moment, and Eliza felt her shiver. + +"Yes, I am sure your love is the truest I shall ever possess, and I +trust you; but some things are like red coals, and you shrink from +handling them. Suppose you had wounded your Robert so deeply, so sorely +he never forgave you, would you wish to drag the horror up and talk of +the details? Put yourself in my place." + +"I cannot understand, because Mr. Herriott loves you so devotedly he +would forgive anything you might have done." + +"You do not know him; neither did I before I left home. I made the +mistake of presuming too far on his love. I wronged him, and he will +never forgive me." + +"I refuse to believe you wronged him." + +"Yes, I did him a great wrong. I did not intend to wound him, and when I +realized all that followed, it was too late for remedy. I don't wish to +say anything more, even to you. The thought of the red coals scorches my +heart. If the time should ever come when I feel I can talk freely, you +will not need to question. Until then, love me and be patient, and leave +me to myself. To-day Mr. Herriott is at sea--gone on his long voyage. O +Ma-Lila! Ma-Lila, pray to God that he may never come home! Or that if he +lives, I may die soon." + +"You foolish, wicked girl! Are you crazy?" + +"I have been, but my late tenants have gone into the swine. A week ago +they possessed me, and wild work followed. Since their departure I find +it impossible to regain my old self. I have, after frightful nightmare, +awakened a very repentant, an exceedingly miserable woman, but the fault +was all mine. Mr. Herriott was not to blame. He is even nobler than you +know, nobler than I dreamed; but I wounded, injured him past pardon; and +now I purpose to bear in silence, and as best I may, a sorrow that I +alone have brought upon myself. No one can help me. I only ask to be +spared all questions, all reference to my marriage. Father is calling +me. Will you give him his tea? Ask him to excuse me. Good-night. I wish +to be alone until breakfast." + +When Eliza went downstairs next morning, Eglah was coming from the side +garden with both hands full of dewy roses for the table vase, and, +having listened until two o'clock to the restless footsteps in the room +next to her own, the foster-mother glanced anxiously at her. + +The cold, passionless repose that comes only after a fierce and vital +struggle had settled upon her white, worn face, and the woman who knew +her best could not determine whether it meant conquest or surrender. + +As summer advanced, Eglah noticed the frequency with which her father +fell asleep in the midst of conversation, and when he dozed one day with +a bowl of sherbet in his hand, she became alarmed and sent for Dr. +Plympton, an old friend of Judge Kent's, who had moved South and settled +in Y---- during the dismal days of carpet bag rule. + +He gave him tonics, diet regimen on which he laid much stress, and +ordered the family away to certain springs in a distant State. Having +secured a cottage, Eglah avoided the hotel and maintained complete +seclusion. Her father keenly enjoyed the change, and gradually the +tendency to drowse was less apparent, but the prohibition of alcoholic +drinks fretted him, and that which was tabooed at the cottage was +alluringly accessible at the hotel. + +When the season closed, he and Eglah decided to stop _en route_ for a +day, to pay their long promised visit to Calvary House. + +As Mrs. Mitchell could not be persuaded to enter "an Episcopal monkish +institution" of which she disapproved so vigorously, she went back alone +to Nutwood and busied herself with household preparations for winter. + +When the judge and his daughter reached home, Dr. Plympton expressed +himself much pleased with improved conditions which Mrs. Mitchell could +not discover, and Eglah's apprehensions were allayed. Her father's +increasing dependence upon her touched and cheered her inexpressibly, +and for his sake she diligently assisted him in work that forced her +thoughts into a new channel. An important appropriation bill, in which +Judge Kent's native State was much interested, would be presented to +Congress about the middle of December, or soon after the holiday recess, +and he had been requested by old friends and constituents to address the +Senate committee, advocating a favorable report. The collection and +arrangement of necessary statistics kept her busy at his side, and when +the last type-written page was added to the pile at his elbow, he patted +her hand fondly and complimented her useful accuracy. + +Rejoicing in the accomplishment of their tedious task, the trap was +ordered, and father and daughter drove until the dinner hour. + +She noticed he dozed twice while she talked, although when they reached +home he seemed as well as usual, humming a gay little Sicilian song as +he divested himself of overcoat and muffler. It had been a perfect +autumn day, crisp, crystalline. The deep, vivid yellow of the great +undulating mass of walnut foliage hung against the western sky like +cloth of gold curtains around a porphyry shrine, above which Venus +burned as ministering taper. With her cheek pressed to the window pane +in the library, Eglah watched the fading after-glow, and her hands +clutched each other. This was the day when from the iron-bound, +ice-sheathed fiords of Smith's Sound the sun disappeared. The long Polar +night had set in. Would Mr. Herriott ever see the sun again? + +She had procured all books written in English that related to Arctic +travel, and in the sanctuary of her own room prepared, from an almanac +and from explorer's diaries, a calendar, noting the length of each day, +the coming of the moon, the date of shortest twilight, the falling of +total darkness. Mr. Herriott's voyage began in May; no tidings had +reached her. She expected none, but her lips moved: "Oh, God, keep him +in safety through the awful night!" + +The dreary vision of her imagination contrasted sharply with the +luxurious aspect of the library, where a fire of oak logs glowed beyond +the marble hearth. A crimson velvet carpet covered the floor, and warm +winter draperies enhanced the atmosphere of comfort. On the table an +oval cut-glass basket held great clusters of orange chrysanthemums; not +the huge, solitary, odorless globes now so popular in cities, but +thickly studded, fragrant branches that bloom nowhere with such lavish +sweetness as in old Southern gardens. + +Mrs. Mitchell brightened the lamp and began to match the squares of a +calico "rising sun" quilt she was making as her Christmas present to the +Methodist parsonage. Judge Kent leaned back in his arm-chair, his +silver-powdered head on the red cushion, good looking, debonair, +thoroughly content; and in one hand he held a richly gilded liqueur +glass, brimming with an emerald cordial. Eglah came to his side and put +her hand on his wrist. + +"Father, Dr. Plympton forbids liqueurs. Please do not drink that." + +"Only a thimbleful of _creme de menthe_! Babies take mint tea. Even Mrs. +Mitchell drinks this." + +His fine eyes sparkled mischievously, and he bowed to her. + +"No, sir. I make my mint cordial from my own garden, and I know what is +in it; but you can't be sure about foreign-fangled mixtures." + +"I wish to make sure that delicious gumbo-file will not give me +nightmare." + +"Father, I begged you not to touch it, and you had your favorite clam +bouillon the doctor commends so highly." + +"Bouillon--gumbo-file? 'As moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto +wine.' My duchess, don't scold. Your pretty mouth was made for sweeter +uses. Kiss me." + +He brushed his white mustache aside, and leaning down she pressed her +lips to his. + +"Father, are you quite well to-night?" + +"Quite well, and absolutely happy. Now, give me some music to round out +and seal this glorious, perfect day." + +She opened the upright piano, and while she played one of his favorite +fugues--Handel's in E minor--he kept time, swinging the tiny, gilded +glass. Flickering flames in the wide chimney were reflected on the +polished rosewood panels of the piano, and as they wavered up and down +before her, Eglah thought of spectral auroral fringes flashing in +moonless Polar night, staining with prismatic hues the world of snow, +kindling red beacons on pinnacles of immemorial ice. + +The fugue ended, and as her fingers left the keys a tinkling crash +caused her to turn her head. + +The liqueur glass was shattered on the floor and Judge Kent lay +insensible in his chair. + +Paralysis appeared so complete that for some days Doctors Plympton and +Eggleston entertained no hope; but the sufferer rallied surprisingly, +and while his utterance was not fully intelligible, and he never +regained the use of his lower limbs, he was often conscious. + +Mrs. Mitchell and the physicians would have welcomed a passionate +outbreak of the silent grief that seemed to have frozen Eglah, as, calm +and dry-eyed, she ministered in the sick-room she rarely left. Two +faithful men assisted in nursing--one by day, one by night, because she +could not lift her father--and she slept on a cot beside him, or across +the foot of his bed. She administered all his medicine, fed him with her +own hands, caressed, and cheered him. + +After a few weeks, though entirely helpless, he was able to be dressed +and lifted into a reclining rolling-chair, and when the weather +permitted she wheeled him around the sunny side of the long colonnade, +where he usually fell asleep. The speech arranged so carefully for the +Senate committee she read again critically, made a few corrections, and +forwarded it with a brief announcement of his illness to the friends who +had employed Judge Kent to prepare and deliver it in committee room. + +Her stern self-repression discouraged conversation relative to the +sufferer, and she buoyed herself with no false hopes. + +A ripple of compassion stirred Y----, and some who had criticized her +most severely for her haughty aloofness--some whose sole grievance was +her absolute devotion to an "unprincipled father"--left cards, words of +sympathy, and flowers for Mrs. Herriott. Except the doctors, she saw no +one but Mrs. Eggleston and Mr. Whitfield, who had lost his wife a few +months previous. Bishop Vivian had died during the summer, but her +father's rector came often. At times the sick man's clouded mind seemed +incapable of retaining any impression, but he never failed to respond to +music, and when his chair was rolled close to the piano and Eglah played +selections he loved best, it comforted her to watch the pleased, +contented expression of the placid, handsome old face so dear to her. +Noticing how wan and drawn the girl's lips were, the physicians urged +Mrs. Mitchell to persuade her to drive or walk. + +"No. I will not lose sight of him for a moment. He is my all, and what +becomes of me makes no difference. I have but one wish now--to go with +him." + +One bright, warm day, late in December, Judge Kent appeared surprisingly +better, though his articulation continued very indistinct, and his +daughter understood him best because she closely watched his lips. The +doctors had made their morning visit, and, wrapped in his dressing-gown, +the sick man asked to be rolled into sunshine. + +Eglah tucked a lap robe carefully about the reclining form, and he +feebly lifted the one hand he could move, and pointed to the glass door. + +"That way; not through library." + +She unlocked and opened it, wheeling the chair out on the colonnade, and +some change in his countenance arrested her attention. Bending down, she +found tears on his cheeks. + +"You opened this door the day Herriott came. Because you heard him tell +me about Keith, you married him. You burned the papers--you saved me." + +"No, father; no!" + +She fell on her knees and hid her face in his gown. + +"You tried to keep me from knowing you heard Herriott, but I saw you. +You married him for my sake. My blessed child! When I am gone, I want +you to remember no other man ever had such a daughter. My Eglah----" + +After a moment he sighed, and with great difficulty added slowly: + +"My dear, kiss me, and always--always you must know--how precious +you--are, precious----" + +She kissed him twice, dried his cheeks, and, as he turned his head on +the pillow and closed his eyes, she rolled him up and down the +colonnade, hoping that during his nap he would forget. He often slept +soundly in this way, soothed by the motion like a child in a carriage. + +Was he laboring under some delusion of an enfeebled brain--did he dream? +Or was it possible he had actually seen her leave his room on her errand +of rescue? + +A half hour later a veil of cloud drifted across the sun, a blast of +wind leaped out of the northwest, and, fearing a change of temperature, +she turned the chair toward the door and wheeled it inside. + +Leaning tenderly over the sleeper, his quiet, cold, set face told her he +had gone to that bar of final trial where, in his Maker's infinite +mercy, only He who fashions and reads human hearts and sees entirely +around the circle of circumstances, can justly judge. + +A low, long-drawn, quivering cry, as of some creature mortally stricken, +summoned Mrs. Mitchell, who found the girl huddled over the still form, +his grey head lifted to her breast. + +Holding her solitary vigil that night beside him, her cheek laid on his +shoulder, her hand clasping his icy, interlocked fingers, she found a +solace which surprised her in the assurance that he had known the +significance of her sacrifice--that he loved her better in consequence +of all she had ventured and suffered in his behalf. Her supreme dread +had been his discovery of the cause of her marriage, but now and then +the scowling menace from which we cower, breaks in smiling, tender +benediction. To love, that prompts and sustains in crucial hours of +self-immolation, is occasionally added a transforming exaltation that +sublimates the unworthy object for whom the sacrifice is borne; and the +most pityingly merciful of all angels--Death--extinguishes life with one +hand, while the other smooths scars of character, levels unlovely +angles, lifts shadows of sin, and gives to memory that magic mantle +whose halo never fades. + +With singular and unnatural calmness, Eglah had arranged the details of +the funeral service next day in her father's church. She telegraphed +Father Temple to meet her in Washington _en route_ to the North, and +asked Mr. Whitfield to go with her until her cousin joined her on the +train. + +To lay her father to rest among his enemies in Y---- was unendurable; +she would take him to the cemetery in his native State, where his +parents and sisters slept, and erect a monument there in sight of his +constituents who had honored and loved him. + +It had grown very cold; there was no fire in the long drawing-room, +where portraits of Maurices and Vivians stared imperiously down at the +alien lying motionless under the great cut-glass chandelier. Silent and +tearless the girl kept watch. The undertaker had mentioned the date to +be inscribed on the casket plate, and she recalled her Arctic calendar. +This was the solstice, the sunless midnight, the core of Polar winter. +To-morrow the sun would begin to climb back to Mr. Herriott, but the sun +of her life had set forever. A shudder shook her, and she nestled +closer, laying her lips against her father's throat. Eliza laid heavier +wraps around the stooping shoulders, placed a hot blanket under her +feet, and now and then kissed the girl's bowed head, but no words, no +sob, profaned the sacred silence. + +When the body was carried to the chancel of the crowded church, she +walked alone, followed closely by the few who best understood her +isolation. Shrouded in black, she sat still and silent as her dead; and +some persons present who had cause for bitterness against +"reconstruction judiciary" forgot their wrongs in genuine pity for the +proud and lonely mourner. + +Under a fragrant pall, woven of smilax and his favorite double white +violets, that covered the casket and fell to its handles, she bore him +away to the stony hills of New England. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + + +Its alliterative jingle had probably commended Dairy Dingle to Marcia +Maurice when she selected a name for the new home of the overseer, +Robert Mitchell. Here he brought his bride from Nutwood, where she had +lived since her father's death on the battle-field. A Federal cavalry +raid, intended specially for the looting of Y---- and the destruction of +its factories, had loitered too long at Willow Bend plantation, and +finding Confederate squadrons in hot pursuit, the Union troopers were +forced to retreat, after burning every building in sight except the +cabins of the negroes. General Maurice loved the rambling, airy, +old-fashioned country house where he was born, and here he usually +brought his family to spend Christmas, and make genuine holiday for his +numerous slaves. After the raid only rock chimneys stood as +commemorative pillars, and not a vestige of gin-house, cotton sheds, or +stables was visible. At a hard gallop the fleeing troopers passed an +adjacent grist-mill which supplied several plantations with meal, and +paused long enough to kindle a blaze in a pile of corn sacks. The +miller, a lame negro, extinguished the flames, and preserved a structure +where several generations had brought their contributions to the hopper. +Near this old red mill Mrs. Maurice built a house for her overseer, and +after Eliza's marriage gave it and the adjoining fifty acres of cleared +land to the young wife. It was a small, square box of a house, with four +rooms, broad, low-pitched piazzas, and wide hall running through the +middle. Where the rear gallery ended, a covered way, brick paved, led to +the kitchen and servants' room. On the left, at a sudden dip of the +land, and several hundred yards distant, stood the spring house, or +stone dairy, a low structure built over a small stream running from the +bold spring that gushed out of the hillside a few feet away--and falling +into the creek just above the mill-dam. + +A shallow canal dug through the centre of the dairy had been paved with +rock, and here, winter and summer, the milk bowls and butter jars stood +in water rippling against their sides. + +While General Maurice lived, he kept only his Jersey herd at Nutwood, +but at Willow Bend his famous Short-horns, red, and red roan, roamed +over pasturage extending hundreds of acres. The "cow pen" and milking +shed were not visible, hidden on the edge of a plateau running far away +to a stretch of primeval, lonely pine woods crossed only by cattle +paths. In a green cup encircled by wimpling hills the overseer's home +nestled like a white bird hovering to drink. The sharply curving creek +that divided it from the plantation was bridged a half mile below the +mill, and a dense growth of trees and vines clothed the banks. In an +opposite direction, beyond the house, and mantling the upland slopes, +lay fields of grain, glistening as the wind crinkled the yellowing +folds. + +Locust and china trees, overrun by English honeysuckle, coral, and buff +woodbine, shaded the cottage, and all about the spring house clustered +azaleas--white, pink, orange, scarlet--filling the quiet hollow with +waves of incomparable perfume. Hanging on the bluff above the bubbling +spring a thicket of titi swung exquisite opal plumes, over which bees +drowsed; and crowding to the front for dress parade clung a line of +mountain laurel or "ivy" faintly flushed with pale-rose clusters waiting +to burst into bloom and with their crimped shell-pink cups rival fluted +and tinted treasures from Sevres and Murano. + + * * * * * + +Into this green, shadowy dingle had come its long absent mistress, and, +closing Nutwood, Eglah shared her foster-mother's secluded home in the +heart of the pine woods. + +For many months after her father's death she seemed a mute, breathing +statue rather than a suffering woman, so deep lay the pain no words +could fathom. Close and tender as were the ties linking the two, Eliza +dared not probe the wound, and when Eglah closed the door of her own +room, the loving little mother would have broken into a sealed tomb as +soon as violate her solitude. + +Two miles beyond the plantation, across the creek, a new railway line +had established a station called Maurice, and about this nucleus a +village grew with surprising rapidity. The site selected on Eglah's land +by the railway company chanced to be that of the neighborhood +school-house, where, on the fourth Sunday of each month, a Methodist +minister of many mission chapels preached. Mrs. Mitchell had organized a +Sabbath school, and Eglah had given a cabinet organ, but the figure +shrouded in mourning was seen only when driving in her trap, or more +frequently alone on horseback. These long rides through rolling pine +forests and silent sunny glades, where she met none but her own +velvet-eyed, browsing red cattle, and shy, happy rabbits, were hours of +immeasurable relief; yet, at intervals, proved battle-ground on which +she fought the crowding spectres of a sombre, brooding future. Political +and social ambitions were shut forever in her father's grave; domestic +duties ended when the doors and gates of Nutwood had been locked; and +business affairs were in far wiser hands than hers. What should she do +with her empty life? + +One afternoon, goaded by sad thoughts, she had ridden farther than +usual, and, returning, reined her horse in at the brink of a meadow to +tighten her coil of hair, shaken by a rapid gallop. Before her a group +of young, red, dappled calves lay in the thick grass, their soft eyes +wonderingly alert, and all Pan's orchestra seemed rehearsing. A +wood-lark in a crab-apple bush set the pitch, a red-bird followed; two +crows answered from the top of an ancient pine, and among beech boughs a +velvet-throated thrush trilled, while under sedge shadows frogs croaked +a hoarse bassoon. From the edge of a pool dimpling the turf white herons +rose, flitting slowly across an orange sky, where cloud fringes burned +in the similitude of scarlet tulips. If she could cease to be a woman +with an aching heart and an immortal soul, what a peaceful home was here +among the sinless forest children vast mother earth had called to sing +and play in her pine-roofed, grassy nursery. If the sylvan quietude of +this Theocritan retreat had power to witch her surging pulses to +unbroken calm, she might hide for ever in her own green aisles, secure +from stinging shafts of gossip and derision. She lifted the reins and +the horse sprang forward. + +A year ago Mr. Herriott had sailed. No tidings reached her; no allusion +to the "Ahvungah" had appeared in any of the newspapers she searched +daily. She knew the vessel would not stop at an American port--would +return directly to Europe from the Arctic circle--but the American press +would chronicle the close of the expedition. If disaster had overtaken +it, how soon could she know? + +Was Mr. Herriott frozen fast in the awful desolation of Whale Sound, or +sledging in a race with death across that vast, level, white ice desert +of compacted snow in central Greenland, eight thousand feet above the +sea, swept by Polar winds that never sleep? Wherever Arctic fetters held +him, the moon shone constantly two weeks for him, and after the long +night a returning sun was now gilding the minarets of icebergs and +unlocking the bars of floes. + +If he never came back she could indulge the love that so unexpectedly +stirred her heart, that had grown swiftly since he left her; if he +survived and returned she must hide her affection and herself far from +the biting, branding scorn that would always glow in his eyes. How could +she bear the dreary coming years of a possibly long life? There were +hours in which she tried to hope he would not come back; but recalling +that one moment when he held her so tight to his breast, she seemed to +feel again the furious beating of his heart which had never belonged to +any woman but herself, and, as the memory thrilled her, into her wan +face crept a joyful flush. At last, too late, her heart was his, but he +no longer desired or valued it. He had cast her out of his life. Riding +slowly homeward in the star-powdered, silvery-grey gloaming, she locked +her torturing thoughts behind the mask of silence that was becoming +habitual, and near the mill met Mrs. Mitchell's tender eyes on watch for +her. + +A few mornings later, Eglah stood in the dairy door, looking up beyond a +sentry line of tall pear trees uniformed in vivid green, to the +hillside, where lay the peach orchard a month before in full flower, +billowing gently like a wide coverlet of pink silk shaken in sunlight. +Followed by Delilah, who knew the haunts of water-rats in the velvet +moss low on the banks, she walked toward the creek. Over one corner of +the deserted red mill a dewberry vine feathered with blossoms rambled +almost to the sagging roof, and along the ruined line of the old race +ferns held up their lace fronds to shade the lilac spikes of +water-hyacinths. It was a cool, lonely place, sweet with the breath of +wild flowers, silent save the endless adagio in minors played by crystal +fingers of the stream stealing down the broken, crumbling stone dam. In +that quiet nook all outside noises seemed intrusive, and Eglah listened +to the beat of a horse's hoofs cantering across the bridge below the +mill. Very soon Mr. Boynton appeared and dismounted. + +"Good morning, Miss Eglah. A telegram was forwarded from Y----, and as I +happened to be at Maurice when it came, I brought it at once." + +"Thank you very much." + +She took the message and walked away a few steps, struggling for +strength to face the worst. + + "Mrs. Noel Herriott: + + "Amos Lea has been ill for months. To-day I am called to + Chicago to my sick son. Della will not stay here without me. + Some woman ought to come. + + "AMANDA ORR." + +"I hope it is good news about your husband?" + +"Mr. Boynton, it might be worse. Sickness in Mr. Herriott's household +seems to require that I should go to his home for a few days. Please +wait here until I can go to the house and find out what must be done. I +may trouble you to attend to some matters for me." + +Mrs. Mitchell sat on the steps at the rear of the cottage, stemming a +bowl of strawberries and warily watching the elusive feints of a white +turkey hen picking her way to a nest hidden in a tangle of blackberry +vines. Eglah held the open telegram before her eyes and waited. + +"I suppose you want me to go?" + +"I wish you to be there with me. I can not go alone." + +"Dearie, you can't nurse the gardener. If Mr. Herriott were at home he +would not listen to any such nonsense." + +"I like Amos Lea, and I intend to put him in the hands of a good trained +nurse until Mrs. Orr returns." + +"That could be done easily by telegraph or letter. But, my baby, if it +would comfort you to be in the house----" + +Eglah threw up her hand with a warning gesture. + +"I wish to stay only a few days; just long enough to assure myself that +the old man is carefully attended to. I prefer not to start from Y----, +and the train despatcher at Maurice can stop the up train at 11.45. We +need no trunk, and I have the money to pay our way on. I shall write and +have more forwarded from the bank. Ma-Lila, I wish to start to-night. +Can you get ready?" + +The little woman's level brows puckered, but the light in her eyes was a +caress. + +"Can I refuse any of your foolish whims? I have spoiled you all your +life, and it is rather late in the day for me to undertake to oppose +you. I see Hiram Boynton waiting, and I must arrange with him to have +his boys sleep here and take care of everything in our absence. You know +my pet cow's calf is only three days old, and her udder needs watching." + +They reached Greyledge at noon, accompanied by the middle-aged nurse +commended by the matron of a hospital in the neighboring city. At the +sound of carriage wheels on the stone driveway, the dogs greeted them +from the kennels in the stable yard, and several peals from the front +door bell rang through the closed house before the butler, pipe in hand, +opened the door. Speechless from astonishment, he staggered back. + +"Good morning, Hawkins. How is Amos Lea?" + +"About the same, ma'am, the doctor says. Mrs. Herriott, I hope you will +excuse the looks of things. If I had known you were coming I would have +lighted the furnace and warmed the house and been nearer ready. There is +not a female on the place. Della was that prudish she went with her +aunt." + +"Did Mrs. Orr leave all the keys with you?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Bring them to me and show me where they belong. Is Rivers here?" + +"Oh, yes, ma'am; also his cousin Nelson, who helps with the horses and +dogs; and David Green, the under gardener." + +"Hawkins, you know Mrs. Mitchell; she came with me on a visit before my +marriage; and this is Mrs. Adams, who will nurse Amos for the present. +Open the house and make fires in the 'blue room' and two other bedrooms. +I shall be here only a short while, and you must do the best you can for +us as regards meals. When the time comes for feeding the dogs I wish to +be notified. I am afraid they have forgotten me." + +"If you please, ma'am, what is the news from Mr. Herriott? When I saw +you I felt sure he must be coming home shortly. We count the days till +we see him." + +"I am sorry, Hawkins, but no news reaches me now. It has been a long, +dreary, dreadful time. I came because Mrs. Orr telegraphed me some one +was needed here to look after the sick. Ma-Lila, will you go upstairs +with Mrs. Adams while I see Amos?" + +Near the gardener's cottage she met David Green, with a bowl of broth in +his hands and a scowl on his sunburned face. + +"How are you, David? Hearing that Amos is sick, I have brought a good +nurse to stay with him till the housekeeper returns. What is the matter +with him?" + +"Madam, it is mostly crankiness now, in my opinion. Last fall he had a +spell of fever that left him ailing, and in January he fell into +inflammatory rheumatism that made him as helpless as a baby and +fractious as a bull pup. But he got better of it, and able to hobble +around his room on crutches. Like the mule he is, he would creep down to +the green-houses, hunting something to scold me about, and his crutch +slipped on the ice and he hurt his hip joint. The doctor orders him to +keep still and not move that leg, but, madam, he shuffles around in his +bed for all the world like hyenas in a circus cage. We men take him up +as easy as can be and lay him on a cot and change his clothes; but +cranky! Cross! The angels couldn't please him. I guess he is sore, and +when we jar and hurt him, instead of cursing us with a wholesome, honest +oath we are used to, he throws up his arms, rolls back his eyes till +they are all white balls, and shouts to the Lord to set Jezreel's +hounds, and Og, and the rest of the Bible beasts, and the imps of Belial +upon us! He calls us 'godless goats,' and we don't set up to be +religious, but he passes for pious and stands high in his church, and it +makes us feel creepy, because we don't know when the Lord might happen +to listen to him. You know, madam, he has got a strong pull on the +master. Mr. Herriott humors his whims, and now he is away we are doing +our best for Amos. Every other night I leave my family, three miles +away, and sleep here in his room. Mrs. Herriott, I have come to the +conclusion that if the master does not get home soon the old man will +fret himself to death. Day and night he prays for him. Every morning we +bring him a paper, and his poor hands shake while he holds it and +searches for news of the vessel, as a pointer hunts partridges. My wife +is a first-class cook, and, thinking to please him, she made and sent +him this broth. Just now, when he tasted it, the corners of his mouth +went nearly to his ears, and he asked me please to pour it into Tzar's +pan as I passed the kennel. If I had my choice, I would rather nurse a +bucketful of hornets." + +"I am glad you have all been so good to him; you especially, who have a +wife and children to claim you. I hope Mr. Herriott can soon be at home, +and he will thank you. Now your responsibility ceases, because I have +employed a good nurse, trained in a hospital, who will know what is best +for him and make him obey the doctor's directions. David, I am sure you +men will be considerate and respectful while she remains." + +At the door of the gardener's house, Snap dashed out, barking viciously. +She called his name twice and held out her hand, but, eyeing her +suspiciously, he growled and retreated across the threshold. Propped +with pillows, Amos was on a cot near the hearth, and a newspaper lay +across his knees. The room was bright with sunshine, and when Eglah +entered, clad in black, her long crepe veil thrown back and falling +nearly to the floor, the old man stared at her and almost shrieked: + +"Has the Lord God taken my lad? You wear widow's black for him?" + +"No, Amos. The Lord God took my father, and my mourning is for him." + +He threw up his arms. + +"God be praised!" + +After a moment, he added apologetically: + +"Madam, I mean I am thankful Noel is spared. You see, I think only of +the boy." + +She drew a chair to the cot and took one of the gardener's wasted, +gnarled hands in hers. + +"I did not hear of your sickness till three days ago, and I came at +once, to see if I could not make you more comfortable while Mrs. Orr is +away." + +"It makes no difference about my worn-out old body--that is a crippled +hulk. My mind is in torment because of the lad's danger. Where is he +now? In the ice on land, or locked up in the ship of the ungodly name, +that can never break loose from the bergs leaning over her? Tell me, was +your news later than my letter?" + +He dragged from his bosom two worn, soiled envelopes and held them +towards her. One was postmarked St. John, N. B., the other Dundee, +Scotland. As she opened them a bunch of yellow poppies and a little +square of moss fell into her lap. She glanced at the dates. The oldest +was from Upernavik, soon after the vessel reached Greenland; the most +recent was from off Cape Alexander, where the "Ahvungah" was frozen in. + +"No, Amos, your news is the latest I have heard." + +Her voice quivered, and replacing the flowers in an envelope, she laid +the unread letters on the cot. + +"Was your last letter from him the same date as mine?" + +"No; it was earlier." + +The cold, light-grey eyes in their deep, sunken sockets probed hers like +steel. + +"Madam, it was your fault he went away." + +"No, his word was pledged before our marriage, and I am not responsible +for this journey. I did all that was possible to keep him." + +Amos leaned forward and grasped her wrist. + +"You know you are to blame. What was it you did to him? That night you +came--a bride--I saw when he took you from the carriage everything had +gone wrong with him. I knew what that grip of his mouth and that red +spark in his eyes meant. You did him some wrong." + +She shook her head, and, even in his wrath, the hopeless sorrow in her +eyes touched him. + +"You struck him a bitter, hard blow somewhere. You see, since he was a +year old and his mother died, I have watched him. His father was away +with his railroads and his mines out West, and Susan and I had the care +of him till he was put to his books and had a tutor to teach him Latin. +They set him at that stupid business too early. I made his kites, and +played marbles with him, and sailed his little boats, and--" His voice +broke, and he paused to steady it. + +"He was always truthful, and honorable, and generous, but--may the Lord +have mercy on him--he was born with the temper of Beelzebub. Not from +his mother did he get it, but from his hard old father, Fergus Herriott, +who somehow managed to keep himself under check-rein and bit. He never +punished the lad but once, and that was when the devil possessed the +child. He was barely ten years old. He fell into a terrible rage with +Susan about the fit of a bathing suit she made for him, and kicked the +clothes into the lake. Then he turned on her like a son of Belial with +rough, ugly, sinful language till she cried. His father happened to be +in the boat house near by. He came out, took him by the shoulders and +shook him, ordering him to apologize instantly to his nurse. The boy set +his teeth and shook his head. + +"'If you do not apologize properly to her, I shall thrash you.' + +"The lad's eyes blazed. + +"'As you are my father, you will do as you like, sir.' + +"Then and there he thrashed him, Susan howling, but not a sound from +him. Mr. Herriott sent him to his room, and ordered Susan not to go near +him. There were several railroad officials to dinner that day, and they +staid late. Susan sat yonder by the window, crying fit to break her +heart, when the lad walked in and went close to her. She held out her +arms, and the tears ran down her cheeks. + +"'Susan, I am sorry I was such a beast. I am ashamed of what I said, and +I beg your pardon. Dear Susan, forgive me.' + +"My poor wife, how she hugged and petted him, only he never would let +any one kiss him on his lips. As he sat in her lap, with one arm around +her neck, his face was deadly white and his eyes looked like two red +stars; the devil had not loosed his grip. Then his father called at the +doorstep, 'Amos, is Noel here?' When the old man came in, the boy was +standing in the middle of the floor, with his hands behind him, and +Susan ran forward. + +"'If you please, Mr. Herriott, I am sure he is not well. I thought so at +the lake side, and he is feverish. His head is hot.' + +"'Yes, Susan. Truly his head is too hot. Come, my son.' + +"He held out his hand, but Noel did not move. His father went to him, +put an arm around him, and forced him away. Next morning the doctor was +sent for, found him in a raging fever; said it was measles, but Susan +knew better. For a week Mr. Herriott never left that room, even for his +meals, and he chastised him no more. Each day he was prouder and fonder +of the boy. Madam, I am telling you all this that you may be sure I make +no mistakes about him. He was hard hit the day he went away. There is a +place far around the beach bend, a stone bench, where he has fought +battles with himself since he wore frilled shirts. It is his +stamping-ground when his blood is up, and the devil squats at his ears. +Now I want to know why he spent his last night at home down there +alone?" + +His bony hand tightened its grip like the claw of an eagle on her wrist, +and beneath the shaggy white brows his keen, fiery eyes demanded answer. + + +"Madam, you drove him there." + +"Mr. Herriott was very angry with me. Unintentionally I had wounded him, +and he did not forgive me; I fear he never will. He is not to blame. I +did what seemed right and necessary at the time, but afterward I found I +had made a terrible mistake. It is all my fault, not his. Amos, I am +very unhappy, far more so than Mr. Herriott; but some matters I discuss +with no one, and you must ask me no more questions." + +"Of course he was not to blame; he never is. You did not read his +letters." He held them toward her. + +"No, they were intended solely for you." + +"But I am more than willing you should see what he says about the +God-forsaken den of bears and wolves where he is blundering around in +the dark." + +"Thank you, Amos, but they would only distress me." + +Watching her pale, beautiful face, the old man sighed. + +"Madam, if you are not to blame for his going on this wild, godless +chase, I must not feel so bitter against his young wife as I have done. +Dear lad! The very last words he spoke to me that day at the gate were, +'If I never come back, do all you can for Mrs. Herriott, for my sake. +Amos, I have loved her since she was ten years old.'" + +There was a tap at the door, and the doctor entered. Eglah rose and drew +her veil over her face, but Amos clutched her sleeve. + +"Doctor, this is Mrs. Herriott, the lad's wife." + +"I am glad to see you here, doctor. Knowing Mrs. Orr was called away, I +have a trained nurse, who will help you get Amos Lea out of bed. I shall +send her at once to you for instructions." + +Without attempting to analyze her complex emotions, Eglah surrendered +herself to the strange new comfort of wandering hour after hour about +the house, where every nook and corner babbled of the owner. Despite her +efforts to placate and win the dogs, they sullenly rejected her +overtures, echoing the repudiation of their master, and watching her +with suspicious enmity. On the second afternoon the doctor and nurse +assured her the gardener would soon be relieved by electricity, massage, +and tonics, and when a letter from Mrs. Orr to Hawkins announced her +expected return two days later, there seemed no reason for prolonging +Eglah's visit. She wished to avoid an interview with the housekeeper, +and arranged to start south a few hours earlier than the time fixed for +her arrival. In the stone cottage she spent a portion of each day; had +gone carefully over Arctic maps and charts with Amos, outlining the +probable course of the exploring party. She explained some terms, and +gave him a duplicate of the calendar she had made for herself, whereby +he could tell when and how long the moon shone, what day the sun set, +and when, after months, it would rise again. As the old man watched +through his silver spectacles the sad, worn, pallid face, and realized +that she too suffered, his resentful antipathy diminished, and Mr. +Herriott's farewell charge began to invest her with an unexpected +sanctity. + +The last day of her stay was unusually warm for the season, and after +reading to the sick man and leaving a bunch of jonquils near his cot, +Eglah went quite late in the afternoon for a farewell walk along the +beach. She coaxed the dogs unavailingly. Pilot, the collie, followed as +far as the stone stile, and then deserted her. Beyond the end of the +curve, where silver poplars came to the water's edge, she found a white +marble seat, shaped like a horseshoe, with broad arms and an arched back +elaborately carved. Winter rains had rippled and drifted the sand over +its feet, and across one corner a bramble strayed. It was here Mr. +Herriott had spent his last night at home. She brushed aside dead +leaves, sat down, and plucked away the encroaching vine. Deep in her +heart sang his final words to Amos: "I have loved her since she was ten +years old." Living or dead, he was hers; angry and estranged, but +hers--always hers. + +She thought of what life might have been with him here, remembered the +warm, close clasp of his hand, the lover light in his fine eyes that was +a caress that first hour on the cars; and recalling the last moment, +when he strained her to his breast, her fair face flushed, her sad heart +thrilled. Now that beautiful "might have been" lay irrecoverable as the +"lost land of Lyonnesse," under its transparent shroud, and haunting +echoes of tender tones tolled faintly, like buried bells of Folge Fond. + +The day had been sultry, but the wind rose with the full, red moon that +swung now above the cliffs, a globe of burnished copper, taking on the +glory of gold as it climbed higher, and from some distant belfry a +vesper benediction, low and sweet, slowly drifted over the great lake. +The water, glassy an hour before, thrilled and swelled in answer to the +fingers of the wind, as a viol to the touch of its bow, and wavelets +widened, shimmered as they ran. An eastbound schooner, all sails set, +midway from shore to horizon, followed the path of light like a gigantic +white moth fluttering upward to the moon. Where did her rays find Mr. +Herriott to-night? Sleeping his last sleep in the wind-carved marble +sepulchre of glittering sastrugi, with that white moon of the "Great +Ice" silvering the face now so dear to his abandoned wife? Or frozen and +embalmed under the lee of towering blue hummocks, in the grim shadow of +looming iron-bound shores? Or dying of starvation in a lampless, rent, +ruined, iglooyah, with only Innuit corpses encircling him? + +She fell on her knees, bowed her head on the seat, and prayed as never +before for his safety. + +The wind freshened from the south, and far away in some mountain lair +thunder growled. Eglah looked long at the beautiful curve of the land, +at the shivering poplars turning white in anticipation of storm, at the +irregular outline of the old stone pile projecting its spectral shadow +on the shining water lapping the terrace wall. Two hours later a gale +swept the lake, and under bluish glare of lightning the waves showed +their flashing teeth. + +With fine feminine instinct that penetrates far below the surface, yet +gives no hint of the depths, Eliza divined that the unhappy woman +desired unbroken solitude, and the foster-mother went early to her own +bedroom. + +Slowly Eglah mounted the spiral stairs that led to the billiard room and +thence to the tower. The former was dark, and as she placed her candle +on the table something fluttered and fell. It was a Chiriqui quetzal, +perched upon a small slab brought from Palenque and fastened as a +bracket above the fireplace. She picked it up, smoothed the brilliant, +drooping feathers, and set it securely on the table, but a legend she +had associated with it made her shiver as she opened the door and +stepped into the tower. + +High above her, and just under the roof, the great lamp with its +reflector threw light far out over the tossing waste of water, kindling +crowns of fire where the wave crests broke. She sat down on a wooden +bench at one of the open arches, and watched the departing cloud fringe +of the storm rushing from the far, sweet, throbbing South, to the icy +silence of a more distant North; listened to the fitful moan of tired +waves, trying to sob themselves to rest. Would the fleet _foehn_ reach +Greenland, melt the blue cables strong as steel that held iceberg +ranges, domed with frosted silver--open the yellow eyes of poppies, and +waft the ivory gulls back to weary watchers? Often a blessing there, it +was sometimes a curse. Could that fierce, hot, southern breath battle +against the ceaseless wind, snow-laden even in sunshine, that sweeps +forever from palaeocrystic seas across the white desolation of the great +ice cap? Persistent study of Northern travels had so completely filled +Eglah's mind with Arctic images, that by an inevitable magnetism every +change of atmospheric conditions pointed to the Pole. + +As the night waned, the moon emerged from ragged clouds, and gradually +the lake quieted to its wonted crooning monologue, broken only by the +strophe and antistrophe of startled water-fowl scattered by the storm. +Eglah heard the clock strike two, and went down to the billiard room. +The candle was flickering, and in its spasmodic light the eyes of the +Quiche holy bird had a preternatural, sinister glitter. She hurried +downstairs and locked herself in the den, the master's favorite room. +Cabinets were sealed, busts shrouded in cambric hoods, pictures veiled. +Only Mr. Herriott's desk remained as she remembered it, and here, with +her arms crossed on the morocco cover and her face hidden upon them, she +watched the night depart, saw the dawn of the day that would take her +away forever from the home she had learned to love too late. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + + +Heavy are the brakes with which suspense and anxious longing clog the +wheels of time, yet seasons end; the spokes spin and come again, +insistent reminders to waiting watchers of the endless, inexorable +procession of years. + +An early frost had hastened autumnal effects usually due a month later, +and the atmosphere was crisp and sparkling. White oaks, maples, and +sweet gums rustled their amber leaves sprinkled with red, black gums +swung scarlet torches from every bough, wild grape vines festooned +supporting trees with fluttering lace-of-gold, and crimson and bronze +berry-brambles had colored warmly under the first frost kiss. Close to +the little wire gate of the Dingle a tulip tree shook its burnished, +brocaded banners, and in and around its branches coiled a muscadine, +hung with glossy, purplish-black clusters that filled the air with +delicious, challenging fragrance. + +With an unopened roll of newspapers in her hand, Eglah leaned for some +moments on the gate, admiring the superb vestments of yellow and red +that nature hung out to bar the cold--a small cloud island of ruby near +the horizon against which an acacia etched its slender lines, and +listening to the song of a mocking-bird, that rose like a flute above +the whistle of a partridge astray in feathery broom sedge. On the +orchard slope Mrs. Mitchell, basket in hand, groped and peered amid +tufts of golden-rod, hunting a belated brood of young turkeys. Eglah +passed through the gate, went into the mill, and found a seat on one of +the circular grinding stones. The wall had partly fallen on the west +side, and the glow of a sinking sun lighted the dusty, cobwebbed rafters +that upheld what remained of the roof. The chant of a portion of the +stream rolling from mossy rocks to the ruined, sluggish race was low and +soothing as a lullaby. + +It had been a sad day, marking two years since the evening in the +library when Judge Kent had been stricken; the beginning of a slow +death. Dwelling upon the indelible incidents, an acute pain was added to +the chronic ache from which his daughter's heart was never free. While +missing her father sorely in her sorrowful isolation, she realized that +death had come at the behest of mercy. As long as he lived his enemies +could assail him at any moment; now he was comparatively safe under the +snow of his native hills. If it were possible to recall him, she would +not; she preferred to suffer alone that he might rest in peace. Two days +before she had gone for a few hours to Y---- to see in his favorite +church the recently completed tall, arched window, ablaze with rose, +purple, crimson, and emerald glass, erected by her, "To the glory of God +and in memory of Allison Kent." + +Depressed and heartsick, she often sought the solitude of the mill, but +in the grey gloom of the rafters above her head a pair of wrens had +dwelt for several seasons, and now resented her presence, twittering +their protest. Opening the New York and Boston papers, she glanced over +one and laid it aside. Unfolding another, her fingers clutched the +sheet, where headlines had been reprinted from an English journal: + + "RETURN OF THE 'AHVUNGAH.'" + + "After an absence of more than two years, the 'Ahvungah' has + brought back the scientific explorers who, having investigated + the phenomena of Arctic midnights, are glad to return to less + rigorous temperatures. The second winter the vessel, while + frozen in, was lifted upon ice hummocks in Whale Sound. Deeming + the 'Ahvungah' fast until early summer, some of the party, + availing themselves of a continuously shining, two weeks' moon, + and in order to avoid sun glare later in the season, made a + sledging trip inland over the 'Great Ice,'--the _Sermiksoak_, + but the loss of their dogs cut short the journey. During their + absence the floe holding the vessel had been broken from the + shore-ice by some upheaval unusual at that season, and had + drifted many miles. While travelling on the 'ice-foot' to + overtake the 'Ahvungah,' the members of the sledging party + suffered very severely. Only two deaths occurred during the + long voyage; a sailor was drowned in attempting to jump across + a lead that closed suddenly after he fell, and the + meteorologist, Herr Sprotmund, succumbed to heart disease while + climbing a glacier. The 'Ahvungah' touched here only long + enough to land the surgeon, Dr. Klinehurst, and the mail for + America, then went on to The Hague. It was learned from the + surgeon that two gentlemen of the party preferred to remain in + Polar regions at least another year--Professor Roy, the + palaeontologist, and Mr. Herriott, of New York, who is much + interested in ethnography. Having studied the Eskimos of the + Greenland coast, they crossed to the west shore of Smith's + Sound, and will make their way slowly through Ellesmere Land, + hunting traces of an Innuit tribe they believe to be the + descendants of the Onkilon of Siberia. These gentlemen expect + to meet whalers next year somewhere along the west coast, but + should their plan fail, still another winter will imprison + them." + +Until this spasm of pain seized her heart, Eglah had not realized or +acknowledged that she cherished any hope, save that God would preserve +the life of the man who so completely renounced her. If she had vaguely +trusted time might soften and remove his bitterness, she understood at +last the mockery of a delusion that she had unconsciously indulged. +Above the evensong of the rippling water at her feet, rang his +passionate words that last day in the carriage: "I shall try not to come +home." To escape the possibility of proximity to her he had plunged into +unknown wilds, where only the trails of foxes, wolves, bears, could +thread the silent desolation, and at all hazards he would keep the +promise of his farewell note: "Your path in future shall be spared my +shadow." Wandering into the jaws of death, rather than see her again; +for how elusive, how slender, the chances of meeting whalers. As in a +mirage she seemed to see him on the colonnade at Nutwood, as he stood +looking with eloquent, happy eyes at her, assuring her father: "When I +know she is waiting at home for me, do you suppose all the ice in +Greenland can shut me away from her?" And now the Arctic Circle would +hold his chosen grave, because she could never cross it. The mail for +America held no word for her; but doubtless kind messages had come to an +old man whose sunken eyes would shine with delight over tidings from +"the lad." + +To all of us come times when, self-surrendered to depression, some +psychic imp drags from mental oblivion and shakes fiendishly before us +ghoulish images long forgotten; and now, as purplish-grey shadows +gathered in the mill, Eglah saw that vision of "Were-Wolves," the souls +of wretched men fleeing from light, hiding in Polar midnight. + + "Each panter in the darkness + Is a demon-haunted soul, + The shadowy, phantom were-wolves, + Who circle round the Pole. + Their tongues are crimson flaming, + Their haunted blue eyes gleam, + And they strain them to the utmost + O'er frozen lake and stream; + Their cry one note of agony + That is neither yelp nor bark, + These panters of the northern waste + Who hound them to the dark." + +The voice of Mrs. Mitchell calling her name aroused Eglah, and she +staggered to her feet, swaying slightly as from a stinging blow. That +silent, yearning tenderness, to which she had gladly yielded for so many +months, now appeared an insult to her womanly pride. + +Rejected and despised, abandoned forever, made by her husband's +repudiation a target for gossip and harsh comment, why should she love +him? Why, when too hopelessly late, had her heart so unexpectedly +followed him, refusing to relax its quest? + +Gathering the scattered papers, she left the mill and walked toward the +house. As the core of an opal the west showed bands of pearl, beryl, +sapphire, rose, and when twilight stole over hillside and dingle, Venus +glowed in a violet sea, so large, palpitating, brilliant, she seemed a +golden torch flaring in interstellar currents, to light the way of the +thin young moon swimming beneath her. Did both torture the were-wolves? + +At the gate Eliza waited, and putting an arm around the girl drew her +into the hall of the cottage, where a lamp hung from the low ceiling. +Under its light Eglah's face showed white and rigid. + +"Little mother, I must ask you to leave me to myself to-night. This has +been a sad day in many ways. I miss my father, and one trouble of which +I never speak, even to you--the only one who loves me--presses heavily +upon me just now. There are the papers. You will find an account of the +return of the 'Ahvungah,' but Mr. Herriott preferred to remain another +year. Kiss me good-night, and ask God to take me soon, soon--to father." + +The following winter was long and cold, with flurries of snow, and +rattling of sleet, and it proved monotonously dull to the two women shut +in the small house. The rooms were cosey, with curtains falling to the +bright carpets; and roaring fires of oak and pine logs reddened the +walls of the little parlor, where Eglah's upright piano enabled her to +banish, at times, gloomy retrospection. Twice Mr. Whitfield came for a +day and night, and cheered them with news of the outside world. + +When the weather permitted Eliza to attend her Sabbath-school at +Maurice, she occasionally persuaded Eglah to play the organ for the +children, but she was annoyed by no obtrusive attention on the part of +sympathetic country people, whose warm hearts respected the heavy +mourning in which she was wrapped, and recognized her right to complete +seclusion. At college one of her favorite studies had been Spanish, and +without giving an explanation she now applied herself to it with renewed +interest. When Eliza questioned her, she referred vaguely to the liquid +melody that charmed her in Spanish poetry, and expressed a desire to +translate a volume which pleased her. + +No allusion to Mr. Herriott or his home now passed her lips. Mr. +Whitfield's anxiety to understand the perplexing conditions, and Eglah's +unwavering reticence, led him to interrogate Eliza. + +"Mr. Whitfield, I can't tell you what I do not know. Mr. Herriott's name +is never uttered by her, never mentioned now by me. She is so silent she +would certainly forget how to talk if she were not a woman. She intends +to go to Europe, and, as you know, keeps some business matters in +readiness, but no date has been fixed. You will be advised in time to +draw up her will, of which she talked to me about a week ago. The months +come and go, and the dear child is always as you see her, calm, +uncomplaining, with lips locked as a statue's, but I must say I feel all +the time as if I am walking over a grave that may suddenly crumble and +cave in under my feet." + +Returning spring was welcome, and early summer brought once more the +solace and diversion of long rides through solemn, lonely pine +stretches, where only birds, nature's feathered syrinx, sounded in the +silence, happy as human children prattling to their mother. + +A mute acceptance of the inevitable, as far removed from resignation, as +from pleading protest, had sealed Eglah's face in passionless repose, +pathetic and inscrutable. Inflexibly she maintained her resolve, + + "--to fly no signal + That the soul founders in a sea of sorrow," + +and solitude was her refuge. A long delayed monument having been +completed at her father's grave, the desire to visit and inspect it +dominated her, and one hot day the two women went North. To the devoted +child bowed at the feet of a marble angel, the carved lips seemed to +whisper her father's farewell words of commendation and tender gratitude +for her self-sacrifice in his behalf. Did he know now all it had +cost--the branding humiliation, the fierce heart hunger she had found +only when she offered herself on an altar that crumbled beneath her? + +When the slab was covered with white violets, and she had pressed her +lips to the name chiselled on the scroll, she put one hand on Mrs. +Mitchell's shoulder and pointed to a grassy plot at her feet. + +"Little mother, I hope it will not be long before I can shut my tired +eyes forever, and when that happy day comes I want you to bring me here +and lay me close to father, at his left side. One other thing you must +not fail to do; after I am in my coffin be sure you take off my ring--my +wedding ring--and if Mr. Herriott be living give it into his hand. He +has wanted it back since the day he placed it on my finger, and only God +knows how glad I shall be to surrender it. 'So long as ye both shall +live' it is mine, but in the grave God gives us back our vows and sets +us free." + +The cold, hopeless renunciation in face and voice was more than the +loving little woman could endure, and with a burst of tears she threw +her arm about the girl, pressing her to her heart. + +"My baby, have you no mercy for me, that you talk so cruelly? I shall be +asleep by my Robert long before death calls one so young and strong and +beautiful as my own dearie. Please have some consideration for me, and +don't discuss such dreadful matters. I see from your eyes you want a +promise. Well, if I outlive you--preposterous--I will forget nothing, +provided you spare me all heart-sickening talk in future." + +On the return journey Mrs. Mitchell wished to stop in New York, but +Eglah shrank from the possibility of meeting old friends, dreading +questions. As she intended to see her cousin Vernon Temple for a day, +she went on to the hotel in the city near Calvary House, where her +foster-mother joined her after a day's shopping tour in New York. At the +time of Eglah's visit of a few hours here with her father, and while her +cousin was at Nutwood, they had discussed plans for a new altar much +needed in the chapel, and during her residence at the Dingle she had +submitted a design duplicating in many respects a carved and pillared +shrine she and Judge Kent had seen near Avignon. The Father Superior and +her cousin gratefully accepted her offer, and before she started to New +England a letter announced the completion of the altar, and expressed +the hope that she would be able to see it. If Mr. Herriott never +returned, she locked deep in her heart an intention to make it a +memorial to him, the donor of house and estate to the Brotherhood. The +Provencal model was guarded by two seraphs; these she would add later, +if the White North kept the wanderer folded forever to her breast of +snow. + +Of celibate organizations, Romish or Protestant, Mrs. Mitchell +distinctly disapproved, and she had listened with ill-concealed +annoyance and uneasiness when at Nutwood Vernon Temple expatiated upon +the noble work accomplished by Episcopal deaconesses in sisterhood +homes. She had always dreaded his influence over his cousin, especially +since her father's death. Calvary House was as the threshold of Rimmon, +and when the carriage approached it she exclaimed: + +"I have no intention of going inside that monkish den. How a sensible, +level-headed man like Mr. Herriott could give away property for such +fanatical use passes my understanding. I may be an ecclesiastical +ignoramus; I certainly am a 'narrow Methodist'; but, my dear baby, I +can't broaden even to please you, and you must excuse me. I had a +catalogue from the great poultry farm that I hear is only a mile or two +farther out on this road, and while you see your cousin and examine the +things you gave the chapel, I will drive on and order some white +guineas. Here, don't forget your box of embroideries. I shall wait at +the gate for you." + +The bell on the latch rang as Eglah passed under the gilt cross, and at +the front door the porter, a young lay brother, looked at her in +amazement. + +"I wish to see Father Temple. I am his cousin, Eglah Kent." + +"He is not here. He went to Philadelphia yesterday." + +"Then tell the Father Superior--he knows me--that the lady who gave the +new altar wishes to speak to him about it." + +"Father Superior is holding a mission in New York." + +"Where is the sacristan?" + +"'Free time' has just begun, and he has gone to look after his beehives. +I can call Father Phillips." + +"No. I do not care to meet any of the Brotherhood who do not know me. I +was here once with my father, and Father Temple has visited my house in +the South. I came merely to look at the new altar, and bring some fresh +covers to the sacristan. Do not disturb any one; this is 'free time,' +and I must not keep you. Please say nothing about me now. I shall go +into the chapel--I know the way--and then return to my carriage." + +He opened the nearest door of the chapel, bowed, and disappeared. + +Before the carved panel in the centre of the altar she stood some +moments, rejoicing that the sculptor had succeeded so well in +reproducing the cherub heads running as a frieze between the columns. +From the box she shook out two pulpit-falls, one embroidered with iris, +one with passion flowers; then a chalice veil of shimmering white silk +marked with a Greek cross. Beneath these lay a long altar cover of snowy +linen cambric, "the fair linen cloth," studded with crosses along the +centre, and bordered with annunciation lilies. + +She smoothed and arranged it on the polished surface of the shrine, +while a vision of an added seraph, standing _in memoriam_ at each end, +shone before her. She recalled Tennyson's inscription in Westminster +Abbey, where one wife, widowed by Polar perils, had set her tribute of +love. To her the sympathy of the world went out, and the nations, +sharing her long search, shared her sorrow. + +Misunderstood and censured, Eglah bore her burden alone, and now, +sinking to her knees, with her forehead pressed against the marble, she +prayed that the wanderer in desolate lands might be guarded from every +ill and brought safely home. Prayer always deepened her impression that +he would return, and as she rose and loitered a moment in admiration of +the chiselled stone, her sad lips whispered to her lonely heart: + + "He will come,-- + Ay, he will come! I can not make him dead." + +Suddenly her heart leaped, then seemed to forget to beat. A voice rich, +mellow, unmistakable, came from the arched gallery beyond the little +oratory opening into the chapel: + +"Roy, you are no baby, and my singing days are over." + +A feeble, nervous tone answered: + +"Herriott, you sang life into me that awful night after you carried me +in your arms behind a snow drift, rubbed my frozen hands, and tied our +last dog to my legs to keep me warm. 'It shall be light, it shall be +light!' How the song soared and echoed in the terrible silence of the +ice desert, as if spirits of the snow caught up the refrain! Do you +remember that ghastly red thread of a moon on the glacial line above us, +like a swooping bloody sickle? Even in my blindness that infernal moon +haunts me still. Just then, as the echo died, out of the blackness, as +if an answer to a prophet's prayer, the swift glory of the aurora swept +down and enveloped us. You saved my life, and before you leave me here I +should like to hear that song once more. I suppose I am childish yet, +but in my blindness you might humor me. Who wrote that song?" + +"You are such a hopeless pagan you do not recognize the Bible? It is an +arrangement of two verses in the Old Testament: 'And it shall come to +pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear. But it shall come +to pass that at evening time it shall be light.' When I was attending +lectures in Germany, one of the professors set the words to the tune of +an old Latin hymn, and the students began to chant it. That night when I +was obliged to keep you awake, it occurred to me. Roy, I can't humor you +now, but I intend to take you and an old man at home down to Arizona to +thaw the Arctic poison out of you. When we are stretched on a sunny mesa +where the air quivers with heat, if you feel the need of more light, I +promise to chant your song. I am not willing to abandon the goal that we +were so near. If you had not broken down, we should have found those +stone ruins with the inscriptions, and I intend to see them. After a +while I shall fit out an expedition to suit myself, and if you can get +rid of your horror of that baby moon that in your delirium you swore was +a bloody scythe coming to cut your throat, I hope to number you among my +impedimenta." + +The purple curtain, caught back only during service, hung over the arch; +but at one side a narrow aperture, close to the gilt organ pipe in the +oratory, admitted outside light. + +Irresistibly drawn by the voice that set her pulses surging, Eglah had +gone to the arch, and grasping the velvet folds looked cautiously +through the cleft between organ and curtain, across the small oratory +and down the cloister. On a cot lay an emaciated man whose eyes were +bandaged. By his side and fronting the oratory stood Mr. Herriott, his +hands in his pockets. + +He looked taller, rather gaunt, somewhat bleached in complexion, and the +absence of mustache showed the fine curves of his peculiarly firm, thin +lips. His eyes were lowered to the sick man's countenance, and the thick +black lashes veiled their grey-blue depths, but over the handsome face +had come a subtle change, etched by corroding memories. It was graver, +colder, less magnetic. + +As Eglah watched him her breath fluttered; involuntarily she stretched +her arms an instant toward him, and her eyes lighted with a tender glow. +"My own Mr. Noel. My own!" was the unspoken claim of her heart, +momentarily happy at sight of him. Then Mr. Herriott put his fingers +over his friend's pulse. + +"Vernon promised to get back to-morrow, and the oculist will look after +you until I can go home and see about my neglected household. In order +to avoid press publicity and inevitable interviewing, I am keeping my +return secret for a few days; and, clean-shaven and goggle-eyed, hope to +reach my house unrecognized, where I can smooth out the tangles that +years of absence tie. Later, business will force me to New York, and I +shall be glad of a glimpse of my old club life, but meanwhile you will +not be forgotten. Now, Roy, you must come in. One of the lay brothers +will help me lift your cot." + +As he advanced toward the steps near the end of the cloister, Eglah +covered her face with her heavy veil, and went swiftly through a side +door of the chapel, down the gladiolus-bordered walk to the gate, where +the carriage waited. As she sank back in one corner, keeping her +features veiled, Mrs. Mitchell laid a hand on her knee. + +"Well? Are you satisfied, and did the altar cloths fit? Did you find +what you expected?" + +She did not answer immediately, and when she spoke her voice quivered +through the effort to strangle a dry sob. + +"I found far more than I expected, and the altar is lovely. Everything I +could possibly do that would have pleased father I have done. My father, +my father, have I spared even myself! Memorial window, monument, the +altar here, all are finished, and now nothing remains for my empty +hands. My dear little mother, you are so good to me; you promised you +would go abroad when I felt it best to start. At last the time has come, +and I wish to leave America within the next week if possible." + +After a moment a long, shuddering sigh made her voice unsteady. + +"I have just seen Mr. Herriott--safe, strong, and well. He will never +know I was so near; he could not see me. Accidentally I heard his voice, +and looked through a curtain, and----" + +Mrs. Mitchell had drawn her into her arms, but the black crepe was held +over her face. + +"The public will be kept in ignorance of his return for a few days, and +before his arrival is announced and people begin to question and +speculate, I must be on the ocean. I was so close to him--so close--and +yet----" + +A wave of tenderness drowned words. + +"Oh, my baby! Why did you not speak to your husband?" + +After a struggle for composure she answered, with a cold, rising ring in +her tone: + +"He does not consider himself my husband. More than three years ago he +willed we should be strangers. He built the wall of separation, of +absolute silence between us, and no word, no sign from me shall ever +cross it. He is within his rights. I dispute nothing. I claim only the +privilege of helping him in his effort to avoid me, and I must have the +ocean between us. He will breathe freely when he feels sure that by no +possible accident the sight of my face can ever again affront him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + + + "Willow Creek Plantation, + + "Wednesday. + + "Mr. Herriott. + + "Dear Sir: Permit me to say at the outset that these lines are + intended solely for your eyes, and I beg you will regard them + as strictly confidential. If I were not so sure you are an + honorable gentleman, they would never be written. On the 18th + my foster-child and I expect to leave my little home at Willow + Bend, where we have lived since her father's death. By her + desire we go to Europe, and, as we shall remain there + indefinitely, I should like to talk with you of some matters + that concern you--matters I am unwilling to mention unless we + are face to face. The railway station Maurice is near me, but + if you do me the favor to grant my request, it would be better + for you to avoid Y---- and come directly to Sunflower, ten + miles north of Maurice. If you can be at Sunflower on the 17th, + I will meet you there when the one o'clock train arrives. + Unless you come that day, it would be too late. You will see no + one but me, and no one must ever be told I went to Sunflower, + or saw you. My child is absent in Y----, and will not return + until night of the 17th, when I meet her at Maurice. Do not + write me. Do not telegraph me. I scarcely allow myself to hope + that you will come, and if I do not see you I shall regret it + for many reasons. If I fail in my conscientious effort to right + a great wrong, it will not be my fault. + + "Very respectfully, + + "ELIZA MITCHELL." + +Allowing two days' margin for accidental delays, Eliza indulged no doubt +that this letter would reach its destination in ample time to enable Mr. +Herriott to keep the appointment, should he consent to meet her, and, +after putting on a special delivery stamp, she mailed it at Maurice with +her own hand. + +The probability of a change of residence had been so fully discussed +that preliminary arrangements had long been made; but the early date, +suddenly fixed, necessitated great activity to insure readiness for +departure. + +Eglah's calm, listless indifference had given place to feverish +impatience in expediting all preparations incident to the journey, and +the perplexed and anxious little woman who watched her movements was +rejoiced when business of importance called her to Y----, where Mr. +Whitfield was confined by gout to his room. Since the day at Calvary +House, Eliza had observed a marked change in Eglah; the wistful, +hopeless expression had vanished, and proud defiance settled on her +face. While tortured by suspense, she had yielded to the tender yearning +of her heart; but the sight of Mr. Herriott, safe, well, and strong, +contentedly planning a future in which he assigned no niche to her, +stung her womanly pride, intensified her longing to evade forever the +possibility of meeting the man who had so completely ignored and +repudiated her. + +Some delay in the preparation of papers Mr. Whitfield required her to +sign kept her in Y---- longer than she had intended. He very carefully +wrote her will, in which, following the trend of her grandmother's +sympathies, she bequeathed Nutwood and adjoining lands as a Maurice Home +"to childless widows of Confederate soldiers in the State." To Vivian +and Maurice relatives of her own mother, who refused association with +Marcia after her marriage, and whom Eglah had always avoided, she gave +one plantation--Canebrake. To Mrs. Mitchell Willow Creek Bend was left, +in grateful recognition of her loving care; and all personal property, +stocks, and bonds were devised to the vestry of her father's church, for +the erection and maintenance of a memorial Chapter House. + +Business concluded, she telegraphed that on the 17th, at eight P.M., she +would reach Maurice, and wished Mrs. Mitchell to meet her with the trap. + +At nine o'clock on the morning of the 17th, the overseer's wife, +desiring to avoid the passenger train, went in the caboose of a local +freight to Sunflower. It was an "excursion" day in honor of the opening +of a Masonic hall just completed, and many strangers strolled about the +village awaiting the hour fixed for the dedication ceremonies. At one +o'clock, when the fast southbound train paused long enough to deliver +the mail-bag, Eliza stood on the little platform, watching the line of +dusty cars. As a tall figure, valise in hand, stepped from the Pullman +sleeper, she did not promptly recognize the clean-shaven face, wearing +grey goggles. Handing his valise to a negro porter sitting on the +baggage truck, he glanced about him, and approached the little woman, +who was trembling with suspense. + +"How are you, Mrs. Mitchell?" + +He held out his hand. + +"Oh, Mr. Herriott! I was not sure it was you. Thank God! I was so afraid +you would not come." + +He took off the goggles and dropped them in his coat pocket. + +"I dare say these glasses partly disguise, but snow-blindness left my +eyes rather sensitive, and I wore them as guard against railroad dust." + +"Come with me, Mr. Herriott. This little place is full of strangers +to-day on account of a Masonic meeting, but there is a quiet spot in the +grove yonder, where a recent picnic party left some benches." + +In silence they reached the grove of old red oaks, and Eliza sat down on +a rough, board seat; but he declined to share it, and stood before her, +his eyes an interrogation. + +"Mr. Herriott, I asked you to come here because you are pursuing a +course I think you would abandon if you knew some facts that only I can +give you. But first, I want your promise that no matter what the future +holds, you will never let Eglah know or suspect that I wrote you, came +here, or saw you. If she found it out she would never forgive me; she +would desert me, and I am running a great risk. Give me your word of +honor to keep this meeting always strictly confidential. If you promise, +I shall feel easy." + +"I promise. You may trust me." + +"Thank you, sir. Before I say more, will you tell me if you still love +your wife?" + +His face hardened and his eyes narrowed. + +"Pardon me, madam. I did not come here to be catechised." + +"If you have ceased to love her, then I should betray a holy trust by +lifting a very sacred veil. I can speak freely only to a man who loves +her as she deserves--and as I have always believed you did. If you no +longer love her, I have come on worse than a fool's errand." + +There was a brief silence, and hot tears ran over the little woman's +cheeks. + +"And if I love her still? Go on, go on." + +"Then why are you breaking her dear heart?" + +"Madam, her heart has never been in my keeping. You must know that for +years I made every effort to win it, and failing, I abandoned the hope. +Our merely nominal relation was dissolved by mutual consent, and I gave +her entire freedom before I started North. I have never been close +enough to her heart to wound it." + +"Please, Mr. Herriott, listen to me patiently. I must go back so far. +She did not love you when she married you. Why she so suddenly took that +awful step I don't know. She refused to explain. I believed that her +father had persuaded her, but she assured me he had no knowledge of her +intention until after she had voluntarily made her decision, and she is +absolutely truthful. She is reticent and proud, but of false statements +she is incapable. She has never confided the motive of her rash marriage +to me, and what she is unwilling to have me know, nobody else can ever +tell me. Better than any one living I understand her, and when she came +back with her father from Greyledge I saw a great change in her; she was +not the indifferent girl whom you had taken away. The estrangement +between Judge Kent and herself had ended, and she rejoiced in the +cordial reconciliation, but some sad mystery in the background +overshadowed her and puzzled me. The day she received that express +package from you she suddenly seemed to go frantic, and her distress was +so overwhelming I was frightened. Never before or since has she shown +such passionate grief. She told me she had wronged, wounded you, and +that you would never forgive her. How she wronged you she would not +explain, and I don't know any more now than I did then. But she insisted +again and again that you were not to blame--that it was entirely her +fault, and she must bear the sorrow she had brought upon herself. She +wrung her hands and begged me to pray she might die before you came back +and rejected her. When I tried to comfort her, and asked why you should +do such a cruel, unjust thing, she wailed: 'You loved your husband; if +you had wounded him past pardon, could you bear to talk about it? Don't +question me. Think of your Robert, and try to realize how I feel.' All +that night she walked the floor of her room, and next morning she looked +years older--so white, so silent, as if gazing down into a grave. Since +then she has never been the same Eglah. Something in your last message, +which I did not see, slew her peace of mind for all time. She shut +herself away from society, lived exclusively with her father and with +me. When Judge Kent died I dreaded a total collapse in the child who had +worshipped him from her babyhood; but she bore the awful strain +silently, calmly, surprisingly. Mr. Whitfield put his arm around her +shoulder as she stood by the coffin, and, with tears in his eyes, the +old man praised her devotion and her bravery. She looked up at him with +a strange smile on her bloodless lips. + +"'One can suffer only so much, then numbness comes. After the misery of +many months a last blow does not crush. The petrified are not always +where they belong--in the grave.' + +"After the funeral she closed Nutwood, moved her books, piano, and +horses down to my little cottage in the heart of the pine woods, denied +herself to every one, and there we have lived in strict seclusion. +Day and night she pored over books of Arctic travel, and on the walls of +her room she had maps and charts, and what she called her 'comfort +calendar,' that she patched together from almanacs, to mark what time +day and night began near the Pole and when the new moons were due. It +made my heart ache to see her face each day as she searched the papers +for some news of you. At last she ceased to expect any, and your name +was not mentioned. Mr. Herriott, do you recollect your striped silk +smoking-jacket, with pink poppies embroidered on collar and cuffs and +down the front?" + +"Yes. I had such a jacket." + +"One sultry summer night, about one o'clock, I went on tiptoe into +Eglah's room to get a vial of medicine that was kept in a closet there, +and, as she slept poorly, I tried not to disturb her. Her window was +open, the curtains looped back, and a full moon shone in. She was +sitting up in bed, with her face buried in some bright wrapping, and a +sort of strangled moan came from her. I went to the bed and asked what +the trouble was. Had she neuralgia in her face, that she was muffling it +on such a hot night? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have heard the +quiver in her voice! + +"'No, no. Heartache--heartache only the grave can ease.' + +"Next day, while she was away, I searched for that striped thing which I +had never seen before. She kept it in a long, satin-lined, sandalwood +case, among her perfumed laces, and when I examined it I found a +smoking-jacket, with a dog whistle in one pocket, and in the other a +handkerchief marked 'Herriott.' I----" + +Mr. Herriott had walked away, and after several moments recalled the +search for the missing jacket on the day of his departure, and the pride +with which Amos only three nights ago, had shown him a warm, quilted +cashmere gown "the madam" had sent him because the jacket left for him +had never been found. When he came back to the seat, he stood with his +face turned from her, and she could see only his profile. + +"Sir, if you don't hear me out, you can't understand why I came. Eglah +would sit for hours, a book before her, her hands folded in a way +peculiar to her--her wedding ring against her lips--so silent, so still, +she seemed a stone; but she roused to a manifestation of interest when +we heard your old gardener was ill and needed attention. While we were +at your house she seemed more like herself than at any time since that +express package reached her; but a deep undercurrent of sorrow she could +not hide. Over the house and grounds she wandered continually, and that +long lake beach was her favorite walk. Every evening she shut herself in +one of the rooms downstairs--I think it was your smoking-room--and the +last night we were there she spent locked in that room. She sent for a +photographer from the city and had copies taken of your mother's +portrait and of yours--that one hanging next to your father's in the +drawing-room. To-day on her dressing-table stand two pictures of you and +one she insists resembles you--the photograph of a French poet she saw +once in Arles. She thinks the brow and eyes and nose are yours, and, +though she does not like the lower portion of the face, she had the +photograph enlarged and framed. I could not keep my tears back when, +leaning from the carriage, she took her last look at your home. There +was such a world of suffering in her sad eyes, and her dear lips and +chin trembled like a little child's. + +"'Being here is next best to seeing the master. I can never come again. +When he returns I must be in Europe, out of his way.'" + +Mr. Herriott turned suddenly and looked down steadily at his companion. + +"Pardon me, Mrs. Mitchell. You prefer to stay at home? You do not wish +to go abroad?" + +His keen eyes searched hers, and their flash answered him. + +"Whatever the child thinks is best for her peace I want above everything +else; and I am ready and willing to go with her to Europe, Africa, the +Fiji Islands--to the ends of the earth. I do love my little home, still +more my husband's grave, almost in sight of it; I love my cows and my +chickens; but first and last, and better than all, I love my baby, who +came to my arms when she was three hours old, and who now, in turning +her back upon an unjust world, clings only to me. I never took an oath +before God that I would 'for better, for worse, love and cherish her +till death,' but I rather think my love will abide, will stand all tests +and trials that have crumbled some other vows she once trusted." + +After a moment she added: + +"Perhaps I have already said too much, and you may not care to hear +more." + +"Madam, I wish you to tell me everything you think it best I should +know. I am here for that purpose, at your request." + +"Eglah was terribly hurt to find Amos had heard twice from you while, +consumed with suspense, she had received not even a line. After we went +home she grew more and more restless, but I noticed she carefully +avoided any allusion to you. One night I heard her moving about, and +then she left her room. It is a lonely little place where we live, +rather unprotected, and the servants--man and wife--do not wake easily. +Eglah had a way of walking about the gallery and yard when she could not +sleep that made me uneasy. I went out to expostulate, and found her +sitting on the steps in the moonlight with that jacket of yours in her +arms. I sat down and took her hand. In a horrible dream, she had seen +you lying dead between two blue slabs of ice, a white owl on your +breast, and she was hugging and stroking that striped silk as only those +who love can caress the garments of lost darlings. You know she very +rarely cries. In all her life I never saw tears on her face more than +three or four times. I tried to soothe her, and said that full moon +overhead was making the Pole itself bright. She turned suddenly to me, +the tears dripping, and, oh, if I could give you the heartbroken tone in +which she said: + + 'The broad noonday was night to me, + The full-moon night was dark to me, + The stars whirled and the poles span + The hour God took him far from me.' + +"After that night she guarded herself more closely against any +expression of feeling, and carefully abstained from all reference to you +until the evening she learned from a Boston paper that your vessel had +returned to Europe, and you had preferred to stay in Arctic regions. My +poor baby! She looked so white, so stunned, as if some one had struck +her a heavy blow." + +Eliza sobbed and her tears streamed. + +"Mr. Herriott, she felt assured you would not come home because you +feared you might meet her, and then she asked me to keep my promise and +go with her to Europe as soon as some stone-cutting designs could be +filled. She waited only to see three memorials completed. From the day +she learned the 'Ahvungah' had returned, I saw a bitter, resentful +element beginning to invade what had been only regretful tenderness, and +her lips were locked. The window in the Episcopal Church at Y---- was +placed, and soon after we went North to see the monument ordered for her +father's grave. I dreaded she would break down there, but she was as +quiet as the marble angel of the Resurrection standing on the slab. She +showed me where she wished her body laid, close to her father's, and +then she asked me to be sure--after she was safe in her coffin--to take +off her wedding ring and send it to you, because you had wanted it back +from the day you gave it to her. She refused to stop in New York, +fearing some of her friends or yours might see and question her. Any +allusion to her marriage was as the touch of red-hot irons. On our way +home she went one afternoon to Calvary House to see her cousin +Temple--the priest--and look at an altar she had given him. I waited +outside in the carriage, and she joined me, holding her thick mourning +veil over her face. As she and her father designed this altar after one +they had seen somewhere abroad, I thought her silence and evident +distress resulted from its association with him. After a while she said, +in a strange, muffled way, that she had done everything she was sure her +father would like if he could speak to her, and now her hands were +empty, and she wished to sail for Europe at the earliest possible +date--probably within a week. As she leaned against me, and I held her +hand, I felt her shiver. Then she told me she had just seen you at +Calvary House, strong and well, and she must leave America at once." + +"She saw me! When?" + +Mr. Herriott had grown very pale. + +"A week ago yesterday. She said you had brought some sick, blind man +there, and you were going home. I asked her why she did not speak to +you, and she answered that three years ago you had willed you and she +should be strangers; you had built a wall of silence, and no word, no +sign from her should ever break it. Unobserved by you, she had seen you +in the cloister, heard you talking of your plans for future travel, and, +fearing discovery, she had hurried from the chapel. Since then every +nerve has been strained to get away." + +Mr. Herriott walked a few yards, put on his glasses, and stood for some +time with his hands behind him. A sad, perplexed face met Eliza's eager +eyes when he came back, and for the first time seated himself beside +her. + +"To what portion of Europe are you going?" + +"To Spain; to a quiet little place hidden away in the Pyrenees, where +she hopes she will meet no one who ever heard of her, and where, having +nothing to remind her of three horrible years, she can try to forget her +suffering. To avoid all acquaintances, she will not sail from New York, +but goes directly to Charleston, and thence to Havana, where she can +take a steamer to Spain. I think, sir, no one can understand her +terrible humiliation in being rejected. While you were away, surrounded +by dangers, and she was on the rack of suspense, tortured almost beyond +endurance, only deep and tender love filled her heart. Since she has +seen you safe and well--yet no word of remembrance has been sent to +her--wounded pride possesses her, and she seems indeed petrified. Even +now she maintains with strange composure: 'He is within his rights; he +is not to blame. It was all my fault. I made the mistake of presuming +too far on his love, which was less than I counted on, and I deserve my +punishment; but sometimes I think God, who saw my heart and knew I did +not intend any wrong, might have spared me some of the bitter dregs I +have had to drink.' With all her pride, she is acutely sensitive to +adverse gossip. From childhood she has borne so much on account of her +father's unpopularity in the State, and people do not understand her. In +Washington her loyalty to the South and to the Maurices subjected her to +sneers and much unpleasantness. Her sudden marriage and subsequent +events, especially her coming home before you sailed, have caused +annoying comment, and now she is hurrying through Y----, anxious to get +away before the fact of your return is known there. She does not suspect +the opposition manifested by some of the vestrymen to that memorial +window. Only the pleadings of the rector and the influence of Mr. +Whitfield, who is not an Episcopalian and who had no cause to like Judge +Kent, availed to smother the objections to its erection. This +mortification we have managed to save her. Now, sir, you will please +pardon me if I speak very frankly. What passed between you and Eglah +after your marriage I do not know, nor did Judge Kent. Her lips have +been sealed, but I have often thought the estrangement arose from your +discovery of the fact that she did not love you as she should have done +before she married you, and therefore I have come here to try to save +you both from making shipwreck of your lives. If that was the cause of +the trouble, it exists no longer. She loves you now as devotedly as even +you could wish." + +He shook his head and swept his hand across his face. + +"Madam, she pities me, she deplores my disappointment; perhaps she +censures herself unduly, but love! She knows no more of love than a baby +in its cradle. She never will. She is absolutely incapable of loving any +man. Too many have tried zealously to touch her heart, and failed as +signally as I certainly did." + +Mrs. Mitchell's black eyes sparkled through her tears. + +"Mr. Herriott, since she was three hours old she has been my child. I +know her as well as I know myself. I am a woman; I loved my husband +better than my life, and when I see genuine, loyal, tender love in a +wife I know it as surely as you know where the sun rises. My baby did +not love you when she took her marriage vows, but you were deep in her +heart when she came home; and her love has grown until it is now so +strong it is a slow torture, from which she would gladly escape if she +could. Do you suppose a woman proud, reserved, cold as Eglah is would +treasure and caress, and sleep with her cheek on a man's faded old +smoking-jacket if she did not tenderly love the wearer whose touch had +made it sacred? Oh, Mr. Herriott, if you could have seen her all these +years--her patient, hopeless face! If you could realize the life she +leads in the overseer's house and contrast it with that brilliant past +when you saw her admired and sought in New York--even in London--you +might perhaps understand how changed she is. I longed for you to know +that your wife's heart is wholly yours, because I have believed you +would always love her. If she ever suspects I have told you her secret +she will never forgive--she will disown me. You must not cause me to +lose my child. Just now she is sorely mortified and resentful, but----" + +Eliza paused and looked at the man beside her, but she could not see his +eyes. + +"Please do me the kindness to finish your sentence." + +"But if you could meet her and----" + +Again she hesitated, discouraged by the expression settling around his +mouth. + +"In consequence of a voluntary pledge on my part, I could not now +intrude upon her." + +"If you called and asked to see her, I am sure she would decline to +receive you; but if you really desire to see her before she sails, it +could be arranged without her knowledge or co-operation. We go from +Maurice to-morrow night at eight o'clock and pass through Y---- without +stopping. Eglah comes from Y---- at eight to-night. To-morrow she will +be at my house all day until four o'clock, when she goes over to the +Willow Bend plantation to say good-bye to the Boyntons and negro +tenants, and also the tenants and field hands from Canebrake plantation, +whom Mr. Boynton will have present. Eglah usually takes a book and +spends the morning under the trees in my front yard, or in the old mill, +where she often sits for hours. If you merely want to see your wife +again before she passes forever out of your life you can easily do so +from the shelter of my butter-bean arbor, which is near the trees, and +she will never know it. If you care to speak to her, you may be sure of +no interruption. Mr. Herriott, God took my husband, but I could not have +borne my loss if my Robert had voluntarily taken himself from me. My +heart aches for Eglah. She is indeed my all in this world, and I have +risked a great deal to put you in possession of the truth. She loves you +as earnestly and tenderly as you could wish, but it remains for you to +make her admit it--to compel her to confession. Her pride has been so +sorely wounded she would die sooner than move one inch toward +reconciliation." + +She looked at her watch and rose. + +"My train will soon be due." + +As they walked toward the small station-house, Mr. Herriott held out his +hand. + +"Whatever the future may hold, I shall always thank you inexpressibly +for the confidence, the sacred trust you have reposed in me, and I will +never betray it. I doubt the wisdom of seeing Eglah. I know only too +well the difference between true love and that regretful compassion her +kind heart indulges. There are reasons that make me unwilling to violate +my own pledge to her, but if I should decide to go to your house, will +you direct me how to find it?" + +"You can drive to Maurice, ten miles south, or take the night train, +which will not stop here unless it is flagged. Once at Maurice, any one +will show you Willow Bend road. When you pass the plantation, which is +quite a settlement, cross the bridge, turn to the right, and you will +soon see an old red mill in front of my gate. Here comes my train." + +"No, madam; not your train. That is only a freight-engine and gravel +cars." + +"I came on it, and I go back the same way. For many reasons I prefer to +keep this trip as secret as possible, at least until after to-morrow, +when we leave home; so I avoided the passenger train that brought up +some Maurice Masons. The smaller the place, the wider the eyes, the +keener the ears, and the more nimble the tongues that dwell there. Rufus +Boling, the conductor yonder, expects to marry my favorite Sunday-school +pupil, Minna Gaines, to-morrow night, and I have done all I could for +the child's wedding. Consequently, though the railroad officials grumble +and forbid, he consented to let me ride in the caboose, provided I would +not sit at the window, and promised not to sue for damages if I lost a +limb or an eye on the trip. Are you ready, Rufus? Good-bye, Mr. +Herriott. I have done my best for my child and for you. God help you +both!" + +He took her hand and pressed it cordially. + +"In any event, you may rest assured I never shall cease to thank you for +your effort; and life will always be sweeter because of some facts you +have given me." + +He assisted her into the close, smoky caboose, lifted his hat and, as +the engine pulled slowly out, he took off his glasses and walked back to +the red-oak grove. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + + +It was a cloudless, warm day when Mr. Herriott crossed the bridge, and +walked up the road bordering a creek hidden by its vivid fringe of +willows. At the ruined mill he paused; here the sandy road ended. Beyond +on an upland towered a pine forest, its organ pipes whispering as the +south wind touched the tremolo; in front nestled the small, white house, +partly veiled by rose and yellow jasmine vines, and all the little +hollow was brimmed with cool, green shadows cast by trees across +clustering flower beds. A blended perfume distilled by dew from Herse's +crystal fingers hovered over the Dingle, the cold, unctuous odor of +tuberoses, the warm spice of carnations, and that clinging breath of wan +lilies that evokes white faces and folded fingers of the dead, but +stronger than all, the fragrance of wild grapes in creamy bloom. More +than cloistral quiet reigned; only the rippling monody of water feeling +its way over the crumbling dam to the far-off sea, and the tinkle of the +spring runnel sounding low, clear, elfish, as if some Malis or +"April-eyed Nycheia" smote her tambourine and set silver bells ringing. +Once from the green silken tent of willows a shy lark, hermit of dells, +thrilled the silence with his resonant, sylvan roulade, and a locust +under beech boughs answered, clashing his brazen sistrum. + +The blinds and windows at the front of the cottage were open, and white +muslin curtains stirred now and then, as the breeze swayed them. Pots of +flowering geranium and heliotrope were grouped on the piazza, and among +them slept Delilah. As Mr. Herriott looked at the humble nest of a home, +and thought of stately Nutwood, of gilded ballrooms where Eglah had +reigned an acknowledged beauty, he began to realize the monotony, the +dreary loneliness of life here in the heart of almost primeval forests. +She had elected to shut herself far away from the brilliant circle of +former days, but he could not believe it was for his sake; grief for her +father had made her a recluse. + +The dazzling possibility with which Mrs. Mitchell enticed him, he had +put aside as a delusion he could not indulge a second time, for behind +it was the biting mockery with which he had once grappled. His nominal +wife had led the life of a nun during his absence, but loyalty was far +removed from love, and the steps of an altar suited her nature better +than a husband's arms. For many hours he had fought the hope that would +smile out of the folds of his old jacket, but the intense longing to see +her again conquered reason, prudence, consistent adherence to the line +of action he had voluntarily prescribed for both. He would secrete +himself, and merely look once more at the face he had striven +ineffectually to forget, and she should never suspect his presence. + +At a little distance was the gate of the low wire fence, but he stepped +across the wire, and passed through the open door of the dairy to a tall +tulip tree, around the body of which coiled the brown serpent of the +muscadine. Very near this tree, now all aglow with its orange-spotted +cups, stood--on the edge of a verbena bed--an ancient mimosa in full +bloom. Years before, an August gale had pollarded it, and lateral +branches drooped almost to the ground, except on one side, where they +were cut away to frame an arch, and this entrance showed a wooden bench +set against the trunk of the tree. To-day it resembled a huge Japanese +umbrella of olive-green lace thickly studded with pink silk aigrettes +that shook out waves of sweetness, mellow, fruity, languorous. Looking +around for the best coign of vantage, Mr. Herriott noticed the narrow +arbor covered by a thick growth of butter-bean vines, where he stood +secure from observation. On the ground, only five yards distant, lay a +woman's broad black straw hat tied basket-fashion with its ribbon +strings, and filled with spikes of tuberoses. By cautious pressure of +the bean vines he could see very distinctly the front of the house and +the mimosa seat. + +With his head on his hand and a throbbing of his heart that defied +control, he waited, his eyes on the hat, he never knew how long, until a +sudden thrill shook him. + +From an invisible corner of the garden, Eglah came slowly toward the +arbor. Her mourning gown of lustreless, thin black silk fitted perfectly +the curves of her finely moulded figure, and at her throat she had +fastened a spray of white star jasmine. High on her head the glossy, +gold-flecked chestnut hair was piled in soft loose coils and puffs that +caught the sunshine as she walked, holding in the clasp of one arm a +sheaf of long-stemmed lilies. Advancing until she reached the hat, she +leaned down, swung the knotted ribbons over her right wrist, and stood a +moment listening to the peaceful woodland message of the lark. Three +years had wrought a marvellous change. The rich promise of her youth had +expanded into an almost flawless loveliness. A certain girlish slimness +had given place to the fuller, rounded lines of graceful, perfect +womanhood, and over the pathetic, pale face had settled a passionless +repose that comes only when hope is dead, and silent pride sits on its +tombstone. As she held the lilies with her left arm, the hand gleamed +white against the folds of her black dress, and the wedding ring +flashed. Her cold, exquisite purity matched that of a Roman vestal on +her way to shrines, but her large brown eyes, looking far away, were so +darkened by shadows of mournful memory, of helpless yet uncomplaining +renunciation, that Mr. Herriott could not endure the sight. He threw his +hand across his face, and strangled the impulse to spring to her side, +to catch her in his arms. When he looked again, she had walked away +toward the house. + +With a book in her hand, Mrs. Mitchell ran down the steps. + +"I am waiting for the flowers, before I close the box for the little +bride. These lilies are just what she needs for the altar. Give them to +me." + +Then a low, sweet, sad voice swept the heartstrings of the man who +watched and listened. + +"Do not forget to send my present. I put my card inside the case. Dear +little Minna, I hope she may be happy. If her husband really loves her, +she enters her heaven; but if not, the poor little thing will soon wish +the burial instead of marriage service had been read over her to-night. +I trust the child may never find out that a tolling bell is sweeter than +a wedding peal. You found my Baedeker?" + +"Yes, in the mill where you left it a week ago." + +"I must look out one or two points in it, and the air is so deliciously +sweet I think I shall stay a while in the garden on this last Dingle +day, unless you need me to help you." + +"There is nothing for you to do inside; everything is ready." + +"Ma-Lila, you have been crying! What makes you so nervous? You are +trembling." + +"Oh, I feel upset! Leaving Robert's lonely grave, and all." + +The girl stooped, and kissed her cheek. + +"It seems very selfish to ask you to leave a place so dear to you; but I +hope God will begin to pity me at last, and call me soon where I shall +trouble no one any more. Then----" + +Mrs. Mitchell laid the lilies on her lips to close them. + +"Hush, my baby--hush! I am screwed up now like a frazzled fiddle-string, +and if you give another twist I shall just go to pieces." + +Taking the flower-laden hat, she placed it with the lilies on the step, +and turned toward the dairy. + +Baedeker in hand, Eglah moved away, but as she neared the arbor she +looked back over her shoulder and called: + +"Little mother, when Dorcas brings the clothes she kept to flute, please +call me. I ought to finish packing my trunk by one o'clock. Mr. Boynton +says the baggage should be at the station not later than five o'clock, +and you know we have to shake hands with all the plantation folks at +four. Where are you going?" + +"Only to the spring house for the cream I promised Minna for +charlotte-russe. I set the jug there to cool." + +"Let me bring it. You will wear yourself out." + +"As if you knew morning's cream from that two days old! Go read your +book." + +She sped toward the dairy like a running bird and though she did not +turn her head, the black eyes were busy. In the shelter of the spring +house she fell on her knees beside pans and bowls and with streaming +eyes prayed that after the battle perpetual peace might come. + +Under the canopy of the mimosa Eglah passed, seated herself on the +bench, and opened the Baedeker. Through the lace meshes of the foliage +filtered sunshine, dappling her mourning gown with gold, quivering in +the waves of her hair, and after a while she pushed the book aside, laid +her head back against the trunk of the tree, and her long, silky lashes +touched her cheeks. + +Mr. Herriott's glowing, hungry eyes watched every movement, noted the +outline of the full white throat, the listless drooping of the hands at +her side, the sad, proud curve of sensitive lips closed on ceaseless +pain that no complaint could adequately voice. He was unable to bear any +longer the look of patient hopelessness that each moment stabbed his +heart. At the thought that this was possibly his last sight of her, that +in obedience to his harsh dictates she was passing forever out of his +life, a wave of invincible protest surged over him, and before its +passionate fury pride, resolutions, his pledges of renunciation +vanished. The longing of many years seized, mastered him. In the sight +of God and man she was his. He would possess his own. With a quick, +noiseless stride he crossed the narrow space that separated them, and +entered the arch. His shadow was thrown forward, and she lifted her +eyes. + +For an instant, a bewildered expression drifted over her countenance, +then her features settled into a marble mask. Her eyes shone suddenly +with a jewel gleam, as when a lamp flashes over the face of a gem; her +lids drooped, and she rose. + +They stood only a few feet apart, a little belt of white verbena +fluttering flags of truce between them. His bronze face locked, his +eager grey eyes starred with the glint of battle probed hers for an +instant; she calmly defiant, colorless as the jasmine on her breast. + +He held out his hand. + +"Eglah!" His voice was a passionate appeal. + +She interlaced and clasped her own fingers, her hands hanging in front +of her. + +"Mr. Herriott, I am very glad you have reached home safely. I +congratulate you upon escaping the dangers of your Arctic journey." + +"You are not surprised to see me in the United States?" + +"Not at all. I happened to call at Calvary House recently, and +accidentally I saw and heard you talking in the cloister." + +"You were so near, so near--yet gave me no intimation of your presence?" + +"I have studied and learned thoroughly the lesson you selected and set +for me; you wished to avoid me. My schooling was effectual, and I was +glad to gratify you." + +"When I landed I went first to Calvary House with a suffering human +wreck whom I promised----" + +"Why trouble yourself to explain what concerns only you and your sick +friend? Your reasons I have neither the right to ask, nor any desire to +hear." + +"At least you will permit me to thank you for all your gracious kindness +to Amos Lea. He tells me you saved his life, and thereby I am far more +your debtor than is the poor old man." + +"Never my debtor. Amos and I understand each other, and I was glad to +help take care of him. You owe me absolutely nothing but the fulfilment +of your own unsolicited pledges." + +"Why do you suppose I came here?" + +"Why--indeed; when you pressed on my acceptance the promise that my +'future should be spared your shadow'? I presume you came from a +chivalric sense of imaginary duty, or possibly a courteous +semi-recognition of what you may have conjectured I might regard as my +legal claims. I have absolutely none of any kind, along any lines. +Having renounced and banished me, perhaps you wished to assure yourself +that the condemned is at least not needy in exile? By what right could +you expect me--disowned, rejected, scorned--to desire ever to see again +a man whom once I trusted, almost as I did my God? To whom I fled as +sole refuge from the infamy that threatened one supreme in my life, and +when like a frantic child I clung to him, believing he loved me, he +shook me off, as if a worm crawled on his hand. After the whirlwind +passed, after the black veil of death mercifully interposed and hid us +from ruin, I came to my senses--I realized the magnitude of my error. My +ideal world had crumbled, you alone survived the wreck; I honored you +for your loyalty to the innocent man in his grave, and God knows I have +rejoiced that you denied my prayer, that you refused to perjure +yourself, but--your cruel words sank deep. While I could not blame you, +my punishment has been as severe as I deserved, as keenly mortifying as +you intended and desired. In my helplessness and sorrow you have +humiliated me by every means at your command, made me a target for +derision and for slander. Three long, sad years, without a line. Yet you +found a way to write to your gardener." + +"Yes, I knew Amos loved me. You did not." + +"As you felt assured of that fact, I fail to understand why you have +come." + +"Not from the chivalric motives you have done me the honor to impute to +me. I am no walking code of priggish courtesy; I am merely a man who +knows exactly what he wants most, and, missing that, deceives himself +with nothing less. I am here to-day solely to see, at least once more, +the face that has held my heart in bondage since you were a child. To +intrude upon you was not my purpose, and I did not intend to violate my +self-imposed limit of absolute silence, but I could not resist the +longing to look into your eyes, to hear your voice; and I thought I was +strong enough to watch you a little while, without your knowledge, and +go away forever, leaving you in peace. I might have known better. The +sight of you shivered my own compact. I have suffered far more than you, +and if my harshness wounded you beyond forgiveness, remember, oh, +remember, how long I have loved you!" + +"I can remember only that your last spoken words were a vehement request +that I should forget you." + +Her lower lip fluttered, and she caught it between her teeth. + +"Yes, but if farewell utterances are inexorably binding, you must pardon +me if I remind you of yours. All through the gloom and bitterness of our +separation a sacred, sweet voice has sounded in my ears the precious +words of promise you whispered when your arms clasped my neck, and your +dear face lay on my heart: 'You will never be out of my life--my own Mr. +Noel.'" + +A vivid rose stole into her cheeks, and she leaned farther back to +increase the space between them. + +"I had not then received my text-book--had not learned the lesson +assigned. After that, you wrote your final mandate: 'My freedom was +complete,' and you urged me to use it in any way most 'conducive to the +happiness so unwisely imperilled' by my rash marriage. I shall endeavor +to follow your counsel, and if you had waited one day later, you would +have been spared this unpleasant duty-visit. I go away to-night, and +never again shall you be annoyed by even hearing of me. Mr. Herriott, in +spite of all your wrongs, at the last you trusted your name to my +keeping. I have indeed held it 'sacred as the Grail,' and now I return +it to you as stainless as when you gave it. I am leaving America to find +an obscure resting-place in a strange land where I shall be known only +by the name to which I was born; and, once across the ocean, I can +escape, perhaps, the social gibbet from which dangle, deservedly, 'women +with histories.' I have no need of your name, noble though it is, to +help me keep my oath to God. Divorce I hold a shameful blot on true +womanhood, a menace to domestic and national morality, an insult to the +Lord. Human law can no more annul my marriage than my baptismal vow; +neither was made to man; both stand on that divine record only death can +erase; they are locked among the sacraments of God, _'so long as ye both +shall live.'_ Your freedom is as unconditional as you may wish, and that +court of release which you commended to me, is equally open to you." + +The pulse in her lovely throat throbbed violently, and watching her lift +one hand there with the old childish effort to loosen the stricture, his +lips tightened and he stepped closer. + +"And if I decline to accept, to permit your renunciation of my name, +which is more sacred since you have worn it? To make a football of God's +statute is as little my purpose as is yours. Sometimes I have cheated +myself with the forlorn hope that absence might possibly help me to +accomplish that which long association failed to bring me. After years +of suffering, of sombre retrospection, I hope I have come back less a +Tartar than when we parted. Then I surrendered you entirely--absolutely. +I do so still. I claim no more rights or privileges than I possessed +before that marriage ceremony made you nominally mine; but if your great +pity for the lonely man who never loved any other woman can possibly +grow into a deeper feeling, will you try to forgive my harshness that +dreadful night? Knowing what you are to me, will you come to me?" + +"Come to you who repudiated me! By what right dare you suppose, +expect----" + +"I have no right even to hope, but my hungry heart dares, and will dare +desperate chances." + +"You told me your confidence was dead as your love. The scar of that +brand can never heal." + +"Yes, I said many bitter, cruel things in the hot rage of my +disappointment, that I should be glad to forget. In extenuation, you +must remember that you beckoned me unexpectedly to heaven, and when I +was thrust out the crash unhinged me. It was for your own sake I asked +you to put me out of your life; to save you from the horrible martyrdom +of unloving wifehood, from dragging through life the ball and chain of a +galling, intolerable tie. To put you out of mine I knew was as +impossible in future years as I had found it in the past. In my farewell +note I considered your peace of mind, not my own. If you could realize +all you are to me, perhaps you might understand better what that +voluntary surrender of your precious self cost me, when, by the law of +God and of man, you belonged to me." + +She had avoided meeting his eyes; the strain set her lips to quivering, +increased the strangling grip on her throat, and unconsciously her +fingers clutched and wrung one another. + +"After three years of dreary absence you have not even a friendly hand +to offer to the man who has carried you in his heart ever since you wore +muslin aprons--who holds you the one love of his life?" + +"Mr. Herriott, you ceased to love me when you ceased to trust me, else +all these years----" + +She paused, warned by the treacherous quiver in her voice. He stood +quite still, and after a moment opened his arms. + +"My sweetheart, will you try me? Will you grant me the privilege of +convincing you?" + +She shook her head. Something in his eyes dazzled her, and an alarming +pallor overspread her face, blanching her lips. + +"If you have found happiness in forgetting and excluding me entirely +from your life and your future, I cannot complain that you followed my +counsel; but I will accept that positive assurance only from your own +truthful lips. Your peace of mind is more to me than my own. Have you +shut me out of your heart forever?" + +She tried to move aside, to pass him, but he barred her escape with an +outstretched arm, and she shrank back. + +"If you care no more for me now than when I left you, I have no +alternative but to live alone; and I will never again intrude, never +annoy you by the sight of my face. I will not accept compassion, or +friendly sympathy. All--or none. I want love--love that brings a pure +woman gladly to her husband's breast. Once you took some solemn vows for +me, invoking the presence of the Lord you worship. Now, trusting you +implicitly, knowing you will not deceive me, I must ask you to give me +one final pledge. If you cannot love me as I wish--if your heart, your +whole heart will never belong to me--then, calling God to witness the +truth of your words, look me straight in the eyes and tell me so." + +She trembled, shut her eyes, and, as a rich red rushed into her white +cheeks, she covered her face with her hands. + +A gust of wind shook the mimosa, and on her bowed head drifted the pink +silk filaments, powdering her brown coil and puffs. + +Very gently Mr. Herriott took the trembling little hands, kissed the +palms, and, drawing her slowly, tenderly toward him, lifted her arms to +his neck, holding them there. + +With a low, broken cry she surrendered. + +"Mr. Noel, you have broken my heart." + +He waited to steady his voice. + +"My proud darling, there seemed no other way. When it heals, please God, +I shall have my throne inside." + +With her face hidden on his shoulder, he held her close, his cheek +against her hair, and each knew how fiercely the heart of the other +throbbed. After some moments, he tightened the arm clasping her waist, +and his deep, passionately tender tone caressed like a velvet glove. + +"I don't know how many years I have longed for the touch of your lips. +Even as a child you never allowed me to kiss you; and, except your +father, I am sure no man ever has. My sweetheart, if indeed you are +learning to love me, can you, will you give me now what I want--my own +wife's pure lips?" + +She crimsoned to the tips of her small ears, and clung to him, not +daring to meet his eyes. + +"One memorable night, when two of my dogs froze at my feet, I sat under +the lee of my sledge, waiting for a gale of sleet to howl itself to +rest. I fell asleep and had a heavenly dream, in which you came and +kissed me." + +"Mr. Herriott, you cannot love me now as you did before that horrible +journey on the cars when your words seemed to scorch--brand me. I am +afraid--I am afraid----" + +He felt her tremble. + +"My darling, I love you infinitely more. You were never so sacred, so +dear as to-day. Of what can you feel afraid now? In my dream you were +more generous. I can take, but I prefer to receive the blessed seal I +hope you will give me, as holy assurance that you are entirely my own." + +Shyly she turned her flushed face towards his, one hand, quivering like +a frightened bird, softly drew his brown cheek closer, and the proud, +beautiful, vestal lips nestled and clung to her husband's. + +Sitting beside her on the bench, he said, as his brilliant, happy eyes +studied her face: + +"Will you please tell me when you began really to care for me?" + +"What can that matter now? Do not make me look back into shadows I wish +to forget. All our light shines ahead." + +"I should like to fix the date of my coronation, that I may compute +accurately my despotic reign from the hour I entered into possession of +my kingdom. Tell me, sweetheart; why should you shrink?" + +"Do you recall that last morning at home, when you came from the beach +followed by the dogs? Seeing me at the window, you took off your cap and +waved it. As I looked down at you then, something strange seemed +suddenly to stir and wake up and tremble in my heart. I did not +understand; it was a new feeling, and I was so wounded and tortured over +many things I could not analyze it; supposed it a part of my punishment. +I had seen you look better. Your boating suit and full evening dress +were certainly more becoming, but in some unaccountable, extraordinary +way that grey cap wave, and the peculiar expression I had never before +seen in your eyes, brought you closer to me than you had ever been. When +I sat alone in your smoking-room and saw the strapped trunks and your +fur overcoat--like a coffin and a pall--a terribly bitter wave rolled +over me at the thought of giving you up. I began to be jealous of Amos, +and I envied the dear old dogs the tender caress of your stroking hand. +At the last you coldly said good-bye; but when you caught, strained me +against you, I found out what it all meant. I knew then that woman's +heritage of sorrow was mine, and that my heart followed you into Polar +night. The ache that began that day at Greyledge grew and tortured me +until--I felt your arms around me once more." + +He lifted her left hand and kissed it, pressing the ring against his +face. + +"Why did not you tell me? I should have been spared so much brutal +bitterness of feeling." + +"It was impossible after all the harsh, cruel things you had deemed it +your duty to say to me, and you would have scouted such a sudden change +of feeling as inconceivable, as absurd. The strangeness of the +revelation overwhelmed, frightened me; I was more astonished than you +would have been. Tell you? Mr. Noel, I would sooner have gone to the +stake." + +"Your silence tied me to one. Men are perverse devils. I hated the sight +of this wedding ring; I longed to melt it in a crucible in my +laboratory. You will never understand the storm that raged within me +that day on the train when you hummed Kuecken and laid the baby on your +breast. Every time you lifted your hand and patted the poor little +creature, that gold band danced and flashed in my eyes like a mocking +imp. But your ring had its innings. After a year my temper cooled. Day +and night I found myself drifting back more hopelessly to you; and +always before me your little white hand flashed that circle--signet of +my ownership--because you had clung to it and declared 'it was the badge +of your loyalty.' I saw it in the blue gulfs of icebergs, in the +wonderful orange radiance of auroral arches, in the glare of low, tired +suns that could not set, in the unearthly lustre of moons holding vigil +over a silent desert wrapped in its shroud of ice, and in the ghostly +phosphorescence of snow-mantled glaciers. Always, everywhere, that dear +ringed hand beckoned like a beacon. I knew you did not love me; I was +grimly sure you never would; but the assurance that no other man could +ever claim lips denied to me, that you would proudly hold and keep your +precious self sacred to one whose name you bore, comforted me." + +He took her face in his palms, bending close his handsome head, and a +mist dimmed the sparkle in his magnetic eyes. + +"My darling, the coldest night I ever spent, when lost on the 'Great +Ice,' where a snow-storm obliterated sledge tracks and death seemed +inevitable, the remembered touch of your dear arms clinging around my +neck, the pressure of your face on my breast, thrilled my heart, fired +my blood, and warmed my freezing body. I missed the Pole; I nearly lost +my life; but, ah, thank God, better than either, more precious than all, +I have found at last, and I own the pure heart of my wife." + + + + +POPULAR NOVELS + + +BY AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON. + + INEZ + BEULAH + MACARIA + ST. ELMO + VASHTI + INFELICE + AT THE MERCY OF TIBERIUS + A SPECKLED BIRD + + +"Who has not read with rare delight the novels of Augusta Evans? Her +strange, wonderful and fascinating style; the profound depths to which +she sinks the probe into human nature, touching its most sacred chords +and springs; the intense interest thrown around her characters, and the +very marked peculiarities of her principal figures, conspire to give an +unusual interest to the works of this eminent Southern authoress." + + +ECCENTRICITIES OF GENIUS + +By Major J. B. Pond. + +READ WHAT IS SAID OF IT. + +"It is distinctly one of the most interesting books of the year from any +point of view."--_Rochester Sunday Herald._ + +"It is many a day since I have read so fascinating a book of +reminiscences. Many a day--or perhaps I should have said a 'night'--for +this volume has given me delight during hours, when, according to the +laws of nature, I should have been asleep."--_Newell Dwight Hillis._ + +"One of the most simple, naive and straightforward books ever written. +It fairly reeks with personality.... No man living has had such +interesting association with so many interesting people."--_Home +Journal._ + +"Adorned by many pictures, never before published."--_Detroit Journal._ + +"Possesses unparalleled attractions."--_Boston Journal._ + +"Major Pond goes deep into his subject, furnishing pen-portraits that +are admirably clear and graphic."--_The Mail and Express._ + +"The whole book, stuffed as it is with anecdotes and extracts from +personal letters, is marvelously interesting."--_Boston Transcript._ + +"All the world loves a teller of stories, and readers will surely +take approvingly to the man who gives them so much of entertaining +reading as is found in Major Pond's 600 pages of bright personal +description."--_N.Y. Times._ + +"Shining by reflected light, its pages literally teem with interesting +anecdotes of many sorts."--_Chicago Evening Post._ + +"Originality stamps the volume, copiously illustrated with +portraits."--_The Boston Globe._ + +"It has a thousand charms, and a thousand points of interest. It is full +of striking gems of thought, rare descriptions of men and places; +biographical bits that delight one by their variety, and the distinction +of those alluded to. From a literary view it is as interesting as +Disraeli's famous "Curiosities of Literature."--_Philadelphia Item._ + +"If any more charming and interesting book has appeared this season, it +has not come to our notice. The get-up is worthy of the matter of the +book."--_Philadelphia Evening Telegraph._ + + +THE VOYAGE OF ITHOBAL + +BY SIR EDWIN ARNOLD + + +Ithobal was the first African explorer we know about. He was a sea +captain of Tyre, who rescued and married an African Princess, and then +induced the King of Egypt to put him in charge of a voyage of +exploration of the wonderful land of his wife's birth. + +After a voyage of fifteen thousand miles around Africa, he returns after +numerous and exciting adventures, which bring out almost every feature +of African life and scenery. Ithobal relates the story of his enterprise +in a discourse of seven days before the throne of Pharaoh, who crowns +him with honors. + + SIR HENRY M. STANLEY, in a letter to the author, says of + it:--"You have added greatly to the happiness of many of your + race by the production of so unique a poem, so rich in the + beauties of the sweet English language." + +Other able critics who have read the blind poet's new epic poem unite in +calling it even better than the old favorite, "The Light of Asia." + + +EQUAL PARTNERS. + +By Howard Fielding. + +"This is a thoroughly enjoyable detective story, written in good, crisp +style, and with a decided surprise in the last pages. It is adroitly +contrived that almost every character in the book shall be suspected of +the crime of attempted murder before the actual culprit is discovered. +The characters are excellently differentiated, and the story is vastly +diverting, nor are there any repulsive features about the book. It is a +stirring tale and will enliven a dull evening successfully."--_Chicago +Tribune_. + + +DORIS KINGSLEY, Child and Colonist. + +By EMMA RAYNER, author of "Free to Serve," "In Castle and Colony," etc. + +This story of the South in the first half of the eighteenth century, +opens with one of the strangest episodes in the early history of South +Carolina--the pursuit and capture by the Governor of Carolina of a +pirate vessel, full, not of treasure, but of English men and women; and +the selling of those same unfortunate voyagers as bond servants in the +colony. Doris Kingsley, a child stolen from the streets of London, is +the youngest of the party, and is the heroine of the story. Doris +Kingsley is a novel of absorbing interest, dramatic and historically +true. + + +OLD JED PROUTY (A Narrative of the Penobscot). + +By RICHARD GOLDEN and MARY C. FRANCIS. + +In "Old Jed Prouty" the reading public is presented with a New England +character story of unusual interest and merit. The plot, although not an +involved one, hides enough mystery to lend the spice of the unknown to +the reader's zest, and the simple and natural denouement emphasizes the +high moral ethics of the story, and throws into strong relief the deep +human sentiments that dominate the tale. Standing out above all, +infusing into the fiber of every chapter the rugged sincerity, the +homely wit and the quaint philosophy of New England, is the central +character about which the pivot of the story turns, "Old Jed Prouty," +real in name and real in goodness, who at the time of his life, some +thirty years since, was a landmark in the Valley of the Penobscot. + + +JOHN WINSLOW. + +By HENRY D. NORTHROP. + +"'John Winslow' is one of those inviting books of country life of which +the best part of 'Eben Holden' has come to be the accepted type. Plenty +of shrewd common sense in the chief character, a dash of love on the +side, an incidental and inevitable bit of human wickedness--but +everything in the picture and the framing attractive. This is a book for +a wide reach among readers."--_N. Y. World._ + +"Properly ranks with 'Eben Holden,' 'David Harum,' and 'Quincy Adams +Sawyer.' The four may be put in a class by themselves as distinctive +types of homespun Americans."--_The North American._ + +"Worthy to live with 'David Harum' and 'Eben Holden.'"--_Publishers' +Weekly_. + + +UNDER A LUCKY STAR, a New Book on Astrology. + +By CHARLOTTE ABELL WALKER. + +Tells what occupation to adopt, and what line of life to follow, what +associates and partners to choose, how to recognize the possibilities +and limitations of our friends and ourselves, and of other important +matters to human life, including suggestions on marriage, being mainly +culled from the minds of ancient and modern philosophers. Illustrated, +cloth bound. + + +THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID. + +By FRANCES GORDON FANE. + +A clever, well-written story, full of love and pathos, and thrilling +with dramatic crises. Each step of the domestic tragedy is skilfully +portrayed, until the final climax is reached. + +"Its author has made it a powerful, telling story to read."--_N.Y. +World_. + + +THE CROSSROADS OF DESTINY, a Story of Chivalry in the Fifteenth Century. + +By JOHN P. RITTER. Author of "The Man Who Dared." + +This is a wonderfully interesting story, and will find a welcome with +all who love to read of deeds of chivalry. + +"It is a clean, clear and clever story of chivalry at its best, and will +find a great many well-pleased readers."--_New York World_. Cloth bound, +illustrated. + + +A MASTER OF FORTUNE, being Further Adventures of "Captain Kettle." + +By CUTCLIFFE HYNE. + +"It has the dash and tinge of reality that makes you feel as if you were +in the midst of it all."--_Detroit Free Press._ + +"The many readers who followed with bated breath the wild adventures of +Captain Kettle in the book named for him, will welcome Cutcliffe Hyne's +new collection of tales dealing with that remarkable sea dog. The volume +is well called 'A Master of Fortune.'"--_Philadelphia Press._ + + +"Nobody who has followed the gallant sailor--diminutive, but oh, my!--in +his previous adventures around the earth, is going to miss this red-hot +volume of marvelous exploits."--_N. Y. World._ + + +THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN KETTLE. + +By CUTCLIFFE HYNE. + +The best sea story since the days of Marryat. Captain Kettle is a +devil-may-care sea dog, half pirate and half preacher. The author +carries him through many hairbreadth escapes and makes him a character +that will live long in the annals of fiction. The success of this book +is marvelous. + + +THE MULLIGANS. A Novel. + +By EDWARD HARRIGAN. + +The _New York World_ says: "Mr. Harrigan gave to his Mulligan dramas the +most distinctly typical character plays which have ever been seen on the +native stage. They were studied and displayed straight from the life of +New York and their popularity was unbounded. His book is one of the most +generally interesting of the new season's output." + +_It is a marvelously entertaining novel, possessing a keenness of wit +and humor unsurpassed by any recent work. All the characters stand out, +as true to life, as natural and as vivid as if portrayed by Dickens._ + + +NORMAN HOLT, a Story of the Army of the Cumberland. + +By GENERAL (Capt.) CHARLES KING. + +"No more charming historic war story has ever been written. It is +Captain King's best, and bearing, as it does, on the great battle of +Mission Ridge, although the story is woven in fiction, it adds an +invaluable record of that gigantic contest between the two great +armies." + +"The characters are real, their emotions natural, and the romance that +is interwoven is delightful. It is wholesome and one of General King's +best, if not his best book."--_N. Y. Journal._ + +"From the first chapter to the last page the interest of the reader +never fags. General King has written no more brilliant or stirring novel +than 'Norman Holt.'"--_N. Y. Press._ + + +JOHN HENRY, (25th Thousand.) + +By HUGH MCHUGH. + +"'John Henry' has just 'butted' its way in between the literary bars and +capered over the book counters to the tune of twelve thousand copies +before its publishers could recover their breath. + +"Every page is as catchy as a bar from a popular song. + +"The slang is as correct, original and smart as the newest handshake +from London. + +"In the lottery of humorous books 'John Henry' seems to approximate the +capital prize."--_N. Y. Journal._ + +"All who have laughed over 'Billy Baxter' will heartily enjoy this +book."--_The Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer_. + + +THE KING OF HONEY ISLAND, (45th Thousand.) + +By MAURICE THOMPSON, author of "Alice of Old Vincennes," etc. + +"'The King of Honey Island' bears quite as many marks of the genius of +the author as does 'Alice of Old Vincennes,' with the additional charm, +perhaps of more buoyancy and beauty of thought and expression. In +'Alice' Mr. Thompson plumed himself as a master word painter. In 'The +King of Honey Island' he developed into a veritable American Ouida, for +his descriptive powers are marvelous. Like the true artist that he was, +he paints Nature as it looks, not as it is, so that the reader, in +glimpsing the battle of New Orleans, hears, almost, the cannon's +roar."--_The Topeka Capital._ + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SPECKLED BIRD*** + + +******* This file should be named 36029.txt or 36029.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/6/0/2/36029 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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