PART THIRD—THE GIN
CHAPTER I
ALICE WESTMORE
It is remarkable how small a part of our real life the world knows—how little our most intimate friends know of the secret influences which have proven to be climaxes, at the turning points of our existence.
There was no more beautiful woman in Alabama than Alice Westmore; and throughout that state, where the song birds seem to develop, naturally, along with the softness of the air, and the gleam of the sunshine, and the lullaby of the Gulf's soft breeze among the pine trees, there was no one, they say, who could sing as she sang.
And she seemed to have caught it from her native mocking-birds, so natural was it. Not when they sing in the daylight, when everything is bright and joyous and singing is so easy; but when they waken at midnight amid the arbor vitæ trees, and under the sweet, sad influence of a winter moon, pour out their half awakened notes to the star-sprays which fall in mist to blend and sparkle around the soft neck of the night.