The Project Gutenberg eBook, A Fool in Spots, by Hallie Erminie Rives

“‘She is beautiful!’ he exclaimed.” Page 77.

A FOOL IN SPOTS

BY

HALLIE ERMINIE RIVES.

————
ILLUSTRATED.
————

PUBLISHED BY
Woodward & Tiernan Printing Co.
St. Louis.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1894, by
Woodward & Tiernan Printing Company,
st. louis, mo.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

To my dear Mother and Father.

CONTENTS.

A FOOL IN SPOTS.

CHAPTER I. TWO ARTISTS.

They were seated tete-a-tete at a dinner table.

“Tell me why you have never married, Milburn,” and the steel eyes in Willard Frost’s face searched through his glasses.

Robert Milburn’s answer was a shrug, and a long cloud of smoke blown back at the glowing end of his cigar.

“Tell me why,” persisted the keen-eyed Frost.

“Because it is too expensive a luxury; besides, a man who has affianced a career like mine must take that for his bride,” was Robert’s answer.

“Admitting there is warmth and color in some of your artistic creations, old fellow, I should think you would find these scarcely available of winter nights, eh?”

Robert laughed; his laugh was short, though, and bitter. He had taken keen pleasure in the cynical worldly wisdom and unsentimental judgment of this man.

“If you can’t afford the wife, then let the wife afford you,” began Frost’s logical reasoning. “You have brain, muscle and youth. Marry them to that necessary adjunct which you do not possess, and which the government refuses to supply. This is perfectly practical. The whole question of marriage is too much a matter of sentiment; too little a matter of judgment. Now, the son of a millionaire without an idea above his raiment and his club, devoid of morals and of brains, marries the daughter of a silver king. What is the result? A race of vulgar imbeciles.”

Here Frost, more wickedly practical, continued: “Now, you are of gentle blood, being fitted out by nature with the most unfortunate combination of attributes. Nature has given you much more than your share of intelligence and manly beauty, together with most refined and sympathetic sensibilities and luxurious tastes, and then has placed you in an orbit representing intelligence, aristocracy and wealth. Here she has left you to revolve with the greater and lesser luminaries, and that with the slenderest of incomes, which is not as yet greatly increased by your profession. You doubtless find that it requires considerable financiering to do these things deemed necessary to maintain your position in the constellation.”

“It is rather annoying to be poor,” Robert answered in a carefully repressed voice. A hard sigh followed, and there flashed through him the hot consciousness of the bitter truth. For that special reason no word had ever crossed his lips that could, by any means, be twisted into serious suit with the fair sex. It was generally accepted that he was not a “marrying” man.

They were, both of them, men who would at first sight interest a stranger. The younger of the two you might have seen before if you frequented the ultra-fashionable dinner parties, luncheons, etc., of polite New York. Anywhere, everywhere, was Robert Milburn a special guest and a general favorite.

He was medium-sized, delicately featured, with a look of half-lazy enthusiasm. You would set him down at once as an artistic character; at the same time, there was in his make-up and bearing, that which bespeaks an ambitious nature. His companion, who appeared older, was a man of statelier stamp, tall and sufficiently athletic. His face was well finished and had a certain air of self-possession, which not a few name self-conceit, and resent accordingly.

“Ah! Robert, you have entirely too much sentiment, my boy. Do not waste yourself. I will cite you a girl—there’s Frances Baxter. True, she is not good looking, in fact, I presume quite a few consider her extraordinarily plain. But that excessive income is worth your while to aspire to—such a name as Milburn is certainly worth something.”

With an earnestness of tone and manner which the gossipy nature of the talk hardly seemed to call for, Robert nervously threw aside his crumpled napkin and looked sharply at his companion, saying:

“Surely, then, I may do something better with it than sell it.”

“There, we will not argue, I am too wise to oppose a man who is laboring under the temporary insanity of a love affair. I had feared that you were not so level-headed as is your wont. Come, who is the woman? Is it the Southern girl at the Stanhope’s?”

“Of whom do you speak?” asked Robert, looking pale and annoyed.

“Of Miss Bell—Cherokee Bell—to be sure.”

“You honor me with superior judgment to so accuse, whether it be true or not,” and upon Milburn’s face there was that expression which tells of what is beyond.

The other smiled meaningly, and raised his brows.

“Ah, my dear boy,” he mutely commented, “I am sorry my supposition is true, but it leaves me wiser, and no transparent scheming goes.”

“Tell me your opinion of her, Milburn, I am interested deeply.”

“Well, I have always said she was positively refreshing,” began Robert. “She came upon us to recall a bright world. She came as a revelation to some, a reminiscence to others, and caused our social Sahara to blossom with a suddenly enriched oasis.”

“Yes, she has that indescribable lissomeness and grace which she doubtless inherits with her Southern blood. I was attracted, too, by the delicacy of her hands and feet, of which she is pardonably proud. But that scar or something disfigures one hand.”

Robert spoke up quickly: “That is a birth-mark, I think it is a fern leaf.”

“A birth-mark! Oh hopelessly plebeian, don’t you think?”

“Your Miss Baxter has a very vivid one upon her neck.”

“I beg pardon, then, birthmarks are just the thing.”

Frost had commenced in a bantering mood, but now and again his voice would take a more serious tone.

“Joking apart, Miss Bell is charming. She is, thanks to God, a being out of the ordinary. She has a style unstinted and all her own. I have upon several occasions made myself agreeable, partly for my own gratification and partly because I saw in her eyes that she admired me.”

Frost leaned back in intended mock conceit, no small portion of which appeared genuine.

Robert gave way to laughter, in which just a tinge of annoyance might have been detected.

“She is quite accustomed to these attentions, for all her life adoration has been her daily bread.”

“I should like to know how you are so well posted?” asked Frost, with a dark flash in his grey eyes.

Robert Milburn lifted his head proudly, and answered quietly: “I have known her since she was a little slip of a lass.”

“And how did the meeting come about? you were brought up in Maryland, I believe.”

“True, but in the early ’80s I spent one spring and summer South. I was at ‘Ashland.’ You know that is the old home of Henry Clay. It is about in the center of the region of blue grass, down in Kentucky. Clay’s great grandson, by marriage, Major McDowell, owns this historic place. He is a well-mannered and distinguished host, and allowed me to fancy myself an artist then, and I made some sketches of his horses—he is a celebrated stock breeder.”

“How I should enjoy seeing a good stock farm; that is one pleasure I am still on this side of,” put in Willard. “Go on, I meant not to interrupt you.”

“The Major often saddled two of his fine steppers and invited me to ride over the country with him. It was upon one of these jaunts that I met the girl. It happened in this way: We were in the blue grass valley just this side of the mountainous region. A turn-row, running through a field of broken sod was our route, to avoid a dangerous creek ford. With heartsome calls and chirruping, six plowmen went up and down the long rows. The light earth, creaming away from the bright plowshare, heaped upon their bare feet. I thought, ‘What is so delicious as the feel of it—yielding, cool, electrical, fresh.’ We stopped to watch them. They tramped sturdily behind the mules, one hand upon the plow-handle, the other wrapped about with the line that ran to the beast’s head. Presently, they all fell to singing a song—a relic, it must have been, from the old care-free days. Over and over they chanted the rude lilt, and their voices were mildly sweet. We stopped to listen, for their song was like no other melodies under the sun.”

“But where does the girl come in? I expected to hear something of her,” interrupted Willard, with an impatient gesture.

“Oh, yes! She is just down a trifle farther in the pasture lands with an ‘ole Auntie.’ The Major addressed the negress as ‘Aunt Judy.’ They were welcoming the new comer—a calf. The Auntie wore a bandana and a coarse cotton print, over which was a thin, diamond-shaped shawl. Her subdued face was brown—the brown of tobacco—and her weary eyes stole quick, wondering glances at us, and instinctively she took the child’s hand, as if to be sure she was safe.

“Now I come to Cherokee—let me try to describe her to you. In coloring, delicacy, freshness, she was a flower. Her hair was combed straight back, but it was perversely curly; and the short hairs around her forehead had a fashion of falling loosely about, which was very pretty. She was slim, her drooping-lashed eyes wore a soft seriousness. She at once chained my vagrant fancy and I promised myself that would not be the only time I should look upon her. On the homeward way the Major told me she was the only child of Darwin Bell, an excellent man. A man of good blood, good sense and piety, ‘but the best of all,’ continued the Major, ‘he was a gallant Confederate captain.’

“Then he happened to recall the fact that I was of the other side and said: ‘I beg your pardon young man, but Darwin and I were army mates, and that eulogy was but a heart-throb.’

“He had quite a little to tell of the negress. She was Cherokee’s ‘black mammy,’ and her faithfulness was a striking illustration of the devotion of the slaves. It seems to me that the most callous man or woman could not fail to appreciate little touches, here and there, of the sweet kindly feeling that nestles close to the core of honest human hearts. I went home that night in a softer mood.”

“Softer in more senses than one, I judge, also poorer,” Frost returned, amusedly.

“You mean I had lost my heart?” the other asked in an odd tone.

“To be sure, but tell me more of Miss Bell, she is very like a serial story, and I want awfully to read the next chapters.”

“Then you must learn the sequel from her.”

“That is not quite fair of you, but I have a mind to; in fact, I know I cannot resist cultivating your blonde amaryllis, if you don’t object?”

Willard Frost smiled half—chaffingly, and quite enjoyed the expression of surprise and anxiety upon his companion’s face.

“That is a matter of the utmost indifference to me,” was the icy answer. The speaker’s hand, as it lay on the table, opened and shut in a quick nervous fashion, which showed that he was more annoyed than he looked, whereupon Frost waxed more eloquent and earnest.

“I mean to enter, though well I know, when love is a game of three, one heart can win but pain.”

“But that would surely be mine, for what chance has a poor devil of an artist like me with the invincible Frost?”

“I come under the same heading,” returned Willard, “I am an artist too.”

“Yes, but it would keep me in a desperate rush to run ahead of you—you the prince of the swagger set, a member of half a dozen clubs, owner of the smartest of four-in-hands, a capital dinner-giver, and a first-rate host, and, accompanying these, a plethoric purse to make all hospitalities easy.”

As Robert spoke, Frost poured out the last of the second bottle of champagne and looked carelessly at the bill for it, which the waiter had presented to the other.

“Suppose you find you a champion to do your battle—a John Alden?”

“He might do as Alden did, and keep the prize. My chum, Latham, is the only one I dare trust to win and divide spoils, and he is abroad now, you know.”

“Right glad I am, for Marrion Latham is a marvellous success with womankind. Still, I want some one to oppose me, for no game is worth a rap for a rational man to play unless he has competition”—this with decided emphasis.

“What’s the matter with Fred Stanhope? I think he will make it interesting for you.”

“Oh, I want a man, not a sissy. He is just the son of Mr. Stanhope. He hasn’t enough sense to grease gimlets. He is a rich-born freak, and I think he has set out to make a condign idiot of himself, in the briefest, directest manner, and he will doubtless succeed. I prefer you for a rival.”

“But Frost, I would be powerless, quite powerless, with you in the field.”

“Ah, you idealize me, make me too great a hero,” answered Frost, quite pleased within himself.

“Not a hero,” spoke Robert slowly, “but a smooth calculating man of the period, just the manner of man to take with that type of woman. She, this charming, intense creature, is so innocent, so ‘un-woke-up’, I might say.”

“I am a holy terror at awakening one, and if there is any money with it I shall exert myself to arouse her.”

There was an awkward silence. Frost paused and lighted a cigarette.

“Has she any plantations, stock farms, and the like? You seem so well up in her history.”

“No, with the exception of a thousand dollars or so, she is absolutely without means.”

“That settles it,” said Frost, flippantly. “You and your John Alden may open negotiations for her beauty and innocence, but they are too tame for me.”

“You are a fisherman, Frost, and if you can’t catch a whale you catch a trout, and if you can’t catch a trout you would whip in the shallows for the poor little minnows.”

“Minnows have their use as bait,” returned the other, with a meaning smile.

“But not to catch whales with, and you direct the training of my harpoon toward a big haul, yet you can stop to fish where you get but a nibble? What a peculiar adviser—rather inconsistent, don’t you think?” observed Robert, with a cynical sense of amusement. “I shall keep an eye on you.”

“And I shall keep an eye on that fact,” muttered Frost to himself when he had left his friend. “It is not much, but it would answer the small demands of an honest girl. I will see about that thousand dollars.”

CHAPTER II. DREAMS AND SCHEMES.

Willard Frost’s observations rang in Robert Milburn’s ear, not without effect, as he walked to his room that evening, albeit, his conscience refuted the arguments. He whiled away an hour or more piecing together the broken threads of their discussion. Frost had said, and in truth, that Miss Baxter was the richest prize of the season. She had turned all heads with her fabulous wealth. He had said, “A union of wealth and genius is as it should be.” That speech had a mild influence over Robert. There was something very soothing and agreeable to be called a rising genius, and, then, the thought that other men would be gnashing their teeth was a stimulant to his vanity.

Miss Baxter was a sharp girl, and she had an exquisite figure which she dressed with the best of taste. What if her nose was a trifle snub, and her mouth verging on the coarse, she had a large capital to contribute to a copartnership.

But when love, or whatever else by a less pretty name we may call the emotion which stirs within us, responsive to the glance or touch of a woman, sweeps man’s nature as the harpist the strings of his harp, all thoughts pass under the dominion of the master passion; even the thought of self, with all its impudent assertiveness, changes its accustomed force, and sinks to a secondary place.

Love is a disturber and routs philosophy, and as for matrimony, Robert rather agreed with the philosopher who said, “You will regret it whether you marry or not.” An old painter had once told him that in bringing too much comfort and luxury into the home of the artist, it frightened inspiration.

“Art,” he said, “needs either solitude, poverty or passion; too warm an atmosphere suffocates it. It is a mountain wind-flower that blooms fairest in a sterile soil.”

From the scene-house of Robert’s memory came visions strangely sweet; they came like the lapse of fading lesson days, gemmed here and there with joys, and crimsoned all over with the silken suppleness of youth and its delights.

Again the glamour of gold and green lay over the warm South earth. New leaves danced out in the early sunshine, dripping sweet odors upon all below. Robins in full song made vocal the budding hedgerows from under which peeped the hasty gold of the crocus flower. By fence and field peach trees up-flushed in rosy growth, and the wild plum’s scented snowing made all the days afaint and fair. And again the woods were brave in summer greenery; hawthorn—dogwood, stood bridal all in white.

Matted honeysuckle, that opened as if by magic in the dewless, stirless night, arched above a garden gate, wherefrom, with hasty thrift, tall lilacs framed a girl in wreathen bloom.

From the moment the gleam of that sweet face of hers touched him, the world, he felt, would lose its luster if Cherokee did not smile on him, and him alone, of all the world of men.

All the wealth, fashion and talent of the rest of women in their totality, were of no more meaning to him than the floating of motes in the great sunbeam of his love for this girl. This fact made all other resolutions impossible—glaringly impossible.

With this honest conviction in his manly breast he went to bed, and the blessed visitor of peace placed fingers upon his eyelids to keep watch until the morrow.

* * * * * *

Two ladies, in loose but becoming morning gowns, sat, at the fashionable hour of eleven, breakfasting in a dainty boudoir in an extension to a fine residence on Fifth Avenue. The table, a low square table covered with whitest linen, was set before a great open fireplace, where gas gave forth flashes of lurid lights which were refracted by the highly polished surface of the silver tray, teapot, sugar and creamer.

The elder lady had the morning paper in her lap and she sat sipping her tea. She scarcely looked her four and forty. Youth was past, but the charm of gracious maturity lay in her clear glance and about the soft smiling mouth. The girl had turned her easy chair away from the table, perching her pretty feet on the brass rail of the fender. Her aristocratic brown-blonde head was bending over the Herald.

“Here is another puff about Willard Frost, the portrait painter,” she said complacently. “He has become the rage; I suppose the fact that he is a romantic figure of an unconventional type is one reason as well as his artistic qualities.”

“‘He has become the rage.’” Page 23.

“And, too, because he is unmarried,” said the elderly lady. “Society is strange, and when the gods marry they lose caste. If he should bring home one day a beautiful wife, I fancy few women would care about sitting for portraits then.”

“I cannot understand that; why is it?” inquired the girl, innocently.

“Because women declare against women. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were already angry with you.”

“Why?”

“I have thought that he fancied you and showed you preference.”

“He has been quite nice, but I thought it was generally understood that he would make love to Miss Baxter.”

“I may be wrong, but I sometimes imagine you like him, and I do not blame you either, my dear; many a girl has married less attractive men than your artist.”

“Oh, he is handsome, has a magnificent build, and that voice—” murmured the girl, clasping her hands over her knee and looking into the fire.

The other watched her intently and said slowly: “I had hoped to save you for my boy—he is our best gift from God, and you—come next.”

The girl smiled softly, “Oh, Fred doesn’t care for me; he says I remind him of hay fields and yielding clover. I take it that he means I am too ‘fresh,’” observed the girl, half seriously.

“Not at all; what is purer and sweeter than to be forest-bred? Why, after all these long years, I tire of my city fostering and long for the South country where your mother and I grew into womanhood. And while Fred chaffs you about being a country girl, he is really proud of you. He often talks to me: ‘Why, mother,’ he tells me, ‘I never saw anything like it; as soon as she appeared she shone; a sudden brightness fills the place wherever she goes; a softened splendor comes around.’ And dear, I am not blind, I see you are besieged by smiles and light whispered loves—you hold all hearts in that sweet thrall; you are the bright flame in which many moths burn.”

“You are both very, very, kind—Fred and you”—Here she was interrupted by a maid entering with a card.

“Mr. Willard Frost.”

“Ah, Cherokee, what did I tell you? He has even taken the liberty of calling at unconventional hours.”

As Frost waited below he nervously moved about; there was a sort of sub-conscious discomfort, as of one whose clothes are a misfit. The least sound added to his uneasy feeling.

“Am I actually in love with her?” he asked, “or does her maidenly and becoming coyness excite my surfeited passion? Is it something that will burn off at a touch, like a lighted sedge-field,” he reflected. “Would I marry her if I could? Well, what’s the difference? The part I have undertaken is a good one; I will see it through and risk the winning.”

When Cherokee appeared he thought her lovelier than ever. He looked hungrily at her fair, high-bred face, her enigmatical smile that might mean so much or so little. She gave him her hand in kindly welcome.

“You will pardon my stupidity to-day, for I shouldn’t have come feeling so badly, and I should not have come at all had I not wanted a kind word of sympathy,” he said, when the first salutations were received.

“You did quite right,” she answered, “burdens shared are easier carried. What is your trouble?”

“I would not confide in many, but somehow I have always felt we were vastly more than common friends. Do you feel that way about it?” he asked, in weighing tones.

“I take great delight in your companionship,” she told him, frankly.

“And it is these subtle, intelligent sympathies which make you most dangerously charming. Now, I have a question; do not answer me if you think it wrong of me to ask, but did you ever like a man so well that you fancied yourself married to him?”

She laughed a care-free, girlish laugh.

“Why no, now that you ask, I’m sure I never did.”

Then there was a long, uncomfortable pause, broken by saying: “Ah, well, there’s time enough, only be sure that you know your heart, if you have any; have you?”

She laughed again her gay little laugh. “I’ll tell him that if he ever comes.”

He had a far-away look, and breathed long and deeply. Suddenly he spoke up.

“Dearest love,” taking both her hands and looking with gravity into her face, “I did not mean to say it yet, but I must. I love you—I love you—and I would show it in a thousand ways. Be my wife.”

She listened to each word intently, her face neither flushed nor paled. She spoke very deliberately: “I—your wife, Mr. Frost? No. You interest me, but if I care for you, there is something that mars its fullness. Forgive me for saying it plainly, but I do not love you.”

“But, little woman, you cannot but awaken to it sometime. It is a heart of stone that will not warm to the touch of such love as mine. Love is dependent upon contact; we are only the wires through which the current throbs—lifeless before they are touched, and listless when sundered.”

He attempted to take her in his arms, but she slipped from his embrace, and naively replied, “If that’s your theory, there’s one remedy: I’ll break your circuit.”

“Was there ever such a tangle of weakness and strength in woman?” he asked himself. He bit his lips and marvelled; he had again been thwarted. Pretty soon he leaned heavily on the table, and looked the embodiment of despair.

“What makes you so gloomy?” asked Cherokee, sweetly.

“Because I am a lost and ruined man. I never felt quite so alone and friendless.”

“Why friendless? Tell me what it is that makes you so downhearted?” Her tones were well calculated to reassure him.

“I am suffering from the inevitable misery which, as a ghost, follows the erring,” he said, and his voice was hard.

“Tell me all about it, Mr. Frost, that I may be in sympathy with you.”

“Then I will tell you all,” raising a face that looked worn and worried. “There is nothing of sentiment in my misfortune; as rascally old Panurge used to put it, ‘I am troubled with a disease known as a plentiful lack of money.’”

“Why, Mr. Frost, I thought you were rich; the world takes it that way.”

“I did possess a fair competency until two weeks ago, but an unfortunate investment in Reading swept it away like thistledown in the wind. The friends to whom I could apply for aid are in the same boat. For one of them, I, very like the fool Antonio, have gone security for a thousand dollars. To-morrow that must be paid else I lose my pound of flesh, which, taken literally, means my studio, pictures, and, worst of all, my reputation.”

“And you call yourself a fool for helping a friend; I am surprised at that.”

“You are right. I shouldn’t feel that way, for he is noble beyond the common; his faults, such as they are, have been more hurtful to himself than to others.” Frost spoke magnanimously.

“Who is the friend?” she asked, so impulsively that it bore no trace of impertinence.

“Pardon me, but I would not mention his name; however, you know him quite well.”

Cherokee turned her face full upon him and asked bravely: “Will you let me help you both?”

He appeared startled: “You little woman, you! What on earth could you do but be grieved at a friend’s misfortune?” She little knew that all this was but to abuse that intense, fond, clinging sympathy.

“I have fourteen hundred in my own name, will you use part of that?”

“Great heavens, no. I would become a beggar first!”

“But if I insist, and it will save you and—him?”

Willard Frost sat for a time without speaking; apparently he was weighing some profound subject. At last he looked up and gathered Cherokee’s hands in his.

“I appreciate the spirit that prompts you to make this heroic offer to me. When will you need this money?”

“Not for two months yet, I expect to spend the winter in ‘Frisco’ with Mr. and Mrs. Stanhope.”

“Are you absolutely in earnest about our using it?”

“Never was more in earnest in my lifetime,” she answered, solemnly.

“Then I will take it, though I feel humbled to the very dust to think of these little hands saving me.”

He bent and kissed them as reverently as though she had been his patron saint. As she gave him the check for one thousand dollars, Cherokee thought his trembling hands told, but too well, of humbled pride.

“That was a stroke of genius—a decided stroke of genius,” he said to himself, as he passed into the club house that day.

CHAPTER III. AN HONEST MAN’S HONEST LOVE.

It was far into twilight when Robert Milburn rang the bell at the Stanhopes. He had called to escort them to the closing ball of the Manhattan season.

“I have not seen you for more than a week, Robert. I fear you have been worrying or working too hard,” said Cherokee, looking at him searchingly and anxiously.

“Ah, not working any more than I should, yet there has been a terrible weight on my mind—a crushing weight.”

“Then, let us remain at home to-night; I prefer it.”

“You must have read my mind, I wanted so much to stay, but the fear of cheating you of pleasure kept me from suggesting it.”

So it was agreed upon that they would not go to the ball.

“Now tell me what makes you overtax your strength?” said Cherokee, sweetly and solicitously.

“I must get on in my profession, so that one day you will be proud of me.” His enthusiasm inspired her.

“I am that already, and shall never cease to hope for you and be proud of your many successes. A great future is waiting to claim you, Mr. Milburn.”

“Not unless that future’s arm can hold both of us, Cherokee, for you are still all I really want praise from—all I fear in the blaming. But, sweetheart, you have dropped me as a child throws away a toy when it is weary. When Frost told me he had been here it started afresh some thoughts that I find lurking about my mind so often of late.”

Did her bowed head mean an effort to hide a face that told too much?

“I believe you are sorry he is not with you here now.”

She laid her hand in playful reproach upon his lips. “Sorry, you foolish boy! I am glad you are here, isn’t that enough?”

“I hope so; forgive me, Cherokee, but you do not know the world. It is deeper, darker, wider, than you have ever dreamed, and there are some very queer people in it. I shall keep my eyes open, and if I can help it, you shall never know it as I do.”

“Why, what harm can come to me? What could the world have against me?” and her innocent face looked hurt.

“Nothing, except your beauty and purity, and either is a dangerous charge. I wish you could have always lived among the bees and bloomings, with the South country folk.”

“Why, do you find it annoying to have me near?”

“No, but very annoying to have you near others I know. I cannot quite understand some men—for instance, Willard Frost.”

“I think he is a very warm friend of yours.”

“Probably so, probably so. But, Cherokee, tell me, in truth, do you love him?”

“I do not,” she answered, promptly, and there was nothing in her eyes but truth.

“My God,” Robert cried within him, “you have been merciful. Cherokee, listen to me—I know you already understand what I am about to say: You have known from the first that you are the greatest of what there is in my life. There is no joy through all the day but that it brings with it a desire to share it with you. I often awake with your half-spoken name on my lips, as though, when I slipped through the portals of unconsciousness into the world of reality, I came only to find you, as a frightened child awakes and calls feebly for its mother. I look to your love for the sweetness of home. I need you; can you say ‘We need each other?’”

The adoration he expressed for her filled her with innocent wonder and gratitude. His overpowering love and worship for her startled her by its force into a sweet shame, a hesitating fear. She was looking at him with her eyes softly opening and closing, like the eyes of a startled doe, as though the wonder and delight were too great to be taken in at once.

At length she made answer, hesitatingly, “And—this—beautiful—love—is—for—me?”

“It is all for you,” he said, tenderly.

“Robert, there is a feeling for you which I think is a part of my soul, but I do not know that it is love. It came to me—this feeling—so long ago that I believe that it has a seven-years’ claim. It was far back yonder, when I played at “camping out” under the broad white tents that the dogwoods pitched in the forest. I spent hours and hours in my play making clover chains to reach from my heart to yours—”

Here he interrupted her. “And it did reach me, finding fertile soil in which to grow. Tell me you have kept your part alive.”

“I cannot tell yet, I am going to test it. I believe I will imagine you feeling the morning kiss of Miss Baxter, and watching her good-night smile, and see if I would care.”

“Please do, but tell me why you said Miss Baxter? Why not any other lady of my acquaintance?”

“I suppose it is because I often hear that you are awfully fond of her.”

“That is not true, my dearest. I like her for the reason she thinks worlds of Marrion Latham, the dramatist. By the way, I had such a good letter from him to-day, so full of wonderful sympathy and friendship. I have often told him of you. I love that fellow. He knew I loved you before you did, I guess. You know, men in their friendships are trustful, they impose great confidences in each other, and are frank and outspoken. Even the solid, practical outside world recognizes the bonds of such faith, and looks with contempt upon the man who, having parted with his friend, reveals secrets which have been told him under the sacred profession of friendship.”

“Why is it, Robert, that women cannot be true, or a man and woman cannot form a lasting, loyal friendship?”

“The first case, jealousy or envy breaks; the second generally ends in one falling in love with the other, and that spoils it,” he explained.

She looked up archly: “Which will be the most enduring, your friendship for Marrion, or your love for me?”

“Please God that both shall last always,” he answered, with reverence.

“How good it seems to hear you say that.” Then she impulsively held out her hands saying: “I do care.”

Robert, trembling from head to foot at the mad audacity of his act, bent down to taste from the calyx of that flower-face the sweet intoxication of the first kiss. The worried look had gone out of his face.

“The sweet intoxication of the first kiss.” Page 36.

“So you will wait for me until I have made a name that will grace you! How brave of you to make me that promise. Cherokee are you all mine? Then there are only two more things required in this—the sanction of the State, and the blessing of God. May He keep a watch over both our lives.”

“I pray that your wish be granted,” she murmured, with a tender voice.

“Now, my little woman, be very careful of the people you meet. Unfortunately, one forgets sometimes when one is in danger. You are a woman, sweet, passionate and kind; just the favorite prey.”

She looked at him intently, as if endeavoring to divine his underlying thoughts.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?”

He knew by the tremor in her voice she was hurt.

“I mean, dear, that lions are admitted into the fold because they are tame lions—look out for them.”

The next moment he was gone.

CHAPTER IV. IN THE SOCIAL REALM.

Carriages, formed in double ranks by the police, lined the pavement of several blocks on —— street, and from them alighted, as each carriage made a brief stop at the entrance, men and women of fashion, enveloped in heavy wraps, for the night was cold. Beneath the heavy opera coats, sealskins, etc., ball dresses were visible, and feet encased in fur-lined boots caught the eyes of those who stood watching the guests of the —— ball as they entered the building.

Music filled the vast dance-hall. High up in the galleries musicians were stationed, who toiled away at their instruments, furnishing enlivening strains of waltzes or polkas for the dancers. To the right, adown corridors of arched gold, the reception rooms were filled with metropolitan butterflies.

The scene was an interesting study. Foremost of all could be noticed the voluptuous freedom of manner, though the picturesque grace of the leading lights was never wholly lost. They were dissolute, but not coarse; bold, but not vulgar. They took their pleasure in a delicately wanton way, which was infinitely more dangerous in its influence than would have been gross mirth or broad jesting. Rude licentiousness has its escape-valve in disgust, but the soft sensualism of a cultured aristocrat is a moral poison, the effects of which are so insidious as to be scarcely felt until all the native nobility is almost withered.

It is but justice to them to say, there was nothing repulsive in the mischievous merriment of these revelers; their witticisms were brilliant and pointed, but never indelicate. Some of the dancers, foot-weary, lounged gracefully about, and the attendant slaves were often called upon to refill the wine glasses.

In every social gathering, as in a garden, or in the heavens, there is invariably one particular and acknowledged flower, or star. Here all eyes followed the beautiful, spirited, inspiring girl, who was under the chaperonage of Mrs. Stanhope. This fresh, beaming girl, unspoiled by flattery, remained naive, affectionate and guileless.

During the changing of groups and pairs, this girl heard the sweet, languid voice of Willard Frost. Through the clatter of other men it came like the silver stroke of a bell in a storm at sea. She flushed radiantly as he and Miss Baxter joined her party.

“Ah, my dear Miss Bell, you are looking charming,” he exclaimed, effusively. He took her hand, a little soft pink one, that looked like a shell uncurled.

“Come, honor Miss Baxter and me by taking just one glass of sherry,” and he called a passing waiter.

Cherokee looked at him with startled surprise. “How often, Mr. Frost, will I have a chance to decline your offers like this? I tell you again, I have never taken wine, and I congratulate myself.”

“Are you to be congratulated or condoled with?” There was irony in Miss Baxter’s tone, though her laugh was good natured, as she continued, “I see you are yet a beautiful alien, for a glass of good wine, or an occasional cigarette is never out of place with us. All of these nervous fads are city equipments.”

“Then, if not to smoke and not to drink are country virtues, pray introduce them into city life,” was Cherokee’s answer.

“Ah, no indeed, I would never take the liberty of reversing the order of things, for they just suit me,” and Miss Baxter’s bright eyes twinkled under drooping lashes. As she smiled she raised a glass of wine to her lips, kissed the brim, and gave it to Willard Frost with an indescribably graceful swaying gesture of her whole form.

“Here’s to your pastoral sweetheart, the sorceress, sovereign of the South.”

“‘Here’s to your pastoral sweetheart, the sorceress, sovereign of the South.’” Page 40.

He seized the glass eagerly, drank, and returned it with a profound salutation.

The consummate worldlings were surprised to hear Miss Bell answer:

“Thank you, but how much more appropriate would be, ‘Here’s to a Fool in Spots!’”

Willard replied, with a shake of the head:

“Ah, no, you have too much ‘snap’ to be called a fool in any sense, besides, you only need being disciplined—you’ll be enjoying life by and by. When I first met our friend Milburn he was saying the same thing, but where is he now?——”

Here Miss Baxter laid her pretty jeweled hand warningly upon his arm.

“Come, you would not be guilty of divulging such a delicious secret, would you?”

He treated the matter mostly as a joke, and returned with a tantalizing touch in his speech:

“Robert didn’t mean to do it. We must forgive.”

Cherokee looked puzzled as she caught the exchange of significant smiles. She spoke, as always, in her own soft, syllabled tongue.

“What do you mean, may I ask?”

Willard Frost coughed, and took her fan with affectionate solicitude.

“It may not be just fair to answer your question. I am sorry.”

“Mr. Milburn is a friend of mine, and if anything has happened to him why shouldn’t I know it?” she inquired, somewhat tremulously.

No combination of letters can hope to convey an idea of the music of her rare utterance of her sweetheart’s name.

“But you wouldn’t like him better for the knowing,” he interrupted. “Besides, he will come out all right if he follows my instructions implicitly.”

She stared blankly at him, vainly trying to comprehend what he meant. Then there came an anxious look on her face, such a look as people wear when they wish to ask something of great moment, but dare not begin. At last she summoned up courage.

“Mr. Frost,” she said, in a weak, low voice, “he—Robert—hasn’t done anything wrong?”

“Wrong, what do you call wrong?” was the laconic question, “but I trust the matter is not so serious as it appears.”

“Ah, I am so foolish,” and she smiled gently.

“No, it is well enough to have a friend’s interest at heart, and you won’t cut him off if you hear it—you are not that sort. I know you are clever and thoughtful, and all that, but you possess the forgiving spirit. Now, unlike some men, I judge people gently, don’t come down on other men’s failings. Who are we, any of us, that we should be hard on others?”

“Judge gently,” she replied.

“I hope I always do that.”

“If I only dared tell her now,” said Frost to himself, “but it’s not my affair.”

He saw the feminine droop of her head, and the dainty curve of her beautiful arm.

“She is about to weep,” he muttered.

Miss Baxter, who had been amusing herself with other revelers, turned to interrupt: “Mr. Frost, you haven’t given him dead away?”

This, so recklessly spoken, only added to Cherokee’s discomfort. A flush rose to her cheek. She asked, with partial scorn:

“Do you think he should have aroused my interest without satisfying it?”

“Please forgive him, he didn’t intend to be so rude; besides, he would have told you had I not interrupted. It was thoughtless of you to make mention of it,” she said, reproachfully, to the artist.

The while he seemed oddly enjoying the girl’s strange dry-eyed sorrow.

Just here, Fred Stanhope came up to tell them the evening pleasures were done. Cherokee could have told him that sometime before.

Willard Frost looked remarkably bright and handsome as he walked away with Miss Baxter leaning upon his arm.

“What made you punish that poor girl so? What pleasure was there in giving Mr. Milburn away, especially since you were the entire cause of it?” she went on earnestly, and a trifle dramatically. “A man has no right to give another away—no right—he should——”

“But Frances,” remonstrated Frost, lightly, and apparently unimpressed by her theory, “I was just dying to tell her that Milburn was as drunk as a duchess.”

CHAPTER V. THE IMAGE OF BEAUTIFUL SIN.

In his fashionable apartments, Willard Frost walked back and forth in his loose dressing-gown. Rustling about the room, his softly slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger—looked like “some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger from man was either just going off or just coming on.”

A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude. He moved from end to end of his voluptuous room, looking now and again at a picture which hung just above a Persian couch, covered with a half dozen embroidered pillows.

What unmanageable thoughts ran riot in his head, as he surveyed the superb image and thought that only one thing was wanting—the breath of life—for which he had waited through all these months.

For two heavy hours he walked and thought; now he would heave a long, low sigh, then hold his breath again.

When at last he dropped down upon his soft bed, he lay and wondered if the world would go his way—the way of his love for a woman.

* * * * * *

Cherokee met Willard Frost on Broadway the next morning—he had started to see her.

“Let me go back with you and we will lunch together—what do you say?” he proposed.

“Very well, for I am positively worn out to begin with the day, and a rest with you will refresh me,” she said sweetly.

They took the first car down town and went to a café for lunch. Willard laughed mischievously as he glanced down the wine list on the menu card.

“What will you have to-day?”

“What I usually take,” she answered, in the same playful mood.

“I received that perplexing note of yours, but don’t quite interpret it,” he began, taking it from his pocket and reading:

‘Dear Mr. Frost:

I am anxious to sit for the picture at once. Of course you will never speak of it. Don’t let anyone know it.

Yours, in confidence,
Cherokee.’

“It is very plain,” she pouted. “Don’t you remember I had told you I was going to have my portrait made for Mrs. Stanhope on her birthday. That doesn’t come just yet, in fact it is three months off, but you know we are going to ‘Frisco’ for the winter, and there isn’t much time to lose; I have been busy two months making preparations.”

“What! Are you going, too? I was thinking a foolish thought,” he sighed. “I was thinking maybe you would remain here while they were away.”

“Not for anything; I have been planning and looking forward to this trip a whole year.” She seemed perfectly elated at the thought.

“There is nothing to induce you to remain?”

“Nothing,” she answered, with emphasis.

“I have an aunt with whom you could stay, and we could learn much of each other. Do stay,” he insisted.

“I must go, though I shall not forget you in the ‘winter of our content.’”

“That’s very kind, I am sure, but I have set my heart on seeing you during the entire season, for Milburn, poor boy, is so hard at work he will not intrude upon my time often. Besides, he is getting careless of late—doesn’t want society. The fact is, I believe he is profoundly discouraged. This work of art is a slow and tedious one. But he keeps on at it, except when he has been drinking too heavily.”

“Drinking! Mr. Frost, you surely are misinformed; Robert never drinks.”

Her manner was dignified, though she did not seem affected, for she was too certain there was some mistake.

“I hope I have been,” he said, simply.

He saw at once that she would not believe him. For love to her meant perfect trust; faith in the beloved against all earth or heaven. Whoever dared to traduce him would be consumed in the lightning of her luminous scorn, yet win for him, her lover, a tenderer devotion.

“So you are going to ‘Frisco,’ and I cannot see you for three long months? Well, I must explain something,” he began. “It is rather serious, it didn’t start out so, but is getting very serious. I got your note about the money more than a week ago—” His voice trembled, broke down, then mastering himself, he went on, “I could not meet the demand. Ah, if I could only get the model I wanted, I could paint a picture whose loveliness none but the blind could dispute—a picture that would bring more than three times the amount I owe you.”

He watched the girl eagerly, the while soft sensations and vague desires thrilled him.

Wasn’t it a wonder that something did not tell him, “It is monstrous, inhuman to thus prey upon the credulity of an impulsive, over sensitive nature.” Not when it is learned that whatever of heart, conscience, manliness, courage, reverence, charity, nature had endowed him at his birth, had been swallowed up in that one quality—selfishness.

“I wish I could help you,” Cherokee said timidly, “for I need the money. All I had has gone for my winter wardrobe.”

“Then I will tell you how to help us both. The model I want is yourself.” He spoke bravely now.

“Me?”

“Yes, if you will let me, I can do us both justice, and you will be counted the dream of all New York.”

She listened to his speech like the bird that flutters around the dazzling serpent; she was fascinated by this dangerous man, and neither able nor honestly willing to escape.

“Besides, I will make your portrait for Mrs. Stanhope free of charge,” was the artist’s afterthought.

“I could not accept so much from you,” she answered, promptly.

“I offered it by way of rewarding your own generosity, but come, say you will pose for me anyhow.”

She regarded him frankly and without embarrassment.

“I will if it is perfectly proper for me to do so. Surely, though, you would not ask me to do it if it were wrong.”

“Not for the world,” he replied magnanimously. “It is entirely proper, many a lady comes there alone. ‘In art there is no sex, you know.’”

“But I am not prepared now, how should I be dressed?”

“In a drapery, and I have all that is necessary. Say you will go,” he pleaded.

She hesitated a moment.

“Well, I will,” was the unfortunate answer.

Within an hour, master and model entered the studio.

“Now, first of all,” observed the master, “you must lay aside all reserve or foolish timidity, remembering the purity of art, and have but one thought—the completion of it. In that room to your right you will find everything that is needed, and over the couch is a study by which you may be guided in draping yourself.”

As the door closed behind Cherokee, Willard Frost caught a glimpse of a beautiful figure, “The Nymph of the Stream.” He listened for a couple of minutes or more, expecting or fearing she would be shocked at first, but as there was no such evidence he had no further misgivings. A thousand beautiful visions floated voluptuously through the thirsting silence. They flushed him as in the wakening strength of wine. And his body, like the sapless bough of some long-wintered tree, suddenly felt all pulses thrilling.

His hot lips murmured, “Victory is mine. Aye, life is beautiful, and earth is fair.”

Then the door opened and the model entered. She did not speak but stood straight and silent, her hands hanging at her side with her palms loosely open—the very abandonment of pathetic helplessness.

The master drew nearer and put out his hands. “Cherokee,” he said.

But he was suddenly awed by a firm “Stop there! I have always tried to be pure-minded, high-souled, sinless, but all this did not shield me from insult,” she cried, with a look of self-pitying horror.

“But he was suddenly awed by a firm ‘Stop there!’” Page 50.

He drew back, and his temper mounted to white heat, but he managed to preserve his suave composure.

“My dear girl, you misunderstand me; art makes its own plea for pardon. You are not angry, are you?”

She looked straight at him, her bosom rose and fell with her quick breathing, and there was such an eloquent scorn in her face that he winced under it, as though struck by a scourge.

“You are not worth my anger; one must have something to be angry with, and you are nothing—neither man, nor beast, for men are brave and beasts tell no lies. Out of my way, coward!”

And she stood waiting for him to obey, her whole frame vibrating with indignation like a harp struck too roughly. The air of absolute authority with which she spoke, stung him even through his hypocrisy and arrogance. He bit his lips and attempted to speak again, but she was gone from the studio.

Every step of her way she saw a serpent crawl back and forth across her hurried path, and she mused to herself: “Let him keep the money, my virtue is worth more to me than all that glitters or is gold.”

CHAPTER VI. WHITE ROSES.

Robert Milburn, bent at his desk, his fair head in his hands, was bewildered, angry, in despair.

“Can this be true?” he asked himself. “Is there a possibility of truth in it?”

The air of the gray room grew close, oppressive to the spirit, and at the darkening window he arose from the desk. He put on his long rain-coat, and with a hollow, ominous sound, the door closed behind him and he left the house.

As along he went, Robert caught sight of the bony face of an American millionaire and a beautiful woman in furs, behind the rain-streaked panes of a flashing carriage. On the other side he observed a gigantic iron building from which streams of shop-people poured down every street homeward; these ghastly weary human machines made a pale concourse through the sleet.

Further on his way a girl stood waiting for some one on the curb. He looked at her, dark hair curled on her white neck, her attire poor and common; but she was pretty, with her dark eyes. A reckless, plebeian little piece of earth, shivering, her hands bare and rough, the sleet whipping her face, on the side of which was a discoloration—the result of a blow, perchance. Then he turned his eyes from her who had drawn them.

The arc light above him hung like a dreadful white-bellied insect hovering on two long black wings, and he saw a woman in sleet-soaked rags, bent almost double under a load of sticks collected for firewood. Her hair hung thin and gray in elf-locks, her red eyelids had lost their lashes so that the eyes appeared as those of a bird of prey. The wizened hands clutching the cord which bound the sticks seemed like talons. She importuned a passer-by for help, and, being denied, she cursed him; and Robert watched the wretched creature crawl away homeward—back to the slums.

These were manifestations of the life of thousands in metropolitan history. Robert shook himself, shuddering, as though aroused from a trance.

He had started out to go anywhere or nowhere, but the next hour found him in the presence of Cherokee, and she was saying:

“How awfully fond you are of giving pleasant surprises.”

“I am amazed at myself for coming such a night, and that too without your permission.”

“We are always glad to see you, but Fred and I had contemplated braving the weather to go to hear Paderewski,” she said, sweetly.

“Then don’t let me detain you, I beg of you,” he answered, with profound regret.

“Oh, that’s all right, we have an hour or more, I am all ready, so you stay and go in as we do.”

“No, I will not go with you, but will stay awhile, since you are kind enough to permit me.” And he laughed, a little mournfully.

“Cherokee, I have come for two reasons—to tell you that I am going home to Maryland to see a sick mother, and to tell you——” He paused, hesitating, a great bitterness welled up in his breast; a firmness came about his mouth and he went on:

“It is folly for you to persuade yourself that you could accommodate your future life to sacrifice, poverty—this is all wrong. When we look it coldly in the face it is a fact, and we may dispute facts but it is difficult to alter them.”

There was no response from her except the clasping of the hand he held over his fingers for a moment.

“I had no right that you should wait for me through years, for your young life is filled with possibilities. I, alone, make them impossible, and I must remove that factor.”

“Robert! Robert! What does all this mean?” Her breathless soul hung trembling on his answer.

“It means that I am going to give you back your liberty.”

“And you?” she gasped.

“I will do the best I can with my life. Please God, you shall never be ashamed to remember that you once fancied that you could have cared for me.”

And then he could trust himself no further; the trembling fingers, the soft perfume he knew so well in the air, and the surging realization that the end was at hand, made him weak with longing.

Cherokee was at first shocked and stunned at what he was saying? For a moment the womanly conclusion that he no longer cared for her seemed the only impression, but she put it from her as being unworthy of them both.

Her manner was dignified, yet tender, as she began:

“Robert, I suppose you have not spoken without consideration, and if you think I would be a burden to you, it is best to go on without me.” She ended with a deep-drawn breath.

“That sound was not a sob,” she said bravely, “I only lost my breath and caught it hard again.”

“Yes, Cherokee, I am going without you, going out of your life. Good bye.”

“You cannot go out of it,” she answered, “but good bye.”

“Good bye,” he repeated, which should only mean, “God bless you.”

There was a flutter of pulses, and Robert walked away with head upheld, dry-eyed, to face the world. Unfaltering, she let him go, the while she had more than a suspicion of the lips whose false speaking had wrought her such woe.

When he reached his room he unlocked the drawer, produced from it a card, and looked long and tenderly upon the face he saw. He bent over and kissed the unresponsive lips. This was his requiem in memory of a worthier life. Then lighting a match he set it afire, and watched it burn to a shadowy cinder, which mounted feebly in the air for a moment, making a gray background against whose dullness stood out, in its round finished beauty, the life he had lost—echoing with a true woman’s beautiful soul.

As the ashes whitened at his feet, he thought, “Thus the old life is effaced, I will go into the new.”

The midnight train took him out of town, and Cherokee was weeping over a basket of white roses which had come just at evening.

CHAPTER VII. THE CALL OF A SOUL.

Now and again Cherokee kissed the roses with pangs of speechless pain. The fragrance that floated from their lips brought only anguish. To her, white roses must ever mean white memories of despair, and their pale ghosts would haunt long after they were dead.

All day the family had been busy packing, for soon the Stanhopes would close the house and take flight. Cherokee had been forced to tell them she had changed her mind and would go to the country; she needed quiet, rest. Pride made her withhold the humiliating fact that she had just money enough to take her down to the South country.

There was a kind, generous friend, who, at her father’s death, offered her a home under his roof for always, and now that promise came to her, holding out its inducement, but she would not accept it; somehow she felt glad that the time of leaving the Stanhopes was near. This pleasant house, these cheerful, affectionate surroundings, had become most intolerable since she must keep anything from them—even though it be but an error of innocence.

“Let me forget the crushing humiliation of the past month,” she told herself, “I must try to be strong, reasonable, if not happy.” She must find some calling, something to sustain herself, to occupy her hands and time. The soft, idle, pleasant existence offered by the friend would enervate rather than fortify—would force her back on herself and on useless regrets.

As she sat in her own room, holding the blank page of her coming life, and studying what the truth should be, there arose before her inner gaze two scenes of a girlish life; fresh, vivid were they, as of yesterday, though both were now of a buried past.

First she recalled the hour when sorrow caught her by the hand, dragged her from the couch of childhood to a darkened room where lay the sphinx-like clay of her mother—the lids closed forever over what had been loving gleams of sympathy—the hands crossed in still rigidity. Her little child heart had no knowledge of the mysteries—love, anguish, death—in whose shadow the zest of life withers. She knew their names but they stood afar off, a veiled and waiting trio.

She crept, sobbing, from that terrible semblance of a mother to the out-door sunshine, and the yard, where the crape-myrtle nodded cheerfully to her just as it did before they frightened her so. The dark house she was afraid of, so she had gone far out of doors. The little lips that had lately quivered piteously, sang a tune in unthinking gaiety, and life was again the same, for she could not then understand.

The other scene was a radiant, sparkling, wildly joyous picture. The world, enticing as a fairy garden, received her in her bright, petted youth—her richly endowed orphanhood had been a perpetual feast. In this period not one single voice of cold or ungracious tenor could she recall.

But now she looked full over that garden, once all abloom. Here a flower with blight in its heart, yonder one whose leaves were falling. There whole bushes were only stems enthorned, and stood brown and bitter, leaves and flowers withered or dead.

“So,” thought she, “it is with my life.” A rap on the door brought her into the present. It was the delivery of the latest mail: some papers, a magazine, and one letter. The letter was postmarked Winchester, Ky. With a little sigh of triumphant expectation, she broke the seal. It, to her thinking, might contain good news from friends at home.

It only took her a moment to scan it all.

“I am sick and needy. Won’t you help me for I am dying from neglect.” This was signed:

“Black Mammy,
“Judy, (her X mark.)”

Cherokee read it again. Her eyes closed, and then opened, dilating in swift terror. Her slave-mother suffering for the necessities of life. She who had spent years in chivalrous devotion to the Bell family now appealed to her, the last of that honored name.

A swift pain shot through her veins—a sudden increased anguish—a sense of something irremediable, hopeless, inaccessible, held her in its grip, and a voiceless, smothered cry rent her breast. Tears gushed from her eyes, scalding waters which fell upon her hands and seemed to wither them. Even the fern-leaf, the birth-mark, looked shrunken and shrivelled, as she gazed at it; something told her to remember it held the wraith of a life.

Cherokee was wild with grief. She went to the window and looked far out into the night, letting her sight range all the Southern sky, and the stars looked down with eyes that only stared and hurt her with their lack of sympathy. A gentle wind crept by, and a faint sibilance, as of taut strings throbbed through the coming night. It was Fred, with his violin, waiting for her to come down to accompany him. But she did not go—she had no thought of it being time to eat or time to play—she had forgotten everything, except that a soul had cried to her and she must answer it in so niggardly and miserly a fashion.

Now three, four, five hours had gone since the sunken sun laved the western heaven with lowest tides of day. The tired world, that ever craves for great dark night to come brooding in with draught of healing and blessed rest that recreates, had been lulled to satisfaction. Still mute sorrow held Cherokee, and it was nearly day when peace filled her unremembering eyes and she had forgotten all.

CHAPTER VIII. LIFE’S NIGHT WATCH.

It was a dull, wintry day; blank, ashen sky above—grassland, sere and stark, below. Weedy stubble wore shrouding of black; everything was still—so still, even the birds yet drowsed upon their perch, nor stirred a wing or throat to enliven the depressing wood. A soiled and sullen snowdrift lay dankly by a road that had fallen into disuse. It was crossed now for the first time, maybe, in a full year. A young woman tramped her way along the silent waste to a log shanty. Frozen drifts of the late snow lay packed as they had fallen on the door sill.

She rapped at the door and bent her head to listen; then she rattled it vigorously, and still no answer. She tried the latch, it yielded, and she entered. The light inside was so dim that it was hard at first to make out what was about her. Two hickory logs lay smouldering in a bank of ashes. She stirred the poor excuse for fire, and put on some smaller sticks that lay by the wide fireplace. By this time her eyes had become accustomed to the dimness, and she looked about her. There were a few splint-bottomed chairs, a “safe,” a table, and a bed covered with patched bedding and old clothes, and under these—in a flash she was by the bed and had pushed away the covering at the top.

“She is dead,” Cherokee heard herself say aloud, in a voice that sounded not at all her own; but no, there was a feeble flicker of pulse at the shrunken wrist that she instinctively fumbled for under the bed clothes.

“Mammy wake up! I have come to see you—it’s Cherokee, wake up!” she called.

The faintest stir of life passed over the brown old face, and she opened her eyes. It did not seem as though she saw her or anything else. Her shrivelled lips moved, emitting some husky, unintelligible sounds. Cherokee leaned nearer, and strained her ears to catch these terrible words:

“Starvin’—don’t—tell—my—chile.”

With a cry she sprang to her feet; the things to be done in this awful situation mapped themselves with lightning swiftness before her brain; she started the fire to blazing, with chips and more wood that somehow was already there. Then she opened the lunch she had been thoughtful enough to bring; there was chicken, and crackers, and bread. She seized a skillet, warmed the food, hurried back to the bed, and fed the woman as though she had been a baby.

Soon she thought she could see the influence of food and warmth; but it hurt her to see in the face no indication of consciousness; there was a blank stare that showed no hope of recognition.

As she laid the patient back upon the pillow of straw there was a sound at the door, a sound as of some one knocking the mud from clumsy shoes. A colored woman stepped in.

“How you do, Aunt Judy?”

“Don’t disturb her now, she is very weak,” warned Cherokee.

The visitor looked somewhat shocked to see a white lady sitting with Aunt Judy’s hand in hers, softly rubbing it. “What’s ailin’ her?” she questioned in a whisper, “we-all ain’t hearn nothin’ at all.”

“I came and found her almost dead with hunger, and she is being terribly neglected.”

“Well! fo’ de lawd, we-all ain’t hearn nary, single word! I ’lowed she was ’bout as common; course I know de ole ’oman bin ailin’ all de year, but I didn’t know she was down. I wish we had ha’ knowed it, we-all would a comed up and holped.”

“It is not too late yet,” said Cherokee, gently.

“Yes um, we all likes Aunt Judy, she’s a good ole ’oman, I thought Jim was here wid her. Don’t know who he is? Jim is her gran’son, a mighty shiftless, wuthless chap, but I thought arter she bin so good to him he’d a stayed wid her when she got down. But I’ll stay and do all I kin.”

Cherokee thanked her gravely, gratefully.

The darkey went on whispering:

“De ole ’oman bin mighty ’stressed ’bout dyin’. She didn’t mind so much the dyin’ ez she wanted to be kyaried to de ole plantation to be buried ’long wid her folks. Dat’s more’n ten or ’leven miles, and she knowd dey wouldn’t haul her dat fur—’spec’ly ef de weather wus bad. I ’spec worrin’ got her down.”

Cherokee told the visitor to try and arouse her, now that she had had time to rest after her meal.

She took up one of her worn brown hands.

“How do you feel, Aunt Judy?”

“Porely, porely,” she stammered almost inaudibly.

“Why didn’t you let we-all know?”

“Thar warn’t nobody to sen’ ’roun’.”

“Whars Jim?” the visitor enquired.

Her face gloomed sadly.

“Law, hunny, he took all de money Mas’r left me, and runned away.” She looked up with tears in her eyes.

“Tildy, I mout’ent o’ grieved ’bout de money, but now dey’ll bury me jes like a common nigger—out in de woods.”

“Maybe not, sumpin’ mite turn up dat’ll set things right,” she said, comfortingly.

The old woman talked with great effort, but she seemed interested in this one particular subject.

“Tildy, I ain’t afeard ter die, and I’se lived out my time, but we-all’s folks wus buried ’spectable—buried in de grabe-yard at home. One cornder wus cut off for we-all in deir buryin’ groun’; my ole man, he’s buried dar, and Jerry, my son, he’s buried dar, and our white people thought a sight o’ we-all. Dey’ed want me sent right dar.”

“Whar dey-all—your white folks?” asked Tildy, wistfully.

“All daid but one—my chile, Miss Cheraky. I wus her black mammy, and she lub’d me—if she was here I’d——” She broke down, crying pitifully—lifting her arms caressingly, as though a baby were in them.

Cherokee knew now that she would recognize her, so she came up close to her.

“Yes, Mammy, you are right, our loved ones should rest together, I will see that you go back home.”

“Oh, my chile!”—she caught her breath in a sob of joy, “God A’mighty bless you, God A’mighty bless you!”

“Don’t excite yourself, I shall stay until you are well, or better.” Cherokee stooped and patted her tenderly.

“My chile’s dun come to kyar ole mammy home,” she repeated again and again, until at last, exhausted from joy, she fell asleep.

Tildy and the young white lady kept a still watch, broken only by stalled cattle that mooed forth plaintive pleadings.

CHAPTER IX. A KENTUCKY STOCK FARM.

Cheerless winter days were gone. Spring had grown bountiful at last, though long; like a miser

“Had kept much wealth of bloom,

Had hoarded half her treasures up in winter’s tomb.”

But her penitence was wrought in raindrops ringed with fragile gold—the tears that April sheds. Now vernal grace was complete; the only thing to do was to go out in it, to rejoice in its depth of color, in its hours of flooded life, its passion pulse of growth.

“Ashland,” that peerless Southern home, was set well in a forest lawn. The great, old-fashioned, deep-red brick house, with its broad verandas, outlined by long rows of fluted columns, ending with wing rooms, was half ivy-covered. A man came out upon the steps and looked across his goodly acres. Day-beams had melted the sheet of silvery dew. A south wind was asweep through fields of wheat, a shadow-haunted cloth of bearded gold, and blades of blue grass were all wind-tangled too. How the wind wallowed, and shook, with a petulant air, and a shiver as if in pain. The man looked away to the eastward, to where even rows of stalls lined his race-course—a kite-shaped track.

A darkey boy came up with a saddled mare, and the master took the reins, put foot in the stirrup and mounted to the saddle. He was a large, finely built man, fresh in the forties; kindness and determination filled the dark eyes, and the broad forehead was not unvisited by care. The hand that buckled the bridle was fat, smooth and white, very much given to hand-shaking and benedictions. As he was about to ride away, the jingling pole-chains of a vehicle arrested his attention. Looking around the curve, he saw a carriage coming up—a smartly dressed man stepped out, who asked:

“Have I the honor—is this Major McDowell?”

“That is my name, sir; and yours?”

“Frost—Willard Frost,” returned the other, cordially extending his hand.

The Major said, warmly:

“Glad to know you, Mr. Frost; will you come in?” and the Major got down from his horse.

“Thanks. I came with the view of buying a racer. Had you started away?”

“Only down to the stables; you will come right over with me,” he proposed.

“Very good. To go over a stock farm has been a pleasure I have held in reserve until a proper opportunity presented itself. Shall I ride or walk?”

“Dismiss the carriage and be my guest for the day, I will have you a horse brought to ride.”

“Oh, thank you, awfully,” returned the profuse stranger. And he indicated his acceptance by carrying out the host’s suggestion.

“Call for me in time for the east-bound evening train,” he said, to the driver.

Pretty soon the Major had the horse brought, and they rode down to the stables.

“I think, Mr. Frost, I have heard your name before.”

The other felt himself swelling. “I shouldn’t wonder; I am a dauber of portraits, from New York, and you I have heard quite a deal of, through young Milburn.”

“Robert Milburn! Why bless the boy, I am quite interested in his career; he, too, had aspirations in that line. How did he turn out?” asked the Major, with considerable interest.

“Well, he is an industrious worker, and may yet do some clever work, if drink doesn’t throw him.”

“Drink!” exclaimed the other, “I can scarcely believe it. He impressed me as a sober youth, full of the stuff that goes to make a man. What a pity; I suppose it was evil associations.”

“A pretty girl is at the bottom of it, I understand. You know, ‘whom nature makes most fair she scarce makes true.’”

The Major re-adjusted his hat, and breathed deeply.

“Ah! well, I don’t believe in laying everything on women. Maybe it was something else. Has he had no other annoyance, vexations or sorrow?”

“Yes, he lost his mother in mid-winter, but I saw but little change in him; true, he alluded to it in a casual way,” remarked Frost, lightly.

“But such deep grief seeks little sympathy of companions; it lies with a sensitive nature, bound within the narrowest circles of the heart; they only who hold the key to its innermost recesses can speak consolation. From what I know of Robert Milburn this grief must have gone hard with him.”

Here they came upon the track where the trainer was examining a new sulky.

“Bring out ‘Bridal Bells,’ Mr. Noble. I want to show the gentleman some of our standard-breds.”

The trainer’s lean face lighted with native pride. With little shrill neighs “Bridal Bells” came prancing afield; she seemed impatient to dash headlong through the morning’s electric chill. Pride was not prouder than the arch of her chest.

“What a beauty, what a poem!” Frost’s enthusiasm seemed an inspiration to the Major.

“She is marvellously well favored, sir; comes from the ‘Beautiful Bells’ family, that is, without a doubt, one of the richest and most remarkable known. If you want a good racer she is your chance. Racing blood speaks in the sharp, thin crest, the quick, intelligent ear, the fine flatbone and clean line of limb.”

Frost looked in her mouth, put on a grave face, as though he understood “horseology.”

The Major gave her age, record, pedigree and price so fast that the other found it difficult to keep looking wise and listen at the same time.

The trainer then brought out another, a brown horse with tan muzzle and flanks.

“Here, sir, is ‘Baron Wilkes’; thus far he has proven an extremely worthy son of a great sire, the peerless ‘George Wilkes.’ He was bred in unsurpassed lines, is 15½ hands high, and at two years old took a record of 2:34¼.”

“Ah! he is a handsome individual; look what admirable legs and feet,” exclaimed the guest.

“And a race horse all over. But here comes my ideal,” he added, with pride, as across the sward pranced a solid bay without any white; black markings extending above his knees and hocks. A horse of finish and symmetrical build, well-balanced and adjusted in every member. The one prevailing make-up was power—power in every line and muscle. Forehead exceedingly broad and full, and a windpipe flaring, trumpet like, at the throttle.

“Now I will show you a record-breaker,” the while he patted him affectionately.

“This is ‘Kremlin,’ unquestionably the fastest trotter, except illustrious ‘Alix.’ Under ordinary exercise his disposition is very gentle, there being an independent air of quiet nonchalance that is peculiarly his own. Harnessing or unharnessing of colts, or the proximity of mares, doesn’t disturb his serene composure. But roused into action his mental energies seem to glow at white heat. He is all life, a veritable equine incarnation of force, energy, determination—a horse that ‘would meet a troop of hell, at the sound of the gong,’ and, I might add, beat them out at the wire. His gait, as may be judged from his speed, is the poetry of motion; no waste action, but elastic, quick, true. He is a natural trotting machine. His body is propelled straight as an air line, and his legs move with the precision of perfect mechanism.”

“What shoe does he carry?” asked the New Yorker.

“Ten ounces in front, five behind.”

“He is certainly a good animal, I should like to own him; but, all around, I believe I prefer ‘Bridal Bells.’ To own one good racer is a pleasure. I take moderate, not excessive, interest in races,” explained Frost.

“It is rather an expensive luxury, if you only view it from the standpoint of pleasure and pride.”

“Oh, when we can afford these things, it is all very well, I have always been extravagant, self-indulgent,” and he took out his pocket book.

“I must have her,” counting out a big roll of bills and laying them in the Major’s hand. “There is your price for my queen.” And “Bridal Bells” had a new master.

CHAPTER X. THE BIRTH-MARK.

Like most Southerners, Major McDowell had the happy faculty of entertaining his guests royally.

The New Yorker was there for the day, at the kind solicitation of the Major and his most estimable wife. Afternoon brought a rimming haze; the wind had hushed, and the thick, lifeless air bespoke rain. A cloud no bigger than a man’s hand had gathered at low-sky; then mounted, swelling, to the zenith, and wrapped the heavens in a pall and covered the earth’s face with darkness that was fearfully illumined by the lightning’s glare.

Host and guest stood by an open window looking to the southward. Rain came down, pelting the earth with a sheeted fall that soon sent muddy runnels adown every fresh furrow. Before the rain was half over, horses were led from their stalls to the dripping freedom of wide pasture lands.

How green, and still, and sweet-smelling it lies. No wonder the animals ran ecstatically about, neighing, prancing, nipping one at the other, snatching lush, tender mouthfuls between rolls on the soft, wet turf.

“A goodly sight, Major; I see that you have peculiar advantages of soil and climate for stock-raising,” remarked the guest.

“That must be true, and it is a recognition of that superiority that sends breeders from all parts of the world to Kentucky. ‘Kentucky for fine horses, good whiskey, and pretty women,’ is a maxim old and doubtless true.”

“I can vouch for the first two, but it has not been my luck to meet many of your fair women.”

“Well, it is proof true,” said the Major; “look for yourself,” and he pointed to the forest lawn where a young woman was coming between the elm rows, a child’s hand in each of her own. Her figure preserved that girlish accent which few women manage to carry over into womanhood.

She had blonde-brown hair, and blue eyes—very dark and tender. She looked up as she passed the window, and was none the less charming for her startled look. The quick averted glance sent a blush to the face of Willard Frost.

Some imagine that only virgins blush; that is a mistake. A blush signifies but a change in the circulation of the blood; animals can blush. The rabbit is so sensitive that its ears are dyed crimson at the least sudden impression.

“That is Cherokee Bell, the prettiest of them all; yes, and the best.” The Major’s tone was deep and earnest.

The guest immediately grasped the water bottle, poured himself a glass and drank it off slowly, with majestic mien, to calm himself.

“She is beautiful!” he exclaimed, and shutting his teeth together: “Why in the name of heaven did I run upon her”—this to himself.

“My wife and I have always been very fond of her—she is our governess.”

“Your governess!” Frost’s smile of superiority lighted his face as he added: “I had thought I would like to know more of her, but——”

“She seldom meets strangers,” said the Major quietly, and looking steadily at him. “She has had some little experience in the outer world. She is more contented here with us.”

“How long has she been with you?”

“Six months and more.”

Frost’s voice was unsteady as he asked, “Hasn’t hers been a life of romance? She looks like a woman with a history.”

“You are a regular old gypsy at fortune telling. She has had a varied life, poor child.”

“And the scar I noticed upon the back of her right hand. How did that happen?”

“I will tell you,” answered the Major, suggesting—“Maybe you’d like a smoke; suppose we go on the veranda?”

The guest assented, and taking his hat from a table, followed the other.

Scent of the lilacs fanned through the ivy, and the sodden trees dropped rain on the drenched grass.

“I think,” said the Major, as they turned at the end of the veranda to retrace it again: “as you seem greatly interested in my pretty governess, I will give you the history of what you call a scar—that is a fern-leaf—a birth-mark.”

Frost puffed away in a negligent manner of easy interest, and said:

“I should like to hear it.”

“It takes me back to distant, cruel days of war—her father, Darwin Bell, was my friend; we were comrades; he had been brought up on a big plantation, just this side of the mountainous region—it is sixty miles from here—to the northwest. That mountain and the valley on which he lived were favorite haunts of mine in those memorable early days of my life. I was three years Darwin’s junior, and never had I realized his being ahead of me until, at twenty-one, he brought home a wife. Soon the war broke out; he was no coward, not half-hearted, and when the summons came he was ready to go. I was to enlist at the same time. We, like hundreds of others, had only time to make hasty and almost wordless farewells. He had to leave this young wife in the care of servants, Aunt Judy, and I believe her husband’s name was Lige, and she had a son. They were to guard his love-nest while he went out to fight for the Southern cause.

“Aunt Judy made many promises; I remember how good were her words of comfort. He respected her as sacredly as the leaves of his dead mother’s Bible, and the safety of his saber. Her brown, leathery face was showered with tears as the young husband and wife, hand in hand, went to the gate; she drew back and sat down on the door-steps, not daring to intrude on those last few moments.

“The pale little wife could not trust herself to speak; she could only cling to Darwin, as, whispering tender words of endearment, he caught her in his arms in a last embrace; then tearing himself away, and strangling a sob, he mounted his horse and started for the war.

“She watched us go, and, no doubt, deadly fear for his safety must have clutched at her heart, and the longing to call him back, to implore him for her sake not to risk his life, must have been almost irresistible.

“But the thought of manhood and country flashed into her mind, no doubt, and nerved her; for, when he turned to wave a last farewell, her face lighted with a brave, cheering smile, which lived in his heart the whole war-time. I will not take time to tell of the trials and discomforts; you know enough of that by what you’ve read.

“It was six or maybe seven months afterward when we were back in old ‘Kaintuck;’ the day of which I speak, we of the cavalry, against customary plans, were set in the forefront, not on the wings.

“As the mist lifted, we looked across the valley to see the Kentucky river gleaming in the sun. It was a familiar sight, a house here and there, nearer to us a little church, with its graveyard surrounding; we could see the white headstones, and the old slate ones like black coffin lids upright. The noise of war, it seemed to me, was enough to rouse the dead from the buried rest of years.

“The church reminded me that it was Sunday; with some prickings of conscience for having forgotten, I lowered my head, and asked that the right might triumph, and that a peace founded on righteousness might be won through the strife.”

“And don’t you think your prayer has been answered?” asked the listener, interrupting.

The other dropped his voice:

“I am not discussing that question,” and he kept on with his recital.

“Later in the day, Darwin came to me, his face aglow, his eyes bright with eager delight, and in great excitement.

“‘I am just two miles from home; if I can get a permit I am going there to-night.’

“I exclaimed: ‘You are mad, man, they are so close to us that the sentinels almost touch each other, we will have a skirmish inside of an hour!’

“‘I am going when the fight is done, if I am spared.’

“I knew him, and he meant it, but I was almost certain he would be killed. My prediction proved true, we did have a fight; and for a time they had the advantage, and no one knew how the day would have gone had not a gallant soldier, too impulsive to obey orders, charged with his men too close to our cannon. Poor fellow! he died bravely, but his rash act gave us the victory; they retreated in good order and molested us no further. Darwin arranged for a leave of an hour’s absence and went home, but his unthinking haste nearly cost him his life. He barely made into the mountainway when a scout fired upon him. The scout could not risk the unknown way of the mountain, so Darwin was saved.

“He galloped about the gloomy gorges fanged with ledges of rock, and it was as easy for him to find his way there as in a beaten path. He fired, now here, now there, until the mountain seemed alive with armed men. By the time the smoke reached the tree tops here, he was away a hundred yards.

“By midnight he had rejoined us; having assurance of his wife’s well-being, and the faithfulness of Aunt Judy, who nightly slept on the family silver, Darwin, pretty well fagged out, dropped down to sleep. I had gotten aroused by his coming, and could not go back to sleep, myself.

“I marvelled, as I looked across at the young soldier, to find neither bitterness nor dissatisfaction on his face, which, even in repose, retained something of its former bright expression; and it bore no traces of the weary war, save in a certain hollowness of the cheeks. I thought that to have to be away from a young wife was enough to justify a man in cursing war, but he looked happy, as he lay there wrapped in profound slumber; beside him lay his saber, and the keen wind flapped vigorously at the gray cloak in which he was enveloped, without in the least disturbing him. A more perfect picture of peace in the midst of war, of rest in strife, you could not find.

“I said to myself, proudly: ‘The man that can wear that look after continued hard duty, without comfortable quarters, is made of brave mettle.’

“Lying in damp fields of nights was calculated to make us feel little else but cold and stiffness.

“The next night, by some means, he went home again to say ‘good bye,’ he told me, though, I suppose, he had said that when he left before; but that was none of my business; I was glad he could have the privilege again.

“Aunt Judy stood sentinel, and for safe quarters, the wife took Darwin up-stairs. He had told them how he got into camp the night before. The good woman-guard had to strain her eyes, for night was coming fast; the fog, a sad, dun color, was dense, deadly.

“Pretty soon she heard the sound of horses’ feet; she was all nervous, for she feared it was ‘dem blue coats comin’.’ With trembling voice she called, ‘Leetle Massa! dey’s comin’, dey’s comin’!’ Jerry was standing inside the buggy-house, with Massa’s horse ready for him. Aunt Judy couldn’t make the captain hear. Her alarm was not unfounded; already two Federals shook the door, while a third watched the surroundings, ready to give the alarm; they were pretty certain a Confederate was visiting here, and were determined to capture him.

“Quick as a flash Aunt Judy took in the situation; she could hear them storming at the door; they meant to be admitted, if by force. There was handling of a faded gray coat—a sacred keep-sake of hers—and a hurried whisper:

“‘Run to de mountain, dey’ll follow; do as massa done.’

“The next minute horse and rider, as one, went dashing through the dusk; the scheme acted like a charm. The Federals soon followed in swift pursuit, and, until it was almost over, Darwin knew nothing of his peril. He was deeply moved by this heroic act, the while his mind was filled with grave fears for the safety of the boy. They waited until ample time for his return, and kept up spirits until the horse came up, riderless. A great unwonted tumult stirred and lashed the calm currents of his blood into a whirling storm.

“This was enough; he started out on his search. The women would go with him—what more natural—any of us would have let them go. The faint flarings of dawn lit their perilous way. Of course the women were more or less nervous; though the whole world was ‘still as the heart of the dead,’ they were being alarmed by all sorts of imaginary things. Aunt Judy was pitiful. She bore up under it for the young woman’s sake, but now and then she would lag behind and cry softly to herself, for her boy was dear to that old heart. When they began to go up the side of the mountain, Darwin had to go first to break back the thick undergrowth. Presently he stumbled and had to catch at hazel bushes to keep from falling.

“‘Good God!’ he exclaimed, ‘and he tried to save me from this!’

“But his words seemed to die away within his lips, and in dreadful self-reproach he bent over Jerry, shuddering at the deathly cold of his face and hands. There, before them, the boy Jerry lay, spent and done. His head rested upon a bed of blood-withered ferns.”

Frost gazed at the vaulted expanse a moment, then said:

“So that accounts for the birth-mark?”

“Yes, and partially for her being here. Loyal to that noble slave, she came down and nursed Aunt Judy five weeks, until she followed her boy to that land lit by the everlasting sun. Listen!” The Major heard the piano; taking his handkerchief he wiped his eyes. “Pshaw, tears! why I am as soft as a girl, but that music makes my eyes blur; I am back in my twenties when I hear ‘Marching Through Georgia.’”

“Darwin’s child has been badly used since he died. He left her the small sum of thirty-seven hundred dollars—not much. No, but enough to keep a girl in a modest way. But she was deluded into going away to New York in high society, and she got back here without a cent. She is working now to pay for the burial of Aunt Judy.”

The other did not ask what became of her money, but the Major answered as if he had.

“My wife tells me that a man actually borrowed a part of it; what a contemptible thing for a man to do.”

The singing was still heard, and Frost appeared absorbed in that. He made no answer, but commented:

“What a delicious quality of voice she has. It seems as though it were impregnated with the tender harmony that must reign in her soul. But, pardon me, I must go into Lexington, the carriage is waiting.”

“Won’t you spend the night, Mr. Frost?” asked the Major.

“Thank you, sir, I have greatly enjoyed your hospitality, but I must catch the first east-bound train.”

The crouching heart within him quailed like a shuddering thing, and he went away very like a cur that is stoned from the door.

CHAPTER XI. HEARTS LAID BARE.

They sat in the breakfast room—the family and Cherokee.

“Did I tell you, wife, that when Mr. Frost was here he brought me news of Robert Milburn?”

The tall, graceful woman thus addressed looked from the head of the table, and showing much interest, questioned:

“Indeed! well, how was he doing? I grew very fond of the boy when he was here.”

“The news is sad; he has gone to drinking,” said the Major, sorrowfully.

“I don’t believe it; we have no reason to take this stranger’s word; we don’t know who he is.” Turning to Cherokee she asked:

“Did you ever hear of Mr. Frost in New York?”

With a suppressed sigh, she answered:

“He is an artist of considerable note, I knew him very well.”

Suddenly Mrs. McDowell remembered that this was the bold man of whom Cherokee had told her much; so she questioned her no more, for she was always tender and thoughtful of others.

The Major did not understand any connection of names, and he again alluded to the subject.

“This New Yorker said it was about a girl; but the whole thing, to me, savors of some man’s hand—one who did not like him well.”

Here the wife changed the subject by asking:

“Who got any letters? I didn’t see the boy when he brought the mail.”

“Cherokee must have had a love letter or a secret,” remarked the Major cheerily. “I saw her tearing it into tiny bits, and casting them in a white shower on the grass.”

“Come, come, girlie, tell us all about it;” then suddenly the lady said: “How pale you are!”

“I do not feel well this morning,” she answered; “the letter was from a friend of other days.” She stumbled to her feet in a dazed sort of way, and hurried out of the house.

There was a touch of chill in the air, and the roses drooped; only wild-flower scents greeted her as she stopped and leaned against the matted honeysuckle arch by the garden gate. She searched the vine-tangle through, without finding one single blooming spray. This was Saturday; no school to-day. She felt a vague sense of relief in the thought, but what should she do with her holiday. She had lost her usual spirits, she had forgotten to be brave. The letter, maybe, or the stranger guest, had made the pale color in her cheeks; the eyelids drooped heavily on the tear-wet face, and checked the songs that most days welled perpetually over unthinking lips.

She had never told of Robert’s treatment of her; of his cold leave-taking, his altered look, for her to remember always. She had been bearing it in silence. Bred to the nicest sense of honorable good faith, she had kept it alone. But to-day she was weakening; she was agitated, and in a condition of feverish suspense and changeful mind.

Sunrays shone upon her hair as she leaned against the arch, her head bowed on her clasped hands, her slender figure shaken with grief. She heard voices and quick treading on the gravel walk.

“You haven’t aged at all, though it has been eleven years since I was here.”

“Life goes fairly smooth with me; and you have been well, I trust.” She knew that was the Major’s voice, and in the lightning flash of her unerring woman’s instinct she knew the other, as he said:

“I have been blessed with sound body, but life has passed roughly with me since my mother died. You have heard it?”

“Yes.”

“She made home so dear to my boyhood; so real to my after years. She was ever burning there a holy beacon, under whose guidance I always came to a haven and to a refuge.”

Then they suddenly came upon Cherokee, partly concealed.

“I told him we would find you down among the flowers, you little butterfly. Why didn’t you tell me Robert was coming, he is one of my boys?” and the Major laid his hand affectionately on the man’s shoulder; then, without waiting for an answer, he left them together.

Holding out one hand: “I am glad to see you, Cherokee,” and he drew closer.

She crimsoned, faltered, and looked toward the ground, but did not extend her own hand.

“Thank you,” was all she could utter.

He went on: “The very same; the Cherokee of old;” he mused, smiling dreamily, “her own self, like no other.”

Moving a step within the vine covert she said with a shadowy smile:

“I wish I were not the old self. I want her to be forgotten.”

“That is impossible—utterly impossible; I tried to deceive myself into the belief that this would be done; you see how I have failed?”

Raising her eyes full to his, but dropping them after the briefest gaze, she said, timidly:

“Why have you come back?”

“I have come back to mend the broken troth-plight; I have come back to be forgiven,” he answered, humbly.

“You have come back to find a wasted youth, a tired woman who has been the victim of a lie, told in the dark, with the seeming verity of intimate friendship. You have come back to find me stabbed by a thousand disappointments, striving with grim indifference, learning to accept, unquestioning, the bitter stone of resignation for my daily bread. I would scarce venture now to spread poor stunted wings that life has clipped so closely that they bleed when they flutter even toward the smallest hope.”

He fiercely cried, and clinched his hands together, with one consuming glance at her:

“I was to blame, Cherokee, for believing that you had promised to marry Fred Stanhope; Willard Frost is charged with this as well”—he bit his lips hard.

“And it was to the same man that I owe the death of innocence.” Her voice was scarcely more than a whisper.

Robert Milburn turned upon her a piteous face, white with an intensity of speechless anguish. He staggered helplessly backward, one hand pressed to his eyes, as though to shut out some blinding blaze of lightning.

“Innocence! great God! He shall die the death——”

“Ah, you do not understand,” she hastily interrupted. “I mean that I thought all men were brave, honorable in everything, business as well as socially; but he was not a brave man; it was a business transaction in which he did me ill. I had measured him by you.”

This was a startling relief to him:

“Thank heaven I was mistaken in your expression of ‘death of innocence.’ But you humiliate, crush me, with a sense of my own unworthiness, to say I have been your standard. What made me listen to idle gossip of the Club—why did I act a brute, a coward?” his lips moved nervously.

“Dearest, show yourself now magnanimous, forgive it all, and forget it. You are so brave and strong—so beautiful—take me back.”

“Was it I who sent you away?”

“Oh! do you not see how humiliating are these reminders? I have confessed my wrong.”

“But would I not still be a burden; you said I could not bear poverty?” she asked.

He looked up with an expression of painful surprise:

“Don’t, don’t! I know now that love is the crown and fulfillment of all earthly good. Have you quit caring for me? I infer as much.”

Hastening to undo the effect of her last words, she said:

“Forgive me, Robert, what need I say? You read my utmost thoughts now as always. I have not changed towards you.”

His sad expression gave place to exquisite joy and adoration.

“I am grateful for the blessing of a good woman’s love.”

They passed out of the gate, down through the browning woods, and all things were now as they, of old, had been. The bracing, cool October air was like rare old wine; it made their flagging pulses beat full and strong. In such an atmosphere, hand in hand with such a companion—a woman so sweet, so young, so pure—Robert could not fail to feel the fires of love burn brighter and brighter. Her forgiveness was spoken from her very soul. Rarely has a wave of happiness so illumined a woman’s face as when she said, “I love you so now, I have never understood you before.” There was a degree of love on her part that was veritable worship—her nature could do nothing by halves. Her soul was so thrilled by this surcharged enthusiasm, it could hold no more. There is a supreme height beyond which no joy can carry one, and this height Cherokee had attained. The restraint of her will was overthrown for the moment, and now the pent-up passion of her heart swept on as a mountain torrent:

“Oh, my dearest love, how have I lived until now? What a lovely place this world is with you—you alone. Kiss me! kiss me!” She grasped his hand with sudden tightness, until his ring cut its seal into the flesh. He bent over her head, put her soft lips to his, and folded her in his arms. “Sweetheart, I shall never go away without you.”

All this meant so much to Cherokee—these hours with him—these hours of forgetfulness of all but him—these hours of abandon, of unrestrained joy, flooded her life with a light of heaven. She had given her happiness into his keeping; and he had accepted the responsibility with a finer appreciation of all it meant than is shown by most men.

Where could there have been a prettier trothing-place than here in the free forest, where the good God had been the chief landscape gardener. Here was the God-touch in everything. Well had the red man called this month the “moon ’o falling leaves.” Softly they came shivering down, down, down, at their feet, breathing the scent of autumn. Now, and here, nature is seen in smoother, softer, mellower aspect than she wears anywhere else in the world. It was nearing the nooning hour when, together, the lovers’ steps tended homeward, and when they reached the house, Robert vowed it would never again be in him to say that he didn’t love the South and the country.

With what a young, young face Dorothy met the Major. As she looked up she saw his wide kind eyes smiling; he leaned forward and laid his hand upon her, saying, “My little girl, after all, love is life.”

At these words a tall, slight woman raised her head—a secret bond of fellowship seemed to have stirred some strange, mysterious sympathy. The Major crossed over to her; what though time had stolen away her youth—her freshness gone, there was still sweet love gleaming in her lined face—it could not be that they were old. Tenderly he took her warm soft hand in his, and told her how he loved her. The sweethearts looked on and rejoiced; neither whispered it to the other, but deep in the heart each said, “So shall ours be forever.”

“Come, let me bless you my children,” and the Major’s wife slipped a hand into one hand of each, and drew them closer. Robert’s eyes lit up; his brave mouth was smiling quietly, while dimples broke out on Cherokee’s face.

“I trust the dark is all behind, the light before, and that you are at the threshold of a great, enduring happiness—but remember that Time will touch you as your joy has done, but his fingers will weigh more heavily—it is then that you must cling all the closer.”

CHAPTER XII. SUNLIGHT.

The marriage was to be celebrated in two weeks. Cherokee had too much common sense to wish an elaborate wedding, when it would necessitate more means than she possessed.

The Major and his wife, who was the personification of lovable good nature, considered together, and graciously agreed to extend to Robert, for these two weeks, the hospitality of their roof. What a sweetly good wife the Major had! The graces of her person corresponded to the graces of her mind. The beauty of her character found a fitting symbol in the sweet, gentle face—the refined, expressive mouth, that gave out wise counsel to Cherokee, in whom she felt so deep an interest.

Cherokee had the dimmest memory of her mother, whom she lost when she was a child in words of three letters, frocks to her knees, infantine socks, and little shoes fastened with two straps and a button. The Major’s wife was so full of charity and tenderness that she did her best to compensate for the unhappy want of a mother. She now gave her assistance in every particular relating to the preliminaries of the wedding.

There is an old saying that “honest work is prayer.” If thus reckoned, there was a deal of praying at Ashland now. At the door, most times, was a large carriage, of the kind which the Major used to call a barouche, with an immense pair of iron-gray horses to it, and on the box was a negro coachman, ready at a moment’s notice to let down the steps, open and close the door, clamber up to his seat, and set off at a brisk pace along down a winding avenue of laurels, to town.

As for Robert, it was the union of inspiration and rest that made the days so wholesome and unique. It was agreed that he and the Major should be no care to the busy ones; they were to find their own entertainments. One or two days had been passed in hunting expeditions. They had bagged quail until the artist fancied himself a great success as a huntsman. Then there were morning strolls where he could take his thoughts and ease in the fulness of all the falling beauty and grandeur of the season. Light winds strewed his way broadcast with leaves—leaves that were saturated, steeped, drunken with color. What a blessed privilege for a man with artistic tastes. There was nothing second-rate about here. The air, as well as the leaves, was permeated, soaked through and through, with sunlight—quivering, brilliant, radiant; sunlight that blazes from out a sky of pearl, opal and sapphire; sunlight that drenched historic “Ashland” with liquid amber, kissed every fair thing awake, and soothed every shadow; sunlight that caresses and does not scorch, that dazzles and does not blind.

Upon one hunting trip the Major took Robert up near Cherokee’s old home—the woods and fields where her childhood passed. It was well worth the day’s ride. What various charm lies in this region. The wood is alive with squirrels too. They stole upon two of these shy wood rangers, who were busy in their frolic, chasing one another around a huge hickory nut tree.

“Ssh!” whispered Robert, as he motioned the Major to lay down his gun. He wished to watch their antics. They were young ones who, as yet, knew not the burden of existence whose pressure sends so many hurrying, scurrying, all the day long, laying up store of nuts against the coming cold. To these two, life, so far, meant a summer of berries, and milky corn, and green, tender buds, with sleep in a leaf-cradle, rocked by soft summer winds; with morning scampers through seas of dew-fresh boughs. Only glimmering instinct tells them of imminent, deadly change, and, all unknowing, they make ready against it, in such light-hearted, hap-hazard fashion. Now they cease their scampering and drop down to earth, burrowing daintily in its deep leaf-carpet. One rises upon his haunches with a nut in his paws, the other darts to seize it, and for a few minutes they roll over and over—a furry ball, with two waving, plumy tails. It flies swiftly apart, the finder hops upon a rotting tree trunk to chatter in malicious triumph. His mate sits, dejected, a yard away, as his sharp teeth cut the hull; she has given up the contest and is sore over it, though nuts are plentiful, and the yield this year, abundant. Presently, she creeps past to the log’s other end; the other looks sharply at her out of the corner of his eye, then, darts to her side, pats her lightly between the ears, and, as she turns to face him, drops the nut of contention safe within her little paws. At once she falls to ravenous gnawing. He looks on, rubs his head caressingly against her, then darts away to find a new treasure that has just dropped from above; for well they know none were more rightful heirs to nature’s bounty.

The men looked on in silent interest; this was a pretty sight indeed, and few manage to steal upon it for more than a moment. Their luck was due to the youth of the pair, who thought they risked nothing by such delicious idling—nor, indeed, did they; for when the watching was over, the intruders shouldered their guns and left them to life. The Major’s next turn was toward the big south wood, whose edge they saw fringing the top of the bluff. This bluff faces north, a sheer wall of grey-blue limestone, seamed and broken into huge ledges. All manner of wild vines grow in the clefts, grape-vines, wild ivy, poison-oak, trail down into the water. The crown and glory of it, though, was its ferns. The trailing rock-fern runs all over the face of it, each seam and cleft is a thick fringe of maiden-hair ferns, wherever it gets good root. Foxes live in the caves along the bluffs, but the men looked with keenest search and they could not catch a glimpse of one.

Thinking of this, the Major recalled to mind a memorable and exciting chase in which they had run the fox into this very place. He had distanced them by one second, and they lost the game.

While they stood there, letting their horses drink, the Major recounted the things of interest about the hunt.

“It is such royal sport,” declared Robert, “there is nothing so invigorating as a lively chase, though as a sport its palmiest days are in the past. To be a ‘master of fox-hounds’ was once a country gentleman’s crowning distinction. The chase, when spoken of now, has a reminiscent tone, an old ‘time flavor.’”

“Notwithstanding our neighboring young men keep up this pastime of old days, I go but rarely, now,” said the Major. “Various modern innovations, from wire fences to democratic ideas, have conspired to ruin the country—for fox hunting. Unsportsmanlike farmers will not tolerate broken fences and trampled crops.”

“I should so enjoy just one stirring chase. I wonder if we could get up a ‘swagger’ affair, including the girls?” asked Robert.

“Most assuredly.”

And on the way home, they planned the hunt.

CHAPTER XIII. THE PICTURESQUE SPORT.

“Resounds the glad hollo,

The pack scents the prey;

Man and horse follow,

Away, hark away!

Away, never fearing,

Ne’er slacken your pace—

What music so cheering

As that of the chase.”

It is dawn. The cool black darkness pales to tender gray. Singeth not the ballad-monger—

“A southerlie wind, a clouded skye

Doe proclaime it huntynge morning?”

Now the long notes of mellow-winded horns come strongly up-wind, undervoiced with a whimpering chorus from the hounds. The fox-hunters are out. What a picture! Eleven blue-grass beauties, all roundnesses and curves, mounted upon eleven Kentucky horses. An equal number of cavaliers put in, made a fair and gallant sight. The company willingly recognized as their chief, the new arrival and visitor, whose noble head and clear-cut features were really quite imposing. Cherokee started out as his companion, and she occupied, with sufficient majesty, her place of triumph. She was upon “Sylvan,” a splendid lead-white horse, who was the pride and pet of her care. What a horse—what a rider! Where could you find such hand, seat, horse, rider—so entirely, so harmoniously, at one? It is a rhythm of motion, wherein grace has wedded strength. Mark the fire, the spirit of the beast; his noble lift of head, arching neck, with its silky, flowing mane; his clean flat leg, his streaming tail of silver shining. How he loves his mistress who sits him so light, so firm, so easily swaying; she bends him to her will by master-strength; yet pats and soothes as she might a frightened child. Sweetness and strength! that is all the magic. The rein is a channel through which intelligence goes most subtly. Good Sylvan knows and loves his rider—feels her vividly to the core of his quick sense; will serve her unquestioning to the limit of his speed and stay.

The hunters have started in a south-easterly direction, the musical-winding of horns, wreathing like a thread of gold, through the heart of the town.

Listen! they are now at the creek ford; hear the splash and beat of hoofs. The dogs ahead, are running in leaping circles through field and wood. A whimpering challenge comes sharply from the left; nobody heeds it—it is only the puppy, out for a first run, as yet scarce knowing the scent he seeks. Most likely he is trailing a rabbit—but no; a bell-like note echoes him. Trumpet, king of the pack, cries loud and free—all the rest break out in thrilling jangle, and set all the valley a-ring. Up, up, it swells, truly a jocund noise, under these low pale clouds, this watery moon, this reddening east. They are headed up wind, the cool air goes back heavy-freighted with the wild dog-music. Hoof-beats sound sharply through it. Sylvan is close behind the leading hound. What sharp, exultant shrilling comes out from the followers’ throats. All the hunt is whooping, yelling, as it streams through dusk of dawn. Up, then down, they go; along a gentle slope from whose sparse flints the hoofs strike fire. A fair world smiles up from either hand, but they have no eye, no thought for it. The thrilling, breathless motion wraps them away from other senses; they are drunken with “wine o’ the morning.” Truly, it is the breath of life they draw, in this rush through the dew-fresh air.

Note the leader now, urging his mare; what feet are hers—small, firm, unerring. Her skimming gallop is as the flight of a bird—her leap a veritable soar. See! the fox has doubled; now the full cry rings down-wind. See the dogs tumbling, writhing over that crooked fence. They had been running always on view—heads up, tails down—so close upon their quarry there was no need to lay nose to the tainted herbage that he had crossed. They caught the scent hot in the air. All the hunters knew it when they heard the last wild burst of furious dog-music. So hearing, they sat straighter in the saddle, gave the good beasts the spur; a little while and they would be “in at the death;” the next field, certainly the next hill-side, must bring it. So they crash, pell-mell, over the low roadside fence, as the hounds top the high one bounding the pasture land. But now Trumpet stops short, flings his nose to wind, and sets up a whimpering cry—he has lost the trail. The fox has either dodged back under the horses’ feet, or hidden so snug that the dogs have over-run him. Look at the true creatures, panting with lolling tongues, as they run crying about the field, dazed out of all weariness by this astounding check. A minute—two—three—still the trail is lost. There is babble of yelps and shouting, each master calling loudly to his most trusted hound. The leader’s horse champs on the bit, frets lightly against the rein. Sylvan, too, prances gaily under check. This ringing run has but well breathed him—the noise of it has set his fine blood afire. Soon a horn breaks faintly out, is instantly from lip, and all the field is in motion. The fox is cunning, but Trumpet is cunninger. He has followed the fence a hundred yards, picked up the trail where the sly thing leaped to earth after running along the rails, and is after it, calling, with deepest notes, to man and beast to follow and save the honors of the field. How straight he goes; his fellows streaming after can do no more than yelp, as with great leaping bounds they devour the grassy space. Nearer, nearer he comes to the dark, sweated, hunted thing that seems a mere shadow on the ground in front of him, so straight, so skimming is his steady flight toward the bluff beyond; his den is there. To it he strains, yet never shall he gain. Almost Trumpet is upon the prize; his hot breath overruns it; it darts aside, doubles—but all in vain. Quickly, cruelly, his jaws close upon it. The leading horseman, Robert, snatches it away, and blows a long blast of his horn. Trumpet stands aquiver with delight, and leaps up for a pat of the hand, while Robert flings the dead fox at his feet before the eyes of all the field.

CHAPTER XIV. WEDDED.

It was the seventeenth of October—the wedding day at “Ashland.” Little ruffles of south wind blew out of a fair sky, breathing the air of simplicity into grandeur. Up among the ivy leaves, a couple of birds flashed and sang. But indoors, people were so mightily interested in a pair of unwinged lovers, that these two sang their song out, and then flew away unheard.

Carriages bearing guests to the wedding were already rolling past. Those who alighted were the intimate friends. No stranger’s curious stare would fall upon this scene to contrast with its fairness. No shadow was necessary to the harmony of it.

Robert stood at an upper window, and his eyes fell upon the matted honey-suckle where Cherokee had first lifted so sad a face to him—so sad, that, though the first throb of grief awakened by his mother’s death had scarcely yet been stilled, he forgot his own sorrow in the effort to bring happiness again to her—his living love. How his words of tenderness had made her face soft like the late sunshine of a summer day. He looked with emotion upon the scene whose vividness came back with double force to-day. Could all this influence be as fleeting as it was charming? What would be his verdict at the end of a year—what hers?

He was called clever, and “people of talent should keep to themselves and not get married.” Yet his love had overruled the sage’s counsel. This feeling for Cherokee he knew could not be called another name less sweet. Since the first sight of her he had worshipped her from afar, as a devout heathen might worship an idol, or as a neophyte in art might worship the masterpiece of a master. And she was proud of him, too; women want the world’s respect for their husbands. Would he, could he, do anything to make her and the world lose that respect? No, he thought not now—he would be away from his old associations and temptings. “Artists are such funny chaps, they all have the gift of talk and good manners,” he mused, “but they are generally upon the verge of starvation; they are too great spendthrifts to be anything else but worthless fellows. Now I am not a spendthrift, and if I can but conquer one little evil, of which I should have told her, maybe, I will break the record they have made.”

Lost for a time in this reverie, he was dead to the passing of the precious moments. Recalled to himself, he turned quickly to the clock—it still wanted five and twenty minutes to twelve.

As for Cherokee, there were no moments of sober reflection. She was too much in love to calculate for the future, and did not imagine that so delicious a life could ever come to an end. Happy in being the help-mate of Robert, she thought that his inextinguishable love would always be for her the most beautiful of all ornaments, as her devotion and obedience would be an eternal attraction to him.

There was but one thing now left undone. She slipped out the side entrance, down into the lawn where Sylvan was. She laid her soft cheek against his great silvered neck. “I am going away,” she whispered, half aloud, as though he could understand. “But you know he must be very kind and dear if I leave my good friends and you, for him, you brave, big beast; how I hope your next mistress will care for you as I have.” She pressed his neck affectionately, the while his eyes mirrored and caressed her, and, when she started back towards the house, he followed her with a tread that was pathetic.

Inside, the rooms, and halls, and stairway, were wreathed about with delicate vines and roses. All Ashland was in attendance, if not in the house or on the verandas, then gazing through the windows; or waiting outside the gate. Even the negroes, as they peered, tiptoe, had a sense of ownership in the affair.

It was noon—that supreme moment of life and light. The tall silver-faced clock rang out twelve silvery chimes as ten maidens, in wash-white, entered, strewing flowers in the path. These white robed attendants, standing now aisle-wise, made a symphony of bloom. All eyes followed the bride as she appeared on the arm of the handsome, kindly Major, full of dignity, full of sweetness as well. Every heart burst forth into an exclamation of delight and admiration. There was youth, sweetness and love on her flushing face. Few brides have looked happier than Cherokee; few men have looked more manly than Robert Milburn, as he met and took her hand for life.

The ceremony was followed by a shower of congratulations. A hurried change to her going-away gown, and they were ready to take their final leave. The Major and his wife said good-bye, and then again, good-bye, with a lingering emphasis that made the word as kind as a caress.

A few minutes more and they were gone. There was nothing left but the scattered rice on the ground, and Sylvan, with bowed head—as though he knew the hand of Cherokee had now another charge; while over all sifted the long benediction of sunlight and falling leaves.

CHAPTER XV. CHLORAL.

It was a half hour past midnight. A cab drew up in front of a residence in New York, and two men bore something into the outer doorway.

The bell gave a startling alarm, and presently, from within, a voice asked, with drowsy tremor:

“Is that you, Robert, husband?”

“Open the door quickly,” some one insisted.

“But that is not Robert’s voice,” she faltered.

“Madam, a friend has brought your husband home.”

This assurance caused the door to be quickly opened.

“Good heavens! is he ill? Is he hurt? Bring him this way,” she excitedly directed.

The silken draperies of the bed were trembling, showing that she had just left their folds. After depositing the burden, the cab man bowed, and left them.

“It is not at all serious, my dear madam,” the friend began, “but the truth is—” here he hesitated confusedly, he did not mean to tell her the truth at all; anything else but that.

“Oh, sir, tell me the worst; what has happened?” and she leaned lovingly over the unconscious man; she looked so earnest in her grief—so unsuspecting—that Marrion was convinced that this was the first “full” of the honeymoon. “I will help him out of this,” he said to himself.

“Robert had a terrific headache at the club, and we gave him chloral—he took a trifle too much—that is all—he will be quite himself by morning.”

“Oh! sir, are you sure it is not fatal?” Cherokee asked, anxiously, “absolutely sure? But how could anyone be so careless,” she remonstrated.

“I do not wonder that you ask, since it was Marrion Latham who was so thoughtless.”

“Marrion Latham! my husband’s dearest friend.”

“I am what is left of him,” he answered, laughingly.

She extended her hand, cordially:

“I am glad to meet you, for Robert loves you very dearly, and came near putting off the wedding until your home-coming.”

“I am very sorry to have missed it. Have I come too late to offer congratulations?”

“No, indeed, every sunset but closes another wedding day with us,” and she kissed the flushed face of the sleeper she so loved. Too blind was that love to reveal the plight in which this accident had left him. Call it accident this once, to give it tone. Cherokee willingly accepted for truth the statement that Marrion had made. Enough for her woman heart to know that her husband needed her attention and love. There over him she leaned, her hair rippling capewise over her gown, while from the ruffled edge her feet peeped, pink and bare. She was wrapped in a long robe of blue cashmere, with a swansdown collar, which she clasped over her breast with her left hand. It was easy to be seen there was little clothing under this gown, which every now and then showed plainly, in spite of the care she took to hide it.

Art was powerless to give these fine and slight undulations of the body that shone, so to speak, through the soft and yielding material of her garment. Marrion studied the poem she revealed; he saw she had a wealth of charms—every line of her willowy figure being instinct with grace and attractiveness, as was the curve of her cheeks and the line of her lips. Imagine a flower just bursting from the bud and spreading ’round the odor of spring, and you may form some faint idea of the effect she produced. To Marrion she was not a woman, she was the woman—the type, the abstraction, the eternal enigma—which has caused, and will forever cause, to doubt, hesitate and tremble, all the intelligence, the philosophy, and religion of humanity.

All his soul was in his eyes; Eve, Pandora, Cleopatra, Phyrne, passed before his imagination and said: “Do you understand, now?” and he answered: “Yes, I understand.”—Robert was safe at home and was now sleeping quietly, so Marrion thought he had done his duty.

“I shall leave you now, Mrs. Milburn; he will be all right when he has had his sleep out.”

“Oh, do not leave us, what shall I do without you?” she pleaded in child-fashion.

“If it will serve you in the least, I shall be glad to remain,” he assured her, as he resumed his seat.

After all, he did not know but that it was best for him to stay. Too well he knew that to every sleep like this there is an awakening that needs a moderator.

Marrion Latham was a tall, splendid-looking man, with a proud, commanding manner. His intimates styled him, “The Conqueror.” He had always had a handsome annuity besides the income he realized from his plays. He had enough money to make the hard world soft, win favors, gild reputation, and enable one to ride instead of walk through life; consequently, he had self-indulgent habits, and was destitute of those qualities of self-endurance and self-control that hard work and poverty teach best. Yet he had that high sense of honor which is most necessary to such an imaginative, passionate and self-willed nature as he possessed.

While he sat there quietly, Robert became restless. The stupor was wearing off, and the dreaded awakening came.

“May I trouble you for a glass of water?” was Marrion’s request, that would absent Mrs. Milburn for awhile.

Robert made a ferocious movement, and began thumping his head.

“Wheels in it,” he muttered.

“Be quiet, she does not suspect you,” Marrion whispered.

Cherokee came back to find her husband in the delirious throes of his spree. With sweet and tender solicitude, she asked:

“Do you feel better, dear?”

“I have been desperately ill,” was his almost rational response.

“Bravo,” was Marrion’s mental comment, “so far, so good.” Now, if she would only allow him to be quiet; but who ever saw a woman tire of asking questions, and who ever saw a drunken man that did not have a tongue for all ten of the heads he imagined he had?

Cherokee chimed in again:

“I have been very uneasy about you. You know I expected you home by ten.”

“Ten! Fifty would be more like it. I know I took that money.”

“What do you mean, Robert?” she asked, as she stared at him, amazed and wounded.

“He means nothing, he is flighty; that’s the way the medicine affects one,” Marrion explained.

“I tell you she is deucedly pretty”—with this Robert calmed down for awhile.

“He is surely out of his head, Mr. Latham.”

“No, I am not,” thundered Robert, “I should feel better if I were,” and all at once he came to his senses.

“What does this mean? What am I doing, lying down in my dress suit?” he demanded, “and it is broad day.”

“It means that you have kept me up all night lying for you,” whispered Marrion.

“The devil you say! have I had too much?”

Cherokee had gone from the room with the stain of wild roses on her cheek, for she had at last understood the situation, and its terrible significance.

“I will leave you now, old boy, and I hope this will not occur again. You have an angel for a wife.”

“Thank you, Latham, stay for breakfast with us.”

“No, I have an appointment early this morning.”

At the door he turned and called to Milburn:

“Oh, Milburn, when you have the headache again, there is one thing you must not forget.”

“What’s that?”

“Chloral,” he answered, chaffingly.

CHAPTER XVI. A BOLD INTRUDER.

That evening Robert did not go down town to dinner, but stayed at home, by way of doing penance. He sat in his room, reading; suddenly he threw aside the paper and said:

“What nonsense to pretend to read in a home like this, I ought to give all my time to adoration of you; few men are so blessed.”

“How lovely of you to say that; you are the very best husband in all the world, I know you are.”

“And you, my wife, are just what I would have you be.”

She lifted her face and looked ardently into his:

“I am so happy; are you?”

“As happy as I ever wish to be in heaven,” he replied, with great earnestness.

“Oh, don’t say that, it is irreverent—sacrilegious——”

The sentence was cut short by the servant entering and announcing:

“Mr. Latham, Mr. Frost.”

Cherokee, in astonishment, asked:

“Surely it cannot be Willard Frost?”

“S—h—! he will hear you,” warned the husband.

“Then it is he.”

“I shouldn’t wonder, though I do not see what brings him here.”

“He must have been invited; brazen as he is, he never would have intruded here unasked,” she guessed.

“Now, since you speak of it, I did meet him at the Club last night, with Marrion.”

“And you invited him here?” Anger and sorrow were blended in the voice of Cherokee as she asked the question.

“I don’t think I did, though something was said about his calling. The fact is, I had been taking a little too much—too much——”

“Chloral. Yes I understand now, but how could you be friendly with him after the way he had treated me.”

There was reproach in her tones, that told more strongly than her words, of suppressed indignation. Robert noticed it and was visibly embarrassed.

“You forget he gave us a thousand dollar wedding present. He is really a good fellow when you come to know him thoroughly; besides, he is one of the most successful artists in New York, and can be of great service to me. I want to get to the front, you know.”

Cherokee had never told Robert of their meeting, nor that very amount he had so contemptuously returned to her in the guise of a gift—of the reception, and Willard’s boast that she would again receive him. She regretted that now; surely the knowledge on the part of the husband would have restrained him.

“You must go to them,” she said at length, “they will think strangely of the delay.”

“I must go; surely you will accompany me.”

“Don’t ask it, Robert; make some excuse; I can’t meet that man.”

“Nonsense! the embarrassment will be but momentary. You surely won’t stand in the way of my success; besides, Marrion is there, and I am sure you will enjoy knowing him better.”

“Do you really wish me to see this other man, Willard Frost?”

“I do; how can I expect him to be my friend if you fail to receive him?”

“You are everything to me, husband, and I will obey you, although I never expected to be called upon to make a sacrifice like this.”

In the meantime, the guests awaited in the library.

“Latham,” said Frost, “you are a first-rate fellow to arrange things so that I can again meet the lovely Mrs. Milburn.”

“‘Again meet her!’ then you know her already?”

“Know her?” the brief interrogatory, with the accompanying shrug of the shoulders and significant laugh, formed a decided affirmative answer.

A swift flush of indignation swept across Marrion Latham’s features. The manner of his companion annoyed him.

“Why have you never called here before?” he asked, coldly.

“We had a trifling misunderstanding some time ago. Report had it that she was somewhat interested in me, and that too, since my marriage to Frances Baxter.”

“And it was to gain admission here that you insisted on Robert’s drinking last night, even after I asked you not to do it?”

“Oh, no, I like Milburn and want to help him in his art. I was free to call without a special invitation, though I was not sorry when he insisted upon my coming.”

“Hush! here they are.”

The two men rose. Willard Frost’s gaze went straight to the tall, lithe figure that came forward to meet her guests.

Nature had made of her so rare a painting—her’s was a beauty so spirituelle—that it awed to something like reverence, those who greeted her. The flush of indignation had disappeared from her face, but the excitement, the agitation through which she had passed had heightened her color as well as her beauty.

The first thing that Marrion said, aside to Robert, was:

“How is that head?”

“That’s one on me, gentlemen. Have cigars, it’s my treat.”

“With your gracious permission,” remarked Marrion, bowing to the hostess.

“I am pleased to grant it, if you enjoy smoking,” and she handed them matches.

“It is some time since we have met, Mrs. Milburn,” said Frost, with cold courtesy, while the other men were talking together.

“Yes, it is quite a long time. Your wife is well, I trust.”

“I am sorry, but I really can’t enlighten you on that point.”

“Is she out of the city?”

“I am told so. The fact is, she has recently taken a decided liking to a young actor. I understand that she is going upon the stage.”

Cherokee was speechless. The coolness and impudence of that man had completely dumbfounded her.

“She preferred histrionic art to my poor calling,” he continued; “I have instructed my attorneys to take the necessary legal steps to leave her free to follow it.”

Here Robert and Marrion joined them, and the conversation became general.

“By the way,” said Latham, when they got up to leave, “I had almost forgotten my special mission; I came to invite you to a box party next Wednesday evening.”

“We shall be most charmed to go,” replied Cherokee, who had resolved to make herself agreeable. “What is the play?”

“It is my latest.”

“We shall be well entertained, if it is one of yours,” cried Robert enthusiastically.

“And the name of your play, Mr. Latham?”

“When Men Should Blush.”

“An odd title, but he is famous for thinking of things that no one else ever thought of,” put in Frost.

“Yes, I occasionally think of you,” added Latham, good-naturedly.

“You forget that thoughts and dreams sometimes assume the form of nightmares; you had better leave me out—I might be an unpleasant incubus to encounter.”

Latham smiled, and there was the least tinge of a sneer in his smile.

When Cherokee closed her eyes to sleep that night, she could only see Willard Frost—the one man in all the world whom she loathed; the coldest, most unsympathetic creature that ever got into a man’s skin instead of a snake’s.

True, he was handsome, but for the red lips that seemed to indicate sensuality, and the square, resolute jaw that showed firmness of purpose.

* * * * * *

On Wednesday evening all kept their engagement. Lounging in handsome indifference, surrounded by his invited guests, Marrion saw the curtain rise at —— Theater.

His box was the center of attraction. Wild, fervid, impassioned was the play—this youngest creation of his brain. The shifting scenes were gracefully sudden, the denouement clever, and, as the curtain went down on the admirable drama, he had shown the audience that there was something new under the sun.

With some, to write is not a vague desire, but an imperious destiny. This was true of Marrion Latham; to this man of only eight and twenty years, heaven had entrusted its solemn agencies of genius. What a vast experience he must have had, for few people become great writers without tasting all these fierce emotions and passionate struggles. It is said that we must measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have known. Whatever grief he had borne had been in silence, and his laugh was as joyous as when a boy.

He was of high lineage, and Southern born; he came of a stock whose word was as good as their oath, and his success did not make him cut his actors on the street, as some dramatists have been known to do.

He had arranged a little supper after the play. Cherokee, pleased with the fine mind of her host, and having determined not to stand in the way of her husband’s advancement, was the life of the table. She did not put herself forward or seek to lead; much of the charm of her words and manner rose from utter unconsciousness of self.

She was both too proud and too pure hearted for vanity, spoke well, and to the purpose. If but a few words, they were never meaningless; and pervading all she said there was that aroma of culture which is so different from mere education. Should she have had no charm of face, her gifted mind alone would have made her attractive beyond most women.

During the supper the talk drifted on woman’s influence. Frost asserted that no woman ever reformed a man if his own mind was not strong enough to make him brace up; he would keep on to the end, an erring, stumbling wretch.

“You are mistaken,” returned Marrion, “many a good woman, mother, wife, has borne the cross to where she could lay it aside and take a crown. Take the drink habit, for instance; once an excessive, always one. Now, I can drink or let it alone.”

“I detest a drunkard,” said Frost, laconically.

“But somebody’s father, brother, or husband, might be strong in all other points and weak in that one,” Cherokee spoke, just a trifle severely.

“And woman has the brunt of it to bear,” said Marrion.

“I hold that we are nearer true happiness when we demand too little from men than when we expect too much,” was Frost’s retort.

Here Robert turned to Marrion:

“I see, from your play, that you believe in an equal standard of morals. You propose to be as lenient with women as with men.”

“Say, rather, I am in favor of justice,” was the manly reply.

“This doctrine of yours is quite dangerous,” Frost interrupted, to which Marrion answered:

“It is the doctrine of Him who teaches forgiveness of sins.”

“Ah, Latham, you have taken a stupendous task upon yourself, if you mean to reform men,” laughed Frost.

“Some men and beasts you can improve, but other natures—like wild hyenas—once wild, wild forever,” was Marrion’s bright rejoinder.

“I am not looking for them,” was the answer.

“Come to the office with me for a moment,” Willard Frost turned to Robert, when the suggestion for returning home had been made. “There is a fine painting in there that I want you to see.”

They were nearly half an hour absent, but, engaged in pleasant conversation, Cherokee and Marrion did not notice the lapse of time. When the men came back, the quick eye of Marrion noticed that Robert had been drinking, and that near the border line of excess.

CHAPTER XVII. AN ERRAND OF MYSTERY.

It was some months afterward. Cherokee, gowned in violet and gold, was on her way to the Chrysanthemum Show, where she felt sure of meeting some of her friends. She was walking briskly, when she was importuned by an old man for help. Dropping some coins into his entreating palm, she passed on.

How little we know whom we may meet when we leave our doors, and before entering them again. Often one’s whole life is changed between the exit and entrance of a home.

“Ah, my dear Mrs. Milburn, how pleased I am to meet you here. Are you out for pleasure?”

Whose voice could that be but Willard Frost’s, sounding in her ears like clods on a coffin.

“Yes, I presume one would call it pleasure, going to the Chrysanthemum Show and to get some flowers for hospital patients. You know the sick love these little attentions.”

“There, that’s an illustration of what I am contemplating. Do you know I think you are just the person I wanted to meet this morning?”

“Why?” she asked, indifferently.

“Because you can do a great kindness as well as give pleasure to some one who is in need of both, if you will?”

“You want me to help some one who is in distress?”

“I do. Will you?”

“How much does the person need?”

“Your presence would be more good than any service you could render.”

“Then I will go and get my husband to accompany us. He is charitable, and likes to do these things with me.”

“I have just come from his studio; he is very busy now, and I think he would prefer not being interrupted. I have been down all the morning giving a few criticisms on that ‘Seaweed Gatherer.’ That is truly a work of art. But surely you will not refuse me that friendly service.”

“Where would you have me go, and whom to see?”

“A young girl who is dying without a kind word.”

“A woman—has she no friends or means?”.

“I am the only friend she has, the pure, noble, unfortunate,” he said, aiming at tenderness.

“Indeed, I never refuse to help anyone, when I can, but really I prefer someone to be the bearer.”

“Yes, but she has requested me to bring you; this desire comes from a dying human being.”

“But, pray what does she know of me; I do not understand?” she asked, disapprovingly. “You might get yourself and me into a scrape.”

“She has been a model for Robert as well as myself; you have seen her at the studio, and she fairly worships your beauty, your gentleness.”

“Strange my husband has never mentioned her reduced condition. I fail to recall her,” and she drew back with a sinking of heart; she wanted to do what was right, always.

“Oh, think again. I am sure you saw her when you and Robert came to see my ‘Madonna’; I was working on her then.”

“Yes, I do recall a beautiful girl who was posing that day. If it is from her, this request, I will go.”

“Thank you, thank you; she will be so nearly happy, for she has never failed to speak of you whenever I have seen her. I shall never forget how she raved when she saw you, and a question she asked.”

“What was that?”

“‘Does her heart fulfill the promise of her eyes?’ she asked me, as though the answer was of great importance.

“I asked what she meant.

“She answered, ‘They promise to make some one happy; to remove all troubles and cares, making a heavenly paradise upon this earth?’ She wanted to see you, so that you might swear that this promise would be kept.”

“She must be an enthusiast,” Cherokee reflected, losing all sense of the strangeness of this question for the time.

They started on in the direction that Frost wanted to go. She felt as though she was walking through yellow rustling leaves, as she had done back in her lesson-days, when she was trying to steal away from the teacher or playmates on the lawn.

More than once, as she hurried along, Cherokee asked herself if she were not imitating the leopard, and developing another spot of foolishness.

When they reached the place there was nothing strange or unusual about it. He opened the door and walked in, as though he was accustomed to going there; then he softly pushed an inner door and peeped in.

“She is sleeping now, poor tired soul; her greatest blessing is sleep”—offering Cherokee a chair, “we will wait awhile.”

She nervously looked about her. Her beautiful eyes, so pure, so clear, so unshadowed by any knowledge of sin, knew nothing of the misery that had been in the enclosure of these walls.

Presently a frail, crooked woman came in, abruptly. Cold and bitter was her gaze:

“Why did you not come sooner?” she demanded of Frost, sternly.

“It was impossible; am I not in good time?”

“Yes, for you a very good time—she is dead,” and a short, quick gasp came from the withered frame.

“Do you mean it?” he said, looking at the woman who seemed quite overcome, in spite of her hard, cruel face.

“Go and see for yourself,” and she pointed to the room he had entered before.

Cherokee stood silent, and bowed, as became the house of mourning.

“No, if she is dead, we need not go in,” Frost said, quickly.

But the old woman recoiled a step: “I understand you are ashamed of her.”

“No, not that, but it is now too late to grant her request.”

“I would know it, and it would do no harm for me to know that you could keep your word.”

“Then we will go in; you lead the way.”

Cherokee hesitated, and the miserable woman, seeing this, cried in sudden excitement:

“Is your wife afraid of her, now that she is dead?”

Willard Frost, at the mention of wife, started. He had, after all, forgotten to explain that to Cherokee.

“Do not heed her wild fancy,” he whispered, as he motioned her to go in front.

Instinctively the hag folded her wasted hands; most piteously she raised her bewildered eyes, imploringly, to Cherokee.

“Won’t you please go in, for if she can see from the other world to this, she will be pleased.”

“If it pleases you, I will go in for your sake.” As they entered the waiting doorway, Frost walked to the low lounge—he was more deeply moved than he cared to show. There, before him, lay the pulseless clay, the features horribly distorted, the hands and limbs terribly drawn.

“This,” he said to Cherokee, “was caused by paralysis. Nature was once a kind mother to her.”

He shook his head, musingly, and ran his fingers over the sleeper’s hands. At first he did it with a sort of tentativeness, as if waiting for something that eluded him. All at once he leaned over and kissed the hands—he seemed moved by a powerful impulse. Through his mind there ran a thousand incidents of his life, one growing upon the other without sequence; phantasmagoria, out of the scene-house of memory.

He saw a vast stretch of lonely forest in the white coverlet of winter, through which a man followed a desolate track. He saw a scanty home, yet mirthful, and warm from the winter wood. Again he saw that home, when even in the summer height it was chilled and blighted. Then, there, he saw a child with red-gold curls, and he wondered how fate would deal with that baby—a laughing, dimpled romper, without a name.

These are a few of the pictures he saw.

Cherokee, ever gentle in her ministries, spoke kind words to the old woman, whom she supposed was the mother.

She had come too late for another good; the dead do not answer even the most loving, the sweetest voices, and this girl had joined the mysteries. So, what was left but to offer prayers and tears for the living?

While Cherokee talked, the woman sat very still, her face ruled to quietness. At length she said:

“She is better dead.”

The comforter looked surprised; what a strange way for a mother to speak.

“Let us go, now,” urged Frost, impulsively. As they passed out, he placed money in the woman’s hand.

“Put her away nicely.”

Motioning him back, the woman caught his arm and whispered:

“By the right of a life-long debt, I now ask for peace.”

“Is that all?” he sneered.

“And I hope you will be a better man,” she added.

They were on their way home. A flush crept slowly up Willard Frost’s face, then, heaving a sigh and quickly repenting of it, he tried to laugh, to drive away the impression of it.

It had been dismal within, but it was lovely without. The gray transparency of the atmosphere lent a glamour to the autumn hues, like flimsy gauze over the face of some Eastern beauty, and the seductive harmony of the colors acted like magic music on the spirit.

“That dead girl was once the most exquisite piece of flesh I ever saw. This is truly a legend of the beautiful. She supported herself by posing for artists, as long as her beauty lasted,” so Frost began his story, “but six months ago she was stricken with paralysis, which so misused her that it took the bread from her mouth, and but for me they would have starved.

“I had great sympathy for the girl, and from her face I had made many hundreds, so I considered it my duty to look after her in this dark hour of affliction.”

“That was just and noble,” said Cherokee, forgetting for a moment the record of the man.

He went on: “She loved me devotedly, though she knew I was married, and during her illness she fancied she would be perfectly happy if she convinced herself that I was not ashamed to present her to my wife.”

“Then it was your wife she wanted to see, and I was to be presented under false colors,” she demanded, rather sternly.

“It would have been all the same to her, she never would have been wiser.”

“Mr. Frost, I believe you would do anything, and let me say, just here, my courtesy to you is not real. I do it because, strange to say, my husband likes you.”

Just then they reached her stopping place. There was considerable commotion on the car, Frost caught her arm:

“Wait a moment, until they put that drunken brute off.”

Suddenly, Cherokee wrenched herself away, and stepped quickly, unassisted, to the street.

In front of her was the man they had assisted from the car. A gentle arm was passed through his:

“Come, Robert, we will go home together.”

She never looked back, although Willard Frost stood and watched them, a mingled smile of pity and triumph upon his sinister face.

CHAPTER XVIII. TIMELY WARNING.

Robert sat in his studio, when presently the door opened.

“My dear Latham,” cried the artist.

“Well, Milburn, how are you?”

They were, at last, alone together. Involuntarily, and as if by an irresistible impulse, Marrion began at once:

“Robert, I must speak to you on a delicate subject. You are my friend, a man for whose interests I would all but give up my life,” and his mission flashed across the other’s mind.

“What are you driving at?”

“At the question whether or not you will stop to think.”

“I most frequently stop and forget,” was the good-natured reply.

“That is too true; you surely do not realize how you have behaved the past few months.”

“Well, and what of it? I should like to know whom I have hurt besides myself.”

“Everyone who cares for you.”

“But, look here, Latham, I am able to take care of myself.”

“It is a little remarkable you do not prove that statement.” Here he assumed a more dignified manner.

“You mean my drinking; well, I pay for it, and——”

“If the matter ended with the price, there would not be so much harm done,” retorted Latham.

“Very few know I ever touch a drop.”

“But those who know are your nearest and best friends, or should be.”

“Oh, well! the best of us are moulded out of faults;” the other eyed him fixedly.

“And these faults have a tendency to produce blindness. I believe you fail to see that your morbid cravings for drink and fame are making your domestic life trite and dull—more than that, miserable. You are losing sight of home-life in this false fever of ambition, and,” he added gravely, “grieved, ashamed I am to say it.”

“This is startling, to say the least of it,” Robert exclaimed, as he nervously thrummed the desk by his side. “Here I have been imagining myself the model husband. True, I drink occasionally.”

“You mean, occasionally you do not drink,” Marrion interrupted.

“Look here, Latham; if this came from another than you, I should say it is none of your —— business.”

“Say it to me, if you feel so disposed. I only speak the truth.”