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+*****The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Conquest of Canaan*****
+#3 in our series by Booth Tarkington
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+The Conquest of Canaan
+
+by Booth Tarkington
+
+April, 1996  [Etext #483]
+[Date last updated: January 5, 2006]
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+
+
+THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
+BY BOOTH TARKINGTON
+
+
+
+
+
+To
+L.F.T.
+
+
+CONTENTS
+CHAPTER                                      
+I.      ENTER CHORUS 
+II.     A RESCUE 
+III.    OLD HOPES 
+IV.     THE DISASTER 
+V.      BEAVER BEACH 
+VI.     "YE'LL TAK' THE HIGH ROAD AND I'LL TAK' THE LOW ROAD" 
+VII.    GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME 
+VIII.   A BAD PENNY TURNS UP 
+IX.     OUTER DARKNESS 
+X.      THE TRYST 
+XI.     WHEN HALF-GODS GO 
+XII.    TO REMAIN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE IS NOT ALWAYS A VICTORY  
+XIII.   THE WATCHER AND THE WARDEN  
+XIV.    WHITE ROSES IN A LAW-OFFICE 
+XV.     HAPPY FEAR GIVES HIMSELF UP 
+XVI.    THE TWO CANAANS 
+XVII.   MR. SHEEHAN'S HINTS 
+XVIII.  IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY 
+XIX.    ESKEW ARP 
+XX.     THREE ARE ENLISTED  
+XXI.    NORBERT WAITS FOR JOE 
+XXII.   MR. SHEEHAN SPEAKS 
+XXIII.  JOE WALKS ACROSS THE COURT-HOUSE YARD 
+XXIV.   MARTIN PIKE KEEPS AN ENGAGEMENT 
+XXV.    THE JURY COMES IN 
+XXVI.   "ANCIENT OF DAYS" 
+
+
+
+THE CONQUEST OF CANAAN
+
+
+ENTER CHORUS
+
+I
+
+A dry snow had fallen steadily
+throughout the still night, so that
+when a cold, upper wind cleared the
+sky gloriously in the morning the
+incongruous Indiana town shone in a
+white harmony--roof, ledge, and earth as evenly
+covered as by moonlight.  There was no thaw;
+only where the line of factories followed the big
+bend of the frozen river, their distant chimneys like
+exclamation points on a blank page, was there a
+first threat against the supreme whiteness.  The
+wind passed quickly and on high; the shouting of
+the school-children had ceased at nine o'clock with
+pitiful suddenness; no sleigh-bells laughed out on
+the air; and the muffling of the thoroughfares
+wrought an unaccustomed peace like that of Sunday.
+This was the phenomenon which afforded the
+opening of the morning debate of the sages in the
+wide windows of the "National House."
+
+Only such unfortunates as have so far failed
+to visit Canaan do not know that the "National
+House" is on the Main Street side of the Courthouse
+Square, and has the advantage of being
+within two minutes' walk of the railroad station,
+which is in plain sight of the windows--an
+inestimable benefit to the conversation of the aged
+men who occupied these windows on this white
+morning, even as they were wont in summer to hold
+against all comers the cane-seated chairs on the
+pavement outside.  Thence, as trains came and
+went, they commanded the city gates, and, seeking
+motives and adding to the stock of history, narrowly
+observed and examined into all who entered or
+departed.  Their habit was not singular.  He who
+would foolishly tax the sages of Canaan with a
+bucolic light-mindedness must first walk in Piccadilly
+in early June, stroll down the Corso in Rome
+before Ash Wednesday, or regard those windows of
+Fifth Avenue whose curtains are withdrawn of a
+winter Sunday; for in each of these great streets,
+wherever the windows, not of trade, are widest, his
+eyes must behold wise men, like to those of Canaan,
+executing always their same purpose.
+
+The difference is in favor of Canaan; the "National
+House" was the club, but the perusal of
+traveller or passer by was here only the spume
+blown before a stately ship of thought; and you
+might hear the sages comparing the Koran with the
+speeches of Robert J. Ingersoll.
+
+In the days of board sidewalks, "mail-time" had
+meant a precise moment for Canaan, and even now,
+many years after the first postman, it remained
+somewhat definite to the aged men; for, out of
+deference to a pleasant, olden custom, and perhaps
+partly for an excuse to "get down to the hotel"
+(which was not altogether in favor with the elderly
+ladies), most of them retained their antique boxes
+in the post-office, happily in the next building.
+
+In this connection it may be written that a
+subscription clerk in the office of the Chicago
+Daily Standard, having noted a single subscriber
+from Canaan, was, a fortnight later, pleased to
+receive, by one mail, nine subscriptions from that
+promising town.  If one brought nine others in a
+fortnight, thought he, what would nine bring in a
+month?  Amazingly, they brought nothing, and
+the rest was silence.  Here was a matter of intricate
+diplomacy never to come within that youth his
+ken.  The morning voyage to the post-office,
+long mocked as a fable and screen by the families
+of the sages, had grown so difficult to accomplish 
+for one of them, Colonel Flitcroft (Colonel in the
+war with Mexico), that he had been put to it,
+indeed, to foot the firing-line against his wife (a lady
+of celebrated determination and hale-voiced at
+seventy), and to defend the rental of a box which
+had sheltered but three missives in four years.
+Desperation is often inspiration; the Colonel
+brilliantly subscribed for the Standard, forgetting to
+give his house address, and it took the others just
+thirteen days to wring his secret from him.  Then
+the Standard served for all.
+
+Mail-time had come to mean that bright hour
+when they all got their feet on the brass rod which
+protected the sills of the two big windows, with the
+steam-radiators sizzling like kettles against the
+side wall.  Mr. Jonas Tabor, who had sold his
+hardware business magnificently (not magnificently
+for his nephew, the purchaser) some ten years
+before, was usually, in spite of the fact that he
+remained a bachelor at seventy-nine, the last to settle
+down with the others, though often the first to reach
+the hotel, which he always entered by a side door,
+because he did not believe in the treating system.
+And it was Mr. Eskew Arp, only seventy-five, but
+already a thoroughly capable cynic, who, almost
+invariably "opened the argument," and it was he
+who discovered the sinister intention behind the
+weather of this particular morning.  Mr. Arp had 
+not begun life so sourly: as a youth he had been
+proud of his given name, which had come to him
+through his mother's family, who had made it
+honorable, but many years of explanations that
+Eskew did not indicate his initials had lowered his
+opinion of the intelligence and morality of the race.
+
+The malevolence of his voice and manner this
+morning, therefore, when he shook his finger at
+the town beyond the windows, and exclaimed,
+with a bitter laugh, "Look at it!" was no surprise
+to his companions.  "Jest look at it!  I tell you
+the devil is mighty smart.  Ha, ha!  Mighty
+smart!"
+
+Through custom it was the duty of Squire
+Buckalew (Justice of the Peace in '59) to be the
+first to take up Mr. Arp.  The others looked to
+him for it.  Therefore, he asked, sharply:
+
+"What's the devil got to do with snow?"
+
+"Everything to do with it, sir," Mr. Arp
+retorted.  "It's plain as day to anybody with eyes
+and sense."
+
+"Then I wish you'd p'int it out," said Buckalew,
+"if you've got either."
+
+"By the Almighty, Squire"--Mr. Arp turned in
+his chair with sudden heat--"if I'd lived as long
+as you--"
+
+"You have," interrupted the other, stung.
+"Twelve years ago!"
+
+"If I'd lived as long as you," Mr. Arp repeated,
+unwincingly, in a louder voice, "and had follered
+Satan's trail as long as you have, and yet couldn't
+recognize it when I see it, I'd git converted and
+vote Prohibitionist."
+
+"_I_ don't see it," interjected Uncle Joe Davey,
+in his querulous voice.  (He was the patriarch of
+them all.)  "_I_ can't find no cloven-hoof-prints in
+the snow."
+
+"All over it, sir!" cried the cynic.  "All over it!
+Old Satan loves tricks like this.  Here's a town
+that's jest one squirmin' mass of lies and envy and
+vice and wickedness and corruption--"
+
+"Hold on!" exclaimed Colonel Flitcroft.  "That's
+a slander upon our hearths and our government.
+Why, when I was in the Council--"
+
+"It wasn't a bit worse then," Mr. Arp returned,
+unreasonably.  "Jest you look how the devil fools us.
+He drops down this here virgin mantle on Canaan
+and makes it look as good as you pretend you
+think it is: as good as the Sunday-school room of a
+country church--though THAT"--he went off on a
+tangent, venomously--"is generally only another
+whited sepulchre, and the superintendent's mighty
+apt to have a bottle of whiskey hid behind the
+organ, and--"
+
+"Look here, Eskew," said Jonas Tabor, "that's
+got nothin' to do with--"
+
+"Why ain't it?  Answer me!" cried Mr. Arp,
+continuing, without pause:  "Why ain't it?  Can't
+you wait till I git through?  You listen to me, and
+when I'm ready I'll listen to--"
+
+"See here," began the Colonel, making himself
+heard over three others, "I want to ask you--"
+
+"No, sir!" Mr. Arp pounded the floor irascibly
+with his hickory stick.  "Don't you ask me anything!
+How can you tell that I'm not going to
+answer your question without your asking it, till
+I've got through?  You listen first.  I say, here's
+a town of nearly thirty thousand inhabitants,
+every last one of 'em--men, women, and children--
+selfish and cowardly and sinful, if you could see
+their innermost natures; a town of the ugliest and
+worst built houses in the world, and governed by a
+lot of saloon-keepers--though I hope it 'll never
+git down to where the ministers can run it.  And
+the devil comes along, and in one night--why, all
+you got to do is LOOK at it!  You'd think we needn't
+ever trouble to make it better.  That's what the
+devil wants us to do--wants us to rest easy about
+it, and paints it up to look like a heaven of peace
+and purity and sanctified spirits.  Snowfall like
+this would of made Lot turn the angel out-of-doors
+and say that the old home was good enough for
+him.  Gomorrah would of looked like a Puritan
+village--though I'll bet my last dollar that there 
+was a lot, and a WHOLE lot, that's never been told
+about Puritan villages.  A lot that--"
+
+"WHAT never was?" interrupted Mr. Peter
+Bradbury, whose granddaughter had lately announced
+her discovery that the Bradburys were descended
+from Miles Standish.  "What wasn't told about
+Puritan villages?"
+
+"Can't you wait?" Mr. Arp's accents were those
+of pain.  "Haven't I got ANY right to present my
+side of the case?  Ain't we restrained enough to
+allow of free speech here?  How can we ever git
+anywhere in an argument like this, unless we let
+one man talk at a time?  How--"
+
+"Go on with your statement," said Uncle Joe
+Davey, impatiently.
+
+Mr. Arp's grievance was increased.  "Now listen
+to YOU!  How many more interruptions are comin'?
+I'll listen to the other side, but I've got to state
+mine first, haven't I?  If I don't make my point
+clear, what's the use of the argument?
+Argumentation is only the comparison of two sides of a
+question, and you have to see what the first side
+IS before you can compare it with the other one,
+don't you?  Are you all agreed to that?"
+
+"Yes, yes," said the Colonel.  "Go ahead.  We
+won't interrupt until you're through."
+
+"Very well," resumed Mr. Arp, with a fleeting
+expression of satisfaction, "as I said before, I
+wish to--as I said--" He paused, in some
+confusion.  "As I said, argumentation is--that is, I
+say--"  He stopped again, utterly at sea, having
+talked himself so far out of his course that he was
+unable to recall either his sailing port or his
+destination.  Finally he said, feebly, to save the
+confession, "Well, go on with your side of it."
+
+This generosity was for a moment disconcerting;
+however, the quietest of the party took up the
+opposition--Roger Tabor, a very thin, old man
+with a clean-shaven face, almost as white as his
+hair, and melancholy, gentle, gray eyes, very unlike
+those of his brother Jonas, which were dark
+and sharp and button-bright.  (It was to Roger's
+son that Jonas had so magnificently sold the hardware
+business.)  Roger was known in Canaan as
+"the artist"; there had never been another of his
+profession in the place, and the town knew not the
+word "painter," except in application to the useful
+artisan who is subject to lead-poisoning.  There
+was no indication of his profession in the attire of
+Mr. Tabor, unless the too apparent age of his
+black felt hat and a neat patch at the elbow of his
+shiny, old brown overcoat might have been taken
+as symbols of the sacrifice to his muse which his
+life had been.  He was not a constant attendant
+of the conclave, and when he came it was usually
+to listen; indeed, he spoke so seldom that at the
+sound of his voice they all turned to him with
+some surprise.
+
+"I suppose," he began, "that Eskew means the
+devil is behind all beautiful things."
+
+"Ugly ones, too," said Mr. Arp, with a start of
+recollection.  "And I wish to state--"
+
+"Not now!" Colonel Flitcroft turned upon him
+violently.  "You've already stated it."
+
+"Then, if he is behind the ugly things, too," said
+Roger, "we must take him either way, so let us be
+glad of the beauty for its own sake.  Eskew says
+this is a wicked town.  It may be--I don't know.
+He says it's badly built; perhaps it is; but it doesn't
+seem to me that it's ugly in itself.  I don't know
+what its real self is, because it wears so many
+aspects.  God keeps painting it all the time, and
+never shows me twice the same picture; not even
+two snowfalls are just alike, nor the days that
+follow them; no more than two misty sunsets are
+alike--for the color and even the form of the
+town you call ugly are a matter of the season of
+the year and of the time of day and of the light
+and air.  The ugly town is like an endless gallery
+which you can walk through, from year-end to
+year-end, never seeing the same canvas twice, no
+matter how much you may want to--and there's
+the pathos of it.  Isn't it the same with people
+with the characters of all of us, just as it is with
+our faces?  No face remains the same for two
+successive days--"
+
+"It don't?" Colonel Flitcroft interrupted, with
+an explosive and rueful incredulity.  "Well, I'd
+like to--"  Second thoughts came to him almost
+immediately, and, as much out of gallantry as
+through discretion, fearing that he might be taken
+as thinking of one at home, he relapsed into
+silence.
+
+Not so with the others.  It was as if a
+firecracker had been dropped into a sleeping poultry-
+yard.  Least of all could Mr. Arp contain himself.
+At the top of his voice, necessarily, he agreed
+with Roger that faces changed, not only from day
+to day, and not only because of light and air and
+such things, but from hour to hour, and from
+minute to minute, through the hideous stimulus
+of hypocrisy.
+
+The "argument" grew heated; half a dozen tidy
+quarrels arose; all the sages went at it fiercely,
+except Roger Tabor, who stole quietly away.
+The aged men were enjoying themselves thoroughly,
+especially those who quarrelled.  Naturally, the
+frail bark of the topic which had been launched
+was whirled about by too many side-currents to
+remain long in sight, and soon became derelict,
+while the intellectual dolphins dove and tumbled
+in the depths.  At the end of twenty minutes
+Mr. Arp emerged upon the surface, and in his
+mouth was this:
+
+"Tell me, why ain't the Church--why ain't the
+Church and the rest of the believers in a future life
+lookin' for immortality at the other end of life,
+too?  If we're immortal, we always have been;
+then why don't they ever speculate on what we
+were before we were born?  It's because they're
+too blame selfish--don't care a flapdoodle about
+what WAS, all they want is to go on livin' forever."
+
+Mr. Arp's voice had risen to an acrid triumphancy,
+when it suddenly faltered, relapsed to a
+murmur, and then to a stricken silence, as a tall, fat
+man of overpowering aspect threw open the outer
+door near by and crossed the lobby to the clerk's
+desk.  An awe fell upon the sages with this advent.
+They were hushed, and after a movement in their
+chairs, with a strange effect of huddling, sat
+disconcerted and attentive, like school-boys at the
+entrance of the master.
+
+The personage had a big, fat, pink face and a
+heavily undershot jaw, what whitish beard he wore
+following his double chin somewhat after the manner
+displayed in the portraits of Henry the Eighth.
+His eyes, very bright under puffed upper lids, were
+intolerant and insultingly penetrating despite
+their small size.  Their irritability held a kind of
+hotness, and yet the personage exuded frost, not
+of the weather, all about him.  You could not
+imagine man or angel daring to greet this being
+genially--sooner throw a kiss to Mount Pilatus!
+
+"Mr. Brown," he said, with ponderous hostility,
+in a bull bass, to the clerk--the kind of voice
+which would have made an express train leave the
+track and go round the other way--"do you hear
+me?"
+
+"Oh yes, Judge," the clerk replied, swiftly, in
+tones as unlike those which he used for strange
+transients as a collector's voice in his ladylove's
+ear is unlike that which he propels at delinquents.
+
+"Do you see that snow?" asked the personage,
+threateningly.
+
+"Yes, Judge."  Mr. Brown essayed a placating
+smile.  "Yes, indeed, Judge Pike."
+
+"Has your employer, the manager of this hotel,
+seen that snow?" pursued the personage, with a
+gesture of unspeakable solemn menace.
+
+"Yes, sir.  I think so.  Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you think he fully understands that I am
+the proprietor of this building?"
+
+"Certainly, Judge, cer--"
+
+"You will inform him that I do not intend to
+be discommoded by his negligence as I pass to
+my offices.  Tell him from me that unless he keeps
+the sidewalks in front of this hotel clear of snow I
+will cancel his lease.  Their present condition is
+outrageous.  Do you understand me?  Outrageous!
+Do you hear?"
+
+"Yes, Judge, I do so," answered the clerk,
+hoarse with respect.  "I'll see to it this minute,
+Judge Pike."
+
+"You had better."  The personage turned
+himself about and began a grim progress towards the
+door by which he had entered, his eyes fixing
+themselves angrily upon the conclave at the windows.
+
+Colonel Flitcroft essayed a smile, a faltering one.
+
+"Fine weather, Judge Pike," he said, hopefully.
+
+There was no response of any kind; the undershot
+jaw became more intolerant.  The personage
+made his opinion of the group disconcertingly
+plain, and the old boys understood that he knew
+them for a worthless lot of senile loafers, as great a
+nuisance in his building as was the snow without;
+and much too evident was his unspoken threat
+to see that the manager cleared them out of there
+before long.
+
+He nodded curtly to the only man of substance
+among them, Jonas Tabor, and shut the door
+behind him with majestic insult.  He was Canaan's
+millionaire.
+
+He was one of those dynamic creatures who
+leave the haunting impression of their wills
+behind them, like the tails of Bo-Peep's sheep, like
+the evil dead men have done; he left his intolerant
+image in the ether for a long time after he had
+gone, to confront and confound the aged men and
+hold them in deferential and humiliated silence.
+Each of them was mysteriously lowered in his own
+estimation, and knew that he had been made to
+seem futile and foolish in the eyes of his fellows.
+They were all conscious, too, that the clerk had
+been acutely receptive of Judge Pike's reading of
+them; that he was reviving from his own squelchedness
+through the later snubbing of the colonel;
+also that he might further seek to recover his
+poise by an attack on them for cluttering up the
+office.
+
+Naturally, Jonas Tabor was the first to speak.
+"Judge Pike's lookin' mighty well," he said, admiringly.
+
+"Yes, he is," ventured Squire Buckalew, with
+deference; "mighty well."
+
+"Yes, sir," echoed Peter Bradbury; "mighty
+well."
+
+"He's a great man," wheezed Uncle Joe Davey;
+"a great man, Judge Martin Pike; a great man!"
+
+"I expect he has considerable on his mind,"
+said the Colonel, who had grown very red.  "I
+noticed that he hardly seemed to see us."
+
+"Yes, sir," Mr. Bradbury corroborated, with an
+attempt at an amused laugh.  "I noticed it, too.
+Of course a man with all his cares and interests
+must git absent-minded now and then."
+
+"Of course he does," said the colonel.  "A
+man with all his responsibilities--"
+
+"Yes, that's so," came a chorus of the brethren,
+finding comfort and reassurance as their voices and
+spirits began to recover from the blight.
+
+"There's a party at the Judge's to-night," said
+Mr. Bradbury--"kind of a ball Mamie Pike's givin'
+for the young folks.  Quite a doin's, I hear."
+
+"That's another thing that's ruining Canaan,"
+Mr. Arp declared, morosely.  "These entertainments
+they have nowadays.  Spend all the money
+out of town--band from Indianapolis, chicken
+salad and darkey waiters from Chicago!  And
+what I want to know is, What's this town goin' to
+do about the nigger question?"
+
+"What about it?" asked Mr. Davey, belligerently.
+
+"What about it?" Mr. Arp mocked, fiercely.
+"You better say, `What about it?' "
+
+"Well, what?" maintained Mr. Davey, steadfastly.
+
+"I'll bet there ain't any less than four thousand
+niggers in Canaan to-day!" Mr. Arp hammered
+the floor with his stick.  "Every last one of 'em
+criminals, and more comin' on every train."
+
+"No such a thing," said Squire Buckalew, living
+up to his bounden duty.  "You look down the
+street.  There's the ten-forty-five comin' in now.
+I'll bet you a straight five-cent Peek-a-Boo cigar
+there ain't ary nigger on the whole train, except
+the sleepin'-car porters."
+
+"What kind of a way to argue is that?"
+demanded Mr. Arp, hotly.  "Bettin' ain't proof, is
+it?  Besides, that's the through express from the
+East.  I meant trains from the South."
+
+"You didn't say so," retorted Buckalew,
+triumphantly.  "Stick to your bet, Eskew, stick to
+your bet."
+
+"My bet!" cried the outraged Eskew.  "Who
+offered to bet?"
+
+"You did," replied the Squire, with perfect
+assurance and sincerity.  The others supported
+him in the heartiest spirit of on-with-the-dance,
+and war and joy were unconfined.
+
+A decrepit hack or two, a couple of old-fashioned
+surreys, and a few "cut-unders" drove by, bearing
+the newly arrived and their valises, the hotel
+omnibus depositing several commercial travellers
+at the door.  A solitary figure came from the
+station on foot, and when it appeared within fair
+range of the window, Uncle Joe Davey, who had
+but hovered on the flanks of the combat, first
+removed his spectacles and wiped them, as though
+distrusting the vision they offered him, then, 
+replacing them, scanned anew the approaching figure
+and uttered a smothered cry.
+
+"My Lord A'mighty!" he gasped.  "What's
+this?  Look there!"
+
+They looked.  A truce came involuntarily, and
+they sat in paralytic silence as the figure made its
+stately and sensational progress along Main Street.
+
+Not only the aged men were smitten.  Men
+shovelling snow from the pavements stopped suddenly
+in their labors; two women, talking busily
+on a doorstep, were stilled and remained in frozen
+attitudes as it passed; a grocer's clerk, crossing
+the pavement, carrying a heavily laden basket to
+his delivery wagon, halted half-way as the figure
+came near, and then, making a pivot of his heels
+as it went by, behaved towards it as does the
+magnetic needle to the pole.
+
+It was that of a tall gentleman, cheerfully, though
+somewhat with ennui, enduring his nineteenth
+winter.  His long and slender face he wore smiling,
+beneath an accurately cut plaster of dark hair
+cornicing his forehead, a fashion followed by many
+youths of that year.  This perfect bang was shown
+under a round black hat whose rim was so small as
+almost not to be there at all; and the head was
+supported by a waxy-white sea-wall of collar,
+rising three inches above the blue billows of a puffed
+cravat, upon which floated a large, hollow pearl.
+His ulster, sporting a big cape at the shoulders,
+and a tasselled hood over the cape, was of a rough
+Scotch cloth, patterned in faint, gray-and-white
+squares the size of baggage-checks, and it was so
+long that the skirts trailed in the snow.  His legs
+were lost in the accurately creased, voluminous
+garments that were the tailors' canny reaction
+from the tight trousers with which the 'Eighties had
+begun: they were, in color, a palish russet, broadly
+striped with gray, and, in size, surpassed the milder
+spirit of fashion so far as they permitted a liberal
+knee action to take place almost without superficial
+effect.  Upon his feet glistened long shoes,
+shaped, save for the heels, like sharp racing-shells;
+these were partially protected by tan-colored low
+gaiters with flat, shiny, brown buttons.  In one
+hand the youth swung a bone-handled walking-
+stick, perhaps an inch and a half in diameter, the
+other carried a yellow leather banjo-case, upon the
+outer side of which glittered the embossed-silver
+initials, "E. B."  He was smoking, but walked
+with his head up, making use, however, of a gait at
+that time new to Canaan, a seeming superbly
+irresponsible lounge, engendering much motion
+of the shoulders, producing an effect of carelessness
+combined with independence--an effect which the
+innocent have been known to hail as an unconscious one.
+
+He looked about him as he came, smilingly, with
+an expression of princely amusement--as an elderly
+cabinet minister, say, strolling about a village
+where he had spent some months in his youth, a
+hamlet which he had then thought large and imposing,
+but which, being revisited after years of
+cosmopolitan glory, appeals to his whimsy and his
+pity.  The youth's glance at the court-house
+unmistakably said:  "Ah, I recall that odd little box.
+I thought it quite large in the days before I
+became what I am now, and I dare say the good
+townsfolk still think it an imposing structure!"
+With everything in sight he deigned to be amused,
+especially with the old faces in the "National
+House" windows.  To these he waved his stick
+with airy graciousness.
+
+"My soul!" said Mr. Davey.  "It seems to
+know some of us!"
+
+"Yes," agreed Mr. Arp, his voice recovered,
+"and _I_ know IT."
+
+"You do?" exclaimed the Colonel.
+
+"I do, and so do you.  It's Fanny Louden's boy,
+'Gene, come home for his Christmas holidays."
+
+"By George! you're right," cried Flitcroft; "I
+recognize him now."
+
+"But what's the matter with him?" asked Mr.
+Bradbury, eagerly.  "Has he joined some patent-
+medicine troupe?"
+
+"Not a bit," replied Eskew.  "He went East
+to college last fall."
+
+"Do they MAKE the boys wear them clothes?"
+persisted Bradbury.  "Is it some kind of uniform?"
+
+"I don't care what it is," said Jonas Tabor.  "If
+I was Henry Louden I wouldn't let him wear 'em
+around here."
+
+"Oh, you wouldn't, wouldn't you, Jonas?" Mr.
+Arp employed the accents of sarcasm.  "I'd like to
+see Henry Louden try to interfere with 'Gene
+Bantry.  Fanny'd lock the old fool up in the
+cellar."
+
+The lofty vision lurched out of view.
+
+"I reckon," said the Colonel, leaning forward to
+see the last of it--"I reckon Henry Louden's about
+the saddest case of abused step-father I ever saw."
+
+"It's his own fault," said Mr. Arp--"twice not
+havin' sense enough not to marry.  Him with a
+son of his own, too!"
+
+"Yes," assented the Colonel, "marryin' a widow
+with a son of her own, and that widow Fanny!"
+
+"Wasn't it just the same with her first husband
+--Bantry?" Mr. Davey asked, not for information,
+as he immediately answered himself.  "You bet
+it was!  Didn't she always rule the roost?  Yes,
+she did.  She made a god of 'Gene from the day
+he was born.  Bantry's house was run for him, like
+Louden's is now."
+
+"And look," exclaimed Mr. Arp, with satisfaction,
+"at the way he's turned out!"
+
+"He ain't turned out at all yet; he's too young,"
+said Buckalew.  "Besides, clothes don't make the
+man."
+
+"Wasn't he smokin' a cigareet!" cried Eskew,
+triumphantly.  This was final.
+
+"It's a pity Henry Louden can't do something
+for his own son," said Mr. Bradbury.  "Why don't
+he send him away to college?"
+
+"Fanny won't let him," chuckled Mr. Arp,
+malevolently.  "Takes all their spare change to
+keep 'Gene there in style.  I don't blame her.
+'Gene certainly acts the fool, but that Joe Louden
+is the orneriest boy I ever saw in an ornery world-
+full."
+
+"He always was kind of misCHEEvous," admitted
+Buckalew.  "I don't think he's mean, though, and
+it does seem kind of not just right that Joe's father's
+money--Bantry didn't leave anything to speak
+of--has to go to keepin' 'Gene on the fat of the
+land, with Joe gittin' up at half-past four to carry
+papers, and him goin' on nineteen years old."
+
+"It's all he's fit for!" exclaimed Eskew.  "He's
+low down, I tell ye.  Ain't it only last week Judge
+Pike caught him shootin' craps with Pike's nigger
+driver and some other nigger hired-men in the
+alley back of Pike's barn."
+
+Mr. Schindlinger, the retired grocer, one of the
+silent members, corroborated Eskew's information.
+"I heert dot, too," he gave forth, in his fat voice.
+"He blays dominoes pooty often in der room back
+off Louie Farbach's tsaloon.  I see him myself.
+Pooty often.  Blayin' fer a leedle money--mit
+loafers!  Loafers!"
+
+"Pretty outlook for the Loudens!" said Eskew
+Arp, much pleased.  "One boy a plum fool and
+dressed like it, the other gone to the dogs already!"
+
+"What could you expect Joe to be?" retorted
+Squire Buckalew.  "What chance has he ever
+had?  Long as I can remember Fanny's made
+him fetch and carry for 'Gene.  'Gene's had everything
+--all the fancy clothes, all the pocket-money,
+and now college!"
+
+"You ever hear that boy Joe talk politics?"
+asked Uncle Joe Davey, crossing a cough with a
+chuckle.  "His head's so full of schemes fer running
+this town, and state, too, it's a wonder it don't
+bust.  Henry Louden told me he's see Joe set
+around and study by the hour how to save three
+million dollars for the state in two years."
+
+"And the best he can do for himself," added
+Eskew, "is deliverin' the Daily Tocsin on a second-
+hand Star bicycle and gamblin' with niggers and
+riff-raff!  None of the nice young folks invite him
+to their doin's any more."
+
+"That's because he's got so shabby he's quit
+goin' with em," said Buckalew.
+
+"No, it ain't," snapped Mr. Arp.  "It's
+because he's so low down.  He's no more 'n a town
+outcast.  There ain't ary one of the girls 'll have
+a thing to do with him, except that rip-rarin' tom-
+boy next door to Louden's; and the others don't
+have much to do with HER, neither, I can tell ye.
+That Arie Tabor--"
+
+Colonel Flitcroft caught him surreptitiously by
+the arm.  "SH, Eskew!" he whispered.  "Look
+out what you're sayin'!"
+
+"You needn't mind me," Jonas Tabor spoke up,
+crisply.  "I washed my hands of all responsibility
+for Roger's branch of the family long ago.  Never
+was one of 'em had the energy or brains to make
+a decent livin', beginning with Roger; not one
+worth his salt!  I set Roger's son up in business,
+and all the return he ever made me was to go into
+bankruptcy and take to drink, till he died a sot,
+like his wife did of shame.  I done all I could
+when I handed him over my store, and I never
+expect to lift a finger for 'em again.  Ariel Tabor's
+my grandniece, but she didn't act like it, and you
+can say anything you like about her, for what I
+care.  The last time I spoke to her was a year
+and a half ago, and I don't reckon I'll ever trouble
+to again."
+
+"How was that, Jonas?" quickly inquired Mr.
+Davey, who, being the eldest of the party, was the
+most curious.  "What happened?"
+
+"She was out in the street, up on that high
+bicycle of Joe Louden's.  He was teachin' her to
+ride, and she was sittin' on it like a man does.  I
+stopped and told her she wasn't respectable.
+Sixteen years old, goin' on seventeen!"
+
+"What did she say?"
+
+"Laughed," said Jonas, his voice becoming
+louder as the recital of his wrongs renewed their
+sting in his soul.  "Laughed!"
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"I went up to her and told her she wasn't a
+decent girl, and shook the wheel."  Mr. Tabor
+illustrated by seizing the lapels of Joe Davey and
+shaking him.  "I told her if her grandfather had
+any spunk she'd git an old-fashioned hidin' for
+behavin' that way.  And I shook the wheel again."
+Here Mr. Tabor, forgetting in the wrath incited
+by the recollection that he had not to do with an
+inanimate object, swung the gasping and helpless
+Mr. Davey rapidly back and forth in his chair.
+"I shook it good and hard!"
+
+"What did she do then?" asked Peter Bradbury.
+
+"Fell off on me," replied Jonas, violently.  "On
+purpose!"
+
+"I wisht she'd killed ye," said Mr. Davey, in a
+choking voice, as, released, he sank back in his
+chair.
+
+"On purpose!" repeated Jonas.  "And smashed
+a straw hat I hadn't had three months!  All to
+pieces!  So it couldn't be fixed!"
+
+"And what then?" pursued Bradbury.
+
+"SHE ran," replied Jonas, bitterly--" ran!  And
+Joe Louden--Joe Louden--"  He paused and
+gulped.
+
+"What did he do?" Peter leaned forward in
+his chair eagerly.
+
+The narrator of the outrage gulped again, and
+opened and shut his mouth before responding.
+
+"He said if I didn't pay for a broken spoke on
+his wheel he'd have to sue me!"
+
+No one inquired if Jonas had paid, and Jonas
+said no more.  The recollection of his wrongs,
+together with the illustrative violence offered to
+Mr. Davey, had been too much for him.  He sank
+back, panting, in his chair, his hands fluttering
+nervously over his heart, and closed his eyes.
+
+"I wonder why," ruminated Mr. Bradbury--"I
+wonder why 'Gene Bantry walked up from the
+deepo.  Don't seem much like his style.  Should
+think he'd of rode up in a hack."
+
+"Sho!" said Uncle Joe Davey, his breath
+recovered.  "He wanted to walk up past Judge
+Pike's, to see if there wasn't a show of Mamie's
+bein' at the window, and give her a chance to look
+at that college uniform and banjo-box and new
+walk of his."
+
+Mr. Arp began to show signs of uneasiness.
+
+"I'd like mighty well to know," he said,
+shifting round in his chair, "if there's anybody here
+that's been able to answer the question I PUT,
+yesterday, just before we went home.  You all
+tried to, but I didn't hear anything I could
+consider anyways near even a fair argument."
+
+"Who tried to?" asked Buckalew, sharply,
+sitting up straight.  "What question?"
+
+"What proof can you bring me," began Mr.
+Arp, deliberately, "that we folks, modernly, ain't
+more degenerate than the ancient Romans?"
+
+
+
+II
+
+A RESCUE
+
+Main Street, already muffled by
+the snow, added to its quietude a
+frozen hush where the wonder-bearing
+youth pursued his course along
+its white, straight way.  None was
+there in whom impertinence overmastered
+astonishment, or who recovered from the sight in time
+to jeer with effect; no "Trab's boy" gathered
+courage to enact in the thoroughfare a scene of
+mockery and of joy.  Leaving business at a
+temporary stand-still behind him, Mr. Bantry swept
+his long coat steadily over the snow and soon
+emerged upon that part of the street where the
+mart gave way to the home.  The comfortable
+houses stood pleasantly back from the street, with
+plenty of lawn and shrubbery about them; and
+often, along the picket-fences, the laden branches
+of small cedars, bending low with their burden,
+showered the young man's swinging shoulders
+glitteringly as he brushed by.
+
+And now that expression he wore--the indulgent
+amusement of a man of the world--began to
+disintegrate and show signs of change.  It became
+finely grave, as of a high conventionality, lofty,
+assured, and mannered, as he approached the Pike
+mansion.  (The remotest stranger must at once
+perceive that the Canaan papers could not have
+called it otherwise without pain.)
+
+It was a big, smooth-stone-faced house,
+product of the 'Seventies, frowning under an
+outrageously insistent mansard, capped by a cupola,
+and staring out of long windows overtopped with
+"ornamental" slabs.  Two cast-iron deer, painted
+death-gray, twins of the same mould, stood on
+opposite sides of the front walk, their backs towards
+it and each other, their bodies in profile to the
+street, their necks bent, however, so that they
+gazed upon the passer-by--yet gazed without
+emotion.  Two large, calm dogs guarded the top
+of the steps leading to the front-door; they also
+were twins and of the same interesting metal,
+though honored beyond the deer by coats of black
+paint and shellac.  It was to be remarked that
+these dogs were of no distinguishable species or
+breed, yet they were unmistakably dogs; the
+dullest must have recognized them as such at a
+glance, which was, perhaps, enough.  It was a
+hideous house, important-looking, cold, yet harshly 
+aggressive, a house whose exterior provoked a
+shuddering guess of the brass lambrequins and
+plush fringes within; a solid house, obviously--
+nay, blatantly--the residence of the principal
+citizen, whom it had grown to resemble, as is the
+impish habit of houses; and it sat in the middle
+of its flat acre of snowy lawn like a rich, fat man
+enraged and sitting straight up in bed to swear.
+
+And yet there was one charming thing about this
+ugly house.  Some workmen were enclosing a large
+side porch with heavy canvas, evidently for festal
+purposes.  Looking out from between two strips
+of the canvas was the rosy and delicate face of a
+pretty girl, smiling upon Eugene Bantry as he
+passed.  It was an obviously pretty face, all the
+youth and prettiness there for your very first
+glance; elaborately pretty, like the splendid
+profusion of hair about and above it--amber-colored
+hair, upon which so much time had been spent that
+a circle of large, round curls rose above the mass of
+it like golden bubbles tipping a coronet.
+
+The girl's fingers were pressed thoughtfully
+against her chin as Eugene strode into view;
+immediately her eyes widened and brightened.  He
+swung along the fence with the handsomest
+appearance of unconsciousness, until he reached a
+point nearly opposite her.  Then he turned his
+head, as if haphazardly, and met her eyes.  At once
+she threw out her hand towards him, waving him
+a greeting--a gesture which, as her fingers had been
+near her lips, was a little like throwing a kiss.  He
+crooked an elbow and with a one-two-three military
+movement removed his small-brimmed hat, extended
+it to full arm's-length at the shoulder-level,
+returned it to his head with Life-Guard precision.
+This was also new to Canaan.  He was letting
+Mamie Pike have it all at once.
+
+The impression was as large as he could have
+desired.  She remained at the opening in the
+canvas and watched him until he wagged his shoulders
+round the next corner and disappeared into a cross
+street.  As for Eugene, he was calm with a great
+calm, and very red.
+
+He had not covered a great distance, however,
+before his gravity was replaced by his former
+smiling look of the landed gentleman amused by the
+innocent pastimes of the peasants, though there
+was no one in sight except a woman sweeping some
+snow from the front steps of a cottage, and she,
+not perceiving him, retired in-doors without knowing
+her loss.  He had come to a thinly built part
+of the town, the perfect quiet of which made the
+sound he heard as he opened the picket gate of
+his own home all the more startling.  It was a
+scream--loud, frantic, and terror-stricken.
+
+Eugene stopped, with the gate half open.
+
+Out of the winter skeleton of a grape-arbor at
+one side of the four-square brick house a brown-
+faced girl of seventeen precipitated herself through
+the air in the midst of a shower of torn card-board
+which she threw before her as she leaped.  She lit
+upon her toes and headed for the gate at top speed,
+pursued by a pale young man whose thin arms
+strove spasmodically to reach her.  Scattering
+snow behind them, hair flying, the pair sped on
+like two tattered branches before a high wind; for,
+as they came nearer Eugene (of whom, in the
+tensity of their flight, they took no note), it was
+to be seen that both were so shabbily dressed as
+to be almost ragged.  There was a brown patch
+upon the girl's faded skirt at the knee; the shortness
+of the garment indicating its age to be something
+over three years, as well as permitting the
+knowledge to become more general than befitting
+that her cotton stockings had been clumsily darned
+in several places.  Her pursuer was in as evil case;
+his trousers displayed a tendency to fringedness at
+pocket and heel; his coat, blowing open as he ran,
+threw pennants of torn lining to the breeze, and
+made it too plain that there were but three buttons 
+on his waistcoat.
+
+The girl ran beautifully, but a fleeter foot was
+behind her, and though she dodged and evaded
+like a creature of the woods, the reaching hand
+fell upon the loose sleeve of her red blouse, nor fell
+lightly.  She gave a wrench of frenzy; the antique
+fabric refused the strain; parted at the shoulder
+seam so thoroughly that the whole sleeve came
+away--but not to its owner's release, for she had
+been brought round by the jerk, so that, agile as
+she had shown herself, the pursuer threw an arm
+about her neck, before she could twist away, and
+held her.
+
+There was a sharp struggle, as short as it was
+fierce.  Neither of these extraordinary wrestlers
+spoke.  They fought.  Victory hung in the balance
+for perhaps four seconds; then the girl was
+thrown heavily upon her back, in such a turmoil
+of snow that she seemed to be the mere nucleus of a
+white comet.  She struggled to get up, plying knee
+and elbow with a very anguish of determination;
+but her opponent held her, pinioned both her
+wrists with one hand, and with the other rubbed
+great handfuls of snow into her face, sparing
+neither mouth nor eyes.
+
+"You will!" he cried.  "You will tear up my
+pictures!  A dirty trick, and you get washed for
+it!"
+
+Half suffocated, choking, gasping, she still
+fought on, squirming and kicking with such spirit
+that the pair of them appeared to the beholder
+like figures of mist writhing in a fountain of snow.
+
+More violence was to mar the peace of morning.
+Unexpectedly attacked from the rear, the
+conqueror was seized by the nape of the neck and one
+wrist, and jerked to his feet, simultaneously
+receiving a succession of kicks from his assailant.
+Prompted by an entirely natural curiosity, he
+essayed to turn his head to see who this might be,
+but a twist of his forearm and the pressure of strong
+fingers under his ear constrained him to remain
+as he was; therefore, abandoning resistance, and,
+oddly enough, accepting without comment the
+indication that his captor desired to remain for
+the moment incognito, he resorted calmly to
+explanations.
+
+"She tore up a picture of mine," he said,
+receiving the punishment without apparent emotion.
+"She seemed to think because she'd drawn it herself
+she had a right to."
+
+There was a slight whimsical droop at the corner
+of his mouth as he spoke, which might have been
+thought characteristic of him.  He was an odd-
+looking boy, not ill-made, though very thin and
+not tall.  His pallor was clear and even, as though
+constitutional; the features were delicate, almost
+childlike, but they were very slightly distorted,
+through nervous habit, to an expression at once
+wistful and humorous; one eyebrow was a shade
+higher than the other, one side of the mouth slightly
+drawn down; the eyelids twitched a little, habitually;
+the fine, blue eyes themselves were almost
+comically reproachful--the look of a puppy who
+thinks you would not have beaten him if you had
+known what was in his heart.  All of this was in
+the quality of his voice, too, as he said to his
+invisible captor, with an air of detachment from any
+personal feeling:
+
+"What peculiar shoes you wear!  I don't think
+I ever felt any so pointed before."
+
+The rescuing knight took no thought of offering to
+help the persecuted damsel to arise; instead, he
+tightened his grip upon the prisoner's neck until,
+perforce, water--not tears--started from the latter's eyes.
+
+"You miserable little muff," said the conqueror,
+"what the devil do you mean, making this scene
+on our front lawn?"
+
+"Why, it's Eugene!" exclaimed the helpless one.
+"They didn't expect you till to-night.  When did
+you get in?"
+
+"Just in time to give you a lesson, my buck,"
+replied Bantry, grimly.  "In GOOD time for that,
+my playful step-brother."
+
+He began to twist the other's wrist--a treatment
+of bone and ligament in the application of which
+school-boys and even freshmen are often adept.
+Eugene made the torture acute, and was apparently 
+enjoying the work, when suddenly--without any
+manner of warning--he received an astounding
+blow upon the left ear, which half stunned him
+for the moment, and sent his hat flying and himself
+reeling, so great was the surprise and shock of it.
+It was not a slap, not an open-handed push, nothing
+like it, but a fierce, well-delivered blow from a
+clinched fist with the shoulder behind it, and it
+was the girl who had given it.
+
+"Don't you dare to touch Joe!" she cried,
+passionately.  "Don't you lay a finger on him."
+
+Furious and red, he staggered round to look at
+her.
+
+"You wretched little wild-cat, what do you mean
+by that?" he broke out.
+
+"Don't you touch Joe!" she panted.  "Don't
+you--"  Her breath caught and there was a break
+in her voice as she faced him.  She could not finish
+the repetition of that cry, "Don't you touch Joe!"
+
+But there was no break in the spirit, that passion
+of protection which had dealt the blow.  Both boys
+looked at her, something aghast.
+
+She stood before them, trembling with rage and
+shivering with cold in the sudden wind which had
+come up.  Her hair had fallen and blew across
+her streaming face in brown witch-wisps; one of
+the ill-darned stockings had come down and hung
+about her shoe in folds full of snow; the arm which
+had lost its sleeve was bare and wet; thin as the
+arm of a growing boy, it shook convulsively, and
+was red from shoulder to clinched fist.  She was
+covered with snow.  Mists of white drift blew
+across her, mercifully half veiling her.
+
+Eugene recovered himself.  He swung round
+upon his heel, restored his hat to his head with
+precision, picked up his stick and touched his
+banjo-case with it.
+
+"Carry that into the house," he said, indifferently,
+to his step-brother.
+
+"Don't you do it!" said the girl, hotly, between
+her chattering teeth.
+
+Eugene turned towards her, wearing the sharp
+edge of a smile.  Not removing his eyes from her
+face, he produced with deliberation a flat silver
+box from a pocket, took therefrom a cigarette,
+replaced the box, extracted a smaller silver box from
+another pocket, shook out of it a fusee, slowly lit
+the cigarette--this in a splendid silence, which he
+finally broke to say, languidly, but with particular
+distinctness:
+
+"Ariel Tabor, go home!"
+
+The girl's teeth stopped chattering, her lips
+remaining parted; she shook the hair out of her eyes
+and stared at him as if she did not understand, but
+Joe Louden, who had picked up the banjo-case
+obediently, burst into cheerful laughter.
+
+"That's it, 'Gene," he cried, gayly.  "That's the
+way to talk to her!"
+
+"Stow it, you young cub," replied Eugene, not
+turning to him.  "Do you think I'm trying to be
+amusing?"
+
+"I don't know what you mean by `stow it,' " Joe
+began, "but if--"
+
+"I mean," interrupted the other, not relaxing
+his faintly smiling stare at the girl--"I mean that
+Ariel Tabor is to go home.  Really, we can't have
+this kind of thing occurring upon our front lawn!"
+
+The flush upon her wet cheeks deepened and
+became dark; even her arm grew redder as she gazed
+back at him.  In his eyes was patent his complete
+realization of the figure she cut, of this bare arm,
+of the strewn hair, of the fallen stocking, of the
+ragged shoulder of her blouse, of her patched short
+skirt, of the whole dishevelled little figure.  He
+was the master of the house, and he was sending
+her home as ill-behaved children are sent home by
+neighbors.
+
+The immobile, amused superiority of this
+proprietor of silver boxes, this wearer of strange and
+brilliant garments, became slightly intensified as
+he pointed to the fallen sleeve, a rag of red and
+snow, lying near her feet.
+
+"You might take that with you?" he said,
+interrogatively.
+
+Her gaze had not wavered in meeting his, but
+at this her eyelashes began to wink uncontrollably,
+her chin to tremble.  She bent over the sleeve and
+picked it up, before Joe Louden, who had started
+towards her, could do it for her.  Then turning,
+her head still bent so that her face was hidden
+from both of them, she ran out of the gate.
+
+"DO go!" Joe called after her, vehemently.  "Go!
+Just to show what a fool you are to think 'Gene's
+in earnest."
+
+He would have followed, but his step-brother
+caught him by the arm.  "Don't stop her," said
+Eugene.  "Can't you tell when I AM in earnest,
+you bally muff!"
+
+"I know you are," returned the other, in a low
+voice.  "I didn't want her to think so for your
+sake."
+
+"Thousands of thanks," said Eugene, airily.
+"You are a wise young judge.  She couldn't stay--
+in THAT state, could she?  I sent her for her own
+good."
+
+"She could have gone in the house and your
+mother might have loaned her a jacket," returned
+Joe, swallowing.  "You had no business to make
+her go out in the street like that."
+
+Eugene laughed.  "There isn't a soul in sight
+--and there, she's all right now.  She's home."
+
+Ariel had run along the fence until she came to 
+the next gate, which opened upon a walk leading
+to a shabby, meandering old house of one story,
+with a very long, low porch, once painted white,
+running the full length of the front.  Ariel sprang
+upon the porch and disappeared within the house.
+
+Joe stood looking after her, his eyelashes winking
+as had hers.  "You oughtn't to have treated
+her that way," he said, huskily.
+
+Eugene laughed again.  "How were YOU treating
+her when I came up?  You bully her all you
+want to yourself, but nobody else must say even
+a fatherly word to her!"
+
+"That wasn't bullying," explained Joe.  "We
+fight all the time."
+
+"Mais oui!" assented Eugene.  "I fancy!"
+
+"What?" said the other, blankly.
+
+"Pick up that banjo-case again and come on,"
+commanded Mr. Bantry, tartly.  "Where's the
+mater?"
+
+Joe stared at him.  "Where's what?"
+
+"The mater!" was the frowning reply.
+
+"Oh yes, I know!" said Joe, looking at his step-
+brother curiously.  "I've seen it in stories.  She's
+up-stairs.  You'll be a surprise.  You're wearing
+lots of clothes, 'Gene."
+
+"I suppose it will seem so to Canaan," returned
+the other, weariedly.  "Governor feeling fit?"
+
+"I never saw him," Joe replied; then caught
+himself.  "Oh, I see what you mean!  Yes, he's
+all right."
+
+They had come into the hall, and Eugene was
+removing the long coat, while his step-brother looked
+at him thoughtfully.
+
+"'Gene," asked the latter, in a softened voice,
+"have you seen Mamie Pike yet?"
+
+"You will find, my young friend," responded
+Mr. Bantry, "if you ever go about much outside
+of Canaan, that ladies' names are not supposed
+to be mentioned indiscriminately."
+
+"It's only," said Joe, "that I wanted to say that
+there's a dance at their house to-night.  I suppose
+you'll be going?"
+
+"Certainly.  Are you?"
+
+Both knew that the question was needless; but
+Joe answered, gently:
+
+"Oh no, of course not."  He leaned over and
+fumbled with one foot as if to fasten a loose shoe-
+string.  "She wouldn't be very likely to ask me."
+
+"Well, what about it?"
+
+"Only that--that Arie Tabor's going."
+
+"Indeed!" Eugene paused on the stairs, which
+he had begun to ascend.  "Very interesting."
+
+"I thought," continued Joe, hopefully, straightening
+up to look at him, "that maybe you'd dance
+with her.  I don't believe many will ask her--I'm
+afraid they won't--and if you would, even only
+once, it would kind of make up for"--he faltered
+--"for out there," he finished, nodding his head
+in the direction of the gate.
+
+If Eugene vouchsafed any reply, it was lost in
+a loud, shrill cry from above, as a small, intensely
+nervous-looking woman in blue silk ran half-way
+down the stairs to meet him and caught him
+tearfully in her arms.
+
+"Dear old mater!" said Eugene.
+
+Joe went out of the front-door quickly.
+
+
+
+III
+
+OLD HOPES
+
+The door which Ariel had entered
+opened upon a narrow hall, and
+down this she ran to her own room,
+passing, with face averted, the entrance
+to the broad, low-ceilinged
+chamber that had served Roger Tabor as a studio
+for almost fifty years.  He was sitting there now,
+in a hopeless and disconsolate attitude, with his
+back towards the double doors, which were open,
+and had been open since their hinges had begun
+to give way, when Ariel was a child.  Hearing her
+step, he called her name, but did not turn; and,
+receiving no answer, sighed faintly as he heard her
+own door close upon her.
+
+Then, as his eyes wandered about the many
+canvases which leaned against the dingy walls, he
+sighed again.  Usually they showed their brown
+backs, but to-day he had turned them all to face
+outward.  Twilight, sunset, moonlight (the Courthouse
+in moonlight), dawn, morning, noon (Main
+Street at noon), high summer, first spring, red
+autumn, midwinter, all were there--illimitably
+detailed, worked to a smoothness like a glaze, and
+all lovingly done with unthinkable labor.
+
+And there were "Italian Flower-Sellers,"
+damsels with careful hair, two figures together, one
+blonde, the other as brunette as lampblack, the
+blonde--in pink satin and blue slippers--leaning
+against a pillar and smiling over the golden coins
+for which she had exchanged her posies; the brunette
+seated at her feet, weeping upon an unsold
+bouquet.  There were red-sashed "Fisher Lads"
+wading with butterfly-nets on their shoulders;
+there was a "Tying the Ribbon on Pussy's Neck";
+there were portraits in oil and petrifactions in
+crayon, as hard and tight as the purses of those
+who had refused to accept them, leaving them
+upon their maker's hands because the likeness had
+failed.
+
+After a time the old man got up, went to his
+easel near a window, and, sighing again, began
+patiently to work upon one of these failures--a
+portrait, in oil, of a savage old lady, which he was
+doing from a photograph.  The expression of the
+mouth and the shape of the nose had not pleased
+her descendants and the beneficiaries under the
+will, and it was upon the images of these features
+that Roger labored.  He leaned far forward, with
+his face close to the canvas, holding his brushes
+after the Spencerian fashion, working steadily
+through the afternoon, and, when the light grew
+dimmer, leaning closer to his canvas to see.  When
+it had become almost dark in the room, he lit a
+student-lamp with a green-glass shade, and, placing
+it upon a table beside him, continued to paint.
+Ariel's voice interrupted him at last.
+
+"It's quitting-time, grandfather," she called,
+gently, from the doorway behind him.
+
+He sank back in his chair, conscious, for the
+first time, of how tired he had grown.  "I suppose
+so," he said, "though it seemed to me that
+I was just getting my hand in."  His eyes brightened
+for a moment.  "I declare, I believe I've
+caught it a great deal better.  Come and look,
+Ariel.  Doesn't it seem to you that I'm getting
+it?  Those pearly shadows in the flesh--"
+
+"I'm sure of it.  Those people ought to be very
+proud to have it."  She came to him quietly, took
+the palette and brushes from his hands and began
+to clean them, standing in the shadow behind him.
+"It's too good for them."
+
+"I wonder if it is," he said, slowly, leaning
+forward and curving his hands about his eyes so as
+to shut off everything from his view except the
+canvas.  "I wonder if it is!" he repeated.  Then
+his hands dropped sadly in his lap, and he sank
+back again with a patient kind of revulsion.  "No,
+no, it isn't!  I always think they're good when
+I've just finished them.  I've been fooled that
+way all my life.  They don't look the same afterwards."
+
+"They're always beautiful," she said, softly.
+
+"Ah, ah!" he sighed.
+
+"Now, Roger!" she cried, with cheerful sharpness,
+continuing her work.
+
+"I know," he said, with a plaintive laugh,--"I
+know.  Sometimes I think that all my reward
+has been in the few minutes I've had just after
+finishing them.  During those few minutes I seem
+to see in them all that I wanted to put in them;
+I see it because what I've been trying to express
+is still so warm in my own eyes that I seem to have
+got it on the canvas where I wanted it."
+
+"But you do," she said.  "You do get it there."
+
+"No," he murmured, in return.  "I never did.
+I got out some of the old ones when I came in this
+morning, some that I hadn't looked at for years, and
+it's the same with them.  You can do it much
+better yourself--your sketches show it."
+
+"No, no!" she protested, quickly.
+
+"Yes, they do; and I wondered if it was only
+because you were young.  But those I did when
+I was young are almost the same as the ones I
+paint now.  I haven't learned much.  There hasn't
+been any one to show me!  And you can't learn
+from print, never!  Yet I've grown in what I SEE--
+grown so that the world is full of beauty to me
+that I never dreamed of seeing when I began.
+But I can't paint it--I can't get it on the canvas.
+Ah, I think I might have known how to, if I
+hadn't had to teach myself, if I could only have
+seen how some of the other fellows did their work.
+If I'd ever saved money to get away from Canaan
+--if I could have gone away from it and come
+back knowing how to paint it--if I could have got
+to Paris for just one month!  PARIS--for just one
+month!"
+
+"Perhaps we will; you can't tell what MAY happen."
+It was always her reply to this cry of his.
+
+"PARIS--for just one month!" he repeated, with
+infinite wistfulness, and then realizing what an
+old, old cry it was with him, he shook his head,
+impatiently sniffing out a laugh at himself, rose
+and went pottering about among the canvases,
+returning their faces to the wall, and railing at
+them mutteringly.
+
+"Whatever took me into it, I don't know.  I
+might have done something useful.  But I couldn't
+bring myself ever to consider doing anything else--
+I couldn't bear even to think of it!  Lord forgive
+me, I even tried to encourage your father to paint.
+Perhaps he might as well, poor boy, as to have put
+all he'd made into buying Jonas out.  Ah me!
+There you go, `Flower-Girls'!  Turn your silly
+faces to the wall and smile and cry there till I'm
+gone and somebody throws you on a bonfire.  I'LL
+never look at you again."  He paused, with the
+canvas half turned.  "And yet," he went on,
+reflectively, "a man promised me thirty-five dollars
+for that picture once.  I painted it to order,
+but he went away before I finished it, and never
+answered the letters I wrote him about it.  I wish
+I had the money now--perhaps we could have
+more than two meals a day."
+
+"We don't need more," said Ariel, scraping the
+palette attentively.  "It's healthier with only
+breakfast and supper.  I think I'd rather have a
+new dress than dinner."
+
+"I dare say you would," the old man mused.
+"You're young--you're young.  What were you
+doing all this afternoon, child?"
+
+"In my room, trying to make over mamma's
+wedding-dress for to-night."
+
+"To-night?"
+
+"Mamie Pike invited me to a dance at their
+house."
+
+"Very well; I'm glad you're going to be gay,"
+he said, not seeing the faintly bitter smile that
+came to her face.
+
+"I don't think I'll be very gay," she answered.
+
+"I don't know why I go--nobody ever asks me to
+dance."
+
+"Why not?" he asked, with an old man's astonishment.
+
+"I don't know.  Perhaps it's because I don't
+dress very well."  Then, as he made a sorrowful
+gesture, she cut him off before he could speak.
+"Oh, it isn't altogether because we're poor; it's
+more I don't know how to wear what I've got, the
+way some girls do.  I never cared much and--
+well, I'M not worrying, Roger!  And I think I've
+done a good deal with mamma's dress.  It's a very
+grand dress.  I wonder I never thought of wearing it
+until to-day.  I may be"--she laughed and blushed
+--"I may be the belle of the ball--who knows!"
+
+"You'll want me to walk over with you and
+come for you afterwards, I expect."
+
+"Only to take me.  It may be late when I
+come away--if a good many SHOULD ask me to
+dance, for once!  Of course I could come home
+alone.  But Joe Louden is going to sort of hang
+around outside, and he'll meet me at the gate and
+see me safe home."
+
+"Oh!" he exclaimed, blankly.
+
+"Isn't it all right?" she asked.
+
+"I think I'd better come for you," he answered,
+gently.  "The truth is, I--I think you'd better not
+be with Joe Louden a great deal."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well, he doesn't seem a vicious boy to me, but
+I'm afraid he's getting rather a bad name, my
+dear."
+
+"He's not getting one," she said, gravely.  "He's
+already got one.  He's had a bad name in Canaan
+for a long while.  It grew in the first place out of
+shabbiness and mischief, but it did grow; and if
+people keep on giving him a bad name the time
+will come when he'll live up to it.  He's not any
+worse than I am, and I guess my own name isn't
+too good--for a girl.  And yet, so far, there's nothing
+against him except his bad name."
+
+"I'm afraid there is," said Roger.  "It doesn't
+look very well for a young man of his age to be
+doing no better than delivering papers."
+
+"It gives him time to study law," she answered,
+quickly.  "If he clerked all day in a store, he
+couldn't."
+
+"I didn't know he was studying now.  I thought
+I'd heard that he was in a lawyer's office for a few
+weeks last year, and was turned out for setting fire
+to it with a pipe--"
+
+"It was an accident," she interposed.
+
+"But some pretty important papers were burned,
+and after that none of the other lawyers would
+have him."
+
+"He's not in an office," she admitted.  "I didn't
+mean that.  But he studies a great deal.  He
+goes to the courts all the time they're in session,
+and he's bought some books of his own."
+
+"Well--perhaps," he assented; "but they say
+he gambles and drinks, and that last week Judge
+Pike threatened to have him arrested for throwing
+dice with some negroes behind the Judge's stable."
+
+"What of it?  I'm about the only nice person in
+town that will have anything to do with him--
+and nobody except you thinks I'M very nice!"
+
+"Ariel!  Ariel!"
+
+"I know all about his gambling with darkies,"
+she continued, excitedly, her voice rising, "and I
+know that he goes to saloons, and that he's an
+intimate friend of half the riffraff in town; and I know
+the reason for it, too, because he's told me.  He
+wants to know them, to understand them; and he
+says some day they'll make him a power, and then
+he can help them!"
+
+The old man laughed helplessly.  "But I can't
+let him bring you home, my dear."
+
+She came to him slowly and laid her hands upon
+his shoulders.  Grandfather and granddaughter
+were nearly of the same height, and she looked
+squarely into his eyes.  "Then you must say it is
+because you want to come for me, not because I
+mustn't come with Joe."
+
+"But I think it is a little because you mustn't
+come with Joe," he answered, "especially from
+the Pikes'.  Don't you see that it mightn't be
+well for Joe himself, if the Judge should happen to
+see him?  I understand he warned the boy to keep
+away from the neighborhood entirely or he would
+have him locked up for dice-throwing.  The Judge
+is a very influential man, you know, and as
+determined in matters like this as he is irritable."
+
+"Oh, if you put it on that ground," the girl
+replied, her eyes softening, "I think you'd better
+come for me yourself."
+
+"Very well, I put it on that ground," he
+returned, smiling upon her.
+
+"Then I'll send Joe word and get supper," she
+said, kissing him.
+
+It was the supper-hour not only for them but
+everywhere in Canaan, and the cold air of the
+streets bore up and down and around corners the
+smell of things frying.  The dining-room windows
+of all the houses threw bright patches on the snow
+of the side-yards; the windows of other rooms,
+except those of the kitchens, were dark, for the
+rule of the place was Puritanical in thrift, as in all
+things; and the good housekeepers disputed every
+record of the meters with unhappy gas-collectors.
+
+There was no better housekeeper in town than
+Mrs. Louden, nor a thriftier, but hers was one of
+the few houses in Canaan, that evening, which
+showed bright lights in the front rooms while the
+family were at supper.  It was proof of the agitation
+caused by the arrival of Eugene that she forgot
+to turn out the gas in her parlor, and in the
+chamber she called a library, on her way to the
+evening meal.
+
+That might not have been thought a cheerful
+feast for Joe Louden.  The fatted calf was upon the
+board, but it had not been provided for the prodigal,
+who, in this case, was the brother that stayed at
+home: the fete rewarded the good brother, who had
+been in strange lands, and the good one had found
+much honor in his wanderings, as he carelessly let
+it appear.  Mrs. Louden brightened inexpressibly
+whenever Eugene spoke of himself, and consequently
+she glowed most of the time.  Her husband--
+a heavy, melancholy, silent man with a grizzled
+beard and no mustache--lowered at Joe throughout
+the meal, but appeared to take a strange comfort
+in his step-son's elegance and polish.  Eugene
+wore new evening clothes and was lustrous to eye
+and ear.
+
+Joe escaped as soon as he could, though not
+before the count of his later sins had been set before
+Eugene in detail, in mass, and in all of their depth,
+breadth, and thickness.  His father spoke but
+once, after nodding heavily to confirm all points of
+Mrs. Louden's recital.
+
+"You better use any influence you've got with
+your brother," he said to Eugene, "to make him
+come to time.  I can't do anything with him.  If
+he gets in trouble, he needn't come to me!  I'll
+never help him again.  I'm TIRED of it!"
+
+Eugene glanced twinklingly at the outcast.  "I
+didn't know he was such a roarer as all that!" he
+said, lightly, not taking Joe as of enough consequence
+to be treated as a sinner.
+
+This encouraged Mrs. Louden to pathos upon
+the subject of her shame before other women
+when Joe happened to be mentioned, and the supper
+was finished with the topic.  Joe slipped away
+through the kitchen, sneakingly, and climbed the
+back fence.  In the alley he lit a cheap cigarette,
+and thrusting his hands into his pockets and shivering
+violently--for he had no overcoat,--walked
+away singing to himself, "A Spanish cavalier
+stood in his retreat," his teeth affording an
+appropriate though involuntary castanet accompaniment.
+
+His movements throughout the earlier part of
+that evening are of uncertain report.  It is known
+that he made a partial payment of forty-five cents
+at a second-hand book-store for a number of volumes--
+Grindstaff on Torts and some others--which
+he had negotiated on the instalment system; it is
+also believed that he won twenty-eight cents 
+playing seven-up in the little room behind Louie Farbach's
+bar; but these things are of little import
+compared to the established fact that at eleven
+o'clock he was one of the ball guests at the Pike
+Mansion.  He took no active part in the festivities,
+nor was he one of the dancers: his was, on the
+contrary, the role of a quiet observer.  He lay stretched
+at full length upon the floor of the enclosed
+porch (one of the strips of canvas was later found
+to have been loosened), wedged between the outer
+railing and a row of palms in green tubs.  The
+position he occupied was somewhat too draughty
+to have been recommended by a physician, but he
+commanded, between the leaves of the screening
+palms, an excellent view of the room nearest the
+porch.  A long window, open, afforded communication
+between this room, one of those used for
+dancing, and the dim bower which had been made
+of the veranda, whither flirtatious couples made
+their way between the dances.
+
+It was not to play eavesdropper upon any of
+these that the uninvited Joe had come.  He was
+not there to listen, and it is possible that, had the
+curtains of other windows afforded him the chance
+to behold the dance, he might not have risked the
+dangers of his present position.  He had not the
+slightest interest in the whispered coquetries that
+he heard; he watched only to catch now and then,
+over the shoulders of the dancers, a fitful glimpse
+of a pretty head that flitted across the window--
+the amber hair of Mamie Pike.  He shivered in the
+draughts; and the floor of the porch was cement,
+painful to elbow and knee, the space where he lay
+cramped and narrow; but the golden bubbles of
+her hair, the shimmer of her dainty pink dress,
+and the fluffy wave of her lace scarf as she crossed
+and recrossed in a waltz, left him, apparently, in
+no discontent.  He watched with parted lips, his
+pale cheeks reddening whenever those fair glimpses
+were his.  At last she came out to the veranda with
+Eugene and sat upon a little divan, so close to Joe
+that, daring wildly in the shadow, he reached out
+a trembling hand and let his fingers rest upon the
+end of her scarf, which had fallen from her shoulders
+and touched the floor.  She sat with her back
+to him, as did Eugene.
+
+"You have changed, I think, since last summer,"
+he heard her say, reflectively.
+
+"For the worse, ma cherie?" Joe's expression
+might have been worth seeing when Eugene said
+"ma cherie," for it was known in the Louden
+household that Mr. Bantry had failed to pass his
+examination in the French language.
+
+"No," she answered.  "But you have seen so
+much and accomplished so much since then.  You
+have become so polished and so--" She paused, 
+and then continued, "But perhaps I'd better not
+say it; you might be offended."
+
+"No.  I want you to say it," he returned,
+confidently, and his confidence was fully justified, for
+she said:
+
+"Well, then, I mean that you have become so
+thoroughly a man of the world.  Now I've said it!
+You ARE offended--aren't you?"
+
+"Not at all, not at all," replied Mr. Bantry,
+preventing by a masterful effort his pleasure from
+showing in his face.  "Though I suppose you mean
+to imply that I'm rather wicked."
+
+"Oh no," said Mamie, with profound admiration,
+"not exactly wicked."
+
+"University life IS fast nowadays," Eugene
+admitted.  "It's difficult not to be drawn into it!"
+
+"And I suppose you look down on poor little
+Canaan now, and everybody in it!"
+
+"Oh no," he laughed, indulgently.  "Not at all,
+not at all!  I find it very amusing."
+
+"All of it?"
+
+"Not you," he answered, becoming very grave.
+
+"Honestly--DON'T you?"  Her young voice trembled
+a little.
+
+"Honestly--indeed--truly--" Eugene leaned
+very close to her and the words were barely audible.
+
+"You KNOW I don't!"
+
+"Then I'm--glad," she whispered, and Joe saw 
+his step-brother touch her hand, but she rose quickly.
+"There's the music," she cried, happily.  "It's
+a waltz, and it's YOURS!"
+
+Joe heard her little high heels tapping gayly
+towards the window, followed by the heavier tread
+of Eugene, but he did not watch them go.
+
+He lay on his back, with the hand that had
+touched Mamie's scarf pressed across his closed
+eyes.
+
+The music of that waltz was of the old-fashioned
+swingingly sorrowful sort, and it would be hard to
+say how long it was after that before the boy could
+hear the air played without a recurrence of the
+bitterness of that moment.  The rhythmical pathos
+of the violins was in such accord with a faint sound
+of weeping which he heard near him, presently,
+that for a little while he believed this sound to be
+part of the music and part of himself.  Then it
+became more distinct, and he raised himself on one
+elbow to look about.
+
+Very close to him, sitting upon the divan in the
+shadow, was a girl wearing a dress of beautiful silk.
+She was crying softly, her face in her hands.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+THE DISASTER
+
+Ariel had worked all the afternoon
+over her mother's wedding-gown,
+and two hours were required by her
+toilet for the dance.  She curled her
+hair frizzily, burning it here and
+there, with a slate-pencil heated over a lamp
+chimney, and she placed above one ear three or
+four large artificial roses, taken from an old hat
+of her mother's, which she had found in a trunk
+in the store-room.  Possessing no slippers, she
+carefully blacked and polished her shoes, which had
+been clumsily resoled, and fastened into the strings
+of each small rosettes of red ribbon; after which
+she practised swinging the train of her skirt until
+she was proud of her manipulation of it.  She
+had no powder, but found in her grandfather's
+room a lump of magnesia, that he was in the habit
+of taking for heart-burn, and passed it over and
+over her brown face and hands.  Then a lingering
+gaze into her small mirror gave her joy at last: she
+yearned so hard to see herself charming that she
+did see herself so.  Admiration came and she told
+herself that she was more attractive to look at
+than she had ever been in her life, and that,
+perhaps, at last she might begin to be sought for like
+other girls.  The little glass showed a sort of
+prettiness in her thin, unmatured young face; tripping
+dance-tunes ran through her head, her feet keeping
+the time,--ah, she did so hope to dance often
+that night!  Perhaps--perhaps she might be asked
+for every number.  And so, wrapping an old waterproof
+cloak about her, she took her grandfather's
+arm and sallied forth, high hopes in her beating
+heart.
+
+It was in the dressing-room that the change began
+to come.  Alone, at home in her own ugly little
+room, she had thought herself almost beautiful,
+but here in the brightly lighted chamber crowded
+with the other girls it was different.  There was
+a big cheval-glass at one end of the room, and she
+faced it, when her turn came--for the mirror was
+popular--with a sinking spirit.  There was the
+contrast, like a picture painted and framed.  The
+other girls all wore their hair after the fashion
+introduced to Canaan by Mamie Pike the week before,
+on her return from a visit to Chicago.  None
+of them had "crimped" and none had bedecked
+their tresses with artificial flowers.  Her alterations
+of the wedding-dress had not been successful; the
+skirt was too short in front and higher on one
+side than on the other, showing too plainly the
+heavy-soled shoes, which had lost most of their
+polish in the walk through the snow.  The ribbon
+rosettes were fully revealed, and as she glanced at
+their reflection she heard the words, "LOOK AT THAT
+TRAIN AND THOSE ROSETTES!" whispered behind her, and
+saw in the mirror two pretty young women turn
+away with their handkerchiefs over their mouths
+and retreat hurriedly to an alcove.  All the feet
+in the room except Ariel's were in dainty kid or
+satin slippers of the color of the dresses from which
+they glimmered out, and only Ariel wore a train.
+
+She went away from the mirror and pretended
+to be busy with a hanging thread in her sleeve.
+
+She was singularly an alien in the chattering
+room, although she had been born and lived all
+her life in the town.  Perhaps her position among
+the young ladies may be best defined by the remark,
+generally current among them, that evening,
+to the effect that it was "very sweet of Mamie
+to invite her."  Ariel was not like the others; she
+was not of them, and never had been.  Indeed, she
+did not know them very well.  Some of them
+nodded to her and gave her a word of greeting
+pleasantly; all of them whispered about her with
+wonder and suppressed amusement; but none
+talked to her.  They were not unkindly, but they
+were young and eager and excited over their own
+interests,--which were then in the "gentlemen's
+dressing-room."
+
+Each of the other girls had been escorted by a
+youth of the place, and, one by one, joining these
+escorts in the hall outside the door, they descended
+the stairs, until only Ariel was left.  She came
+down alone after the first dance had begun, and
+greeted her young hostess's mother timidly.  Mrs.
+Pike--a small, frightened-looking woman with a
+prominent ruby necklace--answered her absently,
+and hurried away to see that the imported waiters
+did not steal anything.
+
+Ariel sat in one of the chairs against the wall
+and watched the dancers with a smile of eager and
+benevolent interest.  In Canaan no parents, no
+guardians nor aunts, were haled forth o' nights to
+duenna the junketings of youth; Mrs. Pike did not
+reappear, and Ariel sat conspicuously alone; there
+was nothing else for her to do.  It was not an
+easy matter.
+
+When the first dance reached an end, Mamie
+Pike came to her for a moment with a cheery welcome,
+and was immediately surrounded by a circle
+of young men and women, flushed with dancing,
+shouting as was their wont, laughing inexplicably
+over words and phrases and unintelligible mono-
+syllables, as if they all belonged to a secret society
+and these cries were symbols of things exquisitely
+humorous, which only they understood.  Ariel
+laughed with them more heartily than any other,
+so that she might seem to be of them and as merry
+as they were, but almost immediately she found
+herself outside of the circle, and presently they all
+whirled away into another dance, and she was left
+alone again.
+
+So she sat, no one coming near her, through
+several dances, trying to maintain the smile of
+delighted interest upon her face, though she felt
+the muscles of her face beginning to ache with their
+fixedness, her eyes growing hot and glazed.  All the
+other girls were provided with partners for every
+dance, with several young men left over, these latter
+lounging hilariously together in the doorways.
+Ariel was careful not to glance towards them, but
+she could not help hating them.  Once or twice
+between the dances she saw Miss Pike speak appealingly
+to one of the superfluous, glancing, at the
+same time, in her own direction, and Ariel could
+see, too, that the appeal proved unsuccessful, until
+at last Mamie approached her, leading Norbert
+Flitcroft, partly by the hand, partly by will-power.
+Norbert was an excessively fat boy, and at the
+present moment looked as patient as the blind.
+But he asked Ariel if she was "engaged for the next
+dance," and, Mamie having flitted away, stood
+disconsolately beside her, waiting for the music to
+begin.  Ariel was grateful for him.
+
+"I think you must be very good-natured, Mr.
+Flitcroft," she said, with an air of raillery.
+
+"No, I'm not," he replied, plaintively.  "Everybody
+thinks I am because I'm fat, and they expect
+me to do things they never dream of asking
+anybody else to do.  I'd like to see 'em even ASK
+'Gene Bantry to go and do some of the things they
+get me to do!  A person isn't good-natured just
+because he's fat," he concluded, morbidly, "but
+he might as well be!"
+
+"Oh, I meant good-natured," she returned, with
+a sprightly laugh, "because you're willing to waltz
+with me."
+
+"Oh, well," he returned, sighing, "that's all
+right."
+
+The orchestra flourished into "La Paloma"; he
+put his arm mournfully about her, and taking her
+right hand with his left, carried her arm out to a
+rigid right angle, beginning to pump and balance
+for time.  They made three false starts and then
+got away.  Ariel danced badly; she hopped and
+lost the step, but they persevered, bumping against
+other couples continually.  Circling breathlessly
+into the next room, they passed close to a long
+mirror, in which Ariel saw herself, although in a
+flash, more bitterly contrasted to the others than
+in the cheval-glass of the dressing-room.  The
+clump of roses was flopping about her neck, her
+crimped hair looked frowzy, and there was something
+terribly wrong about her dress.  Suddenly
+she felt her train to be ominously grotesque, as a
+thing following her in a nightmare.
+
+A moment later she caught her partner making a
+burlesque face of suffering over her shoulder, and,
+turning her head quickly, saw for whose benefit
+he had constructed it.  Eugene Bantry, flying
+expertly by with Mamie, was bestowing upon Mr.
+Flitcroft a condescendingly commiserative wink.
+The next instant she tripped in her train and fell to
+the floor at Eugene's feet, carrying her partner
+with her.
+
+There was a shout of laughter.  The young
+hostess stopped Eugene, who would have gone on,
+and he had no choice but to stoop to Ariel's assistance.
+
+"It seems to be a habit of mine," she said,
+laughing loudly.
+
+She did not appear to see the hand he offered,
+but got to her feet without help and walked quickly
+away with Norbert, who proceeded to live up to the
+character he had given himself.
+
+"Perhaps we had better not try it again," she
+laughed.
+
+"Well, I should think not," he returned, with the
+frankest gloom.  With the air of conducting her
+home he took her to the chair against the wall
+whence he had brought her.  There his responsibility
+for her seemed to cease.  "Will you excuse
+me?" he asked, and there was no doubt that he
+felt that he had been given more than his share
+that evening, even though he was fat.
+
+"Yes, indeed."  Her laughter was continuous.
+"I should think you WOULD be glad to get rid of me
+after that.  Ha, ha, ha!  Poor Mr. Flitcroft, you
+know you are!"
+
+It was the deadly truth, and the fat one, saying,
+"Well, if you'll just excuse me now," hurried
+away with a step which grew lighter as the distance
+from her increased.  Arrived at the haven of a far
+doorway, he mopped his brow and shook his head
+grimly in response to frequent rallyings.
+
+Ariel sat through more dances, interminable
+dances and intermissions, in that same chair, in
+which, it began to seem, she was to live out the rest
+of her life.  Now and then, if she thought people
+were looking at her as they passed, she broke into a
+laugh and nodded slightly, as if still amused over
+her mishap.
+
+After a long time she rose, and laughing cheerfully
+to Mr. Flitcroft, who was standing in the
+doorway and replied with a wan smile, stepped
+out quickly into the hall, where she almost ran
+into her great-uncle, Jonas Tabor.  He was going
+towards the big front doors with Judge Pike, having
+just come out of the latter's library, down the
+hall.
+
+Jonas was breathing heavily and was shockingly
+pale, though his eyes were very bright.  He turned
+his back upon his grandniece sharply and went out
+of the door.  Ariel turned from him quite as abruptly
+and re-entered the room whence she had come.
+She laughed again to her fat friend as she passed
+him, and, still laughing, went towards the fatal
+chair, when her eyes caught sight of Eugene Bantry
+and Mamie coming in through the window from
+the porch.  Still laughing, she went to the window
+and looked out; the porch seemed deserted and
+was faintly illuminated by a few Japanese lanterns.
+She sprang out, dropped upon the divan, and burying
+her face in her hands, cried heart-brokenly.
+Presently she felt something alive touch her foot,
+and, her breath catching with alarm, she started
+to rise.  A thin hand, issuing from a shabby sleeve,
+had stolen out between two of the green tubs and
+was pressing upon one of her shoes.
+
+"'SH!" said Joe.  "Don't make a noise!"
+
+His warning was not needed; she had recognized
+the hand and sleeve instantly.  She dropped back
+with a low sound which would have been hysterical 
+if it had been louder, while he raised himself on
+his arm until she could see his face dimly, as he
+peered at her between the palms.
+
+"What were you going on about?" he asked,
+angrily.
+
+"Nothing," she answered.  "I wasn't.  You
+must go away, and quick.  It's too dangerous.  If
+the Judge found you--"
+
+"He won't!"
+
+"Ah, you'd risk anything to see Mamie Pike--"
+
+"What were you crying about?" he interrupted.
+
+"Nothing, I tell you!" she repeated, the tears
+not ceasing to gather in her eyes.  "I wasn't."
+
+"I want to know what it was," he insisted.
+"Didn't the fools ask you to dance?  Ah!  You
+needn't tell me.  That's it.  I've been here for
+the last three dances and you weren't in sight till
+you came to the window.  Well, what do you care
+about that for?"
+
+"I don't!" she answered.  "I don't!"  Then
+suddenly, without being able to prevent it, she
+sobbed.
+
+"No," he said, gently, "I see you don't.  And
+you let yourself be a fool because there are a lot
+of fools in there."
+
+She gave way, all at once, to a gust of sorrow
+and bitterness; she bent far over and caught his
+hand and laid it against her wet cheek.  "Oh,
+Joe," she whispered, brokenly, "I think we have
+such hard lives, you and I!  It doesn't seem right
+--while we're so young!  Why can't we be like
+the others?  Why can't we have some of the fun?"
+
+He withdrew his hand, with the embarrassment
+and shame he would have felt had she been a boy.
+"Get out!" he said, feebly.
+
+She did not seem to notice, but, still stooping,
+rested her elbows on her knees and her face in her
+hands.  "I try so hard to have fun, to be like the
+rest,--and it's always a mistake, always, always,
+always!"  She rocked herself, slightly, from side
+to side.  "I am a fool, it's the truth, or I wouldn't
+have come to-night.  I want to be attractive--I
+want to be in things.  I want to laugh like they
+do--"
+
+"To laugh just to laugh, and not because there's
+something funny?"
+
+"Yes, I do, I do!  And to know how to dress
+and to wear my hair--there must be some place
+where you can learn those things.  I've never had
+any one to show me!  Ah!  Grandfather said
+something like that this afternoon--poor man!
+We're in the same case.  If we only had some one
+to show us!  It all seems so BLIND, here in Canaan,
+for him and me!  I don't say it's not my own
+fault as much as being poor.  I've been a hoyden;
+I don't feel as if I'd learned how to be a girl yet, 
+Joe.  It's only lately I've cared, but I'm seventeen,
+Joe, and--and to-day--to-day--I was sent
+home--and to-night--" She faltered, came to a
+stop, and her whole body was shaken with sobs.
+"I hate myself so for crying--for everything!"
+
+"I'll tell you something," he whispered,
+chuckling desperately.  "'Gene made me unpack his trunk,
+and I don't believe he's as great a man at college as
+he is here.  I opened one of his books, and some
+one had written in it, `Prigamaloo Bantry, the Class
+Try-To-Be'!  He'd never noticed, and you ought
+to have heard him go on!  You'd have just died,
+Ariel--I almost bust wide open!  It was a mean
+trick in me, but I couldn't help showing it to him."
+
+Joe's object was obtained.  She stopped crying,
+and, wiping her eyes, smiled faintly.  Then she
+became grave.  "You're jealous of Eugene," she
+said.
+
+He considered this for a moment.  "Yes," he
+answered, thoughtfully, "I am.  But I wouldn't
+think about him differently on that account.  And
+I wouldn't talk about him to any one but you."
+
+"Not even to--" She left the question unfinished.
+
+"No," he said, quietly.  "Of course not."
+
+"No?  Because it wouldn't be any use?"
+
+"I don't know.  I never have a chance to talk
+to her, anyway."
+
+"Of course you don't!"  Her voice had grown
+steady.  "You say I'm a fool.  What are you?"
+
+"You needn't worry about me," he began.  "I
+can take care--"
+
+"'SH!" she whispered, warningly.  The music
+had stopped, a loud clatter of voices and laughter
+succeeding it.
+
+"What need to be careful," Joe assured her,
+"with all that noise going on?"
+
+"You must go away," she said, anxiously.  "Oh,
+please, Joe!"
+
+"Not yet; I want--"
+
+She coughed loudly.  Eugene and Mamie Pike
+had come to the window, with the evident intention
+of occupying the veranda, but perceiving Ariel
+engaged with threads in her sleeve, they turned away
+and disappeared.  Other couples looked out from
+time to time, and finding the solitary figure in
+possession, retreated abruptly to seek stairways and
+remote corners for the things they were impelled
+to say.
+
+And so Ariel held the porch for three dances and
+three intermissions, occupying a great part of the
+time with entreaties that her obdurate and reckless
+companion should go.  When, for the fourth
+time, the music sounded, her agitation had so
+increased that she was visibly trembling.  "I
+can't stand it, Joe," she said, bending over him.
+
+"I don't know what would happen if they found
+you.  You've GOT to go!"
+
+"No, I haven't," he chuckled.  "They haven't
+even distributed the supper yet!"
+
+"And you take all the chances," she said, slowly,
+"just to see her pass that window a few times."
+
+"What chances?"
+
+"Of what the Judge will do if any one sees
+you."
+
+"Nothing; because if any one saw me I'd leave."
+
+"Please go."
+
+"Not till--"
+
+"'SH!"
+
+A colored waiter, smiling graciously, came out
+upon the porch bearing a tray of salad, hot oysters,
+and coffee.  Ariel shook her head.
+
+"I don't want any," she murmured.
+
+The waiter turned away in pity and was re-
+entering the window, when a passionate whisper
+fell upon his ear as well as upon Ariel's.
+
+"TAKE IT!"
+
+"Ma'am?" said the waiter.
+
+"I've changed my mind," she replied, quickly.
+The waiter, his elation restored, gave of his viands
+with the superfluous bounty loved by his race when
+distributing the product of the wealthy.
+
+When he had gone, "Give me everything that's
+hot," said Joe.  "You can keep the salad."
+
+"I couldn't eat it or anything else," she
+answered, thrusting the plate between the palms.
+
+For a time there was silence.  From within the
+house came the continuous babble of voices and
+laughter, the clink of cutlery on china.  The young
+people spent a long time over their supper.  By-
+and-by the waiter returned to the veranda,
+deposited a plate of colored ices upon Ariel's knees
+with a noble gesture, and departed.
+
+"No ice for me," said Joe.
+
+"Won't you please go now?" she entreated!
+
+"It wouldn't be good manners," he responded.
+"They might think I only came for supper--"
+
+"Hand me back the things.  The waiter might
+come for them any minute."
+
+"Not yet.  I haven't quite finished.  I eat with
+contemplation, Ariel, because there's more than
+the mere food and the warmth of it to consider.
+There's the pleasure of being entertained by the
+great Martin Pike.  Think what a real kindness
+I'm doing him, too.  I increase his good deeds and
+his hospitality without his knowing it or being
+able to help it.  Don't you see how I boost his
+standing with the Recording Angel?  If Lazarus
+had behaved the way I do, Dives needn't have
+had those worries that came to him in the after-
+life."
+
+"Give me the dish and coffee-cup," she 
+whispered, impatiently.  "Suppose the waiter came
+and had to look for them?  Quick!"
+
+"Take them, then.  You'll see that jealousy
+hasn't spoiled my appetite--"
+
+A bottle-shaped figure appeared in the window
+and she had no time to take the plate and cup
+which were being pushed through the palm-leaves.
+She whispered a syllable of warning, and the dishes
+were hurriedly withdrawn as Norbert Flitcroft,
+wearing a solemn expression of injury, came out
+upon the veranda.
+
+He halted suddenly.  "What's that?" he asked,
+with suspicion.
+
+"Nothing," answered Ariel, sharply.  "Where?"
+
+"Behind those palms."
+
+"Probably your own shadow," she laughed; "or
+it might have been a draught moving the leaves."
+
+He did not seem satisfied, but stared hard at
+the spot where the dishes had disappeared, meantime
+edging back cautiously nearer the window.
+
+"They want you," he said, after a pause.  "Some
+one's come for you."
+
+"Oh, is grandfather waiting?"  She rose, at
+the same time letting her handkerchief fall.  She
+stooped to pick it up, with her face away from
+Norbert and towards the palms, whispering
+tremulously, but with passionate urgency, "Please GO!"
+
+"It isn't your grandfather that has come for 
+you," said the fat one, slowly.  "It is old Eskew
+Arp.  Something's happened."
+
+She looked at him for a moment, beginning to
+tremble violently, her eyes growing wide with
+fright.
+
+"Is my grandfather--is he sick?"
+
+"You better go and see.  Old Eskew's waiting
+in the hall.  He'll tell you."
+
+She was by him and through the window instantly.
+Norbert did not follow her; he remained
+for several moments looking earnestly at the palms;
+then he stepped through the window and beckoned
+to a youth who was lounging in the doorway across
+the room.
+
+"There's somebody hiding behind those plants,"
+he whispered, when his friend reached him.  "Go
+and tell Judge Pike to send some of the niggers
+to watch outside the porch, so that he doesn't get
+away.  Then tell him to get his revolver and come
+here."
+
+Meanwhile Ariel had found Mr. Arp waiting in
+the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.
+
+"Your grandfather's all right," he told the
+frightened girl, quickly.  "He sent me for you,
+that's all.  Just hurry and get your things."
+
+She was with him again in a moment, and seizing
+the old man's arm, hurried him down the steps and
+toward the street almost at a run.
+
+"You're not telling me the truth," she said.
+"You're not telling me the truth!"
+
+"Nothing has happened to Roger," panted Mr.
+Arp.  "Nothing to mind, I mean.  Here!  We're
+going this way, not that."  They had come to the
+gate, and as she turned to the right he pulled her
+round sharply to the left.  "We're not going to
+your house."
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+"We're going to your uncle Jonas's."
+
+"Why?" she cried, in supreme astonishment.
+"What do you want to take me there for?  Don't
+you know that he's stopped speaking to me?"
+
+"Yes," said the old man, grimly, with something
+of the look he wore when delivering a clincher at
+the "National House,"--"he's stopped speaking to
+everybody."
+
+
+
+V
+
+BEAVER BEACH
+
+The Canaan Daily Tocsin of the following
+morning "ventured the assertion"
+upon its front page that
+"the scene at the Pike Mansion was
+one of unalloyed festivity, music,
+and mirth; a fairy bower of airy figures wafting
+here and there to the throb of waltz-strains; a
+veritable Temple of Terpsichore, shining forth with
+a myriad of lights, which, together with the generous
+profusion of floral decorations and the mingled
+delights afforded by Minds's orchestra of Indianapolis
+and Caterer Jones of Chicago, was in all
+likelihood never heretofore surpassed in elegance
+in our city. . . .  Only one incident," the Tocsin
+remarked, "marred an otherwise perfect occasion,
+and out of regard for the culprit's family connections,
+which are prominent in our social world, we
+withhold his name.  Suffice it to say that through
+the vigilance of Mr. Norbert Flitcroft, grandson of
+Colonel A. A. Flitcroft, who proved himself a 
+thorough Lecoq (the celebrated French detective), the
+rascal was seized and recognized.  Mr. Flitcroft,
+having discovered him in hiding, had a cordon of
+waiters drawn up around his hiding-place, which
+was the charmingly decorated side piazza of the
+Pike Mansion, and sent for Judge Pike, who came
+upon the intruder by surprise.  He evaded the
+Judge's indignant grasp, but received a well-
+merited blow over the head from a poker which
+the Judge had concealed about his person while
+pretending to approach the hiding-place casually.
+Attracted to the scene by the cries of Mr. Flitcroft,
+who, standing behind Judge Pike, accidentally
+received a blow from the same weapon, all the guests
+of the evening sprang to view the scene, only to
+behold the culprit leap through a crevice between
+the strips of canvas which enclosed the piazza.
+He was seized by the colored coachman of the
+Mansion, Sam Warden, and immediately pounced upon
+by the cordon of Caterer Jones's dusky assistants
+from Chicago, who were in ambush outside.
+Unfortunately, after a brief struggle he managed to
+trip Warden, and, the others stumbling upon the
+prostrate body of the latter, to make his escape
+in the darkness.
+
+"It is not believed by many that his intention
+was burglary, though what his designs were can
+only be left to conjecture, as he is far beyond the
+age when boys perform such actions out of a sense
+of mischief.  He had evidently occupied his hiding-
+place some time, and an idea of his coolness
+may be obtained from his having procured and
+eaten a full meal through an unknown source.
+Judge Pike is justly incensed, and swears that he
+will prosecute him on this and other charges as soon
+as he can be found.  Much sympathy is felt for
+the culprit's family, who feel his shame most
+keenly, but who, though sorrowing over the occurrence,
+declare that they have put up with his
+derelictions long enough, and will do nothing to
+step between him and the Judge's righteous indignation."
+
+The Pike Mansion, "scene of festivity, music,
+and mirth" (not quite so unalloyed, after all, the
+stricken Flitcroft keeping his room for a week under
+medical supervision), had not been the only bower
+of the dance in Canaan that evening: another
+Temple of Terpsichore had shone forth with lights,
+though of these there were not quite a myriad.
+The festivities they illumined obtained no mention
+in the paper, nor did they who trod the measures
+in this second temple exhibit any sense of injury
+because of the Tocsin's omission.  Nay, they were
+of that class, shy without being bashful, exclusive
+yet not proud, which shuns publicity with a single-
+heartedness almost unique in our republic, courting
+observation neither in the prosecution of their
+professions nor in the pursuit of happiness.
+
+Not quite a mile above the northernmost of the
+factories on the water-front, there projected into
+the river, near the end of the crescent bend above
+the town, a long pier, relic of steamboat days,
+rotting now, and many years fallen from its maritime
+uses.  About midway of its length stood a
+huge, crazy shed, long ago utilized as a freight
+storeroom.  This had been patched and propped, and
+a dangerous-looking veranda attached to it, over-
+hanging the water.  Above the doorway was
+placed a sign whereon might be read the words,
+"Beaver Beach, Mike's Place."  The shore end
+of the pier was so ruinous that passage was offered
+by a single row of planks, which presented an
+appearance so temporary, as well as insecure, that
+one might have guessed their office to be something
+in the nature of a drawbridge.  From these a
+narrow path ran through a marsh, left by the
+receding river, to a country road of desolate
+appearance.  Here there was a rough enclosure, or
+corral, with some tumble-down sheds which afforded
+shelter, on the night of Joseph Louden's disgrace,
+for a number of shaggy teams attached to those
+decrepit and musty vehicles known picturesquely
+and accurately as Night-Hawks.  The presence of
+such questionable shapes in the corral indicated
+that the dance was on at Beaver Beach, Mike's
+Place, as surely as the short line of cabs and family
+carriages on upper Main Street made it known
+that gayety was the order of the night at the Pike
+Mansion.  But among other differences was this,
+that at the hour when the guests of the latter were
+leaving, those seeking the hospitalities of Beaver
+Beach had just begun to arrive.
+
+By three o'clock, however, joy at Mike's Place
+had become beyond question unconfined, and the
+tokens of it were audible for a long distance in all
+directions.  If, however, there is no sound where
+no ear hears, silence rested upon the country-side
+until an hour later.  Then a lonely figure came
+shivering from the direction of the town, not by
+the road, but slinking through the snow upon the
+frozen river.  It came slowly, as though very
+tired, and cautiously, too, often turning its head
+to look behind.  Finally it reached the pier, and
+stopped as if to listen.
+
+Within the house above, a piano of evil life was
+being beaten to death for its sins and clamoring
+its last cries horribly.  The old shed rattled in every
+part with the thud of many heavy feet, and trembled
+with the shock of noise--an incessant roar of
+men's voices, punctuated with women's screams.
+Then the riot quieted somewhat; there was a
+clapping of hands, and a violin began to squeak
+measures intended to be Oriental.  The next
+moment the listener scrambled up one of the
+rotting piles and stood upon the veranda.  A shaft
+of red light through a broken shutter struck across
+the figure above the shoulders, revealing a bloody
+handkerchief clumsily knotted about the head,
+and, beneath it, the face of Joe Louden.
+
+He went to the broken shutter and looked in.
+Around the blackened walls of the room stood a
+bleared mob, applausively watching, through a fog
+of smoke, the contortions of an old woman in a
+red calico wrapper, who was dancing in the centre
+of the floor.  The fiddler--a rubicund person
+evidently not suffering from any great depression
+of spirit through the circumstance of being "out
+on bail," as he was, to Joe's intimate knowledge--
+sat astride a barrel, resting his instrument upon the
+foamy tap thereof, and playing somewhat after
+the manner of a 'cellist; in no wise incommoded
+by the fact that a tall man (known to a few friends
+as an expert in the porch-climbing line) was sleeping
+on his shoulder, while another gentleman (who
+had prevented many cases of typhoid by removing
+old plumbing from houses) lay on the floor at the
+musician's feet and endeavored to assist him by
+plucking the strings of the fiddle.
+
+Joe opened the door and went in.  All of the
+merry company (who were able) turned sharply
+toward the door as it opened; then, recognizing
+the new-comer, turned again to watch the old
+woman.  One or two nearest the door asked the
+boy, without great curiosity, what had happened
+to his head.  He merely shook it faintly in reply,
+and crossed the room to an open hallway beyond.
+At the end of this he came to a frowzy bedroom,
+the door of which stood ajar.  Seated at a deal
+table, and working by a dim lamp with a broken
+chimney, a close-cropped, red-bearded, red-haired
+man in his shirt-sleeves was jabbing gloomily
+at a column of figures scrawled in a dirty
+ledger.  He looked up as Joe appeared in the
+doorway, and his eyes showed a slight surprise.
+
+"I never thought ye had the temper to git
+somebody to split yer head," said he.  "Where'd ye
+collect it?"
+
+"Nowhere," Joe answered, dropping weakly on
+the bed.  "It doesn't amount to anything."
+
+"Well, I'll take just a look fer myself," said the
+red-bearded man, rising.  "And I've no objection
+to not knowin' how ye come by it.  Ye've always
+been the great one fer keepin' yer mysteries to
+yerself."
+
+He unwound the handkerchief and removed it
+from Joe's head gently.  "WHEE!" he cried, as a
+long gash was exposed over the forehead.  "I 
+hope ye left a mark somewhere to pay a little on
+the score o' this!"
+
+Joe chuckled and dropped dizzily back upon the
+pillow.  "There was another who got something
+like it," he gasped, feebly; "and, oh, Mike, I wish
+you could have heard him going on!  Perhaps
+you did--it was only three miles from here."
+
+"Nothing I'd liked better!" said the other,
+bringing a basin of clear water from a stand in
+the corner.  "It's a beautiful thing to hear a man
+holler when he gits a grand one like ye're wearing
+to-night."
+
+He bathed the wound gently, and hurrying from
+the room, returned immediately with a small jug
+of vinegar.  Wetting a rag with this tender fluid,
+he applied it to Joe's head, speaking soothingly
+the while.
+
+"Nothing in the world like a bit o' good cider
+vinegar to keep off the festerin'.  It may seem a
+trifle scratchy fer the moment, but it assassinates
+the blood-p'ison.  There ye go!  It's the fine thing
+fer ye, Joe--what are ye squirmin' about?"
+
+"I'm only enjoying it," the boy answered, writhing
+as the vinegar worked into the gash.  "Don't
+you mind my laughing to myself."
+
+"Ye're a good one, Joe!" said the other, continuing
+his ministrations.  "I wisht, after all, ye
+felt like makin' me known to what's the trouble.
+There's some of us would be glad to take it up fer
+ye, and--"
+
+"No, no; it's all right.  I was somewhere I had
+no business to be, and I got caught."
+
+"Who caught ye?"
+
+"First, some nice white people"--Joe smiled
+his distorted smile--"and then a low-down black
+man helped me to get away as soon as he saw who
+it was.  He's a friend of mine, and he fell down
+and tripped up the pursuit."
+
+"I always knew ye'd git into large trouble some
+day."  The red-bearded man tore a strip from
+an old towel and began to bandage the boy's head
+with an accustomed hand.  "Yer taste fer excitement
+has been growin' on ye every minute of the
+four years I've known ye."
+
+"Excitement!" echoed Joe, painfully blinking
+at his friend.  "Do you think I'm hunting excitement?"
+
+"Be hanged to ye!" said the red-bearded man.
+"Can't I say a teasing word without gittin' called
+to order fer it?  I know ye, my boy, as well as ye
+know yerself.  Ye're a queer one.  Ye're one of
+the few that must know all sides of the world--
+and can't content themselves with bein' respectable!
+Ye haven't sunk to `low life' because ye're
+low yourself, but ye'll never git a damned one o'
+the respectable to believe it.  There's a few others 
+like ye in the wide world, and I've seen one or
+two of 'em.  I've been all over, steeple-chasin',
+sailorman, soldier, pedler, and in the PO-lice; I've
+pulled the Grand National in Paris, and I've been
+handcuffed in Hong-Kong; I've seen all the few
+kinds of women there is on earth and the many
+kinds of men.  Yer own kind is the one I've seen
+the fewest of, but I knew ye belonged to it the
+first time I laid eyes on ye!"  He paused, then
+continued with conviction:  "Ye'll come to no
+good, either, fer yerself, yet no one can say ye
+haven't the talents.  Ye've helped many of the
+boys out of a bad hole with a word of advice
+around the courts and the jail.  Who knows but
+ye'd be a great lawyer if ye kept on?"
+
+Young people usually like to discuss themselves
+under any conditions--hence the rewards of palmistry,--
+but Joe's comment on this harangue was
+not so responsive as might have been expected.
+"I've got seven dollars," he said, "and I'll leave
+the clothes I've got on.  Can you fix me up with
+something different?"
+
+"Aha!" cried the red-bearded man.  "Then ye
+ARE in trouble!  I thought it 'd come to ye some
+day!  Have ye been dinnymitin' Martin Pike?"
+
+"See what you can do," said Joe.  "I want to
+wait here until daybreak."
+
+"Lie down, then," interrupted the other.  "And 
+fergit the hullabaloo in the throne-room beyond."
+
+"I can easily do that"--Joe stretched himself
+upon the bed,--"I've got so many other things
+to remember."
+
+"I'll have the things fer ye, and I'll let ye know
+I have no use fer seven dollars," returned the red-
+bearded man, crossly.  "What are ye sniffin' fer?"
+
+"I'm thinking of the poor fellow that got the
+mate to this," said Joe, touching the bandage.
+"I can't help crying when I think they may have
+used vinegar on his head, too."
+
+"Git to sleep if ye can!" exclaimed the Samaritan,
+as a hideous burst of noise came from the dance-
+room, where some one seemed to be breaking a
+chair upon an acquaintance.  "I'll go out and
+regulate the boys a bit."  He turned down the
+lamp, fumbled in his hip-pocket, and went to the
+door.
+
+"Don't forget," Joe called after him.
+
+"Go to sleep," said the red-bearded man, his
+hand on the door-knob.  "That is, go to thinkin',
+fer ye won't sleep; ye're not the kind.  But think
+easy; I'll have the things fer ye.  It's a matter of
+pride with me that I always knew ye'd come to
+trouble."
+
+
+
+VI
+
+YE'LL TAK' THE HIGH ROAD AND I'LL TAK' THE
+LOW ROAD
+
+The day broke with a scream of wind
+out of the prairies and such cloudbursts
+of snow that Joe could see
+neither bank of the river as he made
+his way down the big bend of ice.
+The wind struck so bitterly that now and then
+he stopped and, panting and gasping, leaned his
+weight against it.  The snow on the ground was
+caught up and flew like sea spume in a hurricane;
+it swirled about him, joining the flakes in the air,
+so that it seemed to be snowing from the ground
+upward as much as from the sky downward.
+Fierce as it was, hard as it was to fight through,
+snow from the earth, snow from the sky, Joe was
+grateful for it, feeling that it veiled him, making
+him safer, though he trusted somewhat the change
+of costume he had effected at Beaver Beach.  A
+rough, workman's cap was pulled down over his
+ears and eyebrows; a knitted comforter was wound
+about the lower part of his face; under a ragged
+overcoat he wore blue overalls and rubber boots;
+and in one of his red-mittened hands he swung a
+tin dinner-bucket.
+
+When he reached the nearest of the factories he
+heard the exhaust of its engines long before he
+could see the building, so blinding was the drift.
+Here he struck inland from the river, and, skirting
+the edges of the town, made his way by unfrequented
+streets and alleys, bearing in the general
+direction of upper Main Street, to find himself at
+last, almost exhausted, in the alley behind the
+Pike Mansion.  There he paused, leaning heavily
+against a board fence and gazing at the vaguely
+outlined gray plane which was all that could be
+made of the house through the blizzard.  He had
+often, very often, stood in this same place at night,
+and there was one window (Mrs. Pike's) which he
+had guessed to be Mamie's.
+
+The storm was so thick that he could not see
+this window now, but he looked a long time through
+the thickness at that part of the gray plane where
+he knew it was.  Then his lips parted.
+
+"Good-bye, Mamie," he said, softly.
+"Goodbye, Mamie."
+
+He bent his body against the wind and went on,
+still keeping to the back ways, until he came to
+the alley which passed behind his own home,
+where, however, he paused only for a moment to
+make a quick survey of the premises.  A glance
+satisfied him; he ran to the next fence, hoisted
+himself wearily over it, and dropped into Roger
+Tabor's back yard.
+
+He took shelter from the wind for a moment or
+two, leaning against the fence, breathing heavily;
+then he stumbled on across the obliterated paths
+of a vegetable-garden until he reached the house,
+and beginning with the kitchen, began to make
+the circuit of the windows, peering cautiously into
+each as he went, ready to tap on the pane should
+he catch a glimpse of Ariel, and prepared to run if
+he stumbled upon her grandfather.  But the place
+seemed empty: he had made his reconnaisance
+apparently in vain, and was on the point of going
+away, when he heard the click of the front gate
+and saw Ariel coming towards him, her old water-
+proof cloak about her head and shoulders, the
+patched, scant, faded skirt, which he knew so
+well, blowing about her tumultuously.  At the
+sound of the gate he had crouched close against
+the side of the house, but she saw him at once.
+
+She stopped abruptly, and throwing the water-
+proof back from her head, looked at him through
+the driven fog of snow.  One of her hands was
+stretched towards him involuntarily, and it was
+in that attitude that he long remembered her:
+standing in the drift which had piled up against
+the gate almost knee-deep, the shabby skirt and
+the black water-proof flapping like torn sails, one
+hand out-stretched like that of a figure in a
+tableau, her brown face with its thin features mottled
+with cold and unlovely, her startled eyes fixed
+on him with a strange, wild tenderness that held
+something of the laughter of whole companionship
+in it mingling with a loyalty and championship
+that was almost ferocious--she looked an Undine
+of the snow.
+
+Suddenly she ran to him, still keeping her hand
+out-stretched until it touched his own.
+
+"How did you know me?" he said.
+
+"Know you!" was all the answer she made to
+that question.  "Come into the house.  I've got
+some coffee on the stove for you.  I've been up
+and down the street waiting for you ever since it
+began to get light."
+
+"Your grandfather won't--"
+
+"He's at Uncle Jonas's; he won't be back till
+noon.  There's no one here."
+
+She led him to the front-door, where he stamped
+and shook himself; he was snow from head to foot.
+
+"I'm running away from the good Gomorrah,"
+he said, "but I've stopped to look back, and I'm a
+pretty white pillar."
+
+"I know where you stopped to look back," she
+answered, brushing him heartily with her red
+hands.  "You came in the alley way.  It was
+Mamie's window."
+
+He did not reply, and the only visible token
+that he had any consciousness of this clairvoyance
+of hers was a slight lift of his higher eyebrow.
+She wasted no time in getting him to the kitchen,
+where, when she had removed his overcoat, she
+placed him in a chair, unwound the comforter, and,
+as carefully as a nurse, lifted the cap from his
+injured head.  When the strip of towel was disclosed
+she stood quite still for a moment with the cap in
+her hand; then with a broken little cry she stooped
+and kissed a lock of his hair, which escaped, discolored,
+beneath the bandage.
+
+"Stop that!" he commanded, horribly embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, Joe," she cried, "I knew!  I knew it was
+there--but to SEE it!  And it's my fault for leaving
+you--I HAD to go or I wouldn't have--I--"
+
+"Where'd you hear about it?" he asked, shortly.
+
+"I haven't been to bed," she answered.  "Grandfather
+and I were up all night at Uncle Jonas's, and
+Colonel Flitcroft came about two o'clock, and he
+told us."
+
+"Did he tell you about Norbert?"
+
+"Yes--a great deal."  She poured coffee into a
+cup from a pot on the stove, brought it to him,
+then placing some thin slices of bread upon a gridiron,
+began to toast them over the hot coals.  "The
+Colonel said that Norbert thought he wouldn't get
+well," she concluded; "and Mr. Arp said Norbert
+was the kind that never die, and they had quite
+an argument."
+
+"What were you doing at Jonas Tabor's?" asked
+Joe, drinking his coffee with a brightening eye.
+
+"We were sent for," she answered.
+
+"What for?"
+
+She toasted the bread attentively without
+replying, and when she decided that it was brown
+enough, piled it on a warm plate.  This she brought
+to him, and kneeling in front of him, her elbow on
+his knee, offered for his consideration, looking
+steadfastly up at his eyes.  He began to eat ravenously.
+
+"What for?" he repeated.  "I didn't suppose
+Jonas would let you come in his house.  Was he
+sick?"
+
+"Joe," she said, quietly, disregarding his
+questions---"Joe, have you GOT to run away?"
+
+"Yes, I've got to," he answered.
+
+"Would you have to go to prison if you stayed?"
+She asked this with a breathless tensity.
+
+"I'm not going to beg father to help me out,"
+he said, determinedly.  "He said he wouldn't,
+and he'll be spared the chance.  He won't mind 
+that; nobody will care!  Nobody!  What does anybody
+care what _I_ do!"
+
+"Now you're thinking of Mamie!" she cried.
+"I can always tell.  Whenever you don't talk
+naturally you're thinking of her!"
+
+He poured down the last of the coffee, growing
+red to the tips of his ears.  "Ariel," he said, "if I
+ever come back--"
+
+"Wait," she interrupted.  "Would you have to
+go to prison right away if they caught you?"
+
+"Oh, it isn't that," he laughed, sadly.  "But
+I'm going to clear out.  I'm not going to take any
+chances.  I want to see other parts of the world,
+other kinds of people.  I might have gone, anyhow,
+soon, even if it hadn't been for last night.  Don't
+you ever feel that way?"
+
+"You know I do," she said.  "I've told you--
+how often!  But, Joe, Joe,--you haven't any
+MONEY!  You've got to have money to LIVE!"
+
+"You needn't worry about that," returned the
+master of seven dollars, genially.  "I've saved
+enough to take care of me for a LONG time."
+
+"Joe, PLEASE!  I know it isn't so.  If you could
+wait just a little while--only a few weeks,--only a
+FEW, Joe--"
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I could let you have all you want.  It would
+be such a beautiful thing for me, Joe.  Oh, I know 
+how you'd feel; you wouldn't even let me give you
+that dollar I found in the street last year; but this
+would be only lending it to you, and you could pay
+me back sometime--"
+
+"Ariel!" he exclaimed, and, setting his empty
+cup upon the floor, took her by the shoulders and
+shook her till the empty plate which had held the
+toast dropped from her hand and broke into
+fragments.  "You've been reading the Arabian Nights!"
+
+"No, no," she cried, vehemently.  "Grandfather
+would give me anything.  He'll give me all the
+money I ask for!"
+
+"Money!" said Joe.  "Which of us is wandering?
+MONEY?  Roger Tabor give you MONEY?"
+
+"Not for a while.  A great many things have
+to be settled first."
+
+"What things?"
+
+"Joe," she asked, earnestly, "do you think it's
+bad of me not to feel things I OUGHT to feel?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then I'm glad," she said, and something in
+the way she spoke made him start with pain,
+remembering the same words, spoken in the same
+tone, by another voice, the night before on the
+veranda.  "I'm glad, Joe, because I seemed all
+wrong to myself.  Uncle Jonas died last night,
+and I haven't been able to get sorry.  Perhaps
+it's because I've been so frightened about you, 
+but I think not, for I wasn't sorry even before
+Colonel Flitcroft told me about you."
+
+"Jonas Tabor dead!" said Joe.  "Why, I saw
+him on the street yesterday!"
+
+"Yes, and I saw him just before I came out on
+the porch where you were.  He was there in the
+hall; he and Judge Pike had been having a long
+talk; they'd been in some speculations together,
+and it had all turned out well.  It's very strange,
+but they say now that Uncle Jonas's heart was
+weak--he was an old man, you know, almost
+eighty,--and he'd been very anxious about his
+money.  The Judge had persuaded him to risk it;
+and the shock of finding that he'd made a great
+deal suddenly--"
+
+"I've heard he'd had that same shock before,"
+said Joe, "when he sold out to your father."
+
+"Yes, but this was different, grandfather says.
+He told me it was in one of those big risky
+businesses that Judge Pike likes to go into.  And last
+night it was all finished, the strain was over, and
+Uncle Jonas started home.  His house is only a
+little way from the Pikes', you know; but he
+dropped down in the snow at his own gate, and
+some people who were going by saw him fall.  He
+was dead before grandfather got there."
+
+"I can't be sorry," said Joe, slowly.
+
+"Neither can I.  That's the dreadful part of it!
+They say he hadn't made a will, that though he
+was sharper than anybody else in the whole world
+about any other matter of business, that was the
+one thing he put off.  And we're all the kin he had
+in the world, grandfather and I.  And they say"--
+her voice sank to a whisper of excitement--"they
+say he was richer than anybody knew, and that
+this last business with Judge Pike, the very thing
+that killed him--something about grain--made
+him five times richer than before!"
+
+She put her hand on the boy's arm, and he let
+it remain there.  Her eyes still sought his with
+a tremulous appeal.
+
+"God bless you, Ariel!" he said.  "It's going
+to be a great thing for you."
+
+"Yes.  Yes, it is."  The tears came suddenly
+to her eyes.  "I was foolish last night, but there
+had been such a long time of WANTING things; and
+now--and now grandfather and I can go--"
+
+"You're going, too!" Joe chuckled.
+
+"It's heartless, I suppose, but I've settled it!
+We're going--"
+
+"_I_ know," he cried.  "You've told me a thousand
+times what HE'S said--ten times a thousand.
+You're going to Paris!"
+
+"Paris!  Yes, that's it.  To Paris, where he
+can see at last how the great ones have painted,--
+where the others can show him!  To Paris, where 
+we can study together, where he can learn how to
+put the pictures he sees upon canvas, and where
+I--"
+
+"Go on," Joe encouraged her.  "I want to hear
+you say it.  You don't mean that you're going to
+study painting; you mean that you're going to
+learn how to make such fellows as Eugene ask you
+to dance.  Go ahead and SAY it!"
+
+"Yes--to learn how to DRESS!" she said.
+
+Joe was silent for a moment.  Then he rose and
+took the ragged overcoat from the back of his
+chair.  "Where's that muffler?" he asked.
+
+She brought it from where she had placed it to
+dry, behind the stove.
+
+"Joe," she said, huskily, "can't you wait till--"
+
+"Till the estate is settled and you can coax your
+grandfather to--"
+
+"No, no!  But you could go with us."
+
+"To Paris?"
+
+"He would take you as his secretary."
+
+"Aha!"  Joe's voice rang out gayly as he rose,
+refreshed by the coffee, toast, and warmth she had
+given him.  "You've been story-reading, Ariel,
+like Eugene!  `Secretary'!"
+
+"Please, Joe!"
+
+"Where's my tin dinner-pail?"  He found it
+himself upon the table where he had set it down.
+"I'm going to earn a dishonest living," he went
+on.  "I have an engagement to take a freight at
+a water-tank that's a friend of mine, half a mile
+south of the yards.  Thank God, I'm going to get
+away from Canaan!"
+
+"Wait, Joe!" She caught at his sleeve.  "I
+want you to--"
+
+He had swung out of the room and was already
+at the front-door.  She followed him closely.
+
+"Good-bye, Ariel!"
+
+"No, no!  WAIT, Joe!"
+
+He took her right hand in his own, and gave it
+a manly shake.  "It's all right," he said.
+
+He threw open the door and stepped out, but
+she sought to detain him.  "Oh, have you GOT to
+go?" she cried.
+
+"Don't you ever worry about me."  He bent
+his head to the storm as he sprang down the steps,
+and snow-wreaths swirled between them.
+
+He disappeared in a white whirlwind.
+
+She stood for several minutes shivering in the
+doorway.  Then it came to her that she would not
+know where to write to him.  She ran down to
+the gate and through it.  Already the blizzard
+had covered his footprints.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME
+
+The passing of Joseph from Canaan
+was complete.  It was an evanishment
+for which there was neither
+sackcloth nor surprise; and though
+there came no news of him it cannot
+be said that Canaan did not hear of him, for
+surely it could hear itself talk.  The death of
+Jonas Tabor and young Louden's crime and flight
+incited high doings in the "National House"
+windows; many days the sages lingered with the
+broken meats of morals left over from the banquet
+of gossip.  But, after all, it is with the ladies of a
+community that reputations finally rest, and the
+matrons of Canaan had long ago made Joe's
+exceedingly uncertain.  Now they made it certain.
+
+They did not fail of assistance.  The most
+powerful influence in the town was ponderously
+corroborative: Martin Pike, who stood for all that
+was respectable and financial, who passed the plate
+o' Sundays, who held the fortunes of the town in
+his left hand, who was trustee for the widow and
+orphan,--Martin Pike, patron of all worthy charities,
+courted by ministers, feared by the wicked
+and idle, revered by the good,--Judge Martin Pike
+never referred to the runaway save in the accents
+of an august doomster.  His testimony settled it.
+
+In time the precise nature of the fugitive's sins
+was distorted in report and grew vague; it was
+recalled that he had done dread things; he became
+a tradition, a legend, and a warning to the young;
+a Richard in the bush to frighten colts.  He was
+preached at boys caught playing marbles "for
+keeps":  "Do you want to grow up like Joe Louden?"
+The very name became a darkling threat,
+and children of the town would have run had one
+called suddenly, "HERE COMES JOE LOUDEN!"  Thus
+does the evil men do live after them, and the ill-
+fame of the unrighteous increase when they are
+sped!
+
+Very little of Joseph's adventures and occupations
+during the time of his wandering is revealed
+to us; he always had an unwilling memory for pain
+and was not afterwards wont to speak of those
+years which cut the hard lines in his face.  The
+first account of him to reach Canaan came as
+directly to the windows of the "National House"
+as Mr. Arp, hastening thither from the station,
+satchel in hand, could bring it.
+
+This was on a September morning, two years
+after the flight, and Eskew, it appears, had been
+to the State Fair and had beheld many things
+strangely affirming his constant testimony that
+this unhappy world increaseth in sin; strangest of
+all, his meeting with our vagrant scalawag of
+Canaan.  "Not a BLAMEBIT of doubt about it,"
+declared Eskew to the incredulous conclave.  "There
+was that Joe, and nobody else, stuck up in a little
+box outside a tent at the Fair Grounds, and sellin'
+tickets to see the Spotted Wild Boy!"  Yes, it was
+Joe Louden!  Think you, Mr. Arp could forget
+that face, those crooked eyebrows?  Had Eskew
+tested the recognition?  Had he spoken with the
+outcast?  Had he not!  Ay, but with such
+peculiar result that the battle of words among the
+sages began with a true onset of the regulars; for,
+according to Eskew's narrative, when he had
+delivered grimly at the boy this charge, "I know you
+--YOU'RE JOE LOUDEN!" the extraordinary reply had
+been made promptly and without change of
+countenance:  "POSITIVELY NO FREE SEATS!"
+
+On this, the house divided, one party
+maintaining that Joe had thus endeavored to evade
+recognition, the other (to the embitterment of Mr.
+Arp) that the reply was a distinct admission of
+identity and at the same time a refusal to grant
+any favors on the score of past acquaintanceship.
+
+Goaded by inquiries, Mr. Arp, who had little desire
+to recall such waste of silver, admitted more than
+he had intended: that he had purchased a ticket
+and gone in to see the Spotted Wild Boy, halting
+in his description of this marvel with the unsatisfactory
+and acrid statement that the Wild Boy was
+"simply SPOTTED,"--and the stung query, "I suppose
+you know what a spot IS, Squire?"  When he came
+out of the tent he had narrowly examined the
+ticket-seller,--who seemed unaware of his scrutiny,
+and, when not engaged with his tickets, applied
+himself to a dirty law-looking book.  It was
+Joseph Louden, reasserted Eskew, a little taller, a
+little paler, incredibly shabby and miraculously
+thin.  If there were any doubt left, his forehead
+was somewhat disfigured by the scar of an old
+wound--such as might have been caused by a
+blunt instrument in the nature of a poker.
+
+"What's the matter with YOU?" Mr. Arp
+whirled upon Uncle Joe Davey, who was enjoying
+himself by repeating at intervals the unreasonable
+words, "Couldn't of be'n Joe," without any
+explanation.  "Why couldn't it?" shouted Eskew.
+"It was!  Do you think my eyes are as fur gone
+as yours?  I saw him, I tell you!  The same ornery
+Joe Louden, run away and sellin' tickets for a side-
+show.  He wasn't even the boss of it; the manager
+was about the meanest-lookin' human I ever saw
+--and most humans look mighty mean, accordin'
+to my way of thinkin'!  Riffraff of the riffraff are
+his friends now, same as they were here.  Weeds!
+and HE'S a weed, always was and always will be!
+Him and his kind ain't any more than jimpsons;
+overrun everything if you give 'em a chance.
+Devil-flowers!  They have to be hoed out and
+scattered--even then, like as not, they'll come
+back next year and ruin your plantin' once more.
+That boy Joe 'll turn up here again some day;
+you'll see if he don't.  He's a seed of trouble and
+iniquity, and anything of that kind is sure to come
+back to Canaan!"
+
+Mr. Arp stuck to his prediction for several
+months; then he began to waver and evade.  By
+the end of the second year following its first utterance,
+he had formed the habit of denying that he
+had ever made it at all, and, finally having come
+to believe with all his heart that the prophecy had
+been deliberately foisted upon him and put in his
+mouth by Squire Buckalew, became so sore upon
+the subject that even the hardiest dared not refer
+to it in his presence.
+
+Eskew's story of the ticket-seller was the only
+news of Joe Louden that came to Canaan during
+seven years.  Another citizen of the town encountered
+the wanderer, however, but under circumstances
+so susceptible to misconception that, in a
+moment of illumination, he decided to let the matter
+rest in a golden silence.  This was Mr. Bantry.
+
+Having elected an elaborate course in the Arts,
+at the University which was of his possessions,
+what more natural than that Eugene should seek
+the Metropolis for the short Easter vacation of
+his Senior year, in order that his perusal of the
+Masters should be uninterrupted?  But it was his
+misfortune to find the Metropolitan Museum less
+interesting than some intricate phases of the gayety
+of New York--phases very difficult to understand
+without elaborate study and a series of experiments
+which the discreetly selfish permit others to make
+for them.  Briefly, Eugene found himself dancing,
+one night, with a young person in a big hat, at the
+"Straw-Cellar," a crowded hall, down very deep
+in the town and not at all the place for Eugene.
+
+Acute crises are to be expected at the "Straw-
+Cellar," and Eugene was the only one present who
+was thoroughly surprised when that of this night
+arrived, though all of the merrymakers were
+frightened when they perceived its extent.  There
+is no need to detail the catastrophe.  It came
+suddenly, and the knife did not flash.  Sick and thinking
+of himself, Eugene stood staring at the figure
+lying before him upon the reddening floor.  A rabble
+fought with the quick policemen at the doors,
+and then the lights went out, extinguished by the
+proprietor, living up to his reputation for always
+being thoughtful of his patrons.  The place had
+been a nightmare; it became a black impossibility.
+Eugene staggered to one of the open windows, from
+the sill of which a man had just leaped.
+
+"Don't jump," said a voice close to his ear.
+"That fellow broke his leg, I think, and they
+caught him, anyway, as soon as he struck the
+pavement.  It's a big raid.  Come this way."
+
+A light hand fell upon his arm and he followed
+its leading, blindly, to find himself pushed through
+a narrow doorway and down a flight of tricky,
+wooden steps, at the foot of which, silhouetted
+against a street light, a tall policeman was on guard.
+He laid masterful hands on Eugene.
+
+"'SH, Mack!" whispered a cautious voice from
+the stairway.  "That's a friend of mine and not
+one of those you need.  He's only a student and
+scared to death."
+
+"Hurry," said the policeman, under his breath,
+twisting Eugene sharply by him into the street;
+after which he stormed vehemently:  "On yer way,
+both of ye!  Move on up the street!  Don't be
+tryin' to poke yer heads in here!  Ye'd be more
+anxious to git out, once ye got in, I tell ye!"
+
+A sob of relief came from Bantry as he gained
+the next corner, the slight figure of his conductor
+at his side.  "You'd better not go to places like 
+the `Straw-Cellar,' " said the latter, gravely.  "I'd
+been watching you for an hour.  You were dancing
+with the girl who did the cutting."
+
+Eugene leaned against a wall, faint, one arm
+across his face.  He was too ill to see, or care, who
+it was that had saved him.  "I never saw her
+before," he babbled, incoherently, "never, never,
+never!  I thought she looked handsome, and
+asked her if she'd dance with me.  Then I saw
+she seemed queer--and wild, and she kept guiding
+and pushing as we danced until we were near that
+man--and then she--then it was all done--before--"
+
+"Yes," said the other; "she's been threatening
+to do it for a long time.  Jealous.  Mighty good
+sort of a girl, though, in lots of ways.  Only yesterday
+I talked with her and almost thought I'd
+calmed her out of it.  But you can't tell with some
+women.  They'll brighten up and talk straight
+and seem sensible, one minute, and promise to behave,
+and mean it too, and the next, there they go,
+making a scene, cutting somebody or killing
+themselves!  You can't count on them.  But that's
+not to the point, exactly, I expect.  You'd better
+keep away from the `Straw-Cellar.'  If you'd been
+caught with the rest you'd have had a hard time,
+and they'd have found out your real name, too,
+because it's pretty serious on account of your
+dancing with her when she did it, and the Canaan
+papers would have got hold of it and you
+wouldn't be invited to Judge Pike's any more,
+Eugene."
+
+Eugene dropped his arm from his eyes and stared
+into the face of his step-brother.
+
+"Joe Louden!" he gasped.
+
+"I'll never tell," said Joe.  "You'd better keep
+out of all this sort.  You don't understand it, and
+you don't--you don't do it because you care."
+He smiled wanly, his odd distorted smile of
+friendliness.  "When you go back you might tell father
+I'm all right.  I'm working through a law-school
+here--and remember me to Norbert Flitcroft," he
+finished, with a chuckle.
+
+Eugene covered his eyes again and groaned.
+
+"It's all right," Joe assured him.  "You're as
+safe as if it had never happened.  And I expect"
+--he went on, thoughtfully--"I expect, maybe,
+you'd prefer NOT to say you'd seen me, when you go
+back to Canaan.  Well, that's all right.  I don't
+suppose father will be asking after me--exactly."
+
+"No, he doesn't," said Eugene, still white and
+shaking.  "Don't stand talking.  I'm sick."
+
+"Of course," returned Joe.  "But there's one
+thing I would like to ask you--"
+
+"Your father's health is perfect, I believe."
+
+"It--it--it was something else," Joe stammered, 
+pitifully.  "Are they all--are they all--all right at
+--at Judge Pike's?"
+
+"Quite!" Eugene replied, sharply.  "Are you going
+to get me away from here?  I'm sick, I tell you!"
+
+"This street," said Joe, and cheerfully led the way.
+
+Five minutes later the two had parted, and Joe
+leaned against a cheap restaurant sign-board,
+drearily staring after the lamps of the gypsy night-
+cab he had found for his step-brother.  Eugene
+had not offered to share the vehicle with him, had
+not even replied to his good-night.
+
+And Joe himself had neglected to do something
+he might well have done: he had not asked Eugene
+for news of Ariel Tabor.  It will not justify him
+entirely to suppose that he assumed that her
+grandfather and she had left Canaan never to
+return, and therefore Eugene knew nothing of her;
+no such explanation serves Joe for his neglect, for
+the fair truth is that he had not thought of her.
+She had been a sort of playmate, before his flight,
+a friend taken for granted, about whom he had
+consciously thought little more than he thought
+about himself--and easily forgotten.  Not forgotten
+in the sense that she had passed out of his
+memory, but forgotten none the less; she had
+never had a place in his imaginings, and so it
+befell that when he no longer saw her from day to
+day, she had gone from his thoughts altogether.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+A BAD PENNY TURNS UP
+
+Eugene did not inform Canaan, nor
+any inhabitant, of his adventure of
+"Straw-Cellar," nor did any hear
+of his meeting with his step-brother; 
+and after Mr. Arp's adventure, five
+years passed into the imperishable before the town
+heard of the wanderer again, and then it heard at
+first hand; Mr. Arp's prophecy fell true, and he
+took it back to his bosom again, claimed it as his
+own the morning of its fulfilment.  Joe Louden
+had come back to Canaan.
+
+The elder Louden was the first to know of his
+prodigal's return.  He was alone in the office of
+the wooden-butter-dish factory, of which he was
+the superintendent, when the young man came in
+unannounced.  He was still pale and thin; his
+eyebrows had the same crook, one corner of his
+mouth the same droop; he was only an inch or so
+taller, not enough to be thought a tall man; and
+yet, for a few moments the father did not recognize
+his son, but stared at him, inquiring his business.
+During those few seconds of unrecognition, Mr.
+Louden was somewhat favorably impressed with
+the stranger's appearance.
+
+"You don't know me," said Joe, smiling
+cheerfully.  "Perhaps I've changed in seven years."
+And he held out his hand.
+
+Then Mr. Louden knew; he tilted back in his
+desk-chair, his mouth falling open.  "Good God!"
+he said, not noticing the out-stretched hand.  "Have
+YOU come back?"
+
+Joe's hand fell.
+
+"Yes, I've come back to Canaan."
+
+Mr. Louden looked at him a long time without
+replying; finally he remarked:
+
+"I see you've still got a scar on your forehead."
+
+"Oh, I've forgotten all about that," said the
+other, twisting his hat in his hands.  "Seven years
+wipes out a good many grievances and wrongs."
+
+"You think so?" Mr Louden grunted.  "I suppose
+it might wipe out a good deal with some people.
+How'd you happen to stop off at Canaan?
+On your way somewhere, I suppose."
+
+"No, I've come back to stay."
+
+Mr. Louden plainly received this as no pleasant
+surprise.  "What for?" he asked, slowly.
+
+"To practise law, father."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes," said the young man.  "There ought to
+be an opening here for me.  I'm a graduate of as
+good a law-school as there is in the country--"
+
+"You are!"
+
+"Certainly," said Joe, quietly.  "I've put
+myself through, working in the summer--"
+
+"Working!" Mr. Louden snorted.  "Side-shows?"
+
+"Oh, worse than that, sometimes," returned his
+son, laughing.  "Anything I could get.  But I've
+always wanted to come back home and work here."
+
+Mr. Louden leaned forward, a hand on each
+knee, his brow deeply corrugated.  "Do you think
+you'll get much practice in Canaan?"
+
+"Why not?  I've had a year in a good office in
+New York since I left the school, and I think I
+ought to get along all right."
+
+"Oh," said Mr. Louden, briefly.  "You do?"
+
+"Yes.  Don't you?"
+
+"Who do you think in Canaan would put a case
+in your hands?"
+
+"Oh, I don't expect to get anything important
+at the start.  But after a while--"
+
+"With your reputation?"
+
+The smile which had faded from Joe's lips
+returned to them.  "Oh, I know they thought I
+was a harum-scarum sort of boy," he answered
+lightly, "and that it was a foolish thing to run
+away for nothing; but you had said I mustn't come
+to you for help--"
+
+"I meant it," said Mr. Louden.
+
+"But that's seven years ago, and I suppose the
+town's forgotten all about it, and forgotten me,
+too.  So, you see, I can make a fresh start.  That's
+what I came back for."
+
+"You've made up your mind to stay here, then?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I don't believe," said Mr. Louden, with marked
+uneasiness, "that Mrs. Louden would be willing to
+let you live with us."
+
+"No," said Joe, gently.  "I didn't expect it."
+He turned to the window and looked out, averting
+his face, yet scoring himself with the contempt
+he had learned to feel for those who pity themselves.
+His father had not even asked him to
+sit down.  There was a long silence, disturbed only
+by Mr. Louden's breathing, which could be heard,
+heavy and troubled.
+
+At last Joe turned again, smiling as before.
+"Well, I won't keep you from your work," he said.
+"I suppose you're pretty busy--"
+
+"Yes, I am," responded his father, promptly.
+"But I'll see you again before you go.  I want to
+give you some advice."
+
+"I'm not going," said Joe.  "Not going to
+leave Canaan, I mean.  Where will I find Eugene?"
+
+"At the Tocsin office; he's the assistant editor.
+Judge Pike bought the Tocsin last year, and he
+thinks a good deal of Eugene.  Don't forget I said
+to come to see me again before you go."
+
+Joe came over to the older man and held out
+his hand.  "Shake hands, father," he said.  Mr.
+Louden looked at him out of small implacable
+eyes, the steady hostility of which only his wife
+or the imperious Martin Pike, his employer, could
+quell.  He shook his head.
+
+"I don't see any use in it," he answered.  "It
+wouldn't mean anything.  All my life I've been
+a hard-working man and an abiding man.  Before
+you got in trouble you never did anything you
+ought to; you ran with the lowest people in town,
+and I and all your folks were ashamed of you.  I
+don't see that we've got a call to be any different
+now."  He swung round to his desk emphatically,
+on the last word, and Joe turned away and went
+out quietly.
+
+But it was a bright morning to which he emerged
+from the outer doors of the factory, and he made
+his way towards Main Street at a lively gait.  As he
+turned the corner opposite the "National House,"
+he walked into Mr. Eskew Arp.  The old man
+drew back angrily.
+
+"Lord 'a' mercy!" cried Joe, heartily.  "It's
+Mr. Arp!  I almost ran you down!" Then, as
+Mr. Arp made no response, but stood stock-still in
+the way, staring at him fiercely, "Don't you know
+me, Mr. Arp?" the young man asked.  "I'm Joe
+Louden."
+
+Eskew abruptly thrust his face close to the
+other's.  "NO FREE SEATS!" he hissed, savagely; and
+swept across to the hotel to set his world afire.
+
+Joe looked after the irate, receding figure, and
+watched it disappear into the Main Street door of
+the "National House."  As the door closed, he
+became aware of a mighty shadow upon the pavement,
+and turning, beheld a fat young man, wearing
+upon his forehead a scar similar to his own,
+waddling by with eyes fixed upon him.
+
+"How are you, Norbert?" Joe began.  "Don't
+you remember me?  I--"  He came to a full stop,
+as the fat one, thrusting out an under lip as his
+only token of recognition, passed balefully on.
+
+Joe proceeded slowly until he came to the Tocsin
+building.  At the foot of the stairway leading up
+to the offices he hesitated for a few moments; then
+he turned away and walked towards the quieter
+part of Main Street.  Most of the people he met
+took no notice of him, only two or three giving him
+second glances of half-cognizance, as though he
+reminded them of some one they could not place,
+and it was not until he had come near the Pike
+Mansion that he saw a full recognition in the eyes
+of one of the many whom he knew, and who had
+known him in his boyhood in the town.  A lady,
+turning a corner, looked up carelessly, and then
+half-stopped within a few feet of him, as if startled.
+Joe's cheeks went a sudden crimson; for it was the
+lady of his old dreams.
+
+Seven years had made Mamie Pike only prettier.
+She had grown into her young womanhood with
+an ampleness that had nothing of oversufficiency
+in it, nor anywhere a threat that some day there
+might be too much of her.  Not quite seventeen
+when he had last seen her, now, at twenty-four, her
+amber hair elaborately becoming a plump and
+regular face, all of her old charm came over him
+once more, and it immediately seemed to him that
+he saw clearly his real reason for coming back to
+Canaan.  She had been the Rich-Little-Girl of his
+child days, the golden princess playing in the
+Palace-Grounds, and in his early boyhood (until
+he had grown wicked and shabby) he had been
+sometimes invited to the Pike Mansion for the
+games and ice-cream of the daughter of the house,
+before her dancing days began.  He had gone
+timidly, not daring ever to "call" her in "Quaker
+Meeting" or "Post-office," but watching her
+reverently and surreptitiously and continually.  She
+had always seemed to him the one thing of all the
+world most rare, most mysterious, most 
+unapproachable.  She had not offered an apparition
+less so in those days when he began to come under
+the suspicion of Canaan, when the old people began
+to look upon him hotly, the young people
+coldly.  His very exclusion wove for him a glamour
+about her, and she was more than ever his moon,
+far, lovely, unattainable, and brilliant, never to be
+reached by his lifted arms, but only by his lifted
+eyes.  Nor had his long absence obliterated that
+light; somewhere in his dreams it always had
+place, shining, perhaps, with a fainter lustre as the
+years grew to seven, but never gone altogether.
+Now, at last, that he stood in her very presence
+again, it sprang to the full flood of its old brilliance
+--and more!
+
+As she came to her half-stop of surprise, startled,
+he took his courage in two hands, and, lifting his
+hat, stepped to her side.
+
+"You--you remember me?" he stammered.
+
+"Yes," she answered, a little breathlessly.
+
+"Ah, that's kind of you!" he cried, and began
+to walk on with her, unconsciously.  "I feel like a
+returned ghost wandering about--invisible and
+unrecognized.  So few people seem to remember me!"
+
+"I think you are wrong.  I think you'll find
+everybody remembers you," she responded, uneasily.
+
+"No, I'm afraid not," he began.  "I--"
+
+"I'm afraid they do!"
+
+Joe laughed a little.  "My father was saying
+something like that to me a while ago.  He meant
+that they used to think me a great scapegrace here.
+Do you mean that?"
+
+"I'd scarcely like to say," she answered, her face
+growing more troubled; for they were close on the
+imperial domain.
+
+"But it's long ago--and I really didn't do anything
+so outrageous, it seems to me."  He laughed
+again.  "I know your father was angry with me
+once or twice, especially the night I hid on your
+porch to watch you--to watch you dance, I mean.
+But, you see, I've come back to rehabilitate myself, to--"
+
+She interrupted him.  They were not far from
+her gate, and she saw her father standing in the
+yard, directing a painter who was at work on one
+of the cast-iron deer.  The Judge was apparently
+in good spirits, laughing with the workman over
+some jest between them, but that did not lessen
+Mamie's nervousness.
+
+"Mr. Louden," she said, in as kindly a tone as
+she could, "I shall have to ask you not to walk
+with me.  My father would not like it."
+
+Joe stopped with a jerk.
+
+"Why, I--I thought I'd go in and shake hands
+with him,--and tell him I--"
+
+Astonishment that partook of terror and of awe
+spread itself instantly upon her face.
+
+"Good gracious!" she cried.  "NO!"
+
+"Very well," said Joe, humbly.  "Good-bye."
+
+He was too late to get away with any good grace.
+Judge Pike had seen them, and, even as Joe turned
+to go, rushed down to the gate, flung it open, and
+motioned his daughter to enter.  This he did with
+one wide sweep of his arm, and, with another
+sweep, forbade Joe to look upon either moon OR
+sun.  It was a magnificent gesture: it excluded the
+young man from the street, Judge Pike's street,
+and from the town, Judge Pike's town.  It swept
+him from the earth, abolished him, denied him
+the right to breathe the common air, to be seen of
+men; and, at once a headsman's stroke and an
+excommunication, destroyed him, soul and body,
+thus rebuking the silly Providence that had created
+him, and repairing Its mistake by annihilating
+him.  This hurling Olympian gesture smote the
+street; the rails of the car-track sprang and
+quivered with the shock; it thundered, and, amid the
+dumfounding uproar of the wrath of a god, the
+Will of the Canaanite Jove wrote the words in
+fiery letters upon the ether:
+
+"CEASE TO BE!"
+
+Joe did not go in to shake hands with Judge
+Pike.
+
+He turned the next corner a moment later, and
+went down the quiet street which led to the house
+which had been his home.  He did not glance at
+that somewhat grim edifice, but passed it, his eyes
+averted, and stopped in front of the long,
+ramshackle cottage next door.  The windows were
+boarded; the picket-fence dropped even to the
+ground in some sections; the chimneys sagged
+and curved; the roof of the long porch sprinkled
+shingles over the unkempt yard with every wind,
+and seemed about to fall.  The place was desolate
+with long emptiness and decay: it looked like a
+Haunted House; and nailed to the padlocked gate
+was a sign, half obliterated with the winters it
+had fronted, "For Sale or Rent."
+
+Joe gat him meditatively back to Main Street
+and to the Tocsin building.  This time he did not
+hesitate, but mounted the stairs and knocked upon
+the door of the assistant editor.
+
+"Oh," said Eugene.  "YOU'VE turned up,
+you?"
+
+Mr. Bantry of the Tocsin was not at all the
+Eugene rescued from the "Straw-Cellar."  The present
+gentleman was more the electric Freshman than
+the frightened adventurer whom Joe had encountered
+in New York.  It was to be seen immediately
+that the assistant editor had nothing undaintily
+business-like about him, nor was there the litter 
+on his desk which one might have expected.  He
+had the air of a gentleman dilettante who amused
+himself slightly by spending an hour or two in the
+room now and then.  It was the evolution to the
+perfect of his Freshman manner, and his lively
+apparel, though somewhat chastened by an older
+taste, might have been foretold from that which
+had smitten Canaan seven years before.  He sat
+not at the orderly and handsome desk, but lay
+stretched upon a divan of green leather, smoking a
+cigar of purest ray and reading sleepily a small
+verse-looking book in morocco.  His occupation,
+his general air, the furniture of the room, and his
+title (doubtless equipped with a corresponding
+salary) might have inspired in an observant cynic
+the idea that here lay a pet of Fortune, whose
+position had been the fruit of nepotism, or,
+mayhap, a successful wooing of some daughter,
+wife, or widow.  Eugene looked competent for
+that.
+
+"I've come back to stay, 'Gene," said Joe.
+
+Bantry had dropped his book and raised himself
+on an elbow.  "Exceedingly interesting," he said.
+"I suppose you'll try to find something to do.  I
+don't think you could get a place here; Judge Pike
+owns the Tocsin, and I greatly fear he has a prejudice
+against you."
+
+"I expect he has," Joe chuckled, somewhat
+sadly.  "But I don't want newspaper work.  I'm
+going to practice law."
+
+"By Jove! you have courage, my festive prodigal.
+VRAIMENT!"
+
+Joe cocked his head to one side with his old look
+of the friendly puppy.  "You always did like to
+talk that noveletty way, 'Gene, didn't you?" he
+said, impersonally.
+
+Eugene's color rose.  "Have you saved up anything
+to starve on?" he asked, crisply.
+
+"Oh, I'm not so badly off.  I've had a salary in
+an office for a year, and I had one pretty good day
+at the races--"
+
+"You'd better go back and have another," said
+his step-brother.  "You don't seem to comprehend
+your standing in Canaan."
+
+"I'm beginning to."  Joe turned to the door.
+"It's funny, too--in a way.  Well--I won't keep
+you any longer.  I just stopped in to say good-
+day--"  He paused, faltering.
+
+"All right, all right," Eugene said, briskly.
+"And, by-the-way, I haven't mentioned that I saw
+you in New York."
+
+"Oh, I didn't suppose that you would."
+
+"And you needn't say anything about it, I
+fancy."
+
+"I don't think," said Joe,--"I don't think that
+you need be afraid I'll do that.  Good-bye."
+
+"Be sure to shut the door, please; it's rather
+noisy with it open.  Good-bye."  Eugene waved
+his hand and sank back upon the divan.
+
+Joe went across the street to the "National
+House."  The sages fell as silent as if he had been
+Martin Pike.  They had just had the pleasure of
+hearing a telephone monologue by Mr. Brown, the
+clerk, to which they listened intently:  "Yes.  This
+is Brown.  Oh--oh, it's Judge Pike?  Yes indeed,
+Judge, yes indeed, I hear you--ha, ha!  Of course,
+I understand.  Yes, Judge, I heard he was in
+town.  No, he hasn't been here.  Not yet, that
+is, Judge.  Yes, I hear.  No, I won't, of course.
+Certainly not.  I will, I will.  I hear perfectly, I
+understand.  Yes, sir.  Good-bye, Judge."
+
+Joe had begun to write his name in the register.
+"My trunk is still at the station," he said.  "I'll
+give you my check to send down for it."
+
+"Excuse me," said the clerk.  "We have no rooms."
+
+"What!" cried Joe, innocently.  "Why, I never
+knew more than eight people to stay here at the
+same time in my life."
+
+"We have no rooms," repeated the clerk, curtly.
+
+"Is there a convention here?"
+
+"We have no rooms, I say!"
+
+Joe looked up into the condensed eyes of Mr.
+Brown.  "Oh," he said, "I see."
+
+Deathly silence followed him to the door, but,
+as it closed behind him, he heard the outbreak of
+the sages like a tidal wave striking a dump-heap
+of tin cans.
+
+Two hours later he descended from an evil ark
+of a cab at the corral attached to Beaver Beach,
+and followed the path through the marsh to the
+crumbling pier.  A red-bearded man was seated
+on a plank by the water edge, fishing.
+
+"Mike," said Joe, "have you got room for me?
+Can you take me in for a few days until I find a
+place in town where they'll let me stay?"
+
+The red-bearded man rose slowly, pushed back
+his hat, and stared hard at the wanderer; then he
+uttered a howl of joy and seized the other's hands
+in his and shook them wildly.
+
+"Glory be on high!" he shouted.  "It's Joe
+Louden come back!  We never knew how we
+missed ye till ye'd gone!  Place fer ye!  Can I
+find it?  There ain't a imp o' perdition in town,
+includin' myself, that wouldn't kill me if I couldn't!
+Ye'll have old Maggie's room, my own aunt's; ye
+remember how she used to dance!  Ha, ha!  She's
+been burnin' below these four years!  And we'll
+have the celebration of yer return this night.
+There'll be many of 'em will come when they hear
+ye're back in Canaan!  Praise God, we'll all hope
+ye're goin' to stay a while!"
+
+
+
+IX
+
+"OUTER DARKNESS"
+
+If any echo of doubt concerning his
+undesirable conspicuousness sounded
+faintly in Joe's mind, it was silenced
+eftsoons.  Canaan had not forgotten
+him--far from it!--so far that it began
+pointing him out to strangers on the street
+the very day of his return.  His course of action,
+likewise that of his friends, permitted him little
+obscurity, and when the rumors of his finally
+obtaining lodging at Beaver Beach, and of the
+celebration of his installation there, were presently
+confirmed, he stood in the lime-light indeed, as a
+Mephistopheles upsprung through the trap-door.
+
+The welcoming festivities had not been so
+discreetly conducted as to accord with the general
+policy of Beaver Beach.  An unfortunate incident
+caused the arrest of one of the celebrators and the
+ambulancing to the hospital of another on the
+homeward way, the ensuing proceedings in court
+bringing to the whole affair a publicity devoutly
+unsought for.  Mr. Happy Fear (such was the
+habitual name of the imprisoned gentleman) had
+to bear a great amount of harsh criticism for
+injuring a companion within the city limits after
+daylight, and for failing to observe that three
+policemen were not too distant from the scene of
+operations to engage therein.
+
+"Happy, if ye had it in mind to harm him,"
+said the red-bearded man to Mr. Fear, upon the
+latter's return to society, "why didn't ye do it
+out here at the Beach?"
+
+"Because," returned the indiscreet, "he didn't
+say what he was goin' to say till we got in town."
+
+Extraordinary probing on the part of the
+prosecutor had developed at the trial that the obnoxious
+speech had referred to the guest of the evening.
+The assaulted party, one "Nashville" Cory, was
+not of Canaan, but a bit of drift-wood haply touching
+shore for the moment at Beaver Beach; and--
+strange is this world--he had been introduced to
+the coterie of Mike's Place by Happy Fear himself,
+who had enjoyed a brief acquaintance with him on
+a day when both had chanced to travel incognito
+by the same freight.  Naturally, Happy had felt
+responsible for the proper behavior of his protege
+--was, in fact, bound to enforce it; additionally,
+Happy had once been saved from a term of
+imprisonment (at a time when it would have been
+more than ordinarily inconvenient) by help and
+advice from Joe, and he was not one to forget.
+Therefore he was grieved to observe that his
+own guest seemed to be somewhat jealous of the
+hero of the occasion and disposed to look coldly
+upon him.  The stranger, however, contented
+himself with innuendo (mere expressions of the
+face and other manner of things for which one
+could not squarely lay hands upon him) until
+such time as he and his sponsor had come to Main
+Street in the clear dawn on their way to Happy's
+apartment--a variable abode.  It may be that
+the stranger perceived what Happy did not; the
+three bluecoats in the perspective; at all events,
+he now put into words of simple strength the
+unfavorable conception he had formed of Joe.  The
+result was mediaevally immediate, and the period
+of Mr. Cory's convalescence in the hospital was
+almost half that of his sponsor's detention in the
+county jail.
+
+It needed nothing to finish Joe with the good
+people of Canaan; had it needed anything, the
+trial of Happy Fear would have overspilled the
+necessity.  An item of the testimony was that
+Joseph Louden had helped to carry one of the
+ladies present--a Miss Le Roy, who had fainted--
+to the open air, and had jostled the stranger in
+passing.  After this, the oldest woman in Canaan
+would not have dared to speak to Joe on the street
+(even if she wanted to), unless she happened to
+be very poor or very wicked.  The Tocsin printed
+an adequate account (for there was "a large public
+interest"), recording in conclusion that Mr.
+Louden paid the culprit's fine which was the
+largest in the power of the presiding judge in his
+mercy to bestow.  Editorially, the Tocsin leaned to
+the facetious:  "Mr. Louden has but recently
+`returned to our midst.'  We fervently hope that
+the distinguished Happy Fear will appreciate his
+patron's superb generosity.  We say `his patron,'
+but perhaps we err in this.  Were it not better to
+figure Mr. Louden as the lady in distress, Mr. Fear
+as the champion in the lists?  In the present case,
+however, contrary to the rules of romance, the
+champion falls in duress and passes to the dungeon.
+We merely suggest, en passant, that some of our
+best citizens might deem it a wonderful and beauteous
+thing if, in addition to paying the fine, Mr.
+Louden could serve for the loyal Happy his six
+months in the Bastile!"
+
+"En passant," if nothing else, would have
+revealed to Joe, in this imitation of a better trick, the
+hand of Eugene.  And, little doubt, he would have
+agreed with Squire Buckalew in the Squire's answer
+to the easily expected comment of Mr. Arp.
+
+"Sometimes," said Eskew, "I think that 'Gene 
+Bantry is jest a leetle bit spiderier than he is lazy.
+That's the first thing he's written in the Tocsin this
+month--one of the boys over there told me.  He
+wrote it out of spite against Joe; but he'd ought
+to of done better.  If his spite hadn't run away
+with what mind he's got, he'd of said that both
+Joe Louden and that tramp Fear ought to of had
+ten years!"
+
+"'Gene Bantry didn't write that out of spite,"
+answered Buckalew.  "He only thought he saw
+a chance to be kind of funny and please Judge Pike.
+The Judge has always thought Joe was a no-account--"
+
+"Ain't he right?" cried Mr. Arp.
+
+"_I_ don't say he ain't."  Squire Buckalew cast a
+glance at Mr. Brown, the clerk, and, perceiving that
+he was listening, added, "The Judge always IS
+right!"
+
+"Yes, sir!" said Colonel Flitcroft.
+
+"I can't stand up for Joe Louden to any extent,
+but I don't think he done wrong," Buckalew went
+on, recovering, "when he paid this man Fear's
+fine."
+
+"You don't!" exclaimed Mr. Arp.  "Why,
+haven't you got gumption enough to see--"
+
+"Look here, Eskew," interposed his antagonist.
+"How many friends have you got that hate to hear
+folks talk bad about you?"
+
+"Not a one!"  For once Eskew's guard was
+down, and his consistency led him to destruction.
+"Not a one!  It ain't in human nature.  They're
+bound to enjoy it!"
+
+"Got any friends that would FIGHT for you?"
+
+Eskew walked straight into this hideous trap.
+"No!  There ain't a dozen men ever LIVED that
+had!  Caesar was a popular man, but he didn't
+have a soul to help him when the crowd lit on him,
+and I'll bet old Mark Antony was mighty glad
+they got him out in the yard before it happened,--
+HE wouldn't have lifted a finger without a gang
+behind him!  Why, all Peter himself could do was
+to cut off an ear that wasn't no use to anybody.
+What are you tryin' to get AT?"
+
+The Squire had him; and paused, and stroked his
+chin, to make the ruin complete.  "Then I reckon
+you'll have to admit," he murmured, "that, while
+I ain't defendin' Joe Louden's character, it was
+kind of proper for him to stand by a feller that
+wouldn't hear nothin' against him, and fought for
+him as soon as he DID hear it!"
+
+Eskew Arp rose from his chair and left the hotel.
+It was the only morning in all the days of the
+conclave when he was the first to leave.
+
+Squire Buckalew looked after the retreating
+figure, total triumph shining brazenly from his
+spectacles.  "I expect," he explained, modestly,
+to the others,--"I expect I don't think any more
+of Joe Louden than he does, and I'll be glad when
+Canaan sees the last of him for good; but sometimes
+the temptation to argue with Eskew does
+lead me on to kind of git the better of him."
+
+When Happy Fear had suffered--with a give-
+and-take simplicity of patience--his allotment of
+months in durance, and was released and sent into
+the streets and sunshine once more, he knew that
+his first duty lay in the direction of a general
+apology to Joe.  But the young man was no longer at
+Beaver Beach; the red-bearded proprietor dwelt
+alone there, and, receiving Happy with scorn and
+pity, directed him to retrace his footsteps to the
+town.
+
+"Ye must have been in the black hole of
+incarceration indeed, if ye haven't heard that Mr.
+Louden has his law-office on the Square, and his
+livin'-room behind the office.  It's in that little
+brick buildin' straight acrost from the sheriff's
+door o' the jail--ye've been neighbors this long
+time!  A hard time the boy had, persuadin' any
+one to rent to him, but by payin' double the price
+he got a place at last.  He's a practisin' lawyer
+now, praise the Lord!  And all the boys and girls
+of our acquaintance go to him with their troubles.
+Ye'll see him with a murder case to try before
+long, as sure as ye're not worth yer salt!  But I
+expect ye can still call him by his name of Joe, all
+the same!"
+
+It was a bleak and meagre little office into
+which Mr. Fear ushered himself to offer his amends.
+The cracked plaster of the walls was bare (save
+for dust); there were no shelves; the fat brown
+volumes, most of them fairly new, were piled in
+regular columns upon a cheap pine table; there
+was but one window, small-paned and shadeless; an
+inner door of this sad chamber stood half ajar,
+permitting the visitor unreserved acquaintance with
+the domestic economy of the tenant; for it disclosed
+a second room, smaller than the office, and
+dependent upon the window of the latter for air and
+light.  Behind a canvas camp-cot, dimly visible
+in the obscurity of the inner apartment, stood a
+small gas-stove, surmounted by a stew-pan, from
+which projected the handle of a big tin spoon, so
+that it needed no ghost from the dead to whisper
+that Joseph Louden, attorney-at-law, did his own
+cooking.  Indeed, he looked it!
+
+Upon the threshold of the second room reposed a
+small, worn, light-brown scrub-brush of a dog, so
+cosmopolitan in ancestry that his species was
+almost as undeterminable as the cast-iron dogs of
+the Pike Mansion.  He greeted Mr. Fear hospitably,
+having been so lately an offcast of the streets
+himself that his adoption had taught him to lose
+only his old tremors, not his hopefulness.  At
+the same time Joe rose quickly from the deal
+table, where he had been working with one hand
+in his hair, the other splattering ink from a bad
+pen.
+
+"Good for you, Happy!" he cried, cheerfully.
+"I hoped you'd come to see me to-day.  I've been
+thinking about a job for you."
+
+"What kind of a job?" asked the visitor, as they
+shook hands.  "I need one bad enough, but you
+know there ain't nobody in Canaan would gimme
+one, Joe."
+
+Joe pushed him into one of the two chairs which
+completed the furniture of his office.  "Yes, there
+is.  I've got an idea--"
+
+"First," broke in Mr. Fear, fingering his shapeless
+hat and fixing his eyes upon it with embarrassment,--"
+first lemme say what I come here to say.
+I--well--"  His embarrassment increased and he
+paused, rubbing the hat between his hands.
+
+"About this job," Joe began.  "We can fix it
+so--"
+
+"No," said Happy.  "You lemme go on.  I
+didn't mean fer to cause you no trouble when I lit
+on that loud-mouth, `Nashville'; I never thought
+they'd git me, or you'd be dragged in.  But I jest
+couldn't stand him no longer.  He had me all wore
+out--all evening long a-hintin' and sniffin' and
+wearin' that kind of a high-smile 'cause they made
+so much fuss over you.  And then when we got
+clear in town he come out with it!  Said you was
+too quiet to suit HIM--said he couldn't see nothin'
+TO you!  `Well,' I says to myself, `jest let him go
+on, jest one more,' I says, `then he gits it.'  And
+he did.  Said you tromped on his foot on purpose,
+said he knowed it,--when the Lord-a'mightiest fool
+on earth knows you never tromped on no one!
+Said you was one of the po'rest young sports he
+ever see around a place like the Beach.  You see,
+he thought you was jest one of them fool `Bloods'
+that come around raisin' a rumpus, and didn't know
+you was our friend and belonged out there, the same
+as me or Mike hisself.  `Go on,' I says to myself,
+`jest one more!'  `HE better go home to his mamma,'
+he says; `he'll git in trouble if he don't.  Somebody
+'ll soak him if he hangs around in MY company.
+_I_ don't like his WAYS.'  Then I HAD to do
+it.  There jest wasn't nothin' LEFT--but I wouldn't
+of done you no harm by it--"
+
+"You didn't do me any harm, Happy."
+
+"I mean your repitation."
+
+"I didn't have one--so nothing in the world could
+harm it.  About your getting some work, now--"
+
+"I'll listen," said Happy, rather suspiciously.
+
+"You see," Joe went on, growing red, "I need
+a sort of janitor here--"
+
+"What fer?" Mr. Fear interrupted, with some
+shortness.
+
+"To look after the place."
+
+"You mean these two rooms?"
+
+"There's a stairway, too," Joe put forth, quickly.
+"It wouldn't be any sinecure, Happy.  You'd
+earn your money; don't be afraid of that!"
+
+Mr. Fear straightened up, his burden of
+embarrassment gone from him, transferred to the
+other's shoulders.
+
+"There always was a yellow streak in you, Joe,"
+he said, firmly.  "You're no good as a liar except
+when you're jokin'.  A lot you need a janitor!
+You had no business to pay my fine; you'd ort of
+let me worked it out.  Do you think my eyes ain't
+good enough to see how much you needed the
+money, most of all right now when you're tryin' to
+git started?  If I ever take a cent from you, I hope
+the hand I hold out fer it 'll rot off."
+
+"Now don't say that, Happy."
+
+"I don't want a job, nohow!" said Mr. Fear,
+going to the door; "I don't want to work.  There's
+plenty ways fer me to git along without that.  But
+I've said what I come here to say, and I'll say one
+thing more.  Don't you worry about gittin' law
+practice.  Mike says you're goin' to git all you
+want--and if there ain't no other way, why, a few
+of us 'll go out and MAKE some fer ye!"
+
+These prophecies and promises, over which Joe
+chuckled at first, with his head cocked to one
+side, grew very soon, to his amazement, to wear a
+supernatural similarity to actual fulfilment.  His
+friends brought him their own friends, such as
+had sinned against the laws of Canaan, those under
+the ban of the sheriff, those who had struck in
+anger, those who had stolen at night, those who
+owed and could not pay, those who lived by the
+dice, and to his other titles to notoriety was added
+that of defender of the poor and wicked.  He found
+his hands full, especially after winning his first
+important case--on which occasion Canaan thought
+the jury mad, and was indignant with the puzzled
+Judge, who could not see just how it had happened.
+
+Joe did not stop at that.  He kept on winning
+cases, clearing the innocent and lightening the
+burdens of the guilty; he became the most dangerous
+attorney for the defence in Canaan; his honorable
+brethren, accepting the popular view of him, held
+him in personal contempt but feared him
+professionally; for he proved that he knew more law
+than they thought existed; nor could any trick him
+--failing which, many tempers were lost, but never
+Joe's.  His practice was not all criminal, as shown
+by the peevish outburst of the eminent Buckalew
+(the Squire's nephew, esteemed the foremost lawyer
+in Canaan), "Before long, there won't be any
+use trying to foreclose a mortgage or collect a note
+--unless this shyster gets himself in jail!"
+
+The wrath of Judge Martin Pike was august--
+there was a kind of sublimity in its immenseness--
+on a day when it befell that the shyster stood
+betwixt him and money.
+
+That was a monstrous task--to stand between
+these two and separate them, to hold back the
+hand of Martin Pike from what it had reached out
+to grasp.  It was in the matter of some tax-titles
+which the magnate had acquired, and, in court,
+Joe treated the case with such horrifying
+simplicity that it seemed almost credible that the
+great man had counted upon the ignorance and
+besottedness of Joe's client--a hard-drinking,
+disreputable old farmer--to get his land away from
+him without paying for it.  Now, as every one
+knew such a thing to be ludicrously impossible,
+it was at once noised abroad in Canaan that Joe
+had helped to swindle Judge Pike out of a large
+sum of money--it was notorious that the shyster
+could bamboozle court and jury with his tricks;
+and it was felt that Joe Louden was getting into
+very deep waters indeed.  THIS was serious: if
+the young man did not LOOK OUT, he might find
+himself in the penitentiary.
+
+The Tocsin paragraphed him with a fine regularity
+after this, usually opening with a Walrus-and-the-Carpenter
+gravity:  "The time has come when
+we must speak of a certain matter frankly," or, "At
+last the time has arrived when the demoralization
+of the bar caused by a certain criminal lawyer must
+be dealt with as it is and without gloves."  Once
+when Joe had saved a half-witted negro from "the
+extreme penalty" for murder, the Tocsin had
+declared, with great originality:  "This is just the
+kind of thing that causes mobs and justifies them.
+If we are to continue to permit the worst class
+of malefactors to escape the consequences of their
+crimes through the unwholesome dexterities and the
+shifty manipulations and technicalities of a
+certain criminal lawyer, the time will come when an
+outraged citizenry may take the enforcement of
+the law in its own hands.  Let us call a spade a
+spade.  If Canaan's streets ever echo with the
+tread of a mob, the fault lies upon the head of
+Joseph Louden, who has once more brought about
+a miscarriage of justice. . . ."
+
+Joe did not move into a larger office; he remained
+in the little room with its one window and its fine
+view of the jail; his clients were nearly all poor, and
+many of his fees quite literally nominal.  Tatters
+and rags came up the narrow stairway to his door
+--tatters and rags and pitiful fineries: the bleared,
+the sodden, the flaunting and rouged, the furtive
+and wary, some in rags, some in tags, and some--
+the sorriest--in velvet gowns.  With these, the
+distressed, the wrong-doers, the drunken, the
+dirty, and the very poor, his work lay and his days
+and nights were spent.
+
+Ariel had told Roger Tabor that in time Joe
+might come to be what the town thought him, if
+it gave him no other chance.  Only its dinginess
+and evil surrounded him; no respectable house was
+open to him; the barrooms--except that of the
+"National House"--welcomed him gratefully and
+admiringly.  Once he went to church, on a pleasant
+morning when nice girls wear pretty spring
+dresses; it gave him a thrill of delight to see them,
+to be near clean, good people once more.
+Inadvertently, he took a seat by his step-mother, who
+rose with a slight rustle of silk and moved to
+another pew; and it happened, additionally, that
+this was the morning that the minister, fired by
+the Tocsin's warnings, had chosen to preach on
+the subject of Joe himself.
+
+The outcast returned to his own kind.  No lady
+spoke to him upon the street.  Mamie Pike had
+passed him with averted eyes since her first meeting
+with him, but the shunning and snubbing of a
+young man by a pretty girl have never yet, if
+done in a certain way, prevented him from
+continuing to be in love with her.  Mamie did it in
+the certain way.  Joe did not wince, therefore it
+hurt all the more, for blows from which one cringes
+lose much of their force.
+
+The town dog had been given a bad name,
+painted solid black from head to heel.  He was a
+storm centre of scandal; the entrance to his dingy
+stairway was in square view of the "National
+House," and the result is imaginable.  How many
+of Joe's clients, especially those sorriest of the velvet
+gowns, were conjectured to ascend his stairs for
+reasons more convivial than legal!  Yes, he lived with
+his own kind, and, so far as the rest of Canaan was
+concerned, might as well have worn the scarlet
+letter on his breast or branded on his forehead.
+
+When he went about the streets he was made to
+feel his condition by the elaborate avoidance, yet
+furtive attention, of every respectable person he
+met; and when he came home to his small rooms
+and shut the door behind him, he was as one who
+has been hissed and shamed in public and runs
+to bury his hot face in his pillow.  He petted
+his mongrel extravagantly (well he might!), and
+would sit with him in his rooms at night, holding
+long converse with him, the two alone together.
+The dog was not his only confidant.  There came
+to be another, a more and more frequent partner
+to their conversations, at last a familiar spirit.
+This third came from a brown jug which Joe kept
+on a shelf in his bedroom, a vessel too frequently
+replenished.  When the day's work was done he
+shut himself up, drank alone and drank hard.
+Sometimes when the jug ran low and the night was
+late he would go out for a walk with his dog, and
+would awake in his room the next morning not
+remembering where he had gone or how he had
+come home.  Once, after such a lapse of memory,
+he woke amazed to find himself at Beaver Beach,
+whither, he learned from the red-bearded man,
+Happy Fear had brought him, having found him
+wandering dazedly in a field near by.  These lapses
+grew more frequent, until there occurred that which
+was one of the strange things of his life.
+
+It was a June night, a little more than two years
+after his return to Canaan, and the Tocsin had that
+day announced the approaching marriage of Eugene
+Bantry and his employer's daughter.  Joe ate
+nothing during the day, and went through his work
+clumsily, visiting the bedroom shelf at intervals.
+At ten in the evening he went out to have the jug
+refilled, but from the moment he left his door and
+the fresh air struck his face, he had no clear knowledge
+of what he did or of what went on about him
+until he woke in his bed the next morning.
+
+And yet, whatever little part of the soul of him
+remained, that night, still undulled, not numbed,
+but alive, was in some strange manner lifted out of
+its pain towards a strange delight.  His body was
+an automaton, his mind in bondage, yet there was
+a still, small consciousness in him which knew that
+in his wandering something incredible and unexpected
+was happening.  What this was he did not
+know, could not see, though his eyes were open,
+could not have told himself any more than a baby
+could tell why it laughs, but it seemed something
+so beautiful and wonderful that the night became
+a night of perfume, its breezes bearing the music
+of harps and violins, while nightingales sang from
+the maples that bordered the streets of Canaan.
+
+
+
+X
+
+THE TRYST
+
+He woke to the light of morning amazed
+and full of a strange wonder because
+he did not know what had amazed
+him.  For a little while after his eyes
+opened, he lay quite motionless; then
+he lifted his head slightly and shook it with some
+caution.  This had come to be custom.  The
+operation assured him of the worst; the room swam
+round him, and, with a faint groan, he let his head
+fall back upon the pillow.  But he could not sleep
+again; pain stung its way through his heart as
+memory began to come back to him, not of the
+preceding night--that was all blank,--but realization
+that the girl of whom he had dreamed so long
+was to be married.  That his dreams had been quite
+hopeless was no balm to his hurt.
+
+A chime of bells sounded from a church steeple
+across the Square, ringing out in assured righteousness,
+summoning the good people who maintained
+them to come and sit beneath them or be taken to
+task; and they fell so dismally upon Joe's ear that
+he bestirred himself and rose, to the delight of his
+mongrel, who leaped upon him joyfully.  An hour
+later, or thereabout, the pair emerged from the narrow
+stairway and stood for a moment, blinking in
+the fair sunshine, apparently undecided which way
+to go.  The church bells were silent; there was no
+breeze; the air trembled a little with the deep
+pipings of the organ across the Square, and, save for
+that, the town was very quiet.  The paths which
+crossed the Court-house yard were flecked with
+steady shadow, the strong young foliage of the
+maples not moving, having the air of observing the
+Sabbath with propriety.  There were benches here
+and there along the walks, and to one of these Joe
+crossed, and sat down.  The mongrel, at his master's
+feet, rolled on his back in morning ecstasy, ceased
+abruptly to roll and began to scratch his ear with
+a hind foot intently.  A tiny hand stretched to pat
+his head, and the dog licked it appreciatively.  It
+belonged to a hard-washed young lady of six (in
+starchy, white frills and new, pink ribbons), who
+had run ahead of her mother, a belated church-goer;
+and the mongrel charmed her.
+
+"Will you give me this dog?" she asked, without
+any tedious formalities.
+
+Involuntarily, she departed before receiving a
+reply.  The mother, a red-faced matron whom Joe
+recognized as a sister of Mrs. Louden's, consequently
+his step-aunt, swooped at the child with a rush
+and rustle of silk, and bore her on violently to her
+duty.  When they had gone a little way the
+matron's voice was heard in sharp reproof; the child,
+held by one wrist and hurried along on tiptoe,
+staring back over one shoulder at Joe, her eyes
+wide, and her mouth the shape of the "O" she was
+ejaculating.
+
+The dog looked up with wistful inquiry at his
+master, who cocked an eyebrow at him in return,
+wearing much the same expression.  The mother
+and child disappeared within the church doors and
+left the Square to the two.  Even the hotel showed
+no signs of life, for the wise men were not allowed to
+foregather on Sundays.  The organ had ceased to
+stir the air and all was in quiet, yet a quiet which,
+for Louden, was not peace.  He looked at his watch
+and, without intending it, spoke the hour aloud:
+"A quarter past eleven."  The sound of his own
+voice gave him a little shock; he rose without knowing
+why, and, as he did so, it seemed to him that he
+heard close to his ear another voice, a woman's,
+troubled and insistent, but clear and sweet, saying:
+
+"REMEMBER!  ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!"
+
+It was so distinct that he started and looked
+round.  Then he laughed.  "I'll be seeing circus
+parades next!"  His laughter fled, for, louder than 
+the ringing in his ears, unmistakably came the
+strains of a far-away brass band which had no
+existence on land or sea or in the waters under the
+earth.
+
+"Here!" he said to the mongrel.  "We need a
+walk, I think.  Let's you and me move on before
+the camels turn the corner!"
+
+The music followed him to the street, where he
+turned westward toward the river, and presently,
+as he walked on, fanning himself with his straw hat,
+it faded and was gone.  But the voice he had heard
+returned.
+
+"REMEMBER!  ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!"
+it said again, close to his ear.
+
+This time he did not start.  "All right," he
+answered, wiping his forehead; "if you'll let me alone,
+I'll be there."
+
+At a dingy saloon corner, near the river, a shabby
+little man greeted him heartily and petted the
+mongrel.  "I'm mighty glad you didn't go, after
+all, Joe," he added, with a brightening face.
+
+"Go where, Happy?"
+
+Mr. Fear looked grave.  "Don't you rec'lect
+meetin' me last night?"
+
+Louden shook his head.  "No.  Did I?"
+
+The other's jaw fell and his brow corrugated with
+self-reproach.  "Well, if that don't show what a
+thick-head I am!  I thought ye was all right er I'd
+gone on with ye.  Nobody c'd 'a' walked straighter
+ner talked straighter.  Said ye was goin' to leave
+Canaan fer good and didn't want nobody to know it.
+Said ye was goin' to take the 'leven-o'clock through
+train fer the West, and told me I couldn't come
+to the deepo with ye.  Said ye'd had enough o'
+Canaan, and of everything!  I follered ye part way
+to the deepo, but ye turned and made a motion fer
+me to go back, and I done it, because ye seemed to
+be kind of in trouble, and I thought ye'd ruther be
+by yerself.  Well, sir, it's one on me!"
+
+"Not at all," said Joe.  "I was all right."
+
+"Was ye?" returned the other.  "DO remember,
+do ye?"
+
+"Almost," Joe smiled, faintly.
+
+"ALMOST," echoed Happy, shaking his head seriously.
+"I tell ye, Joe, ef I was YOU--" he began
+slowly, then paused and shook his head again.  He
+seemed on the point of delivering some advice,
+but evidently perceiving the snobbishness of such
+a proceeding, or else convinced by his own experience
+of the futility of it, he swerved to cheerfulness:
+
+"I hear the boys is all goin' to work hard fer the
+primaries.  Mike says ye got some chances ye
+don't know about; HE swears ye'll be the next
+Mayor of Canaan."
+
+"Nonsense!  Folly and nonsense, Happy!  That's 
+the kind of thing I used to think when I was a boy.
+But now--pshaw!"  Joe broke off with a tired
+laugh.  "Tell them not to waste their time.  Are
+you going out to the Beach this afternoon?"
+
+The little man lowered his eyes moodily.  "I'll
+be near there," he said, scraping his patched shoe
+up and down the curbstone.  "That feller's in
+town agin."
+
+"What fellow?"
+
+"`Nashville' they call him; Ed's the name he
+give the hospital:  Cory--him that I soaked the
+night you come back to Canaan.  He's after
+Claudine to git his evens with me.  He's made a
+raise somewheres, and plays the spender.  And
+her--well, I reckon she's tired waitin' table at the
+National House; tired o' me, too.  I got a hint
+that they're goin' out to the Beach together this
+afternoon."
+
+Joe passed his hand wearily over his aching forehead.
+"I understand," he said, "and you'd better
+try to.  Cory's laying for you, of course.  You say
+he's after your wife?  He must have set about it
+pretty openly if they're going to the Beach to-day,
+for there is always a crowd there on Sundays.  Is
+it hard for you to see why he's doing it?  It's
+because he wants to make you jealous.  What for?
+So that you'll tackle him again.  And why does he
+want that?  Because he's ready for you!"
+
+The other's eyes suddenly became bloodshot, his
+nostrils expanding incredibly.  "READY, is he?  He
+BETTER be ready.  I--"
+
+"That's enough!" Joe interrupted, swiftly.
+"We'll have no talk like that.  I'll settle this for
+you, myself.  You send word to Claudine that I
+want to see her at my office to-morrow morning,
+and you--you stay away from the Beach to-day.
+Give me your word."
+
+Mr. Fear's expression softened.  "All right, Joe,"
+he said.  "I'll do whatever you tell me to.  Any
+of us 'll do that; we sure know who's our friend."
+
+"Keep out of trouble, Happy."  Joe turned to
+go and they shook hands.  "Good day, and--keep
+out of trouble!"
+
+When he had gone, Mr. Fear's countenance
+again gloomed ominously, and, shaking his head,
+he ruminatively entered an adjacent bar through
+the alley door.
+
+The Main Street bridge was an old-fashioned,
+wooden, covered one, dust-colored and very narrow,
+squarely framing the fair, open country beyond;
+for the town had never crossed the river.
+Joe found the cool shadow in the bridge gracious
+to his hot brow, and through the slender chinks of
+the worn flooring he caught bright glimpses of
+running water.  When he came out of the other
+end he felt enough refreshed to light a cigar.
+
+"Well, here I am," he said.  "Across Main
+Street bridge--and it must be getting on toward
+noon!"  He spoke almost with the aspect of daring,
+and immediately stood still, listening.
+"`REMEMBER,"' he ventured to repeat, again daring,
+"`REMEMBER!  ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!' "
+And again he listened.  Then he chuckled faintly
+with relief, for the voice did not return.  "Thank
+God, I've got rid of that!" he whispered.  "And
+of the circus band too!"
+
+A dust road turned to the right, following the
+river and shaded by big sycamores on the bank;
+the mongrel, intensely preoccupied with this road,
+scampered away, his nose to the ground.  "Good
+enough," said the master.  "Lead on and I'll
+come after you."
+
+But he had not far to follow.  The chase led
+him to a half-hollow log which lay on a low, grass-
+grown levee above the stream, where the dog's
+interest in the pursuit became vivid; temporarily,
+however, for after a few minutes of agitated
+investigation, he was seized with indifference to the
+whole world; panted briefly; slept.  Joe sat upon
+the log, which was in the shade, and smoked.
+
+"`REMEMBER!' "  He tried it once more.  "`ACROSS
+MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!' "  Safety still; the
+voice came not.  But the sound of his own repetition
+of the words brought him an eerie tremor; 
+for the mist of a memory came with it; nothing
+tangible, nothing definite, but something very far
+away and shadowy, yet just poignant enough to
+give him a queer feeling that he was really keeping
+an appointment here.  Was it with some water-
+sprite that would rise from the river?  Was it
+with a dryad of the sycamores?  He knew too well
+that he might expect strange fancies to get hold of
+him this morning, and, as this one grew uncannily
+stronger, he moved his head briskly as if to shake
+it off.  The result surprised him; the fancy
+remained, but his headache and dizziness had left
+him.
+
+A breeze wandered up the river and touched the
+leaves and grass to life.  Sparrows hopped and
+chirped in the branches, absurdly surprised; without
+doubt having concluded in the Sunday stillness
+that the world would drowse forever; and the
+mongrel lifted his head, blinked at them, hopelessly
+wishing they would alight near him, scratched
+his ear with the manner of one who has neglected
+such matters overlong; reversed his position; slept
+again.  The young corn, deep green in the bottomland,
+moved with a staccato flurry, and the dust
+ghost of a mad whirling dervish sped up the main
+road to vanish at the bridge in a climax of lunacy.
+The stirring air brought a smell of blossoms; the
+distance took on faint lavender hazes which blended
+the outlines of the fields, lying like square
+coverlets upon the long slope of rising ground
+beyond the bottom-land, and empurpled the blue
+woodland shadows of the groves.
+
+For the first time, it struck Joe that it was a
+beautiful day, and it came to him that a beautiful
+day was a thing which nothing except death, sickness,
+or imprisonment could take from him--not
+even the ban of Canaan!  Unforewarned, music
+sounded in his ears again; but he did not shrink
+from it now; this was not the circus band he had
+heard as he left the Square, but a melody like a
+far-away serenade at night, as of "the horns of
+elf-land faintly blowing"; and he closed his eyes
+with the sweetness of it.
+
+"Go ahead!" he whispered.  "Do that all you
+want to.  If you'll keep it up like this awhile, I'll
+follow with `Little Brown Jug, How I Love Thee!'
+It seems to pay, after all!"
+
+The welcome strains, however, were but the
+prelude to a harsher sound which interrupted and
+annihilated them: the Court-house bell clanging
+out twelve.  "All right," said Joe.  "It's noon
+and I'm `across Main Street bridge.' "
+
+He opened his eyes and looked about him
+whimsically.  Then he shook his head again.
+
+A lady had just emerged from the bridge and
+was coming toward him.
+
+It would be hard to get at Joe's first impressions
+of her.  We can find conveyance for only the
+broadest and heaviest.  Ancient and modern
+instances multiply the case of the sleeper who dreams
+out a long story in accurate color and fine detail,
+a tale of years, in the opening and shutting of a
+door.  So with Joseph, in the brief space of the
+lady's approach.  And with him, as with the sleeper,
+it must have been--in fact it was, in his recollections,
+later--a blur of emotion.
+
+At first sight of her, perhaps it was pre-eminently
+the shock of seeing anything so exquisite where
+he had expected to see nothing at all.  For she
+was exquisite--horrid as have been the uses of the
+word, its best and truest belong to her; she was
+that and much more, from the ivory ferrule of the
+parasol she carried, to the light and slender footprint
+she left in the dust of the road.  Joe knew at
+once that nothing like her had ever before been
+seen in Canaan.
+
+He had little knowledge of the millinery arts,
+and he needed none to see the harmony--harmony
+like that of the day he had discovered a little
+while ago.  Her dress and hat and gloves and
+parasol showed a pale lavender overtint like that
+which he had seen overspreading the western
+slope.  (Afterward, he discovered that the gloves
+she wore that day were gray, and that her hat was
+for the most part white.)  The charm of fabric
+and tint belonging to what she wore was no shame
+to her, not being of primal importance beyond
+herself; it was but the expression of her daintiness and
+the adjunct of it.  She was tall, but if Joe could
+have spoken or thought of her as "slender," he
+would have been capable of calling her lips "red,"
+in which case he would not have been Joe, and
+would have been as far from the truth as her lips
+were from red, or as her supreme delicateness was
+from mere slenderness.
+
+Under the summer hat her very dark hair swept
+back over her temples with something near trimness
+in the extent to which it was withheld from
+being fluffy.  It may be that this approach to
+trimness, which was, after all, only a sort of
+coquetry with trimness, is the true key to the
+mystery of the vision of the lady who appeared to Joe.
+Let us say that she suppressed everything that
+went beyond grace; that the hint of floridity was
+abhorrent to her.  "Trim" is as clumsy as
+"slender"; she had escaped from the trimness of
+girlhood as wholly as she had gone through its
+coltishness.  "Exquisite."  Let us go back to Joe's
+own blurred first thought of her and be content
+with that!
+
+She was to pass him--so he thought--and as
+she drew nearer, his breath came faster.
+
+"REMEMBER!  ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!"
+Was THIS the fay of whom the voice had warned
+him?  With that, there befell him the mystery
+of last night.  He did not remember, but it was
+as if he lived again, dimly, the highest hour of
+happiness in a life a thousand years ago; perfume
+and music, roses, nightingales and plucked harp-
+strings.  Yes; something wonderful was happening
+to him.
+
+She had stopped directly in front of him;
+stopped and stood looking at him with her clear eyes.
+He did not lift his own to hers; he had long
+experience of the averted gaze of women; but it was
+not only that; a great shyness beset him.  He
+had risen and removed his hat, trying (ineffectually)
+not to clear his throat; his every-day sense urging
+upon him that she was a stranger in Canaan
+who had lost her way--the preposterousness of any
+one's losing the way in Canaan not just now
+appealing to his every--day sense.
+
+"Can I--can I--" he stammered, blushing
+miserably, meaning to finish with "direct you," or
+"show you the way."
+
+Then he looked at her again and saw what
+seemed to him the strangest sight of his life.  The
+lady's eyes had filled with tears--filled and 
+overfilled.  "I'll sit here on the log with 
+you," she said.  And her voice was the voice which 
+he had heard saying,
+"REMEMBER!  ACROSS MAIN STREET BRIDGE AT NOON!"
+
+"WHAT!" he gasped.
+
+"You don't need to dust it!" she went on,
+tremulously.  And even then he did not know who
+she was.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+WHEN HALF-GODS GO
+
+There was a silence, for if the dazzled
+young man could have spoken at all,
+He could have found nothing to say;
+and, perhaps, the lady would not
+trust her own voice just then.  His
+eyes had fallen again; he was too dazed, and, in
+truth, too panic-stricken, now, to look at her,
+though if he had been quite sure that she was part
+of a wonderful dream he might have dared.  She
+was seated beside him, and had handed him her
+parasol in a little way which seemed to imply that
+of course he had reached for it, so that it was to
+be seen how used she was to have all tiny things
+done for her, though this was not then of his
+tremulous observing.  He did perceive, however, that
+he was to furl the dainty thing; he pressed the
+catch, and let down the top timidly, as if fearing to
+break or tear it; and, as it closed, held near his face,
+he caught a very faint, sweet, spicy emanation
+from it like wild roses and cinnamon.
+
+He did not know her; but his timidity and a
+strange little choke in his throat, the sudden fright
+which had seized upon him, were not caused by
+embarrassment.  He had no thought that she
+was one he had known but could not, for the
+moment, recall; there was nothing of the awkwardness
+of that; no, he was overpowered by the miracle of
+this meeting.  And yet, white with marvelling,
+he felt it to be so much more touchingly a great
+happiness than he had ever known that at first it
+was inexpressibly sad.
+
+At last he heard her voice again, shaking a little,
+as she said:
+
+"I am glad you remembered."
+
+"Remembered what?" he faltered.
+
+"Then you don't?" she cried.  "And yet you came."
+
+"Came here, do you mean?"
+
+"Yes--now, at noon."
+
+"Ah!" he half whispered, unable to speak aloud.
+"Was it you who said--who said, `Remember!
+Across--across--"'
+
+"`Across Main Street bridge at noon!' " she
+finished for him, gently.  "Yes."
+
+He took a deep breath in the wonder of it.
+"Where was it you said that?" he asked, slowly.
+"Was it last night?"
+
+"Don't you even know that you came to meet me?"
+
+"_I_--came to--to meet--you!"
+
+She gave a little pitying cry, very near a sob,
+seeing his utter bewilderment.
+
+"It was like the strangest dream in the world,"
+she said.  "You were at the station when I came,
+last night.  You don't remember at all?"
+
+His eyes downcast, his face burning hotly, he
+could only shake his head.
+
+"Yes," she continued.  "I thought no one
+would be there, for I had not written to say what
+train I should take, but when I stepped down
+from the platform, you were standing there;
+though you didn't see me at first, not until I had
+called your name and ran to you.  You said, `I've
+come to meet you,' but you said it queerly, I
+thought.  And then you called a carriage for me;
+but you seemed so strange you couldn't tell how
+you knew that I was coming, and--and then I--I
+understood you weren't yourself.  You were very
+quiet, but I knew, I knew!  So I made you get
+into the carriage--and--and--"
+
+She faltered to a stop, and with that, shame
+itself brought him courage; he turned and faced
+her.  She had lifted her handkerchief to her eyes,
+but at his movement she dropped it, and it was not
+so much the delicate loveliness of her face that he
+saw then as the tears upon her cheeks.
+
+"Ah, poor boy!" she cried.  "I knew!  I knew!"
+
+"You--you took me home?"
+
+"You told me where you lived," she answered.
+"Yes, I took you home."
+
+"I don't understand," he stammered, huskily.
+"I don't understand!"
+
+She leaned toward him slightly, looking at him
+with great intentness.
+
+"You didn't know me last night," she said.  "Do
+you know me now?"
+
+For answer he could only stare at her,
+dumfounded.  He lifted an unsteady hand toward
+her appealingly.  But the manner of the lady, as
+she saw the truth, underwent an April change.
+She drew back lightly; he was favored with the
+most delicious, low laugh he had ever heard, and,
+by some magic whisk which she accomplished,
+there was no sign of tears about her.
+
+"Ah! I'm glad you're the same, Joe!" she said.
+"You never would or could pretend very well.
+I'm glad you're the same, and I'm glad I've
+changed, though that isn't why you have forgotten
+me.  You've forgotten me because you
+never thought of me.  Perhaps I should not have
+known you if you had changed a great deal--as I
+have!"
+
+He started, leaning back from her.
+
+"Ah!" she laughed.  "That's it!  That funny
+little twist of the head you always had, like a--
+like a--well, you know I must have told you a
+thousand times that it was like a nice friendly
+puppy; so why shouldn't I say so now?  And your
+eyebrows!  When you look like that, nobody could
+ever forget you, Joe!"
+
+He rose from the log, and the mongrel leaped
+upon him uproariously, thinking they were to go
+home, belike to food.
+
+The lady laughed again.  "Don't let him spoil
+my parasol.  And I must warn you now:  Never,
+never TREAD ON MY SKIRT!  I'm very irritable about
+such things!"
+
+He had taken three or four uncertain backward
+steps from her.  She sat before him, radiant with
+laughter, the loveliest creature he had ever seen;
+but between him and this charming vision there
+swept, through the warm, scented June air, a veil
+of snow like a driven fog, and, half obscured in the
+heart of it, a young girl stood, knee-deep in a drift
+piled against an old picket gate, her black water-
+proof and shabby skirt flapping in the blizzard
+like torn sails, one of her hands out-stretched
+toward him, her startled eyes fixed on his.
+
+"And, oh, how like you," said the lady; "how
+like you and nobody else in the world, Joe, to have
+a yellow dog!"
+
+"ARIEL TABOR!"
+
+His lips formed the words without sound.
+
+"Isn't it about time?" she said.  "Are strange
+ladies in the HABIT of descending from trains to
+take you home?"
+
+
+Once, upon a white morning long ago, the
+sensational progress of a certain youth up Main Street
+had stirred Canaan.  But that day was as nothing
+to this.  Mr. Bantry had left temporary paralysis
+in his wake; but in the case of the two young people
+who passed slowly along the street to-day it
+was petrifaction, which seemingly threatened in
+several instances (most notably that of Mr. Arp)
+to become permanent.
+
+The lower portion of the street, lined with three
+and four story buildings of brick and stone, rather
+grim and hot facades under the mid-day sun,
+afforded little shade to the church-comers, who
+were working homeward in processional little
+groups and clumps, none walking fast, though
+none with the appearance of great leisure, since
+neither rate of progress would have been esteemed
+befitting the day.  The growth of Canaan, steady,
+though never startling, had left almost all of the
+churches down-town, and Main Street the principal
+avenue of communication between them and the
+"residence section."  So, to-day, the intermittent
+procession stretched along the new cement side-
+walks from a little below the Square to Upper
+Main Street, where maples lined the thoroughfare
+and the mansions of the affluent stood among
+pleasant lawns and shrubberies.  It was late; for
+this had been a communion Sunday, and those
+far in advance, who had already reached the pretty
+and shady part of the street, were members of the
+churches where services had been shortest; though
+few in the long parade looked as if they had been
+attending anything very short, and many heads of
+families were crisp in their replies to the theological
+inquiries of their offspring.  The men imparted
+largely a gloom to the itinerant concourse, most
+of them wearing hot, long black coats and having
+wilted their collars; the ladies relieving this gloom
+somewhat by the lighter tints of their garments;
+the spick-and-span little girls relieving it greatly
+by their white dresses and their faces, the latter
+bright with the hope of Sunday ice-cream; while
+the boys, experiencing some solace in that they
+were finally out where a person could at least
+scratch himself if he had to, yet oppressed by the
+decorous necessities of the day, marched along,
+furtively planning, behind imperturbably secretive
+countenances, various means for the later dispersal
+of an odious monotony.
+
+Usually the conversation of this long string of the
+homeward-bound was not too frivolous or worldly;
+nay, it properly inclined to discussion of the sermon;
+that is, praise of the sermon, with here and there a
+mild "I-didn't-like-his-saying" or so; and its lighter
+aspects were apt to concern the next "Social," or
+various pleasurable schemes for the raising of funds
+to help the heathen, the quite worthy poor, or the
+church.
+
+This was the serious and seemly parade, the
+propriety of whose behavior was to-day almost
+disintegrated when the lady of the bridge walked
+up the street in the shadow of a lacy, lavender
+parasol carried by Joseph Louden.  The congregation
+of the church across the Square, that to which
+Joe's step-aunt had been late, was just debouching,
+almost in mass, upon Main Street, when these two
+went by.  It is not quite the truth to say that all
+except the children came to a dead halt, but it is not
+very far from it.  The air was thick with subdued
+exclamations and whisperings.
+
+Here is no mystery.  Joe was probably the only
+person of respectable derivation in Canaan who had
+not known for weeks that Ariel Tabor was on her
+way home.  And the news that she had arrived the
+night before had been widely disseminated on the
+way to church, entering church, IN church (even so!),
+and coming out of church.  An account of her house
+in the Avenue Henri Martin, and of her portrait in
+the Salon--a mysterious business to many, and not
+lacking in grandeur for that!--had occupied two 
+columns in the Tocsin, on a day, some months
+before, when Joe had found himself inimically head-
+lined on the first page, and had dropped the paper
+without reading further.  Ariel's name had been
+in the mouth of Canaan for a long time; unfortunately
+for Joe, however, not in the mouth of that
+Canaan which held converse with him.
+
+Joe had not known her.  The women recognized
+her, infallibly, at first glance; even those who had
+quite forgotten her.  And the women told their
+men.  Hence the un-Sunday-like demeanor of the
+procession, for few towns hold it more unseemly to
+stand and stare at passers-by, especially on the
+Sabbath.--BUT Ariel Tabor returned--and walking
+with--WITH JOE LOUDEN! . . .
+
+A low but increasing murmur followed the two
+as they proceeded.  It ran up the street ahead of
+them; people turned to look back and paused, so
+that they had to walk round one or two groups.
+They had, also, to walk round Norbert Flitcroft,
+which was very like walking round a group.  He
+was one of the few (he was waddling home alone)
+who did not identify Miss Tabor, and her effect upon
+him was extraordinary.  His mouth opened and he
+gazed stodgily, his widening eyes like sun-dogs
+coming out of a fog.  He did not recognize her
+escort; did not see him at all until they had passed,
+after which Mr. Flitcroft experienced a few 
+moments of trance; came out of it stricken through and
+through; felt nervously of his tie; resolutely fell in
+behind the heeling mongrel and followed, at a
+distance of some forty paces, determined to learn
+what household this heavenly visitor honored, and
+thrilling with the intention to please that same
+household with his own presence as soon and as
+often as possible.
+
+Ariel flushed a little when she perceived the
+extent of their conspicuousness; but it was not the
+blush that Joe remembered had reddened the
+tanned skin of old; for her brownness had gone
+long ago, though it had not left her merely pink and
+white.  This was a delicate rosiness rising from her
+cheeks to her temples as the earliest dawn rises.  If
+there had been many words left in Joe, he would
+have called it a divine blush; it fascinated him, and
+if anything could have deepened the glamour about
+her, it would have been this blush.  He did not
+understand it, but when he saw it he stumbled.
+
+Those who gaped and stared were for him only
+blurs in the background; truly, he saw "men as
+trees walking"; and when it became necessary to
+step out to the curb in passing some clump of
+people, it was to him as if Ariel and he, enchantedly
+alone, were working their way through underbrush
+in the woods.
+
+He kept trying to realize that this lady of wonder
+was Ariel Tabor, but he could not; he could not
+connect the shabby Ariel, whom he had treated as
+one boy treats another, with this young woman of
+the world.  He had always been embarrassed, himself,
+and ashamed of her, when anything she did
+made him remember that, after all, she was a girl;
+as, on the day he ran away, when she kissed a lock
+of his hair escaping from the bandage.  With that
+recollection, even his ears grew red: it did not seem
+probable that it would ever happen again!  The
+next instant he heard himself calling her "Miss
+Tabor."
+
+At this she seemed amused.  "You ought to have
+called me that, years ago," she said, "for all you
+knew me!"
+
+"I did know her--YOU, I mean!" he answered.
+"I used to know nearly everything you were going
+to say before you said it.  It seems strange now--"
+
+"Yes," she interrupted.  "It does seem strange
+now!"
+
+"Somehow," he went on, "I doubt if now I'd
+know."
+
+"Somehow," she echoed, with fine gravity, "I
+doubt it, too."
+
+Although he had so dim a perception of the staring
+and whispering which greeted and followed them,
+Ariel, of course, was thoroughly aware of it, though
+the only sign she gave was the slight blush, which 
+very soon disappeared.  That people turned to
+look at her may have been not altogether a novelty:
+a girl who had learned to appear unconscious of the
+Continental stare, the following gaze of the boulevards,
+the frank glasses of the Costanza in Rome,
+was not ill equipped to face Main Street, Canaan,
+even as it was to-day.
+
+Under the sycamores, before they started, they
+had not talked a great deal; there had been long
+silences: almost all her questions concerning the
+period of his runaway absence; she appeared to
+know and to understand everything which had happened
+since his return to the town.  He had not,
+in his turn, reached the point where he would begin
+to question her; he was too breathless in his
+consciousness of the marvellous present hour.  She
+had told him of the death of Roger Tabor, the year
+before.  "Poor man," she said, gently, "he lived to
+see `how the other fellows did it' at last, and
+everybody liked him.  He was very happy over there."
+
+After a little while she had said that it was
+growing close upon lunch-time; she must be going back.
+
+"Then--then--good-bye," he replied, ruefully.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I'm afraid you don't understand.  It wouldn't
+do for you to be seen with me.  Perhaps, though,
+you do understand.  Wasn't that why you asked me
+to meet you out here beyond the bridge?"
+
+In answer she looked at him full and straight for
+three seconds, then threw back her head and closed
+her eyes tight with laughter.  Without a word she
+took the parasol from him, opened it herself, placed
+the smooth white coral handle of it in his hand, and
+lightly took his arm.  There was no further demur
+on the part of the young man.  He did not know
+where she was going; he did not ask.
+
+Soon after Norbert turned to follow them, they
+came to the shady part of the street, where the town
+in summer was like a grove.  Detachments from
+the procession had already, here and there, turned
+in at the various gates.  Nobody, however,
+appeared to have gone in-doors, except for fans, armed
+with which immediately to return to rockers upon
+the shaded verandas.  As Miss Tabor and Joe
+went by, the rocking-chairs stopped; the fans
+poised, motionless; and perspiring old gentlemen,
+wiping their necks, paused in arrested attitudes.
+
+Once Ariel smiled politely, not at Mr. Louden,
+and inclined her head twice, with the result that the
+latter, after thinking for a time of how gracefully
+she did it and how pretty the top of her hat was,
+became gradually conscious of a meaning in her
+action: that she had bowed to some one across the
+street.  He lifted his hat, about four minutes late,
+and discovered Mamie Pike and Eugene, upon the
+opposite pavement, walking home from church
+together.  Joe changed color.
+
+There, just over the way, was she who had been,
+in his first youth, the fairy child, the little princess
+playing in the palace yard, and always afterward
+his lady of dreams, his fair unreachable moon!  And
+Joe, seeing her to-day, changed color; that was all!
+He had passed Mamie in the street only a week
+before, and she had seemed all that she had always
+seemed; to-day an incomprehensible and subtle
+change had befallen her--a change so mystifying to
+him that for a moment he almost doubted that she
+was Mamie Pike.  It came to him with a breath-
+taking shock that her face lacked a certain vivacity
+of meaning; that its sweetness was perhaps too
+placid; that there would have been a deeper goodness
+in it had there been any hint of daring.
+Astonishing questions assailed him, startled him:
+could it be true that, after all, there might be some
+day too much of her?  Was her amber hair a little
+too--FLUFFY?  Was something the matter with her
+dress?  Everything she wore had always seemed so
+beautiful.  Where had the exquisiteness of it gone?
+For there was surely no exquisiteness about it now!
+It was incredible that any one could so greatly alter
+in the few days elapsed since he had seen her.
+
+Strange matters!  Mamie had never looked
+prettier.
+
+At the sound of Ariel's voice he emerged from
+the profundities of his psychic enigma with a leap.
+
+"She is lovelier than ever, isn't she?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," he answered, blankly.
+
+"Would you still risk--" she began, smiling,
+but, apparently thinking better of it, changed her
+question:  "What is the name of your dog, Mr.
+Louden?  You haven't told me."
+
+"Oh, he's just a yellow dog," he evaded, unskilfully.
+
+"YOUNG MAN!" she said, sharply.
+
+"Well," he admitted, reluctantly, "I call him
+Speck for short."
+
+"And what for long?  I want to know his real
+name."
+
+"It's mighty inappropriate, because we're fond
+of each other," said Joe, "but when I picked him
+up he was so yellow, and so thin, and so creeping,
+and so scared that I christened him `Respectability.' "
+
+She broke into light laughter, stopped short in
+the midst of it, and became grave.  "Ah, you've
+grown bitter," she said, gently.
+
+"No, no," he protested.  "I told you I liked
+him."
+
+She did not answer.
+
+They were now opposite the Pike Mansion, and
+to his surprise she turned, indicating the way by
+a touch upon his sleeve, and crossed the street
+toward the gate, which Mamie and Eugene had entered.
+Mamie, after exchanging a word with Eugene
+upon the steps, was already hurrying into the
+house.
+
+Ariel paused at the gate, as if waiting for Joe
+to open it.
+
+He cocked his head, his higher eyebrow rose,
+and the distorted smile appeared.  "I don't
+believe we'd better stop here," he said.  "The last
+time I tried it I was expunged from the face of
+the universe."
+
+"Don't you know?" she cried.  "I'm staying
+here.  Judge Pike has charge of all my property;
+he was the administrator, or something."  Then
+seeing him chopfallen and aghast, she went on:
+"Of course you don't know!  You don't know
+anything about me.  You haven't even asked!"
+
+"You're going to live HERE?" he gasped.
+
+"Will you come to see me?" she laughed.  "Will
+you come this afternoon?"
+
+He grew white.  "You know I can't," he said.
+
+"You came here once.  You risked a good deal
+then, just to see Mamie dance by a window.  Don't
+you dare a little for an old friend?"
+
+"All right," he gulped.  "I'll try."
+
+Mr. Bantry had come down to the gate and was
+holding it open, his eyes fixed upon Ariel, within 
+them a rising glow.  An impression came to Joe
+afterward that his step-brother had looked very
+handsome.
+
+"Possibly you remember me, Miss Tabor?" said
+Eugene, in a deep and impressive voice, lifting his
+hat.  "We were neighbors, I believe, in the old
+days."
+
+She gave him her hand in a fashion somewhat
+mannerly, favoring him with a bright, negligent
+smile.  "Oh, quite," she answered, turning again
+to Joe as she entered the gate.  "Then I shall
+expect you?"
+
+"I'll try," said Joe.  "I'll try."
+
+He stumbled away; Respectability and he, together,
+ interfering alarmingly with the comfort of
+Mr. Flitcroft, who had stopped in the middle of the
+pavement to stare glassily at Ariel.  Eugene
+accompanied the latter into the house, and Joe,
+looking back, understood:  Mamie had sent his step-
+brother to bring Ariel in--and to keep him from
+following.
+
+"This afternoon!"  The thought took away his
+breath, and he became paler.
+
+The Pike brougham rolled by him, and Sam
+Warden, from the box, favored his old friend upon
+the pavement with a liberal display of the whites
+of his eyes.  The Judge, evidently, had been
+detained after services--without doubt a meeting of
+the church officials.  Mrs. Pike, blinking and
+frightened, sat at her husband's side, agreeing
+feebly with the bull-bass which rumbled out of
+the open window of the brougham:  "I want
+orthodox preaching in MY church, and, by God,
+madam, I'll have it!  That fellow has got to go!"
+Joe took off his hat and wiped his brow.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+TO REMAIN ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE IS NOT ALWAYS A VICTORY
+
+Mamie, waiting just inside the door as Ariel and
+Eugene entered, gave the visitor a pale greeting,
+and, a moment later, hearing the wheels of the brougham
+crunch the gravel of the carriage-drive, hurried away,
+down the broad hall, and disappeared.  Ariel dropped her
+parasol upon a marble-topped table near the door, and,
+removing her gloves, drifted into a room at the
+left, where a grand piano found shelter beneath
+crimson plush.  After a moment of contemplation,
+she pushed back the coverlet, and, seating herself
+upon the plush-covered piano-stool (to match),
+let her fingers run up and down the key-board once
+and fall listlessly in her lap, as she gazed with deep
+interest at three life-sized colored photographs (in
+carved gilt frames) upon the wall she was facing:
+Judge Pike, Mamie, and Mrs. Pike with her rubies.
+
+"Please don't stop playing, Miss Tabor," said a
+voice behind her.  She had not observed that
+Eugene had followed her into the room.
+
+"Very well, if you like," she answered, looking
+up to smile absently at him.  And she began to
+play a rakish little air which, composed by some
+rattle-brain at a cafe table, had lately skipped out
+of the Moulin Rouge to disport itself over Paris.
+She played it slowly, in the minor, with elfish
+pathos; while he leaned upon the piano, his eyes
+fixed upon her fingers, which bore few rings, none,
+he observed with an unreasonable pleasure, upon
+the third finger of the left hand.
+
+"It's one of those simpler Grieg things, isn't
+it?" he said, sighing gently.  "I care for Grieg."
+
+"Would you mind its being Chaminade?" she
+returned, dropping her eyes to cloak the sin.
+
+"Ah no; I recognize it now," replied Eugene.
+"He appeals to me even more than Grieg."
+
+At this she glanced quickly up at him, but more
+quickly down again, and hastened the time
+emphatically, swinging the little air into the major.
+
+"Do you play the `Pilgrim's Chorus'?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Vous name pas Wagner?" inquired Eugene,
+leaning toward her.
+
+"Oh yes," she answered, bending her head far
+over, so that her face was concealed from him,
+except the chin, which, he saw with a thrill of
+inexplicable emotion, was trembling slightly.
+There were some small white flowers upon her hat,
+and these shook too.
+
+She stopped playing abruptly, rose from the
+stool and crossed the room to a large mahogany
+chair, upholstered in red velvet and of hybrid
+construction, possessing both rockers and legs.  She
+had moved in a way which prevented him from
+seeing her face, but he was certain of her agitation,
+and strangely glad, while curious, tremulous half-
+thoughts, edged with prophecy, bubbled to the
+surface of his consciousness.
+
+When she turned to him, he was surprised to
+see that she looked astonishingly happy, almost
+as if she had been struggling with joy, instead of
+pain.
+
+"This chair," she said, sinking into it, "makes
+me feel at home."
+
+Naturally he could not understand.
+
+"Because," she explained, "I once thought I
+was going to live in it.  It has been reupholstered,
+but I should know it if I met in anywhere in the
+world!"
+
+"How very odd!" exclaimed Eugene, staring.
+
+"I settled here in pioneer days," she went on,
+tapping the arms lightly with her finger-tips.  "It
+was the last dance I went to in Canaan."
+
+"I fear the town was very provincial at that
+time," he returned, having completely forgotten
+the occasion she mentioned, therefore wishing to
+shift the subject.  "I fear you may still find it
+so.  There is not much here that one is in sympathy
+with, intellectually--few people really of
+the world."
+
+"Few people, I suppose you mean," she said,
+softly, with a look that went deep enough into his
+eyes, "few people who really understand one?"
+
+Eugene had seated himself on the sill of an open
+window close by.  "There has been," he answered,
+with the ghost of a sigh, "no one."
+
+She turned her head slightly away from him,
+apparently occupied with a loose thread in her sleeve.
+There were no loose threads; it was an old habit of
+hers which she retained.  "I suppose," she
+murmured, in a voice as low as his had been, "that a
+man of your sort might find Canaan rather lonely
+and sad."
+
+"It HAS been!"  Whereupon she made him a
+laughing little bow.
+
+"You are sure you complain of Canaan?"
+
+"Yes!" he exclaimed.  "You don't know what
+it is to live here--"
+
+"I think I do.  I lived here seventeen years."
+
+"Oh yes," he began to object, "as a child, but--"
+
+"Have you any recollection," she interrupted,
+"of the day before your brother ran away?  Of 
+coming home for vacation--I think it was your first
+year in college--and intervening between your
+brother and me in a snow-fight?"
+
+For a moment he was genuinely perplexed; then
+his face cleared.  "Certainly," he said:  "I found
+him bullying you and gave him a good punishing
+for it."
+
+"Is that all you remember?"
+
+"Yes," he replied, honestly.  "Wasn't that all?"
+
+"Quite!" she smiled, her eyes half closed.
+"Except that I went home immediately afterward."
+
+"Naturally," said Eugene.  "My step-brother
+wasn't very much chevalier sans peur et sans reproche!
+Ah, I should like to polish up my French a
+little.  Would you mind my asking you to read a
+bit with me, some little thing of Daudet's if you
+care for him, in the original?  An hour, now and
+then, perhaps--"
+
+Mamie appeared in the doorway and Eugene rose
+swiftly.  "I have been trying to persuade Miss
+Tabor," he explained, with something too much of
+laughter, "to play again.  You heard that little
+thing of Chaminade's--"
+
+Mamie did not appear to hear him; she entered
+breathlessly, and there was no color in her cheeks.
+"Ariel," she exclaimed, "I don't want you to think
+I'm a tale-bearer--"
+
+"Oh, my dear!" Ariel said, with a gesture of
+deprecation.
+
+"No," Miss Pike went on, all in one breath, "but
+I'm afraid you will think it, because papa knows and
+he wants to see you."
+
+"What is it that he knows?"
+
+"That you were walking with Joseph Louden!"
+(This was as if she had said, "That you poisoned
+your mother.")  "I DIDN'T tell him, but when we
+saw you with him I was troubled, and asked
+Eugene what I'd better do, because Eugene always
+knows what is best."  (Mr. Bantry's expression,
+despite this tribute, was not happy.)  "And he
+advised me to tell mamma about it and leave it
+in her hands.  But she always tells papa everything--"
+
+"Certainly; that is understood," said Ariel,
+slowly, turning to smile at Eugene.
+
+"And she told him this right away," Mamie
+finished.
+
+"Why shouldn't she, if it is of the slightest
+interest to him?"
+
+The daughter of the house exhibited signs of
+consternation.  "He wants to see you," she repeated,
+falteringly.  "He's in the library."
+
+Having thus discharged her errand, she hastened
+to the front-door, which had been left open, and out
+to the steps, evidently with the intention of 
+removing herself as soon and as far as possible from
+the vicinity of the library.
+
+Eugene, visibly perturbed, followed her to the
+doorway of the room, and paused.
+
+"Do you know the way?" he inquired, with a
+note of solemnity.
+
+"Where?" Ariel had not risen.
+
+"To the library."
+
+"Of course," she said, beaming upon him.  "I
+was about to ask you if you wouldn't speak to
+the Judge for me.  This is such a comfortable old
+friend, this chair."
+
+"Speak to him for you?" repeated the non-
+plussed Eugene.
+
+She nodded cheerfully.  "If I may trouble you.
+Tell him, certainly, I shall be glad to see him."
+
+He threw a piteous glance after Mamie, who was
+now, as he saw, through the open door, out upon the
+lawn and beyond easy hailing distance.  When he
+turned again to look at Ariel he discovered that she
+had shifted the position of her chair slightly, and
+was gazing out of the window with every appearance
+of cheerful meditation.  She assumed so unmistakably
+that he had of course gone on her mission
+that, dismayed and his soul quaking, he could find
+neither an alternative nor words to explain to this
+dazzling lady that not he nor any other could bear
+such a message to Martin Pike.
+
+Eugene went.  There was nothing else to do; and
+he wished with every step that the distance to the
+portals of the library might have been greater.
+
+In whatever guise he delivered the summons, it
+was perfectly efficacious.  A door slammed, a heavy
+and rapid tread was heard in the hall, and Ariel,
+without otherwise moving, turned her head and
+offered a brilliant smile of greeting.
+
+"It was good of you," she said, as the doorway
+filled with red, imperial wrath, "to wish to have a
+little chat with me.  I'm anxious, of course, to go
+over my affairs with you, and last night, after my
+journey, I was too tired.  But now we might begin;
+not in detail, of course, just yet.  That will do for
+later, when I've learned more about business."
+
+The great one had stopped on the threshold.
+
+"Madam," he began, coldly, "when I say my
+library, I mean my--"
+
+"Oh yes," she interrupted, with amiable weariness.
+"I know.  You mean you keep all the
+papers and books of the estate in there, but I think
+we'd better put them off for a few days--"
+
+"I'm not talking about the estate!" he exclaimed.
+"What I want to talk to you about is being seen
+with Joseph Louden!"
+
+"Yes," she nodded, brightly.  "That's along the
+line we must take up first."
+
+"Yes, it is!" He hurled his bull-bass at her. 
+"You knew everything about him and his standing
+in this community!  I know you did, because Mrs.
+Pike told me you asked all about him from Mamie
+after you came last night, and, see here, don't
+you--"
+
+"Oh, but I knew before that," she laughed.  "I
+had a correspondent in Canaan, one who has always
+taken a great interest in Mr. Louden.  I asked Miss
+Pike only to get her own point of view."
+
+"I want to tell you, madam," he shouted,
+coming toward her, "that no member of my household--"
+
+"That's another point we must take up to-day.
+I'm glad you remind me of it," she said, thoughtfully,
+yet with so magically compelling an intonation
+that he stopped his shouting in the middle of
+a word; stopped with an apoplectic splutter.  "We
+must arrange to put the old house in order at once."
+
+"We'll arrange nothing of the sort," he responded,
+after a moment of angry silence.  "You're
+going to stay right here."
+
+"Ah, I know your hospitality," she bowed,
+graciously.  "But of course I must not tax it too
+far.  And about Mr. Louden?  As I said, I want
+to speak to you about him."
+
+"Yes," he intervened, harshly.  "So do I, and
+I'm going to do it quick!  You'll find--"
+
+Again she mysteriously baffled him.  "He's a
+dear old friend of mine, you know, and I have made
+up my mind that we both need his help, you and I."
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes," she continued, calmly, "in a business way
+I mean.  I know you have great interests in a hundred
+directions, all more important than mine; it
+isn't fair that you should bear the whole burden of
+my affairs, and I think it will be best to retain Mr.
+Louden as my man of business.  He could take all
+the cares of the estate off your shoulders."
+
+Martin Pike spoke no word, but he looked at her
+strangely; and she watched him with sudden keenness,
+leaning forward in her chair, her gaze alert but
+quiet, fixed on the dilating pupils of his eyes.  He
+seemed to become dizzy, and the choleric scarlet
+which had overspread his broad face and big neck
+faded splotchily.
+
+Still keeping her eyes upon him, she went on:
+"I haven't asked him yet, and so I don't know
+whether or not he'll consent, but I think it possible
+that he may come to see me this afternoon, and if
+he does we can propose it to him together and go
+over things a little."
+
+Judge Pike recovered his voice.  "He'll get a
+warm welcome," he promised, huskily, "if he sets
+foot on my premises!"
+
+"You mean you prefer I shouldn't receive him
+here?" She nodded pleasantly.  "Then certainly
+I shall not.  Such things are much better for offices;
+you are quite right."  
+
+"You'll not see him at all!"
+
+"Ah, Judge Pike," she lifted her hand with
+gentle deprecation, "don't you understand that we
+can't quite arrange that?  You see, Mr. Louden is
+even an older friend of mine than you are, and so I
+must trust his advice about such things more than
+yours.  Of course, if he too should think it better
+for me not to see him--"
+
+The Judge advanced toward her.  "I'm tired of
+this," he began, in a loud voice.  "I'm--"
+
+She moved as if to rise, but he had come very
+close, leaning above her, one arm out-stretched and
+at the end of it a heavy forefinger which he was
+shaking at her, so that it was difficult to get out of
+her chair without pushing him away--a feat
+apparently impossible.  Ariel Tabor, in rising, placed
+her hand upon his out-stretched arm, quite as if
+he had offered it to assist her; he fell back a step in
+complete astonishment; she rose quickly, and
+released his arm.
+
+"Thank you," she said, beamingly.  "It's quite
+all my fault that you're tired.  I've been thoughtless
+to keep you so long, and you have been standing,
+too!"  She swept lightly and quickly to the
+door, where she paused, gathering her skirts.  "I
+shall not detain you another instant!  And if Mr.
+Louden comes, this afternoon, I'll remember.  I'll
+not let him come in, of course.  It will be perhaps
+pleasanter to talk over my proposition as we walk!"
+
+There was a very faint, spicy odor like wild roses
+and cinnamon left in the room where Martin Pike
+stood alone, staring whitely at the open doorway,
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+THE WATCHER AND THE WARDEN
+
+There was a custom of Canaan,
+time-worn and seldom honored in
+the breach, which put Ariel, that
+afternoon, in easy possession of a
+coign of vantage commanding the
+front gate.  The heavy Sunday dinner was finished
+in silence (on the part of Judge Pike, deafening)
+about three o'clock, and, soon after, Mamie tossed
+a number of cushions out upon the stoop between
+the cast-iron dogs,--Sam Warden having previously
+covered the steps with a rug and placed several
+garden chairs near by on the grass.  These simple
+preparations concluded, Eugene sprawled
+comfortably upon the rug, and Mamie seated herself
+near him, while Ariel wandered with apparent
+aimlessness about the lawn, followed by the gaze
+of Mr. Bantry, until Miss Pike begged her, a little
+petulantly, to join them.
+
+She came, looking about her dreamily, and
+touching to her lips, now and then, with an absent 
+air, a clover blossom she had found in the longer
+grass against the fence.  She stopped to pat the
+neck of one of the cast-iron deer, and with grave
+eyes proffered the clover-top first for inspection,
+then as food.  There were those in the world
+who, seeing her, might have wondered that the
+deer did not play Galatea and come to life.
+
+"No?" she said, aloud, to the steadfast head.
+"You won't?  What a mistake to be made of cast-
+iron!"  She smiled and nodded to a clump of lilac-
+bushes near a cedar-tree, and to nothing else--so
+far as Eugene and Mamie could see,--then walked
+thoughtfully to the steps.
+
+"Who in the world were you speaking to?" asked
+Mamie, curiously.
+
+"That deer."
+
+"But you bowed to some one."
+
+"Oh, that," Ariel lifted her eyebrows,--"that
+was your father.  Didn't you see him?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I believe you can't from here, after all," said
+Ariel, slowly.  "He is sitting upon a rustic bench
+between the bushes and the cedar-tree, quite near
+the gate.  No, you couldn't see him from here;
+you'd have to go as far as the deer, at least, and
+even then you might not notice him, unless you
+looked for him.  He has a book--a Bible, I think--
+but I don't think he is reading."
+
+"He usually takes a nap on Sunday afternoons,"
+said Mamie.
+
+"I don't think he will, to-day."  Ariel looked at
+Eugene, who avoided her clear gaze.  "He has the
+air of having settled himself to stay for a long time,
+perhaps until evening."
+
+She had put on her hat after dinner, and Mamie
+now inquired if she would not prefer to remove it,
+offering to carry it in-doors for her, to Ariel's
+room, to insure its safety.  "You look so sort of
+temporary, wearing it," she urged, "as if you were
+only here for a little while.  It's the loveliest hat I
+ever saw, and so fragile, too, but I'll take care--"
+
+Ariel laughed, leaned over, and touched the
+other's hand lightly.  "It isn't that, dear."
+
+"What is it, then?"  Mamie beamed out into a
+joyful smile.  She had felt sure that she could not
+understand Ariel; was, indeed, afraid of her; and
+she found herself astonishingly pleased to be called
+"dear," and delighted with the little familiarity
+of the hand-tap.  Her feeling toward the visitor
+(who was, so her father had announced, to become
+a permanent member of the household) had been,
+until now, undefined.  She had been on her guard,
+watching for some sign of conscious "superiority"
+in this lady who had been so long over-seas, not
+knowing what to make of her; though thrown,
+by the contents of her trunks, into a wistfulness
+which would have had something of rapture in it
+had she been sure that she was going to like Ariel.
+She had gone to the latter's room before church,
+and had perceived uneasily that it had become,
+even by the process of unpacking, the prettiest
+room she had ever seen.  Mrs. Warden, wife of
+Sam, and handmaiden of the mansion, was assisting,
+alternately faint and vociferous with marvelling.
+Mamie feared that Ariel might be a little
+overpowering.
+
+With the word "dear" (that is, of course, with the
+way it was spoken), and with the touch upon the
+hand, it was all suddenly settled; she would not
+understand Ariel always--that was clear--but they
+would like each other.
+
+"I am wearing my hat," answered Ariel,
+"because at any moment I may decide to go for a long
+walk!"
+
+"Oh, I hope not," said Mamie.  "There are sure
+to be people: a few still come, even though I'm an
+engaged girl.  I expect that's just to console me,
+though," she added, smiling over this worn quip
+of the betrothed, and shaking her head at Eugene,
+who grew red and coughed.  "There'll be plenty
+to-day, but they won't be here to see me.  It's you,
+Ariel, and they'd be terribly disappointed if you
+weren't here.  I shouldn't wonder if the whole
+town came; it's curious enough about you!"
+
+Canaan (at least that part of it which Mamie
+meant when she said "the whole town") already
+offered testimony to her truthfulness.  Two gentlemen,
+aged nine and eleven, and clad in white
+"sailor suits," were at that moment grooving their
+cheeks between the round pickets of the gate.
+They had come from the house across the street,
+evidently stimulated by the conversation at their
+own recent dinner-table (they wore a few deposits
+such as are left by chocolate-cake), and the motive
+of their conduct became obvious when, upon being
+joined by a person from next door (a starched and
+frilled person of the opposite sex but sympathetic
+age), one of them waggled a forefinger through the
+gate at Ariel, and a voice was heard in explanation:
+
+"THAT'S HER."
+
+There was a rustle in the lilac-bushes near the
+cedar-tree; the three small heads turned simultaneously
+in that direction; something terrific was
+evidently seen, and with a horrified "OOOH!" the
+trio skedaddled headlong.
+
+They were but the gay vanguard of the life
+which the street, quite dead through the Sunday
+dinner-hour, presently took on.  Young couples
+with their progeny began to appear, returning
+from the weekly reunion Sunday dinner with
+relatives; young people meditative (until they reached
+the Pike Mansion), the wives fanning themselves 
+or shooing the tots-able-to-walk ahead of them,
+while the husbands, wearing long coats, satin ties,
+and showing dust upon their blazing shoes,
+invariably pushed the perambulators.  Most of these
+passers-by exchanged greetings with Mamie and
+Eugene, and all of them looked hard at Ariel as
+long as it was possible.
+
+And now the young men of the town, laboriously
+arranged as to apparel, began to appear on the
+street in small squads, making their Sunday rounds;
+the youngest working in phalanxes of threes and
+fours, those somewhat older inclining to move in
+pairs; the eldest, such as were now beginning to
+be considered middle-aged beaux, or (by the
+extremely youthful) "old bachelors," evidently
+considered it advantageous to travel alone.  Of all
+these, there were few who did not, before evening
+fell, turn in at the gate of the Pike Mansion.
+Consciously, shyly or confidently, according to the
+condition of their souls, they made their way
+between the cast-iron deer to be presented to the
+visitor.
+
+Ariel sat at the top of the steps, and, looking
+amiably over their heads, talked with such as
+could get near her.  There were many who could
+not, and Mamie, occupying the bench below, was
+surrounded by the overflow.  The difficulty of
+reaching and maintaining a position near Miss
+Tabor was increased by the attitude and behavior
+of Mr. Flitcroft, who that day cooled the feeling
+of friendship which several of his fellow-townsmen
+had hitherto entertained for him.  He had been
+the first to arrive, coming alone, though that was
+not his custom, and he established himself at
+Ariel's right, upon the step just below her, so
+disposing the great body and the ponderous arms and
+legs the gods had given him, that no one could
+mount above him to sit beside her, or approach
+her from that direction within conversational
+distance.  Once established, he was not to be
+dislodged, and the only satisfaction for those in
+this manner debarred from the society of the
+beautiful stranger was obtained when they were
+presented to her and when they took their departure.
+On these occasions it was necessary by custom for
+them to shake her hand, a ceremony they accomplished
+by leaning across Mr. Flitcroft, which was a
+long way to lean, and the fat back and shoulders
+were sore that night because of what had been
+surreptitiously done to them by revengeful elbows
+and knees.
+
+Norbert, not ordinarily talkative, had nothing
+to say; he seemed to find sufficient occupation in
+keeping the place he had gained; and from this
+close vantage he fastened his small eyes immovably
+upon Ariel's profile.  Eugene, also apparently 
+determined not to move, sat throughout the
+afternoon at her left, but as he was thin, others,
+who came and went, were able to approach upon
+that side and hold speech with her.
+
+She was a stranger to these young people, most
+of whom had grown up together in a nickname
+intimacy.  Few of them had more than a very
+imperfect recollection of her as she was before Roger
+Tabor and she had departed out of Canaan.  She
+had lived her girlhood only upon their borderland,
+with no intimates save her grandfather and
+Joe; and she returned to her native town "a
+revelation and a dream," as young Mr. Bradbury told
+his incredulous grandmother that night.
+
+The conversation of the gallants consisted, for
+the greater part, of witticisms at one another's
+expense, which, though evoked for Ariel's benefit (all
+eyes furtively reverting to her as each shaft was
+loosed), she found more or less enigmatical.  The
+young men, however, laughed at each other loudly,
+and seemed content if now and then she smiled.
+"You must be frightfully ennuied with all this,"
+Eugene said to her.  "You see how provincial we
+still are."
+
+She did not answer; she had not heard him.  The
+shadows were stretching themselves over the grass,
+long and attenuated; the sunlight upon the trees
+and houses was like a thin, rosy pigment; black 
+birds were calling each other home to beech and
+elm; and Ariel's eyes were fixed upon the western
+distance of the street where gold-dust was beginning
+to quiver in the air.  She did not hear Eugene,
+but she started, a moment later, when the name
+"Joe Louden" was pronounced by a young man,
+the poetic Bradbury, on the step below Eugene.
+Some one immediately said "'SH!"  But she leaned
+over and addressed Mr. Bradbury, who, shut out,
+not only from the group about her, but from the
+other centring upon Miss Pike, as well, was holding
+a private conversation with a friend in like misfortune.
+
+"What were you saying of Mr. Louden?" she
+asked, smiling down upon the young man.  (It
+was this smile which inspired his description of her
+as "a revelation and a dream.")
+
+"Oh, nothing particular," was his embarrassed
+reply.  "I only mentioned I'd heard there was
+some talk among the--"  He paused awkwardly,
+remembering that Ariel had walked with Joseph
+Louden in the face of Canaan that very day.
+"That is, I mean to say, there's some talk of his
+running for Mayor."
+
+"WHAT?"
+
+There was a general exclamation, followed by
+an uncomfortable moment or two of silence.  No
+one present was unaware of that noon walk, though
+there was prevalent a pleasing notion that it would
+not happen again, founded on the idea that Ariel,
+having only arrived the previous evening, had
+probably met Joe on the street by accident, and,
+remembering him as a playmate of her childhood
+and uninformed as to his reputation, had, naturally
+enough, permitted him to walk home with her.
+
+Mr. Flitcroft broke the silence, rushing into words
+with a derisive laugh:  "Yes, he's `talked of' for
+Mayor--by the saloon people and the niggers!  I
+expect the Beaver Beach crowd would be for him,
+and if tramps could vote he might--"
+
+"What is Beaver Beach?" asked Ariel, not turning.
+
+"What is Beaver Beach?" he repeated, and cast
+his eyes to the sky, shaking his head awesomely.
+"It's a Place," he said, with abysmal solemnity,
+--"a Place I shouldn't have mentioned in your
+presence, Miss Tabor."
+
+"What has it to do with Mr. Louden?"
+
+The predestined Norbert conceived the present
+to be a heaven-sent opportunity to enlighten her
+concerning Joe's character, since the Pikes
+appeared to have been derelict in the performance of
+this kindness.
+
+"He goes there!" he proceeded heavily.  "He
+lived there for a while when he first came back
+from running away, and he's a friend of Mike
+Sheehan's that runs it; he's a friend of all the riff-
+raff that hang around there."
+
+"How do you know he goes there?"
+
+"Why, it was in the paper the day after he came
+back!"  He appealed for corroboration.  "Wasn't
+it, Eugene?"
+
+"No, no!" she persisted.  "Newspapers are
+sometimes mistaken, aren't they?"  Laughing a
+little, she swept across the bulbous face beside her
+a swift regard that was like a search-light.  "How
+do you KNOW, Mr. Flitcroft," she went on very
+rapidly, raising her voice,--"how do you KNOW
+that Mr. Louden is familiar with this place?  The
+newspapers may have been falsely informed; you
+must admit that?  Then how do you KNOW?
+Have you ever MET any one who has seen him there?"
+
+"I've seen him there myself!"  The words
+skipped out of Norbert's mouth like so many little
+devils, the instant he opened it.  She had spoken
+so quickly and with such vehemence, looking him
+full in the eye, that he had forgotten everything in
+the world except making the point to which her
+insistence had led him.
+
+Mamie looked horrified; there was a sound of
+smothered laughter, and Norbert, overwhelmed by
+the treachery of his own mouth, sat gasping.
+
+"It can't be such a terrific place, then, after all,"
+said Ariel, gently, and turning to Eugene, "Have
+you ever been there, Mr. Bantry?" she asked.
+
+He changed color, but answered with enough
+glibness:  "No."
+
+Several of the young men rose; the wretched
+Flitcroft, however, evading Mamie's eye--in which
+there was a distinct hint,--sat where he was until
+all of them, except Eugene, had taken a reluctant
+departure, one group after another, leaving in the
+order of their arrival.
+
+The rosy pigment which had colored the trees
+faded; the gold-dust of the western distance danced
+itself pale and departed; dusk stalked into the
+town from the east; and still the watcher upon the
+steps and the warden of the gate (he of the lilac-
+bushes and the Bible) held their places and waited
+--waited, alas! in vain. . . .  Ah! Joe, is THIS the
+mettle of your daring?  Did you not say you would
+"try"?  Was your courage so frail a vessel that
+it could not carry you even to the gate yonder?
+Surely you knew that if you had striven so far,
+there you would have been met!  Perhaps you
+foresaw that not one, but two, would meet you at
+the gate, both the warden and the watcher.  What
+of that?  What of that, O faint heart?  What
+was there to fear?  Listen!  The gate clicks.  Ah,
+have you come at last?
+
+Ariel started to her feet, but the bent figure,
+coming up the walk in the darkness, was that of
+Eskew Arp.  He bowed gloomily to Mamie, and
+in response to her inquiry if he wished to see her
+father, answered no; he had come to talk with the
+granddaughter of his old friend Roger Tabor.
+
+"Mr. Arp!" called Ariel.  "I am so very glad!"
+She ran down to him and gave him her hand.
+"We'll sit here on the bench, sha'n't we?"
+
+Mamie had risen, and skirting Norbert frostily,
+touched Eugene upon the shoulder as she went
+up the steps.  He understood that he was to follow
+her in-doors, and, after a deep look at the
+bench where Ariel had seated herself beside Mr.
+Arp, he obeyed.  Norbert was left a lonely ruin
+between the cold, twin dogs.  He had wrought
+desolation this afternoon, and that sweet verdure,
+his good name, so long in the planting, so carefully
+tended, was now a dreary waste; yet he contemplated
+this not so much as his present aspect of
+splendid isolation.  Frozen by the daughter of the
+house, forgotten by the visitor, whose conversation
+with Mr. Arp was carried on in tones so low that he
+could not understand it, the fat one, though heart-
+breakingly loath to take himself away, began to
+comprehend that his hour had struck.  He rose,
+descended the steps to the bench, and seated himself
+unexpectedly upon the cement walk at Ariel's feet.
+"Leg's gone to sleep," he explained, in response
+to her startled exclamation; but, like a great soul,
+ignoring the accident of his position as well as the
+presence of Mr. Arp, he immediately proceeded:
+"Will you go riding with me to-morrow afternoon?"
+
+"Aren't you very good-natured, Mr. Flitcroft?"
+she asked, with an odd intonation.
+
+"I'm imposed on, often enough," he replied,
+rubbing his leg, "by people who think I am!  Why?"
+
+"It is only that your sitting so abruptly upon
+the ground reminded me of something that happened
+long ago, before I left Canaan, the last time
+I met you."
+
+"I don't think I knew you before you went
+away.  You haven't said if you'll go riding with
+me to-morrow.  Please--"
+
+"Get up," interrupted Mr. Arp, acidly.  "Somebody
+'ll fall over you if you stay there."
+
+Such a catastrophe in truth loomed imminent.
+Judge Pike was rapidly approaching on his way to
+the house, Bible in hand--far better in hand than
+was his temper, for it is an enraging thing to
+wait five hours in ambush for a man who does not
+come.  In the darkness a desecration occurred,
+and Norbert perfected to the last detail whatever
+had been left incomplete of his own destruction.
+He began lumberingly to rise, talking at the same
+time, urging upon Ariel the charms of the roadside;
+wild flowers were in blossom, he said, 
+recounting the benefits she might derive through
+acceptance of his invitation; and having, thus
+busily, risen to his knees, became aware that some
+one was passing near him.  This some one Mr.
+Flitcroft, absorbed in artful persuasions, may have
+been betrayed by the darkness to mistake for
+Eugene.  Reaching out for assistance, he mechanically
+seized upon the skirts of a coat, which he put
+to the uses of a rope, coming up hand-over-hand
+with such noble weight and energy that he brought
+himself to his feet and the owner of the coat to the
+ground simultaneously.  The latter, hideously
+astonished, went down with an objurgation so
+outrageous in venom that Mr. Arp jumped with the
+shock.  Judge Pike got to his feet quickly, but not
+so quickly as the piteous Flitcroft betook himself
+into the deep shadows of the street.  Only a word,
+hoarse and horror-stricken, was left quivering on the
+night breeze by this accursed, whom the gods, intent
+upon his ruin, had early in the day, at his first sight
+of Ariel, in good truth, made mad:  "MURDER!"
+
+"Can I help you brush off, Judge?" asked Eskew,
+rising painfully.
+
+Either Martin Pike was beyond words, or the
+courtesy proposed by the feeble old fellow (for
+Eskew was now very far along in years, and looked
+his age) emphasized too bitterly the indignity
+which had been put upon him: whatever the case,
+he went his way in-doors, leaving the cynic's offer
+unacknowledged.  Eskew sank back upon the
+bench, with the little rusty sounds, suggestions of
+creaks and sighs, which accompany the movement
+of antiques.  "I've always thought," he said, "that
+the Judge had spells when he was hard of hearing."
+
+Oblongs of light abruptly dropped from the
+windows confronting them, one, falling across the
+bench, appropriately touching with lemon the
+acrid, withered face and trembling hands of the
+veteran.  "You are younger than you were nine
+years ago, Mr. Arp," said Ariel, gayly.  "I caught
+a glimpse of you upon the street, to-day, and I
+thought so then.  Now I see that I was right."
+
+"Me--YOUNGER!" he groaned.  "No, ma'am!  I'm
+mighty near through with this fool world--and I'd
+be glad of it, if I didn't expect that if there IS
+another one afterwards, it would be jest as ornery!"
+
+She laughed, leaning forward, resting her elbows
+on her knee, and her chin in her hand, so that the
+shadow of her hat shielded her eyes from the light.
+"I thought you looked surprised when you saw
+me to day."
+
+"I reckon I did!" he exclaimed.  "Who wouldn't
+of been?"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why?" he repeated, confounded by her
+simplicity.  "Why?"
+
+"Yes," she laughed.  "That's what I'm anxious
+to know."
+
+"Wasn't the whole town the same way?" he
+demanded.  "Did you meet anybody that didn't
+look surprised?"
+
+"But why should they?"
+
+"Good Lord Admighty!" he broke out.  "Ain't
+you got any lookin'-glasses?" 
+
+"I think almost all I have are still in the customs
+warehouse."
+
+"Then use Mamie Pike's," responded the old
+man.  "The town never dreamed you were goin'
+to turn out pretty at all, let alone the WAY you've
+turned out pretty!  The Tocsin had a good deal
+about your looks and so forth in it once, in a letter
+from Paris, but the folks that remembered you
+kind of set that down to the way papers talk about
+anybody with money, and nobody was prepared
+for it when they saw you.  You don't need to drop
+no curtseys to ME."  He set his mouth grimly, in
+response to the bow she made him.  "_I_ think
+female beauty is like all other human furbelows,
+and as holler as heaven will be if only the good
+people are let in!  But yet I did stop to look at
+you when you went past me to-day, and I kept
+on lookin', long as you were in sight.  I reckon I
+always will, when I git the chance, too--only
+shows what human nature IS!  But that wasn't
+all that folks were starin' at to-day.  It was your
+walkin' with Joe Louden that really finished 'em,
+and I can say it upset me more than anything I've
+seen for a good many years."
+
+"Upset you, Mr. Arp?" she cried.  "I don't
+quite see."
+
+The old man shook his head deploringly.  "After
+what I'd written you about that boy--"
+
+"Ah," she said, softly, touching his sleeve with
+her fingers, "I haven't thanked you for that."
+
+"You needn't," he returned, sharply.  "It was
+a pleasure.  Do you remember how easy and
+quick I promised you?"
+
+"I remember that you were very kind."
+
+"Kind!"  He gave forth an acid and chilling
+laugh.  "It was about two months after Louden
+ran away, and before you and Roger left Canaan,
+and you asked me to promise to write to you whenever
+word of that outcast came--"
+
+"I didn't put it so, Mr. Arp."
+
+"No, but you'd ought of!  You asked me to
+write you whatever news of him should come, and
+if he came back to tell you how and when and all
+about it.  And I did it, and kept you sharp on his
+record ever since he landed here again.  Do you
+know why I've done it?  Do you know why I
+promised so quick and easy I WOULD do it?"
+
+"Out of the kindness of your heart, I think."
+
+The acid laugh was repeated.  "NO, ma 'am!
+You couldn't of guessed colder.  I promised, and
+I kept my promise, because I knew there would
+never be anything good to tell!  AND THERE NEVER
+WAS!"
+
+"Nothing at all?" she insisted, gravely.
+
+"Never!  I leave it to you if I've written one
+good word of him."
+
+"You've written of the treatment he has
+received here," she began, "and I've been able to
+see what he has borne--and bears!"
+
+"But have I written one word to show that he
+didn't deserve it all?  Haven't I told you everything,
+of his associates, his--"
+
+"Indeed you have!"
+
+"Then do you wonder that I was more surprised
+than most when I saw you walking with him to-
+day?  Because I knew you did it in cold blood
+and knowledge aforethought!  Other folks thought
+it was because you hadn't been here long enough
+to hear his reputation, but I KNEW!"
+
+"Tell me," she said, "if you were disappointed
+when you saw me with him."
+
+"Yes," he snapped.  "I was!"
+
+"I thought so.  I saw the consternation in your
+face!  You APPROVED, didn't you?"
+
+"I don't know what you're talking about!"
+
+"Yes, you do!  I know it bothers you to have 
+me read you between the lines, but for this once
+you must let me.  You are so consistent that you
+are never disappointed when things turn out badly,
+or people are wicked or foolish, are you?"
+
+"No, certainly not.  I expect it."
+
+"And you were disappointed in me to-day.
+Therefore, it must be that I was doing something
+you knew was right and good.  You see?"  She
+leaned a little closer to him, smiling angelically.
+"Ah, Mr. Arp," she cried, "I know your secret:
+you ADMIRE me!"
+
+He rose, confused and incoherent, as full of
+denial as a detected pickpocket.  "I DON'T!  Me ADMIRE?
+WHAT?  It's an ornery world," he protested.
+"I don't admire any human that ever lived!"
+
+"Yes, you do," she persisted.  "I've just proved
+it!  But that is the least of your secret; the great
+thing is this: YOU ADMIRE MR. LOUDEN!"
+
+"I never heard such nonsense," he continued to
+protest, at the same time moving down the walk
+toward the gate, leaning heavily on his stick.
+"Nothin' of the kind.  There ain't any LOGIC to
+that kind of an argument, nor no REASON!"
+
+"You see, I understand you," she called after
+him.  "I'm sorry you go away in the bitterness
+of being found out."
+
+"Found out!"  His stick ceased for a moment
+to tap the cement.  "Pooh!" he ejaculated, 
+uneasily.  There was a pause, followed by a malevolent
+chuckle.  "At any rate," he said, with joy
+in the afterthought, "you'll never go walkin' with
+him AGAIN!"
+
+He waited for the answer, which came, after a
+time, sadly.  "Perhaps you are right.  Perhaps
+I shall not."
+
+"Ha, I thought so!  Good-night."
+
+"Good-night, Mr. Arp."
+
+
+She turned toward the lighted house.  Through
+the windows nearest her she could see Mamie,
+seated in the familiar chair, following with happy
+and tender eyes the figure of Eugene, who was
+pacing up and down the room.  The town was
+deadly quiet:  Ariel could hear the sound of footsteps
+perhaps a block away.  She went to the gate
+and gazed a long time into the empty street,
+watching the yellow grains of light, sieved through
+the maples from the arc lights on the corner,
+moving to and fro in the deep shadow as the lamp
+swung slightly in the night air.  Somewhere, not
+far away, the peace was broken by the screams of
+a "parlor organ," which honked and wailed in
+pious agonies (the intention was hymnal),
+interminably protracting each spasm.  Presently a
+woman's voice outdid the organ, a voice which
+made vivid the picture of the woman who owned
+it, and the ploughed forehead of her, above the
+nose-glasses, when the "grace-notes" were proudly
+given birth.  "Rescue the Perishing" was the
+startlingly appropriate selection, rendered with
+inconceivable lingering upon each syllable:  "Roos-
+cyoo the Poor-oosh-oong!"  At unexpected intervals
+two male voices, evidently belonging to
+men who had contracted the habit of holding tin in
+their mouths, joined the lady in a thorough search
+for the Lost Chord.
+
+That was the last of silence in Canaan for an
+hour or so.  The organ was merely inaugural:
+across the street a piano sounded; firm, emphatic,
+determined, vocal competition with the instrument
+here also; "Rock of Ages" the incentive.  Another
+piano presently followed suit, in a neighboring
+house:  "Precious Jewels."  More distant, a second
+organ was heard; other pianos, other organs, took
+up other themes; and as a wakeful puppy's barking
+will go over a village at night, stirring first the
+nearer dogs to give voice, these in turn stimulating
+those farther away to join, one passing the
+excitement on to another, until hounds in farm-
+yards far beyond the town contribute to the long-
+distance conversation, even so did "Rescue the
+Perishing" enliven the greater part of Canaan.
+
+It was this that made Ariel realize a thing of
+which hitherto she had not been able to convince
+herself: that she was actually once more in the
+town where she had spent her long-ago girlhood;
+now grown to seem the girlhood of some other
+person.  It was true: her foot was on her native
+heath and her name was Ariel Tabor--the very
+name of the girl who had shared the town's
+disapproval with Joe Louden!  "Rescue the Perishing"
+brought it all back to her; and she listened to
+these sharply familiar rites of the Canaanite
+Sabbath evening with a shiver of pain.
+
+She turned from the gate to go into the house,
+heard Eugene's voice at the door, and paused.  He
+was saying good-night to Mamie.
+
+"And please say `au revoir' to Miss Tabor for
+me," he added, peering out under his hand.  "I
+don't know where she can have gone."
+
+"Probably she came in and went to her room,"
+said Mamie.
+
+"Don't forget to tell her `au revoir.' "
+
+"I won't, dear.  Good-night."
+
+"Good-night."  She lifted her face and he kissed
+her perfunctorily.  Then he came down the steps
+and went slowly toward the gate, looking about
+him into the darkness as if searching for something;
+but Ariel had fled away from the path of light that
+led from the open door.
+
+She skimmed noiselessly across the lawn and
+paused at the side of the house, leaning against 
+the veranda, where, on a night long past, a boy
+had hid and a girl had wept.  A small creaking
+sound fell upon her ear, and she made out an
+ungainly figure approaching, wheeling something of
+curious shape.
+
+"Is that you, Sam?" she said.
+
+Mr. Warden stopped, close by.  "Yes'm," he
+replied.  "I'm a-gittin' out de hose to lay de dus'
+yonnah."  He stretched an arm along the cross-
+bar of the reel, relaxing himself, apparently, for
+conversation.  "Y'all done change consid'able,
+Miss Airil," he continued, with the directness of one
+sure of privilege.
+
+"You think so, Sam?"
+
+"Yes'm.  Ev'ybody think so, _I_ reckon.  Be'n
+a tai'ble lot o' talkum 'bout you to-day.  Dun'no'
+how all dem oth' young ladies goin' take it!"  He
+laughed with immoderate delight, yet, as to the
+volume of mere sound, discreetly, with an eye to
+open windows.  "You got 'em all beat, Miss Airil!
+Dey ain' be'n no one 'roun' dis town evah got in a
+thousum mile o' you!  Fer looks, an' de way you
+walk an' ca'y yo'self; an' as fer de clo'es--name o'
+de good lan', honey, dey ain' nevah SEE style befo'!
+My ole woman say you got mo' fixin's in a minute
+dan de whole res' of 'em got in a yeah.  She say
+when she helpin' you onpack she must 'a' see mo'n
+a hunerd paihs o' slippahs alone!  An' de good 
+Man knows I 'membuh w'en you runnin' roun'
+back-yods an' up de alley rompin' 'ith Joe Louden,
+same you's a boy!"
+
+"Do you ever see Mr. Louden, nowadays?" she
+asked.
+
+His laugh was repeated with the same discreet
+violence.  "Ain' I seen him dis ve'y day, fur up
+de street at de gate yonnah, stan'in' 'ith you, w'en
+I drivin' de Judge?"
+
+"You--you didn't happen to see him anywhere
+this--this afternoon?"
+
+"No'm, I ain' SEE him."  Sam's laughter
+vanished and his lowered voice became serious.  "I
+ain' SEE him, but I hearn about him."
+
+"What did you hear?"
+
+"Dey be'n consid'able stir on de aidge o' town,
+I reckon," he answered, gravely, "an' dey be'n
+havin' some trouble out at de Beach--"
+
+"Beaver Beach, do you mean?"
+
+"Yes'm.  Dey be'n some shootin' goin' on out
+dat way."
+
+She sprang forward and caught at his arm without
+speaking.
+
+"Joe Louden all right," he said, reassuringly.
+"Ain' nuffum happen to him!  Nigh as I kin mek
+out f'm de TALK, dat Happy Fear gone on de ramPAGE
+ag'in, an' dey hatta sent fer Mist' Louden to
+come in a hurry."
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+WHITE ROSES IN A LAW-OFFICE
+
+As upon a world canopied with storm,
+hung with mourning purple and habited
+in black, did Mr. Flitcroft turn
+his morning face at eight o'clock
+antemeridian Monday, as he hied
+himself to his daily duty at the Washington
+National Bank.  Yet more than the merely funereal
+gloomed out from the hillocky area of his
+countenance.  Was there not, i'faith, a glow, a Vesuvian
+shimmer, beneath the murk of that darkling eye?
+Was here one, think you, to turn the other cheek?
+Little has he learned of Norbert Flitcroft who
+conceives that this fiery spirit was easily to be
+quenched!  Look upon the jowl of him, and let him who
+dares maintain that people--even the very Pikes
+themselves--were to grind beneath their brougham
+wheels a prostrate Norbert and ride on scatheless!
+In this his own metaphor is nearly touched "I
+guess not!  They don't run over ME!  Martin Pike
+better look out how he tries it!"
+
+So Mother Nature at her kindly tasks, good
+Norbert, uses for her unguent our own perfect
+inconsistency: and often when we are stabbed deep
+in the breast she distracts us by thin scratches in
+other parts, that in the itch of these we may forget
+the greater hurt till it be healed.  Thus, the
+remembrance of last night, when you undisguisedly
+ran from the wrath of a Pike, with a pretty girl
+looking on (to say nothing of the acrid Arp, who
+will fling the legend on a thousand winds), might
+well agonize you now, as, in less hasty moments
+and at a safe distance, you brood upon the piteous
+figure you cut.  On the contrary, behold: you see
+no blood crimsoning the edges of the horrid gash
+in your panoply of self-esteem: you but smart and
+scratch the scratches, forgetting your wound in
+the hot itch for vengeance.  It is an itch which
+will last (for in such matters your temper shall be
+steadfast), and let the great Goliath in the mean
+time beware of you!  You ran, last night.  You
+ran--of course you ran.  Why not?  You ran to
+fight another day!
+
+A bank clerk sometimes has opportunities.
+
+The stricken fat one could not understand how
+it came about that he had blurted out the damning
+confession that he had visited Beaver Beach.
+When he tried to solve the puzzle, his mind refused
+the strain, became foggy and the terrors of his
+position acute.  Was he, like Joe Louden, to endure
+the ban of Canaan, and like him stand excommunicate
+beyond the pale because of Martin Pike's
+displeasure?  For Norbert saw with perfect
+clearness to-day what the Judge had done for Joe.
+Now that he stood in danger of a fate identical,
+this came home to him.  How many others, he
+wondered, would do as Mamie had done and write
+notes such as he had received by the hand of Sam
+Warden, late last night?
+
+
+"DEAR SIR."  (This from Mamie, who, in the Canaanitish
+way, had been wont to address him as "Norb"!)--
+"My father wishes me to state that after your remark
+yesterday afternoon on the steps which was overheard by
+my mother who happened to be standing in the hall behind
+you and your BEHAVIOR to himself later on--he considers
+it impossible to allow you to call any more or to speak to
+any member of his household.
+               "Yours respectfully,
+                                 "MAMIE PIKE."
+
+
+Erasures and restorations bore witness to a
+considerable doubt in Mamie's mind concerning "Yours
+respectfully," but she had finally let it stand,
+evidently convinced that the plain signature, without
+preface, savored of an intimacy denied by the context.
+
+"`DEAR SIR'!" repeated Norbert, between set
+teeth.  "`IMPOSSIBLE TO ALLOW YOU TO CALL any more'!"
+These and other terms of his dismissal recurred to 
+him during the morning, and ever and anon he
+looked up from his desk, his lips moving to the tune
+of those horrid phrases, and stared out at the street.
+Basilisk glaring this, with no Christian softness in it,
+not even when it fell upon his own grandfather,
+sitting among the sages within easy eye-shot from
+the big window at Norbert's elbow.  However,
+Colonel Flitcroft was not disturbed by the gaze
+of his descendant, being, in fact, quite unaware
+of it.  The aged men were having a busy morning.
+
+The conclave was not what it had been.  [See Arp
+and all his works.]  There had come, as the years
+went by, a few recruits; but faces were missing:
+the two Tabors had gone, and Uncle Joe Davey
+could no longer lay claim to the patriarchship; he
+had laid it down with a half-sigh and gone his way.
+Eskew himself was now the oldest of the conscript
+fathers, the Colonel and Squire Buckalew pressing
+him closely, with Peter Bradbury no great time
+behind.
+
+To-day they did not plant their feet upon the
+brass rail inside the hotel windows, but courted
+the genial weather out-doors, and, as their summer
+custom was, tilted back their chairs in the shade of
+the western wall of the building.
+
+"And who could of dreamed," Mr. Bradbury was
+saying, with a side-glance of expectancy at Eskew, 
+"that Jonas Tabor would ever turn out to have a
+niece like that!"
+
+Mr. Arp ceased to fan himself with his wide straw
+hat and said grimly:
+
+"I don't see as Jonas HAS `turned out'--not in
+particular!  If he's turned at all, lately, I reckon
+it's in his grave, and I'll bet he HAS if he had any
+way of hearin' how much she must of spent for
+clothes!"
+
+"I believe," Squire Buckalew began, "that young
+folks' memories are short."
+
+"They're lucky!" interjected Eskew.  "The shorter
+your memory the less meanness you know."
+
+"I meant young folks don't remember as well as
+older people do," continued the Squire.  "I don't
+see what's so remarkable in her comin' back and
+walkin' up-street with Joe Louden.  She used to go
+kitin' round with him all the time, before she left
+here.  And yet everybody talks as if they never
+HEARD of sech a thing!"
+
+"It seems to me," said Colonel Flitcroft, hesitatingly,
+"that she did right.  I know it sounds kind
+of a queer thing to say, and I stirred up a good deal
+of opposition at home, yesterday evening, by sort
+of mentioning something of the kind.  Nobody
+seemed to agree with me, except Norbert, and he
+didn't SAY much, but--"
+
+He was interrupted by an uncontrollable cackle 
+which issued from the mouth of Mr. Arp.  The
+Colonel turned upon him with a frown, inquiring the
+cause of his mirth.
+
+"It put me in mind," Mr. Arp began promptly,
+"of something that happened last night."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+Eskew's mouth was open to tell, but he remembered,
+just in time, that the grandfather of Norbert
+was not the audience properly to be selected for this
+recital, choked a half-born word, coughed loudly,
+realizing that he must withhold the story of the
+felling of Martin Pike until the Colonel had taken
+his departure, and replied:
+
+"Nothin' to speak of.  Go on with your argument."
+
+"I've finished," said the Colonel.  "I only
+wanted to say that it seems to me a good action for a
+young lady like that to come back here and stick
+to her old friend and playmate."
+
+"STICK to him!" echoed Mr. Arp.  "She walked
+up Main Street with him yesterday.  Do you call
+that stickin' to him?  She's been away a good
+while; she's forgotten what Canaan IS.  You wait
+till she sees for herself jest what his standing in this
+com--"
+
+"I agree with Eskew for once," interrupted Peter
+Bradbury.  "I agree because--"
+
+"Then you better wait," cried Eskew, allowing 
+him to proceed no farther, "till you hear what you're
+agreein' to!  I say: you take a young lady like that,
+pretty and rich and all cultured up, and it stands
+to reason that she won't--"
+
+"No, it don't," exclaimed Buckalew, impatiently.
+"Nothing of the sort!  I tell you--"
+
+Eskew rose to his feet and pounded the pavement
+with his stick.  "It stands to reason that she won't
+stick to a man no other decent woman will speak to,
+a feller that's been the mark for every stone throwed
+in the town, ever since he was a boy, an outcast
+with a reputation as black as a preacher's shoes on
+Sunday!  I don't care if he's her oldest friend on
+EARTH, she won't stick to him!  She walked with him
+yesterday, but you can mark my words: his goose
+is cooked!"  The old man's voice rose, shrill and
+high.  "It ain't in human nature fer her to do it!
+You hear what I say: you'll never see her with Joe
+Louden again in this livin' world, and she as good
+as told me so, herself, last night.  You can take
+your oath she's quit him already!  Don't--"
+
+Eskew paused abruptly, his eyes widening
+behind his spectacles; his jaw fell; his stick, raised to
+hammer the pavement, remained suspended in the
+air.  A sudden color rushed over his face, and he
+dropped speechless in his chair.  The others, after
+staring at him in momentary alarm, followed the
+direction of his gaze.
+
+Just across Main Street, and in plain view, was the
+entrance to the stairway which led to Joe's office.
+Ariel Tabor, all in cool gray, carrying a big bunch of
+white roses in her white-gloved hands, had just
+crossed the sidewalk from a carriage and was
+ascending the dark stairway.  A moment later she
+came down again, empty-handed, got into the carriage,
+and drove away.
+
+"She missed him," said Squire Buckalew.  "I
+saw him go out half an hour ago.  BUT," he
+added, and, exercising a self-restraint close upon
+the saintly, did not even glance toward the
+heap which was Mr. Arp, "I notice she left her
+flowers!"
+
+
+Ariel was not the only one who climbed the dingy
+stairs that day and read the pencilled script upon
+Joe's door:  "Will not return until evening.  J.
+Louden."  Many others came, all exceedingly unlike
+the first visitor: some were quick and watchful,
+dodging into the narrow entrance furtively; some
+smiled contemptuously as long as they were in view
+of the street, drooping wanly as they reached the
+stairs: some were brazen and amused; and some
+were thin and troubled.  Not all of them read the
+message, for not all could read, but all looked
+curiously through the half-opened door at the many
+roses which lifted their heads delicately from a
+water-pitcher on Joe's desk to scent that dusty
+place with their cool breath.
+
+Most of these clients, after a grunt of
+disappointment, turned and went away; though there
+were a few, either unable to read the message or
+so pressed by anxiety that they disregarded it,
+who entered the room and sat down to wait for
+the absentee.  [There were plenty of chairs in the
+office now, bookcases also, and a big steel safe.]
+But when evening came and the final gray of twilight
+had vanished from the window-panes, all
+had gone except one, a woman who sat patiently,
+her eyes upon the floor, and her hands folded in
+her lap, until the footsteps of the last of the others
+to depart had ceased to sound upon the pavement
+below.  Then, with a wordless exclamation, she
+sprang to her feet, pulled the window-shade carefully
+down to the sill, and, when she had done
+that, struck a match on the heel of her shoe--a
+soiled white canvas shoe, not a small one--and
+applied the flame to a gas jet.  The yellow light
+flared up; and she began to pace the room haggardly.
+
+The court-house bell rang nine, and as the
+tremors following the last stroke pulsed themselves
+into silence, she heard a footfall on the
+stairs and immediately relapsed into a chair,
+folding her hands again in her lap, her expression 
+composing itself to passivity, for the step was very
+much lighter than Joe's.
+
+A lady beautifully dressed in white dimity
+appeared in the doorway.  She hesitated at the threshold,
+not, apparently, because of any timidity (her
+expression being too thoughtfully assured for that),
+but almost immediately she came in and seated
+herself near the desk, acknowledging the other's
+presence by a slight inclination of the head.
+
+This grave courtesy caused a strong, deep flush
+to spread itself under the rouge which unevenly
+covered the woman's cheeks, as she bowed elaborately
+in return.  Then, furtively, during a protracted
+silence, she took stock of the new-comer,
+from the tip of her white suede shoes to the filmy
+lace and pink roses upon her wide white hat; and
+the sidelong gaze lingered marvellingly upon the
+quiet, delicate hands, slender and finely expressive,
+in their white gloves.
+
+Her own hands, unlike the lady's, began to
+fidget confusedly, and, the silence continuing, she
+coughed several times, to effect the preface required
+by her sense of fitness, before she felt it proper to
+observe, with a polite titter:
+
+"Mr. Louden seems to be a good while comin'."
+
+"Have you been waiting very long?" asked the
+lady.
+
+"Ever since six o'clock!"
+
+"Yes," said the other.  "That is very long."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, it cert'nly is."  The ice thus
+broken, she felt free to use her eyes more directly,
+and, after a long, frank stare, exclaimed:
+
+"Why, you must be Miss Ariel Tabor, ain't you?"
+
+"Yes."  Ariel touched one of the roses upon
+Joe's desk with her finger-tips.  "I am Miss
+Tabor."
+
+"Well, excuse me fer asking; I'm sure it ain't
+any business of mine," said the other, remembering
+the manners due one lady from another.  "But
+I thought it must be.  I expect," she added, with
+loud, inconsequent laughter, "there's not many
+in Canaan ain't heard you've come back."  She
+paused, laughed again, nervously, and again, less
+loudly, to take off the edge of her abruptness:
+gradually tittering herself down to a pause, to
+fill which she put forth:  "Right nice weather we
+be'n havin'."
+
+"Yes," said Ariel.
+
+"It was rainy, first of last week, though.  _I_ don't
+mind rain so much"--this with more laughter,--
+"I stay in the house when it rains.  Some people
+don't know enough to, they say!  You've heard
+that saying, ain't you, Miss Tabor?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I tell YOU," she exclaimed, noisily, 
+"there's plenty ladies and gen'lemen in this town
+that's like that!"
+
+Her laughter did not cease; it became louder and
+shriller.  It had been, until now, a mere lubrication
+of the conversation, helping to make her easier
+in Miss Tabor's presence, but as it increased in
+shrillness, she seemed to be losing control of herself,
+as if her laughter were getting away with her;
+she was not far from hysteria, when it stopped with
+a gasp, and she sat up straight in her chair, white
+and rigid.
+
+"THERE!" she said, listening intently.  "Ain't
+that him?"  Steps sounded upon the pavement
+below; paused for a second at the foot of the stairs;
+there was the snap of a match; then the steps
+sounded again, retreating.  She sank back in her
+chair limply.  "It was only some one stoppin' to
+light his cigar in the entry.  It wasn't Joe Louden's
+step, anyway."
+
+"You know his step?" Ariel's eyes were bent
+upon the woman wonderingly.
+
+"I'd know it to-night," was the answer, delivered
+with a sharp and painful giggle.  "I got plenty
+reason to!"
+
+Ariel did not respond.  She leaned a little closer
+to the roses upon the desk, letting them touch her
+face, and breathing deeply of their fragrance to
+neutralize a perfume which pervaded the room;
+an odor as heavy and cheap-sweet as the face of
+the woman who had saturated her handkerchief
+with it, a scent which went with her perfectly and
+made her unhappily definite; suited to her clumsily
+dyed hair, to her soiled white shoes, to the hot red
+hat smothered in plumage, to the restless stub-
+fingered hands, to the fat, plated rings, of which
+she wore a great quantity, though, surprisingly
+enough, the large diamonds in her ears were pure,
+and of a very clear water.
+
+It was she who broke the silence once more.
+"Well," she drawled, coughing genteelly at the
+same time, "better late than never, as the saying
+is.  I wonder who it is gits up all them comical
+sayings?"  Apparently she had no genuine desire
+for light upon this mystery, as she continued,
+immediately:  "I have a gen'leman friend that's
+always gittin' 'em off.  `Well,' he says, `the best of
+friends must part,' and, `Thou strikest me to the
+heart'--all kinds of cracks like that.  He's real
+comical.  And yet," she went on in an altered
+voice, "I don't like him much.  I'd be glad if I'd
+never seen him."
+
+The change of tone was so marked that Ariel
+looked at her keenly, to find herself surprised into
+pitying this strange client of Joe's; for tears had
+sprung to the woman's eyes and slid along the lids,
+where she tried vainly to restrain them.  Her face
+had altered too, like her voice, haggard lines
+suddenly appearing about the eyes and mouth as if
+they had just been pencilled there: the truth
+issuing from beneath her pinchbeck simulations, like
+a tragic mask revealed by the displacement of a
+tawdry covering.
+
+"I expect you think I'm real foolish," she said,
+"but I be'n waitin' so awful long--and I got a good
+deal of worry on my mind till I see Mr. Louden."
+
+"I am sorry," Ariel turned from the roses, and
+faced her and the heavy perfume.  "I hope he
+will come soon."
+
+"I hope so," said the other.  "It's something to
+do with me that keeps him away, and the longer he
+is the more it scares me."  She shivered and set her
+teeth together.  "It's kind of hard, waitin'.  I
+cert'nly got my share of troubles."
+
+"Don't you think that Mr. Louden will be able
+to take care of them for you?"
+
+"Oh, I HOPE so, Miss Tabor!  If he can't,
+nobody can."  She was crying openly now, wiping
+her eyes with her musk-soaked handkerchief.  "We
+had to send fer him yesterday afternoon--"
+
+"To come to Beaver Beach, do you mean?"
+asked Ariel, leaning forward.
+
+"Yes, ma'am.  It all begun out there,--least-
+ways it begun before that with me.  It was all
+my fault.  I deserve all that's comin' to me, I 
+guess.  I done wrong--I done wrong!  I'd oughtn't
+never to of went out there yesterday."
+
+She checked herself sharply, but, after a
+moment's pause, continued, encouraged by the grave
+kindliness of the delicate face in the shadow of the
+wide white hat.  "I'd oughtn't to of went," she
+repeated.  "Oh, I reckon I'll never, never learn
+enough to keep out o' trouble, even when I see it
+comin'!  But that gentleman friend of mine--Mr.
+Nashville Cory's his name--he kind o' coaxed me
+into it, and he's right comical when he's with ladies,
+and he's good company--and he says, `Claudine,
+we'll dance the light fantastic,' he says, and I kind
+o' wanted something cheerful--I'd be'n workin'
+steady quite a spell, and it looked like he wanted
+to show me a good time, so I went, and that's what
+started it."  Now that she had begun, she babbled
+on with her story, at times incoherently; full of
+excuses, made to herself more than to Ariel, pitifully
+endeavoring to convince herself that the responsibility
+for the muddle she had made was not hers.
+
+"Mr. Cory told me my husband was drinkin' and
+wouldn't know about it, and, `Besides,' he says,
+`what's the odds?'  Of course I knowed there was
+trouble between him and Mr. Fear--that's my husband
+--a good while ago, when Mr. Fear up and
+laid him out.  That was before me and Mr. Fear
+got married; I hadn't even be'n to Canaan then;
+I was on the stage.  I was on the stage quite a
+while in Chicago before I got acquainted with my
+husband."
+
+"You were on the stage?" Ariel exclaimed,
+involuntarily.
+
+"Yes, ma'am.  Livin' pitchers at Goldberg's
+Rat'skeller, and amunchoor nights I nearly always
+done a sketch with a gen'leman friend.  That's the
+way I met Mr. Fear; he seemed to be real struck
+with me right away, and soon as I got through my
+turn he ast me to order whatever I wanted.  He's
+always gen'lemanlike when he ain't had too much,
+and even then he vurry, vurry seldom acks rough
+unless he's jealous.  That was the trouble yesterday.
+I never would of gone to the Beach if I'd
+dreamed what was comin'!  When we got there I
+saw Mike--that's the gen'leman that runs the
+Beach--lookin' at my company and me kind of
+anxious, and pretty soon he got me away from Mr.
+Cory and told me what's what.  Seems this Cory
+only wanted me to go with him to make my husband
+mad, and he'd took good care that Mr. Fear
+heard I'd be there with him!  And he'd be'n hangin'
+around me, every time he struck town, jest to
+make Mr. Fear mad--the fresh thing!  You see he
+wanted to make my husband start something again,
+this Mr. Cory did, and he was fixed for it."
+
+"I don't understand," said Ariel.
+
+"It's this way: if Mr. Fear attacted Mr. Cory,
+why, Mr. Cory could shoot him down and claim self-
+defence.  You see, it would be easy for Mr. Cory,
+because Mr Fear nearly killed him when they had
+their first trouble, and that would give Mr. Cory a
+good excuse to shoot if Mr. Fear jest only pushed
+him.  That's the way it is with the law.  Mr. Cory
+could wipe out their old score and git off scot-free."
+
+"Surely not!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, that's the way it would be.  And
+when Mike told me that Mr. Cory had got me out
+there jest to provoke my husband I went straight
+up to him and begun to give him a piece of my mind.
+I didn't talk loud, because I never was one to make
+a disturbance and start trouble the way SOME do;
+and right while I was talkin' we both see my husband
+pass the window.  Mr. Cory give a kind of
+yelling laugh and put his arm round me jest as Mr.
+Fear come in the door.  And then it all happened
+so quick that you could hardly tell what WAS goin'
+on.  Mr. Fear, we found afterwards, had promised
+Mr. Louden that he wouldn't come out there, but he
+took too much--you could see that by the look of
+him--and fergot his promise; fergot everything but
+me and Cory, I guess.
+
+"He come right up to us, where I was tryin' to
+git away from Cory's arm--it was the left one he
+had around me, and the other behind his back--and 
+neither of 'em said a word.  Cory kept on laughin'
+loud as he could, and Mr. Fear struck him in the
+mouth.  He's little, but he can hit awful hard, and
+Mr. Cory let out a screech, and I see his gun go off--
+right in Mr. Fear's face, I thought, but it wasn't; it
+only scorched him.  Most of the other gen'lemen
+had run, but Mike made a dive and managed to
+knock the gun to one side, jest barely in time.
+Then Mike and three or four others that come out
+from behind things separated 'em--both of 'em
+fightin' to git at each other.  They locked Mr. Cory
+up in Mike's room, and took Mr. Fear over to where
+they hitch the horses.  Then Mike sent fer Mr.
+Louden to come out to talk to my husband and take
+care of him--he's the only one can do anything with
+him when he's like that--but before Mr. Louden
+could git there, Mr. Fear broke loose and run
+through a corn-field and got away; at least they
+couldn't find him.  And Mr. Cory jumped through
+a window and slid down into one of Mike's boats,
+so they'd both gone.  When Mr. Louden come, he
+only stayed long enough to hear what had happened
+and started out to find Happy--that's my husband.
+He's bound to keep them apart, but he hasn't found
+Mr. Fear yet or he'd be here."
+
+Ariel had sunk back in her chair.  "Why should
+your husband hide?" she asked, in a low voice.
+
+"Waitin' fer his chance at Cory," the woman
+answered, huskily.  "I expect he's afraid the cops
+are after him, too, on account of the trouble, and he
+doesn't want to git locked up till he's met Cory
+again.  They ain't after him, but he may not know
+it.  They haven't heard of the trouble, I reckon, or
+they'd of run Cory in.  HE'S around town to-day,
+drinkin' heavy, and I guess he's lookin' fer Mr. Fear
+about as hard as Mr. Louden is."  She rose to her
+feet, lifted her coarse hands, and dropped them
+despairingly.  "Oh, I'm scared!" she said.  "Mr.
+Fear's be'n mighty good to me."
+
+A slow and tired footstep was heard upon the
+stairs, and Joe's dog ran into the room droopingly,
+wagged his tail with no energy, and crept under
+the desk.  Mrs. Fear wheeled toward the door and
+stood, rigid, her hands clenched tight, her whole
+body still, except her breast, which rose and
+fell with her tumultuous breathing.  She could
+not wait till the laggard step reached the landing.
+
+"MR. LOUDEN!" she called, suddenly.
+
+Joe's voice came from the stairway.  "It's all
+right, Claudine.  It's all fixed up.  Don't worry."
+
+Mrs. Fear gave a thick cry of relief and sank back
+in her chair as Joe entered the room.  He came in
+shamblingly, with his hand over his eyes as if they
+were very tired and the light hurt them, so that,
+for a moment or two, he did not perceive the second
+visitor.  Then he let his hand fall, revealing a face
+very white and worn.
+
+"It's all right, Claudine," he repeated.  "It's all
+right."
+
+He was moving to lay his hat on the desk when
+his eye caught first the roses, then fell upon Ariel,
+and he stopped stock-still with one arm outstretched,
+remaining for perhaps ten seconds in that attitude,
+while she, her lips parted, her eyes lustrous,
+returned his gaze with a look that was as
+inscrutable as it was kind.
+
+"Yes," she said, as if in answer to a question, "I
+have come here twice to-day."  She nodded slightly
+toward Mrs. Fear.  "I can wait.  I am very
+glad you bring good news."
+
+Joe turned dazedly toward the other.  "Claudine,"
+he said, "you've been telling Miss Tabor."
+
+"I cert'nly have!" Mrs. Fear's expression had
+cleared and her tone was cheerful.  "I don't see no
+harm in that!  I'm sure she's a good friend of YOURS,
+Mr. Louden."
+
+Joe glanced at Ariel with a faint, troubled smile,
+and turned again to Mrs. Fear.  "I've had a long
+talk with Happy."
+
+"I'm awful glad.  Is he ready to listen to reason?
+she asked, with a titter.
+
+"He's waiting for you."
+
+"Where?"  She rose quickly.
+
+"Stop," said Joe, sharply.  "You must be very
+careful with him--"
+
+"Don't you s'pose I'm goin' to be?" she
+interrupted, with a catch in her voice.  "Don't you
+s'pose I've had trouble enough?"
+
+"No," said Joe, deliberately and impersonally,
+"I don't.  Unless you keep remembering to be
+careful all the time, you'll follow the first impulse
+you have, as you did yesterday, and your excuse
+will be that you never thought any harm would
+come of it.  He's in a queer mood; but he will forgive
+you if you ask him--"
+
+"Well, ain't that what I WANT to do!" she exclaimed.
+
+"I know, I know," he said, dropping into the
+desk-chair and passing his hand over his eyes with
+a gesture of infinite weariness.  "But you must be
+very careful.  I hunted for him most of the night
+and all day.  He was trying to keep out of my way
+because he didn't want me to find him until he had
+met this fellow Nashville.  Happy is a hard man
+to come at when he doesn't care to be found, and
+he kept shifting from place to place until I ran him
+down.  Then I got him in a corner and told him
+that you hadn't meant any harm--which is always
+true of you, poor woman!--and I didn't leave him
+till he had promised me to forgive you if you would
+come and ask him.  And you must keep him out of
+Cory's way until I can arrange to have him--Cory,
+I mean--sent out of town.  Will you?"
+
+"Why, cert'nly," she answered, smiling.  "That
+Nashville's the vurry last person I ever want to
+see again--the fresh thing!" Mrs. Fear's burden
+had fallen; her relief was perfect and she beamed
+vapidly; but Joe marked her renewed irresponsibility
+with an anxious eye.
+
+"You mustn't make any mistakes," he said,
+rising stiffly with fatigue.
+
+"Not ME!  _I_ don't take no more chances," she
+responded, tittering happily.  "Not after yesterday.
+MY! but it's a load off my shoulders!  I do
+hate it to have gen'lemen quarrelling over me,
+especially Mr. Fear.  I never DID like to START
+anything; I like to see people laugh and be friendly, and
+I'm mighty glad it's all blown over.  I kind o'
+thought it would, all along.  PSHO!" She burst
+into genuine, noisy laughter.  "I don't expect
+either of 'em meant no real harm to each other,
+after they got cooled off a little!  If they'd met
+to-day, they'd probably both run!  Now, Mr.
+Louden, where's Happy?"
+
+Joe went to the door with her.  He waited a
+moment, perplexed, then his brow cleared and he
+said in a low voice:  "You know the alley beyond
+Vent Miller's pool-room?  Go down the alley till
+you come to the second gate.  Go in, and you'll see 
+a basement door opening into a little room under
+Miller's bar.  The door won't be locked, and Happy's
+in there waiting for you.  But remember--"
+
+"Oh, don't you worry," she cut him off, loudly.
+"I know HIM!  Inside of an hour I'll have him
+LAUGHIN' over all this.  You'll see!"
+
+When she had gone, he stood upon the landing
+looking thoughtfully after her.  "Perhaps, after
+all, that is the best mood to let her meet him in,"
+he murmured.
+
+Then, with a deep breath, he turned.  The
+heavy perfume had gone; the air was clear and
+sweet, and Ariel was pressing her face into the
+roses again.  As he saw how like them she was,
+he was shaken with a profound and mysterious
+sigh, like that which moves in the breast of one
+who listens in the dark to his dearest music.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+HAPPY FEAR GIVES HIMSELF UP
+
+"I know how tired you are," said Ariel,
+as he came back into the room.  "I
+shall not keep you long."
+
+"Ah, please do!" he returned,
+quickly, beginning to fumble with
+the shade of a student-lamp at one end of the
+desk.
+
+"Let me do that," she said.  "Sit down."  He
+obeyed at once, and watched her as she lit the lamp,
+and, stretching upon tiptoe, turned out the gas.
+"No," she continued, seated again and looking
+across the desk at him, "I wanted to see you at the
+first possible opportunity, but what I have to say--"
+
+"Wait," he interrupted.  "Let me tell you why
+I did not come yesterday."
+
+"You need not tell me.  I know."  She glanced
+at the chair which had been occupied by Mrs. Fear.
+"I knew last night that they had sent for you."
+
+"You did?" he exclaimed.  "Ah, I understand.
+Sam Warden must have told you."
+
+"Yes," she said.  "It was he; and I have been
+wondering ever since how he heard of it.  He
+knew last night, but there was nothing in the
+papers this morning; and until I came here I
+heard no one else speak of it; yet Canaan is not
+large."
+
+Joe laughed.  "It wouldn't seem strange if
+you lived with the Canaan that I do.  Sam had
+been down-town during the afternoon and had met
+friends; the colored people are a good deal like a
+freemasonry, you know.  A great many knew last
+night all about what had happened, and had their
+theories about what might happen to-day in case
+the two men met.  Still, you see, those who knew,
+also knew just what people not to tell.  The Tocsin
+is the only newspaper worth the name here; but
+even if the Tocsin had known of the trouble, it
+wouldn't have been likely to mention it.  That's
+a thing I don't understand."  He frowned and
+rubbed the back of his head.  "There's something
+underneath it.  For more than a year the Tocsin
+hasn't spoken of Beaver Beach.  I'd like to know
+why."
+
+"Joe," she said, slowly, "tell me something
+truly.  A man said to me yesterday that he found
+life here insufferable.  Do you find it so?"
+
+"Why, no!" he answered, surprised.
+
+"Do you hate Canaan?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+"You don't find it dull, provincial, unsympathetic?"
+
+He laughed cheerily.  "Well, there's this," he
+explained:  "I have an advantage over your friend.
+I see a more interesting side of things probably.
+The people I live among are pretty thorough
+cosmopolites in a way, and the life I lead--"
+
+"I think I begin to understand a little about the
+life you lead," she interrupted.  "Then you don't
+complain of Canaan?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+She threw him a quick, bright, happy look, then
+glanced again at the chair in which Mrs. Fear had
+sat.  "Joe," she said, "last night I heard the people
+singing in the houses, the old Sunday-evening
+way.  It `took me back so'!"
+
+"Yes, it would.  And something else: there's
+one hymn they sing more than any other; it's Canaan's
+favorite.  Do you know what it is?"
+
+"Is it `Rescue the Perishing'?"
+
+"That's it.  `Rescue the Perishing'!" he cried,
+and repeating the words again, gave forth a peal
+of laughter so hearty that it brought tears to his
+eyes.  "`RESCUE THE PERISHING'!"
+
+At first she did not understand his laughter,
+but, after a moment, she did, and joined her own
+to it, though with a certain tremulousness.
+
+"It IS funny, isn't it?" said Joe, wiping the
+moisture from his eyes.  Then all trace of mirth
+left him.  "Is it really YOU, sitting here and laughing
+with me, Ariel?"
+
+"It seems to be," she answered, in a low voice.
+"I'm not at all sure."
+
+"You didn't think, yesterday afternoon," he
+began, almost in a whisper,--" you didn't think that
+I had failed to come because I--"  He grew very
+red, and shifted the sentence awkwardly:  "I was
+afraid you might think that I was--that I didn't
+come because I might have been the same way
+again that I was when--when I met you at the
+station?"
+
+"Oh no!" she answered, gently.  "No.  I knew
+better."
+
+"And do you know," he faltered, "that that is
+all over?  That it can never happen again?"
+
+"Yes, I know it," she returned, quickly.
+
+"Then you know a little of what I owe you."
+
+"No, no," she protested.
+
+"Yes," he said.  "You've made that change in
+me already.  It wasn't hard--it won't be--though
+it might have been if--if you hadn't come soon."
+
+"Tell me something," she demanded.  "If these
+people had not sent for you yesterday, would you
+have come to Judge Pike's house to see me?  You
+said you would try."  She laughed a little, and
+looked away from him.  "I want to know if you
+would have come."
+
+There was a silence, and in spite of her averted
+glance she knew that he was looking at her steadily.
+Finally, "Don't you know?" he said.
+
+She shook her head and blushed faintly.
+
+"Don't you know?" he repeated.
+
+She looked up and met his eyes, and thereupon
+both became very grave.  "Yes, I do," she
+answered.  "You would have come.  When you left
+me at the gate and went away, you were afraid.
+But you would have come."
+
+"Yes,--I'd have come.  You are right.  I was
+afraid at first; but I knew," he went on, rapidly,
+"that you would have come to the gate to meet me."
+
+"You understood that?" she cried, her eyes
+sparkling and her face flushing happily.
+
+"Yes.  I knew that you wouldn't have asked
+me to come," he said, with a catch in his voice
+which was half chuckle, half groan, "if you hadn't
+meant to take care of me!  And it came to me that
+you would know how to do it."
+
+She leaned back in her chair, and again they
+laughed together, but only for a moment, becoming
+serious and very quiet almost instantly.
+
+"I haven't thanked you for the roses," he said.
+
+"Oh yes, you did.  When you first looked at them!"
+
+"So I did," he whispered.  "I'm glad you saw.
+To find them here took my breath away--and to
+find you with them--"
+
+"I brought them this morning, you know."
+
+"Would you have come if you had not understood
+why I failed yesterday?"
+
+"Oh yes, I think so," she returned, the fine edge
+of a smile upon her lips.  "For a time last evening,
+before I heard what had happened, I thought
+you were too frightened a friend to bother about."
+
+He made a little ejaculation, partly joyful, partly sad.
+
+"And yet," she went on, "I think that I should
+have come this morning, after all, even if you had
+a poorer excuse for your absence, because, you
+see, I came on business."
+
+"You did?"
+
+"That's why I've come again.  That makes it
+respectable for me to be here now, doesn't it?--for
+me to have come out alone after dark without their
+knowing it?  I'm here as your client, Joe."
+
+"Why?" he asked.
+
+She did not answer at once, but picked up a pen
+from beneath her hand on the desk, and turning it,
+meditatively felt its point with her forefinger 
+before she said slowly, "Are most men careful of
+other people's--well, of other people's money?"
+
+"You mean Martin Pike?" he asked.
+
+"Yes.  I want you to take charge of everything
+I have for me."
+
+He bent a frowning regard upon the lamp-
+shade.  "You ought to look after your own
+property," he said.  "You surely have plenty of
+time."
+
+"You mean--you mean you won't help me?"
+she returned, with intentional pathos.
+
+"Ariel!" he laughed, shortly, in answer; then
+asked, "What makes you think Judge Pike isn't
+trustworthy?"
+
+"Nothing very definite perhaps, unless it was
+his look when I told him that I meant to ask you
+to take charge of things for me."
+
+"He's been rather hard pressed this year, I
+think," said Joe.  "You might be right--if he
+could have found a way.  I hope he hasn't."
+
+"I'm afraid," she began, gayly, "that I know
+very little of my own affairs.  He sent me a draft
+every three months, with receipts and other things
+to sign and return to him.  I haven't the faintest
+notion of what I own--except the old house and
+some money from the income that I hadn't used
+and brought with me.  Judge Pike has all the
+papers--everything."
+
+Joe looked troubled.  "And Roger Tabor, did
+he--"
+
+"The dear man!" She shook her head.  "He
+was just the same.  To him poor Uncle Jonas's
+money seemed to come from heaven through the
+hands of Judge Pike--"
+
+"And there's a handsome roundabout way!"
+said Joe.
+
+"Wasn't it!" she agreed, cheerfully.  "And he
+trusted the Judge absolutely.  I don't, you see."
+
+He gave her a thoughtful look and nodded.
+"No, he isn't a good man," he said, "not even
+according to his lights; but I doubt if he could have
+managed to get away with anything of consequence
+after he became the administrator.  He
+wouldn't have tried it, probably, unless he was
+more desperately pushed than I think he has been.
+It would have been too dangerous.  Suppose you
+wait a week or so and think it over."
+
+"But there's something I want you to do for me
+immediately, Joe."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I want the old house put in order.  I'm going
+to live there."
+
+"Alone?"
+
+"I'm almost twenty-seven, and that's being
+enough of an old maid for me to risk Canaan's
+thinking me eccentric, isn't it?"
+
+"It will think anything you do is all right."
+
+"And once," she cried, "it thought everything
+I did all wrong!"
+
+"Yes.  That's the difference."
+
+"You mean it will commend me because I'm
+thought rich?"
+
+"No, no," he said, meditatively, "it isn't that.
+It's because everybody will be in love with you."
+
+"Quite everybody!" she asked.
+
+"Certainly," he replied.  "Anybody who didn't
+would be absurd."
+
+"Ah, Joe!" she laughed.  "You always were the
+nicest boy in the world, my dear!"
+
+At that he turned toward her with a sudden
+movement and his lips parted, but not to speak.
+She had rested one arm upon the desk, and her
+cheek upon her hand; the pen she had picked up,
+still absently held in her fingers, touching her lips;
+and it was given to him to know that he would
+always keep that pen, though he would never
+write with it again.  The soft lamplight fell across
+the lower part of her face, leaving her eyes, which
+were lowered thoughtfully, in the shadow of her
+hat.  The room was blotted out in darkness behind
+her.  Like the background of an antique portrait,
+the office, with its dusty corners and shelves and
+hideous safe, had vanished, leaving the charming 
+and thoughtful face revealed against an even,
+spacious brownness.  Only Ariel and the roses and
+the lamp were clear; and a strange, small pain
+moved from Joe's heart to his throat, as he thought
+that this ugly office, always before so harsh and
+grim and lonely--loneliest for him when it had
+been most crowded,--was now transfigured into
+something very, very different from an office; that
+this place where he sat, with a lamp and flowers
+on a desk between him and a woman who called
+him "my dear," must be like--like something that
+people called "home."
+
+And then he leaned across the desk toward her,
+as he said again what he had said a little while
+before,--and his voice trembled:
+
+"Ariel, it IS you?"
+
+She looked at him and smiled.
+
+"You'll be here always, won't you?  You're not
+going away from Canaan again?"
+
+For a moment it seemed that she had not heard
+him.  Then her bright glance at him wavered and
+fell.  She rose, turning slightly away from him,
+but not so far that he could not see the sudden
+agitation in her face.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, rising too, "I don't want you to
+think I don't understand, or that I meant _I_ should
+ever ask you to stay here!  I couldn't mean that;
+you know I couldn't, don't you?  You know I 
+understand that it's all just your beautiful friendliness,
+don't you?"
+
+"It isn't beautiful; it's just ME, Joe," she said.
+"It couldn't be any other way."
+
+"It's enough that you should be here now," he
+went on, bravely, his voice steady, though his hand
+shook.  "Nothing so wonderful as your staying
+could ever actually happen.  It's just a light
+coming into a dark room and out again.  One day,
+long ago--I never forgot it--some apple-blossoms
+blew by me as I passed an orchard; and it's
+like that, too.  But, oh, my dear, when you go
+you'll leave a fragrance in my heart that will
+last!"
+
+She turned toward him, her face suffused with
+a rosy light.  "You'd rather have died than have
+said that to me once," she cried.  "I'm glad you're
+weak enough now to confess it!"
+
+He sank down again into his chair and his arms
+fell heavily on the desk.  "Confess it!" he cried,
+despairingly.  "And you don't deny that you're
+going away again--so it's true!  I wish I hadn't
+realized it so soon.  I think I'd rather have tried
+to fool myself about it a little longer!"
+
+"Joe," she cried, in a voice of great pain, "you
+mustn't feel like that!  How do you know I'm
+going away again?  Why should I want the old
+house put in order unless I mean to stay?  And if
+I went, you know that I could never change; you
+know how I've always cared for you--"
+
+"Yes," he said, "I do know how.  It was always
+the same and it always will be, won't it?"
+
+"I've shown that," she returned, quickly.
+
+"Yes.  You say I know how you've cared for
+me--and I do.  I know HOW.  It's just in one certain
+way--Jonathan and David--"
+
+"Isn't that a pretty good way, Joe?"
+
+"Never fear that I don't understand!"  He got
+to his feet again and looked at her steadily.
+
+"Thank you, Joe."  She wiped sudden tears
+from her eyes.
+
+"Don't you be sorry for me," he said.  "Do
+you think that `passing the love of women' isn't
+enough for me?"
+
+"No," she answered, humbly.
+
+"I'll have people at work on the old house to-
+morrow," he began.  "And for the--"
+
+"I've kept you so long!" she interrupted, helped
+to a meek sort of gayety by his matter-of-fact tone.
+"Good-night, Joe."  She gave him her hand.  "I
+don't want you to come with me.  It isn't very
+late and this is Canaan."
+
+"I want to come with you, however," he said,
+picking up his hat.  "You can't go alone."
+
+"But you are so tired, you--"
+
+She was interrupted.  There were muffled, 
+flying footsteps on the stairs, and a shabby little man
+ran furtively into the room, shut the door behind
+him, and set his back against it.  His face was
+mottled like a colored map, thick lines of
+perspiration shining across the splotches.
+
+"Joe," he panted, "I've got Nashville good, and
+he's got me good, too;--I got to clear out.  He's
+fixed me good, damn him! but he won't trouble
+nobody--"
+
+Joe was across the room like a flying shadow.
+
+"QUIET!"  His voice rang like a shot, and on the
+instant his hand fell sharply across the speaker's
+mouth.  "In THERE, Happy!"
+
+He threw an arm across the little man's shoulders
+and swung him toward the door of the other room.
+
+Happy Fear looked up from beneath the down-
+bent brim of his black slouch hat; his eyes followed
+an imperious gesture toward Ariel, gave her a
+brief, ghastly stare, and stumbled into the inner
+chamber.
+
+"Wait!" Joe said, cavalierly, to Ariel.  He went
+in quickly after Mr. Fear and closed the door.
+
+This was Joseph Louden, Attorney-at-Law; and
+to Ariel it was like a new face seen in a flash-light
+--not at all the face of Joe.  The sense of his
+strangeness, his unfamiliarity in this electrical
+aspect, overcame her.  She was possessed by
+astonishment:  Did she know him so well, after
+all?  The strange client had burst in, shaken
+beyond belief with some passion unknown to her,
+but Joe, alert, and masterful beyond denial, had
+controlled him instantly; had swept him into the
+other room as with a broom.  Could it be that
+Joe sometimes did other things in the same sweeping
+fashion?
+
+She heard a match struck in the next room, and
+the voices of the two men: Joe's, then the other's,
+the latter at first broken and protestive, but soon
+rising shrilly.  She could hear only fragments.
+Once she heard the client cry, almost scream:
+"By God! Joe, I thought Claudine had chased him
+around there to DO me!"  And, instantly, followed
+Louden's voice:
+
+"STEADY, HAPPY, STEADY!"
+
+The name "Claudine" startled her; and although
+she had had no comprehension of the argot of
+Happy Fear, the sense of a mysterious catastrophe
+oppressed her; she was sure that something horrible
+had happened.  She went to the window;
+touched the shade, which disappeared upward
+immediately, and lifted the sash.  The front of a
+square building in the Court-house Square was
+bright with lights; and figures were passing in and
+out of the Main Street doors.  She remembered
+that this was the jail.
+
+"Claudine!"  The voice of the husband of 
+Claudine was like the voice of one lamenting over
+Jerusalem.
+
+"STEADY, HAPPY, STEADY!"
+
+"But, Joe, if they git me, what'll she do?  She
+can't hold her job no longer--not after this. . . ."
+
+The door opened, and the two men came out,
+Joe with his hand on the other's shoulder.  The
+splotches had gone from Happy's face, leaving it
+an even, deathly white.  He did not glance toward
+Ariel; he gazed far beyond all that was about
+him; and suddenly she was aware of a great tragedy.
+The little man's chin trembled and he swallowed
+painfully; nevertheless he bore himself upright
+and dauntlessly as the two walked slowly to
+the door, like men taking part in some fateful
+ceremony.  Joe stopped upon the landing at the
+head of the stairs, but Happy Fear went on, clumping
+heavily down the steps.
+
+"It's all right, Happy," said Joe.  "It's better
+for you to go alone.  Don't you worry.  I'll see
+you through.  It will be all right."
+
+"Just as YOU say, Joe," a breaking voice came
+back from the foot of the steps,--"just as YOU say!"
+
+The lawyer turned from the landing and went
+rapidly to the window beside Ariel.  Together they
+watched the shabby little figure cross the street
+below; and she felt an infinite pathos gathering
+about it as it paused for a moment, hesitating,
+underneath the arc-lamp at the corner.  They saw
+the white face lifted as Happy Fear gave one last
+look about him; then he set his shoulders sturdily,
+and steadfastly entered the door of the jail.
+
+Joe took a deep breath.  "Now we'll go," he
+said.  "I must be quick."
+
+"What was it?" she asked, tremulously, as they
+reached the street.  "Can you tell me?"
+
+"Nothing--just an old story."
+
+He had not offered her his arm, but walked on
+hurriedly, a pace ahead of her, though she came
+as rapidly as she could.  She put her hand rather
+timidly on his sleeve, and without need of more
+words from her he understood her insistence.
+
+"That was the husband of the woman who told
+you her story," he said.  "Perhaps it would shock
+you less if I tell you now than if you heard it to-
+morrow, as you will.  He's just shot the other
+man."
+
+"Killed him!" she gasped.
+
+"Yes," he answered.  "He wanted to run away,
+but I wouldn't let him.  He has my word that
+I'll clear him, and I made him give himself up."
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+THE TWO CANAANS
+
+When Joe left Ariel at Judge Pike's
+gate she lingered there, her elbows
+upon the uppermost cross-bar, like
+a village girl at twilight, watching
+his thin figure vanish into the heavy
+shadow of the maples, then emerge momentarily,
+ghost-gray and rapid, at the lighted crossing down
+the street, to disappear again under the trees
+beyond, followed a second later by a brownish streak
+as the mongrel heeled after him.  When they had
+passed the second corner she could no longer be
+certain of them, although the street was straight,
+with flat, draughtsmanlike Western directness:
+both figures and Joe's quick footsteps merging
+with the night.  Still she did not turn to go; did
+not alter her position, nor cease to gaze down the
+dim street.  Few lights shone; almost all the windows
+of the houses were darkened, and, save for
+the summer murmurs, the faint creak of upper
+branches, and the infinitesimal voices of insects in
+the grass, there was silence: the pleasant and
+somnolent hush, swathed in which that part of Canaan
+crosses to the far side of the eleventh hour.
+
+But Ariel, not soothed by this balm, sought
+beyond it, to see that unquiet Canaan whither her
+old friend bent his steps and found his labor and
+his dwelling: that other Canaan where peace did
+not fall comfortably with the coming of night; a
+place as alien in habit, in thought, and almost in
+speech as if it had been upon another continent.
+And yet--so strange is the duality of towns--it lay
+but a few blocks distant.
+
+Here, about Ariel, as she stood at the gate of the
+Pike Mansion, the houses of the good (secure of
+salvation and daily bread) were closed and quiet,
+as safely shut and sound asleep as the churches;
+but deeper in the town there was light and life
+and merry, evil industry,--screened, but strong to
+last until morning; there were haunts of haggard
+merriment in plenty: surreptitious chambers where
+roulette-wheels swam beneath dizzied eyes; ill-
+favored bars, reached by devious ways, where
+quavering voices offered song and were harshly
+checked; and through the burdened air of this
+Canaan wandered heavy smells of musk like that
+upon Happy Fear's wife, who must now be so pale
+beneath her rouge.  And above all this, and for
+all this, and because of all this, was that one re-
+sort to which Joe now made his way; that haven
+whose lights burn all night long, whose doors are
+never closed, but are open from dawn until dawn
+--the jail.
+
+There, in that desolate refuge, lay Happy Fear,
+surrendered sturdily by himself at Joe's word.
+The picture of the little man was clear and fresh
+in Ariel's eyes, and though she had seen him when
+he was newly come from a thing so terrible that
+she could not realize it as a fact, she felt only an
+overwhelming pity for him.  She was not even
+horror-stricken, though she had shuddered.  The
+pathos of the shabby little figure crossing the street
+toward the lighted doors had touched her.  Something
+about him had appealed to her, for he had
+not seemed wicked; his face was not cruel, though
+it was desperate.  Perhaps it was partly his very
+desperation which had moved her.  She had
+understood Joe, when he told her, that this man was
+his friend; and comprehended his great fear when
+he said:  "I've got to clear him!  I promised him."
+
+Over and over Joe had reiterated:  "I've got to
+save him!  I've got to!"  She had answered
+gently, "Yes, Joe," hurrying to keep up with him.
+"He's a good man," he said.  "I've known few
+better, given his chances.  And none of this would
+have happened except for his old-time friendship
+for me.  It was his loyalty--oh, the rarest and
+absurdest loyalty!--that made the first trouble
+between him and the man he shot.  I've got to clear
+him!"
+
+"Will it be hard?"
+
+"They may make it so.  I can only see part of
+it surely.  When his wife left the office, she met
+Cory on the street.  You saw what a pitiful kind of
+fool she was, irresponsible and helpless and feather-
+brained.  There are thousands of women like that
+everywhere--some of them are `Court Beauties,'
+I dare say--and they always mix things up; but
+they are most dangerous when they're like Claudine,
+because then they live among men of action
+like Cory and Fear.  Cory was artful: he spent the
+day about town telling people that he had always
+liked Happy; that his ill feeling of yesterday was
+all gone; he wanted to find him and shake his hand,
+bury past troubles and be friends.  I think he
+told Claudine the same thing when they met, and
+convinced the tiny brainlet of his sincerity.  Cory
+was a man who `had a way with him,' and I can
+see Claudine flattered at the idea of being peace-
+maker between `two such nice gen'lemen as Mr.
+Cory and Mr. Fear.'  Her commonest asseveration--
+quite genuine, too--is that she doesn't like to have
+the gen'lemen making trouble about her!  So the
+poor imbecile led him to where her husband was
+waiting.  All that Happy knew of this was in her
+cry afterwards.  He was sitting alone, when Cory
+threw open the door and said, `I've got you this
+time, Happy!'  His pistol was raised but never
+fired.  He waited too long, meaning to establish
+his case of `self-defence,' and Fear is the quickest
+man I know.  Cory fell just inside the door.  Claudine
+stumbled upon him as she came running after
+him, crying out to her husband that she `never
+meant no trouble,' that Cory had sworn to her that
+he only wanted to shake hands and `make up.'
+Other people heard the shot and broke into the
+room, but they did not try to stop Fear; he warned
+them off and walked out without hindrance, and
+came to me.  I've got to clear him."
+
+Ariel knew what he meant: she realized the
+actual thing as it was, and, though possessed by a
+strange feeling that it must all be medieval and
+not possibly of to-day, understood that he would
+have to fight to keep his friend from being killed;
+that the unhappy creature who had run into the
+office out of the dark stood in high danger of having
+his neck broken, unless Joe could help him.
+He made it clear to her that the State would kill
+Happy if it could; that it would be a point of pride
+with certain deliberate men holding office to take
+the life of the little man; that if they did secure his
+death it would be set down to their efficiency, and
+was even competent as campaign material.  "I
+wish to point out," Joe had heard a candidate for
+re-election vehemently orate, "that in addition to
+the other successful convictions I have named, I
+and my assistants have achieved the sending of
+three men to the gallows during my term of office!"
+
+"I can't tell yet," said Joe, at parting.  "It
+may be hard.  I'm so sorry you saw all this. I--"
+
+"Oh NO!" she cried.  "I want to UNDERSTAND!"
+
+
+She was still there, at the gate, her elbows resting
+upon the cross-bar, when, a long time after Joe
+had gone, there came from the alley behind the
+big back yard the minor chordings of a quartette
+of those dark strollers who never seem to go to
+bed, who play by night and playfully pretend to
+work by day:
+
+   "You know my soul is a-full o' them-a-trub-bils,
+         Ev-ry mawn!
+   I cain' a-walk withouten I stum-bils!
+         Then le'ss go on--
+         Keep walkin' on!
+   These times is sow'owful, an' I am pow'owful
+         Sick an' fo'lawn!"
+
+
+She heard a step upon the path behind her, and,
+turning, saw a white-wrapped figure coming toward her.
+
+"Mamie?" she called.
+
+"Hush!" Mamie lifted a warning hand.  "The
+windows are open," she whispered.  "They might
+hear you!"
+
+"Why haven't you gone to bed?"
+
+"Oh, don't you see?" Mamie answered, in deep
+distress,--"I've been sitting up for you.  We all
+thought you were writing letters in your room,
+but after papa and mamma had gone to bed I
+went in to tell you good night, and you weren't
+there, nor anywhere else; so I knew you must have
+gone out.  I've been sitting by the front window,
+waiting to let you in, but I went to sleep until a
+little while ago, when the telephone-bell rang and
+he got up and answered it.  He kept talking a long
+time; it was something about the Tocsin, and I'm
+afraid there's been a murder down-town.  When
+he went back to bed I fell asleep again, and then
+those darkies woke me up.  How on earth did
+you expect to get in?  Don't you know he always
+locks up the house?"
+
+"I could have rung," said Ariel.
+
+"Oh--oh!" gasped Miss Pike; and, after she had
+recovered somewhat, asked:  "Do you mind telling
+me where you've been?  I won't tell him--nor
+mamma, either.  I think, after all, I was wrong
+yesterday to follow Eugene's advice.  He meant
+for the best, but I--"
+
+"Don't think that.  You weren't wrong."  Ariel
+put her arm round the other's waist.  "I went to
+talk over some things with Mr. Louden."
+
+"I think," whispered Mamie, trembling, "that
+you are the bravest girl I ever knew--and--and--I
+could almost believe there's some good in him,
+since you like him so.  I know there is.  And I--I
+think he's had a hard time.  I want you to know
+I won't even tell Eugene!"
+
+"You can tell everybody in the world," said
+Ariel, and kissed her.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+MR. SHEEHAN'S HINTS
+
+"Never," said the Tocsin on the morrow,
+"has this community been stirred
+to deeper indignation than by the
+cold-blooded and unmitigated brutality
+of the deliberate murder committed
+almost under the very shadow of the Court-
+house cupola last night.  The victim was not a
+man of good repute, it is true, but at the moment
+of his death he was in the act of performing a noble
+and generous action which showed that he might
+have become, if he lived, a good and law-fearing
+citizen.  In brief, he went to forgive his enemy
+and was stretching forth the hand of fellowship
+when that enemy shot him down.  Not half an
+hour before his death, Cory had repeated within
+the hearing of a dozen men what he had been saying
+all day, as many can testify:  `I want to find
+my old friend Fear and shake hands with him.  I
+want to tell him that I forgive him and that I am
+ashamed of whatever has been my part in the
+trouble between us.'  He went with that intention
+to his death.  The wife of the murderer has
+confessed that this was the substance of what he said
+to her, and that she was convinced of his peaceful
+intentions.  When they reached the room where
+her husband was waiting for her, Cory entered
+first.  The woman claims now that as they neared
+the vicinity he hastened forward at a pace which
+she could not equal.  Naturally, her testimony on
+all points favoring her husband is practically
+worthless.  She followed and heard the murdered man
+speak, though what his words were she declares
+she does not know, and of course the murderer,
+after consultation with his lawyer, claims that their
+nature was threatening.  Such a statement, in
+determining the truth, is worse than valueless.  It is
+known and readily proved that Fear repeatedly
+threatened the deceased's life yesterday, and there
+is no question in the mind of any man, woman, or
+child, who reads these words, of the cold blooded
+nature of the crime.  The slayer, who had formerly
+made a murderous attack upon his victim, lately
+quarrelled with him and uttered threats, as we
+have stated, upon his life.  The dead man came
+to him with protestations of friendship and was
+struck down a corpse.  It is understood that the
+defence will in desperation set up the theory of
+self-defence, based on an unsubstantiated claim that
+Cory entered the room with a drawn pistol.  No
+pistol was found in the room.  The weapon with
+which the deed was accomplished was found upon
+the person of the murderer when he was seized by
+the police, one chamber discharged.  Another
+revolver was discovered upon the person of the
+woman, when she was arrested on the scene of the
+crime.  This, upon being strictly interrogated, she
+said she had picked up from the floor in the
+confusion, thinking it was her husband's and hoping
+to conceal it.  The chambers were full and undischarged,
+and we have heard it surmised that the
+defence means to claim that it was Cory's.  Cory
+doubtless went on his errand of forgiveness
+unarmed, and beyond doubt the second weapon
+belonged to the woman herself, who has an unenviable
+record.
+
+"The point of it all is plainly this: here is an
+unquestionable murder in the first degree, and the
+people of this city and county are outraged and
+incensed that such a crime should have been committed
+in their law-abiding and respectable community.
+With whom does the fault lie?  On
+whose head is this murder?  Not with the
+authorities, for they do not countenance crime.  Has
+it come to the pass that, counting on juggleries of
+the law, criminals believe that they may kill,
+maim, burn, and slay as they list without 
+punishment?  Is this to be another instance of the law's
+delays and immunity for a hideous crime,
+compassed by a cunning and cynical trickster of legal
+technicalities?  The people of Canaan cry out for
+a speedy trial, speedy conviction, and speedy
+punishment of this cold-blooded and murderous
+monster.  If he is not dealt with quickly according
+to his deserts, the climax is upon us and the limit
+of Canaan's patience has been reached.
+
+"One last word, and we shall be glad to have
+its significance noted: J. Louden, Esq., has been
+retained for the defence!  The murderer, before
+being apprehended by the authorities, WENT STRAIGHT
+FROM THE SCENE OF HIS CRIME TO PLACE HIS RETAINER
+IN HIS ATTORNEY'S POCKET!  HOW LONG IS THIS TO
+LAST?"
+
+
+The Tocsin was quoted on street corners that
+morning, in shop and store and office, wherever
+people talked of the Cory murder; and that was
+everywhere, for the people of Canaan and of the
+country roundabout talked of nothing else.  Women
+chattered of it in parlor and kitchen; men gathered
+in small groups on the street and shook their
+heads ominously over it; farmers, meeting on the
+road, halted their teams and loudly damned the
+little man in the Canaan jail; milkmen lingered on
+back porches over their cans to agree with cooks 
+that it was an awful thing, and that if ever any
+man deserved hanging, that there Fear deserved it
+--his lawyer along with him!  Tipsy men hammered
+bars with fists and beer-glasses, inquiring
+if there was no rope to be had in the town; and
+Joe Louden, returning to his office from the little
+restaurant where he sometimes ate his breakfast,
+heard hisses following him along Main Street.  A
+clerk, a fat-shouldered, blue-aproned, pimple-
+cheeked youth, stood in the open doors of a grocery,
+and as he passed, stared him in the face and said
+"Yah!" with supreme disgust.
+
+Joe stopped.  "Why?" he asked, mildly.
+
+The clerk put two fingers in his mouth and
+whistled shrilly in derision.  "You'd ort to be
+run out o' town!" he exclaimed.
+
+"I believe," said Joe, "that we have never met
+before."
+
+"Go on, you shyster!"
+
+Joe looked at him gravely.  "My dear sir," he
+returned, "you speak to me with the familiarity
+of an old friend."
+
+The clerk did not recover so far as to be capable
+of repartee until Joe had entered his own stairway.
+Then, with a bitter sneer, he seized a bad potato
+from an open barrel and threw it at the mongrel,
+who had paused to examine the landscape.  The
+missile failed, and Respectability, after bestowing a
+slightly injured look upon the clerk, followed his
+master.
+
+In the office the red-bearded man sat waiting.
+Not so red-bearded as of yore, however, was Mr.
+Sheehan, but grizzled and gray, and, this morning,
+gray of face, too, as he sat, perspiring and anxious,
+wiping a troubled brow with a black silk handkerchief.
+
+"Here's the devil and all to pay at last, Joe,"
+he said, uneasily, on the other's entrance.  "This
+is the worst I ever knew; and I hate to say it, but I
+doubt yer pullin' it off."
+
+"I've got to, Mike."
+
+"I hope on my soul there's a chanst of it!  I
+like the little man, Joe."
+
+"So do I."
+
+"I know ye do, my boy.  But here's this Tocsin
+kickin' up the public sentiment; and if there ever
+was a follerin' sheep on earth, it's that same public
+sentiment!"
+
+"If it weren't for that"--Joe flung himself
+heavily in a chair--"there'd not be so much
+trouble.  It's a clear enough case."
+
+"But don't ye see," interrupted Sheehan, "the
+Tocsin's tried it and convicted him aforehand?
+And that if things keep goin' the way they've
+started to-day, the gran' jury's bound to indict
+him, and the trial jury to convict him?  They
+wouldn't dare not to!  What's more, they'll want
+to!  And they'll rush the trial, summer or no
+summer, and--"
+
+"I know, I know."
+
+"I'll tell ye one thing," said the other, wiping his
+forehead with the black handkerchief, "and that's
+this, my boy: last night's business has just about
+put the cap on the Beach fer me.  I'm sick of it
+and I'm tired of it!  I'm ready to quit, sir!"
+
+Joe looked at him sharply.  "Don't you think
+my old notion of what might be done could be
+made to pay?"
+
+Sheehan laughed.  "Whoo!  You and yer hints,
+Joe!  How long past have ye come around me
+with 'em! `I b'lieve ye c'd make more money,
+Mike'--that's the way ye'd put it,--`if ye altered
+the Beach a bit.  Make a little country-side
+restaurant of it,' ye'd say, `and have good cookin',
+and keep the boys and girls from raisin' so much
+hell out there.  Soon ye'd have other people
+comin' beside the regular crowd.  Make a little
+garden on the shore, and let 'em eat at tables
+under trees an' grape-arbors--' "
+
+"Well, why not?" asked Joe.
+
+"Haven't I been tellin' ye I'm thinkin' of it?
+It's only yer way of hintin' that's funny to me,--yer
+way of sayin' I'd make more money, because ye're
+afraid of preachin' at any of us: partly because ye
+know the little good it 'd be, and partly because
+ye have humor.  Well, I'm thinkin' ye'll git yer
+way.  I'M willin' to go into the missionary business
+with ye!"
+
+"Mike!" said Joe, angrily, but he grew very red
+and failed to meet the other's eye, "I'm not--"
+
+"Yes, ye are!" cried Sheehan.  "Yes, sir!  It's
+a thing ye prob'ly haven't had the nerve to say
+to yerself since a boy, but that's yer notion inside:
+ye're little better than a missionary!  It took me a
+long while to understand what was drivin' ye, but
+I do now.  And ye've gone the right way about it,
+because we know ye'll stand fer us when we're in
+trouble and fight fer us till we git a square deal, as
+ye're goin' to fight for Happy now."
+
+Joe looked deeply troubled.  "Never mind,"
+he said, crossly, and with visible embarrassment.
+"You think you couldn't make more at the Beach
+if you ran it on my plan?"
+
+"I'm game to try," said Sheehan, slowly.  "I'm
+too old to hold 'em down out there the way I yoosta
+could, and I'm sick of it--sick of it into the very
+bones of me!" He wiped his forehead.  "Where's
+Claudine?"
+
+"Held as a witness."
+
+"I'm not sorry fer HER!" said the red-bearded
+man, emphatically.  "Women o' that kind are so
+light-headed it's a wonder they don't float.  Think 
+of her pickin' up Cory's gun from the floor and
+hidin' it in her clothes!  Took it fer granted it was
+Happy's, and thought she'd help him by hidin' it!
+There's a hard point fer ye, Joe: to prove the gun
+belonged to Cory.  There's nobody about here
+could swear to it.  I couldn't myself, though I
+forced him to stick it back in his pocket yesterday.
+He was a wanderer, too; and ye'll have
+to send a keen one to trace him, I'm thinkin',
+to find where he got it, so's ye can show it in
+court."
+
+"I'm going myself.  I've found out that he came
+here from Denver."
+
+"And from where before that?"
+
+"I don't know, but I'll keep on travelling till I
+get what I want."
+
+"That's right, my boy," exclaimed the other,
+heartily, "It may be a long trip, but ye're all the
+little man has to depend on.  Did ye notice the
+Tocsin didn't even give him the credit fer givin'
+himself up?"
+
+"Yes," said Joe.  "It's part of their game."
+
+"Did it strike ye now," Mr. Sheehan asked,
+earnestly, leaning forward in his chair,--"did it
+strike ye that the Tocsin was aimin' more to do
+Happy harm because of you than himself?"
+
+"Yes."  Joe looked sadly out of the window.
+"I've thought that over, and it seemed possible 
+that I might do Happy more good by giving his
+case to some other lawyer."
+
+"No, sir!" exclaimed the proprietor of Beaver
+Beach, loudly.  "They've begun their attack;
+they're bound to keep it up, and they'd manage to
+turn it to the discredit of both of ye.  Besides,
+Happy wouldn't have no other lawyer; he'd ruther
+be hung with you fightin' fer him than be cleared
+by anybody else.  I b'lieve it,--on my soul I do!
+But look here," he went on, leaning still farther
+forward; "I want to know if it struck ye that this
+morning the Tocsin attacked ye in a way that was
+somehow vi'lenter than ever before?"
+
+"Yes," replied Joe, "because it was aimed to
+strike where it would most count."
+
+"It ain't only that," said the other, excitedly.
+"It ain't only that!  I want ye to listen.  Now
+see here: the Tocsin is Pike, and the town is Pike--
+I mean the town ye naturally belonged to.  Ain't
+it?"
+
+"In a way, I suppose--yes."
+
+"In a way!" echoed the other, scornfully.  "Ye
+know it is!  Even as a boy Pike disliked ye and
+hated the kind of a boy ye was.  Ye wasn't
+respectable and he was!  Ye wasn't rich and he was!
+Ye had a grin on yer face when ye'd meet him on
+the street."  The red-bearded man broke off at a
+gesture from Joe and exclaimed sharply:  "Don't
+deny it!  _I_ know what ye was like!  Ye wasn't
+impudent, but ye looked at him as if ye saw through
+him.  Now listen and I'll lead ye somewhere!  Ye
+run with riffraff, naggers, and even"--Mr. Sheehan
+lifted a forefinger solemnly and shook it at his
+auditor--"and even with the Irish!  Now I ask
+ye this: ye've had one part of Canaan with ye from
+the start, MY part, that is; but the other's against
+ye; that part's PIKE, and it's the rulin' part--"
+
+"Yes, Mike," said Joe, wearily.  "In the spirit
+of things.  I know."
+
+"No, sir," cried the other.  "That's the trouble:
+ye don't know.  There's more in Canaan than ye've
+understood.  Listen to this:  Why was the Tocsin's
+attack harder this morning than ever before?  On
+yer soul didn't it sound so bitter that it sounded
+desprit?  Now why?  It looked to me as if it
+had started to ruin ye, this time fer good and all!
+Why?  What have ye had to do with Martin Pike
+lately?  Has the old wolf GOT to injure ye?" Mr.
+Sheehan's voice rose and his eyes gleamed under
+bushy brows.  "Think," he finished.  "What's
+happened lately to make him bite so hard?"
+
+There were some faded roses on the desk, and as
+Joe's haggard eyes fell upon them the answer
+came.  "What makes you think Judge Pike isn't
+trustworthy?" he had asked Ariel, and her reply
+had been:  "Nothing very definite, unless it was his
+look when I told him that I meant to ask you to
+take charge of things for me."
+
+He got slowly and amazedly to his feet.  "You've
+got it!" he said.
+
+"Ye see?" cried Mike Sheehan, slapping his
+thigh with a big hand.  "On my soul I have the
+penetration!  Ye don't need to tell me one thing
+except this:  I told ye I'd lead ye somewhere;
+haven't I kept me word?"
+
+"Yes," said Joe.
+
+"But I have the penetration!" exclaimed Mr.
+Sheehan.  "Should I miss my guess if I said that
+ye think Pike may be scared ye'll stumble on his
+track in some queer performances?  Should I
+miss it?"
+
+"No," said Joe.  "You wouldn't miss it."
+
+"Just one thing more."  The red-bearded man
+rose, mopping the inner band of his straw hat.
+"In the matter of yer runnin' fer Mayor, now--"
+
+Joe, who had begun to pace up and down the
+room, made an impatient gesture.  "Pshaw!" he
+interrupted; but his friend stopped him with a
+hand laid on his arm.
+
+"Don't be treatin' it as clean out of all possibility,
+Joe Louden.  If ye do, it shows ye haven't sense
+to know that nobody can say what way the wind's
+blowin' week after next.  All the boys want ye;
+Louie Farbach wants ye, and Louie has a big say.
+Who is it that doesn't want ye?"
+
+"Canaan," said Joe.
+
+"Hold up!  It's Pike's Canaan ye mean.  If ye
+git the nomination, ye'd be elected, wouldn't ye?"
+
+"I couldn't be nominated."
+
+"I ain't claimin' ye'd git Martin Pike's vote,"
+returned Mr. Sheehan, sharply, "though I don't
+say it's impossible.  Ye've got to beat him, that's
+all.  Ye've got to do to him what he's done to YOU,
+and what he's tryin' to do now worse than ever
+before.  Well--there may be ways to do it; and
+if he tempts me enough, I may fergit my troth and
+honor as a noble gentleman and help ye with a
+word ye'd never guess yerself."
+
+"You've hinted at such mysteries before, Mike,"
+Joe smiled.  "I'd be glad to know what you mean,
+if there's anything in them."
+
+"It may come to that," said the other, with
+some embarrassment.  "It may come to that some
+day, if the old wolf presses me too hard in the
+matter o' tryin' to git the little man across the
+street hanged by the neck and yerself mobbed fer
+helpin' him!  But to-day I'll say no more."
+
+"Very well, Mike."  Joe turned wearily to his
+desk.  "I don't want you to break any promises."
+
+Mr. Sheehan had gone to the door, but he paused
+on the threshold, and wiped his forehead again.
+
+"And I don't want to break any," he said, "but if
+ever the time should come when I couldn't help
+it"--he lowered his voice to a hoarse but piercing
+whisper--"that will be the devourin' angel's day
+fer Martin Pike!"
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+IN THE HEAT OF THE DAY
+
+It was a morning of the warmest week
+of mid-July, and Canaan lay inert
+and helpless beneath a broiling sun.
+The few people who moved about
+the streets went languidly, keeping
+close to the wall on the shady side; the women in
+thin white fabrics; the men, often coatless, carrying
+palm-leaf fans, and replacing collars with
+handkerchiefs.  In the Court-house yard the maple
+leaves, gray with blown dust and grown to great
+breadth, drooped heavily, depressing the long,
+motionless branches with their weight, so low that
+the four or five shabby idlers, upon the benches
+beneath, now and then flicked them sleepily with
+whittled sprigs.  The doors and windows of the
+stores stood open, displaying limp wares of trade,
+but few tokens of life; the clerks hanging over dim
+counters as far as possible from the glare in front,
+gossiping fragmentarily, usually about the Cory
+murder, and, anon, upon a subject suggested by
+the sight of an occasional pedestrian passing
+perspiring by with scrooged eyelids and purpling skin.
+From street and sidewalk, transparent hot waves
+swam up and danced themselves into nothing;
+while from the river bank, a half-mile away, came
+a sound hotter than even the locust's midsummer
+rasp: the drone of a planing-mill.  A chance boy,
+lying prone in the grass of the Court-house yard,
+was annoyed by the relentless chant and lifted his
+head to mock it:  "AWR-EER-AWR-EER!  SHUT UP,
+CAN'T YOU?"  The effort was exhausting: he
+relapsed and suffered with increasing malice but in
+silence.
+
+Abruptly there was a violent outbreak on the
+"National House" corner, as when a quiet farm-
+house is startled by some one's inadvertently bringing
+down all the tin from a shelf in the pantry.  The
+loafers on the benches turned hopefully, saw what
+it was, then closed their eyes, and slumped back
+into their former positions.  The outbreak subsided
+as suddenly as it had arisen:  Colonel Flitcroft
+pulled Mr. Arp down into his chair again, and it
+was all over.
+
+Greater heat than that of these blazing days
+could not have kept one of the sages from attending
+the conclave now.  For the battle was on in
+Canaan: and here, upon the National House corner,
+under the shadow of the west wall, it waxed even
+keener.  Perhaps we may find full justification for
+calling what was happening a battle in so far as we
+restrict the figure to apply to this one spot; else
+where, in the Canaan of the Tocsin, the conflict
+was too one-sided.  The Tocsin had indeed tried
+the case of Happy Fear in advance, had convicted
+and condemned, and every day grew more bitter.
+Nor was the urgent vigor of its attack without
+effect.  Sleepy as Main Street seemed in the heat,
+the town was incensed and roused to a tensity of
+feeling it had not known since the civil war, when,
+on occasion, it had set out to hang half a dozen
+"Knights of the Golden Circle."  Joe had been
+hissed on the street many times since the inimical
+clerk had whistled at him.  Probably demonstrations
+of that sort would have continued had he
+remained in Canaan; but for almost a month he
+had been absent and his office closed, its threshold
+gray with dust.  There were people who believed
+that he had run away again, this time never to
+return; among those who held to this opinion being
+Mrs. Louden and her sister, Joe's step-aunt.  Upon
+only one point was everybody agreed: that twelve
+men could not be found in the county who could
+be so far persuaded and befuddled by Louden
+that they would dare to allow Happy Fear to
+escape.  The women of Canaan, incensed by the
+terrible circumstance of the case, as the Tocsin
+colored it--a man shot down in the act of begging
+his enemy's forgiveness--clamored as loudly as
+the men: there was only the difference that the
+latter vociferated for the hanging of Happy; their
+good ladies used the word "punishment."
+
+And yet, while the place rang with condemnation
+of the little man in the jail and his attorney,
+there were voices, here and there, uplifted on the
+other side.  People existed, it astonishingly
+appeared, who LIKED Happy Fear.  These were for the
+greater part obscure and even darkling in their
+lives, yet quite demonstrably human beings, able
+to smile, suffer, leap, run, and to entertain fancies;
+even to have, according to their degree, a certain
+rudimentary sense of right and wrong, in spite of
+which they strongly favored the prisoner's acquittal.
+Precisely on that account, it was argued, an
+acquittal would outrage Canaan and lay it open
+to untold danger: such people needed a lesson.
+
+The Tocsin interviewed the town's great ones,
+printing their opinions of the heinousness of the
+crime and the character of the defendant's lawyer.
+. . . "The Hon. P. J. Parrott, who so ably represented
+this county in the Legislature some fourteen
+years ago, could scarcely restrain himself when
+approached by a reporter as to his sentiments anent
+the repulsive deed.  `I should like to know how
+long Canaan is going to put up with this sort of
+business,' were his words.  `I am a law-abiding
+citizen, and I have served faithfully, and with my
+full endeavor and ability, to enact the laws and
+statutes of my State, but there is a point in my
+patience, I would state, which lawbreakers and
+their lawyers may not safely pass.  Of what use
+are our most solemn enactments, I may even ask
+of what use is the Legislature itself, chosen by the
+will of the people, if they are to ruthlessly be set
+aside by criminals and their shifty protectors?
+The blame should be put upon the lawyers who by
+tricks enable such rascals to escape the rigors of
+the carefully enacted laws, the fruits of the Solon's
+labor, more than upon the criminals themselves.
+In this case, if there is any miscarriage of justice, I
+will say here and now that in my opinion the
+people of this county will be sorely tempted; and
+while I do not believe in lynch-law, yet if that
+should be the result it is my unalterable conviction
+that the vigilantes may well turn their attention
+to the lawyers--OR LAWYER--who bring about
+such miscarriage.  I am sick of it.' "
+
+The Tocsin did not print the interview it obtained
+from Louie Farbach--the same Louie Farbach who
+long ago had owned a beer-saloon with a little room
+behind the bar, where a shabby boy sometimes
+played dominoes and "seven-up" with loafers:
+not quite the same Louie Farbach, however, in
+outward circumstance: for he was now the brewer
+of Farbach Beer and making Canaan famous.  His
+rise had been Teutonic and sure; and he
+contributed one-twentieth of his income to the
+German Orphan Asylum and one-tenth to his party's
+campaign fund.  The twentieth saved the orphans
+from the county, while the tithe gave the county
+to his party.
+
+He occupied a kitchen chair, enjoying the society
+of some chickens in a wired enclosure behind the
+new Italian villa he had erected in that part of
+Canaan where he would be most uncomfortable,
+and he looked woodenly at the reporter when the
+latter put his question.
+
+"Hef you any aguaintunce off Mitster Fear?"
+he inquired, in return, with no expression
+decipherable either upon his Gargantuan face or in
+his heavily enfolded eyes.
+
+"No, sir," replied the reporter, grinning.  "I
+never ran across him."
+
+"Dot iss a goot t'ing fer you," said Mr. Farbach,
+stonily.  "He iss not a man peobles bedder try to
+run across.  It iss what Gory tried.  Now Gory iss
+dead."
+
+The reporter, slightly puzzled, lit a cigarette.
+"See here, Mr. Farbach," he urged, "I only want
+a word or two about this thing; and you might
+give me a brief expression concerning that man
+Louden besides: just a hint of what you think of
+his influence here, you know, and of the kind of
+sharp work he practises.  Something like that."
+
+"I see," said the brewer, slowly.  "Happy Fear
+I hef knowt for a goot many years.  He iss a goot
+frient of mine."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Choe Louten iss a bedder one," continued Mr.
+Farbach, turning again to stare at his chickens.
+
+"Git owit."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Git owit," repeated the other, without passion,
+without anger, without any expression whatsoever.
+"Git owit."
+
+The reporter's prejudice against the German
+nation dated from that moment.
+
+There were others, here and there, who were less
+self-contained than the brewer.  A farm-hand
+struck a fellow laborer in the harvest-field for
+speaking ill of Joe; and the unravelling of a strange
+street fight, one day, disclosed as its cause a like
+resentment, on the part of a blind broom-maker,
+engendered by a like offence.  The broom-maker's
+companion, reading the Tocsin as the two walked
+together, had begun the quarrel by remarking that
+Happy Fear ought to be hanged once for his own
+sake and twice more "to show up that shyster
+Louden."  Warm words followed, leading to 
+extremely material conflict, in which, in spite of
+his blindness, the broom-maker had so much the
+best of it that he was removed from the triumphant
+attitude he had assumed toward the person of
+his adversary, which was an admirable imitation
+of the dismounted St. George and the Dragon, and
+conveyed to the jail.  Keenest investigation failed
+to reveal anything oblique in the man's record; to
+the astonishment of Canaan, there was nothing
+against him.  He was blind and moderately poor;
+but a respectable, hard-working artisan, and a
+pride to the church in which he was what has
+been called an "active worker."  It was discovered
+that his sensitiveness to his companion's
+attack on Joseph Louden arose from the fact that
+Joe had obtained the acquittal of an imbecile sister
+of the blind man, a two-thirds-witted woman who
+had been charged with bigamy.
+
+The Tocsin made what it could of this, and so
+dexterously that the wrath of Canaan was one
+farther jot increased against the shyster.  Ay, the
+town was hot, inside and out.
+
+Let us consider the Forum.  Was there ever
+before such a summer for the "National House"
+corner?  How voices first thundered there, then
+cracked and piped, is not to be rendered in all the
+tales of the fathers.  One who would make vivid
+the great doings must indeed "dip his brush in
+earthquake and eclipse"; even then he could but
+picture the credible, and must despair of this: the
+silence of Eskew Arp.  Not that Eskew held his
+tongue, not that he was chary of speech--no!
+O tempora, O mores!  NO!  But that he refused the
+subject in hand, that he eschewed expression upon
+it and resolutely drove the argument in other
+directions, that he achieved such superbly un-Arplike
+inconsistency; and with such rich material for his
+sardonic humors, not at arm's length, not even so
+far as his finger-tips, but beneath his very palms,
+he rejected it: this was the impossible fact.
+
+Eskew--there is no option but to declare--was
+no longer Eskew.  It is the truth; since the morning
+when Ariel Tabor came down from Joe's office,
+leaving her offering of white roses in that dingy,
+dusty, shady place, Eskew had not been himself.
+His comrades observed it somewhat in a physical
+difference, one of those alterations which may
+come upon men of his years suddenly, like a "sea
+change": his face was whiter, his walk slower, his
+voice filed thinner; he creaked louder when he rose
+or sat.  Old always, from his boyhood, he had,
+in the turn of a hand, become aged.  But such
+things come and such things go: after eighty there
+are ups and downs; people fading away one week,
+bloom out pleasantly the next, and resiliency is
+not at all a patent belonging to youth alone.  The 
+material change in Mr. Arp might have been
+thought little worth remarking.  What caused
+Peter Bradbury, Squire Buckalew, and the Colonel
+to shake their heads secretly to one another and
+wonder if their good old friend's mind had not
+"begun to go" was something very different.  To
+come straight down to it: he not only abstained
+from all argument upon the "Cory Murder" and
+the case of Happy Fear, refusing to discuss either
+in any terms or under any circumstances, but he
+also declined to speak of Ariel Tabor or of Joseph
+Louden; or of their affairs, singular or plural,
+masculine, feminine, or neuter, or in any declension.
+Not a word, committal or non-committal.  None!
+
+And his face, when he was silent, fell into
+sorrowful and troubled lines.
+
+At first they merely marvelled.  Then Squire
+Buckalew dared to tempt him.  Eskew's faded
+eyes showed a blue gleam, but he withstood, speaking
+of Babylon to the disparagement of Chicago.
+They sought to lead him into what he evidently
+would not, employing many devices; but the old
+man was wily and often carried them far afield by
+secret ways of his own.  This hot morning he had
+done that thing: they were close upon him, pressing
+him hard, when he roused that outburst which
+had stirred the idlers on the benches in the Court-
+house yard.  Squire Buckalew (sidelong at the 
+others but squarely at Eskew) had volunteered
+the information that Cory was a reformed priest.
+Stung by the mystery of Eskew's silence, the
+Squire's imagination had become magically
+gymnastic; and if anything under heaven could have
+lifted the veil, this was the thing.  Mr. Arp's reply
+may be reverenced.
+
+"I consider," he said, deliberately, "that James
+G. Blaine's furrin policy was childish, and, what's
+more, I never thought much of HIM!"
+
+This outdefied Ajax, and every trace of the matter
+in hand went to the four winds.  Eskew, like
+Rome, was saved by a cackle, in which he joined,
+and a few moments later, as the bench loafers saw,
+was pulled down into his seat by the Colonel.
+
+The voices of the fathers fell to the pitch of
+ordinary discourse; the drowsy town was quiet
+again; the whine of the planing-mill boring its way
+through the sizzling air to every wakening ear.
+Far away, on a quiet street, it sounded faintly,
+like the hum of a bee across a creek, and was drowned
+in the noise of men at work on the old Tabor
+house.  It seemed the only busy place in Canaan
+that day: the shade of the big beech-trees which
+surrounded it affording some shelter from the
+destroying sun to the dripping laborers who were
+sawing, hammering, painting, plumbing, papering,
+and ripping open old and new packing-boxes.
+There were many changes in the old house
+pleasantly in keeping with its simple character:
+airy enlargements now almost completed so that
+some of the rooms were already finished, and
+stood, furnished and immaculate, ready for tenancy.
+
+In that which had been Roger Tabor's studio
+sat Ariel, alone.  She had caused some chests and
+cases, stored there, to be opened, and had taken
+out of them a few of Roger's canvases and set them
+along the wall.  Tears filled her eyes as she looked
+at them, seeing the tragedy of labor the old man
+had expended upon them; but she felt the recompense:
+hard, tight, literal as they were, he had had
+his moment of joy in each of them before he saw
+them coldly and knew the truth.  And he had
+been given his years of Paris at last: and had seen
+"how the other fellows did it."
+
+A heavy foot strode through the hall, coming
+abruptly to a halt in the doorway, and turning, she
+discovered Martin Pike, his big Henry-the-Eighth
+face flushed more with anger than with the heat.
+His hat was upon his head, and remained there,
+nor did he offer any token or word of greeting
+whatever, but demanded to know when the work
+upon the house had been begun.
+
+"The second morning after my return," she
+answered.
+
+"I want to know," he pursued, "why it was
+kept secret from me, and I want to know quick."
+
+"Secret?" she echoed, with a wave of her hand
+to indicate the noise which the workmen were
+making.
+
+"Upon whose authority was it begun?"
+
+"Mine.  Who else could give it?"
+
+"Look here," he said, advancing toward her,
+"don't you try to fool me!  You haven't done all
+this by yourself.  Who hired these workmen?"
+
+Remembering her first interview with him, she
+rose quickly before he could come near her.  "Mr.
+Louden made most of the arrangements for me,"
+she replied, quietly, "before he went away.  He
+will take charge of everything when he returns.
+You haven't forgotten that I told you I intended
+to place my affairs in his hands?"
+
+He had started forward, but at this he stopped
+and stared at her inarticulately.
+
+"You remember?" she said, her hands resting
+negligently upon the back of the chair.  "Surely
+you remember?"
+
+She was not in the least afraid of him, but coolly
+watchful of him.  This had been her habit with
+him since her return.  She had seen little of him,
+except at table, when he was usually grimly
+laconic, though now and then she would hear him
+joking heavily with Sam Warden in the yard, or, 
+with evidently humorous intent, groaning at Mamie
+over Eugene's health; but it had not escaped Ariel
+that he was, on his part, watchful of herself, and
+upon his guard with a wariness in which she was
+sometimes surprised to believe that she saw an
+almost haggard apprehension.
+
+He did not answer her question, and it seemed
+to her, as she continued steadily to meet his hot
+eyes, that he was trying to hold himself under some
+measure of control; and a vain effort it proved.
+
+"You go back to my house!" he burst out,
+shouting hoarsely.  "You get back there!  You
+stay there!"
+
+"No," she said, moving between him and the
+door.  "Mamie and I are going for a drive."
+
+"You go back to my house!"  He followed her,
+waving an arm fiercely at her.  "Don't you come
+around here trying to run over me!  You talk
+about your `affairs'!  All you've got on earth
+is this two-for-a-nickel old shack over your head
+and a bushel-basket of distillery stock that you
+can sell by the pound for old paper!"  He threw
+the words in her face, the bull-bass voice seamed
+and cracked with falsetto.  "Old paper, old rags,
+old iron, bottles, old clothes!  You talk about
+your affairs!  Who are you?  Rothschild?  You
+haven't GOT any affairs!"
+
+Not a look, not a word, not a motion of his 
+escaped her in all the fury of sound and gesture in
+which he seemed fairly to envelop himself; least of
+all did that shaking of his--the quivering of jaw
+and temple, the tumultuous agitation of his hands
+--evade her watchfulness.
+
+"When did you find this out?" she said, very
+quickly.  "After you became administrator?"
+
+He struck the back of the chair she had vacated
+a vicious blow with his open hand.  "No, you
+spendthrift!  All there was TO your grandfather
+when you buried him was a basket full of distillery
+stock, I tell you!  Old paper!  Can't you hear me?
+Old paper, old rags--"
+
+"You have sent me the same income," she
+lifted her voice to interrupt; "you have made the
+same quarterly payments since his death that you
+made before.  If you knew, why did you do that?"
+
+He had been shouting at her with the frantic and
+incredulous exasperation of an intolerant man
+utterly unused to opposition; his face empurpled, his
+forehead dripping, and his hands ruthlessly pounding
+the back of the chair; but this straight question
+stripped him suddenly of gesture and left him
+standing limp and still before her, pale splotches
+beginning to show on his hot cheeks.
+
+"If you knew, why did you do it?" she repeated.
+"You wrote me that my income was from dividends,
+and I knew and thought nothing about it;
+but if the stock which came to me was worthless,
+how could it pay dividends?"
+
+"It did not," he answered, huskily.  "That
+distillery stock, I tell you, isn't worth the matches to
+burn it."
+
+"But there has been no difference in my income,"
+she persisted, steadily.  "Why?  Can you explain
+that to me?"
+
+"Yes, I can," he replied, and it seemed to her
+that he spoke with a pallid and bitter desperation,
+like a man driven to the wall.  "I can if you
+think you want to know."
+
+"I do."
+
+"I sent it."
+
+"Do you mean from you own--"
+
+"I mean it was my own money."
+
+She had not taken her eyes from his, which met
+hers straightly and angrily; and at this she leaned
+forward, gazing at him with profound scrutiny.
+
+"Why did you send it?" she asked.
+
+"Charity," he answered, after palpable hesitation.
+
+Her eyes widened and she leaned back against
+the lintel of the door, staring at him incredulously.
+"Charity!" she echoed, in a whisper.
+
+Perhaps he mistook her amazement at his
+performance for dismay caused by the sense of her
+own position, for, as she seemed to weaken before
+him, the strength of his own habit of dominance
+came back to him.  "Charity, madam!" he broke
+out, shouting intolerably.  "Charity, d'ye hear?
+I was a friend of the man that made the money you
+and your grandfather squandered; I was a friend
+of Jonas Tabor, I say!  That's why I was willing
+to support you for a year and over, rather than let
+a niece of his suffer."
+
+"`Suffer'!" she cried.  "`Support'!  You sent
+me a hundred thousand francs!"
+
+The white splotches which had mottled Martin
+Pike's face disappeared as if they had been suddenly
+splashed with hot red.  "You go back to
+my house," he said.  "What I sent you only
+shows the extent of my--"
+
+"Effrontery!"  The word rang through the
+whole house, so loudly and clearly did she strike
+it, rang in his ears till it stung like a castigation.
+It was ominous, portentous of justice and of
+disaster.  There was more than doubt of him in it:
+there was conviction.
+
+He fell back from this word; and when he again
+advanced, Ariel had left the house.  She had
+turned the next corner before he came out of the
+gate; and as he passed his own home on his way
+down-town, he saw her white dress mingling with
+his daughter's near the horse-block beside the fire,
+where the two, with their arms about each other,
+stood waiting for Sam Warden and the open
+summer carriage.
+
+Judge Pike walked on, the white splotches
+reappearing like a pale rash upon his face.  A yellow
+butterfly zigzagged before him, knee-high, across
+the sidewalk.  He raised his foot and half kicked
+at it.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+ESKEW ARP
+
+As the Judge continued his walk down
+Main Street, he wished profoundly
+that the butterfly (which exhibited
+no annoyance) had been of greater
+bulk and more approachable; and it
+was the evil fortune of Joe's mongrel to encounter
+him in the sinister humor of such a wish unfulfilled.
+Respectability dwelt at Beaver Beach under the
+care of Mr. Sheehan until his master should return;
+and Sheehan was kind; but the small dog found
+the world lonely and time long without Joe.  He
+had grown more and more restless, and at last, this
+hot morning, having managed to evade the eye of
+all concerned in his keeping, made off unobtrusively,
+partly by swimming, and reaching the road,
+cantered into town, his ears erect with anxiety.
+Bent upon reaching the familiar office, he passed
+the grocery from the doorway of which the pimply
+cheeked clerk had thrown a bad potato at him a
+month before.  The same clerk had just laid down
+the Tocsin as Respectability went by, and,
+inspired to great deeds in behalf of justice and his
+native city, he rushed to the door, lavishly seized,
+this time, a perfectly good potato, and hurled it
+with a result which ecstasized him, for it took the
+mongrel fairly aside the head, which it matched in
+size.
+
+The luckless Respectability's purpose to reach
+Joe's stairway had been entirely definite, but upon
+this violence he forgot it momentarily.  It is not
+easy to keep things in mind when one is violently
+smitten on mouth, nose, cheek, eye, and ear by a
+missile large enough to strike them simultaneously.
+Yelping and half blinded, he deflected to cross
+Main Street.  Judge Pike had elected to cross in
+the opposite direction, and the two met in the
+middle of the street.
+
+The encounter was miraculously fitted to the
+Judge's need: here was no butterfly, but a solid
+body, light withal, a wet, muddy, and dusty yellow
+dog, eminently kickable.  The man was heavily
+built about the legs, and the vigor of what he did
+may have been additionally inspired by his recognition
+of the mongrel as Joe Louden's.  The impact
+of his toe upon the little runner's side was
+momentous, and the latter rose into the air.  The
+Judge hopped, as one hops who, unshod in the
+night, discovers an unexpected chair.  Let us be
+reconciled to his pain and not reproach the gods
+with it,--for two of his unintending adversary's
+ribs were cracked.
+
+The dog, thus again deflected, retraced his
+tracks, shrieking distractedly, and, by one of those
+ironical twists which Karma reserves for the tails
+of the fated, dived for blind safety into the store
+commanded by the ecstatic and inimical clerk.
+There were shouts; the sleepy Square beginning to
+wake up: the boy who had mocked the planing-mill
+got to his feet, calling upon his fellows; the bench
+loafers strolled to the street; the aged men stirred
+and rose from their chairs; faces appeared in the
+open windows of offices; sales ladies and gentlemen
+came to the doorways of the trading-places; so
+that when Respectability emerged from the grocery
+he had a notable audience for the scene he
+enacted with a brass dinner-bell tied to his tail.
+
+Another potato, flung by the pimpled, uproarious,
+prodigal clerk, added to the impetus of his
+flight.  A shower of pebbles from the hands of
+exhilarated boys dented the soft asphalt about
+him; the hideous clamor of the pursuing bell
+increased as he turned the next corner, running
+distractedly.  The dead town had come to life, and
+its inhabitants gladly risked the dangerous heat in
+the interests of sport, whereby it was a merry
+chase the little dog led around the block, For thus
+some destructive instinct drove him; he could not
+stop with the unappeasable Terror clanging at his
+heels and the increasing crowd yelling in pursuit;
+but he turned to the left at each corner, and thus
+came back to pass Joe's stairway again, unable to
+pause there or anywhere, unable to do anything
+except to continue his hapless flight, poor meteor.
+
+Round the block he went once more, and still no
+chance at that empty stairway where, perhaps, he
+thought, there might be succor and safety.  Blood
+was upon his side where Martin Pike's boot had
+crashed, foam and blood hung upon his jaws and
+lolling tongue.  He ran desperately, keeping to
+the middle of the street, and, not howling, set
+himself despairingly to outstrip the Terror.  The mob,
+disdaining the sun superbly, pursued as closely as
+it could, throwing bricks and rocks at him, striking
+at him with clubs and sticks.  Happy Fear,
+playing "tic-tac-toe," right hand against left, in
+his cell, heard the uproar, made out something of
+what was happening, and, though unaware that
+it was a friend whose life was sought, discovered a
+similarity to his own case, and prayed to his dim
+gods that the quarry might get away.
+
+"MAD DOG!" they yelled.  "MAD DOG!"  And
+there were some who cried, "JOE LOUDEN'S DOG!"
+that being equally as exciting and explanatory.
+
+Three times round, and still the little fugitive 
+maintained a lead.  A gray-helmeted policeman,
+a big fellow, had joined the pursuit.  He had
+children at home who might be playing in the street,
+and the thought of what might happen to them
+if the mad dog should head that way resolved him
+to be cool and steady.  He was falling behind, so
+he stopped on the corner, trusting that Respectability
+would come round again.  He was right,
+and the flying brownish thing streaked along Main
+Street, passing the beloved stairway for the fourth
+time.  The policeman lifted his revolver, fired
+twice, missed once, but caught him with the second
+shot in a forepaw, clipping off a fifth toe, one of
+the small claws that grow above the foot and are
+always in trouble.  This did not stop him; but the
+policeman, afraid to risk another shot because of
+the crowd, waited for him to come again; and
+many others, seeing the hopeless circuit the mongrel
+followed, did likewise, armed with bricks and
+clubs.  Among them was the pimply clerk, who
+had been inspired to commandeer a pitchfork from
+a hardware store.
+
+When the fifth round came, Respectability's
+race was run.  He turned into Main Street at a
+broken speed, limping, parched, voiceless, flecked
+with blood and foam, snapping feebly at the showering
+rocks, but still indomitably a little ahead of
+the hunt.  There was no yelp left in him--he was
+too thoroughly winded for that,--but in his brilliant
+and despairing eyes shone the agony of a cry
+louder than the tongue of a dog could utter:  "O
+master!  O all the god I know!  Where are you in
+my mortal need?"
+
+Now indeed he had a gauntlet to run; for the
+street was lined with those who awaited him, while
+the pursuit grew closer behind.  A number of the
+hardiest stood squarely in his path, and he hesitated
+for a second, which gave the opportunity for
+a surer aim, and many missiles struck him.  "Let
+him have it now, officer," said Eugene Bantry,
+standing with Judge Pike at the policeman's elbow.
+"There's your chance."
+
+But before the revolver could be discharged,
+Respectability had begun to run again, hobbling
+on three legs and dodging feebly.  A heavy stone
+struck him on the shoulder and he turned across
+the street, making for the "National House" corner,
+where the joyful clerk brandished his pitchfork.
+Going slowly, he almost touched the pimply one
+as he passed, and the clerk, already rehearsing in
+his mind the honors which should follow the brave
+stroke, raised the tines above the little dog's head
+for the coup de grace.  They did not descend, and
+the daring youth failed of fame as the laurel
+almost embraced his brows.  A hickory walking-
+stick was thrust between his legs; and he, 
+expecting to strike, received a blow upon the temple
+sufficient for his present undoing and bedazzlement.
+He went over backwards, and the pitchfork
+(not the thing to hold poised on high when
+one is knocked down) fell with the force he
+had intended for Respectability upon his own
+shin.
+
+A train had pulled into the station, and a tired,
+travel-worn young man, descending from a sleeper,
+walked rapidly up the street to learn the occasion
+of what appeared to be a riot.  When he was close
+enough to understand its nature, he dropped his
+bag and came on at top speed, shouting loudly to
+the battered mongrel, who tried with his remaining
+strength to leap toward him through a cordon
+of kicking legs, while Eugene Bantry again called
+to the policeman to fire.
+
+"If he does, damn you, I'll kill him!" Joe saw
+the revolver raised; and then, Eugene being in his
+way, he ran full-tilt into his stepbrother with all
+his force, sending him to earth, and went on
+literally over him as he lay prone upon the asphalt,
+that being the shortest way to Respectability.
+The next instant the mongrel was in his master's
+arms and weakly licking his hands.
+
+But it was Eskew Arp who had saved the little
+dog; for it was his stick which had tripped the clerk,
+and his hand which had struck him down.  All his
+bodily strength had departed in that effort, but he
+staggered out into the street toward Joe.
+
+"Joe Louden!" called the veteran, in a loud
+voice.  "Joe Louden!" and suddenly reeled.  The
+Colonel and Squire Buckalew were making their
+way toward him, but Joe, holding the dog to his
+breast with one arm, threw the other about Eskew.
+
+"It's a town--it's a town"--the old fellow flung
+himself free from the supporting arm--"it's a
+town you couldn't even trust a yellow dog to!"
+
+He sank back upon Joe's shoulder, speechless.
+An open carriage had driven through the crowd,
+the colored driver urged by two ladies upon the
+back seat, and Martin Pike saw it stop by the
+group in the middle of the street where Joe stood,
+the wounded dog held to his breast by one arm, the
+old man, white and half fainting, supported by the
+other.  Martin Pike saw this and more; he saw
+Ariel Tabor and his own daughter leaning from the
+carriage, the arms of both pityingly extended to
+Joe Louden and his two burdens, while the stunned
+and silly crowd stood round them staring, clouds
+of dust settling down upon them through the hot
+air.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+THREE ARE ENLISTED
+
+Now in that blazing noon Canaan looked
+upon a strange sight: an open carriage
+whirling through Main Street
+behind two galloping bays; upon the
+back seat a ghostly white old man
+with closed eyes, supported by two pale ladies, his
+head upon the shoulder of the taller; while beside
+the driver, a young man whose coat and hands
+were bloody, worked over the hurts of an injured
+dog.  Sam Warden's whip sang across the horses;
+lather gathered on their flanks, and Ariel's voice
+steadily urged on the pace:  "Quicker, Sam, if
+you can."  For there was little breath left in the
+body of Eskew Arp.
+
+Mamie, almost as white as the old man, was
+silent; but she had not hesitated in her daring,
+now that she had been taught to dare; she had not
+come to be Ariel's friend and honest follower for
+nothing; and it was Mamie who had cried to Joe
+to lift Eskew into the carriage.  "You must come
+too," she said.  "We will need you."  And so it
+came to pass that under the eyes of Canaan Joe
+Louden rode in Judge Pike's carriage at the bidding
+of Judge Pike's daughter.
+
+Toward Ariel's own house they sped with the
+stricken octogenarian, for he was "alone in the
+world," and she would not take him to the cottage
+where he had lived for many years by himself, a
+bleak little house, a derelict of the "early days"
+left stranded far down in the town between a
+woollen-mill and the water-works.  The workmen
+were beginning their dinners under the big
+trees, but as Sam Warden drew in the lathered
+horses at the gate, they set down their tin buckets
+hastily and ran to help Joe lift the old man out.
+Carefully they bore him into the house and laid
+him upon a bed in one of the finished rooms.  He
+did not speak or move and the workmen uncovered
+their heads as they went out, but Joe knew that
+they were mistaken.  "It's all right, Mr. Arp,"
+he said, as Ariel knelt by the bed with water and
+restoratives.  "It's all right.  Don't you worry."
+
+Then the veteran's lips twitched, and though his
+eyes remained closed, Joe saw that Eskew understood,
+for he gasped, feebly:  "Pos-i-tive-ly--no--
+free--seats!"
+
+To Mrs. Louden, sewing at an up-stairs window,
+the sight of her stepson descending from Judge
+Pike's carriage was sufficiently startling, but when
+she saw Mamie Pike take Respectability from his
+master's arms and carry him tenderly indoors,
+while Joe and Ariel occupied themselves with Mr.
+Arp, the good lady sprang to her feet as if she had
+been stung, regardlessly sending her work-basket
+and its contents scattering over the floor, and ran
+down the stairs three steps at a time.
+
+At the front door she met her husband, entering
+for his dinner, and she leaped at him.  Had he
+seen?  What was it?  What had happened?
+
+Mr. Louden rubbed his chin-beard, indulging himself
+in a pause which was like to prove fatal to his
+companion, finally vouchsafing the information that
+the doctor's buggy was just turning the corner;
+Eskew Arp had suffered a "stroke," it was said,
+and, in Louden's opinion, was a mighty sick man.
+His spouse replied in no uncertain terms that she
+had seen quite that much for herself, urging him
+to continue, which he did with a deliberation that
+caused her to recall their wedding-day with a gust
+of passionate self-reproach.  Presently he managed
+to interrupt, reminding her that her dining-
+room windows commanded as comprehensive a
+view of the next house as did the front steps, and
+after a time her housewifely duty so far prevailed
+over her indignation at the man's unwholesome
+stolidity that she followed him down the hall to
+preside over the meal, not, however, to partake
+largely of it herself.
+
+Mr. Louden had no information of Eugene's
+mishap, nor had Mrs. Louden any suspicion that
+all was not well with the young man, and, hearing
+him enter the front door, she called to him that his
+dinner was waiting.  Eugene, however, made no
+reply and went up-stairs to his own apartment
+without coming into the dining-room.
+
+A small crowd, neighboring children, servants,
+and negroes, had gathered about Ariel's gate, and
+Mrs. Louden watched the working-men disperse
+this assembly, gather up their tools, and depart;
+then Mamie came out of the house, and, bowing
+sadly to three old men who were entering the gate
+as she left it, stepped into her carriage and drove
+away.  The new-comers, Colonel Flitcroft, Squire
+Buckalew, and Peter Bradbury, glanced at the
+doctor's buggy, shook their heads at one another,
+and slowly went up to the porch, where Joe met
+them.  Mrs. Louden uttered a sharp exclamation,
+for the Colonel shook hands with her stepson.
+
+Perhaps Flitcroft himself was surprised; he had
+offered his hand almost unconsciously, and the
+greeting was embarrassed and perfunctory; but
+his two companions, each in turn, gravely followed
+his lead, and Joe's set face flushed a little.  It
+was the first time in many years that men of
+their kind in Canaan had offered him this salutation.
+
+"He wouldn't let me send for you," he told
+them.  "He said he knew you'd be here soon
+without that."  And he led the way to Eskew's
+bedside.
+
+Joe and the doctor had undressed the old man,
+and had put him into night-gear of Roger Tabor's,
+taken from an antique chest; it was soft and yellow
+and much more like color than the face above it,
+for the white hair on the pillow was not whiter
+than that.  Yet there was a strange youthfulness
+in the eyes of Eskew; an eerie, inexplicable,
+luminous, LIVE look; the thin cheeks seemed fuller than
+they had been for years; and though the heavier
+lines of age and sorrow could be seen, they appeared
+to have been half erased.  He lay not in sunshine,
+but in clear light; the windows were open, the
+curtains restrained, for he had asked them not to
+darken the room.
+
+The doctor was whispering in a doctor's way to
+Ariel at the end of the room opposite the bed, when
+the three old fellows came in.  None of them spoke
+immediately, and though all three cleared their
+throats with what they meant for casual cheerfulness,
+to indicate that the situation was not at all
+extraordinary or depressing, it was to be seen that
+the Colonel's chin trembled under his mustache, 
+and his comrades showed similar small and unwilling
+signs of emotion.
+
+Eskew spoke first.  "Well, boys?" he said, and
+smiled.
+
+That seemed to make it more difficult for the
+others; the three white heads bent silently over the
+fourth upon the pillow; and Ariel saw waveringly,
+for her eyes suddenly filled, that the Colonel laid
+his unsteady hand upon Eskew's, which was outside
+the coverlet.
+
+"It's--it's not," said the old soldier, gently--
+"it's not on--on both sides, is it, Eskew?"
+
+Mr. Arp moved his hand slightly in answer.  "It
+ain't paralysis," he said.  "They call it `shock
+and exhaustion'; but it's more than that.  It's
+just my time.  I've heard the call.  We've all
+been slidin' on thin ice this long time--and it's
+broke under me--"
+
+"Eskew, Eskew!" remonstrated Peter Bradbury.
+"You'd oughtn't to talk that-a-way!  You
+only kind of overdone a little--heat o' the day,
+too, and--"
+
+"Peter," interrupted the sick man, with feeble
+asperity, "did you ever manage to fool me in your
+life?"
+
+"No, Eskew."
+
+"Well, you're not doin' it now!"
+
+Two tears suddenly loosed themselves from
+Squire Buckalew's eyelids, despite his hard
+endeavor to wink them away, and he turned from the
+bed too late to conceal what had happened.
+"There ain't any call to feel bad," said Eskew.
+"It might have happened any time--in the night,
+maybe--at my house--and all alone--but here's
+Airie Tabor brought me to her own home and
+takin' care of me.  I couldn't ask any better way
+to go, could I?"
+
+"I don't know what we'll do," stammered the
+Colonel, "if you--you talk about goin' away from
+us, Eskew.  We--we couldn't get along--"
+
+"Well, sir, I'm almost kind of glad to think,"
+Mr. Arp murmured, between short struggles for
+breath, "that it 'll be--quieter--on the--"National
+House" corner!"
+
+A moment later he called the doctor faintly and
+asked for a restorative.  "There," he said, in a
+stronger voice and with a gleam of satisfaction in
+the vindication of his belief that he was dying.  "I
+was almost gone then.  _I_ know!"  He lay panting
+for a moment, then spoke the name of Joe Louden.
+
+Joe came quickly to the bedside.
+
+"I want you to shake hands with the Colonel
+and Peter and Buckalew."
+
+"We did," answered the Colonel, infinitely
+surprised and troubled.  "We shook hands outside
+before we came in." 
+
+
+"Do it again," said Eskew.  "I want to see you."
+
+And Joe, making shift to smile, was suddenly
+blinded, so that he could not see the wrinkled hands
+extended to him, and was fain to grope for them.
+
+"God knows why we didn't all take his hand
+long ago," said Eskew Arp.  "I didn't because I
+was stubborn.  I hated to admit that the argument
+was against me.  I acknowledge it now before
+him and before you--and I want the word of
+it CARRIED!"
+
+"It's all right, Mr. Arp," began Joe, tremulously.
+"You mustn't--"
+
+"Hark to me"--the old man's voice lifted
+higher:  "If you'd ever whimpered, or give back-
+talk, or broke out the wrong way, it would of been
+different.  But you never did.  I've watched you
+and I know; and you've just gone your own way
+alone, with the town against you because you got
+a bad name as a boy, and once we'd given you that,
+everything you did or didn't do, we had to give
+you a blacker one.  Now it's time some one stood
+by you!  Airie Tabor 'll do that with all her soul
+and body.  She told me once I thought a good
+deal of you.  She knew!  But I want these three
+old friends of mine to do it, too.  I was boys with
+them and they'll do it, I think.  They've even
+stood up fer you against me, sometimes, but mostly
+fer the sake of the argument, I reckon; but now
+they must do it when there's more to stand against
+than just my talk.  They saw it all to-day--the
+meanest thing I ever knew!  I could of stood it
+all except that!"  Before they could prevent him
+he had struggled half upright in bed, lifting a
+clinched fist at the town beyond the windows.
+"But, by God! when they got so low down they
+tried to kill your dog--"
+
+He fell back, choking, in Joe's arms, and the
+physician bent over him, but Eskew was not gone,
+and Ariel, upon the other side of the room, could
+hear him whispering again for the restorative.
+She brought it, and when he had taken it, went
+quickly out-of-doors to the side yard.
+
+She sat upon a workman's bench under the big
+trees, hidden from the street shrubbery, and
+breathing deeply of the shaded air, began to cry
+quietly.  Through the windows came the quavering
+voice of the old man, lifted again, insistent, a
+little querulous, but determined.  Responses sounded,
+intermittently, from the Colonel, from Peter,
+and from Buckalew, and now and then a sorrowful,
+yet almost humorous, protest from Joe; and
+so she made out that the veteran swore his three
+comrades to friendship with Joseph Louden, to lend
+him their countenance in all matters, to stand by
+him in weal and woe, to speak only good of him
+and defend him in the town of Canaan.  Thus did
+Eskew Arp on the verge of parting this life render
+justice.
+
+
+The gate clicked, and Ariel saw Eugene
+approaching through the shrubbery.  One of his
+hands was bandaged, a thin strip of court-plaster
+crossed his forehead from his left eyebrow to his
+hair, and his thin and agitated face showed several
+light scratches.
+
+"I saw you come out," he said.  "I've been
+waiting to speak to you."
+
+"The doctor told us to let him have his way in
+whatever he might ask."  Ariel wiped her eyes.
+"I'm afraid that means--"
+
+"I didn't come to talk about Eskew Arp,"
+interrupted Eugene.  "I'm not laboring under any
+anxiety about him.  You needn't be afraid; he's
+too sour to accept his conge so readily."
+
+"Please lower your voice," she said, rising
+quickly and moving away from him toward the house;
+but, as he followed, insisting sharply that he must
+speak with her, she walked out of ear-shot of the
+windows, and stopping, turned toward him.
+
+"Very well," she said.  "Is it a message from
+Mamie?"
+
+At this he faltered and hung fire.
+
+"Have you been to see her?" she continued.
+
+"I am anxious to know if her goodness and bravery
+caused her any--any discomfort at home."
+
+"You may set your mind at rest about that,"
+returned Eugene.  "I was there when the Judge
+came home to dinner.  I suppose you fear he may
+have been rough with her for taking my step-
+brother into the carriage.  He was not.  On the
+contrary, he spoke very quietly to her, and went
+on out toward the stables.  But I haven't come
+to you to talk of Judge Pike, either!"
+
+"No," said Ariel.  "I don't care particularly to
+hear of him, but of Mamie."
+
+"Nor of her, either!" he broke out.  "I want to
+talk of you!"
+
+There was not mistaking him; no possibility of
+misunderstanding the real passion that shook him,
+and her startled eyes betrayed her comprehension.
+
+"Yes, I see you understand," he cried, bitterly.
+"That's because you've seen others the same way.
+God help me," he went on, striking his forehead
+with his open hand, "that young fool of a Bradbury
+told me you refused him only yesterday!  He
+was proud of even rejection from you!  And there's
+Norbert--and half a dozen others, perhaps, already,
+since you've been here."  He flung out his arms
+in ludicrous, savage despair.  "And here am I--"
+
+"Ah yes," she cut him off, "it is of yourself that
+you want to speak, after all--not of me!"
+
+"Look here," he vociferated; "are you going to
+marry that Joe Louden?  I want to know whether
+you are or not.  He gave me this--and this to-
+day!"  He touched his bandaged hand and plastered
+forehead.  "He ran into me--over me--for
+nothing, when I was not on my guard; struck me
+down--stamped on me--"
+
+She turned upon him, cheeks aflame, eyes
+sparkling and dry.
+
+"Mr. Bantry," she cried, "he did a good thing!
+And now I want you to go home.  I want you to
+go home and try if you can discover anything in
+yourself that is worthy of Mamie and of what she
+showed herself to be this morning!  If you can,
+you will have found something that I could like!"
+
+She went rapidly toward the house, and he was
+senseless enough to follow, babbling:  "What do
+you think I'm made of?  You trample on me--as
+he did!  I can't bear everything; I tell you--"
+
+But she lifted her hand with such imperious will
+that he stopped short.  Then, through the window
+of the sick-room came clearly the querulous voice:
+
+"I tell you it was; I heard him speak just now--
+out there in the yard, that no-account step-brother
+of Joe's!  What if he IS a hired hand on the Tocsin?
+He'd better give up his job and quit, than
+do what he's done to help make the town think
+hard of Joe.  And what IS he?  Why, he's worse 
+than Cory.  When that Claudine Fear first came
+here, 'Gene Bantry was hangin' around her himself.
+Joe knew it and he'd never tell, but I will.
+I saw 'em buggy-ridin' out near Beaver Beach
+and she slapped his face fer him.  It ought to be
+TOLD!"
+
+"I didn't know that Joe knew--that!" Eugene
+stammered huskily.  "It was--it was--a long time
+ago--"
+
+"If you understood Joe," she said, in a low
+voice, "you would know that before these men
+leave this house, he will have their promise never
+to tell."
+
+His eyes fell miserably, then lifted again; but in
+her clear and unbearable gaze there shone such a
+flame of scorn as he could not endure to look upon.
+For the first time in his life he saw a true light
+upon himself, and though the vision was darkling,
+the revelation was complete.
+
+"Heaven pity you!" she whispered.
+
+Eugene found himself alone, and stumbled away,
+his glance not lifted.  He passed his own home
+without looking up, and did not see his mother
+beckoning frantically from a window.  She ran
+to the door and called him.  He did not hear her,
+but went on toward the Tocsin office with his head
+still bent.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+NORBERT WAITS FOR JOE:
+
+There was meat for gossip a plenty
+in Canaan that afternoon and evening;
+there were rumors that ran
+from kitchen to parlor, and rumors
+that ran from parlor to kitchen; speculations
+that detained housewives in talk across
+front gates; wonderings that held cooks in converse
+over shadeless back fences in spite of the heat;
+and canards that brought Main Street clerks
+running to the shop doors to stare up and down the
+sidewalks.  Out of the confusion of report, the
+judicious were able by evenfall to extract a fair
+history of this day of revolution.  There remained
+no doubt that Joe Louden was in attendance at
+the death-bed of Eskew Arp, and somehow it
+came to be known that Colonel Flitcroft, Squire
+Buckalew, and Peter Bradbury had shaken hands
+with Joe and declared themselves his friends.
+There were those (particularly among the relatives
+of the hoary trio) who expressed the opinion that
+the Colonel and his comrades were too old to be
+responsible and a commission ought to sit on them;
+nevertheless, some echoes of Eskew's last "argument"
+to the conclave had sounded in the town
+and were not wholly without effect.
+
+Everywhere there was a nipping curiosity to
+learn how Judge Pike had "taken" the strange
+performance of his daughter, and the eager were
+much disappointed when it was truthfully
+reported that he had done and said very little.  He
+had merely discharged both Sam Warden and
+Sam's wife from his service, the mild manner of
+the dismissal almost unnerving Mr. Warden,
+although he was fully prepared for bird-shot; and
+the couple had found immediate employment in
+the service of Ariel Tabor.
+
+Those who humanly felt the Judge's behavior
+to be a trifle flat and unsensational were
+recompensed late in the afternoon when it became known
+that Eugene Bantry had resigned his position on
+the Tocsin.  His reason for severing his connection
+was dumfounding; he had written a formal letter
+to the Judge and repeated the gist of it to his
+associates in the office and acquaintances upon the
+street.  He declared that he no longer sympathized
+with the attitude of the Tocsin toward his step-
+brother, and regretted that he had previously
+assisted in emphasizing the paper's hostility to Joe,
+particularly in the matter of the approaching murder
+trial.  This being the case, he felt that his
+effectiveness in the service of the paper had ceased,
+and he must, in justice to the owner, resign.
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" was the simple comment
+of the elder Louden when his step-son sought him
+out at the factory and repeated this statement to
+him.
+
+"So am I, I think," said Eugene, wanly.  "Good-
+bye.  I'm going now to see mother, but I'll be gone
+before you come home."
+
+"Gone where?"
+
+"Just away.  I don't know where," Eugene
+answered from the door.  "I couldn't live here any
+longer.  I--"
+
+"You've been drinking," said Mr. Louden,
+inspired.  "You'd better not let Mamie Pike see
+you."
+
+Eugene laughed desolately.  "I don't mean to.
+I shall write to her.  Good-bye," he said, and was
+gone before Mr. Louden could restore enough
+order out of the chaos in his mind to stop him.
+
+Thus Mrs. Louden's long wait at the window
+was tragically rewarded, and she became an
+unhappy actor in Canaan's drama of that day.  Other
+ladies attended at other windows, or near their
+front doors, throughout the afternoon: the families
+of the three patriarchs awaiting their return, as
+the time drew on, with something akin to frenzy.
+Mrs. Flitcroft (a lady of temper), whose rheumatism
+confined her to a chair, had her grandson
+wheel her out upon the porch, and, as the dusk
+fell and she finally saw her husband coming at a
+laggard pace, leaning upon his cane, his chin sunk
+on his breast, she frankly told Norbert that
+although she had lived with that man more than
+fifty-seven years, she would never be able to
+understand him.  She repeated this with genuine
+symptoms of hysteria when she discovered that the
+Colonel had not come straight from the Tabor
+house, but had stopped two hours at Peter Bradbury's
+to "talk it over."
+
+One item of his recital, while sufficiently
+startling to his wife, had a remarkable effect upon his
+grandson.  This was the information that Ariel
+Tabor's fortune no longer existed.
+
+"What's that?" cried Norbert, starting to his
+feet.  "What are you talking about?"
+
+"It's true," said the Colonel, deliberately.  "She
+told me so herself.  Eskew had dropped off into
+a sort of doze--more like a stupor, perhaps,--and
+we all went into Roger's old studio, except Louden
+and the doctor, and while we were there, talkin',
+one of Pike's clerks came with a basket full of tin
+boxes and packages of papers and talked to Miss
+Tabor at the door and went away.  Then old Peter
+blundered out and asked her point-blank what it
+was, and she said it was her estate, almost everything
+she had, except the house.  Buckalew, tryin'
+to make a joke, said he'd be willin' to swap HIS
+house and lot for the basket, and she laughed and
+told him she thought he'd be sorry; that all there
+was, to speak of, was a pile of distillery stock--"
+"What?" repeated Norbert, incredulously.
+
+"Yes.  It was the truth," said the Colonel,
+solemnly.  "I saw it myself: blocks and blocks of
+stock in that distillery trust that went up higher'n
+a kite last year.  Roger had put all of Jonas's good
+money--"
+
+"Not into that!" shouted Norbert, uncontrollably
+excited.
+
+"Yes, he did.  I tell you I saw it!"
+
+"I tell you he didn't.  He owned Granger Gas,
+worth more to-day than it ever was!  Pike was
+Roger's attorney-in-fact and bought it for him
+before the old man died.  The check went through
+my hands.  You don't think I'd forget as big a
+check as that, do you, even if it was more than a
+year ago?  Or how it was signed and who made
+out to?  It was Martin Pike that got caught with
+distillery stock.  He speculated once too often!"
+
+"No, you're wrong," persisted the Colonel.  "I
+tell you I saw it myself."
+
+"Then you're blind," returned his grandson,
+disrespectfully; "you're blind or else--or else--"
+He paused, open-mouthed, a look of wonder struggling
+its way to expression upon him, gradually
+conquering every knobby outpost of his countenance.
+He struck his fat hands together.  "Where's
+Joe Louden?" he asked, sharply.  "I want to see
+him.  Did you leave him at Miss Tabor's?"
+
+"He's goin' to sit up with Eskew.  What do you
+want of him?"
+
+"I should say you better ask that!" Mrs.
+Flitcroft began, shrilly.  "It's enough, I guess, for one
+of this family to go runnin' after him and shakin'
+hands with him and Heaven knows what not!  NORBERT
+FLITCROFT!"
+
+But Norbert jumped from the porch, ruthlessly
+crossed his grandmother's geranium-bed, and, making
+off at as sharp a pace as his architecture permitted,
+within ten minutes opened Ariel's gate.
+
+Sam Warden came forward to meet him.
+
+"Don't ring, please, suh," said Sam.  "Dey sot
+me out heah to tell inquirin' frien's dat po' ole Mist'
+Arp mighty low."
+
+"I want to see Mr. Louden," returned Norbert.
+"I want to see him immediately."
+
+"I don' reckon he kin come out yit," Sam said,
+in a low tone.  "But I kin go in an' ast 'em."
+
+He stepped softly within, leaving Norbert waiting,
+and went to the door of the sick-room.  The
+door was open, the room brightly lighted, as
+Eskew had commanded when, a little earlier, he
+awoke.
+
+Joe and Ariel were alone with him, leaning
+toward him with such white anxiety that the colored
+man needed no warning to make him remain silent
+in the hallway.  The veteran was speaking and
+his voice was very weak, seeming to come from a
+great distance.
+
+"It's mighty funny, but I feel like I used to
+when I was a little boy.  I reckon I'm kind of
+scared--after all.  Airie Tabor,--are you--here?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Arp."
+
+"I thought--so--but I--I don't see very well--
+lately.  I--wanted--to--know--to know--"
+
+"Yes--to know?"  She knelt close beside him.
+
+"It's kind of--foolish," he whispered.  "I just
+--wanted to know if you was still here.  It--don't
+seem so lonesome now that I know."
+
+She put her arm lightly about him and he smiled
+and was silent for a time.  Then he struggled
+to rise upon his elbow, and they lifted him a
+little.
+
+"It's hard to breathe," gasped the old man.
+"I'm pretty near--the big road.  Joe Louden--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You'd have been--willing--willing to change
+places with me--just now--when Airie--"
+
+Joe laid his hand on his, and Eskew smiled again.
+"I thought so!  And, Joe--"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"You always--always had the--the best of that
+joke between us.  Do you--you suppose they
+charge admission--up there?"  His eyes were
+lifted.  "Do you suppose you've got to--to show
+your good deeds to git in?"  The answering
+whisper was almost as faint as the old man's.
+
+"No," panted Eskew, "nobody knows.  But I
+hope--I do hope--they'll have some free seats.
+It's a--mighty poor show--we'll--all have--if
+they--don't!"
+
+He sighed peacefully, his head grew heavier on
+Joe's arm; and the young man set his hand gently
+upon the unseeing eyes.  Ariel did not rise from
+where she knelt, but looked up at him when, a little
+later, he lifted his hand.
+
+"Yes," said Joe, "you can cry now."
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+MR. SHEEHAN SPEAKS
+
+Joe helped to carry what was mortal
+of Eskew from Ariel's house to its
+final abiding-place.  With him, in
+that task, were Buckalew, Bradbury,
+the Colonel, and the grandsons of the
+two latter, and Mrs. Louden drew in her skirts
+grimly as her step-son passed her in the mournful
+procession through the hall.  Her eyes were red
+with weeping (not for Eskew), but not so red as
+those of Mamie Pike, who stood beside her.
+
+On the way to the cemetery, Joe and Ariel were
+together in a carriage with Buckalew and the
+minister who had read the service, a dark, pleasant-
+eyed young man;--and the Squire, after being almost
+overcome during the ceremony, experienced
+a natural reaction, talking cheerfully throughout
+the long drive.  He recounted many anecdotes of
+Eskew, chuckling over most of them, though filled
+with wonder by a coincidence which he and Flitcroft
+had discovered; the Colonel had recently been
+made the custodian of his old friend's will, and it
+had been opened the day before the funeral.  Eskew
+had left everything he possessed--with the
+regret that it was so little--to Joe.
+
+"But the queer thing about it," said the Squire,
+addressing himself to Ariel, "was the date of it,
+the seventeenth of June.  The Colonel and I got
+to talkin' it over, out on his porch, last night,
+tryin' to rec'lect what was goin' on about then,
+and we figgered it out that it was the Monday
+after you come back, the very day he got so upset
+when he saw you goin' up to Louden's law-office
+with your roses."
+
+Joe looked quickly at Ariel.  She did not meet
+his glance, but, turning instead to Ladew, the
+clergyman, began, with a barely perceptible blush,
+to talk of something he had said in a sermon two
+weeks ago.  The two fell into a thoughtful and
+amiable discussion, during which there stole into
+Joe's heart a strange and unreasonable pain.  The
+young minister had lived in Canaan only a few
+months, and Joe had never seen him until that
+morning; but he liked the short, honest talk he had
+made; liked his cadenceless voice and keen, dark
+face; and, recalling what he had heard Martin
+Pike vociferating in his brougham one Sunday,
+perceived that Ladew was the fellow who had
+"got to go" because his sermons did not please
+the Judge.  Yet Ariel remembered for more than
+a fortnight a passage from one of these sermons.
+And as Joe looked at the manly and intelligent face
+opposite him, it did not seem strange that she
+should.
+
+He resolutely turned his eyes to the open window
+and saw that they had entered the cemetery, were
+near the green knoll where Eskew was to lie beside
+a brother who had died long ago.  He let the minister
+help Ariel out, going quickly forward himself
+with Buckalew; and then--after the little
+while that the restoration of dust to dust
+mercifully needs--he returned to the carriage only to
+get his hat.
+
+Ariel and Ladew and the Squire were already
+seated and waiting.  "Aren't you going to ride
+home with us?" she asked, surprised.
+
+"No," he explained, not looking at her.  "I
+have to talk with Norbert Flitcroft.  I'm going
+back with him.  Good-bye."
+
+His excuse was the mere truth, his conversation
+with Norbert, in the carriage which they managed
+to secure to themselves, continuing earnestly until
+Joe spoke to the driver and alighted at a corner,
+near Mr. Farbach's Italian possessions.  "Don't
+forget," he said, as he closed the carriage door,
+"I've got to have both ends of the string in my
+hands."
+
+"Forget!" Norbert looked at the cupola of
+the Pike Mansion, rising above the maples down
+the street.  "It isn't likely I'll forget!"
+
+
+When Joe entered the "Louis Quinze room"
+which some decorator, drunk with power, had
+mingled into the brewer's villa, he found the owner
+and Mr. Sheehan, with five other men, engaged in
+a meritorious attempt to tone down the apartment
+with smoke.  Two of the five others were prosperous
+owners of saloons; two were known to the
+public (whose notion of what it meant when it
+used the term was something of the vaguest) as
+politicians; the fifth was Mr. Farbach's closest
+friend, one who (Joe had heard) was to be the next
+chairman of the city committee of the party.
+They were seated about a table, enveloped in blue
+clouds, and hushed to a grave and pertinent silence
+which clarified immediately the circumstance that
+whatever debate had preceded his arrival, it was
+now settled.
+
+Their greeting of him, however, though exceedingly
+quiet, indicated a certain expectancy, as he
+accepted the chair which had been left for him at
+the head of the table.  He looked thinner and
+paler than usual, which is saying a great deal; but
+presently, finding that the fateful hush which his
+entrance had broken was immediately resumed,
+a twinkle came into his eye, one of his eyebrows
+went up and a corner of his mouth went down.
+
+"Well, gentlemen?" he said.
+
+The smokers continued to smoke and to do
+nothing else; the exception being Mr. Sheehan,
+who, though he spoke not, exhibited tokens of
+agitation and excitement which he curbed with
+difficulty; shifting about in his chair, gnawing his
+cigar, crossing and uncrossing his knees, rubbing
+and slapping his hands together, clearing his throat
+with violence, his eyes fixed all the while, as were
+those of his companions, upon Mr. Farbach; so
+that Joe was given to perceive that it had been
+agreed that the brewer should be the spokesman.
+Mr. Farbach was deliberate, that was all, which
+added to the effect of what he finally did say.
+
+"Choe," he remarked, placidly, "you are der
+next Mayor off Canaan."
+
+"Why do you say that?" asked the young man,
+sharply.
+
+"Bickoss us here," he answered, interlocking the
+tips of his fingers over his waistcoat, that being as
+near folding his hands as lay within his power,--
+"bickoss us here shall try to fix it so, und so hef
+ditcided."
+
+Joe took a deep breath.  "Why do you want me?"
+
+"Dot," replied the brewer, "iss someding I shall
+tell you."  He paused to contemplate his cigar.
+"We want you bickoss you are der best man fer
+dot positsion."
+
+"Louie, you mustn't make a mistake at the
+beginning," Joe said, hurriedly.  "I may not be the
+kind of man you're looking for.  If I went in--"
+He hesitated, stammering.  "It seems an ungrateful
+thing to say, but--but there wouldn't be any
+slackness--I couldn't be bound to anybody--"
+
+"Holt up your hosses!" Mr. Farbach, once in
+his life, was so ready to reply that he was able to
+interrupt.  "Who hef you heert speak off bounding?
+Hef I speakt off favors?  Dit I say der shoult
+be slackness in der city gofer'ment?  Litsen to me,
+Choe."  He renewed his contemplation of his
+cigar, then proceeded:  "I hef been t'inkin' it ofer,
+now a couple years.  I hef mate up my mind.  If
+some peobles are gombelt to keep der laws and
+oders are not, dot's a great atwantitch to der oders.
+Dot iss what iss ruining der gountry und der peobles
+iss commencement to take notice.  Efer'veres
+in oder towns der iss housecleaning; dey are
+reforming und indieding, und pooty soon dot mofement
+comes here--shoo-er!  If we intent to holt
+der parsly in power, we shoult be a leetle ahead off
+dot mofement so, when it shoult be here, we hef
+a goot 'minadstration to fall beck on.  Now, dere
+iss anoder brewery opened und trying to gombete
+mit me here in Canaan.  If dot brewery owns der
+Mayor, all der tsaloons buying my bier must shut
+up at 'leven o'glock und Sundays, but der oders
+keep open.  If I own der Mayor, I make der same
+against dot oder brewery.  Now I am pooty sick
+off dot ways off bitsness und fighting all times.
+Also," Mr. Farbach added, with magnificent calmness,
+"my trade iss larchly owitside off Canaan,
+und it iss bedder dot here der laws shoult be
+enforced der same fer all.  Litsen, Choe; all us here
+beliefs der same way.  You are square.  Der
+whole tsaloon element knows dot, und knows dot
+all voult be treated der same.  Mit you it voult be
+fairness fer each one.  Foolish peobles hef sait you
+are a law-tricker, but we know dot you hef only
+mate der laws brotect as well as bunish.  Und at
+such times as dey het been broken, you hef made
+dem as mertsiful as you coult.  You are no tricker.
+We are willing to help you make it a glean town.
+Odervise der fightin' voult go on until der mofement
+strikes here und all der granks vake up und
+we git a fool reformer fer Mayor und der town goes
+to der dogs.  If I try to put in a man dot I own,
+der oder brewery iss goin' to fight like hell, but if
+I work fer you it will not fight so hart."
+
+"But the other people," Joe objected, "those
+outside of what is called the saloon element--do you
+understand how many of them will be against me?"
+
+"It iss der tsaloon element," Mr. Farbach
+returned, peacefully, "dot does der fightin'."
+
+"And you have considered my standing with
+that part of Canaan which considers itself the most
+respectable section?"  He rose to his feet, standing
+straight and quiet, facing the table, upon
+which, it chanced, there lay a copy of the Tocsin.
+
+"Und yet," observed Mr. Farbach, with mildness,
+"we got some pooty risbecdable men right
+here."
+
+"Except me," broke in Mr. Sheehan, grimly,
+"you have."
+
+"Have you thought of this?" Joe leaned
+forward and touched the paper upon the table.
+
+"We hef," replied Mr. Farbach.  "All of us.
+You shall beat it."
+
+There was a strong chorus of confirmation from
+the others, and Joe's eyes flashed.
+
+"Have you considered," he continued, rapidly,
+while a warm color began to conquer his pallor,--
+"have you considered the powerful influence which
+will be against me, and more against me now, I
+should tell you, than ever before?  That influence,
+I mean, which is striving so hard to discredit me
+that lynch-law has been hinted for poor Fear if I
+should clear him!  Have you thought of that?
+Have you thought--"
+
+"Have we thought o' Martin Pike?" exclaimed
+Mr. Sheehan, springing to his feet, face aflame and
+beard bristling.  "Ay, we've thought o' Martin
+Pike, and our thinkin' of him is where he begins
+to git what's comin' to him!  What d'ye stand
+there pickin' straws fer?  What's the matter with
+ye?" he demanded, angrily, his violence tenfold
+increased by the long repression he had put upon
+himself during the brewer's deliberate utterances.
+"If Louie Farbach and his crowd says they're fer
+ye, I guess ye've got a chanst, haven't ye?"
+
+"Wait," said Joe.  "I think you underestimate
+Pike's influence--"
+
+"Underestimate the devil!" shouted Mr. Sheehan,
+uncontrollably excited.  "You talk about
+influence!  He's been the worst influence this town's
+ever had--and his tracks covered up in the dark
+wherever he set his ugly foot down.  These men
+know it, and you know some, but not the worst of
+it, because none of ye live as deep down in it as I
+do!  Ye want to make a clean town of it, ye want
+to make a little heaven of the Beach--"
+
+"And in the eyes of Judge Pike," Joe cut him
+off, "and of all who take their opinions from him,
+I REPRESENT Beaver Beach!"
+
+Mike Sheehan gave a wild shout.  "Whooroo!
+It's come!  I knowed it would!  The day I couldn't
+hold my tongue, though I passed my word I would
+when the coward showed the deed he didn't dare 
+to git recorded!  Waugh!"  He shouted again,
+with bitter laughter.  "Ye do!  In the eyes o'
+them as follow Martin Pike ye stand fer the Beach
+and all its wickedness, do ye?  Whooroo!  It's
+come!  Ye're an offence in the eyes o' Martin Pike
+and all his kind because ye stand fer the Beach,
+are ye?"
+
+"You know it!" Joe answered, sharply.  "If
+they could wipe the Beach off the map and me
+with it--"
+
+"Martin Pike would?" shouted Mr. Sheehan,
+while the others, open-mouthed, stared at him.
+"Martin Pike would?"
+
+"I don't need to tell you that," said Joe.
+
+Mr. Sheehan's big fist rose high over the table
+and descended crashing upon it.  "It's a damn
+lie!" he roared.  "Martin Pike owns Beaver
+Beach!"
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+JOE WALKS ACROSS THE COURT-HOUSE YARD
+
+From within the glossy old walnut
+bar that ran from wall to wall, the
+eyes of the lawyers and reporters
+wandered often to Ariel as she sat in
+the packed court-room watching Louden's
+fight for the life and liberty of Happy Fear.
+She had always three escorts, and though she did
+not miss a session, and the same three never failed
+to attend her, no whisper of scandal arose.  But
+not upon them did the glances of the members of
+the bar and the journalists with tender frequency
+linger; nor were the younger members of these
+two professions all who gazed that way.  Joe had
+fought out the selection of the jury with the
+prosecutor at great length and with infinite pains;
+it was not a young jury, and IT stared at her.  The
+"Court" wore a gray beard with which a flock
+of sparrows might have villaged a grove, and yet,
+in spite of the vital necessity for watchfulness over
+this fighting case, IT once needed to be stirred from 
+a trancelike gaze in Miss Tabor's direction and
+aroused to the realization that It was there to Sit
+and not to dream.
+
+The August air was warm outside the windows,
+inviting to the open country, to swimmin'-hole,
+to orchard reveries, or shaded pool wherein to
+drop a meditative line; you would have thought no
+one could willingly coop himself in this hot room
+for three hours, twice a day, while lawyers wrangled,
+often unintelligibly, over the life of a dingy little
+creature like Happy Fear, yet the struggle to
+swelter there was almost like a riot, and the bailiffs
+were busy men.
+
+It was a fighting case throughout, fought to a
+finish on each tiny point as it came up, dragging,
+in the mere matter of time, interminably, yet the
+people of Canaan (not only those who succeeded
+in penetrating to the court-room, but the others
+who hung about the corridors, or outside the building,
+and the great mass of stay-at-homes who read
+the story in the Tocsin) found each moment of it
+enthralling enough.  The State's attorney, fearful of
+losing so notorious a case, and not underestimating
+his opponent, had modestly summoned others
+to his aid; and the attorney for the defence, single-
+handed, faced "an array of legal talent such as
+seldom indeed had hollered at this bar"; faced it
+good-naturedly, an eyebrow crooked up and his
+head on one side, most of the time, yet faced it
+indomitably.  He had a certain careless and
+disarming smile when he lost a point, which carried
+off the defeat as of only humorous account and
+not at all part of the serious business in hand; and
+in his treatment of witnesses, he was plausible,
+kindly, knowing that in this case he had no
+intending perjurer to entrap; brought into play the
+rare and delicate art of which he was a master,
+employing in his questions subtle suggestions and
+shadings of tone and manner, and avoiding words
+of debatable and dangerous meanings;--a fine craft,
+often attempted by blunderers to their own undoing,
+but which, practised by Joseph Louden,
+made inarticulate witnesses articulate to the
+precise effects which he desired.  This he accomplished
+as much by the help of the continuous fire
+of objections from the other side as in spite of
+them.  He was infinitely careful, asking never an
+ill-advised question for the other side to use to
+his hurt, and, though exhibiting only a pleasant
+easiness of manner, was electrically alert.
+
+A hundred things had shown Ariel that the feeling
+of the place, influenced by "public sentiment"
+without, was subtly and profoundly hostile to Joe
+and his client; she read this in the spectators, in
+the jury, even in the Judge; but it seemed to her
+that day by day the inimical spirit gradually failed,
+inside the railing, and also in those spectators who,
+like herself, were enabled by special favor to be
+present throughout the trial, and that now and
+then a kindlier sentiment began to be manifested.
+She was unaware how strongly she contributed to
+effect this herself, not only through the glow of
+visible sympathy which radiated from her, but
+by a particular action.  Claudine was called by
+the State, and told as much of her story as the
+law permitted her to tell, interlarding her replies
+with fervent protestations (too quick to be prevented)
+that she "never meant to bring no trouble
+to Mr. Fear" and that she "did hate to have gen'lemen
+starting things on her account."  When the
+defence took this perturbed witness, her
+interpolations became less frequent, and she described
+straightforwardly how she had found the pistol on
+the floor near the prostrate figure of Cory, and
+hidden it in her own dress.  The attorneys for the
+State listened with a somewhat cynical amusement
+to this portion of her testimony, believing it of no
+account, uncorroborated, and that if necessary the
+State could impeach the witness on the ground
+that it had been indispensable to produce her.
+She came down weeping from the stand; and, the
+next witness not being immediately called, the
+eyes of the jurymen naturally followed her as she
+passed to her seat, and they saw Ariel Tabor bow
+gravely to her across the railing.  Now, a thousand
+things not set forth by legislatures, law-men
+and judges affect a jury, and the slight salutation
+caused the members of this one to glance at one
+another; for it seemed to imply that the exquisite
+lady in white not only knew Claudine, but knew
+that she had spoken the truth.  It was after this,
+that a feeling favorable to the defence now and
+then noticeably manifested itself in the court-
+room.  Still, when the evidence for the State was
+all in, the life of Happy Fear seemed to rest in a
+balance precarious indeed, and the little man,
+swallowing pitifully, looked at his attorney with
+the eyes of a sick dog.
+
+Then Joe gave the prosecutors an illuminating
+and stunning surprise, and, having offered in
+evidence the revolver found upon Claudine, produced
+as his first witness a pawnbroker of Denver, who
+identified the weapon as one he had sold to Cory,
+whom he had known very well.  The second witness,
+also a stranger, had been even more intimately
+acquainted with the dead man, and there began to
+be an uneasy comprehension of what Joe had
+accomplished during that prolonged absence of his
+which had so nearly cost the life of the little mongrel,
+who was at present (most blissful Respectability!)
+a lively convalescent in Ariel's back yard.  The
+second witness also identified the revolver, 
+testifying that he had borrowed it from Cory in St.
+Louis to settle a question of marksmanship, and
+that on his returning it to the owner, the latter,
+then working his way eastward, had confided to
+him his intention of stopping in Canaan for the
+purpose of exercising its melancholy functions upon
+a man who had once "done him good" in that
+city.
+
+By the time the witness had reached this point,
+the Prosecutor and his assistants were on their
+feet, excitedly shouting objections, which were
+promptly overruled.  Taken unawares, they fought
+for time; thunder was loosed, forensic bellowings;
+everybody lost his temper--except Joe; and
+the examination of the witness proceeded.  Cory,
+with that singular inspiration to confide in some
+one, which is the characteristic and the undoing
+of his kind, had outlined his plan of operations to
+the witness with perfect clarity.  He would first
+attempt, so he had declared, to incite an attack
+upon himself by playing upon the jealousy of his
+victim, having already made a tentative effort in
+that direction.  Failing in this, he would fall back
+upon one of a dozen schemes (for he was ready in
+such matters, he bragged), the most likely of which
+would be to play the peacemaker; he would talk
+of his good intentions toward his enemy, speaking
+publicly of him in friendly and gentle ways; then,
+getting at him secretly, destroy him in such a
+fashion as to leave open for himself the kind gate
+of self-defence.  In brief, here was the whole tally
+of what had actually occurred, with the exception
+of the last account in the sequence which had
+proved that demise for which Cory had not
+arranged and it fell from the lips of a witness whom
+the prosecution had no means of impeaching.
+When he left the stand, unshaken and undiscredited,
+after a frantic cross-examination, Joe,
+turning to resume his seat, let his hand fall lightly
+for a second upon his client's shoulder.
+
+That was the occasion of a demonstration which
+indicated a sentiment favorable to the defence (on
+the part of at least three of the spectators); and it
+was in the nature of such a hammering of canes
+upon the bare wooden floor as effectually stopped
+all other proceedings instantly.  The indignant
+Judge fixed the Colonel, Peter Bradbury, and
+Squire Buckalew with his glittering eye, yet the
+hammering continued unabated; and the offenders
+surely would have been conducted forth in
+ignominy, had not gallantry prevailed, even in
+that formal place.  The Judge, reluctantly realizing
+that some latitude must be allowed to these
+aged enthusiasts, since they somehow seemed to
+belong to Miss Tabor, made his remarks general,
+with the time-worn threat to clear the room,
+whereupon the loyal survivors of Eskew relapsed
+into unabashed silence.
+
+It was now, as Joe had said, a clear-enough case.
+Only the case itself, however, was clear, for, as
+he and his friends feared, the verdict might possibly
+be neither in accordance with the law, the
+facts, nor the convictions of the jury.  Eugene's
+defection had not altered the tone of the Tocsin.
+
+All day long a crowd of men and boys hung
+about the corridors of the Court-house, about
+the Square and the neighboring streets, and from
+these rose sombre murmurs, more and more ominous.
+The public sentiment of a community like
+Canaan can make itself felt inside a court-room;
+and it was strongly exerted against Happy Fear.
+The Tocsin had always been a powerful agent;
+Judge Pike had increased its strength with a
+staff which was thoroughly efficient, alert, and
+always able to strike centre with the paper's
+readers; and in town and country it had absorbed
+the circulation of the other local journals, which
+resisted feebly at times, but in the matter of the
+Cory murder had not dared to do anything except
+follow the Tocsin's lead.  The Tocsin, having lit
+the fire, fed it--fed it saltpetre and sulphur--for
+now Martin Pike was fighting hard.
+
+The farmers and people of the less urban parts
+of the country were accustomed to found their
+opinions upon the Tocsin.  They regarded it as
+the single immutable rock of journalistic
+righteousness and wisdom in the world.  Consequently,
+stirred by the outbursts of the paper, they came
+into Canaan in great numbers, and though the
+pressure from the town itself was so strong that
+only a few of them managed to crowd into the
+court-room, the others joined their voices to those
+sombre murmurs outdoors, which increased in
+loudness as the trial went on.
+
+The Tocsin, however, was not having everything
+its own way; the volume of outcry against
+Happy Fear and his lawyer had diminished, it was
+noticed, in "very respectable quarters."  The
+information imparted by Mike Sheehan to the politicians
+at Mr. Farbach's had been slowly seeping
+through the various social strata of the town, and
+though at first incredulously rejected, it began to
+find acceptance; Upper Main Street cooling appreciably
+in its acceptance of the Tocsin as the law
+and the prophets.  There were even a few who
+dared to wonder in their hearts if there had not
+been a mistake about Joe Louden; and although
+Mrs. Flitcroft weakened not, the relatives of
+Squire Buckalew and of Peter Bradbury began to
+hold up their heads a little, after having made
+home horrible for those gentlemen and reproached
+them with their conversion as the last word of
+senile shame.  In addition, the Colonel's grandson
+and Mr. Bradbury's grandson had both mystifyingly
+lent countenance to Joe, consorting with
+him openly; the former for his own purposes--the
+latter because he had cunningly discovered that
+it was a way to Miss Tabor's regard, which, since
+her gentle rejection of him, he had grown to
+believe (good youth!) might be the pleasantest thing
+that could ever come to him.  In short, the question
+had begun to thrive:  Was it possible that Eskew
+Arp had not been insane, after all?
+
+The best of those who gathered ominously about
+the Court-house and its purlieus were the young
+farmers and field-hands, artisans and clerks; one
+of the latter being a pimply faced young man
+(lately from the doctor's hands), who limped, and
+would limp for the rest of his life, he who, of all
+men, held the memory of Eskew Arp in least respect,
+and was burningly desirous to revenge himself
+upon the living.
+
+The worst were of that mystifying, embryonic,
+semi-rowdy type, the American voyou, in the
+production of which Canaan and her sister towns
+everywhere over the country are prolific; the
+young man, youth, boy perhaps, creature of nameless
+age, whose clothes are like those of a brakeman
+out of work, but who is not a brakeman in
+or out of work; wearing the black, soft hat tilted 
+forward to shelter--as a counter does the contempt
+of a clerk--that expression which the face does not
+dare wear quite in the open, asserting the possession
+of supreme capacity in wit, strength, dexterity,
+and amours; the dirty handkerchief under the collar;
+the short black coat always double-breasted;
+the eyelids sooty; one cheek always bulged; the
+forehead speckled; the lips cracked; horrible teeth;
+and the affectation of possessing secret information
+upon all matters of the universe; above all,
+the instinct of finding the shortest way to any
+scene of official interest to the policeman, fireman,
+or ambulance surgeon,--a singular being, not
+professionally criminal; tough histrionically rather than
+really; full of its own argot of brag; hysterical when
+crossed, timid through great ignorance, and therefore
+dangerous.  It furnishes not the leaders but
+the mass of mobs; and it springs up at times of
+crisis from Heaven knows where.  You might have
+driven through all the streets of Canaan, a week
+before the trial, and have seen four or five such
+fellows; but from the day of its beginning the
+Square was full of them, dingy shuttlecocks batted
+up into view by the Tocsin.
+
+They kept the air whirring with their noise.
+The news of that sitting which had caused the
+Squire, Flitcroft, and Peter Bradbury to risk the
+Court's displeasure, was greeted outside with loud
+and vehement disfavor; and when, at noon, the
+jurymen were marshalled out to cross the yard
+to the "National House" for dinner, a large crowd
+followed and surrounded them, until they reached
+the doors of the hotel.  "Don't let Lawyer Louden
+bamboozle you!"  "Hang him!"  "Tar and feathers
+fer ye ef ye don't hang him!"  These were the
+mildest threats, and Joe Louden, watching from
+an upper window of the Court-house, observed
+with a troubled eye how certain of the jury shrank
+from the pressure of the throng, how the cheeks
+of others showed sudden pallor.  Sometimes "public
+sentiment" has done evil things to those who
+have not shared it; and Joe knew how rare a thing
+is a jury which dares to stand square against a
+town like Canaan aroused.
+
+The end of that afternoon's session saw another
+point marked for the defence; Joe had put the
+defendant on the stand, and the little man had proved
+an excellent witness.  During his life he had been
+many things--many things disreputable; high
+standards were not brightly illumined for him in
+the beginning of the night-march which his life
+had been.  He had been a tramp, afterward a
+petty gambler; but his great motive had finally
+come to be the intention to do what Joe told him
+to do: that, and to keep Claudine as straight as he
+could.  In a measure, these were the two things
+that had brought him to the pass in which he now
+stood, his loyalty to Joe and his resentment of
+whatever tampered with Claudine's straightness.
+He was submissive to the consequences: he was
+still loyal.  And now Joe asked him to tell "just
+what happened," and Happy obeyed with crystal
+clearness.  Throughout the long, tricky cross-
+examination he continued to tell "just what
+happened" with a plaintive truthfulness not to
+be imitated, and throughout it Joe guarded him
+from pitfalls (for lawyers in their search after
+truth are compelled by the exigencies of their
+profession to make pitfalls even for the honest), and
+gave him, by various devices, time to remember,
+though not to think, and made the words "come
+right" in his mouth.  So that before the sitting
+was over, a disquieting rumor ran through the
+waiting crowd in the corridors, across the Square,
+and over the town, that the case was surely going
+"Louden's way."  This was also the opinion of
+a looker-on in Canaan--a ferret-faced counsellor
+of corporations who, called to consultation with
+the eminent Buckalew (nephew of the Squire),
+had afterward spent an hour in his company at
+the trial.  "It's going that young fellow Louden's
+way," said the stranger.  "You say he's a shyster,
+but--"
+
+"Well," admitted Buckalew, with some 
+reluctance, "I don't mean that exactly.  I've got an
+old uncle who seems lately to think he's a great man."
+
+"I'll take your uncle's word for it," returned
+the other, smiling.  "I think he'll go pretty far."
+
+They had come to the flight of steps which
+descended to the yard,--and the visitor, looking down
+upon the angry crowd, added, "If they don't kill him!"
+
+Joe himself was anxious concerning no such
+matter.  He shook hands with Happy at the end
+of the sitting, bidding him be of good cheer, and,
+when the little man had marched away, under a
+strong guard, began to gather and sort his papers
+at a desk inside the bar.  This took him perhaps
+five minutes, and when he had finished there were
+only three people left in the room: a clerk, a negro
+janitor with a broom, and the darky friend who
+always hopefully accompanies a colored man holding
+high public office.  These two approvingly
+greeted the young lawyer, the janitor handing him
+a note from Norbert Flitcroft, and the friend
+mechanically "borrowing" a quarter from him as he
+opened the envelope.
+
+"I'll be roun' yo' way to git a box o' SE-gahs,"
+laughed the friend, "soon ez de campaign open up
+good.  Dey all goin' vote yo' way, down on the
+levee bank, but dey sho' expecks to git to smoke 
+a little 'fo' leckshun-day!  We knows who's OW
+frien'!"
+
+Norbert's missive was lengthy and absorbing;
+Joe went on his way, perusing it with profound
+attention; but as he descended the stairway to the
+floor below, a loud burst of angry shouting, outside
+the building, caused him to hasten toward
+the big front doors which faced Main Street.  The
+doors opened upon an imposing vestibule, from
+which a handsome flight of stone steps, protected
+by a marble balustrade, led to the ground.
+
+Standing at the top of these steps and leaning
+over the balustrade, he had a clear view of half the
+yard.  No one was near him; everybody was running
+in the opposite direction, toward that corner
+of the yard occupied by the jail, the crowd centring
+upon an agitated whirlpool of men which
+moved slowly toward a door in the high wall that
+enclosed the building; and Joe saw that Happy
+Fear's guards, conducting the prisoner back to his
+cell, were being jostled and rushed.  The distance
+they had made was short, but as they reached the
+door the pressure upon them increased dangerously.
+Clubs rose in the air, hats flew, the whirlpool
+heaved tumultuously, and the steel door clanged.
+
+Happy Fear was safe inside, but the jostlers were
+outside--baffled, ugly, and stirred with the passion
+that changes a crowd into a mob.
+
+Then some of them caught sight of Joe as he
+stood alone at the top of the steps, and a great
+shout of rage and exultation arose.
+
+For a moment or two he did not see his danger.
+At the clang of the door, his eyes, caught by the
+gleam of a wide white hat, had turned toward the
+street, and he was somewhat fixedly watching Mr.
+Ladew extricate Ariel (and her aged and indignant
+escorts) from an overflow of the crowd in which
+they had been caught.  But a voice warned him:
+the wild piping of a newsboy who had climbed into
+a tree near by.
+
+"JOE LOUDEN!" he screamed.  "LOOK OUT!"
+
+With a muffled roar the crowd surged back from
+the jail and turned toward the steps.  "Tar and
+feather him!"  "Take him over to the river and
+throw him in!"  "Drown him!"  "Hang him!"
+
+Then a thing happened which was dramatic
+enough in its inception, but almost ludicrous in its
+effect.  Joe walked quietly down the steps and
+toward the advancing mob with his head cocked
+to one side, one eyebrow lifted, and one corner of
+his mouth drawn down in a faintly distorted smile.
+
+He went straight toward the yelling forerunners,
+with only a small bundle of papers in his hands,
+and then--while the non-partisan spectators held
+their breath, expecting the shock of contact--
+straight on through them.
+
+A number of the bulge-cheeked formed the
+scattering van of these forerunners, charging with
+hoarse and cruel shrieks of triumph.  The first,
+apparently about to tear Joseph Louden to pieces,
+changed countenance at arm's-length, swerved
+violently, and with the loud cry, "HEAD HIM OFF!"
+dashed on up the stone steps.  The man next
+behind him followed his lead, with the same shout,
+strategy, and haste; then the others of this advance
+attack, finding themselves confronting the quiet
+man, who kept his even pace and showed no
+intention of turning aside for them, turned suddenly
+aside for HIM, and, taking the cue from the first,
+pursued their way, bellowing:  "HEAD HIM OFF!
+HEAD HIM OFF!" until there were a dozen and more
+rowdyish men and youths upon the steps, their
+eyes blazing with fury, menacing Louden's back
+with frightful gestures across the marble balustrade,
+as they hysterically bleated the chorus,
+"HEAD HIM OFF!"
+
+Whether or not Joe could have walked through
+the entire mob as he had walked through these is
+a matter for speculation; it was believed in Canaan
+that he could.  Already a gust of mirth began to
+sweep over the sterner spirits as they paused to
+marvel no less at the disconcerting advance of
+the lawyer than at the spectacle presented by the
+intrepid dare-devils upon the steps; a kind of lane
+actually opening before the young man as he walked
+steadily on.  And when Mr. Sheehan, leading half
+a dozen huge men from the Farbach brewery,
+unceremoniously shouldered a way through the mob to
+Joe's side, reaching him where the press was thickest,
+it is a question if the services of his detachment
+were needed.
+
+The laughter increased.  It became voluminous.
+Homeric salvos shook the air.  And never one of
+the fire-eaters upon the steps lived long enough
+to live down the hateful cry of that day, "HEAD
+HIM OFF!" which was to become a catch-word on
+the streets, a taunt more stinging than any devised
+by deliberate invention, an insult bitterer than the
+ancestral doubt, a fighting-word, and the great
+historical joke of Canaan, never omitted in after-
+days when the tale was told how Joe Louden took
+that short walk across the Court-house yard which
+made him Mayor of Canaan.
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+MARTIN PIKE KEEPS AN ENGAGEMENT
+
+An hour later, Martin Pike, looking
+forth from the Mansion, saw a man
+open the gate, and, passing between
+the unemotional deer, rapidly
+approach the house.  He was a thin
+young fellow, very well dressed in dark gray, his
+hair prematurely somewhat silvered, his face
+prematurely somewhat lined, and his hat covered a
+scar such as might have been caused by a blow
+from a blunt instrument in the nature of a poker.
+
+He did not reach the door, nor was there necessity
+for him to ring, for, before he had set foot on
+the lowest step, the Judge had hastened to meet
+him.  Not, however, with any fulsomely hospitable
+intent; his hand and arm were raised to execute
+one of his Olympian gestures, of the kind which
+had obliterated the young man upon a certain by-
+gone morning.
+
+Louden looked up calmly at the big figure
+towering above him.
+
+"It won't do, Judge," he said; that was all, but
+there was a significance in his manner and a certainty
+in his voice which caused the uplifted hand
+to drop limply; while the look of apprehension
+which of late had grown more and more to be
+Martin Pike's habitual expression deepened into
+something close upon mortal anxiety.
+
+"Have you any business to set foot upon my
+property?" he demanded.
+
+"Yes," answered Joe.  "That's why I came."
+
+"What business have you got with me?"
+
+"Enough to satisfy you, I think.  But there's
+one thing I don't want to do"--Joe glanced at the
+open door--"and that is to talk about it here--for
+your own sake and because I think Miss Tabor
+should be present.  I called to ask you to come
+to her house at eight o'clock to-night."
+
+"You did!" Martin Pike spoke angrily, but
+not in the bull-bass of yore; and he kept his voice
+down, glancing about him nervously as though
+he feared that his wife or Mamie might hear.
+"My accounts with her estate are closed," he said,
+harshly.  "If she wants anything, let her come here."
+
+Joe shook his head.  "No.  You must be there
+at eight o'clock."
+
+The Judge's choler got the better of his uneasiness.
+"You're a pretty one to come ordering me
+around!" he broke out.  "You slanderer, do you
+suppose I haven't heard how you're going about
+traducing me, undermining my character in this
+community, spreading scandals that I am the real
+owner of Beaver Beach--"
+
+"It can easily be proved, Judge," Joe interrupted,
+quietly, "though you're wrong: I haven't
+been telling people.  I haven't needed to--even
+if I'd wished.  Once a thing like that gets out you
+can't stop it--ever!  That isn't all: to my knowledge
+you own other property worse than the Beach;
+I know that you own half of the worst dens in
+the town: profitable investments, too.  You bought
+them very gradually and craftily, only showing
+the deeds to those in charge--as you did to Mike
+Sheehan, and not recording them.  Sheehan's
+betrayal of you gave me the key; I know most of the
+poor creatures who are your tenants, too, you
+see, and that gave me an advantage because they
+have some confidence in me.  My investigations
+have been almost as quiet and careful as your purchases."
+
+"You damned blackmailer!"  The Judge bent
+upon him a fierce, inquiring scrutiny in which, oddly
+enough, there was a kind of haggard hopefulness.
+"And out of such stories," he sneered,
+"you are going to try to make political capital
+against the Tocsin, are you?"
+
+"No," said Joe.  "It was necessary in the
+interests of my client for me to know pretty thoroughly
+just what property you own, and I think I do.
+These pieces I've mentioned are about all you
+have not mortgaged.  You couldn't do that without
+exposure, and you've kept a controlling interest
+in the Tocsin clear, too--for the sake of its
+influence, I suppose.  Now, do you want to hear
+any more, or will you agree to meet me at Miss
+Tabor's this evening?"
+
+Whatever the look of hopefulness had signified,
+it fled from Pike's face during this speech, but he
+asked with some show of contempt, "Do you
+think it likely?"
+
+"Very well," said Joe, "if you want me to
+speak here."  And he came a little closer to him.
+"You bought a big block of Granger Gas for Roger
+Tabor," he began, in a low voice.  "Before his
+death you sold everything he had, except the old
+house, put it all into cash for him, and bought that
+stock; you signed the check as his attorney-in-fact,
+and it came back to you through the Washington
+National, where Norbert Flitcroft handled it.  He
+has a good memory, and when he told me what he
+knew, I had him to do some tracing; did a little
+myself, also.  Judge Pike, I must tell you that
+you stand in danger of the law.  You were the
+custodian of that stock for Roger Tabor; it was
+transferred in blank; though I think you meant
+to be `legal' at that time, and that was merely for
+convenience in case Roger had wished you to sell
+it for him.  But just after his death you found
+yourself saddled with distillery stock, which was
+going bad on your hands.  Other speculations of
+yours were failing at the same time; you had to
+have money--you filed your report as administrator,
+crediting Miss Tabor with your own stock
+which you knew was going to the wall, and transferred
+hers to yourself.  Then you sold it because
+you needed ready money.  You used her fortune
+to save yourself--but you were horribly afraid!
+No matter how rotten your transactions had been,
+you had always kept inside the law; and now that
+you had gone outside of it, you were frightened.
+You didn't dare come flat out to Miss Tabor with
+the statement that her fortune had gone; it had
+been in your charge all the time and things might
+look ugly.  So you put it off, perhaps from day
+to day.  You didn't dare tell her until you were
+forced to, and to avoid the confession you sent her
+the income which was rightfully hers.  That was
+your great weakness."
+
+Joe had spoken with great rapidity, though keeping
+his voice low, and he lowered it again, as he
+continued:  "Judge Pike, what chance have you
+to be believed in court when you swear that you 
+sent her twenty thousand dollars out of the goodness
+of your heart?  Do you think SHE believed
+you?  It was the very proof to her that you had
+robbed her.  For she knew you!  Do you want
+to hear more now?  Do you think this is a good
+place for it?  Do you wish me to go over the
+details of each step I have taken against you, to land
+you at the bar where this poor fellow your paper
+is hounding stands to-day?"
+
+The Judge essayed to answer, and could not.
+He lifted his hand uncertainly and dropped it,
+while a thick dew gathered on his temples.
+Inarticulate sounds came from between his teeth.
+
+"You will come?" said Joe.
+
+Martin Pike bent his head dazedly; and at that
+the other turned quickly from him and went away
+without looking back.
+
+
+Ariel was in the studio, half an hour later, when
+Joe was announced by the smiling Mr. Warden.
+Ladew was with her, though upon the point of
+taking his leave, and Joe marked (with a sinking
+heart) that the young minister's cheeks were
+flushed and his eyes very bright.
+
+"It was a magnificent thing you did, Mr. Louden,"
+he said, offering his hand heartily; "I saw
+it, and it was even finer in one way than it was
+plucky.  It somehow straightened things out with
+such perfect good nature; it made those people feel
+that what they were doing was ridiculous."
+
+"So it was," said Joe.
+
+"Few, under the circumstances, could have
+acted as if they thought so!  And I hope you'll
+let me call upon you, Mr. Louden."
+
+"I hope you will," he answered; and then, when
+the minister had departed, stood looking after him
+with sad eyes, in which there dwelt obscure meditations.
+Ladew's word of farewell had covered a
+deep look at Ariel, which was not to be mistaken
+by Joseph Louden for anything other than what
+it was: the clergyman's secret was an open one,
+and Joe saw that he was as frank and manly in
+love as in all other things.  "He's a good fellow,"
+he said at last, sighing.  "A good man."
+
+Ariel agreed.  "And he said more to me than
+he did to you."
+
+"Yes, I think it probable," Joe smiled sorrowfully.
+
+"About YOU, I mean."  He had time to fear
+that her look admitted confusion before she
+proceeded:  "He said he had never seen anything so
+fine as your coming down those steps.  Ah, he
+was right!  But it was harder for me to watch
+you, I think, than for you to do it, Joe.  I was so
+horribly afraid--and the crowd between us--if we
+could have got near you--but we couldn't--we--"
+
+She faltered, and pressed her hand close upon
+her eyes.
+
+"We?" asked Joe, slowly.  "You mean you
+and Mr. Ladew?"
+
+"Yes, he was there; but I mean"--her voice
+ran into a little laugh with a beatific quaver in it
+--"I mean Colonel Flitcroft and Mr. Bradbury
+and Mr. Buckalew, too--we were hemmed in together
+when Mr. Ladew found us--and, oh, Joe,
+when that cowardly rush started toward you,
+those three--I've heard wonderful things in Paris
+and Naples, cabmen quarrelling and disappointed
+beggars--but never anything like them to-day--"
+
+"You mean they were profane?"
+
+"Oh, magnificently--and with such inventiveness!
+All three begged my pardon afterwards.  I
+didn't grant it--I blessed them!"
+
+"Did they beg Mr. Ladew's pardon?"
+
+"Ah, Joe!" she reproached him.  "He isn't a
+prig.  And he's had to fight some things that you
+of all men ought to understand.  He's only been
+here a few months, but he told me that Judge Pike
+has been against him from the start.  It seems that
+Mr. Ladew is too liberal in his views.  And he told
+me that if it were not for Judge Pike's losing
+influence in the church on account of the Beaver
+Beach story, the Judge would probably have been
+able to force him to resign; but now he will stay."
+
+"He wishes to stay, doesn't he?"
+
+"Very much, I think.  And, Joe," she continued,
+thoughtfully, "I want you to do something for me.
+I want you to go to church with me next Sunday."
+
+"To hear Mr. Ladew?"
+
+"Yes.  I wouldn't ask except for that."
+
+"Very well," he consented, with averted eyes.
+"I'll go."
+
+Her face was radiant with the smile she gave
+him.  "It will make me very happy," she said.
+
+He bent his head and fumbled over some papers
+he had taken from his pocket.  "Will you listen to
+these memoranda?  We have a great deal to go
+over before eight o'clock."
+
+
+Judge Pike stood for a long while where Joe had
+left him, staring out at the street, apparently.
+Really he saw nothing.  Undoubtedly an image
+of blurring foliage, cast-iron, cement, and turf,
+with sunshine smeared over all, flickered upon the
+retinas of his eyes; but the brain did not accept the
+picture from the optic nerve.  Martin Pike was
+busy with other visions.  Joe Louden had followed
+him back to his hidden deeds and had read them
+aloud to him as Gabriel would read them on Judgment-
+day.  Perhaps THIS was the Judgment-day.
+
+Pike had taken charge of Roger Tabor's affairs
+because the commissions as agent were not too
+inconsiderable to be neglected.  To make the
+task simpler, he had sold, as time went on, the
+various properties of the estate, gradually
+converting all of them into cash.  Then, the
+opportunity offering, he bought a stock which paid
+excellent dividends, had it transferred in blank,
+because if it should prove to Roger's advantage to
+sell it, his agent could do so without any formal
+delays between Paris and Canaan.  At least, that
+is what the Judge had told himself at the time,
+though it may be that some lurking whisperer in
+his soul had hinted that it might be well to preserve
+the great amount of cash in hand, and Roger's
+stock was practically that.  Then came the evil
+days.  Laboriously, he had built up a name for
+conservatism which most of the town accepted,
+but secretly he had always been a gambler: Wall
+Street was his goal; to adventure there, as one of
+the great single-eyed Cyclopean man-eaters, his
+fond ambition; and he had conceived the distillery
+trust as a means to attain it; but the structure
+tumbled about his ears; other edifices of his
+crumbled at the same time; he found himself beset, his
+solvency endangered, and there was the Tabor
+stock, quite as good as gold; Roger had just died,
+and it was enough to save him.--Save?  That was
+a strange way to be remembering it to-day, when
+Fate grinned at him out of a dreadful mask contorted
+like the face of Norbert Flitcroft.
+
+Martin Pike knew himself for a fool.  What
+chance had he, though he destroyed the check a
+thousand times over, to escape the records by
+which the coil of modern trade duplicates and
+quadruplicates each slip of scribbled paper?  What
+chance had he against the memories of men?
+Would the man of whom he had bought, forget
+that the check was signed by Roger's agent?  Had
+the bank-clerk forgotten?  Thrice fool, Martin Pike,
+to dream that in a town like Canaan, Norbert or
+any of his kind could touch an order for so great
+a sum and forget it!  But Martin Pike had not
+dreamed that; had dreamed nothing.  When failure
+confronted him his mind refused to consider
+anything but his vital need at the time, and he
+had supplied that need.  And now he grew busy
+with the future: he saw first the civil suit for
+restitution, pressed with the ferocity and cunning of
+one who intended to satisfy a grudge of years;
+then, perhaps, a criminal prosecution. . . .  But he
+would fight it!  Did they think that such a man
+was to be overthrown by a breath of air?  By a
+girl, a bank-clerk, and a shyster lawyer?  They
+would find their case difficult to prove in court.
+He did not believe they COULD prove it.  They
+would be discredited for the attempt upon him 
+and he would win clear; these Beaver Beach scandals
+would die of inertia presently; there would be
+a lucky trick in wheat, and Martin Pike would be
+Martin Pike once more; reinstated, dictator of
+church, politics, business; all those things which
+were the breath of his life restored.  He would
+show this pitiful pack what manner of man they
+hounded!  Norbert Flitcroft. . . .
+
+The Judge put his big hand up to his eyes and
+rubbed them.  Curious mechanisms the eyes. . . .
+That deer in line with the vision--not a zebra?
+A zebra after all these years?  And yet . . . curious,
+indeed, the eyes! . . . a zebra. . . .  Who ever heard
+of a deer with stripes?  The big hand rose from
+the eyes and ran through the hair which he had
+always worn rather long.  It would seem strange
+to have it cut very short. . . .  Did they use clippers,
+perhaps? . . .
+
+He started suddenly and realized that his next-
+door neighbor had passed along the sidewalk with
+head averted, pretending not to see him.  A few
+weeks ago the man would not have missed the
+chance of looking in to bow--with proper deference,
+too!  Did he know?  He could not know THIS!
+It must be the Beaver Beach scandal.  It must be.
+It could not be THIS--not yet!  But it MIGHT be.
+How many knew?  Louden, Norbert, Ariel--who else?
+And again the deer took on the strange zebra look.
+
+The Judge walked slowly down to the gate; spoke
+to the man he had employed in Sam Warden's
+place, a Scotchman who had begun to refresh the
+lawn with a garden hose; bowed affably in response
+to the salutation of the elder Louden, who was
+passing, bound homeward from the factory, and
+returned to the house with thoughtful steps.  In
+the hall he encountered his wife; stopped to speak
+with her upon various household matters; then
+entered the library, which was his workroom.  He
+locked the door; tried it, and shook the handle.
+After satisfying himself of its security, he pulled
+down the window-shades carefully, and, lighting
+a gas drop-lamp upon his desk, began to fumble
+with various documents, which he took from a
+small safe near by.  But his hands were not steady;
+he dropped the papers, scattering them over the
+floor, and had great difficulty in picking them up.
+He perspired heavily: whatever he touched became
+damp, and he continually mopped his forehead
+with his sleeve.  After a time he gave up the
+attempt to sort the packets of papers; sank into a
+chair despairingly, leaving most of them in disorder.
+A light tap sounded on the door.
+
+"Martin, it's supper-time."
+
+With a great effort he made shift to answer:
+"Yes, I know.  You and Mamie go ahead.  I'm
+too busy to-night.  I don't want anything."
+
+A moment before, he had been a pitiful figure,
+face distraught, hands incoherent, the whole body
+incoordinate, but if eyes might have rested upon
+him as he answered his wife they would have seen
+a strange thing; he sat, apparently steady and
+collected, his expression cool, his body quiet, poised
+exactly to the quality of his reply, for the same
+strange reason that a young girl smiles archly and
+coquettes to a telephone.
+
+"But, Martin, you oughtn't to work so hard.
+You'll break down--"
+
+"No fear of that," he replied, cheerfully.  "You
+can leave something on the sideboard for me."
+
+After another fluttering remonstrance, she went
+away, and the room was silent again.  His arms
+rested upon the desk, and his head slowly sank
+between his elbows.  When he lifted it again the
+clock on the mantel-piece had tinkled once.  It
+was half-past seven.  He took a sheet of note-
+paper from a box before him and began to write,
+but when he had finished the words, "My dear
+wife and Mamie," his fingers shook so violently
+that he could go no further.  He placed his left
+hand over the back of his right to steady it, but
+found the device unavailing: the pen left mere
+zigzags on the page, and he dropped it.
+
+He opened a lower drawer of the desk and took
+out of it a pistol; rose, went to the door, tried it 
+once more, and again was satisfied of his seclusion.
+Then he took the weapon in both hands, the
+handle against his fingers, one thumb against the
+trigger, and, shaking with nausea, lifted it to the
+level of his eyes.  His will betrayed him; he could
+not contract his thumb upon the trigger, and,
+with a convulsive shiver, he dropped the revolver
+upon the desk.
+
+He locked the door of the room behind him,
+crept down the stairs and out of the front-door.
+He walked shamblingly, when he reached the
+street, keeping close to the fences as he went on,
+now and then touching the pickets with his hands
+like a feeble old man.
+
+He had always been prompt; it was one of the
+things of which he had been proud: in all his life
+he had never failed to keep a business engagement
+precisely upon the appointed time, and the Court-
+house bell clanged eight when Sam Warden opened
+the door for his old employer to-night.
+
+The two young people looked up gravely from
+the script-laden table before them as Martin Pike
+came into the strong lamplight out of the dimness
+of the hall, where only a taper burned.  He shambled
+a few limp steps into the room and came to
+a halt.  Big as he was, his clothes hung upon him
+loosely, like coverlets upon a collapsed bed; and
+he seemed but a distorted image of himself, as if
+(save for the dull and reddened eyes) he had been
+made of yellowish wax and had been left too long
+in the sun.  Abject, hopeless, his attitude a
+confession of ruin and shame, he stood before his
+judges in such wretchedness that, in comparison,
+the figure of Happy Fear, facing the court-room
+through his darkest hour, was one to be envied.
+
+"Well," he said, brokenly, "what are you going
+to do?"
+
+Joe Louden looked at him with great intentness
+for several moments.  Then he rose and came
+forward.  "Sit down, Judge," he said.  "It's all
+right.  Don't worry."
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+THE JURY COMES IN
+
+Mrs. Flitcroft, at breakfast on
+the following morning, continued a
+disquisition which had ceased, the
+previous night, only because of a
+provoking human incapacity to exist
+without sleep.  Her theme was one which had
+exclusively occupied her since the passing of
+Eskew, and, her rheumatism having improved so
+that she could leave her chair, she had become a
+sort of walking serial; Norbert and his grandfather
+being well assured that, whenever they left the
+house, the same story was to be continued upon
+their reappearance.  The Tocsin had been her great
+comfort: she was but one helpless woman against
+two strong men; therefore she sorely needed assistance
+in her attack upon them, and the invaluable
+newspaper gave it in generous measure.
+
+"Yes, young man," she said, as she lifted her
+first spoonful of oatmeal, "you BETTER read the
+Tocsin!"
+
+"I AM reading it," responded Norbert, who was
+almost concealed by the paper.
+
+"And your grandfather better read it!" she
+continued, severely.
+
+"I already have," said the Colonel, promptly.
+"Have you?"
+
+"No, but you can be sure I will!"  The good
+lady gave the effect of tossing her head.  "And
+you better take what it says to heart, you and
+some others.  It's a wonder to me that you and
+Buckalew and old Peter don't go and hold that
+Happy Fear's hand durin' the trial!  And as for
+Joe Louden, his step-mother's own sister, Jane,
+says to me only yesterday afternoon, `Why, law!
+Mrs. Flitcroft,' she says, `it's a wonder to me,'
+she says, `that your husband and those two other
+old fools don't lay down in the gutter and let that
+Joe Louden walk over 'em.' "
+
+"Did Jane Quimby say `those two other old
+fools'?" inquired the Colonel, in a manner which
+indicated that he might see Mr. Quimby in regard
+to the slander.
+
+"I can't say as I remember just precisely her
+exact words," admitted Mrs. Flitcroft, "but that
+was the sense of 'em!  You've made yourselves
+the laughin'-stock of the whole town!"
+
+"Oh, we have?"
+
+"And I'd like to know"--her voice became shrill
+and goading--"I'd like to know what Judge Pike
+thinks of you and Norbert!  I should think you'd
+be ashamed to have him pass you in the street."
+
+"I've quit speaking to him," said Norbert, coldly,
+"ever since I heard he owned Beaver Beach."
+
+"That story ain't proved yet!" returned his
+grandmother, with much irascibility.
+
+"Well, it will be; but that's not all."  Norbert
+wagged his head.  "You may be a little surprised
+within the next few days."
+
+"I've been surprised for the PAST few!" she
+replied, with a bitterness which overrode her
+satisfaction in the effectiveness of the retort.
+"Surprised!  I'd like to know who wouldn't be
+surprised when half the town acts like it's gone crazy.
+People PRAISIN' that fellow, that nobody in their
+sober minds and senses never in their lives had a
+good word for before!  Why, there was more talk
+yesterday about his doin's at the Court-house--
+you'd of thought he was Phil Sheridan!  It's `Joe
+Louden' here and `Joe Louden' there, and `Joe
+Louden' this and `Joe Louden' that, till I'm sick
+of the name!"
+
+"Then why don't you quit saying it?" asked the
+Colonel, reasonably.
+
+"Because it'd OUGHT to be said!" she exclaimed,
+with great heat.  "Because he'd ought to be held
+up to the community to be despised.  You let me 
+have that paper a minute," she pursued, vehemently;
+"you just let me have the Tocsin and I'll read
+you out some things about him that 'll show him
+in his true light!"
+
+"All right," said Norbert, suddenly handing her
+the paper.  "Go ahead."
+
+And after the exchange of a single glance the
+two gentlemen composed themselves to listen.
+
+"Ha!" exclaimed Mrs. Flitcroft.  "Here it is in
+head-lines on the first page.  `Defence Scores
+Again and Again.  Ridiculous Behavior of a
+Would-Be Mob.  Louden's--'"  She paused,
+removed her spectacles, examined them dubiously,
+restored them to place, and continued:  "`Louden's
+Masterly Conduct and Well-Deserved--' " she
+paused again, incredulous--"`Well-Deserved Triumph--' "
+
+"Go on," said the Colonel, softly.
+
+"Indeed I will!" the old lady replied.  "Do you
+think I don't know sarcasm when I see it?  Ha,
+ha!"  She laughed with great heartiness.  "I
+reckon I WILL go on!  You listen and try to LEARN
+something from it!"  She resumed the reading:
+
+"`It is generally admitted that after yesterday's
+sitting of the court, the prosecution in the Fear-
+Cory murder trial has not a leg to stand on.  Louden's
+fight for his client has been, it must be confessed,
+of a most splendid and talented order, and 
+the bottom has fallen out of the case for the State,
+while a verdict of Not Guilty, it is now conceded,
+is the general wish of those who have attended and
+followed the trial.  But the most interesting event
+of the day took place after the session, when some
+miscreants undertook to mob the attorney for the
+defence in the Court-house yard.  He met the
+attack with a coolness and nerve which have won
+him a popularity that--' " Mrs. Flitcroft again
+faltered.
+
+"Go on," repeated the Colonel.  "There's a
+great deal more."
+
+"Look at the editorials," suggested Norbert.
+"There's one on the same subject."
+
+Mrs. Flitcroft, her theory of the Tocsin's sarcasm
+somewhat shaken, turned the page.  "We Confess
+a Mistake" was the rubric above the leader, and
+she uttered a cry of triumph, for she thought the
+mistake was what she had just been reading, and
+that the editorial would apologize for the
+incomprehensible journalistic error upon the first page.
+"`The best of us make mistakes, and it is well
+to have a change of heart sometimes.' "  (Thus
+Eugene's successor had written, and so Mrs. Flitcroft
+read.)  "`An open confession is good for the
+soul.  The Tocsin has changed its mind in regard
+to certain matters, and means to say so freely and
+frankly.  After yesterday's events in connection 
+with the murder trial before our public, the evidence
+being now all presented, for we understand
+that neither side has more to offer, it is generally
+conceded that all good citizens are hopeful of a
+verdict of acquittal; and the Tocsin is a good
+citizen.  No good citizen would willingly see an
+innocent man punished, and that our city is not
+to be disgraced by such a miscarriage of justice is
+due to the efforts of the attorney for the defendant,
+who has gained credit not only by his masterly
+management of this case, but by his splendid conduct
+in the face of danger yesterday afternoon.
+He has distinguished himself so greatly that we
+frankly assert that our citizens may point with
+pride to--' " Mrs. Flitcroft's voice, at the beginning
+pitched to a high exultation, had gradually
+lowered in key and dropped down the scale till
+it disappeared altogether.
+
+"It's a wonder to me," the Colonel began, "that
+the Tocsin doesn't go and hold Joe Louden's hand."
+
+"I'll read the rest of it for you," said Norbert,
+his heavy face lighting up with cruelty.  "Let's
+see--where were you?  Oh yes--`point with
+pride'?  `Our citizens may point with pride to . . .' "
+
+Let us not linger to observe the unmanly
+behavior of an aged man and his grandson left alone
+at the breakfast-table by a defenceless woman.
+
+The Tocsin's right-about-face undermined others
+besides Mrs. Flitcroft that morning, and rejoiced
+greater (though not better) men than the Colonel.
+Mr. Farbach and his lieutenants smiled, yet stared,
+amazed, wondering what had happened.  That
+was a thing which only three people even certainly
+knew; yet it was very simple.
+
+The Tocsin was part of the Judge's restitution.
+
+"The controlling interest in the paper, together
+with the other property I have listed," Joe had
+said, studying his memoranda under the lamp in
+Roger's old studio, while Martin Pike listened with
+his head in his hands, "make up what Miss Tabor
+is willing to accept.  As I estimate it, their total
+value is between a third and a half of that of the
+stock which belonged to her."
+
+"But this boy--this Flitcroft," said Pike, feebly;
+"he might--"
+
+"He will do nothing," interrupted Joe.  "The
+case is `settled out of court,' and even if he were
+disposed to harass you, he could hardly hope to
+succeed, since Miss Tabor declines either to sue
+or to prosecute."
+
+The Judge winced at the last word.  "Yes--yes,
+I know; but he might--he might--tell."
+
+"I think Miss Tabor's influence will prevent.
+If it should not--well, you're not in a desperate
+case by any means; you're involved, but far from
+stripped; in time you may be as sound as ever.
+And if Norbert tells, there's nothing for you to do
+but to live it down."  A faint smile played upon
+Joe's lips as he lifted his head and looked at the
+other.  "It can be done, I think."
+
+It was then that Ariel, complaining of the warmth
+of the evening, thought it possible that Joe might
+find her fan upon the porch, and as he departed,
+whispered hurriedly:  "Judge Pike, I'm not
+technically in control of the Tocsin, but haven't I the
+right to control its policy?"
+
+"I understand," he muttered.  "You mean
+about Louden--about this trial--"
+
+"That is why I have taken the paper."
+
+"You want all that changed, you mean?"
+
+She nodded decisively.  "From this instant.
+Before morning."
+
+"Oh, well, I'll go down there and give the word."
+He rubbed his eyes wearily with big thumbs.
+"I'm through fighting.  I'm done.  Besides, what's
+the use?  There's nothing more to fight."
+
+"Now, Judge," Joe said, as he came in briskly,
+"we'll go over the list of that unencumbered property,
+if you will."
+
+This unencumbered property consisted of Beaver
+Beach and those other belongings of the Judge
+which he had not dared to mortgage.  Joe had
+somehow explained their nature to Ariel, and
+these with the Tocsin she had elected to accept
+in restitution.
+
+"You told me once that I ought to look after
+my own property, and now I will.  Don't you see?"
+she cried to Joe, eagerly.  "It's my work!"  She
+resolutely set aside every other proposition; and
+this was the quality of mercy which Martin Pike
+found that night.
+
+
+There was a great crowd to hear Joe's summing-
+up at the trial, and those who succeeded in getting
+into the court-room declared that it was worth the
+struggle.  He did not orate, he did not "thunder
+at the jury," nor did he slyly flatter them; he did
+not overdo the confidential, nor seem so secure
+of understanding beforehand what their verdict
+would be that they felt an instinctive desire to
+fool him.  He talked colloquially but clearly,
+without appeal to the pathetic and without
+garnitures, not mentioning sunsets, birds, oceans,
+homes, the glorious old State, or the happiness of
+liberty; but he made everybody in the room quite
+sure that Happy Fear had fired the shot which
+killed Cory to save his own life.  And that, as Mr.
+Bradbury remarked to the Colonel, was "what Joe
+was THERE for!"
+
+Ariel's escort was increased to four that day:
+Mr. Ladew sat beside her, and there were times 
+when Joe kept his mind entirely to the work in
+hand only by an effort, but he always succeeded.
+The sight of the pale and worshipping face of
+Happy Fear from the corner of his eye was enough
+to insure that.  And people who could not get
+near the doors, asking those who could, "What's
+he doin' now?" were answered by variations of the
+one formula, "Oh, jest walkin' away with it!"
+
+Once the court-room was disturbed and set in
+an uproar which even the Judge's customary
+threat failed to subdue.  Joe had been talking very
+rapidly, and having turned the point he was making
+with perfect dexterity, the jury listening eagerly,
+stopped for a moment to take a swallow of
+water.  A voice rose over the low hum of the
+crowd in a delirious chuckle:  "Why don't somebody
+`HEAD HIM OFF!' "  The room instantly rocked
+with laughter, under cover of which the identity
+of the sacrilegious chuckler was not discovered,
+but the voice was the voice of Buckalew, who was
+incredibly surprised to find that he had spoken
+aloud.
+
+The jury were "out," after the case had been
+given to them, seventeen minutes and thirty seconds
+by the watch Claudine held in her hand.  The
+little man, whose fate was now on the knees of the
+gods, looked pathetically at the foreman and
+then at the face of his lawyer and began to shake 
+violently, but not with fright.  He had gone to
+the jail on Joe's word, as a good dog goes where
+his master bids, trustfully; and yet Happy had
+not been able to keep his mind from considering
+the horrible chances.  "Don't worry," Joe had
+said.  "It's all right.  I'll see you through."
+And he had kept his word.
+
+The little man was cleared.
+
+It took Happy a long time to get through what
+he had to say to his attorney in the anteroom,
+and even then, of course, he did not manage to put
+it in words, for he had "broken down" with sheer
+gratitude.  "Why, damn ME, Joe," he sobbed,
+"if ever I--if ever you--well, by God! if you
+ever--"  This was the substance of his lingual
+accomplishment under the circumstances.  But
+Claudine threw her arms around poor Joe's neck
+and kissed him.
+
+Many people were waiting to shake hands with
+Joe and congratulate him.  The trio, taking
+advantage of seats near the rail, had already done
+that (somewhat uproariously) before he had followed
+Happy, and so had Ariel and Ladew, both,
+necessarily, rather hurriedly.  But in the
+corridors he found, when he came out of the anteroom,
+clients, acquaintances, friends: old friends,
+new friends, and friends he had never seen before
+--everybody beaming upon him and wringing his
+hand, as if they had been sure of it all from the
+start.
+
+"KNOW him?" said one to another.  "Why, I've
+knowed him sence he was that high!  SMART little
+feller he was, too!"  This was a total stranger.
+
+"I said, years ago"--thus Mr. Brown, the
+"National House" clerk, proving his prophetic vision
+--"that he'd turn out to be a big man some day."
+
+They gathered round him if he stopped for an
+instant, and crowded after him admiringly when
+he went on again, making his progress slow.  When
+he finally came out of the big doors into the
+sunshine, there were as many people in the yard as
+there had been when he stood in the same place
+and watched the mob rushing his client's guards.
+But to-day their temper was different, and as he
+paused a moment, looking down on the upturned,
+laughing faces, with a hundred jocular and
+congratulatory salutations shouted up at him,
+somebody started a cheer, and it was taken up with
+thunderous good-will.
+
+There followed the interrogation customary in
+such emergencies, and the anxious inquirer was
+informed by four or five hundred people simultaneously
+that Joe Louden was all right.
+
+"HEAD HIM OFF!" bellowed Mike Sheehan,
+suddenly darting up the steps.  The shout increased,
+and with good reason, for he stepped quickly back
+within the doors; and, retreating through the building,
+made good his escape by a basement door.
+
+He struck off into a long detour, but though he
+managed to evade the crowd, he had to stop and
+shake hands with every third person he met.  As
+he came out upon Main Street again, he encountered
+his father.
+
+"Howdy do, Joe?" said this laconic person, and
+offered his hand.  They shook, briefly.  "Well,"
+he continued, rubbing his beard, "how are ye?"
+
+"All right, father, I think."
+
+"Satisfied with the verdict?"
+
+"I'd be pretty hard to please if I weren't," Joe
+laughed.
+
+Mr. Louden rubbed his beard again.  "I was
+there," he said, without emotion.
+
+"At the trial, you mean?"
+
+"Yes."  He offered his hand once more, and
+again they shook.  "Well, come around and see
+us," he said.
+
+"Thank you.  I will."
+
+"Well," said Mr. Louden, "good-day, Joe."
+
+"Good-day, father."
+
+
+The young man stood looking after him with a
+curious smile.  Then he gave a slight start.  Far
+up the street he saw two figures, one a lady's, in
+white, with a wide white hat; the other a man's,
+wearing recognizably clerical black.  They seemed
+to be walking very slowly.
+
+It had been a day of triumph for Joe; but in
+all his life he never slept worse than he did that
+night.
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+ANCIENT OF DAYS
+
+He woke to the chiming of bells, and,
+as his eyes slowly opened, the sorrowful
+people of a dream, who seemed
+to be bending over him, weeping,
+swam back into the darkness of the
+night whence they had come, and returned to the
+imperceptible, leaving their shadows in his heart.
+Slowly he rose, stumbled into the outer room, and
+released the fluttering shade; but the sunshine,
+springing like a golden lover through the open
+window, only dazzled him, and found no answering
+gladness to greet it, nor joy in the royal day it
+heralded.
+
+And yet, to the newly cleaned boys on their
+way to midsummer morning Sunday-school, the
+breath of that cool August day was as sweet as
+stolen apples.  No doubt the stir of far, green
+thickets and the twinkle of silver-slippered creeks
+shimmered in the longing vision of their minds'
+eyes; even so, they were merry.  But Joseph
+Louden, sighing as he descended his narrow stairs,
+with the bitterness still upon his lips of the frightful
+coffee he had made, heard the echo of their
+laughter with wonder.
+
+It would be an hour at least before time to start
+to church, when Ariel expected him; he stared
+absently up the street, then down, and, after that,
+began slowly to walk in the latter direction, with
+no very active consciousness, or care, of where he
+went.  He had fallen into a profound reverie, so
+deep that when he had crossed the bridge and
+turned into a dusty road which ran along the
+river-bank, he stopped mechanically beside the
+trunk of a fallen sycamore, and, lifting his head,
+for the first time since he had set out, looked
+about him with a melancholy perplexity, a little
+surprised to find himself there.
+
+For this was the spot where he had first seen the
+new Ariel, and on that fallen sycamore they had
+sat together.  "REMEMBER, ACROSS MAIN STREET
+BRIDGE AT NOON!"  And Joe's cheeks burned, as he
+recalled why he had not understood the clear
+voice that had haunted him.  But that shame had
+fallen from him; she had changed all that, as she
+had changed so many things.  He sank down in
+the long grass, with his back against the log, and
+stared out over the fields of tall corn, shaking in
+a steady wind all the way to the horizon.
+
+"Changed so many things?" he said, half aloud.
+"Everything!"  Ah, yes, she had changed the
+whole world for Joseph Louden--at his first sight
+of her!  And now it seemed to him that he was to
+lose her, but not in the way he had thought.
+
+Almost from the very first, he had the feeling
+that nothing so beautiful as that she should stay
+in Canaan could happen to him.  He was sure that
+she was but for the little while, that her coming
+was like the flying petals of which he had told her.
+
+He had lain upon the earth; and she had lifted
+him up.  For a moment he had felt the beatific
+wings enfolding him with gentle protection, and
+then saw them lifted to bear the angel beyond his
+sight.  For it was incredible that the gods so
+loved Joe Louden that they would make greater
+gifts to him than this little time with her which
+they had granted him.
+
+"Changed so many things?"
+
+The bars that had been between him and half
+of his world were down, shattered, never more to
+be replaced; and the ban of Canaan was lifted.
+Could this have been, save for her?  And upon
+that thought he got to his feet, uttering an
+exclamation of bitter self-reproach, asking himself
+angrily what he was doing.  He knew how much
+she gave him, what full measure of her affection!
+Was not that enough?--Out upon you, Louden!
+Are you to sulk in your tent, dour in the gloom,
+or to play a man's part, and if she be happy, turn
+a cheery face upon her joy?
+
+And thus this pilgrim recrossed the bridge,
+emerging to the street with his head up, smiling,
+and his shoulders thrown back so that none might
+see the burden he carried.
+
+
+Ariel was waiting on the porch for him.  She
+wore the same dress she had worn that Sunday of
+their tryst; that exquisite dress, with the faint
+lavender overtint, like the tender colors of the
+beautiful day he made his own.  She had not worn
+it since, and he was far distant when he caught the
+first flickering glimpse of her through the lower
+branches of the maples, but he remembered. . . .
+And again, as on that day, he heard a far-away,
+ineffable music, the Elf-land horns, sounding the
+mysterious reveille which had wakened his soul to
+her coming.
+
+She came to the gate to meet him, and gave him
+her hand in greeting, without a word--or the need
+of one--from either.  Then together they set forth
+over the sun-flecked pavement, the maples swishing
+above them, heavier branches crooning in the
+strong breeze, under a sky like a Della Robbia
+background.  And up against the glorious blue of
+it, some laughing, invisible god was blowing small,
+rounded clouds of pure cotton, as children blow
+thistledown.
+
+When he opened her parasol, as they came out
+into the broad sunshine beyond Upper Main Street,
+there was the faintest mingling of wild roses and
+cinnamon loosed on the air.
+
+"Joe," she said, "I'm very happy!"
+
+"That's right," he returned, heartily.  "I think
+you always will be."
+
+"But, oh! I wish," she went on, "that Mr. Arp
+could have lived to see you come down the Court-
+house steps."
+
+"God bless him!" said Joe.  "I can hear the
+`argument'!"
+
+"Those dear old men have been so loyal to you, Joe."
+
+"No," he returned; "loyal to Eskew."
+
+"To you both," she said.  "I'm afraid the old
+circle is broken up; they haven't met on the National
+House corner since he died.  The Colonel told
+me he couldn't bear to go there again."
+
+"I don't believe any of them ever will," he
+returned.  "And yet I never pass the place that I
+don't see Eskew in his old chair.  I went there last
+night to commune with him.  I couldn't sleep,
+and I got up, and went over there; they'd left the
+chairs out; the town was asleep, and it was beautiful
+moonlight--"
+
+"To commune with him?  What about?"
+
+"You."
+
+"Why?" she asked, plainly mystified.
+
+"I stood in need of good counsel," he answered,
+cheerfully, "or a friendly word, perhaps, and--as
+I sat there--after a while it came."
+
+"What was it?" 
+
+"To forget that I was sodden with selfishness;
+to pretend not to be as full of meanness as I really
+was!  Doesn't that seem to be Eskew's own voice?"
+
+"Weren't you happy last night, Joe?"
+
+"Oh, it was all right," he said, quickly.  "Don't
+you worry."
+
+And at this old speech of his she broke into a
+little laugh of which he had no comprehension.
+
+"Mamie came to see me early this morning,"
+she said, after they had walked on in silence for
+a time.  "Everything is all right with her again;
+that is, I think it will be.  Eugene is coming home.
+And," she added, thoughtfully, "it will be best
+for him to have his old place on the Tocsin again.
+She showed me his letter, and I liked it.  I think
+he's been through the fire--"
+
+Joe's distorted smile appeared.  "And has come
+out gold?" he asked.
+
+"No," she laughed; "but nearer it!  And I
+think he'll try to be more worth her caring for.
+She has always thought that his leaving the Tocsin
+in the way he did was heroic.  That was her word
+for it.  And it WAS the finest thing he ever did."
+
+"I can't figure Eugene out."  Joe shook his
+head.  "There's something behind his going away
+that I don't understand."  This was altogether
+the truth; nor was there ever to come a time when
+either he or Mamie would understand what things
+had determined the departure of Eugene Bantry;
+though Mamie never questioned, as Joe did, the
+reasons for it, or doubted those Eugene had given
+her, which were the same he had given her father.
+For she was content with his return.
+
+
+Again the bells across the Square rang out their
+chime.  The paths were decorously enlivened with
+family and neighborhood groups, bound churchward;
+and the rumble of the organ, playing the
+people into their pews, shook on the air.  And
+Joe knew that he must speak quickly, if he was
+to say what he had planned to say, before he and
+Ariel went into the church.
+
+"Ariel?"  He tried to compel his voice to a
+casual cheerfulness, but it would do nothing for
+him, except betray a desperate embarrassment.
+
+She looked at him quickly, and as quickly away.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"I wanted to say something to you, and I'd
+better do it now, I think--before I go to church
+for the first time in two years!"  He managed to
+laugh, though with some ruefulness, and continued
+stammeringly:  "I want to tell you how much I
+like him--how much I admire him--"
+
+"Admire whom?" she asked, a little coldly, for
+she knew.
+
+"Mr. Ladew."
+
+"So do I," she answered, looking straight ahead.
+"That is one reason why I wanted you to come
+with me to-day."
+
+"It isn't only that.  I want to tell you--to tell
+you--"  He broke off for a second.  "You
+remember that night in my office before Fear came
+in?"
+
+"Yes; I remember."
+
+"And that I--that something I said troubled
+you because it--it sounded as if I cared too much
+for you--"
+
+"No; not too much."  She still looked straight
+ahead.  They were walking very slowly.  "You
+didn't understand.  You'd been in my mind, you
+see, all those years, so much more than I in yours.
+I hadn't forgotten YOU.  But to you I was really
+a stranger--"
+
+"No, no!" he cried.
+
+"Yes, I was," she said, gently but very quickly.
+"And I--I didn't want you to fall in love with me 
+at first sight.  And yet--perhaps I did!  But I
+hadn't thought of things in that way.  I had just
+the same feeling for you that I always had--
+always!  I had never cared so much for any one else,
+and it seemed to me the most necessary thing in
+my life to come back to that old companionship--
+Don't you remember--it used to trouble you so
+when I would take your hand?  I think I loved
+your being a little rough with me.  And once,
+when I saw how you had been hurt, that day you
+ran away--"
+
+"Ariel!" he gasped, helplessly.
+
+"Have you forgotten?"
+
+He gathered himself together with all his will.
+"I want to prove to you," he said, resolutely,
+"that the dear kindness of you isn't thrown away
+on me; I want you to know what I began to say:
+that it's all right with me; and I think Ladew--"
+He stopped again.  "Ah!  I've seen how much he
+cares for you--"
+
+"Have you?"
+
+"Ariel," he said, "that isn't fair to me, if you
+trust me.  You could not have helped seeing--"
+
+"But I have not seen it," she interrupted, with
+great calmness.  After having said this, she finished
+truthfully:  "If he did, I would never let him
+tell me.  I like him too much."
+
+"You mean you're not going to--"
+
+Suddenly she turned to him.  "NO!" she said,
+with a depth of anger he had not heard in her
+voice since that long-ago winter day when she
+struck Eugene Bantry with her clenched fist.
+She swept over him a blinding look of reproach.
+"How could I?"
+
+And there, upon the steps of the church, in the
+sudden, dazzling vision of her love, fell the burden
+of him who had made his sorrowful pilgrimage
+across Main Street bridge that morning.
+
+
+A manifold rustling followed them as they went
+down the aisle, and the sibilance of many whisperings;
+but Joe was not conscious of that, as he
+took his place in Ariel's pew beside her.  For him
+there was only the presence of divinity; the church
+was filled with it.
+
+
+They rose to sing:
+
+   "Ancient of days, Who sittest, throned in glory,
+      To Thee all knees are bent, all voices pray;
+   Thy love has blest the wide world's wondrous story
+      With light and life since Eden's dawning day."
+
+
+And then, as they knelt to pray, there were the
+white heads of the three old friends of Eskew Arp;
+and beyond was the silver hair of Martin Pike,
+who knelt beside his daughter.  Joe felt that people
+should be very kind to the Judge.
+
+
+The sun, so eager without, came temperately
+through the windows, where stood angels and
+saints in gentle colors, and the face of the young
+minister in this quiet light was like the faces in
+the windows. . . .
+
+"Not only to confront your enemies," he said;
+"that is not enough; nor is it that I would have you
+bluster at them, nor take arms against them; you
+will not have to do that if, when they come at
+you, you do not turn one inch aside, but with an
+assured heart, with good nature, not noisily, and
+with steadfastness, you keep on your way.  If
+you can do that, I say that they will turn aside
+for you, and you shall walk straight through them,
+and only laughter be left of their anger!"
+
+There was a stir among the people, and many
+faces turned toward Joe.  Two years ago he had
+sat in the same church, when his character and
+actions had furnished the underlying theme of a
+sermon, and he had recognized himself without
+difficulty: to-day he had not the shadow of a
+dream that the same thing was happening.  He
+thought the people were turning to look at Ariel,
+and he was very far from wondering at that.
+
+She saw that he did not understand; she was
+glad to have it so.  She had taken off her gloves,
+and he was holding them lightly and reverently in
+his hands, looking down upon them, his thin cheeks 
+a little flushed.  And at that, and not knowing
+the glory that was in his soul, something forlorn
+in his careful tenderness toward her gloves so
+touched her that she felt the tears coming to her
+eyes with a sudden rush.  And to prevent them.
+
+"Not the empty gloves, Joe," she whispered.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Conquest of Canaan
+