Bertha’s Engagement

The Judge looked at Clara aghast. He had only been upholding the dignity of his family; he had not meant to wound her more than was necessary to impress the social fact upon her that in comparison with his race she was very common dust indeed. That she should turn upon him in this haughty way was incomprehensible assurance.

“You have strangely misunderstood—” he began, but she interrupted him with burning impatience.

“Not in the least, sir. I have understood every word, felt every word; pray go on.”

“I want to leave the matter to your judgment and good sense and delicacy,” he said, considering his remark very adroit and flattering. For the Judge prided himself upon his managing powers and thought himself as capable of carrying on a delicate intrigue as any diplomat of the French Court.

“Leave what to my judgment and good sense?” was 89the question she returned, instead of the reply he had fully expected his lumbering flattery to bring forth. “What is the matter that you place in that light, sir?”

The Judge was all adrift again! His passion rose once more. The purple grew deeper in his face. He loosened his neckcloth, feeling nearer an apoplectic fit than was agreeable.

“You know. Surely, you know,” he said.

“I have not the slightest idea,” replied Clara, her fingers still going on with her work, her face averted as before.

The haughty girl had a strange delight in forcing that man to insult her; she was working herself up to a mood in which she would sooner have torn her heart out and trampled it underfoot than have made a movement toward reconciliation with the family of Edward Lane.

“No idea?” he repeated, quite bewildered, “no idea?”

“You have not made yourself clear, Judge Lane. Pray explain what it is that you believe or imagine, that you wish or demand; then I shall know how to frame my answer.”

The Judge gave another tug at his necktie, took hold of the arm of his chair for support and made a vigorous effort to assume the manner which had overwhelmed contestants, when seated upon his court bench.

“I will explain,” he said; “you shall have no reason to say that you misunderstood or that I did not make my meaning perfectly clear.”

“I am waiting, sir.”

She spoke like a Russian Empress kept in suspense by a serf, if one could suppose the thing possible, and increased the proud man’s irritation and unhealthy 90bloom to the highest degree either was capable of assuming without positive physical danger to himself.

“When my son came home a year ago,” he continued, still striving to believe himself on his judicial bench, expounding some knotty question of law or equity to a group of legal admirers, “the young man made your acquaintance—people whisper that you put yourself in his way, I don’t pretend to know how that was, but you became acquainted.”

Clara’s eyes flashed fire beneath their drooping lashes. The needle shook in her hand, but she did not care to speak until the insult was complete. So the Judge went on.

“The boy chose to think himself in love. He came here constantly. I could not believe the thing possible, but he confessed it with his own lips. Of course, I rebuked him—forbade him ever to enter this house again, but he was lured on to disobey me, and I found it my duty to be more severe. He went back to college. In that lay some hope of safety for him, I thought, but since then his conduct has been that of a crazy man. He has been driven to drink and gambling. He has been reprimanded and at last suspended.”

“And how am I to blame for this?” questioned Clara.

“How! Why you have led him on to ruin, fascinated, bewitched him with your beauty—for you are beautiful, no one can deny that. Still you are no match for my son. He has a right to look higher for a wife, if you presume to expect that. I want you to save my son, instead of being his ruin—I want you to break this affair off. I am ready to make any sacrifice—if you will name the amount that could help to spare your feelings I will furnish it with pleasure; only speak and 91let me know that you have decided never to see the young man again; on that condition I will send for him home and give him another chance.”

“Have you anything more to say?” questioned the girl, now white and still with intense passion.

“Yes, one thing. I want you to make all sure by quitting the neighborhood. Of course your grandmother would be glad to sell this shaky old building for anything she can get, but I will give her a fancy price for it.”

“She was born here. She has lived here all her life,” said Clara, in a low, cold voice.

“That is nothing. It will fall down over her head if she insists on living here much longer. I am offering her a chance to save herself. There now, I am ready to close in with any condition you may make.”

Clara let her work fall as she rose slowly from her seat. Pride like iron kept her from betraying any physical weakness, although the room reeled around her and she clutched the back of her chair for support.

Her whole being was in tumult. She only wanted to wound herself in the bitterest, most fatal way possible, to overwhelm the coarse man with a sense of her scorn.

She turned and confronted the Judge, who fairly shrank from the whiteness of her face and the intolerable fire of her eyes.

92“I have heard you through,” she said, “now hear me.”

The Judge glanced helplessly toward the door, ready to believe himself in the presence of a maniac. Perhaps physical courage was not the quality upon which he most strongly founded his sense of importance.

“Your son did make my acquaintance—I will not even answer the gross insult conveyed in the accusation you bring against me. He loved me, he told me so! What my feelings were he does not yet know nor shall you. As your son, as the brother of your daughters, I have only pity for him now. After he had gone away I heard the reports which you and your family spread abroad regarding me—the insults you have offered me now were intensified into slander then. Had I possessed a father or a brother, you would never have dared to speak against me! Your cowardice is safe—I am a defenceless woman! But from the depths of my soul I loathe the slanderers, high or low, who have been base enough to malign me.”

The Judge lifted his hand as if to ward off these thrilling words, but he was beyond the power of speech, and Clara went on:

“When your son came back I told him of these things. He had lost nothing of his original manliness and considered an insult to me an outrage to himself. I told him that I could never marry him—”

“Was he mad enough for that?” broke in Mr. Lane, so bewildered that he was unconscious of his words.

“Ah, you expected him to prove himself altogether your son. I know he would have been more worthy in your eyes had he insulted me as you are doing, but he is human. He begged me to marry him then; but 93I refused. Judge Lane, had I loved that man better than Heaven itself, had my very existence depended upon it, I would have refused to become his wife. Every noble feeling of my nature revolted at the proposal. I felt and knew that the real disgrace would have been for me, for so matching myself.”

Those last words roused her listener into some signs of life. He rose to his feet and stammered out—

“I have heard enough, young woman, quite enough; I shall know how to act.”

Clara stepped between him and the door; he drew back his chair and stared at her.

She spoke low, now her anger had half spent itself in those scathing words.

“You have forced me to speak,” she said; “you must hear all that I have to say.”

The Judge fluttered his hands in a deprecating way and made faint contortions with his once handsome mouth, which, like that of many stout men, had grown too small for his face, but beyond that he could exhibit no signs of resistance. Her vehement eloquence had wrecked all his ideas.

“I know all the disgrace your son has brought upon himself—he has been suspended from college. Blame neither him nor me—but yourself—for you alone have been the cause.”

Another sound from the Judge’s throat, as if he were being strangled still tighter, but not a word.

“Your visit here, sir, was paid too late; you cannot even have the petty consolation of thinking that you broke off all acquaintance between your son and myself. It was done on my own behalf.”

Another struggle from the Judge, but no words.

94“Sir, I could not marry him—but your opposition would have been a feeble reason! I dared not trust myself to him—his faults—his vices—all prevent it—he was not worthy of himself.”

She paused and leaned more heavily upon the chair; she had done her worst now both by herself and the man before her.

But the fearful tumult in her soul, made up of so many contending emotions that it would have been impossible to analyze them, had forced her to speak. She felt a fearful joy in the contempt she had hurled at the father, a terrible exultation in the fury which had moved her to fling back insult for insult!

The Judge had sunk into his chair again and was staring at her still with a blank, hopeless look. Then he made an effort and arose. The indignity thus hurled upon him made him faint.

He reached the door and turned to look upon the beautiful young creature whose best feelings he had come to insult. There was something imposing in her fierce anger that fascinated him.

She neither spoke nor looked at him, so he passed out, feeling a glow of cowardly relief when he found himself in the open air.

When the door closed, Clara’s unnatural strength gave way, she tottered, stretched out her arms, and fell slowly forward upon her knees. She had not fainted, her eyes were open, full of anguish and shame.

The unworthy contest in which she had triumphed had tortured every delicate sense of womanhood in her nature, till the remembrance became torture.

95

101

Old Mrs. Anderson was feeling her infirmities more than usual in those days, and kept her bed most of the time. She understood, in a vague way, that some gentleman who knew Edward Lane called at the house 107very frequently, and read such books as Clara pined for, but had no time to peruse, while she worked; but this gave the old lady no real uneasiness. In her young days visits not made after dark, or on Sunday evenings, were never suspected of carrying an idea of love-making with them. Certainly the thought never entered that old Connecticut woman’s mind. She was rather pleased with the improved cheerfulness of her granddaughter, and imputed it entirely to the hours of reading, which were indeed the only time in which the girl could be said to live; all the rest was given up to such dreams as turn earth into heaven.

Waldon never would have entered that old brown house but for the glimpse he had attained of Clara that day as she rode by the Stone Tavern. He had accepted the mission from young Lane, because it gave him an opportunity of seeing her more nearly.

Then his selfish impetuosity came out in full force. With one sweep of his will, he sought to take the life of this bright, beautiful being into his own—to possess the soul so capable of appreciating the drift of his mind and the greatness of his ambition.

What he was to render for these possessions—how long he was to keep them—were questions that never disturbed him in the first glow of a kindling passion. This girl was more than beautiful. In her nature lay capacities for worship that he craved. A worse man would have been far less dangerous. There is no guarding against a being who asks only for the worship you long to give and the thoughts you pine to share. It is your whole life that he seizes upon and sacrifices without remorse, because no legal or social wrong can fasten upon the theft of a soul. He had no wicked purpose in 108his mind, no definite thought of the future. The excitement of a grand passion, while it lasted, was enough for him.

In truth, this man fancied that he was acting a friendly part by the young student who trusted him, but to whom success in love would prove ruinous to his after fortunes.

Thus, days that were lighted by a glow of paradise stole on. To that poor girl the hours of her toil seemed like the blooming of flowers. The joy of expectation possessed her before Waldon appeared; a sweet flutter of contentment settled down upon her when he came. At night she thought only of the morning, and haunting desires of expectation ran through all her dreams like silver threads in a woof of silk.

In short, Clara Anderson loved this man ardently, unreasoningly, fatally, perhaps.

Directly after Mrs. Forbes’ visit, a letter had been sent to Edward Lane from the old brown house, bearing Clara Anderson’s signature. No one had asked her to write it, or suggested the sending; yet Clara was conscious that Waldon desired the thing she was doing, and sought to end this semblance of an old love in a concise cold dismissal even of the friendship she had awarded him.

Edward Lane received this letter, and knowing of his married sister’s visit to her father’s house, believed that it was the result of some new indignity offered to the proud girl.

The letter made him desperate. A longing seized him to return home. He felt bitter and unforgiving toward his father; he was still furious with his sisters, but Clara he must and would see once more.

109The unhappy young man could not believe in the truth or the reality of that letter; he must see her, must hear her own lips pronounce the words which would shut out all hope and leave him wrecked in the very outset of existence. She should decide his doom with her own lips, before he could believe it sealed.

With his usual impetuosity, he yielded at once to this desire. The very next morning found him on his way home, ready to meet his father’s reproof with dogged indifference, his sister’s tears and reproaches with harsh words, and to defy them all if Clara could be induced to relent.

Persistent opposition had kindled this young man’s passion into obstinacy and mingled with it feelings of obstinacy, which would never have been brought out in force had the liking, which was, at first, but a fancy, been left to the natural course of events.

As it was, Lane had injured his reputation and destroyed his own self-respect to an extent that years might not atone for. The injudicious action of his family had cast him adrift, suffering from a sense of injury, impetuous in feeling, thwarted in his dearest hopes, and made to feel an alien in his own household.

In those days Clara Anderson found her sweetest companionship with nature. Too delicate and sensitive for the confidences that most girls love, she carried 110her happiness into the scenes that a first absorbing passion rendered beautiful beyond all the glories of nature.

Sometimes, when the blessed rest of a Sabbath was given her, she would take long and delightfully lone walks on the hills that sloped down almost to a level with her dwelling. One day she had followed one of these pretty streams which find their source in some crystal spring in the hills and, gathering up every silver thread in their way, rush in a bright torrent through some fissure in the rocks, and pour themselves through pasture lands and meadows till they leap into some noble river and are swept off to the ocean. In a nook of the broken hill-side, shaded with elms and great weeping willows, a mountain stream of this kind had worn a deep basin where it slept in mirror-like calmness, while the foliage above sent green shadows trembling over it, and the sunshine flickered through, touching it here and there with gold.

Clara was somewhat subdued by her long walk, and resting against the trunk of a willow, stood looking dreamily down upon the water, longing to disturb its cool waves with something of the sweet unrest that had come upon her.

“Clara!”

The girl started, turned suddenly, and stood face to face with Edward Lane.

For an instant neither spoke, but remained gazing at each other, overpowered by a whirl of memories and emotions which held them speechless.

At length he stepped forward and took her hand, which lay cold in his clasp.

“I saw you in the distance and followed,” he said.

111She did not answer; and his repressed passion broke forth vehemently.

“O Clara, how I have suffered! God forgive you, girl—how could you write me that letter?”

Clara was troubled, a rush of emotions swelled her heart, but instantly she recalled that conversation with his father, and the chill of unyielding pride settled upon her.

“Because it was my duty,” she replied, in a voice so hard and cold that it made him start.

“Your duty!” he repeated angrily. “The common word for all sorts of cruelty and hard-heartedness.”

Clara shut her lips close together; Edward’s voice was like his father’s, and the recollection of all the insulting words that stern man had spoken shot across her heart like flame.

“Why do you stand there like a statue?” he exclaimed, passionately. “Have you no feeling?”

“I hope not,” she answered, with vehemence equal to his own, and startling, from its contrast with her former coldness; “the less feeling a woman has the better, when she finds herself an object of such bitter contention.”

“And possessed of the power to torment others,” returned Lane.

“Did you come here only to repeat your father’s insults?” she asked.

“O Clara, be generous! I came because I was almost crazy with suffering,” he replied; “because I could not endure this desolating anguish longer. I must know what you meant by that letter—what I am to depend upon. O Clara, Clara, for mercy’s sake, change that face!”

112“All that I have to say was expressed in that letter.”

“And you really felt and intended what you said!”

Clara’s forehead contracted, something in her throat seemed choking her, but she answered courageously—

“I did.”

He looked at her with a sorrowful astonishment, which wounded her worse than reproaches would have done.

“I could not believe it,” he said; “even that harsh letter failed to convince me. But you repeat it. Clara, you cannot mean this, you will not give me up; speak to me, say that you were not in earnest.”

“I was in earnest then,” she answered slowly; “I am in earnest now. I meant every word.”

The young man staggered, as if reeling under a sudden blow, but a burst of indignant feelings enabled him to recover himself.

“That is enough,” he said; “I know now how far a woman’s truth is to be depended upon! I will make no reproaches.”

“You are generous,” she exclaimed. “After your conduct during the past months, the insults of your family—”

“I am not answerable for them, Clara.”

“No; but those who offered them are your nearest kin—that, of itself, would separate us had I loved you better than my own soul—but your own conduct—”

“Forgive it, forgive it!” cried Lane, impetuously. “I was mad—as for my people, why need we care; I would leave them all to-morrow for your sake—family, home, everything.”

“We will not go back to these things,” she replied. “All this is useless; we part now and for all time.”

113“Then the consequences rest with you. Whatever comes, you, and my family alone, will be to blame.”

Clara did not speak. The anguish in the young man’s face terrified her. Edward Lane looked on her with dumb entreaty a moment, then turned and hurried along the banks of the stream, reckless and despairing.

Clara watched him with deep commiseration in her heart. A pang of sympathy seized upon her, and she followed his swift descent down the hill with a feeling of keen self-reproach. She too loved.

That moment was one of thrilling enlightenment which broke upon her like a sunburst, fearful in its suddenness. The dream of past weeks was broken up, and she stood there amazed at her own transfiguration. The knowledge of this love filled her heart with infinite compassion for the man she had just driven from her with such harsh pride, and with this feeling came a pang of prophetic fear.

What if her love too should fail of a return, could she endure that and live?

Why had she driven that young man forth without one kind word to soften the keenness of his disappointment? It was heartless, bitterly, bitterly cruel. Need she blame him because his father was purse-proud and his sisters arrogant? Was love a sin, that she should trample it down so haughtily?

How dared she ask that question while her own heart was beating with such thrills of joy, such tremors of apprehension? Sin! no; such love was the very essence of worship, holy as an angel’s prayer, sweet as honeydew in lily cups.

The girl sprang forward and followed her rejected lover down the hill, calling out,

114“Edward, Edward Lane,” with piteous entreaty. He heard her voice, but refused to come back. She had wounded him too deeply.

Then she threw herself on a bed of buckhorn moss that crackled and broke under her as if she were bringing ruin to that also, and covering her face with both hands wept in sorrowful penitence.

“Oh, if it should come back to me, if it should recoil on my own heart! What could I do! what could I do!” she cried out in the depths of her self-abasement.

After a while the girl arose and walked toward home, self-tortured by the cruelty of ignorance under which she had been acting a cruelty which haunted her soul like a crime. But through all this shone a great and glowing joy. The woman’s heart had discovered its capacity for loving.

Lydia Rowe—the girl had a second name, though it was seldom used—was permitted to remain with the Andersons, because of the sympathy felt at the farm-house by the old mill, for Clara’s toilsome life and the grandmother’s helplessness.

This girl, slim, wiry, and irrepressible in her activity, would have rebelled against the loneliness of the old house, but for some friends that she managed to pick up in the neighborhood.

Within sight of the old poplars, a small house was 115standing on the river’s brink. With its gable end toward the street, and a sparse, weedy garden behind it, this dwelling looked more like a vast railroad car with a peaked roof than anything else.

Within this dwelling Lydia discovered materials for a friendship that occupied much of her spare time, and saved her from absolute homesickness—the widow who went out to days-work, took in washing, and occasionally sold spruce-beer to such customers as she could get, was the proud mother of two children, who helped her in a rough way, but found plenty of time to introduce a great deal of mischievous fun into their usefulness.

The eldest of these children—a tall, loose-jointed lad, with curving legs and arms like flails—was errand-boy and horse-catcher for the whole neighborhood.

Ben was always hard at work or hard at play, which sometimes produced the effect of work. In the winter he set rabbit-traps in the woods and his baits of sweet apples were more successful than those of any other boy. Out of this fun came delicious little stews for his mother’s table, and skins to sell at the stores. Ben knew all the musk-rat holes along the beautiful water-course that flowed back of his mother’s house, and made no inconsiderable money by the fur secured in his traps. He could use carpenter’s tools in a rough way, and made sleds for coasting down the long sloping hill behind the school-house, where he went as a scholar perhaps two half-days in a week, but not oftener if he could help it.

In the summer time, when the meadows were crimson with strawberries and fragrant with wild pinks, Ben commenced a season of berry-picking, which lasted till there were no more blackberries in the pastures, whortle-berries on the hills, or wild grapes in the woods.

116Beyond all these occupations, Ben had unusual resources of enjoyment. The canoe, or “dug-out,” which lay rocking in the river behind the golden willow hedge, had been hollowed with his own hands, from the trunk of a fallen tree. The stilts with which he crossed the ford just below that great clump of elms were of his own devising.

Ben Vose was no beauty, but the good-natured expression of his uncomely face, the genial kindness of a Newfoundland dog in his eyes, and an honest desire to please, had made the boy a general favorite, and won for him many an odd job, that, to use his own phrase, helped the old woman along more than folks knew of.

The sister, a bright, mischief-loving girl, younger than Ben, seemed to have absorbed all the comeliness of the family in her own person. She was enough younger than Lydia to feel all the influence of that strange girl’s sharp wit and abundant powers of usefulness or mischief. As for Ben, a rather shallow sense of strength and self-reliance kept him from being the abject slave that Lydia aspired to make him. He greatly admired her crossed vision and smart ways, but had a vague sense of male superiority that was constantly provoking contest and struggle between them, in which little Nancy invariably sided with Lydia.

One day when Waldon’s horse had stood an hour or more in front of Mrs. Anderson’s house, Lydia met Ben on his way to give the animal a feed of oats, in response to the confidential orders of the young lady.

“Look here, Ben,” said the maiden, standing with folded arms and uplifted chin in the footpath that ran parallel with the road, “I want you to just go back home and let that highferluten feller’s horse alone.”

117“What for?” questioned Ben. “You’ve been spiteful all along to the gentleman, but what on ’arth has sot you so agin the horse, that you ’grudge him a few oats? Do you want to starve the dumb cretur?”

“Yes, that’s just what I do want, Ben.”

“What for?”

“’Cause he brings the feller here almost every day of his life, and he stays later and later every time.”

“Well, what if he does?”

“What if he does? why, Ben Vose, can’t you see?”

“See what?”

“So long as he gets nice teas in the house and his horse is fed outside, he’ll keep coming.”

“Well, what if he does?”

“Oh, dear me, what fools do live in this world!” said Lydia, unfolding her arms and dropping them to her sides in despair.

“Jest so,” answered Ben, with good-natured equanimity, “but who’s the fool now?”

“Ben Vose, you put me out of patience!”

“Well, let me go along and I won’t.”

“Not to give that horse oats? I’ve set my foot down and you shan’t do it nohow.”

Ben laughed with a deep inward chuckle, took the girl up by the arms, planted her in the path behind him, and marched on.

“Ben Vose, you’ll wish you hadn’t done that, before you and I are good friends again.”

“Mebby I will, and then agin mebby I won’t,” answered Ben, looking over his shoulder with aggravating good humor.

“There he goes,” said the girl, doubling her little brown hand into an impatient fist, “but I’ll pay him for it, or my name isn’t Lydia Rowe.”

118Lydia sat down on a loose stone near the fence, and gave way to a fit of angry despondency.

“I can’t stop his coming that way anyhow. A girl that has lived a whole winter in York, and been with city people all her life, sees things that a fellow like Ben can’t begin to understand. If I could only talk to some one now, a minister, or something of that kind; but there isn’t a creature that I dare whimper a word to. Besides I’ve no business to say a word. Still that fellow shan’t come here so much if I can help it, making her feel like a bird one day, and home-sick as death the next. There’s something in his eyes I don’t like; he seems to swallow up her face with them like our cat when it sees a plump little mouse peaking out of her hole.”

Here Lydia shook her head at the shadow which followed all her movements, and seemed to find great relief in talking to it.

“I’m afraid, awfully afraid she’s getting fond of him. The signs are strong enough. Luncheon in the middle of the day, Oolong tea, that no one but the old woman ever drank in this house before. The milk skimmed unbeknownst every morning, and no reason given to nobody till out it comes in the best china pitcher for his wild strawberries. Then the days he don’t come it’s enough to make one cry to see her face—so eager, so anxious, then so down-hearted.

“If he meant anything particular wouldn’t he come Sunday nights as other people do and speak out like a man? Things are going wrong both here and at the Mill bridge, I am awfully afraid. Mr. Fletcher looked skittish when I spoke about Miss Bertha, and folks tell me he’s gone away for good. I don’t know as Bertha cared much about him anyhow. Since I’ve seen this other girl 119with her beau it seems to me as if she didn’t. I reckon she gave him the mitten: his face looked like it.

“Well, Miss Clara ain’t likely to mitten her beau—but then is he her beau? and if he is, would I like to have him about?”

Here Lydia arose, nodded affectionately to her shadow, which saluted back from the grass, and walked homeward, dissatisfied with everything there, but most of all with Ben Vose, whose devotion she had calculated on with certainty.

Cold-blooded calculation was no portion of Waldon’s character. In order to make him treacherous there must be some appeal to his passions. Full of poetic sentiment, he was void of actual magnanimity. All the grandeur of his ideas were the outgrowth of a vivid imagination. His intellect and his appetites went hand in hand, sharpening each other.

Under some impulses he was generous. Let those impulses die away, and a current of unbelievable meanness set in that seemed impossible to those who had read the man’s thoughts, or listened to the splendor of his conversation. This was the man whose society had transfigured Clara Anderson’s life. Life! the girl had not lived before. All the rest was a stale, unprofitable dream to her. Now it seemed as if love had made her immortal. Weeks had passed like hours to her. There by the window, 120that had become distasteful from its associations with toil, she sat like some spirit in Heaven, listening to that voice, blushing under the glance of those eyes, happy in the mere consciousness of his presence. Up to this time no absolute word of love had been spoken between these two, but she had never felt the loss, and his readings had been full of application. When a burning passage left his lips its spirit was carried to hers with a glance or a smile more eloquent than words.

But this day, while Lydia was holding a conference with her own shadow by the roadside, the craving vanity of this man broke bounds. With epicurean patience he had scattered the seed and watched its sensitive growth. Now he was seized with a desire to drink the fragrance of the flowers.

He was leaning back in the great splint-bottomed easy-chair close by the window, gazing with half-shut eyes on the bright face of the girl as she bent over her work dreamily, with the needle pointing idly from her fingers.

Such dreams came upon her often of late, and he loved to watch the changes of her countenance as they left light or shade upon its beauty.

All at once he leaned forward, laid one hand upon her shoulder, and bent his face to hers.

“Clara, do you love me?”

A swift thrill passed under his hand. The girl lifted her face and a glorious light broke through the brooding softness of her eyes.

“Love you!” she answered, radiant with light and color, “Oh heavens! what would life be to me if I did not?”

Waldon drew his face closer to hers and she felt a kiss touch her lips lightly, as if a red rose-leaf had fallen there—the first that had ever passed between them.

121Walden drew back, and sighing, as if his breath were laden with the fragrance of flowers, sat watching the swift mutations of that beautiful face under the ripple of his first kiss.

“It is something worth living for,” he said in a voice rich with contentment. “To be thoroughly loved is the great necessity of a man’s life.”

Clara lifted her eyes to his with wistful questioning. He had shaken her heart as bees wrest honey from lilies. Did this content him? Had he no words of love to give in return?

The girl did not say this, even in thought, but a vague want disturbed her, and the joy in her bosom seemed slowly ebbing away. Perhaps she felt a subtle loss too, such as sensitive women know, without knowledge, when the first kiss of love is taken from their lips.

“There is no need of words,” thought the girl, consoling herself. “One glance of his eyes speaks more eloquently than the lips of other men.”

“Ah,” thought Waldon, roving backward in his mind, “if such moments could last forever, the love of one woman would be enough for a lifetime, and where could I find a being more exquisite?”

Clara knew that he was thinking of her admiringly, but of the more subtle worldliness underlying that admiration she could have no idea. It was like a serpent coiled under a matting of roses. Feeling his glance upon her she looked up and smiled.

He reached forth his hand, smiling back upon her.

“You are happy now, sweet Bonnibel,” he said; for it was his habit to use quaint phrases gathered from Mediæval romance, that his love-making might be unlike that of other men.

122“Have I made you happy?” she answered, with smiles and blushes sweeping across the loveliness of her face. “Without that everything would be incomplete with me.”

“Can you doubt it?”

“Oh, indeed, how can I?”

The river ran close up to Mrs. Vose’s garden, and could be seen from the back windows of her house creeping through the hemlock shadows that clothed the opposite banks. Here it was deep and slumberous, but further down stream it dashed off a rocky slope between the meadow flats, lying westward, and the village.

These flats could only be reached by a ford which would have been entirely silvered with sunshine but for a clump of splendid elm trees that stood near by, from which a bed of white sand sloped down to the water, looking like a snow drift from the distance. To this spot Lydia was sure to come when she had done up the slight work of Mrs. Anderson’s household. And here she retreated in a state of high dudgeon one day when Waldon had remained longer than usual in the sitting-room, which had been adorned for his coming.

Nancy Vose had joined her on the road, and scarcely had they reached the elms when her brother came strolling down to the ford, trailing his stilts in one 123hand and carrying a small painted basket in the other. Lydia had never forgiven the lad for the refusal to her request, and this sight rekindled her indignation.

“He’s going to pick strawberries for that man, as sure as you live, Nancy. I’ve asked him not to do any such thing, and he just goes right in my face and does it. Over and over agin, I’ve told him she can’t afford it, and all he cares is to laugh and ask which knows best, she or me.”

“Supposing you ask him not to once more. Mebby he’s forgot,” said Nancy.

Without waiting for permission, the sister ran toward the ford, and called after Ben.

“Ho, Ben, stop a minute. Lydia wants to speak with you.”

“Never mind. I know what it’s all about,” replied Ben, from the distance; “when I come back with the strawberries will be time enough.”

“He’s afraid to come; you talk to him so sharp,” said Nancy, coming with some reluctance back to the elms. “I never saw Ben so hateful.”

“So he won’t speak to me. He don’t try to make up,” said Lydia. “Very well, we’ll see.”

“Oh, Ben don’t mean nothing!” pleaded Nancy, seating herself under the elms. “Any way, he thinks all the world of you.”

“Does he?” said Lydia, biting the strings of her sun-bonnet. “By-and-by he’ll find out how much I like him.”

“Oh, you’ll get over it.”

“Will I?”

Here Lydia began to tear up the grass around her 124with energy. This exercise carried off the sharp edge of her anger, and she fell to thinking.

There was nothing in the scene before her to encourage wrathful emotions. On the contrary, everything was serene and pleasant. Beyond the opposite banks the meadows were golden with mottled lilies and buttercups. The elms threw their shadows delightfully on the river’s banks, and the stream just there sparkled and murmured joyously as if to entice them to good nature. It was a very coquette, that beautiful stream, sometimes stealing slowly and steadily along, reflecting the hedge rows on its banks, and rippling among the long grasses that drooped greenly down to meet it, or frolicking onward, flashing and eddying in the warm sunlight, and making music among the loose stones.

Lydia gazed on all this in sullen absent-mindedness. She was pondering over her wrongs.

Nancy also was getting serious from pure sympathy, and sat down by her moody companion, looking drearily down upon the bank where it shelved off to a space of white sand, which sloped gradually down to the river’s brink.

At last the girl grew restless; looking reproachfully at Lydia, she said:

“I’m getting tired of staying here with my feet in the grass. So, if you mean to sit here all day, looking cross as vinegar, I’ll dig that well in the sand a little deeper. It was awful nice fun yesterday.”

“What’s the good?” said Lydia, nursing her wrath.

“It’s fun, any way,” answered Nancy, darting off with her pink sun-bonnet hanging by the strings and flying out behind, and her hair all loosened to the sunshine.

125She came back directly, carrying two great white wood-chips, gathered from around the stump of a newly-fallen tree a little distance up stream.

Lydia did not move, and she flung the chips down in disgust, looking wistfully at the hole dug in the sand—too deep for her to work in it alone.

All at once Nancy’s face brightened, a swarm of dimples chased each other across her mouth, and her sunburned face sparkled with mischief.

She flung down the white wood-chips, and ran to the bank where Lydia was sitting.

“Lydia, Lydia, I have a thought!”

Lydia moved sullenly when the girl sat down by her, and muttered:

“Well, what of it?”

“You are mad as fire with Ben, and, come to think of it, so am I. You know he killed my beautiful black and yellow kitten only because the poor dear bit his hands and clawed his face till they bled. I told you all about it.”

“Yes, I remember. You wanted me to help pay him out.”

“Well, I’m going to do it now, if you’ll help.”

“How? I should just like to kill him, but he’s bigger and stronger than both of us put together.”

“I know that, Lydia, and he don’t scare worth a cent—wasn’t a bit frightened when I put the poor kitten all stiff and frozen into his bed. I got up ever so many plans to pay him off all by myself, but there’s no fun in doing things alone.”

“Not much,” answered Lydia, impatiently. “I should like to try it though.”

Nancy, placing her elbow on her knee, and her chin 126in the palm of her hand, looked into her companion’s face.

“You see that hollow choked up with Canada thistles across the river there,” said she, laughing.

Lydia turned her eyes to the jungle of thorny foliage, where a hundred crowns of soft feathery purple were unfolding to the sun, and nodded her heed.

“Well, when the great flowers first began to open and the leaves were covered with pretty, sharp thorns, I thought how nice they would be, laid all fresh and green on the under-sheet of Ben’s bed, some night when I could hide away the kitchen lamps and send him up-stairs in the dark.”

“Capital!” exclaimed Lydia.

“No, no, I gave it up; Ben has grown terribly shy since he found the poor frozen kitten on his pillow; besides, if he did jump right into the thorns, we could not be there to see the fun. It was a bad plan, so I gave it up. There’s no use trying it.”

“No,” answered Lydia. “Thistles wouldn’t half pay him for going against me.”

“Or me, the cruel wretch, as if I ever could get over what he did,” Nancy broke in. “I wonder the ghost of that poor kitten does not follow him about everywhere; but he shall be paid off. I had a plan in my mind while you sat there pouting.”

“What plan, Nancy?”

“Sit closer, and I will tell you,” replied the other gravely, moving along, and patting the grass with her hand.

Lydia took a seat as she requested, and bent her head in deep attention.

“We’ll dig the hole deeper and bury him.”

127“Bury him? O Nancy, your own, own brother?”

“Dear me, you won’t understand,” said Nancy. “Not forever and ever. I don’t mean that—not clear overhead, that might stop his breathing, but just so that he can’t get out. Oh, won’t it be fun!”

“We’ll do it,” cried Lydia, starting to her feet.

Nancy gave a shout and ran for the two great white wood-chips that lay on the sand.

When she came back Lydia had leaped into the hole, and had already filled her sun-bonnet with sand, which she held up for Nancy to empty into the river.

Never did two laborers work with more energy than these girls. Fortunately for their object, that hole was deep already, and Lydia, who worked in its depths till her hair was wet with the perspiration that dropped from her face like rain, soon found the surface above her head.

“That’ll do, I reckon,” she said, looking up and pushing the wet hair back from her eyes. “Just give hold here and help me out.”

Nancy knelt down, and gave both her hands in answer to this appeal, but all her strength was insufficient to raise Lydia to the surface.

“Bring a bean pole or something,” said Lydia, dropping back.

Nancy ran up the bank, and brought down the fragment of a broken rail, with which Lydia lifted herself to the sunshine again.

“Is he coming? Have you looked?” she questioned, casting a cross glance over the ford.

“No; he isn’t in sight.”

“Come then and break some twigs from the black alder bushes. No, I’ll do that, while you run down 128into that boggy hollow there and bring up some of the biggest swamp cabbage-leaves.”

Nancy went off like an arrow, and directly there was a sharp cracking of twigs in the nearest clump of alders.

Both girls came up to the elms at once—one with a bundle of sticks in her arms, the other half buried under a mass of great green leaves, on which moisture was trembling.

Down upon their knees they dropped, weaving the twigs, basket-fashion, over the mouth of the well they had dug. When this was done the twigs were concealed by a covering of green leaves, a treacherous strata of sand was smoothed level with the surface, and their work of mischief was done.

“Help me drag this piece of rail up behind the trees,” said Lydia. “No, no, I can do it alone. You keep watch for Ben.”

Lydia had hardly reached the elms when Nancy called out in great excitement:

“Here he comes.”

Sure enough, Ben Vose appeared that moment down by the ford, with a bunch of daisies, buttercups and meadow-lilies swung to his back like a sheaf of wheat, and a basket of strawberries in his hand. Swinging the basket on one arm, he mounted a huge pair of stilts and came with great strides across the ford.

Nancy ran toward him in high glee, leaving Lydia seated upon the bank.

“Come this way, Ben; you must come, or Lydia’ll never speak to you again. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to treat her so.”

Ben flung his long stilts on the grass and turned toward the elms, his lank arms swinging lazily, his 129head bent forward, and his face in a broad grin of sympathy with the evident glee of his sister.

“What’s the matter? What is it all about?” he asked, stumbling forward after the girl, who ran on flinging back smiles over her shoulder.

“All about! you’ve been awful hateful to Lydia, and she’s going out of the neighborhood on your account.”

“No!”

Ben was serious enough now.

Nancy paused and dropped a few words in strict confidence.

“I tell you, Ben, she’s sure to go back to the Mill Bridge if you don’t make up with her right away. Come along, now’s your time.”

Ben paused, and seemed to hesitate. Lydia had her face turned away as if resentful still. She was only afraid that he should see the laughter she was striving hard to quell.

“She’s sulking yet,” said Ben, addressing his sister, anxiously.

“Well, what if she is?” said the maiden, rendered serious by breathless suspense. “I would not be a coward anyhow.”

In order to prove that he was not a coward, Ben accepted Nancy’s lead. She gave a judicious leap across the dangerous spot, then turned to make sure that Ben was following.

A step forward, a faint crash, and down the poor fellow went up to the armpits, where he lodged ignominiously. The basket of strawberries flew up from his hold with a jar that sent half its red contents flashing up in the sun, and down on the white sand. The consternation in Ben’s face was something Cruikshank 130would have gloried in sketching; his struggles were grotesque beyond all ludicrous comparison. They drove Nancy into a wild delirium of glee. Lydia, who had been half upon her dignity, echoed the girl’s laughter as she danced, like a whirlwind, around her victim.

Poor Ben! there was no help for him; up to his armpits in sand, powerless to move, except as his head turned first to his sister, then to Lydia, who, half suffocated with laughter, sat upon the bank with a hand on each knee, cruelly enjoying the wonderful grimaces of his ugly face.

In vain did the poor fellow attempt to draw up his legs and set himself free. The girls had done their work thoroughly; the hole was too deep; his efforts were powerless. The sunshine poured its hottest rays down upon the mass of hair which illuminated his head, rising between those lank arms, like the face and wings surmounting an old-fashioned tombstone.

Still, Ben struggled with all his might. He clenched up great handfuls of sand with a blind effort to fling it at the girls, but it only blinded his eyes, and rained back into his thick hair. The contortions of his face threw the girls into convulsions of merriment, in the midst of which Nancy fell upon the ground laughing, crying and shouting feebly at every new movement or grimace of her prisoner. The very birds that lived in the old elms began to flutter among the leaves, and flew across the river terrified by the noise, and a fish-hawk, which was flying over head with his talons extended for some unfortunate perch, wheeled in the air, darted upward and away toward the hills, scared from his purpose by this unusual noise.

When Nancy was completely out of breath, and could 131mock him no longer, Ben ceased to struggle, and begged to be set free. His rueful face almost set the girl off again, but she gathered herself up to a sitting posture on the sand, using her finger with great decision in the terms she propounded:

“Now, Ben,” she said, stooping over with an elbow planted in her lap, her cheek resting on one palm, and her laughing eyes bent on the comical-looking head at her feet: “Now, Ben, if we will do it, will you promise not to tell of us?”

“Yes, you image, I promise.”

“You won’t tell mar?”

“No, I won’t.”

“Nor Miss Clara?”

“Oh, Nance, I wouldn’t let her know of this for the world,” answered Ben. “She’d alles be thinking of it, and laughing inside of her pretty mouth when I came in sight.”

“Just so. ‘Buried Ben,’ is what most people will call you if you ever tell. Not that we care; oh, no.”

“But I have promised not to tell. So do make haste, the sand in my eyes smarts awfully.”

“Poor fellow; but you see, Lydia and I must feel safe, you know?”

“What about?”

“Oh, everything. First, you must promise not to pay us off?”

“Well, it’s tough; but I will.”

“Will you be hung and choked to death if you do?”

“Well, yes; if that will pacify you.”

“You’ll never kill any more kittens?”

“Oh, Nancy, haven’t you forgot that yet?”

“No matter how much they scratch and claw?” continued 132the maiden, determined to make her conditions binding.

“Are you never going to get through?” pleaded Ben. “This hanging by one’s arms when your feet don’t touch is awful tiresome.”

“Poor fellow, I shouldn’t wonder; but then things must be settled just here; it’s easier for us, you know.”

“Do make haste, then!”

“You’ll never pick strawberries for that high-furluten gentleman to eat? Lydia don’t like it, I tell you.”

“But Miss Clara does. It is for her I picked them. She asked me partickler,” expostulated Ben.

“She don’t know what’s good for her,” said Lydia. “If they were for her I wouldn’t say a word. But anyway it ain’t fair to make you promise, hanging in the ground. Fun is fun; but I’m not mean enough for that. Come along, Nancy, and help him out. I like him ever so much more, because he won’t promise now, when it seems as if he couldn’t help himself.”

Before this sentence was uttered, Lydia was halfway down from the elms, dragging the fragment of broken rail toward the scene of Ben’s disaster. Using it as a lever, the poor fellow lifted himself out of the hole, and shook the sand from his hair and garments, like a Newfoundland dog freeing his shaggy coat from water.

“Lydia,” he said, taking his basket from the ground and shaking down the berries it still contained, “take ’em. I give up. I’d rather see tears of disappointment in Miss Clara’s eyes than have you keep mad with me. It’s hard on her and the old woman though. Now ain’t it?”

Lydia took the berries, but Ben could not make out 133whether she was looking at them or at the broken sheaf of flowers on his back.

“If the berries were for Miss Clara, these others I meant for you, thinking that they might help to make up, for I hadn’t the least idee you meant to be so revengeful.”

“It wasn’t her,” said Nancy. “She helped dig the hole for fun.”

“No, no. Don’t tell fibs, Nancy. I helped along, and laughed as much as you did when he fell in. It was awful mean.”

“Not so mean as I was,” said Ben, brought to sharp repentance by a brace of tears that seemed balancing each other across Lydia’s nose. “Now supposing we make up and say no more about it.”

Here Ben reached out his hand with awkward conciliation, while the old kindly expression came over his face.

Lydia put both her brown hands into his.

“Oh, Ben, do believe me, it was for Miss Clara’s own good I made a fuss.”

“Well, I ain’t a going to dispute that, nor anything else you want me to believe,” said Ben. “So take these, and do what you’ve a mind to with ’em.”

Lydia took the basket with a grateful smile, and the two walked away from the elms, making amicable explanations as they went.

Nancy looked after them with a rueful feeling of ostracism. Was Ben ready to make up with Lydia, and leave her, his own sister, in disgrace?

The girl darted forward and overtook the pair, fearfully anxious and out of breath.

“Ben, Ben, don’t keep mad with me. It was all fun, you know.”

134Ben attempted to shake her off; but she entangled her little hands in his rough fingers and persisted in being friends.

“It was all fair; you remember the kitten, Ben; it was only ‘tit for tat,’ you know, dear Ben.”

Ben looked into that half-laughing, half-penitent face, and a smile began to extend his mouth in spite of himself. Nancy took advantage of this, and nestled her little hand into his hard palm; his fingers closed over it—Nancy’s face brightened—she gave a look over her shoulder, and beckoned Lydia to take his other hand. The next moment he was leading them towards the old house, good-naturedly calling both all manner of pet names, honestly forgiving them his untimely burial.

The insatiable vanity of Waldon was appeased by the concession of love that Clara had made. Then worldly reasoning came in to check his ardor and minister to his selfishness. What did he want beyond that? Was she capable of filling more than a few weeks of his ambitious life? True, she was beautiful, bright as a star, capable of intense affection, richer than most girls of her age in feminine acquirements. Her appreciation of his works and his genius had been exquisite. In all his life he could not remember when the summer months had passed more delightfully with him. To monopolize the whole existence of a creature like that was a triumph 135of genius which he had not, till then, experienced. While he doubted the possibility of his conquest, there was so much zest and excitement in the pursuit he was in no haste to terminate it by a calm certainty.

Even in the first triumph of her frank but exquisitely modest confession, he had been cautious not to commit himself. A hungry craving for homage was forever upon this man. Even love was not enough to satisfy his intellectual greed; to meet that, love must be worship, and new votaries must be forever coming with fresh capacities of adulation.

This outgrowth of vanity, strong enough to be ranked among the passions, and to work as much evil, was at once his charm and his bane. It stimulated him to intellectual effort, gave warmth and apparent frankness to his manner which fascinated while it blinded the object.

I should do the man wrong in saying that his attentions to Clara originated in a wish to oblige the married daughter of Judge Lane, or that potentate himself. He was too well satisfied of the slight hold the young collegian possessed on her affections for the necessity of such treason, and would not have given an hour of his time to an unpleasant task for the whole Lane family put together.

Had Clara been less beautiful and bright, less worthy to do reverence to his genius, he would have wasted no more visits on her. He even laughed scornfully to himself at the delusion Mrs. Forbes was under. The man might be treacherous in his own behalf but not to oblige the best friend on earth. Even in extreme selfishness he was epicurean.

He pursued women for their love, as they gather armfuls of roses in the Orient for a single drop of ottar. 136That he was not coarsely vulgar, like most evil men, arose from the fact that love with him was a poetic passion of the mind, on which the senses acted like sunshine. He desired absolute homage, and gave back admiration for the time. Because these things were not vile and broad like the sins of many other men, he held himself in high superiority. He would have scorned to rob a man of his gold, but never hesitated to steal a woman’s soul.

It is not likely that Waldon ever thought of himself in this way, or premeditated the wrongs with which his path was thorned. It is something, he would say, “to give a woman the power of loving: she should at least be grateful for that.” In short this man was an egotist capable of such subtle sins that even his intellect could not discover their enormity.

In the solitude of his room, at the Stone Tavern, Waldon began to ask himself questions, which might have been propounded by other parties had Clara known the protection of any relative save that infirm old woman.

Remembering all that he had said, the selfish prudence of his nature came in and rebuked him.

The girl loved him: he had known that from the first hour that her eyes drooped beneath his gaze; for in a thousand ways, sweeter yet more convincing than words, she had unconsciously betrayed it. Why then had he been rash enough to win that confession from her lips? It was blindly giving her a right to expect something more definite in the future which he was not prepared to give.

She might even contemplate that an offer of marriage would follow the concession into which she had been so imprudently surprised.

137Here the man smiled with a sort of pitying scorn of the idea. Could even that inexperienced girl dream that he might be brought to burden his career with a penniless wife, and that sour-tempered decrepit old woman? Still the girl was so beautiful.

Thus Waldon reasoned with himself in the solitude of his room where he was completing some work for the publishers, or he might have left the place at once.

Ah! how different were the thoughts of Clara Anderson from this! All that night, after a sweet confession of love had escaped her lips, as burning carnation-flowers give their honey to the bees, she lay awake with her hands folded over her bosom, smiling to herself as she watched the moonlight creeping toward her head, like the gossamer of a wedding veil.

“He loves me—he loves me!” broke in soft murmurs from her lips, until the silence of the night was laden with the sweet sound, as the atmosphere is, sometimes, made heavy with the breath of flowers.

When the day broke, she arose from her bed, blessing the sunshine because it fell upon him also—blessing the wind which came sighing through the casement, because it came from the direction of his home. She took from the high chest of drawers in her room a garment of white muslin, soft and diaphanous as a cloud, longing to look more lovely in his sight; but a thrill of delicate 138pride rebuked the wish and she put it back, contenting herself with one he had already admired. But something new she would have, so she changed the blue ribbon for her hair into one that seemed woven from the leaves of tea-roses.

“I will have something fresh as the morning,” she thought, while threading the simple ornament through the waves of her hair. “Oh, how can I make myself more beautiful for him?”

Clara went down-stairs bright as the morning. Over and over again she thanked Lydia for services unheeded at other times. She called to Ben from the window, and gave him her last coin, from a pure impulse of happiness.

When her grandmother’s staff gave its first sound on the floor, she darted forward and helped the old woman tenderly to a seat at the breakfast-table, and chatted with her pleasantly, while her hands fluttered over the cup she had filled, dropping in lumps of white sugar, and adding a liberal allowance of cream, that made the old lady cry out against the extravagance.

There was little work done that morning; Clara’s hands flew like lightning when she thought of her task; but half the time they were folded in her lap while she looked dreamily out of the window, living over the scene of yesterday in her mind.

When the sun reached a certain flowering almond that had become a dial to her, she began to listen, at first with a smile on her face, then with a faint cloud overshadowing it, and, after an hour, with doubting anxiety.

He did not come.

That night she lay awake also, but those hands were no longer folded on her bosom, and if her eyes sought 139the moonlight it was through a mist of tears. The stillness of that vigil was broken by heavy sighs, and sometimes a weary sentence:

“What can be the matter? Oh, what can have kept him? Why, of all days in the year, should he fail to come now?”

Many a time during the coming week Clara asked this weary question, but no answer was given her.

One day as she sat drearily working by the window, which had a sort of painful fascination for her, the sound of coming hoofs made the heart in her bosom leap and recoil like a shot bird.

It was his horse; she knew the tread. He was coming at last, riding eagerly. Ah, how unjust she had been to him!

The horse came nearer and nearer; it stopped at the gate.

Clara did not look out. He should not be given to know how anxious she had been. Nay, she would take up her work and seem to be very busy. The gate opened, a step on the walk. That step smote the breath from her lips. Did Waldon ever move so heavily?

A man came up to the open window and looked through; a strange, rough man, who held a bunch of flowers in his hand—hot-house flowers, such as were seldom seen in that village even by the richest.

“Be you Miss Anderson?” questioned the man, resting his flowers on the window-sill.

A faint sickness had fallen upon Clara at the sight of this man. But she saw, as through a mist, that a note was attached to the flowers and her heart leaped toward it.

“Yes, yes,” she said, reaching out her hand.

140“Well, marm, I was told to give you this; so here it is.”

Clara laid the flowers in her lap and tore open the note. A poem was written on the thick, cream-white paper. The unequal lines danced before her eyes. Her very brain was dizzy. The girl conquered herself at last, and holding the paper between both shaking hands read it through.

Then she laid it down, as if the weight bore too heavily on her hands, and looked down upon it in breathless wonder, as if sorely the thing could not belong to her.

With a start, as if just coming out of a dream, she drew herself up and looked out of the window. Perhaps the man was regarding her curiously all this time.

No, he had mounted his horse and was riding away, unconscious of the misery that he left behind.

Clara was now awake to the meaning of that subtle poison in which Waldon concealed his perfidy, as serpents are hid under vine leaves. As if his own will were fate, he bewailed their separation as inevitable, and dwelt in glowing words on the happiness that for him was dead.

The girl understood it all; felt it all, striking through her pride with the keen edge of steel. But her spirit rose; the enormity of this softly-worded dismissal brought fires of unutterable scorn into her eyes.

For a moment she hated the man.

Then a flood of memories swept over her, she snatched up the flowers from her lap, bent her face down upon them, and burst into a wild passion of tears.

Lydia had heard the horseman come and go; then a sound of sobs reached her and she came into the room.

141“Oh, Miss Clara, don’t, don’t; he will come back again. Don’t, now!”

Clara lifted her face; a new pang went through her; this strange girl understood her humiliation; her keen eyes saw everything, but they were full of tears now.

“Lydia, Lydia, promise me that you will never mention this. Never tell any one that you have seen Mr.—Mr. Waldon here.”

“I never, never will. Oh, Miss Clara, I’ll just die first.”

“Most of all to Bertha and Miss Noel.”

“I wouldn’t tell them, not if it was to save their lives; no, I wouldn’t.”

“I can trust you, Lydia,” said the poor girl, and a weird smile stirred her lips, “though it seems now as if you were the only human being on earth that is not ready to turn upon me.”

“No,” said Lydia, loyal to her friends even in that tumultuous moment, “there’s Ben, and Nancy, and their mother, they’d just die for you. Then there’s our folks at the Mill Bridge. Oh, you’ve got lots on lots of friends.”

“You’ll be leaving me soon, Lydia.”

Clara laid her hands on the girl’s shoulders and looked earnestly into her eyes.

“I know that, Miss Clara, but I’ve promised.”

“And I take the promise, knowing how well it will be kept.”

Lydia wiped her eyes and choked back a sob.

“I must go when they send for me, or Mrs. Canfield won’t have any one but Miss Bertha that’s used to her ways. But Ben and his mother will be on hand, never fear.”

142

Bertha Canfield seemed to bring the glow and business of a bright outside world into the room where her mother was sitting when she came home. You never would have believed that slender, sad and delicate woman the mother of a being so full of grace and bloom as the girl who stooped down lovingly to kiss her before taking off her hat or gloves. The elder lady smiled upon the girl; but never, in this world, was a smile so infinite in its tenderness, yet without a gleam of sunshine in it. Bertha was used to the touching sadness of this smile; but a stranger, on first observing it, would have felt a mist of tears creeping to his eyes, if they were such eyes as get their dew from a compassionate heart.

“Why, child, you look so bright! After parting with Mary, too. I did not expect it.”

148“Do I, mother, dear? Well, yes, I do not look even decorously sorry,” answered the girl, taking off her bonnet before the glass, where a beautiful face looked smilingly into hers. “But I was dreadfully sorry to part with her, only something happened to make me ashamed of crying so, with people looking on. Why is it, mother, that the very best feelings we can have are those we are ashamed of?”

“Because our best feelings are those we give to God, and thus hold sacred from human intrusion,” said the elder lady, in her usual slow, gentle voice.

“I think it was not exactly so with me; but it really did seem as if my heart would break when the boat swept off with my friend, and I gave way so completely that a gentleman I never saw before came up and spoke to me.”

“Indeed?” answered the mother; and a quick, startled look changed her face completely.

“No wonder you are surprised. It really was not just the proper thing; but he was so kind, and, in a certain way, respectful. Mother, in my whole life I never saw a face like his. It almost drove Mary out of my mind. Don’t look reproachful—not out of my heart. That, no man on earth can ever do!”

Mrs. Canfield still looked anxious and a little wild. She evidently thought this encounter on the wharf of more importance than it appeared to her daughter.

“Mother, he was so unlike any man I ever saw!”

“Hush, child! He must have been a bold man—and you are so young. What did he say to you?”

“Nothing, much; but I will tell you every word. Then say if I have done wrong.”

The elder lady listened with anxious attention for the 149few words that had in reality passed between her daughter and the man whom she had already begun to regard with terror. Her face cleared up a little when she learned how harmless and simple the interview had been; still it troubled her. The warm, peach-like bloom on her daughter’s cheek, and a certain strange light in her eyes, made the mother’s heart grow faint in her bosom.

Bertha saw this, and crowded herself into the little sofa on which her mother was sitting. Then she drew the gentle woman down, and laid the pale cheek against her own.

“Have I troubled you, mother? Have I done wrong?”

“No, no—only I am so much alone that trifles seem important to me.”

“Perhaps I should not have told you. After all, it was nothing.”

Mrs. Canfield did not hear this. She was thinking of something else. Bertha felt the faint shudder that crept over that delicate frame, and it filled her with self-reproach.

“She is so nervous,” the girl thought, “and I have made her worse.” Then she began to talk of other things.

“Some day we will go down to Virginia, and see what Mary means when she talks about her hundred slaves, and plantation life in the Old Dominion—won’t we, mother? She made me promise that I would never let you rest till I got consent. She thinks it would make you strong. Shall we go some day?”

“If you would like it, Bertha. The pleasantest place for me will always be where you are.”

150“Dear, dear mother!”

“In all the wide world I have nothing else!” continued the mother, with pathetic sadness.

“And I? What have I but you, mother?”

Mrs. Canfield lifted her mournful eyes. They were large and dark gray, like her daughter’s; but all the fire had been quenched in them years ago, when love was crucified in a heart warm and ardent as that which swelled in the young bosom against which her head rested.

“Some day, my child—and it may not be long—there will be only a second place for me here!”

“This is a cruel thought—an impossible thing—believe it, mother! Oh, do believe it! How can such fancies creep into your mind?”

“We will not talk of them—at any rate, as yet, my child.”

“Nor think of them, mother. There! sit down among your cushions, and I will sing for you.”

Bertha arranged the cushions, put her mother’s workbasket in tempting proximity with the hand she dropped, and opened the piano. She was, in fact, so restless that nothing but action of some kind seemed possible to her. Mrs. Canfield took up her work, but scarcely drew a thread in the delicate embroidery; not that she listened to the rich burst of music that swelled through the house—her soul was too far away for that. But Bertha carried herself out of all sad thoughts by the glory of her own voice, and left her instrument only when the sunset flung a shower of gold upon her through the open windows.

Just then the door-bell rang, and she stood up, with her hand on the keys, holding her breath. It was a 151wild idea, but she had a presentiment that something unusual was going to happen. She looked around for her mother; she had left the room. That moment the old Quakeress came in with a letter in her hand.

“For me?” said Bertha, blushing crimson, and reaching forth her hand.

“For thee!” said the old lady.

Bertha looked at the address. A clear, bold hand had impressed the creamy white of the envelope, but she had never seen it before. She broke open the envelope and went to her room. It was the first letter that Fletcher had ever written her—a noble, grand letter; but that moment her heart was full of other subjects, and she fell to dreaming while it was in her bosom.

In New York, where Russell Waldon was the centre of a choice intellectual circle, he was in the habit of giving bachelor parties such as the authors and artists of Old England have made famous. Out of this circle he had selected some half dozen unquestioning admirers of whom he was the literary autocrat and chief.

On the day that Bertha Canfield took leave of Mary Noel on the wharf, he had left the Stone Tavern, which was becoming dreary from want of excitement, and came down to New Haven, in order to meet young Lane, who had broken restlessly away from Saratoga, resolved to press his suit with Clara Anderson once more if Waldon had any encouragement to give him.

152On his way through the town, Waldon had met several of his choice friends loitering in that most beautiful of all summer retreats, and, with his usual offhanded hospitality, invited them to a little supper, which he forthwith ordered at the principal hotel.

Perhaps some cowardly gleams of conscience made a meeting with Lane, at first, in the company of others, desirable to the man who had with such cool effrontery betrayed the most sacred trust that could be imposed on him.

Let this be as it may; a brilliant knot of young men assembled about Waldon’s table that night, and among them was young Lane, impatient for the moment to come when he could ask the questions burning in his heart.

At the choice suppers where Waldon presided, wit was expected to be more sparkling than the champagne, and humor more mellow than the fruits; for, with him, genius counted for nothing if it was not brilliant, and even then secondary to his own, which made him a social marvel wherever he went.

That night when the wit flagged and the wine flowed freely, Waldon spoke of the thought that had agitated him all the day; for he talked freely, among his favorites, of those things that most men hold sacred as prayers.

“Ulster,” he said, addressing a clever young graduate who had just entered the literary world under the glories of a sparkling valedictory, “you have had a pretty fair run of all the boarding-schools lately—tell me if you have seen anything remarkable in that line.”

“Remarkable! That is according to taste, you know, Waldon.”

“A girl—say eighteen or twenty—with bewilderingly 153fine eyes, and magnificent hair. She has lately graduated at some up-town seminary. I learned that much from the crowd.”

“Surely you cannot mean the girl who set madam’s school on fire with jealousy?”

“I dare say. The person I met would be very likely to do that.”

“A superb figure?”

“Juno never had a finer.”

“Almost a brunette?”

“Too light for that. A pure, rich complexion.”

“Sings like a mocking-bird?”

“Not exactly. Mocking-birds sing in the open air. She did not oblige me so far.”

“It is the same girl, I’ll be sworn. I saw her once, and was half in love at the first sight.”

Walden frowned. His supreme selfishness resented the idea that any other man would presume to speak in this fashion of the woman he had deigned to notice.

Ulster saw the cloud, and redeemed himself.

“It may not be the same person. Our schools are crowded with beautiful girls,” he said.

“Did you learn this girl’s name?”

“It was Bertha—Bertha—”

“Never mind—I know it myself. But you have seen her, and can bear witness that she is worthy of our wine. Gentlemen, fill up to the loveliest woman that draws breath!”

“Another?” laughed one of the young men.

“A woman of exquisite beauty!” murmured Ulster, filling his glass.

“The only woman who ever brought the heart into my mouth with a glance!” said Waldon, watching the 154sparkles float up into his wine, as if they had been diamonds. “She inspired me, and I have not written such poetry in a year!”

“A poem! a poem! Give us the poem, Waldon!” cried Ulster, setting down his glass. “It must be wonderful, to match her loveliness!”

“And she superb, to match his genius!” said a guest opposite, affecting to speak under his breath.

Waldon took in the flattery, but was almost unconscious that he had heard it. His parasites had learned to deal out their homage so daintily, that he might feel but not seem to accept it.

“The poem! the poem! But first we drink to the unknown lady.”

Waldon drained his glass with the rest, and took out the first draft of his poem. There was a hush in the room. That was, of course, expected. When he began to read, one or two of the guests lifted the half-drained glasses to their lips, and sat them down noiselessly, that nothing might break the full, rich swell of a voice that would have made commonplace ideas grandly harmonious. These young men, even in the heat of their wine, wondered that this exquisite delicacy of thought and richness of expression could belong to a man capable of the cruel acts which they had too frequently witnessed in him.

When Waldon had finished reading, he leaned back in his chair and calmly awaited the homage which was never withheld in that company. The champagne those young men were drinking did not flow more freely than their praises.

“Some fast school-girl, I’ll be sworn,” observed one of these young Bohemians, as he went, arm-in-arm with 155another guest, from Waldon’s door. “A fellow that writes such poetry has only to imagine a girl beautiful to believe it. There was Byron, you know, and his ‘Maid of Athens,’ a regular fright. None of us fellows will be wise to run crazy about this girl till we have seen her. Wald’s poetry is superb—but that for his facts!”

A loud snap of the young man’s fingers, and a stumbling step on the sidewalk ended this lucid opinion.

Meantime Waldon and Lane remained at the table, where a glow of fruit and the rich ruby and topaz sparkle of half-drained glasses brightened even the disarray of a feast enjoyed.

Waldon pushed back a claret pitcher that stood in the way of his elbow with a look of impatient disgust, and regardless of the questioning anxiety in his companion’s eyes, broke forth with his usual egotism.

“Lane,” he said, “you must know the young lady I was speaking of. She has a grandfather or something living up at the Mill Bridge; at any rate she is staying there now.”

“Yes, I recognized the description at once, but was not willing to mention her name before all those fellows.”

Any man but Waldon would have blushed at this indirect rebuke. He only met it with an angry flash of the eyes.

“The honor or dishonor done to the name of a lady depends on the lips that utter it,” he said, haughtily.

Lane grew impatient.

“Let all that pass,” he said; “I wished to speak of other matters.”

“Not yet, Lane; I am serious about this Bertha Canfield—a pretty name, Bertha—quite serious. Don’t give me one of your knowing looks; I am indeed.”

156“For how long?” questioned Lane.

“How can any man answer a question like that? Forever! I tell you, Lane, I am in dead earnest. Tell me all that you know about her.”

“Oh, the young lady has no romantic history that I am aware of. She is well connected. The mother is a Mrs. Canfield—a widow—who lives mostly in New York. She is not much in society, I fancy; but there is a look of refinement about her that compels respect.”

“Lane,” said Walden, eagerly, “I must know this young lady. Will you help me? I want a favorable introduction—such as your sister might obtain for me, I dare say. Manage it, and I will do anything on earth for you.”

“My sister knows everybody; she can manage it, I dare say,” answered Lane; “I know the young lady myself, however, but have some compassion on her.”

“Compassion! Can that word belong to a woman whom Waldon admires?”

“But I was thinking that she might love you.”

“Might! By Heavens, she shall!”

“Some day you will come across a woman who will demand a great deal more than you have yet been willing to give.”

“I hope so! If this is the woman, so much the better. I have been all my life searching for her.”

“But I thought all ideas of marriage hateful to you.”

“Marriage! Lane, I am of a generous nature, and capable of great sacrifices.”

A smile that displeased Waldon crept over the young man’s face. He admired, at times almost worshipped, this gifted man; but only real goodness can insure permanent respect, and germs of underlying contempt 157would now and then shoot up through his delusions, and mar them, like rank weeds in a flower-garden. One of these swift monitors disturbed his features.

Waldon saw it and frowned.

“Why do you smile? I see a woman so unlike—so above anything feminine that I have ever met before, that the very memory of her smile is like a drink of old wine to me. I long to know her better. Will you help me?”

“I could have done once, for she was a school-friend of Clara Anderson’s.”

A hot flush crimsoned Waldon’s face; for an instant he lost all self-possession.

Lane looked at him keenly.

“You can tell me, Waldon, whether this is an advantage or not? No doubt you have done a friend’s part by me with her, but I have hardly the courage to ask with what success.”

Waldon hesitated. In his mind the image of Clara Anderson, in all her spirited beauty, rose vividly before him. He had given the girl up, but felt a jealous dislike of any renewal of her friendship with Lane. Even more, a dread that the young man might discover the almost intangible treachery of his own conduct.

This he resolved to guard against, and used the hesitation he could not conquer to that effect.

“If I have appeared to avoid the subject, Lane,” he said, with apparent frankness, “it is because I have really nothing definite to say. I visited the young lady frequently, and exerted myself as delicately as possible to discover her real sentiments. She is a splendid creature, no doubt of that, but proud as Lucifer.”

“I know, I know,” interrupted Lane. “It is on that 158pride I found my hope. Under it all must lie some tenderness, some glimmers of love. She is capable of so much feeling, such noble sacrifices. To be really and fully beloved by that girl might be the glory of any man, even yourself, Waldon.”

A strange expression shot over Waldon’s face. He was a man of swift mental calculation, and adroitly seized upon these impassioned words.

“You are right, Lane. She is a creature that few men could resist. I went to see her often, for her nature is a study; sought, for your sake, to win an insight into the feelings that must exist under all that frosty pride, but I found the task too dangerous, and gave it up.”

“You! Waldon. Oh, I might have known that your friendship in this would prove dangerous. You have acted nobly by me; I shall never forget it.”

Waldon took the hand that his friend reached out; his face beamed with sympathy; and such was the peculiar construction of his character that he was half-convinced of his own magnanimity.

“I could not do less, my dear fellow; so you must not give it too much importance. You see I escaped the fascinations of one woman only to be ensnared by another.”

“You are thinking of Miss Canfield; she is lovely—”

“As a dream!” Waldon broke in.

Waldon reflected a moment after this outburst of admiration.

Yes, he could develop the thought that had just flashed into his mind. The pride of that girl would forever shield his secret even from her best friend. Besides, had he not confessed almost as much as she could tell, and turned it to his own advantage?

159“Miss Canfield knows how much you admire her friend, I suppose,” he said.

“I have never kept it a secret; of course she does.”

“Then why not make her your confidante?”

“Why not, indeed!” said Lane, with great animation. “She is one of the kindest-hearted creatures in the world.”

“Women understand the delicate diplomacy of such affairs so much better than the wisest man,” said Waldon.

“I will see her. We will go back to your old quarters by the morning train. There is no reason against riding up to Mill Bridge at once.”

Waldon’s eyes sparkled. He took Lane’s hand in his with a cordial grasp.

“Nothing can be better,” he said. “Now that you are yourself again, I can see great encouragement in your plan.”

Lane colored with shame.

“Did you think me beyond hope?” he said. “I was reckless, revengeful, glad to wound my father; but only tortured myself with a two-edged sword. In mortifying my father I struck down my love. It was a form of madness, nothing worse than that.”

Once more Waldon reached forth his hand.

“Ah, this looks promising, Lane. Stand firm in that, and all things are sure to turn out well.”

Here both men arose, their hands still clasped.

“In the early train?” said Waldon.

“Yes, I shall be ready. Good-night!”

Waldon sat down and fell into thought after his friend left, slowly sipping a glass of wine, as if that aided the drift of his meditation. He had been from the first 160anxious to keep his friendship for the Lane family intact. The young man was one of his most devoted admirers; would possess great wealth, and, as one of his social satellites, might be of great importance to him in his future course of life.

The sister, Mrs. Forbes, held a commanding position in the best society of New York, and her countenance was of great value in that respect.

All these advantages had been put in great peril by his rash intimacy with Miss Anderson; but one bold dash of policy had given him a stronger hold upon the Lane family than ever. Still a rankling distaste was left; his vanity revolted at the idea that Lane should aspire, even unconsciously, to fill the place he had abandoned in Clara Anderson’s heart.

“Fool!” he said, draining the last drop of wine from his glass, as he prepared to go. “Fool! as if all the women under Heaven could drive my image from her heart.”

“Were you frightened about me, mother? I could not help being a little late; the ride was splendid, but so long.”

Bertha was untying her riding-hat and taking off her gauntlets as she spoke, while the shadowy woman hovered around her with the loving solicitude of a heart always apprehensive, always tender in its solicitude.

“No, I was not really frightened: that would be too 161strong a word, Bertha; but somehow I am always apprehensive when you cross the ford.”

“Yes, yes, I know, dear mother, but it is so wrong of you; why the water was not up to Jason’s knees; he enjoyed it amazingly. So did I; but one does come home tired, and a little heart-sick too, after a visit to Clara. She is so sad, so depressed; I declare her eyes have grown twice their natural size since she was here, and have such a strange, dreary expression. I am afraid the poor girl is working herself to death, mamma.”

“I am sorry to hear that; we must have her over here again. I dare say it was the shock of that awful time that has disturbed her. I cannot think of it without shuddering.”

“Ah, you are sure to do that when one mentions a great storm; I always tremble when one comes up for your sake.”

“For my sake! Really, I think you never have a fear for yourself.”

“For myself,” answered the lady, with a sweet, sad smile. “Why, Bertha, you are all of myself that is worth caring for.”

Bertha wound both arms lovingly around her mother’s neck.

“I came very near not being yours only a few weeks ago, didn’t I, mother? Wasn’t that a wonderful escape?”

Mrs. Canfield cast both arms around the young creature, and held her close.

“I’m glad you were not in sight when the old bridge went down, mother. It would have frightened you to death. Oh, the crash was awful! I seem to feel the planks parting now, and that poor, brave horse going down, down into the depths of the flood!”

162“Thank God, my child was saved!”

“Oh, yes, I also thank Him. But it seems to me like a dream now—one of those dreams that are constantly sweeping us into danger, and, just as we are about to fall into awful depths, land us in some other place. But you look pale, mother—you tremble!”

“Yes, it is natural when I think of your danger. I was wrong, fearfully wrong to let you go.”

“But how could you foresee the danger, mamma? We started early in the morning, when the water was rising; but had no idea of a flood. Mr. Fletcher would not have let us go an inch, if he had dreamed of it; for we all knew that every one at home would be frightened to death if the river swelled above its banks. There never was a flood so overwhelming and sudden as that in the valley before; you have no idea how the rain poured down while we were on the mountains.”

“Yes, one.”

How hoarse that gentle voice had become! How cold the hand was which still touched Bertha’s neck!

“Yes, one. I remember they told me about that. The bridge gave way then, and a gentleman was drowned. Some person grandfather knew, was it not?”

Bertha received no answer; but she felt the hand on her shoulder turning colder.

“Clara Anderson told me about it as we rode down the mountains, and said it happened the year she was born, and she was near twenty. That is just my age. Did you know the gentleman, mother?”

Still no answer; but the hand upon her shoulder grew cold as ice.

Bertha turned as the little hand dropped, and saw that her mother had fallen down among the cushions of 163her couch, where she lay white as marble, with her eyes closed.

“Mother! mother! what is the matter?” she cried out, in quick alarm. “What have I said? What can I do? Grandmamma! grandmamma!”

The old lady, so frantically summoned, came up-stairs in haste. Without pausing to ask a question she stooped down and lifted that white face into a current of fresh air that swept in through a window that Bertha hastened to open.

“Here is water, ammonia, cologne. Oh, grandmamma, is she dying?” cried the poor girl in an agony of terror.

“No, no, my dear; thee need not tremble so; she is coming to, now. Does thee feel better, my child?”

There was a faint stir of the eyelids, a quiver of the lips, as if the fainting woman would have been glad to answer, but had no power. The two watched her for a while in silence.

“Mamma! mamma! are you better?” cried Bertha, giving way to the tender impatience of her youth, and kneeling down, she rested the pale head upon her bosom. “What was it that came over you, mother?”

“Nothing much. You were telling me of danger. You are my only child, Bertha, and the thought that I might have lost you—”

Mrs. Canfield said this faintly, looking into her daughter’s face with pathetic tenderness, and smoothing her white hand with her own trembling fingers.

“But I am here, safe and well,” said Bertha, kissing her mother till the warmth came back to her face.

“Yes, thank God!”

The mother’s face brightened.

“We will never speak of that awful old bridge again,” said Bertha.

164The mother only answered by a cold shudder.

“Grandfather told me not to talk with you about it; but how could I help talking when you questioned me? Besides, I had to tell about Mr. Fletcher, for he saved my life, and that was a thing you had to learn in order to understand the rest.”

“Yes, yes—everything you have done is right. But tell me, darling, do you—can you—love this young man? You had a letter from him?”

“Me! Oh, mother, why did you ask that question just as I was so happy? Love him! I tried to; I thought, perhaps, it was love; but now—”

Bertha paused suddenly, and a flood of scarlet swept over her face, neck and arms.

She looked around fearing that her grandmother was there; but that gentle old lady had glided softly down-stairs when the invalid found herself able to converse. Like most sensitive persons this feeble woman, having once entered on a painful subject, pursued it closely, fearing that the courage to open it again might be wanting in the future.

“Now,” said that gentle mother, regarding the vehement protest of that blush with anxiety, “now you have discovered that it is only gratitude that you feel. I am glad of that. He has saved my child, and I would give him everything I have but herself. It will be a sad day, Bertha, when you and I have to part.”

“We never will part!” answered Bertha, straining her arms tighter about that slender form. “There, now, you are getting comfortable again. We won’t talk of serious things any more. Just tell me again that you love nothing so well as me. It is so pleasant to hear it from you.”

165“Foolish girl!” said the mother, smiling faintly, but with a sparkle of animation kindling in her eyes.

“Who makes me so foolish? Not my dear little mother! Oh, no!”

Bertha was rearranging her hair in the glass as she spoke. All at once her own face struck her as being of a different type to the delicate and soft features of her mother. She had never thought of this before; but now the lovely image in that glass was an object of peculiar interest. She turned her head.

“Mother, dear, who is it I look like—my father?”

A wild light broadened in Mrs. Canfield’s eyes, and she almost shrieked out:

“What? What did you ask?”

“Only if I looked like my father. It seems to me as if I must!”

Mrs. Canfield sat a moment with both hands drooping to her lap. Then she said, more quietly than she had yet spoken:

“Yes, Bertha, you look like your father.”

“I thought so, little mother. It was not from you that I got my height, or this hair. Oh, I hear some one calling!” Here she fell upon her knees, and kissed her mother over and over again. “You are so good to let me go! I have left everything ready. The books and flowers are all on the table. There is your footstool, and an extra cushion for your back. Grandmamma will come in if you only touch the bell. Now are you quite comfortable?—that’s a dear! You always say yes. Let me slant the shade a little against the sunlight. Now I will go down and see who wants me.”

When Bertha went out of that room it seemed cruelly darkened. There a gentle little woman lay back against 166her cushions, with a look of trouble on her sweet, worn face, that had not been permitted to appear while her daughter was present. Slowly and sadly the tears came into her eyes, and trembled down her cheeks. Once or twice she clasped two slender hands over her face, and they dropped away helpless and wet.

She arose from her couch, looked around as if dreading observation, then bolted the door, that no one might intrude upon her, and opened a little brass-bound travelling-desk, which always stood locked in a corner of her room. From this she took the miniature of a young and remarkably handsome man, dressed in the fashion of twenty years ago, and, sitting down upon the couch, gazed upon it with infinite tenderness.

More than once she lifted her hand impatiently, and wiped away the tears that blinded her vision. Then she fell to kissing the painted shadow with passionate sobs, murmuring:

“Yes, darling, she is like you! I have just told her so. She smiled that dear old smile.”

Tears blinded the poor woman now, and, clasping the miniature between both her palms, she dropped them in her lap, holding her treasure close.

After a while she opened the desk and the drawer where was the miniature of another man, older and gray-haired. This she put aside to make room for her treasure, locked the desk, and crept off to her couch again, after drawing both curtains over the windows that no sunshine might look in upon her grief.

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Bertha slept. The nervous shock had passed off, and she was dreaming of a water-fall where every drop of spray broke in music as it fell to the earth; but all at once the smile left her lips, her brow contracted, 189and she began to breathe heavily. The door had opened without noise; Clara Anderson came into the chamber and drew close to the bed. A pale, anxious face it was that looked down upon that sleeping girl.

Again Bertha frowned, and put up her hands vaguely, as if she felt danger nigh even in her dreams.

“Bertha! Bertha Canfield!”

Bertha started from her pillow. Her nerves were so shaken by her fall that the voice alarmed her; but she recognized Clara at once, and, though still weak and faint, held out her hand smiling.

“They told me you were hurt, Bertha. I could not go away knowing that.”

“You are kind, Clara. I have been looking for you, it seems to me; but just now my head is a little bewildered. When were you not kind to me? Clara, I think I was dreaming about you just now.”

“Were you, Bertha? Sometimes I wish that no dream would ever haunt me again.”

Clara’s voice sounded so strangely that Bertha half raised herself on the pillow, and supported her head on one arm, while Clara stood regarding her with that singular look—half tender, half questioning.

The young girl shrunk from that earnest gaze and made a nervous effort to arrange her dress, for her habit had been unbuttoned, and left the graceful whiteness of her neck exposed, while her garments were generally in picturesque derangement. Indeed, Bertha looked very lovely amid the shadows of the room, with her hair falling about her shoulders and her great eyes full of strange bewilderment.

“I hardly knew you at first, Clara,” she said, wishing to atone for any deficiency of warmth in her reception. 190“I am dizzy still from my fall. I did not know how nervous it has made me till now.”

“Have you known the man who rescued you long?” questioned Clara, speaking low and hoarsely.

Bertha was wounded by the tone of this question. There was bitterness in it.

“Not very long,” she answered coldly.

“I should think gratitude to any one a sweet feeling,” pursued Clara, more as if talking to herself than addressing her companion. “Almost like love.”

Bertha felt hurt. She was both embarrassed and pained without knowing why.

“You have grown very lovely since we met. Still that is only a few weeks ago,” said Clara, regarding her with embarrassing interest.

Bertha turned away her face. She could not bear to be so coldly complimented by her close friend.

“You are angry,” said Clara. “I was very rude. I beg your pardon. You see I am forgetting even the usual forms of social intercourse in my hermit life.”

“Then you most be greatly changed in a few days; you, Clara, who were my model for everything kind and gracious.”

“Was I ever that? Perhaps. But with some people harshness genders harshness, and I have been treated so roughly.”

“I am very, very sorry,” said Bertha, and her eyes filled with tears; “but perhaps you take little slights too earnestly. The girls never meant half they said or did at school, you know.”

“The girls! Ah! their playful spite was heaven to what I have experienced since. Look at me. Am I handsome?”

191There was a mocking irony in Clara’s voice that troubled her friend.

“You always were the most beautiful girl in your class—I used to think in the whole school. But somehow you—there is a change.”

“That is honest,” answered Clara. “Then you think I have lost all the beauty for which some of the girls hated me?”

“Lost—no! But it is changed. There is something on your forehead which makes one wonder. You are pale, too, and your eyes have a light that I never saw in them at school.”

“I look much older within the last month, don’t I?”

“No; but stranger—less contented. I fear that you are not quite happy. This sewing must be hard work. I wonder why you chose it for a living. People don’t think how sensitive a person may be about working. To me there is something grand in honorable labor of any kind.”

“You are very kind—honestly kind, I think, Bertha.”

“I meant to be so; indeed I did.”

Again Clara returned to the one painful subject.

All at once, with an effort that seemed to hold her breath in thrall, Clara grasped Bertha’s hand.

“Bertha, we have been friends—fast friends—and it will be an evil day when we are anything else. Tell me; do you care for—do you love the man who dragged you back from the precipice to-day?”

Bertha tried to wrest her hand from that fierce clasp.

“Why, Clara, what has come over you, that you ask such strange, wild questions?”

“Strange are they; wild and rude. Still, Bertha, you will remember our old friendship and answer them.”

192“No one need be ashamed of being loved, I dare say; but I am very reluctant to think of these things, much less talk about them, even to you, Clara.”

“Still, do answer me.”

“This is unkind, Miss Anderson,” said Bertha, with tears in her eyes. “I cannot permit any one to question me in this way.”

Clara looked at her earnestly, and a shade of gentle feeling softened the brightness of her eyes.

“Yes, it is unkind, and I have no right to annoy you,” she said. “Still, if you would only be frank with me.”

“I will be frank, and tell anything that one girl has a right to ask of another; but I cannot listen to such cruel questions. I am sure you did not think how strange they were.”

“Oh, yes, I know,” answered Clara, with a hoarse laugh; “but I have gone through with worse things so often that all this seems gentle. Harsh usage has made me rude.”

“You were never harsh or pressing like this before, and I dare say did not mean it now; but I am not well yet, and so nervous,” she continued, with quivering lips. “Pray forgive me if I have been impatient.”

“I did not mean to wound you. There exists a reason why I have asked so awkwardly, and in so many ways, if you love that man. Would it distress you much to answer me? Frankness might save a world of pain.”

Bertha’s eyes flashed and her cheeks flushed angrily.

“You have no right to ask such questions, Clara Anderson, let your reasons be what they may. If you wish to talk against Mr. Waldon, or offer advice about 193him, I would rather not hear a word; that would seem as if I had an interest in him.”

Clara’s face lighted up. It was a beautiful and instantaneous change. She was so anxious to have her fears contradicted that her heart seized on this vague speech as a denial.

Bertha remarked the sudden change in her features—a change such as few human beings are capable of—and smiled.

“Have I said anything to give you pleasure?” she murmured.

“Me! No! Why do you ask?”

“Your cheek bloomed out so suddenly, and I could just catch a shadow of the old dimples about your mouth.”

“Well, you see how soon smiles spring out of kindness,” she said eagerly. “Now I am going away and will not trouble you again.”

“You do not trouble me,” said Bertha, struggling between kind feelings and a sense of offended modesty. “If you would only talk of something else I should be very glad; only I am not strong just now.”

“I see it. Forgive me,” answered Clara, moving toward the door. “Sleep if you can; be happy, and sometimes think kindly of others in the world who are quite as sensitive, but less fortunate than yourself.”

“I do think of them very often, and always kindly. If I am better off than some it is from no merit of my own, while there is real honor in such struggles as you are making, my dear friend.”

“Well, thank you. I am going now.”

“Wait a moment, please! Don’t be offended, but—”

“Well. Go on.”

194“I would like to say something to you about Mr. Lane.”

“Not now! Not now!” answered Clara. “I cannot think of him!”

“I meant no harm,” pleaded Bertha. “I beg your pardon.”

Again Clara swept toward the door, and paused with her hand on the latch.

“I thank you,” she said; “you meant kindly. I am sorry to have disturbed you. Good-by.”

Clara Anderson left the Stone Tavern and was going blindly toward her horse when she felt the clatter of a pair of hoofs almost over her head, and, looking up, saw that a horse in full speed had been suddenly thrown back on his haunches and must have trodden her down but for the prompt energy of its rider.

She stood mute and helpless whilst the man leaped from his saddle and came towards her, pale and intensely agitated.

“Clara! Great Heavens, is it you? I have been miles and miles searching for you.”

She did not heed the strangeness of this confession, but stood gazing upon him, pale still, but with soft relenting in her eyes.

“Are you hurt? Did the hoofs of that awkward 195beast touch you? or is it only the shock?” he questioned, terror-stricken by her pallor.

“Nothing has hurt me,” said the girl, looking at him in a wild, questioning way. “Nothing ever can hurt me again I think. But I am glad we have met, Edward; I was cruel to you once. It seems a long time ago; you remember we were by the willows that overhang that trout pool in the hills; I was sorry and tried to call you back, but you would not come.”

“I know, I know,” said Lane. “I was hurt, angry, anything but myself, but shame and sorrow for my rudeness came afterward, or I should not have been searching for you since morning as I have been.”

“Searching for me—how?” said Clara, lifting both hands to her temples. “I—I came to meet Bertha—Bertha Canfield—she was a dear friend of mine once—and you have been waiting for me. I did not think any one would care to search for me.”

“I would go to the ends of the earth for you, Clara.”

“Would you, Edward? How strangely things get twisted! Well! well! there was something I meant to say for you.”

“Let us go out of the sight of these windows,” said Lane, glancing toward the tavern where he saw a woman’s face peering curiously through a break in one of the red vallances that blazed across the lower sashes of the bar-room. “Come this way.”

As he spoke, Lane opened a rude gate that led to a garden back of the house, and from thence to a broken hill-side covered with oak and chestnut trees.

Clara followed him without a thought, beyond the great wish of atonement that filled her aching heart. She walked by his side with quick, uneven footsteps 196until they stood within the shelter of the oaks and were surrounded with broken rocks, where the gushing waters of some spring could be heard above the soft shivering of the leaves.

Here the girl paused and placed one hand on her companion’s arm. Surprised by this act he looked at her earnestly. Those pale, regular features were terribly agitated. Her eyes were flushed, her lips trembled. All the haughty pride, which seemed a portion of Clara Anderson’s nature, was swept away. Her features revealed great anguish, nothing more. The young man had turned as one who expects reproaches; but when he met her look his features relaxed, and for a moment his eyes rested on her with an expression of sad tenderness.

“I have wanted to speak to you so much,” she said, “to beg your pardon over and over again for the unhappiness I have brought upon you.”

“Have you indeed relented, Clara?” cried the young man, grasping her hand.

“Indeed I have! I did not know how terrible such agony could be. How should I? how should I?”

Her voice went out in a pathetic wail, the misery in her eyes made them black as midnight.

“Oh, Clara! is this true? Has one gleam of love for me softened your heart?”

“Love! love for you, Edward! Oh, not that, but something better, holier; such tender pity; such infinite gratitude for your love; for myself such overwhelming wretchedness—that is nothing; I am speaking only of you, Edward; it is your charity, your forgiveness, I am asking for, that is all.”

“That is all!” exclaimed the young man, hoarse and wild with disappointment. “Then you have nothing 197but pity to give to the man who worships the very ground you tread upon, who has made himself a madman on your account, a byword to his friends.”

“No, no,” cried the girl, “you have never been that, you never will be that.”

“God only knows what I shall be if you continue this course of torture; now lifting me to Heaven with a gleam of hope, then dashing me down to earth again. You, Clara Anderson, drove me into a reckless course that has brought repudiation upon me, even from my own father.”

“I did, I did,” cried the wretched young creature, wringing her hands.

“You taunted me with the acts of those who have been cruel to me as they were to you.”

“I know it.”

“You drove me by your mad pride into the very excesses with which I had been charged, innocently till then.”

“O God, forgive me—I cannot forgive myself,” she moaned.

“I became an outcast from my father’s house, because he had been cruel to you. But for one friend I might have been an outcast from society.”

“A friend—what friend?”

“I spoke of Waldon, a noble, true man, who held forth his hand to me, and when others dropped away from my unworthy fate, gave me his confidence.”

The girl, white as death, shivering in all her frame, threw out her hands as if pleading for her life.

“Do not say more, you are killing me. Hear what I can plead for myself—no, no, I will not attempt that—the ground over which we must tread is too thorny. I 198was harsh, cruel, very cruel, sarcastic, insulting, but this blow I have not deserved!”

“What, Clara? I have given none.”

“No, no, I do not complain, but you have not yet fathomed the depths of misery that underlie some lives. I have been unjust, cruel, wicked; but what do you know of real humiliation! No one but a woman can feel that!”

Lane seized the two hands she had clasped in her anguish and held—nay, wrung them, till at another time she must have cried out with the pain. His voice was low and broken; tears stood in his eyes.

“Oh, Clara, my poor Clara, do not wound yourself in this dreadful manner. Have mercy on yourself and me.”

“Not mercy for myself, but humiliation. Ah, do not fear that I shall not be punished for the havoc my pride has made, for the hardness of a heart that could not love you, cannot love you.”

“Cannot love me! Then why are we here?”

“That I might win your forgiveness, and beseech you to be my friend, Edward.”

“Friend! no, a thousand times no! Clara Anderson, when I offer love you shall not fling back ashes. When I want a friend he is in yonder, ready even in the first glow of his own happiness to give me both sympathy and help.”

“You mean—you mean—”

She could not finish the question; the words died on her lips.

“I mean that Waldon does not find your friend Bertha ice-cold as you have been to me.”

His words reached that unhappy girl’s heart like a 199death-shot; without a word or a sign she fell to the earth.

The young man sunk to his knees beside her, white as she was, trembling, as she had ceased to do.

“God help me! God forgive me! In my rash anger I have cast her off forever and ever,” he moaned. “What did I say, that my words should smite her down like the blow of a sword? I cannot remember! I cannot remember! terrible it must have been to hurt her so! Is she dead? Is she dead?”

Urged to action by this awful doubt he ran to a spring that flowed from under a neighboring rock, gathered some water in his hands and dashed it over her face. She did not move or give a sign of life. Wild with terror he ran toward the house.

But the water had its slow effect. He had scarcely reached the tavern when Clara moved and opened her eyes—a moment she lay upon the grass weak and confused. Then stung to life by a recollection of what had been revealed to her on that spot, she struggled to her feet and pressing both hands to her temples moved away with a step so painfully unsteady, that but for the undergrowth to which she caught from time to time the poor girl must have fallen. She had scarcely passed out of sight when young Lane came hurriedly up the hill carrying a tumblerful of wine, which in his unsteady haste dashed over his hands. When he saw the place empty where he had left Clara the glass dropped from his hold, and sitting down upon a fragment of rock, he covered his face and wept bitterly.

200

“Mother, will that do?”

Bertha Canfield came into her mothers room fresh from the most elaborate toilet she had ever made in her life. Her dress of amber-colored silk, softened and subdued by an over-cloud of tulle, swept the floor with the rustle of ripe wheat ears. Scarlet cactus flowers burned in her hair, and looped back the tulle over-dress. A necklace of large coral beads fell low upon her bosom, and coral buttons fastened her cream-colored gloves. She came into the room blushing with a shy consciousness of beauty, half ashamed of her own glowing delight.

“Will it do, child?” repeated the mother, and, for once, her features brightened all over. “Come and kiss me, darling! Who will dare to say that you are not beautiful?”

205“Am I really, really, mother?”

“Do you care so much about it, Bertha? If so, I am foolish and wrong to say yes.”

“I wonder if any one else will think so? Do I look as if it were my first party? Isn’t it strange, mother, that people should have taken such a fancy to me all at once? Monday night, at the opera, with Mrs. Forbes and her brother; then this invitation. Wasn’t it good of Mrs. Farnsworth to search me out, and get madame to come here and introduce her? She had heard me sing, and had a fancy that my voice would match hers, which is splendid, mother; so took all that pains to know us. Isn’t it singular?”

Bertha sat down at her mother’s feet as she said all this, and half buried the gentle lady in an amber cloud.

“Isn’t it all like fairy work?” she added, holding up her lips to be kissed.

A delicate hand was laid on that white shoulder, and a soft kiss touched the red mouth offered for it. The very warmth and brilliancy of that young creature seemed to startle the mother.

“It is all like fairy-land,” she said. “Sometimes I cannot realize that you are really mine, Bertha.”

“Everything seems like fairy work since we came back to New York, I think,” said Bertha, blushing without seeming cause. “This invitation to Mrs. Farnsworth’s party among the rest. How did it happen, I wonder, that she took the trouble to call on us? Then Mrs. Boyd—was ever any one so kind? We might have been the intimate friends of her family all our lives. I only wish they would be half as generous to Clara Anderson, poor girl. Why do they hate her so, I wonder?”

206“Judge Lane was always a proud man,” said Mrs. Canfield, thoughtfully; “but he may come round in time now that his son is behaving so well.”

“I fear not, mamma. Mrs. Forbes will not hear Clara’s name mentioned. She forbids her brother to speak of it in her presence.”

“Have you written to Clara explaining why we came back to the city so suddenly, and were obliged to send for Lydia without warning?”

“Oh, yes, mamma, I wrote all about that by the man who went after Lydia.”

“What did she say in her answer?”

“She did not send a line.”

“Nor a message?”

“No. I thought it very strange; but Clara has been strange ever since that day when the bridge went down.”

Mrs. Canfield shuddered.

“No wonder, no wonder,” she said, whispering out the words.

“You cannot think how strangely she acted that day when we failed to meet at the falls. She looked like death, if anything dead could have such eyes.”

“She was frightened by your fall, I suppose, Bertha?”

“No, it could not have been that. I did not feel the shock half so much myself. She questioned me as if I had done her some wrong.”

“Perhaps she thought you had taken a great liberty in bringing her face to face with a man she had once rejected?”

“No, mamma, it was not that. Clara did not know that Mr. Lane was in search of her till after she left me. Still she must be angry about something, or my note would have been answered.”

207“She may feel hurt because we sent for Lydia in such haste,” said Mrs. Canfield. “Indeed I have noticed that the girl herself seems more restless than usual. Two or three times she has asked if we have heard from Miss Clara, as if she, too, felt that her silence was remarkable.”

“Lydia may know why she acts so strangely. Would there be any harm in asking her?” replied Bertha, seizing eagerly on the suggestion.

Before Mrs. Canfield could reply, Lydia pushed the door open, and came into the chamber where this conversation was held.

“Oh, my! Isn’t that scrumptious?” cried the girl, walking around Bertha and examining her dress. “Silk as yeller as if it was wove out of wet buttercups, cobwebs hanging round yer arms, and that hot-red flower in your hair! Why, Miss Bertha, the Queen of Shebee would just have to step out if she was here! Queens are nothing to that!”

Bertha laughed, and allowed the girl to spread out the silken length of her train, while she watched the process over her shoulder with smiling eyes.

“You think the dress pretty then?” she said.

“The dress? Well, I never saw anything like it in my whole life!”

“So you only praise the dress, Lydia?” said Mrs. Canfield, jealous as mothers will be that the beauty of her child had been overlooked.

“I never saw anything that could come up to it before—but as to her face and all the rest of it—well, I have!”

A queer, sad expression came over the girl’s face as she said this, and she turned her head away.

“You are thinking of Miss Clara?” said Bertha, 208with a gentle touch of sympathy. “Yes, Lydia, she is far handsomer.”

“Handsomer! Her face is enough to break one’s heart. Oh, my! what a sorrowful angel she will make.”

“I hope it will be a long time first,” said Mrs. Canfield, forgetting to be jealous that any one could be deemed more beautiful than her child.

Lydia shook her head.

“I don’t know—I don’t know.”

“Is Miss Clara ill?” questioned the lady, seriously interested.

“I reckon she never feels like doing much in that old house,” answered the girl; “but what of her? she isn’t going to the party, and Miss Bertha is. There’s a ring at the door.”

Down the girl went, leaping halfway down the stairs, and completing her descent with a slide on the balusters. In less than a minute she came back with a small bouquet of rose-buds in her hand, richly red, and, as it seemed, only kept from bursting into bloom by the moss that fluttered around them.

“It isn’t the carriage—only this!” she said, thrusting the bouquet into Bertha’s hand, under a volley of cross glances at the mother, intended to draw off that lady’s attention until a folded paper attached to the flowers was properly disposed of. “But you had better be on hand down in the parlor. High-furluten ladies don’t like to be kept waiting, if I know anything about ’em.”

Bertha fastened the rose-buds among the lace over her bosom, blushing and trembling: she had no wish to deceive her mother; but the note, held tightly in her hand, was too precious for anything but secrecy.

“Who could have sent them?” questioned Mrs. Canfield, 209turning faint as the odor of the roses floated by her, for she was delicately sensitive to perfumes.

“Ah, yes, who indeed?” said Bertha, snatching up her fan and feeling like a guilty wretch for having kept the note out of her mother’s sight till the last moment, when she huddled it under the lace of her handkerchief, and floated away like a sunset cloud, leaving a soft fragrance behind her.

Mrs. Canfield followed the fair vision with her eyes till it disappeared. Then she lay back wearily in her chair.

“Now is the time of my peril,” she thought. “This very night she may take the first step that leads her from me. Ah, me, where shall I find strength to meet all that may come?”

“She’s bound to take the shine off any girl in the crowd, she is. Oh, marm, isn’t she a beauty?”

Tears were swelling under the mother’s closed eyelids. Lydia saw them, and stole out of the room a little conscience stricken, and went down-stairs. No one in that house ever attempted to restrict the girl, so she passed directly into the parlor where Bertha stood under the chandelier reading the note.

“Into her own hands it was,” said the girl, with a look, which was distorted into something grotesque and comical by the habitual squint of her eyes, “and into her hands it is; but not to cheat her own mother in earnest—no, not for all the handsome fellows with cockades on their hats that ever was born.”

“Hush! hush!” said Bertha, putting the girl back with her hand without lifting her eyes from the sheet of note paper, covered with unequal lines, at which the little girl rubbed her hands gleefully, and cried out:

210“My! how ragged the lines are, and what a grist on ’em!”

“Hush! hush!”

Lydia was more than silent in an instant. That creamy-white paper, the delicately shaded monogram, the faint perfume, struck her dumb. She had seen exactly such paper, such uneven writing before.

“Miss Bertha! Miss Bertha!” she said, in a spasm of distress. “Don’t read it! don’t read it! There is pison in the paper, rank pison, the essence of henbane. Give it to me, and let me send it back where it came from.”

Bertha tore her eyes from the paper, with a sigh, and turned upon the girl.

“Go away, Lydia; how can you be so rude?”

“Just one word; is them ragged lines poetry?”

“Yes—yes!”

“Is there any name to it?”

“No—no!”

“Miss Bertha, will you let me look at it close, just once?”

“There, there; now go away!”

Lydia bent her cross-eyes close down to the paper, scanned it keenly a moment, then lifted her appealing face to the young creature who held it.

“Miss Bertha, I say again and again it is pison; snakes ain’t more so.”

“Foolish girl. There, there, you shall not touch it again. Go up to mamma, she will be lonesome.”

“Let me take that paper—she ought to read it. Let me take it to her, and I will. You and I have no business to be a cheating of her.”

“Not now, Lydia; not now: I have not read it myself.”

211“But you will give it to her?”

“What is it to you, child?”

“A good deal; when I took it from that fellow with the cockade, and says to him: Peraps there’ll be an answer, and peraps there won’t: who knows, without reading? and after that sneaked the thing into your hand without winking. In course, it’s a good deal to me.”

“Well, go away, Lydia, and I promise that mamma shall see it at the proper time.”

“That’s a promise,” said Lydia, fluttering out of the room like a moth.

Bertha drew a deep breath, and fell to perusing her treasure again. It was a poem such as few men ever write in a lifetime—delicate, full of sensitive thought, with an underswell of passionate feeling, shadowed but not expressed. This poem, written that very day, was addressed to herself. Who could have written it? Who could have written it?

The girl knew well enough in her heart of hearts; but she chose to question her own sweet consciousness.

Does love ever come to a human heart, as an arrow flies, without reason and without warning? Who can answer? This much is certain: Bertha Canfield threw herself down, with her face buried on the cushions of a sofa, after she had read this poem, and murmured over whole lines of poetry, in a voice that was soft and mellow as the summer wind which ripens our peaches.

Before that carriage drove up which was to bear her to the party, Bertha Canfield had the poem by heart, and she knew, in the depths of that heart, who wrote it.

God help her!

A carriage stopped in front of the house; a footman ran up the steps, but before a servant could answer the bell, Bertha appeared.

212Out from the carriage window looked forth a bright dark face, crowned with purplish-black hair, in which diamonds gleamed like stars, and the voice of Mrs. Forbes called out gayly, as her brother was mounting the steps to meet Bertha,

“I am glad you are ready, for we are late.”

Mrs. Farnsworth lived sufficiently out of New York to call her home a “villa,” and the acre or two that surrounded it “grounds.” Both the house and all its surroundings were this night brilliantly illuminated. A huge weeping-willow, near the front entrance, was so strung and laden with tiny and many-tinted lamps, that it seemed a mighty fountain of leaves, dropping jewels over a marble basin filled by a jet of sparkling water which was garlanded with Ethiopian lilies, noble ferns, and entangling passion-flowers. Two or three forest maples, rich in crimson and golden foliage, were sufficiently illuminated to throw out all their gorgeous colors, and the velvet grass beneath gave forth its richest noonday green.

Along the open verandas blossoming vines flung their gorgeous draperies, and wound up the slender columns in garlands, thickly starred with lights. Crimson carpets lined the walks; all the French windows were thrown open; musicians, hidden among the trees, made the foliage tremble with their sweet notes; and indoors a band sent its ringing melodies through all the rooms.

213To Bertha this was enchantment. She could scarcely restrain the exclamations of wonder and delight that sprang to her lips at every turn. She could hardly realize that the groups of people moving to and fro in the grounds and through the verandas were human beings.

As she stood with her chaperon, looking at the great drooping willow, a man came out from under its branches. She gave a little cry of surprise, and gathered up the folds of her opera cloak, that he might not see that cluster of moss-roses in her bosom. To her they seemed magical like everything else. The appearance of this man was more marvellous to her than all the rest.

“Why, Waldon, you are really here!” said young Lane, who had led Bertha and his sister to the fountain, knowing well the surprise that was in wait for them. “Prompt as other people for once.”

“On some occasions Waldon can be punctual enough; but I really did not expect to find him here before midnight, when stars are—or always ought to be—brightest,” said Mrs. Forbes, holding out her hand. “At any rate, we shall be well attended now.”

“It is time that we present ourselves,” said Lane, giving his arm to Mrs. Forbes in the magnanimity of his friendship, which she accepted with some hesitation, and evident surprise.

“Will you take charge of Miss Canfield, Waldon, while we find our way to Mrs. Farnsworth? She must be in the east drawing-room, I fancy,” said Lane.

The next instant Bertha felt her arm drawn within that of Waldon, and his voice was in her ear, low and alluring.

“At last—at last we meet again!”

She made an effort to answer him, but could not.

214“You will not speak to me?”

His head was bent toward her. She almost felt his breath on her cheek.

“You will not say that this meeting gives you pleasure?”

“Yes, I can say that. But the surprise is so great.”

The white cloak fell back as she said this, and Waldon saw his moss-roses in her bosom. The smile that flashed athwart his face was bright as a meteor.

“I hoped that you would wear it,” he said.

“I did not know—I was not sure—” she whispered, coloring painfully.

“Was not sure who sent it? Would you have given it a place closer to your heart if you had been certain?”

“Perhaps I should not have ventured to wear it at all,” she said, recovering herself.

Waldon was annoyed. Always eager in his wooing, he was satisfied with nothing less than a response more prompt than any modest woman would have given.

They were entering the house now, and Bertha saw that her companion was known to every one—that the gay throng gave place, and showered both greetings and compliments upon him, as he led her toward the hostess.

A glance of quick intelligence shot from the fine black eyes of the hostess, and met an answering smile from Waldon. The two certainly understood each other. Perhaps Mrs. Forbes comprehended this, for a smile crossed her lips as she came up to give her greeting.

“You were kind,” the hostess said, extending her delicately gloved hand, “to suggest that I should send an invitation to this lovely girl, who is sure to be a belle to-night. But I begin to fancy that it was not altogether your idea.”

215“No,” answered Mrs. Forbes, blandly; “my brother suggested it. I have never seen him so much impressed.”

“Ah! I begin to understand. Her brother is the bosom friend of Waldon,” muttered the lady, turning to receive new guests as they crowded up. “This poor girl is doomed, like the rest!”

A pleasant doom it certainly was, so far, to Bertha Canfield, who moved through the crowd in her superb beauty, leaning on the arm of a man whose popularity seemed universal—a man of magnificent presence, whose manner and speech inspired the man or woman he addressed with a feeling of personal exaltation. To her inexperience all this was paradise.

There was dancing in the large drawing-room, from which the music sent out a ringing challenge. A group stood near the door, indulging in such low laughter, and half-whispered words, as well-bred people sometimes prefer to the waltz or quadrille.

Waldon joined them, and began to talk. When he deigned to converse, it was the fashion to listen. That night he was unusually brilliant, and the crowd increased around him, some to listen, and others to gaze on the lovely young creature who rested on his arm, and whom he was fast making the idol of the hour.

Waldon saw all this with a glow of triumph, and frequently addressed Bertha in his brilliant talk, when a flash of poetry was sure to enrich it. But, spite of all this, Bertha’s heart leaped to the music, and her foot beat time upon the marble of the vestibule. It was her first ball, remember, and she loved dancing better than poetry—for which we, who have partaken of the bewitching sin, need not blame her.

216Waldon saw this, and acted upon it.

“Would you like to dance?” he said, in a low, tender voice, as if he were asking her to love him.

“Would I like it?” she answered, as if doubt on that subject were impossible. “Oh, yes!”

His arm stole gently around her waist. Her hand rested on his shoulder. The next instant they were treading time to the music, his eyes looking into hers, his breath floating across her face.

More than one couple retired from the floor, and stood gazing on these two. The crowd at the entrance gathered closer.

When Waldon danced it always created a sensation, for his partner was sure to be selected from the most brilliant or beautiful women of the occasion.

For a minute or so they had the floor entirely. Then Waldon drew his partner to a window, where she stood flushed and smiling; the flowers that lay glowing in the lace on her bosom scarcely trembled to her rising breath. The health and strength of that young creature were so perfect that no exercise disturbed her.

“I never enter round dances with any woman I do not desire to love me,” said Waldon, in a low voice.

Bertha looked up suddenly. Then her thick eyelashes drooped, and her face brightened.

“And those who love me,” continued this man, in his subtle audacity, “never care to dance them with any other person.”

The glow upon Bertha’s face deepened. This assumption of authority offended her. Did he hope to make her his slave without the trouble of winning consent like other men?

Waldon saw that rebellious spirit lift the lashes from 217her eyes, and gloried in it. The conquest of a tame nature had no excitement in it for him.

“You think me precipitate,” he said, with an air of apology; “but feelings are not measured by time, and it is weeks since we met. I have seen you daily since you came to the city.”

Bertha looked at him in astonishment.

“Your light has not been extinguished once since then that I have not seen it go out.”

“You!”

“Every morning I have laid flowers upon your threshold with my own hands.”

“It was you then. I could not tell.”

Bertha blushed guiltily, for she had known in her heart who the flowers came from all the time.

“So that our acquaintance dates from the hour I first saw you on the wharf at New Haven—and that is more than the lifetime of ordinary people.”

“But I scarcely know more than your name, and that only through Mr. Lane.”

“My name?” answered Waldon, reddening. “Have you heard it for the first time from him?”

“No,” she said. “I have seen it. I have read—”

The dusky cloud cleared away from his face; the smile that most women found irresistible was bent upon her.

“When we have read a man’s thoughts, and partaken of all that is best in his nature, can it be said that he is a stranger?”

“But my name had no significance.”

“You forget that I saw you first with tears in those eyes—a child in your grief; in all things else a perfect woman.”

218The expression of his face, so intense, so searching, filled her with shrinking embarrassment. She would not lift her eyes; the guiltiness of concealed emotion burned on her cheeks.

Waldon pushed the French window open, and led her on to a balcony which had steps descending to the grounds. They walked toward the willow, under which that fountain sent its silver arrows up through the leaves, which rained them back again in diamond drops. All around, this tree threw out rays of light; directly under it slept deep shadows. They stood by the fountain, in which the lamps were reflected like shattered stars.

All at once the man dropped Bertha’s hand, which rested on his arm.

“This is torture!” he said, with sudden passion. “You chill me with talk of the time in which we have known each other. This is not the return generous women give to great admiration!”

Bertha drew back. Did this man intend to wrest the heart from her bosom before she understood it herself? His reproaches startled her womanhood into self-protection.

“Let us go to the house,” she said, with dignity. “People will think it strange to see us here alone.”

“As you please. I cannot plead with a dumb heart!”

Waldon’s voice was cold and haughty. He offered his arm, and led Bertha forth to the light, when he saw that her eyes were full of tears, but did not seem to regard it.

On the veranda they met Mrs. Forbes, with her brother, coming in search of them. The lady was pale, the young gentleman restive at being kept so long from the dance.

“The drawing-room was so close,” she said, “and I longed to breathe the fresh air.”

219“And I longed to dance,” said Lane, almost rudely.

“That is Miss Canfield’s passion,” answered Waldon. “Perhaps she will honor you while I take a turn in the grounds with Mrs. Forbes.”

Bertha took Lane’s arm. Waldon watched keenly to see if she would dance. In a moment she was whirling past one of the windows, her beautiful head lifted with the air of a queen. For once, Waldon felt that he had carried his audacity too far.

Waldon took a turn through the grounds with Mrs. Forbes, who seemed restless and ill at ease, while he was burning with wounded vanity.

“So this poor girl is to be another of your victims,” she said, with dull bitterness, “and I have been made an instrument to draw her across your path. I might have been spared this!”

Waldon laughed, and was ready at once to meet bitterness with gall.

“As this is the only way left by which you can give me pleasure, it seems hard that I am to be reproached for it; especially after setting your brother on his feet again.”

“At any rate,” answered the lady, with a hysterical laugh, “this young lady has not fallen at your feet with the first summons.”

“Like some others we could mention,” retorted the man, with a cruel smile.

Mrs. Forbes made no answer, but bit her lips in silence till the blood came and tinged the edges of her white teeth.

“There! there! I have no wish to carry this scene too far. Forbes is coming yonder, and he might think it strange, for he is a man of most sensitive delicacy.”

220“He is a noble, good man!” cried the lady, stung by words that seemed to have a double meaning.

“Have I not just said he was a man of supreme delicacy? And such taste! I have letters which I am sure he would take pleasure in reading—literary treasures that I can never part with.”

The delicate fingers resting on this man’s arm clutched it like the talons of a bird. He winced a little, for even this light thrill of pain amazed him. He could inflict agony without a pang, but shrunk from it with the cowardice of a child.

“Fiend!” muttered the lady, under her breath; then she spoke aloud, with more composure: “Take me to my husband. He will ride home with us and leave Miss Canfield in safety with her mother.”

Bertha Canfield had just paused in the dance, which Waldon had indirectly forbidden to her, and was now the centre of attraction in that brilliant throng.

He saw this with angry amazement. Had this young creature, whose very presence in society had been brought about by his management, the talent and the courage to stand alone? To be thus ignored by the woman he chose to distinguish was a new experience. Thus stung in his vanity, he watched her closely, while he made himself the life of a brilliant circle.

Her face grew sad; now and then she turned it wistfully toward that portion of the room in which he was standing, and this half appeased his resentment.

Had Bertha Canfield been the most practised coquette on earth, she could not have inspired a man like Waldon to keener pursuit than her prompt independence, which proved that his wishes were not omnipotent, had done. But he did not address her again that evening, and she went home miserable.

221

Not a word had been said between Bertha and Waldon about meeting in the park at any time. But in his careless, poetic way, he had spoken of its greenness and luxuriant beauty, describing various leafy nooks and rocky points with rare enthusiasm, which made her feel as if it would be Heaven to see those places while his words were burning in her brain.

For two or three days, Bertha resisted the keen desire that possessed her, and kept away from the park—though it was not far off—for quiet, womanly delicacy was stronger in her than the mesmeric influence this man had cast upon her. But the fourth day found her in the rocky hollow about which he had been most eloquent. It was only a small ravine, adown which a blue-waved brook crept lakeward between a double fringe of fresh grasses, seeded ferns, and long, trailing ivy, which swung down into the shadows, and kept the moist air in perpetual motion. Above her, great masses of Virginia creeper covered the leaning rocks with curtains of crimson flame, and through them came a line of shimmering silver, which made the brook dimple and laugh among its shadows, like a healthy child aroused from sleep at daybreak.

230In a cleft of the rocks, hidden away among the burning foliage of the creeper, a man sat, with a book in his hand, gazing quietly down upon Bertha’s bright face, as she turned it from object to object, searching out his description in the beautiful reality.

Waldon would not disturb her yet; her form came out so gracefully from the shadows. The queenly bend of her head—the light upon her cheek, which glowed like a sun-kissed carnation—the picture was perfect. He would have broken a statue, or dashed his hand through the superb coloring of a picture, rather than startle her from that exquisite pose. So he lay idly among the ripe leaves, enjoying the life and beauty of that vision; believing that it was thoughts of him which gave the rich coloring to her face.

So it was. In the depths of her heart she had expected to find him somewhere in this labyrinth of greenness and shadows, and shame that she did expect him burned in her face. She had not seen or heard from him in days, and a hungry desire to hear his voice possessed her.

All at once that living picture was broken up. Something had disturbed the girl. She started back, took a footpath that wound out of the ravine, and Waldon could just see the flutter of her garments, as the wind from one of the small lakes took them.

Waldon closed his book, seized hold of a mountain ash, and swung out of his leafy lair down to the ravine. Softly, and holding his breath, he picked his way through the clustering ferns, and stood close behind Bertha, who was searching the carriage-road on the other side that tiny lake, with the wistful earnestness of a person who waits for something dear as life itself.

231“He will not come!” she muttered, dropping the hand that shaded her eyes, with a gesture of keen disappointment. “Perhaps those other days he waited as I have now.”

Waldon heard this, and a flash of triumph shot over his face. Back he stole into the ravine, softly as he had advanced, laughing gently to himself. There was no doubt of it now; the girl had come to meet him. All his anxiety of the last few days, when he lay among the red vine leaves watching for her, was over now. She had struggled against herself bravely, but had come at last, obeying the faint hint he had ventured to drop, unconsciously perhaps.

“Now, now!” he said, clenching and unclenching his hands in an ecstasy of delight. “Now she is mine! mine! mine!”

The footpath which Bertha had pursued in one direction led in another to a recess, or tiny cove, formed by two great round rocks striking against each other at their largest circumference, and leaving a mossy hollow underneath. In this hollow Waldon placed himself, and watched the unconscious girl from its shadows.

Bertha came slowly up the ravine, with a listless, saddened air, her feet, weary with disappointment, dragging through the grass, her figure drooping, and all the rich color quenched in her cheek. She broke off a bit of ivy from a branch that trailed over the rocks she was passing, and flung it with a passionate gesture into the brook. This brought her eyes into view, and he saw that tears flashed through their dusky disappointment.

Again his heart leaped with exultation. She had turned now, and stood with her shoulder toward him, looking down into the water.

232“Bertha!”

She started, stifled a glad cry that sprang to her lips, and turning her back fairly upon Waldon, dashed a hand across her eyes.

“I did not expect you—I did not dream of—of seeing you at all,” she protested, angry with herself for crying, and at him for having seen her tears.

“But I did hope to see you.”

“Why, how could you? I never spoke of coming.”

“No; but men will sometimes hope against probabilities,” answered Waldon, smiling. “I have been in this neighborhood every day.”

“I never come here. How could any one suppose I did? Only to-day I had a headache, and—and thinking how beautifully you described this place, I thought the air would do me good.”

“I hope you are made better by coming,” he answered, enjoying her fluttering anger with infinite zest.

“No, I think, rather, that the sun makes me worse. My—my forehead aches yet, and my eyes feel hot with fever.”

She turned her eyes upon him with audacious courage, thinking to carry off their flushed condition by this plea of fever; but tears hung thickly on their lashes yet, and one dropped upon her cheek, which instantly took fire.

“Sit down,” said Waldon, pausing by a fragment of rock which lay bedded among the ferns. “The shadows are cool, and there is music in the water.”

Bertha sat down, burning with shame.

“You are angry with me, Bertha. Why?”

“Angry! No. What have you done that I should care about?”

233“Intruded on you when you wished to be alone, perhaps.”

“I did not care about being alone. This is no intrusion; only,” she added, attempting to account for her tears by another feminine device, “something had gone wrong. I was not well, and finding myself in this sweet solitude, gave way, and make a baby of myself.”

Waldon laughed pleasantly, and she joined him, quick mirth flashing out from her tears, as sunshine strikes dew.

“Quiet, and the sweet air drawing through here, will soon make your head all right.”

“Will it?” answered Bertha, demurely. “I’m sure I hope so.”

Waldon threw himself among the grasses at her feet, and resting one elbow on the rock, lay supinely, with his eyes upon her face, not caring to speak.

Bertha grew restless; her lashes drooped; through the soft red cleft of her mouth the breath came in delicious little sighs. To avoid his gaze she pulled up tufts of grass, and sent them floating down the brook.

She had cast half a dozen little emerald rifts upon the eddies, when Waldon caught her hand, tossed the grass it held into the water, and fell to kissing it tenderly, as if her palm had been the heart of a rose.

She trembled a little at the first touch of his lips, and struggled to get up from her seat; but his elbow was planted in the thick folds of her dress, and held her down.

“I most go!” she said, breathless. “They will be expecting me home.”

“Not yet. I have something to say; but this silence is so delicious. Why must we break it?”

234Bertha settled back to her seat, trembling and half afraid. Her blushes were all gone; her mouth began to tremble as if she were about to cry again; he had made her his prisoner.

“This smoky air is so soft. The brook never had sweeter sounds, and the perfume about us is heavenly. It comes from the frost-bitten ferns. Where on earth could we find a more lovely spot?”

Bertha did not answer. He held her hand firmly; his eyes searched hers, as the sun penetrates deep water.

“It is beautiful, but getting a little—a little cold,” she said, with another faint struggle to free herself.

“Cold!”

He imprisoned her other hand, and said, again:

“Cold! Promise never to be cold to me! Girl, promise!”

She wrung her hands away from him, and arose from her seat.

“Mr. Waldon, by what right do you ask such things of me?”

“By the right of a man who loves you better than his own soul!”

She was struggling in his arms; her head was pressed to his bosom; the kisses that he rained upon her face and hair terrified her. She pushed him away in fierce anger.

“We are alone, and you insult me!”

“Insult you!—insult the woman whom I entreat to become my wife!”

“You say this here?”

“Yes, girl, my wife! I, who have avoided marriage—laughed at it—reviled it—ask no better thing on earth than that you should become mine forever and ever!”

235All anger went out from her face. She could not lift her eyelids, but the sparkle of diamonds flashed out from under their thick lashes.

“Your wife!”

Her lips grew redder; the soft, panting breath came through them unsteadily and gave a pure, ringing sweetness to these two little words, which thrilled the very air. She began to comprehend their meaning in all its passionate force.

“You will not refuse me. It is impossible,” he said, reaching forth his arms again. “Love like mine must have love back again. Girl, girl, I adore you—soul and body I adore you!”

She did not resist him now. Her lips turned to his for the kisses which had stirred her wrath a moment before.

“Say that you love me, Bertha!”

“I do! I do!”

“That you will love me forever and ever!”

She tried to say “forever and ever,” but the words stopped in her throat. She could hot utter them, but gave him kisses instead.

“Again—say that you love me—again and again!” cried the man, in his strong, wooing passion, holding her from him, and searching her face with his shining eyes.

“Again and again, I love you!”

Her face was buried in his bosom. Her lips thrilled with the sweet confession.

He gloried in her agitation, and holding back her head with his two hands, feasted on her blushes.

“You love me surely, fully?” he questioned again, not in doubt, but because the insatiate feeling within him demanded new homage every moment.

236“How can you ask?” she answered.

“Because I would hear it over and over again, till the sweet truth pervades my whole being—because worship demands worship.”

Happiness like this would be pain if the capacities of humanity did not limit it. Bertha felt poverty-stricken because she had no language with which to express the joy that sung at her heart.

“What can I say—how can I act?” she whispered, shaking her head. “A child of three years would answer you better.”

“A child of three years could not be more innocent or more lovely! It ought to be enough that your lips tremble and your eyes speak; but what man ever was contented with dumb assurances?”

“But such things seek a language of their own, which I have had no time to learn,” she answered, with deprecating playfulness.

“Not as the birds learn it when they sing among the apple blossoms?”

“That music is here,” answered the girl, pressing one hand to her heart; “but I have no power to utter it.”

“Heavens! what a child she is!—what a glorious woman!” he exclaimed, never at a loss for words.

“No! no! You frighten me with these praises! Even my mother does not think so highly of me as that. I have ten thousand faults.”

“Each one a charm, I will be sworn! No, no, Bertha, even your own lips shall not convince me that the woman I love so can be anything less than perfect!”

Bertha shook her head a little mournfully.

“Even now I am doing wrong. Not one word of all this does my mother know. Until the last few weeks 237she was all I had to love in the world. Now I am keeping secrets from her.”

“And why?”

“Because I could not tell her that which seems even now like a vision that will float away when you and I leave these shadows. Even to one’s mother it is not easy to speak things that are so sweet and seem so unreal: besides, what had I to tell?”

“Having kept your secret so long, perhaps it would be well to let it rest between us.”

“I don’t know,” answered the girl, looking up quickly. “It will be a joy to give her pleasant news.”

“Will this news be pleasant?” said Waldon, with some earnestness. “Women are not always eager to part with only children.”

“Part—part from my mother! Does love for you mean that?” inquired Bertha, with a startled look.

“Perhaps not. Who can tell? Remember I know but little of your mother. She might look upon me as an enemy, if she knew what we were planning. Give me an opportunity to win her kind feelings, or it may turn out that she will not think our engagement good news.”

Bertha became thoughtful. She remembered now that her mother had always shrunk nervously from the subject of her marriage with any one, and the especial interest she had expressed about her first meeting with Waldon flashed on her mind with depressing force.

“She might be grieved—but not after she knew him. Yes, it is better so!”

With these thoughts, Bertha strove to excuse herself for doing that which her lover desired, and which conscience smote her for.

A flash of crimson light shot down to the ravine, Bertha started up, breathless.

238“It is sunset! We have been here hours and hours!”

“No, minutes—only minutes. Thank Heaven! for a little time we have forgotten to count hours!”

“But now I must go—mother will be anxious.”

She held out her hand, but he folded her gently to his heart and blessed her.

“Good-by, Bertha. I ask no greater blessing of God than that you should be my wife!”

He spoke solemnly, for poetic devotion formed the finer part of his strange nature; and Bertha left him with happy tears in her eyes.

That night the girl lay awake in her white bed, like some fair Undine dreaming among restful water-lilies. The moonbeams came through a window close by, and threw their shimmering silver all over her so clearly, that you could see her lips move, and almost hear her whispers as she told herself over and over again, “He loves me—he loves me! He will love me forever and ever,” exactly as Clara Anderson had done!

While the soft moonbeams were shedding divine smiles on her, they were shut out from the supper-room in which Waldon and young Lane sat after the other guests had retired, and, in their place, came down a flood of gas-light from the overhanging chandelier. Lane was leaning with both arms on the table, looking at Waldon, who spoke eagerly:

“I hope to Heaven, Lane, that you have made no mistake about the property, for I have committed myself to-day beyond recall; had no control of myself, in short. Are you certain?”

“My authority was her mother’s banker and her own trustee,” answered Lane. “If better is to be found, I do not know where to seek for it.”

239

246

After a time Clara went to her grandmother’s room. The old lady was still on the bed, very pale and weak, but her eyes were bright and keen as steel, when the girl approached her. She understood in a moment that everything was known.

“I will get up,” she said, rising with some difficulty from her pillow. “Betsey Vose is making tea for us both; you and I will drink it up here.”

255Clara helped the old lady from the bed and placed her in an easy-chair. “Your tea will come up in a few minutes. Don’t look at me so pitifully, grandmother; I am not fretting much.”

The old woman’s eyesight was very poor and the paper shades at the window dimmed the light in the room, so that she could not distinctly see Clara’s face, and those kind words soothed her a little.

“You feel better,” she said.

“Yes, grandmamma; we have borne so much—we can bear this.”

She made the old lady as comfortable as possible in the stiff chair, placed a footstool under her feet, and threw a shawl over her shoulders.

Betsey Vose came up and was about to spread a cloth on the round stand, but the old lady made a sign of dissent.

“Not yet, Betsey; I don’t want anything just now—by-and-by, when I am in bed. I want to talk with my child here.”

Clara was softened greatly by this unusual tenderness. It was so child-like, so loving, that the sweetness of it drove half the bitter pain from her heart. She began to reflect that while such love existed under her own roof, there was something worth living for. She longed to converse freely with her only relative, but saw how weak she was, and desisted.

Still her heart was full, and she wished for some one with whom she could talk without giving pain, who would direct her how to meet this slander with the truth. When tea was over she said to her grandmother:

“Was not the minister coming to see me?”

256“Yes,” Mrs. Anderson said, beginning to tremble anew.

“He wanted to talk about—about—”

She could not finish the sentence; there was no need, the old woman understood only too well.

“Yes, he thought it was his duty. I belong to his church,” replied Mrs. Anderson, faintly.

The girl was silent a few moments, then she said, “I am going to see him, grandmother.”

“The minister?”

“Yes; I will hear what he can say.”

Mrs. Anderson had a truly New England reverence for her clergyman, and believed that if any one could offer counsel in an extremity like that it would be a man of God. She would never have proposed the thing to Clara, but it was like a gleam of hope in great darkness to hear her mention it.

“I am glad,” she said. “He is a good man—go to him, Clara.”

“I will at once.”

She rose with a return of her old decision.

“Clara!”

“Yes, grandmother.”

“Be patient, you know, and listen—”

“You need not be afraid.”

She went up-stairs, put on her bonnet, and came down into the room again.

“I shall not be gone long; you won’t mind?”

“No, come here, Clara—kiss me before you go.”

Clara bent over the old woman and kissed her tenderly. It was very seldom that those withered lips sought caresses, and this went to the girl’s heart.

Clara rose at length, and said very gently,

“Now, I am going.”

257The restless hand of that old woman clung to hers with tender longing.

“Bless me again, before I go; it makes me strong,”

Once more the grandmother’s lips repeated the sweet and holy words.

Clara turned to go. “I can bear it now,” she said, “good-by, grandmother.”

“May the God of heaven bless you, oh, my child,” she said, with unusual solemnity, and closing her eyes she seemed to pray.

“Now I will lie down again,” she said. “Help me a little.”

Clara helped the old lady undress, and robed her in a night-gown, kissing the old face as she fastened the garment at the throat. Then she took off the cap which covered an unusual quantity of hair, white and soft as sea-foam, which the old lady was accustomed to shake afloat when she slept.

“You will rest a while now, and have some tea by-and-by,” said the girl, as she drew the bed-clothes softly over the old lady whose hearing seemed unusually keen, for a distant knock at the street door made her start.

“Who is it, Clara?”

“I don’t know. The minister, perhaps: some one said that he might come.”

“The minister! oh, that is best. A kinder man never lived. Tell him I said so: he will be glad to know that I had faith in him to the last.”

“You shall tell him yourself: he will want to see you, of course. Do not look at me so, grandmother. I feel sure that this good man will befriend us when he knows the truth.”

258“Go to him, child, as if he were your own father.”

“I will, I will.”

“Tell him that I, the oldest member of his church, charge him in the name of my God to hold you scathless from the slanders I have this day denied.”

The old woman rose up and, leaning her elbow on the pillow, pointed her quivering finger upwards, appealing directly to heaven.

“Oh, grandmother,” said Clara, shivering under the effect of that solemn picture of inspired old age; “I will not forget one word that you have said to me.”

The old woman fell slowly back on her pillow.

“Clara!”

The word seemed to come from a great distance, recalling her from the door. She went back, holding her breath.

“Grandmother!”

The old woman reached out her hand. Instinctively the girl knelt, and it was laid softly on her head. She heard no sound save low whispers that she knew was a blessing. Then that old voice spoke out very tenderly,

“Go, now. I shall sleep, I shall sleep.”

259

Clara read this bitter news, every word of it, as men drink poison or women kiss their rivals, with smothered loathing. Before it had been an apprehension which she had put aside as too improbable for belief. Now it was a dead certainty.

There must be a limit to human torture or it would kill its victim. At a certain point of mental agony feeling grows incapable and sinks back into leaden apathy. Indeed, some phases of suffering may pass for happiness. When suspense merges into certainty, a feeling of relief comes with it. When experience has taught us our full capacity for anguish, we know the limit and can measure it with something like philosophy.

When Clara read that letter she smiled. The worst had come. Fate had done its utmost. Friend and 266lover swept off at a single dash. Reputation; the very bread needful to her life trampled under foot or cruelly withheld.

On all this desolation the sun sank low with gathering threats of a storm. In her painful preoccupation Clara had forgotten the old woman whom she had left with closed eyes lying upon her bed. She now remembered, with a feeling of self-reproach, that the usual hour for tea had drifted by—an occasion that in ordinary times would have been a cause of special complaint. As she was passing toward the kitchen Betsey Vose met her with a tray in her hands going toward the old lady’s room.

“This is kind, Betsey,” she said. “I was not hungry and forgot.”

They entered the room together. Clara took a cup of tea from the tray and went up to the bed.

“Grandmother, here is your tea. Did you think I had forgotten you?”

There was no answer; no movement of the figure resting on the bed.

“Grandmother, wake up long enough to drink your tea. Tired as you are, it will do you good.”

No answer—no movement. The silence seemed unearthly. A nervous movement of Clara’s hand striking a teaspoon against the cup she held sounded through that deathly stillness like the first faint clash of a funeral bell.

“Grandmother! Oh, grandmother, do speak!”

The tray began to shake in Betsey Vose’s hands. Clara set the cup down from her weakening hold, and bent her face close to that of the old woman. A touch, a gasp, and she started back, her eyes widening with horror.

267“She is cold! She is dead! No, no! God help us! it can’t be that!”

Betsey set down the tray. Reverently she went close to the bed and touched the little withered hand that lay outside the coverlet.

“It is cold, but that may come from fainting. Oh, if Ben were here! If we had some one to send for a doctor!”

“I will go!”

Wild as a bird set free in the wilderness, stung to new pain by a despairing hope, Clara Anderson went on her errand. She could not believe this new blow real. That slander, Bertha’s letter, and now this death—all these things could not happen in a single day. The idea was monstrously improbable.

It was strange how all these troubles mingled and rushed together on her brain. Shame, indignation, solemn grief—all assailed her by turns as she flew breathlessly toward the village. Once there her speed flagged; she drew her veil closely about her face to avoid the curious gaze of the neighbors whom she might chance to pass. The short distance that lay between her and the doctor’s house appeared interminable; she felt as if a thousand eyes were upon her; scores of evil tongues discussing her story and mocking her with scorn as she passed along. Even these thoughts crowded in with the terror of her suspense.

The doctor was not at home. No one could tell where he was to be found. Possibly he had dropped in to spend an hour with the minister.

Clara started for the parsonage. She opened the gate with a violent effort, passed through and hurried up the walk. The front door of the house was ajar. Clara did 268not knock, but pushing back the door entered the hall. She was familiar with the house, and turned down the passage toward the minister’s study with a vague hope that she might find the doctor there.

She went into the little sitting-room through which it was necessary to pass in order to reach the study. The twilight filled the apartment with dusky shadows, which to the excited fancy of the girl looked like human shapes coldly watching her and refusing either encouragement or comfort.

She reached the centre of the room and paused. The murmur of voices was audible from the study; she could look in and see how fruitless her search was. While she remained there, smitten to the heart with disappointment, the tones of the speakers became more distinct. She had no desire to stay so close to her bitter enemy, but was bereft of all power to move. Like some poor Christian forced into contest with wild beasts in a Roman amphitheatre, she stood paralyzed.

Great as was the curiosity, even consternation, in the village when that old lady passed out of it, the feeling was nothing in comparison with the effect produced on the two men she left behind in the parsonage.

Shaking off his amazement, the minister arose, went into the next room, and finding no one there, hurried to 269the door. Directly he came back looking greatly distressed.

“She is gone, sitting upright on her horse like a young woman,” he said; “never in my life did I see such change in a human being.”

“Nor I; her face was white like a ghost’s, all but the eyes; they were fire,” said the deacon.

“It is very painful. She must have heard all that you said of her grandchild,” observed the minister, walking the room nervously.

“Well,” returned the deacon, with a cowardly attempt to exculpate himself, “I was only repeating what other folks said—I ain’t answerable.”

“Poor girl!” sighed the clergyman. “I fear that she was terribly wronged.”

“That face, those eyes, I shall never forget them,” said the deacon, fairly shivering at the recollection.

“It is my duty, I must and will get at the truth in this matter.”

“Yes, as a minister I think it is your duty; but just now hadn’t we better drop it?”

“No, Deacon Jones, these charges are of too much importance. This old woman has a right to demand a retraction at our hands if, as I hope, her child has been a victim to evil tongues. I am too much disturbed just now, but come to me in the evening. You will excuse me now, brother Jones?”

“Of course, of course; don’t mind me; I must go home anyhow, or my wife’ll think I’m lost.”

The minister conducted his guest to the door without further apology, and Deacon Jones took his way home uneasy in his mind and divided in his thoughts between certain qualms of conscience, where Clara Anderson was 270concerned, and the greeting which he might receive from Mrs. Jones after having delayed her tea beyond the usual hour.

After a domestic lecture from his wife, who had been at a sewing circle that day, where Clara Anderson was discussed with all the sweet charities that commonplace women bestow on their beautiful sisters, the deacon was ready to take up the question, inspired to new vigor by the extra venom imparted by his wife.

The impression made upon him by the sudden appearance of that old woman was swept away utterly by the force of Mrs. Jones’ eloquence. So he went back to the minister’s at dusk, resolved to press the matter of a church investigation to some purpose.

“I have thought this matter over thoroughly, prayerfully, minister—I and Mrs. Jones—and we are a unit, yes, a unit. These Andersons must leave the place. The ladies have decided on it. Not a stitch of work will she get from a member of your congregation.”

“What! before we have had time for proper inquiry? Do you call this justice, Deacon Jones?”

“Justice! If she had that I don’t know what would become of the creature. You don’t know, of course, that young Lane has been at her house this very day, in open defiance of his father; and threatens to marry the creature off hand.”

“That, at least, speaks well for the girl. Young Lane would never do that if he did not know these rumors to be false,” said the minister.

“I don’t believe they are false,” said the deacon. “I always thought there was something wrong about the girl—I don’t believe it is the duty of a Christian minister to give sympathy to sinners.”

271“Nay, they have all the more need,” returned the minister gently.

“If they repent, not otherwise.”

“But no one has talked to her, no one has tried to bring her out of the error of her ways, if she is indeed in error.”

“It wouldn’t be of any use; why, she has the pride of Lucifer.”

“And pride goeth before a fall,” murmured the clergyman, hardly aware of the force of his quotation.

“Of course it does; every child who learned his catechism knows that,” replied the deacon, in a self-satisfied voice. “I guess she has found it out by this time.”

“I meant to have seen her to-day,” said the minister.

“It wouldn’t have done any good if you had seen her; she would have been as insulting as possible.”

“We can’t tell that.”

“Yes, we can, I know her! Besides she don’t come to meeting once a month—always going about on the hills Sunday. I’ve seen her myself. If the sisters are hard on her we’ve no call to take her part.”

“Brother Jones, that should not hinder us from doing all the good we can.”

“You couldn’t do any good there, I tell you.”

“She’s very young; even if she be as imprudent and wrong as they say, she cannot be hardened.”

“Do you call such conduct by names like those?”

“They are harsh enough for men who profess to be Christians, when applied to a young girl.”

“No, they ain’t; wickedness is wickedness! I tell you that girl ought to be held up as an example. If times were what they were thirty years ago she’d be put out of the town; the select men wouldn’t let her stay, but now sin is never punished.”

272The deacon paused here to groan over the delinquency of these latter days.

“It would be very cruel treatment,” replied the minister, more decidedly than he often spoke. “I cannot believe that such harsh measures would be of any avail, they might drive the erring to utter desperation.”

“So they ought to,” retorted the deacon; “we are warned to hold no communication with the wicked, to flee from the wrath to come—”

“And to act kindly towards all men,” added the minister.

The deacon coughed a little, nestled in his chair in a dissatisfied way and finally said—

“The long and the short of it is, the women folks have got this case in hand, prayerfully in hand. This last step of Edward Lane’s has aroused them to a sense of their duty to the sex, and to Judge Lane as a pillar of the church. Take my word for it now, the minister that sets himself agin the women of a congregation don’t stay in his pulpit long. A queen bee in a wasp’s nest is nothing to it.”

The minister arose with a slight flush on his benign face.

“The conversation is taking a form that I would rather not listen to,” he said. “Excuse me, but I fancied that some one was moving in the next room.”

The good man took a light from his table, and standing in the door held it up. All its rays fell on that young girl who had no idea how long she had been standing there, or what she wished, now that no sign of the doctor appeared.

The blaze of light falling strongly on her face aroused her: she came forward at once.

273“She is dying or dead; I cannot tell if it is one or the other, but I have been searching for the doctor and cannot find him. Could you tell me where he is?”

“The doctor—dying? Who is it that is ill, Miss Anderson?”

“My grandmother. She was here to-day, and I am afraid it killed her. We Andersons are not used to disgrace, and it hurts us more than people think.”

The minister turned a rebuking look on Deacon Jones, who became extremely busy with the hat which he had taken up in haste the moment he became aware of that strange presence.

“Have you been waiting long?” said the minister, anxious that she should not have heard all the cruel things said in the study.

“Long—I do not know. Still, how could I stop anywhere long? Tell me, please, where I can find the doctor?”

“Deacon Jones, you will have the goodness to find the doctor at once. I shall go home with this young lady, and see what calamity has befallen my old friend. God grant that it is not so serious as I fear. Take my arm, Miss Clara, you scarcely seem able to stand.”

Clara took his arm, and hurried out of the house, without a look at the deacon, whom she remembered afterward, as we try to outline figures in a half-forgotten dream. The air was heavy with coming storms, and dark with fog. Scarcely a word was spoken between these two; but the girl fairly dragged her companion along. She had forgotten the doctor, and placed all her faith in him.

“This way,” she said, leading him through the darkness into her grandmother’s room. “She will be glad to 274see you. It is better to bring a true friend than a doctor. Oh, God help us, how still it is!”

Still indeed. A white sheet was flung over the bed. Betsey Vose, seeing the minister, turned the linen back, and revealed a locked white face, a scattering of soft hair, gleaming like silvered snow on the pillow, and two small hands folded over the bosom of a night-gown that looked like a shroud.

Clara fell down on her knees by that funereal bed. Softly and reverently she turned that white face toward her, and gathered up the silvery hair.

“She loved me: people thought her cross; but she was only old and so good at heart. It was to-day that she kissed me. Dear old grandmother, she wasn’t given to many caresses, and it was because I had such bitter troubles falling on me like blows that she became so child-like. I think she died for me. Some one gave her a great wound on the heart, and it killed her. She was very old, you know, and poured all her strength out in an hour, then lay down for rest and died. I wish it had been me. Oh, I wish it had been me!”

These words came out in faint snatches, uttered with indescribable mournfulness; now with her tearless eyes fixed on that cold face, then lifted to the minister with a look of such pathetic misery that his kind heart ached for her.

275Betsey Vose sat back in the shadows, weeping, humbly and silently. This was all the help she could give now. Ben hung about the door, sobbing like a child. The minister looked around on these humble people, and remembered with compassionate thankfulness what fast friends they had been to the woman who was gone, and that fair young creature who remained.

Only those two of all their neighbors—only those two!

The clergyman fell upon his knees, smitten to the soul by this reflection, and poured forth his agony of Christian shame in prayer—not for the dead; he knew that she was with God—not for that poor young woman, for he felt that she was nearer to the great white throne than most of those who broke bread, and bathed their lips in holy wine at his altar. No; he prayed with all the force of his nature, that God would forgive those, who, from malice or carelessness, had hunted that old woman to her grave, and pursued that fair, blameless girl, till she could find no shelter save on her knees by that death-bed.

Scarcely had the good man risen from his knees, when a sound of feet and a faint tumult of voices came up from the rooms below. One voice, above all others, smote Clara’s ear, and brought back the conversation that had seemed to fall dead upon her when she stood in that dusky ante-room in the parsonage. One by one, as if written upon her brain in letters of fire, the words of Deacon Jones came out in her memory. Now his voice smote her like a blow—his voice dominating over others still more hateful.

Deacon Jones, while seeking for the doctor, had spread the news of Mrs. Anderson’s illness over the neighborhood, and with those two came half a dozen women, some 276of them ringleaders and slander-whisperers in the sewing circle, that twenty-four hours before had dwelt upon hunger as a sure way of driving the old woman and her granddaughter out of their home.

Clara Anderson heard these voices, and fled from that death-chamber without a word. On the stairs she met the doctor and Deacon Jones. In the shadows underneath she saw a group of women, with eager upturned faces, ready to follow.

These women drew back appalled by the dead whiteness of her face as she passed through them. One more audacious or stolid than the rest caught at her dress, and asked some question.

Clara neither heard her words nor felt her touch, but passed through the back door, and out into the night.

Those voices, that dark grouping of her enemies who came to mock her with their cruel compassion, had aroused the latent fever in her veins almost to frenzy.

The gentler feelings fostered by her last interview with the old grandmother, whose death-chamber they were about to desecrate, were swept away. Blind with anguish, wild with a feeling that she had been hunted from that death-bed, she rushed on through the gray fog, without aim or resolve, beset only by a wild longing to flee from a home which was full of her enemies.

On she went, through the home pasture, down by the hemlock banks and the clump of elm trees, drawn toward the river by a weird fascination. It seemed to her as if a voice of the waters were calling upon her to join them as they fled away from a place that had been so full of misery.

With a strange idea, that by stillness she might baffle pursuit, she parted the golden willow branches and crept 277under them, close down to the water, which seemed to call her away in whispers muffled by the floating fog. As her eyes became accustomed to the gray light, she saw Ben’s canoe rocking sleepily by the bank, overshadowed by willow branches, and moored to a sapling that grew close by her.

This little craft Ben had rescued from the stream miles below “the deep hole,” after his disaster, and there it lay, peaceful as a bird’s nest, giving back a soft responsive motion to the whispers of the waves.

Clara listened earnestly. Why should the waters escape from that solitude, singing as they went, and she sit there so bereft and desolate? Surely they must find some place of rest and quiet.

She stood up in the clinging gray of the fog and cautiously untied the cable to which the canoe swung, drew the little craft close under the bank, stepped into it, and lay down with her arms folded under her head, and her face uplifted to the muffled sky.

How long she rested thus mournfully supine no one can tell; but the mellow singing of the waves around her strange bed, the faint shiver of the leaves, and the fog that enveloped her with its damp gray, had all the fascinations of weird music for her. She lifted up her arms and seemed to gather the mist around her, whispering hoarsely:

“Now I am ready. Now I am ready.”

For a little time the canoe lay within the shade of the willows, rolling softly; then it drifted into the stream, took a current, and moved off with ghostly slowness between the black waters and the drifting fog.

278

Wilson Forbes was a studious man, and his wife found him in the library, bending over a book, quite forgetful that the clock had struck two. He looked up as the lady entered, and observed, with some interest, that her eyes were shining like diamonds, while the face they lighted so brilliantly was strangely colorless.

“What has happened? Are you ill?” he inquired, anxiously, laying down his book as she threw the ermine mantle from her white shoulders, sunk down at his feet, and laid her head upon his knee. “What is the matter, child?”

“Wilson, do you really love me?”

The husband smiled at this absurd question, put to him so earnestly, at the dead of night, and passed his hands over the shining braids of her hair, which a few great diamonds lighted up like stars.

282“What a question, dear? Was I compelled to marry you?”

“No! no! Not that!”

“Or were you so abundantly wealthy that I was tempted into it?”

“Was I then so dear to you? Am I now?”

“Dear as my own life, Alice. Why should you doubt it?”

“Would it hurt you—would it kill you—if—if we parted?”

“Parted! You and I?” said the husband, looking into those bright eyes in fear that his wife was mad. “The very thought is sinful.”

“I know it is, Wilson. Nothing but sin could ever part us. But the past! Oh! if one could seize upon that, and tear months or years out of it!”

“That might well be the prayer of an old fellow like your husband, Alice, because he would gladly bury a great many things; but what has your bright youth to remedy or regret?”

“One thing—only one; but that is so bitter!”

“I can guess it, Alice. You cannot force yourself to love a grave old fellow, fifteen years your senior, as he loves you.”

She lifted her head in quick surprise, her lips apart, every feature of her beautiful face bright with eloquent protest.

“I have ceased to love everything on earth but you,” she said—“everything!”

Wilson Forbes was a tranquil man, fifteen years older than his wife; but his face lighted up with the joy and beauty of youth as the woman at his feet said this, and a pathos and earnestness that thrilled him from head to 283foot, certainly never felt before, took full possession of his soul then.

“My darling!” he said, bending over her, with tears in his eyes; “why did you never say this to me before?”

“I could not; there was something between us!”

“No, no, darling! you imagined it.”

The lady shook her head and bent her eyes on the floor, afraid to meet the tenderness in his, that her next words might drive away forever.

Forbes was a proud, sometimes stern man, truthful as Heaven, brave, as good men usually are. Could he forgive the cowardice of her silence? or bear to know that during the short married life, which seemed so pure, another man had controlled her actions and made her a very bond slave, because he had possessed her heart in the first flower of her life?

“Wilson!”

“Well, dear.”

The strong man bent down and kissed her neck, but his lips found it cold as marble, and left no red stain behind them. All the blood had centred around her heart.

“Wilson, would you want to kill me? or, what might be so much worse, put me away, if I told you—if you were made certain that I had loved another man?”

“When?”

His voice was low and hoarse. The knee against which she leaned shook ominously.

“Before I ever saw or heard of you.”

She spoke with such difficulty that, with his head bent, the man could hardly gather in her words. Even thus they unlocked the deathly contraction of his features, and brought the breath afresh to his lips.

284“Who was the man?”

She tried to answer, but could not. It was her doom that she was called upon to utter.

“Give me his name.”

“Russell Waldon!”

“The man you have been intimate with since?”

“Yes; that man.”

He did not push her from the support she had so humbly taken; but she felt his whole frame grow still. It seemed to harden into stone.

“Go on!” he said, in a hoarse whisper.

“I was young and motherless. There was no human being to care much for me but my brother, and he was away. You have seen this man.”

“Curse him!”

In her whole married life, Alice had never heard a harsh word from her husband’s lips before. This curse struck through her heart like a sword.

“Well, go on!”

“He was different to any man I had seen. He singled me out, and seemed to worship me.”

“So, in return you worshipped him.”

The tortured man spoke bitterly, and that gave the woman at his feet a little courage.

“Call it worship, if you will. I was an ardent, romantic girl, with enough talent to look upon a man of genius as a god, and to mistake this wild homage of the brain for love—”

“Mistake it!”

“Then I thought it was little less than adoration—now I wonder at myself.”

“Still you loved him.”

“Oh, Wilson! Wilson! if I could only make you 285understand how different, how wild and puerile it was, compared to—to—”

“Compared to what?”

“To the calm, solemn, beautiful love that I—that a wife feels for her true, good husband.”

“Alice!”

She had left his support and was on her knees before him, her eyes lifted to the white agony of his face, her hands clasped in appeal.

“No, no! Heaven is my judge, it was not love that I felt for this man, but an insanity of the brain. Still I thought it love; I called it love. In every line and letter that passed between us, that sacred word was desecrated.”

The woman was getting fearfully excited. While condemning herself with those trembling lips, she pleaded with her eyes, and wildly searched her husband’s face for some sign of mercy.

Forbes took her clasped hands in his.

“You did not love this man, yet ever since our marriage have held him as a close friend.”

“I could not help it. I was the fashion—powerful in society—and an ambition to shine there seized upon him. He bade me open the way for him. I was in his power—”

“In his power! Woman, do you know what these words mean?”

“Yes, I was in his power. Oh, mercy! Do not shrink from me so! He had my letters—silly verses that I wrote—and would not give them up. If I rebelled, he threatened to publish them to the whole world; worst of all, he threatened to send them to you!”

“The infamous villain!”

“By this fear he held me. My whole nature revolted. 286I detested him. That which had seemed so beautiful, so god-like, was rank hypocrisy, which I loathed; but he had my letters—he had my letters!”

Forbes grasped her hands with iron force.

“One word. Look in my face, Alice. What was in those letters?”

“I do not know. Wild romance, rash expressions—such as a woman blushes for when she knows that all she has experienced was a fever, in which no feeling of true affection entered—promises for the future. Great Heavens! I cannot tell what was in the letters. He would not give them up, though I begged him on my knees. I only wanted to make them ashes, and breathe again, but he would not give them up.”

“You talk wildly, Alice, and do not answer.”

“Not answer! I do not understand!”

The man hesitated. Thoughts stung him which those manly lips refused to frame into speech. She saw the struggle with child-like bewilderment; then dawning comprehension of a doubt she had not dreamed of widened her black eyes, and a flood of burning red came with a sudden rush over her face, neck, and arms.

“Oh, Wilson! you did not think that?”

The reproach in those eyes, the sudden uplifting of her figure, the proud astonishment in her voice, might have convinced a less disturbed man that he was wronging an innocent woman; but the tempest raging in that usually calm nature blinded him, heart and brain. The pride of her accused womanhood seemed like audacity to him. As she held out her hands with a protest which had pathos in its very pride, he put her from him, and she fell, like one dead, at his feet. He bore her to the couch in her own room, and, when a struggle of returning life came back, left her there alone.

287

Bertha entered the parlor with hesitation, yet the man waiting so anxiously there had saved her life, and, in the first flush of her gratitude, might have been her plighted husband but for his own generous forbearance. He had kept his word faithfully, and left her free to study the heart that had been offered to him, and which he had put aside for a time with heroic self-abnegation.

Now, she was afraid of this man; ashamed of herself—of her ingratitude and inconsistency. In what way could she meet him, with the image of another burned into her heart, and the kisses of another man almost warm upon her lips?

She stood a whole minute, with her hand on the doorknob, longing to run away and hide herself. She went in at last, looking pale and harassed, feeling as if her heart would never beat freely again.

Fletcher was scarcely less agitated when he came forward to receive her. The first glance of her face, he thought, would reveal his fate; but when he saw it so pale and downcast, drooping with strange embarrassment, the change puzzled him.

296Had love made this proud, frank girl timid, and almost awkward? Surely, something more than gratitude had been at work here!

This sweet, new-born hope brightened his face as he came forward and took her hand, which lay, for one moment, like cold lead in his clasp, chilling him to the heart, then dropped away.

“You are ill! Oh, tell me that you have been ill—very ill!” he said, alarmed.

“No, not very ill,” she answered; “in fact, scarcely at all; but—but your coming was so sudden, it brought back that awful scene upon me so vividly, that—that I have lost all power to receive you as I ought.”

“I should not have taken you by surprise. It was thoughtless; but, after all, this reception punishes me. Don’t you think so?”

He smiled a little painfully, and, seating himself by her on the sofa, sought out her hand again. It was warmer now and trembled a little, as if the life were coming back.

“Bertha!”

The girl lifted her heavy eyes to his face, like a dumb animal pleading for mitigation of a threatened sentence; but dropped them again when she saw the hope shining in his.

“Bertha, have you nothing to tell me—no sweet assurance to give, after all these months of separation?”

This passionate cry of a heart searching for hers with such faithful constancy struck the girl as a sharp reproach. She began almost to hate herself as an ingrate.

“You cannot think—you must know that I am grateful.”

The young man started up impatiently.

297“That word again! I want no gratitude—I will not have it!”

“But you must! Because—because I have nothing else to bestow.”

Bertha did not blush saying this. On the contrary, her lips turned white, and her teeth were set as if each word she uttered gave her pain.

“I hoped to love you,” she continued, desperately. “I tried to love you; but—but something happened, and it became impossible.”

“Something happened, Bertha! May I ask what?”

“I met another person, and, being only a woman, could not help what followed.”

“Another person!”

“I have told no one as yet; but you have a right to ask. His name is Russell Waldon. You have seen it, I am sure.”

Bertha looked up now, expecting to startle him into surprise by the glory of that name; but the black cloud upon his face startled her.

“That man! I hope not—I pray not!”

“Hope not—pray not! Mr. Fletcher, you surprise me!”

“Not as I have been surprised—not as I have been wounded. Oh, Bertha, Bertha, this is terrible!”

“What is terrible, Mr. Fletcher?—that I should have met one of the noblest, the most brilliant men on earth—one who can chain and thrill millions with a dash of his pen—hold multitudes by the spell of his voice—lead thousands by a thought, as great generals command armies! Is it strange or terrible that powers like these should be felt by a poor girl who has worshipped genius from her cradle up?”

298The girl was animated enough now. No peach ripening in August sunshine was ever so richly red as her cheeks. She had feared young Fletcher a little while ago. Now, she was ready to defy him. What right had he to insinuate aught against the man she loved? Did he mean to take such liberties because he had saved her life? What were fifty such lives as hers compared with Waldon’s genius?

“Let me make myself certain. You speak of a man who is known as an author—sometimes as a politician; a man remarkable for keen wit, which too often verges into satire?”

“Yes—yes. I do not know about the last, but it is probable.”

“I fear it is the same man.”

“‘Fear!’ Mr. Fletcher—‘fear!’”

“Yes, Bertha, I fear it; for to love him would be greater peril than you and I were in when the bridge parted and left a yawning gulf for us to pass. I ask no gratitude for anything done there; but in this other and greater peril, which you will not see, and I cannot show you, let me at least step in between you and a future that I tremble at.”

Bertha arose. In her anger she forgot all that this man had done for her; that he came there by her own invitation, and had a right to question her as he had done. Only a few months before, she had looked upon him as the best friend she had on earth; but that seemed a long time ago—years and years—for she had only begun to live since then. He had no right to come so far out of the past, and rake up the ashes of a selfish hope—no right, because of keen disappointment and bitter jealousy, to malign, even by a look, the man she loved.

299“I cannot hear these insinuations against a man so great that neither you nor I are likely to understand him,” she said, with dignity; “because that would be treason to—to my future husband.”

Fletcher, too, arose, greatly agitated.

“Then you are engaged to this man?”

“Yes. You are the first, except one, to whom I have confessed it, but we are engaged. It is a secret as yet. Will you consider it as such?”

Fletcher smiled a little. With that dead, heavy pain at his heart, was he likely to talk of its cause? The request was not worth answering.

“You are about to leave me, I hope not in anger?” said Bertha, smitten with compassion by the anguish in that face. “It was not my fault, but my fate.”

“No, I am not angry,” answered Fletcher, “but surprised and pained beyond anything I ever expected to feel.”

“And it is my evil fortune to bring this pain upon you—you, the bravest and—and—”

Here Bertha’s pride gave way, and, covering her face with both hands, she burst into a passion of penitent tears.

“It was not my fault! it was not my fault!” she sobbed. “For the whole world I would not have given you a moment’s pain!”

“I am sure of that,” answered Fletcher, gently. “Do not grieve about it. I had no right to hope so fondly. But remember this, Bertha—nothing but death can change my love for you—”

“Oh, do not say that!”

“Or my friendship for you.”

“You are too good! I do not deserve it,” sobbed the girl.

300“I may be mistaken about this—this gentleman.”

Bertha looked up, and the tears in her eyes began to sparkle.

“You are! you are! Oh, believe me!”

“But if it should prove otherwise? You are singularly alone, Bertha—without protection.”

“I know it! I know it!”

“Fatherless, brotherless—only that good old man at the farm-house.”

“Don’t! don’t! You are wrong to speak of me as desolate now. What defence against the world is better than the love of a strong, brave man?”

Fletcher winced at this, but answered her cruel words firmly, as became an unselfish nature under suffering.

“If the time should come, Bertha, when this faith is broken—when you need a friend—I shall be near—I shall be ready. Farewell!”

“Farewell! No, no! You have not seen my mother. She pines to thank you for the life of her child.”

“Not now. I could not bear it. Oh, Bertha, Bertha, if we had gone down together!”

The next moment Bertha was left alone, with these words ringing through her brain. There was a force of anguish in this speech that wrung the girl’s heart. Why was it that she was doomed to offer only ingratitude for the love he offered and the great service he had rendered her? Not even the miserable boon of “hope deferred” was left for her to give. He had come after months of waiting to find her pledged to another.

No wonder the girl cast herself down and wept.

301

The conservatory in which those two lovely women stood was a perfect arch of rolling glass, lifted so high that the golden-haired acacias, and fruit-laden orange trees, grew almost to their full stature under it. Underneath was a forest of Japan lilies, with their snow-white feathery leaves; seeded ferns, and yet more stately plants, in gorgeous bloom; japonicas, in white blossom; fuchsias, laden with purple and crimson bells; twining jessamines and passion flowers—crowded all that was delicious and sweet in the tropics around their feet and over their heads.

Mrs. Forbes had drawn Bertha out from the gay throng of dancers, whose tread could be faintly heard among those blossoming plants, rolling like a dull bass through the joyous music of a waltz. They had been standing a few minutes under the ground-glass lamps that swung like mammoth pearls among the plants, talking 309of the ball, of the flowers, of everything but the thoughts that were preying upon them both.

These young women had been together a great deal within the last two months, and had learned to love each other well; but they now seemed almost afraid, and looked down shyly, talking of things that did not interest them, because one did not wish to ask, and the other shrank from explaining what had brought them there.

At last Mrs. Forbes spoke, and her words brought a strange smile to Bertha’s lips.

“Do not be angry with me, Bertha, if I say something that seems intrusive; but I have been so anxious about you of late.”

“Of me—and why?”

“Because you seem to me in danger.”

“Danger, Mrs. Forbes! I am aware of none.”

“You are so much with Mr. Waldon, and he is not a safe man. Oh, Heavens, it is too late!”

Mrs. Forbes might well start back and fling out her arms, for the hot fire smouldering in Bertha Canfield’s eyes broke through the drooping lashes that had almost touched her cheek as she listened, and a smile of withering scorn shot across her red lips.

“Forgive me, Bertha, it may be too late to save you from a peril that makes me tremble; but though you are angry, I shall not regret having spoken. It was a painful duty—you will never know how painful.”

“Why undertake it, then? Mrs. Forbes, I have asked neither protection nor counsel from any one.”

“Because I love you, Bertha, and feel for your unprotected condition—because silence in me would be criminal.”

310“There exist more criminal things than silence,” said Bertha, scornfully.

“True, perils that an innocent girl never dreams of until they overwhelm her. Do be warned, Bertha, before this bad, bad man, wins a heart of which he is utterly unworthy.”

“This advice, madam, whatever your motive may be in giving it, comes too late.”

“Oh, Heaven forbid!”

“I am engaged to Mr. Waldon—you malign my future husband in what you are saying.”

“Is this true, Bertha?”

The evident distress with which the question was asked aroused Bertha to something like sympathy for the woman who had failed to interest the noble being who was so truly hers.

“Yes, it is true; he loves me; and oh, how could I help loving him!”

“Then God help you! I have no more to say.”

“It would have been better if you had not said so much. As it is, I will endeavor to think the motive friendly, and forget it. Indeed, I am too happy for anything but kind thoughts, even for you, Mrs. Forbes, who have almost frightened me.”

While Bertha was speaking, a crimson curtain that shut out the conservatory from a boudoir leading to the picture gallery was drawn back, and a gentleman stooped under it, looking in among the flowers.

“Alice, Alice, are you here? The carriage is waiting, and we promised Mr. Forbes to get home early.”

“A few minutes more—only that, brother. I am engaged just this moment.”

The crimson curtain dropped suddenly, and the man went away.

311“Who was that?” demanded Bertha.

“That—my brother—I thought you knew him a little.”

“If it is Mr. Fletcher, I do know him; but until now I had no idea that he was your brother.”

“His name is Egbert Fletcher, and he is my half-brother—my mother was married twice; but we have seen but little of each other, he being of the South, and I living North, most of the year, ever since I was married.”

“I begin to comprehend,” said Bertha, indignantly. “You were my friend, and supposed to influence me.”

“What is this? I do not understand you, Bertha Canfield.”

“Perhaps not—it will suffice that I understand everything; but I had a higher opinion of your brother.”

“My brother! what has he done to offend you? Only a single week in New York, during which he has hardly left my house. You must not speak unkindly of my brother, Miss Canfield. I cannot bear that, even from you.”

“Unkindly—unkindly of Mr. Fletcher! No, let him deal with me ever so darkly, I cannot do that. Do you know that he saved my life—stood with me over an awful whirlpool of waters—a gulf before us, death all around us—people shrieking, and flinging up their hands on the shore; but he saved me! he saved me!—and you are his sister. But why should you both try to make the life he gave so little worth having as it would be if I believed you. Never speak to me against Waldon again and we may always be friends, if it is only for your brother’s sake.”

312

The postman’s knock! Lydia ran to the door, swung it open, and reached forth her hand.

“Miss Lydia—Lydia—”

“That’s for me my own self!” cried the girl, snatching at the letter in an ecstasy of excitement.

“Well, I hope you can make it out,” said the postman, laughing, as he went down the steps, “for a crookeder hand I never got hold of.”

Lydia tore off the envelope from her letter and began to read it in the hall. It began, “Dear Liddy;” but that was crossed out, and the substitution was:

“I take up my pen hoping that you are well and enjoying good health, which I am, with Nancy and the rest—all sending love but myself, which is respects. Miss Liddy, the reason of my writing this is that things are going all wrong over to the brown house. Miss Clara is pined down to a shadder, with eyes that scare 318you when you look into them—scare you and make you cry at the same time. She don’t have no work to do now. The people here have got mad about her riding out with young Mr. Lane, and won’t send her any. Mother does her best, and so do I; but trout isn’t plenty, and it’s a sin to kill birds so near nesting-time.

“Miss Liddy, she won’t go out to ride or get into the dug-out, but wanders off and off alone sometimes, and comes back white as a ghost; but sometimes with her cheeks a burning like hot coals. She is sick, I tell you, and going to die; that’s my opinion, and it’s mother’s too, saying nothing of Nancy. I’ve seen her faint clear away more’n once, and the old lady is growing so sweet and pleasant that it scares me half to death. Something is a going to happen in that house; I know it is.

“Can’t you think of something as ought to be done? You allus could plan things better than anybody. Do try now; for if something isn’t done right off, Miss Clara will be dead. Since the time you know of she hasn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive. Couldn’t he be coaxed back some way?

Lydia’s face was a study as she read this letter. It flashed, it frowned, and grew tender with grief, all in a moment. During Waldon’s visits to the house she had been full of smothered indignation, kept in check only by her promise to Clara Anderson. At first this astute man had recognized her with some apprehension; but she never seemed to remember him, and, like most egotists, he regarded persons of her class more as automatons than human beings. That this singular girl had suspected him from the first, and read his arts with the 319keen acumen of a critic, never once entered his imagination.

Waldon was waiting in the parlor when Lydia got her letter. She knew nothing of his engagement to Bertha, but saw with anger that the young lady was treading closely in the footsteps of Clara Anderson, and resented it in many ways, especially when she happened to be for a minute alone with Waldon. With the open letter fluttering in her hand, she walked into the parlor, marched up to its rather impatient inmate, and held the missive out to him.

“There, read that and see what you think of yourself for being here!” she said in a voice that snapped like her eyes.

Waldon put the letter aside with his hand.

“Take the scrawl away. Some one in the kitchen will read it for you,” he said.

“No, they won’t. I promised Miss Clara Anderson never to mention your name, and if this letter don’t do it right out it’s just as bad.”

“My name—Miss Clara Anderson!” said Waldon, struck with absolute amazement.

“Just that and nothing more. I ain’t blind if I am cross-eyed, nor deaf neither; but I’ve promised, and that’s enough. If I hadn’t, as sure as you’re alive Miss Bertha would have known all about your readings, and eating up all the strawberries, and looking at Miss Clara while she made believe work. Don’t look so mad! I’m not a going to tell her because of that promise; but only try that same thing on here, and there’ll be such a tussle as you never heard on between you and this girl. Now read that letter. I want you to see your own tracks.”

320Waldon took the letter and went with it to a window. He was so astonished by the girl’s energetic language that the paper fairly shook in his hand. More than once, when some slight noise arrested him, he would turn anxiously toward the door, as if fearful that Bertha might come in and find him in this questionable position.

Lydia stood in the open door watching the man and the stairs with equal vigilance.

As Waldon folded up the letter and was about to put it in his pocket, the girl flew upon him.

“No, you don’t! Give that letter here!” she said, snatching it from his hand. “Now do you mean to go up to Connecticut and set things right or don’t you?”

Waldon clenched his white hand, sorely tempted to knock the girl down; but she neither flinched at the menace nor the wrathful flash of his eyes.

“Do you or don’t you? That’s the question.”

To her astonishment his face changed to its usual open, if not bland, expression, and he answered her—she thought to herself afterward—as if she had been a born lady.

“Of course, little girl, I will do anything to prove my friendship for the young lady. Do not trouble yourself any more about it. You were very kind to show me that letter. Take good care of it.”

“That’s just what I’m a going to do,” said the girl, greatly mollified by his manner. “But here comes Miss Bertha. Mind you say nothing to her.”

Waldon bent his head, smiling, and Lydia darted out of the room.

Once in her room, the girl took out her letter and fell to reading it again. It was the first she had ever received, 321and brought Ben kindly bade to her remembrance.

Slowly and very earnestly she gathered in its sense line by line, brightening over the “Dear Liddy” which had been crossed out, and wishing in her heart that he had left it so. When she came to the signature, which was ended with a flourish that looked like a coiled whiplash, she discovered a word that had escaped both herself and Waldon—one little word, “over.”

Turning the paper on the other side she found this:

“P. S.—The old lady is dead; so is Miss Clara, drowned in the river. Amongst them all they have driv her crazy. Oh, Liddy! Liddy I how I wish you was here.”

When Waldon was going out he found Lydia in the hall; her face was red with weeping, and she leaned against the wall in an attitude of great dejection.

“Read that,” she said, drawing the paper from behind her, and pointing out the paragraph with her finger.

“Read that, if you’ve got the heart. Then go home and kill yourself.”

Waldon took the paper in silence; he dared not speak, for Bertha was in the next room.

Lydia watched him keenly. She expected to see his eyes fill with tears, and his face clouded with sorrow.

Instead of that he handed back the letter with no visible emotion, and without a word.

Bertha was standing by the window, as usual, watching to see him go out, for the most precious thing on earth to her was this stolen glance at her lover’s face.

“How splendid he looks!” she whispered to herself. “Ah! I must have made him very happy when he smiles so. 322Still I thought him a little troubled, and wondered what made him so anxious that we should begin our journey at once. In fact, it seemed to me that my answer disturbed him, when I said that mamma would not hasten the time. Of course I was mistaken, for never in my life have I seen his face so lighted up.”

Bertha was mistaken. That awful paragraph had relieved Waldon of a great apprehension. Instead of remorse or horror, he felt absolutely elated that fate had swept one more old love from his path.

The bell slowly swaying in that high steeple rung out the solemn announcement that the oldest inhabitant of the village was lying dead in that brown house, with moss on the roof, and trees rooted before she was born, bristling with dead limbs in front of it.

Eighty-six times that iron tongue tolled out the years of her age. Up and down the valley its voice was heard, penetrating those pleasant-looking houses, like a cry for judgment, hoarse with denunciation.

Mothers heard it, surrounded by their families, and, conscience stricken, lowered their eyes beneath the questioning looks of their own innocent children.

Judge Lane heard it, and, bowing his face to the table before him, began to wonder if he had, indeed, done well in seeking his own interests at a price like that.

Deacon Jones heard the iron voice, in the counting-room 323far back in his store, and observed to a neighbor lingering there, that the old woman, Mrs. Anderson, had fallen like ripe wheat before the sickle; but said nothing of the cruel sweep of his own hand that had cut her down.

A group of females, who met to finish their work left incomplete the day before, looked in each other’s pallid faces, as the bell tolled above them, and whispered that the old woman was not only dead, but the poor young girl, whom they had always sustained and done so much for, was drowned.

Her footsteps had been traced down to the river, where she had been driven in frenzy by the wicked reports that only reached the grandmother’s ears a few hours before she died. Reports that they, as Christian women, had never encouraged, and felt it a solemn duty to put down, having daughters of their own.

No one of these women remembered, or admitted that she remembered, the chorus of condemnation that had been swelled by her own voice the day before. Yet the heart in each bosom quailed, under the iron blows of that bell, in terror of the falsehood she was acting.

You might have searched that village from end to end without finding one soul that would admit of belief, or personal share, in the slanders that had driven that poor girl to the desperate act she had committed. Nay, those who had been most industrious in hunting her down were now among the first to denounce the calumniators, who were fast growing intangible, and creeping out of sight, like rattlesnakes, slinking from the shadow of a white-ash tree.

But they could not escape the iron voice of that bell.

Upon the road coming up from the river, two horsemen 324riding toward the town at a rapid pace heard the first heavy swing of that death-bell. They both had known the bright girl whose character had been so ruthlessly assailed, and one had loved her dearly. That first iron blow smote them both to the heart. Lane uttered a single cry, and stopping his horse sat motionless counting the years as they were tolled forth; at every vibration the heart shrank grieving down in his bosom and his nerves tightened, holding him in mute agony until twenty had been slowly measured off, each bringing new anguish with it.

“She is dead, and I have come too late,” he said, looking at his companion. “I might have known that she would sink under—”

This sentence was broken up by another clang, which held the very breath suspended on those white lips.

“Again, again!”

“Twenty-two. Oh, thank God, she was not of that age!” he cried out. “Fletcher, Fletcher, there is hope yet.” Here the bell strikes again. “It is not she—it is not she, my love is not dead.”

A lad on horseback came over the bridge and rode toward them. Lane recognized him, and pushed forward close enough to know that the lad’s eyes were red and his face downcast.

“That bell; who is it tolling for, Ben?”

“Old Mrs. Anderson. She died last night. I don’t suppose they will toll for the other, till she’s found.”

“The other—the other? What do you mean?”

Ben burst into a great passion of tears.

“Don’t ask me—don’t ask me. I am trying and trying not to believe it, but the canoe is gone, and so is she.”

“She—who? for mercy’s sake speak out, boy!”

325“Miss Clara. Oh, sir, she’s gone!”

“Gone—where?”

“Dead—drowned. I don’t know where. The canoe hasn’t turned up yet. I’m going to ride down the river till I get to the Housatonic, searching all the way. That’s what I’m starting for now. If I don’t come across nothing, that seems like killing me afore then, I’ll just foller on down to where the two rivers jine, and keep a going clear to the sound, nobody has thought of that but me; why should they, anyhow? didn’t I think more of her than any one else in this wide world?”

“Let us go with him,” said Lane, turning to his half-brother, who had shared his distress as if no trouble rested on his own life, and had come with him into the neighborhood when he determined to make that last appeal. “Let us go with him.”

There was a gleam of hope in the young man’s face that the brother’s heart answered.

“Yes, we will go,” he said; “anything is better than this suspense.”

“And suspense itself better than what seemed to be a certainty ten minutes ago,” said Lane.

The two young men had been startled by a vague rumor of Clara Anderson’s death, which reached them at the Stone Tavern at daylight, and had set forth at once to learn the truth. The news that Ben brought them was a relief, for with it came the possibility of a hope.

Down the banks of that beautiful stream along the larger river till it received the Naugatuck in its embrace, those three most anxious men rode; sometimes leaving their horses to search the banks more closely, and going at a slower pace after each pause, as disappointment settled more heavily upon them.

326From the mouth of the river they returned up the other side, making their search complete, and long after dark rode into the village worn out and heavy-hearted.

Lane could not go to his father’s; the wound on his heart was too deep for that, but he rode up to the minister’s door and asked for shelter for himself and brother there.

The clergyman, filled with pity, supported the young man into his house. It was touching to see how heavily that strong frame leaned on the good old man, and with what thankfulness that proud spirit received the little cares which fall so gently on the weary-hearted.

The next day and the next, these two young men pursued their search, but no trace of the unfortunate creature they sought could be found; like a shadow she had drifted away.

Among old Mrs. Anderson’s papers a will was found, giving that old house, the few acres of land with all their poor belongings, to her granddaughter, and in case she should die first, to Benjamin Vose, that it might be a home for his mother and sister.

Poor Ben had ridden, and walked on foot, up and down those rivers many a weary time, before he took possession of that humble inheritance. When he did at last move into the brown house it was more as a custodian than an owner.

“Some day Miss Clara might come back,” he said, “and she should find everything just as she left it, only things might be mended up a little. People needn’t call the place his, any way.”

327

332

339

Waldon slept at Willow Bend that night—have I told you that such was the name of Mr. Noel’s place—and stayed there a day or two, loitering around the verandas in snow-white garments, and slowly recovering from the effect of an accident that had threatened his life. The young men came up from Hyde’s plantation and made hospitable efforts to win him back 347to them, but he still claimed to be an invalid, and would not go.

He spent half the time swinging lazily in a hammock, reading to the girls, or reciting poetry—sometimes his own—in a deep, rich voice that disturbed more hearts than the one that loved him. Sometimes Bertha would spend hours with her mother, who saw that she was unhappy, and reproached herself as the cause. During these filial visits, Waldon kept on reading, and Mary Noel listened, feeling strangely guilty all the time. Sometimes he lay idly looking at her, while she was busy with her dainty attempts at work, and his glance made her cheeks hot, as sunshine forces a flower into blossom. At such times she thought of Bertha, who had saved her life and his, almost with dread, wondering why that dear school-friend would not let her speak all the gratitude she felt.

As for Waldon, his pride was hurt that a woman, born, as he solemnly thought, to worship him, and him alone, should have saved his life. It wounded his self-love; but he wrote an exquisite poem on the subject, in which he alluded, in faultless measure, to something far more precious than his own existence, saved to him by her heroic conduct. Was it her love that he held so priceless? Bertha buried the poem in her bosom as something too precious and sacred for the knowledge of any one out of Heaven, but Waldon had read it to Mary with an emphasis which brought the blush of incipient treason all over her shy countenance.

One morning Bertha left the poem under her pillow. Lydia, who acted as ladies’ maid to the mother and daughter, found it, and having no scruples on the subject, read it more than once. Now, Lydia, looking two 348ways, seemed to see double, but even she did not discover the subtle underdrift which gave this poem a distinct meaning for two persons. To her it was brimful of gratitude and impatient love.

“I will lay it where she can’t help but read it. If that don’t spur her on to set the day, I’ll give her up. What is she a putting it off for? All the things bought and made, it could be done in no time, but she won’t come up to the scratch. He’s got mad, I reckon, and won’t ask again, and Bertha is just pining away like—like—no matter about that. She’s pining, and that’s enough. There she’s sure to find it.”

Lydia dropped Waldon’s poem by the dressing-table, where Mrs. Canfield found it ten minutes after, and read it through with a wildly beating heart and shuddering nerves.

“He loves her! he loves her! and it is only I who stand in the way!” she cried, wringing her little white hands, that seemed too childish for such agony of motion. “My Bertha is miserable, and I am killing her! To hold back longer is worse than cowardice. What am I that her heart should break while I tremble upon the verge?”

While the poor woman was pacing the floor, like a leopard in its cage, her eyes wild with a painful resolution, her delicate lips set firmly to stop their craven tremor, Lydia came into the room, and began to look up and down the floor. Mrs. Canfield stopped short in her walk, and spoke sharply:

“What are you doing here? Who said I wanted you?”

“Nothing and nobody,” answered the girl, taking her mistress in with a sharp cross-fire of the eyes. 349“Only I dropped a paper, and want to put it under Miss Bertha’s pillow afore she misses it. Meant to give it to her with my own hands, and after hunting her all over the house, haven’t got the confound—I beg sixteen hundred and two pardons—but I’m bound to find that paper, or catch it.”

“Is this the paper?” said Mrs. Canfield, holding out the folded poem with a shaking hand.

“Is it? I should think so! Miss Bertha has been a reading it over and over, in corners and places, ever since day before yesterday; so I reckon she prizes it considerably. I’ll tuck it back again under her pillow, and no harm done.”

Mrs. Canfield did not hear her. She had begun to pace the floor again, clenching and unclenching her hand, while drops of strong agony came out and stood, trembling, on her white forehead, which was clouded and deeply wrinkled between the eyes—a sign of unusual perturbation in the little woman.

At last she turned, missed Lydia, and drew a deep breath, thankful for the reprieve of one little minute. She would do the thing at once, for her daughter’s sake—for the sake of that man who loved her so fondly, so proudly that he would forgive anything; but oh, it was hard! How could her lips ever frame what she had to say?

In a minute Lydia came back again.

“Cruel!” thought the unhappy woman. “Could she not have given me ten minutes?”

No; the girl was relentless. She glided up to her mistress, and said, in a low, confidential voice:

“Didn’t you want me to do something or other?”

Mrs. Canfield stood still, looking at the girl with her quailing eyes.

350What good or evil spirit had sent the girl there to hound on her purpose?

“Yes,” she answered, in a hoarse undertone. “Where is Mr. Waldon?”

“Swinging in one of them ham—hammocks, ma’am, reading with all his might out of a poetry book, with pictures in it.”

“Are the young ladies with him?”

“Yes’m; both listening.”

“Tell Mr. Waldon that I wish to speak with him, here in my room.”

“Yes’m,” answered Lydia, darting off like a lapwing.

Mrs. Canfield stood still, listening, as a condemned criminal listens for his executioner.

“I must—I will!” she muttered. “While there was a doubt of his devotion—of his entire devotion—it was different; but after that poem I need not fear—”

A knock at the door made her start like a shot animal. She tried to say, “Come in,” but no sound came. Then the latch turned, and Waldon entered.

Waldon was always suave and courteous with Bertha’s mother, who regarded him from the first with sensitive reserve, which he had mistaken for the awe which his genius imposed on an intellect only appreciative. But there was something in her look and manner now that astonished him. A fever of dread in her 351eyes, and a shrinking of the whole person, as if she feared some bodily harm.

“You sent for me, dear madam? But you look ill; I hope it is nothing serious.”

The lady did not notice this courteous address, but motioned with her hand that Waldon should seat himself. Then she arranged the blinds nervously, filling the chamber with shadows, and shrank into a corner of the high-backed couch, looking at him like a child that dreads some cruel punishment.

At last she spoke.

“I sent for you, Mr. Waldon, because you have urged me so often to give up my child, to fix a time when she might go from me to you.”

“Yes,” he said; “I have sometimes thought it a little strange that you should hesitate so long.”

“But I will hesitate no longer. It was wrong, selfish, cowardly, I admit that; but now I will tell you everything. Knowing how you love my daughter, how tender and great your heart is, I should not have been silent after you first claimed her of me, but my task was a hard one, and I never was strong.”

There was something pathetic and helpless in this plea that would have touched most men. Waldon seized upon it eagerly.

“Does it distress you so much to give Bertha up? If so—”

Mrs. Canfield silenced him with a nervous movement of her hand.

“Don’t mistake my meaning. Her happiness is tenfold dearer than anything I can ever hope for. I only care to insure that, and if dying would do it, rather than what I am going to say, I would gladly rest my head here and never breathe again.”

352“There can be nothing that you should hesitate to say to me, dear lady. If I have importuned you with over-zeal for an early time, forgive the selfishness, as I will endeavor to conquer it.”

Mrs. Canfield started out of her faintness.

“You love my child yet?”

“That is a strange question to ask of me. Why should you doubt a love that seems to have driven you wild with its impatience?”

“What right have I to question it?” she said, anxiously; “but so much depends on that—so much!”

“What new protestations can I make?” said Waldon, with a touch of impatience.

“Protestations—I ask none, only certainty—only certainty!”

“Is Bertha doubtful? Has she troubled you with her own suspicions?”

“Bertha doubt you? That is impossible!”

“Then, for Heaven’s sake, tell me what all this is about?”

The lady shrank back from him, startled. He saw it and smiled, took her hand and kissed it, hoping that caresses would make her speak out.

“Ah! it is because I am her mother that you think so much of me!”

“Yes,” he answered, soothingly, “because you are her mother.”

“And you love her dearly?”

“Who can doubt it?”

“Better than all the world beside?”

“What strange questions you ask!”

“Better than your life? You should, for she saved that.”

353“Who told you this—Bertha?”

“Bertha? No, she denies it; says that you were striving to help her; but the gentleman who saved you both told it at Hyde’s, and Miss Noel saw my Bertha plunge into the water when you went under.”

“It was a wild scene—all confusion and struggles. I doubt if any one knows the truth of it; but we were talking of Bertha.”

“Yes—of her wedding-day, and of your love for her. Tell me, is it rooted deep—is it capable of great sacrifices? Would you rather be a beggar than lose her?”

She spoke breathlessly, and her fingers wove themselves closer around his white hand.

“You ask such strange, wild questions,” he said, curbing his impatience. “I have courage for great sacrifices. But tell me what this means? Is it that your child is poor?”

“Poor! No.”

“That she has ceased to love me?”

“Ceased to love you!”

A faint little laugh came with these words, protesting against their possibility.

“That you wish to break the engagement?”

“Break the engagement! No! no! no! It would break her heart and yours, loving her so much!”

“In Heaven’s name, then, what is this all about? I cannot conjecture, and not being gifted with more than divine patience, am getting anxious.”

“Yes, you must know; but she—my child—promise me that what I say shall never, never be told to her?”

“I will promise that, if the thing seems important enough for a secret. Well, well, do not turn so deathly white! I promise.”

354

For a minute there was a hard, dead silence in that room.

Mrs. Canfield leaned back exhausted, her eyes closed, her face trembling all over, while Waldon sat with a bar of sunlight striking through the blinds across his face, through which his eyes shone with sinister brightness.

The lady opened her eyes at last, and turned them wistfully upon him.

362“Is it contempt or pity that you feel for me?”

“Pity!” he exclaimed, with ruthless sincerity; “what pity can be claimed for a person who forgets all dignity, and disgraces her own womanhood?”

A cry broke from the poor creature who was bending toward him, and she fell back upon the couch as if crushed down by a blow.

“Don’t! don’t!” she gasped, holding up both her shivering little hands, as if to ward off a second assault. “I think you have killed me with this!”

“You have told the truth, I suppose, and I thank you that so much of honor, at least, has been left. Your daughter is ignorant of her disgrace, and I am forbidden to tell her why our engagement is broken. I can pity her.”

“Broken! broken! No! no! You write such beautiful, generous things—it cannot be in your mind to break her young heart as you have crushed mine? She is noble, good, white as an angel! My sin has not touched her—my sorrow has only fostered her tenderness. Oh, sir, think of me as you please, but you will never find another like her!”

“But you, who have sinned, are her mother.”

“I cannot help that! God let her live and grow beautiful—so good and beautiful that it seemed as if He were blessing me when I deserved only punishment. He scarcely sent me a trouble till you came and made her love you. Then I suffered. She will never know how I suffered; for it was my duty to give her up, and I was pledged to tell this to the man she wished to marry. It was hard—cruelly hard; and now, instead of pity, you threaten to break up her life. But you did not mean it. No wonder you hated me at first—I sometimes hate myself—but you are generous, and you love her.”

363“But she has been associated with you all her life, and, ignorant of any reason why she should not, will continue to crave your society.”

Mrs. Canfield started up, and, supported by her elbow, searched his face for the cruel meaning of those words.

“You mean—you mean—”

“Yes, I mean that no wife of mine shall ever associate with a woman who has degraded herself!”

“You would take her entirely from me! Sir, I am her mother!”

“You have just told me as much.”

“And I love her better than my own life—better than my hopes of salvation—from the morning when he lay dead before me until now, she has been the one object in which my poor life has centred; but if you demand it, if it will make you love her better, I will give her up utterly—will go away back to the old farm-house, and all alone mourn the sin you have hurled upon me like a rock. You shall never be troubled with the sight of me. I will never leave the farm. Mr. Canfield left me well off, and very soon you will have everything, even to the farm. I would give it up now, only the will forbids it.”

The poor woman saw a change come over the man’s face—he was relenting. She started to a sitting posture, and held out her clasped hands, imploringly.

“You will think of this—deprived of her I shall not live long, then you will have everything. Only now and then—once in a year or two—she might come to see her grandparents. Not me—I will not ask that; but they are good old people, and love her so—or, perhaps, you would let me dress like a servant, and come through your basement, as if I wanted a place—just to look at 364her in her happiness a little, as the years creep along. It would not hurt you, and I shall be so desolate.”

“That you might be seized with a fit of weak penitence, and tell my wife of her own disgrace. No, madam, I will not marry a woman who has a mother living whom I cannot openly receive in my house. That you have no right to ask of me.”

The woman fell back with a piteous moan; her hands trembled apart, and dropped down limp and pale, one dragging on the carpet.

Waldon took that poor little hand in his, and laid it on her bosom. Some small touch of compassion seemed to possess him at last, but while she lay, with broken moans on her lips, his footsteps, as he paced the room, shook the floor and the couch.

“Oh, if I were dead! If I could only have dropped down and died without telling him,” moaned the poor woman.

“Dead!” repeated Waldon, unconscious that he was speaking. “Yes, if she were dead, there would be a difference.”

She heard this cruel speech, and stopped moaning. It had entered her heart like a rusty arrow, and rankled there. Waldon still walked up and down the room, but she lay motionless, turned to marble as it seemed. At last the stillness struck him, and he went up to the couch. Her eyes were wide open, her lips parted till he could discern the edges of her still perfect teeth.

The deathly pallor of that face frightened Waldon. Was the woman dying? Had he killed her? It was an unpleasant thought. He looked around for some restorative, but the room being a pretty summer parlor, contained no perfume flasks or water, save that in vases, 365which newly-plucked roses were drinking. He tried a door which was unlatched. Some heavy substance leaning against it moved, and at the second push it swung open, revealing a bed-chamber dimly lighted, and cool as a snow-bank. On the marble slab of a dressing-table some toilet bottles glittered. He seized one and went out, leaving the door unlatched.

Mrs. Canfield was still lying motionless, but her eyes were closed, and under them lay soft, purple stains; the lips that he had left apart were closed, and were firmly pressed like the cold marble mouth of a statue, embodying resolve and pain.

Waldon poured some cologne water into his curved palm, and bathed that forehead with it tenderly; for this man combined in his singular being the delicacy of an angel and the coarseness of a brute. Sometimes these contrasts chased each other through his nature so swiftly that you could hardly make sure which he was, a seraph or a fiend.

After a long time Mrs. Canfield opened her eyes, and looked into the face bending over her—not wistfully, as she had a little time before, but with a fixed, steady gaze, as if she had nothing to hope or fear from the man’s compassion or wrath.

“Are you better? I am sorry that my words wounded you so deeply,” he said.

“Yes, I am better. It is all over.”

Waldon was surprised. There was no appearance of weakness in the woman now.

“That is well,” he said, throwing away the flowers from a tall champagne glass, into which he poured some water that he had brought from the next room, and a little of the cologne. “Drink; it will give you strength. 366Some other time we will talk this matter over, and you will understand better how impossible it is for me—”

The poor lady interrupted him by seizing upon the glass with both hands, and eagerly swallowing its contents. Then she sat upright, and spoke with considerable steadiness.

“There is little more to be said. I have a question to ask. Russell Waldon, do you love my daughter for her own sake, wholly, entirely?”

“Love her! yes—wholly, entirely!”

“But for me you would marry her?”

“But for you, and what you have told me, I would marry her to-morrow.”

“To-morrow!” repeated the woman, with a wan smile. “No, that would be giving me so little time—to-morrow—only twenty-four hours. You are in haste, sir.”

“You are confused,” he said; “but for what you have told me—”

“No, it is you that misunderstand; but tell me this once again—you love my child?”

“Yes! Why ask me to repeat it?”

“I had a little—just a little doubt once; but now that she has saved your life, things seem different. That was a brave act. You should love her dearly for it; so should Mary Noel, for she saved her, too. But all that has not won you to forgive a poor sinful woman, who—”

Here that pale face began to quiver again, and tears swelled under the almost transparent eyelids.

“We will not speak of that,” answered the man.

“No, it is useless, and troubles you; but I had something to add. Give Bertha a little time—a month—perhaps you would not begrudge me six weeks. Do not 367let her guess that her mother is so much in the way. Something may arise—of course, the past never can be changed; but sometimes a great deal happens in a month—say six weeks—that is so little out of your life. Let everything rest as it is between you till then. Make no resolutions; be in no haste to strike her down; and I charge you, never let her know that for one moment you thought of giving her up—that is, after you are married, if it comes to that. You promise?”

Waldon took the hand she held out to him, with some real feeling.

“Yes, I promise to change nothing in our relations during the time you mention.”

“Thank you. But remember, under no circumstances are you to tell her what I have revealed to-day.”

“My promise is already given.”

“True; I had forgotten. The time seems so long since you came into the room here. How swiftly pain hurls one forward! Hark! that is Bertha’s voice, and she is laughing. How can she laugh? how can she laugh?”

There came another sweet peal of merriment, and a voice cried out:

“Waldon—Mr. Waldon! Come to the window; mamma must keep you no longer! You only asked ten minutes, and here it is an hour!”

Waldon pushed a leaf of the blinds open, and through the opening came a rose-bud, heavy with moss, which just grazed his face, and fell into the room.

“Hand that to mamma as a compensation for giving you up. She will find a kiss in the moss. Then come, for we are getting tired of each other here.”

Waldon waved his hand from the window, laid the bud in Mrs. Canfield’s lap, and left the room.

368The moment he was gone the woman he had tortured to death arose from her couch, and hiding herself back of the blinds, looked out upon the two girls, who waited together on the lawn. How fresh and beautiful they were! How full of life—the bright, sweet life she must never know again! To her they seemed as angels in a heaven, from which one sin had shut her out.

This thought gave the poor woman a little gleam of hope, but she shook it off as a weakness. Bertha loved the man. Every look, every word betrayed the depth and strength of her devotion. With what a proud sense of appropriation she leaned upon his arm, clasping both hands over it, and almost touching his shoulder with her cheek, while Mary Noel paused to tie the little straw gypsy, from which a purple corn flower had just fallen.

“She loves him! she loves him!” sighed the poor mother, and stealing back to her couch, she turned her face to the wall, and lay there in dead silence, grasping Bertha’s rose in her hand so closely that it was crushed out of all shape.

While that wretched woman had dropped down in her despair, the girl Lydia stood in the next room, peering through the blinds, and shaking her clenched fist at Waldon, who was passing, with the ladies, on his way to the river.

“You Ishmaelite—you puffed-up Moab—you grass-fed Nebuchednezzer! You—you—oh! if I only had a fist full of hard names to pitch at you! That might keep me from bursting out and telling them all I know, that I’ve been peeping through key-holes and door-cracks, and hearing things that make my blood run cold! Oh, my poor mistress! why didn’t she tell me, if it must 369come out, and not that—that handsome beast—that stony-hearted cuss? There! I’ve swore, and it’s done me good!”

After a while Bertha came indoors and ran up to her mother’s room, a little curious to know why Waldon had been summoned to it. Had her mother at last relented? Was the time arranged when she would be Waldon’s wife, and all her weak unrest swept away forever? Had her mother discovered how foolish she was, and how unreasonably she suffered at times? Not often of course; but when Waldon spoke to her friend in that caressing way, and looked at her so, how could any one help feeling it? Being engaged did not make a woman more than human.

Mrs. Canfield was lying on the lounge, with her face to the wall. She shrank together when Bertha came in, and closed her eyes.

Bertha was not surprised by her pallor, nor by this effort to avoid conversation. These things only confirmed the belief that Waldon’s face had impressed on her. She had seen him come out from the interview with bright eyes and a smile of satisfaction on his lips. What could have brought these signs there but the consent he had so often pleaded for?

“Mother, what makes you look so strange? I have 370not seen you smile in a week. It makes my heart ache. Have I done anything wrong?”

“No, my darling—you never do wrong.”

“Now, that’s just one of your own precious little fibs. Don’t I know that it was awfully wrong to leave you alone, as I did the other morning? And am I ever here only like a humming bird, flying in and out among the flowers, staying nowhere long, because there is so much honey dew about all of them? But, then, he is here, and will be going away soon. There is no use denying it; I cannot stay content even with you when he is about.”

“Do you love him so well—more than your mother, Bertha?”

The pathetic mournfulness of that poor mother’s voice went to the girl’s heart. She kissed her lips and forehead, in mute apology for loving any one but her, then gathered up her courage and said:

“Better than you, mother? No, I cannot say that—not better, but different. It is impossible that I should ever love any one better than my own, own mother.”

“But you do love him?”

“Oh, yes! dearly, mamma; forgive me, indeed I do!”

“But if I were to ask you to give him up, Bertha?”

“Ah, mother dear, I could not do it!”

“Not if your mother’s happiness, forever and ever, depended on it?”

The poor woman could hardly make herself heard, her voice was so hoarse.

“Mother, how can you ask me?”

“But, to save my life—my life—could you give up 371this man, who was a stranger to us only a few months ago—to save my life?”

“Then, mother, I would give Waldon up, and die in your place.”

“No, no, Bertha; you would not die. It might sadden you for a time—a long, long time, perhaps; but death is not always merciful to the unhappy. I have known people pray on their knees, hours and hours, in darkness and tears, but death would not come to them for praying.”

“That is hard, for so I should pray, mother. What would life be without him?”

“You would have your mother, Bertha.”

“And she would break her own heart in watching mine wither! Dear, sweet mother! why are you questioning me so? Has Waldon done you any wrong? If so, he shall make it up, or I’ll never speak to him again. There now; is not this foolish talk? Never speak to him again! Why, that would kill me! But what has he done?”

“Done—nothing.”

“Then why ask such cruel questions? Is it that you doubt my love for him?”

“Not that, Bertha, but your strength to part with him. Could you find enough for that, if he wished it?”

“If he wished it, mother! Oh, mother! has he wished it?”

“Bertha, Bertha, you frighten me! No—I say he has not wished it; but if he should?”

“Mamma, you are cruel—awfully cruel. I would not have believed it of you. I would not torture any one so. If Waldon were to break with me—but I cannot think of it. Sometimes it has come across my mind 372when—when it ought not to, for that would be touching his honor. And I have felt as if a snake were coiling about my heart. Mother, if this ever happens, I shall perish, or become a revengeful, wicked woman, whom you would not know for your child. If God would not let me die, then—then—oh, mother! mother! in that case death would be a mercy!”

“But my Bertha used to be proud and strong.”

“That was before I knew him, mother.”

That poor woman was strangely persistent, probing her child’s heart cruelly, as she had never done before in all her gentle life.

“But if he wished it, the old pride would come back?”

“Mother, you make me angry. What has pride to do with love? Nothing, nothing; when a woman talks of that, she only gives selfishness another name. I tell you I love this man, fondly, madly, with my whole being! Now talk to me of parting with him, in this idle way, if you can find the heart to do it!”

“I cannot! I cannot!” answered the wretched mother. “It would be easier to die!”

She sank down upon the couch, that had witnessed so much anguish, after saying this, and turned her face to the wall.

Any one who had seen Bertha Canfield, as she stood in the middle of that room after being so questioned, might well have believed her when she said that desertion would make her a revengeful woman. Her eyes fairly burned, her cheeks turned white, and her mouth quivered with intense passion. So keenly had those questions tortured her that her heart writhed and her bosom panted with the pain of it. She did not heed the dead 373silence that had fallen upon her mother, or know when Lydia entered the room.

“Please to go out now, if you’ve come near enough to killing her, which you and that cu—excuse me, but I won’t see her murdered yet, being a girl with something besides stones in my bosom.”

Lydia was in solemn earnest. She now considered herself in duty bound to listen, and had heard everything, and understood far more than Bertha dreamed of.

Bertha pushed the girl aside, dashed into the next room, and flinging herself on the bed, burst into a passion of sobs.

“Why did she question me? What good did she find in dragging up those miserable doubts from the bottom of my heart? She might have known—she might have known how I had tried to strangle them.”

“Miss B., your mother is cold as a stone, and you here.”

Bertha flung the hair back from her face, and followed Lydia to the couch, where her mother was lying.

“Oh, mamma, forgive me! forgive me!”

Mrs. Canfield turned slowly, held out her arms, and the two clung together, one weeping passionately and the other still as death.

374

378

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386

Lydia was in the room, moving restlessly about. Sometimes this faithful creature grew tyrannical with her mistress, and out of the depths of a great love scolded her with affectionate violence. She saw the lady come in, pale as a ghost, her dress draggled with dew, and a damp white shawl trailing down it, sweeping the floor.

“This is just one thing too much, marm—such a night.”

“Hush!”

Mrs. Canfield lifted her arm, with the white drapery of the shawl clinging to it, and the gesture was so ghostly, in its slow motion, that Lydia’s very breath was hushed before that one word reached her ear.

392“Well, hush it is, marm,” she said, recovering herself; “but do go to bed at once, or it’ll be death you’ve catched. I’ve got the bed all fixed, and your mar is making a smasher of hot drink, though how you could do it—out into the wet grass—but you said hush, and hush it is.”

The damp shawl dropped from Mrs. Canfield’s shoulder. She made a feeble effort to unfasten her dress, but sat down when it was half-unbuttoned, and with her eyes on the floor fell into thought.

The door opened suddenly.

“Mother—oh, mamma, have you come in? How cruel of you? Precious old darling—her hair is wet as if it had been rained on.”

Bertha smoothed the hair tenderly with both hands, and kissed her mother, in all the fervor of her penitence. Her own eyes were heavy with weeping, and her voice shook, for she had been seized with great terror when told that her mother had gone off toward the river quite alone. While her grandfather had searched one way, she took another, and had just come in, distracted with strange fears.

“And her poor little feet cold as stones. Come, rub them, Lydia, while I get off this tiresome dress.”

Lydia dropped on her knees, took the tiny white feet in her lap, and began to rub them; but no pink flush answered to the friction of her palm, and all her kindly efforts seemed spent on marble.

“There, I have got these things off at last,” said Bertha; “now for burying her in a snow drift.”

Lying across the bed was a long garment of white linen, frosted at the sleeves and bosom with delicate lace, all so spotlessly cold that the girl took it up with a chill at the heart.

393The woman allowed herself to be buried in this garment for a moment, and then sat, with a faint smile gleaming over the solemn whiteness of her face, while Bertha fastened the night robe about her throat and wrists.

“Now be a good old darling, and take your blessed rest,” said Bertha, turning down the bed-clothes and smoothing the pillows.

Mrs. Canfield sat a moment, gazing upon the snowy folds of her night-robe, then she lifted her eyes to Bertha, with a look that went with the girl to her dying day.

“Bertha, you will never know how much I have loved you,” she said, in a low, pathetic voice, which seemed to struggle against some strong pressure of feeling.

“Yes, I do—I do! No sweeter mother ever lived.”

Bertha threw both arms around her mother, and kissed her with passionate tenderness, as her head touched the pillow; but this loving warmth fell on a locked face, which seemed turning to absolute stone; for one instant those frail arms were clasped around the girl, with a strain which seemed to break rather than loosen itself, but the hands fell down like dead things when they did unclasp.

“Good-night, mother; sleep well!”

No human lips answered Bertha’s sweet good-night, but a pair of wild eyes, black with agony, followed her from the room.

“Lydia!”

“Did you say Lydia, marm?”

“Lydia, you have been a good, faithful girl.”

“Yes, marm.”

“I can trust you?”

394“Marm, don’t be angry but I’m true as steel, having tried myself.”

“You will stay with me till morning, Lydia—alone, quite alone?”

“Yes, marm, I will, with the door locked.”

“There is a folded paper—after I am sound asleep you will find it under my pillow—read it then, but never tell any human being what is in it.”

“Mistress, I never will.”

For what seemed a long time to Lydia, Mrs. Canfield lay upon her pillow, motionless and silent: then she spoke again.

“Is Bertha asleep yet?”

Lydia arose, opened the door of Bertha’s chamber, and stole in on tip-toe. Directly she came back again.

“Yes, marm, she is, with one hand under her cheek like a baby.”

Something like a sob broke from the bed, but when Lydia went up to it, the face upon the pillow was locked and still as before.

Again some long minutes passed, and everything was quiet in the room; then a faint movement on the bed, and that same low voice:

“Lydia, go down and get that drink now.”

Lydia hesitated, something seemed to hold her back; but those large, wistful eyes were turned upon her, and she went away, heavy in her step, and heavy at heart.

The moment she was gone Mrs. Canfield arose, and, moving softly, like a ghost, stole into Bertha’s room and sat down on the bed, looking at her beautiful child as she slept. A smile was on the girl’s lips—those aching eyes saw it as the moon came out from under a cloud and threw a silvery veil down upon the sleeper. Could she 395smile, then, even in slumber? Then came to the heart of this poor woman a vivid memory of our Saviour, when he came from that place of agonized prayer and found his Apostles sleeping tranquilly, and at first her soul cried out against it with infinite compassion; but, by-and-by, she bent down, kissed those smiling lips and glided away. Human suffering had reached its climax then—something like calm fell upon her.

With her bare feet upon the carpet, and her long nightdress trailing over them, she went to a bureau and poured some water into a glass, which she placed on a little table within reach of her hand. Then she took from one of the drawers a tiny vial, touched with gold, such as bring our attar-of-rose from the East, which she held close in the palm of her hand while getting into bed again.

Lydia had been gone some time now. She might come back at any moment.

The woman rose to her elbow and listened, then fell back with a dull horror on her face. The door opened softly, and a shadow filled the open space.

“Thee is not to be disturbed, daughter. It is only I, going to bed. Good-night and sleep well.”

Sleep well! Did that sweet old voice, like the rest, lure her on? The same good-night from mother and daughter. Sleep well!

She arose to her elbow again, uncorked the tiny bottle with her teeth, and reaching for the goblet, emptied a few drops of some liquid it contained into the water.

This was done with slow deliberation. Feeling itself had grown numb in that motionless bosom, since that last look upon her child. Her only sensation was an intense longing for rest. The perfume of bitter almonds that came up from the goblet was pleasant. She lifted the glass to her lips.

396“Here it comes, smoking hot, with a slice of lemon floating on the top.”

With the words came a crash of glass upon the floor, a leap, such as frightened panthers give, and the goblet was hurled from Mrs. Canfield’s hand half across the room.

Too late—too late! That poor woman was dead!

Stunned almost into insensibility, Lydia had fallen across the bed as that glass left her hand. Lying there helplessly, with her eyes fixed upon the open orbs that looked so icily into hers, she besought her mistress to speak, to move, or turn those eyes once, that she might know that it was not death. But the eyes stared coldly on, the limbs stiffened, the hands turned to marble, and the awful stillness of death settled down upon the chamber.

Then Lydia arose, trembling in all her limbs, and was half way to the door, thinking to arouse the household, but a thought of the charge that had been given her flashed through her brain.

“Alone—I was to stay with her all night, and alone!” she thought, looking back to the bed, where those eyes seemed to plead with her. “There was a reason for that—something she wanted me to know and do. The paper—that will tell me!”

Some noble inspiration possessed this simple-hearted 397girl. She had made a promise, and that promise must be redeemed.

Up to this time Lydia had been timid and superstitious. Death to her was something terrible. She had none of this dread now, but was possessed of a strange, wild desire to carry that frail form off in her arms, and shield it from all question.

No mother ever curled the ringlets of her child with more gentle touch than this girl smoothed the silvery-brown locks of the dead, and laid them softly back from the brow on which some undying trouble was still locked, as genius embodies sorrow in marble. She closed those haunting eyes with a reverent pressure of the finger, beginning to cry piteously when the cold, white lids partly opened again, as if no sleep was ever to settle on that haunted spirit.

“Oh, if God would only forgive her, and let her sleep!” she moaned. “Day and night, day and night, since that man broke her heart, she has been like this—half asleep, half awake, as if she dreaded something, and took no wholesome rest. Oh, our Father, which art in Heaven, forgive her, do—do forgive her, as we forgive those who trespass against us! At least she did, oh Lord! But I can’t! It isn’t in me to forgive that man!”

Lydia fell upon her knees as she uttered this strange prayer, and tears fell like rain from her eyes.

“Give us this day our daily bread—only I couldn’t eat a crumb; it would choke me—lead us not into temptation—as she was, poor, dear, darling mistress—but deliver us from evil—especially from that awful man, Lord, for he is all evil, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot—for thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Forever and ever. Amen.”

398Lydia arose from her knees, relieved a little by her tears and this strange effort to ask help of God. She smoothed the pillow, settled the folds of the night robe, brushed down the lace over those waxen hands, and folded them lovingly over the heart that had ceased to beat forever. After this, she stole her hand under the pillow, and drew forth a thick package, which she carried to the lamp and examined, holding her very breath with awe.

The package contained two letters. One was directed to herself, the other to Russell Waldon.

Lydia turned up the lamp a little, and began to read:

“My friend—my faithful, kind girl—God only knows what a comfort you have been to me; God only knows how I have needed that comfort. But for you, Lydia, I should have been utterly alone, for it was my curse that Bertha, my child, could not know of the anguish which you seemed to understand. Lydia, I have loved you, and trusted you in everything your tender age permitted you to understand. Had you been a little older, my good girl, I might have yielded to this longing for some human support, and told you all that hurries me on to the death-bed where you will read this. I have had great sorrows, Lydia, which my lips have never spoken of to but one person on earth. These sorrows would have killed me in the end; but they work slowly, and drag me through a living death so long, that suffering is threatened to those I love. Now the end must come.

“Lydia, I have thought of this, for weeks, with terror, for I am neither brave nor strong—only a poor, weak woman, who would gladly live and suffer if that could be permitted. But it cannot—it cannot. This 399very day I made a last effort to save myself, but it failed. To-night I shall die. You will be with me, and discover more than any other human being must know. In your hands I leave my memory—in your hands I leave the peace and good name of my only child. Guard that, and guard the sacred grief of my old father and mother. Let them weep for me, but not with the bitterness of shame. Whatever my fate may be hereafter, let them think of me as among the pure and happy.

“Again, Lydia, I charge you keep the manner of my death a secret from every living soul. One other person will know it, but he hates me, and is beyond all pain from the knowledge. Stay with me, after I have passed into the presence of my God. Many a time, my good girl, have you watched my sleep when it threatened you with no more harm than you need dread from the sleep of death. Watch with me now. Your hands shall close my eyes, and fold the garment which wraps me for the grave around my form when this heart ceases to beat. It is lying now across the foot of my bed, for I have thought of everything.

“Books tell me that the drops I shall take leave no time even for a pang, but a perfume betrays their presence hours after their work is done. Be careful about this. When the day dawns, to-morrow morning, there must be no sign—only a poor, dead woman, lying tranquilly on her pillow—a miserable deception to the last. I can trust you in this, Lydia. To fail me would bring misery on all that I have loved—all that you have loved, since the day you wandered into my presence with that little bundle under your arms. Since then you have been a blessing to me and mine. Be faithful now, I charge you, with my dying breath.

400“Do not leave my child. She will have need of you. When she marries, go with her; for I think then, more than ever, your faithful help will be wanted. She will have sorrows; she will sometimes pine for the poor mother who loved her so well. She is doomed to pine for many things that my affection has given her. I know what a mighty thing it is to ask one human being to give up life and strength to another; but you are capable of this, and I ask it of you—dying, I ask it of you. Be to my child that which a daintily reared sister never could be; let her friends be your friends, her enemies your enemies. For her sake and for mine, love those that she loves; guard her; if needs be, die for her as I have.

“I am writing wildly. Who could ask this, and expect its fulfilment? Yet I do—I do! In my soul I know that you will hold this behest sacred. Watch over my Bertha; keep her from temptation; stand by her faithfully.

“With this you will find a letter directed to Russell Waldon, the man who will be my daughter’s husband. Take it from under my pillow. Tell no one of its existence, but mail it at once. I think he is yet in Virginia.

“Lydia, I have done. These are the last words I shall ever write. But if I have been good to you, be faithful to my child.

Lydia tried to stifle her sobs and shake the blinding tears from her eyes as she read this letter, but that writing, made woefully pathetic by the presence of the dead, filled her eyes again with trembling water, and she would drop her face on the table, where the lamp stood, disturbing 401the awful stillness with her sobs. Then she would lift her head and look piteously at the death-couch, asking forgiveness for the grief she could not check.

At last the letter was read and gathered into her heart of hearts. She folded it reverently, and kneeling down, laid her clasped hands upon the cold bosom of her mistress.

“All that you have asked of the poor girl who came to you from the street, when she had no friend, no home, nothing but just a little castaway, shall be done, if she has life and strength to do it. Your child shall be my mistress. I will be her slave. If she wants me, I will answer; if she is wronged, I will be revenged for her; if she has an enemy, I will be on his track; if she has a friend, I will lie down and let that friend wipe her feet on my hair. To her I will be faithful as a dog, and watchful as a cat. If one of us must sin, it shall be I; if one of us must die, it shall not be your child. Mistress—mistress—are you satisfied with me?”

No answer, nothing but solemn stillness, though the earnest, simple pathos of this speech might have wrung recognition from death itself.

When Lydia arose from her knees, her face, so common and even ugly, was transfigured.

“There, now, I have promised. If I break one word of it, mistress, come back from any place where you have gone, and look at me with your mournful eyes, and I shall die at your feet. Now let me begin.”

Setting the lamp upon the carpet, the girl went down on her hands and knees, carefully picking up every piece of glass. Then she went to the bed again, searched carefully, and found the tiny vial. With these in her hand, she stole out of the room, down-stairs, and through the 402front door, moving softly, and drawing the bolt with caution.

Once in the open air, she went swiftly toward the river and flung the vial and fragments of glass out into the stream. Then she hurried back to the house, stole into the death-chamber, and noiselessly opened all the windows, through which came a light wind, laden with the breath of dewy flowers, which swept through the room all night, carrying away every vestige of the poison that had for a time hung heavily about the room.

When this was accomplished, Lydia had nothing more to do but sit, in dreary silence, by one of the open windows, looking out into the night, where the clouds drifted and shadows moved over the face of the earth gloomily, as if armies of spirits were marching and counter-marching in search of a soul that was lost.

At last a soft line of gray crossed the horizon, then a gleam of pink shot over it, and a flush as of opening roses stole up the sky and shed its rich bloom upon the river.

Then Lydia arose, shut all the windows, and drew down the snowy muslin curtains, folding them gently over each sash like the wings of a white dove, after which she stole through the soft twilight, and went to each sleeping-room, knocking gently, and telling the inmates that there was death in the house.

It was a pitiful sight, that old couple, so still, so patient, moving about the house in noiseless grief, now and then meeting each other in that darkened room, and gazing down upon the poor vestige of a woman outlined there, as they had looked together upon her cradle; but oh, with what different faces!

It was not thus that Bertha Canfield took up her first great sorrow. She could not comprehend it—refused to 403believe that the thing told her as she came out of that sweet sleep in the morning, could be true. Why, only the night before her mother was well—a little nervous, perhaps, and depressed—but that was nothing unusual of late. Such things did not kill. She was in one of her long fainting fits. Lydia knew no better than to think it death; but how could she know?

Half-dressed, and with her hair floating wildly over her shoulders, the terrified girl rushed like a storm into the stillness of that death-chamber, but halted in the midst of it, almost as cold as the form upon the bed. The chill of a dreadful conviction struck to her heart. She threw up her arms, calling out, “Mother! mother!” and fell forward upon the floor, not insensible, but writhing there as if a bullet had passed through her.

Of all the persons in that old farm-house, Lydia was the most self-sustained. She made no attempt to soften Bertha’s despair, but hovered near her, said a few roughly kind words now and then, answered all her wild questions with steady patience over and over again, but kept the terrible secret in her heart with fidelity, though the pain and burden of it was eating there like a vulture. No one was surprised. The girl had been a most devoted servant, useful far beyond her years—an impulsive child and an ardent friend at the same time. It was natural that she should move about with heavy eyes and a step of lead, for her benefactress was gone, and her heart seemed to have been buried with her.

Toward night, Lydia stole away and posted Mrs. Canfield’s letter to Russell Waldon.

404

Down in that New England valley was an old-fashioned meeting-house, with a low steeple—a timid imitation of the Episcopal churches which, for a long time, were the only places of worship that sent their spires boldly up toward Heaven, holding the cross of Christ on high. Behind this church lay the graveyard, crowded full of moss-grown stones, buried deep in the uncut grasses, some slanting half out of the earth, others sunk so deep in accumulated vegetation that you could only make out the head of a cherub, carved on the old stone, and a pair of wings, spreading out on either side, to which gray and golden lichens clung like plumage.

This portion of “God’s field” would have been most interesting to a stranger, no doubt; but the villagers, not much troubled with thoughts of their ancestors, were far more proud of the snow-white slabs, and a prim monument or two, which told of their own immediate dead—though some of these were weather-stained, and none of 414them had retained their pristine whiteness after the first year.

In a part of the ground nearest to the old grave was a low marble slab, over which mould and lichen had crept through years, unnumbered save by one poor heart, which was now lying, cold and still, in the old farm-house down yonder. A name, half choked up with lichen, was on the slab, and was sometimes pointed out as that of a foreign gentleman, who perished in the heaviest flood ever known in the valley, while on his way to be married.

Yes, people remembered it all now. The poor lady—for whom that newly-made grave was dug—was the woman he should have married. Her husband, the clergyman, was buried in Greenwood, and had a monument there; but it was by the side of this stranger the old people had resolved to lay their child, for, it was said, they had no heart to send her out of the valley, and if left there, that was the place for her, close by her first love.

This was village gossip, which never reached Bertha, who was so plunged into bitter grief that she spoke to no one, but spent her time, day and night, with the dead, calling, in her broken-hearted misery, for help to bear her burden of self-reproach; for every impatient word she had given her mother, that night by the roadside, pierced her like an arrow, and so wounded her soul that she cried out with the bitter pain.

At last, when three days had passed, Bertha, pale, grief-stained, and with great, deep-set eyes, that seemed to plead with every one for help, came out of the death-darkness of that chamber, from which all that seemed precious to her in the broad universe must be carried that day, turning the room into an empty sepulchre.

415They clothed her from head to foot in black; kind-hearted women whispered words of consolation, that she heard as one listens to the sea afar off; prayers that stirred strangers to tears passed by her with vague meaning. She knew that all these people were pitying her, that one man was praying for her, and she longed to cry as they did, but could not.

Then she went with the crowd, following her whom they had taken away from that chamber in heavy, stifling black, which dragged almost to the ground as four men carried her along. But some one had broken up the blackness with white flowers, that gleamed and gleamed, leading her on to an open grave, from which came a smell of fresh earth that made her faint.

After this, Bertha had a dull sense that some one was reading; this was followed, or preceded—she never could tell which—by strains of music. Then her soul paused and listened, wondering if the music came from angels, or from the people who crowded so close, looking upon her mother’s face, which no stranger had a right to see. Why had they given the beautiful whiteness of that face so broadly to the daylight? There—she had veiled it. Those people should not look upon her again!

Those around the grave were startled when they saw this young girl throw back the cloud of crape from her head, and with her own hand draw the white covering over the marble beauty of that face, before half the neighbors had looked upon it, but no one dared to raise the silvery gauze from the sweet countenance she had veiled forever. So they lifted the coffin up gently, and lowered it into the grave. Bertha was scarcely conscious of this movement, for her veil was down, and her heart was beating wildly at the thought of saving her mother 416from so many curious eyes; but all at once the dull, hollow sound of falling earth struck upon her ear. She gave one long, wailing cry, and fell upon her knees, shuddering in every nerve with a terrible consciousness of what she had lost.

That night, in the stillness of her room, Bertha wrote to Waldon:

“Come to me, oh, my beloved! come to me, for I am all alone in the world. Darkness and tears surround me on every side. My mother is dead. The most beautiful, gentle and loving mother that ever lived was buried to-day. It seems to me that they have taken the heart from my bosom, and laid it in the earth with her. I can feel the weight and deadly coldness of the earth upon it now.

“But out of this pain comes one ray of light. You are left to me. Your strength will shelter my weakness, your love will awake my soul out of its anguish and self-reproach; for I was harsh with her—on that very night, too—and the remembrance kills me! She questioned me about you, my beloved, and probed my heart for the sweet secret of its love, wishing to fathom its depths and power, as it seemed to me, with a persistence that I shrank from, so gave her petulant answers, which withered her into silence. I, her child, possessed that cruel power, and used it; but, out of her great love, she sought to fathom my heart, and learn, no doubt, if it were worthy of you, and, in my petulant wilfulness, I broke hers.

“She forgave me—thank God, she forgave me! Her arms were around my neck after that, and she bade me a tender good-night, but in the morning she was dead!

417“I cannot forgive myself. I cannot live, unless you come and help me to endure existence. She loved you, she was proud of you, more than you dreamed of, for her sweet, timid nature was never demonstrative, and to her you were always grand. Oh, how I envy you in this! With no wilful selfishness, no hard word to remember, you can mourn her without reproach; but I—. When will you teach me to be self-sacrificing and noble as you are? When shall I be worthy of you?

“I shall wait for you here. Oh! do not stay long, for I suffer greatly, and now you are all the world to me. Come! come!

One hope kept Bertha from sinking under her passionate grief. She could take no comfort from the subdued sorrow of her grandparents, who had learned how to suffer and be still. Deeper and more bitter anguish than death ever brings had taught these people how to meet even this great affliction with Christian patience. They suffered, but with a gentle submission more touching than the stormy rebellion with which Bertha wrestled with the inevitable. She, in the exaction of her great sorrow, reproached even that dove-like old woman, in her heart, for want of feeling, and thought how easy it was for the aged to give up their loved ones, because of their own nearness to the grave. So, mistaking 418the deepest and most holy sorrow that man ever knows for something like apathy, the girl refused to be comforted by that kind, gentle voice, so pathetic in its tremulous age, which she understood in later years, but not then.

“They do not know how I suffer. They are old, and cannot feel as I do,” she would say to Lydia, when the girl became almost her equal in the quick fellowship of mutual bereavement. “It seems to me almost as if they did not care. But one is coming who will understand it all, for he knows and feels everything.”

Then Lydia would turn away with mingled sadness and loathing, but give no answer. She was eating the bitter fruit of knowledge.

After a while Bertha began to look for the arrival of her lover. Day after day she watched the train come in, with longing impatience, but it brought no Waldon and no letter. What was the reason? Had Waldon left Virginia? or by some chance had her letter failed to reach its destination? She wrote again, directing to New York, but still Lydia haunted the post-office without avail, and the train passed, hooting at her disappointment like a demon.

One day Bertha became passionately impatient. Lydia should stay at home. She needed a long walk; those close rooms stifled her. The man would be more likely to search his letters over for her. Of course, Lydia asked him timidly, and he did not care.

The mail was scarcely in that day, when an eager face looking out from a cloud of black crape appeared at the post-office window, and a voice so thralled by anxiety that it scarcely rose above a whisper, asked if the mail brought any letters for Miss Canfield—Bertha Canfield.

419Yes, there was a letter; the handwriting was a little indistinct, but that must be Bertha Canfield.

Bertha reached forth her hand for the letter. It was his writing. He was coming. This was but the forerunner of something still nearer her heart.

She walked away rapidly, holding the letter in her hand. A longing to devour its contents took away her breath. She panted with intense desire rather than fatigue. Some wagons passed her on the road, going to the depot; then a workman appeared with a tin pail in his hand. She longed to sweep them all from the highway. Would they never let her be alone?

At last, just before she came in sight of the farm-house, these persons had drifted out of her way. She drew a deep breath, leaned against the stone wall, and broke open the letter. Her black glove had stained it a little, which troubled her just for an instant as a bad sign. In the midst of her impatience, she stopped to kiss Waldon’s name before she began to read. Then she held it open against the stones with one hand, brushed her thick-coming tears away with the other, and gathered in the first words:

She caught her breath, forced the paper tightly down to the stone with both hands, and read on:

“I cannot answer the letter which has just reached me as your own noble nature has a right to expect, because it is no longer my privilege to bring support or comfort in your time of distress. I cannot explain how this gulf has been dug between us, or why it is impossible that any power can ever bridge it over. One thing I may reveal, 420and will. The fault belongs neither to you nor me. More, I have pledged myself never to reveal to you. Indeed, my own judgment tells me it would be far better that you should never know. Enough that we are parted—all the sweet hopes, all the clinging love—but I forbear. Why lacerate your proud heart or my own by an allusion to what we have been and hoped to be? The ground is cut away from under our feet. We are torn apart by the hand of one already passed to judgment. Let the dead past bury the dead. Enough that you and I are separated forever.

“Not knowing all that I am forbidden to tell, there yet may linger in your heart some unbelief in the stern necessity that has torn your life from mine—some vague hope that time or a miracle can change it. Fearing this, and acting from a solemn sense of duty, I have placed a barrier against all such possibilities. We can never meet as we have done again. In order to make this inevitable I have battled against all weakness, and for your sake more than my own turned resolutely from the past. My honor demanded it. The great future which lies before a public man like myself demanded it. Your own peace of mind demanded the sacrifice, and I have made it. Bertha, I am engaged to another—a woman who loves me as you loved me, even perhaps with a deeper abandonment, because all the strength of her gentle nature concentrates in the one word—love. Bertha, when we meet again, I shall be a married man. I hope then and now, there will be friendship between us. Nothing need prevent that, nothing should prevent it, for the lady I am pledged to marry is Mary Noel, your own friend.

“Farewell. It is our destiny to say this cruel word.

421Like a wild colt which the lassoo has missed, Bertha fled toward the house, holding down her black veil tightly, that no one might see her face, and crushing the letter in the fierce grasp of her hand.

Lydia came forth to meet her.

“Turn back!” she said, sharply. “Pack up some things; we are going a journey.”

Mrs. Wilson Forbes was preparing to go South. Her brother Egbert had written so feelingly of his loneliness, and with such general depression, that her kind heart was seized with an affectionate desire to brighten up his old home again with her presence. With the quick intuition of a loving woman, she had guessed at the bitter disappointment which Bertha’s engagement had been to her brother Fletcher; but there existed no direct confidence between them, and the young man knew nothing whatever of the entanglement which had made her so long nothing more nor less than Russell Waldon’s slave. Now, being both a free woman and a happy wife, she could afford to carry a little of her own bright sunshine down to the old Southern homestead where Fletcher lived alone, and was so unhappy.

“A lady, Mrs. Forbes, who wishes to see you.”

Mrs. Forbes was presiding over a huge Saratoga trunk, in which her maid was buried head and shoulders, pressing 422down, folding up, and doing her very best to make a Noah’s ark of it in the way of compactness and variety.

“A lady, did you say, Julia? and I looking like this. Tell her I am not at home—sick, dead. No, one may as well give the truth now and then. Say that I am packing up for a journey, and wouldn’t see my own grandmother, if she were going to make her will this very day. There, there—come back. What kind of a lady is it? Where’s the card?”

“She did not give me any—only said, ‘Tell her a lady wants to see her very much.’”

“Ah, some one in distress, poor thing—young or old?”

“Young, and a real lady—you could see that in spite of her black veil—awful deep mourning, but genteel. In trouble, too, one made sure of that by her voice.”

“That will do; I’ll go down. Help me off with this wrapper—that black silk, leave it out. I will go down, Julia; but go on with the packing, I shall not let any one keep me long.”

Directly Mrs. Forbes was rustling down-stairs, fastening the coral buttons of her dress as she went. When she entered the reception room, a lady came forward, darkening the room with her coal black garments as she moved.

“Mrs. Forbes, I—”

Mrs. Forbes retreated a step; she was taken by surprise.

“Miss Canfield—Bertha!”

“You are surprised to see me—no wonder.”

“I am surprised and sorry to see you in mourning, Bertha,” said the lady, with tender interest.

“My mother is dead!”

423The words sounded abrupt, but the voice that uttered them shook with emotion.

Mrs. Forbes, greatly shocked, was about to ask some question, when Bertha interrupted her:

“I wronged you once—will you pardon me for it? When you would have warned me, I refused to take it kindly. In my arrogant self-confidence, I struck the hand that would have saved me.”

“I do not understand you, Bertha.”

“I thought that you had once loved Waldon yourself, and would not forgive him that he turned to another.”

“And so I did, or rather thought I did,” answered the lady, gravely. “I fear it lasted some time after I knew him to be unworthy any good woman’s love; but I had no jealousy of you, Bertha—only profound pity, for I knew the man.”

“You warned me; you doubted then if he would not change.”

“No, I simply dreaded that he might prove faithful, and drag you down into his life; but I should have known better. What girl in the fever of her first love ever took advice?”

All at once Bertha threw back her veil, and fell at Mrs. Forbes’ feet.

“I asked your forgiveness, but that is not enough. In all the wide world, you are the only one to whom my heart turns in its misery. Read that, then tell me how I am to act. Advise anything but patience and silence, and I will do it.”

Mrs. Forbes took Waldon’s letter, threw her arms around Bertha’s neck, and kissed her.

“Poor girl! poor child! was not that one trouble enough—must he strike you when your heart was sore?”

424Bertha answered nothing, but laid her head down on Mrs. Forbes’ lap, and moaned a little as that lady read the letter.

“The ingrate! the villain!” she exclaimed, folding the letter with an irate twist of her fingers. “Who is this other one?”

“My school-mate, my bosom friend,” answered Bertha, with a thrill of bitter antagonism in her voice. “A girl that I would have died for; who insisted upon taking an oath that we should be true friends forever. This is how she keeps her oath.”

“Do not blame her; that man would lure an angel from Heaven, and tire of the poor thing before it got through the first drift of clouds. Is this Mary Noel rich?”

“Very rich.”

“That accounts for it. I remember now who her father was—a very wealthy man indeed. I think Waldon may prove tolerably faithful to an estate like that.”

“But he does not love her. Did you read that sentence where he almost says it was her love for him? It is pity, avarice, anything but love.”

“That I believe.”

“Oh, he did love me!” cried the girl, with a thrill of pathetic regret. “I know he did! I know he did! This girl has not separated us, but something else which he will not tell me of. But he shall! he shall! Did you not see that in the letter?”

“Yes, I saw an attempt at romantic mystification. There may be something in it, but I think not.”

“I must know—I will know—there is something! Poor mamma held several private conversations with 425him before we left Virginia, and seemed to wither after them. Mrs. Forbes, I think she did not like him and wanted me to break it off. She was so persistent, so anxious to learn about my feelings. Perhaps she discouraged him.”

“Possibly. Your mother was a sensitive woman, who must have felt the unworthiness of this man.”

“Something has been done to separate us. Oh, tell me how I can ever find out what it is! I have no father nor brother to demand the reason, but I have a right to know it. Oh, Mrs. Forbes, help me! Help me, or I shall die of this awful suspense! If I only knew what it was!”

“Poor girl, do you love him so yet?”

“How can I help it? He was to have been my husband. I never dreamed of any future but that. To me there was no other man in existence. Oh, Mrs. Forbes, he does not really love Mary Noel! The cause of all this trouble lies deeper, I am sure it does! Help me to fathom it!”

“Trust me, Bertha, I will,” said the kind lady, with tears in her eyes. “For your sake I will endure the presence of this man; but I can scarcely think it doing a kindness.”

Bertha seized the white hand that caressed her, and pressed it to her lips again and again.

“I was busy packing when you came in. My brother Egbert lives near Mr. Noel’s plantation, you know,” said Mrs. Forbes.

“Yes—yes—I know. How could I forget to tell you? He saved my life and that of Mr. Waldon, but would not wait to be thanked. How ungrateful I am!”

“How blind!” said Mrs. Forbes. “But the time will 426come. There, there—don’t look so unbelieving. I was speaking of my journey. In an hour or two I shall be on my way to the James River. Edward Lane will join me there after he graduates. These two brothers may help us fathom this mystery, but since the strange death of Clara Anderson, Edward has not been so intimate with Waldon.”

“Clara Andersen! Oh, Mrs. Forbes, she was my friend—a noble, grand girl whom few people understood. If ever a poor girl was hunted into her grave, it was Clara. Your brother knew her worth and would have saved her, but it was not to be.”

Mrs. Forbes was walking the room, absolutely wringing her hands in the anguish of her repentance. At last she turned and came close to Bertha.

“You are right, Miss Canfield. It was an awful persecution, and I did my share of it. Poor girl, I thought her ambitious, a bold intriguing girl. Do not defend her, I know it all now. She never did encourage Edward. He made me his confidant at last. If he had done it earlier, much misery might have been spared, but he trusted no one but that arch-traitor Waldon, who ended in betraying him and making a merit of his treason with me.”

“Betraying him! Oh, Mrs. Forbes, what could Mr. Waldon have to do with Clara’s death?”

“What had he to do with your life and mine?”

“But he did not know Clara. She never mentioned him to me in her life.”

“Still she knew him well.”

“No, no, it is impossible. I remember giving her one of his books after she left school, and she said that to know him would be the greatest happiness of her 427life, but that she never expected to have so great a pleasure.”

“All this may be true, but it is equally true that he undertook to plead my brother’s cause with Clara Anderson; and went to her house for that avowed purpose. I reached my father’s home that day bitterly prejudiced against the girl. She had been represented to me as a needy adventuress in pursuit of my brother from greed of his wealth.”

“Poor Clara—poor, dear Clara! There never was a prouder or less mercenary person,” said Bertha.

“I can believe that now, but then she was described to me as the very reverse of all this. I met Waldon riding away from her house, and entreated him to watch over Edward. Without telling me that Edward already had his pledge of friendship, he promised all that I asked, but I never dreamed of suggesting the course he took.”

“What course?”

“That of coldly winning the girl’s love for himself.”

“Oh, Mrs. Forbes, this is terrible!”

“But it was his design, and I believe he carried it out, all the while pretending to plead my brother’s cause. Almost every day for weeks—I think it ran into months—his horse was seen at her gate, himself seated close by the window at which the poor girl worked. He brought her bouquets; he read to her hours together; but you know the man, as I know him. She believed in him, no doubt loved him. Once assured of a woman’s love, the demon always comes uppermost in this man.

“All at once he ceased to visit that house. His presence there had deeply injured the girl, but what did he care for that? She drooped visibly. Once and only once 428was she seen away from home after his horse ceased to be every day at her gate. That was when she rode through the village on her way to the Housatonic Falls.”

“The Housatonic Falls! Oh, Mrs. Forbes, are you sure that she knew Mr. Waldon before then?”

“I am certain that he had spent half his time with her for weeks, and suddenly gave up coming just before that ride. I know also that she saw Waldon with another lady, who had been thrown from her horse, in his arms.”

Bertha clasped her hands.

“Oh, Heavens! and I wrote that letter,” she thought. “The letter that perhaps killed her.”

“Edward came to a knowledge of his friend’s treason late and by slow degrees. At first he would not believe it.”

“How could he?” cried Bertha. “I cannot believe it. I do not.”

“Still, after what I have told you, do you wish to see this man again?”

Bertha fell into thought a moment, then lifting her head, answered,

“Yes.”

“Surely you would not go to Willow Bend now?”

Bertha shuddered.

“What? there? Mrs. Forbes, you scarcely know me yet. You have dared to tell the truth when it was very bitter, and have forgiven me for resenting it. I will trust you entirely. I cannot live here. A yearning wish to see that man again consumes me like a fever! I must go where something is to be learned! I must breathe near him, or not at all! This is killing me!”

“You shall go. I will arrange it.”

“Secretly; I must not be known.”

429“You shall go secretly and safely. I was the slave of this man, once!” exclaimed Mrs. Forbes, in bitter self-abasement; “and suffered almost as much.”

“It is something besides love. Some terrible wrong has been done. I feel it in every sense of my being. There has been a great sacrifice, either in Waldon when he gave me up, or by some person I am yet to learn about. I must know two things: Does he love her, and did he break off our engagement entirely from waning affection? or is it the work of some slanderer? To believe him so entirely a villain, is worse than death. Help me! help me get at the truth!”

“Trust me, I will!”

“And this other matter?” said Bertha, bending her great, yearning eyes on the woman she had doubted.

“That, too, shall be accomplished. Now, good-by! The train never waits.”

Diamond Island, on which Mary Noel had given her picnic, belonged to an estate which young Fletcher had inherited from his grandfather. Upon it was a comfortable old house, built of stone and hewn logs, one wing of which was inhabited by a family of colored servants—Uncle Sam and his wife Celia—to whom the care of the house, the cultivation of the land, and the consumption of its products had been left ever since the elder Fletcher’s death.

430An inlet of the river cut this island in two, leaving the house, some cultivated fields, and a little swamp, full of magnolias, in one end, and on the other a grove of grand old forest trees, a clearing of rich turf, and the spring which Mary Noel had converted into a wine-cooler on the occasion of her picnic.

A rustic bridge of logs connected these two green fragments, under which the water ran in a swift current, boiling over some hidden stones, and feeding the roots of innumerable wild grape-vines and shaggy trumpet flowers that tangled themselves along the banks and around the logs of the bridge.

Sam had a grand killing-time of one pig and a lean turkey each year. Beyond all this, the old man sometimes went out fishing, and usually got to sleep in his boat, while the fish ran away with his hook, sometimes dragging the pole with it.

As for Celia, she took good heed of the building, aired the furniture once a fortnight, year in and year out, scolding all the time at things in general; baked excellent hoe-cakes by the fire, and made her husband stand around on washing-days, when a pair of tow-trowsers and two or three clumsily-shaped garments of cotton-cloth fluttered ostentatiously from a clothes line at the back of the house.

Once or twice in the year the old couple went over to the home plantation, and got a little news about their young master, which was about all the service they rendered him, and that was always repaid, at Christmas time, by a present of gay calico, gorgeous kerchiefs, and some strong twilled fabric, which Sam claimed for his own particular benefit.

So the time rolled on with the old couple, until one 431day, just at nightfall, an elegantly dressed lady came gliding across the log bridge, and, looking toward the house, smiled on seeing Sam with one hand over his eyes, watching her approach, and Celia peering over his shoulder with her thick lips ajar, and her eyes widening as they filled with slow, half-doubtful recognition.

“Git out ob de way, you blind ole cuss! Doesn’t yer see who it am? Fore de Lord Miss Alle! didn’t know who it wer, chile! Come in, honey—not dar, dem is only de quarters. Thar, now, young missus, just give old Celia a goad look at yer face. Goramighty, how hansome you is! Wat yer doin’ peakin’ in der door, ole man? Come in, it’s der young missus.”

Sam came into the neat parlor, which Celia had flung open for Mrs. Forbes, and stood, hat in hand, regarding her with mingled joy and trouble in his sly old face.

“Young missus, I hope yer hasn’t come to tell ole Sam and Celia dat dey must leave dis place an go free?”

Before Mrs. Forbes could answer, Celia pushed the old man aside, and fell square upon her knees in front of the lady.

“Oh, honey, yer own brudder doesn’t mean ter send us off de island, toting de old bed on our backs?” said she, with pathetic earnestness.

“No, Celia—get up. He hasn’t the least idea of sending you away, poor souls! That would be cruel; but for a little time you will not be here quite alone.”

“Is you comin’? Is it you, chile?” cried Celia, lifting herself from the floor.

“No; but a lady will come and live a while in the old house, whom you must care for as if it were myself—a lady and her maid.”

432“Ough!” groaned Celia. “Miss Alle, when am dey comin’?”

“This evening, I think, Celia.”

“Goramighty! Ole man, g’lang ter de woods, cotch a chicken, an’ pull up some ob dem young tators in de corn lot. Folks am mighty hungry when dey come ober here.”

“That is right, Celia. My friend has been on the railroad all day. She will need your care.”

“Yes, honey.”

“Besides, there is something else. She is not well. Her mother is just dead.”

“Pore chile!” muttered Celia.

“She comes here for perfect solitude.”

“What am dat, Miss Alle?”

“She wishes to be left alone.”

“Oh!”

“You must tell no one that she is here—not a living soul. Caution Sam about that. I shall never forgive him if he speaks of her to any one.”

“I’de jus like ter cotch him at it,” answered Celia, clenching a formidable hand.

“Beyond this, do just as the lady directs; but, if you can help it, let no one, except myself, come on this side of the bridge so long as my friend remains here.”

“I’d like ter see ’em try it—dat am all.”

“I will send things over from the plantation. You will know how to receive them without exciting suspicion.”

“Trus’ dis ole woman ’bout dat.”

“I shall be here often myself. Is the house in perfect order?”

“Ebbery corner ob it.”

“That is right. I must go now. Has Uncle Sam got anything like a boat?”

433Celia looked a little confused, but answered that she believed he had.

“Then tell him to look out every day for a handkerchief that I will hang on that great elm tree which droops over the bank, directly opposite the island, when I want him. It will save me the annoyance of trusting too many of our people over yonder.”

Celia nodded.

“Good-night, Celia. I am glad to see you once more. Have everything in readiness. By-the-way, where is Sam?”

The loud cry of a chicken, which Sam was carrying in from the woods by its two legs, revealed his whereabouts, and Mrs. Forbes walked forward to meet him.

“Sam, if you have a boat that will hold two, get into it about sunset, and row over to the big elm tree. You remember how it leans over the water. Wait there till some one inquires for you.”

“Yes, Miss Alle. Hyur, ole woman, dar’s yer chicken; tote it to de house.”

Celia snatched the chicken a little roughly, and wrung its neck then and there, while Sam walked down to the water with his young mistress.

That night, while Sam sat in his boat waiting for the promised summons, a voice from under the elm tree called out, timidly:

“Is a man called Sam waiting?”

“Yes, missus—here I is,” answered the darkey, coming out of the shadows. “Hop in—hop in.”

The next minute, Bertha Canfield and Lydia were on their way to Diamond Island.

434

“Bertha! Bertha!”

For a moment Waldon was beside himself—all the broad lands of Willow Bend, the mansion gleaming with lights, and the girl who could make him master of them, were nothing to him. He fairly hated the things 442for which he had sold himself and murdered another. All his old passion for the beautiful woman who had fled from him blazed up with a burning thirst to reconquer her, and escape the pink and white beauty who waited for him so impatiently on the veranda. He could see her passing in and out through the French windows like a drifting cloud, while the other had pushed him from her with angry, burning words, and leaped, as it seemed, into the very depths of the river.

Waldon went close to the very edge of the water, and looked up and down in a vain search for some boat. But he saw nothing. Bertha’s tiny craft was sweeping down the shadows of the bank. She used no oars, but sat in the stern with her face covered, sobbing as if her heart would break, and whispering to herself:

“He loves me yet! he loves me yet!”

Had Waldon caught one glimpse of the boat, he might have followed it, for difficulties always made him rash; but he saw nothing, and believed, for a while, that Bertha had drowned herself to escape the rude caresses with which she might have deemed herself insulted. Shocked by the fear, he fell upon his knees and sobbed like a girl.

A faint sound from the river brought Waldon to his feet again. Lydia had taken up the oars, and down through the rippling silver of the moonlight that little craft was going, with arrowy speed, carrying Bertha away from him through that path of light, while he stood his old self again, wondering at the sudden passion that had so nearly swept him away from the path he had laid out for his future.

Waldon strode into the moonlight, and walked up and down the bank, congratulating himself that this one great temptation had been broken up by the girls own act. 443He looked, out upon the noble landscape over which the dew glittered like a mantle of jewels; groves, pastures, off-lying farms and houses for working men, stretched up and down the river, glorified by floating mist that grew luminous in the moonlight. His vision could not reach the extent of property that might be his in exchange for the girl who had just left him.

“Fool! fool!” he exclaimed, sneering at his better self, “for so many idiotic minutes, while the thrill of her voice, and the glamour of her beauty was upon me, I was ready to give this up and not think it a sacrifice. I wonder what it is that comes over me sometimes, and makes almost a superior being of me! More than once it has marred my fortunes. This time I will keep the angel under foot. It always grows powerful when that girl is by me. She must not come near me again. I wish her no harm—Heaven knows I have down her enough—but if she struggles, I must throw up a wall of brass between us. If people will have explanations, I must give them. No romance or sentiment shall swamp me with all this in view!”

“Waldon, Mr. Waldon, do come in! I’m sure the damp air is not good for you, and it looks so strange. People will see me sitting all alone, as if you had given up caring for me; and—and I think you have.”

“Foolish child,” said Waldon, gathering the cloud of white muslin, from which this complaint came, close to him with one arm. “I never loved you better in my life! The sight of this landscape inspires me with new emotions. How beautiful it is! I can never forget that you are the central figure, lady-bird.”

Waldon took a satanic pleasure in thus uttering, half-veiled, the value this girl was to him.

444“Ah! now you are talking poetry. But why don’t you write it out for me? Writers always do when they care for one; but I have never had a single line, except—except—”

“Except what, lady-bird?”

“Except some lovely lines that Mr. Hyde slipped into my hand. He writes beautifully! Oh, what a naughty word, Mr. Waldon! I never heard you swear before. Let me go; it frightens me!”

In order to facilitate her going, Mary clung to Waldon’s arms with both hands, and laid her head partly on his bosom, where fresh oaths against young Hyde’s impudence were seething.

“Don’t be angry—forgive him, for my sake. One can’t help being loved, you know; and he, poor follow, has no idea about us!”

Waldon made no answer to this plaintive appeal, but strode into the house, half carrying the clinging loveliness to which he was more than ever pledged for life.

Meantime Bertha sat dreaming in that little boat, sometimes with her hands clasped and her eyes uplifted, full of troubled delight, as if a great hope had found birth in her heart. And this is what that hope was saying:

“He loves me—he loves me yet! Whatever the evil thing is, it has not conquered his love. That she can never have!”

The boat swept downward, plowing up music from the silvery ripples, and Bertha’s heart beat time to the oars, while her eyelids closed over unshed tears, and her lips quivered with the thought of kisses he had so madly rained upon them. At first she had been angry and frightened by this impetuous outburst; but love is lenient 445to faults that prove its power, and while burning blushes came with the memory of his fault, she forgave it, because even that was a proof that his heart had never given her up.

Bertha had no plan in this—no definite hope that her broken life would ever again unite with that of the man who was to have been her husband; but those few sweet words singing at the bottom of her heart were enough for the hour—on the morrow reason would come and strangle them, like unfledged birds in a nest.

Lydia, who knew everything, saw the brightness of her young mistress’ face, and uttered faint moans as she bent to the oars—beyond that the girl never opened her lips.

“Indeed, Egbert, I shall insist upon going. The Noels have been old friends of our family for ages, and I have a particular desire to know this young girl, who was only a pretty child when I was here.”

“But I do not really care to go. Circumstances—”

“I know all about it. How you dived down into the bosom of the James, and dragged a man out of death’s arms, whom it would have been better for the world if you had allowed him to drift quietly out of it. But what then? Is one to be unsocial because one is brave?”

“Alice, you cannot understand! I wish to avoid that man’s thanks—they stifle me!”

446“I dare say. His presence will almost stifle me, for I know him. But never mind that. I have accepted the invitation, and mean to be particularly agreeable to Mr. Waldon.”

“Very well,” answered Fletcher, almost disposed to laugh. “When a tyrant fills the throne, slaves most obey!”

“I wonder who they will have? Any visitors at Willow Bend that you know?”

“Not now. A—a young lady, whom you know a little, I believe, was there, but she is gone. Waldon is engaged to her.”

“Yes, I know—Bertha Canfield. A splendid creature—ten thousand times too good for him. Was not she down in the river with him?”

“Where did you hear about this, Alice?”

“Why you wrote me about it, of course.”

“No, I am sure not.”

“Then I don’t remember. From the servants here, I dare say. They know everything.”

“Not quite,” answered the young man, with a bitter smile; and taking his fowling-piece from its rack, he went out.

“Poor, proud fellow!” thought Mrs. Forbes, looking after him with loving sympathy. “How little he dreams that I know all about it, and that she is so near! It strikes me, Alice Forbes, that you have got tangled up in a touching little romance; but, if I can help it, Egbert shall not crash against the rock that so nearly shipwrecked me. Oh, Heaven forgive me! how I detest that man!”

She did detest him—yet, being a woman of exquisite tact and wonderful self-control, met Waldon, three days 447after that, with the most cordial politeness, resolved, if possible, to ascertain from him what Bertha Canfield was pining to know.

Very pretty and delightfully blissful was Mary Noel that day. Mr. Noel, with some hesitation, had given his consent; and, after that, there was no reason why her engagement should be kept secret, though privacy had brought a pleasant tribute to her vanity, in an offer from young Hyde. Waldon had enjoyed this with great zest, for, next to success for himself, he loved defeat for his friends, and these two delicious morsels coming together filled him with infinite satisfaction.

Mary had acted up to her nature, and coquetted a little with Hyde. She refused to give him a direct answer, amusing herself with the idea that he would soon receive information which would render a positive rejection unnecessary.

Thus, in absolute ignorance of the exact state of things, four persons in that party met, with great danger of falling into cross purposes.

At first, invitations had only been given out for gentlemen. Young Hyde, with his guests, and Egbert Fletcher, were of the number; but, when Miss Noel learned that Mrs. Wilson Forbes was on a visit to her brother, she rode over, left cards, and afterward included her in the dinner party, thus adroitly making it proper that she should be present herself. No other ladies were expected. Mary told Mrs. Forbes of this while they were in that great, airy chamber, busy about the toilet table after the maid disappeared.

Mrs. Forbes only smiled, and shook out the folds of her rose-colored dress, over which quantities of white lace fluttered incessantly.

448“So much the better,” she said. “We shall have a chance to get acquainted. When I saw you last, dear, you were just the prettiest, golden-haired little thing in the world; but, since then, you have broken dozens of hearts, I dare say, and fancied yourself in love ever so many times.”

Mary blushed rosily, and tossed a long curl, that had fallen to her bosom, over her shoulder, looking at herself in the glass and admiring the effect.

“Not so many hearts as that, Mrs. Forbes, and as for falling in love, once in a lifetime is enough for me.”

“Then you own to that once. It must be serious, and very recent, I should think, from the dainty fashion you have of blushing.”

“Oh, yes, very recent. I don’t mind telling you, because it must all come out soon, and our families have been such old friends; but you will be astonished, because everybody thinks him engaged to another person, and so he was till—till—”

“Till he saw you, and thought better of it. You are speaking of Mr. Waldon, I fancy.”

“Do you know him? I should think so, from the way you speak,” inquired Mary, sparkling with animation.

“Oh, yes; we are old friends. That is why guessing was so easy.”

“You know him, and understand how perfectly splendid he is. But in one thing you are mistaken. It was not just as you think. He had given up Miss—that is, the lady we are speaking of—before I knew that he cared for me. It was something very distressing, I am sure, that made it impossible for him to marry her—something touching his honor. I would not say this, 449only she was my own friend, and, not knowing, people might blame me for marrying him, and not associating with her after—which, he says, must be, as that which made it impossible for him to keep his engagement must break up all friendship between us.”

“Oh, yes, I understand this sensitive honor!” said Mrs. Forbes, in a voice that thrilled with lofty disdain, though Mary did not feel it.

“Isn’t he the soul of honor?” she said. “So careful, too, about me. ‘The snow,’ he says, ‘must not be more pure than the woman he marries!’ A pretty idea, isn’t it, Mrs. Forbes?”

“Yes, a very pretty idea,” answered Mrs. Forbes, with a curl of her red lips: “so very appropriate! But do you know, my dear, I think modesty blinds you a little. There could have been nothing more potent than your own loveliness in breaking up the old engagement.”

“Indeed, you are mistaken. I saw him receive a letter, which distressed him terribly. I saw tears in his eyes.”

“But what was in the letter?”

“I do not know. I asked to read it, but he flung it into the river. I am sure that letter was about her—in fact, he told me so, but that it was something he was bound to keep secret.”

Mrs. Forbes was satisfied that she had mastered all the information Mary had to give, and she came to this conclusion: Waldon’s motive for breaking his engagement was Mary Noel’s wealth. Beyond that he had something which answered as an excuse to his own selfish nature. What that something was, she resolved to find out. Gathering up the silken folds of her robe, she stood ready to descend to the drawing-room; but Mary was 450fastidious about the arrangement of her front hair, and doubtful of the exact spot where a white moss rose, Waldon had sent her, would be most effective. When this was arranged, she grew anxious about the flow of her filmy blue dress—wondered if it was not too deeply tinted, and if he would think it enough like a summer sky.

Mrs. Forbes watched her patiently; there was something child-like about all this that touched her with gentle compassion. At last, the girl was ready to go down, and taking her cobweb of a handkerchief from the toilet, cast another shy glance at the mirror, and followed her guest from the room.

Mrs. Forbes and her brother had come early. Waldon had been at Willow Bend all day—indeed, he almost lived there now—and none of the other guests had arrived, so that he was walking up and down the drawing-room alone when the ladies entered it. For an instant, he held back, dreading a rebuff in the presence of Miss Noel; but Mrs. Forbes reached out her hand, with a brilliant smile, and he came up at once, most cordial in his greeting.

“So long, so very long since we met,” said the lady, with impressement; “and to find you here, of all places in the world!”

“The best place in the world for me to find myself is where I am likely to meet you!” was the prompt answer.

She had put her arm quietly through his, as he spoke, and lured him out of the French window, nodding back to Mary with a pleasant smile.

“We are old friends, my dear, and have so much to say.”

451Mary, directly after, found herself alone, with a hot flush on her cheeks. She was beginning to dislike Mrs. Wilson Forbes very much.

Waldon and the lady walked down to the lawn, which was closely cut and soft as velvet, over which her rose-colored dress swept like a cloud at daybreak.

“What a lovely place it is! and what a sweet girl! I should almost think you would regret being engaged,” she said, looking around her.

“No, I am not likely to regret that,” said Waldon, with a mysterious smile.

“True. Bertha is not likely to be pushed aside even by a girl bright and lovely as this one. I beg your pardon for speaking of it as possible, even in jest.”

“Mrs. Forbes, I am not engaged to Bertha Canfield.”

“Not engaged! That is all nonsense! I know better.”

“It is true.”

“True! But how? The engagement was understood and recognized everywhere. In such cases, old friends, at least, have a right to ask explanations.”

“But if I do not choose to give them?”

“Then, of course, it will be understood that the lady has jilted you.”

“Jilted me! No woman will ever have the credit of doing that!”

“I don’t know. There never was such a belle as Bertha Canfield. No one will believe that you snatched a girl like that, all fresh and blooming, out of her first season, to drop her so soon.”

“But they shall believe it if—if—”

“Well, old friend, if what?”

“If I have to tell the truth,” answered Waldon, in a low voice.

452“Ah, that rare thing in the world—a good, wholesome truth! Tell it me, Waldon.”

“You seem eager. I remember now—it is not likely that you would love Bertha. I wish to do her no harm, but if I am driven to it, you shall know, and I will depend on you for setting me right with society.”

“Yes,” said the lady, controlling herself with difficulty; “you can depend on me, if placing you right with our set is needed.”

“Yes, I always counted on you as a friend—though things did happen that rather disturbed me. I suppose it’s all right between you and Forbes?”

“Right! Yes. Why do you ask?”

“She does not know of the letters,” thought Waldon. “The old fellow kept them back, after all. How he must love her!”

“Here come more guests; we must go in now. After dinner, perhaps, I shall have more to tell you,” he said, observing that Mary was fluttering around the window with increasing impatience.

The guests assembled rapidly now, and dinner was announced. Mr. Noel led Mrs. Forbes to the table. Waldon followed with Miss Noel on his arm. The rest came independently; being only men, no one took much notice how they arranged themselves around the table.

453Then came the usual routine of a hospitable dinner—profuse in delicacies, brilliant with flowers, and bright with sparkling wines, shining crystal and gleaming silver. Mrs. Forbes made herself charming to the host, who, being for many years a widower, and an habitual invalid, seldom enjoyed an occasion like that as he did under her brilliant influence.

Mary Noel was in fair progress with her first love quarrel, and, with the pouting wrath of a child, turned her shoulders on Waldon, while she bestowed lavish attentions on young Hyde, which the young man received almost as a pledge that his proposal was accepted, while Waldon drank his wine quietly, with a cynical smile on his lips. He rather enjoyed the whole thing; it was so delightfully transparent. By-and-by, if Mary tempted him too far, he would dash the cup from Hyde’s lip in a way he would remember. The insolent fellow! how dared he aspire to any woman Waldon chose to exalt by a preference! The other guests, being gentlemen, talked of politics or racing, in undertones, between the courses.

After the dessert came on, both Mrs. Forbes and the young hostess began to feel their presence as a restraint upon the conviviality. Throwing a mesmeric telegram across the table, the elder lady began to draw on her gloves; then both arose, and floated softly out of the room.

Waldon arose to open the door, but young Hyde was too quick for him, and, bathed in happy smiles, bowed low as Mary passed out.

“I am afraid that I, too, must claim a lady’s privilege, and ask leave to retire,” said Mr. Noel, who did, indeed, look pale and weary. “My physicians forbid too much 454even of this pleasant excitement. Mr. Waldon, will you take my chair? Our guests will feel all the advantage of the change.”

“Our guests!” Some of the persons thus designated, looked up suddenly, and cast significant glances at each other. Hyde had not noticed the word particularly, but waited, smiling, till Waldon had taken Mr. Noel’s seat, when he called out for those beneath him to close up, and take their wine comfortably. Then came a cracking of corks, the gurgle and rush of wine poured into crystal, and a confused murmur of voices, in which politics and horse-racing clashed with sharp epigrammatic sentences from Egbert Fletcher and Waldon, who seemed measuring swords like persons preparing for a duel.

After a while, when the mellow influence of the wine began to manifest itself, some one broke into the old fashion of health-drinking, and a voice called out: “Fill up, gentlemen—a bumper for our host pro tem., and a double bumper to the lady who will soon bear his name.”

A clash of glass, and the rich gurgle of wine followed. Waldon arose to answer the toast, but he was interrupted:

“Stop, stop!” cried young Hyde, “we haven’t drunk to the lady yet. Overflowing glasses to the most beautiful woman of New York, Miss Bertha Canfield, our future Mrs. Waldon.”

Again the glasses rang against each other and were emptied simultaneously, deep inhalations of breath followed, and then Waldon rose to his feet, with a brimming glass in his hand.

“Gentlemen, I drink to the lady’s health with all my 455heart, but not as my future wife: that honor, or misfortune, which ever you may deem it, will, in a week or two, fall upon the lady who has just left us, Miss Noel.”

A dead silence fell upon the revellers. Waldon’s engagement to Bertha Canfield had been so publicly acknowledged, that even this open mention of her name had not seemed very much amiss, even among the most fastidious; but this bold repudiation struck every one with surprise. The revellers looked at each other in almost ludicrous consternation. Some sat down their empty glasses with emphasis; others held them fast, gazing blankly upon Waldon.

Two men present started up from their seats with white faces and eyes full of fire—those men were Fletcher and young Hyde. To one, that man’s words had brought a keen sense of delight—to the other, savage resentment which he had no power to control.

“Is this true, sir, or are you chaffing in your cups, Russell Waldon?” exclaimed Hyde, setting his glass down with a crash that shivered it to splinters.

“I never chaff where ladies are concerned,” answered Waldon, blandly, for he was a man to enjoy another’s discomfiture with the cool deliberation of an epicure; “and am not likely to speak rashly at this table. That I occupy this seat, invited to it as you heard, is proof enough that the master of the house has accepted me as his son-in-law. As for the lady, she permits our engagement to be made public from this evening.”

Hyde sank back to his seat, his eyes glowing, his teeth clenched hard under his mustache, and all his features locked with rage.

Fletcher leaned forward from the seat he had slowly 456taken. His eyes were bright as stars, but in their stormy joy arose a look of growing indignation. Had this man dared to thrust that noble girl aside, or had she broken loose from his thraldom?

“But how came this about, Waldon?” cried a young man from the bottom of the table, who sat rather uneasily in his chair, and in a mellow, sleepy voice, which gave the words a drowsy significance, he half sang, half recited:

“You have told us about the new love; but how about the old? That’s the question before the meeting—‘how about the old?’”

“Oh, as to that,” answered Waldon, laughing, “I hold myself answerable to no one.”

“Yes, you are; I am that young lady’s friend. I was the means of introducing her to the evil destiny which association with you has brought on so many women. I wish to know how your engagement with Miss Canfield was broken.”

Fletcher spoke with bitter vehemence. In his fierce rage he saw the weak point in Waldon’s armor, and struck through it. In defending Bertha he unconsciously avenged the death of Clara Anderson and the treason that led to it.

Hyde also became her champion, thus turning his wrath aside from its own stinging course. An hour ago, he had thought the heiress of Willow Bend almost his own—the thought burned his heart like fire.

Waldon leaned back in his chair, and laughed till the white edges of his teeth shone again.

457“And who gives to Mr. Egbert Fletcher the right to criticise or question me? What is there in my engagements to interest him?”

“So much, sir, that I take it for granted that the young lady came to her senses in time, and cast you off.”

“Cast me off—me!”

There was fire enough in those great eyes now, and quite sufficient rage in the strong features to startle more than one of Mr. Noel’s guests.

“You heard what I said,” answered Fletcher, growing hard and cold, as the other kindled to wrath. “There existed only two methods by which an engagement so well known could be broken—dismissal by the lady, or dishonor in the gentleman. No person familiar with Mr. Waldon’s high moral character would for a moment accuse him, so that we must suppose the dismissal came from the lady.”

Fletcher spoke with the very quintessence of scorn and bitterness—his voice was low, and stung like a viper.

Waldon writhed under it. Both self-control and manhood gave way under this scathing contempt before men he had used and considered as nothing more than literary or social satellites.

“You demand the facts?” he said, clenching a champagne glass by the stem, and pressing it down upon the table. “You believe it possible that any woman would fling me over, as you elegantly term it. You wish to know why the engagement between myself and Bertha Canfield was broken off. I will tell you. If the lady does not like it, I call every man here to witness that you brought it on her, not I—”

The man hesitated. Through his writhing vanity, and 458his venom against Fletcher, he had a sense of the dastardly thing he was doing, and held back a moment.

Hyde saw this, and goaded him on with a cold smile.

Then Waldon made the plunge, like a vicious horse grinding the bit between his teeth.

“I broke my engagement with Bertha Canfield because she was a girl that no gentleman could marry without dishonor.”

Hyde leaned back in his chair, with a triumphant smile on his lips. He cared nothing for the blasted reputation of this poor girl, but exulted in the degrading act of the man he hated.

“Liar!”

As he uttered this one scathing word, Egbert Fletcher leaned over the table, and dashed a full goblet of wine into Waldon’s face.

“Liar! coward! hound!”

Blinded by the wine, stung by these insulting words, Waldon leaped to his feet, dashed the dripping moisture from his eyes, and made a plunge across the table, attempting to clear it like a wild beast, and kill the man, who had insulted him, with his clenched fist. Half a dozen powerful men held him back, frightened by the gladiator fury in his eyes, and the foam that flew in swift flecks from his lips.

Fletcher stood opposite, white as death and firm as a rock, while around them rose a wild clamor of words, through which Waldon’s voice hissed its stinging venom, while he struggled against the hands that held him, and struck out wildly across the table, beating the air.

Fletcher neither moved nor spoke, but his breast heaved with a fierce, animal longing to smite the mouth that had dared to cast shame on the woman he loved.

459Only one man at the table kept his seat. He was smiling blandly, darting the blade of his knife here and there, while he sung, in a mellow voice:

“It’s good—it’s good to be off with an old love, before you are on with—with flirtation number two.”

This was the scene upon which Mrs. Forbes and Mary Noel entered, when the noise of the quarrel reached them in the drawing-room. Their frightened faces subdued the storm a little.

Waldon struggled madly against the hands that held him, unconscious of their presence.

Mary forced her way to his side, and clung to his arm, sobbing out:

“Oh, Waldon! Waldon! do you want to break my heart?”

Mrs. Forbes approached Fletcher, and laid her hand on his arm. She was trembling from head to foot, but spoke calmly, like an angel of peace.

“What is this, Egbert?”

He looked in her eyes an instant, blinded by his passion; then, recognizing that anxious face, answered, almost in a whisper:

“He slandered the woman I love.”

“I understand. Come with me, brother. This is no place for us.”

“When they have taken their hands from him. I will not leave the room until they set him free.”

“They have set him free now. Mary Noel is clinging to his arm, crying like a baby—that is all.”

Mary Noel heard her name, in the confusion, and cried out, with a burst of sobs:

“Oh, Mrs. Forbes! dear Mrs. Forbes! do find out what has happened? He won’t speak a word to me! 460Papa has gone to his room, and I’ve nobody to help me but you!”

Mrs. Forbes turned at this appeal, and led Mary from the room, consoling her with great kindness.

“Go to your room, child. This is no scene for you. These gentlemen must not learn in this way how much you are interested in Mr. Waldon.”

“Oh, but I must see him! I can’t go up till I have seen him! He didn’t seem to know me, Mrs. Forbes, and I just engaged! Isn’t it terrible?”

“Go into the drawing-room. By-and-by he will come to you, I dare say. There, sit down in this great easy-chair.”

Mary flung herself into the chair, and began to cry again.

“Do make him come in! Tell him that I am just breaking my heart!” she sobbed.

Mrs. Forbes was in the dining-room again before half this plaint was uttered. She found Waldon, exhausted by his wild rage, lying back in his chair, with his cravat loosened, and his white vest, all stained with wine, unbuttoned. Now and then he gasped out:

“I will have his life! Gentlemen, I call you to witness, I would have had his life now, but for your interference.”

A faint smile trembled across Fletcher’s mouth, and he regarded with intense scorn the artistic tableau gotten up around the great man’s chair.

Half a dozen persons were grouped about it, giving him their most devoted attention, as if he had been a fainting woman, instead of a strong man, whose threats of vengeance made them watchful.

“Tell him that Miss Noel is in the drawing-room, 461awaiting an explanation of this disturbance,” said Mrs. Forbes, gliding past the group, and approaching her brother. “Come, Egbert, let us go now.”

Fletcher took her hand, led her to the door, and, leaving her in the hall a moment, turned back. Putting one of the impromptu guards aside, he leaned down, and whispered in Waldon’s ear:

“My plantation is not far off—you will know where to find me.”

Waldon started from his chair, foaming with rage, but not till Fletcher had reached the door and taken Mrs. Forbes on his arm. Then he broke into a fierce sneer, and, pointing after them, called upon those present to witness how adroitly the man who had insulted him could cover his retreat by the presence of a woman.

“And you saw him?”

“Yes, Bertha.”

“Did he—did he speak of me?”

“More than once.”

“Kindly—regretfully? Oh, tell me every word that was said! I do so hunger and thirst for one little word! Remember, you promised solemnly to tell me everything.”

“I know, dear; but that is difficult when things are implied rather than expressed. Waldon certainly spoke of you.”

462“Yes! yes!”

“And so did Mary Noel; but she evidently knows nothing, and is, beside, a precious little goose! I wonder a girl all puff and gossamer, like that, could have been your bosom friend. Bertha, never were two creatures more unlike.”

“Perhaps—I dare say. But do tell me; I am not patient, you know.”

“Well, I have promised foolishly, I think now, and will do my best. I led him to the subject—kept down all my dislike, for I detest him—and asked, almost point blank, what the trouble was between you. He answered vaguely—said nothing against you—”

“Against me! How could he?”

“But spoke of your engagement as positively at an end. Poor child! how white your lips are! I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! The man is so unworthy, so absolutely vile!”

Bertha protested against the charge with all the force of her sinking heart.

“No! no! it is not that. Something has arisen that we do not comprehend, and he is too honorable to speak.”

“Too honorable! the ingrate! the coward! Bertha, diseases exist that cannot be cured, save by cutting off a limb. It takes a wise surgeon, they tell me, to know just when and how to cure in this desperate way. I am not that. Your clinging faith in this man shocks me. Yet I can understand it too well! too well!”

“Do not speak ill of him again, dear friend,” said Bertha, laying her hand on Mrs. Forbes’ arm, and lifting those great, beseeching eyes to her face. “I know how kind your meaning is. You think that I could give 463him up with less pain, believing him unworthy; but that is not so. I would rather, a thousand times, resign him to a happier woman, even her, than think him, in anything, less perfect—less deserving of such idolatry as I have felt—still feel—for him. No, no! some wicked thing has come between us which you have been unable to fathom.”

Mrs. Forbes answered nothing. She had no heart to persist in the truth against the sublime faith which possessed this noble girl. Knowing too well that half the value and beauty of a woman’s life is torn away when she is first convinced that the man she loves is mean and unworthy, she absolutely feared the effect upon this proud, trusting, sensitive girl. But something must be said. The scene she had witnessed at the dinner party must reach Bertha, sooner or later.

“You promised to tell me all,” said Bertha, wondering at this hesitation. “Have you done so?”

“No, Bertha; something else happened at the table after I left. There was some discussion—some drinking of toasts—in which your name was mentioned. Then Waldon openly disclaimed his engagement, and declared his approaching marriage to Miss Noel.”

“What—what—in a crowd!—before strangers!” gasped Bertha.

“Several young men were present, among them Mr. Hyde. Do you know him?”

“Yes. He is his bosom friend, and adores him like a woman!”

“Is he your friend?”

“I do not know. God help me! I cannot say that I have a friend on earth!”

“At any rate, he seemed to act as such,” answered 464Mrs. Forbes, forgiving the implied doubt of herself unasked; “for when Fletcher proclaimed himself responsible as your friend, and demanded an explanation of the treatment you had received, this gentleman sustained him, I think.”

“That is strange. I thought he did not like me. But the explanation—did he give one?”

“Bertha, he said that no gentleman could many you without dishonor.”

Bertha turned to marble; face and neck, hand and lips, hardened into a deathly white, then, as a statue reels from its base, she fell slowly sideways. Mrs. Forbes caught her with both arms, or she would have fallen prone on the logs of the bridge where they had met and conversed.

“Sam—Celia! Great Heavens! will no one come! Celia—Celia! this way—bring something that holds water! Stop fluttering about the door, I tell you, and come at once!”

In answer to this cry, Celia came running down from the house with a calabash in her hand, calling back:

“Ho, Sam, yer ’fernal lazy nigger, what yer ’bout, when Miss Ally hollers murder?”

Sam, who was gathering sweet corn from his garden patch, dropped the green ears from his arm, and ran after his wife, who found Mrs. Forbes seated on the great side log of the bridge, holding what seemed like a corpse in her arms.

Down through the tangled vines Celia tore her way to the inlet, and filling her calabash, hurried back to the bridge just as Sam came up.

“Dare you am, standing like a stump, and doin’ noffin’, an’ de young lady done gone dead! Hole dat, thar!”

465Sam took the calabash while Celia dipped both hands in it and dashed the water over that deathly face.

“Is she dead—is she quite dead?” questioned Mrs. Forbes, who was almost as white as the poor girl she held.

“Dead! Goramighty, no! She’ll come to, Miss Ally, and would right off, if it wasn’t for dis lazy ole nigger, as won’t hole de calibosh perpendicelum. Dare now, she am winken her eyelashes—dat last swash ob water done it. How am yer, mis? How does yer feel, honey?”

Bertha opened her eyes, vaguely at first, then with a look of wild wonder.

“What is the matter?” she said, lifting one hand to her wet hair. “Have I been in the water?”

“You have fainted, dear. I was telling you something, and you fell,” whispered Mrs. Forbes, kissing that damp forehead upon which her tears dropped. “I was frightened, it was so like death, Bertha!”

Bertha turned a little in the kind arms that held her, and, for a few moments, lay gazing into that kind face.

“I remember now,” she said, after a little time; “but my mind won’t receive the thing you said—it is too terrible!”

“It is true, Bertha. What he meant I cannot tell; but that was what Waldon said.”

Bertha looked jealously at the old people. She could not endure that they should hear that much of the shame that had been put upon her; but their kindness made her grateful even then, and trying to smile, she said to old Celia:

“I am better now. There—I will sit here a while by the side of your mistress. You can go to the house now.”

466“Come along, ole man, and don’t yer be all day ’bout gitting dat green corn—come!”

Sam turned obediently, and followed his wife, who went toward the house, swinging her calabash by the neck, and scolding the poor old fellow all the time for coming away from the corn patch, when he “wasn’t wanted, no more than a chicken wanted two heads.”

Bertha had gently released herself from the support of her friend, and sat down on the log beside her.

“I had no father, no brother there, to ask what those cruel words meant,” she said, in a low, dreary voice. “Oh, it is hard to be fatherless! and now I have no mother—no human being in the wide world strong enough to tear away this mystery from the man I was to have married. Oh, Mrs. Forbes, some one must have slandered me to him fearfully! But how could he believe it without breaking his heart! Did he look ill?—did he seem to have suffered much?”

Mrs. Forbes was out of patience. Would the blind love of this young creature never permit her to understand.

“I saw no appearance of suffering, and you were not altogether left without defence.”

“You did not observe it, very likely, for he has a god-like power of self-control; but I know the generous, sensitive nature under it all. It breaks out, now and then, to the world, through his poetry; but to understand it well, one must have loved him. Oh, my friend, he suffered terribly before he could force himself to believe the thing he said! What wicked, wicked person can have imposed on him so?”

“I said you were not altogether left without defence,” said Mrs. Forbes, out of all patience. “When Waldon 467made this disgraceful charge, one man at the table dashed a glass of wine in his face, and called him a liar.”

“Called him a liar? Who was the man?”

“My brother, Egbert Fletcher.”

“And he is alive? Waldon did not kill him on the spot?”

“No, that would have been dangerous; but I think he will try and get revenge in another way.”

“A duel—you do not mean that?”

“Yes, Bertha, I do mean that. One of these men must fall.”

Bertha arose, looking drearily toward the house.

“I must go. It seems as if I were dying!”

As Mrs. Wilson Forbes was driving home, very much dissatisfied with herself, she saw a young lady, followed by a colored groom, galloping down the river road, with a swift speed, which indicated something more important than a simple ride for pleasure. The moment this fast rider came in sight of the carriage, she threw up her whip hand, and put her horse upon the run.

“Oh, Mrs. Forbes! I am so glad to have overtaken you—so troubled! so fearfully anxious! Mr. Waldon went over to Hyde’s last night, in defiance of all I could do, and I’m terrified to death from fear that something may happen.”

Mrs. Forbes had stopped her carriage, and Mary Noel 468said all this, leaning from her saddle and panting for breath.

“What is it that you fear so much?” inquired the lady, thinking first of her brother, then of poor Bertha, as she had seen the wretched girl walking up from the bridge, with all the strength smitten from her limbs by the very dread this maiden carried so lightly.

“Oh, Mrs. Forbes! they will fight! How could your brother insult him so? the bravest, proudest man on earth! What was that Bertha Canfield to Fletcher, that he should put himself in such awful danger?”

“My brother does not often sit quietly and hear a woman slandered,” answered Mrs. Forbes, coldly, “and at such times he is not a man to calculate consequences.”

“But he will be shot—as true as you live, he will be shot! You have no idea what sure aim my—that is, Waldon, has. I like your brother so much, it would be dreadful. Do try and prevent it, my dear Mrs. Forbes! You could—you can do anything. Just tell your brother how dangerous it is!”

Mrs. Forbes smiled a little scornfully.

“I fancy that would not be exactly the way to influence him!” she said.

“Well, you know the best way. Tell him how ridiculous it is to fight for a girl like Bertha Canfield, who never let Mr. Waldon alone for an hour, till she had entangled him, and then gets up duels and things when his eyes are opened, and he refuses to marry her. It would just be ruin to him, fighting for a girl like that. Tell him so, and make him apologize, beg pardon, and all that. Mr. Waldon will let him off after that. He told me so.”

“He told you so, did he? When?”

469“Last night, after all the rest were gone. You don’t know how I pleaded with him! how I clung to him and implored for your brother’s life!”

“Indeed, you were very good!”

Mary did not observe the curl of that haughty lip, and went on, with headlong rashness:

“At first he would not listen, but went on like a lion. You could see specks of froth flying up to his dear lips, faster than I could kiss them off—and I did my best! I told him how wretched I should be; how papa would mourn having once given consent, and how people would talk, if, just before our being married, he should fight for a woman like Bertha.”

“What did he say then?” inquired Mrs. Forbes, parting her lips with difficulty from their haughty pressure.

“Mrs. Forbes, he cursed her! I was so frightened! But wasn’t he excusable? Why couldn’t she give him up quietly, without all this fuss? And your brother taking her part! The idea!”

“It seems to me,” said Mrs. Forbes, “that you were not particularly successful with Mr. Waldon. He left you, I dare say, bloodthirsty as ever.”

“That is true. But the insult—a glass of wine dashed right into a gentleman’s eyes! What was the use of pleading against that? Then I said: ‘Well, if you refuse me, I will go to Mr. Fletcher. He never could resist me.’ You know, Mrs. Forbes, I was in hopes of making him jealous, and come round a little; but, instead of that, he seemed pleased by the idea, and told me to come—there might be hopes of success in that quarter, and he had no objection; all he wanted was an apology. As for bringing that girl’s name up in a duel, 470he wanted it no more than I did. So it was agreed between us that I should ride over this morning, and get your influence with Fletcher. Just a little apology, Mrs. Forbes. Waldon won’t be over-particular, and all this trouble will be washed away like melting snow. I’m sure Mr. Fletcher will do it, just to oblige me.”

There was no possibility of intensifying the scorn that Mrs. Forbes felt for Russell Waldon; but the mean cowardice of sending this young girl to ward off a threatened danger went even beyond anything she had dreamed him capable of. True, Mary did not understand that she was acting as his tool, but rather prided herself upon the independent idea which would lift her to a heroine of romance in her lover’s eyes, and bring her nearer to a level with himself.

“Then your mission was really to me,” said the lady, controlling herself. “I am to importune my own brother to make a craven of himself, in order that you and Waldon may be married, and enter upon the good things of life on velvet. What does he think of me?”

“Oh, he thinks the world of you! I was a little jealous that night, you know, and he confessed all about old times, when you were so fond of him, in spite of his not caring, before he got you married off to Mr. Forbes.”

“Before he got me married off to Mr. Forbes!”

Mary started upon her saddle. That burst of indignant scorn terrified her almost into running away, but after riding off a pace or two, she wheeled her horse and came back.

“Dear Mrs. Forbes, I had no idea of offending you. Indeed, I don’t know how any lady on earth could help loving him; and he couldn’t love them all, you know. 471He only told me about it that I might understand how much more likely you would be to interfere because of old times, for his sake as well as your brother’s. Besides, there is one thing I forgot to mention. Papa knows nothing about this quarrel; he was ill, and went to his room, so I bribed the servants, and they kept silent. He was never told a word about Bertha’s engagement, and all that coming at once might set him against Waldon; so, for my sake, Mrs. Forbes, do the very best you can.”

“I will do the very best I can to preserve my brother’s honor. You can say this to Russell Waldon.”

“I was not to mention him as even knowing that I came, so I cannot do that,” said Mary.

“As you please; but your horse seems restive. Good-morning, Miss Noel.”

Bertha had borne up bravely, and defended Waldon to her friend, even when her own heart was giving way from its unswerving faith in the man she loved. No excuse could be found, even in her trusting nature, for the base and cruel words this man had spoken; the very thought of them made her faint, and drove her heart, shuddering, away from him. Still she struggled, and strove to disbelieve. It was hard to be separated from him forever; but, oh, how infinitely worse to see this god-like idol fall at her feet, an abject 472thing, too mean for spurning. No, no; slander and malignity were following him also.

Bertha was lying upon a low chintz couch in her chamber, with the blinds half closed, and casting greenish shadows on the white-washed walls. She had been thinking of these things, till she ached all over head and heart, when the door opened and old Celia looked into the room.

“Am yer to sleep, young missis? Case if yer isn’t, I’se got suthin’ here mighty pretty. ’Spect yer kin make it out for ole Celia. See thar!”

Bertha arose languidly from the pillow which Lydia had placed under her head, and took the paper Celia held toward her. It was a sheet of large note paper, covered closely with writing, which Celia seemed to hold in no esteem; but she pointed with her finger to a tinted and golden monogram at the top, upon which Bertha gazed with parted lips, and eyes widening in startled surprise, for the paper belonged to herself, the monogram was hers, the writing was her mother’s.

“Where did you get this?” she demanded, sharply.

“Ole man done fished it up out ob de river, ebber so long ’go,” said Celia, a little startled.

Bertha did not answer—she sat upright, with the letter grasped by the edge in both hands, reading it. Steadily, slowly her eyes passed from line to line, freezing her into stone.

It was the letter that Mrs. Canfield had written to Waldon the day before her death. In it she had told him of her solemn purpose to immolate herself, that the barrier of her disgrace should no longer separate him from her daughter. Oh, with what touching eloquence she pleaded with him to protect that child from all 473knowledge of her sin, and of the manner of her own death. She appealed to his generosity, his manhood, and besought him to give double care and double devotion to a young creature who had been made an orphan for his sake. Never was pathos more touching, or prayer more earnest, than this poor lady put forth just before she laid herself down to die.

Bertha read every word of this mournful revelation. No tears blinded her eyes; they grew brighter and brighter, with a terrible depth of meaning in the blackness which intensified as she read. A shock of feeling passed over her, now and then, as lightning might strike a statue; but most of the time she sat dumb and still, reading the letter over and over again. At last she folded it carefully and laid it in her bosom, which was cold as marble; every drop of blood in her veins had flown to her heart, and was burning there like living fire.

Celia had left the room, terrified by the dead whiteness of that young face, afraid even to ask for a return of the pretty monogram which old Sam had fished up from the river.

Bertha was entirely alone. She looked around wildly; the white walls seemed to glide and heave around her; the windows were in motion; the floor on which she stood sunk and rose like the billows of a rough sea. She fell upon her knees and clung to the couch with both arms, like a wrecked creature tossed in a storm.

All at once her voice broke out in a fearful cry:

“Oh, mother! mother! mother! You are dead, and he killed you!”

She fell with her face upon the couch, and lay for hours, giving out low, dry moans, which were neither 474prayers nor curses, but a hard agony, impossible of expression.

Lydia came in and went out again, afraid to speak. She knew nothing of what had passed, only that a tiny picture had been given to young missus, who had gone right off inter tantrums ’bout it.

An hour passed, and there was no sound from Bertha’s room. Lydia went up again, and found her lying on the couch, with her eyes wide open and looking up at the ceiling.

“Are you better?” said the girl, tenderly; for she had learned great gentleness within the last few months. “Celia thought you were sick, and got frightened.”

“I am not sick, but strong, Lydia. Feel of my nerves: they are tough, like harp strings, and my flesh is iron!”

“It is cold and quivering. Let me bring you some wine,” said Lydia.

She ran down-stairs, and came back with a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other.

“Drink, Miss Bertha! You’ve got an awful chill!”

Bertha drank the wine; a shudder passed over her; the blood was beginning to flow back from her heart.

“It seemed almost as if I were dead too,” she whispered, with a piteous smile.

“Don’t, don’t, Miss Bertha, you frighten me!”

“Why, there is nothing to be afraid of now. When the worst is known, one is lifted above fear. Do I look strangely, Lydia, that you search my face so? Can one moment transfigure a person?”

“Dear Miss Bertha, you talk so strange, I don’t like it. You make me tremble!”

“It seemed to me, a little while ago, that the whole earth trembled; but I am quieter now, Lydia.”

475The poor girl held out her arms, and Lydia crept timidly to her side. Then Bertha’s head fell on that faithful shoulder, and she whispered hoarsely:

“Oh, if I could but shed one tear, I think it would save me!”

“Miss Bertha, what is it?”

“Lydia, I know all that you do! Oh, my mother! my mother!”

It will be remembered that Mr. Noel was forced by indisposition to leave his guests at the dinner table, on the night that ended in such bitter feeling between the parties left behind. Before morning he became seriously ill, and the next day was pronounced in imminent danger, from one of those acute attacks of a disease which might any moment prove fatal. Another morning found him worse, and the doctor despondent.

In this strait, the sick man had but one overpowering anxiety: his daughter’s welfare. He had consented willingly to her marriage with Waldon, who was so well known as an author and a rising man in public life, that his lack of wealth was of little importance to a person who possessed so much.

Few kinder or more indulgent fathers ever lived than Mr. Noel; and now, when death seemed very near, anxiety to leave his only child under safe protection grew strong within him. He sent for the girl and won from 476her a half-frightened, half-delighted consent that the marriage should be celebrated then and there in his sick-room.

An hour after Mary Noel gave her consent to this, a young man was galloping at full speed toward Hyde’s plantation.

Young Hyde, being a bachelor, and entire master of himself, led a careless life on the estate his father had bequeathed him. Without much regard to the elegancies of society, he extended a hearty, almost rude hospitality to such friends as chose to make his house their headquarters for lounging, shooting, or any other country amusement that their own ingenuity could devise. With plenty of old family servants ready to bestow their labor upon his guests, a stable full of blood horses, and any amount of empty sleeping-rooms, the Hyde mansion was usually a scene of great hospitality and free living. Guests remained in that house so long as it pleased them, without any idea of restraint. In fact, each one soon became a sort of amateur master. Certainly, the party now assembled under its roof had a jolly, idle, rollicking time of it, and seemed in no hurry to depart.

Hyde and some idle young Virginians from Richmond were lounging around the windows of the smoking-room, half in and half out of doors, at the very time that Mary Noel was giving her consent to a speedy wedding. They had been discussing the unpleasant termination of the dinner, and seemed rather astonished at Waldon’s apathy in the matter; but he sat apart and smoked much, leaning back on one chair with his feet on another, while his friends went into an eager discussion of his duties. He had seen Mary after her interview with Mrs. Forbes, and that young person, having misunderstood 477the indignant lady entirely, and, as such people will, added a good deal of her own to what had really been said, Waldon was satisfied that, through this underground channel, he had secured an apology from young Fletcher ample as he could wish. Hyde’s interference he chose to ignore entirely. He was well aware that a quarrel with her brother would be sure to enlist Mrs. Forbes against him; and an open rupture with Hyde would have left him without a home, when it was most important that he should be in the neighborhood of Willow Bend.

“Alice never will allow me to run the risk of being shot,” he reasoned. “There is enough left of the old feeling to set her actively to work, and she is a deuced clever woman. In fact, I never took the trouble to please any but clever women until this bit of cream and honey came in my way. I wonder how she will manage it? The fellow is plucky enough, but she can control him, and will. The woman who once loves Waldon never wholly throws off his chains. I shall be in no haste here, but give ample time.”

In this way the man reasoned, while his companions chatted lazily, sending up clouds of smoke among the stags’ heads, foils and fowling-pieces that ornamented the great open hall where they were sitting.

“Let him alone,” said one of the young Virginians, who could not understand this cool way of taking an affront. “He is not likely to put up with an insult like that. New Yorkers are not fond of duelling, but such want of pluck as that would drive him from the clubs.”

Waldon heard this, and was stung by it, as Lane saw with great satisfaction; for a sharp, underground antagonism was going on between these two men, which 478threatened every moment to break out in an open rupture.

“I think they can leave Waldon to take care of his own honor,” muttered that gentleman, as he caught the drift of this conversation, while he twisted a loose leaf around the end of his cigar, and polished it down with his finger. “I am waiting for that young hound to send me an apology. Wasn’t it a statesman who taught us the value of ‘masterly inactivity?’ There! I have lost my light, and the whole thing isn’t worth that! Boy, bring me a match.”

A young mulatto, who was lolling against a post of the veranda, listening greedily to the talk, went off like a flash, and that moment a horseman appeared in the road, coming full gallop toward the Hyde mansion.

“It is one of Noel’s people, I think,” observed Hyde, leaning forward to get a good view of the approaching horseman, “riding like the mischief. I wonder what is up at the Bend? Old fellow dead, perhaps.”

Waldon set down his chair with a crash, and started up. Hyde laughed, and snapped the ashes from his cigar with vicious emphasis.

“Perhaps it is the apology coming!” he said, with a curl of the lips, as he replaced the cigar between them.

Waldon gave him a glance of fire, and walked forward to meet the man, who rode straight toward them.

“A letter, sar,” said the young fellow, taking off his hat, from which he produced a canary-colored note, on which gleamed a tiny monogram of gold. “Ole marse done sick. Couldn’t send noffin hisself, so young missus done writ it.”

Waldon heard nothing of this, but tore open the note, rending the pretty monogram, in twain, and read it eagerly.

“Papa is ill; the doctor thinks worse. He is very, very anxious that you should come to the Bend at once. I do not know how to write it, and am blushing all over, but he wishes so much to see us married before he dies. Of course, it is dreadful—without trousseau or anything—and I was just sending to France for such lovely things! But poor, dear papa, how can his own—own child refuse him anything in his dying hour? I have just been looking over my things, and find a white gaze de Chambery that has never been worn but once. My maid is now busy putting new lace on the flounces. She works in breathless haste, and oh, dearest, I shall be ready by the time one of Mr. Hyde’s swiftest horses can bring you here. I don’t know how to subscribe myself, standing on the edge of a precipice to which your noble love has so sweetly led me, but, for the last time, am

A flash of haughty triumph brightened Waldon’s face as he came back to his friends with this note in his hand.

“Does he send an apology on canary-colored paper?” Hyde cried out.

“Hyde, pray excuse me,” said Waldon, ignoring the young man’s sneer, because of the swift revenge his words would bring, “it is an extraordinary request; but pray make a speedy toilet without delay, and permit me to order the carriage. A very impatient old gentleman, who thinks himself on his death-bed, is anxious to have me married at once, and the lady is waiting. Will you go with me and witness the ceremony?”

Hyde turned livid; but a guest seized him by the arm before he could speak and hurried him away, startled by the bitter resentment that whitened his face.

480“Go!” he said. “Do not let the man see that you feel it so deeply. We will both see him married.”

“He is my guest,” answered Hyde, “I must not forget that.”

Hyde’s carriage drew up in front of the mansion at Willow Bend, and, after a few moments’ delay, the gentlemen were ushered up the broad staircase into Mr. Noel’s chamber, where the physician and a clergyman were in attendance.

The sick man reached forth his hand when Waldon entered, and spoke with him some minutes, while the rest stood apart, waiting.

Waldon seemed greatly impressed, and grasped the hand held out to him with much apparent ardor, as if some sacred promise were confirmed by the act.

Then the door opened, and, with a soft flutter of lace, the bride entered, followed by her maid, who stood just within the room, smiling till her teeth glimmered like ivory.

When the sick man saw his child in all the snowy cloudiness of her bridal array, his hand dropped that of Waldon, and, drawing her gently down to his pillow, he kissed her fair cheek, and left a trace of tears upon it. Then the hands of those two were joined, the clergyman stepped forward, and they were pronounced man and wife.

Then, one by one, those present stole from the room, and the sick man was left alone.

481

It stormed heavily that night. The rain drifted across Diamond Island in sheets. The great trees swayed and bent under whirling rushes of wind, that 485threatened to uproot them. The waters of the river were dark as midnight, save where the wind plowed them into furrows and the blue lightning struck them.

Bertha watched the darkness from her window while it gathered like a pall over the island. She had dressed herself carefully in the afternoon, braiding her rich hair tightly in a thick roll back of her head, and thrusting through its coils a small poniard, very slender and keen, but elaborated with jewels at the haft, as if intended for an ornament. It was a pretty trifle, which she had worn at private theatricals in her school-days. In the dead blackness of her mourning this bright object took the lightning now and then, as it flamed across the window, and seemed to flash back living fire.

When it was quite dark, Bertha threw a waterproof cloak over her, and, with her head buried in the hood, went out into the storm. Directly, another figure, also shrouded in a cloak, glided after her, close as a shadow—had one been possible that stormy night—until she came to the log bridge just as Bertha went down under it.

The second figure stood upon the logs, looking over. All at once it made a leap, and almost upset a tiny boat that Bertha was pushing out of the inlet toward the raging waters of the river. A shrill cry broke from her, which the storm seized upon and smothered. She dropped an oar, and it was being carried swiftly away, but Lydia snatched at it and dragged it back.

“Hand the oars to me; I am the strongest. You have been sick, and might give out,” said the girl quietly, as if she had been expected to take that very place.

“Lydia! oh, Lydia! why will you follow me so? Is not one enough for danger like this?”

486“No,” answered Lydia, bending to her oars, and shooting her craft into the great stream; “one is not enough. Don’t try to cheat me; it’s not to be done. Up stream, I reckon?”

“Yes; but give me the oars now—I want the work.”

“Take them, if you must; but keep to the bank. The current will be too much for us if you don’t.”

It would have proved too much at any ordinary time, for those round, white arms would have given way; but Bertha was gifted with superhuman strength that night, and battled the waves as if they had been wild beasts. She took no heed of the current nor the swirl of the winds, but cut through them both with mad heroism.

All at once the black shadows of some vessel, reefed close and swinging at anchor, rose in her path. She could just discern the skeleton spars piercing the darkness and veered a little, passing within a few feet of her. A crash of thunder, a lurid sheet of lightning, and for some seconds all the river seemed aflame, and the yacht they were passing lay upon that sea of fire with every rope and spar revealed with the vividness of noonday.

Bertha saw nothing more than a flood of blinding light and a ship at anchor, but a sharp cry, which ended in a wail, broke from Lydia, who sprang up in the boat and flung out her arms, as if appealing to some one for help.

During some moments both the boat and that spectral craft had been wrapped in one great blaze of fire. The hood had fallen back from Bertha’s face, revealing its deadly whiteness, and Lydia’s slight figure rose at its full height in the boat, clearly revealing itself as she uttered that cry.

That picture created by the lightning vanished with it, 487and was buried in darkness again. Bertha, always looking forward, like a sibyl inspired, kept on her way, giving no heed to the craft she had passed, nor to Lydia’s cry. The storm was still unabated, the air was full of shooting rain which, pierced by lightning flashes, mingled gold and silver together for a moment, then merged into the inky darkness of the river through which that boat was so desperately urged.

Since that one wild cry Lydia had remained silent in the bow of the boat; but her frame trembled from some cause more potent than the wet or cold, and when a gleam of lightning shot athwart them she keenly watched the face of her companion, and saw that it was like marble, and that her eyes were large and glittering, as if they drank in fire from the lightning.

Indeed, Bertha was unconscious of danger. Lydia understood the peril, but braved it without shrinking; though she never expected to climb the shore alive. Occasionally they saw lights gleaming through the drifting blackness; but no habitations were visible, even in outline. Those glittering sparks of fire bespoke their presence on the bank, but that was all. Now Lydia pulled up stream. Bertha had fallen into thought, given up the oars, and sat motionless, folded in her cloak.

“Where are we going? When can we stop?” inquired Lydia, resting a moment and gasping for breath.

“We shall know—there will be light,” answered Bertha, hoarse and shivering.

The boat was drifting back. Lydia worked her oars again. According to her best calculation, they must be near Willow Bend, possibly close there, for a dense mass of blackness lay at their left, heaving up and down like billows of ink; and, farther on, she saw two or three 488star-like lights. That blackness might be those vast willows on the verge of Mr. Noel’s lawn. The lights might burn in his windows.

Lydia, yielding to fatigue and a vague wish for shelter, pushed her boat close to the bank, until great sweeping branches trailed over them like wet banners, and the moan of heavy foliage, lashed by the wind, came out from the black masses over head, like lost spirits wailing in heaped-up thunder-clouds. Beneath these heaving branches, burning dimly through the storm, were those lights.

Lydia believed this to be Willow Bend, and rested a little, waiting for Bertha to speak. But the girl said nothing, and did not seem to know how those long wet branches were lashing them.

All at once another great sheet of lightning rolled down the river, poured itself into the writhing willows, and wrapped a great mansion house, near by, in quivering flame. Lydia bent her face down to her bosom, closing her eyes to the awful glare. Bertha rose so quickly that the boat rocked with dangerous violence, dipping water. She sank down again in a dark heap; for following this awful surge of lightning came a peal of thunder, booming over them with reverberations that seemed to shake the very earth; and out from the darkness, which rolled back upon everything, shot up a spire of flame, red and slender, like the tongue of some huge serpent, quivering through the awful gloom.

The lightning had struck a dead pine tree, up stream, and was leaping up the splintered trunk, devouring it in the midst of the black storm. Bertha once more lifted her head. Flashes of this lurid light shot in and out through the willows, gleams of it reached the house, 489revealing its outlines, and blotting them out again, fitfully.

“It lights me on!”

Bertha caught a branch of the willow and swung herself on shore as she spoke. The next instant she was gone.

Lydia also leaped on shore, with the cable in her hand; she groped for a hook which she knew of, sunk into one of the willows, fastened her boat, and ran swiftly across the lawn, struck with unutterable terror. She saw nothing of her young mistress, neither on the lawn nor on the broad veranda, over which the storm was drifting.

The doors and windows were all closed. She listened, but could hear nothing—the trees moaned so loudly, and the tendrils of a great honeysuckle, that the wind had wrenched from its fastenings, was beating hard against the roof. In her anxiety the girl went out upon the lawn, searching for the lights she had seen. They came from two windows in the upper story, and shone dimly; for the glass was beaded with rain drops, that broke and smothered their light, which came through transparent curtains of muslin inside.

Still she saw nothing of her mistress. Once it seemed to her that she discovered a dark figure coming up from the willows, but, like everything else, it drifted out of 490shape. She turned her eyes on the house again. A cry broke from her.

Passing one of these windows she saw the shrouded figure of a woman. The girl did not stop to ask how her mistress came there; but sprang at once to a pillar of the veranda, against which was nailed the lattice work of an interlacing vine.

With the speed and lightness of a cat, she climbed this frail ladder, and moving over the wet shingles of the veranda, swept the water from a pane of glass with her hand, and looked through.

Lydia saw a large white bed, standing in the middle of a chamber she was familiar with, and on it an old man sleeping. No other living soul was in the room, and, exhausted with past bodily suffering, the old man seemed to have slept heavily through the storm.

Lydia drew back—this was not the room she sought. She turned a corner of the roof and paused at a faint line of light that fell across the sodden shingles, through another window, covered with cobweb lace, which was scarcely more than a mist. From this precarious elevation, she looked into a luxurious bed-chamber, to which it seemed as if a storm could never come. The snow-white bed was broad, and so clouded with lace that the outlines of two persons sleeping within could only be indistinctly seen.

Flowers were in the room; roses and a tall stalk of white lilies filled a vase, which occupied a little marble table near the bed. Across the silken lounge a muslin dress was thrown, around which some blue ribbons fluttered suddenly, as if a draught of air had been let into the chamber through some open door. If so, the door was instantly closed, for the ribbons settled down to their 491place, and the light, under its Parian shade, which had flared a little, burned steadily.

“She is there—she has been at the door,” thought the terrified girl, shivering in the rain, but more from fear than cold. “Oh, if she would but come away now!”

Bertha Canfield did not come away, but stood at the door, that shut in her two enemies, holding her breath, while she drew the poniard from the coils of her drenched hair. Then Lydia, who was watching keenly, saw the lace curtains sway and ripple like drifting snow, a dark figure swept through them, as it seemed, and three persons were outlined through the lace. A man lay sleeping soundly, with his head half buried in the pillow, and one hand falling supinely over the counterpane—the other arm half circled the fair form of a slumbering woman, whose cheek rested on his shoulder, and whose hair of pale gold swept over the linen that veiled his powerful chest.

Over these two sleepers the dark form of Bertha Canfield bent in powerful contrast, her garments black and dripping, the hood thrust from her head, which was that of an avenging angel.

For one awful minute Bertha stood gazing upon those two—the man who had murdered her mother, the woman who had so shamefully broken faith with herself. How helpless the strong man looked in his unconscious sleep! how fair and pretty she was, lying with the warm flush of a slumbering child on her cheek! Many a time, in their school-days, she had slept thus, circled by Bertha’s arm.

It was strange, but at the moment a gleam of tenderness for the woman found its way to that warped soul, and there, with her hand almost upon the man’s throat, 492she felt something like the softness of tears stealing into her bosom. But a thought turned them to ice. In the morning, another murder would be perpetrated. This man’s path was not red enough. His next victim would be Fletcher, who had twice saved her life—who had rescued this man from the deep.

Sleeping them so tranquilly with another murder in his heart! No; that should never be.

A swift uplifting of the poniard over the spot where she could mark his heart beating, a shivering poise of a moment, an upheaving of her bosom, and Bertha fell upon her knees, pressing the bed-clothes to her mouth, thus smothering the despairing cry that sprang to her lips:

“I cannot do it—oh! I cannot kill him, in her arms!”

Even these words did not arouse the sleepers. The voices of the storm had been so tumultuous that lesser noises went for nothing. Nor was the unhappy girl herself conscious that the room was rapidly filling with moist air from a window.

Through this sash, cautiously opened, Lydia was about to leap, when a hand was laid on her shoulder, and a woman sprang by her into the bridal chamber.

Going softly up to Bertha, where she was kneeling, this woman raised her gently from the floor.

“Come with me, Bertha; come with me.”

Bertha arose obediently, and came out from the cloud of lace, with both hands to her temples, looking weak and helpless.

“I could not do it! I could not do it!” she muttered, looking ruefully back at her enemies. “I was not strong enough.”

493“No, no! Do not think of it again! Bertha.”

Lydia was in the room now. She knew the house well, and opening a door stood sentinel while Bertha was led through. Then she closed the latch, and followed those shadowy forms down-stairs, and out into the stormy night.

Bertha allowed herself to be conducted down to the water’s edge. Indeed, she had no power. The terrible excitement that had kept her up so long gave way, when that poniard dropped from her hand. Now she had but one wish—to lie down, in some safe, warm place, and rest.

She was helped into the boat with some difficulty, and slid down from her seat to the bottom, where she lay huddled in her cloak, shivering—almost dead.

Then Lydia stepped back under the willows, and fell upon her knees in the wet grass, with both hands fastened on the dripping garments of the dark figure that had come to her aid.

“Oh, Miss Clara—Miss Clara! Is it your ghost, or where did you come from if it isn’t?”

“Hush, Lydia; hush, or we shall drive her wild. Here is my hand; you will see that it is warm.”

Lydia seized the wet hand between both hers, and kissed it with passionate fondness.

“Oh, Miss Clara, is it you? or have I been a dreaming it, storm and all? What could have brought you here just in time?”

“I saw you from the yacht; saw your mistress, and her face frightened me, so I followed your boat.”

“Yes, yes: I did see you leaning over. I did see you, but you looked like a ghost. So did the ship.”

“Hark, Lydia! That is a moan coming from the 494boat. Where can we take your mistress? She will die here.”

Lydia started to her feet.

“Come down to the boat,” she whispered. “It will be with the stream now, and we can soon get home.”

Clara Anderson went down the bank, and gave some orders to a couple of men who sat waiting in a yawl, under the willows. Then she stepped into the little boat, lifted Bertha’s head to her lap, and the yawl swept out into the river towing the smaller craft with it.

The storm abated before they reached the island, and a pale moon drifted in and out of the broken clouds, but Bertha took no heed of that, or anything else. She was neither asleep nor awake—only very, very desolate.

Unmindful alike of the friend that held her so tenderly, or the men who lifted her from the boat, she walked feebly up to the house, and entered her own room as if waking out of some dream too awful for comprehension.

Once under shelter, Lydia became wonderfully active. She found wood, and kindled a bright fire in Bertha’s room; took the wet garments from her trembling limbs, heaped warm blankets upon the bed, and then heated wine, with spices, which she forced those quivering lips to drink. Then the girl thought of herself, threw off her own wet clothes, drank what was left of the wine, and laid herself down on a couch to sleep, muttering softly:

“Mistress—my poor, dear old mistress! Haven’t I done my best? Oh, if you could answer one word, and just say, ‘Lydia, I did well to trust you!’”

“Lydia,” said a weak voice from Bertha’s bed some time in the night, “Lydia, I have had such restless dreams. In one of them I have seen Clara Anderson.”

495

499

504

Truly Russell Waldon was a good shot. His bullet had gone so close to that brave, true heart that the variation of the smallest portion of an inch would have cleft it. After that it had been so near the 510spine that death might have come in that direction. It was a long time before the murderous bit of lead could be found, and the pain of its extraction was terrible to bear. Even then the doctor hardly ventured to give a breath of hope—the exhaustion was so complete; but, if no fever set in, recovery was just possible.

Fever did set in, and with it delirium, during which the sick man’s voice grew sharp, and his cheeks hot with an ever-burning flame.

Those devoted women watched him day and night, relieving each other at intervals, thus keeping up the strength so much needed by efficient nurses. It was well known that Mrs. Forbes was with her brother; but the old negroes kept Bertha’s secret well, and no one else even guessed that she was in that sick-room, or of Clara Anderson’s presence there—not even the doctor, who wondered a little at the almost superhuman endurance for which he gave Mrs. Forbes credit.

In her sweet ministration, Bertha almost forgot the terrible wrong that had driven her mother into the grave, only to fell upon herself with double bitterness. The fearful excitement through which she had passed seemed incapable of reaching her in the sanctuary of that sick-room. On that little island she was so completely cut off from the whole world that every thought and pulse of her life could be devoted to the man who had suffered so much for her. She scarcely thought of Waldon; or, if she did, it was with such sick loathing that her whole nature recoiled from receiving him into her mind.

One piece of news did come to her through the doctor. Waldon and his wife had left Willow Bend. Mr. Noel, who had been slowly recovering since the marriage, had been persuaded to try a sea-voyage, and the newly-wedded 511couple went with him to New York, from whence they would visit Saratoga for a short time. Bertha heard this with a sense of relief which she had not experienced since her mother’s death. It was a respite—almost oblivion—the terrible idea that haunted her grew less cruelly real.

In those hours of affliction these three young women became more than friends. From one evil source they had all imbibed poison, and came forth in new strength, and with grander purposes of life. They spoke little of the man Waldon, and turned from his name with shuddering; but even his sins had made a bond of union among them, which would never be broken again.

When Bertha questioned Clara of her disappearance from the old house in Connecticut, she told her story gently, and in few words. With fever in her brain, she had entered Ben’s canoe, lured there by its gentler motion, and the coolness of the water. No oars were in the little craft, and in that, perhaps, lay her safety, for she might otherwise have attempted to use them in her delirium. As it was she drifted on and on, from river to river, until salt air from the sound swept over her, and the waves rocked her little craft till water sometimes dashed over her. She did not care for that. It cooled her fever and cleared her brain.

All at once her craft floated up against some vessel that lay anchored near the mouth of the Housatonic. She was seen from the deck, and taken in, not insensible but delirious.

The vessel was a pleasure yacht, that had been cruising along the New England coast, with its owner and his wife on board. These people were now going southward, and finding her unable to tell her name, or give any 512account of herself, took her with them to their home in Richmond. On the voyage she told her little history, so far as was needful to gain their trust, and had since remained in the family as governess to the children.

“A place you will never hold again,” said Mrs. Forbes. “Hereafter my home is yours.”

Clara shook her head; but Alice Forbes was ardent in her friendships.

“You have forgiven me, Clara; but never on this earth shall I forgive myself. It will be cruel to refuse me a chance of atonement. My father, too—no man could regret his action more than he does. No man will be more rejoiced to know that you are alive.”

Such conversations were frequent between these young persons during those days of anxiety.

Mrs. Forbes was no longer passionate in her grief. The solemn dread, which great danger to a beloved object is sure to bring, subdued her into gentle patience. She was no longer disposed to blame Bertha for anything, but clung to her with gentle commiseration, claiming and giving entire sympathy.

Sometimes, in his delirium, Fletcher called Bertha by name, and talked over that first terrible scene that they had enacted together on the old wooden bridge in New England. Then he would reproach some one for snatching her away from him after he had wrestled for her with such hard strife.

At such times, Mrs. Forbes would lift her eyes to the girl with such touching appeal that Bertha was forced to turn away her face. How could she answer that look with anything but moans?

Up to this time, Fletcher had been so tortured with 513pain, or tossed with delirium, that he was utterly unconscious of Bertha’s presence in his room.

One day, when Fletcher had been quieter than usual, and had sunk into a soft slumber, Lydia came to the door with her apron full of water lilies, which she had just gathered while unfolding from their snowy night sleep.

This strange girl had taken, of late, to wandering alone on the island, without any apparent aim, or going off in the confiscated “Firefly,” pillaging ponds and swamps of magnolias and water lilies, which she brought away in boat-loads, and often scattered on the water, while rowing home. A portion of her flowers she always brought to Bertha, knowing her passionate love of them, and how she must pine for their sweetness, shut up, as she was, in that dull room, tortured with anxiety.

The morning we speak of, she had been out early, and ferried old Sam over to the main shore in her boat. It was not often that the old man got a chance to say that his soul was his own, if he ever desired to claim that particular property, when his better half was within hearing; but now, with a broad space of deep water between him and the female darkey, he became eloquent.

“Dus yer know, Miss Lider, I’se drefful anxious ’bout dat gemman in dar? He’s boun’ for kingum cum, or dis darkey am awful mistook ’bout it.”

“Oh, I hope not! Indeed, Sam, I think he’s a little better. Last night he scarcely talked at all.”

“’Pears like, he’s worn out—jes a goin’ off—when dat am de case—”

“No; we must hope for something better than that. Good nursing is everything, and no one ever had better care than Mr. Fletcher.”

514“Bress de Lord, old Sam hopes so! far he am a gemman, ebbery inch on ’em; and de odder feller is noffin but old Marse Noel’s son, by de holy law ob matrimonus. If Marse Fletcher had done gone and shot fair, it ed a been all day wid dat white Yorker.”

“Why, didn’t he shoot fair, Sam?”

“Dus you call em fair to hist your pistol in de air an’ bang it off ober your own head? case that’s jes what Marse Fletcher done.”

“Did Mr. Fletcher do that?”

“Sartin sure! Dis darkey was peekin’ out from under-side de bridge, an’ see him a-doin’ it. But dat York feller, he aimed sure; no ’stake bout dat.”

“Did the men who were by know of this, Sam?”

“Dat am more ’en dis darkey kin say for sartin, but dey hab eyes.”

“So he spared the man who shot him down like a dog—spared him when there was a chance of punishing him, as the law ought to, if laws are laws!” muttered Lydia, falling into thought; “Will he always get clear so?”

“He! he! he! Well, Miss Lider, dat white Yorker cotched it good when he got back to de Bend. De young missus went right off inter ’sterics, an’ allowed dat she’d go tell ole marse; but, somehow, dey made up, an’ went off ter York wid ole Marse Noel, afore he knew ’bout dat duel.”

“When will they come back again, Sam?”

“Well, honey, white folks are mighty unsartin, but ’fore long—case Marse Noel guv out, afore he done gone, dat ebbery ’dentical darkey on dat plantation should hab a barb’cue on de island, in confirmation ob de weddin’, which none on ’em ebber got a sight on. Den, Miss 515Lider, yer goin’ to see jes what ole ’Ginny kin do. Roast pig, wild turkey, fiddlin’, dancin’—an’ oh, such a day! dis nigger can’t tell you nuffin’ ’bout it!”

By this time Sam was over the river, and Lydia set him on shore, and came back, after a short row among the lilies, bearing an apron full to the house.

Bertha took them gladly, not having had a full breath of the morning air, which had given its sweetness to the lilies, for more than a week.

“Miss Bertha, step out here a minute,” whispered Lydia, showing her wealth of flowers, but drawing back into the passage.

Bertha closed the door softly, and stepped into the passage. Lydia had only seen her in the darkened room for days, and looked at her earnestly now. How large her eyes had grown! but the wild, hard look had disappeared. Indeed, there was a languid softness in the faint violet shadows beneath them, which Lydia had not seen there since the death of her mistress. The girl drew a deep breath, and her face brightened.

“I have brought some of these fresh from the pond,” she said; “and then, Miss Bertha, I want to tell you something. Do you know why the young gentleman in there got his death?”

“I suppose so,” answered Bertha, shuddering.

“No, you don’t; nor did I till just now. He fired in the air. That—oh! I haven’t words for him—aimed straight at his poor heart, and I believe hit it. Isn’t that murder in the second degree?”

“Are you certain of this, Lydia?”

“Am I certain that these lilies are lilies? Sam saw them both fire. One lifted his pistol overhead and shot upward; the other took aim. Look in there for what he did.”

516Bertha smiled—the first natural smile Lydia had seen on her face since that awful night at the New England farm-house.

“I am glad you told me this, Lydia,” she said, reaching out her arms for the lilies, “for I think God will spare a man so noble and good as this one is. Kiss me, Lydia! for you and I are friends now—close friends. Her death made us so. If I have not said this often and often before, it is because the subject was so painful that I shrank from it. My own girl—my good, good Lydia, there is not in the wide world a person that I trust so thoroughly, or to whom I feel such tender gratitude.”

“Oh, Miss Bertha, stop there. Don’t—don’t. It sets me to thinking of her—of that night when I was all alone with her. It swells up my heart so. Please don’t say another word.”

Lydia gave up her flowers, and threw both arms around the neck of her young mistress, as it drooped toward her.

“Oh, Miss Bertha, I should love to die for you!”

With these words, Lydia darted down-stairs, leaving her flowers with Bertha, who entered the sick-room, holding them to her bosom, and stood, minute after minute, gazing on the pale, still features of the wounded man. Many a change came over her face, many a sweet and painful thought swept through her brain. At last she stooped over the pillow and kissed him as he slept.

Then his eyes opened.

517

Weeks went by. Egbert Fletcher gained strength every hour. The perfect stillness of the island, the bright, pure atmosphere, and, above all, the presence of those devoted women, made his convalescence a tranquil dream of Heaven. Bertha, the brilliant, beautiful Bertha, would have made herself his slave, and gloried in the title, had he permitted it. Alice was her own generous self again, and even Lydia came back to snatches of the quaint humor and rollicking mischief that had forsaken her at the period of that mournful death at the farm-house; Clara alone remained gravely sad.

“She’ll marry him,” Lydia would assert to herself, jerking her thumb toward the window of Fletcher’s room, “and maybe never give that other rampageous scoundrel a thought. There’s some one up there that will see about him safe enough. He may marry rich girls, and flourish like—like a yellow pine tree on a hill; but, by-and-by, he’ll be struck with lightning, root and 522branch, you’ll see! As for her, I wish she didn’t know all that has nigh about killed me. It will always hang about her. I can see it now, when a girl ought to be happy as the day is long, pulling her down and covering her with blackness. She thinks I don’t see it, but I do, I do! While that Judas Iscariot is within a thousand miles of her, she’ll be breathing poison. Why didn’t he go down to Norfolk and catch the yellow fever or cholera like a man!”

These thoughts haunted Lydia, who was young, poor thing, to be burdened with the dark secret that had been laid upon her. She had no confidant, but sometimes told her troubles to the winds and waters, when her boat was far from shore, and she could give the fears that possessed her free words. It was well that she had this small relief; for her mind was getting fearfully warped and dark; fatal ideas of duty were gathering about the secret which occupied her entire mind. The scene which she had witnessed in that bridal chamber haunted her. Her young mistress must never be so tempted again. Had she not promised in the presence of the dead mother, to stand between her and all temptation? If there must be retribution, Bertha should not take it.

These were awful thoughts to trouble a young creature like that; but they fed upon her brain day and night.

Bertha, too, had a heavy burden of thought. She had accepted the love of a man so feeble that a word of the truth which oppressed her might have taken his life. She loved him now with a still, solemn, intense passion, so at variance with anything known to her before that her mind could scarcely comprehend it. Rather than have brought one shade of disgrace, or one hour of absolute sorrow on that man, she would have died. From 523him she would have no secret. That which her mother had felt bound to reveal to the bad man, at whose very name she shuddered, must be honestly told before she became the wife of Egbert Fletcher. Beyond this, her mother’s secret should be locked up sacredly forever.

One day when Fletcher had regained so much strength that he talked of trying the open air a little, Bertha—who had been watching the craving avidity with which he looked out upon the world, while she sat at his feet with a volume of poems lying open on her lap—took that sudden courage which seizes upon a brave heart when some duty is to be performed, and spoke out:

“Egbert, I have something sad to tell you. Will you hear it now?”

Fletcher turned from the green trees and soft grass that he had been longing for, and saw that the girl at his feet was white as the dress she wore, and that her hands were clasped firmly, like one who meditates jumping off a precipice.

“Yes, now, Bertha; but it must be sad, indeed, to make you tremble so. If there is anything in your heart that I ought to know—if you have one lingering regret—”

“Oh, it is not that! it is not that!”

“Then there can be nothing that I shall shrink from.”

Bertha took a letter from her bosom. The paper had been wet, the ink in some places had run together, but the writing had been pressed on the paper with a desperate force, which no water could wash out. She gave this letter to Fletcher, and leaning her head on one hand, waited in dead silence for him to read it.

The young man flushed and kindled with keen indignation as he read that mournful and most touching appeal to a man who had no mercy in has heart; but through it 524all arose a glow of infinite tenderness for the young creature at his feet, and such compassion for the mother who was dead, as strong, merciful men have for women who have died in struggling to redeem a great fault.

When the letter was finished, he folded it reverently, and lifting Bertha’s head from its drooping position, drew her up to the bosom pierced by the man who had so cruelly wounded her.

“My beloved! my darling! Did you think that I should love you less, or that I would not have sheltered this wronged lady? Look up, Bertha, my own, own wife!”

“And I could love that other man!”

This thought stung Bertha like the remembrance of a crime.

“One thing more, and you know all,” she said, avoiding his lips until the last dregs of her secret were told. “There was a time when I almost thirsted for that man’s life—when I meant to take it in order to avenge my poor mother, and save you; but I was not strong enough. Being a woman I could not do it; I tried, but failed; but still I sometimes pant to strike him down as he struck her!”

“My poor darling, forget these thoughts—they belong to men!”

“But there was no man to defend her.”

“At any rate there is one to defend you. Now, Bertha, that all your secrets are mine, will you refuse to kiss me?”

Bertha gave him her quivering lips to kiss, and went away to her room with a feeling of tender worship for that man, in a heart which had never fathomed its own depths of emotion before.

525Fletcher was but mortal, with all his self-command, and that letter had stirred up the pride and honest rage that drives a man to avenge the honor of a beloved woman. He began to hate himself for the mercy which had spared that bad man from the peril of his most certain aim. Why had he refrained from shooting that magnificent villain on the spot? A single touch of his finger might have done it. That he magnanimously flung away this one chance of taking the man’s life was a subject of stern self-reproach now. He was no duellist, but in the heat of his indignation reasoned thus: Wrongs that deserve the deepest punishment are such as no law can reach. Half the crimes for which men are imprisoned and executed deserve less condemnation than those inflicted on helpless women, who hide them, like vultures, in the hearts they are consuming rather than cry aloud for the redress that never comes.

Russell Waldon had just as surely driven that gentle, helpless and long-suffering woman to her death as if he had stabbed her to the heart with his own hand. Yet where was the law that could reach him? In her whole life she had done him nothing but good. With gentle humility, she had asked a little mercy at his hands—a little forbearance for her innocent child, whose future he had rudely grasped. The return was insult, desertion—in the end, death! Was there a penalty for all this in the law?

Beyond all this, Waldon, after murdering the woman, and, as he thought, burying the guilty secret in his conscience, to save his own miserable vanity had cast insidious slanders on the person whom he had once craved as his wife, and proudly proclaimed as his betrothed.

In his horror of the cruel thing that had been exposed 526to him, Fletcher allowed thoughts like these to sway him into a state of burning rage against the man he had spared. If such thoughts were wrong, they sprang out of a generous nature, thrown into sudden tumult when his frame was weak, and his heart tender with the love of a woman.

A sharp pain in his chest reminded him at what cost this man had been spared to wrong other women, and carry his wicked powers more deeply into the social life such men poison.

“Oh, that I had known this!” cried Fletcher, walking the room in feverish excitement—for he could not forgive himself that a generous impulse had stayed his hand when Waldon was in his power. “His punishment would have been just, his doom well earned; but in my weakness I left two women unavenged, and thought myself acting right. Poor, poor Bertha! no wonder she was driven to attempt the life I was fool enough to spare! Oh, this pain! this pain!”

Fletcher flung himself on the bed, breathing hard, and feeling as if a girdle of iron were tightening around his chest.

As he lay, writhing in pain, a little hand was laid on his forehead, and a kindly voice inquired, with comforting lowness, if he would just lift up his head and take a drop or two of medicine.

It was Lydia, with a spoon in one hand, which she held steadily to his lips.

“There, now, take a good, long breath, and I’ll sit by you still as a mouse. Miss B. is on her bed, having a sweet, soft cry all to herself. Mrs. Forbes is off to the mainland, on some sort of an errand, and Uncle Sam is off fishing; so you and I have got the house to ourselves, 527and nothing but the flow of the river to disturb us; for Aunt Celia rests on her oars when Uncle Sam’s gone, taking in wood, and getting up steam for a new explosion. Now, Mr. Fletcher, being all alone, haven’t you anything to say to me?”

“What should I have to say, Lydia?” answered Egbert, smiling, in spite of his pain; “only to thank you for being so kind!”

“Oh, yes; that, of course. Every one thanks some one else for being kind; but that isn’t just what I mean.”

“Then, what do you mean, Lydia?”

“Mr. Fletcher, my old mistress loved me and trusted me. I knew all that Miss Bertha has been telling you, long and long before you did.”

“How can you know what she has told me?”

“This way: she is up-stairs, crying softly, like a girl who is thankful to lie down. Ah, Mr. Fletcher, secrets like this are a load to carry. You are lying here, red in the face, bloodshot about the eyes, and throwing out your arms and feet like a deer with a bullet in him. She has given up her secret, and you’ve got it. I knew she would; but it weighs on you, don’t it? You would give the whole world to lift it off of your bosom, but it lies there like a great stone.”

“Lydia, you are a strange girl!” said Fletcher, losing all sense of his pain in astonishment.

“Yes,” answered Lydia; “things make people strange. But I have this to say: Don’t talk any more to Miss Bertha about this matter. Her great stone is rolled away. She has done her duty. The angel, in unlocking her heart, has let in ever so much sunshine. Don’t shut it out again with dark looks, as if her burden had 528settled too heavy on you. Keep that man’s name from her ears. Make her forget him—forget him yourself, if you can. She will never let you fight another duel. When it comes to that, she won’t break down a second time. Do you understand me, Mr. Fletcher?”

“Yes, Lydia; I think so.”

“Then just snuggle down in that pillow and go to sleep. You want it bad enough, gracious knows; and, when the worst comes, trust me.”

Fletcher obediently closed his eyes, for he wanted to think over what the strange girl had said.

That night Fletcher was worse. High fever came on again, and the anguish of his wounds, both in soul and body, kept him restless.

Old Sam came to him, rather late in the morning, with a letter or two and some papers which he had brought from the post-office. In the parcel was a New York journal, directed in a strange hand, with more than usual care.

Fletcher tore off the wrapper, indolently wondering what person could be sufficiently interested in him to send this one isolated number of a journal he could not remember having seen before. A couple of pen dashes drew his attention to one article. It was a poem, headed “To One Who Will Understand Me,” and signed Russell Waldon.

529The very name of this man sent the hot blood to Fletcher’s face. He began to read the poem, his eyes darting from line to line in sharp haste at first; then he re-perused it more steadily. It was Bertha’s story, with that of her dead mother, written in such burning verse as genius alone can give to human sorrow. A flimsy veil of mysticism was thrown over it all, craftily calculated to stimulate curiosity, and the writer clothed himself in generous romance, like a Bayard, whom fate had entangled in a web of deception from which nothing but the nobility of genius and most sensitive honor could have redeemed him.

“I will follow him to the ends of the earth for this! I will have his base life! That man and I cannot live in the same universe together!” cried Fletcher, when the poem had burned itself into his brain. “To let such men prowl unchecked through the world is a wrong to humanity!”

The young man forgot his wounds and everything else but the cruel outrage of that last insult to the woman he loved.

He sprang up from his seat with the energy of a strong man, and trod the floor to and fro in such feverish wrath that Lydia had been standing with the door half open since his first bitter outbreak, and he knew nothing of her presence.

“His life! Oh, that will not be enough! I could tear the craven limb from limb! Bertha—my pure, beautiful Bertha—what has she done that her proud heart should be so tortured? She shall never know of this. It would wound her to death, and she is so happy now! I was so happy only an hour since! But she shall be spared!”

530As he spoke, Fletcher wrenched the paper in pieces, and flung the fragments through the open window; then he turned, and saw Lydia standing in the door, as if she had just opened it.

“Mr. Fletcher, Miss Bertha wants to know if you are ready to see company? Mr. Forbes has come from New York, and your own brother too.”

“Wait a few minutes, Lydia. Yes—yes! tell Edward—tell Forbes to come up; and Lydia, my good girl, I have just thrown a torn paper out of the window. Go down at once, pick up the pieces, and burn them in the kitchen fire. We must not litter Aunt Celia’s grass plot, you know. I think you had better do that first of anything; then send the gentlemen here.”

“I’ll attend to it,” said Lydia, disappearing.

She found the paper, put it in her pocket, and went in search of Mr. Forbes and young Lane, who were walking along the banks of the inlet with Alice, whose happy voice was heard now and then swelling into mellow laughter.

“We will take Bertha and her queer little maid home with us,” she said; “then Egbert will follow; and some one will have tremendous wedding expenses to bear. All the city shall ring with the marriage; for if Alice Forbes and Bertha Fletcher (that is to be) cannot put down that pink and white doll, with ten Waldons to back her, never own us as clever women again. Here comes Lydia. Well, kitsey-witsey, is my brother ready to see us?”

“Mr. Fletcher wants the gentlemen to come up; but I don’t think he mentioned any one else,” answered Lydia.

“Very well. Then I will give Aunt Celia directions about the dinner.”

531“It is a great bother for her, poor old soul! But the doctor will be here to-day, and unless he forbids it, we can all break up camp and go back to the plantation.”

By this time Forbes and his wife had reached the house, when she gave up his arm, and went to her consultation in the kitchen.

Mr. Forbes and young Lane mounted the stairs, and found Fletcher pacing his room like a caged lion.

“Forbes—Edward, I am glad you have come! Never were friends so wanted! My hand burns, does it? No wonder. Something has just set every drop of blood in my veins on fire!”

“I can guess what it is,” said Forbes, gravely. “Some one was good enough to send me a copy before I left New York.”

“Then you can understand what I wish. We have both an account with that man.”

“I have already paid him with contempt,” said Forbes.

“But that was different. I, too, was unwilling to take his life for what appeared to me only the language of a bravo in his cups; but now, when I have searched that black heart to its depths, it would be either superhuman mercy, or meanness too vile for manhood, were he to escape. If you would not have me shoot him down like a dog, stand by me in this, my brother.”

Forbes reached forth his hand, taking that of Fletcher with a firm clasp.

“Not a word to the women, Edward.”

“I think you can trust me,” said the young man. “But you are not strong enough yet. Your hand quivers like a reed.”

“I shall grow strong; till then you must wait for me.”

532“We came to stay till you were quite well. Edward has graduated with honors. Alice proposes to take Miss Canfield home with her as a lure to get you out of Virginia. I think she is afraid to leave you in the neighborhood of that man, who is coming down here soon.”

“Is he? When?”

“Before you will have strength enough to challenge him, I fear.”

“I think the very sight of him would make a giant of me,” said Fletcher, with a stern smile. “What could have tempted him to run this risk? Does he expect me to shoot in the air a second time?”

“I think he was rather driven to it,” said Forbes. “His engagement with the young lady had been so public, he had triumphed in it so openly, that society would only believe that she had rejected him at the last hour. This idea cast a certain amount of ridicule on his marriage with a person totally unknown in the dilettante circles where he wished her to shine. His vanity, no doubt, led him into this infamous act, as it urged him on to that speech at Noel’s dinner table.”

“And for that I gave him his base life!” cried Fletcher, grinding his teeth.

“He had a cool reception among his old friends,” said Lane, “for the papers had been busy with this duel, in which he was made to appear the craven he really is, and besides, the bride was savagely criticised. It is always a remarkably severe test of any man’s popularity when he attempts to introduce a strange wife in a set to which his own individual genius has been the principal recommendation. Bertha was bright, beautiful, gifted, already a favorite in those circles where Waldon introduced his bride. What had become of that splendid 533young creature? Had she been put aside for that delicate thing of pink and white? Or had she, after discovering Waldon’s faults, chosen to cast him off? These were questions which met the literary autocrat at every turn. He saw that his influence was in danger; that the appendage of a pretty, self-sufficient, and utterly unintellectual wife would be a sufficient drag upon him, where her wealth was of no account whatever, without the odium of this broken engagement. In order to defend himself and still retain his social pedestal, he wrote the poem which some one who hates him forwarded to you and me.”

“At any rate he has made his infamous venture, and it will be my fault if he does not pay the penalty,” said Fletcher. “But here comes the doctor and Alice.”

“Who has besieged him already about taking you home, I hear. Well, it would be pleasanter in the roomy old house, though I think you very fortunate as it is.”

“Well,” said the doctor, in answer to Mrs. Forbes, who had intercepted him on the stairs, “I am not sure that we can keep him here with any comfort after this week. The young couple are coming home to Willow Bend directly, and there is to be a grand barbecue on the island here, in celebration of the wedding. This island has been the resort of picnics, barbecues, and impromptu camp-meetings so long, that we have almost forgotten it is your brother’s property, Mrs. Forbes.”

“It might have been quite as delicate if the family up yonder had remembered it,” said the lady, frowning a little.

“I thought of that,” rejoined the doctor; “but here is my patient. After I have seen him, we shall be able to decide on something.”

534

Diamond Island was deserted. Old Sam and Celia were once more left alone. The wounded man had been taken home. There was no reason now why Bertha should remain in that lonely place, so she became a guest at the Fletcher mansion, and after much solicitation from Mrs. Forbes, Clara Anderson went there also, with Lydia of course.

But unrest and lingering anxieties followed them all. The gentlemen were grave and kept much alone together. This made the ladies thoughtful, and vague apprehensions haunted them, without seeming cause; for they were ignorant of that cruel poem which was so often a subject of conversation between the husband and brothers.

But the greatest change of all was with Lydia. Every day the girl became more strangely silent and hollow-eyed. She was devoted in her attentions to Bertha, and 540every night would hang around her bed in silent watchfulness, as if she longed to say something which her heart refused to give up. She haunted Clara Anderson with the same affectionate unrest. At daylight she would be at her post again, still silent and strangely gentle.

When either of the young ladies noticed this, Lydia would answer with a pathetic smile, that she was not very well, and had a constant pain in her chest; but Aunt Celia was doctoring her up with herbs. That was why she went down to the island every day, and remained there so long.

Thus things went on till a company of negroes from Willow Bend came down to the island, to clear up the grounds and plant rude tables for the grand barbecue, which was to celebrate the marriage of Waldon with Mr. Noel’s heiress.

Lydia was there at the time, and asked them many questions. They informed her that the York gentleman had brought the young mistress home, for a week or two, just to give the darkies an old-fashioned Virginia breakdown. Mr. Noel had gone out to sea, and couldn’t be present, but the young couple were coming to the island, sure. So was Mr. Hyde, with ever so much company from New York and Richmond. Of course Mr. Fletcher’s people would get invitations. Perhaps she might be among them.

All this Lydia heard from the men themselves, or from Sam, who talked incessantly while rowing her ashore.

In due time the invitations came to the servants on Fletcher’s plantation, including Lydia. Perhaps Waldon, who had arrived, knew nothing of this, for the colored committee of Willow Bend had a certain number of invitations, and sent them independently.

541Fletcher, who was busy with more important thoughts, ignored the whole affair; but his people, true as steel to the old family loyalty, one and all, refused to join a celebration given by the master’s open foe.

Lydia alone reserved her decision.

The night before this celebration was to come off, Mr. Forbes and his brother-in-law, young Lane, were shut up for an hour or more in Forbes’ private room, with the door locked and the blinds closed.

During this time, Lydia was walking up and down on the veranda unnoticed, for there was no moon, and the night was cloudy and dark. Besides, the girl moved stealthily, like a cat, and turned the bars of that window-blind with such slow caution that the men deliberating together had no idea that they were observed.

The sash within the blinds was up, and Lydia could hear as well as see. A pistol-case was open on the table, and the gentlemen were looking at each other in blank surprise.

“The case is here, but the pistols must have been left on the island,” said Lane, closing the lid with an impatient movement. “I’m afraid that man has gained another day upon us. Their jollification comes off to-morrow. I would not have any of Fletcher’s people seen within a mile of the place; besides, I don’t think one of them would go, even to obey my orders. We must wait till this is over. Hand the letter this way. We shall know where to find it.”

Forbes took up a letter, folded in its envelope, but unsealed, and reached it across the table.

Lane placed it in a drawer, and was about to turn the key, when a shower of light knocks came rattling upon the door, and he started up, motioning Forbes to put away the pistol-case.

542“What on earth are you both about?” cried Mrs. Forbes, gathering up the silk of her long train, as she swept into the room. “Talking, and without cigars, too! while here are a poor forsaken wife and lady-love pining for company. Why, how guilty you look! Bertha—Clara Anderson, what have these two wretches been about?”

“Hatching treason against you both, of course,” said Forbes, turning from the cabinet where he had locked up the pistol-case. “But we are detected; so arrest us, and let our prison be the little back drawing-room, where you can torture your wretched captives with music, if such cruelty is possible to the female heart.”

“March on in front, then,” laughed Mrs. Forbes, stamping her foot.

The two men obeyed her.

The moment they were gone, Lydia threw open the blinds, leaped into the room, and had that letter in her hands.

It was a challenge from Edward Lane to Russell Waldon! The young man had determined that the next encounter should be his; and, unknown to Fletcher—who was worse—had taken the affair into his own hands.

Diamond Island was running over with joyous life that day. Tables of rough boards were arranged in the form of a horse-shoe around that open space 543of forest turf just within the shadow of the woods. Around these, a crowd of servants were busy as ants, spreading delicate damask linen, forcing masses of gorgeous flowers into Aunt Celia’s broken pitchers and cracked mugs, rattling plates, jingling glasses, and building up pyramids of cut tissue paper, in which great sugar ox-eyes, frosted drop-cakes, and balls of parched corn, tinted red, yellow and green, were arranged with tempting splendor.

In this way some hours passed, when a distant sound of music came floating down the river. Directly a convoy of boats and barges, full to overflowing, appeared, steering for the island, with a burst of music loud and lively enough to make the heart leap in an anchorite’s bosom.

“Dey’s cumin! Dey’s cumin!” rose in a shout from all sides.

The great flag was run up a bare liberty pole, around whose base it had till now been lying in masses of rich drapery.

A swivel gun went off, giving a grand military dash to the occasion, and, at the same moment, warning the men who had charge back in the woods that it was time to bestir themselves.

The servants crowded down to the shore, and formed double lines of dusky faces and waving hats, through which the bride and bridegroom walked to the seats prepared for them.

The festival had reached its sublimest point when that haughty man landed from the boat, and led his bride, in her sumptuous array of soft lace and rustling silk, up those double rows of retainers, whose greeting might have satisfied a queen. From the crown of her blonde 544head to the sole of her pretty gaiter boot, the fair creature was perfect.

Thus the party from Willow Bend and some neighboring plantations moved up the island and formed on the greensward for a dance, while the servants looked on, or busied themselves at the tables.

From the moment that swivel fired, the excitement down by the woods became intense.

One table, reserved for the bride, at the curve of the horse-shoe, soon became a marvel of culinary ingenuity. At each end, two pigs, with lemons in their mouths, and their heads lifted high, knelt, each upon his broad china dish, in a marsh of curling parsley, set thick with water lilies, cut from young turnips, and looking like nature.

Besides all this, vases of flowers, rush baskets of summer fruits, and an immense cake, surmounted by a temple overran with sugar Cupids, formed a centre group in honor of the bride.

When she was led to her seat, spread with crimson cushions, and canopied by a young larch tree, the glory of the occasion was complete. A new band, that had come down with the white party, swelled the music into a perfect jubilee, and, for once in his life, the craving vanity of Russell Waldon was satisfied.

Toasts were offered by some of the guests which embodied this grand idea. Waldon arose to answer. Never had his heart been so uplifted with pride—never had his grandly handsome face glowed with such triumph. He spoke in a voice deep, sonorous and mellow with feeling. The eloquence of his words carried a wonderful power with them. The faces of his friends lighted up with enthusiasm. The servants went wild, occasionally interrupting 545him with shouts. Even old Sam and Celia joined in lustily, as if the whole thing had been a camp-meeting, and the bridegroom a preacher.

Another person seemed to have been drawn by the fascination of that voice, closer and closer to the bride’s table, until she stood at the foot of it, with her pale face uplifted, and her great, wild eyes fixed on the speaker. That person was the girl, Lydia.

Waldon closed his speech amid the wildest enthusiasm. The bride’s face was one glow of pleasure. She took a half-open moss-rose, blood-red as it came from the stalk, from her own bosom, and gave it to him. He kissed the bud, fastened it in his coat, just over the heart, with a whispered compliment, and standing erect, held up a foaming glass of champagne, calling out:

“Now, ladies and gentlemen, I offer a toast to the dearest wife and fairest lady—”

That toast was never finished. The sharp crack of a pistol cut it short in his throat. The red rose on his bosom was cleft in twain, and through his heart a bullet tore its way, taking life with it, and sending him down upon the green sward a dead man!

Amid the shrieks and consternation that followed this awful act, the girl, Lydia, walked slowly through the crowd, and reached the log bridge. There, standing conspicuously, she waited a full minute; but, in the confusion, no one followed her; then, casting one long, wistful look back on the crowd, she leaped over the bridge, landing in the “Firefly,” which lay rocking in its shadow, and urged it down the inlet, still without haste or apparent fear.

Some men saw her as she swept into the open stream, and running down to the shore, pushed off a boat in 546pursuit. One of these men held the pistol she had flung to the earth after it had done its work, and threatened, in a voice that swept over her like a trumpet, to shoot her if she did not stop.

The girl flung down her oars, and stood up in the boat, still and white, like a marble statue, her fearfully brilliant eyes bent on the man that threatened her, and her lips apart, waiting to be struck.

The man had no heart to murder the young thing who gave herself up with such quiet heroism. The muzzle of his weapon dropped, and he only urged the oarsmen to swifter pursuit.

Lydia saw this cruel mercy with a despairing groan; but one thing was left for her now. She clasped her hands, lifted them high above her head, and plunged into the stream, where its current was both deep and swift.

The “Firefly,” half filled with water by the force of that death-leap, drifted slowly downward. The pursuing boat came up, and waited, ready to capture the girl when her head should appear above water.

But never, in this world, living or dead, was that poor, faithful girl seen again!

“My own, own Miss Bertha:

“I am going to leave you now, forever and ever.

“Miss Bertha, your mother died to make you happy. 547She was a good, good woman—one that I owed everything to—more than everything.

“You remember, Miss Bertha, when I came into your kitchen, so hungry, and shivering with cold. She came down, and saw me sitting there, with a bundle in my lap, trembling, for fear she would make me go before I had warmed myself.

“It makes me cry, Miss Bertha, when I think how happy we all were up to the time that—well, I won’t use hard words now; things are getting too serious for that—but we lived so nice till that time when we all went to Connecticut and saw him. You were not the first one. He came to old Mrs. Anderson’s, and curled up like a snake in her parlor, while Miss Clara listened. Oh, my, it was awful to see all that, and do nothing but look on. But I didn’t know how bad he was till after we all went down to New York.

“Oh, Miss Bertha! Mr. Waldon left nothing but misery behind him wherever he went. Oh, your poor, poor mother, how she drooped—how she withered after he came! For your sake I tried to like him; but it was of no use—I couldn’t.

“Every time he came, she grew weaker and weaker. He poisoned the air she breathed; he poisoned me. I never knew what hate was till I saw him.

“I heard him tell her that he never would marry the child of a woman like her, who would be a disgrace to his house. I heard her plead with him, beg of him, not to break your heart because of her. Oh, it is enough to make one wicked, as I am, to have such things on the brain! All that time I knew he had an eye on Miss Mary Noel. Hadn’t I heard? Didn’t I watch them? I knew that all his cruel talk was only a mean excuse.

548“You know how she died. I never, never would have told you, but he threw her letter on the waves and waters, and God sent it to you, after many days. Then you grew wretched as I was, and the same thought came into your brain that had been eating into mine. That man was not fit to live. Murderers forfeit their own lives, and every man they meet has a right to slay them. Is that scripture? I think so, but can’t remember the words exact. You remember that night when your heart gave out and your knees bent under you? I was watching all the time. You never should have done it. I was ready to save you from the misery of it, but gave him another chance.

“That poor gentleman who loves you with a grand, beautiful love was his next victim. Two murders, and no punishment; but out of his sins sprung a beautiful joy; for you began to love Mr. Fletcher. I saw it, and felt like a lark; though my heart was still aching for Miss Clara, who had come up from the dead. Ben Vose told me in his letter that she was dead, which letter you will find in my bosom, and will please bury with me just as it is—with my tears wetting it worse than the water can, they being human.

“Yes, Miss Bertha, I saw you growing happy, and it made me glad. Miss Clara had come out of her grave, and that made me happier yet. But this bad man—I won’t call names, hard words are not in me—somehow he would not let us rest in peace. You were happy enough. Mr. Lane came and found Miss Clara. No matter about that. If I do not do what I have on my mind he would have been shot too; that man loves to kill people who are too grand-hearted to shoot back.

“In the paper with this you will find a torn newspaper, which was sent to Mr. Fletcher.

549“It came the very day that Mrs. Forbes and Mr. Lane reached the island. They kept it private. I knew they would, but I saved the pieces, and read them; then I knew what would happen. I read it in Mr. Lane’s face. Mr. Fletcher wanted to fight that man, good and strong that time, but he was not well enough yet to hold a pistol. Mr. Lane meant to have it all over before his brother knew of it. In the drawer of the library table you will find a challenge all written out. I hid the paper away from you and Miss Clara, afraid that she might be tempted, as you were that night of the thunder storm. I hid the pistols from Fletcher, knowing what he would do with them. One you will find under the pillow of your bed in the old house on the island; the other I shall use, for this bad man’s blood shall be on no head but mine. If I let him live to aim once more at Fletcher’s brave, honest heart, the murder will be mine, and you will never have another happy day on earth.

“This is why your own Lydia has done this thing, for I know it will be done. There is no other way. Mr. Lane is in dead earnest. If he is killed, or kills that man, Miss Clara will never smile again. If he gives up, Mr. Fletcher will challenge him, and be killed, or that wicked serpent’s blood will make his hand red, and your soul ache, forever and ever.

“I promised her to watch you, wait upon you, save you from temptation, and make you happy. There is but one way left for me, and I mean to take it. That man shall die, but neither you nor the man who loves you shall raise a hand against him.

“The one precious thing that I have in the world—your mother’s letter—I fold up with this. My poor heart feels 550cold since I have taken it away; but it will be, oh, how much colder, before long!

“For days and days I have been down in the woods, firing at a mark with one of the pistols I stole from Mr. Fletcher’s case. Five times I have put a bullet through a bit of paper the size of a dollar, and I know where the heart lies in a man’s bosom. The doctor explained that to me.

“To-morrow they are all coming to the island. The next day, Mr. Fletcher means to send that letter. He shall never have a chance.”

While Russell Waldon’s body was slowly passing up the river, with that bridal party following it in mournful silence, the band playing a death-march, and a train of servants singing a slow, plaintive melody, inexpressibly mournful, old Sam took his way to the Fletcher mansion, and delivered Lydia’s package into Bertha Canfield’s hand.

The next morning dawned upon two houses wrapped in profound mourning. In one, Mary Noel knelt by the cold form of her bridegroom, lost in wild, bitter grief. In the other, Bertha Canfield and Clara Anderson bent, praying for a soul that had drifted into eternity, that they might be saved from threatened misery. A soul that should be judged here with great leniency, as it will be at a higher tribunal, according to its knowledge, its loyal steadfastness, and the spirit of martyrdom that gave painful sublimity to crime.

551