TREATY ELM.
Andrew Zane was leaning on his elbow, in bed, listening to the tolling bell for the old pastor of Kensington. He had not attended the funeral, fearing to trust his eyes and heart near Calvin Van de Lear, for the unruly element in his blood was not wholly stilled. Good and evil, gratitude and recollection, contended within him, and Agnes just escaped from the long shadow of his father's rage—had forebodings of some violence when the two young men should meet in the little thoroughfare of Kensington—the one with the accumulated indignities he had suffered liable to be aroused by the other's shallow superciliousness. Agnes had but one friend to carry her fears to—Him "who never forsaketh." She had not persisted that her husband should attend the old pastor's funeral, whither Duff Salter escorted her, and going there, relieved from all imputation, her evidently wedded state was seen with general respect. People spoke to her as of old, congratulated her even at the grave, and sought to repair their own misapprehensions, suspicions, and severities, which Agnes accepted without duplicity.
Andrew Zane was leaning up in bed hearing the tolling bell when Agnes reappeared.
"Husband," she said, "only Knox Van de Lear was at the grave, of the pastor's sons."
"Ha!" exclaimed Andrew.
"He looked worse than grief could make him. A terrible tale is afloat in Kensington."
Husband and wife looked at each other a moment in silence.
"They say," continued Agnes, "that Calvin Van de Lear has fled with his brother's wife. That is the talk of the town. Professing to desire some clothing for the funeral, they took a carriage together, and were driven to Tacony yesterday, where the afternoon train, meeting the steamboat from Philadelphia, took them on board for New York."
Andrew fell back on his pillow.
"God has hedged me all around," he answered. "While Calvin Van de Lear lived in Kensington I was in revengeful temptation all the time. He has escaped, and my soul is oppressed no more. Do you know, Agnes, that the guilty accomplice of Calvin, his brother's wife, wrote all the worst letters which anonymously came through the post?"