It was an admirable portrait of Dr. Grey, clad in full uniform as surgeon in the U.S. Navy, and painted when he was twenty-eight years old. Up at that calm, cloudless countenance, the girl looked breathlessly, spell-bound as if in the presence of a reproving angel; and, after some seconds had elapsed, she hurled the unopened letter across the room, and lifted her hands appealingly,—

“No,—no! I did not—I cannot—I will not act so basely! I must not soil fingers that should be pure enough to touch yours. I was sorely tempted, my beloved; but, thank God, your blessed blue eyes saved me. It is hard to endure nine hours of suspense, but harder still to bear the thought that I have stooped to a deed that would sink me one iota in your good opinion. I will root out the ignoble tendencies of my nature, and keep my heart and lips and hands stainless,—hold them high above the dishonorable things that you abhor, and live during your absence as if your clear eyes took cognizance of every detail. Yea,—search me as you will, dear deep-blue eyes,—I shall not shrink; for the rule of my future years shall be to scorn every word, thought, and deed that I would not freely bare to the scrutiny of the man whose respect I would sooner die than forfeit. Oh, my darling, it were easier for me to front the fiercest flames of Tophet than face your scorn! I can wait till Miss Jane sees fit to show me the letter, and, if it bring good news of your speedy coming, I shall have my reward; if not, why should I hasten to meet a bitter disappointment which may be lagging out of mercy to me?”

Picking up the letter as suspiciously as if it had been 94 dropped by the Prince of Darkness on the crest of Quarantina, she stepped upon a table and inserted the corner of the envelope in the crevice between the canvas and the portrait-frame, repeating the while a favorite passage that she had first heard from Dr. Grey’s lips,—

“‘God meant me good too, when he hindered me
From saying “yes” this morning. I say no,—no!
I tie up “no” upon His altar-horns,
Quite out of reach of perjury!’”

Young though she was, experience had taught her that the most effectual method of locking the wheels of time consisted in sitting idly down to watch and count their revolutions; consequently, she hastened upstairs and betook herself vigorously to the work of embroidering a parterre of flowers on the front breadth of an infant’s christening dress which her employer had promised should be completed before the following Sabbath.

Stab the laggard seconds as she might with her busy needle, the day was drearily long; and few genuine cuckoo-carols have been listened to with such grateful rejoicing as greeted those metallic gutturals that once in every sixty minutes issued from the throat of the gaudy automaton caged in the gilt clock.

True, nine hours are intrinsically nine hours under all circumstances, whether decapitation or coronation awaits their expiration; but to the doomed victim or the heir-apparent they appear relatively shorter or longer. At last Salome saw that the shadows on the grass were lengthening. Her head ached, her eyes burned from steady application to her trying work, and laying aside the cambric, she leaned against the window-facing and looked out over the lawn, where Time seemed to have fallen asleep in the mild autumn sunshine.

How sweet and welcome was the distance-muffled sound of tinkling cow-bells, and the low bleating of homeward-strolling flocks, wending their way across the hills through which the road crawled like a dusty gray serpent.

A noisy club of black-birds that had been holding an indignation 95 meeting in the top of a walnut tree near the gate, adjourned to the sycamore grove that overshadowed the barn in the rear of the house; and Stanley’s pigeons, which had been cooing and strutting in the avenue, went to roost in the pretty painted pagoda Dr. Grey had erected for their comfort. Finally, the low-swung, heavy carriage, with its stout dappled horses, gladdened Salome’s strained eyes; and, soon after, she heard the thump of Miss Jane’s crutches and her cheerful voice, asking,—

“Where are the children? Tell them I have come home. Bless me, the house is as dark as a dungeon! Rachel, have we neither lamps nor candles?”