"It kept you busy, Francois. There was the little peasant girl on the

Rhine. What flaxen hair she had and eyes like the sky! Yet a word of

praise--a little flattery--"

"My lord was irresistible," said the valet with mild sarcasm.

"Let me see, Francois, what became of her?"

"She drowned herself in the river."

"That is true. I had forgotten. Well, life is measured by pleasures,

not by years, and I was the prince of coxcombs. Up at ten o'clock;

no sooner on account of the complexion; then visits from the

tradespeople and a drive in the park to look at the ladies. It was

there I used to meet the English actress. 'Twas there, with her, I

vowed the park was a garden of Eden! What a scene, when my barrister

tried to settle the case! Fortunately a marriage in England was not

a marriage in France. I saw her last night, Francois"--with an

insane look--"in the flesh and blood; as life-like as the night

before we took the stage for Brighton!" Suddenly he shrieked and a

look of terror replaced the vain, simpering expression.

"There, Francois!" Glancing with awe behind him. And truly there stood

a dark shadow; a gruesome presence. His face became distorted and he

lapsed into unconsciousness.

The valet gazed at him with indifference. Then he went to an inner

room and brought a valise which he began packing carefully and

methodically. After he had completed this operation he approached the

dressing table and took up a magnificent jeweled watch, which he

examined for a moment before thrusting it into his pocket. A snuff

box, set with diamonds, and several rings followed. Francois with the

same deliberation opened a drawer and took out a small box which he

tried to open, and, failing, forced the lid with the poker. At this,

my lord opened his eyes, and, in a weak voice, for his strength had

nearly deserted him, demanded:

"What are you doing, Francois?"

"Robbing you, my lord," was the slow and dignified response.

The marquis' eyes gleamed with rage. He endeavored to call out, but

his voice failed him and he fell back, trembling and overcome.

"Thief! Ingrate!" he hissed, hoarsely.

"I beg you not to excite yourself, my lord," said the stately valet.

"You are already very weak and it will hasten the end."

"Is this the way you repay me?"

"My lord will not need these things soon."

"Have you no gratitude?" stammered the marquis, whose physical and

mental condition was truly pitiable.

"Gratitude for having been called 'idiot,' 'dog,' and 'blockhead'

nearly all my life! I am somewhat lacking in that quality, I fear."

"Is there no shame in you?"

"Shame?" repeated Francois, as he proceeded to ransack another drawer.

"There might have been before I went into your service, my lord. Yes;

once I felt shame for you. It was years ago, in London, when you

deserted your beautiful wife. When I saw how she worshiped you and

what a noble woman she was, I confess I felt ashamed that I served one

of the greatest blackguards in Europe--"

"Oh, you scoundrel--" exclaimed the marquis, his face becoming a

ghastly hue.

"Be calm, my lord. You really are in need of all your energy. For

years I have submitted to your shameful service. I have been at the

beck and call of one of the greatest roues and villains in France.

Years of such association would somewhat soil any nature. Another

thing, my lord, I must tell you, since you and I are settling our last

accounts. For years I have endured your miserable King Louis Philippe.

A king? Bah! He fled from the back door! A coward, who shaved his

whiskers for a disguise."

"No more, rascal!"

"Rascal yourself, you worn-out, driveling breath of corruption! It is

so pleasant to exercise a gentleman's privilege of invective! Ah, here

is the purse. _Au revoir_, my lord. A pleasant dissolution!"

But by this time the marquis was speechless, and Francois, taking the

valise in hand, deferentially left the room. He locked the door behind

him and thrust the key into his pocket.

CHAPTER XII

IN THE OLD CEMETERY

The engagement at the new St. Charles was both memorable and

profitable, The Picayune, before the fifties, an audacious sheet,

being especially kind to the players. "This paper," said a writer of

the day, "was as full of witticisms as one of Thackeray's dreams after

a light supper, and, as for Editors Straws and Phazma, they are poets

who eat, talk and think rhyme." The Picayune contained a poem

addressed to Miss Carew, written by Straws in a cozy nook in the

veranda at the Lake End, with his absinthe before him and the remains

of an elaborate repast about him. It was then quite the fashion to

write stanzas to actresses; the world was not so prosaic as it is now,

and even the president of the United States, John Quincy Adams, penned

graceful verses to a fair ward of Thalia.

One noon, a few days after the opening performance, several members of

the company were late for rehearsal and Barnes strode impatiently to

and fro, glancing at his watch and frowning darkly. To avenge himself

for the remissness of the players, he roared at the stage carpenters

who were constructing a balcony and to the supers who were shifting

flats to the scenery room. The light from an open door at the back of

the stage dimly illumined the scene; overhead, in the flies, was

intense darkness; while in front, the auditorium yawned like a chasm,

in no wise suggestive of the brilliant transformation at night.

"Ugh!" said Susan, standing in one of the entrances. "It is like

playing to ghosts! Fancy performing to an audience of specters!

Perhaps the phantoms of the past really do assemble in their old

places on occasions like this. Only you can't hear them applaud or

laugh."

"Are you looking for admirers among ghosts?" remarked Hawkes,

ironically.

"Don't," she returned, with a little shiver.

"So, ladies and gentlemen, you are all here at last?" exclaimed

Barnes, interrupting this cheerful conversation. "Some of you are late

again to-day. It must not happen again. Go to Victor's, Moreau's, or

Miguel's, as much as you please. If you have a headache or a heartache

in consequence, that is your own affair, but I am not to be kept

waiting the next day."

"Victor's, indeed!" retorted the elastic old lady. "As if--"

"No one supposed, Madam, that at your age"--began the manager.

"At my age! If you think--"

"Are you all ready?" interrupted Barnes, hastily, knowing he would be

worsted in any argument with this veteran player. "Then clear the

stage! Act first!" And the rehearsal began.

If the audience were specters, the performers moved, apparently

without rhyme or reason, mere shadows on the dimly lighted stage;

enacting some semblance to scenes of mortal life; their jests and

gibes, unnatural in that comparatively empty place; their voices, out

of the semi-darkness, like those of spirits rehearsing acts of long

ago. In the evening it would all become an amusing, bright-colored

reality, but now the barrenness of the scenes was forcibly apparent.

"That will do for to-day," said the manager at the conclusion of the

last act. "To-morrow, ladies and gentlemen, at the same time. And any

one who is late--will be fined!"

"Changing the piece every few nights is all work and no play,"

complained Susan.

"It will keep you out of mischief, my dear," replied Barnes, gathering

up his manuscripts.

"Oh, I don't know about that!" returned Miss Susan, with a defiant

toss of the head, as she moved toward the dressing-room where they

had left their wraps. It was a small apartment, fairly bright and

cheery, with here and there a portrait against the wall. Above the

dressing-table hung a mirror, diamond-scratched with hieroglyphic

scrawls, among which could be discerned a transfixed heart, spitted

like a lark on an arrow, and an etching of Lady Gay Spanker, with

cork-screw curls. Taglioni, in pencil caricature, her limbs

"divinely slender," gyrated on her toes in reckless abandon above

this mute record of names now forgotten.

"What lovely roses, Constance!" exclaimed Susan, as she entered,

bending over a large bouquet on one of the chairs. "From the count, I

presume?"

"Yes," indifferently answered the young girl, who was adjusting her

hat before the mirror.

"How attentive he is!" cooed Susan, her tones floating in a higher

register. "Poor man! Enjoy yourself while you may, my dear," she went

on. "When youth is gone, what is left? Women should sow their wild

oats as well as men. I don't call them wild oats, though, but

paradisaical oats. The Elysian fields are strewn with them."

As she spoke, her glance swept her companion searchingly, and, in that

brief scrutiny, Susan observed with inward complacency how pale the

other was, and how listless her manner! Their common secret, however,

made Susan's outward demeanor sweetly solicitous and gently

sympathetic. Her mind, passing in rapid review over recent events,

dwelt not without certain satisfaction upon results. True, every night

she was still forced to witness Constance's success, which of itself

was wormwood and gall to Susan, to stand in the wings and listen to

the hateful applause; but the conviction that the sweets of popular

favor brought not what they were expected to bring, was, in a way, an

antidote to Susan's dissatisfaction.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing and can sometimes be made

annoying; in Susan's case it was a weapon sharpened with honeyed

phrase and consolatory bearing, for she was not slow to discover nor

to avail herself of the irritating power this knowledge gave her.

Constance's pride and reticence, however, made it difficult for Susan

to discern when her shafts went true. Moreover, although harboring no

suspicion of Susan's dissimulation, she instinctively held aloof from

her and remained coldly unresponsive. Perhaps in the depths of Susan's

past lurked something indefinable which threw its shadow between them,

an inscrutable impediment; and her inability to penetrate the young

actress' reserve, however she might wound her, awakened Susan's

resentment. But she was too world-wise to display her irritation. She

even smiled sweetly now, as confidante to confidante, and, turning to

her impulsively, said:

"Let me help you on with your cloak, dear?"

Out of the quiet, deserted theater, isolated from external din, to the

busy streets, where drays went thundering by, and industry manifested

itself in resounding clatter, was a sudden, but not altogether

unwelcome, change to Constance. Without waiting for the manager, who

paused at the rear entrance to impress his final instructions upon a

stolid-looking property-man, she turned quickly into the noisy

thoroughfares.

On and on her restlessness led her, conscious of the clangor of

vehicles and voices and yet remote from them; past those picturesque

suggestions of the one-time Spanish rulers in which the antiquarian

could detect evidence of remote Oriental infusion; past the silken

seductions of shops, where ladies swarmed and hummed like bees around

the luscious hive; past the idlers' resorts, from whence came the

rat-a-tat of clinking billiard balls and the louder rumble of falling

ten-pins.

In a window of one of these places, a club with a reputation for

exclusiveness, a young man was seated, newspaper in hand, a cup of

black coffee on a small table before him, and the end of a cigar

smoking on the tray where he had placed it. With a yawn, he had just

thrown aside the paper and was reaching for the thick, dark

beverage--his hand thin and nervous--when, glancing without, he caught

sight of the actress in the crowd. Obeying a sudden impulse, he arose,

picking up his hat which lay on a chair beside him.

"Yo' order am ready in a moment, Mr. Mauville," said a colored

servant, hurrying toward the land baron as the latter was leaving.

"I've changed my mind and don't want it," replied the other curtly.

And sauntering down the steps of the club with ill-concealed

impatience, he turned in the direction the young girl had taken,

keeping her retreating figure in view; now, so near her in the crowded

street, he could almost touch her; then, as they left the devious

ways, more distant, but ever with his eyes bent upon her. He had

almost spoken, when in the throng he approached within arm's length,

but something--he knew not what--restrained him, and a press of people

separated them. Only for a moment, and then he continued the

questionable pleasure of following her.

Had she turned, she would probably have seen her pursuer, but absorbed

in thought, she continued on her way, unconscious of his presence. On

and on she hurried, until she reached the tranquil outskirts and

lingered before the gate of one of the cemeteries. At the same time

the land baron slackened his footsteps, hesitating whether to advance

or turn back. After a moment's indecision, she entered the cemetery;

her figure, receding in the distance, was becoming more and more

indistinct, when he started forward quickly and also passed through

the gate.

The annual festival of the dead, following All Saint's day, was being

observed in the burial ground. This commemoration of those who have

departed in the communion--described by Tertullian in the second

century as an "apostolic tradition," so old was the sacrifice!--was

celebrated with much pomp and variety in the Crescent City. In the

vicinity of the cemetery gathered many colored _marchandes_, their

heads and shoulders draped in shawls and fichus of bright, diversified

hues; before them, perambulating booths with baskets of molasses candy

or _pain-patate_. Women, dressed in mourning, bore to the tomb flowers

and plants, trays of images, wreaths, crosses, anchors of dried

immortelles and artificial roses. Some were accompanied by priests and

acolytes with censers, the former intoning the service:

Fidelium Deus omnium conditor--

A solemn peace fell upon the young girl as she entered and she seemed

to leave behind her all disturbing emotions, finding refuge in the

supreme tranquillity of this ancient city of the dead. She was

surrounded by a resigned grief, a sorrow so dignified that it did not

clash with the sweeter influences of nature. The monotonous sound of

the words of the priests harmonized with the scene. The tongue of a

nation that had been resolved into the elements was fitting in this

place, where time and desolation had left their imprint in discolored

marble, inscriptions almost effaced, and clambering vines.

--Animabus famulorum--

To many the words so mournfully intoned brought solace and surcease

from sorrow. The sisters of charity moved among the throng with grave,

pale faces, mere shadows of their earthly selves, as though they had

undergone the first stage of the great metamorphosis which is

promised. To them, who had already buried health, vitality and

passion, was not this chant to the dead, this strange intoning of

words, sweeter than the lullaby crooned by a nurse to a child, more

stirring than the patriotic hymn to a soldier, and fraught with more

fervor than the romantic dream of a lover?

Ut indulgentiam, quam semper optaverunt--

The little orphan children heard and heeded no more than the butterfly

which lighted upon the engraven words, "Dust to dust," and poised

gracefully, as it bathed in the sunshine, stretching its wings in

wantonness of beauty.

Piis supplicationibus consequantur--

Now Constance smiled to see the little ones playing on the steps of a

monument. It was the tomb of a great jurist, a man of dignity during

his mundane existence, his head crammed with those precepts which are

devised for the temporal well-being of that fabric, sometimes termed

society, and again, civilization. The poor waifs, with suppressed

laughter--they dared not give full vent to their merriment with the

black-robed sisters not far away--ran around the steps, unmindful of

the inscription which might have been written by a Johnson, and as

unconscious of unseemly conduct as the insects that hummed in the

grass.

"Hush!" whispered one of the sisters, as a funeral cortege approached.

The children, wide-eyed in awe and wonder, desisted in their play.

"It is an old man who died last night," said a nun in a low voice to

Constance, noticing her look of inquiry.

The silver crucifix shone fitfully ahead, while the chanting of the

priests, winding in and out after the holy symbol, fell upon the ear.

And the young girl gazed with pity as the remains of the Marquis de

Ligne, her father, were borne by.

Qui vivis et regnas. Glorificamus te.

CHAPTER XIII

AN INCONGRUOUS ROLE

Longer and longer trailed the shadow of a tall tombstone until, as the

sun went down, it merged into the general twilight like a life

lengthening out and out and finally blending in restful darkness. With

that transition came a sudden sense of isolation and loneliness; the

little burial ground seemed the world; the sky, its walls and

ceiling.

From the neighborhood of the gates had vanished the dusky venders,

trundling their booths and stalls citywards. As abruptly had

disappeared the bearers of flowers and artificial roses with baskets

poised upon their heads, imparting to their figures dignity and

erectness. The sad-eyed nuns had wended their way out of the little

kingdom of the departed, surrounded by the laughing children and

preceded by the priests and acolytes. All the sounds and activities of

the day--the merriment of the little ones, the oblations of the

priests, the greetings of friends--were followed by inertness and

languor. Motionless against the sky spread the branches of the trees,

like lines etched there; still were the clambering vines that clasped

monolith and column.

But suddenly that death-like lull in nature's animation and unrest was

abruptly broken, and an uproarious vociferation dispelled the

voiceless peace.

"For Jack ashore's a Croesus, lads,

With a Jill for every Jack--"

sang a hoarse voice as its owner came staggering along one of the

walks of the cemetery; for all his song, no blue-water sailor-man, but

a boisterous denizen of the great river, a raftsman or a keel-boatman,

who had somehow found himself in the burial ground and now was beating

aimlessly about. How this rollicking waif of the grog shop came to

wander so far from the convivial haunts of his kind and to choose this

spot for a ramble, can only be explained by the vagaries of

inebriety.

"With a Jill in your wake,

A fair port you'll make--"

he continued, when his eye fell upon the figure of a woman, some

distance ahead, and fairly discernible in the gathering twilight.

Immediately the song ceased and he steadied himself, gazing

incredulously after the form that had attracted his attention.

"Hello!" he said. "Avast, my dear!" he called out.

Echoing in that still place, his harsh tones produced a startling

effect, and the figure before him moved faster and faster, casting a

glance behind her at the man from the river, who with snatches of

song, started in uncertain but determined pursuit. As the heavy

footsteps sounded nearer, she increased her pace, with eyes bent upon

the distant gate; darker seemed to grow the way; more menacing the

shadows outstretched across the path. Louder crunched the boots on the

shell walk; more audible became the words of the song that flowed from

his lips, when the sound of a sudden and violent altercation replaced

the hoarse-toned cadence, an altercation that was of brief duration,

characterized by longshoreman oaths, and followed by silence; and then

a figure, not that of the tuneful waterman, sprang to the side of the

startled girl.

"Miss Carew!" exclaimed a well-remembered voice.

Bewildered, breathing quickly, she gazed from Edward Mauville, who

thus unexpectedly accosted her, to the prostrate form, lying

motionless on the road. The rude awakening from her day-dream in the

hush of that peaceful place, and the surprising sequence had dazed her

senses, and, for the moment, it seemed something tragic must have

happened.

"Is he dead?" she asked quickly, unable to withdraw her glance from

the immovable figure, stretched out in the dim light on the path.

"No fear!" said Mauville, quietly, almost thoughtfully, although his

eyes were yet bright from the encounter. "You can't kill his kind," he

added, contemptuously. "Brutes from coal barges, or raftsmen from the

head waters! He struck against a stone when he fell, and what with

that, and the liquor in him, will rest there awhile. He'll come to

without remembering what has happened."

Turning moodily, the land baron walked slowly down the road, away from

the gate; she thought he was about to leave her, when he paused, as

though looking for something, stooped to the ground, and returned,

holding out a garment.

"You dropped your wrap, Miss Carew," he said, awkwardly. "The night is

cold and you will need it." She offered no resistance when he placed

it over her shoulders; indeed, seemed unconscious of the attention.

"Don't you think we had better go?" he went on. "It won't hurt

him"--indicating the motionless body--"to stay here--the brute!"

But as he spoke, with some constraint, her eyes, full of doubts, met

his, and he felt a flush mantle his face. The incongruity of his

position appealed forcibly to him. Had he not been watching and

following her himself? Seeing her helpless, alone, in the silent spot,

where she had unconsciously lingered too long, had he not been almost

on the point of addressing her? Moved by vague desires, had he not

already started impetuously toward her, when the man from the river

had come rollicking along and insinuated himself after his fashion in

the other's role?

And at the sight--the fleeing girl, the drunken, profane waterman!--how

his heart had leaped and his body had become steel for the encounter;

an excess of vigor for a paltry task! Jack, as he called himself, might

have been a fighting-man earlier in the day, but now he had gone down

like straw. When the excitement of this brief collision was over,

however, the land baron found his position as unexpected as puzzling.

As these thoughts swiftly crossed his mind, he could not forbear a

bitter laugh, and she, walking more quickly toward the gate, regarded

him with inquiry, not perhaps unmingled with apprehension. A picture

of events, gone by, arose before her like a menacing shadow over the

present. He interpreted her glance for what it meant, and angry that

she doubted him, angry with himself, said roughly:

"Oh, you haven't anything to fear!"

Her answering look was so gentle, so sad, an unwonted feeling of

compunction seized him; he repented of his harshness, and added less

brusquely:

"Why did you remain so late?"

"I did not realize how late it had become."

"Your thoughts must have been very absorbing!" he exclaimed quickly,

his brow once more overcast.

Not difficult was it for him to surmise upon whom her mind had been

bent, and involuntarily his jaw set disagreeably, while he looked at

her resentfully. In that light he could but dimly discern her face.

Her bonnet had fallen from her head; her eyes were bent before her, as

though striving to penetrate the gathering darkness. With his sudden

spell of jealousy came the temptation to clasp her in his arms in that

silent, isolated place, but the figure of the sailor came between him

and the desire, while pride, the heritage of the gentleman, fought

down the longing. This self-conquest was not accomplished, however,

without a sacrifice of temper, for after a pause, he observed:

"There is no accounting for a woman's taste!"

She did not controvert this statement, but the start she gave told him

the shaft had sped home.

"An outlaw! An outcast!" exclaimed the patroon, stung beyond endurance

by his thoughts.

Still no reply; only more hurried footsteps! Around them sounded a

gentle rustling; a lizard scrambled out of their path through the

crackling leaves; a bat, or some other winged creature, suddenly

whirred before them and vanished. They had now approached the gate,

through which they passed and found themselves on the road leading

directly to the city, whose lights had already begun to twinkle in the

dusk.

The cheering rumble of a carriage and the aspect of the not

far-distant town quickened her spirits and imparted elasticity to her

footsteps. Upon the land baron they produced an opposite effect, for

he was obviously reluctant to abandon the interview, however

unsatisfactory it might be. There was nothing to say, and yet he was

loath to leave her; there was nothing to accomplish, and yet he wished

to remain with her. For this reason, as they drew near the city, his

mood became darker, like the night around them. Instinctively, she

felt the turbulent passions stirring in his bosom; his sudden silence,

his dogged footsteps reawakened her misgivings. Furtively she regarded

him, but his eyes were fixed straight before him on the soft luster

above the city, the reflection of the lights, and she knew and

mistrusted his thoughts. Although she found his silence more menacing

than his words, she could think of nothing to say to break the spell,

and so they continued to walk mutely side by side. An observer, seeing

them beneath the cypress, a lovers' promenade, with its soft,

enfolding shadows, would have taken them for a well-matched couple,

who had no need for language.

But when they had emerged from that romantic lane and entered the

city, the land baron breathed more freely. She was now surrounded by

movement and din; the seclusion of the country gave way to the stir of

the city; she was no longer dependent on his good offices; his role of

protector had ended when they left the cypress walk behind them.

His brow cleared; he glanced at her with ill-concealed admiration; he

noticed with secret pride the attention she attracted from passers-by,

the sidelong looks of approval that followed her through the busy

streets. The land baron expanded into his old self; he strode at her

side, gratified by the scrutiny she invited; assurance radiated from

his eyes like some magnetic heat; he played at possession wilfully,

perversely. "Why not," whispered Hope. "A woman's mind is shifting

ever. Her fancy--a breath! The other is gone. Why--"

"It was not accident my being in the cemetery, Miss Carew," said

Mauville, suddenly covering her with his glance. Meeting her look of

surprise unflinchingly, he continued: "I followed you there; through

the streets, into the country! My seeing you first was chance; my

presence in the burial ground the result of that chance. The

inevitable result!" he repeated softly. "As inevitable as life! Life;

what is it? Influences which control us; forces which bind us! It is

you, or all; you or nothing!"

She did not reply; his voice, vibrating with feeling, touched no

answering chord. Nevertheless, a new, inexplicable wave of sorrow

moved her. It might be he had cared for her as sincerely as it was

possible for his wayward heart to care for any one. Perhaps time would

yet soften his faults, and temper his rashness. With that shade of

sorrow for him there came compassion as well; compassion that

overlooked the past and dwelt on the future.

She raised her steady eyes. "Why should it be 'I or nothing,' as you

put it?" she finally answered slowly. "Influences may control us in a

measure, but we may also strive for something. We can always strive."

"For what? For what we don't want? That's the philosophy of your

moralists, Miss Carew," he exclaimed. "That's your modern ethics of

duty. Playing tricks with happiness! The game isn't worth the candle.

Or, if you believe in striving," he added, half resentfully, half

imploringly, "strive to care for me but a little. But a little!" he

said again. "I who once wanted all, and would have nothing but all, am

content to ask, to plead, for but a little."

"I see no reason," she replied, wearily, yet not unkindly, "why we

should not be friends."

"Friends!" he answered, bitterly. "I do not beg for a loaf, but

a crumb. Yet you refuse me that! I will wait! Only a word of

encouragement! Will you not give it?"

She turned and looked into his eyes, and, before she spoke, he knew

what her answer would be.

"How can I?" she said, simply. "Why should I promise something I can

never fulfil?"

He held her glance as though loath to have it leave him.

"May I see you again?" he asked, abruptly.

She shook her head. His gaze fell, seeing no softening in her clear

look.

"You are well named," he repeated, more to himself than to her.

"Constance! You are constant in your dislikes as well as your likes."

"I have no dislike for you," she replied. "It seems to have been left

behind me somewhere."

"Only indifference, then!" he said, dully.

"No; not indifference!"

"You do care what--may become of me?"

"You should do so much--be so much in the world," she answered,

thoughtfully.

"_Sans peur et sans reproche!_" he cried, half-amused, half-cheerlessly.

"What a pity I met you--too late!"

They were now at the broad entrance of the brilliantly-lighted hotel.

Several loungers, smoking their after-dinner cigars, gazed at the

couple curiously.

"Mauville's a lucky dog," said one.

"Yes; he was born with a silver spoon," replied the person addressed.

As he passed through the envious throng, the land baron had regained

his self-command, although his face was marked with an unusual pallor.

In his mind one thought was paramount--that the walk begun at the

burial-ground was drawing to an end; their last walk; the finale of

all between them! Yet he could call to mind nothing further to say.

His story had been told; the conclusion reached. She, too, had spoken,

and he knew she would never speak differently. Bewildered and unable

to adjust his new and strange feelings, it dawned upon him he had

never understood himself and her; that he had never really known what

love was, and he stood abashed, confronted by his own ignorance.

Passion, caprice, fancy, he had seen depth in their shallows, but now

looked down and discerned the pebbly bottom. All this and much more

surged through his brain as he made his way through the crowd, and,

entering the corridor of the hotel, took formal leave of the young

girl at the stairway.

"Good-night, Miss Carew," he said, gravely.

"Good-night," she replied. And then, on the steps, she turned and

looked down at him, extending her hand: "Thank you!"

That half-timid, low "thank you!" he knew was all he would ever

receive from her. He hardly felt the hand-clasp; he was hardly

conscious when she turned away. A heavier hand fell upon his

shoulder.

"You sly dog!" said a thick voice. "Well, a judge of a good horse is a

judge of a handsome woman! We're making up a few bets on the horses

to-morrow. Colonel Ogelby will ride Dolly D, and I'm to ride my

Gladiator. It'll be a gentlemen's race."

"Aren't we gentlemen?" growled a professional turfsman.

"Gad! it's the first time I ever heard a jockey pretend to be one!"

chuckled the first speaker. "What do you say, Mauville?"

"What do I say?" repeated the land baron, striving to collect his

thoughts. "What--why, I'll make it an even thousand, if you ride your

own horse, you'll--"

"Win?" interrupted the proud owner.

"No; fall off before he's at the second quarter!"

"Done!" said the man, immediately.

"Huzza!" shouted the crowd.

"That's the way they bet on a gentlemen's race!" jeered the gleeful

jockey.

"Drinks on Gladiator!" exclaimed some one. And as no southern

gentleman was ever known to refuse to drink to a horse or a woman, the

party carried the discussion to the bar-room.

BOOK III

THE FINAL CUE

CHAPTER I

OVERLOOKING THE COURT-YARD

"In the will of the Marquis de Ligne, probated yesterday, all of the

property, real and personal, is left to his daughter, Constance,"

wrote Straws in his paper shortly after the passing of the French

nobleman. "The document states this disposition of property is made as

'an act of atonement and justice to my daughter, whose mother I

deserted, taking advantage of the French law to annul my marriage in

England.' The legitimacy of the birth of this, his only child, is

thereupon fully acknowledged by the marquis after a lapse of many

years and long after the heretofore unrecognized wife had died,

deserted and forgotten. Thrown on her own resources, the young child,

with no other friend than Manager Barnes, battled with the world; now

playing in taverns or barns, like the players of interludes, the

strollers of old, or 'vagabonds', as the great and mighty Junius, from

his lofty plane, termed them. The story of that period of 'vagrant'

life adds one more chapter to the annals of strolling players which

already include such names as Kemble, Siddons and Kean.

"From the Junius category to a public favorite of New Orleans has been

no slight transition, and now, to appear in the role of daughter of a

marquis and heiress to a considerable estate--truly man--and

woman--play many parts in this brief span called life! But in making

her sole heir the marquis specifies a condition which will bring

regrets to many of the admirers of the actress. He robs her of her

birthright from her mother. The will stipulates that the recipient

give up her profession, not because it is other than a noble one, but

'that she may the better devote herself to the duties of her new

position and by her beneficence and charity remove the stain left upon

an honored name by my second wife, the Duchesse D'Argens'."

The marquis' reference to "charity" and "beneficence" was in such

ill-accord with his character that it might be suspected an adroit

attorney, in drawing up the document, had surreptitiously inserted it.

His proud allusion to his honored name and slurring suggestion of the

taint put upon it by his second wife demonstrated the marquis was not

above the foibles of his kind, overlooking his own light conduct and

dwelling on that of his noble helpmate. It was the final taunt, and,

as the lady had long since been laid in God's Acre, where there is

only silence divine, it received no answer, and the world was welcome

to digest and gorge it and make the most of it.

But although the marquis and his lady had no further interest in

subsequent events, growing out of their brief sojourn on earth, the

contents of the will afforded a theme of gossip for the living and

molded the affairs of one in new shape and manner. On the same day

this public exposition appeared, Barnes and the young actress were

seated in the law office of Marks and Culver, a room overlooking a

court-yard, brightened by statues and urns of flowers. A plaster bust

of Justinian gazed benignly through the window at a fountain; a steel

engraving of Jeremy Bentham watched the butterflies, and Hobbes and

John Austin, austere in portraiture, frowned darkly down upon the

flowering garden. While the manager and Constance waited for the

attorney to appear, they were discussing, not for the first time, the

proviso of the will to which Straws had regretfully alluded.

"Yes," said Barnes, folding the newspaper which contained Straws'

article and placing it in his pocket; "you should certainly give up

the stage. We must think of the disappointments, the possible failure,

the slender reward. There was your mother--such an actress!--yet

toward the last the people flocked to a younger rival. I have often

thought anxiously of your future, for I am old--yes, there is no

denying it!--and any day I may leave you, dependent solely upon

yourself."

"Do not speak like that," she answered, tenderly. "We shall be

together many, many years."

"Always, if I had my way," he returned, heartily.

"But with this legacy you are superior to the fickle public. In fact,

you are now a part of the capricious public, my dear," he added in a

jocular tone, "and may applaud the 'heavy father,' myself, or prattle

about prevailing styles while the buskined tragedian is strutting

below your box. Why turn to a blind bargain? Fame is a jade, only

caught after our illusions are gone and she seems not half so sweet as

when pursuing her in our dreams!"

But as he spoke, with forced lightness, beneath which, however, the

young girl could readily detect the vein of anxiety and regret, she

was regarding him with the clear eyes of affection. His face, seamed

with many lines and bearing the deeply engraved handwriting of time,

spoke plainly of declining years; every lineament was eloquent with

vicissitudes endured; and as she discerningly read that varied past of

which her own brief career had been a part, there entered her mind a

brighter picture of a tranquil life for him at last, where in old age

he could exchange uncertainty and activity for security and rest. How

could she refuse to do as he desired? How often since fate had wrought

this change in her life had she asked herself the question?

Her work, it is true, had grown dearer to her than ever; of late she

had thrown herself into her task with an ardor and earnestness lifting

each portrayal to a higher plane. Is it that only with sorrow comes

the fulness of art; that its golden gates are never swung entirely

open to the soul bearing no burden?

Closed to ruder buffetings, is it only to the sesame of a sad voice

those portals spring magically back? But for his sake she must needs

pause on the threshold of attainment, and stifle that ambition which

of itself precluded consideration of a calm, uneventful existence. She

was young and full of courage, but the pathos of his years smote her

heart; something inexplicable had awakened her fears for him; she

believed him far from well of late, although he laughed at her

apprehensions and protested he had never been better in his life.

Now, reading the anxiety in his face as he watched her, she smiled

reassuringly, her glance, full of love, meeting his.

"Everything shall be as you wish," she said, softly. "You know what is

best!"

The manager's face lighted perceptibly, but before he could answer,

the door opened, and Culver, the attorney, entered. With ruddy

countenance and youthful bearing, in antithesis to the hair,

silvered with white, he was one of those southern gentlemen who grow

old gracefully. The law was his taskmaster; he practised from a sense

of duty, but ever held that those who rushed to court were likely

to repeat the experience of Voltaire, who had twice been ruined:

once when he lost a law suit; the second time, when he won one!

Nevertheless, people persisted in coming to Culver wantonly welcoming

unknown ills.

"Well, Miss Carew," he now exclaimed, after warmly greeting his

visitors, "have you disburdened yourself of prejudice against this

estate? Wealth may be a little hardship at first, but soon you won't

mind it."

"Not a bit!" spoke up Barnes. "It's as easy to get used to as--poverty,

and we've had plenty of that!"

"You know the other condition?" she said, half-defiantly, half-sadly.

"You are to be with me always."

"How can you teach an old dog new tricks?" protested Barnes. "How can

you make a fine man about town out of a 'heavy father?'"

"The 'heavy father' is my father. I never knew any other. I am glad I

never did."

"Hoity-toity!" he exclaimed scoffingly, but pleased nevertheless.

"You can't put me off that way," she said, decisively, with a sudden

flash in her eyes he knew too well to cross. "Either you leave the

stage, too, or--"

"Of course, my dear, of course--"

"Then it's all settled you will accept the encumbrance to which you

have fallen heir," resumed Culver. "Even if there had been no will in

your favor, the State of Louisiana follows the French law, and the

testator can under no circumstances alienate more than half his

property, if he leave issue or descendants. Had the old will remained,

its provisions could not have been legally carried out."

"The old will?" said Barnes. "Then there was another will?"

"One made before he was aware of your existence, Miss Carew, in favor

of his ward, Ernest Saint-Prosper."

"Ernest Saint-Prosper!"

Constance's cheeks flamed crimson, and her quick start of surprise did

not escape the observant lawyer. Barnes, too, looked amazed over this

unexpected intelligence.

"Saint-Prosper was the marquis' ward?" he cried.

The attorney transferred his gaze from the expressive features of his

fair client to the open countenance of the manager. "Yes," he said.

"And would have inherited this property but for Constance?"

"Exactly! But you knew him, Mr. Barnes?"

"He was an occupant of the chariot, sir," replied the manager, with

some feeling. "We met in the Shadengo Valley; the company was in sore

straits, and--and--to make a long story short!--he joined our band and

traversed the continent with us. And so he was the marquis' ward! It

seems almost incredible!"

"Yes," affirmed Culver; "when General Saint-Prosper, his father, died,

Ernest Saint-Prosper, who was then but a boy, became the marquis' ward

and a member of his household."

"Well, well, how things do come about!" ruminated Barnes. "To think he

should have been the prospective heir, and Constance, the real one!"

"Where is he now?" asked the attorney, thoughtfully.

"He has gone to Mexico; enlisted! But how do you know he--"

"Had expectations? The marquis told me about a quarrel they had had;

he was a staunch imperialist; the young man as firm a republican! What

would be the natural outcome? They parted in bitter anger."

"And then the marquis made him his heir?" exclaimed the manager,

incredulously. "How do you reconcile that?"

The attorney smiled. "Through the oddity of my client! 'Draw up my

will,' said the marquis to me one day, 'leaving all my property to

this republican young dog. That will cut off the distant relatives who

made the sign of the cross behind my back as though I were the evil

one. They expect it all; he expects nothing! It will be a rare joke. I

leave them my affection--and the privilege of having masses said for

my soul.' The marquis was always of a satirical temperament."

"So it seems," commented the manager. "But he changed his mind and his

will again?"

"After he met Miss Carew."

"Met me!" exclaimed Constance, aroused from a maze of reflection.

"Near the cathedral! He walked and talked with you."

"That poor old man--"

"And then came here, acknowledged you as his daughter, and drew up the

final document."

"That accounts for a call I had from him!" cried Barnes, telling the

story of the marquis' visit. "Strange, I did not suspect something of

the truth at the time," he concluded, "for his manner was certainly

unusual."

A perplexed light shone in the girl's eyes; she clasped and unclasped

her hands quickly, turning to the lawyer.

"Their quarrel was only a political difference?" she asked at length.

"Yes," said the other, slowly. "Saint-Prosper refused to support the

fugitive king. Throughout the parliamentary government, the

restoration under Louis XVIII, and the reign of King Charles X, the

marquis had ever a devout faith in the divine right of monarchs. He

annulled his marriage in England with your mother to marry the

Duchesse D'Argens, a relative of the royal princess. But Charles

abdicated and the duchesse died. All this, however, is painful to you,

Miss Carew?"

"Only such as relates to my mother," she replied in a clear tone. "I

suppose I should feel grateful for this fortune, but I am afraid I do

not. Please go on."

Culver leaned back in his chair, his glance bent upon a discolored

statue of Psyche in the court-yard. "Had the marquis attended to his

garden, like Candide, or your humble servant, and eschewed the

company of kings he might have been as care-free as he was wretched.

His monarchs were knocked down like nine-pins. Louis XVIII was a man

of straw; Charles X, a feather-top, and Louis Philippe, a toy ruler.

The marquis' domestic life was as unblest as his political career. The

frail duchesse left him a progeny of scandals. These, the only

offspring of the iniquitous dame, were piquantly dressed in the

journals for public parade. Fancy, then, his delight in disinheriting

his wife's relatives, and leaving you, his daughter, his fortune and

his name!"

"His name?" she repeated, sadly. With averted face she watched the

fountain in the garden. "If he had given it to my mother," she

continued, "but now--I do not care for it. Her name is all I want."

Her voice trembled and she exclaimed passionately: "I should rather

Mr. Saint-Prosper would keep the property and I--my work! After

denying my mother and deserting her, how can I accept anything from

him?"

"Under the new will," said Culver, "the estate does not revert to Mr.

Saint-Prosper in any event. But you might divide it with him?" he

added, suddenly.

"How could I do that?" she asked, without looking up.

"Marry him!" laughed the attorney.

But the jest met with scant response, his fair client remaining

motionless as a statue, while Barnes gazed at her furtively. Culver's

smile gradually faded; uncertain how to proceed, realizing his humor

had somehow miscarried, he was not sorry when the manager arose,

saying:

"Well, my dear, it is time we were at the theater."

"Won't you accept this nosegay from my garden, Miss Carew?" urged the

lawyer in a propitiatory tone as they were leaving.

And the attorney not only accompanied them to the door, but

down-stairs to the street, where he stood for a moment watching them

drive down the thoroughfare. Then he slowly returned, breathing

heavily--invidious contradiction of his youthful assumption!--and

shaking his head, as he mounted to his room.

"Culver, you certainly put your foot in it that time!" he muttered.

"How she froze at my suggestion! Has there been some passage of arms

between them? Apparently! But here am I, pondering over romances with

all this legal business staring me in the face!" His glance swept a

chaos of declarations, bills, affidavits and claims. "Confound the

musty old courthouse and the bustling Yankee lawyers who set such a

disturbing pace! There is no longer gentlemanly leisure in New

Orleans."

He seated himself with a sigh before a neglected brief. In the

distance the towers of the cathedral could be seen, reminding the

attorney of the adjacent halls of justice in the scraggy-looking

square, with its turmoil, its beggars, and apple women in the lobbies;

its ancient, offensive smell, its rickety stairs, its labyrinth of

passages and its Babel of tongues. Above him, however, the plaster

bust of Justinian, out of those blank, sightless eyes, continued the

contemplation of the garden as though turning from the complex

jurisprudence of the ancients and moderns to the simple existence of

butterflies and flowers.

CHAPTER II

ONLY A SHADOW

There is an aphorism to the effect that one can not spend and have;

also, a saying about the whirlwind, both of which in time came home to

the land baron. For several generations the Mauville family, bearing

one of the proudest names in Louisiana, had held marked prestige under

Spanish and French rule, while extensive plantations indicated the

commercial ascendency of the patroon's ancestors. The thrift of his

forefathers, however, passed lightly over Edward Mauville. Sent to

Paris by his mother, a widow, who could deny him nothing, in the

course of a few years he had squandered two plantations and several

hundred negroes. Her death placed him in undisputed possession of the

residue of the estate, when finding the exacting details of commerce

irksome, in a moment of weakness, he was induced to dispose of some of

his possessions to Yankee speculators who had come in with the flood

of northern energy. Most of the money thus realized he placed in loose

investments, while the remainder gradually disappeared in indulging

his pleasures.

At this critical stage in his fortunes--or misfortunes--the patroon's

legacy had seemed timely, and his trip to the North followed. But from

a swarm of creditors, to a nest of anti-renters, was out of the

frying-pan into the fire, hastening his return to the Crescent City,

where he was soon forced to make an assignment of the remaining

property. A score of hungry lawyers hovered around the sinking estate,

greedily jealous lest some one of their number should batten too

gluttonously at this general collation. It was the one topic of

interest in the musty, dusty courthouse until the end appeared with

the following announcement in the local papers:

"_Annonce! Vente importante de Negres!_ Mauville estate in bankruptcy!"

And thereafter were specified the different lots of negroes to be

sold.

Coincident with these disasters came news from the North regarding

his supposedly immense interests in New York State. A constitutional

convention had abolished all feudal tenures and freed the fields

from baronial burdens. At a breath--like a house of cards--the

northern heritage was swept away and about all that remained of

the principality was the worthless ancient deed itself, representing

one of the largest colonial grants.

But even the sale of the negroes and his other merchandise and

property failed to satisfy his clamorous creditors or to pay his

gambling debts. Those obligations at cards it was necessary to meet,

so he moved out of his bachelor apartments, turned over his expensive

furnishings and bric-a-brac to the gamblers and snapped his fingers at

the over-anxious constables and lawyers.

As time went by evidence of his reverses insidiously crept into his

personal appearance. He who had been the leader now clung to the

tail-ends of style, and it was a novel sensation when one day he

noticed a friend scrutinizing his garments much in the same

critical manner that he had himself erstwhile affected. This

glance rested casually on the hat; strayed carelessly to the

waistcoat; wandered absently to the trousers, down one leg and up

the other; superciliously jumped over the waistcoat and paused the

infinitesimal part of a second on the necktie. Mauville learned in

that moment how the eye may wither and humble, without giving any

ostensible reason for offense. The attitude of this mincing fribble,

as he danced twittingly away, was the first intimation Mauville had

received that he would soon be relegated to the ranks of gay

adventurers thronging the city. He who had watched his estates

vanish with an unruffled countenance now became disconcerted over

the width of his trousers and the shape of his hat.

His new home was in the house of an aged quadroon who had been a

servant in his family many years ago--how long no one seemed to

remember!--and who had been his nurse before she had received her

freedom. She enjoyed the distinction of being feared in the

neighborhood; her fetishes had a power no other witch's possessed, and

many of the negroes would have done anything to have possessed these

infallible charms, save crossing her threshold to get them. Mauville,

when he found fortune slipping away from him and ruin staring him in

the face, had been glad to transfer his abode to this unhallowed

place; going into hiding, as it were, until the storm should blow by,

when he expected to emerge, confident as ever.

But inaction soon chafed his restless nature, and drove him forth in

spite of himself from the streets in that quarter of the town where

the roofs of various-colored houses formed strange geometrical figures

and the windows were bright with flaring head-dresses, beneath which

looked out curious visages of ebony. Returning one day from such a

peregrination, he determined to end a routine of existence so

humiliating to his pride.

Pausing before a doorway, the land baron looked this way and that, and

seeing only the rotating eyes of a pickaninny fastened upon him,

hurried through the entrance. Hanging upon the walls were red and

green pods and bunches of dried herbs of unquestionable virtue

belonging to the old crone's pharmacopoeia. Mauville slowly ascended

the dark stairs and reached his retreat, a small apartment, with

furniture of cane-work and floor covered with sea-grass; the ceiling

low and the windows narrow, opening upon a miniature balcony that

offered space for one and no more.

"Is dat yo', honey?" said an adoring voice on the landing.

"Yes, auntie," replied the land baron, as an old crone emerged from an

ill-lighted recess and stood before him.

Now the light from the doorway fell upon her, and surely five score

years were written on her curiously wrinkled face--five score, or

more, for even the negroes did not profess to know how old she was.

Her bent figure, watery eyes and high shrill voice bore additional

testimony to her age.

"Yo's home earlier dan usual, dearie?" she resumed. "But yo' supper's

all ready. Sit down here."

"I'm not hungry, auntie," he returned.

"Not hungry, honey?" she cried, laughing shrilly. "Yo' wait!" And she

disappeared into an adjoining room, soon to emerge with a steaming

platter, which she set on the snow-white cover of the little table.

Removing the lid from the dish, she hobbled back a few steps to regard

her guest with triumphant expectation. "Dat make yo' eat."

"What a cook you are, mammy!" he said, lightly. "You would give a

longing tooth to satiety."

"De debil blow de fire," she answered, chuckling.

"Then the devil is a _chef de cuisine_. This sauce is bewitching."

"Yo' like it?" Delighted.

"Tis a spell in itself. Confess, mammy, Old Nick mixed it?"

"No, he only blow de fire," she reiterated, with a grin.

"Any one been to see me, mammy?"

"Only dat Mexican gemmen; dat gemmen been here befo' who take yo'

message about de troops; when dey go from New Orleans; how many dey

am!"

"You know that, auntie?" he asked quickly. "You know that I--"

"Yes, honey," she answered, shaking her head. "Yo' be berry careful,

Mar's'r Edward."

"What did he want?" said the land baron, quickly.

"He gib me dis." And the crone handed her visitor a slip of paper on

which a few words were written. "What dat mean?"

"It means I am going away, mammy," pushing back his chair.

"Gwine away!" she repeated. "When's yo' gwine?"

"To-morrow; perhaps to-night even; down the river, auntie!" Rising and

surveying himself in a mirror.

"How long yo' gwine away foh?"

"Perhaps forever, auntie!"

"Not foh good, Mar's'r Edward? Not foh good?" He nodded and she broke

into loud wailings. "Yo's gwine and yo' old mammy'll see yo' no

moh--no moh! I knows why yo's gwine, Mar's'r Edward. I's heard yo'

talkin' about her in yo' sleep. But yo' stay and yo' mammy has a

love-charm foh yo'; den she's yo's, foh suah."

This offer, coming from one of her uncanny reputation, would have been

accepted with implicit faith by most of the dwellers in that locality,

superstitious to the last degree, but Mauville laughed carelessly.

"Pshaw, mammy! Do you think I would fly from a woman? Do I look as

though I needed a charm?"

"No; she mus' worship yo'!" cried the infatuated crone.

Then a change passed over her puckered face and she lifted her arms

despairingly, rocking her body to and fro, while she mumbled

unintelligible words which would have caused the negroes to draw away

from her with awe, for the spell was on her. But the land baron only

regarded her carelessly as she muttered something pertaining to spells

and omens.

"Come, auntie," he said impatiently at last, "you know I don't believe

in this tom-foolery."

She turned to him vehemently. "Don't go whar yo' thinkin' ob gwine,

honey," she implored. "Yo'll nebber come back, foh suah--foh suah! I

see yo' lyin' dar, honey, in de dark valley--whar de mists am

risin'--and I hears a bugle soundin'--and de tramp of horses. Dey am

all gone, honey--and de mists come back--but yo' am dar--lying dar--de

mountains around yo'--yo' am dar fo'ebber and ebber and--" Here she

broke into wild sobbing and moaning, tossing her white hair with her

trembling withered arms, a moving picture of an inspired dusky sibyl.

Mauville shrugged his shoulders.

"We're losing time, mammy," he exclaimed. "Stop this nonsense and go

pack a few things for me. I have some letters to write."

The old woman reluctantly obeyed, and the land baron penned a somewhat

lengthy epistle to his one-time master in Paris, the Abbe Moneau,

whose disapproval of the Anglo-Saxon encroachments--witness

Louisiana!--and zeal for the colonization of the Latin races are

matters of history. Having completed his epistle, the land baron

placed it in the old crone's hand to mail with: "If that man calls

again, tell him I'll meet him to-night," and, leaving the room, shot

through the doorway, once more rapidly walking down the shabby

thoroughfare. The aged negro woman stumbled out upon the balcony and

gazed after the departing figure still moaning softly to herself and

shaking her head in anguish.

"Fo'ebber and ebber," she repeated in a wailing tone. Below a colored

boy gazed at her in wonderment.

"What debblement am she up to now?" he said to a girl seated in a

doorway. "When de old witch am like dat--"

"Come in dar, yo' black imp!" And a vigorous arm pulled the lad

abruptly through the opening. "Ef she sees yo', she can strike yo'

dead, foh suah!"

The crone could no longer distinguish Mauville--her eyes were nearly

sightless--but she continued to look in the direction he had taken,

sobbing as before: "Fo'ebber and ebber! Fo'ebber and ebber!"

Once more upon a fashionable thoroughfare, the land baron's footstep

relaxed and he relapsed into his languorous, indolent air. The

shadows of twilight were darkening the streets and a Caribbee-scented

breeze was wafted from the gulf across the city. It swept through

the broad avenues and narrow highways, and sighed among the trees of

the old garden. Seating himself absently on one of the public

benches, Mauville removed his hat to allow the cool air to fan his

brow. Presently he moved on; up Canal Street, where the long rows of

gas lights now gleamed through the foliage; thence into a side

thoroughfare, as dark as the other street was bright, pausing before

a doorway, illumined by a single yellow flame that flickered in

the draft and threatened to leave the entrance in total obscurity.

Mounting two flights of stairs, no better lighted than the hall

below, the land baron reached a doorway, where he paused and

knocked. In answer to his summons a slide was quickly slipped back,

and through the aperture floated an alcoholic breath.

"Who is it?"

"A Knight of the Golden Square," said the caller, impatiently. "Open

the door."

The man obeyed and the land baron was admitted to the hall of an

organization which had its inception in Texas; a society not unlike

the Secret Session Legation of the Civil War, having for its object

the overthrow of the government, the carrying of mails and despatches

and other like business. Here was gathered a choice aggregation of

Mexican sympathizers, a conclave hostile to the North. Composed of

many nationalities, the polished continental adventurer rubbed

shoulders with the Spanish politicians; the swarthy agents of Santa

Anna brushed against the secret enemies of northern aggression. A

small bar, unpretentious but convenient, occupied a portion of one end

of the room, and a brisk manipulator of juleps presided over this

popular corner.

Half-disdainfully, the land baron mingled with the heterogeneous

assembly; half-ironically, his eye swept the group at the bar--the

paid spy, the needy black-sheep; the patriot, the swashbuckler; men

with and without a career. As Mauville stepped forward, a quiet,

dark-looking man, obviously a Mexican, not without a certain

distinguished carriage, immediately approached the newcomer.

"You have come? Good!" he said, and drew Mauville aside. They

conversed in low tones, occasionally glancing about them at the

others.

In the hall below the rhythm of a waltz now made itself heard, and the

land baron, having received certain papers which committed him to a

hazardous service, prepared to leave.

"Here's luck!" said a man on his left, raising his glass. At these

words several of the company turned.

"Send it south!" roared a Texan Furioso, emptying his tumbler.

"Send it south!" echoed the others, and "south" the fragrant juleps

were "sent," as the land baron unceremoniously tore himself away from

the group.

"They say the floods are rising," said the man with whom Mauville had

conferred, at the door.

"All the better if the river's running wild!" answered the other. "It

will be easier running the guard."

"Yes," returned the Mexican, extending his hand, with a smile; "in

this case, there's safety in danger!"

"That's reassuring!" replied the land baron, lightly, as he descended

the stairs.

On reaching the floor below he was afforded a view through an open

door into a large room, lighted with many lamps, where a quadroon

dance, or "society ball," was in progress. After a moment's hesitation

he entered and stood in the glare, watching the waltzers. Around

the wall were dusky chaperons, guarding their charges with the

watchfulness of old dowagers protecting their daughters from the

advances of younger sons. Soft eyes flashed invitingly, graceful

figures passed, and the revelry momentarily attracted Mauville, as

he followed the movements of the waltzers and heard the strains of

music. Impulsively he approached a young woman whose complexion was

as light as his own and asked her to dance. The next moment they

were gliding to the dreamy rhythm around the room.

By a fatal trick of imagination, his thoughts wandered to the

dark-haired girl he had met in the Shadengo Valley. If this now were

she, the partner he had so unceremoniously summoned to his side. How

light were her feet; what poetry of motion was her dancing; what

pleasure the abandonment to which she had resigned herself!

Involuntarily he clasped more tightly the slender waist, and the dark

eyes, moved by that palpable caress, looked not unkindly into his own.

But at the glance he experienced a strange repulsion and started, as

if awakening from a fevered sleep, abruptly stopping in the dance, his

arm falling to his side. The girl looked at him half-shyly,

half-boldly, and the very beauty of her eyes--the deep, lustrous orbs

of a quadroon--smote him mockingly. He felt as though some light he

sought shone far beyond his ken; a light he saw, but could never

reach; ever before him, but always receding.

"Monsieur is tired?" said the girl, in a puzzled tone.

"Yes," he answered bluntly, leading her to a seat. "Good-night."

"Good-night," she replied, following his retreating figure with

something like regret.

The evening bells, distinct and mysterious, were sounding as he

emerged from New Orleans' _Mabille_, and their crystalline tones,

rising and falling on the solemn night, brought to mind his boyhood.

Pictures long forgotten passed before him, as his footsteps led him

far from the brightly-lighted streets to a sequestered thoroughfare

that lay peacefully on the confines of the busy city; a spot inviting

rest from the turmoil yonder and in accord with the melancholy

vibrations of the bells. He stood, unseen in the shadow of great

trees, before a low rambling mansion; not so remote but that the

perfume from the garden was wafted to him over the hedge.

"A troubadour!" he said scornfully to himself. "Edward Mauville

sighing at a lady's window like some sentimental serenader! There's a

light yonder. Now to play my despairing part, I must watch for her

image. If I were some one else, I should say my heart beats faster

than usual. She comes--the fair lady! Now the curtain's down. All that

may be seen is her shadow. So, despairing lover, hug that shadow to

your breast!"

He plucked a rose from a bush in her garden, laughing at himself the

while for doing so, and as he moved away he repeated with conviction:

"A shadow! That is all she ever could have been to me!"

CHAPTER III

FROM GARRET TO GARDEN

"Celestina, what do you think this is?" Waving something that crackled

in mid air.

"A piece of paper," said Celestina from her place on the hearth.

"Paper!" scoffed Straws. "It's that which Horace calls a handmaid, if

you know how to use it; a mistress, if you do not--money! It

is--success, the thing which wrecks more lives than cyclones, fires

and floods! We were happy enough before this came, weren't we,

Celestina?"

The girl nodded her head, a look of deep anxiety in her eyes.

"Oh, why did the critics so damn the book it fairly leaped to

popularity!" went on the bard. "Why did they advise me to learn a

trade? to spoil no more reams of paper? To spoil reams of paper and

get what--this little bit in return!"

"Is it so very much money?" asked Celestina.

"An enormous amount--one thousand dollars! And the worst of it is, my

publishers write there may be more to come."

"Well," said the child, after a long, thoughtful pause, "why don't you

give it away?"

"Hum! Your suggestion, my dear--"

"But, perhaps, no one would take it?" interrupted Celestina.

"Perhaps they wouldn't!" agreed Straws, rubbing his hands. "So, under

the circumstances, let us consider how we may cultivate some of the

vices of the rich. It is a foregone conclusion, set down by the

philosophers, that misery assails riches. The philosophers were never

rich and therefore they know. Besides, they are unanimous on the

subject. It only remains to make the best of it and cultivate the

vanities of our class. Where shall I begin? 'Riches betray man into

arrogance,' saith Addison. Therefore will I be arrogant; while you, my

dear, shall be proud."

"That will be lovely!" assented Celestina, as a matter of habit. She

went to the bed and began smoothing the sheets deftly.

"My dear!" expostulated Straws. "You mustn't do that."

"Not make the bed!" she asked, in surprise.

"No."

"Nor bring your charcoal?"

"No."

"Nor wash your dishes?"

"Certainly not!"

Celestina dropped on the floor, a picture of misery.

"Too bad, isn't it?" commented Straws. "But it can't be helped, can

it?"

"No," she said, shaking her head, wofully; "it can't be helped! But

why--why did you publish it?"

"Just what the critics asked, my dear! Why? Who knows? Who can tell

why the gods invented madness? But it's done; for bad, or worse!"

"For bad, or worse!" she repeated, gazing wistfully toward the rumpled

bed.

"If somebody tells you fine feathers don't make fine birds, don't

believe him," continued the poet. "It's envy that speaks! But what do

you suppose I have here?" Producing a slip of paper from his vest

pocket. "No; it's not another draft! An advertisement! Listen:

'Mademoiselle de Castiglione's select seminary. Young ladies

instructed in the arts of the _bon ton_. Finesse, repose, literature!

Fashions, etiquette, languages! P. S. Polkas a specialty!' Celestina,

your destiny lies at Mademoiselle de Castiglione's. They will teach

you to float into a drawing room--but you won't forget the garret?

They will instruct you how to sit on gilt chairs--you will think

sometimes of the box, or the place by the hearth? You will become a

mistress of the piano--'By the Coral Strands I Wander,' 'The Sweet

Young Bachelor'--but I trust you will not learn to despise altogether

the attic pipe?"

"You mean," said Celestina, slowly, her face expressing bewilderment,

"I must go away somewhere?"

Straws nodded. "That's it; somewhere!"

The girl's eyes flashed; her little hands clenched. "I won't; I

won't!"

"Then that's the end on't!" retorted the bard. "I had bought you

some new dresses, a trunk with your name on it, and had made

arrangements with Mademoiselle de Castiglione (who had read 'Straws'

Strophes'), but perhaps I could give the dresses away to some other

little girl who will be glad to drink at the Pierian--I mean, the

Castiglione--spring."

Celestina's eyes were an agony of jealousy; not that she was

mercenary, or cared for the dresses, but that Straws should give them

to another little girl. Her pride, however, held her in check and she

drew herself up with composure.

"That would be nice--for the other little girl!" she said.

"The only difficulty is," resumed Straws, "there isn't any other

little girl."

At that, Celestina gave a glad cry and flew to him, throwing her arms

around his neck.

"Oh, I will go anywhere you want!" she exclaimed.

"Get on your bonnet then--before you change your mind, my dear!"

"And aunt?" asked Celestina, lingering doubtfully on the threshold.

"Your aunt, as you call that shriveled-up shrew, consented at once,"

answered Straws. "Her parental heart was filled with thanksgiving at

the prospect of one less mouth to fill. Go and say good-by, however,

to the old harridan; I think she has a few conventional tears to shed.

But do not let her prolong her grief inordinately, and meet me at the

front door."

A few moments later, Straws and the child, hand-in-hand, started on

their way to the Castiglione temple of learning and culture. If

Celestina appeared thoughtful, even sad, the poet was never so merry,

and sought to entertain the abstracted girl with sparkling chit-chat

about the people they met in the crowded streets. A striking little

man was a composer of ability, whose operas, "Cosimo," "Les Pontons de

Cadiz," and other works had been produced at the Opera Comique in

Paris. He was now director of the French opera in New Orleans and had

brought out the charming Mademoiselle Capriccioso and the sublime

Signor Staccato. The lady by his side, a dark brunette with features

that were still beautiful, was the nimble-footed Madame Feu-de-joie,

whose shapely limbs and graceful motions had delighted two generations

and were like to appeal to a third. Men who at twenty had thrown

Feu-de-joie posies, now bald but young as ever, tossed her roses.

"I don't like that lady," said Celestina, emphatically, when the

dancer had passed on, after petting her and kissing her on the cheek.

"Now, it's curious," commented the bard, "but your sex never did."

"Do men like her?" asked the child, with premature penetration.

"They did; they do; they will!" answered Straws, epigrammatically.

"Do you like her?"

"Oh, that's different! Poets, you know, are the exception to any

rule."

"Why?"

"Because--Really, my dear, you ask too many questions!"

Although Straws and Celestina had left the house early in the day, it

was noon before they reached the attractive garden, wherein was

sequestered the "select seminary."

In this charming prison, whose walls were overrun with flowering

vines, and whose cells were pretty vestal bowers, entered the bard and

the young girl, to be met on the front porch by the wardeness herself,

a mite of a woman, with wavy yellow hair, fine complexion and

washed-out blue eyes. Sensitive almost to shyness, Mademoiselle de

Castiglione appeared more adapted for the seclusion of the veil in the

Ursuline Church than for the varied responsibilities of a young

ladies' institute. At the approach of the poet, she turned, looked

startled, but finally came forward bravely.

"Oh, I've read it again, Mr. Straws!" she exclaimed, impetuously.

"What?" he returned, sternly, pausing at the foot of the steps.

"Your--your lovely Strophes!" she continued, timidly.

The bard frowned. "All great men profess to scowl at flattery,"

thought Straws. "She will have but a poor opinion of me, if I do not

appear an offended Hector!"

"Mademoiselle, I excessively dislike compliments," he began aloud, but

having gone thus far, his courage and lack of chivalry failed him in

the presence of her dismay; he forgot his greatness, and hastened to

add, with an ingratiating smile: "Except when delivered by such a

charming person!"

"Oh, Mr. Straws!"

"This, Mademoiselle," resumed the bard, "is the young girl I spoke

about. Her mother," he added in a low voice, "was a beautiful

quadroon; her father"--here Straws mentioned a name. The wardeness

flushed furiously. "Father died; always meant to make it right;

didn't; crime of good intentions! Virago of an aunt; regular

termagant; hates the girl! Where was a home to be found for her?

Where"--gazing around him--"save this--Eden? Where a mother--save in

one whose heart is the tenderest?"

Diplomatic Straws! Impulsively the wardeness crossed to Celestina; her

blue eyes beamed with sentiment and friendliness. "I will give her my

personal attention," she said. And then to the young girl: "We will be

friends, won't we?"

"Yes," replied Celestina, slowly, after a moment's discreet

hesitation. She was glad the other did not kiss her like Feu-de-joie.

"I always like," said the wardeness, "to feel my little girls are all

my little friends."

"Mademoiselle," exclaimed the bard, "I'll--I'll dedicate my next

volume of poems to you!"

"Really, Mr. Straws!"

"For every kindness to her, you shall have a verse," he further

declared.

"Then your dedication would be as long as Homer!" she suddenly flashed

out, her arm around the child.

Straws looked at her quickly. It was too bad of him! And that borrowed

Don Juan smile! Nothing could excuse it.

Castiglione busied herself with Celestina's ribbons. "Whoever did tie

that bow-knot?" she observed.

"Good-by, Celestina," said Straws.

Celestina put her arms gravely about his neck and he pressed his lips

to her cheek. Then he strode quickly toward the gate. Just before

passing out, he looked back. The wardeness had finished adjusting the

ribbon and was contemplatively inspecting it. Celestina, as though

unconscious of the attention, was gazing after the poet, and when he

turned into the road, her glance continued to rest upon the gate.

CHAPTER IV

"THE BEST OF LIFE"

On a certain evening about a month later, the tropical rains had

flooded the thoroughfares, until St. Charles Street needed but a

Rialto and a little imagination to convert it into a watery highway of

another Venice, while as for Canal Street, its name was as applicable

as though it were spanned by a Bridge of Sighs. In the narrow streets

the projecting eaves poured the water from the roof to the sidewalks,

deluging the pedestrians. These minor thoroughfares were tributary to

the main avenues and gushed their rippling currents into them, as

streams supply a river, until the principal streets flowed swiftly

with the dirty water that choked their gutters. The rain splashed and

spattered on the sidewalks, fairly flooding out the fruit venders and

street merchants who withstood the deluge for a time and then were

forced to vanish with their portable stores. The cabby, phlegmatic to

wind and weather, sat on his box, shedding the moisture from his

oil-skin coat and facing a cloud of steam which presumably concealed a

horse.

The dark night and the downpour made the _cafes_ look brighter.

Umbrellas flitted here and there, skilfully piloted beneath swinging

signs and low balconies, evading awning posts and high hats as best

they might. There were as many people out as usual, but they were

hurrying to their destinations, even the languid creole beauty, all

lace and alabaster, moved with the sprightliness of a maid of Gotham.

Straws, editor and rhymster, was seated on the semi-Oriental,

semi-French gallery of the little _cafe_, called the Veranda, sipping

his absinthe, smoking a cheroot and watching the rain drip from the

roof of the balcony, spatter on the iron railing and form a shower

bath for the pedestrians who ventured from beneath the protecting

shelter. Before him was paper, partly covered with well-nigh illegible

versification, and a bottle of ink, while a goose-quill, tool of the

tuneful Nine, was expectantly poised in mid air.

"Confound it!" he said to himself. "I can't write in the attic any

more, since Celestina has gone, and apparently I can't write away from

it. Since she left, the dishes haven't been washed; my work has run

down at the heels, and everything is going to the dogs generally. And

now this last thing has upset me quite. 'In the twinkling of an eye,'

says the sacred Book. But I must stop thinking, or I'll never complete

this poem. Now to make my mind a blank; a fitting receptacle to

receive inspiration!"

The bard's figure swayed uncertainly on the stool. In the lively race

through a sonnet, it was often, of late, a matter of doubt with

Straws, whether Bacchus or Calliope would prevail at the finish, and

to-night the jocund god had had a perceptible start. "Was ever a poet

so rhyme-fuddled?" muttered the impatient versifier. "An inebriating

trade, this poetizing!"--and he reached for the absinthe. "If I am not

careful, these rhymes will put me under the table!"

"Nappy, eh?" said a voice at his elbow, as a dripping figure

approached, deposited his hat on one chair and himself in another. The

newcomer had a long, Gothic face and a merry-wise expression.

The left hand of the poet waved mechanically, imposing silence; the

quill dived suddenly to paper, trailed twice across it, and then was

cast aside, as Straws looked up.

"Yes," he replied to the other's interrogation. "It's all on account

of Celestina's leaving me. You ought to see my room. Even a poet's

soul revolts against it. So what can I do, save make my home amid

convivial haunts?" The poet sighed. "And you, Phazma; how are you

feeling?"

"Sober as a judge!"

"Then you shall judge of this last couplet," exclaimed Straws quickly.

"It has cost me much effort. The editor wanted it. It seemed almost

too sad a subject for my halting muse. There are some things which

should be sacred even from us, Phazma. But what is to be done when the

editor-in-chief commands? 'Ours not to reason why!' The poem is a

monody on the tragedy at the theater."

"At the St. Charles?" said Phazma, musingly. "As I passed, it was

closed. It seemed early for the performance to be over. Yet the

theater was dark; all the lights had gone out."

"More than the lights went out," answered Straws, gravely; "a life

went out!"

"I don't exactly--Oh, you refer to Miss Carew's farewell?"

"No; to Barnes'!"

"Barnes'!" exclaimed his surprised listener.

"Yes; he is dead; gone out like the snuff of a candle! Died in

harness, before the footlights!"

"During the performance!" cried the wondering Phazma. "Why, only this

afternoon I met him, apparently hale and hearty, and now--you tell me

he has paid the debt of nature?"

"As we must all pay it," returned Straws. "He acted as if he were

dazed while the play was in progress and I could not but notice it,

standing in the wings. The prompter spoke of it to me. 'I don't know

what is the matter with Mr. Barnes,' he said, 'I have had to keep

throwing him his lines.' Even Miss Carew rallied him gently between

acts on his subdued manner.

"'This is our last performance together,' he said absently. She gave

him a reproachful look and he added, quickly: 'Do I appear gloomy, my

dear? I never felt happier.'

"At the end of the second act he seemed to arouse himself, when she,

as Isabella, said: 'I'll fit his mind to death, for his soul's rest.'

He gazed at her long and earnestly, his look caressing her wherever

she moved. Beginning the prison scene with spirit, he had proceeded

to,

"'Reason thus with life;

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep--'

When suddenly he threw up his arms and fell upon the stage, his face

toward the audience. With a cry I shall never forget, Miss Carew

rushed to him and took his head in her arms, gazing at him wildly, and

calling to him piteously. The curtain went down, but nothing could be

done, and life quickly ebbed. Once, only, his lips moved: 'Your

mother--there!--where the play never ends!' and it was over."

"It is like a romance," said Phazma, finally, at the conclusion of

this narration.

"Say, rather, reality! The masque is over! In that final sleep Jack

Pudding lies with Roscius; the tragedian does not disdain the mummer,

and beautiful Columbine, all silver spangles and lace, is company for

the clown. 'Tis the only true republic, Phazma; death's Utopia!"

"But to think he should have died with those words of the poet on his

lips?"

"A coincidence!" answered Straws. "No more notable than the death of

Edmund Kean, who, when he reached the passage 'Farewell, Othello's

occupation's gone!' fell back unconscious; or that of John Palmer,

who, after reciting 'There is another and a better world,' passed away

without a pang."

A silence fell between the two poets; around them shadows appeared and

vanished. Phazma finished his syrup and arose.

"Don't go," said Straws. "My own thoughts are poor company. Recite

some of your madrigals, that's a good fellow! What a wretched night!

These rain-drops are like the pattering feet of the invisible host.

Some simple song, Phazma!"

"As many as you please!" cried his flattered brother-bard. "What shall

it be?"

"One of your Rhymes for Children. Your 'Boy's Kingdom,' beginning:

"When I was young, I dreamed of knights

And dames with silken trains."

"Thou shalt have it, _mon ami_!"

And Phazma gaily caught up the refrain, while Straws beat time to the

tinkling measures.

* * * * *

The last entry in the date-book, or diary, of Barnes seems curiously

significant as indicating a knowledge that his end was near. For the

first time in the volume he rambles on in a reminiscent mood about his

boyhood days:

"The first bit of good fortune I ever enjoyed was when as a lad in

sweeping a crossing in the neighborhood of the Strand I found a

bright, shining sovereign. How tightly I grasped it in my little fist

that night when I slept in a doorway! I dared not trust it in my

pocket. The next night I walked to the ticket-seller at Drury Lane,

and demanded a seat down stairs. 'Gallery seats sold around the

corner,' said this imposing gentleman with a prodigious frown, and,

abashed, I slunk away. My dream of being near the grand people

vanished and I climbed once more to my place directly under the roof.

"My next bit of good fortune happened in this wise. Sheridan, the

playwright-orator, attracted my attention on Piccadilly one day, and,

for the delight of gazing upon him, I followed. When he stopped, I

stopped; when he advanced, I did likewise. I felt that I was treading

in the footsteps of a king. Suddenly he paused, wheeled about and

confronted me, a raw-boned, ragged, awkward lad of fourteen. 'What one

of my creditors has set you following me?' he demanded. 'None, sir,' I

stammered. 'I only wanted to look at the author of "The Rivals."' He

appeared much amused and said: 'Egad! So you are a patron of the

drama, my boy?' I muttered something in the affirmative. He regarded

my appearance critically. 'I presume you would not be averse to

genteel employment, my lad?' he asked. With that he scribbled a moment

and handed me a note to the property man of Drury Lane. My heart was

too full; I had no words to thank him. The tears were in my eyes,

which, noting, he remarked, with an assumption of sternness: 'Are you

sure, boy, you are not a bailiff in disguise?' At this I laughed and

he left me. The note procured me an engagement as errand boy at the

stage-door and later I rose to the dignity of scene-shifter. How truly

typical of this man's greatness, to help lift a homeless lad out of

the gutters of London town!

"But I am rambling on as though writing an autobiography, to be read

when I am gone--"

Here the entry ceases and the rest of the pages in the old date-book

are blank.

CHAPTER V

THE LAWYER'S TIDINGS

The sudden and tragic death of Constance's foster-father--which

occurred virtually as narrated by Straws--set a seal of profound

sadness on the heart of the young girl. "Good sir, adieu!" she had

said in the nunnery scene and the eternal parting had shortly

followed. Her affection for the old manager had been that of a loving

daughter; the grief she should have experienced over the passing of

the marquis was transferred to the memory of one who had been a father

through love's kinship. In the far-away past, standing at the bier of

her mother, the manager it was who had held her childish hand,

consoling her and sharing her affliction, and, in those distant but

unforgotten days of trouble, the young girl and the homeless old man

became all in all to each other.

Years had rolled by; the child that prattled by his side became the

stately girl, but the hand-clasp at that grave had never been

relinquished. She could not pretend to mourn the death of the marquis,

her own father; had he not ever been dead to her; as dead as the good

wife (or bad wife) of that nobleman; as dead as Gross George, and all

the other honored and dishonored figures of that misty past? But

Barnes' death was the abrupt severing of ties, strengthened by years

of tender association, and, when his last summons came, she felt

herself truly alone.

In an old cemetery, amid the crumbling bricks, Barnes was buried, his

sealed tomb above ground bearing in its inscription the answer to the

duke's query: "Thy Best of Life is Sleep." After the manager's death

and Constance's retirement from the stage, it naturally followed that

the passengers of the chariot became separated. Mrs. Adams continued

to play old woman parts throughout the country, remaining springy and

buoyant to the last. Susan transferred herself and her talents to

another stock company performing in New Orleans, while Kate procured

an engagement with a traveling organization. Adonis followed in her

train. It had become like second nature to quarrel with Kate, and at

the mere prospect of separation, he forthwith was driven to ask her

for her hand, and was accepted--on probation, thus departing in

leading strings. Hawkes, melancholy as of old, drifted into a comic

part in a "variety show," acquiring new laurels as a dry comedian of

the old school. But he continued to live alone in the world,

mournfully sufficient unto himself.

Constance remained in New Orleans. There the old manager had found his

final resting place and she had no definite desire to go elsewhere.

Adrift in the darkness of the present, the young girl was too

perplexed to plan for the future. So she remained in the house Barnes

had rented shortly before his death. An elderly gentlewoman of fallen

fortunes, to whom this semi-rural establishment belonged, Constance

retained as a companion, passing her time quietly, soberly, almost in

solitude. This mansion, last remnant of its owner's earthly estate,

was roomy and spacious, nestling among the oranges and inviting

seclusion with its pretentious wall surrounding the grounds.

The old-fashioned gentlewoman, poor and proud, was a fitting figure in

that ancient house, where in former days gay parties had assembled.

But now the principal callers at the old house were the little fat

priest, with a rosy smile, who looked after the aged lady's soul, of

which she was most solicitous in these later days, and the Count de

Propriac, who came ostensibly to see the elderly woman and chat about

genealogy and extraction, but was obviously not unmindful of the

presence of the young girl nor averse to seeking to mitigate her

sorrow. Culver, the lawyer, too, came occasionally, to talk about her

affairs, but often her mind turned impatiently from figures and

markets to the subtle rhythm of Shakespeare. She regretted having left

the stage, feeling the loneliness of this simple existence; yet averse

to seeking diversion, and shunning rather than inviting society. As

the inert hours crept by, she longed for the forced wakefulness and

stir of other days--happy days of insecurity; fleeting, joyous days,

gone now beyond recall!

But while she was striving to solve these new problems of her life

they were all being settled for her by Fate, that arrogant meddler.

Calling one morning, Culver, nosegay in hand, was obliged to wait

longer than usual and employed the interval in casually examining his

surroundings--and, incidentally, himself. First, with the vanity of

youngish old gentlemen, he gazed into a tall mirror, framed in the

fantastic style of the early Venetians; a glass which had belonged to

the marquis and had erstwhile reflected the light beauty of his noble

spouse. Pausing about as long as it would have taken a lady to adjust

a curl, he peeped into a Dutch cabinet of ebony and mother-of-pearl

and was studying a charming creature painted on ivory, whose head like

that of Bluebeard's wife was subsequently separated from her lovely

shoulders, when a light footstep behind him interrupted his scrutiny.

Turning, he greeted the young girl, and, with stately gallantry,

presented the nosegay.

"How well you are looking!" he said. "Though there might be a little

more color, perhaps, like some of these flowers. If I were a doctor, I

should prescribe: Less cloister; more city!"

She took the flowers, meeting his kindly gaze with a faint smile.

"Most patients would like such prescriptions," he went on. "I should

soon become a popular society physician."

But although he spoke lightly, his manner was partly forced and he

regarded her furtively. Their brief acquaintance had awakened in him

an interest, half-paternal, half-curious. Women were an unknown, but

beautiful quantity; from the vantage point of a life of single

blessedness, he vaguely, but quixotically placed them in the same

category with flowers, and his curiosity was no harsher than that of a

gardener studying some new variety of bud or blossom. Therefore he

hesitated in what he was about to say, shifting in his chair uneasily

when they were seated, but finally coming to the point with:

"Have you read the account of the engagement between the Mexican and

the American forces at Vera Cruz?"

"No; not yet," she admitted.

"Nor the list of--of casualties?" he continued, hesitatingly.

"The casualties!" she repeated. "Why--"

"Saint-Prosper has no further interest in the marquis' sous," he said

quickly.

She gazed straight before her, calm and composed. This absence of any

exhibition of feeling reassured the attorney.

"He is--dead?" she asked quietly.

"Yes."

"How did he die?"

"Gallantly," replied the caller, now convinced she had no interest in

the matter, save that of a mere acquaintance. "His death is described

in half a column. You see he did not live in vain!"

"Was he--killed in battle?"

"In a skirmish. His company was sent to break up a band of guerilla

rancheros at Antigua. They ambushed him; he drove them out of the

thicket but fell--You have dropped your flowers. Allow me!--at the

head of his men."

"At the head of his men!" She drew in her breath.

"There passed the last of an ill-fated line," said the lawyer,

reflectively. "Poor fellow! He started with such bright prospects,

graduating from the military college with unusual honors. Ambitious,

light-hearted, he went to Africa to carve out a name in the army. But

fate was against him. The same ship that took him over carried back,

to the marquis, the story of his brother's disgrace--"

"His brother's disgrace!" she exclaimed.

Culver nodded. "He sold a French stronghold in Africa, Miss Carew."

Had the attorney been closely observing her he would have noticed the

sudden look of bewilderment that crossed her face. She stared at him

with her soul in her eyes.

"Ernest Saint-Prosper's--brother?"

The turmoil of her thoughts held her as by a spell; in the disruption

of a fixed conclusion her brain was filled with new and poignant

reflections. Unconsciously she placed a nervous hand upon his arm.

"Then Ernest Saint-Prosper who was--killed in Mexico was not the

traitor?"

"Certainly not!" exclaimed Culver, quickly, "Owing to the disgrace, I

am sure, more than to any other reason, he bade farewell to his

country--and now lies unmourned in some mountain ravine. It is true

the marquis quarreled with him, disliking not a little the young man's

republican ideas, but--my dear young lady!--you are ill?"

"No, no!" she returned, hastily, striving to maintain her self-possession.

"How--do you know this?"

"Through the marquis, himself," he replied, somewhat uneasy beneath

her steady gaze. "He told me the story in order to protect the estate

from any possible pretensions on the part of the traitor. The renegade

was reported dead, but the marquis, nevertheless remained skeptical.

He did not believe in the old saw about the devil being dead. '_Le

diable_ lives always,' he said."

The visitor observed a perceptible change in the young girl, just what

he could not define, but to him it seemed mostly to lie in her eyes

where something that baffled him looked out and met his glance.

"His brother was an officer in the French army?" she asked, as though

forcing herself to speak.

"Yes; ten years older than Ernest Saint-Prosper, he had already made a

career for himself. How eagerly, then, must the younger brother have

looked forward to meeting him; to serving with one who, in his young

eyes, was all that was brave and noble! What a bitter awakening from

the dream! It is not those we hate who can injure us most--only those

we love can stab us so deeply!"

Mechanically she answered the lawyer, and, when he prepared to leave,

the hand, given him at parting, was as cold as ice.

"Remember," he said, admonishingly; "less cloister, more city!"

Some hours later, the old lady, dressed in her heavy silk and brocade

and with snow-white hair done up in imposing fashion, rapped on

Constance's door, but received no answer. Knocking again, with like

result, she entered the room, discovering the young girl on the bed,

her cheeks tinted like the rose, her eyes with no gleam of recognition

in them, and her lips moving, uttering snatches of old plays. Taking

her hand, the old lady found it hot and dry.

"Bless me!" she exclaimed. "She is down with a fever." And at once

prepared a simple remedy which soon silenced the babbling lips in

slumber, after which she sent for the doctor.

CHAPTER VI

THE COUNCIL OF WAR

"Adjutant, tell Colonel Saint-Prosper I wish to see him."

The adjutant saluted and turned on his heel, while General Scott bent

over the papers before him, studying a number of rough pencil

tracings. Absorbed in his task, the light of two candles on the table

brought into relief, against the dark shadows, a face of rugged

character and marked determination. Save for a slight contraction of

the brow, he gave no evidence of the mental concentration he bestowed

upon the matter in hand, which was to lead to the culmination of the

struggle and to vindicate the wisdom and boldness of his policy.

"You sent for me, General?"

An erect, martial figure stood respectfully at the entrance of the

tent.

"Yes," said the General, pushing the papers from him. "I have been

studying your drawings of the defensive works at San Antonio Garita

and find them entirely comprehensive. A council of officers has been

called, and perhaps it will be as well for you to remain."

"At what time shall I be here, General?"

"It is about time now," answered the commander-in-chief, consulting

his watch. "You have quite recovered from your wounds?" he added,

kindly.

"Yes, thank you, General."

"I see by the newspapers you were reported dead. If your friends read

that it will cause them needless anxiety. You had better see that the

matter is corrected."

"It is hardly worth while," returned the young man, slowly.

The commanding general glanced at him in some surprise. "A strange

fellow!" he thought. "Has he reasons for wishing to be considered

dead? However, that is none of my business. At any rate, he is a good

soldier." And, after a moment, he continued: "Cerro Gordo was warm

work, but there is warmer yet in store for us. Only Providence, not

the Mexicans, can stop us. But here are the officers," as General

Pillow, Brevet-General Twiggs and a number of other officers entered.

The commander-in-chief proceeded to give such information as he had,

touching the approaches to the city. Many of the officers favored

operating against San Antonio Garita, others attacking Chapultepec.

Saint-Prosper, when called on, stated that the ground before the San

Antonio gate was intersected by many irrigating ditches and that much

of the approach was under water.

"Then you would prefer storming a fortress to taking a ditch?" said

one of the generals, satirically.

"A series of ditches," replied the other.

"Colonel Saint-Prosper is right," exclaimed the commanding general. "I

had already made up my mind. Let it be the western gate, then."

And thus was brought to a close one of the most memorable councils of

war, for it determined the fate of the City of Mexico.

Saint-Prosper looked older than when seen in New Orleans, as though he

had endured much in that brief but hard campaign. His wound had

incapacitated him for only a few months, and in spite of the climate

and a woful lack of medical attendance and nourishing supplies, his

hardy constitution stood him in such stead he was on his feet and in

the saddle, while his comrades languished and died in the fierce heat

of the temporary hospitals. His fellow-officers knew him as a fearless

soldier, but a man reticent about himself, who made a confidant of no

one. Liked for his ready, broad military qualities, it was a matter of

comment, nevertheless, that no one knew anything about him except that

he had served in the French army and was highly esteemed by General

Scott as a daring and proficient engineer.

One evening shortly before the skirmish of Antigua, a small Mexican

town had been ransacked, where were found cattle, bales of tobacco,

pulque and wine. At the rare feast which followed a veteran drank to

his wife; a young man toasted his sweetheart, and a third, with moist

eyes, sang the praises of his mother. In the heart of the enemy's

land, amid the uncertainties of war, remembrance carried them back to

their native soil, rugged New England, the hills of Vermont, the

prairies of Illinois, the blue grass of Kentucky.

"Saint-Prosper!" they cried, calling on him, when the festivities were

at their height.

"To you, gentlemen," he replied, rising, glass in hand. "I drink to

your loved ones!"

"To your own!" cried a young man, flushed with the wine.

Saint-Prosper gazed around that rough company, brave hearts softened

to tenderness, and, lifting his canteen, said, after a moment's

hesitation:

"To a princess on a tattered throne!"

They looked at him in surprise. Who was this adventurer who toasted

princesses? The Mexican war had brought many soldiers of fortune and

titled gentlemen from Europe to the new world, men who took up the

cause more to be fighting than that they cared what the struggle was

about. Was the "tattered throne" Louis Philippe's chair of state, torn

by the mob in the Tuileries? And what foreign princess was the lady of

the throne? But they took up the refrain promptly, good-naturedly, and

a chorus rolled out:

"To the princess!"

Little they knew she was but a poor stroller; an "impudent,

unwomanish, graceless monster," according to Master Prynne.

After leaving the commanding general's tent, Saint-Prosper retired to

rest in that wilderness which had once been a monarch's pleasure

grounds. Now overhead the mighty cypresses whispered their tales of

ancient glory and faded renown; the wind waved those trailing beards,

hoary with age; a gathering of venerable giants, murmuring the days

when the Aztec monarch had once held courtly revels under the grateful

shadows of their branches. The moaning breeze seemed the wild chant of

the Indian priest in honor of the war-god of Anahuac. It told of

battles to come and conflicts which would level to the dust the

descendants of the conquerors of that ill-starred country. And so the

soldier finally fell asleep, with that requiem ringing in his ears.

When daybreak again penetrated the mountain recesses and fell upon the

valley, Saint-Prosper arose to shake off a troubled slumber. An

unhealthy mist hung over the earth, like a miasma, and the officer

shivered as he walked in that depressing and noxious atmosphere. It

lay like a deleterious veil before the glades where myrtles mingled

with the wild limes. It concealed from view a cross, said to have been

planted by Cortez--the cross he worshiped because of its resemblance

to the hilt of a sword!--and enveloped the hoary trees that were old

when Montezuma was a boy or when Marina was beloved by the mighty

free-booter.

The shade resting on the valley appeared that of a mighty, virulent

hand. Out of the depths arose a flock of dark-hued birds, soaring

toward the morbific fog; not moving like other winged creatures, with

harmony of motion, but rising without unity, and filling the vale with

discordant sounds. Nowhere could these sable birds have appeared more

unearthly than in the "dark valley," as it was called by the natives,

where the mists moved capriciously, yet remained persistently within

the circumference of this natural cauldron, now falling like a pall

and again hovering in mid air. Suddenly the uncanny birds vanished

among the trees as quickly as they had arisen, and there was something

mysterious about their unwarranted disappearance and the abrupt

cessation of clamorous cries.

While viewing this somber scene, Saint-Prosper had made his way to a

little adobe house which the natives had built near the trail that led

through the valley. As he approached this hut he encountered a dismal

but loquacious sentinel, tramping before the partly opened door.

"This is chilly work, guard?" said the young man, pausing.

"Yis, Colonel," replied the soldier, apparently grateful for the

interruption; "it's a hot foight I prefer to this cool dooty."

"Whom are you guarding?" continued the officer.

"A spy, taken in the lines a few days ago. He's to be executed this

morning at six. But I don't think he will moind that, for it's out of

his head he is, with the malaria."

"He should have had medical attendance," observed the officer,

stepping to the door.

"Faith, they'll cure him at daybreak," replied the guard. "It's a

medicine that niver fails."

Saint-Prosper pushed open the door. The interior was so dim that at

first he could not distinguish the occupant, but when his eyes became

accustomed to the darkness, he discovered the figure of the prisoner,

who was lying with his back toward him on the ground of the little hut

with nothing but a thin blanket beneath him. The only light revealing

the barren details of this Indian residence sifted through the small

doorway or peered timorously down through a narrow aperture in the

roof that served for a chimney. As Saint-Prosper gazed at the

prostrate man, the latter moved uneasily, and from the parched lips

fell a few words: