Lilith

Hereward was suffering from terrible excitement. We said a little while since that his soul seemed dead within him. And as resuscitation is always more distressing than asphyxia, so the infusion of a ray of hope that gave new life to his spirit caused much anguish.

It required all his recovered power of mind to control his emotion.

“Adah!” he said, “what you tell me is so strange, so startling, so incredible, that I have the greatest difficulty in receiving it! What good reason have you for believing—believing that?”

Again Hereward broke down.

“Dat de ’mains foun’ in de crik wor not doze ob my dear young mist’ess, but wor doze ob dat young gal wot wor made way wid by her man? Yer see I kin ’lude to dem ’mains d’out lozin’ ob my head ’caze I knows dey wor doze ob dat po’ murdered gal. Ef I eben s’picioned as dey wor doze ob my dear young mist’ess I couldn’ speak ob dem, no, no mo’ dan yer can yerse’f, Marse Tudor.”

15“Yes; but what proof—what proof have you?” breathlessly inquired Hereward.

“I’s gwine to tell yer, Marse Tudor, ef yer will on’y ’pose yerse’f an’ hab patience. ’Deed, I ’spects as Mrs. Jab’ll take de head offen my shou’ders fo’ ’citin’ ob yer so.”

“Yes; but what proof? what proof?”

“I’s gwine to tell yer, Marse Tudor, ’deed I is. Yer ’member dat mornin’ w’en yer come ’quirin’ at my cabin ’bout Miss Lilif?”

“Yes, yes; you asked me that question some time back.”

“So I did, Marse Tudor; an’ I ax ob yer pardon fo’ axin’ it ag’in. It wor on’y to ’mind yer of de day, marse. Yer ’member as I tole yer how de young mist’ess had gib dat po’ gal lots ob wittles an’ drink, an’ close, an’ money, fo’ herse’f an’ me, too? Yer ’member dat, young marse?”

“I do.”

“An’ likewise as I tole yer how her man come in unexpected dat same night, an’ eat up all de good wittles, and drunk up all de good licker, an’ tuk all de money, an’ ’pelled her to go ’way ’long o’ him dat same night?”

“Yes, I remember. Go on.”

“Well, Marse Tudor, I tole yer all dat; but I didn’t fink ob tellin’ ob yer all de little trifles w’ich ’peared no ’count—sich as he makin’ ob her dress herse’f in her close to go ’long ob him—dose berry close wot Miss Lilif gib her—dat warm cashy gown, an’ de nice unnerclose, an’ de pooty French boots, an’ de little hat—all wot was tied up in de bundle—did he make her take out an’ put on to go ’long ob him genteel. No, I didn’t tell yer dat; nor likewise as how she ’beyed him in ’spect ob de close, but ’posed him when he tuk ebberyfin’ out’n de house an’ lef me nuffin’. An’ dey bofe went ’way quarrelin’—quarrelin’ 16werry bitter, an’ I yeard ’em at it till dey got out ob yearin’—an’ next minit I heerd an awful screech, an’ den anoder, an’ anoder. An’ I say: ‘Dere, now,’ I say, ‘he’s beatin’ ob her, de brute!’ An’ den dere was silence. An’ I nebber t’ought no wuss ob it, dan it wor bad ’nuff, but not so uncommon as to keep me ’wake.”

Old Adah paused for breath, while Hereward waited for her next words with intense anxiety. At length she resumed:

“I nebber tole yer ’bout dese las’ mentioned fings, ’caze I t’ought den dey was on’y trifles; but, Lor’, who kin tell wot is trifles, or wot trifles is gwine to mount up to ’fo’ dey’s done wid yer? It wor dem berry trifles, w’ich I t’ought ob no ’count, as would indentified dem ’mains wot was foun’ in de crik for doze ob dat po’ young gal, ef on’y I hed been sent fer to edify de Cow’s Quest. Dere! My Lor’! now what is I done?” cried the old woman, rising in alarm and peering into the face of the young master, who had fallen back into his seat in what seemed to be a dead swoon.

She took up the hand-bell, and was about to sound an alarm for help, when her wrist was feebly grasped, and her name faintly called.

“Adah—no—don’t ring! Wait—I shall recover presently. Give me—time,” whispered Hereward, making a great effort to rally.

After a little while he said:

“If what you tell me is true—and I have no reason to doubt your word—then it was really the body of that poor girl which was found in the creek, and your mistress is still living. But, Adah, I commend your discretion in keeping silent so long; and I advise you to the same course. Speak to no one of this matter. Let it remain for the present a secret between you and me.”

17Old Adah, highly flattered by the thought of having a secret in common with her master, kept from all the rest of the world, warmly responded:

“I kep’ dat secret to myse’f all dis time, waitin’ fo’ yer to be well ’nuff to hear it, an’ I will keep on keepin’ it, marster, an’ red hot pinchers shouldn’ pull it out’n me till yer say so.”

“I do not want any more neighborhood gossip or excitement over this matter. I do not want the sacred name of my wife bandied about from mouth to mouth in speculating as to what has become of her. I must confer with my own tried and trusty friends and the local authorities, and we must take counsel together. You understand, Adah?”

“Surely, surely, young marster, I unnerstan’s so puffect dat dat wor de reason w’y I kep’ wot I kno’d to myse’f till I could tell it to yo’, Marse Tudor.”

“Very well. Now I think I must be alone for a little while. Do you go into the kitchen and tell Nancy or Cassy to give you—whatever you would like in the way of refreshments.”

“Tank yer, Marse Tudor; I will go. Yer was allers so ’siderate to de po’,” gratefully replied the woman, as she stooped and picked up her stick, slowly arose and hobbled away towards the rear of the house.

Hereward, left alone, pressed his hands to his head.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked himself. “Is this one of those delirious visions that tortured or delighted me during the progress of my fever? Lilith—not dead? Lilith living? Oh, Heaven! can such a happiness be really still possible to me, that I should see Lilith again in the flesh? Oh, Heaven! that this could come to pass! All evils of life would be nothing if only Lilith could, peradventure, be restored to me living. I would no longer care for all the fame and glory that this world could give me, if only my child-wife could be returned to me! But can this be possible? 18What balance of proof is there in favor of her continued life, in the face of the verdict of that coroner’s jury? I do not know; I cannot weigh evidence to-day! I am weak! I am weak! Kerr will be here soon. I will ask him what he thinks about the matter. I will tell him all and I will take his opinion.”

As Hereward communed with himself in this manner the door opened, and Mrs. Jab Jordon came out on the piazza, bringing in her hands a silver waiter upon which was arranged a china plate of chicken jelly, another plate of delicate biscuits, a small decanter of port wine, and a wine glass.

She set the waiter with its contents upon the little stand beside Hereward’s chair, and then, looking at the invalid critically, she inquired:

“What is the matter with you? You have been worrying and exciting yourself about something. And you know that is not good for you. Come, now, I want you to eat all this jelly and drink at least two glasses of wine, and then, as the sun is coming around this way and it is getting warm, I want you to come in and take your noon sleep.”

Hereward smiled faintly and tried obediently to do as the lady bade him; but it is doubtful whether he would have accomplished the task before him had not Mrs. Jab drawn up a chair and drilled him into compliance.

When he had finished his light meal she took his arm and led him into the house and upstairs to the new room that had been prepared for him, and made him lie down on his bed.

Meanwhile, old Adah had gone into the kitchen, where she found Nancy superintending the preparations for dinner, while Cassy and the two younger negro women were engaged in paring potatoes, shelling peas, and capping strawberries.

19“Mornin’, chillun! How does all do dis fine mornin’?” said the old woman, as she slowly and stiffly lowered herself into the nearest chair and laid her stick on the floor.

“Mornin’, Aunt Adah!” returned a chorus of voices, as the three women stopped their work and came around her.

“Glad to see de young marster out ag’in!” said Adah.

“Yes, he is out ag’in—wot’s lef’ ob him! ’Deed it’s awful! Makes me fink ob my latter en’,” said Nancy, with a deep sigh.

“Yes, it’s a warnin’! It’s a warnin’!” put in Cassy, without exactly defining what “it” meant.

“’Deed I gwine look out an’ see ef I can’t j’in some more s’ieties. I ’longs to sebben or eight now, but I ain’t satisfied in my own mine w’ich is de yight one, or eben ef any ob dem I ’long to is de yight one. An’ dere can’t be but one yight one, no way.”

“Chile Nancy, I fink as yer ’longs to too many s’ieties. Now, one is ’nough for me, w’ich dat is de Rebbernt Marse Parson Cave’s s’iety, w’ich is good ’nough for me, ’caze arter all it is de Lord I trus’ in and not de s’iety,” humbly suggested old Adah.

“G’way f’om yere, ole ’oman! Yer dunno wot yer talkin’ ’bout! In dese yere drefful times I want to be on de safe side; so I j’ines all de s’ieties I kin fine so as to get de yight one! I done hear ob two more s’ieties way out yonder some’ars, w’ich I mean to j’in soon’s ebber I get de chance.”

“Two more s’ieties, A’n’ Nancy!” exclaimed Cely opening her eyes to their widest extent.

“Yes, honey; yes, chillun! W’ich one is—le’ me see now—wot’s deir names a’gn? One is called de Shakin’ Quakers. An’ dat s’iety would suit me good, leastways in some fings; ’caze I doan beliebe in marr’in an’ gibbin’ in marridge no mo’ dan dey do; 20an’ as fer de res’ ob it, w’y, ebbery time I gets de fever’n’ ager I ken shake an’ quake wid de bes’ ob ’em! An’ dere’s dat oder s’iety, ’way out yonder som’ers, as is called de More-men. But I misdoubts as dat one kin be de yight one, ’caze dey’s just opposide to de oder one, an’ beliebes in a doctrine called Pulliginy, an’ libs up to it, to be sure, w’ich is mo’ dan some s’ieties do deir doctrines.”

“Wot’s Pulliginy, Nancy, chile?” inquired old Adah.

“Pulliginy is de More-men perswashun. It means as a ’oman may marr’ as many husband’s as she kin take care ob! An’ marster knows dat wouldn’t suit me at all. I never could hab patience ’nuff wid de po’ he-creeturs to marr’ one husban’, much less a whole pulliginy ob ’em. No—I can’t say as I ’mire de More-men doctorine. Dough I is much exercise in my mine fear it might be de on’y yight one. Sure ’nuff, it must hab crosses ’nuff in it ef dat would sabe a soul.”

“Nancy, chile, w’y can’t yer trus’ in de Lord, an’ not trouble so much ’bout de s’ieties?” inquired old Adah.

“’Caze I wants to be zactly yight an’ sabe my soul an’ go to Glory. But as for you, Aunt Adah, wot do you expec’ as nebber goes inside ob any church?” demanded Nancy.

“Honey, I hum’ly hopes de dear Lord will sabe my soul, ’caze I can’t go to church in my ’streme ole age—ninety-nine years old las’ Can’lemas Day. Can’t walk nigh so far, honey, an’ can’t sit so long; but I trus’ in de Lord.”

“An’ you, ’lectin’ de s’ieties as you do s’pects to go to Glory?” demanded Nancy, full of righteous indignation.

“No, honey, no—not to Glory. I nebber ’sumed to fink ob sich a fing as dat. But I do hope as de dear Lord will let me in to some little place in His kingdom—some 21little house by some little crik running up out’n de Ribber ob Life, whey I can lib in lub ’long ob my dear ole man an’ our chillun wot all went home so many years ago. Dat’s wot I hum’ly trus’ in de Lord to gib me.”

“A’n’ Adah, wouldn’ yer like a bowlful of beef soup?” inquired Cassy, breaking in upon this discussion.

“Yes, chile, I would, w’ich de young marster said as I might hab a tumbler ob b’andy toddy, too.”

“All yight. So you shall. An’ yer’d better stay all day wid us an’ get bofe a good dinner an’ a good supper, an’ Cely an’ Mandy ’ill take you home.”

“T’anky, kindly, Cassy, chile, so I will,” concluded the aged woman, settling herself comfortably for a whole day’s enjoyment.

Early in the afternoon the Rev. Mr. Cave and Dr. Kerr drove over together to see Tudor Hereward.

They were shown at once to his chamber, where they found him reclining on a lounge near the open window.

“You have been sitting out on the piazza this morning, I hear,” said the doctor, after the first greetings were over.

“Yes, for two hours,” replied Hereward.

“Too long for a first effort. You have overtasked yourself.”

“No, it is not that, doctor. Please lock the door, to prevent interruption, and draw your chairs up to me, both of you. I have some strange news to communicate, which I received this morning,” said Hereward, in some nervous trepidation.

“Yes! and that is just what has excited and exhausted you,” said Dr. Kerr, as he complied with Hereward’s request, sat down beside him and felt his pulse.

“And yet it was good news, if I can judge by the 22expression of your face, Tudor,” put in the rector, wondering, meanwhile, what good news could possibly have come to this awfully bereaved man.

“Yes, it was good news, if true; and there lies the great anxiety,” replied Hereward.

And then to these two oldest of old friends and neighbors, the pastor of the parish and the physician of the family, Tudor Hereward told the story that had been told him by old Adah.

The two gentlemen were not so much amazed as the narrator had expected them to be, yet they were most profoundly interested.

“There must always be a doubt in these cases where the proof of identification seems to be in the clothing only, and not in the person,” said the doctor.

“That is certainly so. Clothing may have changed hands, as in this instance,” added the rector.

“I want your decided opinion, if you can give it to me, on this subject. It is no exaggeration to say that if it can be shown that the remains identified before the coroner’s jury as those of my wife, were in reality not hers, but of another person, I should be lifted from death and despair to life and hope. For look you, my friends, in all the long and dreary days and in all the long and sleepless nights, I say to myself, that whoever struck the fatal blow, I, and I only, am the original cause of Lilith’s death,” said Hereward.

“You are so morbid on that subject that I despair of ever bringing you to reason,” sighed the rector.

“At least until I have brought him to health! The body and mind are so nearly connected that when one is weakened or diseased, the other is apt to be so too,” added the doctor.

“You are both mistaken. My remorse and despair have nothing to do with health of body or mind. They are both normal and natural. Listen to me. 23If I, in the madness of the moment, had not insulted, outraged, and driven my young wife from my side, she would never have gone forth that bitter winter night to meet the cruel death at the hands of some midnight marauder—according to the verdict of the coroner’s jury.”

“But you did not send her to the creek,” said the doctor.

“No! but I might as well have done so! Oh! I knew how it was—or might have been—for I will still hope that it was not so. She knowing that she was about to leave the Cliffs for an indefinite time, thought of the poor old woman who might suffer in her absence, and determined that she would pay her a last visit and leave with her provision—in money, which could be easily carried—to last her for a long time. In her feeling of mortification at having been cast off by her husband, she chose to go alone, so as not to expose her distress to any one—not even to a faithful servant. So, before setting out on her long journey, she started to visit old Adah, at the creek cabin, and met her fate—through me.”

“If she did meet her fate! But, Hereward, I am inclined to believe the old woman’s story,” said the doctor.

“And so do I,” added the rector.

“There is only one doubt,” replied Hereward, “and it is this: The identification by the clothing only must still be unsatisfactory. Lilith was in mourning for my father. Her dress was always black, and of one pattern—that is, her ordinary dress, I mean, of course. It seems that she gave a suit of her clothing to that poor girl. What of that? She had other suits of the same sort of clothing, and wore one of those that same night, for she wore no other sort on common occasions. And the fear is that when she set out to visit old Adah at the creek cabin, she 24was met, robbed and murdered by this tramp and his girl, and that it was her screams that old Adah heard. For remember, that Lilith’s watch and purse have never been found, nor any trace of Lilith herself, unless that found——” Hereward’s voice broke down, and his head fell back upon his pillow.

Dr. Kerr went to a side table and poured out a glass of wine, which he brought and compelled his patient to drink.

“At any rate, Tudor, there is a very reasonable hope that Lilith still lives. Let this hope sustain and not exhaust you. Leave the matter in the hands of Divine Providence, first of all, and in the hands of your two friends as his servants and instruments. Say nothing of this to any one else. It would not be well to open up such a subject of discussion in this neighborhood. Wait until we have used every human means of discovering the whereabouts of your Lilith,” said the rector, earnestly.

“Yes, that’s it! Leave the affair to us, under Providence! We have no certainty; but the new hope is better than despair,” added the doctor.

And to support moral teaching by physical means, he made up a sedative draught and left it with his patient.

The doctor and the rector went away together, much wondering at the new aspect given to the Cliff Creek tragedy by the revelations of old Adah.

They kept this revelation to themselves, and went about secretly trying to get some clew, either to the whereabouts of Lilith, or of the young girl to whom she had given a suit of her own clothes.

They visited old Adah in her cabin, and using her young master’s, Tudor Hereward’s, name, questioned her closely on the subject of the events that had transpired in her cabin on the night of the murder. 25They cross-questioned her with a skill and perseverance that Hereward, in his weakened condition, could never have shown. And old Adah answered them by revealing freely all she knew and all she suspected.

They came away from that interview thoroughly convinced that the body found in the creek was that of the gypsy girl to whom Lilith had given a suit of her clothes.

They were again together to Cloud Cliffs, and told the suffering master of the house of their new and strong convictions on the subject.

“Lilith lives! Be sure of that! No stone shall be left unturned to discover her, and her restoration to your arms is only a question of time, and of a very little time also,” said the doctor.

“Bear up, Tudor! It rests with yourself, under the Lord, to recover your former health and strength of body and mind. Rouse yourself! Be the calm, strong, firm man that you have heretofore shown yourself,” added the rector.

And Hereward grasped their hands and thanked them warmly for their sympathy and services.

“But though we feel sure that Lilith lives, and that we shall find her before many days, yet still, to avoid giving rise to a sensational report, we have determined to continue our first policy of reticence until we shall really have found Lilith and restored her to her home. Do you not approve our plan, Hereward?” inquired the doctor.

“Yes, certainly, that is the best,” answered the young man.

The two friends took leave of the patient and departed.

“All the same,” said the doctor, as they walked out together and re-entered their gig, “if Lilith is 26not soon recovered, Tudor must die. The strain upon him is too great to be borne.”

“Let us trust in the Lord,” said the rector, “and hope for a happier issue.”

The Rev. Mr. Cave and the good Dr. Kerr, both devoted friends of Tudor Hereward, had promised him to leave nothing untried that might lead to a clew to trace the fate of the missing women. For—to reach the truth more promptly and effectually—it was deemed highly important to institute an exhaustive investigation into the movements of both the lost ones, from the day of their disappearance.

One of them lay in her grave, in the village church-yard; and the other had vanished.

But which was the dead and which was the living, no human being at Frosthill could prove.

The negroes and the neighbors had identified the 27body thrown up by the spring flood from the bed of the creek and found in the ravine as that of young Mrs. Tudor Hereward; but they had identified it only by the clothing and by the long, black, curling hair—only by these; for “decay’s effacing finger” had blotted out every feature beyond recognition.

And this held good for the truth until old Adah declared in the most solemn manner her conviction that the remains were those of the poor gypsy girl Lucille, giving strong reasons to support her statement.

Lucille was dressed in a suit of young Mrs. Hereward’s clothes, which had been bestowed on her by that lady.

Lucille had left Adah’s hut that fatal night, in company with her ruffian husband, with whom she had ventured to remonstrate on his robbing the poor old woman of the goods sent her by Mrs. Hereward; and they had gone away quarreling until they were out of hearing; soon after which, and at about the time they might have reached the point where the path through the woods passed over the bridge crossing the creek, a piercing shriek rang through the air followed by another and another, startling the bed-ridden old woman in the hut and filling her soul with terror.

Then all was still as death.

Old Adah had not at that time suspected the man of killing his wife, but only of beating her brutally, as he had been in the habit of doing.

Never until she heard of the body that had been found did she think of murder.

Then, at the first opportunity, she had told her story and given her opinion to the convalescent master of the Cliffs, who, in her judgment, was entitled to the first information.

Tudor Hereward’s “wish” was certainly “father to the thought” when he gave so ready a credence to old Adah’s story, and called his two oldest and most 28faithful friends into counsel as to the best means of ascertaining the truth.

And they, without committing themselves to any positive opinion—for, in such a case, they could have no just grounds for entertaining one—had pledged their words to leave “no stone unturned” for discovering the truth.

To do so, they knew that they must search for clews for both the missing women.

And they searched long, thoroughly, but fruitlessly, until near the end of May.

They ascertained from the accounts of the ticket agent at Frosthill that two passengers only had bought tickets for the midnight express on that fatal 21st of March. One was a ruffianly young man, he—the agent—was sure, but the other he could not describe at all.

Now who were those two passengers?

The uttermost efforts of our amateur detectives failed to discover. They could find no one in the village or in the surrounding country who had taken the train that night.

The “ruffianly young man” mentioned by the ticket agent was probably the husband of the poor gypsy girl; but who was the other passenger? Was she his wife, traveling with him, as they had set out from the hut to do, or was it Lilith, who was a mere accidental fellow-passenger?

No one could tell.

And so the time passed in fruitless search and heart-sickening suspense, until late in May, when one morning, as Dr. Kerr was seated in his office, the door opened and a stranger entered.

The doctor, believing the visitor to be a patient, arose and offered him a chair.

“Thank you, sir. I dare say you are surprised to 29see me, sir,” said the man, as he seated himself, took off his hat and wiped his face.

“Not at all. Strangers sometimes honor me with a call,” blandly replied the doctor.

“Yes, I know, for medical advice, with a fee in their hands, and then they have a right to come, and you are glad to see them. But I don’t want any medical advice whatever, and I haven’t brought any fee; and that’s the reason why I am afraid you will think I am intruding.”

“Not at all, if I can serve you in any way,” politely replied the doctor.

“Yes, but you can’t even do that! I don’t stand in need of services.”

“Then will you kindly enlighten me as to the circumstance to which I am indebted for this honor?” inquired the doctor, with a smile of amusement.

“Do you mean to ask what brought me here?”

“Yes, if you please.”

“Well, I don’t mind telling you. I should have to do it anyway, because that is what I came for. My name is Carter, and I came from Maryland.”

“Yes?” smiled the doctor.

“And have been traveling through the country here looking for land.”

“Quite so, and you have found a great deal.”

“I mean, and to buy. I hear that land is very good and cheap about here and the climate very healthy.”

“All quite true; but I fear I cannot help you in the least in that matter. You had better take counsel with Lawyer Jordon, who acts as land agent occasionally,” said the doctor.

“Did I ask you to help me? I told you first off that I didn’t want any service.”

“Then what in the name of——”

“Sense have I come for?”

“Yes, if you please.”

30“Why, I am telling you, man! Being in search of a suitable farm, I have been traveling about these parts considerable. Last night I came here and put up at ‘The Stag.’ Good house that!”

“Pretty good. Yes.”

“Well, I did hear of a rum case. The body of that young woman being found, and there being a distressing doubt whether it be that of young Mrs. Tudor Hereward, who disappeared from the neighborhood on the 21st of last March, or that of a little gypsy tramp, who bore a great personal resemblance to that lady, and who was suspected of having been made way with by her ruffian of a husband!”

“Yes, yes,” eagerly exclaimed the doctor, all his listless indifference vanished. “Yes! You have heard of that affair. You have been traveling about in this region. Is it possible that you may be able to throw some light on that dark subject?”

“I think I may; that is what has brought me here this morning. Perhaps I ought to have gone out to the place they call the Cliffs to see Mr. Tudor Hereward himself; but they told me it was a matter of six miles from the village, and that perhaps I had better see you, as you were interested; and so here I am.”

“I am very glad you did. Now tell me quickly what you have to tell, for I am extremely anxious to hear,” said the doctor, eagerly.

“Wait a bit! Let us see how the land lies first. You say young Mrs. Hereward and the gypsy girl looked alike?”

“In size, figure, and the unusual length and beauty of their hair—yes!”

“And that both disappeared from the neighborhood the same night. At least so I heard from the talk at the Stag.”

“It was true.”

31“And a young woman’s body was found near the creek a month afterwards?”

“Yes.”

“But so far gone that it could not be identified except by the clothing?”

“True.”

“And that clothing was recognized as having been young Mrs. Hereward’s?”

“Yes.”

“And that proved to the coroner’s jury the body to be also young Mrs. Hereward’s.”

“Yes.”

“Until a certain old woman comes with a tale that young Mrs. Hereward gave those clothes to the gypsy girl?”

“You have a correct account.”

“And so the doubt remains, which of the two missing women was killed and thrown into the creek, and which levanted from the neighborhood?”

“Yes, that is the situation at present. Can you help us to clear up the doubt?” anxiously inquired the doctor.

“Well, I rather reckon I can clear it up pretty decidedly, if not satisfactorily.”

“What do you mean? Speak!”

“You were much interested in young Mrs. Hereward?”

“I was very much attached to her, having known her from her infancy.”

“Then I am afraid I am going to grieve you. I am indeed,” said the man, gravely and hesitatingly.

“Oh, what do you mean?”

“It was that young gypsy girl who took the train at Frosthill at midnight of March 21st,” said Carter, in a low tone.

The doctor stared gravely for a moment, and then inquired:

32“How do you know this?”

“Because I was on that very same train, and sat in that very same car along with her.”

“Man! Is this undoubtedly true?” demanded the doctor.

“Well, I will tell you all about it, and then you will see that it is true. I took the train at Westbourne and traveled on until we got to Frosthill, which it reached at midnight, and where it stopped for one minute. Two passengers got on—a young man who looked like a young devil, saving your presence, he had such a dark, scowling, lowering face. He was clothed in a rough overcoat, and had his hands thrust into his pockets, and never offered the least assistance to the young woman, who came creeping and cowering behind him. I couldn’t help but notice them both, and saw at a glance that they were man and wife, and that they had had a row, in which the woman, of course, had come off second best. He looked so wicked and sullen, and she so frightened and broken-hearted. He just threw himself into a seat, and stretched out his legs over the top of another one; and she slunk away into a corner, and turned her face to the wall, and cried fit to break her heart. And he never took any more notice of her than if she had been a dog. I wanted to kick him all around the car. There was plenty of room to do it, too, because there weren’t a half a dozen people in that car, all told. I got out at Snowden, about twenty miles farther on, where I stopped over a day to look at a farm, and I never thought any more about that ruffian husband and gypsy wife until I came here to Frosthill last night, and heard the whole story of the mystery at the Stag. And then I thought I would tell you what I had seen at the Frosthill station, at midnight, on the twenty-first of March,” concluded the visitor.

33“I thank you very much. Still, still, there may be ground for a faint hope. How was this girl whom you saw in the man’s company dressed, do you remember?” inquired the doctor, with increased uneasiness.

“Oh, yes; I remember quite well. She was clothed in a red suit, with something dark about her head and shoulders. And Mrs. Hereward was in deep mourning, they say, for her father.”

“Yes, she was,” said the doctor, as the faint hope died away. “And this red suit,” he added, mentally, “was, of course, the very suit that she used to wear before she went in mourning, and which, of course, she must have given to the girl in preference—upon every account of economy and fitness—to giving her a black one.”

While the doctor was turning these hopeless thoughts over in his mind the visitor arose and said:

“Well, sir, I have told you all I came to tell, and now I must go. But I shall be in this neighborhood for a few days longer, if anybody wants to ask me any questions about this matter.”

The doctor also arose and said:

“I thank you, Mr. Carter, for the trouble you are taking, and shall, perhaps, have occasion to see you again. You will be at the Stag?”

“Yes, mostly, for the rest of this week; but I shall be riding round a good deal in the daytime, looking at land, but always at home—leastways at the hotel—at night, and shall be glad to see you or any one you send. Good-morning, sir.”

“Good-morning, Mr. Carter.”

And the visitor left.

The doctor sat ruminating over what he had heard for some time after he had been left alone.

At length, when his office hours were over, instead of taking his noontide meal and rest as a preparation 34for his afternoon round of professional visits, he rang for his servant, ordered his horse, and started on a ride to the Cliffs.

He did not go to the mansion house, but taking a narrow bridle path through the woods to the creek, he crossed the little rustic bridge, and drew up at the log hut in the thicket on the other side.

Here he dismounted, tied his horse to a tree, and went up to the door, where he found old Adah sitting in the sun, and busy with her knitting.

“Well, auntie, how is the rheumatism to-day?” he inquired cheerfully, as the old woman stood up and courtesied.

“T’anky, Marse Doctor, sah. Dis warm sun hab melted it all out’n my bones. ’Deed it’s de trufe. Will you come inter de house, Marse Doctor, or take a chair out yere?” she inquired, politely.

“I will stay out here,” replied the doctor, as he settled himself on a little bench outside the door.

“Have anyfing been yeard ’bout po’ dee Miss Lilif, Marse Doctor?” anxiously questioned old Adah.

“No. Not since the verdict of the coroner’s jury,” significantly replied Dr. Kerr.

“Oh, Lor’, Marse Doctor, dat want nuffin. Dat hadn’ nuffin to do long ob Miss Lilif. Dat war de gypsy gal wot war foun’ in dem woods, and war sot on by dat jury. I done tole Marse Tudor Her’ward all bout dat a mont’ ago,” said old Adah, speaking with the utmost confidence.

“Yes; I have heard so from Mr. Hereward himself. I know all the evidence you have brought forward in rebuttal of the evidence given before the coroner. I would to Heaven it had been as conclusive as you thought. But we will not go into that. I only wish to ask you a few questions.”

“Go on Marse Doctor. I’ll answer de trufe. I ain’t got no secrets from nobody.”

35“Well, then, did you see the clothing worn by the gypsy girl on the night she left the hut in company with her husband?”

“Yes, Marse Doctor, I did. I yeard her say how Missis Her’ward had gib it to her, an’ I seed her put it on, an’ tie her ole close—nuffin but duds dey was—in a bundle.”

“What was the color of those clothes?”

“Dem wot she took off an’ tied into a bundle?”

“No, no; those given her by Mrs. Hereward.”

“Oh! dose as she wo’ ’way?”

“Yes.”

“Wot was it yer ax me ’bout ’em, Marse Doctor?”

“I asked you what color they were?”

“Oh! Dey was sort o’ dark.”

“Dark red?”

“Now, dey mought o’ been. Or dey mought o’ been dark blue or dark black. You see, Marse Doctor, it was sort o’ dark in de house, an’ it made eberyfing look dark.”

“Had you no light?”

“Nuffin’ but a tallow dip—dat didn’ show much.”

“And you can’t be certain about the color of the clothing?”

“No, Marse Doctor; on’y it were dark. I sort o’ t’ought it were dark black, but I dessay it were dark red, jes’ as you say.”

The doctor asked a few more questions, and then arose to depart. He put a half dollar into the hand of the old woman, who thanked him heartily. And then he remounted his horse and rode away along the same bridle-path that led back through the thicket to the little bridge crossing the creek, and by a circuit through the next woods up to the mansion house.

He found Tudor Hereward walking up and down on the front piazza. He had convalesced so very 36slowly that he had not yet been strong enough to take a ride.

Hereward dropped heavily into a chair as the doctor dismounted, threw his bridle to Steve, who came up to take it, and walked up the steps.

“Any news, doctor?” anxiously inquired Mr. Hereward.

“Not a trace of Lilith yet. No, I did not come to bring news, but to make a few investigations here in the house that may lead to something.”

“Very well, doctor; you have carte blanche. But what is the nature of the investigation in this instance?” wearily inquired Hereward.

“Into the wardrobe of your wife, to see what is missing, and what is left.”

Hereward sighed, as if he were very weary of a hopeless subject and then faintly replied:

“Why, you know that has been done, thoroughly, and there is nothing missing but the one black waterproof cloth suit that was found on the body of that poor murdered gypsy girl.”

“And that was Lilith’s usual walking-dress when in the country, was it not?”

“Yes, it was; but she gave it to that poor girl upon whose dead body it was found.”

“She gave a suit; but you do not know that it was the waterproof suit she gave. She would not have been likely to have given the suit that she was in the habit of wearing, and that she could not very well do without,” suggested the doctor.

“Ah! but she did give it. It was found on the body of the girl.”

“You still feel so sure that it was the body of the gypsy girl which was found?”

“Yes, I do. Oh, doctor, why do you doubt it?” demanded Hereward, with the fretful querulousness of an invalid.

37“Because we cannot be sure until the other missing one is found. Until the living one turns up we cannot prove who is the dead,” gravely replied the physician.

“How much proof do you want? The dress that Lilith gave to the gypsy girl was found on the dead body.”

“But you do not know that the black waterproof cloth was the dress that was given by Lilith to the girl. I repeat, that it was not likely that Lilith should have given away a suit that was so necessary to her own comfort, when she might have given others.”

“But that is the only one missing from her wardrobe.”

“The only one missing from her wardrobe?”

“Yes. I have told you so twice before.”

“Then, if Lilith is living, what dress did she wear when she left home?” significantly inquired the doctor.

Hereward started, turned paler than before, and stared fixedly at the questioner. He had never asked himself that question. He stared, but did not speak.

“Tudor, my dear boy, we must look facts in the face. And now I ask you, was the discarded wardrobe of your wife examined when the investigation was made?”

“The discarded wardrobe?” questioned Hereward, with a perplexed look.

“Yes; I mean the colored clothing that she left off and packed away when she went into mourning for your father?”

“Of course it was not touched. She would not have been likely to wear colored clothing in her deep mourning.”

“No, of course she would not. But she would have been very likely to give that left-off colored clothing to the gypsy instead of the mourning suit, which would have been unsuitable to the girl.”

38Again Hereward started, changed color and gazed at the speaker, but without uttering a word.

“Come, Hereward, let us send for Nancy and have her search through her mistress’ left-off clothing, to see if any portion of it is missing. Shall I ring?” inquired the doctor.

“If you—please,” faltered the young man, sinking back into his chair.

Dr. Kerr rang the door bell which was soon answered by Alick, who had reinstated himself in his place as butler at the Cliffs, but who was still a poor, broken-hearted old man, grieving for his young mistress, and accusing himself of being her murderer.

“Go and tell Nancy to come here,” said Dr. Kerr.

Alick ducked his head and disappeared.

Nancy soon stood in his place.

“Aunty,” said the doctor, speaking for his young friend and patient, “I wish you to open all Mrs. Hereward’s boxes of colored clothing, and examine every article and find out if any be missing.”

“Berry well, sah,” said the woman, turning and going to do her errand.

The doctor followed her into the house, went to the corner buffet in Lilith’s parlor, and took out a certain liqueur case, opened it, and proceeded to mix a strong, restorative cordial, which he brought out and placed on the stand beside Hereward’s chair, saying:

“Drink half of that now, Hereward, and leave the rest.”

The young man obeyed, and then, as he put down the half emptied glass, he inquired:

“What is it that you expect to prove by this new search, doctor?”

“Wait and see, dear boy! I do not yet know what myself.”

39About half an hour passed, and Nancy came downstairs.

“Well, auntie, have you missed anything?” inquired Dr. Kerr.

“Yes, Marse Doctor. Miss Lilif’s red cashmere dress, w’ich was her mos’ favorite home dress, an’ w’ich she wo’ de werry day ’fo’ she was marr’d, an’ ’fo’ ole marse died, an’ nebber wored since den.”

“And are you sure it is gone?”

“Yes, Marse Doctor, sure, ’cause I knowed whey I packed it away, an’ nobody ebber went to dat trunk ’cept it was me an’ Miss Lilif.”

“And what do you think has become of it, Nancy?”

“Well, Marse Doctor, I s’pose as po’ dee Miss Lilif give it to dat po’ gal wot come beggin’. I know she did give her a bundle of close, ’caze I helped dat gal to carry dat bundle t’rough de woods an’ ’cross de crik to ole Aunt Adah’s house.”

“Did you see what was in the bundle, Nancy?”

“No, Marse Doctor, not I. I warn’t upstairs in Miss Lilif’s room w’en she give ’way dem close, I war downsta’rs in de store room packing ob a basket wid tea an’ sugar, an’ bread, an’ meat, an’ fings, to tote to po’ ole Aunt Adah, ’cordin’ to Miss Lilif’s orders, an’ I nebber seen dat bundle till dat gal fotch it downsta’rs, an’ I nebber seen wot war inside ob it; but de gal tell me, as I went along wid her, how de young madame had gib her a good dress, an’ dat it must a been dat red cashmere dress wot de young mist’ess couldn’ wear herse’f, ’stead of bein’ de black mournin’ dress wot she could wear; let alone de fac’ dat de young gal wouldn’t a-liked to ’cepted a mournin’ dress, not bein’ in no mournin’. It wouldn’t a been lucky.”

“You are right,” said the doctor. “It was the red cashmere dress that Mrs. Hereward gave to the girl, 40and that the girl wore when she left the neighborhood that night.”

“Oh, most merciful Heaven, doctor! Do you mean to knock from under me the last prop of hope that sustains me?” groaned Hereward, sinking back pale and faint as any woman might have looked at such a crisis.

“Hush, Tudor! Drink this,” said Dr. Kerr, placing the glass of restorative cordial to his lips.

Hereward emptied the glass, and the doctor set it down, and continued:

“I deprive you of no real hope, Tudor, but of a false hope which, instead of being a prop to support you, is a burden that is wearing you out with anxiety. The sooner you give up all hope the sooner you will be able to resign yourself to the inevitable and find peace and rest for your spirit.”

“But I cannot! I cannot resign all hope! I cannot!” passionately exclaimed the young man.

“Listen to me further. Hear all that I have to say and you must do so,” gravely and tenderly replied the doctor.

“What have you to tell me now? You said you had no news to bring me of Lilith. You said so when you first came in and I asked you the question.”

“And I spoke the truth,” patiently replied the old man. “I had no news of Lilith. But I had news of the gypsy girl, which—ah me!—leaves me no doubt as to whose remains they were that were found in the woods.”

“Oh, Heaven! Oh, Heaven!” groaned Hereward. “But tell me all! I can bear it! Yes, I can bear it!”

“There is a man by the name of Carter now stopping at the Stag, who was in the train at midnight of March 21st, when the strolling player and his gypsy wife got on board. He was a sullen ruffian in coarse clothing. She a pretty, dark-eyed gypsy, 41with black hair, and she was dressed in a red suit, with something dark about her head and shoulders. They were the only people who got in that train at Frosthill. They had been quarreling, and the man had a scowling, ferocious look, while the woman seemed terrified and broken-hearted. Does not this coincide perfectly with all that we have heard about the poor girl and her ruffianly companion?” gently inquired the doctor.

Hereward replied only by a groan.

“Come, Tudor! I must take you upstairs. You must lie down, and I will send Cave to you,” said the doctor, with gentle firmness.

But it was with considerable difficulty that the doctor finally prevailed on his deeply stricken patient to seek the rest and retirement of his own chamber.

Then Dr. Kerr, leaving Nancy in charge of the sick-room, went downstairs, got into his saddle and rode off, dinnerless, to make a round of professional visits on a circuit of at least thirty miles. It was very late in the afternoon when he finally reached Frosthill.

Even then, before going home, he stopped at the rectory and had half an hour’s interview with the Rev. Mr. Cave, in which he told the latter of all the news he had received and all the discoveries he had made concerning the fate of Lilith, during the day. He ended by asking the rector to go with him to the Stag to see and question Carter.

Mr. Cave put on his hat and walked with Dr. Kerr the short distance that lay between the rectory and the hotel.

They found Carter smoking in the little reading-room. He willingly accompanied the gentlemen to the parlor, at their request, and closeted there, he readily answered every question put to him, but, 42after all, they elicited nothing more than had been told to the doctor that morning.

At the end of the interview they thanked Carter and took leave of him.

“And, after all,” sighed Mr. Cave, “the verdict of the coroner’s jury was right.”

“Yes,” assented the doctor, “it was right! And now I do not think we have far to look for the dastardly murderer of Lilith Hereward.”

“Whom do you suspect?” inquired the rector, in a low, awe-stricken voice.

“The ruffian husband of the gypsy girl who was on the creek the same night of her death.”

Early next morning Mr. Cave, in accordance with the request of Dr. Kerr, went to the Cliffs to spend the day with Tudor Hereward. He found the young man too ill to leave his room, seated in a reclining-chair near the open window.

The effects of alternate hope and fear ending at last in despair deepened by remorse.

Mr. Cave sat down beside him and essayed to comfort him; but he did not succeed. Loss, sorrow and disappointment may be consoled, but remorse and despair are beyond comfort.

“The truest, gentlest, fondest child that ever blessed man I drove out that bitter night to meet her cruel death! It is that which is killing me,” he said, in reply to Mr. Cave’s well meant efforts to rouse and cheer him.

“You are morbid, Hereward. You are too severe 43on yourself. You are not rational and consistent. You should remember, my dear friend, you did not mean to drive her away.”

“Ah, but the taunting, insulting, unpardonable words I hurled at her, heaped upon her head, overwhelming her—no true woman could have borne them! If she had been the creature I suspected and accused her of being, she might have borne them and remained here for profit; but Lilith had no alternative but to leave the house! And I drove her from it as surely as if I had taken her by the shoulders and put her out and turned the key against her!”

“I do not think you should consider it in that light. Besides, for the words you used, you would do wisely to remember now the provocation you received,” gravely suggested Mr. Cave.

“Not from her! Not from Lilith! She was ever true, meek, gentle and wonderfully self-controlled for a being so young. No! I never received provocation from that child,” said Hereward, with a deep sigh.

“Then from false appearances!—false appearances which would have driven a much older and wiser man than you quite beside himself.”

“But against which I should have set Lilith’s life and character then—as I do now. No, Mr. Cave, you need not talk to me of comfort. I will not receive it!”

“Ah, Tudor, you hug, cherish, and cultivate your sorrow.”

“Not my sorrow! Sorrow is a matter of time, and it may be consoled. But remorse is a thing of eternity, never to be comforted.”

“You seem to nourish this remorse as a matter of duty and conscience.”

“Yes, I do. I will not take comfort.”

“Tudor, my dear boy, there never was a case of insanity in either branch of your family. Their brains were too strong and too well balanced, else I should 44fear for you. But at any rate you really must go away from this place,” said the minister, very earnestly.

“Well, and if I should, it would be only to wander over the earth as aimlessly and drearily as the legendary Jew,” replied the young man.

Mr. Cave remained with him until nearly dark, and then went away, promising to come and see the solitary mourner in a very few days.

The next morning the invalid, with the assistance of the two men-servants, got downstairs and into the front piazza, where he sat in his favorite reclining-chair, with a little stand beside him.

He was still sitting there alone, gazing vacantly out upon the lovely summer scene of mountain, valley, woods and waters spread out before him, when the sound of a strange footstep, a firm and ringing footstep, fell upon his ear.

In another moment the figure of a young man, dressed as a gentleman, emerged from the footpath through the alder bushes, and came into view.

In that moment, with a start of surprise, Hereward recognized the form and face of Mr. Alfred Ancillon.

The young wanderer came up the steps, and standing in front of the pale and fainting invalid, took off his hat, and in a stern voice demanded—as if he had the most sacred right to demand:

“Tudor Hereward! Where is Lilith?”

“Lilith! How dare you utter that name!—the name of the lady whose destruction you have compassed?” faintly yet indignantly demanded Hereward.

“No! not I, sir! I never wounded her by a word! I never wronged her by a thought! Your senseless jealousy has wrought all this ruin! Only ten days ago, in the remote Southwestern town where I was fulfilling an engagement, did I happen to pick up an 45old copy of the New York Pursuivant, and read the account of her dead body having been found three weeks after she had disappeared from her home! I threw up my engagement and came here with all speed, for well I guessed that you, and you only, had the secret of her disappearance and her death. For—‘Jealousy is as cruel as the grave!’”

“Had I no just cause for jealousy?” demanded Hereward, thrown upon his defence, trembling with weakness and scarcely conscious of having instinctively put the question.

“No!—as the Lord is my judge and yours! A better, truer, purer woman than Lilith never lived! A holier tie than that which bound us never united man and woman!” retorted Ancillon. “Utterly blameless, though reckless folly and egotism, if not even insanity, placed her in a false position, created false appearances about her. But should all this have led you to suspect Lilith? Lilith, who was brought up at your good, wise father’s feet, and by your side? Lilith, who was so carefully trained in all wisdom and goodness? Lilith, whose religious and self-sacrificing spirit you knew so well? Should any false appearances have shadowed the brightness of Lilith’s image in your eyes?”

“Man! Hold your peace! I am passing from earth, soon to meet Lilith in the better world, if repentance and faith can take me there. I wish not to quarrel with you now!”

“I will not hold my peace! I came here to ask you—Where is Lilith?”

“And you ask it in the tone in which the minister reads the question: ‘Cain, where is thy brother Abel?’ Lilith is in her grave,” moaned Hereward.

“Yes, she is. And you have put her there. You have as surely murdered your young wife as if you had plunged a sword through her bosom, like that 46black brute, Othello, whom I never could consider a ‘noble’ Moor, and never would personate to please anybody. Othello, when he found out his mistake, had the decency to kill himself—the only decent thing he ever did do! But you, Tudor Hereward—the law cannot hang you for driving your young wife out to death. Why have you not had the manhood to hang yourself?”

“Man, spare your reproaches! I am passing from earth, and if repentance and faith avail me, going to that other world, where I shall receive my dear one’s forgiveness. You may spare your reproaches, as indeed I do not know how, or by what right, you, of all men, dare to make them,” said Hereward, with more dignity than he had hitherto shown.

“I speak by the most sacred right that a man could have to speak,” solemnly replied Ancillon.

“What are you to Lilith, or what was Lilith to you? A man may not know all his wife’s relations. You may be of Lilith’s kindred—and, indeed, I notice a likeness between your faces—but you cannot be of very near kindred.”

“No?” queried Ancillon, with a wistful look.

“No!” repeated Hereward, with more emphasis than he had yet used in speaking—“No! for you are not her brother. I knew her father and mother; they were young people just married a year when Lilith was born. She was not only their first, but their only child. The father—ah me!—lost his life while rescuing me from drowning, a few days before Lilith was born. Her mother, shocked to death by the sudden bereavement, gave birth to her child and died. My father took the infant orphan from beside the dead mother, and brought her home to be his own adopted daughter. So that Lilith was an only child, and you could not be her brother.”

47“No, I am not her brother,” assented Ancillon, with the same wistful look.

“And if you are merely her cousin, or even her uncle, the relationship in either case would not give you the right to take such liberties with her name and memory as you have taken, and are taking now.”

“But I am not either her uncle or her cousin,” said Ancillon, with the same inscrutable look.

“Then, in the name of Heaven, man! what are you, that you have dared to do as you have done?” demanded Hereward, with an excitement for which he was to pay in a dangerous reaction and depression.

“Mr. Hereward,” said Ancillon, with more gravity than he had lately exhibited, “I came here not only to ask that question which first I put to your conscience, but also to place in your possession a secret that I have hitherto guarded with the most jealous care, not only for my own sake, but even for yours, and most of all, for Lilith’s, that no sorrow should come to her gentle heart, no reproach to her spotless name; but now that she is gone I care not at all what doom may fall upon me, or what shame may confuse you.”

Ancillon paused and smiled grimly.

“Speak, man! Speak, man—speak! What is it you would tell me?” demanded Hereward, trembling with agitation.

“I would tell you nothing!”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing; for you might not believe my words. But I will give the means of discovering my secret for yourself—of learning my story, and proving its truth beyond all doubt,” gravely replied Ancillon.

“Well? Well? Well?”

“Do you happen to know of an old trunk, the property of Lilith’s parents, filled with family relics and correspondence, bundles of yellow letters, photographs, 48trinkets, prayer-books, Bibles, old diaries, newspapers, pamphlets, and other rubbish? Do you happen to know of such a depository?”

“I think I do,” said Hereward, reflectingly. “Yes; I am sure I do,” he added, confidently.

“It seems to have been packed and preserved by your father’s orders, after the death of Lilith’s mother and for the possible pleasure or benefit of Lilith’s after life. Ah, dear! It was anything but a pleasure or a benefit to the poor child. It was never opened from the day it was packed until the day after your father’s funeral, when you had gone to Washington, leaving Lilith alone in this old house. Then, she having received the key of the trunk for the first time, as a legacy from your father, sent for the trunk and opened it. And then she learned the dire secret of her family, even before she ever saw my face. It was an accident that brought me to the Cliffs, that night, Mr. Hereward.”

“I heard that it was—the storm——”

“Not so. The storm kept me at the Cliffs, but did not bring me here. I was a guest at Rushmore, and at the supper table chanced to hear, in the gossip of the ladies, the story of Lilith Wyvil’s adoption and marriage. To me it was a revelation. I determined to see her. I did so, and was storm-bound for a week at the Cliffs.”

“Ah!”

“That trunk, Mr. Hereward, is at your disposal. All necessary information can be found within it. Seek and know and prove it, all for yourself! When you have done so, you may deliver me over to the British authorities as a fugitive from justice and send me back to England, under your favorite extradition treaty—to penal servitude for life! I care not one farthing now that Lilith is gone!”

“Man! Man! in Heaven’s name, who and what are 49you?” demanded Hereward, pale and shaking with emotion.

“I am known to the British police authorities as John Weston, the mail robber; to the keepers of Portland prison, Z. 789; to the play-going public as Mr. Alfred Ancillon, tragedian, comedian, tenor and athlete; in diplomatic circles in Washington as Señor Zuniga, nephew of the P—— Minister; but to Lilith I was known by another name, and in a sweeter relation. There! I have said and done all for which I came here. I am going now. Good-bye! I shall be at the Antler’s in Frosthill all this week, waiting your pleasure;” and the visitor put on his hat and walked off by the way through which he had come.

He had seen Mr. Hereward drop back in his chair; but neither knew nor, if he had known, would have cared that the invalid had fallen into a deep swoon.

In this condition Dr. Kerr found him a few minutes later.

After using prompt means for his recovery, and seeing him open his eyes and breathe again, the doctor made him swallow a cordial, and then asked him what had caused his swoon.

“Weakness, I suppose,” evasively answered the invalid.

The doctor took him into the cool, shady drawing-room and made him lie down on the sofa.

And then, when his strength was somewhat restored by the cordial he had swallowed, the doctor produced a large envelope with an official stamp, and said:

“I brought this from the post-office for you. I hope it may contain good news that will rouse you up.”

Hereward thanked the doctor, and, without lifting his head from the sofa pillow, opened the long envelope and took out a letter partly in print and partly in writing. His pale face flushed a little as he read 50the paper, and he passed it over to Dr. Kerr, saying:

“You see it is a letter announcing my appointment as secretary of legation to the new embassy to the court of ——, and requiring me, in the event of my accepting the mission, to be ready to sail with the party by the Kron Prinz, on the first of June.”

“And you will accept it, Hereward? The sea voyage and the change will be so good for you.”

“Yes, I shall accept it.”

When Lilith left the presence of her husband on that fatal night of their parting, her mind and heart were in a whirl of confusion and suffering.

He had accused her of unspeakable, of incomprehensible evil! He had repudiated her! He had told her that in a few hours he should leave that house—his 51patrimonial home—never to return to it while she should “desecrate it by her presence.”

Her love was wounded to the quick! Her pride was trampled in the dust.

What remained for her to do?

First of all to leave the house which he declared that she “desecrated with her presence.”

Yes, that was the first and the most urgent duty that she owed to him who had repudiated her and to herself, and her own honor and self-respect as well.

It was good to know what first to do. It saved useless brooding and loss of time.

As soon as she reached her room, therefore, she locked the door to secure herself from interruption, and then she began to prepare for her departure.

For she determined to go at once and to take with her nothing, no, not the smallest trifle, that Hereward had ever given her.

So she took off the deep mourning dress that had been one of Hereward’s first gifts, hung it up in the wardrobe, and replaced it with a crimson cashmere, the gift of his father, which since Major Hereward’s death had been packed away with other clothing, left off when she first went into black.

From the same depository she took a gray beaver cloth coat, a gray felt hat, gray barege vail and a pair of gray gloves. These she laid out upon the bed.

Next she took from her casket the few jewels given her by her foster-father, and the few hundred dollars she had saved from the liberal allowance Major Hereward had made her during his life. All these, together with her comb and brushes, a few pocket-handkerchiefs, and a single change of underclothing, she packed into a hand-bag.

When her small preparations were all complete, it 52seemed to require a painful wrench to tear herself away.

Her husband had outraged and repudiated her indeed; yet she felt that she could not leave the house without writing to him a few words of farewell. She meant to write only a very few words, not half a dozen lines in all, only enough to remind him that she went not of her own will, but by his will.

Yet, when she sat down at the table and commenced her letter, a flood of thought and feeling bore her impetuously onward to a fuller utterance, and she poured forth her soul in that touching, pathetic, yet dignified letter that he afterwards found upon her dressing-table, and which, after perusal, and with reckless anger, he committed to the flames.

When she had finished her task, sealed her letter, and pinned it to the pin-cushion where he could not fail to find it, she put on her gray beaver coat, hat, vail and gloves, took up her hand-bag and left the room.

She paused for a moment in the upper hall, and looked over the balusters to see if any one were in sight or hearing below.

But there was no one. The coast was clear. There was no danger of interruption.

So Lilith went softly down the stairs, opened the hall door and passed out into the night.

The sky was clear and the stars were shining brightly down on the snow-covered earth.

All the servants, horses and carriages attached to the place were at the young mistress’ order; but she chose to avail herself of none of them. She would walk to the railway station. The clear, starlit sky and the snow-white earth rendered her road light enough for convenience. As for danger, there was none of any sort. No act of violence had ever been known to occur in that primitive, rural neighborhood, 53which might almost have been called Arcadian in its simplicity and innocence. She knew that she could easily walk the six miles in two hours and catch the ten o’clock train. So she walked bravely on until she came to the outer gate. Just as she was in the act of opening it she was startled by a rushing sound behind her, and turning, saw Lion, the large Newfoundland dog, at her side, evidently bent on following her.

“Yes, good dog. Good, good dog, you shall go! And then if there could be any danger you would guard me with your life. Wouldn’t you, good dog?”

Lion assured his mistress, in much eloquent pantomime, that he was her own devoted dog and would die for her if necessary.

Lilith went on, the dog trotting by her side, over the stubble fields, into the dense forest, out again, through the narrow mountain pass, out again into the fields, and finally in sight of the lights at the railway station.

Here Lilith stopped to draw the vail more closely around her face, for she did not wish to be recognized by any acquaintance who might ask her questions. Here, too, she must part with her dog. It would not be well to take him with her to the railway station, either for her sake or for his own. So she must send him home; but she wished to part pleasantly with her fourfooted friend—not to drive him away from her, but to send him on an errand for her; so she opened her hand-bag and took off a paper which had been wrapped around her brushes, breathed into the paper, rolled it up to a convenient size and gave it to the dog, putting it between his jaws, patting him on the head, turning him with his nose towards the Cliffs, and saying:

“Good dog! Good dog! Good fellow! Carry it home! Carry it home!”

54And Lion, delighted at having an important commission to execute, set off at a run.

Lilith dashed a tear from her eye and hurried on to the railway station. There was not a soul there except the ticket agent and a rough-looking passenger.

Lilith knew exactly the price of a ticket to Baltimore, and had her change ready. She went into the musty office, pushed the money on the ledge of the ticket window, and said, from behind her vail:

“One, to Baltimore.”

The agent, behind the partition, drew in the money and pushed out the ticket, without seeing or caring to see whether the passenger standing aside in the shadow were man, woman or child, but taking a man for granted.

Lilith got on the train while the railway porters were throwing off and throwing on mail bags, and by the time she had dropped into her seat, midway in a nearly empty car, the train started again.

The car was but dimly lighted, and there were but five other passengers in it besides Lilith. They were all strangers to her—probably country merchants on their way to the Eastern cities to buy their Spring goods—mostly clothed in heavy gray overcoats, with their hats pulled low over their foreheads, and their hands thrust into their pockets. They seemed more inclined to doze than to talk, and seldom spoke, except to remark how very cold the weather was, opine that the mercury was at zero, and declared that such a thing had never occurred in that neighborhood so late in March within the memory of man.

And then they hugged their overcoats more closely around them, pulled their hats down lower, and relapsed into silence and dozing.

Lilith, now that the hurry and excitement of her sudden departure was over, and she was seated in 55the car, with nothing to do, suffered a natural reaction into depression and great discouragement.

What was before her? Whither should she go? What could she do? What was to be her future life? Who were to be her future friends or companions? She was leaving her old familiar home, leaving all the friends of her youth, going among perfect strangers, without one single letter of introduction to any one. What would be the end?

Had she done right to take the responsibility of her future into her own young, inexperienced hands? Would it not have been better to have borne the reproach and humiliation she suffered at Cloud Cliffs, and to have remained there and patiently waited for events? She would at least have been safe.

But in answer to these thoughts came the memory of her husband’s cruel words hissed into her ears:

“In a few hours I shall leave here—leave my father’s house—never to return to it while you desecrate it with your presence.”

And she felt that it was better to go out into the bitter world of strangers than to lose the last remnant of her self-respect by remaining in the home which her husband had scornfully declared that her presence desecrated.

Then Lilith broke down for the first time since that crushing blow, and wept bitterly though silently behind her vail.

Her fellow-passengers did not seem to notice the weeping, or even if they did, they probably thought her tears were only caused by some ordinary parting with friends, a mere matter of course, too trifling to cause remark or sympathy.

The motion of the cars often has a soporific effect upon passengers, and especially upon a woman traveling alone and at night. So it came to pass that Lilith, poor, tired child that she was, cried herself to 56sleep, and slept soundly, rocked by the swift, smooth motion of the train.

She dreamed a very vivid dream, that seemed a very graphic reality. In her dream her husband was seated by her side, and they were traveling to Washington together. Her promise of secrecy had been canceled, and her tongue had been loosed in some strange way, possible only in dreams, and she was telling him, with her head upon his bosom and her arms around his neck, the wonderful story of her parents’ youthful life and love and sorrow, and the true story of her own birth.

And he, holding her in his arms, pressed her to his heart, was listening with such affection, sympathy and admiration. He was saying so earnestly:

“And you, my brave little darling, you have borne all this misconstruction, all this humiliation, rather than betray your trust. But I love you more than ever for all that you have borne and suffered, my Lilith.”

A shock startled Lilith out of her deep sleep and dispelled her beautiful dream.

What was this? Where was she?

On the train, indeed—on the train, that had just stopped at a crowded junction and taken on additional cars, which had joined with a shock that waked her. But——

Where was Tudor?

Not seated by her side, certainly. Not even gone out to stretch his limbs. Ah, no! he had vanished with the dream.

Again her eyes overflowed with tears, and she sat back in her seat and wept bitterly in the loneliness and desolation of her heart. She missed the Tudor of her lovely dream. She longed for him with an infinite, agonized longing. She felt an almost irresistible impulse to leave the cars at that junction, and 57take the next train to her home, where she could arrive by morning—where she could throw herself upon her husband’s mercy and remain in peace.

But then again the memory of his cruel words pierced her through the heart, and left her helpless—wounded to the death, as it were. Those words were ringing through her spirit:

“No; I thank Heaven that I never loved you! I married you only to please my father! I never loved you! That dishonor has been spared me! In a few hours I shall leave this house—my father’s house—never to return while your presence desecrates it!”

Oh, no! With the sound of these degrading words still reverberating through her soul, she could not go back any more than she could have remained when she was there.

The car was now filled with passengers, and even the seat by her side was taken by a fat woman with an immense bundle in her lap, who crowded Lilith close against the side. She turned towards the window, drew her thick vail closer over her face, and wept silently but bitterly until once more overtasked nature yielded to weariness and to the smooth, swift, soothing motion of the train, and she slept; this time a dreamless sleep, that lasted until the train ran into the Baltimore station.

It was now six o’clock, and the eastern horizon was flushed with the coming sun.

Lilith awoke to find the train at a standstill, and all the passengers in motion. She roused her stupefied faculties and realized that she was at Baltimore, and that she wished to continue her journey to New York.

She arose and took up her hand-bag and left the car, went to the ticket office and inquired when the next train would leave for New York.

“At six-fifteen,” the busy agent replied.

58Lilith glanced at the large station clock. It was now five minutes past six. She bought her ticket, got a cup of coffee at the refreshment counter, and then followed the throng who were crowding through the gates to get on the New York train.

She got a corner chair on a Pullman car, wheeled it around towards the window, so that her back would be turned to her fellow-passengers, and gave herself up to thought.

She had been driven from her home in dishonor, and her flight and the letter she had left behind had cut off all retreat, and made a voluntary return impossible.

What were they doing at Cloud Cliffs this morning? Her husband had not probably received her letter until this morning, because he had not, she thought, entered her room during the night.

What would he think of her letter? How would it affect him?

She could not conjecture, especially as she could not remember what she had written, in the white heat of her emotions, when about to leave him, perhaps forever.

And old Nancy! What would she think of this sudden flight? Would Nancy be very sorry for her? And the other domestics, who had known and loved her from her babyhood—would they care?

Oh, yes, indeed, she felt and knew that all the servants, old and young, would grieve for her, and all the animals would miss her.

Then Lilith fell to weeping again at the thought of all human and brute that she had loved so well, and yet had left, perhaps forever.

Her paroxysm of tears exhausted itself, but her distressing thoughts continued.

What would the neighbors think or say about her disappearance? They would certainly ask a great 59many questions. Country people always do. They would question and cross-question Mr. Hereward.

How would he answer them? Would he tell them the truth, or would he evade inquiry? And oh, above all, would he, could he, be any happier now that she was gone? Would he not sometimes remember how much she had loved him? How hard she had tried to please him? How diligently she had worked to help him, answering his letters, copying his speeches, searching out his authorities, and through all this secretary work keeping his one room in the attic of the crowded hotel neat, bright and attractive, and always taking such pure delight in being useful to him? Would Tudor remember these things, and think more kindly of her?

Ah, no! for he did not love her; he had told her so, and thanked the Lord that he did not love her! So all that she had tried to do had failed to please him.

Again the child Lilith wept as if her heart were breaking; and there was no one to comfort her.

Lilith sat in one corner of the Pullman car, with her chair wheeled around, her shoulders to all her fellow-passengers, and her face fronting the large mirror on the wall. She sat quite still, and wept silently.

Now there happened to be in the same car a lady who, in this year of grace 1882, might be called a Benevolent Crank; but the term had not been invented in her time. She was a large, rosy-cheeked, handsome matron, of perhaps fifty years, of the class 60called “motherly;” with such an exuberance of life, health, vitality and happiness as rendered her kindly affectioned, sympathetic and confiding towards every fellow-being.

She had got on the train at Baltimore and had ever since been sitting in the opposite corner to Lilith; not with her chair wheeled away from her fellow-passengers, but fronting them all as fellow-beings in whom she took a friendly interest, and looking with her kindly, smiling face, half shaded by the black plush bonnet, and her portly form wrapped in her fur-lined cloak, the very picture of comfort, contentment and benevolence.

She did not find much, however, in the seven men who shared the car to interest her—every one of them the incarnation of “business” or “politics,” as far as she could judge from physiognomies half hidden by the large, open newspapers they were reading.

Next she turned her social attention on the only woman beside herself in the car, and who sat in the opposite corner.

What she saw there was the red back of the chair, and a pair of pretty, sloping shoulders, in a gray coat and a little, graceful, bowed head in a gray hat and vail, and—the reflection from the mirror.

It was this last that attracted and fixed the attention of the lady. She could not withdraw her eyes from the picture reflected there—a pale, lovely child face, with soft brown eyes, suffused with tears, and budding red lips, quivering with grief.

The lady watched this picture with growing interest and sympathy. Then she turned her head around to look at the passengers to see if by any sign she could judge whether any one of them could perhaps be the father, or grandfather, or uncle, or other male protector of this lonely and grieving child.

61But no; she felt sure that they were all strangers to the little one. Besides, two chairs behind hers were vacant.

Still she watched the weeping girl, but hesitated to address her; it was such an unusual, such an unwarrantable thing to do, and the little lady might not like to have a stranger intrude on her distress when to hide it she had turned her back on the world—of the Pullman car—reasoned the good woman, as she watched the woful picture, and sighed, and sighed and watched, until she could scarcely sit still in her seat.

“Suppose it were my own dear Edith or Clara left alone in the world, with no one to care for her, traveling alone, with no one to speak to her? Oh, dear!”

She looked and saw pretty shoulders rising and falling with half-suppressed sobs, and she could stand it no longer.

“I must go to her! I must, indeed! I can’t be like the swimmer who would not rescue the drowning boy because he had never been introduced to his father. I must go to that child even if she should take me for no better than I ought to be and repulse me!”

So saying to herself, the good woman arose and left her chair and went and took the chair next behind Lilith.

Laying her hand gently on the girl’s arm and speaking very tenderly and deprecatingly, she said:

“My dear, you seem to be traveling alone, and——”

Lilith lifted her head with a startled look, and raised her soft brown eyes inquiringly to the face of the speaker, thereby embarrassing the good woman, who began all over again:

“You seem to be traveling all alone, my poor darling, and—and—and—you don’t seem very well. Can I do anything for you, my dear?”

62“Nothing, I thank you, ma’am. I thank you very much. You are very kind to notice me,” said poor, solitary Lilith, in an unmistakably grateful tone.

“My poor darling, I should have been a brute—and worse than a brute, for brutes do have feelings—I should have been a stock or a stone, not to have noticed you and not to have felt for you, and me the mother of children of my own, too,” said the kind creature, ungrammatically, but very affectionately.

“You are very good, ma’am, and I thank you very much.”

“I wish you would let me do something for you.”

“There is nothing to do, thank you—nothing,” sighed Lilith.

“Oh, yes, there is, plenty, plenty! Now I see you so pale and weak that you are scarcely able to sit up, and if you are going to New York—— Are you going so far?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, New York is a long way off yet, and you are not able to sit up all the way. Now in the next compartment—a little compartment right behind us—there is a sofa and two chairs, all unoccupied. Let me take you in there, and you can lie on the sofa and I will sit in one of the chairs and keep you company. Will you come? I will carry your bag.”

Lilith hesitated.

“Well, I declare,” said her new friend, “you look like the girl in the song—

But you have no cause to be afraid of me, my dear. I only wish to be a help to you. I would not hurt a hair of your head,” said the good woman, earnestly.

“Oh, indeed I am sure you would not. You are very, very kind. And I am very thankful to you. I 63am not afraid of you, but of the conductor,” said Lilith.

“Of the conductor!” exclaimed the lady, with surprise and then with a laugh. “Why, on the face of the earth, should you be afraid of the conductor, my child?”

“He might accuse us of trespassing, if we should go into that vacant apartment, for which we have no tickets, and I don’t know what the law for trespassing may be on the cars,” said Lilith.

“Well,” laughed the lady, “it is nothing very dreadful—it is not hanging, nor penal servitude for life, nor even fine or imprisonment. It is simply to be politely requested to vacate a position to which you have no right in favor of some one who has a right—supposing such a one should turn up. Otherwise you may keep the place to the end of the journey. But if it would make you feel any better, I will speak to the conductor next time he passes through the cars. I have traveled this road so many times—how many you may know when I tell you that for the last seven years I have had one daughter married in Brooklyn, one in Jersey City, one in New York and one in Boston, and I spend nearly all my time in going backwards and forwards between my home in Baltimore and their homes. Think of it, my dear! There are four of them, and every one of them has a baby every year. And I have to go on every time a baby is expected, and then have to be there a month before the baby comes, and stay a month afterwards. But, as I was saying, I have traveled this road so frequently that I know all the conductors, and I like the one on this train better than any of them; for there is nothing in the line of his duty that he would not do for me, or for any woman.”

“Are you going on now to meet an expected little grandchild?” inquired Lilith, who, child-like, had 64ceased to weep when she became interested in something else besides her sorrows.

“Oh, no, not exactly now; though there will be such a harvest of them between this and Christmas that it will be hardly worth while for me to go back home this year. Eh, me! Ponsonby might as well be a full widower, for he has been a grass-widower most of the time since our girls have been married. True, the two youngest girls—Edith and Clara—are at home, and they keep house for their father while I am away. But you were asking me about the cause of my journey. It isn’t a baby this time; it is a wedding. My Boston son-in-law’s sister, who lives with him, is going to be married on Thursday, and all the family connections are to meet at his house. I and my three other married daughters are to go on to-morrow morning. I shall stay at my son-in-law Saxony’s house to-night. Here comes the conductor. Mr. P——,” she said, turning to that officer, “this young lady is not well. Is there any objection to my taking her into that vacant compartment where she can lie on the sofa?”

“No objection at all, Mrs. Ponsonby; the compartment is not engaged,” replied the polite conductor.

The lady arose and gave her arm to Lilith and took her to the sofa, where the exhausted girl was glad to lie down. Then she returned for her own and Lilith’s light luggage, which she transferred to the new seats.

As the conductor passed through the drawing-room car on his return, a stout passenger with iron-gray hair, who had sat three seats off from Lilith and her friend, on the opposite side of the car, and had watched the interview between the woman and the girl, and had heard as much or as little of their conversation as their low tones would permit, and had formed his own opinions on the subject—beckoned 65the officer to approach, and looking solemnly over the top of his spectacles said, impressively:

“Conductor, I want you to keep an eye on that pair who have just gone into the next compartment. That young girl is traveling alone. That stout woman first accosted her. She has some evil designs on that girl, I am sure of it! Robbery or worse! She has every opportunity to chloroform and rob the girl, or to drug her and take her away for something worse!”

“All right, sir! I know the old party! She is Mrs. Ponsonby, of Baltimore. And she will be met at the depot by her son-in-law, Mr. Saxony, of Number —— Street,” replied the amused officer.

“Oh, very well, if that is so! But her extraordinary proceedings of accosting a strange young lady in the cars very reasonably aroused my suspicions. I am glad it is no worse,” said the Detective Crank, in a tone of disappointment that illy accorded with his words.

In the meantime, Lilith reposed on the sofa and her new friend sat by her side and chatted to cheer her up.

With a rare delicacy she refrained from asking Lilith any questions as to the cause of that distress which had drawn the good woman to the girl’s side, until they were drawing near to New York. Then she inquired:

“Is there any one to meet you at Jersey City, my dear?”

“No, no one,” answered Lilith.

“Nor any one the other side?”

“No, no one is to meet me anywhere,” said the desolate girl.

“My dear child! Some one ought to meet you! It is not right or safe for a young girl traveling alone to enter a city at nightfall, with no one to meet her! But I suppose you know exactly the number and 66street of the people you are going to see,” said the good and sorely troubled woman.

“I am going to no house. I have no friends or even acquaintances in the city,” said Lilith.

“Then why on the face of the earth have you come here, my poor child?” inquired Mrs. Ponsonby, in surprise and distress.

Lilith, like the baby into whose state she sometimes relapsed, burst into tears, covered her face with her hands and wept bitterly.

“Now what have I done? Now what is the matter? Oh! what is the matter? Tell me, my dear. I am very sorry for you. I will help you all I can. Indeed I will, for Edith and Clara’s sake,” said Mrs. Ponsonby, bending over and caressing the girl, who, between her sobs and tears, tried to answer.

“I came,” she gasped, “because I have lost everything in the world. I have suffered cruel, cruel reverses, and could not bear to stay in the place where I had seen such happy and prosperous days so suddenly turned to misery and destitution.”

“Poor, poor, poor dear! Was it through the war, my dear?” inquired the woman, in tender, compassionate tones, while the tears stood in her kindly eyes.

“No, it was not through the war. It was since the war.”

“Oh, yes! My dear child, tell me all you wish, but no more than you wish. I will help you in any case. Indeed I will. Are you an orphan, my dear?”

“Oh, ma’am, I am much worse than orphaned,” said Lilith.

“Dear me! Poor child! How worse than orphaned, my dear?”

“Oh, ma’am, I cannot tell you now. Indeed I cannot. Do not blame me, and do not be angry. It is not my fault that I am so desolate and that I must be so reserved about my past life,” pleaded Lilith.

67The lady fell to musing.

“I wonder what has happened to the child? That she is good I can see for myself. Nobody could make a mistake about her. I wonder what she means by worse than orphaned, now. I wonder if her father was hanged or sent to prison for life, or anything like that. There are so many men who ought to be gentlemen, but who come to that sort of end now, that I should not be surprised that it was so. Why, there is always something of that sort going on in some city or other, some bank defaulter, or some forger, or manslaughterer, or something. And so it seems more than likely that her father may have disgraced his family in that way, and be in prison, or in a felon’s grave, and that’s what she means by being worse than orphaned. But her mother—— Is your mother living, my poor child?” she inquired, suddenly breaking the long silence and addressing Lilith.

“No, ma’am. My mother left this world a few hours after I came into it,” said Lilith.

“Poor, dear darling!” said the good woman, who then relapsed into silent thought, drawing her own conclusions.

“Yes, that is it!” she said to herself. “The mother gone, the father worse than dead! That must be it, or she would not talk of being worse than orphaned.”

Lilith, perhaps mistaking her continued silence for mistrust, said at length:

“You have been very kind to me, a perfect stranger to you, ma’am, and I thank you from my heart; but do not trouble your kind soul about me, ma’am. It is not worth your while, indeed.”

“Oh, it is easy to say that, my dear; but I can’t help troubling myself about you! Suppose you were my own Edith or Clara? But don’t be afraid, my dear; I won’t ask anything about your past; what I want to know is your future. You said when you started 68for New York that you wished to get away from painful associations; now what I wish to ask is, where do you intend to go in New York, and what do you intend to do?”

“I shall go first to some hotel, the only place a stranger can go to, I suppose, and then I mean to look out for some employment.”

“Then, my dear, you are all wrong. In the first place, you must not go to a hotel,” said Mrs. Ponsonby.

“But why?” inquired Lilith.

“Because you would go as a lamb among wolves. That is why.”

“Then I suppose I must try to find a private boarding-house.”

“Worse and worse! A respectable boarding-house would want references, and if you happened to apply to any but a respectable one——”

“That is the reason why I wished to go to one of the first-class hotels. They are always very respectable. No one can make a mistake about them, and they take strangers without references.”

“Yes, my dear, at ruinous prices. Unless you have got a great deal of money, you would be quite penniless before you could get any employment. And, by the way, what sort of employment do you expect to find?”

“I hardly know. I might be an amanuensis for some lady or gentleman——”

“For no gentleman. I put my foot right down on that. Let the men alone, my dear—unless they happen to be your very nearest male relations. And to enter a lady’s employment you would have to have good references. I do hope you have references, my dear?”

“No,” said Lilith, “I have none; not one; and circumstances are all so adverse that I cannot hope to get one.”

69“Dear me!” said Mrs. Ponsonby, taking a long look into Lilith’s face. “But you are all right. I am sure you are all right. You are not the sort of child to run away from your father or mother to seek your fortune. I tell you what I will do; I will be your referee. That is—do you write a fair hand, spell words correctly, and compose sentences grammatically, as an amanuensis should do? For, you know, you may have to answer letters as well as to write from dictation.”

“Yes, ma’am, I can indeed. I have been accustomed to do all that for my dear lost foster-father. The next time the train stops I will write a specimen and prove it,” said Lilith.

“Very well, then,” said the Benevolent “Crank,” “I will be your referee. And as to your lodging in New York, I will take you to a cheap but very respectable house kept by the widow of a Methodist minister. She has no fashionable boarders, my dear, for she lives on —— Street, near —— Avenue, and fashion has left that part of the city these fifty years or more. She boards some of the public school teachers. I will take you to her house to-night before I go to my daughter’s, mind you. If Saxony comes to meet me, and is in a hurry, he may go home in the street cars, and I will take the carriage and carry you to Mrs. Downie’s,” said the new friend, who had worked herself up into a benevolent fever on the subject of the desolate young creature.

“Oh, how good you are to me! How wonderfully good! How do you know that I am deserving of your goodness? How do you know that I am not an impostor?” said Lilith, catching her friend’s hand and covering it with grateful kisses. “Yes! how should you know but that I am a very foolish, wicked girl?”

“Good Lord, child! how do I know anything, for that matter—how do I know light from darkness, except 70through my eyes and my understanding? That is the way I know you from an impostor. How I thank the Lord that I met you before you fell into the Lion’s Den of this great city!”

“And do I not thank the Divine Providence—oh, do I not? And thank you, oh, so much!” exclaimed Lilith, clasping her hands in the fervency of her utterance.

“Now, here we are at Jersey City! Gather your traps, my dear, and be ready to get off. Don’t be afraid. The dragon’s mouth is always wide open, but you shall not fall into it!” said Mrs. Ponsonby, as the train ran into the depot.

“And there’s Saxony’s carriage, but I don’t see him,” she said, when they had crossed the ferry and passed out on Desbrosses Street.

“Where’s your master, Patrick?” she demanded, when she had dragged Lilith through the crowd to the door of the carriage.

“If you plaze, ma’am, Misther Saxony is dining out this evening, and Misthress Saxony requisted me to mate you in the carriage meself, ma’am,” said the Irish coachman, who resented the term “master” as applied to his employer.

“Very well. I am glad of it. Get in, my dear. And, Patrick, do you drive first to Number 10 —— Street, near —— Avenue. It will not be much out of your way,” said Mrs. Ponsonby, as she put Lilith into the carriage and followed her.

The short winter twilight was fading into night, and the streets were beginning to be lighted with gas.

“Suppose,” said Lilith, “suppose that your friend should not have a vacant room for me?”

“Then you must put up with a bed for this one night.”

“But if she has not an unoccupied bed?”

71“Then she must find one for this night, anyway,” persisted Mrs. Ponsonby.

It seemed a long ride through the crowded city streets before the carriage at last drew up before the door of a plain, dull-looking, three-story brick house.

Mrs. Ponsonby—without waiting for the coachman to get off his box, for, indeed, Patrick was so indolent that he always made an excuse that he “darn’t” leave his horses to open the door—alighted, and assisted Lilith to alight, and led her up to the house and rang the door bell.

A female servant answered it.

“Is Mrs. Downie at home?” inquired the elder lady.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied the waitress, opening a door on the right, and showing the two ladies into the long but plainly furnished parlor, where they sat down.

“Will you tell Mrs. Downie that I would like to see her on business for a moment?”

“Yes, ma’am. What name?”

The lady handed the waitress a card.

“Mrs. Downie is at tea now, but I dare say she will not be long,” said the girl, as she left the parlor and ran down the basement stairs.

In a very few minutes the mistress of the boarding-house came up, with a warm, exuberant welcome for an old friend. She was a short, fat, good-natured looking woman, of about Mrs. Ponsonby’s own age, and she was dressed in a clean but rather dowdy black gown, all in keeping with her general aspect of careless good humor; and her pretty, soft, silvery gray hair was gathered into a knot behind, and as much disheveled all over her head by nature as it could have been done by the most fashionable hairdresser.

“Why, goodness me, Em’ly Ponsonby! This ain’t you? I never was so surprised in all my life as when Mary gave me your card! And we have just this 72minute sat down to tea; and you will come down and have some?” said the landlady, in the softest and most caressing voice, that seemed to be perfectly natural to her.

“No, thank you, Sophie Downie,” replied Mrs. Ponsonby, as she arose and embraced her fat little friend. “I am in the greatest hurry that ever was, and only called here on my way from the depot to Sam Saxony’s to bring you a new boarder, a very dear young friend of mine, who came with me from Baltimore to get something to do in New York here. Miss—— Good Lord of mercy! I don’t know the child’s name!” said the good woman to herself, as she arose and went to Lilith, and whispered:

“What name, dear—what name?”

“Wyvil,” answered Lilith, in the same low tone.

“My young friend, Miss Wildell, wants a quiet, respectable home just such as you could furnish her,” resumed Mrs. Ponsonby, rejoining the landlady.

“Oh! Another Southern orphan, ruined by the war!” said kindly Mrs. Downie.

“Ah! poor thing!” replied the Baltimore lady, in a non-committal way. “I hope you can take her. She has some little money left, I think.”

“And she wants to get in one of the public schools? Poor girl! there ain’t the least chance.”

“No, I don’t think she wants to teach—but the question is, can you accommodate her?”

“I must ’commodate her somehow or other. I haven’t got a room; but if she could put up with a cot in my room——”

“Of course she could, until you can do better for her. And now I must go, for I am keeping you from your tea, while they are waiting for me on —— Street. Miss Wilde, my dear, I leave you in good hands, and if you ever want a friend, call on me. Sophie Downie, you see I am due in Boston, at my daughter’s, to-morrow. 73That’s why I am in such a hurry now. Good-bye!”

And so saying, the dear woman kissed her old friend, and then kissed Lilith and left a card with her address in the girl’s hand.

The next instant she was gone, and Lilith was alone with the landlady.

“Come, my dear, come upstairs to my room and take off your things and wash your face and hands, if you wish; and then we will go down and get some supper. My dear, I hope you will feel at home here. Most of my boarders are young people. Two young ladies who are public school teachers, and one who is a colorer of photographs, and then I have a young Methodist minister who has a parish near this. He is going to be married soon, though, as ministers must, you know, and then we shall lose him. And then, my dear, if you are still with us, you shall have his room and be comfortable.”

So talking, the landlady led Lilith upstairs and so installed her in the home that was to be hers for many months to come.

Lilith found her new home a safe enough retreat. Let any young woman go into a strange house, in 74a strange city, under the circumstances in which Lilith entered the Widow Downie’s, and if she feel compelled to observe a strict silence concerning her own past life, she need not tell her story. Her neighbors will make up one to fit her, and, what is more, will believe in it.

Try to get at the origin of such a story, and you may trace it to “They say,” but no farther.

The advent of Lilith in the boarding-house of Mrs. Downie caused a great deal of gossip, in which, strange to say, there was not a word of ill-nature, of criticism, or of adverse reflection upon the young creature.

She was so child-like, so pretty, and so desolate, that the hearts of all her fellow-lodgers were drawn towards her.

By “putting this and that” together, by unconsciously exaggerating all they heard, and by involuntarily drawing upon their imaginations, they had formed a theory, which they took for fact, in regard to Lilith.

The talk ran something like this:

“Mrs. Ponsonby, a very dear friend of Mrs. Downie, brought her from the South, to try to get something to do in New York.”

“They say her father was a rich planter, who was totally ruined in the late war.”

“Not at all. He was a wealthy banker of Richmond, who failed in ’65.”

“A great mistake. She was the only child of a Baltimore broker, who——”

“Oh, no! A Washington merchant, who became a bankrupt last year, and——”

And so forth, and so forth.

At last, however, the chaotic story came into form and shape and permanent existence, as follows:

Miss Wilding—for that was the way in which Mrs. 75Downie had heard and repeated the word when Lilith, remembering that her husband had forbidden her to use his name, had replied to the landlady’s inquiries by giving the one to which she had the next best right, and saying, “My name is Wyvil,” whereupon the landlady thought she said, “Wilding,” and thought, from her child-like appearance, that she was, of course, a single woman, and reported her as Miss Wilding—Miss Wilding, then, according to the crystalized gossip of the house, was the only child of a wealthy Virginia planter, who had been ruined by the war, and had died, leaving his motherless daughter entirely destitute. Mrs. Ponsonby had become so much interested in the young orphan that she had brought her to New York to get something to do, and had very wisely brought her straight to Mrs. Downie’s boarding-house, and had very properly become surety for her board, for Mrs. Downie, with all her goodness of heart, was too poor to lose the board money, which Mrs. Ponsonby was quite rich enough to pay without feeling it.

Lilith was also spared troublesome questions, because the inmates of the house, though poor enough in this world’s goods, were too refined openly to intrude upon the reserve of the young stranger; and also because, when once the good landlady, in the motherly kindness of her heart, had questioned Lilith concerning her troubles, the poor girl had burst into such a passion of tears that Mrs. Downie became very much distressed, and after doing all she could to soothe the mourner’s sorrow, she not only resolved never again to allude to the subject, but she warned all her young inmates to observe the same caution.

“’Cause she can’t bear it, my dears. She can’t, indeed. It ’most kills her to hear it mentioned. And no wonder. Them tender Southern girls as has never been used to anything but love and softness and 76sweetness all their lives, to be suddenly thrown upon a rough, hard, bitter world, you know, my dears, it is very trying. We must never speak to her about the past, and never breathe a word before her about the war. I dare say her poor father was killed in battle, or died in one of them military prisons, or something like that, which it breaks her heart to think about. We must just try to make her forget it, my dears,” concluded Mrs. Downie.

And her sympathetic hearers promised all she required, and from that time emulated each other in their kindness to the young stranger.

Mrs. Downie’s household were in some respects a peculiar people, of whom the gentle landlady was the controlling spirit.

One word about Sophie Downie. She had been a wife, and was now a widow only in name.

Her late husband, William Downie, had been a Methodist minister of sincere piety and much eloquence.

They had been neighbors’ children in a country village, and had been engaged to each other almost from their childhood.

He was “called” to the service of the Lord from his boyhood, and the two widows, Sophie’s mother and his own mother, had joined their slender means to send him to college, to be educated for the ministry.

“For,” said his own mother, “he is all that I have in the world, and why shouldn’t I spend all that I can on him?”

“And,” said Sophie’s mother, “he is just the same as my own son, and he’ll marry Sophie and take care of me when I get old, so why shouldn’t I spend all that I can spare in helping him?”

So the boy was sent to college, and in due time went honorably through his course, graduated and was ordained.

77He was to marry Sophie as soon as he should obtain his first parish.

Within a few months after his ordination he was appointed by the convention to the Methodist church in New York City near which his widow now kept her boarding-house.

He had held his pulpit but a few weeks, during which Sophie was busily engaged in preparing for their wedding and their housekeeping, when he was suddenly stricken down with a disease known to be fatal from its onset.

As soon as he knew that he was to leave this world he sent for his promised bride, and she came to him, accompanied by their two mothers.

And in the sick-chamber the long-engaged, faithful lovers were united.

He lingered a few days after his marriage, constantly attended by Sophie and the two mothers, and then passed peacefully away to the better world.

The three grieving women took his remains to their native village and laid them in their last resting place in the old church-yard.

Soon afterwards his mother departed and left all the little remnant of her savings to Sophie.

“For she is all the same as a daughter to me, and I have no other child,” said the poor widow to the lawyer who drew up the will.

We live in a changeful country. Few of us have the good or the bad fortune to

It would be tedious and irrelevant to this story to tell of the various circumstances that finally led Sophie and her mother to sell out all their possessions in the little country village, and to open a boarding-house in New York, in the immediate vicinity of 78that church which had been the scene of William Downie’s short ministry.

For many years the house was nominally kept by the elder lady; but it was entirely managed by the younger.

Many opportunities had the pretty little widow of marrying a second time; but she remained faithful to the memory of her first love.

She had never even permitted a lover to become a suitor; for as soon as her delicate perceptions discovered that this or that young “brother” in the church, or boarder in the house, had cast an eye of “favor” on her, the very shrinking of her nature threw such a sphere of coldness around her that, however gentle and courteous her manner might be to the aspirant, he dared not cross the invisible boundary of that circle.

One of her most ardent admirers said, when “chaffed” on the subject of his infatuation:

“She is as sweet and gentle, as kind and courteous as it is possible for woman to be; but it would take a fellow with more impudence than I possess to make love to her, or to ask her to marry him. There is a sort of ‘Thus far, no farther shalt thou go’ about her that I defy any man to transgress.”

He was right.

And so, without any second love, without coquetry, and without vanity, the pretty, gentle girl-widow grew from youth to middle age. Then she lost her mother, and became the nominal, as she had long been the actual, head of the boarding-house.

It would be difficult to explain or even to understand how Mrs. Downie had managed to succeed in eliminating from the house and from her circle of acquaintances all persons who were uncongenial to her own gentle and generous spirit, and in filling them with those who were in perfect accord with her, and 79with each other. It was the progressive work of years, however.

But now, at the time that Lilith first entered her house, it was filled with a little society to whom she seemed less a landlady than a loving mother, and whom she absolutely ruled—not by force of intellect, or position, or power, but by unselfish goodness. Always, since her mother’s departure, she had one or more of adopted children—little waifs, picked up in the streets of New York, and whom she lodged, fed and clothed, and sent to the public schools until they were old enough to be put out to learn trades.

When any hard-headed, practical brother or sister would expostulate with her on the extravagance of her benevolence and the imprudence of her neglect to provide comfortably for her old age, she would answer, simply:

“Why, Lor’s, you know if my poor, dear husband had lived we should have had a large family of children by this time, most like. But as I haven’t got none of my own, I feel as if I ought to take care of other people’s orphans. Seems to me that people without children should take care of children without parents, so far as they can. And as for the rest of it, I know that if I take care of the destitute the Lord will take care of me.”

Acting on this simple faith, the gentle little widow had brought up and provided for no less than seven girls and five boys.

And that is the reason why, at the age of sixty, she had not a dollar in the savings bank.

But oh! the treasure she had laid up in heaven!

At the present time she had a boy and girl, nearly grown up, and when these should be well provided for, by being put in the way of getting their own living, she meant to take two more to bring up—if she should live long enough to do so.

80So much for the kindly mistress of the house.

Her circle of lodgers consisted of seven persons. First, there was the young Methodist minister, John Moore, who occupied the same pulpit that had once been filled for a few weeks by William Downie. And here let it be explained, that whenever there came to that church a young unmarried minister, he was always recommended to Mrs. Downie’s boarding-house as to a haven where he would be perfectly safe not only from the harpies of business, but from the harpies of matrimony, where he would really find “the comforts of a home,” and possibly the society of some fair, good girl, suitable to be the companion of his life and labor.

Next there was Mrs. Lane, the widow of an officer in the Union army, who had fallen in the battle of the Wilderness, and who eked out her small pension by decorating china for a large wholesale house, and supported a son at Yale College.

Then there was a Mrs. Farquier—the widow of a colonel in the Confederate army. She was an artist, and made drawings for the illustrated papers and magazines.

These two women, whose husbands had fallen on opposite sides of the same war, were great friends.

Next there were the two Misses Ward, orphan sisters, and teachers in the public schools.

Lastly, there was Lilith, who shared the landlady’s room, and was expected to share it until the young Methodist minister should marry and take possession of the parsonage that was being fitted up for him.

Lilith, who had been madly driven from her home by the goad of her husband’s stinging words:

“I never loved you! I married you only to please my dying father. In a very few hours I shall leave this house, never to return while you desecrate it with your presence!”

81Lilith, who had fled away, without any definite purpose but to escape from the humiliations that had been heaped upon her, and to support her life, until she should die, by some honest toil—Lilith had now ample leisure to come to her senses and to reflect upon her past and her future.

Ample leisure indeed! Her days and nights were spent in solitude and meditation, for immediately after breakfast, every morning, her fellow-lodgers, workers all of them, scattered to their various occupations—the minister to study, to write, or to make duty calls; the two widows to their rooms to work at their arts; the two young teachers to their schoolrooms, and the good landlady to market, and then to her household duties.

Lilith, left alone, would wander through the parlor, up the stairs and into the room she shared with Mrs. Downie, and then back again, in an aimless, dreary manner. She could settle herself to nothing, take interest in nothing—

Her life seemed to have come to a standstill. There seemed nothing to hope for in heaven or on earth.

There were days of such deep despondency that life seemed a burden too heavy to be borne, and she longed for death—days when the unrest of her soul craved the rest of oblivion in the grave.

There were moments, too, when athwart the utter darkness of her soul flashed the lightning of consciousness that she might change all this and bring renewed life, action and happiness to herself; that she might write to her husband, or return to her home and implore him to believe in her and to bear with her until she should be at liberty to clear up 82the mystery that rested as a cold, dark storm-cloud between them.

And at such moments she might have acted on the impulse and hastened back to Cloud Cliffs, but for the memory of his fierce, cruel, stinging words:

“I never loved you! I married you only to please my dying father. In a very few hours I shall leave this house, never to return while you desecrate it with your presence!”

Every time these words recurred to her mind they overwhelmed her with a fresh sense of unspeakable humiliation.

“Oh, no!” she said to herself—“no! my heart seems dying in my bosom, but I must not listen to its moan! I must not go back until he himself shall repent and retract and entreat me to return! I can die, but I cannot go back. I cannot.”

And indeed existence for Lilith was now a mere death in life.

All her efforts to obtain employment by advertising and by answering advertisements had signally failed. There seemed to be no use for her in the whole world. No one on earth seemed to want her in any capacity.

Mrs. Downie, watching her with motherly tenderness, ventured one day to say:

“Honey, you must be awful lonesome here days, when everybody has gone about their business and left you by yourself.”

“It does not matter, Mrs. Downie. Don’t trouble yourself about me, dear heart,” said Lilith.

“But I must! I can’t help it! Emmy Ponsonby has never been to see you since that night she fetched you here, nyther, has she?”

“No, Mrs. Downie!”

“Well, I reckon she’s still with the weddingers in Boston, or else there’s another baby coming around 83somewheres. ’Mong so many married daughters there’s always a baby coming ’round in Emmy’s family, sometimes two or three of ’em in a year, and I reckon that is what’s the matter now. ’Cause Emmy Ponsonby never forgets her friends or her promises.”

“She was very, very good to me, and I had no claim on her,” sighed Lilith.

“Oh, yes, but you had a claim on her, honey; as you have on me and on every grown-up woman as is able to help a motherless child like you,” said Mrs. Downie, so tenderly that Lilith’s eyes filled with tears.

“Mrs. Downie,” she said, “I want to ask you something.”

“Ask away, then, honey.”

“You have taken me here a stranger in your house. I have been here four weeks and you have never given me your bill——”

“I was waiting till you got something to do, honey,” interrupted the landlady.

“And—this is what I wanted to ask you: Suppose I should be here for eight weeks or for twelve weeks, without paying you?”

“Well, honey, it wouldn’t so much matter as you might think; because, you see, dear, you don’t occupy a room. You only sleep on a little bed in my room; so really your being here don’t make no odds. I have six rooms as I let to boarders, and that is what supports the house. They are all let, and you don’t take up none of them, so your being in the house don’t make no odds at all, let alone it being a comfort to have you.”

“Dear Mrs. Downie——” began Lilith, with the tears running over her eyes; but her voice faltered and her words died in silence.

“Look here, honey, it is borne in on me as if you would just stop calling me Mrs. Downie—not but what I am fond of the name, and proud of it for 84poor, dear Will’s sake—but if you would just stop ceremonials and call me Aunt Sophie, like the rest of the children do, and would come closer up to me, in your heart, like you would feel more at home with me, and would be more better satisfied, and wouldn’t have no doubts nor troubles about board and such. Couldn’t you now, honey?”

Lilith left her chair and came and sat down in the good woman’s lap, dropped her head upon her bosom, and put her arms around her neck.

“That’s right, dearie. Now remember, I am your Aunt Sophie,” said Mrs. Downie, folding the young creature in a close embrace.

“I never knew a mother or a sister or an aunt. It comforts me to be allowed to call you aunt.”

“That is right, dear. Now I’m going to propose another thing; that is, for you to go to market with me every morning, when you feel like it. It will amuse you, and take your thoughts offen troubles it is unprofitable to dwell on. And then, dearie, sometimes you might go to meeting with me in week evenings. We often have a real good, warm time at our meetings,” said the good woman, with a cheerful glow in her gentle countenance.

“I thank you, dear, dear Aunt Sophie. I should like to go anywhere with you,” said Lilith, as she kissed her friend, and arose to her feet.

No more was said about the board bill, the subject of which had been introduced by Lilith herself.

But the next morning, as Mrs. Downie was putting on her bonnet to go to market, she spied an envelope directed as follows:

She took it from the toilet cushion upon which it was pinned, and found three ten-dollar greenbacks inclosed in a short letter, which she read:

85“Dear Aunt Sophie: If I were in need, there is no one in this whole world to whom I should be so entirely willing to be indebted as to yourself. And if I were in want, it would be to you, first of all, to whom I should come for help, feeling sure of obtaining it. But, dear friend, I am not so poor in funds as I am supposed to be. I have enough to keep me for a year at least, even if I should get no work to do. So, please take the inclosed without any qualms to your benevolent heart. I shall still be infinitely indebted to you for love, sympathy and protection. Lilith.”

Mrs. Downie read the note, looked at the money, and communed with herself:

“Now what did the child go and do that sort of thing in that way for? Trapping me into taking the money in that manner. She knew very well that if she had handed it to me I wouldn’t have touched it. She a gallant soldier’s orphan, too. And now I s’pose if I hand it to her she won’t take it back, no way! Now I wonder if she has got a plenty of money, sure enough? Sufficient to keep her for a whole year, as she says? If she has, this would be a convenience, and a real godsend, just at this time, too, when I am trying to make up the rent. Yet I don’t like to take it offen that poor child, nyther, and she only occupying a cot in my bed-room. Well, I’ll go and try to make her take it back, and if she won’t, why, she won’t, and I’ll put it to the rent money, and get that off my mind to-day.”

So saying, the landlady went in search of Lilith, whom she found in the parlor, ready and waiting to go to market with her friend.

“Well, Aunt Sophie, we have a fine day for our walk,” began Lilith.

“Yes, honey; but before we go you must take this back again,” said the good woman, trying to force 86the money into Lilith’s hand, “’cause I don’t want to charge you any board until I can give you a room, my dear; and that won’t be until Brother Moore gets married and goes. And then I will take pay.”

Lilith opened her hand with the palm down, so that it could hold nothing, saying, at the same time:

“And I will not impose myself on you, dear Aunt Sophie, until all my funds are spent, and then—I shall continue to stay with you—perhaps—until you turn me out.”

“That would be forever, then, honey; or, leastways, it would be as long as I should live, for I should never do that cruel thing on no account,” said the old lady.

And so the strife in generosity was ended, and the two friends left the house together.

As they walked down the avenue, Mrs. Downie said:

“I think, dear, as you would be a great deal happier if you were to have some regular employment. You came here to get something to do, didn’t you, now?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie,” said Lilith, sadly.

“Well, have you tried?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie. I have advertised in the New York papers, and I have answered advertisements, but have not yet succeeded in getting anything to do.”

“What did you advertise for?”

“For the situation of private governess in a family, or assistant teacher in a school, or translator, or copyist, or as companion for an invalid lady or an elderly lady, or as amanuensis to a literary lady. For all these situations I have advertised at various times, and have received not one reply.”

“Ah, dearie me! Every road to business is so overcrowded! But you said you answered some of the advertisements of such places as you would like to take.”

87“Yes, but no notice was taken of any of my letters.”

“Ah, you see, child, I suppose there were hundreds of applications for every place, and they couldn’t answer all the applicants.”

“No, I suppose not,” said Lilith, patiently.

“And it costs so much to advertise,” sighed Mrs. Downie.

“Yes,” said Lilith. “And so I have given up advertising on my own account, and I only answer the advertisements of others. That does not cost so much; only the paper and postage stamp.”

“Well, dear, I hope you will succeed at last,” said the old lady.

“Yes. ‘It is a long lane that has no turning,’ as our homely proverb has it,” said Lilith.

“Yes, dear, I know it. ‘It is a long lane that has no turning,’ and the worst of it is that when the lane does turn it doesn’t always turn into

but into some dusty highway a deal harder to travel than was the long lane itself! But there! I ought not to have said that. I don’t want to discourage you, dearie,” suddenly said Aunt Sophie, with a qualm of compunction.

“I saw an advertisement in this morning’s Pursuivant that pleased me and that I have answered. I have brought my answer to drop it into the post. But I scarcely hope that anything will come of it.”

“What was it for, dearie?”

“A companion for a widow going abroad. The applicant must be a young lady, healthy, agreeable, well educated, competent to speak French, Italian and Spanish. Oh, I have all the list of requirements at my fingers’ ends, you see.”

88Aunt Sophie stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, to the great annoyance of other foot-passengers, and stared in mild wonder at her companion.

“Now, where in all this wide world do that widow expect to find a young lady, accomplished as all that comes to, who is in need to go out and get her living?” she inquired.

“Oh, dear Aunt Sophie, there are many, many among the impoverished children of the South who, in the days of their prosperity, had received such education.”

“And do you think you would suit, my dear?”

“I can but try. I must try, you know.”

“Well, I hope that widow will be willing to give a high salary for all that she wants.”

“The advertisement says that a liberal salary will be given; but also adds that the highest testimonials of character and competency will be required.”

“Well, my dear, you can furnish them, anyhow.”

“I don’t know. I have my college testimonials, or could get them; but for the rest—”

“Well, you have Mrs. Ponsonby.”

“But she knows so little of me,” sighed Lilith, as she reflected how that good, credulous woman had come to her side in the spirit of compassion and had taken her respectability quite for granted.

“Well, honey, don’t sigh, that’s a dearie; because if you don’t get the place it makes no odds. I dare say that widow is some poor, infirm old lady going to travel for her health, who would be no end of a trial to you. And you know if you never get nothing to do, you can always live long o’ me and be comfortable always. ’Deed I feel so drawn to you, dearie, that I would like to adopt you if you would let me. It would make no odds, leastways not much at the end of the year. And I meant to adopt two more as soon as ever John and Mary are provided 89for. And I reckon I had better adopt one like you than another child. I mightn’t live to see the child grow up, for I am getting old. Will you think of what I tell you, dearie?”

“Think of it? I shall never forget it so long as I live, dear Aunt Sophie,” warmly responded Lilith.

“Here is the post,” said Mrs. Downie, pausing at the pillar box, into which Lilith dropped her letter.

A week went by without bringing any answer to Lilith’s application.

She scarcely expected to receive one, indeed. She was becoming inured to disappointment, for, in fact, she had known nothing else in connection with her efforts to obtain employment.

She was beginning to despair of success in this line of enterprise, and even to contemplate the possibility of remaining with Mrs. Downie for an indefinite time, and of becoming useful to her in some good way.

Lilith thanked Heaven that the rigor of her desolate doom was tempered with mercy in the person of Aunt Sophie. She was beginning to love the sweet old lady, with that satisfying affection which is born of esteem and perfect trust. Lilith knew that whatever evil fortune should be in store for her, it would 90not be the loss of Aunt Sophie’s motherly care and protection.

She knew if she were to become quite penniless, and should be stricken with a long and tedious illness, that Aunt Sophie would never permit her to be sent to a public hospital, but would nurse her tenderly and skillfully at home.

And this was the dear woman at whom some people—not many, to the credit of human nature, be it said—had sneered, as too plain, homely and ignorant in looks, speech and manner, ever to have been fit for a minister’s wife, though she was a minister’s widow.

These people little know that all the spare money of the two widows—William Downie’s mother and Sophie Wood’s mother—had gone by mutual agreement to educate Willy, leaving Sophie to get what benefit she could out of the village school, which could never cure her of the quaint, old-fashioned, ungrammatical talk she had learned at her mother’s knee and used all her life.

As for Lilith, she loved this homely speech, for it reminded her of her own country neighborhood, and she loved every peculiarity of the dear unselfish creature—even the carelessness of her dress, whose only redeeming quality was its perfect cleanliness, and the disorder of her fine, thin gray hair, which was as well disheveled as if it had been attended to by a fashionable hairdresser—because all these revealed in the active, industrious woman, not laziness or idleness, but utter self-forgetfulness in the constant service of others.

But she was growing old, and Lilith wondered if in the failure of all her efforts to obtain employment, and in the possible necessity of her having to remain with Aunt Sophie, whether she might not help her in some substantial manner; as to learn to keep the 91house, do the marketing, cast up the accounts and pay the bills.

It was Lilith’s inspiration always to be useful.

It was late on Saturday evening that Lilith was sitting alone in the front parlor, all her fellow-lodgers being absent from the house or at work in their rooms, when the postman, on his last round for the night—and the week—rang the door bell.

It happened that Aunt Sophie answered the summons. There was a little parley at the door, and finally the old lady came in with a letter in her hand, which she held out to Lilith, saying:

“Here, my dear, see if this is for you. The carrier is waiting to know. You see it is directed to the house all right, and the number and street all right, but the name is all wrong, if it is for you; though it is so like your name that it must be for you.”

Lilith took the letter and looked at the superscription:

“Elizabeth Wyvil.”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie, this is for me, and I think it must be in answer to my application,” she said.

“Very well, my dear; I will go and tell the man,” replied the old lady, as she went again to the front door to explain the case and dismiss the postman.

“Now then, dearie, is the answer favorable?” she inquired, as she returned and took a seat beside Lilith, who sat at the centre table reading her letter by the light of the gasalier.

“It is favorable; if it were not, you know, I should never have received it. Advertisers, I suppose, do not take the trouble to write rejections,” replied Lilith.

“No, I reckon not, especially as in every case I have heard there are hundreds of applications for one place. Well, dearie, has the widow lady decided to engage you?”

92“No, not decided; she has only appointed an interview with me on Monday at twelve noon, at the Constellation Hotel.”

“Oh!”

“But that, you know, is very hopeful.”

“Yes, I reckon it is. Well, honey, I hope you will find her a good, kind friend; but who is she, my dearie? Ah! here they come!”

Several of the boarders entered the parlor, and cut short the speech of Aunt Sophie.

Lilith left the room and went up to Mrs. Downie’s chamber to read over her letter again.

It was very short, merely acknowledging the receipt of the applicant’s letter, and asking for a personal interview at the time and place already specified.

Of course Lilith would keep the appointment and accept the position if it should be offered to her.

But, she asked herself, would she be justified in leaving the country, without first informing her husband and giving him the opportunity of seeking a reconciliation with her, should he desire to do so?

“I never loved you. I married you only to please my dying father. In a very few hours I shall leave this house, never to return while you desecrate it with your presence!”

These words came back to her in all their fierce, bitter, scornful cruelty. “Came back to her?” They had never left her. They smouldered in her memory always, and only blazed up in a fiery heat at the very thought of seeking any notice from the husband who had contemptuously cast her out; but whom—oh, woe—she still so deeply, so painfully loved.

No! he had turned her off, and she must not call his attention to herself in any manner. She must let him go his way, untroubled by her. As for herself, she could live—even in pain and sorrow—until she should be called away to the land of peace.

93Lilith had ample time and opportunity for reflection between that Saturday night and the Monday noon when she was to wait on her possible future employer. So it was after mature deliberation that she decided to enter the service of the lady advertiser, supposing that she should be permitted to do so.

On Monday morning she set out to walk to the hotel. She arrived a few minutes before the appointed hour and sent up her card by a porter.

While she waited in the reception-room, many questions arose in her mind.

Who was this German baroness who had advertised for a lady traveling companion, and had appointed this meeting with her, and with a view to engaging her services?

Was she old, sickly, melancholy, ill-tempered and exacting, as Aunt Sophie, in her tender anxiety for Lilith’s happiness, had feared that she might be?

Or was she young, handsome and fashionable?

Would the companion be required to nurse an aged invalid, or to amuse a young beauty?

While Lilith was anxiously considering these questions, the door opened and a little old gentleman, dressed in clerical black, and having a little, round, gray head like a silver ball and a fresh, rosy face like a baby’s, came bowing into the room, walked up to Lilith, and bowing politely, said:

“Mademoiselle, Madame la Baronne desires that you will ascend to her apartments.”

Lilith arose, trembling, bowed, and followed her conductor to the elevator, which in a few seconds brought them to the second floor.

Here the old gentleman took her out, along a handsomely furnished hall to a pair of folding black walnut doors, beside which sat a servant out of livery, who arose and opened them for the visitor to enter.

94Lilith found herself in a spacious apartment, whose first impression was of gloom and splendor. Rich, heavy curtains vailed three lofty front windows; but between their openings long needles of light struck here and there on glowing crimson velvet, or gilded cornices or framework, tall mirrors, elegant vases, filled with rare and fragrant exotics, glimpses of rare pictures, statues, stands of every graceful form, and seats of every luxurious make, and under all a carpet that

Shadow flecked with gleams of splendor; silence softly moved by the sighing of an invisible Eolian harp; cool air just slightly fragrant with the delicate breath of fresh, living flowers.

A pleasing awe, as of entering a chapel of the olden time, of incense and artistic decoration, crept over Lilith.

As her eyes became accustomed to the religious gloom, she saw the figure of a lady rise slowly from one of the reclining chairs and stand waiting to receive her—a lady of majestic beauty and grace, whose perfect form was clothed from head to foot in a closely fitting, rich black velvet trained dress, without trimming or ornament of any kind; and whose beautiful head was crowned with an aureole of golden hair, which her widow’s cap but half concealed.

Lilith approached and courtesied involuntarily as to a queen, so much did the grand beauty of this lady impress her imagination.

“Madame, I have the honor to bring you mademoiselle,” said the old gentleman, bowing.

Lilith courtesied again, and glanced up at the lady’s face—a beautiful face—somehow suggestive of the surroundings, shadow and splendor—perfect features, a brilliant blonde complexion, dark, glorious eyes, and 95golden-hued hair, the radiant beauty of the whole enhanced by the dead black of the mourning robe.

“Le Grange, you may retire,” said the lady.

And the old gentleman, with another bow, withdrew.

The lady resumed her seat, and by a courteous motion of her hand invited Lilith to take another near her.

“You are much younger than I expected to find you, Miss Wyvil,” said the lady, when both were seated.

“I am not Miss Wyvil, madame,” said Lilith, who, since her marriage, had always written herself Elizabeth Wyvil Hereward, but who, having been forbidden by her husband to retain his name, meant to obey him by dropping it, yet who wished to avoid deception in representing herself to be an unmarried girl.

The lady looked somewhat surprised, gazed wistfully at the speaker for a few seconds, and then said:

“You are very young to be a widow.”

“I am nearly eighteen, madame,” said Lilith, without deeming it necessary to enter into farther explanations—for was she not, indeed, “a widow in fate, if not in fact?”

“And you look even younger than that. When did you lose——” the lady began to question, but seeing Lilith trembling and turning pale, she desisted, and after a little pause she turned the conversation.

“Mrs. Wyvil, I have had about two hundred answers to my advertisement for a companion. These have taken myself and my private secretary, Monsieur Le Grange, about a week to get through with examining, although at about two-thirds of the letters we only glanced to see that they were written by utterly incompetent persons, who could not, indeed, write a fair, legible hand or compose a grammatical 96sentence. Of the other third we selected about a dozen persons, whom we saw, in turn, by appointment during the week. None of them—not one of them—suited me. Several were evidently in bad health, fitter for an infirmary than for any other place. Several others, though they were fair English scholars, had little or no knowledge of other languages; and the others were so unlovely in looks and manner that I could not think of one of them as a companion. Your letter was one of the last I received, and you are the very last with whom I have appointed an interview. Your letter made a favorable impression on me, and your appearance has deepened it,” concluded madame, who had evidently given these details only to afford Lilith the opportunity of recovering her composure.

Lilith bowed in respectful acknowledgment.

“The objection, as yet, seems to be your youth,” continued the lady.

“As another in my case said: ‘It is a fault that must mend daily,’ madame,” replied Lilith.

The lady smiled. She had a rare, brilliant, beautiful smile.

“You are apt at repartee and quotation,” she said. “But now, about your knowledge of modern languages. I can see that you have all the other requirements.”

“I am familiar with the languages mentioned in your advertisement, madame, and I have testimonials from professors to that effect.”

“I would rather judge for myself. You will find writing materials on that table near your left hand. Translate and write out for me there, in the languages required, this text, which is the anchor of hope for the Christian:

“‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only 97begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.’”

Lilith went and sat down at the table, took a sheet of note paper and wrote slowly, and with some pauses for recollection and selection, until she had completed her task, and filled a page of note paper, which she brought and gave to the lady.

She smiled, bowed, and read as follows:

“Car Dieu a tellement aime le monde, qu’il a donne son Fils unique, afin que quiconque, croit en lui ne perisse point, mais, qu’il la vie eternelle.

“Perciocche Iddio ha tanta amato il mando, c’egli ha dato il suo unigenito Figliuola acciocche chiunque crede in lui non perisca, ma abbia eita eterna.

“Porque de tal manera amo Deos al mundo que hayo dado, a su Hijo unigenito; para que todo aquel que en el creyere, no ce pierda, mas tenga vida eterna.”

“I think these will do, Mrs. Wyvil. I am not a very accomplished linguist, but I will submit these specimens to Professor Le Grange for his opinion,” said the lady, as she touched a golden timbre at her side.

The door opened, and the man whom Lilith had seen in the hall appeared.

“Request Monsieur Le Grange to come here,” said the lady.

The man disappeared, and was succeeded by the little, round-bodied Frenchman.

“Monsieur, will you have the goodness to glance over these translations, and give me your opinion of them?” inquired the lady, handing the paper to the professor, who bowed—he spent half his time in the presence of his employer in bowing—looked over 98the page, then read it carefully, and returned it, saying:

“The translations are correct, madame.”

“Thank you, monsieur. That will do.”

The professor bowed and retired.

“Now, Mrs. Wyvil, there remains but to ask for your references—a mere matter of form, my dear, for believe me I am very favorably inclined towards you.”

Lilith’s face flushed as she answered:

“I have such testimonials as I brought from college at the end of my last and graduating term. I have no other referees, except a lady of Baltimore, who gave me permission to use her name. She is a Mrs. Ponsonby, of Calvert Street, in that city, and she is frequently in New York here, where she has a married daughter, Mrs. Saxony, of —— Street.”

“Oh! I know them both—mother and daughter. I have met them in Washington and at Newport. They will do quite well,” said the lady, cordially.

“But, madame,” said Lilith, as the painful flush deepened in her cheek, “I don’t know Mrs. Saxony at all, and very little of Mrs. Ponsonby except that—that—that—she took me up on faith—and——”

“That does not matter. I can trust Mrs. Ponsonby; and, my dear, I can trust your candid, truthful face. Are you equally satisfied with me?”

“Oh, madame!” said Lilith, deprecatingly.

“Then we have only to speak of salary—twelve hundred dollars a year, paid quarterly. Are the terms satisfactory?”

“Oh, madame, they are very munificent. The salary is very much larger than I expected.”

“It is not too large for one of your accomplishments, who is, besides, required to quit her country—to expatriate herself, perhaps, for years.”

Lilith made no reply. She was beginning to tremble at the prospect of an indefinite exile.

99“I expect to sail on the first of June. Can you be ready by that time?”

Lilith paused to consider. Should she take this plunge?

“I never loved you.... I shall leave this house, never to return while you desecrate it with your presence.” As these stinging words arose in her memory, she roused herself and answered, firmly:

“Yes, madame, I shall be quite ready.”

“Very well, my dear. Your duties will be very light—almost merely nominal. I wanted a young, pretty, accomplished and agreeable companion. I did not expect to find one. But I have found one in you. I will not detain you longer at present. Come in at this time to-morrow, if you please, and we will talk further,” said the lady, rising.

“One moment, if you will pardon me, madame, I have not yet the honor of knowing the name of the lady to whom my services are pledged,” said Lilith.

“Now is that possible? Well, my dear, if you were better acquainted with the world you would know one thing about me—that I am a very unbusinesslike individual,” said the lady, as she placed a card in the hands of her companion.

Lilith bowed and read: Baroness Von Bruyin.

The Baroness Von Bruyin, the name and title on the card, bore no especial significance for Lilith.

She bowed as she took the enameled bit of pasteboard and withdrew from the room.

The little old Frenchman came from some other room opening upon the same corridor, and politely escorted her downstairs and out of the hotel.

“Shall I have the honor to call a cab for you, madame?” he inquired, when they had reached the vestibule.

“No, monsieur, thank you. I prefer to walk,” replied Lilith.

The professor stood aside to let Lilith go out.

Lilith “preferred to walk” that she might be alone, and have a longer time for reflection and for self-collection before reaching her boarding-house, and having to meet the kind inquiries of Aunt Sophie.

The die was cast, then. Her fate was sealed. She had taken the step from which she felt there was no honorable retreat—unless, indeed, her husband should relent; should retract all his bitter charges against her; should seek her out, ask her to return to the home from which he had madly driven her, and set up his own superior claims to her allegiance in opposition to those of madame, the baroness.

But this, Lilith knew, was a possibility far too remote to be thought of.

101And so she was—or she tried to persuade herself that she was—glad that her fate was decided for her by circumstances beyond her control.

With all a very young girl’s enthusiasm for an imperial beauty, Lilith admired the baroness, and felt that, since she must take service with some lady, she could be better satisfied with the companionship of the beautiful and gracious Madame Von Bruyin than with any one else.

Lilith walked so slowly that when she reached her boarding-house she found that lunch had been over for some time, and all her fellow-lodgers had dispersed to their business or to their rooms.

But Aunt Sophie was anxiously waiting for her in the parlor.

“Take off your things down here, dearie, and then come with me to the dining-room, and you shall have a cup of fresh tea before you tell me anything, though I am half dying to hear,” was the greeting of the old lady.

Lilith kissed her affectionately, and then followed her to the basement dining-room, where a fresh white cloth had been laid over one end of the long table, and adorned with a fine china tea service—that had been bought many years before for Aunt Sophie’s bridal housekeeping, but which was never, never used, except on the most sacred occasions.

The kettle was boiling, and the tea was soon made and brought in, with the accompaniments of light biscuits and lamb chops.

But not until Lilith had drunk her first cup of tea would Aunt Sophie, who sat beside her, watching her affectionately, ask one question.

Then when she had refilled the cup for her young guest, she inquired:

“And have you got the situation, honey?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie.”

102“Oh, dearie me! I ought to be glad, but I ain’t. I had a heap rather kept you here long o’ me. And are you really going abroad, too?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie. I cannot help going. I must.”

“Oh, dearie me! dearie me! I hope you will do well, honey. When are you going?”

“We sail in the Kron Prinz on the first of June.”

“So soon! Ah me! I shall never live to see you come back, dearie.”

“Oh, yes, you will, dear Aunt Sophie. Your good and useful life will be prolonged for many years yet.”

“Oh, how selfish I am! I ought not to think about myself, but about you. Dearie, I hope the lady you are going with will not be too hard on you. You are such a child! Is she real old and ugly?” anxiously inquired Aunt Sophie.

“Oh, no! She is young, and very, very handsome.”

“Oh, then, I hope she is not haughty and tyrannical—so many of those rich, proud beauties are. But, oh, dear, how wrong of me to talk so, to discourage you. Though I did not mean to do that. It is because I am so anxious about you, honey. Just as anxious as if you were my own dear child.”

“I know it, dear Aunt Sophie. But do not be uneasy on my account. I think the lady with whom I have engaged will be very kind to me. I do, indeed. Certainly during our interview she was very gracious and considerate. She gives me a very large salary, and tells me that my duties will be very light—merely nominal. That I shall have nothing to do for her but to keep her company,” said Lilith, cheerfully.

“‘Nothing to do but to keep her company.’ But that’s the hardest sort of work with some people, my dearie. There I go again, discouraging of you, when I ought to be doing of the very opposite sort of thing. What an old fool I am, to be sure. Don’t mind me, 103honey, but tell me what this lady’s name is. Don’t you know, dear, I have never heard that yet?”

“I never heard it until about two hours ago. I had actually engaged myself to her before I knew her name,” said Lilith, with a faint smile.

“Lor’! Now that shows how very little you know of the world, and how unfit you are to be thrown, unprotected, upon it! But what is the lady’s name, now you do know it?”

“She is the Baroness Yon Bruyin.”

“Von—Brewing? Brewing? ’Pears to me I’ve heerd that name before—connected with—connected with—some grand wedding to-do at the great cathedral, where the archbishop and ever so many bishops performed the ceremony. Yes, yes, I disremember her name; but she was a great beauty and a great heiress, being an only darter of some rich city banker, rich as creases; and he was a Mr. Brewing, another rich banker, a heap richer than creases; but older than her own father—so old, so old, as never was seen before at a wedding. And they said how, when he went back to Germany and took his beautiful wife, he paid the emperor lots of money to make him a baron, and it was all to please his wife, so she might be a baroness. Yes, yes! I remember now! And so she’s a widow. And the old man is dead! Well, well, well, how things do turn about! Not much use in his getting married to a beautiful young woman and getting himself made a baron, when he was just ready to depart away from this life! Ah me! ‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity,’ saith the preacher, and it is true!”

Lilith made no reply, and presently Aunt Sophie resumed:

“I see how it is! She don’t like to shut herself up away from society, while she is in her first mourning, as she would have to do if she stayed in this city, where she was a sort of queen; so she is going 104to travel to amuse herself until the time of fashionable mourning is over, and she wants a bright young thing like you to keep her company! But in a year or two she will be back here, and then we shall see! But there I go again, sinning as fast as I can! I wonder what makes me so uncharitable? I reckon it is because I haven’t been to class-meeting lately. I’ll go this very evening, when my class meets, and I’ll get the brethren to pray for me. It’s a great help.”

And seeing that Lilith had finished her lunch, the old lady arose from the table and began carefully to gather her precious china and to wash it up to put it away.

Lilith went up to her own room, to look over her slender wardrobe, and to think over what she would have to buy for her sea voyage and her European tour.

While she was still engaged there, late in the afternoon, her fellow-lodgers were discussing the details of a horrible and mysterious murder that had been perpetrated in the city, the night previous, but only discovered that morning. It was in all the evening papers, forming the sensation of the hour.

In the same paper was a short paragraph, stating that:

“The body of an unknown woman, suspected to be that of Mrs. Tudor Hereward, wife of the Congressman from that district, a young lady who had disappeared from her home some weeks before, had been found in the woods bordering Cave Creek, near Frosthill, in West Virginia. A wound on the back of the head indicated that she had been the victim of tramps.”

That was all. If any one read it they paid but 105little attention to it; their imaginations being engrossed by the details of the more shocking tragedy in their midst.

At dinner in the evening the dreadful occurrence was discussed.

After dinner, Lilith took up the paper from the parlor table, not to read the details of the murder—her whole soul shrank in loathing from such a subject—but to look at the Congressional news, as she had looked at it daily since her flight from her home, to see if any mention was made of her husband.

But there was none. Not once since she parted with him on that bitter night at the Cliffs had she seen his name. The once active, industrious, irrepressible Hereward seemed to have dropped out of the Congressional debates.

This continued silence sometimes caused Lilith serious anxiety. Was Tudor ill? she asked herself, and then quickly repressed her rising anxiety with the recollection of that bitter taunt, which, like a poisoned arrow, had left an incurable, festering wound which daily ate deeper and deeper into her spirit.

At length Lilith put away the paper, without having seen the paragraph that concerned her so much that it might have changed the whole current of her life.

The next day, at the appointed hour, she went again to the hotel to see Madame Von Bruyin.

As we said, the name of the baroness had no especial significance for Lilith, for when Tudor Hereward, in the first weeks of their married life, had told Lilith the history of his first love adventure, he had in delicate consideration abstained from mentioning the name of the lady or of the gentleman who afterwards became her husband. And although the gossips she had heard talking of the matter in 106the parlor of the hotel had just once let fall the name of Mr. Bruyin, it had made no impression on her memory, and there was nothing to connect the personality of the baroness with that of the beauty who had been the object of Tudor Hereward’s first passion.

When Lilith reached the hotel and made inquiries she found the polite old Frenchman waiting in the parlor to conduct her to the apartment of the baroness.

The lady received Lilith with a kiss, saying, as she placed her in a comfortable chair and resumed her own seat:

“My dear, I have been thinking of you ever since I saw you last. I feel that I shall grow very fond of you.”

“You are very good, madame,” replied the girl.

“Child, I hope that in going abroad with me you are not leaving any one whom you will suffer in parting from?” said the baroness, in the gentlest tone.

“I am not leaving any one in the world who loves me, except my landlady, and she has only known me for a little while,” said Lilith, with a slight tone of sorrow in her voice that she could not quite repress.

“‘Only known you for a little while!’ And I for a less. But it does not take long to learn to love you, my dear. Will you tell me something about yourself? I am very much interested in you. Indeed, I am filled with wonder and speculation concerning you. When I advertised for a companion, young, agreeable and accomplished, as I desired her to be, Monsieur le Professeur plainly told me that rara avis was not to be found in the ranks of women who were seeking situations; that such an education as I required in my companion was the privilege only of wealth and genius. And the answers to my call proved that he was right. In about two hundred applications yours was the only one that suited me. 107And you, my dear, have really excelled my most unreasonable expectations. Your extreme youth, which at first view seemed an objection, is really an additional charm. Your having been married, too, seems to draw us nearer together. Two young and recently bereaved widows may surely sympathize with each other. I hope, dear, that you will consider me as a friend.”

“You are very kind to me, madame. I have no words to thank you, but I will try to make my actions speak,” said Lilith.

“And some time, dear, not now, but some time when you feel that you can do so, I hope that you will tell me something about yourself, something about the circumstances that have forced you, a young, beautiful and accomplished girl—you are little more than a child, although you have been married—to take the situation of lady’s companion,” said the baroness, gently.

Lilith had a struggle to control her emotions; but she soon conquered them, and replied, with forced calmness:

“You are entitled to my fullest confidence, dear madame, for you have taken me almost on trust, as everybody has so kindly done since I left home——”

“Who could do otherwise, my dear? Who could look in that pretty, tender, child face and doubt you? But go on, my dear, with what you were about to say.”

“Only this, madame, that some time, when I can, I will tell you my little story. But now I can only say this much—I am from West Virginia. A reverse, a calamity, sudden and overwhelming as a thunderbolt or an earthquake, laid waste my life and destroyed all my happiness in an instant, ‘in the twinkling of an eye,’ and cast me alone upon the world. I came to New York to get away from a scene so full 108of miserable associations as my home had become, and seek a living here among strangers, all of whom have so charitably taken me on trust, when they might have put out the last spark of hope and life by unjust but reasonable suspicions,” said Lilith, as if she deeply felt the truth of every word she uttered.

“Who could suspect a baby?” said the lady, gently; but nevertheless she inquired within herself:

“What can have happened to this girl? Has her husband killed her father and been hanged for it? Or vice versa, or what? There are so many homicides and hangings in this vast country that no one can keep trace of them all. Her words are very enigmatical.”

Something in the lady’s looks might have betrayed the drift of her thoughts, for Lilith, with a deepening color and in a low voice, ventured to say:

“There is one circumstance that I ought to have added to my statement, madame, and it is this: There has been no dishonor connected with my misfortunes, no dishonor of any one’s. I have no way of proving this, but oh! as I hope to be saved, I am speaking the sacred truth!” she concluded, clasping her hands in the earnestness of her asseveration.

“My child, I feel sure that you do,” answered the baroness, kindly; and then she changed the subject by asking Lilith if she had ever been abroad, and if she was a good sailor.

“No,” Lilith answered. “My longest sea voyages have been from Baltimore to New York and from New York to Newport. But I am a very good sailor, for I have been in more than one storm on Chesapeake Bay and have never been sea-sick.”

“That is very well. I hope you will be able to bear the unrest of Old Ocean as bravely,” said the baroness.

And then she told Lilith what her experience had 109told her, the outfit necessary for the comfort of the voyage, and the outfit that would be nothing but an impediment.

And then, when an hour had passed, Lilith arose to take leave.

Madame Von Bruyin would not allow her to go, but insisted that she should stay to luncheon, which was served in madame’s private apartments.

It was a tête-à-tête feast, and Lilith much enjoyed the delicate fare set before her—the well-dressed game, the delicious salad, the dainty confectionery, the luscious fruits, and the pure, light Chablis.

When the repast was finished and the service was removed, the baroness went and took a guitar from its place on a stand in the recess, and sat down to play. She touched a few chords and then floated into a mournful solo from “Il Trovatore.” Her voice was a deep, rich, full contralto, but so profoundly sad that Lilith felt her eyes fill with tears as she said to herself:

“Ah, madame has also suffered. I know it.”

The baroness finished her song and laid aside her guitar without a word.

But presently she said:

“You love music, my dear? Bah! who does not?”

“I love music. That was a beautiful solo, madame, only so sad!”

“Ah, my dear! But never mind. You have promised to tell me your story some day. I may tell you mine before that. For in this case I feel towards you somewhat like the ancient mariner to the wedding guest.”

“I shall be glad to hear, madame, very glad and grateful for your confidence,” said Lilith, as she once more arose to take leave.

“Why is it that I feel as if you belonged to me, 110dear?” said the baroness, as she took the girl in her arms and kissed her.

“It is because you are so good to me, madame. In an humble way, in my happy days at home, whenever I took any helpless creature under my care, I always felt as if it belonged to me, whether it did or not,” said Lilith, simply.

“Come again to-morrow, my dear, if you can. If not, come any day at this hour. I am always at home between twelve and two,” said the baroness, as she patted the cheek of her new favorite and let her go.

As before, the old Frenchman joined her in the corridor and escorted her downstairs and out to the sidewalk.

There she thanked and took leave of him.

Lilith walked home, where she arrived an hour later than on the preceding day.

“You have made a long visit this morning, honey,” said Aunt Sophie, who met her in the parlor.

“Yes, the baroness detained me,” answered Lilith.

“I am getting jealous of that there baroness. I am so,” said Aunt Sophie, half in jest, half in earnest. “But take off your things right here and come down to lunch. I have got such a beautiful cup of broma for you.”

“Thank you, dear Aunt Sophie. But I have had lunch. The baroness made me stay for it, with her,” replied Lilith.

“Now I am jealous of that baroness—downright jealous, that I am,” said Aunt Sophie, with such an aggrieved look that Lilith embraced her, and privately resolved never to be persuaded to stay to lunch with Madame Von Bruyin so long as they should remain in New York.

Lilith did not go to the baroness the next day, but she went down on Broadway to purchase the necessaries for her sea voyage.

111When she returned to her boarding-house a great surprise awaited her.

Aunt Sophie met her at the door with a radiant, beaming countenance, and asked, with a very mysterious air:

“Well, honey! Who do you think has come? And is in the parlor waiting for you? You can’t guess!”

Lilith’s heart gave a great bound. For a moment she could not move, and her swiftly changing color and agitated features caused Aunt Sophie to laugh softly, as she added:

“Why, it is Emily Ponsonby, of course. She has just arrived from Boston, where she has been staying with her daughter ever since she left the city the morning after she brought you here. She reached the city last night, and is stopping with her other daughter, Mrs. Saxony. And this morning she came right down here to inquire after you. She came in just about ten minutes after you had gone out. Now come in and see her.”

Aunt Sophie’s long explanation had given Lilith time to recover from her mingled feelings of surprise, wild hope and disappointment. She quietly followed Aunt Sophie into the front parlor, where the ample form and rosy face of the good-hearted Baltimore lady met her view.

“Well, my dear, glad to see you again, and to hear from your good friend, Sophie Downie here, such splendid accounts of you,” said Mrs. Ponsonby, rising and embracing Lilith.

“Thank you, madam; but all my good fortune began with yourself. If you had not spoken to me on the train and brought me to this house, I really do not know what would have become of me.”

“Neither do I,” replied Mrs. Ponsonby, quite frankly. “It was the wildest freak I ever heard of in all my life—a young girl coming to a strange city 112to seek her fortune! Ugh! It makes my very flesh creep to think of it!”

“It was a forced measure, dear friend. I had no choice. I was obliged to come,” said Lilith, as she took a seat on the sofa beside the matron.

“Well, I suppose you were obliged to come, and so the Providence that takes care of the young ravens took care of you. But I tell you what, my girl, if you had come away from home from other impulse than stern necessity you would have gone to the deuce before this. It was an awful risk, my dear.”

“I knew it was, but I could not help it,” said Lilith, meekly.

“And Sophie has been telling me that you have just got a splendid situation with the Baroness Von Bruyin.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Why, I knew her! I met her in Washington when she was a Miss Von Kirschberg. I have not seen her since she married the old banker, Mr. Bruyin, who got himself made Baron Von Bruyin to please his wife, and paid a good round sum to Emperor William for the honor, you may take my word for it. Bosh! I like nobility when it is real, that is, hereditary; but I should care no more for a purchased title than I should for a paste ‘diamond’ or an imitation ‘India’ shawl. And the poor old man is dead, and dead, too, without an heir to perpetuate his dearly bought title.”

“What sort of a woman is the baroness, anyway, to live with, do you think?” inquired Aunt Sophie, in anxiety for the happiness of her protégée.

“I think she is just about as good a woman as one could expect to find in an only child, a beauty and heiress, who had been petted and pampered and flattered and fairly idolized by everybody around her all 113the days of her life,” emphatically answered Mrs. Ponsonby.

“I am glad to hear it,” answered Aunt Sophie.

“And I think you will just have a splendid time with her, my dear. Why, you are really going to travel all over Europe. My! don’t I wish I was going to Europe! But, there! what is the use of talking. When Ponsonby and myself were young, with a family of little ones around us, we promised ourselves just as soon as we had raised and settled them all, we would travel and see the world; but Lor’! before the last of them were married the grandchildren of the first wedded began to come on, and they are just as strong fetters and as heavy iron balls to hinder our travels as ever their mothers were. You are to be envied, my dear, I can tell you that!”

“I am thankful,” replied Lilith. “But why should you have waited until your children grew up before you could go to Europe? Why not have taken them all with you?”

“Never saw the day when we could afford that, my dear. But I will live in hopes to see the old world some time or other before I die. Well, dear, I only called to inquire after you, and to see whether Sophie Downie had done a good part by you——”

“She is the best friend I have in this world!” hastily and warmly interrupted Lilith—“except yourself, Mrs. Ponsonby,” she added, on reflection.

“And I don’t doubt that Madame Von Bruyin will be a much more valuable friend than either of us,” said Mrs. Ponsonby.

“No! no!” exclaimed Lilith.

“Well, at least I hope for your sake she may be. You cannot have too many or too good friends. Well, I must go, or I shall be late for lunch. I shall fetch Polly Saxony to call on you; and then we must have you to come and spend a day with us before you sail,” 114said the Baltimore lady, as she arose, kissed Lilith good-bye, and left the drawing-room, followed by Aunt Sophie, with whom she chattered all the way out, and lingered to chat in the hall, and still loitered to chat on the stoop outside.

At length she was gone, and Aunt Sophie returned to the parlor.

“Wasn’t that a surprise?” inquired Aunt Sophie, gleefully, as she re-entered the room.

“Yes; quite a surprise,” assented Lilith.

“And now I have got another for you: John Moore has gone off to be married. The wedding is to be to-morrow, at the bride’s mother’s house, in Springfield. And he is to bring his wife home on Saturday, and take her straight to the parsonage, which is all ready. And I have fixed up his room for you. You can have it at once. Ah! if you were only going to stay I could make you so comfortable!” said Aunt Sophie, with a deep sigh.

“Dear friend, I would like to stay with you, but you know that I cannot; I must take the employment that is offered me,” gently replied Lilith.

“Yes, I know. Some of these days you will come back, though, and I hope I shall live to see you, and if so, you must come straight home to me, dear, do you hear?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie; and I certainly will come to you first of all, if we both live,” said Lilith.

And then the entrance of other persons ended their tête-à-tête.

The next day Lilith went to see the baroness, and was received with even more kindness than on the former occasions. But she declined an invitation to stay to lunch.

When she returned home Aunt Sophie met her with a smile, and put two cards in her hands, saying:

“They called while you were out, my dear, but they 115didn’t stay long. And they left an invitation for you and me to go and spend the day with them to-morrow.”

Lilith looked at the cards, which bore the names of Mrs. John Ponsonby and of Mrs. Theobald E. B. Saxony.

“I think I’ll go with you, my dear; I have not had a day out so long. I know Mary Farquier will look after the house for me one day.”

And so Aunt Sophie and her protégée accepted this invitation; and the next morning, at a most unfashionably early hour, they presented themselves at the Saxony mansion, where they were very kindly re-received and hospitably entertained by the mother and daughter.

They met none of Mrs. Saxony’s fashionable friends. It was not that lady’s receiving day; so she was “not at home” to all casual callers, and she devoted herself to her mother’s simple friends.

Aunt Sophie and Lilith returned in the evening, well pleased with their visit.

The next day the old lady invited Lilith to accompany her to the parsonage, where she and all her “family” were going, with many of the church people, to receive the young minister and his bride.

Lilith went, for she had resolved to give herself up to please Aunt Sophie for the short remainder of her stay with the affectionate woman.

They found the parsonage a very attractive home for the newly married pair. The house, which stood beside the church, had been newly papered and painted, and refurnished from top to bottom, and prettily decorated for the occasion. The church people had vied with each other in the choice of their wedding presents, which were tastefully displayed on the drawing-room tables.

The refreshments were laid out on the extension table in the dining-room at the rear.

116The house was full, but not crowded, because the people dispersed themselves through all the apartments.

Aunt Sophie only waited long enough to welcome the young minister and his bride, to wish them all happiness, and to show them into their chamber, where they might change their traveling suits for festive dresses before going down into the drawing-room to meet their friends, and then she took leave.

She would have persuaded Lilith to stay with the company, but the latter insisted on going with her friend.

“You know I ain’t young, honey, and gay and festive scenes don’t suit me,” she said, apologetically.

“And as for me, I wish to go with you, and to be with you as much as I can while I remain in the country,” Lilith answered, affectionately.

Madame Von Bruyin grew very fond of Lilith and would have had her new favorite with her every day, or even had her to come and live at the hotel.

But Lilith pleaded that she wished to stay with her kind landlady as much as possible during the short interval that would intervene before their sailing for Europe.

The baroness admitted the excuse and did not insist on Lilith’s entering upon her duties of companionship before the stipulated time—June 1st.

But whenever Aunt Sophie was out on business, or very much occupied with her household duties, Lilith would slip away to pay a flying visit to the baroness, 117to whom she was now, at all hours, a most welcome guest.

One evening it happened that Aunt Sophie had gone to a protracted meeting at her church, and Lilith availed herself of that opportunity to go and see the baroness.

It was the first occasion on which she had ever ventured to call on that lady in the evening.

She found Madame Von Bruyin alone in her apartments, more lonely and depressed than usual, and more than ever pleased to see her unexpected but most welcome visitor.

She received Lilith with a warm embrace, and made her lay aside her bonnet and mantle, and sit down in the most comfortable chair in that luxurious room.

The gas had been turned down low, so that the whole room was in a subdued cathedral light very favorable for meditation or for confidential conversation.

How it was that Madame Von Bruyin glided into speaking of her own life neither she nor her companion ever knew.

It was in answer to some remark of Lilith’s, however, that the baroness answered:

“Yes, I know. Of course there are many people who envy me, and I suppose that I may be considered in a very enviable position; but that is only the external view. Within myself I am not enviable. There are few women in this world less happy than I am.”

“I am very sorry,” said Lilith, in true sympathy. But she was much too modest to preach to this great lady, this spoiled beauty, and to tell her of the vast power her wealth furnished of doing good and finding her happiness in the happiness of others.

“Child!” continued the baroness, “the truth is that I do not know what to do with my life. If I were not in deep mourning I should take a plunge into 118society and in its maddest excitements forget myself. But as I cannot do that, I go to Europe, to make a tour of the continent. But I ask myself, to what purpose? I have seen it all before. It will have no novelty for me.”

“Not the beaten track—the great cities, the great centres of art, science and learning, the monuments of antiquity—you have seen all those; not the highways of travel, but the by-ways, madame—the remote villages, the country people of each country. It seems to me that these also might be very interesting,” Lilith modestly suggested.

“Possibly,” wearily replied the lady; “but nothing interests me, child—except yourself—nothing. With every appliance of material good—with youth and health and wealth—I have no interest in life, no enjoyment of anything.”

“Oh, madame! what has brought you into such a state as this?” exclaimed Lilith, speaking from the irrepressible impulse of her great sympathy, and then stopping short and blushing at the thought of having asked the baroness an impertinent question.

But Madame Von Bruyin did not seem to perceive any impropriety in Lilith’s words. She felt only their deep sympathy.

“I must tell you something about myself and my spoiled life, and then you will understand. Come nearer to me, child.”

Lilith left her easy-chair, drew a hassock after her, and sat down on it at the feet of the baroness.

The lady bent her stately head until the golden tresses touched the ebon ringlets of the girl. And after this caress she laid her hand on Lilith’s head and whispered:

“I have been so wilful all my life. I can never remember the time when my will was crossed—until 119about six months ago. How full the last six months have been of changes for me!”

The lady paused thoughtfully. Lilith might have added: “And for me!” but she did not. The baroness continued:

“I am an American, my dear, as you might know by my speech; and I was born and married in America, though my father and my husband were both subjects of the Emperor William. I was the only child of my widowed father, who had married very late in life and who lost his wife in the same hour that gave him his child. He never married a second time, but devoted himself to me. In time I became the idol of my father and of his dearest friend and inseparable companion, Mr. Nicholas Bruyin—who became Baron Von Bruyin later, you understand.”

“Yes, madame,” said Lilith.

“I was never sent to school, but had teachers at home, who taught me no more than I chose to learn; masters and governesses who never mastered or governed me, but who had to submit to my will or leave my service. And in all my self-will I was upheld by the two fondly doting old gentlemen who held my destiny in their hands. I learned music and dancing because I liked to do so; but I do not think I should have learned anything else if it had not been for the advent of Monsieur le Professeur Le Grange, my present private secretary, whom you have seen.”

“Yes, madame.”

“He was engaged to teach me languages when I was about thirteen years old, and more ignorant than any girl of my own age and rank. Well, Professeur Le Grange certainly found out the road to my conscience and affections, convinced me of my pitiable ignorance and became my teacher not only of languages, but of science, history and general literature. I became very appreciative of his character 120and abilities, and tried to profit by them. I think I have shown my gratitude for his services by attaching him to my household. He will never leave.”

“He seems sincerely devoted to you, madame,” said Lilith.

“I think he is. There are spiritual fathers in the church. Professeur Le Grange may be called my intellectual father. When I was but fifteen years of age I went to Europe with these three old men—my father, my friend and my teacher, and with no female companion except my old nurse and my maid. You have never seen those two faithful women, dear?”

“No, madame.”

“Yet they are still in my service. We made an unusually extensive tour of Europe, and the professor, who, in addition to his other acquirements, was a learned archæologist and antiquarian, was my most valuable guide and mentor. Perhaps I derived more benefit than most persons from my travels. If so, I owe that benefit to the professor. He is to go with us when we sail, as I suppose you know.”

“Yes, madame.”

“We returned at the end of three years, and I was, soon after our arrival, introduced into society. Two years of fashionable seasons, in the winter spent in New York or Washington, in the summer at Newport or at some other fashionable resort. I was nineteen years old when my father was attacked by what he believed to be a temporary though very sharp illness. But the physician who was called in warned him of its real significance. Then my father grew anxious to settle up all his worldly affairs, and very anxious to see me married. I know not how it happened, or who first suggested the plan—whether it was my father or Mr. Bruyin—but the issue was that I became the betrothed bride of Nicholas Bruyin before I knew that I had a heart in my bosom. Mr. 121Bruyin, though older than my father, was really a healthier and a stronger man, with the promise of a longer life. This betrothal took place just before I went to Washington last summer. Ah! if it had been delayed but a few weeks longer what a difference it would have made in my life; for there, in the beginning of that season in Washington, I was destined to meet the only man whom I could ever love; a man of whom you have probably heard, for his fame has gone abroad all over the country, the brilliant orator and rising statesman, Tudor Hereward.”

Lilith uttered a low cry, so low that it escaped the notice of Madame Von Bruyin, who continued:

“I became so much interested in this gentleman that, unconscious of the danger into which I was running, I allowed myself to enjoy the heaven of his society and conversation, for it was heaven to me. One night—it was at the masquerade ball given by Senator and Mrs. S——, at their splendid mansion, on New Year’s Eve—Mr. Hereward sought me out and proposed for my hand. Oh! not until that hour did I realize how much I loved him. But I had to explain that a betrothal scarcely less sacred than marriage bound me to Mr. Bruyin. He, my lover, Tudor Hereward, bitterly, bitterly reproached me for misleading him, and trifling with his affections. And we parted in wrath.”

The baroness bowed her face on Lilith’s curly black head and wept. The girl, unable to trust her voice to speak, took one of the lady’s hands and fondled and kissed it in sympathy. The baroness recovered her self possession, and continued:

“The next day I missed Hereward from all his usual places. And before the night came, my betrothed arrived from New York. He was shocked to see how changed I was. Child, it was my first sorrow, and I had no power to conceal it. The good old man, 122who loved me with a totally unselfish love, won my secret from me, at once released me from my engagement and left me free to marry the lover of my choice. Then I watched for Hereward’s return, and when he arrived—child, I went to him, I humbled myself before him; I told him that I was free, and I offered him my hand. He replied in icy tones that he was married. Yes, married, within two days after having been rejected by me. He had married a young girl, a child who knew no better than to take a man at a moment’s notice. The news was a thunderbolt to me; yet even through that nervous shock how I pitied that young wife.”

“Oh, Heaven, yes. How much she was to be pitied!” cried Lilith, in a tone of sharp pain.

“As for my miserable self, the kind guardian of my peace and welfare saw that there had been no happy meeting between me and my lover. Again he won my secret from me. This time it was the secret of my disappointment and humiliation. Then taking my hand, he said to me:

“‘My dear, the world knows nothing of this. The world still believes us to be a betrothed pair. Let things go on as they were arranged. You know me. We will be married at the time appointed. I will then take you abroad to the court of Berlin. Your dear father will go with us for his health. You are so young yet that you will outlive and forget this trouble.’

“Well, I consented. I was so confused and depressed between grief and mortification, that I was easily led. Only a few days later we were married in the cathedral in this city, and sailed in the Kaiser Wilhelm for Germany. We had planned out a very fine tour. But ah! while we were still at the court of Berlin, and only a few days after Mr. Bruyin had received his patent of nobility and become the Baron 123Von Bruyin, he had a stroke of apoplexy that terminated his earthly existence. We laid him in the cemetery of the city that he loved so well, and then set out to return home. My father never reached these shores alive. His mortal remains repose in Woodlawn. There, my child, I have unburdened my mind to you.”

And thus Leda, Baroness Von Bruyin, had told her heart’s history to Tudor Hereward’s young wife.

No words can describe its effect on Lilith.

She sat in the “gloaming,” silent and motionless, her still, white face invisible to the lady, who, after finishing her story, fell into thought, seeming to brood over the past.

124This, then—mused Lilith—this peerless, regal beauty was the Miss Von Kirschberg, the woman whom Tudor Hereward had passionately loved, and by whom he had been cast off, only on the evening before he had married her—Lilith—to please his dying father, and to be revenged upon his false love! Oh! the bitter wrong! the bitter, bitter dishonor of the wrong!

Lilith pressed her hands upon her white face, in an anguish too deep for tears.

Madame Von Bruyin saw nothing of that in the gloaming. Presently she spoke again:

“Strange—strange; but since Herr Von Bruyin passed away I seem to understand his character better than I ever did before! More than ever before I seem to feel the pure, tender, unselfish love he lavished upon me, from my earliest infancy, even until the day of his death—‘until the day of his death?’ What am I saying? Uttering hastily, and with parrot-like repetition, false, unmeaning words—for there is no death and no limit to love like his. From his home above, he loves me still. And, perhaps, when I, too, shall reach that bright world in which there is no winter and no age, I shall find no disparity between us; but shall see and love him even as he sees and loves me! And that shall be my comfort and his reward.”

The baroness spoke tenderly, meditatively, with her beautiful head bowed upon her hand, and her fair hair, escaped from the widow’s cap, flowing down over her black-robed shoulders.

Lilith uttered not a word, but she thought:

“This is the woman whom Tudor Hereward denounced as vain, self-seeking, double-dealing; false to him, false to herself, false to her betrothed, and all because, to keep her plighted faith, she had rejected him.”

125And Lilith, through all her own deep pain, felt a tender sympathy with the desolate heart of her rival.

At length the baroness spoke again:

“You are very silent, petite. Of what are you thinking?” she softly inquired.

“Of the story you have told me, madame,” gently replied Lilith.

“And what about it, dear?”

“It is very sorrowful. You are not happy, madame; and perhaps you never can be, unless, unless—by——”

“By what, my child?”

“By making others happy. You have such great power of doing good, dear lady!” earnestly replied Lilith.

“What good can I do? I seem of no use in the world!” sighed the baroness.

“By your great wealth, madame,” modestly suggested Lilith.

“Oh, of course, I subscribe to all worthy charities that are brought to my notice. Le Grange attends to all that! That is, of course, my bounden duty, and I try to do it,” said the baroness.

“Yes, I know you are very liberal and very conscientious, but——”

“But what, my dear?”

“There are so many, many cases of great poverty, sickness and suffering outside of these organized charities! Aged, or ill, men and women, and little children, suffering in extremity for want of the barest necessaries of life, helpless and dying for lack of help, even in the midst of all these organized charities! These do a vast deal of good, but they cannot do everything! They cannot reach all the suffering!”

“How do you know?” inquired the lady.

“I know from what I see, and hear, and observe 126in the streets, and from what I learn when I go into the poorest tenement houses with Aunt Sophie.”

“Aunt Sophie? Who is she, child?”

“Mrs. Downie. My good landlady. She is a Methodist minister’s widow. She keeps a plain boarding-house, mostly for young ministers and teachers. She is very poor, but very charitable, and when she sees a poor, pale, ragged child on the streets trying to make a few pennies by selling matches or pins, she often takes such a child to its own home to see for herself into its circumstances and find out how she can permanently benefit it. She has adopted and brought up several of these forlorn children, and settled them respectably in life. She has always one or two on hand. She has one even now. Oh! if I had only plenty of money I would found a home for destitute children. I would set Aunt Sophie at its head with the carte blanche to take in all the needy children that the home could hold.”

“But there are so many of these asylums, my dear.”

“I know; but there are not enough, else why these poor, little, homeless and friendless ones in the street?”

“Well, petite, I do not feel just yet quite inspired to found such an institution, but, before we sail, I will place in your good Aunt Sophie’s hands a sum of money to aid her charitable work among the friendless children of the street,” said the baroness.

“Will you? Oh, will you, indeed? If you do, you will make a good heart so glad!” exclaimed Lilith, with a beaming face.

“I will, indeed! I will send Le Grange to the house with the check to-morrow,” said the lady.

“Oh! give it with your own hand, dear madame, and you will see what joy you will bring into the dear woman’s face.”

127“I hear what joy I bring into your voice, little one, and I am glad to hear it,” replied the baroness.

In her deep interest in the subject under discussion, Lilith had for the moment forgotten her own griefs.

Even Madame Von Bruyin seemed in better spirits as she said, cheerfully:

“We must have lights now, dear.”

She touched the silver timbre on the stand beside her.

An attendant came in and lighted the gas and retired.

Lilith arose from her low position on the hassock at the lady’s feet.

The baroness also stood up, and drawing her companion’s arm within her own, walked up and down the splendid, illuminated room in silence.

It happened that at each end of this room there was a broad and tall mirror that reached from floor to ceiling and reflected the two figures from head to foot—the grand beauty of the Baroness Von Bruyin and the petite grace of Lilith.

The young wife marked the contrast with a sinking and despairing heart. In her admiration she greatly exaggerated the power of her rival’s queenly charms, and in her humility as much underrated the effects of her own sweet loveliness.

“Ah!” she sighed, from the depths of her desponding spirit. “No wonder he worships this lady, for she is the crowned queen of beauty! No wonder he could not love me, for who am I beside her? No more than a little yellow duckling beside a royal white swan! No! I cannot blame him for adoring her and not liking me. But oh! he might have let me alone. He ought not to have married me so lightly and cast me off so easily because I was a duckling and not a swan. Now I remember that he never said 128he loved me. He never professed what he never felt for me. And I was so blind I never missed that. Because he asked me to be his wife, I truly thought he loved me, and I did so joyfully consent—letting him see how happy and how glad I was of the honor he had done me, the delight he had given me. Oh, the sin of it! Oh, the shame of it! Oh, my angel mother in heaven, if you had been on earth you would never have let your child fall into such a trap. You would have taught her; you would have warned her. Oh, he ought to have been generous; he ought to have remembered that I had no mother; he ought to have let me alone!”

“What is the matter with you, dear child?” inquired the baroness, breaking in upon Lilith’s grievous reverie. “You are so absorbed and distressed that you must be in some great trouble, either for yourself or for some one else. Can I do anything for you?”

“No, dear madame; nothing. My passing mood was not worth your attention. A vain regret given to lost treasures, or perhaps only to imaginary treasures that I never really possessed. I will try to overcome my tendency to fall into these moods,” answered Lilith, with an effort to collect herself.

“Some day, my dear, you will tell me of your past life—a short story, it must be—as frankly as I have told you of mine. I will wait patiently until then. But, little one, we have talked and mused, and mused and talked, until the hours have slipped by us unheeded, and now it is so late that you must either stay all night, or allow me to send for a carriage at once to take you home.”

“Oh, thank you, madame. I must go home. Late as it is, Aunt Sophie will expect me,” said Lilith.

Madame Von Bruyin touched the timbre, and 129ordered the attendant who answered the summons to procure a carriage.

While Lilith was putting on her hat and gloves the baroness said:

“You may tell this dear Aunt Sophie of the power I intend to place in her hands to help the poor little children.”

“Oh, dear madame, how good you are! But I would rather not tell her. I would rather you should do so first, for the sake of seeing the happy surprise that will light up her face,” said Lilith.

“Very well, then. You may expect me to-morrow morning at the house,” said the baroness.

The attendant entered the room and announced the carriage.

“Ask Monsieur Le Grange to be good enough to step here,” said the baroness.

The man bowed and withdrew.

“Monsieur,” said the baroness, when the old secretary made his appearance and respectfully saluted the company, “will you do me the favor to see Mrs. Wyvil home? The carriage waits.”

“With the greatest pleasure, madame,” answered the old gentleman, with his habitual deep bow, as he gallantly offered his arm to the young lady to lead her from the room.

The baroness drew Lilith up and kissed her cheek before giving her into the care of the polite old secretary, who took her in charge, and bowed himself out of his lady’s presence.

He led Lilith down the stairs, placed her in the carriage, took his seat by her side, and directed the coachman to drive to Mrs. Downie’s, number so and so, such a street.

It was so late when they reached their destination that all the lights were out in the house, except those of the front parlor.

130The old Frenchman left the carriage, helped Lilith to alight, and led her up to the door. Nor did he leave her until his ring was answered and an old lady appeared to receive the returning guest.

Then he bowed himself down the steps to the carriage and drove off.

“Oh, my dear, I was that uneasy about you; I was thinking of starting out to the hotel to inquire after you,” said Aunt Sophie, as she went into the front parlor to turn off the gas.

“Why should you have been uneasy? What harm could have happened to me even if I had started to come home alone through the streets of a crowded city?” inquired Lilith, as they went upstairs together.

“What harm? Oh, child, you read the papers, and see how busy the devil is and how artful his children are. Every once in a while you see an account of some child or young girl kidnapped and made away with, and I suppose as there’s many and many a case that never even gets into the newspapers.”

“I am sorry to hear that, Aunt Sophie; but there was no danger in my case, for madame sent me home in a carriage, under the care of her aged secretary.”

“So I saw. So I saw. And she was in the right of it. Well, my dear, it is after one o’clock, and I think we had better get to bed as soon as we can,” said the old lady, as they entered the double-bedded chamber, which they still occupied together.

The room vacated by the minister having been taken by the organist.

Early the next morning, as Aunt Sophie, having got through with the breakfast, was preparing to go to market, Lilith said to her:

“I cannot walk out with you to-day, dear. I am expecting the Baroness Von Bruyin, and as I do not know at what hour she may find it convenient to call, I must stay in until she does.”

131“I am awful jealous of that baroness,” said the little old lady, in a pathetic tone, shaking her little rumpled gray head.

“You need not be. There is no woman in the world I love half so much as I do you, dear Aunt Sophie,” said Lilith.

“Well, then, why won’t you live long of me always and be my child, instead of going off to foreign parts with that baroness?”

“Because it would not be right, dear Aunt Sophie.”

“Eh, dear, it’s a tiresome world. What’s that baroness coming here for to-day?”

“To call on me, and I think she wishes to see you, too, so I shall keep her till you come back from market.”

“No, you needn’t! I don’t want to see that baroness! That I don’t,” said Aunt Sophie, as she tied on her little mashed black silk bonnet, which, like her rumpled fine gray hair, and little baby face, was a part of her gentle personality.

“But I want you to see her, Aunt Sophie. I think you’d get over your prejudice against her.”

“No, I shouldn’t! I’m jealous of her. That’s where it is. I’m awful jealous of her, that I am! But I’ll hurry back from market to see her if you want me to. And if I have to do that I must hurry away now.”

And the dear little woman folded her rusty Canton crape shawl across her bosom and left the room.

Lilith set the bed-chamber in order and then went down to the front parlor to await the coming of Madame Von Bruyin.

But it was twelve o’clock before the baroness arrived. Aunt Sophie had come home from market and “fixed herself up” to receive the great lady, by putting on her Sunday gown, a thin, rusty black silk, and tying a bobbinet fichu crookedly around her neck, 132but she could not sit in state to receive her visitor. She was too busy overseeing the cook get dinner for the boarders.

“Besides, what does she want to see me for, I would like to know?” she asked herself.

So she was shelling peas in the kitchen when word was brought to her that there was a lady in the parlor waiting to see her.

She put the pan of peas on the table, took off her “check” apron, shook down her dress and went upstairs to see the visitor.

She found a tall, beautiful woman, dressed in deep mourning, the black crape vail thrown back, revealing a fair face, with delicately blooming cheeks, large, soft, violet eyes, and rippling golden hair, just visible under the borders of her widow’s cap.

Gentle Aunt Sophie was won, despite herself, by the sweet, pensive smile with which the lady received her own rather cold greeting, when Lilith had introduced the parties to each other.

After some little preliminary conversation about the early setting in of summer; the unusual warmth of the weather for only the last week in May; the prospective sea voyage in June, and the probability of fair winds and good weather, the main object of Madame Von Bruyin’s visit was artfully introduced.

It required some tact on the part of the baroness and her young companion to deal with a woman as shy, jealous and peculiar as the minister’s widow, under such circumstances as these.

But when Madame Von Bruyin briefly explained that the news of Mrs. Downie’s mission among the street children had awakened her own interest to a very great extent, and had inspired her with a wish to serve them—which, owing to her swiftly approaching embarkation to Europe, she could not personally carry out—and when she begged as a great personal 133favor that Mrs. Downie would act as her almoner, with carte blanche to use the donation according to discretion, and ended by placing a check for a thousand dollars in Aunt Sophie’s hands—

Well, she, good soul, did not utter one word of thanks!

But her whole form vibrated and her face beamed with joy and thankfulness. Tears of joy filled her eyes as she faltered, almost inarticulately:

“Oh! how much good you will do with all this, madame! How much good you will do!”

“If so, it will be through your hands, dear friend,” replied the baroness, rising to take leave.

Mrs. Downie, with the most old-fashioned, time-out-of-mind hospitality, would have pressed her to stay to dinner, to stay to tea, to spend the whole evening, but the baroness smiled, pleaded a pressure of engagements, and departed.

“She’s good! she’s mighty good. But, oh! what a sinner I am. For I’m so awful jealous of her, all the same. But I can’t help it, and it’s all because of you, honey,” said Aunt Sophie, as soon as she was left alone with Lilith. “I must get the brethren to pray for me,” she added.

From that memorable evening on which Madame Von Bruyin had told her own heart history to Lilith Hereward, the two friends were drawn closer together in sympathy and affection.

It was strange that Hereward’s young wife, though she admired her husband’s first love so excessively, and underrated her own self so humbly, yet felt no great jealousy of her rival.

Perhaps it was because Tudor himself had been the first to tell her of that first love, that mad though “brief infatuation,” as he had called it; and because, on referring to its object, he had spoken of her only in terms of contempt and displeasure; so, at any rate, 134for this cause or for that, Lilith, on cool reflection, saw no cause to be jealous of her beautiful rival. She felt even some compassion for her, as for a fellow-sufferer from Hereward’s great injustice—for had not Hereward denounced her as a false woman, a self-seeker, a double-dealer, a coquette, a traitress, a jilt? And all because Leda Von Kirschberg, after having promised her hand, discovered that she had a heart, and tried to do her duty between the two!

As the day of sailing drew near, Lilith’s heart sank into utter despondency.

Up to this time she had been almost unconsciously sustained by the recognized uncertainty of human affairs; by the deep-seated hope that “something might happen” to delay the voyage, or perhaps to put it off altogether.

She watched the newspapers for news of Hereward; but she found none. She knew that Congress was still in session in Washington, and she read all the Congressional reports in the hope of finding his name; but it was not there; not in any debate; not in any speech; not even in the mere rank and file of the yeas and nays when a vote was taken. It seemed to have dropped quite out of public affairs. What had become of that once shining beacon of liberty and light?

Lilith could not even conjecture.

She diligently searched the personal column of the Pursuivant; but no carefully worded appeal came to her.

135Lilith could not understand this utter silence, even from Ancillon, who had himself fixed in this column as the medium of their intercommunication.

Ah! but Lilith did not know that a coroner’s jury had pronounced her dead—and come to her death “from a fatal blow on the back of her head, inflicted by a blunt instrument held in the hands of some person unknown,” and that she had been given up, if not forgotten, by all her friends.

So Lilith looked through the papers day by day, “hoping against hope” for some sign from her silent husband.

“He knows that I cannot make any,” she said, despairingly, to herself. “He knows that he discarded me, and drove me from his home with insult and contumely. He knows that in my farewell letter to him I wrote that if ever he should review his course towards me, retract his charges against me, and permit me to return, I would go to him, and be to him all that I have been—wife, housekeeper, secretary, guardian of his home, and helper in his office. Yes, I would, for although he does not love me, oh! my Heavenly Father, I do love him, and I cannot help it! Oh! if I could but return to him! But he does not want me. He will not have me. If I had stayed at Cloud Cliffs he would have gone away never to return while I ‘desecrated the house’ with my presence! He told me so! And oh! oh! the scorn and hatred of his looks when he spoke those words! No! he will never relent. He will never retract. He will never permit me to return—never in this world. It is no use to hope. Nothing is going to happen to bring us together. Nothing ever happens that one either hopes or fears. A poor wretch condemned to death hopes something may happen to save him; but it does not, and he dies. A happy girl looking forward to her bridal, fears something may happen 136to stop it; but it does not, and she marries. And oh! my Father, I still keep on hoping against hope; looking against a possibility for something to happen to open my husband’s eyes to show him how cruelly he has wronged me, to bring him to my side. Hoping and expecting with idiotic persistency. Yet I know that nothing will happen. I must ‘dree my weird,’ as the Scotch say.”

All this time Aunt Sophie watched her favorite with a troubled face, and often with tearful eyes. At last one day she said:

“There’s something on your mind, dear, that you never let on to any one about. What is it, dear?”

“It is nothing but vain regrets for all that I have lost, Aunt Sophie, and foolish, mad longings to recover the irrecoverable,” replied Lilith.

The gentle old lady did not quite comprehend her; but she said:

“I don’t believe as you want to go on this voyage, child. I have noticed as the nearer the time comes the worse you are. Now, if you don’t want to go, dear, don’t you go—don’t you. Stay here long o’ me!”

“Oh! Aunt Sophie, I do grieve to leave you, but I must go—I must,” sighed Lilith.

And she held to her resolution in spite of all the good woman could say.

For Lilith felt that since her husband would not relent, would not retract, would not call her back, the farther she could get away from the scene of her suffering the more contented she might be. In change of scene and foreign travel she might forget her misery.

Aunt Sophie, since she could not persuade her favorite to stay with her, busied herself in helping in the final preparations for her sea voyage. She packed little jars of home-made pickles and acid preserves, 137and little boxes of delicate biscuits and cakes, for Lilith’s private use.

“For,” she said, “though I know them ocean steamers have all the luxuries that can be bought with money, yet I do think as these home-made things is better. And though you mayn’t be downright sea-sick, honey, you’re bound to be a little bit mawkish with the motion of the vessel, and then these little things might suit your appetite when nothing else would.”

“I am sure of it, dear Aunt Sophie. Even a cup of tea is all the sweeter and more refreshing when it is poured out by a friend’s hand,” replied Lilith. Whereupon Aunt Sophie shed a few tears—weakly, not unhappily.

The last day before the sailing came. All the luggage was to be sent down on board the steamer that afternoon; and the next morning the baroness was to call in her carriage to pick up her companion on her way to the ship.

All that forenoon Aunt Sophie wept softly to herself, furtively wiping her eyes whenever she could get a chance.

“I don’t want the child to see me cry. It will only make her feel bad,” she said to herself as she dodged Lilith.

At noon Lilith’s trunk was taken down to the hall, to wait for the expressman to call and carry it to the ship.

Lilith herself, with nothing at all to do, sat with Aunt Sophie at the front parlor window, saying those last, tender words that are always repeated over and over again for days and hours before parting, when there came a ring at the door bell, followed soon by the entrance of Monsieur Le Grange, private secretary to the Baroness Von Bruyin.

138The little old gentleman came in, bowing as was his wont.

Mrs. Downie got up to leave the room—thinking that the secretary might have brought some private message from the baroness to her young companion; but he prevented her by a deprecatory bow and a polite disclaimer:

“Pardon, madame! I have come but to say a word, to make an explanation. I have come from Madame la Baronne to her beautiful and accomplished dame de compagnie here,” he said, turning with another bow to Lilith. “Madame desires me to say, to explain, that she goes not to Europe by the Kron Prinz to-morrow.”

“She does not sail by the Kron Prinz!” exclaimed Lilith, as if in her surprise she could not comprehend the fact.

“No, madame. La Baronne has changed her plan. She sails not to-morrow.”

“Has she changed her mind about going to Europe?” inquired Lilith, with new hope lighting her eyes at this reprieve.

“No, madame. She has not changed her mind, but only her ship. She will go by the Kaiser Wilhelm on Saturday.”

“Dear me, what a pity! Why, she will lose all her passage money!” exclaimed Mrs. Downie, whose economical soul was dismayed at such a useless sacrifice of the “needful.”

“She will lose the half of it, madame, for herself and all her suite, and that is considerable, as her suite is large. But she goes, after all, by a ship of the same line.”

“Well, honey,” said Aunt Sophie, turning to Lilith, “at least this will give me three days more of your dear company; and who knows?—before Saturday something may happen to prevent your going at all.”

139“Oh, no!” sighed Lilith “Nothing will happen. Nothing one hopes or fears ever happens.”

“Now, what was the reason why the baroness put off her voyage for only three days at such a cost as that?” inquired simple Aunt Sophie, asking a question that Lilith had longed to ask but had shrunk from putting.

“I do not know, madame. Her resolution was taken very suddenly this morning,” said the secretary, rising to take leave.

“Has the baroness any commands for me?” inquired Lilith, also rising.

“No, madame, none,” replied the secretary, bowing himself out.

“Well, of all the whims I ever heard of in my life!” exclaimed Aunt Sophie. “But, anyways, ‘it is an ill wind that blows nobody any good.’ And this here ‘whim’ has blown me the blessing of your company for three days more, honey, and something may happen.”

Lilith shook her head incredulously.

She gave all her time to Aunt Sophie that day and the next day, when the old lady said to her:

“To think, now, if it hadn’t been for the whim of the baroness you would now have been on the ocean, instead of sitting here beside me. And maybe you won’t go on Saturday, neither, who knows? Something may happen.”

But again Lilith smiled and shook her head.

In the course of the forenoon a note came from the baroness to Lilith.

“Come to me this evening, my dear, and I will tell you why I changed my ship. The news will astonish you, I think, and it may indeed change my whole destiny. Tell your good landlady not to expect you back soon, as I shall keep you until a late hour, and 140then return you safe, as before, under the escort of Monsieur Le Grange. Answer by the messenger.

Lilith wrote a note to the effect that she would wait on the baroness at seven o’clock that evening, and sent it by the page who had brought the first.

Then she showed the baroness’ note to Aunt Sophie, who, after hearing it read, was filled with curiosity.

“Now what on earth can she have to tell you that will astonish you so much? Maybe she is going to marry the old secretary, and wants you to be bridesmaid!” said Aunt Sophie.

Lilith looked at the simple woman and laughed. It was the first time she had laughed since her heavy sorrow.

“Well, now, stranger things than that has happened, honey; let alone the fact that nobody can ever account for the whims of these fine ladies. And come to think of it, didn’t she marry an old man for her first husband? Maybe she has a fancy for old men. Some women have, I know,” said Aunt Sophie, nodding her head sagaciously.

“Perhaps,” said Lilith, remembering Mrs. Jab Jordon, and being unable to gainsay Aunt Sophie’s declaration—“perhaps; but I do not think Madame Von Bruyin is one of those women. She married the Herr Baron to please her father.”

“She don’t look to me like one as would do anything as didn’t please herself just as well. She is a good lady, a mighty good lady, and a generous and a charitable one, and she give me a great deal of money for the poor children. And I shall always be thankful to her and pray for her, and get the brethren to pray for her; but all the same, she’s got a will 141of her own, my dear. She will have her own way—you may depend she will.

as the old song says.”

“Well, I shall know to-morrow why she has delayed her voyage,” said Lilith.

“Yes, and if she is going to marry the old secretary—and a nice old gentleman he is, too, I will say that for him—she won’t want you, my dear. It’s only rich old maids and rich widows as wants companions—married women don’t. And so she’ll let you off your bargain and pay you compensation, which is no more than right and proper, she being wealthy and generous and you being a young orphan. And that’s what’s going to happen, maybe, to prevent your voyage, and I shall have you all to myself. Who knows?”

“I do not think that will happen, Aunt Sophie.”

“Well, we’ll see.”

“Yes, very soon. This very evening.”

“And if it is that which I said, of course we shall all hear it. But if it is anything else that has made her change her day of sailing, will you tell me?”

“Yes, Aunt Sophie, unless the communication of the baroness to me should be of a confidential nature,” said Lilith.

“How I do hate secrets! I never had one of my own in my life,” said Aunt Sophie, with funny simplicity.

When evening came Lilith set out to walk to the hotel to keep her appointment with the baroness.

When she reached that lady’s apartments, however, she was met by the secretary, who, after politely greeting her, explained the absence of the baroness.

“Madame is ill! She is ill! Headache. Migraine, you know,” he said, in a very pathetic tone. “She 142lies in a room pitch dark; her maid sits beside her, silent as death. It is a vault—it is a grave, for she cannot bear the faintest ray of light, or murmur of sound. She can see no one; but before she retired to her bed she bade me receive you here, excuse her to you, and say to you, in brief, that the reason why she changed her steamer was that there was a party going by the Kron Prinz with whom she did not wish to sail, and that she would explain further when you meet. Meanwhile, chère madame, all arrangements are completed for our embarkation on the Kaiser Wilhelm on Saturday morning. Our baggage will be sent on board on Friday evening.”

Lilith thanked the old secretary for his information, left her sympathetic regrets for Madame Von Bruyin, and arose to depart.

“I will have the honor to see you home, madame,” said the polite secretary, as he attended Lilith downstairs and out to the sidewalk.

There, as before, he called a carriage, put her into it, took a seat by her side and ordered the coachman to drive to Mrs. Downie’s boarding-house.

He only left Lilith when he had seen her enter the hall.

“And now, honey, what is it?” inquired Aunt Sophie, as soon as the two friends were seated in the front parlor together. “You are back a heap sooner than I expected. What did she tell you?”

“Nothing. I did not see her. She has gone to bed with a severe headache. But she left a short message for me with Monsieur Le Grange to the effect that the reason why she would not sail by the Kron Prinz was that there was a party going by that steamer with whom she did not wish to travel,” answered Lilith.

“Now, did ever any soul hear the like of that?” exclaimed Mrs. Downie. “If that doesn’t cap all the 143whims I ever heard of in all the days of my life! But I oughtn’t to say anything agin’ her, I oughtn’t indeed, for she’s a mighty good lady and a charitable one, and she give me such a heap of money for the poor street children.”

Lilith saw no more of Madame Von Bruyin until Saturday morning, when the baroness called in her carriage to pick up her companion on her way to the steamer.

Madame got out of her coach and went into the house for the purpose of bidding good-bye to Mrs. Downie, whom she found crying over Lilith.

“You’ll be good to the child, madame! I know you will be good to her! I believe, I hope, I trust you will,” said Aunt Sophie, a little inconsistently, as, after reiterated leave-taking, she resigned Lilith into the charge of the baroness.

“Have no fear. She shall be happy, if I can make her so,” said the lady. And then, with a sudden impulse of kindness, she added the question:

“Would you not like to go down to the ship and see us off? Come with us—do! And the same carriage can bring you back to your own door.”

“Oh, thank you, yes. Indeed, indeed, I would. And I won’t be a minute in getting on my things,” said the grateful old lady, as she hurried from the room.

In a very few moments she reappeared with her mashed black silk bonnet, rusty black Canton crape shawl, and thread gloves.

The three went out to the carriage, in which the old Frenchman had remained seated. When they appeared he got out, politely saluted the party, handed them into their seats, and then followed them.

The four persons just comfortably filled the carriage. Madame’s maid and footman followed in another 144carriage, having charge of their lady’s lighter luggage.

And so they started to drive down the avenue to the ferry by which they were to cross to Hoboken, from which point the steamer was to sail.

Arrived at the pier on the other side, they found their ship, and in and about it a crowd, mostly composed of foreigners, commercial travelers, returning German emigrants, and a few summer tourists.

Aunt Sophie accompanied her friends on board the steamer, and became an interested and sympathetic spectator of the busy and affecting scene around her. Some of the leave-takings touched her tender heart even to tears, and made her think of the happy land where there would be “no more sorrow nor crying,” and she kept on fortifying her mind by repeating over and over to herself the lines of her hymn:

Tears were in her tender eyes while the music of the simple hymn was sounding through her spirit.

Farewells were falling from faltering lips and failing hearts all around her. And in a saloon not far off a party of Germans were celebrating their embarkation by drinking lager and singing songs, in which Fatherland was the most frequent word and the chorus.

But Aunt Sophie heard none of this. She was in a dream.

145She was aroused by the gentle voice of Lilith in her ear, saying:

“Aunt Sophie, the baroness says you have just time to bid us good-bye and get comfortably back to the pier. Monsieur Le Grange is waiting here to take you to the carriage, after which he will barely have time to return to us before the plank is drawn. Dear Aunt Sophie, the moment has come. Bid me good-bye and give me your blessing.”

Mrs. Downie caught Lilith to her breast, burst into tears and sobbed aloud.

Lilith kissed her repeatedly, reiterating all the promises she had ever made, never to forget her, always to love her, often to write to her, and soon as possible to return.

“Madame, I must have the honor, if you please,” said Monsieur Le Grange, with kindly firmness, as he drew the arm of the little old lady within his own and led her off to the gang plank, over which a sad procession was passing to the pier.

She had not even remembered to take leave of the baroness.

In five minutes Monsieur Le Grange returned to the deck, rejoined Madame Von Bruyin’s party and reported:

“Madame Downie has serened herself on the cushions of the carriage. She repeats to herself some consoling office of her religion. She——”

But the good secretary’s voice was drowned in the loud report of the farewell gun.

And the next minute the Kaiser Wilhelm stood out to sea.

It was two hours later. Most of the passengers had gone below, either to arrange their berths, or to guard against the first approaches of sea-sickness.

Madame Von Bruyin and her young companion sat well forward on the deck and quite out of hearing 146of any fellow-voyager. They had been silently gazing out to sea for a few minutes, when the baroness suddenly turned to her companion and said:

“I presume Monsieur Le Grange gave you my message that evening when you came to the hotel and found me too ill to keep my appointment?”

“Yes, madame.”

“And he told you my reason for changing steamers?”

“Yes, madame, very briefly, to the effect that there was a party on board the Kron Prinz with whom you did not wish to travel.”

“Yes, that was my short message; but he also added, if he reported me aright, that I would explain further when we should meet.”

“He told me that, madame.”

“Well, my dear, I suppose you could never be able to guess who it was from whom I shrank on the Kron Prinz.”

“No, I am sure I could not. I have known so very few of your acquaintances, madame.”

“Yet of this especial acquaintance I have spoken to you more than once. Surely now you can guess who it is that has gone before us to Europe in the Kron Prinz, can you not?”

“No, madame; unless—unless it was Prince Carl of Altenburg——”

“Prince Carl? Well, you know, of course, he was a bore, and worried me not a little; but I should not have changed my steamer on his account, even if he had been on board the Kron Prinz, which he was not. No, you must try again.”

“I am sure I cannot guess, madame,” said Lilith, with a smile, but with no interest in the question.

“Then I must tell you,” said the lady; and dropping her voice, she added: “Who should it be but my old lover, Mr. Tudor Hereward, who has just 147been appointed Secretary of Legation to the Court of ——.”

Lilith grew cold as death, but did not reply.

The baroness, too full of the subject, and of her own possible fortunes in connection with it, failed to notice her companion’s silence, and went on eagerly to say:

“Yes, I first saw the announcement of his appointment, and of his intended voyage on the Kron Prinz, in the Pursuivant of Tuesday morning. And I saw something more in connection with his history that surprised me very much—something that seemed to render it indelicate, embarrassing, and even improper for me to make this sea voyage in his company. But we shall be sure to meet on the other side. And that meeting will probably decide our destinies. For now, my dear, we are both free!”

148“‘That meeting may decide’ your ‘destinies!’ How?” inquired Lilith, in a low, steady tone, which it required all her powers of self-control to regulate.

“Oh, my child, did you never hear the homely old adage concerning lovers—that ‘old coals are soon kindled?’ We—Tudor Hereward and Leda Von Bruyin—have only to meet to come to a good understanding. My dear, we love one another. That is the reason why, under present circumstances, I did not choose to cross the ocean in the same steamer with him. Nor do I wish to meet him for some months yet. We could not, under any circumstances, unite our destinies in less than twelve or eighteen months, you know,” said the baroness, speaking with much self-complacence.

“‘Unite your destinies?’” repeated Lilith, in the same low tone.

“Why, yes! Don’t you understand? Why, marry, of course! Mr. Hereward and myself understand each other at heart, I feel sure, although we parted in mutual displeasure, and have never written or spoken to each other since.”

“But—his—wife?” queried Lilith, in a low, hesitating voice.

“Oh, well, his wife! I am sorry for her, poor child! Really sorry for her! And he, too, must be sorry that she met such an awful fate,” said the baroness, pausing and falling into thought.

“What fate did she meet?” inquired Lilith, in the same constrained, low monotone.

“Why, don’t you know? Did not I tell you? Oh, no! I believe I did not. I said that we were both free, however, and you must have understood what that meant.”

“No, I did not.”

“It meant, of course, that his wife was dead, as 149well as my husband—the two events setting us both free to marry again.”

“His wife—dead! Tudor Hereward’s wife—dead! Madame, what reason have you for supposing so?” demanded Lilith, in a low but firm tone.

“I do not wonder that you are surprised and incredulous! It is so strange that the young wife, with perhaps seventy years of life before her, should have been cut off by accident so soon; but strange things do happen in this uncertain old world of ours! And, my dear, it is true—Tudor Hereward’s wife is dead.”

“Dead? Yes, in some sense of the word, she is dead, I suppose,” muttered Lilith to herself. Then slightly raising her voice she inquired: “Are you sure that she is dead, madame?”

“As sure as I can be of anything in this world. I knew nothing about it until I read what seemed to be a résumé of the whole story in the Pursuivant. Strange how we sometimes read and forget things without having the slightest idea of their significance to us! Some weeks ago I read in the papers that the body of an unknown young woman had been found in the woods on Cave Creek, near Frosthill in West Virginia. I read it without the faintest idea that I, or any one connected with me, could have any interest in that fact. And I had forgotten all about it until I read in the Pursuivant of Tuesday the announcement of Tudor Hereward’s appointment as Secretary of Legation to the Court of ——, and the theory that he had only accepted the appointment in order to seek, by serving his country in foreign lands, some benefit to his health, broken down by grief for the tragic fate of his young wife.”

“Merciful Heaven!” breathed Lilith to herself.

“And then, my dear,” continued the baroness, unconscious of the interruption, “the whole story was gathered up and rehearsed—how young Mrs. Hereward 150was missing from her home on the night of the 21st of March, and how no trace of her could be found until about the middle of April, when a body, much decomposed, was discovered in the woods on the banks of Cave Creek, which, after much investigation, contradictory evidence and dispute, was proved beyond all possibility of doubt to be that of Tudor Hereward’s young wife.”

“How very strange!” muttered Lilith.

“Yes—very strange. It must have given Mr. Hereward a great shock, even though he never loved the poor, inane young creature.”

“No; of course, he never loved her!” sighed Lilith.

“How could he love her? He loved me—madly, passionately, idolatrously—at the very time that he married her. Why, I had rejected him only a few hours before he proposed to her! And oh! what a fool she must have been to have accepted a man who had never wooed her—accepted him at his very first word! I am sorry for the poor thing, but you must acknowledge that she was a great idiot, and in no way a fit and proper wife for Tudor Hereward.”

“I do acknowledge it; but—but perhaps she loved him,” meekly suggested Lilith.

“That does not excuse her for snatching at a man’s first offer.”

“But do you think it was quite right in him to ask a girl to be his wife when he could not love her at all?”

“No, indeed; I do not. I think he did her a most grievous wrong. I told him so in Washington when he announced his marriage to me. But, then, my dear, he was half mad with rage, jealousy and disappointment. He married her to be revenged upon me—nothing more.”

“It was a pity for the poor, unloved wife!” breathed Lilith.

151“Indeed it was—poor child. And no doubt he repents the wrong he did her, now that she has met so cruel a fate—robbed and murdered by tramps, it is supposed, while she was on her way to relieve the wants of a sick and destitute neighbor. Remorse is harder to bear than sorrow, and no doubt it is remorse for the wrongs he had done her, and not sorrow for the loss of the wife whom he never loved, that is breaking down his health. However, he will get over it in time,” said the lady, complacently.

“And—you expect—some day—to bestow on him—your hand in marriage?” slowly questioned Lilith.

“Yes, my dear; I mean to do him that justice—to give him that consolation. We are both so young yet. He is not thirty, I am but a little more than twenty years of age. We have a long life before us, in which I shall do all that in me lies to make him forget his early disappointments and sorrows; to make him as completely blessed and happy as woman can make man,” said the baroness, with more depth of feeling in her thrilling tones than Lilith had ever detected there before.

A dead silence followed these last words. Then at length Lilith spoke in a low, firm, steady voice:

“Madame, you must not dream of your future life in connection with that of Tudor Hereward.”

“What! Why must I not? Whatever do you mean? Why, I ask you?” demanded the surprised baroness.

“Because it would be a great sin.”

“Sin! Why a sin?”

“Because Tudor Hereward’s wife still lives,” replied Lilith, in a voice of such unnatural, mechanical calmness that it did not seem to come from living lips.

“Tudor Hereward’s wife still lives?” demanded the baroness, in slow, questioning, incredulous tones. “What can you know about it? Her dead body was found—was identified; what, then, do you mean by 152saying that she still lives? And what can you know about it, in any case?”

“Madame, I do not dispute that some woman’s dead body was found near her dwelling. I know not whose it was; but I do know that it was not Tudor Hereward’s wife’s.”

“How dare you say so! How can you know anything about the matter?” demanded the baroness, almost indignantly.

“Because, madame—oh, forgive me—because—I—I am Mr. Hereward’s—most unhappy wife!” answered Lilith, dropping her head in her hands with a low, heart-breaking moan.

There was a dead silence between the two for a few minutes.

The baroness was the first to speak.

“You? You the wife of Tudor Hereward? Impossible!” she muttered, glaring down on the little bowed head.

Lilith’s bosom heaved with a silent sob; but she did not reply.

“You the wife of Mr. Tudor Hereward? I say it is impossible!” repeated Madame Von Bruyin.

“I would to Heaven that it were impossible,” moaned Lilith.

“It cannot be true!” reiterated the baroness.

“I call Heaven to witness that it is true, madame. I am very sorry—I beg you to forgive me—I should never have told you, madame, but to save you from vain and sinful hopes and dreams. Indeed, I am very sorry, and I beg you to forgive me.”

“You are, then, the child-wife whom Tudor Hereward married in haste and in rage to be revenged on me?” sternly demanded the baroness.

Lilith, with her face still buried in her hands, answered by a nod and a silent sob.

153“You seem, then, to have entered my service under false pretences?” sneered the lady.

“No, madame,” gently replied Lilith, “under no false pretences. Under reserve, if you please, under reticence in regard to my past life, but under no false pretences.”

“You entered my service as a widow.”

“Pardon me, madame, I never told you that I was a widow. I signed my name to my letters, Elizabeth Wyvil. When we met you called me Miss Wyvil. I told you that I was not ‘Miss’ Wyvil. You then took it for granted that I was Mrs. and a widow—as, indeed, I was in fate, if not in law. Remember, dear madame, that I gave you my college testimonials as references, and told you that the good women who allowed me to refer to them—I mean Mrs. Ponsonby, of Baltimore, and Mrs. Downie, of New York—really knew very little of me, but had taken me up in faith and charity.”

“But why did you call yourself Mrs. Wyvil, and allow yourself to be considered as a widow, when your name was Hereward?” demanded the lady.

“Because my husband, on the day that he discarded me, forbade me to use his family name; and in obedience to him I dropped it, retaining only my own maiden name—Elizabeth Wyvil. I could not explain this fact to you without accusing my husband. Nor should I explain now but to prevent a great evil,” said Lilith.

Again silence fell between them, which Lilith was the first to break:

“You never once questioned me as to my state, madame. If you had asked me plainly, ‘Are you a widow?’ I must have told you that I was not except in fate. But you took it for granted that because I was not ‘Miss’ Wyvil I must be a widow.”

154“Yes, you are right. It was my own assumption,” said the baroness.

“I am very sorry that I have been with you in a mistaken position. I am ready to make any amends in my power; ready even to leave your service at this moment, if it be your wish that I should do so.”

“This moment! Why, you are out at sea and will have no opportunity to leave until we reach Havre.”

“I remember that, madame; but if you wish to part with me, I can leave you without leaving the ship. I can refund my passage money, and end our connection now and here.”

“And what would you do then?”

“As soon as we reach Havre take passage in the first ship back to New York, and return to Mrs. Downie.”

“Does she know your true story?”

“No; she knows me only as Elizabeth Wyvil. And by that name only must I be known, since my husband has forbidden me to use his.”

“My dear, I do not wish to part with you. But tell me, since you have told me the fact, why did your husband part with you?”

“Madame, you yourself gave the reason. I was not ‘fit’ to be his wife,” said Lilith, mournfully.

“My dear, I should never have said that if I had known you,” replied the baroness, who, notwithstanding her own disappointed love for Tudor Hereward, still felt her heart drawn in pity towards his young discarded wife—the youthful stranger to whom she had been so strongly attracted at first sight, and whom in after intercourse she had grown to love.

“But I am surprised that you, who are so different from the girl whom I had imagined as Hereward’s hastily married wife—you who are gifted with rare intelligence and sensibility—should have condescended 155to marry him at such very short notice. How was it?” gently inquired the baroness.

The answer came low and soft:

“Because I loved him, and believed he loved me.”

“You believed he loved you. Had he ever told you so?” demanded the lady.

“No, never. Tudor Hereward never spoke an untruth.”

“Then what reason, in the name of Heaven, had you for thinking that he loved you?”

“Because he asked me to become his wife. Of course I never once imagined that he could have any other motive than affection for wishing to marry me?”

“But did not the suddenness of the proposal—for an immediate marriage, too—awaken your suspicions?”

“No; for it was his dying father’s wish to see us married by his bedside before he should pass away.”

“Oh! That puts quite a new face upon the whole proceeding. Poor child! To please that dying father you consented to marry that son at a moment’s notice.”

“No, madame; no. It was, as I said, because I loved Tudor Hereward, and believed he loved me, that I consented. Otherwise I should never have done so, even to satisfy the beloved, dying father, though I would willingly have died to redeem his life, had that been possible,” earnestly answered Lilith.

“Ah, well! You loved him, and I suppose he knew it. That redeems the affair from utter abomination. But perhaps you do not like to speak of your short union with Mr. Hereward?”

“I do not shrink from speaking of it, nor do I break any faith in speaking of him, for, madame, we are parted more effectually than even death can part those who love each other.”

“But you love him?”

156Lilith answered by a deep, silent sob as she dropped her face into her hands.

“And you are so young! Only seventeen! How long have you loved this man, my dear?” compassionately inquired the lady.

“How long? As long as I have lived, I think. I do not remember the time when I did not love Tudor Hereward as I love my Lord. It was my religion to love him. I was brought up to worship God, and to adore Tudor Hereward. Under the Almighty, he was my lord, my law-giver. This love was my life,” murmured Lilith, in a low, thrilling, pathetic voice.

“Who trained you to this idolatry?”

“His father—my foster-father.”

Again silence fell between the two.

At length the baroness inquired:

“My dear, will you tell me how you came to be the foster-daughter of the late Major Hereward? But do not do so if you would rather not.”

“I have no objection,” answered Lilith.

And in a few brief words she told the story of her adoption as it is known to the reader.

“I am half inclined to retract all that I have said of Tudor Hereward. It may be that revenge did not enter into his scheme of marrying a child whom he did not love. It may be that he was actuated solely by the wish to please his father and to pay a sacred debt,” said the baroness.

“Yes, to pay a sacred debt. That is what they called it—a sacred debt. Ah! would to Heaven I had died with my mother rather than lived to be the creditor of that fatal debt! Heaven knows how soon I would have absolved both father and son from its responsibility had I known it was only for that cause I was to be married,” said Lilith, with a sigh so heavy that it moved the pity of the lady, who took the girl’s hand and held it kindly as she said:

157“I do suppose that a marriage contracted under such circumstances must, sooner or later, end just as yours has. And, my poor child, since it was doomed to end so, it is better that it should sooner than later. Yet—I cannot imagine that you could have given any provocation for an act so extreme as his repudiation of you; and I feel deeply interested to know just what precipitated the event.”

“Dear madame, I can only tell you that it was a misapprehension on his part, which, could he have loved and trusted me, need not have ended in the fatal quarrel that has separated us forever. You understand now. I need not go into the painful details of that scene.”

“No, you need not. And so you left your home secretly?”

“Oh, no, not secretly. For when at last he told me that he had never loved me; that he had only married me to please his father; that he should go away from his home and never return while I—desecrated—the house with my presence, then I answered that I must not be the means of driving him from his ancestral home; that I must depart.”

“Heavens! What did he say to that?”

“With a look full of scorn and wrath, he bade me quit his sight. I left the room, went to my chamber and prepared for my journey. I went away that night, leaving a farewell letter on my dressing-bureau.”

“And no one saw you go?”

“No one. It was late on a winter night, and I went forth alone.”

“Poor child! And this accounts for the story of your mysterious disappearance and supposed death.”

“Yes, I presume so. They must have believed that I came to my death after leaving the house.”

“And he believes that you are dead! And he suffers from remorse, if not from grief. Well, we shall 158find him on the other side. Shall we make your existence known to him?”

“I do not know, madame. I must think and pray over that question. But even if he be assured that I do still live, he must not be annoyed by the sight of my face. Oh! madame, though I long with all my soul to see him again, to hear his voice once more, yet, yet, I shrink from the ordeal as from fire!” said Lilith.

“I can well believe that. I am glad I did not tell you my news before we sailed. If I had done so, you would not perhaps have come with me.”

“No,” said Lilith.

Silence fell between the two women, and lasted until the bell rang for luncheon, for which neither of them felt the least desire.

It was an excuse for moving, however—something to do—and Madame Von Bruyin arose and offered her arm to her slighter companion and the two went down to the saloon together. It was about two o’clock. They were well out at sea now and the waves were rather high; the ship was rolling uncomfortably for those who had not found their sea legs and their sea stomachs.

Neither Madame Von Bruyin nor Lilith as yet suffered from the motion.

After lunch, however, each retired alone to her state-room.

The baroness threw herself into her berth and gave way to the tide of shame, grief and indignation which it had required all her pride, conscience and self-control to restrain while she was in the presence of Tudor Hereward’s young wife.

She had been strangely attracted to Lilith from the first meeting with her, and she had grown to love the girl with the fond, protecting love of an elder sister. She had given Lilith her confidence, revealed 159her inmost heart, told her love-story—even her love for Tudor Hereward to Tudor Hereward’s unknown wife! What a mortification in the thought that she had done so! Yet, there was a selfish comfort, which she blamed herself for taking, in the reflection that it was to the unloved and discarded wife that she had told this story.

She had within the past few days had her heart’s deepest affections raised from despair to something near absolute certainty. “Her hopes soared up like fire!” And in the exaltation of her spirits she had called on Lilith to share her joy and to congratulate her—only to have them all extinguished by the damper of the girl’s communication—“Tudor Hereward’s wife still lives.... I am Tudor Hereward’s most unhappy wife!”

How all her soul had risen up in defiance and contradiction of that statement until its truth was pressed in upon her consciousness. And then, all her sense of justice, all her powers of self-command were required to pass calmly through the ordeal of the interview that ensued. She had passed through it successfully. She had so mastered her pain and repressed her heart that she now felt sure Hereward’s young wife regarded Leda Von Bruyin’s love for him as the mere passing fancy of a wealthy woman of the world, soon to be forgotten in the change of travel or the whirl of society. She felt no jealousy of this despised and discarded wife, as she might have felt had Lilith been the beloved, honored and cherished companion of her husband; on the contrary, she felt pity, affection and sympathy for the poor, lonely and dependent child.

But her spirit blazed out in fierce anger of Tudor Hereward’s whole course of conduct toward them both, so that she was very unjust to him.

“He has ruined two lives by his arrogant recklessness 160and precipitation. He loved me; he never loved that poor girl. He loved me, and he ought to have waited, in hope and faith, as long as I continued unmarried. He ought not to have rushed into matrimony with that young creature whom he never loved, and so made her miserable and put an insurmountable obstacle between himself and me! Or—having married her, he should have cherished her and not discarded her.

“No, Tudor Hereward,” she continued to herself, “you are no longer the chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, that I once believed you! And—if I suffer now, it is not that I love you still, but that my love is dying hard—very, very hard!

“But I will take a queenly revenge upon you, my master! A most noble and royal revenge. This child-wife whom you have discarded shall be to me as the dearest little sister. She is already beautiful, elegant and graceful by nature. She is cultivated, refined and accomplished by education; all she needs is intercourse with the highest European circles to give her the tone and manner of the most cultured society. And that she shall have. I will introduce her, not as my salaried companion—though she shall have her salary and much more than her salary—but as my own adopted sister. And when you see her again, Tudor Hereward, you will not be likely to despise her.

“And oh!” she passionately broke forth, “that I had the power to annihilate the very fragments of that broken marriage tie and the very memory of it, in her mind, and give her, all perfect as I shall make her, into the hands of some nobler husband! But no! that would not be a worthy revenge.

“To give her back, a pearl above price, to you, perhaps! Can I do that? Can I conquer myself so entirely? That would be a magnanimous revenge.”

161So ran the thoughts of the petted beauty, rioting through a mind governed rather by feeling than by reason, yet with much more of good than evil in it.

Meanwhile, Lilith, lying on the narrow sofa in her state-room, gave way to one hearty fit of crying, and then wiped her eyes, and began to try to understand her position and her duty.

She was not jealous of the handsome baroness, either. She remembered all her husband had told her of his first fancy, of how harshly he had come to judge her, and she fully believed that Madame Von Bruyin deceived herself in imagining that Tudor Hereward still continued to love her, or to entertain other feelings than disapprobation and dislike towards her.

Lilith now knew, from her intimate relations with the baroness, that Mr. Hereward had greatly misjudged her; that she was not, and never had been, the heartless coquette he had termed her; but that, in spite of her training, she was a warm-hearted, generous and conscientious woman.

But the question now before Lilith was—whether she should continue with the baroness, and run the risk of meeting Hereward in the court circle of the city to which they were going, or whether she should, on reaching Havre, take the first homeward bound steamer and return to New York and to the safe protection of Aunt Sophie’s humble roof.

And though Lilith thought over this question and prayed over it, yet she had come to no decision when there came a rap, followed by the entrance of Lisette, the lady’s maid, who said:

“Madame has sent me to say that it is time for dinner, and to see if I can assist you, madame.”

“Thank you, no. I will be ready in a few minutes,” replied Lilith, rising from her sofa, and beginning to smooth down her dress and arrange her hair.

162She soon completed her very simple toilet and went out into the cabin, where she found the baroness waiting for her.

The lady looked pale and grave, but otherwise as usual. No one could have judged from her manner the dread ordeal through which she was passing.

She looked searchingly into Lilith’s face, and saw there the traces of emotion but recently overcome. She smiled softly, as she drew the girl’s arm within her own and whispered:

“We do not either of us look quite well, dear; but n’importe—the fault will be laid upon the sea! On land, all our feminine troubles, for which we do not wish to account, we explain by a headache. At sea, all grievances of soul or body may be put down to sea-sickness. Is a woman pale from vexation or disappointment? She is only sea-sick. Is a man unable to leave his berth in the morning, from having had too much champagne over night? He is very sea-sick, poor wretch! Come! let us go into the saloon.”

There were very few people at the tables, and so Madame Von Bruyin and her companion had a large share of attention from the stewards. Yet they could receive but little benefit from the sumptuous fare laid before them, and they soon left the table for the upper deck, where they sat late into the June night, watching the clear, starlit heavens above and the boundless expanse of ocean below.

At eleven they retired to their berths.

And so ended the first day at sea.

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