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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Throckmorton, by Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+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: Throckmorton
+
+Author: Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2011 [EBook #36829]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROCKMORTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ THROCKMORTON
+
+ A NOVEL
+
+ BY
+
+ MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
+
+ GROSSET & DUNLAP
+ Publishers ::  :: New York
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1890
+ BY D. APPLETON & CO.
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1909
+ THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+THROCKMORTON.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+In a lowland Virginia neighborhood, strangely cut off from the rest of
+the world geographically, and wrapped in a profound and charming
+stillness, a little universe exists. It has its oracles of law,
+medicine, and divinity; its wars and alliances. Free from that outward
+contact which makes an intolerable sameness among people, its types
+develop quaintly. There is peace, and elbow-room for everybody's
+peculiarities.
+
+Such was the Severn neighborhood--called so from Severn church. Every
+brick in this old pile had been brought from green England two hundred
+years before. It seemed as if, in those early days, nothing made with
+hands should be without picturesqueness; and so this ancient church,
+paid for in hogsheads of black tobacco, which was also the currency in
+which the hard-riding, hard-drinking parsons took their dues, was peaked
+and gabled most beautifully. The bricks, mellowed by two centuries, had
+become a rich, dull red, upon which, year after year, in the enchanted
+Southern summers and the fitful Southern winters, mosses and gray
+lichens laid their clinging fingers. It was set far back from the broad,
+white road, and gnarled live-oaks and silver beeches and the melancholy
+weeping-willows grew about the churchyard. Their roots had pushed, with
+gentle persistence, through the crumbling brick wall that surrounded it,
+where most of the tombstones rested peacefully upon the ground as they
+chanced to fall. Within the church itself, modern low-backed pews had
+supplanted the ancient square boxes during an outbreak of philistinism
+in the fifties. At the same time, a wooden flooring had been laid over
+the flat stones in the aisles, under which dead and gone vicars--for the
+parish had a vicar in colonial days--slept quietly. The interior was
+darkened by the branches of the trees that pressed against the wall and
+peered curiously through the small, clear panes of the oblong windows;
+and over all the singular, unbroken peace and silence of the region
+brooded.
+
+The country round about was fruitful and tame, the slightly rolling
+landscape becoming as flat as Holland toward the rich river-bottoms. The
+rivers were really estuaries, making in from the salt ocean bays, and as
+briny as the sea itself. Next the church was the parsonage land, still
+known as the Glebe, although glebes and tithes had been dead these
+hundred years. The Glebe house, which was originally plain and
+old-fashioned, had been smartened up by the rector, the Rev. Edmund
+Morford, until it looked like an old country-woman masquerading in a
+ballet costume; but the Rev. Edmund thought it beautiful, and only
+watched his chance to lay sacrilegious hands on the old church and to
+plaster it all over with ecclesiastical knickknacks of various sorts.
+
+The Rev. Mr. Morford had come into the world handicapped by the most
+remarkable personal beauty, and extreme fluency of tongue. Otherwise, he
+was an honest and conscientious man. But he belonged to that common
+class among ecclesiastics who know all about the unknowable, and have
+accurately measured the unfathomable. On Sundays, when he got up in
+the venerable pulpit at Severn, looking so amazingly handsome in his
+snow-white surplice, he dived into the everlasting mysteries with a
+cocksureness that was appalling or delightful according to the view one
+took of it. In the tabernacle of his soul, which was quite empty of
+guile and malice, three devils had taken up their abode: one was the
+conviction of his own beauty, another was the conviction of his own
+cleverness, and still another was the suspicion that every woman who
+looked at him wanted to marry him. Mr. Morford reasoned thus:
+
+     I. That all women want to get married.
+     II. That an Edmund Morford is not to be picked up every day.
+     III. That eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
+
+On Sundays he scarcely dared look toward the pew where General and Mrs.
+Temple sat, with their beautiful widowed daughter-in-law, Mrs. Beverley
+Temple, on one side of them, and Jacqueline Temple, as lovely in her
+small, kittenish way, on the other, for fear that one or the other of
+these young women would fall hopelessly in love with him. Mrs. Beverley,
+as the young widow was called, to distinguish her from the elder Mrs.
+Temple, had the fatal charm for the Rev. Edmund that all things feared
+and admired have. He believed in his heart of hearts that widows were
+made for his undoing, and that the good old Hindoo custom of burning
+them up alive was the only really safe disposition to make of them. The
+charm of Judith Temple's piquant face and soft, shy eyes was somewhat
+neutralized by a grim suspicion lodged in Mr. Morford's mind that she
+was unnecessarily clever. The Rev. Edmund had a wholesome awe of clever
+women, especially if they had a knack of humor, and was very much afraid
+of them. Judith had a sedate way of replying to Morford's resounding
+platitudes that sometimes created a laugh, and when he laboriously
+unwound the meaning, he was apt to find the germ of a joke; and Judith
+was so grave--her eyes were so sweetly serious when she was laying traps
+to catch the Rev. Edmund's sluggish wits. But Judith herself thought of
+no man whatever, and had learned to regard the sparkle of her
+unquenchable humor almost as a sin. However, having got a bad name for
+cleverness, neither the most sincere modesty nor the deepest courtesy
+availed her in keeping it quiet. Morford, in his simple soul, thought a
+clever woman could do anything; and suppose Judith should cast her eyes
+on--at this the Rev. Edmund would turn pale in the midst of his sermon
+when he caught Judith's gray eyes fixed soberly on him. Soberness--and
+particularly Judith's soberness--was deceitful.
+
+Barn Elms, the Temple place, was near to the Glebe and to Severn church.
+The house was rambling and shabby, and had been patched and pieced, with
+an utter disregard of architectural proportion that resulted in a
+curious and unexpected picturesqueness. A room was put on here, and a
+porch was clapped up there, just as the fancy of each successive Temple
+had dictated. It was partly of brick and partly of stone. Around it
+stood in tall ranks the solemn, black-leaved poplars, and great
+locust-trees grew so close to the house that on windy nights the sound
+of their giant arms beating the shingled roof awoke superstitious fears
+in the negroes, who declared it to be the "sperrits" of dead and gone
+Temples struggling to get in through the chimneys. There was a step up
+or a step down in every room in the house, and draughts enough in the
+unnecessary halls and passages to turn a windmill. There was, of
+course, that queer mixture of shabbiness and luxury about the old place
+and the mode of living that is characteristic of Virginia. Mrs. Temple
+had piles and piles of linen sheets laid away with the leaves of damask
+roses between them in the old cedar chests, but half the rooms and all
+the stairs and passages were uncarpeted. It required the services of an
+able-bodied negro to keep these floors polished--but polished they were,
+like a looking-glass. The instrument used in this process was called a
+"dry-rubbin' bresh" by the manipulators, and might well have been used
+in Palestine during the days of Herod the tetrarch, being merely a block
+of wood covered with a sheepskin, well matted with wax and turpentine.
+At unearthly hours, in cold winter mornings and gray summer dawns, the
+monotonous echo of this "bresh" going up and down the hall-floors was
+the earliest sound in the Barn Elms house. There was a full service of
+silver plate displayed upon a huge and rickety mahogany sideboard, but
+there was a lack of teaspoons. Mrs. Temple had every day a dinner fit
+for a king, but General Temple was invariably behindhand with his taxes.
+The general's first purchase after the war was a pair of splendid
+Kentucky horses to pull the old carriage bought when Mrs. Temple was a
+bride, and which was so moth-eaten and worm-eaten and rust-eaten that
+when it started out it was a wonder that it ever came back again. The
+kitchen was a hundred yards from the house in one direction, and the
+well, with its old-fashioned bucket and sweep, was a hundred yards off
+in another direction. The ice-house and stables were completely out of
+sight; while the negro houses, annually whitewashed a glaring white,
+were rather too near. But none of these things annoyed General and Mrs.
+Temple, who would have stared in gentle surprise at the hint that
+anything at Barn Elms could be improved.
+
+General Temple, six feet tall, as straight as an Indian, with a rich,
+commanding voice and a lofty stride, stood for the shadow of domestic
+authority; while Mrs. Temple, a gentle, affectionate, soft-spoken,
+devoted, and obstinate woman, who barely reached to the general's elbow,
+was the actual substance. From the day of their marriage he had never
+questioned her decision upon any subject whatever, although an elaborate
+fiction of marital authority was maintained between them and devoutly
+believed in by both. Mrs. Temple always consulted the general
+punctiliously--when she had made up her mind--and General Temple, after
+a ponderous pretense of thinking it over, would say in his fine,
+sonorous voice: "My dear Jane, the conviction of your extremely sound
+judgment, formed from my experience of you during thirty years of
+married life, inclines me to the opinion that your suggestion is
+admirable. You have my permission, my love"--a permission Mrs. Temple
+never failed to accept with wifely gratitude, and, like the general,
+really thought it amounted to something. This status is extremely common
+in Virginia, where, as a rule, the men have a magnificent but imaginary
+empire, and the women conduct the serious business of life.
+
+Brave, chivalrous, generous, loving God and revering woman, General
+Temple was as near a monster of perfection as could be imagined, except
+when he had the gout. Then he became transformed into a full-blown
+demon. From the most optimistic form of Episcopal faith, he lapsed into
+the darkest Calvinism as soon as he felt the first twinge of his malady,
+and by the time he was a prisoner in the "charmber," as the bedroom of
+the mistress of the family is called in Virginia, he believed that the
+whole world was created to be damned. Never had General Temple been
+known under the most violent provocation to use profane language; but
+under the baleful influence of gout and superheated religion combined,
+he always swore like a pirate. His womenkind, who quietly bullied him
+during the best part of the year, found him a person to be feared when
+he began to have doubts about freewill and election. To this an
+exception must be made in favor of Mrs. Temple and of Delilah, the
+household factotum, who was no more afraid of General Temple than Mrs.
+Temple was. She it was who was mainly responsible for these carnivals
+of gout by feeding the patient on fried oysters and plum-pudding when
+Dr. Wortley prescribed gruel and tapioca. Delilah was one of the
+unterrified, and used these spells to preach boldly at General Temple
+the doctrines of the "Foot-washin' Baptisses," a large and influential
+colored sect to which she belonged.
+
+"Ole marse," Delilah would begin, argumentatively, "if you wuz ter jine
+de Foot-washers--"
+
+"Jane! Jane!" General Temple would shout.--"Come here, my love. If you
+don't get rid of this infernal old fool, who wants absolutely to dragoon
+me out of my religion, I'll be damned if I--God forgive me for
+swearing--and you, my dear--"
+
+Sometimes these theological discussions had been known to end by
+Delilah's flying out of the room, with the general's boot-jack whizzing
+after her. At Mrs. Temple's appearance, though, the emeute would be
+instantly quelled. Delilah was also actively at war with Dr. Wortley, as
+the black mammies and the doctors invariably were, and during the visits
+of the doctor, who was a peppery little man, it was no infrequent thing
+to hear his shrill falsetto, the general's loud basso, and Delilah's
+emphatic treble all combined in an angry three-cornered discussion
+carried on at the top of their lungs.
+
+Like mistress, like maid. As Mrs. Temple ruled the general, Delilah
+ruled Simon Peter, her husband, who since the war was butler, coachman,
+gardener, and man-of-all-work at Barn Elms. Mrs. Temple, however, ruled
+with circumlocution as well as circumspection, and had not words
+sufficient to condemn women who attempt to govern their husbands. But
+Delilah had no such scruples, and frequently treated Simon Peter to
+remarks like these:
+
+"Menfolks is mighty consequenchical. Dey strut 'bout, an' dey cusses an'
+damns, an' de womenfolks do all de thinkin' an' de wukkin'. How long you
+think ole marse keep dis heah plantation if it warn't fur mistis?"
+
+"Look a heah, 'oman," Simon Peter would retaliate, when intolerably
+goaded, "Paul de 'postle say--"
+
+"What anybody keer fur Paul de 'postle? Womenfolks ain' got no use fur
+dat ole bachelor. Men is cornvenient fur ter tote water, an' I ain' seen
+nuttin' else much dey is good fur."
+
+Simon Peter's entire absence of style partly accounted for the low
+opinion of his abilities entertained by his better half. He was slouchy
+and sheep-faced, and, when he appeared upon great occasions in one of
+General Temple's cast-off coats, the tails dragged the ground, while
+the sleeves had to be turned back nearly to the elbow. Delilah, on the
+contrary, was as tall as a grenadier, and had an air of command second
+only to General Temple himself and much more genuine. She was addicted
+to loud, linsey-woolsey plaids, and on her head was an immaculately
+white "handkercher" knotted into a turban that would have done credit
+to the Osmanlis.
+
+The war had given General Temple the opportunity of his lifetime. He
+"tendered his sword to his State," as he expressed it, immediately
+organized Temple's Brigade, and thereafter won a reputation as the
+bravest and most incompetent commander of his day. His ideas of a
+brigade commander were admirably suited to the middle ages. He would
+have been great with Richard Coeur de Lion at the siege of Ascalon,
+but of modern warfare the general was as innocent as a babe. It was
+commonly reported that, the first time he led his brigade into action,
+he did not find it again for three days. His men called him Pop, and
+always cheered him vociferously, but pointedly declined to follow him
+wherever he should lead, which was invariably where he oughtn't to have
+been. He had innumerable horses shot under him, but, by a succession of
+miracles, escaped wounds or capture. It was a serious mortification to
+the general that he should have come out of the war with both arms and
+both legs; and it was marvelous, considering that he put himself in
+direct line of fire upon every possible occasion, and galloped furiously
+about, waving his sword whenever he was in a particularly ticklish
+place.
+
+Since the war General Temple had found congenial employment in studying
+the art of war as exemplified in books, and in writing a History of
+Temple's Brigade. As he knew less about it than any man in it, his
+undertaking was a considerable one, especially as he had to give a
+personal sketch, with pedigree and anecdotes, of every member of the
+brigade. He had started out to complete this great work in three
+volumes, but it looked as if ten would be nearer the mark. As regards
+the theory of war, General Temple soon became an expert, and knew by
+heart every campaign of importance from those of Hannibal, the one-eyed
+son of Hamilcar, down to Appomattox. A good deal of the money that would
+have paid his taxes went into the general's military library, which
+was a source of endless pride to him, and which caused the History of
+Temple's Brigade to be, in some sort, a history of all wars, ancient
+and modern.
+
+The pride and satisfaction this literary work of his gave the general's
+honest heart can not be described. He read passages of it aloud to Mrs.
+Temple and Judith and Jacqueline in the solemn evenings in the old
+country-house, his resonant voice echoing through the old-fashioned,
+low-pitched drawing-room. Mrs. Temple listened sedately and admiringly,
+and thanked Heaven for having given her this prodigy of valor and
+learning. Nor, after hearing the History of Temple's Brigade all the
+evening, was she wearied when, at two o'clock in the morning, General
+Temple would have a wakeful period, and striding up and down the
+bedroom floor, wrapped in a big blanket over his dressing-gown,
+declaimed and dissected all the campaigns of the war, from Big Bethel to
+Appomattox. Mrs. Temple, sitting up in bed, with the most placid air in
+the world, would listen, and thank and admire and love more than ever
+this hero, whom she had wrapped around her finger for the last thirty
+years. O blessed ignorance--O happy blindness of women! which gracious
+boon God has not withheld from any of the sex. But there was something
+else that made General Temple's long-winded war stories so deeply,
+tragically interesting to Mrs. Temple. There had been a son--the husband
+of the handsome daughter-in-law--Mrs. Temple could not yet speak his
+name without a sob in her voice. That was what she had given to the
+great fight. When the news of his death came, General Temple, who had
+never before dreamed of helping Mrs. Temple's stronger nature, had
+ridden night and day to be with her at that supreme moment, knowing that
+the blow would crush her if it did not kill her. She came out of the
+furnace alive but unforgetting. She would not herself forget Beverley,
+nor would she allow anybody else to forget him. She remembered his
+anniversaries, she cherished his belongings; she, this tender,
+excellent, self-sacrificing woman, sacrificed, as far as she could,
+herself and everybody else to the memory of the dead and gone Beverley.
+As fast as one crape band on the general's hat wore out, she herself,
+with trembling hands, sewed another one on. As for herself, she would
+have thought it sacrilege to have worn anything but the deepest black;
+and Judith, after four years of widowhood, wore, whether willingly or
+unwillingly, the severest widow's garb. Jacqueline alone had been
+suffered, out of consideration for her youth and the general's pleading,
+to put on colors. The girl, who was beautiful and simple, but quite
+different from other girls, in her heart cherished a hatred against this
+memory of the dead, that had made her youth so sad, so encompassed with
+death. Jacqueline loved life and feared death; and whenever her mother
+began to speak of Beverley, which she did a dozen times a day,
+Jacqueline's shoulders would twitch impatiently. She longed to say:
+"What is he to us? He is dead--and we live. Why can't he be allowed to
+rest in peace, like other dead people?" Jacqueline was far from
+heartless; she loved her sister-in-law twice as well as she had ever
+loved her handsome silent brother, whose death made no gap in her life,
+but had ruthlessly barred out all brightness from it. Jacqueline, in
+her soul, longed for luxury and comfort. All the discrepancies and
+deficiencies at Barn Elms were actually painful to her, although she had
+been used to them all her life. She wanted a new piano instead of the
+wheezy old machine in the drawing-room. She wanted a thousand things,
+and, to make her dissatisfaction with Barn Elms more complete, not a
+quarter of a mile away, across a short stretch of feathery pine-trees,
+on a knoll, stood a really great house, Millenbeck by name. To
+Jacqueline's inexperienced eyes, the large square brick house, with its
+stone balustrade around the roof, its broad porch, with marble steps
+that shone whitely through the trees around it, was quite palatial. And
+nobody at all lived there. It was the family place of the Throckmortons.
+The last Throckmorton in the county was dead and gone; but there was
+another--grandson to the last--a certain Major George Throckmorton, who,
+although Virginian born and bred, had remained in the regular army all
+through the war, and was still in it. This George Throckmorton had spent
+his boyhood at Millenbeck with his grandfather, who was evil tempered
+and morose, and thoroughly wicked in every way. The old man had gone to
+his account during the war, and since then his creditors had been
+fighting over his assets, which consisted of Millenbeck alone. Major
+Throckmorton had money, and it had been whispered about that, whenever
+Millenbeck was sold, this army Throckmorton would buy it. But it was
+freely predicted that he would never dare show his face in his native
+county after his turpitude during the war in fighting against his State,
+and he was commonly alluded to as a traitor. Nevertheless, at Severn
+church, one Sunday, it was said that this Throckmorton had bought
+Millenbeck, and would shortly make his appearance there.
+
+General and Mrs. Temple, as they sat on opposite sides of the fireplace
+at Barn Elms, discussing the matter with the profound gravity that the
+advent of a new neighbor in the country requires, to say nothing of the
+sensation of having a traitor at one's doors, came nearer disagreeing
+than usual. The night was cool, although it was early in September, and
+a little fire sparkled cheerfully upon the brass andirons on the hearth
+in the low-pitched, comfortable, shabby drawing-room. Mrs. Temple,
+clicking her knitting-needles placidly, with her soft eyes fixed on the
+fire, went over the enormity of those to whom Beverley's death was due.
+To her, the gentlest and at the same time the sternest of women, the war
+took on a personal aspect that would have been ludicrous had it not been
+pathetic. Ah! what was that boy that Beverley had left, what was Judith
+the young widow, or even Jacqueline, to that lost son? Nothing, nothing!
+Mrs. Temple, still gazing at the fire, saw in her mind, as she saw every
+hour of the day and many of the night, the dead man lying stark and
+cold; and, as if in answer to her thoughts, General Temple spoke, laying
+down his volume of Jomini:
+
+"My love, what will you do--ahem! what would you recommend me to do
+regarding George Throckmorton when he arrives? Speak frankly, my dear,
+and do not be timid about giving me your opinion."
+
+A curious kind of resentment shone in Mrs. Temple's face.
+
+"It is not for a woman to guide her husband; but _we_ at least can not
+forget what the war has cost us."
+
+General Temple sighed. He had heard that Throckmorton had got a year's
+leave and would probably spend it at Millenbeck. How fascinating did the
+prospect appear of a real military man with whom he could discuss plans
+of campaign, and flank movements, and reconnaissances, and all the
+_technique_ of war in which his soul delighted! For, although Dr.
+Wortley had become a great military critic, as everybody was in those
+days, he had never smelt powder, and was a very inferior antagonist for
+a brigadier-general, who had been in sixteen pitched battles without
+understanding the first thing about any of them.
+
+Jacqueline, who sat in her own little chair, with her feet on a
+footstool, and her elbows on her knees, began in an injured voice:
+
+"And the house is going to be perfectly grand. Mrs. Sherrard told me
+about it to-day. A whole parcel of people"--Jacqueline was a provincial,
+although an amazingly pretty one--"a whole parcel of people came by the
+boat--workmen and servants, and most splendid furniture, carpets, and
+pictures, and cabinets, and all sorts of elegant things--just for those
+two men--for there is a young man, too--Jack is his name."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Temple, meditatively, as she still clicked her
+knitting-needles together with a pleasant musical sound, "the boy must
+be about twenty-two. George Throckmorton I well remember was married at
+twenty-one to a pretty slip of a girl, so I've heard, who lived a very
+little while. He can't be more than forty-four now. He is the last man I
+ever supposed would ever turn traitor. He was the finest lad--I remember
+him so well when he was a handsome black-eyed boy; and when we were
+first married--don't you recollect, my dear?"
+
+General Temple rose gallantly, and, taking Mrs. Temple's hand in his,
+kissed it.
+
+"Can you ask me, my love, if I remember anything connected with that
+most interesting period of my life?" he asked.
+
+Neither the handsome Judith nor little Jacqueline were at all
+discomposed by this elderly love-making, to which they were perfectly
+accustomed. A slight blush came into Mrs. Temple's refined, middle-aged
+face. It was worth while to coddle a man, and take all the labor of
+thinking and acting off his shoulders, for the sake of this delightful
+sentiment. Like his courage, General Temple's sentiment was high-flown
+but genuine.
+
+"I was about to say," resumed Mrs. Temple, when the general had
+returned to his chair, "that when I came to Barn Elms a bride, George
+Throckmorton was much here. You did not notice him, my love, as I
+did--but I felt sorry for the boy; old George Throckmorton certainly was
+a most godless person. The boy's life would have been quite wretched, I
+think, in spite of his grandfather's liberality to him, but for the few
+people in the neighborhood like Kitty Sherrard and myself, who tried to
+comfort him. He would come over in the morning and stay all day,
+following me about the house and garden, trying to amuse Beverley, who
+was a mere baby."
+
+Mrs. Temple never spoke the name of her dead son without a strange
+little pause before it.
+
+"And, my dear," answered the general, making another feeble effort, "can
+you not now embrace the scriptural injunction?"
+
+"The Scripture says," responded sternly this otherwise gentle and
+Christian soul, "that there is a time to love and a time to hate."
+
+All this time, Judith, the young widow, had not said a word. She was
+slight and girlish-looking. Her straight dark brows were drawn with a
+single line, and in her eyes were gleams of mirth, of intelligence, of a
+love of life and its pleasures, that habitual restraint could not wholly
+subdue. When she rose, or when she sat down, or when she walked about,
+or when she arched her white neck, there was a singular grace, of which
+she was totally unconscious. Something about her suggested both love and
+modesty. But Fate, that had used her as if she were a creature without a
+soul, had married her to Beverley Temple--and within two months she was
+a widow. The shock, the horror of it, the willingness to idealize the
+dead man, had made her quietly assume the part of one who is done with
+this world. And Nature struggles vainly with Fate. Judith, in her black
+gown, and a widow's cap over her chestnut hair, with her pretty air of
+wisdom and experience, fancied she had sounded the whole gamut of human
+love, grief, loss, and joy. Neither Millenbeck, nor anything but
+Beverley's child and his father and mother and sister, mattered anything
+to her, she thought.
+
+Jacqueline, however, looked rebellious, but said nothing. Like her
+father, she was under the rule of this soft-voiced mother. But it
+was certainly very hard, thought Jacqueline, bitterly, that with
+Millenbeck beautifully fitted up, with a delightful young man like Jack
+Throckmorton--for Jacqueline had already endowed him with all the graces
+and virtues--and a not old man, a soldier too, should be right at their
+doors, and she never to have a glimpse of Millenbeck, nor a chance for
+walks and drives with them. Jacqueline sighed profoundly, and looked
+despairingly at Judith, who was the stay, the prop, the comforter of
+this undisciplined young creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Within a few days Throckmorton and Jack Throckmorton--the traitor and
+the traitor's son--had arrived at Millenbeck.
+
+Jacqueline could talk of nothing but the dawning splendors of the place.
+Delilah, who had an appetite for the marvelous scarcely inferior to
+Jacqueline's, kept her on the rack with curiosity.
+
+"Dey done put Bruskins carpets all over de house," she retailed solemnly
+into Jacqueline's greedy ears, "an' velvet sofys an' cheers, an' de
+lookin'-glasses from de garret ter de cellar. An' dey got a white man
+name' Sweeney--mighty po' white trash, Simon Peter say--dat is a white
+nigger, an' he talk mighty cu'rus. Simon Peter he meet him in de road,
+an' dis heah Mis' Sweeney he ax him ef dey was any Orrish gentmans 'bout
+here. Simon Peter he say he never heerd o' no sich things ez Orrish
+gentmans, an' Mis' Sweeney he lif' up he stick, an' Simon Peter he took
+ter he heels an' Mis' Sweeney arter him, an' Simon Peter 'low ef he
+hadn't run down in de swamp, Mis' Sweeney would er kilt him, sho'! An'
+he doan' min' blackin' de boots at Millenbeck an' milk de cows, an' den
+he dress up fine an' wait on de table--an' he a white man, too! He done
+tell some folks he wuz a soldier an' fit, an' he gwine ev'ywhar Marse
+George Throckmorton go, ef it twuz hell itself. Things is monst'ous fine
+at Millenbeck--_dat_ dey is--an' all fur dem two menfolks. Seem like God
+A'mighty done give all de good times ter de menfolks an' all de hard
+times ter de womenfolks."
+
+"Is that so, mammy?" asked Jacqueline, dolefully, who was simple of
+soul, and disposed to believe everything Delilah told her.
+
+"Dat 'tis, chile, ez sho'--ez sho' ez God's truf. De menfolks jes' lives
+fur ter be frustratin' an' owdacious ter de po' womenfolks, what byar de
+burdens. I tell Simon Peter so ev'y day; but dat nigger he doan' worrit
+much 'bout what de po' womenfolks has got ter orndure. Men is mighty
+po', vain, weak creetures--_I_ tell Simon Peter dat too ev'y day."
+
+"Dat you does," piously responded Simon Peter.
+
+The windows to Judith's room possessed a strange fascination in those
+days for Jacqueline, because they looked straight out to Millenbeck.
+There she stood for hours, dreaming, speculating, thinking out aloud.
+
+"Just think, Judith; there is a great big hall there that mamma says has
+a splendid dancing-floor!"
+
+"Jacky, stop thinking about Millenbeck and the dancing-floor. It doesn't
+concern you, and you know that mother will never let you speak to
+either of the Throckmortons," answered Judith.
+
+"Yes, I know it," said Jacqueline, disconsolately. "The more's the pity.
+Papa is dying to be friends with them when they come; but, of course,
+mamma won't let him."
+
+Jacqueline's voice was usually high-pitched, rapid, and musical, but
+whenever she meant to be saucy she brought it down to great meekness
+and modesty.
+
+"Major Throckmorton, you know, is a widower. I don't believe in grieving
+forever, like mamma. Suppose, now, Judith, _you_ should--"
+
+But Judith, whose indulgence to Jacqueline rarely failed, now rose up
+with a pale face.
+
+"Jacqueline, you forget yourself."
+
+Usually one rebuke of the sort was enough for Jacqueline, but this time
+it was not. She came and clasped Judith around the waist, and held her
+tight, looking into her eyes with a sort of timid boldness.
+
+"Just let me say one thing. Mamma is sacrificing all of us--you and me
+and papa--to--to Beverley--"
+
+"Hush, Jacqueline!"
+
+"No, I won't hush. Judith, how long was it from the time you first met
+Beverley until you married him?"
+
+"Two months."
+
+"And how much of that time were you together?"
+
+"Two--weeks," answered Judith, falteringly.
+
+"And then you married him, and you had hardly any honeymoon, didn't
+you?"
+
+"A very short one."
+
+"And Beverley went away, and never came back."
+
+There was a short silence. Jacqueline was nerving herself to say what
+had been burning upon her lips for long.
+
+"Then--then, Judith, he was so little _in_ your life--he was so little
+_of_ your life."
+
+"But, Jacqueline, when one loves, it makes no difference whether it is a
+month or a year."
+
+"Yes, when one loves; but, Judith, did you love Beverley _that_ way?"
+
+Judith stood quite still and pale. The thought was then put in words
+that had haunted her. She no longer thought of answering Jacqueline, but
+of answering herself. Was it, indeed, because she was so young, so
+entirely alone in the world, and, in truth, had known so little of the
+man she married, that it became difficult for her to recall even his
+features; that she felt something like a pang of conscience when Mrs.
+Temple spoke his name; that this perpetual kindness to his father and
+his mother seemed a sort of reparation? Jacqueline, seeing the change
+in Judith's face, went softly out of the room. Judith stood where
+Jacqueline had left her. Presently the door opened, and little Beverley
+came in, and made a dash for his mother. Judith seized him in her arms,
+and knelt down before him, and for the thousandth time tried to find
+a trace of his father in his face. But there was none. His eyes, his
+mouth, his expression, were all hers. Even the little bronze rings of
+hair that escaped from under her widow's cap were faithfully reproduced
+on the child's baby forehead. This strong resemblance to his mother was
+a thorn in Mrs. Temple's side. She would have had the boy his father's
+image. She would have had him grave and given to serious, thoughtful
+games, and to hanging about older people, such as her Beverley had been;
+but this merry youngster was always laughing when he was not crying, and
+was noisy and troublesome, as most healthy young animals are. Yet she
+adored him.
+
+The boy soon got tired of his mother's arms around him, and
+uncomfortable under her tender, searching gaze.
+
+"I want to go to my mammy," he lisped.
+
+Judith rose and led him by the hand down-stairs to Delilah. The child
+ran to his mammy with a shout of delight. His mother sometimes awed his
+baby soul with her gravity, when he had been naughty. Often he could not
+get what he wanted by crying for it, and got smart slaps upon his plump
+little palms when he cried. But with Delilah there was none of this.
+Delilah represented a beneficent Providence to him, which permitted
+naughtiness, and had no limit to jam and buttermilk.
+
+The Throckmortons had at last come, but had kept very close to
+Millenbeck for a week or two after their arrival in the county; but on
+one still, sunny September Sunday at Severn church, just as the Rev.
+Edmund Morford appeared out of the little robing-room, after having
+surveyed himself carefully in the mite of a looking-glass, and satisfied
+himself that his adornment was in keeping with his beauty, two gentlemen
+came in quietly at a side door, and took their seats in the first vacant
+pew. They looked more like an elder and a younger brother than father
+and son. Both had the same square-shouldered, well-knit figures, not
+over middle height--the same contour of face, the same dark eyes. But it
+was a type which was at its best in maturity. Major Throckmorton was
+much the handsomer man of the two, although, as Judith Temple said some
+time after, when called upon to describe him, that handsome scarcely
+applied to him--he was rather distinguished than actually handsome--and
+she blushed unnecessarily as she said it. His hair and mustache were
+quite iron-gray, and he had the unmistakable look and carriage of a
+military man. The pew they took near the door was against the wall of
+the church, and in effect facing the Temple pew, where sat all the
+family from Barn Elms, including little Beverley, who looked a picture
+of childish misery, compelled to be preternaturally good, until sleep
+overcame him, and his yellow mop of hair fell over against his mother.
+Young Throckmorton, whose eyes were full of a sort of gay curiosity, let
+his gaze wander furtively over the congregation, and in two minutes knew
+every pretty face in the church. The two prettiest were unquestionably
+in the Temple pew. Without boldness or obtrusiveness, he managed to keep
+every glance and every motion in that pew in sight; and Jacqueline, by
+something like psychic force, knew it, and conveyed to him the idea that
+no glance of his escaped her. Nevertheless, she was very devout, and the
+only look she gave him was over the top of her prayer-book. Judith,
+with her large, clear gaze fixed on the clergyman, was in her way as
+conscious as Jacqueline. But Throckmorton saw nothing and nobody for a
+time, except that he was back again in Severn church after thirty years.
+How well he remembered it all!--the little dark gallery to the right of
+the pulpit, where in the old times Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard had
+sat, and sung the old, old hymns, their sweet, untrained voices rising
+into the dark, cobwebbed, resonant roof--voices as natural as that of
+the sweet, shy singing birds that twittered under the eaves of the old
+church, and built their nests safely and peacefully in the solemn yews
+and weeping-willows of the burying-ground close by. The September
+sunlight, as it sifted through the windows on the heads of the kneeling
+people--even the droning of the honey-bees outside, and the occasional
+incursion of a buzzing marauder through the windows--made him feel as if
+he were in a dream. It was not the recollection of a happy boyhood that
+had brought him back to Millenbeck. He remembered his grandfather as an
+old curmudgeon, the terror of his negroes and dependents, wasteful, a
+high liver, and a hard drinker; and himself a lonely boy, with neither
+mother nor sister, nor any sort of kindness to brighten his boyish soul,
+except those good women, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard. Deep down in his
+being was that Anglo-Saxon love of the soil--the desire to return whence
+he came. He knew much of the world, and doubted if the experiment of
+returning to Millenbeck would succeed, but he at least determined to try
+it. He had no very serious notion of abandoning his profession, which he
+loved, while he grumbled at it, but he had had this project of a year's
+leave, to be spent at Millenbeck, in his mind for a long, long time, and
+he wanted Jack to own the place. Himself the most unassuming of men, he
+cherished, unknown to those who knew him best, a strong desire that his
+name should be kept up in Virginia where it had been known so long.
+With scarcely a word on the subject spoken between father and son, Jack
+had the same drift of sentiment. Both had inherited from dead and gone
+generations a clinging to old things, old forms, that made itself felt
+in the strenuous modern life, and even a sturdy family pride that native
+good sense concealed.
+
+The Rev. Edmund Morford, along with his unfortunate excess of good
+looks, inherited a rich, strong voice, in which he rolled out the
+liturgy with great elocutionary effect. He saw the two strangers in the
+congregation, and at once divined who they were, and determined to give
+them a sermon that would show them what stuff parsons were made of in
+Virginia. He was much struck by the scrupulousness with which Major
+Throckmorton went through the service, which the Rev. Edmund attributed
+partly to his own telling way of rendering it. But in truth,
+Throckmorton neither saw nor heard the Rev. Edmund. He went through the
+forms with a certain military precision that very often passed for
+strict attention, as in this case, but he was still under the spell of
+the bygone time. Mr. Morford gave out a hymn, and the congregation rose,
+Throckmorton standing up straight like a soldier at attention. After a
+little pause, a voice rose. It was so sweet, so pure, that Throckmorton
+involuntarily turned toward the singer. It was Judith Temple, her clear
+profile well marked against her black veil, which also brought out
+the deep tints of her eyes and hair, and the warm paleness of her
+complexion. She sang quite composedly and unaffectedly, a few women's
+voices, Mrs. Temple's among the rest, joining in timidly, but her full
+soprano carried the simple air. Her head was slightly thrown back as she
+sang, and apparently she knew the words of the hymn by heart, as she did
+not once refer to the book held open before her.
+
+There is something peculiarly touching in female voices unaccompanied.
+Throckmorton thought so as he came out of his waking dream and glanced
+about him. In an instant he took in the pathetic story of war and ruin
+and loss that was written all over the assembled people. Many of the
+women were in mourning, and the men had a jaded, haggard, hopeless look.
+They had all been through with four years of harrowing, and they showed
+it. In the Temple pew Mrs. Temple and Judith were in the deepest
+mourning, and General Temple wore around his hat the black band that
+Mrs. Temple would never let him take off.
+
+Throckmorton's eye rested for a moment in approval on Judith, and then
+on Jacqueline, but he looked at Jacqueline the longest.
+
+Then, after the hymn, Mr. Morford began his sermon. It was electrifying
+in a great many unexpected ways. Throckmorton, who knew something about
+most things, saw through Morford's shallow Hebraism, and inwardly
+scoffed at the cheerful insufficiency with which the most abstruse
+biblical problems were attacked. Morford's candor, confidence, and
+perfect good faith tickled Throckmorton; he felt like smiling once or
+twice, but, on looking around, he saw that everybody, except those who
+were asleep, took Morford at his own valuation; except the young woman
+with the widow's veil about her clear-cut face, whose eyes, fixed
+attentively on Mr. Morford, had something quizzical in their expression.
+Throckmorton at once divined a sense of humor in that grave young widow
+that was conspicuously lacking in Jacqueline, who listened, bored but
+awed, to the preacher's sounding periods.
+
+The sermon was long and loud, and there was another hymn, sung in the
+simple and touching way that went to Throckmorton's heart, and then a
+dramatic benediction, after the Rev. Edmund had announced that the next
+Sunday, "in the morning, the Lord will be with us, and in the evening
+the bishop. I need not urge you, beloved brethren, to be prepared for
+the bishop."
+
+Then the congregation streamed out for their weekly gossip in the
+churchyard. Throckmorton and Jack went out, too. No one spoke to them,
+nor did they speak to any one. As a matter of fact, there were not half
+a dozen people there that Throckmorton would have recognized; but he
+was perfectly well known to everybody in the church, who, but for the
+uniform he had worn, would have greeted him cordially and generously,
+recalling themselves to him. But now they all held coldly and
+determinedly aloof. Throckmorton, who was slow to imagine offense, did
+not all at once take it in. But he would not lose a moment in speaking
+to Mrs. Temple, one of the few persons he recognized, and the one most
+endeared to him in his early recollections. The Temples, possibly to
+avoid him, had made straight for the iron gate of the churchyard, and
+stood outside the wall, waiting for the tumble-down carriage.
+Throckmorton quickened his pace, and went up to Mrs. Temple, carrying
+his hat in his hand.
+
+"Mrs. Temple, have you forgotten George Throckmorton?" he asked in his
+pleasant voice.
+
+Mrs. Temple turned to him with a somber look on her gentle face.
+
+"No, I have not forgotten you, George Throckmorton. But you and I are
+widely apart. Between us is a great gulf, and war and sorrow."
+
+A deep flush dyed Throckmorton's dark face. He was not prepared for
+this, but he could not all at once give up this friendship, the memory
+of which had lasted through all the years since his boyhood.
+
+"The war is over," he said; "we can't be forever at war."
+
+"It is enough for _you_ to say," she replied. "You have your son. Where
+is mine?"
+
+"As well call me to account for the death of Abel. Dear Mrs. Temple,
+haven't you any recollection of the time when you were almost the only
+friend I had? I have few enough left, God knows."
+
+Here General Temple came to the front. In his heart he was anxious to
+be friends with Throckmorton, and did not despair of obtaining Mrs.
+Temple's permission eventually. He held out his hand solemnly to
+Throckmorton.
+
+"_I_ can shake hands with you, George Throckmorton," he said, and
+then, turning to Mrs. Temple, "for the sake of what is past, my love,
+let us be friends with George Throckmorton."
+
+Throckmorton, who in his life had met with few rebuffs, was cruelly
+wounded. In all those years he had cherished an ideal of womanly and
+motherly tenderness in Mrs. Temple, and she was the one person in his
+native county on whose friendship he counted. He looked down, indignant
+and abashed, and in the next moment looked up boldly and encountered
+Judith's soft, expressive eyes fixed on him so sympathetically that he
+involuntarily held out his hand, saying:
+
+"You, at least, will shake hands with me."
+
+Judith, who strove hard to bring her high spirit down to Mrs. Temple's
+yoke, did not always succeed. She held out her hand impulsively. The
+spectacle of this manly man, rebuffed with Mrs. Temple's strange power,
+touched her.
+
+"And this," continued Throckmorton, out of whose face the dull red had
+not yet vanished, turning to Jacqueline, "must be a little one that I
+have not before seen.--Mrs. Temple, I can't force you to accept my
+friendship, but I want to assure you that nothing--nothing can ever make
+me forget your early kindness to me."
+
+Mrs. Temple opened her lips once or twice before words came. Then she
+spoke.
+
+"George Throckmorton, you think perhaps that, being a soldier, you know
+what war is. You do not. I, who sat at home and prayed and wept for four
+long years, for my husband and my son, and to whom only one came back,
+when I had sent forth two--_I_ know what it is. But God has willed it
+all. We must forgive. Here is my hand--and show me your son."
+
+Throckmorton, whose knowledge of Mrs. Temple was intimate, despite that
+long stretch of years, knew what even this small compromise had cost
+her. He motioned to Jack, who was surveying the scene, surprised and
+rather angry, from a little distance. The young fellow came up, and Mrs.
+Temple looked at him very hard, a film gathering in her eyes.
+
+"I am glad you have such a son. Such was our son."
+
+The carriage was now drawn up, and General Temple looked agonizingly at
+Mrs. Temple. He wanted her to invite Throckmorton to Barn Elms, but
+Mrs. Temple said not one word. Throckmorton, in perfect silence, helped
+the ladies into the carriage. He did not know whether to be gratified
+that Mrs. Temple had conceded so much, or mortified that she had
+conceded so little.
+
+Jacqueline in the carriage gave him a friendly little nod. Judith leaned
+forward and bowed distinctly and politely. General Temple, holding his
+hat stiffly against his breast, remarked in his most grandiose manner:
+"As two men who have fought on opposing sides--as two generous enemies,
+my dear Throckmorton--I offer you my hand. I did my best against you in
+my humble way"--General Temple never did anything in a humble way in his
+life, and devoutly believed that the exploits of Temple's Brigade had
+materially influenced the result--"but, following the example of our
+immortal chieftain, Robert Lee, I say again, here is my hand."
+
+A twinkle came into Throckmorton's eye. This was the same Beverley
+Temple of twenty-five years ago, only a little more magniloquent than
+ever and a little more under Mrs. Temple's thumb. Throckmorton,
+repressing a smile, shook hands cordially.
+
+"Neither of us has any apologies to make, general," he said. "I think
+that ugly business is over for good. I feel more friendly toward my own
+unfortunate people now than ever before. Good-by."
+
+The general then made a stately ascent into the carriage, banged the
+door, and rattled off.
+
+Short as the scene had been, it made a deep impression upon Judith
+Temple. Throckmorton's dignity--the tender sentiment that he had
+cherished for his early friends--struck her forcibly. The very tones of
+his voice, his soldierly carriage, his dark, indomitable eye, were so
+impressed upon her imagination that, had she never seen him again, she
+would never have forgotten him. It was an instant and powerful
+attraction that had made her hold out her hand and smile at him.
+
+Throckmorton, without trying the experiment of hunting up any more old
+friends, turned to walk home. It was a good four-mile stretch, and
+usually he stepped out at a smart gait that put Jack to his trumps to
+keep up with. But to-day he sauntered along so slowly, through the woods
+and fields with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind him, that
+Jack lost patience and struck off ahead, leaving Throckmorton alone,
+much to his relief.
+
+Throckmorton wanted to think it all over. In his heart there was not
+one grain of resentment toward Mrs. Temple. He thought he understood
+the workings of her strong but simple nature perfectly well, and he
+did not doubt the ultimate goodness of her heart. And General
+Temple--Throckmorton had heard something of the general's magnificent
+incapacity during the war--the bare idea of General Temple as a
+commander made him laugh. How sweet were Mrs. Beverley's eyes, and how
+demure she looked when she dropped them at some particularly solemn
+absurdity of the clergyman, as if she were afraid somebody would see
+the tell-tale gleam in them! The little girl, though, was the most
+fascinating creature he had seen for long. How strangely and how
+pitifully altered was the congregation of Severn church from the merry
+prosperous country gentry he remembered so long ago! And how quiet, how
+still was life there! All his usual every-day life was shut out from
+him. Within the circle of that perfect repose nothing disquieting could
+come. He stopped in the country lane and listened. Nothing broke the
+solemn calm except the droning of the locusts in the September noon.
+Warm as it was, there was a hint of autumn in the atmosphere.
+Occasionally the clarion cry of a hawk circling in the blue air pierced
+the silence.
+
+"This, then, is peace," said Throckmorton to himself, and thought of the
+year of idleness and repose before him. "Nothing ever happens here," he
+continued, thinking. "Even the tragedy of the war was at a distance. As
+Mrs. Temple says, the men went forth, and those that came back will go
+forth no more."
+
+Then he began to think over the way in which the people had completely
+ignored him in the churchyard, where they stopped and gossiped with each
+other, eying him askance. He knew perfectly well the estimate they put
+upon him. He could have supplied the very word--"traitor." This made him
+feel a sort of bitterness, which he consoled with the reflection--
+
+"Most men of principle have to suffer for those principles at some time
+or other."
+
+By this time he was at his own grounds, and Sweeney's honest Irish face,
+glowing with indignation, was watching out for him.
+
+"Be the powers," snorted Sweeney to the black cook, "the murtherin'
+rebels took no more notice of the major than if he'd been an ould
+hat--an' he's a rale gintleman, fit ter dine with the Prisident, as he
+often has, an' all the g'yurls has been tryin' to hook him fur twinty
+years, bless their hearts, an' the major as hard as a stone to the dear
+things, every wan of 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Within a week or two after, one afternoon Mrs. Kitty Sherrard made her
+appearance at Barn Elms, with a great project in hand. She meant to give
+a party.
+
+Party-giving was Mrs. Sherrard's idiosyncrasy. According to the usual
+system in Virginia, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Sherrard, there
+was much frolicking, dancing, and hilarity at Turkey Thicket, the
+Sherrard place, and a corresponding narrowness of income and general
+behindhandedness. But since Mr. Sherrard's death Mrs. Sherrard, along
+with the unvarying and sublime confidence in her husband, dead or alive,
+that characterizes Virginia women, had yet entirely abandoned Mr.
+Sherrard's methods. The mortgage on Turkey Thicket had been paid off,
+the whole place farmed on common-sense principles, and the debts
+declared inevitable by Mr. Sherrard carefully avoided. As a matter of
+fact, the only people in the county who paid their taxes promptly were
+the widows, who nevertheless continually lamented that they were
+deprived of the great industry, foresight, and business capacity of
+their defunct lords and masters. Mrs. Sherrard gave as many parties in
+Mr. Sherrard's lifetime as she did after his death; but, since that
+melancholy event, the parties were paid for, not charged on account.
+
+When this startling information about the coming festivity was imparted,
+Jacqueline, who was sitting in her own low chair by the fire, gave a
+little jump.
+
+"And," said Mrs. Sherrard, who was a courageous person, "I'll tell you
+what I am giving it for. It is to get the county people to meet George
+Throckmorton. Not a human being in the county has called on him, except
+Edmund Morford, and I fairly drove him to it. He began some of his
+long-winded explanations. 'Aunt Kitty,' he said, 'what am I, even though
+I be a minister of the gospel, that I should set myself up against the
+spirit of the community, which is against recognizing Throckmorton?'
+'What are you, indeed, my dear boy,' I answered. 'I'm not urging you to
+go, because it's a matter of the slightest consequence what you do or
+what you don't, but merely for your own sake, because it is illiberal
+and unchristian of you not to go.' Now, Edmund is a good soul, for all
+his nonsense."
+
+Mrs. Temple was horrified at this way of speaking of the young rector.
+
+"And I've intimated to him that I'm about to make my will--I haven't the
+slightest notion of doing it for the next twenty years--but the mere
+hint always brings Edmund to terms, and so he went over to Millenbeck to
+call. He came back perfectly delighted. The house is charming,
+Throckmorton is a prince of hospitality, and I don't suppose poor Edmund
+ever was treated with so much consideration by a man of sense in his
+life before." Mrs. Temple groaned, but Mrs. Sherrard kept on, cutting
+her eye at Judith, who was the only person at Barn Elms that knew a joke
+when she saw it. Judith bent over her work, laughing. "I met
+Throckmorton in the road next day. 'So you dragooned the parson into
+calling on the Philistine,' he said. Of course I tried to deny it, after
+a fashion; but Throckmorton won't be humbugged--can't be, in fact--and I
+had to own up. 'You can't say Edmund's not a gentleman,' said I, 'and he
+is the most good-natured poor soul; and if he had broken his nose, or
+got cross-eyed in early youth, he really would have cut quite a
+respectable figure in the world.' 'That's true,' answered George,
+laughing, and looking so like he did long years ago, 'but you'll admit,
+Mrs. Sherrard, that he is too infernally handsome for his own good.'
+'Decidedly,' said I."
+
+"Katharine Sherrard," solemnly began Mrs. Temple, who habitually called
+Mrs. Sherrard Kitty, except at weddings and funerals, and upon occasions
+like the present, when her feelings were wrought up, "the way you talk
+about Edmund Morford is a grief and a sorrow to me. He is a clergyman of
+our church, and it is not becoming for women to deride the men of their
+own blood. Men must rule, Katharine Sherrard. It is so ordered by the
+divine law."
+
+"Jane Temple," answered Mrs. Sherrard, "you may add by the human law,
+too; but some women--"
+
+"Set both at naught," answered Mrs. Temple, piously and sweetly.
+
+"They do, indeed," fervently responded Mrs. Sherrard, having in view
+General Temple's complete subjugation. "But now about the party. The
+general must come, of course. I wish I could persuade you."
+
+"I have not been to a party since before the war, and now I shall never
+go to another one."
+
+"But Judith and Jacqueline will come."
+
+At this a deep flush rose in Judith's face.
+
+"I don't go to parties, Mrs. Sherrard."
+
+"I know; but you must come to this one."
+
+Mrs. Temple set her lips and said nothing, but Jacqueline, who sometimes
+asserted herself at unlooked-for times, spoke up:
+
+"If Judith doesn't go, I--I--sha'n't go."
+
+"You hear that?" asked Mrs. Sherrard, delighted at Jacqueline's spirit.
+"Stick to it, child; there is no reason why Judith shouldn't come."
+
+Here General Temple entered and greeted Mrs. Sherrard elaborately. Mrs.
+Sherrard immediately set to work on the general. She knew perfectly well
+that he could do no more in the case than Simon Peter could, but she
+poured her fire into him, thinking a stray shot might hit Mrs. Temple.
+Judith remained quite silent. She was too sincere of soul to say she did
+not want to go; and yet going to parties was quite out of that life of
+true widowhood she had laid down for herself; and life was intolerably
+dull. She loved gayety and brightness, and her whole life was clothed
+with somberness. She was full of ideas, and loved books, and nobody in
+the house ever read a line except General Temple, and his reading was
+confined to the science of war, for which he would certainly never have
+any use. She was full of quick turns of repartee, that, when she
+indulged them, almost frightened Mrs. Temple, who had the average
+woman's incapacity for humor. Mrs. Sherrard and herself were great
+friends--and friends were not too plentiful with Mrs. Sherrard, whose
+tongue was a two-edged sword. Nevertheless, Mrs. Temple and Mrs.
+Sherrard had been intimate all their lives, and Mrs. Sherrard was one of
+the few persons who ever took liberties with Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Sherrard
+was clear-sighted, and she knew what nobody else did--how starved and
+blighted was Judith's life by that stern repression to which she had set
+herself; and she had known Beverley Temple, too, and sometimes said to
+herself: "Perhaps it is better for Judith as it is, for Beverley, brave
+and handsome as he was, yet was a dreadfully ordinary fellow. Luckily,
+she was hustled into marrying him so quickly, and she was so young, she
+didn't find it out; but if he had lived--"
+
+Mrs. Sherrard departed, impressing upon General Temple that she should
+certainly expect to see him at the party, with Judith and Jacqueline.
+Simon Peter in the kitchen reported the state of affairs to Delilah, who
+remarked:
+
+"Miss Kitty She'ard, she know Miss Judy cyan go twell ole mistis say so.
+Ole marse, he got a heap o' flourishes an' he talk mighty big, but
+mistis she doan' flourish none; she jes' go 'long quiet like, an' has
+her way."
+
+"Dat's so," answered Simon Peter, rubbing his woolly head with an air of
+conviction. "Mistis su't'ny is de wheel-hoss in dis heah team."
+
+"An' ain' de womenfolks allus de wheel-hosses? Ole marse he set up an'
+he talk 'bout de weather an' de craps, an' he specks de 'lection gwine
+discomfuse things, an' he read de paper an' he know more 'n de paper do,
+an' he read de Bible an' he know more 'n de Bible do, an' all de time he
+ain' got de sperrit uv a chicken."
+
+"De womenfolks kin mos' in gen'ally git dey way," cautiously answered
+Simon Peter.
+
+"Yes, dey kin; an' dey is gwine ter, 'long as menfolks is so triflin'
+an' owdacious as dey is."
+
+Jacqueline developed a strange obstinacy about the party. She declared
+she was dying to go, but she never wavered from her determination not to
+go without Judith.
+
+"But your sister does not wish to go, Jacqueline," her mother said to
+this.
+
+"But I want her to go, mamma. You can't imagine how I _long_ to go to
+this party. It is so very, very dull at Barn Elms--and I have my new
+white frock."
+
+"Judith has no frock."
+
+"Oh, yes she has. She has that long black dress, in which she looks so
+nice, and she is so clever at sewing she could cut it open at the neck
+and turn up the sleeves at the elbow."
+
+Mrs. Temple said nothing more. Jacqueline went about, eager-eyed, but
+silent, and possessed of but one idea--the party. A day or two after
+this she said bitterly to her mother, when Judith was out of the room:
+
+"Mamma, I know why you are willing to disappoint me about this party. It
+is because you love your dead child better than your living one."
+
+Mrs. Temple turned a little pale. The thrust went home, as some of
+Jacqueline's thrusts did.
+
+"And if I don't go, I will cry and cry--I will cry that night so loud
+in my room that papa will come in, and you know how it vexes him to have
+me cry; and it will break my heart--I know it will."
+
+Mrs. Temple went about all day with Jacqueline's words ringing in her
+ears. That night, after Jacqueline was in bed, her mother went into the
+room. It was a large, old-fashioned room, and Jacqueline's little white
+figure, as she sat up in bed, was almost lost in the huge four-poster,
+with dimity curtains and valance. The fire still smoldered, and the
+spindle-shanked dressing-table, with the glass set in its mahogany
+frame, cast unearthly shadows on the floor in the half-light. Mrs.
+Temple sat down by the bed. Something like remorse came into the
+mother's heart. This child was the least loved by both father and
+mother. Jacqueline began at once, in her sweet, nervous voice:
+
+"Mamma, I have been thinking about the party."
+
+"So have I, child."
+
+"And may we go?"
+
+Mrs. Temple paused before she spoke.
+
+"Yes, you and Judith may go," she said presently in a stern voice--ah!
+the sternness of these gentle women!
+
+Jacqueline held out her arms fondly to her mother, but Mrs. Temple could
+not be magnanimous in defeat. She went out, softly closing the door
+behind her, without giving Jacqueline her good-night kiss, but
+Jacqueline called after her in a voice tremulous with gratitude and
+delight, "Dear, sweet mamma!"
+
+The moment she heard the "charmber-do'," as the negroes called it, shut
+down-stairs, Jacqueline slipped out of bed and flew across the dark
+passage into Judith's room to tell the wonderful news. Judith was
+sitting before the fire, holding her sleeping child in her arms. The boy
+had waked and had clung to his mother until she lifted him out of his
+little bed. He had gone to sleep directly, but Judith held him close; he
+was so little, so babyish, yet so soft and warm and clinging.
+
+"We are going to the party, Judith," said Jacqueline, excitedly,
+kneeling down by her.
+
+"Are we?" answered Judith. A gleam came into her eyes very like
+Jacqueline's.
+
+"And--and--" continued Jacqueline with a sly, half-laughing glance, "we
+will meet Major Throckmorton again."
+
+"Go to bed, Jacqueline," replied Judith in the soft, composed voice that
+invariably crushed Jacqueline.
+
+Next morning General Temple showed the most unqualified delight at Mrs.
+Temple's capitulation. He considered it becoming, though, to make some
+slight protest against going to the party. He thought, perhaps, with his
+tendency to gout, it would scarcely be prudent to expose himself to the
+night air, and--er--to Kitty Sherrard's chicken salad; and, besides, he
+really was not justified in postponing the drawings of some maps to
+illustrate the position of Temple's Brigade at the battle of
+Chancellorsville; for, like all other dilettanti, General Temple's work
+was always of present importance and admitted of no delay whatever.
+
+Mrs. Temple did not smile at this, but treated it with great
+seriousness.
+
+"Quite true, my dear; but now that I have promised Jacqueline, I can not
+disappoint her. You must go for her sake."
+
+"Rather let me say, my dear Jane, that I go for your sake--your wishes,
+my love, being of paramount importance."
+
+For a henpecked man, it was impossible to be more imposing or agreeable
+than General Temple. So on the night of the party he was promptly on
+hand, at eight o'clock, in his old-fashioned evening coat, the tails
+lined with white satin, and wearing a pair of large, white kid gloves.
+
+Jacqueline and Judith soon appeared. Jacqueline, in her new white frock,
+looked her prettiest, albeit it showed her youthful thinness and all her
+half-grown angles. Judith's beauty was of a sort that could stand the
+simplicity of her black gown that revealed her white neck, and, for the
+first time since her widowhood, she wore no cap over her red-brown hair.
+Delilah and Simon Peter yah-yahed and ki-yied over both of them.
+
+"Dem little foots o' Miss Jacky's in de silk stockin's ain' no bigger
+'n little Beverley's, hardly, and Miss Judy she look like de Queen o'
+Sheba," delightedly remarked Delilah.
+
+Judith could scarcely meet Mrs. Temple's eyes. She felt inexplicably
+guilty. Mrs. Temple examined them critically, though, and the general
+was loftily complimentary.
+
+"And, Delilah," said Judith, gathering up her gloves nervously, "be sure
+and look after Beverley. He has never been left alone in his life
+before."
+
+"I will look after Beverley, Judith," said Mrs. Temple, and Judith
+blushed faintly at something in the tone.
+
+All the way, going along the country road in the moonlight, Judith could
+feel Jacqueline's little feet moving restlessly with excitement. As they
+drove up to the house, and caught glimpses through the open hall-door of
+the dancers and heard the sound of music, Jacqueline began to bob up and
+down with childish delight.
+
+Like most Virginia country-houses, Turkey Thicket had an immense
+entrance hall, which was not heated and was of no earthly use the best
+part of the year, and for which all the rooms around it were
+unnecessarily cramped. Mrs. Sherrard's hall was of more use to her than
+most people's, owing to her party-giving proclivities, and was brightly
+lighted up for dancing. As Judith came down the broad stairs on General
+Temple's arm, a kind of thrill of surprise went around among the guests.
+Nobody expected to see her. Many of them had never seen her except in
+her widow's veil and cap. Judith, remembering this, could not restrain a
+blushing consciousness that made her not less handsome; and, besides,
+her good looks were always full of surprises. One never knew whether she
+would be simply pale and pretty, or whether she would blaze out into a
+sudden and captivating beauty.
+
+They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and
+red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they
+entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain
+black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air
+of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane
+Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: "My dear, I am
+dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George
+Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so
+fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a
+little better, but it isn't a pronounced success by any means. I have
+been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of
+the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing
+to him."
+
+At this a warmer color surged into Judith's cheeks. She could not
+remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as
+Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the
+first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her,
+she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund
+Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the
+young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark
+hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical
+dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely
+masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by
+contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford
+was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that
+square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief.
+Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was
+formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom,
+which Throckmorton bowed over.
+
+"Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday," he said, with a smile
+and a slight flush; "but I guessed very readily who you were."
+
+Judith, too, colored.
+
+"Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she
+is, but--but she is very determined; she moves slowly."
+
+"Yes," replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner;
+"but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not
+half so kindly--for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out
+of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack--that young
+fellow yonder--looks rather old to be my son, don't you think?"
+
+"Y-e-s," answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little
+smile.
+
+"Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people
+that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although
+brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own
+the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a
+Virginian."
+
+"Yes," smiled Judith; "I see how it crops out in _you_. You are
+immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own
+Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest
+place in the world anywhere else."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Beverley," said Throckmorton, determinedly, "I can't have my
+weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a
+fool about Millenbeck, but I'd have sworn that nobody but myself knew
+it. I've got a year's leave, and I've come down here with Sweeney, an
+old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old
+horse Tartar, that is turned out to grass; and if I like it as well as I
+expect, I may resign"--Throckmorton was always talking about resigning,
+as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea
+of doing it--"and turn myself out to grass like Tartar. But my reception
+hasn't been--a--exactly--cordial--or--"
+
+"I am sorry you have been disappointed," said Judith, gently; "but it
+seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now.
+We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are
+slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some
+time."
+
+"I think I understand the feeling here--even that dead wall of prejudice
+that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have
+told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I
+thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might
+soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever."
+
+Judith could not deny it.
+
+Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides
+having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was
+under a fixed restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the
+deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister
+of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world
+by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than
+Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met.
+Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women
+led, and he had often wondered at the singular fortitude they showed. He
+set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young
+woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who
+gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its
+concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith
+colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the
+sweetest boy--she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major
+Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would
+frequently be highly gratified at having _his_ son out of his sight,
+because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and
+covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack,
+but couldn't.
+
+Judith laughed merrily at this--a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet
+so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of
+reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was nothing
+newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton
+would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes
+full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted,
+without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house
+where he was not permitted to visit.
+
+She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but
+Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern
+literature, she was perfectly at home in the English classics, and knew
+her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find
+this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the
+cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of
+the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to
+scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous
+person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her
+natural charming self.
+
+Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille,
+and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of
+their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline
+complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened
+her liquid three syllables with "Jacky," but she hated it. Jack, who had
+a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which Jacqueline was
+not, amused both her and himself extremely.
+
+"Will you look at the major?" he whispered. "Gone on the pretty widow--I
+beg your pardon," he added, turning very red.
+
+"You needn't apologize," calmly remarked Jacqueline. "Judith _is_ a
+pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It
+is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us
+all to think about him as much as she does."
+
+Jack, rather embarrassed by these family confidences, parried them with
+some confidences of his own.
+
+"I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there
+isn't but twenty-two years' difference between us, and the major is a
+great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial
+feelings."
+
+Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.
+
+"So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the
+other side, and manage to get my share of the girl's attention, and call
+the major 'father' every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with
+that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn't often happen. The
+major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets
+downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don't get
+straight for a fortnight."
+
+"But doesn't he get very mad with you?" asked Jacqueline in a shocked
+voice.
+
+"Of course he does," chuckled Jack; "and that's where the fun comes in.
+But, you see, he can't say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his
+temper blazes up, although he doesn't say a word. Sometimes, when I've
+run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me
+for a week--not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates
+to be balked."
+
+"What a nice sort of a son you must be!"
+
+Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.
+
+"Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do
+anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I'll do
+the handsome thing--go to the wedding, and all that. And he's a
+fascinating old fellow, too--just takes the girls off their feet."
+
+When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who
+still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline's eyes were shining with
+childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from
+side to side.
+
+"I have had such a nice dance!" she cried, breathlessly.
+
+Judith, smiling, said, "Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister
+Jacqueline."
+
+Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on Jacqueline, seemed unable
+to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn
+church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of
+attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, "Miss Jacky she allus
+cotches de beaux." She certainly "cotched" Throckmorton's attention from
+the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was
+suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith
+seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking
+man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself
+back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade.
+Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and
+unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford's
+head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a
+considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith's starved
+and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton's
+caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to
+expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and
+indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith,
+who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was
+remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was
+because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had
+realized rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and
+colorlessness of her life.
+
+Mrs. Sherrard's effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was
+scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out
+Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the
+trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest
+listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned
+expounder--a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking
+Throckmorton's hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine
+effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck.
+Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county
+people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle,
+clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+For a week after the party Jacqueline lived in a kind of dream. She
+could do nothing but talk of the party. The whole current of her life
+had been disturbed. Since this one taste of excitement there was no
+satisfying her. The daily routine was going down to a solemn breakfast,
+and then getting through the forenoon as best she might, with her
+flowers, and her pets among the ducks and chickens, and romping with the
+little Beverley--for this unfortunate Jacqueline had no regular
+employments--and then the still more solemn three o'clock dinner, after
+which she practiced fitfully on the wheezy piano in the dark
+drawing-room; then a country walk with Judith, if the day was fine,
+coming back in time to watch the creeping on of the twilight before the
+sitting-room fire. This was the happiest time of the day to Jacqueline.
+She would sit flat on the rug, clasping her knees, and gazing into the
+fire until her mother would say, with a smile:
+
+"What do you see in the fire, Jacky?"
+
+"Oh, endless things--a beautiful young man, and a new piano, and a
+diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard's, and--Oh, I can't tell you!"
+
+"Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do," solemnly announced Simon
+Peter. "When folks sits fo' de fire studyin' 'bout nuttin' 'tall, de
+evils an' de sperrits dat's 'broad come sneakin' up ahine an' show 'em
+things in de fire."
+
+General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive
+pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the
+gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what
+devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and
+soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between
+Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been
+making at intervals for twenty-five years.
+
+"Temple," he screeched, "you may take your choice between that old
+ignoramus and me--between ignorance and science!"
+
+"Ef ole marse was ter steal six leetle sweet 'taters an' put 'em in he
+pocket," began Delilah, undauntedly.
+
+"Why don't you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a
+pocketful?" retorted the doctor.
+
+"Kase he doan 'quire but six, an' he got ter _steal_ 'em, fur ter make
+de conjurin' wuk. Den ev'y day he th'ow 'way a 'tater, an' when he th'ow
+de 'tater 'way he th'ow de gout 'way, too. De hy'ars from a black cat's
+tail is mighty good, too--"
+
+"Temple, how do you put up with this sort of thing being uttered in your
+hearing?" snapped the doctor.
+
+General Temple looked rather sheepish. He had never actually tried
+stealing six potatoes, or testing the virtue in hairs from a black cat's
+tail, as a relief from gout, but he had not been above a course of tansy
+tea, and decoctions of jimson-weed, and other of Delilah's remedies that
+scientifically were on a par with the black cat's tail. But, being
+racked with pain, he took refuge in pessimism and profanity.
+
+"Excuse me, Wortley, but all medicine is a damned humbug!--I
+mean--er--an empirical science. What is written is written. The Great
+First Cause, that decrees from the hour of our birth every act of our
+lives, has decreed that I should suffer great pain, anguish, and
+discomfort from this hereditary disease."
+
+"Marse, ef you wuz ter repent an' be saved--"
+
+"Hold your infernal tongue!"
+
+"An' jine de Foot-washers--"
+
+"Damn the Foot-washers!" howled the general.
+
+"Plague on it!" snarled Dr. Wortley, whirling round with his back to the
+fire. "If you've got as far as predestination, you're in for a six
+weeks' spell. I can cure the gout, but I'll be shot if I can do anything
+when it's complicated with religion and black cats' tails and a
+constant diet like a Christmas dinner!"
+
+In the midst of the discussion, the doctor's shrill voice rising high
+over Delilah's, who, with arms akimbo and a defiant air, only awaited
+Dr. Wortley's departure to get in her innings with the patient, Mrs.
+Temple, serene and sweet, came in and quelled the insurrection. Delilah
+at once subsided, Dr. Wortley began to laugh, and the general directed
+that Mrs. Temple's chair be put next to his.
+
+"As your presence, my love, makes me forget my most unhappy foot," he
+said.
+
+Mrs. Temple's adherence to either Delilah or Dr. Wortley would have
+caused victory to perch upon that side; but Mrs. Temple, like the
+general, had more faith in Delilah than she was willing to own up to.
+So, between Delilah's feeding him high all the time, while the doctor
+only saw him once or twice a week, General Temple bade fair to remain an
+invalid for a considerable time. The attack of gout, though, just at
+that time, had its consolatory aspects. General Temple really wished to
+call at Millenbeck, but Mrs. Temple showed no sign of yielding. For the
+present, however, there could be no notion of his stirring out of doors.
+As long as the gout lasted there was a good excuse. But General Temple
+worried over it.
+
+"My love," he said one night, while Mrs. Temple and Jacqueline and
+Judith sat around the table in his room, where they had assembled to
+make his evening less dull, "I am troubled in my mind regarding George
+Throckmorton. It unquestionably seems heathenish for us to have one so
+intimately connected with our early married life--that truly blissful
+period--within a stone's throw of us, and then to deny him the sacred
+rites of hospitality."
+
+Jacqueline gave a half glance at Judith which was full of meaning, and
+Judith could not for her life keep a slight blush from rising in her
+cheek.
+
+Mrs. Temple said nothing, but looked hard at the fire, sighing
+profoundly. She had made herself some sort of a vague revengeful
+promise, that no man wearing a blue uniform should ever darken her
+doors. She had yielded first one thing, then another, of that scrupulous
+and daily mourning and remembrance she had promised herself, for
+Beverley--but this--
+
+The pause was long. Mrs. Temple, looking at General Temple, was touched
+by something in his expression--a longing, a patient, but genuine
+desire. Occasionally she indulged him, as she sometimes relaxed a little
+the discipline over Jacqueline in her childish days. She put her hand
+over her eyes and waited a moment as if she were praying. Then she said
+in broken voice, "Do what seems best to you, my husband."
+
+General Temple took her hand.
+
+"But, my own, I do not wish to coerce you. No matter what I think is our
+duty in the case, if it does not satisfy you, it shall not be done. I
+would rather anything befell Throckmorton, than you, my beloved Jane,
+should be grieved or troubled."
+
+Mrs. Temple received this sort of thing as she always did, with a shy
+pleasure like a girl.
+
+"I have said it, my dear, and you know I do not easily recede. Like you,
+this thing has been upon me ever since Throckmorton's return. I have
+felt it every day harder to maintain my attitude. Now, for your sake, I
+will abandon it. Have Throckmorton when you like. I will invite him over
+to tea on Sunday evening."
+
+General Temple fairly beamed. When Mrs. Temple gave in to him, which was
+not oftener than once a year, she gave in thoroughly.
+
+"Thank you, my wife. It certainly seems unnatural that Millenbeck and
+Barn Elms should be estranged. It shall be so no longer, please God. And
+that George Throckmorton is a high-toned gentleman"--General Temple
+paused a little before saying this, hunting for a term magniloquent
+enough for the occasion--"no one, I think, will deny."
+
+This was early in the week. The very next afternoon, Jacqueline finding
+time more than usually hard to kill, went up into the garret and began
+rummaging over the remains of Mrs. Temple's wedding finery of thirty
+years before. She dived down into a capacious chest, and brought forth
+two or three faded silk dresses, the bridal bonnet and veil, yellowed
+from age; and, among other antiques, a huge muff almost as big as
+Jacqueline herself. This suddenly put the notion of a walk into her
+head. Judith was engaged in reading Napier's History of the Peninsular
+Wars to General Temple, and Jacqueline had only herself for company. So,
+carrying her huge muff in which she plunged her arms up to her elbows,
+she started off. It was a raw autumn afternoon. The leaves had not yet
+all fallen, although the ground was dank with them, and the peculiar
+stillness of a lonely and lowland country was upon the monotonous
+landscape. The entire absence of sounds is a characteristic of that sort
+of country, and it makes a gloomy day more gloomy. Jacqueline, tripping
+along very fast, did not find it cheerful. She would go as far as the
+gate of the lane that led into the main road, and then turn back. This
+lane was also the entrance to Millenbeck, and Jacqueline had some sort
+of a faint expectation that she might run across Jack Throckmorton. She
+looked longingly toward Millenbeck, visible at intervals through the
+straggling fringe of pines. What an infinity of pleasure could be had,
+if her mother only came round thoroughly regarding the Throckmortons!
+What rides and dances she could have with Jack, and Judith could talk to
+the major! "What a dull life Judith must lead!" she thought, stepping
+lightly along. It was true, Judith liked to read; but Jacqueline, who
+frankly confessed she could not read a novel through from cover to
+cover, hardly appreciated reading as a resource. Jacqueline's
+imagination, with this superstructure to build upon, went ardently to
+work, and in a few minutes had installed Judith as mistress of
+Millenbeck, and herself as the young lady of the establishment. To do
+Jacqueline justice, she longed for Judith's happiness, who, she
+sometimes bitterly felt, was her only friend. Just as she had arranged
+this scheme to her satisfaction, she looked up, and saw, not twenty feet
+ahead of her, Major Throckmorton coming out of the underbrush at the
+side of the lane. A big slouch hat half concealed his face. His usual
+trim and natty dress, with that unmistakable "military cut," was
+exchanged for a shooting suit of corduroy, much stained, and otherwise
+the worse for wear. His stylish and immaculate hat was replaced by the
+flapping felt, and his gun and game-bag proclaimed his day's employment.
+Yet Jacqueline thought she had never seen him look so handsome, and in
+some way she was not half so much afraid of him in his shooting-togs as
+in his perfectly fitting evening clothes. Jacqueline's face turned a
+rosy red. As for Throckmorton, he too felt a thrill of pleasure. This
+pretty child, as he called her, had been in his mind rather constantly
+since he saw her at the party. He quickened his pace, and took his hat
+off while still some distance away.
+
+"Any more parties in prospect?" he asked, smiling, as he took her little
+hand in his.
+
+"No, I don't suppose there will be. Delicious parties like that don't
+happen very often," answered Jacqueline, quite seriously, and not in the
+least understanding Throckmorton's smile as she said this. "And--and
+young Mr. Throckmorton--oh, how I enjoyed dancing with him!"
+
+The major did not smile at this. To have "young Mr. Throckmorton" thrust
+at him by a charming young girl was not particularly pleasing.
+
+"Jack is a very jolly young fellow," he replied, shortly. "We are great
+friends, Jack and I."
+
+Jacqueline had turned around, and they were now walking together toward
+Barn Elms.
+
+"I--I should think," said Jacqueline, giving him one of her half-glances
+from under the dark fringe of her eyelashes--"that J--Jack would be
+afraid of you."
+
+Throckmorton laughed aloud.
+
+"Why should he be afraid of me?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Everybody is afraid of one's father," replied
+Jacqueline, candidly.
+
+"Jack and I entertain sentiments of mutual respect," laughed
+Throckmorton again. "The only fault I find with him is that he is unduly
+filial sometimes. For example, when I am enjoying the society of a
+charming young lady he thinks too young for me, he behaves as if I were
+his great-grandfather instead of his father. Jack has a good deal of
+Satan in him."
+
+Jacqueline did not always follow Throckmorton's remarks, but she noticed
+he had a rich voice, and he was the straightest, most soldierly-looking
+man she ever saw in her life. Throckmorton slung his game-bag around and
+held it open.
+
+"Do you like robins?" he said. "They are delicious broiled on
+toast"--and he took out a bird by the legs and showed it to her.
+
+Jacqueline stood perfectly still. Her eyes dilated and her breath came
+quickly. She took the bird out of his hand. It had long stopped
+bleeding, and its little cold head, with half-closed eyes, fell over
+piteously. Jacqueline took out her handkerchief and wrapped the poor
+robin in it.
+
+"Oh, the poor bird!" she said, and suddenly two large tears ran down her
+cheeks.
+
+Throckmorton stood surprised, touched, delighted, and almost ashamed. He
+had been a sportsman all his life, and could see no harm in knocking
+over a few birds in the season; but the picture of this tender-hearted
+child, that could not see a dead bird without weeping, struck him as
+beautifully feminine. But what could he say? If he was a bloodthirsty
+brute to shoot a robin, what must all the slaughter of birds he had
+been guilty of in his lifetime make him? He could only say, half
+shamefacedly and half laughing "My dear little friend, you wouldn't have
+men as squeamish as women, would you?"
+
+But to this Jacqueline only responded by pressing the poor bird's cold
+breast to her cheek.
+
+Throckmorton, however, with an air of gentle authority, took the bird
+from her and put it back in the bag.
+
+"If you cry for such things as this, you will have a hard time in life,"
+he said.
+
+Jacqueline's face did not clear up at once.
+
+"I want you to do something for me--to promise me something," she said,
+gravely.
+
+"What is it?" asked Throckmorton. Jacqueline had laid her charm upon him
+in the last ten minutes, but he did not forget his caution entirely.
+
+"It is," said Jacqueline, punctuating her words with tender, appealing
+glances, "that you won't kill any more robins--never, never, as long as
+you live."
+
+Throckmorton refrained from smiling, as he felt inclined, but it was
+plainly no laughing matter to Jacqueline. And if he gave the
+promise--nobody knew the absurdity of it more than Throckmorton--suppose
+Jack heard of it, what endless fun would he poke at his father on the
+sly! Nevertheless, Throckmorton, calling himself an old fool, made the
+promise.
+
+Jacqueline, flushed with triumph, now conceived a bold design. She
+would--that is, if her courage held out--tell him that her mother had at
+last come round. This delightful information she proceeded to impart.
+
+"Do you know," she said, smiling and showing her little even white
+teeth, "that mamma has at last agreed to--to let us have something to do
+with you and Jack?"
+
+"Has she, indeed?" replied Throckmorton, with rather a grim smile.
+
+"Yes," continued Jacqueline, with much seriousness. "Occasionally she
+gives papa a little treat. You know she always liked you, and papa has
+been dying to call to see you. But mamma can't forget the war and
+Beverley. At last, though--she's been thinking about it ever since that
+first day at church--she concluded to give in--and--and--you're to be
+asked to tea next Sunday evening!"
+
+The way this was told was not particularly flattering to Throckmorton,
+but he was sincerely grateful and attached to Mrs. Temple, and he knew
+and pitied the state of feeling that had caused her to intrench herself
+in her prejudices. She must indeed remember those old days when she was
+willing to do what Throckmorton suspected she had promised herself never
+to do. "I want to be friends with Mrs. Temple--that's plain enough," he
+said, "and if she asks me I shall certainly come."
+
+"Do you know," said Jacqueline, after a pause, in a very confidential
+voice, "I sometimes wish--now this is a secret, remember--that papa and
+mamma would forget Beverley a little--and think--of Judith and me? They
+seem to expect Judith to wear black all the time, and never to smile or
+to laugh or to sing, as if Beverley could know. I don't believe the dead
+in their graves know or care anything about us."
+
+She was on delicate ground, but, her tongue being unloosed,
+Throckmorton's attempt to check her was a complete failure.
+
+"Judith, you know," she continued, cutting in on Throckmorton's awkward
+remonstrance, "only knew Beverley a little while. Her father and mother
+were dead, and papa was her guardian. She came to Barn Elms to live
+after she left school, and Beverley came home from the war, and they
+were married right away--almost as soon as they were acquainted. It was
+so sudden because Beverley's leave was up, and Delilah says that
+Beverley knew he was going to be killed soon. She says he dreamed it, or
+something. Do you believe in dreams?"
+
+"No, and you mustn't believe all Delilah tells you."
+
+"Anyhow, he went away, and he never came back. That broke papa and
+mamma's hearts. And you know--little Beverley--Judith's child--is like
+her--and not a bit like Beverley, and mamma talks sometimes as if it was
+a crime on the child's part. She says to everybody, 'Don't you think
+the child is like his father?' and nobody answers her quite truthfully,
+and she knows it."
+
+Throckmorton hardly knew how to receive these family confidences, but he
+could not but admire the color coming and going in Jacqueline's cheeks,
+and the fitful light that burned in her eyes as she talked.
+
+"And Judith--I do love Judith. It seems hard--now this is another
+secret--that she should never have any more pleasure in this world. And
+she is so bright and clever. She understands the most wonderful books.
+And there's something--I can't help telling you this."
+
+"Perhaps you had better not tell me," said Throckmorton in a warning
+voice.
+
+"But I can't help it, you are so--so sympathetic: I don't believe Judith
+cared for Beverley much."
+
+Jacqueline drew off to see the effect of this on Throckmorton. She did
+not at all suspect him of any interest in Judith; but this family
+tragedy, that had stalked beside her nearly all her life, she thought
+was of immense importance, and she wanted to see how it affected
+Throckmorton. In fact, it only embarrassed him. He said, rather briefly:
+
+"Mrs. Beverley is very handsome--very charming."
+
+"She's the best sister in the world," exclaimed Jacqueline. "Some people
+think that sisters-in-law can't love each other. Sometimes I would
+throw myself in the river if it wasn't for Judith."
+
+"Why should such a tender little thing as you want to throw herself in
+the river?" he asked; and if Jack had heard the tone in which this was
+spoken, he would, no doubt, have found food for ungodly mirth in it.
+
+"You don't know what sorrows I have," responded Jacqueline, gravely. And
+then they were almost at the gate of Barn Elms, and Throckmorton bade
+her good-by, and tramped back home, while Jacqueline scudded into the
+house to confide the wonderful adventures of the afternoon to Judith.
+
+In a day or two a note from General Temple came, inviting Throckmorton
+and Jack to tea at Barn Elms the following Sunday evening. It was rather
+a letter than a note, General Temple spreading himself--his honest soul
+loved a rhetorical flourish--and containing many references to their
+early association. Throckmorton accepted, in a reply in which he told,
+much more glibly than his tongue could, the grateful affection he had
+cherished from his neglected and unhappy boyhood toward the whole family
+at Barn Elms. On the Sunday evening, therefore, Throckmorton, with Jack,
+presented himself, and was effusively received by the general and Simon
+Peter, who were not unlike in their overpowering courtesy to guests.
+Judith was cordial and dignified, and Jacqueline full of a shy delight.
+No doubt they would be invited to Millenbeck, and she would see with her
+own eyes the Bruskins carpets and other royal splendors Delilah was
+never weary of recounting.
+
+General Temple was able to be down in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Temple
+was not present. Delilah, however, soon put her head in the door, and,
+crossing her hands under a huge white apron she wore, brought a message.
+
+"Mistis, she say, won't Marse George please ter come in de charmber."
+
+Throckmorton at once followed her. The "charmber" at Barn Elms was a
+sort of star chamber, and utterances within its precincts were usually
+of a solemn character. As Throckmorton entered, Mrs. Temple rose from
+the big rush-bottomed chair in which she sat. Throckmorton remembered
+the room perfectly, in all the years since he had been in it--the dimity
+curtains, the high-post mahogany bed, the shining brass fender and
+andirons, the tall candlesticks on the high wooden mantel. He
+remembered, with a queer, boyish feeling, sundry moral discourses gently
+administered to him in that room on certain occasions when he had been
+caught in the act of fishing on Sunday, or poking a broomstick up the
+chimney to dislodge the sooty swallows that built their nests there in
+the summer-time, and other instances of juvenile turpitude. And he well
+recollected once, when Mrs. Temple was ill, he had hung about the
+place, a picture of boyish misery; and when at last he was admitted into
+the room where she lay, white and feeble, on the broad, old-fashioned
+lounge, how happy, how glad, how honored he had felt. He went forward
+eagerly and raised Mrs. Temple's hand to his lips.
+
+"George Throckmorton, this is nearer forgiveness than I ever expected
+to come," she said.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Temple, don't let us talk about forgiveness. Let us
+only remember that we are friends of more than thirty years'
+standing--because I can't remember the time when I was a boy that I
+didn't love you."
+
+"And I loved you, too--next to my own Beverley. I sent for you here that
+I might tell you my trouble as you used to tell me yours so long ago.
+Often you have sat on that little cricket over there and told me of your
+grandfather's cruel ways to you--he was a godless man, George."
+
+"He was indeed," fervently assented Throckmorton.
+
+"And now I want to tell you of _my_ sorrows, George."
+
+Throckmorton listened patiently while she went over all of Beverley's
+life. She told it with a touching simplicity. Throckmorton well saw how
+that still stern unforgiveness might rankle in her gentle but immovable
+mind. Then he told her of his marriage--something he had never in all
+his life spoken of to any one in that manner; but the force of sweet and
+early habit was upon him--he could talk to Mrs. Temple about the young
+creature so much loved and so long dead. Mrs. Temple, who knew what such
+revealing meant from a man of Throckmorton's strong and self-contained
+nature, was completely won by this. An hour afterward, when they came
+into the drawing-room, and found Jack and Jacqueline in a perfect gale
+of merriment, with Judith looking smilingly on, Mrs. Temple laid her
+hand on Throckmorton's shoulder, and said to General Temple, with sweet
+gravity, "He is the same George Throckmorton."
+
+Judith was leaning a little forward in her chair, with her arm around
+her child. The boy was a beautiful, manly fellow, and gazed at
+Throckmorton with friendly, serious eyes. Throckmorton, whose heart was
+tender toward all children, smiled at him. Beverley at this marched
+forward and climbed upon Throckmorton's knee, his little white frock,
+heavy with embroidery worked by Judith's patient fingers, spreading all
+around him. The boy immediately launched into conversation, eying
+Throckmorton boldly, although his eyes usually had the shy expression of
+his mother's. He wanted to know if Throckmorton had a gun, and could he
+beat the drum; also, if he could ride a horse. Sometimes grandfather
+would take him up and let him ride as far as the gate. Throckmorton
+answered all these questions satisfactorily, and then told about a pony
+he had at Millenbeck--a pony that had been Jack's, when Jack was no
+bigger than Beverley, and that was now too old and slow for any but a
+very little boy. While Throckmorton talked to the child, Judith listened
+with a smiling look in her eyes. Throckmorton could not but be struck by
+the pretty picture the young mother and her child made. He saw the
+resemblance between them at once, and when he told of a tragic adventure
+Jack had with the pony, falling through a bridge, both pairs of large,
+soft eyes grew wide with grave amazement. Unconsciously Judith assumed
+the child's expression. Beverley seemed determined to monopolize his new
+acquaintance, but presently Judith with a little air of authority sent
+him off with Delilah. Beverley paused at the door to say:
+
+"You come again and bring the pony."
+
+Presently they went into the dining-room, and the old-fashioned tea was
+served. There was enough to feed a regiment, and all of the best kind,
+but nothing approaching vulgar display. Mrs. Temple put Throckmorton at
+her right, and every time she spoke to Jack she called him George.
+Throckmorton had forgotten nothing of the old days, and he not only
+began to feel young himself, but he made General and Mrs. Temple feel
+that time had turned backward. Jacqueline, on the opposite side of the
+table, smiled at him and talked a little. In her heart she could not
+quite make out Throckmorton. He had arrived at an age that seemed to her
+almost venerable; yet he quite ignored the fact that he ought to be old,
+and certainly was not old, nor could anybody say that he was young.
+Jack's boyish fun she understood well enough, but Throckmorton's shrewd
+humor, his confident, experienced way of looking at things, was rather
+beyond her. And as the case had been, whenever Throckmorton saw her, he
+had to exercise a certain restraint, lest everybody should see how
+strangely and completely she magnetized him. If anybody had asked him to
+compare Judith and Jacqueline, he would have given Judith the palm in
+everything--even in beauty; but Jacqueline's young prettiness in some
+way caught his fancy more than Judith's deeper and more significant
+beauty.
+
+But Judith had her charm too for him. She captivated his judgment as
+Jacqueline captivated some inner sense to which he could give no name.
+Judith's talk was seasoned with liveliness, and Throckmorton, who
+possessed a dry and penetrating humor of his own, could always count on
+a responsive sparkle in Judith's eye.
+
+When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Temple said:
+
+"Judith, my dear, sing us some of your sweet hymns."
+
+Judith sat down to the piano and in her clear and bell-like soprano sang
+some old-fashioned hymns, so sweetly and unaffectedly that Throckmorton
+thought it was like angels singing. The sound of the simple music, the
+soft light of fire and lamp, the atmosphere of love and courtesy that
+seemed to breathe over the quaint circle, had a fascination for him. It
+was the poetry of domestic life. He had often dreamed of what "home"
+might be, but he had never known it, for that brief married life of his
+had been too short, too flickering; they were boy and girl lovers, and,
+before the new life had had time to crystallize, he was left alone. But
+here he saw the sweet privacy of home, the repose, the family nest, safe
+and warm. He sighed a little. Money could not buy it, else he would have
+had it at Millenbeck, comfortable handsome country-house that it was.
+But here, at this shabby old Barn Elms, it was in perfection, in all its
+naturalness and simplicity. After all, women were necessary to make a
+home; even money, with a Sweeney as presiding genius, couldn't do it.
+
+It was late when they left. Mrs. Temple's parting was as solemn as her
+greeting:
+
+"I have done that which I never expected to do, and all because in my
+heart I can't but love you, George Throckmorton!"
+
+Throckmorton's keen pleasure showed in his dark eyes.
+
+"I always knew, if you would only listen to that dear, kind heart of
+yours, you would forgive the Yankees," he laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Miracles usually happen in cycles. They unquestionably did in the Severn
+neighborhood. Before the hurricane of talk over Throckmorton's arrival,
+Jack's audacity, and Sweeney's brogue had fairly reached a crisis, a
+letter came one day to General Temple, from his nephew, Temple Freke,
+announcing his intention of paying a visit to his dear uncle and aunt at
+Barn Elms.
+
+General Temple handed the letter to Mrs. Temple with a sort of groan.
+
+"This is he--I mean, my love, this is most discomposing."
+
+At this Mrs. Temple shook her head in a manner expressing perfect
+despair. The problem whether Throckmorton should be admitted within the
+doors of Barn Elms was a mere nothing compared with this. Both of them
+firmly believed in a personal devil; and Temple Freke, with his
+extravagance, his vices, his unprincipled behavior, stood for Satan
+himself. This Freke was very unlike the conservative, home-keeping type
+of a gentleman that prevailed in Virginia. He was born and brought up
+in Louisiana, and was fifteen years old when, by the death of his
+father, General Temple became his guardian, and he was brought to Barn
+Elms to lead the staid Beverley into all sorts of scrapes, and to
+torment General Temple's honest soul almost to madness. The elder Freke,
+perhaps, knowing the boy's disposition, had made General Temple's
+guardianship to extend until Temple Freke's twenty-fifth birthday.
+
+Of the horrors of that guardianship, nobody but the kind and
+simple-hearted general could tell--of Freke's extravagance, of his
+gambling and betting and drinking, and one frightful scene, when Freke,
+with a loaded pistol in his hand, swore that, unless a certain debt of
+honor was paid, he would kill himself on the spot; and General Temple,
+who was not easily frightened, promptly paid it, with the conviction
+that the young fellow was quite capable of carrying out the threat.
+Immediately after this, General Temple shipped him off to Europe, but
+apparently it made bad worse. For six whole years was General Temple
+commanding, entreating, praying, and wheedling to get Freke back to
+Virginia. It was true, he might have cut off supplies, but Freke made no
+bones of saying that, if he couldn't get his own money, he would
+contrive to get somebody else's; so the poor general, with groans and
+moans, would cash Freke's drafts on him as long as money could be
+screwed out of the Louisiana sugar plantations to do it with.
+
+But, as Mrs. Temple often said, Freke was unquestionably a gentleman; he
+was mild-mannered to a degree, and his very impertinences were brought
+out with a diffidence that frequently hoodwinked General Temple. He was
+not nearly so handsome as Beverley, being much shorter and sandy-haired,
+in contrast with Beverley's blonde beauty; but Mrs. Temple always
+felt in the old days, with a little pang of jealousy, that this
+ordinary-looking boy, with his exquisite manners--not the least affected
+or effeminate, but simply the perfection of personal bearing--could put
+Beverley at a disadvantage. The two had little in common, and had never
+met after their school-days, when General Temple, in the innocence of
+his heart, had sent Freke abroad, to reform, until the very time of
+Beverley's death. Freke, whose courage was as flawless in its way as
+General Temple's, had come home during the war and enlisted in the
+Southern army. A strange fate had placed him close to Beverley when he
+was killed. He had held Beverley's dying hand, and to him were intrusted
+the last messages to the mother and the young wife, who waited and
+prayed at Barn Elms. Nothing on earth but this could have brought Mrs.
+Temple to tolerate Freke at all, after the sensational career which
+had begun with the pistol scene. Moreover, to increase the abnormal
+conditions about this unregenerate being, as the Temples considered
+him, he was perfectly irresistible. How it was, General Temple gloomily
+declared, he didn't know, but Freke had the most extraordinary way of
+insinuating himself into the good graces of both men and women--not
+by any affectation of goodness, for there was a frankness about his
+wickedness that was peculiarly appalling to General Temple. Freke was no
+handsomer as a man than as a boy; he had been steadily making ducks and
+drakes of his fortune since he was twenty-five; yet, somehow, Freke
+always seemed to have a plenty of friends, solely by the charm of his
+personality. The most serious escapade that had come to General Temple's
+knowledge since Freke was of age was his running away with a Cuban girl
+in New Orleans, and afterward getting a divorce by some hocus-pocus, and
+thereafter, with serene confidence, he bore himself as an unmarried man.
+Now, divorce was practically unknown in that old part of Virginia, and
+the Temples regarded it as in the category with murder and arson; so
+that this final iniquity of Freke's would have quite put him beyond the
+pale, but for those hours he spent kneeling on the ground with the dying
+Beverley.
+
+General Temple had a sort of Arab hospitality that would not have
+begrudged itself to the Evil One himself, and to tell Freke that he was
+not welcome under the roof of Barn Elms, where his grandfather and his
+grandfather's father had lived, was an enormity of which he was not
+capable. And Mrs. Temple was no manner of use to him in the case. In
+vain he tried to shuffle the decision off on her. Mrs. Temple would
+not accept it. Like the general, she sighed and groaned, and turned it
+over in her mind; but always came back that picture of Beverley lying
+bleeding and dying, and Freke risking his life to stay by him. So at
+last, after a week of mutual misery, one night, in the privacy of the
+"charmber," Mrs. Temple, watching the general stalking up and down
+during one of his fits of midnight restlessness, said, tremulously:
+
+"My love, we must let Freke come. We can not refuse it--for--for
+Beverley's sake."
+
+So the next morning a letter was dispatched to Freke, written by General
+Temple with considerably less cordiality than usual, and very feeble
+rhetorically, expressing the pleasure his uncle and aunt felt at the
+prospect of a visit from their nephew.
+
+The next day, as soon as the direful news of his coming was made known
+to Jacqueline, she rushed off, as she always did, to give Judith the
+startling information.
+
+Judith heard it with a strange feeling of repulsion, which she at first
+imagined was that infinite disapproval she felt for Freke; but, if he
+came, all of that terrible story about Beverley would have to be told
+over. Judith had not yet come to a clear understanding of herself, but
+she had begun to shrink from that dwelling on Beverley which seemed to
+give Mrs. Temple such exquisite comfort.
+
+"Everything that looked at Freke fell in love with him," announced
+Jacqueline. "Of course, he is as handsome as a dream--something like Mr.
+Morford, I dare say."
+
+There were two or three faded photographs of him at Barn Elms, and none
+of them gave the idea of great beauty; but photographs in those days
+were not very artistic reproductions.
+
+Judith laughed a little uneasily.
+
+"I wish he wern't coming, Jacky," she said. "He is too--too startling a
+person for quiet people like ourselves. There is one comfort, though: he
+will soon get tired of us."
+
+Within a week or two came a very well-expressed letter from Freke,
+thanking his uncle and aunt for their hospitable invitation, and saying
+that on a certain day he would land from the river steamer at Oak Point.
+Jacqueline was immensely taken with the letter, which was written on
+paper the like of which she had never seen before, and was sealed with a
+crest.
+
+Two immense trunks arrived in advance of the expected visitor. Mrs.
+Sherrard happened to be at Barn Elms when the luggage appeared. Mrs.
+Temple's face expressed her misery.
+
+"Jane, you have my sympathy. A more unmitigated scamp than Freke doesn't
+live," was Mrs. Sherrard's remark.
+
+"Kitty," feebly protested Mrs. Temple, "he is my husband's nephew."
+
+"The more's the pity."
+
+As a rule, the reputation of incalculable wickedness hurts nobody, in
+the opinion of the very young. The more Mrs. Temple preached and warned,
+holding on to that one saving clause, Freke's devotion to Beverley in
+his dying hours, the more attractive he seemed to Jacqueline. At last
+one afternoon, when the carriage returned from Oak Point Landing with
+the much-talked-of Freke, Jacqueline, who had been curling her hair and
+prinking all day for the visitor, came down into the drawing-room, and
+the expression of acute disappointment on her face said loudly:
+
+"Is this all?"
+
+For Freke was neither surpassingly handsome nor any of the superlative
+things Jacqueline had fondly imagined him to be. He was not even as
+handsome as Throckmorton, and Jacqueline thought him no beauty. Freke
+was under middle height, and his hair was as sandy as of old, and not
+too abundant. His features were ordinary; and Jacqueline, not being a
+physiognomist, did not take in the piercing expression, the firmness and
+intelligence that redeemed them from commonplaceness. He did look
+unmistakably the gentleman, Jacqueline grudgingly admitted. _This_ the
+adorable, the irresistible, the--But Jacqueline was too disgusted to
+continue.
+
+Freke, who read Jacqueline like an open book, and suspected the advance
+impression she had received, could hardly keep from laughing out aloud
+at the girl's air and manner. He talked a little to her, somewhat more
+to Judith, but chiefly to Mrs. Temple.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when he had arrived, and tea was soon
+announced. Directly it was over, Mrs. Temple marshaled a solemn
+procession into "the charmber" to hear Freke's description of Beverley's
+last hours. She went first with Judith, followed by Freke and General
+Temple. Mrs. Temple had tried to get Jacqueline to come, too, but
+Jacqueline, who had a horror of weeping and tragedies, begged off; and
+Mrs. Temple, who really attached but little importance to the girl at
+any time, did not press the point. The door of the room remained closed
+for two hours. Jacqueline, who had got tired of Delilah's company and
+the cat's, went up-stairs early, but not to bed. She waited until she
+heard Judith's door open, and then went and knocked timidly at the door.
+
+"Come in," said Judith, in an unfamiliar voice. Judith was sitting
+before her dressing-table, and had already begun to unbraid her long,
+rich hair. But her eyes were fixed with a hard, staring gaze on her own
+image in the glass. The mother had wept at Freke's recital; the widow
+had remained pale, tearless, and turning over in her troubled mind the
+immaturity, the transitoriness of that first girlish love-affair that
+had resulted, as so few first loves do, in a sudden marriage--a quick
+widowhood. And she had a terrifying sense that she had betrayed herself
+to Freke. There was one particular point in the narrative, when he
+described how the dead man had got his death-wound. Beverley had run
+across a small body of Federal cavalrymen, himself with only an advance
+guard, and, _à la_ General Temple, had immediately dashed at them, as if
+a cavalry scrimmage would affect one iota the great fight that was
+impending the next day. Beverley himself had engaged in a hand-to-hand
+tussle with a Federal officer--both of them had rolled off their horses,
+and the struggle between them was more like Indian warfare than
+civilized warfare--and Freke described, with cruel particularity, how
+the two men fought in the underbrush, and crushed the wild rose and
+hawthorn bushes, each one trying vainly to draw his pistol--and at last
+a shot rang out, and Beverley turned over on his face with a wild shriek
+and a death-wound. The Federal officer had got his arm entangled in his
+bridle-reins, and Freke thought every moment the excited horse would
+trample the wounded man to death; and then, a squad of Confederates
+coming up, the Federals had made off, the officer mounting his horse and
+getting out of the way with nothing worse than a few bruises. All the
+time he was telling this he was eying Judith, who did not shed a single
+tear. Mrs. Temple wept torrents, and even so did General Temple. For
+poor Judith, whose reading of Freke was not less keen than his reading
+of her, it was misery enough to feel that, after all, her widowhood was
+not very real, and that the mourning, the entire giving up of the world,
+the devotion to Beverley's parents, was, in some sort, a reparation; but
+that it should escape her--for Judith with the eagerness to make amends,
+of a generous nature, had readily adopted Mrs. Temple's view--that it
+was a crime not to mourn for Beverley.
+
+Jacqueline slipped down on her knees beside Judith, and, nodding her
+head, gravely said:
+
+"Mamma didn't get _me_ into the room. Ah, Judy, dear, why won't they let
+us forget him--"
+
+"Jacqueline!" cried Judith, turning a pale, shocked face on her.
+
+"I say," persisted Jacqueline, who had one of her sudden fits of
+courage, "why do they trouble us to remember him? I hardly knew him; he
+was always off at college, and then in the war; why won't they let us
+mourn decently for him? And then--and then--everybody wants to forget
+griefs. I do."
+
+Judith rose and shook her off impatiently. "I wish Temple Freke had
+never come here," she said.
+
+"I do, too," answered Jacqueline, getting up. "I am afraid of him. O
+Judith, what two poor creatures are we!"
+
+"I know I am," suddenly cried Judith, breaking into a storm of tears. "I
+know there is no peace for me anywhere!--" Judith stopped as suddenly as
+she had begun. How could she put it in words, the ghastliness of this
+perpetual reminder of that which in her heart she longed to forget--this
+feeling that had been growing on her for so long, that she ought to feel
+more remorse for marrying Beverley Temple than grief at losing him--that
+all this solemn mourning for him was like those state funerals, where
+there is a great service, a catafalque, a coffin, mourners--everything
+except a corpse? And to her candid soul how wicked, heartless, and
+unnatural it seemed! Jacqueline's eyes, so full of meaning and fixed on
+her, troubled her. She got up after a minute and walked over to the
+window. The red glow of the fire and the dim candle-light did not
+prevent her from seeing clearly into the moonlight night. She drew the
+old-fashioned white curtains apart and looked out. The somber trees
+loomed large and black, but up on the hill, a quarter of a mile away,
+the light from Millenbeck gleamed cheerfully. From two windows on the
+lower floor and two on the upper, as well as the great fan- and
+side-lights of the hall-door, a ruddy glare streamed steadily. Presently
+Jacqueline came and stood by Judith, timidly.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "it seems queer that three strangers should
+come into our lonely lives--in this quiet life here? And the one I
+like--the one I like best--is Jack Throckmorton. I can't talk to the
+others."
+
+Judith, who had got back a little of her composure, smiled at this.
+
+"You talked away fast enough with Major Throckmorton."
+
+"Oh, yes, but I didn't feel at home with him. Jack and I understand each
+other. I know what he means when he talks to me. I don't always
+understand Major Throckmorton. Judith, is my cousin Freke a very wicked
+man?"
+
+"So people say," replied Judith in a subdued voice, which had not
+altogether overcome its agitation.
+
+"He isn't handsome enough to be very--very attractive," said Jacqueline
+after a pause.
+
+But the rule of contrary seemed to suddenly prevail at Barn Elms then.
+Within a week everybody in the house had succumbed more or less to
+Freke's charm. General Temple found him invaluable in the preparation of
+the History of Temple's Brigade; and Freke, who had a store of military
+knowledge among his great fund of general information, easily persuaded
+the general that he was a military historian of the first order. When
+the general began his evening harangues, Freke always had an example pat
+of a certain occasion when Prince Eugene, or the Duke of Marlborough, or
+some equally distinguished leader had successfully pursued General
+Temple's tactics. All this General Temple laboriously transcribed in his
+manuscript. Judith, who very much doubted whether Freke were not making
+it up as he went along, had her suspicions confirmed when Freke would
+occasionally turn his expressive face on her and actually wink with
+appreciation of the general's simplicity. Judith was indignant, but she
+could not help laughing at Freke's genuine humor. Mrs. Temple showed her
+regard for the returned prodigal by taking him into the "charmber" one
+day and reasoning in a motherly way upon Freke's duty to return to his
+wife. Judith was astounded after a while to hear Mrs. Temple's gentle
+but intense laughter making itself heard outside the room. Freke, with
+the most good-natured manner in the world, sitting in the rush-bottomed
+chair, with one foot over his knee, began to tell Mrs. Temple some of
+his marital experiences with his Julia. Mrs. Temple at first put on her
+severest frown and fairly groaned aloud at his declaration that he
+didn't know whether he was married or not in Virginia, as his divorce
+was got in one of the Northwestern States; but, divorce or no divorce,
+he wouldn't tempt Fate again in another matrimonial venture even with a
+creature as beautiful as Helen, as wise as Portia, and with a million in
+her own right. Then he began to tell of the adventures between Julia and
+himself which had led to their separation, winding up with a description
+of their final scene, when Julia threw a dish at him and he in turn
+threw a bucket of ice-water over Julia. Before this, though, Mrs.
+Temple's laughter had been heard. Freke issued from the room the picture
+of innocence, and at peace with himself and all the world. Mrs. Temple,
+on the contrary, was an image of guilt. Never had she before in her life
+been beguiled from a moral lecture into unseemly laughter--and laughter
+on such a subject! Mrs. Temple's conscience rose up and fought her, and
+she began to think that all her moral foundation was tottering.
+
+Surprises were the order of the day. One night, just after family
+prayers, when the gout, and the doubt whether anybody at all was to be
+saved, had caused General Temple to make a more pessimistic, vociferous,
+and grewsome prayer than usual, in which he called the Deity to account
+for so grievously afflicting the Temple family, Freke, whom Judith had
+caught smiling in the midst of General Temple's most telling periods,
+quietly announced that he had that day bought Wareham, a place within
+two miles of Barn Elms.
+
+It was not much of a place, being at most about three hundred acres,
+with a small, untenanted house on it--and property went for a song,
+anyhow, in that part of the world--but, nevertheless, the news was
+paralyzing to General and Mrs. Temple. Judith, who was developing a
+certain dislike and distrust of Freke that grew daily, could hardly
+forbear laughing at the mute horror of General and Mrs. Temple over this
+unlooked-for news. Freke went on to say that a very little would make
+the place habitable for him, and he liked the fishing and shooting to be
+had--especially the shooting, as the birds had had four years' rest
+during the war. Then he said good-night pleasantly, and went off to bed.
+
+"This is the dev--I mean this is most unfortunate, my love," remarked
+General Temple, dismally, to Mrs. Temple, at two o'clock in the morning
+following this, as he paraded up and down the "charmber," declaiming
+against Freke's iniquities.
+
+Next day, Mrs. Sherrard came over, and the direful news was communicated
+to her by Mrs. Temple, with a very long face. Mrs. Sherrard's eyes
+danced.
+
+"Now you'll know what it is to have a nephew that one would like to be
+entirely unlike what he is. That's my trouble with Edmund Morford. You
+know, I hate a humbug--and Edmund is a good soul, but a dreadful
+humbug."
+
+"Katharine!" exclaimed Mrs. Temple. "A minister of the gospel--"
+
+"Go along, Jane Temple! You have no eyes in your head where ministers of
+the gospel are concerned. Edmund is perfectly harmless--that's one
+comfort."
+
+"I wish I could say the same of Temple Freke," Mrs. Temple rejoined,
+dolefully.
+
+It would be a week or two yet before Freke could take possession of
+Wareham. Some beds and tables and sheets and towels had to be procured,
+and meanwhile he stayed on at Barn Elms. It would not have taken a very
+astute person to see what the charm was. It was Judith.
+
+When the knowledge first came to these two people--to Judith, that
+Freke's eyes followed her continually; that, as if by some power beyond
+his will, his chair was always next hers, his ear always alert to catch
+her lightest word--to Freke, that this young country-woman, with her
+spirited, expressive face, her untutored singing--for music was one of
+his weak points, or strong ones, as the case might be--her gentle
+sarcasm when he essayed a little sentiment, pretty and tender enough to
+please a woman who knew twice as much as she; that at first sight,
+without an effort, she had conquered his bold spirit--it is hard to say
+which was the most vexed and disgusted. Judith found it easy enough to
+play the inconsolable widow where a man who aroused a positive
+antagonism like Freke was concerned, and denounced him in her own mind
+as a wretch for daring to fall in love with her. And Freke--after New
+York women and Creole women, French, Spanish, Russian, English, and
+Italian women--to have been loved and petted, and virtually made free of
+women's hearts; that this unsophisticated Virginia girl, who had never
+seen six men in her life, should simply take him off his feet, and that,
+without knowing it--was simply infuriating. In the privacy of his
+bedroom, as he smoked his last cigar before turning in, he swore at
+himself with a self-deprecation that was thoroughly genuine. What did he
+want to marry again for, anyway? Hadn't he had all he wanted of that
+pastime? And, of course, being a divorced man, Judith would see him
+chopped into little pieces before she would marry him--and then the
+staggering thought that, even if he were not divorced, the odds were
+against her marrying him at all--it was altogether maddening. But he did
+not lose his head completely. Judith's indifference--nay, dislike--saved
+to him his discretion. But had she warmed to him for one little
+moment--Freke, in thinking over this sweet impossibility, lay back in
+his chair and watched the smoke curling upward, and was lost in a
+delicious reverie--when suddenly, the utter preposterousness of it came
+to him, and he threw the cigar into the fire with a savage energy that
+nearly wrenched his arm off. No, the little devil--for he was not choice
+of epithets in regard to this woman--would throw him away with as
+little conscience and remorse as he threw that cigar away! Like all men
+of many love-affairs, he regarded love-making as an æsthetic amusement;
+and while it was absolutely necessary for its perfection that the woman
+should be desperately in earnest--for Freke did not mind a tragic tinge
+being given to the matter--it was nonsense for a man to permit himself
+to be drawn into heroics--and yet--but for the indifference of this
+girl, who was always half laughing at him--he would not answer for any
+folly he might commit.
+
+Then there was Jacqueline. She exactly suited him as a victim to his
+charms, sardonically expressing it to himself. She, too, was not
+particularly impressed with him as yet, but that was due to her
+ignorance. He could easily enlighten her, and she would be led like a
+slave by him; he could make her believe anything. So, in default of
+Judith, he might as well amuse himself with Jacqueline; and, by
+resolutely concealing his gigantic folly, he would in the end overcome
+it. But he felt like a man who, having a head to stand champagne and
+brandy and absinthe and every other intoxication, comes across something
+that looks as harmless as water, but which sets his brain on fire and
+makes him a madman.
+
+The general and Mrs. Temple saw nothing; a man might have made love to
+Judith and have run away with her under their very noses before they
+would have realized that it was possible for any man to dare falling in
+love with Beverley's widow; and if Jacqueline's eyes saw anything, she
+kept it wisely to herself.
+
+Freke certainly added a new and picturesque element to their lives; even
+Judith could not deny that, although she habitually denied Freke the
+possession of any of the graces as well as the virtues. But that Freke
+was a wonderful, a gifted, a fascinating talker, she was forced to
+admit. His conversation was quite different from Throckmorton's manly
+plainness of speech, who, with more brains than Freke, had not them as
+readily soluble in talk. Judith was acute enough to see the difference
+between the two men--one the man of conversation, and the other the man
+of action. Throckmorton knew many things, and one thing surpassingly
+well--his profession. Freke excelled in conversation; what he knew was
+imposing, but what he could do was not. However, he had not only
+traveled, but he had observed as well as read. He never made himself the
+hero of his own stories; and there was a sparkle in his eyes, an
+animation that gave a deeper tone to his voice, and Judith, in her dull
+and colorless life, could not but feel the charm of it. Nevertheless, it
+was not all charm. Judith felt as strongly as ever the incongruity of
+Freke with his surroundings.
+
+So, some days more passed. Judith found that in finesse she was no
+match for Freke. Indifferent to him as she might be, he could always
+place himself where he wanted--he managed to have a great deal more of
+her society than she would willingly have given him; but she reasoned
+shrewdly with herself--women being naturally clever in these things: "He
+will soon give it up. The game is not worth the candle." And so it
+proved; for in a little while he began to shadow Jacqueline, and
+Jacqueline succumbed like a bird to the charmer. If Freke was present,
+Jacqueline, who was wont to be impatient when not noticed, would sit
+quite quietly by her sister-in-law's side, sewing demurely, or walk
+beside her gravely, not opening her mouth but listening intently, as her
+changing color showed. One day, when Jacqueline went into the gloomy,
+darkened drawing-room to play, Freke followed her. Jacqueline sat down,
+and began some short familiar piece, but she could not render it. She
+missed notes, became confused, and finally gave up and left the piano in
+mortification.
+
+"It is because you are here," she said to Freke, with a child's
+resentment.
+
+"Is it, little girl?" he asked.
+
+He was sitting quite at the other end of the room and did not come near
+her, but something in his tone made Jacqueline halt, and brought the
+ever-ready blood into her cheeks. Freke, after a moment, rose and
+sauntered toward her. As he came up to her he took a stray lock of hair
+that had escaped, in curly perversity, from the comb; and, just as he
+stood with it in his fingers, the door opened and Simon Peter announced:
+
+"Walk right in, Marse George. Mistis, she countin' de tuckeys in de
+coop, but Miss Judy, she be 'long pres'n'y. Hi! Here Miss Jacky!"
+
+Throckmorton walked in. His eye, which was as quick as a hawk's, caught
+the whole thing in an instant, and a sort of jealousy sprang into life.
+Of course, he did not display the smallest symptom of it. He shook hands
+pleasantly with Jacqueline, and also with Freke, whom he had met several
+times. With his easy, worldly judgment, he by no means ranked Freke as
+the chief of sinners, but, without regarding him as a model citizen,
+found him extremely good company, which Freke certainly was. Jacqueline
+looked painfully embarrassed, but Freke's coolness was simply
+indomitable. The two men made conversation naturally enough, while
+Jacqueline, awkwardly silent, sat and twisted the unlucky lock of hair
+in her fingers until a diversion was created by Judith's entrance, with
+little Beverley clinging to her skirts. A faint, girlish blush came into
+Judith's face when she met Throckmorton; and for his part he felt always
+the charm, the refinement, the sprightliness, more piquant because
+subdued, that exhaled like a perfume wherever Judith was. Beverley made
+for Throckmorton, and, before his mother could interpose a warning
+hand, was perched on the arm of Throckmorton's chair, whence both of
+them defied her. Jacqueline made but one remark. She asked Throckmorton,
+timidly:
+
+"How is young Mr. Throckmorton?"
+
+At which the major scowled, but responded carelessly that Jack was all
+right, as far as he knew.
+
+_Young_ Mr. Throckmorton! and from those lovely lips!
+
+Presently there was a grinding of wheels, and a commotion at the front
+door.
+
+"Mrs. Sherrard, I know!" said Judith. "She always begins her salutations
+at the gate."
+
+Sounds were distinguishable.
+
+"Mistis be mighty glad ter see you an' Marse Edmun'. She down at de
+fattenin'-coop countin' de tuckeys, kase we didn't have no luck wid de
+tuckey-aigs lars' season, an' de wuffless hen-tuckeys--"
+
+So much for Simon Peter, when Delilah's voice broke in:
+
+"Miss Kitty, 'twan' de hen-tuckeys 'tall. Ef de gobblers wuz ter take
+turns, like de pigeons, a-settin' on de aigs--"
+
+"I allus did think dem he-pigeons look like de foolishest critters _I_
+ever see a-settin' on de nes' while de she-pigeons hoppin' roun' de
+groun' 'stid o' mindin' dey business--"
+
+"You are right, Simon Peter," answered Mrs. Sherrard, still invisible.
+"I wonder that Delilah hasn't profited by Mrs. Temple's example. You've
+got visitors. Whose hat is this?"
+
+"Marse George Throckmorton's an' Marse Temple Freke's. I gwi' tell
+mistis you here. Marse c'yarn leave de charmber yet, he gout so bad."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard marched in, followed by Edmund Morford. She wore her most
+commanding and hostile air. She had pooh-poohed Mrs. Temple's dread of
+Freke, but she meant to give him to understand that his goings on, and
+particularly his matrimonial difficulties, were perfectly well known in
+the Severn neighborhood, and properly reprobated. So she shook hands all
+around, followed by the Rev. Edmund, who never trusted himself at Barn
+Elms, with those two pretty young women, alone and unprotected.
+
+"I understand you have bought Wareham," remarked Mrs. Sherrard, tartly,
+to Freke.
+
+"I have," answered Freke, very mildly.
+
+"You'll repent it."
+
+"Not if you make yourself as agreeable as you ought," answered Freke.
+
+The impudence of this tickled Mrs. Sherrard.
+
+"I hear you are an entertaining fellow," she said. "Come and talk to
+me."
+
+Just then Mrs. Temple entered, but Mrs. Sherrard kept fast hold of
+Freke. In half an hour he had won her over. Judith, responding with an
+intelligent glance to a rather cynical smile on Throckmorton's part, saw
+it. Not satisfied with winning Mrs. Sherrard over, Freke applied himself
+to Morford, and that excellent but guileless person fell an instant
+victim to Freke's tact and power. Mrs. Sherrard was so pleased with her
+morning's visit, that she invited them all over to Turkey Thicket to
+spend the following Thursday evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+In the few days that followed, Judith saw more plainly that Freke was
+deliberately casting his spell over Jacqueline, and, from the soft and
+seductive flattery he had tried on her, Judith, at first, he exchanged
+something like sarcasm. He would discuss constancy before her, Judith
+meanwhile keeping her seat resolutely, but she could not prevent the
+tell-tale color from rising into her face. But when, as Freke generally
+did, he surmised that all the so-called constancy in this world wasn't
+exactly what it purported to be, she grew pale beneath his gaze. He
+watched her intently whenever she was with Throckmorton, and the mere
+consciousness of being watched embarrassed while it angered her. Freke,
+whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw far into the future, and
+often repeated in his own mind the old, old truth that all the passions
+of human nature--love, hope, despair, jealousy, and revenge--could be
+found within the quietest and most peaceful circle.
+
+The very next evening after Mrs. Sherrard's visit, Freke appeared in the
+dusky drawing-room, where Jacqueline sat crouched over the fire, and
+Judith, with her child in her arms, sang him quaint Mother Goose
+melodies. When Freke came within the fire's red circle of light, Judith
+observed that he had a violin and bow under his arm. Jacqueline jumped
+up delightedly.
+
+"Oh, oh! do you know any music?"
+
+"I can fiddle a little," answered Freke, smiling.
+
+He settled himself, and, in the midst of the deep silence of twilight in
+the country, began a concerto of Brahms. The first movement, an
+_allegro_, he played with a dainty, soft trippingness that was fit for
+fairies dancing by moonlight. The next, a _scherzo_, was full of tender
+suggestiveness--a dream told in music. The third movement was deeper,
+more tragic, full of sorrow and wailing. As Freke drew the bow across
+the G-string, he would bring out tones as deep as the 'cello, while
+suddenly the sharp cry of the treble would cut into the somber depths of
+the basso like the shriek of a soul in torment. A melody like a
+wandering spirit appeared out of the deep harmonies, and lost, yet ever
+found, would make itself heard with a sweet insistence, only to be
+swallowed up in a tempest of sound, like a bird lost in a storm. And
+presently there was an abatement, then a calm, and the music died,
+literally, amid the twilight dusk and gloom.
+
+As Freke, with strange eyes, and his bow suspended, tremblingly, as if
+waiting for the spirit to return, ceased, there was a perfect silence.
+Jacqueline, who had never heard anything like it in her life, and who,
+all unknown to herself, was singularly susceptible to music, gazed at
+Freke as the magician who had made her dream dreams, and after a while
+cried out:
+
+"Why do you play like that? I never heard anybody play so before."
+
+In answer, Freke again smiled, and played a wild Hungarian dance, fit
+for the dancing of bacchantes, so full of barbaric clash and rhythm,
+that Jacqueline suddenly sprang up and began to dance around the chairs
+and tables. Freke half turned to glance at her; he retarded the time,
+and softened the tones, when Jacqueline, too, danced slowly and
+dreamily--until presently, with a storm and a rush of music,
+_fortissimo_ and _prestissimo_, and a resounding blare of chords that
+sounded like the shouts of a victorious army, he stopped and lay back in
+his chair, still smiling.
+
+But, although Judith had twice Jacqueline's knowledge of music, with all
+her feeling for it, Freke was piqued to see that she did not for a
+moment confound his music with his personality. She seemed to take a
+malicious pleasure in complimenting him glibly, which is the last snub
+to an artist. Freke was so vexed by her indifference, that he began to
+play cats mewing and dogs barking, on his fiddle, to frighten little
+Beverley, who looked at him with wide, scared eyes.
+
+"Never mind, my darling," cried Judith, laughing. "Be a brave little
+boy--only girls are scared at such things."
+
+Beverley, thus exhorted, summoned up his courage and proposed to get
+grandfather's sword to defend himself. Judith's laughter, the defiant
+light in her eyes, the passionate kiss she gave the boy as a reward for
+his bravery, annoyed Freke. His vanity as an artist, however, was
+consoled by hearing Simon Peter's voice, in an awed and solemn whisper
+from the door, through which his woolly head was just visible in the
+surrounding darkness:
+
+"I 'clar' ter God, dat fiddle is got evils in it. I hear some on 'em
+hollerin' an' cryin' fur ter git out, an' some on 'em larfin' an'
+jumpin'. Marse Temple, dem is spirits in dat fiddle. I knows it."
+
+"They are, indeed; and, if I go down to the grave-yard at midnight and
+play, all the dead and gone Temples will rise out of their graves and
+dance around in their grave-clothes. Do you hear that?" said Freke,
+gravely.
+
+"Lord God A'mighty!" yelled Simon Peter, "I gwi' sleep wid a sifter" (a
+sieve) "over my hade ev'y night arter dis. Sifters keeps away de evils,
+kase dey slips th'u de holes." And, sure enough, a sieve was hung up
+over Simon Peter's bed that very night, with a rabbit's foot as an
+additional safeguard, and a bunch of peacock's feathers over the
+fireplace was ruthlessly thrown into the fire to propitiate "de evils."
+
+When Thursday evening came, General Temple was high and dry with the
+gout, and Mrs. Temple, of course, could not leave him alone to fight it
+out with Delilah.
+
+"Ole marse, you gwi' keep on havin' de gout twell you w'yar a ole h'yar
+foot in yo' pocket. I done tole you so, an' I ain' feerd ter keep on
+tellin' you so," was Delilah's Job-like advice.
+
+"That's true," snapped the general. "Gad, if I had had a thousand men in
+my brigade as little 'feerd' as you, I'll be damned if I ever would have
+surrendered at Appomattox! God forgive me for swearing."
+
+"I hope and pray He will, my darling husband," responded Mrs. Temple,
+with calm piety.
+
+Jacqueline was in a fever of delight, as she always was when there was
+any prospect of going from home. She danced up and down, romped with
+little Beverley, and, hugging him, told him in a laughing whisper that
+she would see "somebody" at Turkey Thicket, and "somebody had beautiful
+black eyes, and was only twenty-two years old."
+
+Judith, too, felt that pleasurable excitement of which she began to be
+less and less ashamed. A few words dropped meaningly by Throckmorton,
+full of that sound sense which distinguished him, made her look
+differently at life. His philosophy was not Mrs. Temple's. He reminded
+Judith that we should accept peace and tranquillity thankfully, and that
+it was no sin to be happy; and everything that Throckmorton said
+commended itself to Judith. For the first time in her narrow and
+secluded life she enjoyed with him the pleasure of being as clever as
+she wanted to be. He was no timid soul, like Edmund Morford, to fear a
+rival in a woman. It never occurred to Throckmorton to feel jealous of
+any woman's wit. One of his greatest charms to Judith was that he was
+not in the least afraid of her. Her quick feminine humor, her natural
+acuteness, her knack of pretty expression in speech and writing,
+appeared in their true light, as mere accomplishments, contrasted with
+Throckmorton's firm and masculine mind. The conviction of his mental
+grasp, his will-power, all that goes to make a man fitted to command a
+woman, had in it a subtile attraction for Judith, like the spell that
+beauty casts over a man. He was the only man in all her surroundings
+whose calm superiority over her was perfectly plain to her. It was only
+necessary for him to express an opinion, that Judith did not at once see
+its force. She sometimes differed courteously with him; but it began
+soon to be a perilous pleasure to her to find that usually Throckmorton
+was infinitely wiser, more liberal, more just than herself.
+
+When the Thursday evening came, only Judith, Jacqueline, and Freke were
+to go. It had turned bitterly cold. Simon Peter, sitting in solitary
+magnificence on the box, handled the ribbons over the Kentucky horses,
+who dashed along so briskly that the carriage, which was in the last
+stage of "befo' the war" decrepitude, threatened to tumble to pieces and
+drop them all in the road.
+
+Going along, Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, very quiet and silent.
+Freke, with his back to the horses, talked to Judith. Occasionally in
+the darkness, by a passing gleam, he could see Jacqueline's eyes
+shining.
+
+"What do you think of Major Throckmorton," he asked Judith.
+
+Although not versed in knowledge of the world, Judith was not devoid of
+self-possession. The question, though, embarrassed her a little.
+
+"I--I--think he is most interesting, kind--and--"
+
+"Military men are, as a rule, rather narrow, don't you think?"
+
+"I never saw enough to judge. I should think they ought to be the other
+way."
+
+"Every time I see Throckmorton, the consciousness comes to me that I
+have seen him before--seen him under some tragical and unusual
+circumstances. If I didn't know that those who have good consciences,
+like myself, should be above superstition, I should say that in some
+previous state of being I had known him; however, I am too strictly
+orthodox in my beliefs to tolerate such notions. But some time or
+other--perhaps to-night--I intend to find out from Throckmorton himself
+if we haven't had the pleasure of meeting in another cycle or state of
+being. There is, by the way, an ineffable impudence in Throckmorton
+returning to this county now."
+
+Judith suspected that Freke's peroration was made with the intention of
+provoking a reply.
+
+They were driving along an open piece of the road, and it was
+comparatively light in the carriage, although there was no moon. Freke
+glancing up to see the cause of Judith's silence, caught the gleam of
+her white teeth in a broad smile. She was laughing at him. It certainly
+was delicious to hear Temple Freke commenting on anybody's having
+impudence in returning to the county. Freke, who hated to be laughed at,
+promised himself he would be avenged. "I'll make you wince, my lady!" he
+thought to himself. Presently, though, Judith said, in a tone with a
+sharpness in it, like one who has been wounded:
+
+"I can't imagine anybody applying the word impudence to Major
+Throckmorton. He is very reserved--very dignified."
+
+"Throckmorton, I see, has an advocate.--And little Cousin Jacky, what do
+you think of the other Jacky--Jacky Throckmorton?"
+
+"I think he's perfectly delightful," assented Jacqueline, after a pause.
+
+Freke said no more about the Throckmortons. The women were evidently
+against him there; and soon they were driving up to the door at Turkey
+Thicket, and going up the hall stairs to take off their wraps, very much
+as on that last evening, when Mrs. Sherrard took occasion to
+rehabilitate Throckmorton in the good graces of the county people, as
+she was now trying to do with Freke.
+
+When Judith and Jacqueline came down the stairs, Freke met them at the
+foot. Jacqueline had pleaded hard to wear a white dress, but Mrs. Temple
+was inexorable. She might catch cold; consequently, she wore a little
+prim, Quakerish gown of gray. Judith, as usual, was stately in black.
+
+Throckmorton was standing on the rug before the drawing-room fire,
+talking gravely with Mrs. Sherrard. Edmund Morford was there and Dr.
+Wortley, who, with Jack Throckmorton, constituted the company. Mrs.
+Sherrard drew Judith into the conversation that she had been carrying on
+with Throckmorton. He said to Judith:
+
+"I will continue what I was saying--but I assure you it is something I
+could speak of to but few people. It is this absolute barring out on the
+part of the county people toward me. Not a soul except Mrs. Sherrard and
+Mrs. Temple has asked me to break bread. I thought I knew Virginians--I
+thought them the kindest, easiest, least angular people in the world;
+but, upon my soul, anything like this cold and deliberate ostracism I
+never witnessed! Why, half the county is related to me--and I've been to
+school with every man in it--and yet, I am a pariah!"
+
+"You don't look at it from their point of view," replied Mrs. Sherrard,
+with more patience than was her wont. "Think how these people have
+suffered. You see yourself, never was there such ruin wrought, and then
+remember that you are associated with that ruin. Can't you fancy the
+dull and silent resentment, the cold anger, with which they must regard
+all--"
+
+"Blasted Yankees?" cheerfully remarked Throckmorton, recovering his
+spirits a little.
+
+"But you know," said Mrs. Sherrard, whose ideas on some subjects were
+rudimentary, but speaking kindly though positively, "you mustn't wear
+your uniform down here."
+
+Throckmorton laughed rather harshly.
+
+"As I'm not going to be married or buried, I can't see what chance I
+would have to wear it. But what you say disposes me to put on my
+full-dress uniform, with sword and chapeau, and wear it to church on
+Sunday."
+
+Then Mrs. Sherrard went off after her latest passion, Temple Freke, and
+left Judith and Throckmorton standing together.
+
+"I think _I_ understand you," said Judith, with her pretty air of
+diffidence. "But, as you know, the people here have one principle
+which stands for honor, and you have another. You have got power
+and--and--victory out of _your_ principle, and we have got nothing
+but ruin and defeat and wretchedness out of _our_ principle. How can
+you hold us to a strict account?"
+
+"I do not--God knows I do not!--but I want a little human kindness. I
+get it from a few. Dr. Wortley, who was my tutor at my grandfather's,
+and has licked me a hundred times--and Morford, and the families at
+Turkey Thicket and Barn Elms--but none of them, I think," continued
+Throckmorton, looking into Judith's eyes with admiration, "exactly
+understand how _I_ feel as well as you. What kept me in the army was, as
+you say, a principle of honor. It was like a knife in me, every Southern
+officer who resigned. I respected them, because I knew, as only the
+naval and military men knew, that they were giving up not only their
+future and their children's future, for what they thought right, but
+that they knew the overwhelming odds against them. I don't believe any
+one of them really expected success--they knew too much--it was a
+sacrifice most disinterested. I could not go with them; but I had to
+face as much obloquy among my people by staying in the army as they
+had to face in going out. But I swear I never gave one thought to the
+advantage to me of staying where I was! I stayed because I could not, as
+a man of honor, do otherwise, I thought my own people would recognize
+this--that by this time the bitterness would be over."
+
+"Never mind," said Judith, with a heavenly smile, "it will come--it will
+come."
+
+A little later, Mrs. Sherrard whispered to Throckmorton:
+
+"Are not my two beauties from Barn Elms sweet creatures?"
+
+"Very," answered Throckmorton, a dark flush showing under his tan and
+sunburn. "Little Jacqueline is a charming creature."
+
+"Oh, pooh! Jacqueline. You mean Judith."
+
+"Mrs. Beverley is most dignified, charming, and interesting; but little
+Miss Jacky--"
+
+"I should think she would be a nice playmate for your Jack," remarked
+Mrs. Sherrard.
+
+Throckmorton looked awkward, not to say foolish. Had he forgotten his
+forty-four years, his iron-gray hair, all the scars of life? Jacqueline
+and Jack were inseparable from the start, and their two heads were close
+together on the deep, old-fashioned sofa, at that very moment.
+
+"The major stole a march on me the other day, going over to Barn Elms,"
+remarked Jack, confidentially. "However, I'll get even with him yet."
+
+"Oh, how can you talk so about your own father?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I talk so about my own father?"
+
+"Because it's not right."
+
+"Look here, Miss Jacky. Nobody thinks as much of the major as I do--he's
+the kindest, noblest, gamest chap alive--but you see, I'm a man, and
+he's a man. When he got married at twenty-one, he took the risk of
+having a son in the field before he was ready to quit himself."
+
+"Do you--do you remember your mother?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.
+
+"No," answered Jack, fixing his dark eyes seriously on Jacqueline. "I
+have a miniature of her that my father gave me when I was twenty-one. He
+keeps her picture in his room, and on the anniversary of her death he
+spends the day alone. Once in a great while he has talked to me about
+her."
+
+Jacqueline glanced at Throckmorton with a new interest. He was still
+talking to Judith. The pleased look on the major's face aroused the
+mischievous devil in Jack. In five minutes Jacqueline, to her disgust
+and disappointment, found herself talking to Dr. Wortley, while Jack had
+established himself on the other side of Judith. Neither Throckmorton
+nor Judith was pleased to see him.
+
+"You ought to hear my father tell about some of his campaigns 'way back
+in the fifties," remarked Jack. "It's a good while ago, but the major
+isn't sensitive about his age like some men."
+
+Perhaps the major was not, but Jack's observation was received in grim
+silence.
+
+"I am sure Major Throckmorton can tell us a great many interesting
+things," answered Judith, smiling involuntarily--"particularly to us who
+lead such quiet lives, and who know so little. I sometimes wonder how I
+shall ever be able to bring up my boy; I have so few ideas, and they
+seem to be all rusting away."
+
+"I thought you were a great reader," said Throckmorton.
+
+"I like to read, but--"
+
+"My father is a Trojan of a reader," continued Jack, "and his eyesight
+is really wonderful."
+
+At this the major, with the cast in his eye very obvious, rose and
+walked over to where Jacqueline was sitting. Jack had accomplished his
+object, and ran his father out of the field. But Judith felt a sense of
+bitter disappointment. However, with the sweetness of her nature, she
+overcame her resentful feelings toward Jack, and, in spite of his boyish
+disposition to make people uncomfortable, really began to like him.
+
+Throckmorton, though, was not ill pleased on the whole. It was by an
+effort that he had kept away from Jacqueline until then. But, after
+talking with her awhile, he was not quite so well satisfied. Her
+childishness was pretty, and the acuteness of her remarks sometimes
+surprised him, but there was nothing to her--she talked and thought
+about herself. Throckmorton tried once or twice to get her into the
+channel of rational conversation, but Jacqueline rebelled. She
+acknowledged with a pretty smile that she hated books, and that she was
+poor company for herself. Throckmorton felt a tinge of pity for her.
+What would become of her twenty years hence--so pretty, so charming, so
+inconsequent?
+
+Freke had in the mean time completed his conquest of Mrs. Sherrard.
+Presently he went to the piano and trolled out songs in a rich barytone,
+playing his own accompaniments. This musical gift was a revelation to
+Mrs. Sherrard. It was not comparable, though, to his violin-playing.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to turn Jacqueline's head a little. Freke
+sang a sentimental song, with a tender refrain, and every time he sang
+this refrain he cast a glance at Jacqueline.
+
+Gradually the blood mounted to her face, until, when he stopped, she was
+as rosy as the morning. Then Freke sat down by her, and after that
+Jacqueline had no eyes for anybody else--not even Jack.
+
+Throckmorton saw it, with a strong disgust for Freke, and with that same
+strange pang of jealousy he had felt before. Judith's angry disapproval
+burned within her, but she made no attempt to circumvent Freke until,
+looking around after a while, she missed him and Jacqueline both.
+
+Judith, watching her opportunity, slipped out into the hall, and there
+found the culprits. Jacqueline made a little futile effort to pretend
+that they were looking at some prints by the light of a solitary
+kerosene-lamp; but Freke, who at least had no pretence about him, held
+on boldly to Jacqueline's hand, until she wrenched it away.
+
+"Jacqueline, dear," said Judith, trying to speak naturally, "it is cold
+out here; come in!"
+
+"I'm not cold," answered Jacqueline after a pause.
+
+"But it is not polite to run away like this," urged Judith, casting an
+angry look at Freke, who, with folded arms, was whistling softly.
+
+"I can't help that, Judith," answered Jacqueline, pettishly. "Why do you
+want me in that stiff drawing-room with old Dr. Wortley and Mrs.
+Sherrard, and--"
+
+"But Jacqueline, _I_ want you!"
+
+There was no mistaking that tone.
+
+"Go along, Jacky," said Freke, with cheerful submission. "You'll be
+liable to catch some dreadful moral complaint if you breathe the same
+atmosphere with me too long. I am a sinner of high degree, I am."
+
+Jacqueline turned and sullenly followed Judith back, while Freke,
+smiling and unruffled, walked by her side. And then supper was served,
+but Jacqueline was perfectly distrait and could not keep her eyes off
+Freke, who was the life and soul of the party. The supper was after the
+Virginia order--very good--and so profuse it could not all be got on the
+table.
+
+On the drive home there was perfect silence. Freke made one or two
+observations to Judith, but her cold silence convinced him that it was
+useless. He was not afraid of her, but he saw no good in pretending to
+placate her. When they reached Barn Elms and were standing in the cold
+hall, Judith said to Jacqueline:
+
+"Go on. I shall be up in a moment."
+
+"I'll wait for you," replied Jacqueline, doggedly.
+
+"You may wait, but I wish to speak to Freke privately. I shall take him
+into the drawing-room."
+
+At this, Jacqueline went slowly and unwillingly up the stairs.
+
+Judith picked up the lamp and went into the dark drawing-room. The fire
+still smoldered dimly in the great fireplace. Freke took up the tongs
+and made a vigorous attack on the fire, and in two minutes the flames
+were leaping around the brass firedogs. Then he settled himself
+comfortably in the corner of the sofa.
+
+Judith, although her determination was made, yet felt timid, and her
+heart beat.
+
+"What excuse can you give," she asked in an unsteady voice, "for your
+behavior with that child to-night?"
+
+"None whatever," answered Freke, coolly. "I am not bound to justify
+myself to you, nor do I admit there was anything to be excused."
+
+"You are right in saying you are not bound to justify yourself to me,"
+said Judith; "but can you justify yourself to her father and mother? You
+see how she is. You know what they--what we all--think of you. You are a
+married man, remember."
+
+"Am I?" asked Freke, laughing. "By Jove, I wish I knew whether I was or
+not!"
+
+"What right have you to fill Jacqueline's head with dreams and notions?
+The child was well enough until you came. Why can't you go away and
+leave her in peace?"
+
+Freke smiled at this. "I don't feel like going away," he said, "and
+particularly now that I see you wish me to go. I have rather different
+plans in view now that I have bought property here. It doesn't look well
+for a man to be cast off by his relations; and I intend to have, if I
+can, the backing of the Temples."
+
+"But how long, think you, could you stay, if the child's mother knew of
+your behavior to-night?"
+
+"That I don't know. But I wish to stay, Madam Judith; and, since you are
+so prudish, I will promise you not look at Jacqueline again. Will that
+satisfy you?"
+
+"I will first see how you keep your promise. But I warn you, Freke, if
+you remain here much longer, I shall use all the influence in my power
+to get you out of this house. You are no advantage to the child. It
+would be better for her if you went away and never came back."
+
+Freke had been sitting all this time, while Judith, standing up, pale
+and disdainful, spoke to him. But now he rose.
+
+"Now," he said with sudden seriousness, "since you have expressed that
+hospitable intention concerning me, let me tell you something--something
+very interesting, that I have suspected for some time, but only found
+out to-night. You remember I told you of that death-struggle of
+Beverley's with an officer--how they rolled over and over and fought."
+
+"Yes--yes--"
+
+"And how the officer's horse, held by the bridle, I thought every moment
+would trample--"
+
+"Yes--yes--yes!" cried Judith.
+
+"Well," said Freke, coming up close to her, "Throckmorton was that
+officer!"
+
+Freke had meant to give her one fierce pang; it was a delicious thing to
+him to strike her through Throckmorton; but he was quite unprepared for
+the result, for Judith, although young and strong, after standing for a
+moment gazing at Freke with wild eyes, swayed and without a sound
+dropped to the floor in a dead faint.
+
+Freke, cursing his own folly, ran to her and called loudly. His voice
+echoed through the midnight silence of the house. It brought Mrs.
+Temple, frightened and half dressed, into the room, followed by Delilah,
+struggling into her petticoats, and Simon Peter, scratching his wool and
+but half awake.
+
+Freke had raised Judith on his arm. Something strange, like pity, of
+which he knew but little, came to him as he looked at her pallid face.
+
+"You git 'way, Marse Temple," said Delilah, with authority. "Me an'
+mistis kin manage dis heah.--Hi, Miss Judy! Open yo' eyes, honey, an'
+tell what de matter wid you."
+
+Mrs. Temple, who never lost her head in emergencies, in five minutes had
+Judith in a fair way of coming to herself. Freke said truthfully that he
+never was so surprised in his life as when Judith fell over. Mrs. Temple
+could not account for it either, and proposed to leave the solution to
+Dr. Wortley when he should be sent for in the morning. In a few minutes
+more Judith came to and sat up. Almost her first conscious glance fell
+on Freke. She gazed at him steadily, and in an instant the conviction
+that what he had said was mere wanton cruelty came to her. Freke himself
+avoided her glance uneasily.
+
+"Honey, tell yo' ole mammy wh'yar hu'ts you," pleaded Delilah, anxious
+to take charge of the case in advance of Dr. Wortley.
+
+"Nowhere at all. I only want to get to bed.--Mother, I hope father
+wasn't waked."
+
+"My dear, nothing short of an explosion would wake him."
+
+Mrs. Temple wisely refrained from tormenting Judith with questions. Her
+fainting-fit was certainly unaccountable, but Mrs. Temple remembered
+once or twice in her own early days when she had done the same thing. So
+she merely gave Judith some brandy-and-water, and in a few minutes, with
+Delilah's help, got her on the old-fashioned sofa.
+
+While Mrs. Temple and Delilah were stirring about the room, shutting up
+for the night and raking the fire down, Freke came up to Judith. Revenge
+was familiar to him, but not revenge on women, and remorse was
+altogether new to him.
+
+"What I told you," he began, awkwardly, "the facts in the case--"
+
+"Say no more about it; I don't believe you!" answered Judith in a low
+voice, but scornful beyond description.
+
+Freke's rage blazed up under that tone.
+
+"You don't believe me? Then I'll make Throckmorton tell you himself. I
+can find it out from him without his suspecting it, and I'll make him
+tell you how he killed your husband."
+
+Judith drew back and gave him a look that was equivalent to a slap in
+the face. Just then Mrs. Temple and Delilah went out into the hall to
+make fast the door.
+
+"Well, then, if by any accident you have told me the truth, it was the
+fortune of war--"
+
+"Yes, but the hand that killed your husband! Ah! do you think I don't
+see it all--all--all--not only what has happened, but what is happening
+now?"
+
+Judith rose slowly from her sofa, forgetting her weakness. At that
+moment Freke thought he had never seen her look so handsome. Her eyes,
+usually a soft, dark gray, were black with indignation; her cheeks
+burned; she looked capable of killing him where he stood. She opened
+her lips once or twice to speak, but no sound came. She had no words to
+express what she felt at that moment. Freke felt a sensation of triumph.
+At last he had brought this proud spirit to book; and Throckmorton--at
+least if she scorned himself, Freke--she was forever out of
+Throckmorton's reach. There was a gulf between them now that nothing on
+earth could bridge over. He stood in a calm and easy attitude, his face
+only less expressive than Judith's. Nobody who saw Freke then could say,
+as Mrs. Temple sometimes had said, "What is there so interesting in
+Freke's face?" It was full of power and passion.
+
+It seemed an age to each as they stood there, but it was really only a
+few moments. Mrs. Temple and Delilah came back. Judith nodded to Freke,
+and walked off, disdaining Delilah's arm. She felt pride in showing him
+her strength and composure. She even glanced back at him, and gave him a
+smile from her pale lips.
+
+"You have a spirit like a man!" he cried after her, involuntarily. Mrs.
+Temple thought he meant because Judith had rallied so quickly from her
+fainting-fit.
+
+"Rather a spirit like a woman!" answered Judith, in a loud, clear voice,
+as she went up the stairs.
+
+It was some little time before she could get rid of Mrs. Temple and
+Delilah. But presently the door was locked, and she was alone.
+
+Some power beyond her will drew her steps to the window that looked
+toward Millenbeck. The moon had gone down, and a few clouds scurried
+across the pale immensity of the sky, whipped by the winds of night.
+There was enough of the ghastly half-light to distinguish the dark
+masses of the trees and even the outline of the Millenbeck house. From
+the window which she knew well enough belonged to Throckmorton's own den
+the cheerful light still streamed. He was sitting there, reading and
+smoking, no doubt. She could imagine exactly how he looked. His face,
+when he was silent, was rather stern, which made the charm of his smile
+and his words more captivating by contrast. And what horror she ought to
+feel of this man!--for, in spite of that first involuntary protest that
+she did not believe Freke, the heart-breaking conviction came to her
+every moment that he was telling the truth. But did she feel horror and
+hatred of Throckmorton? Ah! no. And when she tried to think of Beverley,
+the feeling that he was dead; that he would trouble her no more; that he
+was forever gone out of her life, filled her with something that was
+frightfully like joy.
+
+But when she remembered that an open grave lay between her and
+Throckmorton, it was not something like anguish she felt--it was anguish
+itself. Here was a man she might have loved--a man infinitely worthy of
+love--this much she acknowledged to herself; and yet Fate had married
+her to a man she never could have loved. For at that moment she saw as
+by a flash of lightning the falseness of her marriage and her widowhood.
+She dared not think any longer; she could only throw herself on her
+bed, and try and stifle among the pillows her sobs and cries. And,
+remembering Beverley and Throckmorton and Freke, and his words to her
+that night, this gentle and soft-hearted creature sounded all the depths
+of grief, love, shame, hatred. She tried to pray, but her prayers--if
+prayers they could be called--were mere outcries against the inexorable
+and unpitying God. "Dear Lord, what have I done to thee that I should
+suffer so?"
+
+The night wore on, the candles burned out, the fire was a mere red glow
+of embers. Anguish and despair, like other passions, spend themselves.
+Judith had ceased to weep, and lay on her bed with a sort of icy torpor
+upon her. Little Beverley, who rarely stirred in his sleep, waked up and
+called for his mother; but even the child's voice had no power to move
+her. The little boy, finding himself unnoticed, crawled out of his
+small bed and came to his mother's side. The sound of his baby voice,
+the touch of his little warm, moist hands, awakened something like
+remorse in her. She tried to help him up on the bed, but her arms
+fell helplessly--she, this strong young woman, was as weak as a child
+with the conflict of emotions. The boy, however--a sturdy little
+fellow--climbed up alone and nestled to her. She covered him up and held
+him close to her, and kissed him coldly once or twice. "My child, he
+killed your father," she said to him, thinking of Throckmorton, and that
+perhaps, for the child's sake, she might arouse some feeble spark of
+regret for the father--some dutiful hatred of Throckmorton. But she
+could do neither the one nor the other.
+
+At last, as a wet, miserable, gloomy dawn approached, she fell into a
+wretched sleep. Judith's unexpected fainting-fit was a very good excuse
+for her keeping her room for a day or two--a merciful provision for her,
+as, along with other new experiences, she found for the first time that
+her soul was stronger than her body, and that grief had made her ill.
+She expected, in all those wretched hours that she lay in her darkened
+room, that every time the door opened it would be Mrs. Temple coming
+with a ghastly face to tell her the dreadful thing that Freke knew; and
+the mere apprehension made her heart stand still. She, this candid and
+sincere woman, rehearsed to herself the very words and tones that she
+would express a grief and horror she did not feel. But when several days
+passed, and the explosion did not come, she concluded that Freke, for
+his own reasons, meant to keep it to himself.
+
+For Freke's part, he had no intention of telling anybody except
+Judith. He had no mind to bring about the storm that would follow his
+revelation. He meant to show Judith that gulf between Throckmorton and
+herself, and that was all. He would have been unfeignedly sorry had the
+hospitable doors of Millenbeck been no longer open to him.
+
+When Judith came down-stairs, he felt a great curiosity to know how she
+would meet him. He himself was perfectly easy and natural in his manner
+to her; and she, to his enforced admiration, was equally self-possessed
+with him, although she could not always control the expression of her
+eyes. "What a Spartan she is!" thought Freke to himself. "She could die
+of grief and chagrin with a smile on her lips, and with her voice as
+smooth and musical as the velvet wind of summer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The autumn crept on. Freke had gone to Wareham, to Judith's delight, but
+she found that she had rejoiced too soon, for he was at Barn Elms nearly
+every day. The still, silent enmity between Judith and himself showed
+itself, on her part, by a certain fine scorn--an almost imperceptible
+raising of her narrow brows, that was infuriating to Freke. Still, he
+could not shake her self-possession. She even listened to his talk, and
+to his captivating violin-playing, with a cool and critical pleasure.
+When, as often happened, his step was heard in the hall at twilight, and
+he would walk into the drawing-room or the dining-room, as if Barn Elms
+were his home, with his violin in his hand--for he kept one at Barn
+Elms--and seating himself would begin to play in his masterly way,
+Judith would listen as closely as Jacqueline. But the spell was merely
+the spell of the music. She could listen to the celestial thrilling of
+the strings, the soft lamenting, without in the slightest degree
+succumbing to the player--not even when Freke, playing a wandering
+accompaniment, like another air from the one he was singing, would sing
+some of Heine's sea-songs, in which she could almost hear the sound of
+the wind as it rose and wailed and died upon the waves. When the music
+stopped, and Freke would look at her piercingly, she was no more moved
+by it emotionally than General Temple was, who pronounced it "uncommon
+fine fiddling, by George! Some of the tunes haven't got much tune,
+though." This unbroken resistance on Judith's part piqued Freke
+immeasurably; but quite naturally, as it often is with men of his
+temperament, as he could not please her, he determined to spite her--and
+he did it by a silent, furtive courtship of Jacqueline. Of this, neither
+General nor Mrs. Temple suspected anything. In one sense, the girl had
+suffered from neglect. Beverley had been the favorite of both parents.
+He had been the conventional good son, the comfort of his parents'
+hearts, while Jacqueline was more or less of a puzzle to both of them.
+In vain Mrs. Temple tried to interest her in household affairs;
+Jacqueline would have none of them. She shocked and mystified her mother
+by saying that she hated Barn Elms--it was so old and shabby, and there
+were not enough carpets and curtains in the house; and the hair-cloth
+furniture in the drawing-room made her ill. Mrs. Temple, who excelled
+in all sweet, feminine virtues, who would have loved and bettered any
+home given her, thought this sort of thing on Jacqueline's part very
+depraved. The mother and the daughter did not understand each other,
+and could not. Judith's superior intelligence here came in. Jacqueline
+loved her, and, while she obeyed her mother from sheer force of will
+on Mrs. Temple's part, she rebelled against being influenced by
+her. Judith, on the contrary, without a particle of authority over
+Jacqueline, could do anything she wished with her. Mrs. Temple could
+only command and be obeyed in outward things, but Judith ruled
+Jacqueline's inner soul more than anybody else.
+
+The county people, outside of the Severn neighborhood, still held
+perfectly aloof from Throckmorton. This angered him somewhat, although,
+as a matter of fact, the people who did recognize him supplied him with
+all the company he wanted; for Throckmorton was always enough for
+himself, and depended upon no man and no woman for his content. He had
+bought Millenbeck and come there for a year, and a year he would stay,
+no matter what the Carters and the Carringtons and the Randolphs thought
+about it. Then he really had enough of company, and all the books and
+cigars he wanted, and plenty of the finest shooting, although he never
+killed a robin after that absurd promise he made to Jacqueline, but he
+never saw one without giving a thought to her and a grim smile at
+himself. And so the quiet autumn slipped away. Throckmorton felt every
+day the charm of exquisite repose. In his life he had known a good
+deal of excitement--the four years of the war he had been in active
+service all the time--and this return to quiet and a sort of refined
+primitiveness pleased him. He was charmed with the simplicity of the
+people at Barn Elms--the simplicity of genuine country people, whose
+outlook is upon nature. He had often heard that country people never
+were really sophisticated, and he began to believe it. Even in the
+stirrings of his own heart toward the place of his boyhood, after the
+lapse of so many busy and exciting years, he recognized the spell that
+Nature lays softly upon those whose young eyes have seen nothing but
+her. Throckmorton, in spite of a certain firmness that was almost
+hardness, was at heart a sentimentalist. He found content, pleasure,
+and interest in this lazy, dreamy life. Of happiness he had discovered
+that, except during that early married life of his, he had none, for
+he was too wise to confound peace and happiness. At forty-four, when
+his dark hair had turned quite gray, he acknowledged to himself
+that nothing deserved the name of happiness but love. But all these
+dreams and fancies he kept to himself, and revolved chiefly in his
+mind when he was tramping along the country roads with a gun over his
+shoulder, or stretched before a blazing wood-fire in the library at
+Millenbeck smoking strong cigars by the dozen. He managed to keep his
+sentimentalism well out of sight, not because he was ashamed of it, but
+because he respected it.
+
+Freke was a positive acquisition to him. Throckmorton had that sort of
+broad, masculine tolerance that can find excuses for everything a man
+may do except cheating at cards. Freke came constantly to Millenbeck,
+much oftener than Throckmorton went to Wareham.
+
+Millenbeck, though, was a pleasant place to visit. Throckmorton had left
+the restoration and fitting up of the place to people who understood
+their business well; and consequently, when he arrived, he found he had
+one of the most comfortable, if not luxurious, country-houses that could
+be imagined. His fortune, which at the North would have been nothing
+more than a handsome competence, was a superb patrimony in the ruined
+Virginia, and with ready money and Sweeney anybody could be comfortable,
+Throckmorton thought. The Rev. Edmund Morford also gave him much of his
+(Morford's) company, and obtained a vast number of household receipts
+and learned many contrivances for domestic comfort from Sweeney.
+
+"Be jabers, the parson's more of an ould woman than mesilf," Sweeney
+would remark to his colored coadjutors. "He can make as good white gravy
+as any she-cook going, and counts his sheets and towels every week as
+reg'lar as the mother of him did, I warrant," which was quite true.
+But the parson's good heart outweighed his innocent conceit and his
+effeminate beauty with Throckmorton. Morford tried conscientiously to
+get Throckmorton into the church, but with ill success.
+
+"Sink the parson, Morford," Throckmorton would laugh. "Perhaps I'll get
+married some day, and my wife will pray me into heaven, like most of the
+men who get there, I suspect."
+
+Nevertheless Throckmorton had a reverent soul, and, although he would
+have turned pale and have been constrained by an iron silence had he
+got up and tried to open his mouth on the subject of the inscrutable
+problems that Morford attacked with such glib self-sufficiency, he
+revered religion and did not scoff even at the callowest form of it.
+
+Both Jack and himself got to going over to Barn Elms often;
+Throckmorton, however, being an old bird, exercised considerable
+wariness, so as not to collide with Jack at these times. Jack keptup a
+continual fire from ambush at his father, regarding which of the young
+women at Barn Elms the major would eventually capitulate to; but
+Throckmorton treated this with the dignified silence that was the only
+weapon against Jack's sly rallying. As for General Temple, he regarded
+all of Throckmorton's visits as particularly directed toward himself,
+for the purpose of acquiring military knowledge; and Throckmorton heard
+more of the theory of war from General Temple at this time than he ever
+heard in all his life before. While the general, who had all campaigns,
+modern and ancient, at his finger-ends, declaimed with sonorous
+confidence on the mistakes of Hannibal, Cæsar, Scipio, and other
+well-known military characters, Throckmorton listened meekly, seldom
+venturing an observation. General Temple indicated a faint surprise that
+Throckmorton, during his career, had never undergone any of the
+thrilling adventures which had actually happened to General Temple, who
+would have been a great soldier after the pattern of Brian de Bois
+Guilbert; nor could Throckmorton convince him that he, Throckmorton,
+conceived it his duty to stay with his men, and considered unnecessary
+seeking of danger as unsoldier-like in the highest degree. Throckmorton,
+however, did not argue the point. In place of General Temple's
+innumerable and real hair-breadth escapes, and horses shot under him,
+Throckmorton could only say that the solitary physical injury he
+received during the war was a bad rheumaticky arm from sleeping in the
+wet, and a troublesome attack of measles caught by visiting his men in
+the hospital. But General Temple knew that Throckmorton had been
+mentioned half a dozen times in general orders, and had got several
+brevets, while General Temple had narrowly missed half a dozen
+courts-martial for being where he didn't belong at a critical time. The
+fact that he was in imminent personal danger on all these occasions,
+General Temple considered not only an ample excuse, but quite a feather
+in his cap.
+
+Occasionally, though (during the general's disquisitions),
+Throckmorton's eye would seek Judith's as she sat under the lamp, with
+a piece of delicate embroidery in her hand, stitching demurely, and
+something like a smile would pass between them. Judith understood the
+joke. The mingled softness and archness of her glance was very beautiful
+to Throckmorton, but it had not the power over him of Jacqueline's
+coquettish air. Throckmorton was rather vexed at the charm this
+kittenish young thing cast over him. He had always professed a great
+aversion to young fools, who invariably turn into old bores, but he
+could not deny that he was more drawn to sit near Jacqueline in her low
+chair, than to Judith sitting gracefully upright under the lamp. That
+Jacqueline was not far off from folly, he was forced to admit to himself
+every time he talked with her, but the admission brought with it a
+slight pang. Then he never lost sight of the disparity in their years;
+and this was painful because of the secret attraction he felt for her.
+Sometimes, walking home from Barn Elms, across the fields in autumn
+nights, he would find himself comparing the two women, and wishing that
+the older woman possessed for him the subtle charm of the younger one.
+Any man might love Judith Temple--she was so gentle, so unconscious of
+her own superiority to the average woman, so winning upon one's reason
+and self-respect--and then Throckmorton would sigh, and stride faster
+along the path in the wintry darkness. Suppose--suppose he should
+seriously try to win Jacqueline? How long would he be happy? And what
+sort of a life would it be for her, with that childish restlessness and
+inability to depend for one moment on herself? And Throckmorton knew
+instinctively that, although he possessed great power in bending women
+to his will, it was not in him to adapt himself to any woman. He might
+love her, indulge her, adore her, but he could not change his fixed and
+immutable character one iota. It would be a peculiar madness for him to
+marry any woman who did not possess adaptability in a high degree; and
+this Throckmorton had known, ever since he had grown hair on his face,
+went only with a certain mental force and breadth in women. He had the
+whole theory mapped out, that the more intellectual a man was, the less
+adaptable he was, while with women the converse was strikingly true--the
+more intellectual a woman was, the more adaptable she was. He also knew
+perfectly well that in women the emotions and the intellect are so
+inextricably involved that a woman's emotional range was exactly limited
+by her intellectual range; that there is nothing more commonplace in
+a commonplace woman than her emotions. Nay, more. He remembered Dr.
+Johnson's thundering against female fools: "Sir, a man usually marries a
+fool, with the expectation of ruling her; but the fool, sir, invariably
+rules the man." But all this went to pieces when he saw Jacqueline. She
+was to him as if a figure of Youth had stepped out of a white Greek
+frieze; and whenever he realized this charm of hers, he sighed to
+himself profoundly.
+
+People are never too old or too sensible to commit follies, but people
+of sense and experience suffer the misery of knowing all about their
+follies when they do commit them.
+
+To Freke, who was incomparably the keenest observer in all this little
+circle, the whole thing was a psychic study of great interest. He had
+the art in a singular degree of getting outside of his own emotions; and
+the fact that he had been guilty of the egregious folly of falling in
+love with Judith at first sight made him only keener in studying out
+the situation. He took an abstract pleasure in partly confiding his
+discoveries to Mrs. Sherrard, who was a bold woman, and had become an
+out-and-out partisan of his--the only one he could count on, except
+Jacqueline, under the rose. It was a subject of active concern why
+Freke ever bought Wareham in the beginning, and still more so why he
+should continue to stay there. When pressed on the subject by Mrs.
+Sherrard--they were sitting in the comfortable drawing-room at Turkey
+Thicket, the blazing wood-fire making the dull wintry afternoon, and
+the flat, monotonous landscape outside more dreary by contrast--Freke
+declared that he had settled in the country in order to cultivate the
+domestic virtues to advantage.
+
+"Pooh!" said Mrs. Sherrard.
+
+Freke then hinted at a possibility of his marrying, which, considering
+his divorced condition, gave Mrs. Sherrard a thrill of horror. He saw in
+an instant that this divorce question was one upon which Mrs. Sherrard's
+prejudices, like those of everybody else in the county, were adamantine,
+and not to be trifled with; so he dropped the obnoxious subject promptly
+and wisely.
+
+"The fact is," he said, standing up with his back to the fire, and
+causing Mrs. Sherrard to notice how excellent was his slight but
+well-knit figure, "I've got to live somewhere, and why not here? I don't
+know whether I've got anything left of my money or not--anything, that
+is, that my creditors or my lawyers will let me have in peace--but
+there's excellent shooting on the place, and it only cost a song. I
+think I can stay here as long as I can stay anywhere; you know I am a
+sort of civilized Bedouin anyhow. And then I own up to a desire to see
+that little comedy between--between--Millenbeck and Barn Elms played
+through. It's an amusing little piece."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard pricked up her ears. Freke's reputation as a conquering
+hero had inspired in her the interest it always does in the female
+breast. Was it possible that he shouldn't be making love to either
+Judith or Jacqueline?
+
+"I'll tell you what," he cried, smiling, "they are the most precious
+pack of innocents at Barn Elms! There's my uncle--a high-minded,
+good-natured, unterrified old blunderbuss--the most unsophisticated of
+the lot. Then my aunt, who belongs properly to the age of Rowena and
+Rebecca--and Judith."
+
+Here Freke's countenance changed a little from its laughing
+carelessness. His rather ordinary features were full of a piercing and
+subtile expression.
+
+"Judith fancies, because she has been a wife, a mother, and a widow,
+that she knows the whole gamut of life, when actually she has only
+struck the first note correctly a little while ago--no, I forget--that
+young one. But that's very one-sided, although intense. She loves the
+child because he is her own, not because he is Beverley's--rather in
+spite of it, I fancy."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard, in the excitement of the moment--for what is more
+exciting than unexpected and inside discoveries about our
+neighbors?--got up too.
+
+"I knew it--I knew it!" she answered, her sharp old eyes getting bright.
+"I saw Judith when she was a bride, and she wasn't in the least
+rapturous. And the next time I saw her she had on that odd widow's cap
+she wears, and that blessed baby in her arms; and if ever I saw secret
+happiness painted on any human countenance it was hers; and all the time
+she was trying to imagine herself broken-hearted for Beverley Temple."
+
+"Fudge!" almost shouted Freke. "It's my belief she'd have traded off six
+husbands like Beverley for one black-eyed boy like that young one."
+
+"Beverley," began Mrs. Sherrard, delighted, yet fluttered by this plain
+speaking, "you remember, was a big, handsome fellow--rode like a
+centaur, danced beautifully, the best shot in the county--as polite
+as a dancing-master or--General Temple--as brave as a lion--"
+
+"Oh, good God, don't talk to me about Beverley Temple! He was the most
+wooden-headed Temple I ever knew, and that's saying a good deal, ma'am!"
+responded Freke, with energy.
+
+"_You_ are no fool," said Mrs. Sherrard, as if willing to argue the
+point.
+
+"Yes, but you couldn't any more take me as a type of the Temples than
+you could take Edmund Morford as a type of the Sherrards. Lord, Mrs.
+Sherrard, what an ass your nephew is!"
+
+"Isn't he, though? But he is a good soul," was Mrs. Sherrard's answer.
+
+Was it Judith or was it Jacqueline that Freke was trying his charms on,
+thought Mrs. Sherrard, taking her afternoon nap over the fire, after
+Freke left. Freke, however, really could not have enlightened her. For
+Judith his admiration increased every day--her very defiance of him was
+captivating to him. He well knew that she hated every bone in his body,
+and he had made up his mind, as a set-off to this, to get a description
+of a certain scene during the war out of Throckmorton some time in her
+presence. It was a species of vivisection, but she deserved it--deserved
+it richly--for had she not brought it on herself by the way she treated
+him, Temple Freke? And then Jacqueline--she was certainly a fascinating
+little object, though not half the woman that Judith was--this Freke
+magnanimously allowed, riding briskly along the country road in the
+wintry twilight.
+
+The family at Barn Elms had never yet dined with Throckmorton, owing
+to General Temple's continued wrestle with the gout, that had now made
+him a prisoner for four long weeks. Mrs. Temple, who every day got
+fonder of George, as she called Throckmorton, had promised to dine at
+Millenbeck when the general was able to go; but, as she invested all
+their intercourse with Millenbeck with the solemnity of a formal
+reconciliation, she delayed until the whole family could go in state
+and ceremony. At last Dr. Wortley, having gained a temporary advantage
+over Delilah, and brought General Temple to observe his (Dr. Wortley's)
+regimen, instead of Delilah's, a week or two marked a decided
+improvement. The general's Calvinism abated, his profanity mended, and
+he became once more the amiable soldier and stanch churchman that he was
+by nature.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Temple," said Throckmorton one evening as he was going away,
+"if you will keep the general out of mischief for a day or two longer,
+you will be able to pay me that long-promised visit. Let me know, so I
+can get Mrs. Sherrard and Dr. Wortley--and Morford and Freke; but you,
+my dear friend, will be the guest of honor."
+
+Mrs. Temple blushed like a girl, with pleasure--Throckmorton's way of
+saying this was so whole-souled and affectionate.
+
+"You say right, my dear Throckmorton," remarked General Temple, putting
+his arm around Mrs. Temple's waist, "the tenderest, sweetest, most
+obedient wife"--at which Simon Peter, putting wood on the fire,
+snickered audibly, and Throckmorton would have laughed outright had he
+dared.
+
+So it was fixed that on the following Friday evening they were all to
+dine at Millenbeck, Mrs. Temple promising to watch the general, lest he
+should relapse into gout and gloom--and a promise from Mrs. Temple was a
+promise. She went about, a little surprised at the complete way that
+Throckmorton had brought her round. Here was one Yankee whom she loved
+with a genuine motherly affection--and he was a Virginia Yankee,
+too--which she esteemed the very worst kind.
+
+Jacqueline, as usual, was off her head at the notion of going, and
+Judith's suppressed excitement did not escape Mrs. Temple's eye. Both of
+them, provincials of provincials, as they were, felt a true feminine
+curiosity regarding the reputed splendors of Millenbeck, which was, in
+fact, destined to dazzle their countryfied eyes.
+
+On the Friday evening, therefore, at half-past six, they found
+themselves driving down the Millenbeck lane. General Temple had begun,
+figuratively speaking, to shake hands across the bloody chasm from the
+moment he started from Barn Elms. He harangued the whole way upon the
+touching aspect of the reconciliation between the great leaders of the
+hostile armies, as typified by his present expedition. Going down the
+lane they caught up with Mrs. Sherrard, being driven by Mr. Morford in a
+top buggy.
+
+"Jane Temple, are we a couple of fools?" called out Mrs. Sherrard,
+putting her head out of the buggy.
+
+"No, Katharine Sherrard, we are a couple of Christians," piously
+responded Mrs. Temple.
+
+General Temple thrust his bare head out of the carriage-window, holding
+his hat in his hand, as it was his unbroken rule never to speak to a
+woman with his head covered, and entered into a disquisition respecting
+the ethics of the great civil war, which lasted until they drew up to
+the very door of Millenbeck.
+
+A handsome graveled drive led up to the door, and a _porte-cochère_,
+which was really a very modest affair of glass and iron, had been thrown
+over the drive; but, as it was the only one ever seen in the county, all
+of them regarded it with great respect. Throckmorton, with old-time
+Virginia hospitality, met them at the steps. Like all true gentlemen, he
+was a model host. As he helped Mrs. Temple to alight, he raised her
+small, withered hand to his lips and kissed it respectfully.
+
+"Welcome to Millenbeck, my best and earliest friend," he said.
+
+"George Throckmorton," responded Mrs. Temple, with sweet gravity, "you
+have taught forgiveness to my hard and unforgiving heart."
+
+Within the house was more magnificence. The inevitable great, dark,
+useless hall was robbed of its coldness and bleakness by soft Turkish
+rugs placed over the polished floor. There was no way of heating it in
+the original plan, but Throckmorton's decorator and furnisher had hit
+upon the plan of having a quaint Dutch stove, which now glowed redly
+with a hard-coal fire. The startling innovation of lighting the broad
+oak staircase had likewise been adopted, and at intervals up the
+stairway wax-candles in sconces shed a mellow half-light in the hall
+below.
+
+General Temple was exuberant. He shook hands with Throckmorton half a
+dozen times, and informed him that, strange as the defection of a
+Virginian from his native State might appear, he, General Temple,
+believed that Throckmorton was actuated by conscientious though mistaken
+notions in remaining in the army after the breaking out of the war.
+
+"Thank you," laughed Throckmorton, immensely tickled; "I haven't
+apologized for it yet, have I, general?"
+
+Up-stairs, in a luxurious spare bedroom, the ladies' wraps were laid
+aside. Here, also, that perfect comfort prevailed, which is rare in
+Virginia country-houses, although luxury, in certain ways, is common
+enough. As they passed an open door, going down, they caught sight of
+Throckmorton's own room. In that alone a Spartan simplicity reigned.
+There was no carpet on the spotless floor, and an iron bedstead, a large
+table, and a few chairs completed the furnishing of it. But it had an
+air of exquisite neatness and military preciseness in it that made an
+atmosphere about Throckmorton. Over the unornamented mantel two swords
+were crossed, and over them was a pretty, girlish portrait of Jack's
+mother. Judith, in passing, craned her long, white neck to get a better
+look at the portrait, was caught in the act by Mrs. Temple, and blushed
+furiously.
+
+She had a strange sensation of both joy and fear in coming to
+Throckmorton's house. In her inmost soul she felt it to be a crime of
+great magnitude; and, indeed, the circumstances made it about as nearly
+a crime as such a woman could commit. More than that, if it should ever
+be known--and it was liable to be known at any moment--the deliberate
+foreknowledge with which she went to Millenbeck, she would never be
+allowed to remain another hour under the roof of Barn Elms: of that much
+she was perfectly sure. This, however, had but little effect on her,
+although she was risking not only her own but her child's future; but
+the conviction that it was absolutely wrong for her to go, caused her to
+make some paltering excuse when Throckmorton first asked her. He put it
+aside with his usual calm superiority in dealing with her scruples about
+going to places, and she yielded to the sweet temptation of obeying his
+wishes. She took pains, though, to tell Freke herself that she was
+going--a risky but delicious piece of braggadocio--at which Freke lifted
+his eyebrows slightly. Inwardly he determined to make her pay for her
+rashness. She was the only woman who had ever fought him, and he was not
+to be driven off the field by any of the sex.
+
+Judith's blush lasted until she reached the drawing-room, and made her
+not less handsome. There the gentlemen were being dazzled by still
+further splendors. This room, which was large and of stately
+proportions, was really handsome. Throckmorton, who cared nothing for
+luxury, and whose personal habits were simplicity itself, was yet too
+broad-minded to impress his own tastes upon anybody else. Since most
+people liked luxury, he had his house made luxurious; and his own room
+was the only plain one in it. Jack's was a perfect bower, "more fit," as
+Throckmorton remarked with good-natured sarcasm, "for a young lady's
+boudoir than a bunk for a hulking youngster." In the same way
+Throckmorton managed to dress like a gentleman on what Jack spent on
+hats and canes and cravats; but nobody ever knew whether Throckmorton's
+clothes were new or old. His personality eclipsed all his belongings.
+
+Jacqueline was completely subdued by the luxury around her. No human
+soul ever loved these pleasant things of life better than she loved
+them. Comfort and beauty and luxury were as the breath of life to her.
+She had hungered and thirsted for them ever since she could remember.
+Going down the stairs she caught Judith's hand, with a quick, childish
+grasp. The lights, the glitter, almost took her breath away; and when
+she saw a great mound of roses on the drawing-room table, got from
+Norfolk by the phenomenal Sweeney, she almost screamed with delight.
+
+"God bless my soul, this is pleasant!" remarked Dr. Wortley, rubbing his
+hands cheerfully before the drawing-room fire, where the gentlemen,
+including Morford and Freke, were assembled. "Here we are all met again,
+under Millenbeck's roof, as we were before the war. Let by-gones be
+by-gones, say I, about the war."
+
+"Amen," answered Mrs. Temple, after a little pause, piously and sweetly.
+
+Sweeney, who could make quite a dashing figure as a waiter, now
+appeared, dressed in faultless evening costume of much newer fashion
+than Throckmorton's, and announced dinner. Throckmorton, with his most
+graceful air--for he was on his mettle in his own house, and with those
+charming, unsophisticated women--gave his arm to Mrs. Temple; the
+general, with a grand flourish, did the same to Mrs. Sherrard; Judith
+had the doctor of divinity on one hand and the doctor of medicine on the
+other and Jacqueline brought up the rear with Jack Throckmorton and
+Temple Freke. Judith, when she saw this arrangement, comforted herself
+with the reflection that, if anybody could counteract Freke's influence
+over Jacqueline, it was Jack Throckmorton, whom Jacqueline candidly
+acknowledged was infinitely more attractive to her than the master of
+Millenbeck.
+
+But Jacqueline needed no counteraction. Freke, who read her perfectly,
+was secretly amused, and annoyed as well, when he saw that Jacqueline
+was every moment more carried away by Throckmorton's wax-candles and
+carved chairs and embroidered screens and onyx tables, and glass and
+plate. He felt not one thrill of the jealousy of Throckmorton, where
+Jacqueline was concerned, that Throckmorton sometimes felt for him,
+because he was infinitely more astute in the knowledge of human and
+especially feminine weaknesses and follies; and he saw that the chairs
+and tables at Millenbeck were much more fascinating to Jacqueline than
+Throckmorton with his matured grace, his manly dignity. Freke, too,
+having long since worn out his emotions, except that slight lapse as
+regarded Judith, for whom he always _felt_ something--admiration, or
+pity, or a desire to be revenged--had an acute judgment of women which
+was quite unbiased by the way any particular woman treated or felt
+toward him. Judith, although she hated him, and he frankly admitted she
+had cause to, he ranked infinitely above Jacqueline. He had seen, long
+before, that Jacqueline, if she ever seriously tried, could draw
+Throckmorton by a thread, and it gave Freke a certain contempt for
+Throckmorton's taste and perception. Any man who could prefer Jacqueline
+to Judith was, in Freke's esteem, wanting in taste; for, after all, he
+considered these things more as matters of taste than anything else.
+
+The dinner was very merry. When the general had told his fifth
+long-winded story of his adventures and hair-breadth escapes during the
+war, Mrs. Temple, with a glance, shut him up. Freke was in his element
+at a dinner-table, and told some ridiculous stories about the straits to
+which he had been reduced during his seven years' absence in
+Europe--"when," as he explained "my laudable desire to acquire knowledge
+and virtue threatened to be balked at every moment by my uncle getting
+me home. However, I managed to stay." He told with much gravity how he
+had been occasionally reduced to his fiddle for means of raising the
+wind, and had figured in concert programmes as Signor Tempolino, at
+which stories all shouted with laughter except Mrs. Temple and the
+general--Mrs. Temple sighing, and the general scowling prodigiously.
+Edmund Morford, who was afraid that laughing was injurious to his
+dignity, tried not to smile, but Freke was too comical for him.
+
+Amid all the laughter and jollity and good-cheer, Jacqueline sat,
+glancing shyly up at Throckmorton once in a while with a look that
+Nature had endowed her with, and which, had she but known it, was a full
+equivalent to a fortune. She had never, in all her simple provincial
+life, seen anything like this--endless forks and spoons at the table;
+queer ways of serving queerer things; an easy-cushioned chair to sit in;
+no darns or patches in the damask; and the aroma of wealth, an easy
+income everywhere. The desire to own all this suddenly took possession
+of her. At the moment this dawned upon her mind, she actually started,
+and, opening her fan in a flutter, she knocked over a wine-glass, which
+Jack deftly replaced without stopping in his conversation. Then she
+began to study Throckmorton under her eyelashes. He was not so old,
+after all, and did not have the gout, like her father. And then she
+caught his kind eyes fixed on her, and flashed him back a look that
+thrilled him. Jack was talking to her, but she managed to convey subtly
+to Throckmorton that she was not listening to Jack, which pleased the
+major very much, who had heretofore found Jack a dangerous rival in all
+his looks and words with Jacqueline.
+
+Freke, telling his funny stories, did not for one moment pretermit his
+study of the little comedy before him--Jacqueline and Throckmorton and
+Judith. It was as plain as print to him. Judith, in her black gown,
+which opened at the throat and showed the white pillar of her neck, and
+with half-sleeves that revealed the milky whiteness of her slender arms,
+sat midway the table, just opposite Jacqueline. Usually Judith's color
+was as delicate as a wild rose, but to-night it was a carnation flush.
+
+"Is Throckmorton a fool?" thought Freke, in the midst of an interval
+given over to laughter at some of his stories, which were as short and
+pithy as General Temple's were sapless and long drawn out; for
+Throckmorton, who did nothing by halves, and was constitutionally
+averse to dawdling, returned Jacqueline's glances with compound
+interest. Before they left the table, two persons had seen the promising
+beginning of the affair, and only two, none of the others having a
+suspicion. These two were Freke and Judith.
+
+The knowledge came quickly to Judith. Women can live ages of agony in a
+moment over these things. Judith, smiling, graceful, waving her large
+black fan sedately to and fro, by all odds the handsomest as well as the
+most gifted woman there, felt something tearing at her heart-strings,
+that she could have screamed aloud with pain. But even Freke, who saw
+everything nearly, did not see that; he only surmised it. It was nearly
+ten o'clock before they went back into the drawing-room. Throckmorton
+gave nobody occasion to say that he devoted himself particularly to any
+of the four women who were his guests; but his look, his talk, his
+manner to Jacqueline underwent a subtile change; and when he sat and
+talked to Judith he thought what a sweet sister she would make, and
+blessed her for her tenderness to Jacqueline. Judith's color had been
+gradually fading from the moment she caught Throckmorton's glance at
+Jacqueline. She was now quite pale, and less animated, less interesting,
+than Throckmorton ever remembered to have seen her. At something he said
+to her, she gave an answer so wide of the mark that she felt ashamed
+and apologized.
+
+"I was thinking of my child at that moment and wondering if he were
+asleep," she said.
+
+From the moment of that first meaning glance of Throckmorton's at
+Jacqueline, the evening had spun out interminably to Judith. Mrs. Temple
+noticed it with secret approval, as a sign of loyalty to her widowhood.
+
+At eleven o'clock a move was made to go, when Throckmorton suddenly
+remembered that he had not showed them his modest conservatory, which
+appeared quite imposing to their provincial eyes. He took Judith into
+the little glass room opening off the hall. It was very hot, very damp,
+and very close, as such places usually are, and full of a faint, sickly
+perfume. Freke followed them in. At last he had got his chance. He began
+to talk in his easy, unconstrained way, and in a minute or two had got
+the conversation around to something they had been speaking of the night
+of the party at Turkey Thicket.
+
+"You were saying," said Freke, "something about a bad quarter of an hour
+you had with that old sorrel horse of yours--"
+
+"Well, I should say it was a bad quarter of an hour," answered
+Throckmorton. "To be ridden down and knocked off my horse was bad
+enough, with that strapping fellow pinioning my arms to my side so I
+couldn't draw my pistol; and old Tartar, perfectly mad with fright--the
+only time I ever knew him to be so demoralized--tearing at the reins
+that wouldn't break and that I couldn't loose my arm from, and every
+time I looked up I saw his fore-feet in the air ready to come down on
+me--"
+
+"And what sort of a looking fellow was it you say that rode you down?"
+
+"A tall, blonde fellow--an officer evidently.--Good God! Mrs. Beverley,
+what is the matter?" For the color had dropped out of Judith's face as
+the mercury drops out of the tube, and she was gazing with wide, wild
+eyes at Throckmorton. How often had she heard that grewsome story--even
+that the plunging horse was a sorrel! But at least Freke should not see
+her break down. She heard herself saying, in a strange, unnatural voice:
+
+"Nothing. I think it is too warm for me in here." Throckmorton took her
+by the arm and led her back into the hall, and to a small window which
+he opened. He felt like a brute for mentioning anything connected with
+the war--of course it must be intensely painful to Judith--but she
+stopped his earnest apologies with a word.
+
+"Don't blame yourself--pray, don't. It was very warm--and Freke--oh, how
+I hate him!"
+
+Throckmorton had been afraid she was going to faint, but the energy with
+which she brought out her last remark convinced him there was no
+danger. It brought the blood surging back to her face in a torrent.
+
+Nobody else had known anything of the little scene in the conservatory;
+and then Throckmorton had to show Jacqueline over it, and Judith caught
+sight of him, standing in one of his easy and graceful attitudes,
+leaning over Jacqueline in expressive pantomime; and then came the
+general's big, musical voice: "My love, it is now past eleven o'clock;
+we must not trespass on Throckmorton's hospitality." Throckmorton felt
+at that moment as if the evening had just begun; while to Judith it
+seemed as if there was a stretch of years of pain between the dawn and
+the midnight of that day--a pain secret but consuming.
+
+There was the bustle of departure, during which Judith managed to say to
+Freke:
+
+"You have had your revenge--perfect but complete."
+
+"That's for calling me a liar," was Freke's reply. It was, moreover, for
+something that Judith had made him suffer--absurd as it was that any
+woman could make Temple Freke suffer. But, after what he had seen that
+night, he reflected that it was perhaps a work of supererogation to
+build a barrier between Judith and Throckmorton. The major had other
+views.
+
+Throckmorton handed the ladies into the carriage; and, in spite of the
+light from the open hall-door, and _not_ from the carriage-lamps--for
+the Barn Elms carriage had long parted with its lamps--he pressed a
+light kiss on Jacqueline's hand, under General and Mrs. Temple's very
+eyes, without their seeing it. Judith, however, saw it, and was thankful
+that it was dark, so that the pallid change, which she knew came over
+her, was not visible.
+
+Throckmorton went back into the house, shut himself up in his own den,
+and smoked savagely for an hour. Yes, it was all up with him, he
+ruefully acknowledged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A day or two after this, however, came a snow, deep and lasting, more
+like a midwinter snow in New England than a December flurry in lower
+Virginia. For four weeks the sun scarcely shone, and the earth was
+wrapped in white. The roads were impassable, the river-steamers stopped
+running, and the mails were delayed for days at a time. The country
+people were much cut off from each other. Mrs. Temple missed four
+successive Sundays at church--a thing she had never done in her life
+before. Nobody could get to Barn Elms except the Throckmortons and
+Freke, but they came often in the evenings. Throckmorton saw what was
+before him with Jacqueline, yet held back, as engineers put down the
+brakes on a wild engine on a down grade--it does not, however,
+materially alter the result. He sometimes thought, with a sense of the
+grotesqueness of human affairs, how strange it was that things had not
+arranged themselves so that Jack had not been Jacqueline's victim, and
+himself Judith's. For Jack was undeniably fond of Jacqueline, and so far
+did not in the slightest degree suspect his father's infatuation, as
+Throckmorton frankly and bitterly acknowledged it to be. As for Judith,
+Nature leaves no true woman unarmed for suffering like hers. Even
+Jacqueline, who was sharp-eyed, only noticed that Judith at this time
+was, if anything, a little sweeter and kinder than before--even a little
+more gay. Little Beverley found his mother better company than usual,
+and more ready for a romp than ever before. The child, whom she had
+thought everything to her before, became now more passionately dear to
+her. Alone with him, she would take him in her arms and hold him close
+to her; she felt an actual softening of the pain at her heart when the
+child's curly head rested over it. Then she would talk to him in a way
+the child only half understood, as he gazed at her with grave, mystified
+eyes, and, while laughing at his childish wonder, she would almost
+smother him with kisses. Judith was positively becoming merry. In her
+voice was a ring, in her eyes a light that was different from that calm,
+untroubled composure that had once marked her. Her manner to
+Throckmorton was perfect; the same gentle gayety, the same graceful
+dignity. She did not avoid him; pain wrung no such concession from
+Judith Temple. But Judith's invincible cheerfulness was strangely
+antagonized by Jacqueline. Jacqueline, who talked to her own heart in a
+very primitive, open fashion, was vexed at the notion that, in order to
+be mistress of Millenbeck, she would have to marry Throckmorton. How
+much nicer, thought Jacqueline, with great simplicity, if it were Jack
+who gave her those looks, those words, who had pressed that kiss upon
+her hand! Throckmorton was too old, and had too much sense; Jacqueline
+made no secret in acknowledging that mature men of sense bored and
+restrained her. It was very hard, she thought, disconsolately. Ever
+since that dinner at Millenbeck, Barn Elms had appeared shabbier and
+sorrier than ever before. Although Mrs. Temple continued to have five
+kinds of bread for breakfast, and had invited a regiment of poor
+relations to spend the coming summer with her, under the Virginia
+delusion that it costs nothing to harbor a garrison for an indefinite
+time, things were certainly going very badly at Barn Elms; a condition
+of affairs, though, to which General Temple was perfectly accustomed,
+and who knew no other way of paying Peter than by robbing Paul. The old
+carriage went all to pieces just about that time, and there was no money
+to buy another one. As for a new piano, that was an impossible dream;
+and there were two splendid new pianos at Millenbeck, and not a soul to
+touch them! And Jacqueline wanted a new frock, and endless other things,
+which were distinctly out of the question, and the only way to get them,
+that she could see, was to encourage Throckmorton's attentions and be
+mistress of Millenbeck. All this was not lost on Freke, who, with his
+eyes open, began to play with Jacqueline, and like Throckmorton got his
+wings scorched. The girl certainly had a power of compelling love. Had
+Judith ever relented toward Freke, Jacqueline would have had cause for
+jealousy if she loved him. But, in truth, as it came to pass, Freke cast
+as much of a spell upon Jacqueline as she did upon him. If Freke owned
+Millenbeck, instead of that wretched old Wareham, that actually was not
+as good as Barn Elms! So Jacqueline fretted to herself.
+
+The loneliness of those cold, snowy days was killing to Jacqueline. The
+long afternoons when she sat by the drawing-room fire and dreamed
+dreams, were almost intolerable to her. When she heard Beverley's
+shouts, as Judith romped with him in the cold hall, and hid from him in
+the dusk until the child set up a baby cry, it was the only living
+cheerful noise about the house. Judith would come to her and say, "Now,
+Jacky, for a walk in the hall!" Jacqueline would answer fretfully:
+
+"What do I want to walk for?"
+
+"Because it is better than sitting still."
+
+Judith would take her by the waist and run her up and down the long,
+dusky hall. It was so cold they shivered at first, and the rattling of
+the great windows let icy gusts of air in upon them; and sometimes the
+moon would glare in at them in a ghastly way. Presently they would hear
+Simon Peter bringing in wood for the night by the back way, shaking the
+snow off his feet, and announcing to Delilah: "I tell you what, ole
+'oman, 'tis everlastin' cole an' gwine ter keep so, fer I seed de hosses
+in de stable kickin' de lef' hine-foots; an' dat's sho' an' suttin sign
+o' freezin'."
+
+"You better kick dat lef' hine-foot o' yourn, an' stop studyin' 'bout de
+hosses, fo' mistis come arter you! Ez long ez ole marse holler at you,
+you doan' min'; but jes' let mistis in dat sof' voice say right fine,
+'Simon Peter!' I lay you jes' hop," was Delilah's wifely reply.
+
+General Temple, confined to the house by the weather, drew military maps
+with great precision, and worked hard upon his History of Temple's
+Brigade. The fact that he knew much more about the Duke of Marlborough's
+campaigns, or Prince Eugene's, or anybody's, in fact, than he did about
+any he had been directly engaged in, in no wise set him back. Mrs.
+Temple, who thought the general a prodigy of military science, was
+rejoiced that he had something to divert him through the long wintry
+days, when Barn Elms was as completely shut in from even the little
+neighborhood world as if it were in the depths of a Russian forest. Jack
+Throckmorton, who after a while began to see that the major was
+certainly singed, as he expressed it to himself, did not carry out his
+usual tactics of making his vicinity too hot for his father, but when he
+wished to see Jacqueline went over in the mornings. If the weather was
+tolerable, they were pretty sure to find their way to the ice-pond.
+Jack, carrying on his arm a little wooden chair, and putting Jacqueline
+in it, would push it over the ice before him as he sped along on skates.
+Then Jacqueline's fresh, young laugh would ring out shrilly--then she
+was happy. Sometimes Judith and Throckmorton, smiling, would watch them.
+Jack liked Mrs. Beverley immensely, but he confided to Jacqueline that
+he was a little afraid of her--just as Jacqueline candidly admitted she
+was in awe of Major Throckmorton. Throckmorton, watching this childish
+boy and girl fun, would sometimes laugh inwardly and grimly at himself.
+How true was it, as Mrs. Sherrard had said, that Jacqueline would make a
+good playmate for Jack! And then he would turn to Judith, and try to
+persuade himself of her sweetness and truth. But love comes not by
+persuasion.
+
+Jack had been giving Jacqueline glowing accounts of the sleigh-rides he
+had had in the Northwest. Jacqueline was crazy for a sleigh-ride, but
+there was no such thing as a sleigh in the county. One evening, after
+tea, as Jacqueline sat dolefully clasping her knees and looking in the
+fire, and Judith, with hands locked in her lap, was doing the same; Mrs.
+Temple knitting placidly by the lamp, while General Temple held forth
+on certain blunders he had discovered in the Retreat of the Ten
+Thousand--a strange tinkling sound was heard far--far away--almost as if
+it were in another world! Jacqueline sat perfectly still and gazed into
+Judith's eyes. Judith got up and went into the hall. A great patch of
+moonlight shone through the uncurtained window, and outside it was
+almost as light as day. The limbs and trunks of the great live-oaks
+looked preternaturally dark against the white earth and the blue-black,
+star-lit sky. Suddenly Simon Peter's head appeared cautiously around the
+corner of the house, and in a minute or two he came up the back way and
+planted himself at Judith's elbow.
+
+"Gord A'mighty, Miss Judy, what dat ar'? What dem bells ringin' fur? I
+'spect de evils is 'broad. I done see two Jack-my-lanterns dis heah
+night."
+
+Judith fixed her eyes on the long, straight lane bordered with solemn
+cedars; she saw a dark object moving along, and heard the sharp click of
+horses' shoes on the frozen snow.
+
+"It's somebody coming," she said, and in a moment, she cried out
+joyfully:
+
+"O Jacky, come--come! it's a sleigh--I see Jack Throckmorton
+driving--Major Throckmorton is there--and there are four seats!"
+
+Jacqueline jumped up and ran out. She had never seen a sleigh in her
+life, and there it was turning into the drive before the house. Jack had
+the reins, and the major's two thoroughbreds were flying along at a
+rattling pace, and the bells were jingling loudly and merrily.
+Jacqueline almost danced with delight. By the time the sleigh drew up at
+the door, Simon Peter was there to take the reins, and Throckmorton and
+Jack jumped out and came up the steps. The general and Mrs. Temple were
+also roused to come out and meet them. As the hall-door swung open, a
+blast of arctic air entered. Throckmorton's dark eyes looked black under
+his seal-skin cap. Jack plunged into business at once.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Temple, you must let me take Miss Jacqueline for a spin
+to-night; never saw better sleighing in my life. The major's along, and
+you know he is as steady as old Time"--the major at heart did not relish
+this--"and, if Mrs. Beverley will go, it will be awfully jolly."
+
+Mrs. Temple began some mild protest: it was too cold, or too late, or
+something; but for once Jacqueline did not hear her, and bounded off
+up-stairs for her wraps. Even Judith, usually so calm, was a little
+carried away by the prospect.
+
+"Come, mother, Major Throckmorton and I will take care of them."
+
+Mrs. Temple yielded.
+
+"I will take care of Beverley while you are gone," she said, and Judith
+blushed. Was she forgetting the child?
+
+In five minutes both of them were ready. Judith had pressed her soft
+cheeks to Beverley's as she leaned over the sleeping child. Surely
+nobody could say she was a forgetful mother.
+
+The sleigh was Jack's. He had sent away and bought it, and it had
+arrived that evening. Jacqueline sat on the front seat with him, her
+face glowing with smiles on the clear, cold night, as he wrapped the fur
+robes around her. Throckmorton did the same for Judith. For once she had
+left off her widow's veil, and for once she forgot that secret pain and
+determined to be happy. Jack touched up the horses, and off they flew.
+As for Jacqueline and himself, their pleasure was of that youthful,
+effervescing sort that never comes after twenty-five; but Throckmorton
+and Judith began to feel some of the exhilaration and excitement.
+Throckmorton had lately heard Mrs. Sherrard's views about Judith's
+marriage, and it had made him feel a very great pity for her.
+
+"Where are we going?" cried Jacqueline, as they dashed along.
+
+"Anywhere--nowhere--to Turkey Thicket!" replied Jack, lightly touching
+the flying horses with his whip.
+
+"We will frighten Mrs. Sherrard to death!" said Judith, from the back
+seat, burying her face in her muff.
+
+It was not a time to think about anybody else, though. The five miles
+to Turkey Thicket sped away like lightning. When they dashed through the
+gate and drew up before the house, half a dozen darkies were there
+gaping; and Mrs. Sherrard, with a shawl thrown over her head, was
+standing in the doorway, and standing behind her was Freke.
+
+As they all got out, laughing, huddling, and slipping up the stone
+steps, Mrs. Sherrard greeted them with her characteristic cordiality,
+demanding that they should take off their wraps before they were half up
+the steps. She gave Throckmorton a comical look, and whispered to him as
+he shook hands with her: "Out with the Sister of Charity, hey? Or is it
+the child Jacky?" Throckmorton laughed rather uneasily. He had never got
+over that remark of Mrs. Sherrard's about Jacqueline being a playmate
+for Jack.
+
+They all went trooping into the dining-room, where a huge fire blazed.
+Mrs. Sherrard called up her factotum, a venerable negro woman, Delilah's
+double, and in ten minutes they were sitting around the table laughing
+and eating and drinking. The colored factotum had brought out a large
+yellow bowl, a big, flat, blue dish, and a rusty bottle. Eggs and milk
+followed.
+
+"Egg-nog," whispered Jack to Jacqueline.
+
+So it was. Freke broke up the eggs, and Mrs. Sherrard, with a great
+carving-knife, beat up the whites, while she talked and occasionally
+flourished the knife uncomfortably near Freke's nose. Throckmorton
+poured in the rum and brandy with such liberality that Judith with great
+firmness took both bottles away from him. The egg-nog was a capital
+brew. Then Freke produced his violin, and saying, "Hang your Brahms and
+Beethovens!" dashed into waltzes of Strauss and Waldteufel that made the
+very air vibrate with joy and gayety and rhythm. Jack seized Jacqueline,
+and, opening the door, they flew out into the half-lighted hall and spun
+around delightedly. As Freke's superb bow-arm flashed back and forth,
+and the torrent of melody poured out of the violin, his eyes flashed,
+too. He did not mean to play always for Jacqueline to dance.
+
+Judith, standing at the door, watched the two young figures whirling
+merrily around in the half-light to the resounding waltz-music. She was
+altogether taken by surprise when Throckmorton came up to her, and said,
+half laughing and half embarrassed:
+
+"My dancing days are over, but that waltz is charming."
+
+Judith did not quite take in what he meant, but without a word he
+clasped her waist, and she was gliding off with him. Throckmorton would
+have scorned the characterization of a "dancing man," but nevertheless
+he danced well, and Judith moved like a breeze. She went around the big
+hall once--twice--before the idea that it was inconceivably wicked of
+her to dance with Throckmorton came to her; not, indeed, until she saw
+Freke's wide mouth expanded into a smile that was infuriating. And then,
+what would Mrs. Temple say to her dancing at all?
+
+"Oh, pray, stop!" she cried, blushing furiously. "I can't dance any
+more; I ought never to have begun. I haven't danced for--for years."
+
+Throckmorton stopped at once, with pity in his eyes. He suspected the
+sort of angelic dragooning to which she was subject from his dear Mrs.
+Temple.
+
+"Why shouldn't you dance?" he said. "I see you like it. Come, let's try
+it again. I'm a little rusty, perhaps, but we got on famously just now."
+But Judith would not try it again.
+
+Freke now meant to have his innings.
+
+"Do you know this is Twelfth-night--the night for telling fortunes?" he
+said, laying down his violin.--"Come, Jacky, let me take you out of
+doors and show you the moon and tell yours."
+
+"In this snow!" screamed Mrs. Sherrard; but by that time Freke had
+thrown a shawl over Jacqueline's head, and had dragged her out of the
+room, and the hall-door banged loudly after them.
+
+Outside, in the cold, white moonlight and the snow, Freke pointed to the
+moon.
+
+"Now make your wish," he said; "but don't wish for Millenbeck."
+
+Jacqueline's face could turn no redder than it was, but she looked at
+Freke, and answered on impulse, as she always did:
+
+"Millenbeck is finer than Barn Elms--"
+
+"Or Wareham," responded Freke, fixing her attention with a stare out of
+his bold eyes. "See here, Jacqueline, I know how it is. You think you
+will be able to put up with Throckmorton for the sake of Millenbeck. My
+dear, he is old--"
+
+"He is only forty-four," answered Jacqueline, defiantly.
+
+"And you are only twenty-one. You would be happier even at Wareham with
+me, than at Millenbeck with Throckmorton."
+
+"I couldn't be happy in a five-roomed house," quite truthfully said
+Jacqueline.
+
+"Yes, you could. I could make you forget whether it had five or ten
+rooms."
+
+At this, he put two fingers under her chin, and, tilting up her rosy
+face, kissed her on the mouth. "Come!" cried Freke, after a little
+while, remembering how time was flying, which Jacqueline had evidently
+forgotten, and making for the steps; but Jacqueline stopped him with a
+scared face.
+
+"Aren't you married, Freke?" she asked.
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Freke, stoutly. "Don't you believe all the
+old women's tales you hear about me, Jacky. I'm no more married than you
+are this minute. I have been, I admit, but I slipped my head out of the
+noose some time ago. Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jacqueline, who could believe anything, "if--if--people
+can really be divorced."
+
+They had not been gone ten minutes, when they returned, yet Freke saw a
+danger-signal flying in Judith's cheeks. She did not mean to have any
+more of this. Mrs. Sherrard, who had become an active partisan of
+Freke's, asked, as soon as they came in:
+
+"What wish did you make, Jacky?"
+
+Jacqueline started. She had made no wish at all.
+
+"Freke ran me out of the house so fast," she began complainingly, "I was
+perfectly out of breath."
+
+"And of course couldn't make a wish," said Jack Throckmorton, laughing.
+
+"I wished for everything," replied Jacqueline.
+
+Presently they were driving home through the still, frosty night. Judith
+felt a complete reaction from the ghost of merriment that had possessed
+her in going that road before. Even Throckmorton noticed the change. She
+laughed and talked gayly, but her speaking eyes told another story.
+Throckmorton could not but smile, and yet felt sorry, too, when
+Jacqueline, fancying herself unheard, whispered to Judith:
+
+"I won't tell mamma about the waltz."
+
+But Jacqueline was absent-minded too. When they had got home and had
+gone up-stairs, instead of Jacqueline following Judith to her room, as
+she usually did when she had anything on her mind, she went straight to
+her own room, and, locking the door, began to walk up and down, her
+hands behind her back. How strange, fascinating, overpowering was Freke,
+after all! Was a divorced man really a married man? Divorces were
+dreadful things, she had always known--but--suppose, in some other world
+than that about the Severn neighborhood, it should be considered a
+venial thing? Jacqueline became so much interested in these puzzling
+reflections that she unconsciously abandoned the cat-like tread which
+she had adopted for fear of waking her mother, and stepped out in her
+own brisk way up and down the big room. Mrs. Temple, hearing this,
+quietly opened her own chamber-door beneath. That was enough. The walk
+stopped as if by magic, and in ten minutes Jacqueline was in bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Throckmorton made one short, sharp struggle with himself, and then
+yielded to Jacqueline's fascination.
+
+Without Freke's keen perceptions, Throckmorton knew enough to doubt
+whether he ought to congratulate or curse himself if he won Jacqueline;
+and that he could win her, his own good sense told him soon enough.
+Jacqueline's nature was so impressionable that a strong determination
+could conquer her at any time and at any thing for a season.
+Throckmorton, tramping about the country roads with his gun on his
+shoulder; having jolly bachelor parties at Millenbeck, which were
+confined strictly to the Severn neighborhood; in church on Sunday,
+half-listening to Morford's pyrotechnics in the pulpit; smoking at
+unearthly hours in his own den; riding hard after the hounds--the
+thought of Jacqueline was never far away, and never without a suspicion
+of pain and dissatisfaction. He was not given to paltering with himself,
+and nothing could utterly blind his strong common sense--a common sense
+that was so imperative to be heard, so difficult to answer, so
+impossible to evade. It was not in him to surrender his judgment
+absolutely. He faced bravely the discrepancy in their ages, but he soon
+admitted to himself that there were other incongruities deeper and more
+significant than that. Nevertheless, although Reason might argue and
+preach, Love carried the day. Throckmorton reminded himself that
+miracles sometimes happened in love. He did not suffer himself to think
+what Jacqueline would be twenty years from then. Time is always fatal to
+women of her type. Even her beauty was essentially the beauty of youth.
+In twenty years she would be stout and florid. Here Throckmorton, in his
+reflections, unexpectedly went off on Judith. Hers was a beauty that
+would last--the beauty of expression, of _esprit_. Then his thoughts,
+with a sort of shock, reverted to Jacqueline.
+
+As for Freke, Throckmorton did not once connect him with Jacqueline.
+Freke was a black sheep, and, as Throckmorton devoutly and thankfully
+remembered, the daughter of General and Mrs. Temple would not be likely
+to regard a divorced man as a single man. So, in the course of two or
+three weeks, Throckmorton had gone through all his phases, and had made
+up his mind. He could not but laugh at Mrs. Temple's unsuspecting
+security. She had always regarded Jacqueline as a child, and indeed
+regarded her very little in any way.
+
+This excellent woman, whose gospel was embodied in her duty to her
+husband and her children, had always been a singularly unjust mother;
+but she thought herself the most devoted mother in the world, because
+she regularly superintended Jacqueline's changes of flannels, and made
+her take off her shoes when she got her feet wet. Both Mrs. Temple and
+the general were absolutely incapable of entertaining the idea that
+Freke was growing fond of Jacqueline; and Freke was not only astute
+enough to keep them in the dark, but to keep Judith, too, who fondly
+imagined that she herself had reduced Freke to good behavior as regarded
+Jacqueline. Freke's estimate of the two young women had not changed in
+the least--only Jacqueline was come-at-able and Judith was not--and he
+loved to cross Judith and vex her, and give her pin-sticks as well as
+stabs in return for the frank hatred she felt for him. She had elected
+her own position with him--so let her keep it.
+
+It never took Throckmorton long to act on his determinations. Jacqueline
+saw what was coming. He had a way of looking at her that forced her to
+look up and then to look down again. He said little things to her,
+instinct with meaning, that brought the blood to her face. He performed
+small services for her that were merely conventional, but which were
+from him to her acts of adoration. And Judith saw it all.
+
+He did not have to wait long for an opportunity. One evening he went to
+Barn Elms. The general was threatened with a return of his gout, which
+had got better, and Mrs. Temple had imprisoned him in the "charmber,"
+where she mounted guard over him. Only Jacqueline and Judith, with
+little Beverley, who had been allowed to stay up until eight o'clock, as
+a great privilege, were in the drawing-room when he walked in. The boy
+and Throckmorton were such chums that there was no hope of getting
+Beverley off under a half-hour. He stood between Throckmorton's knees,
+perfectly happy to be with him, asking endless questions in a subdued
+whisper, and frowning out of his expressive eyes when Throckmorton
+wanted to know when his mother intended to cut off his long, yellow
+curls, so that he would be a real boy. Judith, sitting in her usual
+place, smiling and calm, soon settled that the winged word would be
+spoken that night. What better chance would Throckmorton have than when
+she should be gone to put the child to bed? She watched the tall clock
+on the high mantel with a fearful sinking of the heart, that drove the
+color out of her face. Presently it was half-past eight.
+
+"Come, dearest," she said to the child.
+
+Beverley held back.
+
+"I don't want to go with you," he said. "I want to stay and play."
+
+This childish treason to her at that moment was a stab. She got up with
+a smile, and opened her arms wide, her eyes shining under her straight
+brows.
+
+"Come, dear little boy," she said.
+
+The tone was so winning, so compelling, it went to the child's baby
+heart. He ran to his mother, with wide-open arms, who caught him and
+held him tight, covering his yellow mop of hair with kisses.
+Throckmorton looked on surprised and admiring. He had never seen Judith
+yield to anything emotional like that; she was laughing, blushing, and
+almost crying, as Beverley swung round her neck. And Throckmorton
+thought he had never seen her look so handsome as when she ran out of
+the room, carrying the child, who was a sturdy fellow, in her slender
+arms, her face deeply flushed. Throckmorton, as he held the door open
+for her to pass out, gave her a meaning smile; but Judith would not look
+at him. Up-stairs, Beverley was soon in his little bed. Judith, sitting
+on the floor, with both arms crossed on the crib, held one of the
+child's little warm hands in hers; the only real and comforting thing in
+life then seemed that childish hand.
+
+"I will stay an hour," she said. "Mother will be vexed"--Mrs. Temple had
+old-fashioned ideas about leaving girls to themselves--"but he shall be
+happy. I will see that he has his chance." But, like Throckmorton
+himself, she feared for his happiness. Nobody knew better than she
+Jacqueline's weakness. She had, indeed, a sort of childish cleverness,
+which was, however, of no practical good to her; but then, as Judith
+remembered, Throckmorton's love could transform any woman. "Yes, I shall
+go through it," she thought, still kneeling on the carpet, and pressing
+her face to the child's in the crib; "Jacqueline will insist that I
+shall take off the mourning I wear for the man I never loved, at the
+wedding of the man I do love. If Throckmorton has any doubts or troubles
+with Jacqueline, he will certainly come to me. I will help him loyally,
+and he will need a friend. So far, though, from making me suffer more,
+the hope of befriending him is the only hope I have left in the world. I
+wonder how it feels to have one's heart aching and throbbing for another
+woman's husband--to be counting time by the times one sees him? For
+assuredly a few words spoken by a priest can not change this." She
+struck her heart. "And in everything Jacqueline will be blest above me.
+See how poor and straitened we are, and Jacqueline's life will be free
+from any care at all! However, to be loved by Throckmorton must mean to
+be rich and free and happy." And then, with a sort of clear-eyed
+despair, she began to look into the future, and see all of Jacqueline's
+and Throckmorton's life spread out before her. "And how unworthy she
+is!" she almost cried out aloud. She had now risen from the crib and
+was gazing out of the window at Millenbeck, that was plainly visible
+across the white stretch of snow between the two places. "Of course, she
+will love him--no woman could help that--but she can't understand him.
+She will not have the slightest respect for his habits, and will always
+be wanting him to alter them for her. She never will understand the
+reserves of Throckmorton's nature. She will tease him with questions. I
+would not care if Jacqueline were the one to be unhappy"--for so had
+pain changed her toward the child that had been to her almost as her
+own--"but in a few years the spell will have vanished. Throckmorton will
+find out that she is no companion for him. There can be no real
+companionship for any man like Throckmorton except with a woman
+somewhere near his own level--least of all now, when he is no longer
+young."
+
+Then she came back and took the child out of his little bed, and held
+him in her arms and wept passionately over him. "At least I have you,
+darling; I have you!" she cried.
+
+Down-stairs, in the drawing-room, Throckmorton made good use of his
+time. With very little apprenticeship, he knew how to make love so that
+any woman would listen to him.
+
+He told Jacqueline that he loved her, in his own straightforward way;
+and Jacqueline, whose heart beat furiously, who was frightened and half
+rebellious, suffered him to get a few shy words from her. Throckmorton
+did not stoop to deny his age, but he condescended to apologize for it.
+In a dim and nebulous way Jacqueline understood the value of the man who
+thus offered his manly and unstained heart, but she felt acutely the
+want of common ground between them.
+
+Throckmorton's love-making was not at all what simple Jacqueline fancied
+love-making to be. He did not protest--he did not talk poetry, nor abase
+himself; he made no exaggerated promises, nor did he sue for her love.
+At the first sign of yielding, he caught her to his heart and devoured
+her with kisses. Yet, when Jacqueline wanted to escape from him, he let
+her go. He would not keep her a moment unwillingly. Jacqueline did not
+understand this masterful way of doing things. She fancied that a lover
+meant a slave, and apparently Throckmorton considered a lover meant a
+master.
+
+At the end of an hour, Judith returned to the room. Throckmorton was
+standing alone on the hearth-rug, in a meditative attitude. In his eyes,
+as they sought Judith's, was a kind of passionate, troubled joy; he
+doubted much, but he did not doubt his love for Jacqueline. He went
+forward and took Judith's hand, who lifted her eyes, strangely bright,
+to his face. She was smiling, too, and a faint blush glowed in her
+cheeks. There were no visible signs of tears.
+
+"I am a happy man," said Throckmorton to her. "Jacqueline has promised
+to marry me."
+
+His words were few, but Judith understood how much was conveyed in his
+sparing speech.
+
+"I am happy, too," she returned, pressing his hand. "You deserve to be
+happy, and you will make--Jacqueline happy."
+
+As she said this, she smiled tremulously. Throckmorton was too much
+absorbed to notice it.
+
+"I will, so help me Heaven!" he answered.
+
+In all his life before, Throckmorton did not remember ever to have felt
+the desire of communion about his inner thoughts and feelings. Was it
+because he himself had changed, or that Judith had that delicate and
+penetrating sympathy that drew him on to speak of what he had never
+spoken before? Anyway, he sat down by her, and talked to her a long
+time--talked of all the doubts and pitfalls that had beset him; his
+plans that Jacqueline might be happy; his confidence that Judith would
+be his strongest ally with Mrs. Temple, who was by no means a person to
+be counted on. She might object to Throckmorton's profession, to his
+being in what she continued to call the Yankee army, to his twenty-odd
+years' seniority, to his not being a member of the church; as like as
+not this was the very rock on which Throckmorton's ship would split.
+Judith, with the same heavenly smile, listened to him; she even made a
+little wholesome fun of him; and when he rose to go, Throckmorton felt,
+even at that time--and nobody could say that he was a laggard in
+love--that he had gained something else besides Jacqueline, in the sweet
+friendship of a woman like Judith. He took her little hand, and was
+about to raise it to his lips with tender respect, when Judith, who had
+stood as still as a statue, suddenly snatched her hand away and gave
+Throckmorton a look so strange that he fancied her attacked by a sudden
+prudery that was far from becoming to her or complimentary to him. She
+slipped past him out of the door, and he heard her light and rapid
+footfall as she sped up the stairs. As there was nobody left to
+entertain the newly accepted lover, he put on a battered blue cap, for
+which he had a sneaking affection, and sometimes wore under cover of
+night, and let himself out of the front door and went home across the
+snow-covered fields, in an ecstasy.
+
+Meanwhile, Jacqueline, as soon as she had heard the bang of the
+hall-door after Throckmorton's quick, soldierly step, stole out of her
+own room into Judith's. In answer to her tap, Judith said, "Come in."
+
+Judith was seated before the old-fashioned dressing-table, her long,
+rich hair combed out, and was making a pretense of brushing it, but
+occasionally she would stop and gaze with strange eyes at her own image
+in the glass. She rose when Jacqueline entered, and took the girl in
+her arms as Jacqueline expected.
+
+"Judith," Jacqueline said, "I am to be married to Major Throckmorton. I
+wonder what Freke will say!"
+
+Judith held her off at arm's length, and looked down at her with eyes
+full of anger and disdain.
+
+"Don't mention Throckmorton and Freke in the same breath, Jacqueline!
+What does Freke's opinion count for--what does Freke himself? It is an
+insult to Throckmorton to--to--"
+
+"But, Judith," said Jacqueline, "Freke talks better than Major
+Throckmorton--"
+
+"And plays and sings better. Ah! yes. At the same time, Throckmorton's
+little finger is worth more than a dozen Frekes."
+
+"But it troubles me about Freke. I know Major Throckmorton can manage
+mamma--he can do anything with her now; and mamma, of course, will
+manage papa; but nobody can do anything with Freke."
+
+"Jacqueline," said Judith, sitting down and taking Jacqueline in her
+lap, and changing all at once into the sweetest sisterly persuasion, "no
+other man on earth must matter to you now but Throckmorton. Let me tell
+you what a true marriage is. It is to love one man so much that with him
+is everything--without him is nothing. It is to study what he likes, and
+to like it too. It is to make his people your people, and his God your
+God. I think one need not know a great deal in order to be worthy of a
+man--for his love makes one worthy; but one should know a great deal in
+order that one may be creditable to him in the eyes of the world. Think
+how Throckmorton's wife should conduct herself; fancy how frightful the
+contrast, if she should not in some degree be like him! I tell you,
+Jacqueline, a woman to sustain Throckmorton's name and credit should be
+no ordinary woman. If you do not love him, if you do not make him proud
+and happy to say, 'This is my wife,' you deserve the worst fate--"
+
+One of Jacqueline's fits of acuteness was on her. She looked hard at
+Judith.
+
+"It seems to me, Judith, that you would make a much more fitting wife
+for him than I."
+
+"Don't say that!" cried Judith, breathlessly. "Never, never say that
+again!"
+
+Jacqueline, who knew well enough when to stop, suddenly halted. After a
+little pause, she began again:
+
+"I know it will be dreadfully lonely at Millenbeck. Major Throckmorton
+loves to read, and I shall be a great interruption to his evenings. I
+don't know how I shall treat Jack. Don't you think it would be a good
+idea to get a companion--somebody who knows French?"
+
+"You musn't think of such a thing. Good heavens! a companion, with
+Throckmorton? You can learn more from him in one week than all the
+governesses in creation can teach you."
+
+"I didn't say governess," replied Jacqueline, with much dignity. "I said
+companion."
+
+Then, as Jacqueline leaned her head on Judith's shoulder, Judith talked
+to her long and tenderly of the duty, the respect, the love she owed
+Throckmorton. Jacqueline listened attentively enough. When the little
+lecture was finished, Jacqueline whispered:
+
+"I feel differently about it now. At first, I could only think of
+Millenbeck and a new piano, and doing just as I liked; but now, I will
+try--I will really try--not to vex Major Throckmorton."
+
+That was all that could be got out of her.
+
+Judith went with her to her room, and did not leave it until Jacqueline
+was tucked in her big four-poster, with the ghastly white tester and
+dimity hangings. Jacqueline kissed her a dozen times before she went
+away. Judith, too, was loath to leave. As long as she was doing
+something for Jacqueline, she was doing something for Throckmorton. For
+was not Jacqueline Throckmorton's now?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Throckmorton, who was modesty and respectfulness itself in the presence
+of the woman he loved, was far from being nervous or diffident with her
+family. Next morning, having devoted all his smoking hours, which
+comprised the meditative part of his life, to Jacqueline, it occurred to
+him that he would have to tackle Mrs. Temple. That quite exhilarated and
+amused him. He knew well enough the Temple tradition, by which the
+master of the house was the nominal ruler, while the mistress was the
+actual ruler, and he also knew it would not be repeated at Millenbeck.
+He was indulgent toward women to the last degree--indulgent of their
+whims, their foibles, their faults and follies; but it was an
+indulgence, not a right. Jacqueline would find she had as much liberty
+as ever her mother had, but it would not be by virtue of a strong will
+over a weak one, but the free gift of affection. The major was not a
+person subject to petticoat government. In fact, he did not exactly know
+what it meant, and the woman did not live who could make him understand
+it. He rather looked forward to a brush with Mrs. Temple. He knew that
+Millenbeck and all the worldly advantages of the match would not
+influence her one iota. The conviction of this, of her entire
+disinterestedness and integrity, gave him pleasure. He knew that it was
+he--George Throckmorton--who would be weighed by Mrs. Temple, if not by
+Jacqueline; this last an afterthought that came to him unpleasantly.
+
+At breakfast, Throckmorton could not but feel a sense of triumph over
+Jack, who, unconscious of an impending step-mother, sat opposite his
+father, and talked in the free, frank way to him that Throckmorton had
+always encouraged. The young rascal would see, thought Throckmorton,
+with much satisfaction, that it was possible for a man of forty-four,
+with more gray hairs than black in his head, to hold his own even
+against a fellow as fascinating as Jack fancied himself to be. As luck
+would have it, Jack began to talk about the Temples.
+
+"Major, don't you think Mrs. Beverley a very captivating woman? By
+George! she looks so pretty in that little black bonnet she wears, if it
+wasn't for interfering with you, sir, I would be tempted to go in and
+win myself."
+
+The boy's impudence tickled Throckmorton. He could not but laugh in
+spite of himself at the idea--Jack, whom Judith treated very much as she
+did Beverley! But Jack evidently thought his father had designs in that
+quarter, which misapprehension still further amused the major.
+
+"Mrs. Beverley is indeed a charming woman," he answered.
+
+Jack, however, became serious. In his heart he sincerely admired and
+revered Judith, and his blessing was ready whenever the major informed
+him that she would be the future mistress of Millenbeck.
+
+"Mrs. Beverley has more sense and sprightliness than any other woman I
+know. If she could be persuaded to take off those black things she wraps
+herself up in, and be _herself_--which she isn't--I should think she
+would be--great fun."
+
+Jack knew Throckmorton well enough to see that the shot had not hit the
+bull's-eye. Throckmorton was too ready to praise, discuss, and admire
+Judith. "What does the old fellow want, anyway?" thought Jack to
+himself, "if Mrs. Beverley doesn't suit him?" So then and there he
+entered into a disquisition on women in general and Judith Temple in
+particular, which caused Throckmorton to ask sarcastically:
+
+"May I ask where you acquired your knowledge of the sex?"
+
+"It would be impossible to associate with you, major, without learning
+much about them," answered Jack, "you are such a favorite with the
+ladies. You are a very handsome man, you know, sir--"
+
+Here Throckmorton smiled.
+
+"For your age, that is--"
+
+The major frowned slightly.
+
+"They all like you--even little Jacqueline."
+
+To save his life, Throckmorton could not prevent a flush from rising to
+his face, which he hated; for the emotions of forty-four are infinitely
+ridiculous to twenty-two. But it was just as well to have things settled
+then. A queer glitter, too, showing understanding, had come into Jack's
+eyes.
+
+"I may say to you," said Throckmorton, after a little pause, "that you
+would do well to be guarded in your references to Miss Temple. She has
+promised to marry me."
+
+They had finished breakfast by that time, and were about to separate for
+the morning. Jack got up, and Throckmorton noticed his handsome young
+face paled a little. He had not escaped Jacqueline's spell any more than
+Throckmorton and Freke; but it was not an overmastering spell, and in
+his heart he loved his father with a manly affection that he never
+thought of putting into words, but which was stronger than any other
+emotion. He walked up to Throckmorton and shook hands with him,
+laughing, but with a nervousness in his laugh, an abashed look on his
+face, that told the whole story to Throckmorton's keen eye.
+
+"I congratulate you, sir. She is a--a--beautiful girl--and--and--I hope
+you will be very happy."
+
+"I think I shall," gravely responded Throckmorton. "I can not explain
+things to you that you can only learn by experience. I have not
+forgotten--I never can forget--your mother, who made my happiness during
+our short married life. I have been twenty years recovering from the
+pain of losing her enough to think of replacing her."
+
+Jack had recovered himself a little while Throckmorton was speaking. The
+wound was only skin-deep with him.
+
+"And is it to be immediately?" he asked.
+
+"As soon as I can bring it about," replied Throckmorton; "but I have got
+to bring my dear, obstinate old friend Mrs. Temple round first"--here
+both of them laughed--"so you will see the necessity of keeping the
+affair absolutely quiet."
+
+"You had better join the church, sir," said Jack, who was himself again.
+"That will be your best card to play."
+
+"Very likely," responded Throckmorton, good-humoredly, "but I think I
+can win the game even without that."
+
+In the bright morning sunshine out-of-doors Throckmorton began to take
+heart of grace about Jacqueline. Jack did not seem to think it such an
+unequal match. With love and patience what might not be done with any
+woman? Throckmorton began to whistle jovially. He went out to the stable
+lot to take a look at the horses, as he did every morning. Old Tartar,
+that had carried him during four years' warfare, and was now honorably
+retired and turned out to grass, came toward him whinnying and ready for
+his morning pat--all horses, dogs, and children loved Throckmorton.
+Tartar, who had lost an eye in the service of his country, turned his
+one remaining orb around so as to see Throckmorton, and rubbed his noble
+old head against his master's knee. Throckmorton noticed him more than
+usual--his heart was more tender and pitiful to all creatures that
+morning.
+
+Toward noon he went over to Barn Elms. The morning was intensely cold,
+though clear, and the fields and fences and hedges were still white with
+snow. For the first time Throckmorton noticed the extreme shabbiness of
+Barn Elms.
+
+"Dear little girl," he said, "she shall have a different home from
+this."
+
+When he reached the house he was ushered straight into the plain,
+old-fashioned drawing-room, and in a moment Mrs. Temple appeared,
+perfectly unsuspicious of what had happened or what was going to happen.
+
+"Good-morning," cried Throckmorton--something in his tone showing
+triumph and happiness, and in his dark face was a fine red color. "Mrs.
+Temple, I came over to make a clean breast to you this morning!"
+
+"About what?" asked Mrs. Temple, sedately.
+
+They were both standing up, facing each other.
+
+"About--Jacqueline." Throckmorton spoke her name almost reverently.
+
+A sudden light broke in upon Mrs. Temple. She grew perfectly rigid.
+
+"Jacqueline!" she said, in an undescribable tone.
+
+"Yes, Jacqueline," answered Throckmorton, coolly. "I love her--I think
+she loves me--and she has promised to marry me. You may depend upon it,
+I shall make her keep her promise."
+
+Mrs. Temple remained perfectly silent for two or three minutes before
+recovering her self-possession.
+
+"You are forty-four years old, George Throckmorton."
+
+"I know it. I never lied about my age to anybody."
+
+"You are in the Yankee army!"
+
+"Yes, I am," responded Throckmorton, boldly, "and I shall stay in it."
+
+"And my daughter--"
+
+"For God's sake, Mrs. Temple, let us talk reasonably together! I am not
+going to take your daughter campaigning."
+
+"It isn't that I mean, George Throckmorton. I mean the uniform you
+wear--"
+
+"Is the best in the world! Now, my dear old friend--the best friend I
+ever had--I want your consent and General Temple's--I want it very much,
+but it isn't absolutely necessary. Jacqueline and I are to be married.
+We settled that last night."
+
+Mrs. Temple, with whom nobody had ever taken a bold stand before, looked
+perfectly aghast. Throckmorton saw his advantage, and pressed it hard.
+
+"Have you any objection to me personally? Am I a drunkard, or a gambler,
+or a cad?"
+
+"You are not," responded Mrs. Temple, after a pause. "I think you are,
+on the whole, except my husband and my dead son, as much of a man--"
+
+Throckmorton took her hand and pressed it.
+
+"Thank you! thank you!" His gratitude spoke more in his tone than his
+words. "And now," he cheerfully remarked, "that you have given your
+consent--"
+
+Mrs. Temple had given no such thing. Nevertheless, within half an hour
+she had yielded to the inevitable. She had met a stronger will than her
+own, and was completely vanquished.
+
+Jacqueline came down, and Throckmorton had a half-hour of rapture not
+unmixed with pain. If only his reason could be silenced, how happy he
+would have been! He did not see Judith; he had quite forgotten her for
+the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+Throckmorton, who was nothing if not prompt, had infused so much life
+and spirit into his love-affair that at the end of a week it was settled
+that the wedding should take place the last of February--only a month
+off. Jacqueline's trousseau was not likely to be imposing, and the few,
+feeble reasons which Mrs. Temple urged for delay were swept away by
+Throckmorton's impetuosity. It was not the custom in that part of the
+world for engagements to be formally announced; on the contrary, it was
+in order to deny them up to the very last moment, and to regard them as
+something surreptitious and to be hid under a bushel. General Temple had
+magniloquently given his consent, when Throckmorton went through the
+form of asking it. Mrs. Temple still shook her head gravely over the
+matter, particularly over the brief engagement, which was quite opposed
+to the leisurely way in which engagements were usually conducted in her
+experience; but Throckmorton seemed to have mastered everybody at Barn
+Elms. For himself that period was one of deep joy, and yet full of
+harassing doubts. The more he studied Jacqueline under her new aspects,
+the stranger things became. It cut him to see how little real
+consequence either her mother or her father attached to her. Judith
+seemed to be the only person who was concerned to make Jacqueline love
+him; to regard the girl as a woman, and not as a child. For Jacqueline
+herself, she was as changeable as the weather. Had she been steadily
+indifferent to him, Throckmorton would have thought nothing necessary
+but a manly fight to win her; but sometimes she showed devoted fondness
+for him, and, without rhyme or reason, she would change into the coldest
+indifference or teasing irritability. Throckmorton told himself it was
+the coyness and fickleness of a young girl in love; but sometimes a
+hateful suspicion overcame him that there was in Jacqueline an innate
+levity and inconstancy that went to the root of her nature. The evident
+delight she took in the luxury and pleasures that were to be hers--the
+horses, carriages, pianos, and flowers at Millenbeck--was rather that of
+a child dazzled with the fineries of life. Her love for them was so
+unthinking and uncalculating that it did not shock Throckmorton; yet how
+could he, with his knowledge, his experience of men, women, and things,
+help seeing the differences between them--differences that, had his
+infatuation been less complete, would have appalled him? As it was, just
+as Judith had predicted to herself, he often came to her for sympathy
+and encouragement--not expressed in words, but in the subtile
+understanding between them. Judith always spoke in praise of Jacqueline;
+she artfully managed to show Throckmorton the best of her. But for
+Judith the marriage could never have been hastened on, as Throckmorton
+desired; for, as soon as she found out Throckmorton's wish, she went to
+work on Jacqueline's trousseau with a sort of desperate energy that
+carried things through. Jacqueline could have no fine silk gowns, but
+she was to have piles of the daintiest linen, of which the material cost
+little, but the beautiful handiwork lavished upon it by Judith was worth
+a little fortune. Jacqueline herself, spurred on by Judith's industry,
+sewed steadily. As for Judith, the fever of working for Jacqueline
+seized her, and never abated. She even neglected her child for
+Jacqueline, until Mrs. Temple, with stern disapproval, took her to task
+about it. Judith, blushing and conscience-stricken, owned to her fault,
+although nobody could accuse her of lacking love for the child. But
+still she managed to sew for Jacqueline, sitting up secretly by night,
+and with a pale, fixed face--stitch, stitch, stitching! Jacqueline could
+not understand it at all; and when she asked Judith about it once, she
+was so suddenly and strangely agitated that Jacqueline, a little
+frightened, dropped the subject at once. But, in truth, this was to
+Judith a time of new, strange, and terrible grief and disappointment.
+How she had ever permitted Throckmorton to take up her whole heart and
+mind she did not know any more than she could fathom now how she ever
+came to mistake an early and immature fancy for a deep and abiding
+passion, and had suffered herself to be married to Beverley Temple. She
+endured agonies of remorse for that, and yet hourly excused herself to
+herself. "How could I know," she asked herself in those long hours of
+the night when men and women come face to face with their sorrows. But
+all her remorse was for Beverley. As for the hatred she ought to feel
+for Throckmorton as the slayer of her husband, she had come to laugh it
+to scorn in her own mind. But, like all true women, she respected the
+world--the narrow circle which constituted her world--and she felt
+oppressed with shame at the idea that the whole story might all one day
+come out, and then what would they think of her? What would they do to
+her? She could not say, as she had once said, "I do not believe it." She
+had heard it from Throckmorton's own mouth. She would have to say, "I
+knew it, and went to his house, and continued to be friendly with him,
+and spoke no word when he wished to marry Beverley's sister." She could
+not divine the reason of Freke's silence, but, torn and harassed and
+wearied with struggles of heart and conscience, she simply yielded to
+the fatalism of the wretched, and let things drift. Sometimes in her
+own room, after she had spent the evening with Throckmorton and
+Jacqueline, seeing clearly under his perfectly self-possessed exterior
+his infatuation for Jacqueline, she would be wroth with him. Judith, the
+most modest and unassuming of women, would say to herself, with scorn of
+Throckmorton: "How blind he is! To throw away on Jacqueline, who in her
+turn throws it to the wind, what would make me the proudest creature
+under heaven! And am I unworthy of his love, or less worthy than
+Jacqueline?" To which her keen perceptions would answer rebelliously,
+"No, I am more worthy in every way." She would examine her face
+carefully in the glass, holding the candle first one side, then the
+other. "This, then, is the face that Throckmorton is indifferent to. It
+is not babyish, like Jacqueline's; there are no dimples, but--" Then
+the grotesqueness of it all would strike her, and even make her laugh.
+The fiercest pain, the most devouring jealousy never wrung from her
+the faintest admission that there was anything to be ashamed of in
+cherishing silently a profound and sacred love for Throckmorton. He
+was worthy of it, she thought, proudly. Toward him her manner never
+changed--she was mistress of some of the nobler arts of deception--but
+sometimes, although working for Jacqueline, and tending her
+affectionately, she would be angry and disdainful because Jacqueline
+did not always render to Throckmorton his due. She almost laughed to
+herself when she compared this horror of pain and grief which she now
+endured with the shock and pity of Beverley's death. She remembered that
+the joy her child gave her seemed almost wicked in its intensity at
+that time. What passions of happiness were hers when she would rise
+stealthily in the night and, taking him from his little crib, would hold
+him to her throbbing heart; and often, from the next room, she could
+hear Mrs. Temple pacing her floor, and could imagine the silent wringing
+of the hands and all the unspoken agonies the elder mother endured for
+_her_ child! Then she would swiftly and guiltily put the child back in
+his cradle, and, with remorse and self-denial, lie near him without
+touching him. Often in that long-past time, when she met him in his
+nurse's arms, she would fly toward him with a merry, dancing step,
+laughing all the time--she was so happy, so proud to have him--and,
+looking up, would catch Mrs. Temple's eyes fixed on her with a still
+reproach she understood well enough. Then she would turn away from him,
+and, sitting down by Mrs. Temple, would not even let her eyes wander to
+the child, and would remain silent and unanswering to his baby wail.
+
+But in this first real passion of her life, the child, much as she
+adored him, was secondary. He was her comfort--she would not, if she
+could, have let him out of her sight or out of her arms--but he could
+no more make her forget Throckmorton than anything else; he could only
+soften the intolerable ache a little, when he leaned his curly head upon
+her breast; and as for that easy and conventional phrase, the goodness
+of God, and that ready consolation that had seemed so apt at the time of
+Beverley's death, she began to substitute, for the mild and merciful
+Divinity, a merciless and relentless Jehovah, who had condemned her to
+suffer forever, and who would not be appeased.
+
+At first, the secret of the engagement was well kept. Only Jack
+Throckmorton, who behaved beautifully about it, and Freke, knew of the
+impending wedding. Freke's behavior was singular, not to say mysterious.
+He was so cool and unconcerned that Jacqueline was furiously piqued, and
+could scarcely keep her mind off her grievance against him for not
+taking her engagement more to heart, even when Throckmorton was with
+her. Freke's congratulations were quite perfunctory--as unlike Jack
+Throckmorton's whole-souled good wishes as could be imagined. One
+morning, soon after the news had been confided to Freke, he came into
+the dining-room, where Judith was sewing, with Jacqueline, also sewing,
+sitting demurely by her side.
+
+"Making wedding finery, eh?" was Freke's remark as he seated himself.
+
+"Yes," answered Judith, quietly, without laying down her work.
+
+"I want to see how much Jacqueline will be changed by marriage--You
+mustn't flirt with Jack, little Jacky."
+
+He said this quite good-humoredly, and Jacqueline turned a warm color.
+
+"And don't let me see you running after the chickens, as I saw you the
+other day. That wouldn't be dignified, you know; it would make Major
+Throckmorton ridiculous. You must do all you can to keep the difference
+in your ages from becoming too obvious."
+
+Judith felt a rising indignation. Jacqueline's head was bent lower. She
+dreaded and feared that people would tease her about Throckmorton's age.
+Freke saw in a moment how it was with her, and kept it up.
+
+"Throckmorton is sensible in one way. His hair is plentifully sprinkled
+with gray, but he doesn't use art to conceal it."
+
+"I do not think forty-four is old," said Judith, indignant at
+Jacqueline's tame submission to this sort of talk. "I think, with most
+women, Major Throckmorton would have the advantage over younger men."
+
+As soon as she said this, she repented. Freke glanced at her with a look
+so amused and so exasperating that she could have burst into tears of
+shame on the spot.
+
+"Come, Jacqueline," cried Freke, rising, "let us go for a walk. I don't
+know whether Throckmorton will permit this after you are married.
+Marriage, my dear little girl, is more of a yoke than a garland. I am
+well out of mine, thank Heaven!"
+
+Judith cast a beseeching look at Jacqueline, but Freke had fixed his
+eyes commandingly on her. That was enough. Jacqueline rose and went out
+to get her hat.
+
+Judith sat quite silent. She rarely spoke to Freke when she could help
+it.
+
+"What do you think of this ridiculous marriage?" he asked.
+
+"I, at least, don't think it ridiculous. There are incongruities much
+worse than a difference in age."
+
+"Yes, I understand," assented Freke, with meaning. "I have found it so.
+If I were as free as Throckmorton, though, I would be in no hurry to put
+my head in the noose."
+
+"You said just now you were free."
+
+"Did I? Well, in fact I am free in some States and not in others. You
+people down here seem to regard me as an escaped felon. That sort of
+thing doesn't exist any longer in civilized communities." Judith made no
+reply. She hated Freke with a kind of unreasoning hatred that put a
+guard upon her lips, lest she should be tempted to say something rash.
+And in a moment Jacqueline was back, and, with a defiant look at Judith,
+went off with Freke. Freke caught a glance from Judith's eyes as they
+went out. The fact that it expressed great anger and contempt for him
+did not make him overlook that her eyes were remarkably full of fire and
+the turn of her head something beautiful.
+
+"Judith is a thoroughbred--there's no mistake about that," he said to
+Jacqueline--and kept on talking about Judith until he reduced Jacqueline
+to a jealous silence, and almost to tears--when a few words of praise
+restored her to complete good humor. Throckmorton never played off on
+her like this--it was quite opposed to his directness and
+straightforwardness.
+
+Freke was more constantly at Barn Elms than ever before. It often
+occurred to Judith that he took pains to keep secret from Throckmorton
+all the time he passed with Jacqueline. Sometimes she even suspected
+that Jacqueline had some share in keeping Throckmorton in the dark, so
+constant was Freke's presence when Throckmorton was absent, and so
+unvarying was his absence when Throckmorton was present.
+
+After a while, though, a hint of the engagement got abroad in the
+county, and the people generally, who had never relaxed in the slightest
+degree their forbidding exterior to Throckmorton, now somewhat included
+the Temples in the ban. Throckmorton, engrossed with his own affairs,
+had ceased to care for himself, being quite content with the few people
+around him who took him into their homes. But he felt it acutely for
+Jacqueline, who told him, with childish cruelty, without thinking of the
+pang she inflicted, of the strange coolness that all at once seemed to
+have fallen between her and her acquaintances. And Judith was sure that
+Freke put notions of that kind and of every kind into the girl's head.
+Once, after one of Freke's daily visits--for, if anything, he came
+oftener than Throckmorton--Jacqueline said, quite disconsolately, to
+Judith:
+
+"Freke says I shall never have any more girl friends after I am married.
+Throckmorton is too old; and, besides, the people in this county will
+never, never really recognize him."
+
+"This county is not all the world--and, Jacqueline, pray, pray don't
+listen to anything Freke has to say."
+
+"I know you don't like Freke."
+
+"I hate him."
+
+Judith, when she said this, looked so handsome and animated that
+Throckmorton, entering at that moment, paid her a pretty compliment,
+which she received first with so much confusion and then with so much
+haughtiness that Throckmorton was as completely puzzled as the night he
+offered to kiss her hand, and concluded that Judith was as freakish as
+all women are.
+
+Among the smaller irritations which Throckmorton had to bear, at this
+strange time, was Jack's sly rallying. Jack assumed his father to be a
+love-sick octogenarian. Anything less love-sick than Throckmorton's
+simple and manly affection, or less suggestive of age than his alert and
+vigorous maturity, would be hard to find. But Jack had always possessed
+the power of tormenting his father where women were concerned--the
+natural penalty, perhaps, of having a son so little younger than
+himself. Jack felt infinite respect for Jacqueline, and never once
+indulged in a joke calculated to really rouse Throckmorton; but some
+occasions were too good for him to spare the major. Such conversations
+as these were frequent:
+
+"Major, are you going over to Barn Elms this evening?"
+
+"No, I was there this morning."
+
+"I understand, sir, that two visits a day, when the young lady is in the
+immediate neighborhood, is the regulation thing."
+
+"You are at liberty to understand what you please. With youngsters like
+yourself, probably three visits would hardly be enough."
+
+"I have been told that these things affect all ages alike."
+
+Throckmorton scowled, but scowls were wasted on Jack, whose particular
+object was to put the major in a bad humor; in which design, however, he
+rarely succeeded.
+
+In spite of the silence that had been maintained by the Barn Elms people
+regarding the engagement, Mrs. Sherrard, who had what is vulgarly called
+a nose for news, found it out by some occult means, and Throckmorton was
+held up in the road, as he was riding peacefully along, to answer her
+inquiries.
+
+"I think you and Jacky Temple are going to be married soon, from what I
+hear," was her first aggressive remark, putting her head out of the
+window of her ramshackly old carriage.
+
+"Do you?" responded Throckmorton, with laughing eyes. "You must think me
+a deuced lucky fellow."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard did not speak for a moment or two, and a cold chill struck
+Throckmorton, while the laugh died out of his eyes.
+
+"That's as may be," she replied, diplomatically; "but the idea of your
+marching about, thinking you are deceiving _me_!"
+
+"I am young and bashful, you know, Mrs. Sherrard."
+
+"You are not young, but you are younger than you are bashful. You always
+were one of those quiet dare-devils--the worst kind, to my mind."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am."
+
+"And Jane Temple--ha! ha!"
+
+Throckmorton joined in Mrs. Sherrard's fine, ringing laugh.
+
+"A Yankee son-in-law!" screamed Mrs. Sherrard, still laughing; then she
+became grave, and beckoned Throckmorton, sitting straight and square in
+his saddle, to come closer, so the black driver could not hear. "Jane,
+you know," she said, confidentially, "was always daft about the war
+after Beverley's death; and, let me tell you, Beverley was a fine, tall,
+handsome, brave, silly, commonplace fellow as ever lived. Judith has
+more brains and wit than all the Temple men put together, and most of
+the women. Hers was as clear a case of a winged thing that can soar
+married to a Muscovy drake as ever I saw. Luckily, she hadn't an
+opportunity to wake up to it fully, before he was killed; and then, just
+like a hot-headed, romantic thing, she wrapped herself in crape, and has
+given up her whole life to Jane and General Temple, and Jacky."
+
+Throckmorton felt a certain restraint in speaking of Judith to Mrs.
+Sherrard, who had assumed that it was his duty to fall in love with
+Judith instead of Jacqueline. So he flicked a fly off his horse's neck
+and remained silent.
+
+"I do wish," resumed Mrs. Sherrard, pettishly, "that Jane Temple would
+act like a woman of sense, and send for me over to Barn Elms, and show
+me Jacky's wedding things."
+
+"Very inconsiderate of Jane, I am sure. If it would relieve your mind at
+all, you might come to Millenbeck, and I would be delighted to show you
+my coats and trousers. They are very few. I always have a plenty of
+shirts and stockings, but my outside wardrobe isn't imposing."
+
+"I don't take the slightest interest in your clothes. You don't dress
+half as much as Jack does."
+
+"Of course not; I can't afford it."
+
+"One thing is certain. If you have any sort of a wedding at Barn Elms,
+they'll have to send over and borrow my teaspoons. There hasn't been a
+party at Barn Elms for forty years, that they haven't done it, and I
+always borrow Jane Temple's salad-bowl and punch-ladles whenever I have
+company."
+
+"I don't think there will be any wedding feast there," answered
+Throckmorton.
+
+"Jacky wants one, _I_ know," said Mrs. Sherrard, very knowingly. "Jacky
+loves a racket."
+
+"Quite naturally--at her age."
+
+"Oh, yes, of course--her age, as you say. I shall tell Edmund Morford to
+pay you a pastoral visit, as he always does upon the eve of marriages,
+to instruct you in the duties of the married state."
+
+"Then I shall tell Edmund Morford that I know considerably more about my
+duties in the premises than he does; and I'll shut him up before he has
+opened his mouth, as Sweeney would say."
+
+"If anybody _could_ shut my nephew up, I believe it is you, George
+Throckmorton. Has Jane Temple suggested that you should join the church
+yet?"
+
+"She suggests it to me every time I go to Barn Elms, and whenever I go
+off for a lover's stroll with Jacqueline, Mrs. Temple tells me I ought
+to go home and seek salvation."
+
+"And do you mind her?" asked Mrs. Sherrard, quite gravely; at which
+Throckmorton gave her a look that was dangerously near a wink.
+
+Mrs. Sherrard drove off, triumphant. She had got at the whole thing, in
+spite of Jane Temple.
+
+The wedding preparations went bravely along; carried on chiefly by
+Judith. Jacqueline had set her heart on a white silk wedding dress,
+which for a time eclipsed everything else on her horizon. Mrs. Temple
+declared that it was extravagant, but Judith, by keen persuasion,
+succeeded in getting the wedding-gown. She made it with her own hands,
+and across the front she designed a beautiful and intricate embroidery,
+to be worked by her.
+
+"Judith, you will kill yourself over that wedding-gown," Mrs. Temple
+once remarked. "You have drawn such an elaborate design upon it that you
+will have to work night and day to get it finished."
+
+"I shall simply have to be a little more industrious than usual,"
+replied Judith, with the deep flush that now alternated with extreme
+paleness.
+
+Jacqueline herself was deeply interested in this gown; more so than in
+any particular of the coming wedding. Judith had marked off for herself
+a certain task of work each day upon the embroidery of the gown. Every
+night, when she stopped at the end of her task, it was as if another
+stone were laid upon her heart. Throckmorton had noticed her industry,
+and had admired her handiwork, which she proudly showed him.
+
+"But you are getting white and thin over it," he said. "Wouldn't it be
+better that Jacqueline should not have such a beautiful frock, than for
+you to work yourself ill over it? I have a great mind to speak to Mrs.
+Temple about it."
+
+"No, no, pray don't!" cried Judith, with a kind of breathless eagerness.
+"It would break my heart not to finish it."
+
+Throckmorton looked at her closely. She was not given to that kind of
+talk. But suddenly she began telling him a funny story of Mrs. Sherrard
+coming over to pump Mrs. Temple about the coming event, and then she
+laughed and made him laugh too. Walking back home that night, he found
+himself speculating on this development of fun and merriment in
+Judith--a thing she had always suppressed and kept in abeyance until
+lately.
+
+"Certainly she is in better spirits--more like what one can see her
+natural self is in the last month or two," he thought; and then he began
+to think what a very sweet and natural woman she was, and to hope that,
+when Jacqueline was her age, she would have developed into something
+like Judith. But he never liked to look very far into the future with
+Jacqueline.
+
+As the time drew nearer for the wedding, Freke's continued presence at
+Barn Elms became more marked. He did not avoid Throckmorton any longer,
+who thought no more of it than he did of Jack's frequent visits. Jack
+had quite got over any chagrin or disappointment he might have felt, and
+was kindness and attention itself to Jacqueline. Throckmorton sometimes
+felt annoyed and discouraged at seeing how much more Jacqueline had in
+common with Jack than with himself. They were on the terms of a brother
+and sister--Jack teasing and joking, yet unvaryingly kind to her, and
+Jacqueline always overflowing with talk to him, while with Throckmorton
+she was sometimes at a loss for words. But one glance from her dark
+eyes--that peculiar witching glance that had fixed Throckmorton's
+attention on her that very first Sunday in church--could always make
+amends to him. As for Freke, he came and went with his violin under his
+arm, and nobody attached any importance to him except Judith, who
+honored him with the same still, guarded ill-will that Freke perfectly
+recognized, and did not apparently trouble himself about. His eternal
+presence in the house was a nightmare to Judith. She wondered if he
+would keep on that way after Jacqueline was gone--when Jacqueline was
+mistress of Millenbeck; but she could not dwell on that without a
+tightening at her heart. At all events, it would soon be over.
+
+Mrs. Temple had at last got interested in the wedding preparations, and
+everything was going on famously until about two weeks before the
+wedding, when one day General Temple got a letter. There was to be a
+reunion of Beverley's old command at Richmond, and it was desired that
+the Temple family should attend.
+
+Such a request was sacred in the eyes of General and Mrs. Temple. It was
+at once decided that General Temple must go, and he insisted that Mrs.
+Temple should go also. She was only too willing. Inconvenient as it
+might otherwise be to leave home, the idea of having Beverley talked of,
+eulogized, remembered, was too near the idolatrous mother's heart to be
+foregone. The invitation also included Judith, but it was clearly
+impossible for both Judith and Mrs. Temple to leave Barn Elms at the
+same time just then; so it was quickly settled, to Judith's infinite
+relief, that Mrs. Temple should be the one to go. Mrs. Temple was helped
+to a decision by the reflection that Judith, being young and handsome,
+it was not impossible that some miscreant might suggest the possibility
+of her marrying again; and, without uttering this impious thought, it
+had its influence upon her. So it was fixed that, within a day or two,
+they were to start, and would be gone probably four days. Throckmorton
+was vexed at the decision--vexed at the entire readiness to sacrifice
+Jacqueline's convenience to that of the dead and gone Beverley. But he
+wisely said nothing; in a little while Jacqueline would have some one
+that would always consider her first. But suddenly Jacqueline raised a
+tempest by declaring that she wanted to go with her father and mother as
+far as a certain station on the railroad, near Richmond, and thence to
+pay a visit to her Aunt Susan Steptoe. Now, Jacqueline had never showed
+the slightest fondness for this Aunt Steptoe, and, in fact, was
+singularly lacking in family affection, after the Virginia pattern,
+which takes in a whole family connection. Consequently, the notion was
+the more remarkable. When it was first broached, it was simply
+pooh-poohed by the general, and calmly ignored by Mrs. Temple. Judith
+looked at her with reproachful eyes.
+
+"You know, Jacqueline, there is no earthly reason for such a whim; and I
+am sure Major Throckmorton would not like it."
+
+"It's of no consequence what Major Throckmorton thinks about it!" cried
+Jacqueline, unterrified by a warning light in Judith's eye--it always
+made Judith angry when Jacqueline spoke slightingly of Throckmorton.
+
+But Jacqueline held to her notion with the most singular and startling
+pertinacity. Usually a word or two from Judith would bring her back to
+the basis of common sense; but in this case, nothing Judith could say
+would alter Jacqueline's determination. She was tired of wedding
+clothes--tired of Barn Elms--tired of everybody; in fact, she made no
+secret to Judith of being tired of Throckmorton, and wanting to escape
+from him for a time, if only for four days. She forced her mother to
+listen to her, and would take no denial. At last she hit upon the
+argument to move Mrs. Temple. It was the last request she had to make
+until she was married, and, if Mrs. Temple could do so much for the dead
+Beverley, she certainly could not refuse this trifling request from the
+living Jacqueline. Mrs. Temple turned pale at this; and she faltered out
+that, childish and unreasonable as the scheme was, she would
+agree--provided Throckmorton gave his consent.
+
+That night, when Throckmorton came for his usual visit, Jacqueline met
+him at the hall-door with a tenderness that surprised and charmed him.
+It was so sweet, he could hardly believe it to be true. But, before the
+evening was over, Jacqueline demanded payment in the shape of his
+consent that she should pay this little visit to her Aunt Susan.
+
+"Damn Aunt Susan!" was Throckmorton's inward remark at this; and he
+managed to convey practically the same idea to Jacqueline. But it did no
+good. Jacqueline had the scheme in her head, and it must be carried out.
+It was in vain that Throckmorton reasoned gently with her. He had often
+heard that weak women were the most intractable in the world, and the
+recollection made him wince when he saw how dense this lovely young
+creature was to common sense. But she was so ineffably pretty--she
+leaned her bright head on his shoulder and pleaded--and, of course,
+after a while, Throckmorton yielded, ostensibly because Jacqueline asked
+him so sweetly, but really because she was utterly impervious to reason.
+
+When the consent was at last wheedled out of him, Throckmorton felt sore
+at heart and humiliated. He also felt, for a brave man, a little
+frightened. How often was this sort of thing going to happen? It was
+true that, after he was married, he could use his authority as
+Jacqueline's husband to prevent her from doing anything particularly
+foolish, but it did not please him that he should rule his wife as if
+she were a child. Jacqueline saw nothing of Throckmorton's secret
+dissatisfaction; but Judith, with the clairvoyance of love, saw it in an
+instant. For the first time in her life, she followed him out into the
+hall, where he was getting into his overcoat, with rather a black
+countenance.
+
+"Don't be troubled about it," she said, in her charming way. "She is so
+young--she will learn so much from you!"
+
+Throckmorton took Judith's hand in his. She made no resistance this
+time--that quick inner sense told her instinctively that there was
+something comforting to him in her gentle and womanly clasp. He looked
+at her with a somber expression on his face that gradually lightened.
+
+"Do you think she will ever be different?"
+
+"Yes," cried Judith, gayly. "How perfectly ignorant you are of love! I
+declare you are worse than Jacqueline. It's the greatest reformer in the
+world--the most cunning teacher as well. It will teach Jacqueline all
+she ought to know; but it can't do it at once."
+
+"But does she love me?" asked Throckmorton, smiling a little.
+
+"How could she help it?" answered Judith, turning her head archly, and
+implying that Throckmorton considered himself a lady-killer--which made
+him laugh, and sent him off home in a little better humor with the world
+and himself.
+
+Meanwhile, back in the drawing-room, Jacqueline was having a
+conversation with Simon Peter, who was raking down the fire for the
+night. General and Mrs. Temple had left the room. Usually Jacqueline
+slipped off to bed an hour before they did; but to-night she lingered,
+standing over the fire with one little foot on the brass fender.
+
+"How does it look to-night, Uncle Simon?" she asked, meaning how did the
+sky look, and what were the chances for good weather.
+
+"Hit looks mighty cu'rus to me, Miss Jacky," answered Simon Peter, in a
+queer sort of a voice that made Jacqueline stare at him. "I seed two
+tuckey-buzzards flyin' ober de house tog'er'r--and dat's a sign--"
+
+"A sign of what?"
+
+"A sign 'tain' gwi' be no weddin' at Barn Elms dis year."
+
+Jacqueline turned a little pale. It had not been a great many years
+since she had fully believed every one of Simon Peter's signs and omens;
+and even now, his solemn prophecies sent a chill to her childish heart.
+
+"An'," continued Simon Peter, advancing and raising a prophetic
+forefinger, "dis heah night I done heah de owls hootin' 'Tu-whoo,
+tu-whoo, tu-whoo!'--three times, dat ar way--dat doan' means nuttin'
+but a funeral, when owls hoots dat away."
+
+Jacqueline shuddered.
+
+"O Uncle Simon, hush!"
+
+"I tole you kase you arsk me," replied Simon Peter, stolidly; and at
+that moment Delilah came in.
+
+"O mammy," cried Jacqueline, fairly bursting into tears, "you don't know
+what awful signs and things Uncle Simon has been seeing--funerals, and
+buzzards, and no wedding!"
+
+"He have, have he!" snapped Delilah, with wrath and menace. "Simon
+Peter, he su't'ny is de foolishest nigger I ever seed. He ain' never
+got 'ligion good; he allus wuz a blackslider, an' heah he come skeerin'
+my little missy ter def wid he buzzards an' he things!"
+
+Simon Peter, who bore this marital assault with meekness, copied from
+General Temple, only remarked sheepishly:
+
+"I done see de signs; an', Miss Jacky, she arsk me, an' I done tole her
+'bout de two buzzards."
+
+"Wid de tails tied tog'er'r, I reckon!" answered Delilah, with withering
+sarcasm; "an' maybe dey wuz gwi' fly ter Doc Wortley's ter see ef
+anybody gwi' die soon.--Doan' you min' Simon Peter, honey; jes' come wid
+mammy up-sty'ars an' she holp you to ondress an' put you in yo' bed."
+
+Jacqueline went off, and in half an hour was tucked snugly in the great
+four-poster. But she would not let Delilah leave her. She kept her
+pulling the window-curtains this way and that, then raking down the fire
+because the light from the blazing logs hurt her eyes, and then
+stirring the flames into a blaze so that she might see the shadows on
+the wall. At last, however, Delilah got out, Jacqueline calling after
+her disconsolately:
+
+"O mammy, do you believe in the two buzzards flying--"
+
+"You jes' shet dat little mouf, an' go ter sleep, honey," was Delilah's
+sensible reply, as she went out.
+
+The next day the whole party got off, General Temple leaving directions
+enough behind him to last if he were going to Turkey instead of to
+Richmond. Jacqueline at the last seemed loath to part from Judith. She
+said good-by half a dozen times, and wept a little at parting. There
+would be no need of letters, as they would only be gone four days.
+Jacqueline was to stop off at the station, and join her father and
+mother there on their return from Richmond, getting home ten days before
+the wedding. There was some talk of asking Mrs. Sherrard to come over
+and stay with Judith during the absence of General and Mrs. Temple, but
+Judith protested. With her child she would not suffer for company, and
+the work on Jacqueline's wedding-dress would keep her busily employed,
+while Delilah and Simon Peter were protection enough for her at night.
+Besides this, Throckmorton and Jack would be over every day to look
+after her. When it was all arranged, Judith felt a sensation of
+gladness. She would have four days in which she would not be compelled
+to play her silent and desperate part. She could weep all night without
+the fear that Mrs. Temple's clear eyes would notice how pale and worn
+she was in the morning; she could relax a little the continual tension
+on her nerves, her feelings, her expression. So, when they were gone,
+she came back into the lonely house, and, leaving Beverley with his
+mammy, went up to her own room, and taking out the white silk
+wedding-gown went to work on it with a pale, unhappy face; she had dared
+not show an unhappy face before.
+
+The day passed quickly enough, and the short winter afternoon closed in.
+Judith would no longer take time for her usual afternoon walk; every
+moment must be devoted to Jacqueline's gown. About eight o'clock, as
+she sat in the drawing-room, stitching away, while overhead in her
+own room Delilah watched the little Beverley as he slept, she heard
+Throckmorton's step upon the porch. As she heard it, she gave a slight
+start, and put her hand on her heart--something she always felt an
+involuntary inclination to do, and which she had to watch herself to
+prevent. Throckmorton came in, and greeted her with his usual graceful
+kindness.
+
+"I thought I would come over and see that nobody stole you and
+Beverley," he said.
+
+"There's no danger for me," answered Judith; "but for a beautiful boy
+like my boy--why, he's always in danger of being stolen."
+
+Throckmorton scoffed at this.
+
+In five minutes they were seated together, having the first real
+_tête-à-tête_ of their lives. Judith sat under the mellow gleam of the
+tall, old-fashioned lamp, the light falling on her chestnut hair and
+black dress and the billowy expanse of white silk spread over her lap,
+making high white lights and rich shadows. Throckmorton had often
+admired her as she sewed. Sewing was a peculiarly gracious and feminine
+employment, he thought, and Judith's sewing, when he saw it, was always
+something artistic like what she was now doing. Throckmorton lay back in
+one corner of the great sofa, his feet stretched out to the fire. They
+talked occasionally, but there were long stretches of silence when the
+only sound was the crackling of the wood-fire and the dropping of the
+embers. Yet the unity was complete; there is no companionship so real
+as that which admits of perfect silence. Throckmorton, on the whole,
+though, talked more than usual. Something in Judith always inspired him
+to speak of things that he rarely mentioned at all. They talked a little
+of Jacqueline, but there were innumerable subjects on which they found
+themselves in sympathy. The evening passed quickly for both. When
+Throckmorton had gone, and the house was shut up for the night, Judith
+felt that she had passed the evening in a sort of shadowy happiness; it
+would have been happiness itself, except that in ten days more it would
+be wrong even to think of Throckmorton.
+
+Two days more passed. Every evening Throckmorton found himself making
+his way toward Barn Elms. Each evening passed in the same quiet, simple
+fashion, but yet there was something different to Throckmorton from
+any evenings he had ever spent in his life. As for Judith, after the
+first one, she began to look forward with feverish eagerness to the
+evening. She lived all day in expectation of that two hours' talk with
+Throckmorton. She dressed for him; she hurried little Beverley to bed
+that she might be ready for him. Her eyes assumed a new brilliancy, and
+she became handsomer day by day.
+
+On the day that the general and Mrs. Temple were to leave for home a
+letter arrived from Mrs. Temple. The general had been seized with an
+acute attack of gout, and it would probably take two or three days
+nursing to bring him around, so that they would not be home until the
+last of the week. Mrs. Temple had written to Jacqueline, and would write
+again in a day or two, notifying Judith when to send to the river
+landing for them. The delay was peculiarly inconvenient then, but it was
+God's will. Mrs. Temple never had any trouble in reconciling herself to
+God's will, except where Beverley was concerned.
+
+Not a line had been received from Jacqueline. It did not surprise
+Judith, because Jacqueline hated letter-writing; but Throckmorton
+admitted, in an embarrassed way, that he had written to her, but she had
+not answered his letter.
+
+During all this time Freke had not put in an appearance, for which
+Judith was devoutly thankful.
+
+On the fifth evening that Throckmorton went his way to Barn Elms, it
+occurred to him that he went there oftener when Jacqueline was away than
+when she was there, and he was glad there were no gossiping tongues to
+wag about it. But luckily little Beverley, Delilah, and Simon Peter were
+the only three persons who knew where Throckmorton spent his evenings,
+and none of them were either carping or critical.
+
+He found Judith as usual in the drawing-room, and as usual embroidering
+on the wedding-dress. But there was something strange about her
+appearance; she looked altogether different from what she usually
+did--more girlish, more unrestrained. Throckmorton could not make it out
+for a long time. Then he said, suddenly, "You have left off your widow's
+cap."
+
+Judith let her hands fall into her lap, and looked at him with
+glittering eyes.
+
+"Yes," she said, calmly. "I grew intolerably tired of being a hypocrite,
+and to-night I determined for once to be my true self, so I laid aside
+my widow's cap. I believe, if I had owned a white gown, I should have
+put it on."
+
+Throckmorton was so startled that he rose to his feet. Judith rose, too,
+letting the white silk fall in a heap on the floor.
+
+"Are you surprised?" she asked, with suppressed excitement. "Well, so am
+I. But I will tell you--what I never dared breathe before--I am no true
+widow to Beverley Temple's memory. I never loved him. I married him
+because--because I did not know any better, I suppose. I spent two
+miserable weeks as his wife. I was beginning to find out--and then he
+went away, and almost before I realized it, he was killed." She
+hesitated for a moment; the picture of Throckmorton and Beverley in
+their life-and-death struggle came quickly before her eyes. Throckmorton
+was too dazed, astounded, confounded, to open his mouth. He only looked
+at her as she stood upright, trembling and red and pale by turns.
+
+"I had no friends but General and Mrs. Temple; he was my guardian. You
+know, I had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. I felt the
+most acute remorse for Beverley, and the most intense pity for him, cut
+off as he was, and I fancied I felt the profoundest grief. One suffers
+in sympathy, you know, and, when I saw his mother's pitiable sorrow, it
+made me feel sorry too. The world--_my_ world--saw me a broken-hearted
+widow--a widow while I was almost a bride. Don't you think any woman
+of feeling would have done as I did--tried to atone to the man I had
+mistakenly married by being true to his memory? I determined to devote
+my life to his father and mother; and, in some way I can't explain,
+except that you know how Mrs. Temple is, I pretended that my heart was
+broken; but I tell you, Beverley Temple never touched my heart, either
+in life or death, although I did not know it then. But for--for some
+time the deceit has lain heavy upon me. I am tired of pretending to be
+what I am not. I wish for life, for love, for happiness."
+
+She stopped and threw herself into a chair with an _abandon_ that
+Throckmorton had never seen before. Still, he did not utter a word. But
+Judith knew that he was keenly observing her, feeling for her, and even
+deeply moved by what she told him.
+
+"So to-night the feeling was so strong upon me, I took off my widow's
+cap and threw it on the floor; it was a sudden impulse, just as I was
+leaving my room, and I took Beverley's picture from around my neck, and
+I didn't have the courage to throw it in the fire as I wanted to; I
+only"--with a nervous laugh--"put it in my pocket."
+
+She took the picture from her dress and handed it him. Throckmorton
+received it mechanically, but, the instant his eyes fell upon it, his
+countenance changed. In a moment or two he said, in an indescribable
+voice:
+
+"I know this face well; he was killed on the 14th of April. I shall
+never forget that face to my dying day."
+
+"I know all about it," responded Judith, rising and coming toward him;
+"Freke told me."
+
+Her excitement was no longer suppressed, and Throckmorton was deeply
+agitated. He took Judith's hand.
+
+"But did he tell you all? _I_ did not fire the shot that killed your
+husband; it was fired by one of his own men--probably aimed for me. I
+never succeeded in drawing my pistol at all. The first I knew, in those
+frightful moments, was when he shrieked and threw up his arms. I thought
+he would never breathe again."
+
+"But he lived some hours," continued Judith, "and--and--I thought it was
+you, and I ought to have hated you for it, but I could not; I could not;
+and now, God is so good!"
+
+She dropped into a chair. Throckmorton felt as if the world were coming
+to an end, his ideas about Judith were being so quickly and strangely
+transformed. He was too stupefied to speak, and for five minutes there
+was a dead silence between them. Then Throckmorton's strong common sense
+awoke. He went to her and took her hand.
+
+"For your own sake, for your child's sake, be careful. Do not tell any
+one what you have told me. The penalty of deception is great, and your
+penalty will be to keep it up a little while longer. When I am married
+to Jacqueline, you will have a friend, a home. Then, if you want to take
+off those black garments, to be yourself, you may count on me; but, for
+the present, be prudent. You are so impulsive."
+
+But Judith now was weeping violently and accusing herself. The reaction
+had come. Throckmorton felt strangely thrilled by her emotion. He
+comforted her, he held her hands, and even pressed kisses on them. In a
+few minutes he had soothed her. The old habits of self-control came back
+to her. She rallied bravely, and in half an hour she was quite composed.
+But it was the composure of despair. She remembered, then, had
+Throckmorton but loved her, the only obstacle between them would have
+been shown to be imaginary.
+
+Throckmorton stayed late. In spite of Judith's quietness, he felt
+unhappy about her. She was too quiet, too deathly pale. He felt an
+intense pity for her, and he feared that she and her child would not
+much longer find a home under the roof of Barn Elms.
+
+Three days more passed. There was still no word from Jacqueline, and
+Mrs. Temple wrote that the general's gout bade fair to be a much more
+serious matter than they had first anticipated. It might be that the
+wedding--which was to be of the quietest sort--might have to be
+postponed. But that was nothing to Mrs. Temple and the general, who
+reveled in the luxury of a meeting where Beverley was remembered,
+praised, and eulogized as can be done only by Southerners. Nor did it
+seem to matter to Jacqueline. In fact, Throckmorton and Judith appeared
+to be the only persons particularly interested in it. As for Freke, he
+had not been seen by either of them since the day the Barn Elms people
+left.
+
+Throckmorton continued to spend his evenings at Barn Elms. The idea of
+Judith sitting solitary and alone in the drawing-room the whole long,
+dull evening, drew him irresistibly. Not one line had Jacqueline
+written, either to him or to Judith. Nor had Throckmorton written again
+to her. He was not the man to give a woman more than one opportunity to
+snub him. In his heart he was cruelly mortified; his pride, of which he
+had much, was hurt. He feared that it was a part of that arrogance which
+first youth shows to maturity.
+
+On the eighth day after Jacqueline's departure something like alarm
+began to possess Judith. She called it superstition, and tried to put it
+away from her. The day had been dull and gloomy--a fine, drizzling rain
+falling. The flat, monotonous landscape looked inexpressibly dreary in
+the gray mist that hung low over the trees. It was dark long before six
+o'clock. The night had closed in, and Judith, sitting alone in the
+drawing-room, had risen to light the lamp, when she heard the front door
+open softly, and the next instant she recognized Jacqueline's peculiar
+light step--so light that even Mrs. Temple's keen ears could not always
+detect it when fits of restlessness seized the girl at night, and she
+would walk up and down her room over her mother's head. And in a moment
+Jacqueline came into the room, and up to Judith, and looked at her with
+strange, agonized eyes.
+
+The surprise, the shock of seeing her at that hour and in that way, was
+extreme; and Judith's first words as her hands fell on Jacqueline's
+shoulder were:
+
+"Jacqueline, you are wet through."
+
+"I know it," answered Jacqueline, in a voice as unlike her own as her
+looks; "I have been out in the rain for hours and hours!"
+
+"What is the matter with you?" cried Judith, taking hold of her.
+"Something dreadful has happened!"
+
+"Dreadful enough for me!" replied Jacqueline, white and dry-eyed.
+
+"What is it?" Judith was not easily frightened, but she trembled as she
+spoke.
+
+"Everything!" answered Jacqueline. "In the first place, I have left
+Freke. That broke my heart!"
+
+"Left Freke!"
+
+"Yes. I didn't go to Aunt Steptoe's. I got off at the station and Freke
+was there. He took me to a minister's and got him to marry us. The man
+could hardly read and write, and he said something about a license; but
+Freke gave him fifty dollars, and he performed the ceremony."
+
+Judith caught hold of her, to see if she were really in the flesh,
+talking in this way.
+
+"Don't hold me so hard, Judith. I will tell you all I can; but I feel as
+if I should die, I am so weak and ill--" and she suddenly began to cough
+violently. Judith ran and got her a glass of wine. The first idea in her
+mind was, not the poor, deluded child, but Throckmorton.
+
+"But where is Freke--and your father and mother?--O Jacqueline,
+Jacqueline!"
+
+"Don't reproach me, Judith. But for you I would never have returned. My
+father and mother know nothing about it. Freke found out they were yet
+in Richmond. If they had been at Barn Elms, I don't think I ever would
+have had the courage to come back. The feeling soon came to me that I
+had committed a great wrong in marrying Freke; and then--and then--he
+told me perhaps we weren't married at all in Virginia, and so I would
+have to go with him out to the place--somewhere in the West--and be
+married to him straight and right."
+
+"If Freke had never committed any other wrong in his whole life, his
+telling you that made him deserve to be killed!" cried Judith.
+
+"Don't say a word against Freke," said Jacqueline, a new anger blazing
+up in her eyes. "I love Freke; it almost kills me when I think I may
+never see him again, for I ran away from him. At first I thought all the
+time of the trouble I should bring upon you all. I could see my father's
+gray head sink down in his hands. I could imagine how my mother would
+shut herself up in her room as she did when Beverley died. They had
+always thought so little of me that it gave me a kind of triumph when I
+remembered, 'They'll have to think about me now!'"
+
+"And Throckmorton?"
+
+"I never thought about him at all. As Freke said, he was entirely too
+old for me. But I will not speak of him. He knew I never loved him--or
+he ought to have known it. Then, when Freke found out that mamma and
+papa were still in Richmond, it came to me like a flash that I could get
+home, and I was sure of one friend, and only one in the world
+now--yourself. And I thought you were so clever you could manage to keep
+anybody from finding out where I had been. I seemed to hear your voice
+calling to me all the time, and every moment it seemed to crush me more
+and more that Freke was a divorced man, and that, however he might say
+he was free, he was not. So, we were staying at a little town through
+which the railroad passed, and Freke had to go into Richmond yesterday
+to get some money, and my conscience suddenly rose up and tortured me,
+and I couldn't stay another moment--and, mind you, Judith, I love Freke.
+So I took the train all alone, and made the boat, and landed at Oak
+Point about twelve o'clock. I pretended to be surprised that nobody was
+there to meet me, and said I would walk as far as Turkey Thicket--you
+know it is only a little way from the landing. But, of course, I did
+not. Then I was so afraid that some one would see me that, instead of
+taking the main road, I came through the fields and by-paths. I believe
+I have walked ten miles instead of six, from Oak Point--and it was
+raining, too. I was nearly frightened out of my life--frightened by
+negroes and stray dogs, and afraid that I should see Freke every moment
+before me, and, if he should overtake me, I knew I should go back with
+him. I can no more resist him when he is with me than I can stop
+breathing. Well, with weakness--for I felt ill from the moment I
+started--and with fear, and being so tired, and the rain, I thought I
+should die before I reached here. But now I am home--home!--"
+Jacqueline's voice rose in a piteous cry. She had been weeping all the
+time, but now she burst into a perfect tempest of sobs and tears that
+shook her like a leaf.
+
+In her quiet life Judith had never been brought face to face with any
+terrible emergency, and this one unnerved and horrified her so that for
+a time she was as helpless as Jacqueline. She walked the floor,
+struggling with the wild impulse to send for Throckmorton; that he alone
+could tell them what to do; and else she and the poor child would sink
+under the horror of the situation, for to her simple and straightforward
+mind both conscience and the social code were unalterably opposed to
+considering a divorced man as a single man. But some instinct of common
+sense saved her--saved her even from calling Delilah, and caused her to
+face the thing alone. She gave Jacqueline brandy, she rubbed her
+vigorously; she even got her up-stairs alone and into her bed. By that
+time the violence of her emotions was spent; Jacqueline lay in the large
+four-poster perfectly calm and white. After a while even a sense of
+physical well-being seemed to possess her; warmth and light and
+stimulation had their effect. She fell into a heavy sleep, but Judith
+was terrified to notice her pallor give place to a crimson flush on her
+face, and her icy hands grow burning hot. By that time Judith's
+composure had partly returned. She called Delilah, who came in
+wondering, and told her briefly that Jacqueline had come home
+unexpectedly and was not well, without mentioning how she had come from
+the river-landing. Delilah, who was not of a curious turn, saw for
+herself that part of Judith's statement was true, for Jacqueline had a
+burning fever. It was impossible to get Dr. Wortley before morning, but,
+like most women who live in the country, Judith could cope with ordinary
+ailments, and, whenever the doctor was called in, he always found that
+the proper thing had been done beforehand.
+
+But, besides Jacqueline's undeniable illness, the thought that tormented
+Judith was how to keep the dreadful thing that had happened from
+Jacqueline's father and mother and from the world. It must inevitably
+come out that she had not been near Mrs. Steptoe's, and only the fact
+that Jacqueline was a poor correspondent had kept it from being known
+already. On the impulse of the moment, Judith sat down and wrote Mrs.
+Steptoe a letter, begging her, for General and Mrs. Temple's sake, not
+to mention until she heard further from Barn Elms, that Jacqueline had
+not been with her; and as she wrote hurriedly and nervously, she could
+hear Jacqueline's heavy and fitful breathing. Some simple remedies had
+been applied, but Judith knew that the best thing for her was to sleep,
+and so her troubled slumber was undisturbed except by her own feverish
+mutterings. All the time it hung like a sword over Judith. "What will
+Throckmorton say?" for, of course, he must be the first one to know it;
+there could be no mercy in deceiving him. Judith, sitting before the
+fire, gazing into it with troubled eyes and aching heart, began
+thinking, pitying, praying for Throckmorton. Yes, it would be a
+frightful blow to him. There would be no need for the wedding-gown now.
+As this thought occurred to her, Judith rose and, going softly toward
+the wardrobe where she kept her dainty work, took out the dress, and,
+unwrapping it from the white cloth in which she laid it away so
+carefully every night, spread it over her knees. How much love, despair,
+and torture had been worked into that embroidery! "It is so pretty, it
+is a pity it can't be used," she said to herself, absently, turning the
+silk about in her fingers; and at that moment she heard a choking,
+gurgling sound from the bed. Jacqueline was half sitting up, her head
+supported on her arm, and a thin stream of blood was trickling from her
+lips.
+
+Judith, who for once lost her presence of mind, ran toward the bed, and,
+supporting Jacqueline's head, called loudly for help. In her haste she
+had thrown the dress almost across Jacqueline, and a few drops of blood
+fell upon it.
+
+"Look, look!" gasped Jacqueline; "my dress is being ruined!"
+
+Judith heard Delilah running up the stairs in response to her frightened
+call, but Jacqueline's eyes had such a strange expression in them that
+she asked her involuntarily, as she tremblingly supported her:
+
+"Jacqueline, do you know me?"
+
+"Perfectly," answered Jacqueline. "I know everything about me."
+
+Delilah, who was a natural-born nurse, was as calm as Judith was
+agitated.
+
+"'Tain' nuttin' tall, chile; 'scusin' 'tis er leetle speck o' blood fum
+yo' th'oat. I kin stop it righter way"; and, sure enough, in ten minutes
+she had applied some simple remedy and the blood ceased to flow.
+Meanwhile Jacqueline, unable to speak, had motioned eagerly and
+violently to Judith to remove the white silk dress. Judith threw it on a
+chair. Jacqueline's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"It is such a pity to have it ruined--and one's wedding-dress, too!"
+
+"Hush-hush! you must not talk," cried Judith.
+
+The flow of blood apparently was a trifle, and in a little while
+Jacqueline lay back in the great, old-fashioned bed silent, deadly
+white, but composed.
+
+Judith, with overflowing eyes, folded up the white dress, but she could
+not prevent some tears falling on it, and the dress, already stained
+with blood, was also stained with tears. The thought of Jacqueline,
+though, could not banish the thought of Throckmorton; the more so when
+Jacqueline, beckoning, brought Judith close to her. Judith thought she
+wanted something for her comfort.
+
+"_You_ must tell him; he will take it better from you."
+
+Jacqueline, lying wide awake in the bed, and Judith, sitting by her,
+holding her hand, were both expectant of Throckmorton. At last, about
+half-past eight, his firm step was heard on the porch. Judith's heart
+leaped into her mouth; she did not exactly take in all the bearings of
+what Jacqueline had told her, or whether she was or was not married to
+Freke; and Throckmorton, with his knowledge of affairs, would know all.
+
+She rose silently and went down-stairs, leaving Delilah with Jacqueline.
+Throckmorton was standing before the fire in the drawing-room. There was
+something in his determined eye and in his tone as he spoke to her that
+struck a chill to Judith's heart.
+
+"Jacqueline, has come, you know," she said.
+
+"Yes, Simon Peter told me so at the door. It does not surprise me."
+
+Judith remained silent for a few moments, when Throckmorton, suddenly
+wheeling toward her, and looking her straight in the face, said, curtly:
+
+"What is all this? She never was near Mrs. Steptoe's. I found out, by
+having my letter returned to me by Mrs. Steptoe herself. What has made
+her ill? Don't tremble so, but tell me--you know I have a right to know
+it all."
+
+But Judith continued to be silent and to tremble. She even began to
+weep; but Throckmorton, taking her hand, said, firmly:
+
+"There must be no concealments."
+
+His own stern composure controlled Judith's agitation.
+
+"All?" she asked, faintly.
+
+"Yes--all!" he answered.
+
+When Throckmorton used an authoritative tone with her, he could always
+compel her; and so, scarcely knowing how she did it, with tears and
+sobs, and faint deprecations for Jacqueline, she told him all. She
+noticed Throckmorton's dark skin growing paler and paler; he began to
+gnaw his iron-gray mustache--always a sign of extreme agitation with
+him.
+
+"Now, tell me this--collect your thoughts and don't cry so--does
+she--does she love that--" He could not bring himself to utter Freke's
+name.
+
+Judith remained silent. Throckmorton, in his determination to make her
+answer, seized her arm. It hurt her so that she could have cried out,
+but she made no sound.
+
+"Tell me!" he said, in a voice and manner so unlike his own gentle
+courtesy, that Judith could scarcely have recognized it. But Judith was
+obstinately silent. Nevertheless, she lifted her eyes to his with so
+eloquent a plea for mercy for Jacqueline, that he was unconsciously
+softened.
+
+"You will not tell me!" he said, relaxing his fierce hold. "I can't make
+you answer--you have a spirit like a soldier. But it makes no difference
+now whether she loves him or not. If she were free to-morrow, I could
+kill her with my own hands easier than I could marry her!--and yet--I
+loved her well."
+
+"But," cried Judith, putting her hand on his arm in her eagerness,
+"something must be done. It must be managed so that people shall not
+know it, until her father and mother have decided what is to be done. It
+will almost kill them!"
+
+"Yes. But if you can manage with Mrs. Steptoe--"
+
+"I have already written to her."
+
+"I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that it rests with Jacqueline
+whether it is a marriage or not. But General and Mrs. Temple would
+rather see her in her grave than married to any divorced man--and to
+him!"
+
+"And there is a good deal of doubt about his divorce, I believe," added
+Judith.
+
+"There is at present nothing to be done. General and Mrs. Temple will no
+doubt be here as soon as possible; it is hardly worth while to alarm
+them. Is she very ill, do you think?"
+
+"I don't know--Jacqueline was always delicate. And--what of him--of
+Freke?" continued Judith, in a trembling voice. "Is there to be no
+punishment for him?"
+
+Like a woman, Judith could not look at the case in its practical light;
+but like a man, Throckmorton, in the midst of his horror, grief, and
+surprise, yet retained his balance.
+
+"Any punishment of him would react on her--to have her name made public
+with his--Good God! But there is no power on earth to keep General
+Temple from committing some frightful folly when he knows of it."
+
+This was a new horror to Judith. A painful pause followed. Then Judith
+said:
+
+"How like Freke it was--how perfectly reckless of consequences! He is
+unlike any man I ever saw or heard of. I believe, in his strange way, he
+loves Jacqueline; but what does any one know of such a man!"
+
+The absence of vindictiveness toward Freke, on Throckmorton's part,
+surprised Judith; but, in truth, he scarcely thought of Freke: a
+creature as weak and impressionable as Jacqueline was bound to succumb
+to the first overmastering influence. Throckmorton himself had never
+been able to get any real influence over her. Presently Judith said:
+
+"One thing I do know--she wants your forgiveness."
+
+"She has it, poor child!"
+
+Then there was another pause. Throckmorton, after a while, rose to go.
+
+"If you want anything, send for me. I shall be over early in the
+morning." He hesitated a moment, and then said: "This has been a
+strange experience for me; but it is over--" And then, as if checking a
+confession, went out of the room and out of the house.
+
+When Judith went up-stairs, Jacqueline was still sleeping, but presently
+she wakened, and turned her lovely, troubled eyes on Judith.
+
+"He is very sorry, Jacqueline, and he forgives you and will trouble you
+no more," she whispered. A look of relief came into Jacqueline's face.
+She closed her eyes as if to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The next day Jacqueline was better, and about noon General and Mrs.
+Temple arrived. Mrs. Temple showed no surprise when she heard that
+Jacqueline had come the day before; and when Judith said, falteringly,
+that Jacqueline had probably misunderstood their plans, Mrs. Temple
+accepted it quite naturally. About the same time Dr. Wortley, who had
+been sent for, came, and pronounced Jacqueline's attack to be nothing
+but cold and fever, and raised the prohibition against her talking. The
+first time Mrs. Temple was out of the room, Jacqueline called Judith to
+her.
+
+"Judith, I have been thinking about this, and I have made up my mind."
+
+This was so unlike Jacqueline that Judith stared.
+
+"If I thought Freke was really a single man, I would give up
+everybody--even you--for him. But nobody on earth knows what I suffered
+from my conscience while I was with him! And I believe Freke told the
+truth when he said we weren't married, after all, in spite of that
+minister and the fifty dollars. And now, dear Judith, it seems so easy
+to keep papa and mamma from knowing it."
+
+"Easy, Jacqueline?--"
+
+"Yes, easy, if you will only write to Aunt Steptoe; and it would kill me
+to have to face them!"
+
+"But, Jacqueline, suppose--suppose Freke should claim you, or you might,
+in years to come, want to marry some one else?"
+
+"I will promise you I will not--I will swear it--if I can't marry Freke,
+you may depend upon it I sha'n't marry anybody else! But, Judith, will
+you promise me to say nothing to papa and mamma until you have seen
+Freke, for he knows what ought to be done? I know--and I am sure--he
+will come back in a day or two. He knows well enough where I have run
+away to."
+
+Judith was loath to making any promise at all, but Jacqueline became so
+violently agitated and distressed that at last, almost beside herself,
+Judith promised that for a few days, at least, she would say nothing
+about it.
+
+Mrs. Temple was so full of Beverley, and the proceedings at Richmond,
+that she troubled Jacqueline but little with questions; and Judith was
+amazed at hearing Jacqueline describe to her mother a visit to her aunt,
+as if it had really been paid. The idea of concealment had taken
+complete possession of Jacqueline's mind, and she stopped at nothing.
+
+Of course, the wedding had to be postponed; and Jacqueline surprised her
+mother, after two letters had passed between Throckmorton and herself,
+by telling her quite calmly one day that the wedding was off, and that
+Throckmorton would shortly leave the county. General and Mrs. Temple
+were stunned; and Mrs. Temple, who had secretly thought the marriage
+preposterous from the start, now suddenly changed front, and was
+bitterly disappointed at this strange and unaccountable breaking off.
+Jacqueline would only say, "I found I didn't love him, and couldn't
+marry him"; and she repeated this with a sort of childish obstinacy--so
+it seemed to Mrs. Temple. Throckmorton accepted his supposed bad news
+with the firmness and dignity that always characterized him. He told
+Mrs. Temple, when she and the general, sitting in solemn conclave in the
+drawing-room, had sent for him to give him this unalterable
+determination of Jacqueline's:
+
+"Her happiness should be first always. The difference in our years I
+always felt; but, when she began to feel it, she was right in breaking
+with me. It is better that it should come now than later on."
+
+Mrs. Temple was thoroughly puzzled by Throckmorton. She could not make
+out his quiet acquiescence in Jacqueline's decision--it was so unlike
+his usual vigorous way of overcoming obstacles. But, before he left,
+Freke had reappeared, and the dreadful truth had come to him and to
+Throckmorton and to Judith that, after all, according to the statutes of
+Virginia, he was not at liberty to marry again. Dreadful it was to
+Freke, who, light-minded and evil as he was, had really believed himself
+free, and whose implied doubt to Jacqueline was merely for the purpose
+of frightening her into submission. Freke went up to Richmond one day
+and returned the next. Half an hour's interview each with half a dozen
+lawyers had settled a hypothetical case that covered Freke's exactly:
+not all the clerks and licenses and ceremonies in Virginia could make
+his marriage to anybody good as it stood. It was true that there was an
+excellent chance that in the course of time various defects in the
+somewhat informal divorce proceedings that Freke had really thought
+sufficient might be remedied, and he would be a free man; but, for the
+present, he certainly was not.
+
+Freke, who had thought his courage impeccable, found it failed him when
+he met Judith, for the first and last time, to settle upon the best
+course to pursue. Judith had Throckmorton's advice and assistance to
+back her up. Freke positively cowered under her gaze. It was settled
+that he was to go to the Northwest immediately, and devote all his
+energies to straightening out the strange tangle in which he had left
+his matrimonial affairs there; and, when it was settled, he was to
+return to Virginia, and then let Jacqueline decide what was to be done.
+He swore--and swore so that Judith believed him--that he thought himself
+a free man, and only despised the narrowness of people who believed
+there was no such thing as divorce. Why he should have fallen in love
+with Jacqueline did not puzzle Judith: had she not, with those
+irresistible glances of hers, ensnared a much stronger man? But one
+thing was decided as much by Jacqueline's agony of fear as anything
+else: nothing was to be said about the terrible complication to General
+and Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Steptoe's answer to Judith's letter gave a promise
+that nothing should be said about Jacqueline's non-appearance; and that
+removed any immediate danger of discovery. And, in a little while, both
+Freke and Throckmorton were gone--Freke, to move heaven and earth to get
+his divorce in proper shape; and Throckmorton, merely to be out of the
+way, and as far out of the way as possible.
+
+To Judith it seemed as if the world were coming to an end. How a thing
+so dreadful, so unlike anything she had ever known before, could happen
+in their quiet lives, seemed more and more extraordinary. Here was
+Jacqueline--last year a child in heart, and now the first person in a
+tragedy. Never had she anything to conceal before; and now, with the
+most perfect art and premeditation, she was concealing, every day and
+hour, something that would be even more overwhelming to her father and
+mother than Beverley's death, and would convulse the little world in
+which they lived. As for the innumerable chances that it might be found
+out any day, Judith was abnormally alive to them. Every morning, when
+she went down-stairs, she half expected that the disclosure would come;
+every night she thanked Heaven it had been postponed a day.
+
+Meanwhile Jacqueline, lying in her great four-poster, progressed slowly
+but gradually toward recovery. One night she called Judith to the
+bedside. She was fast getting well then.
+
+"Judith," she said, "you know what queer notions I take? Well, I have
+been lying here thinking, thinking, perhaps you won't be able to keep
+the whole county from knowing about--"
+
+The haunting fear of this never left Judith, but she could not but try
+and comfort Jacqueline.
+
+"We will try--O Jacqueline, we will try!"
+
+"And do you know it has troubled me even more than losing Freke; for I
+feel he is lost to me, even if he were to come to-morrow morning and say
+he was a free man; the fear that when I get well I shall be avoided; the
+people will leave me alone at church, and the county people will stop
+visiting us. That would indeed kill me."
+
+"Dear child, we will hope and pray. I believe it would kill me too."
+
+Jacqueline at this worked herself up into such a violent fit of weeping
+that Judith was frightened into giving her a great many more assurances
+of safety than her own anxious heart believed, but Jacqueline at last
+was quieted. In both of them, so widely unlike, was that profound
+respect for their neighbors, characteristic of simple and provincial
+souls. They knew no other world but that little neighborhood around
+Severn church, and its opinion was life or death.
+
+But it troubled Judith that by degrees visitors began to fall off and
+inquiries ceased for Jacqueline. The temper and habit of the people were
+such that Judith knew Jacqueline could never hope for any forgiveness if
+that week's journey should be known. Jacqueline too, although she was
+entirely silent afterward upon the subject, was thinking and dreading
+and fearing. It was the custom for many kindly and neighborly visits to
+be paid the sick, many flowers and delicacies to be sent them; but after
+a while Jacqueline ceased to have either flowers or visitors. She was
+nearly well, though, or at least she protested that she was. But,
+although Jacqueline declared to Judith that, if Freke were legally free
+to-morrow, she would not marry him as long as that other woman lived, it
+was plain that he had completely captivated her imagination. She loved
+him in her own wild, unreasoning way. Judith was hourly amazed at the
+sudden self-control, finesse, the power to deceive, that Jacqueline
+developed regarding him. Usually her composure was perfect, but once in
+her own room, Jacqueline threw herself on the rug before the fire and
+wept and sobbed so that Judith was seriously alarmed. But, still trying
+to keep the burden from the unconscious father and mother, she remained
+with Jacqueline until a calm had come after the storm.
+
+"I love him! I love him!" was all Jacqueline would say, and Judith
+believed her.
+
+"You told me how I ought to love Throckmorton," she said that night,
+with a melancholy smile; "it is exactly how I love Freke. Don't look at
+me in that indignant way, Judith. It is not my fault."
+
+Jack Throckmorton had remained at Millenbeck when his father left.
+Throckmorton had briefly announced to him that the wedding was off. Jack
+came at last to see them, looking very sheepish. Judith suspected that
+he came in obedience to Throckmorton's wishes. But Jacqueline at once
+slipped back into her old friendly way, if a little less gay and
+thoughtless than before. Jack sent her flowers, and would have brought
+his dog-cart over every day to take her to drive, so much touched was he
+by Jacqueline's illness, but Judith would not let him. Nevertheless, he
+was in and out of the house very much as he had been ever since that
+first night he was there. Judith, who had come to love him for his
+sweet, bright, boyish nature, he felt was his friend, as indeed
+everybody at Barn Elms was. The whole affair was intensely puzzling to
+Jack. He dared not show Throckmorton the awkward sympathy that he was
+struggling first to express and then to repress; but Jacqueline was
+young and ill, and had few pleasures, and he had once been a little gone
+on her, so it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should
+be kind to her.
+
+There were mysterious hints, though, flying about the county regarding
+Jacqueline's affairs. Mrs. Sherrard was dying with curiosity, and made
+many visits to Barn Elms for the purpose of gratifying it. But she soon
+found out that, beyond knowing that Jacqueline had tired of her
+engagement and had thrown Throckmorton over, neither General nor Mrs.
+Temple knew anything to communicate. About this time, too, the
+party-giving fever, which was never long in abeyance with Mrs. Sherrard,
+seized her. A party she must give. General Temple brought a note to that
+effect, coupled with a request for Mrs. Temple's salad-bowls and ladles,
+one day from the post-office. Jacqueline, who had been out-of-doors
+several times and had quite given up her invalidism, showed the keenest
+and the most unexpected delight when she heard of the party. She jumped
+up and down, clapped her hands, and began to dance.
+
+"Oh, how glad I am! It has been so stupid lately. I do want to dance
+again dreadfully. How I wish I could go to a ball every night in the
+week!"
+
+Judith was surprised at Jacqueline's eagerness about the party. Mrs.
+Temple had first said decidedly that Jacqueline should not go, at which
+Jacqueline threw her hands up to her face and burst into such a passion
+of stormy weeping that Mrs. Temple was completely puzzled, and so was
+Judith.
+
+"But, my child, you are not strong enough!"
+
+"I am!--I am!" cried Jacqueline. "I will ask Dr. Wortley if I can't go
+to the party. I am sure I will cry myself ill if I don't go; and I am so
+well and strong."
+
+Mrs. Temple, who had got a little indulgent to Jacqueline since her
+illness, agreed to leave it to Dr. Wortley. The next time he came over
+to pay a friendly visit, Jacqueline took him off to herself, and came
+back triumphant. Dr. Wortley had agreed. The old doctor had a queer look
+in his face.
+
+"I consented, madam," he said to Mrs. Temple, "because this young lady
+promised me that she would make herself ill if she did not go; and I
+have known young women to keep that promise. She has given me her word
+she will be very prudent--will not overexert herself; and Mrs. Beverley
+is to watch her."
+
+"And I'll come home the instant Judith proposes it!" cried Jacqueline.
+
+Mrs. Temple finally agreed, upon condition that the weather was fit.
+For some days before the party it threatened to be very unfit. Dark
+clouds overhung the sky, and a biting March wind swept over the bare
+fields and through the somber aspens and Lombardy poplars, as yet
+leafless and wintry, around the house. Jacqueline seemed to have but one
+idea in her head, and that was the party. She haunted the windows where
+the cutting wind came in through the open chinks and crannies, until
+Judith warned her that she would soon begin to cough again, and worse,
+if she did not take care of herself. She pestered Simon Peter with
+asking for weather signs. When the morning broke, cloudy and overcast,
+Jacqueline was almost in despair; she could eat no breakfast, but sat at
+the table watching the clouds. Presently the sun came out upon the
+dreary landscape, and the sun in Jacqueline's eyes came out too. From
+the deepest gloom she passed to the wildest gayety. Her eyes shone; and
+taking little Beverley into the great, empty drawing-room, she waltzed
+around with him, singing and capering about until the boy, like herself,
+was in a gale of good humor. Judith had never ceased being puzzled by
+it. Still another obstacle, though, seemed to arise in Jacqueline's
+path. General Temple had a suspicion of gout, and declared that the
+party was out of the question for him. At this, Jacqueline looked so
+pale and disappointed that even Mrs. Temple's heart melted toward her.
+
+"But I can take care of Jacqueline, mother," said Judith; "we are safe,
+you know, with Simon Peter on the box, and we will come home before
+twelve o'clock."
+
+Mrs. Temple consented, and for the second time that day Jacqueline's
+spirits rose. Toward twilight, when the fires had been lighted in their
+rooms for the two girls to dress, for early hours prevail in the
+country, Judith went into Jacqueline's room. Jacqueline was twisting up
+her beautiful blonde hair into a knot on top of her head, taking
+infinite pains; her eyes were shining, her whole air one of quick
+expectancy.
+
+"Why are you so anxious about this party, Jacqueline?" asked Judith, to
+whose lips the question had often risen during the last week.
+
+"Wait a moment and I will tell you," replied Jacqueline, still intent on
+her hair.
+
+Judith waited until the last tress was in place, and Jacqueline came
+over to the fireplace.
+
+"Because--because, Judith, I have a feeling--I don't know where it comes
+from--that everybody knows about--" She stopped and cast down her eyes
+in a troubled way, but without blushing. "And I thought if I went to
+this party I would be convinced that it was all a mistake. I know it is
+very silly, but it has kept me awake at night ever since I was first
+ill, thinking how the people would eye me at church. You know how sick
+people take up those fancies. Well, I am determined to prove to myself
+it isn't so. Jack Throckmorton won't be at the party, but I shall no
+doubt have a plenty of partners, and this horrible feeling--that I am
+disgraced in some way--will leave me; I am sure it will. You know
+mamma's way of treating these notions. 'Just give your secret fears an
+airing, and see how they will disappear,' that's what I mean to do. Like
+ghosts, they vanish when you speak to them and try to handle them, and
+then you are rid of them for good."
+
+Judith said not a word. The same horrible fear had been with her. Freke
+and Throckmorton were safe--General and Mrs. Temple suspected
+nothing--it made her sick at heart as she thought about the news
+traveling over the county.
+
+When Jacqueline was dressed in the same white frock she had worn the
+evening she had captivated Throckmorton, she preened like a young
+peacock before the admiring eyes of Delilah and Simon Peter. She whirled
+round on her toes like a ballet-dancer. She courtesied to the ground,
+showing them how she would do at the party. She walked away from the
+little glass on her dressing-table, arching her neck and fluttering her
+fan.
+
+"I allus did say Marse George Throckmorton wuz too ole fur little Miss
+Jacky," Simon Peter remarked to Delilah, after the performance. Delilah,
+who was bound to differ with Simon Peter, promptly took issue.
+
+"Marse George, he ain' ole, he jes' in he prime. Dat's de way wid you
+wuffless niggers--call a man ole in he prime."
+
+"But whar' _he_ gwi' be, when she in her prime? You heah me, 'oman?"
+
+Delilah, for once, had no answer to make. The reflection had occurred to
+her.
+
+As Judith and Jacqueline were jolted along the road, in the darkness,
+toward Turkey Thicket, both of them were reminded of that other party
+there, when Throckmorton had been present. Neither of them said
+anything, though. Judith, as she watched the shadowy trees slip past,
+began to think how strangely things had gone with her since then. Almost
+from that time she had felt a steady and ceaseless pain associated with
+Throckmorton. She then suffered, she thought, with him, and for him,
+although not one word had come from him since he had left the county, a
+month ago. Where was he? What was he doing at that very moment? Then she
+tried to fancy how it would have been with her had she seen daily before
+her Throckmorton and Jacqueline's married happiness. The sight of it
+would have been intolerable to her. "And nobody in the world suspects me
+of being the most impressionable, emotional, jealous, and miserable
+woman on earth," she thought to herself.
+
+Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, occasionally speculating on who
+would be at the party, and how often she might dance without breaking
+Dr. Wortley's orders.
+
+When they drove up to the door and got out, Jacqueline ran lightly up
+the steps, like her old self. Judith followed her. In Mrs. Sherrard's
+own comfortable old-fashioned room, where the ladies' wraps were
+removed, a number of girls about Jacqueline's age were laughing,
+chattering, getting their wraps off and their slippers on. Jacqueline
+ran up to them, and was about to join their circle; but by a slight,
+indescribable motion, they all drew back. It was a mere gesture, but it
+froze Jacqueline as she stood. She turned a frightened, piteous glance
+on Judith, who, with a flushed face, walked straight up to the little
+group.
+
+"How do you do?" she said, calling each one by name, and holding out her
+hand. If there were any cloud upon the Temple family, she would force
+them to come out boldly and define it. Her fine nostrils dilated with
+anger--for not only was it her duty to stand by Jacqueline, but was not
+she, Judith, a Temple, too? And Judith had one of those proud and
+self-respecting souls to whom everything and everybody closely connected
+with her was due a certain deference. Something in her eye and manner
+commanded civility--then her greetings were answered even more cordially
+than she had given them.
+
+But there was still an ominous change toward Jacqueline. The color had
+all dropped out of her face, and she had not recovered the plumpness she
+had lost during her illness. She looked nearer ugly than at any time in
+her whole life.
+
+Judith was soon ready to go down-stairs. She no longer wore black
+dresses, but white ones. They were as severely simple as the black ones,
+though. She turned with Jacqueline following her, and went slowly out
+the door, and down the broad, old-fashioned stairs. In the large,
+uncarpeted hall, dancing was going on. As Judith, tall and stately in
+her white dress, holding gracefully a large white fan in her hands,
+passed through the hall, she was greeted with the hearty kindness she
+had always met with; but Jacqueline at her side, who was wont to run the
+gantlet of laughter and jokes and merry salutations, was met with a
+strange and distant politeness that blanched her face, and brought a
+glitter to Judith's usually soft eyes. She could have borne it better
+for herself; but for this unthinking child--this young creature
+Throckmorton loved--it was too much.
+
+Mrs. Sherrard, with her diamond comb shining in her gray hair, and
+looking as she always did superbly dressed, without anything splendid
+about her, received them. In her there was no change. She met Jacqueline
+just as she always did.
+
+"Why, little Jacky," she cried, "how glad I am to see you out again!
+You must let me see your little feet tripping about as if you had never
+been ill."
+
+Jacqueline responded with a faint smile. Suppose she should not be asked
+to dance?
+
+Judith, taking in at once this universal shyness shown toward
+Jacqueline, did not move from her side. People came up and spoke to them
+civilly enough, but chiefly the older people. Out in the hall beyond,
+the black fiddlers were scraping, and Jacqueline could see a large
+quadrille forming. But no partner appeared for her. Until the very last
+she hoped desperately. Never before had Jacqueline, in the few parties
+she had been to in her short life, failed to be asked to dance--she
+was so pretty, so undeniably captivating. She turned two despairing
+dark eyes and two pale cheeks on Judith. It was indeed cruel and
+heart-breaking. Jacqueline's evident anguish almost took away Judith's
+self-possession.
+
+"Perhaps you will have better luck next time, dear," she whispered.
+
+"No," replied Jacqueline, trembling, "I feel it. I know what it means.
+They all know it. Heavens! what do they think I am?"
+
+The quadrille was soon over, but the time seemed interminable to Judith
+and Jacqueline. Some of the dancers, flushed and excited, were walking
+around the hall, while others, more indefatigable, whirled around in a
+waltz. It was all quite plain to Jacqueline, watching them with strange
+and miserable eyes. Was she then barred out forever from those people,
+and all for Freke, while even the happiness of being with him was denied
+her? Mrs. Sherrard, seeing Jacqueline sitting so still and quiet by
+Judith, came over to them.
+
+"My dear, I see you are not dancing; shall I get you a partner?"
+
+Mrs. Sherrard's sharp eyes saw something was amiss.
+
+"No, please, Mrs. Sherrard," cried Jacqueline, in an eager voice. "I
+promised Dr. Wortley not to dance much; perhaps I will dance a little
+after a while."
+
+But she did not. Nobody came near her to ask her; and even to Judith it
+was plain that people avoided them both. Most of the county people they
+knew came up and talked a little, but there was a changed atmosphere
+around them. Judith looked wonderingly at these people. In all the years
+they had lived in that county there had been nothing but neighborly
+kindness, good-will, and friendliness; and now, not one among them,
+seemed to feel the slightest spark of pity or charity for Jacqueline.
+They had all condemned her unheard. What version of the story had got
+abroad, she could not tell; but it was enough to blast the friendship
+of generations.
+
+It was getting on, hour after hour.
+
+"Shall we go home, Jacqueline?" whispered Judith.
+
+"Not yet--not yet!" Jacqueline would answer, with trembling lips. She
+kept on hoping against hope. By that time everybody in the rooms had
+seen it all, except Mrs. Sherrard. She supposed she had done her best,
+coming up and talking to them incessantly; but, Jacqueline having
+refused a partner when offered one, Mrs. Sherrard naturally supposed she
+did not dance from preference, and accepted the idea that Dr. Wortley
+was responsible. It was past midnight before Jacqueline would agree to
+go. Judith, as stately, if paler and haughtier than ever in her life,
+went up to Mrs. Sherrard, made her farewells, and walked the whole
+length of the rooms, holding Jacqueline's hand. The poor child tried to
+hold her head up, inspired by Judith's courage, but it drooped, and she
+could not raise her eyes from the floor. A slight thrill of remorse
+seemed to come over those who saw her, at the piteous sight; but it was
+now too late. Jacqueline only longed to escape.
+
+The instant they were in the carriage and alone, Jacqueline threw her
+arms around Judith and began to weep and sob desperately. Judith could
+only hold her to her heart and say: "Never mind, Jacqueline; if all the
+world should be against you, I would not be--nor Throckmorton."
+
+But Jacqueline did not cease to sob and weep with a sort of despair
+that struck a chill to Judith's heart. She had never seen anybody weep
+so. When they reached home, Judith got her up-stairs to her room and
+undressed her, taking off the little chain around her neck that held the
+pearl pendant Jacqueline only wore on great occasions, uncurling the
+bright hair she had dressed so carefully, and laying away the simple
+white dress--Jacqueline's only ball-dress--that she had admired herself
+in so much. Jacqueline submitted, still sobbing a continual sob, that
+showed no signs of abatement. Judith put her in bed, turned out the
+lamp, and kissing her affectionately went out, thinking Jacqueline would
+soon cry herself to sleep.
+
+An hour afterward Judith, who had keen hearing, fancied she heard a
+sound from Jacqueline's room. She went in softly. In the ghastly light
+that came through the closed shutters she saw Jacqueline sitting up in
+the great, white bed, still weeping.
+
+"My darling," said Judith, taking the girl in her arms, "you will be
+ill!"
+
+"Ill!" cried Jacqueline; "I am ill now--so ill, I never shall be well
+again! Judith, I can't live under this. I am going to die; and I am glad
+of it."
+
+"Hush, hush! what nonsense are you talking?"
+
+"Nonsense or not, those wicked people will see that they have killed
+me!"
+
+Judith did not leave her any more, nor did Jacqueline sleep one moment,
+or cease her weeping. She held Judith tightly about the neck, and her
+warm tears dropped incessantly. Toward daylight Judith began to be
+alarmed. But nothing was to be done. It would simply break the hearts of
+the unconscious father and mother if they knew what had happened, and if
+she roused them they must know. Judith went to her own room and brought
+back some brandy, which she forced Jacqueline to take. In a little while
+it began to show its effect. Jacqueline stopped sobbing, and lay in the
+great dawn, with her face white and drawn and tear-stained. Judith,
+again hoping she might sleep, left her.
+
+All that day Jacqueline lay in her bed dumb and motionless. Judith said
+the child was tired after the ball; perhaps she would get up later on.
+Mrs. Temple, supposing she was resting after her dissipation, did not go
+up to see her in the morning. In the afternoon, as Jacqueline showed no
+signs of getting up, Mrs. Temple went up to her. One look at her pallid
+face, and Mrs. Temple, calm and self-possessed as she usually was,
+almost shrieked, Jacqueline was so changed.
+
+"Tell your master to come here at once!" she cried to Delilah.
+
+General Temple came up-stairs, hurried and flurried, and felt for
+Jacqueline's pulse, but could detect no beating. And then Delilah
+owned up:
+
+"Dat ar chile ain' tech a mou'ful dis day. I bring her up nice hot
+breakfus', an' she jes' tu'n her face ter de wall an' say, 'Go 'long,
+mammy, I c'yarn eat.' Now, huccome she c'yarn eat?"
+
+"My daughter, what is the matter with you?" asked Mrs. Temple,
+anxiously.
+
+Of late this half-forgotten child had been steadily forcing herself upon
+Mrs. Temple's notice.
+
+"Nothing," answered Jacqueline, quietly.
+
+But Jacqueline would not eat anything to speak of. In vain Mrs. Temple
+commanded, General Temple prayed her; Judith also pleaded with her, and
+Delilah--even little Beverley, climbing on the bed, said:
+
+"Jacky, won't you eat a piece o' mammy's ash-cake if she bake it for
+you?"
+
+Jacqueline smiled a faint smile that made Judith almost weep.
+
+"I can't, dear," she said.
+
+It was impossible to force her to eat, and the next morning Dr. Wortley
+was sent for. He came up in his cheery way; he had heard something of
+the Turkey Thicket party, but he would say no word to the anxious father
+and mother. He talked cheerfully to Jacqueline, without assuming to
+doctor her, and called her attention to the beautiful spring weather. It
+was March, but the air was as mild as April.
+
+"All my hyacinths and jonquils are out," he said. "There is a bed in my
+garden that is protected on the north by a hedge and an arbor, and
+everything in that bed is a week ahead of the rest of the neighborhood.
+I will bring you everything that is blooming there to-morrow. By the
+way, what would you fancy to eat, Jacky?"
+
+"I can't eat anything," replied Jacqueline, with quiet obstinacy.
+
+Next day Dr. Wortley came again, with a great bunch of hyacinths and
+jonquils, and laid them on Jacqueline's bed. Her large and lusterless
+eyes gazed at them with indifference. Usually they danced with delight
+at the sight of flowers. Delilah put a spray of pink hyacinths in her
+hand.
+
+"Doan' you 'member, honey, how you useter like dese heah hy'cints, an'
+plague yo' mammy when you wuz little ter plant 'em fur you?"
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Jacqueline, calmly.
+
+Judith and Mrs. Temple were present. Dr. Wortley said nothing about
+Jacqueline's refusing to eat, but talked away, telling all the
+neighborhood gossip. Then, in a careless way, he felt for Jacqueline's
+pulse and listened to the beating of her heart. Both were so faint that
+Dr. Wortley's eyes became grave. After he left the room, he beckoned to
+Mrs. Temple to follow him. Delilah came, too.
+
+"Marse Doctor, she ain' tech nuttin' but a leetle bit o' toast an' tea
+since yistiddy, an' it wan' 'nough to keep a bird 'live, let 'lone a
+human."
+
+Dr. Wortley wheeled round on his old enemy and snapped out:
+
+"If you'll just use some of your persuasive eloquence and stuff her up
+with jellies and custards as you do your master when he ought to be
+living on tea and toast, she'll be all right."
+
+Delilah flounced back into Jacqueline's room, her head-handkerchief
+bobbing about angrily. Mrs. Temple being present, she could not
+retaliate on Dr. Wortley.
+
+"But, doctor," said Mrs. Temple, trembling strangely, "this is so unlike
+Jacqueline. I don't know what has been the matter with her lately. She
+isn't grieving for Throckmorton, but something is on her mind, that
+is--that is--"
+
+The doctor waited, thinking Mrs. Temple would finish what she was
+saying. But she did not. This was, indeed, unlike Jacqueline--unlike any
+instance Dr. Wortley, in his simple experience, had ever known.
+
+"Let her alone for a few days," he said. "We will see."
+
+At the end of a few days Jacqueline had indeed consented to take enough
+food to keep life in her, but she had lost ground frightfully. Her
+round, girlish face was sharp and pinched.
+
+Judith tried persuasion, to which Jacqueline responded, "How can I eat
+anything, when all night long I cry and cry, thinking of the
+hard-hearted people who--"
+
+Then she stopped suddenly.
+
+"Mise Judy," said Delilah, after a while, "I lay on de pallet by de
+baid, an' all night long I heah her cryin', jes' cryin' quiet--she doan'
+make no noise. I say: 'What de matter, honey? Tell yo' ole mammy dat
+nuss you?' an' she make 'tense den she 'sleep. But I know she ain'
+'sleep--she jest distrusted at de way dem folks treat her at that
+ungordly party at Tuckey Thicket."
+
+General and Mrs. Temple were anxious about Jacqueline, but by no means
+despairing. Neither of them thought that anybody could die without
+having anything ostensibly the matter. Judith, on the contrary, thought
+this the most alarming thing about Jacqueline. There she lay, steadily
+losing her hold on life, without any reason in the world that she should
+not be up and about--except, indeed, that sickness of the soul which
+saps the very foundations of life. This fear that Jacqueline was
+slipping away from them impelled her to write Throckmorton a few
+lines--guarded, but without disguising anything.
+
+Meanwhile, the day that was to have been the wedding-day had come and
+gone. Jacqueline had not noticed it--she seemed to notice nothing in
+those days--but toward noon she said to Judith:
+
+"I want to see my wedding-dress--to see if it is quite ruined."
+
+Judith, without protesting, went and got it. She spread it out on the
+bed. It was rich and white and soft, and was beautiful with Judith's
+handiwork; but it was bloodstained in many places.
+
+"That blood, I think, came from my heart," said Jacqueline; her eyes
+were soft and luminous. "I've been thinking about Throckmorton in the
+last two or three days--for the first time. I have been so busy with my
+own sorrow and Freke's that I haven't had time to think about anything
+else. Now, though, I want to see him--if he can get here in time."
+
+"He will soon be here," answered Judith, folding up the dress. "I wrote
+him four days ago."
+
+"That is so like you! None of the others know what I want, or will let
+me have my own way, but you."
+
+And that very day Freke appeared.
+
+The hatred that Judith had always felt for him was now intensified into
+a horror of him--he was the murderer of the poor child lying on her
+death-bed up-stairs--and she had thought her heart so hard toward him
+that nothing could soften it; but, strange as it might seem, she did
+soften toward him when she saw how acute was his misery.
+
+Remorse was new to him. He had rather gloried in going against the
+antique notions and prejudices of the people in that shut-in, provincial
+place; but that anything tragic could come of it never really dawned
+upon him until he saw the terrible consequences before his eyes. He was,
+indeed, a free man, legally, when he came back; but the moral law, the
+social prejudice, stood like an everlasting wall between him and
+Jacqueline. Moreover, there could be no talk of marriage with Jacqueline
+then--she was the bride of death!
+
+Judith herself told him this. Whether Jacqueline had ever had any deep
+hold upon him or not, there was no doubt of the sincerity of his grief
+and his remorse. He said but little, but one look at his changed and
+agitated face was enough. He asked to see her--a request Judith could
+not refuse. But the sight of him threw Jacqueline into such a paroxysm
+of agitation, that Judith almost forced him from the room. There was
+something a little mysterious about the whole thing, to General and
+Mrs. Temple, but mercifully they suspected nothing of the real state of
+affairs. After one more attempt to see Jacqueline, and the extreme
+agitation into which it threw her, it became plain that it could not be
+repeated. Jacqueline herself begged that she might not see him.
+
+"Not that I don't love him--don't think that for a moment, Judith!" she
+cried; "but the sight of him nearly kills me. Then I am sorry that I am
+going to die--I am so sorry for myself that I feel as if I should cry
+myself into convulsions."
+
+Judith tried gently to check this sort of talk, but Jacqueline, with a
+shadowy smile, laughed at her.
+
+"Don't be silly, Judith--_you_ know how it is. All that I hope is, that
+those hard-hearted people will be sorry when they have killed me with
+their cruelty."
+
+Freke, still coming every day, walked about the lower floor dismally.
+Jacqueline, whose senses became preternaturally sharp, soon recognized
+his footsteps. Even that unnerved her. Judith told him so kindly, and
+afterward he would sit motionless before the dining-room fire, always
+turning his head away from Jacqueline's little chair. Like Judith, he
+was clear-sighted about her. Of them all, General and Mrs. Temple were
+the only ones who would not or could not see that Jacqueline would soon
+be gone. Mrs. Temple had never seen anybody die without being ill, and
+could not believe that Jacqueline, who suffered no pain, should go. She
+had been in truth much frightened at the time of Jacqueline's illness;
+but, now, there was nothing to prevent her getting well except--except--
+
+"That she is determined to die," Dr. Wortley inwardly remarked when Mrs.
+Temple talked to him in this way.
+
+Jacqueline began to show a strange eagerness for Throckmorton's arrival.
+He was somewhere in the Northwest; but Jack, acting on his own
+responsibility, telegraphed his father, and put him on the track of
+Judith's letter.
+
+The news of Jacqueline's illness had got abroad in the county, and
+something like remorse was felt by many who had seen her at the Turkey
+Thicket party. By degrees the impression that she was indeed in a bad
+way became general.
+
+If Judith and Jacqueline had never loved Jack Throckmorton before, they
+would have loved him then. The sweetness, tenderness, and gentleness of
+the boy came out every day. There had always been an affinity between
+Jacqueline and him, and, as other ties weakened, this seemed to grow
+stronger. He never tired or bored or agitated her. Regularly he came
+twice a day, with flowers, or game, or with a new book. Dr. Wortley
+encouraged Jacqueline to see him, as it was plainly through her mind
+that her body must be cured. So every day Mrs. Temple or Judith would
+take Jack up to Jacqueline's room, and he would sit down by the bed and
+tell her his droll stories. Sometimes the ghost of a laugh would come
+from Jacqueline, and when, at parting, Jack would stand over her,
+holding her hand and saying, "Miss Jacky, I swear this is not to be
+stood for another day!--I'm coming over to-morrow to take you to drive!"
+Jacqueline would almost laugh aloud. Jack never mentioned Throckmorton
+to her, though; but one day, when he had brought her a great bunch of
+violets and narcissus, which had actually brought a little color to
+Jacqueline's cheeks, and had induced her to eat a piece of bread about
+as big as a silver dollar, he turned to Judith as he got out of the
+room: "The major is coming," he said, with an altogether different look
+in his handsome, boyish face. "I got a dispatch from him to-day. If he
+makes connections, he can be here by day after to-morrow."
+
+"How glad I am--and how glad Jacqueline will be!" answered Judith.
+
+For the first time, that day Judith had begun to hope that Jacqueline
+would get well. She had certainly brightened, and this strange interest
+in Throckmorton's arrival was encouraging. Perhaps, after all, she cared
+for him more than she thought--and if he came--
+
+Till that day Jacqueline seemed to be brighter and better. The next day
+the weather turned suddenly cold and blustering, with violent gusts of
+snow and sleet. Jacqueline, who could see out of the window from her
+bed, seemed singularly depressed by the weather, although the pleasant,
+old-fashioned room was a nest of warmth and comfort.
+
+Delilah sat in the great rush-bottomed chair by the sparkling fire,
+knitting, while Judith, with some work in her lap, sat close by the bed,
+and occasionally talked hopefully to Jacqueline.
+
+"How sad it is!" presently said Jacqueline; "the peach-trees are all in
+bloom, and the buds will be killed by this snow--and the little
+hyacinths that are just coming up--all the young growing things will die
+to-day."
+
+"Not the plants, dear--only the blossoms," replied Judith, cheerfully.
+"In a week they will have forgotten all about this snow."
+
+"It is very sad," sighed Jacqueline.
+
+All day Jacqueline seemed affected by the weather. Barn Elms, never a
+cheerful place at any time, was apt to be funereal when winter blasts
+swept the branches of the melancholy poplars and elms against the sides
+of the house, and when the wind howled amid the loosely built chimneys.
+A blackbird had begun building her nest in the tree nearest Jacqueline's
+window; and often, during the long days when she had lain in her bed,
+she had watched the bird flying and fluttering back and forth. The wind,
+which raged fitfully, came on stronger toward the afternoon. It lashed
+the still bare branches of the trees, beating them frantically about.
+The nest soon went. The poor bird, flying wildly around the place where
+it had been, was suddenly caught by a swaying branch, and, numbed with
+the cold, was dashed against the window. Jacqueline almost shrieked.
+Judith ran down-stairs, and out bareheaded in the sleet and snow, and
+found the bird--but it was already dead. When she went back, Jacqueline
+was crying.
+
+"See how it is, Judith--everything that is young and weak will die in
+this weather."
+
+A book lay on the bed beside Jacqueline--Jack Throckmorton had brought
+it over to her a day or two before. Jacqueline, laboriously--for she was
+very weak--turned over the pages and showed a paragraph to Judith:
+
+"And the fire is lighted and the hall warmed, and it rains and it snows
+and it storms without. Then cometh in a sparrow and flieth about the
+hall. It cometh in at one door and goeth out at another. While it is
+within, it is not touched with the winter storm. _But that is only for a
+moment, only for the least space._"
+
+Judith thought that Jacqueline, in her simplicity, had taken it
+literally; but she had not.
+
+"Once, Throckmorton read some in this book to me. He said that meant
+human life--that little moment. Why can't people let other people be
+comfortable in that least space, instead of--of--killing them as--being
+so unkind to them?" Jacqueline stopped. Her mind was ever working on
+that deep resentment against her county people. "And Throckmorton, too,"
+she continued, after a pause, "you know, Judith, how noble he is--and
+see how they have treated him!"
+
+"My dearest," answered Judith, "you don't understand. These people are
+really kind and tender-hearted; but they move very slowly--and they
+have queer prejudices--notions--that they will die with, and die for, I
+think; but don't think about that--think about getting well, and running
+about again with Beverley. You ought to see him, trotting around
+down-stairs, saying: 'Where is my Jacky? I want my Jacky.' He was so
+naughty to-day that Delilah threatened to whip him, and even mother had
+to take a stand against him. He is getting thoroughly spoiled while I am
+up here with you."
+
+Jacqueline smiled slightly, but soon returned to watching the gloomy day
+without. At twilight she would not have the shutters closed, but lay
+striving to catch the last fading glimpses of the somber daylight.
+Judith began to feel an intense longing for Throckmorton to come.
+Jacqueline, too, who had been so strangely forgetful and neglectful of
+Throckmorton until lately, had asked a dozen times that day, when it was
+possible for him to get there, and what if he should miss the boat, and
+many other questions. About seven o'clock Judith went down to tea,
+leaving Delilah with Jacqueline.
+
+Delilah, sitting up black and solemn, listened to Jacqueline's faint and
+sorrowful talk.
+
+"Doan' you fret, honey, 'bout dem blackbirds, an' dem peach-blossoms,
+an' dem little lambs out in de cold. De Lord gwi' teck keer on 'em. He
+gwi' meck de sun ter shine, an' de win' ter blow; an' He gwi' down in
+de rain an' de gloomerin' fur ter fin' de po' los' sheep. He ain' gwi'
+lef 'em out d'yar ter deyselves. He gwi' tote 'em home outen' de rain
+an' de darkness."
+
+"Do you think so, mammy?"
+
+"I knows hit, chile."
+
+Down-stairs, General and Mrs. Temple, with little Beverley and Judith,
+were all that were present around the table. Not yet even had Mrs.
+Temple begun to be alarmed about Jacqueline, who had not had a pain or
+an ache.
+
+Jacqueline's vacant chair struck Judith more painfully than usual.
+Scarcely had she taken her place at the table, when she saw Delilah peer
+in at the door, a queer, ashy tinge over her black face. Judith rose and
+went out quietly, Mrs. Temple looking surprised, but saying nothing.
+Judith, Mrs. Temple thought, coddled Jacqueline rather too much for her
+own good, so Kitty Sherrard and Dr. Wortley both said.
+
+"Miss Judy," whispered Delilah, "Miss Jacky is a-gwine--she done start
+on de road--"
+
+Judith, without a word, flew up-stairs. Jacqueline lay, scarcely
+breathing, her face perfectly white, her dark and beautiful eyes wide
+open. Judith raised her up, Jacqueline protesting feebly.
+
+"Judith, it is come! I feel it. I am not at all frightened. It was those
+cruel people at Mrs. Sherrard's party--"
+
+"Don't--don't say that, Jacqueline! You are only a little faint and
+discouraged. Here is Delilah coming."
+
+"Tell Throckmorton I tried to live until he came, but my breath won't
+hold out any longer, and my heart has scarcely beat at all for a week,
+it seems to me."
+
+Judith made a sign to Delilah to go for Mrs. Temple. Scarcely was she
+out of the room, before Jacqueline's head fell back on Judith's
+shoulder. Judith, brave as she was, began to tremble and to weep.
+
+"I did so want to see Throckmorton, to tell him something. I wanted to
+say to him--Judith--"
+
+Mrs. Temple came in swiftly, followed by the general. Jacqueline had
+strength enough left to hold out a thin little hand. A smile like
+moonlight passed over her face. She gasped once, and all was over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The next night at midnight there was a solemn stir, a painful and
+heart-breaking commotion, at Barn Elms. Throckmorton had come. He had
+indeed missed the boat, and had driven seventy miles rather than wait a
+day. Mrs. Temple, as when Beverley died, had shut herself up in the
+"charmber" with General Temple. Most people thought it was to comfort
+General Temple, but in those two dreadful tragedies of her life it was
+General Temple who comforted Mrs. Temple. Both parents felt something
+like remorse in their grief. They had been good parents after their
+lights, but the wayward, capricious Jacqueline, although their child,
+was outside of their experience. Her nature had eluded both of them.
+
+"Ole marse," said Delilah, in a solemn whisper to Judith, sitting in
+Jacqueline's peaceful room, "he set by mistis. He hole her han' an' he
+read de Bible ter her, an' he tell her she ain' got no reproachments fur
+ter make. Mistis, she jes' lay in the bed, ez white ez de wall, an' her
+eyes wide open, a-hole'in' ole marse like she wuz drowndin'. It seem
+like ole marse ain' got no sort o' idee, 'cep 'tis ter comfort mistis.
+She do grieve so arter her chillen. She ain' got none now."
+
+To Judith, whose grief was poignant and complex, was left the task of
+watching by Jacqueline. With tender superstition, she got out the
+wedding-gown--it could be put to no other use--and she and Delilah put
+it on Jacqueline, deftly hiding the blood-spots.
+
+"My pretty little missy," said Delilah, smoothing down the frock with
+her hard black hand. "Arter all, you gwi' w'yar dis pretty little frock
+Miss Judy done wuk for you to git married in."
+
+And to Judith also fell the task of showing Freke into the white and
+darkened room.
+
+As they looked into each other's eyes, and realized that, after all,
+they were the chiefest mourners, Judith's old enmity melted away.
+
+"You and I have struggled for this child's soul," he said. "Had you but
+let me see her--had she but gone with me--she would be alive this day."
+
+"And wretched!" Judith could not help saying.
+
+"No--most happy. I understood her better than anybody else. It was that
+which gave me my power over her. She wanted nothing in this world except
+to be loved."
+
+He went in and stayed so long that Judith opened the door softly two or
+three times. Sometimes, by the dim light, he was kneeling by the bed,
+holding the cold little hand in his. Again, he sat on a chair, stroking
+the bright hair that rippled over the forehead. Judith had not the heart
+to speak to him until midnight, when the sound of Throckmorton's step in
+the hall told her he had come. She went in and said to Freke hurriedly,
+but not unkindly, "You must go--Throckmorton is here."
+
+"Then I will go," he said. But with a queer sort of triumph in his voice
+he added: "She never was Throckmorton's, living or dead. She was mine as
+far as her heart and her soul and her will went." And so saying, he went
+down the stairs and out and away, without meeting Throckmorton.
+
+Judith went down into the dining-room, where Throckmorton sat before the
+decaying fire, with only the light of two tall candles to pierce the
+darkness. He arose silently and followed her. At the door of the room
+his courage, which Judith had thought invincible, seemed suddenly to
+leave him. He, the strong man, turned pale, and clung to the weak
+woman's arm. Something of the divine pity in Judith's face went to his
+soul. He stayed only a few minutes. It came to Judith, like a flash,
+that his grief was not like Freke's. Throckmorton pitied Jacqueline.
+Freke pitied himself, for the sharp misery of life without her. When
+Throckmorton came out, Judith went in and resumed her watch.
+
+The day of the funeral was as stormy as the day of Jacqueline's death.
+But for that, the whole county would have been at the funeral. Something
+of the truth had leaked out, and the people were conscience-stricken.
+Poor Jacqueline, who two weeks before had in vain asked for a little
+human pity from them, now had her memory deluged with it. But the storm
+was so violent that but few persons could be present. As Judith stood at
+the head of the small grave in the wind and the rain, listening to
+Edmund Morford's rich voice, now touched with real feeling, she glanced
+toward Freke, standing by himself, with his hands clasped behind his
+back, his eyes fixed devouringly upon the coffin. As the first damp
+clods fell resounding on the lid, he said to himself: "Jacqueline!
+Jacqueline!"
+
+Throckmorton, with folded arms and his iron jaw set, gave no sign of his
+feelings through his stern composure. Judith's heart was wrenched as if
+she were burying her own child. When they left the grave, Freke remained
+standing alone, his hat off, and the sleety rain pelting his bare head.
+At that sight Judith, for the first time, forgave him from her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Throckmorton's year of leave was not up, yet he went immediately back to
+his post. Everything that had happened to him in the last six months had
+been so unreal, so out of all his previous experiences, that he needed
+the every-day routine of duty to enable him to get his bearings. He
+wanted to find out if he himself was changed. There was certainly a
+change in him, which everybody saw; but he was not a man to be
+questioned. He went about his duty, quietly and self-containedly. He had
+always found a plenty to do, and wondered at the idleness that he
+sometimes saw around him; and now he was busier than ever. He was not a
+philanthropic meddler, and was as loath to offer his advice unasked to a
+soldier as to an officer, but he earnestly desired, now more than ever,
+to be of help to his fellow-men, and Throckmorton's help was always
+efficient because it never hurt the self-respect of those who received
+it. Certain of the non-commissioned officers at his post were competing
+for a commission. To his surprise and gratification, he found them
+anxious to be instructed by him. So he turned schoolmaster, and
+patiently and laboriously, night after night, gave them the advantage of
+all he knew. Only one got the commission, but all were qualified when
+Throckmorton got through with them. He was not any less alert and
+attentive than before, but in all his waking moments, when his mind was
+not imperatively drawn to other things, he was thinking over those six
+months at Millenbeck--the hopes with which he went back; the strangeness
+of finding himself under the ban among his own people; the renewal of
+the link with Barn Elms, after thirty years' absence; his complete
+infatuation with Jacqueline--and, out of it all, rose Judith's face. How
+hard had been her lot; and how strange it was that he had made
+confidences to her, and that, of all the women he had ever known, she
+was the only one of whose sympathy he had ever felt the need! He
+considered his somewhat barren life--his reserved habits--and sometimes
+thought Heaven was kind to Jacqueline in not giving her to him, for he
+could not bend his nature to any woman's--the woman must conform to him;
+and it was not in Jacqueline to be anything but what Nature had made
+her.
+
+Jack was off at the university, and Millenbeck was shut up, silent and
+deserted.
+
+Freke was gone. He disappeared apparently from the face of the earth. He
+wanted neither to see nor hear anything of anybody connected with
+Jacqueline. Throckmorton, on the contrary, clung to the ties at Barn
+Elms.
+
+But to Judith Temple life had become infinitely sadder and poorer than
+ever before. She had caught one glimpse of paradise, and that had
+changed the whole face of life for her, and she seemed all at once to be
+very much alone. But in one sense she was less alone than ever before.
+Mrs. Temple's will and courage and purpose seemed gone. She changed
+strangely after Jacqueline's death. She, who had once silently resented
+the slightest forgetfulness of Beverley, now seemed to feel acutely that
+the living should not be sacrificed to the dead. She began to urge
+Judith to go from home; to take off her mourning at the end of a year.
+Judith gently protested. The truth was that, although Mrs. Temple had at
+last come out of that strange forgetfulness of Jacqueline and mourned as
+other mothers do, Jacqueline took nothing out of her life. With Judith
+it was as if her child had been taken. She could not pass Jacqueline's
+empty room without remembering how she would waylay her, and draw her in
+to sit by the fire and dream and romance. She could not sew or read or
+do anything without feeling the loss of the childish companionship. Even
+when she laid aside her seriousness for her child and romped and played
+with the boy, he was apt to say, "I wish Jacky would come back and play
+with me again."
+
+At intervals Mrs. Temple received kind and sympathetic letters from
+Throckmorton, and replied to them with letters worded with her own
+simple eloquence. In Throckmorton's letters he spoke of Jacqueline
+rather as if she had been his child than his promised wife. Among them
+all Jacqueline's memory was that of a child. Throckmorton sent kind
+messages to Judith; and Mrs. Temple, when she wrote, conveyed short but
+expressive replies from Judith.
+
+Two years had passed. So quiet and uneventful had been their lives,
+that Judith would have had difficulty in persuading herself that the
+years were slipping by, but for little Beverley, now a handsome,
+sturdy urchin, whose long, fair hair had been cut off, and who emerged
+from dainty white frocks into kilts. The grandfather and grandmother
+daily more adored the child. Judith thought sometimes they were fast
+forgetting Jacqueline. The grass was quite green over Jacqueline by this
+time, and the head-stone had lost its perfect whiteness. But to Judith
+there was no forgetting. She had loved the child as if she had been her
+own, and she loved Throckmorton still. Jack wrote to her at intervals,
+his letters always containing some allusion to Jacqueline. Judith
+thought sometimes, with wonder, that Fate should not in the first
+instance have united those two young creatures, boy and girl.
+
+One night, two winters after Jacqueline had gone away, Judith, who
+every night before going to bed went to her window, and, drawing the
+curtain, looked long toward Millenbeck, saw a bright light shining from
+the hall-door and two of the lower windows of the house. Every night, as
+she gazed at it, she had seen it black and tenantless, and utterly
+deserted; but, now--
+
+"Throckmorton has come!" she said to herself.
+
+Next morning he came over early to see them. He found General Temple the
+same General Temple--courteous and verbose. His health being very good,
+he was an Episcopalian for the time being; but, whenever the gout
+appeared, he had his old way of lapsing into Presbyterianism. Mrs.
+Temple was the same, and yet not the same. Throckmorton saw a change in
+her. She, the most unyielding of women, had become easy and indulgent.
+Simon Peter and Delilah came in to speak to him, and a wifely rebuke,
+administered in the pantry, was distinctly audible to Throckmorton:
+
+"Huccome you ain' taken off dat ole coat, nigger, an' put on dat one
+mistis give you, fur ter speak ter Marse George Throckmorton? He su't'ny
+will think we all's po', ef you keep on dat er way."
+
+"We _is_ po', but we is first quality, 'oman!"
+
+Judith, who had great self-command, could control her eyes, her voice,
+her manner; but happiness, the outlaw, at seeing Throckmorton again,
+brought the red blood surging to her cheeks. Throckmorton, who was
+exactly like his old self, was surprised and inwardly agitated at it.
+They spoke some tender words of Jacqueline, all of them sitting together
+in the old-fashioned drawing-room. Her little chair was in its old
+place, but Judith sat in it; and even the ragged footstool on which
+Jacqueline had toasted her little feet was near it. Throckmorton noticed
+all these things with tenderness in his dark eyes. He was a little
+grayer than before, but he was the same erect, soldierly figure; he had
+the same simple but commanding dignity.
+
+He walked home in a curious state of emotion. In those two years he had
+not ceased thinking deeply over that short episode, so full of happiness
+and pain--the happiness a little unreal, and vexed with many pangs; the
+pain very real, but with strange suggestions that, after all, the
+happiness held more possibilities of wretchedness. He could think, for
+Jacqueline's sake, how much better off she was, lying so peacefully in
+the old grave-yard, than if she had lived, so weak, so captivating, so
+unthinking. What would life have been to her? And so, at forty-six,
+after having experienced more than most men, he began the analysis of
+his own emotions, and realized that all he had known of love was
+perilously like a mirage. He had entered into a fool's paradise, but he
+knew that he of all men could least be satisfied there. His reason, his
+intellect, always overmastered him in the end; and what was there in
+this bewitching child to satisfy either? Jacqueline, young, was a dream;
+Jacqueline, old, was a fantasm. All this had come to him soon after
+Jacqueline's death, in that period of self-searching that followed. But,
+when he had got thus far, which was some time before his return to
+Millenbeck, a great change came upon him. He began to feel a sort of
+acute disappointment. He had loved and suffered much for that which he
+felt would not have made him happy had he gained it. All that love,
+grief, passion, had been vain; here he checked himself; the memory of
+his girl-wife was sacred from even his own questionings; and so was that
+later love, but the necessity for checking himself told volumes. And
+then, by slow degrees, the image of Judith Temple had stolen upon him.
+It was very gradual, it was many months in coming, but, when at last it
+dawned upon him, it was a sort of glorious surprise. How stupid, how
+blind had he been! Where were his doubts and questionings? Could anybody
+doubt Judith Temple's sympathy and understanding? He remembered the
+quaint words of the Jewish king, "The heart of her husband doth safely
+trust." He had seen enough of the way these weaker women had striven to
+bend him, but Judith had the beautiful charm of bending herself. She
+could be whatever the man she loved desired her to be. Throckmorton at
+once felt that any man married to Judith Temple would indeed be free,
+and how sweet would it be to see that proud spirit that yielded but
+seldom bend to his will! That homage, so rare and precious, was what
+women of her type paid to the master-passion. Most women that he had
+ever seen yielded to the predominant influence; but women like Judith
+Temple bent their heads and smiled and played at humility, but yielded
+not one inch of their soul's standing-ground until the moment came.
+Throckmorton, who possessed true masculine courage, admired this kind of
+feminine bravery. He felt that to conquer such a woman would be like
+capturing a Roman standard. And how utterly those proud women
+surrendered when they did surrender! He could fancy Judith's brave
+pretenses melting away; how charming would be her sweet inexperience!
+How quickly she would persuade herself that there was nothing so wise,
+true, just as love! Throckmorton, although he had silenced his
+discernment, had never strangled it, and he began to study and know
+Judith. But there was no suspicion in his mind that she cared anything
+for him; and, when he made up his mind to return to Millenbeck and see
+her again, he was anything but sanguine. He felt that if he failed it
+would make infinitely more difference to him than anything that had ever
+happened to him in life before. He was absolutely afraid, and fear, he
+knew, when it came to men like him, meant something overmastering.
+Throckmorton sighed when he realized his want of courage. He knew it
+would be forthcoming in an emergency; he had felt that in battle, where
+his first tremors never made him doubt for an instant that when the time
+came to use his courage it would be there; but it was a new thing to
+fear his fate at the hands of a woman. But the woman had become much
+more to him than any other woman had ever been; she was so much to him
+that it rather appalled him.
+
+Nevertheless, anxieties or no anxieties, he went about winning Judith
+with the same coolness and deliberation he did everything else. He had
+two months' leave, and he determined to spend it all at Millenbeck.
+Judith might break his heart, but she should not defraud him of those
+months in her society that he had promised himself for a good while
+before. For a long time past in his pleasant quarters at his post, in
+his regular round of duty, in the part he took in social life, he had
+comforted himself with the idea that, whether he was destined to this
+greater happiness or not, he would at least see this woman of all women;
+he would hear her soft voice, listen to her talk, seasoned with a
+dainty, womanly wit. Nobody should deprive him of that. He began to
+remember with a frown Jack's turpitude about Judith's letters. As soon
+as Jack found out that his father wanted to see those friendly, kindly
+letters, he made great ado about showing them, playing the major very
+much as he would a peculiarly game and warlike salmon. The cast in
+Throckmorton's eye was apt to come out so savagely at these times that
+he was, as Jack said, positively cross-eyed. But after Jack had worked
+him up into a silent rage, he would then produce the letters.
+Throckmorton had always taken women's letters as highly indicative, and
+Judith's were so refined, so sparkling in spite of the narrow round in
+which she lived, that Throckmorton's countenance immediately cleared and
+the cast disappeared from his eye as soon as he had got hold of one of
+these cherished epistles, all of which had been by no means lost on
+Jack.
+
+Throckmorton went and came between Barn Elms and Millenbeck in the most
+natural and neighborly way in the world. He brought books over to
+Judith, and often read aloud at Barn Elms in the evenings. General
+Temple, still hard at work on the History of Temple's Brigade, which now
+approached its seventh volume, found Throckmorton a mine of information.
+A soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,
+Throckmorton had a queer diffidence about speaking of his profession, in
+marked contrast to General Temple, who declaimed the science of war with
+same easy confidence with which Edmund Morford explained the inscrutable
+mysteries of religion. As Throckmorton watched General Temple stalking
+up and down the quaint old drawing-room, haranguing and expounding, the
+idea that this man had been intrusted with the fate of battle perfectly
+staggered him. His sense of humor was keen, and, between his
+professional horror of General Temple's methods and the utter absurdity
+of the whole thing, he would be convulsed with silent laughter. Judith,
+the picture of demureness, would give him a glance that would almost
+create an explosion. With much simplicity General Temple would add:
+
+"At that time, my dear Throckmorton, I was unfortunately separated from
+my command. I conceive it to be the duty of the commander of troops to
+set them an example of personal courage, and so I occupied a slightly
+exposed position."
+
+Throckmorton did not doubt it in the least. The general's incapacity was
+only exceeded by his courage.
+
+Throckmorton's native modesty, as well as the fact that he knew a great
+deal about the war and his profession, kept him comparatively silent;
+but finding that, when he talked with General Temple about battles and
+campaigns, Judith's face gradually grew scarlet with suppressed
+excitement, and that like most women she was easily carried away by the
+recitals of adventure, he artfully took up the thread of conversation
+and surprised himself by his own eloquence. It was not like the almost
+forgotten Freke's polished and charming periods, but it was none the
+less eloquent for being rather brief and pointed; and once or twice
+when Judith paid him some little compliment, her speaking eyes conveying
+more meaning than her words, Throckmorton would be seized with a fit of
+bashfulness, and clapping his rusty but still cherished blue cap on his
+head would go home and never say "war" for a week.
+
+Their lives were so quiet, so shut out from even the small world of a
+provincial neighborhood, that nothing was known or talked of about them.
+Judith, who was capable of revenge, felt a deep resentment against the
+county people. She, who before Jacqueline's death had been all sweetness
+and affability, showed a kind of haughtiness to the people who were well
+enough disposed to make amends to the Barn Elms family. Throckmorton
+noticed, when she went out of church behind General and Mrs. Temple,
+holding her boy by the hand, that the father and mother stopped and
+talked as neighbors in the country do, but Judith made straight for the
+rickety carriage which Simon Peter still drove.
+
+The two months were nearly over. Throckmorton and Judith had seen much
+of each other, but there had been no exchange of intimate thoughts
+between them but once. This was one afternoon when they were alone at
+Barn Elms, that Throckmorton talked openly of Jacqueline.
+
+"It is not treason to her, poor child," he said, "but--it was--a
+mistake. I truly loved her. I had thought that love was impossible to me
+after the loss I suffered so many years ago. But it was a madness; and,
+however delicious the madness of youth may be, when a man has reached my
+time of life he knows it to be madness. I have never dared to think what
+would the ultimate end have been had she lived and married me. The
+certainty one has of happiness is the life of love; but that certainty I
+never had. I never knew whether Jacqueline's love would be enough for
+me, even had it been mine; and I could never shake off a horrible fear
+that mine would not be enough for her."
+
+Judith, who had listened silently to this, suddenly leaned forward and
+gazed at him involuntarily. The thought in her mind was, that no
+ordinary woman would be enough for Throckmorton. He could give much, but
+he would ask for much. Like all men of commanding sense and character,
+he was exacting.
+
+Throckmorton could not follow her thought--he only saw her deep and
+expressive eyes, the pensive droop of her mouth, all the refined beauty
+of her face. He began to think how she would blossom out under the
+influence of happiness; what a happy, merry, delightful creature she
+would be if she loved; and something in his fixed and ardent gaze made
+Judith draw back, and brought the slight flush to her face, that meant
+much for her. She trembled a little, and Throckmorton saw it. When he
+returned to Millenbeck, he sat up half the night smoking strong
+cigars--the prosaic way in which his agitations always worked themselves
+off--lost in a delicious reverie of what might be. Here was a woman who
+appealed to his pride as much as to his love. Throckmorton, who was
+practical as well as romantic, thought it a very good thing for a man to
+marry a woman he could be proud of. Yet, when the last embers of the
+library fire had died out, and the cigars had given out too, and he
+began to be chill and stiff, sitting in his great arm-chair, he felt
+discouraged, and said almost out aloud, "I don't believe she will marry
+me."
+
+It grew toward the last days of Throckmorton's stay. He had gone to but
+few places in the county. The temper of the people toward him had
+changed since he first came there; every year had brought its crop of
+tolerance, but it had ceased to be of importance to him. Indeed, but one
+thing mattered to him then--whether Judith would marry him. But he
+deliberately put off the decisive moment until the very afternoon before
+he was to leave. He had in vain tried to find out whether the friendly
+regret at his going that she expressed concealed a deeper feeling, but
+Judith was too clever for him. She had gone through the whole range of
+feeling since she first knew him, and now was better armed than she had
+ever been before.
+
+He walked over to Barn Elms on that last afternoon, feeling very much
+as he had done years before, when, after long waiting, with the thunder
+of cannon in his ears and the smoke of musketry before his eyes, the
+order had come for him to move forward. It was well enough to think and
+plan before--but now, it was time to act; and, just as in that time of
+battle, he became cool and confident as soon as he was brought face to
+face with danger.
+
+He timed his visit just when he knew Judith would be taking her
+afternoon walk with little Beverley. Sure enough, she was out. He stayed
+a little while with General and Mrs. Temple. When he rose to go, he
+said, quite boldly, to Mrs. Temple:
+
+"I am going to find Judith."
+
+He had never called her by her name before, and did it unconsciously.
+Mrs. Temple, though, who was acute as most women are about these things,
+looked at him steadily. Throckmorton colored a little, but his eye had
+never drooped before any woman's, not even Mrs. Temple's. But she, after
+a little pause, laid her hand on his shoulder--he was not a tall man,
+like General Temple, and she could easily reach it--and said: "I hope
+you--will find Judith, George Throckmorton."
+
+He went forth and struck out toward the belt of fragrant pines, where he
+knew Judith oftenest walked. It was spring again--April, with the
+delicious smell of the newly plowed earth in the air, and the faint
+perfume of the coming leaves--the putting-forth time. The entrancing
+stillness that all people born and nurtured in the country love so much
+was upon the soul of Nature. The dreamy and solemn murmur of the pines
+seemed only to make the greater silence obvious. In a little while he
+saw Judith's graceful figure coming his way. She wore a pale-gray gown,
+and a large black hat shaded her face. In her hand she carried a branch
+of the pale-pink dogwood, that does not grow by open roads and
+farm-fields, but in the depths of the woods. Beverley, with another
+branch of dogwood across his shoulder, like a gun, marched sturdily
+ahead of her. Throckmorton, who had carefully guarded his behavior since
+he had been home, was quite reckless now. He meant to risk it, and since
+all depended on the cast of a die, prudence was superfluous. He took
+Judith's hand and held it until he saw the red blood steal into her
+face. He looked at her so, that she could not lift her eyes from the
+ground. Beverley, however, claimed his rights. He and Throckmorton were
+great friends.
+
+"How you _is_?" he asked, offering his chubby hand and looking up
+fearlessly into Throckmorton's face. The child had lost his mother's
+shy, appealing glance. He was a little man, instead of a baby, as he
+often told her proudly. "I'm going to be a soldier, I am," was his next
+remark, "and I'm going to be a brave soldier."
+
+"That's right," said Throckmorton, "and, as I'm a soldier, too, perhaps
+I'll help you along."
+
+"Will you make me a soldier?" asked Beverley, pushing his cap back off
+his curly head.
+
+"Yes, if you will go immediately home--all by yourself. You see--it
+isn't far--just along the path and through the gap, to the orchard, and
+then to the house."
+
+Beverley looked meditatively at the distance. It seemed a perilous way
+for a six-year old. Judith stood, crimson and helpless. Throckmorton was
+a masterful man, and, when he took things in his own hands, he was apt
+to have his own way. She knew at once what he meant, and it gave her a
+kind of shock--she seemed about to be transported to another world. This
+sending away of her child was what nobody had ever done before.
+Throckmorton, smiling, said to the boy, "A soldier shouldn't be afraid."
+
+"I'm not afraid of nothin'," answered Beverley, stoutly. Judith stooped
+toward him, and the child threw his arms about her and kissed her--a
+kiss she passionately returned. She felt it to be her farewell to him as
+the first object of her existence. She knew that he was to be
+supplanted. The boy trotted off, not looking behind once.
+
+"See how brave he is, for a little fellow," she said, still blushing.
+
+"Yes, very brave. But you are a woman of great courage. You gave some of
+it to that boy."
+
+Throckmorton was no laggard in love. He lost not a moment. He, who was
+by nature reticent, became, under the influence of the master-passion,
+bold and ready of speech. Judith, who was by nature of a sweet and
+humorous talkativeness, became eloquently silent--her heart seemed to
+melt into an ineffable softness and yielding. She said one thing,
+though, as they turned to walk home through the delicious purple
+twilight:
+
+"I think men can love more than once; but I don't think women can love
+but once."
+
+Throckmorton perfectly understood her.
+
+When they walked together across the lawn, under the gnarled locusts and
+poplars, they saw General and Mrs. Temple standing on the steps of the
+old house, with little Beverley between them. Throckmorton watched
+Judith jealously to see if there was anything like shame or apology in
+her look; but she, who could not look him in the face when they were
+alone in their secret paradise, now held her head up proudly. Nobody
+could have told, from Throckmorton's quiet self-possession, that
+anything unusual had occurred; but never before had he known anything
+like the deep delight that now enthralled him.
+
+                         THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+A SIX-CYLINDER COURTSHIP, By Edw. Salisbury Field
+
+     With a color frontispiece by Harrison Fisher, and illustrations
+     by Clarence F. Underwood, decorated pages and end sheets.
+     Harrison Fisher head in colors on cover. Boxed.
+
+A story of cleverness. It is a jolly good romance of love at first sight
+that will be read with undoubted pleasure. Automobiling figures in the
+story which is told with light, bright touches, while a happy gift of
+humor permeates it all.
+
+"The book is full of interesting folks. The patois of the garage is used
+with full comic and realistic effect, and effervescently, culminating in
+the usual happy finish."--_St. Louis Mirror._
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW, By Gene Stratton-Porter Author of "FRECKLES"
+
+     With illustrations in color by Oliver Kemp, decorations by
+     Ralph Fletcher Seymour and inlay cover in colors.
+
+The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing
+love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that
+seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the
+most beautiful word painting of nature and its pathos and tender
+sentiment will endear it to all.
+
+JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS, By Alice MacGowan
+
+     With illustrations in colors, and inlay cover by George Wright.
+
+No one can fail to enjoy this moving tale with its lovely and ardent
+heroine, its frank, fearless hero, its glowing love passages, and its
+variety of characters, captivating or engaging, humorous or saturnine,
+villains, rascals, and men of good will. A tale strong and interesting
+in plot, faithful and vivid as a picture of wild mountain life, and in
+its characterization full of warmth and glow.
+
+A MILLION A MINUTE, By Hudson Douglas
+
+     With illustrations by Will Grefe.
+
+Has the catchiest of titles, and it is a ripping good tale from Chapter
+I to Finis--no weighty problems to be solved, but just a fine running
+story, full of exciting incidents, that never seemed strained or
+improbable. It is a dainty love yarn involving three men and a girl.
+There is not a dull or trite situation in the book.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. By George Barr McCutcheon. With Color
+     Frontispiece and other illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
+     Beautiful inlay picture in colors of Beverly on the cover.
+
+"The most fascinating, engrossing and picturesque of the season's
+novels."--_Boston Herald._ "'Beverly' is altogether charming--almost
+living flesh and blood."--_Louisville Times._ "Better than
+'Graustark'."--_Mail and Express._ "A sequel quite as impossible as
+'Graustark' and quite as entertaining."--_Bookman._ "A charming love
+story well told."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+     HALF A ROGUE. By Harold MacGrath. With illustrations and inlay
+     cover picture by Harrison Fisher.
+
+"Here are dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters
+really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick
+movement. 'Half a Rogue' is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious
+morning. It is as varied as an April day. It is as charming as two most
+charming girls can make it. Love and honor and success and all the great
+things worth fighting for and living for the involved in 'Half a
+Rogue.'"--_Phila. Press._
+
+     THE GIRL FROM TIM'S PLACE. By Charles Clark Munn. With
+     illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+"Figuring in the pages of this story there are several strong
+characters. Typical New England folk and an especially sturdy one, old
+Cy Walker, through whose instrumentality Chip comes to happiness and
+fortune. There is a chain of comedy, tragedy, pathos and love, which
+makes a dramatic story."--_Boston Herald._
+
+     THE LION AND THE MOUSE. A story of American Life. By Charles
+     Klein, and Arthur Hornblow. With illustrations by Stuart
+     Travis, and Scenes from the Play.
+
+The novel duplicated the success of the play; in fact the book is
+greater than the play. A portentous clash of dominant personalities that
+form the essence of the play are necessarily touched upon but briefly in
+the short space of four acts. All this is narrated in the novel with a
+wealth of fascinating and absorbing detail, making it one of the most
+powerfully written and exciting works of fiction given to the world in
+years.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With
+     illustrations by Martin Justice.
+
+"As superlatively clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the
+reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is
+handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably
+novel."--_Boston Transcript._ "A feast of humor and good cheer, yet
+subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or
+whimsicality. A merry thing in prose."--_St. Louis Democrat._
+
+     ROSE O' THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations
+     by George Wright.
+
+"'Rose o' the River,' a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written
+and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book--daintily
+illustrated."--_New York Tribune._ "A wholesome, bright, refreshing
+story, an ideal book to give a young girl."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+"An idyllic story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As
+story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to
+the life."--_London Mail._
+
+     TILLIE: A Mennonite Maid. By Helen R. Martin. With
+     illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn.
+
+The little "Mennonite Maid" who wanders through these pages is something
+quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love;
+and she comes into her inheritance at the end. "Tillie is faulty,
+sensitive, big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always
+lovable. Her charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the
+characters skilfully developed."--_The Book Buyer._
+
+     LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. With illustrations
+     by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+"The most marvellous work of its wonderful author."--_New York World._
+"We touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the
+ordinary novelist even to approach."--_London Times._ "In no other story
+has Mrs. Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose's
+Daughter."--_North American Review._
+
+     THE BANKER AND THE BEAR. By Henry K. Webster.
+
+"An exciting and absorbing story."--_New York Times._ "Intensely
+thrilling in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a
+love affair of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on
+the bank which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner
+of exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and
+permanent favor."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE, By Mary Roberts Reinhart With
+     illustrations by Lester Ralph.
+
+In an extended notice the _New York Sun_ says: "To readers who care for
+a really good detective story 'The Circular Staircase' can be
+recommended without reservation." The _Philadelphia Record_ declares
+that "The Circular Staircase" deserves the laurels for thrills, for
+weirdness and things unexplained and inexplicable.
+
+     THE RED YEAR, By Louis Tracy
+
+"Mr. Tracy gives by far the most realistic and impressive pictures of
+the horrors and heroisms of the Indian Mutiny that has been available
+in any book of the kind *** There has not been in modern times in the
+history of any land scenes so fearful, so picturesque, so dramatic, and
+Mr. Tracy draws them as with the pencil of a Verestschagin or the pen of
+a Sienkiewics."
+
+     ARMS AND THE WOMAN, By Harold MacGrath With inlay cover in
+     colors by Harrison Fisher.
+
+The story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages
+with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh
+and blood, and not mere pictures of past centuries. The story is about
+Jack Winthrop, a newspaper man. Mr. MacGrath's finest bit of character
+drawing is seen in Hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and Jack's
+chum.
+
+     LOVE IS THE SUM OF IT ALL, By Geo. Cary Eggleston With
+     illustrations by Hermann Heyer.
+
+In this "plantation romance" Mr. Eggleston has resumed the manner and
+method that made his "Dorothy South" one of the most famous books of its
+time.
+
+There are three tender love stories embodied in it, and two unusually
+interesting heroines, utterly unlike each other, but each possessed of a
+peculiar fascination which wins and holds the reader's sympathy. A
+pleasing vein of gentle humor runs through the work, but the "sum of it
+all" is an intensely sympathetic love story.
+
+     HEARTS AND THE CROSS, By Harold Morton Cramer With
+     illustrations by Harold Matthews Brett.
+
+The hero is an unconventional preacher who follows the line of the Man
+of Galilee, associating with the lowly, and working for them in the ways
+that may best serve them. He is not recognized at his real value except
+by the one woman who saw clearly. Their love story is one of the
+refreshing things in recent fiction.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With
+     illustrations by Rufus Zogbaum.
+
+The standards and life of "the new navy" are breezily set forth with a
+genuine ring impossible from the most gifted "outsider." "The story of
+the destruction of the 'Maine,' and of the Battle of Manila, are very
+dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife
+of another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in 'The Spirit
+of the Service.'"--_The Book Buyer._
+
+     A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
+striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time
+of the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth
+century for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in
+adventure, mystery, peril and suspense.
+
+     THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
+or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
+into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all
+of Miss Murfree's novels.
+
+     THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by
+     Harrison Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.
+
+As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like
+callousness, her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of
+God and man, she was condemned to bury her magnificent personalty, her
+transcendent beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a
+King's left hand. A powerful story powerfully told.
+
+     THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With
+     illustrations by E. Pollak.
+
+A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and
+never attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date
+story of love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern
+improvements. The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner
+and the romance of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for
+the romance, old as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.
+
+A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance
+finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest
+of old-fashioned love stories *** A rare book, exquisite in spirit and
+conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor
+and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.
+
+     DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a
+     frontispiece and inlay cover.
+
+How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life
+made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of
+a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, _Doctor
+Luke_ is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and
+the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are
+expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes
+a note of rare personality.
+
+     THE DAY'S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.
+
+The _London Morning Post_ says: "It would be hard to find better reading
+*** the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end,
+that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till
+they have read the last--and the last is a veritable gem *** contains
+some of the best of his highly vivid work *** Kipling is a born
+story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain."
+
+     ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.
+
+A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss *** an
+entertaining story or a man's redemption through a woman's love *** no
+one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story
+with eyes that are always dry *** goes straight to the heart of everyone
+who knows the meaning of "love" and "home."
+
+     THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated
+     by Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+"Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling
+and romantic situations. So naively fresh in its handling, so plausible
+through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze across the
+far-spreading desert of similar romances."--_Gazette-Times, Pittsburg._
+"A slap-dashing day romance."--_New York Sun._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE FAIR GOD; OR, THE LAST OF THE TZINS. By Lew Wallace. With
+     illustrations by Eric Pape.
+
+"The story tells of the love of a native princess for Alvarado, and it
+is worked out with all of Wallace's skill *** it gives a fine picture of
+the heroism of the Spanish conquerors and of the culture and nobility of
+the Aztecs."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
+
+"_Ben Hur_ sold enormously, but _The Fair God_ was the best of the
+General's stories--a powerful and romantic treatment of the defeat of
+Montezuma by Cortes."--_Athenæum._
+
+     THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. By Louis Tracy.
+
+A story of love and the salt sea--of a helpless ship whirled into the
+hands of cannibal Fuegians--of desperate fighting and tender romance,
+enhanced by the art of a master of story telling who describes with his
+wonted felicity and power of holding the reader's attention *** filled
+with the swing of adventure.
+
+     A MIDNIGHT GUEST. A Detective Story. By Fred M. White. With a
+     frontispiece.
+
+The scene of the story centers in London and Italy. The book is
+skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying,
+exciting detective stories ever written--cleverly keeping the suspense
+and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which precede the
+end.
+
+     THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI. A Romance. By S. Levett Yeats. With
+     cover and wrapper in four colors.
+
+Those who enjoyed Stanley Weyman's _A Gentleman of France_ will be
+engrossed and captivated by this delightful romance of Italian history.
+It is replete with exciting episodes, hair-breath escapes, magnificent
+sword-play, and deals with the agitating times in Italian history when
+Alexander II was Pope and the famous and infamous Borgias were tottering
+to their fall.
+
+    SISTER CARRIE. By Theodore Drieser. With a frontispiece, and
+    wrapper in color.
+
+In all fiction there is probably no more graphic and poignant study of
+the way in which man loses his grip on life, lets his pride, his
+courage, his self-respect slip from him, and, finally, even ceases to
+struggle in the mire that has engulfed him. *** There is more tonic
+value in _Sister Carrie_ than in a whole shelfful of sermons.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin With
+     illustrations by F. C. Yohn.
+
+Additional episodes in the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at
+Riverboro which were not included in the story of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook
+Farm," and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that
+famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as
+in the first.
+
+     THE SILVER BUTTERFLY, By Mrs. Wilson Woodrow With illustrations
+     in colors by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+A story of love and mystery, full of color, charm, and vivacity, dealing
+with a South American mine, rich beyond dreams, and of a New York
+maiden, beyond dreams beautiful--both known as the Silver Butterfly.
+Well named is _The Silver Butterfly_! There could not be a better symbol
+of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery and
+the flashing wit.
+
+     BEATRIX OF CLARE, By John Reed Scott With illustrations by
+     Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+A spirited and irresistibly attractive historical romance of the
+fifteenth century, boldly conceived and skilfully carried out. In the
+hero and heroine Mr. Scott has created a pair whose mingled emotions and
+alternating hopes and fears will find a welcome in many lovers of the
+present hour. Beatrix is a fascinating daughter of Eve.
+
+     A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH, By Joseph Medill Patterson
+     Frontispiece by Hazel Martyn Trudeau, and illustrations by
+     Walter Dean Goldbeck.
+
+Tells the story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of
+society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous
+member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic
+wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme,
+daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged
+before."--_New York Sun._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     BARBARA WINSLOW, REBEL, By Elizabeth Ellis With illustrations
+     by John Rae, and colored inlay cover.
+
+The following, taken from story, will best describe the heroine: A
+TOAST: "To the bravest comrade in misfortune, the sweetest companion in
+peace and at all times the most courageous of women."--_Barbara
+Winslow._ "A romantic story, buoyant, eventful, and in matters of love
+exactly what the heart could desire."--_New York Sun._
+
+     SUSAN, By Ernest Oldmeadow With a color frontispiece by Frank
+     Haviland. Medallion in color on front cover.
+
+Lord Ruddington falls helplessly in love with Miss Langley, whom he sees
+in one of her walks accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a
+misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive
+to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary
+love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a
+droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly
+clever in the telling.
+
+     WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster With illustrations
+     by C. D. Williams.
+
+"The book is a treasure."--_Chicago Daily News._ "Bright, whimsical, and
+thoroughly entertaining."--_Buffalo Express._ "One of the best stories
+of life in a girl's college that has ever been written."--_N.Y. Press._
+"To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book
+cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who
+have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure
+to be no less delightful."--_Public Opinion._
+
+     THE MASQUERADER, By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by
+     Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+"You can't drop it till you have turned the last page."--_Cleveland
+Leader._ "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution,
+almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is
+sublime."--_Boston Transcript._ "The literary hit of a generation.
+The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly
+story."--_St. Louis Dispatch._ "The story is ingeniously told, and
+cleverly constructed."--_The Dial._
+
+     THE GAMBLER, By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by
+     John Campbell.
+
+"Tells of a high strung young Irish woman who has a passion for
+gambling, inherited from a long line of sporting ancestors. She has a
+high sense of honor, too, and that causes complications. She is a very
+human, lovable character, and love saves her."--_N.Y. Times._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
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+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett With inlay cover in
+     colors by Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+This great international romance relates the story of an American girl
+who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an
+Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and
+restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the
+character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love
+story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly
+handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to
+which very few modern novels have attained.
+
+     THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS, By Frances Hodgson Burnett
+     Illustrated with half tone engravings by Charles D. Williams.
+     With initial letters, tail-pieces, decorative borders.
+     Beautifully printed, and daintily bound, and boxed.
+
+A delightful novel in the author's most charming vein. The scene is laid
+in an English country house, where an amiable English nobleman is the
+centre of matrimonial interest on the part of both the English and
+Americans present.
+
+Graceful, sprightly, almost delicious in its dialogue and action. It is
+a book about which one is tempted to write ecstatically.
+
+     THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST, By Francis Hodgson Burnett
+     A Companion Volume to "The Making of a Marchioness."
+     With illustrations by Charles D. Williams, and with initial
+     letters, tail-pieces, and borders, by A. K. Womrath.
+     Beautifully printed and daintily bound, and boxed.
+
+"The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" is a delightful story which combines
+the sweetness of "The Making of a Marchioness," with the dramatic
+qualities of "A Lady of Quality." Lady Walderhurst is one of the most
+charming characters in modern fiction.
+
+     VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner With illustrations by E. Fuhr.
+
+This romance like the author's _The Princess Maritza_ is charged to the
+brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude,
+sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born,
+flourish, and pass away on every page.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES, By Irving Bacheller With
+     illustrations by Arthur Keller.
+
+"Darrel, the clock tinker, is a wit, philosopher, and man of mystery.
+Learned, strong, kindly, dignified, he towers like a giant above the
+people among whom he lives. It is another tale of the North Country,
+full of the odor of wood and field. Wit, humor, pathos and high thinking
+are in this book."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+     D'RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the
+     British. Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U. S. A., By
+     Irving Bacheller With illustrations by F. C. Yohn.
+
+"Mr. Bacheller is admirable alike in his scenes of peace and war. D'ri,
+a mighty hunter, has the same dry humor as Uncle Eb. He fights
+magnificently on the 'Lawrence,' and was among the wounded when Perry
+went to the 'Niagara.' As a romance of early American history it is
+great for the enthusiasm it creates."--_New York Times._
+
+     EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country, By Irving Bacheller.
+
+"As pure as water and as good as bread," says Mr. Howells. "Read 'Eben
+Holden'" is the advice of Margaret Sangster. "It is a forest-scented,
+fresh-aired, bracing and wholly American story of country and town life.
+*** If in the far future our successors wish to know what were the real
+life and atmosphere in which the country folk that saved this nation
+grew, loved, wrought and had their being, they must go back to such true
+and zestful and poetic tales of 'fiction' as 'Eben Holden,'" says Edmund
+Clarence Stedman.
+
+     SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods, By Irving Bacheller With a
+     frontispiece.
+
+"A modern _Leatherstocking_. Brings the city dweller the aroma of the
+pine and the music of the wind in its branches--an epic poem ***
+forest-scented, fresh-aired, and wholly American. A stronger character
+than Eben Holden."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+     VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ, By Irving Bacheller.
+
+A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman patricians whose
+great and perilous love in the reign of Augustus leads them through the
+momentous, exciting events that marked the year just preceding the birth
+of Christ.
+
+Splendid character studies of the Emperor Augustus, of Herod and his
+degenerate son, Antipater, and of his daughter "the incomparable"
+Salome. A great triumph in the art of historical portrait painting.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, ·· NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
+intent.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Throckmorton, by Molly Elliot Seawell
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+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Throckmorton, by Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+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: Throckmorton
+
+Author: Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2011 [EBook #36829]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROCKMORTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<div class="centerbox bbox">
+
+<p class="gap">&#160;</p>
+
+<h1>THROCKMORTON</h1>
+
+<p class="double">&#160;</p>
+
+<h3>A NOVEL</h3>
+
+<h4>BY</h4>
+
+<h3>MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL</h3>
+
+<p class="gap2">&#160;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 81px;">
+<img src="images/ititle.jpg" width="81" height="80" alt="" title="" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="gap2">&#160;</p>
+
+<p class="double">&#160;</p>
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP<br />
+Publishers ::  :: New York</h3></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1890<br />
+By D. Appleton &amp; Co.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1909<br />
+The Bobbs-Merrill Company</span></p>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+<div class="centered">
+<table border="0" width="35%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="1" summary="CONTENTS">
+   <col width="48%" />
+   <col width="4%" />
+   <col width="48%" />
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#THROCKMORTON">Chapter I</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">Chapter VIII</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">Chapter II</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">Chapter IX</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">Chapter III</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Chapter X</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Chapter IV</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">Chapter XI</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">Chapter V</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Chapter XII</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Chapter VI</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">Chapter XIII</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">Chapter VII</a></td>
+<td>&#160;</td>
+<td align="left"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">Chapter XIV</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="THROCKMORTON" id="THROCKMORTON"></a>THROCKMORTON.</h2>
+
+<hr class="tiny" />
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.</h2>
+
+<p>In a lowland Virginia neighborhood, strangely cut off from the rest of
+the world geographically, and wrapped in a profound and charming
+stillness, a little universe exists. It has its oracles of law,
+medicine, and divinity; its wars and alliances. Free from that outward
+contact which makes an intolerable sameness among people, its types
+develop quaintly. There is peace, and elbow-room for everybody&#8217;s
+peculiarities.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the Severn neighborhood&mdash;called so from Severn church. Every
+brick in this old pile had been brought from green England two hundred
+years before. It seemed as if, in those early days, nothing made with
+hands should be without picturesqueness; and so this ancient church,
+paid for in hogsheads of black tobacco, which was also the currency in
+which the hard-riding, hard-drinking parsons took their dues, was peaked
+and gabled most beautifully. The bricks, mellowed by two centuries, had
+become a rich, dull red, upon which, year after year, in the enchanted
+Southern summers and the fitful Southern winters, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>mosses and gray
+lichens laid their clinging fingers. It was set far back from the broad,
+white road, and gnarled live-oaks and silver beeches and the melancholy
+weeping-willows grew about the churchyard. Their roots had pushed, with
+gentle persistence, through the crumbling brick wall that surrounded it,
+where most of the tombstones rested peacefully upon the ground as they
+chanced to fall. Within the church itself, modern low-backed pews had
+supplanted the ancient square boxes during an outbreak of philistinism
+in the fifties. At the same time, a wooden flooring had been laid over
+the flat stones in the aisles, under which dead and gone vicars&mdash;for the
+parish had a vicar in colonial days&mdash;slept quietly. The interior was
+darkened by the branches of the trees that pressed against the wall and
+peered curiously through the small, clear panes of the oblong windows;
+and over all the singular, unbroken peace and silence of the region
+brooded.</p>
+
+<p>The country round about was fruitful and tame, the slightly rolling
+landscape becoming as flat as Holland toward the rich river-bottoms. The
+rivers were really estuaries, making in from the salt ocean bays, and as
+briny as the sea itself. Next the church was the parsonage land, still
+known as the Glebe, although glebes and tithes had been dead these
+hundred years. The Glebe house, which was originally plain and
+old-fashioned, had been smartened up by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>the rector, the Rev. Edmund
+Morford, until it looked like an old country-woman masquerading in a
+ballet costume; but the Rev. Edmund thought it beautiful, and only
+watched his chance to lay sacrilegious hands on the old church and to
+plaster it all over with ecclesiastical knickknacks of various sorts.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Mr. Morford had come into the world handicapped by the most
+remarkable personal beauty, and extreme fluency of tongue. Otherwise, he
+was an honest and conscientious man. But he belonged to that common
+class among ecclesiastics who know all about the unknowable, and have
+accurately measured the unfathomable. On Sundays, when he got up in the
+venerable pulpit at Severn, looking so amazingly handsome in his
+snow-white surplice, he dived into the everlasting mysteries with a
+cocksureness that was appalling or delightful according to the view one
+took of it. In the tabernacle of his soul, which was quite empty of
+guile and malice, three devils had taken up their abode: one was the
+conviction of his own beauty, another was the conviction of his own
+cleverness, and still another was the suspicion that every woman who
+looked at him wanted to marry him. Mr. Morford reasoned thus:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>I. That all women want to get married.<br />
+II. That an Edmund Morford is not to be picked up every day.<br />
+III. That eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.</p></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p><p>On Sundays he scarcely dared look toward the pew where General and Mrs.
+Temple sat, with their beautiful widowed daughter-in-law, Mrs. Beverley
+Temple, on one side of them, and Jacqueline Temple, as lovely in her
+small, kittenish way, on the other, for fear that one or the other of
+these young women would fall hopelessly in love with him. Mrs. Beverley,
+as the young widow was called, to distinguish her from the elder Mrs.
+Temple, had the fatal charm for the Rev. Edmund that all things feared
+and admired have. He believed in his heart of hearts that widows were
+made for his undoing, and that the good old Hindoo custom of burning
+them up alive was the only really safe disposition to make of them. The
+charm of Judith Temple&#8217;s piquant face and soft, shy eyes was somewhat
+neutralized by a grim suspicion lodged in Mr. Morford&#8217;s mind that she
+was unnecessarily clever. The Rev. Edmund had a wholesome awe of clever
+women, especially if they had a knack of humor, and was very much afraid
+of them. Judith had a sedate way of replying to Morford&#8217;s resounding
+platitudes that sometimes created a laugh, and when he laboriously
+unwound the meaning, he was apt to find the germ of a joke; and Judith
+was so grave&mdash;her eyes were so sweetly serious when she was laying traps
+to catch the Rev. Edmund&#8217;s sluggish wits. But Judith herself thought of
+no man whatever, and had <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>learned to regard the sparkle of her
+unquenchable humor almost as a sin. However, having got a bad name for
+cleverness, neither the most sincere modesty nor the deepest courtesy
+availed her in keeping it quiet. Morford, in his simple soul, thought a
+clever woman could do anything; and suppose Judith should cast her eyes
+on&mdash;at this the Rev. Edmund would turn pale in the midst of his sermon
+when he caught Judith&#8217;s gray eyes fixed soberly on him. Soberness&mdash;and
+particularly Judith&#8217;s soberness&mdash;was deceitful.</p>
+
+<p>Barn Elms, the Temple place, was near to the Glebe and to Severn church.
+The house was rambling and shabby, and had been patched and pieced, with
+an utter disregard of architectural proportion that resulted in a
+curious and unexpected picturesqueness. A room was put on here, and a
+porch was clapped up there, just as the fancy of each successive Temple
+had dictated. It was partly of brick and partly of stone. Around it
+stood in tall ranks the solemn, black-leaved poplars, and great
+locust-trees grew so close to the house that on windy nights the sound
+of their giant arms beating the shingled roof awoke superstitious fears
+in the negroes, who declared it to be the &#8220;sperrits&#8221; of dead and gone
+Temples struggling to get in through the chimneys. There was a step up
+or a step down in every room in the house, and draughts enough in the
+unnecessary halls and passages to turn a windmill. There was, of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span>course, that queer mixture of shabbiness and luxury about the old place
+and the mode of living that is characteristic of Virginia. Mrs. Temple
+had piles and piles of linen sheets laid away with the leaves of damask
+roses between them in the old cedar chests, but half the rooms and all
+the stairs and passages were uncarpeted. It required the services of an
+able-bodied negro to keep these floors polished&mdash;but polished they were,
+like a looking-glass. The instrument used in this process was called a
+&#8220;dry-rubbin&#8217; bresh&#8221; by the manipulators, and might well have been used
+in Palestine during the days of Herod the tetrarch, being merely a block
+of wood covered with a sheepskin, well matted with wax and turpentine.
+At unearthly hours, in cold winter mornings and gray summer dawns, the
+monotonous echo of this &#8220;bresh&#8221; going up and down the hall-floors was
+the earliest sound in the Barn Elms house. There was a full service of
+silver plate displayed upon a huge and rickety mahogany sideboard, but
+there was a lack of teaspoons. Mrs. Temple had every day a dinner fit
+for a king, but General Temple was invariably behindhand with his taxes.
+The general&#8217;s first purchase after the war was a pair of splendid
+Kentucky horses to pull the old carriage bought when Mrs. Temple was a
+bride, and which was so moth-eaten and worm-eaten and rust-eaten that
+when it started out it was a wonder that it ever came back again. The
+kitchen was a hundred yards from the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>house in one direction, and the
+well, with its old-fashioned bucket and sweep, was a hundred yards off
+in another direction. The ice-house and stables were completely out of
+sight; while the negro houses, annually whitewashed a glaring white,
+were rather too near. But none of these things annoyed General and Mrs.
+Temple, who would have stared in gentle surprise at the hint that
+anything at Barn Elms could be improved.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple, six feet tall, as straight as an Indian, with a rich,
+commanding voice and a lofty stride, stood for the shadow of domestic
+authority; while Mrs. Temple, a gentle, affectionate, soft-spoken,
+devoted, and obstinate woman, who barely reached to the general&#8217;s elbow,
+was the actual substance. From the day of their marriage he had never
+questioned her decision upon any subject whatever, although an elaborate
+fiction of marital authority was maintained between them and devoutly
+believed in by both. Mrs. Temple always consulted the general
+punctiliously&mdash;when she had made up her mind&mdash;and General Temple, after
+a ponderous pretense of thinking it over, would say in his fine,
+sonorous voice: &#8220;My dear Jane, the conviction of your extremely sound
+judgment, formed from my experience of you during thirty years of
+married life, inclines me to the opinion that your suggestion is
+admirable. You have my permission, my love&#8221;&mdash;a permission Mrs. Temple
+never <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>failed to accept with wifely gratitude, and, like the general,
+really thought it amounted to something. This status is extremely common
+in Virginia, where, as a rule, the men have a magnificent but imaginary
+empire, and the women conduct the serious business of life.</p>
+
+<p>Brave, chivalrous, generous, loving God and revering woman, General
+Temple was as near a monster of perfection as could be imagined, except
+when he had the gout. Then he became transformed into a full-blown
+demon. From the most optimistic form of Episcopal faith, he lapsed into
+the darkest Calvinism as soon as he felt the first twinge of his malady,
+and by the time he was a prisoner in the &#8220;charmber,&#8221; as the bedroom of
+the mistress of the family is called in Virginia, he believed that the
+whole world was created to be damned. Never had General Temple been
+known under the most violent provocation to use profane language; but
+under the baleful influence of gout and superheated religion combined,
+he always swore like a pirate. His womenkind, who quietly bullied him
+during the best part of the year, found him a person to be feared when
+he began to have doubts about freewill and election. To this an
+exception must be made in favor of Mrs. Temple and of Delilah, the
+household factotum, who was no more afraid of General Temple than Mrs.
+Temple was. She it was who was mainly responsible for these carnivals of
+gout by feeding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>the patient on fried oysters and plum-pudding when Dr.
+Wortley prescribed gruel and tapioca. Delilah was one of the
+unterrified, and used these spells to preach boldly at General Temple
+the doctrines of the &#8220;Foot-washin&#8217; Baptisses,&#8221; a large and influential
+colored sect to which she belonged.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ole marse,&#8221; Delilah would begin, argumentatively, &#8220;if you wuz ter jine
+de Foot-washers&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane! Jane!&#8221; General Temple would shout.&mdash;&#8220;Come here, my love. If you
+don&#8217;t get rid of this infernal old fool, who wants absolutely to dragoon
+me out of my religion, I&#8217;ll be damned if I&mdash;God forgive me for
+swearing&mdash;and you, my dear&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes these theological discussions had been known to end by
+Delilah&#8217;s flying out of the room, with the general&#8217;s boot-jack whizzing
+after her. At Mrs. Temple&#8217;s appearance, though, the emeute would be
+instantly quelled. Delilah was also actively at war with Dr. Wortley, as
+the black mammies and the doctors invariably were, and during the visits
+of the doctor, who was a peppery little man, it was no infrequent thing
+to hear his shrill falsetto, the general&#8217;s loud basso, and Delilah&#8217;s
+emphatic treble all combined in an angry three-cornered discussion
+carried on at the top of their lungs.</p>
+
+<p>Like mistress, like maid. As Mrs. Temple ruled the general, Delilah
+ruled Simon Peter, her husband, who since the war was butler, coachman,
+gardener, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>and man-of-all-work at Barn Elms. Mrs. Temple, however, ruled
+with circumlocution as well as circumspection, and had not words
+sufficient to condemn women who attempt to govern their husbands. But
+Delilah had no such scruples, and frequently treated Simon Peter to
+remarks like these:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Menfolks is mighty consequenchical. Dey strut &#8217;bout, an&#8217; dey cusses an&#8217;
+damns, an&#8217; de womenfolks do all de thinkin&#8217; an&#8217; de wukkin&#8217;. How long you
+think ole marse keep dis heah plantation if it warn&#8217;t fur mistis?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look a heah, &#8217;oman,&#8221; Simon Peter would retaliate, when intolerably
+goaded, &#8220;Paul de &#8217;postle say&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What anybody keer fur Paul de &#8217;postle? Womenfolks ain&#8217; got no use fur
+dat ole bachelor. Men is cornvenient fur ter tote water, an&#8217; I ain&#8217; seen
+nuttin&#8217; else much dey is good fur.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Simon Peter&#8217;s entire absence of style partly accounted for the low
+opinion of his abilities entertained by his better half. He was slouchy
+and sheep-faced, and, when he appeared upon great occasions in one of
+General Temple&#8217;s cast-off coats, the tails dragged the ground, while the
+sleeves had to be turned back nearly to the elbow. Delilah, on the
+contrary, was as tall as a grenadier, and had an air of command second
+only to General Temple himself and much more genuine. She was addicted
+to loud, linsey-woolsey plaids, and on her head was an immaculately
+white <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>&#8220;handkercher&#8221; knotted into a turban that would have done credit
+to the Osmanlis.</p>
+
+<p>The war had given General Temple the opportunity of his lifetime. He
+&#8220;tendered his sword to his State,&#8221; as he expressed it, immediately
+organized Temple&#8217;s Brigade, and thereafter won a reputation as the
+bravest and most incompetent commander of his day. His ideas of a
+brigade commander were admirably suited to the middle ages. He would
+have been great with Richard C&oelig;ur de Lion at the siege of Ascalon,
+but of modern warfare the general was as innocent as a babe. It was
+commonly reported that, the first time he led his brigade into action,
+he did not find it again for three days. His men called him Pop, and
+always cheered him vociferously, but pointedly declined to follow him
+wherever he should lead, which was invariably where he oughtn&#8217;t to have
+been. He had innumerable horses shot under him, but, by a succession of
+miracles, escaped wounds or capture. It was a serious mortification to
+the general that he should have come out of the war with both arms and
+both legs; and it was marvelous, considering that he put himself in
+direct line of fire upon every possible occasion, and galloped furiously
+about, waving his sword whenever he was in a particularly ticklish
+place.</p>
+
+<p>Since the war General Temple had found congenial employment in studying
+the art of war as exemplified <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>in books, and in writing a History of
+Temple&#8217;s Brigade. As he knew less about it than any man in it, his
+undertaking was a considerable one, especially as he had to give a
+personal sketch, with pedigree and anecdotes, of every member of the
+brigade. He had started out to complete this great work in three
+volumes, but it looked as if ten would be nearer the mark. As regards
+the theory of war, General Temple soon became an expert, and knew by
+heart every campaign of importance from those of Hannibal, the one-eyed
+son of Hamilcar, down to Appomattox. A good deal of the money that would
+have paid his taxes went into the general&#8217;s military library, which was
+a source of endless pride to him, and which caused the History of
+Temple&#8217;s Brigade to be, in some sort, a history of all wars, ancient and
+modern.</p>
+
+<p>The pride and satisfaction this literary work of his gave the general&#8217;s
+honest heart can not be described. He read passages of it aloud to Mrs.
+Temple and Judith and Jacqueline in the solemn evenings in the old
+country-house, his resonant voice echoing through the old-fashioned,
+low-pitched drawing-room. Mrs. Temple listened sedately and admiringly,
+and thanked Heaven for having given her this prodigy of valor and
+learning. Nor, after hearing the History of Temple&#8217;s Brigade all the
+evening, was she wearied when, at two o&#8217;clock in the morning, General
+Temple would have a wakeful period, and striding up and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>down the
+bedroom floor, wrapped in a big blanket over his dressing-gown,
+declaimed and dissected all the campaigns of the war, from Big Bethel to
+Appomattox. Mrs. Temple, sitting up in bed, with the most placid air in
+the world, would listen, and thank and admire and love more than ever
+this hero, whom she had wrapped around her finger for the last thirty
+years. O blessed ignorance&mdash;O happy blindness of women! which gracious
+boon God has not withheld from any of the sex. But there was something
+else that made General Temple&#8217;s long-winded war stories so deeply,
+tragically interesting to Mrs. Temple. There had been a son&mdash;the husband
+of the handsome daughter-in-law&mdash;Mrs. Temple could not yet speak his
+name without a sob in her voice. That was what she had given to the
+great fight. When the news of his death came, General Temple, who had
+never before dreamed of helping Mrs. Temple&#8217;s stronger nature, had
+ridden night and day to be with her at that supreme moment, knowing that
+the blow would crush her if it did not kill her. She came out of the
+furnace alive but unforgetting. She would not herself forget Beverley,
+nor would she allow anybody else to forget him. She remembered his
+anniversaries, she cherished his belongings; she, this tender,
+excellent, self-sacrificing woman, sacrificed, as far as she could,
+herself and everybody else to the memory of the dead and gone Beverley.
+As fast as one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>crape band on the general&#8217;s hat wore out, she herself,
+with trembling hands, sewed another one on. As for herself, she would
+have thought it sacrilege to have worn anything but the deepest black;
+and Judith, after four years of widowhood, wore, whether willingly or
+unwillingly, the severest widow&#8217;s garb. Jacqueline alone had been
+suffered, out of consideration for her youth and the general&#8217;s pleading,
+to put on colors. The girl, who was beautiful and simple, but quite
+different from other girls, in her heart cherished a hatred against this
+memory of the dead, that had made her youth so sad, so encompassed with
+death. Jacqueline loved life and feared death; and whenever her mother
+began to speak of Beverley, which she did a dozen times a day,
+Jacqueline&#8217;s shoulders would twitch impatiently. She longed to say:
+&#8220;What is he to us? He is dead&mdash;and we live. Why can&#8217;t he be allowed to
+rest in peace, like other dead people?&#8221; Jacqueline was far from
+heartless; she loved her sister-in-law twice as well as she had ever
+loved her handsome silent brother, whose death made no gap in her life,
+but had ruthlessly barred out all brightness from it. Jacqueline, in her
+soul, longed for luxury and comfort. All the discrepancies and
+deficiencies at Barn Elms were actually painful to her, although she had
+been used to them all her life. She wanted a new piano instead of the
+wheezy old machine in the drawing-room. She wanted a thousand <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>things,
+and, to make her dissatisfaction with Barn Elms more complete, not a
+quarter of a mile away, across a short stretch of feathery pine-trees,
+on a knoll, stood a really great house, Millenbeck by name. To
+Jacqueline&#8217;s inexperienced eyes, the large square brick house, with its
+stone balustrade around the roof, its broad porch, with marble steps
+that shone whitely through the trees around it, was quite palatial. And
+nobody at all lived there. It was the family place of the Throckmortons.
+The last Throckmorton in the county was dead and gone; but there was
+another&mdash;grandson to the last&mdash;a certain Major George Throckmorton, who,
+although Virginian born and bred, had remained in the regular army all
+through the war, and was still in it. This George Throckmorton had spent
+his boyhood at Millenbeck with his grandfather, who was evil tempered
+and morose, and thoroughly wicked in every way. The old man had gone to
+his account during the war, and since then his creditors had been
+fighting over his assets, which consisted of Millenbeck alone. Major
+Throckmorton had money, and it had been whispered about that, whenever
+Millenbeck was sold, this army Throckmorton would buy it. But it was
+freely predicted that he would never dare show his face in his native
+county after his turpitude during the war in fighting against his State,
+and he was commonly alluded to as a traitor. Nevertheless, at Severn
+church, one Sunday, it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>said that this Throckmorton had bought
+Millenbeck, and would shortly make his appearance there.</p>
+
+<p>General and Mrs. Temple, as they sat on opposite sides of the fireplace
+at Barn Elms, discussing the matter with the profound gravity that the
+advent of a new neighbor in the country requires, to say nothing of the
+sensation of having a traitor at one&#8217;s doors, came nearer disagreeing
+than usual. The night was cool, although it was early in September, and
+a little fire sparkled cheerfully upon the brass andirons on the hearth
+in the low-pitched, comfortable, shabby drawing-room. Mrs. Temple,
+clicking her knitting-needles placidly, with her soft eyes fixed on the
+fire, went over the enormity of those to whom Beverley&#8217;s death was due.
+To her, the gentlest and at the same time the sternest of women, the war
+took on a personal aspect that would have been ludicrous had it not been
+pathetic. Ah! what was that boy that Beverley had left, what was Judith
+the young widow, or even Jacqueline, to that lost son? Nothing, nothing!
+Mrs. Temple, still gazing at the fire, saw in her mind, as she saw every
+hour of the day and many of the night, the dead man lying stark and
+cold; and, as if in answer to her thoughts, General Temple spoke, laying
+down his volume of Jomini:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My love, what will you do&mdash;ahem! what would you recommend me to do
+regarding George Throckmorton when he arrives? Speak frankly, my dear,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>and do not be timid about giving me your opinion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A curious kind of resentment shone in Mrs. Temple&#8217;s face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not for a woman to guide her husband; but <i>we</i> at least can not
+forget what the war has cost us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>General Temple sighed. He had heard that Throckmorton had got a year&#8217;s
+leave and would probably spend it at Millenbeck. How fascinating did the
+prospect appear of a real military man with whom he could discuss plans
+of campaign, and flank movements, and reconnaissances, and all the
+<i>technique</i> of war in which his soul delighted! For, although Dr.
+Wortley had become a great military critic, as everybody was in those
+days, he had never smelt powder, and was a very inferior antagonist for
+a brigadier-general, who had been in sixteen pitched battles without
+understanding the first thing about any of them.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline, who sat in her own little chair, with her feet on a
+footstool, and her elbows on her knees, began in an injured voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And the house is going to be perfectly grand. Mrs. Sherrard told me
+about it to-day. A whole parcel of people&#8221;&mdash;Jacqueline was a provincial,
+although an amazingly pretty one&mdash;&#8220;a whole parcel of people came by the
+boat&mdash;workmen and servants, and most splendid furniture, carpets, and
+pictures, and cabinets, and all sorts of elegant things&mdash;just for those
+two <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>men&mdash;for there is a young man, too&mdash;Jack is his name.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; said Mrs. Temple, meditatively, as she still clicked her
+knitting-needles together with a pleasant musical sound, &#8220;the boy must
+be about twenty-two. George Throckmorton I well remember was married at
+twenty-one to a pretty slip of a girl, so I&#8217;ve heard, who lived a very
+little while. He can&#8217;t be more than forty-four now. He is the last man I
+ever supposed would ever turn traitor. He was the finest lad&mdash;I remember
+him so well when he was a handsome black-eyed boy; and when we were
+first married&mdash;don&#8217;t you recollect, my dear?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>General Temple rose gallantly, and, taking Mrs. Temple&#8217;s hand in his,
+kissed it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Can you ask me, my love, if I remember anything connected with that
+most interesting period of my life?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>Neither the handsome Judith nor little Jacqueline were at all
+discomposed by this elderly love-making, to which they were perfectly
+accustomed. A slight blush came into Mrs. Temple&#8217;s refined, middle-aged
+face. It was worth while to coddle a man, and take all the labor of
+thinking and acting off his shoulders, for the sake of this delightful
+sentiment. Like his courage, General Temple&#8217;s sentiment was high-flown
+but genuine.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was about to say,&#8221; resumed Mrs. Temple, when <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>the general had
+returned to his chair, &#8220;that when I came to Barn Elms a bride, George
+Throckmorton was much here. You did not notice him, my love, as I
+did&mdash;but I felt sorry for the boy; old George Throckmorton certainly was
+a most godless person. The boy&#8217;s life would have been quite wretched, I
+think, in spite of his grandfather&#8217;s liberality to him, but for the few
+people in the neighborhood like Kitty Sherrard and myself, who tried to
+comfort him. He would come over in the morning and stay all day,
+following me about the house and garden, trying to amuse Beverley, who
+was a mere baby.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple never spoke the name of her dead son without a strange
+little pause before it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And, my dear,&#8221; answered the general, making another feeble effort, &#8220;can
+you not now embrace the scriptural injunction?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Scripture says,&#8221; responded sternly this otherwise gentle and
+Christian soul, &#8220;that there is a time to love and a time to hate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>All this time, Judith, the young widow, had not said a word. She was
+slight and girlish-looking. Her straight dark brows were drawn with a
+single line, and in her eyes were gleams of mirth, of intelligence, of a
+love of life and its pleasures, that habitual restraint could not wholly
+subdue. When she rose, or when she sat down, or when she walked about,
+or when she arched her white neck, there was a singular <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>grace, of which
+she was totally unconscious. Something about her suggested both love and
+modesty. But Fate, that had used her as if she were a creature without a
+soul, had married her to Beverley Temple&mdash;and within two months she was
+a widow. The shock, the horror of it, the willingness to idealize the
+dead man, had made her quietly assume the part of one who is done with
+this world. And Nature struggles vainly with Fate. Judith, in her black
+gown, and a widow&#8217;s cap over her chestnut hair, with her pretty air of
+wisdom and experience, fancied she had sounded the whole gamut of human
+love, grief, loss, and joy. Neither Millenbeck, nor anything but
+Beverley&#8217;s child and his father and mother and sister, mattered anything
+to her, she thought.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline, however, looked rebellious, but said nothing. Like her
+father, she was under the rule of this soft-voiced mother. But it was
+certainly very hard, thought Jacqueline, bitterly, that with Millenbeck
+beautifully fitted up, with a delightful young man like Jack
+Throckmorton&mdash;for Jacqueline had already endowed him with all the graces
+and virtues&mdash;and a not old man, a soldier too, should be right at their
+doors, and she never to have a glimpse of Millenbeck, nor a chance for
+walks and drives with them. Jacqueline sighed profoundly, and looked
+despairingly at Judith, who was the stay, the prop, the comforter of
+this undisciplined young creature.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p>Within a few days Throckmorton and Jack Throckmorton&mdash;the traitor and
+the traitor&#8217;s son&mdash;had arrived at Millenbeck.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline could talk of nothing but the dawning splendors of the place.
+Delilah, who had an appetite for the marvelous scarcely inferior to
+Jacqueline&#8217;s, kept her on the rack with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dey done put Bruskins carpets all over de house,&#8221; she retailed solemnly
+into Jacqueline&#8217;s greedy ears, &#8220;an&#8217; velvet sofys an&#8217; cheers, an&#8217; de
+lookin&#8217;-glasses from de garret ter de cellar. An&#8217; dey got a white man
+name&#8217; Sweeney&mdash;mighty po&#8217; white trash, Simon Peter say&mdash;dat is a white
+nigger, an&#8217; he talk mighty cu&#8217;rus. Simon Peter he meet him in de road,
+an&#8217; dis heah Mis&#8217; Sweeney he ax him ef dey was any Orrish gentmans &#8217;bout
+here. Simon Peter he say he never heerd o&#8217; no sich things ez Orrish
+gentmans, an&#8217; Mis&#8217; Sweeney he lif&#8217; up he stick, an&#8217; Simon Peter he took
+ter he heels an&#8217; Mis&#8217; Sweeney arter him, an&#8217; Simon Peter &#8217;low ef he
+hadn&#8217;t run down in de swamp, Mis&#8217; Sweeney would er kilt him, sho&#8217;! An&#8217;
+he doan&#8217; min&#8217; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>blackin&#8217; de boots at Millenbeck an&#8217; milk de cows, an&#8217; den
+he dress up fine an&#8217; wait on de table&mdash;an&#8217; he a white man, too! He done
+tell some folks he wuz a soldier an&#8217; fit, an&#8217; he gwine ev&#8217;ywhar Marse
+George Throckmorton go, ef it twuz hell itself. Things is monst&#8217;ous fine
+at Millenbeck&mdash;<i>dat</i> dey is&mdash;an&#8217; all fur dem two menfolks. Seem like God
+A&#8217;mighty done give all de good times ter de menfolks an&#8217; all de hard
+times ter de womenfolks.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is that so, mammy?&#8221; asked Jacqueline, dolefully, who was simple of
+soul, and disposed to believe everything Delilah told her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dat &#8217;tis, chile, ez sho&#8217;&mdash;ez sho&#8217; ez God&#8217;s truf. De menfolks jes&#8217; lives
+fur ter be frustratin&#8217; an&#8217; owdacious ter de po&#8217; womenfolks, what byar de
+burdens. I tell Simon Peter so ev&#8217;y day; but dat nigger he doan&#8217; worrit
+much &#8217;bout what de po&#8217; womenfolks has got ter orndure. Men is mighty
+po&#8217;, vain, weak creetures&mdash;<i>I</i> tell Simon Peter dat too ev&#8217;y day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dat you does,&#8221; piously responded Simon Peter.</p>
+
+<p>The windows to Judith&#8217;s room possessed a strange fascination in those
+days for Jacqueline, because they looked straight out to Millenbeck.
+There she stood for hours, dreaming, speculating, thinking out aloud.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Just think, Judith; there is a great big hall there that mamma says has
+a splendid dancing-floor!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacky, stop thinking about Millenbeck and the dancing-floor. It doesn&#8217;t
+concern you, and you know <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>that mother will never let you speak to
+either of the Throckmortons,&#8221; answered Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I know it,&#8221; said Jacqueline, disconsolately. &#8220;The more&#8217;s the pity.
+Papa is dying to be friends with them when they come; but, of course,
+mamma won&#8217;t let him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline&#8217;s voice was usually high-pitched, rapid, and musical, but
+whenever she meant to be saucy she brought it down to great meekness and
+modesty.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Major Throckmorton, you know, is a widower. I don&#8217;t believe in grieving
+forever, like mamma. Suppose, now, Judith, <i>you</i> should&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Judith, whose indulgence to Jacqueline rarely failed, now rose up
+with a pale face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline, you forget yourself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Usually one rebuke of the sort was enough for Jacqueline, but this time
+it was not. She came and clasped Judith around the waist, and held her
+tight, looking into her eyes with a sort of timid boldness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Just let me say one thing. Mamma is sacrificing all of us&mdash;you and me
+and papa&mdash;to&mdash;to Beverley&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hush, Jacqueline!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I won&#8217;t hush. Judith, how long was it from the time you first met
+Beverley until you married him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Two months.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how much of that time were you together?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Two&mdash;weeks,&#8221; answered Judith, falteringly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And then you married him, and you had hardly any honeymoon, didn&#8217;t
+you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A very short one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Beverley went away, and never came back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was a short silence. Jacqueline was nerving herself to say what
+had been burning upon her lips for long.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then&mdash;then, Judith, he was so little <i>in</i> your life&mdash;he was so little
+<i>of</i> your life.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Jacqueline, when one loves, it makes no difference whether it is a
+month or a year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, when one loves; but, Judith, did you love Beverley <i>that</i> way?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith stood quite still and pale. The thought was then put in words
+that had haunted her. She no longer thought of answering Jacqueline, but
+of answering herself. Was it, indeed, because she was so young, so
+entirely alone in the world, and, in truth, had known so little of the
+man she married, that it became difficult for her to recall even his
+features; that she felt something like a pang of conscience when Mrs.
+Temple spoke his name; that this perpetual kindness to his father and
+his mother seemed a sort of reparation? Jacqueline, seeing the change in
+Judith&#8217;s face, went softly out of the room. Judith stood where
+Jacqueline had left her. Presently the door opened, and little Beverley
+came in, and made a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>dash for his mother. Judith seized him in her arms,
+and knelt down before him, and for the thousandth time tried to find a
+trace of his father in his face. But there was none. His eyes, his
+mouth, his expression, were all hers. Even the little bronze rings of
+hair that escaped from under her widow&#8217;s cap were faithfully reproduced
+on the child&#8217;s baby forehead. This strong resemblance to his mother was
+a thorn in Mrs. Temple&#8217;s side. She would have had the boy his father&#8217;s
+image. She would have had him grave and given to serious, thoughtful
+games, and to hanging about older people, such as her Beverley had been;
+but this merry youngster was always laughing when he was not crying, and
+was noisy and troublesome, as most healthy young animals are. Yet she
+adored him.</p>
+
+<p>The boy soon got tired of his mother&#8217;s arms around him, and
+uncomfortable under her tender, searching gaze.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want to go to my mammy,&#8221; he lisped.</p>
+
+<p>Judith rose and led him by the hand down-stairs to Delilah. The child
+ran to his mammy with a shout of delight. His mother sometimes awed his
+baby soul with her gravity, when he had been naughty. Often he could not
+get what he wanted by crying for it, and got smart slaps upon his plump
+little palms when he cried. But with Delilah there was none of this.
+Delilah represented a beneficent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>Providence to him, which permitted
+naughtiness, and had no limit to jam and buttermilk.</p>
+
+<p>The Throckmortons had at last come, but had kept very close to
+Millenbeck for a week or two after their arrival in the county; but on
+one still, sunny September Sunday at Severn church, just as the Rev.
+Edmund Morford appeared out of the little robing-room, after having
+surveyed himself carefully in the mite of a looking-glass, and satisfied
+himself that his adornment was in keeping with his beauty, two gentlemen
+came in quietly at a side door, and took their seats in the first vacant
+pew. They looked more like an elder and a younger brother than father
+and son. Both had the same square-shouldered, well-knit figures, not
+over middle height&mdash;the same contour of face, the same dark eyes. But it
+was a type which was at its best in maturity. Major Throckmorton was
+much the handsomer man of the two, although, as Judith Temple said some
+time after, when called upon to describe him, that handsome scarcely
+applied to him&mdash;he was rather distinguished than actually handsome&mdash;and
+she blushed unnecessarily as she said it. His hair and mustache were
+quite iron-gray, and he had the unmistakable look and carriage of a
+military man. The pew they took near the door was against the wall of
+the church, and in effect facing the Temple pew, where sat all the
+family from Barn Elms, including little Beverley, who <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span>looked a picture
+of childish misery, compelled to be preternaturally good, until sleep
+overcame him, and his yellow mop of hair fell over against his mother.
+Young Throckmorton, whose eyes were full of a sort of gay curiosity, let
+his gaze wander furtively over the congregation, and in two minutes knew
+every pretty face in the church. The two prettiest were unquestionably
+in the Temple pew. Without boldness or obtrusiveness, he managed to keep
+every glance and every motion in that pew in sight; and Jacqueline, by
+something like psychic force, knew it, and conveyed to him the idea that
+no glance of his escaped her. Nevertheless, she was very devout, and the
+only look she gave him was over the top of her prayer-book. Judith, with
+her large, clear gaze fixed on the clergyman, was in her way as
+conscious as Jacqueline. But Throckmorton saw nothing and nobody for a
+time, except that he was back again in Severn church after thirty years.
+How well he remembered it all!&mdash;the little dark gallery to the right of
+the pulpit, where in the old times Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard had
+sat, and sung the old, old hymns, their sweet, untrained voices rising
+into the dark, cobwebbed, resonant roof&mdash;voices as natural as that of
+the sweet, shy singing birds that twittered under the eaves of the old
+church, and built their nests safely and peacefully in the solemn yews
+and weeping-willows of the burying-ground close by. The September
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>sunlight, as it sifted through the windows on the heads of the kneeling
+people&mdash;even the droning of the honey-bees outside, and the occasional
+incursion of a buzzing marauder through the windows&mdash;made him feel as if
+he were in a dream. It was not the recollection of a happy boyhood that
+had brought him back to Millenbeck. He remembered his grandfather as an
+old curmudgeon, the terror of his negroes and dependents, wasteful, a
+high liver, and a hard drinker; and himself a lonely boy, with neither
+mother nor sister, nor any sort of kindness to brighten his boyish soul,
+except those good women, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard. Deep down in his
+being was that Anglo-Saxon love of the soil&mdash;the desire to return whence
+he came. He knew much of the world, and doubted if the experiment of
+returning to Millenbeck would succeed, but he at least determined to try
+it. He had no very serious notion of abandoning his profession, which he
+loved, while he grumbled at it, but he had had this project of a year&#8217;s
+leave, to be spent at Millenbeck, in his mind for a long, long time, and
+he wanted Jack to own the place. Himself the most unassuming of men, he
+cherished, unknown to those who knew him best, a strong desire that his
+name should be kept up in Virginia where it had been known so long. With
+scarcely a word on the subject spoken between father and son, Jack had
+the same drift of sentiment. Both had inherited from dead and gone
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>generations a clinging to old things, old forms, that made itself felt
+in the strenuous modern life, and even a sturdy family pride that native
+good sense concealed.</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. Edmund Morford, along with his unfortunate excess of good
+looks, inherited a rich, strong voice, in which he rolled out the
+liturgy with great elocutionary effect. He saw the two strangers in the
+congregation, and at once divined who they were, and determined to give
+them a sermon that would show them what stuff parsons were made of in
+Virginia. He was much struck by the scrupulousness with which Major
+Throckmorton went through the service, which the Rev. Edmund attributed
+partly to his own telling way of rendering it. But in truth,
+Throckmorton neither saw nor heard the Rev. Edmund. He went through the
+forms with a certain military precision that very often passed for
+strict attention, as in this case, but he was still under the spell of
+the bygone time. Mr. Morford gave out a hymn, and the congregation rose,
+Throckmorton standing up straight like a soldier at attention. After a
+little pause, a voice rose. It was so sweet, so pure, that Throckmorton
+involuntarily turned toward the singer. It was Judith Temple, her clear
+profile well marked against her black veil, which also brought out the
+deep tints of her eyes and hair, and the warm paleness of her
+complexion. She sang quite composedly and unaffectedly, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>a few women&#8217;s
+voices, Mrs. Temple&#8217;s among the rest, joining in timidly, but her full
+soprano carried the simple air. Her head was slightly thrown back as she
+sang, and apparently she knew the words of the hymn by heart, as she did
+not once refer to the book held open before her.</p>
+
+<p>There is something peculiarly touching in female voices unaccompanied.
+Throckmorton thought so as he came out of his waking dream and glanced
+about him. In an instant he took in the pathetic story of war and ruin
+and loss that was written all over the assembled people. Many of the
+women were in mourning, and the men had a jaded, haggard, hopeless look.
+They had all been through with four years of harrowing, and they showed
+it. In the Temple pew Mrs. Temple and Judith were in the deepest
+mourning, and General Temple wore around his hat the black band that
+Mrs. Temple would never let him take off.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton&#8217;s eye rested for a moment in approval on Judith, and then
+on Jacqueline, but he looked at Jacqueline the longest.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after the hymn, Mr. Morford began his sermon. It was electrifying
+in a great many unexpected ways. Throckmorton, who knew something about
+most things, saw through Morford&#8217;s shallow Hebraism, and inwardly
+scoffed at the cheerful insufficiency with which the most abstruse
+biblical problems were attacked. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>Morford&#8217;s candor, confidence, and
+perfect good faith tickled Throckmorton; he felt like smiling once or
+twice, but, on looking around, he saw that everybody, except those who
+were asleep, took Morford at his own valuation; except the young woman
+with the widow&#8217;s veil about her clear-cut face, whose eyes, fixed
+attentively on Mr. Morford, had something quizzical in their expression.
+Throckmorton at once divined a sense of humor in that grave young widow
+that was conspicuously lacking in Jacqueline, who listened, bored but
+awed, to the preacher&#8217;s sounding periods.</p>
+
+<p>The sermon was long and loud, and there was another hymn, sung in the
+simple and touching way that went to Throckmorton&#8217;s heart, and then a
+dramatic benediction, after the Rev. Edmund had announced that the next
+Sunday, &#8220;in the morning, the Lord will be with us, and in the evening
+the bishop. I need not urge you, beloved brethren, to be prepared for
+the bishop.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then the congregation streamed out for their weekly gossip in the
+churchyard. Throckmorton and Jack went out, too. No one spoke to them,
+nor did they speak to any one. As a matter of fact, there were not half
+a dozen people there that Throckmorton would have recognized; but he was
+perfectly well known to everybody in the church, who, but for the
+uniform he had worn, would have greeted him cordially <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>and generously,
+recalling themselves to him. But now they all held coldly and
+determinedly aloof. Throckmorton, who was slow to imagine offense, did
+not all at once take it in. But he would not lose a moment in speaking
+to Mrs. Temple, one of the few persons he recognized, and the one most
+endeared to him in his early recollections. The Temples, possibly to
+avoid him, had made straight for the iron gate of the churchyard, and
+stood outside the wall, waiting for the tumble-down carriage.
+Throckmorton quickened his pace, and went up to Mrs. Temple, carrying
+his hat in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Temple, have you forgotten George Throckmorton?&#8221; he asked in his
+pleasant voice.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple turned to him with a somber look on her gentle face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I have not forgotten you, George Throckmorton. But you and I are
+widely apart. Between us is a great gulf, and war and sorrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A deep flush dyed Throckmorton&#8217;s dark face. He was not prepared for
+this, but he could not all at once give up this friendship, the memory
+of which had lasted through all the years since his boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The war is over,&#8221; he said; &#8220;we can&#8217;t be forever at war.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is enough for <i>you</i> to say,&#8221; she replied. &#8220;You have your son. Where
+is mine?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As well call me to account for the death of Abel. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>Dear Mrs. Temple,
+haven&#8217;t you any recollection of the time when you were almost the only
+friend I had? I have few enough left, God knows.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here General Temple came to the front. In his heart he was anxious to be
+friends with Throckmorton, and did not despair of obtaining Mrs.
+Temple&#8217;s permission eventually. He held out his hand solemnly to
+Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>I</i> can shake hands with you, George Throckmorton,&#8221; he said, and then,
+turning to Mrs. Temple, &#8220;for the sake of what is past, my love, let us
+be friends with George Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, who in his life had met with few rebuffs, was cruelly
+wounded. In all those years he had cherished an ideal of womanly and
+motherly tenderness in Mrs. Temple, and she was the one person in his
+native county on whose friendship he counted. He looked down, indignant
+and abashed, and in the next moment looked up boldly and encountered
+Judith&#8217;s soft, expressive eyes fixed on him so sympathetically that he
+involuntarily held out his hand, saying:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You, at least, will shake hands with me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, who strove hard to bring her high spirit down to Mrs. Temple&#8217;s
+yoke, did not always succeed. She held out her hand impulsively. The
+spectacle of this manly man, rebuffed with Mrs. Temple&#8217;s strange power,
+touched her.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;And this,&#8221; continued Throckmorton, out of whose face the dull red had
+not yet vanished, turning to Jacqueline, &#8220;must be a little one that I
+have not before seen.&mdash;Mrs. Temple, I can&#8217;t force you to accept my
+friendship, but I want to assure you that nothing&mdash;nothing can ever make
+me forget your early kindness to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple opened her lips once or twice before words came. Then she
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;George Throckmorton, you think perhaps that, being a soldier, you know
+what war is. You do not. I, who sat at home and prayed and wept for four
+long years, for my husband and my son, and to whom only one came back,
+when I had sent forth two&mdash;<i>I</i> know what it is. But God has willed it
+all. We must forgive. Here is my hand&mdash;and show me your son.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, whose knowledge of Mrs. Temple was intimate, despite that
+long stretch of years, knew what even this small compromise had cost
+her. He motioned to Jack, who was surveying the scene, surprised and
+rather angry, from a little distance. The young fellow came up, and Mrs.
+Temple looked at him very hard, a film gathering in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am glad you have such a son. Such was our son.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The carriage was now drawn up, and General Temple looked agonizingly at
+Mrs. Temple. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>wanted her to invite Throckmorton to Barn Elms, but
+Mrs. Temple said not one word. Throckmorton, in perfect silence, helped
+the ladies into the carriage. He did not know whether to be gratified
+that Mrs. Temple had conceded so much, or mortified that she had
+conceded so little.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline in the carriage gave him a friendly little nod. Judith leaned
+forward and bowed distinctly and politely. General Temple, holding his
+hat stiffly against his breast, remarked in his most grandiose manner:
+&#8220;As two men who have fought on opposing sides&mdash;as two generous enemies,
+my dear Throckmorton&mdash;I offer you my hand. I did my best against you in
+my humble way&#8221;&mdash;General Temple never did anything in a humble way in his
+life, and devoutly believed that the exploits of Temple&#8217;s Brigade had
+materially influenced the result&mdash;&#8220;but, following the example of our
+immortal chieftain, Robert Lee, I say again, here is my hand.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A twinkle came into Throckmorton&#8217;s eye. This was the same Beverley
+Temple of twenty-five years ago, only a little more magniloquent than
+ever and a little more under Mrs. Temple&#8217;s thumb. Throckmorton,
+repressing a smile, shook hands cordially.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Neither of us has any apologies to make, general,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I think
+that ugly business is over for good. I feel more friendly toward my own
+unfortunate people now than ever before. Good-by.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>The general then made a stately ascent into the carriage, banged the
+door, and rattled off.</p>
+
+<p>Short as the scene had been, it made a deep impression upon Judith
+Temple. Throckmorton&#8217;s dignity&mdash;the tender sentiment that he had
+cherished for his early friends&mdash;struck her forcibly. The very tones of
+his voice, his soldierly carriage, his dark, indomitable eye, were so
+impressed upon her imagination that, had she never seen him again, she
+would never have forgotten him. It was an instant and powerful
+attraction that had made her hold out her hand and smile at him.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, without trying the experiment of hunting up any more old
+friends, turned to walk home. It was a good four-mile stretch, and
+usually he stepped out at a smart gait that put Jack to his trumps to
+keep up with. But to-day he sauntered along so slowly, through the woods
+and fields with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind him, that
+Jack lost patience and struck off ahead, leaving Throckmorton alone,
+much to his relief.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton wanted to think it all over. In his heart there was not
+one grain of resentment toward Mrs. Temple. He thought he understood
+the workings of her strong but simple nature perfectly well, and he
+did not doubt the ultimate goodness of her heart. And General
+Temple&mdash;Throckmorton had heard something of the general&#8217;s magnificent
+incapacity <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>during the war&mdash;the bare idea of General Temple as a
+commander made him laugh. How sweet were Mrs. Beverley&#8217;s eyes, and how
+demure she looked when she dropped them at some particularly solemn
+absurdity of the clergyman, as if she were afraid somebody would see
+the tell-tale gleam in them! The little girl, though, was the most
+fascinating creature he had seen for long. How strangely and how
+pitifully altered was the congregation of Severn church from the merry
+prosperous country gentry he remembered so long ago! And how quiet, how
+still was life there! All his usual every-day life was shut out from
+him. Within the circle of that perfect repose nothing disquieting could
+come. He stopped in the country lane and listened. Nothing broke the
+solemn calm except the droning of the locusts in the September noon.
+Warm as it was, there was a hint of autumn in the atmosphere.
+Occasionally the clarion cry of a hawk circling in the blue air pierced
+the silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This, then, is peace,&#8221; said Throckmorton to himself, and thought of the
+year of idleness and repose before him. &#8220;Nothing ever happens here,&#8221; he
+continued, thinking. &#8220;Even the tragedy of the war was at a distance. As
+Mrs. Temple says, the men went forth, and those that came back will go
+forth no more.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then he began to think over the way in which the people had completely
+ignored him in the churchyard, where they stopped and gossiped with each
+other, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>eying him askance. He knew perfectly well the estimate they put
+upon him. He could have supplied the very word&mdash;&#8220;traitor.&#8221; This made him
+feel a sort of bitterness, which he consoled with the reflection&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Most men of principle have to suffer for those principles at some time
+or other.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>By this time he was at his own grounds, and Sweeney&#8217;s honest Irish face,
+glowing with indignation, was watching out for him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Be the powers,&#8221; snorted Sweeney to the black cook, &#8220;the murtherin&#8217;
+rebels took no more notice of the major than if he&#8217;d been an ould
+hat&mdash;an&#8217; he&#8217;s a rale gintleman, fit ter dine with the Prisident, as he
+often has, an&#8217; all the g&#8217;yurls has been tryin&#8217; to hook him fur twinty
+years, bless their hearts, an&#8217; the major as hard as a stone to the dear
+things, every wan of &#8217;em!&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<p>Within a week or two after, one afternoon Mrs. Kitty Sherrard made her
+appearance at Barn Elms, with a great project in hand. She meant to give
+a party.</p>
+
+<p>Party-giving was Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s idiosyncrasy. According to the usual
+system in Virginia, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Sherrard, there
+was much frolicking, dancing, and hilarity at Turkey Thicket, the
+Sherrard place, and a corresponding narrowness of income and general
+behindhandedness. But since Mr. Sherrard&#8217;s death Mrs. Sherrard, along
+with the unvarying and sublime confidence in her husband, dead or alive,
+that characterizes Virginia women, had yet entirely abandoned Mr.
+Sherrard&#8217;s methods. The mortgage on Turkey Thicket had been paid off,
+the whole place farmed on common-sense principles, and the debts
+declared inevitable by Mr. Sherrard carefully avoided. As a matter of
+fact, the only people in the county who paid their taxes promptly were
+the widows, who nevertheless continually lamented that they were
+deprived of the great industry, foresight, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>and business capacity of
+their defunct lords and masters. Mrs. Sherrard gave as many parties in
+Mr. Sherrard&#8217;s lifetime as she did after his death; but, since that
+melancholy event, the parties were paid for, not charged on account.</p>
+
+<p>When this startling information about the coming festivity was imparted,
+Jacqueline, who was sitting in her own low chair by the fire, gave a
+little jump.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And,&#8221; said Mrs. Sherrard, who was a courageous person, &#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you
+what I am giving it for. It is to get the county people to meet George
+Throckmorton. Not a human being in the county has called on him, except
+Edmund Morford, and I fairly drove him to it. He began some of his
+long-winded explanations. &#8216;Aunt Kitty,&#8217; he said, &#8216;what am I, even though
+I be a minister of the gospel, that I should set myself up against the
+spirit of the community, which is against recognizing Throckmorton?&#8217;
+&#8216;What are you, indeed, my dear boy,&#8217; I answered. &#8216;I&#8217;m not urging you to
+go, because it&#8217;s a matter of the slightest consequence what you do or
+what you don&#8217;t, but merely for your own sake, because it is illiberal
+and unchristian of you not to go.&#8217; Now, Edmund is a good soul, for all
+his nonsense.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple was horrified at this way of speaking of the young rector.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I&#8217;ve intimated to him that I&#8217;m about to make my will&mdash;I haven&#8217;t the
+slightest notion of doing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>it for the next twenty years&mdash;but the mere
+hint always brings Edmund to terms, and so he went over to Millenbeck to
+call. He came back perfectly delighted. The house is charming,
+Throckmorton is a prince of hospitality, and I don&#8217;t suppose poor Edmund
+ever was treated with so much consideration by a man of sense in his
+life before.&#8221; Mrs. Temple groaned, but Mrs. Sherrard kept on, cutting
+her eye at Judith, who was the only person at Barn Elms that knew a joke
+when she saw it. Judith bent over her work, laughing. &#8220;I met
+Throckmorton in the road next day. &#8216;So you dragooned the parson into
+calling on the Philistine,&#8217; he said. Of course I tried to deny it, after
+a fashion; but Throckmorton won&#8217;t be humbugged&mdash;can&#8217;t be, in fact&mdash;and I
+had to own up. &#8216;You can&#8217;t say Edmund&#8217;s not a gentleman,&#8217; said I, &#8216;and he
+is the most good-natured poor soul; and if he had broken his nose, or
+got cross-eyed in early youth, he really would have cut quite a
+respectable figure in the world.&#8217; &#8216;That&#8217;s true,&#8217; answered George,
+laughing, and looking so like he did long years ago, &#8216;but you&#8217;ll admit,
+Mrs. Sherrard, that he is too infernally handsome for his own good.&#8217;
+&#8216;Decidedly,&#8217; said I.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Katharine Sherrard,&#8221; solemnly began Mrs. Temple, who habitually called
+Mrs. Sherrard Kitty, except at weddings and funerals, and upon occasions
+like the present, when her feelings were wrought up, &#8220;the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>way you talk
+about Edmund Morford is a grief and a sorrow to me. He is a clergyman of
+our church, and it is not becoming for women to deride the men of their
+own blood. Men must rule, Katharine Sherrard. It is so ordered by the
+divine law.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane Temple,&#8221; answered Mrs. Sherrard, &#8220;you may add by the human law,
+too; but some women&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Set both at naught,&#8221; answered Mrs. Temple, piously and sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They do, indeed,&#8221; fervently responded Mrs. Sherrard, having in view
+General Temple&#8217;s complete subjugation. &#8220;But now about the party. The
+general must come, of course. I wish I could persuade you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have not been to a party since before the war, and now I shall never
+go to another one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But Judith and Jacqueline will come.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this a deep flush rose in Judith&#8217;s face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t go to parties, Mrs. Sherrard.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know; but you must come to this one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple set her lips and said nothing, but Jacqueline, who sometimes
+asserted herself at unlooked-for times, spoke up:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If Judith doesn&#8217;t go, I&mdash;I&mdash;sha&#8217;n&#8217;t go.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You hear that?&#8221; asked Mrs. Sherrard, delighted at Jacqueline&#8217;s spirit.
+&#8220;Stick to it, child; there is no reason why Judith shouldn&#8217;t come.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here General Temple entered and greeted Mrs. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>Sherrard elaborately. Mrs.
+Sherrard immediately set to work on the general. She knew perfectly well
+that he could do no more in the case than Simon Peter could, but she
+poured her fire into him, thinking a stray shot might hit Mrs. Temple.
+Judith remained quite silent. She was too sincere of soul to say she did
+not want to go; and yet going to parties was quite out of that life of
+true widowhood she had laid down for herself; and life was intolerably
+dull. She loved gayety and brightness, and her whole life was clothed
+with somberness. She was full of ideas, and loved books, and nobody in
+the house ever read a line except General Temple, and his reading was
+confined to the science of war, for which he would certainly never have
+any use. She was full of quick turns of repartee, that, when she
+indulged them, almost frightened Mrs. Temple, who had the average
+woman&#8217;s incapacity for humor. Mrs. Sherrard and herself were great
+friends&mdash;and friends were not too plentiful with Mrs. Sherrard, whose
+tongue was a two-edged sword. Nevertheless, Mrs. Temple and Mrs.
+Sherrard had been intimate all their lives, and Mrs. Sherrard was one of
+the few persons who ever took liberties with Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Sherrard
+was clear-sighted, and she knew what nobody else did&mdash;how starved and
+blighted was Judith&#8217;s life by that stern repression to which she had set
+herself; and she had known Beverley Temple, too, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>sometimes said to
+herself: &#8220;Perhaps it is better for Judith as it is, for Beverley, brave
+and handsome as he was, yet was a dreadfully ordinary fellow. Luckily,
+she was hustled into marrying him so quickly, and she was so young, she
+didn&#8217;t find it out; but if he had lived&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard departed, impressing upon General Temple that she should
+certainly expect to see him at the party, with Judith and Jacqueline.
+Simon Peter in the kitchen reported the state of affairs to Delilah, who
+remarked:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Kitty She&#8217;ard, she know Miss Judy cyan go twell ole mistis say so.
+Ole marse, he got a heap o&#8217; flourishes an&#8217; he talk mighty big, but
+mistis she doan&#8217; flourish none; she jes&#8217; go &#8217;long quiet like, an&#8217; has
+her way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dat&#8217;s so,&#8221; answered Simon Peter, rubbing his woolly head with an air of
+conviction. &#8220;Mistis su&#8217;t&#8217;ny is de wheel-hoss in dis heah team.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217; ain&#8217; de womenfolks allus de wheel-hosses? Ole marse he set up an&#8217;
+he talk &#8217;bout de weather an&#8217; de craps, an&#8217; he specks de &#8217;lection gwine
+discomfuse things, an&#8217; he read de paper an&#8217; he know more &#8217;n de paper do,
+an&#8217; he read de Bible an&#8217; he know more &#8217;n de Bible do, an&#8217; all de time he
+ain&#8217; got de sperrit uv a chicken.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;De womenfolks kin mos&#8217; in gen&#8217;ally git dey way,&#8221; cautiously answered
+Simon Peter.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Yes, dey kin; an&#8217; dey is gwine ter, &#8217;long as menfolks is so triflin&#8217;
+an&#8217; owdacious as dey is.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline developed a strange obstinacy about the party. She declared
+she was dying to go, but she never wavered from her determination not to
+go without Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But your sister does not wish to go, Jacqueline,&#8221; her mother said to
+this.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I want her to go, mamma. You can&#8217;t imagine how I <i>long</i> to go to
+this party. It is so very, very dull at Barn Elms&mdash;and I have my new
+white frock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith has no frock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes she has. She has that long black dress, in which she looks so
+nice, and she is so clever at sewing she could cut it open at the neck
+and turn up the sleeves at the elbow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple said nothing more. Jacqueline went about, eager-eyed, but
+silent, and possessed of but one idea&mdash;the party. A day or two after
+this she said bitterly to her mother, when Judith was out of the room:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mamma, I know why you are willing to disappoint me about this party. It
+is because you love your dead child better than your living one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple turned a little pale. The thrust went home, as some of
+Jacqueline&#8217;s thrusts did.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And if I don&#8217;t go, I will cry and cry&mdash;I will cry <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>that night so loud
+in my room that papa will come in, and you know how it vexes him to have
+me cry; and it will break my heart&mdash;I know it will.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple went about all day with Jacqueline&#8217;s words ringing in her
+ears. That night, after Jacqueline was in bed, her mother went into the
+room. It was a large, old-fashioned room, and Jacqueline&#8217;s little white
+figure, as she sat up in bed, was almost lost in the huge four-poster,
+with dimity curtains and valance. The fire still smoldered, and the
+spindle-shanked dressing-table, with the glass set in its mahogany
+frame, cast unearthly shadows on the floor in the half-light. Mrs.
+Temple sat down by the bed. Something like remorse came into the
+mother&#8217;s heart. This child was the least loved by both father and
+mother. Jacqueline began at once, in her sweet, nervous voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mamma, I have been thinking about the party.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So have I, child.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And may we go?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple paused before she spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you and Judith may go,&#8221; she said presently in a stern voice&mdash;ah!
+the sternness of these gentle women!</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline held out her arms fondly to her mother, but Mrs. Temple could
+not be magnanimous in defeat. She went out, softly closing the door
+behind her, without giving Jacqueline her good-night kiss, but
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>Jacqueline called after her in a voice tremulous with gratitude and
+delight, &#8220;Dear, sweet mamma!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The moment she heard the &#8220;charmber-do&#8217;,&#8221; as the negroes called it, shut
+down-stairs, Jacqueline slipped out of bed and flew across the dark
+passage into Judith&#8217;s room to tell the wonderful news. Judith was
+sitting before the fire, holding her sleeping child in her arms. The boy
+had waked and had clung to his mother until she lifted him out of his
+little bed. He had gone to sleep directly, but Judith held him close; he
+was so little, so babyish, yet so soft and warm and clinging.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We are going to the party, Judith,&#8221; said Jacqueline, excitedly,
+kneeling down by her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are we?&#8221; answered Judith. A gleam came into her eyes very like
+Jacqueline&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And&mdash;and&mdash;&#8221; continued Jacqueline with a sly, half-laughing glance, &#8220;we
+will meet Major Throckmorton again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Go to bed, Jacqueline,&#8221; replied Judith in the soft, composed voice that
+invariably crushed Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning General Temple showed the most unqualified delight at Mrs.
+Temple&#8217;s capitulation. He considered it becoming, though, to make some
+slight protest against going to the party. He thought, perhaps, with his
+tendency to gout, it would scarcely be prudent to expose himself to the
+night air, and&mdash;er&mdash;to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>Kitty Sherrard&#8217;s chicken salad; and, besides, he
+really was not justified in postponing the drawings of some maps to
+illustrate the position of Temple&#8217;s Brigade at the battle of
+Chancellorsville; for, like all other dilettanti, General Temple&#8217;s work
+was always of present importance and admitted of no delay whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple did not smile at this, but treated it with great
+seriousness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite true, my dear; but now that I have promised Jacqueline, I can not
+disappoint her. You must go for her sake.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rather let me say, my dear Jane, that I go for your sake&mdash;your wishes,
+my love, being of paramount importance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For a henpecked man, it was impossible to be more imposing or agreeable
+than General Temple. So on the night of the party he was promptly on
+hand, at eight o&#8217;clock, in his old-fashioned evening coat, the tails
+lined with white satin, and wearing a pair of large, white kid gloves.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline and Judith soon appeared. Jacqueline, in her new white frock,
+looked her prettiest, albeit it showed her youthful thinness and all her
+half-grown angles. Judith&#8217;s beauty was of a sort that could stand the
+simplicity of her black gown that revealed her white neck, and, for the
+first time since her widowhood, she wore no cap over her red-brown hair.
+Delilah <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>and Simon Peter yah-yahed and ki-yied over both of them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dem little foots o&#8217; Miss Jacky&#8217;s in de silk stockin&#8217;s ain&#8217; no bigger &#8217;n
+little Beverley&#8217;s, hardly, and Miss Judy she look like de Queen o&#8217;
+Sheba,&#8221; delightedly remarked Delilah.</p>
+
+<p>Judith could scarcely meet Mrs. Temple&#8217;s eyes. She felt inexplicably
+guilty. Mrs. Temple examined them critically, though, and the general
+was loftily complimentary.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And, Delilah,&#8221; said Judith, gathering up her gloves nervously, &#8220;be sure
+and look after Beverley. He has never been left alone in his life
+before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will look after Beverley, Judith,&#8221; said Mrs. Temple, and Judith
+blushed faintly at something in the tone.</p>
+
+<p>All the way, going along the country road in the moonlight, Judith could
+feel Jacqueline&#8217;s little feet moving restlessly with excitement. As they
+drove up to the house, and caught glimpses through the open hall-door of
+the dancers and heard the sound of music, Jacqueline began to bob up and
+down with childish delight.</p>
+
+<p>Like most Virginia country-houses, Turkey Thicket had an immense
+entrance hall, which was not heated and was of no earthly use the best
+part of the year, and for which all the rooms around it were
+unnecessarily cramped. Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s hall was of more use <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>to her than
+most people&#8217;s, owing to her party-giving proclivities, and was brightly
+lighted up for dancing. As Judith came down the broad stairs on General
+Temple&#8217;s arm, a kind of thrill of surprise went around among the guests.
+Nobody expected to see her. Many of them had never seen her except in
+her widow&#8217;s veil and cap. Judith, remembering this, could not restrain a
+blushing consciousness that made her not less handsome; and, besides,
+her good looks were always full of surprises. One never knew whether she
+would be simply pale and pretty, or whether she would blaze out into a
+sudden and captivating beauty.</p>
+
+<p>They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and
+red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they
+entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain
+black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air
+of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane
+Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: &#8220;My dear, I am
+dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George
+Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so
+fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a
+little better, but it isn&#8217;t a pronounced success by any means. I have
+been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing
+to him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this a warmer color surged into Judith&#8217;s cheeks. She could not
+remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as
+Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the
+first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her,
+she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund
+Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the
+young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark
+hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical
+dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely
+masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by
+contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford
+was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that
+square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief.
+Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was
+formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom,
+which Throckmorton bowed over.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday,&#8221; he said, with a smile
+and a slight flush; &#8220;but I guessed very readily who you were.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, too, colored.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she
+is, but&mdash;but she is very determined; she moves slowly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner;
+&#8220;but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not
+half so kindly&mdash;for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out
+of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack&mdash;that young
+fellow yonder&mdash;looks rather old to be my son, don&#8217;t you think?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Y-e-s,&#8221; answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people
+that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although
+brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own
+the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a
+Virginian.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; smiled Judith; &#8220;I see how it crops out in <i>you</i>. You are
+immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own
+Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest
+place in the world anywhere else.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Mrs. Beverley,&#8221; said Throckmorton, determinedly, &#8220;I can&#8217;t have my
+weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a
+fool about Millenbeck, but I&#8217;d have sworn that nobody but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>myself knew
+it. I&#8217;ve got a year&#8217;s leave, and I&#8217;ve come down here with Sweeney, an
+old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old
+horse Tartar, that is turned out to grass; and if I like it as well as I
+expect, I may resign&#8221;&mdash;Throckmorton was always talking about resigning,
+as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea
+of doing it&mdash;&#8220;and turn myself out to grass like Tartar. But my reception
+hasn&#8217;t been&mdash;a&mdash;exactly&mdash;cordial&mdash;or&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am sorry you have been disappointed,&#8221; said Judith, gently; &#8220;but it
+seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now.
+We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are
+slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some
+time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think I understand the feeling here&mdash;even that dead wall of prejudice
+that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have
+told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I
+thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might
+soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith could not deny it.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides
+having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was
+under a fixed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the
+deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister
+of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world
+by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than
+Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met.
+Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women
+led, and he had often wondered at the singular fortitude they showed. He
+set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young
+woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who
+gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its
+concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith
+colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the
+sweetest boy&mdash;she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major
+Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would
+frequently be highly gratified at having <i>his</i> son out of his sight,
+because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and
+covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack,
+but couldn&#8217;t.</p>
+
+<p>Judith laughed merrily at this&mdash;a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet
+so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of
+reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>nothing
+newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton
+would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes
+full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted,
+without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house
+where he was not permitted to visit.</p>
+
+<p>She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but
+Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern
+literature, she was perfectly at home in the English classics, and knew
+her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find
+this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the
+cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of
+the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to
+scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous
+person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her
+natural charming self.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille,
+and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of
+their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline
+complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened
+her liquid three syllables with &#8220;Jacky,&#8221; but she hated it. Jack, who had
+a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>Jacqueline was
+not, amused both her and himself extremely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you look at the major?&#8221; he whispered. &#8220;Gone on the pretty widow&mdash;I
+beg your pardon,&#8221; he added, turning very red.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You needn&#8217;t apologize,&#8221; calmly remarked Jacqueline. &#8220;Judith <i>is</i> a
+pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It
+is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us
+all to think about him as much as she does.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jack, rather embarrassed by these family confidences, parried them with
+some confidences of his own.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there
+isn&#8217;t but twenty-two years&#8217; difference between us, and the major is a
+great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial
+feelings.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the
+other side, and manage to get my share of the girl&#8217;s attention, and call
+the major &#8216;father&#8217; every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with
+that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn&#8217;t often happen. The
+major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets
+downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don&#8217;t get
+straight for a fortnight.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;But doesn&#8217;t he get very mad with you?&#8221; asked Jacqueline in a shocked
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course he does,&#8221; chuckled Jack; &#8220;and that&#8217;s where the fun comes in.
+But, you see, he can&#8217;t say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his
+temper blazes up, although he doesn&#8217;t say a word. Sometimes, when I&#8217;ve
+run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me
+for a week&mdash;not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates
+to be balked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What a nice sort of a son you must be!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do
+anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I&#8217;ll do
+the handsome thing&mdash;go to the wedding, and all that. And he&#8217;s a
+fascinating old fellow, too&mdash;just takes the girls off their feet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who
+still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes were shining with
+childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from
+side to side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have had such a nice dance!&#8221; she cried, breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>Judith, smiling, said, &#8220;Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister
+Jacqueline.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>Jacqueline, seemed unable
+to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn
+church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of
+attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, &#8220;Miss Jacky she allus
+cotches de beaux.&#8221; She certainly &#8220;cotched&#8221; Throckmorton&#8217;s attention from
+the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was
+suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith
+seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking
+man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself
+back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade.
+Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and
+unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford&#8217;s
+head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a
+considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith&#8217;s starved
+and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton&#8217;s
+caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to
+expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and
+indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith,
+who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was
+remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was
+because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had
+realized <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and
+colorlessness of her life.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was
+scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out
+Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the
+trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest
+listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned
+expounder&mdash;a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking
+Throckmorton&#8217;s hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine
+effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck.
+Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county
+people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle,
+clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p>For a week after the party Jacqueline lived in a kind of dream. She
+could do nothing but talk of the party. The whole current of her life
+had been disturbed. Since this one taste of excitement there was no
+satisfying her. The daily routine was going down to a solemn breakfast,
+and then getting through the forenoon as best she might, with her
+flowers, and her pets among the ducks and chickens, and romping with the
+little Beverley&mdash;for this unfortunate Jacqueline had no regular
+employments&mdash;and then the still more solemn three o&#8217;clock dinner, after
+which she practiced fitfully on the wheezy piano in the dark
+drawing-room; then a country walk with Judith, if the day was fine,
+coming back in time to watch the creeping on of the twilight before the
+sitting-room fire. This was the happiest time of the day to Jacqueline.
+She would sit flat on the rug, clasping her knees, and gazing into the
+fire until her mother would say, with a smile:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you see in the fire, Jacky?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, endless things&mdash;a beautiful young man, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>a new piano, and a
+diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s, and&mdash;Oh, I can&#8217;t tell you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do,&#8221; solemnly announced Simon
+Peter. &#8220;When folks sits fo&#8217; de fire studyin&#8217; &#8217;bout nuttin&#8217; &#8217;tall, de
+evils an&#8217; de sperrits dat&#8217;s &#8217;broad come sneakin&#8217; up ahine an&#8217; show &#8217;em
+things in de fire.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive
+pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the
+gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what
+devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and
+soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between
+Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been
+making at intervals for twenty-five years.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Temple,&#8221; he screeched, &#8220;you may take your choice between that old
+ignoramus and me&mdash;between ignorance and science!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ef ole marse was ter steal six leetle sweet &#8217;taters an&#8217; put &#8217;em in he
+pocket,&#8221; began Delilah, undauntedly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a
+pocketful?&#8221; retorted the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Kase he doan &#8217;quire but six, an&#8217; he got ter <i>steal</i> &#8217;em, fur ter make
+de conjurin&#8217; wuk. Den ev&#8217;y day he th&#8217;ow &#8217;way a &#8217;tater, an&#8217; when he th&#8217;ow
+de &#8217;tater &#8217;way <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>he th&#8217;ow de gout &#8217;way, too. De hy&#8217;ars from a black cat&#8217;s
+tail is mighty good, too&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Temple, how do you put up with this sort of thing being uttered in your
+hearing?&#8221; snapped the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple looked rather sheepish. He had never actually tried
+stealing six potatoes, or testing the virtue in hairs from a black cat&#8217;s
+tail, as a relief from gout, but he had not been above a course of tansy
+tea, and decoctions of jimson-weed, and other of Delilah&#8217;s remedies that
+scientifically were on a par with the black cat&#8217;s tail. But, being
+racked with pain, he took refuge in pessimism and profanity.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Excuse me, Wortley, but all medicine is a damned humbug!&mdash;I
+mean&mdash;er&mdash;an empirical science. What is written is written. The Great
+First Cause, that decrees from the hour of our birth every act of our
+lives, has decreed that I should suffer great pain, anguish, and
+discomfort from this hereditary disease.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marse, ef you wuz ter repent an&#8217; be saved&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hold your infernal tongue!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217; jine de Foot-washers&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Damn the Foot-washers!&#8221; howled the general.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Plague on it!&#8221; snarled Dr. Wortley, whirling round with his back to the
+fire. &#8220;If you&#8217;ve got as far as predestination, you&#8217;re in for a six
+weeks&#8217; spell. I can cure the gout, but I&#8217;ll be shot if I can do anything
+when it&#8217;s complicated with religion and black <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>cats&#8217; tails and a
+constant diet like a Christmas dinner!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the discussion, the doctor&#8217;s shrill voice rising high
+over Delilah&#8217;s, who, with arms akimbo and a defiant air, only awaited
+Dr. Wortley&#8217;s departure to get in her innings with the patient, Mrs.
+Temple, serene and sweet, came in and quelled the insurrection. Delilah
+at once subsided, Dr. Wortley began to laugh, and the general directed
+that Mrs. Temple&#8217;s chair be put next to his.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As your presence, my love, makes me forget my most unhappy foot,&#8221; he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple&#8217;s adherence to either Delilah or Dr. Wortley would have
+caused victory to perch upon that side; but Mrs. Temple, like the
+general, had more faith in Delilah than she was willing to own up to.
+So, between Delilah&#8217;s feeding him high all the time, while the doctor
+only saw him once or twice a week, General Temple bade fair to remain an
+invalid for a considerable time. The attack of gout, though, just at
+that time, had its consolatory aspects. General Temple really wished to
+call at Millenbeck, but Mrs. Temple showed no sign of yielding. For the
+present, however, there could be no notion of his stirring out of doors.
+As long as the gout lasted there was a good excuse. But General Temple
+worried over it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My love,&#8221; he said one night, while Mrs. Temple and Jacqueline and
+Judith sat around the table in his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>room, where they had assembled to
+make his evening less dull, &#8220;I am troubled in my mind regarding George
+Throckmorton. It unquestionably seems heathenish for us to have one so
+intimately connected with our early married life&mdash;that truly blissful
+period&mdash;within a stone&#8217;s throw of us, and then to deny him the sacred
+rites of hospitality.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline gave a half glance at Judith which was full of meaning, and
+Judith could not for her life keep a slight blush from rising in her
+cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple said nothing, but looked hard at the fire, sighing
+profoundly. She had made herself some sort of a vague revengeful
+promise, that no man wearing a blue uniform should ever darken her
+doors. She had yielded first one thing, then another, of that scrupulous
+and daily mourning and remembrance she had promised herself, for
+Beverley&mdash;but this&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The pause was long. Mrs. Temple, looking at General Temple, was touched
+by something in his expression&mdash;a longing, a patient, but genuine
+desire. Occasionally she indulged him, as she sometimes relaxed a little
+the discipline over Jacqueline in her childish days. She put her hand
+over her eyes and waited a moment as if she were praying. Then she said
+in broken voice, &#8220;Do what seems best to you, my husband.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>General Temple took her hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;But, my own, I do not wish to coerce you. No matter what I think is our
+duty in the case, if it does not satisfy you, it shall not be done. I
+would rather anything befell Throckmorton, than you, my beloved Jane,
+should be grieved or troubled.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple received this sort of thing as she always did, with a shy
+pleasure like a girl.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have said it, my dear, and you know I do not easily recede. Like you,
+this thing has been upon me ever since Throckmorton&#8217;s return. I have
+felt it every day harder to maintain my attitude. Now, for your sake, I
+will abandon it. Have Throckmorton when you like. I will invite him over
+to tea on Sunday evening.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>General Temple fairly beamed. When Mrs. Temple gave in to him, which was
+not oftener than once a year, she gave in thoroughly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you, my wife. It certainly seems unnatural that Millenbeck and
+Barn Elms should be estranged. It shall be so no longer, please God. And
+that George Throckmorton is a high-toned gentleman&#8221;&mdash;General Temple
+paused a little before saying this, hunting for a term magniloquent
+enough for the occasion&mdash;&#8220;no one, I think, will deny.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was early in the week. The very next afternoon, Jacqueline finding
+time more than usually hard to kill, went up into the garret and began
+rummaging over the remains of Mrs. Temple&#8217;s wedding finery <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>of thirty
+years before. She dived down into a capacious chest, and brought forth
+two or three faded silk dresses, the bridal bonnet and veil, yellowed
+from age; and, among other antiques, a huge muff almost as big as
+Jacqueline herself. This suddenly put the notion of a walk into her
+head. Judith was engaged in reading Napier&#8217;s History of the Peninsular
+Wars to General Temple, and Jacqueline had only herself for company. So,
+carrying her huge muff in which she plunged her arms up to her elbows,
+she started off. It was a raw autumn afternoon. The leaves had not yet
+all fallen, although the ground was dank with them, and the peculiar
+stillness of a lonely and lowland country was upon the monotonous
+landscape. The entire absence of sounds is a characteristic of that sort
+of country, and it makes a gloomy day more gloomy. Jacqueline, tripping
+along very fast, did not find it cheerful. She would go as far as the
+gate of the lane that led into the main road, and then turn back. This
+lane was also the entrance to Millenbeck, and Jacqueline had some sort
+of a faint expectation that she might run across Jack Throckmorton. She
+looked longingly toward Millenbeck, visible at intervals through the
+straggling fringe of pines. What an infinity of pleasure could be had,
+if her mother only came round thoroughly regarding the Throckmortons!
+What rides and dances she could have with Jack, and Judith could talk to
+the major! &#8220;What a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> dull life Judith must lead!&#8221; she thought, stepping
+lightly along. It was true, Judith liked to read; but Jacqueline, who
+frankly confessed she could not read a novel through from cover to
+cover, hardly appreciated reading as a resource. Jacqueline&#8217;s
+imagination, with this superstructure to build upon, went ardently to
+work, and in a few minutes had installed Judith as mistress of
+Millenbeck, and herself as the young lady of the establishment. To do
+Jacqueline justice, she longed for Judith&#8217;s happiness, who, she
+sometimes bitterly felt, was her only friend. Just as she had arranged
+this scheme to her satisfaction, she looked up, and saw, not twenty feet
+ahead of her, Major Throckmorton coming out of the underbrush at the
+side of the lane. A big slouch hat half concealed his face. His usual
+trim and natty dress, with that unmistakable &#8220;military cut,&#8221; was
+exchanged for a shooting suit of corduroy, much stained, and otherwise
+the worse for wear. His stylish and immaculate hat was replaced by the
+flapping felt, and his gun and game-bag proclaimed his day&#8217;s employment.
+Yet Jacqueline thought she had never seen him look so handsome, and in
+some way she was not half so much afraid of him in his shooting-togs as
+in his perfectly fitting evening clothes. Jacqueline&#8217;s face turned a
+rosy red. As for Throckmorton, he too felt a thrill of pleasure. This
+pretty child, as he called her, had been in his mind rather constantly
+since he saw her at the party. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>He quickened his pace, and took his hat
+off while still some distance away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Any more parties in prospect?&#8221; he asked, smiling, as he took her little
+hand in his.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I don&#8217;t suppose there will be. Delicious parties like that don&#8217;t
+happen very often,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, quite seriously, and not in the
+least understanding Throckmorton&#8217;s smile as she said this. &#8220;And&mdash;and
+young Mr. Throckmorton&mdash;oh, how I enjoyed dancing with him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The major did not smile at this. To have &#8220;young Mr. Throckmorton&#8221; thrust
+at him by a charming young girl was not particularly pleasing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jack is a very jolly young fellow,&#8221; he replied, shortly. &#8220;We are great
+friends, Jack and I.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline had turned around, and they were now walking together toward
+Barn Elms.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I should think,&#8221; said Jacqueline, giving him one of her half-glances
+from under the dark fringe of her eyelashes&mdash;&#8220;that J&mdash;Jack would be
+afraid of you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton laughed aloud.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why should he be afraid of me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, I don&#8217;t know. Everybody is afraid of one&#8217;s father,&#8221; replied
+Jacqueline, candidly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jack and I entertain sentiments of mutual respect,&#8221; laughed
+Throckmorton again. &#8220;The only fault I find with him is that he is unduly
+filial sometimes. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>For example, when I am enjoying the society of a
+charming young lady he thinks too young for me, he behaves as if I were
+his great-grandfather instead of his father. Jack has a good deal of
+Satan in him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline did not always follow Throckmorton&#8217;s remarks, but she noticed
+he had a rich voice, and he was the straightest, most soldierly-looking
+man she ever saw in her life. Throckmorton slung his game-bag around and
+held it open.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you like robins?&#8221; he said. &#8220;They are delicious broiled on
+toast&#8221;&mdash;and he took out a bird by the legs and showed it to her.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline stood perfectly still. Her eyes dilated and her breath came
+quickly. She took the bird out of his hand. It had long stopped
+bleeding, and its little cold head, with half-closed eyes, fell over
+piteously. Jacqueline took out her handkerchief and wrapped the poor
+robin in it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, the poor bird!&#8221; she said, and suddenly two large tears ran down her
+cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton stood surprised, touched, delighted, and almost ashamed. He
+had been a sportsman all his life, and could see no harm in knocking
+over a few birds in the season; but the picture of this tender-hearted
+child, that could not see a dead bird without weeping, struck him as
+beautifully feminine. But what could he say? If he was a bloodthirsty
+brute to shoot a robin, what must all the slaughter of birds he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>had
+been guilty of in his lifetime make him? He could only say, half
+shamefacedly and half laughing &#8220;My dear little friend, you wouldn&#8217;t have
+men as squeamish as women, would you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But to this Jacqueline only responded by pressing the poor bird&#8217;s cold
+breast to her cheek.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, however, with an air of gentle authority, took the bird
+from her and put it back in the bag.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you cry for such things as this, you will have a hard time in life,&#8221;
+he said.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline&#8217;s face did not clear up at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want you to do something for me&mdash;to promise me something,&#8221; she said,
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; asked Throckmorton. Jacqueline had laid her charm upon him
+in the last ten minutes, but he did not forget his caution entirely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is,&#8221; said Jacqueline, punctuating her words with tender, appealing
+glances, &#8220;that you won&#8217;t kill any more robins&mdash;never, never, as long as
+you live.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton refrained from smiling, as he felt inclined, but it was
+plainly no laughing matter to Jacqueline. And if he gave the
+promise&mdash;nobody knew the absurdity of it more than Throckmorton&mdash;suppose
+Jack heard of it, what endless fun would he poke at his father on the
+sly! Nevertheless, Throckmorton, calling himself an old fool, made the
+promise.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline, flushed with triumph, now conceived a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>bold design. She
+would&mdash;that is, if her courage held out&mdash;tell him that her mother had at
+last come round. This delightful information she proceeded to impart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know,&#8221; she said, smiling and showing her little even white
+teeth, &#8220;that mamma has at last agreed to&mdash;to let us have something to do
+with you and Jack?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Has she, indeed?&#8221; replied Throckmorton, with rather a grim smile.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; continued Jacqueline, with much seriousness. &#8220;Occasionally she
+gives papa a little treat. You know she always liked you, and papa has
+been dying to call to see you. But mamma can&#8217;t forget the war and
+Beverley. At last, though&mdash;she&#8217;s been thinking about it ever since that
+first day at church&mdash;she concluded to give in&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;you&#8217;re to be
+asked to tea next Sunday evening!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The way this was told was not particularly flattering to Throckmorton,
+but he was sincerely grateful and attached to Mrs. Temple, and he knew
+and pitied the state of feeling that had caused her to intrench herself
+in her prejudices. She must indeed remember those old days when she was
+willing to do what Throckmorton suspected she had promised herself never
+to do. &#8220;I want to be friends with Mrs. Temple&mdash;that&#8217;s plain enough,&#8221; he
+said, &#8220;and if she asks me I shall certainly come.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know,&#8221; said Jacqueline, after a pause, in a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>very confidential
+voice, &#8220;I sometimes wish&mdash;now this is a secret, remember&mdash;that papa and
+mamma would forget Beverley a little&mdash;and think&mdash;of Judith and me? They
+seem to expect Judith to wear black all the time, and never to smile or
+to laugh or to sing, as if Beverley could know. I don&#8217;t believe the dead
+in their graves know or care anything about us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She was on delicate ground, but, her tongue being unloosed,
+Throckmorton&#8217;s attempt to check her was a complete failure.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith, you know,&#8221; she continued, cutting in on Throckmorton&#8217;s awkward
+remonstrance, &#8220;only knew Beverley a little while. Her father and mother
+were dead, and papa was her guardian. She came to Barn Elms to live
+after she left school, and Beverley came home from the war, and they
+were married right away&mdash;almost as soon as they were acquainted. It was
+so sudden because Beverley&#8217;s leave was up, and Delilah says that
+Beverley knew he was going to be killed soon. She says he dreamed it, or
+something. Do you believe in dreams?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, and you mustn&#8217;t believe all Delilah tells you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anyhow, he went away, and he never came back. That broke papa and
+mamma&#8217;s hearts. And you know&mdash;little Beverley&mdash;Judith&#8217;s child&mdash;is like
+her&mdash;and not a bit like Beverley, and mamma talks sometimes as if it was
+a crime on the child&#8217;s part. She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>says to everybody, &#8216;Don&#8217;t you think
+the child is like his father?&#8217; and nobody answers her quite truthfully,
+and she knows it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton hardly knew how to receive these family confidences, but he
+could not but admire the color coming and going in Jacqueline&#8217;s cheeks,
+and the fitful light that burned in her eyes as she talked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Judith&mdash;I do love Judith. It seems hard&mdash;now this is another
+secret&mdash;that she should never have any more pleasure in this world. And
+she is so bright and clever. She understands the most wonderful books.
+And there&#8217;s something&mdash;I can&#8217;t help telling you this.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps you had better not tell me,&#8221; said Throckmorton in a warning
+voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But I can&#8217;t help it, you are so&mdash;so sympathetic: I don&#8217;t believe Judith
+cared for Beverley much.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline drew off to see the effect of this on Throckmorton. She did
+not at all suspect him of any interest in Judith; but this family
+tragedy, that had stalked beside her nearly all her life, she thought
+was of immense importance, and she wanted to see how it affected
+Throckmorton. In fact, it only embarrassed him. He said, rather briefly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Beverley is very handsome&mdash;very charming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s the best sister in the world,&#8221; exclaimed Jacqueline. &#8220;Some people
+think that sisters-in-law <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>can&#8217;t love each other. Sometimes I would
+throw myself in the river if it wasn&#8217;t for Judith.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why should such a tender little thing as you want to throw herself in
+the river?&#8221; he asked; and if Jack had heard the tone in which this was
+spoken, he would, no doubt, have found food for ungodly mirth in it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t know what sorrows I have,&#8221; responded Jacqueline, gravely. And
+then they were almost at the gate of Barn Elms, and Throckmorton bade
+her good-by, and tramped back home, while Jacqueline scudded into the
+house to confide the wonderful adventures of the afternoon to Judith.</p>
+
+<p>In a day or two a note from General Temple came, inviting Throckmorton
+and Jack to tea at Barn Elms the following Sunday evening. It was rather
+a letter than a note, General Temple spreading himself&mdash;his honest soul
+loved a rhetorical flourish&mdash;and containing many references to their
+early association. Throckmorton accepted, in a reply in which he told,
+much more glibly than his tongue could, the grateful affection he had
+cherished from his neglected and unhappy boyhood toward the whole family
+at Barn Elms. On the Sunday evening, therefore, Throckmorton, with Jack,
+presented himself, and was effusively received by the general and Simon
+Peter, who were not unlike in their overpowering courtesy to guests.
+Judith was cordial and dignified, and Jacqueline <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>full of a shy delight.
+No doubt they would be invited to Millenbeck, and she would see with her
+own eyes the Bruskins carpets and other royal splendors Delilah was
+never weary of recounting.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple was able to be down in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Temple
+was not present. Delilah, however, soon put her head in the door, and,
+crossing her hands under a huge white apron she wore, brought a message.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mistis, she say, won&#8217;t Marse George please ter come in de charmber.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton at once followed her. The &#8220;charmber&#8221; at Barn Elms was a
+sort of star chamber, and utterances within its precincts were usually
+of a solemn character. As Throckmorton entered, Mrs. Temple rose from
+the big rush-bottomed chair in which she sat. Throckmorton remembered
+the room perfectly, in all the years since he had been in it&mdash;the dimity
+curtains, the high-post mahogany bed, the shining brass fender and
+andirons, the tall candlesticks on the high wooden mantel. He
+remembered, with a queer, boyish feeling, sundry moral discourses gently
+administered to him in that room on certain occasions when he had been
+caught in the act of fishing on Sunday, or poking a broomstick up the
+chimney to dislodge the sooty swallows that built their nests there in
+the summer-time, and other instances of juvenile turpitude. And he well
+recollected once, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>when Mrs. Temple was ill, he had hung about the
+place, a picture of boyish misery; and when at last he was admitted into
+the room where she lay, white and feeble, on the broad, old-fashioned
+lounge, how happy, how glad, how honored he had felt. He went forward
+eagerly and raised Mrs. Temple&#8217;s hand to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;George Throckmorton, this is nearer forgiveness than I ever expected to
+come,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear Mrs. Temple, don&#8217;t let us talk about forgiveness. Let us only
+remember that we are friends of more than thirty years&#8217;
+standing&mdash;because I can&#8217;t remember the time when I was a boy that I
+didn&#8217;t love you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I loved you, too&mdash;next to my own Beverley. I sent for you here that
+I might tell you my trouble as you used to tell me yours so long ago.
+Often you have sat on that little cricket over there and told me of your
+grandfather&#8217;s cruel ways to you&mdash;he was a godless man, George.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He was indeed,&#8221; fervently assented Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And now I want to tell you of <i>my</i> sorrows, George.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton listened patiently while she went over all of Beverley&#8217;s
+life. She told it with a touching simplicity. Throckmorton well saw how
+that still stern unforgiveness might rankle in her gentle but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>immovable
+mind. Then he told her of his marriage&mdash;something he had never in all
+his life spoken of to any one in that manner; but the force of sweet and
+early habit was upon him&mdash;he could talk to Mrs. Temple about the young
+creature so much loved and so long dead. Mrs. Temple, who knew what such
+revealing meant from a man of Throckmorton&#8217;s strong and self-contained
+nature, was completely won by this. An hour afterward, when they came
+into the drawing-room, and found Jack and Jacqueline in a perfect gale
+of merriment, with Judith looking smilingly on, Mrs. Temple laid her
+hand on Throckmorton&#8217;s shoulder, and said to General Temple, with sweet
+gravity, &#8220;He is the same George Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith was leaning a little forward in her chair, with her arm around
+her child. The boy was a beautiful, manly fellow, and gazed at
+Throckmorton with friendly, serious eyes. Throckmorton, whose heart was
+tender toward all children, smiled at him. Beverley at this marched
+forward and climbed upon Throckmorton&#8217;s knee, his little white frock,
+heavy with embroidery worked by Judith&#8217;s patient fingers, spreading all
+around him. The boy immediately launched into conversation, eying
+Throckmorton boldly, although his eyes usually had the shy expression of
+his mother&#8217;s. He wanted to know if Throckmorton had a gun, and could he
+beat the drum; also, if he could ride a horse. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>Sometimes grandfather
+would take him up and let him ride as far as the gate. Throckmorton
+answered all these questions satisfactorily, and then told about a pony
+he had at Millenbeck&mdash;a pony that had been Jack&#8217;s, when Jack was no
+bigger than Beverley, and that was now too old and slow for any but a
+very little boy. While Throckmorton talked to the child, Judith listened
+with a smiling look in her eyes. Throckmorton could not but be struck by
+the pretty picture the young mother and her child made. He saw the
+resemblance between them at once, and when he told of a tragic adventure
+Jack had with the pony, falling through a bridge, both pairs of large,
+soft eyes grew wide with grave amazement. Unconsciously Judith assumed
+the child&#8217;s expression. Beverley seemed determined to monopolize his new
+acquaintance, but presently Judith with a little air of authority sent
+him off with Delilah. Beverley paused at the door to say:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You come again and bring the pony.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Presently they went into the dining-room, and the old-fashioned tea was
+served. There was enough to feed a regiment, and all of the best kind,
+but nothing approaching vulgar display. Mrs. Temple put Throckmorton at
+her right, and every time she spoke to Jack she called him George.
+Throckmorton had forgotten nothing of the old days, and he not only
+began to feel young himself, but he made General and Mrs. Temple <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>feel
+that time had turned backward. Jacqueline, on the opposite side of the
+table, smiled at him and talked a little. In her heart she could not
+quite make out Throckmorton. He had arrived at an age that seemed to her
+almost venerable; yet he quite ignored the fact that he ought to be old,
+and certainly was not old, nor could anybody say that he was young.
+Jack&#8217;s boyish fun she understood well enough, but Throckmorton&#8217;s shrewd
+humor, his confident, experienced way of looking at things, was rather
+beyond her. And as the case had been, whenever Throckmorton saw her, he
+had to exercise a certain restraint, lest everybody should see how
+strangely and completely she magnetized him. If anybody had asked him to
+compare Judith and Jacqueline, he would have given Judith the palm in
+everything&mdash;even in beauty; but Jacqueline&#8217;s young prettiness in some
+way caught his fancy more than Judith&#8217;s deeper and more significant
+beauty.</p>
+
+<p>But Judith had her charm too for him. She captivated his judgment as
+Jacqueline captivated some inner sense to which he could give no name.
+Judith&#8217;s talk was seasoned with liveliness, and Throckmorton, who
+possessed a dry and penetrating humor of his own, could always count on
+a responsive sparkle in Judith&#8217;s eye.</p>
+
+<p>When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Temple said:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Judith, my dear, sing us some of your sweet hymns.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith sat down to the piano and in her clear and bell-like soprano sang
+some old-fashioned hymns, so sweetly and unaffectedly that Throckmorton
+thought it was like angels singing. The sound of the simple music, the
+soft light of fire and lamp, the atmosphere of love and courtesy that
+seemed to breathe over the quaint circle, had a fascination for him. It
+was the poetry of domestic life. He had often dreamed of what &#8220;home&#8221;
+might be, but he had never known it, for that brief married life of his
+had been too short, too flickering; they were boy and girl lovers, and,
+before the new life had had time to crystallize, he was left alone. But
+here he saw the sweet privacy of home, the repose, the family nest, safe
+and warm. He sighed a little. Money could not buy it, else he would have
+had it at Millenbeck, comfortable handsome country-house that it was.
+But here, at this shabby old Barn Elms, it was in perfection, in all its
+naturalness and simplicity. After all, women were necessary to make a
+home; even money, with a Sweeney as presiding genius, couldn&#8217;t do it.</p>
+
+<p>It was late when they left. Mrs. Temple&#8217;s parting was as solemn as her
+greeting:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have done that which I never expected to do, and all because in my
+heart I can&#8217;t but love you, George Throckmorton!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p><p>Throckmorton&#8217;s keen pleasure showed in his dark eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I always knew, if you would only listen to that dear, kind heart of
+yours, you would forgive the Yankees,&#8221; he laughed.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p>Miracles usually happen in cycles. They unquestionably did in the Severn
+neighborhood. Before the hurricane of talk over Throckmorton&#8217;s arrival,
+Jack&#8217;s audacity, and Sweeney&#8217;s brogue had fairly reached a crisis, a
+letter came one day to General Temple, from his nephew, Temple Freke,
+announcing his intention of paying a visit to his dear uncle and aunt at
+Barn Elms.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple handed the letter to Mrs. Temple with a sort of groan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is he&mdash;I mean, my love, this is most discomposing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this Mrs. Temple shook her head in a manner expressing perfect
+despair. The problem whether Throckmorton should be admitted within the
+doors of Barn Elms was a mere nothing compared with this. Both of them
+firmly believed in a personal devil; and Temple Freke, with his
+extravagance, his vices, his unprincipled behavior, stood for Satan
+himself. This Freke was very unlike the conservative, home-keeping type
+of a gentleman that prevailed in Virginia. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>was born and brought up
+in Louisiana, and was fifteen years old when, by the death of his
+father, General Temple became his guardian, and he was brought to Barn
+Elms to lead the staid Beverley into all sorts of scrapes, and to
+torment General Temple&#8217;s honest soul almost to madness. The elder Freke,
+perhaps, knowing the boy&#8217;s disposition, had made General Temple&#8217;s
+guardianship to extend until Temple Freke&#8217;s twenty-fifth birthday.</p>
+
+<p>Of the horrors of that guardianship, nobody but the kind and
+simple-hearted general could tell&mdash;of Freke&#8217;s extravagance, of his
+gambling and betting and drinking, and one frightful scene, when Freke,
+with a loaded pistol in his hand, swore that, unless a certain debt of
+honor was paid, he would kill himself on the spot; and General Temple,
+who was not easily frightened, promptly paid it, with the conviction
+that the young fellow was quite capable of carrying out the threat.
+Immediately after this, General Temple shipped him off to Europe, but
+apparently it made bad worse. For six whole years was General Temple
+commanding, entreating, praying, and wheedling to get Freke back to
+Virginia. It was true, he might have cut off supplies, but Freke made no
+bones of saying that, if he couldn&#8217;t get his own money, he would
+contrive to get somebody else&#8217;s; so the poor general, with groans and
+moans, would cash Freke&#8217;s drafts on him as long as money could be
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>screwed out of the Louisiana sugar plantations to do it with.</p>
+
+<p>But, as Mrs. Temple often said, Freke was unquestionably a gentleman; he
+was mild-mannered to a degree, and his very impertinences were brought
+out with a diffidence that frequently hoodwinked General Temple. He was
+not nearly so handsome as Beverley, being much shorter and sandy-haired,
+in contrast with Beverley&#8217;s blonde beauty; but Mrs. Temple always felt
+in the old days, with a little pang of jealousy, that this
+ordinary-looking boy, with his exquisite manners&mdash;not the least affected
+or effeminate, but simply the perfection of personal bearing&mdash;could put
+Beverley at a disadvantage. The two had little in common, and had never
+met after their school-days, when General Temple, in the innocence of
+his heart, had sent Freke abroad, to reform, until the very time of
+Beverley&#8217;s death. Freke, whose courage was as flawless in its way as
+General Temple&#8217;s, had come home during the war and enlisted in the
+Southern army. A strange fate had placed him close to Beverley when he
+was killed. He had held Beverley&#8217;s dying hand, and to him were intrusted
+the last messages to the mother and the young wife, who waited and
+prayed at Barn Elms. Nothing on earth but this could have brought Mrs.
+Temple to tolerate Freke at all, after the sensational career which had
+begun with the pistol scene. Moreover, to increase the abnormal
+conditions about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>this unregenerate being, as the Temples considered
+him, he was perfectly irresistible. How it was, General Temple gloomily
+declared, he didn&#8217;t know, but Freke had the most extraordinary way of
+insinuating himself into the good graces of both men and women&mdash;not by
+any affectation of goodness, for there was a frankness about his
+wickedness that was peculiarly appalling to General Temple. Freke was no
+handsomer as a man than as a boy; he had been steadily making ducks and
+drakes of his fortune since he was twenty-five; yet, somehow, Freke
+always seemed to have a plenty of friends, solely by the charm of his
+personality. The most serious escapade that had come to General Temple&#8217;s
+knowledge since Freke was of age was his running away with a Cuban girl
+in New Orleans, and afterward getting a divorce by some hocus-pocus, and
+thereafter, with serene confidence, he bore himself as an unmarried man.
+Now, divorce was practically unknown in that old part of Virginia, and
+the Temples regarded it as in the category with murder and arson; so
+that this final iniquity of Freke&#8217;s would have quite put him beyond the
+pale, but for those hours he spent kneeling on the ground with the dying
+Beverley.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple had a sort of Arab hospitality that would not have
+begrudged itself to the Evil One himself, and to tell Freke that he was
+not welcome under the roof of Barn Elms, where his grandfather and his
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>grandfather&#8217;s father had lived, was an enormity of which he was not
+capable. And Mrs. Temple was no manner of use to him in the case. In
+vain he tried to shuffle the decision off on her. Mrs. Temple would not
+accept it. Like the general, she sighed and groaned, and turned it over
+in her mind; but always came back that picture of Beverley lying
+bleeding and dying, and Freke risking his life to stay by him. So at
+last, after a week of mutual misery, one night, in the privacy of the
+&#8220;charmber,&#8221; Mrs. Temple, watching the general stalking up and down
+during one of his fits of midnight restlessness, said, tremulously:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My love, we must let Freke come. We can not refuse it&mdash;for&mdash;for
+Beverley&#8217;s sake.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So the next morning a letter was dispatched to Freke, written by General
+Temple with considerably less cordiality than usual, and very feeble
+rhetorically, expressing the pleasure his uncle and aunt felt at the
+prospect of a visit from their nephew.</p>
+
+<p>The next day, as soon as the direful news of his coming was made known
+to Jacqueline, she rushed off, as she always did, to give Judith the
+startling information.</p>
+
+<p>Judith heard it with a strange feeling of repulsion, which she at first
+imagined was that infinite disapproval she felt for Freke; but, if he
+came, all of that terrible story about Beverley would have to be told
+over. Judith had not yet come to a clear understanding <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>of herself, but
+she had begun to shrink from that dwelling on Beverley which seemed to
+give Mrs. Temple such exquisite comfort.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Everything that looked at Freke fell in love with him,&#8221; announced
+Jacqueline. &#8220;Of course, he is as handsome as a dream&mdash;something like Mr.
+Morford, I dare say.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There were two or three faded photographs of him at Barn Elms, and none
+of them gave the idea of great beauty; but photographs in those days
+were not very artistic reproductions.</p>
+
+<p>Judith laughed a little uneasily.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish he wern&#8217;t coming, Jacky,&#8221; she said. &#8220;He is too&mdash;too startling a
+person for quiet people like ourselves. There is one comfort, though: he
+will soon get tired of us.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Within a week or two came a very well-expressed letter from Freke,
+thanking his uncle and aunt for their hospitable invitation, and saying
+that on a certain day he would land from the river steamer at Oak Point.
+Jacqueline was immensely taken with the letter, which was written on
+paper the like of which she had never seen before, and was sealed with a
+crest.</p>
+
+<p>Two immense trunks arrived in advance of the expected visitor. Mrs.
+Sherrard happened to be at Barn Elms when the luggage appeared. Mrs.
+Temple&#8217;s face expressed her misery.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Jane, you have my sympathy. A more unmitigated scamp than Freke doesn&#8217;t
+live,&#8221; was Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s remark.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Kitty,&#8221; feebly protested Mrs. Temple, &#8220;he is my husband&#8217;s nephew.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The more&#8217;s the pity.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As a rule, the reputation of incalculable wickedness hurts nobody, in
+the opinion of the very young. The more Mrs. Temple preached and warned,
+holding on to that one saving clause, Freke&#8217;s devotion to Beverley in
+his dying hours, the more attractive he seemed to Jacqueline. At last
+one afternoon, when the carriage returned from Oak Point Landing with
+the much-talked-of Freke, Jacqueline, who had been curling her hair and
+prinking all day for the visitor, came down into the drawing-room, and
+the expression of acute disappointment on her face said loudly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is this all?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>For Freke was neither surpassingly handsome nor any of the superlative
+things Jacqueline had fondly imagined him to be. He was not even as
+handsome as Throckmorton, and Jacqueline thought him no beauty. Freke
+was under middle height, and his hair was as sandy as of old, and not
+too abundant. His features were ordinary; and Jacqueline, not being a
+physiognomist, did not take in the piercing expression, the firmness and
+intelligence that redeemed them from commonplaceness. He did look
+unmistakably the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>gentleman, Jacqueline grudgingly admitted. <i>This</i> the
+adorable, the irresistible, the&mdash;But Jacqueline was too disgusted to
+continue.</p>
+
+<p>Freke, who read Jacqueline like an open book, and suspected the advance
+impression she had received, could hardly keep from laughing out aloud
+at the girl&#8217;s air and manner. He talked a little to her, somewhat more
+to Judith, but chiefly to Mrs. Temple.</p>
+
+<p>It was late in the afternoon when he had arrived, and tea was soon
+announced. Directly it was over, Mrs. Temple marshaled a solemn
+procession into &#8220;the charmber&#8221; to hear Freke&#8217;s description of Beverley&#8217;s
+last hours. She went first with Judith, followed by Freke and General
+Temple. Mrs. Temple had tried to get Jacqueline to come, too, but
+Jacqueline, who had a horror of weeping and tragedies, begged off; and
+Mrs. Temple, who really attached but little importance to the girl at
+any time, did not press the point. The door of the room remained closed
+for two hours. Jacqueline, who had got tired of Delilah&#8217;s company and
+the cat&#8217;s, went up-stairs early, but not to bed. She waited until she
+heard Judith&#8217;s door open, and then went and knocked timidly at the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come in,&#8221; said Judith, in an unfamiliar voice. Judith was sitting
+before her dressing-table, and had already begun to unbraid her long,
+rich hair. But <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>her eyes were fixed with a hard, staring gaze on her own
+image in the glass. The mother had wept at Freke&#8217;s recital; the widow
+had remained pale, tearless, and turning over in her troubled mind the
+immaturity, the transitoriness of that first girlish love-affair that
+had resulted, as so few first loves do, in a sudden marriage&mdash;a quick
+widowhood. And she had a terrifying sense that she had betrayed herself
+to Freke. There was one particular point in the narrative, when he
+described how the dead man had got his death-wound. Beverley had run
+across a small body of Federal cavalrymen, himself with only an advance
+guard, and, <i>&agrave; la</i> General Temple, had immediately dashed at them, as if
+a cavalry scrimmage would affect one iota the great fight that was
+impending the next day. Beverley himself had engaged in a hand-to-hand
+tussle with a Federal officer&mdash;both of them had rolled off their horses,
+and the struggle between them was more like Indian warfare than
+civilized warfare&mdash;and Freke described, with cruel particularity, how
+the two men fought in the underbrush, and crushed the wild rose and
+hawthorn bushes, each one trying vainly to draw his pistol&mdash;and at last
+a shot rang out, and Beverley turned over on his face with a wild shriek
+and a death-wound. The Federal officer had got his arm entangled in his
+bridle-reins, and Freke thought every moment the excited horse would
+trample the wounded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>man to death; and then, a squad of Confederates
+coming up, the Federals had made off, the officer mounting his horse and
+getting out of the way with nothing worse than a few bruises. All the
+time he was telling this he was eying Judith, who did not shed a single
+tear. Mrs. Temple wept torrents, and even so did General Temple. For
+poor Judith, whose reading of Freke was not less keen than his reading
+of her, it was misery enough to feel that, after all, her widowhood was
+not very real, and that the mourning, the entire giving up of the world,
+the devotion to Beverley&#8217;s parents, was, in some sort, a reparation; but
+that it should escape her&mdash;for Judith with the eagerness to make amends,
+of a generous nature, had readily adopted Mrs. Temple&#8217;s view&mdash;that it
+was a crime not to mourn for Beverley.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline slipped down on her knees beside Judith, and, nodding her
+head, gravely said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mamma didn&#8217;t get <i>me</i> into the room. Ah, Judy, dear, why won&#8217;t they let
+us forget him&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline!&#8221; cried Judith, turning a pale, shocked face on her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I say,&#8221; persisted Jacqueline, who had one of her sudden fits of
+courage, &#8220;why do they trouble us to remember him? I hardly knew him; he
+was always off at college, and then in the war; why won&#8217;t they let us
+mourn decently for him? And then&mdash;and then&mdash;everybody wants to forget
+griefs. I do.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p><p>Judith rose and shook her off impatiently. &#8220;I wish Temple Freke had
+never come here,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do, too,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, getting up. &#8220;I am afraid of him. O
+Judith, what two poor creatures are we!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know I am,&#8221; suddenly cried Judith, breaking into a storm of tears. &#8220;I
+know there is no peace for me anywhere!&mdash;&#8221; Judith stopped as suddenly as
+she had begun. How could she put it in words, the ghastliness of this
+perpetual reminder of that which in her heart she longed to forget&mdash;this
+feeling that had been growing on her for so long, that she ought to feel
+more remorse for marrying Beverley Temple than grief at losing him&mdash;that
+all this solemn mourning for him was like those state funerals, where
+there is a great service, a catafalque, a coffin, mourners&mdash;everything
+except a corpse? And to her candid soul how wicked, heartless, and
+unnatural it seemed! Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes, so full of meaning and fixed on
+her, troubled her. She got up after a minute and walked over to the
+window. The red glow of the fire and the dim candle-light did not
+prevent her from seeing clearly into the moonlight night. She drew the
+old-fashioned white curtains apart and looked out. The somber trees
+loomed large and black, but up on the hill, a quarter of a mile away,
+the light from Millenbeck gleamed cheerfully. From two windows on the
+lower floor and two on the upper, as well as the great <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>fan- and
+side-lights of the hall-door, a ruddy glare streamed steadily. Presently
+Jacqueline came and stood by Judith, timidly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know,&#8221; she said, &#8220;it seems queer that three strangers should
+come into our lonely lives&mdash;in this quiet life here? And the one I
+like&mdash;the one I like best&mdash;is Jack Throckmorton. I can&#8217;t talk to the
+others.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, who had got back a little of her composure, smiled at this.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You talked away fast enough with Major Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, but I didn&#8217;t feel at home with him. Jack and I understand each
+other. I know what he means when he talks to me. I don&#8217;t always
+understand Major Throckmorton. Judith, is my cousin Freke a very wicked
+man?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So people say,&#8221; replied Judith in a subdued voice, which had not
+altogether overcome its agitation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He isn&#8217;t handsome enough to be very&mdash;very attractive,&#8221; said Jacqueline
+after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>But the rule of contrary seemed to suddenly prevail at Barn Elms then.
+Within a week everybody in the house had succumbed more or less to
+Freke&#8217;s charm. General Temple found him invaluable in the preparation of
+the History of Temple&#8217;s Brigade; and Freke, who had a store of military
+knowledge among his great fund of general information, easily <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>persuaded
+the general that he was a military historian of the first order. When
+the general began his evening harangues, Freke always had an example pat
+of a certain occasion when Prince Eugene, or the Duke of Marlborough, or
+some equally distinguished leader had successfully pursued General
+Temple&#8217;s tactics. All this General Temple laboriously transcribed in his
+manuscript. Judith, who very much doubted whether Freke were not making
+it up as he went along, had her suspicions confirmed when Freke would
+occasionally turn his expressive face on her and actually wink with
+appreciation of the general&#8217;s simplicity. Judith was indignant, but she
+could not help laughing at Freke&#8217;s genuine humor. Mrs. Temple showed her
+regard for the returned prodigal by taking him into the &#8220;charmber&#8221; one
+day and reasoning in a motherly way upon Freke&#8217;s duty to return to his
+wife. Judith was astounded after a while to hear Mrs. Temple&#8217;s gentle
+but intense laughter making itself heard outside the room. Freke, with
+the most good-natured manner in the world, sitting in the rush-bottomed
+chair, with one foot over his knee, began to tell Mrs. Temple some of
+his marital experiences with his Julia. Mrs. Temple at first put on her
+severest frown and fairly groaned aloud at his declaration that he
+didn&#8217;t know whether he was married or not in Virginia, as his divorce
+was got in one of the Northwestern States; but, divorce or no divorce,
+he wouldn&#8217;t tempt <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>Fate again in another matrimonial venture even with a
+creature as beautiful as Helen, as wise as Portia, and with a million in
+her own right. Then he began to tell of the adventures between Julia and
+himself which had led to their separation, winding up with a description
+of their final scene, when Julia threw a dish at him and he in turn
+threw a bucket of ice-water over Julia. Before this, though, Mrs.
+Temple&#8217;s laughter had been heard. Freke issued from the room the picture
+of innocence, and at peace with himself and all the world. Mrs. Temple,
+on the contrary, was an image of guilt. Never had she before in her life
+been beguiled from a moral lecture into unseemly laughter&mdash;and laughter
+on such a subject! Mrs. Temple&#8217;s conscience rose up and fought her, and
+she began to think that all her moral foundation was tottering.</p>
+
+<p>Surprises were the order of the day. One night, just after family
+prayers, when the gout, and the doubt whether anybody at all was to be
+saved, had caused General Temple to make a more pessimistic, vociferous,
+and grewsome prayer than usual, in which he called the Deity to account
+for so grievously afflicting the Temple family, Freke, whom Judith had
+caught smiling in the midst of General Temple&#8217;s most telling periods,
+quietly announced that he had that day bought Wareham, a place within
+two miles of Barn Elms.</p>
+
+<p>It was not much of a place, being at most about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>three hundred acres,
+with a small, untenanted house on it&mdash;and property went for a song,
+anyhow, in that part of the world&mdash;but, nevertheless, the news was
+paralyzing to General and Mrs. Temple. Judith, who was developing a
+certain dislike and distrust of Freke that grew daily, could hardly
+forbear laughing at the mute horror of General and Mrs. Temple over this
+unlooked-for news. Freke went on to say that a very little would make
+the place habitable for him, and he liked the fishing and shooting to be
+had&mdash;especially the shooting, as the birds had had four years&#8217; rest
+during the war. Then he said good-night pleasantly, and went off to bed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This is the dev&mdash;I mean this is most unfortunate, my love,&#8221; remarked
+General Temple, dismally, to Mrs. Temple, at two o&#8217;clock in the morning
+following this, as he paraded up and down the &#8220;charmber,&#8221; declaiming
+against Freke&#8217;s iniquities.</p>
+
+<p>Next day, Mrs. Sherrard came over, and the direful news was communicated
+to her by Mrs. Temple, with a very long face. Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s eyes
+danced.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now you&#8217;ll know what it is to have a nephew that one would like to be
+entirely unlike what he is. That&#8217;s my trouble with Edmund Morford. You
+know, I hate a humbug&mdash;and Edmund is a good soul, but a dreadful
+humbug.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Katharine!&#8221; exclaimed Mrs. Temple. &#8220;A minister of the gospel&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Go along, Jane Temple! You have no eyes in your head where ministers of
+the gospel are concerned. Edmund is perfectly harmless&mdash;that&#8217;s one
+comfort.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wish I could say the same of Temple Freke,&#8221; Mrs. Temple rejoined,
+dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>It would be a week or two yet before Freke could take possession of
+Wareham. Some beds and tables and sheets and towels had to be procured,
+and meanwhile he stayed on at Barn Elms. It would not have taken a very
+astute person to see what the charm was. It was Judith.</p>
+
+<p>When the knowledge first came to these two people&mdash;to Judith, that
+Freke&#8217;s eyes followed her continually; that, as if by some power beyond
+his will, his chair was always next hers, his ear always alert to catch
+her lightest word&mdash;to Freke, that this young country-woman, with her
+spirited, expressive face, her untutored singing&mdash;for music was one of
+his weak points, or strong ones, as the case might be&mdash;her gentle
+sarcasm when he essayed a little sentiment, pretty and tender enough to
+please a woman who knew twice as much as she; that at first sight,
+without an effort, she had conquered his bold spirit&mdash;it is hard to say
+which was the most vexed and disgusted. Judith found it easy enough to
+play the inconsolable widow where a man who aroused a positive
+antagonism like Freke was concerned, and denounced him in her own <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>mind
+as a wretch for daring to fall in love with her. And Freke&mdash;after New
+York women and Creole women, French, Spanish, Russian, English, and
+Italian women&mdash;to have been loved and petted, and virtually made free of
+women&#8217;s hearts; that this unsophisticated Virginia girl, who had never
+seen six men in her life, should simply take him off his feet, and that,
+without knowing it&mdash;was simply infuriating. In the privacy of his
+bedroom, as he smoked his last cigar before turning in, he swore at
+himself with a self-deprecation that was thoroughly genuine. What did he
+want to marry again for, anyway? Hadn&#8217;t he had all he wanted of that
+pastime? And, of course, being a divorced man, Judith would see him
+chopped into little pieces before she would marry him&mdash;and then the
+staggering thought that, even if he were not divorced, the odds were
+against her marrying him at all&mdash;it was altogether maddening. But he did
+not lose his head completely. Judith&#8217;s indifference&mdash;nay, dislike&mdash;saved
+to him his discretion. But had she warmed to him for one little
+moment&mdash;Freke, in thinking over this sweet impossibility, lay back in
+his chair and watched the smoke curling upward, and was lost in a
+delicious reverie&mdash;when suddenly, the utter preposterousness of it came
+to him, and he threw the cigar into the fire with a savage energy that
+nearly wrenched his arm off. No, the little devil&mdash;for he was not choice
+of epithets in regard to this woman&mdash;would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>throw him away with as
+little conscience and remorse as he threw that cigar away! Like all men
+of many love-affairs, he regarded love-making as an &aelig;sthetic amusement;
+and while it was absolutely necessary for its perfection that the woman
+should be desperately in earnest&mdash;for Freke did not mind a tragic tinge
+being given to the matter&mdash;it was nonsense for a man to permit himself
+to be drawn into heroics&mdash;and yet&mdash;but for the indifference of this
+girl, who was always half laughing at him&mdash;he would not answer for any
+folly he might commit.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was Jacqueline. She exactly suited him as a victim to his
+charms, sardonically expressing it to himself. She, too, was not
+particularly impressed with him as yet, but that was due to her
+ignorance. He could easily enlighten her, and she would be led like a
+slave by him; he could make her believe anything. So, in default of
+Judith, he might as well amuse himself with Jacqueline; and, by
+resolutely concealing his gigantic folly, he would in the end overcome
+it. But he felt like a man who, having a head to stand champagne and
+brandy and absinthe and every other intoxication, comes across something
+that looks as harmless as water, but which sets his brain on fire and
+makes him a madman.</p>
+
+<p>The general and Mrs. Temple saw nothing; a man might have made love to
+Judith and have run away with her under their very noses before they
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>would have realized that it was possible for any man to dare falling in
+love with Beverley&#8217;s widow; and if Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes saw anything, she
+kept it wisely to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Freke certainly added a new and picturesque element to their lives; even
+Judith could not deny that, although she habitually denied Freke the
+possession of any of the graces as well as the virtues. But that Freke
+was a wonderful, a gifted, a fascinating talker, she was forced to
+admit. His conversation was quite different from Throckmorton&#8217;s manly
+plainness of speech, who, with more brains than Freke, had not them as
+readily soluble in talk. Judith was acute enough to see the difference
+between the two men&mdash;one the man of conversation, and the other the man
+of action. Throckmorton knew many things, and one thing surpassingly
+well&mdash;his profession. Freke excelled in conversation; what he knew was
+imposing, but what he could do was not. However, he had not only
+traveled, but he had observed as well as read. He never made himself the
+hero of his own stories; and there was a sparkle in his eyes, an
+animation that gave a deeper tone to his voice, and Judith, in her dull
+and colorless life, could not but feel the charm of it. Nevertheless, it
+was not all charm. Judith felt as strongly as ever the incongruity of
+Freke with his surroundings.</p>
+
+<p>So, some days more passed. Judith found that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>in finesse she was no
+match for Freke. Indifferent to him as she might be, he could always
+place himself where he wanted&mdash;he managed to have a great deal more of
+her society than she would willingly have given him; but she reasoned
+shrewdly with herself&mdash;women being naturally clever in these things: &#8220;He
+will soon give it up. The game is not worth the candle.&#8221; And so it
+proved; for in a little while he began to shadow Jacqueline, and
+Jacqueline succumbed like a bird to the charmer. If Freke was present,
+Jacqueline, who was wont to be impatient when not noticed, would sit
+quite quietly by her sister-in-law&#8217;s side, sewing demurely, or walk
+beside her gravely, not opening her mouth but listening intently, as her
+changing color showed. One day, when Jacqueline went into the gloomy,
+darkened drawing-room to play, Freke followed her. Jacqueline sat down,
+and began some short familiar piece, but she could not render it. She
+missed notes, became confused, and finally gave up and left the piano in
+mortification.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is because you are here,&#8221; she said to Freke, with a child&#8217;s
+resentment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is it, little girl?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>He was sitting quite at the other end of the room and did not come near
+her, but something in his tone made Jacqueline halt, and brought the
+ever-ready blood into her cheeks. Freke, after a moment, rose and
+sauntered toward her. As he came up to her he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>took a stray lock of hair
+that had escaped, in curly perversity, from the comb; and, just as he
+stood with it in his fingers, the door opened and Simon Peter announced:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Walk right in, Marse George. Mistis, she countin&#8217; de tuckeys in de
+coop, but Miss Judy, she be &#8217;long pres&#8217;n&#8217;y. Hi! Here Miss Jacky!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton walked in. His eye, which was as quick as a hawk&#8217;s, caught
+the whole thing in an instant, and a sort of jealousy sprang into life.
+Of course, he did not display the smallest symptom of it. He shook hands
+pleasantly with Jacqueline, and also with Freke, whom he had met several
+times. With his easy, worldly judgment, he by no means ranked Freke as
+the chief of sinners, but, without regarding him as a model citizen,
+found him extremely good company, which Freke certainly was. Jacqueline
+looked painfully embarrassed, but Freke&#8217;s coolness was simply
+indomitable. The two men made conversation naturally enough, while
+Jacqueline, awkwardly silent, sat and twisted the unlucky lock of hair
+in her fingers until a diversion was created by Judith&#8217;s entrance, with
+little Beverley clinging to her skirts. A faint, girlish blush came into
+Judith&#8217;s face when she met Throckmorton; and for his part he felt always
+the charm, the refinement, the sprightliness, more piquant because
+subdued, that exhaled like a perfume wherever Judith was. Beverley made
+for Throckmorton, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>and, before his mother could interpose a warning
+hand, was perched on the arm of Throckmorton&#8217;s chair, whence both of
+them defied her. Jacqueline made but one remark. She asked Throckmorton,
+timidly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How is young Mr. Throckmorton?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At which the major scowled, but responded carelessly that Jack was all
+right, as far as he knew.</p>
+
+<p><i>Young</i> Mr. Throckmorton! and from those lovely lips!</p>
+
+<p>Presently there was a grinding of wheels, and a commotion at the front
+door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Sherrard, I know!&#8221; said Judith. &#8220;She always begins her salutations
+at the gate.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Sounds were distinguishable.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mistis be mighty glad ter see you an&#8217; Marse Edmun&#8217;. She down at de
+fattenin&#8217;-coop countin&#8217; de tuckeys, kase we didn&#8217;t have no luck wid de
+tuckey-aigs lars&#8217; season, an&#8217; de wuffless hen-tuckeys&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>So much for Simon Peter, when Delilah&#8217;s voice broke in:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Kitty, &#8217;twan&#8217; de hen-tuckeys &#8217;tall. Ef de gobblers wuz ter take
+turns, like de pigeons, a-settin&#8217; on de aigs&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I allus did think dem he-pigeons look like de foolishest critters <i>I</i>
+ever see a-settin&#8217; on de nes&#8217; while de she-pigeons hoppin&#8217; roun&#8217; de
+groun&#8217; &#8217;stid o&#8217; mindin&#8217; dey business&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;You are right, Simon Peter,&#8221; answered Mrs. Sherrard, still invisible.
+&#8220;I wonder that Delilah hasn&#8217;t profited by Mrs. Temple&#8217;s example. You&#8217;ve
+got visitors. Whose hat is this?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marse George Throckmorton&#8217;s an&#8217; Marse Temple Freke&#8217;s. I gwi&#8217; tell
+mistis you here. Marse c&#8217;yarn leave de charmber yet, he gout so bad.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard marched in, followed by Edmund Morford. She wore her most
+commanding and hostile air. She had pooh-poohed Mrs. Temple&#8217;s dread of
+Freke, but she meant to give him to understand that his goings on, and
+particularly his matrimonial difficulties, were perfectly well known in
+the Severn neighborhood, and properly reprobated. So she shook hands all
+around, followed by the Rev. Edmund, who never trusted himself at Barn
+Elms, with those two pretty young women, alone and unprotected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I understand you have bought Wareham,&#8221; remarked Mrs. Sherrard, tartly,
+to Freke.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have,&#8221; answered Freke, very mildly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You&#8217;ll repent it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not if you make yourself as agreeable as you ought,&#8221; answered Freke.</p>
+
+<p>The impudence of this tickled Mrs. Sherrard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hear you are an entertaining fellow,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Come and talk to
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just then Mrs. Temple entered, but Mrs. Sherrard kept fast hold of
+Freke. In half an hour he had won <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>her over. Judith, responding with an
+intelligent glance to a rather cynical smile on Throckmorton&#8217;s part, saw
+it. Not satisfied with winning Mrs. Sherrard over, Freke applied himself
+to Morford, and that excellent but guileless person fell an instant
+victim to Freke&#8217;s tact and power. Mrs. Sherrard was so pleased with her
+morning&#8217;s visit, that she invited them all over to Turkey Thicket to
+spend the following Thursday evening.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p>In the few days that followed, Judith saw more plainly that Freke was
+deliberately casting his spell over Jacqueline, and, from the soft and
+seductive flattery he had tried on her, Judith, at first, he exchanged
+something like sarcasm. He would discuss constancy before her, Judith
+meanwhile keeping her seat resolutely, but she could not prevent the
+tell-tale color from rising into her face. But when, as Freke generally
+did, he surmised that all the so-called constancy in this world wasn&#8217;t
+exactly what it purported to be, she grew pale beneath his gaze. He
+watched her intently whenever she was with Throckmorton, and the mere
+consciousness of being watched embarrassed while it angered her. Freke,
+whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw far into the future, and
+often repeated in his own mind the old, old truth that all the passions
+of human nature&mdash;love, hope, despair, jealousy, and revenge&mdash;could be
+found within the quietest and most peaceful circle.</p>
+
+<p>The very next evening after Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s visit, Freke appeared in the
+dusky drawing-room, where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>Jacqueline sat crouched over the fire, and
+Judith, with her child in her arms, sang him quaint Mother Goose
+melodies. When Freke came within the fire&#8217;s red circle of light, Judith
+observed that he had a violin and bow under his arm. Jacqueline jumped
+up delightedly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, oh! do you know any music?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can fiddle a little,&#8221; answered Freke, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>He settled himself, and, in the midst of the deep silence of twilight in
+the country, began a concerto of Brahms. The first movement, an
+<i>allegro</i>, he played with a dainty, soft trippingness that was fit for
+fairies dancing by moonlight. The next, a <i>scherzo</i>, was full of tender
+suggestiveness&mdash;a dream told in music. The third movement was deeper,
+more tragic, full of sorrow and wailing. As Freke drew the bow across
+the G-string, he would bring out tones as deep as the &#8217;cello, while
+suddenly the sharp cry of the treble would cut into the somber depths of
+the basso like the shriek of a soul in torment. A melody like a
+wandering spirit appeared out of the deep harmonies, and lost, yet ever
+found, would make itself heard with a sweet insistence, only to be
+swallowed up in a tempest of sound, like a bird lost in a storm. And
+presently there was an abatement, then a calm, and the music died,
+literally, amid the twilight dusk and gloom.</p>
+
+<p>As Freke, with strange eyes, and his bow suspended, tremblingly, as if
+waiting for the spirit to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>return, ceased, there was a perfect silence.
+Jacqueline, who had never heard anything like it in her life, and who,
+all unknown to herself, was singularly susceptible to music, gazed at
+Freke as the magician who had made her dream dreams, and after a while
+cried out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why do you play like that? I never heard anybody play so before.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In answer, Freke again smiled, and played a wild Hungarian dance, fit
+for the dancing of bacchantes, so full of barbaric clash and rhythm,
+that Jacqueline suddenly sprang up and began to dance around the chairs
+and tables. Freke half turned to glance at her; he retarded the time,
+and softened the tones, when Jacqueline, too, danced slowly and
+dreamily&mdash;until presently, with a storm and a rush of music,
+<i>fortissimo</i> and <i>prestissimo</i>, and a resounding blare of chords that
+sounded like the shouts of a victorious army, he stopped and lay back in
+his chair, still smiling.</p>
+
+<p>But, although Judith had twice Jacqueline&#8217;s knowledge of music, with all
+her feeling for it, Freke was piqued to see that she did not for a
+moment confound his music with his personality. She seemed to take a
+malicious pleasure in complimenting him glibly, which is the last snub
+to an artist. Freke was so vexed by her indifference, that he began to
+play cats mewing and dogs barking, on his fiddle, to frighten <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>little
+Beverley, who looked at him with wide, scared eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind, my darling,&#8221; cried Judith, laughing. &#8220;Be a brave little
+boy&mdash;only girls are scared at such things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beverley, thus exhorted, summoned up his courage and proposed to get
+grandfather&#8217;s sword to defend himself. Judith&#8217;s laughter, the defiant
+light in her eyes, the passionate kiss she gave the boy as a reward for
+his bravery, annoyed Freke. His vanity as an artist, however, was
+consoled by hearing Simon Peter&#8217;s voice, in an awed and solemn whisper
+from the door, through which his woolly head was just visible in the
+surrounding darkness:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I &#8217;clar&#8217; ter God, dat fiddle is got evils in it. I hear some on &#8217;em
+hollerin&#8217; an&#8217; cryin&#8217; fur ter git out, an&#8217; some on &#8217;em larfin&#8217; an&#8217;
+jumpin&#8217;. Marse Temple, dem is spirits in dat fiddle. I knows it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They are, indeed; and, if I go down to the grave-yard at midnight and
+play, all the dead and gone Temples will rise out of their graves and
+dance around in their grave-clothes. Do you hear that?&#8221; said Freke,
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Lord God A&#8217;mighty!&#8221; yelled Simon Peter, &#8220;I gwi&#8217; sleep wid a sifter&#8221; (a
+sieve) &#8220;over my hade ev&#8217;y night arter dis. Sifters keeps away de evils,
+kase dey slips th&#8217;u de holes.&#8221; And, sure enough, a sieve was hung up
+over Simon Peter&#8217;s bed that very night, with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>a rabbit&#8217;s foot as an
+additional safeguard, and a bunch of peacock&#8217;s feathers over the
+fireplace was ruthlessly thrown into the fire to propitiate &#8220;de evils.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When Thursday evening came, General Temple was high and dry with the
+gout, and Mrs. Temple, of course, could not leave him alone to fight it
+out with Delilah.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ole marse, you gwi&#8217; keep on havin&#8217; de gout twell you w&#8217;yar a ole h&#8217;yar
+foot in yo&#8217; pocket. I done tole you so, an&#8217; I ain&#8217; feerd ter keep on
+tellin&#8217; you so,&#8221; was Delilah&#8217;s Job-like advice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s true,&#8221; snapped the general. &#8220;Gad, if I had had a thousand men in
+my brigade as little &#8216;feerd&#8217; as you, I&#8217;ll be damned if I ever would have
+surrendered at Appomattox! God forgive me for swearing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hope and pray He will, my darling husband,&#8221; responded Mrs. Temple,
+with calm piety.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline was in a fever of delight, as she always was when there was
+any prospect of going from home. She danced up and down, romped with
+little Beverley, and, hugging him, told him in a laughing whisper that
+she would see &#8220;somebody&#8221; at Turkey Thicket, and &#8220;somebody had beautiful
+black eyes, and was only twenty-two years old.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, too, felt that pleasurable excitement of which she began to be
+less and less ashamed. A few words dropped meaningly by Throckmorton,
+full of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>that sound sense which distinguished him, made her look
+differently at life. His philosophy was not Mrs. Temple&#8217;s. He reminded
+Judith that we should accept peace and tranquillity thankfully, and that
+it was no sin to be happy; and everything that Throckmorton said
+commended itself to Judith. For the first time in her narrow and
+secluded life she enjoyed with him the pleasure of being as clever as
+she wanted to be. He was no timid soul, like Edmund Morford, to fear a
+rival in a woman. It never occurred to Throckmorton to feel jealous of
+any woman&#8217;s wit. One of his greatest charms to Judith was that he was
+not in the least afraid of her. Her quick feminine humor, her natural
+acuteness, her knack of pretty expression in speech and writing,
+appeared in their true light, as mere accomplishments, contrasted with
+Throckmorton&#8217;s firm and masculine mind. The conviction of his mental
+grasp, his will-power, all that goes to make a man fitted to command a
+woman, had in it a subtile attraction for Judith, like the spell that
+beauty casts over a man. He was the only man in all her surroundings
+whose calm superiority over her was perfectly plain to her. It was only
+necessary for him to express an opinion, that Judith did not at once see
+its force. She sometimes differed courteously with him; but it began
+soon to be a perilous pleasure to her to find that usually Throckmorton
+was infinitely wiser, more liberal, more just than herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span></p><p>When the Thursday evening came, only Judith, Jacqueline, and Freke were
+to go. It had turned bitterly cold. Simon Peter, sitting in solitary
+magnificence on the box, handled the ribbons over the Kentucky horses,
+who dashed along so briskly that the carriage, which was in the last
+stage of &#8220;befo&#8217; the war&#8221; decrepitude, threatened to tumble to pieces and
+drop them all in the road.</p>
+
+<p>Going along, Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, very quiet and silent.
+Freke, with his back to the horses, talked to Judith. Occasionally in
+the darkness, by a passing gleam, he could see Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes
+shining.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you think of Major Throckmorton,&#8221; he asked Judith.</p>
+
+<p>Although not versed in knowledge of the world, Judith was not devoid of
+self-possession. The question, though, embarrassed her a little.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&mdash;I&mdash;think he is most interesting, kind&mdash;and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Military men are, as a rule, rather narrow, don&#8217;t you think?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never saw enough to judge. I should think they ought to be the other
+way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Every time I see Throckmorton, the consciousness comes to me that I
+have seen him before&mdash;seen him under some tragical and unusual
+circumstances. If I didn&#8217;t know that those who have good consciences,
+like myself, should be above superstition, I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>should say that in some
+previous state of being I had known him; however, I am too strictly
+orthodox in my beliefs to tolerate such notions. But some time or
+other&mdash;perhaps to-night&mdash;I intend to find out from Throckmorton himself
+if we haven&#8217;t had the pleasure of meeting in another cycle or state of
+being. There is, by the way, an ineffable impudence in Throckmorton
+returning to this county now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith suspected that Freke&#8217;s peroration was made with the intention of
+provoking a reply.</p>
+
+<p>They were driving along an open piece of the road, and it was
+comparatively light in the carriage, although there was no moon. Freke
+glancing up to see the cause of Judith&#8217;s silence, caught the gleam of
+her white teeth in a broad smile. She was laughing at him. It certainly
+was delicious to hear Temple Freke commenting on anybody&#8217;s having
+impudence in returning to the county. Freke, who hated to be laughed at,
+promised himself he would be avenged. &#8220;I&#8217;ll make you wince, my lady!&#8221; he
+thought to himself. Presently, though, Judith said, in a tone with a
+sharpness in it, like one who has been wounded:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t imagine anybody applying the word impudence to Major
+Throckmorton. He is very reserved&mdash;very dignified.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Throckmorton, I see, has an advocate.&mdash;And little Cousin Jacky, what do
+you think of the other Jacky&mdash;Jacky Throckmorton?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I think he&#8217;s perfectly delightful,&#8221; assented Jacqueline, after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>Freke said no more about the Throckmortons. The women were evidently
+against him there; and soon they were driving up to the door at Turkey
+Thicket, and going up the hall stairs to take off their wraps, very much
+as on that last evening, when Mrs. Sherrard took occasion to
+rehabilitate Throckmorton in the good graces of the county people, as
+she was now trying to do with Freke.</p>
+
+<p>When Judith and Jacqueline came down the stairs, Freke met them at the
+foot. Jacqueline had pleaded hard to wear a white dress, but Mrs. Temple
+was inexorable. She might catch cold; consequently, she wore a little
+prim, Quakerish gown of gray. Judith, as usual, was stately in black.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton was standing on the rug before the drawing-room fire,
+talking gravely with Mrs. Sherrard. Edmund Morford was there and Dr.
+Wortley, who, with Jack Throckmorton, constituted the company. Mrs.
+Sherrard drew Judith into the conversation that she had been carrying on
+with Throckmorton. He said to Judith:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will continue what I was saying&mdash;but I assure you it is something I
+could speak of to but few people. It is this absolute barring out on the
+part of the county people toward me. Not a soul except Mrs. Sherrard and
+Mrs. Temple has asked me to break <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>bread. I thought I knew Virginians&mdash;I
+thought them the kindest, easiest, least angular people in the world;
+but, upon my soul, anything like this cold and deliberate ostracism I
+never witnessed! Why, half the county is related to me&mdash;and I&#8217;ve been to
+school with every man in it&mdash;and yet, I am a pariah!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t look at it from their point of view,&#8221; replied Mrs. Sherrard,
+with more patience than was her wont. &#8220;Think how these people have
+suffered. You see yourself, never was there such ruin wrought, and then
+remember that you are associated with that ruin. Can&#8217;t you fancy the
+dull and silent resentment, the cold anger, with which they must regard
+all&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Blasted Yankees?&#8221; cheerfully remarked Throckmorton, recovering his
+spirits a little.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you know,&#8221; said Mrs. Sherrard, whose ideas on some subjects were
+rudimentary, but speaking kindly though positively, &#8220;you mustn&#8217;t wear
+your uniform down here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton laughed rather harshly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As I&#8217;m not going to be married or buried, I can&#8217;t see what chance I
+would have to wear it. But what you say disposes me to put on my
+full-dress uniform, with sword and chapeau, and wear it to church on
+Sunday.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then Mrs. Sherrard went off after her latest passion, Temple Freke, and
+left Judith and Throckmorton standing together.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I think <i>I</i> understand you,&#8221; said Judith, with her pretty air of
+diffidence. &#8220;But, as you know, the people here have one principle which
+stands for honor, and you have another. You have got power
+and&mdash;and&mdash;victory out of <i>your</i> principle, and we have got nothing but
+ruin and defeat and wretchedness out of <i>our</i> principle. How can you
+hold us to a strict account?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not&mdash;God knows I do not!&mdash;but I want a little human kindness. I
+get it from a few. Dr. Wortley, who was my tutor at my grandfather&#8217;s,
+and has licked me a hundred times&mdash;and Morford, and the families at
+Turkey Thicket and Barn Elms&mdash;but none of them, I think,&#8221; continued
+Throckmorton, looking into Judith&#8217;s eyes with admiration, &#8220;exactly
+understand how <i>I</i> feel as well as you. What kept me in the army was, as
+you say, a principle of honor. It was like a knife in me, every Southern
+officer who resigned. I respected them, because I knew, as only the
+naval and military men knew, that they were giving up not only their
+future and their children&#8217;s future, for what they thought right, but
+that they knew the overwhelming odds against them. I don&#8217;t believe any
+one of them really expected success&mdash;they knew too much&mdash;it was a
+sacrifice most disinterested. I could not go with them; but I had to
+face as much obloquy among my people by staying in the army as they had
+to face in going out. But I swear I never <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>gave one thought to the
+advantage to me of staying where I was! I stayed because I could not, as
+a man of honor, do otherwise, I thought my own people would recognize
+this&mdash;that by this time the bitterness would be over.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Never mind,&#8221; said Judith, with a heavenly smile, &#8220;it will come&mdash;it will
+come.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A little later, Mrs. Sherrard whispered to Throckmorton:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are not my two beauties from Barn Elms sweet creatures?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very,&#8221; answered Throckmorton, a dark flush showing under his tan and
+sunburn. &#8220;Little Jacqueline is a charming creature.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, pooh! Jacqueline. You mean Judith.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Beverley is most dignified, charming, and interesting; but little
+Miss Jacky&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I should think she would be a nice playmate for your Jack,&#8221; remarked
+Mrs. Sherrard.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton looked awkward, not to say foolish. Had he forgotten his
+forty-four years, his iron-gray hair, all the scars of life? Jacqueline
+and Jack were inseparable from the start, and their two heads were close
+together on the deep, old-fashioned sofa, at that very moment.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The major stole a march on me the other day, going over to Barn Elms,&#8221;
+remarked Jack, confidentially. &#8220;However, I&#8217;ll get even with him yet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Oh, how can you talk so about your own father?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why shouldn&#8217;t I talk so about my own father?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because it&#8217;s not right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look here, Miss Jacky. Nobody thinks as much of the major as I do&mdash;he&#8217;s
+the kindest, noblest, gamest chap alive&mdash;but you see, I&#8217;m a man, and
+he&#8217;s a man. When he got married at twenty-one, he took the risk of
+having a son in the field before he was ready to quit himself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you&mdash;do you remember your mother?&#8221; asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; answered Jack, fixing his dark eyes seriously on Jacqueline. &#8220;I
+have a miniature of her that my father gave me when I was twenty-one. He
+keeps her picture in his room, and on the anniversary of her death he
+spends the day alone. Once in a great while he has talked to me about
+her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline glanced at Throckmorton with a new interest. He was still
+talking to Judith. The pleased look on the major&#8217;s face aroused the
+mischievous devil in Jack. In five minutes Jacqueline, to her disgust
+and disappointment, found herself talking to Dr. Wortley, while Jack had
+established himself on the other side of Judith. Neither Throckmorton
+nor Judith was pleased to see him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You ought to hear my father tell about some of his campaigns &#8217;way back
+in the fifties,&#8221; remarked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>Jack. &#8220;It&#8217;s a good while ago, but the major
+isn&#8217;t sensitive about his age like some men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps the major was not, but Jack&#8217;s observation was received in grim
+silence.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am sure Major Throckmorton can tell us a great many interesting
+things,&#8221; answered Judith, smiling involuntarily&mdash;&#8220;particularly to us who
+lead such quiet lives, and who know so little. I sometimes wonder how I
+shall ever be able to bring up my boy; I have so few ideas, and they
+seem to be all rusting away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought you were a great reader,&#8221; said Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I like to read, but&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My father is a Trojan of a reader,&#8221; continued Jack, &#8220;and his eyesight
+is really wonderful.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this the major, with the cast in his eye very obvious, rose and
+walked over to where Jacqueline was sitting. Jack had accomplished his
+object, and ran his father out of the field. But Judith felt a sense of
+bitter disappointment. However, with the sweetness of her nature, she
+overcame her resentful feelings toward Jack, and, in spite of his boyish
+disposition to make people uncomfortable, really began to like him.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, though, was not ill pleased on the whole. It was by an
+effort that he had kept away from Jacqueline until then. But, after
+talking with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>her awhile, he was not quite so well satisfied. Her
+childishness was pretty, and the acuteness of her remarks sometimes
+surprised him, but there was nothing to her&mdash;she talked and thought
+about herself. Throckmorton tried once or twice to get her into the
+channel of rational conversation, but Jacqueline rebelled. She
+acknowledged with a pretty smile that she hated books, and that she was
+poor company for herself. Throckmorton felt a tinge of pity for her.
+What would become of her twenty years hence&mdash;so pretty, so charming, so
+inconsequent?</p>
+
+<p>Freke had in the mean time completed his conquest of Mrs. Sherrard.
+Presently he went to the piano and trolled out songs in a rich barytone,
+playing his own accompaniments. This musical gift was a revelation to
+Mrs. Sherrard. It was not comparable, though, to his violin-playing.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to turn Jacqueline&#8217;s head a little. Freke
+sang a sentimental song, with a tender refrain, and every time he sang
+this refrain he cast a glance at Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually the blood mounted to her face, until, when he stopped, she was
+as rosy as the morning. Then Freke sat down by her, and after that
+Jacqueline had no eyes for anybody else&mdash;not even Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton saw it, with a strong disgust for Freke, and with that same
+strange pang of jealousy he had felt before. Judith&#8217;s angry disapproval
+burned <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>within her, but she made no attempt to circumvent Freke until,
+looking around after a while, she missed him and Jacqueline both.</p>
+
+<p>Judith, watching her opportunity, slipped out into the hall, and there
+found the culprits. Jacqueline made a little futile effort to pretend
+that they were looking at some prints by the light of a solitary
+kerosene-lamp; but Freke, who at least had no pretence about him, held
+on boldly to Jacqueline&#8217;s hand, until she wrenched it away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline, dear,&#8221; said Judith, trying to speak naturally, &#8220;it is cold
+out here; come in!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not cold,&#8221; answered Jacqueline after a pause.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it is not polite to run away like this,&#8221; urged Judith, casting an
+angry look at Freke, who, with folded arms, was whistling softly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t help that, Judith,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, pettishly. &#8220;Why do you
+want me in that stiff drawing-room with old Dr. Wortley and Mrs.
+Sherrard, and&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But Jacqueline, <i>I</i> want you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>There was no mistaking that tone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Go along, Jacky,&#8221; said Freke, with cheerful submission. &#8220;You&#8217;ll be
+liable to catch some dreadful moral complaint if you breathe the same
+atmosphere with me too long. I am a sinner of high degree, I am.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline turned and sullenly followed Judith <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>back, while Freke,
+smiling and unruffled, walked by her side. And then supper was served,
+but Jacqueline was perfectly distrait and could not keep her eyes off
+Freke, who was the life and soul of the party. The supper was after the
+Virginia order&mdash;very good&mdash;and so profuse it could not all be got on the
+table.</p>
+
+<p>On the drive home there was perfect silence. Freke made one or two
+observations to Judith, but her cold silence convinced him that it was
+useless. He was not afraid of her, but he saw no good in pretending to
+placate her. When they reached Barn Elms and were standing in the cold
+hall, Judith said to Jacqueline:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Go on. I shall be up in a moment.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll wait for you,&#8221; replied Jacqueline, doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You may wait, but I wish to speak to Freke privately. I shall take him
+into the drawing-room.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this, Jacqueline went slowly and unwillingly up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>Judith picked up the lamp and went into the dark drawing-room. The fire
+still smoldered dimly in the great fireplace. Freke took up the tongs
+and made a vigorous attack on the fire, and in two minutes the flames
+were leaping around the brass firedogs. Then he settled himself
+comfortably in the corner of the sofa.</p>
+
+<p>Judith, although her determination was made, yet felt timid, and her
+heart beat.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;What excuse can you give,&#8221; she asked in an unsteady voice, &#8220;for your
+behavior with that child to-night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;None whatever,&#8221; answered Freke, coolly. &#8220;I am not bound to justify
+myself to you, nor do I admit there was anything to be excused.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are right in saying you are not bound to justify yourself to me,&#8221;
+said Judith; &#8220;but can you justify yourself to her father and mother? You
+see how she is. You know what they&mdash;what we all&mdash;think of you. You are a
+married man, remember.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Am I?&#8221; asked Freke, laughing. &#8220;By Jove, I wish I knew whether I was or
+not!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What right have you to fill Jacqueline&#8217;s head with dreams and notions?
+The child was well enough until you came. Why can&#8217;t you go away and
+leave her in peace?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Freke smiled at this. &#8220;I don&#8217;t feel like going away,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and
+particularly now that I see you wish me to go. I have rather different
+plans in view now that I have bought property here. It doesn&#8217;t look well
+for a man to be cast off by his relations; and I intend to have, if I
+can, the backing of the Temples.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But how long, think you, could you stay, if the child&#8217;s mother knew of
+your behavior to-night?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That I don&#8217;t know. But I wish to stay, Madam Judith; and, since you are
+so prudish, I will promise <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>you not look at Jacqueline again. Will that
+satisfy you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will first see how you keep your promise. But I warn you, Freke, if
+you remain here much longer, I shall use all the influence in my power
+to get you out of this house. You are no advantage to the child. It
+would be better for her if you went away and never came back.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Freke had been sitting all this time, while Judith, standing up, pale
+and disdainful, spoke to him. But now he rose.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now,&#8221; he said with sudden seriousness, &#8220;since you have expressed that
+hospitable intention concerning me, let me tell you something&mdash;something
+very interesting, that I have suspected for some time, but only found
+out to-night. You remember I told you of that death-struggle of
+Beverley&#8217;s with an officer&mdash;how they rolled over and over and fought.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And how the officer&#8217;s horse, held by the bridle, I thought every moment
+would trample&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;yes&mdash;yes!&#8221; cried Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well,&#8221; said Freke, coming up close to her, &#8220;Throckmorton was that
+officer!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Freke had meant to give her one fierce pang; it was a delicious thing to
+him to strike her through Throckmorton; but he was quite unprepared for
+the result, for Judith, although young and strong, after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>standing for a
+moment gazing at Freke with wild eyes, swayed and without a sound
+dropped to the floor in a dead faint.</p>
+
+<p>Freke, cursing his own folly, ran to her and called loudly. His voice
+echoed through the midnight silence of the house. It brought Mrs.
+Temple, frightened and half dressed, into the room, followed by Delilah,
+struggling into her petticoats, and Simon Peter, scratching his wool and
+but half awake.</p>
+
+<p>Freke had raised Judith on his arm. Something strange, like pity, of
+which he knew but little, came to him as he looked at her pallid face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You git &#8217;way, Marse Temple,&#8221; said Delilah, with authority. &#8220;Me an&#8217;
+mistis kin manage dis heah.&mdash;Hi, Miss Judy! Open yo&#8217; eyes, honey, an&#8217;
+tell what de matter wid you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple, who never lost her head in emergencies, in five minutes had
+Judith in a fair way of coming to herself. Freke said truthfully that he
+never was so surprised in his life as when Judith fell over. Mrs. Temple
+could not account for it either, and proposed to leave the solution to
+Dr. Wortley when he should be sent for in the morning. In a few minutes
+more Judith came to and sat up. Almost her first conscious glance fell
+on Freke. She gazed at him steadily, and in an instant the conviction
+that what he had said was mere wanton cruelty came to her. Freke himself
+avoided her glance uneasily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Honey, tell yo&#8217; ole mammy wh&#8217;yar hu&#8217;ts you,&#8221; pleaded Delilah, anxious
+to take charge of the case in advance of Dr. Wortley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nowhere at all. I only want to get to bed.&mdash;Mother, I hope father
+wasn&#8217;t waked.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear, nothing short of an explosion would wake him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple wisely refrained from tormenting Judith with questions. Her
+fainting-fit was certainly unaccountable, but Mrs. Temple remembered
+once or twice in her own early days when she had done the same thing. So
+she merely gave Judith some brandy-and-water, and in a few minutes, with
+Delilah&#8217;s help, got her on the old-fashioned sofa.</p>
+
+<p>While Mrs. Temple and Delilah were stirring about the room, shutting up
+for the night and raking the fire down, Freke came up to Judith. Revenge
+was familiar to him, but not revenge on women, and remorse was
+altogether new to him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What I told you,&#8221; he began, awkwardly, &#8220;the facts in the case&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Say no more about it; I don&#8217;t believe you!&#8221; answered Judith in a low
+voice, but scornful beyond description.</p>
+
+<p>Freke&#8217;s rage blazed up under that tone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You don&#8217;t believe me? Then I&#8217;ll make Throckmorton tell you himself. I
+can find it out from him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>without his suspecting it, and I&#8217;ll make him
+tell you how he killed your husband.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith drew back and gave him a look that was equivalent to a slap in
+the face. Just then Mrs. Temple and Delilah went out into the hall to
+make fast the door.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, then, if by any accident you have told me the truth, it was the
+fortune of war&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, but the hand that killed your husband! Ah! do you think I don&#8217;t
+see it all&mdash;all&mdash;all&mdash;not only what has happened, but what is happening
+now?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith rose slowly from her sofa, forgetting her weakness. At that
+moment Freke thought he had never seen her look so handsome. Her eyes,
+usually a soft, dark gray, were black with indignation; her cheeks
+burned; she looked capable of killing him where he stood. She opened her
+lips once or twice to speak, but no sound came. She had no words to
+express what she felt at that moment. Freke felt a sensation of triumph.
+At last he had brought this proud spirit to book; and Throckmorton&mdash;at
+least if she scorned himself, Freke&mdash;she was forever out of
+Throckmorton&#8217;s reach. There was a gulf between them now that nothing on
+earth could bridge over. He stood in a calm and easy attitude, his face
+only less expressive than Judith&#8217;s. Nobody who saw Freke then could say,
+as Mrs. Temple sometimes had said, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>&#8220;What is there so interesting in
+Freke&#8217;s face?&#8221; It was full of power and passion.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed an age to each as they stood there, but it was really only a
+few moments. Mrs. Temple and Delilah came back. Judith nodded to Freke,
+and walked off, disdaining Delilah&#8217;s arm. She felt pride in showing him
+her strength and composure. She even glanced back at him, and gave him a
+smile from her pale lips.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have a spirit like a man!&#8221; he cried after her, involuntarily. Mrs.
+Temple thought he meant because Judith had rallied so quickly from her
+fainting-fit.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Rather a spirit like a woman!&#8221; answered Judith, in a loud, clear voice,
+as she went up the stairs.</p>
+
+<p>It was some little time before she could get rid of Mrs. Temple and
+Delilah. But presently the door was locked, and she was alone.</p>
+
+<p>Some power beyond her will drew her steps to the window that looked
+toward Millenbeck. The moon had gone down, and a few clouds scurried
+across the pale immensity of the sky, whipped by the winds of night.
+There was enough of the ghastly half-light to distinguish the dark
+masses of the trees and even the outline of the Millenbeck house. From
+the window which she knew well enough belonged to Throckmorton&#8217;s own den
+the cheerful light still streamed. He was sitting there, reading and
+smoking, no doubt. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>She could imagine exactly how he looked. His face,
+when he was silent, was rather stern, which made the charm of his smile
+and his words more captivating by contrast. And what horror she ought to
+feel of this man!&mdash;for, in spite of that first involuntary protest that
+she did not believe Freke, the heart-breaking conviction came to her
+every moment that he was telling the truth. But did she feel horror and
+hatred of Throckmorton? Ah! no. And when she tried to think of Beverley,
+the feeling that he was dead; that he would trouble her no more; that he
+was forever gone out of her life, filled her with something that was
+frightfully like joy.</p>
+
+<p>But when she remembered that an open grave lay between her and
+Throckmorton, it was not something like anguish she felt&mdash;it was anguish
+itself. Here was a man she might have loved&mdash;a man infinitely worthy of
+love&mdash;this much she acknowledged to herself; and yet Fate had married
+her to a man she never could have loved. For at that moment she saw as
+by a flash of lightning the falseness of her marriage and her widowhood.
+She dared not think any longer; she could only throw herself on her bed,
+and try and stifle among the pillows her sobs and cries. And,
+remembering Beverley and Throckmorton and Freke, and his words to her
+that night, this gentle and soft-hearted creature sounded all the depths
+of grief, love, shame, hatred. She tried to pray, but her prayers&mdash;if
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>prayers they could be called&mdash;were mere outcries against the inexorable
+and unpitying God. &#8220;Dear Lord, what have I done to thee that I should
+suffer so?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The night wore on, the candles burned out, the fire was a mere red glow
+of embers. Anguish and despair, like other passions, spend themselves.
+Judith had ceased to weep, and lay on her bed with a sort of icy torpor
+upon her. Little Beverley, who rarely stirred in his sleep, waked up and
+called for his mother; but even the child&#8217;s voice had no power to move
+her. The little boy, finding himself unnoticed, crawled out of his small
+bed and came to his mother&#8217;s side. The sound of his baby voice, the
+touch of his little warm, moist hands, awakened something like remorse
+in her. She tried to help him up on the bed, but her arms fell
+helplessly&mdash;she, this strong young woman, was as weak as a child with
+the conflict of emotions. The boy, however&mdash;a sturdy little
+fellow&mdash;climbed up alone and nestled to her. She covered him up and held
+him close to her, and kissed him coldly once or twice. &#8220;My child, he
+killed your father,&#8221; she said to him, thinking of Throckmorton, and that
+perhaps, for the child&#8217;s sake, she might arouse some feeble spark of
+regret for the father&mdash;some dutiful hatred of Throckmorton. But she
+could do neither the one nor the other.</p>
+
+<p>At last, as a wet, miserable, gloomy dawn approached, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>she fell into a
+wretched sleep. Judith&#8217;s unexpected fainting-fit was a very good excuse
+for her keeping her room for a day or two&mdash;a merciful provision for her,
+as, along with other new experiences, she found for the first time that
+her soul was stronger than her body, and that grief had made her ill.
+She expected, in all those wretched hours that she lay in her darkened
+room, that every time the door opened it would be Mrs. Temple coming
+with a ghastly face to tell her the dreadful thing that Freke knew; and
+the mere apprehension made her heart stand still. She, this candid and
+sincere woman, rehearsed to herself the very words and tones that she
+would express a grief and horror she did not feel. But when several days
+passed, and the explosion did not come, she concluded that Freke, for
+his own reasons, meant to keep it to himself.</p>
+
+<p>For Freke&#8217;s part, he had no intention of telling anybody except Judith.
+He had no mind to bring about the storm that would follow his
+revelation. He meant to show Judith that gulf between Throckmorton and
+herself, and that was all. He would have been unfeignedly sorry had the
+hospitable doors of Millenbeck been no longer open to him.</p>
+
+<p>When Judith came down-stairs, he felt a great curiosity to know how she
+would meet him. He himself was perfectly easy and natural in his manner
+to her; and she, to his enforced admiration, was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>equally self-possessed
+with him, although she could not always control the expression of her
+eyes. &#8220;What a Spartan she is!&#8221; thought Freke to himself. &#8220;She could die
+of grief and chagrin with a smile on her lips, and with her voice as
+smooth and musical as the velvet wind of summer.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p>The autumn crept on. Freke had gone to Wareham, to Judith&#8217;s delight, but
+she found that she had rejoiced too soon, for he was at Barn Elms nearly
+every day. The still, silent enmity between Judith and himself showed
+itself, on her part, by a certain fine scorn&mdash;an almost imperceptible
+raising of her narrow brows, that was infuriating to Freke. Still, he
+could not shake her self-possession. She even listened to his talk, and
+to his captivating violin-playing, with a cool and critical pleasure.
+When, as often happened, his step was heard in the hall at twilight, and
+he would walk into the drawing-room or the dining-room, as if Barn Elms
+were his home, with his violin in his hand&mdash;for he kept one at Barn
+Elms&mdash;and seating himself would begin to play in his masterly way,
+Judith would listen as closely as Jacqueline. But the spell was merely
+the spell of the music. She could listen to the celestial thrilling of
+the strings, the soft lamenting, without in the slightest degree
+succumbing to the player&mdash;not even when Freke, playing a wandering
+accompaniment, like another air <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>from the one he was singing, would sing
+some of Heine&#8217;s sea-songs, in which she could almost hear the sound of
+the wind as it rose and wailed and died upon the waves. When the music
+stopped, and Freke would look at her piercingly, she was no more moved
+by it emotionally than General Temple was, who pronounced it &#8220;uncommon
+fine fiddling, by George! Some of the tunes haven&#8217;t got much tune,
+though.&#8221; This unbroken resistance on Judith&#8217;s part piqued Freke
+immeasurably; but quite naturally, as it often is with men of his
+temperament, as he could not please her, he determined to spite her&mdash;and
+he did it by a silent, furtive courtship of Jacqueline. Of this, neither
+General nor Mrs. Temple suspected anything. In one sense, the girl had
+suffered from neglect. Beverley had been the favorite of both parents.
+He had been the conventional good son, the comfort of his parents&#8217;
+hearts, while Jacqueline was more or less of a puzzle to both of them.
+In vain Mrs. Temple tried to interest her in household affairs;
+Jacqueline would have none of them. She shocked and mystified her mother
+by saying that she hated Barn Elms&mdash;it was so old and shabby, and there
+were not enough carpets and curtains in the house; and the hair-cloth
+furniture in the drawing-room made her ill. Mrs. Temple, who excelled in
+all sweet, feminine virtues, who would have loved and bettered any home
+given her, thought this sort of thing on Jacqueline&#8217;s part very
+depraved. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>The mother and the daughter did not understand each other,
+and could not. Judith&#8217;s superior intelligence here came in. Jacqueline
+loved her, and, while she obeyed her mother from sheer force of will on
+Mrs. Temple&#8217;s part, she rebelled against being influenced by her.
+Judith, on the contrary, without a particle of authority over
+Jacqueline, could do anything she wished with her. Mrs. Temple could
+only command and be obeyed in outward things, but Judith ruled
+Jacqueline&#8217;s inner soul more than anybody else.</p>
+
+<p>The county people, outside of the Severn neighborhood, still held
+perfectly aloof from Throckmorton. This angered him somewhat, although,
+as a matter of fact, the people who did recognize him supplied him with
+all the company he wanted; for Throckmorton was always enough for
+himself, and depended upon no man and no woman for his content. He had
+bought Millenbeck and come there for a year, and a year he would stay,
+no matter what the Carters and the Carringtons and the Randolphs thought
+about it. Then he really had enough of company, and all the books and
+cigars he wanted, and plenty of the finest shooting, although he never
+killed a robin after that absurd promise he made to Jacqueline, but he
+never saw one without giving a thought to her and a grim smile at
+himself. And so the quiet autumn slipped away. Throckmorton felt every
+day the charm <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>of exquisite repose. In his life he had known a good deal
+of excitement&mdash;the four years of the war he had been in active service
+all the time&mdash;and this return to quiet and a sort of refined
+primitiveness pleased him. He was charmed with the simplicity of the
+people at Barn Elms&mdash;the simplicity of genuine country people, whose
+outlook is upon nature. He had often heard that country people never
+were really sophisticated, and he began to believe it. Even in the
+stirrings of his own heart toward the place of his boyhood, after the
+lapse of so many busy and exciting years, he recognized the spell that
+Nature lays softly upon those whose young eyes have seen nothing but
+her. Throckmorton, in spite of a certain firmness that was almost
+hardness, was at heart a sentimentalist. He found content, pleasure, and
+interest in this lazy, dreamy life. Of happiness he had discovered that,
+except during that early married life of his, he had none, for he was
+too wise to confound peace and happiness. At forty-four, when his dark
+hair had turned quite gray, he acknowledged to himself that nothing
+deserved the name of happiness but love. But all these dreams and
+fancies he kept to himself, and revolved chiefly in his mind when he was
+tramping along the country roads with a gun over his shoulder, or
+stretched before a blazing wood-fire in the library at Millenbeck
+smoking strong cigars by the dozen. He managed to keep his
+sentimentalism well out of sight, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>not because he was ashamed of it, but
+because he respected it.</p>
+
+<p>Freke was a positive acquisition to him. Throckmorton had that sort of
+broad, masculine tolerance that can find excuses for everything a man
+may do except cheating at cards. Freke came constantly to Millenbeck,
+much oftener than Throckmorton went to Wareham.</p>
+
+<p>Millenbeck, though, was a pleasant place to visit. Throckmorton had left
+the restoration and fitting up of the place to people who understood
+their business well; and consequently, when he arrived, he found he had
+one of the most comfortable, if not luxurious, country-houses that could
+be imagined. His fortune, which at the North would have been nothing
+more than a handsome competence, was a superb patrimony in the ruined
+Virginia, and with ready money and Sweeney anybody could be comfortable,
+Throckmorton thought. The Rev. Edmund Morford also gave him much of his
+(Morford&#8217;s) company, and obtained a vast number of household receipts
+and learned many contrivances for domestic comfort from Sweeney.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Be jabers, the parson&#8217;s more of an ould woman than mesilf,&#8221; Sweeney
+would remark to his colored coadjutors. &#8220;He can make as good white gravy
+as any she-cook going, and counts his sheets and towels every week as
+reg&#8217;lar as the mother of him did, I warrant,&#8221; which was quite true. But
+the parson&#8217;s <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>good heart outweighed his innocent conceit and his
+effeminate beauty with Throckmorton. Morford tried conscientiously to
+get Throckmorton into the church, but with ill success.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Sink the parson, Morford,&#8221; Throckmorton would laugh. &#8220;Perhaps I&#8217;ll get
+married some day, and my wife will pray me into heaven, like most of the
+men who get there, I suspect.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless Throckmorton had a reverent soul, and, although he would
+have turned pale and have been constrained by an iron silence had he got
+up and tried to open his mouth on the subject of the inscrutable
+problems that Morford attacked with such glib self-sufficiency, he
+revered religion and did not scoff even at the callowest form of it.</p>
+
+<p>Both Jack and himself got to going over to Barn Elms often;
+Throckmorton, however, being an old bird, exercised considerable
+wariness, so as not to collide with Jack at these times. Jack kept up a
+continual fire from ambush at his father, regarding which of the young
+women at Barn Elms the major would eventually capitulate to; but
+Throckmorton treated this with the dignified silence that was the only
+weapon against Jack&#8217;s sly rallying. As for General Temple, he regarded
+all of Throckmorton&#8217;s visits as particularly directed toward himself,
+for the purpose of acquiring military knowledge; and Throckmorton heard
+more of the theory of war from General Temple <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>at this time than he ever
+heard in all his life before. While the general, who had all campaigns,
+modern and ancient, at his finger-ends, declaimed with sonorous
+confidence on the mistakes of Hannibal, C&aelig;sar, Scipio, and other
+well-known military characters, Throckmorton listened meekly, seldom
+venturing an observation. General Temple indicated a faint surprise that
+Throckmorton, during his career, had never undergone any of the
+thrilling adventures which had actually happened to General Temple, who
+would have been a great soldier after the pattern of Brian de Bois
+Guilbert; nor could Throckmorton convince him that he, Throckmorton,
+conceived it his duty to stay with his men, and considered unnecessary
+seeking of danger as unsoldier-like in the highest degree. Throckmorton,
+however, did not argue the point. In place of General Temple&#8217;s
+innumerable and real hair-breadth escapes, and horses shot under him,
+Throckmorton could only say that the solitary physical injury he
+received during the war was a bad rheumaticky arm from sleeping in the
+wet, and a troublesome attack of measles caught by visiting his men in
+the hospital. But General Temple knew that Throckmorton had been
+mentioned half a dozen times in general orders, and had got several
+brevets, while General Temple had narrowly missed half a dozen
+courts-martial for being where he didn&#8217;t belong at a critical time. The
+fact that he was in imminent personal danger on all <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>these occasions,
+General Temple considered not only an ample excuse, but quite a feather
+in his cap.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally, though (during the general&#8217;s disquisitions),
+Throckmorton&#8217;s eye would seek Judith&#8217;s as she sat under the lamp, with a
+piece of delicate embroidery in her hand, stitching demurely, and
+something like a smile would pass between them. Judith understood the
+joke. The mingled softness and archness of her glance was very beautiful
+to Throckmorton, but it had not the power over him of Jacqueline&#8217;s
+coquettish air. Throckmorton was rather vexed at the charm this
+kittenish young thing cast over him. He had always professed a great
+aversion to young fools, who invariably turn into old bores, but he
+could not deny that he was more drawn to sit near Jacqueline in her low
+chair, than to Judith sitting gracefully upright under the lamp. That
+Jacqueline was not far off from folly, he was forced to admit to himself
+every time he talked with her, but the admission brought with it a
+slight pang. Then he never lost sight of the disparity in their years;
+and this was painful because of the secret attraction he felt for her.
+Sometimes, walking home from Barn Elms, across the fields in autumn
+nights, he would find himself comparing the two women, and wishing that
+the older woman possessed for him the subtle charm of the younger one.
+Any man might love Judith Temple&mdash;she was so gentle, so unconscious of
+her own superiority <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>to the average woman, so winning upon one&#8217;s reason
+and self-respect&mdash;and then Throckmorton would sigh, and stride faster
+along the path in the wintry darkness. Suppose&mdash;suppose he should
+seriously try to win Jacqueline? How long would he be happy? And what
+sort of a life would it be for her, with that childish restlessness and
+inability to depend for one moment on herself? And Throckmorton knew
+instinctively that, although he possessed great power in bending women
+to his will, it was not in him to adapt himself to any woman. He might
+love her, indulge her, adore her, but he could not change his fixed and
+immutable character one iota. It would be a peculiar madness for him to
+marry any woman who did not possess adaptability in a high degree; and
+this Throckmorton had known, ever since he had grown hair on his face,
+went only with a certain mental force and breadth in women. He had the
+whole theory mapped out, that the more intellectual a man was, the less
+adaptable he was, while with women the converse was strikingly true&mdash;the
+more intellectual a woman was, the more adaptable she was. He also knew
+perfectly well that in women the emotions and the intellect are so
+inextricably involved that a woman&#8217;s emotional range was exactly limited
+by her intellectual range; that there is nothing more commonplace in a
+commonplace woman than her emotions. Nay, more. He remembered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>Dr.
+Johnson&#8217;s thundering against female fools: &#8220;Sir, a man usually marries a
+fool, with the expectation of ruling her; but the fool, sir, invariably
+rules the man.&#8221; But all this went to pieces when he saw Jacqueline. She
+was to him as if a figure of Youth had stepped out of a white Greek
+frieze; and whenever he realized this charm of hers, he sighed to
+himself profoundly.</p>
+
+<p>People are never too old or too sensible to commit follies, but people
+of sense and experience suffer the misery of knowing all about their
+follies when they do commit them.</p>
+
+<p>To Freke, who was incomparably the keenest observer in all this little
+circle, the whole thing was a psychic study of great interest. He had
+the art in a singular degree of getting outside of his own emotions; and
+the fact that he had been guilty of the egregious folly of falling in
+love with Judith at first sight made him only keener in studying out the
+situation. He took an abstract pleasure in partly confiding his
+discoveries to Mrs. Sherrard, who was a bold woman, and had become an
+out-and-out partisan of his&mdash;the only one he could count on, except
+Jacqueline, under the rose. It was a subject of active concern why Freke
+ever bought Wareham in the beginning, and still more so why he should
+continue to stay there. When pressed on the subject by Mrs.
+Sherrard&mdash;they were sitting in the comfortable drawing-room <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>at Turkey
+Thicket, the blazing wood-fire making the dull wintry afternoon, and the
+flat, monotonous landscape outside more dreary by contrast&mdash;Freke
+declared that he had settled in the country in order to cultivate the
+domestic virtues to advantage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Pooh!&#8221; said Mrs. Sherrard.</p>
+
+<p>Freke then hinted at a possibility of his marrying, which, considering
+his divorced condition, gave Mrs. Sherrard a thrill of horror. He saw in
+an instant that this divorce question was one upon which Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s
+prejudices, like those of everybody else in the county, were adamantine,
+and not to be trifled with; so he dropped the obnoxious subject promptly
+and wisely.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The fact is,&#8221; he said, standing up with his back to the fire, and
+causing Mrs. Sherrard to notice how excellent was his slight but
+well-knit figure, &#8220;I&#8217;ve got to live somewhere, and why not here? I don&#8217;t
+know whether I&#8217;ve got anything left of my money or not&mdash;anything, that
+is, that my creditors or my lawyers will let me have in peace&mdash;but
+there&#8217;s excellent shooting on the place, and it only cost a song. I
+think I can stay here as long as I can stay anywhere; you know I am a
+sort of civilized Bedouin anyhow. And then I own up to a desire to see
+that little comedy between&mdash;between&mdash;Millenbeck and Barn Elms played
+through. It&#8217;s an amusing little piece.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard pricked up her ears. Freke&#8217;s reputation <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>as a conquering
+hero had inspired in her the interest it always does in the female
+breast. Was it possible that he shouldn&#8217;t be making love to either
+Judith or Jacqueline?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll tell you what,&#8221; he cried, smiling, &#8220;they are the most precious
+pack of innocents at Barn Elms! There&#8217;s my uncle&mdash;a high-minded,
+good-natured, unterrified old blunderbuss&mdash;the most unsophisticated of
+the lot. Then my aunt, who belongs properly to the age of Rowena and
+Rebecca&mdash;and Judith.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Here Freke&#8217;s countenance changed a little from its laughing
+carelessness. His rather ordinary features were full of a piercing and
+subtile expression.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith fancies, because she has been a wife, a mother, and a widow,
+that she knows the whole gamut of life, when actually she has only
+struck the first note correctly a little while ago&mdash;no, I forget&mdash;that
+young one. But that&#8217;s very one-sided, although intense. She loves the
+child because he is her own, not because he is Beverley&#8217;s&mdash;rather in
+spite of it, I fancy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard, in the excitement of the moment&mdash;for what is more
+exciting than unexpected and inside discoveries about our
+neighbors?&mdash;got up too.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I knew it&mdash;I knew it!&#8221; she answered, her sharp old eyes getting bright.
+&#8220;I saw Judith when she was a bride, and she wasn&#8217;t in the least
+rapturous. And the next time I saw her she had on that odd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>widow&#8217;s cap
+she wears, and that blessed baby in her arms; and if ever I saw secret
+happiness painted on any human countenance it was hers; and all the time
+she was trying to imagine herself broken-hearted for Beverley Temple.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Fudge!&#8221; almost shouted Freke. &#8220;It&#8217;s my belief she&#8217;d have traded off six
+husbands like Beverley for one black-eyed boy like that young one.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Beverley,&#8221; began Mrs. Sherrard, delighted, yet fluttered by this plain
+speaking, &#8220;you remember, was a big, handsome fellow&mdash;rode like a
+centaur, danced beautifully, the best shot in the county&mdash;as polite as a
+dancing-master or&mdash;General Temple&mdash;as brave as a lion&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, good God, don&#8217;t talk to me about Beverley Temple! He was the most
+wooden-headed Temple I ever knew, and that&#8217;s saying a good deal, ma&#8217;am!&#8221;
+responded Freke, with energy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>You</i> are no fool,&#8221; said Mrs. Sherrard, as if willing to argue the
+point.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, but you couldn&#8217;t any more take me as a type of the Temples than
+you could take Edmund Morford as a type of the Sherrards. Lord, Mrs.
+Sherrard, what an ass your nephew is!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Isn&#8217;t he, though? But he is a good soul,&#8221; was Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s answer.</p>
+
+<p>Was it Judith or was it Jacqueline that Freke was trying his charms on,
+thought Mrs. Sherrard, taking <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>her afternoon nap over the fire, after
+Freke left. Freke, however, really could not have enlightened her. For
+Judith his admiration increased every day&mdash;her very defiance of him was
+captivating to him. He well knew that she hated every bone in his body,
+and he had made up his mind, as a set-off to this, to get a description
+of a certain scene during the war out of Throckmorton some time in her
+presence. It was a species of vivisection, but she deserved it&mdash;deserved
+it richly&mdash;for had she not brought it on herself by the way she treated
+him, Temple Freke? And then Jacqueline&mdash;she was certainly a fascinating
+little object, though not half the woman that Judith was&mdash;this Freke
+magnanimously allowed, riding briskly along the country road in the
+wintry twilight.</p>
+
+<p>The family at Barn Elms had never yet dined with Throckmorton, owing to
+General Temple&#8217;s continued wrestle with the gout, that had now made him
+a prisoner for four long weeks. Mrs. Temple, who every day got fonder of
+George, as she called Throckmorton, had promised to dine at Millenbeck
+when the general was able to go; but, as she invested all their
+intercourse with Millenbeck with the solemnity of a formal
+reconciliation, she delayed until the whole family could go in state and
+ceremony. At last Dr. Wortley, having gained a temporary advantage over
+Delilah, and brought General Temple to observe his (Dr. Wortley&#8217;s)
+regimen, instead of Delilah&#8217;s, a week <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>or two marked a decided
+improvement. The general&#8217;s Calvinism abated, his profanity mended, and
+he became once more the amiable soldier and stanch churchman that he was
+by nature.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Mrs. Temple,&#8221; said Throckmorton one evening as he was going away,
+&#8220;if you will keep the general out of mischief for a day or two longer,
+you will be able to pay me that long-promised visit. Let me know, so I
+can get Mrs. Sherrard and Dr. Wortley&mdash;and Morford and Freke; but you,
+my dear friend, will be the guest of honor.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple blushed like a girl, with pleasure&mdash;Throckmorton&#8217;s way of
+saying this was so whole-souled and affectionate.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You say right, my dear Throckmorton,&#8221; remarked General Temple, putting
+his arm around Mrs. Temple&#8217;s waist, &#8220;the tenderest, sweetest, most
+obedient wife&#8221;&mdash;at which Simon Peter, putting wood on the fire,
+snickered audibly, and Throckmorton would have laughed outright had he
+dared.</p>
+
+<p>So it was fixed that on the following Friday evening they were all to
+dine at Millenbeck, Mrs. Temple promising to watch the general, lest he
+should relapse into gout and gloom&mdash;and a promise from Mrs. Temple was a
+promise. She went about, a little surprised at the complete way that
+Throckmorton had brought her round. Here was one Yankee whom she loved
+with a genuine motherly affection&mdash;and he was a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>Virginia Yankee,
+too&mdash;which she esteemed the very worst kind.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline, as usual, was off her head at the notion of going, and
+Judith&#8217;s suppressed excitement did not escape Mrs. Temple&#8217;s eye. Both of
+them, provincials of provincials, as they were, felt a true feminine
+curiosity regarding the reputed splendors of Millenbeck, which was, in
+fact, destined to dazzle their countryfied eyes.</p>
+
+<p>On the Friday evening, therefore, at half-past six, they found
+themselves driving down the Millenbeck lane. General Temple had begun,
+figuratively speaking, to shake hands across the bloody chasm from the
+moment he started from Barn Elms. He harangued the whole way upon the
+touching aspect of the reconciliation between the great leaders of the
+hostile armies, as typified by his present expedition. Going down the
+lane they caught up with Mrs. Sherrard, being driven by Mr. Morford in a
+top buggy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jane Temple, are we a couple of fools?&#8221; called out Mrs. Sherrard,
+putting her head out of the buggy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, Katharine Sherrard, we are a couple of Christians,&#8221; piously
+responded Mrs. Temple.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple thrust his bare head out of the carriage-window, holding
+his hat in his hand, as it was his unbroken rule never to speak to a
+woman with his head covered, and entered into a disquisition <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>respecting
+the ethics of the great civil war, which lasted until they drew up to
+the very door of Millenbeck.</p>
+
+<p>A handsome graveled drive led up to the door, and a <i>porte-coch&egrave;re</i>,
+which was really a very modest affair of glass and iron, had been thrown
+over the drive; but, as it was the only one ever seen in the county, all
+of them regarded it with great respect. Throckmorton, with old-time
+Virginia hospitality, met them at the steps. Like all true gentlemen, he
+was a model host. As he helped Mrs. Temple to alight, he raised her
+small, withered hand to his lips and kissed it respectfully.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Welcome to Millenbeck, my best and earliest friend,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;George Throckmorton,&#8221; responded Mrs. Temple, with sweet gravity, &#8220;you
+have taught forgiveness to my hard and unforgiving heart.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Within the house was more magnificence. The inevitable great, dark,
+useless hall was robbed of its coldness and bleakness by soft Turkish
+rugs placed over the polished floor. There was no way of heating it in
+the original plan, but Throckmorton&#8217;s decorator and furnisher had hit
+upon the plan of having a quaint Dutch stove, which now glowed redly
+with a hard-coal fire. The startling innovation of lighting the broad
+oak staircase had likewise been adopted, and at intervals up the
+stairway <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>wax-candles in sconces shed a mellow half-light in the hall
+below.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple was exuberant. He shook hands with Throckmorton half a
+dozen times, and informed him that, strange as the defection of a
+Virginian from his native State might appear, he, General Temple,
+believed that Throckmorton was actuated by conscientious though mistaken
+notions in remaining in the army after the breaking out of the war.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you,&#8221; laughed Throckmorton, immensely tickled; &#8220;I haven&#8217;t
+apologized for it yet, have I, general?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Up-stairs, in a luxurious spare bedroom, the ladies&#8217; wraps were laid
+aside. Here, also, that perfect comfort prevailed, which is rare in
+Virginia country-houses, although luxury, in certain ways, is common
+enough. As they passed an open door, going down, they caught sight of
+Throckmorton&#8217;s own room. In that alone a Spartan simplicity reigned.
+There was no carpet on the spotless floor, and an iron bedstead, a large
+table, and a few chairs completed the furnishing of it. But it had an
+air of exquisite neatness and military preciseness in it that made an
+atmosphere about Throckmorton. Over the unornamented mantel two swords
+were crossed, and over them was a pretty, girlish portrait of Jack&#8217;s
+mother. Judith, in passing, craned her long, white neck to get a better
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>look at the portrait, was caught in the act by Mrs. Temple, and blushed
+furiously.</p>
+
+<p>She had a strange sensation of both joy and fear in coming to
+Throckmorton&#8217;s house. In her inmost soul she felt it to be a crime of
+great magnitude; and, indeed, the circumstances made it about as nearly
+a crime as such a woman could commit. More than that, if it should ever
+be known&mdash;and it was liable to be known at any moment&mdash;the deliberate
+foreknowledge with which she went to Millenbeck, she would never be
+allowed to remain another hour under the roof of Barn Elms: of that much
+she was perfectly sure. This, however, had but little effect on her,
+although she was risking not only her own but her child&#8217;s future; but
+the conviction that it was absolutely wrong for her to go, caused her to
+make some paltering excuse when Throckmorton first asked her. He put it
+aside with his usual calm superiority in dealing with her scruples about
+going to places, and she yielded to the sweet temptation of obeying his
+wishes. She took pains, though, to tell Freke herself that she was
+going&mdash;a risky but delicious piece of braggadocio&mdash;at which Freke lifted
+his eyebrows slightly. Inwardly he determined to make her pay for her
+rashness. She was the only woman who had ever fought him, and he was not
+to be driven off the field by any of the sex.</p>
+
+<p>Judith&#8217;s blush lasted until she reached the drawing-room, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>and made her
+not less handsome. There the gentlemen were being dazzled by still
+further splendors. This room, which was large and of stately
+proportions, was really handsome. Throckmorton, who cared nothing for
+luxury, and whose personal habits were simplicity itself, was yet too
+broad-minded to impress his own tastes upon anybody else. Since most
+people liked luxury, he had his house made luxurious; and his own room
+was the only plain one in it. Jack&#8217;s was a perfect bower, &#8220;more fit,&#8221; as
+Throckmorton remarked with good-natured sarcasm, &#8220;for a young lady&#8217;s
+boudoir than a bunk for a hulking youngster.&#8221; In the same way
+Throckmorton managed to dress like a gentleman on what Jack spent on
+hats and canes and cravats; but nobody ever knew whether Throckmorton&#8217;s
+clothes were new or old. His personality eclipsed all his belongings.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline was completely subdued by the luxury around her. No human
+soul ever loved these pleasant things of life better than she loved
+them. Comfort and beauty and luxury were as the breath of life to her.
+She had hungered and thirsted for them ever since she could remember.
+Going down the stairs she caught Judith&#8217;s hand, with a quick, childish
+grasp. The lights, the glitter, almost took her breath away; and when
+she saw a great mound of roses on the drawing-room table, got from
+Norfolk by the phenomenal Sweeney, she almost screamed with delight.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;God bless my soul, this is pleasant!&#8221; remarked Dr. Wortley, rubbing his
+hands cheerfully before the drawing-room fire, where the gentlemen,
+including Morford and Freke, were assembled. &#8220;Here we are all met again,
+under Millenbeck&#8217;s roof, as we were before the war. Let by-gones be
+by-gones, say I, about the war.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Amen,&#8221; answered Mrs. Temple, after a little pause, piously and sweetly.</p>
+
+<p>Sweeney, who could make quite a dashing figure as a waiter, now
+appeared, dressed in faultless evening costume of much newer fashion
+than Throckmorton&#8217;s, and announced dinner. Throckmorton, with his most
+graceful air&mdash;for he was on his mettle in his own house, and with those
+charming, unsophisticated women&mdash;gave his arm to Mrs. Temple; the
+general, with a grand flourish, did the same to Mrs. Sherrard; Judith
+had the doctor of divinity on one hand and the doctor of medicine on the
+other and Jacqueline brought up the rear with Jack Throckmorton and
+Temple Freke. Judith, when she saw this arrangement, comforted herself
+with the reflection that, if anybody could counteract Freke&#8217;s influence
+over Jacqueline, it was Jack Throckmorton, whom Jacqueline candidly
+acknowledged was infinitely more attractive to her than the master of
+Millenbeck.</p>
+
+<p>But Jacqueline needed no counteraction. Freke, who read her perfectly,
+was secretly amused, and annoyed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>as well, when he saw that Jacqueline
+was every moment more carried away by Throckmorton&#8217;s wax-candles and
+carved chairs and embroidered screens and onyx tables, and glass and
+plate. He felt not one thrill of the jealousy of Throckmorton, where
+Jacqueline was concerned, that Throckmorton sometimes felt for him,
+because he was infinitely more astute in the knowledge of human and
+especially feminine weaknesses and follies; and he saw that the chairs
+and tables at Millenbeck were much more fascinating to Jacqueline than
+Throckmorton with his matured grace, his manly dignity. Freke, too,
+having long since worn out his emotions, except that slight lapse as
+regarded Judith, for whom he always <i>felt</i> something&mdash;admiration, or
+pity, or a desire to be revenged&mdash;had an acute judgment of women which
+was quite unbiased by the way any particular woman treated or felt
+toward him. Judith, although she hated him, and he frankly admitted she
+had cause to, he ranked infinitely above Jacqueline. He had seen, long
+before, that Jacqueline, if she ever seriously tried, could draw
+Throckmorton by a thread, and it gave Freke a certain contempt for
+Throckmorton&#8217;s taste and perception. Any man who could prefer Jacqueline
+to Judith was, in Freke&#8217;s esteem, wanting in taste; for, after all, he
+considered these things more as matters of taste than anything else.</p>
+
+<p>The dinner was very merry. When the general <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>had told his fifth
+long-winded story of his adventures and hair-breadth escapes during the
+war, Mrs. Temple, with a glance, shut him up. Freke was in his element
+at a dinner-table, and told some ridiculous stories about the straits to
+which he had been reduced during his seven years&#8217; absence in
+Europe&mdash;&#8220;when,&#8221; as he explained &#8220;my laudable desire to acquire knowledge
+and virtue threatened to be balked at every moment by my uncle getting
+me home. However, I managed to stay.&#8221; He told with much gravity how he
+had been occasionally reduced to his fiddle for means of raising the
+wind, and had figured in concert programmes as Signor Tempolino, at
+which stories all shouted with laughter except Mrs. Temple and the
+general&mdash;Mrs. Temple sighing, and the general scowling prodigiously.
+Edmund Morford, who was afraid that laughing was injurious to his
+dignity, tried not to smile, but Freke was too comical for him.</p>
+
+<p>Amid all the laughter and jollity and good-cheer, Jacqueline sat,
+glancing shyly up at Throckmorton once in a while with a look that
+Nature had endowed her with, and which, had she but known it, was a full
+equivalent to a fortune. She had never, in all her simple provincial
+life, seen anything like this&mdash;endless forks and spoons at the table;
+queer ways of serving queerer things; an easy-cushioned chair to sit in;
+no darns or patches in the damask; and the aroma of wealth, an easy
+income everywhere. The desire <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>to own all this suddenly took possession
+of her. At the moment this dawned upon her mind, she actually started,
+and, opening her fan in a flutter, she knocked over a wine-glass, which
+Jack deftly replaced without stopping in his conversation. Then she
+began to study Throckmorton under her eyelashes. He was not so old,
+after all, and did not have the gout, like her father. And then she
+caught his kind eyes fixed on her, and flashed him back a look that
+thrilled him. Jack was talking to her, but she managed to convey subtly
+to Throckmorton that she was not listening to Jack, which pleased the
+major very much, who had heretofore found Jack a dangerous rival in all
+his looks and words with Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>Freke, telling his funny stories, did not for one moment pretermit his
+study of the little comedy before him&mdash;Jacqueline and Throckmorton and
+Judith. It was as plain as print to him. Judith, in her black gown,
+which opened at the throat and showed the white pillar of her neck, and
+with half-sleeves that revealed the milky whiteness of her slender arms,
+sat midway the table, just opposite Jacqueline. Usually Judith&#8217;s color
+was as delicate as a wild rose, but to-night it was a carnation flush.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is Throckmorton a fool?&#8221; thought Freke, in the midst of an interval
+given over to laughter at some of his stories, which were as short and
+pithy as General Temple&#8217;s were sapless and long drawn out; for
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>Throckmorton, who did nothing by halves, and was constitutionally
+averse to dawdling, returned Jacqueline&#8217;s glances with compound
+interest. Before they left the table, two persons had seen the promising
+beginning of the affair, and only two, none of the others having a
+suspicion. These two were Freke and Judith.</p>
+
+<p>The knowledge came quickly to Judith. Women can live ages of agony in a
+moment over these things. Judith, smiling, graceful, waving her large
+black fan sedately to and fro, by all odds the handsomest as well as the
+most gifted woman there, felt something tearing at her heart-strings,
+that she could have screamed aloud with pain. But even Freke, who saw
+everything nearly, did not see that; he only surmised it. It was nearly
+ten o&#8217;clock before they went back into the drawing-room. Throckmorton
+gave nobody occasion to say that he devoted himself particularly to any
+of the four women who were his guests; but his look, his talk, his
+manner to Jacqueline underwent a subtile change; and when he sat and
+talked to Judith he thought what a sweet sister she would make, and
+blessed her for her tenderness to Jacqueline. Judith&#8217;s color had been
+gradually fading from the moment she caught Throckmorton&#8217;s glance at
+Jacqueline. She was now quite pale, and less animated, less interesting,
+than Throckmorton ever remembered to have seen her. At something he said
+to her, she gave an <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>answer so wide of the mark that she felt ashamed
+and apologized.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I was thinking of my child at that moment and wondering if he were
+asleep,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>From the moment of that first meaning glance of Throckmorton&#8217;s at
+Jacqueline, the evening had spun out interminably to Judith. Mrs. Temple
+noticed it with secret approval, as a sign of loyalty to her widowhood.</p>
+
+<p>At eleven o&#8217;clock a move was made to go, when Throckmorton suddenly
+remembered that he had not showed them his modest conservatory, which
+appeared quite imposing to their provincial eyes. He took Judith into
+the little glass room opening off the hall. It was very hot, very damp,
+and very close, as such places usually are, and full of a faint, sickly
+perfume. Freke followed them in. At last he had got his chance. He began
+to talk in his easy, unconstrained way, and in a minute or two had got
+the conversation around to something they had been speaking of the night
+of the party at Turkey Thicket.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You were saying,&#8221; said Freke, &#8220;something about a bad quarter of an hour
+you had with that old sorrel horse of yours&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Well, I should say it was a bad quarter of an hour,&#8221; answered
+Throckmorton. &#8220;To be ridden down and knocked off my horse was bad
+enough, with that strapping fellow pinioning my arms to my side so I
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>couldn&#8217;t draw my pistol; and old Tartar, perfectly mad with fright&mdash;the
+only time I ever knew him to be so demoralized&mdash;tearing at the reins
+that wouldn&#8217;t break and that I couldn&#8217;t loose my arm from, and every
+time I looked up I saw his fore-feet in the air ready to come down on
+me&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And what sort of a looking fellow was it you say that rode you down?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A tall, blonde fellow&mdash;an officer evidently.&mdash;Good God! Mrs. Beverley,
+what is the matter?&#8221; For the color had dropped out of Judith&#8217;s face as
+the mercury drops out of the tube, and she was gazing with wide, wild
+eyes at Throckmorton. How often had she heard that grewsome story&mdash;even
+that the plunging horse was a sorrel! But at least Freke should not see
+her break down. She heard herself saying, in a strange, unnatural voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing. I think it is too warm for me in here.&#8221; Throckmorton took her
+by the arm and led her back into the hall, and to a small window which
+he opened. He felt like a brute for mentioning anything connected with
+the war&mdash;of course it must be intensely painful to Judith&mdash;but she
+stopped his earnest apologies with a word.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t blame yourself&mdash;pray, don&#8217;t. It was very warm&mdash;and Freke&mdash;oh, how
+I hate him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton had been afraid she was going to faint, but the energy with
+which she brought out her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>last remark convinced him there was no
+danger. It brought the blood surging back to her face in a torrent.</p>
+
+<p>Nobody else had known anything of the little scene in the conservatory;
+and then Throckmorton had to show Jacqueline over it, and Judith caught
+sight of him, standing in one of his easy and graceful attitudes,
+leaning over Jacqueline in expressive pantomime; and then came the
+general&#8217;s big, musical voice: &#8220;My love, it is now past eleven o&#8217;clock;
+we must not trespass on Throckmorton&#8217;s hospitality.&#8221; Throckmorton felt
+at that moment as if the evening had just begun; while to Judith it
+seemed as if there was a stretch of years of pain between the dawn and
+the midnight of that day&mdash;a pain secret but consuming.</p>
+
+<p>There was the bustle of departure, during which Judith managed to say to
+Freke:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You have had your revenge&mdash;perfect but complete.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s for calling me a liar,&#8221; was Freke&#8217;s reply. It was, moreover, for
+something that Judith had made him suffer&mdash;absurd as it was that any
+woman could make Temple Freke suffer. But, after what he had seen that
+night, he reflected that it was perhaps a work of supererogation to
+build a barrier between Judith and Throckmorton. The major had other
+views.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p><p>Throckmorton handed the ladies into the carriage; and, in spite of the
+light from the open hall-door, and <i>not</i> from the carriage-lamps&mdash;for
+the Barn Elms carriage had long parted with its lamps&mdash;he pressed a
+light kiss on Jacqueline&#8217;s hand, under General and Mrs. Temple&#8217;s very
+eyes, without their seeing it. Judith, however, saw it, and was thankful
+that it was dark, so that the pallid change, which she knew came over
+her, was not visible.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton went back into the house, shut himself up in his own den,
+and smoked savagely for an hour. Yes, it was all up with him, he
+ruefully acknowledged.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p>A day or two after this, however, came a snow, deep and lasting, more
+like a midwinter snow in New England than a December flurry in lower
+Virginia. For four weeks the sun scarcely shone, and the earth was
+wrapped in white. The roads were impassable, the river-steamers stopped
+running, and the mails were delayed for days at a time. The country
+people were much cut off from each other. Mrs. Temple missed four
+successive Sundays at church&mdash;a thing she had never done in her life
+before. Nobody could get to Barn Elms except the Throckmortons and
+Freke, but they came often in the evenings. Throckmorton saw what was
+before him with Jacqueline, yet held back, as engineers put down the
+brakes on a wild engine on a down grade&mdash;it does not, however,
+materially alter the result. He sometimes thought, with a sense of the
+grotesqueness of human affairs, how strange it was that things had not
+arranged themselves so that Jack had not been Jacqueline&#8217;s victim, and
+himself Judith&#8217;s. For Jack was undeniably fond of Jacqueline, and so far
+did not in the slightest <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>degree suspect his father&#8217;s infatuation, as
+Throckmorton frankly and bitterly acknowledged it to be. As for Judith,
+Nature leaves no true woman unarmed for suffering like hers. Even
+Jacqueline, who was sharp-eyed, only noticed that Judith at this time
+was, if anything, a little sweeter and kinder than before&mdash;even a little
+more gay. Little Beverley found his mother better company than usual,
+and more ready for a romp than ever before. The child, whom she had
+thought everything to her before, became now more passionately dear to
+her. Alone with him, she would take him in her arms and hold him close
+to her; she felt an actual softening of the pain at her heart when the
+child&#8217;s curly head rested over it. Then she would talk to him in a way
+the child only half understood, as he gazed at her with grave, mystified
+eyes, and, while laughing at his childish wonder, she would almost
+smother him with kisses. Judith was positively becoming merry. In her
+voice was a ring, in her eyes a light that was different from that calm,
+untroubled composure that had once marked her. Her manner to
+Throckmorton was perfect; the same gentle gayety, the same graceful
+dignity. She did not avoid him; pain wrung no such concession from
+Judith Temple. But Judith&#8217;s invincible cheerfulness was strangely
+antagonized by Jacqueline. Jacqueline, who talked to her own heart in a
+very primitive, open fashion, was vexed at the notion that, in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>order to
+be mistress of Millenbeck, she would have to marry Throckmorton. How
+much nicer, thought Jacqueline, with great simplicity, if it were Jack
+who gave her those looks, those words, who had pressed that kiss upon
+her hand! Throckmorton was too old, and had too much sense; Jacqueline
+made no secret in acknowledging that mature men of sense bored and
+restrained her. It was very hard, she thought, disconsolately. Ever
+since that dinner at Millenbeck, Barn Elms had appeared shabbier and
+sorrier than ever before. Although Mrs. Temple continued to have five
+kinds of bread for breakfast, and had invited a regiment of poor
+relations to spend the coming summer with her, under the Virginia
+delusion that it costs nothing to harbor a garrison for an indefinite
+time, things were certainly going very badly at Barn Elms; a condition
+of affairs, though, to which General Temple was perfectly accustomed,
+and who knew no other way of paying Peter than by robbing Paul. The old
+carriage went all to pieces just about that time, and there was no money
+to buy another one. As for a new piano, that was an impossible dream;
+and there were two splendid new pianos at Millenbeck, and not a soul to
+touch them! And Jacqueline wanted a new frock, and endless other things,
+which were distinctly out of the question, and the only way to get them,
+that she could see, was to encourage Throckmorton&#8217;s attentions and be
+mistress of Millenbeck. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>All this was not lost on Freke, who, with his
+eyes open, began to play with Jacqueline, and like Throckmorton got his
+wings scorched. The girl certainly had a power of compelling love. Had
+Judith ever relented toward Freke, Jacqueline would have had cause for
+jealousy if she loved him. But, in truth, as it came to pass, Freke cast
+as much of a spell upon Jacqueline as she did upon him. If Freke owned
+Millenbeck, instead of that wretched old Wareham, that actually was not
+as good as Barn Elms! So Jacqueline fretted to herself.</p>
+
+<p>The loneliness of those cold, snowy days was killing to Jacqueline. The
+long afternoons when she sat by the drawing-room fire and dreamed
+dreams, were almost intolerable to her. When she heard Beverley&#8217;s
+shouts, as Judith romped with him in the cold hall, and hid from him in
+the dusk until the child set up a baby cry, it was the only living
+cheerful noise about the house. Judith would come to her and say, &#8220;Now,
+Jacky, for a walk in the hall!&#8221; Jacqueline would answer fretfully:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do I want to walk for?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because it is better than sitting still.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith would take her by the waist and run her up and down the long,
+dusky hall. It was so cold they shivered at first, and the rattling of
+the great windows let icy gusts of air in upon them; and sometimes the
+moon would glare in at them in a ghastly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>way. Presently they would hear
+Simon Peter bringing in wood for the night by the back way, shaking the
+snow off his feet, and announcing to Delilah: &#8220;I tell you what, ole
+&#8217;oman, &#8217;tis everlastin&#8217; cole an&#8217; gwine ter keep so, fer I seed de hosses
+in de stable kickin&#8217; de lef&#8217; hine-foots; an&#8217; dat&#8217;s sho&#8217; an&#8217; suttin sign
+o&#8217; freezin&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You better kick dat lef&#8217; hine-foot o&#8217; yourn, an&#8217; stop studyin&#8217; &#8217;bout de
+hosses, fo&#8217; mistis come arter you! Ez long ez ole marse holler at you,
+you doan&#8217; min&#8217;; but jes&#8217; let mistis in dat sof&#8217; voice say right fine,
+&#8216;Simon Peter!&#8217; I lay you jes&#8217; hop,&#8221; was Delilah&#8217;s wifely reply.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple, confined to the house by the weather, drew military maps
+with great precision, and worked hard upon his History of Temple&#8217;s
+Brigade. The fact that he knew much more about the Duke of Marlborough&#8217;s
+campaigns, or Prince Eugene&#8217;s, or anybody&#8217;s, in fact, than he did about
+any he had been directly engaged in, in no wise set him back. Mrs.
+Temple, who thought the general a prodigy of military science, was
+rejoiced that he had something to divert him through the long wintry
+days, when Barn Elms was as completely shut in from even the little
+neighborhood world as if it were in the depths of a Russian forest. Jack
+Throckmorton, who after a while began to see that the major was
+certainly singed, as he expressed it to himself, did not carry out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>his
+usual tactics of making his vicinity too hot for his father, but when he
+wished to see Jacqueline went over in the mornings. If the weather was
+tolerable, they were pretty sure to find their way to the ice-pond.
+Jack, carrying on his arm a little wooden chair, and putting Jacqueline
+in it, would push it over the ice before him as he sped along on skates.
+Then Jacqueline&#8217;s fresh, young laugh would ring out shrilly&mdash;then she
+was happy. Sometimes Judith and Throckmorton, smiling, would watch them.
+Jack liked Mrs. Beverley immensely, but he confided to Jacqueline that
+he was a little afraid of her&mdash;just as Jacqueline candidly admitted she
+was in awe of Major Throckmorton. Throckmorton, watching this childish
+boy and girl fun, would sometimes laugh inwardly and grimly at himself.
+How true was it, as Mrs. Sherrard had said, that Jacqueline would make a
+good playmate for Jack! And then he would turn to Judith, and try to
+persuade himself of her sweetness and truth. But love comes not by
+persuasion.</p>
+
+<p>Jack had been giving Jacqueline glowing accounts of the sleigh-rides he
+had had in the Northwest. Jacqueline was crazy for a sleigh-ride, but
+there was no such thing as a sleigh in the county. One evening, after
+tea, as Jacqueline sat dolefully clasping her knees and looking in the
+fire, and Judith, with hands locked in her lap, was doing the same; Mrs.
+Temple knitting placidly by the lamp, while General Temple <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>held forth
+on certain blunders he had discovered in the Retreat of the Ten
+Thousand&mdash;a strange tinkling sound was heard far&mdash;far away&mdash;almost as if
+it were in another world! Jacqueline sat perfectly still and gazed into
+Judith&#8217;s eyes. Judith got up and went into the hall. A great patch of
+moonlight shone through the uncurtained window, and outside it was
+almost as light as day. The limbs and trunks of the great live-oaks
+looked preternaturally dark against the white earth and the blue-black,
+star-lit sky. Suddenly Simon Peter&#8217;s head appeared cautiously around the
+corner of the house, and in a minute or two he came up the back way and
+planted himself at Judith&#8217;s elbow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Gord A&#8217;mighty, Miss Judy, what dat ar&#8217;? What dem bells ringin&#8217; fur? I
+&#8217;spect de evils is &#8217;broad. I done see two Jack-my-lanterns dis heah
+night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith fixed her eyes on the long, straight lane bordered with solemn
+cedars; she saw a dark object moving along, and heard the sharp click of
+horses&#8217; shoes on the frozen snow.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s somebody coming,&#8221; she said, and in a moment, she cried out
+joyfully:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O Jacky, come&mdash;come! it&#8217;s a sleigh&mdash;I see Jack Throckmorton
+driving&mdash;Major Throckmorton is there&mdash;and there are four seats!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline jumped up and ran out. She had never seen a sleigh in her
+life, and there it was turning into the drive before the house. Jack had
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>reins, and the major&#8217;s two thoroughbreds were flying along at a
+rattling pace, and the bells were jingling loudly and merrily.
+Jacqueline almost danced with delight. By the time the sleigh drew up at
+the door, Simon Peter was there to take the reins, and Throckmorton and
+Jack jumped out and came up the steps. The general and Mrs. Temple were
+also roused to come out and meet them. As the hall-door swung open, a
+blast of arctic air entered. Throckmorton&#8217;s dark eyes looked black under
+his seal-skin cap. Jack plunged into business at once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, Mrs. Temple, you must let me take Miss Jacqueline for a spin
+to-night; never saw better sleighing in my life. The major&#8217;s along, and
+you know he is as steady as old Time&#8221;&mdash;the major at heart did not relish
+this&mdash;&#8220;and, if Mrs. Beverley will go, it will be awfully jolly.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple began some mild protest: it was too cold, or too late, or
+something; but for once Jacqueline did not hear her, and bounded off
+up-stairs for her wraps. Even Judith, usually so calm, was a little
+carried away by the prospect.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come, mother, Major Throckmorton and I will take care of them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple yielded.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will take care of Beverley while you are gone,&#8221; she said, and Judith
+blushed. Was she forgetting the child?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p><p>In five minutes both of them were ready. Judith had pressed her soft
+cheeks to Beverley&#8217;s as she leaned over the sleeping child. Surely
+nobody could say she was a forgetful mother.</p>
+
+<p>The sleigh was Jack&#8217;s. He had sent away and bought it, and it had
+arrived that evening. Jacqueline sat on the front seat with him, her
+face glowing with smiles on the clear, cold night, as he wrapped the fur
+robes around her. Throckmorton did the same for Judith. For once she had
+left off her widow&#8217;s veil, and for once she forgot that secret pain and
+determined to be happy. Jack touched up the horses, and off they flew.
+As for Jacqueline and himself, their pleasure was of that youthful,
+effervescing sort that never comes after twenty-five; but Throckmorton
+and Judith began to feel some of the exhilaration and excitement.
+Throckmorton had lately heard Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s views about Judith&#8217;s
+marriage, and it had made him feel a very great pity for her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Where are we going?&#8221; cried Jacqueline, as they dashed along.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Anywhere&mdash;nowhere&mdash;to Turkey Thicket!&#8221; replied Jack, lightly touching
+the flying horses with his whip.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We will frighten Mrs. Sherrard to death!&#8221; said Judith, from the back
+seat, burying her face in her muff.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a time to think about anybody else, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>though. The five miles
+to Turkey Thicket sped away like lightning. When they dashed through the
+gate and drew up before the house, half a dozen darkies were there
+gaping; and Mrs. Sherrard, with a shawl thrown over her head, was
+standing in the doorway, and standing behind her was Freke.</p>
+
+<p>As they all got out, laughing, huddling, and slipping up the stone
+steps, Mrs. Sherrard greeted them with her characteristic cordiality,
+demanding that they should take off their wraps before they were half up
+the steps. She gave Throckmorton a comical look, and whispered to him as
+he shook hands with her: &#8220;Out with the Sister of Charity, hey? Or is it
+the child Jacky?&#8221; Throckmorton laughed rather uneasily. He had never got
+over that remark of Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s about Jacqueline being a playmate
+for Jack.</p>
+
+<p>They all went trooping into the dining-room, where a huge fire blazed.
+Mrs. Sherrard called up her factotum, a venerable negro woman, Delilah&#8217;s
+double, and in ten minutes they were sitting around the table laughing
+and eating and drinking. The colored factotum had brought out a large
+yellow bowl, a big, flat, blue dish, and a rusty bottle. Eggs and milk
+followed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Egg-nog,&#8221; whispered Jack to Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>So it was. Freke broke up the eggs, and Mrs. Sherrard, with a great
+carving-knife, beat up the whites, while she talked and occasionally
+flourished <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>the knife uncomfortably near Freke&#8217;s nose. Throckmorton
+poured in the rum and brandy with such liberality that Judith with great
+firmness took both bottles away from him. The egg-nog was a capital
+brew. Then Freke produced his violin, and saying, &#8220;Hang your Brahms and
+Beethovens!&#8221; dashed into waltzes of Strauss and Waldteufel that made the
+very air vibrate with joy and gayety and rhythm. Jack seized Jacqueline,
+and, opening the door, they flew out into the half-lighted hall and spun
+around delightedly. As Freke&#8217;s superb bow-arm flashed back and forth,
+and the torrent of melody poured out of the violin, his eyes flashed,
+too. He did not mean to play always for Jacqueline to dance.</p>
+
+<p>Judith, standing at the door, watched the two young figures whirling
+merrily around in the half-light to the resounding waltz-music. She was
+altogether taken by surprise when Throckmorton came up to her, and said,
+half laughing and half embarrassed:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dancing days are over, but that waltz is charming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith did not quite take in what he meant, but without a word he
+clasped her waist, and she was gliding off with him. Throckmorton would
+have scorned the characterization of a &#8220;dancing man,&#8221; but nevertheless
+he danced well, and Judith moved like a breeze. She went around the big
+hall once&mdash;twice&mdash;before <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>the idea that it was inconceivably wicked of
+her to dance with Throckmorton came to her; not, indeed, until she saw
+Freke&#8217;s wide mouth expanded into a smile that was infuriating. And then,
+what would Mrs. Temple say to her dancing at all?</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, pray, stop!&#8221; she cried, blushing furiously. &#8220;I can&#8217;t dance any
+more; I ought never to have begun. I haven&#8217;t danced for&mdash;for years.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton stopped at once, with pity in his eyes. He suspected the
+sort of angelic dragooning to which she was subject from his dear Mrs.
+Temple.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why shouldn&#8217;t you dance?&#8221; he said. &#8220;I see you like it. Come, let&#8217;s try
+it again. I&#8217;m a little rusty, perhaps, but we got on famously just now.&#8221;
+But Judith would not try it again.</p>
+
+<p>Freke now meant to have his innings.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you know this is Twelfth-night&mdash;the night for telling fortunes?&#8221; he
+said, laying down his violin.&mdash;&#8220;Come, Jacky, let me take you out of
+doors and show you the moon and tell yours.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;In this snow!&#8221; screamed Mrs. Sherrard; but by that time Freke had
+thrown a shawl over Jacqueline&#8217;s head, and had dragged her out of the
+room, and the hall-door banged loudly after them.</p>
+
+<p>Outside, in the cold, white moonlight and the snow, Freke pointed to the
+moon.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now make your wish,&#8221; he said; &#8220;but don&#8217;t wish for Millenbeck.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p><p>Jacqueline&#8217;s face could turn no redder than it was, but she looked at
+Freke, and answered on impulse, as she always did:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Millenbeck is finer than Barn Elms&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Or Wareham,&#8221; responded Freke, fixing her attention with a stare out of
+his bold eyes. &#8220;See here, Jacqueline, I know how it is. You think you
+will be able to put up with Throckmorton for the sake of Millenbeck. My
+dear, he is old&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is only forty-four,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And you are only twenty-one. You would be happier even at Wareham with
+me, than at Millenbeck with Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I couldn&#8217;t be happy in a five-roomed house,&#8221; quite truthfully said
+Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, you could. I could make you forget whether it had five or ten
+rooms.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At this, he put two fingers under her chin, and, tilting up her rosy
+face, kissed her on the mouth. &#8220;Come!&#8221; cried Freke, after a little
+while, remembering how time was flying, which Jacqueline had evidently
+forgotten, and making for the steps; but Jacqueline stopped him with a
+scared face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t you married, Freke?&#8221; she asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not a bit of it,&#8221; answered Freke, stoutly. &#8220;Don&#8217;t you believe all the
+old women&#8217;s tales you hear about me, Jacky. I&#8217;m no more married than you
+are this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>minute. I have been, I admit, but I slipped my head out of the
+noose some time ago. Do you believe me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, who could believe anything, &#8220;if&mdash;if&mdash;people
+can really be divorced.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They had not been gone ten minutes, when they returned, yet Freke saw a
+danger-signal flying in Judith&#8217;s cheeks. She did not mean to have any
+more of this. Mrs. Sherrard, who had become an active partisan of
+Freke&#8217;s, asked, as soon as they came in:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What wish did you make, Jacky?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline started. She had made no wish at all.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Freke ran me out of the house so fast,&#8221; she began complainingly, &#8220;I was
+perfectly out of breath.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And of course couldn&#8217;t make a wish,&#8221; said Jack Throckmorton, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I wished for everything,&#8221; replied Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they were driving home through the still, frosty night. Judith
+felt a complete reaction from the ghost of merriment that had possessed
+her in going that road before. Even Throckmorton noticed the change. She
+laughed and talked gayly, but her speaking eyes told another story.
+Throckmorton could not but smile, and yet felt sorry, too, when
+Jacqueline, fancying herself unheard, whispered to Judith:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I won&#8217;t tell mamma about the waltz.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Jacqueline was absent-minded too. When <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>they had got home and had
+gone up-stairs, instead of Jacqueline following Judith to her room, as
+she usually did when she had anything on her mind, she went straight to
+her own room, and, locking the door, began to walk up and down, her
+hands behind her back. How strange, fascinating, overpowering was Freke,
+after all! Was a divorced man really a married man? Divorces were
+dreadful things, she had always known&mdash;but&mdash;suppose, in some other world
+than that about the Severn neighborhood, it should be considered a
+venial thing? Jacqueline became so much interested in these puzzling
+reflections that she unconsciously abandoned the cat-like tread which
+she had adopted for fear of waking her mother, and stepped out in her
+own brisk way up and down the big room. Mrs. Temple, hearing this,
+quietly opened her own chamber-door beneath. That was enough. The walk
+stopped as if by magic, and in ten minutes Jacqueline was in bed.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p>Throckmorton made one short, sharp struggle with himself, and then
+yielded to Jacqueline&#8217;s fascination.</p>
+
+<p>Without Freke&#8217;s keen perceptions, Throckmorton knew enough to doubt
+whether he ought to congratulate or curse himself if he won Jacqueline;
+and that he could win her, his own good sense told him soon enough.
+Jacqueline&#8217;s nature was so impressionable that a strong determination
+could conquer her at any time and at any thing for a season.
+Throckmorton, tramping about the country roads with his gun on his
+shoulder; having jolly bachelor parties at Millenbeck, which were
+confined strictly to the Severn neighborhood; in church on Sunday,
+half-listening to Morford&#8217;s pyrotechnics in the pulpit; smoking at
+unearthly hours in his own den; riding hard after the hounds&mdash;the
+thought of Jacqueline was never far away, and never without a suspicion
+of pain and dissatisfaction. He was not given to paltering with himself,
+and nothing could utterly blind his strong common sense&mdash;a common sense
+that was so imperative to be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>heard, so difficult to answer, so
+impossible to evade. It was not in him to surrender his judgment
+absolutely. He faced bravely the discrepancy in their ages, but he soon
+admitted to himself that there were other incongruities deeper and more
+significant than that. Nevertheless, although Reason might argue and
+preach, Love carried the day. Throckmorton reminded himself that
+miracles sometimes happened in love. He did not suffer himself to think
+what Jacqueline would be twenty years from then. Time is always fatal to
+women of her type. Even her beauty was essentially the beauty of youth.
+In twenty years she would be stout and florid. Here Throckmorton, in his
+reflections, unexpectedly went off on Judith. Hers was a beauty that
+would last&mdash;the beauty of expression, of <i>esprit</i>. Then his thoughts,
+with a sort of shock, reverted to Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>As for Freke, Throckmorton did not once connect him with Jacqueline.
+Freke was a black sheep, and, as Throckmorton devoutly and thankfully
+remembered, the daughter of General and Mrs. Temple would not be likely
+to regard a divorced man as a single man. So, in the course of two or
+three weeks, Throckmorton had gone through all his phases, and had made
+up his mind. He could not but laugh at Mrs. Temple&#8217;s unsuspecting
+security. She had always regarded Jacqueline as a child, and indeed
+regarded her very little in any way.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span></p><p>This excellent woman, whose gospel was embodied in her duty to her
+husband and her children, had always been a singularly unjust mother;
+but she thought herself the most devoted mother in the world, because
+she regularly superintended Jacqueline&#8217;s changes of flannels, and made
+her take off her shoes when she got her feet wet. Both Mrs. Temple and
+the general were absolutely incapable of entertaining the idea that
+Freke was growing fond of Jacqueline; and Freke was not only astute
+enough to keep them in the dark, but to keep Judith, too, who fondly
+imagined that she herself had reduced Freke to good behavior as regarded
+Jacqueline. Freke&#8217;s estimate of the two young women had not changed in
+the least&mdash;only Jacqueline was come-at-able and Judith was not&mdash;and he
+loved to cross Judith and vex her, and give her pin-sticks as well as
+stabs in return for the frank hatred she felt for him. She had elected
+her own position with him&mdash;so let her keep it.</p>
+
+<p>It never took Throckmorton long to act on his determinations. Jacqueline
+saw what was coming. He had a way of looking at her that forced her to
+look up and then to look down again. He said little things to her,
+instinct with meaning, that brought the blood to her face. He performed
+small services for her that were merely conventional, but which were
+from him to her acts of adoration. And Judith saw it all.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p><p>He did not have to wait long for an opportunity. One evening he went to
+Barn Elms. The general was threatened with a return of his gout, which
+had got better, and Mrs. Temple had imprisoned him in the &#8220;charmber,&#8221;
+where she mounted guard over him. Only Jacqueline and Judith, with
+little Beverley, who had been allowed to stay up until eight o&#8217;clock, as
+a great privilege, were in the drawing-room when he walked in. The boy
+and Throckmorton were such chums that there was no hope of getting
+Beverley off under a half-hour. He stood between Throckmorton&#8217;s knees,
+perfectly happy to be with him, asking endless questions in a subdued
+whisper, and frowning out of his expressive eyes when Throckmorton
+wanted to know when his mother intended to cut off his long, yellow
+curls, so that he would be a real boy. Judith, sitting in her usual
+place, smiling and calm, soon settled that the winged word would be
+spoken that night. What better chance would Throckmorton have than when
+she should be gone to put the child to bed? She watched the tall clock
+on the high mantel with a fearful sinking of the heart, that drove the
+color out of her face. Presently it was half-past eight.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come, dearest,&#8221; she said to the child.</p>
+
+<p>Beverley held back.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t want to go with you,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I want to stay and play.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p><p>This childish treason to her at that moment was a stab. She got up with
+a smile, and opened her arms wide, her eyes shining under her straight
+brows.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come, dear little boy,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>The tone was so winning, so compelling, it went to the child&#8217;s baby
+heart. He ran to his mother, with wide-open arms, who caught him and
+held him tight, covering his yellow mop of hair with kisses.
+Throckmorton looked on surprised and admiring. He had never seen Judith
+yield to anything emotional like that; she was laughing, blushing, and
+almost crying, as Beverley swung round her neck. And Throckmorton
+thought he had never seen her look so handsome as when she ran out of
+the room, carrying the child, who was a sturdy fellow, in her slender
+arms, her face deeply flushed. Throckmorton, as he held the door open
+for her to pass out, gave her a meaning smile; but Judith would not look
+at him. Up-stairs, Beverley was soon in his little bed. Judith, sitting
+on the floor, with both arms crossed on the crib, held one of the
+child&#8217;s little warm hands in hers; the only real and comforting thing in
+life then seemed that childish hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will stay an hour,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Mother will be vexed&#8221;&mdash;Mrs. Temple had
+old-fashioned ideas about leaving girls to themselves&mdash;&#8220;but he shall be
+happy. I will see that he has his chance.&#8221; But, like Throckmorton
+himself, she feared for his happiness. Nobody <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>knew better than she
+Jacqueline&#8217;s weakness. She had, indeed, a sort of childish cleverness,
+which was, however, of no practical good to her; but then, as Judith
+remembered, Throckmorton&#8217;s love could transform any woman. &#8220;Yes, I shall
+go through it,&#8221; she thought, still kneeling on the carpet, and pressing
+her face to the child&#8217;s in the crib; &#8220;Jacqueline will insist that I
+shall take off the mourning I wear for the man I never loved, at the
+wedding of the man I do love. If Throckmorton has any doubts or troubles
+with Jacqueline, he will certainly come to me. I will help him loyally,
+and he will need a friend. So far, though, from making me suffer more,
+the hope of befriending him is the only hope I have left in the world. I
+wonder how it feels to have one&#8217;s heart aching and throbbing for another
+woman&#8217;s husband&mdash;to be counting time by the times one sees him? For
+assuredly a few words spoken by a priest can not change this.&#8221; She
+struck her heart. &#8220;And in everything Jacqueline will be blest above me.
+See how poor and straitened we are, and Jacqueline&#8217;s life will be free
+from any care at all! However, to be loved by Throckmorton must mean to
+be rich and free and happy.&#8221; And then, with a sort of clear-eyed
+despair, she began to look into the future, and see all of Jacqueline&#8217;s
+and Throckmorton&#8217;s life spread out before her. &#8220;And how unworthy she
+is!&#8221; she almost cried out aloud. She had now risen from the crib <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>and
+was gazing out of the window at Millenbeck, that was plainly visible
+across the white stretch of snow between the two places. &#8220;Of course, she
+will love him&mdash;no woman could help that&mdash;but she can&#8217;t understand him.
+She will not have the slightest respect for his habits, and will always
+be wanting him to alter them for her. She never will understand the
+reserves of Throckmorton&#8217;s nature. She will tease him with questions. I
+would not care if Jacqueline were the one to be unhappy&#8221;&mdash;for so had
+pain changed her toward the child that had been to her almost as her
+own&mdash;&#8220;but in a few years the spell will have vanished. Throckmorton will
+find out that she is no companion for him. There can be no real
+companionship for any man like Throckmorton except with a woman
+somewhere near his own level&mdash;least of all now, when he is no longer
+young.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then she came back and took the child out of his little bed, and held
+him in her arms and wept passionately over him. &#8220;At least I have you,
+darling; I have you!&#8221; she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Down-stairs, in the drawing-room, Throckmorton made good use of his
+time. With very little apprenticeship, he knew how to make love so that
+any woman would listen to him.</p>
+
+<p>He told Jacqueline that he loved her, in his own straightforward way;
+and Jacqueline, whose heart beat furiously, who was frightened and half
+rebellious, suffered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>him to get a few shy words from her. Throckmorton
+did not stoop to deny his age, but he condescended to apologize for it.
+In a dim and nebulous way Jacqueline understood the value of the man who
+thus offered his manly and unstained heart, but she felt acutely the
+want of common ground between them.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton&#8217;s love-making was not at all what simple Jacqueline fancied
+love-making to be. He did not protest&mdash;he did not talk poetry, nor abase
+himself; he made no exaggerated promises, nor did he sue for her love.
+At the first sign of yielding, he caught her to his heart and devoured
+her with kisses. Yet, when Jacqueline wanted to escape from him, he let
+her go. He would not keep her a moment unwillingly. Jacqueline did not
+understand this masterful way of doing things. She fancied that a lover
+meant a slave, and apparently Throckmorton considered a lover meant a
+master.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of an hour, Judith returned to the room. Throckmorton was
+standing alone on the hearth-rug, in a meditative attitude. In his eyes,
+as they sought Judith&#8217;s, was a kind of passionate, troubled joy; he
+doubted much, but he did not doubt his love for Jacqueline. He went
+forward and took Judith&#8217;s hand, who lifted her eyes, strangely bright,
+to his face. She was smiling, too, and a faint blush glowed in her
+cheeks. There were no visible signs of tears.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I am a happy man,&#8221; said Throckmorton to her. &#8220;Jacqueline has promised
+to marry me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His words were few, but Judith understood how much was conveyed in his
+sparing speech.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am happy, too,&#8221; she returned, pressing his hand. &#8220;You deserve to be
+happy, and you will make&mdash;Jacqueline happy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As she said this, she smiled tremulously. Throckmorton was too much
+absorbed to notice it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will, so help me Heaven!&#8221; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>In all his life before, Throckmorton did not remember ever to have felt
+the desire of communion about his inner thoughts and feelings. Was it
+because he himself had changed, or that Judith had that delicate and
+penetrating sympathy that drew him on to speak of what he had never
+spoken before? Anyway, he sat down by her, and talked to her a long
+time&mdash;talked of all the doubts and pitfalls that had beset him; his
+plans that Jacqueline might be happy; his confidence that Judith would
+be his strongest ally with Mrs. Temple, who was by no means a person to
+be counted on. She might object to Throckmorton&#8217;s profession, to his
+being in what she continued to call the Yankee army, to his twenty-odd
+years&#8217; seniority, to his not being a member of the church; as like as
+not this was the very rock on which Throckmorton&#8217;s ship would split.
+Judith, with the same heavenly smile, listened to him; she even made a
+little wholesome <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>fun of him; and when he rose to go, Throckmorton felt,
+even at that time&mdash;and nobody could say that he was a laggard in
+love&mdash;that he had gained something else besides Jacqueline, in the sweet
+friendship of a woman like Judith. He took her little hand, and was
+about to raise it to his lips with tender respect, when Judith, who had
+stood as still as a statue, suddenly snatched her hand away and gave
+Throckmorton a look so strange that he fancied her attacked by a sudden
+prudery that was far from becoming to her or complimentary to him. She
+slipped past him out of the door, and he heard her light and rapid
+footfall as she sped up the stairs. As there was nobody left to
+entertain the newly accepted lover, he put on a battered blue cap, for
+which he had a sneaking affection, and sometimes wore under cover of
+night, and let himself out of the front door and went home across the
+snow-covered fields, in an ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, Jacqueline, as soon as she had heard the bang of the
+hall-door after Throckmorton&#8217;s quick, soldierly step, stole out of her
+own room into Judith&#8217;s. In answer to her tap, Judith said, &#8220;Come in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith was seated before the old-fashioned dressing-table, her long,
+rich hair combed out, and was making a pretense of brushing it, but
+occasionally she would stop and gaze with strange eyes at her own image
+in the glass. She rose when Jacqueline <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>entered, and took the girl in
+her arms as Jacqueline expected.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith,&#8221; Jacqueline said, &#8220;I am to be married to Major Throckmorton. I
+wonder what Freke will say!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith held her off at arm&#8217;s length, and looked down at her with eyes
+full of anger and disdain.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t mention Throckmorton and Freke in the same breath, Jacqueline!
+What does Freke&#8217;s opinion count for&mdash;what does Freke himself? It is an
+insult to Throckmorton to&mdash;to&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Judith,&#8221; said Jacqueline, &#8220;Freke talks better than Major
+Throckmorton&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And plays and sings better. Ah! yes. At the same time, Throckmorton&#8217;s
+little finger is worth more than a dozen Frekes.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But it troubles me about Freke. I know Major Throckmorton can manage
+mamma&mdash;he can do anything with her now; and mamma, of course, will
+manage papa; but nobody can do anything with Freke.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline,&#8221; said Judith, sitting down and taking Jacqueline in her
+lap, and changing all at once into the sweetest sisterly persuasion, &#8220;no
+other man on earth must matter to you now but Throckmorton. Let me tell
+you what a true marriage is. It is to love one man so much that with him
+is everything&mdash;without him is nothing. It is to study what he likes, and
+to like it too. It is to make his people your people, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>and his God your
+God. I think one need not know a great deal in order to be worthy of a
+man&mdash;for his love makes one worthy; but one should know a great deal in
+order that one may be creditable to him in the eyes of the world. Think
+how Throckmorton&#8217;s wife should conduct herself; fancy how frightful the
+contrast, if she should not in some degree be like him! I tell you,
+Jacqueline, a woman to sustain Throckmorton&#8217;s name and credit should be
+no ordinary woman. If you do not love him, if you do not make him proud
+and happy to say, &#8216;This is my wife,&#8217; you deserve the worst fate&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>One of Jacqueline&#8217;s fits of acuteness was on her. She looked hard at
+Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It seems to me, Judith, that you would make a much more fitting wife
+for him than I.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t say that!&#8221; cried Judith, breathlessly. &#8220;Never, never say that
+again!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline, who knew well enough when to stop, suddenly halted. After a
+little pause, she began again:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know it will be dreadfully lonely at Millenbeck. Major Throckmorton
+loves to read, and I shall be a great interruption to his evenings. I
+don&#8217;t know how I shall treat Jack. Don&#8217;t you think it would be a good
+idea to get a companion&mdash;somebody who knows French?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You musn&#8217;t think of such a thing. Good heavens! a companion, with
+Throckmorton? You <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>can learn more from him in one week than all the
+governesses in creation can teach you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t say governess,&#8221; replied Jacqueline, with much dignity. &#8220;I said
+companion.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then, as Jacqueline leaned her head on Judith&#8217;s shoulder, Judith talked
+to her long and tenderly of the duty, the respect, the love she owed
+Throckmorton. Jacqueline listened attentively enough. When the little
+lecture was finished, Jacqueline whispered:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I feel differently about it now. At first, I could only think of
+Millenbeck and a new piano, and doing just as I liked; but now, I will
+try&mdash;I will really try&mdash;not to vex Major Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>That was all that could be got out of her.</p>
+
+<p>Judith went with her to her room, and did not leave it until Jacqueline
+was tucked in her big four-poster, with the ghastly white tester and
+dimity hangings. Jacqueline kissed her a dozen times before she went
+away. Judith, too, was loath to leave. As long as she was doing
+something for Jacqueline, she was doing something for Throckmorton. For
+was not Jacqueline Throckmorton&#8217;s now?</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, who was modesty and respectfulness itself in the presence
+of the woman he loved, was far from being nervous or diffident with her
+family. Next morning, having devoted all his smoking hours, which
+comprised the meditative part of his life, to Jacqueline, it occurred to
+him that he would have to tackle Mrs. Temple. That quite exhilarated and
+amused him. He knew well enough the Temple tradition, by which the
+master of the house was the nominal ruler, while the mistress was the
+actual ruler, and he also knew it would not be repeated at Millenbeck.
+He was indulgent toward women to the last degree&mdash;indulgent of their
+whims, their foibles, their faults and follies; but it was an
+indulgence, not a right. Jacqueline would find she had as much liberty
+as ever her mother had, but it would not be by virtue of a strong will
+over a weak one, but the free gift of affection. The major was not a
+person subject to petticoat government. In fact, he did not exactly know
+what it meant, and the woman did not live who could make him understand
+it. He rather looked <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>forward to a brush with Mrs. Temple. He knew that
+Millenbeck and all the worldly advantages of the match would not
+influence her one iota. The conviction of this, of her entire
+disinterestedness and integrity, gave him pleasure. He knew that it was
+he&mdash;George Throckmorton&mdash;who would be weighed by Mrs. Temple, if not by
+Jacqueline; this last an afterthought that came to him unpleasantly.</p>
+
+<p>At breakfast, Throckmorton could not but feel a sense of triumph over
+Jack, who, unconscious of an impending step-mother, sat opposite his
+father, and talked in the free, frank way to him that Throckmorton had
+always encouraged. The young rascal would see, thought Throckmorton,
+with much satisfaction, that it was possible for a man of forty-four,
+with more gray hairs than black in his head, to hold his own even
+against a fellow as fascinating as Jack fancied himself to be. As luck
+would have it, Jack began to talk about the Temples.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Major, don&#8217;t you think Mrs. Beverley a very captivating woman? By
+George! she looks so pretty in that little black bonnet she wears, if it
+wasn&#8217;t for interfering with you, sir, I would be tempted to go in and
+win myself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The boy&#8217;s impudence tickled Throckmorton. He could not but laugh in
+spite of himself at the idea&mdash;Jack, whom Judith treated very much as she
+did Beverley! But Jack evidently thought his father <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>had designs in that
+quarter, which misapprehension still further amused the major.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Beverley is indeed a charming woman,&#8221; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>Jack, however, became serious. In his heart he sincerely admired and
+revered Judith, and his blessing was ready whenever the major informed
+him that she would be the future mistress of Millenbeck.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mrs. Beverley has more sense and sprightliness than any other woman I
+know. If she could be persuaded to take off those black things she wraps
+herself up in, and be <i>herself</i>&mdash;which she isn&#8217;t&mdash;I should think she
+would be&mdash;great fun.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jack knew Throckmorton well enough to see that the shot had not hit the
+bull&#8217;s-eye. Throckmorton was too ready to praise, discuss, and admire
+Judith. &#8220;What does the old fellow want, anyway?&#8221; thought Jack to
+himself, &#8220;if Mrs. Beverley doesn&#8217;t suit him?&#8221; So then and there he
+entered into a disquisition on women in general and Judith Temple in
+particular, which caused Throckmorton to ask sarcastically:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;May I ask where you acquired your knowledge of the sex?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It would be impossible to associate with you, major, without learning
+much about them,&#8221; answered Jack, &#8220;you are such a favorite with the
+ladies. You are a very handsome man, you know, sir&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p><p>Here Throckmorton smiled.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For your age, that is&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The major frowned slightly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;They all like you&mdash;even little Jacqueline.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To save his life, Throckmorton could not prevent a flush from rising to
+his face, which he hated; for the emotions of forty-four are infinitely
+ridiculous to twenty-two. But it was just as well to have things settled
+then. A queer glitter, too, showing understanding, had come into Jack&#8217;s
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I may say to you,&#8221; said Throckmorton, after a little pause, &#8220;that you
+would do well to be guarded in your references to Miss Temple. She has
+promised to marry me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>They had finished breakfast by that time, and were about to separate for
+the morning. Jack got up, and Throckmorton noticed his handsome young
+face paled a little. He had not escaped Jacqueline&#8217;s spell any more than
+Throckmorton and Freke; but it was not an overmastering spell, and in
+his heart he loved his father with a manly affection that he never
+thought of putting into words, but which was stronger than any other
+emotion. He walked up to Throckmorton and shook hands with him,
+laughing, but with a nervousness in his laugh, an abashed look on his
+face, that told the whole story to Throckmorton&#8217;s keen eye.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I congratulate you, sir. She is a&mdash;a&mdash;beautiful girl&mdash;and&mdash;and&mdash;I hope
+you will be very happy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I think I shall,&#8221; gravely responded Throckmorton. &#8220;I can not explain
+things to you that you can only learn by experience. I have not
+forgotten&mdash;I never can forget&mdash;your mother, who made my happiness during
+our short married life. I have been twenty years recovering from the
+pain of losing her enough to think of replacing her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jack had recovered himself a little while Throckmorton was speaking. The
+wound was only skin-deep with him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And is it to be immediately?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As soon as I can bring it about,&#8221; replied Throckmorton; &#8220;but I have got
+to bring my dear, obstinate old friend Mrs. Temple round first&#8221;&mdash;here
+both of them laughed&mdash;&#8220;so you will see the necessity of keeping the
+affair absolutely quiet.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You had better join the church, sir,&#8221; said Jack, who was himself again.
+&#8220;That will be your best card to play.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very likely,&#8221; responded Throckmorton, good-humoredly, &#8220;but I think I
+can win the game even without that.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In the bright morning sunshine out-of-doors Throckmorton began to take
+heart of grace about Jacqueline. Jack did not seem to think it such an
+unequal match. With love and patience what might not be done with any
+woman? Throckmorton began to whistle jovially. He went out to the stable
+lot to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>take a look at the horses, as he did every morning. Old Tartar,
+that had carried him during four years&#8217; warfare, and was now honorably
+retired and turned out to grass, came toward him whinnying and ready for
+his morning pat&mdash;all horses, dogs, and children loved Throckmorton.
+Tartar, who had lost an eye in the service of his country, turned his
+one remaining orb around so as to see Throckmorton, and rubbed his noble
+old head against his master&#8217;s knee. Throckmorton noticed him more than
+usual&mdash;his heart was more tender and pitiful to all creatures that
+morning.</p>
+
+<p>Toward noon he went over to Barn Elms. The morning was intensely cold,
+though clear, and the fields and fences and hedges were still white with
+snow. For the first time Throckmorton noticed the extreme shabbiness of
+Barn Elms.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear little girl,&#8221; he said, &#8220;she shall have a different home from
+this.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>When he reached the house he was ushered straight into the plain,
+old-fashioned drawing-room, and in a moment Mrs. Temple appeared,
+perfectly unsuspicious of what had happened or what was going to happen.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Good-morning,&#8221; cried Throckmorton&mdash;something in his tone showing
+triumph and happiness, and in his dark face was a fine red color. &#8220;Mrs.
+Temple, I came over to make a clean breast to you this morning!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About what?&#8221; asked Mrs. Temple, sedately.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p><p>They were both standing up, facing each other.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;About&mdash;Jacqueline.&#8221; Throckmorton spoke her name almost reverently.</p>
+
+<p>A sudden light broke in upon Mrs. Temple. She grew perfectly rigid.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline!&#8221; she said, in an undescribable tone.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Jacqueline,&#8221; answered Throckmorton, coolly. &#8220;I love her&mdash;I think
+she loves me&mdash;and she has promised to marry me. You may depend upon it,
+I shall make her keep her promise.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple remained perfectly silent for two or three minutes before
+recovering her self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are forty-four years old, George Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know it. I never lied about my age to anybody.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are in the Yankee army!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I am,&#8221; responded Throckmorton, boldly, &#8220;and I shall stay in it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And my daughter&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;For God&#8217;s sake, Mrs. Temple, let us talk reasonably together! I am not
+going to take your daughter campaigning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It isn&#8217;t that I mean, George Throckmorton. I mean the uniform you
+wear&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Is the best in the world! Now, my dear old friend&mdash;the best friend I
+ever had&mdash;I want your consent and General Temple&#8217;s&mdash;I want it very much,
+but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>it isn&#8217;t absolutely necessary. Jacqueline and I are to be married.
+We settled that last night.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple, with whom nobody had ever taken a bold stand before, looked
+perfectly aghast. Throckmorton saw his advantage, and pressed it hard.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Have you any objection to me personally? Am I a drunkard, or a gambler,
+or a cad?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are not,&#8221; responded Mrs. Temple, after a pause. &#8220;I think you are,
+on the whole, except my husband and my dead son, as much of a man&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton took her hand and pressed it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Thank you! thank you!&#8221; His gratitude spoke more in his tone than his
+words. &#8220;And now,&#8221; he cheerfully remarked, &#8220;that you have given your
+consent&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple had given no such thing. Nevertheless, within half an hour
+she had yielded to the inevitable. She had met a stronger will than her
+own, and was completely vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline came down, and Throckmorton had a half-hour of rapture not
+unmixed with pain. If only his reason could be silenced, how happy he
+would have been! He did not see Judith; he had quite forgotten her for
+the time.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, who was nothing if not prompt, had infused so much life
+and spirit into his love-affair that at the end of a week it was settled
+that the wedding should take place the last of February&mdash;only a month
+off. Jacqueline&#8217;s trousseau was not likely to be imposing, and the few,
+feeble reasons which Mrs. Temple urged for delay were swept away by
+Throckmorton&#8217;s impetuosity. It was not the custom in that part of the
+world for engagements to be formally announced; on the contrary, it was
+in order to deny them up to the very last moment, and to regard them as
+something surreptitious and to be hid under a bushel. General Temple had
+magniloquently given his consent, when Throckmorton went through the
+form of asking it. Mrs. Temple still shook her head gravely over the
+matter, particularly over the brief engagement, which was quite opposed
+to the leisurely way in which engagements were usually conducted in her
+experience; but Throckmorton seemed to have mastered everybody at Barn
+Elms. For himself that period was one of deep joy, and yet full of
+harassing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>doubts. The more he studied Jacqueline under her new aspects,
+the stranger things became. It cut him to see how little real
+consequence either her mother or her father attached to her. Judith
+seemed to be the only person who was concerned to make Jacqueline love
+him; to regard the girl as a woman, and not as a child. For Jacqueline
+herself, she was as changeable as the weather. Had she been steadily
+indifferent to him, Throckmorton would have thought nothing necessary
+but a manly fight to win her; but sometimes she showed devoted fondness
+for him, and, without rhyme or reason, she would change into the coldest
+indifference or teasing irritability. Throckmorton told himself it was
+the coyness and fickleness of a young girl in love; but sometimes a
+hateful suspicion overcame him that there was in Jacqueline an innate
+levity and inconstancy that went to the root of her nature. The evident
+delight she took in the luxury and pleasures that were to be hers&mdash;the
+horses, carriages, pianos, and flowers at Millenbeck&mdash;was rather that of
+a child dazzled with the fineries of life. Her love for them was so
+unthinking and uncalculating that it did not shock Throckmorton; yet how
+could he, with his knowledge, his experience of men, women, and things,
+help seeing the differences between them&mdash;differences that, had his
+infatuation been less complete, would have appalled him? As it was, just
+as Judith had predicted to herself, he often <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>came to her for sympathy
+and encouragement&mdash;not expressed in words, but in the subtile
+understanding between them. Judith always spoke in praise of Jacqueline;
+she artfully managed to show Throckmorton the best of her. But for
+Judith the marriage could never have been hastened on, as Throckmorton
+desired; for, as soon as she found out Throckmorton&#8217;s wish, she went to
+work on Jacqueline&#8217;s trousseau with a sort of desperate energy that
+carried things through. Jacqueline could have no fine silk gowns, but
+she was to have piles of the daintiest linen, of which the material cost
+little, but the beautiful handiwork lavished upon it by Judith was worth
+a little fortune. Jacqueline herself, spurred on by Judith&#8217;s industry,
+sewed steadily. As for Judith, the fever of working for Jacqueline
+seized her, and never abated. She even neglected her child for
+Jacqueline, until Mrs. Temple, with stern disapproval, took her to task
+about it. Judith, blushing and conscience-stricken, owned to her fault,
+although nobody could accuse her of lacking love for the child. But
+still she managed to sew for Jacqueline, sitting up secretly by night,
+and with a pale, fixed face&mdash;stitch, stitch, stitching! Jacqueline could
+not understand it at all; and when she asked Judith about it once, she
+was so suddenly and strangely agitated that Jacqueline, a little
+frightened, dropped the subject at once. But, in truth, this was to
+Judith a time of new, strange, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>terrible grief and disappointment.
+How she had ever permitted Throckmorton to take up her whole heart and
+mind she did not know any more than she could fathom now how she ever
+came to mistake an early and immature fancy for a deep and abiding
+passion, and had suffered herself to be married to Beverley Temple. She
+endured agonies of remorse for that, and yet hourly excused herself to
+herself. &#8220;How could I know,&#8221; she asked herself in those long hours of
+the night when men and women come face to face with their sorrows. But
+all her remorse was for Beverley. As for the hatred she ought to feel
+for Throckmorton as the slayer of her husband, she had come to laugh it
+to scorn in her own mind. But, like all true women, she respected the
+world&mdash;the narrow circle which constituted her world&mdash;and she felt
+oppressed with shame at the idea that the whole story might all one day
+come out, and then what would they think of her? What would they do to
+her? She could not say, as she had once said, &#8220;I do not believe it.&#8221; She
+had heard it from Throckmorton&#8217;s own mouth. She would have to say, &#8220;I
+knew it, and went to his house, and continued to be friendly with him,
+and spoke no word when he wished to marry Beverley&#8217;s sister.&#8221; She could
+not divine the reason of Freke&#8217;s silence, but, torn and harassed and
+wearied with struggles of heart and conscience, she simply yielded to
+the fatalism of the wretched, and let things drift. Sometimes <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>in her
+own room, after she had spent the evening with Throckmorton and
+Jacqueline, seeing clearly under his perfectly self-possessed exterior
+his infatuation for Jacqueline, she would be wroth with him. Judith, the
+most modest and unassuming of women, would say to herself, with scorn of
+Throckmorton: &#8220;How blind he is! To throw away on Jacqueline, who in her
+turn throws it to the wind, what would make me the proudest creature
+under heaven! And am I unworthy of his love, or less worthy than
+Jacqueline?&#8221; To which her keen perceptions would answer rebelliously,
+&#8220;No, I am more worthy in every way.&#8221; She would examine her face
+carefully in the glass, holding the candle first one side, then the
+other. &#8220;This, then, is the face that Throckmorton is indifferent to. It
+is not babyish, like Jacqueline&#8217;s; there are no dimples, but&mdash;&#8221; Then the
+grotesqueness of it all would strike her, and even make her laugh. The
+fiercest pain, the most devouring jealousy never wrung from her the
+faintest admission that there was anything to be ashamed of in
+cherishing silently a profound and sacred love for Throckmorton. He was
+worthy of it, she thought, proudly. Toward him her manner never
+changed&mdash;she was mistress of some of the nobler arts of deception&mdash;but
+sometimes, although working for Jacqueline, and tending her
+affectionately, she would be angry and disdainful because Jacqueline did
+not always render to Throckmorton his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>due. She almost laughed to
+herself when she compared this horror of pain and grief which she now
+endured with the shock and pity of Beverley&#8217;s death. She remembered that
+the joy her child gave her seemed almost wicked in its intensity at that
+time. What passions of happiness were hers when she would rise
+stealthily in the night and, taking him from his little crib, would hold
+him to her throbbing heart; and often, from the next room, she could
+hear Mrs. Temple pacing her floor, and could imagine the silent wringing
+of the hands and all the unspoken agonies the elder mother endured for
+<i>her</i> child! Then she would swiftly and guiltily put the child back in
+his cradle, and, with remorse and self-denial, lie near him without
+touching him. Often in that long-past time, when she met him in his
+nurse&#8217;s arms, she would fly toward him with a merry, dancing step,
+laughing all the time&mdash;she was so happy, so proud to have him&mdash;and,
+looking up, would catch Mrs. Temple&#8217;s eyes fixed on her with a still
+reproach she understood well enough. Then she would turn away from him,
+and, sitting down by Mrs. Temple, would not even let her eyes wander to
+the child, and would remain silent and unanswering to his baby wail.</p>
+
+<p>But in this first real passion of her life, the child, much as she
+adored him, was secondary. He was her comfort&mdash;she would not, if she
+could, have let him <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>out of her sight or out of her arms&mdash;but he could
+no more make her forget Throckmorton than anything else; he could only
+soften the intolerable ache a little, when he leaned his curly head upon
+her breast; and as for that easy and conventional phrase, the goodness
+of God, and that ready consolation that had seemed so apt at the time of
+Beverley&#8217;s death, she began to substitute, for the mild and merciful
+Divinity, a merciless and relentless Jehovah, who had condemned her to
+suffer forever, and who would not be appeased.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the secret of the engagement was well kept. Only Jack
+Throckmorton, who behaved beautifully about it, and Freke, knew of the
+impending wedding. Freke&#8217;s behavior was singular, not to say mysterious.
+He was so cool and unconcerned that Jacqueline was furiously piqued, and
+could scarcely keep her mind off her grievance against him for not
+taking her engagement more to heart, even when Throckmorton was with
+her. Freke&#8217;s congratulations were quite perfunctory&mdash;as unlike Jack
+Throckmorton&#8217;s whole-souled good wishes as could be imagined. One
+morning, soon after the news had been confided to Freke, he came into
+the dining-room, where Judith was sewing, with Jacqueline, also sewing,
+sitting demurely by her side.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Making wedding finery, eh?&#8221; was Freke&#8217;s remark as he seated himself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; answered Judith, quietly, without laying down her work.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I want to see how much Jacqueline will be changed by marriage&mdash;You
+mustn&#8217;t flirt with Jack, little Jacky.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He said this quite good-humoredly, and Jacqueline turned a warm color.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And don&#8217;t let me see you running after the chickens, as I saw you the
+other day. That wouldn&#8217;t be dignified, you know; it would make Major
+Throckmorton ridiculous. You must do all you can to keep the difference
+in your ages from becoming too obvious.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith felt a rising indignation. Jacqueline&#8217;s head was bent lower. She
+dreaded and feared that people would tease her about Throckmorton&#8217;s age.
+Freke saw in a moment how it was with her, and kept it up.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Throckmorton is sensible in one way. His hair is plentifully sprinkled
+with gray, but he doesn&#8217;t use art to conceal it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do not think forty-four is old,&#8221; said Judith, indignant at
+Jacqueline&#8217;s tame submission to this sort of talk. &#8220;I think, with most
+women, Major Throckmorton would have the advantage over younger men.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she said this, she repented. Freke glanced at her with a look
+so amused and so exasperating <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>that she could have burst into tears of
+shame on the spot.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Come, Jacqueline,&#8221; cried Freke, rising, &#8220;let us go for a walk. I don&#8217;t
+know whether Throckmorton will permit this after you are married.
+Marriage, my dear little girl, is more of a yoke than a garland. I am
+well out of mine, thank Heaven!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith cast a beseeching look at Jacqueline, but Freke had fixed his
+eyes commandingly on her. That was enough. Jacqueline rose and went out
+to get her hat.</p>
+
+<p>Judith sat quite silent. She rarely spoke to Freke when she could help
+it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What do you think of this ridiculous marriage?&#8221; he asked.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I, at least, don&#8217;t think it ridiculous. There are incongruities much
+worse than a difference in age.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I understand,&#8221; assented Freke, with meaning. &#8220;I have found it so.
+If I were as free as Throckmorton, though, I would be in no hurry to put
+my head in the noose.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You said just now you were free.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Did I? Well, in fact I am free in some States and not in others. You
+people down here seem to regard me as an escaped felon. That sort of
+thing doesn&#8217;t exist any longer in civilized communities.&#8221; Judith made no
+reply. She hated Freke with a kind of unreasoning hatred that put a
+guard upon her lips, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>lest she should be tempted to say something rash.
+And in a moment Jacqueline was back, and, with a defiant look at Judith,
+went off with Freke. Freke caught a glance from Judith&#8217;s eyes as they
+went out. The fact that it expressed great anger and contempt for him
+did not make him overlook that her eyes were remarkably full of fire and
+the turn of her head something beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith is a thoroughbred&mdash;there&#8217;s no mistake about that,&#8221; he said to
+Jacqueline&mdash;and kept on talking about Judith until he reduced Jacqueline
+to a jealous silence, and almost to tears&mdash;when a few words of praise
+restored her to complete good humor. Throckmorton never played off on
+her like this&mdash;it was quite opposed to his directness and
+straightforwardness.</p>
+
+<p>Freke was more constantly at Barn Elms than ever before. It often
+occurred to Judith that he took pains to keep secret from Throckmorton
+all the time he passed with Jacqueline. Sometimes she even suspected
+that Jacqueline had some share in keeping Throckmorton in the dark, so
+constant was Freke&#8217;s presence when Throckmorton was absent, and so
+unvarying was his absence when Throckmorton was present.</p>
+
+<p>After a while, though, a hint of the engagement got abroad in the
+county, and the people generally, who had never relaxed in the slightest
+degree their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>forbidding exterior to Throckmorton, now somewhat included
+the Temples in the ban. Throckmorton, engrossed with his own affairs,
+had ceased to care for himself, being quite content with the few people
+around him who took him into their homes. But he felt it acutely for
+Jacqueline, who told him, with childish cruelty, without thinking of the
+pang she inflicted, of the strange coolness that all at once seemed to
+have fallen between her and her acquaintances. And Judith was sure that
+Freke put notions of that kind and of every kind into the girl&#8217;s head.
+Once, after one of Freke&#8217;s daily visits&mdash;for, if anything, he came
+oftener than Throckmorton&mdash;Jacqueline said, quite disconsolately, to
+Judith:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Freke says I shall never have any more girl friends after I am married.
+Throckmorton is too old; and, besides, the people in this county will
+never, never really recognize him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;This county is not all the world&mdash;and, Jacqueline, pray, pray don&#8217;t
+listen to anything Freke has to say.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know you don&#8217;t like Freke.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I hate him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, when she said this, looked so handsome and animated that
+Throckmorton, entering at that moment, paid her a pretty compliment,
+which she received first with so much confusion and then with so much
+haughtiness that Throckmorton was as completely <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>puzzled as the night he
+offered to kiss her hand, and concluded that Judith was as freakish as
+all women are.</p>
+
+<p>Among the smaller irritations which Throckmorton had to bear, at this
+strange time, was Jack&#8217;s sly rallying. Jack assumed his father to be a
+love-sick octogenarian. Anything less love-sick than Throckmorton&#8217;s
+simple and manly affection, or less suggestive of age than his alert and
+vigorous maturity, would be hard to find. But Jack had always possessed
+the power of tormenting his father where women were concerned&mdash;the
+natural penalty, perhaps, of having a son so little younger than
+himself. Jack felt infinite respect for Jacqueline, and never once
+indulged in a joke calculated to really rouse Throckmorton; but some
+occasions were too good for him to spare the major. Such conversations
+as these were frequent:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Major, are you going over to Barn Elms this evening?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, I was there this morning.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I understand, sir, that two visits a day, when the young lady is in the
+immediate neighborhood, is the regulation thing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are at liberty to understand what you please. With youngsters like
+yourself, probably three visits would hardly be enough.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have been told that these things affect all ages alike.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p><p>Throckmorton scowled, but scowls were wasted on Jack, whose particular
+object was to put the major in a bad humor; in which design, however, he
+rarely succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of the silence that had been maintained by the Barn Elms people
+regarding the engagement, Mrs. Sherrard, who had what is vulgarly called
+a nose for news, found it out by some occult means, and Throckmorton was
+held up in the road, as he was riding peacefully along, to answer her
+inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think you and Jacky Temple are going to be married soon, from what I
+hear,&#8221; was her first aggressive remark, putting her head out of the
+window of her ramshackly old carriage.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you?&#8221; responded Throckmorton, with laughing eyes. &#8220;You must think me
+a deuced lucky fellow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard did not speak for a moment or two, and a cold chill struck
+Throckmorton, while the laugh died out of his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That&#8217;s as may be,&#8221; she replied, diplomatically; &#8220;but the idea of your
+marching about, thinking you are deceiving <i>me</i>!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am young and bashful, you know, Mrs. Sherrard.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You are not young, but you are younger than you are bashful. You always
+were one of those quiet dare-devils&mdash;the worst kind, to my mind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Thank you, ma&#8217;am.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Jane Temple&mdash;ha! ha!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton joined in Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s fine, ringing laugh.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A Yankee son-in-law!&#8221; screamed Mrs. Sherrard, still laughing; then she
+became grave, and beckoned Throckmorton, sitting straight and square in
+his saddle, to come closer, so the black driver could not hear. &#8220;Jane,
+you know,&#8221; she said, confidentially, &#8220;was always daft about the war
+after Beverley&#8217;s death; and, let me tell you, Beverley was a fine, tall,
+handsome, brave, silly, commonplace fellow as ever lived. Judith has
+more brains and wit than all the Temple men put together, and most of
+the women. Hers was as clear a case of a winged thing that can soar
+married to a Muscovy drake as ever I saw. Luckily, she hadn&#8217;t an
+opportunity to wake up to it fully, before he was killed; and then, just
+like a hot-headed, romantic thing, she wrapped herself in crape, and has
+given up her whole life to Jane and General Temple, and Jacky.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton felt a certain restraint in speaking of Judith to Mrs.
+Sherrard, who had assumed that it was his duty to fall in love with
+Judith instead of Jacqueline. So he flicked a fly off his horse&#8217;s neck
+and remained silent.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I do wish,&#8221; resumed Mrs. Sherrard, pettishly, &#8220;that Jane Temple would
+act like a woman of sense, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>and send for me over to Barn Elms, and show
+me Jacky&#8217;s wedding things.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Very inconsiderate of Jane, I am sure. If it would relieve your mind at
+all, you might come to Millenbeck, and I would be delighted to show you
+my coats and trousers. They are very few. I always have a plenty of
+shirts and stockings, but my outside wardrobe isn&#8217;t imposing.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t take the slightest interest in your clothes. You don&#8217;t dress
+half as much as Jack does.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Of course not; I can&#8217;t afford it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One thing is certain. If you have any sort of a wedding at Barn Elms,
+they&#8217;ll have to send over and borrow my teaspoons. There hasn&#8217;t been a
+party at Barn Elms for forty years, that they haven&#8217;t done it, and I
+always borrow Jane Temple&#8217;s salad-bowl and punch-ladles whenever I have
+company.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t think there will be any wedding feast there,&#8221; answered
+Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacky wants one, <i>I</i> know,&#8221; said Mrs. Sherrard, very knowingly. &#8220;Jacky
+loves a racket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Quite naturally&mdash;at her age.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, yes, of course&mdash;her age, as you say. I shall tell Edmund Morford to
+pay you a pastoral visit, as he always does upon the eve of marriages,
+to instruct you in the duties of the married state.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I shall tell Edmund Morford that I know considerably more about my
+duties in the premises <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>than he does; and I&#8217;ll shut him up before he has
+opened his mouth, as Sweeney would say.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If anybody <i>could</i> shut my nephew up, I believe it is you, George
+Throckmorton. Has Jane Temple suggested that you should join the church
+yet?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She suggests it to me every time I go to Barn Elms, and whenever I go
+off for a lover&#8217;s stroll with Jacqueline, Mrs. Temple tells me I ought
+to go home and seek salvation.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And do you mind her?&#8221; asked Mrs. Sherrard, quite gravely; at which
+Throckmorton gave her a look that was dangerously near a wink.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard drove off, triumphant. She had got at the whole thing, in
+spite of Jane Temple.</p>
+
+<p>The wedding preparations went bravely along; carried on chiefly by
+Judith. Jacqueline had set her heart on a white silk wedding dress,
+which for a time eclipsed everything else on her horizon. Mrs. Temple
+declared that it was extravagant, but Judith, by keen persuasion,
+succeeded in getting the wedding-gown. She made it with her own hands,
+and across the front she designed a beautiful and intricate embroidery,
+to be worked by her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith, you will kill yourself over that wedding-gown,&#8221; Mrs. Temple
+once remarked. &#8220;You have drawn such an elaborate design upon it that you
+will have to work night and day to get it finished.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I shall simply have to be a little more industrious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>than usual,&#8221;
+replied Judith, with the deep flush that now alternated with extreme
+paleness.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline herself was deeply interested in this gown; more so than in
+any particular of the coming wedding. Judith had marked off for herself
+a certain task of work each day upon the embroidery of the gown. Every
+night, when she stopped at the end of her task, it was as if another
+stone were laid upon her heart. Throckmorton had noticed her industry,
+and had admired her handiwork, which she proudly showed him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But you are getting white and thin over it,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Wouldn&#8217;t it be
+better that Jacqueline should not have such a beautiful frock, than for
+you to work yourself ill over it? I have a great mind to speak to Mrs.
+Temple about it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, no, pray don&#8217;t!&#8221; cried Judith, with a kind of breathless eagerness.
+&#8220;It would break my heart not to finish it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton looked at her closely. She was not given to that kind of
+talk. But suddenly she began telling him a funny story of Mrs. Sherrard
+coming over to pump Mrs. Temple about the coming event, and then she
+laughed and made him laugh too. Walking back home that night, he found
+himself speculating on this development of fun and merriment in
+Judith&mdash;a thing she had always suppressed and kept in abeyance until
+lately.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Certainly she is in better spirits&mdash;more like what one can see her
+natural self is in the last month or two,&#8221; he thought; and then he began
+to think what a very sweet and natural woman she was, and to hope that,
+when Jacqueline was her age, she would have developed into something
+like Judith. But he never liked to look very far into the future with
+Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>As the time drew nearer for the wedding, Freke&#8217;s continued presence at
+Barn Elms became more marked. He did not avoid Throckmorton any longer,
+who thought no more of it than he did of Jack&#8217;s frequent visits. Jack
+had quite got over any chagrin or disappointment he might have felt, and
+was kindness and attention itself to Jacqueline. Throckmorton sometimes
+felt annoyed and discouraged at seeing how much more Jacqueline had in
+common with Jack than with himself. They were on the terms of a brother
+and sister&mdash;Jack teasing and joking, yet unvaryingly kind to her, and
+Jacqueline always overflowing with talk to him, while with Throckmorton
+she was sometimes at a loss for words. But one glance from her dark
+eyes&mdash;that peculiar witching glance that had fixed Throckmorton&#8217;s
+attention on her that very first Sunday in church&mdash;could always make
+amends to him. As for Freke, he came and went with his violin under his
+arm, and nobody attached any importance to him except Judith, who
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>honored him with the same still, guarded ill-will that Freke perfectly
+recognized, and did not apparently trouble himself about. His eternal
+presence in the house was a nightmare to Judith. She wondered if he
+would keep on that way after Jacqueline was gone&mdash;when Jacqueline was
+mistress of Millenbeck; but she could not dwell on that without a
+tightening at her heart. At all events, it would soon be over.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple had at last got interested in the wedding preparations, and
+everything was going on famously until about two weeks before the
+wedding, when one day General Temple got a letter. There was to be a
+reunion of Beverley&#8217;s old command at Richmond, and it was desired that
+the Temple family should attend.</p>
+
+<p>Such a request was sacred in the eyes of General and Mrs. Temple. It was
+at once decided that General Temple must go, and he insisted that Mrs.
+Temple should go also. She was only too willing. Inconvenient as it
+might otherwise be to leave home, the idea of having Beverley talked of,
+eulogized, remembered, was too near the idolatrous mother&#8217;s heart to be
+foregone. The invitation also included Judith, but it was clearly
+impossible for both Judith and Mrs. Temple to leave Barn Elms at the
+same time just then; so it was quickly settled, to Judith&#8217;s infinite
+relief, that Mrs. Temple should be the one to go. Mrs. Temple was helped
+to a decision by the reflection <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>that Judith, being young and handsome,
+it was not impossible that some miscreant might suggest the possibility
+of her marrying again; and, without uttering this impious thought, it
+had its influence upon her. So it was fixed that, within a day or two,
+they were to start, and would be gone probably four days. Throckmorton
+was vexed at the decision&mdash;vexed at the entire readiness to sacrifice
+Jacqueline&#8217;s convenience to that of the dead and gone Beverley. But he
+wisely said nothing; in a little while Jacqueline would have some one
+that would always consider her first. But suddenly Jacqueline raised a
+tempest by declaring that she wanted to go with her father and mother as
+far as a certain station on the railroad, near Richmond, and thence to
+pay a visit to her Aunt Susan Steptoe. Now, Jacqueline had never showed
+the slightest fondness for this Aunt Steptoe, and, in fact, was
+singularly lacking in family affection, after the Virginia pattern,
+which takes in a whole family connection. Consequently, the notion was
+the more remarkable. When it was first broached, it was simply
+pooh-poohed by the general, and calmly ignored by Mrs. Temple. Judith
+looked at her with reproachful eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You know, Jacqueline, there is no earthly reason for such a whim; and I
+am sure Major Throckmorton would not like it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s of no consequence what Major Throckmorton <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>thinks about it!&#8221; cried
+Jacqueline, unterrified by a warning light in Judith&#8217;s eye&mdash;it always
+made Judith angry when Jacqueline spoke slightingly of Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>But Jacqueline held to her notion with the most singular and startling
+pertinacity. Usually a word or two from Judith would bring her back to
+the basis of common sense; but in this case, nothing Judith could say
+would alter Jacqueline&#8217;s determination. She was tired of wedding
+clothes&mdash;tired of Barn Elms&mdash;tired of everybody; in fact, she made no
+secret to Judith of being tired of Throckmorton, and wanting to escape
+from him for a time, if only for four days. She forced her mother to
+listen to her, and would take no denial. At last she hit upon the
+argument to move Mrs. Temple. It was the last request she had to make
+until she was married, and, if Mrs. Temple could do so much for the dead
+Beverley, she certainly could not refuse this trifling request from the
+living Jacqueline. Mrs. Temple turned pale at this; and she faltered out
+that, childish and unreasonable as the scheme was, she would
+agree&mdash;provided Throckmorton gave his consent.</p>
+
+<p>That night, when Throckmorton came for his usual visit, Jacqueline met
+him at the hall-door with a tenderness that surprised and charmed him.
+It was so sweet, he could hardly believe it to be true. But, before the
+evening was over, Jacqueline demanded <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>payment in the shape of his
+consent that she should pay this little visit to her Aunt Susan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Damn Aunt Susan!&#8221; was Throckmorton&#8217;s inward remark at this; and he
+managed to convey practically the same idea to Jacqueline. But it did no
+good. Jacqueline had the scheme in her head, and it must be carried out.
+It was in vain that Throckmorton reasoned gently with her. He had often
+heard that weak women were the most intractable in the world, and the
+recollection made him wince when he saw how dense this lovely young
+creature was to common sense. But she was so ineffably pretty&mdash;she
+leaned her bright head on his shoulder and pleaded&mdash;and, of course,
+after a while, Throckmorton yielded, ostensibly because Jacqueline asked
+him so sweetly, but really because she was utterly impervious to reason.</p>
+
+<p>When the consent was at last wheedled out of him, Throckmorton felt sore
+at heart and humiliated. He also felt, for a brave man, a little
+frightened. How often was this sort of thing going to happen? It was
+true that, after he was married, he could use his authority as
+Jacqueline&#8217;s husband to prevent her from doing anything particularly
+foolish, but it did not please him that he should rule his wife as if
+she were a child. Jacqueline saw nothing of Throckmorton&#8217;s secret
+dissatisfaction; but Judith, with the clairvoyance of love, saw it in an
+instant. For the first time in her life, she followed him out into the
+hall, where he was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>getting into his overcoat, with rather a black
+countenance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be troubled about it,&#8221; she said, in her charming way. &#8220;She is so
+young&mdash;she will learn so much from you!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton took Judith&#8217;s hand in his. She made no resistance this
+time&mdash;that quick inner sense told her instinctively that there was
+something comforting to him in her gentle and womanly clasp. He looked
+at her with a somber expression on his face that gradually lightened.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think she will ever be different?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; cried Judith, gayly. &#8220;How perfectly ignorant you are of love! I
+declare you are worse than Jacqueline. It&#8217;s the greatest reformer in the
+world&mdash;the most cunning teacher as well. It will teach Jacqueline all
+she ought to know; but it can&#8217;t do it at once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But does she love me?&#8221; asked Throckmorton, smiling a little.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How could she help it?&#8221; answered Judith, turning her head archly, and
+implying that Throckmorton considered himself a lady-killer&mdash;which made
+him laugh, and sent him off home in a little better humor with the world
+and himself.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, back in the drawing-room, Jacqueline was having a
+conversation with Simon Peter, who was raking down the fire for the
+night. General and Mrs. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>Temple had left the room. Usually Jacqueline
+slipped off to bed an hour before they did; but to-night she lingered,
+standing over the fire with one little foot on the brass fender.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How does it look to-night, Uncle Simon?&#8221; she asked, meaning how did the
+sky look, and what were the chances for good weather.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hit looks mighty cu&#8217;rus to me, Miss Jacky,&#8221; answered Simon Peter, in a
+queer sort of a voice that made Jacqueline stare at him. &#8220;I seed two
+tuckey-buzzards flyin&#8217; ober de house tog&#8217;er&#8217;r&mdash;and dat&#8217;s a sign&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A sign of what?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A sign &#8217;tain&#8217; gwi&#8217; be no weddin&#8217; at Barn Elms dis year.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline turned a little pale. It had not been a great many years
+since she had fully believed every one of Simon Peter&#8217;s signs and omens;
+and even now, his solemn prophecies sent a chill to her childish heart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An&#8217;,&#8221; continued Simon Peter, advancing and raising a prophetic
+forefinger, &#8220;dis heah night I done heah de owls hootin&#8217; &#8216;Tu-whoo,
+tu-whoo, tu-whoo!&#8217;&mdash;three times, dat ar way&mdash;dat doan&#8217; means nuttin&#8217; but
+a funeral, when owls hoots dat away.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O Uncle Simon, hush!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I tole you kase you arsk me,&#8221; replied Simon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>Peter, stolidly; and at
+that moment Delilah came in.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O mammy,&#8221; cried Jacqueline, fairly bursting into tears, &#8220;you don&#8217;t know
+what awful signs and things Uncle Simon has been seeing&mdash;funerals, and
+buzzards, and no wedding!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He have, have he!&#8221; snapped Delilah, with wrath and menace. &#8220;Simon
+Peter, he su&#8217;t&#8217;ny is de foolishest nigger I ever seed. He ain&#8217; never
+got &#8217;ligion good; he allus wuz a blackslider, an&#8217; heah he come skeerin&#8217;
+my little missy ter def wid he buzzards an&#8217; he things!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Simon Peter, who bore this marital assault with meekness, copied from
+General Temple, only remarked sheepishly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I done see de signs; an&#8217;, Miss Jacky, she arsk me, an&#8217; I done tole her
+&#8217;bout de two buzzards.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wid de tails tied tog&#8217;er&#8217;r, I reckon!&#8221; answered Delilah, with withering
+sarcasm; &#8220;an&#8217; maybe dey wuz gwi&#8217; fly ter Doc Wortley&#8217;s ter see ef
+anybody gwi&#8217; die soon.&mdash;Doan&#8217; you min&#8217; Simon Peter, honey; jes&#8217; come wid
+mammy up-sty&#8217;ars an&#8217; she holp you to ondress an&#8217; put you in yo&#8217; bed.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline went off, and in half an hour was tucked snugly in the great
+four-poster. But she would not let Delilah leave her. She kept her
+pulling the window-curtains this way and that, then raking down the fire
+because the light from the blazing logs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>hurt her eyes, and then
+stirring the flames into a blaze so that she might see the shadows on
+the wall. At last, however, Delilah got out, Jacqueline calling after
+her disconsolately:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;O mammy, do you believe in the two buzzards flying&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You jes&#8217; shet dat little mouf, an&#8217; go ter sleep, honey,&#8221; was Delilah&#8217;s
+sensible reply, as she went out.</p>
+
+<p>The next day the whole party got off, General Temple leaving directions
+enough behind him to last if he were going to Turkey instead of to
+Richmond. Jacqueline at the last seemed loath to part from Judith. She
+said good-by half a dozen times, and wept a little at parting. There
+would be no need of letters, as they would only be gone four days.
+Jacqueline was to stop off at the station, and join her father and
+mother there on their return from Richmond, getting home ten days before
+the wedding. There was some talk of asking Mrs. Sherrard to come over
+and stay with Judith during the absence of General and Mrs. Temple, but
+Judith protested. With her child she would not suffer for company, and
+the work on Jacqueline&#8217;s wedding-dress would keep her busily employed,
+while Delilah and Simon Peter were protection enough for her at night.
+Besides this, Throckmorton and Jack would be over every day to look
+after her. When it was all arranged, Judith felt a sensation of
+gladness. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>She would have four days in which she would not be compelled
+to play her silent and desperate part. She could weep all night without
+the fear that Mrs. Temple&#8217;s clear eyes would notice how pale and worn
+she was in the morning; she could relax a little the continual tension
+on her nerves, her feelings, her expression. So, when they were gone,
+she came back into the lonely house, and, leaving Beverley with his
+mammy, went up to her own room, and taking out the white silk
+wedding-gown went to work on it with a pale, unhappy face; she had dared
+not show an unhappy face before.</p>
+
+<p>The day passed quickly enough, and the short winter afternoon closed in.
+Judith would no longer take time for her usual afternoon walk; every
+moment must be devoted to Jacqueline&#8217;s gown. About eight o&#8217;clock, as she
+sat in the drawing-room, stitching away, while overhead in her own room
+Delilah watched the little Beverley as he slept, she heard
+Throckmorton&#8217;s step upon the porch. As she heard it, she gave a slight
+start, and put her hand on her heart&mdash;something she always felt an
+involuntary inclination to do, and which she had to watch herself to
+prevent. Throckmorton came in, and greeted her with his usual graceful
+kindness.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I thought I would come over and see that nobody stole you and
+Beverley,&#8221; he said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no danger for me,&#8221; answered Judith; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>&#8220;but for a beautiful boy
+like my boy&mdash;why, he&#8217;s always in danger of being stolen.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton scoffed at this.</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes they were seated together, having the first real
+<i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> of their lives. Judith sat under the mellow gleam of the
+tall, old-fashioned lamp, the light falling on her chestnut hair and
+black dress and the billowy expanse of white silk spread over her lap,
+making high white lights and rich shadows. Throckmorton had often
+admired her as she sewed. Sewing was a peculiarly gracious and feminine
+employment, he thought, and Judith&#8217;s sewing, when he saw it, was always
+something artistic like what she was now doing. Throckmorton lay back in
+one corner of the great sofa, his feet stretched out to the fire. They
+talked occasionally, but there were long stretches of silence when the
+only sound was the crackling of the wood-fire and the dropping of the
+embers. Yet the unity was complete; there is no companionship so real as
+that which admits of perfect silence. Throckmorton, on the whole,
+though, talked more than usual. Something in Judith always inspired him
+to speak of things that he rarely mentioned at all. They talked a little
+of Jacqueline, but there were innumerable subjects on which they found
+themselves in sympathy. The evening passed quickly for both. When
+Throckmorton had gone, and the house was shut up for the night, Judith
+felt that she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>had passed the evening in a sort of shadowy happiness; it
+would have been happiness itself, except that in ten days more it would
+be wrong even to think of Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>Two days more passed. Every evening Throckmorton found himself making
+his way toward Barn Elms. Each evening passed in the same quiet, simple
+fashion, but yet there was something different to Throckmorton from any
+evenings he had ever spent in his life. As for Judith, after the first
+one, she began to look forward with feverish eagerness to the evening.
+She lived all day in expectation of that two hours&#8217; talk with
+Throckmorton. She dressed for him; she hurried little Beverley to bed
+that she might be ready for him. Her eyes assumed a new brilliancy, and
+she became handsomer day by day.</p>
+
+<p>On the day that the general and Mrs. Temple were to leave for home a
+letter arrived from Mrs. Temple. The general had been seized with an
+acute attack of gout, and it would probably take two or three days
+nursing to bring him around, so that they would not be home until the
+last of the week. Mrs. Temple had written to Jacqueline, and would write
+again in a day or two, notifying Judith when to send to the river
+landing for them. The delay was peculiarly inconvenient then, but it was
+God&#8217;s will. Mrs. Temple never had any trouble in reconciling herself to
+God&#8217;s will, except where Beverley was concerned.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p><p>Not a line had been received from Jacqueline. It did not surprise
+Judith, because Jacqueline hated letter-writing; but Throckmorton
+admitted, in an embarrassed way, that he had written to her, but she had
+not answered his letter.</p>
+
+<p>During all this time Freke had not put in an appearance, for which
+Judith was devoutly thankful.</p>
+
+<p>On the fifth evening that Throckmorton went his way to Barn Elms, it
+occurred to him that he went there oftener when Jacqueline was away than
+when she was there, and he was glad there were no gossiping tongues to
+wag about it. But luckily little Beverley, Delilah, and Simon Peter were
+the only three persons who knew where Throckmorton spent his evenings,
+and none of them were either carping or critical.</p>
+
+<p>He found Judith as usual in the drawing-room, and as usual embroidering
+on the wedding-dress. But there was something strange about her
+appearance; she looked altogether different from what she usually
+did&mdash;more girlish, more unrestrained. Throckmorton could not make it out
+for a long time. Then he said, suddenly, &#8220;You have left off your widow&#8217;s
+cap.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith let her hands fall into her lap, and looked at him with
+glittering eyes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes,&#8221; she said, calmly. &#8220;I grew intolerably tired of being a hypocrite,
+and to-night I determined for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>once to be my true self, so I laid aside
+my widow&#8217;s cap. I believe, if I had owned a white gown, I should have
+put it on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton was so startled that he rose to his feet. Judith rose, too,
+letting the white silk fall in a heap on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Are you surprised?&#8221; she asked, with suppressed excitement. &#8220;Well, so am
+I. But I will tell you&mdash;what I never dared breathe before&mdash;I am no true
+widow to Beverley Temple&#8217;s memory. I never loved him. I married him
+because&mdash;because I did not know any better, I suppose. I spent two
+miserable weeks as his wife. I was beginning to find out&mdash;and then he
+went away, and almost before I realized it, he was killed.&#8221; She
+hesitated for a moment; the picture of Throckmorton and Beverley in
+their life-and-death struggle came quickly before her eyes. Throckmorton
+was too dazed, astounded, confounded, to open his mouth. He only looked
+at her as she stood upright, trembling and red and pale by turns.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I had no friends but General and Mrs. Temple; he was my guardian. You
+know, I had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. I felt the
+most acute remorse for Beverley, and the most intense pity for him, cut
+off as he was, and I fancied I felt the profoundest grief. One suffers
+in sympathy, you know, and, when I saw his mother&#8217;s pitiable sorrow, it
+made me feel sorry too. The world&mdash;<i>my</i> world&mdash;saw me a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>broken-hearted
+widow&mdash;a widow while I was almost a bride. Don&#8217;t you think any woman of
+feeling would have done as I did&mdash;tried to atone to the man I had
+mistakenly married by being true to his memory? I determined to devote
+my life to his father and mother; and, in some way I can&#8217;t explain,
+except that you know how Mrs. Temple is, I pretended that my heart was
+broken; but I tell you, Beverley Temple never touched my heart, either
+in life or death, although I did not know it then. But for&mdash;for some
+time the deceit has lain heavy upon me. I am tired of pretending to be
+what I am not. I wish for life, for love, for happiness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped and threw herself into a chair with an <i>abandon</i> that
+Throckmorton had never seen before. Still, he did not utter a word. But
+Judith knew that he was keenly observing her, feeling for her, and even
+deeply moved by what she told him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;So to-night the feeling was so strong upon me, I took off my widow&#8217;s
+cap and threw it on the floor; it was a sudden impulse, just as I was
+leaving my room, and I took Beverley&#8217;s picture from around my neck, and
+I didn&#8217;t have the courage to throw it in the fire as I wanted to; I
+only&#8221;&mdash;with a nervous laugh&mdash;&#8220;put it in my pocket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She took the picture from her dress and handed it him. Throckmorton
+received it mechanically, but, the instant his eyes fell upon it, his
+countenance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>changed. In a moment or two he said, in an indescribable
+voice:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know this face well; he was killed on the 14th of April. I shall
+never forget that face to my dying day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know all about it,&#8221; responded Judith, rising and coming toward him;
+&#8220;Freke told me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Her excitement was no longer suppressed, and Throckmorton was deeply
+agitated. He took Judith&#8217;s hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But did he tell you all? <i>I</i> did not fire the shot that killed your
+husband; it was fired by one of his own men&mdash;probably aimed for me. I
+never succeeded in drawing my pistol at all. The first I knew, in those
+frightful moments, was when he shrieked and threw up his arms. I thought
+he would never breathe again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But he lived some hours,&#8221; continued Judith, &#8220;and&mdash;and&mdash;I thought it was
+you, and I ought to have hated you for it, but I could not; I could not;
+and now, God is so good!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>She dropped into a chair. Throckmorton felt as if the world were coming
+to an end, his ideas about Judith were being so quickly and strangely
+transformed. He was too stupefied to speak, and for five minutes there
+was a dead silence between them. Then Throckmorton&#8217;s strong common sense
+awoke. He went to her and took her hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;For your own sake, for your child&#8217;s sake, be careful. Do not tell any
+one what you have told me. The penalty of deception is great, and your
+penalty will be to keep it up a little while longer. When I am married
+to Jacqueline, you will have a friend, a home. Then, if you want to take
+off those black garments, to be yourself, you may count on me; but, for
+the present, be prudent. You are so impulsive.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Judith now was weeping violently and accusing herself. The reaction
+had come. Throckmorton felt strangely thrilled by her emotion. He
+comforted her, he held her hands, and even pressed kisses on them. In a
+few minutes he had soothed her. The old habits of self-control came back
+to her. She rallied bravely, and in half an hour she was quite composed.
+But it was the composure of despair. She remembered, then, had
+Throckmorton but loved her, the only obstacle between them would have
+been shown to be imaginary.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton stayed late. In spite of Judith&#8217;s quietness, he felt
+unhappy about her. She was too quiet, too deathly pale. He felt an
+intense pity for her, and he feared that she and her child would not
+much longer find a home under the roof of Barn Elms.</p>
+
+<p>Three days more passed. There was still no word from Jacqueline, and
+Mrs. Temple wrote that the general&#8217;s gout bade fair to be a much more
+serious matter <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>than they had first anticipated. It might be that the
+wedding&mdash;which was to be of the quietest sort&mdash;might have to be
+postponed. But that was nothing to Mrs. Temple and the general, who
+reveled in the luxury of a meeting where Beverley was remembered,
+praised, and eulogized as can be done only by Southerners. Nor did it
+seem to matter to Jacqueline. In fact, Throckmorton and Judith appeared
+to be the only persons particularly interested in it. As for Freke, he
+had not been seen by either of them since the day the Barn Elms people
+left.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton continued to spend his evenings at Barn Elms. The idea of
+Judith sitting solitary and alone in the drawing-room the whole long,
+dull evening, drew him irresistibly. Not one line had Jacqueline
+written, either to him or to Judith. Nor had Throckmorton written again
+to her. He was not the man to give a woman more than one opportunity to
+snub him. In his heart he was cruelly mortified; his pride, of which he
+had much, was hurt. He feared that it was a part of that arrogance which
+first youth shows to maturity.</p>
+
+<p>On the eighth day after Jacqueline&#8217;s departure something like alarm
+began to possess Judith. She called it superstition, and tried to put it
+away from her. The day had been dull and gloomy&mdash;a fine, drizzling rain
+falling. The flat, monotonous landscape looked inexpressibly dreary in
+the gray mist <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>that hung low over the trees. It was dark long before six
+o&#8217;clock. The night had closed in, and Judith, sitting alone in the
+drawing-room, had risen to light the lamp, when she heard the front door
+open softly, and the next instant she recognized Jacqueline&#8217;s peculiar
+light step&mdash;so light that even Mrs. Temple&#8217;s keen ears could not always
+detect it when fits of restlessness seized the girl at night, and she
+would walk up and down her room over her mother&#8217;s head. And in a moment
+Jacqueline came into the room, and up to Judith, and looked at her with
+strange, agonized eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The surprise, the shock of seeing her at that hour and in that way, was
+extreme; and Judith&#8217;s first words as her hands fell on Jacqueline&#8217;s
+shoulder were:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline, you are wet through.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I know it,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, in a voice as unlike her own as her
+looks; &#8220;I have been out in the rain for hours and hours!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is the matter with you?&#8221; cried Judith, taking hold of her.
+&#8220;Something dreadful has happened!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dreadful enough for me!&#8221; replied Jacqueline, white and dry-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is it?&#8221; Judith was not easily frightened, but she trembled as she
+spoke.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Everything!&#8221; answered Jacqueline. &#8220;In the first place, I have left
+Freke. That broke my heart!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Left Freke!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. I didn&#8217;t go to Aunt Steptoe&#8217;s. I got off at the station and Freke
+was there. He took me to a minister&#8217;s and got him to marry us. The man
+could hardly read and write, and he said something about a license; but
+Freke gave him fifty dollars, and he performed the ceremony.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith caught hold of her, to see if she were really in the flesh,
+talking in this way.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t hold me so hard, Judith. I will tell you all I can; but I feel as
+if I should die, I am so weak and ill&mdash;&#8221; and she suddenly began to cough
+violently. Judith ran and got her a glass of wine. The first idea in her
+mind was, not the poor, deluded child, but Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But where is Freke&mdash;and your father and mother?&mdash;O Jacqueline,
+Jacqueline!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t reproach me, Judith. But for you I would never have returned. My
+father and mother know nothing about it. Freke found out they were yet
+in Richmond. If they had been at Barn Elms, I don&#8217;t think I ever would
+have had the courage to come back. The feeling soon came to me that I
+had committed a great wrong in marrying Freke; and then&mdash;and then&mdash;he
+told me perhaps we weren&#8217;t married at all in Virginia, and so I would
+have to go with him out to the place&mdash;somewhere in the West&mdash;and be
+married to him straight and right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;If Freke had never committed any other wrong in his whole life, his
+telling you that made him deserve to be killed!&#8221; cried Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t say a word against Freke,&#8221; said Jacqueline, a new anger blazing
+up in her eyes. &#8220;I love Freke; it almost kills me when I think I may
+never see him again, for I ran away from him. At first I thought all the
+time of the trouble I should bring upon you all. I could see my father&#8217;s
+gray head sink down in his hands. I could imagine how my mother would
+shut herself up in her room as she did when Beverley died. They had
+always thought so little of me that it gave me a kind of triumph when I
+remembered, &#8216;They&#8217;ll have to think about me now!&#8217;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And Throckmorton?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I never thought about him at all. As Freke said, he was entirely too
+old for me. But I will not speak of him. He knew I never loved him&mdash;or
+he ought to have known it. Then, when Freke found out that mamma and
+papa were still in Richmond, it came to me like a flash that I could get
+home, and I was sure of one friend, and only one in the world
+now&mdash;yourself. And I thought you were so clever you could manage to keep
+anybody from finding out where I had been. I seemed to hear your voice
+calling to me all the time, and every moment it seemed to crush me more
+and more that Freke was a divorced man, and that, however he might say
+he was free, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>was not. So, we were staying at a little town through
+which the railroad passed, and Freke had to go into Richmond yesterday
+to get some money, and my conscience suddenly rose up and tortured me,
+and I couldn&#8217;t stay another moment&mdash;and, mind you, Judith, I love Freke.
+So I took the train all alone, and made the boat, and landed at Oak
+Point about twelve o&#8217;clock. I pretended to be surprised that nobody was
+there to meet me, and said I would walk as far as Turkey Thicket&mdash;you
+know it is only a little way from the landing. But, of course, I did
+not. Then I was so afraid that some one would see me that, instead of
+taking the main road, I came through the fields and by-paths. I believe
+I have walked ten miles instead of six, from Oak Point&mdash;and it was
+raining, too. I was nearly frightened out of my life&mdash;frightened by
+negroes and stray dogs, and afraid that I should see Freke every moment
+before me, and, if he should overtake me, I knew I should go back with
+him. I can no more resist him when he is with me than I can stop
+breathing. Well, with weakness&mdash;for I felt ill from the moment I
+started&mdash;and with fear, and being so tired, and the rain, I thought I
+should die before I reached here. But now I am home&mdash;home!&mdash;&#8221;
+Jacqueline&#8217;s voice rose in a piteous cry. She had been weeping all the
+time, but now she burst into a perfect tempest of sobs and tears that
+shook her like a leaf.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span></p><p>In her quiet life Judith had never been brought face to face with any
+terrible emergency, and this one unnerved and horrified her so that for
+a time she was as helpless as Jacqueline. She walked the floor,
+struggling with the wild impulse to send for Throckmorton; that he alone
+could tell them what to do; and else she and the poor child would sink
+under the horror of the situation, for to her simple and straightforward
+mind both conscience and the social code were unalterably opposed to
+considering a divorced man as a single man. But some instinct of common
+sense saved her&mdash;saved her even from calling Delilah, and caused her to
+face the thing alone. She gave Jacqueline brandy, she rubbed her
+vigorously; she even got her up-stairs alone and into her bed. By that
+time the violence of her emotions was spent; Jacqueline lay in the large
+four-poster perfectly calm and white. After a while even a sense of
+physical well-being seemed to possess her; warmth and light and
+stimulation had their effect. She fell into a heavy sleep, but Judith
+was terrified to notice her pallor give place to a crimson flush on her
+face, and her icy hands grow burning hot. By that time Judith&#8217;s
+composure had partly returned. She called Delilah, who came in
+wondering, and told her briefly that Jacqueline had come home
+unexpectedly and was not well, without mentioning how she had come from
+the river-landing. Delilah, who was not of a curious <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>turn, saw for
+herself that part of Judith&#8217;s statement was true, for Jacqueline had a
+burning fever. It was impossible to get Dr. Wortley before morning, but,
+like most women who live in the country, Judith could cope with ordinary
+ailments, and, whenever the doctor was called in, he always found that
+the proper thing had been done beforehand.</p>
+
+<p>But, besides Jacqueline&#8217;s undeniable illness, the thought that tormented
+Judith was how to keep the dreadful thing that had happened from
+Jacqueline&#8217;s father and mother and from the world. It must inevitably
+come out that she had not been near Mrs. Steptoe&#8217;s, and only the fact
+that Jacqueline was a poor correspondent had kept it from being known
+already. On the impulse of the moment, Judith sat down and wrote Mrs.
+Steptoe a letter, begging her, for General and Mrs. Temple&#8217;s sake, not
+to mention until she heard further from Barn Elms, that Jacqueline had
+not been with her; and as she wrote hurriedly and nervously, she could
+hear Jacqueline&#8217;s heavy and fitful breathing. Some simple remedies had
+been applied, but Judith knew that the best thing for her was to sleep,
+and so her troubled slumber was undisturbed except by her own feverish
+mutterings. All the time it hung like a sword over Judith. &#8220;What will
+Throckmorton say?&#8221; for, of course, he must be the first one to know it;
+there could be no mercy in deceiving him. Judith, sitting before the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>fire, gazing into it with troubled eyes and aching heart, began
+thinking, pitying, praying for Throckmorton. Yes, it would be a
+frightful blow to him. There would be no need for the wedding-gown now.
+As this thought occurred to her, Judith rose and, going softly toward
+the wardrobe where she kept her dainty work, took out the dress, and,
+unwrapping it from the white cloth in which she laid it away so
+carefully every night, spread it over her knees. How much love, despair,
+and torture had been worked into that embroidery! &#8220;It is so pretty, it
+is a pity it can&#8217;t be used,&#8221; she said to herself, absently, turning the
+silk about in her fingers; and at that moment she heard a choking,
+gurgling sound from the bed. Jacqueline was half sitting up, her head
+supported on her arm, and a thin stream of blood was trickling from her
+lips.</p>
+
+<p>Judith, who for once lost her presence of mind, ran toward the bed, and,
+supporting Jacqueline&#8217;s head, called loudly for help. In her haste she
+had thrown the dress almost across Jacqueline, and a few drops of blood
+fell upon it.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Look, look!&#8221; gasped Jacqueline; &#8220;my dress is being ruined!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith heard Delilah running up the stairs in response to her frightened
+call, but Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes had such a strange expression in them that
+she asked her involuntarily, as she tremblingly supported her:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline, do you know me?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Perfectly,&#8221; answered Jacqueline. &#8220;I know everything about me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Delilah, who was a natural-born nurse, was as calm as Judith was
+agitated.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8217;Tain&#8217; nuttin&#8217; tall, chile; &#8217;scusin&#8217; &#8217;tis er leetle speck o&#8217; blood fum
+yo&#8217; th&#8217;oat. I kin stop it righter way&#8221;; and, sure enough, in ten minutes
+she had applied some simple remedy and the blood ceased to flow.
+Meanwhile Jacqueline, unable to speak, had motioned eagerly and
+violently to Judith to remove the white silk dress. Judith threw it on a
+chair. Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is such a pity to have it ruined&mdash;and one&#8217;s wedding-dress, too!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hush-hush! you must not talk,&#8221; cried Judith.</p>
+
+<p>The flow of blood apparently was a trifle, and in a little while
+Jacqueline lay back in the great, old-fashioned bed silent, deadly
+white, but composed.</p>
+
+<p>Judith, with overflowing eyes, folded up the white dress, but she could
+not prevent some tears falling on it, and the dress, already stained
+with blood, was also stained with tears. The thought of Jacqueline,
+though, could not banish the thought of Throckmorton; the more so when
+Jacqueline, beckoning, brought Judith close to her. Judith thought she
+wanted something for her comfort.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>You</i> must tell him; he will take it better from you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p><p>Jacqueline, lying wide awake in the bed, and Judith, sitting by her,
+holding her hand, were both expectant of Throckmorton. At last, about
+half-past eight, his firm step was heard on the porch. Judith&#8217;s heart
+leaped into her mouth; she did not exactly take in all the bearings of
+what Jacqueline had told her, or whether she was or was not married to
+Freke; and Throckmorton, with his knowledge of affairs, would know all.</p>
+
+<p>She rose silently and went down-stairs, leaving Delilah with Jacqueline.
+Throckmorton was standing before the fire in the drawing-room. There was
+something in his determined eye and in his tone as he spoke to her that
+struck a chill to Judith&#8217;s heart.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacqueline, has come, you know,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, Simon Peter told me so at the door. It does not surprise me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith remained silent for a few moments, when Throckmorton, suddenly
+wheeling toward her, and looking her straight in the face, said, curtly:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;What is all this? She never was near Mrs. Steptoe&#8217;s. I found out, by
+having my letter returned to me by Mrs. Steptoe herself. What has made
+her ill? Don&#8217;t tremble so, but tell me&mdash;you know I have a right to know
+it all.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Judith continued to be silent and to tremble. She even began to
+weep; but Throckmorton, taking her hand, said, firmly:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;There must be no concealments.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>His own stern composure controlled Judith&#8217;s agitation.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All?&#8221; she asked, faintly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes&mdash;all!&#8221; he answered.</p>
+
+<p>When Throckmorton used an authoritative tone with her, he could always
+compel her; and so, scarcely knowing how she did it, with tears and
+sobs, and faint deprecations for Jacqueline, she told him all. She
+noticed Throckmorton&#8217;s dark skin growing paler and paler; he began to
+gnaw his iron-gray mustache&mdash;always a sign of extreme agitation with
+him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Now, tell me this&mdash;collect your thoughts and don&#8217;t cry so&mdash;does
+she&mdash;does she love that&mdash;&#8221; He could not bring himself to utter Freke&#8217;s
+name.</p>
+
+<p>Judith remained silent. Throckmorton, in his determination to make her
+answer, seized her arm. It hurt her so that she could have cried out,
+but she made no sound.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell me!&#8221; he said, in a voice and manner so unlike his own gentle
+courtesy, that Judith could scarcely have recognized it. But Judith was
+obstinately silent. Nevertheless, she lifted her eyes to his with so
+eloquent a plea for mercy for Jacqueline, that he was unconsciously
+softened.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You will not tell me!&#8221; he said, relaxing his fierce hold. &#8220;I can&#8217;t make
+you answer&mdash;you have a spirit like a soldier. But it makes no difference
+now <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>whether she loves him or not. If she were free to-morrow, I could
+kill her with my own hands easier than I could marry her!&mdash;and yet&mdash;I
+loved her well.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But,&#8221; cried Judith, putting her hand on his arm in her eagerness,
+&#8220;something must be done. It must be managed so that people shall not
+know it, until her father and mother have decided what is to be done. It
+will almost kill them!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes. But if you can manage with Mrs. Steptoe&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I have already written to her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that it rests with Jacqueline
+whether it is a marriage or not. But General and Mrs. Temple would
+rather see her in her grave than married to any divorced man&mdash;and to
+him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And there is a good deal of doubt about his divorce, I believe,&#8221; added
+Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;There is at present nothing to be done. General and Mrs. Temple will no
+doubt be here as soon as possible; it is hardly worth while to alarm
+them. Is she very ill, do you think?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know&mdash;Jacqueline was always delicate. And&mdash;what of him&mdash;of
+Freke?&#8221; continued Judith, in a trembling voice. &#8220;Is there to be no
+punishment for him?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Like a woman, Judith could not look at the case in its practical light;
+but like a man, Throckmorton, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>in the midst of his horror, grief, and
+surprise, yet retained his balance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Any punishment of him would react on her&mdash;to have her name made public
+with his&mdash;Good God! But there is no power on earth to keep General
+Temple from committing some frightful folly when he knows of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was a new horror to Judith. A painful pause followed. Then Judith
+said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How like Freke it was&mdash;how perfectly reckless of consequences! He is
+unlike any man I ever saw or heard of. I believe, in his strange way, he
+loves Jacqueline; but what does any one know of such a man!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The absence of vindictiveness toward Freke, on Throckmorton&#8217;s part,
+surprised Judith; but, in truth, he scarcely thought of Freke: a
+creature as weak and impressionable as Jacqueline was bound to succumb
+to the first overmastering influence. Throckmorton himself had never
+been able to get any real influence over her. Presently Judith said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;One thing I do know&mdash;she wants your forgiveness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;She has it, poor child!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then there was another pause. Throckmorton, after a while, rose to go.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you want anything, send for me. I shall be over early in the
+morning.&#8221; He hesitated a moment, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>and then said: &#8220;This has been a
+strange experience for me; but it is over&mdash;&#8221; And then, as if checking a
+confession, went out of the room and out of the house.</p>
+
+<p>When Judith went up-stairs, Jacqueline was still sleeping, but presently
+she wakened, and turned her lovely, troubled eyes on Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He is very sorry, Jacqueline, and he forgives you and will trouble you
+no more,&#8221; she whispered. A look of relief came into Jacqueline&#8217;s face.
+She closed her eyes as if to sleep.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p>The next day Jacqueline was better, and about noon General and Mrs.
+Temple arrived. Mrs. Temple showed no surprise when she heard that
+Jacqueline had come the day before; and when Judith said, falteringly,
+that Jacqueline had probably misunderstood their plans, Mrs. Temple
+accepted it quite naturally. About the same time Dr. Wortley, who had
+been sent for, came, and pronounced Jacqueline&#8217;s attack to be nothing
+but cold and fever, and raised the prohibition against her talking. The
+first time Mrs. Temple was out of the room, Jacqueline called Judith to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith, I have been thinking about this, and I have made up my mind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was so unlike Jacqueline that Judith stared.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If I thought Freke was really a single man, I would give up
+everybody&mdash;even you&mdash;for him. But nobody on earth knows what I suffered
+from my conscience while I was with him! And I believe Freke told the
+truth when he said we weren&#8217;t married, after all, in spite of that
+minister and the fifty dollars. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>And now, dear Judith, it seems so easy
+to keep papa and mamma from knowing it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Easy, Jacqueline?&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, easy, if you will only write to Aunt Steptoe; and it would kill me
+to have to face them!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, Jacqueline, suppose&mdash;suppose Freke should claim you, or you might,
+in years to come, want to marry some one else?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I will promise you I will not&mdash;I will swear it&mdash;if I can&#8217;t marry Freke,
+you may depend upon it I sha&#8217;n&#8217;t marry anybody else! But, Judith, will
+you promise me to say nothing to papa and mamma until you have seen
+Freke, for he knows what ought to be done? I know&mdash;and I am sure&mdash;he
+will come back in a day or two. He knows well enough where I have run
+away to.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith was loath to making any promise at all, but Jacqueline became so
+violently agitated and distressed that at last, almost beside herself,
+Judith promised that for a few days, at least, she would say nothing
+about it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple was so full of Beverley, and the proceedings at Richmond,
+that she troubled Jacqueline but little with questions; and Judith was
+amazed at hearing Jacqueline describe to her mother a visit to her aunt,
+as if it had really been paid. The idea of concealment had taken
+complete possession of Jacqueline&#8217;s mind, and she stopped at nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p><p>Of course, the wedding had to be postponed; and Jacqueline surprised her
+mother, after two letters had passed between Throckmorton and herself,
+by telling her quite calmly one day that the wedding was off, and that
+Throckmorton would shortly leave the county. General and Mrs. Temple
+were stunned; and Mrs. Temple, who had secretly thought the marriage
+preposterous from the start, now suddenly changed front, and was
+bitterly disappointed at this strange and unaccountable breaking off.
+Jacqueline would only say, &#8220;I found I didn&#8217;t love him, and couldn&#8217;t
+marry him&#8221;; and she repeated this with a sort of childish obstinacy&mdash;so
+it seemed to Mrs. Temple. Throckmorton accepted his supposed bad news
+with the firmness and dignity that always characterized him. He told
+Mrs. Temple, when she and the general, sitting in solemn conclave in the
+drawing-room, had sent for him to give him this unalterable
+determination of Jacqueline&#8217;s:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Her happiness should be first always. The difference in our years I
+always felt; but, when she began to feel it, she was right in breaking
+with me. It is better that it should come now than later on.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple was thoroughly puzzled by Throckmorton. She could not make
+out his quiet acquiescence in Jacqueline&#8217;s decision&mdash;it was so unlike
+his usual vigorous way of overcoming obstacles. But, before he left,
+Freke had reappeared, and the dreadful <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>truth had come to him and to
+Throckmorton and to Judith that, after all, according to the statutes of
+Virginia, he was not at liberty to marry again. Dreadful it was to
+Freke, who, light-minded and evil as he was, had really believed himself
+free, and whose implied doubt to Jacqueline was merely for the purpose
+of frightening her into submission. Freke went up to Richmond one day
+and returned the next. Half an hour&#8217;s interview each with half a dozen
+lawyers had settled a hypothetical case that covered Freke&#8217;s exactly:
+not all the clerks and licenses and ceremonies in Virginia could make
+his marriage to anybody good as it stood. It was true that there was an
+excellent chance that in the course of time various defects in the
+somewhat informal divorce proceedings that Freke had really thought
+sufficient might be remedied, and he would be a free man; but, for the
+present, he certainly was not.</p>
+
+<p>Freke, who had thought his courage impeccable, found it failed him when
+he met Judith, for the first and last time, to settle upon the best
+course to pursue. Judith had Throckmorton&#8217;s advice and assistance to
+back her up. Freke positively cowered under her gaze. It was settled
+that he was to go to the Northwest immediately, and devote all his
+energies to straightening out the strange tangle in which he had left
+his matrimonial affairs there; and, when it was settled, he was to
+return to Virginia, and then let <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>Jacqueline decide what was to be done.
+He swore&mdash;and swore so that Judith believed him&mdash;that he thought himself
+a free man, and only despised the narrowness of people who believed
+there was no such thing as divorce. Why he should have fallen in love
+with Jacqueline did not puzzle Judith: had she not, with those
+irresistible glances of hers, ensnared a much stronger man? But one
+thing was decided as much by Jacqueline&#8217;s agony of fear as anything
+else: nothing was to be said about the terrible complication to General
+and Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Steptoe&#8217;s answer to Judith&#8217;s letter gave a promise
+that nothing should be said about Jacqueline&#8217;s non-appearance; and that
+removed any immediate danger of discovery. And, in a little while, both
+Freke and Throckmorton were gone&mdash;Freke, to move heaven and earth to get
+his divorce in proper shape; and Throckmorton, merely to be out of the
+way, and as far out of the way as possible.</p>
+
+<p>To Judith it seemed as if the world were coming to an end. How a thing
+so dreadful, so unlike anything she had ever known before, could happen
+in their quiet lives, seemed more and more extraordinary. Here was
+Jacqueline&mdash;last year a child in heart, and now the first person in a
+tragedy. Never had she anything to conceal before; and now, with the
+most perfect art and premeditation, she was concealing, every day and
+hour, something that would be even more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>overwhelming to her father and
+mother than Beverley&#8217;s death, and would convulse the little world in
+which they lived. As for the innumerable chances that it might be found
+out any day, Judith was abnormally alive to them. Every morning, when
+she went down-stairs, she half expected that the disclosure would come;
+every night she thanked Heaven it had been postponed a day.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile Jacqueline, lying in her great four-poster, progressed slowly
+but gradually toward recovery. One night she called Judith to the
+bedside. She was fast getting well then.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith,&#8221; she said, &#8220;you know what queer notions I take? Well, I have
+been lying here thinking, thinking, perhaps you won&#8217;t be able to keep
+the whole county from knowing about&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The haunting fear of this never left Judith, but she could not but try
+and comfort Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We will try&mdash;O Jacqueline, we will try!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And do you know it has troubled me even more than losing Freke; for I
+feel he is lost to me, even if he were to come to-morrow morning and say
+he was a free man; the fear that when I get well I shall be avoided; the
+people will leave me alone at church, and the county people will stop
+visiting us. That would indeed kill me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dear child, we will hope and pray. I believe it would kill me too.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p><p>Jacqueline at this worked herself up into such a violent fit of weeping
+that Judith was frightened into giving her a great many more assurances
+of safety than her own anxious heart believed, but Jacqueline at last
+was quieted. In both of them, so widely unlike, was that profound
+respect for their neighbors, characteristic of simple and provincial
+souls. They knew no other world but that little neighborhood around
+Severn church, and its opinion was life or death.</p>
+
+<p>But it troubled Judith that by degrees visitors began to fall off and
+inquiries ceased for Jacqueline. The temper and habit of the people were
+such that Judith knew Jacqueline could never hope for any forgiveness if
+that week&#8217;s journey should be known. Jacqueline too, although she was
+entirely silent afterward upon the subject, was thinking and dreading
+and fearing. It was the custom for many kindly and neighborly visits to
+be paid the sick, many flowers and delicacies to be sent them; but after
+a while Jacqueline ceased to have either flowers or visitors. She was
+nearly well, though, or at least she protested that she was. But,
+although Jacqueline declared to Judith that, if Freke were legally free
+to-morrow, she would not marry him as long as that other woman lived, it
+was plain that he had completely captivated her imagination. She loved
+him in her own wild, unreasoning way. Judith was hourly amazed at the
+sudden self-control, finesse, the power <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>to deceive, that Jacqueline
+developed regarding him. Usually her composure was perfect, but once in
+her own room, Jacqueline threw herself on the rug before the fire and
+wept and sobbed so that Judith was seriously alarmed. But, still trying
+to keep the burden from the unconscious father and mother, she remained
+with Jacqueline until a calm had come after the storm.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I love him! I love him!&#8221; was all Jacqueline would say, and Judith
+believed her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You told me how I ought to love Throckmorton,&#8221; she said that night,
+with a melancholy smile; &#8220;it is exactly how I love Freke. Don&#8217;t look at
+me in that indignant way, Judith. It is not my fault.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jack Throckmorton had remained at Millenbeck when his father left.
+Throckmorton had briefly announced to him that the wedding was off. Jack
+came at last to see them, looking very sheepish. Judith suspected that
+he came in obedience to Throckmorton&#8217;s wishes. But Jacqueline at once
+slipped back into her old friendly way, if a little less gay and
+thoughtless than before. Jack sent her flowers, and would have brought
+his dog-cart over every day to take her to drive, so much touched was he
+by Jacqueline&#8217;s illness, but Judith would not let him. Nevertheless, he
+was in and out of the house very much as he had been ever since that
+first night he was there. Judith, who had come to love him for his
+sweet, bright, boyish nature, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>he felt was his friend, as indeed
+everybody at Barn Elms was. The whole affair was intensely puzzling to
+Jack. He dared not show Throckmorton the awkward sympathy that he was
+struggling first to express and then to repress; but Jacqueline was
+young and ill, and had few pleasures, and he had once been a little gone
+on her, so it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should
+be kind to her.</p>
+
+<p>There were mysterious hints, though, flying about the county regarding
+Jacqueline&#8217;s affairs. Mrs. Sherrard was dying with curiosity, and made
+many visits to Barn Elms for the purpose of gratifying it. But she soon
+found out that, beyond knowing that Jacqueline had tired of her
+engagement and had thrown Throckmorton over, neither General nor Mrs.
+Temple knew anything to communicate. About this time, too, the
+party-giving fever, which was never long in abeyance with Mrs. Sherrard,
+seized her. A party she must give. General Temple brought a note to that
+effect, coupled with a request for Mrs. Temple&#8217;s salad-bowls and ladles,
+one day from the post-office. Jacqueline, who had been out-of-doors
+several times and had quite given up her invalidism, showed the keenest
+and the most unexpected delight when she heard of the party. She jumped
+up and down, clapped her hands, and began to dance.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Oh, how glad I am! It has been so stupid lately. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>I do want to dance
+again dreadfully. How I wish I could go to a ball every night in the
+week!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith was surprised at Jacqueline&#8217;s eagerness about the party. Mrs.
+Temple had first said decidedly that Jacqueline should not go, at which
+Jacqueline threw her hands up to her face and burst into such a passion
+of stormy weeping that Mrs. Temple was completely puzzled, and so was
+Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, my child, you are not strong enough!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am!&mdash;I am!&#8221; cried Jacqueline. &#8220;I will ask Dr. Wortley if I can&#8217;t go
+to the party. I am sure I will cry myself ill if I don&#8217;t go; and I am so
+well and strong.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple, who had got a little indulgent to Jacqueline since her
+illness, agreed to leave it to Dr. Wortley. The next time he came over
+to pay a friendly visit, Jacqueline took him off to herself, and came
+back triumphant. Dr. Wortley had agreed. The old doctor had a queer look
+in his face.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I consented, madam,&#8221; he said to Mrs. Temple, &#8220;because this young lady
+promised me that she would make herself ill if she did not go; and I
+have known young women to keep that promise. She has given me her word
+she will be very prudent&mdash;will not overexert herself; and Mrs. Beverley
+is to watch her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And I&#8217;ll come home the instant Judith proposes it!&#8221; cried Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple finally agreed, upon condition that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>the weather was fit.
+For some days before the party it threatened to be very unfit. Dark
+clouds overhung the sky, and a biting March wind swept over the bare
+fields and through the somber aspens and Lombardy poplars, as yet
+leafless and wintry, around the house. Jacqueline seemed to have but one
+idea in her head, and that was the party. She haunted the windows where
+the cutting wind came in through the open chinks and crannies, until
+Judith warned her that she would soon begin to cough again, and worse,
+if she did not take care of herself. She pestered Simon Peter with
+asking for weather signs. When the morning broke, cloudy and overcast,
+Jacqueline was almost in despair; she could eat no breakfast, but sat at
+the table watching the clouds. Presently the sun came out upon the
+dreary landscape, and the sun in Jacqueline&#8217;s eyes came out too. From
+the deepest gloom she passed to the wildest gayety. Her eyes shone; and
+taking little Beverley into the great, empty drawing-room, she waltzed
+around with him, singing and capering about until the boy, like herself,
+was in a gale of good humor. Judith had never ceased being puzzled by
+it. Still another obstacle, though, seemed to arise in Jacqueline&#8217;s
+path. General Temple had a suspicion of gout, and declared that the
+party was out of the question for him. At this, Jacqueline looked so
+pale and disappointed that even Mrs. Temple&#8217;s heart melted toward her.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;But I can take care of Jacqueline, mother,&#8221; said Judith; &#8220;we are safe,
+you know, with Simon Peter on the box, and we will come home before
+twelve o&#8217;clock.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple consented, and for the second time that day Jacqueline&#8217;s
+spirits rose. Toward twilight, when the fires had been lighted in their
+rooms for the two girls to dress, for early hours prevail in the
+country, Judith went into Jacqueline&#8217;s room. Jacqueline was twisting up
+her beautiful blonde hair into a knot on top of her head, taking
+infinite pains; her eyes were shining, her whole air one of quick
+expectancy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why are you so anxious about this party, Jacqueline?&#8221; asked Judith, to
+whose lips the question had often risen during the last week.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Wait a moment and I will tell you,&#8221; replied Jacqueline, still intent on
+her hair.</p>
+
+<p>Judith waited until the last tress was in place, and Jacqueline came
+over to the fireplace.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Because&mdash;because, Judith, I have a feeling&mdash;I don&#8217;t know where it comes
+from&mdash;that everybody knows about&mdash;&#8221; She stopped and cast down her eyes
+in a troubled way, but without blushing. &#8220;And I thought if I went to
+this party I would be convinced that it was all a mistake. I know it is
+very silly, but it has kept me awake at night ever since I was first
+ill, thinking how the people would eye me at church. You know how sick
+people take up those fancies. Well, I am determined to prove to myself
+it isn&#8217;t so. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>Jack Throckmorton won&#8217;t be at the party, but I shall no
+doubt have a plenty of partners, and this horrible feeling&mdash;that I am
+disgraced in some way&mdash;will leave me; I am sure it will. You know
+mamma&#8217;s way of treating these notions. &#8216;Just give your secret fears an
+airing, and see how they will disappear,&#8217; that&#8217;s what I mean to do. Like
+ghosts, they vanish when you speak to them and try to handle them, and
+then you are rid of them for good.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith said not a word. The same horrible fear had been with her. Freke
+and Throckmorton were safe&mdash;General and Mrs. Temple suspected
+nothing&mdash;it made her sick at heart as she thought about the news
+traveling over the county.</p>
+
+<p>When Jacqueline was dressed in the same white frock she had worn the
+evening she had captivated Throckmorton, she preened like a young
+peacock before the admiring eyes of Delilah and Simon Peter. She whirled
+round on her toes like a ballet-dancer. She courtesied to the ground,
+showing them how she would do at the party. She walked away from the
+little glass on her dressing-table, arching her neck and fluttering her
+fan.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I allus did say Marse George Throckmorton wuz too ole fur little Miss
+Jacky,&#8221; Simon Peter remarked to Delilah, after the performance. Delilah,
+who was bound to differ with Simon Peter, promptly took issue.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Marse George, he ain&#8217; ole, he jes&#8217; in he prime. Dat&#8217;s de way wid you
+wuffless niggers&mdash;call a man ole in he prime.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But whar&#8217; <i>he</i> gwi&#8217; be, when she in her prime? You heah me, &#8217;oman?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Delilah, for once, had no answer to make. The reflection had occurred to
+her.</p>
+
+<p>As Judith and Jacqueline were jolted along the road, in the darkness,
+toward Turkey Thicket, both of them were reminded of that other party
+there, when Throckmorton had been present. Neither of them said
+anything, though. Judith, as she watched the shadowy trees slip past,
+began to think how strangely things had gone with her since then. Almost
+from that time she had felt a steady and ceaseless pain associated with
+Throckmorton. She then suffered, she thought, with him, and for him,
+although not one word had come from him since he had left the county, a
+month ago. Where was he? What was he doing at that very moment? Then she
+tried to fancy how it would have been with her had she seen daily before
+her Throckmorton and Jacqueline&#8217;s married happiness. The sight of it
+would have been intolerable to her. &#8220;And nobody in the world suspects me
+of being the most impressionable, emotional, jealous, and miserable
+woman on earth,&#8221; she thought to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, occasionally <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>speculating on who
+would be at the party, and how often she might dance without breaking
+Dr. Wortley&#8217;s orders.</p>
+
+<p>When they drove up to the door and got out, Jacqueline ran lightly up
+the steps, like her old self. Judith followed her. In Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s
+own comfortable old-fashioned room, where the ladies&#8217; wraps were
+removed, a number of girls about Jacqueline&#8217;s age were laughing,
+chattering, getting their wraps off and their slippers on. Jacqueline
+ran up to them, and was about to join their circle; but by a slight,
+indescribable motion, they all drew back. It was a mere gesture, but it
+froze Jacqueline as she stood. She turned a frightened, piteous glance
+on Judith, who, with a flushed face, walked straight up to the little
+group.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How do you do?&#8221; she said, calling each one by name, and holding out her
+hand. If there were any cloud upon the Temple family, she would force
+them to come out boldly and define it. Her fine nostrils dilated with
+anger&mdash;for not only was it her duty to stand by Jacqueline, but was not
+she, Judith, a Temple, too? And Judith had one of those proud and
+self-respecting souls to whom everything and everybody closely connected
+with her was due a certain deference. Something in her eye and manner
+commanded civility&mdash;then her greetings were answered even more cordially
+than she had given them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p><p>But there was still an ominous change toward Jacqueline. The color had
+all dropped out of her face, and she had not recovered the plumpness she
+had lost during her illness. She looked nearer ugly than at any time in
+her whole life.</p>
+
+<p>Judith was soon ready to go down-stairs. She no longer wore black
+dresses, but white ones. They were as severely simple as the black ones,
+though. She turned with Jacqueline following her, and went slowly out
+the door, and down the broad, old-fashioned stairs. In the large,
+uncarpeted hall, dancing was going on. As Judith, tall and stately in
+her white dress, holding gracefully a large white fan in her hands,
+passed through the hall, she was greeted with the hearty kindness she
+had always met with; but Jacqueline at her side, who was wont to run the
+gantlet of laughter and jokes and merry salutations, was met with a
+strange and distant politeness that blanched her face, and brought a
+glitter to Judith&#8217;s usually soft eyes. She could have borne it better
+for herself; but for this unthinking child&mdash;this young creature
+Throckmorton loved&mdash;it was too much.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard, with her diamond comb shining in her gray hair, and
+looking as she always did superbly dressed, without anything splendid
+about her, received them. In her there was no change. She met Jacqueline
+just as she always did.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Why, little Jacky,&#8221; she cried, &#8220;how glad I am to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>see you out again!
+You must let me see your little feet tripping about as if you had never
+been ill.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline responded with a faint smile. Suppose she should not be asked
+to dance?</p>
+
+<p>Judith, taking in at once this universal shyness shown toward
+Jacqueline, did not move from her side. People came up and spoke to them
+civilly enough, but chiefly the older people. Out in the hall beyond,
+the black fiddlers were scraping, and Jacqueline could see a large
+quadrille forming. But no partner appeared for her. Until the very last
+she hoped desperately. Never before had Jacqueline, in the few parties
+she had been to in her short life, failed to be asked to dance&mdash;she was
+so pretty, so undeniably captivating. She turned two despairing dark
+eyes and two pale cheeks on Judith. It was indeed cruel and
+heart-breaking. Jacqueline&#8217;s evident anguish almost took away Judith&#8217;s
+self-possession.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Perhaps you will have better luck next time, dear,&#8221; she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No,&#8221; replied Jacqueline, trembling, &#8220;I feel it. I know what it means.
+They all know it. Heavens! what do they think I am?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The quadrille was soon over, but the time seemed interminable to Judith
+and Jacqueline. Some of the dancers, flushed and excited, were walking
+around the hall, while others, more indefatigable, whirled around in a
+waltz. It was all quite plain to Jacqueline, watching <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>them with strange
+and miserable eyes. Was she then barred out forever from those people,
+and all for Freke, while even the happiness of being with him was denied
+her? Mrs. Sherrard, seeing Jacqueline sitting so still and quiet by
+Judith, came over to them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dear, I see you are not dancing; shall I get you a partner?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s sharp eyes saw something was amiss.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No, please, Mrs. Sherrard,&#8221; cried Jacqueline, in an eager voice. &#8220;I
+promised Dr. Wortley not to dance much; perhaps I will dance a little
+after a while.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But she did not. Nobody came near her to ask her; and even to Judith it
+was plain that people avoided them both. Most of the county people they
+knew came up and talked a little, but there was a changed atmosphere
+around them. Judith looked wonderingly at these people. In all the years
+they had lived in that county there had been nothing but neighborly
+kindness, good-will, and friendliness; and now, not one among them,
+seemed to feel the slightest spark of pity or charity for Jacqueline.
+They had all condemned her unheard. What version of the story had got
+abroad, she could not tell; but it was enough to blast the friendship of
+generations.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting on, hour after hour.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Shall we go home, Jacqueline?&#8221; whispered Judith.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not yet&mdash;not yet!&#8221; Jacqueline would answer, with trembling lips. She
+kept on hoping against hope. By that time everybody in the rooms had
+seen it all, except Mrs. Sherrard. She supposed she had done her best,
+coming up and talking to them incessantly; but, Jacqueline having
+refused a partner when offered one, Mrs. Sherrard naturally supposed she
+did not dance from preference, and accepted the idea that Dr. Wortley
+was responsible. It was past midnight before Jacqueline would agree to
+go. Judith, as stately, if paler and haughtier than ever in her life,
+went up to Mrs. Sherrard, made her farewells, and walked the whole
+length of the rooms, holding Jacqueline&#8217;s hand. The poor child tried to
+hold her head up, inspired by Judith&#8217;s courage, but it drooped, and she
+could not raise her eyes from the floor. A slight thrill of remorse
+seemed to come over those who saw her, at the piteous sight; but it was
+now too late. Jacqueline only longed to escape.</p>
+
+<p>The instant they were in the carriage and alone, Jacqueline threw her
+arms around Judith and began to weep and sob desperately. Judith could
+only hold her to her heart and say: &#8220;Never mind, Jacqueline; if all the
+world should be against you, I would not be&mdash;nor Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>But Jacqueline did not cease to sob and weep with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>a sort of despair
+that struck a chill to Judith&#8217;s heart. She had never seen anybody weep
+so. When they reached home, Judith got her up-stairs to her room and
+undressed her, taking off the little chain around her neck that held the
+pearl pendant Jacqueline only wore on great occasions, uncurling the
+bright hair she had dressed so carefully, and laying away the simple
+white dress&mdash;Jacqueline&#8217;s only ball-dress&mdash;that she had admired herself
+in so much. Jacqueline submitted, still sobbing a continual sob, that
+showed no signs of abatement. Judith put her in bed, turned out the
+lamp, and kissing her affectionately went out, thinking Jacqueline would
+soon cry herself to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>An hour afterward Judith, who had keen hearing, fancied she heard a
+sound from Jacqueline&#8217;s room. She went in softly. In the ghastly light
+that came through the closed shutters she saw Jacqueline sitting up in
+the great, white bed, still weeping.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My darling,&#8221; said Judith, taking the girl in her arms, &#8220;you will be
+ill!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ill!&#8221; cried Jacqueline; &#8220;I am ill now&mdash;so ill, I never shall be well
+again! Judith, I can&#8217;t live under this. I am going to die; and I am glad
+of it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Hush, hush! what nonsense are you talking?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nonsense or not, those wicked people will see that they have killed
+me!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith did not leave her any more, nor did Jacqueline sleep one moment,
+or cease her weeping. She <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>held Judith tightly about the neck, and her
+warm tears dropped incessantly. Toward daylight Judith began to be
+alarmed. But nothing was to be done. It would simply break the hearts of
+the unconscious father and mother if they knew what had happened, and if
+she roused them they must know. Judith went to her own room and brought
+back some brandy, which she forced Jacqueline to take. In a little while
+it began to show its effect. Jacqueline stopped sobbing, and lay in the
+great dawn, with her face white and drawn and tear-stained. Judith,
+again hoping she might sleep, left her.</p>
+
+<p>All that day Jacqueline lay in her bed dumb and motionless. Judith said
+the child was tired after the ball; perhaps she would get up later on.
+Mrs. Temple, supposing she was resting after her dissipation, did not go
+up to see her in the morning. In the afternoon, as Jacqueline showed no
+signs of getting up, Mrs. Temple went up to her. One look at her pallid
+face, and Mrs. Temple, calm and self-possessed as she usually was,
+almost shrieked, Jacqueline was so changed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell your master to come here at once!&#8221; she cried to Delilah.</p>
+
+<p>General Temple came up-stairs, hurried and flurried, and felt for
+Jacqueline&#8217;s pulse, but could detect no beating. And then Delilah owned
+up:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Dat ar chile ain&#8217; tech a mou&#8217;ful dis day. I bring <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>her up nice hot
+breakfus&#8217;, an&#8217; she jes&#8217; tu&#8217;n her face ter de wall an&#8217; say, &#8216;Go &#8217;long,
+mammy, I c&#8217;yarn eat.&#8217; Now, huccome she c&#8217;yarn eat?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My daughter, what is the matter with you?&#8221; asked Mrs. Temple,
+anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>Of late this half-forgotten child had been steadily forcing herself upon
+Mrs. Temple&#8217;s notice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing,&#8221; answered Jacqueline, quietly.</p>
+
+<p>But Jacqueline would not eat anything to speak of. In vain Mrs. Temple
+commanded, General Temple prayed her; Judith also pleaded with her, and
+Delilah&mdash;even little Beverley, climbing on the bed, said:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Jacky, won&#8217;t you eat a piece o&#8217; mammy&#8217;s ash-cake if she bake it for
+you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline smiled a faint smile that made Judith almost weep.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t, dear,&#8221; she said.</p>
+
+<p>It was impossible to force her to eat, and the next morning Dr. Wortley
+was sent for. He came up in his cheery way; he had heard something of
+the Turkey Thicket party, but he would say no word to the anxious father
+and mother. He talked cheerfully to Jacqueline, without assuming to
+doctor her, and called her attention to the beautiful spring weather. It
+was March, but the air was as mild as April.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;All my hyacinths and jonquils are out,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There is a bed in my
+garden that is protected on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>north by a hedge and an arbor, and
+everything in that bed is a week ahead of the rest of the neighborhood.
+I will bring you everything that is blooming there to-morrow. By the
+way, what would you fancy to eat, Jacky?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I can&#8217;t eat anything,&#8221; replied Jacqueline, with quiet obstinacy.</p>
+
+<p>Next day Dr. Wortley came again, with a great bunch of hyacinths and
+jonquils, and laid them on Jacqueline&#8217;s bed. Her large and lusterless
+eyes gazed at them with indifference. Usually they danced with delight
+at the sight of flowers. Delilah put a spray of pink hyacinths in her
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doan&#8217; you &#8217;member, honey, how you useter like dese heah hy&#8217;cints, an&#8217;
+plague yo&#8217; mammy when you wuz little ter plant &#8217;em fur you?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, I remember,&#8221; said Jacqueline, calmly.</p>
+
+<p>Judith and Mrs. Temple were present. Dr. Wortley said nothing about
+Jacqueline&#8217;s refusing to eat, but talked away, telling all the
+neighborhood gossip. Then, in a careless way, he felt for Jacqueline&#8217;s
+pulse and listened to the beating of her heart. Both were so faint that
+Dr. Wortley&#8217;s eyes became grave. After he left the room, he beckoned to
+Mrs. Temple to follow him. Delilah came, too.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marse Doctor, she ain&#8217; tech nuttin&#8217; but a leetle bit o&#8217; toast an&#8217; tea
+since yistiddy, an&#8217; it wan&#8217; &#8217;nough to keep a bird &#8217;live, let &#8217;lone a
+human.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p><p>Dr. Wortley wheeled round on his old enemy and snapped out:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;ll just use some of your persuasive eloquence and stuff her up
+with jellies and custards as you do your master when he ought to be
+living on tea and toast, she&#8217;ll be all right.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Delilah flounced back into Jacqueline&#8217;s room, her head-handkerchief
+bobbing about angrily. Mrs. Temple being present, she could not
+retaliate on Dr. Wortley.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;But, doctor,&#8221; said Mrs. Temple, trembling strangely, &#8220;this is so unlike
+Jacqueline. I don&#8217;t know what has been the matter with her lately. She
+isn&#8217;t grieving for Throckmorton, but something is on her mind, that
+is&mdash;that is&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The doctor waited, thinking Mrs. Temple would finish what she was
+saying. But she did not. This was, indeed, unlike Jacqueline&mdash;unlike any
+instance Dr. Wortley, in his simple experience, had ever known.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Let her alone for a few days,&#8221; he said. &#8220;We will see.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>At the end of a few days Jacqueline had indeed consented to take enough
+food to keep life in her, but she had lost ground frightfully. Her
+round, girlish face was sharp and pinched.</p>
+
+<p>Judith tried persuasion, to which Jacqueline responded, &#8220;How can I eat
+anything, when all night <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>long I cry and cry, thinking of the
+hard-hearted people who&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then she stopped suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mise Judy,&#8221; said Delilah, after a while, &#8220;I lay on de pallet by de
+baid, an&#8217; all night long I heah her cryin&#8217;, jes&#8217; cryin&#8217; quiet&mdash;she doan&#8217;
+make no noise. I say: &#8216;What de matter, honey? Tell yo&#8217; ole mammy dat
+nuss you?&#8217; an&#8217; she make &#8217;tense den she &#8217;sleep. But I know she ain&#8217;
+&#8217;sleep&mdash;she jest distrusted at de way dem folks treat her at that
+ungordly party at Tuckey Thicket.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>General and Mrs. Temple were anxious about Jacqueline, but by no means
+despairing. Neither of them thought that anybody could die without
+having anything ostensibly the matter. Judith, on the contrary, thought
+this the most alarming thing about Jacqueline. There she lay, steadily
+losing her hold on life, without any reason in the world that she should
+not be up and about&mdash;except, indeed, that sickness of the soul which
+saps the very foundations of life. This fear that Jacqueline was
+slipping away from them impelled her to write Throckmorton a few
+lines&mdash;guarded, but without disguising anything.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, the day that was to have been the wedding-day had come and
+gone. Jacqueline had not noticed it&mdash;she seemed to notice nothing in
+those days&mdash;but toward noon she said to Judith:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;I want to see my wedding-dress&mdash;to see if it is quite ruined.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, without protesting, went and got it. She spread it out on the
+bed. It was rich and white and soft, and was beautiful with Judith&#8217;s
+handiwork; but it was bloodstained in many places.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That blood, I think, came from my heart,&#8221; said Jacqueline; her eyes
+were soft and luminous. &#8220;I&#8217;ve been thinking about Throckmorton in the
+last two or three days&mdash;for the first time. I have been so busy with my
+own sorrow and Freke&#8217;s that I haven&#8217;t had time to think about anything
+else. Now, though, I want to see him&mdash;if he can get here in time.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;He will soon be here,&#8221; answered Judith, folding up the dress. &#8220;I wrote
+him four days ago.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That is so like you! None of the others know what I want, or will let
+me have my own way, but you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And that very day Freke appeared.</p>
+
+<p>The hatred that Judith had always felt for him was now intensified into
+a horror of him&mdash;he was the murderer of the poor child lying on her
+death-bed up-stairs&mdash;and she had thought her heart so hard toward him
+that nothing could soften it; but, strange as it might seem, she did
+soften toward him when she saw how acute was his misery.</p>
+
+<p>Remorse was new to him. He had rather gloried <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>in going against the
+antique notions and prejudices of the people in that shut-in, provincial
+place; but that anything tragic could come of it never really dawned
+upon him until he saw the terrible consequences before his eyes. He was,
+indeed, a free man, legally, when he came back; but the moral law, the
+social prejudice, stood like an everlasting wall between him and
+Jacqueline. Moreover, there could be no talk of marriage with Jacqueline
+then&mdash;she was the bride of death!</p>
+
+<p>Judith herself told him this. Whether Jacqueline had ever had any deep
+hold upon him or not, there was no doubt of the sincerity of his grief
+and his remorse. He said but little, but one look at his changed and
+agitated face was enough. He asked to see her&mdash;a request Judith could
+not refuse. But the sight of him threw Jacqueline into such a paroxysm
+of agitation, that Judith almost forced him from the room. There was
+something a little mysterious about the whole thing, to General and
+Mrs. Temple, but mercifully they suspected nothing of the real state of
+affairs. After one more attempt to see Jacqueline, and the extreme
+agitation into which it threw her, it became plain that it could not be
+repeated. Jacqueline herself begged that she might not see him.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not that I don&#8217;t love him&mdash;don&#8217;t think that for a moment, Judith!&#8221; she
+cried; &#8220;but the sight of him nearly kills me. Then I am sorry that I am
+going <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>to die&mdash;I am so sorry for myself that I feel as if I should cry
+myself into convulsions.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith tried gently to check this sort of talk, but Jacqueline, with a
+shadowy smile, laughed at her.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t be silly, Judith&mdash;<i>you</i> know how it is. All that I hope is, that
+those hard-hearted people will be sorry when they have killed me with
+their cruelty.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Freke, still coming every day, walked about the lower floor dismally.
+Jacqueline, whose senses became preternaturally sharp, soon recognized
+his footsteps. Even that unnerved her. Judith told him so kindly, and
+afterward he would sit motionless before the dining-room fire, always
+turning his head away from Jacqueline&#8217;s little chair. Like Judith, he
+was clear-sighted about her. Of them all, General and Mrs. Temple were
+the only ones who would not or could not see that Jacqueline would soon
+be gone. Mrs. Temple had never seen anybody die without being ill, and
+could not believe that Jacqueline, who suffered no pain, should go. She
+had been in truth much frightened at the time of Jacqueline&#8217;s illness;
+but, now, there was nothing to prevent her getting well except&mdash;except&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;That she is determined to die,&#8221; Dr. Wortley inwardly remarked when Mrs.
+Temple talked to him in this way.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline began to show a strange eagerness for Throckmorton&#8217;s arrival.
+He was somewhere in the Northwest; but Jack, acting on his own
+responsibility, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>telegraphed his father, and put him on the track of
+Judith&#8217;s letter.</p>
+
+<p>The news of Jacqueline&#8217;s illness had got abroad in the county, and
+something like remorse was felt by many who had seen her at the Turkey
+Thicket party. By degrees the impression that she was indeed in a bad
+way became general.</p>
+
+<p>If Judith and Jacqueline had never loved Jack Throckmorton before, they
+would have loved him then. The sweetness, tenderness, and gentleness of
+the boy came out every day. There had always been an affinity between
+Jacqueline and him, and, as other ties weakened, this seemed to grow
+stronger. He never tired or bored or agitated her. Regularly he came
+twice a day, with flowers, or game, or with a new book. Dr. Wortley
+encouraged Jacqueline to see him, as it was plainly through her mind
+that her body must be cured. So every day Mrs. Temple or Judith would
+take Jack up to Jacqueline&#8217;s room, and he would sit down by the bed and
+tell her his droll stories. Sometimes the ghost of a laugh would come
+from Jacqueline, and when, at parting, Jack would stand over her,
+holding her hand and saying, &#8220;Miss Jacky, I swear this is not to be
+stood for another day!&mdash;I&#8217;m coming over to-morrow to take you to drive!&#8221;
+Jacqueline would almost laugh aloud. Jack never mentioned Throckmorton
+to her, though; but one day, when he had brought her a great bunch of
+violets and narcissus, which had actually <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>brought a little color to
+Jacqueline&#8217;s cheeks, and had induced her to eat a piece of bread about
+as big as a silver dollar, he turned to Judith as he got out of the
+room: &#8220;The major is coming,&#8221; he said, with an altogether different look
+in his handsome, boyish face. &#8220;I got a dispatch from him to-day. If he
+makes connections, he can be here by day after to-morrow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How glad I am&mdash;and how glad Jacqueline will be!&#8221; answered Judith.</p>
+
+<p>For the first time, that day Judith had begun to hope that Jacqueline
+would get well. She had certainly brightened, and this strange interest
+in Throckmorton&#8217;s arrival was encouraging. Perhaps, after all, she cared
+for him more than she thought&mdash;and if he came&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Till that day Jacqueline seemed to be brighter and better. The next day
+the weather turned suddenly cold and blustering, with violent gusts of
+snow and sleet. Jacqueline, who could see out of the window from her
+bed, seemed singularly depressed by the weather, although the pleasant,
+old-fashioned room was a nest of warmth and comfort.</p>
+
+<p>Delilah sat in the great rush-bottomed chair by the sparkling fire,
+knitting, while Judith, with some work in her lap, sat close by the bed,
+and occasionally talked hopefully to Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How sad it is!&#8221; presently said Jacqueline; &#8220;the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>peach-trees are all in
+bloom, and the buds will be killed by this snow&mdash;and the little
+hyacinths that are just coming up&mdash;all the young growing things will die
+to-day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Not the plants, dear&mdash;only the blossoms,&#8221; replied Judith, cheerfully.
+&#8220;In a week they will have forgotten all about this snow.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is very sad,&#8221; sighed Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>All day Jacqueline seemed affected by the weather. Barn Elms, never a
+cheerful place at any time, was apt to be funereal when winter blasts
+swept the branches of the melancholy poplars and elms against the sides
+of the house, and when the wind howled amid the loosely built chimneys.
+A blackbird had begun building her nest in the tree nearest Jacqueline&#8217;s
+window; and often, during the long days when she had lain in her bed,
+she had watched the bird flying and fluttering back and forth. The wind,
+which raged fitfully, came on stronger toward the afternoon. It lashed
+the still bare branches of the trees, beating them frantically about.
+The nest soon went. The poor bird, flying wildly around the place where
+it had been, was suddenly caught by a swaying branch, and, numbed with
+the cold, was dashed against the window. Jacqueline almost shrieked.
+Judith ran down-stairs, and out bareheaded in the sleet and snow, and
+found the bird&mdash;but it was already dead. When she went back, Jacqueline
+was crying.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;See how it is, Judith&mdash;everything that is young and weak will die in
+this weather.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>A book lay on the bed beside Jacqueline&mdash;Jack Throckmorton had brought
+it over to her a day or two before. Jacqueline, laboriously&mdash;for she was
+very weak&mdash;turned over the pages and showed a paragraph to Judith:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And the fire is lighted and the hall warmed, and it rains and it snows
+and it storms without. Then cometh in a sparrow and flieth about the
+hall. It cometh in at one door and goeth out at another. While it is
+within, it is not touched with the winter storm. <i>But that is only for a
+moment, only for the least space.</i>&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith thought that Jacqueline, in her simplicity, had taken it
+literally; but she had not.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Once, Throckmorton read some in this book to me. He said that meant
+human life&mdash;that little moment. Why can&#8217;t people let other people be
+comfortable in that least space, instead of&mdash;of&mdash;killing them as&mdash;being
+so unkind to them?&#8221; Jacqueline stopped. Her mind was ever working on
+that deep resentment against her county people. &#8220;And Throckmorton, too,&#8221;
+she continued, after a pause, &#8220;you know, Judith, how noble he is&mdash;and
+see how they have treated him!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My dearest,&#8221; answered Judith, &#8220;you don&#8217;t understand. These people are
+really kind and tender-hearted; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>but they move very slowly&mdash;and they
+have queer prejudices&mdash;notions&mdash;that they will die with, and die for, I
+think; but don&#8217;t think about that&mdash;think about getting well, and running
+about again with Beverley. You ought to see him, trotting around
+down-stairs, saying: &#8216;Where is my Jacky? I want my Jacky.&#8217; He was so
+naughty to-day that Delilah threatened to whip him, and even mother had
+to take a stand against him. He is getting thoroughly spoiled while I am
+up here with you.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline smiled slightly, but soon returned to watching the gloomy day
+without. At twilight she would not have the shutters closed, but lay
+striving to catch the last fading glimpses of the somber daylight.
+Judith began to feel an intense longing for Throckmorton to come.
+Jacqueline, too, who had been so strangely forgetful and neglectful of
+Throckmorton until lately, had asked a dozen times that day, when it was
+possible for him to get there, and what if he should miss the boat, and
+many other questions. About seven o&#8217;clock Judith went down to tea,
+leaving Delilah with Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>Delilah, sitting up black and solemn, listened to Jacqueline&#8217;s faint and
+sorrowful talk.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Doan&#8217; you fret, honey, &#8217;bout dem blackbirds, an&#8217; dem peach-blossoms,
+an&#8217; dem little lambs out in de cold. De Lord gwi&#8217; teck keer on &#8217;em. He
+gwi&#8217; meck de sun ter shine, an&#8217; de win&#8217; ter blow; an&#8217; He gwi&#8217; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>down in
+de rain an&#8217; de gloomerin&#8217; fur ter fin&#8217; de po&#8217; los&#8217; sheep. He ain&#8217; gwi&#8217;
+lef &#8217;em out d&#8217;yar ter deyselves. He gwi&#8217; tote &#8217;em home outen&#8217; de rain
+an&#8217; de darkness.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Do you think so, mammy?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I knows hit, chile.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Down-stairs, General and Mrs. Temple, with little Beverley and Judith,
+were all that were present around the table. Not yet even had Mrs.
+Temple begun to be alarmed about Jacqueline, who had not had a pain or
+an ache.</p>
+
+<p>Jacqueline&#8217;s vacant chair struck Judith more painfully than usual.
+Scarcely had she taken her place at the table, when she saw Delilah peer
+in at the door, a queer, ashy tinge over her black face. Judith rose and
+went out quietly, Mrs. Temple looking surprised, but saying nothing.
+Judith, Mrs. Temple thought, coddled Jacqueline rather too much for her
+own good, so Kitty Sherrard and Dr. Wortley both said.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Miss Judy,&#8221; whispered Delilah, &#8220;Miss Jacky is a-gwine&mdash;she done start
+on de road&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, without a word, flew up-stairs. Jacqueline lay, scarcely
+breathing, her face perfectly white, her dark and beautiful eyes wide
+open. Judith raised her up, Jacqueline protesting feebly.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Judith, it is come! I feel it. I am not at all frightened. It was those
+cruel people at Mrs. Sherrard&#8217;s party&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t&mdash;don&#8217;t say that, Jacqueline! You are only a little faint and
+discouraged. Here is Delilah coming.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tell Throckmorton I tried to live until he came, but my breath won&#8217;t
+hold out any longer, and my heart has scarcely beat at all for a week,
+it seems to me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith made a sign to Delilah to go for Mrs. Temple. Scarcely was she
+out of the room, before Jacqueline&#8217;s head fell back on Judith&#8217;s
+shoulder. Judith, brave as she was, began to tremble and to weep.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I did so want to see Throckmorton, to tell him something. I wanted to
+say to him&mdash;Judith&mdash;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Temple came in swiftly, followed by the general. Jacqueline had
+strength enough left to hold out a thin little hand. A smile like
+moonlight passed over her face. She gasped once, and all was over.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+
+<p>The next night at midnight there was a solemn stir, a painful and
+heart-breaking commotion, at Barn Elms. Throckmorton had come. He had
+indeed missed the boat, and had driven seventy miles rather than wait a
+day. Mrs. Temple, as when Beverley died, had shut herself up in the
+&#8220;charmber&#8221; with General Temple. Most people thought it was to comfort
+General Temple, but in those two dreadful tragedies of her life it was
+General Temple who comforted Mrs. Temple. Both parents felt something
+like remorse in their grief. They had been good parents after their
+lights, but the wayward, capricious Jacqueline, although their child,
+was outside of their experience. Her nature had eluded both of them.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Ole marse,&#8221; said Delilah, in a solemn whisper to Judith, sitting in
+Jacqueline&#8217;s peaceful room, &#8220;he set by mistis. He hole her han&#8217; an&#8217; he
+read de Bible ter her, an&#8217; he tell her she ain&#8217; got no reproachments fur
+ter make. Mistis, she jes&#8217; lay in the bed, ez white ez de wall, an&#8217; her
+eyes wide open, a-hole&#8217;in&#8217; ole marse like she wuz drowndin&#8217;. It seem
+like ole marse ain&#8217; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>got no sort o&#8217; idee, &#8217;cep &#8217;tis ter comfort mistis.
+She do grieve so arter her chillen. She ain&#8217; got none now.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To Judith, whose grief was poignant and complex, was left the task of
+watching by Jacqueline. With tender superstition, she got out the
+wedding-gown&mdash;it could be put to no other use&mdash;and she and Delilah put
+it on Jacqueline, deftly hiding the blood-spots.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;My pretty little missy,&#8221; said Delilah, smoothing down the frock with
+her hard black hand. &#8220;Arter all, you gwi&#8217; w&#8217;yar dis pretty little frock
+Miss Judy done wuk for you to git married in.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>And to Judith also fell the task of showing Freke into the white and
+darkened room.</p>
+
+<p>As they looked into each other&#8217;s eyes, and realized that, after all,
+they were the chiefest mourners, Judith&#8217;s old enmity melted away.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You and I have struggled for this child&#8217;s soul,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Had you but
+let me see her&mdash;had she but gone with me&mdash;she would be alive this day.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;And wretched!&#8221; Judith could not help saying.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;No&mdash;most happy. I understood her better than anybody else. It was that
+which gave me my power over her. She wanted nothing in this world except
+to be loved.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He went in and stayed so long that Judith opened the door softly two or
+three times. Sometimes, by the dim light, he was kneeling by the bed,
+holding the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>cold little hand in his. Again, he sat on a chair, stroking
+the bright hair that rippled over the forehead. Judith had not the heart
+to speak to him until midnight, when the sound of Throckmorton&#8217;s step in
+the hall told her he had come. She went in and said to Freke hurriedly,
+but not unkindly, &#8220;You must go&mdash;Throckmorton is here.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Then I will go,&#8221; he said. But with a queer sort of triumph in his voice
+he added: &#8220;She never was Throckmorton&#8217;s, living or dead. She was mine as
+far as her heart and her soul and her will went.&#8221; And so saying, he went
+down the stairs and out and away, without meeting Throckmorton.</p>
+
+<p>Judith went down into the dining-room, where Throckmorton sat before the
+decaying fire, with only the light of two tall candles to pierce the
+darkness. He arose silently and followed her. At the door of the room
+his courage, which Judith had thought invincible, seemed suddenly to
+leave him. He, the strong man, turned pale, and clung to the weak
+woman&#8217;s arm. Something of the divine pity in Judith&#8217;s face went to his
+soul. He stayed only a few minutes. It came to Judith, like a flash,
+that his grief was not like Freke&#8217;s. Throckmorton pitied Jacqueline.
+Freke pitied himself, for the sharp misery of life without her. When
+Throckmorton came out, Judith went in and resumed her watch.</p>
+
+<p>The day of the funeral was as stormy as the day <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>of Jacqueline&#8217;s death.
+But for that, the whole county would have been at the funeral. Something
+of the truth had leaked out, and the people were conscience-stricken.
+Poor Jacqueline, who two weeks before had in vain asked for a little
+human pity from them, now had her memory deluged with it. But the storm
+was so violent that but few persons could be present. As Judith stood at
+the head of the small grave in the wind and the rain, listening to
+Edmund Morford&#8217;s rich voice, now touched with real feeling, she glanced
+toward Freke, standing by himself, with his hands clasped behind his
+back, his eyes fixed devouringly upon the coffin. As the first damp
+clods fell resounding on the lid, he said to himself: &#8220;Jacqueline!
+Jacqueline!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton, with folded arms and his iron jaw set, gave no sign of his
+feelings through his stern composure. Judith&#8217;s heart was wrenched as if
+she were burying her own child. When they left the grave, Freke remained
+standing alone, his hat off, and the sleety rain pelting his bare head.
+At that sight Judith, for the first time, forgave him from her heart.</p>
+
+<hr class="large" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+
+<p>Throckmorton&#8217;s year of leave was not up, yet he went immediately back to
+his post. Everything that had happened to him in the last six months had
+been so unreal, so out of all his previous experiences, that he needed
+the every-day routine of duty to enable him to get his bearings. He
+wanted to find out if he himself was changed. There was certainly a
+change in him, which everybody saw; but he was not a man to be
+questioned. He went about his duty, quietly and self-containedly. He had
+always found a plenty to do, and wondered at the idleness that he
+sometimes saw around him; and now he was busier than ever. He was not a
+philanthropic meddler, and was as loath to offer his advice unasked to a
+soldier as to an officer, but he earnestly desired, now more than ever,
+to be of help to his fellow-men, and Throckmorton&#8217;s help was always
+efficient because it never hurt the self-respect of those who received
+it. Certain of the non-commissioned officers at his post were competing
+for a commission. To his surprise and gratification, he found them
+anxious to be instructed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>by him. So he turned schoolmaster, and
+patiently and laboriously, night after night, gave them the advantage of
+all he knew. Only one got the commission, but all were qualified when
+Throckmorton got through with them. He was not any less alert and
+attentive than before, but in all his waking moments, when his mind was
+not imperatively drawn to other things, he was thinking over those six
+months at Millenbeck&mdash;the hopes with which he went back; the strangeness
+of finding himself under the ban among his own people; the renewal of
+the link with Barn Elms, after thirty years&#8217; absence; his complete
+infatuation with Jacqueline&mdash;and, out of it all, rose Judith&#8217;s face. How
+hard had been her lot; and how strange it was that he had made
+confidences to her, and that, of all the women he had ever known, she
+was the only one of whose sympathy he had ever felt the need! He
+considered his somewhat barren life&mdash;his reserved habits&mdash;and sometimes
+thought Heaven was kind to Jacqueline in not giving her to him, for he
+could not bend his nature to any woman&#8217;s&mdash;the woman must conform to him;
+and it was not in Jacqueline to be anything but what Nature had made
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Jack was off at the university, and Millenbeck was shut up, silent and
+deserted.</p>
+
+<p>Freke was gone. He disappeared apparently from the face of the earth. He
+wanted neither to see nor hear anything of anybody connected with
+Jacqueline. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>Throckmorton, on the contrary, clung to the ties at Barn
+Elms.</p>
+
+<p>But to Judith Temple life had become infinitely sadder and poorer than
+ever before. She had caught one glimpse of paradise, and that had
+changed the whole face of life for her, and she seemed all at once to be
+very much alone. But in one sense she was less alone than ever before.
+Mrs. Temple&#8217;s will and courage and purpose seemed gone. She changed
+strangely after Jacqueline&#8217;s death. She, who had once silently resented
+the slightest forgetfulness of Beverley, now seemed to feel acutely that
+the living should not be sacrificed to the dead. She began to urge
+Judith to go from home; to take off her mourning at the end of a year.
+Judith gently protested. The truth was that, although Mrs. Temple had at
+last come out of that strange forgetfulness of Jacqueline and mourned as
+other mothers do, Jacqueline took nothing out of her life. With Judith
+it was as if her child had been taken. She could not pass Jacqueline&#8217;s
+empty room without remembering how she would waylay her, and draw her in
+to sit by the fire and dream and romance. She could not sew or read or
+do anything without feeling the loss of the childish companionship. Even
+when she laid aside her seriousness for her child and romped and played
+with the boy, he was apt to say, &#8220;I wish Jacky would come back and play
+with me again.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p><p>At intervals Mrs. Temple received kind and sympathetic letters from
+Throckmorton, and replied to them with letters worded with her own
+simple eloquence. In Throckmorton&#8217;s letters he spoke of Jacqueline
+rather as if she had been his child than his promised wife. Among them
+all Jacqueline&#8217;s memory was that of a child. Throckmorton sent kind
+messages to Judith; and Mrs. Temple, when she wrote, conveyed short but
+expressive replies from Judith.</p>
+
+<p>Two years had passed. So quiet and uneventful had been their lives, that
+Judith would have had difficulty in persuading herself that the years
+were slipping by, but for little Beverley, now a handsome, sturdy
+urchin, whose long, fair hair had been cut off, and who emerged from
+dainty white frocks into kilts. The grandfather and grandmother daily
+more adored the child. Judith thought sometimes they were fast
+forgetting Jacqueline. The grass was quite green over Jacqueline by
+this time, and the head-stone had lost its perfect whiteness. But to Judith
+there was no forgetting. She had loved the child as if she had been her
+own, and she loved Throckmorton still. Jack wrote to her at intervals,
+his letters always containing some allusion to Jacqueline. Judith
+thought sometimes, with wonder, that Fate should not in the first
+instance have united those two young creatures, boy and girl.</p>
+
+<p>One night, two winters after Jacqueline had gone <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>away, Judith, who
+every night before going to bed went to her window, and, drawing the
+curtain, looked long toward Millenbeck, saw a bright light shining from
+the hall-door and two of the lower windows of the house. Every night, as
+she gazed at it, she had seen it black and tenantless, and utterly
+deserted; but, now&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Throckmorton has come!&#8221; she said to herself.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning he came over early to see them. He found General Temple the
+same General Temple&mdash;courteous and verbose. His health being very good,
+he was an Episcopalian for the time being; but, whenever the gout
+appeared, he had his old way of lapsing into Presbyterianism. Mrs.
+Temple was the same, and yet not the same. Throckmorton saw a change in
+her. She, the most unyielding of women, had become easy and indulgent.
+Simon Peter and Delilah came in to speak to him, and a wifely rebuke,
+administered in the pantry, was distinctly audible to Throckmorton:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Huccome you ain&#8217; taken off dat ole coat, nigger, an&#8217; put on dat one
+mistis give you, fur ter speak ter Marse George Throckmorton? He su&#8217;t&#8217;ny
+will think we all&#8217;s po&#8217;, ef you keep on dat er way.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;We <i>is</i> po&#8217;, but we is first quality, &#8217;oman!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, who had great self-command, could control her eyes, her voice,
+her manner; but happiness, the outlaw, at seeing Throckmorton again,
+brought <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>the red blood surging to her cheeks. Throckmorton, who was
+exactly like his old self, was surprised and inwardly agitated at it.
+They spoke some tender words of Jacqueline, all of them sitting together
+in the old-fashioned drawing-room. Her little chair was in its old
+place, but Judith sat in it; and even the ragged footstool on which
+Jacqueline had toasted her little feet was near it. Throckmorton noticed
+all these things with tenderness in his dark eyes. He was a little
+grayer than before, but he was the same erect, soldierly figure; he had
+the same simple but commanding dignity.</p>
+
+<p>He walked home in a curious state of emotion. In those two years he had
+not ceased thinking deeply over that short episode, so full of happiness
+and pain&mdash;the happiness a little unreal, and vexed with many pangs; the
+pain very real, but with strange suggestions that, after all, the
+happiness held more possibilities of wretchedness. He could think, for
+Jacqueline&#8217;s sake, how much better off she was, lying so peacefully in
+the old grave-yard, than if she had lived, so weak, so captivating, so
+unthinking. What would life have been to her? And so, at forty-six,
+after having experienced more than most men, he began the analysis of
+his own emotions, and realized that all he had known of love was
+perilously like a mirage. He had entered into a fool&#8217;s paradise, but he
+knew that he of all men could least be satisfied there. His <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>reason, his
+intellect, always overmastered him in the end; and what was there in
+this bewitching child to satisfy either? Jacqueline, young, was a dream;
+Jacqueline, old, was a fantasm. All this had come to him soon after
+Jacqueline&#8217;s death, in that period of self-searching that followed. But,
+when he had got thus far, which was some time before his return to
+Millenbeck, a great change came upon him. He began to feel a sort of
+acute disappointment. He had loved and suffered much for that which he
+felt would not have made him happy had he gained it. All that love,
+grief, passion, had been vain; here he checked himself; the memory of
+his girl-wife was sacred from even his own questionings; and so was that
+later love, but the necessity for checking himself told volumes. And
+then, by slow degrees, the image of Judith Temple had stolen upon him.
+It was very gradual, it was many months in coming, but, when at last it
+dawned upon him, it was a sort of glorious surprise. How stupid, how
+blind had he been! Where were his doubts and questionings? Could anybody
+doubt Judith Temple&#8217;s sympathy and understanding? He remembered the
+quaint words of the Jewish king, &#8220;The heart of her husband doth safely
+trust.&#8221; He had seen enough of the way these weaker women had striven to
+bend him, but Judith had the beautiful charm of bending herself. She
+could be whatever the man she loved desired her to be. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>Throckmorton at
+once felt that any man married to Judith Temple would indeed be free,
+and how sweet would it be to see that proud spirit that yielded but
+seldom bend to his will! That homage, so rare and precious, was what
+women of her type paid to the master-passion. Most women that he had
+ever seen yielded to the predominant influence; but women like Judith
+Temple bent their heads and smiled and played at humility, but yielded
+not one inch of their soul&#8217;s standing-ground until the moment came.
+Throckmorton, who possessed true masculine courage, admired this kind of
+feminine bravery. He felt that to conquer such a woman would be like
+capturing a Roman standard. And how utterly those proud women
+surrendered when they did surrender! He could fancy Judith&#8217;s brave
+pretenses melting away; how charming would be her sweet inexperience!
+How quickly she would persuade herself that there was nothing so wise,
+true, just as love! Throckmorton, although he had silenced his
+discernment, had never strangled it, and he began to study and know
+Judith. But there was no suspicion in his mind that she cared anything
+for him; and, when he made up his mind to return to Millenbeck and see
+her again, he was anything but sanguine. He felt that if he failed it
+would make infinitely more difference to him than anything that had ever
+happened to him in life before. He was absolutely afraid, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>fear, he
+knew, when it came to men like him, meant something overmastering.
+Throckmorton sighed when he realized his want of courage. He knew it
+would be forthcoming in an emergency; he had felt that in battle, where
+his first tremors never made him doubt for an instant that when the time
+came to use his courage it would be there; but it was a new thing to
+fear his fate at the hands of a woman. But the woman had become much
+more to him than any other woman had ever been; she was so much to him
+that it rather appalled him.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, anxieties or no anxieties, he went about winning Judith
+with the same coolness and deliberation he did everything else. He had
+two months&#8217; leave, and he determined to spend it all at Millenbeck.
+Judith might break his heart, but she should not defraud him of those
+months in her society that he had promised himself for a good while
+before. For a long time past in his pleasant quarters at his post, in
+his regular round of duty, in the part he took in social life, he had
+comforted himself with the idea that, whether he was destined to this
+greater happiness or not, he would at least see this woman of all women;
+he would hear her soft voice, listen to her talk, seasoned with a
+dainty, womanly wit. Nobody should deprive him of that. He began to
+remember with a frown Jack&#8217;s turpitude about Judith&#8217;s letters. As soon
+as Jack found out that his father wanted to see those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>friendly, kindly
+letters, he made great ado about showing them, playing the major very
+much as he would a peculiarly game and warlike salmon. The cast in
+Throckmorton&#8217;s eye was apt to come out so savagely at these times that
+he was, as Jack said, positively cross-eyed. But after Jack had worked
+him up into a silent rage, he would then produce the letters.
+Throckmorton had always taken women&#8217;s letters as highly indicative, and
+Judith&#8217;s were so refined, so sparkling in spite of the narrow round in
+which she lived, that Throckmorton&#8217;s countenance immediately cleared and
+the cast disappeared from his eye as soon as he had got hold of one of
+these cherished epistles, all of which had been by no means lost on
+Jack.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton went and came between Barn Elms and Millenbeck in the most
+natural and neighborly way in the world. He brought books over to
+Judith, and often read aloud at Barn Elms in the evenings. General
+Temple, still hard at work on the History of Temple&#8217;s Brigade, which now
+approached its seventh volume, found Throckmorton a mine of information.
+A soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,
+Throckmorton had a queer diffidence about speaking of his profession, in
+marked contrast to General Temple, who declaimed the science of war with
+same easy confidence with which Edmund Morford explained the inscrutable
+mysteries of religion. As Throckmorton watched General Temple stalking
+up and down the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>quaint old drawing-room, haranguing and expounding, the
+idea that this man had been intrusted with the fate of battle perfectly
+staggered him. His sense of humor was keen, and, between his
+professional horror of General Temple&#8217;s methods and the utter absurdity
+of the whole thing, he would be convulsed with silent laughter. Judith,
+the picture of demureness, would give him a glance that would almost
+create an explosion. With much simplicity General Temple would add:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;At that time, my dear Throckmorton, I was unfortunately separated from
+my command. I conceive it to be the duty of the commander of troops to
+set them an example of personal courage, and so I occupied a slightly
+exposed position.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton did not doubt it in the least. The general&#8217;s incapacity was
+only exceeded by his courage.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton&#8217;s native modesty, as well as the fact that he knew a great
+deal about the war and his profession, kept him comparatively silent;
+but finding that, when he talked with General Temple about battles and
+campaigns, Judith&#8217;s face gradually grew scarlet with suppressed
+excitement, and that like most women she was easily carried away by the
+recitals of adventure, he artfully took up the thread of conversation
+and surprised himself by his own eloquence. It was not like the almost
+forgotten Freke&#8217;s polished and charming periods, but it was none the
+less eloquent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>for being rather brief and pointed; and once or twice
+when Judith paid him some little compliment, her speaking eyes conveying
+more meaning than her words, Throckmorton would be seized with a fit of
+bashfulness, and clapping his rusty but still cherished blue cap on his
+head would go home and never say &#8220;war&#8221; for a week.</p>
+
+<p>Their lives were so quiet, so shut out from even the small world of a
+provincial neighborhood, that nothing was known or talked of about them.
+Judith, who was capable of revenge, felt a deep resentment against the
+county people. She, who before Jacqueline&#8217;s death had been all sweetness
+and affability, showed a kind of haughtiness to the people who were well
+enough disposed to make amends to the Barn Elms family. Throckmorton
+noticed, when she went out of church behind General and Mrs. Temple,
+holding her boy by the hand, that the father and mother stopped and
+talked as neighbors in the country do, but Judith made straight for the
+rickety carriage which Simon Peter still drove.</p>
+
+<p>The two months were nearly over. Throckmorton and Judith had seen much
+of each other, but there had been no exchange of intimate thoughts
+between them but once. This was one afternoon when they were alone at
+Barn Elms, that Throckmorton talked openly of Jacqueline.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is not treason to her, poor child,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but&mdash;it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>was&mdash;a
+mistake. I truly loved her. I had thought that love was impossible to me
+after the loss I suffered so many years ago. But it was a madness; and,
+however delicious the madness of youth may be, when a man has reached my
+time of life he knows it to be madness. I have never dared to think what
+would the ultimate end have been had she lived and married me. The
+certainty one has of happiness is the life of love; but that certainty I
+never had. I never knew whether Jacqueline&#8217;s love would be enough for
+me, even had it been mine; and I could never shake off a horrible fear
+that mine would not be enough for her.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Judith, who had listened silently to this, suddenly leaned forward and
+gazed at him involuntarily. The thought in her mind was, that no
+ordinary woman would be enough for Throckmorton. He could give much, but
+he would ask for much. Like all men of commanding sense and character,
+he was exacting.</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton could not follow her thought&mdash;he only saw her deep and
+expressive eyes, the pensive droop of her mouth, all the refined beauty
+of her face. He began to think how she would blossom out under the
+influence of happiness; what a happy, merry, delightful creature she
+would be if she loved; and something in his fixed and ardent gaze made
+Judith draw back, and brought the slight flush to her face, that meant
+much for her. She trembled a little, and Throckmorton saw it. When he
+returned to Millenbeck, he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>sat up half the night smoking strong
+cigars&mdash;the prosaic way in which his agitations always worked themselves
+off&mdash;lost in a delicious reverie of what might be. Here was a woman who
+appealed to his pride as much as to his love. Throckmorton, who was
+practical as well as romantic, thought it a very good thing for a man to
+marry a woman he could be proud of. Yet, when the last embers of the
+library fire had died out, and the cigars had given out too, and he
+began to be chill and stiff, sitting in his great arm-chair, he felt
+discouraged, and said almost out aloud, &#8220;I don&#8217;t believe she will marry
+me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It grew toward the last days of Throckmorton&#8217;s stay. He had gone to but
+few places in the county. The temper of the people toward him had
+changed since he first came there; every year had brought its crop of
+tolerance, but it had ceased to be of importance to him. Indeed, but one
+thing mattered to him then&mdash;whether Judith would marry him. But he
+deliberately put off the decisive moment until the very afternoon before
+he was to leave. He had in vain tried to find out whether the friendly
+regret at his going that she expressed concealed a deeper feeling, but
+Judith was too clever for him. She had gone through the whole range of
+feeling since she first knew him, and now was better armed than she had
+ever been before.</p>
+
+<p>He walked over to Barn Elms on that last afternoon, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>feeling very much
+as he had done years before, when, after long waiting, with the thunder
+of cannon in his ears and the smoke of musketry before his eyes, the
+order had come for him to move forward. It was well enough to think and
+plan before&mdash;but now, it was time to act; and, just as in that time of
+battle, he became cool and confident as soon as he was brought face to
+face with danger.</p>
+
+<p>He timed his visit just when he knew Judith would be taking her
+afternoon walk with little Beverley. Sure enough, she was out. He stayed
+a little while with General and Mrs. Temple. When he rose to go, he
+said, quite boldly, to Mrs. Temple:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I am going to find Judith.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He had never called her by her name before, and did it unconsciously.
+Mrs. Temple, though, who was acute as most women are about these things,
+looked at him steadily. Throckmorton colored a little, but his eye had
+never drooped before any woman&#8217;s, not even Mrs. Temple&#8217;s. But she, after
+a little pause, laid her hand on his shoulder&mdash;he was not a tall man,
+like General Temple, and she could easily reach it&mdash;and said: &#8220;I hope
+you&mdash;will find Judith, George Throckmorton.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>He went forth and struck out toward the belt of fragrant pines, where he
+knew Judith oftenest walked. It was spring again&mdash;April, with the
+delicious smell of the newly plowed earth in the air, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>the faint
+perfume of the coming leaves&mdash;the putting-forth time. The entrancing
+stillness that all people born and nurtured in the country love so much
+was upon the soul of Nature. The dreamy and solemn murmur of the pines
+seemed only to make the greater silence obvious. In a little while he
+saw Judith&#8217;s graceful figure coming his way. She wore a pale-gray gown,
+and a large black hat shaded her face. In her hand she carried a branch
+of the pale-pink dogwood, that does not grow by open roads and
+farm-fields, but in the depths of the woods. Beverley, with another
+branch of dogwood across his shoulder, like a gun, marched sturdily
+ahead of her. Throckmorton, who had carefully guarded his behavior since
+he had been home, was quite reckless now. He meant to risk it, and since
+all depended on the cast of a die, prudence was superfluous. He took
+Judith&#8217;s hand and held it until he saw the red blood steal into her
+face. He looked at her so, that she could not lift her eyes from the
+ground. Beverley, however, claimed his rights. He and Throckmorton were
+great friends.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;How you <i>is</i>?&#8221; he asked, offering his chubby hand and looking up
+fearlessly into Throckmorton&#8217;s face. The child had lost his mother&#8217;s
+shy, appealing glance. He was a little man, instead of a baby, as he
+often told her proudly. &#8220;I&#8217;m going to be a soldier, I am,&#8221; was his next
+remark, &#8220;and I&#8217;m going to be a brave soldier.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p><p>&#8220;That&#8217;s right,&#8221; said Throckmorton, &#8220;and, as I&#8217;m a soldier, too, perhaps
+I&#8217;ll help you along.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Will you make me a soldier?&#8221; asked Beverley, pushing his cap back off
+his curly head.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, if you will go immediately home&mdash;all by yourself. You see&mdash;it
+isn&#8217;t far&mdash;just along the path and through the gap, to the orchard, and
+then to the house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Beverley looked meditatively at the distance. It seemed a perilous way
+for a six-year old. Judith stood, crimson and helpless. Throckmorton was
+a masterful man, and, when he took things in his own hands, he was apt
+to have his own way. She knew at once what he meant, and it gave her a
+kind of shock&mdash;she seemed about to be transported to another world. This
+sending away of her child was what nobody had ever done before.
+Throckmorton, smiling, said to the boy, &#8220;A soldier shouldn&#8217;t be afraid.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not afraid of nothin&#8217;,&#8221; answered Beverley, stoutly. Judith stooped
+toward him, and the child threw his arms about her and kissed her&mdash;a
+kiss she passionately returned. She felt it to be her farewell to him as
+the first object of her existence. She knew that he was to be
+supplanted. The boy trotted off, not looking behind once.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;See how brave he is, for a little fellow,&#8221; she said, still blushing.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Yes, very brave. But you are a woman of great courage. You gave some of
+it to that boy.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span></p><p>Throckmorton was no laggard in love. He lost not a moment. He, who was
+by nature reticent, became, under the influence of the master-passion,
+bold and ready of speech. Judith, who was by nature of a sweet and
+humorous talkativeness, became eloquently silent&mdash;her heart seemed to
+melt into an ineffable softness and yielding. She said one thing,
+though, as they turned to walk home through the delicious purple
+twilight:</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;I think men can love more than once; but I don&#8217;t think women can love
+but once.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Throckmorton perfectly understood her.</p>
+
+<p>When they walked together across the lawn, under the gnarled locusts and
+poplars, they saw General and Mrs. Temple standing on the steps of the
+old house, with little Beverley between them. Throckmorton watched
+Judith jealously to see if there was anything like shame or apology in
+her look; but she, who could not look him in the face when they were
+alone in their secret paradise, now held her head up proudly. Nobody
+could have told, from Throckmorton&#8217;s quiet self-possession, that
+anything unusual had occurred; but never before had he known anything
+like the deep delight that now enthralled him.</p>
+
+<h3>THE END.</h3>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">A SIX-CYLINDER COURTSHIP, By Edw. Salisbury Field<br />
+With a color frontispiece by Harrison Fisher, and illustrations
+by Clarence F. Underwood, decorated pages and end sheets.
+Harrison Fisher head in colors on cover. Boxed.</p>
+
+<p>A story of cleverness. It is a jolly good romance of love at first sight
+that will be read with undoubted pleasure. Automobiling figures in the
+story which is told with light, bright touches, while a happy gift of
+humor permeates it all.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The book is full of interesting folks. The patois of the garage is used
+with full comic and realistic effect, and effervescently, culminating in
+the usual happy finish.&#8221;&mdash;<i>St. Louis Mirror.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW,<br /><span style="margin-left: 2em;">By Gene Stratton-Porter Author of &#8220;FRECKLES&#8221;</span><br />
+With illustrations in color by Oliver Kemp, decorations by
+Ralph Fletcher Seymour and inlay cover in colors.</p>
+
+<p>The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing
+love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that
+seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the
+most beautiful word painting of nature and its pathos and tender
+sentiment will endear it to all.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS, By Alice MacGowan<br />
+With illustrations in colors, and inlay cover by George Wright.</p>
+
+<p>No one can fail to enjoy this moving tale with its lovely and ardent
+heroine, its frank, fearless hero, its glowing love passages, and its
+variety of characters, captivating or engaging, humorous or saturnine,
+villains, rascals, and men of good will. A tale strong and interesting
+in plot, faithful and vivid as a picture of wild mountain life, and in
+its characterization full of warmth and glow.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">A MILLION A MINUTE, By Hudson Douglas<br />
+With illustrations by Will Grefe.</p>
+
+<p>Has the catchiest of titles, and it is a ripping good tale from Chapter
+I to Finis&mdash;no weighty problems to be solved, but just a fine running
+story, full of exciting incidents, that never seemed strained or
+improbable. It is a dainty love yarn involving three men and a girl.
+There is not a dull or trite situation in the book.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. By George Barr McCutcheon. With Color
+Frontispiece and other illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
+Beautiful inlay picture in colors of Beverly on the cover.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The most fascinating, engrossing and picturesque of the season&#8217;s
+novels.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Boston Herald.</i> &#8220;&#8216;Beverly&#8217; is altogether charming&mdash;almost
+living flesh and blood.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Louisville Times.</i> &#8220;Better than
+&#8216;Graustark&#8217;.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Mail and Express.</i> &#8220;A sequel quite as impossible as
+&#8216;Graustark&#8217; and quite as entertaining.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Bookman.</i> &#8220;A charming love
+story well told.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">HALF A ROGUE. By Harold MacGrath. With illustrations and inlay
+cover picture by Harrison Fisher.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Here are dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters
+really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick
+movement. &#8216;Half a Rogue&#8217; is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious
+morning. It is as varied as an April day. It is as charming as two most
+charming girls can make it. Love and honor and success and all the great
+things worth fighting for and living for the involved in &#8216;Half a
+Rogue.&#8217;&#8221;&mdash;<i>Phila. Press.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE GIRL FROM TIM&#8217;S PLACE. By Charles Clark Munn.
+With illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Figuring in the pages of this story there are several strong
+characters. Typical New England folk and an especially sturdy one, old
+Cy Walker, through whose instrumentality Chip comes to happiness and
+fortune. There is a chain of comedy, tragedy, pathos and love, which
+makes a dramatic story.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Boston Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE LION AND THE MOUSE. A story of American Life.
+By Charles Klein, and Arthur Hornblow. With illustrations by Stuart
+Travis, and Scenes from the Play.</p>
+
+<p>The novel duplicated the success of the play; in fact the book is
+greater than the play. A portentous clash of dominant personalities that
+form the essence of the play are necessarily touched upon but briefly in
+the short space of four acts. All this is narrated in the novel with a
+wealth of fascinating and absorbing detail, making it one of the most
+powerfully written and exciting works of fiction given to the world in
+years.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With
+illustrations by Martin Justice.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As superlatively clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the
+reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is
+handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably
+novel.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i> &#8220;A feast of humor and good cheer, yet
+subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or
+whimsicality. A merry thing in prose.&#8221;&mdash;<i>St. Louis Democrat.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">ROSE O&#8217; THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations
+by George Wright.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;&#8216;Rose o&#8217; the River,&#8217; a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written
+and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book&mdash;daintily
+illustrated.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Tribune.</i> &#8220;A wholesome, bright, refreshing
+story, an ideal book to give a young girl.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i>
+&#8220;An idyllic story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As
+story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to
+the life.&#8221;&mdash;<i>London Mail.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">TILLIE: A Mennonite Maid. By Helen R. Martin. With
+illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn.</p>
+
+<p>The little &#8220;Mennonite Maid&#8221; who wanders through these pages is something
+quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love;
+and she comes into her inheritance at the end. &#8220;Tillie is faulty,
+sensitive, big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always
+lovable. Her charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the
+characters skilfully developed.&#8221;&mdash;<i>The Book Buyer.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">LADY ROSE&#8217;S DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. With illustrations
+by Howard Chandler Christy.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The most marvellous work of its wonderful author.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York World.</i>
+&#8220;We touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the
+ordinary novelist even to approach.&#8221;&mdash;<i>London Times.</i> &#8220;In no other story
+has Mrs. Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose&#8217;s
+Daughter.&#8221;&mdash;<i>North American Review.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE BANKER AND THE BEAR. By Henry K. Webster.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;An exciting and absorbing story.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Times.</i> &#8220;Intensely
+thrilling in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a
+love affair of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on
+the bank which is almost worth a year&#8217;s growth, and there is all manner
+of exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and
+permanent favor.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Chicago Evening Post.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE, By Mary Roberts Reinhart
+With illustrations by Lester Ralph.</p>
+
+<p>In an extended notice the <i>New York Sun</i> says: &#8220;To readers who care for
+a really good detective story &#8216;The Circular Staircase&#8217; can be
+recommended without reservation.&#8221; The <i>Philadelphia Record</i> declares
+that &#8220;The Circular Staircase&#8221; deserves the laurels for thrills, for
+weirdness and things unexplained and inexplicable.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE RED YEAR, By Louis Tracy</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Tracy gives by far the most realistic and impressive pictures of
+the horrors and heroisms of the Indian Mutiny that has been available in
+any book of the kind *** There has not been in modern times in the
+history of any land scenes so fearful, so picturesque, so dramatic, and
+Mr. Tracy draws them as with the pencil of a Verestschagin or the pen of
+a Sienkiewics.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">ARMS AND THE WOMAN, By Harold MacGrath
+With inlay cover in colors by Harrison Fisher.</p>
+
+<p>The story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages
+with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh
+and blood, and not mere pictures of past centuries. The story is about
+Jack Winthrop, a newspaper man. Mr. MacGrath&#8217;s finest bit of character
+drawing is seen in Hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and Jack&#8217;s
+chum.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">LOVE IS THE SUM OF IT ALL, By Geo. Cary Eggleston
+With illustrations by Hermann Heyer.</p>
+
+<p>In this &#8220;plantation romance&#8221; Mr. Eggleston has resumed the manner and
+method that made his &#8220;Dorothy South&#8221; one of the most famous books of its
+time.</p>
+
+<p>There are three tender love stories embodied in it, and two unusually
+interesting heroines, utterly unlike each other, but each possessed of a
+peculiar fascination which wins and holds the reader&#8217;s sympathy. A
+pleasing vein of gentle humor runs through the work, but the &#8220;sum of it
+all&#8221; is an intensely sympathetic love story.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">HEARTS AND THE CROSS, By Harold Morton Cramer
+With illustrations by Harold Matthews Brett.</p>
+
+<p>The hero is an unconventional preacher who follows the line of the Man
+of Galilee, associating with the lowly, and working for them in the ways
+that may best serve them. He is not recognized at his real value except
+by the one woman who saw clearly. Their love story is one of the
+refreshing things in recent fiction.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With
+illustrations by Rufus Zogbaum.</p>
+
+<p>The standards and life of &#8220;the new navy&#8221; are breezily set forth with a
+genuine ring impossible from the most gifted &#8220;outsider.&#8221; &#8220;The story of
+the destruction of the &#8216;Maine,&#8217; and of the Battle of Manila, are very
+dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife
+of another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in &#8216;The Spirit
+of the Service.&#8217;&#8221;&mdash;<i>The Book Buyer.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
+striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time
+of the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth
+century for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in
+adventure, mystery, peril and suspense.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.</p>
+
+<p>A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
+or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
+into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all
+of Miss Murfree&#8217;s novels.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by
+Harrison Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.</p>
+
+<p>As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like
+callousness, her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of
+God and man, she was condemned to bury her magnificent personalty, her
+transcendent beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a
+King&#8217;s left hand. A powerful story powerfully told.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With
+illustrations by E. Pollak.</p>
+
+<p>A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and
+never attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date
+story of love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern
+improvements. The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner
+and the romance of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for
+the romance, old as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.</p>
+
+<p>A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance
+finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest
+of old-fashioned love stories *** A rare book, exquisite in spirit and
+conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor
+and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a
+frontispiece and inlay cover.</p>
+
+<p>How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life
+made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of
+a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, <i>Doctor
+Luke</i> is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and
+the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are
+expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes
+a note of rare personality.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE DAY&#8217;S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>London Morning Post</i> says: &#8220;It would be hard to find better reading
+*** the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end,
+that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till
+they have read the last&mdash;and the last is a veritable gem *** contains
+some of the best of his highly vivid work *** Kipling is a born
+story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.</p>
+
+<p>A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss *** an
+entertaining story or a man&#8217;s redemption through a woman&#8217;s love *** no
+one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story
+with eyes that are always dry *** goes straight to the heart of everyone
+who knows the meaning of &#8220;love&#8221; and &#8220;home.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated
+by Clarence F. Underwood.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling
+and romantic situations. So naively fresh in its handling, so plausible
+through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze across the
+far-spreading desert of similar romances.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Gazette-Times, Pittsburg.</i>
+&#8220;A slap-dashing day romance.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Sun.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK.</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE FAIR GOD; OR, THE LAST OF THE TZINS. By Lew Wallace. With
+illustrations by Eric Pape.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The story tells of the love of a native princess for Alvarado, and it
+is worked out with all of Wallace&#8217;s skill *** it gives a fine picture of
+the heroism of the Spanish conquerors and of the culture and nobility of
+the Aztecs.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Commercial Advertiser.</i></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;<i>Ben Hur</i> sold enormously, but <i>The Fair God</i> was the best of the
+General&#8217;s stories&mdash;a powerful and romantic treatment of the defeat of
+Montezuma by Cortes.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Athen&aelig;um.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. By Louis Tracy.</p>
+
+<p>A story of love and the salt sea&mdash;of a helpless ship whirled into the
+hands of cannibal Fuegians&mdash;of desperate fighting and tender romance,
+enhanced by the art of a master of story telling who describes with his
+wonted felicity and power of holding the reader&#8217;s attention *** filled
+with the swing of adventure.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">A MIDNIGHT GUEST. A Detective Story. By Fred M. White. With a
+frontispiece.</p>
+
+<p>The scene of the story centers in London and Italy. The book is
+skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying,
+exciting detective stories ever written&mdash;cleverly keeping the suspense
+and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which precede the
+end.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI. A Romance. By S. Levett Yeats. With
+cover and wrapper in four colors.</p>
+
+<p>Those who enjoyed Stanley Weyman&#8217;s <i>A Gentleman of France</i> will be
+engrossed and captivated by this delightful romance of Italian history.
+It is replete with exciting episodes, hair-breath escapes, magnificent
+sword-play, and deals with the agitating times in Italian history when
+Alexander II was Pope and the famous and infamous Borgias were tottering
+to their fall.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">SISTER CARRIE. By Theodore Drieser. With a frontispiece, and wrapper in
+color.</p>
+
+<p>In all fiction there is probably no more graphic and poignant study of
+the way in which man loses his grip on life, lets his pride, his
+courage, his self-respect slip from him, and, finally, even ceases to
+struggle in the mire that has engulfed him. *** There is more tonic
+value in <i>Sister Carrie</i> than in a whole shelfful of sermons.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin With
+illustrations by F. C. Yohn.</p>
+
+<p>Additional episodes in the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at
+Riverboro which were not included in the story of &#8220;Rebecca of Sunnybrook
+Farm,&#8221; and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that
+famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as
+in the first.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE SILVER BUTTERFLY, By Mrs. Wilson Woodrow With illustrations
+in colors by Howard Chandler Christy.</p>
+
+<p>A story of love and mystery, full of color, charm, and vivacity, dealing
+with a South American mine, rich beyond dreams, and of a New York
+maiden, beyond dreams beautiful&mdash;both known as the Silver Butterfly.
+Well named is <i>The Silver Butterfly</i>! There could not be a better symbol
+of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery and
+the flashing wit.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">BEATRIX OF CLARE, By John Reed Scott With illustrations by
+Clarence F. Underwood.</p>
+
+<p>A spirited and irresistibly attractive historical romance of the
+fifteenth century, boldly conceived and skilfully carried out. In the
+hero and heroine Mr. Scott has created a pair whose mingled emotions and
+alternating hopes and fears will find a welcome in many lovers of the
+present hour. Beatrix is a fascinating daughter of Eve.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH, By Joseph Medill Patterson
+Frontispiece by Hazel Martyn Trudeau, and illustrations by
+Walter Dean Goldbeck.</p>
+
+<p>Tells the story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of
+society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous
+member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic
+wit and flashing epigrams. &#8220;Is sensational to a degree in its theme,
+daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged
+before.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Sun.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">BARBARA WINSLOW, REBEL. By Elizabeth Ellis With illustrations
+by John Rae, and colored inlay cover.</p>
+
+<p>The following, taken from story, will best describe the heroine: A
+TOAST: &#8220;To the bravest comrade in misfortune, the sweetest companion in
+peace and at all times the most courageous of women.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Barbara
+Winslow.</i> &#8220;A romantic story, buoyant, eventful, and in matters of love
+exactly what the heart could desire.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Sun.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">SUSAN. By Ernest Oldmeadow With a color frontispiece by Frank
+Haviland. Medallion in color on front cover.</p>
+
+<p>Lord Ruddington falls helplessly in love with Miss Langley, whom he sees
+in one of her walks accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a
+misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive
+to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary
+love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a
+droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly
+clever in the telling.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE. By Jean Webster With illustrations
+by C. D. Williams.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The book is a treasure.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Chicago Daily News.</i> &#8220;Bright, whimsical, and
+thoroughly entertaining.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Buffalo Express.</i> &#8220;One of the best stories
+of life in a girl&#8217;s college that has ever been written.&#8221;&mdash;<i>N.Y. Press.</i>
+&#8220;To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book
+cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who
+have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure
+to be no less delightful.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Public Opinion.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE MASQUERADER. By Katherine Cecil Thurston With
+illustrations by Clarence F. Underwood.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;You can&#8217;t drop it till you have turned the last page.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Cleveland
+Leader.</i> &#8220;Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution, almost
+takes one&#8217;s breath away. The boldness of its denouement is
+sublime.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i> &#8220;The literary hit of a generation. The
+best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly
+story.&#8221;&mdash;<i>St. Louis Dispatch.</i> &#8220;The story is ingeniously told, and
+cleverly constructed.&#8221;&mdash;<i>The Dial.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE GAMBLER. By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by
+John Campbell.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Tells of a high strung young Irish woman who has a passion for
+gambling, inherited from a long line of sporting ancestors. She has a
+high sense of honor, too, and that causes complications. She is a very
+human, lovable character, and love saves her.&#8221;&mdash;<i>N.Y. Times.</i></p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett With inlay cover in
+colors by Clarence F. Underwood.</p>
+
+<p>This great international romance relates the story of an American girl
+who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an
+Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and
+restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the
+character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love
+story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly
+handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to
+which very few modern novels have attained.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS, By Frances Hodgson Burnett
+Illustrated with half tone engravings by Charles D. Williams.
+With initial letters, tail-pieces, decorative borders.
+Beautifully printed, and daintily bound, and boxed.</p>
+
+<p>A delightful novel in the author&#8217;s most charming vein. The scene is laid
+in an English country house, where an amiable English nobleman is the
+centre of matrimonial interest on the part of both the English and
+Americans present.</p>
+
+<p>Graceful, sprightly, almost delicious in its dialogue and action. It is
+a book about which one is tempted to write ecstatically.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST, By Francis Hodgson Burnett
+A Companion Volume to &#8220;The Making of a Marchioness.&#8221;<br />
+With illustrations by Charles D. Williams, and with initial
+letters, tail-pieces, and borders, by A. K. Womrath.
+Beautifully printed and daintily bound, and boxed.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;The Methods of Lady Walderhurst&#8221; is a delightful story which combines
+the sweetness of &#8220;The Making of a Marchioness,&#8221; with the dramatic
+qualities of &#8220;A Lady of Quality.&#8221; Lady Walderhurst is one of the most
+charming characters in modern fiction.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner With illustrations by E. Fuhr.</p>
+
+<p>This romance like the author&#8217;s <i>The Princess Maritza</i> is charged to the
+brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude,
+sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born,
+flourish, and pass away on every page.</p>
+
+<hr class="full"  />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, Publishers, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<div class="centerbox2 bbox2">
+
+<p class="double2">&#160;</p>
+
+<h2>FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS<br />
+IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS</h2>
+
+<p>Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper&mdash;most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty&mdash;and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p class="hangingindent">DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES, By Irving Bacheller With
+illustrations by Arthur Keller.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Darrel, the clock tinker, is a wit, philosopher, and man of mystery.
+Learned, strong, kindly, dignified, he towers like a giant above the
+people among whom he lives. It is another tale of the North Country,
+full of the odor of wood and field. Wit, humor, pathos and high thinking
+are in this book.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Boston Transcript.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">D&#8217;RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the
+British. Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U. S. A. By
+Irving Bacheller With illustrations by F. C. Yohn.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Mr. Bacheller is admirable alike in his scenes of peace and war. D&#8217;ri,
+a mighty hunter, has the same dry humor as Uncle Eb. He fights
+magnificently on the &#8216;Lawrence,&#8217; and was among the wounded when Perry
+went to the &#8216;Niagara.&#8217; As a romance of early American history it is
+great for the enthusiasm it creates.&#8221;&mdash;<i>New York Times.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country, By Irving Bacheller.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;As pure as water and as good as bread,&#8221; says Mr. Howells. &#8220;Read &#8216;Eben
+Holden&#8217;&#8221; is the advice of Margaret Sangster. &#8220;It is a forest-scented,
+fresh-aired, bracing and wholly American story of country and town life.
+*** If in the far future our successors wish to know what were the real
+life and atmosphere in which the country folk that saved this nation
+grew, loved, wrought and had their being, they must go back to such true
+and zestful and poetic tales of &#8216;fiction&#8217; as &#8216;Eben Holden,&#8217;&#8221; says Edmund
+Clarence Stedman.</p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods, By Irving Bacheller With a
+frontispiece.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;A modern <i>Leatherstocking</i>. Brings the city dweller the aroma of the
+pine and the music of the wind in its branches&mdash;an epic poem ***
+forest-scented, fresh-aired, and wholly American. A stronger character
+than Eben Holden.&#8221;&mdash;<i>Chicago Record-Herald.</i></p>
+
+<p class="hangingindent">VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ, By Irving Bacheller.</p>
+
+<p>A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman patricians whose
+great and perilous love in the reign of Augustus leads them through the
+momentous, exciting events that marked the year just preceding the birth
+of Christ.</p>
+
+<p>Splendid character studies of the Emperor Augustus, of Herod and his
+degenerate son, Antipater, and of his daughter &#8220;the incomparable&#8221;
+Salome. A great triumph in the art of historical portrait painting.</p>
+
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<h3>GROSSET &amp; DUNLAP, &middot;&middot; NEW YORK</h3>
+
+<p class="double3">&#160;</p></div>
+
+<hr class="large" />
+<h2><span class="smcap">Transcriber&#8217;s Notes:</span></h2>
+
+<p>1. Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters&#8217; errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author&#8217;s words and
+intent.</p>
+
+<p>2. The original of this e-book did not have a Table of Contents; one has been
+added for the reader&#8217;s convenience.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Throckmorton, by Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROCKMORTON ***
+
+***** This file should be named 36829-h.htm or 36829-h.zip *****
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+</pre>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Throckmorton, by Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+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: Throckmorton
+
+Author: Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+Release Date: July 24, 2011 [EBook #36829]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROCKMORTON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ THROCKMORTON
+
+ A NOVEL
+
+ BY
+
+ MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL
+
+ GROSSET & DUNLAP
+ Publishers ::  :: New York
+
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1890
+ BY D. APPLETON & CO.
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1909
+ THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
+
+
+
+
+THROCKMORTON.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+In a lowland Virginia neighborhood, strangely cut off from the rest of
+the world geographically, and wrapped in a profound and charming
+stillness, a little universe exists. It has its oracles of law,
+medicine, and divinity; its wars and alliances. Free from that outward
+contact which makes an intolerable sameness among people, its types
+develop quaintly. There is peace, and elbow-room for everybody's
+peculiarities.
+
+Such was the Severn neighborhood--called so from Severn church. Every
+brick in this old pile had been brought from green England two hundred
+years before. It seemed as if, in those early days, nothing made with
+hands should be without picturesqueness; and so this ancient church,
+paid for in hogsheads of black tobacco, which was also the currency in
+which the hard-riding, hard-drinking parsons took their dues, was peaked
+and gabled most beautifully. The bricks, mellowed by two centuries, had
+become a rich, dull red, upon which, year after year, in the enchanted
+Southern summers and the fitful Southern winters, mosses and gray
+lichens laid their clinging fingers. It was set far back from the broad,
+white road, and gnarled live-oaks and silver beeches and the melancholy
+weeping-willows grew about the churchyard. Their roots had pushed, with
+gentle persistence, through the crumbling brick wall that surrounded it,
+where most of the tombstones rested peacefully upon the ground as they
+chanced to fall. Within the church itself, modern low-backed pews had
+supplanted the ancient square boxes during an outbreak of philistinism
+in the fifties. At the same time, a wooden flooring had been laid over
+the flat stones in the aisles, under which dead and gone vicars--for the
+parish had a vicar in colonial days--slept quietly. The interior was
+darkened by the branches of the trees that pressed against the wall and
+peered curiously through the small, clear panes of the oblong windows;
+and over all the singular, unbroken peace and silence of the region
+brooded.
+
+The country round about was fruitful and tame, the slightly rolling
+landscape becoming as flat as Holland toward the rich river-bottoms. The
+rivers were really estuaries, making in from the salt ocean bays, and as
+briny as the sea itself. Next the church was the parsonage land, still
+known as the Glebe, although glebes and tithes had been dead these
+hundred years. The Glebe house, which was originally plain and
+old-fashioned, had been smartened up by the rector, the Rev. Edmund
+Morford, until it looked like an old country-woman masquerading in a
+ballet costume; but the Rev. Edmund thought it beautiful, and only
+watched his chance to lay sacrilegious hands on the old church and to
+plaster it all over with ecclesiastical knickknacks of various sorts.
+
+The Rev. Mr. Morford had come into the world handicapped by the most
+remarkable personal beauty, and extreme fluency of tongue. Otherwise, he
+was an honest and conscientious man. But he belonged to that common
+class among ecclesiastics who know all about the unknowable, and have
+accurately measured the unfathomable. On Sundays, when he got up in
+the venerable pulpit at Severn, looking so amazingly handsome in his
+snow-white surplice, he dived into the everlasting mysteries with a
+cocksureness that was appalling or delightful according to the view one
+took of it. In the tabernacle of his soul, which was quite empty of
+guile and malice, three devils had taken up their abode: one was the
+conviction of his own beauty, another was the conviction of his own
+cleverness, and still another was the suspicion that every woman who
+looked at him wanted to marry him. Mr. Morford reasoned thus:
+
+     I. That all women want to get married.
+     II. That an Edmund Morford is not to be picked up every day.
+     III. That eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
+
+On Sundays he scarcely dared look toward the pew where General and Mrs.
+Temple sat, with their beautiful widowed daughter-in-law, Mrs. Beverley
+Temple, on one side of them, and Jacqueline Temple, as lovely in her
+small, kittenish way, on the other, for fear that one or the other of
+these young women would fall hopelessly in love with him. Mrs. Beverley,
+as the young widow was called, to distinguish her from the elder Mrs.
+Temple, had the fatal charm for the Rev. Edmund that all things feared
+and admired have. He believed in his heart of hearts that widows were
+made for his undoing, and that the good old Hindoo custom of burning
+them up alive was the only really safe disposition to make of them. The
+charm of Judith Temple's piquant face and soft, shy eyes was somewhat
+neutralized by a grim suspicion lodged in Mr. Morford's mind that she
+was unnecessarily clever. The Rev. Edmund had a wholesome awe of clever
+women, especially if they had a knack of humor, and was very much afraid
+of them. Judith had a sedate way of replying to Morford's resounding
+platitudes that sometimes created a laugh, and when he laboriously
+unwound the meaning, he was apt to find the germ of a joke; and Judith
+was so grave--her eyes were so sweetly serious when she was laying traps
+to catch the Rev. Edmund's sluggish wits. But Judith herself thought of
+no man whatever, and had learned to regard the sparkle of her
+unquenchable humor almost as a sin. However, having got a bad name for
+cleverness, neither the most sincere modesty nor the deepest courtesy
+availed her in keeping it quiet. Morford, in his simple soul, thought a
+clever woman could do anything; and suppose Judith should cast her eyes
+on--at this the Rev. Edmund would turn pale in the midst of his sermon
+when he caught Judith's gray eyes fixed soberly on him. Soberness--and
+particularly Judith's soberness--was deceitful.
+
+Barn Elms, the Temple place, was near to the Glebe and to Severn church.
+The house was rambling and shabby, and had been patched and pieced, with
+an utter disregard of architectural proportion that resulted in a
+curious and unexpected picturesqueness. A room was put on here, and a
+porch was clapped up there, just as the fancy of each successive Temple
+had dictated. It was partly of brick and partly of stone. Around it
+stood in tall ranks the solemn, black-leaved poplars, and great
+locust-trees grew so close to the house that on windy nights the sound
+of their giant arms beating the shingled roof awoke superstitious fears
+in the negroes, who declared it to be the "sperrits" of dead and gone
+Temples struggling to get in through the chimneys. There was a step up
+or a step down in every room in the house, and draughts enough in the
+unnecessary halls and passages to turn a windmill. There was, of
+course, that queer mixture of shabbiness and luxury about the old place
+and the mode of living that is characteristic of Virginia. Mrs. Temple
+had piles and piles of linen sheets laid away with the leaves of damask
+roses between them in the old cedar chests, but half the rooms and all
+the stairs and passages were uncarpeted. It required the services of an
+able-bodied negro to keep these floors polished--but polished they were,
+like a looking-glass. The instrument used in this process was called a
+"dry-rubbin' bresh" by the manipulators, and might well have been used
+in Palestine during the days of Herod the tetrarch, being merely a block
+of wood covered with a sheepskin, well matted with wax and turpentine.
+At unearthly hours, in cold winter mornings and gray summer dawns, the
+monotonous echo of this "bresh" going up and down the hall-floors was
+the earliest sound in the Barn Elms house. There was a full service of
+silver plate displayed upon a huge and rickety mahogany sideboard, but
+there was a lack of teaspoons. Mrs. Temple had every day a dinner fit
+for a king, but General Temple was invariably behindhand with his taxes.
+The general's first purchase after the war was a pair of splendid
+Kentucky horses to pull the old carriage bought when Mrs. Temple was a
+bride, and which was so moth-eaten and worm-eaten and rust-eaten that
+when it started out it was a wonder that it ever came back again. The
+kitchen was a hundred yards from the house in one direction, and the
+well, with its old-fashioned bucket and sweep, was a hundred yards off
+in another direction. The ice-house and stables were completely out of
+sight; while the negro houses, annually whitewashed a glaring white,
+were rather too near. But none of these things annoyed General and Mrs.
+Temple, who would have stared in gentle surprise at the hint that
+anything at Barn Elms could be improved.
+
+General Temple, six feet tall, as straight as an Indian, with a rich,
+commanding voice and a lofty stride, stood for the shadow of domestic
+authority; while Mrs. Temple, a gentle, affectionate, soft-spoken,
+devoted, and obstinate woman, who barely reached to the general's elbow,
+was the actual substance. From the day of their marriage he had never
+questioned her decision upon any subject whatever, although an elaborate
+fiction of marital authority was maintained between them and devoutly
+believed in by both. Mrs. Temple always consulted the general
+punctiliously--when she had made up her mind--and General Temple, after
+a ponderous pretense of thinking it over, would say in his fine,
+sonorous voice: "My dear Jane, the conviction of your extremely sound
+judgment, formed from my experience of you during thirty years of
+married life, inclines me to the opinion that your suggestion is
+admirable. You have my permission, my love"--a permission Mrs. Temple
+never failed to accept with wifely gratitude, and, like the general,
+really thought it amounted to something. This status is extremely common
+in Virginia, where, as a rule, the men have a magnificent but imaginary
+empire, and the women conduct the serious business of life.
+
+Brave, chivalrous, generous, loving God and revering woman, General
+Temple was as near a monster of perfection as could be imagined, except
+when he had the gout. Then he became transformed into a full-blown
+demon. From the most optimistic form of Episcopal faith, he lapsed into
+the darkest Calvinism as soon as he felt the first twinge of his malady,
+and by the time he was a prisoner in the "charmber," as the bedroom of
+the mistress of the family is called in Virginia, he believed that the
+whole world was created to be damned. Never had General Temple been
+known under the most violent provocation to use profane language; but
+under the baleful influence of gout and superheated religion combined,
+he always swore like a pirate. His womenkind, who quietly bullied him
+during the best part of the year, found him a person to be feared when
+he began to have doubts about freewill and election. To this an
+exception must be made in favor of Mrs. Temple and of Delilah, the
+household factotum, who was no more afraid of General Temple than Mrs.
+Temple was. She it was who was mainly responsible for these carnivals
+of gout by feeding the patient on fried oysters and plum-pudding when
+Dr. Wortley prescribed gruel and tapioca. Delilah was one of the
+unterrified, and used these spells to preach boldly at General Temple
+the doctrines of the "Foot-washin' Baptisses," a large and influential
+colored sect to which she belonged.
+
+"Ole marse," Delilah would begin, argumentatively, "if you wuz ter jine
+de Foot-washers--"
+
+"Jane! Jane!" General Temple would shout.--"Come here, my love. If you
+don't get rid of this infernal old fool, who wants absolutely to dragoon
+me out of my religion, I'll be damned if I--God forgive me for
+swearing--and you, my dear--"
+
+Sometimes these theological discussions had been known to end by
+Delilah's flying out of the room, with the general's boot-jack whizzing
+after her. At Mrs. Temple's appearance, though, the emeute would be
+instantly quelled. Delilah was also actively at war with Dr. Wortley, as
+the black mammies and the doctors invariably were, and during the visits
+of the doctor, who was a peppery little man, it was no infrequent thing
+to hear his shrill falsetto, the general's loud basso, and Delilah's
+emphatic treble all combined in an angry three-cornered discussion
+carried on at the top of their lungs.
+
+Like mistress, like maid. As Mrs. Temple ruled the general, Delilah
+ruled Simon Peter, her husband, who since the war was butler, coachman,
+gardener, and man-of-all-work at Barn Elms. Mrs. Temple, however, ruled
+with circumlocution as well as circumspection, and had not words
+sufficient to condemn women who attempt to govern their husbands. But
+Delilah had no such scruples, and frequently treated Simon Peter to
+remarks like these:
+
+"Menfolks is mighty consequenchical. Dey strut 'bout, an' dey cusses an'
+damns, an' de womenfolks do all de thinkin' an' de wukkin'. How long you
+think ole marse keep dis heah plantation if it warn't fur mistis?"
+
+"Look a heah, 'oman," Simon Peter would retaliate, when intolerably
+goaded, "Paul de 'postle say--"
+
+"What anybody keer fur Paul de 'postle? Womenfolks ain' got no use fur
+dat ole bachelor. Men is cornvenient fur ter tote water, an' I ain' seen
+nuttin' else much dey is good fur."
+
+Simon Peter's entire absence of style partly accounted for the low
+opinion of his abilities entertained by his better half. He was slouchy
+and sheep-faced, and, when he appeared upon great occasions in one of
+General Temple's cast-off coats, the tails dragged the ground, while
+the sleeves had to be turned back nearly to the elbow. Delilah, on the
+contrary, was as tall as a grenadier, and had an air of command second
+only to General Temple himself and much more genuine. She was addicted
+to loud, linsey-woolsey plaids, and on her head was an immaculately
+white "handkercher" knotted into a turban that would have done credit
+to the Osmanlis.
+
+The war had given General Temple the opportunity of his lifetime. He
+"tendered his sword to his State," as he expressed it, immediately
+organized Temple's Brigade, and thereafter won a reputation as the
+bravest and most incompetent commander of his day. His ideas of a
+brigade commander were admirably suited to the middle ages. He would
+have been great with Richard Coeur de Lion at the siege of Ascalon,
+but of modern warfare the general was as innocent as a babe. It was
+commonly reported that, the first time he led his brigade into action,
+he did not find it again for three days. His men called him Pop, and
+always cheered him vociferously, but pointedly declined to follow him
+wherever he should lead, which was invariably where he oughtn't to have
+been. He had innumerable horses shot under him, but, by a succession of
+miracles, escaped wounds or capture. It was a serious mortification to
+the general that he should have come out of the war with both arms and
+both legs; and it was marvelous, considering that he put himself in
+direct line of fire upon every possible occasion, and galloped furiously
+about, waving his sword whenever he was in a particularly ticklish
+place.
+
+Since the war General Temple had found congenial employment in studying
+the art of war as exemplified in books, and in writing a History of
+Temple's Brigade. As he knew less about it than any man in it, his
+undertaking was a considerable one, especially as he had to give a
+personal sketch, with pedigree and anecdotes, of every member of the
+brigade. He had started out to complete this great work in three
+volumes, but it looked as if ten would be nearer the mark. As regards
+the theory of war, General Temple soon became an expert, and knew by
+heart every campaign of importance from those of Hannibal, the one-eyed
+son of Hamilcar, down to Appomattox. A good deal of the money that would
+have paid his taxes went into the general's military library, which
+was a source of endless pride to him, and which caused the History of
+Temple's Brigade to be, in some sort, a history of all wars, ancient
+and modern.
+
+The pride and satisfaction this literary work of his gave the general's
+honest heart can not be described. He read passages of it aloud to Mrs.
+Temple and Judith and Jacqueline in the solemn evenings in the old
+country-house, his resonant voice echoing through the old-fashioned,
+low-pitched drawing-room. Mrs. Temple listened sedately and admiringly,
+and thanked Heaven for having given her this prodigy of valor and
+learning. Nor, after hearing the History of Temple's Brigade all the
+evening, was she wearied when, at two o'clock in the morning, General
+Temple would have a wakeful period, and striding up and down the
+bedroom floor, wrapped in a big blanket over his dressing-gown,
+declaimed and dissected all the campaigns of the war, from Big Bethel to
+Appomattox. Mrs. Temple, sitting up in bed, with the most placid air in
+the world, would listen, and thank and admire and love more than ever
+this hero, whom she had wrapped around her finger for the last thirty
+years. O blessed ignorance--O happy blindness of women! which gracious
+boon God has not withheld from any of the sex. But there was something
+else that made General Temple's long-winded war stories so deeply,
+tragically interesting to Mrs. Temple. There had been a son--the husband
+of the handsome daughter-in-law--Mrs. Temple could not yet speak his
+name without a sob in her voice. That was what she had given to the
+great fight. When the news of his death came, General Temple, who had
+never before dreamed of helping Mrs. Temple's stronger nature, had
+ridden night and day to be with her at that supreme moment, knowing that
+the blow would crush her if it did not kill her. She came out of the
+furnace alive but unforgetting. She would not herself forget Beverley,
+nor would she allow anybody else to forget him. She remembered his
+anniversaries, she cherished his belongings; she, this tender,
+excellent, self-sacrificing woman, sacrificed, as far as she could,
+herself and everybody else to the memory of the dead and gone Beverley.
+As fast as one crape band on the general's hat wore out, she herself,
+with trembling hands, sewed another one on. As for herself, she would
+have thought it sacrilege to have worn anything but the deepest black;
+and Judith, after four years of widowhood, wore, whether willingly or
+unwillingly, the severest widow's garb. Jacqueline alone had been
+suffered, out of consideration for her youth and the general's pleading,
+to put on colors. The girl, who was beautiful and simple, but quite
+different from other girls, in her heart cherished a hatred against this
+memory of the dead, that had made her youth so sad, so encompassed with
+death. Jacqueline loved life and feared death; and whenever her mother
+began to speak of Beverley, which she did a dozen times a day,
+Jacqueline's shoulders would twitch impatiently. She longed to say:
+"What is he to us? He is dead--and we live. Why can't he be allowed to
+rest in peace, like other dead people?" Jacqueline was far from
+heartless; she loved her sister-in-law twice as well as she had ever
+loved her handsome silent brother, whose death made no gap in her life,
+but had ruthlessly barred out all brightness from it. Jacqueline, in
+her soul, longed for luxury and comfort. All the discrepancies and
+deficiencies at Barn Elms were actually painful to her, although she had
+been used to them all her life. She wanted a new piano instead of the
+wheezy old machine in the drawing-room. She wanted a thousand things,
+and, to make her dissatisfaction with Barn Elms more complete, not a
+quarter of a mile away, across a short stretch of feathery pine-trees,
+on a knoll, stood a really great house, Millenbeck by name. To
+Jacqueline's inexperienced eyes, the large square brick house, with its
+stone balustrade around the roof, its broad porch, with marble steps
+that shone whitely through the trees around it, was quite palatial. And
+nobody at all lived there. It was the family place of the Throckmortons.
+The last Throckmorton in the county was dead and gone; but there was
+another--grandson to the last--a certain Major George Throckmorton, who,
+although Virginian born and bred, had remained in the regular army all
+through the war, and was still in it. This George Throckmorton had spent
+his boyhood at Millenbeck with his grandfather, who was evil tempered
+and morose, and thoroughly wicked in every way. The old man had gone to
+his account during the war, and since then his creditors had been
+fighting over his assets, which consisted of Millenbeck alone. Major
+Throckmorton had money, and it had been whispered about that, whenever
+Millenbeck was sold, this army Throckmorton would buy it. But it was
+freely predicted that he would never dare show his face in his native
+county after his turpitude during the war in fighting against his State,
+and he was commonly alluded to as a traitor. Nevertheless, at Severn
+church, one Sunday, it was said that this Throckmorton had bought
+Millenbeck, and would shortly make his appearance there.
+
+General and Mrs. Temple, as they sat on opposite sides of the fireplace
+at Barn Elms, discussing the matter with the profound gravity that the
+advent of a new neighbor in the country requires, to say nothing of the
+sensation of having a traitor at one's doors, came nearer disagreeing
+than usual. The night was cool, although it was early in September, and
+a little fire sparkled cheerfully upon the brass andirons on the hearth
+in the low-pitched, comfortable, shabby drawing-room. Mrs. Temple,
+clicking her knitting-needles placidly, with her soft eyes fixed on the
+fire, went over the enormity of those to whom Beverley's death was due.
+To her, the gentlest and at the same time the sternest of women, the war
+took on a personal aspect that would have been ludicrous had it not been
+pathetic. Ah! what was that boy that Beverley had left, what was Judith
+the young widow, or even Jacqueline, to that lost son? Nothing, nothing!
+Mrs. Temple, still gazing at the fire, saw in her mind, as she saw every
+hour of the day and many of the night, the dead man lying stark and
+cold; and, as if in answer to her thoughts, General Temple spoke, laying
+down his volume of Jomini:
+
+"My love, what will you do--ahem! what would you recommend me to do
+regarding George Throckmorton when he arrives? Speak frankly, my dear,
+and do not be timid about giving me your opinion."
+
+A curious kind of resentment shone in Mrs. Temple's face.
+
+"It is not for a woman to guide her husband; but _we_ at least can not
+forget what the war has cost us."
+
+General Temple sighed. He had heard that Throckmorton had got a year's
+leave and would probably spend it at Millenbeck. How fascinating did the
+prospect appear of a real military man with whom he could discuss plans
+of campaign, and flank movements, and reconnaissances, and all the
+_technique_ of war in which his soul delighted! For, although Dr.
+Wortley had become a great military critic, as everybody was in those
+days, he had never smelt powder, and was a very inferior antagonist for
+a brigadier-general, who had been in sixteen pitched battles without
+understanding the first thing about any of them.
+
+Jacqueline, who sat in her own little chair, with her feet on a
+footstool, and her elbows on her knees, began in an injured voice:
+
+"And the house is going to be perfectly grand. Mrs. Sherrard told me
+about it to-day. A whole parcel of people"--Jacqueline was a provincial,
+although an amazingly pretty one--"a whole parcel of people came by the
+boat--workmen and servants, and most splendid furniture, carpets, and
+pictures, and cabinets, and all sorts of elegant things--just for those
+two men--for there is a young man, too--Jack is his name."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Temple, meditatively, as she still clicked her
+knitting-needles together with a pleasant musical sound, "the boy must
+be about twenty-two. George Throckmorton I well remember was married at
+twenty-one to a pretty slip of a girl, so I've heard, who lived a very
+little while. He can't be more than forty-four now. He is the last man I
+ever supposed would ever turn traitor. He was the finest lad--I remember
+him so well when he was a handsome black-eyed boy; and when we were
+first married--don't you recollect, my dear?"
+
+General Temple rose gallantly, and, taking Mrs. Temple's hand in his,
+kissed it.
+
+"Can you ask me, my love, if I remember anything connected with that
+most interesting period of my life?" he asked.
+
+Neither the handsome Judith nor little Jacqueline were at all
+discomposed by this elderly love-making, to which they were perfectly
+accustomed. A slight blush came into Mrs. Temple's refined, middle-aged
+face. It was worth while to coddle a man, and take all the labor of
+thinking and acting off his shoulders, for the sake of this delightful
+sentiment. Like his courage, General Temple's sentiment was high-flown
+but genuine.
+
+"I was about to say," resumed Mrs. Temple, when the general had
+returned to his chair, "that when I came to Barn Elms a bride, George
+Throckmorton was much here. You did not notice him, my love, as I
+did--but I felt sorry for the boy; old George Throckmorton certainly was
+a most godless person. The boy's life would have been quite wretched, I
+think, in spite of his grandfather's liberality to him, but for the few
+people in the neighborhood like Kitty Sherrard and myself, who tried to
+comfort him. He would come over in the morning and stay all day,
+following me about the house and garden, trying to amuse Beverley, who
+was a mere baby."
+
+Mrs. Temple never spoke the name of her dead son without a strange
+little pause before it.
+
+"And, my dear," answered the general, making another feeble effort, "can
+you not now embrace the scriptural injunction?"
+
+"The Scripture says," responded sternly this otherwise gentle and
+Christian soul, "that there is a time to love and a time to hate."
+
+All this time, Judith, the young widow, had not said a word. She was
+slight and girlish-looking. Her straight dark brows were drawn with a
+single line, and in her eyes were gleams of mirth, of intelligence, of a
+love of life and its pleasures, that habitual restraint could not wholly
+subdue. When she rose, or when she sat down, or when she walked about,
+or when she arched her white neck, there was a singular grace, of which
+she was totally unconscious. Something about her suggested both love and
+modesty. But Fate, that had used her as if she were a creature without a
+soul, had married her to Beverley Temple--and within two months she was
+a widow. The shock, the horror of it, the willingness to idealize the
+dead man, had made her quietly assume the part of one who is done with
+this world. And Nature struggles vainly with Fate. Judith, in her black
+gown, and a widow's cap over her chestnut hair, with her pretty air of
+wisdom and experience, fancied she had sounded the whole gamut of human
+love, grief, loss, and joy. Neither Millenbeck, nor anything but
+Beverley's child and his father and mother and sister, mattered anything
+to her, she thought.
+
+Jacqueline, however, looked rebellious, but said nothing. Like her
+father, she was under the rule of this soft-voiced mother. But it
+was certainly very hard, thought Jacqueline, bitterly, that with
+Millenbeck beautifully fitted up, with a delightful young man like Jack
+Throckmorton--for Jacqueline had already endowed him with all the graces
+and virtues--and a not old man, a soldier too, should be right at their
+doors, and she never to have a glimpse of Millenbeck, nor a chance for
+walks and drives with them. Jacqueline sighed profoundly, and looked
+despairingly at Judith, who was the stay, the prop, the comforter of
+this undisciplined young creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+Within a few days Throckmorton and Jack Throckmorton--the traitor and
+the traitor's son--had arrived at Millenbeck.
+
+Jacqueline could talk of nothing but the dawning splendors of the place.
+Delilah, who had an appetite for the marvelous scarcely inferior to
+Jacqueline's, kept her on the rack with curiosity.
+
+"Dey done put Bruskins carpets all over de house," she retailed solemnly
+into Jacqueline's greedy ears, "an' velvet sofys an' cheers, an' de
+lookin'-glasses from de garret ter de cellar. An' dey got a white man
+name' Sweeney--mighty po' white trash, Simon Peter say--dat is a white
+nigger, an' he talk mighty cu'rus. Simon Peter he meet him in de road,
+an' dis heah Mis' Sweeney he ax him ef dey was any Orrish gentmans 'bout
+here. Simon Peter he say he never heerd o' no sich things ez Orrish
+gentmans, an' Mis' Sweeney he lif' up he stick, an' Simon Peter he took
+ter he heels an' Mis' Sweeney arter him, an' Simon Peter 'low ef he
+hadn't run down in de swamp, Mis' Sweeney would er kilt him, sho'! An'
+he doan' min' blackin' de boots at Millenbeck an' milk de cows, an' den
+he dress up fine an' wait on de table--an' he a white man, too! He done
+tell some folks he wuz a soldier an' fit, an' he gwine ev'ywhar Marse
+George Throckmorton go, ef it twuz hell itself. Things is monst'ous fine
+at Millenbeck--_dat_ dey is--an' all fur dem two menfolks. Seem like God
+A'mighty done give all de good times ter de menfolks an' all de hard
+times ter de womenfolks."
+
+"Is that so, mammy?" asked Jacqueline, dolefully, who was simple of
+soul, and disposed to believe everything Delilah told her.
+
+"Dat 'tis, chile, ez sho'--ez sho' ez God's truf. De menfolks jes' lives
+fur ter be frustratin' an' owdacious ter de po' womenfolks, what byar de
+burdens. I tell Simon Peter so ev'y day; but dat nigger he doan' worrit
+much 'bout what de po' womenfolks has got ter orndure. Men is mighty
+po', vain, weak creetures--_I_ tell Simon Peter dat too ev'y day."
+
+"Dat you does," piously responded Simon Peter.
+
+The windows to Judith's room possessed a strange fascination in those
+days for Jacqueline, because they looked straight out to Millenbeck.
+There she stood for hours, dreaming, speculating, thinking out aloud.
+
+"Just think, Judith; there is a great big hall there that mamma says has
+a splendid dancing-floor!"
+
+"Jacky, stop thinking about Millenbeck and the dancing-floor. It doesn't
+concern you, and you know that mother will never let you speak to
+either of the Throckmortons," answered Judith.
+
+"Yes, I know it," said Jacqueline, disconsolately. "The more's the pity.
+Papa is dying to be friends with them when they come; but, of course,
+mamma won't let him."
+
+Jacqueline's voice was usually high-pitched, rapid, and musical, but
+whenever she meant to be saucy she brought it down to great meekness
+and modesty.
+
+"Major Throckmorton, you know, is a widower. I don't believe in grieving
+forever, like mamma. Suppose, now, Judith, _you_ should--"
+
+But Judith, whose indulgence to Jacqueline rarely failed, now rose up
+with a pale face.
+
+"Jacqueline, you forget yourself."
+
+Usually one rebuke of the sort was enough for Jacqueline, but this time
+it was not. She came and clasped Judith around the waist, and held her
+tight, looking into her eyes with a sort of timid boldness.
+
+"Just let me say one thing. Mamma is sacrificing all of us--you and me
+and papa--to--to Beverley--"
+
+"Hush, Jacqueline!"
+
+"No, I won't hush. Judith, how long was it from the time you first met
+Beverley until you married him?"
+
+"Two months."
+
+"And how much of that time were you together?"
+
+"Two--weeks," answered Judith, falteringly.
+
+"And then you married him, and you had hardly any honeymoon, didn't
+you?"
+
+"A very short one."
+
+"And Beverley went away, and never came back."
+
+There was a short silence. Jacqueline was nerving herself to say what
+had been burning upon her lips for long.
+
+"Then--then, Judith, he was so little _in_ your life--he was so little
+_of_ your life."
+
+"But, Jacqueline, when one loves, it makes no difference whether it is a
+month or a year."
+
+"Yes, when one loves; but, Judith, did you love Beverley _that_ way?"
+
+Judith stood quite still and pale. The thought was then put in words
+that had haunted her. She no longer thought of answering Jacqueline, but
+of answering herself. Was it, indeed, because she was so young, so
+entirely alone in the world, and, in truth, had known so little of the
+man she married, that it became difficult for her to recall even his
+features; that she felt something like a pang of conscience when Mrs.
+Temple spoke his name; that this perpetual kindness to his father and
+his mother seemed a sort of reparation? Jacqueline, seeing the change
+in Judith's face, went softly out of the room. Judith stood where
+Jacqueline had left her. Presently the door opened, and little Beverley
+came in, and made a dash for his mother. Judith seized him in her arms,
+and knelt down before him, and for the thousandth time tried to find
+a trace of his father in his face. But there was none. His eyes, his
+mouth, his expression, were all hers. Even the little bronze rings of
+hair that escaped from under her widow's cap were faithfully reproduced
+on the child's baby forehead. This strong resemblance to his mother was
+a thorn in Mrs. Temple's side. She would have had the boy his father's
+image. She would have had him grave and given to serious, thoughtful
+games, and to hanging about older people, such as her Beverley had been;
+but this merry youngster was always laughing when he was not crying, and
+was noisy and troublesome, as most healthy young animals are. Yet she
+adored him.
+
+The boy soon got tired of his mother's arms around him, and
+uncomfortable under her tender, searching gaze.
+
+"I want to go to my mammy," he lisped.
+
+Judith rose and led him by the hand down-stairs to Delilah. The child
+ran to his mammy with a shout of delight. His mother sometimes awed his
+baby soul with her gravity, when he had been naughty. Often he could not
+get what he wanted by crying for it, and got smart slaps upon his plump
+little palms when he cried. But with Delilah there was none of this.
+Delilah represented a beneficent Providence to him, which permitted
+naughtiness, and had no limit to jam and buttermilk.
+
+The Throckmortons had at last come, but had kept very close to
+Millenbeck for a week or two after their arrival in the county; but on
+one still, sunny September Sunday at Severn church, just as the Rev.
+Edmund Morford appeared out of the little robing-room, after having
+surveyed himself carefully in the mite of a looking-glass, and satisfied
+himself that his adornment was in keeping with his beauty, two gentlemen
+came in quietly at a side door, and took their seats in the first vacant
+pew. They looked more like an elder and a younger brother than father
+and son. Both had the same square-shouldered, well-knit figures, not
+over middle height--the same contour of face, the same dark eyes. But it
+was a type which was at its best in maturity. Major Throckmorton was
+much the handsomer man of the two, although, as Judith Temple said some
+time after, when called upon to describe him, that handsome scarcely
+applied to him--he was rather distinguished than actually handsome--and
+she blushed unnecessarily as she said it. His hair and mustache were
+quite iron-gray, and he had the unmistakable look and carriage of a
+military man. The pew they took near the door was against the wall of
+the church, and in effect facing the Temple pew, where sat all the
+family from Barn Elms, including little Beverley, who looked a picture
+of childish misery, compelled to be preternaturally good, until sleep
+overcame him, and his yellow mop of hair fell over against his mother.
+Young Throckmorton, whose eyes were full of a sort of gay curiosity, let
+his gaze wander furtively over the congregation, and in two minutes knew
+every pretty face in the church. The two prettiest were unquestionably
+in the Temple pew. Without boldness or obtrusiveness, he managed to keep
+every glance and every motion in that pew in sight; and Jacqueline, by
+something like psychic force, knew it, and conveyed to him the idea that
+no glance of his escaped her. Nevertheless, she was very devout, and the
+only look she gave him was over the top of her prayer-book. Judith,
+with her large, clear gaze fixed on the clergyman, was in her way as
+conscious as Jacqueline. But Throckmorton saw nothing and nobody for a
+time, except that he was back again in Severn church after thirty years.
+How well he remembered it all!--the little dark gallery to the right of
+the pulpit, where in the old times Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard had
+sat, and sung the old, old hymns, their sweet, untrained voices rising
+into the dark, cobwebbed, resonant roof--voices as natural as that of
+the sweet, shy singing birds that twittered under the eaves of the old
+church, and built their nests safely and peacefully in the solemn yews
+and weeping-willows of the burying-ground close by. The September
+sunlight, as it sifted through the windows on the heads of the kneeling
+people--even the droning of the honey-bees outside, and the occasional
+incursion of a buzzing marauder through the windows--made him feel as if
+he were in a dream. It was not the recollection of a happy boyhood that
+had brought him back to Millenbeck. He remembered his grandfather as an
+old curmudgeon, the terror of his negroes and dependents, wasteful, a
+high liver, and a hard drinker; and himself a lonely boy, with neither
+mother nor sister, nor any sort of kindness to brighten his boyish soul,
+except those good women, Mrs. Temple and Mrs. Sherrard. Deep down in his
+being was that Anglo-Saxon love of the soil--the desire to return whence
+he came. He knew much of the world, and doubted if the experiment of
+returning to Millenbeck would succeed, but he at least determined to try
+it. He had no very serious notion of abandoning his profession, which he
+loved, while he grumbled at it, but he had had this project of a year's
+leave, to be spent at Millenbeck, in his mind for a long, long time, and
+he wanted Jack to own the place. Himself the most unassuming of men, he
+cherished, unknown to those who knew him best, a strong desire that his
+name should be kept up in Virginia where it had been known so long.
+With scarcely a word on the subject spoken between father and son, Jack
+had the same drift of sentiment. Both had inherited from dead and gone
+generations a clinging to old things, old forms, that made itself felt
+in the strenuous modern life, and even a sturdy family pride that native
+good sense concealed.
+
+The Rev. Edmund Morford, along with his unfortunate excess of good
+looks, inherited a rich, strong voice, in which he rolled out the
+liturgy with great elocutionary effect. He saw the two strangers in the
+congregation, and at once divined who they were, and determined to give
+them a sermon that would show them what stuff parsons were made of in
+Virginia. He was much struck by the scrupulousness with which Major
+Throckmorton went through the service, which the Rev. Edmund attributed
+partly to his own telling way of rendering it. But in truth,
+Throckmorton neither saw nor heard the Rev. Edmund. He went through the
+forms with a certain military precision that very often passed for
+strict attention, as in this case, but he was still under the spell of
+the bygone time. Mr. Morford gave out a hymn, and the congregation rose,
+Throckmorton standing up straight like a soldier at attention. After a
+little pause, a voice rose. It was so sweet, so pure, that Throckmorton
+involuntarily turned toward the singer. It was Judith Temple, her clear
+profile well marked against her black veil, which also brought out
+the deep tints of her eyes and hair, and the warm paleness of her
+complexion. She sang quite composedly and unaffectedly, a few women's
+voices, Mrs. Temple's among the rest, joining in timidly, but her full
+soprano carried the simple air. Her head was slightly thrown back as she
+sang, and apparently she knew the words of the hymn by heart, as she did
+not once refer to the book held open before her.
+
+There is something peculiarly touching in female voices unaccompanied.
+Throckmorton thought so as he came out of his waking dream and glanced
+about him. In an instant he took in the pathetic story of war and ruin
+and loss that was written all over the assembled people. Many of the
+women were in mourning, and the men had a jaded, haggard, hopeless look.
+They had all been through with four years of harrowing, and they showed
+it. In the Temple pew Mrs. Temple and Judith were in the deepest
+mourning, and General Temple wore around his hat the black band that
+Mrs. Temple would never let him take off.
+
+Throckmorton's eye rested for a moment in approval on Judith, and then
+on Jacqueline, but he looked at Jacqueline the longest.
+
+Then, after the hymn, Mr. Morford began his sermon. It was electrifying
+in a great many unexpected ways. Throckmorton, who knew something about
+most things, saw through Morford's shallow Hebraism, and inwardly
+scoffed at the cheerful insufficiency with which the most abstruse
+biblical problems were attacked. Morford's candor, confidence, and
+perfect good faith tickled Throckmorton; he felt like smiling once or
+twice, but, on looking around, he saw that everybody, except those who
+were asleep, took Morford at his own valuation; except the young woman
+with the widow's veil about her clear-cut face, whose eyes, fixed
+attentively on Mr. Morford, had something quizzical in their expression.
+Throckmorton at once divined a sense of humor in that grave young widow
+that was conspicuously lacking in Jacqueline, who listened, bored but
+awed, to the preacher's sounding periods.
+
+The sermon was long and loud, and there was another hymn, sung in the
+simple and touching way that went to Throckmorton's heart, and then a
+dramatic benediction, after the Rev. Edmund had announced that the next
+Sunday, "in the morning, the Lord will be with us, and in the evening
+the bishop. I need not urge you, beloved brethren, to be prepared for
+the bishop."
+
+Then the congregation streamed out for their weekly gossip in the
+churchyard. Throckmorton and Jack went out, too. No one spoke to them,
+nor did they speak to any one. As a matter of fact, there were not half
+a dozen people there that Throckmorton would have recognized; but he
+was perfectly well known to everybody in the church, who, but for the
+uniform he had worn, would have greeted him cordially and generously,
+recalling themselves to him. But now they all held coldly and
+determinedly aloof. Throckmorton, who was slow to imagine offense, did
+not all at once take it in. But he would not lose a moment in speaking
+to Mrs. Temple, one of the few persons he recognized, and the one most
+endeared to him in his early recollections. The Temples, possibly to
+avoid him, had made straight for the iron gate of the churchyard, and
+stood outside the wall, waiting for the tumble-down carriage.
+Throckmorton quickened his pace, and went up to Mrs. Temple, carrying
+his hat in his hand.
+
+"Mrs. Temple, have you forgotten George Throckmorton?" he asked in his
+pleasant voice.
+
+Mrs. Temple turned to him with a somber look on her gentle face.
+
+"No, I have not forgotten you, George Throckmorton. But you and I are
+widely apart. Between us is a great gulf, and war and sorrow."
+
+A deep flush dyed Throckmorton's dark face. He was not prepared for
+this, but he could not all at once give up this friendship, the memory
+of which had lasted through all the years since his boyhood.
+
+"The war is over," he said; "we can't be forever at war."
+
+"It is enough for _you_ to say," she replied. "You have your son. Where
+is mine?"
+
+"As well call me to account for the death of Abel. Dear Mrs. Temple,
+haven't you any recollection of the time when you were almost the only
+friend I had? I have few enough left, God knows."
+
+Here General Temple came to the front. In his heart he was anxious to
+be friends with Throckmorton, and did not despair of obtaining Mrs.
+Temple's permission eventually. He held out his hand solemnly to
+Throckmorton.
+
+"_I_ can shake hands with you, George Throckmorton," he said, and
+then, turning to Mrs. Temple, "for the sake of what is past, my love,
+let us be friends with George Throckmorton."
+
+Throckmorton, who in his life had met with few rebuffs, was cruelly
+wounded. In all those years he had cherished an ideal of womanly and
+motherly tenderness in Mrs. Temple, and she was the one person in his
+native county on whose friendship he counted. He looked down, indignant
+and abashed, and in the next moment looked up boldly and encountered
+Judith's soft, expressive eyes fixed on him so sympathetically that he
+involuntarily held out his hand, saying:
+
+"You, at least, will shake hands with me."
+
+Judith, who strove hard to bring her high spirit down to Mrs. Temple's
+yoke, did not always succeed. She held out her hand impulsively. The
+spectacle of this manly man, rebuffed with Mrs. Temple's strange power,
+touched her.
+
+"And this," continued Throckmorton, out of whose face the dull red had
+not yet vanished, turning to Jacqueline, "must be a little one that I
+have not before seen.--Mrs. Temple, I can't force you to accept my
+friendship, but I want to assure you that nothing--nothing can ever make
+me forget your early kindness to me."
+
+Mrs. Temple opened her lips once or twice before words came. Then she
+spoke.
+
+"George Throckmorton, you think perhaps that, being a soldier, you know
+what war is. You do not. I, who sat at home and prayed and wept for four
+long years, for my husband and my son, and to whom only one came back,
+when I had sent forth two--_I_ know what it is. But God has willed it
+all. We must forgive. Here is my hand--and show me your son."
+
+Throckmorton, whose knowledge of Mrs. Temple was intimate, despite that
+long stretch of years, knew what even this small compromise had cost
+her. He motioned to Jack, who was surveying the scene, surprised and
+rather angry, from a little distance. The young fellow came up, and Mrs.
+Temple looked at him very hard, a film gathering in her eyes.
+
+"I am glad you have such a son. Such was our son."
+
+The carriage was now drawn up, and General Temple looked agonizingly at
+Mrs. Temple. He wanted her to invite Throckmorton to Barn Elms, but
+Mrs. Temple said not one word. Throckmorton, in perfect silence, helped
+the ladies into the carriage. He did not know whether to be gratified
+that Mrs. Temple had conceded so much, or mortified that she had
+conceded so little.
+
+Jacqueline in the carriage gave him a friendly little nod. Judith leaned
+forward and bowed distinctly and politely. General Temple, holding his
+hat stiffly against his breast, remarked in his most grandiose manner:
+"As two men who have fought on opposing sides--as two generous enemies,
+my dear Throckmorton--I offer you my hand. I did my best against you in
+my humble way"--General Temple never did anything in a humble way in his
+life, and devoutly believed that the exploits of Temple's Brigade had
+materially influenced the result--"but, following the example of our
+immortal chieftain, Robert Lee, I say again, here is my hand."
+
+A twinkle came into Throckmorton's eye. This was the same Beverley
+Temple of twenty-five years ago, only a little more magniloquent than
+ever and a little more under Mrs. Temple's thumb. Throckmorton,
+repressing a smile, shook hands cordially.
+
+"Neither of us has any apologies to make, general," he said. "I think
+that ugly business is over for good. I feel more friendly toward my own
+unfortunate people now than ever before. Good-by."
+
+The general then made a stately ascent into the carriage, banged the
+door, and rattled off.
+
+Short as the scene had been, it made a deep impression upon Judith
+Temple. Throckmorton's dignity--the tender sentiment that he had
+cherished for his early friends--struck her forcibly. The very tones of
+his voice, his soldierly carriage, his dark, indomitable eye, were so
+impressed upon her imagination that, had she never seen him again, she
+would never have forgotten him. It was an instant and powerful
+attraction that had made her hold out her hand and smile at him.
+
+Throckmorton, without trying the experiment of hunting up any more old
+friends, turned to walk home. It was a good four-mile stretch, and
+usually he stepped out at a smart gait that put Jack to his trumps to
+keep up with. But to-day he sauntered along so slowly, through the woods
+and fields with his hat over his eyes and his hands behind him, that
+Jack lost patience and struck off ahead, leaving Throckmorton alone,
+much to his relief.
+
+Throckmorton wanted to think it all over. In his heart there was not
+one grain of resentment toward Mrs. Temple. He thought he understood
+the workings of her strong but simple nature perfectly well, and he
+did not doubt the ultimate goodness of her heart. And General
+Temple--Throckmorton had heard something of the general's magnificent
+incapacity during the war--the bare idea of General Temple as a
+commander made him laugh. How sweet were Mrs. Beverley's eyes, and how
+demure she looked when she dropped them at some particularly solemn
+absurdity of the clergyman, as if she were afraid somebody would see
+the tell-tale gleam in them! The little girl, though, was the most
+fascinating creature he had seen for long. How strangely and how
+pitifully altered was the congregation of Severn church from the merry
+prosperous country gentry he remembered so long ago! And how quiet, how
+still was life there! All his usual every-day life was shut out from
+him. Within the circle of that perfect repose nothing disquieting could
+come. He stopped in the country lane and listened. Nothing broke the
+solemn calm except the droning of the locusts in the September noon.
+Warm as it was, there was a hint of autumn in the atmosphere.
+Occasionally the clarion cry of a hawk circling in the blue air pierced
+the silence.
+
+"This, then, is peace," said Throckmorton to himself, and thought of the
+year of idleness and repose before him. "Nothing ever happens here," he
+continued, thinking. "Even the tragedy of the war was at a distance. As
+Mrs. Temple says, the men went forth, and those that came back will go
+forth no more."
+
+Then he began to think over the way in which the people had completely
+ignored him in the churchyard, where they stopped and gossiped with each
+other, eying him askance. He knew perfectly well the estimate they put
+upon him. He could have supplied the very word--"traitor." This made him
+feel a sort of bitterness, which he consoled with the reflection--
+
+"Most men of principle have to suffer for those principles at some time
+or other."
+
+By this time he was at his own grounds, and Sweeney's honest Irish face,
+glowing with indignation, was watching out for him.
+
+"Be the powers," snorted Sweeney to the black cook, "the murtherin'
+rebels took no more notice of the major than if he'd been an ould
+hat--an' he's a rale gintleman, fit ter dine with the Prisident, as he
+often has, an' all the g'yurls has been tryin' to hook him fur twinty
+years, bless their hearts, an' the major as hard as a stone to the dear
+things, every wan of 'em!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+Within a week or two after, one afternoon Mrs. Kitty Sherrard made her
+appearance at Barn Elms, with a great project in hand. She meant to give
+a party.
+
+Party-giving was Mrs. Sherrard's idiosyncrasy. According to the usual
+system in Virginia, during the lifetime of the late Mr. Sherrard, there
+was much frolicking, dancing, and hilarity at Turkey Thicket, the
+Sherrard place, and a corresponding narrowness of income and general
+behindhandedness. But since Mr. Sherrard's death Mrs. Sherrard, along
+with the unvarying and sublime confidence in her husband, dead or alive,
+that characterizes Virginia women, had yet entirely abandoned Mr.
+Sherrard's methods. The mortgage on Turkey Thicket had been paid off,
+the whole place farmed on common-sense principles, and the debts
+declared inevitable by Mr. Sherrard carefully avoided. As a matter of
+fact, the only people in the county who paid their taxes promptly were
+the widows, who nevertheless continually lamented that they were
+deprived of the great industry, foresight, and business capacity of
+their defunct lords and masters. Mrs. Sherrard gave as many parties in
+Mr. Sherrard's lifetime as she did after his death; but, since that
+melancholy event, the parties were paid for, not charged on account.
+
+When this startling information about the coming festivity was imparted,
+Jacqueline, who was sitting in her own low chair by the fire, gave a
+little jump.
+
+"And," said Mrs. Sherrard, who was a courageous person, "I'll tell you
+what I am giving it for. It is to get the county people to meet George
+Throckmorton. Not a human being in the county has called on him, except
+Edmund Morford, and I fairly drove him to it. He began some of his
+long-winded explanations. 'Aunt Kitty,' he said, 'what am I, even though
+I be a minister of the gospel, that I should set myself up against the
+spirit of the community, which is against recognizing Throckmorton?'
+'What are you, indeed, my dear boy,' I answered. 'I'm not urging you to
+go, because it's a matter of the slightest consequence what you do or
+what you don't, but merely for your own sake, because it is illiberal
+and unchristian of you not to go.' Now, Edmund is a good soul, for all
+his nonsense."
+
+Mrs. Temple was horrified at this way of speaking of the young rector.
+
+"And I've intimated to him that I'm about to make my will--I haven't the
+slightest notion of doing it for the next twenty years--but the mere
+hint always brings Edmund to terms, and so he went over to Millenbeck to
+call. He came back perfectly delighted. The house is charming,
+Throckmorton is a prince of hospitality, and I don't suppose poor Edmund
+ever was treated with so much consideration by a man of sense in his
+life before." Mrs. Temple groaned, but Mrs. Sherrard kept on, cutting
+her eye at Judith, who was the only person at Barn Elms that knew a joke
+when she saw it. Judith bent over her work, laughing. "I met
+Throckmorton in the road next day. 'So you dragooned the parson into
+calling on the Philistine,' he said. Of course I tried to deny it, after
+a fashion; but Throckmorton won't be humbugged--can't be, in fact--and I
+had to own up. 'You can't say Edmund's not a gentleman,' said I, 'and he
+is the most good-natured poor soul; and if he had broken his nose, or
+got cross-eyed in early youth, he really would have cut quite a
+respectable figure in the world.' 'That's true,' answered George,
+laughing, and looking so like he did long years ago, 'but you'll admit,
+Mrs. Sherrard, that he is too infernally handsome for his own good.'
+'Decidedly,' said I."
+
+"Katharine Sherrard," solemnly began Mrs. Temple, who habitually called
+Mrs. Sherrard Kitty, except at weddings and funerals, and upon occasions
+like the present, when her feelings were wrought up, "the way you talk
+about Edmund Morford is a grief and a sorrow to me. He is a clergyman of
+our church, and it is not becoming for women to deride the men of their
+own blood. Men must rule, Katharine Sherrard. It is so ordered by the
+divine law."
+
+"Jane Temple," answered Mrs. Sherrard, "you may add by the human law,
+too; but some women--"
+
+"Set both at naught," answered Mrs. Temple, piously and sweetly.
+
+"They do, indeed," fervently responded Mrs. Sherrard, having in view
+General Temple's complete subjugation. "But now about the party. The
+general must come, of course. I wish I could persuade you."
+
+"I have not been to a party since before the war, and now I shall never
+go to another one."
+
+"But Judith and Jacqueline will come."
+
+At this a deep flush rose in Judith's face.
+
+"I don't go to parties, Mrs. Sherrard."
+
+"I know; but you must come to this one."
+
+Mrs. Temple set her lips and said nothing, but Jacqueline, who sometimes
+asserted herself at unlooked-for times, spoke up:
+
+"If Judith doesn't go, I--I--sha'n't go."
+
+"You hear that?" asked Mrs. Sherrard, delighted at Jacqueline's spirit.
+"Stick to it, child; there is no reason why Judith shouldn't come."
+
+Here General Temple entered and greeted Mrs. Sherrard elaborately. Mrs.
+Sherrard immediately set to work on the general. She knew perfectly well
+that he could do no more in the case than Simon Peter could, but she
+poured her fire into him, thinking a stray shot might hit Mrs. Temple.
+Judith remained quite silent. She was too sincere of soul to say she did
+not want to go; and yet going to parties was quite out of that life of
+true widowhood she had laid down for herself; and life was intolerably
+dull. She loved gayety and brightness, and her whole life was clothed
+with somberness. She was full of ideas, and loved books, and nobody in
+the house ever read a line except General Temple, and his reading was
+confined to the science of war, for which he would certainly never have
+any use. She was full of quick turns of repartee, that, when she
+indulged them, almost frightened Mrs. Temple, who had the average
+woman's incapacity for humor. Mrs. Sherrard and herself were great
+friends--and friends were not too plentiful with Mrs. Sherrard, whose
+tongue was a two-edged sword. Nevertheless, Mrs. Temple and Mrs.
+Sherrard had been intimate all their lives, and Mrs. Sherrard was one of
+the few persons who ever took liberties with Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Sherrard
+was clear-sighted, and she knew what nobody else did--how starved and
+blighted was Judith's life by that stern repression to which she had set
+herself; and she had known Beverley Temple, too, and sometimes said to
+herself: "Perhaps it is better for Judith as it is, for Beverley, brave
+and handsome as he was, yet was a dreadfully ordinary fellow. Luckily,
+she was hustled into marrying him so quickly, and she was so young, she
+didn't find it out; but if he had lived--"
+
+Mrs. Sherrard departed, impressing upon General Temple that she should
+certainly expect to see him at the party, with Judith and Jacqueline.
+Simon Peter in the kitchen reported the state of affairs to Delilah, who
+remarked:
+
+"Miss Kitty She'ard, she know Miss Judy cyan go twell ole mistis say so.
+Ole marse, he got a heap o' flourishes an' he talk mighty big, but
+mistis she doan' flourish none; she jes' go 'long quiet like, an' has
+her way."
+
+"Dat's so," answered Simon Peter, rubbing his woolly head with an air of
+conviction. "Mistis su't'ny is de wheel-hoss in dis heah team."
+
+"An' ain' de womenfolks allus de wheel-hosses? Ole marse he set up an'
+he talk 'bout de weather an' de craps, an' he specks de 'lection gwine
+discomfuse things, an' he read de paper an' he know more 'n de paper do,
+an' he read de Bible an' he know more 'n de Bible do, an' all de time he
+ain' got de sperrit uv a chicken."
+
+"De womenfolks kin mos' in gen'ally git dey way," cautiously answered
+Simon Peter.
+
+"Yes, dey kin; an' dey is gwine ter, 'long as menfolks is so triflin'
+an' owdacious as dey is."
+
+Jacqueline developed a strange obstinacy about the party. She declared
+she was dying to go, but she never wavered from her determination not to
+go without Judith.
+
+"But your sister does not wish to go, Jacqueline," her mother said to
+this.
+
+"But I want her to go, mamma. You can't imagine how I _long_ to go to
+this party. It is so very, very dull at Barn Elms--and I have my new
+white frock."
+
+"Judith has no frock."
+
+"Oh, yes she has. She has that long black dress, in which she looks so
+nice, and she is so clever at sewing she could cut it open at the neck
+and turn up the sleeves at the elbow."
+
+Mrs. Temple said nothing more. Jacqueline went about, eager-eyed, but
+silent, and possessed of but one idea--the party. A day or two after
+this she said bitterly to her mother, when Judith was out of the room:
+
+"Mamma, I know why you are willing to disappoint me about this party. It
+is because you love your dead child better than your living one."
+
+Mrs. Temple turned a little pale. The thrust went home, as some of
+Jacqueline's thrusts did.
+
+"And if I don't go, I will cry and cry--I will cry that night so loud
+in my room that papa will come in, and you know how it vexes him to have
+me cry; and it will break my heart--I know it will."
+
+Mrs. Temple went about all day with Jacqueline's words ringing in her
+ears. That night, after Jacqueline was in bed, her mother went into the
+room. It was a large, old-fashioned room, and Jacqueline's little white
+figure, as she sat up in bed, was almost lost in the huge four-poster,
+with dimity curtains and valance. The fire still smoldered, and the
+spindle-shanked dressing-table, with the glass set in its mahogany
+frame, cast unearthly shadows on the floor in the half-light. Mrs.
+Temple sat down by the bed. Something like remorse came into the
+mother's heart. This child was the least loved by both father and
+mother. Jacqueline began at once, in her sweet, nervous voice:
+
+"Mamma, I have been thinking about the party."
+
+"So have I, child."
+
+"And may we go?"
+
+Mrs. Temple paused before she spoke.
+
+"Yes, you and Judith may go," she said presently in a stern voice--ah!
+the sternness of these gentle women!
+
+Jacqueline held out her arms fondly to her mother, but Mrs. Temple could
+not be magnanimous in defeat. She went out, softly closing the door
+behind her, without giving Jacqueline her good-night kiss, but
+Jacqueline called after her in a voice tremulous with gratitude and
+delight, "Dear, sweet mamma!"
+
+The moment she heard the "charmber-do'," as the negroes called it, shut
+down-stairs, Jacqueline slipped out of bed and flew across the dark
+passage into Judith's room to tell the wonderful news. Judith was
+sitting before the fire, holding her sleeping child in her arms. The boy
+had waked and had clung to his mother until she lifted him out of his
+little bed. He had gone to sleep directly, but Judith held him close; he
+was so little, so babyish, yet so soft and warm and clinging.
+
+"We are going to the party, Judith," said Jacqueline, excitedly,
+kneeling down by her.
+
+"Are we?" answered Judith. A gleam came into her eyes very like
+Jacqueline's.
+
+"And--and--" continued Jacqueline with a sly, half-laughing glance, "we
+will meet Major Throckmorton again."
+
+"Go to bed, Jacqueline," replied Judith in the soft, composed voice that
+invariably crushed Jacqueline.
+
+Next morning General Temple showed the most unqualified delight at Mrs.
+Temple's capitulation. He considered it becoming, though, to make some
+slight protest against going to the party. He thought, perhaps, with his
+tendency to gout, it would scarcely be prudent to expose himself to the
+night air, and--er--to Kitty Sherrard's chicken salad; and, besides, he
+really was not justified in postponing the drawings of some maps to
+illustrate the position of Temple's Brigade at the battle of
+Chancellorsville; for, like all other dilettanti, General Temple's work
+was always of present importance and admitted of no delay whatever.
+
+Mrs. Temple did not smile at this, but treated it with great
+seriousness.
+
+"Quite true, my dear; but now that I have promised Jacqueline, I can not
+disappoint her. You must go for her sake."
+
+"Rather let me say, my dear Jane, that I go for your sake--your wishes,
+my love, being of paramount importance."
+
+For a henpecked man, it was impossible to be more imposing or agreeable
+than General Temple. So on the night of the party he was promptly on
+hand, at eight o'clock, in his old-fashioned evening coat, the tails
+lined with white satin, and wearing a pair of large, white kid gloves.
+
+Jacqueline and Judith soon appeared. Jacqueline, in her new white frock,
+looked her prettiest, albeit it showed her youthful thinness and all her
+half-grown angles. Judith's beauty was of a sort that could stand the
+simplicity of her black gown that revealed her white neck, and, for the
+first time since her widowhood, she wore no cap over her red-brown hair.
+Delilah and Simon Peter yah-yahed and ki-yied over both of them.
+
+"Dem little foots o' Miss Jacky's in de silk stockin's ain' no bigger
+'n little Beverley's, hardly, and Miss Judy she look like de Queen o'
+Sheba," delightedly remarked Delilah.
+
+Judith could scarcely meet Mrs. Temple's eyes. She felt inexplicably
+guilty. Mrs. Temple examined them critically, though, and the general
+was loftily complimentary.
+
+"And, Delilah," said Judith, gathering up her gloves nervously, "be sure
+and look after Beverley. He has never been left alone in his life
+before."
+
+"I will look after Beverley, Judith," said Mrs. Temple, and Judith
+blushed faintly at something in the tone.
+
+All the way, going along the country road in the moonlight, Judith could
+feel Jacqueline's little feet moving restlessly with excitement. As they
+drove up to the house, and caught glimpses through the open hall-door of
+the dancers and heard the sound of music, Jacqueline began to bob up and
+down with childish delight.
+
+Like most Virginia country-houses, Turkey Thicket had an immense
+entrance hall, which was not heated and was of no earthly use the best
+part of the year, and for which all the rooms around it were
+unnecessarily cramped. Mrs. Sherrard's hall was of more use to her than
+most people's, owing to her party-giving proclivities, and was brightly
+lighted up for dancing. As Judith came down the broad stairs on General
+Temple's arm, a kind of thrill of surprise went around among the guests.
+Nobody expected to see her. Many of them had never seen her except in
+her widow's veil and cap. Judith, remembering this, could not restrain a
+blushing consciousness that made her not less handsome; and, besides,
+her good looks were always full of surprises. One never knew whether she
+would be simply pale and pretty, or whether she would blaze out into a
+sudden and captivating beauty.
+
+They made their way through the dancers, Jacqueline alternately pale and
+red with excitement, and the general bowing right and left, until they
+entered the small, old-fashioned drawing-room. Mrs. Sherrard, in a plain
+black silk, but with a diamond comb in her white hair and a general air
+of superbness, was delighted to see Judith. It was a victory over Jane
+Temple. She detained her for a moment to whisper: "My dear, I am
+dreadfully afraid I shall make a failure in trying to get George
+Throckmorton accepted here. The girls, who most of them never saw so
+fine a man before, will hardly have a word to say to him; the men are a
+little better, but it isn't a pronounced success by any means. I have
+been longing for you to come. You have so much more sense than any of
+the young people I know, I thought you would be a little less freezing
+to him."
+
+At this a warmer color surged into Judith's cheeks. She could not
+remember ever to have seen a man who impressed her so instantly as
+Throckmorton. With her clear, feminine instinct, she had seen at the
+first glance what manner of man he was. As Mrs. Sherrard spoke to her,
+she turned and saw him standing by the fireplace, talking with Edmund
+Morford. Throckmorton could not have desired a better foil than the
+young clergyman, with his faultless red and white skin, his curling dark
+hair, his mouth full of perfect teeth, and his character as a clerical
+dandy written all over him. Throckmorton, whose good looks were purely
+masculine and characteristic, looked even more manly and soldierly by
+contrast. Both men caught sight of Judith at the same moment. Morford
+was thrown into a perfect flutter. He wondered if Judith had put on that
+square-necked, short-sleeved black gown to do him a mischief.
+Throckmorton, obeying a look from Mrs. Sherrard, came forward and was
+formally introduced. Judith offered her hand, after the Virginia custom,
+which Throckmorton bowed over.
+
+"Mrs. Temple did not present me to you on Sunday," he said, with a smile
+and a slight flush; "but I guessed very readily who you were."
+
+Judith, too, colored.
+
+"Poor mother, you must not take her too hardly. You know how good she
+is, but--but she is very determined; she moves slowly."
+
+"Yes," replied Throckmorton, with his easy, man-of-the-world manner;
+"but I am afraid there are others as unyielding as Mrs. Temple, and not
+half so kindly--for she is a dear soul! It seemed to me the carrying out
+of a sort of dream to come back to Millenbeck. My boy Jack--that young
+fellow yonder--looks rather old to be my son, don't you think?"
+
+"Y-e-s," answered Judith, with provoking dubiousness and a wicked little
+smile.
+
+"Oh, you are really too bad! I am very tired of explaining to people
+that Jack is nothing like as old as he looks. Well, the boy, although
+brought up at army posts, rather wanted to be a Virginian, and to own
+the old place; you know that sort of thing always crops out in a
+Virginian."
+
+"Yes," smiled Judith; "I see how it crops out in _you_. You are
+immensely proud of being a Throckmorton, and you would rather own
+Millenbeck, if it were tumbling down about your ears, than the finest
+place in the world anywhere else."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Beverley," said Throckmorton, determinedly, "I can't have my
+weaknesses picked out in this prompt and savage manner. I own I am a
+fool about Millenbeck, but I'd have sworn that nobody but myself knew
+it. I've got a year's leave, and I've come down here with Sweeney, an
+old ex-sergeant of mine, who has owned me for several years, and my old
+horse Tartar, that is turned out to grass; and if I like it as well as I
+expect, I may resign"--Throckmorton was always talking about resigning,
+as Mrs. Sherrard was about making her will, without the slightest idea
+of doing it--"and turn myself out to grass like Tartar. But my reception
+hasn't been--a--exactly--cordial--or--"
+
+"I am sorry you have been disappointed," said Judith, gently; "but it
+seems to me that we are all in a dreadful sort of transition state now.
+We are holding on desperately to our old moorings, although they are
+slipping away; but I suppose we shall have to face a new existence some
+time."
+
+"I think I understand the feeling here--even that dead wall of prejudice
+that meets me. One look around Severn church, last Sunday, would have
+told me that those people had gone through with some frightful crisis. I
+thought, perhaps being one of their own county people originally might
+soften them toward me, but I believe that makes me blacker than ever."
+
+Judith could not deny it.
+
+Throckmorton, who was worldly wise, read Judith at a glance, besides
+having learned her history since first seeing her. He saw that she was
+under a fixed restraint, and that a word would frighten her into the
+deepest reserve. He treated her, therefore, as if she had been a Sister
+of Charity. Judith, who made up for her lack of knowledge of the world
+by rapid perceptions and natural talents, had seen more quickly than
+Throckmorton. Here was a man the like of whom she had not often met.
+Throckmorton knew perfectly well the solitary lives these country women
+led, and he had often wondered at the singular fortitude they showed. He
+set himself to work to find out what chiefly interested this young
+woman, who showed such remarkable constancy to her dead husband, but who
+gave indications to his practiced eye of secretly loving life and its
+concerns very much. He had heard about her pretty boy. At this Judith
+colored with pleasure and became positively talkative. Her boy was the
+sweetest boy--she would like never to have him out of her sight. Major
+Throckmorton, with a sardonic grin, confided to Judith that he would
+frequently be highly gratified at having _his_ son out of his sight,
+because Jack made the women think he, the major, was a Methuselah, and
+covertly made much game of him, for which he would like to kick Jack,
+but couldn't.
+
+Judith laughed merrily at this--a laugh so clear and rippling, and yet
+so rare, that the sound of it startled her. Was Mrs. Beverley fond of
+reading? Mrs. Beverley was very fond of reading, but there was nothing
+newer in the array of books at Barn Elms than 1840. Major Throckmorton
+would be only too happy to supply her with books. He had had a few boxes
+full sent down to Millenbeck. At this Judith blushed, but accepted,
+without reflecting how Major Throckmorton was to send books to a house
+where he was not permitted to visit.
+
+She also protested that she had read nothing at all scarcely; but
+Throckmorton came to find out that, for want of the every-day modern
+literature, she was perfectly at home in the English classics, and knew
+her Scott and Thackeray like a lesson well learned. He began to find
+this gentle intelligence and cordiality amazingly pleasant after the
+cold shyness of the girls and the unmistakable keep-your-distance air of
+the older women. They sat together so long that Mr. Morford began to
+scowl, and think that Mrs. Beverley, after all, was rather a frivolous
+person, and with every moment Judith became brighter, gayer, more her
+natural charming self.
+
+Meanwhile Jack Throckmorton had carried Jacqueline off for a quadrille,
+and was getting on famously. First they remarked on the similarity of
+their names, which seemed a fateful coincidence, and Jacqueline
+complained that the servants and some other people, too, often shortened
+her liquid three syllables with "Jacky," but she hated it. Jack, who had
+a sweet, gay voice, and was an inveterate joker, which Jacqueline was
+not, amused both her and himself extremely.
+
+"Will you look at the major?" he whispered. "Gone on the pretty widow--I
+beg your pardon," he added, turning very red.
+
+"You needn't apologize," calmly remarked Jacqueline. "Judith _is_ a
+pretty widow, and the best and kindest sister in the world, besides. It
+is all mamma. Mamma loved my brother better than anything, and wants us
+all to think about him as much as she does."
+
+Jack, rather embarrassed by these family confidences, parried them with
+some confidences of his own.
+
+"I shall have to go over soon and break the major up. You see, there
+isn't but twenty-two years' difference between us, and the major is a
+great toast among the girls still, which is repugnant to my filial
+feelings."
+
+Jacqueline listened gravely and in good faith.
+
+"So, when I see him pleased with a girl, I generally sneak up on the
+other side, and manage to get my share of the girl's attention, and call
+the major 'father' every two minutes. A man hates to be interfered with
+that way, particularly by his own son, which doesn't often happen. The
+major has got a cast in one eye, and, whenever he is in a rage, he gets
+downright cross-eyed. Sometimes I work him up so, his eyes don't get
+straight for a fortnight."
+
+"But doesn't he get very mad with you?" asked Jacqueline in a shocked
+voice.
+
+"Of course he does," chuckled Jack; "and that's where the fun comes in.
+But, you see, he can't say anything; it is beneath his dignity; but his
+temper blazes up, although he doesn't say a word. Sometimes, when I've
+run him off two or three times close together, he hardly speaks to me
+for a week--not that he cares about the girl particularly, but he hates
+to be balked."
+
+"What a nice sort of a son you must be!"
+
+Jack laughed his frank, boyish laugh.
+
+"Why, the major and I are the greatest chums in the world. I would do
+anything for him. And if he ever presents me with a step-mother, I'll do
+the handsome thing--go to the wedding, and all that. And he's a
+fascinating old fellow, too--just takes the girls off their feet."
+
+When the dance was over, Jack brought Jacqueline back to Judith, who
+still sat with Throckmorton. Jacqueline's eyes were shining with
+childish delight, and she arched her thin white neck restlessly from
+side to side.
+
+"I have had such a nice dance!" she cried, breathlessly.
+
+Judith, smiling, said, "Major Throckmorton, this is my little sister
+Jacqueline."
+
+Throckmorton, having once fixed his eyes on Jacqueline, seemed unable
+to take them off, as on that Sunday he had first seen her in Severn
+church. Delilah, who noticed in her primitive way the wonderful power of
+attraction that Jacqueline had, used to say, "Miss Jacky she allus
+cotches de beaux." She certainly "cotched" Throckmorton's attention from
+the first. Something in this slim, unformed, provincial girl was
+suddenly captivating to him. His genuine but sane admiration for Judith
+seemed tame beside it. Jacqueline, however, only saw a rather striking
+man, well on toward old age, in her infantile eyes, and wished herself
+back with Jack, when Major Throckmorton took her for a little promenade.
+Morford then made up to Judith, but found her singularly cold and
+unresponsive, and her eyes and smile were quite far away, over Morford's
+head, as it were. The truth is, the Rev. Edmund Morford was a
+considerable let-down from George Throckmorton; and, in Judith's starved
+and pinched existence, it was something to meet a man of Throckmorton's
+caliber. So in place of the charming sweetness Morford had learned to
+expect from Judith, he received a cold douche of listlessness and
+indifference. All the rest of the evening people noticed that Judith,
+who had a good deal of smoldering vivacity under her quietness, was
+remarkably cold and silent and rather bored, and they supposed it was
+because of her aversion to anything like gayety. In truth, Judith had
+realized rather more startlingly than usual the bareness and
+colorlessness of her life.
+
+Mrs. Sherrard's effort was a strong one, but, as she said, it was
+scarcely a success. General Temple ostentatiously sought out
+Throckmorton, and tasted the delights of a discussion regarding the
+trans-Alpine campaigns of Hannibal, in which Throckmorton was a modest
+listener, and the general a most fiery, earnest, and learned
+expounder--a past grand-master of military science. But, on shaking
+Throckmorton's hand at saying good-night, with solemn but genuine
+effusiveness, he said not one word about calling at Millenbeck.
+Throckmorton went home feeling rather bitter toward all his county
+people, except his stanch friend Mrs. Sherrard; Judith, so gentle,
+clever, and well-read; and that fascinating child, Jacqueline.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+For a week after the party Jacqueline lived in a kind of dream. She
+could do nothing but talk of the party. The whole current of her life
+had been disturbed. Since this one taste of excitement there was no
+satisfying her. The daily routine was going down to a solemn breakfast,
+and then getting through the forenoon as best she might, with her
+flowers, and her pets among the ducks and chickens, and romping with the
+little Beverley--for this unfortunate Jacqueline had no regular
+employments--and then the still more solemn three o'clock dinner, after
+which she practiced fitfully on the wheezy piano in the dark
+drawing-room; then a country walk with Judith, if the day was fine,
+coming back in time to watch the creeping on of the twilight before the
+sitting-room fire. This was the happiest time of the day to Jacqueline.
+She would sit flat on the rug, clasping her knees, and gazing into the
+fire until her mother would say, with a smile:
+
+"What do you see in the fire, Jacky?"
+
+"Oh, endless things--a beautiful young man, and a new piano, and a
+diamond comb like Mrs. Sherrard's, and--Oh, I can't tell you!"
+
+"Miss Jacky she see evils, I know she do," solemnly announced Simon
+Peter. "When folks sits fo' de fire studyin' 'bout nuttin' 'tall, de
+evils an' de sperrits dat's 'broad come sneakin' up ahine an' show 'em
+things in de fire."
+
+General Temple, a few days after the party, fell a victim to a seductive
+pudding prepared by Delilah, and was immediately invalided with the
+gout. Dr. Wortley was sent for, and at once demanded to know what
+devilment Delilah had been up to in the way of puddings and such, and
+soon found out the true state of the case. A wordy war ensued between
+Dr. Wortley and Delilah, and the doctor renewed the threat he had been
+making at intervals for twenty-five years.
+
+"Temple," he screeched, "you may take your choice between that old
+ignoramus and me--between ignorance and science!"
+
+"Ef ole marse was ter steal six leetle sweet 'taters an' put 'em in he
+pocket," began Delilah, undauntedly.
+
+"Why don't you advise him to steal a wheelbarrowful instead of a
+pocketful?" retorted the doctor.
+
+"Kase he doan 'quire but six, an' he got ter _steal_ 'em, fur ter make
+de conjurin' wuk. Den ev'y day he th'ow 'way a 'tater, an' when he th'ow
+de 'tater 'way he th'ow de gout 'way, too. De hy'ars from a black cat's
+tail is mighty good, too--"
+
+"Temple, how do you put up with this sort of thing being uttered in your
+hearing?" snapped the doctor.
+
+General Temple looked rather sheepish. He had never actually tried
+stealing six potatoes, or testing the virtue in hairs from a black cat's
+tail, as a relief from gout, but he had not been above a course of tansy
+tea, and decoctions of jimson-weed, and other of Delilah's remedies that
+scientifically were on a par with the black cat's tail. But, being
+racked with pain, he took refuge in pessimism and profanity.
+
+"Excuse me, Wortley, but all medicine is a damned humbug!--I
+mean--er--an empirical science. What is written is written. The Great
+First Cause, that decrees from the hour of our birth every act of our
+lives, has decreed that I should suffer great pain, anguish, and
+discomfort from this hereditary disease."
+
+"Marse, ef you wuz ter repent an' be saved--"
+
+"Hold your infernal tongue!"
+
+"An' jine de Foot-washers--"
+
+"Damn the Foot-washers!" howled the general.
+
+"Plague on it!" snarled Dr. Wortley, whirling round with his back to the
+fire. "If you've got as far as predestination, you're in for a six
+weeks' spell. I can cure the gout, but I'll be shot if I can do anything
+when it's complicated with religion and black cats' tails and a
+constant diet like a Christmas dinner!"
+
+In the midst of the discussion, the doctor's shrill voice rising high
+over Delilah's, who, with arms akimbo and a defiant air, only awaited
+Dr. Wortley's departure to get in her innings with the patient, Mrs.
+Temple, serene and sweet, came in and quelled the insurrection. Delilah
+at once subsided, Dr. Wortley began to laugh, and the general directed
+that Mrs. Temple's chair be put next to his.
+
+"As your presence, my love, makes me forget my most unhappy foot," he
+said.
+
+Mrs. Temple's adherence to either Delilah or Dr. Wortley would have
+caused victory to perch upon that side; but Mrs. Temple, like the
+general, had more faith in Delilah than she was willing to own up to.
+So, between Delilah's feeding him high all the time, while the doctor
+only saw him once or twice a week, General Temple bade fair to remain an
+invalid for a considerable time. The attack of gout, though, just at
+that time, had its consolatory aspects. General Temple really wished to
+call at Millenbeck, but Mrs. Temple showed no sign of yielding. For the
+present, however, there could be no notion of his stirring out of doors.
+As long as the gout lasted there was a good excuse. But General Temple
+worried over it.
+
+"My love," he said one night, while Mrs. Temple and Jacqueline and
+Judith sat around the table in his room, where they had assembled to
+make his evening less dull, "I am troubled in my mind regarding George
+Throckmorton. It unquestionably seems heathenish for us to have one so
+intimately connected with our early married life--that truly blissful
+period--within a stone's throw of us, and then to deny him the sacred
+rites of hospitality."
+
+Jacqueline gave a half glance at Judith which was full of meaning, and
+Judith could not for her life keep a slight blush from rising in her
+cheek.
+
+Mrs. Temple said nothing, but looked hard at the fire, sighing
+profoundly. She had made herself some sort of a vague revengeful
+promise, that no man wearing a blue uniform should ever darken her
+doors. She had yielded first one thing, then another, of that scrupulous
+and daily mourning and remembrance she had promised herself, for
+Beverley--but this--
+
+The pause was long. Mrs. Temple, looking at General Temple, was touched
+by something in his expression--a longing, a patient, but genuine
+desire. Occasionally she indulged him, as she sometimes relaxed a little
+the discipline over Jacqueline in her childish days. She put her hand
+over her eyes and waited a moment as if she were praying. Then she said
+in broken voice, "Do what seems best to you, my husband."
+
+General Temple took her hand.
+
+"But, my own, I do not wish to coerce you. No matter what I think is our
+duty in the case, if it does not satisfy you, it shall not be done. I
+would rather anything befell Throckmorton, than you, my beloved Jane,
+should be grieved or troubled."
+
+Mrs. Temple received this sort of thing as she always did, with a shy
+pleasure like a girl.
+
+"I have said it, my dear, and you know I do not easily recede. Like you,
+this thing has been upon me ever since Throckmorton's return. I have
+felt it every day harder to maintain my attitude. Now, for your sake, I
+will abandon it. Have Throckmorton when you like. I will invite him over
+to tea on Sunday evening."
+
+General Temple fairly beamed. When Mrs. Temple gave in to him, which was
+not oftener than once a year, she gave in thoroughly.
+
+"Thank you, my wife. It certainly seems unnatural that Millenbeck and
+Barn Elms should be estranged. It shall be so no longer, please God. And
+that George Throckmorton is a high-toned gentleman"--General Temple
+paused a little before saying this, hunting for a term magniloquent
+enough for the occasion--"no one, I think, will deny."
+
+This was early in the week. The very next afternoon, Jacqueline finding
+time more than usually hard to kill, went up into the garret and began
+rummaging over the remains of Mrs. Temple's wedding finery of thirty
+years before. She dived down into a capacious chest, and brought forth
+two or three faded silk dresses, the bridal bonnet and veil, yellowed
+from age; and, among other antiques, a huge muff almost as big as
+Jacqueline herself. This suddenly put the notion of a walk into her
+head. Judith was engaged in reading Napier's History of the Peninsular
+Wars to General Temple, and Jacqueline had only herself for company. So,
+carrying her huge muff in which she plunged her arms up to her elbows,
+she started off. It was a raw autumn afternoon. The leaves had not yet
+all fallen, although the ground was dank with them, and the peculiar
+stillness of a lonely and lowland country was upon the monotonous
+landscape. The entire absence of sounds is a characteristic of that sort
+of country, and it makes a gloomy day more gloomy. Jacqueline, tripping
+along very fast, did not find it cheerful. She would go as far as the
+gate of the lane that led into the main road, and then turn back. This
+lane was also the entrance to Millenbeck, and Jacqueline had some sort
+of a faint expectation that she might run across Jack Throckmorton. She
+looked longingly toward Millenbeck, visible at intervals through the
+straggling fringe of pines. What an infinity of pleasure could be had,
+if her mother only came round thoroughly regarding the Throckmortons!
+What rides and dances she could have with Jack, and Judith could talk to
+the major! "What a dull life Judith must lead!" she thought, stepping
+lightly along. It was true, Judith liked to read; but Jacqueline, who
+frankly confessed she could not read a novel through from cover to
+cover, hardly appreciated reading as a resource. Jacqueline's
+imagination, with this superstructure to build upon, went ardently to
+work, and in a few minutes had installed Judith as mistress of
+Millenbeck, and herself as the young lady of the establishment. To do
+Jacqueline justice, she longed for Judith's happiness, who, she
+sometimes bitterly felt, was her only friend. Just as she had arranged
+this scheme to her satisfaction, she looked up, and saw, not twenty feet
+ahead of her, Major Throckmorton coming out of the underbrush at the
+side of the lane. A big slouch hat half concealed his face. His usual
+trim and natty dress, with that unmistakable "military cut," was
+exchanged for a shooting suit of corduroy, much stained, and otherwise
+the worse for wear. His stylish and immaculate hat was replaced by the
+flapping felt, and his gun and game-bag proclaimed his day's employment.
+Yet Jacqueline thought she had never seen him look so handsome, and in
+some way she was not half so much afraid of him in his shooting-togs as
+in his perfectly fitting evening clothes. Jacqueline's face turned a
+rosy red. As for Throckmorton, he too felt a thrill of pleasure. This
+pretty child, as he called her, had been in his mind rather constantly
+since he saw her at the party. He quickened his pace, and took his hat
+off while still some distance away.
+
+"Any more parties in prospect?" he asked, smiling, as he took her little
+hand in his.
+
+"No, I don't suppose there will be. Delicious parties like that don't
+happen very often," answered Jacqueline, quite seriously, and not in the
+least understanding Throckmorton's smile as she said this. "And--and
+young Mr. Throckmorton--oh, how I enjoyed dancing with him!"
+
+The major did not smile at this. To have "young Mr. Throckmorton" thrust
+at him by a charming young girl was not particularly pleasing.
+
+"Jack is a very jolly young fellow," he replied, shortly. "We are great
+friends, Jack and I."
+
+Jacqueline had turned around, and they were now walking together toward
+Barn Elms.
+
+"I--I should think," said Jacqueline, giving him one of her half-glances
+from under the dark fringe of her eyelashes--"that J--Jack would be
+afraid of you."
+
+Throckmorton laughed aloud.
+
+"Why should he be afraid of me?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know. Everybody is afraid of one's father," replied
+Jacqueline, candidly.
+
+"Jack and I entertain sentiments of mutual respect," laughed
+Throckmorton again. "The only fault I find with him is that he is unduly
+filial sometimes. For example, when I am enjoying the society of a
+charming young lady he thinks too young for me, he behaves as if I were
+his great-grandfather instead of his father. Jack has a good deal of
+Satan in him."
+
+Jacqueline did not always follow Throckmorton's remarks, but she noticed
+he had a rich voice, and he was the straightest, most soldierly-looking
+man she ever saw in her life. Throckmorton slung his game-bag around and
+held it open.
+
+"Do you like robins?" he said. "They are delicious broiled on
+toast"--and he took out a bird by the legs and showed it to her.
+
+Jacqueline stood perfectly still. Her eyes dilated and her breath came
+quickly. She took the bird out of his hand. It had long stopped
+bleeding, and its little cold head, with half-closed eyes, fell over
+piteously. Jacqueline took out her handkerchief and wrapped the poor
+robin in it.
+
+"Oh, the poor bird!" she said, and suddenly two large tears ran down her
+cheeks.
+
+Throckmorton stood surprised, touched, delighted, and almost ashamed. He
+had been a sportsman all his life, and could see no harm in knocking
+over a few birds in the season; but the picture of this tender-hearted
+child, that could not see a dead bird without weeping, struck him as
+beautifully feminine. But what could he say? If he was a bloodthirsty
+brute to shoot a robin, what must all the slaughter of birds he had
+been guilty of in his lifetime make him? He could only say, half
+shamefacedly and half laughing "My dear little friend, you wouldn't have
+men as squeamish as women, would you?"
+
+But to this Jacqueline only responded by pressing the poor bird's cold
+breast to her cheek.
+
+Throckmorton, however, with an air of gentle authority, took the bird
+from her and put it back in the bag.
+
+"If you cry for such things as this, you will have a hard time in life,"
+he said.
+
+Jacqueline's face did not clear up at once.
+
+"I want you to do something for me--to promise me something," she said,
+gravely.
+
+"What is it?" asked Throckmorton. Jacqueline had laid her charm upon him
+in the last ten minutes, but he did not forget his caution entirely.
+
+"It is," said Jacqueline, punctuating her words with tender, appealing
+glances, "that you won't kill any more robins--never, never, as long as
+you live."
+
+Throckmorton refrained from smiling, as he felt inclined, but it was
+plainly no laughing matter to Jacqueline. And if he gave the
+promise--nobody knew the absurdity of it more than Throckmorton--suppose
+Jack heard of it, what endless fun would he poke at his father on the
+sly! Nevertheless, Throckmorton, calling himself an old fool, made the
+promise.
+
+Jacqueline, flushed with triumph, now conceived a bold design. She
+would--that is, if her courage held out--tell him that her mother had at
+last come round. This delightful information she proceeded to impart.
+
+"Do you know," she said, smiling and showing her little even white
+teeth, "that mamma has at last agreed to--to let us have something to do
+with you and Jack?"
+
+"Has she, indeed?" replied Throckmorton, with rather a grim smile.
+
+"Yes," continued Jacqueline, with much seriousness. "Occasionally she
+gives papa a little treat. You know she always liked you, and papa has
+been dying to call to see you. But mamma can't forget the war and
+Beverley. At last, though--she's been thinking about it ever since that
+first day at church--she concluded to give in--and--and--you're to be
+asked to tea next Sunday evening!"
+
+The way this was told was not particularly flattering to Throckmorton,
+but he was sincerely grateful and attached to Mrs. Temple, and he knew
+and pitied the state of feeling that had caused her to intrench herself
+in her prejudices. She must indeed remember those old days when she was
+willing to do what Throckmorton suspected she had promised herself never
+to do. "I want to be friends with Mrs. Temple--that's plain enough," he
+said, "and if she asks me I shall certainly come."
+
+"Do you know," said Jacqueline, after a pause, in a very confidential
+voice, "I sometimes wish--now this is a secret, remember--that papa and
+mamma would forget Beverley a little--and think--of Judith and me? They
+seem to expect Judith to wear black all the time, and never to smile or
+to laugh or to sing, as if Beverley could know. I don't believe the dead
+in their graves know or care anything about us."
+
+She was on delicate ground, but, her tongue being unloosed,
+Throckmorton's attempt to check her was a complete failure.
+
+"Judith, you know," she continued, cutting in on Throckmorton's awkward
+remonstrance, "only knew Beverley a little while. Her father and mother
+were dead, and papa was her guardian. She came to Barn Elms to live
+after she left school, and Beverley came home from the war, and they
+were married right away--almost as soon as they were acquainted. It was
+so sudden because Beverley's leave was up, and Delilah says that
+Beverley knew he was going to be killed soon. She says he dreamed it, or
+something. Do you believe in dreams?"
+
+"No, and you mustn't believe all Delilah tells you."
+
+"Anyhow, he went away, and he never came back. That broke papa and
+mamma's hearts. And you know--little Beverley--Judith's child--is like
+her--and not a bit like Beverley, and mamma talks sometimes as if it was
+a crime on the child's part. She says to everybody, 'Don't you think
+the child is like his father?' and nobody answers her quite truthfully,
+and she knows it."
+
+Throckmorton hardly knew how to receive these family confidences, but he
+could not but admire the color coming and going in Jacqueline's cheeks,
+and the fitful light that burned in her eyes as she talked.
+
+"And Judith--I do love Judith. It seems hard--now this is another
+secret--that she should never have any more pleasure in this world. And
+she is so bright and clever. She understands the most wonderful books.
+And there's something--I can't help telling you this."
+
+"Perhaps you had better not tell me," said Throckmorton in a warning
+voice.
+
+"But I can't help it, you are so--so sympathetic: I don't believe Judith
+cared for Beverley much."
+
+Jacqueline drew off to see the effect of this on Throckmorton. She did
+not at all suspect him of any interest in Judith; but this family
+tragedy, that had stalked beside her nearly all her life, she thought
+was of immense importance, and she wanted to see how it affected
+Throckmorton. In fact, it only embarrassed him. He said, rather briefly:
+
+"Mrs. Beverley is very handsome--very charming."
+
+"She's the best sister in the world," exclaimed Jacqueline. "Some people
+think that sisters-in-law can't love each other. Sometimes I would
+throw myself in the river if it wasn't for Judith."
+
+"Why should such a tender little thing as you want to throw herself in
+the river?" he asked; and if Jack had heard the tone in which this was
+spoken, he would, no doubt, have found food for ungodly mirth in it.
+
+"You don't know what sorrows I have," responded Jacqueline, gravely. And
+then they were almost at the gate of Barn Elms, and Throckmorton bade
+her good-by, and tramped back home, while Jacqueline scudded into the
+house to confide the wonderful adventures of the afternoon to Judith.
+
+In a day or two a note from General Temple came, inviting Throckmorton
+and Jack to tea at Barn Elms the following Sunday evening. It was rather
+a letter than a note, General Temple spreading himself--his honest soul
+loved a rhetorical flourish--and containing many references to their
+early association. Throckmorton accepted, in a reply in which he told,
+much more glibly than his tongue could, the grateful affection he had
+cherished from his neglected and unhappy boyhood toward the whole family
+at Barn Elms. On the Sunday evening, therefore, Throckmorton, with Jack,
+presented himself, and was effusively received by the general and Simon
+Peter, who were not unlike in their overpowering courtesy to guests.
+Judith was cordial and dignified, and Jacqueline full of a shy delight.
+No doubt they would be invited to Millenbeck, and she would see with her
+own eyes the Bruskins carpets and other royal splendors Delilah was
+never weary of recounting.
+
+General Temple was able to be down in the drawing-room, but Mrs. Temple
+was not present. Delilah, however, soon put her head in the door, and,
+crossing her hands under a huge white apron she wore, brought a message.
+
+"Mistis, she say, won't Marse George please ter come in de charmber."
+
+Throckmorton at once followed her. The "charmber" at Barn Elms was a
+sort of star chamber, and utterances within its precincts were usually
+of a solemn character. As Throckmorton entered, Mrs. Temple rose from
+the big rush-bottomed chair in which she sat. Throckmorton remembered
+the room perfectly, in all the years since he had been in it--the dimity
+curtains, the high-post mahogany bed, the shining brass fender and
+andirons, the tall candlesticks on the high wooden mantel. He
+remembered, with a queer, boyish feeling, sundry moral discourses gently
+administered to him in that room on certain occasions when he had been
+caught in the act of fishing on Sunday, or poking a broomstick up the
+chimney to dislodge the sooty swallows that built their nests there in
+the summer-time, and other instances of juvenile turpitude. And he well
+recollected once, when Mrs. Temple was ill, he had hung about the
+place, a picture of boyish misery; and when at last he was admitted into
+the room where she lay, white and feeble, on the broad, old-fashioned
+lounge, how happy, how glad, how honored he had felt. He went forward
+eagerly and raised Mrs. Temple's hand to his lips.
+
+"George Throckmorton, this is nearer forgiveness than I ever expected
+to come," she said.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Temple, don't let us talk about forgiveness. Let us
+only remember that we are friends of more than thirty years'
+standing--because I can't remember the time when I was a boy that I
+didn't love you."
+
+"And I loved you, too--next to my own Beverley. I sent for you here that
+I might tell you my trouble as you used to tell me yours so long ago.
+Often you have sat on that little cricket over there and told me of your
+grandfather's cruel ways to you--he was a godless man, George."
+
+"He was indeed," fervently assented Throckmorton.
+
+"And now I want to tell you of _my_ sorrows, George."
+
+Throckmorton listened patiently while she went over all of Beverley's
+life. She told it with a touching simplicity. Throckmorton well saw how
+that still stern unforgiveness might rankle in her gentle but immovable
+mind. Then he told her of his marriage--something he had never in all
+his life spoken of to any one in that manner; but the force of sweet and
+early habit was upon him--he could talk to Mrs. Temple about the young
+creature so much loved and so long dead. Mrs. Temple, who knew what such
+revealing meant from a man of Throckmorton's strong and self-contained
+nature, was completely won by this. An hour afterward, when they came
+into the drawing-room, and found Jack and Jacqueline in a perfect gale
+of merriment, with Judith looking smilingly on, Mrs. Temple laid her
+hand on Throckmorton's shoulder, and said to General Temple, with sweet
+gravity, "He is the same George Throckmorton."
+
+Judith was leaning a little forward in her chair, with her arm around
+her child. The boy was a beautiful, manly fellow, and gazed at
+Throckmorton with friendly, serious eyes. Throckmorton, whose heart was
+tender toward all children, smiled at him. Beverley at this marched
+forward and climbed upon Throckmorton's knee, his little white frock,
+heavy with embroidery worked by Judith's patient fingers, spreading all
+around him. The boy immediately launched into conversation, eying
+Throckmorton boldly, although his eyes usually had the shy expression of
+his mother's. He wanted to know if Throckmorton had a gun, and could he
+beat the drum; also, if he could ride a horse. Sometimes grandfather
+would take him up and let him ride as far as the gate. Throckmorton
+answered all these questions satisfactorily, and then told about a pony
+he had at Millenbeck--a pony that had been Jack's, when Jack was no
+bigger than Beverley, and that was now too old and slow for any but a
+very little boy. While Throckmorton talked to the child, Judith listened
+with a smiling look in her eyes. Throckmorton could not but be struck by
+the pretty picture the young mother and her child made. He saw the
+resemblance between them at once, and when he told of a tragic adventure
+Jack had with the pony, falling through a bridge, both pairs of large,
+soft eyes grew wide with grave amazement. Unconsciously Judith assumed
+the child's expression. Beverley seemed determined to monopolize his new
+acquaintance, but presently Judith with a little air of authority sent
+him off with Delilah. Beverley paused at the door to say:
+
+"You come again and bring the pony."
+
+Presently they went into the dining-room, and the old-fashioned tea was
+served. There was enough to feed a regiment, and all of the best kind,
+but nothing approaching vulgar display. Mrs. Temple put Throckmorton at
+her right, and every time she spoke to Jack she called him George.
+Throckmorton had forgotten nothing of the old days, and he not only
+began to feel young himself, but he made General and Mrs. Temple feel
+that time had turned backward. Jacqueline, on the opposite side of the
+table, smiled at him and talked a little. In her heart she could not
+quite make out Throckmorton. He had arrived at an age that seemed to her
+almost venerable; yet he quite ignored the fact that he ought to be old,
+and certainly was not old, nor could anybody say that he was young.
+Jack's boyish fun she understood well enough, but Throckmorton's shrewd
+humor, his confident, experienced way of looking at things, was rather
+beyond her. And as the case had been, whenever Throckmorton saw her, he
+had to exercise a certain restraint, lest everybody should see how
+strangely and completely she magnetized him. If anybody had asked him to
+compare Judith and Jacqueline, he would have given Judith the palm in
+everything--even in beauty; but Jacqueline's young prettiness in some
+way caught his fancy more than Judith's deeper and more significant
+beauty.
+
+But Judith had her charm too for him. She captivated his judgment as
+Jacqueline captivated some inner sense to which he could give no name.
+Judith's talk was seasoned with liveliness, and Throckmorton, who
+possessed a dry and penetrating humor of his own, could always count on
+a responsive sparkle in Judith's eye.
+
+When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Temple said:
+
+"Judith, my dear, sing us some of your sweet hymns."
+
+Judith sat down to the piano and in her clear and bell-like soprano sang
+some old-fashioned hymns, so sweetly and unaffectedly that Throckmorton
+thought it was like angels singing. The sound of the simple music, the
+soft light of fire and lamp, the atmosphere of love and courtesy that
+seemed to breathe over the quaint circle, had a fascination for him. It
+was the poetry of domestic life. He had often dreamed of what "home"
+might be, but he had never known it, for that brief married life of his
+had been too short, too flickering; they were boy and girl lovers, and,
+before the new life had had time to crystallize, he was left alone. But
+here he saw the sweet privacy of home, the repose, the family nest, safe
+and warm. He sighed a little. Money could not buy it, else he would have
+had it at Millenbeck, comfortable handsome country-house that it was.
+But here, at this shabby old Barn Elms, it was in perfection, in all its
+naturalness and simplicity. After all, women were necessary to make a
+home; even money, with a Sweeney as presiding genius, couldn't do it.
+
+It was late when they left. Mrs. Temple's parting was as solemn as her
+greeting:
+
+"I have done that which I never expected to do, and all because in my
+heart I can't but love you, George Throckmorton!"
+
+Throckmorton's keen pleasure showed in his dark eyes.
+
+"I always knew, if you would only listen to that dear, kind heart of
+yours, you would forgive the Yankees," he laughed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+Miracles usually happen in cycles. They unquestionably did in the Severn
+neighborhood. Before the hurricane of talk over Throckmorton's arrival,
+Jack's audacity, and Sweeney's brogue had fairly reached a crisis, a
+letter came one day to General Temple, from his nephew, Temple Freke,
+announcing his intention of paying a visit to his dear uncle and aunt at
+Barn Elms.
+
+General Temple handed the letter to Mrs. Temple with a sort of groan.
+
+"This is he--I mean, my love, this is most discomposing."
+
+At this Mrs. Temple shook her head in a manner expressing perfect
+despair. The problem whether Throckmorton should be admitted within the
+doors of Barn Elms was a mere nothing compared with this. Both of them
+firmly believed in a personal devil; and Temple Freke, with his
+extravagance, his vices, his unprincipled behavior, stood for Satan
+himself. This Freke was very unlike the conservative, home-keeping type
+of a gentleman that prevailed in Virginia. He was born and brought up
+in Louisiana, and was fifteen years old when, by the death of his
+father, General Temple became his guardian, and he was brought to Barn
+Elms to lead the staid Beverley into all sorts of scrapes, and to
+torment General Temple's honest soul almost to madness. The elder Freke,
+perhaps, knowing the boy's disposition, had made General Temple's
+guardianship to extend until Temple Freke's twenty-fifth birthday.
+
+Of the horrors of that guardianship, nobody but the kind and
+simple-hearted general could tell--of Freke's extravagance, of his
+gambling and betting and drinking, and one frightful scene, when Freke,
+with a loaded pistol in his hand, swore that, unless a certain debt of
+honor was paid, he would kill himself on the spot; and General Temple,
+who was not easily frightened, promptly paid it, with the conviction
+that the young fellow was quite capable of carrying out the threat.
+Immediately after this, General Temple shipped him off to Europe, but
+apparently it made bad worse. For six whole years was General Temple
+commanding, entreating, praying, and wheedling to get Freke back to
+Virginia. It was true, he might have cut off supplies, but Freke made no
+bones of saying that, if he couldn't get his own money, he would
+contrive to get somebody else's; so the poor general, with groans and
+moans, would cash Freke's drafts on him as long as money could be
+screwed out of the Louisiana sugar plantations to do it with.
+
+But, as Mrs. Temple often said, Freke was unquestionably a gentleman; he
+was mild-mannered to a degree, and his very impertinences were brought
+out with a diffidence that frequently hoodwinked General Temple. He was
+not nearly so handsome as Beverley, being much shorter and sandy-haired,
+in contrast with Beverley's blonde beauty; but Mrs. Temple always
+felt in the old days, with a little pang of jealousy, that this
+ordinary-looking boy, with his exquisite manners--not the least affected
+or effeminate, but simply the perfection of personal bearing--could put
+Beverley at a disadvantage. The two had little in common, and had never
+met after their school-days, when General Temple, in the innocence of
+his heart, had sent Freke abroad, to reform, until the very time of
+Beverley's death. Freke, whose courage was as flawless in its way as
+General Temple's, had come home during the war and enlisted in the
+Southern army. A strange fate had placed him close to Beverley when he
+was killed. He had held Beverley's dying hand, and to him were intrusted
+the last messages to the mother and the young wife, who waited and
+prayed at Barn Elms. Nothing on earth but this could have brought Mrs.
+Temple to tolerate Freke at all, after the sensational career which
+had begun with the pistol scene. Moreover, to increase the abnormal
+conditions about this unregenerate being, as the Temples considered
+him, he was perfectly irresistible. How it was, General Temple gloomily
+declared, he didn't know, but Freke had the most extraordinary way of
+insinuating himself into the good graces of both men and women--not
+by any affectation of goodness, for there was a frankness about his
+wickedness that was peculiarly appalling to General Temple. Freke was no
+handsomer as a man than as a boy; he had been steadily making ducks and
+drakes of his fortune since he was twenty-five; yet, somehow, Freke
+always seemed to have a plenty of friends, solely by the charm of his
+personality. The most serious escapade that had come to General Temple's
+knowledge since Freke was of age was his running away with a Cuban girl
+in New Orleans, and afterward getting a divorce by some hocus-pocus, and
+thereafter, with serene confidence, he bore himself as an unmarried man.
+Now, divorce was practically unknown in that old part of Virginia, and
+the Temples regarded it as in the category with murder and arson; so
+that this final iniquity of Freke's would have quite put him beyond the
+pale, but for those hours he spent kneeling on the ground with the dying
+Beverley.
+
+General Temple had a sort of Arab hospitality that would not have
+begrudged itself to the Evil One himself, and to tell Freke that he was
+not welcome under the roof of Barn Elms, where his grandfather and his
+grandfather's father had lived, was an enormity of which he was not
+capable. And Mrs. Temple was no manner of use to him in the case. In
+vain he tried to shuffle the decision off on her. Mrs. Temple would
+not accept it. Like the general, she sighed and groaned, and turned it
+over in her mind; but always came back that picture of Beverley lying
+bleeding and dying, and Freke risking his life to stay by him. So at
+last, after a week of mutual misery, one night, in the privacy of the
+"charmber," Mrs. Temple, watching the general stalking up and down
+during one of his fits of midnight restlessness, said, tremulously:
+
+"My love, we must let Freke come. We can not refuse it--for--for
+Beverley's sake."
+
+So the next morning a letter was dispatched to Freke, written by General
+Temple with considerably less cordiality than usual, and very feeble
+rhetorically, expressing the pleasure his uncle and aunt felt at the
+prospect of a visit from their nephew.
+
+The next day, as soon as the direful news of his coming was made known
+to Jacqueline, she rushed off, as she always did, to give Judith the
+startling information.
+
+Judith heard it with a strange feeling of repulsion, which she at first
+imagined was that infinite disapproval she felt for Freke; but, if he
+came, all of that terrible story about Beverley would have to be told
+over. Judith had not yet come to a clear understanding of herself, but
+she had begun to shrink from that dwelling on Beverley which seemed to
+give Mrs. Temple such exquisite comfort.
+
+"Everything that looked at Freke fell in love with him," announced
+Jacqueline. "Of course, he is as handsome as a dream--something like Mr.
+Morford, I dare say."
+
+There were two or three faded photographs of him at Barn Elms, and none
+of them gave the idea of great beauty; but photographs in those days
+were not very artistic reproductions.
+
+Judith laughed a little uneasily.
+
+"I wish he wern't coming, Jacky," she said. "He is too--too startling a
+person for quiet people like ourselves. There is one comfort, though: he
+will soon get tired of us."
+
+Within a week or two came a very well-expressed letter from Freke,
+thanking his uncle and aunt for their hospitable invitation, and saying
+that on a certain day he would land from the river steamer at Oak Point.
+Jacqueline was immensely taken with the letter, which was written on
+paper the like of which she had never seen before, and was sealed with a
+crest.
+
+Two immense trunks arrived in advance of the expected visitor. Mrs.
+Sherrard happened to be at Barn Elms when the luggage appeared. Mrs.
+Temple's face expressed her misery.
+
+"Jane, you have my sympathy. A more unmitigated scamp than Freke doesn't
+live," was Mrs. Sherrard's remark.
+
+"Kitty," feebly protested Mrs. Temple, "he is my husband's nephew."
+
+"The more's the pity."
+
+As a rule, the reputation of incalculable wickedness hurts nobody, in
+the opinion of the very young. The more Mrs. Temple preached and warned,
+holding on to that one saving clause, Freke's devotion to Beverley in
+his dying hours, the more attractive he seemed to Jacqueline. At last
+one afternoon, when the carriage returned from Oak Point Landing with
+the much-talked-of Freke, Jacqueline, who had been curling her hair and
+prinking all day for the visitor, came down into the drawing-room, and
+the expression of acute disappointment on her face said loudly:
+
+"Is this all?"
+
+For Freke was neither surpassingly handsome nor any of the superlative
+things Jacqueline had fondly imagined him to be. He was not even as
+handsome as Throckmorton, and Jacqueline thought him no beauty. Freke
+was under middle height, and his hair was as sandy as of old, and not
+too abundant. His features were ordinary; and Jacqueline, not being a
+physiognomist, did not take in the piercing expression, the firmness and
+intelligence that redeemed them from commonplaceness. He did look
+unmistakably the gentleman, Jacqueline grudgingly admitted. _This_ the
+adorable, the irresistible, the--But Jacqueline was too disgusted to
+continue.
+
+Freke, who read Jacqueline like an open book, and suspected the advance
+impression she had received, could hardly keep from laughing out aloud
+at the girl's air and manner. He talked a little to her, somewhat more
+to Judith, but chiefly to Mrs. Temple.
+
+It was late in the afternoon when he had arrived, and tea was soon
+announced. Directly it was over, Mrs. Temple marshaled a solemn
+procession into "the charmber" to hear Freke's description of Beverley's
+last hours. She went first with Judith, followed by Freke and General
+Temple. Mrs. Temple had tried to get Jacqueline to come, too, but
+Jacqueline, who had a horror of weeping and tragedies, begged off; and
+Mrs. Temple, who really attached but little importance to the girl at
+any time, did not press the point. The door of the room remained closed
+for two hours. Jacqueline, who had got tired of Delilah's company and
+the cat's, went up-stairs early, but not to bed. She waited until she
+heard Judith's door open, and then went and knocked timidly at the door.
+
+"Come in," said Judith, in an unfamiliar voice. Judith was sitting
+before her dressing-table, and had already begun to unbraid her long,
+rich hair. But her eyes were fixed with a hard, staring gaze on her own
+image in the glass. The mother had wept at Freke's recital; the widow
+had remained pale, tearless, and turning over in her troubled mind the
+immaturity, the transitoriness of that first girlish love-affair that
+had resulted, as so few first loves do, in a sudden marriage--a quick
+widowhood. And she had a terrifying sense that she had betrayed herself
+to Freke. There was one particular point in the narrative, when he
+described how the dead man had got his death-wound. Beverley had run
+across a small body of Federal cavalrymen, himself with only an advance
+guard, and, _a la_ General Temple, had immediately dashed at them, as if
+a cavalry scrimmage would affect one iota the great fight that was
+impending the next day. Beverley himself had engaged in a hand-to-hand
+tussle with a Federal officer--both of them had rolled off their horses,
+and the struggle between them was more like Indian warfare than
+civilized warfare--and Freke described, with cruel particularity, how
+the two men fought in the underbrush, and crushed the wild rose and
+hawthorn bushes, each one trying vainly to draw his pistol--and at last
+a shot rang out, and Beverley turned over on his face with a wild shriek
+and a death-wound. The Federal officer had got his arm entangled in his
+bridle-reins, and Freke thought every moment the excited horse would
+trample the wounded man to death; and then, a squad of Confederates
+coming up, the Federals had made off, the officer mounting his horse and
+getting out of the way with nothing worse than a few bruises. All the
+time he was telling this he was eying Judith, who did not shed a single
+tear. Mrs. Temple wept torrents, and even so did General Temple. For
+poor Judith, whose reading of Freke was not less keen than his reading
+of her, it was misery enough to feel that, after all, her widowhood was
+not very real, and that the mourning, the entire giving up of the world,
+the devotion to Beverley's parents, was, in some sort, a reparation; but
+that it should escape her--for Judith with the eagerness to make amends,
+of a generous nature, had readily adopted Mrs. Temple's view--that it
+was a crime not to mourn for Beverley.
+
+Jacqueline slipped down on her knees beside Judith, and, nodding her
+head, gravely said:
+
+"Mamma didn't get _me_ into the room. Ah, Judy, dear, why won't they let
+us forget him--"
+
+"Jacqueline!" cried Judith, turning a pale, shocked face on her.
+
+"I say," persisted Jacqueline, who had one of her sudden fits of
+courage, "why do they trouble us to remember him? I hardly knew him; he
+was always off at college, and then in the war; why won't they let us
+mourn decently for him? And then--and then--everybody wants to forget
+griefs. I do."
+
+Judith rose and shook her off impatiently. "I wish Temple Freke had
+never come here," she said.
+
+"I do, too," answered Jacqueline, getting up. "I am afraid of him. O
+Judith, what two poor creatures are we!"
+
+"I know I am," suddenly cried Judith, breaking into a storm of tears. "I
+know there is no peace for me anywhere!--" Judith stopped as suddenly as
+she had begun. How could she put it in words, the ghastliness of this
+perpetual reminder of that which in her heart she longed to forget--this
+feeling that had been growing on her for so long, that she ought to feel
+more remorse for marrying Beverley Temple than grief at losing him--that
+all this solemn mourning for him was like those state funerals, where
+there is a great service, a catafalque, a coffin, mourners--everything
+except a corpse? And to her candid soul how wicked, heartless, and
+unnatural it seemed! Jacqueline's eyes, so full of meaning and fixed on
+her, troubled her. She got up after a minute and walked over to the
+window. The red glow of the fire and the dim candle-light did not
+prevent her from seeing clearly into the moonlight night. She drew the
+old-fashioned white curtains apart and looked out. The somber trees
+loomed large and black, but up on the hill, a quarter of a mile away,
+the light from Millenbeck gleamed cheerfully. From two windows on the
+lower floor and two on the upper, as well as the great fan- and
+side-lights of the hall-door, a ruddy glare streamed steadily. Presently
+Jacqueline came and stood by Judith, timidly.
+
+"Do you know," she said, "it seems queer that three strangers should
+come into our lonely lives--in this quiet life here? And the one I
+like--the one I like best--is Jack Throckmorton. I can't talk to the
+others."
+
+Judith, who had got back a little of her composure, smiled at this.
+
+"You talked away fast enough with Major Throckmorton."
+
+"Oh, yes, but I didn't feel at home with him. Jack and I understand each
+other. I know what he means when he talks to me. I don't always
+understand Major Throckmorton. Judith, is my cousin Freke a very wicked
+man?"
+
+"So people say," replied Judith in a subdued voice, which had not
+altogether overcome its agitation.
+
+"He isn't handsome enough to be very--very attractive," said Jacqueline
+after a pause.
+
+But the rule of contrary seemed to suddenly prevail at Barn Elms then.
+Within a week everybody in the house had succumbed more or less to
+Freke's charm. General Temple found him invaluable in the preparation of
+the History of Temple's Brigade; and Freke, who had a store of military
+knowledge among his great fund of general information, easily persuaded
+the general that he was a military historian of the first order. When
+the general began his evening harangues, Freke always had an example pat
+of a certain occasion when Prince Eugene, or the Duke of Marlborough, or
+some equally distinguished leader had successfully pursued General
+Temple's tactics. All this General Temple laboriously transcribed in his
+manuscript. Judith, who very much doubted whether Freke were not making
+it up as he went along, had her suspicions confirmed when Freke would
+occasionally turn his expressive face on her and actually wink with
+appreciation of the general's simplicity. Judith was indignant, but she
+could not help laughing at Freke's genuine humor. Mrs. Temple showed her
+regard for the returned prodigal by taking him into the "charmber" one
+day and reasoning in a motherly way upon Freke's duty to return to his
+wife. Judith was astounded after a while to hear Mrs. Temple's gentle
+but intense laughter making itself heard outside the room. Freke, with
+the most good-natured manner in the world, sitting in the rush-bottomed
+chair, with one foot over his knee, began to tell Mrs. Temple some of
+his marital experiences with his Julia. Mrs. Temple at first put on her
+severest frown and fairly groaned aloud at his declaration that he
+didn't know whether he was married or not in Virginia, as his divorce
+was got in one of the Northwestern States; but, divorce or no divorce,
+he wouldn't tempt Fate again in another matrimonial venture even with a
+creature as beautiful as Helen, as wise as Portia, and with a million in
+her own right. Then he began to tell of the adventures between Julia and
+himself which had led to their separation, winding up with a description
+of their final scene, when Julia threw a dish at him and he in turn
+threw a bucket of ice-water over Julia. Before this, though, Mrs.
+Temple's laughter had been heard. Freke issued from the room the picture
+of innocence, and at peace with himself and all the world. Mrs. Temple,
+on the contrary, was an image of guilt. Never had she before in her life
+been beguiled from a moral lecture into unseemly laughter--and laughter
+on such a subject! Mrs. Temple's conscience rose up and fought her, and
+she began to think that all her moral foundation was tottering.
+
+Surprises were the order of the day. One night, just after family
+prayers, when the gout, and the doubt whether anybody at all was to be
+saved, had caused General Temple to make a more pessimistic, vociferous,
+and grewsome prayer than usual, in which he called the Deity to account
+for so grievously afflicting the Temple family, Freke, whom Judith had
+caught smiling in the midst of General Temple's most telling periods,
+quietly announced that he had that day bought Wareham, a place within
+two miles of Barn Elms.
+
+It was not much of a place, being at most about three hundred acres,
+with a small, untenanted house on it--and property went for a song,
+anyhow, in that part of the world--but, nevertheless, the news was
+paralyzing to General and Mrs. Temple. Judith, who was developing a
+certain dislike and distrust of Freke that grew daily, could hardly
+forbear laughing at the mute horror of General and Mrs. Temple over this
+unlooked-for news. Freke went on to say that a very little would make
+the place habitable for him, and he liked the fishing and shooting to be
+had--especially the shooting, as the birds had had four years' rest
+during the war. Then he said good-night pleasantly, and went off to bed.
+
+"This is the dev--I mean this is most unfortunate, my love," remarked
+General Temple, dismally, to Mrs. Temple, at two o'clock in the morning
+following this, as he paraded up and down the "charmber," declaiming
+against Freke's iniquities.
+
+Next day, Mrs. Sherrard came over, and the direful news was communicated
+to her by Mrs. Temple, with a very long face. Mrs. Sherrard's eyes
+danced.
+
+"Now you'll know what it is to have a nephew that one would like to be
+entirely unlike what he is. That's my trouble with Edmund Morford. You
+know, I hate a humbug--and Edmund is a good soul, but a dreadful
+humbug."
+
+"Katharine!" exclaimed Mrs. Temple. "A minister of the gospel--"
+
+"Go along, Jane Temple! You have no eyes in your head where ministers of
+the gospel are concerned. Edmund is perfectly harmless--that's one
+comfort."
+
+"I wish I could say the same of Temple Freke," Mrs. Temple rejoined,
+dolefully.
+
+It would be a week or two yet before Freke could take possession of
+Wareham. Some beds and tables and sheets and towels had to be procured,
+and meanwhile he stayed on at Barn Elms. It would not have taken a very
+astute person to see what the charm was. It was Judith.
+
+When the knowledge first came to these two people--to Judith, that
+Freke's eyes followed her continually; that, as if by some power beyond
+his will, his chair was always next hers, his ear always alert to catch
+her lightest word--to Freke, that this young country-woman, with her
+spirited, expressive face, her untutored singing--for music was one of
+his weak points, or strong ones, as the case might be--her gentle
+sarcasm when he essayed a little sentiment, pretty and tender enough to
+please a woman who knew twice as much as she; that at first sight,
+without an effort, she had conquered his bold spirit--it is hard to say
+which was the most vexed and disgusted. Judith found it easy enough to
+play the inconsolable widow where a man who aroused a positive
+antagonism like Freke was concerned, and denounced him in her own mind
+as a wretch for daring to fall in love with her. And Freke--after New
+York women and Creole women, French, Spanish, Russian, English, and
+Italian women--to have been loved and petted, and virtually made free of
+women's hearts; that this unsophisticated Virginia girl, who had never
+seen six men in her life, should simply take him off his feet, and that,
+without knowing it--was simply infuriating. In the privacy of his
+bedroom, as he smoked his last cigar before turning in, he swore at
+himself with a self-deprecation that was thoroughly genuine. What did he
+want to marry again for, anyway? Hadn't he had all he wanted of that
+pastime? And, of course, being a divorced man, Judith would see him
+chopped into little pieces before she would marry him--and then the
+staggering thought that, even if he were not divorced, the odds were
+against her marrying him at all--it was altogether maddening. But he did
+not lose his head completely. Judith's indifference--nay, dislike--saved
+to him his discretion. But had she warmed to him for one little
+moment--Freke, in thinking over this sweet impossibility, lay back in
+his chair and watched the smoke curling upward, and was lost in a
+delicious reverie--when suddenly, the utter preposterousness of it came
+to him, and he threw the cigar into the fire with a savage energy that
+nearly wrenched his arm off. No, the little devil--for he was not choice
+of epithets in regard to this woman--would throw him away with as
+little conscience and remorse as he threw that cigar away! Like all men
+of many love-affairs, he regarded love-making as an aesthetic amusement;
+and while it was absolutely necessary for its perfection that the woman
+should be desperately in earnest--for Freke did not mind a tragic tinge
+being given to the matter--it was nonsense for a man to permit himself
+to be drawn into heroics--and yet--but for the indifference of this
+girl, who was always half laughing at him--he would not answer for any
+folly he might commit.
+
+Then there was Jacqueline. She exactly suited him as a victim to his
+charms, sardonically expressing it to himself. She, too, was not
+particularly impressed with him as yet, but that was due to her
+ignorance. He could easily enlighten her, and she would be led like a
+slave by him; he could make her believe anything. So, in default of
+Judith, he might as well amuse himself with Jacqueline; and, by
+resolutely concealing his gigantic folly, he would in the end overcome
+it. But he felt like a man who, having a head to stand champagne and
+brandy and absinthe and every other intoxication, comes across something
+that looks as harmless as water, but which sets his brain on fire and
+makes him a madman.
+
+The general and Mrs. Temple saw nothing; a man might have made love to
+Judith and have run away with her under their very noses before they
+would have realized that it was possible for any man to dare falling in
+love with Beverley's widow; and if Jacqueline's eyes saw anything, she
+kept it wisely to herself.
+
+Freke certainly added a new and picturesque element to their lives; even
+Judith could not deny that, although she habitually denied Freke the
+possession of any of the graces as well as the virtues. But that Freke
+was a wonderful, a gifted, a fascinating talker, she was forced to
+admit. His conversation was quite different from Throckmorton's manly
+plainness of speech, who, with more brains than Freke, had not them as
+readily soluble in talk. Judith was acute enough to see the difference
+between the two men--one the man of conversation, and the other the man
+of action. Throckmorton knew many things, and one thing surpassingly
+well--his profession. Freke excelled in conversation; what he knew was
+imposing, but what he could do was not. However, he had not only
+traveled, but he had observed as well as read. He never made himself the
+hero of his own stories; and there was a sparkle in his eyes, an
+animation that gave a deeper tone to his voice, and Judith, in her dull
+and colorless life, could not but feel the charm of it. Nevertheless, it
+was not all charm. Judith felt as strongly as ever the incongruity of
+Freke with his surroundings.
+
+So, some days more passed. Judith found that in finesse she was no
+match for Freke. Indifferent to him as she might be, he could always
+place himself where he wanted--he managed to have a great deal more of
+her society than she would willingly have given him; but she reasoned
+shrewdly with herself--women being naturally clever in these things: "He
+will soon give it up. The game is not worth the candle." And so it
+proved; for in a little while he began to shadow Jacqueline, and
+Jacqueline succumbed like a bird to the charmer. If Freke was present,
+Jacqueline, who was wont to be impatient when not noticed, would sit
+quite quietly by her sister-in-law's side, sewing demurely, or walk
+beside her gravely, not opening her mouth but listening intently, as her
+changing color showed. One day, when Jacqueline went into the gloomy,
+darkened drawing-room to play, Freke followed her. Jacqueline sat down,
+and began some short familiar piece, but she could not render it. She
+missed notes, became confused, and finally gave up and left the piano in
+mortification.
+
+"It is because you are here," she said to Freke, with a child's
+resentment.
+
+"Is it, little girl?" he asked.
+
+He was sitting quite at the other end of the room and did not come near
+her, but something in his tone made Jacqueline halt, and brought the
+ever-ready blood into her cheeks. Freke, after a moment, rose and
+sauntered toward her. As he came up to her he took a stray lock of hair
+that had escaped, in curly perversity, from the comb; and, just as he
+stood with it in his fingers, the door opened and Simon Peter announced:
+
+"Walk right in, Marse George. Mistis, she countin' de tuckeys in de
+coop, but Miss Judy, she be 'long pres'n'y. Hi! Here Miss Jacky!"
+
+Throckmorton walked in. His eye, which was as quick as a hawk's, caught
+the whole thing in an instant, and a sort of jealousy sprang into life.
+Of course, he did not display the smallest symptom of it. He shook hands
+pleasantly with Jacqueline, and also with Freke, whom he had met several
+times. With his easy, worldly judgment, he by no means ranked Freke as
+the chief of sinners, but, without regarding him as a model citizen,
+found him extremely good company, which Freke certainly was. Jacqueline
+looked painfully embarrassed, but Freke's coolness was simply
+indomitable. The two men made conversation naturally enough, while
+Jacqueline, awkwardly silent, sat and twisted the unlucky lock of hair
+in her fingers until a diversion was created by Judith's entrance, with
+little Beverley clinging to her skirts. A faint, girlish blush came into
+Judith's face when she met Throckmorton; and for his part he felt always
+the charm, the refinement, the sprightliness, more piquant because
+subdued, that exhaled like a perfume wherever Judith was. Beverley made
+for Throckmorton, and, before his mother could interpose a warning
+hand, was perched on the arm of Throckmorton's chair, whence both of
+them defied her. Jacqueline made but one remark. She asked Throckmorton,
+timidly:
+
+"How is young Mr. Throckmorton?"
+
+At which the major scowled, but responded carelessly that Jack was all
+right, as far as he knew.
+
+_Young_ Mr. Throckmorton! and from those lovely lips!
+
+Presently there was a grinding of wheels, and a commotion at the front
+door.
+
+"Mrs. Sherrard, I know!" said Judith. "She always begins her salutations
+at the gate."
+
+Sounds were distinguishable.
+
+"Mistis be mighty glad ter see you an' Marse Edmun'. She down at de
+fattenin'-coop countin' de tuckeys, kase we didn't have no luck wid de
+tuckey-aigs lars' season, an' de wuffless hen-tuckeys--"
+
+So much for Simon Peter, when Delilah's voice broke in:
+
+"Miss Kitty, 'twan' de hen-tuckeys 'tall. Ef de gobblers wuz ter take
+turns, like de pigeons, a-settin' on de aigs--"
+
+"I allus did think dem he-pigeons look like de foolishest critters _I_
+ever see a-settin' on de nes' while de she-pigeons hoppin' roun' de
+groun' 'stid o' mindin' dey business--"
+
+"You are right, Simon Peter," answered Mrs. Sherrard, still invisible.
+"I wonder that Delilah hasn't profited by Mrs. Temple's example. You've
+got visitors. Whose hat is this?"
+
+"Marse George Throckmorton's an' Marse Temple Freke's. I gwi' tell
+mistis you here. Marse c'yarn leave de charmber yet, he gout so bad."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard marched in, followed by Edmund Morford. She wore her most
+commanding and hostile air. She had pooh-poohed Mrs. Temple's dread of
+Freke, but she meant to give him to understand that his goings on, and
+particularly his matrimonial difficulties, were perfectly well known in
+the Severn neighborhood, and properly reprobated. So she shook hands all
+around, followed by the Rev. Edmund, who never trusted himself at Barn
+Elms, with those two pretty young women, alone and unprotected.
+
+"I understand you have bought Wareham," remarked Mrs. Sherrard, tartly,
+to Freke.
+
+"I have," answered Freke, very mildly.
+
+"You'll repent it."
+
+"Not if you make yourself as agreeable as you ought," answered Freke.
+
+The impudence of this tickled Mrs. Sherrard.
+
+"I hear you are an entertaining fellow," she said. "Come and talk to
+me."
+
+Just then Mrs. Temple entered, but Mrs. Sherrard kept fast hold of
+Freke. In half an hour he had won her over. Judith, responding with an
+intelligent glance to a rather cynical smile on Throckmorton's part, saw
+it. Not satisfied with winning Mrs. Sherrard over, Freke applied himself
+to Morford, and that excellent but guileless person fell an instant
+victim to Freke's tact and power. Mrs. Sherrard was so pleased with her
+morning's visit, that she invited them all over to Turkey Thicket to
+spend the following Thursday evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+In the few days that followed, Judith saw more plainly that Freke was
+deliberately casting his spell over Jacqueline, and, from the soft and
+seductive flattery he had tried on her, Judith, at first, he exchanged
+something like sarcasm. He would discuss constancy before her, Judith
+meanwhile keeping her seat resolutely, but she could not prevent the
+tell-tale color from rising into her face. But when, as Freke generally
+did, he surmised that all the so-called constancy in this world wasn't
+exactly what it purported to be, she grew pale beneath his gaze. He
+watched her intently whenever she was with Throckmorton, and the mere
+consciousness of being watched embarrassed while it angered her. Freke,
+whose perceptions were of the quickest, saw far into the future, and
+often repeated in his own mind the old, old truth that all the passions
+of human nature--love, hope, despair, jealousy, and revenge--could be
+found within the quietest and most peaceful circle.
+
+The very next evening after Mrs. Sherrard's visit, Freke appeared in the
+dusky drawing-room, where Jacqueline sat crouched over the fire, and
+Judith, with her child in her arms, sang him quaint Mother Goose
+melodies. When Freke came within the fire's red circle of light, Judith
+observed that he had a violin and bow under his arm. Jacqueline jumped
+up delightedly.
+
+"Oh, oh! do you know any music?"
+
+"I can fiddle a little," answered Freke, smiling.
+
+He settled himself, and, in the midst of the deep silence of twilight in
+the country, began a concerto of Brahms. The first movement, an
+_allegro_, he played with a dainty, soft trippingness that was fit for
+fairies dancing by moonlight. The next, a _scherzo_, was full of tender
+suggestiveness--a dream told in music. The third movement was deeper,
+more tragic, full of sorrow and wailing. As Freke drew the bow across
+the G-string, he would bring out tones as deep as the 'cello, while
+suddenly the sharp cry of the treble would cut into the somber depths of
+the basso like the shriek of a soul in torment. A melody like a
+wandering spirit appeared out of the deep harmonies, and lost, yet ever
+found, would make itself heard with a sweet insistence, only to be
+swallowed up in a tempest of sound, like a bird lost in a storm. And
+presently there was an abatement, then a calm, and the music died,
+literally, amid the twilight dusk and gloom.
+
+As Freke, with strange eyes, and his bow suspended, tremblingly, as if
+waiting for the spirit to return, ceased, there was a perfect silence.
+Jacqueline, who had never heard anything like it in her life, and who,
+all unknown to herself, was singularly susceptible to music, gazed at
+Freke as the magician who had made her dream dreams, and after a while
+cried out:
+
+"Why do you play like that? I never heard anybody play so before."
+
+In answer, Freke again smiled, and played a wild Hungarian dance, fit
+for the dancing of bacchantes, so full of barbaric clash and rhythm,
+that Jacqueline suddenly sprang up and began to dance around the chairs
+and tables. Freke half turned to glance at her; he retarded the time,
+and softened the tones, when Jacqueline, too, danced slowly and
+dreamily--until presently, with a storm and a rush of music,
+_fortissimo_ and _prestissimo_, and a resounding blare of chords that
+sounded like the shouts of a victorious army, he stopped and lay back in
+his chair, still smiling.
+
+But, although Judith had twice Jacqueline's knowledge of music, with all
+her feeling for it, Freke was piqued to see that she did not for a
+moment confound his music with his personality. She seemed to take a
+malicious pleasure in complimenting him glibly, which is the last snub
+to an artist. Freke was so vexed by her indifference, that he began to
+play cats mewing and dogs barking, on his fiddle, to frighten little
+Beverley, who looked at him with wide, scared eyes.
+
+"Never mind, my darling," cried Judith, laughing. "Be a brave little
+boy--only girls are scared at such things."
+
+Beverley, thus exhorted, summoned up his courage and proposed to get
+grandfather's sword to defend himself. Judith's laughter, the defiant
+light in her eyes, the passionate kiss she gave the boy as a reward for
+his bravery, annoyed Freke. His vanity as an artist, however, was
+consoled by hearing Simon Peter's voice, in an awed and solemn whisper
+from the door, through which his woolly head was just visible in the
+surrounding darkness:
+
+"I 'clar' ter God, dat fiddle is got evils in it. I hear some on 'em
+hollerin' an' cryin' fur ter git out, an' some on 'em larfin' an'
+jumpin'. Marse Temple, dem is spirits in dat fiddle. I knows it."
+
+"They are, indeed; and, if I go down to the grave-yard at midnight and
+play, all the dead and gone Temples will rise out of their graves and
+dance around in their grave-clothes. Do you hear that?" said Freke,
+gravely.
+
+"Lord God A'mighty!" yelled Simon Peter, "I gwi' sleep wid a sifter" (a
+sieve) "over my hade ev'y night arter dis. Sifters keeps away de evils,
+kase dey slips th'u de holes." And, sure enough, a sieve was hung up
+over Simon Peter's bed that very night, with a rabbit's foot as an
+additional safeguard, and a bunch of peacock's feathers over the
+fireplace was ruthlessly thrown into the fire to propitiate "de evils."
+
+When Thursday evening came, General Temple was high and dry with the
+gout, and Mrs. Temple, of course, could not leave him alone to fight it
+out with Delilah.
+
+"Ole marse, you gwi' keep on havin' de gout twell you w'yar a ole h'yar
+foot in yo' pocket. I done tole you so, an' I ain' feerd ter keep on
+tellin' you so," was Delilah's Job-like advice.
+
+"That's true," snapped the general. "Gad, if I had had a thousand men in
+my brigade as little 'feerd' as you, I'll be damned if I ever would have
+surrendered at Appomattox! God forgive me for swearing."
+
+"I hope and pray He will, my darling husband," responded Mrs. Temple,
+with calm piety.
+
+Jacqueline was in a fever of delight, as she always was when there was
+any prospect of going from home. She danced up and down, romped with
+little Beverley, and, hugging him, told him in a laughing whisper that
+she would see "somebody" at Turkey Thicket, and "somebody had beautiful
+black eyes, and was only twenty-two years old."
+
+Judith, too, felt that pleasurable excitement of which she began to be
+less and less ashamed. A few words dropped meaningly by Throckmorton,
+full of that sound sense which distinguished him, made her look
+differently at life. His philosophy was not Mrs. Temple's. He reminded
+Judith that we should accept peace and tranquillity thankfully, and that
+it was no sin to be happy; and everything that Throckmorton said
+commended itself to Judith. For the first time in her narrow and
+secluded life she enjoyed with him the pleasure of being as clever as
+she wanted to be. He was no timid soul, like Edmund Morford, to fear a
+rival in a woman. It never occurred to Throckmorton to feel jealous of
+any woman's wit. One of his greatest charms to Judith was that he was
+not in the least afraid of her. Her quick feminine humor, her natural
+acuteness, her knack of pretty expression in speech and writing,
+appeared in their true light, as mere accomplishments, contrasted with
+Throckmorton's firm and masculine mind. The conviction of his mental
+grasp, his will-power, all that goes to make a man fitted to command a
+woman, had in it a subtile attraction for Judith, like the spell that
+beauty casts over a man. He was the only man in all her surroundings
+whose calm superiority over her was perfectly plain to her. It was only
+necessary for him to express an opinion, that Judith did not at once see
+its force. She sometimes differed courteously with him; but it began
+soon to be a perilous pleasure to her to find that usually Throckmorton
+was infinitely wiser, more liberal, more just than herself.
+
+When the Thursday evening came, only Judith, Jacqueline, and Freke were
+to go. It had turned bitterly cold. Simon Peter, sitting in solitary
+magnificence on the box, handled the ribbons over the Kentucky horses,
+who dashed along so briskly that the carriage, which was in the last
+stage of "befo' the war" decrepitude, threatened to tumble to pieces and
+drop them all in the road.
+
+Going along, Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, very quiet and silent.
+Freke, with his back to the horses, talked to Judith. Occasionally in
+the darkness, by a passing gleam, he could see Jacqueline's eyes
+shining.
+
+"What do you think of Major Throckmorton," he asked Judith.
+
+Although not versed in knowledge of the world, Judith was not devoid of
+self-possession. The question, though, embarrassed her a little.
+
+"I--I--think he is most interesting, kind--and--"
+
+"Military men are, as a rule, rather narrow, don't you think?"
+
+"I never saw enough to judge. I should think they ought to be the other
+way."
+
+"Every time I see Throckmorton, the consciousness comes to me that I
+have seen him before--seen him under some tragical and unusual
+circumstances. If I didn't know that those who have good consciences,
+like myself, should be above superstition, I should say that in some
+previous state of being I had known him; however, I am too strictly
+orthodox in my beliefs to tolerate such notions. But some time or
+other--perhaps to-night--I intend to find out from Throckmorton himself
+if we haven't had the pleasure of meeting in another cycle or state of
+being. There is, by the way, an ineffable impudence in Throckmorton
+returning to this county now."
+
+Judith suspected that Freke's peroration was made with the intention of
+provoking a reply.
+
+They were driving along an open piece of the road, and it was
+comparatively light in the carriage, although there was no moon. Freke
+glancing up to see the cause of Judith's silence, caught the gleam of
+her white teeth in a broad smile. She was laughing at him. It certainly
+was delicious to hear Temple Freke commenting on anybody's having
+impudence in returning to the county. Freke, who hated to be laughed at,
+promised himself he would be avenged. "I'll make you wince, my lady!" he
+thought to himself. Presently, though, Judith said, in a tone with a
+sharpness in it, like one who has been wounded:
+
+"I can't imagine anybody applying the word impudence to Major
+Throckmorton. He is very reserved--very dignified."
+
+"Throckmorton, I see, has an advocate.--And little Cousin Jacky, what do
+you think of the other Jacky--Jacky Throckmorton?"
+
+"I think he's perfectly delightful," assented Jacqueline, after a pause.
+
+Freke said no more about the Throckmortons. The women were evidently
+against him there; and soon they were driving up to the door at Turkey
+Thicket, and going up the hall stairs to take off their wraps, very much
+as on that last evening, when Mrs. Sherrard took occasion to
+rehabilitate Throckmorton in the good graces of the county people, as
+she was now trying to do with Freke.
+
+When Judith and Jacqueline came down the stairs, Freke met them at the
+foot. Jacqueline had pleaded hard to wear a white dress, but Mrs. Temple
+was inexorable. She might catch cold; consequently, she wore a little
+prim, Quakerish gown of gray. Judith, as usual, was stately in black.
+
+Throckmorton was standing on the rug before the drawing-room fire,
+talking gravely with Mrs. Sherrard. Edmund Morford was there and Dr.
+Wortley, who, with Jack Throckmorton, constituted the company. Mrs.
+Sherrard drew Judith into the conversation that she had been carrying on
+with Throckmorton. He said to Judith:
+
+"I will continue what I was saying--but I assure you it is something I
+could speak of to but few people. It is this absolute barring out on the
+part of the county people toward me. Not a soul except Mrs. Sherrard and
+Mrs. Temple has asked me to break bread. I thought I knew Virginians--I
+thought them the kindest, easiest, least angular people in the world;
+but, upon my soul, anything like this cold and deliberate ostracism I
+never witnessed! Why, half the county is related to me--and I've been to
+school with every man in it--and yet, I am a pariah!"
+
+"You don't look at it from their point of view," replied Mrs. Sherrard,
+with more patience than was her wont. "Think how these people have
+suffered. You see yourself, never was there such ruin wrought, and then
+remember that you are associated with that ruin. Can't you fancy the
+dull and silent resentment, the cold anger, with which they must regard
+all--"
+
+"Blasted Yankees?" cheerfully remarked Throckmorton, recovering his
+spirits a little.
+
+"But you know," said Mrs. Sherrard, whose ideas on some subjects were
+rudimentary, but speaking kindly though positively, "you mustn't wear
+your uniform down here."
+
+Throckmorton laughed rather harshly.
+
+"As I'm not going to be married or buried, I can't see what chance I
+would have to wear it. But what you say disposes me to put on my
+full-dress uniform, with sword and chapeau, and wear it to church on
+Sunday."
+
+Then Mrs. Sherrard went off after her latest passion, Temple Freke, and
+left Judith and Throckmorton standing together.
+
+"I think _I_ understand you," said Judith, with her pretty air of
+diffidence. "But, as you know, the people here have one principle
+which stands for honor, and you have another. You have got power
+and--and--victory out of _your_ principle, and we have got nothing
+but ruin and defeat and wretchedness out of _our_ principle. How can
+you hold us to a strict account?"
+
+"I do not--God knows I do not!--but I want a little human kindness. I
+get it from a few. Dr. Wortley, who was my tutor at my grandfather's,
+and has licked me a hundred times--and Morford, and the families at
+Turkey Thicket and Barn Elms--but none of them, I think," continued
+Throckmorton, looking into Judith's eyes with admiration, "exactly
+understand how _I_ feel as well as you. What kept me in the army was, as
+you say, a principle of honor. It was like a knife in me, every Southern
+officer who resigned. I respected them, because I knew, as only the
+naval and military men knew, that they were giving up not only their
+future and their children's future, for what they thought right, but
+that they knew the overwhelming odds against them. I don't believe any
+one of them really expected success--they knew too much--it was a
+sacrifice most disinterested. I could not go with them; but I had to
+face as much obloquy among my people by staying in the army as they
+had to face in going out. But I swear I never gave one thought to the
+advantage to me of staying where I was! I stayed because I could not, as
+a man of honor, do otherwise, I thought my own people would recognize
+this--that by this time the bitterness would be over."
+
+"Never mind," said Judith, with a heavenly smile, "it will come--it will
+come."
+
+A little later, Mrs. Sherrard whispered to Throckmorton:
+
+"Are not my two beauties from Barn Elms sweet creatures?"
+
+"Very," answered Throckmorton, a dark flush showing under his tan and
+sunburn. "Little Jacqueline is a charming creature."
+
+"Oh, pooh! Jacqueline. You mean Judith."
+
+"Mrs. Beverley is most dignified, charming, and interesting; but little
+Miss Jacky--"
+
+"I should think she would be a nice playmate for your Jack," remarked
+Mrs. Sherrard.
+
+Throckmorton looked awkward, not to say foolish. Had he forgotten his
+forty-four years, his iron-gray hair, all the scars of life? Jacqueline
+and Jack were inseparable from the start, and their two heads were close
+together on the deep, old-fashioned sofa, at that very moment.
+
+"The major stole a march on me the other day, going over to Barn Elms,"
+remarked Jack, confidentially. "However, I'll get even with him yet."
+
+"Oh, how can you talk so about your own father?"
+
+"Why shouldn't I talk so about my own father?"
+
+"Because it's not right."
+
+"Look here, Miss Jacky. Nobody thinks as much of the major as I do--he's
+the kindest, noblest, gamest chap alive--but you see, I'm a man, and
+he's a man. When he got married at twenty-one, he took the risk of
+having a son in the field before he was ready to quit himself."
+
+"Do you--do you remember your mother?" asked Jacqueline, in a low voice.
+
+"No," answered Jack, fixing his dark eyes seriously on Jacqueline. "I
+have a miniature of her that my father gave me when I was twenty-one. He
+keeps her picture in his room, and on the anniversary of her death he
+spends the day alone. Once in a great while he has talked to me about
+her."
+
+Jacqueline glanced at Throckmorton with a new interest. He was still
+talking to Judith. The pleased look on the major's face aroused the
+mischievous devil in Jack. In five minutes Jacqueline, to her disgust
+and disappointment, found herself talking to Dr. Wortley, while Jack had
+established himself on the other side of Judith. Neither Throckmorton
+nor Judith was pleased to see him.
+
+"You ought to hear my father tell about some of his campaigns 'way back
+in the fifties," remarked Jack. "It's a good while ago, but the major
+isn't sensitive about his age like some men."
+
+Perhaps the major was not, but Jack's observation was received in grim
+silence.
+
+"I am sure Major Throckmorton can tell us a great many interesting
+things," answered Judith, smiling involuntarily--"particularly to us who
+lead such quiet lives, and who know so little. I sometimes wonder how I
+shall ever be able to bring up my boy; I have so few ideas, and they
+seem to be all rusting away."
+
+"I thought you were a great reader," said Throckmorton.
+
+"I like to read, but--"
+
+"My father is a Trojan of a reader," continued Jack, "and his eyesight
+is really wonderful."
+
+At this the major, with the cast in his eye very obvious, rose and
+walked over to where Jacqueline was sitting. Jack had accomplished his
+object, and ran his father out of the field. But Judith felt a sense of
+bitter disappointment. However, with the sweetness of her nature, she
+overcame her resentful feelings toward Jack, and, in spite of his boyish
+disposition to make people uncomfortable, really began to like him.
+
+Throckmorton, though, was not ill pleased on the whole. It was by an
+effort that he had kept away from Jacqueline until then. But, after
+talking with her awhile, he was not quite so well satisfied. Her
+childishness was pretty, and the acuteness of her remarks sometimes
+surprised him, but there was nothing to her--she talked and thought
+about herself. Throckmorton tried once or twice to get her into the
+channel of rational conversation, but Jacqueline rebelled. She
+acknowledged with a pretty smile that she hated books, and that she was
+poor company for herself. Throckmorton felt a tinge of pity for her.
+What would become of her twenty years hence--so pretty, so charming, so
+inconsequent?
+
+Freke had in the mean time completed his conquest of Mrs. Sherrard.
+Presently he went to the piano and trolled out songs in a rich barytone,
+playing his own accompaniments. This musical gift was a revelation to
+Mrs. Sherrard. It was not comparable, though, to his violin-playing.
+Nevertheless, it was enough to turn Jacqueline's head a little. Freke
+sang a sentimental song, with a tender refrain, and every time he sang
+this refrain he cast a glance at Jacqueline.
+
+Gradually the blood mounted to her face, until, when he stopped, she was
+as rosy as the morning. Then Freke sat down by her, and after that
+Jacqueline had no eyes for anybody else--not even Jack.
+
+Throckmorton saw it, with a strong disgust for Freke, and with that same
+strange pang of jealousy he had felt before. Judith's angry disapproval
+burned within her, but she made no attempt to circumvent Freke until,
+looking around after a while, she missed him and Jacqueline both.
+
+Judith, watching her opportunity, slipped out into the hall, and there
+found the culprits. Jacqueline made a little futile effort to pretend
+that they were looking at some prints by the light of a solitary
+kerosene-lamp; but Freke, who at least had no pretence about him, held
+on boldly to Jacqueline's hand, until she wrenched it away.
+
+"Jacqueline, dear," said Judith, trying to speak naturally, "it is cold
+out here; come in!"
+
+"I'm not cold," answered Jacqueline after a pause.
+
+"But it is not polite to run away like this," urged Judith, casting an
+angry look at Freke, who, with folded arms, was whistling softly.
+
+"I can't help that, Judith," answered Jacqueline, pettishly. "Why do you
+want me in that stiff drawing-room with old Dr. Wortley and Mrs.
+Sherrard, and--"
+
+"But Jacqueline, _I_ want you!"
+
+There was no mistaking that tone.
+
+"Go along, Jacky," said Freke, with cheerful submission. "You'll be
+liable to catch some dreadful moral complaint if you breathe the same
+atmosphere with me too long. I am a sinner of high degree, I am."
+
+Jacqueline turned and sullenly followed Judith back, while Freke,
+smiling and unruffled, walked by her side. And then supper was served,
+but Jacqueline was perfectly distrait and could not keep her eyes off
+Freke, who was the life and soul of the party. The supper was after the
+Virginia order--very good--and so profuse it could not all be got on the
+table.
+
+On the drive home there was perfect silence. Freke made one or two
+observations to Judith, but her cold silence convinced him that it was
+useless. He was not afraid of her, but he saw no good in pretending to
+placate her. When they reached Barn Elms and were standing in the cold
+hall, Judith said to Jacqueline:
+
+"Go on. I shall be up in a moment."
+
+"I'll wait for you," replied Jacqueline, doggedly.
+
+"You may wait, but I wish to speak to Freke privately. I shall take him
+into the drawing-room."
+
+At this, Jacqueline went slowly and unwillingly up the stairs.
+
+Judith picked up the lamp and went into the dark drawing-room. The fire
+still smoldered dimly in the great fireplace. Freke took up the tongs
+and made a vigorous attack on the fire, and in two minutes the flames
+were leaping around the brass firedogs. Then he settled himself
+comfortably in the corner of the sofa.
+
+Judith, although her determination was made, yet felt timid, and her
+heart beat.
+
+"What excuse can you give," she asked in an unsteady voice, "for your
+behavior with that child to-night?"
+
+"None whatever," answered Freke, coolly. "I am not bound to justify
+myself to you, nor do I admit there was anything to be excused."
+
+"You are right in saying you are not bound to justify yourself to me,"
+said Judith; "but can you justify yourself to her father and mother? You
+see how she is. You know what they--what we all--think of you. You are a
+married man, remember."
+
+"Am I?" asked Freke, laughing. "By Jove, I wish I knew whether I was or
+not!"
+
+"What right have you to fill Jacqueline's head with dreams and notions?
+The child was well enough until you came. Why can't you go away and
+leave her in peace?"
+
+Freke smiled at this. "I don't feel like going away," he said, "and
+particularly now that I see you wish me to go. I have rather different
+plans in view now that I have bought property here. It doesn't look well
+for a man to be cast off by his relations; and I intend to have, if I
+can, the backing of the Temples."
+
+"But how long, think you, could you stay, if the child's mother knew of
+your behavior to-night?"
+
+"That I don't know. But I wish to stay, Madam Judith; and, since you are
+so prudish, I will promise you not look at Jacqueline again. Will that
+satisfy you?"
+
+"I will first see how you keep your promise. But I warn you, Freke, if
+you remain here much longer, I shall use all the influence in my power
+to get you out of this house. You are no advantage to the child. It
+would be better for her if you went away and never came back."
+
+Freke had been sitting all this time, while Judith, standing up, pale
+and disdainful, spoke to him. But now he rose.
+
+"Now," he said with sudden seriousness, "since you have expressed that
+hospitable intention concerning me, let me tell you something--something
+very interesting, that I have suspected for some time, but only found
+out to-night. You remember I told you of that death-struggle of
+Beverley's with an officer--how they rolled over and over and fought."
+
+"Yes--yes--"
+
+"And how the officer's horse, held by the bridle, I thought every moment
+would trample--"
+
+"Yes--yes--yes!" cried Judith.
+
+"Well," said Freke, coming up close to her, "Throckmorton was that
+officer!"
+
+Freke had meant to give her one fierce pang; it was a delicious thing to
+him to strike her through Throckmorton; but he was quite unprepared for
+the result, for Judith, although young and strong, after standing for a
+moment gazing at Freke with wild eyes, swayed and without a sound
+dropped to the floor in a dead faint.
+
+Freke, cursing his own folly, ran to her and called loudly. His voice
+echoed through the midnight silence of the house. It brought Mrs.
+Temple, frightened and half dressed, into the room, followed by Delilah,
+struggling into her petticoats, and Simon Peter, scratching his wool and
+but half awake.
+
+Freke had raised Judith on his arm. Something strange, like pity, of
+which he knew but little, came to him as he looked at her pallid face.
+
+"You git 'way, Marse Temple," said Delilah, with authority. "Me an'
+mistis kin manage dis heah.--Hi, Miss Judy! Open yo' eyes, honey, an'
+tell what de matter wid you."
+
+Mrs. Temple, who never lost her head in emergencies, in five minutes had
+Judith in a fair way of coming to herself. Freke said truthfully that he
+never was so surprised in his life as when Judith fell over. Mrs. Temple
+could not account for it either, and proposed to leave the solution to
+Dr. Wortley when he should be sent for in the morning. In a few minutes
+more Judith came to and sat up. Almost her first conscious glance fell
+on Freke. She gazed at him steadily, and in an instant the conviction
+that what he had said was mere wanton cruelty came to her. Freke himself
+avoided her glance uneasily.
+
+"Honey, tell yo' ole mammy wh'yar hu'ts you," pleaded Delilah, anxious
+to take charge of the case in advance of Dr. Wortley.
+
+"Nowhere at all. I only want to get to bed.--Mother, I hope father
+wasn't waked."
+
+"My dear, nothing short of an explosion would wake him."
+
+Mrs. Temple wisely refrained from tormenting Judith with questions. Her
+fainting-fit was certainly unaccountable, but Mrs. Temple remembered
+once or twice in her own early days when she had done the same thing. So
+she merely gave Judith some brandy-and-water, and in a few minutes, with
+Delilah's help, got her on the old-fashioned sofa.
+
+While Mrs. Temple and Delilah were stirring about the room, shutting up
+for the night and raking the fire down, Freke came up to Judith. Revenge
+was familiar to him, but not revenge on women, and remorse was
+altogether new to him.
+
+"What I told you," he began, awkwardly, "the facts in the case--"
+
+"Say no more about it; I don't believe you!" answered Judith in a low
+voice, but scornful beyond description.
+
+Freke's rage blazed up under that tone.
+
+"You don't believe me? Then I'll make Throckmorton tell you himself. I
+can find it out from him without his suspecting it, and I'll make him
+tell you how he killed your husband."
+
+Judith drew back and gave him a look that was equivalent to a slap in
+the face. Just then Mrs. Temple and Delilah went out into the hall to
+make fast the door.
+
+"Well, then, if by any accident you have told me the truth, it was the
+fortune of war--"
+
+"Yes, but the hand that killed your husband! Ah! do you think I don't
+see it all--all--all--not only what has happened, but what is happening
+now?"
+
+Judith rose slowly from her sofa, forgetting her weakness. At that
+moment Freke thought he had never seen her look so handsome. Her eyes,
+usually a soft, dark gray, were black with indignation; her cheeks
+burned; she looked capable of killing him where he stood. She opened
+her lips once or twice to speak, but no sound came. She had no words to
+express what she felt at that moment. Freke felt a sensation of triumph.
+At last he had brought this proud spirit to book; and Throckmorton--at
+least if she scorned himself, Freke--she was forever out of
+Throckmorton's reach. There was a gulf between them now that nothing on
+earth could bridge over. He stood in a calm and easy attitude, his face
+only less expressive than Judith's. Nobody who saw Freke then could say,
+as Mrs. Temple sometimes had said, "What is there so interesting in
+Freke's face?" It was full of power and passion.
+
+It seemed an age to each as they stood there, but it was really only a
+few moments. Mrs. Temple and Delilah came back. Judith nodded to Freke,
+and walked off, disdaining Delilah's arm. She felt pride in showing him
+her strength and composure. She even glanced back at him, and gave him a
+smile from her pale lips.
+
+"You have a spirit like a man!" he cried after her, involuntarily. Mrs.
+Temple thought he meant because Judith had rallied so quickly from her
+fainting-fit.
+
+"Rather a spirit like a woman!" answered Judith, in a loud, clear voice,
+as she went up the stairs.
+
+It was some little time before she could get rid of Mrs. Temple and
+Delilah. But presently the door was locked, and she was alone.
+
+Some power beyond her will drew her steps to the window that looked
+toward Millenbeck. The moon had gone down, and a few clouds scurried
+across the pale immensity of the sky, whipped by the winds of night.
+There was enough of the ghastly half-light to distinguish the dark
+masses of the trees and even the outline of the Millenbeck house. From
+the window which she knew well enough belonged to Throckmorton's own den
+the cheerful light still streamed. He was sitting there, reading and
+smoking, no doubt. She could imagine exactly how he looked. His face,
+when he was silent, was rather stern, which made the charm of his smile
+and his words more captivating by contrast. And what horror she ought to
+feel of this man!--for, in spite of that first involuntary protest that
+she did not believe Freke, the heart-breaking conviction came to her
+every moment that he was telling the truth. But did she feel horror and
+hatred of Throckmorton? Ah! no. And when she tried to think of Beverley,
+the feeling that he was dead; that he would trouble her no more; that he
+was forever gone out of her life, filled her with something that was
+frightfully like joy.
+
+But when she remembered that an open grave lay between her and
+Throckmorton, it was not something like anguish she felt--it was anguish
+itself. Here was a man she might have loved--a man infinitely worthy of
+love--this much she acknowledged to herself; and yet Fate had married
+her to a man she never could have loved. For at that moment she saw as
+by a flash of lightning the falseness of her marriage and her widowhood.
+She dared not think any longer; she could only throw herself on her
+bed, and try and stifle among the pillows her sobs and cries. And,
+remembering Beverley and Throckmorton and Freke, and his words to her
+that night, this gentle and soft-hearted creature sounded all the depths
+of grief, love, shame, hatred. She tried to pray, but her prayers--if
+prayers they could be called--were mere outcries against the inexorable
+and unpitying God. "Dear Lord, what have I done to thee that I should
+suffer so?"
+
+The night wore on, the candles burned out, the fire was a mere red glow
+of embers. Anguish and despair, like other passions, spend themselves.
+Judith had ceased to weep, and lay on her bed with a sort of icy torpor
+upon her. Little Beverley, who rarely stirred in his sleep, waked up and
+called for his mother; but even the child's voice had no power to move
+her. The little boy, finding himself unnoticed, crawled out of his
+small bed and came to his mother's side. The sound of his baby voice,
+the touch of his little warm, moist hands, awakened something like
+remorse in her. She tried to help him up on the bed, but her arms
+fell helplessly--she, this strong young woman, was as weak as a child
+with the conflict of emotions. The boy, however--a sturdy little
+fellow--climbed up alone and nestled to her. She covered him up and held
+him close to her, and kissed him coldly once or twice. "My child, he
+killed your father," she said to him, thinking of Throckmorton, and that
+perhaps, for the child's sake, she might arouse some feeble spark of
+regret for the father--some dutiful hatred of Throckmorton. But she
+could do neither the one nor the other.
+
+At last, as a wet, miserable, gloomy dawn approached, she fell into a
+wretched sleep. Judith's unexpected fainting-fit was a very good excuse
+for her keeping her room for a day or two--a merciful provision for her,
+as, along with other new experiences, she found for the first time that
+her soul was stronger than her body, and that grief had made her ill.
+She expected, in all those wretched hours that she lay in her darkened
+room, that every time the door opened it would be Mrs. Temple coming
+with a ghastly face to tell her the dreadful thing that Freke knew; and
+the mere apprehension made her heart stand still. She, this candid and
+sincere woman, rehearsed to herself the very words and tones that she
+would express a grief and horror she did not feel. But when several days
+passed, and the explosion did not come, she concluded that Freke, for
+his own reasons, meant to keep it to himself.
+
+For Freke's part, he had no intention of telling anybody except
+Judith. He had no mind to bring about the storm that would follow his
+revelation. He meant to show Judith that gulf between Throckmorton and
+herself, and that was all. He would have been unfeignedly sorry had the
+hospitable doors of Millenbeck been no longer open to him.
+
+When Judith came down-stairs, he felt a great curiosity to know how she
+would meet him. He himself was perfectly easy and natural in his manner
+to her; and she, to his enforced admiration, was equally self-possessed
+with him, although she could not always control the expression of her
+eyes. "What a Spartan she is!" thought Freke to himself. "She could die
+of grief and chagrin with a smile on her lips, and with her voice as
+smooth and musical as the velvet wind of summer."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+The autumn crept on. Freke had gone to Wareham, to Judith's delight, but
+she found that she had rejoiced too soon, for he was at Barn Elms nearly
+every day. The still, silent enmity between Judith and himself showed
+itself, on her part, by a certain fine scorn--an almost imperceptible
+raising of her narrow brows, that was infuriating to Freke. Still, he
+could not shake her self-possession. She even listened to his talk, and
+to his captivating violin-playing, with a cool and critical pleasure.
+When, as often happened, his step was heard in the hall at twilight, and
+he would walk into the drawing-room or the dining-room, as if Barn Elms
+were his home, with his violin in his hand--for he kept one at Barn
+Elms--and seating himself would begin to play in his masterly way,
+Judith would listen as closely as Jacqueline. But the spell was merely
+the spell of the music. She could listen to the celestial thrilling of
+the strings, the soft lamenting, without in the slightest degree
+succumbing to the player--not even when Freke, playing a wandering
+accompaniment, like another air from the one he was singing, would sing
+some of Heine's sea-songs, in which she could almost hear the sound of
+the wind as it rose and wailed and died upon the waves. When the music
+stopped, and Freke would look at her piercingly, she was no more moved
+by it emotionally than General Temple was, who pronounced it "uncommon
+fine fiddling, by George! Some of the tunes haven't got much tune,
+though." This unbroken resistance on Judith's part piqued Freke
+immeasurably; but quite naturally, as it often is with men of his
+temperament, as he could not please her, he determined to spite her--and
+he did it by a silent, furtive courtship of Jacqueline. Of this, neither
+General nor Mrs. Temple suspected anything. In one sense, the girl had
+suffered from neglect. Beverley had been the favorite of both parents.
+He had been the conventional good son, the comfort of his parents'
+hearts, while Jacqueline was more or less of a puzzle to both of them.
+In vain Mrs. Temple tried to interest her in household affairs;
+Jacqueline would have none of them. She shocked and mystified her mother
+by saying that she hated Barn Elms--it was so old and shabby, and there
+were not enough carpets and curtains in the house; and the hair-cloth
+furniture in the drawing-room made her ill. Mrs. Temple, who excelled
+in all sweet, feminine virtues, who would have loved and bettered any
+home given her, thought this sort of thing on Jacqueline's part very
+depraved. The mother and the daughter did not understand each other,
+and could not. Judith's superior intelligence here came in. Jacqueline
+loved her, and, while she obeyed her mother from sheer force of will
+on Mrs. Temple's part, she rebelled against being influenced by
+her. Judith, on the contrary, without a particle of authority over
+Jacqueline, could do anything she wished with her. Mrs. Temple could
+only command and be obeyed in outward things, but Judith ruled
+Jacqueline's inner soul more than anybody else.
+
+The county people, outside of the Severn neighborhood, still held
+perfectly aloof from Throckmorton. This angered him somewhat, although,
+as a matter of fact, the people who did recognize him supplied him with
+all the company he wanted; for Throckmorton was always enough for
+himself, and depended upon no man and no woman for his content. He had
+bought Millenbeck and come there for a year, and a year he would stay,
+no matter what the Carters and the Carringtons and the Randolphs thought
+about it. Then he really had enough of company, and all the books and
+cigars he wanted, and plenty of the finest shooting, although he never
+killed a robin after that absurd promise he made to Jacqueline, but he
+never saw one without giving a thought to her and a grim smile at
+himself. And so the quiet autumn slipped away. Throckmorton felt every
+day the charm of exquisite repose. In his life he had known a good
+deal of excitement--the four years of the war he had been in active
+service all the time--and this return to quiet and a sort of refined
+primitiveness pleased him. He was charmed with the simplicity of the
+people at Barn Elms--the simplicity of genuine country people, whose
+outlook is upon nature. He had often heard that country people never
+were really sophisticated, and he began to believe it. Even in the
+stirrings of his own heart toward the place of his boyhood, after the
+lapse of so many busy and exciting years, he recognized the spell that
+Nature lays softly upon those whose young eyes have seen nothing but
+her. Throckmorton, in spite of a certain firmness that was almost
+hardness, was at heart a sentimentalist. He found content, pleasure,
+and interest in this lazy, dreamy life. Of happiness he had discovered
+that, except during that early married life of his, he had none, for
+he was too wise to confound peace and happiness. At forty-four, when
+his dark hair had turned quite gray, he acknowledged to himself
+that nothing deserved the name of happiness but love. But all these
+dreams and fancies he kept to himself, and revolved chiefly in his
+mind when he was tramping along the country roads with a gun over his
+shoulder, or stretched before a blazing wood-fire in the library at
+Millenbeck smoking strong cigars by the dozen. He managed to keep his
+sentimentalism well out of sight, not because he was ashamed of it, but
+because he respected it.
+
+Freke was a positive acquisition to him. Throckmorton had that sort of
+broad, masculine tolerance that can find excuses for everything a man
+may do except cheating at cards. Freke came constantly to Millenbeck,
+much oftener than Throckmorton went to Wareham.
+
+Millenbeck, though, was a pleasant place to visit. Throckmorton had left
+the restoration and fitting up of the place to people who understood
+their business well; and consequently, when he arrived, he found he had
+one of the most comfortable, if not luxurious, country-houses that could
+be imagined. His fortune, which at the North would have been nothing
+more than a handsome competence, was a superb patrimony in the ruined
+Virginia, and with ready money and Sweeney anybody could be comfortable,
+Throckmorton thought. The Rev. Edmund Morford also gave him much of his
+(Morford's) company, and obtained a vast number of household receipts
+and learned many contrivances for domestic comfort from Sweeney.
+
+"Be jabers, the parson's more of an ould woman than mesilf," Sweeney
+would remark to his colored coadjutors. "He can make as good white gravy
+as any she-cook going, and counts his sheets and towels every week as
+reg'lar as the mother of him did, I warrant," which was quite true.
+But the parson's good heart outweighed his innocent conceit and his
+effeminate beauty with Throckmorton. Morford tried conscientiously to
+get Throckmorton into the church, but with ill success.
+
+"Sink the parson, Morford," Throckmorton would laugh. "Perhaps I'll get
+married some day, and my wife will pray me into heaven, like most of the
+men who get there, I suspect."
+
+Nevertheless Throckmorton had a reverent soul, and, although he would
+have turned pale and have been constrained by an iron silence had he
+got up and tried to open his mouth on the subject of the inscrutable
+problems that Morford attacked with such glib self-sufficiency, he
+revered religion and did not scoff even at the callowest form of it.
+
+Both Jack and himself got to going over to Barn Elms often;
+Throckmorton, however, being an old bird, exercised considerable
+wariness, so as not to collide with Jack at these times. Jack keptup a
+continual fire from ambush at his father, regarding which of the young
+women at Barn Elms the major would eventually capitulate to; but
+Throckmorton treated this with the dignified silence that was the only
+weapon against Jack's sly rallying. As for General Temple, he regarded
+all of Throckmorton's visits as particularly directed toward himself,
+for the purpose of acquiring military knowledge; and Throckmorton heard
+more of the theory of war from General Temple at this time than he ever
+heard in all his life before. While the general, who had all campaigns,
+modern and ancient, at his finger-ends, declaimed with sonorous
+confidence on the mistakes of Hannibal, Caesar, Scipio, and other
+well-known military characters, Throckmorton listened meekly, seldom
+venturing an observation. General Temple indicated a faint surprise that
+Throckmorton, during his career, had never undergone any of the
+thrilling adventures which had actually happened to General Temple, who
+would have been a great soldier after the pattern of Brian de Bois
+Guilbert; nor could Throckmorton convince him that he, Throckmorton,
+conceived it his duty to stay with his men, and considered unnecessary
+seeking of danger as unsoldier-like in the highest degree. Throckmorton,
+however, did not argue the point. In place of General Temple's
+innumerable and real hair-breadth escapes, and horses shot under him,
+Throckmorton could only say that the solitary physical injury he
+received during the war was a bad rheumaticky arm from sleeping in the
+wet, and a troublesome attack of measles caught by visiting his men in
+the hospital. But General Temple knew that Throckmorton had been
+mentioned half a dozen times in general orders, and had got several
+brevets, while General Temple had narrowly missed half a dozen
+courts-martial for being where he didn't belong at a critical time. The
+fact that he was in imminent personal danger on all these occasions,
+General Temple considered not only an ample excuse, but quite a feather
+in his cap.
+
+Occasionally, though (during the general's disquisitions),
+Throckmorton's eye would seek Judith's as she sat under the lamp, with
+a piece of delicate embroidery in her hand, stitching demurely, and
+something like a smile would pass between them. Judith understood the
+joke. The mingled softness and archness of her glance was very beautiful
+to Throckmorton, but it had not the power over him of Jacqueline's
+coquettish air. Throckmorton was rather vexed at the charm this
+kittenish young thing cast over him. He had always professed a great
+aversion to young fools, who invariably turn into old bores, but he
+could not deny that he was more drawn to sit near Jacqueline in her low
+chair, than to Judith sitting gracefully upright under the lamp. That
+Jacqueline was not far off from folly, he was forced to admit to himself
+every time he talked with her, but the admission brought with it a
+slight pang. Then he never lost sight of the disparity in their years;
+and this was painful because of the secret attraction he felt for her.
+Sometimes, walking home from Barn Elms, across the fields in autumn
+nights, he would find himself comparing the two women, and wishing that
+the older woman possessed for him the subtle charm of the younger one.
+Any man might love Judith Temple--she was so gentle, so unconscious of
+her own superiority to the average woman, so winning upon one's reason
+and self-respect--and then Throckmorton would sigh, and stride faster
+along the path in the wintry darkness. Suppose--suppose he should
+seriously try to win Jacqueline? How long would he be happy? And what
+sort of a life would it be for her, with that childish restlessness and
+inability to depend for one moment on herself? And Throckmorton knew
+instinctively that, although he possessed great power in bending women
+to his will, it was not in him to adapt himself to any woman. He might
+love her, indulge her, adore her, but he could not change his fixed and
+immutable character one iota. It would be a peculiar madness for him to
+marry any woman who did not possess adaptability in a high degree; and
+this Throckmorton had known, ever since he had grown hair on his face,
+went only with a certain mental force and breadth in women. He had the
+whole theory mapped out, that the more intellectual a man was, the less
+adaptable he was, while with women the converse was strikingly true--the
+more intellectual a woman was, the more adaptable she was. He also knew
+perfectly well that in women the emotions and the intellect are so
+inextricably involved that a woman's emotional range was exactly limited
+by her intellectual range; that there is nothing more commonplace in
+a commonplace woman than her emotions. Nay, more. He remembered Dr.
+Johnson's thundering against female fools: "Sir, a man usually marries a
+fool, with the expectation of ruling her; but the fool, sir, invariably
+rules the man." But all this went to pieces when he saw Jacqueline. She
+was to him as if a figure of Youth had stepped out of a white Greek
+frieze; and whenever he realized this charm of hers, he sighed to
+himself profoundly.
+
+People are never too old or too sensible to commit follies, but people
+of sense and experience suffer the misery of knowing all about their
+follies when they do commit them.
+
+To Freke, who was incomparably the keenest observer in all this little
+circle, the whole thing was a psychic study of great interest. He had
+the art in a singular degree of getting outside of his own emotions; and
+the fact that he had been guilty of the egregious folly of falling in
+love with Judith at first sight made him only keener in studying out
+the situation. He took an abstract pleasure in partly confiding his
+discoveries to Mrs. Sherrard, who was a bold woman, and had become an
+out-and-out partisan of his--the only one he could count on, except
+Jacqueline, under the rose. It was a subject of active concern why
+Freke ever bought Wareham in the beginning, and still more so why he
+should continue to stay there. When pressed on the subject by Mrs.
+Sherrard--they were sitting in the comfortable drawing-room at Turkey
+Thicket, the blazing wood-fire making the dull wintry afternoon, and
+the flat, monotonous landscape outside more dreary by contrast--Freke
+declared that he had settled in the country in order to cultivate the
+domestic virtues to advantage.
+
+"Pooh!" said Mrs. Sherrard.
+
+Freke then hinted at a possibility of his marrying, which, considering
+his divorced condition, gave Mrs. Sherrard a thrill of horror. He saw in
+an instant that this divorce question was one upon which Mrs. Sherrard's
+prejudices, like those of everybody else in the county, were adamantine,
+and not to be trifled with; so he dropped the obnoxious subject promptly
+and wisely.
+
+"The fact is," he said, standing up with his back to the fire, and
+causing Mrs. Sherrard to notice how excellent was his slight but
+well-knit figure, "I've got to live somewhere, and why not here? I don't
+know whether I've got anything left of my money or not--anything, that
+is, that my creditors or my lawyers will let me have in peace--but
+there's excellent shooting on the place, and it only cost a song. I
+think I can stay here as long as I can stay anywhere; you know I am a
+sort of civilized Bedouin anyhow. And then I own up to a desire to see
+that little comedy between--between--Millenbeck and Barn Elms played
+through. It's an amusing little piece."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard pricked up her ears. Freke's reputation as a conquering
+hero had inspired in her the interest it always does in the female
+breast. Was it possible that he shouldn't be making love to either
+Judith or Jacqueline?
+
+"I'll tell you what," he cried, smiling, "they are the most precious
+pack of innocents at Barn Elms! There's my uncle--a high-minded,
+good-natured, unterrified old blunderbuss--the most unsophisticated of
+the lot. Then my aunt, who belongs properly to the age of Rowena and
+Rebecca--and Judith."
+
+Here Freke's countenance changed a little from its laughing
+carelessness. His rather ordinary features were full of a piercing and
+subtile expression.
+
+"Judith fancies, because she has been a wife, a mother, and a widow,
+that she knows the whole gamut of life, when actually she has only
+struck the first note correctly a little while ago--no, I forget--that
+young one. But that's very one-sided, although intense. She loves the
+child because he is her own, not because he is Beverley's--rather in
+spite of it, I fancy."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard, in the excitement of the moment--for what is more
+exciting than unexpected and inside discoveries about our
+neighbors?--got up too.
+
+"I knew it--I knew it!" she answered, her sharp old eyes getting bright.
+"I saw Judith when she was a bride, and she wasn't in the least
+rapturous. And the next time I saw her she had on that odd widow's cap
+she wears, and that blessed baby in her arms; and if ever I saw secret
+happiness painted on any human countenance it was hers; and all the time
+she was trying to imagine herself broken-hearted for Beverley Temple."
+
+"Fudge!" almost shouted Freke. "It's my belief she'd have traded off six
+husbands like Beverley for one black-eyed boy like that young one."
+
+"Beverley," began Mrs. Sherrard, delighted, yet fluttered by this plain
+speaking, "you remember, was a big, handsome fellow--rode like a
+centaur, danced beautifully, the best shot in the county--as polite
+as a dancing-master or--General Temple--as brave as a lion--"
+
+"Oh, good God, don't talk to me about Beverley Temple! He was the most
+wooden-headed Temple I ever knew, and that's saying a good deal, ma'am!"
+responded Freke, with energy.
+
+"_You_ are no fool," said Mrs. Sherrard, as if willing to argue the
+point.
+
+"Yes, but you couldn't any more take me as a type of the Temples than
+you could take Edmund Morford as a type of the Sherrards. Lord, Mrs.
+Sherrard, what an ass your nephew is!"
+
+"Isn't he, though? But he is a good soul," was Mrs. Sherrard's answer.
+
+Was it Judith or was it Jacqueline that Freke was trying his charms on,
+thought Mrs. Sherrard, taking her afternoon nap over the fire, after
+Freke left. Freke, however, really could not have enlightened her. For
+Judith his admiration increased every day--her very defiance of him was
+captivating to him. He well knew that she hated every bone in his body,
+and he had made up his mind, as a set-off to this, to get a description
+of a certain scene during the war out of Throckmorton some time in her
+presence. It was a species of vivisection, but she deserved it--deserved
+it richly--for had she not brought it on herself by the way she treated
+him, Temple Freke? And then Jacqueline--she was certainly a fascinating
+little object, though not half the woman that Judith was--this Freke
+magnanimously allowed, riding briskly along the country road in the
+wintry twilight.
+
+The family at Barn Elms had never yet dined with Throckmorton, owing
+to General Temple's continued wrestle with the gout, that had now made
+him a prisoner for four long weeks. Mrs. Temple, who every day got
+fonder of George, as she called Throckmorton, had promised to dine at
+Millenbeck when the general was able to go; but, as she invested all
+their intercourse with Millenbeck with the solemnity of a formal
+reconciliation, she delayed until the whole family could go in state
+and ceremony. At last Dr. Wortley, having gained a temporary advantage
+over Delilah, and brought General Temple to observe his (Dr. Wortley's)
+regimen, instead of Delilah's, a week or two marked a decided
+improvement. The general's Calvinism abated, his profanity mended, and
+he became once more the amiable soldier and stanch churchman that he was
+by nature.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Temple," said Throckmorton one evening as he was going away,
+"if you will keep the general out of mischief for a day or two longer,
+you will be able to pay me that long-promised visit. Let me know, so I
+can get Mrs. Sherrard and Dr. Wortley--and Morford and Freke; but you,
+my dear friend, will be the guest of honor."
+
+Mrs. Temple blushed like a girl, with pleasure--Throckmorton's way of
+saying this was so whole-souled and affectionate.
+
+"You say right, my dear Throckmorton," remarked General Temple, putting
+his arm around Mrs. Temple's waist, "the tenderest, sweetest, most
+obedient wife"--at which Simon Peter, putting wood on the fire,
+snickered audibly, and Throckmorton would have laughed outright had he
+dared.
+
+So it was fixed that on the following Friday evening they were all to
+dine at Millenbeck, Mrs. Temple promising to watch the general, lest he
+should relapse into gout and gloom--and a promise from Mrs. Temple was a
+promise. She went about, a little surprised at the complete way that
+Throckmorton had brought her round. Here was one Yankee whom she loved
+with a genuine motherly affection--and he was a Virginia Yankee,
+too--which she esteemed the very worst kind.
+
+Jacqueline, as usual, was off her head at the notion of going, and
+Judith's suppressed excitement did not escape Mrs. Temple's eye. Both of
+them, provincials of provincials, as they were, felt a true feminine
+curiosity regarding the reputed splendors of Millenbeck, which was, in
+fact, destined to dazzle their countryfied eyes.
+
+On the Friday evening, therefore, at half-past six, they found
+themselves driving down the Millenbeck lane. General Temple had begun,
+figuratively speaking, to shake hands across the bloody chasm from the
+moment he started from Barn Elms. He harangued the whole way upon the
+touching aspect of the reconciliation between the great leaders of the
+hostile armies, as typified by his present expedition. Going down the
+lane they caught up with Mrs. Sherrard, being driven by Mr. Morford in a
+top buggy.
+
+"Jane Temple, are we a couple of fools?" called out Mrs. Sherrard,
+putting her head out of the buggy.
+
+"No, Katharine Sherrard, we are a couple of Christians," piously
+responded Mrs. Temple.
+
+General Temple thrust his bare head out of the carriage-window, holding
+his hat in his hand, as it was his unbroken rule never to speak to a
+woman with his head covered, and entered into a disquisition respecting
+the ethics of the great civil war, which lasted until they drew up to
+the very door of Millenbeck.
+
+A handsome graveled drive led up to the door, and a _porte-cochere_,
+which was really a very modest affair of glass and iron, had been thrown
+over the drive; but, as it was the only one ever seen in the county, all
+of them regarded it with great respect. Throckmorton, with old-time
+Virginia hospitality, met them at the steps. Like all true gentlemen, he
+was a model host. As he helped Mrs. Temple to alight, he raised her
+small, withered hand to his lips and kissed it respectfully.
+
+"Welcome to Millenbeck, my best and earliest friend," he said.
+
+"George Throckmorton," responded Mrs. Temple, with sweet gravity, "you
+have taught forgiveness to my hard and unforgiving heart."
+
+Within the house was more magnificence. The inevitable great, dark,
+useless hall was robbed of its coldness and bleakness by soft Turkish
+rugs placed over the polished floor. There was no way of heating it in
+the original plan, but Throckmorton's decorator and furnisher had hit
+upon the plan of having a quaint Dutch stove, which now glowed redly
+with a hard-coal fire. The startling innovation of lighting the broad
+oak staircase had likewise been adopted, and at intervals up the
+stairway wax-candles in sconces shed a mellow half-light in the hall
+below.
+
+General Temple was exuberant. He shook hands with Throckmorton half a
+dozen times, and informed him that, strange as the defection of a
+Virginian from his native State might appear, he, General Temple,
+believed that Throckmorton was actuated by conscientious though mistaken
+notions in remaining in the army after the breaking out of the war.
+
+"Thank you," laughed Throckmorton, immensely tickled; "I haven't
+apologized for it yet, have I, general?"
+
+Up-stairs, in a luxurious spare bedroom, the ladies' wraps were laid
+aside. Here, also, that perfect comfort prevailed, which is rare in
+Virginia country-houses, although luxury, in certain ways, is common
+enough. As they passed an open door, going down, they caught sight of
+Throckmorton's own room. In that alone a Spartan simplicity reigned.
+There was no carpet on the spotless floor, and an iron bedstead, a large
+table, and a few chairs completed the furnishing of it. But it had an
+air of exquisite neatness and military preciseness in it that made an
+atmosphere about Throckmorton. Over the unornamented mantel two swords
+were crossed, and over them was a pretty, girlish portrait of Jack's
+mother. Judith, in passing, craned her long, white neck to get a better
+look at the portrait, was caught in the act by Mrs. Temple, and blushed
+furiously.
+
+She had a strange sensation of both joy and fear in coming to
+Throckmorton's house. In her inmost soul she felt it to be a crime of
+great magnitude; and, indeed, the circumstances made it about as nearly
+a crime as such a woman could commit. More than that, if it should ever
+be known--and it was liable to be known at any moment--the deliberate
+foreknowledge with which she went to Millenbeck, she would never be
+allowed to remain another hour under the roof of Barn Elms: of that much
+she was perfectly sure. This, however, had but little effect on her,
+although she was risking not only her own but her child's future; but
+the conviction that it was absolutely wrong for her to go, caused her to
+make some paltering excuse when Throckmorton first asked her. He put it
+aside with his usual calm superiority in dealing with her scruples about
+going to places, and she yielded to the sweet temptation of obeying his
+wishes. She took pains, though, to tell Freke herself that she was
+going--a risky but delicious piece of braggadocio--at which Freke lifted
+his eyebrows slightly. Inwardly he determined to make her pay for her
+rashness. She was the only woman who had ever fought him, and he was not
+to be driven off the field by any of the sex.
+
+Judith's blush lasted until she reached the drawing-room, and made her
+not less handsome. There the gentlemen were being dazzled by still
+further splendors. This room, which was large and of stately
+proportions, was really handsome. Throckmorton, who cared nothing for
+luxury, and whose personal habits were simplicity itself, was yet too
+broad-minded to impress his own tastes upon anybody else. Since most
+people liked luxury, he had his house made luxurious; and his own room
+was the only plain one in it. Jack's was a perfect bower, "more fit," as
+Throckmorton remarked with good-natured sarcasm, "for a young lady's
+boudoir than a bunk for a hulking youngster." In the same way
+Throckmorton managed to dress like a gentleman on what Jack spent on
+hats and canes and cravats; but nobody ever knew whether Throckmorton's
+clothes were new or old. His personality eclipsed all his belongings.
+
+Jacqueline was completely subdued by the luxury around her. No human
+soul ever loved these pleasant things of life better than she loved
+them. Comfort and beauty and luxury were as the breath of life to her.
+She had hungered and thirsted for them ever since she could remember.
+Going down the stairs she caught Judith's hand, with a quick, childish
+grasp. The lights, the glitter, almost took her breath away; and when
+she saw a great mound of roses on the drawing-room table, got from
+Norfolk by the phenomenal Sweeney, she almost screamed with delight.
+
+"God bless my soul, this is pleasant!" remarked Dr. Wortley, rubbing his
+hands cheerfully before the drawing-room fire, where the gentlemen,
+including Morford and Freke, were assembled. "Here we are all met again,
+under Millenbeck's roof, as we were before the war. Let by-gones be
+by-gones, say I, about the war."
+
+"Amen," answered Mrs. Temple, after a little pause, piously and sweetly.
+
+Sweeney, who could make quite a dashing figure as a waiter, now
+appeared, dressed in faultless evening costume of much newer fashion
+than Throckmorton's, and announced dinner. Throckmorton, with his most
+graceful air--for he was on his mettle in his own house, and with those
+charming, unsophisticated women--gave his arm to Mrs. Temple; the
+general, with a grand flourish, did the same to Mrs. Sherrard; Judith
+had the doctor of divinity on one hand and the doctor of medicine on the
+other and Jacqueline brought up the rear with Jack Throckmorton and
+Temple Freke. Judith, when she saw this arrangement, comforted herself
+with the reflection that, if anybody could counteract Freke's influence
+over Jacqueline, it was Jack Throckmorton, whom Jacqueline candidly
+acknowledged was infinitely more attractive to her than the master of
+Millenbeck.
+
+But Jacqueline needed no counteraction. Freke, who read her perfectly,
+was secretly amused, and annoyed as well, when he saw that Jacqueline
+was every moment more carried away by Throckmorton's wax-candles and
+carved chairs and embroidered screens and onyx tables, and glass and
+plate. He felt not one thrill of the jealousy of Throckmorton, where
+Jacqueline was concerned, that Throckmorton sometimes felt for him,
+because he was infinitely more astute in the knowledge of human and
+especially feminine weaknesses and follies; and he saw that the chairs
+and tables at Millenbeck were much more fascinating to Jacqueline than
+Throckmorton with his matured grace, his manly dignity. Freke, too,
+having long since worn out his emotions, except that slight lapse as
+regarded Judith, for whom he always _felt_ something--admiration, or
+pity, or a desire to be revenged--had an acute judgment of women which
+was quite unbiased by the way any particular woman treated or felt
+toward him. Judith, although she hated him, and he frankly admitted she
+had cause to, he ranked infinitely above Jacqueline. He had seen, long
+before, that Jacqueline, if she ever seriously tried, could draw
+Throckmorton by a thread, and it gave Freke a certain contempt for
+Throckmorton's taste and perception. Any man who could prefer Jacqueline
+to Judith was, in Freke's esteem, wanting in taste; for, after all, he
+considered these things more as matters of taste than anything else.
+
+The dinner was very merry. When the general had told his fifth
+long-winded story of his adventures and hair-breadth escapes during the
+war, Mrs. Temple, with a glance, shut him up. Freke was in his element
+at a dinner-table, and told some ridiculous stories about the straits to
+which he had been reduced during his seven years' absence in
+Europe--"when," as he explained "my laudable desire to acquire knowledge
+and virtue threatened to be balked at every moment by my uncle getting
+me home. However, I managed to stay." He told with much gravity how he
+had been occasionally reduced to his fiddle for means of raising the
+wind, and had figured in concert programmes as Signor Tempolino, at
+which stories all shouted with laughter except Mrs. Temple and the
+general--Mrs. Temple sighing, and the general scowling prodigiously.
+Edmund Morford, who was afraid that laughing was injurious to his
+dignity, tried not to smile, but Freke was too comical for him.
+
+Amid all the laughter and jollity and good-cheer, Jacqueline sat,
+glancing shyly up at Throckmorton once in a while with a look that
+Nature had endowed her with, and which, had she but known it, was a full
+equivalent to a fortune. She had never, in all her simple provincial
+life, seen anything like this--endless forks and spoons at the table;
+queer ways of serving queerer things; an easy-cushioned chair to sit in;
+no darns or patches in the damask; and the aroma of wealth, an easy
+income everywhere. The desire to own all this suddenly took possession
+of her. At the moment this dawned upon her mind, she actually started,
+and, opening her fan in a flutter, she knocked over a wine-glass, which
+Jack deftly replaced without stopping in his conversation. Then she
+began to study Throckmorton under her eyelashes. He was not so old,
+after all, and did not have the gout, like her father. And then she
+caught his kind eyes fixed on her, and flashed him back a look that
+thrilled him. Jack was talking to her, but she managed to convey subtly
+to Throckmorton that she was not listening to Jack, which pleased the
+major very much, who had heretofore found Jack a dangerous rival in all
+his looks and words with Jacqueline.
+
+Freke, telling his funny stories, did not for one moment pretermit his
+study of the little comedy before him--Jacqueline and Throckmorton and
+Judith. It was as plain as print to him. Judith, in her black gown,
+which opened at the throat and showed the white pillar of her neck, and
+with half-sleeves that revealed the milky whiteness of her slender arms,
+sat midway the table, just opposite Jacqueline. Usually Judith's color
+was as delicate as a wild rose, but to-night it was a carnation flush.
+
+"Is Throckmorton a fool?" thought Freke, in the midst of an interval
+given over to laughter at some of his stories, which were as short and
+pithy as General Temple's were sapless and long drawn out; for
+Throckmorton, who did nothing by halves, and was constitutionally
+averse to dawdling, returned Jacqueline's glances with compound
+interest. Before they left the table, two persons had seen the promising
+beginning of the affair, and only two, none of the others having a
+suspicion. These two were Freke and Judith.
+
+The knowledge came quickly to Judith. Women can live ages of agony in a
+moment over these things. Judith, smiling, graceful, waving her large
+black fan sedately to and fro, by all odds the handsomest as well as the
+most gifted woman there, felt something tearing at her heart-strings,
+that she could have screamed aloud with pain. But even Freke, who saw
+everything nearly, did not see that; he only surmised it. It was nearly
+ten o'clock before they went back into the drawing-room. Throckmorton
+gave nobody occasion to say that he devoted himself particularly to any
+of the four women who were his guests; but his look, his talk, his
+manner to Jacqueline underwent a subtile change; and when he sat and
+talked to Judith he thought what a sweet sister she would make, and
+blessed her for her tenderness to Jacqueline. Judith's color had been
+gradually fading from the moment she caught Throckmorton's glance at
+Jacqueline. She was now quite pale, and less animated, less interesting,
+than Throckmorton ever remembered to have seen her. At something he said
+to her, she gave an answer so wide of the mark that she felt ashamed
+and apologized.
+
+"I was thinking of my child at that moment and wondering if he were
+asleep," she said.
+
+From the moment of that first meaning glance of Throckmorton's at
+Jacqueline, the evening had spun out interminably to Judith. Mrs. Temple
+noticed it with secret approval, as a sign of loyalty to her widowhood.
+
+At eleven o'clock a move was made to go, when Throckmorton suddenly
+remembered that he had not showed them his modest conservatory, which
+appeared quite imposing to their provincial eyes. He took Judith into
+the little glass room opening off the hall. It was very hot, very damp,
+and very close, as such places usually are, and full of a faint, sickly
+perfume. Freke followed them in. At last he had got his chance. He began
+to talk in his easy, unconstrained way, and in a minute or two had got
+the conversation around to something they had been speaking of the night
+of the party at Turkey Thicket.
+
+"You were saying," said Freke, "something about a bad quarter of an hour
+you had with that old sorrel horse of yours--"
+
+"Well, I should say it was a bad quarter of an hour," answered
+Throckmorton. "To be ridden down and knocked off my horse was bad
+enough, with that strapping fellow pinioning my arms to my side so I
+couldn't draw my pistol; and old Tartar, perfectly mad with fright--the
+only time I ever knew him to be so demoralized--tearing at the reins
+that wouldn't break and that I couldn't loose my arm from, and every
+time I looked up I saw his fore-feet in the air ready to come down on
+me--"
+
+"And what sort of a looking fellow was it you say that rode you down?"
+
+"A tall, blonde fellow--an officer evidently.--Good God! Mrs. Beverley,
+what is the matter?" For the color had dropped out of Judith's face as
+the mercury drops out of the tube, and she was gazing with wide, wild
+eyes at Throckmorton. How often had she heard that grewsome story--even
+that the plunging horse was a sorrel! But at least Freke should not see
+her break down. She heard herself saying, in a strange, unnatural voice:
+
+"Nothing. I think it is too warm for me in here." Throckmorton took her
+by the arm and led her back into the hall, and to a small window which
+he opened. He felt like a brute for mentioning anything connected with
+the war--of course it must be intensely painful to Judith--but she
+stopped his earnest apologies with a word.
+
+"Don't blame yourself--pray, don't. It was very warm--and Freke--oh, how
+I hate him!"
+
+Throckmorton had been afraid she was going to faint, but the energy with
+which she brought out her last remark convinced him there was no
+danger. It brought the blood surging back to her face in a torrent.
+
+Nobody else had known anything of the little scene in the conservatory;
+and then Throckmorton had to show Jacqueline over it, and Judith caught
+sight of him, standing in one of his easy and graceful attitudes,
+leaning over Jacqueline in expressive pantomime; and then came the
+general's big, musical voice: "My love, it is now past eleven o'clock;
+we must not trespass on Throckmorton's hospitality." Throckmorton felt
+at that moment as if the evening had just begun; while to Judith it
+seemed as if there was a stretch of years of pain between the dawn and
+the midnight of that day--a pain secret but consuming.
+
+There was the bustle of departure, during which Judith managed to say to
+Freke:
+
+"You have had your revenge--perfect but complete."
+
+"That's for calling me a liar," was Freke's reply. It was, moreover, for
+something that Judith had made him suffer--absurd as it was that any
+woman could make Temple Freke suffer. But, after what he had seen that
+night, he reflected that it was perhaps a work of supererogation to
+build a barrier between Judith and Throckmorton. The major had other
+views.
+
+Throckmorton handed the ladies into the carriage; and, in spite of the
+light from the open hall-door, and _not_ from the carriage-lamps--for
+the Barn Elms carriage had long parted with its lamps--he pressed a
+light kiss on Jacqueline's hand, under General and Mrs. Temple's very
+eyes, without their seeing it. Judith, however, saw it, and was thankful
+that it was dark, so that the pallid change, which she knew came over
+her, was not visible.
+
+Throckmorton went back into the house, shut himself up in his own den,
+and smoked savagely for an hour. Yes, it was all up with him, he
+ruefully acknowledged.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+A day or two after this, however, came a snow, deep and lasting, more
+like a midwinter snow in New England than a December flurry in lower
+Virginia. For four weeks the sun scarcely shone, and the earth was
+wrapped in white. The roads were impassable, the river-steamers stopped
+running, and the mails were delayed for days at a time. The country
+people were much cut off from each other. Mrs. Temple missed four
+successive Sundays at church--a thing she had never done in her life
+before. Nobody could get to Barn Elms except the Throckmortons and
+Freke, but they came often in the evenings. Throckmorton saw what was
+before him with Jacqueline, yet held back, as engineers put down the
+brakes on a wild engine on a down grade--it does not, however,
+materially alter the result. He sometimes thought, with a sense of the
+grotesqueness of human affairs, how strange it was that things had not
+arranged themselves so that Jack had not been Jacqueline's victim, and
+himself Judith's. For Jack was undeniably fond of Jacqueline, and so far
+did not in the slightest degree suspect his father's infatuation, as
+Throckmorton frankly and bitterly acknowledged it to be. As for Judith,
+Nature leaves no true woman unarmed for suffering like hers. Even
+Jacqueline, who was sharp-eyed, only noticed that Judith at this time
+was, if anything, a little sweeter and kinder than before--even a little
+more gay. Little Beverley found his mother better company than usual,
+and more ready for a romp than ever before. The child, whom she had
+thought everything to her before, became now more passionately dear to
+her. Alone with him, she would take him in her arms and hold him close
+to her; she felt an actual softening of the pain at her heart when the
+child's curly head rested over it. Then she would talk to him in a way
+the child only half understood, as he gazed at her with grave, mystified
+eyes, and, while laughing at his childish wonder, she would almost
+smother him with kisses. Judith was positively becoming merry. In her
+voice was a ring, in her eyes a light that was different from that calm,
+untroubled composure that had once marked her. Her manner to
+Throckmorton was perfect; the same gentle gayety, the same graceful
+dignity. She did not avoid him; pain wrung no such concession from
+Judith Temple. But Judith's invincible cheerfulness was strangely
+antagonized by Jacqueline. Jacqueline, who talked to her own heart in a
+very primitive, open fashion, was vexed at the notion that, in order to
+be mistress of Millenbeck, she would have to marry Throckmorton. How
+much nicer, thought Jacqueline, with great simplicity, if it were Jack
+who gave her those looks, those words, who had pressed that kiss upon
+her hand! Throckmorton was too old, and had too much sense; Jacqueline
+made no secret in acknowledging that mature men of sense bored and
+restrained her. It was very hard, she thought, disconsolately. Ever
+since that dinner at Millenbeck, Barn Elms had appeared shabbier and
+sorrier than ever before. Although Mrs. Temple continued to have five
+kinds of bread for breakfast, and had invited a regiment of poor
+relations to spend the coming summer with her, under the Virginia
+delusion that it costs nothing to harbor a garrison for an indefinite
+time, things were certainly going very badly at Barn Elms; a condition
+of affairs, though, to which General Temple was perfectly accustomed,
+and who knew no other way of paying Peter than by robbing Paul. The old
+carriage went all to pieces just about that time, and there was no money
+to buy another one. As for a new piano, that was an impossible dream;
+and there were two splendid new pianos at Millenbeck, and not a soul to
+touch them! And Jacqueline wanted a new frock, and endless other things,
+which were distinctly out of the question, and the only way to get them,
+that she could see, was to encourage Throckmorton's attentions and be
+mistress of Millenbeck. All this was not lost on Freke, who, with his
+eyes open, began to play with Jacqueline, and like Throckmorton got his
+wings scorched. The girl certainly had a power of compelling love. Had
+Judith ever relented toward Freke, Jacqueline would have had cause for
+jealousy if she loved him. But, in truth, as it came to pass, Freke cast
+as much of a spell upon Jacqueline as she did upon him. If Freke owned
+Millenbeck, instead of that wretched old Wareham, that actually was not
+as good as Barn Elms! So Jacqueline fretted to herself.
+
+The loneliness of those cold, snowy days was killing to Jacqueline. The
+long afternoons when she sat by the drawing-room fire and dreamed
+dreams, were almost intolerable to her. When she heard Beverley's
+shouts, as Judith romped with him in the cold hall, and hid from him in
+the dusk until the child set up a baby cry, it was the only living
+cheerful noise about the house. Judith would come to her and say, "Now,
+Jacky, for a walk in the hall!" Jacqueline would answer fretfully:
+
+"What do I want to walk for?"
+
+"Because it is better than sitting still."
+
+Judith would take her by the waist and run her up and down the long,
+dusky hall. It was so cold they shivered at first, and the rattling of
+the great windows let icy gusts of air in upon them; and sometimes the
+moon would glare in at them in a ghastly way. Presently they would hear
+Simon Peter bringing in wood for the night by the back way, shaking the
+snow off his feet, and announcing to Delilah: "I tell you what, ole
+'oman, 'tis everlastin' cole an' gwine ter keep so, fer I seed de hosses
+in de stable kickin' de lef' hine-foots; an' dat's sho' an' suttin sign
+o' freezin'."
+
+"You better kick dat lef' hine-foot o' yourn, an' stop studyin' 'bout de
+hosses, fo' mistis come arter you! Ez long ez ole marse holler at you,
+you doan' min'; but jes' let mistis in dat sof' voice say right fine,
+'Simon Peter!' I lay you jes' hop," was Delilah's wifely reply.
+
+General Temple, confined to the house by the weather, drew military maps
+with great precision, and worked hard upon his History of Temple's
+Brigade. The fact that he knew much more about the Duke of Marlborough's
+campaigns, or Prince Eugene's, or anybody's, in fact, than he did about
+any he had been directly engaged in, in no wise set him back. Mrs.
+Temple, who thought the general a prodigy of military science, was
+rejoiced that he had something to divert him through the long wintry
+days, when Barn Elms was as completely shut in from even the little
+neighborhood world as if it were in the depths of a Russian forest. Jack
+Throckmorton, who after a while began to see that the major was
+certainly singed, as he expressed it to himself, did not carry out his
+usual tactics of making his vicinity too hot for his father, but when he
+wished to see Jacqueline went over in the mornings. If the weather was
+tolerable, they were pretty sure to find their way to the ice-pond.
+Jack, carrying on his arm a little wooden chair, and putting Jacqueline
+in it, would push it over the ice before him as he sped along on skates.
+Then Jacqueline's fresh, young laugh would ring out shrilly--then she
+was happy. Sometimes Judith and Throckmorton, smiling, would watch them.
+Jack liked Mrs. Beverley immensely, but he confided to Jacqueline that
+he was a little afraid of her--just as Jacqueline candidly admitted she
+was in awe of Major Throckmorton. Throckmorton, watching this childish
+boy and girl fun, would sometimes laugh inwardly and grimly at himself.
+How true was it, as Mrs. Sherrard had said, that Jacqueline would make a
+good playmate for Jack! And then he would turn to Judith, and try to
+persuade himself of her sweetness and truth. But love comes not by
+persuasion.
+
+Jack had been giving Jacqueline glowing accounts of the sleigh-rides he
+had had in the Northwest. Jacqueline was crazy for a sleigh-ride, but
+there was no such thing as a sleigh in the county. One evening, after
+tea, as Jacqueline sat dolefully clasping her knees and looking in the
+fire, and Judith, with hands locked in her lap, was doing the same; Mrs.
+Temple knitting placidly by the lamp, while General Temple held forth
+on certain blunders he had discovered in the Retreat of the Ten
+Thousand--a strange tinkling sound was heard far--far away--almost as if
+it were in another world! Jacqueline sat perfectly still and gazed into
+Judith's eyes. Judith got up and went into the hall. A great patch of
+moonlight shone through the uncurtained window, and outside it was
+almost as light as day. The limbs and trunks of the great live-oaks
+looked preternaturally dark against the white earth and the blue-black,
+star-lit sky. Suddenly Simon Peter's head appeared cautiously around the
+corner of the house, and in a minute or two he came up the back way and
+planted himself at Judith's elbow.
+
+"Gord A'mighty, Miss Judy, what dat ar'? What dem bells ringin' fur? I
+'spect de evils is 'broad. I done see two Jack-my-lanterns dis heah
+night."
+
+Judith fixed her eyes on the long, straight lane bordered with solemn
+cedars; she saw a dark object moving along, and heard the sharp click of
+horses' shoes on the frozen snow.
+
+"It's somebody coming," she said, and in a moment, she cried out
+joyfully:
+
+"O Jacky, come--come! it's a sleigh--I see Jack Throckmorton
+driving--Major Throckmorton is there--and there are four seats!"
+
+Jacqueline jumped up and ran out. She had never seen a sleigh in her
+life, and there it was turning into the drive before the house. Jack had
+the reins, and the major's two thoroughbreds were flying along at a
+rattling pace, and the bells were jingling loudly and merrily.
+Jacqueline almost danced with delight. By the time the sleigh drew up at
+the door, Simon Peter was there to take the reins, and Throckmorton and
+Jack jumped out and came up the steps. The general and Mrs. Temple were
+also roused to come out and meet them. As the hall-door swung open, a
+blast of arctic air entered. Throckmorton's dark eyes looked black under
+his seal-skin cap. Jack plunged into business at once.
+
+"Now, Mrs. Temple, you must let me take Miss Jacqueline for a spin
+to-night; never saw better sleighing in my life. The major's along, and
+you know he is as steady as old Time"--the major at heart did not relish
+this--"and, if Mrs. Beverley will go, it will be awfully jolly."
+
+Mrs. Temple began some mild protest: it was too cold, or too late, or
+something; but for once Jacqueline did not hear her, and bounded off
+up-stairs for her wraps. Even Judith, usually so calm, was a little
+carried away by the prospect.
+
+"Come, mother, Major Throckmorton and I will take care of them."
+
+Mrs. Temple yielded.
+
+"I will take care of Beverley while you are gone," she said, and Judith
+blushed. Was she forgetting the child?
+
+In five minutes both of them were ready. Judith had pressed her soft
+cheeks to Beverley's as she leaned over the sleeping child. Surely
+nobody could say she was a forgetful mother.
+
+The sleigh was Jack's. He had sent away and bought it, and it had
+arrived that evening. Jacqueline sat on the front seat with him, her
+face glowing with smiles on the clear, cold night, as he wrapped the fur
+robes around her. Throckmorton did the same for Judith. For once she had
+left off her widow's veil, and for once she forgot that secret pain and
+determined to be happy. Jack touched up the horses, and off they flew.
+As for Jacqueline and himself, their pleasure was of that youthful,
+effervescing sort that never comes after twenty-five; but Throckmorton
+and Judith began to feel some of the exhilaration and excitement.
+Throckmorton had lately heard Mrs. Sherrard's views about Judith's
+marriage, and it had made him feel a very great pity for her.
+
+"Where are we going?" cried Jacqueline, as they dashed along.
+
+"Anywhere--nowhere--to Turkey Thicket!" replied Jack, lightly touching
+the flying horses with his whip.
+
+"We will frighten Mrs. Sherrard to death!" said Judith, from the back
+seat, burying her face in her muff.
+
+It was not a time to think about anybody else, though. The five miles
+to Turkey Thicket sped away like lightning. When they dashed through the
+gate and drew up before the house, half a dozen darkies were there
+gaping; and Mrs. Sherrard, with a shawl thrown over her head, was
+standing in the doorway, and standing behind her was Freke.
+
+As they all got out, laughing, huddling, and slipping up the stone
+steps, Mrs. Sherrard greeted them with her characteristic cordiality,
+demanding that they should take off their wraps before they were half up
+the steps. She gave Throckmorton a comical look, and whispered to him as
+he shook hands with her: "Out with the Sister of Charity, hey? Or is it
+the child Jacky?" Throckmorton laughed rather uneasily. He had never got
+over that remark of Mrs. Sherrard's about Jacqueline being a playmate
+for Jack.
+
+They all went trooping into the dining-room, where a huge fire blazed.
+Mrs. Sherrard called up her factotum, a venerable negro woman, Delilah's
+double, and in ten minutes they were sitting around the table laughing
+and eating and drinking. The colored factotum had brought out a large
+yellow bowl, a big, flat, blue dish, and a rusty bottle. Eggs and milk
+followed.
+
+"Egg-nog," whispered Jack to Jacqueline.
+
+So it was. Freke broke up the eggs, and Mrs. Sherrard, with a great
+carving-knife, beat up the whites, while she talked and occasionally
+flourished the knife uncomfortably near Freke's nose. Throckmorton
+poured in the rum and brandy with such liberality that Judith with great
+firmness took both bottles away from him. The egg-nog was a capital
+brew. Then Freke produced his violin, and saying, "Hang your Brahms and
+Beethovens!" dashed into waltzes of Strauss and Waldteufel that made the
+very air vibrate with joy and gayety and rhythm. Jack seized Jacqueline,
+and, opening the door, they flew out into the half-lighted hall and spun
+around delightedly. As Freke's superb bow-arm flashed back and forth,
+and the torrent of melody poured out of the violin, his eyes flashed,
+too. He did not mean to play always for Jacqueline to dance.
+
+Judith, standing at the door, watched the two young figures whirling
+merrily around in the half-light to the resounding waltz-music. She was
+altogether taken by surprise when Throckmorton came up to her, and said,
+half laughing and half embarrassed:
+
+"My dancing days are over, but that waltz is charming."
+
+Judith did not quite take in what he meant, but without a word he
+clasped her waist, and she was gliding off with him. Throckmorton would
+have scorned the characterization of a "dancing man," but nevertheless
+he danced well, and Judith moved like a breeze. She went around the big
+hall once--twice--before the idea that it was inconceivably wicked of
+her to dance with Throckmorton came to her; not, indeed, until she saw
+Freke's wide mouth expanded into a smile that was infuriating. And then,
+what would Mrs. Temple say to her dancing at all?
+
+"Oh, pray, stop!" she cried, blushing furiously. "I can't dance any
+more; I ought never to have begun. I haven't danced for--for years."
+
+Throckmorton stopped at once, with pity in his eyes. He suspected the
+sort of angelic dragooning to which she was subject from his dear Mrs.
+Temple.
+
+"Why shouldn't you dance?" he said. "I see you like it. Come, let's try
+it again. I'm a little rusty, perhaps, but we got on famously just now."
+But Judith would not try it again.
+
+Freke now meant to have his innings.
+
+"Do you know this is Twelfth-night--the night for telling fortunes?" he
+said, laying down his violin.--"Come, Jacky, let me take you out of
+doors and show you the moon and tell yours."
+
+"In this snow!" screamed Mrs. Sherrard; but by that time Freke had
+thrown a shawl over Jacqueline's head, and had dragged her out of the
+room, and the hall-door banged loudly after them.
+
+Outside, in the cold, white moonlight and the snow, Freke pointed to the
+moon.
+
+"Now make your wish," he said; "but don't wish for Millenbeck."
+
+Jacqueline's face could turn no redder than it was, but she looked at
+Freke, and answered on impulse, as she always did:
+
+"Millenbeck is finer than Barn Elms--"
+
+"Or Wareham," responded Freke, fixing her attention with a stare out of
+his bold eyes. "See here, Jacqueline, I know how it is. You think you
+will be able to put up with Throckmorton for the sake of Millenbeck. My
+dear, he is old--"
+
+"He is only forty-four," answered Jacqueline, defiantly.
+
+"And you are only twenty-one. You would be happier even at Wareham with
+me, than at Millenbeck with Throckmorton."
+
+"I couldn't be happy in a five-roomed house," quite truthfully said
+Jacqueline.
+
+"Yes, you could. I could make you forget whether it had five or ten
+rooms."
+
+At this, he put two fingers under her chin, and, tilting up her rosy
+face, kissed her on the mouth. "Come!" cried Freke, after a little
+while, remembering how time was flying, which Jacqueline had evidently
+forgotten, and making for the steps; but Jacqueline stopped him with a
+scared face.
+
+"Aren't you married, Freke?" she asked.
+
+"Not a bit of it," answered Freke, stoutly. "Don't you believe all the
+old women's tales you hear about me, Jacky. I'm no more married than you
+are this minute. I have been, I admit, but I slipped my head out of the
+noose some time ago. Do you believe me?"
+
+"Yes," answered Jacqueline, who could believe anything, "if--if--people
+can really be divorced."
+
+They had not been gone ten minutes, when they returned, yet Freke saw a
+danger-signal flying in Judith's cheeks. She did not mean to have any
+more of this. Mrs. Sherrard, who had become an active partisan of
+Freke's, asked, as soon as they came in:
+
+"What wish did you make, Jacky?"
+
+Jacqueline started. She had made no wish at all.
+
+"Freke ran me out of the house so fast," she began complainingly, "I was
+perfectly out of breath."
+
+"And of course couldn't make a wish," said Jack Throckmorton, laughing.
+
+"I wished for everything," replied Jacqueline.
+
+Presently they were driving home through the still, frosty night. Judith
+felt a complete reaction from the ghost of merriment that had possessed
+her in going that road before. Even Throckmorton noticed the change. She
+laughed and talked gayly, but her speaking eyes told another story.
+Throckmorton could not but smile, and yet felt sorry, too, when
+Jacqueline, fancying herself unheard, whispered to Judith:
+
+"I won't tell mamma about the waltz."
+
+But Jacqueline was absent-minded too. When they had got home and had
+gone up-stairs, instead of Jacqueline following Judith to her room, as
+she usually did when she had anything on her mind, she went straight to
+her own room, and, locking the door, began to walk up and down, her
+hands behind her back. How strange, fascinating, overpowering was Freke,
+after all! Was a divorced man really a married man? Divorces were
+dreadful things, she had always known--but--suppose, in some other world
+than that about the Severn neighborhood, it should be considered a
+venial thing? Jacqueline became so much interested in these puzzling
+reflections that she unconsciously abandoned the cat-like tread which
+she had adopted for fear of waking her mother, and stepped out in her
+own brisk way up and down the big room. Mrs. Temple, hearing this,
+quietly opened her own chamber-door beneath. That was enough. The walk
+stopped as if by magic, and in ten minutes Jacqueline was in bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+Throckmorton made one short, sharp struggle with himself, and then
+yielded to Jacqueline's fascination.
+
+Without Freke's keen perceptions, Throckmorton knew enough to doubt
+whether he ought to congratulate or curse himself if he won Jacqueline;
+and that he could win her, his own good sense told him soon enough.
+Jacqueline's nature was so impressionable that a strong determination
+could conquer her at any time and at any thing for a season.
+Throckmorton, tramping about the country roads with his gun on his
+shoulder; having jolly bachelor parties at Millenbeck, which were
+confined strictly to the Severn neighborhood; in church on Sunday,
+half-listening to Morford's pyrotechnics in the pulpit; smoking at
+unearthly hours in his own den; riding hard after the hounds--the
+thought of Jacqueline was never far away, and never without a suspicion
+of pain and dissatisfaction. He was not given to paltering with himself,
+and nothing could utterly blind his strong common sense--a common sense
+that was so imperative to be heard, so difficult to answer, so
+impossible to evade. It was not in him to surrender his judgment
+absolutely. He faced bravely the discrepancy in their ages, but he soon
+admitted to himself that there were other incongruities deeper and more
+significant than that. Nevertheless, although Reason might argue and
+preach, Love carried the day. Throckmorton reminded himself that
+miracles sometimes happened in love. He did not suffer himself to think
+what Jacqueline would be twenty years from then. Time is always fatal to
+women of her type. Even her beauty was essentially the beauty of youth.
+In twenty years she would be stout and florid. Here Throckmorton, in his
+reflections, unexpectedly went off on Judith. Hers was a beauty that
+would last--the beauty of expression, of _esprit_. Then his thoughts,
+with a sort of shock, reverted to Jacqueline.
+
+As for Freke, Throckmorton did not once connect him with Jacqueline.
+Freke was a black sheep, and, as Throckmorton devoutly and thankfully
+remembered, the daughter of General and Mrs. Temple would not be likely
+to regard a divorced man as a single man. So, in the course of two or
+three weeks, Throckmorton had gone through all his phases, and had made
+up his mind. He could not but laugh at Mrs. Temple's unsuspecting
+security. She had always regarded Jacqueline as a child, and indeed
+regarded her very little in any way.
+
+This excellent woman, whose gospel was embodied in her duty to her
+husband and her children, had always been a singularly unjust mother;
+but she thought herself the most devoted mother in the world, because
+she regularly superintended Jacqueline's changes of flannels, and made
+her take off her shoes when she got her feet wet. Both Mrs. Temple and
+the general were absolutely incapable of entertaining the idea that
+Freke was growing fond of Jacqueline; and Freke was not only astute
+enough to keep them in the dark, but to keep Judith, too, who fondly
+imagined that she herself had reduced Freke to good behavior as regarded
+Jacqueline. Freke's estimate of the two young women had not changed in
+the least--only Jacqueline was come-at-able and Judith was not--and he
+loved to cross Judith and vex her, and give her pin-sticks as well as
+stabs in return for the frank hatred she felt for him. She had elected
+her own position with him--so let her keep it.
+
+It never took Throckmorton long to act on his determinations. Jacqueline
+saw what was coming. He had a way of looking at her that forced her to
+look up and then to look down again. He said little things to her,
+instinct with meaning, that brought the blood to her face. He performed
+small services for her that were merely conventional, but which were
+from him to her acts of adoration. And Judith saw it all.
+
+He did not have to wait long for an opportunity. One evening he went to
+Barn Elms. The general was threatened with a return of his gout, which
+had got better, and Mrs. Temple had imprisoned him in the "charmber,"
+where she mounted guard over him. Only Jacqueline and Judith, with
+little Beverley, who had been allowed to stay up until eight o'clock, as
+a great privilege, were in the drawing-room when he walked in. The boy
+and Throckmorton were such chums that there was no hope of getting
+Beverley off under a half-hour. He stood between Throckmorton's knees,
+perfectly happy to be with him, asking endless questions in a subdued
+whisper, and frowning out of his expressive eyes when Throckmorton
+wanted to know when his mother intended to cut off his long, yellow
+curls, so that he would be a real boy. Judith, sitting in her usual
+place, smiling and calm, soon settled that the winged word would be
+spoken that night. What better chance would Throckmorton have than when
+she should be gone to put the child to bed? She watched the tall clock
+on the high mantel with a fearful sinking of the heart, that drove the
+color out of her face. Presently it was half-past eight.
+
+"Come, dearest," she said to the child.
+
+Beverley held back.
+
+"I don't want to go with you," he said. "I want to stay and play."
+
+This childish treason to her at that moment was a stab. She got up with
+a smile, and opened her arms wide, her eyes shining under her straight
+brows.
+
+"Come, dear little boy," she said.
+
+The tone was so winning, so compelling, it went to the child's baby
+heart. He ran to his mother, with wide-open arms, who caught him and
+held him tight, covering his yellow mop of hair with kisses.
+Throckmorton looked on surprised and admiring. He had never seen Judith
+yield to anything emotional like that; she was laughing, blushing, and
+almost crying, as Beverley swung round her neck. And Throckmorton
+thought he had never seen her look so handsome as when she ran out of
+the room, carrying the child, who was a sturdy fellow, in her slender
+arms, her face deeply flushed. Throckmorton, as he held the door open
+for her to pass out, gave her a meaning smile; but Judith would not look
+at him. Up-stairs, Beverley was soon in his little bed. Judith, sitting
+on the floor, with both arms crossed on the crib, held one of the
+child's little warm hands in hers; the only real and comforting thing in
+life then seemed that childish hand.
+
+"I will stay an hour," she said. "Mother will be vexed"--Mrs. Temple had
+old-fashioned ideas about leaving girls to themselves--"but he shall be
+happy. I will see that he has his chance." But, like Throckmorton
+himself, she feared for his happiness. Nobody knew better than she
+Jacqueline's weakness. She had, indeed, a sort of childish cleverness,
+which was, however, of no practical good to her; but then, as Judith
+remembered, Throckmorton's love could transform any woman. "Yes, I shall
+go through it," she thought, still kneeling on the carpet, and pressing
+her face to the child's in the crib; "Jacqueline will insist that I
+shall take off the mourning I wear for the man I never loved, at the
+wedding of the man I do love. If Throckmorton has any doubts or troubles
+with Jacqueline, he will certainly come to me. I will help him loyally,
+and he will need a friend. So far, though, from making me suffer more,
+the hope of befriending him is the only hope I have left in the world. I
+wonder how it feels to have one's heart aching and throbbing for another
+woman's husband--to be counting time by the times one sees him? For
+assuredly a few words spoken by a priest can not change this." She
+struck her heart. "And in everything Jacqueline will be blest above me.
+See how poor and straitened we are, and Jacqueline's life will be free
+from any care at all! However, to be loved by Throckmorton must mean to
+be rich and free and happy." And then, with a sort of clear-eyed
+despair, she began to look into the future, and see all of Jacqueline's
+and Throckmorton's life spread out before her. "And how unworthy she
+is!" she almost cried out aloud. She had now risen from the crib and
+was gazing out of the window at Millenbeck, that was plainly visible
+across the white stretch of snow between the two places. "Of course, she
+will love him--no woman could help that--but she can't understand him.
+She will not have the slightest respect for his habits, and will always
+be wanting him to alter them for her. She never will understand the
+reserves of Throckmorton's nature. She will tease him with questions. I
+would not care if Jacqueline were the one to be unhappy"--for so had
+pain changed her toward the child that had been to her almost as her
+own--"but in a few years the spell will have vanished. Throckmorton will
+find out that she is no companion for him. There can be no real
+companionship for any man like Throckmorton except with a woman
+somewhere near his own level--least of all now, when he is no longer
+young."
+
+Then she came back and took the child out of his little bed, and held
+him in her arms and wept passionately over him. "At least I have you,
+darling; I have you!" she cried.
+
+Down-stairs, in the drawing-room, Throckmorton made good use of his
+time. With very little apprenticeship, he knew how to make love so that
+any woman would listen to him.
+
+He told Jacqueline that he loved her, in his own straightforward way;
+and Jacqueline, whose heart beat furiously, who was frightened and half
+rebellious, suffered him to get a few shy words from her. Throckmorton
+did not stoop to deny his age, but he condescended to apologize for it.
+In a dim and nebulous way Jacqueline understood the value of the man who
+thus offered his manly and unstained heart, but she felt acutely the
+want of common ground between them.
+
+Throckmorton's love-making was not at all what simple Jacqueline fancied
+love-making to be. He did not protest--he did not talk poetry, nor abase
+himself; he made no exaggerated promises, nor did he sue for her love.
+At the first sign of yielding, he caught her to his heart and devoured
+her with kisses. Yet, when Jacqueline wanted to escape from him, he let
+her go. He would not keep her a moment unwillingly. Jacqueline did not
+understand this masterful way of doing things. She fancied that a lover
+meant a slave, and apparently Throckmorton considered a lover meant a
+master.
+
+At the end of an hour, Judith returned to the room. Throckmorton was
+standing alone on the hearth-rug, in a meditative attitude. In his eyes,
+as they sought Judith's, was a kind of passionate, troubled joy; he
+doubted much, but he did not doubt his love for Jacqueline. He went
+forward and took Judith's hand, who lifted her eyes, strangely bright,
+to his face. She was smiling, too, and a faint blush glowed in her
+cheeks. There were no visible signs of tears.
+
+"I am a happy man," said Throckmorton to her. "Jacqueline has promised
+to marry me."
+
+His words were few, but Judith understood how much was conveyed in his
+sparing speech.
+
+"I am happy, too," she returned, pressing his hand. "You deserve to be
+happy, and you will make--Jacqueline happy."
+
+As she said this, she smiled tremulously. Throckmorton was too much
+absorbed to notice it.
+
+"I will, so help me Heaven!" he answered.
+
+In all his life before, Throckmorton did not remember ever to have felt
+the desire of communion about his inner thoughts and feelings. Was it
+because he himself had changed, or that Judith had that delicate and
+penetrating sympathy that drew him on to speak of what he had never
+spoken before? Anyway, he sat down by her, and talked to her a long
+time--talked of all the doubts and pitfalls that had beset him; his
+plans that Jacqueline might be happy; his confidence that Judith would
+be his strongest ally with Mrs. Temple, who was by no means a person to
+be counted on. She might object to Throckmorton's profession, to his
+being in what she continued to call the Yankee army, to his twenty-odd
+years' seniority, to his not being a member of the church; as like as
+not this was the very rock on which Throckmorton's ship would split.
+Judith, with the same heavenly smile, listened to him; she even made a
+little wholesome fun of him; and when he rose to go, Throckmorton felt,
+even at that time--and nobody could say that he was a laggard in
+love--that he had gained something else besides Jacqueline, in the sweet
+friendship of a woman like Judith. He took her little hand, and was
+about to raise it to his lips with tender respect, when Judith, who had
+stood as still as a statue, suddenly snatched her hand away and gave
+Throckmorton a look so strange that he fancied her attacked by a sudden
+prudery that was far from becoming to her or complimentary to him. She
+slipped past him out of the door, and he heard her light and rapid
+footfall as she sped up the stairs. As there was nobody left to
+entertain the newly accepted lover, he put on a battered blue cap, for
+which he had a sneaking affection, and sometimes wore under cover of
+night, and let himself out of the front door and went home across the
+snow-covered fields, in an ecstasy.
+
+Meanwhile, Jacqueline, as soon as she had heard the bang of the
+hall-door after Throckmorton's quick, soldierly step, stole out of her
+own room into Judith's. In answer to her tap, Judith said, "Come in."
+
+Judith was seated before the old-fashioned dressing-table, her long,
+rich hair combed out, and was making a pretense of brushing it, but
+occasionally she would stop and gaze with strange eyes at her own image
+in the glass. She rose when Jacqueline entered, and took the girl in
+her arms as Jacqueline expected.
+
+"Judith," Jacqueline said, "I am to be married to Major Throckmorton. I
+wonder what Freke will say!"
+
+Judith held her off at arm's length, and looked down at her with eyes
+full of anger and disdain.
+
+"Don't mention Throckmorton and Freke in the same breath, Jacqueline!
+What does Freke's opinion count for--what does Freke himself? It is an
+insult to Throckmorton to--to--"
+
+"But, Judith," said Jacqueline, "Freke talks better than Major
+Throckmorton--"
+
+"And plays and sings better. Ah! yes. At the same time, Throckmorton's
+little finger is worth more than a dozen Frekes."
+
+"But it troubles me about Freke. I know Major Throckmorton can manage
+mamma--he can do anything with her now; and mamma, of course, will
+manage papa; but nobody can do anything with Freke."
+
+"Jacqueline," said Judith, sitting down and taking Jacqueline in her
+lap, and changing all at once into the sweetest sisterly persuasion, "no
+other man on earth must matter to you now but Throckmorton. Let me tell
+you what a true marriage is. It is to love one man so much that with him
+is everything--without him is nothing. It is to study what he likes, and
+to like it too. It is to make his people your people, and his God your
+God. I think one need not know a great deal in order to be worthy of a
+man--for his love makes one worthy; but one should know a great deal in
+order that one may be creditable to him in the eyes of the world. Think
+how Throckmorton's wife should conduct herself; fancy how frightful the
+contrast, if she should not in some degree be like him! I tell you,
+Jacqueline, a woman to sustain Throckmorton's name and credit should be
+no ordinary woman. If you do not love him, if you do not make him proud
+and happy to say, 'This is my wife,' you deserve the worst fate--"
+
+One of Jacqueline's fits of acuteness was on her. She looked hard at
+Judith.
+
+"It seems to me, Judith, that you would make a much more fitting wife
+for him than I."
+
+"Don't say that!" cried Judith, breathlessly. "Never, never say that
+again!"
+
+Jacqueline, who knew well enough when to stop, suddenly halted. After a
+little pause, she began again:
+
+"I know it will be dreadfully lonely at Millenbeck. Major Throckmorton
+loves to read, and I shall be a great interruption to his evenings. I
+don't know how I shall treat Jack. Don't you think it would be a good
+idea to get a companion--somebody who knows French?"
+
+"You musn't think of such a thing. Good heavens! a companion, with
+Throckmorton? You can learn more from him in one week than all the
+governesses in creation can teach you."
+
+"I didn't say governess," replied Jacqueline, with much dignity. "I said
+companion."
+
+Then, as Jacqueline leaned her head on Judith's shoulder, Judith talked
+to her long and tenderly of the duty, the respect, the love she owed
+Throckmorton. Jacqueline listened attentively enough. When the little
+lecture was finished, Jacqueline whispered:
+
+"I feel differently about it now. At first, I could only think of
+Millenbeck and a new piano, and doing just as I liked; but now, I will
+try--I will really try--not to vex Major Throckmorton."
+
+That was all that could be got out of her.
+
+Judith went with her to her room, and did not leave it until Jacqueline
+was tucked in her big four-poster, with the ghastly white tester and
+dimity hangings. Jacqueline kissed her a dozen times before she went
+away. Judith, too, was loath to leave. As long as she was doing
+something for Jacqueline, she was doing something for Throckmorton. For
+was not Jacqueline Throckmorton's now?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+Throckmorton, who was modesty and respectfulness itself in the presence
+of the woman he loved, was far from being nervous or diffident with her
+family. Next morning, having devoted all his smoking hours, which
+comprised the meditative part of his life, to Jacqueline, it occurred to
+him that he would have to tackle Mrs. Temple. That quite exhilarated and
+amused him. He knew well enough the Temple tradition, by which the
+master of the house was the nominal ruler, while the mistress was the
+actual ruler, and he also knew it would not be repeated at Millenbeck.
+He was indulgent toward women to the last degree--indulgent of their
+whims, their foibles, their faults and follies; but it was an
+indulgence, not a right. Jacqueline would find she had as much liberty
+as ever her mother had, but it would not be by virtue of a strong will
+over a weak one, but the free gift of affection. The major was not a
+person subject to petticoat government. In fact, he did not exactly know
+what it meant, and the woman did not live who could make him understand
+it. He rather looked forward to a brush with Mrs. Temple. He knew that
+Millenbeck and all the worldly advantages of the match would not
+influence her one iota. The conviction of this, of her entire
+disinterestedness and integrity, gave him pleasure. He knew that it was
+he--George Throckmorton--who would be weighed by Mrs. Temple, if not by
+Jacqueline; this last an afterthought that came to him unpleasantly.
+
+At breakfast, Throckmorton could not but feel a sense of triumph over
+Jack, who, unconscious of an impending step-mother, sat opposite his
+father, and talked in the free, frank way to him that Throckmorton had
+always encouraged. The young rascal would see, thought Throckmorton,
+with much satisfaction, that it was possible for a man of forty-four,
+with more gray hairs than black in his head, to hold his own even
+against a fellow as fascinating as Jack fancied himself to be. As luck
+would have it, Jack began to talk about the Temples.
+
+"Major, don't you think Mrs. Beverley a very captivating woman? By
+George! she looks so pretty in that little black bonnet she wears, if it
+wasn't for interfering with you, sir, I would be tempted to go in and
+win myself."
+
+The boy's impudence tickled Throckmorton. He could not but laugh in
+spite of himself at the idea--Jack, whom Judith treated very much as she
+did Beverley! But Jack evidently thought his father had designs in that
+quarter, which misapprehension still further amused the major.
+
+"Mrs. Beverley is indeed a charming woman," he answered.
+
+Jack, however, became serious. In his heart he sincerely admired and
+revered Judith, and his blessing was ready whenever the major informed
+him that she would be the future mistress of Millenbeck.
+
+"Mrs. Beverley has more sense and sprightliness than any other woman I
+know. If she could be persuaded to take off those black things she wraps
+herself up in, and be _herself_--which she isn't--I should think she
+would be--great fun."
+
+Jack knew Throckmorton well enough to see that the shot had not hit the
+bull's-eye. Throckmorton was too ready to praise, discuss, and admire
+Judith. "What does the old fellow want, anyway?" thought Jack to
+himself, "if Mrs. Beverley doesn't suit him?" So then and there he
+entered into a disquisition on women in general and Judith Temple in
+particular, which caused Throckmorton to ask sarcastically:
+
+"May I ask where you acquired your knowledge of the sex?"
+
+"It would be impossible to associate with you, major, without learning
+much about them," answered Jack, "you are such a favorite with the
+ladies. You are a very handsome man, you know, sir--"
+
+Here Throckmorton smiled.
+
+"For your age, that is--"
+
+The major frowned slightly.
+
+"They all like you--even little Jacqueline."
+
+To save his life, Throckmorton could not prevent a flush from rising to
+his face, which he hated; for the emotions of forty-four are infinitely
+ridiculous to twenty-two. But it was just as well to have things settled
+then. A queer glitter, too, showing understanding, had come into Jack's
+eyes.
+
+"I may say to you," said Throckmorton, after a little pause, "that you
+would do well to be guarded in your references to Miss Temple. She has
+promised to marry me."
+
+They had finished breakfast by that time, and were about to separate for
+the morning. Jack got up, and Throckmorton noticed his handsome young
+face paled a little. He had not escaped Jacqueline's spell any more than
+Throckmorton and Freke; but it was not an overmastering spell, and in
+his heart he loved his father with a manly affection that he never
+thought of putting into words, but which was stronger than any other
+emotion. He walked up to Throckmorton and shook hands with him,
+laughing, but with a nervousness in his laugh, an abashed look on his
+face, that told the whole story to Throckmorton's keen eye.
+
+"I congratulate you, sir. She is a--a--beautiful girl--and--and--I hope
+you will be very happy."
+
+"I think I shall," gravely responded Throckmorton. "I can not explain
+things to you that you can only learn by experience. I have not
+forgotten--I never can forget--your mother, who made my happiness during
+our short married life. I have been twenty years recovering from the
+pain of losing her enough to think of replacing her."
+
+Jack had recovered himself a little while Throckmorton was speaking. The
+wound was only skin-deep with him.
+
+"And is it to be immediately?" he asked.
+
+"As soon as I can bring it about," replied Throckmorton; "but I have got
+to bring my dear, obstinate old friend Mrs. Temple round first"--here
+both of them laughed--"so you will see the necessity of keeping the
+affair absolutely quiet."
+
+"You had better join the church, sir," said Jack, who was himself again.
+"That will be your best card to play."
+
+"Very likely," responded Throckmorton, good-humoredly, "but I think I
+can win the game even without that."
+
+In the bright morning sunshine out-of-doors Throckmorton began to take
+heart of grace about Jacqueline. Jack did not seem to think it such an
+unequal match. With love and patience what might not be done with any
+woman? Throckmorton began to whistle jovially. He went out to the stable
+lot to take a look at the horses, as he did every morning. Old Tartar,
+that had carried him during four years' warfare, and was now honorably
+retired and turned out to grass, came toward him whinnying and ready for
+his morning pat--all horses, dogs, and children loved Throckmorton.
+Tartar, who had lost an eye in the service of his country, turned his
+one remaining orb around so as to see Throckmorton, and rubbed his noble
+old head against his master's knee. Throckmorton noticed him more than
+usual--his heart was more tender and pitiful to all creatures that
+morning.
+
+Toward noon he went over to Barn Elms. The morning was intensely cold,
+though clear, and the fields and fences and hedges were still white with
+snow. For the first time Throckmorton noticed the extreme shabbiness of
+Barn Elms.
+
+"Dear little girl," he said, "she shall have a different home from
+this."
+
+When he reached the house he was ushered straight into the plain,
+old-fashioned drawing-room, and in a moment Mrs. Temple appeared,
+perfectly unsuspicious of what had happened or what was going to happen.
+
+"Good-morning," cried Throckmorton--something in his tone showing
+triumph and happiness, and in his dark face was a fine red color. "Mrs.
+Temple, I came over to make a clean breast to you this morning!"
+
+"About what?" asked Mrs. Temple, sedately.
+
+They were both standing up, facing each other.
+
+"About--Jacqueline." Throckmorton spoke her name almost reverently.
+
+A sudden light broke in upon Mrs. Temple. She grew perfectly rigid.
+
+"Jacqueline!" she said, in an undescribable tone.
+
+"Yes, Jacqueline," answered Throckmorton, coolly. "I love her--I think
+she loves me--and she has promised to marry me. You may depend upon it,
+I shall make her keep her promise."
+
+Mrs. Temple remained perfectly silent for two or three minutes before
+recovering her self-possession.
+
+"You are forty-four years old, George Throckmorton."
+
+"I know it. I never lied about my age to anybody."
+
+"You are in the Yankee army!"
+
+"Yes, I am," responded Throckmorton, boldly, "and I shall stay in it."
+
+"And my daughter--"
+
+"For God's sake, Mrs. Temple, let us talk reasonably together! I am not
+going to take your daughter campaigning."
+
+"It isn't that I mean, George Throckmorton. I mean the uniform you
+wear--"
+
+"Is the best in the world! Now, my dear old friend--the best friend I
+ever had--I want your consent and General Temple's--I want it very much,
+but it isn't absolutely necessary. Jacqueline and I are to be married.
+We settled that last night."
+
+Mrs. Temple, with whom nobody had ever taken a bold stand before, looked
+perfectly aghast. Throckmorton saw his advantage, and pressed it hard.
+
+"Have you any objection to me personally? Am I a drunkard, or a gambler,
+or a cad?"
+
+"You are not," responded Mrs. Temple, after a pause. "I think you are,
+on the whole, except my husband and my dead son, as much of a man--"
+
+Throckmorton took her hand and pressed it.
+
+"Thank you! thank you!" His gratitude spoke more in his tone than his
+words. "And now," he cheerfully remarked, "that you have given your
+consent--"
+
+Mrs. Temple had given no such thing. Nevertheless, within half an hour
+she had yielded to the inevitable. She had met a stronger will than her
+own, and was completely vanquished.
+
+Jacqueline came down, and Throckmorton had a half-hour of rapture not
+unmixed with pain. If only his reason could be silenced, how happy he
+would have been! He did not see Judith; he had quite forgotten her for
+the time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+Throckmorton, who was nothing if not prompt, had infused so much life
+and spirit into his love-affair that at the end of a week it was settled
+that the wedding should take place the last of February--only a month
+off. Jacqueline's trousseau was not likely to be imposing, and the few,
+feeble reasons which Mrs. Temple urged for delay were swept away by
+Throckmorton's impetuosity. It was not the custom in that part of the
+world for engagements to be formally announced; on the contrary, it was
+in order to deny them up to the very last moment, and to regard them as
+something surreptitious and to be hid under a bushel. General Temple had
+magniloquently given his consent, when Throckmorton went through the
+form of asking it. Mrs. Temple still shook her head gravely over the
+matter, particularly over the brief engagement, which was quite opposed
+to the leisurely way in which engagements were usually conducted in her
+experience; but Throckmorton seemed to have mastered everybody at Barn
+Elms. For himself that period was one of deep joy, and yet full of
+harassing doubts. The more he studied Jacqueline under her new aspects,
+the stranger things became. It cut him to see how little real
+consequence either her mother or her father attached to her. Judith
+seemed to be the only person who was concerned to make Jacqueline love
+him; to regard the girl as a woman, and not as a child. For Jacqueline
+herself, she was as changeable as the weather. Had she been steadily
+indifferent to him, Throckmorton would have thought nothing necessary
+but a manly fight to win her; but sometimes she showed devoted fondness
+for him, and, without rhyme or reason, she would change into the coldest
+indifference or teasing irritability. Throckmorton told himself it was
+the coyness and fickleness of a young girl in love; but sometimes a
+hateful suspicion overcame him that there was in Jacqueline an innate
+levity and inconstancy that went to the root of her nature. The evident
+delight she took in the luxury and pleasures that were to be hers--the
+horses, carriages, pianos, and flowers at Millenbeck--was rather that of
+a child dazzled with the fineries of life. Her love for them was so
+unthinking and uncalculating that it did not shock Throckmorton; yet how
+could he, with his knowledge, his experience of men, women, and things,
+help seeing the differences between them--differences that, had his
+infatuation been less complete, would have appalled him? As it was, just
+as Judith had predicted to herself, he often came to her for sympathy
+and encouragement--not expressed in words, but in the subtile
+understanding between them. Judith always spoke in praise of Jacqueline;
+she artfully managed to show Throckmorton the best of her. But for
+Judith the marriage could never have been hastened on, as Throckmorton
+desired; for, as soon as she found out Throckmorton's wish, she went to
+work on Jacqueline's trousseau with a sort of desperate energy that
+carried things through. Jacqueline could have no fine silk gowns, but
+she was to have piles of the daintiest linen, of which the material cost
+little, but the beautiful handiwork lavished upon it by Judith was worth
+a little fortune. Jacqueline herself, spurred on by Judith's industry,
+sewed steadily. As for Judith, the fever of working for Jacqueline
+seized her, and never abated. She even neglected her child for
+Jacqueline, until Mrs. Temple, with stern disapproval, took her to task
+about it. Judith, blushing and conscience-stricken, owned to her fault,
+although nobody could accuse her of lacking love for the child. But
+still she managed to sew for Jacqueline, sitting up secretly by night,
+and with a pale, fixed face--stitch, stitch, stitching! Jacqueline could
+not understand it at all; and when she asked Judith about it once, she
+was so suddenly and strangely agitated that Jacqueline, a little
+frightened, dropped the subject at once. But, in truth, this was to
+Judith a time of new, strange, and terrible grief and disappointment.
+How she had ever permitted Throckmorton to take up her whole heart and
+mind she did not know any more than she could fathom now how she ever
+came to mistake an early and immature fancy for a deep and abiding
+passion, and had suffered herself to be married to Beverley Temple. She
+endured agonies of remorse for that, and yet hourly excused herself to
+herself. "How could I know," she asked herself in those long hours of
+the night when men and women come face to face with their sorrows. But
+all her remorse was for Beverley. As for the hatred she ought to feel
+for Throckmorton as the slayer of her husband, she had come to laugh it
+to scorn in her own mind. But, like all true women, she respected the
+world--the narrow circle which constituted her world--and she felt
+oppressed with shame at the idea that the whole story might all one day
+come out, and then what would they think of her? What would they do to
+her? She could not say, as she had once said, "I do not believe it." She
+had heard it from Throckmorton's own mouth. She would have to say, "I
+knew it, and went to his house, and continued to be friendly with him,
+and spoke no word when he wished to marry Beverley's sister." She could
+not divine the reason of Freke's silence, but, torn and harassed and
+wearied with struggles of heart and conscience, she simply yielded to
+the fatalism of the wretched, and let things drift. Sometimes in her
+own room, after she had spent the evening with Throckmorton and
+Jacqueline, seeing clearly under his perfectly self-possessed exterior
+his infatuation for Jacqueline, she would be wroth with him. Judith, the
+most modest and unassuming of women, would say to herself, with scorn of
+Throckmorton: "How blind he is! To throw away on Jacqueline, who in her
+turn throws it to the wind, what would make me the proudest creature
+under heaven! And am I unworthy of his love, or less worthy than
+Jacqueline?" To which her keen perceptions would answer rebelliously,
+"No, I am more worthy in every way." She would examine her face
+carefully in the glass, holding the candle first one side, then the
+other. "This, then, is the face that Throckmorton is indifferent to. It
+is not babyish, like Jacqueline's; there are no dimples, but--" Then
+the grotesqueness of it all would strike her, and even make her laugh.
+The fiercest pain, the most devouring jealousy never wrung from her
+the faintest admission that there was anything to be ashamed of in
+cherishing silently a profound and sacred love for Throckmorton. He
+was worthy of it, she thought, proudly. Toward him her manner never
+changed--she was mistress of some of the nobler arts of deception--but
+sometimes, although working for Jacqueline, and tending her
+affectionately, she would be angry and disdainful because Jacqueline
+did not always render to Throckmorton his due. She almost laughed to
+herself when she compared this horror of pain and grief which she now
+endured with the shock and pity of Beverley's death. She remembered that
+the joy her child gave her seemed almost wicked in its intensity at
+that time. What passions of happiness were hers when she would rise
+stealthily in the night and, taking him from his little crib, would hold
+him to her throbbing heart; and often, from the next room, she could
+hear Mrs. Temple pacing her floor, and could imagine the silent wringing
+of the hands and all the unspoken agonies the elder mother endured for
+_her_ child! Then she would swiftly and guiltily put the child back in
+his cradle, and, with remorse and self-denial, lie near him without
+touching him. Often in that long-past time, when she met him in his
+nurse's arms, she would fly toward him with a merry, dancing step,
+laughing all the time--she was so happy, so proud to have him--and,
+looking up, would catch Mrs. Temple's eyes fixed on her with a still
+reproach she understood well enough. Then she would turn away from him,
+and, sitting down by Mrs. Temple, would not even let her eyes wander to
+the child, and would remain silent and unanswering to his baby wail.
+
+But in this first real passion of her life, the child, much as she
+adored him, was secondary. He was her comfort--she would not, if she
+could, have let him out of her sight or out of her arms--but he could
+no more make her forget Throckmorton than anything else; he could only
+soften the intolerable ache a little, when he leaned his curly head upon
+her breast; and as for that easy and conventional phrase, the goodness
+of God, and that ready consolation that had seemed so apt at the time of
+Beverley's death, she began to substitute, for the mild and merciful
+Divinity, a merciless and relentless Jehovah, who had condemned her to
+suffer forever, and who would not be appeased.
+
+At first, the secret of the engagement was well kept. Only Jack
+Throckmorton, who behaved beautifully about it, and Freke, knew of the
+impending wedding. Freke's behavior was singular, not to say mysterious.
+He was so cool and unconcerned that Jacqueline was furiously piqued, and
+could scarcely keep her mind off her grievance against him for not
+taking her engagement more to heart, even when Throckmorton was with
+her. Freke's congratulations were quite perfunctory--as unlike Jack
+Throckmorton's whole-souled good wishes as could be imagined. One
+morning, soon after the news had been confided to Freke, he came into
+the dining-room, where Judith was sewing, with Jacqueline, also sewing,
+sitting demurely by her side.
+
+"Making wedding finery, eh?" was Freke's remark as he seated himself.
+
+"Yes," answered Judith, quietly, without laying down her work.
+
+"I want to see how much Jacqueline will be changed by marriage--You
+mustn't flirt with Jack, little Jacky."
+
+He said this quite good-humoredly, and Jacqueline turned a warm color.
+
+"And don't let me see you running after the chickens, as I saw you the
+other day. That wouldn't be dignified, you know; it would make Major
+Throckmorton ridiculous. You must do all you can to keep the difference
+in your ages from becoming too obvious."
+
+Judith felt a rising indignation. Jacqueline's head was bent lower. She
+dreaded and feared that people would tease her about Throckmorton's age.
+Freke saw in a moment how it was with her, and kept it up.
+
+"Throckmorton is sensible in one way. His hair is plentifully sprinkled
+with gray, but he doesn't use art to conceal it."
+
+"I do not think forty-four is old," said Judith, indignant at
+Jacqueline's tame submission to this sort of talk. "I think, with most
+women, Major Throckmorton would have the advantage over younger men."
+
+As soon as she said this, she repented. Freke glanced at her with a look
+so amused and so exasperating that she could have burst into tears of
+shame on the spot.
+
+"Come, Jacqueline," cried Freke, rising, "let us go for a walk. I don't
+know whether Throckmorton will permit this after you are married.
+Marriage, my dear little girl, is more of a yoke than a garland. I am
+well out of mine, thank Heaven!"
+
+Judith cast a beseeching look at Jacqueline, but Freke had fixed his
+eyes commandingly on her. That was enough. Jacqueline rose and went out
+to get her hat.
+
+Judith sat quite silent. She rarely spoke to Freke when she could help
+it.
+
+"What do you think of this ridiculous marriage?" he asked.
+
+"I, at least, don't think it ridiculous. There are incongruities much
+worse than a difference in age."
+
+"Yes, I understand," assented Freke, with meaning. "I have found it so.
+If I were as free as Throckmorton, though, I would be in no hurry to put
+my head in the noose."
+
+"You said just now you were free."
+
+"Did I? Well, in fact I am free in some States and not in others. You
+people down here seem to regard me as an escaped felon. That sort of
+thing doesn't exist any longer in civilized communities." Judith made no
+reply. She hated Freke with a kind of unreasoning hatred that put a
+guard upon her lips, lest she should be tempted to say something rash.
+And in a moment Jacqueline was back, and, with a defiant look at Judith,
+went off with Freke. Freke caught a glance from Judith's eyes as they
+went out. The fact that it expressed great anger and contempt for him
+did not make him overlook that her eyes were remarkably full of fire and
+the turn of her head something beautiful.
+
+"Judith is a thoroughbred--there's no mistake about that," he said to
+Jacqueline--and kept on talking about Judith until he reduced Jacqueline
+to a jealous silence, and almost to tears--when a few words of praise
+restored her to complete good humor. Throckmorton never played off on
+her like this--it was quite opposed to his directness and
+straightforwardness.
+
+Freke was more constantly at Barn Elms than ever before. It often
+occurred to Judith that he took pains to keep secret from Throckmorton
+all the time he passed with Jacqueline. Sometimes she even suspected
+that Jacqueline had some share in keeping Throckmorton in the dark, so
+constant was Freke's presence when Throckmorton was absent, and so
+unvarying was his absence when Throckmorton was present.
+
+After a while, though, a hint of the engagement got abroad in the
+county, and the people generally, who had never relaxed in the slightest
+degree their forbidding exterior to Throckmorton, now somewhat included
+the Temples in the ban. Throckmorton, engrossed with his own affairs,
+had ceased to care for himself, being quite content with the few people
+around him who took him into their homes. But he felt it acutely for
+Jacqueline, who told him, with childish cruelty, without thinking of the
+pang she inflicted, of the strange coolness that all at once seemed to
+have fallen between her and her acquaintances. And Judith was sure that
+Freke put notions of that kind and of every kind into the girl's head.
+Once, after one of Freke's daily visits--for, if anything, he came
+oftener than Throckmorton--Jacqueline said, quite disconsolately, to
+Judith:
+
+"Freke says I shall never have any more girl friends after I am married.
+Throckmorton is too old; and, besides, the people in this county will
+never, never really recognize him."
+
+"This county is not all the world--and, Jacqueline, pray, pray don't
+listen to anything Freke has to say."
+
+"I know you don't like Freke."
+
+"I hate him."
+
+Judith, when she said this, looked so handsome and animated that
+Throckmorton, entering at that moment, paid her a pretty compliment,
+which she received first with so much confusion and then with so much
+haughtiness that Throckmorton was as completely puzzled as the night he
+offered to kiss her hand, and concluded that Judith was as freakish as
+all women are.
+
+Among the smaller irritations which Throckmorton had to bear, at this
+strange time, was Jack's sly rallying. Jack assumed his father to be a
+love-sick octogenarian. Anything less love-sick than Throckmorton's
+simple and manly affection, or less suggestive of age than his alert and
+vigorous maturity, would be hard to find. But Jack had always possessed
+the power of tormenting his father where women were concerned--the
+natural penalty, perhaps, of having a son so little younger than
+himself. Jack felt infinite respect for Jacqueline, and never once
+indulged in a joke calculated to really rouse Throckmorton; but some
+occasions were too good for him to spare the major. Such conversations
+as these were frequent:
+
+"Major, are you going over to Barn Elms this evening?"
+
+"No, I was there this morning."
+
+"I understand, sir, that two visits a day, when the young lady is in the
+immediate neighborhood, is the regulation thing."
+
+"You are at liberty to understand what you please. With youngsters like
+yourself, probably three visits would hardly be enough."
+
+"I have been told that these things affect all ages alike."
+
+Throckmorton scowled, but scowls were wasted on Jack, whose particular
+object was to put the major in a bad humor; in which design, however, he
+rarely succeeded.
+
+In spite of the silence that had been maintained by the Barn Elms people
+regarding the engagement, Mrs. Sherrard, who had what is vulgarly called
+a nose for news, found it out by some occult means, and Throckmorton was
+held up in the road, as he was riding peacefully along, to answer her
+inquiries.
+
+"I think you and Jacky Temple are going to be married soon, from what I
+hear," was her first aggressive remark, putting her head out of the
+window of her ramshackly old carriage.
+
+"Do you?" responded Throckmorton, with laughing eyes. "You must think me
+a deuced lucky fellow."
+
+Mrs. Sherrard did not speak for a moment or two, and a cold chill struck
+Throckmorton, while the laugh died out of his eyes.
+
+"That's as may be," she replied, diplomatically; "but the idea of your
+marching about, thinking you are deceiving _me_!"
+
+"I am young and bashful, you know, Mrs. Sherrard."
+
+"You are not young, but you are younger than you are bashful. You always
+were one of those quiet dare-devils--the worst kind, to my mind."
+
+"Thank you, ma'am."
+
+"And Jane Temple--ha! ha!"
+
+Throckmorton joined in Mrs. Sherrard's fine, ringing laugh.
+
+"A Yankee son-in-law!" screamed Mrs. Sherrard, still laughing; then she
+became grave, and beckoned Throckmorton, sitting straight and square in
+his saddle, to come closer, so the black driver could not hear. "Jane,
+you know," she said, confidentially, "was always daft about the war
+after Beverley's death; and, let me tell you, Beverley was a fine, tall,
+handsome, brave, silly, commonplace fellow as ever lived. Judith has
+more brains and wit than all the Temple men put together, and most of
+the women. Hers was as clear a case of a winged thing that can soar
+married to a Muscovy drake as ever I saw. Luckily, she hadn't an
+opportunity to wake up to it fully, before he was killed; and then, just
+like a hot-headed, romantic thing, she wrapped herself in crape, and has
+given up her whole life to Jane and General Temple, and Jacky."
+
+Throckmorton felt a certain restraint in speaking of Judith to Mrs.
+Sherrard, who had assumed that it was his duty to fall in love with
+Judith instead of Jacqueline. So he flicked a fly off his horse's neck
+and remained silent.
+
+"I do wish," resumed Mrs. Sherrard, pettishly, "that Jane Temple would
+act like a woman of sense, and send for me over to Barn Elms, and show
+me Jacky's wedding things."
+
+"Very inconsiderate of Jane, I am sure. If it would relieve your mind at
+all, you might come to Millenbeck, and I would be delighted to show you
+my coats and trousers. They are very few. I always have a plenty of
+shirts and stockings, but my outside wardrobe isn't imposing."
+
+"I don't take the slightest interest in your clothes. You don't dress
+half as much as Jack does."
+
+"Of course not; I can't afford it."
+
+"One thing is certain. If you have any sort of a wedding at Barn Elms,
+they'll have to send over and borrow my teaspoons. There hasn't been a
+party at Barn Elms for forty years, that they haven't done it, and I
+always borrow Jane Temple's salad-bowl and punch-ladles whenever I have
+company."
+
+"I don't think there will be any wedding feast there," answered
+Throckmorton.
+
+"Jacky wants one, _I_ know," said Mrs. Sherrard, very knowingly. "Jacky
+loves a racket."
+
+"Quite naturally--at her age."
+
+"Oh, yes, of course--her age, as you say. I shall tell Edmund Morford to
+pay you a pastoral visit, as he always does upon the eve of marriages,
+to instruct you in the duties of the married state."
+
+"Then I shall tell Edmund Morford that I know considerably more about my
+duties in the premises than he does; and I'll shut him up before he has
+opened his mouth, as Sweeney would say."
+
+"If anybody _could_ shut my nephew up, I believe it is you, George
+Throckmorton. Has Jane Temple suggested that you should join the church
+yet?"
+
+"She suggests it to me every time I go to Barn Elms, and whenever I go
+off for a lover's stroll with Jacqueline, Mrs. Temple tells me I ought
+to go home and seek salvation."
+
+"And do you mind her?" asked Mrs. Sherrard, quite gravely; at which
+Throckmorton gave her a look that was dangerously near a wink.
+
+Mrs. Sherrard drove off, triumphant. She had got at the whole thing, in
+spite of Jane Temple.
+
+The wedding preparations went bravely along; carried on chiefly by
+Judith. Jacqueline had set her heart on a white silk wedding dress,
+which for a time eclipsed everything else on her horizon. Mrs. Temple
+declared that it was extravagant, but Judith, by keen persuasion,
+succeeded in getting the wedding-gown. She made it with her own hands,
+and across the front she designed a beautiful and intricate embroidery,
+to be worked by her.
+
+"Judith, you will kill yourself over that wedding-gown," Mrs. Temple
+once remarked. "You have drawn such an elaborate design upon it that you
+will have to work night and day to get it finished."
+
+"I shall simply have to be a little more industrious than usual,"
+replied Judith, with the deep flush that now alternated with extreme
+paleness.
+
+Jacqueline herself was deeply interested in this gown; more so than in
+any particular of the coming wedding. Judith had marked off for herself
+a certain task of work each day upon the embroidery of the gown. Every
+night, when she stopped at the end of her task, it was as if another
+stone were laid upon her heart. Throckmorton had noticed her industry,
+and had admired her handiwork, which she proudly showed him.
+
+"But you are getting white and thin over it," he said. "Wouldn't it be
+better that Jacqueline should not have such a beautiful frock, than for
+you to work yourself ill over it? I have a great mind to speak to Mrs.
+Temple about it."
+
+"No, no, pray don't!" cried Judith, with a kind of breathless eagerness.
+"It would break my heart not to finish it."
+
+Throckmorton looked at her closely. She was not given to that kind of
+talk. But suddenly she began telling him a funny story of Mrs. Sherrard
+coming over to pump Mrs. Temple about the coming event, and then she
+laughed and made him laugh too. Walking back home that night, he found
+himself speculating on this development of fun and merriment in
+Judith--a thing she had always suppressed and kept in abeyance until
+lately.
+
+"Certainly she is in better spirits--more like what one can see her
+natural self is in the last month or two," he thought; and then he began
+to think what a very sweet and natural woman she was, and to hope that,
+when Jacqueline was her age, she would have developed into something
+like Judith. But he never liked to look very far into the future with
+Jacqueline.
+
+As the time drew nearer for the wedding, Freke's continued presence at
+Barn Elms became more marked. He did not avoid Throckmorton any longer,
+who thought no more of it than he did of Jack's frequent visits. Jack
+had quite got over any chagrin or disappointment he might have felt, and
+was kindness and attention itself to Jacqueline. Throckmorton sometimes
+felt annoyed and discouraged at seeing how much more Jacqueline had in
+common with Jack than with himself. They were on the terms of a brother
+and sister--Jack teasing and joking, yet unvaryingly kind to her, and
+Jacqueline always overflowing with talk to him, while with Throckmorton
+she was sometimes at a loss for words. But one glance from her dark
+eyes--that peculiar witching glance that had fixed Throckmorton's
+attention on her that very first Sunday in church--could always make
+amends to him. As for Freke, he came and went with his violin under his
+arm, and nobody attached any importance to him except Judith, who
+honored him with the same still, guarded ill-will that Freke perfectly
+recognized, and did not apparently trouble himself about. His eternal
+presence in the house was a nightmare to Judith. She wondered if he
+would keep on that way after Jacqueline was gone--when Jacqueline was
+mistress of Millenbeck; but she could not dwell on that without a
+tightening at her heart. At all events, it would soon be over.
+
+Mrs. Temple had at last got interested in the wedding preparations, and
+everything was going on famously until about two weeks before the
+wedding, when one day General Temple got a letter. There was to be a
+reunion of Beverley's old command at Richmond, and it was desired that
+the Temple family should attend.
+
+Such a request was sacred in the eyes of General and Mrs. Temple. It was
+at once decided that General Temple must go, and he insisted that Mrs.
+Temple should go also. She was only too willing. Inconvenient as it
+might otherwise be to leave home, the idea of having Beverley talked of,
+eulogized, remembered, was too near the idolatrous mother's heart to be
+foregone. The invitation also included Judith, but it was clearly
+impossible for both Judith and Mrs. Temple to leave Barn Elms at the
+same time just then; so it was quickly settled, to Judith's infinite
+relief, that Mrs. Temple should be the one to go. Mrs. Temple was helped
+to a decision by the reflection that Judith, being young and handsome,
+it was not impossible that some miscreant might suggest the possibility
+of her marrying again; and, without uttering this impious thought, it
+had its influence upon her. So it was fixed that, within a day or two,
+they were to start, and would be gone probably four days. Throckmorton
+was vexed at the decision--vexed at the entire readiness to sacrifice
+Jacqueline's convenience to that of the dead and gone Beverley. But he
+wisely said nothing; in a little while Jacqueline would have some one
+that would always consider her first. But suddenly Jacqueline raised a
+tempest by declaring that she wanted to go with her father and mother as
+far as a certain station on the railroad, near Richmond, and thence to
+pay a visit to her Aunt Susan Steptoe. Now, Jacqueline had never showed
+the slightest fondness for this Aunt Steptoe, and, in fact, was
+singularly lacking in family affection, after the Virginia pattern,
+which takes in a whole family connection. Consequently, the notion was
+the more remarkable. When it was first broached, it was simply
+pooh-poohed by the general, and calmly ignored by Mrs. Temple. Judith
+looked at her with reproachful eyes.
+
+"You know, Jacqueline, there is no earthly reason for such a whim; and I
+am sure Major Throckmorton would not like it."
+
+"It's of no consequence what Major Throckmorton thinks about it!" cried
+Jacqueline, unterrified by a warning light in Judith's eye--it always
+made Judith angry when Jacqueline spoke slightingly of Throckmorton.
+
+But Jacqueline held to her notion with the most singular and startling
+pertinacity. Usually a word or two from Judith would bring her back to
+the basis of common sense; but in this case, nothing Judith could say
+would alter Jacqueline's determination. She was tired of wedding
+clothes--tired of Barn Elms--tired of everybody; in fact, she made no
+secret to Judith of being tired of Throckmorton, and wanting to escape
+from him for a time, if only for four days. She forced her mother to
+listen to her, and would take no denial. At last she hit upon the
+argument to move Mrs. Temple. It was the last request she had to make
+until she was married, and, if Mrs. Temple could do so much for the dead
+Beverley, she certainly could not refuse this trifling request from the
+living Jacqueline. Mrs. Temple turned pale at this; and she faltered out
+that, childish and unreasonable as the scheme was, she would
+agree--provided Throckmorton gave his consent.
+
+That night, when Throckmorton came for his usual visit, Jacqueline met
+him at the hall-door with a tenderness that surprised and charmed him.
+It was so sweet, he could hardly believe it to be true. But, before the
+evening was over, Jacqueline demanded payment in the shape of his
+consent that she should pay this little visit to her Aunt Susan.
+
+"Damn Aunt Susan!" was Throckmorton's inward remark at this; and he
+managed to convey practically the same idea to Jacqueline. But it did no
+good. Jacqueline had the scheme in her head, and it must be carried out.
+It was in vain that Throckmorton reasoned gently with her. He had often
+heard that weak women were the most intractable in the world, and the
+recollection made him wince when he saw how dense this lovely young
+creature was to common sense. But she was so ineffably pretty--she
+leaned her bright head on his shoulder and pleaded--and, of course,
+after a while, Throckmorton yielded, ostensibly because Jacqueline asked
+him so sweetly, but really because she was utterly impervious to reason.
+
+When the consent was at last wheedled out of him, Throckmorton felt sore
+at heart and humiliated. He also felt, for a brave man, a little
+frightened. How often was this sort of thing going to happen? It was
+true that, after he was married, he could use his authority as
+Jacqueline's husband to prevent her from doing anything particularly
+foolish, but it did not please him that he should rule his wife as if
+she were a child. Jacqueline saw nothing of Throckmorton's secret
+dissatisfaction; but Judith, with the clairvoyance of love, saw it in an
+instant. For the first time in her life, she followed him out into the
+hall, where he was getting into his overcoat, with rather a black
+countenance.
+
+"Don't be troubled about it," she said, in her charming way. "She is so
+young--she will learn so much from you!"
+
+Throckmorton took Judith's hand in his. She made no resistance this
+time--that quick inner sense told her instinctively that there was
+something comforting to him in her gentle and womanly clasp. He looked
+at her with a somber expression on his face that gradually lightened.
+
+"Do you think she will ever be different?"
+
+"Yes," cried Judith, gayly. "How perfectly ignorant you are of love! I
+declare you are worse than Jacqueline. It's the greatest reformer in the
+world--the most cunning teacher as well. It will teach Jacqueline all
+she ought to know; but it can't do it at once."
+
+"But does she love me?" asked Throckmorton, smiling a little.
+
+"How could she help it?" answered Judith, turning her head archly, and
+implying that Throckmorton considered himself a lady-killer--which made
+him laugh, and sent him off home in a little better humor with the world
+and himself.
+
+Meanwhile, back in the drawing-room, Jacqueline was having a
+conversation with Simon Peter, who was raking down the fire for the
+night. General and Mrs. Temple had left the room. Usually Jacqueline
+slipped off to bed an hour before they did; but to-night she lingered,
+standing over the fire with one little foot on the brass fender.
+
+"How does it look to-night, Uncle Simon?" she asked, meaning how did the
+sky look, and what were the chances for good weather.
+
+"Hit looks mighty cu'rus to me, Miss Jacky," answered Simon Peter, in a
+queer sort of a voice that made Jacqueline stare at him. "I seed two
+tuckey-buzzards flyin' ober de house tog'er'r--and dat's a sign--"
+
+"A sign of what?"
+
+"A sign 'tain' gwi' be no weddin' at Barn Elms dis year."
+
+Jacqueline turned a little pale. It had not been a great many years
+since she had fully believed every one of Simon Peter's signs and omens;
+and even now, his solemn prophecies sent a chill to her childish heart.
+
+"An'," continued Simon Peter, advancing and raising a prophetic
+forefinger, "dis heah night I done heah de owls hootin' 'Tu-whoo,
+tu-whoo, tu-whoo!'--three times, dat ar way--dat doan' means nuttin'
+but a funeral, when owls hoots dat away."
+
+Jacqueline shuddered.
+
+"O Uncle Simon, hush!"
+
+"I tole you kase you arsk me," replied Simon Peter, stolidly; and at
+that moment Delilah came in.
+
+"O mammy," cried Jacqueline, fairly bursting into tears, "you don't know
+what awful signs and things Uncle Simon has been seeing--funerals, and
+buzzards, and no wedding!"
+
+"He have, have he!" snapped Delilah, with wrath and menace. "Simon
+Peter, he su't'ny is de foolishest nigger I ever seed. He ain' never
+got 'ligion good; he allus wuz a blackslider, an' heah he come skeerin'
+my little missy ter def wid he buzzards an' he things!"
+
+Simon Peter, who bore this marital assault with meekness, copied from
+General Temple, only remarked sheepishly:
+
+"I done see de signs; an', Miss Jacky, she arsk me, an' I done tole her
+'bout de two buzzards."
+
+"Wid de tails tied tog'er'r, I reckon!" answered Delilah, with withering
+sarcasm; "an' maybe dey wuz gwi' fly ter Doc Wortley's ter see ef
+anybody gwi' die soon.--Doan' you min' Simon Peter, honey; jes' come wid
+mammy up-sty'ars an' she holp you to ondress an' put you in yo' bed."
+
+Jacqueline went off, and in half an hour was tucked snugly in the great
+four-poster. But she would not let Delilah leave her. She kept her
+pulling the window-curtains this way and that, then raking down the fire
+because the light from the blazing logs hurt her eyes, and then
+stirring the flames into a blaze so that she might see the shadows on
+the wall. At last, however, Delilah got out, Jacqueline calling after
+her disconsolately:
+
+"O mammy, do you believe in the two buzzards flying--"
+
+"You jes' shet dat little mouf, an' go ter sleep, honey," was Delilah's
+sensible reply, as she went out.
+
+The next day the whole party got off, General Temple leaving directions
+enough behind him to last if he were going to Turkey instead of to
+Richmond. Jacqueline at the last seemed loath to part from Judith. She
+said good-by half a dozen times, and wept a little at parting. There
+would be no need of letters, as they would only be gone four days.
+Jacqueline was to stop off at the station, and join her father and
+mother there on their return from Richmond, getting home ten days before
+the wedding. There was some talk of asking Mrs. Sherrard to come over
+and stay with Judith during the absence of General and Mrs. Temple, but
+Judith protested. With her child she would not suffer for company, and
+the work on Jacqueline's wedding-dress would keep her busily employed,
+while Delilah and Simon Peter were protection enough for her at night.
+Besides this, Throckmorton and Jack would be over every day to look
+after her. When it was all arranged, Judith felt a sensation of
+gladness. She would have four days in which she would not be compelled
+to play her silent and desperate part. She could weep all night without
+the fear that Mrs. Temple's clear eyes would notice how pale and worn
+she was in the morning; she could relax a little the continual tension
+on her nerves, her feelings, her expression. So, when they were gone,
+she came back into the lonely house, and, leaving Beverley with his
+mammy, went up to her own room, and taking out the white silk
+wedding-gown went to work on it with a pale, unhappy face; she had dared
+not show an unhappy face before.
+
+The day passed quickly enough, and the short winter afternoon closed in.
+Judith would no longer take time for her usual afternoon walk; every
+moment must be devoted to Jacqueline's gown. About eight o'clock, as
+she sat in the drawing-room, stitching away, while overhead in her
+own room Delilah watched the little Beverley as he slept, she heard
+Throckmorton's step upon the porch. As she heard it, she gave a slight
+start, and put her hand on her heart--something she always felt an
+involuntary inclination to do, and which she had to watch herself to
+prevent. Throckmorton came in, and greeted her with his usual graceful
+kindness.
+
+"I thought I would come over and see that nobody stole you and
+Beverley," he said.
+
+"There's no danger for me," answered Judith; "but for a beautiful boy
+like my boy--why, he's always in danger of being stolen."
+
+Throckmorton scoffed at this.
+
+In five minutes they were seated together, having the first real
+_tete-a-tete_ of their lives. Judith sat under the mellow gleam of the
+tall, old-fashioned lamp, the light falling on her chestnut hair and
+black dress and the billowy expanse of white silk spread over her lap,
+making high white lights and rich shadows. Throckmorton had often
+admired her as she sewed. Sewing was a peculiarly gracious and feminine
+employment, he thought, and Judith's sewing, when he saw it, was always
+something artistic like what she was now doing. Throckmorton lay back in
+one corner of the great sofa, his feet stretched out to the fire. They
+talked occasionally, but there were long stretches of silence when the
+only sound was the crackling of the wood-fire and the dropping of the
+embers. Yet the unity was complete; there is no companionship so real
+as that which admits of perfect silence. Throckmorton, on the whole,
+though, talked more than usual. Something in Judith always inspired him
+to speak of things that he rarely mentioned at all. They talked a little
+of Jacqueline, but there were innumerable subjects on which they found
+themselves in sympathy. The evening passed quickly for both. When
+Throckmorton had gone, and the house was shut up for the night, Judith
+felt that she had passed the evening in a sort of shadowy happiness; it
+would have been happiness itself, except that in ten days more it would
+be wrong even to think of Throckmorton.
+
+Two days more passed. Every evening Throckmorton found himself making
+his way toward Barn Elms. Each evening passed in the same quiet, simple
+fashion, but yet there was something different to Throckmorton from
+any evenings he had ever spent in his life. As for Judith, after the
+first one, she began to look forward with feverish eagerness to the
+evening. She lived all day in expectation of that two hours' talk with
+Throckmorton. She dressed for him; she hurried little Beverley to bed
+that she might be ready for him. Her eyes assumed a new brilliancy, and
+she became handsomer day by day.
+
+On the day that the general and Mrs. Temple were to leave for home a
+letter arrived from Mrs. Temple. The general had been seized with an
+acute attack of gout, and it would probably take two or three days
+nursing to bring him around, so that they would not be home until the
+last of the week. Mrs. Temple had written to Jacqueline, and would write
+again in a day or two, notifying Judith when to send to the river
+landing for them. The delay was peculiarly inconvenient then, but it was
+God's will. Mrs. Temple never had any trouble in reconciling herself to
+God's will, except where Beverley was concerned.
+
+Not a line had been received from Jacqueline. It did not surprise
+Judith, because Jacqueline hated letter-writing; but Throckmorton
+admitted, in an embarrassed way, that he had written to her, but she had
+not answered his letter.
+
+During all this time Freke had not put in an appearance, for which
+Judith was devoutly thankful.
+
+On the fifth evening that Throckmorton went his way to Barn Elms, it
+occurred to him that he went there oftener when Jacqueline was away than
+when she was there, and he was glad there were no gossiping tongues to
+wag about it. But luckily little Beverley, Delilah, and Simon Peter were
+the only three persons who knew where Throckmorton spent his evenings,
+and none of them were either carping or critical.
+
+He found Judith as usual in the drawing-room, and as usual embroidering
+on the wedding-dress. But there was something strange about her
+appearance; she looked altogether different from what she usually
+did--more girlish, more unrestrained. Throckmorton could not make it out
+for a long time. Then he said, suddenly, "You have left off your widow's
+cap."
+
+Judith let her hands fall into her lap, and looked at him with
+glittering eyes.
+
+"Yes," she said, calmly. "I grew intolerably tired of being a hypocrite,
+and to-night I determined for once to be my true self, so I laid aside
+my widow's cap. I believe, if I had owned a white gown, I should have
+put it on."
+
+Throckmorton was so startled that he rose to his feet. Judith rose, too,
+letting the white silk fall in a heap on the floor.
+
+"Are you surprised?" she asked, with suppressed excitement. "Well, so am
+I. But I will tell you--what I never dared breathe before--I am no true
+widow to Beverley Temple's memory. I never loved him. I married him
+because--because I did not know any better, I suppose. I spent two
+miserable weeks as his wife. I was beginning to find out--and then he
+went away, and almost before I realized it, he was killed." She
+hesitated for a moment; the picture of Throckmorton and Beverley in
+their life-and-death struggle came quickly before her eyes. Throckmorton
+was too dazed, astounded, confounded, to open his mouth. He only looked
+at her as she stood upright, trembling and red and pale by turns.
+
+"I had no friends but General and Mrs. Temple; he was my guardian. You
+know, I had neither father nor mother, brother nor sister. I felt the
+most acute remorse for Beverley, and the most intense pity for him, cut
+off as he was, and I fancied I felt the profoundest grief. One suffers
+in sympathy, you know, and, when I saw his mother's pitiable sorrow, it
+made me feel sorry too. The world--_my_ world--saw me a broken-hearted
+widow--a widow while I was almost a bride. Don't you think any woman
+of feeling would have done as I did--tried to atone to the man I had
+mistakenly married by being true to his memory? I determined to devote
+my life to his father and mother; and, in some way I can't explain,
+except that you know how Mrs. Temple is, I pretended that my heart was
+broken; but I tell you, Beverley Temple never touched my heart, either
+in life or death, although I did not know it then. But for--for some
+time the deceit has lain heavy upon me. I am tired of pretending to be
+what I am not. I wish for life, for love, for happiness."
+
+She stopped and threw herself into a chair with an _abandon_ that
+Throckmorton had never seen before. Still, he did not utter a word. But
+Judith knew that he was keenly observing her, feeling for her, and even
+deeply moved by what she told him.
+
+"So to-night the feeling was so strong upon me, I took off my widow's
+cap and threw it on the floor; it was a sudden impulse, just as I was
+leaving my room, and I took Beverley's picture from around my neck, and
+I didn't have the courage to throw it in the fire as I wanted to; I
+only"--with a nervous laugh--"put it in my pocket."
+
+She took the picture from her dress and handed it him. Throckmorton
+received it mechanically, but, the instant his eyes fell upon it, his
+countenance changed. In a moment or two he said, in an indescribable
+voice:
+
+"I know this face well; he was killed on the 14th of April. I shall
+never forget that face to my dying day."
+
+"I know all about it," responded Judith, rising and coming toward him;
+"Freke told me."
+
+Her excitement was no longer suppressed, and Throckmorton was deeply
+agitated. He took Judith's hand.
+
+"But did he tell you all? _I_ did not fire the shot that killed your
+husband; it was fired by one of his own men--probably aimed for me. I
+never succeeded in drawing my pistol at all. The first I knew, in those
+frightful moments, was when he shrieked and threw up his arms. I thought
+he would never breathe again."
+
+"But he lived some hours," continued Judith, "and--and--I thought it was
+you, and I ought to have hated you for it, but I could not; I could not;
+and now, God is so good!"
+
+She dropped into a chair. Throckmorton felt as if the world were coming
+to an end, his ideas about Judith were being so quickly and strangely
+transformed. He was too stupefied to speak, and for five minutes there
+was a dead silence between them. Then Throckmorton's strong common sense
+awoke. He went to her and took her hand.
+
+"For your own sake, for your child's sake, be careful. Do not tell any
+one what you have told me. The penalty of deception is great, and your
+penalty will be to keep it up a little while longer. When I am married
+to Jacqueline, you will have a friend, a home. Then, if you want to take
+off those black garments, to be yourself, you may count on me; but, for
+the present, be prudent. You are so impulsive."
+
+But Judith now was weeping violently and accusing herself. The reaction
+had come. Throckmorton felt strangely thrilled by her emotion. He
+comforted her, he held her hands, and even pressed kisses on them. In a
+few minutes he had soothed her. The old habits of self-control came back
+to her. She rallied bravely, and in half an hour she was quite composed.
+But it was the composure of despair. She remembered, then, had
+Throckmorton but loved her, the only obstacle between them would have
+been shown to be imaginary.
+
+Throckmorton stayed late. In spite of Judith's quietness, he felt
+unhappy about her. She was too quiet, too deathly pale. He felt an
+intense pity for her, and he feared that she and her child would not
+much longer find a home under the roof of Barn Elms.
+
+Three days more passed. There was still no word from Jacqueline, and
+Mrs. Temple wrote that the general's gout bade fair to be a much more
+serious matter than they had first anticipated. It might be that the
+wedding--which was to be of the quietest sort--might have to be
+postponed. But that was nothing to Mrs. Temple and the general, who
+reveled in the luxury of a meeting where Beverley was remembered,
+praised, and eulogized as can be done only by Southerners. Nor did it
+seem to matter to Jacqueline. In fact, Throckmorton and Judith appeared
+to be the only persons particularly interested in it. As for Freke, he
+had not been seen by either of them since the day the Barn Elms people
+left.
+
+Throckmorton continued to spend his evenings at Barn Elms. The idea of
+Judith sitting solitary and alone in the drawing-room the whole long,
+dull evening, drew him irresistibly. Not one line had Jacqueline
+written, either to him or to Judith. Nor had Throckmorton written again
+to her. He was not the man to give a woman more than one opportunity to
+snub him. In his heart he was cruelly mortified; his pride, of which he
+had much, was hurt. He feared that it was a part of that arrogance which
+first youth shows to maturity.
+
+On the eighth day after Jacqueline's departure something like alarm
+began to possess Judith. She called it superstition, and tried to put it
+away from her. The day had been dull and gloomy--a fine, drizzling rain
+falling. The flat, monotonous landscape looked inexpressibly dreary in
+the gray mist that hung low over the trees. It was dark long before six
+o'clock. The night had closed in, and Judith, sitting alone in the
+drawing-room, had risen to light the lamp, when she heard the front door
+open softly, and the next instant she recognized Jacqueline's peculiar
+light step--so light that even Mrs. Temple's keen ears could not always
+detect it when fits of restlessness seized the girl at night, and she
+would walk up and down her room over her mother's head. And in a moment
+Jacqueline came into the room, and up to Judith, and looked at her with
+strange, agonized eyes.
+
+The surprise, the shock of seeing her at that hour and in that way, was
+extreme; and Judith's first words as her hands fell on Jacqueline's
+shoulder were:
+
+"Jacqueline, you are wet through."
+
+"I know it," answered Jacqueline, in a voice as unlike her own as her
+looks; "I have been out in the rain for hours and hours!"
+
+"What is the matter with you?" cried Judith, taking hold of her.
+"Something dreadful has happened!"
+
+"Dreadful enough for me!" replied Jacqueline, white and dry-eyed.
+
+"What is it?" Judith was not easily frightened, but she trembled as she
+spoke.
+
+"Everything!" answered Jacqueline. "In the first place, I have left
+Freke. That broke my heart!"
+
+"Left Freke!"
+
+"Yes. I didn't go to Aunt Steptoe's. I got off at the station and Freke
+was there. He took me to a minister's and got him to marry us. The man
+could hardly read and write, and he said something about a license; but
+Freke gave him fifty dollars, and he performed the ceremony."
+
+Judith caught hold of her, to see if she were really in the flesh,
+talking in this way.
+
+"Don't hold me so hard, Judith. I will tell you all I can; but I feel as
+if I should die, I am so weak and ill--" and she suddenly began to cough
+violently. Judith ran and got her a glass of wine. The first idea in her
+mind was, not the poor, deluded child, but Throckmorton.
+
+"But where is Freke--and your father and mother?--O Jacqueline,
+Jacqueline!"
+
+"Don't reproach me, Judith. But for you I would never have returned. My
+father and mother know nothing about it. Freke found out they were yet
+in Richmond. If they had been at Barn Elms, I don't think I ever would
+have had the courage to come back. The feeling soon came to me that I
+had committed a great wrong in marrying Freke; and then--and then--he
+told me perhaps we weren't married at all in Virginia, and so I would
+have to go with him out to the place--somewhere in the West--and be
+married to him straight and right."
+
+"If Freke had never committed any other wrong in his whole life, his
+telling you that made him deserve to be killed!" cried Judith.
+
+"Don't say a word against Freke," said Jacqueline, a new anger blazing
+up in her eyes. "I love Freke; it almost kills me when I think I may
+never see him again, for I ran away from him. At first I thought all the
+time of the trouble I should bring upon you all. I could see my father's
+gray head sink down in his hands. I could imagine how my mother would
+shut herself up in her room as she did when Beverley died. They had
+always thought so little of me that it gave me a kind of triumph when I
+remembered, 'They'll have to think about me now!'"
+
+"And Throckmorton?"
+
+"I never thought about him at all. As Freke said, he was entirely too
+old for me. But I will not speak of him. He knew I never loved him--or
+he ought to have known it. Then, when Freke found out that mamma and
+papa were still in Richmond, it came to me like a flash that I could get
+home, and I was sure of one friend, and only one in the world
+now--yourself. And I thought you were so clever you could manage to keep
+anybody from finding out where I had been. I seemed to hear your voice
+calling to me all the time, and every moment it seemed to crush me more
+and more that Freke was a divorced man, and that, however he might say
+he was free, he was not. So, we were staying at a little town through
+which the railroad passed, and Freke had to go into Richmond yesterday
+to get some money, and my conscience suddenly rose up and tortured me,
+and I couldn't stay another moment--and, mind you, Judith, I love Freke.
+So I took the train all alone, and made the boat, and landed at Oak
+Point about twelve o'clock. I pretended to be surprised that nobody was
+there to meet me, and said I would walk as far as Turkey Thicket--you
+know it is only a little way from the landing. But, of course, I did
+not. Then I was so afraid that some one would see me that, instead of
+taking the main road, I came through the fields and by-paths. I believe
+I have walked ten miles instead of six, from Oak Point--and it was
+raining, too. I was nearly frightened out of my life--frightened by
+negroes and stray dogs, and afraid that I should see Freke every moment
+before me, and, if he should overtake me, I knew I should go back with
+him. I can no more resist him when he is with me than I can stop
+breathing. Well, with weakness--for I felt ill from the moment I
+started--and with fear, and being so tired, and the rain, I thought I
+should die before I reached here. But now I am home--home!--"
+Jacqueline's voice rose in a piteous cry. She had been weeping all the
+time, but now she burst into a perfect tempest of sobs and tears that
+shook her like a leaf.
+
+In her quiet life Judith had never been brought face to face with any
+terrible emergency, and this one unnerved and horrified her so that for
+a time she was as helpless as Jacqueline. She walked the floor,
+struggling with the wild impulse to send for Throckmorton; that he alone
+could tell them what to do; and else she and the poor child would sink
+under the horror of the situation, for to her simple and straightforward
+mind both conscience and the social code were unalterably opposed to
+considering a divorced man as a single man. But some instinct of common
+sense saved her--saved her even from calling Delilah, and caused her to
+face the thing alone. She gave Jacqueline brandy, she rubbed her
+vigorously; she even got her up-stairs alone and into her bed. By that
+time the violence of her emotions was spent; Jacqueline lay in the large
+four-poster perfectly calm and white. After a while even a sense of
+physical well-being seemed to possess her; warmth and light and
+stimulation had their effect. She fell into a heavy sleep, but Judith
+was terrified to notice her pallor give place to a crimson flush on her
+face, and her icy hands grow burning hot. By that time Judith's
+composure had partly returned. She called Delilah, who came in
+wondering, and told her briefly that Jacqueline had come home
+unexpectedly and was not well, without mentioning how she had come from
+the river-landing. Delilah, who was not of a curious turn, saw for
+herself that part of Judith's statement was true, for Jacqueline had a
+burning fever. It was impossible to get Dr. Wortley before morning, but,
+like most women who live in the country, Judith could cope with ordinary
+ailments, and, whenever the doctor was called in, he always found that
+the proper thing had been done beforehand.
+
+But, besides Jacqueline's undeniable illness, the thought that tormented
+Judith was how to keep the dreadful thing that had happened from
+Jacqueline's father and mother and from the world. It must inevitably
+come out that she had not been near Mrs. Steptoe's, and only the fact
+that Jacqueline was a poor correspondent had kept it from being known
+already. On the impulse of the moment, Judith sat down and wrote Mrs.
+Steptoe a letter, begging her, for General and Mrs. Temple's sake, not
+to mention until she heard further from Barn Elms, that Jacqueline had
+not been with her; and as she wrote hurriedly and nervously, she could
+hear Jacqueline's heavy and fitful breathing. Some simple remedies had
+been applied, but Judith knew that the best thing for her was to sleep,
+and so her troubled slumber was undisturbed except by her own feverish
+mutterings. All the time it hung like a sword over Judith. "What will
+Throckmorton say?" for, of course, he must be the first one to know it;
+there could be no mercy in deceiving him. Judith, sitting before the
+fire, gazing into it with troubled eyes and aching heart, began
+thinking, pitying, praying for Throckmorton. Yes, it would be a
+frightful blow to him. There would be no need for the wedding-gown now.
+As this thought occurred to her, Judith rose and, going softly toward
+the wardrobe where she kept her dainty work, took out the dress, and,
+unwrapping it from the white cloth in which she laid it away so
+carefully every night, spread it over her knees. How much love, despair,
+and torture had been worked into that embroidery! "It is so pretty, it
+is a pity it can't be used," she said to herself, absently, turning the
+silk about in her fingers; and at that moment she heard a choking,
+gurgling sound from the bed. Jacqueline was half sitting up, her head
+supported on her arm, and a thin stream of blood was trickling from her
+lips.
+
+Judith, who for once lost her presence of mind, ran toward the bed, and,
+supporting Jacqueline's head, called loudly for help. In her haste she
+had thrown the dress almost across Jacqueline, and a few drops of blood
+fell upon it.
+
+"Look, look!" gasped Jacqueline; "my dress is being ruined!"
+
+Judith heard Delilah running up the stairs in response to her frightened
+call, but Jacqueline's eyes had such a strange expression in them that
+she asked her involuntarily, as she tremblingly supported her:
+
+"Jacqueline, do you know me?"
+
+"Perfectly," answered Jacqueline. "I know everything about me."
+
+Delilah, who was a natural-born nurse, was as calm as Judith was
+agitated.
+
+"'Tain' nuttin' tall, chile; 'scusin' 'tis er leetle speck o' blood fum
+yo' th'oat. I kin stop it righter way"; and, sure enough, in ten minutes
+she had applied some simple remedy and the blood ceased to flow.
+Meanwhile Jacqueline, unable to speak, had motioned eagerly and
+violently to Judith to remove the white silk dress. Judith threw it on a
+chair. Jacqueline's eyes filled with tears.
+
+"It is such a pity to have it ruined--and one's wedding-dress, too!"
+
+"Hush-hush! you must not talk," cried Judith.
+
+The flow of blood apparently was a trifle, and in a little while
+Jacqueline lay back in the great, old-fashioned bed silent, deadly
+white, but composed.
+
+Judith, with overflowing eyes, folded up the white dress, but she could
+not prevent some tears falling on it, and the dress, already stained
+with blood, was also stained with tears. The thought of Jacqueline,
+though, could not banish the thought of Throckmorton; the more so when
+Jacqueline, beckoning, brought Judith close to her. Judith thought she
+wanted something for her comfort.
+
+"_You_ must tell him; he will take it better from you."
+
+Jacqueline, lying wide awake in the bed, and Judith, sitting by her,
+holding her hand, were both expectant of Throckmorton. At last, about
+half-past eight, his firm step was heard on the porch. Judith's heart
+leaped into her mouth; she did not exactly take in all the bearings of
+what Jacqueline had told her, or whether she was or was not married to
+Freke; and Throckmorton, with his knowledge of affairs, would know all.
+
+She rose silently and went down-stairs, leaving Delilah with Jacqueline.
+Throckmorton was standing before the fire in the drawing-room. There was
+something in his determined eye and in his tone as he spoke to her that
+struck a chill to Judith's heart.
+
+"Jacqueline, has come, you know," she said.
+
+"Yes, Simon Peter told me so at the door. It does not surprise me."
+
+Judith remained silent for a few moments, when Throckmorton, suddenly
+wheeling toward her, and looking her straight in the face, said, curtly:
+
+"What is all this? She never was near Mrs. Steptoe's. I found out, by
+having my letter returned to me by Mrs. Steptoe herself. What has made
+her ill? Don't tremble so, but tell me--you know I have a right to know
+it all."
+
+But Judith continued to be silent and to tremble. She even began to
+weep; but Throckmorton, taking her hand, said, firmly:
+
+"There must be no concealments."
+
+His own stern composure controlled Judith's agitation.
+
+"All?" she asked, faintly.
+
+"Yes--all!" he answered.
+
+When Throckmorton used an authoritative tone with her, he could always
+compel her; and so, scarcely knowing how she did it, with tears and
+sobs, and faint deprecations for Jacqueline, she told him all. She
+noticed Throckmorton's dark skin growing paler and paler; he began to
+gnaw his iron-gray mustache--always a sign of extreme agitation with
+him.
+
+"Now, tell me this--collect your thoughts and don't cry so--does
+she--does she love that--" He could not bring himself to utter Freke's
+name.
+
+Judith remained silent. Throckmorton, in his determination to make her
+answer, seized her arm. It hurt her so that she could have cried out,
+but she made no sound.
+
+"Tell me!" he said, in a voice and manner so unlike his own gentle
+courtesy, that Judith could scarcely have recognized it. But Judith was
+obstinately silent. Nevertheless, she lifted her eyes to his with so
+eloquent a plea for mercy for Jacqueline, that he was unconsciously
+softened.
+
+"You will not tell me!" he said, relaxing his fierce hold. "I can't make
+you answer--you have a spirit like a soldier. But it makes no difference
+now whether she loves him or not. If she were free to-morrow, I could
+kill her with my own hands easier than I could marry her!--and yet--I
+loved her well."
+
+"But," cried Judith, putting her hand on his arm in her eagerness,
+"something must be done. It must be managed so that people shall not
+know it, until her father and mother have decided what is to be done. It
+will almost kill them!"
+
+"Yes. But if you can manage with Mrs. Steptoe--"
+
+"I have already written to her."
+
+"I am no lawyer, but it seems to me that it rests with Jacqueline
+whether it is a marriage or not. But General and Mrs. Temple would
+rather see her in her grave than married to any divorced man--and to
+him!"
+
+"And there is a good deal of doubt about his divorce, I believe," added
+Judith.
+
+"There is at present nothing to be done. General and Mrs. Temple will no
+doubt be here as soon as possible; it is hardly worth while to alarm
+them. Is she very ill, do you think?"
+
+"I don't know--Jacqueline was always delicate. And--what of him--of
+Freke?" continued Judith, in a trembling voice. "Is there to be no
+punishment for him?"
+
+Like a woman, Judith could not look at the case in its practical light;
+but like a man, Throckmorton, in the midst of his horror, grief, and
+surprise, yet retained his balance.
+
+"Any punishment of him would react on her--to have her name made public
+with his--Good God! But there is no power on earth to keep General
+Temple from committing some frightful folly when he knows of it."
+
+This was a new horror to Judith. A painful pause followed. Then Judith
+said:
+
+"How like Freke it was--how perfectly reckless of consequences! He is
+unlike any man I ever saw or heard of. I believe, in his strange way, he
+loves Jacqueline; but what does any one know of such a man!"
+
+The absence of vindictiveness toward Freke, on Throckmorton's part,
+surprised Judith; but, in truth, he scarcely thought of Freke: a
+creature as weak and impressionable as Jacqueline was bound to succumb
+to the first overmastering influence. Throckmorton himself had never
+been able to get any real influence over her. Presently Judith said:
+
+"One thing I do know--she wants your forgiveness."
+
+"She has it, poor child!"
+
+Then there was another pause. Throckmorton, after a while, rose to go.
+
+"If you want anything, send for me. I shall be over early in the
+morning." He hesitated a moment, and then said: "This has been a
+strange experience for me; but it is over--" And then, as if checking a
+confession, went out of the room and out of the house.
+
+When Judith went up-stairs, Jacqueline was still sleeping, but presently
+she wakened, and turned her lovely, troubled eyes on Judith.
+
+"He is very sorry, Jacqueline, and he forgives you and will trouble you
+no more," she whispered. A look of relief came into Jacqueline's face.
+She closed her eyes as if to sleep.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+The next day Jacqueline was better, and about noon General and Mrs.
+Temple arrived. Mrs. Temple showed no surprise when she heard that
+Jacqueline had come the day before; and when Judith said, falteringly,
+that Jacqueline had probably misunderstood their plans, Mrs. Temple
+accepted it quite naturally. About the same time Dr. Wortley, who had
+been sent for, came, and pronounced Jacqueline's attack to be nothing
+but cold and fever, and raised the prohibition against her talking. The
+first time Mrs. Temple was out of the room, Jacqueline called Judith to
+her.
+
+"Judith, I have been thinking about this, and I have made up my mind."
+
+This was so unlike Jacqueline that Judith stared.
+
+"If I thought Freke was really a single man, I would give up
+everybody--even you--for him. But nobody on earth knows what I suffered
+from my conscience while I was with him! And I believe Freke told the
+truth when he said we weren't married, after all, in spite of that
+minister and the fifty dollars. And now, dear Judith, it seems so easy
+to keep papa and mamma from knowing it."
+
+"Easy, Jacqueline?--"
+
+"Yes, easy, if you will only write to Aunt Steptoe; and it would kill me
+to have to face them!"
+
+"But, Jacqueline, suppose--suppose Freke should claim you, or you might,
+in years to come, want to marry some one else?"
+
+"I will promise you I will not--I will swear it--if I can't marry Freke,
+you may depend upon it I sha'n't marry anybody else! But, Judith, will
+you promise me to say nothing to papa and mamma until you have seen
+Freke, for he knows what ought to be done? I know--and I am sure--he
+will come back in a day or two. He knows well enough where I have run
+away to."
+
+Judith was loath to making any promise at all, but Jacqueline became so
+violently agitated and distressed that at last, almost beside herself,
+Judith promised that for a few days, at least, she would say nothing
+about it.
+
+Mrs. Temple was so full of Beverley, and the proceedings at Richmond,
+that she troubled Jacqueline but little with questions; and Judith was
+amazed at hearing Jacqueline describe to her mother a visit to her aunt,
+as if it had really been paid. The idea of concealment had taken
+complete possession of Jacqueline's mind, and she stopped at nothing.
+
+Of course, the wedding had to be postponed; and Jacqueline surprised her
+mother, after two letters had passed between Throckmorton and herself,
+by telling her quite calmly one day that the wedding was off, and that
+Throckmorton would shortly leave the county. General and Mrs. Temple
+were stunned; and Mrs. Temple, who had secretly thought the marriage
+preposterous from the start, now suddenly changed front, and was
+bitterly disappointed at this strange and unaccountable breaking off.
+Jacqueline would only say, "I found I didn't love him, and couldn't
+marry him"; and she repeated this with a sort of childish obstinacy--so
+it seemed to Mrs. Temple. Throckmorton accepted his supposed bad news
+with the firmness and dignity that always characterized him. He told
+Mrs. Temple, when she and the general, sitting in solemn conclave in the
+drawing-room, had sent for him to give him this unalterable
+determination of Jacqueline's:
+
+"Her happiness should be first always. The difference in our years I
+always felt; but, when she began to feel it, she was right in breaking
+with me. It is better that it should come now than later on."
+
+Mrs. Temple was thoroughly puzzled by Throckmorton. She could not make
+out his quiet acquiescence in Jacqueline's decision--it was so unlike
+his usual vigorous way of overcoming obstacles. But, before he left,
+Freke had reappeared, and the dreadful truth had come to him and to
+Throckmorton and to Judith that, after all, according to the statutes of
+Virginia, he was not at liberty to marry again. Dreadful it was to
+Freke, who, light-minded and evil as he was, had really believed himself
+free, and whose implied doubt to Jacqueline was merely for the purpose
+of frightening her into submission. Freke went up to Richmond one day
+and returned the next. Half an hour's interview each with half a dozen
+lawyers had settled a hypothetical case that covered Freke's exactly:
+not all the clerks and licenses and ceremonies in Virginia could make
+his marriage to anybody good as it stood. It was true that there was an
+excellent chance that in the course of time various defects in the
+somewhat informal divorce proceedings that Freke had really thought
+sufficient might be remedied, and he would be a free man; but, for the
+present, he certainly was not.
+
+Freke, who had thought his courage impeccable, found it failed him when
+he met Judith, for the first and last time, to settle upon the best
+course to pursue. Judith had Throckmorton's advice and assistance to
+back her up. Freke positively cowered under her gaze. It was settled
+that he was to go to the Northwest immediately, and devote all his
+energies to straightening out the strange tangle in which he had left
+his matrimonial affairs there; and, when it was settled, he was to
+return to Virginia, and then let Jacqueline decide what was to be done.
+He swore--and swore so that Judith believed him--that he thought himself
+a free man, and only despised the narrowness of people who believed
+there was no such thing as divorce. Why he should have fallen in love
+with Jacqueline did not puzzle Judith: had she not, with those
+irresistible glances of hers, ensnared a much stronger man? But one
+thing was decided as much by Jacqueline's agony of fear as anything
+else: nothing was to be said about the terrible complication to General
+and Mrs. Temple. Mrs. Steptoe's answer to Judith's letter gave a promise
+that nothing should be said about Jacqueline's non-appearance; and that
+removed any immediate danger of discovery. And, in a little while, both
+Freke and Throckmorton were gone--Freke, to move heaven and earth to get
+his divorce in proper shape; and Throckmorton, merely to be out of the
+way, and as far out of the way as possible.
+
+To Judith it seemed as if the world were coming to an end. How a thing
+so dreadful, so unlike anything she had ever known before, could happen
+in their quiet lives, seemed more and more extraordinary. Here was
+Jacqueline--last year a child in heart, and now the first person in a
+tragedy. Never had she anything to conceal before; and now, with the
+most perfect art and premeditation, she was concealing, every day and
+hour, something that would be even more overwhelming to her father and
+mother than Beverley's death, and would convulse the little world in
+which they lived. As for the innumerable chances that it might be found
+out any day, Judith was abnormally alive to them. Every morning, when
+she went down-stairs, she half expected that the disclosure would come;
+every night she thanked Heaven it had been postponed a day.
+
+Meanwhile Jacqueline, lying in her great four-poster, progressed slowly
+but gradually toward recovery. One night she called Judith to the
+bedside. She was fast getting well then.
+
+"Judith," she said, "you know what queer notions I take? Well, I have
+been lying here thinking, thinking, perhaps you won't be able to keep
+the whole county from knowing about--"
+
+The haunting fear of this never left Judith, but she could not but try
+and comfort Jacqueline.
+
+"We will try--O Jacqueline, we will try!"
+
+"And do you know it has troubled me even more than losing Freke; for I
+feel he is lost to me, even if he were to come to-morrow morning and say
+he was a free man; the fear that when I get well I shall be avoided; the
+people will leave me alone at church, and the county people will stop
+visiting us. That would indeed kill me."
+
+"Dear child, we will hope and pray. I believe it would kill me too."
+
+Jacqueline at this worked herself up into such a violent fit of weeping
+that Judith was frightened into giving her a great many more assurances
+of safety than her own anxious heart believed, but Jacqueline at last
+was quieted. In both of them, so widely unlike, was that profound
+respect for their neighbors, characteristic of simple and provincial
+souls. They knew no other world but that little neighborhood around
+Severn church, and its opinion was life or death.
+
+But it troubled Judith that by degrees visitors began to fall off and
+inquiries ceased for Jacqueline. The temper and habit of the people were
+such that Judith knew Jacqueline could never hope for any forgiveness if
+that week's journey should be known. Jacqueline too, although she was
+entirely silent afterward upon the subject, was thinking and dreading
+and fearing. It was the custom for many kindly and neighborly visits to
+be paid the sick, many flowers and delicacies to be sent them; but after
+a while Jacqueline ceased to have either flowers or visitors. She was
+nearly well, though, or at least she protested that she was. But,
+although Jacqueline declared to Judith that, if Freke were legally free
+to-morrow, she would not marry him as long as that other woman lived, it
+was plain that he had completely captivated her imagination. She loved
+him in her own wild, unreasoning way. Judith was hourly amazed at the
+sudden self-control, finesse, the power to deceive, that Jacqueline
+developed regarding him. Usually her composure was perfect, but once in
+her own room, Jacqueline threw herself on the rug before the fire and
+wept and sobbed so that Judith was seriously alarmed. But, still trying
+to keep the burden from the unconscious father and mother, she remained
+with Jacqueline until a calm had come after the storm.
+
+"I love him! I love him!" was all Jacqueline would say, and Judith
+believed her.
+
+"You told me how I ought to love Throckmorton," she said that night,
+with a melancholy smile; "it is exactly how I love Freke. Don't look at
+me in that indignant way, Judith. It is not my fault."
+
+Jack Throckmorton had remained at Millenbeck when his father left.
+Throckmorton had briefly announced to him that the wedding was off. Jack
+came at last to see them, looking very sheepish. Judith suspected that
+he came in obedience to Throckmorton's wishes. But Jacqueline at once
+slipped back into her old friendly way, if a little less gay and
+thoughtless than before. Jack sent her flowers, and would have brought
+his dog-cart over every day to take her to drive, so much touched was he
+by Jacqueline's illness, but Judith would not let him. Nevertheless, he
+was in and out of the house very much as he had been ever since that
+first night he was there. Judith, who had come to love him for his
+sweet, bright, boyish nature, he felt was his friend, as indeed
+everybody at Barn Elms was. The whole affair was intensely puzzling to
+Jack. He dared not show Throckmorton the awkward sympathy that he was
+struggling first to express and then to repress; but Jacqueline was
+young and ill, and had few pleasures, and he had once been a little gone
+on her, so it seemed the most natural thing in the world that he should
+be kind to her.
+
+There were mysterious hints, though, flying about the county regarding
+Jacqueline's affairs. Mrs. Sherrard was dying with curiosity, and made
+many visits to Barn Elms for the purpose of gratifying it. But she soon
+found out that, beyond knowing that Jacqueline had tired of her
+engagement and had thrown Throckmorton over, neither General nor Mrs.
+Temple knew anything to communicate. About this time, too, the
+party-giving fever, which was never long in abeyance with Mrs. Sherrard,
+seized her. A party she must give. General Temple brought a note to that
+effect, coupled with a request for Mrs. Temple's salad-bowls and ladles,
+one day from the post-office. Jacqueline, who had been out-of-doors
+several times and had quite given up her invalidism, showed the keenest
+and the most unexpected delight when she heard of the party. She jumped
+up and down, clapped her hands, and began to dance.
+
+"Oh, how glad I am! It has been so stupid lately. I do want to dance
+again dreadfully. How I wish I could go to a ball every night in the
+week!"
+
+Judith was surprised at Jacqueline's eagerness about the party. Mrs.
+Temple had first said decidedly that Jacqueline should not go, at which
+Jacqueline threw her hands up to her face and burst into such a passion
+of stormy weeping that Mrs. Temple was completely puzzled, and so was
+Judith.
+
+"But, my child, you are not strong enough!"
+
+"I am!--I am!" cried Jacqueline. "I will ask Dr. Wortley if I can't go
+to the party. I am sure I will cry myself ill if I don't go; and I am so
+well and strong."
+
+Mrs. Temple, who had got a little indulgent to Jacqueline since her
+illness, agreed to leave it to Dr. Wortley. The next time he came over
+to pay a friendly visit, Jacqueline took him off to herself, and came
+back triumphant. Dr. Wortley had agreed. The old doctor had a queer look
+in his face.
+
+"I consented, madam," he said to Mrs. Temple, "because this young lady
+promised me that she would make herself ill if she did not go; and I
+have known young women to keep that promise. She has given me her word
+she will be very prudent--will not overexert herself; and Mrs. Beverley
+is to watch her."
+
+"And I'll come home the instant Judith proposes it!" cried Jacqueline.
+
+Mrs. Temple finally agreed, upon condition that the weather was fit.
+For some days before the party it threatened to be very unfit. Dark
+clouds overhung the sky, and a biting March wind swept over the bare
+fields and through the somber aspens and Lombardy poplars, as yet
+leafless and wintry, around the house. Jacqueline seemed to have but one
+idea in her head, and that was the party. She haunted the windows where
+the cutting wind came in through the open chinks and crannies, until
+Judith warned her that she would soon begin to cough again, and worse,
+if she did not take care of herself. She pestered Simon Peter with
+asking for weather signs. When the morning broke, cloudy and overcast,
+Jacqueline was almost in despair; she could eat no breakfast, but sat at
+the table watching the clouds. Presently the sun came out upon the
+dreary landscape, and the sun in Jacqueline's eyes came out too. From
+the deepest gloom she passed to the wildest gayety. Her eyes shone; and
+taking little Beverley into the great, empty drawing-room, she waltzed
+around with him, singing and capering about until the boy, like herself,
+was in a gale of good humor. Judith had never ceased being puzzled by
+it. Still another obstacle, though, seemed to arise in Jacqueline's
+path. General Temple had a suspicion of gout, and declared that the
+party was out of the question for him. At this, Jacqueline looked so
+pale and disappointed that even Mrs. Temple's heart melted toward her.
+
+"But I can take care of Jacqueline, mother," said Judith; "we are safe,
+you know, with Simon Peter on the box, and we will come home before
+twelve o'clock."
+
+Mrs. Temple consented, and for the second time that day Jacqueline's
+spirits rose. Toward twilight, when the fires had been lighted in their
+rooms for the two girls to dress, for early hours prevail in the
+country, Judith went into Jacqueline's room. Jacqueline was twisting up
+her beautiful blonde hair into a knot on top of her head, taking
+infinite pains; her eyes were shining, her whole air one of quick
+expectancy.
+
+"Why are you so anxious about this party, Jacqueline?" asked Judith, to
+whose lips the question had often risen during the last week.
+
+"Wait a moment and I will tell you," replied Jacqueline, still intent on
+her hair.
+
+Judith waited until the last tress was in place, and Jacqueline came
+over to the fireplace.
+
+"Because--because, Judith, I have a feeling--I don't know where it comes
+from--that everybody knows about--" She stopped and cast down her eyes
+in a troubled way, but without blushing. "And I thought if I went to
+this party I would be convinced that it was all a mistake. I know it is
+very silly, but it has kept me awake at night ever since I was first
+ill, thinking how the people would eye me at church. You know how sick
+people take up those fancies. Well, I am determined to prove to myself
+it isn't so. Jack Throckmorton won't be at the party, but I shall no
+doubt have a plenty of partners, and this horrible feeling--that I am
+disgraced in some way--will leave me; I am sure it will. You know
+mamma's way of treating these notions. 'Just give your secret fears an
+airing, and see how they will disappear,' that's what I mean to do. Like
+ghosts, they vanish when you speak to them and try to handle them, and
+then you are rid of them for good."
+
+Judith said not a word. The same horrible fear had been with her. Freke
+and Throckmorton were safe--General and Mrs. Temple suspected
+nothing--it made her sick at heart as she thought about the news
+traveling over the county.
+
+When Jacqueline was dressed in the same white frock she had worn the
+evening she had captivated Throckmorton, she preened like a young
+peacock before the admiring eyes of Delilah and Simon Peter. She whirled
+round on her toes like a ballet-dancer. She courtesied to the ground,
+showing them how she would do at the party. She walked away from the
+little glass on her dressing-table, arching her neck and fluttering her
+fan.
+
+"I allus did say Marse George Throckmorton wuz too ole fur little Miss
+Jacky," Simon Peter remarked to Delilah, after the performance. Delilah,
+who was bound to differ with Simon Peter, promptly took issue.
+
+"Marse George, he ain' ole, he jes' in he prime. Dat's de way wid you
+wuffless niggers--call a man ole in he prime."
+
+"But whar' _he_ gwi' be, when she in her prime? You heah me, 'oman?"
+
+Delilah, for once, had no answer to make. The reflection had occurred to
+her.
+
+As Judith and Jacqueline were jolted along the road, in the darkness,
+toward Turkey Thicket, both of them were reminded of that other party
+there, when Throckmorton had been present. Neither of them said
+anything, though. Judith, as she watched the shadowy trees slip past,
+began to think how strangely things had gone with her since then. Almost
+from that time she had felt a steady and ceaseless pain associated with
+Throckmorton. She then suffered, she thought, with him, and for him,
+although not one word had come from him since he had left the county, a
+month ago. Where was he? What was he doing at that very moment? Then she
+tried to fancy how it would have been with her had she seen daily before
+her Throckmorton and Jacqueline's married happiness. The sight of it
+would have been intolerable to her. "And nobody in the world suspects me
+of being the most impressionable, emotional, jealous, and miserable
+woman on earth," she thought to herself.
+
+Jacqueline sat back in the carriage, occasionally speculating on who
+would be at the party, and how often she might dance without breaking
+Dr. Wortley's orders.
+
+When they drove up to the door and got out, Jacqueline ran lightly up
+the steps, like her old self. Judith followed her. In Mrs. Sherrard's
+own comfortable old-fashioned room, where the ladies' wraps were
+removed, a number of girls about Jacqueline's age were laughing,
+chattering, getting their wraps off and their slippers on. Jacqueline
+ran up to them, and was about to join their circle; but by a slight,
+indescribable motion, they all drew back. It was a mere gesture, but it
+froze Jacqueline as she stood. She turned a frightened, piteous glance
+on Judith, who, with a flushed face, walked straight up to the little
+group.
+
+"How do you do?" she said, calling each one by name, and holding out her
+hand. If there were any cloud upon the Temple family, she would force
+them to come out boldly and define it. Her fine nostrils dilated with
+anger--for not only was it her duty to stand by Jacqueline, but was not
+she, Judith, a Temple, too? And Judith had one of those proud and
+self-respecting souls to whom everything and everybody closely connected
+with her was due a certain deference. Something in her eye and manner
+commanded civility--then her greetings were answered even more cordially
+than she had given them.
+
+But there was still an ominous change toward Jacqueline. The color had
+all dropped out of her face, and she had not recovered the plumpness she
+had lost during her illness. She looked nearer ugly than at any time in
+her whole life.
+
+Judith was soon ready to go down-stairs. She no longer wore black
+dresses, but white ones. They were as severely simple as the black ones,
+though. She turned with Jacqueline following her, and went slowly out
+the door, and down the broad, old-fashioned stairs. In the large,
+uncarpeted hall, dancing was going on. As Judith, tall and stately in
+her white dress, holding gracefully a large white fan in her hands,
+passed through the hall, she was greeted with the hearty kindness she
+had always met with; but Jacqueline at her side, who was wont to run the
+gantlet of laughter and jokes and merry salutations, was met with a
+strange and distant politeness that blanched her face, and brought a
+glitter to Judith's usually soft eyes. She could have borne it better
+for herself; but for this unthinking child--this young creature
+Throckmorton loved--it was too much.
+
+Mrs. Sherrard, with her diamond comb shining in her gray hair, and
+looking as she always did superbly dressed, without anything splendid
+about her, received them. In her there was no change. She met Jacqueline
+just as she always did.
+
+"Why, little Jacky," she cried, "how glad I am to see you out again!
+You must let me see your little feet tripping about as if you had never
+been ill."
+
+Jacqueline responded with a faint smile. Suppose she should not be asked
+to dance?
+
+Judith, taking in at once this universal shyness shown toward
+Jacqueline, did not move from her side. People came up and spoke to them
+civilly enough, but chiefly the older people. Out in the hall beyond,
+the black fiddlers were scraping, and Jacqueline could see a large
+quadrille forming. But no partner appeared for her. Until the very last
+she hoped desperately. Never before had Jacqueline, in the few parties
+she had been to in her short life, failed to be asked to dance--she
+was so pretty, so undeniably captivating. She turned two despairing
+dark eyes and two pale cheeks on Judith. It was indeed cruel and
+heart-breaking. Jacqueline's evident anguish almost took away Judith's
+self-possession.
+
+"Perhaps you will have better luck next time, dear," she whispered.
+
+"No," replied Jacqueline, trembling, "I feel it. I know what it means.
+They all know it. Heavens! what do they think I am?"
+
+The quadrille was soon over, but the time seemed interminable to Judith
+and Jacqueline. Some of the dancers, flushed and excited, were walking
+around the hall, while others, more indefatigable, whirled around in a
+waltz. It was all quite plain to Jacqueline, watching them with strange
+and miserable eyes. Was she then barred out forever from those people,
+and all for Freke, while even the happiness of being with him was denied
+her? Mrs. Sherrard, seeing Jacqueline sitting so still and quiet by
+Judith, came over to them.
+
+"My dear, I see you are not dancing; shall I get you a partner?"
+
+Mrs. Sherrard's sharp eyes saw something was amiss.
+
+"No, please, Mrs. Sherrard," cried Jacqueline, in an eager voice. "I
+promised Dr. Wortley not to dance much; perhaps I will dance a little
+after a while."
+
+But she did not. Nobody came near her to ask her; and even to Judith it
+was plain that people avoided them both. Most of the county people they
+knew came up and talked a little, but there was a changed atmosphere
+around them. Judith looked wonderingly at these people. In all the years
+they had lived in that county there had been nothing but neighborly
+kindness, good-will, and friendliness; and now, not one among them,
+seemed to feel the slightest spark of pity or charity for Jacqueline.
+They had all condemned her unheard. What version of the story had got
+abroad, she could not tell; but it was enough to blast the friendship
+of generations.
+
+It was getting on, hour after hour.
+
+"Shall we go home, Jacqueline?" whispered Judith.
+
+"Not yet--not yet!" Jacqueline would answer, with trembling lips. She
+kept on hoping against hope. By that time everybody in the rooms had
+seen it all, except Mrs. Sherrard. She supposed she had done her best,
+coming up and talking to them incessantly; but, Jacqueline having
+refused a partner when offered one, Mrs. Sherrard naturally supposed she
+did not dance from preference, and accepted the idea that Dr. Wortley
+was responsible. It was past midnight before Jacqueline would agree to
+go. Judith, as stately, if paler and haughtier than ever in her life,
+went up to Mrs. Sherrard, made her farewells, and walked the whole
+length of the rooms, holding Jacqueline's hand. The poor child tried to
+hold her head up, inspired by Judith's courage, but it drooped, and she
+could not raise her eyes from the floor. A slight thrill of remorse
+seemed to come over those who saw her, at the piteous sight; but it was
+now too late. Jacqueline only longed to escape.
+
+The instant they were in the carriage and alone, Jacqueline threw her
+arms around Judith and began to weep and sob desperately. Judith could
+only hold her to her heart and say: "Never mind, Jacqueline; if all the
+world should be against you, I would not be--nor Throckmorton."
+
+But Jacqueline did not cease to sob and weep with a sort of despair
+that struck a chill to Judith's heart. She had never seen anybody weep
+so. When they reached home, Judith got her up-stairs to her room and
+undressed her, taking off the little chain around her neck that held the
+pearl pendant Jacqueline only wore on great occasions, uncurling the
+bright hair she had dressed so carefully, and laying away the simple
+white dress--Jacqueline's only ball-dress--that she had admired herself
+in so much. Jacqueline submitted, still sobbing a continual sob, that
+showed no signs of abatement. Judith put her in bed, turned out the
+lamp, and kissing her affectionately went out, thinking Jacqueline would
+soon cry herself to sleep.
+
+An hour afterward Judith, who had keen hearing, fancied she heard a
+sound from Jacqueline's room. She went in softly. In the ghastly light
+that came through the closed shutters she saw Jacqueline sitting up in
+the great, white bed, still weeping.
+
+"My darling," said Judith, taking the girl in her arms, "you will be
+ill!"
+
+"Ill!" cried Jacqueline; "I am ill now--so ill, I never shall be well
+again! Judith, I can't live under this. I am going to die; and I am glad
+of it."
+
+"Hush, hush! what nonsense are you talking?"
+
+"Nonsense or not, those wicked people will see that they have killed
+me!"
+
+Judith did not leave her any more, nor did Jacqueline sleep one moment,
+or cease her weeping. She held Judith tightly about the neck, and her
+warm tears dropped incessantly. Toward daylight Judith began to be
+alarmed. But nothing was to be done. It would simply break the hearts of
+the unconscious father and mother if they knew what had happened, and if
+she roused them they must know. Judith went to her own room and brought
+back some brandy, which she forced Jacqueline to take. In a little while
+it began to show its effect. Jacqueline stopped sobbing, and lay in the
+great dawn, with her face white and drawn and tear-stained. Judith,
+again hoping she might sleep, left her.
+
+All that day Jacqueline lay in her bed dumb and motionless. Judith said
+the child was tired after the ball; perhaps she would get up later on.
+Mrs. Temple, supposing she was resting after her dissipation, did not go
+up to see her in the morning. In the afternoon, as Jacqueline showed no
+signs of getting up, Mrs. Temple went up to her. One look at her pallid
+face, and Mrs. Temple, calm and self-possessed as she usually was,
+almost shrieked, Jacqueline was so changed.
+
+"Tell your master to come here at once!" she cried to Delilah.
+
+General Temple came up-stairs, hurried and flurried, and felt for
+Jacqueline's pulse, but could detect no beating. And then Delilah
+owned up:
+
+"Dat ar chile ain' tech a mou'ful dis day. I bring her up nice hot
+breakfus', an' she jes' tu'n her face ter de wall an' say, 'Go 'long,
+mammy, I c'yarn eat.' Now, huccome she c'yarn eat?"
+
+"My daughter, what is the matter with you?" asked Mrs. Temple,
+anxiously.
+
+Of late this half-forgotten child had been steadily forcing herself upon
+Mrs. Temple's notice.
+
+"Nothing," answered Jacqueline, quietly.
+
+But Jacqueline would not eat anything to speak of. In vain Mrs. Temple
+commanded, General Temple prayed her; Judith also pleaded with her, and
+Delilah--even little Beverley, climbing on the bed, said:
+
+"Jacky, won't you eat a piece o' mammy's ash-cake if she bake it for
+you?"
+
+Jacqueline smiled a faint smile that made Judith almost weep.
+
+"I can't, dear," she said.
+
+It was impossible to force her to eat, and the next morning Dr. Wortley
+was sent for. He came up in his cheery way; he had heard something of
+the Turkey Thicket party, but he would say no word to the anxious father
+and mother. He talked cheerfully to Jacqueline, without assuming to
+doctor her, and called her attention to the beautiful spring weather. It
+was March, but the air was as mild as April.
+
+"All my hyacinths and jonquils are out," he said. "There is a bed in my
+garden that is protected on the north by a hedge and an arbor, and
+everything in that bed is a week ahead of the rest of the neighborhood.
+I will bring you everything that is blooming there to-morrow. By the
+way, what would you fancy to eat, Jacky?"
+
+"I can't eat anything," replied Jacqueline, with quiet obstinacy.
+
+Next day Dr. Wortley came again, with a great bunch of hyacinths and
+jonquils, and laid them on Jacqueline's bed. Her large and lusterless
+eyes gazed at them with indifference. Usually they danced with delight
+at the sight of flowers. Delilah put a spray of pink hyacinths in her
+hand.
+
+"Doan' you 'member, honey, how you useter like dese heah hy'cints, an'
+plague yo' mammy when you wuz little ter plant 'em fur you?"
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Jacqueline, calmly.
+
+Judith and Mrs. Temple were present. Dr. Wortley said nothing about
+Jacqueline's refusing to eat, but talked away, telling all the
+neighborhood gossip. Then, in a careless way, he felt for Jacqueline's
+pulse and listened to the beating of her heart. Both were so faint that
+Dr. Wortley's eyes became grave. After he left the room, he beckoned to
+Mrs. Temple to follow him. Delilah came, too.
+
+"Marse Doctor, she ain' tech nuttin' but a leetle bit o' toast an' tea
+since yistiddy, an' it wan' 'nough to keep a bird 'live, let 'lone a
+human."
+
+Dr. Wortley wheeled round on his old enemy and snapped out:
+
+"If you'll just use some of your persuasive eloquence and stuff her up
+with jellies and custards as you do your master when he ought to be
+living on tea and toast, she'll be all right."
+
+Delilah flounced back into Jacqueline's room, her head-handkerchief
+bobbing about angrily. Mrs. Temple being present, she could not
+retaliate on Dr. Wortley.
+
+"But, doctor," said Mrs. Temple, trembling strangely, "this is so unlike
+Jacqueline. I don't know what has been the matter with her lately. She
+isn't grieving for Throckmorton, but something is on her mind, that
+is--that is--"
+
+The doctor waited, thinking Mrs. Temple would finish what she was
+saying. But she did not. This was, indeed, unlike Jacqueline--unlike any
+instance Dr. Wortley, in his simple experience, had ever known.
+
+"Let her alone for a few days," he said. "We will see."
+
+At the end of a few days Jacqueline had indeed consented to take enough
+food to keep life in her, but she had lost ground frightfully. Her
+round, girlish face was sharp and pinched.
+
+Judith tried persuasion, to which Jacqueline responded, "How can I eat
+anything, when all night long I cry and cry, thinking of the
+hard-hearted people who--"
+
+Then she stopped suddenly.
+
+"Mise Judy," said Delilah, after a while, "I lay on de pallet by de
+baid, an' all night long I heah her cryin', jes' cryin' quiet--she doan'
+make no noise. I say: 'What de matter, honey? Tell yo' ole mammy dat
+nuss you?' an' she make 'tense den she 'sleep. But I know she ain'
+'sleep--she jest distrusted at de way dem folks treat her at that
+ungordly party at Tuckey Thicket."
+
+General and Mrs. Temple were anxious about Jacqueline, but by no means
+despairing. Neither of them thought that anybody could die without
+having anything ostensibly the matter. Judith, on the contrary, thought
+this the most alarming thing about Jacqueline. There she lay, steadily
+losing her hold on life, without any reason in the world that she should
+not be up and about--except, indeed, that sickness of the soul which
+saps the very foundations of life. This fear that Jacqueline was
+slipping away from them impelled her to write Throckmorton a few
+lines--guarded, but without disguising anything.
+
+Meanwhile, the day that was to have been the wedding-day had come and
+gone. Jacqueline had not noticed it--she seemed to notice nothing in
+those days--but toward noon she said to Judith:
+
+"I want to see my wedding-dress--to see if it is quite ruined."
+
+Judith, without protesting, went and got it. She spread it out on the
+bed. It was rich and white and soft, and was beautiful with Judith's
+handiwork; but it was bloodstained in many places.
+
+"That blood, I think, came from my heart," said Jacqueline; her eyes
+were soft and luminous. "I've been thinking about Throckmorton in the
+last two or three days--for the first time. I have been so busy with my
+own sorrow and Freke's that I haven't had time to think about anything
+else. Now, though, I want to see him--if he can get here in time."
+
+"He will soon be here," answered Judith, folding up the dress. "I wrote
+him four days ago."
+
+"That is so like you! None of the others know what I want, or will let
+me have my own way, but you."
+
+And that very day Freke appeared.
+
+The hatred that Judith had always felt for him was now intensified into
+a horror of him--he was the murderer of the poor child lying on her
+death-bed up-stairs--and she had thought her heart so hard toward him
+that nothing could soften it; but, strange as it might seem, she did
+soften toward him when she saw how acute was his misery.
+
+Remorse was new to him. He had rather gloried in going against the
+antique notions and prejudices of the people in that shut-in, provincial
+place; but that anything tragic could come of it never really dawned
+upon him until he saw the terrible consequences before his eyes. He was,
+indeed, a free man, legally, when he came back; but the moral law, the
+social prejudice, stood like an everlasting wall between him and
+Jacqueline. Moreover, there could be no talk of marriage with Jacqueline
+then--she was the bride of death!
+
+Judith herself told him this. Whether Jacqueline had ever had any deep
+hold upon him or not, there was no doubt of the sincerity of his grief
+and his remorse. He said but little, but one look at his changed and
+agitated face was enough. He asked to see her--a request Judith could
+not refuse. But the sight of him threw Jacqueline into such a paroxysm
+of agitation, that Judith almost forced him from the room. There was
+something a little mysterious about the whole thing, to General and
+Mrs. Temple, but mercifully they suspected nothing of the real state of
+affairs. After one more attempt to see Jacqueline, and the extreme
+agitation into which it threw her, it became plain that it could not be
+repeated. Jacqueline herself begged that she might not see him.
+
+"Not that I don't love him--don't think that for a moment, Judith!" she
+cried; "but the sight of him nearly kills me. Then I am sorry that I am
+going to die--I am so sorry for myself that I feel as if I should cry
+myself into convulsions."
+
+Judith tried gently to check this sort of talk, but Jacqueline, with a
+shadowy smile, laughed at her.
+
+"Don't be silly, Judith--_you_ know how it is. All that I hope is, that
+those hard-hearted people will be sorry when they have killed me with
+their cruelty."
+
+Freke, still coming every day, walked about the lower floor dismally.
+Jacqueline, whose senses became preternaturally sharp, soon recognized
+his footsteps. Even that unnerved her. Judith told him so kindly, and
+afterward he would sit motionless before the dining-room fire, always
+turning his head away from Jacqueline's little chair. Like Judith, he
+was clear-sighted about her. Of them all, General and Mrs. Temple were
+the only ones who would not or could not see that Jacqueline would soon
+be gone. Mrs. Temple had never seen anybody die without being ill, and
+could not believe that Jacqueline, who suffered no pain, should go. She
+had been in truth much frightened at the time of Jacqueline's illness;
+but, now, there was nothing to prevent her getting well except--except--
+
+"That she is determined to die," Dr. Wortley inwardly remarked when Mrs.
+Temple talked to him in this way.
+
+Jacqueline began to show a strange eagerness for Throckmorton's arrival.
+He was somewhere in the Northwest; but Jack, acting on his own
+responsibility, telegraphed his father, and put him on the track of
+Judith's letter.
+
+The news of Jacqueline's illness had got abroad in the county, and
+something like remorse was felt by many who had seen her at the Turkey
+Thicket party. By degrees the impression that she was indeed in a bad
+way became general.
+
+If Judith and Jacqueline had never loved Jack Throckmorton before, they
+would have loved him then. The sweetness, tenderness, and gentleness of
+the boy came out every day. There had always been an affinity between
+Jacqueline and him, and, as other ties weakened, this seemed to grow
+stronger. He never tired or bored or agitated her. Regularly he came
+twice a day, with flowers, or game, or with a new book. Dr. Wortley
+encouraged Jacqueline to see him, as it was plainly through her mind
+that her body must be cured. So every day Mrs. Temple or Judith would
+take Jack up to Jacqueline's room, and he would sit down by the bed and
+tell her his droll stories. Sometimes the ghost of a laugh would come
+from Jacqueline, and when, at parting, Jack would stand over her,
+holding her hand and saying, "Miss Jacky, I swear this is not to be
+stood for another day!--I'm coming over to-morrow to take you to drive!"
+Jacqueline would almost laugh aloud. Jack never mentioned Throckmorton
+to her, though; but one day, when he had brought her a great bunch of
+violets and narcissus, which had actually brought a little color to
+Jacqueline's cheeks, and had induced her to eat a piece of bread about
+as big as a silver dollar, he turned to Judith as he got out of the
+room: "The major is coming," he said, with an altogether different look
+in his handsome, boyish face. "I got a dispatch from him to-day. If he
+makes connections, he can be here by day after to-morrow."
+
+"How glad I am--and how glad Jacqueline will be!" answered Judith.
+
+For the first time, that day Judith had begun to hope that Jacqueline
+would get well. She had certainly brightened, and this strange interest
+in Throckmorton's arrival was encouraging. Perhaps, after all, she cared
+for him more than she thought--and if he came--
+
+Till that day Jacqueline seemed to be brighter and better. The next day
+the weather turned suddenly cold and blustering, with violent gusts of
+snow and sleet. Jacqueline, who could see out of the window from her
+bed, seemed singularly depressed by the weather, although the pleasant,
+old-fashioned room was a nest of warmth and comfort.
+
+Delilah sat in the great rush-bottomed chair by the sparkling fire,
+knitting, while Judith, with some work in her lap, sat close by the bed,
+and occasionally talked hopefully to Jacqueline.
+
+"How sad it is!" presently said Jacqueline; "the peach-trees are all in
+bloom, and the buds will be killed by this snow--and the little
+hyacinths that are just coming up--all the young growing things will die
+to-day."
+
+"Not the plants, dear--only the blossoms," replied Judith, cheerfully.
+"In a week they will have forgotten all about this snow."
+
+"It is very sad," sighed Jacqueline.
+
+All day Jacqueline seemed affected by the weather. Barn Elms, never a
+cheerful place at any time, was apt to be funereal when winter blasts
+swept the branches of the melancholy poplars and elms against the sides
+of the house, and when the wind howled amid the loosely built chimneys.
+A blackbird had begun building her nest in the tree nearest Jacqueline's
+window; and often, during the long days when she had lain in her bed,
+she had watched the bird flying and fluttering back and forth. The wind,
+which raged fitfully, came on stronger toward the afternoon. It lashed
+the still bare branches of the trees, beating them frantically about.
+The nest soon went. The poor bird, flying wildly around the place where
+it had been, was suddenly caught by a swaying branch, and, numbed with
+the cold, was dashed against the window. Jacqueline almost shrieked.
+Judith ran down-stairs, and out bareheaded in the sleet and snow, and
+found the bird--but it was already dead. When she went back, Jacqueline
+was crying.
+
+"See how it is, Judith--everything that is young and weak will die in
+this weather."
+
+A book lay on the bed beside Jacqueline--Jack Throckmorton had brought
+it over to her a day or two before. Jacqueline, laboriously--for she was
+very weak--turned over the pages and showed a paragraph to Judith:
+
+"And the fire is lighted and the hall warmed, and it rains and it snows
+and it storms without. Then cometh in a sparrow and flieth about the
+hall. It cometh in at one door and goeth out at another. While it is
+within, it is not touched with the winter storm. _But that is only for a
+moment, only for the least space._"
+
+Judith thought that Jacqueline, in her simplicity, had taken it
+literally; but she had not.
+
+"Once, Throckmorton read some in this book to me. He said that meant
+human life--that little moment. Why can't people let other people be
+comfortable in that least space, instead of--of--killing them as--being
+so unkind to them?" Jacqueline stopped. Her mind was ever working on
+that deep resentment against her county people. "And Throckmorton, too,"
+she continued, after a pause, "you know, Judith, how noble he is--and
+see how they have treated him!"
+
+"My dearest," answered Judith, "you don't understand. These people are
+really kind and tender-hearted; but they move very slowly--and they
+have queer prejudices--notions--that they will die with, and die for, I
+think; but don't think about that--think about getting well, and running
+about again with Beverley. You ought to see him, trotting around
+down-stairs, saying: 'Where is my Jacky? I want my Jacky.' He was so
+naughty to-day that Delilah threatened to whip him, and even mother had
+to take a stand against him. He is getting thoroughly spoiled while I am
+up here with you."
+
+Jacqueline smiled slightly, but soon returned to watching the gloomy day
+without. At twilight she would not have the shutters closed, but lay
+striving to catch the last fading glimpses of the somber daylight.
+Judith began to feel an intense longing for Throckmorton to come.
+Jacqueline, too, who had been so strangely forgetful and neglectful of
+Throckmorton until lately, had asked a dozen times that day, when it was
+possible for him to get there, and what if he should miss the boat, and
+many other questions. About seven o'clock Judith went down to tea,
+leaving Delilah with Jacqueline.
+
+Delilah, sitting up black and solemn, listened to Jacqueline's faint and
+sorrowful talk.
+
+"Doan' you fret, honey, 'bout dem blackbirds, an' dem peach-blossoms,
+an' dem little lambs out in de cold. De Lord gwi' teck keer on 'em. He
+gwi' meck de sun ter shine, an' de win' ter blow; an' He gwi' down in
+de rain an' de gloomerin' fur ter fin' de po' los' sheep. He ain' gwi'
+lef 'em out d'yar ter deyselves. He gwi' tote 'em home outen' de rain
+an' de darkness."
+
+"Do you think so, mammy?"
+
+"I knows hit, chile."
+
+Down-stairs, General and Mrs. Temple, with little Beverley and Judith,
+were all that were present around the table. Not yet even had Mrs.
+Temple begun to be alarmed about Jacqueline, who had not had a pain or
+an ache.
+
+Jacqueline's vacant chair struck Judith more painfully than usual.
+Scarcely had she taken her place at the table, when she saw Delilah peer
+in at the door, a queer, ashy tinge over her black face. Judith rose and
+went out quietly, Mrs. Temple looking surprised, but saying nothing.
+Judith, Mrs. Temple thought, coddled Jacqueline rather too much for her
+own good, so Kitty Sherrard and Dr. Wortley both said.
+
+"Miss Judy," whispered Delilah, "Miss Jacky is a-gwine--she done start
+on de road--"
+
+Judith, without a word, flew up-stairs. Jacqueline lay, scarcely
+breathing, her face perfectly white, her dark and beautiful eyes wide
+open. Judith raised her up, Jacqueline protesting feebly.
+
+"Judith, it is come! I feel it. I am not at all frightened. It was those
+cruel people at Mrs. Sherrard's party--"
+
+"Don't--don't say that, Jacqueline! You are only a little faint and
+discouraged. Here is Delilah coming."
+
+"Tell Throckmorton I tried to live until he came, but my breath won't
+hold out any longer, and my heart has scarcely beat at all for a week,
+it seems to me."
+
+Judith made a sign to Delilah to go for Mrs. Temple. Scarcely was she
+out of the room, before Jacqueline's head fell back on Judith's
+shoulder. Judith, brave as she was, began to tremble and to weep.
+
+"I did so want to see Throckmorton, to tell him something. I wanted to
+say to him--Judith--"
+
+Mrs. Temple came in swiftly, followed by the general. Jacqueline had
+strength enough left to hold out a thin little hand. A smile like
+moonlight passed over her face. She gasped once, and all was over.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+The next night at midnight there was a solemn stir, a painful and
+heart-breaking commotion, at Barn Elms. Throckmorton had come. He had
+indeed missed the boat, and had driven seventy miles rather than wait a
+day. Mrs. Temple, as when Beverley died, had shut herself up in the
+"charmber" with General Temple. Most people thought it was to comfort
+General Temple, but in those two dreadful tragedies of her life it was
+General Temple who comforted Mrs. Temple. Both parents felt something
+like remorse in their grief. They had been good parents after their
+lights, but the wayward, capricious Jacqueline, although their child,
+was outside of their experience. Her nature had eluded both of them.
+
+"Ole marse," said Delilah, in a solemn whisper to Judith, sitting in
+Jacqueline's peaceful room, "he set by mistis. He hole her han' an' he
+read de Bible ter her, an' he tell her she ain' got no reproachments fur
+ter make. Mistis, she jes' lay in the bed, ez white ez de wall, an' her
+eyes wide open, a-hole'in' ole marse like she wuz drowndin'. It seem
+like ole marse ain' got no sort o' idee, 'cep 'tis ter comfort mistis.
+She do grieve so arter her chillen. She ain' got none now."
+
+To Judith, whose grief was poignant and complex, was left the task of
+watching by Jacqueline. With tender superstition, she got out the
+wedding-gown--it could be put to no other use--and she and Delilah put
+it on Jacqueline, deftly hiding the blood-spots.
+
+"My pretty little missy," said Delilah, smoothing down the frock with
+her hard black hand. "Arter all, you gwi' w'yar dis pretty little frock
+Miss Judy done wuk for you to git married in."
+
+And to Judith also fell the task of showing Freke into the white and
+darkened room.
+
+As they looked into each other's eyes, and realized that, after all,
+they were the chiefest mourners, Judith's old enmity melted away.
+
+"You and I have struggled for this child's soul," he said. "Had you but
+let me see her--had she but gone with me--she would be alive this day."
+
+"And wretched!" Judith could not help saying.
+
+"No--most happy. I understood her better than anybody else. It was that
+which gave me my power over her. She wanted nothing in this world except
+to be loved."
+
+He went in and stayed so long that Judith opened the door softly two or
+three times. Sometimes, by the dim light, he was kneeling by the bed,
+holding the cold little hand in his. Again, he sat on a chair, stroking
+the bright hair that rippled over the forehead. Judith had not the heart
+to speak to him until midnight, when the sound of Throckmorton's step in
+the hall told her he had come. She went in and said to Freke hurriedly,
+but not unkindly, "You must go--Throckmorton is here."
+
+"Then I will go," he said. But with a queer sort of triumph in his voice
+he added: "She never was Throckmorton's, living or dead. She was mine as
+far as her heart and her soul and her will went." And so saying, he went
+down the stairs and out and away, without meeting Throckmorton.
+
+Judith went down into the dining-room, where Throckmorton sat before the
+decaying fire, with only the light of two tall candles to pierce the
+darkness. He arose silently and followed her. At the door of the room
+his courage, which Judith had thought invincible, seemed suddenly to
+leave him. He, the strong man, turned pale, and clung to the weak
+woman's arm. Something of the divine pity in Judith's face went to his
+soul. He stayed only a few minutes. It came to Judith, like a flash,
+that his grief was not like Freke's. Throckmorton pitied Jacqueline.
+Freke pitied himself, for the sharp misery of life without her. When
+Throckmorton came out, Judith went in and resumed her watch.
+
+The day of the funeral was as stormy as the day of Jacqueline's death.
+But for that, the whole county would have been at the funeral. Something
+of the truth had leaked out, and the people were conscience-stricken.
+Poor Jacqueline, who two weeks before had in vain asked for a little
+human pity from them, now had her memory deluged with it. But the storm
+was so violent that but few persons could be present. As Judith stood at
+the head of the small grave in the wind and the rain, listening to
+Edmund Morford's rich voice, now touched with real feeling, she glanced
+toward Freke, standing by himself, with his hands clasped behind his
+back, his eyes fixed devouringly upon the coffin. As the first damp
+clods fell resounding on the lid, he said to himself: "Jacqueline!
+Jacqueline!"
+
+Throckmorton, with folded arms and his iron jaw set, gave no sign of his
+feelings through his stern composure. Judith's heart was wrenched as if
+she were burying her own child. When they left the grave, Freke remained
+standing alone, his hat off, and the sleety rain pelting his bare head.
+At that sight Judith, for the first time, forgave him from her heart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+Throckmorton's year of leave was not up, yet he went immediately back to
+his post. Everything that had happened to him in the last six months had
+been so unreal, so out of all his previous experiences, that he needed
+the every-day routine of duty to enable him to get his bearings. He
+wanted to find out if he himself was changed. There was certainly a
+change in him, which everybody saw; but he was not a man to be
+questioned. He went about his duty, quietly and self-containedly. He had
+always found a plenty to do, and wondered at the idleness that he
+sometimes saw around him; and now he was busier than ever. He was not a
+philanthropic meddler, and was as loath to offer his advice unasked to a
+soldier as to an officer, but he earnestly desired, now more than ever,
+to be of help to his fellow-men, and Throckmorton's help was always
+efficient because it never hurt the self-respect of those who received
+it. Certain of the non-commissioned officers at his post were competing
+for a commission. To his surprise and gratification, he found them
+anxious to be instructed by him. So he turned schoolmaster, and
+patiently and laboriously, night after night, gave them the advantage of
+all he knew. Only one got the commission, but all were qualified when
+Throckmorton got through with them. He was not any less alert and
+attentive than before, but in all his waking moments, when his mind was
+not imperatively drawn to other things, he was thinking over those six
+months at Millenbeck--the hopes with which he went back; the strangeness
+of finding himself under the ban among his own people; the renewal of
+the link with Barn Elms, after thirty years' absence; his complete
+infatuation with Jacqueline--and, out of it all, rose Judith's face. How
+hard had been her lot; and how strange it was that he had made
+confidences to her, and that, of all the women he had ever known, she
+was the only one of whose sympathy he had ever felt the need! He
+considered his somewhat barren life--his reserved habits--and sometimes
+thought Heaven was kind to Jacqueline in not giving her to him, for he
+could not bend his nature to any woman's--the woman must conform to him;
+and it was not in Jacqueline to be anything but what Nature had made
+her.
+
+Jack was off at the university, and Millenbeck was shut up, silent and
+deserted.
+
+Freke was gone. He disappeared apparently from the face of the earth. He
+wanted neither to see nor hear anything of anybody connected with
+Jacqueline. Throckmorton, on the contrary, clung to the ties at Barn
+Elms.
+
+But to Judith Temple life had become infinitely sadder and poorer than
+ever before. She had caught one glimpse of paradise, and that had
+changed the whole face of life for her, and she seemed all at once to be
+very much alone. But in one sense she was less alone than ever before.
+Mrs. Temple's will and courage and purpose seemed gone. She changed
+strangely after Jacqueline's death. She, who had once silently resented
+the slightest forgetfulness of Beverley, now seemed to feel acutely that
+the living should not be sacrificed to the dead. She began to urge
+Judith to go from home; to take off her mourning at the end of a year.
+Judith gently protested. The truth was that, although Mrs. Temple had at
+last come out of that strange forgetfulness of Jacqueline and mourned as
+other mothers do, Jacqueline took nothing out of her life. With Judith
+it was as if her child had been taken. She could not pass Jacqueline's
+empty room without remembering how she would waylay her, and draw her in
+to sit by the fire and dream and romance. She could not sew or read or
+do anything without feeling the loss of the childish companionship. Even
+when she laid aside her seriousness for her child and romped and played
+with the boy, he was apt to say, "I wish Jacky would come back and play
+with me again."
+
+At intervals Mrs. Temple received kind and sympathetic letters from
+Throckmorton, and replied to them with letters worded with her own
+simple eloquence. In Throckmorton's letters he spoke of Jacqueline
+rather as if she had been his child than his promised wife. Among them
+all Jacqueline's memory was that of a child. Throckmorton sent kind
+messages to Judith; and Mrs. Temple, when she wrote, conveyed short but
+expressive replies from Judith.
+
+Two years had passed. So quiet and uneventful had been their lives,
+that Judith would have had difficulty in persuading herself that the
+years were slipping by, but for little Beverley, now a handsome,
+sturdy urchin, whose long, fair hair had been cut off, and who emerged
+from dainty white frocks into kilts. The grandfather and grandmother
+daily more adored the child. Judith thought sometimes they were fast
+forgetting Jacqueline. The grass was quite green over Jacqueline by this
+time, and the head-stone had lost its perfect whiteness. But to Judith
+there was no forgetting. She had loved the child as if she had been her
+own, and she loved Throckmorton still. Jack wrote to her at intervals,
+his letters always containing some allusion to Jacqueline. Judith
+thought sometimes, with wonder, that Fate should not in the first
+instance have united those two young creatures, boy and girl.
+
+One night, two winters after Jacqueline had gone away, Judith, who
+every night before going to bed went to her window, and, drawing the
+curtain, looked long toward Millenbeck, saw a bright light shining from
+the hall-door and two of the lower windows of the house. Every night, as
+she gazed at it, she had seen it black and tenantless, and utterly
+deserted; but, now--
+
+"Throckmorton has come!" she said to herself.
+
+Next morning he came over early to see them. He found General Temple the
+same General Temple--courteous and verbose. His health being very good,
+he was an Episcopalian for the time being; but, whenever the gout
+appeared, he had his old way of lapsing into Presbyterianism. Mrs.
+Temple was the same, and yet not the same. Throckmorton saw a change in
+her. She, the most unyielding of women, had become easy and indulgent.
+Simon Peter and Delilah came in to speak to him, and a wifely rebuke,
+administered in the pantry, was distinctly audible to Throckmorton:
+
+"Huccome you ain' taken off dat ole coat, nigger, an' put on dat one
+mistis give you, fur ter speak ter Marse George Throckmorton? He su't'ny
+will think we all's po', ef you keep on dat er way."
+
+"We _is_ po', but we is first quality, 'oman!"
+
+Judith, who had great self-command, could control her eyes, her voice,
+her manner; but happiness, the outlaw, at seeing Throckmorton again,
+brought the red blood surging to her cheeks. Throckmorton, who was
+exactly like his old self, was surprised and inwardly agitated at it.
+They spoke some tender words of Jacqueline, all of them sitting together
+in the old-fashioned drawing-room. Her little chair was in its old
+place, but Judith sat in it; and even the ragged footstool on which
+Jacqueline had toasted her little feet was near it. Throckmorton noticed
+all these things with tenderness in his dark eyes. He was a little
+grayer than before, but he was the same erect, soldierly figure; he had
+the same simple but commanding dignity.
+
+He walked home in a curious state of emotion. In those two years he had
+not ceased thinking deeply over that short episode, so full of happiness
+and pain--the happiness a little unreal, and vexed with many pangs; the
+pain very real, but with strange suggestions that, after all, the
+happiness held more possibilities of wretchedness. He could think, for
+Jacqueline's sake, how much better off she was, lying so peacefully in
+the old grave-yard, than if she had lived, so weak, so captivating, so
+unthinking. What would life have been to her? And so, at forty-six,
+after having experienced more than most men, he began the analysis of
+his own emotions, and realized that all he had known of love was
+perilously like a mirage. He had entered into a fool's paradise, but he
+knew that he of all men could least be satisfied there. His reason, his
+intellect, always overmastered him in the end; and what was there in
+this bewitching child to satisfy either? Jacqueline, young, was a dream;
+Jacqueline, old, was a fantasm. All this had come to him soon after
+Jacqueline's death, in that period of self-searching that followed. But,
+when he had got thus far, which was some time before his return to
+Millenbeck, a great change came upon him. He began to feel a sort of
+acute disappointment. He had loved and suffered much for that which he
+felt would not have made him happy had he gained it. All that love,
+grief, passion, had been vain; here he checked himself; the memory of
+his girl-wife was sacred from even his own questionings; and so was that
+later love, but the necessity for checking himself told volumes. And
+then, by slow degrees, the image of Judith Temple had stolen upon him.
+It was very gradual, it was many months in coming, but, when at last it
+dawned upon him, it was a sort of glorious surprise. How stupid, how
+blind had he been! Where were his doubts and questionings? Could anybody
+doubt Judith Temple's sympathy and understanding? He remembered the
+quaint words of the Jewish king, "The heart of her husband doth safely
+trust." He had seen enough of the way these weaker women had striven to
+bend him, but Judith had the beautiful charm of bending herself. She
+could be whatever the man she loved desired her to be. Throckmorton at
+once felt that any man married to Judith Temple would indeed be free,
+and how sweet would it be to see that proud spirit that yielded but
+seldom bend to his will! That homage, so rare and precious, was what
+women of her type paid to the master-passion. Most women that he had
+ever seen yielded to the predominant influence; but women like Judith
+Temple bent their heads and smiled and played at humility, but yielded
+not one inch of their soul's standing-ground until the moment came.
+Throckmorton, who possessed true masculine courage, admired this kind of
+feminine bravery. He felt that to conquer such a woman would be like
+capturing a Roman standard. And how utterly those proud women
+surrendered when they did surrender! He could fancy Judith's brave
+pretenses melting away; how charming would be her sweet inexperience!
+How quickly she would persuade herself that there was nothing so wise,
+true, just as love! Throckmorton, although he had silenced his
+discernment, had never strangled it, and he began to study and know
+Judith. But there was no suspicion in his mind that she cared anything
+for him; and, when he made up his mind to return to Millenbeck and see
+her again, he was anything but sanguine. He felt that if he failed it
+would make infinitely more difference to him than anything that had ever
+happened to him in life before. He was absolutely afraid, and fear, he
+knew, when it came to men like him, meant something overmastering.
+Throckmorton sighed when he realized his want of courage. He knew it
+would be forthcoming in an emergency; he had felt that in battle, where
+his first tremors never made him doubt for an instant that when the time
+came to use his courage it would be there; but it was a new thing to
+fear his fate at the hands of a woman. But the woman had become much
+more to him than any other woman had ever been; she was so much to him
+that it rather appalled him.
+
+Nevertheless, anxieties or no anxieties, he went about winning Judith
+with the same coolness and deliberation he did everything else. He had
+two months' leave, and he determined to spend it all at Millenbeck.
+Judith might break his heart, but she should not defraud him of those
+months in her society that he had promised himself for a good while
+before. For a long time past in his pleasant quarters at his post, in
+his regular round of duty, in the part he took in social life, he had
+comforted himself with the idea that, whether he was destined to this
+greater happiness or not, he would at least see this woman of all women;
+he would hear her soft voice, listen to her talk, seasoned with a
+dainty, womanly wit. Nobody should deprive him of that. He began to
+remember with a frown Jack's turpitude about Judith's letters. As soon
+as Jack found out that his father wanted to see those friendly, kindly
+letters, he made great ado about showing them, playing the major very
+much as he would a peculiarly game and warlike salmon. The cast in
+Throckmorton's eye was apt to come out so savagely at these times that
+he was, as Jack said, positively cross-eyed. But after Jack had worked
+him up into a silent rage, he would then produce the letters.
+Throckmorton had always taken women's letters as highly indicative, and
+Judith's were so refined, so sparkling in spite of the narrow round in
+which she lived, that Throckmorton's countenance immediately cleared and
+the cast disappeared from his eye as soon as he had got hold of one of
+these cherished epistles, all of which had been by no means lost on
+Jack.
+
+Throckmorton went and came between Barn Elms and Millenbeck in the most
+natural and neighborly way in the world. He brought books over to
+Judith, and often read aloud at Barn Elms in the evenings. General
+Temple, still hard at work on the History of Temple's Brigade, which now
+approached its seventh volume, found Throckmorton a mine of information.
+A soldier from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot,
+Throckmorton had a queer diffidence about speaking of his profession, in
+marked contrast to General Temple, who declaimed the science of war with
+same easy confidence with which Edmund Morford explained the inscrutable
+mysteries of religion. As Throckmorton watched General Temple stalking
+up and down the quaint old drawing-room, haranguing and expounding, the
+idea that this man had been intrusted with the fate of battle perfectly
+staggered him. His sense of humor was keen, and, between his
+professional horror of General Temple's methods and the utter absurdity
+of the whole thing, he would be convulsed with silent laughter. Judith,
+the picture of demureness, would give him a glance that would almost
+create an explosion. With much simplicity General Temple would add:
+
+"At that time, my dear Throckmorton, I was unfortunately separated from
+my command. I conceive it to be the duty of the commander of troops to
+set them an example of personal courage, and so I occupied a slightly
+exposed position."
+
+Throckmorton did not doubt it in the least. The general's incapacity was
+only exceeded by his courage.
+
+Throckmorton's native modesty, as well as the fact that he knew a great
+deal about the war and his profession, kept him comparatively silent;
+but finding that, when he talked with General Temple about battles and
+campaigns, Judith's face gradually grew scarlet with suppressed
+excitement, and that like most women she was easily carried away by the
+recitals of adventure, he artfully took up the thread of conversation
+and surprised himself by his own eloquence. It was not like the almost
+forgotten Freke's polished and charming periods, but it was none the
+less eloquent for being rather brief and pointed; and once or twice
+when Judith paid him some little compliment, her speaking eyes conveying
+more meaning than her words, Throckmorton would be seized with a fit of
+bashfulness, and clapping his rusty but still cherished blue cap on his
+head would go home and never say "war" for a week.
+
+Their lives were so quiet, so shut out from even the small world of a
+provincial neighborhood, that nothing was known or talked of about them.
+Judith, who was capable of revenge, felt a deep resentment against the
+county people. She, who before Jacqueline's death had been all sweetness
+and affability, showed a kind of haughtiness to the people who were well
+enough disposed to make amends to the Barn Elms family. Throckmorton
+noticed, when she went out of church behind General and Mrs. Temple,
+holding her boy by the hand, that the father and mother stopped and
+talked as neighbors in the country do, but Judith made straight for the
+rickety carriage which Simon Peter still drove.
+
+The two months were nearly over. Throckmorton and Judith had seen much
+of each other, but there had been no exchange of intimate thoughts
+between them but once. This was one afternoon when they were alone at
+Barn Elms, that Throckmorton talked openly of Jacqueline.
+
+"It is not treason to her, poor child," he said, "but--it was--a
+mistake. I truly loved her. I had thought that love was impossible to me
+after the loss I suffered so many years ago. But it was a madness; and,
+however delicious the madness of youth may be, when a man has reached my
+time of life he knows it to be madness. I have never dared to think what
+would the ultimate end have been had she lived and married me. The
+certainty one has of happiness is the life of love; but that certainty I
+never had. I never knew whether Jacqueline's love would be enough for
+me, even had it been mine; and I could never shake off a horrible fear
+that mine would not be enough for her."
+
+Judith, who had listened silently to this, suddenly leaned forward and
+gazed at him involuntarily. The thought in her mind was, that no
+ordinary woman would be enough for Throckmorton. He could give much, but
+he would ask for much. Like all men of commanding sense and character,
+he was exacting.
+
+Throckmorton could not follow her thought--he only saw her deep and
+expressive eyes, the pensive droop of her mouth, all the refined beauty
+of her face. He began to think how she would blossom out under the
+influence of happiness; what a happy, merry, delightful creature she
+would be if she loved; and something in his fixed and ardent gaze made
+Judith draw back, and brought the slight flush to her face, that meant
+much for her. She trembled a little, and Throckmorton saw it. When he
+returned to Millenbeck, he sat up half the night smoking strong
+cigars--the prosaic way in which his agitations always worked themselves
+off--lost in a delicious reverie of what might be. Here was a woman who
+appealed to his pride as much as to his love. Throckmorton, who was
+practical as well as romantic, thought it a very good thing for a man to
+marry a woman he could be proud of. Yet, when the last embers of the
+library fire had died out, and the cigars had given out too, and he
+began to be chill and stiff, sitting in his great arm-chair, he felt
+discouraged, and said almost out aloud, "I don't believe she will marry
+me."
+
+It grew toward the last days of Throckmorton's stay. He had gone to but
+few places in the county. The temper of the people toward him had
+changed since he first came there; every year had brought its crop of
+tolerance, but it had ceased to be of importance to him. Indeed, but one
+thing mattered to him then--whether Judith would marry him. But he
+deliberately put off the decisive moment until the very afternoon before
+he was to leave. He had in vain tried to find out whether the friendly
+regret at his going that she expressed concealed a deeper feeling, but
+Judith was too clever for him. She had gone through the whole range of
+feeling since she first knew him, and now was better armed than she had
+ever been before.
+
+He walked over to Barn Elms on that last afternoon, feeling very much
+as he had done years before, when, after long waiting, with the thunder
+of cannon in his ears and the smoke of musketry before his eyes, the
+order had come for him to move forward. It was well enough to think and
+plan before--but now, it was time to act; and, just as in that time of
+battle, he became cool and confident as soon as he was brought face to
+face with danger.
+
+He timed his visit just when he knew Judith would be taking her
+afternoon walk with little Beverley. Sure enough, she was out. He stayed
+a little while with General and Mrs. Temple. When he rose to go, he
+said, quite boldly, to Mrs. Temple:
+
+"I am going to find Judith."
+
+He had never called her by her name before, and did it unconsciously.
+Mrs. Temple, though, who was acute as most women are about these things,
+looked at him steadily. Throckmorton colored a little, but his eye had
+never drooped before any woman's, not even Mrs. Temple's. But she, after
+a little pause, laid her hand on his shoulder--he was not a tall man,
+like General Temple, and she could easily reach it--and said: "I hope
+you--will find Judith, George Throckmorton."
+
+He went forth and struck out toward the belt of fragrant pines, where he
+knew Judith oftenest walked. It was spring again--April, with the
+delicious smell of the newly plowed earth in the air, and the faint
+perfume of the coming leaves--the putting-forth time. The entrancing
+stillness that all people born and nurtured in the country love so much
+was upon the soul of Nature. The dreamy and solemn murmur of the pines
+seemed only to make the greater silence obvious. In a little while he
+saw Judith's graceful figure coming his way. She wore a pale-gray gown,
+and a large black hat shaded her face. In her hand she carried a branch
+of the pale-pink dogwood, that does not grow by open roads and
+farm-fields, but in the depths of the woods. Beverley, with another
+branch of dogwood across his shoulder, like a gun, marched sturdily
+ahead of her. Throckmorton, who had carefully guarded his behavior since
+he had been home, was quite reckless now. He meant to risk it, and since
+all depended on the cast of a die, prudence was superfluous. He took
+Judith's hand and held it until he saw the red blood steal into her
+face. He looked at her so, that she could not lift her eyes from the
+ground. Beverley, however, claimed his rights. He and Throckmorton were
+great friends.
+
+"How you _is_?" he asked, offering his chubby hand and looking up
+fearlessly into Throckmorton's face. The child had lost his mother's
+shy, appealing glance. He was a little man, instead of a baby, as he
+often told her proudly. "I'm going to be a soldier, I am," was his next
+remark, "and I'm going to be a brave soldier."
+
+"That's right," said Throckmorton, "and, as I'm a soldier, too, perhaps
+I'll help you along."
+
+"Will you make me a soldier?" asked Beverley, pushing his cap back off
+his curly head.
+
+"Yes, if you will go immediately home--all by yourself. You see--it
+isn't far--just along the path and through the gap, to the orchard, and
+then to the house."
+
+Beverley looked meditatively at the distance. It seemed a perilous way
+for a six-year old. Judith stood, crimson and helpless. Throckmorton was
+a masterful man, and, when he took things in his own hands, he was apt
+to have his own way. She knew at once what he meant, and it gave her a
+kind of shock--she seemed about to be transported to another world. This
+sending away of her child was what nobody had ever done before.
+Throckmorton, smiling, said to the boy, "A soldier shouldn't be afraid."
+
+"I'm not afraid of nothin'," answered Beverley, stoutly. Judith stooped
+toward him, and the child threw his arms about her and kissed her--a
+kiss she passionately returned. She felt it to be her farewell to him as
+the first object of her existence. She knew that he was to be
+supplanted. The boy trotted off, not looking behind once.
+
+"See how brave he is, for a little fellow," she said, still blushing.
+
+"Yes, very brave. But you are a woman of great courage. You gave some of
+it to that boy."
+
+Throckmorton was no laggard in love. He lost not a moment. He, who was
+by nature reticent, became, under the influence of the master-passion,
+bold and ready of speech. Judith, who was by nature of a sweet and
+humorous talkativeness, became eloquently silent--her heart seemed to
+melt into an ineffable softness and yielding. She said one thing,
+though, as they turned to walk home through the delicious purple
+twilight:
+
+"I think men can love more than once; but I don't think women can love
+but once."
+
+Throckmorton perfectly understood her.
+
+When they walked together across the lawn, under the gnarled locusts and
+poplars, they saw General and Mrs. Temple standing on the steps of the
+old house, with little Beverley between them. Throckmorton watched
+Judith jealously to see if there was anything like shame or apology in
+her look; but she, who could not look him in the face when they were
+alone in their secret paradise, now held her head up proudly. Nobody
+could have told, from Throckmorton's quiet self-possession, that
+anything unusual had occurred; but never before had he known anything
+like the deep delight that now enthralled him.
+
+                         THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+A SIX-CYLINDER COURTSHIP, By Edw. Salisbury Field
+
+     With a color frontispiece by Harrison Fisher, and illustrations
+     by Clarence F. Underwood, decorated pages and end sheets.
+     Harrison Fisher head in colors on cover. Boxed.
+
+A story of cleverness. It is a jolly good romance of love at first sight
+that will be read with undoubted pleasure. Automobiling figures in the
+story which is told with light, bright touches, while a happy gift of
+humor permeates it all.
+
+"The book is full of interesting folks. The patois of the garage is used
+with full comic and realistic effect, and effervescently, culminating in
+the usual happy finish."--_St. Louis Mirror._
+
+AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW, By Gene Stratton-Porter Author of "FRECKLES"
+
+     With illustrations in color by Oliver Kemp, decorations by
+     Ralph Fletcher Seymour and inlay cover in colors.
+
+The story is one of devoted friendship, and tender self-sacrificing
+love; the friendship that gives freely without return, and the love that
+seeks first the happiness of the object. The novel is brimful of the
+most beautiful word painting of nature and its pathos and tender
+sentiment will endear it to all.
+
+JUDITH OF THE CUMBERLANDS, By Alice MacGowan
+
+     With illustrations in colors, and inlay cover by George Wright.
+
+No one can fail to enjoy this moving tale with its lovely and ardent
+heroine, its frank, fearless hero, its glowing love passages, and its
+variety of characters, captivating or engaging, humorous or saturnine,
+villains, rascals, and men of good will. A tale strong and interesting
+in plot, faithful and vivid as a picture of wild mountain life, and in
+its characterization full of warmth and glow.
+
+A MILLION A MINUTE, By Hudson Douglas
+
+     With illustrations by Will Grefe.
+
+Has the catchiest of titles, and it is a ripping good tale from Chapter
+I to Finis--no weighty problems to be solved, but just a fine running
+story, full of exciting incidents, that never seemed strained or
+improbable. It is a dainty love yarn involving three men and a girl.
+There is not a dull or trite situation in the book.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     BEVERLY OF GRAUSTARK. By George Barr McCutcheon. With Color
+     Frontispiece and other illustrations by Harrison Fisher.
+     Beautiful inlay picture in colors of Beverly on the cover.
+
+"The most fascinating, engrossing and picturesque of the season's
+novels."--_Boston Herald._ "'Beverly' is altogether charming--almost
+living flesh and blood."--_Louisville Times._ "Better than
+'Graustark'."--_Mail and Express._ "A sequel quite as impossible as
+'Graustark' and quite as entertaining."--_Bookman._ "A charming love
+story well told."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+     HALF A ROGUE. By Harold MacGrath. With illustrations and inlay
+     cover picture by Harrison Fisher.
+
+"Here are dexterity of plot, glancing play at witty talk, characters
+really human and humanly real, spirit and gladness, freshness and quick
+movement. 'Half a Rogue' is as brisk as a horseback ride on a glorious
+morning. It is as varied as an April day. It is as charming as two most
+charming girls can make it. Love and honor and success and all the great
+things worth fighting for and living for the involved in 'Half a
+Rogue.'"--_Phila. Press._
+
+     THE GIRL FROM TIM'S PLACE. By Charles Clark Munn. With
+     illustrations by Frank T. Merrill.
+
+"Figuring in the pages of this story there are several strong
+characters. Typical New England folk and an especially sturdy one, old
+Cy Walker, through whose instrumentality Chip comes to happiness and
+fortune. There is a chain of comedy, tragedy, pathos and love, which
+makes a dramatic story."--_Boston Herald._
+
+     THE LION AND THE MOUSE. A story of American Life. By Charles
+     Klein, and Arthur Hornblow. With illustrations by Stuart
+     Travis, and Scenes from the Play.
+
+The novel duplicated the success of the play; in fact the book is
+greater than the play. A portentous clash of dominant personalities that
+form the essence of the play are necessarily touched upon but briefly in
+the short space of four acts. All this is narrated in the novel with a
+wealth of fascinating and absorbing detail, making it one of the most
+powerfully written and exciting works of fiction given to the world in
+years.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE AFFAIR AT THE INN. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With
+     illustrations by Martin Justice.
+
+"As superlatively clever in the writing as it is entertaining in the
+reading. It is actual comedy of the most artistic sort, and it is
+handled with a freshness and originality that is unquestionably
+novel."--_Boston Transcript._ "A feast of humor and good cheer, yet
+subtly pervaded by special shades of feeling, fancy, tenderness, or
+whimsicality. A merry thing in prose."--_St. Louis Democrat._
+
+     ROSE O' THE RIVER. By Kate Douglas Wiggin. With illustrations
+     by George Wright.
+
+"'Rose o' the River,' a charming bit of sentiment, gracefully written
+and deftly touched with a gentle humor. It is a dainty book--daintily
+illustrated."--_New York Tribune._ "A wholesome, bright, refreshing
+story, an ideal book to give a young girl."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+"An idyllic story, replete with pathos and inimitable humor. As
+story-telling it is perfection, and as portrait-painting it is true to
+the life."--_London Mail._
+
+     TILLIE: A Mennonite Maid. By Helen R. Martin. With
+     illustrations by Florence Scovel Shinn.
+
+The little "Mennonite Maid" who wanders through these pages is something
+quite new in fiction. Tillie is hungry for books and beauty and love;
+and she comes into her inheritance at the end. "Tillie is faulty,
+sensitive, big-hearted, eminently human, and first, last and always
+lovable. Her charm glows warmly, the story is well handled, the
+characters skilfully developed."--_The Book Buyer._
+
+     LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER. By Mrs. Humphry Ward. With illustrations
+     by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+"The most marvellous work of its wonderful author."--_New York World._
+"We touch regions and attain altitudes which it is not given to the
+ordinary novelist even to approach."--_London Times._ "In no other story
+has Mrs. Ward approached the brilliancy and vivacity of Lady Rose's
+Daughter."--_North American Review._
+
+     THE BANKER AND THE BEAR. By Henry K. Webster.
+
+"An exciting and absorbing story."--_New York Times._ "Intensely
+thrilling in parts, but an unusually good story all through. There is a
+love affair of real charm and most novel surroundings, there is a run on
+the bank which is almost worth a year's growth, and there is all manner
+of exhilarating men and deeds which should bring the book into high and
+permanent favor."--_Chicago Evening Post._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE CIRCULAR STAIRCASE, By Mary Roberts Reinhart With
+     illustrations by Lester Ralph.
+
+In an extended notice the _New York Sun_ says: "To readers who care for
+a really good detective story 'The Circular Staircase' can be
+recommended without reservation." The _Philadelphia Record_ declares
+that "The Circular Staircase" deserves the laurels for thrills, for
+weirdness and things unexplained and inexplicable.
+
+     THE RED YEAR, By Louis Tracy
+
+"Mr. Tracy gives by far the most realistic and impressive pictures of
+the horrors and heroisms of the Indian Mutiny that has been available
+in any book of the kind *** There has not been in modern times in the
+history of any land scenes so fearful, so picturesque, so dramatic, and
+Mr. Tracy draws them as with the pencil of a Verestschagin or the pen of
+a Sienkiewics."
+
+     ARMS AND THE WOMAN, By Harold MacGrath With inlay cover in
+     colors by Harrison Fisher.
+
+The story is a blending of the romance and adventure of the middle ages
+with nineteenth century men and women; and they are creations of flesh
+and blood, and not mere pictures of past centuries. The story is about
+Jack Winthrop, a newspaper man. Mr. MacGrath's finest bit of character
+drawing is seen in Hillars, the broken down newspaper man, and Jack's
+chum.
+
+     LOVE IS THE SUM OF IT ALL, By Geo. Cary Eggleston With
+     illustrations by Hermann Heyer.
+
+In this "plantation romance" Mr. Eggleston has resumed the manner and
+method that made his "Dorothy South" one of the most famous books of its
+time.
+
+There are three tender love stories embodied in it, and two unusually
+interesting heroines, utterly unlike each other, but each possessed of a
+peculiar fascination which wins and holds the reader's sympathy. A
+pleasing vein of gentle humor runs through the work, but the "sum of it
+all" is an intensely sympathetic love story.
+
+     HEARTS AND THE CROSS, By Harold Morton Cramer With
+     illustrations by Harold Matthews Brett.
+
+The hero is an unconventional preacher who follows the line of the Man
+of Galilee, associating with the lowly, and working for them in the ways
+that may best serve them. He is not recognized at his real value except
+by the one woman who saw clearly. Their love story is one of the
+refreshing things in recent fiction.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE SPIRIT OF THE SERVICE. By Edith Elmer Wood. With
+     illustrations by Rufus Zogbaum.
+
+The standards and life of "the new navy" are breezily set forth with a
+genuine ring impossible from the most gifted "outsider." "The story of
+the destruction of the 'Maine,' and of the Battle of Manila, are very
+dramatic. The author is the daughter of one naval officer and the wife
+of another. Naval folks will find much to interest them in 'The Spirit
+of the Service.'"--_The Book Buyer._
+
+     A SPECTRE OF POWER. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+Miss Murfree has pictured Tennessee mountains and the mountain people in
+striking colors and with dramatic vividness, but goes back to the time
+of the struggles of the French and English in the early eighteenth
+century for possession of the Cherokee territory. The story abounds in
+adventure, mystery, peril and suspense.
+
+     THE STORM CENTRE. By Charles Egbert Craddock.
+
+A war story; but more of flirtation, love and courtship than of fighting
+or history. The tale is thoroughly readable and takes its readers again
+into golden Tennessee, into the atmosphere which has distinguished all
+of Miss Murfree's novels.
+
+     THE ADVENTURESS. By Coralie Stanton. With color frontispiece by
+     Harrison Fisher, and attractive inlay cover in colors.
+
+As a penalty for her crimes, her evil nature, her flint-like
+callousness, her more than inhuman cruelty, her contempt for the laws of
+God and man, she was condemned to bury her magnificent personalty, her
+transcendent beauty, her superhuman charms, in gilded obscurity at a
+King's left hand. A powerful story powerfully told.
+
+     THE GOLDEN GREYHOUND. A Novel by Dwight Tilton. With
+     illustrations by E. Pollak.
+
+A thoroughly good story that keeps you guessing to the very end, and
+never attempts to instruct or reform you. It is a strictly up-to-date
+story of love and mystery with wireless telegraphy and all the modern
+improvements. The events nearly all take place on a big Atlantic liner
+and the romance of the deep is skilfully made to serve as a setting for
+the romance, old as mankind, yet always new, involving our hero.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     LAVENDER AND OLD LACE. By Myrtle Reed.
+
+A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance
+finds a modern parallel. One of the prettiest, sweetest, and quaintest
+of old-fashioned love stories *** A rare book, exquisite in spirit and
+conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness, of delightful humor
+and spontaneity. A dainty volume, especially suitable for a gift.
+
+     DOCTOR LUKE OF THE LABRADOR. By Norman Duncan. With a
+     frontispiece and inlay cover.
+
+How the doctor came to the bleak Labrador coast and there in saving life
+made expiation. In dignity, simplicity, humor, in sympathetic etching of
+a sturdy fisher people, and above all in the echoes of the sea, _Doctor
+Luke_ is worthy of great praise. Character, humor, poignant pathos, and
+the sad grotesque conjunctions of old and new civilizations are
+expressed through the medium of a style that has distinction and strikes
+a note of rare personality.
+
+     THE DAY'S WORK. By Rudyard Kipling. Illustrated.
+
+The _London Morning Post_ says: "It would be hard to find better reading
+*** the book is so varied, so full of color and life from end to end,
+that few who read the first two or three stories will lay it down till
+they have read the last--and the last is a veritable gem *** contains
+some of the best of his highly vivid work *** Kipling is a born
+story-teller and a man of humor into the bargain."
+
+     ELEANOR LEE. By Margaret E. Sangster. With a frontispiece.
+
+A story of married life, and attractive picture of wedded bliss *** an
+entertaining story or a man's redemption through a woman's love *** no
+one who knows anything of marriage or parenthood can read this story
+with eyes that are always dry *** goes straight to the heart of everyone
+who knows the meaning of "love" and "home."
+
+     THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS. By John Reed Scott. Illustrated
+     by Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+"Full of absorbing charm, sustained interest, and a wealth of thrilling
+and romantic situations. So naively fresh in its handling, so plausible
+through its naturalness, that it comes like a mountain breeze across the
+far-spreading desert of similar romances."--_Gazette-Times, Pittsburg._
+"A slap-dashing day romance."--_New York Sun._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE FAIR GOD; OR, THE LAST OF THE TZINS. By Lew Wallace. With
+     illustrations by Eric Pape.
+
+"The story tells of the love of a native princess for Alvarado, and it
+is worked out with all of Wallace's skill *** it gives a fine picture of
+the heroism of the Spanish conquerors and of the culture and nobility of
+the Aztecs."--_New York Commercial Advertiser._
+
+"_Ben Hur_ sold enormously, but _The Fair God_ was the best of the
+General's stories--a powerful and romantic treatment of the defeat of
+Montezuma by Cortes."--_Athenaeum._
+
+     THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS. By Louis Tracy.
+
+A story of love and the salt sea--of a helpless ship whirled into the
+hands of cannibal Fuegians--of desperate fighting and tender romance,
+enhanced by the art of a master of story telling who describes with his
+wonted felicity and power of holding the reader's attention *** filled
+with the swing of adventure.
+
+     A MIDNIGHT GUEST. A Detective Story. By Fred M. White. With a
+     frontispiece.
+
+The scene of the story centers in London and Italy. The book is
+skilfully written and makes one of the most baffling, mystifying,
+exciting detective stories ever written--cleverly keeping the suspense
+and mystery intact until the surprising discoveries which precede the
+end.
+
+     THE HONOUR OF SAVELLI. A Romance. By S. Levett Yeats. With
+     cover and wrapper in four colors.
+
+Those who enjoyed Stanley Weyman's _A Gentleman of France_ will be
+engrossed and captivated by this delightful romance of Italian history.
+It is replete with exciting episodes, hair-breath escapes, magnificent
+sword-play, and deals with the agitating times in Italian history when
+Alexander II was Pope and the famous and infamous Borgias were tottering
+to their fall.
+
+    SISTER CARRIE. By Theodore Drieser. With a frontispiece, and
+    wrapper in color.
+
+In all fiction there is probably no more graphic and poignant study of
+the way in which man loses his grip on life, lets his pride, his
+courage, his self-respect slip from him, and, finally, even ceases to
+struggle in the mire that has engulfed him. *** There is more tonic
+value in _Sister Carrie_ than in a whole shelfful of sermons.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     NEW CHRONICLES OF REBECCA, By Kate Douglas Wiggin With
+     illustrations by F. C. Yohn.
+
+Additional episodes in the girlhood of the delightful little heroine at
+Riverboro which were not included in the story of "Rebecca of Sunnybrook
+Farm," and they are as characteristic and delightful as any part of that
+famous story. Rebecca is as distinct a creation in the second volume as
+in the first.
+
+     THE SILVER BUTTERFLY, By Mrs. Wilson Woodrow With illustrations
+     in colors by Howard Chandler Christy.
+
+A story of love and mystery, full of color, charm, and vivacity, dealing
+with a South American mine, rich beyond dreams, and of a New York
+maiden, beyond dreams beautiful--both known as the Silver Butterfly.
+Well named is _The Silver Butterfly_! There could not be a better symbol
+of the darting swiftness, the eager love plot, the elusive mystery and
+the flashing wit.
+
+     BEATRIX OF CLARE, By John Reed Scott With illustrations by
+     Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+A spirited and irresistibly attractive historical romance of the
+fifteenth century, boldly conceived and skilfully carried out. In the
+hero and heroine Mr. Scott has created a pair whose mingled emotions and
+alternating hopes and fears will find a welcome in many lovers of the
+present hour. Beatrix is a fascinating daughter of Eve.
+
+     A LITTLE BROTHER OF THE RICH, By Joseph Medill Patterson
+     Frontispiece by Hazel Martyn Trudeau, and illustrations by
+     Walter Dean Goldbeck.
+
+Tells the story of the idle rich, and is a vivid and truthful picture of
+society and stage life written by one who is himself a conspicuous
+member of the Western millionaire class. Full of grim satire, caustic
+wit and flashing epigrams. "Is sensational to a degree in its theme,
+daring in its treatment, lashing society as it was never scourged
+before."--_New York Sun._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     BARBARA WINSLOW, REBEL, By Elizabeth Ellis With illustrations
+     by John Rae, and colored inlay cover.
+
+The following, taken from story, will best describe the heroine: A
+TOAST: "To the bravest comrade in misfortune, the sweetest companion in
+peace and at all times the most courageous of women."--_Barbara
+Winslow._ "A romantic story, buoyant, eventful, and in matters of love
+exactly what the heart could desire."--_New York Sun._
+
+     SUSAN, By Ernest Oldmeadow With a color frontispiece by Frank
+     Haviland. Medallion in color on front cover.
+
+Lord Ruddington falls helplessly in love with Miss Langley, whom he sees
+in one of her walks accompanied by her maid, Susan. Through a
+misapprehension of personalities his lordship addresses a love missive
+to the maid. Susan accepts in perfect good faith, and an epistolary
+love-making goes on till they are disillusioned. It naturally makes a
+droll and delightful little comedy; and is a story that is particularly
+clever in the telling.
+
+     WHEN PATTY WENT TO COLLEGE, By Jean Webster With illustrations
+     by C. D. Williams.
+
+"The book is a treasure."--_Chicago Daily News._ "Bright, whimsical, and
+thoroughly entertaining."--_Buffalo Express._ "One of the best stories
+of life in a girl's college that has ever been written."--_N.Y. Press._
+"To any woman who has enjoyed the pleasures of a college life this book
+cannot fail to bring back many sweet recollections; and to those who
+have not been to college the wit, lightness, and charm of Patty are sure
+to be no less delightful."--_Public Opinion._
+
+     THE MASQUERADER, By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by
+     Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+"You can't drop it till you have turned the last page."--_Cleveland
+Leader._ "Its very audacity of motive, of execution, of solution,
+almost takes one's breath away. The boldness of its denouement is
+sublime."--_Boston Transcript._ "The literary hit of a generation.
+The best of it is the story deserves all its success. A masterly
+story."--_St. Louis Dispatch._ "The story is ingeniously told, and
+cleverly constructed."--_The Dial._
+
+     THE GAMBLER, By Katherine Cecil Thurston With illustrations by
+     John Campbell.
+
+"Tells of a high strung young Irish woman who has a passion for
+gambling, inherited from a long line of sporting ancestors. She has a
+high sense of honor, too, and that causes complications. She is a very
+human, lovable character, and love saves her."--_N.Y. Times._
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     THE SHUTTLE, By Frances Hodgson Burnett With inlay cover in
+     colors by Clarence F. Underwood.
+
+This great international romance relates the story of an American girl
+who, in rescuing her sister from the ruins of her marriage to an
+Englishman of title, displays splendid qualities of courage, tact and
+restraint. As a study of American womanhood of modern times, the
+character of Bettina Vanderpoel stands alone in literature. As a love
+story, the account of her experience is magnificent. The masterly
+handling, the glowing style of the book, give it a literary rank to
+which very few modern novels have attained.
+
+     THE MAKING OF A MARCHIONESS, By Frances Hodgson Burnett
+     Illustrated with half tone engravings by Charles D. Williams.
+     With initial letters, tail-pieces, decorative borders.
+     Beautifully printed, and daintily bound, and boxed.
+
+A delightful novel in the author's most charming vein. The scene is laid
+in an English country house, where an amiable English nobleman is the
+centre of matrimonial interest on the part of both the English and
+Americans present.
+
+Graceful, sprightly, almost delicious in its dialogue and action. It is
+a book about which one is tempted to write ecstatically.
+
+     THE METHODS OF LADY WALDERHURST, By Francis Hodgson Burnett
+     A Companion Volume to "The Making of a Marchioness."
+     With illustrations by Charles D. Williams, and with initial
+     letters, tail-pieces, and borders, by A. K. Womrath.
+     Beautifully printed and daintily bound, and boxed.
+
+"The Methods of Lady Walderhurst" is a delightful story which combines
+the sweetness of "The Making of a Marchioness," with the dramatic
+qualities of "A Lady of Quality." Lady Walderhurst is one of the most
+charming characters in modern fiction.
+
+     VAYENNE, By Percy Brebner With illustrations by E. Fuhr.
+
+This romance like the author's _The Princess Maritza_ is charged to the
+brim with adventure. Sword play, bloodshed, justice grown the multitude,
+sacrifice, and romance, mingle in dramatic episodes that are born,
+flourish, and pass away on every page.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, Publishers, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+FAMOUS COPYRIGHT BOOKS IN POPULAR PRICED EDITIONS
+
+
+Re-issues of the great literary successes of the time. Library size.
+Printed on excellent paper--most of them with illustrations of marked
+beauty--and handsomely bound in cloth. Price, 75 cents a volume,
+postpaid.
+
+     DARREL OF THE BLESSED ISLES, By Irving Bacheller With
+     illustrations by Arthur Keller.
+
+"Darrel, the clock tinker, is a wit, philosopher, and man of mystery.
+Learned, strong, kindly, dignified, he towers like a giant above the
+people among whom he lives. It is another tale of the North Country,
+full of the odor of wood and field. Wit, humor, pathos and high thinking
+are in this book."--_Boston Transcript._
+
+     D'RI AND I: A Tale of Daring Deeds in the Second War with the
+     British. Being the Memoirs of Colonel Ramon Bell, U. S. A., By
+     Irving Bacheller With illustrations by F. C. Yohn.
+
+"Mr. Bacheller is admirable alike in his scenes of peace and war. D'ri,
+a mighty hunter, has the same dry humor as Uncle Eb. He fights
+magnificently on the 'Lawrence,' and was among the wounded when Perry
+went to the 'Niagara.' As a romance of early American history it is
+great for the enthusiasm it creates."--_New York Times._
+
+     EBEN HOLDEN: A Tale of the North Country, By Irving Bacheller.
+
+"As pure as water and as good as bread," says Mr. Howells. "Read 'Eben
+Holden'" is the advice of Margaret Sangster. "It is a forest-scented,
+fresh-aired, bracing and wholly American story of country and town life.
+*** If in the far future our successors wish to know what were the real
+life and atmosphere in which the country folk that saved this nation
+grew, loved, wrought and had their being, they must go back to such true
+and zestful and poetic tales of 'fiction' as 'Eben Holden,'" says Edmund
+Clarence Stedman.
+
+     SILAS STRONG: Emperor of the Woods, By Irving Bacheller With a
+     frontispiece.
+
+"A modern _Leatherstocking_. Brings the city dweller the aroma of the
+pine and the music of the wind in its branches--an epic poem ***
+forest-scented, fresh-aired, and wholly American. A stronger character
+than Eben Holden."--_Chicago Record-Herald._
+
+     VERGILIUS: A Tale of the Coming of Christ, By Irving Bacheller.
+
+A thrilling and beautiful story of two young Roman patricians whose
+great and perilous love in the reign of Augustus leads them through the
+momentous, exciting events that marked the year just preceding the birth
+of Christ.
+
+Splendid character studies of the Emperor Augustus, of Herod and his
+degenerate son, Antipater, and of his daughter "the incomparable"
+Salome. A great triumph in the art of historical portrait painting.
+
+GROSSET & DUNLAP, .. NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
+
+Minor changes have been made to correct typesetters' errors; otherwise,
+every effort has been made to remain true to the author's words and
+intent.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Throckmorton, by Molly Elliot Seawell
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THROCKMORTON ***
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