A Modern Madonna

A Modern Madonna

By

Caroline Abbot Stanley

Author Of "Order No. 11"

New York

Grosset & Dunlap

Publishers

1906

TO THE FRAGRANT MEMORY

OF A SWEET YOUNG MOTHER WHO FACED DEATH

IN THE BATTLE OF MATERNITY—

AND LOST

Contents

CHAPTER I
THE WOMAN

A hush fell on the waiting throng at old St. John's. The soft babble of modulated voices died suddenly away as from the greenery and the daisies of the chancel a singer's voice rose sweet and clear. The white-ribboned, white-canvased aisles were ready for the coming of a bride's feet, and the wedding guests imprisoned behind the silken bands bent forward expectantly to hear her nuptial song.

That song, as was most meet, breathed love and perfect trust; when it was finished there were tears in many eyes. Women's hearts are very tender at weddings, and the song was in the universal key.

In the vestibule, other ears were bending to catch the strains. With the first note Judge Kirtley raised his hand enjoining silence, and the ushers and the maids fell back, leaving the old man and his companion listening at the door. Upon his arm was Margaret, child of his love, though not of his blood. She was the daughter of his old friend, who, with his dying breath, had left her to his charge. He had been faithful to his trust; he had been to her a father; and she, coming into his childless home, had filled a daughter's place. It would be lonely enough without her.

But it was not this that filled his mind as he listened to the song. He was thinking with the sense of helplessness that comes to every father, to every faithful guardian at a time like this, that he had done all he could; his trust was over; a moment more and he would give her for all time into the keeping of another. Would that other rise to meet the trust? This was the question reiterating itself in his soul. Did Victor De Jarnette know women's hearts—how strong they were to bear, how quick to bleed? Was his a hand that could be both strong and gentle? None other, he knew, could safely guide this girl of his. Margaret was high-strung and impetuous; her capacity for sorrow and for joy had sometimes made him stand aghast. Victor De Jarnette could make a heaven on earth for her, or—

He did not finish, but involuntarily he pressed close to him the white-gloved hand, and Margaret looked up wonderingly, marveling to see his face so stern. There was no shadow on her sky to-day. Her soul was in tune with the singer's rhapsody.

The song ended. There was a soft bustle in the vestibule; the majestic measures of Lohengrin filled her ears; the bridesmaids shook out their plumage and moved on; the flower girls were scattering roses for her path; and with uplifted head and shining eyes Margaret Varnum went forward to meet her lover.

In the chancel, proud, erect, and confident, stood Victor De Jarnette, waiting for her coming. In his black eyes was the triumph of possession. There were others in that church who had sought to win Margaret Varnum, and he did not forget it.

"He's a devilish handsome fellow!" whispered a young officer in the south transept to his companion.

"Yes," was the reply, "with the primary accent on the adverb, eh?"

"Why doesn't his brother take part in it?" asked Mrs. Pennybacker of her niece, "as best man or usher or something?"

Mrs. Van Dorn shrugged her shapely shoulders.

"He is opposed to it, I believe. Not to Margaret especially, but to marriage in general. I don't suppose you could persuade him to take part in a wedding—now."

"What is the matter with the man?" demanded her aunt. "He doesn't look like a crank. What can have given him such a bias as this?"

Her niece smiled enigmatically. "Modesty forbids that I should say much on the subject, my dear aunt. But there are people who are unkind enough to lay to your niece's charge Richard De Jarnette's change of heart. She certainly remembers when he held altogether different views."

"Do you mean to say, Maria,—"

"Oh, no, certainly not, so don't look at me like that. I am only telling you what people say. Ah! There come the bridesmaids. Isn't that pink gown a dream?"

Mrs. Pennybacker was looking past the bridal party to the front pew, where sat Victor De Jarnette's elder brother, stern and unbending. By his side was a younger man, who spoke to him from time to time in a light way as if to cheer him, but his pleasantries elicited scant response. It was his friend, Dr. Semple. The two were the sole occupants of the pew reserved for the family of the bridegroom. The De Jarnette brothers were singularly alone.

"I don't believe it," thought Mrs. Pennybacker as she studied the man's face. "He doesn't look to me like a man who would lose his head over Maria, poor thing! as pretty as she is. Some women can make an offer of marriage out of an invitation to a prayer-meeting, and see a love letter in a note beginning, 'My dear madam.' Still, you can't tell. Maria has a pretty face. And men are great fools."

There was not a flaw in the matchless ceremony which has come down to us as a heritage from the ages; not a faltering note in either voice. "To love and to cherish ... till death us do part." This was their plighted troth.

The church's challenge rang out boldly.

"If any man can show just cause why these two persons may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter forever hold his peace."

A stillness fell upon the place. But no man spoke.

At that most searching admonition, "I require and charge you both, as ye will answer in the dreadful day of judgment ... if either of you know any impediment why ye may not be lawfully joined together ... ye do now confess it," they searched their souls, but if they found impediment it stood unconfessed.

Once, Margaret felt her lover's hand close suddenly on hers and then relax. She loved him for his vehemence, and gave an answering clasp. At that moment those near the door looked into each other's faces with startled, questioning gaze and bent their heads to listen. No sound was heard above the rector's solemn monotone and the response.

"Victor, wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded wife?" The straining ears relaxed and gave heed to the bridegroom's vow. "Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honor and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?"

And Victor De Jarnette answered resonantly,

"I will."

Kneeling, they asked God's benediction on their wedded lives; then down the aisle in radiant happiness they led the train,—one flesh, if there be aught in vows—for evermore.

"Did you hear anything during that ceremony?" asked John Jarvis, the lawyer, of his wife as they drove away.

She looked up eagerly. "Yes. Did you?"

"I thought I did. What was it, do you think?"

"It sounded to me like a knock—"

"Yes,—"

"—and then a cry, faint, but like a woman's voice."

They spoke in guarded tones, but the old carriage driver, who had been in the family for twenty years and was a privileged character, heard and touched his hat.

"Dat was a crazy woman, miss, de p'liceman say, tryin' to git in widout no ticket. Dey run 'er in. Yaas, miss."

A knot of men who had likewise heard the knock discussed it as they walked toward Pennsylvania Avenue.

"He's been wild," said one, raising his brow, and his companion answered with easy tolerance,

"Oh, yes, of course. But he has sowed his wild oats, and now he is ready to settle down."

A lady, passing, caught the words and their drift.

"Did you ever notice," she said thoughtfully to her husband, who walked beside her, "that people always say, 'Oh well, he has sowed his wild oats,' as if that finished it? But in the country, where I was born, we sow our oats and know that we will reap. I imagine 'wild oats' are not very different from other kinds."

CHAPTER II
THE ELDER BROTHER

"Some of him lived but the most of him died—

(Even as you and I!)"

"For one thing he is too young," said Richard De Jarnette. "At twenty-one a man is still a boy, unless he has had more to develop him than Victor has ever had. And besides—"

And there he stopped.

It was the evening after the wedding, and the two men sat in the library of Richard De Jarnette's K Street house. It had seemed rather a gloomy place until the genial doctor was ushered in, for when young life goes out of a home by way of the wedding route, it leaves almost as great a gap as if there had been a funeral.

The elder De Jarnette permitted himself few friends, other than those in business circles, and no intimates, if we may except the one who had come to him to-night guided by love's instinct. He and Dr. Semple had been boys together in college, had had their maiden love affairs about the same time, and had recovered from them with about the same expedition. They knew each other, as the doctor was wont to remark pleasantly, "from the ground up."

But the doctor, even while saying this, was quite aware that he did not know Richard De Jarnette from the ground down—that is to say, to the roots of his nature. He occasionally came upon unexpected subterranean passages in the man's character, leading he knew not whither, for when upon two or three occasions he had attempted to explore these interesting byways, he had come suddenly upon a sign which said so plainly that the wayfaring man, though a fool, might read: "No trespassing allowed." And Dr. Semple, being a wise man and not a fool, always made haste to vacate when he saw this legend. He knew, what the rest of their world knew, that Richard De Jarnette was a rising business man, of strict integrity and tireless energy, and he knew what their world did not know, that there had been a time when his life had not been bounded by the four walls of his office, or the prim severity of a home presided over by a housekeeper,—a time when he had had his dreams like the rest. Then when he had not much more than made his masculine début into society, he had suddenly dropped from its ranks and given himself thenceforward wholly to business. There had been some speculation about the cause of this sudden lapse of interest, even among his male acquaintances, and more, of course, among those of the sex which is rightly supposed to have greater curiosity upon these subjects. But it is a very busy world. Broken ranks in any procession soon fill up,—and nobody sought him out in his seclusion save Dr. Semple.

He had never been a very successful society man, in truth having few of the social gifts which are there more imperative than either character or learning. And besides, he had no real love for it, and people rarely excel in the thing to which they are indifferent. Since his unceremonious dropping out he had devoted himself exclusively to business and his books. His one friend was Dr. Semple,—his one passion, his love for his young half-brother, who had shared his home since the death of their father.

"Of course that isn't your real reason for opposing this marriage, De Jarnette," said the doctor, easily. "I understand that. You don't want him to marry at all, and you know it."

Mr. De Jarnette smiled grimly.

"I admit it. I have made no pretence of denying it to myself, and since you seem rather skilful at diagnosis, I suppose it is not worth while to deny it to you. The truth is, Semple," the explanatory tone had in it almost an appeal, "I have looked out for this boy's welfare since the day—" his face darkened—"the day he so sorely needed it. I—I suppose I have got in the habit of it."

"You've spoiled him. There's no doubt of that," agreed his companion cheerfully. "But I should think that now you would be glad to see his future in the hands of a good woman like Margaret Varnum. It is a safeguard, Dick,—one that you and I haven't availed ourselves of, it is true, but still a safeguard. I am sure of it."

"You are sure of nothing where a woman is concerned," declared Richard De Jarnette, deliberately. "You may think you are, listening to their protestations, but you will find out your mistake sooner or later. They are treacherous, Bob. You cast your pearls before them and when they find they are not diamonds, they turn and rend you. I know them. They are not to be trusted."

"There are women and women, I suppose. You will agree that there are several varieties of men. There is Slyter, for instance."

"Slyter is a beast," said Mr. De Jarnette, with a gesture of disgust.

"He belongs to our sex. We can't disown him, much as we would like to. But we would hardly wish to be judged by him. If you belonged to my profession, De Jarnette, you would know women better and do them more justice."

"I know them—know them better than you do. At least, I know a side of them that you have never seen because you have never been to school to them."

Dr. Semple threw his head back and blew out slowly what seemed to be an inexhaustible volume of smoke. Every thought seemed concentrated upon it. When the last of it had floated off into thin air he remarked quietly, "You have never quite got over it, Dick."

He had deliberately pushed aside the sign and walked into the forbidden grounds. Somewhat to his surprise, for he hardly knew himself how it would be taken, he found his friend walking by his side.

Mr. De Jarnette flipped the ash from his cigar and then answered composedly, "I have got over it so entirely that the sight of her causes no more commotion in my breast than the vision of the scrub lady who daily puts the outer hall in order. I hope you are wasting no sympathy upon me. I haven't even any bitterness about it,—and certainly no regret. It has simply left me with more knowledge of women. That is all. And that is worth all it cost. It is what has rendered me immune all these years. 'A burnt child,' you know."

An expression of curious relief came into the physician's face.

"Do you know, Dick, I have always had a lingering ghost of a fear—now that she is a widow—and it would be possible, don't you know, that—"

"Bah-h! I beg you will not do me the injustice of the thought. Do you know, Semple, the incomprehensible thing about it now to me is that I should ever have wasted love upon her. I have asked myself a hundred times what it was I thought I loved and where it had gone. That is where the sting of it comes in. It isn't that she should have thrown me over for the old man and his millions,—but that I shouldn't have known from the first that she wasn't—oh, well! It is over. It is just exactly with me as though it had never been, except—"

"Except—"

"—that I am wiser."

"But not better," thought the physician. "The trouble about these things is that they never leave a man the same. Something is always burned out of him." Aloud he said, "She is only one woman, Dick. A man always has a mother."

Richard De Jarnette's face softened less than one would suppose.

"My mother was but a name to me," he said. "She died in giving me birth. I have—"

"Then by her birth pangs she has made you a debtor to all womankind," interrupted the doctor, a little sternly, "and if she gave her life for yours—"

"I do not acknowledge the indebtedness," his host returned, coldly. "I did not ask to be brought into this world. Now that I am here I can do nothing less than try to keep myself up, but I do not see that I have any special cause for gratitude to the ones who imposed this responsibility upon me."

"If your mother had lived, De Jarnette, you would have felt differently," said the doctor, quietly, almost gently. "You would have known then, as you never can now, the breadth and depth of a mother's devotion."

"You forget that my father was thoughtful enough to provide me with a second mother. And since I recall it, perhaps you may remember the depth of that mother's devotion to her child."

He spoke with bitterest satire.

"I have only heard rumors about it," answered his friend.

"I'll tell you that story. A few words will do. The mother that my father gave me when I was nine years old, set herself first of all to alienate his affections from me, his child, and succeeded."

"She would have failed if he had been your mother," interjected the doctor in the slight pause.

"I am not sure of that, though I mean no disrespect to a mother who was buried too deep to rescue her child from all the indignities that woman heaped upon him. I will pass quickly over that, Semple. To this day it hurts me to think of it. I have never seen a man cruel to a child since without wanting to kill him, and a woman—"

"Was it the same after her own child came?"

"It was worse. She was jealous then in addition to being vindictive. If she had only been cruel to me and kind to him, I believe I could have stood it. For I loved that boy as I have loved few things in life. But she was cruel to him too. She neglected him. And finally—well, you know how it ended. Everybody knows the dishonor she brought on the name of De Jarnette. That is one thing I hate her for. From the time she left her child, a helpless baby of four years, I have had no faith in so-called mother-love. It is good to talk about. It sounds well. It is all right till the test comes—and sometimes the test never does come—but if it does, they'll fly the track every time. You can't depend on a woman. They are treacherous."

"What effect did her going away have on your father—in his relations to you, I mean? Did it bring his affections back to you?"

"No. You would suppose it would have had that effect, but it didn't. It made him misanthropic and hard. He could not bear Victor in his sight. The child seemed to be a constant reminder of the mother and the disgrace she had brought upon him. Then it was that I got into the habit of looking out for him. My father was a hard man—an unforgiving man. He ruled with a rod of iron. I've taken many a whipping that would have fallen upon Victor, small as he was, if I hadn't lied for him."

"Perhaps you would have done him better service to have let them fall upon him," the doctor was thinking.

"You see how it is, Bob. That is why he has always seemed so close to me. I really think of him more as my child than my half-brother. And that's why it hurts.... Oh, well! If he had only waited a few years I think I could have consented to it with a better grace. But my consent wasn't asked."

On his way home Dr. Semple looked at it with a professional eye. "The man has a wrong bias," he said, at last. "It was a case of malpractice, and it has left him with his nature out of joint. If he could have a hard enough wrench in the right hands it might be re-set. But where is the surgeon?" Then he went back to the cause. "Women are accountable for a deal of evil in this world. And it doesn't all come by 'ordinary generation,' as the catechism puts it. Oh, well!"

CHAPTER III
MRS. PENNYBACKER OF MISSOURI

Two or three weeks after the wedding Mrs. Pennybacker sat with her niece in the elegantly appointed library of the mansion that old Cornelius Van Dorn had left to his bereaved widow.

Mrs. Van Dorn had enjoyed her crape, and was now in the softly alleviated stage of violet and heliotrope, which looked so well on her that she was tempted to prolong indefinitely this twilight of her grief. Certainly nothing could be more bewitching than the lavender housegown which enveloped her to-day, with its falls and cascades of soft lace and its coquettish velvet bows.

She was smiling complacently just now at this blond-haired reflection in the mirror as she leaned on the mantel.

"No, I don't believe I shall take off my mourning for another year," she said, half aloud, turning her head a little to one side to adjust a bow in her hair, "at least, not quite. Then perhaps I shall have a season of grays—a velvet hat with long feathers and a cut steel ornament. Soft shades are certainly becoming to me—and I dislike to see people rush into colors immediately, as if they had no feeling at all." The widowed lady sighed softly, as was her wont when referring to her bereavement. It seemed to go well with lavender.

"Your love for purple, Maria," observed Mrs. Pennybacker, ignoring the sentiment of these remarks and grasping promptly their salient point, as was her wont, "is an inherited one. Your mother used to feel when she had on a new purple calico or lawn that she was about as fine as they made them. And if she could get hold of a purple ribbon—"

"Aunt Mary," said Mrs. Van Dorn, in polite exasperation, "if you have to refer to those old days and what you wore, why don't you speak of muslins and organdies instead of calicoes and such things?"

"Because they were not muslins and organdies. They were calicoes and lawns—ten-cent lawns at that, and mighty glad we were to get them."

"Well!" ejaculated Mrs. Van Dorn, in marked disgust, "I can't see any good in constantly advertising the fact, any more than I can see why you should say, as you did to Congressman Andrews last night, that you were from 'Possum Kingdom.'"

Mrs. Pennybacker's lips twitched in a reminiscent smile. "I did that to be explicit. He wanted to know what part of Callaway I was from and I had to tell him. I couldn't dodge. I was born in 'Possum Kingdom.' I thought he seemed to enjoy hearing about it."

"Enjoy it? Yes—at your expense."

"I didn't mind, Maria. It started us on a very mirthful talk. You ought to be thankful that I didn't tell him you were born there too."

"I don't want you ever to tell that to anybody. I am not a Missourian. I am a Washingtonian."

"Maria," said Mrs. Pennybacker, firmly, "you are a Missourian. It is too late now for you to select a birthplace. If you ever get into Statuary Hall (which I somewhat doubt) you will have to be written down from 'Possum Kingdom,' for there you were born."

Mrs. Van Dorn contented herself with a sniff.

"Anyway," continued Mrs. Pennybacker, argumentatively, "I don't see why one wouldn't rather have been born in a great sovereign state like Missouri—an empire in itself—than in a little two by four asparagus bed set like a patch on top of two other states, and not set straight at that. I never had any opinion of people who are ashamed of their native state, even if that was a state of poverty, and yours was a State of affluence."

"If you call calico and ten-cent lawn affluence—" began Mrs. Van Dorn.

"I was speaking of the commonwealth, Maria," Mrs. Pennybacker explained, with suspicious mildness, "a State of affluence written with a capital."

"I never even let Richard De Jarnette know I was from Missouri all the time he was coming to see me. I told him my mother was a Virginian, which was the truth. And that I was a Washingtonian."

"Which was—?"

"Oh, I suppose so.... And I have never let one soul know, Aunt Mary, where you are from."

Mrs. Pennybacker faced her. "You haven't! Well, if I were not going home to-morrow I should make a point of telling every acquaintance you have. Do you think I am ashamed of Missouri? I should as soon think of disowning the mother that bore me. Why should you hesitate to tell Mr. De Jarnette where you were from?"

"I thought a good deal about his opinion in those days, and—"

"Is he as provincial as all that?"

"He has always lived in the East and you know how Eastern people feel about the West."

"I don't know how they feel. But I know how they might feel if they knew anything about it. If the World's Fair is held in Chicago, I suspect it will open their eyes to a few things. Where are these De Jarnettes from?"

"It is an old Maryland family. There are just two of them left now, Richard and Victor. The father died years ago, leaving a large estate to his sons. Then Richard is wealthy in his own right. His property comes mainly from an aunt who did not like Victor's mother. ... No, they are only half-brothers. Victor hasn't nearly so much money as Richard. It turns out that Richard has so much more than anybody ever supposed he had years ago." Mrs. Van Dorn's mouth sank into a slightly regretful droop, as if the subject had its stings.

"Maria, you remind me of a woman I used to know in Missouri. Whenever a girl was married and anybody asked this old lady how she had done, she always said, in her slow drawl, 'Well, I really don't know how much the man is worth.' What is there to these De Jarnettes besides money? I want to know something about Margaret's chances for happiness."

"Oh, it is a fine family. She has done well. I really think that Richard has shown himself sometimes quite hard, but the two are not at all alike. Victor's mother was a French woman, or of French descent. That is where he gets his complexion, I suppose,—and perhaps his morals, for I guess he has been pretty fast. There was an awful scandal about his mother years ago, I've heard. Of course Richard never mentioned it to me, but I know he hates her like poison. I think she went off with another man or something like that—some dreadful thing that couldn't be talked about above your breath. Anyway, she disappeared and never came back—left her child—and all that. The story goes that she wanted to come back after a while, but old Mr. De Jarnette never forgave her. I think they really are very unforgiving—Richard has proved himself so. Yes, the boys were raised by the father and a negro nurse. They have a beautiful estate out here in Maryland—Elmhurst. Richard keeps it up and stays out there in the summer, or at least he did when I had an interest in him, which was ages ago."

"How old is Victor De Jarnette?"

"Twenty-one. He just came into his money last winter. He is two years older than Margaret."

Mrs. Pennybacker shook her head. "Too young entirely."

"Richard is ten years older than Victor. If she could have got him now,—but—" Mrs. Van Dorn tossed her pretty head—"I don't believe anybody will ever capture Richard De Jarnette, unless—"

The sentence was unfinished, but she looked demurely at the lavender reflection in the mirror opposite. It is hard for a woman to forget a man who has once been at her feet.

After a long silence Mrs. Pennybacker, who had evidently been pondering something, said abruptly, "Maria, where did you say Margaret's new home was? I think I shall go to see her this afternoon."

"Why, Aunt Mary, you can't. She isn't at home until September."

"But I am going away tomorrow. I can't hang around here till September. And I am an old, old friend of her mother's. Don't you think she would excuse the informality under the circumstances?"

"Certainly not. You oughtn't to think of going."

"Very well," said Mrs. Pennybacker, "perhaps you are right. What did you say was her number? I may want to write to her some time."

She acquiesced in the proposed restriction of her movements without further remonstrance and an hour later sallied forth, address in hand, to find Margaret De Jarnette.

"That's always the best way to conduct a discussion with Maria," she said to herself. "It saves time and temper."

A fairer sight than Washington in May it would be hard to find. Too many of our great cities are but stupendous aggregations of brick and mortar, of flagstones and concrete, of elevators that climb to dizzy heights, and dark stairways which lead to a teeming under-world. Most of them, if called upon to give their own biographies, could do it as tersely and as truthfully as did Topsy, and in her immortal words,—"I jes growed."

But fortunately the nation's capital was planned, and wisely planned, by a far-seeing brain, which beheld with the eye of faith while yet they were not, broad-shaded avenues flung out across the checkerboard of streets like green-bordered ribbons radiating in all directions from that massive pile which is to all good Americans (in spite of Dr. Holmes and Boston's claims) the true hub of our special universe. It is these transverse avenues which make the special beauty and distinction of the capital city—not in themselves alone, but in the miniature parks and triangular bits of greenery that they leave in their wake.

It was up Massachusetts Avenue, one of the most beautiful of them all, that Mrs. Pennybacker wended her way, consulting from time to time a card she held in her hand. She stopped at last at the door of a gray stone house, shaded by a row of elms. The "parking," as they call it, is rather wide on Massachusetts Avenue, and the lawn was green and well kept. There was an air of quiet elegance about the place that pleased Mrs. Pennybacker. "The exterior is all that can be desired, at any rate," she commented.

She sent up her card and waited in the parlor. The boy returned to say that Mrs. De Jarnette would be down immediately. When he was gone, Mrs. Pennybacker began a close perusal, so to speak, of her surroundings.

"A beautiful room," she announced to herself at length, "a beautiful room. For myself, I don't know that I like this Persian rug as well as I would a good body brussels that covered the whole floor, but that is only my taste. You have to get used to bare spots on a floor before you really appreciate them, I suppose.... Well, if happiness lies in things (and I am not surer of anything in this world than that it doesn't) Margaret will be very happy here. I wish I felt sure of—"

The sentence was unfinished. At this moment a slight lithe figure ran swiftly down the stairs and fell upon her in the most unceremonious manner.

"I am so glad to see you! You are the Mrs. Pennybacker from Missouri who was my mother's old friend, aren't you? I have heard my father speak of you so often."

"You take a different view of it from my niece, Mrs. Van Dorn," said Mrs. Pennybacker, after the greetings were over. "She said it wouldn't do at all for me to come. In fact, I ran off to do it."

"I am so glad you did," laughed Margaret. "I wouldn't have missed your visit for anything. I wish you could have been at my wedding."

"I was. I have made it a point in a long life never to miss anything that I can see legitimately and respectably. My niece secured an invitation for me. I supposed you knew."

"Was that for you? I remember Mrs. Van Dorn's asking permission to bring a friend, but I did not dream that it was anybody I ought to know."

"I live in an obscure place," Mrs. Pennybacker explained, "and Maria seems to associate obscurity with disreputableness. It is one of her little peculiarities not to wish it known that she has friends in Missouri. Oh, no, I don't mind." Then, dismissing Mrs. Van Dorn and her peculiarities, "You are very much like your mother, my dear."

"Oh, do you think so? I am always glad to be told that—although I know so little about her myself. Do you think I look like her or is it my manner?"

Mrs. Pennybacker scanned critically the bright face opposite.

"Both. You are taller, I think, but you have her supple grace—I noticed it as you ran down the stairs—and her animation. I am glad of that, for it was one of her greatest charms."

Margaret laughed. "I'm afraid I have too much animation,—but I can't help it. You see I feel things rather intensely. My enjoyment is so real that I don't know how to keep from showing it."

"I hope you will never learn. A fresh enthusiasm about everything as it comes, and a capacity to enjoy, are among God's best gifts to us. They have but one drawback."

"And that is—?"

"A corresponding capacity for suffering," said Mrs. Pennybacker, with sudden gravity, as she looked into the young face. "Those two characteristics often go together. But don't be afraid to enjoy with intensity, my dear. It is about that as it is with brilliant color. You often hear girls bewail their pink cheeks, but time almost always tones it down, Margaret. I may call you that, may I not? It almost seems to me that the years have been obliterated and that your mother is beside me."

"Oh, I want you to call me that. It is so lovely to see somebody that knew my mother. You always continued friends, didn't you? Nothing ever came between you?"

"Nothing—not even death. She seems close to me now, as I sit looking at you."

Impulsively Margaret threw her arms around her mother's friend. "Oh, you bring her closer to me than she has ever been in all my life. Tell me about her."

They sat long together, the older woman living over for the girl the life of the mother she had never known,—her girlhood, the marriage, the brief wedded life, and its untimely close.

"I love to hear you tell about it," Margaret said, a tender light in her eyes. "I have known so little of my mother. Somehow father never talked with me much about her. I think it hurt him to remember."

"He was very fond of her," Mrs. Pennybacker said, "and she of him. I never knew a purer love match, nor a happier married life."

"And yet she had to give it up so soon. Oh, Mrs. Pennybacker, it seems to me the saddest thing to want to live and have to die! I don't think anything could be harder than that."

"Yes. There is something harder than that, Margaret. It is to want to die and have to live."

Margaret's face expressed incredulity.

Her head was thrown back with a gesture that was habitual with her, and her eyes shining.

"You are very happy, Margaret?" said Mrs. Pennybacker, softly.

"I don't think anybody could be happier. It almost frightens me sometimes to think how happy. You see, my husband—" she said it in the pretty, hesitating way that young girls use who have not yet got accustomed to the word,—"my husband is so good to me. It seems so blessed to have somebody's tender care around me all the time. I think that is what makes a woman love a man, don't you?... And then I am so glad to have a home. I have never had a home since father died. I don't mean to say that they were not everything to me at Judge Kirtley's that friends could be—you understand that—but they were not my very own, nor I theirs. And I had mourned for father so—had missed him so desperately. I thought of that time when you were speaking of a capacity for suffering. But after a while—well, you know how those things go. While I did not forget him, after a while the world did not seem quite so black, and gradually—"

"Yes, child, I know.

'Joy comes, grief goes,—we know not how.'"

"That is just it exactly. That is Lowell, isn't it? Then when Victor came into my life— Mrs. Pennybacker, do you know I think Victor is going to be so much like father in his home."

"I hope so," returned Mrs. Pennybacker, but the face of the bridegroom at St. John's rose before her mental vision, and her hope was without the element of faith.

"Mrs. Pennybacker, do you suppose father knows? I hope he does. I am almost ashamed to tell you this for fear you will think me silly, but sometimes when Victor has just gone—has told me good-bye for the day, and that he will hurry back as soon as he can, and all that, you know—and it rushes over me so—the blessedness of having a love like his, and a dear home that is to be ours forever—I am—my heart is so overflowing with joy that I go to my room and drop down by the couch and whisper softly, 'Father! I am so happy! Can you hear me, dearest?'"

She dashed the tears from her eyes and smiled through wet lashes. "I know it is foolish, Mrs. Pennybacker, and I can't see how I came to be telling it all to you—but I feel as if I want father to know. Do you think he does?"

"I am not much of a Spiritualist, Margaret," returned Mrs. Pennybacker, guardedly. "The dye from which my religious faith took its color was very blue,—but certainly if there is such a thing as communion between the living and the dead—or rather the living here and the living there—it would come in answer to a whisper like that."

There were tears in the eyes of both. The elder woman was thinking, "Oh, I hope it will last!"

But she only said, "You did not take a wedding journey?"

"No. Victor wanted me to go abroad, but I could not bear the thought of going anywhere just at first. I was so eager to get things arranged in our home. We had so many pretty bridal gifts that I was just crazy to see how they would look. I felt that I would rather fix up this home than do anything in the world. Then, too, I hated to go away at this time of the year. Of course we will go later, but May is so beautiful in Washington."

"Yes," Mrs. Pennybacker said, softly,—with all her practicality and candid speech there was an unworked vein of sentiment about her, "yes, May is beautiful everywhere—even in Life's calendar."

It did seem that in that home there was not one thing lacking; everything was there that heart could desire, taste suggest, or money secure; and the mistress's pride and joy in it all were so spontaneous, so exuberant, her realization of the blessedness of her new life so vivid, that only a croaker or a keen student of human life would have had a thought of the transitory nature of all things.

And yet—

By an impulse for which she herself could not account, Mrs. Pennybacker turned again to the girl to whom she had said good-by and took both her hands.

"My dear," she said, "my home is in an obscure spot. One can hardly find it on the map. But for you its doors are always open. If you ever need a friend, come to me."

"How queer!" mused Margaret when she was gone. "I wonder how she came to say that. Well, with all her oddity, I like her."

CHAPTER IV
THE THORN ROAD

Certainly there was nothing on Margaret De Jarnette's horizon at present that was a forecast of falling weather. The skies were blue, the air clear, and over all the life-giving sunshine of love and trust which was starting every plant in her home garden to budding. The program agreed upon in those ante-nuptial days was carried out, and while friends were wondering where the two had gone for their wedding journey, they were quietly settling themselves in their new home and into each other's lives.

To Margaret the place on Massachusetts Avenue was the House Beautiful. The home-building instinct was strong within her, and she took a bird's delight in fashioning her nest. If Victor's pleasure in it all did not seem so keen as hers, she did not perceive it. When he came at night she flitted from one room to another, convoying him along to show him how this straw had been changed and this wisp of hay added, and as he looked and listened she did not doubt that it was together they were building their nest.

The evenings of that matchless May and June were full of peaceful joy,—long drives through Rock Creek Park or the beautiful winding ways of the Soldiers' Home, with now and then a row upon the river past old Georgetown, with its windows blinking at the setting sun, and back again when it lay steeped in moonlight, and they floated lazily down toward the Monument which dominated the landscape whichever way they turned,—heeding not time nor aught else so that only they were together and away from all the world. Ah! it was idyllic while it lasted, but it palled at last, the least bit, upon Victor, and then they sought the seashore, Margaret saying to herself that it was her choice to go.

At the seashore, as it chanced, there was a gay crowd from Baltimore that Victor knew, and things gave promise of being very pleasant, but unfortunately Margaret was not well when they first reached the place, nor for some time afterwards—not ill enough to hinder Victor's going, as she insisted earnestly, but in a way that kept her quiet upon the hotel piazza. She was not strong enough to take the jaunts the others enjoyed. Victor demurred at first, saying he would not think of leaving her, but it was a very pleasant party, and men are always in demand at seaside resorts. So in the end he went.

The Baltimore party was not going to remain long and they made hay with a zest that was fatiguing to one not quite robust.

One morning, as Margaret sat on the piazza watching the waves roll in and back, in and back, with a ceaseless energy that somehow seemed so futile, always trying to do something, but never accomplishing it, Victor came out from the smoking-room and threw himself at her feet on the steps.

"How are you feeling by this time, sweetheart?" he asked, with a tenderness that somehow seemed to belong to Washington and the Maytime rather than this crowded summer hotel. It brought quick tears to her eyes. The girl was very weak.

"Rather better, thank you," she said, smiling down at him in a languid way that belied her words.

"It is deucedly unfortunate about your having this little attack just now," he said, fanning himself with his hat and frowning a little. He was very young. "You are losing so many good times."

"I am living on the memory of our good times in Washington," Margaret said. Which was truer than she knew.

"Oh! They were all right, weren't they? We did have a good time. It's a pity that kind of thing can't last. But you see if you felt equal to it you could have some good times now of a different sort. Dillingham wants us to go on a yachting trip."

"When?" Margaret asked it rather listlessly.

"To-morrow. It's going to be an awfully jolly party. They are going for an all-day's trip—luncheon on the yacht and all that. How do you feel about it?"

"Victor, I could not possibly go. I am not well enough."

He bit his lip and looked annoyed.

"But I should not want to interfere with your going," she said, quickly, noticing the look. "There is no reason why it should."

"Oh, no, I'll stay—of course," he replied. "I couldn't go off for a good time and leave you here sick. It wouldn't be right. But it is unfortunate, as I was saying. You know I am specially fond of yachting, and—"

"And I want you to go. I really would much rather you would."

He made some faint opposition, which only stimulated her determination that he should take the trip. At last he said, "Well—I don't know—perhaps I will after all, just to please Dillingham. He was anxious that I should go to even up the party." And Margaret thought quickly, "Then they did not even expect me to go."

"You are sure you won't be lonely without anybody to talk to?"

"I will let the sea talk to me," Margaret said.

The sea talked to her a good deal that summer. When the Baltimore party was gone and she was well enough to go about, Victor had formed the acquaintance of certain gentlemen who were fond of cards and pool, and she had many leisure hours for communion with it. What it told her she never repeated. If she said anything to it in reply, it was with silent speech, until one day as she stood looking out over its lonely wastes, she suddenly clasped her hands and pressed them to her breast, whispering brokenly, "He is—so different—from father!"

They went back in September,—Margaret gladly. In their own home they would fall back into the blissful life that had been theirs at first. Somehow it seemed to be slipping away from them. A hotel was no place to live. When they were at home again she would try hard to get it back. Why should her husband be less thoughtful, less tender of her now than then,—now when she needed it more? She had heard of married people growing apart—even when there seemed to be no special trouble between them. Oh, how wretched that would be! how intolerable! They must not do that! She would make his home bright and attractive. She had read that it was always a woman's fault if her husband's interest waned,—it was because she did not meet him at the door with a smile, and have his slippers warming on the hearth, and wear a white dress with a red rose at the belt, and another in her hair. But then one could hardly remember all the things the books said women must do to hold the love their husbands had poured out upon them so unstintedly before marriage.

One cold, wet, disagreeable night in October Margaret had a fire lighted in the library grate. It was the first one on their own hearth, and she had not yet got over the charm of "first things." It seemed to her when they came into the room that she had never seen a sweeter, more attractive place.

"Do you remember what Holmes says his idea of comfort is?" she asked, turning to Victor brightly as they sat down before the glowing coals.

"No. What is it?"

"'Four feet on a fender.' Isn't that epigrammatic and—and full of tenderness?"

"It is epigrammatic, all right. I can't quite see the tenderness. You will have to explain."

She shook her head, with the ghost of a smile.

"There are some things that can't be explained, Victor,—the humor of a joke, for instance. If you don't see it, it isn't there—for you."

Somehow her reply embarrassed him. He felt that he had been weighed in the balance and found wanting, and he could not see why.

"You quote Holmes a good deal, don't you?"

"Yes. He says such bright things." And she added eagerly, "Victor, let us read some together this winter. Father and I used to have such good times reading together."

Victor put up his hand as if to ward off an attack.

"Really, Margaret, don't you think you are asking a little too much of me? to settle down to evenings of reading the Autocrat! If you would suggest having some people in to play cards now."

"Very well," she returned, quietly, "we will have some people in to play cards then."

"I am afraid I can't count upon all my evenings," he said, hastily. "I find that things have accumulated in my absence, and I will have to be at the office occasionally at night. Not often, but sometimes."

"I should not want to interfere with your business, Victor, but—"

"Well? What's the rest of it?"

"I was going to say that the men I have known best have been able to work enough in the day and give their evenings to their families."

She paused a moment during which she thought, "I certainly have a right to say this—and it ought to be said. I am not complaining. We ought to plan out our life together." Aloud she continued, "That has always seemed to me the right way. I think so much depends now upon our starting right."

He rose hastily. "We will talk that over some other time. I really have to go down to-night. I have promised to meet a man. You don't object? You will not be afraid?"

"I shall not be afraid," she said.

She went to the door with him and stood looking after him until he disappeared. When she came back she was shivering a little. She sat before the fire and looked into its depths. Then she raised the skirt of her dainty house-gown and rested her slippered feet on the brass that was burnished until it shone.

"Two feet on a fender," she said with a dreary little smile.

She reasoned with herself afterwards. "It may not be the best way to do—to live—" she told herself, "but I hope I am womanly enough not to be jealous of my husband's business."

Some months later Mrs. Kirtley remarked to her husband, "Victor De Jarnette must be doing very well in his business. Margaret tells me that he has to go to the office almost every night of late, there is such a rush of work. Poor child! She is not well, and is nervous at being alone, though she is very brave about it. I think he should be at home more just now—a man of his means—even if he has to sacrifice his business somewhat. I hope he will not become too mercenary."

"I hardly think he will," the Judge responded, dryly. But with the loyalty of one man for another, even when that other is unworthy, he said no more. Inwardly he was groaning, "Just as I feared. Too bad! That young man had a good case and he is letting it go by default. Margaret is not the woman to stand this when she finds out."

It is an evil hour for a man when a woman takes to her hungry heart a substitute for the affection he withholds, but when the thing substituted is an innocent thing it is a godsend to the woman. A plant if denied the light on one side will turn this way and that. When it cannot get it in any direction it dies.

As the months went by, Margaret passed through deep and changing experiences. First there was a period of bewilderment. What had she done that should make this difference in Victor? He had been her persistent wooer before marriage. Was the case now to be reversed? Her pride revolted, but her instinct told her that if the fire on their domestic altar was not to die out she would be the one to fan the flame. She deliberately and with purpose aforethought set herself to hold her husband's love. It seemed to her almost humiliating that she should have to fight this fight,—but how could she bear a loveless home?

That she was only in part successful she could not fail to see, the plain truth being that Victor De Jarnette was restive under the bonds that bound him to one woman and a home, being of that masculine type which desires the pleasures of the married state and the liberty of bachelorhood. He did not intend to be unkind, but he intended to have his liberty. And the two involved a nice adjustment that, as yet, Margaret had not learned to comprehend.

To this period of bewilderment and baffled endeavor succeeded one of apathy. Her sensibilities seemed blunted. What was at first a sharp, intolerable pain became later a dull ache. Nothing seemed to matter much. Mrs. Kirtley was concerned, and told her she needed a tonic, but Margaret shook her head. It was a comfort, anyway, to find that she did not care as much as she did at first. That, she told herself, would have been unbearable,—that would have been against nature. Perhaps she would get so after a while that she would not care at all. She had seen some married people who appeared entirely indifferent to each other,—the woman led her life and the man his. And yet they got along at least respectably.... After all, she thought with a slight shiver, it must be a gray life—she had not thought that hers would be like that! Perhaps it was just her physical lassitude that made her feel so dead. She lay hours at a time on the couch when Victor was gone, thinking nothing, feeling nothing, hoping nothing.

Then one day a beautiful thing happened to Margaret; a soft wind rose that blew away the deadly miasma fastening upon her. It stirred within the closed chambers of her heart, making them sweet and pure again, and softly fanning open others that she had not known were there. And from these unsuspected chambers came soft voices whispering to her of hope that was not dead, they told her, it would spring again—and a sweet tale of joy that was to be—something so untried, so mysterious, that the very thought thrilled her as in all her life she had never been thrilled before. Then as she bent to listen, the soft whisperings swelled to sweetest music, and a heavenly chorus sang:

"Blessed—blessed—blessed art thou!"

And Margaret, listening with rapt ear, cried out in ecstasy from the great deeps of her lonely heart, "My own ... my very own?" and then upon her knees took up the great antiphonal,

"My soul doth magnify the Lord."

Ah! the angel of the annunciation had spoken to Margaret and her heart was singing the Magnificat.

CHAPTER V
"A WHITE LIFE FOR TWO"

Months came and went—months in which they each tried intermittently to regain their old footing of love and faith. They could not do it. The wife at least knew that they were drifting apart. She wondered sometimes where it would all end.

Victor had told Margaret one morning that he had been called to Philadelphia on business and would not be at home for several days perhaps. A friend called for her that afternoon to drive. She did not go out often now, and, of course, Victor had no thought that she would take this time of all times.

She came upon him in Rock Creek Park. He too was driving, and beside him was a woman she had heard lightly spoken of. He did not see her, nor did the friend see him. It was but a moment, but in that brief space she had pressed to her lips the fruit plucked from the Tree of Knowledge. Margaret wondered, as she felt the world swim around her, what it was her friend was saying, and what made it sound so far off, and whether she would know enough to answer her.

They had a bitter time over that. He first denied, then attempted to explain, and finally fell back upon her foolish jealousy, forgetting that it is a poor bloodless type of woman that will not be jealous when occasion exists. From that time on she had been steering wildly, her rudder gone.

The storm fell on her with as little warning. The winter passed, spring came. It was almost Mayday and her anniversary. Victor had seemed more thoughtful of her of late,—perhaps her weakness appealed even to him. Soon—soon—she told herself, they would be drawn closer together by their common joy and care.

In the afternoon she was called to the telephone. It was her brother-in-law, Mr. De Jarnette, who was speaking. He called her up to say that Victor would not be home to dinner and perhaps not until quite late. He had had to go to Baltimore upon a business matter that could not be postponed, and he had just had a message from him saying that he (Richard) would have to come over, too, in order to make the deal go through. There was a possibility—a bare possibility—that they might not be able to get through in time to get back that night, but in that case Victor would telegraph her along in the afternoon. He was telling her about it now so that if the telegram came she would not feel alarmed. Perhaps she had better telephone to Judge and Mrs. Kirtley to come over and stay with her until Victor got back. Oh, no, she replied, she would not be at all afraid. She sat down thinking with a sudden pang how strange it would seem to have somebody looking out for her comfort all the time. Victor often stayed out as late as that. Suddenly she felt appalled to perceive how certain she felt that this was the truth. She had not even questioned it.

Margaret did not know her brother-in-law very well. He had been to the house a few times, but always in a perfunctory way. She felt that he would have prevented the marriage if he could, and this had always stood between them. His considerate thoughtfulness of her was most unexpected.

Toward night the telegram came. Margaret opened it without looking at the address. She stared at it uncomprehendingly at first. It was signed by the woman she had seen in Rock Creek Park, and it should have gone to the office.

When Victor De Jarnette got home in the early evening his wife was waiting for him with the telegram in her hand. It is not the purpose of this narrative to give that interview. There were pointed questions and evasive answers. There were criminations and recriminations on one side, and shuffling, prevarication, and finally defiance on the other.

"Women expect too much," Victor said, harshly, at last. "If they demanded less they would get more."

"I am not speaking of women—nor of unreasonable demands," she said. "Perhaps they do—I don't know. But Victor!" Margaret spoke with impassioned pleading, "I ask only the same fidelity I give. Is that too much?"

She faced him squarely with the question, her eyes burning into his very soul. Only the clock's tick broke the silence. Upon his answer, in word and deed, hung the destiny of his life and hers; of his home and hers; of his child, his unborn child, and hers.

"Is that too much?" she repeated.

He temporized.

"It is more than most women get. I can tell you that."

"Don't put me off. Is it more than I will get?" Her breast was heaving and her breath coming hard.

"Oh, Margaret, don't go into heroics!" he cried. "Listen to reason! Men can't be bound down by a woman's code of morals. They never have been, and they never will be. And women might as well understand it."

"Then marriage is a lie and a cheat!" she cried with vehemence. "You take the same vows that we do, and you take them saying to yourselves that you will keep them only so long as you chose, and will break them at your will!... But we—poor fools! we speak those vows with bated breath and souls bared before God, and mean to keep them—strive to keep them even when—"

"Is it such a struggle?" he asked, sneeringly.

"—even when faith in you is dead or dying. Yes. It is a struggle then. 'Love, honor, and obey!' Bah!"

"Well," he said, stung by her scorn, but carrying it off insolently, "in the words of the illustrious Mr. Tweed, 'What are you going to do about it?'"

Had he been man enough—perhaps even had he been old enough—he would have thought of the danger to her in all this tumult of feeling and calmed her by a candid meeting of the question she had forced upon him. But he maddened her with his flippant manner and contemptuous words. And a change was going on in him too. Under his light demeanor his anger was rising. There was bad blood in Victor De Jarnette—false, cowardly blood—and it was beginning to assert itself.

"I am going to do this," she said, in a low, concentrated tone. "I demand to know what this woman is to you. I have a right to know."

"And know you shall," he answered, meeting her gaze with defiant eyes, in which every evil passion had burst into flame. "Since I am to be badgered and run to earth in my own home, know that she is a woman I love—and shall love. One that I shall go to when—and where—and as I please. The De Jarnettes are not ruled by their women!"

"Then choose between us," she said, with whitening lips, "for I swear to you by the living God I will be all or nothing to the man that calls me wife!"

They stood facing each other,—her features white and drawn, his inflamed with passion. Then, with a sudden revulsion of feeling, a frightened sense of her own helplessness, perhaps, or possibly a surging back of her old love—for women are strange beings—she came closer to him and stretched out her hands.

"Victor! Oh, Victor!"

He thrust her aside and went out. The door clanged behind him, waking echoes in the silent house, and Margaret, suddenly strengthless, dropped in a heap on the floor, her face buried in the couch. She sat there long with hopeless eyes staring into the blackness of the morrow, saying now and then brokenly, "Father!... Father!"

White now with anger, furious at Margaret's discovery of his falseness, and yet more furious at the necessity which her ultimatum laid upon him to amend his ways or lose his wife; unholy passion for her rival hot within him, and the vengeful blood of his race coursing tumultuously through his veins, Victor De Jarnette strode down Massachusetts Avenue almost a madman. Not for him was the soft beauty of the night—the breath of flowers, the light of stars, the play of summer breezes among the leaves. His heart was closed to the sweet influences of the Pleiades. That heart, alas! out of which are the issues of life had become a seething cauldron of fierce passions.

He did not go immediately to his office. In fact, it was hours before he did. When at last he reached the place he began tearing up letters and clearing up his desk with one eye on the clock as if in preparation for departure or a new incumbent. His blood was still at fever heat, and his thoughts did not tend to cool it. Besides, the law of heredity was against him. What he was doing, his mother before him had done. She, too, had felt this hot surging in the veins and had given it free course. A fearful heritage is ungoverned blood.

As he opened a drawer to put away some papers his eye fell on a folded document. He looked at it absently at first, hardly aware that he saw it. Then, as the innocent looking thing forced itself upon his consciousness, he took it up and read it. How well he remembered the day it was written. A sneer curved his lips at the thought of his ecstatic state of mind at that time. Fool! Then as he looked at the paper, there suddenly leaped into his mind a cruel thought, and into his face the quick reflection of its malevolence.

He stared at the thing he held.

"I'll do it!" he cried, bringing his clenched hand down upon the table with an oath. "I'll show her!"

"Don't do it, Victor!" pleaded John Jarvis, the lawyer, a half hour later, when his angry client had made his wishes known. "Don't do it! My God, man, it would be too cruel! too brutally cruel!"

"Brutal or not," swore Victor De Jarnette, "according to the laws of this District I can do it, and, by God! I will!"

"Wait till to-morrow," urged the lawyer. "You will think better of it in the morning."

"There may never be a to-morrow," Victor answered, recklessly. "I'll make sure of it now. If you won't do it I can get somebody that will."

Before he left the attorney's office it was done, and done, alas! in due and proper form.

CHAPTER VI
A FRIEND IN NEED

When Margaret woke next morning it was with a bewildered sense of something wrong,—the dull ache we have in the gray dawn before returning consciousness brings it all back to us, and makes it a sharp pain. Then, as the events of the night before came back, and the dread of to-day forced itself upon her, she closed her eyes in a sick longing to go to sleep and never wake.

This was the end! They had had words, bitter words, before—but never like this. How could she forget his cruel thrusts, his broken faith, which he had even flaunted in her face? How could the barrier between them which her passionate challenge had raised be broken down? "She must be all or nothing." Yes, and it was true! as true to-day as it was yesterday and would be for all time. Only his hand could break that barrier down. And suppose he would not.... Well! so be it. It seemed to her that her heart was numbed and could never be warmed into life again. There rose before her a picture she had seen one day—a man with wretched face, a woman who had cast herself on a couch in an attitude suggesting the abandon of despair, and between them on the table a still form that she thought at first glance was their dead baby, only that she saw the wings and knew that it was Love—dead Love.

It was very late when she had gone to bed the night before, and still Victor had not come. She had fallen immediately into the deep sleep of exhaustion which comes to us sometimes when a crisis is past, even though it has brought the worst. Women who hang sleepless and wide-eyed over a sick-bed have been known to fall into a sleep like that of death, when all is over, their wild grief swallowed up in nature's merciful oblivion. So it had been with Margaret.

Had he come in while she slept? She stepped to her husband's door and peeped cautiously in. The bed was undisturbed. She went back to her own room and stood there shaking as with an ague. What did it mean?

Then she sat down and thought—thought deeply—going over all the wretched quarrel,—trying to judge between them, to see where—if anywhere—he was right and she was wrong. She had been passionate—yes, and had said bitter things. But they were true! And, she told herself despairingly, it was not the things they said! The trouble lay back of that.... If only it had been something else! But this! ... oh, how could she compromise? The words of that odious Mrs. Bomprey came to her—"Men are naughty creatures, my dear. Wise women learn to shut their eyes!"

"Why must they shut their eyes?" she asked, fiercely. The very insinuation was dishonoring to both. But—was the woman right?

Were all men like this?... Her soul grew sick. Then—no! no! no! she told herself in passionate protest—it was not true! She would not believe this withering, blasting thing. There was her father! Though all the world should rise up and say there was no truth in men, she still would know—there was her father!

At breakfast she said, quietly, "Mr. De Jarnette is not at home this morning. We will not wait. He has been called away and may not be home for several days." All this with no surprise at her own power to lie without compunction.

When the meal was over she waited to give directions to the servants, as usual, speaking cheerfully to all. She could not bear the pity of her servants. Her maid, a faithful girl, came to her in her room. Could she let her go home for a while? Her mother was very ill and needed her—she hated to leave just now, and wouldn't, only—it was her mother. Yes, Margaret said hastily, feeling with a throb of loneliness that the ties of blood were to be nourished, not denied. Then when the girl was gone she felt bereft.

Through that long morning Margaret waited. The air she breathed was dead and deadening; she gasped sometimes for breath. It was the close, oppressive air that presages a storm. It seemed to press upon her so. She went once to the window, expecting, without knowing why, to see the lightning and to hear the thunder's roll, and felt vague surprise to see the leaves stirred by the breeze, and over all the sunlight. There was no storm.

She moved restlessly about her room, putting her drawers to rights with a strange feeling unformulated even to herself, but pressing hard, that she must put her house in order, for the end was near.

In the upper hall near her door was the telephone. She went once to it, took the receiver down, and then returned it to the hook, turning afterwards resolutely to it and telling herself, "He is my husband. It certainly is my right to know." Then to the one who answered, she said, brightly, "Will you please ask Mr. De Jarnette to come to the 'phone?"

She would not ask if he was there. To her excited imagination that would seem to imply that she did not know of his whereabouts.

The answer came.

"Is that you, Mrs. De Jarnette? Good morning, madam.... Why, ... Mr. De Jarnette hasn't come in yet. Probably somebody stopped him on the way down.... Yes.... Well, I will tell him when he comes in. Good-by."

Margaret looked at the clock. It was after eleven. She sat down faint and trembling. He had not been to the office.

Soon after this Judge Kirtley called to see her on some matter of business. He asked her casually about Victor, and she answered with a smile and a steady voice, feeling all the time that if he said another word she must go to him and fall upon his breast and cry aloud. Then—was she pretty well? Ah, that was good.... No, Mrs. Kirtley was in bed with grippe. The doctor said he should keep her there a good while.... Well, she must take good care of herself—patting her cheek—and—good-by.

When he was gone, Margaret had an insane desire to scream. It seemed to her that everybody was leaving her.... Where was Victor?

At two o'clock Richard De Jarnette came. He found her in the library. With that strange restlessness and presentiment of coming ill which possessed her, she was looking over papers in her desk and putting things in place. A waste basket beside her was half filled with old letters. From the drawer just emptied she had taken a revolver of peculiar workmanship. It was one belonging to her husband, which he had left in the desk. She was taking it up with the intention of carrying it to his room, but when the servant announced Mr. De Jarnette, she laid it hastily on the top of the desk and put the drawer back. When she rose to meet her brother-in-law she took hold of the desk to steady herself, for she had a feeling that this visit was upon no trifling errand. As she did so her hand touched the revolver, and she drew back.

"It is Victor's," she said, "I was putting it away."

He looked at the revolver, taking in as people do sometimes in the crises of their lives the details of its curious workmanship.

He wasted no time in formalities. He had come to ask her about Victor. Did she know anything about him—where he was?

No. She did not know he had gone away. She was controlling herself by so strong an effect that her voice sounded hard. Where was he? Had any message come from him?

Richard De Jarnette had not had much experience in dealing with women. He took from his pocket a telegram and handed it to her. It was dated New York. She held it with unsteady hand and read:

"Wire me two thousand dollars—Paris—Credit Lyonnais. Sail to-night.

Victor De Jarnette."

She grew white as the dead.

"You knew nothing of this?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"And can you give me no idea of what it means?" His voice was tense, so much so that it had the unfortunate effect of making his words sound severe.

Margaret stared at the paper, feeling the earth sway beneath her feet.

"No—unless—perhaps I ought to tell you that—we quarreled last night—a bitter quarrel—"

"Quarreled? About what?" He spoke sharply.

She lifted her head at that and looked full at him.

"About something that concerns only ourselves, I think."

"I beg your pardon. You are quite right. I did not mean to intrude, but only to find out if I could the meaning of this incomprehensible thing. I beg you to believe that I would like to serve you."

"Of course this will be known," she said, hesitatingly. "If—if it could be kept out of the papers I should be glad. It would only avert publicity for a little while—but—I might be stronger then to bear it."

"I will see to it at once. The papers will say, if you desire, that he has been called away on urgent business."

"Oh, yes, if you will be so good. I think—I hope—and still I do not know that it can ever be arranged."

As he rose to go he said after an awkward silence, "I seem unfortunate in my questions, but I hope you will not misunderstand me. Has he left you money?"

"Oh, I have money, yes. All I need. I do not misunderstand. You—you are very kind."

He bowed gravely. Then, after another silence, "Of course you know that this will mean quite an absence from home, even if he should turn around and come back as soon as he reaches the other shore." He was adding savagely to himself, "As he will when he hears from me."

"Yes, I know," murmured Margaret, faintly.

"Have you not some elderly friend that you could have with you for a while? I am sure Victor has gone off only in a spirit of pique. He was always impulsive and headstrong. If you could ask some such person—"

She shook her head.

"I am very much alone," she said. Her childish helplessness would have touched a stone. "You see I have no relatives. And Mrs. Kirtley (I am sure she would have come) is ill." She was twisting the telegram with nervous fingers, feeling again that mad desire to scream. She felt sure she would do so if he spoke another sympathetic word.

He turned his eyes away. "I really think you should have some older woman with you, other than your maid—just now."

"My maid is gone," she said, a lump rising in her throat—repeating, "It—leaves me—very much alone."

"That settles it," he said. "I shall send my housekeeper to you from Elmhurst. She is reliable and kind. You can depend upon her fully. She has always lived with us, and there is nothing she likes so well as to mother people."

Her chin quivered like a child's. "I—I think I need mothering," she said.

He beat a hasty retreat. Her helplessness wrung his heart.

Two hours later Mammy Cely presented herself before Margaret—rotund of figure, dark and shining of face, thick-lipped and flat-nosed. But in her kind eyes was the brooding spirit of motherhood. Mammy Cely was of the old school. As she stood there in her clean dark gingham, white apron, white head handkerchief, and a three-cornered piece of like immaculateness crossing her breast, she was the embodiment of a past civilization, an archaic reminder of the old régime which everybody condemns, which nobody wants revived, but which has its sacred memories of friendships between high and low, that come, as all memories do, only to those who have experienced in the far past that for which the memory stands. To Margaret this humble friend was a gift from Heaven.

But all this time Mammy Cely was unobtrusively taking in the situation.

"That child's done stood all she ken now," she was saying to herself. "Pretty soon she gwineter break down—that she is!" Aloud she remarked, respectfully, "Yaas, 'm, 'tis mighty bad 'bout Mr. Victor bein' called away right now. Marse Richard was tellin' me about it.... But nemmine, honey, we gwineter s'prise him when he gits home, ain't we? We gwineter have the party all over and ever'body gone home but us and de li'l' gen'l'man." She was talking to her as one speaks to a frightened child. "There!... There!... Mammy Cely gwineter take keer of you, honey! Don't you be skeered. She done tuk keer of a heap er ladies in her day. She knows jes' what to do. You needn't to worry. She gwineter stay right here.... Yo' maid gone too? Well, I do say! These here triflin' Washington niggers ain't no 'count. No 'm, they ain't! Well, nemmine! I gwineter be yo' maid now—Marse Richard say so—and yo' mammy too. Then befo' I go away I'll git you somebody ef I has to peruse this town. Yaas, 'm, I will so! I wouldn't stand, honey. Set down now."

She asked the frightened girl a few questions, putting in a running commentary of soothing, confidence-inspiring remarks, and Margaret found herself settling down in profound relief upon the broad foundation of her practical knowledge.

"And you got all the little clo's ready?... Well, I do say! Ain't they scrumptious! Humph! Jes' look at the 'shorance of them little shearts! Honey, they look lak they was holdin' out they arms for a man!... But I declar this here highfalutin' lacy skeart do sho'ly belong to a little lady! Well, whichever it is, honey, it's gwineter be yourn, and when you feel that little chile on yo' breas' and hol' them little hands in yourn, you gwineter furgit all 'bout the pain and the sufferin'—and the loneliness—"

The rain clouds had been gathering all day. They could be held back no longer. Slowly, drops began to fall—the big portentous ones that come before the storm. If this new maid had come in cold and business-like she could have withstood it, but this was the mother-note she had always lacked in her life song. A convulsive sob broke from her overburdened heart, hearing which and recognizing the futility of further words, Mammy Cely opened her arms.

"Come here, lamb!"

And Margaret fell, weeping, into them.

That night she went down into the valley of the shadow of death, and the black woman was her rod and staff.

CHAPTER VII
TRIED AS BY FIRE

It was long months before Margaret De Jarnette looked into her husband's face. Before that time Washington's squares and circles and triangles—those blessed breathing spots—had blossomed out from hyacinths to flaunting salvias,—a stately, gorgeous, lengthening procession proclaiming to those who understand the language or who care to hear, "He hath made all things beautiful in its time."

Gradually the soft spring air had yielded to the power that always wins, and a blistering heat had fallen on the city, the fierce rays beating down upon the asphalt streets which threw them back defiantly until the very air palpitated with the conflict. Then even the asphalt gave it up, and lay a sodden mass—no longer master of its fate, but meekly yielding to the impress of every grinding heel. The leaves hung motionless, the air was dead, and one remembered, apprehensively, that some day the earth would melt with fervent heat, and wondered, gasping, if that time were now.

Then having proved his power, old Sol relaxed his grasp, and turned away his face, and men began to hope again, and to remind one another, as the breeze sprang up, of the promise given with the bow that "While the earth remaineth ... cold and heat, and summer and winter ... shall not cease." Then autumn flung her gorgeous banners to the breeze, and the Indians kindled their campfires in the West, and shouting children ploughed the streets where

"The yellow poplar leaves came down

And like a carpet lay."

Thus passed Nature's shifting panorama which waits no man's pleasure, stops for none, but brings all to an end at last.

To Margaret they had been months of sore trial,—of hope deferred and the suspense that kills,—the rising up each day to meet the mute sympathy of real friends, and the thin-veiled curiosity of those called friends by courtesy, who made her rage within herself and left her powerless to resent. Then there was that other sort who came to her, prating of sympathy, but telling her always of what others said. The words of a talebearer are as wounds; these went down into the innermost parts of Margaret's soul.

But through it all she carried herself with a dignity and poise that enforced respect and in time silenced even gossip. To all these invitations to confidence she made no response. She could not stop people's tongues, but she would give them no occasion to wag, by any word of hers. This thing had been between her and her husband; there it should remain. So when Marie Van Dorn came, saying effusively, "You poor child, I have heard, and came to you as soon as the nurse would let me. You can trust me, my dear!" Margaret had replied, quietly:

"Thank you. You are very kind to come to see me. I shall be a good deal housed for a while, and rather lonely in Mr. De Jarnette's absence. What do you hear from your aunt?" And Marie had made but a short call.

To Judge Kirtley, who had come as soon as she could see him, she had said, her eyes heavy with unshed tears,

"I would trust you beyond any living soul. But this is not a thing about which even you could help me. I need not tell you there is something wrong—you know that. It may come right—I can not tell. If it does, I should be sorry I had talked. If it does not, the case would not be helped by words. I cannot take the world into my confidence. Do you blame me?"

"No, dear child," he said, with an aching of his great heart, "I honor you. If more women took this stand there would be fewer cases of domestic trouble in the courts. Keep your own counsel. But when you need me, speak."

To his wife that night he said, "Margaret is a rare woman. Not one in a hundred at her age would see this as she does, and have the strength of character to lock everything in her own breast."

"Well, for my part," replied Mrs. Kirtley, who felt aggrieved at Margaret's want of confidence, "I think she is too close-mouthed. It would relieve her mind to talk to some safe confidant."

"It would relieve the mind of the safe confidant more," her husband replied, astutely. "Margaret is all right! You know what Seneca says: 'If you wish another to keep your secret, first keep it yourself.'"

"I wish you wouldn't always be quoting those old heathen philosophers to me," said Mrs. Kirtley, with growing irritation. She had fully expected to hear the whole story when her husband came home. She was not quite sure now that he had told all he knew.

The Judge chuckled. "My dear, if I had said Solomon instead of Seneca, I have no doubt you would have thought that you could find that in the Book of Proverbs. It is sage enough to be there. Another proverb is doubtless in Margaret's mind—the substance of it, at any rate, and I will relieve your perturbation by saying that this is accredited to the Talmud, and may have more weight with you than that of my good pagan. This certainly is worthy of the Wise Man:

'Thy friend hath a friend, and thy friend's friend hath a friend; so be discreet!'"

"Margaret certainly knows that she can trust us," returned his wife, indignantly.

"'Could'," my dear, is the better word. Can implies a possibility of her trying, and that, I suspect, she is not going to do for the present. Let her alone. She is all right."

But under his light words he had a sore heart. The girl was very dear to him. She was in trouble, and he could not help her. He contented himself with looking closely after her business interests—his friendship being of the rare kind which is willing to give much, looking not for a return—and with dropping in often to see her and the baby.

"I am going to call him Philip Varnum," she said to him on one of these occasions. "You must help me to make him worthy of the name." It was all she said, but he understood without anything more that she expected to rear the child without the help of his father.

Of Richard De Jarnette Margaret saw less and less as time went on. There was a feeling of constraint between them, natural enough, perhaps, under the circumstances, and for some reason growing. During those first weeks after her illness he had come often to the house,—had shown her unobtrusive kindnesses and done thoughtful things that added to her comfort, always in a self-effacing way, evading thanks whenever possible. Sometimes she only heard of them through Mammy Cely. At rare intervals he even held the boy when the old nurse, who stood in awe of no man and least of all of this one who had been her foster child, had put it into his arms. He did it very awkwardly, 'tis true, and in a fashion that gave Margaret nervous chills of fright lest he should drop him, or do some other dreadful thing, but manfully, as one who has a duty to perform and does it—with set teeth.

One day when Mammy Cely had taken the child away he asked, abruptly, "You find her useful to you?"

"Useful? Mammy Cely!" she said, "Oh, I think I could not live without her. I know so little about children." Then, in sudden alarm she faltered, "Were you thinking of taking her? I—I had almost forgotten you sent her to me." She looked so distressed that he hastened to assure her that the woman should stay as long as she was needed. He could get somebody else for Elmhurst.

She felt so profoundly grateful that she sung the praises of the colored woman—how she could trust her as she could not trust herself, because Mammy Cely knew so much more, and how she was sure she loved baby Philip as if he were her own, these, and other words of confidence which afterwards, strangely enough, recoiled on her head.

To all of which he had listened, bowing gravely, and looking at her with that close attention which always made her forget what it was that she had meant to say. Somehow he had a deadening effect upon her speech. She could not help feeling deep down in her heart, that he believed her responsible for his brother's defection. It was natural enough that he should try to excuse him; he had always done that, Mammy Cely said, even when he was a boy, and had often taken the punishment that belonged to Victor rather than tell. He had been very, very fond of Victor, she said.

Yes, it was natural enough, Margaret thought, but still it did not conduce to conversation, and she was glad that day when he went away. Then she had gone to the nursery, another person, and taken little Philip and clucked to him, and touched his cheeks to make him smile and told him what she thought of his Uncle Richard—how cold he was, how silent, how he scared her, how he palsied her tongue or else made her say things she did not mean to say, how—greatest indignity of all—he had even looked askance at him, her "pe'cious lamb," and almost turned him upside down! but how he had left them Mammy Cely, and so they would forgive him, if only he would never come again.

And Baby Philip smiled a smile cherubic and murmured "Goo-o! ah-goo-o! for the first time, and Margaret almost smothered him with kisses, and was sure that never did mother have a comforter so sweet, a confidant so safe and yet so sympathetic.

Where does a baby get its balm? In that Gilead whence it came? From the skilful physician who knows all needs and uses tiniest instruments sometimes to reach hidden wounds? Who knows? At any rate into Margaret's sore heart was coming day by day the healing that proceeds only from time and the touch of little hands. More and more, by her own volition, her world was coming to be bounded by the walls of her baby's room. Here at least she was safe from the thrusts of meddlesome gossip and the pin pricks of Gossip's handmaid—Curiosity. Here she could live the simple satisfying life that "maketh rich," and "addeth no sorrow" that she was not willing to bear.

CHAPTER VIII
A NEW RÔLE FOR RICHARD

In all these months Margaret had not once heard from her husband. Rumors had come to her that he had not gone alone, but even this she could not verify, for she had ended the subject peremptorily with the informant who brought the story,—but the thorn implanted that day rankled. Her judgment and her knowledge of him told her it was true.

The fiction of her husband's call abroad on urgent business served its purpose as a nominal explanation, but it deceived nobody. Every one knew that Victor De Jarnette had no large business interests in Europe, or anywhere else, and that he was not the man to make any great sacrifice for them if he had had, being a man of pleasure more than of affairs. The knowing raised their brows and smiled. The sympathetic said, "Poor Margaret!"

She asked Richard De Jarnette only once if he had ever heard. No, he said, he had not. He had written and would let her know when the answer came. He did not tell her that his letter had been a bitter arraignment of Victor for his want of manliness in deserting his wife as he had done, and a stern demand that he should, for the sake of the De Jarnette name, if for no better reason, return or give some adequate explanation of his conduct—there could be no excuse. He had not spared him.

Failing to hear from this, he wrote again, this time adding the virile argument that in case of Victor's failure to explain his conduct, he should at once revise his will and name his (Victor's) apparently forgotten child as his heir, instead of himself. He felt that he had an elder brother's prerogative to counsel, and also the right of an outraged De Jarnette to protest against the dishonoring of his name. As child and man, Richard De Jarnette had been slow to wrath, but, once roused, there was a bull-dog tenacity about him that was hard to shake off. Perhaps that last clause was the most powerful argument he used. The younger De Jarnette had a great abundance of money of his own, but Richard had more, and Victor had always expected to inherit it. Moreover, he knew that his brother never made an idle threat. So he wrote.

When this answer to his peremptory letter was read by Richard De Jarnette, it put a somewhat different face upon the matter. He had been forced to this, Victor said, by Margaret's action. It was virtually she that had deserted him. She had laid upon him such restrictions as no man would for a moment submit to. She had been unreasonable, exacting, and jealous to a degree that was intolerable. "If you only knew all, you would retract your harsh words," Victor wrote. "I have always found you just, and certainly now that the greatest trouble of my life has overtaken me, I cannot believe that I will find you lacking in either sympathy or understanding," and thus and thus and thus. Victor was always a ready letter writer.

Richard De Jarnette read this letter very thoroughly. And as he read, a wave of pity swept over him for the misguided boy—he was little more than a boy—always impulsive, passionate, and full-blooded, but to the brother who was his judge to-day always warm-hearted and affectionate. The letter had its effect. The world had judged Victor harshly, Richard thought, he with the rest, he more than all the rest perhaps. It might be, as he said, that had they known—But then the damning fact remained that he had deserted her, his young wife, in her time of need. No! Nothing could palliate that—nothing!

He took up the letter at that, and read further. Margaret had virtually driven him forth, Victor went on, and Richard remembered that the house was hers, built by money her father had left in trust for this very purpose. He had warned Victor that trouble would come from that some day. Women could not be trusted to refrain from taunting their husbands with "mine" and "thine," when the test came, he said, contemptuously. They were all alike. And where was the man that would stand humiliation like that? Certainly his name was not De Jarnette. This doubtless lay at the root of the matter, and was perhaps the reason that Margaret was so reticent about the cause of the trouble.

Perhaps—oh, curse the thing! It wasn't a matter for him to meddle with—of course not. But it needed somebody—and whom else did they have? It ended in his reaching the deliberate and most unwelcome conclusion, after much struggle with himself, that it was his duty to go to his sister-in-law's house and enter upon the delicate and perilous office of peacemaker. Which he did.

Margaret met him distantly. They froze each other.

He had heard from Victor, he told her bluntly, feeling his poverty of phrases suited to womankind.

Her lips straightened. She held out her hand. Could she see the letter?

He reflected a moment. The letter as he thought of it did not seem particularly pacific, viewed from the stand-point of a deserted wife, so he answered no. Then he began awkwardly and without preliminaries to explain. He had come to see if things could not be arranged between them—patched up for a while with the hope that time would bring them right. They were both young, and doubtless both had been somewhat in fault.

She interrupted him here to ask pointedly, "Has your brother told you anything about the point at issue?"

He was forced to answer that he had not.

"Then you are not competent to arbitrate," she said, quietly, and the subject was not easy to re-open after that. He went away baffled in his endeavors, berating himself for a blundering fool, but strengthened in the belief that the blame was not all on one side. The girl was ice.

As he thought it over that night, one thing came back to him again and again. She had said, "This is a thing that must be settled without a go-between, and some day it will be." What did she mean by that? How would it be settled? She had looked uncompromising as she said it. What did she intend to do—get a divorce? Of course she could get it—on the palpable ground of desertion. He could see a difference in her attitude toward Victor as the months went by. At first there had been a reserve, a suspension of judgment, then apathy, and of late growing resentment. He had correctly interpreted her states of mind, though he did not appreciate the cause. As the months went by and Victor did not come, did not write, did not once even ask about his child, her heart hardened against him. This ignoring of Philip seemed worse to her almost than his treatment of herself. How could he stay away from his child? How could he be false to a helpless little thing like this that he had brought into the world? How could he— Then she would snatch little Philip up in a passion of tenderness and cry in her heart, "I will be father and mother both to you, my baby, my poor little forsaken baby!"

As the months went by the chances seemed slighter that this thing would ever be "patched up," as Richard De Jarnette had said. She asked Judge Kirtley one day if a man had any claim upon a child he had deserted. Yes, he told her without comment, unless the mother was divorced from him. She closed her lips suddenly and said no more. She had read in the paper one day about a man's taking his child away from its mother, who had left him. The woman was a Catholic and could not have recourse to divorce to protect herself. Margaret thought a good deal about this incident. She had always been opposed to divorce.

Richard De Jarnette came to her again one day. He had had another letter from Victor,—a very touching one it had seemed to him as he read it. With Margaret's cold eyes upon him it seemed less so.

Victor was anxious for a reconciliation—he told her—and she bowed.

He was tired of his expatriation and longed for home—She smiled.

—and for a sight of his child.

"He is long remembering his child," she said.

Richard De Jarnette bit his lip, cursing himself for having come on this errand. But he had come at Victor's earnest request, and he would not abandon the case.

"I recognize the justice of what you imply," he returned. "I can hardly ask for him any leniency on your part, but, after all, the child is Victor's as well as yours, and is his heir. It is but natural that he should wish to see him. For Philip's sake I trust that in some way your differences may be arranged."

"I may as well tell you that they will never be," she said. "As long as there was a shadow of a hope that I had misjudged him I held my peace. Not even to you would I say aught against him. Now that my faith in him is dead I tell you plainly I shall never be Victor De Jarnette's wife again. You asked me once what we quarreled about. I will tell you now, for this is the last conversation we will have on the subject. He was untrue to me." Her eyes blazed. "The night we quarreled I had found it out and I told him he must choose between us. He chose the woman who was not his wife. So far as I am concerned that choice is irrevocable.... This was enough. Surely this was enough. But it was not all, as you know. By his cruel desertion of me and his unborn child he made me a target for the arrows of gossip and slander. Do you ask me to forget all this?"

"Do you mean that you intend to secure a divorce?" he asked her plainly.

"No. I shall make no effort to secure a divorce. People get divorces because they want to marry again. I have had enough of marriage."

"And if he should want one?"

"I shall not oppose it. All that I want now is to live out my own life, what is left of it, in my own way, with my child."

He sat a moment in thought. Then he felt constrained to say,

"I trust there may never be any trouble about the child. Victor is reckless and determined. If he should take it into his head to lay claim to it, or try to take it from you—"

"If Victor De Jarnette should lay a finger of his hand upon the child he deserted," she said at white heat, "I should kill him."

He knew, of course, that this was mere passionate talk. She was justified in having strong feeling. He thought no more about it. But that night in going over the interview, what she had said that other time came back to him. "It is a thing that must be settled without a go-between," she had said. "And some day it will be."

What did she mean by that? A mere separation settled nothing. He feared that Victor might give her trouble about the child.

CHAPTER IX
THE REAPING OF THE CROP

"Oh, Mammy Cely, look! look! he is standing alone!" Margaret was sitting on the floor, her lips parted in rapturous delight at the temerity of her infant son, who was rather shakily making his little experiment with the center of gravity. Unfortunately for its success, he became aware at the critical moment of the sensation he was creating, tottered, and sank in a heap, a victim—like many another who essays the trial of his powers—to self-consciousness.

To partial mother eyes, however, it had been a triumph new in the annals of the world, and Margaret caught him up, smothering him with kisses, and pouring into his ears the most extravagant encomiums. Ah! if only we—the children of a larger growth—could have our feeble efforts to stand upon our feet; to make some progress, however slight, along the way, to utter, though imperfectly, the thoughts that cry for speech; if we—in all this—could have a tithe of the wealth of sympathy and stimulating praise that mothers give, what might we not become?

Mammy Cely looked on with equal pride. "He certainly is mighty servigrous on his laigs," she remarked with pride. "He's gwineter be walkin' befo' long, that chile is! He's like his Uncle Richard. He gwineter git his strengt early."

Margaret made no reply to this. The truth was, she got rather tired of hearing about Philip's Uncle Richard.

To her the weeks were becoming mere pegs on which to hang some new phase of the child's development. There was such an astonishing succession of "first things,"—yesterday the first tooth—a pearl such as nobody had ever seen before; to-day the wonderful feat of standing alone; to-morrow the blissful anticipation of the first step; the next day perhaps the first word,—and then, oh, what a world of companionship that would let her into! Life was closing up behind her, but opening in front.

"Now get him ready, Mammy Cely, for his ride. I want him to be out all he can this fine weather. A little later, you know—well, what is it?" she interrupted herself to ask of the man who now stood at the door. He had a scared look.

"Mr. De Jarnette is down stairs, Miss."

"Mr. De Jarnette? What in the world has he come for at this time of day?" wondered Margaret. "Tell him I will be down at once."

"It a—ain't Mr. R—r—richard De Jarnette, Miss," said the man, stammering in his excitement, "it's Mr. Victor."

Victor! and announced like a stranger in his own home! She hardly knew the sound of her own voice as she answered, "Tell him I will be down at once."

At the door of the parlor she stopped. Her heart was beating so tumultuously it seemed to her that she would suffocate. She threw her head back as one who struggles for breath. Then she went in, closing the door behind her.

What passed in that interview nobody ever knew. The air was rife the next day with what it might have been; but the only thing ever reported was a fragment overheard by the mulatto who answered the bell, and who at that particular time was alert to do his duty. He related to Richard De Jarnette the next day that as Mr. Victor opened the door to leave the parlor he heard him say. "Whatever you do, you may as well understand now that I shall never relinquish my claim to—" here the man said he missed something because it was spoken in a lower tone, but he was sure it must have been something about money, for he distinctly heard him use the word claim.

From that interview Margaret went to her room, and later from the house, with a face so white and haggard that as Mammy Cely related to Richard De Jarnette, who called, enquiring for Victor, a half hour after she was gone, she was actually afraid of what she might do to herself.

"She seemed sorter desprit, Marse Richard," she concluded, with the freedom of an old family servant, "and sorter wild-like. No, sir, I didn't know what she was goin' to do. I don't know now!... When she come up stairs she tuk that chile—we had done come back fum the Circle, 'cause Mr. Victor was here some right smart while—she tuk it, she did, and set down and helt it so tight the little thing cried. Yaas, sir, it did! And look lak she didn' even know it was frettin'. She jes' set there, holdin' it clost, and weavin' back and fo'th, back and fo'th, tell I got right fidgity. After a while she got up and give him to me, and say she was goin' down to see Jedge Kirtley. And she says, 'Mammy Cely,' she says, 'don't you let anybody even see Philip while I am gone. Don't you let him out of yo' sight,' she says. Look lak she was takin' somethin' mighty hard."

"She was naturally excited over Mr. De Jarnette's return," said Richard. But he left the house abruptly and called a passing cab to take him to his office. He was more disturbed at what he had heard than he would admit to Mammy Cely.

Victor had had a long talk with him before going to Margaret. In fact, he had gone directly to Richard upon reaching the city the night before, a fact that had appealed insensibly to Richard's heart. He had not seen him since, and feeling vaguely uneasy, he had at last gone to the Massachusetts Avenue house, hoping to find him there and hoping also that by that time things might have been satisfactorily arranged. Mammy Cely's account of Margaret's condition made him distinctly apprehensive. It did not look as if a reconciliation had taken place, to say the least. He must find out first of all where Victor was.

The office of De Jarnette and De Jarnette, Loans and Mortgages, was in the third story of the Conococheague Building on F Street, one of the finest in Washington at that time. They consisted of a large corner room, a smaller room at the side of this communicating with it, which was Victor's private office, and a still smaller one beyond this which he had had fitted up as a lavatory. All three opened upon the corridor,—Victor's room being nearest the stairway, which was alongside of the elevators. These offices were furnished in the most luxurious fashion and after Victor De Jarnette's faultless taste. The workroom of the firm was Richard's private office across the hall. In Victor's absence his rooms had been unused and untouched except by the man who did the cleaning.

Richard De Jarnette had returned to the building with the intention of going directly to Victor's room, but when he opened his own door a letter left by the postman attracted his attention and he waited to read it. In the midst of the reading he was startled by the sound of a pistol. He threw the letter down and started for the hall. It had seemed to come from Victor's room. He rushed across to his door. It was locked. In a moment he had made his way through the front office into the back room.

An appalling sight met his eyes. Victor lay on the floor near his desk, the blood trickling over the carpet from a hidden wound. And over him, with a revolver in her hand—the one he had seen on her desk—stood Margaret.

As Richard's face appeared in the doorway she turned a ghastly, terror-stricken face upon him.

"What is it? Who did it?" she gasped. "I—I picked this up."

"Put it down," he said sternly, and pushed past her. In the hall hurrying steps were heard, and a confusion of voices. People were trying the door.

Richard De Jarnette knelt beside a dying man, but there was a flash of recognition in the dimming eyes.

"Victor! in God's name, what is this?"

The wounded man's lips moved. His head was on his brother's arm and Richard's ear was close enough to catch the gasping whisper:

"She's killed me, Dick."

"What does he say?" cried Margaret. The words had been too faint to reach her, but she saw a look of horror come into Richard De Jarnette's face. "Who did it? How did it happen?"

The room was filling with men. Dr. Semple, whose office was across the hall, was examining the wound.

In every man there is a divine spark of manliness. It is not always apparent. Sometimes it would seem to have burned itself out with the fierce fires of passion,—sometimes to have been quenched by the slow drippings that come from the fount called selfishness,—oftener, perhaps, it is smothered under a sodden blanket of sensuality and low desires,—but it is a spark of the divine fire, and when the right wind strikes it it leaps into flame.

At the sound of Margaret's voice Victor De Jarnette struggled to rise.

"Raise me up," he panted. "There is something—I—must say."

"Say it quickly," said the doctor, holding a handkerchief to stanch the blood. "There is no time to lose." To Richard and the men back of them he added, impressively, "This is a dying statement." And they gave close heed.

His head supported by Richard's arm, Victor gathered his strength for one supreme effort, and said so distinctly that all in the room heard it,

"It was accidental. I did it myself. I was—cleaning—my revolver." Men's eyes sought his desk where lay a handkerchief which had evidently been used for the purpose. "It—went off—in—my hand."

He sank back on a pillow taken hastily from the couch. It was one that Margaret had made for him before they were married—in the Harvard colors. It looked ghastly put to such a use.

"Can't you do something?" asked Richard De Jarnette hoarsely of the doctor.

"No, Richard," he said gently, "he is almost gone."

The dying man opened his eyes.

"Dick,—" his voice was very faint.

"Yes, Victor."

"—take care of m—"

Then, as if some sudden thought or recollection had come to him, he struggled again to rise, whispering wildly,

"The will!... Richard! the will! Don't let—"

His head dropped back against the crimson letters. That which it was in his heart to say would be forever unsaid.

CHAPTER X
"DUST TO DUST"

At the coroner's inquest Margaret was the first one questioned.

When Victor De Jarnette breathed his last, Dr. Semple had taken her by the hand and led her, apparently almost stupefied, into Richard's room, there to await the summons to appear before the coroner, who was immediately notified of the death. When she came in she was entirely collected, though very pale. Her appearance indicated more horror at what had occurred than grief, which was but natural under the circumstances, as more than one man thought, recalling the past year.

When questioned, she stated that her husband had been with her through the afternoon, that he had left her home about four o'clock, and that she had come down to the office an hour or so later. She had gone directly to the door of the main office, and just before reaching it had heard the pistol shot. She ran through the front office into Mr. De Jarnette's private room, feeling sure that the sound had come from there. She had found him on the floor, and near him a revolver which she recognized as one that he had had in his possession for several years.

Here, suddenly recalling Mr. De Jarnette's peremptory command to her to put the pistol down, she hesitated, and looked at him. His face was averted.

She went on, saying nothing about having had the pistol in her hand, nor about its being one of a pair that her husband owned, though this fact came to her suddenly. She had not had time to question him, she said, nor even to go to him before Mr. De Jarnette came in.

Had she heard any sound at the other door?

No, she had heard nothing, or rather she had been so horror-stricken to come upon her husband in this condition that she had not noticed anything.

Richard De Jarnette stated that he had heard the shot while he was in his own room across the hall and had hurried at once to the outside door of his brother's room. Finding it locked he had run around through the main office and found things just as Mrs. De Jarnette had testified. The door was locked, but it was a night latch, he got up to show. One might have gone out that way.

"Without encountering you?" the coroner asked. And Mr. De Jarnette, hesitating, and weighing his words, thought it hardly probable, though possible.

Margaret interrupted timidly here to say that since he spoke of the door she recollected hearing something just as she came in that sounded like the closing of a door. Mr. De Jarnette turned toward her, and with his hard eyes upon her, Margaret faltered that perhaps it was the outer door of the lavatory. Investigation proved that that door was bolted on the inside.

"I cannot see the pertinence of this line of inquiry," said Mr. De Jarnette, at length, almost roughly, "in the face of his dying statement that it was accidental." And his eyes as if by chance turned upon his sister-in-law.

The elevator boy was questioned as to whether any suspicious person had gone down about that time. He could not remember. It seemed to him, upon further thought, that a fat old lady had got on going down at the time of the pistol shot, but so many people went up and down all the time he couldn't be sure that it was not on the floor below.

Dr. Semple was examined as to the wound.

"I have made no careful examination," he said slowly, "beyond assuring myself that nothing could be done for him, and later that life was extinct. I have not thought it necessary. A dozen men are here who heard him say it was accidental, and from a weapon in his own hand." He picked up the cloth used in cleaning the revolver. "This seems to substantiate his statement as to how he happened to have the pistol." Several men were examined as to the ante-mortem statement.

The coroner's report was, "Accidental killing from a weapon in the hand of the deceased." Since it had been clearly shown to be accidental, no jury was impaneled.

It was Margaret's wish that Victor should be buried from his own home. When Judge Kirtley communicated this wish to Richard De Jarnette, he was surprised to find him averse to the arrangement. He preferred that he should be buried from his home, he said briefly. They were separated, and there was no use keeping up a pretence that they were not.

The Judge remonstrated that nobody knew what had passed between them that afternoon, not even Mr. De Jarnette, nor how it would have gone in the future had Victor lived. Margaret's wish to have him buried from his own home would seem to indicate that there had been a reconciliation. At any rate, it would put a different face on the matter to the world, and make it easier for her afterwards.

"Yes," Richard agreed, grimly, "it might make things easier for her." And he consented.

The burial service was brief and wholly impersonal. The burial was private.

Margaret went to the carriage on the arm of her brother-in-law by the arrangement of the undertaker. He had not been near her since the day they separated at the close of the coroner's inquest. Victor De Jarnette's body had lain in his brother's house two days and nights and had then been taken to the house on Massachusetts Avenue the morning of the burial. This was the most that Mr. De Jarnette would consent to. Whatever was thought about the grief of the wife, at this untimely death, there was no doubt as to that of the brother. Richard De Jarnette had aged years in these few days.

As the carriage door was closed upon Margaret alone, Judge Kirtley stepped up to the undertaker.

"Does not Mr. De Jarnette ride with Mrs. De Jarnette?" he asked in a low tone.

"No, sir, he preferred to ride in the second carriage alone. The third is reserved for you, sir."

"I will trouble you to open that door," said the Judge, rather stiffly, indicating the first carriage. "You may use your third carriage for some one else or dismiss it. I shall ride with Mrs. De Jarnette."

In a green bank at Oak Hill he was laid—Oak Hill, that beautiful silent suburb which, for a century of the capital's life—the shifting, heaving, kaleidoscopic life in which men come and go, and wax and wane, and pass into obscurity in ceaseless flow—has steadily gained in population and never lost. A passionate, turbulent soul was Victor De Jarnette, not wholly bad certainly; capable of much that was generous; productive of little that was worth perpetuating; not lacking in good impulses, but casting them oftener than otherwise in a mould of wax, which melted at the first hot blast of passion,—a mixture, like most of us perhaps, of good and evil, black and white. But alas!

"The evil that men do lives after them;

The good is oft interred with their bones."

That night Margaret De Jarnette sat long before the grate fire of the lonely house to which she had come a bride,—looking into the darkening coals and seeing nothing,—looking into the embers of a dead fire within, and finding much that had burned out. She lived relentlessly over the past two years,—putting to herself searching questions and exacting an answer to every one; going down into black depths of whose existence she once had not dreamed and coming up with staring, frightened eyes from which the scales of innocence had dropped.

Then she drew a long, shuddering breath.

"That book is closed," she whispered, "never to be opened again, thank God!... My girlhood is put away with it. I am old—old!"—she threw herself on her knees beside her sleeping child— "But oh, my baby! my little one! my blessed one! I have you! I have you!"

"Semple," Richard De Jarnette said abruptly as he and his friend sat together that night—a long silence had fallen between them—"could a wound like that be self-inflicted? In God's name, tell me the truth!"

It was the question Dr. Semple had been dreading for three days. He had thought of several ways to evade it. When it came, there was something in the haggard face of the man before him that would not be denied.

"No," he said, simply. "It would be a physical impossibility."

CHAPTER XI
THE WILL

It was two weeks or more after the burial of Victor De Jarnette before his will was read. Mr. Jarvis, the attorney in whose charge it had been left, had been absent from the city at the time of the unfortunate affair, and the hearing of the will had of necessity been postponed until his return. This was a matter of very little concern to Margaret. It seemed to her rather a useless formality anyway, this coming together to hear the provisions of a legal instrument that could have but one outcome. The money would go to Philip, of course. Judge Kirtley had talked to her about her "dower rights," and a "child's part," and several other things that she did not in the least understand, but she only shook her head. She had a great abundance of money, she told him, for her own needs and Philip's, too, for that matter, and she had determined to turn over to her child at once whatever legally came to her. She had a shuddering feeling that she did not want to use Victor's money. Let it all go to Philip. In fact, Margaret had always been so far removed from any care in regard to money except the spending of it that her ideas on the subject were very vague and impractical. She had always had all the money she wanted or could possibly use, and what would anybody want with more than that? Avarice is the vice of age rather than of youth, and Margaret certainly was not avaricious.

She had spent this fortnight in adjusting herself to new conditions. When the first horror of it all passed she became aware that a great load was lifted from her heart. There was nothing to do; there was no choice pressing upon her; everything was settled, and that by no act of hers; there was no danger now of trouble about Philip, and the sharp relief she experienced at this thought made her aware of what a steadily-growing fear that had begun to be. No, that was over now, thank God! and she caught up the child in a passion of relief.

There was something infinitely touching about the girl in these days when she stood looking at the wreck of her life. It was so different from what she had thought it would be—so different! She wondered vaguely if other people—most people—saw their ships go down like this.

The sea around her was filled with wreckage. There was nothing now but to gather up the scattered bits and with such courage as she could summon, piece out another life. A very quiet subdued one this would be, with Philip as its center. It would be colorless perhaps—she shivered slightly,—she was not quite twenty-one, and color had not lost its charm,—but it would, at least, be peaceful.

Then, as thought projected itself into the future, and she saw this opening bud grow to the perfect flower, it seemed to her that it would not only be peaceful, but satisfying. Now he was a rolicking boy, and she would see to it that he missed none of life's pleasures that had not a sting;—now he was a lad at school, she standing by his side, thinking his thoughts and leading him on to think hers—she would keep very, very close to him! her little Philip!—then a youth at college—could she let him go away for that?—and now a man fitted for useful life, and with his strong arm shielding her, his mother, who had shielded him, smoothing the pathway for her feet as she went down life's hill. Ah! through it all how she would guard him, guide him, carry him by sheer force of mother-love across the slippery places that his feet would find. His father—and her thought of him, a motherless boy, grew tender—his father had missed this. Perhaps, if he had had it—well, she would make it up to Philip, his child, at any rate. She would try to keep him pure. This with a sudden sinking sense of her own helplessness. The first regret came to her that it was a son she had and not a daughter. A daughter she could keep with her while a son must of necessity go out into the world, and the world, she thought with a pang, was so full of peril, of temptation.

The more she pondered it the more her soul was girded for her work. To mould a life! This was what was left her. Well! was it not enough? To find her chief happiness not in living her own, but in fashioning another life. Then to something that spoke within her she made answer, "Yes, of course, it will be lonely, but—" A fragment of a fugitive poem she had once read came to her,

"Lonely? Well, and what of that?"

She could not recall the next two lines—such scraps are so elusive—but it did not matter. The trumpet call of the thing was in the last line:

"Work may be done in loneliness. Work on!"

She bowed her head over the crib on which lay her sleeping child. She took his soft dimpled hand between her palms.

"Yes, it is lonely, little Philip," she whispered brokenly,—"it will always be lonely, but—

'Work may be done in loneliness.'"

"I'll begin again, dear, and map out another life and we will live it together, you and I. And we will make it just as sweet and full a life as we can—for 'I'll have you and you'll have me.' We won't be gloomy or sad—we will not let ourselves be—nothing shall cast a shadow over this little life we are going to live—nothing! It is ours! We will make it the brightest and the best thing we can. We have a right to be happy and we will be! Nobody shall keep us from it, little Philip!"

It was in this mood of quiet exaltation that she went down stairs to the reading of the will a little later when the lawyer came.

She had not seen her brother-in-law since the funeral. To Judge Kirtley's unspeakable indignation Mr. De Jarnette had not even returned to the house with her. At this lack of civility, to say nothing of brotherly kindness, she was surprised and hurt, but she clothed herself in her impenetrable garment of silence regarding it, and made no comment.

Judge Kirtley had not been so reticent. To his wife he had said with some heat,

"He is the most incomprehensible man I ever saw. I know he is undemonstrative by nature, but up to this time he really has not been lacking in substantial kindness to Margaret. I judge so from what she tells me—particularly when Victor first went away and she most needed help. But since his death, when one would have expected him to stand by her, he has stood aloof. I can't understand it. He certainly is not an emotional man, nor an impulsive one. There is something back of this."

"Can she have offended him by anything she has said? And still she has been so very reticent—"

"No," said the Judge, "it isn't that, I am sure. I have sometimes wondered if it could be—" he was patting his foot thoughtfully and talking more to himself than to her,—"that he had some suspicion that Victor's death was by his own hand—intentionally, I mean—and held Margaret responsible for it—as the result of their interview."

"And what that was we will never know," said his wife, with the tone of one airing a grievance.

"No, and never should," her husband responded, quickly. "She shows her sense there. I have wondered, I say, if he can hold such a thought as that against her. It is the only thing I can think of that would at all excuse his conduct."

"Didn't Victor make a dying statement that it was accidental?"

"Yes."

"A sworn statement?"

"No. But a dying declaration has almost as much weight."

"Then, of course, it was the truth! Wouldn't that be perjury or something like that to make a false statement at such a time?"

"Well, you see," the Judge responded, dryly, "Victor De Jarnette was going where he would be in no danger of being tried for perjury—even admitting that it would have been that—which it wouldn't." Then, feeling that he had been a little indiscreet in thus thinking aloud before the wife of his bosom, who did not enjoy quite all his confidence, he added, "I think you are right, my dear. It was a foolish thought in me."

"It certainly was," answered Mrs. Kirtley, pursuing the advantage of this concession to her superior wisdom, "foolish and wild. Of course it was an accident! Why, wasn't the rag there that he had been cleaning the pistol with?"

"It was."

"Well!" triumphantly.

"You are right again. That settles it," said the Judge, chuckling to himself. "You ought to have been a lawyer, my dear, or a detective."

"Oh, I can see a thing when it is self-evident," his wife said, modestly.

The three gentlemen, Mr. De Jarnette, Judge Kirtley, and Mr. Jarvis were in the library when Margaret entered it. The latter, being nearest the door, rose and extended his hand in grave courteous greeting. Mr. De Jarnette—the table between them—bowed; while Judge Kirtley took her affectionately by the hand and drew her to a chair beside him. She was clothed in black relieved by white at neck and wrists. There was something about her slight girlish form and youthful face that made the attorney with the legal document in his hand draw a quick deep breath and give an unnoticed movement of the head as if in protest.

"And are you well?" asked the Judge, patting her hand and smiling re-assuringly into her eyes. There is something very awe-inspiring to a novice in a visit from a lawyer with a legal document in his hand.

"Oh, yes, quite well, thank you."

Her hands were cold. He said, to give her time to recover herself, "And how is the boy?"

Her face lighted up as from a burst of sunshine. "Doing nicely, thank you. Growing every day in strength and accomplishments. Why, he actually travels around chairs faster than we want to travel after him."

"That's right. He'll lead you a merry chase when he finds out his powers."

"Yes, and he is finding them out very rapidly. He is going to be a real boy—so strong and active."

"He is great company for you," Judge Kirtley said, "and will be more as time goes on. I know how these little things creep into one's heart. You know I lost my boy." It was forty years since then, but his eyes grew moist as he thought of the son who might have been his stay, and was but a tender memory.

Her hand closed over his. "It must be very hard to lose a child," she said, softly. "I—I think I could not bear that. They come so close!"

They were talking almost in an undertone. Richard De Jarnette had left the room to speak to his driver at the door. The lawyer, a kind-hearted man with children of his own, was fumbling over the papers in his bag, saying helplessly. "Oh, Lord! Lord!"

When Mr. De Jarnette returned, Margaret released her hand gently and sat upright. Then the reading began.

The will was dated May 3, 1889, two days after their marriage. Margaret remembered Victor's coming home that day and telling her that he had made it and had left everything to her,—remembered too how she had clung passionately to him in the superstitious fear of what a will might bring, and said that she did not want his money, she wanted him. Yes, the date was the same, and as the reading proceeded she saw, through all the tiresome verbiage, that it was just as he had said—all was left to his "beloved wife, Margaret." Richard De Jarnette was named as executor.

The lawyer paused as if this were the end, though he still held the paper—a little unsteadily—before him. It seemed to Judge Kirtley, watching from the depths of his leather-covered chair, that the paper shook.

Margaret's voice broke the stillness that followed the reading of the will.

"I do not know that this is the time or place to do this," she began with hesitation, "but—when this will was written there was no child. Now that there is, I wish to transfer this property to him. I have enough—"

"Margaret," the Judge interrupted, "the law takes care of that. Though there is no mention of a child, he would share with you."

"I want him to have it all," she said. "I—I could not keep this money for myself. I would not wish to use it."

She turned to look at Judge Kirtley, who was at her right, and as she did so met Richard De Jarnette's steady gaze. There was something so intent, so inexplicable in his eyes,—a look so like hate or scorn or distrust,—something at least that she had never seen there before,—that involuntarily she dropped her eyes. What had she said? What made him look like that? There was something in that look that froze her blood.

Judge Kirtley as her lawyer spoke authoritatively. "There is time enough to attend to all that later. These things should never be done with precipitation."

And Margaret, who had not yet recovered from that startling look into Richard De Jarnette's heart, and was moreover oppressed with the fear that she had done a thing Judge Kirtley disapproved, subsided into silence.

The voice of Mr. Jarvis was heard.

"I regret to say," he remarked slowly and with his eyes bent religiously on the paper, "that there is a codicil to this will, bearing date of April 30th of the following year. No one can deprecate more than I the painful duty that devolves upon me of reading it in this presence."

Judge Kirtley sat up in his easy chair, scenting danger. It was unusual for an attorney to apologize for a will. But Margaret was motionless. She was thinking of the date. It was the day Victor left her—two days before Philip was born.

Then the attorney read:

"To my beloved brother, Richard De Jarnette, who has been to me a father, I give and bequeath the custody and tuition of my child until it shall be of full age, and I direct that such disposition shall be good and effectual against all and every person or persons claiming the custody and tuition of said child."

For a moment there was not a sound. It was Margaret, again, who broke the silence. She turned to Judge Kirtley, a look of bewilderment on her face, but no alarm.

"'Custody,'" she repeated, simply. "What does it mean by 'custody'? Is it the care of the property?"

The Judge's face looked gray in its rigidity. He shook his head slightly and then motioned toward Mr. Jarvis.

"Mr. De Jarnette's attorney will explain," he said, briefly.

Margaret turned to the lawyer who still held the paper in his hand. "You see I am very ignorant of legal terms," she said, with a pitiful little attempt at apology,—"I have never had anything to do with the law—and I do not quite understand what 'custody' means here. Is it that Mr. De Jarnette is by this codicil appointed Philip's guardian—to take care of his property?"

The attorney did not look up from the papers he was fingering. Indeed, as she looked from one to another in her perplexity Margaret saw only averted faces. There was not one that was ready to look into her anxious, pleading eyes.

"Mrs. De Jarnette," said the attorney, moistening his dry lips, "this means something more serious than that, or rather it would if Mr. De Jarnette were inclined to insist upon the letter of the law—which, of course, he will not do—" with a rather imploring glance in the direction of the gentleman referred to. Mr. De Jarnette sat unmoved and immovable, not showing by the change of a muscle that he heard the appeal, and the lawyer went on. "Custody in this sense does not mean the guardianship of property, but of the person."

There was another silence. Then Margaret,—eyes staring, breath coming hard, hands clenched, and face white as death, spoke.

"Do you mean," she said slowly and in a voice that trembled with suppressed passion, "that my child has been willed away from me?—from me—his mother? That this man—or any man—can have the right by law to take him from me?... My baby?... Oh, no! you don't mean this!... I was mad to think of it. But you see—I am so inexperienced."

"But, Mrs. De Jarnette," returned the lawyer, feeling his task harder even than he had feared, "I am obliged to tell you—much as I regret to do so—that it is true. There is a most unfortunate law in this District—not to call it by a harsher name—which gives a father the right to will away his child even from its mother. That law your late husband unfortunately knew about, and in a moment of great anger, and, as he claimed, of great provocation, he used that knowledge as we have seen."

"To stab the woman he had sworn to cherish," muttered Judge Kirtley, under his breath. Then, reaching for the will, he asked, sternly, "Were all the requirements of the law complied with in regard to witnesses?"

"Yes, sir. I am sorry to say that nothing has been omitted that would give validity to the will—or rather to this codicil."

"Then I am constrained to say," blurted the Judge, "that it was a dastardly thing!"

"I think I should say, in justice to myself," said Mr. Jarvis, a little stiffly, "that I made every effort to dissuade Mr. De Jarnette from doing this thing. I urged him to wait until the next day, knowing him to be an impulsive man, and feeling sure that he would wish afterwards to undo what he had done. But—he would not listen to me. I hoped that I could get him to change the will when he returned, and I can hardly doubt that he would have done so, had it not been for the unfortunate accident that ended his life."

Margaret had been listening breathlessly. As Mr. Jarvis stopped she turned to speak to Judge Kirtley and again encountered the steady gaze of Richard De Jarnette's black eyes. It seemed so strange, so unaccountable, for him to watch her so that before she could control it—if indeed control is ever possible—she felt a hot tide sweeping up from neck to brow. And the consciousness of this did not lessen the flow. Then it passed and left her paler than before. It was annoying but it did not stop her in what she had to say. A new thought had come to her while Mr. Jarvis was speaking.

"What is the date of that codicil?" she asked.

"April 30, 1890."

"I thought so," she said eagerly. "Well, don't you see how that date changes everything? Even if my—if Mr. De Jarnette had had the right by law to will away my child he could not have done it on April 30th, for Philip was not born till two days afterward! His birthday is May second!" She said it exultantly.

As by one impulse the two lawyers looked each into the face of the other and then away.

"Don't you see?" she cried desperately, not comprehending the look but knowing instinctively that something was wrong. "Don't you see the difference that makes? When that will was made this child was mine!—a part of my body!—my very breath giving him life!... Don't you see?—Oh, can't you see?... He wouldn't have the right to make this will then—not then!"

Her voice was becoming strained and high-pitched in her excitement.

"Mrs. De Jarnette," began Mr. Jarvis, "the law—I should say—yes, the law—Judge, you can explain this to her better than I can."

She turned to Judge Kirtley. She was in extremity now.

"My child," he said, "the law, as it distinctly states, recognizes in this thing no difference between the living child and the infant en ventre sa mere. Your husband, according to the laws of the District of Columbia, had a right to will away your unborn child."

She stared at him incredulously. Then, as the meaning of his words sank into her quivering soul, she bent toward him with a look that had a challenge in it.

"And have you known this before?"

"Always."

"And you?" she demanded, turning to Mr. Jarvis.

"Yes," he admitted. "It is a part of our imperfect laws. The whole thing should have been revised long ago. It is a disgrace to the District."

"Then why does it remain upon your statute books?" she cried, furiously. "Is law only for the strong? Do we—the weak—the ones who need it most—do we find in it only something to mock us when we cry to it?"

Her timidity was all gone. She flung her questions at them tumultuously, as children stand and beat impotently upon a door that will not open to them. "I tell you it is a wicked law! a wicked, wicked law! and they do wickedly who let it stand!... A mother have no right to her unborn child? Shame! shame! upon the men who frame such laws! They are not born of women but of beasts!"

"Margaret," Judge Kirtley said, sternly, "you must control yourself. This is no place for a discussion of our laws, however imperfect they are."

"I beg your pardon," she answered with a flush and a return to her usual manner. "In this insult to womanhood and motherhood I forgot myself. I shall not do so again. Only tell me that I need not fear—that my baby is safe with me!"

As she spoke she turned full upon Richard De Jarnette though she did not call his name.

He looked at her impassively.

"Mr. De Jarnette," said Mr. Jarvis, nervously, folding up his papers and placing them in his satchel, "I think you can do more to add to your sister-in-law's peace of mind than anybody else can. Will you not tell her plainly your intentions in the matter?"

"I will," said Richard De Jarnette, a sudden fire leaping to his eyes, which were upon Margaret. Then he turned to the attorney.

"I accept the trust my brother has bequeathed to me, and shall claim the child."

Saying which he rose, bowed slightly, and left the room.

CHAPTER XII
A LOSING FIGHT

It was as if a thunderbolt had fallen from a clear sky. Margaret dropped back like one shot. Judge Kirtley and the attorney looked after the disappearing figure and then at each other.

Before they had time to recover from their astonishment Margaret started up in a quiver of excitement.

"Where has he gone? Is he after Philip?"

Before they could remonstrate she was out of the room and hurrying up the stairs.

"Had you any knowledge, sir, of the stand Mr. De Jarnette was going to take?" demanded Judge Kirtley, sternly.

"Not the slightest. It is as much of a surprise to me as to you."

"Did he know the nature of this will before coming here?"

"I think not. He certainly did not know it from me, and I have reason to think that he did not see his brother after it was made until the day he returned, which was the day of his death, I believe."

"It was."

"I was out of the city at the time and did not see Victor De Jarnette after this codicil was added, April thirtieth. I wish to God I had! I think perhaps I could have persuaded him then to alter it. He had had a good many months in which to cool down. He was a hot-headed fellow, you know."

"You say you tried to argue him out of doing it in the first place?"

"I used every effort in my power, but he would listen to nothing. I never saw a man so carried away by passion."

"Well, by the Lord, sir!" said the Judge, bringing his fist down upon the table, "I believe I should have refused to draw up that will!"

The attorney flushed.

"I did so at first," he returned quietly, "but he insisted that if I would not do it he could get somebody that would—which, of course, I knew was true. I thought that when he had had time to think it over he would feel ashamed of it and want to change it, and I felt that if it were between us two I should be in a better position to try to bring this about than if it had gone entirely out of my hands."

"There is something in that," admitted the Judge.

"I hadn't the least idea that he was going off. I wrote to him when I found out where he was, and urged him to make a new will over there, but he replied that he would attend to it when he got home. I really think he intended to do it, but you know how he was cut off."

"Yes, that's it. We never have the warning we suppose we will have. We know that other people drop dead but we never expect to do it ourselves ... I hope you are right, for it is rather hard for me to forgive Victor De Jarnette. Living he made her life wretched, and from the grave he has reached up to strike her. He could not have given a crueler blow than this. And the other one,—I tell you, Jarvis, that man is going to give us trouble. Weren't you amazed at the stand he took?"

"Astounded. I cannot fathom his motive."

"Nor I," returned the Judge, helplessly. "But as sure as you are a living man he means business. I wouldn't tell Margaret so, but I don't believe there will be any back-down from this. We'll have to fight it out in the courts.... Poor child! she has had trouble enough to break the spirit of an ordinary woman."

"Do you know the De Jarnettes intimately?" asked Mr. Jarvis. "I was wondering what would be the best way to reach him."

"I know them well," said the Judge, energetically. "Better than I wish I did. I would have more hope of a peaceable settlement of this thing if I knew less. There is a cruel streak in the De Jarnettes. You have seen it in Victor and I have seen it in his father. And it was in his grandfather before him. They never forgive and they never forget an injury to any of the blood. I believe that is why Richard De Jarnette had taken this stand. I think he must consider her in some way responsible for his brother's going wrong. You know there are men who always charge everything to a woman. I can't see anything else that would account for his change of front."

"Judge," the attorney said hurriedly—he was expecting Margaret at any moment—"what are you going to do? Of course you will represent Mrs. De Jarnette. You will fight?"

"Fight!" Judge Kirtley drew his somewhat stooping figure up to its full measure. "Yes, sir, we will fight—to the death! I am an old war horse to be going into battle, but I hope there is one fight left in me! We'll see, anyway."

"I should not like to be your opponent, sir,—and I'll tell you this: I shall not be."

"The laws of the District are against us," said Judge Kirtley, reflectively. "That's a damnable law, Jarvis!"

"The whole thing is rotten," answered the attorney. "The District of Columbia has laws on her statute books that would make her a laughing stock for civilized communities if they were generally known. This is one of the most infamous, but there are others just as unreasonable. The whole thing ought to be plowed up and weeded out."

"God speed the day! I suppose that child will hold her baby in her arms all night, fearing at every sound that Richard De Jarnette is coming to drag him away from her. And I don't feel sure that he wouldn't if he got a chance. The trouble about these silent fellows is that you never know what they are going to do next. What will be his next move do you suppose?"

"Have the will probated, I suppose, and have himself confirmed as guardian and executor."

"And then?"

"Oh! the Lord knows, Judge! I don't. What could a man do with a child of that age? It is spite work. Nothing short of it." He put his papers carefully away. "Do you think Mrs. De Jarnette is coming down? I shall have to be going. Set me right with her about this matter, will you? I regret exceedingly to have had any part in it."

When he was gone Judge Kirtley sent up for Margaret. She came down with Philip in her arms.

"I would not come," she said, "while that man was here. How could he have done such a thing?... And oh, Judge Kirtley, they can't take him from me, can they? Is there such a cruel law as that?"

It seemed crueler to him to-day than ever before, as he looked at the slight creature clinging to her child.

"There really is such a law. I have never seen it put to the test, but I feel sure it would not be enforced in such a case as this where there is nothing against your character, and the child is so young."

"But when he grows older," she said, quickly, "could he take him then?"

"That would have to be tested in the courts, Margaret. You may feel sure of my doing all that can be done."

"Oh, I do, I do. But it is so dreadful that it needs to be done. Why should he want Philip? I—I can't understand it. It frightens me. And why does he look at me as he does? It—it makes me feel as if I have done something."

"That is doubtless all imagination, but—how long have you noticed this?" the Judge inquired, carelessly.

"Ever since the day of the funeral. And even that day when we were together at the inquest. Judge Kirtley ... would he dare to harm Philip if he could get hold of him?"

"Margaret, this is foolish, child. The only thing he could do would be to get possession of the child as testamentary guardian by due process of law, and that is always long."

"And if he got him and I could only get him back by due process of law—would that be long too?"

"Yes, that might be longer still, for being his legal guardian he would have the law presumably on his side. But, my dear, we won't cross that bridge to-day. He hasn't got him yet. I don't believe there is a court on earth—certainly not in this District—that would take your child from you. Cheer up. We'll fight it out if worst comes to worst."

She did not smile. "Do you think it is because he wants the money?"

"I have thought of that, of course. It generally is because of money that most of the deviltry is done. But I had never thought he was that kind of man."

"Oh, I hope it is! That would make it all so simple. Can't you find out if it is and tell him to take it, all of it—I don't want the money—only he must give up all claim to Philip."

"Nonsense, Margaret," said the Judge, testily, "I shall do nothing of the kind. You have no right to relinquish this money—either your own or Philip's. It is willed to you and it ought to stand."

"Yes, but the same will that gives me the money gives him Philip!... Oh, why did Victor do this wicked thing?"

As he went away Judge Kirtley said, "I shall go to Mr. De Jarnette and see what I can do toward settling it out of court. I think it will turn out all right. I have great faith that he can be brought to see it in the right light. And if he can't and it has to go into the courts—" Margaret looked hopelessly at him—the case seemed lost already, so powerful and fearful a thing is the law to the inexperienced—"you must remember always that in any proceedings concerning the custody of children, even in the absence of any express statute, the court is obliged to consider the welfare of the child as paramount to every other consideration, and it has the power even to take a child away from its guardian if that seems best for the child."

"But in this case it seems that there is an express statute, or law, or whatever it is," said Margaret, who had been listening with all the powers of a mind unused to legal terms and technicalities, "and that it is against the mother."

"That does not make it certain that the courts would sustain the will. The court is always apt to favor the claim of the mother unless it can be proved that she is an improper person to have charge of it. So cheer up, my child."

She was standing before him with the boy, who laughed and crowed unheeded, in her arms.

"But if he should come when you are gone and try to take him," she said, her eyes big with fright. "What could I do?"

"Margaret, he will not come. You need not fear it in the least. Richard De Jarnette would not go against the law to secure your child—even if he cannot be persuaded to give him up."

"How can I tell what is law?" she cried passionately. "If anybody had told me yesterday that the law gave a man a right to will away my child before it was born, I should have said he was mad! And when this other man comes and demands that child—as he will, I know he will!—how am I to know that the law does not give him the power to take him?"

"Because I am telling you now that it does not. You can trust me if you can't the law. That isn't the danger to be feared."

"What is?" she asked, quickly.

"Just what I was telling you, that after due process of law the court might decide in favor of his claim—if he should press it—and I don't believe he will."

"He will!" she said, hopelessly. "I know he will. You don't know how vindictively he looked at me."

It was useless to argue against such logic as this, and he went away.

When he was gone Margaret had the great door locked and bolted and gave orders that no one should be admitted. That night she slept fitfully, Philip in her arms.

CHAPTER XIII
THE WOLF BLOOD

It was not until the next day that Judge Kirtley went to see Mr. De Jarnette.

"I will give him an opportunity to sleep over it," he told his wife. "A man's sober second thought is always in the morning."

But Richard De Jarnette's sleep had not been long enough nor sound enough to change his mind.

"The stubbornness of the man is incredible," the Judge reported when he got home. "He's going to make us trouble—I can see that. He makes no accusation against Margaret. He doesn't try in the least to defame her character, but he says his brother undoubtedly had sufficient reasons for making such a will and that he shall carry out his wishes."

"I suppose the small matter of Margaret's having borne the child is no reason why he should consult her wishes," said Mrs. Kirtley, indignantly.

"Apparently not. He simply ignores her."

"What could he do with a baby? He can't take care of it! I can't see why he wants it."

"It isn't that he wants it. This is not affection. But for some reason he is determined that Margaret shall not have it."

"It is a dog-in-the-manger spirit!"

"No." the Judge said, thoughtfully, "it isn't that." From long habit his judicial mind was weighing evidence on both sides. "I am convinced that he has some reason for this, but so far I haven't been able to get at it. I asked him plainly if he had anything against Margaret. He said he had no accusations to make. And indeed I don't see that he could make any. If ever in a case like this a woman has been absolutely blameless, that woman is Margaret."

"What does he propose to do with the child?"

"I asked him that. He says he shall leave him in charge of the old woman who has taken care of him all his life, but he intends to take them to his home. He says she is perfectly competent and trustworthy—"

"Well, that is true," acknowledged Mrs. Kirtley. "I never saw a more faithful nurse."

"So he says. He claims that Margaret has herself told him repeatedly that the old woman knows better what to do with the child than she does."

"As if that proved anything! Every young mother has to learn. The man is a brute! Will he take Philip at once?"

"Oh, no! A will must always be admitted to probate before anybody can have any rights under it. And when it is we will be there to contest it."

"Have you talked with Margaret?"

"No. She is to come to the office this afternoon."

When he laid the case before her there Margaret listened in silence. Her excitement of the day before was gone. In fact Judge Kirtley would have been glad to see her more moved than she was. Her calmness seemed almost like despair.

"I knew he would not do it," she said. "He means us harm."

"Well, just for the present, my dear, I seem to have been unsuccessful, but I have by no means given up hope of its being compromised."

"What reason does he give for persisting in taking Philip from me?"

"None at all. He simply falls back on the will and says he wants to carry out his brother's wishes."

"There is some reason," she said positively. "He hates me. For what cause I cannot tell. I have felt it since the day Victor died. He has avoided me ever since. I am afraid of him. And yet I feel powerless before a fear that cannot even be defined. Why should he hate me?"

"I think that is imagination. Are you willing to talk with him?"

"Why, certainly."

"Very well then, I shall arrange for you to see him to-morrow—in his private office."

Then they fell to talking about the will and Margaret said, hesitatingly, "Judge Kirtley, are you sure it wouldn't make any difference—Philip's not being born when the will was made, I mean. It seems as if it must make a difference."

He went to the library and took down the Statute Book, turning to Chapter XXVII, Section one, and read:

"Sec. 1. ... That when any person hath or shall have any child or children under the age of one and twenty years, and not married at the time of his death, that it shall and may be lawful to and for the father of such child or children, whether born at the time of the decease of the father, or at that time in ventre sa mere; or whether such father be within the age of one and twenty years, or of full age, by his deed executed in his lifetime, or by his last will and testament in writing, in the presence of two or more credible witnesses, in such manner, and from time to time as he shall respectively think fit, to dispose of the custody and tuition of such child or children, for, and during such time as he and they shall respectively remain under the age of one and twenty years, or any lesser time, to any person or persons in possession or remainder, other than Popish recusants:—"

She listened carefully. As he closed the book she said scathingly, "I don't wonder they put it in a foreign tongue. That would sound very harsh in English."

Then after a moment she asked, "Judge Kirtley, how does it happen that such an infamous law was ever put upon our Statute Books?"

"That is a long story, Margaret, or rather there are links in the chain that go back a long way. It doesn't take much time in the telling." He was glad to turn her thoughts into a slightly different channel.

"You see, when Maryland ceded the District of Columbia to the United States for a permanent seat of government, it was provided by an act of Congress that all the laws of the State of Maryland, as they then existed, should be and continued in force in the District, or at least such part of it as had been ceded by that State."

"Did Maryland have such a law?" asked Margaret, incredulously.

"Yes, Maryland and a good many of the other states—the older ones particularly. They have been gradually modifying these laws in a number of them, but—"

"How did they ever happen to have such a law in the first place?" she interrupted. "I did not dream that such things would be tolerated in this age."

"The explanation is simple enough. When the English emigrants came to this country and founded commonwealths they brought with them ready-made the language, the laws, and the institutions of the mother country. These had only to be modified and adapted to changed conditions that they found here."

"Then this is really an English law?"

"An English law dating back to the time of Charles II. It was originally framed to prevent the Catholics from obtaining possession of the children of a Protestant father, I believe."

"It sounds as if it might have gone back to the Dark Ages," said Margaret, indignantly, "or to barbarism! It seems so strange that I have never heard of it before."

"Not at all. Most people do not know about laws until they are touched by them."

"You say some of the states have repealed this law. Why did they do it?"

"Oh, they found it contrary to the spirit of the age, I suppose. I guess the women's rights people prodded them up a little, maybe."

"Judge Kirtley," said Margaret, after a pause in which her mind had gone from women's rights to women's wrongs, "do you suppose many women are forced to give up their children under this law?"

"Not many of your kind, Margaret. Perhaps not many of any kind. But it is a thing well known that many brutal men know of this law and hold it as a club over their wives. A lazy, good-for-nothing negro, for instance, will often make his wife support him, here in the District where there are so many of them, by using this threat."

"Oh, it is cruel! cruel!" she cried, her voice trembling with indignation.

"Margaret, I think, judging from your face just now, that if you were a man you would say of this law, as Lincoln did of slavery, 'If I ever get a chance at that institution I'll hit it hard!'"

"I would! I would! If I were a man. But what can a woman do but suffer!"

"Some of them learn to fight," he said, "enough at least to defend their young."

It was in her mind to ask him further questions, but he forestalled them.

"You'd better go home now, child, and think no more about it for a while. I will see Mr. De Jarnette and arrange to go with you to his office to-morrow."

This meeting never took place. Judge Kirtley went to Margaret's home just before night to tell her that Mr. De Jarnette had declined to talk it over with her. It could be settled much more satisfactorily with her attorney, he had said.

"I never expected him to do it," Margaret said, shaking as with a chill. "Judge Kirtley, what does it mean? Why does he shun me so?"

"My own idea, Margaret, is that he is afraid to risk talking it over with you for fear of having his resolution broken down by your tears."

"I should never go to him with tears!" said Margaret, with flashing eyes.

"I think perhaps it is just as well for you not to go," remarked Judge Kirtley, prudently. "I believe time will bring it right anyway. And don't let your fears run away with you, Margaret. He wouldn't think of doing anything except according to law—and the law is always deliberate. After the will is filed, with petition for probate, several weeks will have to elapse before it can be settled, even if it is settled satisfactorily to all concerned. If we find there is going to be trouble this will give us time to decide upon our line of procedure. We may have to contest the will."

"On the ground that it is unjust?"

"No. A will can be contested in the probate court only on the ground that the testator was of unsound mind and hence incapable of making a will, or that he was unduly influenced. By the way, have you ever seen anything in your husband that would lead you to think that he might be of unsound mind?"

"No," said Margaret, after a moment's thought, "not a thing. He was very passionate, but otherwise perfectly sane."

"Hm-m. And have you any reason to think that Mr. Richard De Jarnette would have tried to influence him in the making of this will?"

"No. I am sure he would never have done it. It would not have been in the least like him."

"Well, Margaret," said the Judge, dryly, "I think I will not call you as a witness in this case just yet ... It seems to me that the unsound mind theory might be successful, in spite of what you say. These fits of passion that you speak of—anger is a short-lived madness, you know—the fact that his mother did some unexplained things; and then his unaccountable desertion of you—well, we will see."

"It seems to me," said Margaret, rather timidly, "that the plea that the will is unjust is so much more forcible than any other. Anybody can see that without argument. It is self-evident."

"Very true, but the law recognizes only these two reasons for setting aside a will. Unfortunately the laws of this District permit a man to make just such a will. It remains for us only to prove that he was mentally incapable of making one at all, or, as I said, that he was unduly influenced."

Margaret shook her head and sighed. She did not believe that either could be established.

"Now don't let your fears run away with you, Margaret. Be sensible. Mr. De Jarnette wouldn't harm Philip. It is absurd to think of it."

"Oh, I am afraid! There is no telling what he would do if he ever got hold of him. He must have some object in wanting him. And you know it is no good object."

It was useless to reason with her. Her fears had placed her beyond reason. He went away, promising to see Mr. De Jarnette again.

When he was gone, Margaret went to her room and sat down. Her strength seemed suddenly gone. She could not stand. Her head was dry and burning and her hands like ice. A thousand fears assailed her. A girl of twenty-one, shielded from contact with the world or a knowledge of its wickedness was poorly fitted to cope with such fears. They were unreasonable, of course, but Margaret did not know it.

If she could only get away where he could never find them! or at any rate until Philip was no longer a baby. She might have courage to face it when he was a few years older—but a baby was so helpless! And she looked despairingly at the little form lying there in the unconscious grace of sleep, the soft breath parting rosy lips, and the moist locks clustering in rings on the fair forehead.

"Oh, Mammy Cely," she cried in desperation, "why does he want my baby?"

The black woman shook her head. There had been no secrecy with her about the will. Her relations with the mother and child had been too close for Margaret to have any hesitation about telling her, and her own need of comfort too urgent for her to have been prudent had she had. She must talk to somebody. So Mammy Cely knew the whole story, and was wrung between sympathy for Margaret and loyalty to "Marse Richard."

"The Lord knows, Miss Margaret!" she said, shaking her head. "It beats me!"

She turned away and began arranging the shades for the night, muttering below her breath as she did so, "Hit's the wolf blood! That's what it is!"

"What did you say, Mammy Cely?"

The old woman made no reply.

"Mammy Cely! what did you say?"

"Miss Margaret,—I don't want to tell you nothin' about it—maybe it ain't so anyway."

"Maybe what isn't so?" Margaret's curiosity was now thoroughly aroused.

"Why,—'bout the Jarnettes' havin' wolf hearts. That's what they used to say. I don't know 'm. But I reckon it's so. I thought sho' Marse Richard was gwineter 'scape it. He ain' never showed that strain befo'. But look lak it's a curse. They can't git shet of it. Hit's there. Fire can't burn it and water can't squinch it! Honey ... it was Marse Richard's daddy wha' sold my little Cass away from me."

"Your baby?" cried Margaret in horror. "Sold your baby?"

"Well, she wa'n't jes as you might say a baby," said Mammy Cely, with scrupulous exactness, "but she was the onlies' one I had, and when a mother loses a child—specially her onlies' one—no matter how old it is, it's her baby. 'Pears lak she always goes back to that.—Yaas, 'm, he sold her—down South. It's more than thirty years sence then. And I ain't never seen her sence."

"Oh, Mammy Cely! How could you bear it?"

Mammy Cely looked at her with dry eyes.

"A body can bear a heap of things, honey, they think they can't when they are yo' age. I bore it because there wa'n't anything else to do. That's why people bear most of their troubles."

"Mammy Cely, tell me about it," cried Margaret impulsively. "Sit down and tell me."

The old woman took the chair on the other side of the crib. It seemed to her that it might not be a bad thing for Margaret to get her mind upon another trouble that was greater than her own. Perhaps that was it—and perhaps she wanted to tell the story.

CHAPTER XIV
MAMMY CELY'S STORY

"I haven't always lived in Maryland, Miss Margaret," Aunt Cely began. "I was born in Figinny—in Goochland County, near Goochland Co't-'ouse. I belonged to the Davidsons. They was mighty fine people, the Davidsons was. They wa'n't no po' white trash, I tell you! Marse Tom Davidson had mo' niggers than anybody 'roun' there. You could n' step roun' in the back yard 'thout trompin' on a little nigger. And there wa'n't no end to the company they had. Yaas, 'm, the Davidsons was mighty fine people. I haven't got no 'casion to feel 'shamed of my white folks."

"But you were going to tell me about your baby," reminded Margaret. She did not care for the Davidsons.

"Yaas, 'm, I'm comin' to it. We jes' had one child, Joe and me. Her name was Cassie—Cass, we called her for short. Miss Margaret, Cass was a mighty pretty child. She looked jes' as pretty to me as yo' baby does to you, I reckon. Look lak the color don't make much difference to the mammy of a child. I was mons'us proud of her, and I useter dress her up in a little pink calico dress and ruffled white apron and set and look at her and think, 'Mammy'll work her black fingers to the bone, honey, befo' she'll let any harm come to you!'... But Mammy's fingers couldn't stand 'tween her and harm."

The voice stopped and she turned away, shaking her head, mournfully.

"Mammy Cely," said Margaret, softly, "if you belonged to the Davidsons, how did you happen to be with the De Jarnettes?"

"I'm jes' comin' to that. Look lak when I git to thinkin' of them old days I lose myself.... Well, when Cass was about nine years old, I reckon, word come one day to the cabins that Marse Tom had been killed,—throwed from his horse against a pile of rocks. We all thought a heap of Marse Tom. I don't believe there was a nigger on that place but felt they had lost their best frien' when he was gone,—but then we 'spected to go on jes' the same and work for old mistis. But one day jes' after the fun'al a man come out from Goochland Co't-'ouse and talked a long time to old mistis, and when he went away she look so white and sick it look lak she was gwineter die too.

"Miss Margaret, I reckon you know what it meant. Marse Tom wa'n't so rich after all and de likelies' of de niggers had to be sold to pay his debts.... Miss Margaret, I knowed I was one of de likelies'; and I tromped over to Marse Sam Dyer's on de farm j'inin' to see ef he would n' buy me. You see he owned Joe, my old man. I jes' got down on my knees and begged him fur the love of God not to let me be sold away from Joe. He says, 'Cely, I'd buy you in a minute ef I had the money, but I can't do it!'

"Then Joe, he says, 'Marse Sam, ef you can't buy Cely, will you let me go with her?' That was right hard on Marse Sam, 'cause Joe was born in the family, but he drawed a long breath and he says, 'Joe, I hate to let you go, but I can't stand between man and wife. Ef I can sell you to the man that buys Cely, I'll do it,' he says.

"But Miss Margaret, the worst thing 'bout slavery was that even a good man could n' always help the partin' of man and wife. Marse Tom never sold a nigger in his lifetime. I've seen more'n one nigger-trader ordered off the place! But then he never expected to die tell he was out of debt, and when he was dead old mistis could n' help it. They was boun' to be sold.... And then Marse Sam. He come down, and come down, and come down in his price for Joe, but the man that bought me didn't want him—at no price."

"Who was the man that bought you?"

"Major De Jarnette. You see, my young mistis, Miss Julia Davidson, was goin' to marry Major De Jarnette up here in Maryland, and she wrote to him wouldn't he buy me for her maid. Of course I'd rather go with her than be sold to anybody else. He wrote to her that he was willin' to buy me, but he didn't want the child—that a lady's maid ought not to have a child hangin' around her. Miss Julia she wrote to him that her Ma wouldn't never consent to our bein' separated, and so after some letters back and fo'th he agreed to buy us both and done so. I came up to Elmhurst with my Miss Julia when she was married—and Cass with me.

"Miss Margaret, I never felt easy 'bout it after I heared he didn't want Cass. I knew it would come! Well, we stayed there nearly a year befo' it did. Then one day not long befo' Marse Richard was born Cass come dancin' in the house where I was ironin' and she says, 'Mammy, am I pretty?'

"'Who told you you was pretty?' I says, settin' my iron down toler'ble hard.

"'The man in the house,' she says. 'He seen me when I was goin' along and he tuk holt of my curls and said I was a pretty little gal. Am I pretty, Mammy?' Miss Margaret, hit jes' seemed lak the heart inside of me was turnin' to stone. I knowed that man. He was a nigger-trader!

"I tuk Cass by the hand and walked her off to my house 'thout sayin' a word. Then I tuk the scissors and cut off all her curls, and made her put on her old blue cotton instead of her pink calico, and then I says, 'Now you jes' let me hear of you goin' up to the house ag'in when there's any men there and I lay I'll make you pretty!' Then I went and seen Miss Julia and told her I was sick and would she please to excuse me this evenin'. It wa'n't no lie, for ef ever I was sick in my life I was sick then. Then I went back to my house and shet the do' and waited. I knowed it would come.

"A little befo' sundown I heared somebody at the do' and Cass started to open it. I ketched her by the arm and I says, 'You go up in the lof'—quick! and don't you come down less 'n I tell you!' Then I opened the do' and sho 'nough there stood old Major De Jarnette and the nigger-trader. Major De Jarnette he says, 'Cely, where's Cass?'

"'Master,' I says, 'Cass is up in the lof', sick,—she can't come down, noway.'

"He lowed he'd see how sick she was, and then I called up, 'Cass, come here.'

"Cass come and stood lookin' at her bare feet and diggin' her toes in between the puncheons, and I declare to goodness, Miss Margaret, I didn't hardly believe it was the child myself. When I cut off her hair I didn't take no great pains, you may be sho', and now she done run her head in the cobwebs in the lof' tell her hair done look mo' lak ash color than black, and what with the old dress and the dirt streaked over her face where she been cryin', she certainly did look mo' lak po' white trash than a decent nigger child.

"I reckon the nigger-trader thought so too, for he tuk a good look at her and he says, 'This ain't the one I want. I couldn't sell her to nobody,' Miss Margaret, it jes' seem lak my heart had been standin' still and now it begun to bound. I thought I'd got her off, sho'. But what do you suppose that child done then? She looked up at him sorter sassy like and she says, 'I am the gal you said was pretty, but Mammy done cut off my curls.' Miss Margaret, as skeered as I was, I felt lak takin' that child and shakin' her good! Here she was in the worst peril a gal could ever be in and losin' her onlies' chance of gettin' out because she was afraid a nigger-trader would think she was ugly! I declare to goodness it does jes' look lak women was born fools anyway! Most of 'em would rather resk fallin' into the hands of the devil hisself than to resk a man's thinkin' they ain't pretty!

"I saw in a minute it was all up. The nigger-trader tuk another look at her, and he says, 'I made a mistake. This is the one.' Then he kinder chuckled to hisself and says, 'You're a cute one, anyway.' Then master he turned to me and says, 'Cely, I've sold Cass. Get her ready to go in the mornin'.'

"I knowed then that my onlies' hope was in him and I got down on my knees. When I stopped he says, 'Cely, get Cass ready to go with this man in the mornin'.' That was all. Then they went off. Cass went roun' cryin' kinder sof' like and I set down to think. I thought once I'd take her and we'd steal off in the dark, and hide daytimes and travel nights tell we got over the line, and maybe we would find some apples or something to live on. I thought the Lord wouldn't keer if I did steal ef it was to save my child. I got up and started to get things together. Then I heared the bayin' of old man Dawson's hounds, and I set down again.

"I thought once I'd go to Miss Julia, but when old Major De Jarnette had that look on his face there wa'n't anybody that dared to coax him—not even Miss Julia. Of course, it wa'n't worth while to go to the neighbors. Major De Jarnette owned us and he had a right in the eyes of the law to sell us, together or separate. The neighbors couldn't go ag'in' the law to save the partin' of mother and child. But, Miss Margaret, ef I'd been a white woman I would have taken that child and gone!"

Margaret looked at her with startled eyes, but the old woman went on.

"When I set down there I says to myself, 'I will have my child! There ain't nobody can take her away from me!' But when I'd think of one way to save her it seemed lak there was a stone wall set right down in front of me. Then when I'd turn another way, there was that same stone wall, and I couldn't do anything but beat my head ag'in' it. I thought and thought and thought tell the fire went out and Cass had gone to sleep on the flo', and at last I jes' says out loud, 'It ain't no use! I've got it to stand! There ain't nobody can help me!'

"Honey, it seemed lak I couldn't git my breath. I got up and went to the do' and looked out. The stars was shinin' kinder happy like, and when I looked up at the house I could see the lights all glimmerin' and hear the tinkle of Miss Julia's piano. It seemed lak they wan't no mis'ry in the world, cep'n right here in this little cabin. 'What made the difference,' I said, shakin' my fist at the stars and the lights. 'What did the Lord mean by givin' me a white woman's heart, and then givin' a white man power to sell my child away from me?' He didn't know! He didn't keer!

"Honey, the Lord seemed a long way off then. Seem lak He was where there was light and music and frien's too, and didn't know my heart was breakin'. How could He know?... Jes' then some words come into my mind jes' lak somebody had spoke 'em to me. I had heared 'em down in old Figinny. 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only son to die—' I couldn't remember the rest, but I jes' hung on to that much, and said it over and over. 'God so loved the world—that He give His only son—His only son—to die! God loved us so ... His only son!' Why, He did know!

"I shet the do' and went and layed down on the flo' by Cass. I didn't pray. There wa'n't nothin' to pray for. I knowed it couldn' be helped. I jes' said, 'Oh, Lord! Lord! Lord! Lord!' Miss Margaret, ef ever you've talked to the Lord without usin' any words you'll know what I mean. Ef you haven't, I couldn't make you onderstand. 'Twas jes' lak Cass comin' and puttin' her head down in my lap and sayin', 'Mammy! Mammy!' and then I'd put my hand on her head and say, 'Mammy knows!' and that was all.

"Well, after a while I got up and waked Cass, and the child looked at me with her big starin' eyes like she was 'feared of me. But I set down in the chimly corner and tuk her on my lap and then she was wide awake. I told her about how she had been sold and how it wa'n't likely she would ever see Mammy any mo'. But I says, 'Honey, ef you try to be good, and never steal or tell lies, or do anything that you know is wrong—anything, honey, no matter what it is—there 's a place we'll git to after a while where there can't nobody part us.' And, Miss Margaret, the child stop her cryin' and look up at me, and she say, 'Where is it, Mammy? Le' 's go now.' And I says, 'It's heaven, child!' and then she begun to cry, 'cause heaven seems a long way off, you know.

"Well, after a while I put her to bed, and then I got her clo'es ready and made 'em in a little bun'le and then I got to stud'in' 'bout who would wash her clo'es and mend 'em, and it jes' 'peared lak I couldn't stand it noway. While I was gittin' the things together I come across her big rag doll where she had jes' put it to bed—(Cass was always a mighty hand for dolls),—and I put it in the bun'le. I thought it would help her maybe to git through the first few nights. Then I laid out her clo'es, and darned her stockin's, and blacked her shoes, and when there wa'n't another thing I could do I laid down by her and tuk her in my arms like I useter when she was a baby, and laid there the blessed night, never once closin' my eyes ... Miss Margaret, don't cry, child! I haven't shed a tear sence that night.

"Well, in the mornin' I got her ready, and when I seed 'em comin' I tuk her in my arms and looked in her face fur the las' time, and laid her little head on this old breas' where it had laid so many times, and give her one las' kiss, and then I opened the do'.

"'She's ready,' I says, puttin' her outside. And then I shet the do'. I heared the overseer—it was him that had come with the man—say, 'Well, she don't seem to take on much,' and the nigger-trader, he says, 'Naw, they don't have no feelin' for their chil'n.'"

She stopped. Apparently the story was at an end.

"Oh, Mammy Cely!" cried Margaret, wringing her hands, "don't tell me you never saw her any more!"

"Miss Margaret, I never laid eyes on her from that day to this. I don't know where they took her or what they did with her any more than ef the ground had opened and swallowed her up."

"Oh, I am glad, glad that never can be done again!" cried Margaret, vehemently. "It was a wicked thing to put so much power in any man's hands!"

She looked down at her own sleeping child with a sudden sinking of the heart, and then into the impassive face of the black woman.

"Oh, Mammy Cely! I think God has forgotten us!"

"Honey, don't say that. He don't forget!" Then, modifying this statement, "But it certainly do look lak His remembry is a heap better for men than what it is for women."

CHAPTER XV
INSTINCT TRIUMPHS

Mammy Cely's story made a deep impression on Margaret in her excited state of mind. She could not sleep for thinking of it. If the whole gamut of human experiences had been run, nothing would have appealed to her like this. The iniquity of the thing struck her with a force that was almost staggering. She had come of generations of slave-owners who had never known anything else than to accept conditions as they found them and do for their dependent ones the best they could. That such heart-breaking tragedies as this had ever taken place among them had never occurred to her. Personally, of course, she had seen nothing of slavery, but she had spent her life in the midst of the negroes of Washington, who seemed so irresponsible, so given to carousings, so prone to appear in the police courts, that she had never thought of them as possessing the deeper feelings of human nature. They seemed a people apart. The sad little story to which she had listened revealed the truth. God had made all women's hearts alike, and then had designated the color of their skins—then had placed them in stations high or low—then had made them bond or free. And when He made them mothers He touched them all with a coal from the same altar.

But it was not alone the pathos of the story, deep and tragic as that was, that kept her night after night with wide-open eyes staring into the darkness.

A formless terror was creeping over her. As she thought of the author of the black woman's miseries and his relationship to her child, it seemed almost as if Philip were in the path of some onrushing tide of evil propensities—inheritable vices that might sweep him away from her into an abyss from which she could never rescue him. Of course the wolf blood of the De Jarnettes was a thing to smile at. That was negro superstition. But the sinister fact remained that the man who had sold Mammy Cely's child was the father of the one who was trying to get her child. If the father had been thus cruel what could be expected of the son he had reared, and to whom he had given his blood with the curse upon it? There seemed something awful to her in the thought of that curse. Where had it come from? From generations of dumb suffering mothers who could do nothing but call down maledictions? Was there really such a thing as invoking a curse that could be visited from father to son? She sat up in bed to get her breath. It did seem as if she would suffocate in this darkness.

She got up and felt for the matches, reaching frantically for them, her hands shaking, her teeth chattering. As the gas flared up she felt the relief that comes from the chasing away of shadows, and smiled a little at her own folly.

She turned the gas low ... what was that noise? It sounded like someone at the front door. Judge Kirtley had said they would never try to take Philip by force, but—that certainly was somebody on the stairs. She listened with every nerve tense. Not a sound but the stentorious breathing of Mammy Cely in the room beyond. She had slept there ever since the baby came.... Margaret fell back on the pillow with relaxed nerves.... If only the throbbing in her head would stop! She tossed from side to side with a great physical longing for the sleep that would not come.

The weeks that followed were hard ones for Margaret. She was worn to a shadow by her anxieties and the law's delay. At the proper time Judge Kirtley had gone before the Court and given notice that Mrs. De Jarnette would contest the will on the ground that the testator was of unsound mind.

It is not the purpose of this narrative to give the proceedings of that trial before the Probate Court. It is only the result that concerns us. It may be said in passing, however, that in no particular did Mr. De Jarnette deviate from the policy he had adopted at the first of simply falling back upon the law and the right of the testator to make such a will. "Bull dog tactics," Judge Kirtley called them to a brother lawyer. Not a word as to the unfitness of the mother to rear the child, not a breath affecting her character. The burden of proof was with the contestants,—and the contestants unfortunately were short of proof. Judge Kirtley himself did not believe Victor De Jarnette to have been of unsound mind.

Mr. Jarvis testified with great reluctance that while Victor De Jarnette was, at the time when the codicil was added, in a state of considerable excitement and strong feeling, he saw nothing about him which would lead him (Mr. Jarvis) to consider him of unsound mind. The testimony of the two witnesses to the will was to the same effect.

Men who had had business dealings with him a day, a week, a month previously were called to the witness-stand and with one voice upheld his sanity. More than one of them cast a pitying glance at the girlish, black-robed figure back of Judge Kirtley, and gave this testimony only because he was under oath.

Servants from his own household were examined as to whether they had observed anything suspicious in their employer's manner or actions,—anything that would incline them to the belief that he was of unsound mind. Not one circumstance pointing toward it was developed.

To all this counsel for the contestant could only offer the testimony of Mrs. De Jarnette as to his state of passion on that evening; the unexplained mystery of his disappearance just before the birth of his child; his sensational return unannounced; and his tragic death. This he said had been attributed to accident, but it had been by no means proved that it was not by intention. If it were a case of suicide this would be contributory proof, at least, that he was not himself six or eight months after the time of the making of the will. The case of his mother was referred to briefly, Judge Kirtley giving it as his belief that no woman who deserted her child was ever in her right mind at the time of doing it.

As Judge Kirtley spoke of the possibility of her husband's death being by his own hand, Margaret involuntarily raised her eyes to the face of Mr. De Jarnette. She was startled to find his black eyes furtively watching her. As on that day in her own library, a hot flush swept into her face and then out again, leaving it whiter than before.

Judge Kirtley in his endeavors to keep up Margaret's courage had dwelt so strongly upon the improbability of the child's being awarded to Mr. De Jarnette that he had at last inspired her with a belief that the right would win. As the case proceeded she found her confidence waning, but she was totally unprepared for the decision.

The Court sustained the will. There was overwhelming proof that the testator was of sound mind at the time of executing the will; there was no evidence introduced looking toward undue influence, and no charge made that the testamentary guardian was an improper person to have the guardianship of the child. The law, while an ancient one, was explicit as to the right of a husband in the District of Columbia to make such a disposition of his child. It had been argued that it was a cruel and unjust law, but it might be said in reply to this that the surest way to the repeal of a bad law was to have it rigidly enforced. Therefore, etc.

"Does he get him?" The agonized whisper broke the stillness that fell upon the court-room as the decision was announced.

They took her home more dead than alive.

"It isn't a foregone conclusion that he will get him yet, my child," Judge Kirtley told her as he helped her into the house. "This is but the beginning. You are not going to give up at the very outset, are you? Keep up your courage, Margaret! You think you don't care to have Mrs. Kirtley with you to-night? Well, I'll send the doctor in to give you something for your nerves. You are all unstrung. There! there! Here, Auntie," as Mammy Cely appeared, "take her and put her to bed. This has been hard on her."

When the old woman followed him to the door he said, "No. It went against her. I am afraid I buoyed her up a little too much. This is the reaction. Look after her."

In her darkened room Margaret lay on the couch and tried to think it out. But her head buzzed so and she was so frightfully confused! After a while maybe she could, but not now—not now!

When she went to bed she fell into fitful sleep. Her dreams were worse than her waking fears. She put out her hand every now and then to touch Philip and be sure he was actually there.

As she tossed thus on a sleepless bed, now burning with fever, now shaking as with an ague, Mammy Cely's words suddenly recurred to her with startling distinctness. "If I had been a white woman I would have taken that child and gone." ... Well?... She was a white woman.... She lay very still then. But where could she go?... In all the world where could she go?

A curious thing is the human brain. It has its crannies and cubby-holes where it lays away its stores as a housewife piles up unused linen. Then these treasures are covered up by other and later accumulations and we straightway forget that they exist, until some day Memory without ado deftly extricates from underneath the load a name, a fact, a story, and holds it up before us; or, opening but a crack, she bids us listen at the door, and we hear perhaps as Margaret was hearing now, a forgotten voice, saying:

"—an obscure spot, my dear. You can hardly find it on the map. But if you ever need a friend, come to me."

Her trembling ceased. Her heart was almost brought to a stop by the sudden force of a hope that flung itself across her way.

For steadying the nerves of an essentially strong person suffering temporary collapse, there is nothing like an emergency requiring action. It is the helplessness of enforced inactivity that saps courage and bears us down. As Margaret lay there holding with a death-grip to her new-found hope, she felt herself thrilled as by an electric current. Strength and courage came flowing back to the heart that a moment before had been at ebb-tide. She thought rapidly. Then she got up and looked at the clock. It was not quite twelve. She had thought it was nearly morning.

Mammy Cely was in her usual deep sleep, but Margaret took the precaution to close her door. With swift noiseless steps she dressed herself, and taking a handbag filled it with baby garments. She stuffed a pocket book well down into the bag, having first taken from it a roll of bills and secreted them about her person. A superstitious thrill passed through her at sight of the money. It was much more than she was in the habit of drawing and it had been taken from the bank only yesterday. The teller had said to her as he handed it to her, "Mrs. De Jarnette, that is a large sum to have in the house. I should not let the amount be known to the servants—or to anybody." What had prompted her to draw so much money? Surely it was God's leading. He meant her to escape!

She went next to a drawer and took out her jewels, mostly gifts from her father, with a few simple things that were her mother's. There was a diamond brooch and earrings and necklace that had been Victor's mother's. She had forgotten them in her guilty flight, and they had come to Margaret. She put them back into the drawer and with them some gifts of Victor's that she could not bring herself just then to take, marking the box plainly, "The De Jarnette diamonds," and locking them up.

This done, she sat down with the clock before her and wrote two notes—one, a very brief one, to Richard De Jarnette. It said:

"I leave you the De Jarnette diamonds. I would willingly give up the De Jarnette money if you will relinquish your claim to Philip. But I shall never let you have my child."

It was in different vein that she wrote to Judge Kirtley. He must forgive her for going—she couldn't help it. She simply had to go. The appeal might fail as this had. The world was so large. She was sure that she could find some place in it where she could hide away and be at peace. She had not told him because she thought it might be better for a while for him not to know. Then, too, she had felt sure that he would try to dissuade her—and she must go. He would forgive her, she knew. He had been a father to her—

Here the page was blurred and the letter ended abruptly.

Sealing and directing both she placed them on the mantel in plain sight.

The car line runs past Dupont Circle and the house on Massachusetts Avenue was not far off. She would be in time for the "owl car," which would take her to the B. and O. station. She would not risk calling a carriage.

When she finished the letters Margaret took up her bag and went softly down the great stairway. A dim light was burning in the hall, and by it she made her way to the door, unlocking it and drawing back the heavy bolts. There was no sign of tremor in her hand, no fear in her face,—only a fierce eagerness to be gone. Putting the bag on the outside, and leaving the door ajar that there might be no delay, she crept noiselessly up the stairs again.

The old woman on the other side of the door slept heavily, recking little of the train of consequences her story had started. She might not have withheld it had she known. The striking of the clock admonished Margaret that she had no time to lose. She caught up the baby, bonneted and cloaked against the cold, hushed it with soft whisperings, and stole down the stairs. She did not stop to look around—perhaps she did not dare—she had come to the house a bride; she was leaving it a fugitive. The door creaked as it swung back on its massive hinges. The sound startled her. Outside the street was silent and empty. The city was sleeping its beauty sleep. She closed the door softly, pressed her baby close to her breast, and slipped out into the darkness.

CHAPTER XVI
IN THE "NORTH COUNTREE"

Richard de Jarnette was sitting down to a late breakfast the next morning when his telephone bell rang. He answered it impatiently, as was natural. But what he heard there caused him to leave his hot waffles untouched and go hurrying over to the house on Massachusetts Avenue.

At Margaret's door he met Judge Kirtley, brought thither by a similar message, and together they entered the house. It was evident to Mr. De Jarnette that Judge Kirtley's surprise was as unfeigned as his own.

The servants were gathered in the lower hall in a state of great excitement, with nobody in command. Johnson, the man servant, related how he had found the front door unlocked and fearing burglary had gone straight to Mrs. De Jarnette's room and knocked and knocked without rousing anybody. Then Mammy Cely took up the tale, telling of how she had heard Johnson's knock and made sure she had overslept, etc.—of how she had gone into Miss Margaret's room and found it in confusion, and nobody there. There were two letters that—

Mr. De Jarnette cut her short by demanding to see the room and the letters. They found every evidence of a hasty flight. Drawers had been left open with their contents tumbled about, clothes were lying on the floor, and the disordered bed showed that she had risen from it to go.

The two men read their letters hastily, but with widely different emotions. Mr. De Jarnette took the key enclosed with his and opened the drawer. The diamonds were there as she had said. He locked the drawer and handed the key to Judge Kirtley.

"As her legal adviser you will, of course, take charge of the place. These things should be put in safe keeping." Then, with a change of tone that was not pleasant. "I suppose it is hardly worth while to enquire of you where she has gone."

"I know no more, sir, about where she has gone than you do," the Judge answered, indignantly. "You can see for yourself," handing him Margaret's letter. Then he added, sternly, his face working with emotion. "I only know that she has become a homeless fugitive."

Richard De Jarnette read the letter, but his face did not soften. When he went from the house a few moments later it was to call a cab and go straight to the Detective Bureau. Mammy Cely stood looking after him as he went away.

"I wonder ef what I said about a white woman's chance to git off could a put that notion in Miss Margaret's head," she thought with some perturbation. Then defiantly, "Well, I don't keer ef it did! She got a heap mo' right to that chile than Marse Richard has. She done put a right smart of herself in him. An' Marse Richard ain't nothin' but his gyarjeen."

While the enginery for tracking her was thus being set in motion in Washington, Margaret, with her child in her arms, was speeding over the country hundreds of miles away, her face set toward the West. Every mile gave her an added sense of security. She was confident that Richard knew nothing of Mrs. Pennybacker's existence even, and was sure, too, that she had been able to get away without leaving a clue behind her at the station. It had been by a happy chance—was it chance?—that she had been able to cover her tracks there. She had gone directly to the lower waiting-room, hoping that she might find some way to get her ticket without presenting herself before the ticket agent. As she sat pondering this, a negro woman came in and sat down beside her. A sudden thought struck Margaret.

"Are you going on this next train?" she asked.

Yes, the woman said, she had been down in Virginia, and was going home. No'm, she didn't live in Washington. She lived in Maryland. She had been gone ten days—had a round-trip ticket.

Margaret took out some bills.

"Would you mind getting my ticket for me—to Cincinnati? I can't leave my baby." She held out a silver dollar, and the woman rose with alacrity. It was not often she could earn a dollar as easily as that.

And so it came about that when the detective in Mr. De Jarnette's employ questioned the agent about tickets sold the night before, that official could remember nothing bearing upon the case. No woman with a baby had presented herself at the window that evening, he felt quite sure.

Margaret had decided that it would be safer to get a ticket to Cincinnati, another to St. Louis, and still another to Callaway than to risk a through ticket to her destination.

It was a lucky star that guided Margaret De Jarnette to Missouri, where are warm hearts and hospitable homes. She found there the two things that she was in desperate need of—a refuge and a friend. Mrs. Pennybacker lived on a farm with her orphaned granddaughter, Bess, who was at that time at Synodical College in Fulton. She welcomed Margaret with all the warmth of a great heart and the accumulated love of two generations. And here for four years and a half the mother and child found a shelter from the storm—a covert so secure that Richard De Jarnette with all his efforts had never been able to ferret it out.

Margaret had taken every precaution to lose her identity. The name of De Jarnette was of course discarded, and she would not even risk Varnum. She was known in the neighborhood as Mrs. Osborne, a friend of Mrs. Pennybacker's from the East, who had recently been bereaved and had come to her for a quiet home. It was not an inquisitive locality, and a word from Mrs. Pennybacker as to the depth of the widowed lady's grief and her reluctance to have it referred to effectually sealed the lips of the kindly folk among whom her lot was cast. Bess, when she came home for the vacation, was told as much as her grandmother thought best to tell, and no more. "We'll take her in on probation, and after a while when she has been proved, into full communion. I am that much of a Methodist, anyway," Mrs. Pennybacker said. It is needless to say that long before this Bess was a sister in full fellowship.

Margaret was not even willing to let her safety rest upon a change of name. In her first wild fear that she might be tracked she had wanted it given out in the neighborhood that the child was a girl, but upon this Mrs. Pennybacker set her foot down hard. It was a comparatively easy thing, she admitted, to change the sex of a baby, and it did seem under the circumstances that it would be a most innocent and inoffensive lie. But it was the nature of some lies that having been once entered into they must be persevered in to the bitter end. Margaret would find that having become entangled in this one the sex complications would grow in intricacy as the years went by. So that was given up.

The girl had written to Judge Kirtley a few weeks after reaching Missouri, telling him of her new home and her plans, and thereafter Mrs. Pennybacker received New York drafts at regular intervals. He had also written Margaret at once, informing her of Mr. De Jarnette's movements so far as they could be ascertained.

"He is very close-mouthed," he wrote, "but determined. I have reason to believe that he is keeping up a still hunt all the time. By the way, of course you must know that you have laid yourself liable to action against you on a charge of kidnapping. I am hoping that Mr. De Jarnette's feeling against you may wear itself out in time. But, in the meantime, take every precaution."

Margaret was wild with fear after this, and kept the old farmhouse locked night and day. Philip was never out of her sight. But as months and finally years went by and she heard nothing more, it seemed that Richard De Jarnette must have given up the search.

When Philip was nearly three her vigilance relaxed enough to permit her to go to California for the winter with Mrs. Pennybacker, Bess being still at "Synodical." For this trip Margaret had insisted upon dressing Philip in girl's attire. It was done half in jest, but it succeeded admirably, for a child of three is too young to object to such a metamorphosis, and it gave Margaret great comfort. She felt sure that Mrs. De Jarnette and son would never be recognized under the hotel alias of "Mrs. Osborne and daughter."

So successful had this trip been that Mrs. Pennybacker urged her going to the World's Fair the next summer. But there was too much risk there, Margaret decided, where all the world might be found. And now, this summer, some four years since her midnight flight from home, Judge Kirtley had written her that Mr. De Jarnette's counsel had told him privately he was sure that Mr. De Jarnette had abandoned all hope of ever finding his ward, and had given up the search. She grew so jubilant and buoyant in spirits after this that the natural instincts of a young woman asserted themselves, and when Mrs. Pennybacker proposed a summer at Mackinac, she made no opposition. It is hardly natural for a city-bred girl to enjoy for its own sake isolation on a quiet farm. She and Bess took up the work of planning for Mackinac with great zest. But there was one thing—if they went, Philip must go as a girl. That had given her such a sense of security on the California trip.

Mrs. Pennybacker disapproved strongly. "I tell you it isn't safe. It may get you into no end of trouble."

"I shall not go unless we can go that way," Margaret finally announced, and that settled it. Philip was told that his going depended upon his keeping the secret, and, of course, promised implicit obedience. But Philip did not then know the obloquy which attached to being a girl, nor the depth of humiliation into which it would plunge him. His long curls which had never been cut off, and his nickname, "Trottie,"—fortunately a sexless one,—aided greatly in the success of the scheme. Margaret generally called him "dearest" anyway, and Mrs. Pennybacker "baby," which he resented.

On the lake steamer they had fallen in with a Mr. Harcourt, a young man from the East whose home had once been in Michigan, and who after an illness had been remanded by his physician to that invigorating, health-giving region of balsams and cedars for a two-months' rest. He had made himself useful to Mrs. Pennybacker in the matter of baggage just as they were starting, and he came around after they were well out on the lake courteously solicitous of her comfort. He was introduced to the girls, and took some pains to interest the child, who showed an instant liking to him. He did not intrude himself upon them, but came back up from time to time to point out a boat in sight, or to show Philip the gulls which at dinner time followed fast and furious in their wake. Finally, with Mrs. De Jarnette's permission, he took the child off to investigate the boat, saying enthusiastically when he returned after an hour, "I never saw a girl show so much interest in everything. Why, she was as intent upon finding out what made the engine go as a boy would have been.... Yes, I understand children—I have nephews and nieces."

Margaret had taken Philip aside after this and held an earnest conversation with him, at the end of which the child nodded several times, not very joyously,—which all goes to show the benumbing influence upon the human mind of feminine attire—and exactly how it works.

A friendship begun on shipboard culminates rapidly, especially when it is under the fostering influence of a child and a sensible elderly lady who is sure she cannot be deceived in men. By the time these travelers reached their desired haven they seemed like old friends. It was undeniable that Mr. Harcourt had contributed more than his share to the pleasure of the trip. Mrs. Pennybacker, for one, began to think with regret of the time when he would leave them—a thing that Mr. Harcourt had by this time no intention of doing.

"Well, we are almost there now," he said, coming upon them as they stood in the bow watching the Island grow in distinctness of detail.

"Did you ever see anything finer than that?"

And certainly for beauty of approach the Island of Mackinac is without a rival.

"Have you decided on your hotel yet, Mrs. Pennybacker?" he asked, a moment later.

"Yes, we've looked it up a little and think we shall go to the Island House. They say that is near where Anne lived, and we thought we would like that."

"How fortunate I am," he exclaimed with instant choice. "That's where I'm going myself."

Bess looked away toward Round Island with slightly heightened color.

It was in this very natural way that he attached himself to their party. It proved pleasant for them all. With the child he was prime favorite. He asked Bess one day what her real name was, and Bess, forgetting that Philippa had been the name agreed upon in case the question were ever asked, and remembering Varnum, had answered with some confusion that she was named after her mother.

"Well, naturally." he had laughed. "I suppose you mean for her mother."

In the good-natured raillery that ensued, Bess escaped, and he always supposed the child's name was Margaret.

He had never told them where he was from, beyond the fact that he was a Michigan man, until their intimacy was well established—an accidental omission, evidently, since he had told them almost everything else in his frank, boyish way. It was, therefore, with the utmost astonishment that Margaret one day heard him speak of Washington as his place of residence.

"Washington!" she exclaimed, "I thought Michigan was your home."

"It was formerly. But for several years I have lived in Washington."

"How many years?" she asked with the air of an inquisitor.

"Four—this month." Then raising his right hand, "I would further state, if it please the court, that I am a member of that large and respectable body which pours out of the departmental halls promptly at four o'clock—

"You mean you are a clerk in one of the departments?" asked Mrs. Pennybacker. Margaret was thinking, "Well, I'm glad he isn't a lawyer or a business man."

"That is my humble occupation, madam. I hope I haven't led you to suppose that I am a cabinet officer or a justice of the Supreme Court in disguise."

"You haven't misled me into thinking you other than you are," Mrs. Pennybacker replied composedly, "and that is a fun-loving, rollicking boy!"

After this talk Margaret was most circumspect in her references to Washington. It seemed as if Mr. Harcourt would be trustworthy, "But," she told Mrs. Pennybacker that night, "I don't trust anybody."

The four were sitting on the piazza of the Island House one day late in the summer, looking out over the Straits. A steamer from Chicago was rounding the buoy preparatory to making the harbor, and they were watching it. Opposite them Round Island rose from the waters like an emerald set in translucent pearl, and across the straits to the south and miles away could be discerned the outline of the mainland. A dark diagonal smoke line across the sky defined the path of the patient little ferry which kept up communication with the outer world, and the fraying out of the line at the further end into an indeterminate bank of cloud showed which way it was going. Far off to the left, where the waters of Lake Michigan merge into those of Huron, was another faint blur on the horizon. To the initiated, versed in signs and seasons, it stood for the steamer from Detroit. Carriages were driving swiftly to the docks to meet the incoming boat, for Mackinac's short season was nearing its end, and it behooved the emptying caravanseries to be making all the hay they could.

The group on the piazza watched the hacks with interest, two of them laying mild wagers on the results.

"I'll bet on the Island House!" said John Harcourt, "the caramels against a cigar—I to select it. Come, now!"

"And I on the Mission House," cried Bess. "And please understand that I am to specify the amount of caramels. We'll watch and see when they come back. Now don't forget to look!"

"In the meantime," suggested Mrs. Pennybacker, "let's talk about that inland trip that Mr. Harcourt has been expatiating on. I think I should like to go down to We-que-ton-sing for a few days, and we may as well go that way. What do you say, Margaret?"

Margaret De Jarnette, who had been leaning over the railing watching the child at play on the lawn below, looked up. She was older, but her face had not lost its beautiful contour, and she had the same queenly way of lifting her head, upon which lay great masses of golden brown hair. The glint on it where it was touched by the sun hinted that it might once have been like the burnished gold of the child's long curls. Her eyes matched her hair.

"I should like to go. 'We-que-ton-sing,' with all its breaks and musical repetitions, has an attractive sound. It seems as if we might be likely to drop into a community of wigwams there."

"That wouldn't be strange," said the young man, "for here we are very close to

'The land of the Ojibways,

To the land of—'

Mrs. Osborne," Harcourt broke in suddenly, "that girl of yours throws exactly like a boy. Look at her now!"

"Well, this isn't settling the question," said Mrs. Pennybacker, hastily. "Mr. Harcourt, tell us some of the points of this inland trip."

John Harcourt was doing this very enthusiastically when Bess, catching sight of the returning vehicles, cried out, "Wait a minute! There come the carriages. Now let's watch."

"All right. First carriage—Mission House—empty, please note! Half a dollar, if you please. I never smoke less than fifty cent cigars on a wager."

"Well, you can just get me a pound of caramels any way," pouted the girl, "for the Island House has just one lone man."

"Oh, come! that's a hundred per cent, more than your house has."

The one lone man was the object of their most interested scrutiny as the carriage drew up. From their seats they could see without themselves being observed.

"Why—y!" said Harcourt in surprise. "Isn't that queer! I've seen that man—in Washington."

"Who is he?" asked Mrs. Pennybacker, abruptly.

"His name is Smeltzer. He is on the detective force there, or he was when I knew him."

"Does he know you?"

"I doubt if he would remember me. Still, you can't tell. It is a part of a detective's stock in trade to remember faces.... Why, he did some work for a friend of mine once, and I used to see him sometimes."

Margaret De Jarnette leaned over the piazza rail and spoke quietly to the child playing below.

"Dearest! Come to mama now."

"Not yet, mama!" pleaded the child.

"Yes—now!"

She had been gone but a few minutes when Mrs. Pennybacker followed her to her room. She found the door locked and the young woman in the act of packing a suit case.

"What are you doing, Margaret?"

"I am going away from this place to-night," the girl exclaimed excitedly, "somewhere—I don't know where."

"You think this man is here after you?"

"I feel sure of it."

"Would he know you?"

"I can't tell. You know the case was tried in Washington, and the court-house is just across the street from the Detective Bureau. He may have been in the court-room. And, as Mr. Harcourt says, without doubt they acquire the habit of noticing faces.... No, I won't take any chances. There is too much at stake. I am going to get aboard the first boat that comes and go anywhere it takes me. I think I shall take the ferry for Mackinaw City; but I may go back to St. Ignace if that boat is in first."

"The Mackinaw ferry will be in first," said Mrs. Pennybacker. "It will be here inside of a half hour." Then, after a moment's thought, "Margaret, why don't we all go down to We-que-ton-sing with you now?... Why, yes, we can get ready if you can. There is nothing to do but to pack our grips. We needn't give up our rooms. We'll tell Mr. Harcourt that it's a sudden inspiration. He can join us or not as he likes. I'll speak to them at once."

When she did so, Mr. Harcourt remonstrated vigorously, having in mind the inland trip, but without avail. There was evidently something in the wind that he did not understand, and when Mrs. Pennybacker told him plainly that they would have to go whether he found it convenient to accompany them or not, he gave in.

A half hour later found them all ensconced on the deck of the ferry, Margaret with her black veil drawn down over her face. She sat where she could watch the gangway, and she saw every passenger that got on. She did not feel easy till the plank was in. But the man was not there, she was very sure of that, and she drew a long breath as the boat pushed off.

John Harcourt saw nothing but tragedy in the wreck of his plans.

"To think of that beautiful inland trip going to the bow-wows like this!" he grumbled to Bess as they sat together in the hot, dusty car enroute for We-que-ton-sing. "I don't pretend to understand why we did it. I don't believe they know themselves."

"You didn't have to come," said Bess.

"Oh, well!"

CHAPTER XVII
WE-QUE-TON-SING

In the somewhat frayed and ragged end of the mitten to which the State of Michigan has been likened is a modest bay indenting the left-hand edge, called Little Traverse, to distinguish it from another further down, where a greater rent has been raveled out.

Into this bay a long slim finger of land is thrust out from the northern shore, enclosing in its crook a harbor so safe and possible in all seas that from the earliest navigation of these waters it has been a port. The port, known in the days of New France by the more euphonious name of l'Arbor Croche, is now called prosaically Harbor Springs, but the bay, by the most fortunate reversion to an earlier occupation, is We-que-ton-sing—signifying in the Indian tongue from which it is derived, "A little one within the larger bay."

On this inner bay has grown up, among the white birches, a very beautiful little summer resort, and it was here that Margaret De Jarnette found herself after her flight from the Island. She had had a calm night and had waked with a song of deliverance on her lips. Here, surely, in this peaceful spot was nothing which could molest or make afraid.

Rising early, she had dressed herself and Philip and together they had slipped past Mrs. Pennybacker's door and on out upon the hotel piazza. The only sound of life was the clatter in the kitchen and dining-room. But her soul was so full of relief that she had found it impossible to sleep. As she looked out over the bay, sparkling in the morning sun, her joy bubbled over, and the words of an old anthem rose to her lips. She sang it softly but triumphantly as she and Philip went out upon the pier.

"My soul is escaped,

Like a bird, like a bird,

From the snare of the fowlers,

My soul is escaped!

My soul is escaped! My soul is escaped!

My soul—is—escaped!"

There was a jubilant ascending scale at the last.

"Good morning!" came a voice from behind her. "Your body came perilously near escaping too. I am out of breath trying to catch up with you. I was glad there was water beyond, so that something could stop you!"

It was John Harcourt, every trace of last night's bad humor gone.

"Oh, good morning! Isn't this superb? I don't often sing, but this air is like wine. I think it went to my head. But then I didn't expect to have an audience this time of the morning."

"Where are the others?"

"Not up yet. They are losing the cream of the day, aren't they?" Then turning toward the water, "What place is that across the bay? It looks like quite a city."

"Petoskey. Named for an old Ottawa chief of this locality, I believe. And that place over at our right is Harbor Point."

"I noticed it last night. The lights from both places add immeasurably to the beauty of the night scene, especially the one from the lighthouse. It throws a shaft of glowing red across the water. Did you notice it? I thought I never saw anything so lovely as this bay was by moonlight."

"It is beautiful in all its phases. I have heard it likened to the Bay of Naples. Come and take a morning walk with me. What do you say? It will give you an appetite for the broiled whitefish you will have for breakfast."

"Can I go without my hat?"

"Certainly. Nobody wears hats now but old ladies and men."

She caught the spirit of the hour. "Come, dearest, let's see if we can't outwalk him." Philip ran up ahead in great glee.

"If you get tired, young lady, I'll carry you," Harcourt called after him.

"I can carry my own se'f," was the proud answer.

"That will fix her," said Harcourt. "I never saw a youngster so afraid of being helped."

They walked back to the broad walk running along the bay front and turned east. The walk was some distance back from the water here and lay between clumps of white birches left to their natural irregularity, but growing so thick that they formed a shadowy aisle for them to walk through.

"Now, I will be showman. This house," pointing to a square-built yellow frame house with verandas on three sides, "they say is one of the oldest on the grounds—one of the pioneers, in fact—but it doesn't look it."

"It certainly has an air of solid comfort, and its owner must have had first choice of sites. See those birches there at the east—"

She broke off to say excitedly, "Oh, Philip, look! Did you see that dear little squirrel? there, running up the tree."

"'Philip'!" John Harcourt said to himself. "Well, that's queer!" He did not refer to it when they started on, and she was plainly unaware that she had used the name, but he laid it away in his memory for future reference. Philip!... Bess had said—

In gayest mood they wandered on down the bay until they came to Roaring Brook. Here, taking Philip's hand, Harcourt led the way under low-hanging boughs to a foot-path which took them straight into Nature's solitudes. A board walk (which seemed almost an impertinence in its newness—a parvenue except for its considerateness in walking around instead of over the gentry of the forest) followed the windings of a stream dark and shadowy. In its shallows swam schools of minnows which they watched from the rustic bridges, and flecks of sunlight fell upon it in patches here and there.

They were in a tanglewood of tall timber—mammoth cedars that looked centuries old, and lofty elms and maples and hemlocks lifting their heads defiantly. But it was a pitiful defiance after all, for on every side lay fallen giants that had succumbed as they must one day succumb to a force stronger than themselves, and their stricken forms, their outstretched arms told of the vanquishment. Not even the mosses and the friendly vines clambering from limb to limb could hide their shame.

"Oh, this is nature's tragedy!" cried Margaret. He had observed in her a habit of endowing inanimate objects with life, and suffering or rejoicing with them. "They had to give up! They simply had to give up to a power that was mightier than they!"

"If they had only bent," he said, "they might have been standing yet."

"How can an oak bend?" she cried. "Even a tree must live according to its nature, and then—when the storm overpowers it—go down. So must we all."

He stood idly throwing pieces of bark into the black depths of the stream and watching them float off. He was thinking. "What an intense creature she is!"

When next she spoke it was to repeat the opening lines of Bryant's "Forest Hymn,"—her hands clasped on her heaving breast and her head thrown back. It would not have surprised him much if she had dropped to her knees and begun crossing herself, or have prostrated herself upon the walk, her forehead in the dust.

"It is not altogether flattering to my vanity," he mused, "but I'll bet a nickel she has forgotten that I am in the world. She is up in the clouds to-day for some reason. And yet—I could bring her down with a word—one little word." A boyish impulse came over him to try it. He called softly to the child who had run on up the walk,

"Philip!"

And yet more softly,

"Philip!"

She turned toward him with a look of such abject terror that he repented the experiment. The color had simply dropped from her face, leaving it white and rigid.

"Why do you call him—why do you use that name?" she asked with dry lips.

"I heard you say it."

"I?" she said incredulously, "when?"

"Not a half hour ago. It sounded to me as if you dropped into it from habit."

She laughed uneasily, but her color was coming back. "Her name is Philippa. You probably heard me say that and thought I said Philip. She—she doesn't often get her real name."

He was looking at her with a quizzical smile. He knew from Bess—or thought he did—that the child's name was Margaret.

"You don't lie as if you were used to it," he said coolly. "Try it again."

"How dare you talk to me like that?" she cried. "And by what right do you question me?"

"I haven't questioned you. What you have told has been told voluntarily. I hardly think you would stick to it if I should question you, but I have no intention of doing it." Then he came nearer to her and spoke very seriously.

"Mrs. Osborne, I beg your pardon for speaking as I did. My foolish habit of flippancy has misled me into doing a thing I had no right to do, or rather into speaking in a manner that I had no right to use toward you. I really think that my friendship for you, which you have not forbidden, at any rate, does give me the right to put you on your guard. I have not the remotest idea of the reason for the deception that you are practising, but surely it is a dangerous thing to keep it up."

His kindly tone and the manliness of his apology completely disarmed her.

"Oh," she said, clasping her hands in distress, "it is because there is so much at stake that I must keep it up. I am driven to it."

They were walking along the woodsy path now, but neither was noticing tree or fern or stream. After all, it is the human interest that overpowers every other.

"I do not wish to force your confidence, but—if I could help you—"

She shook her head. "You cannot help me. There is only one person in all the world that could help me, and he—"

She broke off abruptly, saying later, "Mr. Harcourt, I—I cannot explain, but will you not trust me that it is all right?"

"You have not set me a good example in trust," he said, looking down into her troubled eyes, "but certainly there has been nothing to shake my confidence in you—except in your judgment. If the time ever comes that I can help you, you know where to find me."

She put out her hand and he held it for a moment in his. Then looking at his watch he said, "I think it is time we are getting back." He whistled to Philip who was still proudly walking ahead, and when he came back took him by the hand and relieved the situation by devoting himself entirely to the child, showing him all manner of wonderful things that the woods contained.

He did not speak to Margaret again until they were in the bay path, and then it was only to call her attention to the different kinds of evergreens growing along the road, and to show her how to identify them.